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diff --git a/7887-8.txt b/7887-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c4965c --- /dev/null +++ b/7887-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19525 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fortitude, by Hugh Walpole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fortitude + +Author: Hugh Walpole + + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7887] +This file was first posted on May 31, 2003 +Last Updated: June 3, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTITUDE *** + + + + +Produced by The Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + +FORTITUDE + +By Hugh Walpole + + + + + + + +To + +Charles Maude + +The best of friends and the most honest of critics + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +BOOK I: SCAW HOUSE + + I INTRODUCTION TO COURAGE + + II HOW THE WESTCOTT FAMILY SAT UP FOR PETER + + III OF THE DARK SHOP OF ZACHARY TAN, AND OF THE DECISIONS THAT THE + PEOPLE IN SCAW HOUSE CAME TO CONCERNING PETER + + IV IN WHICH "DAWSON'S," AS THE GATE OF LIFE, IS PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT + + V DAWSON'S, THE GATE INTO HELL + + VI A LOOKING-GLASS, A SILVER MATCH-BOX, A GLASS OF WHISKY, AND + VOX POPULI + + VII PRIDE OF LIFE + + VIII PETER AND HIS MOTHER + + IX THE THREE WESTCOTTS + + X SUNLIGHT, LIMELIGHT, DAYLIGHT + + XI ALL KINDS OF FOG IN THE CHARING CROSS ROAD + + XII BROCKETT'S: ITS CHARACTERS AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT + + +BOOK II: THE BOOKSHOP + + I "REUBEN HALLARD" + + II THE MAN ON THE LION + + III ROYAL PERSONAGES ARE COMING + + IV A LITTLE DUST + + V A NARROW STREET + + VI THE WORLD AND BUCKET LANE + + VII DEVIL'S MARCH + + VIII STEPHEN'S CHAPTER + + +BOOK III: THE ROUNDABOUT + + I NO. 72, CHEYNE WALK + + II A CHAPTER ABOUT SUCCESS: HOW TO WIN IT, HOW TO KEEP IT--WITH A + NOTE AT THE END FROM HENRY GALLEON + + III THE ENCOUNTER + + IV THE ROUNDABOUT + + V THE IN-BETWEENS + + VI BIRTH OF THE HEIR + + VII DECLARATION OF HAPPINESS + + VIII BLINDS DOWN + + IX WILD MEN + + X ROCKING THE ROUNDABOUT + + XI WHY? + + XII A WOMAN CALLED ROSE BENNETT + + XIII "MORTIMER STANT" + + XIV PETER BUYS A PRESENT + + XV MR. WESTCOTT SENIOR CALLS CHECKMATE + + +BOOK IV: SCAW HOUSE + + I THE SEA + + II SCAW HOUSE + + III NORAH MONOGUE + + IV THE GREY HILL + + + + +BOOK I -- SCAW HOUSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTION TO COURAGE + + +I + +"'Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it" ... this +from old Frosted Moses in the warm corner by the door. There might have +been an answer, but Dicky Tasset, the Town Idiot, filled in the pause +with the tale that he was telling Mother Figgis. "And I ran--a mile or +more with the stars dotted all over the ground for yer pickin', as yer +might say...." + +A little boy, Peter Westcott, heard what old Frosted Moses had said, +and turned it over in his mind. He was twelve years old, was short and +thick-necked, and just now looked very small because he was perched on +so high a chair. It was one of the four ancient chairs that Sam Figgis +always kept in the great kitchen behind the taproom. He kept them there +partly because they were so very old and partly because they fell in +so pleasantly with the ancient colour and strength of the black smoky +rafters. The four ancient chairs were carved up the legs with faces and +arms and strange crawling animals and their backs were twisted into the +oddest shapes and were uncomfortable to lean against, but Peter Westcott +sat up very straight with his little legs dangling in front of him and +his grey eyes all over the room at once. He could not see all of the +room because there were depths that the darkness seized and filled, +and the great fiery place, with its black-stained settle, was full +of mysterious shadows. A huge fire was burning and leaping in the +fastnesses of that stone cavity, and it was by the light of this alone +that the room was illumined--and this had the effect as Peter noticed, +of making certain people, like Mother Figgis and Jane Clewer, quite +monstrous, and fantastic with their skirts and hair and their shadows +on the wall. Before Frosted Moses had said that sentence about Courage, +Peter had been taking the room in. Because he had been there very often +before he knew every flagstone in the floor and every rafter in the roof +and all the sporting pictures on the walls, and the long shining row of +mugs and coloured plates by the fire-place and the cured hams hanging +from the ceiling ... but to-night was Christmas Eve and a very especial +occasion, and he was sure to be beaten when he got home, and so must +make the very most of his time. He watched the door also for Stephen +Brant, who was late, but might arrive at any moment. Had it not been for +Stephen Brant Peter knew that he would not have been allowed there at +all. The Order of the Kitchen was jealously guarded and Sam Figgis, +the Inn-keeper, would have considered so small a child a nuisance, but +Stephen was the most popular man in the county, and he had promised that +Peter would be quiet--and he _was_ quiet, even at that age; no one could +be so quiet as Peter when he chose. And then they liked the boy after +a time. He was never in the way, and he was wonderfully wise for his +years: he was a strong kid, too, and had muscles.... + +So Peter crept there when he could, although it very often meant a +beating afterwards, but the Kitchen was worth a good many beatings, +and he would have gone through Hell--and did indeed go through his own +special Hell on many occasions--to be in Stephen's company. They were +all nice to him even when Stephen wasn't there, but there were other +reasons, besides the people, that drew Peter to the place. + +It was partly perhaps because The Bending Mule was built right out into +the sea, being surrounded on three sides by water. This was all twenty +years ago, and I believe that now the Inn has been turned into an Arts +Club, and there are tea-parties and weekly fashion papers where there +had once been those bloody fights and Mother Figgis sitting like some +witch over the fire; but it is no matter. Treliss is changed, of course, +and so is the world, and there are politeness and sentiment where once +there were oaths and ferocity, and there is much soap instead of grimy +hands and unwashen faces ... and the fishing is sadly on the decline, +but there are good drapers' shops in the town. + +For Peter the charm of the place was that "he was out at sea." One could +hear quite distinctly the lap of the waves against the walls and on +stormy nights the water screamed and fought and raged outside and rolled +in thundering echoes along the shore. To-night everything was still, and +the snow was falling heavily, solemnly over the town. + +The snow, and the black sea, and the lights that rose tier on tier like +crowds at a circus, could be seen through the uncurtained windows. + +The snow and quiet of the world "out-along" made the lights and warmth +of the room the more comforting and exciting, and Sam Figgis had hung +holly about the walls and dangled a huge bunch of mistletoe from +the middle beam and poor Jane Clewer was always walking under it +accidentally and waiting a little, but nobody kissed her. These things +Peter noticed; he also noticed that Dicky the Idiot was allowed to be +present as a very great favour because it was Christmas Eve and snowing +so hard, that the room was more crowded than he had ever seen it, and +that Mother Figgis, with her round face and her gnarled and knotted +hands, was at her very merriest and in the best of tempers. All these +things Peter had noticed before Frosted Moses (so called because of his +long white beard and wonderful age) made his remark about Courage, but +as soon as that remark was made Peter's thoughts were on to it as the +hounds are on to a fox. + +"'Tisn't life that matters, but the Courage yer bring to it...." + +That, of course, at once explained everything. It explained his own +father and his home, it explained poor Mrs. Prothero and her two sons +who were drowned, it explained Stephen's cousin who was never free from +the most painful rheumatics, and it explained Stephen himself who was +never afraid of any one or anything. Peter stared at Frosted Moses, +whose white beard was shining in the fire-place and his boots were like +large black boats; but the old man was drawing at his pipe, and had made +his remark apparently in connection with nothing at all. Peter was also +disappointed to see that the room at large had paid no attention to the +declaration. + +Courage. That was what they were all there for, and soon, later in the +evening, he would take his beating like a man, and would not cry out as +he had done the last time. And then, at the thought of the beating, +he shivered a little on his tall chair and his two short legs in their +black stockings beat against the wooden bars, and wished that he might +have stayed in some dark corner of The Bending Mule during the rest of +the night and not go home until the morning--or, indeed, a very much +better and happier thing, never go home again at all. He would get a +worse beating for staying out so late, but it was something of a comfort +to reflect that he would have been beaten in any case; old Simon Parlow, +who taught him mathematics and Latin, with a little geography and +history during six days of the week, had given him that morning a letter +to his father directed in the old man's most beautiful handwriting to +the effect that Master Westcott had made no progress at all in his sums +during the last fortnight, had indeed made no attempt at progress, +and had given William Daffoll, the rector's son, a bleeding nose last +Wednesday when he ought to have been adding, dividing, and subtracting. +Old Parlow had shown him the letter so that Peter knew that there was +no escape, unless indeed Peter destroyed the paper, and that only meant +that punishment was deferred. + +Yes, it meant a beating, and Peter had hung about the town and the shore +all the afternoon and evening because he was afraid. This fact of his +fear puzzled him and he had often considered the matter. He was not, in +any other way, a coward, and he had done, on many occasions, things that +other friends of his own age had hung back from, but the thought of +his father made him quite sick with fear somewhere in the middle of his +stomach. He considered the matter very carefully and he decided at last +(and he was very young for so terrible a discovery) that it was because +his father liked beating him that he was afraid. He knew that his father +liked it because he had watched his mouth and had heard the noise that +came through his lips. And this, again, was rather strange because his +father did not look as though he would like it; he had a cold face like +a stone and was always in black clothes, but he did not, as a rule, show +that he was pleased or angry or sorry--he never showed things. + +Now these words of Frosted Moses explained everything. It was because +his father knew that it was Courage that mattered that he liked to beat +Peter ... it was good for Peter to learn Courage. + +"'Tisn't life that matters" ... it isn't a beating that matters.... + +Frosted Moses was a great deal wiser than old Simon Parlow, who, in +spite of his knowing so much about sums, knew nothing whatever about +life. He knew nothing whatever about Courage either and shook like a +leaf when his sister, Miss Jessel Parlow, was angry with him, as she +very often had reason to be. Peter despised the old man with his long +yellow tooth that hung over his lower lip, and his dirty grey hair that +strayed from under his greasy black velvet cap (like wisps of hay). +Peter never cared anything for the words or the deeds of old Parlow.... +But Frosted Moses! ... he had lived for ever, and people said that he +could never die. Peter had heard that he had been in the Ark with Noah, +and he had often wished to ask him questions about that interesting +period, about Ham, Shem and Japheth, and about the animals. Of course, +therefore, he knew everything about Life, and this remark of his about +Courage was worth considering. Peter watched him very solemnly and +noticed how his white beard shone in the fire-light, how there was a red +handkerchief falling out of one enormous pocket, and how there was a +big silver ring on one brown and bony finger ... and then the crowd of +sailors at the door parted, and Stephen Brant came in. + + +II + +Stephen Brant, the most wonderful person in the world! Always, through +life, Peter must have his most wonderful person, and sometimes those +Heroes knew of it and lived up to his worshipping and sometimes they +knew of it and could not live up to it, but most frequently they never +knew because Peter did not let them see. This Hero worship is at the +back of a great deal that happened to Peter, of a great deal of his +sorrow, and of all of his joy, and he would not have been Peter without +it; very often these Heroes, poor things, came tumbling from their +pedestals, often they came, in very shame, down of their own accord, +and perhaps of them all Stephen only was worthy of his elevation, and he +never knew that he was elevated. + +He knew now, of course, that Peter loved him; but Peter was a little +boy, and was taken by persons who were strong and liked a laugh and were +kind in little ways. Stephen knew that when Peter grew older he must +love other and wiser people. He was a very large man, six foot three +and broad, with a brown beard, and grey eyes like Peter's. He had been +a fisherman, but now he was a farmer, because it paid better--he had an +old mother, one enemy, and very many friends; he had loved a girl, and +she had been engaged to him for two years, but another man had taken her +away and married her--and that is why he had an enemy. He greeted his +friends and kissed poor Jane Clewer under the mistletoe, and then +kissed old Mother Figgis, who pushed him away with a laugh and "Coom +up there--where are yer at?"--and Peter watched him until his turn +also should come. His legs were beating the wooden bars again with +excitement, but he would not say anything. He saw Stephen as something +very much larger and more stupendous than any one else in the +room. There were men there bigger of body perhaps, and men who were +richer--Stephen had only four cows on his farm and he never did much +with his hay--but there was no one who could change a room simply by +entering it as Stephen could. + +At last the moment came--Stephen turned round--"Why, boy!" + +Peter was glad that the rest of the room was busied once more with its +talking, laughing, and drinking, and some old man (sitting on a table +and his nose coming through the tobacco-smoke like a rat through a hole +in the wall) had struck up a tune on a fiddle. Peter was glad, because +no one watched them together. He liked to meet Stephen in private. He +buried his small hand in the brown depths of Stephen's large one, +and then as Stephen looked uncertainly round the room, he whispered: +"Steve--my chair, and me sitting on you--please." + +It was a piece of impertinence to call him "Steve," of course, and when +other people were there it was "Mr. Brant," but in their own privacy it +was their own affair. Peter slipped down from his chair, and Stephen +sat down on it, and then Peter was lifted up and leant his head back +somewhere against the middle button of Stephen's waistcoat, just where +his heart was noisiest, and he could feel the hard outline of Stephen's +enormous silver watch that his family had had, so Stephen said, for a +hundred years. Now was the blissful time, the perfect moment. The rest +of the world was busied with life--the window showed the dull and then +suddenly shining flakes of snow, the lights and the limitless sea--the +room showed the sanded floor, the crowd of fishermen drinking, their +feet moving already to the tune of the fiddle, the fisher girls with +their coloured shawls, the great, swinging smoky lamp, the huge fire, +Dicky the fool, Mother Figgis, fat Sam the host, old Frosted Moses ... +the gay romantic world--and these two in their corner, and Peter so +happy that no beatings in the world could terrify. + +"But, boy," says Stephen, bending down so that the end of his beard +tickles Peter's neck, "what are yer doing here so late? Your +father...?" + +"I'm going back to be beaten, of course." + +"If yer go now perhaps yer won't be beaten so bad?" + +"Oh, Steve! ... I'm staying ... like this ... always." + +But Peter knew, in spite of the way that the big brown hand pressed his +white one in sympathy, that Stephen was worried and that he was thinking +of something. He knew, although he could not see, that Stephen's eyes +were staring right across the room and that they were looking, in the +way that they had, past walls and windows and streets--somewhere for +something.... + +Peter knew a little about Stephen's trouble. He did not understand it +altogether, but he had seen the change in Stephen, and he knew that +he was often very sad, and that moods came upon him when he could do +nothing but think and watch and wait--and then his face grew very grey +and his eyes very hard, and his hands were clenched. Peter knew that +Stephen had an enemy, and that one day he would meet him. + +Some of the men and girls were dancing now in the middle of the room. +The floor and the walls shook a little with the noise that the heavy +boots of the fishermen made and the smoky lamp swung from side to side. +The heat was great and some one opened the window and the snow +came swirling, in little waves and eddies, in and out, blown by the +breeze--dark and heavy outside against the clouded sky, white and +delicate and swiftly vanishing in the room. Dicky the Fool came across +the floor and talked to Stephen in his smiling, rambling way. People +pitied Dicky and shook their heads when his name was mentioned, but +Peter never could understand this because the Fool seemed always to be +happy and cheerful, and he saw so many things that other people never +saw at all. It was only when he was drunk that he was unhappy, and he +was pleased with such very little things, and he told such _wonderful_ +stories. + +Stephen was always kind to the Fool, and the Fool worshipped him, but +to-night Peter saw that he was paying no heed to the Fool's talk. The +Fool had a story about three stars that he had seen rolling down the +Grey Hill, and behold, when they got to the bottom--"little bright +nickety things, like new saxpennies--it was suddenly so dark that Dicky +had to light his lantern and grope his way home with that, and all the +frogs began croaking down in the marsh 'something terrible'--now what +was the meaning of that?" + +But Stephen was paying no attention. His eyes were set on the open +window and the drifting snow. Men came in stamping their great boots on +the floor and rubbing their hands together--the fiddle was playing more +madly than ever--and at every moment some couple would stop under the +mistletoe and the girl would scream and laugh, and the man's kiss could +be heard all over the room; through the open window came the sound of +church bells. + +Stephen bent down and whispered in the boy's ear: "Yer'd best be going +now, Peter, lad. 'Tis half-past nine and, chance, if yer go back now yer +lickin' 'ull not be so bad." + +But Peter whispered back: "Not yet, Stephen--a little while longer." + +Peter was tremendously excited. He could never remember being quite so +excited before. It was all very thrilling, of course, with the dancing +and the music and the lights, but there was more than that in it. +Stephen was so unlike himself, but then possibly Christmas made him sad, +because he would be thinking of last Christmas and the happy time that +he had had because his girl had been with him--but there was more than +that in it. Then, suddenly, a curious thing happened to Peter. He was +not asleep, he was not even drowsy--he was sitting with his eyes wide +open, staring at the window. He saw the window with its dark frame, and +he saw the snow .. and then, in an instant, the room, the people, the +music, the tramping of feet, the roar of voices, these things were all +swept away, and instead there was absolute stillness, only the noise +that a little wind makes when it rustles through the blades of grass, +and above him rose the Grey Hill with its funny sugar-loaf top and +against it heavy black clouds were driving--outlined sharply against the +sky was the straight stone pillar that stood in the summit of the Grey +Hill and was called by the people the Giant's Finger. He could hear +some sheep crying in the distance and the tinkling of their bells. Then +suddenly the picture was swept away, and the room and the people and the +dancing were before him and around him once more. He was not surprised +by this--it had happened to him before at the most curious times, he had +seen, in the same way, the Grey Hill and the Giant's Finger and he had +felt the cold wind about his neck, and always something had happened. + +"Stephen," he whispered, "Stephen--" + +But Stephen's hand was crushing his hand like an iron glove, and +Stephen's eyes were staring, like the eyes of a wild animal, at the +door. A man, a short, square man with a muffler round his throat, and a +little mouth and little ears, had come in and was standing by the door, +looking round the room. + +Stephen whispered gently in Peter's ear: "Run home, Peter boy," and he +kissed him very softly on the cheek--then he put him down on the floor. + +Stephen rose from his chair and stood for an instant staring at the +door. Then he walked across the room, brushing the people aside, and +tapped the little man with the muffler on the shoulder: + +"Samuel Burstead," he said, "good evenin' to yer." + + +III + +All the room seemed to cease moving and talking at the moment when +Stephen Brant said that. They stood where they were like the people in +the _Sleeping Beauty_, and Peter climbed up on to his chair again to +see what was going to happen. He pulled up his stockings, and then sat +forward in his chair with his eyes gazing at Stephen and his hands very +tightly clenched. When, afterwards, he grew up and thought at all about +his childhood, this scene always remained, over and beyond all the +others. He wondered sometimes why it was that he remembered it all so +clearly, that he had it so dramatically and forcibly before him, when +many more recent happenings were clouded and dull, but when he was older +he knew that it was because it stood for so much of his life, it was +because that Christmas Eve in those dim days was really the beginning +of everything, and in the later interpretation of it so much might be +understood. + +But, to a boy of that age, the things that stood out were not, of +necessity, the right things and any unreality that it might have had was +due perhaps to his fastening on the incidental, fantastic things that +a small child notices, always more vividly than a grown person. In the +very first instant of Stephen's speaking to the man with the muffler it +was Dicky the Fool's open mouth and staring eyes that showed Peter how +important it was. The Fool had risen from his chair and was standing +leaning forward, his back black against the blazing fire, his silly +mouth agape and great terror in his eyes. Being odd in his mind, he felt +perhaps something in the air that the others did not feel, and Peter +seemed to catch fright from his staring eyes. + +The man at the door had turned round when Stephen Brant spoke to him, +and had pushed his way out of the crowd of men and stood alone fingering +his neck. + +"I'm here, Stephen Brant, if yer want me." + +Sam Figgis came forward then and said something to Stephen, and then +shrugged his shoulders and went back to his wife. He seemed to feel +that no one could interfere between the two men--it was too late for +interference. Then things happened very quickly. Peter saw that they had +all--men and women--crowded back against the benches and the wall and +were watching, very silently and with great excitement. He found it very +difficult to see, but he bent his head and peered through the legs of a +big fisherman in front of him. He was shaking all over his body. Stephen +had never before appeared so terrible to him; he had seen him when he +was very angry and when he was cross and ill-tempered, but now he was +very ominous in his quiet way, and his eyes seemed to have changed +colour. The small boy could only see the middle of the floor and pieces +of legs and skirts and trousers, but he knew by the feeling in the room +that Stephen and the little man were going to fight. Then he moved his +head round and saw between two shoulders, and he saw that the two men +were stripping to the waist. The centre of the room was cleared, and Sam +Figgis came forward to speak to Stephen again, and this time there was +more noise, and the people began to shout out loud and the men grew more +and more excited. There had often been fights in that room before, and +Peter had witnessed one or two, but there had never been this solemnity +and ceremony--every one was very grave. It did not occur to Peter that +it was odd that it should be allowed; no one thought of policemen twenty +years ago in Treliss and Sam Figgis was more of a monarch in The Bending +Mule than Queen Victoria. And now two of the famous old chairs were +placed at opposite corners, and quite silently two men, with serious +faces, as though this were the most important hour of their life, stood +behind them. Stephen and the other man, stripped to their short woollen +drawers, came into the middle of the room. Stephen had hair all over his +chest, and his arms and his neck were tremendous; and Peter as he looked +at him thought that he must be the strongest man in the world. His enemy +was smooth and shiny, but he seemed very strong, and you could see the +muscles of his arms and legs move under his skin. Some one had marked a +circle with chalk, and all the men and women, quite silent now, made a +dark line along the wall. The lamp in the middle of the room was still +swinging a little, and they had forgotten to close the window, so that +the snow, which was falling more lightly now, came in little clouds with +breaths of wind, into the room--and the bells were yet pealing and could +be heard very plainly against the silence. + +Then Sam Figgis, who was standing with his legs wide apart, said +something that Peter could not catch, and a little sigh of excitement +went up all round the room. Peter, who was clutching his chair with both +hands, and choking, very painfully, in his throat, knew, although he had +no reason for his knowledge, that the little man with the shining chest +meant to kill Stephen if he could. + +The two men moved round the circle very slowly with their fists clenched +and their eyes watching every movement--then, suddenly, they closed. +At once Peter saw that the little man was very clever, cleverer than +Stephen. He moved with amazing quickness. Stephen's blows came like +sledge-hammers, and sometimes they fell with a dull heavy sound on +the other man's face and on his chest, but more often they missed +altogether. The man seemed to be everywhere at once, and although the +blows that he gave Stephen seemed to have little effect yet he got past +the other's defence again and again. + +Then, again, the figures in front of Peter closed in and he saw nothing. +He stood on his chair--no one noticed him now--but he could not see. His +face was very white, and his stockings had fallen down over his boots, +but with every movement he was growing more afraid. He caught an +instant's vision of Stephen's face, and he saw that it was white and +that he was breathing hard. The room seemed to be ominously silent, +and then men would break out into strange threatening sounds, and Peter +could see one woman--a young girl--with a red shawl about her shoulders, +her back against the wall, staring with a white face. + +He could not see--he could not see.... + +He murmured once very politely--he thought he said it aloud but it was +really under his breath: "Please, please--would you mind--if you stood +aside--just a little...." but the man in front of him was absorbed and +heard nothing. Then he knew that there was a pause, he caught a glimpse +of the brick floor and he saw that Stephen was sitting back in his +chair--his face was white, and blood was trickling out from the corner +of his mouth on to his beard. Then Peter remembered old Frosted Moses' +words: "The courage you bring to it...." and he sat back in his chair +again and, with hands clenched, waited. He would be brave, braver than +he had ever been before, and perhaps in some strange way his bravery +would help Stephen. He determined with all the power that he had to +be brave. They had begun again, he heard the sound of the blows, the +movement of the men's feet on the rough brick of the floor; people cried +out, the man in front of him pressed forward and he had a sudden view. +Stephen was on one knee and his head was down and the other man was +standing over him. It was all over--Stephen was beaten--Stephen would +be killed, and in another minute Peter would have pushed past the people +and run into the middle of the room, but Sam Figgis had again come +forward, and the two men were in their chairs again. There followed +another terrible time when Peter could see nothing. He waited--he could +hear them moving again, the noise of their breathing and of their feet, +the men in the crowd were pressing nearer, but there was no word spoken. + +He must see--at all costs he must see. And he climbed down from his +chair, and crept unnoticed towards the front. Nobody saw him or realised +him.... Stephen was bending back, he seemed to be slowly sinking down. +The other man, from whose face blood was now streaming, was pressing +on to him. Peter knew that it was all over and that there was no +hope; there was a dreadful cold, hard pain in his throat, and he could +scarcely see. Courage! he must have it for Stephen. With every bit of +his soul and his mind and his body he was brave. He stood taut--his +little legs stiff beneath him and flung defiance at the world. He +and Stephen were fighting that shiny man together--both of them--now. +Courage! Stephen's head lifted a little, and then slowly Peter saw him +pulling his body together--he grew rigid, he raised his head, and, as +a tree falls, his fist crashed into his enemy's face. The man dropped +without a word and lay motionless. It was over. Stephen gravely watched +for a moment the senseless body and then sat back in his chair, his head +bowed on his chest. + +The fight had not, perhaps, been like that--there must have been many +other things that happened, but that was always how Peter remembered it. +And now there was confusion--a great deal of noise and people talking +very loudly, but Stephen said nothing at all. He did not look at the +body again, but when he had recovered a little, still without a word to +any one and with his eyes grave and without expression, he moved to the +corner where his clothes lay. + +"'E's not dead." + +"No--give 'im room there, he's moving," and from the back of the crowd +the Fool's silly face, peering over... + +Peter crept unnoticed to the door. The clocks were striking ten, and +some one in the street was singing. He pulled up his stockings and +fastened his garters, then he slipped out into the snow and saw that the +sky was full of stars and that the storm had passed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HOW THE WESTCOTT FAMILY SAT UP FOR PETER + + +I + +The boy always reckoned that, walking one's quickest, it took half an +hour from the door of The Bending Mule to Scaw House, where his father +lived. If a person ran all the way twenty minutes would perhaps cover +it, but, most of the time, the road went up hill and that made running +difficult; he had certainly no intention of running to-night, there were +too many things to think about. That meant, then, that he would +arrive home about half-past ten, and there would be his aunt and his +grandfather and his father sitting up waiting for him. + +The world was very silent, and the snow lay on the round cobbles of the +steep street with a bright shining whiteness against the black houses +and the dark night sky. Treliss' principal street was deserted; all down +the hill red lights showed in the windows and voices could be heard, +singing and laughing, because on Christmas Eve there would be parties +and merrymakings. Peter looked a tiny and rather desolate figure against +the snow as he climbed the hill. There was a long way to go. There would +be Green Street at the top, past the post office, then down again into +the Square where the Tower was, then through winding turnings up the +hill past the gates and dark trees of The Man at Arms, then past the old +wall of the town and along the wide high road that runs above the sea +until at last one struck the common, and, hidden in a black clump of +trees (so black on a night like this), the grim grey stones of Scaw +House. + +Peter was not afraid of being alone, although when snow had fallen +everything seemed strange and monstrous, the trees were like animals, +and the paths of all the world were swept away. But he was not afraid +of ghosts; he was too accustomed to their perpetual company; old Frosted +Moses and Dicky, and even men like Stephen, had seen ghosts so often, +and Peter himself could tell odd stories about the Grey Hill--no, ghosts +held no terror. But, very slowly, the shadow of all that he must very +soon go through was creeping about him. When he first came out of The +Bending Mule he still was as though he were in a dream. Everything that +had happened there that evening had been so strange, so amazing, that it +belonged to the world of dreams--it was of the very stuff of them, and +that vision of Stephen, naked, bleeding, so huge and so terrible, was +not to be easily forgotten. + +But, as he climbed the steep street, Peter knew that however great +a dream that might be, there was to be no dreaming at all about his +meeting with his father, and old Frosted Moses' philosophy would be very +sadly needed. As he climbed the hill the reaction from the excitement of +his late adventure suddenly made him very miserable indeed, so that he +had an immediate impulse to cry, but he stood still in the middle of the +street and made fists with his hands and called himself "a damned gawky +idiot," words that he had admired in the mouth of Sam Figgis some days +before. "Gawky" was certainly the last thing that he was, but it was a +nice queer word, and it helped him a great deal. + +The worst of everything was that he had had a number of beatings lately +and the world could not possibly go on, as far as he was concerned, if +he had many more. Every beating made matters worse and his own desperate +attempts to be good and to merit rewards rather than chastisement met +with no success. The hopeless fact of it all was that it had very little +to do with his own actions; his father behaved in the same way to every +one, and Mrs. Trussit, the housekeeper, old Curtis the gardener, Aunt +Jessie, and all the servants, shook under his tongue and the cold +glitter of his eyes, and certainly the maids would long ago have given +notice and departed were it not that they were all afraid to face him. +Peter knew that that was true, because Mrs. Trussit had told him so. +It was this hopeless feeling of indiscriminate punishment that made +everything so bad. Until he was eight years old Peter had not been +beaten at all, but when he was very young indeed he had learnt to crawl +away when he heard his father's step, and he had never cried as a baby +because his nurse's white scared face had frightened him so. And then, +of course, there was his mother, his poor mother--that was another +reason for silence. He never saw his mother for more than a minute at a +time because she was ill, had been ill for as long as he could remember. +When he was younger he had been taken into his mother's room once or +twice a week by Mrs. Trussit, and he had bent down and kissed that white +tired face, and he had smelt the curious smell in the room of flowers +and medicine, and he had heard his mother's voice, very far away and +very soft, and he had crept out again. When he was older his aunt told +him sometimes to go and see his mother, and he would creep in alone, but +he never could say anything because of the whiteness of the room and +the sense of something sacred like church froze his speech. He had never +seen his father and mother together. + +His mornings were always spent with old Parlow, and in the afternoon he +was allowed to ramble about by himself, so that it was only at mealtimes +and during the horrible half-hour after supper before he went up to bed +that he saw his father. + +He really saw more of old Curtis the gardener, but half an hour with his +father could seem a very long time. Throughout the rest of his life that +half-hour after supper remained at the back of his mind--and he never +forgot its slightest detail. The hideous dining-room with the large +photographs of old grandfather and grandmother Westcott in ill-fitting +clothes and heavy gilt frames, the white marble clock on the +mantelpiece, a clock that would tick solemnly for twenty minutes and +then give a little run and a jump for no reason at all, the straight +horsehair sofa so black and uncomfortable with its hard wooden back, the +big dining-room table with its green cloth (faded a little in the middle +where a pot with a fern in it always stood) and his aunt with her frizzy +yellow hair, her black mittens and her long bony fingers playing her +interminable Patience, and then two arm-chairs by the fire, in one of +them old grandfather Westcott, almost invisible beneath a load of rugs +and cushions and only the white hairs on the top of his head sticking +out like some strange plant, and in the other chair his father, +motionless, reading the _Cornish Times_--last of all, sitting up +straight with his work in front of him, afraid to move, afraid to cough, +sometimes with pins and needles, sometimes with a maddening impulse to +sneeze, always with fascinated glances out of the corner of his eye at +his father--Peter himself. How happy he was when the marble clock +struck nine, and he was released! How snug and friendly his little attic +bedroom was with its funny diamond-paned window under the shelving +roof with all the view of the common and the distant hills that covered +Truro! There, at any rate, he was free! + +He was passing now through the Square, and he stopped for an instant and +looked up at the old weather-beaten Tower that guarded one side of it, +and looked so fine and stately now with the white snow at its foot and +the gleaming sheet of stars at its back. That old Tower had stood a good +number of beatings in its day--it knew well enough what courage was--and +so Peter, as he turned up the hill, squared his shoulders and set his +teeth. But in some way that he was too young to understand he felt that +it was not the beating itself that frightened him most, but rather all +the circumstances that attended it--it was even the dark house, the band +of trees about it, that first dreadful moment when he would hear his +knock echo through the passages, and then the patter of Mrs. Trussit's +slippers as she came to open the door for him--then Mrs. Trussit's fat +arm and the candle raised above her head, and "Oh, it's you, Mr. Peter," +and then the opening of the dining-room door and "It's Master Peter, +sir," and then that vision of the marble clock and his father's face +behind the paper. These things were unfair and more than any one +deserved. He had had beatings on several occasions when he had merited +no punishment at all, but it did not make things any better that on this +occasion he did deserve it; it only made that feeling inside his chest +that everything was so hopeless that nothing whatever mattered, and that +it was always more fun to be beaten for a sheep than a lamb, stronger +than ever. + +But the world--or at any rate the Scaw House portion of it--could not +move in this same round eternally. Something would happen, and the +vague, half-confessed intention that had been in his mind for some time +now was a little more defined. One day, like his three companions, Tom +Jones, Peregrine Pickle and David Copperfield, he would run into the +world and seek his fortune, and then, afterwards, he would write his +book of adventures as they had done. His heart beat at the thought, and +he passed the high gates and dark trees of The Man at Arms with quick +step and head high. He was growing old--twelve was an age--and there +would soon be a time when beatings must no longer be endured. He +shivered when he thought of what would happen then--the mere idea of +defying his father sent shudders down his back, but he was twelve, he +would soon be thirteen.... + +But this Scaw House, with its strange silence and distresses, was only +half his life. There was the other existence that he had down in the +town, out at Stephen's farm, wandering alone on the Grey Hill, roaming +about along the beach and in amongst the caves, tramping out to The +Hearty Cow, a little inn amongst the gorse, ten miles away, or looking +for the lost church among the sand-dunes at Porthperran. All these +things had nothing whatever to do with his father and old Parlow and his +lessons--and it was undoubtedly this other sort of life that he would +lead, with the gipsies and the tramps, when the time came for him to +run away. He knew no other children of his own age, but he did not want +them; he liked best to talk to old Curtis the gardener, to Dicky the +Idiot, to Sam Figgis when that splendid person would permit it--and, of +course, to Stephen. + +He passed the old town wall and stepped out into the high road. Far +below him was the sea, above him a sky scattered with shining stars and +around him a white dim world. Turning a corner the road lay straight +before him and to the right along the common was the black clump of +trees that hid his home. He discovered that he was very tired, it had +been a most exhausting day with old Parlow so cross in the morning and +the scene in the inn at night--and now--! + +His steps fell slower and slower as he passed along the road. One hot +hand was clutching Parlow's note and in his throat there was a sharp +pain that made it difficult to swallow, and his eyes were burning. +Suppose he never went home at all! Supposing he went off to Stephen's +farm!--it was a long way and he might lose his way in the snow, but his +heart beat like a hammer when he thought of Stephen coming to the door +and of the little spare room where Stephen put his guests to sleep. +But no--Stephen would not want him to-night; he would be very tired +and would rather be alone; and then there would be the morning, when +it would be every bit as bad, and perhaps worse. But if he ran away +altogether? ... He stopped in the middle of the road and thought about +it--the noise of the sea came up to him like the march of men and with +it the sick melancholy moan of the Bell Rock, but the rest of the world +was holding its breath, so still it seemed. But whither should he run? +He could not run so far away that his father could not find him--his +father's arm stretched to everywhere in the world. And then it was +cowardly to run away. Where was that courage of which he had been +thinking so much? So he shook his little shoulders and pulled up those +stockings again and turned up the little side road, usually so full of +ruts and stones and now so level and white with the hard snow. Now +that his mind was made up, he marched forward with unfaltering step and +clanged the iron gates behind him so that they made a horrible noise, +and stepped through the desolate garden up the gravel path. + +The house looked black and grim, but there were lights behind the +dining-room windows--it was there that they were sitting, of course. + +As he stood on his toes to reach the knocker a shooting star flashed +past above his head, and he could hear the bare branches of the trees +knocking against one another in the wind that always seemed to be +whistling round the house. The noise echoed terribly through the +building, and then there was a silence that was even more terrible. He +could fancy how his aunt would start and put down her Patience cards for +a moment and look, in her scared way, at the window--he knew that his +father would not move from behind his paper, and that there would be no +other sound unless his grandfather awoke. He heard Mrs. Trussit's steps +down the passage, then locks were turned, the great door swung slowly +open, and he saw her, as he had pictured it, with a candle in her hand +raised above her head, peering into the dark. + +"Oh! it's you, Master Peter," and she stood aside, without another word, +to let him in. He slipped past her, silently, into the hall and, after +a second's pause, she followed him in, banging the hall door behind her. +Then she opened the dining-room door announcing, grimly, "It's Master +Peter come in, sir." The marble clock struck half-past ten as she spoke. + +He stood just inside the door blinking a little at the sudden light and +twisting his cloth cap round and round in his hands. He couldn't see +anything at first, and he could not collect his thoughts. At last he +said, in a very little voice: + +"I've come back, father." + +The lights settled before his eyes, and he saw them all exactly as he +had thought they would be. His father had not looked up from his paper, +and Peter could see the round bald patch on the top of his head. +Aunt Jessie was talking to herself about her cards in a very agitated +whisper--"Now it's the King I want--how provoking! Ah, there's the seven +of spades, _and the six and the five_--oh dear! it's a club," and not +looking up at all. + +No one answered his remark, and the silence was broken by his +grandfather waking up; a shrill piping voice came from out of the rugs. +"Oh! dear, what a doze I've had! It must be eight o'clock! What a doze +for an old man to have! on such a cold night too," and then fell asleep +again immediately. + +At last Peter spoke again in a voice that seemed to come from quite +another person. + +"Father--I've come back!" + +His father very slowly put down his newspaper and looked at him as +though he were conscious of him for the first time. When he spoke it +was as though his voice came out of the ceiling or the floor because his +face did not seem to move at all. + +"Where have you been?" + +"In the town, father." + +"Come here." + +He crossed the room and stood in front of the fire between his father +and grandfather. He was tremendously conscious of the grim and dusty +cactus plant that stood on a little table by the window. + +"What have you been doing in the town?" + +"I have been in The Bending Mule, father." + +"Why did you not come home before?" + +There was no answer. + +"You knew that you ought to come home?" + +"Yes, father. I have a letter for you from Mr. Parlow. He said that I +was to tell you that I have done my sums very badly this week and that I +gave Willie Daffoll a bleeding nose on Wednesday--" + +"Yes--have you any excuse for these things?" + +"No, father." + +"Very well. You may go up to your room. I will come up to you there." + +"Yes, father." + +He crossed the room very slowly, closed the door softly behind him, and +then climbed the dark stairs to his attic. + + +II + +He went trembling up to his room, and the match-box shook in his hand as +he lit his candle. It was only the very worst beatings that happened +in his bedroom, his father's gloomy and solemn study serving as a +background on more unimportant occasions. He could only remember two +other beatings in the attics, and they had both been very bad ones. He +closed his door and then stood in the middle of the room; the little +diamond-paned window was open and the glittering of the myriad stars +flung a light over his room and shone on the little bracket of books +above his bed (a Bible, an "Arabian Nights," and tattered copies of +"David Copperfield," "Vanity Fair," "Peregrine Pickle," "Tom Jones," and +"Harry Lorrequer"), on the little washing stand, a chest of drawers, a +cane-bottomed chair, and the little bed. There were no pictures on the +walls because of the sloping roof, but there were two china vases on +the mantelpiece, and they were painted a very bright blue with yellow +flowers on them. + +They had been given to Peter by Mrs. Flanders, the Rector's wife, who +had rather a kind feeling for Peter, and would have been friendly to him +had he allowed her. He took off his jacket and put it on again, he stood +uncertainly in the middle of the floor, and wondered whether he ought +to undress or no. There was no question about it now, he was horribly, +dreadfully afraid. That wisdom of old Frosted Moses seemed a very long +ago, and it was of very little use. If it had all happened at once +after he had come in then he might have endured it, but this waiting and +listening with the candle guttering was too much for him. His father was +so very strong--he had Peter's figure and was not very tall and was very +broad in the back; Peter had seen him once when he was stripped, and the +thought of it always frightened him. + +His face was white and his teeth would chatter although he bit his lips +and his fingers shook as he undressed, and his stud slipped and he could +not undo his braces--and always his ears were open for the sound of the +step on the stairs. + +At last he was in his night-shirt, and a very melancholy figure he +looked as he stood shivering in the middle of the floor. It was not +only that he was going to be beaten, it was also that he was so lonely. +Stephen seemed so dreadfully far away and he had other things to think +about; he wondered whether his mother in that strange white room ever +thought of him, his teeth were chattering, so that his whole head shook, +but he was afraid to get into bed because then he might go to sleep and +it would be so frightening to be woken by his father. + +The clock downstairs struck eleven, and he heard his father's footstep. +The door opened, and his father came in holding in his hand the cane +that Peter knew so well. + +"Are you there?" the voice was very cold. + +"Yes, father." + +"Do you know that you ought to be home before six?" + +"Yes, father." + +"And that I dislike your going to The Bending Mule?" + +"Yes, father." + +"And that I insist on your doing your work for Mr. Parlow?" + +"Yes, father." + +"And that you are not to fight the other boys in the town?" + +"Yes, father." + +"Why do you disobey me like this?" + +"I don't know. I try to be good." + +"You are growing into an idle, wicked boy. You are a great trouble to +your mother and myself." + +"Yes, father. I want to be better." + +Even now he could admire his father's strength, the bull-neck, the dark +close-cropped hair, but he was cold, and the blood had come where he bit +his lip--because he must not cry. + +"You must learn obedience. Take off your nightshirt." + +He took it off, and was a very small naked figure in the starlight, but +his head was up now and he faced his father. + +"Bend over the bed." + +He bent over the bed, and the air from the window cut his naked back. He +buried his head in the counterpane and fastened his teeth in it so that +he should not cry out.... + +During the first three cuts he did not stir, then an intolerable pain +seemed to move through his body--it was as though a knife were cutting +his body in half. But it was more than that--there was terror with him +now in the room; he heard that little singing noise that came through +his father's lips--he knew that his father was smiling. + +At the succeeding strokes his flesh quivered and shrank together and +then opened again--the pain was intolerable; his teeth met through the +coverlet and grated on one another; but before his eyes was the picture +of Stephen slowly straightening himself before his enemy and then that +swinging blow--he would not cry. He seemed to be sharing his punishment +with Stephen, and they were marching, hand in hand, down a road lined +with red-hot pokers. + +His back was on fire, and his head was bursting and the soles of his +feet were very, very cold. + +Then he heard, from a long way away, his father's voice: + +"Now you will not disobey me again." + +The door closed. Very slowly he raised himself, but moving was torture; +he put on his night-shirt and then quickly caught back a scream as it +touched his back. He moved to the window and closed it, then he climbed +very slowly on to his bed, and the tears that he had held back came, +slowly at first, and then more rapidly, at last in torrents. It was +not the pain, although that was bad, but it was the misery and the +desolation and the great heaviness of a world that held out no hope, no +comfort, but only a great cloud of unrelieved unhappiness. + +At last, sick with crying, he fell asleep. + + +III + +The first shadow of light was stealing across the white undulating +common and creeping through the bare trees of the desolate garden when +four dark figures, one tall, two fat, and one small, stole softly up the +garden path. They halted beneath the windows of the house; the snow had +ceased falling, and their breath rose in clouds above their heads. They +danced a little in the snow and drove their hands together, and then the +tall figure said: + +"Now, Tom Prother, out with thy musick." One of the fat figures felt in +his coat and produced four papers, and these were handed round. + +"Bill, my son, it's for thee to lead off at thy brightest, mind ye. Let +'em have it praper." + +The small figure came forward and began; at first his voice was thin and +quavering, but in the second line it gathered courage and rang out full +and bold: + + _As oi sat under a sicymore tree + A sicymore tree, a sicymore tree, + Oi looked me out upon the sea + On Christ's Sunday at morn._ + +"Well for thee, lad," said the tall figure approvingly, "but the cold +is creepin' from the tips o' my fingers till my singin' voice is most +frozen. Now, altogether." + +And the birds in the silent garden woke amongst the ivy on the distant +wall and listened: + + _Oi saw three ships a-sailin' there-- + A sailin' there, a-sailin' there, + Jesu, Mary, and Joseph they bare + On Christ's Sunday at morn._ + +A small boy curled up, like the birds, under the roof stirred uneasily +in his sleep and then slowly woke. He moved, and gave a little cry +because his back hurt him, then he remembered everything. The voices +came up to him from the garden: + + _Joseph did whistle and Mary did sing, + Mary did sing, Mary did sing, + And all the bells on earth did ring + For joy our Lord was born._ + + _O they sail'd in to Bethlehem, + To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem; + Saint Michael was the steersman, + Saint John sate in the horn._ + + _And all the bells on earth did ring, + On earth did ring, on earth did ring; + "Welcome be thou Heaven's King, + On Christ's Sunday at morn."_ + +He got slowly out of bed and went to the window. The light was coming +in broad bands from the East and he could hear the birds in the ivy. The +four black figures stood out against the white shadowy garden and their +heads were bent together. He opened his window, and the fresh morning +air swept about his face. + +He could hear the whispers of the singers as they chose another carol +and suddenly above the dark iron gates of the garden appeared the broad +red face of the sun. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +OF THE DARK SHOP OF ZACHARY TAN, AND OF THE DECISIONS THAT THE PEOPLE IN +SCAW HOUSE CAME TO CONCERNING PETER + + +I + +But it was of the nature of the whole of life that these things should +pass. "Look back on this bitterness a year hence and see how trivial +it seems" was one of the little wisdoms that helped Peter's courage in +after years. And to a boy of twelve years a beating is forgotten with +amazing quickness, especially if it is a week of holiday and there have +been other beatings not so very long before. + +It left things behind it, of course. It was the worst beating that Peter +had ever had, and that was something, but its occurrence marked more +than a mere crescendo of pain, and that evening stood for some new +resolution that he did not rightly understand yet--something that was in +its beginning the mere planting of a seed. But he had certainly met the +affair in a new way and, although in the week that followed he saw his +father very seldom and spoke to him not at all beyond "Good morning" and +"Good night," he fancied that he was in greater favour with him than he +had ever been before. + +There were always days of silence after a beating, and that was more +markedly the case now when it was a week of holidays and no Parlow to go +to. Peter did not mind the silence--it was perhaps safer--and so long as +he was home by six o'clock he could spend the day where he pleased. He +asked Mrs. Trussit about the carol-singers. There was a little room, the +housekeeper's room, to which he crept when he thought that it was safe +to do so. She was a different Mrs. Trussit within the boundary of her +kingdom--a very cosy kingdom with pink wall-paper, a dark red sofa, a +canary in a cage, and a fire very lively in the grate. From the depths +of a big arm-chair, her black silk dress rustling a little every now and +then, her knitting needles clinking in the firelight, Mrs. Trussit held +many conversations in a subdued voice with Peter, who sat on the table +and swung his legs. She was valuable from two points of view--as an +Historian and an Encyclopædia. She had been, in the first place, in +the most wonderful houses--The Earl of Twinkerton's, Bambary House, +Wiltshire, was the greatest of these, and she had been there for ten +years; there were also Lady Mettlesham, the Duchess of Cranburn, and, +to Peter, the most interesting of all, Mr. Henry Galleon, the famous +novelist who was so famous that American ladies used to creep into his +garden and pick leaves off his laurels. + +Peter had from her a dazzling picture of wonderful houses--of staircases +and garden walks, of thousands and thousands of shining rooms, of family +portraits, and footmen with beautiful legs. Above it all was "my lady" +who was always beautiful and stately and, of course, devoted to Mrs. +Trussit. Why that good woman left these noble mansions for so dreary +a place as Scaw House Peter never could understand, and for many years +that remained a mystery to him--but in awed whispers he asked her +questions about the lords and ladies of the land and especially about +the famous novelist and, from the answers given to him, constructed a +complete and most romantic picture of the Peerage. + +But, as an Encyclopædia, Mrs. Trussit was even more interesting. She had +apparently discovered at an early age that the golden rule of life was +never to confess yourself defeated by any question whatever, and there +was therefore nothing that he could ask her for which she had not an +immediate answer ready. Her brow was always unruffled, her black shining +hair brushed neatly back and parted down the middle, her large flat face +always composed and placid, and her voice never raised above a whisper. +The only sign that she ever gave of disturbance was a little clucking +noise that she made in her mouth like an aroused hen. Peter's time in +the little pink sitting-room was sometimes exceedingly short and he +used to make the most of it by shooting questions at the good lady at an +astonishing rate, and he was sometimes irritated by her slow and placid +replies: + +"What kind of stockings did Mr. Galleon wear?" + +"He didn't wear stockings unless, as you might say, in country attire, +and then, if I remember correctly, they were grey." + +"Had he any children?" + +"There was one little dear when I had the honour of being in the +house--and since then I have heard that there are two more." + +"Mrs. Trussit, where do children come from?" + +"They are brought by God's good angels when we are all asleep in the +night time." + +"Oh!" (this rather doubtfully). A pause--then "Did the Earl of +Twinkerton have hot or cold baths?" + +"Cold in the morning, I believe, with the chill off and hot at night +before dressing for dinner. He was a very cleanly gentleman." + +"Mrs. Trussit, where _is_ Patagonia? It came in the history this +morning." + +"North of the Caribbean Sea, I believe, my dear." + +And so on, and Peter never forgot any of her answers. About the +carol-singers she was a little irritable. They had woken her it seemed +from a very delightful sleep, and she considered the whole affair +"savoured of Paganism." And then Peter found suddenly that he didn't +wish to talk about the carol-singers at all because the things that he +felt about them were, in some curious way, not the things that he could +say to Mrs. Trussit. + +She was very kind to him during that Christmas week and gave him mixed +biscuits out of a brightly shining tin that she kept in a cupboard in +her room. But outside the gates of her citadel she was a very different +person, spoke to Peter but rarely, and then always with majesty and +from a long way away. Her attitude to the little maid-of-all-work was +something very wonderful indeed, and even to Aunt Jessie her tone might +be considered patronising. + +But indeed to Aunt Jessie it was very difficult to be anything else. +Aunt Jessie was a poor creature, as Peter discovered very early in life. +He found that she never had any answers ready to the questions that he +asked her and that she hesitated when he wished to know whether he +might do a thing or no. She was always trembling and shaking, and no +strong-minded person ever wore mittens. He had a great contempt for his +aunt.... + +On New Year's Eve, the last day but one of release from old Parlow, +Mr. Westcott spent the day doing business in Truro, and at once the +atmosphere over Scaw House seemed to lighten. The snow had melted away, +and there was a ridiculous feeling of spring in the air; ridiculous +because it was still December, but Cornwall is often surprisingly warm +in the heart of winter, and the sun was shining as ardently as though it +were the middle of June. The sunlight flooded the dining-room and roused +old grandfather Westcott to unwonted life, so that he stirred in his +chair and was quite unusually talkative. + +He stopped Peter after breakfast, as he was going out of the room and +called him to his side: + +"Is that the sun, boy?" + +"Yes, grandfather." + +"Deary me, to think of that and me a poor, broken, old man not able to +move an arm or foot." + +He raised himself amongst his cushions, and Peter saw an old yellow +wrinkled face with the skin drawn tight over the cheekbones and little +black shining eyes like drops of ink. A wrinkled claw shot out and +clutched Peter's hand. + +"Do you love your grandfather, boy?" + +"Of course, grandfather." + +"That's right, that's right--on a nice sunny morning, too. Do you love +your father, boy?" + +"Of course, grandfather." + +"He, he--oh, yes--all the Westcotts love their fathers. _He_ loved his +father when he was young, didn't he? Oh, yes, I should rather think so." + +And his voice rose into a shrill scream so that Peter jumped. Then he +began to look Peter up and down. + +"You'll be strong, boy, when you're a man--oh, yes, I should rather +think so--I was strong once.... Do you hear that?... I was strong once, +he, he!" + +And here grandfather Westcott, overcome by his chuckling, began to +cough so badly that Peter was afraid that he was going to be ill, and +considered running for Aunt Jessie. + +"Hit my back, boy--huh, huh! Ugh, ugh! That's right, hit it hard--that's +better--ugh, ugh! Oh! deary me! that's better--_what_ a nasty cough, oh, +deary me, what a nasty cough! I was strong once, boy, hegh, hegh! Indeed +I was, just like your father--and he'll be just like me, one day! Oh! +yes, he will--blast his bones! He, he! We all come to it--all of us +strong men, and we're cruel and hard, and won't give a poor old man +enough for his breakfast--and then suddenly we're old ourselves, +and what fun that is! Oh! Yes, your father will be old one day!" and +suddenly, delighted with the thought, the old man slipped down beneath +his cushions and was fast asleep. + +And Peter went out into the sunlight. + + +II + +Peter looked very different at different times. When he was happy his +cheeks were flooded with colour, his eyes shone, and his mouth smiled. +He was happy now, and he forgot as he came out into the garden that he +had promised his aunt that he would go in and see his mother for a few +minutes. Old Curtis, wearing the enormous sun-hat that he always had +flapping about his head and his trousers tied below his knees with +string in the most ridiculous way, was sweeping the garden path. He +never did very much work, and the garden was in a shocking state of +neglect, but he told delightful stories. To-day, however, he was in a +bad temper and would pay no attention to Peter at all, and so Peter left +him and went out into the high road. + +It was two miles across the common to Stephen's farm and it took the boy +nearly an hour, because the ground was uneven and there were walls to +climb, and also because he was thinking of what his grandfather had +said. Would his father one day be old and silly like his grandfather? +Did every one get old and silly like that? and, if so, what was the use +of being born at all? But what happened to all his father's strength? +Where did it all go to? In some curious undefined way he resented +his grandfather's remarks. He could have loved and admired his father +immensely had he been allowed to, but even if that were not permitted +he could stand up for him when he was attacked. What right had his silly +old grandfather to talk like that?... His father would one day be old? +And Stephen, would he be old, too? Did all strength go? + +Peter was crossing a ploughed field, and the rich brown earth heaved +in a great circle against the sky and in the depth of its furrows there +were mysterious velvet shadows--the brown hedges stood back against the +sky line. The world was so fresh and clean and strong this morning that +the figure and voice of his grandfather hung unpleasantly about him and +depressed him. There were so many things that he wanted to know and +so few people to tell him, and he turned through the white gates of +Stephen's farm with a consciousness that since Christmas Eve the world +had begun to be a new place. + +Stephen was sitting in the upstairs room scratching his head over his +accounts, whilst his old mother sat dozing, with her knitting fallen +on to her lap by the fire. The window was open, and all the sound and +smells of the farm came into the room. The room was an old one with +brown oaken rafters and whitewashed walls, a long oaken table down +the middle of it, and a view over the farmyard and the sweeping fields +beyond it, lost at last, in the distant purple hills. Peter was given a +chair opposite the old lady, who was nearly eighty, and wore a beautiful +white cap, and she woke up and talked incessantly, because she was very +garrulous by nature and didn't care in the least to whom she talked. +Peter politely listened to what she had to say, although he understood +little of it, and his eyes were watching for the moment when the +accounts should be finished and Stephen free. + +"Ay," said the old lady, "and it were good Mr. Tenement were the rector +in those days, I remember, and he gave us a roaring discourse many's the +Sunday. Church is not what it was, with all this singing and what not +and the clothes the young women wear--I remember..." + +But Stephen had closed his books with a bang and given his figures up +in despair. "I don't know how it is, boy," he said, "but they're at +something different every time yer look at 'em--they're one too many for +me, that's certain." + +One of Stephen's eyes was still nearly closed, and both eyes were black +and blue, and his right cheek had a bad bruise on it, but Peter thought +it was wiser not to allude to the encounter. The farm was exceedingly +interesting, and then there was dinner, and it was not until the meal +had been cleared away that Peter remembered that he wanted to ask some +questions, and then Stephen interrupted him with: + +"Like to go to Zachary Tan's with me this afternoon, boy? I've got to be +lookin' in." + +Peter jumped to his feet with excitement. + +"Oh! Steve! This afternoon--this _very_ afternoon?" + +It was the most exciting thing possible. Zachary Tan's was the curiosity +shop of Treliss and famous even twenty years ago throughout the south +country. It is still there, I believe, although Zachary himself is dead +and with him has departed most of the atmosphere of the place, and it is +now smart and prosperous, although in those days it was dark and dingy +enough. No one knew whence Zachary had come, and he was one of the +mysteries of a place that deals, even now, in mysteries. He had arrived +as a young man with a basket over his back thirty years before Peter saw +the light, when Treliss was a little fishing village and Mr. Bannister, +Junior, had not cast his enterprising eye over The Man at Arms. Zachary +had beads and silks, and little silver images in his basket, and he had +stayed there in a little room over the shop, and things had prospered +with him. The inhabitants of the place had never trusted him, but they +were always interested. "Thiccy Zachary be a poor trade," they had +said at first, "poor trade" signifying anything or anybody not entirely +approved of--but they had hung about his shop, had bought his silks and +little ornaments, and had talked to him sometimes with eyes open and +mouth agape at the things that he could tell them. And then people had +come from Truro and Pendragon and even Bodmin and, finally, Exeter, +because they had heard of the things that he had for sale. No one knew +where he found his treasures, for he was always in his shop, smiling +and amiable, but sometimes gentlemen would come from London, and he had +strange friends like Mr. Andreas Morelli, concerning whose life a book +has already been written. Zachary Tan's shop became at last the word in +Treliss for all that was strange and unusual--the strongest link with +London and other curious places. He had a little back room behind his +shop, where he would welcome his friends, give them something to drink +and talk about the world. He was always so friendly that people thought +that he must wish for things in return, but he never asked for anything, +nor did he speak about himself at all. As for his portrait, he had a +pale face, a big beak nose, very black hair that hung over his forehead +and was always untidy, a blue velvet jacket, black trousers, green +slippers, and small feet. + +He also wore two rings and blew his long nose in silk handkerchiefs of +the most wonderful colours. All these things may seem of the slenderest +importance, but they are not insignificant if one considers their +effect upon Peter. Zachary was the most romantic figure that he had yet +encountered; to walk through the shop with its gold and its silver, +its dust and its jewels, into the dark little room beyond; to hear this +wonderful person talk, to meet men who lived in London, to listen by the +light of flickering candles and with one's eyes fixed upon portraits of +ladies dancing in the slenderest attire, this was indeed Life, and Life +such as The Bending Mule, Scaw House, and even Stephen's farm itself +could not offer. + +Peter often wondered why Stephen and Zachary were friends, because they +seemed to have little enough in common, but Stephen was a silent man, +who liked all kinds of company, and Peter noticed that Zachary was +always very polite and obliging to Stephen. + +Stephen was very silent going across the Common and down the high road +into the town, but Peter knew him too well by this time to interrupt his +thoughts. He was thinking perhaps about his accounts that would not come +right or about the fight and Burstead his enemy. + +Everybody had their troubles that they thought about and every one had +their secrets, the things that they kept to themselves--even Aunt Jessie +and old Curtis the gardener--one must either be as clever as Zachary +Tan or as foolish as Dicky the Idiot to know very much about people. +Zachary, Peter had noticed, was one of the persons who always listened +to everything that Dicky had to say, and treated him with the greatest +seriousness, even when he seemed to be talking about the wildest +things--and it was a great many years after this that Peter discovered +that it was only the wisest people who knew how very important fools +were. Zachary's shop was at the very bottom of Poppero Street, the steep +and cobbled street that goes straight down to the little wooden jetty +where the fishing boats lie, and you could see the sea like a square +handkerchief between the houses on either side. Many of the houses in +Poppero Street are built a little below the level of the pathway, and +you must go down steps to reach the door. Zachary's shop was like this, +and it had a green door with a bright brass knocker. There were +always many things jumbled together in the window--candlesticks, china +shepherds and shepherdesses, rings and necklaces, cups and saucers, +little brass figures, coins, snuff-boxes, match-boxes, charms, and old +blue china plates, and at the back a complete suit of armour that had +been there ever since Zachary had first opened his shop. + +Of course, inside there were a thousand and one things of the most +exciting kind, but Stephen, an enormous figure in the low-roofed shop, +brushed past the pale-faced youth whom Zachary now hired to assist with +the customers and passed into the dark room beyond, Peter close at his +heels. + +There were two silver candlesticks lighted on the mantelpiece, and there +were two more in the centre of the green baize table and round the fire +were seated four men. One of them Zachary himself, another was pleasant +little Mr. Bannister, host of The Man at Arms, another was old Frosted +Moses, sucking as usual at his great pipe, and the fourth was a +stranger. + +Zachary rose and came forward smiling. "Ah, Mr. Brant, delighted to +see you, I'm sure. Brought the boy with you? Excellent, excellent. Mr. +Bannister and Mr. Tathero (old Moses' society name) you know, of course; +this is Mr. Emilio Zanti, a friend of mine from London." + +The stranger, who was an enormous fat man with a bald head and an eager +smile rose and shook hands with Stephen, he also shook hands with Peter +as though it had been the ambition of his life to meet that small and +rather defiant person. + +He also embarrassed Peter very much by addressing him as though he were +grown up, and listening courteously to everything that he had to say. +Peter decided that he did not like him--but "a gentleman from London" +was always an exciting introduction. The boy was able very quickly to +obliterate himself by sitting down somewhere in a corner and remaining +absolutely silent and perhaps that was the reason that he was admitted +to so many elderly gatherings--he was never in the way. He slipped +quickly into a chair, hidden in the shadow of the wall, but close to +the elbow of "the gentleman from London," whose face he watched with the +greatest curiosity. Stephen was silent, and Frosted Moses very rarely +said anything at all, so that the conversation speedily became a +dialogue between Zachary and the foreign gentleman, with occasional +appeals to Mr. Brant for his unbiassed opinion. Peter's whole memory of +the incident was vague and uncertain, although in after years he often +tried very hard to recall it all to mind. He was excited by the mere +atmosphere of the place, by the silver candlesticks, the dancing ladies +on the walls, Zachary's blue coat, and the sense of all the wonderful +things in the shop beyond. He had no instinct that it was all important +beyond the knowledge that it roused a great many things in him that +the rest of his life left untouched and anything to do with "London," a +city, as he knew from Tom Jones and David Copperfield, of extraordinary +excitement and adventure, was an event. He watched Mr. Emilio Zanti +closely, and he decided that his smile was not real, and that it must be +very unpleasant to have a bald head. He also noticed that he said things +in a funny way: like "ze beautiful country zat you 'ave 'ere with +its sea and its woods" and "I 'ave the greatest re-spect for ze +Englishman"--also his hands were very fat and he wore rings like +Zachary. + +Sometimes Peter fancied that his words meant a great deal more than they +seemed to mean. He laughed when there was really nothing to laugh at and +he tried to make Stephen talk, but Stephen was very silent. On the whole +the conversation was dull, Peter thought, and once he nodded and was +very nearly asleep, and fancied that the gentleman from London was +spreading like a balloon and filling all the room. There was no mention +of London at all. + +Peter wondered for what purpose Stephen had come there, because he +sat looking at the fire with his brown hands spread out over his great +knees, thinking apparently all his own thoughts. + +Then suddenly there came a moment. The London gentleman, Mr. Emilio +Zanti, turned round quite quickly and said, like a shot out of a gun: +"And what does our little friend think of it?" + +Peter did not know to what he was referring, and looked embarrassed. He +was also conscious that Zachary was watching him keenly. + +"Ah, 'e does not understand, our little friend. But with life, what is +it that you will do when you are grown up, my boy?" and he put his +fat hand on Peter's knee. Peter disliked him more than ever, but he +answered: + +"I don't know--I haven't settled yet." + +"Ah, it is early days," said Mr. Zanti, nodding his head, "there is +much time, of course. But what is the thing that our little friend would +care, most of all, to do?" + +"To go to school," said Peter, without any hesitation, and both Zachary +and Mr. Zanti laughed a great deal more than was in the least necessary. + +"And then--afterwards?" said Mr. Zanti. + +"To go to London," said Peter, stiffly, feeling in some undefined way +that they were laughing at him and that something was going on that he +did not understand. + +"Ho! that is good," said Mr. Emilio, slapping his knees and rocking in +his chair with merriment. "Ho! that is very good. He knows a thing or +two, our young friend here. Ho, yes! don't you mistake!" For a little +while he could not speak for laughing, and the tears rolled down his fat +cheeks. "And what is it that you will do when you are there, my friend?" +he said at last. + +"I will have adventures," said Peter, growing a little bolder at the +thought of London and its golden streets. And then, suddenly, when he +heard this, curious Mr. Zanti grew very grave indeed, and his eyes were +very large, and he put a finger mysteriously to his nose. Then he leant +right over Peter and almost whispered in his ear. + +"And you shall--of course you shall. You shall come to London and 'ave +adventures--'eaps and 'eaps and 'eaps. Oh, yes, bless my soul, shan't +he, Mr. Tan? Dear me, yes--London, my young friend, is the most +wonderful place. In one week, if you are clever, you 'ave made thousands +of pounds--thousands and thousands. Is it not so, Mr. Tan? When you are +just a little bit older, a few years--then you shall come. And you +ask for your friend, Mr. Emilio Zanti--because I like you. We will be +friends, is not that so?" + +And he held out his large fat hand and grasped Peter's small and rather +damp one. Then he bent even closer, still holding Peter's hand: "Do you +know one thing?" he whispered. + +"No," replied Peter, husky with awe. + +"It is this, that when you think of Mr. Zanti and of London and of +adventures, you will look in a looking-glass--any looking-glass, and you +will see--what you will see," and he nodded all over his fat face. + +Peter was entirely overcome by this last astonishing statement, and was +very relieved to hear numbers of clocks in the curiosity shop strike +five o'clock. He got off his chair, said good-bye very politely indeed, +and hurried up the dark street. + +For the moment even his beloved Stephen was forgotten, and +looking-glasses, the face of Mr. Emilio Zanti, London streets, and +Zachary's silver candlesticks were mingled confusedly in his brain. + + +III + +And indeed throughout the dreary supper Peter's brain was in a whirl. +It often happened that supper passed without a word of conversation from +first to last. His father very rarely said anything, Peter never said +anything at all, and if Aunt Jessie did venture on a little conversation +she received so slender an encouragement that she always forsook the +attempt after a very short time. It was a miserable meal. + +It was cold beef and beetroot and blanc-mange with a very, very little +strawberry jam round the edges of the glass dish, and there was a hard +red cheese and little stiff woolly biscuits. + +But old grandfather Westcott was always hungry, and his querulous +complaints were as regular an accompaniment to the evening meal as the +ticking of the marble clock. But his beef had to be cut up for him into +very tiny pieces and that gave Aunt Jessie a great deal of work, so that +his appeals for a second helping were considered abominable selfishness. + +"Oh, my dear, just a leetle piece of beef" (this from the very heart of +the cushions). "Just the leetlest piece of beef for a poor old man--such +a leetle piece he had, and he's had such a hunger." No answer to this +and at last a strange noise from the cushions like the sound of dogs +quarrelling. At last again, "Oh, just the leetlest piece of beef for +a poor old man--" and then whimpering and "poor old man" repeated at +intervals that lengthened gradually into sleep. + +At last the meal was over, the things had been cleared away, and Peter +was bending over a sum in preparation for lessons on Monday. Such a +sum--add this and this and this and this and then divide it by that +and multiply the result by this!... and the figures (bad ill-written +figures) crept over the page and there were smudgy finger marks, and +always between every other line "London, looking-glasses, and fat Mr. +Zanti laughing until the tears ran down his face." Such a strange world +where all these things could be so curiously confused, all of them, one +supposed, having their purpose and meaning--even grandfather--and even +2469 X 2312 X 6201, and ever so many more until they ran races round the +page and up and down and in and out. + +And then suddenly into the middle of the silence his father's voice: + +"What are you doing there?" + +"Sums, father--for Monday." + +"You won't go back on Monday" (and this without the _Cornish Times_ +moving an inch). + +"Not go back?" + +"No. You are going away to school--to Devonshire--on Tuesday week." + +And Peter's pencil fell clattering on to the paper, and the answer to +that sum is still an open question. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH "DAWSON'S," AS THE GATE OF LIFE, IS PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT + + +I + +It was, of course, very strange that this should come so swiftly after +the meeting with the London gentleman--it was almost as though he had +known about it, because it was a first step towards that London that he +had so confidently promised. To Peter school meant the immediate +supply of the two things that he wanted more than anything in the +world--Friendship and Knowledge; not knowledge of the tiresome kind, +Knowledge that had to do with the Kings of Israel and the capital of +Italy, but rather the experience that other gentlemen of his own age +had already gathered during their journey through the world. Stephen, +Zachary, Moses, Dicky, Mrs. Trussit, old Curtis, even Aunt Jessie--all +these people had knowledge, of course, but they would not give it +you--they would not talk to you as though they were at your stage of the +journey, they could not exchange opinions with you, they could not share +in your wild surmises, they could not sympathise with your hatred of +addition, multiplication, and subtraction. The fellow victims at old +Parlow's might have been expected to do these things, but they were too +young, too uninterested, too unenterprising. One wanted real boys--boys +with excitement and sympathy... _real_ boys. + +He had wanted it, far, far more terribly than any one had known. He had +sat, sometimes, in the dark, in his bedroom, and thought about it until +he had very nearly cried, because he wanted it so badly, and now it had +suddenly come out of the clouds... bang! + + +II + +That last week went with a rattling speed and provided a number of most +interesting situations. In the first place there was the joy--a simple +but delightful one--on Monday morning, of thinking of those "others" who +were entering, with laggard foot, into old Parlow's study--that study +with the shining map of Europe on the wall, a bust of Julius Cæsar +(conquered Britain? B.C.), and the worn red carpet. They would all be +there. They would wonder where he was, and on discovering that he would +never come again, Willie Daffoll, of recent tragic memory, would be +pleased because now he would be chief and leader. Well, let him!... Yes, +that was all very pleasant to think of. + +There was further the thought that school might not, after all, be +exactly what Peter imagined it. The pictures in his mind were evolved +from his reading of "David Copperfield." There would be people like +Steerforth and dear Traddles, there would be a master who played the +flute, there would be rebellions and riots--would there? + +Mrs. Trussit was of little value on this occasion: + +"Mrs. Trussit, were you ever at school?" + +"No, Master Peter, I was never at school. My good mother, who died at +the ripe old age of ninety-two with all her faculties, gave me a liberal +and handsome education with her own hands." + +"Do you think it will be like 'David Copperfield'?" + +Mrs. Trussit was ignorant of the work in question. "Of course, Master +Peter. How can you ask such a thing? They are all like that, I believe. +But, there, run away now. It's time for me to be looking after your +mother's supper," &c. &c. + +Mrs. Trussit obviously knew nothing whatever about it, although Peter +heard her once murmuring "Poor lamb" as she gave him mixed biscuits out +of her tin. + +Stephen also was of little use, and he didn't seem especially glad when +he heard about it. + +"And it's a good school, do you think?" he said. + +"Of course," said Peter valiantly, "one of the very best. It's +in Devonshire, and I leave by the eight o'clock train" (this very +importantly). + +The fact of the matter was that Peter was so greatly excited by it all +that abandoning even Stephen was a minor sorrow. It was a dreadful pity +of course, but Peter intended to write most wonderful letters, and there +would be the joyful meeting when the holidays came round, and he would +be a more sensible person for Stephen to have for a friend after he'd +seen the world. + +"Dear Stephen--I shall write every week--every Friday I expect. That +will be a good day to choose." + +"Yes--that'll be a good day. Well, 'ere's the end of yer as yer are. +It'll be another Peter coming back, maybe. Up along they'll change yer." + +"But never me and you, Steve. I shall love you always." + +The man seized him almost fiercely by the shoulders and looked him in +the face. "Promise me that, boy," he said, "promise me that. Yer most +all I've got now. But I'm a fool to ask yer--of course yer'll change. +I'm an ignorant fool." + +They were standing in the middle of one of Stephen's brown ploughed +fields, and the cold, sharp day was drawing to a close as the mist stole +up from the ground and the dim sun sank behind the hedgerows. + +Peter in the school years that followed always had this picture of +Stephen standing in the middle of his field--Stephen's rough, red brown +clothes, his beard that curled a little, his brown corduroys that smelt +of sheep and hay, the shining brass buttons of his coat, his broad back +and large brown hands, his mild blue eyes and nose suddenly square at +the end where it ought to have been round--this Stephen Brant raised +from the very heart of the land, something as strong and primitive as +the oaks and corn and running stream that made his background. + +Stephen suddenly caught up Peter and kissed him so that the boy cried +out. Then he turned abruptly and left him, and Peter did not see him +again. + +He said his farewells to the town, tenderly and gravely--the cobbled +streets, the dear market-place, and the Tower, The Bending Mule (here +there were farewells to be said to Mr. and Mrs. Figgis and old Moses); +the wooden jetty, and the fishing-boats--then the beach and the caves +and the sea.... + +Last of all, the Grey Hill. Peter climbed it on the last afternoon of +all. He was quite alone, and the world was very still; he could not hear +the sea at all. At last he was at the top and leant his back against +the Giant's Finger. Looking round there are the hills that guard Truro, +there are the woods where the rabbits are, there is the sea, and +a wonderful view of Treliss rising into a peak which is The Man at +Arms--and the smoke of the town mingled with the grey uncertain clouds, +and the clouds mingled with the sea, and the only certain and assured +thing was the strength of the Giant's Finger. That at least he could +feel cold and hard against his hands. He felt curiously solemn and +grave, and even a little tearful--and he stole down, through the dusk, +softly as though his finger were on his lips. + +And then after this a multitude of hurrying sensations with their climax +in a very, very early morning, when one dressed with a candle, when +one's box was corded and one's attic looked strangely bare, when there +was a surprising amount to eat at breakfast, when one stole downstairs +softly. He had said good-bye to his mother on the previous evening, and +she had kissed him, and he had felt uncomfortable and shy. + +Then there were Mrs. Trussit and his aunt to see him off, there was a +cab and, most wonderful of all, there was his father coming in the cab. +That was a dreadful thing and the journey to the station seemed endless +because of it. His father was perfectly silent, and any thrill that +Peter might have snatched from the engines, the porters, the whistles, +and his own especial carriage were negatived by this paralysing +occurrence. He would have liked to have said something himself, but he +could only think of things that were quite impossible like "How funny +Mrs. Trussit's nose is early in the morning," "I wonder what old +Parlow's doing." + +It was terrible. + +He was in his carriage--they were hurrying, every one was hurrying. + +His father suddenly spoke. + +"The guard will see to you. You change at Exeter. Your aunt has given +you sandwiches." A little pause, and then: "You've got pluck. You stood +that beating well." Then the stern face passed, and the grave awful +figure faded slowly down the platform. + +Peter felt suddenly, utterly, completely miserable, and alone. Two tears +rolled slowly down his cheeks. He blew his nose, and the train started. + + +III + +And so this first run into liberty begins with tears and a choke in the +throat and a sudden panting desire to be back in the dark passages of +Scaw House. Nor did the fleeting swiftness of the new country please +him. Suddenly one was leaving behind all those known paths and views, +so dimly commonplace in the having of them, so rosily romantic in the +tragic wanting of them! + +How curious that Mrs. Trussit, his aunt, and his father should appear +now pathetically affectionate in their farewells of him! They were +not--to that he could swear--and yet back he would run did Honour and +Destiny allow him. Above all, how he would have run now to Stephen. + +He felt like a sharp wound the horrible selfishness and indifference of +his parting when Stephen's beard had been pressed so roughly against his +face that it had hurt him--and he had had nothing to say. He would +write that very night if They--the unknown Gods to whose kingdom he +journeyed--would allow him. This comforted him a little and the spirit +of adventure stirred in him anew. He wiped his eyes for the last +time with the crumpled ball of his handkerchief, sniffed three times +defiantly, and settled to a summary of the passing country, cows, and +hills and hedges, presently the pleasing bustle of Truro station, and +then again the cows and hills and hedges. On parting from Cornwall he +discovered a new sensation, and was surprised that he should feel it. He +did not know, as a definite fact, the exact moment when that merging +of Cornwall into Devon came, and yet, strangely in his spirit, he was +conscious of it. Now he was in a foreign country, and it was almost +as though his own land had cast him out so that the sharp appealing +farewell to the Grey Hill, Treliss, and the sea was even more poignant +than his farewell to his friends had been. Once more, at the thought of +all the ways that he loved Cornwall, the choking sob was in his throat +and the hot tears were in his eyes, and his hands were clenched. And +then he remembered that London was not in Cornwall, and if he were ever +going to get there at all he must not mind this parting. + +"What the devil are you crying about?" came suddenly from the other side +of the carriage. He looked up, and saw that there was an old gentleman +sitting in the opposite corner. He had a red fat face and beautiful +white hair. + +"I'm not crying," said Peter, rather defiantly. + +"Oh! yes, you are--or you were. Supposing you share my lunch and see +whether that will make things any better." + +"Thank you very much, but I have some sandwiches," said Peter, feeling +for the paper packet and finding it. + +"Well, supposing you come over here and eat yours with me. And if you +could manage to help me with any of mine I should be greatly indebted. I +can't bear having my meals alone, you know." + +How can one possibly resist it when the Olympians come down so amiably +from their heights and offer us their hospitality? Moreover the Old +Gentleman had, from his bag, produced the most wonderfully shaped +parcels. There was certainly a meal, and Aunt Jessie's sandwiches would +assuredly be thick and probably no mustard! + +So Peter slipped across and sat next to the Old Gentleman, and even +shared a rug. He ultimately shared a great many other things, like +chicken and tongue, apples and pears and plum cake. + +"Of course," said the Old Gentleman, "you are going to school and +probably for the first time--and therefore your legs are as weak as +pins, you have a cold pain in the middle of your chest, and you have an +intense desire to see your mother again." + +Peter admitted that this was true, although it wasn't his mother whom he +wished to see so much as a friend of his called Stephen, and, one or two +places like the Grey Hill and The Bending Mule. All this interested the +Old Gentleman very much. + +"You, too, were at school?" Peter inquired politely. + +"I was," said the Old Gentleman. + +"And was it like David Copperfield?" said Peter. + +"Parts of it--the nice parts. School was the best, the very best time of +my life, my boy, and so you'll find it." + +This was immensely reassuring, and Peter felt very much cheered. "You +will make all the friends of your life there. You will learn to be a +man. Dear me!" The Old Gentleman coughed. "I don't know what I would +have done without school. You must have courage, you know," he added. + +"I heard some one say once," said Peter, "that courage is the most +important thing to have. It isn't life that matters, but courage, this +man said." + +"Bless my soul," the Old Gentleman said, "how old are you, boy?" + +"Twelve--nearly thirteen," answered Peter. + +"Well, the more you see of boys the better. You might be forty by the +way you talk. You want games and fellows of your own age, that's what +you want. Why I never heard of such a thing, talking about life at your +age." + +Peter felt that he had done something very wrong, although he hadn't the +least idea of his crime, so he turned the conversation. + +"I should like very much," he said, "to hear about your school if you +wouldn't mind." + +Then the Old Gentleman began in the most wonderful way, and to hear him +talk you would imagine that school was the paradise to which all good +boys were sent--a deliriously delightful place, with a shop full of +sweets, games without end, friends galore, and a little work now and +then to prevent one's being bored. + +Peter listened most attentively with his head against the Old +Gentleman's very warm coat, and then the warmth and the movement of the +train caused the voice to swim further and further away into distance. + +"Bless my soul!" Peter heard as though it had been whispered at the end +of the train. + +"Here's Exeter, young man. Your father said you were to change here." + +A rubbing of eyes, and behold a stout guard in front of the door and no +sign of the Old Gentleman whatever, but when he felt for his ticket in +his side pocket he found also a glittering sovereign that had certainly +not been there when he went asleep. + +All this was very encouraging, and Peter followed the guard across the +Exeter platform hopefully and expectantly. Right down the platform, on +a side line, was a little train that reminded Peter of the Treliss to +Truro one, so helpless and incapable did it look. The guard put him and +his luggage into a carriage and then left him with a last word as +to Salton being his destination. He waited here a very long time and +nothing happened. He must have slept again, because when he next looked +out of the window the platform was full of people. + +He realised with terror that they were, many of them, boys--boys with +friends and boys without. He watched them with a great feeling of +desolation and homesickness as they flung themselves into carriages and +shouted at one another. + +A small boy with a very red face and a round fat body, attended by a +tall, thin lady in black, got into the carriage, and behaving as if +Peter weren't there at all, leaned out of the window. + +"All right, mater. That's all right. I'll tell 'em about the socks--old +Mother Gill will look after that." + +"You won't forget to send me a post card to-night, Will, dear, will +you?" + +"No, mater, that's all right. I say, don't you bother to wait if you +want to be off." + +"No, dear, I'd like to wait. Don't forget to give father's letter to Mr. +Raggett." + +"All right. I say it's rotten for you waiting about, really. Give my +love to Floss!" + +"Well, perhaps I had better go. This train seems to be late. Good-bye, +dearest boy." + +An interval, during which the stout boy leaned out of the window and was +embraced. Soon his bowler hat was flung wildly on to the rack and he was +leaning out of the window, screaming: + +"Cocker! I say, Cocker! Cocker! Oh! dash it, he's going in there. +Cocker! Cocker! Hullo, Bisket! going strong? Cocker! Oh! there he is! +Hullo, old man! Thought I should miss you. Come on in here! Thought I'd +never get rid of the mater. They do hang about!" + +A small boy with his hat on one side got into the carriage, stepped on +Peter's feet without apologising, and then the two gentlemen sat down at +the other end of the carriage and exchanged experiences. + +"What sort of hols.?" + +"Oh, pretty rotten! Got nothing for Christmas at all except a measly +knife or two--governor played it awfully low down." + +"I rather scored because my sister had a ripping writing case sent to +her, and I gave her a rotten old book in exchange, and she jolly well +had to." + +And so it continued. To Peter it was completely unintelligible. The boys +at old Parlow's had never talked like this. He was suddenly flung into +a foreign country. The dismay in his heart grew as he remembered that +he was going into this life entirely alone and without a friend in +the world. He felt that he would, had it been possible, gladly have +exchanged this dreadful plunge for a beating from his father. + +At any rate, after that there were friends to whom one might go--after +this?... + +As the train dragged slowly and painfully along the dreariness and the +loneliness increased. The dusk fell, and they stopped, as it seemed, +every other minute, and always Peter thought that it must be Salton and +prepared to get out. The two boys in his carriage paid no attention to +him whatever, and their voices continued incessantly, and always the +little train jolted along sleepily wandering through the dark country +and carrying him to unknown terrors. But he set his teeth hard and +remembered what the Old Gentleman had told him. He would fight it out +and see it through. + +"'Tisn't Life that matters, but the Courage--" + +And then suddenly the train stopped, the two boys flung themselves at +the window, and the porter outside, like a magician who kept a rabbit +in a bag, suddenly shouted "Salton!" After that there were mixed +impressions. He stood alone on the dark, windy platform whilst dark +figures passed and repassed him. Then a tall, thin Somebody said "Are +you Westcott?" and Peter said "Yes," and he was conveyed to a large +wagonette already crowded with boys. Then there was a great deal of +squeezing, a great deal of noise, and some one in authority said from +somewhere, "Less noise, please." + +The wagonette started in a jolting uncertain way, and then they seemed +to go on for ever and ever between dark sweet-smelling hedges with black +trees that swept their heads, and the faint blue of the evening sky on +the horizon. Every one was very quiet now, and Peter fell asleep once +more and dreamed of the Old Gentleman, plum cake, and Stephen. + +A sudden pause--the sound of an iron gate being swung back, and Peter +was awake again to see that they were driving up to a dark heavy +building that looked like a hospital or a prison. + +"The new boys please follow me," and he found himself, still struggling +with sleep, blinded by the sudden light, following, with some ten +others, a long and thin gentleman who wore a pince-nez. His strongest +feeling was that he was very cold and that he hated everybody and +everything. He heard many voices somewhere in the distance, doors were +being continually opened and shut, and little winds blew down the dismal +passages. They were suddenly in a study lined with books and a stout +rubicund gentleman with a gold watch chain and a habit (as Peter at once +discovered) of whistling through his teeth was writing at a table. + +He turned round when he heard them enter and watched them for a moment +as they stood by the door. + +"Well, boys" (his voice came from somewhere near his watch chain), "come +and shake hands. How are you all?" + +Some eager boy in the front row, with a pleasant smile and a shrill +piping voice said, "Very well, thank you, sir," and Peter immediately +hated him. + +Then they shook hands and their names were written in a book. The stout +gentleman said, "Well, boys, here you all are. Your first term, you +know--very important. Work and play--work and play. Work first and play +afterwards, and then we'll be friends. Oh, yes! Supper at nine. Prayers +at nine-thirty." + +They were all bundled out, and the tall man with pince-nez said: "Now, +boys, you have an hour before supper," and left them without another +word in a long dark passage. The passage was hung with greatcoats and +down each side of it were play-boxes. At the other end, mistily and +vaguely, figures passed. + +Peter sat down on one of the play-boxes and saw, to his disgust, that +the eager boy with the piping voice sat down also. + +"I say," said the piping boy, "don't you like school awfully?" + +"No, I hate it," said Peter. + +"Oh, I say! What's your name?" + +"Peter." + +"Peter! Oh! but your other name. The fellows will rag you most awfully +if you tell them your Christian name." + +"Westcott, then." + +"Mine's Cheeseman. I'm going to like everybody here and get on. I say, +shall we be chums?" + +"No." + +"Oh, I say! Why not?" + +"Because I don't like you." + +"Oh, I say!" + +"In another minute I'll break your neck." + +"Oh! I say!" The piping boy sprang up from the play-box and stood away. +"All right, you needn't be ratty about it! I'll tell the fellows you +said your name was Peter! They'll give it you." + +And the piping boy moved down the passage whistling casually. + +After this, silence, and only all the greatcoats swaying a little in the +draught and bulging out and then thinning again as though there were two +persons inside them. Peter sat quite motionless for a long time with his +face in his hands. He was very tired and very cold and very hungry. + +A crowd advanced towards him--five or six boys, and one large fat boy +was holding the piping one by the ear. + +"Oh, I say! Let me go! Let me go! I'll do your boots up, really I will. +I'll do whatever you like! Oh! I say! There's a new boy. He says his +name is Peter!" + +So did the wretched piping one endeavour to divert attention from +his own person. The fat boy, accompanied by a complacent satellite, +approached Peter. + +"Hullo, you. What's your name?" + +"Westcott." + +"'Tisn't. It's Peter." + +"Peter Westcott." + +"Well, Mr. Peter Westcott, stand up when you're spoken to by your +betters. I say, hack him up, you fellows." + +Peter was "hacked" up. + +"Now, what do you mean by not speaking when you're spoken to?" + +Peter stood square and faced him. + +"Oh! you won't speak, won't you? See if this will do it." + +Peter's arm and ear were twisted; he was also hit in the mouth. + +He was still silent. + +Some one in the back of the crowd said, "Oh, come on, you chaps--let's +leave this kid, the other fellow's more fun." + +And they passed on bearing the piping one with them. + +Peter sat down again; he was feeling sick and his head ached. He buried +his head in the greatcoat that hung above him, and cried quite silently +for a very long time. + +A bell rang, and boys ran past him, and he ran with them. He found that +it was supper and that he was sitting with the other new boys at the +bottom of the table, but he could not eat and his head was swimming. +Then there were prayers and, as he knelt on the hard floor with his head +against the form, some one stuck a pin into the soft part of his leg and +gave him great pain. + +Then at last, and all this time he had spoken to no one, upstairs +to bed. A tall, thin woman in shining black was at the head of the +stairs--she read out to the new boys the numbers of their dormitories +in a harsh, metallic voice. Peter went to his, and found it a long room +with twenty beds, twenty washing basins, and twenty chairs. + +One last incident. + +He slept and was dreaming. He was climbing the Grey Hill and Stephen was +following him, calling on him. He remembered in his dream that he had +not written Stephen the letter that he had promised, and he turned back +down the hill. Then suddenly the ground began to toss under his feet, he +cried for Stephen, he was flung into the air, he was falling.... + +He woke and found that he was lying on the floor amongst the tumbled +sheets and blankets. In the distance he could hear stifled laughter. The +terror of that awful wakening was still upon him, and he thought for a +moment that he would die because his heart would never beat again. + +Then slowly he gathered his clothes together and tried to arrange them +on the bed. He was dreadfully cold and his toes stuck out at the end of +the bed. He could not cover them. + +But, tired as he was, he dared not fall asleep again, lest there should +come once more that dreadful wakening. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DAWSON'S, THE GATE INTO HELL + + +I + +A letter from Peter to Stephen: + +_Dear, dear Steve, + +There's a noise going on and boys are throwing paper and things and +there's another boy jogging my elbows so that I can't hold my pen. Dear +Steve, I hope that you are very, very happy as I am. I am very happy +here. I am in the bottom form because my sums are so awful and my master +beat me for them yesterday but he is nothing to father. I was top in the +essay. I like football--I have a friend who is called Galion (I don't +think that is the right way to spell it. He says that it is like a +treasure-ship). He is a nice boy and Mrs. Trussit was his father's +housekeeper once; his father writes stories. There is a boy I hate +called Cheeseman, and one called Pollock. Please give my love to Mrs. +Brant, the cows, Mollie and the pigs, Mr. and Mrs. Figgis, Mr. Tan and +all my friends. Dear Steve, I love you very, very, very much. I am very +happy. + +Your loving friend, + +Peter Westcott._ + +A letter from Stephen to Peter: + +_Dear Mr. Peter, + +I have thought every day of you and I was mighty glad to get your bit +of a letter fearing that, maybe, thiccy place in Devon might have driven +your old friends out of your head. I am no hand with a pen and it is +taking me a time to write this so I will just say that I'm right glad +you're happy and that I'll greet the day I see you again, and that's +it's poor trade here without you. + +I am always, your friend, + +Stephen Brant._ + +But Peter had lied in his letter. He was not in any way happy at all. He +had lied because he knew that it would have hurt Stephen if he had +told him the truth--and the truth was something that must be met with +clenched teeth and shoulders set back. + +Taking him at the end of the first week one finds simple bewilderment +and also a conviction that silence is the best policy. He was placed in +the lowest form because of his ignorance of Latin and Mathematics, and +here every one was younger and weaker. During school hours there was +comparative peace, and he sat with perplexed brow and inky fingers, or +was sent down to the bottom for inattention. It was not inattention but +rather a complete incapacity for grasping the system on which everything +worked. Meanwhile in this first week he had earned a reputation and +made three friends, and although he did not know it that was not a bad +beginning. + +On the day after his arrival Peter, after midday dinner, standing +desolately in the playground and feeling certain that he ought to be +playing football somewhere but completely ignorant as to the place where +lists commonly hung, saw another new boy and hailed him. This boy he had +noticed before--he was shapeless of body, with big, round, good-tempered +eyes, and he moved more slowly than any one whom Peter had ever seen. +Nothing stirred him; he did not mind it when his ears were pulled or his +arms twisted, but only said slowly, "Oh, drop it!" To this wonderful boy +Peter made approach. + +"Can you tell me where the lists are for football? I ought to have been +playing yesterday only I didn't know where to look." + +The slow boy smiled. "I'm going to look myself," he said, "come on." + +And then two things happened. First sauntering down the playground there +came a boy whom Peter had noticed on that first morning in school--some +one very little older than Peter and not very much bigger, but with a +grace, a dignity, an air that was very wonderful indeed. He was a dark +boy with his hair carelessly tossed over his forehead; he was very clean +and he had beautiful hands. To Peter's rough and clumsy figure he seemed +everything that a boy should be, and, in his mind, he had called him +"Steerforth." As this boy approached there suddenly burst into view a +discordant crowd with some one in their midst. They were shouting and +laughing, and Peter could hear that some one was crying. The crowd +separated and formed a ring and danced shouting round a very small and +chubby boy who was standing crying quite desperately, with his head +buried in his arm. Every now and then the infant was knocked by one +boy in the ring into another boy's arms, and so was tossed from side to +side. + +The hopeless sound of the chubby one's crying caused Peter suddenly to +go red hot somewhere inside his chest, and like a bullet from a gun he +was into the middle of the circle. "You beasts! You beasts," he sobbed +hysterically. He began to hit wildly, with his head down, at any one +near him, and very soon there was a glorious mêlée. The crowd roared +with laughter as they flung the two small boys against one another, then +suddenly one of the circle got a wild blow in the eye from Peter's fist +and went staggering back, another was kicked in the shins, a third was +badly winded. Peter had lost all sense of place or time, of reason or +sanity; he was wild with excitement, and the pent-up emotions of the +last five days found magnificent overwhelming freedom. He did not +know whether he were hit or no, once he was down and in an instant up +again--once a face was close to his and he drove hard at the mouth--but +he was small and his arms and legs were short. Indeed it would have gone +badly with him had there not been heard, in all the roar of battle, the +mystic whisper "Binns," and in an instant, as the snow flies before the +sun, so had that gallant crowd disappeared. Only the small cause of the +disturbance and Peter remained. The tall form of a master passed slowly +down the playground, but it appeared that he had seen nothing, and he +did not speak. The small boy was gazing at Peter with wide-opened eyes, +large in a white face on which were many tear stains. Peter, who was +conscious now that blood was pouring from a cut in his cheek, that one +of his teeth was missing and that one of his eyes was fast closing, was +about to speak to him when he was aware that his "Steerforth" had sprung +from nowhere and was advancing gracefully to meet him. Peter's heart +beat very fast. + +The boy smiled at him and held out his hand. + +"I say, shake hands. You've got pluck--my eye! I never saw such a rag!" + +Peter shook hands and was speechless. + +"What's your name?" + +"Westcott." + +"Mine's Cardillac. It isn't spelt as it's spoken, you know. +C-a-r-d-i-l-l-a-c. I'm in White's--what do you say to places next each +other at table?" + +"Rather." Peter's face was crimson. "Thanks most awfully." He stammered +in his eagerness. + +"Right you are--see you after chapel." The boy moved away. + +Peter said something to the infant whom he had delivered, and was +considering where he might most unobtrusively wash when he was once more +conscious of some one at his elbow. It was the slow boy who was smiling +at him. + +"I say, you're a sight. You'd better wash, you know." + +"Yes, I was just thinking of that only I didn't quite know where to go." + +"Come with me--I'll get round Mother Gill all right. She likes me. +You've got some cheek. Prester and Banks Mi, and all sorts of fellows +were in that crowd. You landed Prester nicely." He chuckled. "What's +your name?" + +"Westcott." + +"Mine's Galleon." + +"Galleon?" Peter's eyes shone. "I say, you didn't ever have a +housekeeper called Mrs. Trussit?" + +"Trussit? Yes, rather, of course I remember, when I was awfully small." + +"Why, she's ours now! Then it must be your father who writes books!" + +"Yes, rather. He's most awfully famous!" + +Peter stopped still, his mouth open with excitement. + +Of all the amazing things! What doesn't life give you if you trust it! + + +II + +But before it became a question of individuals there is the place to be +considered. This Dawson's of twenty years ago does not exist now nor, +let us pray the Fates, are there others like it. It is not only with +bitterness that a boy whom Dawson's had formed would look back on it +but also with a dim, confused wonder that he had escaped with a straight +soul and a straight body from that Place. There were many, very many +indeed, who did not escape, and it would indeed have been better +for them all had they died before they were old enough to test its +hospitality. If any of those into whose hands this story of Peter may +fall were, by the design of God, themselves trained by the place of +which I speak, they will understand that all were not as fortunate as +Peter--and for those others there should be sympathy.... + +To Peter indeed it all came very slowly because he had known so little +before. He had not been a week in the place before there were very +many things that he was told--there were other things that he saw for +himself. + +There is, for instance, at the end of the third week, the incident of +Ferris, the Captain of the School. He was as a God in Peter's eyes, he +was greater, more wonderful than Stephen, than any one in the world. His +word was law.... + +One late afternoon Peter cleaned plates for him in his study, and Ferris +watched him. Ferris was kind and talked about many things out of his +great wisdom, and then he asked Peter whether he would always like to be +his fag, and Peter, delighted, said "Yes." + +Then Ferris smiled and spoke, dropping his voice. Three weeks earlier +Peter would not have understood, but now he understood quite well and he +went very white and broke from the room, leaving the plates where they +were--and Cheeseman became Ferris' fag-- + +This was all very puzzling and perplexing to Peter. + +But after that first evening when he had hidden his head in the +greatcoat and cried, he had shown no sign of fear and he soon found +that, on that side of Life, things became easy. He was speedily left +alone, and indeed he must have been, in spite of his small size, +something of a figure even then. + +His head was so very firm on his shoulders, his grey eyes were so +very straight, and his lip curled in a disagreeable way when he was +displeased; he was something of the bulldog, and even at this early +period the First and Second forms showed signs of meek surrender to his +leadership. But he was, of course, not happy--he was entirely miserable. +He would be happier later on when he had been able to arrange all these +puzzling certainties so different from those dazzling imaginations that +he had painted. How strange of him to have been so glad to leave Stephen +and the others--even old Curtis! What could he have thought was coming! + +He remembered as though it had been another life that Christmas Eve, the +fight, the beating, the carols.... + +And yet, with it all, with the dreariness and greyness and fierceness +and dirtiness of it all, he would not change it for those earlier +things--this was growing, this was growing up! + +He was certainly happier after his meeting with Cardillac--"Cards" as he +was always called. Here was a hero indeed! Not to displace, of course, +Stephen, who remained as a stained-glass window remains, to be looked +at and treasured and remembered--but here was a living wonder! Every +movement that Cards made was astounding, and not only Peter felt it. +Even the masters seemed to suggest that he was different from the rest +and watched him admiringly. Cards was only fourteen, but he had seen the +world. He had been with his mother (his father was dead) about Europe, +he knew London, he had been to the theatres; school, he gave them all to +understand, was an interim in the social round. He took Peter's worship +very easily and went for walks with him and talked in a wonderful way. +He admired Peter's strength. + +Peter found that Galleon--Bobby Galleon--was disappointing, not very +interesting. He had never read his father's books, and he couldn't tell +Peter very much about the great man; he was proud of him but rather +reserved. He had not many ideas about anything and indeed when he went +for a walk with Peter was usually very silent, although always in a good +temper. Cards thought Galleon very dull and never spoke to him if he +could avoid doing so, and Peter was sometimes quite angry with Galleon +because he would "turn up so" when one might have had Cards to oneself. + +Peter's main feeling about it all when half term arrived was that one +must just stand with one's back to the wall if one was to avoid being +hurt. He did not now plunge into broils to help other people; he found +that it did not in reality help them and that it only meant that he got +kicked as well as the other boy. One's life was a diligent watchfulness +with the end in view of avoiding the enemy. The enemy was to be found +in any shape and form; there was no security by night or day, but on the +whole life was safer if one spoke as little as possible and stuck to the +wall. There were Devils--most certainly Devils--roaming the world, and +as he watched the Torture and the Terror and then the very dreadful +submission, he vowed with clenched lips that he would never Submit...and +so gradually he was learning the truth of that which Frosted Moses had +spoken... + +Cornwall, meanwhile--the Grey Hill, Scaw House, the hills above +Truro--remained to him during these weeks, securely hidden. + + +III + +There remains to be chronicled of that first term only the Comber Fight +and, a little conversation, one windy day, with Galleon. The small boy, +by name Beech Minimus, whom Peter had defended on that earlier occasion, +had attached himself with unswerving fidelity to his preserver. He +was round and fat, and on his arrival had had red cheeks and sparkling +eyes--now he was pale and there were lines under his eyes; he started if +any one spoke to him, and was always eager to hide when possible. Peter +was very sorry for him, but, after a month of the term had passed he +had, himself, acquired the indifference of those that stand with their +backs to the wall. Beech would go on any kind of errand for him and +would willingly have died for him had it been required of him--he did +indeed during the hours that he was left in peace in his dormitory, +picture to himself wonderful scenes in which he saved Peter from +horrible deaths and for his own part perished. + +It may have been that he clung to Peter partly because there was more +safety in his neighbourhood, for amongst the lower school boys at any +rate, very considerable fear of Peter was to be noticed, but Beech's +large eyes raised to the other boy's face or his eager smile as he did +something that Peter required of him, spoke devotion. + +Beech Minimus was forced, however, for the good of his soul, to suffer +especial torture between the hours of eight and nine in the evening. It +was the custom that the Lower School should retire from preparation at +eight o'clock, it being supposed that at that hour the Lower School went +to bed. But Authority, blinded by trustful good nature and being engaged +at that hour with its wine and dinner, left the issue to chance and the +Gods, and human nature being what it is, the Lower School triumphed in +freedom. There was a large, empty class room at the back of the building +where much noise might safely be made, and in this place and at +this hour followed the nightly torture of Beech and his minute +companions--that torture named by the Gods, "Discipline," by the +Authorities, "Boys will be Boys," by the Parent, "Learning to be a Man," +and by the Lower School "A Rag." Beech and his companions had not as yet +a name for it. Peter was, as a rule, left to his own thoughts and +spent the hours amongst the greatcoats in the passage reading David +Copperfield or talking in whispers to Bobby Galleon. But nevertheless he +was not really indifferent, he was horribly conscious even in his sleep, +of Beech's shrill "Oh! Comber, don't! Please, Comber, oh!" and Beech +being in the same dormitory as himself he noticed, almost against his +will, that shivering little mortal as he crept into bed and cowered +beneath the sheets wondering whether before morning he would be tossed +in sheets or would find his bed drenched in water or would be beaten +with hair brushes. Peter's philosophy of standing it in silence and +hitting back if he were himself attacked was scarcely satisfactory in +Beech's case, and, again and again, his attention would be dragged away +from his book to that other room where some small boys were learning +lessons in life. + +The head of this pleasant sport was one Comber, a large, pale-faced boy, +some years older than his place in the school justified, but of a crass +stupidity, a greedy stomach and a vicious cruelty. Peter had already met +him in football and had annoyed him by collaring him violently on one +occasion, it being the boy's habit, owing to his size and reputation, to +run down the field in the Lower School game, unattacked. Peter's hatred +of him grew more intense week by week; some days after Mid-Term, it +had swollen into a passion. He finally told Bobby Galleon one day at +luncheon that on that very evening he was going to defy this Comber. +Galleon besought him not to do this, pointing out Comber's greater +strength and the natural tendency of the Lower School to follow their +leader blindly. Peter said nothing in reply but watched, when eight +o'clock had struck and the Lower School had assembled in the class room, +for his moment. It was a somewhat piteous spectacle. Comber and some +half a dozen friends in the middle of the room, and forty boys ranging +in years from eight to twelve, waiting with white faces and propitiatory +smiles, eager to assist in the Torture if they only might themselves be +spared. + +"Now you chaps," this from Comber--"we'll have a Gauntlet. I votes we +make young Beech run first." + +"Rather! Come on, Beech--you've jolly well got to." + +"Buck up, you funk!" from those relieved that they were themselves, for +the instant, safe. + +Peter was sitting on a bench at the back of the room--he stood on the +bench and shouted, "You're a beast. Comber." + +There was immediate silence--every one turned first to Comber, and then +back to Peter. Comber paused in the preparation of the string whip that +he was making, and his face was crimson. + +"Oh, it's you, you young skunk, is it? Bring him here some of you +fellows." + +Eager movements were made in his direction, but Peter, still standing on +his bench, shouted: "I claim a fight." + +There was silence again--a silence now of incredulity and amazement. +But there was nothing to be done; if any one claimed a fight, by all the +rules and traditions of Dawson's he must have it. But that Westcott, a +new boy and in the bottom form should challenge Comber! Slowly, and +as it were against their will, hearts beat a little faster, faces +brightened. Of course Westcott would be most hopelessly beaten, but +might not this prove the beginning of the end of their tyrant? + +Meanwhile, Comber between his teeth: "All right, you young devil, I'll +give you such a hiding as you damned well won't forget. Then we'll treat +you properly afterwards." + +A ring was made, and there was silence, so that the prefects might not +be attracted, because fighting in the Lower School was forbidden. Coats +were taken off and Peter faced Comber with the sensation of attacking a +mountain. Peter knew nothing about fighting at all, but Comber had long +subsisted on an easy reputation and he was a coward at heart. There +swung into Peter's brain the picture of The Bending Mule, the crowding +faces, the swinging lamp, Stephen with the sledge-hammer blow...it was +the first time for weeks that he had thought of Treliss. + +He was indifferent--he did not care; things could not be worse, and he +did not mind what happened to him, and Comber minded very much indeed, +and he had not been hit in the face for a long time. His arms went round +like windmills, and the things that he would like to have done were +to pull Peter's hair from its roots and to bite him on the arm. As the +fight proceeded and he knew that his face was bleeding and that the end +of his nose had no sensation in it at all he kicked with his feet and +was conscious of cries that he was not playing the game. Infuriated that +his recent supporters should so easily desert him, he now flung himself +upon Peter, who at once gave way beneath the bigger boy's weight. Comber +then began to bite and tear and scratch, uttering shrill screams of +rage and kicking on the floor with his feet. He was at once pulled +away, assured by those dearest friends who had so recently and merrily +assisted him in his "rags" that he was not playing the game and was no +sportsman. He was moreover a ludicrous sight, his trousers being torn, +one blue-black eye staring from a confused outline of dust and blood, +his hair amazingly on end. + +There were also many cries of "Shame, Comber," "Dirty game," and even +"Well played young Westcott!" + +He knew as he wept bitter tears into his blood-stained hands that his +reign was at an end. + +There were indeed, for the time at any rate, no more "rags," and Peter +might, an he would, have reigned magnificently over the Lower School. +But he was as silent and aloof as ever, and was considered "a sidey +devil, but jolly plucky, by Gad." + +And for himself he got at any rate the more continued companionship of +Cards, who languidly, and, perhaps a younger Sir Willoughby Patterne +"with a leg," admired his muscle. + + +IV + +Finally, towards the end of the term, Peter and Bobby Galleon may be +seen sitting on a high hill. It is a Sunday afternoon in spring, and far +away there is a thin line of faintly blue hills. Nearer to view +there are grey heights more sharply outlined and rough, like drawing +paper--painted with a green wood, a red-roofed farm, a black church +spire, and a brown ploughed field. Immediately below them a green hedge +hanging over a running stream that has caught the blue of the sky. Above +them vast swollen clouds flooding slowly with the faint yellow of the +coming sunset, hanging stationary above the stream and seeming to have +flung to earth some patches of their colour in the first primroses below +the hedge. A rabbit watches, his head out of his hole. + +The boys' voices cut the air. + +"I say, Bobby, don't you ever wonder about things--you never seem to +want to ask questions." + +"No, I don't suppose I do. I'm awfully stupid. Father says so." + +"It's funny your being stupid when your father's so clever." + +"Do you mind my being stupid?" + +"No--only I'd like you to want to know things--things like what people +are like inside--their thinking part I mean, not their real insides. +People like Mother Gill and old Binns and Prester Ma: and then what +one's going to do when one's grown up--you never want to know that." + +"No, it'll just come I suppose. Of course, I shan't be clever like the +governor." + +"No, I don't think you will." + +Once again: "Do you mind my being so stupid, Peter?" + +"No--I'm awfully stupid too. But I like to wonder about things. +There was once a man I met at home with rings and things who lived in +London...." Peter stops, Galleon wouldn't be interested in that. + +"Anyhow, you know, you've got Cards--he's an awfully clever chap." + +"Yes, he's wonderful," Peter sighs, "and he's seen such a lot of +things." + +"Yes, but you know I don't think Cards really cares for you as much as +I do." This is an approach to sentiment, and Peter brushes it hastily +aside: + +"I like you both awfully. But I say, won't it be splendid to be grown up +in London?" + +"I don't know--lots of fellows don't like it." + +"That's nothing," Peter says slowly, "to do with its not being +splendid!" + +And the rabbit, tired of listening to such tiresome stuff, thinks that +they must be very young boys indeed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A LOOKING-GLASS, A SILVER MATCH-BOX, A GLASS OF WHISKY, AND--VOX POPULI + + +I + +Peter, thirteen to sixteen!--and left, so it appears, very much the +same, as far as actual possessions go, at the end of it as at the +poverty-struck commencement. Friendship, Honour, Glory--how these +things came and went with him during these years might have a book to +themselves were it not that our business is with a wider stage and +more lasting issues--and there is but little room for a full-fledged +chronicle. Though Dawson's--and to take the history of Miss Gill +only--of her love affair with the curate, of her final desperate +appeal to him and of his ultimate confession that he was married +already--provides a story quite sufficient for three excellent volumes. +Or there is the history of Benbow, that bucolic gentleman into whose +study we led Peter a chapter or two ago, Head for this year or two of +Dawson's--soon to be head of nothing but the dung-heap and there to crow +only dismally--with a childlike Mrs. Benbow, led unwittingly to Dawson's +as a lamb to the slaughter-house--later to flee, crying, back to her +hearth and home, her life smashed to the tiniest pieces and no brain +nor strength to put it together again. Or there is the natural and +interesting progression, on the part of any child, behind whose back +those iron gates of Dawson's have swung, from innocence to knowledge, +from knowledge to practice, from practice to miserable Submission, +Concealment, and a merry prospective Hell--this is a diverting study +with which it would be easy to fill these pages.... + +But the theme is Peter's education, and Dawson's is only an incident to +that history--an incident that may be taken by the percipient reader, +for a most admirable Symbol--even an early rehearsal of a Comedy +entitled "How to Learn to be a Man, or The World as a Prancing +Ground."... + +But with Peter, if you take him from that first asking Mrs. Trussit +(swinging his short legs from the table and diving into the mixed +biscuit tin). "Is it, Mrs. Trussit, like David Copperfield?"... to his +meeting of her again, he still rather short-legged but no longer caring +over much for mixed biscuits, in his sixteenth year, with Dawson's over +and done with--"No, Mrs. Trussit, not in the least like," and grimly +said in addition, the changes, alterations and general growing-up +Development may be said to be inside him rather than out, and there they +are vital enough. + +With those three and a half years it is a case of Things sticking out, +like hillocks in a flat country, and it is retrospection rather than +impressions at the time that show what mattered and what did not. But, +on the whole, the vital things at Dawson's are pretty plain to the eye +and must be squeezed into a chapter as best they can. + +Treliss, as it appeared in the holidays, seemed to Peter to change very +little. His relations with his father were curiously passive during this +time, and suggested, in their hint of future developments, something +ominous and uneasy. They scarcely ever spoke to one another, and it +was Peter's object to avoid the house as often as possible, but in his +father's silence now (Peter himself being older and intuitively sharper +as to the reason of things) he saw active dislike, and even, at times, +a suggested fear. Outwardly they--his father, his grandfather, his +aunt, Mrs. Trussit--had changed not at all; his grandfather the same +old creature of grey hairs and cushions and rugs, his father broad and +square and white in the face with his black hair carefully brushed, his +aunt with her mittens and trembling hands and silly voice, Mrs. Trussit +with her black silk gown and stout prosperous face--Oh! they were all +there, but he fancied--and this might easily be imagination--that they, +like the portraits of the old Westcotts about the walls, watched him, +as he grew, knowing that ever, as the months passed, the day came nearer +when father and son must come to terms. And beyond this he had, even +at this early time, a consciousness that it was round his mother's room +that the whole matter hung--his mother whom he saw once or twice a week +for a very little time in the morning, when that old terror of the white +silent room would creep upon him and hold him tongue-tied. + +And yet, with it all, he knew, as every holiday came, more clearly, +that again and again they, his mother and himself, were on the verge of +speech or action. He could see it in her eyes, her beautiful grey eyes +that moved him so curiously. There were days when he was on the edge +of a rush of questions, and then something held him back--perhaps the +unconscious certainty that his mother's answers would precipitate his +relations with his father--and he was not, as yet, ready. + +Anyhow a grim place, Scaw House, grimmer with every return to it, and +not a brightly coloured interlude to Dawson's, grim enough in its own +conditions. The silence that was gradually growing with Peter--the fixed +assurance, whether at home or at school, that life was easier if one +said nothing--might have found an outlet in Stephen's company, but here +again there was no cheerful chronicle. + +Each holiday showed Peter less of Stephen than the last had done, and +he was afraid to ask himself why this was. Perhaps in reality he did +not know, but at any rate he was sure that the change was in Stephen. He +cared for Stephen as devotedly as ever, and, indeed, in that perhaps he +needed him more than ever and saw him so little, his affection was even +stronger than it had been. But Stephen had changed, not, Peter knew, +in any affection towards himself, but in his own habits and person. +Burstead--his old enemy--had taken a farm near his own farm, in order, +so they said at The Bending Mule, that he might flaunt Mrs. Burstead +(once Stephen's sweetheart) in Stephen's face. + +They also said that Burstead beat his wife and ill-used her horribly, +and that she would give all her soul now that she was Stephen Brant's +wife, but that she was a weak, silly young woman, poor thing. They said +that Stephen knew all this, and that he could hear her crying at nights, +and that it was sending him off his head--and that he was drinking. And +they shook their heads, down at The Bending Mule, and foreboded ill. +Moreover, that old lady, Mrs. Brant, had died during Peter's first +year at Dawson's, and Stephen was alone now. He had changed in his +appearance, his beard tangled and untidy, his clothes unbrushed and his +eyes wild and bloodshot, and once Peter had ventured up to Stephen's +farm and had climbed the stairs and had opened the door and had seen +Stephen (although it was early evening) sitting all naked on his bed, +very drunk and shouting wildly--and he had not recognised Peter. But the +boy knew when he met him again, sober this time, by the sad look in +his eyes, that Stephen must go his way alone now, lead him where it +would.... A boy of fifteen could not help. + +And so those holidays were more and more lonely, as the days passed and +Peter's heart was very heavy. He did not go often to The Bending Mule +now because Stephen was not there. He went once or twice to Zachary +Tan's shop, but he did not see Mr. Zanti again nor any one who spoke +of London. He had not, however, forgotten Mr. Zanti's talk of +looking-glasses. As he grew and his mind distinguished more clearly +between fact and fancy, he saw that it was foolish to suppose that +one saw anything in looking-glasses but the immediate view. Tables and +chairs, walls and windows, dust and fire-places, there was the furniture +of a looking-glass. Nevertheless during his first year at school he had, +on occasions, climbed to his dormitory, seen that he was alone and +then gazed into his glass and thought of London ... London in his +young brain, being a place of romantic fog, pantomime, oranges, fat, +chivalrous old gentlemen, Queen Victoria and Punch and Judy. Nothing +had happened--of course nothing had happened--it was only very cold and +unpleasant up there all alone, and, at the end of it, a silly thing to +do. + +And then one night something did happen. He woke suddenly and heard in +the distance beyond the deep breathing of twenty-four sleepers, a clock +strike three. He turned and lay on his back; he was very sleepy and +he did not know why he had wakened. The long high room was dark, but +directly opposite him beyond the end of his bed, the light seemed to +shine full on to the face of his looking-glass. As he sat up in bed and +looked at it seemed to stand out like a sheet of silver. + +He gripped the sides of the bed and stared. He rubbed his eyes. He could +see no reflection in the glass at all but only this shining expanse, and +then, as he looked at it, that too seemed to pass away, and in its place +at first confusedly, like smoke across the face of the glass, and then, +settling into shape and form, there appeared the interior of a room--a +small low-roofed dark room. There was a large fire burning, and in front +of it, kneeling on the floor, with their backs to Peter, were two +men, and they were thrusting papers into the fire. The glass seemed to +stretch and broaden out so that the whole of the room was visible, and +suddenly Peter saw a little window high in the top of the wall, and +behind that window was a face that watched the two men. + +He wanted to warn them--he suddenly cried out aloud "Look out!" and +with that he was wide awake and saw that his glass could be only dimly +discerned in the grey of the advancing morning--and yet he had heard +that clock strike three!... So much for confusing dreams, and so vivid +was it that in the morning he remembered the face at the window and knew +that he would recognise it again if he saw it. + + +II + +But out of the three years there stand his relations with Cards and +young Galleon, a symbol of so much that was to come to him later. As +he grew in position in the school Cards saw him continually. Cards +undoubtedly admired his stocky, determined strength, his grey eyes, his +brusque speech, his ability at games. He did not pretend also that he +was not flattered by Peter's attentions. Curiously, for so young a boy, +he had a satirical irony that showed him the world very much in the +light that he was always afterwards to see it. To Cards the world was +a show, a Vanity Fair--a place where manner, _savoir-faire_, dignity, +humour and ease, mattered everything; he saw also that there was nothing +by which people are so easily deceived. + +Peter had none of these things; he would always be rough, he would never +be elegant, and afterwards, in life, Cards did not suppose that he would +see very much of Peter, their lives would be along different paths; but +now, more genuinely perhaps than ever again, Cards was to admire that +honest bedrock of feeling, of sentiment, of criticism, of love and +anger, that gave Peter his immense value. + +"There is a fellow here," wrote Cards to his mother, "whom I like very +much. He's got a most awful lot of stuff in him although he doesn't say +much and he looks like nothing on earth sometimes. He's very good +at football, although he's only been here a year. His name is +Westcott--Peter Westcott. I expect I'll bring him back one holiday." + +But, of course, he never did. Peter, when it came to actuality, wouldn't +look right at home. It was during Peter's second year that these things +were happening, and, all this time, Peter was climbing slowly to a very +real popularity. Cards was leaving at the end of this second year--had +he stayed until the end of the third his superficialities would have +been most severely tested. + +To him Peter gave all that whole-hearted love and devotion that only +Stephen had known before. He gave it with a very considerable sense +of humour and with no sentiment at all. He saw Cards quite clearly, he +watched his poses and his elaborate pretences, and he laughed at him +sometimes and called him names. + +Cards' pride was, on several occasions, distinctly hurt by this +laughter, but his certain conviction of his own superiority always +comforted him. Nor was Peter ever sentimental in his attitude. He never +told Cards that he cared for him, and he even hung back a little when +Cards was in a demonstrative mood and wanted to be told that he was +"wonderful." Cards sometimes wondered whether Peter cared for him at +all and whether he wasn't really fonder of that "stupid ass Galleon" who +never had a word to say for himself. Peter's grey eyes would have told +Cards a great deal if he had cared to examine them, but he did not know +anything about eyes. Peter noticed, a little against his will, that +as he advanced up the school so Cards cared increasingly about him. +He grasped this discovery philosophically; after all, there were many +fellows who took their colour from the world's opinion, and it was +natural enough that they should. He himself regarded his growing +popularity as a thing of no importance whatever; it did not touch him +anywhere at all because he despised and hated the place. "When the time +does come," he said once to Cards, "and one is allowed to do things, +I'll stop a lot of this filth." + +"You'll have your work cut out," Cards told him. "What does it all +matter to us? Let 'em wallow--and they'll only hate you." + +Cards added this because he knew that Peter had a curious passion for +being liked. Cards wanted to be admired, but to be liked!... what was +the gain? But that second year was, in spite of it all, the best +time that Peter had ever had. There was warmth of a kind in their +appreciation of him. He was only fifteen and small for his age, but his +uncompromising attitude about things, his silence, his football, gave +him a surprising importance--but even now it was respect rather than +popularity. He was growing more like a bull-dog than ever, his hair was +stiff and short, rather shaggy eyebrows, a square jaw, his short legs +rather far apart, a broad back and thick strong arms. + +Now that Stephen had slipped so sadly into the background he built up +his life about Cards. He put everything into that room--not the old room +that had held Stephen, but a new shining place that gained some added +brilliance from the fact that its guest realised so little the honour +that was done him. He would lie awake at night and think about Cards, of +the things that he would do for him, of the way that he would serve him, +of the guardian that he would be. + +And then, as that summer term, at the end of the second year, wore on +the pain of Cards' departure grew daily more terrible. He didn't know, +as the days advanced, how he would be able to bear that place without +Cards. There would be no life, no interest, and all the disorganisation, +the immorality, the cruelty would oppress him as they had never +oppressed him before. Besides next year he would be a person of +some importance--he would probably be Captain of the Football and a +Monitor...everything would be terribly hard. Of course there was old +Bobby Galleon, who was a very good chap and really fond of Peter, but +there was no excitement about _that_ relationship. Bobby was quite ready +to play servant to Peter's master, and Peter could never respect any one +very much who did that. Beside Cards, so brilliant, so handsome, with +such an "air," old Bobby really didn't come off very well. + +Bobby also at times was inclined to be a little sentimental. He used +to ask Peter whether he liked him--whether he would miss him if he +died--and he used to tell Peter that he would very gladly die for him. +There were things that one didn't--if one had self-respect--say. + +That year the summer was of a blazing heat. Every morning saw a sky +of steely blue, the corn stood like a golden band about the hills, and +little clouds like the softest feathers were blown by the Gods about the +world. A mist clung about the distant hills and clothed them in purple +grey. As the term grew to its close Peter felt that the world was a +prison of coloured steel, and that Dawson's was a true Hell...he would +escape from it with Cards. And then when he saw that such an escape +would be running away and a confession of defeat--he turned back and +held his will in command. + +Cards looked upon his approaching departure as a great deliverance. +He was to be a man immediately; not for him that absurdly dilatory +condition of pimples and hobbledehoy boots that mark a transition +period. Dawson's had been the most insignificant sojourn in the tent +of the enemy, and the world, it was implied, had lamented his enforced +absence. But, as the end of term flung its shadows in front of it in the +form of examinations, and that especial quality of excited expectancy +hovering about the corridors, Cards felt, for the first time in his +existence, a genuine emotion. He minded, curiously, leaving Peter. He +felt, although in this he wrongly anticipated the gods, that he would +never see him again, and he calculated perhaps at the little piece of +real affection and friendship that stood out from the Continental Tour +that he wished Life to be, like a palm tree on the limitless desert. And +yet it was characteristic of them both that on the last day when, seated +under a hedge at the top of the playing fields, the school buildings +a grey mist below them and the air tensely rigid with heat, they said +good-bye to one another, it was Cards who found all the words. + +Peter had nothing to say at all; he only clutched at tufts of grass, +lugged them from the earth and flung them before him. But Cards, as +usual, rose to the occasion. + +"You know, Peter, it's been most splendid knowing you here. I don't +think I'd ever have got through Dawson's if it hadn't been for you. It's +a hell of a place and I suppose if the mater hadn't been abroad so much +I should never have stayed on. But it's no use making a fuss. Besides, +it's only for a little while--one will have forgotten all about it in a +year's time." + +Peter smiled. "You will, I shan't." + +"Why, of course you will. And you must come and stay with us often. My +mother's most awfully anxious to know you. Won't it be splendid going +out to join her in Italy? It'll be a bit hot this time of year I +expect." + +Peter seemed to struggle with his words. "I say--Cards--you +won't--altogether--forget me?" + +"Forget you! Why, good Lord, I'll be always writing. I'll have such lots +to tell you. I've never liked any one in all my life (this said with a +great sense of age) as I've liked you!" + +He stood up and fumbled in his coat. Peter always remembered him, his +dark slim body against the sky, his hair tumbled about his forehead, the +grace and ease with which his body was balanced, the trick that he had +of swaying a little from the hips. He felt in his pocket. + +"I say--I've got something for you. I bought it down in the town the +other day and I made them put your name on it." He produced it, wrapped +in tissue paper, out of his pocket, and Peter took it without a word. It +was a silver match-box with "Peter Westcott from his friend Cardillac," +and the month and the year printed on it. + +"Thanks most awfully," Peter said gruffly. "Jolly decent of you. +Good-bye old man." + +They shook hands and avoided each other's eyes, and Cardillac had a +sudden desire to fling the Grand Tour and the rest of it to the dogs and +to come back for another year to Dawson's. + +"Well, I must get back, got to be in library at four," he said. + +"I'm going to stop here a bit," said Peter. + +He watched Cards walk slowly down the hill and then he flung himself on +his face and pursued with a vacant eye the efforts of an ant to climb a +swaying blade of grass ... he was there for a long time. + + +III + +And so he entered into his third year at Dawson's with a dogged +determination to get through with it as well as possible and not to miss +Cards more than he could help. He did, as an actual fact, miss Cards +terribly. There were so many places, so many things that were connected +with him, but he found, as a kind of reward, that Bobby Galleon was +more of a friend than before. Now that Cards had departed Galleon came +a little out of his shell. He anticipated, obviously with very +considerable enjoyment, that year when he would have Peter all to +himself. Bobby Galleon's virtue was, at any rate, that one was not +conscious of him, and during the time of Peter's popularity he was +useful without being in the very least evident. When that year was +over and he had seen the last shining twinkle of Cards' charms and +fascinations he looked at Peter a little wistfully, "Peter, old man, +next year will be topping...." and Peter, the pleasant warmth of +popularity about him, felt that there was a great deal to be said for +Galleon after all. + + * * * * * + +But with the first week of that third year trouble began. Things lifted +between the terms, into so different an air; at the end of the summer +with Peter's authority in prospect and his splendid popularity (confined +by no jailer-like insistence on rules) around him that immediate year +seemed simple enough. But in the holidays that preceded the autumn +term something had occurred; Peter returned in the mists and damp of +September with every eye upon him. Although only fifteen and a half he +was a Monitor and Captain of the Football ... far too young for both +these posts, with fellows of a great size and a greater age in the +school, but Barbour (his nose providing, daily, a more lively guide to +his festal evenings) was seized by Peter's silence and imperturbability +in the midst of danger, "That kid's got guts" (this a vinous confidence +amongst friends) "and will pull the place up--gettin' a bit slack, yer +know--Young? Lord bless yer, no--wonderful for his age and Captain of +the Football--that's always popular." + +So upon Peter the burden of "pulling things up" descended. How far Cards +might have helped him here it is difficult to say. Cards had, in his +apparently casual contempt of that school world, a remarkably competent +sense of the direction in which straws were blowing. That most certainly +Peter had not, being inclined, at this stage of things, to go straight +for the thing that he saw and to leave the outskirts of the subject +to look after themselves. And here Bobby Galleon was of no use to him, +being as blundering and near-sighted and simple as a boy could very well +be. Moreover his implicit trust in the perfection of that hero, Peter, +did not help clarity of vision. He was never aware of the causes +of things and only dimly noticed effects, but he was unflinchingly +faithful. + +"The primrose path" was, of course, open to Peter. He was popular +enough, at the beginning of that Autumn term, to do anything, and, +had he followed the "closed-eyes" policy of his predecessor, smiling +pleasantly upon all crime and even gently with his own authority +"lending a hand," all would have been well. There were boys with +strangely simple names, simple for such criminals--Barton, Jerrard, +Watson, West, Underbill--who were old-established hands at their own +especial games, and they saw no reason at all for disturbance. "Young +Westcott had better not come meddling here," they muttered darkly, +having discerned already a tendency on his part to show disapproval. +Nothing happened during the first term--no concrete incident--but Peter +had stepped, by the end of it, from an exultant popularity to an actual +distrust and suspicion. The football season had not been very successful +and Peter had not the graces and charm of a leader. He distrusted the +revelation of enthusiasm because he was himself so enthusiastic and +his silence was mistaken for coldness. He hated the criminals with the +simple names and showed them that he hated them and they in their turn, +skilfully and with some very genuine humour, persuaded the school that +he cut a very poor figure. + +At the absurd concert that closed the Autumn term (Mr. Barbour, +red-nosed and bulging shirt-front, hilariously in the chair) Peter knew +that he had lost his throne. He had Bobby--there was no one else--and in +a sudden bitterness and scorn at the fickle colour of that esteem +that he had valued so highly he almost wished that he were altogether +alone.... Bobby only accentuated things. + +Nothing to go home to--nothing to come back to. The Christmas holidays +over he returned to the Easter term with an eager determination to +improve matters. + +It was geniality that he lacked: he knew that that was the matter with +him, and he felt a kind of despair about it because he seemed to return +at the end of every holiday from Cornwall with that old conviction in +his head that the easiest way to get through the world was to stand +with your back to the wall and say nothing ... and if these fellows, who +thought him so pleasant last year, thought him pleasant no longer, well, +then he must put up with it. He had not changed--there he was, as ever. + +But the Easter term was a chronicle of mistakes. He could not be genial +to people who defied and mocked him; he found, dangerously, that they +could all be afraid of him. When his face was white and his voice very +quiet and his whole body tense like a bow, then they feared him--the +biggest and strongest of those criminals obeyed. He was sixteen now +and he could when he liked rule them all, and gradually, as the term +advanced, he used his strength more and more and was more and more +alone. Days would come when he would hate his loneliness and would rush +out of it with friendly advances and always he would be beaten back into +his reserve again. Had only Cards been there!... But what side would +Cards have taken? Perhaps Peter was fortunate in that the test was not +demanded. Poor Bobby simply did not understand it at all. Peter! the +most splendid fellow in the world! What were they all up to? But that +point of view did not help matters. No other monitor spoke to Peter now +if he could help it, and even the masters, judging that where there was +smoke there must be fire, passed him coldly. That Easter term, in the +late winds and rains of March, closed hideously. The Easter holidays, +although perhaps he did not realise it, were a deliberate backing for +the ordeal that was, he knew, to come. + +He faced it on his return almost humorously, prepared, with a +self-consciousness that was unusual in him, for all the worst things, +and it is true enough that they were as bad as they could be. Bobby +Galleon shared in it all, of course, but he had never been a popular +person and he did not miss anything so long as there was Peter. Once he +said, as Cards had said before: + +"Leave 'em alone, Peter. After all, we can't do anything. They're too +many for us, and, most important thing of all, they aren't worth it." + +"Not much," said Peter, "things have got to be different." + +Things were not different. They _were_ too many for him, but he +struggled on. The more open bullying he stopped, and there were other +things that he drove into dark corners. But they remained there--in +those corners. There were so many dark places at Dawson's, and it began +to get on his brain so that he heard whispers and suspicions and marked +the trail of the beast at every minute of the day. He could find nothing +now in the open--they were too clever for him. The Captain of the +Citadel--Ellershaw--was as he knew the worst fellow in the school, but +there was nothing to be done, nothing unless something were caught in +the open. As the term advanced the whispers grew and he felt that there +were plots in the air. He was obeyed, Ellershaw and some of the others +were politer than they had ever been, and for many weeks now there had +been no disturbance--then suddenly the storm broke. + +One hot afternoon he was sitting in his study alone, trying to read. +Things seemed to him that day at their very worst, there was no place to +which he might turn. People were playing cricket beyond his window. Some +fly buzzed on his window pane, the sunlight was golden about his room +and little ladders of dust twisted and curved against the glare--the +house was very still. Then suddenly, from a neighbouring study, there +were sounds. At first they did not penetrate his day dream, then they +caught his ear and he put his book down and listened. The sounds were +muffled; there was laughter and then some one cried out. + +He knew that it was Jerrard's study and he hated Jerrard more than any +one in the school. The fellow was a huge stupid oaf, low down in the +middle fourth, but the best bowler that the school had; yes, he hated +him. He opened his study door and listened. The passage was deserted, +and, for a moment, there was no sound save some one shouting down in +the cricket field and the buzzing of the fly on the pane. Then he heard +voices from behind Jerrard's door. + +"No, I say--Jerrard--don't give me any more--please ... please don't." + +"There I say--hold his mouth open; that's right, pour it down. We'll +have him singing in a moment." + +"Oh I say--" there were sounds of a struggle and then silence again. At +last there began the most horrible laughter that Peter had ever known; +weak, silly, giggling, and little excited cries. + +Then Jerrard's voice: "There, that will do; he's merry enough now." + +Peter waited for no more, but strode across the passage and flung open +the door. Some chairs were overturned; Jerrard and a friend, hearing the +door open, had turned round. Leaning against the table, very flushed, +his eyes shining, his hair covered with dust, waving his arms and +singing in a quivering voice, was a small boy, very drunk. A glass and a +whisky bottle were on the table. + +"You damned hound!" Peter was trembling from head to foot. "You shall +get kicked out for this." + +Peter closed the door quietly behind him, and went back to his study. +Here at last was the moment for which he had been waiting. Jerrard +should be expelled if he, Peter, died in the attempt. Jerrard was the +school's best bowler; he was immensely popular ... it would, indeed, be +a matter of life and death. On that same evening he called a meeting +of the Monitors; they were bound to meet if one of their number had +anything of sufficient importance to declare, but they came reluctantly +and showed Peter that they resented his action. When they heard what +Peter had to say their attitude was even more mutinous. Jerrard, the +school's best bowler, was their one thought. The end of the term was at +hand, and the great match of the year against Radford, a neighbouring +school, approached. Without Jerrard Dawson's would be hopelessly +defeated. If Barbour heard of the incident Jerrard would be expelled; +Barbour might be reluctant to act, but act he must. They were not, by +an absurd and ancient rule, allowed to punish any grave offence without +reporting it to the head-master. If, therefore, they took any action at +all, it must be reported, Jerrard would be expelled, a boon companion +and the great cricket match of the year, would be lost. And all this +through that interfering prig of a Westcott! Any ordinary fellow would +have shut his eyes to the whole affair. After all what is there to make +a fuss about in having a rag with a kid? What are kids for? Thus the +conclave sourly regarding Peter who watched them in turn, and sat +sternly, ominously militant. They approached him with courtesy; +Ellershaw showed him what this might mean to the school were it +persisted in. After all, Jerrard was, in all probability, sorry enough +... it was a rotten thing to do--he should apologise to them. No, Peter +would have none of it, they must 'act; it must be reported to the Head. +He would, if necessary, report it himself. + +Then they turned and cursed him, asking him whom he thought that he was, +warned him about the way that the school would take his interference +when the school knew, advised him for his own good to drop the matter; +Peter was unmoved. + +Barbour was informed; Jerrard was expelled--the school was beaten in the +cricket match by an innings. + +Then the storm broke. Peter moved, with Bobby Galleon, through a +cloud of enemies. It was a hostility that cut like a knife, silent, +motionless, but so bitter that every boy from Ellershaw to the tiniest +infant at the bottom of the first took it as the _motif_ of his day. +That beast Westcott was the song that rang through the last fortnight. + +Bobby Galleon was cowed by it; he did not mind his own ostracism, and +he was proud that he could give practical effect to his devotion for his +friend, but deep down in his loyalty, there was an unconfessed suspicion +as to whether Peter, after all, hadn't been a little unwise and +interfering--what was the good of making all this trouble? He even +wondered whether Peter didn't rather enjoy it? + +And Peter, for the first time in his school life, was happy. There +was something after all in being up against all these people. He was a +general fighting against tremendous odds. He would show them next year +that they must obey. + +On the last afternoon of the term he sat alone in his study. Bobby was +with the matron, packing. He was conscious, as he sat there, of the +sound of many feet shuffling. There were many whispers beyond his door, +and yet a great silence. + +He waited for a little, and then he opened his door and looked out. As +he did so the bell for roll-call rang through the building, and he knew +that it was his roll. + +Afternoon roll-call was always taken in the gymnasium, a large empty +room beyond the study passage, and it was the custom for boys to come up +as their name was about to be called and thus to pass on. + +But to-day he saw that the whole of the school was gathered there, along +the dusky passage and packed, in a silent motionless throng, into the +gymnasium. + +He knew that they were all there with a purpose, and suddenly as he +realised the insult that they intended, that spirit of exultation came +upon him again. Ah! it was worth while, this battle! + +They made way in silence as he passed quietly to the other end of the +gymnasium and stood, a little above them, on the steps that led to the +gallery. He started the roll-call with the head of the school and the +sixth form ... there was no answer to any name; only perfect silence and +every eye fixed upon him. For a wild moment he wished to burst out upon +them, to crash their heads together, to hurt--then his self-control +returned. Very quietly and clearly he read through the school list, a +faint smile on his lips. Bobby Galleon was the only boy, out of three +hundred, who answered. + +When he had finished he called out as was the custom, "Roll is over," +then for a brief instant, with the list in his hand, smiling, he faced +them all. Every eye was upon him--Ellershaw, West, Barton smiling +a little, some faces nervous, some excited, all bitterly, intensely +hostile ... and he must return next year! + +He came down from the steps and walked very slowly to the door, and then +as his fingers touched the handle there was a sound--a whisper, very +soft and then louder; it grew about his ear like a shot ... the whole +school, motionless as before, was hissing him. + +There was no word spoken, and he closed the door behind him. + + +IV + +That same night he walked, before chapel, with Bobby to the top of +the playing fields. The night was dark and heavy, with no moon nor +stars--but there was a cool wind that touched his cheek. + +"Well, I've been a pretty good failure, Bobby. You've stuck to me like +a brick. I shall never forget it.... But you know never in all my life +have I been as happy as I was this afternoon. The devils! I'll have 'em +under next year." + +"That's not the way--" Bobby tried timorously to explain. + +"Oh, yes, it is.... Anyhow it's my way. I wonder what there is about me +that makes people hate me so." + +"People don't." + +"Yes, they do. At home, here--it's all the same. I'm always having to +fight about something, always coming up against things." + +"I suppose it's your destiny," said Bobby. "You always say it's to teach +you pluck." + +"That's what an old chap I knew in Cornwall said. But why can't I be let +alone? How I loved that bit last year when the fellows liked me--only +the decent things never last." + +"It'll be all right later," Bobby answered, thinking that he had never +seen anything finer than the way Peter had taken that afternoon. "In a +way," he went on, "you fellows are lucky to get a chance of standing +up against that sort of thing; it's damned good practice. Nobody ever +thinks I'm worth while." + +"Well," said Peter, throwing a clod of dark, scented earth into the +air and losing sight of it in the black wall about him--"Here's to next +year's battle!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +PRIDE OF LIFE + + +I + +Peter never saw Dawson's again. When the summer holidays had run some +three weeks a letter arrived stating, quite simply and tersely that, +owing to the non-payment by evading parents of bills long overdue and to +many other depressing and unavoidable circumstances Mr. Barbour and that +House of Cards, his school, had fallen to pieces. There at any rate was +an end to that disastrous accumulation of brick and mortar, and the harm +that, living, it had wrought upon the souls and bodies of its victims +its dying could not excuse. No tears were shed for Dawson's. + +Peter, at the news, knew that now his battle never could be won. That +battle at any rate must be left behind him with his defeat written large +upon the plain of it, and this made in some unrealised way the penalty +of the future months harder to bear. He had, behind him, defeat. Look at +it as he might, he had been a failure at Dawson's--he had not done the +things that he had been put there to do--and yet through the disaster he +knew that in so far as he had refused to bend to the storm so far there +had been victory; of that at any rate he was sure. + +So he turned resolutely from the past and faced the future. It was +as though suddenly Dawson's had never existed--a dream, a fantasy, a +delirium--something that had left no external things behind it and had +only in the effect that it had worked upon himself spiritually made its +mark. He faced his House.... + +Scaw House had seemed to him, during these last three years, merely an +interlude at Dawson's. There had been hurried holidays that had been +spent in recovering from and preparing for the term and the House had +scarcely, and only very quietly, raised its head to disturb him. He had +not been disturbed--he had had other things to think about--and now he +was very greatly disturbed indeed; that was the first difference that +he consciously realised. The disturbance lay, of course, partly in the +presence of his father and in the sense that he had had growing upon +him, during the last two years, that their relationship, the one to the +other, would, suddenly, one fine day, spring into acute emotion. They +were approaching one another gradually as in a room whose walls were +slowly closing. "Face to face--and then body to body--at last, soul to +soul!" + +He did not, he thought, actively hate his father; his father did not +actively hate him, but hate might spring up at any moment between them, +and Peter, although he was only sixteen, was no longer a child. But the +feeling of apprehension that Scaw House gave him was caused by wider +influences than his father. Three years at Dawson's had given Peter an +acute sense of expecting things, it might be defined as "the glance over +the shoulder to see who followed"--some one was always following at Scaw +House. He saw in this how closely life was bound together, because +every little moment at Dawson's contributed to his present active fear. +Dawson's explained Scaw House to Peter. And yet this was all morbidity +and Peter, square, broad-shouldered, had no scrap of morbidity in his +clean body. He did not await the future with the shaking candle of the +suddenly awakened coward, but rather with the planted feet and the bared +teeth of the bull-dog.... + +He watched the faces of his father, his aunt and Mrs. Trussit. He +observed the frightened dreams of his grandfather, the way that old +Curtis the gardener would suddenly cease his fugitive digging and glance +with furtive eyes at the windows of the house; about them were the dark +shadows of the long passages, the sharp note of some banging door in a +distant room, the wail of that endless wind beyond the walls. He felt +too that Mrs. Trussit and his aunt were furtively watching him. He never +caught them in anything tangible but he knew that, when his back was +turned, their eyes followed him--questioning, wondering. + +Something must be done or he could not answer for his control. If he +were not to return to Dawson's, what then? + +It was his seventeenth birthday one hot day towards the end of August, +and at breakfast his father, without looking up from his paper, said: + +"I have made arrangements for you with Mr. Aitchinson to enter his +office next week. You'll have to work--you've been idling long enough." + +The windows were wide open, the lawn was burning in the sun, bees +carried the scent of the flowers with them into the air that hung like +shining metal about the earth, a cart rattled as though it were a giant +clattering his pleasure at the day down the road. It was a wonderful day +and somewhere streams were flowing under dark protecting trees, and the +grass was thick in cool hollows and the woods were so dense that no +blue sky reached the moss, but only the softest twilight ... and +old Aitchinson, the town's solicitor, with his nutcracker face, his +snuffling nose, his false teeth--and the tightly-closed office, the +piles of paper, the ink, the silly view from the dusty windows of +Treliss High Street--and life always in the future to be like that until +he died. + +But Peter showed no emotion. + +"Very well, father--What day do I go?" + +"Monday--nine o'clock." + +Nothing more was said. At any rate Aitchinson and his red tape and +his moral dust would fill the day--no time then to dwell on these dark +passages and Mrs. Trussit's frightened eyes and the startled jump of the +marble clock in the dining-room just before it struck the hour.... + + +II + +And so for weeks it proved. Aitchinson demanded no serious +consideration. He was a hideous little man with eyes like pins, shaggy +eyebrows, a nose that swelled at the end and was pinched by the sharpest +of pince-nez, cheeks that hung white and loose except when he was hungry +or angry, and then they were tight and red, a little body rather dandily +dressed with a flowered waistcoat, a white stock, a skirted coat and +pepper-and-salt trousers--and last of all, tiny feet, of which he +was inordinately proud and with which, like Agag, he always walked +delicately. He had a high falsetto voice, fingers that were always +picking, like eager hens, at the buttons on his waistcoat or the little +waxed moustache above his mouth, and hair that occupied its time in +covering a bald patch that always escaped every design upon it. So much +for Mr. Aitchinson. Let him be flattered sufficiently and Peter saw +that his way would be easy. The wizened little creature had, moreover, +a certain admiration for Peter's strength and broad shoulders and used +sometimes in the middle of the morning's work to ask Peter how much +he weighed, whether he'd ever considered taking up prize-fighting as a +profession, and how much he measured across the chest. + +There were two other youths, articled like Peter, stupid sons of honest +Treliss householders, with high collars, faces that shone with soap and +hair that glistened with oil, languid voices and a perpetual fund of +small talk about the ladies of the town, moral and otherwise. Peter did +not like them and they did not like Peter. One day, because he was +tired and unhappy, he knocked their heads together, and they plotted to +destroy him, but they were afraid, and secretly admired what they called +his coarse habits. + +The Summer stole away and Autumn crept into its place, and at the end +of October something occurred. Something suddenly happened at Scaw +House that made action imperative, and filled his brain all day so that +Aitchinson's office and his work there was only a dream and the people +in it were shadows. He had heard his mother crying from behind her +closed door.... + +He had been coming, on a wet autumnal afternoon, down the dark stairs +from his attic and suddenly at the other end of the long passage there +had been this sound, so sudden and so pitiful coming upon that dreary +stillness that he had stopped with his hands clenched and his face white +and his heart beating like a knock on a door. Instantly all those +many little moments that he had had in that white room with that +heavy-scented air crowded upon him and he remembered the smile that she +had always given him and the way that her hair lay so tragically about +the pillow. He had always been frightened and eager to escape; he felt +suddenly so deeply ashamed that the crimson flooded his face there in +the dark passage. She had wanted him all these years and he had allowed +those other people to prevent him from going to her. What had been +happening to her in that room? The sound of her crying came to him as +though beseeching him to come and help her. He put his hands to his +ears and went desperately into the dark wet garden. He knew now when he +thought of it, that his behaviour to his mother had been, during these +months since he had left Dawson's, an unconscious cowardice. Whilst he +had been yet at school those little five minutes' visits to his mother's +room might have been excused, but during these last months there had +been, with regard to her, in his conscience, if he had cared to examine +it, sharp accusation. + +The defence that she did not really want to see him, that his presence +might bring on some bad attack, might excite her, was no real defence. +He had postponed an interview with her from day to day because he +realised that that interview would strike into flame all the slumbering +relations that that household held. It would fling them all, as though +from a preconcerted signal, into war.... + +But now there could be only one thought in his mind. He must see his +mother--if he could still help her he must be at her service. There was +no one whom he could ask about her. Mrs. Trussit now never spoke to him +(and indeed never spoke to any one if she could help it), and went +up and down the stairs in her rustling black and flat white face and +jingling keys as though she was no human being at all but only a walking +automaton that you wound up in the morning and put away in the cupboard +at night--Mrs. Trussit was of no use. + +There remained Stephen, and this decided Peter to break through that +barrier that there was between them and to find out why it had ever +existed. He had not seen Stephen that summer at all--no one saw +Stephen--only at The Bending Mule they shook their heads over him and +spoke of the wild devil that had come upon him because the woman he +loved was being tortured to death by her husband only a mile away. He +was drinking, they said, and his farm was going to ruin, and he +would speak to nobody--and they shook their heads. It was not through +cowardice that Peter had avoided him, but since those three years at +Dawson's he had been lonely and silent himself, and Stephen had never +sent for him as he would have done, Peter thought, if he had wanted him. +Now the time had come when he could stand alone no longer.... + +He slipped away one night after supper, leaving that quiet room with his +aunt playing Patience at the table, his old grandfather mumbling in his +sleep, his father like a stone, staring at his paper but not, Peter was +sure, reading any of it. + +Mrs. Trussit, silent before the fire in her room, his aunt not seeing +the cards that she laid upon the table, his father not reading his +paper--for what were they all listening? + +It was a fierce night and the wind rushed up the high road as though it +would tear Peter off his feet and fling him into the sea, but he walked +sturdily, no cap on his head and the wind streaming through his hair. +Some way along the road he found a child crying in a ditch. He loved +children, and, picking the small boy up, he found that he had been sent +for beer to the Cap and Feathers, at the turn of the road, and been +blown by the wind into the ditch and was almost dead with terror. At +first at the sight of Peter the child had cried out, but at the touch +of his warm hand and at the sound of his laugh he had been suddenly +comforted, and trotted down the road with his hand in Peter's and his +tears dried. + +Peter's way with the children of the place was sharp and entirely +lacking in sentiment--"Little idiot, to fall into the ditch like +that--not much of the man about you, young Thomas." + +"Isn't Thomas," said the small boy with a chuckle, "I be Jan Proteroe, +and I beant afeart only gert beast come out of hedge down along with +eyes and a tail--gum!" + +He would have told Peter a great deal more but he was suddenly +frightened again by the dark hedges and began to whimper, so Peter +picked him up and carried him to his cottage at the end of the road and +kissed him and pushed him in at the lighted door. He was cheered by the +little incident and felt less lonely. At the thought of making Stephen +once more his friend his heart warmed. Stephen had been wanting him, +perhaps, all this time to come to him but had been afraid that he might +be interfering if he asked him--and how glad they would be to see one +another! + +After all, they needed one another. They had both had hard times, they +were both lonely and no distance nor circumstances could lessen that +early bond that there had been between them. Happier than he had been +for many weeks, he struck off the road and started across the fields, +stumbling over the rough soil and plunging sometimes into ditches and +pools of water. The rain had begun to fall and the whispering hiss that +it made as it struck the earth drowned the more distant noise of the sea +that solemnly broke beyond the bending fields. Stephen's farm stood +away from all other houses, and Peter as he pressed forward seemed to +be leaving all civilisation behind him. He was cold and his boots were +heavy with thick wet mud and his hair was soaked. + +Beyond the fields was a wood through which he must pass before he +reached Stephen's farm, and as the trees closed about him and he heard +the rain driving through the bare branches the world seemed to be +full of chattering noises. The confidence that he had had in Stephen's +reception of him suddenly deserted him and a cold miserable unhappiness +crept about him in this wet, heaving world of wind and rain and bare +naked trees. Like a great cry there seemed to come suddenly to him +through the wood his mother's voice appealing for help, so that he +nearly turned, running back. It was a hard, cruel place this world--and +all the little ditches and hollows of the wood were running with brown, +stealthy water. + +He broke through it at last and saw at the bottom of the hill Stephen's +house, and he saw that there were no lights in the windows. He stood +on the breast of the little hill for a moment and thought that he would +turn back, but it was raining now with great heaviness and the wind at +his back seemed to beat him down the hill. Suddenly seized with terror +at the wood behind him, he ran stumbling down the slope. He undid the +gate and pitched into the yard, plunging into great pools of water and +seeing on every side of him the uncertain shapes of the barns and sheds +and opposite him the great dark front of the house, so black in its +unfriendliness, sharing in the night's rough hostility. + +He shouted "Stephen," but his voice was drowned by the storm and the +gate behind him, creaking on its hinges, answered him with shrill cries. +He found the little wicket that led into the garden, and, stepping over +the heavy wet grass, he banged loudly with the knocker on the door and +called again "Stephen." The noise echoed through the house and then the +silence seemed to be redoubled. Then pushing the great knocker, he found +to his surprise that the door was unfastened and swung back before +him. He felt his way into the dark hall and struck a match. He shouted +"Stephen" once more and his voice came echoing back to him. The place +seemed to be entirely deserted--the walls were wet with damp, there were +no carpets on the floor, a window at the end of the passage showed its +uncurtained square. + +He passed into the kitchen, and here he found two candles and lighted +them. Here also he found signs of life. On the bare deal table was a +half-finished meal--a loaf of bread, cheese, butter, an empty whisky +bottle lying on its side. Near these things there was a table, and on +the floor, beside an overturned chair, there was a gun. Peter picked it +up and saw that it was unloaded. There was something terribly desolate +about these things; the room was very bare, a grandfather clock ticked +solemnly in the corner, there were a few plates and cups on the dresser, +an old calendar hung from a dusty nail and, blown by the wind from the +cracked window, tip-tapped like a stealthy footstep against the wall. +But Peter felt curiously certain that Stephen was going to return; +something held him in his chair and he sat there, with his hands on the +deal table, facing the clock and listening. The wind howled beyond the +house, the rain lashed the panes, and suddenly--so suddenly that his +heart leapt to his mouth--there was a scratching on the door. He went +to the door and opened it and found outside a wretched sheep-dog, so +starved that the bones showed through the skin, and so weak that he +could scarcely drag himself along. Peter let him in and the animal came +up to him and looked up in his eyes and, very faintly, wagged his tail. +Peter gave him the bread, which the dog devoured, and then they both +remained silent, without moving, the dog's head between Peter's knees. + +The boy must have slept, because he woke suddenly to all the clocks in +the house striking midnight, and in the silence the house seemed to be +full of clocks. They came running down the stairs and up and down the +passages and then, with a whir and a clatter, ceased as instantly as +they had begun. + +The house was silent again--the storm had died down--and then the dog +that had been sleeping suddenly raised its head and barked. Somewhere +in the distance a door was banged to, and then Peter heard a voice, a +tremendous voice, singing. + +There were heavy steps along the passage, then the kitchen door was +banged open and Stephen stood in the doorway. Stephen's shirt was +open at the neck, his hair waved wildly over his forehead, he stood, +enormous, with his legs apart, his eyes shining, blood coming from a cut +in his cheek, and in one of his hands was a thick cudgel. Standing there +in the doorway, he might have been some ancient Hercules, some mighty +Achilles. + +He saw Peter, recognised him, but continued a kind of triumphal hymn +that he was singing. + +"Ho, Master Peter, I've beat him! I've battered his bloody carcass! I +came along and I looked in at the winder and I saw 'im a ill-treatin' of +'er. + +"I left the winder, I broke the glass, I was down upon 'im, the dirty +'ound, and"--(chorus)--"I've battered 'is bloody carcass! Praise be the +Lord, I got 'im one between the eyes--" + +"Praise be, I 'it him square in the jaw and the blood came a-pourin' out +of his mouth and down 'e went, and-- + +(Chorus) "I've battered 'is bloody carcass-- + +"There she was, cryin' in the corner of the room, my lovely girl, and +there 'e was, blast 'is bones, with 'is 'and on her lovely 'air, and-- + +(Chorus) "I've battered 'is bloody carcass. + +"I got 'im one on the neck and I got 'im one between 'is lovely eyes and +I got 'im one on 'is lovely nose, and 'e went down straight afore me, +and-- + +(Chorus) "I've battered 'is bloody carcass!" + +Peter knew that it must be Mr. Samuel Burstead to whom Stephen was +referring, and he too, as he listened, was suddenly filled with a sense +of glory and exultation. Here after all was a way out of all trouble, +all this half-seen, half-imagined terror of the past weeks. Here too +was an end to all Stephen's morbid condition, sitting alone by himself, +drinking, seeing no one--now that he'd got Burstead between the eyes +life would be a vigorous, decent thing once more. + +Stephen stopped his hymn and came and put his arm round Peter's neck. +"Well, boy, to think of you coming round this evening. All these months +I've been sittin' 'ere thinking of you--but I've been in a nasty, black +state, Master Peter, doing nothing but just brood. And the devils got +thicker and thicker about me and I was just going off my head thinking +of my girl in the 'ands of that beast up along. At last to-night I +suddenly says, 'Stephen, my fine feller, you've 'ad enough of this,' I +says. 'You go up and 'ave a good knock at 'im,' I says, 'and to-morrer +marnin' you just go off to another bit o' country and start doin' +something different.' Up I got and I caught hold of this stick here and +out up along I walked. Sure enough there 'e was, through the winder, +bullyin' her and she crying. So I just jumped through the winder and was +up on to 'im. Lord, you should 'ave seen 'im jump. + +"'Fair fight, Sam Burstead,' I says. + +"'Yer bloody pirate!' says 'e. + +"'Pirate, is it?' says I, landing him one--and at that first feel of my +'and along o' 'is cheek all these devils that I've been sufferin' from +just turned tail and fled. + +"Lord, I give it 'im! Lord, I give it 'im! + +"He's living, I reckon, but that's about all 'e is doing. And then, +without a word to 'er, I come away, and here I am, a free man ... and +to-morrer marning I go out to tramp the world a bit--and to come back +one day when she wants me." + +And then in Peter there suddenly leapt to life a sense of battle, of +glorious combat and conflict. + +As he stood there in the bare kitchen--he and Stephen there under the +light of the jumping candle--with the rain beating on the panes, +the trees of the wood bending to the wind, he was seized, exalted, +transformed with a sense of the vigour, the adventure, the surprising +energy of life. + +"Stephen! Stephen!" he cried. "It's glorious! By God! I wish I'd been +there!" + +Stephen caught him by the arm and held him. The old dog came from under +the table and wagged his tail. + +"Bless my soul," said Stephen, looking at him, "all these weeks I've +been forgetting him. I've been in a kind of dream, boy--a kind o' dream. +Why didn't I 'it 'im before? Lord, why didn't I 'it 'im before!" + +Peter at the word thought of his mother. + +"Yes," he thought, with clenched teeth, "I'll go for them!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PETER AND HIS MOTHER + + +I + +He had returned over the heavy fields, singing to a round-faced moon. +In the morning, when he woke after a night of glorious fantastic dreams, +and saw the sun beating very brightly across his carpet and birds +singing beyond his window, he felt still that same exultation. + +It seemed to him, as he sat on his bed, with the sun striking his +face, that last night he had been brought into touch with a vigour +that challenged all the mists and vapours by which he had felt himself +surrounded. That was the way that now he would face them. + +Looking back afterwards, he was to see that that evening with Stephen +flung him on to all the events that so rapidly followed. + +Moreover, above all the sensation of the evening there was also a +triumphant recognition of the fact that Stephen had now been restored to +him. He might never see him again, but they were friends once more, he +could not be lonely now as he had been.... + +And then, coming out of the town into the dark street and the starlight, +he thought that he recognised a square form walking before him. He +puzzled his brain to recall the connection and then, as he passed +Zachary Tan's shop, the figure turned in and showed, for a moment, his +face. + +It was that strange man from London, Mr. Emilio Zanti.... + + +II + +It seemed to Peter that now at Scaw House the sense of expectation +that had been with them all during the last weeks was charged with +suspense--at supper that night his aunt burst suddenly into tears and +left the room. Shortly afterwards his father also, without a word, got +up from the table and went upstairs.... + +Peter was left alone with his grandfather. The old man, sunk beneath his +pile of cushions, his brown skinny hand clenching and unclenching above +the rugs, was muttering to himself. In Peter himself, as he stood there +by the fire, looking down on the old man, there was tremendous pity. +He had never felt so tenderly towards his grandfather before; it was, +perhaps, because he had himself grown up all in a day. Last night had +proved that one was grown up indeed, although one was but seventeen. But +it proved to him still more that the time had come for him to deal with +the situation all about him, to discover the thing that was occupying +them all so deeply. + +Peter bent down to the cushions. + +"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?" + +He could hear, faintly, beneath the rugs something about "hell" and +"fire" and "poor old man." + +"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?" but still only "Poor +old man ... poor old man ... nobody loves him ... nobody loves him ... +to hell with the lot of 'em ... let 'em grizzle in hell fire ... oh! +such nasty pains for a poor old man." + +"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?" + +The old brown hand suddenly stopped clenching and unclenching, and +out from the cushions the old brown head with its few hairs and its +parchment face poked like a withered jack-in-the-box. + +"Hullo, boy, you here?" + +"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?" + +The old man's fingers, sharp like pins, drew Peter close to him. + +"Boy, I'm terribly frightened. I've been having such dreams. I thought I +was dead--in a coffin...." + +But Peter whispered in his ear: + +"Grandfather--tell me--what's the matter with every one here?" + +The old man's eyes were suddenly sharp, like needles. + +"Ah, he wants to know that, does he? He's found out something at last, +has he? _I_ know what they were about. They've been at it in here, boy, +too. Oh, yes! for weeks and weeks--killing your mother, that's what my +son's been doing ... frightening her to death.... He's cruel, my son. I +had the Devil once, and now he's got hold of me and that's why I'm here. +Mind you, boy," and the old man's ringers clutched him very tightly--"if +you don't get the better of the Devil you'll be just like me one of +these days. So'll he be, my son, one day. Just like me--and then it'll +be your turn, my boy. Oh, they Westcotts!... Oh! my pains! Oh! my +pains!... Oh! I'm a poor old man!--poor old man!" + +His head sunk beneath the cushions again and his muttering died away +like a kettle when the lid has been put on to it. + +Peter had been kneeling so as to catch his grandfather's words. Now he +drew himself up and with frowning brows faced the room. Had he but known +it he was at that moment exactly like his father. + +He went slowly up to his attic. + +His little book-case had gained in the last two years--there were now +three of Henry Galleon's novels there. Bobby had given him one, "Henry +Lessingham," shining bravely in its red and gold; he had bought another, +"The Downs," second hand, and it was rather tattered and well thumbed. +Another, "The Roads," was a shilling paper copy. He had read these three +again and again until he knew them by heart, almost word by word. He +took down "Henry Lessingham" now and opened it at a page that was turned +down. It is Book III, chapter VI, and there is this passage: + + _But, concerning the Traveller who would enter the House of + Courage there are many lands that must be passed on the road + before he rest there. There is, first, the Land of Lacking All + Things--that is hard to cross. There is, Secondly, the Land of + Having All Things. There is the Traveller's Fortitude most hardly + tested. There is, Thirdly, The Land of Losing All Those Things + that One Hath Possessed. That is a hard country indeed for the + memory of the pleasantness of those earlier joys redoubleth the + agony of lacking them. But at the end there is a Land of ice and + snow that few travellers have compassed, and that is the Land of + Knowing What One Hath Missed.... The Bird was in the hand and one + let it go ... that is the hardest agony of all the journey ... but + if these lands be encountered and surpassed then doth the Traveller + at length possess his soul and is master of it ... this is the + Meaning and Purpose of Life._ + +Peter read on through those pages where Lessingham, having found these +words in some old book, takes courage after his many misadventures and +starts again life--an old man, seventy years of age, but full of hope +... and then there is his wonderful death in the Plague City, closing it +all like a Triumph. + +The night had come down upon the house. Over the moor some twinkling +light broke the black darkness and his candle blew in the wind. +Everything was very still and as he clutched his book in his hand he +knew that he was frightened. His grandfather's words had filled him +with terror. He felt not only that his father was cruel and had been +torturing his mother for many years because he loved to hurt, but he +felt also that it was something in the blood, and that it would come +upon him also, in later years, and that he might not be able to beat it +down. He could understand definite things when they were tangible +before his eyes but here was something that one could not catch hold of, +something.... + +After all, he was very young--But he remembered, with bated breath, +times at school when he had suddenly wanted to twist arms, to break +things, to hurt, when suddenly a fierce hot pleasure had come upon him, +when a boy had had his leg broken at football. + +Dropping the book, shuddering, he fell upon his knees and prayed to what +God he knew not.... "Then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul +and is master of it ... this is the meaning and purpose of life." + +At last he rose from his knees, physically tired, as though it had been +some physical struggle. But he was quiet again ... the terror had left +him, but he knew now with what beasts he had got to wrestle.... + +At supper that night he watched his father. Curiously, after his +struggle of the afternoon, all terror had left him and he felt as though +he was of his father's age and strength. + +In the middle of the meal he spoke: + +"How is mother to-night, father?" + +He had never asked about his mother before, but his voice was quite even +and steady. His aunt dropped her knife clattering on to her plate. + +His father answered him: + +"Why do you wish to know?" + +"It is natural, isn't it? I am afraid that she is not so well." + +"She is as well as can be expected." + +They said no more, but once his father suddenly looked at him, as though +he had noticed some new note in his voice. + + +III + +On the next afternoon his father went into Truro. A doctor came +occasionally to the house--a little man like a beaver--but Peter felt +that he was under his father's hand and he despised him. + +It was a clear Autumn afternoon with a scent of burning leaves in the +air and heavy massive white clouds were piled in ramparts beyond the +brown hills. It was so still a day that the sea seemed to be murmuring +just beyond the garden-wall. The house was very silent; Mrs. Trussit +was in the housekeeper's room, his grandfather was sleeping in the +dining-room. The voices of some children laughing in the road came to +him so clearly that it seemed to Peter impossible that his father ... +and, at that, he knew instantly that his chance had come. He must see +his mother now--there might not be another opportunity for many weeks. + +He left his room and stood at the head of the stairs listening. There +was no sound. + +He stole down very softly and then waited again at the end of the long +passage. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall drove him down +the passage. He listened again outside his mother's door--there was no +sound from within and very slowly he turned the handle. + +As the door opened his senses were invaded by that air of medicine and +flowers that he had remembered as a very small boy--he seemed to be +surrounded by it and great white vases on the mantelpiece filled his +eyes, and the white curtains at the window blew in the breeze of the +opening door. + +His aunt was sitting, with her eternal sewing, by the fire and she rose +as he entered. She gave a little startled cry, like a twittering bird, +as she saw that it was he and she came towards him with her hand out. He +did not look at the bed at all, but bent his eyes gravely upon his aunt. + +"Please, aunt--you must leave us--I want to speak to my mother." + +"No--Peter--how could you? I daren't--I mustn't--your father--your +mother is asleep," and then, from behind them, there came a very soft +voice-- + +"No--let us be alone--please, Jessie." + +Peter did not, even then, turn round to the bed, but fixed his eyes on +his aunt. + +"The doctor--" she gasped, and then, with frightened eyes, she picked up +her sewing and crept out. + +Then he turned round and faced the bed, and was suddenly smitten with +great shyness at the sight of that white, tired face, and the black hair +about the pillow. + +"Well, mother," he said, stupidly. + +But she smiled back at him, and although her voice was very small and +faint, she spoke cheerfully and as though this were an ordinary event. + +"Well, you've come to see me at last, Peter," she said. + +"I mustn't stay long," he answered, gruffly, as he moved awkwardly +towards the bed. + +"Bring your chair close up to the bed--so--like that. You have never +come to sit in here before. Peter, do you know that?" + +"Yes, mother." He turned his eyes away and looked on to the floor. + +"You have come in before because you have been told to. To-day you were +not told--why did you come?" + +"I don't know.... Father's in Truro." + +"Yes, I know." He thought he caught, for an instant, a strange note in +her voice. "But he will not be back yet." + +There was a pause--a vast golden cloud hung like some mountain boulder +beyond the window and some of its golden light seemed to steal over the +white room. + +"Is it bad for you talking to me?" at last he said, gruffly, "ought I to +go away?" + +Suddenly she clutched his strong brown hand with her thin wasted +fingers, with so convulsive a grasp that his heart began to beat +furiously. + +"No--don't go--not until it is time for your father to come back. Isn't +it strange that after all these years this is the first time that we +should have a talk. Oh! so many times I've wanted you to come--and when +you _did_ come--when you were very little--you were always so frightened +that you would not let me touch you--" + +"_They_ frightened me...." + +"Yes--I know--but now, at last, we've got a little time +together--and we must talk--quickly. I want you to tell me +everything--everything--everything.... First, let me look at you...." + +She took his head between her pale, slender hands and looked at him. +"Oh, you are like him!--your father--wonderfully like." She lay back on +the pillows with a little sigh. "You are very strong." + +"Yes, I am going to be strong for you now. I am going to look after you. +They shan't keep us apart any more." + +"Oh, Peter, dear," she shook her head almost gaily at him. "It's too +late." + +"Too late?" + +"Yes, I'm dying--at last it's come, after all these years when I've +wanted it so much. But now I'm not sorry--now that we've had this +talk--at last. Oh! Peter dear, I've wanted you so dreadfully and I was +never strong enough to say that you must come ... and they said that +you were noisy and it would be bad for me. But I believe if you had come +earlier I might have lived." + +"But you mustn't die--you mustn't die--I'll see that they have another +doctor from Truro. This silly old fool here doesn't know what he's +about--I'll go myself." + +"Oh! how strong your hands are, Peter! How splendidly strong! No, no +one can do anything now. But oh! I am happy at last..." She stroked his +cheek with her hand--the golden light from the great cloud filled the +room and touched the white vases with its colour. + +"But quick, quick--tell me. There are so many things and there is so +little time. I want to know everything--your school? Here when you were +little?--all of it--" + +But he was gripping the bed with his hands, his chest was heaving. +Suddenly he broke down and burying his head in the bed-clothes began to +sob as though his heart would break. "Oh! now ... after all this time +... you've wanted me ... and I never came ... and now to find you like +this!" + +She stroked his hair very softly and waited until the sobs ceased. He +sat up and fiercely brushed his eyes. + +"I won't be a fool--any more. It shan't be too late. I'll make you live. +We'll never leave one another again." + +"Dear boy, it can't be like that. Think how splendid it is that we have +had this time now. Think what it might have been if I had gone and we +had never known one another. But tell me, Peter, what are you going to +do with your life afterwards--what are you going to be?" + +"I want to write books"--he stared at the golden cloud--"to be a +novelist. I daresay I can't--I don't know--but I'd rather do that than +anything.... Father wants me to be a solicitor. I'm with Aitchinson +now--I shall never be a good one." + +Then he turned almost fiercely away from the window. + +"But never mind about me, mother. It's you I want to hear about. I'm +going to take this on now. It's my responsibility. I want to know about +you." + +"There's nothing to know, dear. I've been ill for a great many years +now. It's more nerves than anything, I suppose. I think I've never had +the courage to stand up against it--a stronger woman would have got +the better of it, I expect. But I wasn't always like this," she added +laughing a little far away ghost of a laugh--"Go and look in that +drawer--there, in that cupboard--amongst my handkerchiefs--there where +those old fans are--you'll find some old programmes there--Those old +yellow papers...." + +He brought them to her, three old yellow programmes of a "Concert Given +at the Town Hall, Truro." "There, do you see? Miss Minnie Trenowth, In +the Gloaming--There, I sang in those days. Oh! Truro was fun when I was +a girl! There was always something going on! You see I wasn't always on +my back!" + +He crushed the papers in his hand. + +"But, mother! If you were like that then--what's made you like this +now?" + +"It's nerves, dear--I've been stupid about it." + +"And father, how has he treated you these years?" + +"Your father has always been very kind." + +"Mother, tell me the truth! I _must_ know. Has he been kind to you?" + +"Yes, dear--always." + +But her voice was very faint and that look that Peter had noticed before +was again in her eyes. + +"Mother--you must tell me. That's not true." + +"Yes, Peter. He's done his best. I have been annoying, +sometimes--foolish." + +"Mother, I know. I know because I know father and I know myself. I'm +like him--I've just found it out. I've got those same things in me, and +they'll do for me if I don't get the better of them. Grandfather told +me--he was the same. All the Westcotts--" + +He bent over the bed and took her hand and kissed it. + +"Mother, dear--I know--father has been frightening you all this +time--terrifying you. And you were all alone. If only I had been +there--if only there had been some one--" + +Her voice was very faint. "Yes ... he has frightened me all these years. +At first I used to think that he didn't mean it. I was a bright, merry +sort of a girl then--careless and knowing nothing about the world. And +then I began to see--that he liked it--that it gave him pleasure to have +something there that he could hurt. And then I began to be frightened. +It was very lonely here for a girl who had had a gay time, and he usen't +to like my going to Truro--and at last he even stopped my seeing people +in Treliss. And then I began to be really frightened--and used to +wake in the night and see him standing by the door watching me. Then +I thought that when you were born that would draw us together, but it +didn't, and I was always ill after that. He would do things--Oh!" her +hand pressed her mouth. "Peter, dear, you mustn't think about it, only +when I am dead I don't want you to think that I was quite a fool--if +they tell you so. I don't want you to think it was all his fault either +because it wasn't--I was silly and didn't understand sometimes ... but +it's killed me, that dreadful waiting for him to do something, I never +knew what it would be, and sometimes it was nothing ... but I knew that +he liked to hurt ... and it was the expectation." + +In that white room, now flaming with the fires of the setting sun, Peter +caught his mother to his breast and held her there and her white hands +clutched his knees. + +Then his eyes, softened and he turned to her and arranged her head on +the pillow and drew the sheets closely about her. + +"I must go now. It has been bad for you this talking, but it had to be. +I'm never, never going to leave you again--you shall not be alone any +more--" + +"Oh, Peter! I'm so happy! I have never been so happy... but it all comes +of being a coward. If I had only been brave--never be afraid of anybody +or anything. Promise me, Peter--" + +"Except of myself," he answered, kissing her. + +"Kiss me again.... And again..." + +"To-morrow..." he looked back at her, smiling. He saw her, for an +instant, as he left the room, with her cheek against the pillow and her +black hair like a cloud about her; the twilight was already in the room. + +An hour later, as he stood in the dining-room, the door opened and his +father came in. + +"You have been with your mother?" + +"Yes." + +"You have done her much harm. She is dying." + +"I know everything," Peter answered, looking him in the face. + + +IV + +He would never, until his own end had come, forget that evening. The +golden sunset gave place to a cold and windy night, and the dark clouds +rolled up along the grey sky, hiding and then revealing the thin and +pallid moon. + +Peter stayed there in the dining-room, waiting. His grandfather slept +in his chair. Once his aunt came crying into the room and wandered +aimlessly about. + +"Aunt, how is she?" + +"Oh, dear! oh, dear! Whatever shall I do? She is going ... she is +going.... I can do nothing!" + +Her thin body in the dusk flitted like a ghost about the room and then +she was gone. The doctor's pony cart came rattling up to the door. The +fussy little man got out and stamped in the hall, and then disappeared +upstairs. There was a long pause during which there was no sound. + +Then the door was opened and his aunt was there. + +"You must come at once ... she wants you." + +The doctor, his father, and Mrs. Trussit were there in the room, but he +was only conscious of the great white bed with the candles about it and +the white vases, like eyes, watching him. + +As he entered the room there was a faint cry, "Peter." He had crossed +to her, and her arms were about his shoulders and her mouth was pressed +against his; she fell back, with a little sigh, dead. + +V + +In the darkened dining-room, later, his father stood in the doorway with +a candle in his hand, and above it his white face and short black hair +shone as though carved from marble. + +Peter came from the window towards him. His father said: "You killed her +by going to her." + +Peter answered: "All these years you have been killing her!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE THREE WESTCOTTS + + +I + +The day crept, strangely and mysteriously, to its close. Peter, dulled +by misery, sat opposite his grandfather in the dining-room without +moving, conscious of the heavy twilight that the dark blinds flung about +the room, feeling the silence that was only accentuated by the old man's +uneasy "clack-clack" in his sleep and the clock's regular ticking. The +unhappiness that had been gradually growing about him since his last +term at Dawson's, was now all about him with the strength and horrible +appearance of some unholy giant. It was indeed with some consciousness +of Things that were flinging their shadows on the horizon and were not +as yet fully visible to him that he sat there. That evening at Stephen's +farm, realised only faintly at the time, hung before him now as a vivid +induction or prologue to the later terrors. He was doomed--so he felt in +that darkened and mysterious room--to a terrible time and horrors were +creeping upon him from every side. "Clack-clack" went his grandfather +beneath the rugs, as the cactus plant rattled in the window and the +silence through the stairs and passages of the house crept in folds +about the room. + +Peter shivered; the coals fell from a dull gold into grey and crumbling +ashes. He shut everything in the surrounding world from his mind and +thought of his dead mother. There indeed there was strangeness enough, +for it seemed now that that wonderful afternoon had filled also all the +earlier years of his life. It seemed to him now that there had never +been a time when he had not known her and talked with her, and yet with +this was also a consciousness of all the joys that he had missed because +he had not known her before. As he thought of it the hard irretrievable +fact of those earlier empty years struck him physically with a sharp +agonising pain--toothache, and no possible way of healing it. The irony +of her proximity, of her desire for him as he, all unwittingly, had in +reality desired her, hit him like a blow. The picture of her waiting, +told that he did not wish to come, looking so sadly and lonely in that +white room, whilst he, on the other side of that door, had not the +courage to burst through those others and go to her, broke suddenly the +hard dry passivity that had held him during so many weeks. + +He was very young, he was very tired, he was very lonely. He sobbed with +his hands pressed against his eyes. + +Then his tears were quickly dried. There was this other thing to be +considered--his father. He hated his father. He was terrified, as he sat +there, at the fury with which he hated him. The sudden assurance of his +hatred reminded him of the thing that his grandfather had said about +the Westcotts ... was that true? and was this intensity of emotion that +filled all the veins in his body a sign that he too was a Westcott? and +were his father and grandfather mirrors of his own future years?... He +did not know. That was another question.... + +He wondered what they were about in the room where his mother lay and +it was curious that the house could remain silent during so many long +hours. It seemed held by the command of some strong power, and his +mind, overstrained and abnormal, waited for some outbreak of noise--many +noises, clattering, banging, whistling through the house. But his +grandfather slept on, no step was on the stairs, the room was very dark +and evening fell beyond the long windows and over the sea. + +His youth made of a day eternity--there was no end nor term to his love, +to his hatred, to his loneliness, to his utter misery ... and also he +was afraid. He would have given his world for Stephen, but Stephen was +already off on his travels. + +Very softly and stealthily the door opened and, holding a quivering +candle, with her finger to her mouth, there appeared his aunt. He looked +at her coldly as she came across the room towards him. He had never +felt any affection for her because she had always seemed to him weak +and useless--a frightened, miserable, vacillating, negative person--even +when he had been a very small boy he had despised her. Her eyes were red +and swollen with crying, her grey and scanty hair had fallen about her +collar, her old black blouse was unbuttoned at the top showing her bony +neck and her thin crooked hands were trembling in the candle-light. Her +eyes were large and frightened and her back was bent as though she +was cowering from a blow. She had never taken very much notice of her +nephew--of late she had been afraid of him; he was surprised now that +she should come to speak to him. + +"Peter," she said in a whisper, looking back over her shoulder at the +door. + +"Yes," he answered, staring at her. + +"Oh, Peter!" she said again and began to cry--a whimpering noise and her +hands shaking so that the candle rocked in its stick. + +"Well," he said more softly, "you'd better put that candle down." + +She put it on the table and then stood beside him, crying pitifully, +jerking out little sentences--"I can't bear it.... I don't know what to +do.... I can't bear it." + +He got up from his chair and made her sit down on it and then he stood +by her and waited until she should recover a little. He felt suddenly +strangely tender towards her; she was his mother's sister, she had known +his mother all her life and perhaps in her weak silly way she had loved +her. + +"No, aunt, don't cry.... It will be all right. I too am very unhappy. I +have missed so much. If I had only known earlier--" + +The poor woman flung little distracted glances at the old man asleep on +the other side of the fire-place-- + +"Oh, dear, I had to come and talk to some one.... I was so frightened +upstairs. Your father's there with your mother. He sits looking at her +... and she was always so quiet and good and never did him any harm +or indeed any one ... and now he sits looking at her--but she's happy +now--he will be coming downstairs at any moment and I am afraid of what +he'll do if he sees me talking to you like this. But I feel as though I +must talk a little ... it's so quiet." + +"It's all right, aunt. There's no one to be frightened of. I am very +unhappy too. I'd like to talk about her to you." + +"No, no--your poor mother--I mustn't say anything. They'll be down upon +me if I say anything. They're very sharp. He's sitting up with her now." + +Peter drew another chair up close to her and took her thin hand in +his. She allowed him to do what he would and seemed to have no active +knowledge of her surroundings. + +"We'll talk about her," he said, "often. You shall tell me all about her +early life. I want to know everything." + +"Oh, no. I'm going away. Directly after the funeral. Directly after the +funeral I'm going away." + +Suddenly this frightened him. Was he to be left here entirely alone with +his father and grandfather? + +"You're going away?" he said. + +"Oh, yes--your Uncle Jeremy will come for the funeral. I shall go away +with him afterwards. I don't like your Aunt Agatha, but they always +said I could come to them when your mother died. I don't like your Aunt +Agatha but she means to be kind. Oh! I couldn't stay here after all that +has happened. I was only staying for your mother's sake and I'm sure +I've never gone to bed without wondering what would happen before the +morning--Oh, yes, your Uncle Jeremy's coming and I shall go away with +him after the funeral. I don't like your Aunt Agatha but I couldn't stay +after all that has happened." + +All this was said in a hurried frightened whisper. The poor lady shook +from head to foot and the little bracelets on her trembling wrists +jangled together. + +"Then I shall be all alone here," Peter said suddenly, staring at the +candle that was guttering in the breeze that came from behind the heavy +blinds. + +"Oh, dear," said his aunt, "I'm sure Uncle Jeremy will be kind if you +have to leave here, you know." + +"Why should I have to leave here?" asked Peter. + +His aunt sunk her voice very low indeed--so low that it seemed to come +from the heart of the cactus plant by the window. + +"He hasn't got your mother now, you know. He'll want to have +somebody...." + +But she said nothing more--only gazed at the old man opposite her with +staring eyes, and cried in a little desolate whimper and jangled her +bracelets until at last Peter crept softly, miserably to bed. + + +II + +The day of the funeral was a day of high wind and a furious sea. The +Westcotts lived in the parish of the strange wild clergyman whose church +looked over the sea; strange and wild in the eyes of Treliss because +he was a giant in size and had a long flowing beard, because he kept +a perfect menagerie of animals in his little house by the church, and +because he talked in such an odd wild way about God being in the sea and +the earth rather than in the hearts of the Treliss citizens--all these +things odd enough and sometimes, early in the morning, he might be seen, +mother-naked, going down the path to the sea to bathe, which was hardly +decent considering his great size and the immediate neighbourhood of the +high road. To those who remonstrated he had said that he was not ashamed +of his body and that God was worshipped the better for there being no +clothing to keep the wind away ... all mad enough, and there were never +many parishioners in the little hill church of a Sunday. However, it was +in the little windy churchyard that Mrs. Westcott was buried and it was +up the steep and stony road to the little church that the hearse and its +nodding plumes, followed by the two old and decrepit hackney carriages, +slowly climbed. + +Peter's impressions of the day were vague and uncertain. There were +things that always remained in his memory but strangely his general +conviction was that his mother had had nothing to do with it. The black +coffin conveyed nothing to him of her presence: he saw her as he had +seen her on that day when he had talked to her, and now she was, as +Stephen was, somewhere away. That was his impression, that she had +escaped.... + +Putting on his black clothes in the morning brought Dawson's back to his +mind, and especially Bobby Galleon and Cards. He had not thought of +them since the day of his return--first Stephen and then his mother had +driven them from his mind. But now, with the old school black clothing +upon him, he stood for a long time by his window, wondering, sorrowfully +enough, where they were and what they were doing, whether they had +forgotten him, whether he would ever see them again. He seemed to be +surrounded by a wall of loneliness--some one was cutting everything off +from him ... from maliciousness! For pleasure!... Oh! if one only knew +about that God! + +Meanwhile Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha had arrived the night before. +Uncle Jeremy was big and stout and he wore clothes that were very black +and extremely bright. His face was crimson in colour and his eyes, +large and bulging, wore a look of perpetual surprise. He was bald and +an enormous gold watch chain crossed his stomach like a bridge. He had +obviously never cared for either of his sisters and he always shouted +when he spoke. Aunt Agatha was round and fat and comfortable, wore +gold-rimmed spectacles and a black silk dress, and obviously considered +that Uncle Jeremy had made the world. + +Peter watched his father's attitude to these visitors. He realised that +he had never seen his father with any stranger or visitor--no one came +to the house and he had never been into the town with his father. With +this realisation came a knowledge of other things--of things half heard +at the office, of half looks in the street, of a deliberate avoidance of +his father's name--the Westcotts of Scaw House! There were clouds about +the name. + +But his father, in contact with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha, was +strangely impressive. His square, thick-set body clothed in black--his +dark eyes, his short stiff hair, his high white forehead, his long +beautiful hands--this was no ordinary man, moving so silently with a +reserve that seemed nobly fitting on this sad occasion. The dark figure +filled the house, touching in its restrained grief, admirable in its +dignity, a fine spirit against the common clay of Uncle Jeremy and Aunt +Agatha. + +Mr. Westcott was courteous but sparing of words--a strong man, you would +say, bowed down with a grief that demanded, in its intensity, silence. + +Uncle Jeremy hated and feared his brother-in-law. His hatred he +concealed with difficulty but his fear was betrayed by his loud and +nervous laugh. He was obviously interested in Peter and stared at him, +throughout breakfast, with his large, surprised eyes. Peter felt +that this interest was a speculation as to his future and it made him +uncomfortable ... he hated his uncle but the black suit that the stout +gentleman wore on the day of the funeral was so black, so tight and so +shiny that he was an occasion for laughter rather than hatred. + +The black coffin was brought down the long stairs, through the hall +and into the desolate garden. The sight of it roused no emotion in +Peter--_that_ was not his mother. The two aunts, Uncle Jeremy and his +father rode in the first carriage; Peter and Mrs. Trussit in the second. +Mrs. Trussit's bonnet and black silk dress were very fine and she wept +bitterly throughout the journey. + +Peter only dismally wished that he could arrange his knees so that they +would not rub against her black silk. He did not think of his mother +at all but only of the great age of the cab, of the furious wind that +whistled about the road, and the roar that the sea, grey and furious far +below them, flung against their windows. + +He would have liked to talk to her but her sobbing seemed to surround +her with a barrier. It was all inexpressibly dreary with the driving +wind, the rustling of the black silk dress, the jolting and clattering +of the old carriage. But he had no desire to cry--he was too miserable +for that. + +On the hill in the little churchyard, a tempest of wind swept across +the graves. From the bending ground the cliff fell sheer to the sea and +behold! it was a tossing, furious carpet of white and grey. The wind +blew the spray up to the graveyard and stung the faces of the mourners +and in the roar of the waves it was hard to hear the voice of the +preacher. It was a picture that they made out there in the graveyard. +Poor Aunt Jessie, trembling and shaking, Mrs. Trussit, stout and stiff +with her handkerchief to her eyes, Uncle Jeremy with his legs apart, +his face redder than ever, obviously wishing the thing over, Aunt Agatha +concerned for her clothes in the streaming wind, Mr. Westcott unmoved +by the storm, cold, stern, of a piece with the grey stone at the +gravehead--all these figures interesting enough. But towering above them +and dominating the scene was the clergyman--his great beard streaming, +his surplice blowing behind him in a cloud, his great voice dominating +the tumult, to Peter he was a part of the day--the storm, the earth, +the flying, scudding clouds. All big things there, and somewhere sailing +with those clouds, on the storm, the spirit of his mother ... that +little black coffin standing, surely, for nothing that mattered. + +But, strangely enough, when the black box had been lowered, at the +sharp rattling of the sods upon the lid, his sorrow leapt to his eyes. +Suddenly the sense of his loss drove down upon him. The place, the +people were swept away--he could hear her voice again, see her thin +white hands ... he wanted her so badly ... if he could only have his +chance again ... he could have flung himself there upon the coffin, not +caring whether he lived or died... his whole being, soul and body, ached +for her.... + +He knew that it was all over; he broke away from them all and he never, +afterwards, could tell where it was that he wandered during the rest +of that day. At last, when it was dark, he crept back to the house, +utterly, absolutely exhausted in every part of his body ... worn out. + + +III + +On the following day Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Agatha departed and took Aunt +Jessie with them. She had the air of being led away into captivity and +seemed to be fastened to the buttons of Uncle Jeremy's tight black suit. +She said nothing further to Peter and showed no sense of having, at any +time, been confidential--she avoided him, he thought. + +He of course returned to his office and tried to bury himself in the +work that he found there--but his attention wandered; he was overstrung, +excited abnormally, so that the whole world stood to him as a strange, +unnatural picture, something seen dimly and in exaggerated shapes +through coloured glass. That evening with Stephen shone upon him now +with all the vigour of colour of a real fact in a multitude of vague +shadows. The reality of that night was now of the utmost value. + +Meanwhile there were changes at Scaw House. Mrs. Trussit had vanished a +few days after the funeral, no one said anything about her departure and +Peter did not see her go. He was vaguely sorry because she represented +in his memory all the earlier years, and because her absence left the +house even darker and more gloomy than it had been before. The cook, +a stout and slatternly person, given, Peter thought, to excessive +drinking, shared, with a small and noisy maid, the duties of the +house--they were most inefficiently performed. + +But, with this clearing of the platform, the hatred between Peter and +his father became a definite and terrible thing. It expressed itself +silently. At present they very rarely spoke and except on Sundays met +only at breakfast and in the evening. But the air was charged with the +violence of their relationship; the boy, growing in body so strangely +like the man, expressed a sullen and dogged defiance in his every +movement ... the man watched him as a snake might watch the bird held +by its power. They stood, as wrestlers stand before the moment for their +meeting has arrived. The house, always too large for their needs, seemed +now to stretch into an infinity of echoing passages and empty rooms; +the many windows gathered the dust thick upon their sills. The old +grandfather stayed in his chair by the fire--only at night he was +wheeled out into his dreary bedroom by the cook who, now, washed and +tidied him with a vigour that called forth shrill screams and oaths +from her victim. He hated this woman with the most bitter loathing and +sometimes frightened her with the violence of his curses. + +Christmas came and went and there followed a number of those wonderful +crisp and shining days that a Cornish winter gives to its worshippers. +Treliss sparkled and glittered--the stones of the market-place held +the heat of the sun as though it had been midsummer and the Grey Tower +lifted its old head proudly to the blue sky--the sea was so warm that +bathing was possible and in the heart of the brown fields there was a +whisper of early spring. + +But all of this touched Scaw House not at all. Grey and hard in its +bundle of dark trees it stood apart and refused the sun. Peter, in spite +of himself, rejoiced in this brave weather. As the days slipped past, +curiously aloof and reserved though he was, making no friends and +seeking for none, nevertheless he began to look about him and considered +the future. + +All this had in it the element of suspense, of preparation. During +these weeks one day slipped into another. No incidents marked their +preparation--but up at Scaw House they were marching to no mean +climax--every hour hurried the issue--and Peter, meanwhile, as February +came whistling and storming upon the world, grew, with every chiming +of the town clock, more morose, more sullen, more silent ... there were +times when he thought of ending it all. An instant and he would be free +of all his troubles--but after all that was the weakling's way; he had +not altogether forgotten those words spoken so long ago by old Moses.... +So much for the pause. Suddenly, one dark February afternoon the curtain +was rung up outside Zachary Tan's shop and Peter was whirled into the +centre of the stage. + +Peter had not seen Zachary Tan for a long time. He had grown into a +morbid way of avoiding everybody and would slink up side streets or go +round on leaving the office by the sea road. When he did meet people who +had once been kind to him he said as little as possible to them and left +them abruptly. + +But on this afternoon Zachary was not to be denied. He was standing at +the door of his shop and shouted to Peter: + +"Come away in, Mr. Peter. I haven't see you this long time. There's an +old acquaintance of yours inside and a cup of tea for you." + +The wind was whistling up the street, the first drops of a rain storm +starred the pavement, and there was a pleasant glow behind Mr. Tan's +window-panes. But there was something stronger yet that drove Peter into +the shop. He knew with some strange knowledge who that old acquaintance +was ... he felt no surprise when he saw in the little back room, +laughing with all his white teeth shining in a row, the stout and +cheerful figure of Mr. Emilio Zanti. Peter was a very different person +now from that little boy who had once followed Stephen's broad +figure into that little green room and stared at Mr. Zanti's cheerful +countenance, but it all seemed a very little time ago. Outside in the +shop there was the same suit of armour--on the shelves, the silver +candlesticks, the old coins, the little Indian images, the pieces of +tapestry--within the little room the same sense of mystery, the same +intimate seclusion from the outer world.... On the other occasion of +seeing him Mr. Zanti had been dimmed by a small boy's wonder. Now Peter +was old enough to see him very clearly indeed. + +Mr. Zanti seemed fat only because his clothes were so tight. He was +bigly made and his legs and arms were round, bolster fashion--huge +thighs and small ankles, thick arms and slender wrists. His clothes were +so tight that they seemed in a jolly kind of way to protest. "Oh! come +now, must you really put us on to anything quite so big? We shall burst +in a minute--we really shall." + +The face was large and flat and shining like a sun, with a small nose +like a door knocker and a large mouth, the very essence of good-humoured +surprise. The cheeks and the chin were soft and rounded and looked as +though they might be very fat one day--a double chin just peeped round +the corner. + +He was a little bald on the top of his head and round this bald patch +his black hair clustered protectingly. He gave you the impression that +every part of his body was anxious that every other part of his body +should have a good time. His suit was a very bright blue and his +waistcoat had little brass buttons that met a friend with all the +twinkling geniality of good wishes and numberless little hospitalities. + +He had in his blue silk tie a pearl so large and so white that +sophisticated citizens might have doubted that it was a pearl at +all--but Peter swallowed Mr. Zanti whole, pearl and suit and all. + +"Oh! it is ze little friend--my friend--'ow are you, young gentleman? It +is a real delight to be with you again." + +Mr. Zanti swung Peter's hand up and down as he would a pump handle and +laughed as though it were all the best joke in the world. Curiously +enough Peter did not resent this rapturous greeting. It moved him +strongly. It was such a long time now since any one had shown any +interest in him or expressed any pleasure at the sight of him that he +was foolishly moved by Mr. Zanti's warmth. + +He blushed and stammered something but his eyes were shining and his lip +trembling. + +Mr. Zanti fixed his gaze on the boy. "Oh! but you have grown--yes, +indeed. You were a little slip before--but now--not so 'igh no--not +'igh--but broad, strong. Oh! ze arms and legs--there's a back!" + +Zachary interrupted his enthusiasm with some general remark, and they +had a pleasant little tea-party. Every now and again the shop bell +tinkled and Zachary went out to attend to it, and then Mr. Zanti drew +near to Peter as though he were going to confide in him but he never +said anything, only laughed. + +Once he mentioned Stephen. + +"You know where he is?" Peter broke in with an eager whisper. + +"Ah, ha--that would be telling," and Mr. Zanti winked his eye. + +Peter's heart warmed under the friendliness of it all. There was very +much of the boy still in him and he began to look back upon the days +that he had spent with no other company than his own thoughts as cold +and friendless. Zachary Tan had been always ready to receive him warmly. +Why had he passed him so churlishly by and refused his outstretched +hand? But there was more in it than that. Mr. Zanti attracted him most +compellingly. The gaily-dressed genial man spoke to him of all the +glitter and adventure of the outside world. Back, crowding upon him, +came all those adventurous thoughts and desires that he had known +before in Mr. Zanti's company--but tinged now by that grey threatening +background of Scaw House and its melancholy inhabitants! What would he +not give to escape? Perhaps Mr. Zanti!... The little green room began +to extend its narrow walls and to include in its boundaries flashing +rivers, shining cities, wide and bounteous plains. Beyond the shop--dark +now with its treasures mysteriously gleaming--the steep little street +held up its lamps to be transformed into yellow flame, and at its foot +by the wooden jetty, as the night fell, the sea crept ever more secretly +with its white fingers gleaming below the shingles of the beach. + +Here was wonder and glory enough with the wind tearing and beating +outside the windows, blowing the young flowers of the lamps up and down +inside their glass houses and screaming down the chimneys for sheer zest +of life.... But here it all had its centre in this little room "with Mr. +Emilio Zanti's chuckling for no reason at all and spreading his broad +fat hand over Peter Westcott's knee. + +"Well, Mr. Peter, and 'ave you been to London in all these years? Or +perhaps you 'ave forgotten that you ever wanted to go there?" + +No, Peter was still of the same mind but Treliss and a few miles up +and down the road were as much of the world as he'd had the pleasure of +seeing--except for school in Devonshire-- + +"And you'd still go, my leetle friend?" + +"Yes--I want to go--I hate being in an office here." + +"And what is it zat you will do when you are there?" + +Suddenly, in a flash, illuminating the little room, shining over the +whole world, Peter knew what it was that he would do. + +"I will write." + +"Write what?" + +"Stories." + +With that word muttered, his head hanging, his cheeks flushing, as +though it were something of which he was most mightily ashamed, he knew +what it was he had been wanting all these months. The desire had been +there, the impulse had been there ... now with the spoken word the blind +faltering impulse was changed into definite certainty. + +Mr. Zanti thought it a tremendous joke. He roared, shouted with riotous +laughter. "Oh, ze boy--he will be the death of me--'I will write +stories'--Oh yes, so easy, so very simple. 'I will write stories'--Oh +yes." + +But Peter was very solemn. He did not like his great intention to be +laughed at. + +"I mean it," he said rather gruffly. + +"Oh yes, that's of course--but that is enough. Oh dear, yes ... well, +my friend, I like you. You are very strong, you are brave I can see--you +have a fine spirit. One thing you lack--with all you English it is the +same." + +He paused interrogatively but Peter did not seem to wish to know what +this quality was. + +"Yes, it is ze Humour--you do not see how funny life is--always--always +funny. Death, murder, robberies, violences--always funny--you are. Oh! +so solemn and per'aps you will be annoyed, think it tiresome, because I +laugh--" + +"No," said Peter gravely, "I like your laughing." + +"Ah! That is well." Suddenly he jerked his body forward and stared into +Peter's face. + +"Well!... Will you come?" + +Peter hung back, his face white. He was only conscious that Zachary, +quiet and smiling in the background, watched him intently. + +"What!... with you ... to London!" + +"Yes ... wiz me--what of your father? Will he be furious, hey?" + +"He won't like it--" Peter continued slowly. "But I don't care. I'll +leave him--But I should have no money--nothing!" + +"An', no matter--I will take you to London for nothing and then--if you +like it--you may work for me. Two pounds a week--you would be useful." + +"What should I do?" + +"I have a bookshop--you would look after ze books and also ze +customers." This seemed to amuse Mr. Zanti very much. "Two pounds a week +is a lot of money for ze work--and you will have time--ho yes--much time +for your stories." + +Peter's eyes burned. London--a bookshop--freedom. Oh! wonderful world! +His heart was beating so that words would not come. + +"Oh!" he murmured. "Oh!" + +"Ah, that's well!" Mr. Zanti clapped him on the shoulder. "There is no +need for you to say now. On ze Wednesday in Easter week I go--before +then you will tell me. We shall get on together, I know it. If you will +'ave a leetle more of ze Humour you will be a very pleasant boy--and +useful--Ho, yes!" + +To Peter then the shop was not visible--a mist hung about his eyes. +"Much time for your stories"... said Mr. Zanti, and he shouted with +laughter as his big form hung before Peter. The large white hand with +the flashing rings enclosed Peter's. + +For a moment the hands were on his shoulders and in his nostrils was +the pungent scent of the hair-oil that Mr. Zanti affected--afterwards +silence. + +Peter said farewell to Zachary and promised to come soon and see him +again. The little bell tinkled behind him and he was in the street. +The great wind caught him and blew him along the cobbles. The flying +mountains of cloud swept like galleons across the moor, and in Peter's +heart was overwhelming triumph ... the lights of London lit the black +darkness of the high sea road. + + +IV + +The doors of Scaw House clanged behind him and at once he was aware that +his father had to be faced. Supper was eaten in silence. Peter watched +his father and his grandfather. Here were the three of them alone. What +his grandfather was his father would one day be, what his father was, +he ... yes, he must escape. He stared at the room's dreary furniture, he +listened to the driving rain and he was conscious that, from the other +side of the table, his father's eyes were upon him. + +"Father," he said, "I want to go away." His heart was thumping. + +Mr. Westcott got up from his place at the table and stood, with his legs +a little apart, looking down at his son. + +"Why?" + +"I'm doing no good here. That office is no use to me. I shall never be a +solicitor. I'm nearly eighteen and I shall never get on here. I remember +things... my mother..." his voice choked. + +His father smiled. "And where do you want to go?" + +"To London." + +"Oh! and what will you do there?" + +"I have a friend--he has a bookshop there. He will give me two pounds a +week at first so that I should be quite independent--" + +"All very nice," Mr. Westcott was grave again. "And so you are tired of +Treliss?" + +"Not only Treliss--this house--everything. I hate it." + +"You have no regret at leaving me?" + +"You know--father--that..." + +"Yes?" + +Peter rose suddenly from the table--they faced one another. + +"I want you to let me go. You have never cared in the least for me and +you do not want me here. I shall go mad if I stay in this place. I must +go." + +"Oh, you must go? Well, that's plain enough at any rate--and when do you +propose leaving us?" + +"After Easter--the Wednesday after Easter," he said. "Oh, father, +please. Give me a chance. I can do things in London--I feel it. Here I +shall never do anything." + +Peter raised his eyes to his father's and then dropped them. Mr. +Westcott senior was not pleasant to look at. + +"Let us have no more of this--you will stay here because I wish it. I +like to have you here--father and son--father and son." + +He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder--"Never mention this again for +your own sake--you will stay here until I wish you to go." + +But Peter broke free. + +"I _will_ go," he shouted--"I _will_ go--you _shall_ not keep me here. I +have a right to my freedom--what have you ever done for me that I should +obey you? I want to leave you and never see you again. I ..." And then +his eyes fell--his legs were shaking. His father was watching him, no +movement in his short thick body--Peter's voice faltered--"I _will_ go," +he said sullenly, his eyes on the ground. + +His grandfather stirred in his sleep. "Oh, what a noise," he muttered, +"with the rain and all." + +But Mr. Westcott removed with a careful hand the melodrama that his +young son had flung about the room. + +"That's enough noise," he said, "you will _not_ go to London--nor indeed +anywhere else--and for your own peace of mind I should advise you not +to mention the subject again. The hour is a little early but I recommend +your bedroom." + +Peter went. He was trembling from head to foot. Why? He undressed and +prepared himself for battle. Battle it was to be, for the Wednesday in +Easter week would find him in the London train--of that there was to be +no question. + +Meanwhile, with the candle blown out, and no moon across the floor, it +was quite certain that courage would be necessary. He was fighting more +than his father. + + +V + +He woke suddenly. A little wind, blowing through the open door flickered +the light of a candle that flung a dim circle about the floor. Within +the circle was his father--black clothes and white face, he was looking +with the candle held high, across the room to the bed. + +He drew back the candle and closed the door softly behind him. His feet +made no sound as they passed away down the passage. + +Peter lay quaking, wide eyed in his bed, until full morning and time for +getting up. + +The opening, certainly, of a campaign. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SUNLIGHT, LIMELIGHT, DAYLIGHT + + +I + +Easter fell early that year; the last days of March held its festival +and the winds and rains of that blustering month attended the birth of +its primroses. + +Young Peter spent his days in preparation for the swift coming of Easter +Wednesday and in varying moods of exultation, terror, industry and +idleness. He did not see Mr. Zanti during this period--that gentleman +was, he was informed, away on business--and it was characteristic of +him that he asked Zachary Tan no questions whether of the mysterious +bookshop, of London generally, or of any possible news about Stephen, +the latter a secret that he was convinced the dark little curiosity shop +somewhere contained. + +But he had an amazing number of things to think about and the +solicitor's office was the barest background for his chasing thoughts. +He spoke to no one of his approaching freedom--but the thought of it +hung in rich and burning colour ever at the back of his thoughts. + +Meanwhile the changing developments at Scaw House were of a nature to +frighten any boy who was compelled to share in them. It could not be +denied that Mr. Westcott had altered very strangely since his wife's +death. The grim place with its deserted garden had never seen many +callers nor friendly faces but the man with the milk, the boy with the +butcher's meat, the old postman with the letters stayed now as brief a +time over their business as might be and hurried down the grass-grown +paths with eager haste. Since the departure of the invaluable +Mrs. Trussit a new order reigned--red-faced Mrs. Pascoe, her dress +unfastened, her hair astray, her shoes at heel, her speech thick and +uncertain, was queen of the kitchen, and indeed of other things had they +but known all. But to Peter there was more in this than the arrival of +Mrs. Pascoe. With every day his father was changing--changing so swiftly +that when Peter's mother had been buried only a month, that earlier Mr. +Westcott, cold, stern, reserved, terrible, seemed incredible; he was +terrible now but with how different a terror. + +To Peter this new figure was a thing of the utmost horror. He had known +how to brace himself for that other authority--there had, at any rate, +been consistency and even a kind of chiselled magnificence in that +stiff brutality--now there was degradation, crawling devilry, things +unmentionable.... + +This new terror broke upon him at supper two nights after he had first +spoken about London. The meal had not been passed, as usual, in silence. +His father had talked strangely to himself--his voice was thick, and +uncertain--his hand shook as he cut the bread. Mrs. Pascoe had come, +in the middle of the meal, to give food to the old grandfather who +displayed his usual trembling greed. She stood with arms akimbo, +watching them as they sat at table and smiling, her coarse face flushed. + +"Pudding," said Mr. Westcott. + +"Ye'll be 'aving the pudding when it's ready," says she. + +"Damn" from Mr. Westcott but he sits still looking at the table-cloth +and his hand shaking. + +To Peter this new thing was beyond all possibility horrible. This new +shaking creature-- + +"I didn't kill her, you know, Peter," Mr. Westcott says quite smoothly, +when the cloth had been cleared and they are alone. And then suddenly, +"Stay where you are--I have stories to tell you." + +Peter, white to the lips, was held in his place. He could not move or +speak. Then during the following two hours, his father, without moving +from his place, poured forth a stream of stories--foul, filthy, horrible +beyond all telling. He related them with no joy or humour or bestial +gloating over their obscenities--only with a staring eye and his fingers +twisting and untwisting on the table-cloth. At last Peter, his head +hanging, his cheeks flaming, crept to his attic. + +At breakfast his father was again that other man--stern, immovable, a +rock-where was that trembling shadow of the night before? + +And Mrs. Pascoe--once more in her red-faced way, submissive--in her +place. + +The most abiding impression with Peter, thinking of it afterwards in the +dark lanes that run towards the sea, when the evening was creeping along +the hill, was of a fiery eye gleaming from old grandfather Westcott's +pile of rugs. Was it imagined or was there indeed a triumph there--a +triumph that no age nor weakness could obscure? + +And from the induction of that first terrible evening Peter stepped into +a blind terror that gave the promised deliverance of that approaching +Easter Wednesday an air of blind necessity. Also about the house the +dust and neglect crept and increased as though it had been, in its +menace and evil omen, a veritable beast of prey. Doors were off their +hinges, windows screamed to their clanging shutters, the grime lay, like +sand, about the sills and corners of the rooms. At night the house was +astir with sound but with no human voices. + + +II + +But it was only at night that Terror crept from its cupboard and leapt +on to Peter's shoulders. He defied it even then with set lips and the +beginning of a conception of the duties that Courage demands of its +worshippers. He would fight it, let it develop as it would--but, during +these weeks, in the sunlight, he thought nothing of it at all, but only +with eager eyes watched his father. + +His reading had, in these latter years, been slender enough. It was +seldom that he had any money, there was no circulating library in +Treliss at that time and he knew no one who could lend him books. He +fell back, perforce, on the few that he had and especially on the three +"Henry Galleons." But he had in his head--and he had known it without +putting it into words, for a very long time--"The Thousand and One +Nights of Peter Westcott, Esq."--stories that would go on night after +night before he went to sleep, stories that were concerned with enormous +families whose genealogies had to be worked out on paper (here was +incipient Realism)--or again, stories concerning Treasure and Masses +of it--banks of diamonds, mountains of pearls, columns of rubies, white +marble temples, processions of white elephants, cloth of gold (here +was incipient Romance). Never, be it noticed, at this time, incipient +Humour; life had been too heavy a thing for that. + +But these stories, formerly racing through his brain because they must, +because indeed they were there against his own will or any one else's, +had now a most definite place and purpose in their existence. They +were there now because they were to be trained, to be educated, to be +developed, until they were fit to appear in public. He had, even in +these early days, no false idea of the agonies and tortures of this +gift of his. Was it not in "Henry Lessingham"?... "and so with this +task before him he knew that words were of many orders and regiments and +armies, and those that were hard of purchase and difficult of discipline +were the possessions of value, for nothing that is light and easy in its +production is of any duration or lasting merit." + +And so, during these weeks, when he should have attended to the duties +of a solicitor his mind was hunting far away in those forests where very +many had hunted before him. And, behold, he was out for Fame.... + +Spring was blown across the country by the wildest storms that the +sea-coast had known for very many years. For days the seas rose against +the rocks in a cursing fury--the battle of rock and wave gave pretty +spectacle to the surrounding country and suddenly the warriors, +having proved the mettle of their hardihood, turned once again to good +fellowship. But the wind and the rain had done their work. In the week +before Easter, with the first broadening sweep of the sun across the +rich brown earth and down into the depths of the twisting lanes the +spring was there--there in the sweet smell of the roots as they stirred +towards the light, there in the watery gleam of the grass as it caught +diamonds from the sun, but there, above all, in the primrose clump +hidden in the clefts of the little Cornish woods--so with a cry of +delight Spring had leapt from the shoulders of that roaring wind and +danced across the Cornish hills. + +On Good Friday there was an incident. Peter was free of the office for +the day and had walked towards Truro. There was a little hill that stood +above the town. It was marked by a tree clump black against the blue +sky--at its side was a chalk pit, naked white--beyond was Truro huddled, +with the Fal a silver ribbon in the sun. Peter stood and watched and sat +down because he liked the view. He had walked a very long way and was +tired and it was an afternoon as hot as Summer. + +Suddenly there was a cry: "Help, please--oh--help to get Crumpet." + +He looked up and saw standing in front of him a little girl in a +black hat and a short black frock--she had red hair that the sun was +transforming into gold. Her face was white with terror, and tears were +making muddy marks on it and her hands were black with dirt. She was +a very little girl. She appealed to him between her sobs, and he +understood that Crumpet was a dog, that it had fallen some way down the +chalk-pit and that "Miss Jackson was reading her Bible under a tree." + +He jumped up immediately and went to find Crumpet. A little way down the +chalk-pit a fox-terrier puppy was balancing its fat body on a ledge of +chalk and looking piteously up and down. Peter clambered down, caught +the little struggling animal in his arms, and restored it to its +mistress. And now followed an immense deal of kissing and embracing. The +dog was buried in red hair and only once and again a wriggling paw might +be observed--also these exclamations--"Oh, the umpty-rumpty--was it +nearly falling down the great horrid pit, the darling--oh, the little +darling, and was it scratched, the pet? But it was a wicked little +dog--yes, it was, to go down that nasty place when it was told not +to"--more murmurings, and then the back was straightened, the red, gold +hair flung back, and a flushed face turned to the rather awkward Peter +who stood at attention. + +"Thank you--thanks, most awfully--oh, you darling" (this to the puppy). +"You see, Miss Jackson was reading her Bible aloud to herself, and I +can't stand that, neither can Crumpet, and she always forgets all about +us, and so we go away by ourselves--and reading the Bible makes her +sleep--she's asleep now--and then Crumpet wouldn't stay at heel although +I was telling him ever so hard, and he would go over the cliff--and if +you hadn't been there..." at the thought of the awful disaster the puppy +was again embraced. Apparently Crumpet was no sentimentalist, and had +had enough of feminine emotion--he wriggled out of his mistress' arms, +flopped to the ground, shook himself, and, advancing to Peter, smelt his +boots. + +"He likes you. I'm so glad--he only does that to people he likes, and +he's very particular." The small girl flung her hair back, smiled at +Peter, and sat down on the grass. + +"It may be rather damp," Peter said, feeling very old and cautious and +thinking that she really was the oddest child he'd even seen in his +life. "It's only March you know." + +"It's nothing to do with months, it's whether it's rained or not--and it +hasn't--sit down with me. Old Jackson won't be here for ages." + +Peter sat down. The puppy was a charming specimen of its kind--it had +enormous ears, huge flat feet, and a round fat body like a very small +barrel. It was very fond of Peter, and licked his cheek and his hands, +and finally dragged off his cap, imagined it a rabbit, and bit it with a +great deal of savagery and good-humour. + +There followed conversation. + +"I like you most awfully. I like your neck and your eyes and your +hair--it's stiff, like my father's. My name is Clare Elizabeth Rossiter. +What's yours?" + +"Peter Westcott." + +"Do you live here?" + +"No--a good long way away--by the sea." + +"Oh, I'm staying at Kenwyn--my uncle lives at Kenwyn, but I live in +London with father and mother and Aunt Grace--it's nice here. I think +you're such a nice boy. Will you come and see father and mother in +London?" + +Peter smiled. It would not be the thing for some one in a bookshop to +go and call on the parents of any one who could afford Crumpet and Miss +Jackson, but the thought of London, the very name of it, sent his blood +tingling to his face. + +"Perhaps we shall meet," he said. "I'm going to London soon." + +"Oh! are you? Oh! How nice! Then, of course, you will come to tea. Every +one comes to tea." + +Crumpet, tired of the rabbit, worn out with adventure and peril, +struggled into Peter's lap and slumbered with one ear lying back across +his eyes. The sun slipped down upon the town and touched the black +cathedral with flame, and turned the silver of the river into burning +gold. On the bend of the hill against the sky came a black gaunt figure. + +"Miss Jackson!" Clare Elizabeth Rossiter leapt to her feet, clutched +Crumpet, held him upside down, and turned to go. + +But for an instant she stayed, and Peter was rewarded with a very +wonderful smile. + +"I am so glad you were here--she generally sleeps longer, but perhaps +it was New Testament to-day, and that's more exciting. It is a pity, +because there were such lots of things--I like you most awfully." + +She gave him a very dirty hand, and then her black stockings vanished +over the hill. + +Peter turned, through a flaming sunset, towards his home ... the end of +the incident. + + +III + +But he came home, on that Good Friday evening with an idea that that +afternoon on the hill had given him. It was an idea that came to +him from the little piece of superstition that he carried about with +him--every Cornishman carries it. Treliss was always a place of many +customs, and, although now these ceremonies drag themselves along with +all the mercenary self-consciousness that America and cheap trips from +Manchester have given to the place, at this stage of Peter's history +they were genuine and honest enough. To see from the top of the Grey +Hill, the rising of the sun on Easter morning was one of them--a charm +that brought the most infallible good luck until next Easter Day came +round again, and, good for you, if you could watch that sunrise with the +lad or lass of your choice, for to pass round the Giant's Finger as +the beams caught the stone made the success of your union beyond all +question. There was risk about it, for if mists veiled the light or if +clouds dimmed the rising then were your prospects but gloomy--but a fine +Easter morning had decided many a wedding in Treliss. + +Peter had known of this for many years, but, in earlier times, he had +not been at liberty, and of late there had been other things to think +about. But here was a fine chance! Was he not flinging himself into +the world under the very hazardous patronage of Mr. Zanti on Easter +Wednesday, and would he not therefore need every blessing that he could +get? And who knew, after all, whether these things were such nonsense? +They were old enough, these customs, and many wise people believed in +them. Moreover, one had not been brought up in the company of Frosted +Moses and Dicky the Fool without catching some of their fever! "There +was a little star rolling down hill like a button," says Dicky, with his +eyes staring....' Well, and why not? + +And indeed here was Peter at this stage of things, a mad I bundle of +contradictions--old as a judge when up against the Realities, young as +Crumpet the puppy when staring at Romance. Give him bread and you have +him of cast-iron--stern, cold, hard of muscle, grim frown, stiff back, +no smiles. Give him jam and you have credulity, simplicity, longing for +friendship, tenderness, devotion to a small girl in a black frock, a +heart big as the world. See him on Good Friday afternoon, laughing, +eagerly questioning, a boy--see him on Good Friday night, grim, legs +stiff, eyes cold as stones, a man--no easy thing for Mrs. Pascoe's +blowzy thunderings to conquer, but something vastly amusing apparently +to grandfather Westcott to watch. + +He discovered that the sun rose about six o'clock, and therefore five +o'clock on Easter morning found him shivering, in the desolate garden +with his nose pressed to the little wooden gate. The High Road crossed +the moor at no great distance from him, but the faint grey light that +hung like gauze about him was not yet strong enough to reveal it. He +would hear them as they passed and they must all go up that road on the +way to the hill. In the garden there was darkness, and beyond it in the +high shadow of the house and the surrounding trees, blackness. He could +smell the soil, and his cheeks were wet with beads of moisture; very +faintly the recurrent boom of the sea came through the mist, dimmed as +though by thick folds of hanging carpet. + +Suddenly the dark trees by the house, moved by a secret wind, would +shudder. The little black gate slowly revealed its bars against the sky +as the grey shadows lightened. Then there were voices, coming through +the dark shut off, like the sea, by the mist--strange voices, not human, +but sharing with the soil and the trees the mysterious quality of the +night. The voices passed up the road--silence and then more voices. + +Peter unlatched the gate and stole out to the road, stumbling over the +rough moorland path and clambering across the ditch to safer ground. +Figures were moving like shadows and voices fell echoing and re-echoing +like notes of music--this was dissociated from all human feeling, +and the mists curled up like smoke and faded into the air. Peter, in +silence, followed these shadows and knew that there were other shadows +behind him. It would not take long to climb the Grey Hill--they would be +at the top by half-past five. + +There was a voice in his ear: + +"Hallo! You--Westcott! Why, who would have thought it?" + +He turned round and found at his side the peaked face of Willie Daffoll, +now a young man of eighteen, with an affection for bright ties and +socks, once the small child who had fought with Peter at old Parlow's +years ago. Peter had not seen very much of him during those years. They +had met in the streets of Treliss, had spoken a word or two, but no +friendship or intimacy. But this early hour, this mysterious dawn, bred +confidence, and Peter having grown, under the approaching glitter of +London, more human, during the last few weeks than he had been in all +his life before, was glad to talk to him. + +"Oh, I've often wanted to go," he said. "It brings good luck, you know." + +"Well, fancy your believing that. I never thought you'd believe in rot +like that." + +"Why are you going, then?" + +The young man of ties and waistcoats dropped his voice. "Oh--a girl. +She's here somewhere--she said she'd come--thinks there's something in +it. Anyhow she wants it--she's stunning...." + +A girl! Peter's mind flew absurdly back to a small child in a short +black frock. "Oh! Crumpet!" ... A girl! Young Daffoll had spoken as +though it were indeed something to get up at four in the morning for! +Peter wanted to hear more. Young Daffoll was quite ready to tell him. +No names, of course, but they were going to be married one day. His +governor would be furious, of course, and they might have to run away, +but she was game for anything. No, he'd only known her a fortnight, but +it had been a matter of love at first sight--extraordinary thing--he'd +thought he'd been head over ears before, but never anything like +this--yes, as a matter of fact she was in a flower-shop--Trunter's +in the High Street--her people had come down in the world--and so the +golden picture unfolded as the gauze curtains were drawn back from the +world, and the shoulder of the Grey Hill rose, like a cloud, before +them. + +Peter's heart beat faster as he listened to this story. Here was one of +his dreams translated into actual fact. Would he one day also have +some one for whom he would be ready to run to the end of the world, if +furious parents demanded it? She would have, he was sure, red-gold hair +and a wonderful smile. + +They climbed the Grey Hill. There was with them now quite a company of +persons--still shadow-shapes, for the mists were thick about the road, +but soon all the butchers and bakers of the world--and, let it be +remembered, all the lovers, would be revealed. Now, as they climbed the +hill, silence fell--even young Daffoll was quiet; that, too, it seemed, +was part of the ceremony. + +The hill top was swiftly gained. The Giant's Finger, black and straight, +like a needle, stood through the shadows. Beyond there would be the sea, +and that was where the sun would rise, at present darkness. They all +sat down on the stones that covered the summit--on either side of Peter +there were figures, but Daffoll had vanished--it seemed that he had +discovered his lady. + +Peter, sitting meditating on the story that he had heard and feeling, +suddenly, lonely and deserted, was conscious of a small shoe that +touched his boot. It was, beyond argument, a friendly shoe--he could +feel that in the inviting tap that it gave to him. He was aware also +that his shoulder was touching another shoulder, and that that shoulder +was soft and warm. Finally his hand touched another hand--fingers were +intertwined. + +There was much conversation out of the mist: + +"Law, chrisy! Well, it's the last Easter morning for me--thiccy sun +hides himself right enough--it's poor trade sitting shivering your +toes." + +"Not that I care for the woman, mind ye, Mr. Tregothan, sir--with her +haverings talking--all I'm saying is that if she's to come wastin' my +time-- + +"Thiccy man sitting there stormin' like an old owl in a tree." + +"Oh, get along with ye--No, I won't be sitting by ye--There's--" + +Now the sea, like a young web stretched at the foot of the hill, stole +out of the darkness. On the horizon a thin line of dull yellow--wouldn't +it be a fine sunrise?--the figures on the hill were gathering shape and +form, and many of them now were standing, their bodies sharp against the +grey sky. + +Peter had not turned; his eyes were staring out to sea, but his body was +pressed closely against the girl at his side. He did not turn nor look +at her--she was staring at him with wonder in her eyes and a smile +on her lips. She was a very common girl with black hair and over-red +cheeks, and she was one of the dairymaids from Tregothan Farm. She did +not know whom this strange young man might be, and it was not yet light +enough to see. She did not care--such things had happened often enough +before, and she leant her fat body against his shoulder. She could feel +his heart thumping and his hands were very hot, but she thought that it +was strange that he did not turn and look at her.... + +There was a stir and murmur among the crowd on the hill for behold it +would be a fine sunrise! The dull yellow had brightened to gold and was +speeding like a herald across the grey. Black on the hill, gold on the +sky, a trembling whispering blue across the sea--in a moment there would +be the sun! What gods were there hiding, at that instant, on the hill, +watching, with scornful eyes this crowd of moderns? Hidden there behind +the stones, what mysteries? Screening with their delicate bodies the +faint colours of the true dawn, playing on their pipes tunes that these +citizens with their coarse voices and dull hearing could not understand, +what ancient watchers of the hill pass and repass! + +Behold the butchers and bakers! Behold Mr. Winneren, hosier and +outfitter, young Robert Trefusis, farmer, Miss Bessie Waddell from the +sweet-shop!... These others fade away as the sun rises--the grey mists +pass with them. + +The sun is about to leap above the rim of the sea. Peter turns and +crushes the poor dairymaid in his arms and stifles the little scream +with the first kiss of his life. His whole body burns in that kiss--and +then, as the sun streams across the sea he has sprung to his feet and +vanishes over the brow of the hill. + +The dairymaid wipes her lips with the back of her hand. They have joined +hands and are already dancing round the Giant's Finger. It is black now, +but in a moment the flames of the sun will leap upon it, and good omens +will send them all singing down the hill. + + +IV + +On Tuesday evening Peter slipped for a moment into Zachary Tan's shop +and told Mr. Zanti that he would be on the station platform at half-past +seven on the following morning. He could scarcely speak for excitement. +He was also filled with a penetrating sadness. Above all, he wished +only to exchange the briefest word with his future master. He did not +understand altogether but it was perhaps because Mr. Zanti and all his +world belonged to to-morrow.... Mr. Zanti's fat, jolly body, his laugh, +his huge soft hands ... Peter could not do more to this gentleman than +remember that he meant so much that he would be overwhelmed by him if he +did not leave him alone. So he darted in and gave his message and darted +out again. The little street was shining in the sun and the gentlest +waves were lapping the wooden jetty--Oh, this dear town! These houses, +these cobbles--all the smells and colours of the place--he was leaving +it all so easily on so perilous an adventure. Poor Peter was moved by so +many things that he could only gulp the tears back and hurry home. There +was at any rate work to be done there about which there could be no +uncertain intention. + +His father had been drinking all the afternoon. Mrs. Pascoe with red +arms akimbo, watched them as they ate their supper. + +When the meal was finished Peter, standing by his father, his face very +white, said: + +"I am going to London to-morrow." + +Mr. Westcott had aged a great deal during the last month. His hair was +touched with grey, there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were +sunken, his lip trembled. He was looking moodily at the cloth, crumbling +his bread. He did not hear Peter's remark, but continued his argument +with Mrs. Pascoe: + +"It wasn't cooked, I tell you--you're growing as slack as Hell." + +"Your precious son 'as got something as 'e would like to say to yer," +remarked that pleasant woman grimly. + +Peter repeated his remark. His father grasped it but slowly--at last he +said: + +"Damn you, what are you talking about?" + +"I'm leaving here and going to London to-morrow." + +Mr. Westcott turned his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the +fire-place--"Curse it, I can't see straight. You young devil--I'll do +for you--" all this said rather sullenly and as though he were speaking +to himself. + +Peter, having delivered his news, passed Mrs. Pascoe's broad body, and +moved to the doorway. He turned with his hand on the door. + +"I'm glad I'm going," he said, "you've always bullied me, and I've +always hated you. You killed my mother and she was a good woman. You can +have this house to yourself--you and grandfather--and that woman--" he +nodded contemptuously at Mrs. Pascoe, who was staring at him fiercely. +His grandfather was fast asleep beneath the cushions. + +"Damn you," said Mr. Westcott very quietly. "You've always been +ungrateful--I didn't kill your mother, but she was always a tiresome, +crying woman." + +He stopped crumbling the bread and suddenly picked up a table knife and +hurled it at Peter. His hand was trembling, and the knife quivering, was +fastened to the door. + +Mrs. Pascoe gasped, "Gawd 'elp us!" + +Peter quietly closed the door behind him and went up to his room. + +He was in no way disturbed by this interview. His relations with his +father were not of the things that now mattered. They had mattered +before his mother died. They had mattered whilst his father had been +somebody strong and terrible. Even at the funeral how splendid he had +seemed! But this trembling creature who drank whisky with the cook was +some one who concerned Peter not at all--something like the house, to be +left behind. + +There was an old black bag that had held his things in the Dawson's +days--it held his things now. Not a vast number--only the black suit +beside the blue serge one that he was going to wear, some under-linen, +a sponge, and a toothbrush, the books and an old faded photograph of his +mother as a girl. Nothing like that white face that he had seen, +this photograph, old, yellow, and faded, but a girl laughing and +beautiful--after all, his most precious possession. + +Then, when the bag was packed, he sat on the bed, swung his legs, and +thought about everything. He was nearly eighteen, nearly a man, and as +hard as rock. He could feel the muscles swelling, there was no fat about +him, he was sound all over. + +He looked back and saw the things that stood out like hills above the +plain--that night, years ago, when he was whipped, the day that he first +met Mr. Zanti, the first day at school, the day when he said good-bye to +Cards, the hour, at the end of it all, when they hissed him, that +last evening with Stephen, the day with his mother ... and then, quite +lately, that afternoon when Mr. Zanti asked him to go to London, the +little girl with the black frock on the hill ... last of all, that kiss +(never mind with whom) on Easter morning--all these things had made +him what he was--yes, and all the people--Frosted Moses, Stephen, his +father, his mother, Bobby Galleon, Cards, Mr. Zanti, the little girl. As +he swung his legs he knew that everything that he did afterwards would +be, in some way, attached to these earlier things and these earlier +people. + +He had brave hopes and brave ambitions and a warm heart as he flung +himself into bed; it speaks well for him that, on the night before he +set out on his adventure, he slept like the child that he really was. + +But he knew that he would wake at six o'clock. He had determined that it +should be so, and the clocks were striking as he opened his eyes. It +was very dark and the cocks crowed beyond his open window, and the misty +morning swept in and blew his lighted candle up and down. He dressed +in the blue serge suit with a blue tie fastened in a sailor's knot. He +leaned out of his window and tried to imagine, out of the darkness, the +beloved moor--then he took his black bag and crept downstairs; it was +striking half-past six as he came softly into the hall. + +There he saw that the gas was flaring and that his father was standing +in his night-shirt. + +"I think I'm in front of you," he said, smiling. + +"Let me go, father," Peter said, very white, and putting down the bag. + +"Be damned to you," said his father. "You don't get through this door." + +It was all so ludicrous, so utterly absurd, that his father should +be standing, in his night-shirt, on this very cold morning, under the +flaring gas. It occurred to Peter that as he wanted to laugh at this Mr. +Zanti could not have been right about his lack of humour. Peter walked +up to his father, and his father caught him by the throat. Mr. Westcott +was still, in spite of recent excesses, sufficiently strong. + +"I very much want to choke you," he said. + +Peter, however, was stronger. + +His father dropped the hold of his throat, and had him, by the waist, +but his hands slipped amongst his clothes. For a moment they swayed +together, and Peter could feel the heat of his father's body beneath +the night-shirt and the violent beating of his heart. It was immensely +ludicrous; moreover there now appeared on the stairs Mrs. Pascoe, in +a flannel jacket over a night-gown, and untidy hair about her ample +shoulders. + +"The Lord be kind!" she cried, and stood, staring. Mr. Westcott was +breathing very heavily in Peter's face, and their eyes were so close +together that Peter could notice how bloodshot his father's were. + +"God damn you!" said his father and slipped, and they came down on to +the wood floor together. Peter rose, but his father lay there, breathing +heavily. + +"God damn you," he said again, but he did not move. + +"You'd better look after him," Peter said, turning to the astounded Mrs. +Pascoe. As he moved he saw a surprising sight, his grandfather's door +was opened and his grandfather (who had not been on his feet for a great +many years) was standing in the middle of it, cackling with laughter, +dressed in a very ugly yellow dressing-gown, his old knotted hands +clutching the sides of the door, his shrivelled body shaking, and his +feet in large red slippers. + +"Dear me, that was a nasty knock," he chattered. + +And so Peter left them. + +The high road was cool and fresh and dark. The sea sung somewhere below +amongst the rocks, and Peter immediately was aware that he was leaving +Cornwall. + +Now he had no other thought. The streets of the town were deserted, +clean, smelling of the fields, hay-carts, and primroses, with the +darkness broken by dim lamps, and a very slender moon. His heart was +full, his throat burning. He crossed the market-place and suddenly bent +down and kissed the worn stones of the Tower. There was no one to see. + +He was in the station at twenty minutes past seven. The platform was +long and cold and deserted, but in the waiting-room was Mr. Zanti +enveloped in an enormous black coat. + +"Ah, my dear boy, this is indeed splendid. And 'ave you said farewell to +your father?" + +"Yes, I've said good-bye to every one," he answered slowly. Suddenly he +would have given all the wide world and his prospects in it not to be +going. The terrors of Scaw House were as nothing beside that little grey +town with the waves breaking on the jetty, the Grey Hill above it, the +twisted cobbled streets. + +The morning wind blew up the platform, the train rolled in; there were +porters, but Mr. Zanti had only a big brown bag which he kept with him. + +Soon they were in corners facing one another. As the train swept past +the Tower the grey dawn was breaking into blue over the houses that +rose, tier by tier, to the sky over the grey rolling breakers, over the +hills beyond ... Cornwall! + +Poor Peter stared with passionate eyes as the vision passed. + +"London soon," said Mr. Zanti, gaily. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ALL KINDS OF FOG IN THE CHARING CROSS ROAD + + +I + +Towards the middle of the dim afternoon as the first straight pale +houses began to close in upon the train, a lady and gentleman on the +opposite side to Peter were discovered by him, as he awoke from a long +sleep, to be talking: + +"Well, my dear Lucy, how we are ever to get on if you want to do these +absurd things I don't know. In London one must do as London does. In the +country of course..." + +He was short, breathless and a little bald. The lady was young and very +upset. + +"But, Henry, what does it matter?" + +"What does it matter? My dear Lucy, in London everything matters--" + +She was excited. "In Kensington perhaps, but in London--" + +"Allow me, my dear Lucy, to decide for you. When you are my age--" + +Peter went to sleep again. + + +II + +The vast iron-girdled station was very dark and Mr. Zanti explained that +this was because, outside, there was a Fog-- + +"The Fog," he added, as though it had been a huge and ferocious animal, +"is very yellow and has eaten up London. It will take us a very long +time to find our home." + +To Peter, short and square, in his rough suit shouldering his bag, this +was all as the infernal regions. The vast place towered high, into misty +distances above him. Trains, like huge beasts, stretched their limbs +into infinity; screams, piercing and angry, broke suddenly the voices +and busy movement that flooded the place with sounds. He was jostled and +pushed aside and people turned and swore at him and a heated porter ran +a truck into his legs. And through it and above it all the yellow fog +came twisting in coils from the dark street beyond and every one coughed +and choked and cursed England. + +Mr. Zanti, after five minutes' angry pursuit, caught a reluctant and +very shabby four-wheeler, and they both climbed into its cavernous +depths and Peter's nose was filled with something that had leather and +oranges and paper bags and whisky in it; he felt exactly as though Mr. +Zanti (looking very like an ogre in the mysterious yellow light with his +bowler on the back of his head and mopping his face with a huge crimson +handkerchief) were decoying him away to some terrible fastness where it +was always dark and smelly. + +And indeed that first vision of London, seen through the grimy windows +of the cab, was terrible enough. The cab moved a little, stopped, moved +again; it seemed that they would be there for ever and they exchanged +no word. There were no buildings to be seen; a vast wall of darkness +surrounded him and ever and again, out of the heart of it, a great +cauldron of fire flamed and by the side of it there were wild, agitated +faces--and again darkness. On every side of the stumbling cab there was +noise--voices shouting, women screaming, the rumbling of wheels, the +plunging of horses' hoofs; sometimes things brushed against their +cab--once Peter thought that they were down because they were jerked +right forward against the opposite seats. And then suddenly, in the most +wonderful way, they would plunge into silence, a silence so deep and +cavernous that it was more fearful than those other noises had been, and +the yellow darkness seemed to crowd upon them with a closer eagerness +and it was as though they were driving over the edge of the world. Then +the noises returned, for a moment the fog lifted showing houses, rising +like rocks from the sea sheer about them on every side, then darkness +again and the cab stopped with a jerk. + +"Ah, good," said Mr. Zanti, rolling his red handkerchief into a ball. +"'Ere we are, my young friend--Mr. Peter, after you, please." + +Before him a light faintly glimmered and towards this, after stumbling +on the slippery pavement, he made his way. He found himself in a +bookshop lighted with gas that hissed and spit like an angry cat; the +shop was low and stuffy but its walls were covered with books that +stretched into misty fog near the ceiling. Behind a dingy counter a man +was sitting. This man struck Peter's attention at once because of +the enormous size of his head and the amount of hair that covered +it--starting out of the mist and obscurity of the shop, this head looked +like some strange fungus, and from the heart of it there glittered two +very bright eyes. + +Peter, standing awkwardly in the middle of the shop, gazed at this head +and was speechless. + +Outside, Mr. Zanti could be heard disputing with the cabman. + +"You can go and be damned--ze bags were not on ze outside--Zat is plenty +for your pay and you be damned--" + +The shop door closed with a bang shutting out the fog and Mr. Zanti +filled the little bookshop. He seemed taller and larger than he had been +in Cornwall and his voice was sharper. The head removed itself from the +counter and Peter saw that it belonged to a small man with a hump who +came forward to Mr. Zanti very humbly. + +"Ah, Gottfried," said Zanti, "you well?" + +"Very, sir," answered the little man, bowing a little and smiling; his +voice was guttural with a very slight accent. + +"This is Mr. Peter Westcott. 'E will work here and 'elp you with ze +books. 'E is a friend of mine and you will be kind to him. Mr. Peter, +zis is Herr Gottfried Hanz--I owe 'im much--ver' clever man." + +They shook hands and Peter liked the pair of eyes that gazed into his. + +Then Mr. Zanti said, "Come, I will show you ze rest of ze place. It is +not a mansion, you will find." + +Indeed it was not. Behind the shop there was a room, brown and green, +with two windows that looked on to a yard, so Mr. Zanti said. There was +no furniture in it save a table and some chairs; a woman was spreading +a cloth on the table as they came in. This woman had grey hair that +escaped its pins and fell untidily about her shoulders. She was very +pale, tall and thin and her most striking features were her piercing +black eyes and with these she stared at Peter. + +"Zis is Mrs. Dantzig," said Mr. Zanti, "an old friend--Mr. Peter +Westcott, Mrs. Dantzig. 'E will work wiz us." + +The woman said nothing but nodded her head and continued her work. They +passed out of the room. Stairs ran both up and down. + +"What is down there?" asked Peter. + +"Ah, zat is ze kitchen," said Mr. Zanti, laughing. Upstairs there was +a clean and neat bedroom with a large bed in it, an old sofa and two +chairs. + +"Zis is where I sleep," said Mr. Zanti. "For a night or two until you +'ave discovered a lodging you shall sleep on zat sofa. Zay will make it +whilst we 'ave supper." + +It was now late and Peter was very very tired. Downstairs there was much +bread and butter and bacon and eggs, and beer. The woman waited upon +them but they were all very silent and Peter was too sleepy to be +hungry. + +The table was cleared and Mr. Zanti sat smoking his pipe and talking +to the woman. Peter sat there, nodding, and he thought that their +conversation was in a foreign tongue and he thought that they looked at +him and that the woman was angry about something--but the sleep always +gained upon him--he could not keep it away. + +At last a hand was upon his shoulder and he was led up to bed. + +He tumbled out of his clothes and his last impression was of Mr. Zanti +standing in front of him, looking vast and very solemn in a blue cotton +night-shirt. + +"Peter," Mr. Zanti seemed to be saying, "you see in me, one, two, a +hundred men.... All my life I seek adventure--fun--and I find it--but +there 'as not been room for ze affections. Then I find you--I love you +as my son and I say 'Come to my bookshop'--But only ze bookshop mind +you--you are there for ze books and because I care for you--I care +for you ver' much, Peter, and zere 'as not been room in my life for ze +affections ... but I will be a ver' good friend to you--and you shall +only be in ze shop--with ze books--I will be a good friend--" + +Then it seemed that Mr. Zanti kissed Peter on both cheeks, blew out the +candle, and climbed into his huge bed; soon he was snoring. + +But Peter could not be sure of these things because he was so very tired +that he did not know whether he were standing on his head or his heels +and he was asleep on his sofa and dreaming about the strangest and most +confused events in less than no time at all. + + +III + +And then how wonderful to discover, on waking up the next morning, that +it was a beautiful day, as beautiful a day as any that Cornwall could +give him. It was indeed odd, after the great darkness of the afternoon +before to find now a burning blue sky, bright shining pavements and the +pieces of iron and metal on the cabs glittering as they rolled along. +The streets were doubtless delightful but Peter was not, on this day at +any rate, to see very much of them; he was handed over to the care of +Herr Gottfried Hanz, who had obviously not brushed his hair when he got +up in the morning; he also wore large blue slippers that were too big +for his feet and clattered behind him as he walked. Whatever light there +might be in the street outside only chinks of it found their way into +the shop and the gas-jet hissed and flared as it had done on the +day before. The books seemed mistier and dustier than ever and Peter +wondered, in a kind of despair, how in the world if any one did come in +and ask for anything he was going to tell them whether it were there or +not. + +But here Herr Gottfried came to the rescue. "See you," he said with +an air of pride, "it is thus that they are arranged. Here you have the +Novel--Brontë, Bulwer, Bunyan ("The Pilgrim's Progress," that is not a +novel but it is near enough). Here you have History, and here the Poets, +and here Philosophy and here Travel--it will all be simple in time--" + +Peter's eyes spun dizzily to the heights. + +"There is a little ladder," said Herr Gottfried. + +"And," at last said Peter timidly, "May I--read--when there is no one +here?" + +Herr Gottfried looked at him with a new interest. "You like reading?" + +"Like!" Peter's voice was an ecstasy. + +"Why of course, often." Herr Gottfried smiled. "And then see! (he opened +the shop door) there is a small boy, James, who is supposed to look +after these (these were the 1_d_., 2_d_. and 3_d_. boxes outside the +window, on the pavement) but he is an idle boy and often enough he is +not there and then we must have the door open and you must watch them. +Often enough (this seemed a favourite phrase of his) these gentlemen +(this with great scorn) will turn the books over and over and they will +look up the street once and they will look down the street once, and +then into the pocket a book will go--often enough," he added, looking +beyond the door savagely at a very tired and tattered lady who was +turning the 1_d_. lot over and over. + +Then, this introductory lesson concluded, Herr Gottfried suddenly +withdrew into the tangles of his hair and retreated behind his counter. +Through the open door there came the most entrancing sound and the +bustle of the street was loud and startling--bells ringing, boys +shouting, wheels rattling, and beyond these immediate notes a steady hum +like the murmur of an orchestra heard through closed doors. All this +was wonderful enough but it was nothing at all to the superlative +fascination of that multitude of books. Peter found a hard little chair +in a dark corner and sat down upon it. Here he was in the very heart of +his kingdom! He could never read all the books in this place if he lived +for two hundred years... and so he had better not try. He made a blind +dash at the volumes nearest him (quietly lest he should disturb Herr +Gottfried who seemed very busy at his counter) and secured something and +read it as well as he could, for the light was very bad. It was called +"The True and Faithful Experiences of the Reverend James Scott in the +Other World Being a Veracious History of his Experiences of the Life +after Death"--the dust rose from its pages in little clouds and tempted +him to sneeze but he bit his lip and counted forty and saved the +situation. + +Herr Gottfried dealt with the customers that morning and Peter stood +nervously watching him. The customers were not very many--an old lady +who "wanted something to read" caused many volumes to be laid before +her, and finally left the shop without buying anything--a young man with +spectacles purchased some tattered science and a clergyman some Sermons. +A thin and very hungry looking man entered, clutching a badly-tied +paper parcel. These were books he wanted to sell. They were obviously +treasured possessions because he touched them, when they were laid upon +the counter, with a loving hand. + +"They are very good books," he said plaintively. + +"Three shillings," said Herr Gottfried. + +The hungry man sighed. + +"Five shillings," he said, "they are worth more." + +"Three shillings for the lot," said Herr Gottfried. + +"It is very little," said the hungry man, but he took the money and went +out sadly. + +Once their came a magnificent gentleman--that is, he looked magnificent +in the distance away from the gas jet. He was tall with a high hat, a +fine moustache and a tailcoat; he had melancholy eyes and a languid +air. Peter was sorry to observe on a closer view that his tail-coat was +frayed and his collar not very clean. + +He gave Herr Gottfried a languid bow and passed through the shop into +the room beyond. + +"Guten Tag, Herr Signer," said Herr Gottfried with deference, but the +gentleman had already disappeared. + +Then, after a time, one o'clock struck and Peter understood that if he +would place himself under Herr Gottfried's protection he should be led +to an establishment where for a small sum meat-pies were to be had... +all this very novel and delightful, and Peter laid down "The Experiences +of the Reverend James Scott," which were not at present very thrilling +and followed his guide into the street. Peter was still wondering where +Herr Gottfried had put his blue slippers and whence had come the large +flat boots and the brown and faded squash hat when he was suddenly in a +little dark street with the houses hanging forward as though they were +listening and any number of clothes dangling from the window sills and +waving about as though their owners were still inside them and kicking +vigorously. Although the street was dark it was full of noise, and a +blaze of light at the other end of it proclaimed more civilised quarters +(Trafalgar Square in fact) at no great distance. + +"Gerade aus," said Herr Gottfried and pushed open a swinging door. Peter +followed him into the most amazing babel of voices, a confusion and a +roaring, an atmosphere thick with smoke and steam and a scent in the air +as though ten thousand meat-pies were cooking there before his eyes. +By the door a neat stout little woman, hung all over with lockets and +medallions as though she were wearing all the prizes that the famous +meat-pies had ever won, was sitting in a little box with a glass front +to it. + +"Bon jour, Monsieur Hanz." + +"Tag, Meine Gnädige Frau." + +All down the room, by the wall, ran long tables black with age and +grime. Men of every age and nationality were eating, drinking, smoking +and talking. Some of them knew Herr Gottfried, some did not. + +"Wie gehts, Gottfried?" + +And Herr Gottfried, planting his flat feet like dead weights in front of +him, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair, smiled +at some, spoke to others, and at last found a little corner at the end +of the room, a corner comparatively quiet but most astoundingly smelly. + +Peter sat down and recovered his breath. How far away now was Treliss +with its cobbled street, and the Grey Hill with the Giant's Finger +pointing solemnly to the sky. + +"I have no money," he said. + +"The Master has given me this for you," Herr Gottfried said, handing him +two sovereigns, "he says it is in advance for the week." + +The meat-pies, beer and bread were ordered and then for a time they sat +in silence. Peter was turning in his mind a thousand questions that he +would like to ask but he was still afraid of his strange companion and +he felt a little as though he were some human volcano that might at any +moment burst forth and cover him with furious disaster. + +Then Herr Gottfried said: + +"And so you care for reading?" + +"Yes." + +"What do you read?" + +What had Peter read? He mentioned timidly "David Copperfield," "Don +Quixote," and "Henry Lessingham." + +"Ah, that's the way--novels, novels, novels--always sugar ... Greek, +Latin?" + +"No, just a little at school." + +"Ah, yes, your schools. I know them. Homer?" + +"No, I'm afraid not." + +"Ah, well you shall read Homer. He is the greatest, he is the Master. +There is Pope for a beginning. I will teach you Greek.... Goethe?" + +"I--beg your pardon." + +"Goethe, Goethe, Goethe--he has never heard of him--never. Ah, these +schools--I know them. Teach them nonsense--often enough--but any +wisdom--never--" + +"I'm very sorry--" said Peter humbly. + +"And music?" + +"I've had no opportunity--" + +"But you would love it? Yes, I see that you would love it--it is in your +eyes. Beethoven? No--later perhaps--then often enough--but Schubert! Ah, +Schubert!" (Here the meat-pies arrived but Herr Gottfried did not see +them). "Ah, the Unfinished! He shall hear that and he will have a new +soul--And the songs! Gott in Himmel, the songs! There is a man I know, +he will sing them to you. Die Mullerlieder. It is always water, the +Flowers, the Sun and all the roses in the world ... ach! 'Dir Spinnerin' +'Meersstille' ... 'Meersstille'--yah, Homer, Schubert--meat and +drink--Homer the meat-pie, Schubert the beer, but not this beer--no, +Helles, beautiful Helles with the sun in it...." + +He had forgotten Peter and Peter did not understand anything that he +said, but he sat there with his eyes wide open and felt assured that +it was all very useful to him and very important. The inferno continued +around them, the air grew thicker with smoke, a barrel-organ began to +play at the door, draughts and dominoes rattled against the long wooden +tables.... + +Ah! this was, indeed, London. + +Peter was so greatly moved that his hunger left him and it was with +difficulty that the meat-pie was finished. + + +IV + +During the three days that followed Peter learnt a very great deal about +the bookshop. At night he still slept in Mr. Zanti's bedroom, but it +was only a temporary pitching of tents during these days whilst he was a +stranger and baffled by the noise and confusion. + +Already his immediate surroundings had ceased to be a mystery. He had +as it were taken them to himself and seated himself in the midst of them +with surprising ease. Treliss, Scaw House, his father, had slipped back +into an unintelligible distance. He felt that they still mattered to him +and that the time would most certainly come when they would matter to +him even more, but they were not of immediate concern. The memory of his +mother was closer to him.... + +But in this discovery of London he was amazingly happy--happier than he +had ever been in all his life, and younger too. There were a great many +things that he wished to know, a great many questions that he wished +to ask--but for the moment he was content to rest and to grasp what he +could see. + +In a day he seemed to understand the way that the books went, and not +only that but even the places where the individual books were lodged. He +did not, of course, know anything about the contents of the books, but +their titles gave them, in his mind, human existence so that he thought +of them as actual persons living in different parts of the shop. There +was, for instance, the triumph of "Lady Audley's Secret." An old lady +with a trembling voice and a very sharp pair of eyes wished for a +secondhand copy. + +"I've very sorry, Madame," began Herr Gottfried, "but I'm afraid we +haven't..." + +"I think--" said Peter timidly, and he climbed the little ladder and +brought the book down from a misty corner. Herr Gottfried was indeed +amazed at him--he said very little but he was certainly amazed. +Indeed, with the exception of the "meat-pie" interval he scarcely spoke +throughout the day. Peter began to look forward to one o'clock for +then the German, in the midst of the babel and the smoke, continued the +educating progress, and even read Goethe's poetry aloud (translating it +into the strangest English) and developed Peter's conception of Homer +into an alluring and fascinating picture. + +Of London itself during these days Peter saw nothing. At eight o'clock +in the evening the shutters were put up by the disobedient James and the +shop retired for the night. Herr Gottfried shuffled away to some hidden +resting-place of his own and Peter found supper waiting for him in the +room at the back. He ate this alone, for Mr. Zanti was not there and +during these three days he was hardly visible at all. He was up in +the morning before Peter was and he came to bed when Peter was already +asleep. The boy was not, however, certain that his master was always +away when he seemed to be. He appeared suddenly at the most surprising +moments, smiling and cheerful as ever and with no sign of hurry about +him. He always gave Peter a nod and a kind word and asked him how the +books were going and patted him on the shoulder, but he was away almost +as soon as he was there. + +One strange thing was the number of people that came into the bookshop +with no intention whatever of having anything to do with the books. +Indeed they paid no heed to the bookshop, and after flinging a word at +Herr Gottfried, they would pass straight into the room beyond and as far +as Peter could see, never came out again. + +The magnificently-dressed gentleman, called by Herr Gottfried "Herr +Signor," was one of these persons. + +However, Peter, happy enough in the excitement of the present, asking no +questions and only at night, before he fell asleep, lying on his +sofa, listening to the sounds in the street below him, watching the +reflections of the gas light flung up by the street lamps on to the +walls of his room, he would wonder ... and, so wondering, he was asleep. + +And then, on the fourth day, something happened. + +It was growing late, and Peter underneath the gas jet was buried in +Mr. Pope's Homer. A knock on the door and the postman entered with the +letters. As a rule Herr Gottfried took them, but on this afternoon he +had left the shop in Peter's hands for half an hour whilst he went out +to see a friend. Peter took the letters and immediately the letter on +the top of the pile (Mr. Zanti's post was always a large one) set his +heart thumping. The handwriting was the handwriting of Stephen. There +could be no doubt about it, no possible doubt. Peter had seen that +writing many times and he had always kept the letter that Stephen had +written to him when he first went to Dawson's. To other eyes it +might seem an ordinary enough hand--rough and uneducated and +sprawling--anybody's hand, but Peter knew that there could be no +mistake. + +The sight of the letter as it lay there on the counter swept away the +shop, the books, London--he sat looking at it with a longing, stronger +than any longing that he had ever known, to see the writer again. He +lived once more through that night on the farm--perhaps at that moment +he felt suddenly his loneliness, here in this huge and tempestuous +London, here in this dark bookshop with so many people going in or out. +He rubbed the sleeves of his blue serge suit because they made him feel +like Treliss, and he sat, with eyes staring into the dark, thinking of +Stephen. + +That evening, just as he was going up to bed, Mr. Zanti came in and +greeted him with his accustomed cheerfulness. + +"Going to bed, Peter? Ah, good boy." + +Peter stopped, hesitating, by the door. + +"Oh, I wonder--" he said and stopped. + +"Yes?" said Mr. Zanti, looking at him. + +"Oh--well--it's nothing--" Then he blurted out--"I saw a letter--I +couldn't help it--a letter from Stephen this afternoon. They came when +Herr Gottfried was out--and I wanted--I want dreadfully--to hear about +him--if you could tell me--" + +For an instant Mr. Zanti's large eyes closed until they seemed to be no +larger than pin-points--then they opened again. + +"Stephen--Stephen? Stephen what? What is it that the boy talks of?" + +"You know--Stephen Brant--the man who first brought me to see you when I +was quite a kid. I was--I always have been very fond of him. I should be +so very glad--" + +"Surely the boy is mad--what has come to you? Stephen Brant--yes I +remember the man--but I have heard nothing for years and years--no, +nothing. See, here are my afternoon's letters." + +He took a bundle of letters out of his pocket and showed them to Peter. +The boy found the one in Stephen's handwriting. + +"You may read it," said Mr. Zanti smiling. Peter read it. He could not +understand it and it was signed "John Simmons" ... but it was certainly +in Stephen's handwriting. + +"Thank you," said Peter in rather a quivering voice and he turned away, +gulping down his disappointment. + +Mr. Zanti patted him on the shoulder. + +"That's right, my boy. Ah, I expect you miss your friend. You will be +lonely here, yes? Well--see--now that you have been here a few days +perhaps it is time for you to find a place to live--and I have talked +wiz a friend of mine, a ver' good friend who 'as lived for many years in +a 'ouse where 'e says there is a room that will just do for you--cheap, +pleasant people ... yes? To-morrow 'e will show you the place. There you +will 'ave friends--" + +Peter smiled, thanked Mr. Zanti and went to bed. But his dreams were +confused that night. It seemed to him that London was a huge room with +closing walls, and that ever they came closer and closer and that he +screamed for Stephen and they would not let Stephen come to him. + +And bells were ringing, and Mr. Zanti, with a lighted candle in his +hands, was creeping down those dark stairs that led to the kitchen, +and he might have stopped those closing walls but he would not. Then +suddenly Peter was running down the Sea Road above Treliss and the waves +were sounding furiously below him--his father was there waiting for him +sternly, at the road's end and Herr Gottfried with a Homer in one hand +and his blue shoes in the other sat watching them out of his bright +eyes. His father was waiting to kill him and Mrs. Pascoe was at his +elbow. Peter screamed, the sweat was pouring off his forehead, his +throat was tight with agony when suddenly by his side was old Frosted +Moses, with his flowing beard. "It isn't life that matters," he was +whispering in his old cracked voice, "but the courage that you bring to +it." + +The figures faded, the light grew broader and broader, and Peter woke to +find Mr. Zanti, by the aid of a candle, climbing into bed. + +But some time passed before he had courage to fall asleep again. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +BROCKETTS: ITS CHARACTER, AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT + + +I + +On the next afternoon about six o'clock, Mr. Zanti, accompanied by the +languid and shabby gentleman whom Peter had noticed before, appeared in +the shop. + +"Signor Rastelli," said Mr. Zanti, and the languid gentleman shook hands +with Peter as though he were conferring a great benefit upon him and he +hoped Peter wouldn't forget it. + +"Zis," said Mr. Zanti, "is my young friend, Peter Westcott, whom I love +as if 'e were my own son--Signor Rastelli," he continued, turning to +Peter, "I've known him for very many years and I can only say zat ze +longer I 'ave known him ze more admirable I 'ave thought 'im." + +The gentleman took off his tall hat, stroked it, put it on again and +looked, with his languid eyes, at Peter. + +"And," continued Mr. Zanti, cheerfully, conscious perhaps that he was +carrying all the conversation on his own shoulders, "'e will take you to +a 'ouse where 'e has been for--'ow many years, Signor?" + +"Ten," said that gentleman. + +"For ten years--every comfort. Zere's a little room 'e tells me where +you will be 'appy--and all your food and friendship for one pound a +week. There!" he ended triumphantly. + +"Thank you very much," said Peter, but he did not altogether like the +look of the seedily dressed gentleman, and would much rather have stayed +with Mr. Zanti. + +He had packed his black bag in readiness, and now he fetched it and, +after promising to be in the shop at half-past eight the next morning, +started off with his melancholy guide. + +The lamps were coming out, and a silence that often falls upon London +just before sunset had come down upon the traffic and the people. +Windows caught the departing flame, held it for an instant, and sank +into grey twilight. + +"I know what you're thinking about me," Peter's companion suddenly said +(he was walking very fast as though trying to catch something), "I know +you don't like me. I could see it at once--I never make a mistake about +those things. You were saying to yourself: 'What does that horrible, +over-dressed stranger want to come interfering with me for?'" + +"Indeed, I wasn't," said Peter, breathlessly, because the bag was so +heavy and they were walking so fast. + +"Oh, yes, you were. Never mind. I'm not a popular man, and when you +know me better you'll like me still less. That's always the way I affect +people. And always with the best intentions. And you were thinking, too, +that you never saw anything less Italian than I am, and you're sure my +name's Brown or Smith, and indeed it's true that I was born in Clapham, +but my parents were Italians--refugees, you know, although I'm sure I +don't know what from--and every one calls me the Signor, and so there +you are--and I don't see how I'm to help it. But that's just me all +over--always fighting against the tide but I don't complain, I'm sure." +All this said very rapidly and in a melancholy way as though tears were +not very far off. Then he suddenly added: + +"Let me carry your bag for you." + +"No, thank you," said Peter, laughing, "I can manage it." + +"Ah, well, you look strong," said the Signor appreciatively. "I envy +you, I'm sure--never had a day's health myself--but I don't complain." + +By this time they had passed the British Museum and were entering into +the shadows of Bloomsbury. At this hour, when the lamps and the stars +are coming out, and the sun is going in, Bloomsbury has an air of +melancholy that is peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a +perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for +them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy +squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest +against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful +acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the +drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the +ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless eye of a +boarding-house keeper. + +But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is +Bennett Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is +further than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets. +There are only four lamp posts there--one at each corner--and between +these patches of light everything is darkness and desolation. + +Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is +Brockett's. + +"Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman," said the Signor +darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as +he stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this +threatening prophecy, entirely miserable. + +No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is +tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer +back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not +broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful +glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a +soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and +determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, +did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had +not come. + +The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that +smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but +the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of +mournful black coats that hung against the wall. + +Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he +knew by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous--she stood +facing him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man--flat, +straight, broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was +brushed back and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She +stood there, looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her +eyes were black and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose +thin and sharp; her black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell +otherwise in straight folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache +on her upper lip, her hands, with long white slender fingers, were +beautiful, lying straight by her side, against the stuff of her dress. + +"Well?" she said--and her voice was deep like a man's. "Good evening, +Signor." + +"Good evening, Madame." He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow. +"This is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this +morning." + +"Well--how are you, Mr. Westcott?" Her words were sharply clipped and +had the resonance of coins as they rang in the air. + +"Quite well, thank you," said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his +dismay at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and +friendly. + +"Florence will show you your room, Mr. Westcott. It is a pound a +week including your meals and attendance and the use of the general +sitting-room. If you do not like it you must tell me and we will wish +one another good evening. If you do like it I shall do my best to make +you comfortable." + +Peter found afterwards that this was her invariable manner of addressing +a new-comer. It could scarcely be called a warm welcome. She turned and +called, "Florence!" and a maid-servant, diminutive in size but spotless +in appearance, suddenly appeared from nowhere at all, as it seemed to +Peter. + +He followed this girl up many flights of stairs. On every side of him +were doors and, once and again, gas flared above him. It was all very +cold, and gusts of wind passed up and down, whisking in and out of the +oilcloth, and Peter thought that he had never seen so many closed doors +in his life. + +At last they came to an end of the stairs and there with a skylight +covering the passage outside was his room. It was certainly small and +the window looked out on a dismal little piece of garden far below and a +great number of roofs and chimneys and at last a high dome rising like a +black cloud in the farther distance. It was spotlessly clean. + +"I think it will do very well, thank you," said Peter and he put down +his black bag. + +"Do you?" said the maid. "There's a bell," she said, pointing, "and the +meal's at seving sharp." She disappeared. + +He spent the time, very cheerfully, taking the things out of the +black bag and arranging them. He had suddenly, as was natural in him, +forgotten the dismal approach to the house, the overwhelming appearance +of Mrs. Brockett, his recent loneliness. Here, at last, was a little +spot that he could, for a time, at any rate, call his own. He could +come, at any time of the evening and shut his door, and be alone here, +master of everything that he surveyed. Perhaps--and the thought sent the +blood to his cheeks--it was here that he would write! He looked about +the room lovingly. It was quite bare except for the bed, the washing +stand and a chair, and there was no fire-place. But he arranged the +books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The +Downs, on the window sill, and the little faded photograph of his mother +on the ledge above the washing basin. He had scarcely finished doing +these things when there was a tap on his door. He opened it, and found +the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short, faded blue jacket +that made him look shabbier than ever. + +"Excuse--not intruding, I hope?" He looked gloomily round the room. +"Everything all right?" + +"Very nice," said Peter. + +"Ah, you'll like it at first--but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs. +Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now." + +"I was, a little," admitted Peter. + +"Ah, well, we all are at first. But you'll get over that, you'll love +her--every one loves her. By the way," he pushed his hand through his +hair, "what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather--as +you might say--in the sitting-room before dinner--yes--and I'd like to +introduce you to my wife, the Signora--not Italian, you know--but +you'll like her better than me--every one's agreed that hers is a nicer +character." + +Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the +Signer downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings, +looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely +forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw +coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with +him in a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way +downstairs, and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that +she had a passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a +little tin box and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife +and Peter before him into the sitting-room. This was a very +brightly-coloured room with any number of brilliant purple vases on the +mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great number of shining pictures in +the most splendid gilt frames, and in the middle of the room a bright +green settee with red cushions on it. On this settee, which was round, +with a space in the middle of it, like a circus, several persons were +seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They all looked up at +the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the bright colour +of the room that it was some time before he could collect his thoughts. + +But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed. + +"Allow me, Mrs. Monogue," said the Signor, "to introduce to you Mr. +Peter Westcott." The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled +in shawls. She extended him a haughty finger. + +There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and +untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an +interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very +tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two +short, thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were +obviously brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and +Mr. Tressiter, two pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close +together as though they were cold. + +All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks, +and he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that +something would happen. + +Something _did_ happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened, and +a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were +dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby +black silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air. + +"I don't know why it is," she said, with a little chirrup, like a +bird's, "but I'm _always_ late--always!" + +Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat +down between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue. +She then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of +newspaper. + +"I must have my orange, you know," she said, looking gaily round on +every one. + +She spread the newspaper on her knee, and then peeled the orange very +slowly and with great care. The silence was maintained--no one spoke. +Then suddenly the Signor darted forward: "Oh, Mrs. Lazarus I must +introduce you to Madame's new guest, Mr. Westcott." + +"How do you do?" the old lady chirruped. "Oh! but my fingers are all +over orange--never mind, we'll smile at one another. I hope you'll like +the place, I'm sure. I always have an orange before dinner. They've got +used to me, you know. We've all got our little habits." + +Peter did not know what to say, and was wondering whether he ought to +relieve the old lady of her orange peel (at which she was gazing rather +helplessly), when a bell rang and Florence appeared at the door. + +"Dinner!" she said, laconically. + +A procession was formed, Mrs. Monogue, with her shawls sweeping behind +her, sailed in front, and Peter brought up the rear. Mrs. Lazarus put +the orange peel into the newspaper and placed it all carefully in her +pocket. + +Mrs. Brockett was sitting, more like a soldier than ever, at the head of +the table. Mutton was in front of her, and there seemed to be nothing on +the table cloth but cruets and three dusty and melancholic palms. Peter +found that he was sitting between Mrs. Lazarus and Miss Dall, and that +he was not expected to talk. It was apparent indeed that the regularity +with which every one met every one at this hour of the day, during +months and months of the year negatived any polite necessity of +cordiality or genial spirits. When any one spoke it was crossly and in +considerable irritation, and although the food was consumed with great +eagerness on everybody's part, the faces of the company were obviously +anxious to express the fact that the food was worse than ever, and they +wouldn't stand it another minute. They all did stand it, however, and +Peter thought that they were all, secretly, rather happy and contented. +During most of the meal no one spoke to him, and as he was very hungry +this did not matter. Opposite him, all down the side of the room, were +dusty grey pillars, and between these pillars heavy dark green +curtains were hanging. This had the effect of muffling and crushing +the conversation and quite forbidding anybody to be cheerful in any +circumstances. Mrs. Lazarus indeed chirruped along comfortably and +happily for the most part to herself--as, for instance, "I am orangy, +but then I was late and couldn't finish it. Dear me, it's mutton again. +I really must tell Madame about it and there's nothing so nice as beef +and Yorkshire pudding, is there? Dear me, would you mind, young man, +just asking Dear Miss Dall to pass the salt spoon. She's left that +behind. I _have_ the salt-cellar, thank you." + +She also hummed to herself at times and made her bread into little hard +pellets, which she flicked across the table with her thumb at no one +in particular and in sheer absence of mind. The two Mr. Crumleys were +sitting opposite to her, and they accepted the little charge of shot +with all the placid equanimity bred of ancient custom. + +Peter noticed other things. He noticed that Mrs. Monogue was an +exceedingly ill-tempered and selfish woman, and that she bullied the +pleasant girl with the untidy hair throughout the meal, and that the +girl took it all in the easiest possible way. He noticed that Mrs. +Brockett dealt with each of her company in turn--one remark apiece, and +always in that stern, deep voice with the strangely beautiful musical +note in it. To himself she said: "Well, Mr. Westcott, I'm pleased, I'm +sure, that everything is to your satisfaction," and listened gravely to +his assurance. To Miss Dall: "Well, Miss Ball, I looked at the book +you lent me and couldn't find any sense in it, I'm afraid." To Mrs. +Tressiter: "I had little Minnie with me for half an hour this evening, +and I'm sure a better behaved child never breathed" ... and so on. + +Once Miss Dall turned upon him sharply with: "I suppose you never go and +hear the Rev. Mr. M. J. Valdwell?" and Peter had to confess ignorance. + +"Really! Well, it 'ud do you young men a world of good." + +He assured her that he would go. + +"I will lend you a volume of his sermons if you would care to read +them." + +Peter said that he would be delighted. The meal was soon over, and every +one returned to the sitting-room. They sat about in a desolate way, and +Peter discovered afterwards that Mrs. Brockett liked every one to be +there together for half an hour to encourage friendly relations. That +object could scarcely be said to be achieved, because there was very +little conversation and many anxious glances were flung at the clocks. +Mrs. Brockett, however, sat sternly in a chair and sewed, and no one +ventured to leave the room. + +One pleasant thing happened. Peter was standing by the window turning +over some fashion papers of an ancient date, when he saw that Miss +Monogue was at his elbow. Now that she was close to him he observed that +she looked thin and delicate; her dress was worn and old-fashioned, +she looked as though she ought to be wrapped up warmly and taken care +of--but her eyes were large and soft and grey, and although her wrists +looked strangely white and sharp through her black dress her hands were +beautiful. Her voice was soft with an Irish brogue lingering pleasantly +amongst her words: + +"I hope that you will like being here." + +"I'm sure I shall," he said, smiling. He felt grateful to her for +talking to him. + +"You're very fortunate to have come to Mrs. Brockett's straight away. +You mayn't think so now, because Mrs. Brockett is alarming at first, and +we none of us--" she looked round her with a little laugh--"can strike +the on-looker as very cheerful company. But really Madame has a heart of +gold--you'll find that out in time. She's had a terribly hard time of it +herself, and I believe it's a great struggle to keep things going now. +But she's helped all kinds of people in her time." + +Peter looked, with new eyes, at the lady so sternly sewing. + +"You don't know," Miss Monogue went on in her soft, pleasant voice, "how +horrible these boarding-houses can be. Mother and I have tried a good +many. But here people stay for ever--a pretty good testimony to it, I +think ... and then, you know, she never lets any one stay here if she +doesn't like them--so that prevents scoundrels. There've been one or +two, but she's always found them out ... and I believe she keeps old +Mrs. Lazarus quite free of charge." + +She paused, and then she added: + +"And there's no one here who hasn't found life pretty hard. That gives +us a kind of freemasonry, you know. The Tressiters, for instance, they +have three children, and he has been out of work for months--sometimes +there's such a frightened look in her eyes ... but you mustn't think +that we're melancholy here," she went on more happily. "We get a lot of +happiness out of it all." + +He looked at her, and remembering Mrs. Monogue at dinner and seeing +now how delicate the girl looked, thought that she must have a very +considerable amount of pluck on her own account. + +"And you?" she said. "Have you only just come up to London?" + +"Yes," he answered, "I'm in a bookseller's shop--a second-hand +bookseller's. I've only been in London a few days--it's all very +exciting for me--and a little confusing at present." + +"I'm sure you'll get on," she said. "You look so strong and confident +and happy. I envy you your strength--one can do so much if one's got +that." + +He felt almost ashamed of his rough suit, his ragged build. "Well, I've +always been in the country," he said, a little apologetically. "I expect +London will change that." + +Then there came across the room Mrs. Monogue's sharp voice. "Norah! +Norah! I want you." + +She left him. + +That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea +of black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate +distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon, +full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart +was full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this +splendour--a splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a +craftsman feels, when some new and wonderful tools have been given to +him; as a woman feels the child in her womb, stirring mysteriously, +moving her to deep and glad thankfulness, so now, with the night wind +blowing about him, and all London lying, dark and motionless, below him, +he felt the first stirring of his power. This was his to work with, +this was his to praise and glorify and make beautiful--now crude and +formless--a seed dark and without form or colour--one day to make one +more flower in that garden that God has given his servants to work in. + +He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to +him, and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that +mighty city, he would make one little stone that might be added to that +Eternal Temple of Beauty.... + +He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his +father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of +Mr. Zanti and Stephen's letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers, +of this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes ... +finally, for a little, of himself--of his temper and his ambitions and +his selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the +truth. + +He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal +if he were to write that great book that he thought of: "Little Peter +Westcott," London seemed to say, "there's lots to be done to you first +before you're worth anything ... I'll batter at you." + +Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like +better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front +of him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising +to his open window. + + + + +BOOK II -- THE BOOKSHOP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"REUBEN HALLARD" + + +I + +There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon's about a man who +caught--as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time--the +disease of the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his +luxurious chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of +his handsome silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest +thing that held his attention--the noise of the rumbling of the traffic +down Piccadilly--but he was startled and, on that morning, he left his +breakfast unfinished. He had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic +on many other occasions--it may be said to have been the musical +accompaniment to his breakfast for many years past. But on this morning +it was different; as one has a headache before scarlet fever so did this +young man hear the rumble of the traffic down Piccadilly. He listened to +it very attentively, and it was, he told himself, very like the noise +of some huge animal breathing in its sleep. There was a regularity, a +monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense of great force, quiescent +now and held in restraint. He was a very normal, well-balanced young man +and thoughts of this kind were unlike him. + +Then he heard other things--the trees rustling in the park, bells +ringing on every side of him, builders knocking and hammering, windows +rattling, doors opening and shutting. In the Club one evening he +confided in a friend. "I say, it's damned funny--but what would you say +to this old place being alive, taking on a regular existence of its +own, don't you know? You might draw it--a great beast like some old +alligator, all curled up, with its teeth and things--making a noise a +bit as it moves about ... and then, one day when it's got us nicely all +on top of it, down it will bring us all, houses and the rest. Damned +funny idea, what? Do for a cartoon-fellow or some one--" + +The disease developed; he had it very badly, but at first his friends +did not know. He lay awake at night hearing things--one heard much more +at night--sometimes he fancied that the ground shook under his feet--but +most terrible of all was it when there was perfect silence. The traffic +ceased, the trees and windows and doors were still ... the Creature +was listening. Sometimes he read in papers that buildings had suddenly +collapsed. He smiled to himself. "When we are all nicely gathered +together," he said, "when there are enough people ... then--" + +His friends said that he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a +rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating--he was terrified, +but he could not leave it. + +He knew more and more about it; he knew now what it was like, and he +saw its eyes and he sometimes could picture its grey scaly back with +churches and theatres and government buildings and the little houses of +Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones perched upon it--and the noises that it made +now were so many and so threatening that he never slept at all. Then +he began to run, shouting, down Piccadilly, so they put him--very +reluctantly--into a nice Private Asylum, and there he died, screaming. +This story is a prologue to Peter's life in London.... The story struck +his fancy; he thought of it sometimes. + + +II + +On a late stormy afternoon in November, 1895, Peter finished his book, +"Reuben Hallard." It had been raining all day, and now the windows +were blurred and the sea of shining roofs that stretched into the mist +emphasised the dark and gloom of the heavy overhanging sky. + +Peter's little room was very cold, but his body was burning--he was in +a state of overpowering excitement; his hands trembled so that he +could scarcely hold his pen ... "So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a +gentleman"--and then "Finis" with a hard straight line underneath it.... +He had been working at it for three years, and he had been in London +seven. + +He walked up and down his little room, he was so hot that he flung +up his window and leaned out and let the rain, that was coming down +fiercely now, lash his face. Mud! London was full of mud. He could +see it, he fancied, gathering in thick brown layers upon the pavement, +shining and glistening as it mounted, slipping in streams into the +gutter, sweeping about the foundations of the houses, climbing perhaps, +one day, to the very windows. That was London. And yet he loved it, +London and its dirt and darkness. Had he not written "Reuben Hallard" +here! Had the place not taken him into its arms, given him books and +leisure out of its hospitality, treated him kindly during these years +so that they had fled like an instant of time, and here he was, Peter +Westcott, aged twenty-five, with a book written, four friends made, +and the best health possible to man. The book was "Reuben Hallard," +the friends were Mrs. Brockett, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, and Norah +Monogue, and for his health one had only to look at him! + +"So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman!" His excitement was +tremendous; his cheeks were flaming, his eyes glittering, his heart +beating. Here was a book written!--so many pages covered with so much +writing, his claim to be somebody, to have done something, justified +and, most wonderful of all, live, exciting people created by him, Peter +Westcott. He did not think now of publication, of money, of fame--only, +after sharing for three years in the trials and adventures of dear, +beloved souls, now, suddenly, he emerged cold, breathless ... alone ... +into the world again. + +Exciting! Why, furiously, of course. He could have sung and shouted +and walked, right over the tops of the roofs, with the rain beating and +cooling his body, out into the mist of the horizon. _His_ book, "Reuben +Hallard!" London was swimming in thick brown mud, and the four lamps +coming out in Bennett Square in a dim, sickly fashion and he, Peter +Westcott, had written a book.... + +The Signor--the same Signor, some seven years older, a little shabbier, +but nevertheless the same Signor--came to summon him to supper. + +"I have finished it!" + +"What! The book?" + +"Yes!" + +Their voices were awed whispers. The whole house had during the last +three years shared in the fortunes of the book. Peter had come to dinner +with a cloud upon his brow--the book therefore has gone badly--even Mrs. +Brockett is disturbed and Mrs. Lazarus is less chirpy than usual. Peter +comes to dinner with a smile--the book therefore has gone well and even +Mrs. Monogue is a little less selfish than ordinary. The Signor now +gazed round the little room as though he might find there the secret of +so great an achievement. On Peter's dressing-table the manuscript was +piled--"You'll miss it," the Signor said, gloomily. "You'll miss it very +much--you're bound to. You'll have to get it typewritten, and that'll +cost money." + +"Never mind, it's done," said Peter, shaking his head as a dog shakes +himself when he leaves the water. "There they are, those people--and now +I'm going to wash." + +He stripped to the waist, and the Signor watched his broad back and +strong arms with a sigh for his own feeble proportions. He wondered how +it was that being in a stuffy bookshop for seven years had done Peter +no harm, he wondered how he could keep the back of his neck so brown as +that in London and his cheeks as healthy a colour and his eyes as clear. + +"I'm amazingly unpleasant to look at," the Signor said at last. "I often +wonder why my wife married me. I'm not surprised that every one finds me +uninteresting. I am uninteresting." + +"Well, you are not uninteresting to me, I can tell you," said Peter. +He had put on a soft white shirt, a black tie, and a black coat and +trousers, the last of these a little shiny perhaps in places, but neat +and well brushed, and you would really not guess when you saw him, that +he only possessed two suits in the wide world. + +"_I_ think you're absorbing," Peter said, a little patronisingly +perhaps. + +"Ah, that proves nothing," the Signer retorted. "You only care for fools +and children--Mrs. Brockett always says so." + +They went downstairs--Peter was, of course, not hungry at all, but the +conventions had to be observed. In the sitting-room, round about the +green settee, the company was waiting as it had waited seven years ago; +there were one or two unimportant additions and Mrs. Monogue had died +the year before and Mrs. Lazarus was now very old and trembling, but in +effect there was very little change. + +"He has finished it," the Signor announced in a wondering whisper. A +little buzz rose, filled the air for a moment and then sank into silence +again. Mrs. Lazarus was without her orange because she had to wear +mittens now, and that made peeling the thing difficult. "I'm sure," she +said, in a voice like that of a very excited cricket, "that Mr. Westcott +will feel better after he's had something to eat. _I_ always do." + +This remark left conversation at a standstill. The rain drove against +the panes, the mud rose ever higher against the walls, and dinner was +announced. Mrs. Brockett made her remarks to each member of the company +in turn as usual. To Peter she said: + +"I hear that you have finished your book, Mr. Westcott. We shall all +watch eagerly for its appearance, I'm sure." + +He felt his excitement slipping away from him as the moments passed. +Suddenly he was tired. Instead of elation there was wonder, doubt. What +if, after all, the book should be very bad? During all these years in +London he had thought of it, during all these years he had known that it +was going to succeed. What, if now he should discover suddenly that it +was bad?... Could he endure it? The people of his book seemed now +to stand very far away from him--they were unreal--he could remember +scenes, things that they had said and done, absurd, ignorant things. + +He began to feel panic. Why should he imagine that he was able to write? +Of course it was all crude, worthless stuff. He looked at the dingy +white pillars and heavy green curtains with a kind of despair ... of +course it was all bad. He had been hypnotised by the thing for the time +being. Then he caught Norah Monogue's eyes and smiled. He would show it +to her, and she would tell him what it was worth. + +Poor Mrs. Tressiter's baby had died last week and now, suddenly, she +burst out crying and had to leave the room. There was a little twitter +of sympathy. How good they all were to one another, these people, +stupid and odd perhaps in some ways, but so brave for themselves and +so generous to one another. It was no mean gathering of souls that Mrs. +Brockett's dingy gas illuminated. + +Every now and again the heavy curtains blew forward in the wind and +the gas flared. There was no conversation, and the wind could be heard +driving the rain past the windows. + + +III + +Peter, that evening, took the manuscript of "Reuben Hallard" into +Miss Monogue's room. Since her mother died Norah Monogue had had a bed +sitting-room to herself. The bed was hidden by a high screen, the wall +paper was a dark green, and low bookshelves, painted white, ran round +the room. There were no pictures (she always said that until she could +have good ones she wouldn't have any at all). There were some brown pots +and vases on the shelves and a writing-table with a typewriter by the +window. + +When Peter came in, Norah Monogue was sitting in a low chair over a +rather miserable fire; a little pool of light above her head came from +two candles on the mantelpiece--otherwise the room was in darkness. + +"Shall I turn on the gas?" she said, when she saw who it was. + +"No, leave it as it is, I like it." He sat down in a chair near her and +put a pile of manuscript on the floor beside him. "I've brought it for +you to read," he said, "I'm frightened about it. I suddenly think it +is the most rotten thing that ever was written." He had become very +intimate with her during these seven years. At first he had admired her +because she behaved so splendidly to her abominable mother--then she had +obviously been interested in him, had talked about the things that he +was reading and his life at the bookshop. They had speedily become the +very best of friends, and she understood friendship he thought in the +right way--as though she had herself been a man. And yet she was with +that completely feminine, a woman who had known struggle from the +beginning and would know it to the end; but her personality--humorous, +pathetic, understanding--was felt in her presence so strongly that no +one ever forgot her after meeting her. Some one once said of her, "She's +the nicest ugly woman to look at I've ever seen." + +She cared immensely about her appearance. She saved, through blood and +tears, to buy clothes and then always bought the wrong ones. She had +perfect taste about everything except herself, and as soon as it touched +her it was villainous. She was untidy; her hair--streaked already with +grey--was never in its place; her dress was generally undone at the +back, her gloves had holes. + +Her mother's death had left her some fifty pounds a year and she earned +another fifty pounds by typewriting. Untidy in everything else, in her +work she was scrupulously neat. She had had a story taken by _The Green +Volume_. Her friends belonged (as indeed just at this time so many +people belonged) to the Cult of the Lily, repeated the witticisms of +Oscar Wilde and treasured the art of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Miss Monogue +believed in the movement and rejected the affectations. In 1895, when +the reaction began, she defended her old giants, but looked forward +eagerly to new ones. She worked too hard to have very many friends, and +Peter saved her from hours of loneliness. To him she was the last word +in Criticism, in Literature. He would have liked to have fashioned +"Reuben Hallard" after the manner of _The Green Volume_, but now thought +sadly that it was as unlike that manner as possible; that is why he was +afraid to bring it to her. + +"You won't like it," he said. "I thought for a moment I had done +something fine when I finished it this afternoon, but now I know that +it's bad. It's all rough and crude. It's terribly disappointing." + +"That's all right," she answered quietly. "We won't say any more about +it until I have read it--then we'll talk." + +They were silent for a little. He was feeling unhappy and, curiously +enough, frightened. He would have liked to jump up suddenly and shout, +"Well, what's going to happen now?"--not only to Norah Monogue, but to +London, to all the world. The work at the book had, during these years, +upheld him with a sense of purpose and aim. Now, feeling that that work +was bad, his aim seemed wasted, his purpose gone. Here were seven years +gone and he had done nothing--seen nothing, become nothing. What was his +future to be? Where was he to go? What to do? He had reasoned blindly +to himself during these years, that "Reuben Hallard" would make his +fortune--now that seemed the very last thing it would do. + +"I knew what you're feeling," she said, "now that the book's done, +you're wondering what's coming next." + +"It's more than that. I've been in London seven years. Instead of +writing a novel that no one will want to read I might have been getting +my foot in. I might at any rate have been learning London, finding my +way about. Why," he went on, excitedly, "do you know that, except for +a walk or two and going into the gallery at Covent Garden once or twice +and the Proms sometimes and meeting some people at Herr Gottfried's once +or twice I've spent the whole of my seven years between here and the +bookshop--" + +"You mustn't worry about that. It was quite the right thing to do. You +must remember that there are two ways of learning things. First through +all that every one has written, then through all that every one is +doing. Up to now you've been studying the first of those two. Now you're +ready to take part in all the hurly-burly, and you will. London will +fling you into it as soon as you're ready, you can be sure." + +"I've been awfully happy all this time," he went on, reflectively. +"Too happy I expect. I never thought about anything except reading and +writing the book, and talking to you and Gottfried. Now things will +begin I suppose." + +"What kind of things?" + +"Oh, well, it isn't likely that I'm going to be let alone for ever. I've +never told you, have I, about my life before I came up to London?" + +She hesitated a little before she answered. "No, you've never told me +anything. I could see, of course, that it hadn't been easy." + +"How could you see that?" + +"Well, it hadn't been easy for either of us. That made us friends. And +then you don't look like a person who would take things easily--ever. +Tell me about your early life before you came here," Norah Monogue said. + +She watched his face as he told her. She had found him exceedingly good +company during the seven years that she had known him. They had slipped +into their friendship so easily and so naturally that she had never +taken herself to task about it in any way; it existed as a very +delightful accompaniment to the day's worries and disappointments. She +suddenly realised now with a little surprised shock how bitterly she +would miss it all were it to cease. In the darkened room, with the storm +blowing outside, she felt her loneliness with an acute wave of emotion +and self-pity that was very unlike her. If Peter were to go, she felt, +she could scarcely endure to live on in the dreary building. + +Part of his charm from the beginning had been that he was so +astoundingly young, part of his interest that he could be, at times, so +amazingly old. She felt that she herself could be equal neither to his +youth nor his age. She was herself so ordinary a person, but watching +him made the most fascinating occupation, and speculating over his +future made the most wonderful dreams. That he was a personality, that +he might do anything, she had always believed, but there had, until now, +been no proof of it in any work that he had done ... he had had nothing +to show ... now at last there lay there, with her in the room, the +evidence of her belief--his book. + +But the book seemed now, at this moment, of small account and, as +she watched him, with the candle-light and the last flicker of the +fire-light upon his face, she saw that he had forgotten her and was back +again, soul and spirit, amongst the things of which he was speaking. + +His voice was low and monotonous, his eyes staring straight in front of +him, his hands, spread on his knees, gripped the cloth of his trousers. +She would not admit to herself that she was frightened, but her heart +was beating very fast and it was as though some stranger were with her +in the room. It may have been the effect of the candlelight, blowing +now in the wind that came through the cracks in the window panes, but it +seemed to her that Peter's face was changed. His face had lines that +had not been there before, his mouth was thinner and harder and his eyes +were old and tired ... she had never seen the man before, that was her +impression. + +But she had never known anything so vivid. Quietly, as though he were +reciting the story to himself and were not sure whether he were telling +it aloud or no, he began. As he continued she could see the place as +though it was there with her in the room, the little Inn that ran out +into the water, the high-cobbled street, the sea road, the grim stone +house standing back amongst its belt of trees, the Grey Hill, the coast, +the fields ... and then the story--the night of the fight, the beating, +the school-days, that day with his mother (here he gave her actual +dialogue as though there was no word of it that he had forgotten), +the funeral--and then at last, gradually, climbing to its climax +breathlessly, the relation of father and son, its hatred, then its +degradation, and last of all that ludicrous scene in the early morning +... he told her everything. + +When he had finished, there was a long silence between them: the fire +was out and the room very cold. The storm had fallen now in a fury about +the house, and the rain lashed the windows and then fell in gurgling +stuttering torrents through the pipes and along the leads. Miss Monogue +could not move; the scene, the place, the incidents were slowly fading +away, and the room slowly coming back again. The face opposite her, +also, gradually seemed to drop, as though it had been a mask, the +expression that it had worn. Peter Westcott, the Peter that she knew, +sat before her again; she could have believed as she looked at him, that +the impressions of the last half-hour had been entirely false. And yet +the things that he had told her were not altogether a surprise; she had +not known him for seven years without seeing signs of some other +temper and spirit--controlled indeed, but nevertheless there, and very +different from the pleasant, happy Peter who played with the Tressiter +children and dared to chaff Mrs. Brockett. + +"You've paid me a great compliment, telling me this," she said at last. +"Remember we're friends; you've proved that we are by coming like this +to-night. I shan't forget it. At any rate," she added, softly, "it's all +right now, Peter--it's all over now." + +"Over! No, indeed," he answered her. "Do you suppose that one can grow +up like that and then shake it off? Sometimes I think ... I'm afraid +..." he stopped, abruptly biting his lips. "Oh, well," he went on +suddenly in a brighter tone, "there's no need to bother you with all +that. It's nothing. I'm a bit done up over this book, I expect. But +that's really why I told you that little piece of autobiography--because +it will help you to understand the book. The book's come out of all +that, and you mightn't have believed that it was me at all--unless I'd +told you these things." + +He stood facing her and a sudden awkwardness came over both of them. +The fire was dead (save for one red coal), and the windows rattled like +pistol-shots. He was feeling perhaps that he had told her too much, and +the reserve of his age, the fear of being indiscreet, had come upon +him. And with her there was the difficulty of not knowing exactly what +comfort it was that he wanted, or whether, indeed, any kind of comfort +would not be an insult to him. And, with all that awkwardness, there was +also a knowledge that they had never been so near together before, +an intimacy had been established that night that would never again be +broken. + +Into their silence there came a knock on the door. When Miss Monogue +opened it the stern figure of Mrs. Brockett confronted her. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss Monogue, but is Mr. Westcott here?" + +Peter stepped forward. + +"Oh, I'm sure I'm sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Westcott, but +there's a man outside on the steps who insists on seeing you." + +"Seeing me?" + +"Yes--he won't come in or go away. He won't move until he's seen you. +Very obstinate I'm sure--and such a night! Rather late, too--" + +Mrs. Brockett was obviously displeased. Her tall black figure was drawn +up outside the door, as a sentry might guard Buckingham Palace. There +was a confusion of regality, displeasure, and grim humour in her +attitude. But Peter was a favourite of hers. With a hurried goodnight +to Miss Monogue he left the two women standing on the stairs and went to +the hall-door. + +When he opened it the wind was blowing up the steps so furiously that it +flung him back into the hall again. Outside in the square the world was +a wild tempestuous black, only, a little to the right, the feeble glow +of the lamp blew hither and thither in the wind. The rain had stopped +but all the pipes and funnels of the city were roaring with water. The +noise was that of a thousand chattering voices, and very faintly through +the tumult the bells of St. Matthews in Euston Square tinkled the hour. + +On the steps a figure was standing bending beneath the wind. The light +from the hall shone out on to the black slabs of stone, bright with the +shining rain, but his cape covered the man's head. Nevertheless Peter +knew at once who it was. + +"Stephen," he said, quietly. + +The hall door was flung to with a crash; the wind hurled Peter against +Stephen's body. + +"At last! Oh, Stephen! Why didn't you come before?" + +"I couldn't, Master Peter. I oughtn't to of come now, but I 'ad to see +yer face a minute. Not more than a minute though--" + +"But you must come in now, and get dry things on at once. I'll see Mrs. +Brockett, she'll get you a room. I'm not going to let you go now that--" + +"No, Master Peter, I can't stop. I mustn't. I 'aven't been so far away +all this time as you might have thought. But I mustn't see yer unless I +can be of use to yer. And that's what I've come about." + +He pressed close up to Peter, held both his hands in his and said: "Look +'ere, Peter boy, yer may be wanting me soon--no, I can't say more than +that. But I want yer--to be on the look-out. Down there at the bookshop +be ready, and then if any sort o' thing should 'appen down along--why +I'm there, d'ye see? I'll be with yer when you want me--" + +"Well, but Stephen, what do you mean? What _could_ happen? Anyhow you +mustn't go now, like this. I won't let you go--" + +"Ah, but I must now--I must. Maybe we shall be meeting soon enough. Only +I'm there, boy, if yer wants me. And--keep yer eye open--" + +In an instant that warm pressure of the hand was gone; the darker black +of Stephen's body no longer silhouetted against the lighter black of the +night sky. + +Still in Peter's nose there was that scent of wet clothes and the deep, +husky voice was in his ears. But, save for the faint yellow flickering +lamp, struggling against the tempest, he was alone in the square. + +The rain had begun to fall again. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MAN ON THE LION + + +I + +After the storm, the Fog. + +It came, a yellow, shrouded witch down upon the town, clinging, choking, +writhing, and bringing in its train a thousand mysteries, a thousand +visions. It was many years since so dense and cruel a fog had startled +London--in his seven years' experience of the place Peter had known +nothing like it, and his mind flew back to that afternoon of his +arrival, seven years before, and it seemed to him that he was now moving +straight on from that point and that there had been no intervening +period at all. The Signer saw in a fog as a cat sees in the dark, and he +led Peter to the bookshop without hesitation. He saw a good many other +things beside his immediate direction and became comparatively cheerful +and happy. + +"It is such a good thing that people can't see me," he said. "It +relieves one of a lot of responsibility if one's plain to look at--one +can act more freely." Certainly the Signor acted with very considerable +freedom, darting off suddenly into the fog, apparently with the +intention of speaking to some one, and leaving Peter perfectly helpless +and then suddenly darting back again, catching Peter in tow and tugging +him forward once more. + +To the bookshop itself the fog made very little difference. There +were always the gas-jets burning over the two dark corners and the top +shelves even in the brightest of weather, were mistily shrouded by dust +and distance. The fog indeed seemed to bring the books out and, whilst +the world outside was so dark, the little shop flickered away under the +gas-jets with little spasmodic leaps into light and colour when the door +opened and blew the quivering flame. + +It was not of the books that Peter was thinking this morning. He sat +at a little desk in one dark corner under one of the gas-jets, and Herr +Gottfried, huddled up as usual, with his hair sticking out above the +desk like a mop, sat under the other; an old brass clock, perched on a +heap of books, ticked away the minutes. Otherwise there was silence save +when a customer entered, bringing with him a trail of fog, or some one +who was not a customer passed solemnly, seriously through to the rooms +beyond. The shop was, of course, full of fog, and the books seemed to +form into lines and rows and curves in and out amongst the shelves of +their own accord. + +Peter meanwhile was most intently thinking. He knew as though he had +seen it written down in large black letters in front of him, that a +period was shortly to be put to his present occupation, but he could not +have said how it was that he knew. The finishing of his book left the +way clear for a number of things to attack his mind. Here in this misty +shop he was beset with questions. Why was he here at all? Had he during +these seven years been of such value, that the shop could not get on +without him?... To that second question he must certainly answer, no. +Why then had Mr. Zanti kept him all this time? Surely because Mr. Zanti +was fond of him. Yes, that undoubtedly was a part of the reason. The +relationship, all this time, had grown very strong and it was only now, +when he set himself seriously to think about it, that he realised how +glad he always was when Mr. Zanti returned from his travels and how +happy he had been when it had been possible for them to spend an +afternoon together. Yes, Mr. Zanti was attached to him; he had often +said that he looked upon him as a son, and sometimes it seemed to Peter +that the strange man was about to make some declaration, something that +would clear the air, and explain the world--but he never did. + +Peter had discovered strangely little about him. He knew now that Mr. +Zanti's connection with the bookshop was of the very slenderest, that +that was indeed entirely Herr Gottfried's affair, and that it was used +by the large and smiling gentleman as a cloak and a covering. As a cloak +and a covering to what? Well, at any rate, to some large and complicated +game that a great number of gentlemen were engaged in playing. Peter +knew a good many of them now by sight--untidy, dirty, many, foreigners +most, all it seemed to Peter, with an air of attempting something that +they could never hope to accomplish. Anything that they might do he was +quite sure that they would bungle and, with the hearts of children, the +dirty tatters of foreign countries, and the imaginations of exuberant +story-tellers, he could see them go, ignorantly, to dreadful +catastrophes. + +Peter was even conscious that the shop was tolerantly watched by +inspectors, detectives, and policemen, and that it was all too +childish--whatever it was--for any one to take it in the least +seriously. But nevertheless there were elements of very real danger in +all those blundering mysteries that had been going on now for so many +years, and it was at any rate of the greatest importance to Peter, +because he earned his living by it, because of his love for Stephen and +his affection for Mr. Zanti, and because if once anything were to happen +his one resting-place in this wild sea of London would be swept away and +he would be utterly resourceless and destitute. + +This last fact bit him, as he sat there in the shop, with sudden and +acute sharpness. What a fool he had been, all this time, to let things +slide! He should have been making connections, having irons in the fire, +bustling about--how could he have sat down thus happily and easily for +seven years, as though such a condition of things could continue for +ever? He had had wild ideas of "Reuben Hallard" making his fortune!... +that showed his ignorance of the world. Let him begin to bustle. He +would not lose another moment. There were two things for him now to do, +to beard editors (those mythical creatures!) in their caves and to find +out where Stephen lived ... both these things as soon as possible. + +In the afternoon the fog became of an impenetrable thickness, and beyond +the shop it seemed that there was pandemonium. Some fire, blazing at +some street corner, flared as though it were the beating heart of all +that darkness, and the cries of men and the slow, clumsy passing of the +traffic filled the bookshop with sound. + +No customers came; Herr Gottfried worked away at his desk, the brass +clock ticked, Peter sat listening, waiting. + +Herr Gottfried broke the silence once with: "Peter, my friend, at +ten o'clock to-night there will be a little music in my room. Herr +Dettzolter and his 'cello--a little Brahms--if the fog is not too much +for you." + +Peter accepted. He loved the low-roofed attic, the clouds of tobacco, +the dark corner where he sat and listened to Herr Gottfried's friends +(German exiles like Herr Gottfried playing their beloved music). It was +his only luxury. + +Once two men whom Peter knew very well by sight came into the shop. They +were, he believed, Russians--one of them was called Oblotzky--a tall, +bearded fierce-looking creature who could speak no English. + +Then suddenly, just as Peter was thinking of finding his way home to the +boarding-house, Mr. Zanti appeared. He had been away for the last +two months, but there he was, his huge body filling the shop, the fog +circling his beard like a halo, beaming, calm, and unflustered as though +he had just come from the next street. + +"Damned fog," he said, and then he went and put his hand on Peter's +shoulder and looked down at him smiling. + +"Well, 'ow goes the shop?" he said. + +"Oh, well enough," said Peter. + +"What 'ave you been doing, boy? Finished the book?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah, good. You'll be ze great man, Peter." He looked down at him proudly +as a father might look upon his son. + +"Ze damnedest fog--" he began, then suddenly he stopped and Peter +felt his hand on his shoulder tighten. "Ze damnedest--" Mr. Zanti said +slowly. + +Peter looked up into his face. He was listening. Herr Gottfried, +standing in the middle of the shop, was also listening. + +For a moment there was an intense breathless silence. The noise from the +street seemed also, for the instant, to be hushed. + +Very slowly, very quietly, Mr. Zanti went to the street door and opened +it. A cloud of yellow fog blew into the shop. + +"Ze damnedest fog ..." repeated Mr. Zanti, still very slowly, as though +he were thinking. + +"Any one been?" he said at last to Herr Gottfried. + +"Oblotzky." + +Mr. Zanti, after flinging a strange, half-affectionate, half-inquisitive +look at Peter, went through into the room beyond. + +"What ..." said Peter. + +"Often enough," interrupted Herr Gottfried, shuffling back to his seat, +"young boys want to know--too much ... often enough." + + +II + +The Tressiter children, of whom there were eight, loved Peter with a +devotion that was in fact idolatry. They loved him because he understood +them so completely and from Anne Susan, aged one and a half, to Rupert +Bernard, aged nine, there was no member of the family who did not repose +complete trust and confidence in Peter's opinions, and rejoice in his +wonderful grasp of the things in the world that really mattered. Other +persons might be seen shifting, slowly and laboriously, their estimates +and standards in order to bring them into line with the youthful +Tressiter estimates and standards.... Peter had his ready without any +shifting. + +First of all the family did Robin Tressiter, aged four, adore Peter. He +was a fat, round child with brown eyes and brown hair, and an immense +and overwhelming interest in the world and everything contained therein. +He was a silent child, with a delightful fat chuckle when really amused +and pleased, and he never cried. His interest in the world led him into +strange and terrible catastrophes, and Mrs. Tressiter was always far +too busy and too helpless to be of any real assistance. On this foggy +afternoon, Peter, arriving at Brockett's after much difficulty and +hesitation, found Robin Tressiter, on Miss Monogue's landing, with his +head fastened between the railings that overlooked the hall below. +He was stuck very fast indeed, but appeared to be perfectly +unperturbed--only every now and again he kicked a little with his legs. + +"I've sticked my neck in these silly things," he said, when he saw +Peter. "You must pull at me." + +Peter tried to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must +have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss +Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when +he saw that some one else was there. + +"It's a friend of mine," Norah Monogue said, "Come in and be introduced, +Peter." + +"It's only," Peter explained, "that young Robin has got his head stuck +in the banisters and I want some one to help me--" + +Between them they pulled the boy through to safety. He chuckled. + +"I'll do it again," he said. + +"I'd rather you didn't," said Peter. + +"Then I won't," said Robin. "I did it 'cause Rupert said I +couldn't--Rupert's silly ass." + +"You mustn't call your brother names or I won't come and see you in +bed." + +"You will come?" said Robin, very earnestly. + +"I will," said Peter, "to-night, if you don't call your brother names." + +"I think," said Robin, reflectively, "that now I will hunt for the lion +and the tigers on the stairs--" + +"Bring him into my room until his bedtime," said Miss Monogue, laughing. +"It's safer. Mrs. Tressiter is busy and has quite enough children in +with her already." + +So Peter brought Robin into Miss Norah Monogue's room and was +introduced, at once, to Clare Elizabeth Rossiter--so easily and simply +do the furious events of life occur. + +She was standing with her back to the window, and the light from Miss +Monogue's candles fell on her black dress and her red-gold hair. As he +came towards her he knew at once that she was the little girl who had +talked to him on a hill-top one Good Friday afternoon. He could almost +hear her now as she spoke to Crumpet--the candle-light glow was dim +and sacred in the foggy room; the colour of her hair was filled more +wonderfully with light and fire. Her hands were so delicate and fine as +they moved against her black dress that they seemed to have some harmony +of their own like a piece of music or a running stream. She wore blue +feathers in her black hat. She did not know him at all when he came +forward, but she smiled down at Robin, who was clinging on to Peter's +trousers. + +"This is a friend of mine, Mr. Westcott," Miss Monogue said. + +She turned gravely and met him. They shook hands and then she sat down; +suddenly she bent down and took Robin into her lap. He sat there sucking +his thumb, and taking every now and again a sudden look at her hair and +the light that the candles made on it, but he was very silent and quiet +which was unlike him because he generally hated strangers. + +Peter sat down and was filled with embarrassment; his heart also was +beating very quickly. + +"I have met you before," he said suddenly. "You don't remember." + +"No--I'm afraid--" + +"You had once, a great many years ago, a dog called Crumpet. Once in +Cornwall ... one Good Friday, he tumbled into a lime-pit. A boy--" + +"Why, of course," she broke in, "I remember you perfectly. Why of all +the things! Norah, do you realise? Your friend and I have known each +other for eight years. Isn't the world a small place! Why I remember +perfectly now!" + +She turned and talked to Norah Monogue, and whilst she talked he took +her in. Although now she was grown up she was still strangely like that +little girl in Cornwall. He realised that now, as he looked at her, +he had still something of the same feeling about her as he had had +then--that she was some one to be cared for, protected, something +fragile that the world might break if she were not guarded. + +She was porcelain but without anything of Meredith's "rogue." Because +Peter was strong and burly the contrast of her appealing fragility +attracted him all the more. Had she not been so perfectly proportioned +her size would have been a defect; but now it was simple that her +delicacy of colour and feature demanded that slightness and slenderness +of build. Her hair was of so burning a red-gold that its colour gave her +precisely the setting that she required. She seemed, as she sat there, +a little helpless, and Peter fancied that she was wishing him to +understand that she wanted friends who should assist her in rather a +rough-and-tumble world. Just as she had once appealed to him to save +Crumpet, so now she seemed to appeal for some far greater assistance. +Ah! how he could protect her! Peter thought. + +Something in Peter's steady gaze seemed suddenly to surprise her. She +stopped--the colour mounted into her cheeks--she bent down over the boy. + +They were both of them supremely conscious of one another. There was a +moment.... Then, as men feel, when some music that has held them ceases, +they came, with a sense of breathlessness, back to Norah Monogue and her +dim room. + +Peter was conscious that Robin had watched them both. He almost, Peter +thought, chuckled to himself, in his fat solemn way. + +"Miss Rossiter," Norah Monogue said--and her voice seemed a long way +away--"has just come back from Germany and has brought some wonderful +photographs with her. She was going to show them to me when you came +in--" + +"Let me see them too, please," said Peter. + +Robin was put on to the floor and he went slowly and with ceremony to an +old brown china Toby that had his place on a little shelf by the door. +This Toby--his name was Nathaniel--was an old friend of Robin's. Robin +sat on the floor in a corner and told Nathaniel the things about the +world that he had noticed. Every now and again he paused for Nathaniel's +reply; he was always waiting for him to speak, and the continued silence +of a now ancient acquaintance had not shaken Robin's faith.... Robin +forgot the rest of the company. + +"Photographs?" said Peter. + +"Yes. Germany. I have just been there." She looked up at him eagerly and +then opened a portfolio that she had behind her chair and began to show +them. + +He bent gravely forward feeling that all of this was pretence of the +most absurd kind and that she also knew that it was. + +But they were very beautiful photographs--the most beautiful that he had +ever seen, and as each, in its turn, was shown for a moment his eyes +met hers and his mouth almost against his will, smiled. His hand too was +very near the silk of her dress. If he moved it a very little more +then they would touch. He felt that if that happened the room would +immediately burst into flame, the air was so charged with the breathless +tension; but he watched the little space of air between his fingers and +the black silk and his hand did not move. + +They were all very silent as she turned the photographs over and there +were no sounds but the sharp crackling of the fire as it burst into +little spurts of flame, the noise that her hand made on the silk of her +dress as she turned each picture and the little mutterings of Robin in +his corner as he talked to his Toby. + +Peter had never seen anything like this photography. The man had used +his medium as delicately as though he had drawn every line. Things stood +out--castles, a hill, trees, running water, a shining road--and behind +them there was darkness and mystery. + +Suddenly Peter cried out: + +"Oh! that!" he said. It was the photograph of a great statue standing +on a hill that overlooked a river. That was all that could be seen--the +background was dark and vague, it was the statue of a man who rode a +lion. The lion was of enormous size and struggling to be free, but the +man, naked, with his utmost energy, his back set, his arms stiff, had +it in control, but only just in control ... his face was terrible in the +agony of his struggle and that struggle had lasted for a great period +of time ... but at length, when all but defeated, he had mastered his +beast. + +"Ah that!" Miss Rossiter held it up that Norah Monogue might see it +better. "That is on a hill outside a little town in Bavaria. They put it +up to a Herr Drexter who had done something, saved their town from riot +I think. It's a fine thing, isn't it, and I think it so clever of them +to have made him middle-aged with all the marks of the struggle about +him--those scars, his face--so that you can see that it's all been +tremendous--" + +Peter spoke very slowly--"I'd give anything to see that!" he said. + +"Well, it's in Bavaria; I wonder that it isn't better known. But funnily +enough the people that were with me at the time didn't like it; it was +only afterwards, when I showed them the photograph that they saw that +there might have been ... aren't people funny?" she ended abruptly, +appealing to him with a kind of freemasonry against the world. + +But, still bending his brows upon it he said insistently-- + +"Tell me more about it--the place--everything--" + +"There isn't really anything to tell; it's only a very ordinary, very +beautiful, little German town. There are many orchards and this forest +at the back of it and the river running through it--little cobbled +streets and bridges over the river. And then, outside, this great statue +on the hill--" + +"Ah, but it's wonderful, that man's face--I'd like to go to that town--" +He felt perhaps that he was taking it all too seriously for he turned +round and said laughing: "The boy's daft on lions--Robin, come and look +at this lion--here's an animal for you." + +The boy put down the Toby and walked slowly and solemnly toward them. He +climbed on to Peter's knee and looked at the photograph: "Oh! it _is_ a +lion!" he said at last, rubbing his fat finger on the surface of it to +see of what material it was made. "Oh! for me!" he said at last in a +shrill, excited voice and clutching on to it with one hand. "For me--to +hang over my bed." + +"No, old man," Peter answered, "it belongs to the lady here. She must +take it away with her." + +"Oh! but _I_ want it!" his eyes began to fill with tears. + +Miss Rossiter bent down and kissed him. He looked at her distrustfully. +"I know now I'm not to have it," he said at last, eyeing her, "or you +wouldn't have kissed me." + +"Come on," said Peter, afraid of a scene, "the lady will show you the +lion another day--meantime I think bed is the thing." + +He mounted the boy on to his shoulder and turned round to Miss Rossiter +to say "Good-bye." The photograph lay on the table between them--"I +shan't forget that," he said. + +"Oh! but you must come and see us one day. My mother will be delighted. +There are a lot more photographs at home. You must bring him out one +day, Norah," she said turning to Miss Monogue. + +If he had been a primitive member of society in the Stone Age he would +at this point, have placed Robin carefully on the floor and have picked +Miss Rossiter up and she should never again have left his care. + +As it was he said, "I shall be delighted to come one day." + +"We will talk about Cornwall--" + +"And Germany." + +His hand was burning hot when he gave it her--he knew that she was +looking at his eyes. + +He was abruptly conscious of Miss Monogue's voice behind him. + +"I've read a quarter of the book, Peter." + +He wondered as he turned to her how it could be possible to regard two +women so differently. To be so sternly critical of one--her hair +that was nearly down, a little ink on her thumb, her blouse that was +unbuttoned--and of the other to see her all in a glory so that her whole +body, for colour and light and beautiful silence, had no equal amongst +the possessions of the earth or the wonders of heaven. Here there was a +button undone, there there was a flaming fire. + +"I won't say anything," Miss Monogue said, "until I've read more, but +it's going to be extraordinarily good I think." What did he care about +"Reuben Hallard?" What did that matter when he had Claire Elizabeth +Rossiter in front of him. + +And then he pulled himself up. It must matter. How delighted an hour ago +those words would have made him. + +"Oh! you think there's something in it?" he said. + +"We'll wait," she answered, but her smile and the sparkle in her eyes +showed what she thought. What a brick she was! + +He turned round back to Miss Rossiter. + +"My first book," he said laughing. "Of course we're excited--" + +And then he was out of the room in a moment with Robin clutching his +hair. He did not want to look at her again ... he had so wonderful a +picture! + +And as he left Robin in the heart of his family he heard him say-- + +"_Such_ a lion, Mother, a lady's got--with a man on it--a 'normous lion, +and the man hasn't any clothes on, and his legs are all scratched...." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ROYAL PERSONAGES ARE COMING + + +I + +Peter, sitting obscurely in a corner of Herr Gottfried's attic on the +evening of this eventful day and listening to that string sextette that +was written by Brahms when he was nineteen years of age (and it came +straight from the heights of Olympus if any piece of music ever did), +was conscious of the eyes of Herr Lutz. + +Herr Lutz was Herr Gottfried's greatest friend and was notable for three +things, his enormous size, his surpassing skill on the violoncello and +his devoted attachment to the veriest shrew of a little sharp-boned wife +that ever crossed from Germany into England. For all these things Peter +loved him, but Herr Lutz was never very actively conscious of Peter +because from the moment that he entered Herr Gottfried's attic to the +moment he left it his soul was wrapped in the music and in nothing +else whatever. To-night as usual he was absorbed and after the second +movement of the sextette had come to a most rapturous conclusion he was +violently dissatisfied and pulled them back over it again, because they +had been ragged and their enthusiasm had got the better of their time +and they were altogether disgraceful villains, but through all of this +his grey eyes were upon Peter. + +Peter, watching from his dark corner even felt that the 'cello was being +played especially for his benefit and that Herr Lutz was talking all the +time to him through the medium of his instrument. It may have been that +he himself was in a state of most exalted emotion, and never until the +end of all things mortal and possibly all things eternal will he forget +that sextette by Brahms; he may perhaps have put more into Herr Lutz +than was really there, but it is certain that he was conscious of the +German's attention. + +As is common to all persons of his age and condition he was amazed at +the glorified vision of everyday things. In Herr Gottfried's flat there +was a model of Beethoven in plaster of Paris, a bed, and a tin wash-hand +stand, a tiny bookshelf containing some tattered volumes of Reclame's +Universal Bibliothek, a piano and six cane-bottomed chairs covered at +the moment by the stout bodies of the six musicians--nothing here to +light the world with wonder!--and yet to-night, Peter, sitting on a +cushion in a dark corner watched the glories of Olympus; the music +of heaven was in his ear and before him, laughing at him, smiling, +vanishing only to reappear more rapturous and beautiful than ever was +the lady, the wonderful and only lady. + +His cheeks were hot and his heart was beating so loudly that it was +surely no wonder that Herr Lutz had discovered his malady. The sextette +came to an end and the six musicians sat, for a moment, silent on their +chairs whilst they dragged themselves into the world that they had for +a moment forsaken. That was a great instant of silence when every one in +the room was concerned entirely with their souls and had forgotten that +they so much as had bodies at all. Then Herr Lutz gathered his huge +frame together, stuck his hand into his beard and cried aloud for drink. + +Beer was provided--conversation was, for the next two hours, volcanic. +When twelve o'clock struck in the church round the corner the meeting +was broken up. + +Herr Lutz said to Peter, "There is still the 'verdammte' fog. Together +we will go part of the way." + +So they went together. But on the top of the dark and crooked staircase +Herr Gottfried stopped Peter. + +"Boy," he said and he rubbed his nose with his finger as he always did +when he was nervous and embarrassed, "I shouldn't go to the shop for a +week or two if I were you." + +"Not go?" said Peter astonished. + +"No--for reason why--well--who knows? The days come and they go, and +again it will be all right for you. I should rub up the Editors, I +should--" + +"Rub up the Editors?" repeated Peter still confused. + +"Yes--have other irons, you know--often enough other irons are handy--" + +"Did Zanti tell you to say this to me?" + +"No, he says nothing. It is only I--as a friend, you understand--" + +"Well, thank you very much," said Peter at last. Herr Gottfried, he +reflected, must think that he, Peter, had mints of money if he could so +lightly and on so slender a warning propose his abandoning his precious +two pounds a week. Moreover there was loyalty to Mr. Zanti to be +considered.... Anyway, what did it all mean? + +"I can't go," he said at last, "unless Zanti says something to me. But +what are they all up to?" + +"Seven years," said Herr Gottfried darkly, "has the Boy been in the +shop--of so little enquiring a mind is he." + +And he would say nothing further. Peter followed Herr Lutz' huge body +into the street. They took arms when they encountered the fog and went +stumbling along together. + +"You are in lof," said Herr Lutz, breathlessly avoiding a lamp post. + +"Yes," said Peter, "I am." + +"Ah," said Herr Lutz giving Peter's arm a squeeze. "It is the +only thing--The--Only--Thing.... However it may be for you--bad or +ill--whether she scold or smile, it is a most blessed state." + +He spoke when under stress of emotion, in capitals with a pause before +the important word. + +"It won't come to anything," said Peter. "It can't possibly. I haven't +got anything to offer anybody--an uncertain two pounds a week." + +"You have a--Career," said Herr Lutz solemnly, "I know--I have often +watched you. You have written a--Book. Karl Gottfried has told me. But +all that does not matter," he went on impetuously. "It does not +matter what you get--It is--Being--in--Love--The--divine-- +never--to--be--equalled--State--" + +The enormous German stopped on an island in the middle of the road and +waved his arms. On every side of him through the darkness the traffic +rolled and thundered. He waved his arms and exulted because he had been +married to a shrew of a wife for thirty years. During that time she had +never given him a kind word, not a loving look, but Peter knew that out +of all the fog and obscurity that life might bring to him that Word, +sprung though it might be out of Teutonic sentiment and Heller's beer, +that word, at any rate, was true. + + +II + +London, in the morning, recovered from the fog and prepared to receive +Foreign Personages. They were not to arrive for another week, but it was +some while since anything of the kind had occurred and London meant to +carry it out well. The newspapers were crowded with details; personal +anecdotes about the Personages abounded--a Procession was to take place, +stands began to climb into the air and the Queen and her visitors were +to have addresses presented to them at intervals during the Progress. + +To Peter this all seemed supremely unimportant. At the same moment, to +confuse little things with big ones, Mrs. Lazarus suddenly decided to +die. She had been unwell for many months and her brain had been very +clouded and temper uncertain--but now suddenly she felt perfectly well, +her intelligence was as sharp and bright as it had ever been and the +doctor gave her a week at the utmost. She would like, she said, to have +seen the dear Queen ride through the streets amidst the plaudits of the +populace, but she supposed it was not to be. So with a lace cap on her +head and her nose sharp and shiny she sat up in bed, flicked +imaginary bread pellets along the counterpane, talked happily to the +boarding-house and made ready to die. + +The boarding-house was immensely moved, and Peter, during these days +came back early from the bookshop in order to sit with her. He was +surprised that he cared as he did. The old lady had been for so long +a part of his daily background that he could no more believe in her +departure than he could in the sudden disappearance of the dark green +curtains and the marble pillars in the dining-room. She had had, from +the first, a great liking for Peter. He had never known how much of that +affection was an incoherent madness and he had never in any way analysed +his own feeling for her, but now he was surprised at the acute sharpness +of his regret. + +On a bright evening of sunshine, about six o'clock, she died--Mrs. +Brockett, the Tressiters, Norah Monogue also were with her at the time. +Peter had been with her alone during the earlier afternoon and although +she had been very weak she had talked to him in her trembling voice (it +was like the noise that two needles knocking against one another would +make), and she had told him how she believed in him. + +She made him ashamed with the things that she said about him. He had +paid her little enough attention, he thought, during these seven years. +There were so many things that he might have done. As the afternoon sun +streamed into the room and the old lady, her hands like ivory upon the +counterpane, fell into a quiet sleep he wondered--Was he bad or good? +Was he strong or weak? These things that people said, the affection that +people gave him ... he deserved none of it. Surely never were two +so opposite presences bound together in one body--he was profoundly +selfish, profoundly unselfish, loving, hard, kind, cruel, proud, humble, +generous, mean, completely possessed, entirely uncontrolled, old beyond +his years, young beyond belief-- + +As he sat there beside the sleeping old lady he felt a contempt of +himself that was beyond all expression, and also he felt a pride at the +things that he knew that he might do, a pride that brought the blood to +his cheeks. + +The Man on the Lion? The Man under the Lion's Paw?... The years would +show. A quiet happy serenity passed over Mrs. Lazarus' face and he +called the others into the room. + +Stern Mrs. Brockett was crying. Mrs. Lazarus woke for a moment and +smiled upon them all. She took Peter's hand. + +"Be good to old people," she breathed very faintly--then she closed her +eyes and so died. + +Below in the street a boy was calling the evening papers. "Arrival of +the Prince and Princess of Schloss.... Arrival of the Prince and--" + +They closed the windows and pulled down the blinds. + + +II + +Thursday was to be the day of Royal Processions, and on Friday old Mrs. +Lazarus was to be buried. + +To Peter, Wednesday was a day of extravagant confusion--extravagant +because it was a day on which nothing was done. Customers were not +served in the shop. Editors were not attacked in their lairs. Nothing +was done, every one hung about. + +Peter could not name any one as directly responsible for this state of +things, nor could he define his own condition of mind; only he knew that +he could not leave the shop. About its doors and passages there fell all +day an air of suspense. Mr. Zanti was himself a little responsible for +this; it was so unusual for that large and smiling gentleman to waste +the day idly; and yet there he was, starting every now and again for the +door, looking into the empty yard from the windows at the back of the +house, disappearing sometimes into the rooms above, reappearing suddenly +with an air of unconcern a little too elaborately contrived. + +Peter felt that Mr. Zanti had a great deal that he would like to say to +him, and once or twice he came to him and began "Oh, I say, boy," and +then stopped with an air of confusion as though he had recollected +something, suddenly. + +There was a Russian girl, too, who was about the shop, uneasily on this +day. She was thin, slight, very dark; fierce eyes and hands that seemed +to be always curving. Her name was Maria Notroska and she was engaged +to the big Russian, Oblotzky, whom Peter had seen, on other days up +and down through the shop. She spoke to no one. She knew but little +English--but she would stand for hours at the door looking out into the +street. It was a long uneasy day and Peter was glad when the evening, in +slow straight lines of golden light, came in through the black door. +The evening too seemed to bring forward a renewed hope of seeing +Stephen again--enquiries could bring nothing from either Zanti or Herr +Gottfried; they had never heard of the man, oh no!... Stephen Brant? +Stephen ...? No! Never-- + +That sudden springing out of the darkness had meant something however. +Peter could still feel his wet clothes and see his shining beard. Yes, +if there were any trouble Stephen would be there. What were they all +about? Peter closed the shutters of the shop that night without having +any explanation to offer. Mr. Zanti was indeed a strange man; when Peter +turned to go he stopped him with his hand on his shoulder: "Peter, boy," +he said, whispering, "come upstairs--I have something to tell you." + +Peter was about to follow him back into the shop when suddenly the man +shook his head. "No, not to-night," he said and almost pushed him into +the street. + +Peter, looking back, saw that he was talking to the Russian girl. + +But the day was not over with that. Wondering about Mr. Zanti, thinking +that the boarding-house would be gloomy now after Mrs. Lazarus' death, +recalling, above all, to himself every slightest incident of his meeting +with Miss Rossiter, Peter, crossing Oxford Street, flung his broad body +against a fat and soft one. There was nearly a collapse. + +The other man and Peter grasped arms to steady themselves, and then +behold! the fat body was Bobby Galleon's. Bobby Galleon, after all these +years! But there could be no possible doubt about it. There he stood, +standing back a little from the shock, his bowler hat knocked to one +side of his head, a deprecating, apologetic smile on his dear fat face! +A man of course now, but very little altered in spite of all the years; +a little fatter perhaps, his body seemed rather shapeless--but those +same kind eyes, that large mouth and the clear straight look in all his +face that spoke him to all the world for what he was. Peter felt exactly +as though, after a long and tiring journey, he had tumbled at last into +a large arm-chair. He was excited, he waved his arms: + +"Bobby, Bobby," he cried, so loudly that two old women in bonnets, +crossing the road like a couple of hens turned to look at him. + +"I'm sorry--" Bobby said vaguely, and then slowly recognition came into +his eyes. + +"Peter!" he said in a voice lost in amazement, the colour flooding his +cheeks. + +It was all absurdly moving; they were quite ridiculously stirred, both +of them. The lamps were coming out down Oxford Street, a pale saffron +sky outlined the dark bulk of the Church that is opposite Mudie's shop +and stands back from the street, a little as though it wondered at +all the noise and clamour, a limpid and watery blue still lingered, +wavering, in the evening sky. + +They turned into an A.B.C. shop and ordered glasses of milk and they +sat and looked at one another. They had altered remarkably little and to +both of them, although the roar of the Oxford Street traffic was outside +the window, it might have been, easily enough, that a clanging bell +would soon summon them back to ink-stained desks and Latin exercises. + +"Why, in heaven's name, did you ever get out of my sight so completely? +I wrote to Treliss again and again but I don't suppose anything was +forwarded." + +"They don't know where I am." + +"But why did you never write to me?" + +"Why should I? I wanted to do something first--to show you-" + +"What rot! Is that friendship? I call that the most selfish thing I've +ever known." No, obviously enough, Bobby could never understand that +kind of thing. With him, once a friend always a friend, that is what +life is for. With Peter, once an adventure always an adventure--_that_ +is what life is for--but as soon as a friend ceases to be an adventure, +why then-- + +But Bobby had not ceased to be an adventure. He was, as he sat there, +more of one than he had ever been before. + +"What have you been doing all these years?" + +"Been in a bookshop." + +"In a bookshop?" + +"Yes, selling second-hand books." + +"What else?" + +"Oh reading a lot... seeing one or two people... and some music." Peter +was vague; what after all had he been doing? + +Bobby looked at him tenderly and affectionately. "You want seeing +after--you look fierce, as you used to when you'd been having a bad time +at school. The day they all hissed you." + +"But I haven't been having a bad time. I've had a jolly good one. By the +way," Peter leant forward, "have you seen or heard anything of Cards?" + +Bobby coloured a little. "No, not for a long time. His mother died. He's +a great swell now with heaps of money, I believe. I'm not his sort a +bit." + +They drank milk and beamed upon one another. Peter wanted to tell Bobby +everything. That was one of his invaluable qualities, that one did like +telling him everything. Talking to him eagerly now, Peter wondered +how it could be that he'd ever managed to get through these many years +without him. Bobby simply existed to help his friends and that was the +kind of person that Peter had so often wanted. + +But in it all--in their talking, their laughing together, their +remembering certain catchwords that they had used together, there was +nothing more remarkable than their finding each other exactly as +they had been during those years before at Dawson's. Not even Bobby's +tremendous statement could alter that. + +"I'm married," he said. + +"Married?" + +Bobby blushed. "Yes--two years now--got a baby. She's quite splendid!" + +"Oh!" Peter was a little blank. Somehow this did remove Bobby a +little--it also made him, suddenly, strangely old. + +"But it doesn't make any difference," Bobby said, leaning forward +eagerly and putting his hand on Peter's arm--"not the least difference. +You two will simply get on famously. I've so often told her about you +and we've always been hoping that you'd turn up again--and now she'll be +simply delighted." + +But it made a difference to Peter, nevertheless. He went back a little +into his shell; Bobby with a home and a wife and a baby couldn't spare +time, of course, for ordinary friends. But even here his conscience +pricked him. Did he not know Bobby well enough to be assured that he was +as firm and solid as a rock, that nothing at all could move or change +him? And after all, was not he, Peter, wishing to be engaged and married +and the father of a family and the owner of a respectable mansion? + +Clare Elizabeth Rossiter! How glorious for an instant were the thin, +sharp-faced waitresses, the little marble-topped tables, the glass +windows filled with sponge-cakes and hard-boiled eggs! + +Peter came out of his shell again. "I shall just love to come and see +her," he said. + +"Well, just as soon as you can. By Jove, old man, I'll never let you go +again. Now tell me, everything--all that you have done since I saw you." + +Peter told him a great deal--not quite everything. He told him nothing, +for instance, about meeting a certain young lady on a Good Friday +afternoon and he passed over some of the Scaw House incidents as +speedily as possible. + +"And since I came up to London," he went on, "the whole of my time has +been spent either in the bookshop or the boarding-house. They're awfully +good sorts at both, but it's all very uncertain of course and instead +of writing a novel that no one will want to read I ought to have been +getting on to editors. I've a kind of feeling that the bookshop's going +to end very shortly." + +"Let me see the book," said Bobby. + +"Yes, certainly," said Peter. + +"Anyhow, we go on together from this time forth--72 Cheyne Walk is my +little house. When will you come--to-morrow?" + +"Oh! To-morrow! I don't think I can. There are these Processions and +things--I think I ought to be in the shop. But I'll come very soon. This +is the name of my boarding-house--" + +Bobby, as he saw his friend, broad-shouldered, swinging along, pass down +the street with the orange lamps throwing chains of light about him, was +confronted again by that old elusive spirit that he had known so well at +school. Peter liked him, Peter was glad to see him again, but there were +so many other Peters, so many doors closed against intruders.... Bobby +would always, to the end, be for Peter, outside these doors. He knew it +quite certainly, a little sadly, as he climbed on to his bus. What was +there about Peter? Something hard, fierce, wildly hostile ... a devil, a +God. Something that Bobby going quietly home to his comfortable dinner, +might watch and guard and even love but something that he could never +share. + +Now, in the cool and quiet of the Chelsea Embankment as he walked to his +door, Bobby sighed a little because life was so comfortable. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A LITTLE DUST + + +I + +That night Peter had one of his old dreams. In all the seven years that +he had been in London the visions that had so often made his nights +at Scaw House terrible had never come to him. Now, after so long an +interval they returned. + +He thought that he was once more back on the sea-road above Treliss, +that the wind was blowing in a tempest and that the sea below him was +foaming on to the rocks. He could see those rocks like sharp black +teeth, stretching up to him--a grey sky was above his head and to his +right stretched the grey and undulating moor. + +Round the bend of the road, beyond the point that he could see, he +thought that Clare Rossiter was waiting for him. He must get there +before it struck eleven or something terrible would happen to him. Only +a few minutes remained to him, and only a little stretch of the thin +white road, but two things prevented his progress; first, the wind blew +so fiercely in his face that it drove him back and for every step that +he took forward, although his head was bent and his teeth set, he seemed +to lose two. Also, across the moor voices cried to him and they seemed +to him like the voices of Stephen and Bobby Galleon, and they were +pleading to him to stop; he paused to listen but the cries mingled +softly with the wind and he could hear bells from the town below the +road begin to strike eleven. The sweat was pouring from him--she was +waiting for him, and if he did not reach her all would be lost. He would +never see her again; he began to cry, to beat against the wind with his +hands. The voices grew louder, the wind more vehement, the jagged edges +of the rocks sharper in their outline; the bells were still striking, +but as, at last, breathless, a sharp terror at his heart, he turned the +corner there fell suddenly a silence. At last he was there--only a few +trees blowing a little, a little white dust curling over the road, as +though there had been no rain, and then suddenly the laughing face of +Cards, no longer now a boy, but a man, more handsome than ever, laughing +at him as he battled round the corner. + +Cards shouted something to him, suddenly the road was gone and Peter was +in the water, fighting for his life. He felt all the breathless terror +of approaching death--he was sinking--black, silent water rose above +and around him. For an instant he caught once more the sight of sky and +land. Cards was still on the road and beside him was a woman whose face +Peter could not see. Cards was still laughing. Then in the darkening +light the Grey Hill was visible against the horizon and instead of the +Giant's Finger there was that figure of the rider on the lion.... The +waters closed.... Peter woke to a grey, stormy morning. The sweat was +pouring down his face, his body was burning hot and his hands were +trembling. + + +II + +When he came down to breakfast his head was aching and heavy and Mrs. +Brockett's boiled egg and hard crackling toast were impossible. Miss +Monogue had things to tell him about the book--it was wonderful, +tremendous ... beyond everything that she had believed possible. But +strangely enough, he was scarcely interested. He was pleased of course, +but he was weighted with the sense of overhanging catastrophe. The green +bulging curtains, the row of black beads about Mrs. Brockett's thin +neck, the untidy egg-shells--everything depressed him. + +"I have had a rotten night," he said, "nightmares. I suppose I ate +something--anyhow it's a gloomy day." + +"Yes," said Miss Monogue, pinning some of her hair in at the wrong place +and unpinning other parts of it that happened by accident to be right. +"I'm afraid it's a poor sort of day for the Procession. But Miss Black +and I are going to do our best to see it. It may clear up later." He +had forgotten about the Procession and he wished that she would keep her +hair tidier. + +He wanted to ask her whether she had seen Miss Rossiter but had not +the courage. A little misty rain made feathery noises against the +window-pane. + +"Well, I must go down to the shop," he said, finding his umbrella in the +hall. + +"I think it's superb," she said, referring back to the book. "You won't +be having to go down to the shop much longer." + +It was really surprising that he cared so little. He banged the door +behind him and did not see her eyes as she watched him go. + +Processions be damned! He wished that the wet, shining street were not +so strangely like the sea-road at Treliss, and that the omnibuses at a +distance did not murmur like the sea. People, black and funereal, were +filling stands down Oxford Street; soldiers were already lining the way, +the music of bands could be heard some streets away. + +He was in a thoroughly bad temper and scowled at the people who passed +him. He hated Royal Processions, he hated the bookshop, he hated all his +friends and he wished that he were dead. Here he had been seven years, +he reflected, and nothing had been done. Where was his city paved with +gold? Where his Fame, where his Glory? + +He even found himself envying those old Treliss days. There at any +rate things had happened. There had been an air, a spirit. Fighting his +father--or at any rate, escaping from his father--had been something +vital. And here he was now, an ill-tempered, useless youth, earning two +pounds a week, in love with some one who was scarcely conscious of his +existence. He cursed the futility of it all. + +And so fuming, he crossed the threshold of the bookshop, and, unwitting, +heedless, left for ever behind him the first period of his history. + +"Programme of the Royal Procession," a man was shouting--"Coloured +'Andkerchief with Programme of Royal Procession--" + +Peter, stepping into the dark shop, was conscious of Mr. Zanti's white +face and that behind him was standing Stephen. + + +III + +At the sight of their faces, of their motionless bodies and at the +solemn odd expression of their eyes as they looked past him into the +dark expanse of the door through which he had entered, he knew that +something was very wrong. + +He had known it, plainly enough, by the fact of Stephen's presence +there, but it seemed to him that he had known it from his first +awakening that morning and that he was only waiting to change into hard +outline the misty shapelessness of his earlier fears. But, there and +then, he was to know nothing-- + +Stephen greeted him with a great hand-shake as though he had met him +only the day before, and Mr. Zanti with a smile gave him his accustomed +greeting. In the doorway at the other end of the shop the Russian girl +was standing, one arm on the door-post, staring, with her dark eyes, +straight through into the gloomy street. + +"What are you all waiting for?" Peter said to the motionless figures. +With his words they seemed at once to spring to life. Mr. Zanti rolled +his big body casually to the door and looked down the street, Stephen, +smiling at Peter said: + +"I was just passing, so I thought to myself I'd just look in," his voice +came from his beard like the roll of the sea from a cave. "Just for +an hour, maybe. It's a long day since we've 'ad a bit of a chat, Mr. +Peter." + +Peter could not take it on that casual scale. Here was Stephen vanished +during all those years, returned now suddenly and with as little fuss +as possible, as though indeed he had only been hiding no farther than +behind the door of the shop and waiting merely to walk out when the +right moment should have arrived. If he had been no farther than that +then it was unkind of him--he might have known how badly Peter had +wanted him; if, on the other hand, he had been farther afield, then he +should show more excitement at his return. + +But, Peter thought, it was impossible to recognise in the grave reserved +figure at his side that Stephen who had once given him the most glorious +evening of his life. The connection was there somewhere but many things +must have happened between those years. + +"Shall we go and have luncheon together?" Peter asked. + +Stephen appeared to fling a troubled look in the direction of Mr. +Zanti's broad back. He hesitated. "Well," he said awkwardly, "I don't +rightly know. I've got to be going out for an hour or two--I can't +rightly say as I'll be back. This afternoon, maybe--" + +Peter did not press it any farther. They must settle these things for +themselves, but what was the matter with them all this morning was more +than he could pretend to discover. + +Stephen, still troubled, went out. + +Fortunately there was this morning a good deal of work for Peter to do. +A large number of second-hand books had arrived during the day before +and they must be catalogued and arranged. Moreover there were several +customers. A young lady wanted "something about Wagner, just a +description of the plays, you know." + +"Of the Operas," Peter corrected. + +"Oh, well, the stories--that's what I want--something about two +shillings, have you? I don't think it's really worth more--but so that +one will know where one is, you know." + +She was bright and confidential. She had thought that everything would +be closed because of the Procession... _so_ lucky-- + +A short red-faced woman, dressed in bright colours, and carrying +innumerable little parcels wanted "Under Two Flags," by Mrs. Henry Wood. + +"It's by Ouida, Madam," Peter told her. + +"Nonsense, don't tell me. As if I didn't know." + +Peter produced the volume and showed it to her. She dropped some of her +parcels--they both went to pick them up. + +Red in the face, she glared at him. "Really it's too provoking, I know +it was Mrs. Henry Wood I wanted." + +"Perhaps 'East Lynne,' or 'The Channings'--" + +"Nonsense--don't tell me--it was 'Under Two Flags.'" + +Finally the woman put both "Under Two Flags" and "East Lynne" into her +bag and departed. A silence fell upon the shop. Herr Gottfried was at +his desk, Mr. Zanti at the street door, the girl at the door of the +inner room, they were all motionless. Beyond the shop the murmur of the +gathering crowd was like the confused, blundering hum of bees; a band +was playing stridently in Oxford Street. + +Once Peter said: "It passes about three-thirty, doesn't it? I think I'll +just go out and have a look later. It'll be fine if only the sun comes." + +Mr. Zanti turned slowly round. + +"I'm afraid, boy," he said, "you'll be wanted in ze shop. At two Herr +Gottfried must be going out for some business--zere will be no one--I am +zo zorry." + +They wanted to keep him there, that was evident. Or, at any rate, they +didn't want him to see the Procession. + +"Very well," he said cheerfully, "I'll stay. There'll be plenty more +Processions before I die." But why, why, why? What was there that they +wanted him to avoid? + +He went on arranging the piles of dusty books, the sense of weighty +expectation growing on him with every instant. The clock struck one, but +he did not go out to luncheon; the others were still motionless in their +places. + +Once Herr Gottfried spoke: "The people will have been waiting a +much-more-than-necessary long time," he said. "The police doubtless +have frightened them, but there is still room to walk in the streets and +there have been some unfortunates, since early in the morning--" + +The street beyond the shop was now deserted because soldiers guarded its +approach into Oxford Street; the shop seemed to be left high and dry, +beyond the noise and confusion of the street. + +Then there came into the silence a sharp sound that made Peter amongst +his books, jump to his feet: the Russian girl was crying. + +She stood there, leaning her thin dark body against the side of the +door, surely the most desolate figure in the world. Her hands were about +her face, her body heaved with her sobbing and the little sad noise came +into the dusty tangled room and hung amongst the old broken books as +though they only could sympathise and give it shelter. The band in +Oxford Street was blazing with sound but it did not hide her crying. + +Mr. Zanti crossed to her and spoke to her but she suddenly let her hands +fall from her face and turned upon him, furiously, wildly--"You ..." she +said, "You ..." and then as though the words choked her she turned back +into the inner room. Peter saw Mr. Zanti's face and it was puckered with +distress like a child's. It was almost laughable in its helpless dismay. + +Two o'clock struck. "They'll be starting in half an hour," Herr +Gottfried said. + +"Women," Mr. Zanti said, still looking distressfully about him, "they +are, in truth, very difficult." + +And now there was no pretence, any longer, of disguising the nervous +tension that was with them in the room. They were all waiting for +something--what it might be Peter did not know, but, with every tick of +the old brass clock, some event crept more nearly towards them. + +Then Stephen came back. + +He came in very quietly as though he were trying to keep the note of +agitation that he must have felt on every side of him as near the normal +as possible. + +His face above his beard was grey and streaky and his breath came +rapidly as though he had been running. When he saw Mr. Zanti his hand +went up suddenly in front of his face as though he would protect himself +from the other's questioning. + +"I've 'eard nothing--" he said almost sullenly and then he turned and +looked at Peter. + +"Why must 'e be 'ere?" he said sharply to Zanti. + +"Why not? Where else?" the other answered and the two men watched each +other with hostility across the floor. + +"I wish we'd all bloomin' wull kept out of it," Stephen murmured to +himself it seemed. + +Peter's eyes were upon Mr. Zanti. That gentleman looked more like a +naughty child than ever. In his eyes there was the piteous appeal of a +small boy about to be punished for some grievous fault. In some strange +way Peter was, it appeared, his court of appeal because he glanced +towards him again and again and then looked away. + +Peter could stand it no longer. He got up from the place where he was +and faced them all. + +"What is it? What have you all done? What is the matter with you all?" + +The Russian girl had come back. Her face was white and her hair fell +untidily about her eyes. She came forward fiercely as though she would +have answered Peter, but Mr. Zanti motioned her back with his hand. + +"No, no," he said almost imploringly, "let the boy be--what has he to +do with all this? Leave him. He has nothing to do with it. He knows +nothing." + +"But I ought to know," Peter burst in. "Why have I been kept in the dark +all this time? What right have you--" + +He broke off suddenly. Absolute silence fell amongst them all and they +stood looking at the door, motionless, in their places. There was a new +note in the murmuring of the crowd, and the swift steady passing of it +came up the street to the shop and in at the door. Voices could be heard +rising above others, and then the eager passing of some piece of news +from one to another. + +No one in the shop spoke. Outside in the deserted street there was +silence and then the bands, as though driven by some common wave of +feeling, seemed at the same moment to burst into a blare of music. Some +voice, from the crowd, started "God save the Queen" and immediately it +was taken up and flung into the air by a thousand voices. They must +give vent to their feelings, some news had passed down the crowds like a +flame setting fire to a chain of beacons. + +"What is it?" Peter pressed forwards to the door. And at once he was +answered. Men were running past the shop, crying out; one stopped for an +instant and, wild with excitement, his hands gesticulating, stammering, +the words tumbling from his lips, he shouted at them--"They've +bin flinging bombs ... dirty foreigners ... up there by the Marble +Arch--flinging them at the Old Lady. But it's all right, by Gawd--only +blew 'imself up, dirty foreigner--little bits of 'im and no one else +'urt and now the Old Lady's comin' down the street--she'll be 'ere in +quarter of an 'our and won't we show 'er ... by Gawd ... flingin' +their dirty bombs up there by the Marble Arch and killin' nobody but +'imself--Gawd save the Old Lady--" he rushed on. + +So that was it. Peter, standing in the middle of the room, looked at +them all and understood at last amongst whom he had been working +these seven years. They were murderers, the lot of them--all of +them--Gottfried, Zanti ... Stephen--Oh God! Stephen! He understood now +for what they had been waiting. + +He turned sick at the sudden realisation of it. It did not, at first, +seem to touch himself in any way. At the first immediate knowledge of it +he had been faced by its amazing incongruity. There by the Marble Arch, +with bands flying, flags waving, in all the tumult of a Royal Progress +some one had been blown into little pieces. Elsewhere there were people +waiting, eating buns out of paper bags, and here in the shop the sun +lighted the backs of rows of second-hand novels and down in Treliss the +water was, very gently, lapping the little wooden jetty. Oh! the silly +jumbling of things in this silly jumbling world! + +And then he began to look more closely into it as it concerned himself. +He saw with amazing clearness. He knew that it was Oblotzky the tall +Russian who had been killed. He knew because Oblotzky was the lover of +this Russian girl and he turned round to watch her, curiously, as one +who was outside it all. She was standing with her back against the wall, +her hands spread out flat, looking through the door into the bright +street, seeing none of them. Then she turned and said something in +Russian between her clenched teeth to Mr. Zanti. He would have answered +her but very quietly and speaking now in English she flung at him, as +though it had been a stone: + +"God curse you! You drove him to it!" Then she turned round and left the +room. But the tall man was blubbering like a child. He had turned round +to them all, with his hands outstretched, appealing: + +"But it's not true!" he cried between his sobs, "it's not true! I did +all I could to stop them--I did not know that they would do things--not +really--until now, this morning, when it was too late. It is the others, +Sergius, Paslov, Odinsky--zey were always wild, desperate. But we, the +rest of us, with us it was only tall words." + +Little Herr Gottfried, who had been silent behind them, came forward now +and spoke: + +"It is too late," he said, "for this crying like a baby. We have no +time--we must consider what must be done. If it is true, what that man +says that Oblotzky has blown himself up and no other is touched then no +harm is done. Why regret the Russian? He wanted a violent end and he +has got it--and he has given it to no other. Often enough we are not so +fortunate. He will have spoken to no one. We are safe." Then he turned +to Peter: + +"Poor boy," he said. + +But Peter was not there to be pitied. He had only one thought, "Stephen, +tell me--tell me. You did not know? You had nothing to do with this?" + +Stephen turned and faced him. "No, Peter boy, nothing. I did not know +what they were at. They--Zanti there--'ad 'elped me when I was in +trouble years ago. They've given me jobs before now, but they've always +been bunglers and now, thank the Lord, they've bungled again. You come +with me, Mr. Peter--come along from it all. We'll manage something. I've +only been waiting until you wanted me." + +Zanti turned furiously upon him but the words that he would have spoken +were for the moment held. The Procession was passing. The roar of +cheering came up against the walls of the shop like waves against the +rocks; the windows shook. There she was, the little Old Lady in her +black bonnet, sitting smiling and bowing, and somewhere behind her a +little dust had been blown into the air, had hung for a moment about her +and then had once more settled down into the other dust from which it +had come. + +That was all. In front of her were the Royal Personages, on every side +of her her faithful subjects ... only a cloud of dust had given occasion +for a surer sign of her people's devotion. That, at any rate, Oblotzky +had done. + +The carriage passed. + +Mr. Zanti now faced Peter. + +"Peter--Boy--you must believe me. I did not know, believe me, I did not. +They had talked and I had listened but there is so much talk and never +anything is done. Peter, you must not go, you must not leave me. You +would break my 'eart--" + +"All these years," Peter said, "you have let me be here while you have +deceived me and blinded me. I am going now and I pray to God that I may +never see you again." + +"No, Boy, listen. You must not go like this. 'Ave I not been good to +you? 'Ave I ever made you do anything wrong? 'Ave I not always kept you +out of these things? You are the only person zat I 'ave ever loved. +You 'ave become my son to me. I am not wicked. I was not one of these +men--these anarchists--but it is only that all my life I 'ave wanted +adventure, what you call Ro-mance. And I 'ave found it 'ere, there--one +place, anuzzer place. But it 'as never been wicked--I 'ave never 'armed +a soul. What zat girl says it is not true--I would 'ave done all to stop +it if I could. But you--if you leave me now, I am all alone. There is +no one in the world for me--a poor old man--but if you will be with me I +will show you wonderful things. + +"See," he went on eagerly, almost breathlessly, "we 'ave been socialists +'ere, what you will. We 'ave talked and talked. It amuses me--to +intrigue, to pretend, to 'ave games--one day it is Treason, another +Brigands, another Travel--what you will. But never, never, never danger +to a soul. Now only this morning did I 'ear that they were going to do +this. Always it had been words before--but this morning I got a rumour. +But it was only rumour. I 'ad not enough to be sure of my news. Stephen +here and I--we could do nozzing--we 'ad no time--I did not know where +Oblotzky was--this girl 'ere did not know--I could do nozzing--Peter, +believe me, believe me--" + +The man was no scoundrel. It was plain enough as he stood there, his +eyes simple as a child's, pleading still like a small boy. + +A minute ago Peter had hated him, now he crossed over and put his hand +on his shoulder. + +"You have been wonderfully good to me," he said. "I owe you everything. +But I must go--all this has only made sure what I have been knowing this +long time that I ought to do. I can't--I mustn't--depend on your charity +any longer--it has been too long as it is. I must be on my own and then +one day, when I have proved myself, I will come back to you." + +"No--Peter, Boy--come with me now. I will show you wonderful things all +over Europe; we will have adventures. There is gold in Cornwall in a +place I know. There is a place in Germany where there is treasure--ze +world is full of ze most wonderful things that I know and you and I--we +two--Oh! ze times we all 'ave--" + +"No," ... Peter drew back. "That is not my way. I am going to make my +living here, in London--or die for it." + +"No--you must not. You will succeed--you will grow fat and sleepy and ze +good things of the world and ze many friends will kill your soul. I know +it ... but come with me, first and we will 'ave adventures ... and _zen_ +you shall write." + +But Peter's face was set. The time for the new life had come. Up to this +moment he had been passive, he had used his life as an instrument on +which others might play. From henceforward his should be the active +part. + +The crowds were pouring up the street on their homeward way. Bands were +playing the soldiers back to the barracks. Soon the streets would have +only the paper bags left to them for company. The little bookshop hung, +with its misty shelves about the three men.... Somewhere in another +room, a girl was staring with white set face and burning eyes in front +of her, for her lover was dead and the world had died with him. + +After a little time amongst the second-hand novels Mr. Zanti sat, his +great head buried in his hands, the tears trickling down through his +fingers, and Herr Gottfried, motionless from behind his counter watched +him in silent sympathy. + +Peter and Stephen had gone together. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A NARROW STREET + + +I + +The bomb was, that evening, the dominant note of the occasion. Through +the illuminated streets, the slowly surging crowds--inhuman in their +abandon to the monotonous ebb and flow as of a sweeping river--the +cries and laughter and shouting of songs, that note was above all. +An eye-witness--a Mr. Frank Harris, butcher of 82 Cheapside--had his +veracious account journalistically doctored. + + * * * * * + +"I was standing quite close to the man, a foreigner of course, with a +dirty hanging black moustache--tall, big fellow, with coat up over his +ears--I must say that I wasn't looking at him. I had Mrs. Harris with +me and was trying to get her a place where she could see better, you +understand. Then suddenly--before one was expecting it--the Procession +began and I forgot the man, the foreigner, although he was quite up +close against me. One was excited of course--a most moving sight--and +then suddenly, when by the distant shouting we understood that the Queen +was approaching, I saw the man break through. I was conscious of +the man's vigour as he rushed past--he must have been immensely +strong--because there he was, through the soldiers and everybody--out in +the middle of the street. It all happened so quickly of course. I heard +vaguely that some one was shouting and I think a policeman started +forward, but anyhow the man raised his arm and in an instant there was +the explosion. It went off before he was ready I suppose, but the ground +rocked under one's feet. Two soldiers fell, unhurt, I have learnt since. +There was a hideous dust, horses plunging and men shouting and then +suddenly silence. The dust cleared and there was a hole in the ground, +stones rooted up ... no sign of the man but some pieces of cloth and men +had rushed forward and covered something up--a limb I suppose.... I +was only anxious of course that my wife should see nothing ... she was +considerably affected...." + +So Mr. Harris of Cheapside, with the assistance of an eager and +talented young journalist. But the fact remained in the heart of the +crowd--blasted foreigner had had a shot at the Old Lady and missed her, +therefore whatever gaiety may have been originally intended let it now +be redoubled, shouted into frenzy--and frenzy it was. + +"There was no clue," an evening paper added to the criminal's +identity.... The police were blamed, of course.... Such a thing must +never be allowed to occur again. It was reported that the Queen had in +no way suffered from the shock--was in capital health. + +Outside the bookshop Stephen and Peter had parted. + +"I'll meet you about half-past ten, Trafalgar Square by the lion that +faces Whitehall; I must go back to Brockett's, have supper and get my +things, and say good-bye. Then I'll join you ... half-past ten." + +"Peter boy, we'll have to rough it--" + +"Oh! at last! Life's beginning. We'll soon get work, both of us--where +do you mean to go?" + +"There's a place I been before--down East End--not much of a place for +your sort, but just for a bit...." + +For a moment Peter's thoughts swept back to the shop. + +"Poor Zanti!" He half turned. "After so many years ... the good old +chap." Then he pulled himself up and set his shoulders. "Well, half-past +ten--" + +The streets were, at the instant, almost deserted. It was about five +o'clock now and at seven o'clock they would be closed to all traffic. +Then the surging crowds would come sweeping down. + +Peter, furiously excited, hurried through the grimy deserts of +Bloomsbury, to Brockett's. To his singing, beating heart the thin ribbon +of the grey street with the faint dim blue of the evening sky was out of +place, ill-judged as a setting to his exultations. He had swept in the +tempestuous way that was natural to him, the shop and all that it had +been to him, behind him. Even Brockett's must go with the rest. Of +course he could not stay there now that the weekly two pounds had +stopped. He quite savagely desired to be free from all business. These +seven years had been well enough as a preparation; now at last he was to +be flung, head foremost, into life. + +He could have sung, he could have shouted. He burst through the heavy +doors of Brockett's. But there, inside the quiet and solemn building, +another mood seized him. He crept quietly, on tiptoe, up to his room +because he did not want to see any of them before supper. After all, he +was leaving the best friends that he had ever had, the only home that +he had ever really known. Mrs. Brockett, Norah Monogue, Robin, the +Signor.... Seven years is a long time and one gets fond of a place. He +closed his bedroom door softly behind him. The little room had been very +much to him during all these years, and that view over the London roofs +would never be forgotten by him. But he wondered, as he looked at it, +how he had ever been able to sit there so quietly and write "Reuben +Hallard." Now, between his writing and himself, a thousand things +were sweeping. Far away he saw it like the height of some inaccessible +hill--his emotions, his adventures, the excitement of life made his +thoughts, his ideas, thinner than smoke. He even, standing there in his +little room and looking over the London roofs, despised the writer's +inaction.... Often again he was to know that rivalry. + +A quarter of an hour before supper he went down to say good-bye to Miss +Monogue. She was sitting quietly reading and he thought suddenly, as he +came upon her, there under the light of her candles in the grey room, +that she did not look well. He had never during their seven years' +friendship, noticed anything before, and now he could not have said what +it was that he saw except perhaps that her cheeks were flushed and that +there were heavy dark lines beneath her eyes. But she seemed to him, as +he took her, thus unprepared, with her untidy hair and her white cheap +evening dress that showed her thin fragile arms, to be something that +he was leaving to face the world alone, something very delicate that he +ought not to leave. + +Then she looked up and saw him and put her book down and smiled at him +and was the old cheerful Norah Monogue whom he had always known. + +He stood with his legs apart facing her and told her: + +"I've come to say good-bye." + +"Good-bye?" + +"Yes--I'm going to-night. What I've been expecting for so long has +happened at last. There's been a blow up at the bookshop and I've got to +go." + +For an instant the colour left her face; her book fell to the ground and +she put her hand back on the arm of the chair to steady herself. + +"Oh! how silly of me ... never mind picking it up.... Oh thank you, +Peter. You gave me quite a shock, telling me like that. We shall all +miss you dreadfully." + +His affection for her was strong enough to break in upon the great +overwhelming excited exultation that had held him all the evening. He +was dreadfully sorry to leave her!... dear Norah Monogue, what a pal +she'd been! + +"I shall miss you horribly," he said with that note in his voice that +showed that, above all things, he wished to avoid a scene. "We've been +such tremendous pals all this time--you've been such a brick--I don't +know what I should have done...." He pulled himself up. "But it's got to +be. I've felt it coming you know and it's time I really lashed out for +myself." + +"Where are you going?" + +"Ah! I must keep that dark for a bit. There's been trouble at the +bookshop. It'll be all right I expect but I don't want Mother Brockett +to stand any chance of being mixed up in it. I shall just disappear for +a week or two and then I'll be back again." + +She smiled at him bravely: "Well, I won't ask what's happened, if you +don't want to tell me, but of course--I shall miss you. After seven +years it seems so abrupt. And, Peter, do take care of yourself." + +"Oh, I shall be all right." He was very gruff. He felt now a furious +angry reluctance at leaving her behind. He stormed at himself as a +fool; one of the things that the strong man must learn of life is to be +ruthless in these partings and breaking of relations. He stood further +away from her and spoke as though he hated being there. + +She understood him with wonderful tenderness. + +"Well," she said cheerfully, "I daresay it will be better for you to try +for a little and see what you can make of it all. And then if you want +anything you'll come back to us, won't you?... You promise that?" + +"Of course." + +"And then there's the book. I know that man in Heriot and Lord's that I +told you about. I'll send it to them right away, if you like." + +"Aren't they rather tremendous people for me to begin with? Oughtn't I +to begin with some one smaller?" + +"Oh! there's no harm in starting at the top. They can't do more than +refuse it. But I don't think they will. I believe in it. But how shall I +let you know what they say?" + +"Oh, I'll come in a week or two and see what's happening--I'll be on +a paper by then probably. I say, I don't want the others to know. I'll +have supper with them as usual and just tell Mother Brockett afterwards. +I don't want to have to say good-bye lots of times. Well"--he moved off +awkwardly towards the door--"You've been most tremendously good to me." + +"Rot, Peter: Don't forget me!" + +"Forget you! The best pal I've ever had." They clasped hands for a +moment. There was a pause and then Peter said: "I say--there _is_ a +thing you can do if you like--" + +"Yes?--anything--" + +"Well--about Miss Rossiter--you'll be seeing her I suppose?" + +"Oh yes, often--" + +"Well, you might just keep her in mind of me. I know it sounds silly +but--just a word or two, sometimes." + +He felt that he was blushing--their hands separated. She moved back from +him and pushed at her hair in the nervous way that she had. + +"Why, of course--she was awfully interested. She won't forget you. Well, +we'll meet at supper." She moved back with a last little nod at him and +he went awkwardly out of the room with a curious little sense of sudden +dismissal. Would she rather he didn't know Miss Rossiter, he vaguely +wondered. Women were such queer creatures. + +As he went downstairs he wondered with a sudden almost shameful +confusion whether he was responsible in some way for the awkwardness +that the scene had had. He had noticed lately that she had not been +quite herself when he had been with her--that she would stop in +the middle of a sentence, that she would be, for instance, vexed at +something he said, that she would look at him sometimes as though ... + +He pulled himself up. He was angry with himself for imagining such a +thing--as though ... Well, women _were_ strange creatures.... + +And then supper was more difficult than he had expected. They would show +him, the silly things, that they were fond of him just when he would +much rather have persuaded himself that they hated him. It was almost, +as he told himself furiously, as though they knew that he was going; +Norah Monogue was the only person who chattered and laughed in a natural +way; he was rather relieved that after all she seemed to care so little. + +He found that he couldn't eat. There was a silly lump in his throat and +he looked at the marble pillars and the heavy curtains through a kind of +mist.... Especially was there Robin.... + +Mrs. Tressiter told him that Robin had something very important to say +to him and that he was going to stay awake until he, Peter, came up to +him. + +"I told him," she said, "that he must lie down and go to sleep like a +good boy and that his father would punish him if he didn't. But there! +What's the use of it? He isn't afraid of his father the slightest. He +would go on--something about a lion...." + +At any rate this gave Peter an excuse to escape from the table and it +was, indeed, time, for they had all settled, like a clatter of hens, on +to the subject of the bomb, and they all had a great deal to say about +it and a great many questions to ask Peter. + +"It's these Foreigners... of course our Police are entirely inadequate." + +"Yes--that's what I say--the Police are really absurdly inadequate--" + +"If they will allow these foreigners--" + +"Yes, what can you expect--and the Police really can't--" + +Peter escaped to Robin. He glowered down at the child who was sitting +up in his cot counting the flowers on the old wall-paper to keep himself +awake. + +"I always am so muddled after fourteen," he said. "Never mind, I'm _not_ +sleeping--" + +Peter frowned at him. "You ought to have been asleep long ago," he +said. He wished the boy hadn't got his hair tousled in that absurdly +fascinating way and that his cheeks weren't flushed so beautiful a +red--also his nightgown had lost a button at the top and showed a very +white little neck. Peter blinked his eyes--"Look here, kid, you must go +to sleep right away at once. What do you want?" + +"It's that lion--the one the lady had--I want it." + +"You can't have it--the lady's got it." + +"Well--take me to see them--the real ones--there are lots somewhere +Mother says." Robin inserted his very small hand into Peter's large one. + +"All right, one day--we'll go to the 'Zoo." + +Robin sighed with satisfaction--he lay down and murmured sleepily to +himself, "I love Mister Peter and lions and Mother and God," and was +suddenly asleep. + +Peter bent down over the cot and kissed him. He felt miserably wretched. +He had known nothing like it since that day when he had said good-bye to +his mother. He wondered that he could ever have felt any exultation; +he wondered that writing and glory and ambition could ever have seemed +worth anything to him at all. Could he have had his prayer granted he +would have prayed that he might always stay in Brockett's, always +have these same friends, watch over Robin as he grew up, talk to Norah +Monogue--and then all the others ... and Mr. Zanti. He felt fourteen +years old ... more miserable than he had ever been. + +He kissed Robin again--then he went down to find Mrs. Brockett. +Here, too, he was faced with an unexpected difficulty. The good lady, +listening to him sternly in her grim little sitting-room, refused to +hear of his departure. She sat upright in her stiff chair, her thin +black dress in folds about her, the gas-light shining on her neatly +parted hair. + +"You see, Mrs. Brockett," he explained to her, "I'm no longer in the +same position. I can't be sure of my two pounds a week any more and so +it wouldn't be right for me to live in a place like this." + +"If it's expense that you're thinking about," she answered him grimly, +"you're perfectly welcome to stay on here and pay me when you can. I'm +sure that one day with so clever a young man--" + +"That's awfully good of you, Mrs. Brockett, but of course I couldn't +hear of anything like that." For the third time that evening he had to +fight against a disposition to blow his nose and be absurd. They were, +both of them, increasingly grim with every word that they spoke and any +outside observer would have supposed that they were the deadliest of +enemies. + +"Of course," she began again, "there's a room that I could let you have +at the back of the house that's only four shillings a week and really +you'd be doing me a kindness in taking it off my hands. I'm sure--" + +"No, there's more in it than that," he answered. "I've got to go +away--right away. It's time I had a change of scene. It's good for me to +get along a bit by myself. You've all been too kind to me, spoilt me--" + +She stood up and faced him sternly. "In all my years," she said, "I've +never spoilt anybody yet and I'm not likely to be going to begin now. +Spoilt you! Bah!" She almost snorted at him--but there were tears in her +eyes. + +"I'm not a philanthropist," she went on more dryly than ever, "but I +like to have you about the house--you keep the lodgers contented and the +babies quiet. I'm sure," and the little break in her voice was the first +sign of submission, "that we've been very good friends these seven years +and it isn't everywhere that one can pick up friends for the asking--" + +"You've been splendid to me," he answered. "But it isn't as though +I were going away altogether--you'll see me back in a week or two. +And--and--I say I shall make a fool of myself if I go on talking like +this--" + +He suddenly gripped her hand and wrung it again and again--then he burst +away from her, leaving her standing there in the middle of the room. + +The old black bag was very soon packed, his possessions had not greatly +increased during these seven years, and soon he was creeping down the +stairs softly so that no one should hear. + +The hall was empty. He gave it one last friendly look, the door had +closed behind him and he was in the street. + + +II + +In its exuberance and high spirits and general lack of self-control +London was similar to a small child taken to the Drury Lane Pantomime +for the first time. Of the numbers of young men who, with hats on the +back of their heads, passed arm-in-arm down the main thoroughfares +announcing it as their definite opinion that "Britons never shall be +slaves," of the numbers of young women who, armed with feathers and the +sharpest of tongues, showed conclusively the superiority of their sex +and personal attractions, of the numbers of old men and old women who +had no right whatever to be out on a night like this but couldn't help +themselves, and enjoyed it just as much as their sons and daughters did, +there is here no room to tell. The houses were ablaze with light, the +very lamp-posts seemed to rock up and down with delight at the spirit +of the whole affair and the Feast of the Glorification of the Bomb that +Didn't Come Off was being celebrated with all the honours. + +Peter was very soon in the thick of it. The grey silences of Bennett +Square and Bloomsbury were left behind and with them the emotions of +those tender partings. After all, it would only be a very few weeks +before he would be back again among them all, telling them of his +success on some paper and going back perhaps to live with them all when +his income was assured. + +And, anyhow, here he was, out to seek his fortune and with Stephen to +help him! He battled with the crowd dragging the black bag with him and +shouting sometimes in sheer excitement and good spirits. Young women +tickled him with feathers, once some one linked arms with him and +dragged him along, always he was surrounded with this sea of shouting, +exultant humanity--this was life! + +By the lion Stephen was waiting for him, standing huge and solemn as the +crowd surged past. He pressed Peter's arm to show that he was pleased +to see him and then, without speaking, they pushed through, past Charing +Cross station, and down the hill to the Underground. + +Here, once again, there was startling silence. No one seemed to be using +the trains at all. + +"I'm afraid it ain't much of a place that I'm taking yer to," Stephen +said. "We can't pick and choose yer know and I was there before and +she's a good woman." + +A chill seemed to come with them into the carriage. Suddenly to Peter +the comforts of Brockett's stretched out alluring arms, then he pulled +himself together. + +"I'm sure it will be splendid," he said, "and it will be just lovely +being with you after all this time." + +They got out and plunged into a city of black night. Around them, on +every side there was silence--even the broad central thoroughfare seemed +to be deserted and on either side of it, to right and left, black grim +roads like open mouths, lay waiting for the unwary traveller. + +Down one of these they plunged; Peter was conscious of faces watching +them. "Bucket Lane" was the street's title to fame. Windows showed dim +candles, in the distance a sharp cry broke the silence and then fell +away again. The street was very narrow and from the running gutters +there stole into the air the odour of stale cabbage. + +"This is the 'ouse." Stephen stopped. Somewhere, above their heads, a +child was crying. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WORLD AND BUCKET LANE + + +I + +A light flashed in the upper windows, stayed for a moment, and +disappeared. There was a pause and then the door slowly opened and a +woman's head protruded. + +She stared at them without speaking. + +"Mr. Brant," Stephen said. "I'm come back, Mrs. Williams 'oping you +might 'ave that same room me and my friend might use if it's agreeable." + +She stepped forward then and looked at them more carefully. She was a +stout red-faced woman, her hair hanging about her face, her dirty bodice +drawn tightly over her enormous bosom and her skirt pulled up in front +and hanging, draggled behind her. Her long, dirty fingers went up to her +face continually; she had a way of pushing at her teeth with them. + +She seemed, however, pleased to see Stephen. + +"Well, Mr. Brant," she said, "come in. It's a surprise I must say but +Lord! as I'm always telling Mrs. Griggs oo's on the bottom floor when +she can afford 'er rent which 'asn't been often lately, poor thing, +owing to 'aving 'er tenth only three weeks back, quite unexpected, and +'er man being turned off 'is 'ouse-painting business what 'e's been at +this ten year and more--well come along in, I'm sure--" + +They _were_ in by this time having been urged by their hostess into +the very narrowest, darkest and smelliest passage that Peter had ever +encountered. Somewhere behind the walls, the world was moving. On every +side of him above and below, children were crying, voices swearing, +murmuring, complaining, arguing; Peter could feel Mrs. Williams' breath +hot against his cheek. Up the wheezy stairs she panted, they following +her. Peter had never heard such loquacity. It poured from her as though +she meant nothing whatever by it and was scarcely aware indeed of the +things that she was saying. "And it's a long time, Mr. Brant, since we +'ad the pleasure of seeing you. My last 'usband's left me since yer was +'ere--indeed 'e 'av--all along of a fight 'e 'ad with old Colly Moles +down Three Barrer walk--penal servitude, poor feller and all along +of 'is nasty temper as I was always tellin' 'im. Why the very morning +before it 'appened I remember sayin' to 'im when 'e up and threw a knife +at me for contradictin' 'is words I remember sayin' to 'im that 'is +temper would be the settlin' of me but 'e wouldn't listen, not 'e. +Obstinate! Lord! that simply isn't the word for it ... but 'ere's the +room and nobody been in it since Sairy Grace and she was always bringin' +men along with 'er, dirty slut and that's a month since she's been and +gone and I always like 'aving yer, Mr. Brant, for you're quiet enough +and no trouble at all--and your friend looks pleasant I must say." + +The room was, indeed, remarkably respectable--not blessed with much +furniture in addition to two beds and two chairs but roomy and with a +large and moderately clean window. + +"Now what about terms for me and my friend?" said Stephen. + +Now followed friendly argument in which the lady and Stephen seemed +perfectly to understand one another. After asserting that under no +circumstances whatever could she possibly take less than at least double +the price that Stephen offered her she suddenly, at the sound of a +child's shrill crying from below, shrugged her shoulders with: "There's +young 'Lisbeth Anne again ... well, Mr. Brant, 'ave it your own way--I'm +contented enough I'm sure," and vanished. + +But the little discussion had brought Peter to a sharp realisation of +the immediate business of ways and means. Sitting on one of the beds +afterwards with Stephen beside him he inquired-- + +"How much have we got, Stephen? I've got thirty bob." + +"Never you mind, Peter. We'll soon be gettin' work." + +"Why, of course. I'll force 'em to take me. That's all you want in +these things--to look fierce and say you won't go until they give you +something--a trial anyhow." + +And sitting there on the bed with Stephen beside him he felt immensely +confident. There was nothing that he could not do. With one swift +movement he seemed to have flung from him all the things that were +beginning to crowd in between him and his work. He must never, never +allow that to happen again--how could one ever be expected to work if +one were always thinking of other people, interested in them and their +doings, involved with anarchists and bombs and romantic adventures. Why +here he was with nothing in the world to hold him or to interfere and no +one except dear old Stephen with whom he must talk. Ambition crept very +close to him that night--ambition with its glittering, shining rewards, +its music and colours--close to him as he sat in that bare, naked room. + +"I'd rather be with you than any one in the world--we'll have such +times, you and I." + +Perhaps Stephen knew more about the world; perhaps during the years that +he had been tumbled and knocked about he had realised that the world was +no easy nut to crack and that loaves and fishes don't come to the hungry +for the asking. But Peter that night was to be appalled by nothing. + +They sat up into the early morning, talking. The noises in the house and +in the streets about them rose and fell. Some distant cry would climb +into the silence and draw from it other cries set like notes of music to +tumble back into a common scheme together. + +"Steve, tell me about Zanti. Is he really a scoundrel?" + +"A scoundrel? No, poor feller. Why, Mr. Peter, you ought to know better +than that. 'E ain't got a spark of malice in him but 'e's always after +adventure. 'E knows all the queer people in Europe--and more'n Europe +too. There's nothin' 'e don't put 'is nose into in a clumsy, childish +way but always, you understand, Mr. Peter, because 'e's after 'is +romantic fancies. It was when 'e was after gold down in Cornwall--some +old treasure story--that I came across 'im and 'e was kind to me.... 'E +was a kind-'earted man, Mr. Zanti, and never meant 'arm to a soul. And +'e's very fond of you, Mr. Peter." + +"Yes, I know." Peter was vaguely troubled. "I hope I haven't been unkind +about him. I suppose it was the shock of the whole thing. But it was +time I went anyway. But tell me, Stephen, what you've been doing all +these years. And why you let me be all that time without seeing you--" + +"Well, Mr. Peter, I didn't think it would be good for you--I was knowing +lots o' strange people time and again and then you might have been mixed +up with me. I'm safe enough now, I'm thinking, and I'd have been safe +enough all the time the way Cornwall was then and every one sympathising +with me--" + +"But what have you been doing all the time?" + +"I was in America a bit and there are few things I haven't worked at +in my time--always waiting for 'er to come--and she will come some +time--it's only patience that's wanted." + +"Have you ever heard from her?" + +"There was a line once--just a line--_she's_ all right." His great body +seemed to glow with confidence. + +Peter would like then to have spoken about Clare Rossiter. But no--some +shyness held him--one day he would tell Stephen. + +He unpacked his few possessions carefully and then, on a very hard bed, +dreaming of bombs, of Mrs. Brockett dressed as a ballet dancer, of Mr. +Zanti digging for treasure beneath the grey flags of Bennett Square, of +Clare Elizabeth Rossiter riding down Oxford Street amidst the shouts +of the populace, of the world as a coloured globe on which he, Peter +Westcott, the author of that masterpiece, "Reuben Hallard," had set his +foot ... so, triumphant, he slept. + + +II + +On the next morning the Attack on London began. The house in Bucket Lane +was dark and grim when he left it--the street was hidden from the +light and hung like a strip of black ribbon between the sunshine of +the broader highways that lay at each end of it. It was a Jewish +quarter-notices in Yiddish were in all the little grimy shop windows, +in the bakers and the sweetshops and the laundries. But it was not, this +Bucket Lane, a street without its dignity and its own personal little +cleanliness. It had its attempts at such things. His own room and Mrs. +Williams' tea and bread and butter had been clean. + +But as he came down out of these strange murmuring places with their +sense of hiding from the world at large the things that they were +occupied in doing, Bucket Lane stuck in his head as a dark little quarry +into which he must at the day's end, whatever gorgeous places he had +meanwhile encountered, creep. "Creeping" was the only way to get into +such a place. + +Meanwhile he had put on his best, had blackened his shoes until they +shone like little mirrors, had brushed his bowler hat again and again +and looked finally like a sailor on shore for a holiday. Seven years in +Charing Cross Road had not taken the brown from his cheeks, nor bent his +broad shoulders. + +At the Mansion House he climbed on to the top of a lumbering omnibus and +sailed down through the City. It was now that he discovered how seldom +during his seven years he had ventured beyond his little square of +country. Below him, on either side of him, black swarms stirred and +moved, now forming ahead of him patterns, squares, circles, then +suddenly rising it appeared like insects and in a cloud surging against +the high stone buildings. All men--men moving with eyes straight ahead +of them, bent furiously upon some business, but assembling, retreating, +advancing, it seemed, by the order of some giant hand that in the air +above them played a game. Imagine that, in some moment of boredom, the +Hand were to brush the little pieces aside, were to close the board +and put it away, then, with what ignominy and feeble helplessness would +these little black figures topple clumsily into heaps. + +Down through the midst of them the omnibus, like a man with an +impediment in his speech, surrounded by the chatter of cabs and carts +and bicycles, stammered its way. The streets opened and shut, shouts +came up to them and fell away. Peter's heart danced--London was here at +last and the silence of Bennett Square, the dark omens of Bucket Lane +and the clamour of the city had together been the key for the unlocking +of its gates. + +Ludgate Hill caught them into its heart, held them for an instant, and +then flung them down in the confusion of Fleet Street. + +Here it was at last then with its typewriters and its telephones and its +printing machines hurling with a whir and clatter the news of the world +into the air, and above it brooding, like an immense brain--the God of +its restless activity--the Dome of St. Paul's. + +Peter climbed down from his omnibus because he saw on his right a Public +Reading Room. Here in tattered and anxious company, he studied the +papers and took down addresses in a note book. He was frightened for an +instant by the feet that shuffled up and down the floor from paper to +paper. There was something most hopeless in the sound of that shuffle. + +"'Ave yer a cigarette on yer, Mister, that yer wouldn't mind--" + +He turned round and at once, like blows, two fierce gaunt eyes struck +him in the face. Two eyes staring from some dirty brown pieces of cloth +on end, it seemed, by reason of their own pathetic striving for notice, +rather than because of any life inside them. + +Peter murmured something and hurried away. Supposing that editors ... +but no, this was not the proper beginning of a successful day. But the +place, down steps under the earth, with its miserable shadows was not +pleasant to remember. + +His first visit was to the office of _The Morning World_. He remembered +his remark to Stephen about self-assertion, but his heart sank as he +entered the large high room with its railed counter running round the +centre of it--a barrier cold, impassable. Already several people were +sitting on chairs that were ranged along the wall. + +Peter went up boldly to the counter and a very thin young man with a +stone hatchet instead of a face and his hair very wonderfully parted +in the middle--so accurately parted that Peter could think of nothing +else--watched him coldly over the barrier. + +"What can I do for you?" he said. + +"I want to see the Editor." + +"Have you an appointment?" + +"No." + +"Oh, I'm afraid that it would be impossible without an appointment." + +"Is there any one whom I could see?" + +"If you could tell me your business, perhaps--" + +Peter began to be infuriated with this young man with the hatchet face. + +"I want to know if there's any place for me on this paper. If I can--" + +"Oh!" The voice was very cold indeed and the iron barrier seemed to +multiply itself over and over again all round the room. + +"I'm afraid in that case you had better write to the Editor and make an +appointment. No, I'm afraid there is no one..." + +Peter melted away. The faces on the chairs were all very glad. The stone +building echoed with some voice that called some one a long way away. +Peter was in the street. He stood outside the great offices of _The +Morning World_ and looked across the valley at the great dome that +squatted above the moving threads of living figures. He was absurdly +upset by this unfortunate interview. What could he have expected? Of +what use was it that he should fling his insignificance against that +kind of wall? Moreover he must try many times before his chance would +be given him. It was absurd that he should mind that rebuff. But the +hatchet-faced young man pursued him. He seemed to see now as he looked +up and down the street, a hostility in the faces of those that passed +him. Moreover he saw, here and there figures, wretched figures, moving +in and out of the crowd, bending into the gutter for something that had +been dropped--lean, haggard faces, burning eyes ... he began to see them +as a chain that wound, up and down, amongst the people and the carriages +along the street. + +He pulled himself together--If he was feeling these things at the very +beginning of his battle why then defeat was certain. He was ashamed and, +looking at his paper, chose the offices of _The Mascot_, a very +popular society journal that brightened the world with its cheerful +good-tempered smile, every Friday morning. Here the room in which he +found himself was small and cosy, it had a bright pink wall-paper, and +behind a little shining table a shining young woman beamed upon him. The +shining young woman was, however, very busy at her typewriter and Peter +was examined by a tiny office boy who seemed to be made entirely of +shining brass buttons and shining little boots and shining hair. + +"And what can I do for you, sir?" he said. + +"I should like to see the Editor," Peter explained. + +"Your name?" said the Shining One. + +Peter had no cards. He blamed himself for the omission and stammered in +his reply. + +The Boy gave the lady at the typewriter a very knowing look and +disappeared. He swiftly returned and said that Mr. Boset could see Mr. +Westcott for a few minutes, but for a few minutes only. + +Mr. Boset sat resplendent in a room that was coloured a bright green. He +was himself stout and red-faced and of a surpassing smartness, his light +blue suit was very tight at the waist and very broad over the hips, his +white spats gleamed, his pearl pin stared like an eye across the room, +his neck bulged in red folds over his collar. Mr. Boset was eating +chocolates out of a little cardboard box and his attention was +continually held by the telephone that summoned him to its side at +frequent intervals. He was however exceedingly pleasant. He begged Peter +to take a chair. + +"Just a minute, Mr. Westcott, will you? Yes--hullo--yes--This is 6140 +Strand. Hullo! Hullo! Oh--is that you, Mrs. Wyman? Good morning--yes, +splendid, thank you--never fitter--Very busy yes, of course--what--Lunch +Thursday?... Oh, but delighted. Just let me look at my book a moment? +Yes--quite free--Who? The Frasers and Pigots? Oh! delightful! 1.30, +delightful!" + +Mr. Boset, settled once more in his chair, was as charming as possible. +You would suppose that the whole day was at Peter's service. He wanted +to know a great many things. Peter's hopes ran high. + +"Well--what have you got to show? What have you written?" + +Peter had written a novel. + +"Published?" + +"No." + +"Well ... got anything else?" + +"No--not just at present." + +"Oh well--must have something to show you know--" + +"Yes." Peter's hopes were in his boots. + +"Yes--must have something to show--" Mr. Boset's eyes were peering into +the cardboard box on a voyage of selection. + +"Yes--well--when you've written something send it along--" + +"I suppose there isn't anything I can do--" + +"Well, our staff, you know, is filled up to the eyes as it is--fellows +waiting--lots of 'em--yes, you show us what you can do. Write an article +or two. Buy _The Mascot_ and see the kind of thing we like. Yes--Excuse +me, the telephone--Yes--Yes 6140 Strand...." + +Peter found himself once more in the outer room and then ushered forth +by the Shining Boy he was in the street. + +He was hungry now and sought an A.B.C. shop and there over the cold +marble-topped tables consulted his list. The next attempt should be +_The Saturday Illustrated_, one of the leading illustrated weeklies, and +perhaps there he would be more successful. As he sat in the A.B.C. shop +and watched the squares of street opposite the window he felt suddenly +that no effort of his would enable him to struggle successfully against +those indifferent crowds. + +Above the houses in the patch of blue sky that filled the window-pane +soft bundles of cloud streamed like flags before the wind. Into these +soft grey meshes the sun was swept and with a cold shudder Fleet Street +fell into shadow; beyond it and above it the great dome burned; a +company of sandwich men, advertising on their stooping bodies the latest +musical comedy, crept along the gutter. + + +III + +At the offices of _The Saturday Illustrated_ they told him that if he +returned at four o'clock he would be able to see the Editor. He walked +about and at last sat down on the Embankment and watched the barges +slide down the river. The water was feathery and sometimes streamed into +lines like spun silk reflecting many colours, and above the water the +clouds turned and wheeled and changed against the limpid blue. The +little slap that the motion of the river gave to the stone embankment +reminded him of the wooden jetty at Treliss--the place was strangely +sweet--the roar of the Strand was far away and muffled. + +As he sat there listening there seemed to come up to him, straight out +of the river, strange impersonal noises that had to do with no definite +sounds. He was reminded of a story that he had once read, a story +concerning a nice young man who caught the disease known as the +Horror of London. Peter thought that in the air, coming from nowhere, +intangible, floating between the river and the sky something stirred.... + +Big Ben struck quarter to four and he turned once more into the Strand. + +The editor of _The Saturday Illustrated_ was a very different +person from Mr. Boset. At a desk piled with papers, stern, gaunt and +sharp-chinned, his words rattled out of his mouth like peas onto a +plate. But Peter saw that he had humorous twinkling eyes. + +"Well, what can you do?" + +"I've never tried anything--but I feel that I should learn--" + +"Learn! Do you suppose this office is a nursery shop for teaching +sucklings how to draw their milk? Are you ready for anything?" + +"Anything--" + +"Yes--they all say that. Journalism isn't any fun, you know." + +"I'm not looking for fun." + +"Well, it's the damnedest trade out. Anything's better. But you want to +write?" + +"I must." + +"Yes--exactly. Well, I like the look of you. More blood and bones than +most of the rotten puppies that come into this office. I've no job +for you at the moment though. Go back to your digs and write +something--anything you like--and send it along--leave me your address. +Oh, ho! Bucket Lane--hard up?" + +"I'm all right, thank you." + +"All right, I wasn't offering you charity--no need to put your pride up. +I shan't forget you ... but send me something." + +The clouds had now enveloped the sun. As Peter, a little encouraged by +this last experience but tired with a dull, listless fatigue, crept +into the dark channels of Bucket Lane, the rain began to fall with heavy +solemn drops. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DEVIL'S MARCH + + +I + +There could be nothing odder than the picture that Brockett's and +Bennett Square presented from the vantage ground of Bucket Lane. How +peaceful and happy those evenings (once considered a little dreary +perhaps and monotonous) now seemed! Those mornings in the dusty +bookshop, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, Mrs. Brockett, then Brockett's with +its strange kind-hearted company--the dining-room, the marble pillars, +the green curtains--Norah Monogue! + +Not only did it seem another lifetime when he had been there but also +inevitably, one was threatened with never getting back. Bucket Lane was +another world--from its grimy windows one looked upon every tragedy +that life had to offer. Into its back courts were born muddled indecent +little lives, there blindly to wallow until the earth called them back +to itself again. + +But it was in the attitude of Bucket Lane to the Great Inevitable that +the essential difference was to be observed. In Bennett Square things +had been expected and, for the most part, obtained. Catastrophes came +lumbering into their midst at times but rising in the morning one might +decently expect to go to rest at night in safety. In Bucket Lane +there was no safety but defiance--fierce, bitterly humorous, truculent +defiance. Bucket Lane was a beleaguered army that stood behind the grime +and dirty walls on guard. From the earliest moment there the faces +of all the babies born into Bucket Lane caught the strain of cautious +resistance that was always to remain with them. Life in Bucket Lane, +for every one from the youngest infant to the oldest idiot, was War. War +against Order and Civilised Force. War also against that great unseen +Hand that might at any moment swoop down upon any one of them and +bestow fire, death and imprisonment upon its victims. To the ladies +and gentlemen from the Mission the citizens of Bucket Lane presented an +amused and cynical tolerance. If those poor, meek, frightened creatures +chose some faint-hearted attempts at flattery and submission before this +abominable Deity--well, they did no harm. + +Mrs. Williams said to Miss Connacher, a bright-faced young woman from +St. Matthew's Mission--"And I'm sure we're always delighted to see you, +Miss. But you can't 'ave us goin' and being grateful on our bended knees +to the sort of person as according to your account of it gave me my +first 'usband 'oo was a blackguard if ever there was one, and my last +child wot 'ad rickets and so 'andsomely arranged me to go breakin' my +leg one night coming back from a party and sliding on the stairs, and +in losin' my little bit o' charin' and as near the workus as ever yer +see--no--it ain't common sense." + +To which Miss Connacher vaguely looking around for a list of Mrs. +Williams' blessings and finding none to speak of, had no reply. + +But the astonishing thing was that Peter seemed at once to be seized +with the Bucket Lane position. He was now, he understood, in a world of +earthquake--wise citizens lived from minute to minute and counted on +no longer safety. He began also to eliminate everything that was not +absolutely essential. At Brockett's he had never consciously done +without anything that he wanted--in Bucket Lane he discarded to the last +possible shred of possession. + +He had returned from his first day's hunting with the resolve that +before he ventured out again he would have something to show. With a +precious sixpence he bought a copy of _The Mascot_ and studied it--there +was a short story entitled "Mrs. Adair's Co."--and an article on "What +Society Drinks"--the remaining pages of the number were filled with +pictures and "Chatter from Day to Day." This gaily-coloured production +lying on one of the beds in the dark room in Bucket Lane seemed +singularly out of place. Its pages fluttered in the breeze that came +through the window cracks--"Maison Tep" it cried feebly to the screaming +children in the court below, "is a very favourite place for supper just +now, with Maitre Savori as its popular chef and its admirably stocked +cellars...." + +Peter gave himself a fortnight in which to produce something that he +could "show." Stephen meanwhile had found work as a waiter in one of the +small Soho restaurants; it was only a temporary engagement but he hoped +to get something better within a week or two. + +For the moment all was well. At the end of his fortnight, with four +things written Peter meant to advance once more to the attack. Meanwhile +he sat with a pen, a penny bottle of ink and an exercise book and did +what he could. At the end of the fortnight he had written "The +Sea Road," an essay for which Robert Louis Stevenson was largely +responsible, "The Redgate Mill," a story of the fantastic, terrible +kind, "Stones for Bread," moralising on Bucket Lane, and the "Red-Haired +Boy," a somewhat bitter reminiscence of Dawson's. Of this the best was +undoubtedly "The Sea Road," but in his heart of hearts Peter knew that +there was something the matter with all of them. "Reuben Hallard" he +had written because he had to write it, these four things he had written +because he ought to write them ... difference sufficient. Nevertheless, +he put them into halfpenny wrappes and sent them away. + +In the struggle to produce these things he had not found that fortnight +wearisome. Before him, every day, there was the evening when Stephen +would return, to which he might look forward. Stephen was always very +late--often it was two o'clock before he came in, but they had a talk +before going to sleep. And here in these evenings Stephen developed in +the most wonderful way, developed because Peter had really never known +him before. + +Stephen had never appeared to Peter as a character at all. In the early +days Peter had been too young. Stephen had, at that time, been simply +something to be worshipped, without any question or statement. Now that +worshipping had gone and the space that it left had to be filled by +some new relationship, something that could only come slowly, out of the +close juxtaposition that living together in Bucket Lane had provided. + +And it was Stephen who found, unconsciously and quite simply, the shape +and colour of Peter's idea of him. Peter had in reality, nothing at +all to do with it, and had Stephen been a whit more self-conscious the +effect would have been spoiled. + +In the first place Peter came quite freshly to the way that Stephen +looked. Stephen expressed nothing, consciously, with his body; it was +wonderful indeed considering its size and strength, the little that he +managed to do with it. His eyes were mild and amiable, his face largely +covered with a deep brown beard, once wildly flowing, now sharply +pointed. He was at least six foot four in height, the breadth of +shoulder was tremendous, but although he knew admirably what to do +with it as a means of conveyance, of sheer physical habit, he had no +conception of the possibilities that it held as the expression of his +soul. That soul was to be found, by those who cared to look for +it, glancing from his eyes, struggling sometimes through the swift +friendliness of his smile--but he gave it no invitation. It all +came, perhaps, from the fact that he treated himself--if anything so +unconscious may be called treatment--as the very simplest creature +alive. The word introspection meant nothing to him whatever, there were +in life certain direct sharp motives and on these he acted. He never +thought of himself or of any one else in terms of complexity; the body +acted simply through certain clear and direct physical laws ... so the +spirit. He loved the woman who had dominated his whole life and one day +he would find her and marry her. He loved Peter as he would love a son +of his own if he possessed one, and he would be at Peter's side so long +as Peter needed him, and would rather be there than anywhere else. For +the rest life was a matter of birth and death, of loving one man and +hating another, of food and drink, and--but this last uncertainly--of +some strange thrill that was stirred in him, at times, by certain sights +and sounds. + +He was glad to have been born ... he would be quite ready to die. He did +not question the reason of the one state or the other. For the very fact +that life was so simple and unentangled he clung, with the tenacity and +dumb force of an animal to the things that he had. Peter felt, vaguely, +from time to time, the strength with which Stephen held to him. It was +never expressed in word nor in action but it came leaping sometimes, +like fire, into the midst of their conversation--it was never +tangible--always illusive. + +To Peter's progress this simplicity of Stephen was of vast importance. +The boy had now reached an age and a period where emotions, judgments, +partialities, conclusions and surmises were fighting furiously for +dominion. His seven years at Brockett's had been, introspectively, of +little moment. He had been too busy discovering the things that other +people had discovered and written down to think very much about himself. + +Now released from the domination of books, he plunged into a whirlpool +of surmise about himself. During the fortnight that he sat writing his +articles in Bucket Lane he flew, he sank, according to his moods. It +seemed to him that as soon as he had decided on one path and set out +eagerly to follow it others crossed it and bewildered him. + +He was now on that unwholesome, absorbing, thrilling, dangerous path of +self-discovery. Opposed to this was the inarticulate, friendly soul +of Stephen. Stephen understood nothing and at the same time understood +everything. Against the testing of his few simple laws Peter's +complexities often vanished ... but vanished only to recur again, +unsatisfied, demanding a subtler answer. It was during those days, +through all the trouble and even horror that so shortly came upon them +both, that Stephen realised with a dull, unreasoned pain, like lead at +the heart, that Peter was passing inevitably from him into a country +whither Stephen could not follow--to deal with issues that Stephen could +not, in any kind of way, understand. Stephen realised this many days +before Peter even dimly perceived it, and the older man by the love that +he had for the boy whom he had known from the very first period of +his growth was enabled, although dimly, to see beyond, above all these +complexities, to a day when Peter would once more, having learnt and +suffered much in the meanwhile, come back to that first simplicity. + +But that day was far distant. + + +II + +On the evening of the day on which Peter finished the last of his five +attempts to take the London journals by storm Stephen returned from his +restaurant earlier than usual--so early indeed, that Peter, had he +not been so bent on his own immediate affairs, must have noticed and +questioned it. He might, too, have observed that Stephen, now and again, +shot an anxious, troubled glance at him as though he were uneasy about +something. + +But Peter, since six o'clock that evening, at which moment he had +written the concluding sentence of "The Sea Road," had been in deep and +troubled thought concerning himself, and broke from that introspection, +on Stephen's arrival, in a state of unhappy morbidity and entire +self-absorption. + +Their supper was beer, sardines and cheese. + +"It's been pretty awful here this evening," Peter said. "Old Trubbit on +the floor below's been beating his wife and she's been screaming like +anything. I couldn't stand it, after a bit, and went down to see what I +could do. The family was mopping her head with water and he was sitting +on a chair, crying. Drunk again, of course, but he was turned off his +job apparently this afternoon. They're closing down." + +"'Ard luck," said Stephen, looking at the floor. + +"Yes--it hasn't been altogether cheerful--and his getting the chuck like +that set me thinking. It's awfully lucky you've got your job all right +and of course now I've written these things and have got 'something +to show,' I'll be all right." Peter paused for a moment a little +uncertainly. "But it does, you know, make one a bit frightened, this +place, seeing the way people get suddenly bowled over. There were the +Gambits--a fortnight ago he was in work and they were as fit as anything +... they haven't had any food now for three days." + +"There ain't anything to be frightened about," Stephen said slowly. + +"No, I know. But Stephen, suppose I _don't_ get work, after all. I've +been so confident all this time, but I mightn't be able to do the job +a bit.... I suppose this place is getting on my nerves but--I could get +awfully frightened if I let myself." + +"Oh, you'll be all right. Of course you'll be getting something--" + +"Yes, but I hate spending your money like this. Do you know, Stephen, +I'd almost rather you were out of work too. That sounds a rotten thing +to say but I hate being given it all like this, especially when you +haven't got much of your own either--" + +"Between friends," said Stephen slowly, swinging his leg backwards and +forwards and making the bed creak under his weight, "there aren't any +giving or taking--it's just common." + +"Oh, yes, I know," said Peter hurriedly, frightened lest he should have +hurt his feelings, "of course it's all right between you and me. But all +the same I'm rather eager to be earning part of it." + +They were silent for a time. Bucket Lane too seemed silent and through +their little window, between the black roofs and chimneys, a cluster of +stars twinkled as though they had found their way, by accident, into a +very dirty neighbourhood and were trying to get out of it again. + +Peter was busy fishing for his thoughts; at last he caught one and held +it out to Stephen's innocent gaze. + +"It isn't," he said, "like anything so much as catching a disease from +an infectious neighbourhood. I think if I lived here with five thousand +a year I should still be frightened. It's in the air." + +"Being frightened," said Stephen rather hurriedly and speaking with a +kind of shame, as though he had done something to which he would rather +not own up, "is a kind of 'abit. Very soon, Peter, you'll know what it's +like and take it as it comes." + +"Oh," said Peter, "if it's that kind of being frightened--seeing I mean +quite clearly the things you're frightened of--why, that's pretty easy. +One of the first books I ever read--'Henry Lessingham,' by Galleon, you +know, I've talked about him to you--had a long bit about it--courage I +mean. He made it a kind of parable, countries you'd got to go through +before you'd learnt to be really brave; and the first, and by far +the easiest courage is the sort that you want when you haven't got +things--the sort the Gambits want--when you're starving or out of a job. +Well, that's I suppose the easiest kind and yet I'm funking it. So what +on earth am I going to do when the harder business comes along? ... +Stephen, I'm beginning to have a secret and uncomfortable suspicion that +your friend, Peter Westcott, is a poor creature." + +"Thank the Lord," said Stephen furiously and kicking out with his leg as +though he had got some especial enemy's back directly in front of him, +"that you've finished them damned articles. You've been sittin' here +thinkin' and writin' till you've given yerself blue devils--down-along, +too, with all them poor creatures hittin' each other and drinkin'--I +oughtn't to have left yer up here so much alone--" + +"No--you couldn't help it, Stephen--it's nothing to do with you. It's +all more than you can manage and nobody in the world can help me. It's +seven years and a bit now since I left Cornwall, isn't it?" + +"Yes," said Stephen, looking across at him. + +"All that time I've never had a word nor a sign from any one there. +Well, you might have thought that that would be long enough to break +right away from it.... Well, it isn't--" + +"Don't you go thinking about all that time. You've cleared it right +away--" + +"No, I haven't cleared it--that's just the point. I don't suppose one +ever clears anything. All the time I was with Zanti I was reading so +hard and living so safely that it was only at moments, when I was alone, +that I thought about Treliss at all. But these last weeks it's been +coming on me full tide." + +"What's been coming on you?" + +"Well, Scaw House, I suppose ... and my father and grandfather. My +grandfather told me once that I couldn't escape from the family and I +can't--it's the most extraordinary thing--" + +Stephen saw that Peter was growing agitated; his hands were clenched and +his face was white. + +"Mind you, I've seen my grandfather and father both go under it. My +father went down all in a moment. It isn't any one thing--you can call +it drink if you like--but it's simply three parts of us aching to go to +the bad ... aching, that's the word. Anything rotten--women or drink or +anything you like--as long as we lose control and let the devil get +the upper hand. Let him get it once--_really_ get it--and we're really +done--" + +Peter paused for a moment and then went on hurriedly as though he were +telling a story and had only a little time in which to tell it. + +"But that isn't all--it's worse than that. I've been feeling these last +weeks as though my father were sitting there in that beastly house with +that filthy woman--and willing me--absolutely with all his might--to go +under--" + +"But what is it," said Stephen, going, as always, to the simplest aspect +of the case, "that you exactly want to do?" + +"Oh, I don't know ... just to let loose the whole thing--I did break out +once at Brockett's--I've never told anybody, but I got badly drunk one +night and then went back with some woman.... Oh! it was all filthy--but +I was mad, wild, for hours ... insane--and that night, in the middle of +it all, sitting there as plainly as you please, there in Scaw House, I +saw my father--as plainly as I see you--" + +"All young men," said Stephen, "'ave got to go through a bit of filth. +You aren't the sort of fellow, Peter, that stays there. Your wanting not +to shows that you'll come out of it all right." + +Here was a case where Stephen's simplicities were obviously of little +avail. + +"Ah, but don't you see," said Peter impatiently, "it's not the thing +itself that I feel matters so much, although that's rotten enough, but +it's the beastly devil--real, personal--I tell you I saw him catch my +grandfather as tight as though he'd been there in the room ... and my +father, too. I tell you, this last week or two I've been almost mad ... +wanting to chuck it all, this fighting and the rest and just go down and +grovel..." + +"I expect it's regular work you're wanting," said Stephen, "keeping +your mind busy. It's bad to 'ave your sort of brain wandering round with +nothing to feed on. It'll be all right, boy, in a day or two when you've +got some work." + +Peter's head dropped forward on to his hands. "I don't know--it's +like going round in a circle. You see, Stephen, what makes it all so +difficult is--well, I don't know ... why I haven't told you before ... +but the fact is--I'm in love--" + +"I knew it a while back," said Stephen quietly, "watching your face when +you didn't know I was lookin'--" + +"Well, it's all hopeless, of course. I don't suppose I shall ever +see her again ... but that's what's made this looking for work so +difficult--I've been wanting to get on--and every day seems to place her +further away. And then when I get hopeless these other devils come round +and say 'Oh well, you can't get her, you know. That's as impossible as +anything--so you'd better have your fling while you can....' My God! I'm +a beast!" + +The cry broke from him with a bitterness that filled the bare little +room. + +Stephen, after a little, got up and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. + +"Nobody ain't going to touch you while I'm here," he said simply as +though he were challenging devils and men alike. + +Peter looked up and smiled. "What an old brick you are," he said. "Do +you remember that fight Christmas time, years ago? ... You're always +like that.... I've been an ass to bother you with it all and while we've +got each other things can't be so bad." He got up and stretched his +arms. + +"Well, it's bedtime, especially as you've got to be off early to that +old restaurant--" + +Stephen stepped back from him. + +"I've been meaning to tell you," he said, "that's off. The place ain't +paying and the boss shut four of us down to-night ... I'm not to go back +... Peter, boy," he finished, almost triumphantly. "We're up against it +... I've got a quid in my pocket and that's all there is to it." + +They faced one another whilst the candle behind them guttered and blew +in the window cracks, and the cluster of stars, still caught in the +dirty roofs and chimneys of Bucket Lane, twinkled, desperately--in vain. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +STEPHEN'S CHAPTER + + +I + +No knight--the hero of any chronicle--ever went forward to his battle +with a braver heart than did Peter now in his desperate adventure +against the world. His morbidity, his introspection, his irritation +with Stephen's simplicities fled from him... he was gay, filled with +the glamour of showing what one could do... he did not doubt but that +a fortnight would see him in a magnificent position. And then--the +fortnight passed and he and Stephen had still their positions to +discover--the money moreover was almost at an end... another fortnight +would behold them penniless. + +It was absurd--it was monstrous, incredible. Life was not like +that--Peter bit his lip and set out again. Editors had not, on most +occasions, vouchsafed him even an interview. Then had come no answer to +the four halfpenny wrappers. The world, like a wall of shining steel, +closed him in with impenetrable silence. + +It was absurd--it was monstrous. Peter fought desperately, as a bird +beats with its wings on the bars of its cage. They were having the worst +of luck. On several occasions he had been just too late and some one had +got the position before him. Stephen too found that the places where he +had worked before had now no job for him. "It was the worst time in the +world... a month ago now or possibly in a month's time...." + +Stephen did not tell the boy that away from London there were many +things that he could do--the boy was not up to tramping. Indeed, nothing +was more remarkable than the way in which Peter's strength seemed to +strain, like a flood, away. It was, perhaps, a matter of nerves as +much as physical strength--the boy was burning with the anxiety of it, +whereas to Stephen this was no new experience. Peter saw it in the light +of some horrible disaster that belonged, in all the world's history, to +him alone. He came back at the end of one of his days, white, his eyes +almost closed, his fingers twitching, his head hanging a little ... very +silent. + +He seemed to feel bitterly the ignominy of it as though he were +realising, for the first time, that nobody wanted him. He had come now +to be ready to do anything, anything in the world, and he had the look +of one who was ready to do anything. His blue coat was shiny, his boots +had been patched by Stephen--there were deep black hollows under his +eyes and his mouth had become thin and hard. + +Stephen--having himself his own distresses to support--watched the boy +with acute anxiety. He felt with increasing unhappiness, that here was +an organism, a temperament, that was new to him, that was beyond his +grasp. Peter saw things in it all--this position of a desperate cry for +work--that he, Stephen, had never seen at all. Peter would sit in the +evening, in his chair, staring in front of him, silent, and hearing +nothing that Stephen said to him. With Stephen life was a case of having +money or not having it--if one had not money one went without everything +possible and waited until the money came again ... the tide was sure to +turn. But, with Peter, this was all a fight against his father who sat, +apparently, in the dark rooms at Scaw House, willing disaster. Now, as +Stephen and all the sensible world knew, this was nonsense-- + +It was also, in some still stranger way, a fight against London +itself--not London, a place of streets and houses, of Oxford Street +and Piccadilly Circus but London, an animal--a kind of dragon as far as +Stephen could make it out with scales and a tail-- + +Now what was one to make of this except that the boy's head was being +turned and that he ought to see a doctor. + +There was also the further question of an appeal to Brockett's or Mr. +Zanti. Stephen knew that Herr Gottfried or Mr. Zanti would lend help +eagerly did they but know, and he supposed, from the things that Peter +had told him, that there were also warm friends at Brockett's; but the +boy had made him swear, with the last order of solemnity, that he would +send no word to either place. Peter had said that he would never speak +to him again should he do such a thing. He had said that should he once +obtain an independent position then he would go back ... but not before. + +Stephen did not know what to do nor where to go. In another month's time +the rent could not be paid and then they must go into the street and +Peter was in no condition for that--he should rather be in bed. Mrs. +Williams, it is true, would not be hard upon them, for she was a kind +woman and had formed a great liking for Peter, but she had only enough +herself to keep her family alive and she must, for her children's sake, +let the room. + +To Stephen, puzzling in vain and going round and round in a hopeless +circle, it seemed as though Peter's brains were locked in an iron box +and they could not find a key. For himself, well, it was natural enough! +But Peter, with that genius, that no one should want him! + +And yet through it all, at the back of the misery and distress of it, +there was a wild pride, a fierce joy that he had the key with him, that +he was all in the world to whom the boy might look, that to him and to +him alone, in this wild, cold world Peter now belonged. + +It was his moment.... + + +II + +At the end of a terrible day of disastrous rejections Peter, stumbling +down the Strand, was conscious of a little public-house, with a neat +bow-window, that stood back from the street. At the bottom of his +trouser pocket a tiny threepenny piece that Stephen had, that morning, +thrust upon him, turned round and round in his fingers. He had not spent +it--he had intended to restore it to Stephen in the evening. He had +meant, too, to walk back all the way to Bucket Lane but now he felt that +he could not do that unless he were first to take something. This little +inn with its bow-windows.... Down the Strand in the light of the +setting sun, he saw again that which he had often seen during these last +weeks--that chain of gaunt figures that moved with bending backs +and twisted fingers, on and out of the crowds and the carriages--The +beggars!... He felt, already, that they knew that he was soon to be one +of their number, that every day, every hour brought him nearer to their +ranks. An old man, dirty, in rags, stepped with an eager eye past +him and stooped for a moment into the gutter. He rose again, slipping +something into his pocket of his tattered coat. He gave Peter a +glance--to the boy it seemed a glance of triumphant recognition and then +he had slipped away. + +Peter had had very little to eat during these last days and to-night, +for the first time, things began to take an uncertain shape. As he +stood on the kerb and looked, it seemed to him that the Strand was the +sea-road at Treliss, that the roar of the traffic was the noise that the +sea made, far below them. If one could see round the corner, there where +the sun flung a patch of red light, one would come upon Scaw House in +its dark clump of trees--and through the window of that front room, +Peter could see his father and that old woman, one on each side of the +fire-place, drinking. + +But the sea-road was stormy to-night, its noise was loud in Peter's +ears. And then the way that people brushed against him as they passed +recalled him to himself and he slipped back almost into the bow-window +of the little inn. He was feeling very unwell and there was a burning +pain in his chest that hurt him when he drew a deep breath ... and then +too he was very cold and his teeth chattered in fits as though he had +suddenly lost control of them and they had become some other person's +teeth. + +Well, why not go into the little inn and have a drink? Then he would +go back to Bucket Lane and lie down and never wake again. For he was +so tired that he had never known before what it was to be tired at +all--only Stephen would not let him sleep.... Stephen was cruel and +would not let him alone. No one would let him alone--the world had +treated him very evilly--what did he owe the world? + +He would go now and surrender to these things, these things that were +stronger than he ... he would drink and he would sleep and that should +be the end of everything ... the blessed end. + +He swayed a little on his feet and he put his hand to his forehead in +order that he might think more clearly. + +Some one had said once to him a great many years ago--"It is not life +that matters but the Courage that you bring to it." Well, that was +untrue. He would like to tell the man who had said that that he was a +liar. No Courage could be enough if life chose to be hard. No Courage-- + +Nevertheless, the thought of somewhere a long time ago when some one had +said that to him, slowly filled his tired brain with a distaste for +the little inn with the bow-windows. He would not go there yet, just a +little while and then he would go. + +Almost dreaming--certainly seeing nothing about him that he +recognised--he stumbled confusedly down to the Embankment. Here there +was at any rate air, he drew his shabby blue coat more closely about him +and sat down on a wooden bench, in company with a lady who wore a large +damaged feather in her hat and a red stained blouse with torn lace upon +it and a skirt of a bright and tarnished blue. + +The lady gave him a nod. + +"Cheer, chucky," she said. + +Peter made no reply. + +"Down on your uppers? My word, you look bad--Poor Kid! Well, never say +die--strike me blimy but there's a good day coming--" + +"I sat here once before," said Peter, leaning forward and addressing her +very earnestly, "and it was the first time that I ever heard the noise +that London makes. If you listen you can hear it now--London's a beast +you know--" + +But the lady had paid very little attention. "Men are beasts, beasts," +she said, scowling at a gap in the side of her boots, "beasts, that's +what they are. 'Aven't 'ad any luck the last few nights. Suppose I'm +losin' my looks sittin' out 'ere in the mud and rain. There was a time, +young feller, my lad, when I 'ad my carriage, not 'arf!" She spat in +front of her--"'E was a good sort, 'e was--give me no end of a time +... but the lot of men I've been meetin' lately ain't fit to be called +men--they ain't--mean devils--leavin' me like this, curse 'em!" She +coughed. The sun had set now and the lights were coming out, like glass +beads on a string on the other side of the river. "Stoppin' out all +night, ducky? Stayin' 'ere? 'Cause I got a bit of a cough!--disturbs +fellers a bit ... last feller said as 'ow 'e couldn't get a bit o' sleep +because of it--damned rot I call it. 'Owever it isn't out of doors you +ought to be sittin', chucky. Feelin' bad?" + +Peter looked at her out of his half-closed eyes. + +"I can't bother any more," he said to her sleepily. "They're so +cruel--they won't let me go to sleep. I've got a pain here--in my chest +you know. Have you got a pain in your chest?" + +"My leg's sore," she answered, "where a chap kicked me last week--just +because--oh well," she paused modestly and spat again--"It's comin' on +cold." + +A cold little wind was coming up the river, ruffling the tips of the +trees and turning the leaves of the plane-trees back as though it wanted +to clean the other sides of them. + +Peter got up unsteadily. "I'm going home to sleep," he said, "I'm +dreadfully tired. Good-night." + +"So long, chucky," the lady with the damaged feather said to him. +He left her eyeing discontentedly the hole in her boot and trying to +fasten, with confused fingers, the buttons of the red blouse. + +Peter mechanically, as one walking in a dream, crept into an omnibus. +Mechanically he left it and mechanically climbed the stairs of the house +in Bucket Lane. There were two fixed thoughts in his brain--one was that +no one in the world had ever before been as thirsty as he was, and that +he would willingly commit murder or any violence if thereby he might +obtain drink, and the other thought was that Stephen was his enemy, that +he hated Stephen because Stephen never left him alone and would not +let him sleep--also in the back of his mind distantly, as though it +concerned some one else, that he was very unhappy.... + +Stephen was sitting on one of the beds, looking in front of him. Peter +moved forward heavily and sat on the other bed. They looked at one +another. + +"No luck," said Stephen, "Armstrong's hadn't room for a man. Ricroft +wouldn't see me. Peter, I'm thinking we'll have to take to the roads--" + +Peter made no answer. + +"Yer not lookin' a bit well, lad. I doubt if yer can stand much more of +it." + +Peter looked across at him sullenly. + +"Why can't you leave me alone?" he said. "You're always worrying--" + +A slow flush mounted into Stephen's cheeks but he said nothing. + +"Well, why don't you say something? Nothing to say--it isn't bad enough +that you've brought me into this--" + +"Come, Mr. Peter," Stephen answered slowly. "That ain't fair. I never +brought you into this. I've done my best." + +"Oh, blame me, of course. That's natural enough. If it hadn't been for +you--" + +Stephen came into the middle of the floor. + +"Come, Peter boy, yer tired. Yer don't know what yer saying. Best go to +bed. Don't be saying anything that yer'd be regretting afterwards--" + +Peter's eyes that had been closed, suddenly opened, blazing. "Oh, damn +you and your talk--I hate you. I wish I'd never seen you--a rotten kind +of friendship--" his voice died off into muttering. + +Stephen went back to his bed. "This ain't fair, Mr. Peter," he said in a +low voice. "You'll be sorry afterwards. I ain't 'ad any very 'appy time +myself these last weeks and now--" + +Their nerves were like hot, jangling wires. Suddenly into the midst of +that bare room there had sprung between them hatred. They faced each +other ... they could have leapt at one another's throats and fought.... + +Suddenly Peter gave a little cry that seemed to fill the room. His head +fell forward-- + +"Oh, Stephen, Stephen, I'm so damned ill, I'm so damnably ill." + +He caught for a moment at his chest as though he would tear his shirt +open. Then he stumbled from the bed and lay in a heap on the floor with +his hands spread out-- + +Stephen picked him up in his arms and carried him on to his bed. + + +III + +The little doctor who attended to the wants of Bucket Lane was +discovered at his supper. He was a dirty little man, with large dusty +spectacles, a red nose and a bald head. He wore an old, faded velveteen +jacket out of the pockets of which stuck innumerable papers. He was very +often drunk and had a shrew of a wife who made the sober parts of his +life a misery, but he was kind-hearted and generous and had a very real +knowledge of his business. + +Mrs. Williams volubly could not conceal her concern at Peter's +condition--"and 'im such a nice-spoken young genelman as I was saying +only yesterday tea-time, there's nothin' I said, as I wouldn't be +willin' to do for that there poor Mr. Westcott and that there poor Mr. +Brant 'oo are as like two 'elpless children in their fightin' the world +as ever I see and 'ow ever can I help 'em I said--" + +"Well, my good woman," the little doctor finally interrupted, "you can +help here and now by getting some hot water and the other things I've +put down here." + +When she was gone he turned slowly to Stephen who stood, the picture of +despair, looking down upon Peter. + +"'E's goin' to die?" he asked. + +"That depends," the little doctor answered. "The boy's been +starved--ought never to have been allowed to get into this condition. +Both of you hard up, I suppose?" + +"As 'ard up as we very well could be--" Stephen answered grimly. + +"Well--has he no friends?" + +There--the question at last. Stephen took it as he would have taken a +blow between the eyes. He saw very clearly that the end of his reign had +come. He had done what he could and he had failed. But in him was the +fierce furious desire to fight for the boy. Why should he give him +up, now, when they had spent all these weeks together, when they had +struggled for their very existence side by side. What right had any of +these others to Peter compared with his right? He knew very well that +if he gave him up now the boy would never be his again. He might see +him--yes--but that passing of Peter that he had already begun to realise +would be accomplished. He might look at him but only as a wanderer may +look from the valley up to the hill. The doctor broke in upon him as he +stood hesitating there-- + +"Come," he said roughly, "we have not much time. The boy may die. Has he +no friends?" + +Stephen turned his back to Peter. "Yes," he said, "I know where they +are. I will fetch them myself." + +The doctor had not lived in Bucket Lane all these years for nothing. He +put his hand on Stephen's arm and said: "You're a good fellow, by God. +It'll be all right." + +Stephen went. + +On his way to Bennett Square a thousand thoughts filled his mind. He +knew, as though he had been told it by some higher power, that Peter +was leaving him now never to return. He had done what he could for +Peter--now the boy must pass on to others who might be able, more +fittingly, to help him. He cursed the Gods that they had not allowed him +to obtain work during these weeks, for then Peter and he might have gone +on, working, prospering and the parting might have been far distant. + +But he felt also that Peter's destiny was something higher and larger +than anything that he could ever compass--it must be Peter's life that +he should always be leaving people behind him--stages on his road--until +he had attained his place. But for Stephen, a loneliness swept down upon +him that seemed to turn the world to stone. Never, in all the years of +his wandering, had he known anything like this. It is very hard that a +man should care for only two creatures in the world and that he should +be held, by God's hand, from reaching either of them. + +The door of Brockett's was opened to him by a servant and he asked for +Mrs. Brockett. In the cold and dark hall the lady sternly awaited him, +but the sternness fell from her like a cloak when he told her the reason +of his coming-- + +"Dear me, and the poor boy so ill," she said. "We have all been very +anxious indeed about poor Mr. Peter. We had tried every clue but could +hear nothing of him. We were especially eager to find him because +Miss Monogue had some good news for him about his book. There is a +gentleman--a friend of Mr. Peter's--who has been doing everything to +find him--who is with Miss Monogue now. He will be delighted. Perhaps +you will go up." + +Stephen can have looked no agreeable object at this time, worn out +by the struggle of the last weeks, haggard and gaunt, his beard +unkempt--but Norah Monogue came forward to him with both her hands +outstretched. + +"Oh, you know something of Peter--tell us, please," she said. + +A stout, pleasant-faced gentleman behind her was introduced as Mr. +Galleon. + +Stephen explained. "But why, why," said the gentleman, "didn't you let +us know before, my good fellow?" + +Stephen's brow darkened. "Peter didn't wish it," he said. + +But Norah Monogue came forward and put her hand on his arm. "You must +be the Mr. Brant about whom he has so often talked," she said. "I am so +glad to meet you at last. Peter owes so much to you. We have been trying +everywhere to get word of him because some publishers have taken his +novel and think very well of it indeed. But come--do let us go at once. +There is no time to lose--" + +So they had taken his novel, had they? All these days--all these +terrible hours--that starving, that ghastly anxiety, the boy's +terror--all these things had been unnecessary. Had they only known, this +separation now might have been avoided. + +He could not trust himself to speak to Bobby Galleon and Norah Monogue. +These were the people who were going to take Peter away. + +He turned and went, in silence, down the stairs. + +At Bucket Lane Bobby Galleon took affairs into his own hands. At once +Peter should be removed to his house in Chelsea--it would not apparently +harm him to be moved that night. + +Peter was still unconscious. Stephen stood in the back of the room and +watched them make their preparations. They had all forgotten him. For +a moment as they passed down the stairs Stephen had his last glimpse +of Peter. He saw the high white forehead, the long black eyelashes, the +white drawn cheeks.... At this parting Peter had no eye for him. + +Bobby Galleon and Miss Monogue both spoke to Stephen pleasantly +before they went away. Stephen did not hear what they said. Bobby took +Stephen's name down on a piece of paper.... Then they were gone. They +were all gone. + +Mrs. Williams looked through the door at him for a moment but something +in the man's face drove her away. Very slowly he put his few clothes +together. He must tramp the roads again--the hard roads, the glaring +sun, cold moon--always going on, always alone-- + +He shouldered his bag and went out.... + + + + +BOOK III -- THE ROUNDABOUT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +NO. 72, CHEYNE WALK + + +I + +Burnished clouds--swollen with golden light and soft and changing in +their outline--were sailing, against a pale green autumn evening sky, +over Chelsea. + +It was nearly six o'clock and at the Knightsbridge end of Sloane Street +a cloud of black towers quivered against the pale green. + +The yellow light that the golden clouds shed upon the earth bathed the +neat and demure houses of Sloane Street in a brief bewildered unreality. +Sloane Street, not accustomed to unreality, regretted amiably and with +its gentle smile that Nature should insist, once every day, for some +half-hour or so, on these mists and enchantments. The neat little houses +called their masters and mistresses within doors and advised them to +rest before dressing for dinner and so insured these many comfortable +souls that they should not be disturbed by any unwelcome violence on +their emotions. Soon, before looking-glasses and tables shining with +silver hair-brushes bodies would be tied and twisted and faces would be +powdered and painted--meanwhile, for that dying moment, Sloane Street +was lifted into the hearts of those burnished clouds and held for an +instant in glory. Then to the relief of the neat and shining houses the +electric lights came out, one by one, and the world was itself again.... + +Beyond Sloane Square, however, the King's Road chattered and rattled and +minded not at all whether the sky were yellow or blue. This was the hour +when shopping must be done and barrows shone beneath their flaring gas, +and many ladies, with the appearance of having left their homes for the +merest minute, hurried from stall to stall. The King's Road stands like +a noisy Cheap Jack outside the sanctities of Chelsea. Behind its chatter +are the quietest streets in the world, streets that are silent because +they prefer rest to noise and not at all because they have nothing to +say. The King's Road has been hired by Chelsea to keep foreigners away, +and the faint smile that the streets wear is a smile of relief because +that noisy road so admirably achieves its purpose. In this mellow +evening light the little houses glow, through the river mists, across +the cobbles. The stranger, on leaving the King's Road behind him, is +swept into a quiet intimacy that has nothing of any town about it; he is +refreshed as he might be were he to leave the noisy train behind him +and plunge into the dark, scented hedge-rows and see before him the +twinkling lights of some friendly inn. As the burnished clouds fade from +the sky on the dark surface of the river the black barges hang their +lights and in Cheyne Row and Glebe Place, down Oakley Street, and along +the wide spaces of Cheyne Walk, lamps burn mildly in a hundred windows. +Guarded on one side by the sweeping murmur of the river, on the other by +the loud grimaces of the King's Road Chelsea sinks, with a sound like a +whisper of its own name, into evening.... + +As the last trailing fingers of the golden clouds die before the +approaching army of the stars, as the yellow above the horizon gives way +to a cold and iron blue, lights come out in that house with the green +door and the white stone steps--No. 72, Cheyne Walk--that is now Peter +Westcott's home. + + +II + +Peter had, on the very afternoon of that beautiful evening, returned +from the sea; there, during the last three weeks, he had passed his +convalescence and now, once again, he faced the world. Mrs. Galleon and +the Galleon baby had been with him and Bobby had come down to them for +the week-ends. In this manner Peter had had an opportunity of getting +to know Mrs. Galleon with a certainty and speed that nothing else could +have given him. During the first weeks after his removal from Bucket +Lane, he had been too ill to take any account of his neighbours or +surroundings. He had been sent down to the sea as soon as it was +possible and it was here, watching her quietly or listening to her as +she read to him, walking a little with her, playing with her baby, that +he grew to know her and to love her. She had been a Miss Alice du +Cane, at first an intelligent, cynical and rather trivial person. Then +suddenly, for no very sure reason that any one could discover, her +character changed. She had known Bobby during many years and had always +laughed at him for a solemn, rather-priggish young man--then she fell in +love with him and, to his own wild and delirious surprise, married +him. The companions of her earlier girlhood missed her cynicism and +complained that brilliance had given way to commonplace but you could +not find, in the whole of London, a happier marriage. + +To Peter she was something entirely new. Norah Monogue was the only +woman with whom, as yet, he had come into any close contact, and she, by +her very humility, had allowed him to assume to her a superior, rather +patronising attitude. The brief vision of Clare Rossiter had been +altogether of the opposite kind, partaking too furiously of heaven to +have any earthly quality. But here in Alice Galleon he discovered a +woman who gave him something--companionship, a lively and critical +intelligence, some indefinable quality of charm--that was entirely new +to him. + +She chaffed him, criticised him, admired him, absorbed him and nattered +him in a breath. She told him that he had a "degree" of talent, that he +was the youngest and most ignorant person for his age that she had ever +met, that he was conceited, that he was rough and he had no manners, +that he was too humble, that he was a "flopper" because he was so +anxious to please, that he was a boy and an old man at the same time and +finally that the Galleon baby--a solemn child--had taken to him as it +had never taken to any one during the eventful three years of its life. + +Behind these contradictory criticisms Peter knew that there was a +friend, and he was sensible enough also to realise that many of the +things that she said to him were perfectly true and that he would do +well to take them to heart. At first she had made him angry and that had +delighted her, so he had been angry no longer; it seemed to him, during +these days of convalescence, that the solemn melodramatic young man of +Bucket Lane was an incredibility. + +And yet, although he felt that that episode had been definitely +closed--shut off as it were by wide doors that held back at a distance, +every sound, the noise, the confusion, the terror, was nevertheless +there, but for the moment, the doors were closed. Only in his dreams +they rolled back and, night after night he awoke, screaming, bathed in +sweat, trembling from head to foot. Sometimes he thought that he saw an +army of rats advancing across the floor of their Bucket Lane room and +Stephen and he beat them off, but ever they returned.... + +Once he thought that their room was invaded by a number of old toothless +hags who came in at the door and the window, and these creatures, with +taloned fingers fought, screeching and rolling their eyes.... + +Twice he dreamt that he saw on a hill, high uplifted against a stormy +sky, the statue of the Man on the Lion, gigantic. He struggled to +see the Rider's face and it seemed to him that multitudes of other +persons--men and women--were pleading, with hands uplifted, that they +too might see the face. But always it was denied them, and Peter woke +with a strange oppression of crushing disappointment. Sometimes he +dreamt of Scaw House and it was always the same dream. He saw the old +room with the marble clock and the cactus plant, but about it all now +there was dust and neglect. In the arm-chair, by the fire, facing +the window, his father, old now and bent, was sitting, listening and +waiting. The wind howled about the place, old boards creaked, casements +rattled and his father never moved but leaning forward in his chair, +watched, waited, eagerly, passionately, for some news.... + + +III + +They were having dinner now--Bobby, Mrs. Galleon and Peter--in the +studio of the Cheyne Walk House. Outside, a sheet of stars, a dark river +and the pale lamps of the street. The curtains of the studio were +still undrawn and the glow from the night beyond fell softly along the +gleaming black boards of the floor that stretched into shadow by the +farther wall, over the round mahogany table--without a cloth and shining +with its own colour--deep and liquid brown,--and out to the pictures +that hung in their dull gold frames along the wall. + +About Peter was a sense of ease and rest, of space that was as new to +him as America was to Columbus. He was not even now completely recovered +from his Bucket Lane experiences and there was still about him +that uncertainty of life--when one sees it as though through gauze +curtains--that gives reality to the quality of dreams. Life was behind +him, Life was ahead of him, but meantime let him rest in this uncertain +and beautiful country until it was time for him to go forward again. +This intangibility--walking as it were in a fog round and round the +Nelson monument, knowing it was there but never seeing it--remained with +him even when practical matters were discussed. For instance, "Reuben +Hallard" was to be published in a week's time and Peter was to receive +fifty pounds in advance on the day of publication (unusually good terms +for a first novel Bobby assured him); also Bobby, through his father, +thought that he could secure Peter regular reviewing. The intention +then was that Peter should remain with the Galleons as a kind of paying +guest, and so his pride would not be hurt and they could have an eye +upon him during this launching of him into London. It was fortunate, +perhaps, that Alice Galleon had liked him down there at the sea, because +she was a lady who had her own way at No. 72, and she by no means +liked every one. But perhaps the Galleon baby had had more to do with +everything than any one knew, and Mrs. Galleon assured her friends +that the baby's heart would most certainly be broken if "the wild young +guest" as she called Peter, were carried off. + +And wild he was--of that seeing him now at dinner there in the studio +there could be no doubt. He was wearing Bobby's clothes and there was +still a look of suffering in his eyes and around his mouth, but the +difference--his difference from the things about him--went deeper than +that. The large high windows of the studio with the expanse of wild and +burning stars between their black frames answered Peter's eyes as he +faced them. Mrs. Galleon, as she watched him, was reminded of other +things, of other persons, of other events, that had marked his earlier +life. She glanced from Peter's eyes to Bobby's. She smiled, for on an +earlier day, she had seen that same antithesis--the gulf that is fixed +between Imagination and Reality--and had known its meaning. + +But for Peter, all he asked now was that he might be allowed to rest in +the midst of this glorious comfort. His evil dreams were very far away +from him to-night. The food, the colour--the fruit piled high in the +silver dishes, the glittering of the great silver candelabra that stood +on the middle of the table, the deep red of the roses in the bowl at his +side, the deeper red of the Port that shone in front of Bobby and then, +beneath all this, as though the table were a coloured ship sailing on +a solemn sea, the dark, deep shining floor that faded into shadow--all +this excited him so that his hands trembled. + +He spoke to Mrs. Galleon: + +"I wonder if you will do me a favour," he said very earnestly. + +"Anything in reason," she answered, laughing back at his gravity. + +"Well, don't call me Mr. Westcott any more. Because I'm going to live +here and because I'm too old a friend of Bobby's and because, finally, I +hate being called Mr. Westcott by anybody, might it be Peter?" + +"Joseph calls him Peter as it is," said Bobby quite earnestly looking at +his wife. + +They were both so grave about it that Alice Galleon couldn't be anything +but grave too. She knew that it was really a definite appeal on behalf +of both of them that she should here and now, solemnly put her sign of +approval on Peter. It was almost in the way that they waited for her to +answer, a ceremony. She was even, as she looked at them, surprised into +a sudden burst of tenderness towards them both. Bobby so solemn, such a +dear, really quite an age and yet as young as any infant in arms. +Peter with forces and impulses that might lead to anything or wreck him +altogether, and yet, through it all younger even than Bobby. Oh! what an +age she, Alice Galleon, seemed to muster at the sight of their +innocent trust! Did every woman feel as old, as protecting, as tenderly +indulgent, towards every man?... + +"Why, of course," she answered quietly, "Peter it shall be--" + +Bobby raised his port. "Here's to Peter--to Peter and 'Reuben +Hallard'--overwhelming success to both of them." + +Emotion, for an instant, held them. Then quietly, they stepped back +again. It was almost too good to be true that, after all the turnings +and twistings, life should have brought Peter to this. He did not look +very far ahead, he did not ask himself whether the book were likely to +be a success, whether his career would justify this beginning. If only +they would let him alone.... He did not, even to himself, name those +powers. He was wrapped about with comfort, he had friends, above all +(and this he had discovered at the sea) the Galleons knew Miss Rossiter +... this last thought seemed, by the glorious clamour of it, to draw +that sheet of stars down through the window into the room, the air +crackled with their splendour. + +He was drawn back, down into the world again, by hearing Bobby's voice: + +"The evening post and a letter for you. Peter." + +He looked down and, with a sudden pang of accusing shame because he had +forgotten so easily, with also a sure knowledge that that easy escape +from his other life was already forbidden him, saw that the letter +was from Stephen. He felt that their eyes were upon him as he took the +letter up and he also felt that in Alice Galleon's gaze there was a +wise and tender understanding of the things that he must be feeling. The +roughness of the envelope, the rudeness of the hand-writing, a stain +in one corner that might be beer, the stamp set crookedly--these things +seemed to him like so many voices that called him back. Five minutes ago +those days in Bucket Lane had belonged to another life, now he was still +there and to-morrow he must tramp out again, to-morrow.... + +The letter said: + + _Writing here dear Peter at twelve o'clock noon, the Red Crown Inn, + Druttledge, on the road to Exeter, a little house where thiccy + bandy-legged man you've heard me tell about is Keeper and a good + fellow and there's queer enough company in kitchen now to please you. + A rough lot of fellows: and a storm coming up black over high woods + that'll make walkin' no easy matter on a slimy road, and, dear boy, + I've been thinkin' strange about you and 'ow you'll pull along with + your kind friends. That nice gentleman sent a telegram as he promised + to and says you pull finely along. Hopin' you really are better. But + dear boy, if you find you can give me just a word on paper sayin' that + hear there is no course for worryin' about your health, then I'm happy + because, dear boy, you'm always in my thoughts and I love you fine and + wish to God I could have made everything easier up along in thiccy + Bucket Lane. I go from hear by road to Cornwall and Treliss. I'm + expecting to find work there. Dear boy, don't forget me and see me + again one day and write a letter. They are getting too much into their + bellies and making the devil's own noise. There is Thunder coming the + air is that still over the roof of the barn and the road's dead white. + Dear Boy, I am your friend,_ + + STEPHEN BRANT. + +The candles blew a little in the breeze from the open window and the +lighted shadows ran flickering in silver lines, along the dark floor. +Peter stood holding the letter in his hand, looking out on to the black +square of sky; the lights of the barges swung down the river and he +could hear, very faintly, the straining of ropes and the turning of some +mysterious wheel. + +He saw Stephen--the great head, the flowing beard, the huge body--and +then the inn with the thunder coming over the hill, and then, beyond +that Treliss gleaming with its tiers of lights, above the breast of the +sea. And from here, from this wide Embankment, down to that sea, there +stretched, riding over hills, bending into valleys, always white and +hard and stony, the road.... + +For an instant he felt as though the studio, the lights, the comforts +were holding him like a prison-- + +"It's a letter from Stephen Brant," he said, turning back from the +window. "He seems well and happy--" + +"Where is he?" + +"Eating bread and cheese at an inn somewhere--on the road down to +Cornwall." + + +IV + +On the following Tuesday "Reuben Hallard" was published and on the +Thursday afternoon Henry Galleon and Clare Rossiter were to come to tea. +"Reuben Hallard" arrived in a dark red cover with a white paper label. +The six copies lay on the table and looked at Peter as though he had had +nothing whatever to do with their existence. He looked down upon them, +opened one of them very tenderly, read half a page and felt that it was +the best stuff he'd ever seen. He read the rest of the page and thought +that the author, whoever the creature might be, deserved, imprisonment +for writing such nonsense. + +The feeling of strangeness towards it all was increased by the fact that +Bobby had, with the exception of the final proofs--these Peter had read +down by the sea--done most of the proof-correcting. It was a task for +which his practical common sense and lack of all imagination admirably +fitted him. There, at any rate, "Reuben Hallard" was, ready to face all +the world, to go, perhaps, to the farthest Hebrides, to be lost in all +probability, utterly lost, in the turgid flood of contemporary fiction. + +There was a dedication "To Stephen"... How surprised Stephen would be! +He looked at the chapter headings--An Old Man with a Lantern--the Road +at Night.... Sun on the Western Moor--Stevenson--Tushery all of it! How +they'd tear it to bits, those papers! + +He laughed to himself to think that there had once been a day when he +had thought that the thing would make his fortune! And yet--he turned +the pages over tenderly--there might be something to be said for it, +Miss Monogue had thought well of it. These publishers, blasé, cynical +fellows, surely believed in it. + +It was fat and red and comfortable. It had a worldly, prosperous look. +"Reuben Hallard and His Adventures" ... Good Lord! What cheek. + +There were five copies to give away. One between Bobby and Mrs. Galleon, +one for Stephen, one for Miss Monogue, one for Mrs. Brockett and one for +Mr. Zanti. "Reuben Hallard and His Adventures," by Peter Westcott. They +would be getting it now at the newspaper offices. _The Mascot_ would +have a copy and the fat little chocolate consumer. It would stand with a +heap of others, and be ticked off with a heap of others, for some youth +to exercise his wit upon. As to any one buying the book? Who ever saw +any one buying a six-shilling novel? It was only within the last year or +so that the old three volumes with their thirty-one-and-six had departed +this life. The publishers had assured Peter that this new six-shilling +form was the thing. "Please have you got 'Reuben Hallard' by Peter +Westcott?... Thank you, I'll take it with me." + +No, it was inconceivable. + +There poor Reuben would lie--deserted, still-born, ever dustier and +dustier whilst other stories came pouring, pouring from endless presses, +covering, crowding it down, stamping upon it, burying it.... "Here lies +'Reuben Hallard.'..." + +Poor Peter! + +On Thursday, however, there was the tea-party--a Thursday never to be +forgotten whilst Peter was alive. Bobby had told him the day before that +his father might be coming. "The rest of the family will turn up for +certain. They want to see you. They're always all agog for any new +thing--one of them's always playing Cabot to somebody else's Columbus. +But father's uncertain. He gets something into his head and then nothing +whatever will draw him out--but I expect he'll turn up." + +The other visitor was announced to Peter on the very day. + +"By the way, Peter, somebody's coming to tea this afternoon who's +met you before--met you at that odd boarding-house of yours--a Miss +Rossiter. Clare's an old friend of ours. I told you down at the sea +about her and you said you remembered meeting her." + +"Remembered meeting her!" Did Dante remember meeting Beatrice--did +Petrarch remember Laura? Did Keats forget his Fanny Brawne? Did Richard +Feverel forget his Lucy? + +On a level with these high-thinking gentlemen was Peter, disguising his +emotions from Alice's sharp eyes but silent, breathless, wanting some +other place than that high studio in which to breathe. "Yes--she came to +tea once with a Miss Monogue there--I liked her...." + +He was not there, but rather on some height alone with her and their +hands touched over a photograph. "The Man on the Lion." There was +something worthy of his feeling for her! + +Meanwhile, for the first part of the afternoon one must put up with +the Galleon family. Had Peter been sufficiently calm and sensible these +appendages to a great author would have been worth his attention. Behold +them in relation to "Henry Lessingham," soaked in the works, bearing +on their backs the whole Edition de Luxe, decking themselves with +the little odds and ends of literary finery that they had picked up, +bursting with the good-nature of assured self-consequence--harmless, +foolish, comfortable. Mrs. Galleon was massive with a large flat face +that jumped suddenly into expression when one least expected it. There +was a great deal of silk about her, much leisurely movement and her +tactics were silence and a slow, significant smile--these she always +contributed to any conversation that was really beyond her. Had she not, +during many years of her life, been married to a genius she would have +been an intensely slow-moving but adequate housekeeper--as it was, her +size and her silence enabled her to keep her place at many literary +dinners. Peter, watching her, was consumed with wonder that Henry +Galleon could ever have married her and understood that Bobby was the +child of both his parents. Bobby had a brother and sister--Percival and +Millicent. Percival was twenty-five and had written two novels that were +considered promising by those who did not know that he was the son of +his father. He was slim and dark with a black thread of a moustache +and rather fine white fingers. His clothes were very well cut but his +appearance was a little too elaborately simple. His sister, a girl of +about eighteen, was slim and dark also; she had the eager appearance of +one who has heard just enough to make her very anxious to hear a great +deal more. + +One felt that she did not want to miss anything, but probably her +determination to be her father's daughter would prevent her from +becoming very valuable or intelligent. + +Finally it was strange that Bobby had so completely escaped the shadow +of his father's mantle. These people were intended, of course, to be the +background of Peter's afternoon and it was therefore more than annoying +that that was the very last thing that they were. Millicent and Percival +made a ball and then flung it backwards and forwards throughout the +affair. Their mother watched them with appreciation and Alice Galleon, +who knew them, gave them tea and cake and let them have their way. Into +the midst of this Henry Galleon came--a little, round, fat man with a +face like a map, the body of Napoleon and a trot round the room like a +very amiable pony, eyes that saw everything, understood everything, +and forgave everything, a brown buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, white +spats and a voice that rolled and roared ... he was the tenderest, +most alarming person in any kind of a world. He was so gentle that any +sparrow would trust him implicitly and so terrific that an army would +most certainly fly from before him. He ate tea-cake, smiled and shook +hands with Peter, listened for half an hour to the spirited conversation +of his two children and trotted away again, leaving behind him an +atmosphere of gentle politeness and an amazing _savoir-faire_ that one +saw his children struggling to catch. They finally gave it up about +half-past five and retreated, pressing Peter to pay them a call at the +earliest opportunity. + +This was positively all that Peter saw, on this occasion, of Henry +Galleon. It was quite enough to give him a great deal to think about, +but it could scarcely be called a meeting. + +At quarter to six when Peter was in despair and Alice Galleon had +ordered the tea-things to be taken away Clare Rossiter rushed in. She +stood a whirlwind of flying colours in the middle of the Studio now +sinking into twilight. "Alice dear, I am most terribly sorry but mother +_would_ stay. I couldn't get her to leave and it was all so awkward. How +do you do, Mr. Westcott? Do you remember--we met at Treliss--and now +I must rush back this very minute. We are dining at seven before the +Opera, and father wants that music you promised him--the Brahms thing. +Oh! is it upstairs? Well, if you don't mind...." + +Alice Galleon left them together. Peter could say nothing at all. He +stood there, shifting from foot to foot, white, absolutely tongue-tied. + +She felt his embarrassment and struggled. + +"I hear that you've been very ill, Mr. Westcott. I'm so dreadfully sorry +and I do hope that you're better?" + +He muttered something. + +"Your book is out, isn't it? 'Reuben Hallard' is the name. I must +get father to put it down on his list. One's first books must be +so dreadfully exciting--and so alarming ... the reviews and +everything--what is it about?" + +He murmured "Cornwall." + +"Cornwall? How delightful! I was only there once. Mullion. Do you know +Mullion?" She struggled along. The pain that had begun in his heart +was now at his throat--his throat was full of spiders' webs. He could +scarcely see her in the dark but her pale blue dress and her dark eyes +and her beautiful white hands--her little figure danced against the +dark, shining floor like a fairy's. + +He heard her sigh of relief at Alice Galleon's return. + +"Oh! thank you, dear, so much. Good-bye, Mr. Westcott--I shall read the +book." + +She was gone. + +"Lights! Lights!" cried Alice Galleon. "How provoking of her not to come +to tea properly. Well, Peter? How was it all?" + +He was guilty of abominable rudeness. + +He burst from the room without a word and banged, desperately, the door +behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A CHAPTER ABOUT SUCCESS I HOW TO WIN IT, HOW TO KEEP IT--WITH A NOTE AT +THE END FROM HENRY GALLEON + + +I + +The shout of applause with which "Reuben Hallard" was greeted still +remains one of the interesting cases in modern literary history. At this +time of day it all seems ancient and distant enough; the book has +been praised, blamed, lifted up, hurled down a thousand times, and has +finally been discovered to be a book of promise, of natural talent, with +a great deal of crudity and melodrama and a little beauty. It does not +stand of course in comparison with Peter Westcott's later period and yet +it has a note that his hand never captured afterwards. How incredibly +bad it is in places, the Datchett incidents, with their flames and +screams and murder in the dark, sufficiently betray: how fine it can be +such a delight as The Cherry Orchard chapter shows, and perhaps the very +badness of the crudities helped in its popularity, for there was nothing +more remarkable about it than the fashion in which it captured every +class of reader. But its success, in reality, was a result of the exact +moment of its appearance. Had Peter waited a thousand years he could +not possibly have chosen a time more favourable. It was that moment +in literary history, when the world had had enough of lilies and was +turning, with relief, to artichokes. There was a periodical of this time +entitled _The Green Volume_. This appeared somewhere about 1890 and +it brought with it a band of young men and women who were exceedingly +clever, saw the quaintness of life before its reality and stood on +tiptoe in order to observe things that were really growing quite close +to the ground. This quarterly produced some very admirable work; its +contributors were all, for a year or two, as clever as they were--young +and as cynical as either. The world was dressed in a powder puff and +danced beneath Chinese lanterns and was as wicked as it could be in +artificial rose-gardens. It was all great fun for a year or two.... + +Then _The Green Volume_ died, people began to whisper about slums and +drainage, and Swedish drill for ten minutes every morning was considered +an admirable thing. On the edge of this new wave came "Reuben Hallard," +combining as it did a certain amount of affectation with a good deal of +naked truth, and having the rocks of Cornwall as well as its primroses +for its background. It also told a story with a beginning to it and an +end to it, and it contained the beautiful character of Mrs. Poveret, a +character that was undoubtedly inspired by that afternoon that Peter had +with his mother.. + +In addition to all this it must be remembered that the world was +entirely unprepared for the book's arrival. It had been in no fashion +heralded and until a long review appeared in _The Daily Globe_ no one +noticed it in any way. Then the thing really began. The reviewers were +glad to find something in a dead season, about which a column or two +might possibly be written; the general public was delighted to discover +a novel that was considered by good judges to be literature and that, +nevertheless, had as good a story as though it weren't--its faults +were many and some of its virtues accidental, but it certainly deserved +success as thoroughly as did most of its contemporaries. Edition +followed edition and "Reuben Hallard" was the novel of the spring of +1896. + +The effect of all this upon Peter may easily be imagined. It came to +him first, with those early reviews and an encouraging letter from the +publishers, as something that did not belong to him at all, then after +a month or so it belonged to him so completely that he felt as though he +had been used to it all his life. Then slowly, as the weeks passed and +the success continued, he knew that the publication of this book had +changed the course of his life. Letters from agents and publishers +asking for his next novel, letters from America, letters from unknown +readers, all these things showed him that he could look now towards +countries that had not, hitherto, been enclosed by his horizon. He +breathed another air. + +And yet he was astonishingly simple about it all--very young and very +naive. The two things that he felt about it were, first, that it would +please very much his friends--Bobby and his wife, Mrs. Brockett, +Norah Monogue, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried and, above all, Stephen; and +secondly, that all those early years in Cornwall--the beatings, his +mother, Scaw House, even Dawson's--had been of use to him. One remembers +those extraordinary chapters concerning Reuben and his father--here +Peter had, for the first time, allowed some expression of his attitude +to it all to escape him. + +He felt indeed as though the success of the book placed for a moment all +that other life in the background--really away from him. For the first +time since he left Brockett's he was free from a strange feeling of +apprehension.... Scaw House was hidden. + +He gave himself up to glorious life. He plunged into it.... + + +II + +He stepped, at first timidly, into literary London. It was, at first +sight, alarming enough because it seemed to consist, so largely and so +stridently, of the opposite sex. Bobby would have had Peter avoid it +altogether. "There are some young idiots," he said, "who go about to +these literary tea-parties. They've just written a line or two somewhere +or other, and they go curving and bending all over the place. Young Tony +Gale and young Robin Trojan and my young ass of a brother ... don't +want you to join that lot, Peter, my boy. The women like to have 'em of +course, they're useful for handing the cake about but that's all there +is to it ... keep out of it." + +But Peter had not had so many friends during the early part of his life +that he could afford to do without possible ones now. He wanted indeed +just as many as he could grasp. The comfort and happiness of his life +with Bobby, the success of the book, the opening of a career in front +of him, these things had made of him another creature. He had grown ten +years younger; his cheeks were bright, his eye clear, his step buoyant. +He moved now as though he loved his fellow creatures. One felt, on his +entrance into a room, that the air was clearer, and that one was in +the company of a human being who found the world, quite honestly and +naturally, a delightful place. This was the first effect that success +had upon Peter. + +And indeed they met him--all of them--with open arms. They saw in him +that burning flame that those who have been for the first time admitted +into the freemasonry of their Art must ever show. Afterwards he would +be accustomed to that country, would know its roads and hills and cities +and would be perhaps disappointed that they were neither as holy nor as +eternal as he had once imagined them to be--now he stood on the hill's +edge and looked down into a golden landscape whose bounds he could not +discern. But they met him too on the personal side. The fact that he +had been found starving in a London garret was of itself a wonderful +thing--then he had in his manner a rough, awkward charm that flattered +them with his youth and inexperience. He was impetuous and confidential +and then suddenly reserved and constrained. But, above it all, it was +evident that he wanted friendliness and good fellowship. He took every +one at the value that they offered to him. He first encouraged them +to be at their most human and then convinced them that that was their +natural character. He lighted every one's lamp at the flame of his own +implicit faith. + +These ladies and gentlemen put very plainly before him the business side +of his profession. Their conversation was all of agents, publishers, the +sums that one of their number obtained and how lucky to get so much so +soon, and the sums that another of their number did not obtain and what +a shame it was that such good work was rewarded by so little. It was +all--this conversation--in the most generous strain. Jealousy never +raised its head. They read--these precious people--the works of one +another with an eager praise and a tender condemnation delightful to +see. It was a warm bustling society that received Peter. + +These tea-parties and fireside discussions had not, perhaps, been +always so friendly and large-hearted but in the time when Peter first +encountered them they were influenced and moulded by a very remarkable +woman--a woman who succeeded in combining humour, common sense and +imagination in admirably adjusted qualities. Her humour made her +tolerant, her common sense made her wise, and her imagination made her +tender--her name was Mrs. Launce. + +She was short and broad, with large blue eyes that always, if one +watched them, showed her thoughts and dispositions. Some people make of +their faces a disguise, others use them as a revelation--the result to +the observer is very much the same in either case. But with Mrs. Launce +there was no definite attempt at either one thing or the other--she was +so busily engaged in the matter in hand, so absorbed and interested, +that the things that her face might be doing never occurred to her. Her +hair was drawn back and parted down the middle. She liked to wear little +straw coal-scuttle bonnets; she was very fond of blue silk, and her +frocks had an inclination to trail. On her mother's side she was French +and on her father's English; from her mother she got the technique of +her stories, the light-hearted boldness of her conversation and her +extraordinary devotion to her family. She was always something of a +puzzle to English women because she was a great deal more domestic than +most of them and yet bristled with theories about morals and life in +general that had nothing whatever in common with domesticity. Some one +once said of her that "she was a hot water bottle playing at being a +bomb...." + +She belonged to all the London worlds, although she found perhaps +especial pleasure in the society of her fellow writers. This was largely +because she loved, beyond everything else, the business side of her +profession. There was nothing at all that she did not know about the +publishing and distribution of a novel. Her capacity for remembering +other people's prices was prodigious and she managed her agent and her +publisher with a deftness that left them gasping. There were very few +persons in her world who had not, at one time or another, poured their +troubles into her ear. She had that gift, valuable in life beyond all +others, of giving herself up entirely to the person with whom she was +talking. When the time came to give advice the combination of her common +sense and her tenderness made her invaluable. There was no crime black +enough, no desertion, no cruelty horrible enough to outspeed her pity. +She hated and understood the sin and loved and comforted the sinner. +With a wide and accurate knowledge of humanity she combined a deep +spiritual belief in the goodness of God. + +Everything, however horrible, interested her ... she adored life. + +This little person in the straw bonnet and the blue dress gave Peter +something that he had never known before--she mothered him. He sat next +to her at some dinner-party and she asked him to come and have tea with +her. She lived in a little street in Westminster in a tiny house that +had her children on the top floor, a beautiful copy of the Mona Lisa and +a very untidy writing-table on the second, and a little round hall and +a tiny dining-room on the ground floor. Her husband and her +family--including an adorable child of two--were all as amiable as +possible. + +Peter told her most things on the first day that he had tea with her and +everything on the second. He told her about his boyhood--Treliss, Scaw +House, his father, Stephen. He told her about Brockett's and Bucket +Lane. He told her, finally, about Clare Rossiter. + +He always remembered one thing that she said at this time. They were +sitting at her open window looking down into the blue evening that is in +Westminster quieter even than it is at Chelsea. Behind the faint green +cloud of trees the Abbey's huge black pile soared into space. + +"You think you've made a tremendous break?" she said. + +"Yes--this is an entirely new life--new in every way. I seem too to be +set amongst an entirely new crowd of people. The division seems to me +sharper every day. I believe I've left it all behind." + +She looked at him sharply. "You're afraid of all that earlier time," she +said. + +"Yes, I am." + +"It made you write 'Reuben Hallard.' Perhaps this life here in +London..." + +"It's safer," he caught her up. + +"Don't," she answered him very gravely, "play for safety. It's the most +dangerous thing in the world." She paused for a moment and then added: +"But probably they won't let you alone." + +"I hope to God they will," he cried. + + +III + +He saw Clare Rossiter twice during this time and, on each occasion, it +seemed to him that she was trying to make up to him for his awkwardness +at their first meeting. On the first of these two occasions she had only +a few words with him, but there was a note in her voice that he fancied, +wildly, unreasonably, was different from the tone that she used to other +people. She looked so beautiful with her golden hair coiled above her +head. It was the most wonderful gold that he had ever seen. He could +only, in his excitement, think of marmalade and that was a sticky +comparison. "The Lady with the Marmalade Hair"--how monstrous! but that +did convey the colour. Her eyes seemed darker now than they had been +before and her cheeks whiter. The curve of her neck was so wonderful +that it hurt him physically. He wanted so terribly to kiss her just +beneath her ear. He saw how he would do it, and that he would have to +move away some of the shiny hair that strayed like sunlight across the +white skin. + +She did not seem to him quite so tiny when she smiled; it was exactly +as water ripples when the sun suddenly bursts dark clouds. He had a +thousand comparisons for her, and then sometimes she would be, as it +were, caught up into a cloud and he would only see a general radiance +and be blinded by the light. + +He wished very much that he could think of something else--something +other than marmalade--that had that quality of gold. He often imagined +what it would be like when she let it all down--like a forest of autumn +trees--no, that spoke of decay--like the sunlight on sand +towards evening--like the fires of Walhalla in the last act of +Gotterdämmerung--like the lights of some harbour seen from the farther +shore--like clouds that are ready to burst with evening sunlight. +Perhaps, after all, amber was the nearest.... + +"Peter, ask Miss Rossiter if she will have some more tea...." Oh! What a +fool he is! What an absolute ass! + +On the second of these two meetings she had read "Reuben Hallard." She +loved it! She thought it astounding! The most wonderful first novel she +had ever read. How had he been able to make one feel Cornwall so? She +had been once to Cornwall, to Mullion and it had been just like that! +Those rocks! it was like a poem! And then so exciting! + +She had not been able to put it down for a single minute. "Mother was +furious with me because there I sat until I don't know how early in the +morning reading it! Oh! Mr. Westcott, how wonderful to write like that!" + +Her praise inflamed him like wine. He looked at her with exultation. + +"Oh! you feel like that!" he said, drawing a great breath, "I did want +you to like it so!" He was enraptured--the world was heaven! He did not +realise that some young woman at a tea-party the day before had said +precisely these same things and he had said: "Of all the affected +idiots!"... + + +IV + +This might all be termed a period of preparation--that period was fixed +for Peter with its sign and seal on a certain evening of spring when +an enormous orange moon was in the sky, scents were in all the Chelsea +gardens, and the Chelsea streets were like glass in the silver luminous +light. + +Peter was walking home after a party at the Rossiters'. It was the first +time that he had been invited to their house and it had been a great +success. Dr. Rossiter was a little round fat man with snow-white hair, +red cheeks and twinkling eyes. He cured his patients and irritated his +relations by his good temper. Mrs. Rossiter, Peter thought, had a great +resemblance to Bobby's mother, Mrs. Galleon, senior. They were, both of +them, massive and phlegmatic. They had both acquired that solemn dignity +that comes of living up to one's husband's reputation. They both looked +on their families--Mrs. Rossiter on Clare and Mrs. Galleon on Millicent, +Percival and Bobby--with curiosity, tolerance and a mild soft of wonder. +They were both massively happy and completely unimaginative. They were, +indeed, old friends, having been at school together, they were Emma +and Jane to one another and Mrs. Rossiter could never forget that Mrs. +Galleon came to school two years after herself and was therefore +junior still; whilst Mrs. Galleon had stayed two years longer than +Mrs. Rossiter, and was a power there when Mrs. Rossiter was completely +forgotten; they were fond of each other as long as they were allowed to +patronise one another. + +Peter had spent a delicious evening. He had had half an hour in the +garden with Clare. They had spoken in an undertone. He had told her his +ambitions, she had told him her aspirations. Some one had sung in the +garden and there had been one wonderful moment when Peter had touched +her hand and she had not taken it away. At last they were both silent +and the garden flowed about them, on every side of them, with the notes +and threads that can only be heard at night. + +Mrs. Rossiter, heavily and solemnly, brought her daughter a shawl. There +was some one to whom she would like to introduce Mr. Westcott. Would he +mind? Eden was robbed of its glories.... + +But he had had enough. He thought at one moment that already she was +beginning to care for him, and at another, that a lover's fancy made +signs out of the wind and portents out of the running water. + +But he was happy with a mighty exultation, and then, as he turned down +on to the Embankment and felt the breeze from the river as it came +towards him, he met Henry Galleon. + +The old man, in an enormous hat that was like a top hat only round +at the brim and brown in colour, was trotting home. He saw Peter and +stopped. He spoke to him in his slow tremendous voice and the words +seemed to go on after they had left him, rolling along the Embankment. + +"I am glad to see you, Mr. Westcott. I have thought that I would like to +have a chat with you. I have just finished your book." + +This was indeed tremendous--that Henry Galleon should have read "Reuben +Hallard." Peter trembled all over. + +"I wonder whether you would care to come and have a chat with me. I have +some things you might care to see. What time like the present? It is +early hours yet and you will be doing an old man who sleeps only poorly +a kindness." + +What a night of nights! Peter, trembling with excitement, felt Henry +Galleon put his arm in his, felt the weight of the great man's body. +They walked slowly along and the moon and the stars and the lights on +the river and the early little leaves in the trees and the stones of the +houses and the little "tish-tish" of the water against the Embankment +seemed to say--"Oh! Peter Westcott's going to have a chat with Henry +Galleon! Did you ever hear such a thing!" + +Peter was sorry that his Embankment was deserted and that there was no +one to see them go into the house together. He drew a great breath +as the door closed behind them. The house was large and dark and +mysterious. The rest of the family were still out at some party. Henry +Galleon drew Peter into his own especial quarters and soon they were +sitting in a lofty library, its walls covered with books that stretched +to the ceiling. Peter meanwhile buried in a huge arm-chair and feeling +that Henry Galleon's eyes were piercing him through and through. + +The old man talked for some time about other things--talked wonderfully +about the great ones of the earth whom he had known, the great things +that he had seen. It was amazing to Peter to hear the gods of his world +alluded to as "poor old S---- poor fellow!... Yes, indeed. I remember +his coming into breakfast one day..." or "You were asking about T---- +Old Wallie, as we used to call him--poor fellow, poor fellow--we +lived together in rooms for some time. That was before I married--and +perilously, dangerously--I might almost say magnificently near +starvation we were too...." + +Peter already inflamed with that earlier half-hour in the garden +now breathed a portentous air. He was with the Gods ... there on the +Olympian heights he drank with them, he sang songs with them, with +mighty voices they applauded "Reuben Hallard." He drank in his +excitement many whiskies and sodas and soon the white room with its +books was like the inside of a golden shell. The old man opposite him +grew in size--his face was ever larger and larger, his shirt front +bulged and bulged--his hand raised to emphasise some point was +tremendous as the hand of a God. Peter felt that he himself was growing +smaller and smaller, would soon, in the depths of that mighty arm-chair +disappear altogether but that opposite him two mighty burning eyes held +him. And always like thunder the voice rolled on.... "My son tells me +that this book of yours is a success ... that they are emptying their +purses to fill yours. That may be a dangerous thing for you. I have read +your book, it has many faults; it is not written at all--it is loose and +lacking in all construction. You know nothing, as yet, about life--you +do not know what to use or what to reject. But the Spirit is there, the +right Spirit. It is a little flame--it will be very easily quenched and +nothing can kill it so easily as success--guard it, my son, guard it." + +Peter felt as Siegfried must have felt when confronted by Wotan. + +His poor little book was dwindling now before his eyes. He was conscious +of a great despair. How useless of him to attempt so impossible a +task.... + +The voice rolled on: + +"I am an old man now and only twice before in my time nave I seen +that spirit in a young man's eyes. You may remember now an old man's +words--for I would urge you, I would implore you to keep nothing before +you but the one thing that can bring Life into Art. I will not speak to +you of the sacredness of your calling. Many will laugh at you and tell +you that it is pretentious to name it so. Others will come to you and +will advise how this is to be done and that is to be done. Others will +talk to you of schools, they will tell you that once it was in that +manner and that now it is in this manner. Some will tell you that you +have no style--others will tell you that you have too much. Some again +will tempt you with money and money is not to be despised. Again you +will be tested with photographs and paragraphs, with lectures and public +dinners.... Worst of all there will come to you terrible hours when you +yourself know of a sure certainty that your work is worthless. In your +middle age a great barrenness will come upon you. You have been a little +teller of little tales, and on every side of you there will be others +who have striven for other prizes and have won them. Sitting alone in +your room with your poor strands of coloured silk that had once been +intended to make so beautiful a pattern, poor boy, you will know that +you have failed. That will be a very dreadful hour--the only power that +can meet it is a blind and deaf courage. Courage is the only thing that +we are here to show ... the hour will pass." + +The old man paused. There was a silence. Then he said very slowly as +though he were drawing in front of him the earliest histories of his own +past life.... + +"Against all these temptations, against these voices of the World +and the Flesh, against the glory of power and the swinging hammer of +success, you, sitting quietly in your room, must remember that a great +charge has been given you, that you are here for one thing and one thing +only ... to listen. The whole duty of Art is listening for the voice of +God. + +"I am not speaking in phrases. I am not pressing upon you any +sensational discoveries, but here at the end of my long life, I, with +all the things that I meant to do and have failed to do heavy upon me, +can give you only this one word. I have hurried, I have scrambled, I +have fought and cursed and striven, but as an Artist only those hours +that I have spent listening, waiting, have been my real life. + +"So it must be with you. You are here to listen. Never mind if they tell +you that story-telling is a cheap thing, a popular thing, a mean thing. +It is the instrument that is given to you and if, when you come to die +you know that, for brief moments, you have heard, and that what you have +heard you have written, Life has been justified. + +"Nothing else can console you, nothing else can comfort you. There must +be restraint, austerity, discipline--words must come to you easily but +only because life has come to you with so great a pain ... the Artist's +life is the harshest that God can give to a man. Make no mistake about +that. Fortitude is the artist's only weapon of defence...." + +Henry Galleon came over to Peter's chair and put his hand upon the boy's +arm. + +"I am at the end of my work. I have done what I can. You are at the +beginning of yours. You will do what you can. I wish you good fortune." + +A vision came to Peter. Through the open window, against the sheet of +stars, gigantic, was the Rider on the Lion. + +He could not see the Rider's face. + +A great exultation inflamed him. + +At that instant he was stripped bare. His history, the people whom he +knew, the things that he had done, they were all as though they had +never been. + +His soul was, for that great moment, naked and alone before God. + +"The whole duty of Art is listening for the voice of God...." + +A sound, as though it came to him from another world, broke into the +room. + +There were voices and steps on the stairs. + +"Ah, they are back from their party," Henry Galleon said, trotting +happily to the door. "Come up and have a chat with my wife, Westcott, +before going to bed." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ENCOUNTER + + +I + +Peter was now the young man of the moment. He took this elevation with +frank delight, was encouraged by it, gave it all rather more, perhaps, +than its actual value, began a new novel, "The Stone House," started +weekly reviewing on _The Interpreter_ and yielded himself up entirely to +Clare Rossiter. + +He had been in love with her ever since that first day at Norah +Monogue's, but the way that she gradually now absorbed him was like +nothing so much as the slow covering of the rocks and the sand by the +incoming tide. At first, in those days at Brockett's, she had seemed to +him something mysterious, intangible, holy. But after that meeting in +Cheyne Walk he knew her for a prize that some fortunate man might, one +day, win. He did not, for an instant, suppose that he could ever be +that one, but the mere imagined picture of what some other would one day +have, sent the blood rushing through him. Her holiness for him was still +intact but for another there would be human, earthly wonders. + +Then, curiously, as he met her more often and knew her better there came +a certain easy, almost casual, intercourse. One Clare Rossiter still +reigned amongst the clouds, but there was now too another easy, +fascinating, humorous creature who treated him almost like Alice Galleon +herself--laughed at him, teased him, provoked him ... suddenly, like a +shadow across a screen, would slip away; and he be on his knees again +before something that was only to be worshipped. + +These two shapes of her crossed and were confused and again were parted. +His thoughts were first worshipping in heaven, then dwelling with +delight on witty, charming things that she had said. + +For that man, when he came, there would be a most wonderful treasure. + +Peter now lost his appetite. He could not sleep at night. He would slip +out of his room, cross the silent Chelsea streets and watch her dark +window. He cultivated Mrs. Rossiter and that massive and complacent +lady took it entirely to herself. Indeed, nothing, at this time was more +remarkable than the little stir that Peter's devotion caused. It was +perhaps that Clare had always had a cloud of young men about her, +perhaps that Peter was thought to be having too wonderful a time, just +now, to be falling in love as well--that would be piling Life on to +Life! ... no one could live under it. + +Besides Mrs. Rossiter liked him ... he was amazing, you see ... people +said.... + +And the next stage arrived. + +One May evening, at the Galleons' house, when some one was playing the +piano and all the world seemed to be sitting in corners Clare's hand lay +suddenly against his. The smooth outer curve of his hand lay against her +palm. Their little fingers touched. Sheets of fire rose, inflamed him +and fell ... rose again and fell. His hand began to shake, her hand +began to shake. He heard, a thousand miles away, some one singing about +"the morn." + +Their hands parted. She rose and slowly, her white dress and red-gold +hair flung against a background that seemed to him black and infinite, +crossed the room. + +That trembling of her hand had maddened him. It suddenly showed him that +he--as well as another--might run the race for her. Everything that he +had ever done or been--his sentiments, his grossnesses, his restraints +and his rebellions--were now concerned in this pursuit. No other human +being--Stephen, Norah Monogue, Bobby, Alice--now had any interest for +him. His reviews were written he knew not how, the editions of "Reuben +Hallard" might run into the gross for all he cared, "The Stone House" +lay neglected. + +And he avoided seeing her. He was afraid to spoil that moment when her +hand had shaken at the touch of his, and yet he was tormented by the +longing for a new meeting that might provide some new amazement. Perhaps +he would hold her hand and feel the shadow of her body bending towards +his own! And his heart stopped beating; and he was suddenly cold with a +splendid terror. + +Then he did meet her again and had nothing to say. It seemed to him that +she was frightened. He came home that day in a cold fog of miserable +despair. A letter from his publishers informing him of a tenth edition +was of ironical unimportance. He lay awake all night restlessly unhappy. + +For the first time for many months the old shadows stole out into +the room--the black bulk of Scaw House--the trees, the windows, his +father.... + +And to him, tossing on his bed there came thoughts of a certain house in +the town. He could get up and dress now--a cab would soon take him there +... in the early morning he could slink back. + +Clare did not want him! A fool to fancy that she had ever cared. + +He, Peter Westcott, nobody! Why then should he not have his adventures, +he still so young and vigorous? He would go to that house.... + +And then, almost reluctantly, as he sat up in bed and watched the grey, +shadowy walls, Stephen seemed to be visible to him--Stephen, walking the +road, starting early in the fresh air when the light was breaking and +the scent of the grass was cool and filled with dew. + +He would write to Stephen in the morning--he lay down and went to sleep. + +By this time, meanwhile, Alice and Bobby had noticed. Alice, indeed, had +a number of young men over whose emotions she kept guard and Peter had +become, during these weeks, very valuable to her.... + +She did not want him to marry anybody--especially she did not want him +to marry Clare. At breakfast, past Peter's ears, as though he were not +concerned at all, she talked to Bobby-- + +"Really, Dr. Rossiter spoils Clare beyond all bounds--" + +"Um?" + +"He's taking her with him up to Glasgow to that Congress thing. He knows +perfectly well that she ought to stay with Mrs. Rossiter--and so does +she." + +"Well, it's no business of ours--" Bobby's usual tolerant complacency. + +"It is. Clare might be a fine creature if she didn't let herself be +spoiled in this way. She's perpetually selfish and she ought to be told +so." + +"We're all perpetually selfish," said Bobby who began to be sorry for +Peter. + +"Oh! no, we're not. I'm very fond of Clare but I don't envy the man who +marries her. There's no one in the world more delightful when she has +her own way and things go smoothly, but they've wrapped her up in cotton +wool to such an extent that she simply doesn't know how to live out of +it. She's positively terrified of _Life_." + +This, as Alice had intended, was too much for Peter. He burst out-- + +"I think Miss Rossiter's the pluckiest girl I've ever met. She's afraid +of nothing." + +"Except of being uncomfortable," Alice retorted. "That frightens her +into fits. Make her uncomfortable, Peter, and you'll see--" + +And, red in the face, Peter answered--"I don't think you ought to talk +of any one who's so fond of you behind her back in that way--" + +"Oh! I say just the same to her face. I'm always telling her these +things and she always agrees and then's just as selfish as ever. That +absurd little father of hers has spoilt her!" + +Spoilt! Clare spoilt! Peter smiled darkly. Alice Galleon--delightful +woman though she was, of course couldn't endure that another woman +should receive such praise--Jealousy! Ah!... + +And the aged and weighty author of "Reuben Hallard," to whom the world +was naturally an open book, and life known to its foundations, nodded +to himself. How people, intelligent enough in other ways, could be so +short-sighted! + +Afterwards, when they were alone, Bobby took him in hand-- + +"You're in love with Clare Rossiter, Peter," he said. + +"Yes, I am," Peter answered defiantly. + +"But you've known her so short a time!" + +"What's that to do with it?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course. But do you think you're the sort of people +likely to get on?" + +"Really, Bobby, I don't--" + +"I know--none of my business--quite true. But you see I've known Clare +pretty well all my life and you're the best friend I've got, so you +might allow me to take an interest." + +"Well, say what you like." + +"Nothing to say except that Clare isn't altogether an easy problem. +You're like all the other fellows I know--think because Clare's got red +hair and laughs easily she's a goddess--she isn't, not a bit! She's got +magnificent qualities and one day perhaps, when she's had a thoroughly +bad time, she'll show one the kind of things she's made of. But she's an +only child, she's been spoilt all her life and the moment she begins to +be unhappy she's impossible." + +"She shan't ever be unhappy if I can help it!" muttered Peter fiercely. + +Bobby laughed. "You'll do your best of course, but are you the sort of +man for her? She wants some one who'll give her every kind of comfort, +moral, physical and intellectual. She wants somebody who'll accept her +enthusiasms as genuine intelligence. You'll find her out intellectually +in a week. Then she wants some one who'll give her his whole attention. +You think now that you will but you won't--you can't--you're not made +that way. By temperament and trade you're an artist. She thinks, at the +moment, that an artist would suit her very well; but, in reality, my +boy, he's the very last sort of person she ought to marry." + +Peter caught at Bobby's words. "Do you really think she cares about me?" + +"She's interested. Clare spends her days in successive enthusiasms. +She's always being enthusiastic--dreadful disillusions in between the +heights. Mind you, there's another side of Clare--a splendid side, but +it wants very careful management and I don't know, Peter, that you're +exactly the sort of person--" + +"Thanks very much," said Peter grimly. + +"No, but you're not--you don't, in the least, see her as she is, and she +doesn't see you as you are--hence these misguided attempts on my part to +show you one another." + +But Peter had not been listening. + +"Do you really think," he muttered, "that she cares about me?" + +Bobby looked at him, laughed and shrugged his shoulders in despair. + +"Ah! I see--it's no use," he said, "poor dear Peter--well, I wish you +luck!" + +And that was the end as far as Alice and Bobby were concerned. They +never alluded to it again and indeed now seemed to favour meetings +between Clare and Peter. + +And now, through these wonderful Spring weeks, these two were +continually together. The Galleons had, at first, been inclined to +consider Clare's obvious preference for Peter as the simplest desire +to be part of a general rather heady enthusiasm. "Clare loves little +movements...." And Peter, throughout this Spring was a little movement. +The weeks went on, and Clare was not herself--silent, absorbed, almost +morose. One day she asked Alice Galleon a number of questions about +Peter, and, after that, resolutely avoided speaking of him. "Of course," +Alice said to Bobby--"Dr. Rossiter will let her marry any one she likes. +She'll have plenty of money and Peter's going to have a great career. +After all it may be the best thing." + +Bobby shook his head. "They're both egoists," he said. "Peter because +he's never had anything he wanted and Clare because she's always had +everything ... it won't do." + +But, after all, when May gave place to burning June, Bobby and Alice +were inevitably drawn into that romance. They yielded to an atmosphere +that both, by temperament, were too sentimental to resist. + +Nearer and nearer was coming that intoxicating moment of Peter's final +plunge, and Clare--beautiful, these weeks, with all the excitement +of the wonderful episode--saw him as a young god who had leapt upon a +submissive London and conquered it. + +Mrs. Rossiter and Mrs. Galleon played waiting chorus. Mrs. Launce from +her little house in Westminster, was, as usual, glowing with a piece +of other people's happiness. Bobby and Alice had surrendered to the +atmosphere. All were, of course, silent--until the word is spoken no +movement must be made--the little god is so easily alarmed. + +At last towards the close of this hot June, Mrs. Launce proposed to +Clare a week-end at her Sussex cottage by the sea. She also told Peter +that she could put him up if he chose to come down at the same time. +What could be more delightful in this weather? + +"Dear Clare, only the tiniest cottage as you know--no one else unless +Peter Westcott happens to come down--I suggested it, and you can see the +sea from your window and there's a common and a donkey, and you can roll +in the sand--" Mrs. Launce, when she was very happy betrayed her French +descent by the delightful way that she rolled her r's. + +"Not a soul anywhere near--we can bathe all day." + +Clare would love to come so strangely enough would Peter--"The 5.30 +train then--Saturday...." Dear Mrs. Launce in her bonnet and blue silk! +Clare had never thought her so entirely delightful! + +Peter, of course, plainly understood the things that dear Mrs. Launce +intended. His confidence in her had been, in no way, misplaced--she +loved a wedding and was the only person in the world who could bring to +its making so fine a compound of sentiment and common sense. She frankly +loved it all and though, at the moment, occupied with the work of at +least a dozen women, and with a family that needed her most earnest +care, she hastened to assist the Idyll. + +Peter's own feelings were curiously confused. He was going to propose +to Clare; and now he seemed to face, suddenly, the change that this +must mean to him. Those earlier months, when it had been pursuit with no +certainty of capture had only shown him one thing desirable--Clare. But +now that he was face to face with it he was frightened--what did he know +of women?... + +On the morning they were to go down, he sat in his room, this terrible +question confronting him. No, he knew nothing about women! He had left +his heroine very much alone in "Reuben Hallard" and those occasions +when he had been obliged to bring her on the stage had not been too +successful. He knew nothing about women! + +There would be things--a great many--as a married man, he would have to +change. Sometimes he was moody for days together and wanted to see no +one. Sometimes he was so completely absorbed by his work that the real +people around him were shadows and wraiths. These moods must vanish. +Clare must always find him ready and cheerful and happy. + +A dreadful sense of inadequacy weighed upon Peter. And then at the +concrete fact of her actual presence, at the thought of her standing +there, waiting for him, wanting him, his doubts left him and he was +wildly, madly happy. + +And yet, before he left the room, his glance fell on his writing-table. +White against its shining surface lay a paper and on the top sheet, +written: "The Stone House"; a Novel; Chapter II. Months ago--he had not +touched it all these last weeks, and, at this moment he felt he would +never write anything again. He turned away with a little movement of +irritation.... + +That morning he went formally to Dr. Rossiter. The little man received +him, smiling. + +"I want to marry your daughter, sir," said Peter. + +"You're very young," said the Doctor. + +"Twenty-six," said Peter. + +"Well, if she'll have you I won't stand in your way--" + +Peter took the 5.30 train.... + + +II + +Mrs. Launce, on Sunday afternoon, from the door of her cottage, watched +them both strike across the common towards the sea--Peter, "stocky," +walking as though no force on earth could upset his self-possession and +sturdy balance, Clare with her little body and easy movement meant +for this air and sea and springing turf. Mrs. Launce having three +magnificent children of her own believed in the science of Eugenics +heart and soul. Here, before her eyes, was the right and proper +Union--talk about souls and spirit and temperament--important enough for +the immediate Two--but give Nature flesh and bones, with cleanliness and +a good straight stock to work on, and see what She will do! + +Mrs. Launce went into the cottage again and prepared herself for an +announcement at tea-time. She wiped her eyes before she settled down to +her work. Loving both of them the thought of their happiness hung about +her all the afternoon and made her very tender and forgiving when the +little parlourmaid arrived with a piece of the blue and white china +smashed to atoms. "I can't think 'ow it 'appened, Mum. I was just +standing...." + +Peter and Clare, crossing the common, beheld the sea at their feet. It +was a hot misty afternoon and only the thin white line of tiny curling +waves crept out of the haze on to the gleaming yellow sand. Behind them, +on every side was common and the only habitation, a small cottage nearly +hidden by a black belt of trees, on their right. These black, painted +trees lay like a blot of ink against the blue sky. + +Sitting down on the edge of the common they looked on to the yellow +sand. The air was remorselessly still as though the world were cased in +iron; somewhere deep within its silence, its heart might yet be beating, +but the depths hid its reverberation. + +Peter lay flat on his back and instantly his world was full of clamour. +All about him insects were stirring, the thin stiff blades of grass were +very faintly rustling, a tiny blue butterfly flew up from the soil into +the bright air--some creature sang a little song that sounded like the +faint melody of a spinet. + +"All praising the Lord, I suppose--" Peter listened. "Hymn and glory +songs and all the rest--" Then, clashing, out of the heart of the sky, +the thought followed. "There _must_ be a God"--the tinkling insect told +him so. + +He gazed into the great sheet of blue above him, so remote, so cruel ... +and yet the tiny blue butterfly flew, without fear, into its very heart. + +Peter's soul was drawn up. He swung, he flew, he fled.... Down below, +there on the hard, brown soil his body lay--dust to the dust--there, +dead amongst the singing insects.... He looked down, from his great +heights and saw his body, with its red face and its suit of blue and its +up-turned boots, and here, in freedom his Soul exulted! + +"Of course there is a God!" + +They are praising him down there--the ground is covered with creatures +that are praising Him. Peter buried his eyes and instantly his soul came +swinging down to him, found his body again, filled once more his veins +with life and sound. After a vast silence he could hear, once more, +the life amongst the grass, the faint rustle of the thin line of foam +beneath him, and could smell the earth and the scent of the seaweed +borne up to them from the sand. + +"It's so still," he said suddenly, "that it's almost like thunder. +There'll be a storm later. On a day like this in Cornwall you would hear +the sound of the Mining Stamps for miles--" + +"Well," she answered, "I am glad we're not in Cornwall--I hate it." + +"Hate it!" + +"Yes. That sounds horrible to you, I suppose, and I'm quite ready to +admit that it's my cowardice. Cornwall frightens me. When I was there as +a tiny girl it was just the same. I always hated it." + +"I don't believe you're ever frightened at anything." + +"I am. I'm under such a disadvantage, you see. If I'd been white-faced +and haggard every one would have thought it quite natural that I should +scream if I were left in the dark or hate being left alone with those +horrible black rocks that Cornwall's so full of, but just because I'm +healthy and was taught to hold my back up at school I have to pretend to +a bravery that simply doesn't exist--" He rejected, for the moment the +last part of her sentence. "Oh, but I understand perfectly what you mean +by your fear of Cornwall. Of course I understand it although I love the +place with all my soul and body. But it is terrifying--almost the only +terrifying place that civilisation has left to us--Central Africa is +nothing to it--" + +"Are you afraid of it?" she said, looking at him intently. + +"Tremendously--because I suppose it won't let me alone. It's difficult +to put into words, but I think what I mean is that I want to go on now +in London, writing and seeing people and being happy and it's pulling at +me all the time." + +"What way pulling at you?" + +"I can't get out of my head all the things I did when I was a boy there. +I wasn't very happy, you know. I've told you something about it.... +I want to go back.... I want to go back. I mustn't, but I want to go +back--and it hurts--" + +He seemed to have forgotten her--he stared out to sea, his hands holding +the grass on either side of him. + +She moved and the sound suddenly brought him back. He turned to her +laughing. + +"Sorry. I was thinking about things. That cottage over there with the +black trees reminded me of Scaw House a little.... But it's all right +really. I suppose every fellow has the wild side and the sober side, and +I've had such a rum life and been civilised so short a time...." + +She said slowly: "I think I know what you mean, though. I know enough +of it to be frightened of it--I don't want life to be like that. I don't +suppose I've got imagination. I want it to be orderly and easy and no +one to be hurt or damaged. Oh!"--her voice was suddenly like a cry--"Why +can't we just go through life without any one being frightened or made +miserable? I _believe_ in cities and walls and fires and regulated +emotions--all those other things can only hurt." + +"They teach courage," Peter answered gravely. "And that's about the only +thing we're here to learn, I expect. My mother died because she wasn't +brave enough and I want ... I want...." + +He broke off--"There's only one thing I want and that's you, Clare. You +must have known all these weeks that I love you. I've loved you ever +since I met you that Good Friday afternoon years ago. Let me take care +of you, see that no one hurts you--love you ... love you--" + +"Do you really want me, Peter?" + +He didn't speak but his whole body turned towards her, answered her +question. + +"Because I am yours entirely. I became yours that day when your hand +touched mine. I wasn't sure before--I knew then--" + +He looked at her. He saw her, he thought for the first time. She sat +with her hands pressing on the grass, her body bent back a little. + +The curve from her neck to her feet was like the shadow of some colour +against the brown earth because he saw her only dimly. Her hair burnt +against the blue sky but her eyes--her eyes! His gaze caught hers and he +surrendered himself to that tenderness, that mystery, that passion that +she flung about him. In her eyes he saw what only a lover can see--the +terror and the splendour of a soul surprised for the first time into +love. She was caught, she was trapped, she was gorgeously delivered. In +her eyes he saw that he had her in the hollow of his hand and that she +was glad to be there. + +But even now they had not touched--they had not moved from their places. +They were urged towards one another by some fierce power but also some +great suspense still restrained them. + +Then Clare spoke, hurriedly, almost pleadingly. + +"But Peter, listen--before I say any more--you must know me better. +I think that it is just because I love you so much that I see myself +clearly to-day as I have never seen myself before--although I have, I +suppose really known ... things ... but I have denied them to myself. +But now I know that all that I say is true--" + +"I am ready," he said, smiling. But she did not smile back at him, she +was intensely serious, she spoke without moving her eyes from his face. + +"It is not altogether my fault. I have been an only child and everything +that I have wanted I have always had. I have despised my mother and even +my father because they have given in to me--that is not a pleasant thing +to know. And now comfort, happiness, an absence of all misery, these +things are essential--" + +"I will look after you," said Peter. It was almost with irritation that +she brushed aside his assurance. + +"Yes, yes, I know, but you must understand that it's more than that. +If I am unhappy I am another creature you haven't seen ... you don't +know.... If I am frightened--" + +"But Clare, dear, we're all like that--" + +"No, it's sheer wickedness with me. Oh! Peter I love you so much +that you _must_ listen. You mustn't think afterwards, ah, if I'd only +known--" + +"Aren't you making too much of it all? We've all got these things and +it's just because we can help each other that we marry. We give each the +courage--" + +"I've always been frightened," she said slowly, "always when anything +big comes along--always. And this is the biggest thing I've ever met. +If only it had been some ordinary man ... but you, Peter, that I should +hurt _you_." + +"You won't hurt me," he answered her, "and I'd rather be hurt by you +than helped by some one else--let's leave all this. If you love me, +there's nothing else to say.... Do you love me, Clare?" + +"Yes, Peter." + +Then suddenly before he could move towards her a storm that had been +creeping upon them, burst over their heads. Five minutes ago there had +been no sign of anything but the finest weather, but, in a moment the +black clouds had rolled up and the thunder broke, clashing upon the +world. The sea had vanished. + +"We must run for it," cried Peter, raising his voice against the storm. +"That cottage over there--it's the only place." + +They ran. The common was black now--the rain drove hissing, against the +soil, the air was hot with the faint sulphur smell. + +Peter flung himself upon the cottage door and Clare followed him in. For +a moment they stood, breathless. Then Peter, conscious only that Clare +was beside him, wild with the excitement of the storm, caught her, held +her for a moment away from him, breathed the thunder that was about them +all, and then kissed her mouth, wet with the rain. + +She clung to him, white, breathless, her head on his shoulder. + +"Why, you're not frightened?" The sense of her helplessness filled +him with a delicious vigour. The way that her hand pressed in upon his +shoulder exalted him. Her wet golden hair brushed his cheek. Then he +remembered that they had invaded the cottage. For the first time it +occurred to him that their first embrace might have been observed; he +turned around. + +The room was filthy, a huge black fire-place occupied most of it, +the floor was littered with pieces of paper, of vegetables and a +disagreeable smell protested against the closed and dirty windows. At +first it seemed that this place was empty and then, with a start, he was +aware that two eyes were watching them. The thunder pealed above them, +the rain lashed the roof and ran streaming from the eaves; the cottage +was dark; but he saw in a chair, a bundle of rags from which those eyes +were staring. + +Clare gave a little cry; an old woman with a fallen chin and a face like +yellow parchment sat huddled in the chair. + +Peter spoke to her. "I hope you don't mind our taking shelter here, +whilst the storm passes." She had seen them embrace; it made him +uncomfortable, but the storm was passing away, already the thunder was +more distant. + +The old woman made no reply, only her eyes glared at them. Peter put his +hand in Clare's--"It's all right; I think the old thing's deaf and dumb +and blind--look, the storm's passing--there's a bit of blue sky. Isn't +it odd an old thing like that..." + +Clare, shuddered a little. "I don't like it--she's horrid--this place is +so dirty. I believe the rain's stopped." + +They opened the door and the earth met them, good and sweet, after the +shower. The sky was breaking, the mists were leaving the sea and as the +storm vanished, the sun, dipping towards the horizon flung upon the blue +a fleet of tiny golden clouds. + +Peter bent down to the old woman. + +"Thank you," he said, "for giving us shelter." He placed a shilling on +her lap. + +"She's quite deaf and blind," he said. "Poor old thing!" + +They closed the door behind them and passed down a little path to the +seashore. Here wonders met them. The sand, wet with the recent storm +catching all the colours of the sky shone with mother of pearl--here a +pool of blue, there the fleet of golden clouds. + +It stretched on every side of them, blazing with colour. Behind them the +common, sinking now into the dull light of evening. + +They stood, little pigmies, on that vast painted floor. Before them the +breeze, blowing back the waves into the sun again turned the spray to +gold. + +Tiny figures, in all this glory, they embraced. In all the world they +seemed the only living thing.... + + +III + +They had their witness. The old woman who lived in the heart of those +black trees, was deaf and dumb indeed, but her eyes were alive in her +fading and wrinkled body. + +When the door had closed she rose slowly from her chair, and her face +was wrinkled with the passion of the hatred that her old soul was +feeling. + +What did they mean, those two, coming there and haunting her with their +youth and strength and love. Kissing there before her as though she were +already dead--she to whom kisses were only bitter memories. + +Her face worked with fury--she hobbled, painfully, to the door and +opened it. + +Below her, on a floor of gold, two black figures stood together. + +Gazing at them she raised her thin and trembling hand; she flung with a +passionate, furious gesture, something from her. + +A small silver coin glittered in the air, whistled for a moment and +fell. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROUNDABOUT + + +I + +Mrs. Rossiter and Mrs. Galleon sat solemnly, with the majesty of +spreading skirts and Sunday Best hats, in the little drawing-room of The +Roundabout, awaiting the return from the honeymoon. + +The Roundabout is the name that Peter has given to the little house in +Dorset Street, Chelsea, that he has chosen to live in with his bride. +High spirits lead to nicknames and Peter was in the very highest +of spirits when he took the house. The name alluded both to +the shape--round bow-windowed like--fat bulging little walls, +lemon-coloured, and to the kind of life that Peter intended to lead. All +was to be Happiness. Life is challenged with all the high spirits of a +truly happy ceremony. + +It is indeed a tiny house--tiny hall, tiny stairs, tiny rooms but quaint +with a little tumble-down orchard behind it and that strange painted +house that old mad Miss Anderson lives in on the other side of the +orchard. Such a quiet little street too ... a line of the gravest trees, +cobbles with only the most occasional cart and a little church with a +sleepy bell at the farthest end ... all was to be Happiness. + +Wedding presents--there had been six hundred or so--filled the rooms. +People had, on the whole, been sensible, had given the right thing. The +little drawing-room with its grey wall-paper, roses in blue jars, +its two pictures--Velasquez' Maria Theresa in an old silver frame +and Rembrandt's Night Watch--was pleasant, but overwhelmed now by the +presence of these two enormous ladies. The evening sun, flooding it +all with yellow light, was impertinent enough to blind the eyes of Mrs. +Rossiter. She rose and moved slowly to draw down the blinds. A little +silver clock struck half-past four. + +"They must soon be here," said Mrs. Galleon gloomily. Her gloom was +happy and comfortable. She was making the very most of a pleasant +business with the greatest satisfaction in the world. She had done +exactly the same at Bobby's wedding, and, in her heavy, determined way +she would do the same again before she died. Alice Galleon would be +there in a moment, meantime the two ladies, without moving in their +chairs, flung sentences across at one another and smoothed their silk +skirts with their white plump hands. + +"It's not really a healthy house--" + +"No--with the orchard--and it's much too small--" + +"Poor dears, hope they'll be happy. But one can't help feeling, Jane +dear, that it was a little rash of you ... your only girl ... and one +knows so little about Mr. Westcott, really--" + +"Well, your own Bobby vouched for him. He'd known him at school after +all, and we all know how cautious Bobby is about people--besides, Emma, +no one could have received him more warmly--" + +"Yes--Oh! of course ... but still, having no family--coming out of +nowhere, so to speak--" + +"Well, it's to be hoped they'll get on. I must say that Clare will miss +her home terribly. It takes a lot to make up for that--And her father so +devoted too...." + +"Yes, we must make the best of it." + +The sun's light faded from the room--the clock and the pictures stood +out sharply against the gathering dusk. Two ladies filled the room +with their shadows and the little fire clicked and rattled behind the +murmuring voices. + + +II + +Alice Galleon burst in upon them. "What! Not arrived yet! the train must +be dreadfully late. Lights! Lights! No, don't you move, mother!" + +She returned with lamps and flooded the room with light. The ladies +displayed a feeble protest against her exultant happiness. + +"I'm sure, my dear, I hope that nothing has happened." + +"My dear mother, what _could_ happen?" + +"Well, you never know with these trains--and a honeymoon, too, is always +rather a dangerous time. I remember--" + +"I hear them!" Alice cried and there indeed they were to be heard +bumping and banging in the little hall. The door opened and Peter and +Clare, radiant with happiness, appeared. + +They stood in the doorway, side by side, Clare in a little white hat and +grey travelling dress and Peter browner and stronger and squarer than +ever. + +All these people filled the little room. There was a crackling fire of +conversation. + +"Oh! but we've had a splendid time--" + +"No, I don't think Clare's in the least tired--" + +"Yes, isn't the house a duck?" + +"Don't we just love being back!" + +"... hoping you hadn't caught colds--" + +"... besides we had the easiest crossing--" + +"... How's Bobby?" + +"... were so afraid that something must have happened--" + +Mrs. Rossiter took Clare upstairs to help her to take her hat off. + +Mother and daughter faced one another--Clare flung herself into her +mother's arms. + +"Oh! Mother dear, he's wonderful, wonderful!" + +Downstairs Alice watched Peter critically. She had not realised until +this marriage, how fond she had grown of Peter. She had, for him, +very much the feeling that Bobby had--a sense of tolerance and even +indulgence for all tempers and morosities and morbidities. She had seen +him, on a day, like a boy of eighteen, loving the world and everything +in it, having, too, a curious inexperience of the things that life might +mean to people, unable, apparently, to see the sterner side of life at +all--and then suddenly that had gone and given place to a mood in which +no one could help him, nothing could cheer him... like Saul, he was +possessed with Spirits. + +Now, as he stood there, he looked not a day more than eighteen. +Happiness filled him with colour--his eyes were shining--his mouth +smiling. + +"Alice, old girl--she's splendid. I couldn't have believed that life +could be so good--" + +A curious weight was lifted from her at his words. She did not know what +it was that she had dreaded. Perhaps it had been merely a sense +that Clare was too young and inexperienced to manage so difficult a +temperament as Peter's--and now, after all, it seemed that she had +managed it. But in realising the relief that she felt she realised too +the love that she had for Peter. When he was young and happy the risks +that he ran seemed just as heavy as when he was old and miserable. + +"Oh, Peter! I'm so glad--I know she's splendid--Oh! I believe you are +going to be happy--" + +"Yes!" he answered her confidently, "I believe we are--" + +The ladies--Mrs. Galleon, Mrs. Rossiter and Alice--retired. Later on +Clare and Peter were coming into Bobby's for a short time. + +Left alone in their little house, he drew her to the window that +overlooked the orchard and silently they gazed out at the old, friendly, +gnarled and knotted tree, and the old thick garden-wall that stretched +sharply against the night-sky. + +Behind them the fire crackled and the lamps shed their pleasant glow and +that dear child with the great stiff dress that Velasquez painted smiled +at them from the wall. + +Peter gave a deep sigh of happiness. + +"Our House..." he said and drew her very close to him. The two of them, +as they stood there outlined against the window were so young and so +pleasant that surely the Gods would have pity! + + +III + +In the days that followed he watched it all with incredulity. So swiftly +had he been tossed, it seemed, from fate to fate, and so easily, also, +did he leave behind him the things that had weighed him down. No sign +now of that Peter--evident enough in the Brockett days--morose, silent, +sometimes oppressed by a sense of unreasoned catastrophe, stepping into +his bookshop and out again as though all the world were his enemy. + +Peter knew now that he was loved. He had felt that precious quality on +the day that his mother died, he had felt it sometimes when he had been +in Stephen's company, but against these isolated emotions what a world +of hate and bitterness. + +Now he felt Clare's affection on every side of him. They had already +in so short a time a store of precious memories, intimacies, that they +shared. They had been through wild, passionate wonders together and +standing now, two human beings with casual words and laughing eyes, yet +they knew that perfect holy secrets bound them together. + +He stood sometimes in the little house and wondered for an instant +whether it was all true. Where were all those half cloudy dreams, those +impulses, those dread inheritances that once he had known so well? Where +that other Peter Westcott? Not here in this dear delicious little house, +with Love and Home and great raging happiness in his heart. + +He wrote to Stephen, to Mr. Zanti, to Norah Monogue and told them. He +received no answers--no word from the outer world had come to him. That +other life seemed cut off, separated--closed. Perhaps it had left him +for ever! Perhaps, as Clare said, walls and fires were better than wind +and loneliness--comfort more than danger.... Meanwhile, in his study +at the top of the house, "The Stone House" was still lying, waiting, at +Chapter II-- + +But it was Clare who was the eternal wonder. He could not think of her, +create her, pile up the offerings before her altar, sufficiently. That +he should have had the good fortune... It never ceased to amaze him. + +As the weeks and months passed his life centred more and more round +Clare and the house that they shared together. He knew now many people +in London; they were invited continually to dinners, parties, theatres, +dances. Clare's set in London had been very different from Peter's +literary world, and they were therefore acclaimed citizens of two +very different circles. Peter, too, had his reviewing articles in many +papers--the whole whirligig of Fleet Street. (How little a time, by +the way, since that dreadful day when he had sat on that seat on the +Embankment and talked to the lady with the Hat!) + +His days during this first year of married life were full, varied, +exciting as they could be--and yet, through it all, his eye was always +upon that little house, upon the moment when the door might be closed, +the fire blazing and they two were alone, alone-- + +He was, indeed, during this year, a charming Peter. He loved her with +the hero worship of a boy, but also with a humour, a consciousness of +success, a happy freedom that denied all mawkish sham sentiment. He +studied only to please her. He found that, after all, she did not care +very greatly for literature or music or pictures. Her enthusiasm +for these things was the enthusiasm of a child who is bathed in an +atmosphere of appreciation and would return it on to any object that she +could find. + +He discovered that she loved compliments, that she cared about dress, +that she loved to have crowds of friends about her, and that parties +excited her as though these were the first that she had ever known. But +he found, too, that in those half-hours when she was alone with him +she showed her love for him with a passion and emphasis that was almost +terrifying. Sometimes when she clung to him it was as though she +was afraid that it was not going to last. He discovered in the very +beginning that below all her happy easy life, an undercurrent of +apprehension, sometimes only vaguely felt, sometimes springing into +sight like the eyes of some beast in the dark, kept company with her. + +It was always the future--a perfectly vague, indefinite future that +terrified her. Every moment of her life had been sheltered and happy +and, by reason of that very shelter, her fears had grown upon her. He +remembered one evening when they had been present at some party and she +had been radiant, beautiful, in his eyes divine. Her little body had +been strung to its utmost energy, she had whirled through the evening +and at last as they returned in the cab, she had laid her head on his +shoulder and suddenly flung her arms about him and kissed him--his eyes, +his cheeks, his mouth--again and again. "Oh! I'm so safe with you, Peter +dear," she had cried to him. + +He loved those evenings when they were alone and she would sit on the +floor with her head on his knee and her hand against his. Then suddenly +she would lean back and pull his head down and kiss his eyes, and then +very slowly let him go. And the fierceness, the passion of her love +for him roused in him a strength of devotion that all the years of +unhappiness had been storing. He was still only a boy--the first married +year brought his twenty-seventh birthday--but his love for Clare had the +depth and reserve that belongs to a man. + +Mrs. Launce, watching them both, was sometimes frightened. "God help +them both if anything interferes," she said once to her husband. "I've +seen that boy look at Clare with a devotion that hurts. Peter's no +ordinary mortal--I wonder, now and again, whether Clare's worth it all." + +But this year seemed to silence all her fears. The happiness of that +little house shone through Chelsea. "Oh, we're dining with the Westcotts +to-night--they'll cheer us up--they're always so happy"--"Oh! did you +see Clare Westcott? I never saw any one so radiant." + +And once Bobby said to Alice: "We made a mistake, old girl, about that +marriage. It's made another man of Peter. He's joy personified." + +"If only," Alice had answered, "destiny or whatever it is will let them +alone. I feel as though they were two precious pieces of china that +a housemaid might sweep off the chimney piece at any moment. If only +nobody will touch them--" + +Meanwhile Peter had forgotten, utterly forgotten, the rest of the world. +Walls and fires--for a year they had held him. The Roundabout versus the +World.... What of old Frosted Moses, of the Sea Road, of Stephen, of +Mr. Zanti? What of those desperate days in Bucket Lane? All gone for +nothing? + +Clare, perhaps, with this year behind her, hardly realised the forces +against which she was arrayed. Beware of the Gods after silence.... + + +IV + +And, after all, it was Clare herself who flung down the glove. + +On a winter's evening she was engaged to some woman's party. Peter had +planned an evening, snug and industrious, alone with a book. "The Stone +House" awaited his attention--he had not worked at it for months. Also +he knew that he owed Henry Galleon a visit. Why he had not been to see +the old man lately he scarcely knew. + +Clare, standing in the little hall, waiting for a cab, suggested an +alternative. + +"Peter dear, why don't you go round to Brockett's if you've nothing to +do?" + +"Brockett's!" + +"Yes. You've never been since we married, and I had a letter from Norah +this morning--not at all cheerful--I'm afraid she's been ill for months. +They'd love to see you." + +"Brockett's!" He stood astounded. Well, why not? A strange +emotion--uncomfortable, alien, stirred him. He kissed her and saw her +go with a half-distracted gaze. What a world away Brockett's seemed! Old +Mrs. Lazarus, Norah (poor Norah!) Mrs. Brockett, young Robin Tressiter. +They would be glad to see him--it was a natural thing enough that he +should go--what was it that held him back? For the first time since his +marriage, as he slowly and thoughtfully put on his greatcoat, he was +distressed. He reproached himself--Norah, Stephen, Mr. Zanti!... he had +not given them a thought. + +He felt, as he went out, as though he were going, with key and candle, +to unlock some old rusty door that led into secret rooms. It was a wet, +windy night. The branches of the little orchard rattled and groaned, and +doors and windows were creaking. + +As he passed into the shadows and silence of Bloomsbury the impression +weighed with increasing heaviness upon him that the old Peter had come +back and that his married life with Clare had been a dream. He was still +at Brockett's, still silent, shy, awkward, still poring over pages +of "Reuben Hallard" and wondering whether any one would ever publish +it--still spending so many hours in the old musty bookshop with Herr +Gottfried's wild mop of hair coming so madly above the little counter. + +The wind tugged at his umbrella, the rain lashed his face and at last, +breathless, with the sharp corner of his upturned collar digging into +his chin, he pulled the bell of the old grey remorseless door that he +knew so well. There was no one in Bennett Square, only the two lamps +dimly marked its desolation. + +The door was opened by Mrs. Brockett herself and she stood there, stern +and black peering into his face. + +"What is it? What do you want?" she asked grimly. + +He brushed past her laughing and stood back under the gas in the hall +looking at her. + +She gave a little cry. "No! It can't be! Why, Mr. Westcott!" + +He had never, in all the seven years that he had been with her, seen her +so strongly moved. + +"But Mr. Westcott! To think of it! And the times we've talked of you! +And you never coming near us all this while. You might have been dead +for all we knew, and indeed if it hadn't been for Miss Monogue the other +day we'd have heard no news since the day that wild man with the beard +came walking in," she broke off suddenly--"and there you are, holding +your umbrella with the point down and making a great pool on the carpet +as though--" She took the umbrella from him but her hand rested for an +instant on his arm and she said gruffly-- + +"But all the same, Mr. Peter, I'm more glad to see you than I can say--" +She took him into her little room and looked at him. "But you've not +changed in the least," she said, "not in the very least. And where, +pray, Mr. Peter, have you been all this time and come nowhere near us?" + +He tried to explain; he was confused, he said something about marriage +and stopped. The room was filled with that subtle odour that brought his +other life back to him in a torrent. He was bathed in it, overwhelmed by +it--roast-beef, mutton, blacking, oil-cloth, decayed flowers, geraniums, +damp stone, bread being toasted--all these things were in it. + +He filled his nostrils with the delicious pathos and intimacy of it. + +She regarded him sternly. "Now, Mr. Peter, it's of no use. Oh, yes, +we've heard about your wedding. You wrote to Miss Monogue. But there +were days before that, many of them, and never so much as a postcard. +With some of, my boarders it would be natural enough, because what could +you expect? _We_ didn't want _them_, _they_ didn't want _us_--only habit +as you might say. But you, Mr. Peter--why just think of the way we were +fond of you--Mrs. Lazarus and little Robin and Miss Monogue--as well as +myself." + +She stopped and pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose. + +"I dare say you're a famous man," she went on, "with your books and your +marriage and the rest of it, but that doesn't alter your old friends +being your old friends and it never will. There, I'm getting cross when +all I mean to say is that I'm more delighted to see you than words." + +He was humble before her. He felt, indeed, that he had been the most +unutterable brute. How could he have stayed away all this time with +these dear people waiting for him? He simply hadn't realised-- + +"And Miss Monogue?" he asked at last, "I'm afraid she's not been very +well?" + +"She's been very ill indeed--for months. At one time we were afraid +that she would go. It's her heart. Poor dear, and she's been worrying +so about her work--but she's better now and she'll be truly glad to see +you, Mr. Peter--but you mustn't stay more than a few minutes. She's up +on the sofa but it's the excitement that's bad for her." + +But first Peter went to pay a visit to the Tressiter establishment. He +knew, from old custom, that this would be the hour when the family would +be getting itself, by slow and noisy degrees, to bed. So tremendous, +indeed, was the tumult that he was able to open the door and stand, +within the room, watching and un-noticed. Mrs. Tressiter was attempting +to bathe a fat and very strident baby. Two small boys were standing on a +bed and hitting one another with pillows; a little girl lay on her face +on the floor and howled for no apparent reason; Robin, but little older +than Peter's last impression of him had painted, was standing, naked +save for his shirt and looking down, gravely, at his screaming sister. + +Every now and again, Mrs. Tressiter, without ceasing from her work on +the baby who slipped about in her hands like a stout eel, cried in a +shrill voice: "Children, if you don't be quiet," or "Nicholas, in +a moment I'll give you such a beating,"--or "Agatha, for goodness' +sake!"... + +Then suddenly Robin, looking up, caught sight of Peter, he gave a shout +and was across the room in an instant. There was never a moment's doubt +in his eyes. He flung himself upon Peter's body, he wound his arms round +Peter's leg, he beat upon his chest with his bullet head, he cried: "Oh! +Mr. Peter has come! Mr. Peter has come!" + +Mrs. Tressiter let the baby fall into the bath with a splash and there +it lay howling. The other members of the family gathered round. + +But Peter thought that he had known no joy so acute for years as +the welcome that the small boy gave him. He hoisted Robin on to his +shoulder, and there Robin sat with his naked little legs dangling over, +his hands in the big man's neck. + +"Oh! Mr. Westcott, I'm sure..." said Mrs. Tressiter, smiling from ear to +ear and wiping her wet hands on her apron--Robin bent his head and bit +Peter's ear. + +"Get on, horse," he cried and for a quarter of an hour there was wild +riot in the Tressiter family. Then they were all put to bed, as good +as gold,--"you might have heard a pin drop," said Mrs. Tressiter, "when +Agatha said her prayers"--and at last the lights were put out. + +Peter bent down over Robin's bed and the boy flung his arms round his +neck. + +"I dreamed of you--I knew you'd come," he whispered. + +"What shall I send you as a present to-morrow?" asked Peter. + +"Soldiers--soldiers on horses. Those with cannons and shiny things on +their backs...." Robin was very explicit--"You'll be here to-morrow?" he +asked. + +"No--not to-morrow," Peter answered. + +"Soon?" + +"Yes, soon." + +"I love you, more than Agatha, more than Dick, more than any one 'cept +Daddy and Mummy." + +"You'll be a good boy until I come back?" + +"Promise ... but come back soon." + +Peter gave him a long kiss and left him. Supposing, one day, he had a +boy like that? A little boy in a shirt like that? Wouldn't it be simply +too wonderful? A boy to give soldiers to.... + +He went across to Miss Monogue's door. A faint voice answered his knock +and, entering the room, the scent of medicine and flowers that he always +connected with his mother, met him. Norah Monogue, very white, with dark +shadows beneath her eyes, was lying on the sofa by the fire. + +Mrs. Brockett had prepared her for Peter's coming and she smiled up at +him with her old smile and gave him her hand. How thin and white it was +with its long slender fingers! He sat down by her sofa and he knew by +the way that she looked at him that she was reproaching him-- + +"Naughty Peter," she said, "all these months and you have been nowhere +near us." + +"I, too, have a bone--you never sent me a word about my wedding." + +She turned her head away. "I was frightfully ill just then. They didn't +think I'd pull through. I did write afterwards to Clare, I told her how +ill I'd been--" + +"She never told me." + +Peter bent over the sofa. "But I am ashamed, Norah, more ashamed than I +can say. After I got well and went to live with the Galleons a new life +seemed to begin for me and I was so eager and excited about it all. And +then--" he hesitated for a moment--"there was Clare." + +"Yes, I know there was Clare and I am so delighted about it--I know that +you will both be so happy.... But, when one is lying here week after +week and is worried and tired things take such a different outline. +I thought that you and Clare--that you ... had given me up altogether +and--" + +Suddenly hiding her face in her hands she began to cry. It was +inexpressibly desolate there in the dim bare little room, and the sharp +sense of his neglect and the remembrance of the good friend that she had +been to him for so many years overwhelmed Peter. + +He knelt down and put his arms round her. "Norah--don't, please, I can't +bear it. It's all right. I've been a beast, a selfish cad. But it shan't +happen again. I'll come often--I'm ashamed." + +She cried for a little and then she smiled at him. "I'm a fool to cry +like that but you see I'm weak and ill--and seeing you again after all +this time and your being so successful and happy upset me I suppose. +Forgive it, Peter, and come again one day when I'm better and +stronger--and bring Clare too." + +She held tightly to his hand and her grasp was hot and feverish. He +reassured her, told her that he would come soon again, that he would +bring Clare and so left her. + +He took a cab and drove back to Chelsea in a storm of agitation. +Suddenly, out of nothing as it were, all these people, this old life +had been thrust up in front of him--had demanded, made claims. About him +once again was the old atmosphere: figures were filling his brain, the +world was a wild tossing place ... one of those Roundabouts with the +hissing lights, the screaming music, the horses going up and down. Plain +enough now that the old life was not done with. Every moment of his past +life seemed to spring before him claiming recognition. He was drunk +with the desire for work. He flung the cabman something, dashed into the +little house, was in his room. The lamp was lighted, the door was shut, +there was silence, and in his brain figures, scenes, sentences were +racing--"The Stone House," neglected for so long, had begun once more, +to climb. + +The hours passed, the white sheets were covered and flung aside. Dimly +through a haze, he saw Clare standing in the doorway. + +"Bad old boy!" + +He scarcely glanced up. "I'm not coming yet--caught by work." + +"Don't be at it too late." + +He made no reply. + +She closed the door softly behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE IN-BETWEENS + + +I + +Then, out of the wind and rain, came Mr. Zanti. + + +II + + +Three days after Peter's visit to Brockett's he was finishing a letter +before dressing for dinner. He and Clare were going on to a party later +in the evening but were dining quietly alone together first. The storms +that had fallen upon London three days before were still pommelling and +buffeting the city, the trees outside the window groaned and creaked +with a mysterious importance as though they were trying to tell one +another secrets, and little branches tapped at the dripping panes. He +was writing in the little drawing-room--warm and comfortable--and the +Maria Theresa, so small a person in so much glory, looked down on him +from her silver frame and gave him company. + +Then Sarah--a minute servant, who always entered a room as though swept +into it by a cyclone--breathlessly announced that there was a gentleman +to see Mr. Westcott. + +"'E's drippin' in the 'all," she gasped and handed Peter a very dirty +bit of paper. + +Peter read:--"Dear Boy, Being about to leave this country on an +expedition of the utmost importance I feel that I must shake you by the +hand before I go. Emilio Zanti." + +Mr. Zanti, enormous, smiling from ear to ear, engulfed in a great coat +from which his huge head, buffeted by wind and rain--his red cheeks, his +rosy nose, his sparkling eyes--stood out like some strange and cheerful +flower--filled the doorway. + +He enfolded Peter in his arms, pressed him against very wet garments, +kissed him on both cheeks and burst into a torrent of explanation. +He was only in London for a very few days--he must see his dearest +Peter--so often before he had wanted to see his Peter but he had thought +that it would be better to leave him--and then he had heard that his +Peter was married--well, he must see his lady--it was entirely necessary +that he should kiss her hand and wish her well and congratulate her on +having secured his "own, own Peter," for a life partner. Yes, he had +found his address from that Pension where Peter used to live; they had +told him and he had come at once because at once, this very night, +he was away to Spain where there was a secret expedition--ah, very +secret--and soon--in a month, two months--he would return, a rich, +rich man. This was the adventure of Mr. Zanti's life and when he was +in England again he, Mr. Zanti, would see much of Peter and of his +beautiful wife--of course she was beautiful--and of the dear children +that were to come-- + +Here Peter interrupted him. He had listened to the torrent of words in +an odd confusion. The last time that he had seen Mr. Zanti he had left +him, sitting with his head in his hands sobbing in the little bookshop. +Since then everything had happened. He, Peter, had had success, love, +position, comfort--the Gods had poured everything into his hands--and +now, to his amazement as he sat there, in the little room opposite his +huge fantastic friend he was almost regretting all those glorious things +that had come to him and was wishing himself back in the dark little +bookshop--dark, but lighted with the fire of Mr. Zanti's amazing +adventures. + +But there was more than this in his thoughts. As he looked at Mr. Zanti, +at his wild black locks, his flaming cheeks, his rolling eyes, his large +red hands, he was aware suddenly that Clare would not appreciate him. It +was the first time since his marriage that there had been any question +of Clare's criticism, but now he knew, with absolute certainty, that Mr. +Zanti was entirely outside Clare's range of possible persons. For the +first time, almost with a secret start of apprehension, he knew that +there were things that she did not understand. + +"I'm afraid," he said, "that my wife is dressing. But when you come back +you shall meet of course--that will be delightful." And then he went +on--"But I simply can't tell you how splendid it is to look at you +again. Lots of things have happened to me since I saw you, of course, +but I'm just the same--" + +Whilst he was speaking his voice had become eager, his eyes bright--he +began to pace the room excitedly-- + +"Oh, Zanti! ... the days we used to have. I suppose the times I've been +having lately had put it all out of my head, but now, with you here, +it's all as though it happened yesterday. The day we left Cornwall, you +and I--the fog when we got to London ... everything." He drew a great +breath and stood in the middle of the room listening to the rain racing +down the pipes beyond the dark windows. + +Mr. Zanti, getting up ponderously, placed his hands on Peter's +shoulders. + +"Still the same Peter," he said. "Now I know zat I go 'appy. Zat is all +I came for--I said I must zee my Peter because Stephen--" + +"Stephen--" broke in Peter sharply. + +"Yes, our Stephen. He goes with me now to Spain. He is now, until +to-night, in London but he will not come to you because 'e's afraid--" + +"Afraid?" + +"Yes 'e says you are married now and 'ave a lovely 'ouse and 'e says you +'ave not written for a ver' long time, and 'e just asked me to give you +'is love and say that when 'e comes back from Spain, per'aps--" + +"Stephen!" Peter's voice was sharp with distress. "Zanti, where is he +now? I must go and see him at once." + +"No, 'e 'as gone already to the boat. I follow 'im." Then Mr. Zanti +added in a softer voice--"So when he tell me that you 'ave not written +I say 'Ah! Mr. Peter forgets his old friends,' and I was zorry but I say +that I will go and make sure. And now I am glad, ver' glad, and Stephen +will be glad too. All is well--" + +"Oh! I am ashamed. I don't know what has come over me all this time. But +wait--I will write a note that you shall take to him and then--when he +comes back from Spain--" + +He went to his table and began to write eagerly. Mr. Zanti, meanwhile, +went round the room on tip-toe, examining everything, sometimes shaking +his huge head in disapproval, sometimes nodding his appreciation. + +Peter wrote: + +_Dear, Dear Stephen,--I am furious, I hate myself. What can I have been +doing all this time? I have thought of you often, but my marriage and +all the new life have made me selfish, and always I put off writing to +you because I thought the quiet hour would come to me--and it has never +come. But I have no excuse--except that in the real part of myself I +love you, just the same as ever--and it will be always the same. I have +been bewildered, I think, by all the things that have happened to me +during this last year--but I will never be bewildered again. Write to me +from Spain and then as soon as you come back I will make amends for my +wickedness. I am now and always, Your loving Peter._ + +Mr. Zanti took the letter. + +"How is he?" asked Peter. + +"I found 'im--down in Treliss. He wasn't 'appy. 'E was thinking of that +woman. And then 'e was all alone. 'E got some work at a farm out at +Pendragon and 'e was just goin' there when I came along and made 'im +come to Spain. 'E was thinkin' of you a lot, Peter." + +Mr. Zanti cast one more look round the room. "Pretty," he said. "Pretty. +But not my sort of place. Too many walls--all too close in." + +In the hall he said once more--a little plaintively:-- + +"I _should_ like to see your lady, Peter," and then he went on +hurriedly, "But don't you go and disturb her--not for anything--_I_ +understand...." + +And, with his finger on his lip, wrapt in the deepest mystery, he +departed into the rain. + +As the door closed behind him, Peter felt a wave of chill, unhappy +loneliness. He turned back into the cheerful little hall and heard Clare +singing upstairs. He knew that they were going to have a delightful +little dinner, that, afterwards, they would be at a party where every +one would be pleased to see them--he knew that the evening in front of +him should be wholly charming ... and yet he was uneasy. He felt now as +though he ought to resign his evening, climb to his little room and work +at "The Stone House." And yet what connection could that possibly have +with Mr. Zanti? + +His uneasiness had begun, he thought, after his visit to Brockett's. It +seemed to him as he went upstairs to dress that the world was too full +of too many things and that his outlook on it all was confused. + +Throughout dinner this uneasiness remained with him. Had he been less +occupied with his own thoughts he would have noticed that Clare was +not herself; at first she talked excitedly without waiting for his +answers--there were her usual enthusiasms and excitements. Everything +in the day's history had been "enchanting" or "horrible," as a rule she +waited for him to act up to her ecstasies and abhorrencies; to-night +she talked as though she had no audience but were determined to fill up +time. Then suddenly she was silent; her eyes looked tired and into them +there crept a strange secret little shudder as though she were afraid of +some thought or mysterious knowledge. She looked now like a little girl +who knew, that to-morrow--the inevitable to-morrow--she must go to the +dentist's to be tortured. + +The last part of the meal was passed in silence. Afterwards she came +into his study and sat curled upon the floor at his feet watching him +smoke. + +She thought as she looked up at him, that something had happened to make +him younger. She had never seen him as young as he was to-night--and +then because his thoughts were far away and because her own troubled her +she made a diversion. She said:-- + +"Who _was_ that extraordinary man you were talking to this evening?" + +He came back, with a jerk, from Stephen. + +"What man?" + +"Why the man with all the black hair and a funny squash hat. I saw Sarah +let him in." + +"Ah, that," said Peter, looking down at her tenderly, "that was a great +friend of mine." + +She moved her head away. + +"Don't touch my hair, Peter--it's all been arranged for the party. A +friend of yours? What! That horrible looking man? Oh! I suppose he was +one of those dreadful people you knew in the slums or in Cornwall." + +Peter saw Mr. Zanti's dear friendly face, like a moon, staring at him, +and heard his warm husky voice: "Peter, my boy...." + +He moved a little impatiently. + +"Look here, old girl, you mustn't call him that. He's one of the very +best friends I've ever had--and I've been rather pulled up lately--ever +since that night you sent me to Brockett's. I've felt ashamed of myself. +All my happiness and--you--and everything have made me forget my old +friends and that won't do." + +She laughed. "And now I suppose you're going to neglect me for them--for +horrid people like that man who came to-night." + +Her voice was shaking a little--he saw that her hands were clenched on +her lap. He looked down at her in astonishment. + +"My dear Clare, what do you mean? How could you say a thing like that +even in jest? You know--" + +She broke in upon him almost fiercely--"It wasn't jest. I meant what I +said. I hate all these earlier people you used to know--and now, after +our being so happy all this time, you're going to take them up again and +make the place impossible--" + +"Look here, Clare, you mustn't speak of them like that--they're my +friends and they've got to be treated as such." His voice was suddenly +stern. "And by the way as we are talking about it I don't think it was +very kind of you to tell me nothing at all about poor Norah's being so +ill. She asked you to tell me and you never said a word. That wasn't +very kind of you." + +"I did speak to you about it but you forgot--" + +"I don't think you did--I am quite sure that I should not have +forgotten--" + +"Oh, of course you contradict me. Anyhow there's no reason to drag Norah +Monogue into this. The matter is perfectly clear. I will not have dirty +old men like that coming into the house." + +"Clare, you shall not speak of my friends--" + +"Oh, shan't I? When I married you I didn't marry all your old horrid +friends--" + +"Drop it, Clare--or I shall be angry--" + +She sprang to her feet, faced him. He had never in his life seen such +fury. She stood with her little body drawn to its full height, her hands +clenched, her breast heaving under her white evening dress, her eyes +glaring-- + +"You shan't! You shan't! I won't have any of them here. I hate Cornwall +and all its nasty people and I hate Brockett's and all those people you +knew there. When you married me you gave them all up--all of them. And +if you have them here I won't stay in the house--I'll leave you. All +that part of your life is nothing to do with me. _Nothing_--and I simply +won't have it. You can do what you like but you choose between them and +me--you can go back to your old life if you like but you go without me!" + +She burst from the room, banging the door behind her. She had behaved +exactly like a small child in the nursery. As he looked at the door he +was bewildered--whence suddenly had this figure sprung? It was some +one whom he did not know. He could not reconcile it with the dignified +Clare, proud as a queen, crossing a ball-room or the dear beloved Clare +nestling into a corner of his arm-chair, her face against his, or the +gentle friendly Clare listening to some story of distress. + +The fury, the tempest of it! It was as though everything in the room had +been broken. And he, with his glorious, tragical youth felt that the end +of the world had come. This was the conclusion of life--no more cause +for living, no more friendship or comfort or help anywhere. Clare had +said those things to him. He stood, for ten minutes there, in the middle +of the room, without moving--his face white, his eyes full of pain. + +Sarah came to tell him that the hansom was there. He moved into the hall +with the intention of sending it away; no party for him to-night--when, +to his amazement he saw Clare coming slowly down the stairs, her cloak +on, buttoning her gloves. + +She passed him without a word and got into the hansom. He took his hat +and coat, gave the driver the address, and climbed in beside her. + +Once as they drove he put out his hand, touched her dress and +said--"Clare dear--" + +She made no reply, but sat looking, with her eyes large and black in her +little white face, steadfastly in front of her. + + +III + +Lady Luncon was a rich, good-natured woman who had recently published +a novel and was anxious to hear it praised, therefore she gave a party. +Originally a manufacturer's daughter, she had conquered a penniless +baronet--spent twenty years in the besieging of certain drawing-rooms +and now, tired of more mundane worlds, fixed her attention upon the +Arts. She was a completely stupid woman, her novel had been exceedingly +vulgar, but her good heart and a habit of speaking vaguely in capital +letters secured her attention. + +When Clare and Peter arrived people were filling her drawing-rooms, +overflowing on to the stairs and pouring into the supper room. Some one, +very far away, was singing "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix," a babel of +voices rose about Clare and Peter on every side, every one was flung +against every one; heat and scent, the crackle and rustle of clothes, +the soft voices of the men and sharp strident voices of the women gave +one the sensation of imminent suffocation; people with hot red faces, +unable to move at all, flung agonised glances at the door as though the +entrance of one more person must mean death and disaster. + +There were, Peter soon discovered, three topics of conversation: one was +their hostess' novel and this was only discussed when Lady Luncon was +herself somewhere at hand--the second topic concerned the books +of somebody who had, most unjustly it appeared, been banned by the +libraries for impropriety, and here opinions were divided as to whether +the author would gain by the advertisement or lose by loss of library +circulation. Thirdly, there was a new young man who had written a +novel about the love affairs of a crocus and a violet--it was amazingly +improper, full of poetry--"right back," as somebody said "to Nature." +Moreover there was much talk about Form. "Here is the new thing in +fiction that we are looking for ..." also "Quite a young man--oh yes, +only about eighteen and so modest. You would never think...." + +His name was Rondel and Peter saw him, for a moment, as the crowds +parted, standing, with a tall, grim, elderly woman, apparently his +mother, beside him. He was looking frightened and embarrassed and stood +up straight against the wall as though afraid lest some one should come +and snatch him away. + +But Peter saw the world in a dream. He walked about, with Clare beside +him, and talked to many people; then she was stopped by some one whom +she knew and he went on alone. Now there had come back to him the old +terror. If he went back, after this was over, and Clare was still angry +with him, he did not know what he would do. He was afraid.... + +He smiled, talked, laughed and, in his chest, there was a sharp acute +pain like a knife. He had still with him that feeling that nothing in +life now was worth while and there followed on that a wild impulse to +let go, to fling off the restraints that he had retained now for so long +and with such bitter determination. + +He wanted to cast aside this absurd party, to hurry home alone with +Clare, to sit alone with her in the little house and to reach the divine +moment when reconciliation came and they were closer to one another than +ever before--and then there was the horrible suggestion that there would +be no reconciliation, that Clare would make of this absurd quarrel an +eternal breach, that things would never be right again. + +He looked back and saw Clare smiling gaily, happily, at some friend. He +saw her as she had faced him, furiously, an hour earlier ... oh God! If +she should never care for him again! + +He recognised many friends. There were the two young Galleons, Millicent +and Percival, looking as important and mysterious as possible, taxing +their brains for something clever to say.... + +"Ah, that's Life!" Peter heard Percival say to some one. Young fools, he +thought to himself, let them have my trouble and then they may talk. +But they were nice to him when he came up to them. The author of "Reuben +Hallard," even though he did look like a sailor on leave, was worth +respecting--moreover, father liked him and believed in him--nevertheless +he was just a tiny bit "last year's sensation." "Have you read," said +Percival eagerly, "'The Violet's Redemption'? It really is the most +tremendous thing--all about a violet. There's the fellow who wrote it +over there--young chap standing with his back to the wall...." + +There was also with them young Tony Gale who was a friend of Alice +Galleon. He was nice-looking, eager and enthusiastic. Rather too +enthusiastic, Peter, who did not like him, considered. Full of the joy +of life; everything was "topping" and "ripping." "I can't understand," +he would say, "why people find life dull. I never find it dull. It's the +most wonderful glorious thing--" + +"Ah, but then you're so young," he always expected his companions to +say; and the thing that pleased him most of all was to hear some one +declare--"Tony Gale's such a puzzle--sometimes he seems only eighteen +and then suddenly he's fifty." + +It was rumoured that he had once been in love with Alice Galleon when +she had been Alice du Cane--and that they had nearly made a match of it; +but he was certainly now married to a charming girl whom he had seen +in Cornwall and the two young things were considered delightful by the +whole of Chelsea. + +Tony Gale had with him a man called James Maradick whom Peter had met +before and liked. Maradick was forty-two or three, large, rather heavy +in build and expression and very taciturn. He was in business in the +city, but had been drawn, Peter knew not how, into the literary world +of London. He was often to be found at dinner parties and evening +"squashes" silent, observant and generally alone. Many people thought +him dull, but Peter liked him partly because of his reserve and partly +because of his enthusiasm for Cornwall. Cornwall seemed to be the only +subject that could stir Maradick into excitement, and when Cornwall was +under discussion the whole man woke into sudden stir and emotion. + +To-night, with his almost cynical observance of the emotions and +excitement that surged about him, he seemed to Peter the one man +possible in the whole gathering. + +"Look here, Maradick, let's get somewhere out of this crush and have a +cigarette." + +People were all pouring into supper now and Peter saw his wife in the +distance, on Bobby Galleon's arm. They found a little conservatory +deserted now and strangely quiet after the din of the other rooms: here +they sat down. + +Maradick was capable of sitting, quite happily for hours, without saying +anything at all. For some time they were both silent. + +At last Peter said: "By jove, Maradick, yours is a fortunate sort of +life--just going into the city every day, coming back to your wife in +the evening--no stupid troubles that come from imagining things that +aren't there--" + +"How do you know I don't?" answered Maradick quietly. "Imagination +hasn't anything to do with one's profession. I expect there's as much +imagination amongst the Stock Exchange men as there is with you literary +people--only it's expressed differently." + +"What do you do," said Peter, "if it ever gets too much for you?" + +"Do? How do you mean?" + +"Well suppose you're feeling all the time that one little thing more, +one little word or some one coming in or a window breaking--anything +will upset the equilibrium of everything? Supposing you're out with all +your might to keep things sane and to prevent your life from swinging +back into all the storm and uncertainty that it was in once before, and +supposing you feel that there are a whole lot of things trying to get +you to swing back, what's the best thing to do?" + +"Why, hold on, hold on--" + +"How do you mean?" + +"Fortitude--Courage. Clinging on with your nails, setting your teeth." + +Peter was surprised at the man's earnestness. The two of them sitting +there in that lonely deserted little conservatory were instantly aware +of some common experience. + +Maradick put his hand on Peter's knee. + +"Westcott, you're young, but I know the kind of thing you mean. Believe +me that it's no silly nonsense to talk of the Devil--the Devil is as +real and personal as you and I, and he's got his agents in every sort +and kind of place. If he once gets his net out for you then you'll want +all your courage. I know," he went on sinking his voice, "there was a +time I had once in Cornwall when I was brought pretty close to things +of that sort--it doesn't leave you the same afterwards. There's a place +down in Cornwall called Treliss...." + +"Treliss!" Peter almost shouted. "Why that's where I come from. I was +born there--that's my town--" + +Before Maradick could reply Bobby Galleon burst into the conservatory. +"Oh, there you are--I've been looking for you everywhere. How are you, +Maradick? Look here, Peter, you've got to come down to supper with us. +We've got a table--Alice, Clare, Millicent, Percival, Tony Gale and his +wife and you and I--and--one other--an old friend of yours, Peter." + +"An old friend?" said Peter, getting up from his chair and trying to +look as though he were not furious with Bobby for the interruption. + +"Yes--you'll never guess, if I give you a hundred guesses--it's most +exciting--come along--" + +Peter was led away. As he moved through the dazzling, noisy rooms he was +conscious that there, in the quiet, dark little conservatory, Maradick +was sitting, motionless, seeing Treliss. + + +IV + +On his way down to the supper room he was filled with annoyance at +the thought of his interrupted conversation. He might never have his +opportunity again. Maradick was so reserved a fellow and took so few +into his confidence--also he would, in all probability, be ashamed +to-morrow of having spoken at all. + +But to Peter at that moment the world about him was fantastic and +unreal. It seemed to him that at certain periods in his life he was +suddenly confronted with a fellow creature who perceived life as he +perceived it. There were certain persons who could not leave life +alone--they must always be seeing it as a key to something wider, +bigger altogether. This was nothing to do with Christianity or any creed +whatever, because Creeds implied Certainty and Definition of Knowledge, +whereas Peter and the others like him did not know for what they were +searching. Again, they were not Mystics because Mysticism needed a +definite removal from this world before any other world were possible. +No, they were simply Explorers and one traced a member of the order +on the instant. There had been already in Peter's life, Frosted Moses, +Stephen, Mr. Zanti, Noah Monogue, and now suddenly there was Maradick. +These were people who would not laugh at his terror of Scaw House, at +his odd belief that his father was always trying to draw him back to +Treliss.... + +As he entered the supper-room and saw Clare sitting at a distant table, +he knew that his wife would never be an Explorer. For her Fires and +Walls, for her no questions, no untidiness moral or physical--the +Explorer travelled ever with his life in his hands--Clare believed in +the Stay-at-homes. + +The great dining-room was filled with Stay-at-homes. One saw it in their +eyes, in the flutter of useless and tired words that rose and fell; all +the souls in that room were cushioned and were happy that it was so. The +Rider on the Lion was beyond the Electric Lights--on the dark hill, over +the darker river, under the stars. Somebody pulled a cracker and put +on a paper cap. He was a stout man with a bald head and the back of his +neck rippled with fat. He had tiny eyes. + +"Look at Mr. Horset," cried the woman next to him--"Isn't he absurd?" + +Peter found at the table in the corner Alice, Clare, Millicent and +Percival Galleon, Tony Gale and his wife, waiting. There was also a man +standing by Alice's chair and he watched Peter with amused eyes. + +He held out his hand and smiled. "How do you do, Westcott?" he said. +Then, with the sound of his voice, the soft almost caressing tilt of it, +Peter knew who it was. His mind flew back to a day, years ago, when he +had flung himself on the ground and cried his soul out because some one +had gone away.... + +"Cards!" he cried. "Of all wonderful things!" + +Cards of Dawson's--Cards, the magnetic, the brilliant, Cards with his +World and his Society and now slim and dark and romantic as ever, making +every one else in the room shabby beside him, so that Bobby's white +waistcoat was instantly seen to be hanging loosely above his shirt and +Peter's trousers were short, and even the elegant Percival had scarcely +covered with perfect equality the ends of his white tie. + +Instantly as though the intervening years had never been, Bobby took his +second place beside Cards' glory--even Percival's intention of securing +the wonderful Mr. Rondel, author of "The Violet's Redemption," for their +table, failed of its effect. + +They were enough. They didn't want anybody else--Room for Mr. Cardillac! + +And he seized it. Just as he would have seized it years ago at school so +he seized it now. Their table was caught into the most dazzling +series of adventures. Cards had been everywhere, seen everybody and +everything--seen it all, moreover, with the right kind of gaiety, with +an appreciation that was intelligent and also humorous. There was humour +one moment and pathos the next--deep feeling and the wittiest cynicism. + +They were all swung about Europe and with Cards at their head pranced +through the cities of the world. Meanwhile Peter fancied that once +or twice Clare flung him a little glance of appeal to ask for +forgiveness--and once they looked up and smiled at one another. A tiny +smile but it meant everything. + +"Oh! won't we have a reconciliation afterwards? How could I have said +those things? Don't we just love one another?" + +When they went upstairs again Peter and Cards exchanged a word: + +"You'll come and see us?" + +"My dear old man, I should just think so. This is the first time I've +been properly in London for years and now I'm going to stay. Fancy you +married and successful and here am I still the rolling-stone!" + +"You! Why you can do anything!" + +"Can't write 'Reuben Hallard,' old boy...." and so, with a laugh, they +parted. + +In the cab, afterwards, Clare's head was buried in Peter's coat, and +she sobbed her heart out. "How I _could_ have been such a beast, Peter, +Peter!" + +"Darling, it was nothing." + +"Oh, but it was! It shall never, never happen again...but I was +frightened--" + +"Frightened!" + +"Yes, I always think some one's going to take you away. I don't +understand all those other people. They frighten me--I want you to +myself, just you and I--always." + +"But nobody can take me away--nobody--" + +The cab jolted along--her hand was on his knee--and every now and again +a lamp lighted her face for him and then dropped it back into darkness. + +By the sharp pressure of her hand he knew that she was moved by an +intensity of feeling, swayed now by one of those moods that came to her +so strangely that it seemed that they belonged to another personality. + +"Look... Peter. I'm seeing clearly as I think I never have before. I'm +afraid--not because of you--but because of myself. If you knew--" here +his hand came down and found hers--"if you knew how I despise myself, +my real self. I've been spoilt always, always, always. I've always known +it. My real self is ashamed of it. But there's another side of me that +comes down suddenly and hides all that--and then--when that happens--I +just want to get what I want and not to be hurt and ..." she pressed +closer against him and went on in a whisper. + +"Peter, I shall always care for you more than any one--always whatever +happens. But think, a time will come--I know it--when you'll have to +watch me, to keep me by you, and even let your work go--everything, just +for a time until I'm safe. I suppose that moment comes to most women in +their married lives. But to me, when it happens, it will be worse than +for most women because I've always had my way. You _mustn't_ let me have +my way then--simply clutch me, be cruel, brutal, anything only don't let +me go. Then, if you keep me through that, you'll always keep me." + +To Peter it was almost as though she were talking in her sleep, +something, there in the old, lumbering cab that was given to her by some +one else to say something to which she herself would not give credit. + +"That's all right, you darling, you darling, you darling." He covered +her face, her eyes with kisses. "I'll never let you go--never." He felt +her quiver a little under his arms. + +"Don't mind, Peter, my horrible, beastly character. Just keep me for a +little, train me--and then later I'll be such a wife to you, _such_ a +wife!" + +Then she drew his head down. His lips touched her body just above her +dress, where her cloak parted. + +She whispered: + +"There's something else." + +She raised her face from his coat and looked up at him. Her cheeks were +stained with crying and her eyes, large and dark, held him furiously as +though he were the one place of safety. + +He caught her very close. + +"What is it?..." + + * * * * * + +That night, long after he, triumphant with the glory of her secret, had +fallen asleep, she lay, staring into the dark, with frightened eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +BIRTH OF THE HEIR + + +I + +Peter's child was born on a night of frost when the stars were hard and +fierce and a full moon, dull gold, flung high shadows upon the town. + +During the afternoon the fear that had been in Clare's eyes for many +weeks suddenly flamed into terror--the doctor was sent for and Peter was +banished from the room. + +Peter looked ludicrously, pitifully young as he sat, through the +evening, in his room at the top of the house, staring in front of him, +his face grey with anxiety, his broad shoulders set back as though ready +for a blow; his strong fingers clutched the things on his writing-table, +held them, dropped them, just like the hands of a blind man about the +shining surface, tapping the wood. + +He saw her always as he had seen her last night when she had caught his +arm crying--"If I die, Peter.... Oh, Peter, if I die!"... and he had +comforted and stroked her hair, warming her cold fingers. + +How young she was, how tiny for this suffering--and it was he, he who +had brought it upon her! Now, she was lying in her bed, as he had once +seen his mother lie, with her hair spread about the pillow, her hands +gripping the sheets, her eyes wide and black--the vast, hard bed-room +closing her in, shutting her down-- + +She who loved comfort, who feared any pain, who would have Life safe and +easy, that she should be forced-- + +The house was very still about him--no sound came up to him; it seemed +to him that the hush was deliberate. The top branches of the trees in +the little orchard touched his window and tapped ever and again; a fire +burnt brightly, he had drawn his curtains and beyond the windows the +great sheet of stars, the black houses, the white light of the moon. + +And there, before him--what mockery! the neat pages of "The Stone House" +now almost completed. + +He stared into the wall and saw her face, her red-gold hair upon the +pillow, her dark staring eyes-- + +Once the nurse came to him--Yes, she was suffering, but all went well +... it would be about midnight, perhaps. There was no cause for +alarm.... + +He thought that the nurse looked at him with compassion. He turned +fiercely upon Life that it should have brought this to them when they +were both so young. + +At last, about ten o'clock, able no longer to endure the silence of the +house--so ominous--and the gentle tap-tap of the branches upon the pane +and the whispering crackle of the fire, he went out.... + +A cold hard unreal world received him. Down Sloane Street the lines of +yellow lamps, bending at last until they met in sharp blue distance, +were soft and misty against the outline of the street, the houses were +unreal in the moonlight, a few people passed quickly, their footsteps +sharp in the frosty air--all the little painted doors of Sloane Street +were blind and secret. + +He passed through Knightsbridge, into the Park. As the black trees +closed him in the fear of London came, tumbling upon him. He remembered +that day when he had sat, shivering, on a seat on the Embankment, +and had heard that note, sinister, threatening, through the noise and +clattering traffic. He heard it again now. It came from the heart of the +black trees that lined the moonlit road, a whisper, a thread of sound +that accompanied him, pervaded him, threatened him. The scaly beast knew +that another victim was about to be born--another woman was to undergo +torture, so that when the day came and the scaly beast rose from its +sleep then there would be one more to be devoured. + +He, Peter, was to have a child. He had longed for a child ever since +he could remember. He had always loved children--other people's +children--but to have one of his own!... To have something that was his +and Clare's and theirs alone, to have its love, to feel that it depended +Upon them both, to watch it, to tend it--Life could have no gift like +that. + +But now the child was hidden from him. He thought of nothing but Clare, +of her suffering and terror, of her waiting there so helplessly for the +dreadful moment of supreme pain. The love that he had now for Clare was +something more tender, more devoted, than he had ever felt for any human +being. His mind flew back fiercely to that night of his first quarrel +when she had told him. Now he was to be punished for his heartlessness +and cruelty ... by her loss. + +His agony and terror grew as he paced beneath the dark and bending +trees. He sat down on a seat, at the other end of which was a little man +with a bowler hat, spectacles and his coat collar turned up. He was +a shabby little man and his thin bony hands beat restlessly upon his +knees. + +The little man said, "Good evening, sir." + +"Good evening," said Peter, staring desperately in front of him. + +"It's all this blasted government--" + +"I beg your pardon--" + +"This blasted government--This income tax and all--" + +"It's more than that," said Peter, wishing that the man would cease +beating his knees with his hands-- + +"It's them blasted stars--it's Gawd. That's what it is. Curse +Gawd--that's what I say--Curse Gawd!" + +"What's He done?" said Peter. + +"I've just broken in my wife's 'ead with a poker. Killed 'er I expect--I +dunno--going back to see in a minute--" + +"Why did you do it?" + +"'Ad to--always nagging--that's what she was--always nagging. Wanted +things--all sorts o' things--and there were always children coming--So +we 'ad a blasted argyment this evening and I broke 'er 'ead open--Gawd +did it--that's what I say--" + +Peter said nothing. + +"You can call a bloomin' copper if you want to," the little man said. + +"It's no business of mine," said Peter and he got up and left him. All +shadows--only the sinister noise that London makes is real, that and +Clare's suffering. + +He left the Park turned into Knightsbridge and came upon a toyshop. The +shutters had not been put up and the lights of a lamp shone full upon +its windows. Against the iron railings opposite and the high white road +these toys stood with sharp, distinct outline behind the slanting light +of the glass. There were dolls--a fine wedding doll, orange blossom, +lace and white silk, and from behind it all, the sharp pinched features +and black beady eyes stared out.... There was a Swiss doll with bright +red cheeks, red and green clothing and shoes with shining buckles. Then +there were the more ordinary dolls--and gradually down the length of +the window, their clothing was taken from them until at last some wooden +creatures with flaring cheeks and brazen eyes kicked their limbs and +defied the proprieties. + +He would be a Boy ... he would not care about dolls.... + +There were soldiers--rows and rows of gleaming soldiers. They came from +a misty distance at the top of the shop window, came marching from the +gates of some dark, mediæval castle. Their swords caught the lamplight, +shining in a line of silver and the precision with which they marched, +the certainty with which they trod the little bridge ... ah, these were +the fellows! He would be a Boy ... soldiers would enchant him! He should +have boxes, boxes, boxes! + +There were many other things in the window; teddy bears and animals +with soft woolly stomachs and fat comfortable legs--and there were ugly, +modern Horrors with fat bulging faces and black hair erect like wire; +there were little devils with red tails, there were rabbits that rode +bicycles and monkeys that climbed trees. There were drums--big drums and +little drums--trumpets with crimson tassels, and in one corner a pyramid +of balls, balls of every colour, and at the top of the pyramid a tiny +ball of peacock blue, hanging, balancing, daintily, supremely right in +pose and gesture. + +It had gesture. It caught Peter's eye--Peter stood with his nose against +the pane, his heart hammering--"Oh! she is suffering--My God, how she +is suffering!"--and there the little blue ball caught him, held him, +encouraged him. + +"I will belong to your boy one day" it seemed to say. + +"It shall be the first thing I will buy for him--" thought Peter. + +He turned now amongst the light and crowds of Piccadilly. He walked on +without seeing and hearing--always with that thought in his heart--"She +is in terrible pain. How can God be so cruel? And she was so +happy--before I came she was so happy--now--what have I done to her?" + +Never, before to-night, had he felt so sharply, so irretrievably his +sense of responsibility. Here now, before him, at this birth of his +child, everything that he had done, thought, said--everything that he +had been--confronted him. He was only twenty-seven but his shoulders +were heavy with the confusion of his past. Looking back upon it, he saw +a helpless medley of indecisions, of sudden impulses, sudden refusals; +into the skeins of it, too, there seemed to be dragged the people that +had made up his life--they faced him, surrounded him, bewildered him! + +What right had he, thus encompassed, to hand these things on to another? +His father, his grandfather ... he saw always that dark strain of +hatred, of madness, of evil working in their blood. Suppose that as his +boy grew he should see this in the young eyes? Suppose, most horrible +of all, that he should feel this hatred for his son that his grandfather +had felt for his father, that his father had felt for him. + +What had he done?... He stopped, staring confusedly about him. The +people jostled him on every side. The old devils were at him--"Eat and +drink for to-morrow we die.... Give it up ... We're too strong for +you and we'll be too strong for your son. Who are you to defy us? Come +down--give it up--" + +His white face caught attention. "Move along, guv'nor," some one +shouted. A man took him by the arm and led up a dark side street. He +turned his eyes and saw that the man was Maradick. + + +II + +The elder man felt that the boy was trembling from head to foot. + +"What's the matter, Westcott? Anything I can do for you?" + +Peter seemed to take him in slowly, and then, with a great effort, to +pull himself together. + +"What, you--Maradick? Where was I? I'm afraid I've been making a fool of +myself...." A church clock struck somewhere in the distance. "Hullo, +I say, what's that? That's eleven. I must get back, I ought to be at +home--" + +"I'll come with you--" + +Maradick hailed a hansom and helped Peter into it. + +For a moment there was silence--then Maradick said-- + +"I hope everything's all right, Westcott? Your wife?" + +Peter spoke as though he were in a dream. "I've been waiting there all +the afternoon--she's been suffering--My God!... It got on my nerves.... +She's so young--they oughtn't to hurt her like that." He covered his +face with his hands. + +"I know. I felt like that when my first child came. It's terrible, +awful. And then it's over--all the pain--and it's magnificent, +glorious--and then--later--it's so commonplace that you cannot believe +that it was ever either awful or magnificent. Fix your mind on the +glorious part of it, Westcott. Think of this time to-morrow when your +wife will be so proud, so happy--you'll both be so proud, so happy, that +you'll never know anything in life like it." + +"Yes, yes, I know--of course it's sure to be all right--but I suppose +this waiting's got on my nerves. There was a fellow in the Park just +broken his wife's head in--and then everything was so quiet. I could +almost hear her crying, right away in her room." + +He stopped a moment and then went on. "It's what I've always +wanted--always to have a boy. And, by Jove, he'll be wonderful! I +tell you he shall be--We'll be such pals!" He broke off suddenly--"You +haven't a boy?" + +"No, mine are both girls. Getting on now--they'll soon be coming out. I +should like to have had a boy--" Maradick sighed. + +"Are they an awful lot to you?" + +"No--I don't suppose they are. I should have understood a boy +better,--but they're good girls. I'm proud of them in a way--but I'm out +so much, you see." + +Peter faced the contrast. Here this middle-aged man, with his two +girls--and here too he, Peter, with his agonising, flaming trial--to +slip, so soon, into dull commonplace? + +"But didn't you--if you can look so far--didn't you, when the first +child came, funk it? Your responsibility I mean. All the things +one's--one's ancestors--it's frightening enough for oneself but to hand +it on--" + +"It's nothing to do with oneself--one's used, that's all. The child will +be on its own legs, thrusting you away before you know where you are. It +_will_ want to claim its responsibilities--ancestors and all--" + +Peter said nothing--Maradick went on: + +"You know we were talking one night and were interrupted--you're in +danger of letting the things you imagine beat the things you know. Stick +to the thing you can grasp, touch--I know the dangers of the others--I +told you that once in Cornwall, I--the most unlikely person in the +world--was caught up by it. I've never laughed at morbidity, or nerves, +or insanity since. There's such a jolly thin wall between the sanest, +most level-headed beef-eating Squire in the country and the maddest poet +in Bedlam. _I_ know--I've been both in the same day. It's better to be +both, I believe, if you can keep one under the other, but you _must_ +keep it under--" + +Maradick talked on. He saw that the boy's nerves were jumping, that he +was holding himself in with the greatest difficulty. + +Peter said: "You don't know, Maradick. I've had to fight all my life--my +father, grandfather, all of them have given in at last--and now this +child ... perhaps I shall see it growing, see him gradually learning +to hate me, see myself hating him ... at last, my God, see him go +under--drink, deviltry--I've fought it--I'm always fighting it--but +to-night--" + +"Good heavens, man--you're not going to tell me that your father, your +grandfather--the rest of them--are stronger than you. What about your +soul, your own blessed soul that can't be touched by any living thing or +dead thing either if you stick to it? Why, every man's got power enough +in himself to ride heaven and earth and all eternity if he only believed +he'd got it! Ride your scruples, man--ride 'em, drive 'em--send 'em +scuttling. Believe in yourself and stick to it--Courage!..." + +Maradick pulled himself in. They were driving now, down the King's Road. +The people were pouring in a thick, buzzing crowd, out of the Chelsea +Palace. Middle-aged stockbrokers in hansom cabs--talking like the third +act of a problem play!--but Maradick had done his work. As they drove +round the corner, past the mad lady's painted house, he saw that Peter +was calmer. He had regained his self-control. The little house where +Peter lived was very still--the trees in the orchard were stiff and dark +beneath the stars. + +Peter spoke in a whisper--"Good-night, Maradick, you've done me a lot of +good--I shan't forget it." + +"Good luck to you," Maradick whispered back. Peter stole into the house. + +The little drawing-room looked very cosy; the fire was burning, the lamp +lighted, the thick curtains drawn. Maria Theresa smiled, with all her +finery, from the wall. + +Peter sat down in front of the fire. Maradick was right. One must have +one's hand on the bridle--the Rider on the Lion again. It's better that +the beast under you should be a Lion rather than a Donkey, but let it +once fling you off its back and you're done for. And Maradick had said +these things! Maradick whom once Peter had considered the dullest of +his acquaintances. Well, one never knew about people--most of the +Stay-at-homes were Explorers and vice versa, if one only understood +them. + +How still the house was! What was happening upstairs? He could not go +and see--he could not move. He was held by the stillness. The doctor +would come and tell him.... + +He thought of the toyshop--that blue ball--it would be the first thing +that he would buy for the boy--and then soldiers--soldiers that wouldn't +hurt him, that he couldn't lick the paint from-- + +Now the little silver clock ticked! He was so terribly tired--he had +never been tired like this before.... + +The stillness pressed upon the house. Every sound--the distant rattling +of some cab, the faint murmur of trams--was stifled, extinguished. The +orchard seemed to press in upon the house, darker and darker grew the +forest about it--The stars were shut out, the moon... the world was +dead. + +Then into this sealed and hidden silence, a voice crying from an upper +room, suddenly fell--a woman in the abandonment of utter pain, pain +beyond all control, was screaming. Somewhere, above that dark forest +that pressed in upon the house, a bird of prey hovered. It hung for a +moment; it descended--its talons were fixed upon her flesh... then again +it ascended. Shriek after shriek, bursting the silence, chasing the +shadows, flooding the secrecy with horrible light, beat like blows upon +the walls of the house--rose, fell, rose again. Peter was standing, his +back against the wall, his hands spread out, his face grey. + +"My God, my God... Oh! my God!" + +The sweat poured from his forehead. Once more there was silence but now +it was ominous, awful.... + +The little silver clock ticked--Peter's body stood stretched against the +wall--he faced the door. + +Hours, hours passed. He did not move. The screaming had, many years ago, +ceased. The doctor--a cheerful man with blue eyes and a little bristling +moustache--came in. + +"A fine boy, Mr. Westcott--I congratulate you. You might see your wife +for a moment if you cared--stood it remarkably well--" + +Slowly the forest, dark and terrible, moved away from the house. Very +faintly again could be heard the distant rattling of some cab, the +murmur of trams. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DECLARATION OF HAPPINESS + + +I + +Extracts from letters that Bobby Galleon wrote to Alice Galleon about +this time: + +"... But, of course, I am sorrier than I can say that it's so dull. +That's due to charity, my dear, and if you will go and fling yourself +into the depths of Yorkshire because a girl like Ola Hunting chooses to +think she's unhappy and lonely you've only yourself to thank. Moreover +there's your husband to be considered. I don't suppose, for a single +instant, that he really prefers to be left alone, with his infant son, +mind you, howling at the present moment because his nurse won't let him +swallow the glass marbles, and you can picture to yourself--if you want +to make yourself thoroughly unhappy--your Robert sitting, melancholy +throughout the long evening, alone, desolate, creeping to bed somewhere +about ten o'clock. + +"So there we are--you're bored to death and I've no one to growl at when +I come back from the City--all Ola Hunting's fault--wring the girl's +neck. Meanwhile here I sit and every evening I'll write whatever comes +into my head and never look back on it again but stick it into +an envelope and send it to you. You know me too well by now to be +disappointed at anything. + +"I'm quite sure that, if you were here with me now, sitting in that +chair opposite me and sewing for all you were worth, that the thing that +we'd be talking about would be Peter. If, therefore, these scrawls +are full of Peter you won't mind, I know. He's immensely occupying my +attention just now and you love him as truly and deeply as I do, so that +if I go on at length about him you'll excuse it on that score. You who +know me better than any one else in the world know that, in my most +secret heart, I flatter myself on my ability as a psychologist. I +remember when I told you first how you laughed but I think since +then you've come round not a little, and although we both keep it to +ourselves, it's a little secret that you're a tiny bit proud of. I can +see how brother Percival, or young Tony Gale, or even dear Peter himself +would mock, if I told them of this ambition of mine. 'Good, dear, +stupid, old Bobby' is the way they think of me, and I know it's mother's +perpetual wonder (and also, I think, a little her comfort) that I should +be so lacking in brilliance when Percival and Millie are so full of it. + +"You know Peter's attitude to me in these things--you've seen it often +enough. He's patronising--he can't help it. That isn't, he considers, my +line in the least, and, let me once begin to talk to him of stocks and +shares and he'll open all his ears. Well, I can't blame him--but I do +think these writers and people are inclined to draw their line a little +too sharply with their Philistines--great big gulf, please--and Artists. +At any rate, here goes for my psychology and good luck to it. Peter, +in fact, is so interesting a subject if one sees anything of him at +all that I believe he'd draw speculation out of any one. There was +old Maradick talking about him the other night--fascinated by him +and understanding him most amazingly well--another instance of your +Philistine and Artist mixed. + +"But I knew him--and knew him jolly well too--when he was about twelve, +so that I really get a pull over the rest of you there, for it adds of +course immensely to the interest and if ever child was Father of the +Man, Peter was. You know how we both funked that marriage of his for +him--you because you knew Clare so well, I because I knew Peter. And +then for a time it really seemed that we were both entirely wrong. +Clare's is a far simpler personality than Peter's, and if you work along +one or two recognised lines--let her have her way, don't frighten her, +above all keep her conventional--it's all right. Clare was, and is, +awfully in love with him, and he madly with her of course--and that +helped everything along. You know how relieved we both were and indeed +it seemed, for a time, that it was going to be the making of both of +them--going to make Clare braver and Peter less morbid. + +"Well, it's since you've been away that everything's happened. Although +the baby was born some weeks before you went, it's only lately that +Clare has been up and about. She's perfectly well and the baby's +splendid--promises to be a tremendous fellow and as healthy as possible. +You can imagine, a little, the effect of it all on Clare. I don't +suppose there's any girl in London been so wrapped in cotton wool all +her life, and that old ass of a father and still more irritating ass of +a mother would go on wrapping her still if they had their way. The +fuss they've both made about this whole business is simply +incredible--especially when the man's a doctor and brings Lord knows how +many children into the world every week of his life. But it's all been +awfully bad for Clare. Of course, she was frightened--frightened out of +her wits. It's the very first time life ever had its wrappings off for +her, and that in itself of course is a tremendously good thing. But you +can't, unfortunately, wrap any one up for all those years and then +take the wrappings off and not deliver a shock to the system. Of course +there's a shock, and it's just this shock that I'm so afraid of. I'm +afraid of it for one thing because Peter's so entirely oblivious of it. +He was in an agony of terror on the day that the baby was born, but once +it was there--well and healthy and promising--fear vanished. He could +only see room for glory--and glory he does. I cannot tell you what that +boy is like about the baby; at present he thinks, day and night, of +nothing else. It is the most terrific thing to watch his feeling about +it--and meanwhile he takes it for granted that Clare feels the same.... +Well, she doesn't. I have been in a good deal during these last few days +and she's stranger than words can say--doesn't see the child if she can +help it--loves it, worships it, when it is there, and--is terrified of +it. I saw a look in her eyes when she was nursing it yesterday that was +sheer undiluted terror. She's been frightened out of her life, and if I +know her the least little bit she's absolutely made up her mind never +to be frightened like that again. She is going to hurl herself into a +perfect whirlpool of excitement and entertainment and drag Peter with +her if she can. Meanwhile, behind that hard little head of hers, she's +making plans just as fast as she can make them. I believe she looks on +life now as though it had broken the compact that she made with it--a +compact that things should always be easy, comfortable, above all, never +threatening. The present must be calm but the Future's absolutely got to +be--and I believe, although she loves him devotedly in the depths of +her strange little soul, that she half blames Peter for all of this +disturbance, and that there are a great many things about him--his +earlier life, his earlier friends, even his work--that she would strip +from him if she could. + +"Well, enough for the present. I don't know _what_ nonsense there isn't +here. Into the envelope it all goes. I've been talking to you for an +hour and a half and that's something...." + + +II + +"... I've just come in from dinner with Peter and Clare and feel +inclined to talk to you for hours ahead. However, that I can't do, so I +shall write to you instead and you're to regard it all as a continuation +of the things that I said in last night's letter. I am as interested as +ever and indeed, after this evening's dinner more interested. The odd +thing about it all is that Peter is so completely oblivious to any +change that may be going on in Clare. His whole mind is centred now on +the baby, he cannot have enough of it and it was he, and not Clare, who +took me up after dinner to see it sleeping. + +"You remember that they had some kind of a dispute about the name of +the boy at the time of the christening. Peter insisted that it should +be Stephen, after, I suppose, that odd Cornish friend of his, and Clare, +weak and ill though she was, objected with all her might. I don't know +why she took this so much to heart but it was all, I suppose, part +of that odd hatred that she has of Peter's earlier life and earlier +friends. She has never met the man Brant, but I think that she fancies +that he is going to swoop down one of these days and carry Peter off +on a broomstick or something. She gave in about the name--indeed I have +never seen Peter more determined--but I think, nevertheless, that she +broods over it and remembers it. My dear, I am as sorry for her as I +can be. There she stands, loving Peter with all her heart and soul, +terrified out of her wits at the possibilities that life is presenting +to her, hating Peter's friends at one moment, his work the next, the +baby the next--exactly like some one, walking on a window-ledge in his +sleep and suddenly waking and discovering-- + +"Peter's a more difficult question. He's too riotously happy just at the +moment to listen to a word from any one. His relation to the child +is really the most touching thing you ever saw, and really the child, +considering that it has scarcely begun to exist, has a feeling for him +in the most wonderful way. It is as good as gold when he is there and +follows him with its eyes--it doesn't pay much attention to Clare. +I think it knows that she's frightened of it. Yes, Peter is quite +riotously happy. You know that 'The Stone House' is coming out next +week. There is to be a supper party at the Galleons'--myself, Mrs. +Launce. Maradick, the Gales, some woman he knew at that boarding-house, +Cardillac and Dr. and Mrs. Rossiter. + +"By the way, Cardillac is there a great deal and I am both glad and +sorry. He is very good for Clare and not at all good for Peter. He seems +to understand Clare in the most wonderful way--far better than Peter +does. He brings her out, helps her to be broader and really I think +explains Peter to her and helps things along. His influence on Peter is +all the other way. Peter, of course, worships him, just as he used to do +in the old days at school, and Cards always liked being worshipped. +He has an elegance, a savoir-faire that dear, square-shouldered +rough-and-tumble Peter finds entrancing, but, of course, Peter's worth +the dozen of him any day of the week. He drags out all Peter's worst +side. I wonder whether you'll understand what I mean when I say that +Peter isn't _meant_ to be happy--at any rate not yet. He's got something +too big, too tremendous in him to be carved easily into any one of our +humdrum, conventional shapes. He takes things so hard that he isn't +intended to take more than one thing at a time, and here he is with +Clare and Cards both, as it seems to me, in a conspiracy to pull him +into a thousand little bits and to fling each little bit to a different +tea-party. + +"He ought to be getting at his work and he isn't getting at it at all. +'The Stone House' is coming out next week and it may be all right, but I +don't mind betting that the next one suffers. If he weren't in a kind +of dream he'd see it all himself, and indeed I think that he'll wake +one day soon and see that a thousand ridiculous things are getting in +between him and his proper life. + +"He was leading his proper life in those days at Dawson's when they +were beating him at home and hating him at school, and it was that +old bookshop and the queer people he met in it that produced 'Reuben +Hallard.' + +"He's so amazingly young in the ways of the world, so eager to make +friends with everybody, so delighted with an entirely superficial +butterfly like Cards, so devotedly attached to his wife, that I +must confess that the outlook seems to me bad. There's going to be a +tremendous tug-of-war in a minute and it's not going to be easy for the +boy--nor, indeed for Clare. + +"I hope that you don't feel so far removed from this in your Yorkshire +desert that it has no interest for you, but I know how devoted you are +to Peter and one doesn't want to see the boy turned into the society +novelist creature--the kind of creature, God forgive me, that brother +Percival is certain to become. You'll probably say when you read this +that I am trying to drag out all the morbid side of Peter and make him +the melancholy, introspective creature that he used to be, in fits and +starts, when you first knew him. Of course that's the last thing I want +to do, but work to a man of Peter's temperament is the one rock that can +save him. He has, I do believe, a touch of genius in him somewhere, and +I believe that if he's allowed to follow, devoutly and with pain and +anguish, maybe, his Art, he'll be a great creature--a great man and a +great writer. But he's in the making--too eager to please, too eager to +care for every one, too desperately down if he thinks things are going +badly with him. I notice that he hasn't been to see my father lately--I +think too that all this reviewing is bad for him--other people's novels +pouring upon him in an avalanche must take something from the freshness +of his own. + +"Anyhow I, Robert Galleon, your clever and penetrating husband, scent +much danger and trouble ahead. Clare, simply out of love for him and +anxiety for herself, will I know, do all she can to drag him from the +thing that he should follow--and Cards will help her--out of sheer +mischief, I verily believe. + +"On their own heads be it. As to the carpets you asked me to go and look +at...." + + +III + +"... And now for the supper party. Although there's a whole day behind +me I'm still quivering under the excitement of it. As I tell you about +it it will in all probability, declare itself as a perfectly ordinary +affair, and, indeed, I think that you should have been there yourself to +have realised the emotion of it. But I'll try and give it you word for +word. I was kept in the city and arrived late and they were all there. +Mrs. Launce, twinkling all over with kindness, Maradick in his best +Stock Exchange manner, the Gales (Janet Gale perfectly lovely), the old +Rossiters, Cards, shining with a mixture of enterprise and knowledge +of the world and last of all a very pale, rather nervous, untidy Irish +woman, a Miss Monogue. Clare was so radiantly happy that I knew that she +wasn't happy at all, had obviously taken a great deal of trouble about +her hair and had it all piled up on the top of her head and looked +wonderful. I can't describe these things, but you know that when she's +bent on giving an impression she seems to stand on her toes all the +time--well, she was standing on every kind of toe, moral, physical, +emotional last night. Finally there was Peter, looking as though his +evening dress had been made for something quite different from social +dinner parties. It fitted all right, but it was too comfortable to be +smart--he looked, beside Cards, like a good serviceable cob up against +the smartest of hunters. Peter's rough, bullet head, the way that +he stands with his legs wide apart and his thick body holding itself +deliberately still with an effort as though he were on board ship--and +then that smile that won all our hearts ages ago right out of the centre +of his brown eyes first and then curving his mouth, at last seizing all +his body--but always, in spite of it, a little appealing, a little +sad somewhere--can't you see him? And Cards, slim, straight, dark, +beautifully clothed, beautifully witty and I am convinced, beautifully +insincere. Can't you see Cards say 'good evening' to me--with that same +charm, that same ease, that same contempt that he had when we were at +school together? Bobby Galleon--an honest good fellow--but dull--mon +Dieu--dull (he rather likes French phrases)--can't you hear him saying +it? Well from the very first, there was something in the air. We were +all excited, even old Mrs. Rossiter and the pale Irish creature whom +I remembered afterwards I had met that day when I went to that +boarding--house after Peter. Clare was quite extraordinary--I have never +seen her anything like it--she talked the whole time, laughed, almost +shouted. The only person she treated stiffly was Cards--I don't think +she likes him. + +"He was at his most brilliant--really wonderful--and I liked him better +than I've ever liked him before. He seemed to have a genuine pleasure in +Peter's happiness, and I believe he's as fond of the boy as he's able +to be of any one. A copy of 'The Stone House' was given to each of us (I +haven't had time to look at mine yet) and I suppose the combination of +the baby and the book moved us all. Besides, Clare and Peter both looked +so absurdly young. Such children to have had so many adventures already. +You can imagine how riotous we got when I tell you that dessert found +Mrs. Rossiter with a paper cap on her head and Janet Gale was singing +some Cornish song or other to the delight of the company. Miss Monogue +and I were the quietest. I should think that she's one of the best, and +I saw her look at Peter once or twice in a way that showed how strongly +she felt about him. + +"Well, old girl, I'm bothered if I can explain the kind of anxiety +that came over me after a time. You'll think me a regular professional +croaker but really I suppose, at bottom, it was some sort of feeling +that the whole thing, this shouting and cheering and thumping the +table--was premature. And then I suppose it was partly my knowledge +of Peter. It wasn't like him to behave in this sort of way. He wasn't +himself--excited, agitated by something altogether foreign to him. I +could have thought that he was drunk, if I hadn't known that he hadn't +touched any liquor whatever. But a man of Peter's temperament pays for +this sort of thing--it isn't the sort of way he's meant to take life. + +"Whatever the reason may have been I know that I felt suddenly outside +the whole business and most awfully depressed. I think Miss Monogue felt +exactly the same. By the time the wine was on the table all I wanted +was to get right away. It was almost as though I had been looking on +at something that I was ashamed to see. There was a kind of deliberate +determination about their happiness and Clare's little body with her +hair on the verge, as it seemed, of a positive downfall, had something +quite pitiful in its deliberate rejoicing; such a child, my dear--I +never realised how young until last night. Such a child and needing some +one so much older and wiser than Peter to manage it all. + +"Well, there I was hating it when the final moment came. Cards got up +and in one of the wittiest little speeches you ever heard in your life, +proposed Peter's health, alluded to 'Reuben Hallard,' then Clare, then +the Son and Heir, a kind of back fling at old Dawson's, and then last +of all, an apostrophe to 'The Stone House' all glory and honour, +&c.:--well, it was most neatly done and we all sat back, silent, for +Peter's reply. + +"The dear boy stood there, all flushed and excited, with his hair pushed +back off his forehead and began the most extraordinary speech I've ever +heard. I can't possibly give you the effect of it at secondhand, in the +mere repetition of it there was little more than that he was wildly, +madly happy, that there was no one in the world as happy as he, that now +at last the gods had given him all that he had ever wanted, let them now +do their worst--and so crying, flung his glass over his shoulder, and +smashed it on to the wall behind him. + +"I cannot possibly tell you how sinister, how ominous the whole thing +suddenly was. It swooped down upon all of us like a black cloud. Credit +me, if you will, with a highly--strung bundle of nerves (not so solid +matter-of-fact as I seem, _you_ know well enough) but it seemed to me, +at that moment, that Peter was defying, consciously, with his heart in +his mouth, a world of devils and that he was cognisant of all of them. +The thing was conscious--that was the awful thing about it, I could +swear that he was seeing far beyond all of us, that he was hurling his +happiness at something that he had there before him as clearly as I +have you before me now. It was defiance and I believe the minute after +uttering it he would have liked to have rushed upstairs to see that his +baby was safe.... + +"Be that as it may, we all felt it--every one of us. The party was +clouded. Cards and Clare did their best to brighten things up again, and +Peter and Tony and Janet Gale played silly games and made a great deal +of noise--but the spirit was gone. + +"I left very early. Miss Monogue came away at the same time. She spoke +to me before she said good-night: 'I know that you are an old friend of +Peter's. I am so fond of him--we all are at Brockett's, it isn't often +that we see him--I know that you will be his true friend in every sense +of the word--and help him--as he ought to be helped. It is so little +that I can do....' + +"Her voice was sad. I am afraid she suffers a great deal. She is +evidently greatly attached to Peter--I liked her. + +"Well, you in your sober way will say that this is all a great deal of +nonsense. Why shouldn't Peter, if he wishes, say that he is happy? All I +can say is that if you yourself had been there...." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BLINDS DOWN + + +I + +It was not until Stephen Westcott had rejoiced in the glories (so novel +and so thrilling) of his first birthday and "The Stone House" had been +six months before the public eye that the effect of this second book +could be properly estimated. Second books are the most surely foredoomed +creatures in all creation and there are many excellent reasons for this. +They will assuredly disappoint the expectations of those who enjoyed the +first work, and the author will, in all probability, have been tempted +by his earlier success to try his wings further than they are, as yet, +able to carry him. + +Peter's failure was only partial. There was no question that "The Stone +House" was a remarkable book. Had it been Peter's first novel it must +have made an immense stir; it showed that he was, in no kind of way, +a man of one book, and it gave, in its London scenes, proof that its +author was not limited to one kind of life and one kind of background. +There were chapters that were fuller, wiser, in every way more mature +than anything in "Reuben Hallard." + +But it was amazingly unequal. There were places in it that had no kind +of life at all; at times Peter appeared to have beheld his scenes and +characters through a mist, to have been dragged right away from any kind +of vision of the book, to have written wildly, blindly. + +The opinion of Mrs. Launce was perhaps the soundest that it was possible +to have because that good lady, in spite of her affection for Peter, +had a critical judgment that was partly literary, partly commercial, and +partly human. She always judged a book first with her brain, then with +her heart and lastly with her knowledge of her fellow creatures. "It may +pay better than 'Reuben Hallard,'" she said, "there's more love interest +and it ends happily. Some of it is beautifully written, some of it quite +unspeakably. But really, Peter, it's the most uneven thing I've ever +read. Again and again one is caught, held, stirred--then, suddenly, you +slip away altogether--you aren't there at all, nothing's there, I could +put my ringer on the places. Especially the first chapters and the last +chapters--the middle's splendid--what happened to you?... But it will +sell, I expect. Tell your banker to read it, go into lots of banks +and tell them. Bank clerks have subscriptions at circulating libraries +always given them ... but the wild bits are best, the wild bits are +splendid--that bit about the rocks at night ... you don't know much +about women yet--your girls are awfully bad. By the way, do you know +that Mary Hollins is only getting £100 advance next time? All she can +get, that last thing was so shocking. I hear that that book about an +immoral violet, by that new young man--Rondel, isn't it?--is still +having a most enormous success--I know that Barratt's got in a whole +batch of new copies last night--I hear...." + +Mrs. Launce was disappointed--Peter could tell well enough. He received +some laudatory reviews, some letters from strangers, some adulation from +people who knew nothing whatever. He did not know what it was exactly +that he had expected--but whatever it was that he wanted, he did not get +it--he was dissatisfied. + +He began to blame his publishers--they had not advertised him enough; +he even, secretly, cherished that most hopeless of all convictions--that +his book was above the heads of the public. He noticed, also, that +wherever he might be, this name of Rondel appeared before him, Mr. +Rondel with his foolish face and thin mother in black, was obviously the +young man of the moment--in the literary advertisements of any of the +weekly papers you might see The Violet novel in its tenth edition and +"The Stone House" by Peter Westcott, second edition selling rapidly. + +He was again bewildered, as he had been after the publication of "Reuben +Hallard" by the extraordinary variance of opinions amongst reviewers and +amongst his own personal friends. One man told him that he had no style, +that he must learn the meaning and feeling of words, another told him +that his characters were weak but that his style was "splendid--a real +knowledge of the value and meaning of words." Some one told him that he +knew nothing at all about women and some one else that his women were +by far the best part of his work. The variety was endless--amongst those +who had appeared to him giants there was the same uncertainty. He seemed +too to detect with the older men a desire to praise those parts of his +work that resembled their own productions and to blame anything that +gave promise of originality. + +For himself it seemed to him that Mrs. Launce's opinion was nearest the +truth. There were parts of it that were good, chapters that were +better than anything in "Reuben Hallard" and then again there were many +chapters where he saw it all in a fog, groped dimly for his characters, +pushed, as it seemed to him, away from their lives and interests, by the +actual lives and interests of the real people about him. This led him +to think of Clare and here he was suddenly arrested by a perception, +now only dimly grasped, of a change in her attitude to his writings. He +dated it, thinking of it now for the first time, from the birth of young +Stephen--or was it not earlier than that, on that evening when they had +met Cards at that supper party, on that evening of their first quarrel? + +In the early days how well he remembered Clare's enthusiasm--a little +extravagant, it seemed now. Then during the first year of their married +life she had wanted to know everything about the making of "The Stone +House." It was almost as though it had been a cake or a pie, and he knew +that he had found her questions difficult to answer and that he had had +it driven in upon him that it was not really because she was interested +in the subtleties of his art that she enquired but because of her own +personal affection for him; if he had been making boots or a suit of +clothes it would have been just the same. Then when "The Stone House" +appeared her eagerness for its success had been tremendous--there +was nothing she would not do to help it along--but that, he somewhat +ironically discovered, was because she liked success and the things that +success brought. + +Then when the book had not succeeded--or only so very little--her +interest had, of a sudden, subsided. "Oh! I suppose you've got to go and +do your silly old writing ... I think you might come out with me just +this afternoon. It isn't often that I ask anything of you...." He did +not believe that she had ever really finished "The Stone House." She +pretended that she had--"the end was simply perfect," but she was vague, +nebulous. He found the marker in her copy, some fifty pages before the +end. + +She was so easily impressed by every one whom she met that perhaps the +laughing attitude of Cards to Peter's books had something to do with it +all. Cards affected to despise anything to do with work, here to-day, +gone to-morrow--let us eat and drink ... dear old Peter, grubbing away +upstairs--"I say, Mrs. Westcott, let's go and rag him...." And then they +had come and invaded his room at the top of the house, and sometimes +he had been glad and had flung his work down as though it were of no +account ... and then afterwards, in the middle of some tea-party he +had been suddenly ashamed, deeply, bitterly ashamed, as though he had +actually wounded those white pages lying up there in his quiet room. + +He was at this time, like a man jostled and pushed and turned about +at some riotous fair; looking, now this way, now that, absorbed by a +thousand sights, a thousand sounds--and always through it all feeling, +bitterly in his heart, that something dear to him, somewhere in some +place of silence, was dying-- + +Well, hang it all, at any rate there was the Child! + + +II + +At any rate there was the Child! + +And what a child! Did any one ever have a baby like it, so fat and round +and white, with its head already covered with faint golden silk, its +eyes grey and wondering--with its sudden gravities, its amazing joys and +terrific humour, the beauty of its stepping away, as it did, suddenly +without any warning, behind a myriad mists and curtains, into some other +land that it knew of. How amazing to watch it as it slowly forgot all +the things that it had come into the world remembering, as it slowly +realised all the laws that this new order of things demanded of its +obedience. Could any one who had been present ever forget its crow of +ecstasy at the first shaft of sunlight that it ever beheld, at its first +realisation of the blue, shining ball that Peter bought, at its first +vision, through the window, of falling snow! + +Peter was drunk with this amazing wonder. All the facts of life--even +Clare and his work--faded before this new presence for whose existence +he had been responsible. It had been one of the astonishing things about +Clare that she had taken the child so quietly. He had seen her thrilled +by musical comedy, by a dance at the Palace Music Hall, by the trumpery +pathos of a tenth-rate novel--before this marvel she stood, it seemed to +him, without any emotion. + +Sometimes he thought that if it had not been for his reminder she would +not have gone to kiss the child goodnight. There were many occasions +when he knew--with wonder and almost dismay--that she was afraid of it; +and once, when they had been in the nursery together and young Stephen +had cried and kicked his heels in a tempest of rage, she had seemed +almost to cling to Peter for protection. + +There were occasions when Peter fancied that the baby seemed the elder +of the two, it was at any rate certain that Stephen Westcott was not so +afraid of his mother as his mother was of him. And yet, Peter fancied, +that could Clare only get past this strange nervous fear she would +love the baby passionately--would love him with that same fierceness +of passion that she flung, curiously, now and again upon Peter himself. +"Let me be promised," she seemed to say, "that I will never have any +trouble or sorrow with my son and I will love him devotedly." Meanwhile +she went into every excitement that life could provide for her.... + +It was on a March afternoon of early Spring after a lonely tea (Clare +was out at one of her parties) that Peter went up to the nursery. He had +just finished reading the second novel by that Mr. Rondel whose Violet +sensation had occurred some two years before. This second book was +good--there was no doubt about it--and Peter was ashamed of a kind of +dim reluctance in his acknowledgment of its quality. The fellow had had +such reviews; the book, although less sensational than its predecessor +had hit the public straight in the middle of its susceptible heart. Had +young Rondel done it all with bad work-well, that was common enough--but +the book was good, uncommonly good. + +He sent the nurse downstairs and began to build an elaborate fortress +on the nursery floor. The baby lay on his back on a rug by the fire +and contemplated his woollen shoe which he slowly dragged off and +disdainfully flung away. Then, crowing to himself, he watched his father +and the world in general. + +He was amazingly like Peter--the grey eyes, the mouth a little stern, a +little sulky, the snub nose, the arms a little short and thick, and that +confident, happy smile. + +He watched his father. + +To him, lying on the rug, many, many miles away there was a coloured +glory that ran round the upper part of the wall--as yet, he only knew +that they gave him, those colours, something of the same pleasure that +his milk gave him, that the warm, glowing, noisy shapes beyond the +carpet gave him, that the happy, comfortable smell of the Thing playing +near him on the floor gave him. About the Thing he was eternally +perplexed. It was Something that made sounds that he liked, that pressed +his body in a way that he loved, that took his fingers and his toes and +made them warm and comfortable. + +It was Something moreover from which delicious things hung--things that +he could clutch and hold and pull. He was perplexed but he knew that +when this Thing was near him he was warm and happy and contented and +generally went to sleep. His eyes slowly travelled round the room and +rested finally upon a round blue ball that hung turning a little from +side to side, on a nail above, his bed. This was, to him, the final +triumph of existence--to have it in his hand, to roll it round and +round, to bang it down upon the floor and watch it jump, this was the +reason why one was here, this the solution of all perplexities. He would +have liked to have it in his hands now, so crowing, he smiled pleasantly +at the Thing on the floor beside him and then looked at the ball. + +Peter got up from his knees, fetched the ball down and rolled it along +the floor. As it came dancing, curving, laughing along young Stephen +shrieked with delight. Would he have it in his hands or would it escape +him and disappear altogether? Would it come to him?... It came and was +clutched and held and triumphed over. + +Peter sat down by his son and began to tell him about Cornwall. He +often did this, partly because the mere mentioning of names and places +satisfied some longing in his heart, partly because he wanted Cornwall +to be the first thing that young Stephen would realise as soon as he +realised anything. "And you never can tell, you know, how soon a child +can begin...." + +Stephen, turning the blue ball round and round in his fingers, gravely +listened. He was perfectly contented. He liked the sounds that circled +about him--his father's voice, the rustle of the fire, the murmur of +something beyond the walls that he could not understand. + +"And then, you see, Stephen, if you go up the hill and round to the +right you come to the market-place, all covered with shiny cobbles and +once a week filled with stalls where people sell things. At the other +end of it, facing you, there's an old Tower that's been there for ages +and ages. It's got a fruit stall underneath it now, but once, years ago +there was fighting there and men were killed. Then, if you go past it, +and out to the right, you get into the road that leads out of the town. +It goes right above the sea and on a fine-day--" + +"Peter!" + +The voice broke like a stone shattering a sheet of glass. The ball +dropped from young Stephen's hands. He felt suddenly cold and hungry and +wanted his woollen shoe. He was not sure whether he would not cry. He +would wait a moment and see how matters developed. + +Peter jumped to his feet and faced Clare: Clare in a fur cap from +beneath which her golden hair seemed to burn in anger, from beneath +which her eyes, furiously attacked his. Of course she had heard him +talking to the baby about Cornwall. They had quarrelled about it before +... he had thought that she was at her silly tea-party. His face that +had been, a few moments before, gentle, humorous, happy, now suddenly +wore the sullen defiance of a sulky boy. + +Her breast was heaving, her little hands beat against her frock. + +"He shan't," she broke out at last, "hear about it." + +"Of all the nonsense," Peter answered her slowly. "Really, Clare, +sometimes I think you're about two years old--" + +"He shan't hear about it," she repeated again. "You don't care--you +don't care what I think or what I say--I'm his mother--I have the +right--" + +The baby looked at them both with wondering eyes and to any outside +observer would surely have seemed the eldest of the three. Clare's +breath came in little pants of rage--"You know--that I hate--all mention +of that place--those people. It doesn't matter to you--you never think +of me--" + +"At any rate," he retorted, "if you were up here in the nursery more +often you would be able to take care that Stephen's innocent ears +weren't insulted with my vulgar conversation--" + +It was then that he saw, behind Clare, in the doorway, the dark smiling +face of Cards. + +Cards came forward. "Really, you two," he said, laughing. "Peter, old +man, don't be absurd--you too, Clare" (he called her Clare now). + +The anger died out of Clare's eyes: "Well, he knows I hate him talking +about that nasty old town to the baby--" Then, in a moment, she was +smiling again--"I'm sorry, Peter. Cards is quite right, and anyhow the +baby doesn't understand--" + +She stood smiling in front of him but the frown did not leave his face. + +"Oh! it's all right," he said sullenly, and he brushed past them up the +stairs, to his own room. + + +III + +From the silence of his room he thought that he could hear them laughing +about it downstairs. "Silly old Peter--always getting into tempers--" +Well, was he? And after all hadn't it been, this time, her affair? +Stephen and he had been happy enough before the others had come in. What +was this senseless dislike of Clare's to Cornwall? What could it matter +to her? It was always cropping up now. He could think of a thousand +occasions, lately, when she had been roused by it. + +But, as he paced, with frowning face, back and forwards across the room, +there was something more puzzling still that had to be thought about. +Why did they quarrel about such tiny things? In novels, in good, +reliable novels, it was always the big things about which people fought. +Whoever heard of two people quarrelling because one of them wanted to +talk about Cornwall? and yet it was precisely concerning things just as +trivial that they were always now disputing. Why need they quarrel at +all? In the first year there had always been peace. Why shouldn't there +be peace now? Where exactly lay Clare's altered attitude to himself, to +his opinions, to the world in general. If he yielded to her demands--and +he had yielded on many more occasions than was good either for her +or himself--she had, he fancied, laughed at him for being so easily +defeated. If he had not yielded then she had been, immediately, +impossible.... + +And yet, after their quarrels, there had been the most wonderful, +precious reconciliations, reconciliations that, even now at his thought +of them, made his heart beat faster. Now, soon, when he went downstairs +to dress for dinner, she would come to him, he knew, and beg most +beautifully, his pardon. But to-night it seemed suddenly that this kind +of thing had happened too often lately. He felt, poor Peter, bewildered. +There seemed to be, on every side of him, so many things that he was +called upon to manage and he was so unable to manage any of them. +He stopped in his treading to and fro and stared at the long deal +writing-table at which he always worked. + +There, waiting for him, were the first chapters of his new novel, +"Mortimer Stant." In the same way, two years ago, he had stared at the +early chapters of "The Stone House," on that morning before he had gone +to propose to Clare. Now there flashed through his mind the wonderful +things that he intended "Mortimer Stant" to be. It was to concern a +man of forty (in his confident selection of that age he displayed, most +stridently, his own youth) and Mortimer was to be a stolid, reserved +Philistine, who was, against his will, by outside forces, dragged into +an emotional crisis. + +At the back of his mind he had, perhaps, Maradick for his figure, +but that was almost unconscious. "Mortimer Stant" was to represent +a wonderful duel between the two camps--the Artists and the +Philistines--with ultimate victory, of course, for the Artists. It was +to be.... Well what was it to be? At present the stolid Mortimer was +hidden behind a phalanx of people--Clare, young Stephen, Cards, Bobby, +Mrs. Rossiter (tiresome woman), Alice Galleon--_That_ was it. It was +hidden, hidden just as parts of "The Stone House" had been hidden, but +hidden more deeply--a regular jungle of interests and occupations was +creeping, stealthily, stealthily upon him. + +And then his eye fell upon an open letter that lay on his table, and, at +the sight of it, he was seized with a burning sense of shame. How could +he have forgotten? + +The letter ran-- + +_My dear Mr. Westcott, + +You have not been to see me for many months. Further opportunities may, +by the hand of God, be denied you. + +Come if you can spare the time. + +Henry Galleon._ + +The words were written, feebly almost illegibly, in pencil. Peter +knew that Bobby had been, for many weeks, very anxious concerning his +father's health, and during the last few days he had abandoned the City +and spent all his time at home. That letter had come this very morning +and Peter had intended to go at once and inquire. The fact that he had +left all these months without going to see the old man rose before him +now like an accusing hand. He deserved, indeed, whatever the Gods might +choose to send him, if he could so wilfully neglect his duty. But he +knew that there had been, in the back of his mind, shame. His work had +not, so he might have put it to himself, been good enough to justify his +presence. There would have been questions asked, questions that he might +have found it difficult, indeed, to answer. + +But now the sight of that letter immediately encouraged him. Henry +Galleon, even though he was too ill to talk, would put him right with +all his perplexities, would give him courage to cut through all these +complications that had been gathering, lately, so thickly about him. +"This," the room seemed to whisper to him, "is your chance. After all, +you are given this opportunity. See him once before he dies and your +fate will be shown you, clearly, honestly." + +He stepped out of the house unperceived and was immediately conscious +of the Spring night. Spring--with a precipitancy and extravagance that +seems to be--to own peculiar quality in London--had leapt upon the +streets. + +The Embankment was bathed in the evening glow. Clouds, like bales of +golden wool, sailed down a sky so faintly blue that the white light of +a departed sun seemed to glow behind it. The lamps were crocus-coloured +against black barges that might have been loaded with yellow primroses +so did they hint, through their darkness, at the yellow haze around +them. + +The silence was melodious; the long line of dark houses watched like +prisoners from behind their iron bars. They might expect, it seemed, the +Spring to burst through the flagstones at their feet. + +Peter's heart was lightened of all its burden. He shared the glory, the +intoxication of the promise that was on every side of him. On such a +night great ambitions, great ideals, great lovers were created. + +He saw Henry Galleon, from behind his window, watching the pageant. He +saw him gaining new life, getting up from his bed of sickness, writing +anew his great masterpieces. And he saw himself, Peter Westcott, +learning at last from the Master the rule and discipline of life. All +the muddle, the confusion of this lazy year should be healed. He and +Clare should see with the same eyes. She should understand his need for +work, he should understand her need for help. All should be happiness +and victory in this glorious world and he, by the Master's side, +should... + +He stopped suddenly. The house that had been Henry Galleon's was blank +and dead. + +At every window the blinds were down.... + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WILD MEN + + +I + +To Peter's immediate world it was a matter of surprise that he should +take Henry Galleon's death so hardly. It is a penalty of greatness that +you should, to the majority of your fellow men, be an Idea rather than +a human being. To his own family Henry Galleon had, of course, been real +enough but to the outside world he was the author of "Henry Lessingham" +and "The Roads," whose face one saw in the papers as one saw the face +of Royalty. Peter Westcott, moreover, had not appeared, at any time, +to take more than a general interest in the great man, and it was even +understood that old Mrs. Galleon and Millicent and Percival considered +themselves somewhat affronted because the Master had "been exceedingly +kind to the young man. Taken trouble about him, tried to know him, but +young Westcott had allowed the thing to drop--had not been near him +during the last year." + +Even Bobby and Alice Galleon were astonished at Peter's grief. To Bobby +his father's death came as a fine ending to a fine career. He had died, +full of honour and of years. Even Bobby, who thought that he knew his +Peter pretty well by now, was puzzled. + +"He takes it," Bobby explained to Alice, "as though it were a kind of +omen, sees ever so much more in it than any of us do. It seems that he +was coming round the very evening that father died to talk to him, and +that he suddenly saw the blinds down; it was a shock to him, of course. +I think it's all been a kind of remorse working out, remorse not only +for having neglected my father but for having left other things--his +work, I suppose, rather to look after themselves. But he won't tell +me," Bobby almost desperately concluded, "he won't tell me anything--he +really is the most extraordinary chap." + +And Peter found it difficult enough to tell himself, did not indeed +try. He only knew that he felt an acute, passionate remorse and that +it seemed to him that the denial of that last visit was an omen of the +anger of all the Gods, and even--although to this last he gave no kind +of expression--the malicious contrivance of an old man who waited for +him down there in that house by the sea. It was as though gates had been +clanged in his face, and that as he heard them close he heard also the +jeering laughter behind them.... He had missed his chance. + +He saw, instantly, that Clare understood none of this, and that, indeed, +she took it all as rather an affectation on his part, something in him +that belonged to that side of him that she tried to forget. She hated, +quite frankly, that he should go about the house with a glum face +because an old man, whom he had never taken the trouble to go and see +when he was alive, was now dead. She showed him that she hated it. + +He turned desperately to his work. There had been a hint, only the other +day, from the newspaper for which he wrote, that his reviews had not, +lately, been up to his usual standard. He knew that they seemed to +him twice as difficult to do as they had seemed a year ago and that +therefore he did them twice as badly. + +He flung himself upon his book and swore that he would dissipate the +shadows that hid it from him. One of the shadows he saw quite clearly +was Cards' attitude to his work. It was strange, he thought almost +pathetically, how closely his feeling for Cards now resembled the +feeling that he had had, those years ago, at Dawson's. He still +worshipped him--worship was the only possible word--worshipped him for +all the things that he, Peter, was not. One could not be with him, +Peter thought, one could not watch his movements, hear his voice without +paying it all the most absolute reverence. The glamour about Cards was, +to Peter, something almost from another world. Peter felt so clumsy, so +rough and ugly and noisy and out-of-place when Cards was present that +the fact that Cards was almost always present now made life a very +difficult thing. How could Peter prevent himself from reverencing every +word that Cards uttered when one reflected upon the number of things +that Cards had done, the things that he had seen, the places to which +he had been. And Cards' attitude to Peter's work was, if not actually +contemptuous, at least something very like it. He did not, he professed, +read novels. The novelists' trade at the best, he seemed to imply, was +only a poor one, and that Peter's work was not altogether of the best he +almost openly asserted. "What can old Peter know about life?" one could +hear him saying--"Where's he been? Who's he known? Whatever in the world +has he done?" + +Against this, in spite of the glitter that shone about Cards' head, +Peter might, perhaps, have stood. He reminded himself, a hundred times a +day, that one must not care about the things that other people said, +one must have one's eyes fixed upon the goal--one must be sure of +oneself--what had Galleon said?... + +But there was also the effect of it all upon Clare to be considered. +Clare listened to Cards. She was, Peter gloomily considered, very +largely of Cards' opinion. The two people for whom he cared most in the +world after young Stephen who, as a critic, had not yet begun to count, +thought that he was wasting his time. + +Sometimes, as he sat at his deal table, fighting with a growing sense +of disillusionment that was like nothing so much as a child's first +discovery that its beautiful doll is stuffed with straw, he would wish +passionately, vehemently for the return of those days when he had sat in +his little bedroom writing "Reuben Hallard" with Norah Monogue, and dear +Mr. Zanti and even taciturn little Gottfried, there to encourage him. + +_That_ had been Adventure--but this ...? And then he would remember +young Stephen and Clare--moments even lately that she had shared with +him--and he would be ashamed. + + +II + +It was on an afternoon of furious wind and rain in early April that the +inevitable occurred. All the afternoon the trees in the little orchard +had been knocking their branches together as though they were in a +furious temper with Somebody and were indignant at not being allowed to +get at Him; they gave you the impression that it would be quite as much +as your life would be worth to venture into their midst. + +Peter had, during a number of hours, endeavoured to pierce the soul +of Mortimer Stant--meanwhile as the wind howled, the rain lashed the +windows of his room, and the personality of Mr. Stant faded farther and +farther away into ultimate distance, Peter was increasingly conscious +that he was listening for something. + +He had felt himself surrounded by this strange sense of anticipation +before. Sometimes it had stayed with him for a short period only, +sometimes it had extended over days--always it brought with it an +emotion of excitement and even, if he had analysed it sufficiently, +fear. + +He was suddenly conscious, in the naked spaces of his barely-furnished +room, of the personality of his father. So conscious was he that he got +up from his table and stood at the rain-swept window, looking out into +the orchard, as though he expected to see a sinister figure creeping, +stealthily, from behind the trees. In his thoughts of his father there +was no compunction, no accusing scruples of neglect, only a perfectly +concrete, active sense, in some vague way, of force pitted against +force. + +It might be summed up in the conviction that "the old man was not done +with him yet"--and as Peter turned back from the window, almost relieved +that he had, indeed, seen no creeping figure amongst the dark trees, he +was aware that never since the days of his starvation in Bucket Lane, +had he been so conscious of those threatening memories of Scaw House and +its inhabitants. + +At that, almost as he reached his table, there was a knock on his door. + +"Come in," he cried and, scorning himself for his fears, faced the maid +with staring eyes. + +"Two gentlemen to see you, sir," she said. "I have shown them into the +study." + +"Is Mrs. Westcott in?" + +"No, sir. She told me that she would not be back until six o'clock, +sir." + +"I will come down." + +In the hall, hanging amongst the other things as a Pirate might hang +beside a company of Evangelist ministers, was Stephen Brant's hat.... + +As Peter's hand turned on the handle of the study door he knew that his +heart was beating with so furious a clamour that he could not hear the +lock turn. + + +III + +He entered the room and found Stephen Brant and Mr. Zanti facing him. +The little window between the dim rows of books showed him the pale +light that was soon to succeed the storm. The two men seemed to fill the +little room; their bodies were shadowy and mysterious against the pale +colour, and Peter had the impression that the things in the room--the +chairs, the books, the table--huddled against the wall, so crowded did +the place seem. + +For himself, at his first sight of them, he was compelled, instantly, to +check a feeling of joy so overwhelming that he was himself astonished +at the force of it. To them, as they stood there, smiling, feeling that +same emotion to which he, also, was now succumbing! He checked himself. +It was as though he were forced suddenly, by a supreme effort of will, +to drive from the room a tumultuous crowd of pictures, enthusiasms and +memories, that, for the sake of the present and of the future, must be +forbidden to stay with him. It was absurd--he was a husband, a father, a +responsible householder, almost a personage... and yet, as he looked at +Stephen's eyes and Mr. Zanti's smile, he was the little boy back again +in Tan's shop with the old suit of armour, the beads and silver and +Eastern cloths, and out beyond the window, the sea was breaking upon the +wooden jetty.... + +He put the picture away from him and rushed to greet the two of them. +"Zanti!... Stephen!... Oh! how splendid! How perfectly, perfectly +splendid!" + +Mr. Zanti's enormous body was enclosed in a suit of bright blue, his +broad nose stood out like a bridge, his wide mouth gaped. He wore +white spats, three massive rings of twisted gold and in his blue tie a +glittering emerald. He was a magnificent, a costly figure and in nothing +was the geniality of his nature more plainly seen than in his obvious +readiness to abandon, at any moment, these splendid riches for the sake +of a valued attachment. "I love wearing these things," you might hear +him say, "but I love still better to do anything in the world that I can +for you, my friend." + +Stephen presented a more moderate appearance, but he was brown with +health and shining with strength. He was like the old Stephen of years +and years ago, so different from the--man who had shared with Peter that +room in Bucket Lane. + +He carried himself with that air of strong, cautious reserve that +Cornishmen have when they are in some other country than their own; his +eyes, mild, gentle, but on the alert, ready at an instant to be hostile. +Then, when Peter came in, the reserve instantly fled. They had, all +three of them, perhaps, expected embarrassment, but at that cry of +Peter's they were suddenly together, Mr. Zanti, waving his hands, almost +shouting, Stephen, his eyes resting with delight on Peter, Peter himself +another creature from the man who had pursued Mortimer Stant in the room +upstairs, half an hour before. + +"We thought that ze time 'ad come, dear boy... we know zat you are +busy." Mr. Zanti looked about him a little anxiously, as though he +expected to find Mrs. Peter hiding under a chair or a sofa. + +"Oh! Stephen, after all this long long while! Why didn't you come before +when Mr. Zanti came?" + +"Too many of us coming, Mr. Peter, and you so busy." + +"Nonsense. I'm not in the least busy. I'm sorry to say my wife's out but +the baby's in, upstairs, and there's the most terrific woman up there +too, the nurse--I'm frightened out of my life of her--but we'll get +rid of her and have the place to ourselves... you know the kid's called +after you, Stephen?" + +"No, is he really?" Stephen's face shone with pleasure. "I'm keen to see +him." + +"Oh, he's a trump! There never really was such a baby." + +"And your books, Mr. Peter?" + +"Oh! the books!" Peter's voice dropped, "never mind them now. But +what have you been doing, you two? Made heaps of money? Discovered +treasure?..." He pulled himself up shortly. He remembered the bookshop, +the girl leaning against the door looking into the street, then the boys +crying the news.... + +If Mr. Zanti had been mixing himself up with that sort of thing again! +And then the bright blue suit, the white spats, were reassuring. As if +one could ever take such a child seriously about anything! + +Mr. Zanti shook his head, ruefully. "No, not ezackly a fortune! There +was a place I 'eard of, right up in the Basque country--'twas an old +deserted garden, where zey 'ad buried treasure, centuries ago--I 'ad it +quite certainly from a friend. We came up there for a time but we found +nothing." He sighed and then was instantly cheered again. "But it's +all right. I've got a plan now--a wonderful plan." He became very +mysterious. "It's a certain thing--we're off to Cornwall, Mr. Brant and +myself--" + +"Cornwall?" + +"Come too, Peter." + +"Ah! don't I wish that I could!" He suddenly saw his life, his +books--everything in London holding him, tying him--"But I can't go now, +my father being there makes it impossible. But in any case, I'm a family +man now--you know." + +As he said the words he was conscious that, in Stephen's eyes at any +rate, the family man was about the last thing that he looked. He was +wondering, with intense curiosity, what were the things that Stephen was +finding in him, for the things that Stephen found were most assuredly +the things that he was. No one knew him as Stephen knew him. Against +his will the thought of Clare came driving upon him. How little she knew +him! or was it only that she knew another side of him? + +But he pulled himself away from that. "Now for the nursery--Stephen +Secundus. But you'll have to support me whilst I get rid of Mrs. +Kant--perhaps three of us together--" + +As he led the way upstairs he knew that Stephen was not entirely +reassured about him. + +Mrs. Kant was a large, busy woman, like a horse--a horse who dislikes +other horses and sniffs an enemy in every wind. She very decidedly +sniffed an enemy now, and Mr. Zanti's blue suit paled before her fierce +eyes. He stepped back into the doorway again, treading upon Stephen. +Peter, who was always conscious that Mrs. Kant looked upon himself and +Clare as two entirely ridiculous and slightly impertinent children, +stammered a little. + +"You might go down and have your tea now, Mrs. Kant. I'll keep an eye +upon Stephen." + +"I've had my tea, thank you, sir." + +"Well, I'll relieve you of the baby for a little." She was sewing. +She snapped off a piece of thread with a sharp click of her teeth, sat +silently for a moment staring in front of her, then quietly got up. +"Thank you, sir," she said and left the room. + +All three men breathed again as the door closed--then they were all +conscious of young Stephen. + +The thing was, of course, absurd, but to all three of them there came +the conviction that the baby had been laughing at them for their terror +of Mrs. Kant. He was curled up on a chair by the fire, looking at them +with his wide eyes over his shoulder, and he seemed to say, "I don't +care a snap for the woman--why should you?" The blue ball was on the +floor at the foot of the chair, and the firelight leapt upon the frieze +that Peter had so carefully chosen--giants and castles, dwarfs and +princesses running round the room in red, and blue and gold. + +Young Stephen looked at them, puzzled for an instant, then with a shout +he would have acclaimed his father, but his gaze was suddenly arrested +by the intense blueness of Mr. Zanti's clothes. He stared at it, +fascinated. Into his life there had suddenly broken the revelation that +you might have something far larger than the blue ball that moved and +shone in so fascinating a manner. His eyes immediately glittered with +the thought that he would presently have the joy of rolling something +so big and shining along the floor. He could not bear to wait. His fat +fingers curved in the air with the eager anticipation of it--words, +actual words had not as yet come to him, but, crowing and gurgling, +he informed the world that he wanted, he demanded, instantly, that he +should roll Mr. Zanti. + +"Well, old man, how are you?" said Peter. But he would not look at his +father. His arms stretched toward Mr. Zanti. + +"You've made a conquest right away, Zanti," Peter said laughing. + +It was indeed instantly to be perceived that Mr. Zanti was in his right +element. Any pretence of any kind of age fell away from him, his arms +curved towards young Stephen as young Stephen's curved towards him. He +was making noises in his throat that exactly resembled the noises that +the baby made. + +He looked down gravely upon the chair--"'Ow do you do?" he said and he +took young Stephen's fat fingers in his hand. + +"'E says," he remarked, looking at Peter and Stephen, "that 'e would +like to roll me upon the floor--like that ball there--" + +"Well, let him," said Peter laughing. + +The baby then dug his fingers into Mr. Zanti's hair and pulled down his +head towards the chair, intense satisfaction flooding his face as he did +so. + +The baby seemed, for a moment, to whisper into Mr. Zanti's ear, then, +chuckling it climbed down from the chair, and, on all fours, crawled, +its eyes and mouth suddenly serious as though it were conscious that it +was engaged upon a very desperate adventure. The three men watched it. +Across the absolute silence of the room there came the sound of the +rain driving upon the pane, of the tumbling chatter of the fire, of the +baby's hands falling upon the carpet. + +Mr. Zanti was suddenly upon his knees. "Here," he cried, seizing the +blue ball. He rolled it to young Stephen. It was caught, dropped and +then the fat fingers had flung themselves upon Mr. Zanti's coat. He let +himself go and was pulled back sprawling upon the floor, his huge body +stretching from end to end of the rug. + +Then, almost before they had realised it, the other two men were down +upon their knees. The ball was picked up and tossed from hand to hand, +the baby, sitting upon Mr. Zanti's stomach, watched with delight these +extraordinary events. + +Then they played Hunt the Slipper, sitting round in a ring upon the +carpet, young Stephen trying to catch his own slipper, falling over +upon his back, kicking his legs in the air, dashing now at Stephen the +Elder's beard, now at his father's coat, now at Mr. Zanti's legs. + +The noise of the laughter drowned the rain and the fire. Mr. Zanti had +the slipper--he was sitting upon it. Peter made a dash for it, Mr. Zanti +rolled over, they were all in a heap upon the floor. + +"I've got it." Mr. Zanti was off on all fours round the room, the baby +on his back clutching on to his hair. A chair was over, then a box of +bricks, the table rocked and then was suddenly down with a crash! + +What had come to them all? Stephen, so grave, so solemn, had caught the +baby into the air, had flung him up and caught him again. Peter and Mr. +Zanti looking up from the floor saw him standing, his legs wide, his +beard flowing, his arms stretched with young Stephen shouting between +them. + +Behind him, around him was a wrecked nursery.... + +The baby, surveying the world from this sudden height, wondered at +this amazing glory. He had never before beheld from such a position the +things that bounded his life. How strange the window seemed! Through it +now he could see the tops of the trees, the grey sky, the driving lines +of rain! Only a little way above him now were pictures that had always +glowed before from so great a distance. Around him, above him, below +him space--a thing to be frightened of were one not held so tightly, so +safely. + +He approved, most assuredly, of the banishment of Mrs. Kant, and the +invasion of these splendid Things! He would have life always like this, +with that great blue ball to roll upon the floor, with that brown +beard, near now to his hand, to clutch, with none of that hideous +soap-in-the-eyes-early-to-bed Philosophy that he was becoming now +conscious enough to rebel against. + +He dug his hands into the beard that was close to him and, like the sons +of the morning, shouted with joy. + +Peter, looking up at the two Stephens, felt his burdens roll off his +back. If only things could be like this always! And already he saw +himself, through these two, making everything right once more with +Clare. They should prove to her that, after all, his past life had +not been so terrible, that Cornwall could produce heroes if it liked. +Through these two he would get fresh inspiration for his work. He felt +already, through them, a wind blowing that cleared all the dust from his +brain. + +And how splendid for the boy! To have two such men for his friends! +Already he was planning to persuade them to stay in London. He had +thought of the very place for them in Chelsea, near the Roundabout, the +very house.... + +"Of course you'll stay for dinner, you two--" + +"But--" said Mr. Zanti, mopping his brow from which perspiration was +dripping. + +"No, nonsense. Of course you'll stop. We've got such heaps to talk +about--" + +Stephen had got the baby now on his shoulder. "Off to Cornwall," he +shouted and charged down the room. + +It was at that instant that Peter was conscious that Clare had been +standing, for some moments, in the room. She stood, quite silently, +without moving, by the door, her eyes blazing at him.... + +His first thought was of that other time when she had found him in the +nursery, of the quarrel that they had had. Then he noticed the state of +the room, the overturned chairs and table. Then he saw Mr. Zanti still +wiping his forehead, but confusedly, and staring at Clare in a shocked +hushed way, as though he were a small boy who had been detected with his +fingers in a jam-pot. + +Stephen saw her at last. He put the baby down and came slowly across the +floor. Peter spoke: "Why, Clare! You're back early. We've been having +such a splendid time with Stephen--let me introduce my friends to +you--Mr. Zanti and Mr. Brant... you've heard me speak of them--" + +They came towards her. She shook hands with them, regarding them +gravely. + +"How do you do?" + +There was silence. Then Mr. Zanti said--"We must be goin'--longer than +we ought to stop--we 'ave business--" + +Peter felt rising in him a cold and surging anger at her treatment of +them. These two, the best friends that he had in the world--that she +should dare! + +"Oh! you'll stay to dinner, you two! You must--" + +"I'm afraid, ver' afraid," Mr. Zanti said bowing very low and still +looking at Clare with apologetic, troubled eyes, "we 'ave no time. +Immediate business." + +Still Clare said nothing. + +There was another moment's silence, and then Peter said: + +"I'll come down and see you off." Still without moving from her place +she shook hands with them. + +"Good-bye." + +They all three went out. + +Peter could say nothing. The words seemed to be choked in his throat by +this tide of anger that was like nothing he had ever felt before. + +He held their hands for a moment as they stood outside in the dusk. + +"Where are you staying? I must see you again--" + +"We go down to Cornwall to-morrow." + +Stephen caught Peter's shoulder: + +"Come down to us, Peter, if you get a chance." They all stared at one +another; they were all, absolutely, entirely without words. Afterwards +they would regret that they had said nothing, but now--! + +They vanished into the dusk and Peter, stepping into the house again, +closed very softly the hall door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ROCKING THE ROUNDABOUT + + +I + +As he climbed, once more, the stairs to the nursery, he was conscious of +the necessity for a great restraint. Did he but relax for an instant his +control he was aware that forces--often dimly perceived and shuddered +at--would now, as never in his life before, burst into freedom. + +It was as though a whole life of joy and happiness had been suddenly +snatched from him and it was Clare who had robbed him--Clare who had +never cared what the things might be that she demanded from him--Clare +who gave him nothing. + +But his rage now, he also felt, was beyond all reason, something that +belonged to that other part of him, the part that Scaw House and its +dark room understood and so terribly fostered. + +He was afraid of what he might do. + + +II + +On opening the nursery door he saw the straight, thin, shining back of +Mrs. Kant as she bent to put things straight. Young Stephen was quietly +asleep. He closed the door, and, turning in the narrow passage, found +Clare coming out of her room. In the dim light they faced one another, +hostility flaming between them. She looked at him for a moment, her +breast heaving, her mouth so tight and sharp, her eyes so fierce that +her little stature seemed to be raised by her anger to a great height. + +At that moment Peter felt that he hated her as he had never hated any +one in his life before. + +She went back, without a word, into her room. + +She did not come down again that night and he had his evening meal, +miserably, alone. + +He slept in his dressing-room. Long before morning his rage had gone. He +looked at her locked door and wished, miserably, that he might die for +her.... + + +III + +Later, as he sat, hopelessly, over the dim and sterile pages of +"Mortimer Slant," Mrs. Rossiter came, heavily, in to talk with him. Mrs. +Rossiter always entered the room with an expression of stupid benignity +that hid a good deal of rather sharp perception. The fact that she was +not nearly so stupid as she looked enabled her to look all the stupider +and she covered a multitude of brains with a quantity of hard black silk +that she spread out around her with the air of one who is filling as +much of the room as she can conveniently seize upon. Her plump arms, +her broad and placid bosom, her flat smooth face, her hair, entirely +negative in colour and arrangement, offered no clue whatever to her +unsuspected sharpnesses. Smooth, broad, flat and motionless she carried, +like the Wooden Horse of Troy, a thousand dangers in the depths of her +placidity. + +She had come now to assist her daughter, the only person for whom +she may be said to have had the slightest genuine affection, for +Dr. Rossiter she had long-despised and Mrs. Galleon was an ally and +companion but never a friend. She had allowed Clare to marry Peter, +chiefly because Clare would have married him in any case, but also, a +little, because she thought that Peter had a great career in front of +him. Now that Peter's career seemed already to be, for the most part, +behind him, she disliked him and because he appeared to have made Clare +unhappy suddenly hated him... but placidity was the shield that covered +her attack and, for a symbol, one might take the large flat golden +brooch that she wore on her bosom--flat, expressionless and shining, +with the sharpest pin behind it that ever brooch possessed. + +Peter, whose miseries had accumulated as the minutes passed, was ready +to seize upon anything that promised a reconciliation. He did not like +Mrs. Rossiter--he had never been able to get to close quarters with +her, and he was conscious that his roughness and occasional outbursts +displeased her. He felt, too, that the qualities that he had resented +in Clare owed their origin to her mother. That brooch of hers was +responsible for a great deal. + +Fixing his eyes upon it he said, "You've come about Clare?" + +"Yes, Peter." Mrs. Rossiter settled herself more comfortably, spread her +skirts, folded her hands. "She's very unhappy." + +The mild eyes baffled him. + +"I'm terribly sorry. I will do anything I can, but I think--that I had +a right"--he faltered a little; it was so like talking to an empty +Dairy--"had a right to mind. Two old friends of mine--two of the best +friends that I have in the world were here yesterday and Clare--" + +"I don't think," the soft voice broke in upon him whilst the eyes +searched his body up and down, "that, even now, Peter, you quite +understand Clare--" + +"No," he said eagerly, "I know. I'm blundering, stupid. Lots of times +I've irritated her, and now again." He paused, but then added, with +a touch of his old stubbornness--"But they were friends of mine--she +should have treated them so." + +Mrs. Rossiter felt that she did indeed hate the young man. + +"Clare is very unhappy," she repeated. "She tells me that she has been +crying all night. You must remember, Peter, that her life has been very +different to yours--" + +He wished that she would not repeat herself; he wished that she would +not always use the same level voice; he wanted insanely to tell her that +she ought to say "different from"--he could not take his eyes from the +brooch. But the thought of Clare came to him and he bowed himself once +more humbly. + +"I will see that things are better," he said earnestly. "I don't know +what has been the matter lately--my work and everything has been wrong, +and I expect my temper has been horrible. You know," he said with a +little crooked smile, "that I've got to work to keep it all going, and +when I'm writing badly then my temper goes to pieces." + +Mrs. Rossiter, with no appearance of having heard anything that he had +said, continued-- + +"You know, Peter, that your temperament is very different to Clare's. +You are, and I know you will forgive my putting it so plainly, a little +wild still--doubtless owing to your earlier years. Clare is gentle, +bright, happy. She has never given my husband or myself a moment's +trouble, but that is because we understood her nature. We knew that +she loved people about her to be happy--she flourished in the sun, she +drooped under the clouds... under the clouds" Mrs. Rossiter repeated +again softly, as she searched, with care, for her next words. + +Irritation was rising within Peter. Why should it be concluded so +inevitably that the fault was all on Peter's side and not at all on +Clare's--after all, there were reasons... but he pulled himself up. He +had behaved like a beast. + +"I've tried very hard--" he began. + +"Clouds--" said Mrs. Rossiter. "And you, Peter, are at times--I have +seen it myself and I know that it is apparent to others--inclined to be +morose--gloomy, a little gloomy--" Her fingers tapped the silk of her +dress. "Dear Clare, considering what her own life has been, shrinks, I +must confess it seems to me quite naturally, from any reminder of what +your own earlier circumstances have been. Look at it, Peter, for an +instant from the outside and you will see, at once, I am sure, what +it must have been to her, yesterday, to come into her nursery, to find +tables, chairs overturned, strange men shouting and flinging poor little +Stephen towards the ceiling--some talk about Cornwall--really, Peter, I +think you can understand..." + +He abandoned all his defences. "I know--I ought to have realised... it +was quite natural..." + +In the back of his head he heard her words "You're morose--you're wild. +Other people find you so--you're making a mess of everything and every +one knows it--" + +He was humbled to the dust. If only he might make it all right with +Clare, then he would see to it--Oh! yes he would see to it--that nothing +of this kind ever happened again. From Mrs. Rossiter's standpoint he +looked back upon his life and found it all one ignoble, selfish muddle. +Dear Clare!--so eager to be happy and he had made her miserable. + +"Will she forgive me?" + +"Dear Clare," said Mrs. Rossiter, rising brightly and with a general +air of benevolence towards all the sinners in existence, "is the most +forgiving creature in the world." + +He went down to her bedroom and found her lying on a sofa and reading a +novel. + +He fell on his knees at her side--"Clare--darling--I'm a beast, a +brute--" + +She suddenly turned her face into the cushions and burst into passionate +crying. "Oh! it's horrible--horrible--horrible--" + +He kissed her hand and then getting on to his feet again, stood looking +at her awkwardly, struggling for words with which to comfort her. + + +IV + +And then at luncheon, there was a little, pencilled feeble note for +Peter from Norah Monogue. "Please, if you can spare half an hour come to +me. In a day or two I am off to the country." + +Things had just been restored to peace and happiness--Clare had +just proposed that they should go, that afternoon, to a Private View +together--they might go and have tea with-- + +For an instant he was tempted to abandon Norah. Then his courage came:-- + +"Here's a note from Miss Monogue," he said. "She's awfully ill I think, +I ought--" + +Clare's face hardened again. She got up from the table-- + +"Just as you please--" she said. + +He climbed on to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down +Piccadilly with a. hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of +Fate. Why, at this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah +Monogue's have made its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and +sorrow had he and Clare reached once more a reconciliation only, so +wantonly, to be plucked away from it again! From the top of his omnibus +he looked down upon a sinister London. It was a heavy, lowering day; +thick clouds like damp cloths came down upon the towers and chimneys. +The trees in the Green Park were black and chill and in and out of the +Clubs figures slipped cautiously and it seemed furtively. Just beyond +the Green Park they were building a vast hotel, climbing figures and +twisting lines of scaffolding pierced the air, and behind the rolling +and rattling of the traffic the sound of many hammers beat rhythmically, +monotonously.... + +To Peter upon his omnibus, suddenly that sound that he had heard +before--that sound of London stirring--came back to him, and now +more clearly than he had ever known it. Tap-tap-tap-tap... +Clamp-clamp-tap-tap-tap-tap--whir! whir!... Clamp-clamp.... + +It seemed to him that all the cabs and the buses and the little +black figures were being hurried by some power straight, fast, along +Piccadilly to be pitched, at the end of it, pell-mell, helter-skelter +into some dark abysmal pit, there to perish miserably. + +Yes, the beast was stirring! Ever so little the pavements, the houses +were heaving. Perhaps if one could see already the soil was cracking +beneath one's feet. "Look out! London will have you in a minute." +Tap-tap-tap-tap--clamp-clamp--tap-tap-tap-tap--whir-whir--clamp-clamp.... + +Anyhow it was a heavy, clammy day. The houses were ghosts and the people +were ghosts, and grey shadows, soon perhaps to be a yellow fog, floated +about the windows and the doors and muffled all human sounds. + +He passed the great pile of scaffolding, saw iron girders shining, saw +huge cranes swinging in mid-air, saw tiny, tiny black atoms perched +above the noise and swallowed by the smoke... tap-tap-clamp-clamp.... + +Yes, the beast was moving... and, out and in, lost and then found again, +crept that twisting chain of beggars to whose pallid army Peter himself +had once so nearly belonged. + +"I suppose I've got a headache after all that row with Clare," Peter +thought as he climbed off the omnibus. + + +V + +He realised, as he came into the Bloomsbury square, and saw Mrs. +Brockett gloomily waiting for him, that the adventures of his life were +most strangely bound together. Not for an instant did he seem to be +able to escape from any one of them. Now it would be Cornwall, now the +Bookshop, now Stephen, now Mr. Zanti, now Bucket Lane, now Treliss--all +of them interweaving, arresting his action at every moment. Because he +had done that once now this must not be permitted him; he felt, as he +rang the old heavy bell of Brockett's that his head would never think +clearly again. As the door opened and he stepped into the hall +he heard, faintly, across the flat spaces of the Square +"Tap-tap-tap-tap-clamp-clamp...." + +Even Mrs. Brockett, who might be considered if any one in the world, +immune from morbid imaginations, felt the heaviness of the day, +suggested a prevalence of thunder, and shook her head when Peter asked +about Miss Monogue. + +"She's bad, Mr. Peter, very bad, poor dear. There's no doubt about that. +It's hard to see what can be done for her--but plucky! That's a small +word for it!" + +"I'm sure she is," said Peter, feeling ashamed of having made so much of +his own little troubles. + +"She must get out of London if she's to improve at all. In a week or two +I hope she'll be able to move." + +"How's every one else?" + +"Oh, well enough." Mrs. Brockett straightened her dress with her +beautiful hands in the old familiar way--"But you're not looking very +hearty yourself, Mr. Peter." + +"Oh! I'm all right," he answered smiling; but she shook her head after +him as she watched him go up the stairs. + +And then he was surprised. He came into Norah Monogue's room and found +her sitting up by her window, looking better than he had ever seen her. +Her face was full of colour and her eyes bright and smiling. Only on her +hands the blue veins stood out, and their touch, when she shook hands +with him, was hot and burning. + +But he was reassured; Mrs. Brockett had exaggerated and made the worst +of it all. + +"You're looking splendid--I'm so glad. I was afraid from your letter-" + +"Oh! I really am getting on," she broke in gaily, "and it's the nicest +boy in the world that you are to come in and see me so quickly. Only on +a day like this London does just lie heavily upon one doesn't it? and +one just longs for the country--" + +A little breath of a sigh escaped from her and she looked through her +window at the dim chimneys, the clouds hanging like consolidated smoke, +the fine, thin dust that filtered the air. + +"You're looking tired yourself, Peter. Working too hard?" + +"No," he shook his head. "The work hasn't been coming easily at all. +I suppose I've been too conscious, lately, of the criticisms every one +made about 'The Stone House.' I don't believe one ought really to listen +to anybody and yet it's so hard not to, and so difficult to know whose +opinion one ought to take if one's going to take anybody's. I wish," +he suddenly brought out, "Henry Galleon were still alive. I could have +followed him." + +"But why follow anybody?" + +"Ah! that's just it. I'm beginning to doubt myself and that's why it's +getting so difficult." + +Her eyes searched his face and she saw, at once, that he was in very +real trouble. He looked younger, just then, she thought, than she had +ever seen him, and she felt herself so immensely old that she could have +taken him into her arms and mothered him as though he'd been her own +son. + +"There are a lot of things the matter," she said. "Tell me what they all +are." + +"Well," he said slowly, "I suppose it's all been mostly my own +fault--but the real difficulty is that I don't seem to be able to run +the business of being married and the business of writing together. I +don't think Clare in the least cares now about my writing--she almost +resents it; she cared at first when she thought that I was going to make +a huge success of it, but now--" + +"But, of course," said Miss Monogue, "that success comes slowly--it must +if it's going to be any use at all--" + +"Well, she doesn't see that. And she wants me to go out to parties and +play about all the time--and then she doesn't want me to be any of the +things that I was before I met her. All my earlier life frightens her--I +suppose," he suddenly ended, "I want her to be different and she wants +me to be different and we can't make a compromise." + +Then Miss Monogue said: "Have any outside people interfered at all?" + +Peter coloured. "Well, of course, Mrs. Rossiter stands up for Clare. She +came and talked to me this morning and I think the things that she said +were quite true. I suppose I am morose and morbid sometimes--more than I +realise--and then," he added slowly, "there's Cards--" + +"Cards?" + +"Cardillac--a man I was at school with. I'm very fond of him. He's +the best friend I've got, and he's been all over the place and done +everything and, of course, knows ever so much more about the world than +I do. The fact is he thinks really that my novels are dreadful nonsense, +only he's much too kind to say so--and, of course, Clare looks up to him +a lot. Although he's only my own age he seems so much older than both +Clare and myself. I don't believe she'd have lost interest in my work so +quickly if he hadn't influenced her--and he's influenced me too--" Peter +added sighing. + +"Well--and is there anything else?" + +"Yes. There's Stephen. I can't begin to tell you how I love that kid. +There haven't been many people in my life that I've cared about and +I've never realised anything so intensely before. Besides," he went on +laughing proudly, "he's such a splendid kid! I wish you could see him, +Norah. He'll do something one day--" + +"Well, what's the trouble about Stephen?" + +"Clare's so odd about him. There are times when I don't believe she +cares for him the least little bit. Then there are other times when she +resents fiercely my interfering about him. Sometimes she seems to love +him more than anything in the world, but it's always in an odd defiant +way--just as though she were afraid that something would hurt her if she +showed that she cared too much." + +There was silence between them for a minute and then Peter summed it +all up with:--"The fact is, Norah, that every sort of thing's getting +in between me and my work and worries me. It's as though I were tossing +more balls in the air than I could possibly manage. At one moment I +think it's Clare that I've got especially to hang on to--another time +it's the book--and then it's Stephen. The moment I've settled down +something turns up to remind me of Cornwall or the Bookshop. Fact is I'm +getting battered at by something or other and I never can get my breath. +I oughtn't ever to have married--I'm not up to it." + +Norah Monogue took his hand. + +"You are up to it, Peter, but I expect you've got a lot to go through +before you're clear of things. Now I'm going to be brutal. The fact is +that you're too self-centred. People never do anything in the world so +long as they are wondering whether the world's going to hurt them or no. +Those early years of yours made you morbid. You've got a temper and one +or two other things that want a lot of holding down and that takes up +your attention--And then Clare isn't the woman to help you--" + +Peter was about to break in but she went on:--'"Oh! I know my Clare +through and through. She's just as anxious as you are not to be hurt by +anything and so she's being hurt all the time. She's out for happiness +at any cost and you're out for freedom--freedom from every kind of +thing--and because both of you are denied it you are restive. But you +and Clare are both people whose only salvation is in being hurt and +knocked about and bruised to such an extent that they simply don't know +where they are. Oh! I know--I'm exactly the same sort of person myself. +We can thank the Gods if we are knocked about--" + +Suddenly she paused and, falling back in her chair, put her hand to her +breast, coughing. Something seized her, held her in its grip, tossed +her from side to side, at last left her white, speechless, utterly +exhausted. It had come so suddenly that it had taken Peter entirely by +surprise. She lay back now, her eyes closed, her face a grey white. + +He ran to the door and called Mrs. Brockett. She came and with an +exclamation hurried away for remedies. + +Peter suddenly felt his hand seized--a hoarse whisper was in his +ear--"Peter--dear--go--at--once--I can't bear--you--to see me--like +this. Come back--another day." + +He knelt, moved by an affection and tenderness that seemed stronger than +any emotion he had ever known, and kissed her. She whispered: + +"Dear boy--" + +On his way back to Chelsea, the orange lamps, the white streets powdered +with the evening glow, the rustling plane trees whispered to him, +"You've got to be knocked about--you've got to be knocked about--you've +got to be knocked about--" but the murmur was no longer sinister. + +Still thinking of Norah, he went up to the nursery to see the boy in +bed. He remembered that Clare was going out alone to a party and that he +would have the evening to himself. + +On entering the room, dark except for a nightlight by the boy's bed, +some unknown fear assailed him. He was instantly, at the threshold, +conscious of it. He stood for a moment in silence. Then realised what it +was. The boy was moaning in his sleep. + +He went quickly over to the cot and bent down. Stephen's cheeks were +flaming, his hands very hot. + +Peter rang the bell. Mrs. Kant appeared. + +"Is there anything the matter with Stephen?" + +Mrs. Kant looked at him, surprised, a little offended. "He's had a +little cold all day, sir. I've kept him indoors." + +"Have you taken his temperature?" + +"Yes, sir, nothing at all unusual. He often goes up and down." + +"Have you spoken to your mistress?" + +"Yes, sir. She agrees with me that there is nothing unusual--" + +He brushed past the woman and went to his wife's bedroom. + +She was dressed and was putting on a string of pearls, a wedding present +from her father. She smiled up at him-- + +"Clare, do you know Stephen's ill?" + +"No, it's only a cold. I've been up to see him--" + +He took her hand--she smiled up at him--"Did you enjoy your visit?" She +fastened the necklace. + +"Clare, stay in to-night. It may be nothing but if the boy got worse--" + +"Do you want me to stay?" + +"Yes." + +"I wanted you to go with me this afternoon--" + +"That was different. The boy may be really ill--" + +"You didn't do what I wanted this afternoon. Why should I do what you +want now?" + +"Clare, stay. Please, please--" + +She took her hand gently out of his, and, as she went out of the door +switched off the electric light. + +He heard the opening of the hall door and, standing where she had left +him in the dark bedroom, saw, shining, laughing at him, her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WHY? + + +I + +There are occasions in our life when the great Wave so abruptly +overwhelms us that before we have recovered our dazed senses it has +passed and the water on every side of us is calm again. + +There are other occasions when we stand, it may seem through a lifetime +of anticipation bracing our backs for the inevitable moment. Every hour +before it comes is darkened, every light is dimmed by its implacable +shadow. Then when at last it is upon us we meet it with an indifference, +almost with a relief, because it has come at last. + +So was it now with Peter. During many weeks he had been miserable, +apprehensive, seeing an enemy in every wind. Now, behold, his adversary +in the open. + +"This," he might cry to that old man, down in Scaw House, "this is what +you have been preparing for me, is it? At last you've shown me--well, +I'll fight you." + +Young Stephen was very ill. Peter was strangely assured that it was +to be a bad business. Well, it rested with him, Peter, to pull the boy +through. If he chose to put his back into it and give the kid some of +his own vigour and strength then it was bound to be all right. + +Standing there in the dark, he stripped his mind naked; he flung from it +every other thought, every other interest--his work, Clare, everything +must go. Only Stephen mattered and Stephen should be pulled through. + +For an instant, a little cold trembling fear struck his heart. +Supposing...? Then fiercely, flinging the thought from him he trampled +it down. + +He went to the telephone and called up a doctor who lived in Cheyne +Walk. The man could be with him in a quarter of an hour. + +Then he went back into the nursery. Mrs. Kant was there. + +"I've sent for Dr. Mitchell." + +"Very well, sir." + +"He'll be here in quarter of an hour." + +"Very well, sir." + +He hated the woman. He would like to take her thin, bony neck and wring +it. + +He went over to the cot and looked down. The little body outlined under +the clothes was so helpless, the little hands, clenched now, were so +tiny; he was breathing very fast and little sounds came from between his +teeth, little struggling cries. + +Peter saw that moment when Stephen the Elder had held Stephen the +younger aloft in his arms. The Gods appear to us only when we claim to +challenge their exultation. They had been challenged at that moment.... +Young Stephen against the Gods! Surely an unequal contest! + + +II + +Dr. Mitchell came and instantly the struggle was at its height. +Appendicitis. As they stood over the cot the boy awoke and began to +cry a little, turned his head from side to side as though to avoid the +light, beating with his hands on the counterpane. + +"I must send for a nurse at once," Dr. Mitchell said. + +"Everything is in your hands," Peter answered. + +"You'd better go down and have something to eat." + +The little cry came trembling and pitiful, driving straight into Peter's +heart. + +"Temperature 105--pretty bad." Mitchell, who was a stout, short man with +red cheeks, grey eyes and the air of an amiable Robin, was transformed +now into something sharp, alert, official. + +Peter caught his arm-- + +"It's all right?... you don't think--?" + +The man turned and looked at him with eyes so kind that Peter trembled. + +"Look here, we've got to fight it, Westcott. I ought to have been called +hours ago. But keep your head and we'll pull the child through.... +Better go down and have something to eat. You'll need it." + +Outside the door Peter faced a trembling Mrs. Kant. + +"Look here, you lied just now. You never took the boy's temperature." + +"Well, sir--" + +"Did you or not?" + +"Well, sir, Mrs. Westcott said there was no need. I'm sure I thought--" + +"You leave the house now--at once. Go up and pack your things and clear +out. If I see you here in an hour's time the police shall turn you out." + +The woman began to cry. Peter went downstairs. To his own surprise he +found that he could eat and drink. Of so fundamental an importance was +young Stephen in his life that the idea that he could ever lose him +was of an absurd and monstrous incredibility. No, of that there was no +question--but he was conscious nevertheless of the supreme urgency of +the occasion. That young Stephen had ever been delicate or in any way a +weakling was a monstrous suggestion. Always when one thought of him it +was a baby laughing, tumbling--or thoughtfully, with his hand rolled +tightly inside his father's, taking in the world. + +Just think of all the tottering creatures who go on and on and snap +their fingers at death. The grotesque old men and women! Or think of +the feeble miserables who never know what a day's health means--crowding +into Davos or shuddering on the Riviera! + +And young Stephen, the strongest, most vital thing in the world! +Nevertheless, suddenly, Peter found that he could eat and drink no more. +He put the food aside and went upstairs again. + +In the darkened nursery he sat in a chair by the fire and waited for +the hours to pass. The new nurse had arrived and moved quietly about +the room. There was no sound at all save the monotonous whispering +beseeching little cries that came from the bed. One had heard that +concentration of will might do so much in the directing of such a +battle, and surely great love must help. Peter, as he sat in the +half-darkness thought that he had never before realised his love for +the boy--how immense it was--how all-pervading, so that if it were taken +from him life would be instantly broken, without colour, without any +rhythm or force. + +As he sat there he thought confusedly of a great number of things of +his own childhood--of his mother--of a boy at Dawson's who had asked him +once as they gazed up at a great mass of apple blossoms in bloom, +"Do you think there is anything in all that stuff about God anyway, +Westcott?"--of a night when he had gone with some loose woman of the +town and of the wet miry street that they had left behind them as +she had closed the door--of that night at the party when he had seen +Cardillac again--of the things that Maradick had said to him that night +when young Stephen was born--and so from that to his own life, his own +birth, his father, Scaw House, the struggle that it had all been. + +He remembered a sentence out of a strange novel of Dostoieffsky's that +he had once read, "The Brothers Karamazoff": "It's a feature of the +Karamazoffs ... that thirst for life regardless of everything--" and the +Karamazoffs were of a sensual, debased stock--rotten at the base of +them with an old drunken buffoon of a father--yes, that was like the +Westcotts. All his life, struggle ... and young Stephen--all _his_ life, +struggle... and yet, even in the depths of degradation, if the fight +were to go that way there would still be that lust for life. + +So many times he had been almost under. First Stephen Brant had saved +him, then at Brockett's Norah Monogue, then in Bucket Lane his illness, +then in Chelsea his marriage, lately young Stephen... always, always +something had been there to keep him on his feet. But if everything were +taken from him, if he were absolutely, nakedly alone--what then? Ah, +what then! + +He buried his head in his hands. "God, you don't know what young Stephen +is to me--or, yes, of course you do know, God--and because you do know, +you will not take him from me." + +The little tearing pain at his heart held him--every now and again it +turned like some grinding key. + +Mitchell entered with another doctor. Peter went over to the window, +and whilst they made their examination, stared through the glass at the +fretwork of trees, the golden haze of London beyond, two stars that now, +when the storm had spent itself, showed in a dark dim sky. Very faintly +the clanging note of trams, the clatter of a hansom cab, the imperative +call of some bell came to him. + +The world could thus go on! Mitchell crossed to him and put his hand on +his shoulder-- + +"He's pretty bad, Westcott. An operation's out of the question I'm +afraid. But if you'd like another opinion--" + +"No thanks. I trust you and Hunt." The doctor could feel the boy's body +trembling beneath his touch. + +"It's all right, Westcott. Don't be frightened. We'll do all mortals +can. We'll know in the early morning how things are going to be. The +child's got a splendid constitution." + +He was interrupted by the opening of the nursery door and, turning, the +men saw Clare with the light of the passage at her back, standing in the +doorway. Her cloak was trailing on the floor--around her her pink filmy +dress hung like shadows from the light behind her. Her face was white, +her eyes wide. + +"What--?" she whispered in the voice of a frightened child. + +Peter crossed the room, and took her with him into the passage, closing +the door behind him. + +She clung to him, looking up into his face. + +"Stephen's very bad, dear. No, it's something internal--" + +"And I went out to a party?" her voice was trembling, she was very near +to tears. "But I was miserable, wretched all the time. I wanted to come +back, I knew I oughtn't to have gone.... Oh Peter, will he die? Oh! poor +little thing! Poor little thing!" + +Even at that moment, Peter noticed, she spoke as though it were somebody +else's baby. + +"No, no, dear. It'll be all right. Of course it will. Mitchell's here, +he'll pull him through. But you'd better go and lie down, dear. I +promise to come and tell you if anything's the matter. You can't do any +good--there's an excellent nurse!" + +"Where's Mrs. Kant?" + +"I dismissed her this evening for lying to me. Go to bed. Clare--really +it's the best thing." + +She began to cry with her hands up to her face, but she went, slowly, +with her cloak still trailing after her, to her room. + +She had not, he noticed, entered the nursery. + + +III + +He went back and sat down again in the arm-chair by the fire. Poor +Clare! he felt only a great protecting pity for her--a strange feeling, +compounded of emotions that were unexpectedly confused. A feeling that +was akin to what he would have felt had she been his sister and been +insulted by some drunken blackguard in the street. Poor Clare! She was +so young--simply not up to these big grown-up troubles. + +Those little cries had ceased--only every now and again an echo of a +moan--so slight was the sound that broke the silence. The hours +advanced and there settled about the house that chilly ominous sense of +anticipation that the early morning brings in its grey melancholy +hands. It was a little house but it was full, now, of expectancy. Up the +stairs, through the passages, pressing against the windows there were +many presences waiting for the moment when the issue of this struggle +would be decided. The air was filled with their chill breath. The +struggle round the bed was at its height. On one side doctors, nurses, +the father, the mother--on the other that still, ironic Figure, in His +very aloofness so strong, in His indifference so terrible. + +With Peter, as the grey dawn grew nearer, confidence fled. He was +suddenly conscious of the strength and invisibility of the thing that +he was fighting. He must do something. If he were compelled to sit, +silently, quietly, with his hands folded, much longer, he would go +mad. But it was absurd--Stephen, about whom he had made so many plans, +Stephen, concerning whom there had been that struggle to bring about his +very existence ... surely all that was not now to go for nothing at all. + +If he could do something--if he could do something! + +There were drops of sweat on his forehead--inside his clothes his body +was hot and dry and had shrunk, it seemed, into some tiny shape, like a +nut, so that his things hung loosely all about him. + +He could not bear that dark cavernous nursery, with the faint lights and +the stairs and passages beyond it so crowded with urgent silence! + +He caught Mitchell on the shoulder. + +"How is it?" + +"Oh! we're fighting it. It's the most rapid thing I've ever known. If we +only could have operated! Look here, go and lie down for a bit--I'll let +you know if there's any change!" + +He went to his dressing-room, all ghostly now with the first struggling +light of dawn. He closed the door behind him and then fell down on his +knees by the bed, pressing his face into his hands. + +He prayed: "Oh! God, God, God. I have never wanted anything like this +before but Stephen is more to me, much, much more to me than anything +that I have ever had--more, far more than my own life. I haven't much to +offer but if you will let me keep Stephen you can have all the rest. +You can send me back to Bucket Lane, take my work, anything ... I want +Stephen ... I want Stephen. God, he is such a good boy. He has always +been good and he will make such a fine man. There won't be many men so +fine as he. He's good as gold. God I will die myself if he may live, I'm +no use. I've made a mess of things--but let him live and take me. Oh! +God I want him, I want him!" + +He broke into sobs and was bowed down there on the floor, his body +quivering, his face pressed against the bed. + +He was conscious that Clare had joined him. She must have heard him +from her room. He tried as he felt her body pressed against his, to pull +himself together, but the crying now had mastered him and he could only +feel her pushing with her hand to find his--and at last he let her take +his hand and hold it. + +He heard her whisper in his ear. + +"Peter dear, don't--don't cry like that. I can't bear to hear you +like that. I'm so miserable, Peter. I've been so wicked--so cross and +selfish. I've hurt you so often--I'm going to be better, Peter. I am +really." + +At that moment they might have come together with a reality, an honesty +that no after-events could have shaken. But to Peter Clare was very far +away. He was not so conscious of her as he was of those presences that +thronged the house. What could she do for him now? Afterwards perhaps. +But now it was Stephen--Stephen--Stephen-- + +But he let her hold his hand and he felt her hair against his cheek, and +at last he put his arm around her and held her close to him, and she, +with her face against his, went fast asleep. He looked down at her. She +looked so young and helpless that the sight of her leaning, tired and +beaten, against him, touched him and he picked her up, carried her into +her room and laid her on her bed. + +How light and tiny she was! + +He was conscious of his own immense fatigue. Mitchell had told him that +he would wake him; good fellow, Mitchell! He lay down on the bed in his +dressing-room and was instantly asleep. + +He was outside Scaw House. He was mother-naked and the howling wind and +rain buffeted his body and the stones cut his feet. The windows of the +house were dark and barred. He could just reach the lower windows with +his hands if he stood on tiptoe. + +He tapped again and again. + +He was tired, exhausted. He had come a long, long way and the rain hurt +his bare flesh. At last a candle shone dimly behind the dark window. +Some one was there, and instantly at the moment of his realising that +aid had come he was conscious also that he must, on all accounts, refuse +it. He knew that if he entered the house Stephen would die. It depended +on him to save Stephen. He turned to flee but his father had unbarred +the door and was drawing him in. He struggled, he cried out, he fought, +but his father was stronger than he. He was on the threshold--he could +see through the dark ill-smelling hall to the door beyond. His father's +hand fastened on his arm like a vice. His body was bathed in sweat, +he screamed ... and woke to find the room dim in the morning light and +Mitchell shaking him by the arm. + + +IV + +He was still dreaming. Now he was in the nursery. Clare was kneeling by +Stephen's bed. One doctor was bending down--the nurse was crying very +softly. + +He looked down on his son. As he looked the little face was, for an +instant, puckered with pain. The mouth, the eyes, the throat struggled. + +The tiny hands lifted for a moment, hung, and then like fluttering +leaves, fell down on to the counterpane. Then the body was suddenly +quiet, the face was peaceful and the head had fallen gently, sideways +against the pillow. + +At that moment of time, throughout the house, the Presences departed. +The passages, the rooms were freed, the air was no longer cold. + +At that moment also Peter awoke. Mitchell said: "The boy's gone, +Westcott." + +Peter, turning his back upon them all, drove from him, so softly that +they could scarcely hear, but in a voice of agony that Mitchell never +afterwards forgot:-- + +"I wanted him so--I wanted him so." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A WOMAN CALLED ROSE BENNETT + + +I + +The days that followed were dead--dead in more than any ordinary sense +of the word. But perhaps it was Peter who was dead. He moved, ate, +drank, even wrote his reviews, slept--he thanked gravely all those who +offered him condolences--wrote letters in answer to kind +friends.... "Dear S---- It was just like you to write so kindly and +sympathetically...." And all this time he was without any kind of +emotion. He was aware that there was something in the back of his brain +that, were it once called upon to awake, might stir him into life again. +What it would tell him he did not know, something about love, something +intensely sorrowful, something that had occurred very probably to +himself. He did not want to live--to think, to feel. Thinking meant +pain, meant a sudden penetrating into that room shrouded now by heavy, +black curtains but containing, were those curtains drawn, some great, +phantasmal horror. + +He was dimly aware that the people about him were frightened. Clare, +Bobby Galleon, Cardillac. He knew that they would be glad for him to +draw those curtains aside and penetrate into that farther room. That was +unkind of them. He had no other emotion but that it was unkind of them. +Beyond that unkindness, they did not exist. + +He was thinner. His shoulders seemed to pierce sharply his clothes; his +cheeks were white and hollow, there were dark lines beneath his eyes, +dark, grey patches. His legs were not so straight, nor so strong. +Moreover his eyes were as though they were covered with a film. Seeing +everything they yet saw nothing at all. They passed through the world +and were confronted by the heavy, veiling curtains.... + +This condition lasted for many days. Of all about him none understood +him so well as Bobby Galleon. Bobby had always understood him, and now +he felt for him with a tenderness that had both the past and the future +to heighten its poignancy. It seemed to Bobby that nothing more tragic +than the death of this child could possibly have occurred. It filled +him with anxiety for the future, it intensified to a depth that only so +simple and affectionate a character as his could feel, the love that he +had always had for Peter. + +He was with him during these days continually, waiting for the relief to +come. + +"It's got to come soon," he said, "or the boy'll go mad." + +At last it came. + +One day about tea-time they were sitting in Peter's upstairs study. +It had been a day of showers and now the curtains were not drawn and a +green-grey dusk glimmered beyond the windows. + +Peter was writing letters, and as Bobby watched him he seemed to him +like some automaton, something wound into life by some clever inventor. +The hand moved across the paper--the dead eyes encountered nothing in +their gaze, the shoulders were the loosely drooping shoulders of an old +man. + +"Can you see, Peter?" + +"Yes, thanks. Switch on the light if you like." + +Bobby got up and moved to the door. The dusk behind Peter's face flung +it into sharp white outline. + +Another shower! The rain at first in single drops, then more swiftly, +fell with gentle, pattering fingers up and down the window. It was the +only sound, except the scraping of Peter's pen. The pen stopped. Peter +raised his head, listening. + +Bobby switched on the light and as he did so Peter in a strangled +breathless mutter whispered-- + +"The rain! The rain! It was like that that night. Stephen! Stephen!" + +His head fell on to his hands and he burst into a storm of tears. + + +II + +And now Peter was out to be hurt, hurt more horribly than he could have +ever believed possible. It was like walking--as they did in the days +of the Ordeal--on red-hot iron, every step an agony. Always there was +something to remind him! He could go nowhere, see nobody, summon no kind +of recollection out of the past without this coming to him. There were a +thousand things that Stephen had done, that he, Peter, had never noticed +at the time. He was haunted now with regrets, he had not made enough of +him whilst he was there! Ah! had he only known that the time was to be +so short! How he would have spent those precious, precious moments! It +was as though he had flung away, wilfully, possessions of the utmost +price--cast them off as though it had been his very intention to feel, +afterwards, this burning regret. The things in the nursery were packed +away, but there remained the room, the frieze with the dragons and +princesses, the fire-place, the high broad window. Again and again he +saw babies in the streets, in the parks and fancied that Stephen had +come back again. + +The thing had happened to him so swiftly that, behind reason, there +lurked the thought that perhaps, with equal suddenness, Stephen would be +restored. To come back one afternoon and to find him there! To find him +lying there on his back in his cot looking up at the ceiling, to find +him labouring unsteadily on his feet, clinging to the sides of his bed +and shouting--to find him laughing at the jumping waves in the fire--to +find him!... No, never to be found again--gone, hopelessly, cruelly, for +no reason, for no one's good or benefit--simply for some one's sport. + +But, strangely, more than the actual Stephen did he miss the imaginary +future Stephen at school, hero of a thousand games, winner of a thousand +prizes, the Stephen grown up, famous already at so young an age, loved +by men and women, handsome, good.... Oh! the folly of it! No human being +could carry all the glories that Peter had designed for his son--no +human being, then how much less a Westcott. It might be best after all, +young Stephen had been spared. Until every stone of Scaw House was level +with the ground no Westcott could be termed safe--perhaps not then. + +Now he realised how huge a place in his heart the boy had filled dimly, +because as yet he refused to bring it to the open light he was conscious +that, during these past two years he had been save for Stephen, a very +lonely man. It was odd that Stephen the elder and Stephen the younger +should have been the only two persons in his life to find the real +inside of him--they, too, and perhaps Norah Monogue. But, otherwise, not +Bobby, nor Cards, nor Alice Galleon, nor Mr. Zanti--nor Clare. + +Not Clare. He faced the fact with a sudden shudder. Now that Stephen was +gone he and Clare were face to face--face to face as they had never been +since that first happy year of their marriage. That first year of their +marriage--and now! + +With an instant clenching of his teeth he pulled down the blinds upon +that desolating view. + + +III + +With teeth still clenched he set himself to build up his house again. +Clare was very quiet and submissive during those first weeks. Her little +figure looked helpless and appealing in its deep black; she was prettier +than she had ever been in her life before. People said, "Poor Mrs. +Westcott, she feels the loss of her baby so dreadfully"--and they didn't +think about Peter. Indeed some people thought him callous. "Mr. Westcott +seemed to be so fond of the child. Now I really believe he's forgotten +all about him." Bobby was the only person in the world who knew how +Peter suffered. + +Clare was, indeed, after a time, reassured. Peter, after all, seemed +not to mind. Did he mind anything? He was so often glum and silent that +really you couldn't tell. Clare herself had been frightened on that +night when the baby had died. She had probably never in all her life +felt a more genuine emotion than she had known when she knelt by Peter's +side and went to sleep in his arms. She was quite ready to feel that +emotion again would Peter but allow her. But no. He showed no emotion +himself and expected no one else to show any, for he was ready to share +it but in her heart of hearts she longed to fling away from her this +emotional atmosphere. She had loved the baby--of course she had loved +it. But she had always known that something would happen to it--always. +If Peter would insist on having those horrid Cornishmen.... At heart she +connected that dreadful day when those horrible men had played about in +the nursery with baby's death. Of course it was enough to kill any baby. + +So, ultimately, it all came back to Peter's fault. Clare found real +satisfaction in the thought. Meanwhile she emphatically stated her +desire to be happy again. + +She stated it always in Peter's absence, feeling that he would, in no +way, understand her. "It can't help poor dear little Stephen that we +should go on being melancholy and doing nothing. That's only morbid, +isn't it, mother?" + +Mrs. Rossiter entirely agreed, as indeed she always agreed with anything +that Clare suggested. + +"The dear thing does look lovely in black, though," she confided to +Mrs. Galleon. "Mr. Cardillac couldn't take his eyes off her yesterday at +luncheon." + +Mrs. Rossiter and Jerry Cardillac had, during the last year, become +the very best of friends. Peter was glad to see that it was so. Peter +couldn't pretend to care very deeply about his mother-in-law, but he +felt that it would do her all the good in the world to see something of +old Cards. It would broaden her understanding, give her perhaps some +of that charity towards the whole world that was one of Cards' most +charming features. Cards, in fact, had been so much in the house lately +that he might be considered one of the family. No one could have been +more tender, more sympathetic, more exactly right about young Stephen's +death. He had become, during those weeks almost a necessity. He seemed +to have no particular interest of his own in life. He dressed very +perfectly, he went to a number of parties, he had delightful little +gatherings in his own flat, but, with it all, he was something more--a +great deal more--than the mere society idler. There was a hint at +possible wildness, an almost sinister suggestion of possible lawlessness +that made him infinitely attractive. He was such good company and yet +one felt that one didn't know nearly the whole of him. + +To Peter he was the most wonderful thing in the world, to Clare he +was rapidly becoming so--no wonder then that the Roundabout saw him so +often. + + +IV + +It would need a very acute perception indeed to pursue precisely the +train of cause and effect in Mrs. Rossiter's mind after young Stephen's +death. Her black garments added, in the most astonishing fashion, to +her placid flatness. If she had gloried before in an armour that was so +negative that it became instantly exceedingly dangerous, her appearance +now was terrifying beyond all words. Her black silk had apparently +no creases, no folds--it almost eliminated terms and boundaries. Mrs. +Rossiter could not now be said to come into a room--she was simply +there. One was sitting, gazing it might be at the fire, a looking-glass, +a picture or two, when suddenly there came a black shadow, something +that changed the colour of things a little, something that obscured +certain objects, but scarcely anything more definite. The yellow brooch +was definite, cold, stony eyes hung a little above it, over those a high +white forehead--otherwise merely a black shadow putting out the fire. + +She was in the Roundabout now all the time. How poor Dr. Rossiter fared +it was difficult to imagine, but he cared for Clare as deeply as his +wife did and was quite ready for everything to be sacrificed to her at +this crisis of her history. + +Mrs. Rossiter, meanwhile, was entirely convinced that Peter was +responsible for his son's death. Had you suddenly challenged her and +demanded her reasoned argument with regard to this matter she would +probably have failed you--she did not like reasoned arguments--but she +would also have been most sincerely indignant had you called her a liar +and would have sworn to her convictions before a court of law. + +"Those Cornishmen" had frightened the poor little thing into fits and it +was only to be expected. Moreover it followed from this that a man who +murdered his only child would most assuredly take to beating his wife +before very long. After that, anything might happen. Peter was on a +swift road to being a "Perfect Devil." + +Indeed, allow Mrs. Rossiter two consecutive hours of peace and quiet, +she, sitting like the personification of the English climate, alone +before her fire, and she could make any one into anything--once made so +they remained. + +It mattered nothing to her that poor Peter was, during these weeks, the +most subdued and gently courteous of husbands--that was as it might be +(a favourite phrase of hers). She knew him ... and, so knowing, waited +for the inevitable end. + +But the more certain she was of his villainous possibilities the more +placid she became. She spread her placidity over everything. It lay, +like an invisible glue, upon everything in the Roundabout--you could +feel it on the door-handles, as you feel the jammy reminiscences of +incautious servant-maids. Peter felt it but did not know what it was +that he had to deal with. + +He had determined, when the sharpest shock of Stephen's death had +passed, and he was able to think of other things, that the supremely +important thing for him now to do was to get back to his old relations +with Clare. There was, he grimly reflected, "Mortimer Stant" to be +finished within a month or two and he knew, perfectly well, with the +assurance of past experience that whilst Clare held the stage, Mortimer +had the poorest of chances--nevertheless Clare was, at this moment, the +thing to struggle for. + +He _must_ get her back--he _must_ get her back. + +Behind his brain, all this time, was the horror of being left alone in +the world and of what he might do--then. + +To get Clare back he must have the assistance of two people--Mrs. +Rossiter and Cards. + +It was at this point that he perceived Mrs. Rossiter's placidity. + +He could not get at her at all--he could not get near her. He tried in +every way, during these weeks, to please her. She apparently noticed +nothing. He could force no direct opinion about anything from her and +yet he was conscious of opposition. He was conscious of opposition, +increasingly, every day. + +"I believe she _wants_ Clare to hate me," he suddenly revealed to +himself, and, with that, all hope of her as an ally vanished. + +Then he hated her--he hated her more bitterly every day. + +He wanted to tell her not to call him "Peter dear"--she loved to put him +in positions that showed him in the worst light to Clare. + +At luncheon for instance: "Peter dear, it would be a nice thing for +you and Clare to go to that Private View at the Carfax this afternoon. +You've nothing to do, Clare, have you?" + +Peter knew that Mrs. Rossiter had already ascertained that he was +engaged. He knew also that Clare had had no thought of Peter's company +before but that now she would very speedily feel herself injured. + +"I'm afraid--" Peter would begin. + +"Peter's too engaged to take you, Clare dear." + +"I dare say Jerry will come--" this from Clare. + +"Ah! yes, Mr. Cardillac is always ready to take any trouble, Peter." + +"If you'd let me know earlier, Clare, that you wanted me." + +Mrs. Rossiter. "Oh! don't put yourself out, Peter. It would never do +to break an engagement. Only it seems such a long time since you and +Clare--" + +Peter. "We'll go to-morrow afternoon, Clare." + +Clare. "You're so gloomy when you do come, Peter. It's like going out +with a ghost." + +Mrs. Rossiter. "Ah! Peter has his work, dear--so much hangs on the next +book, doesn't it, Peter? Naturally the last one didn't quite--" + +Peter. "Look here, Clare, I'll chuck this engagement." + +Clare. "No, thank you, Peter--Jerry and I will be all right. You can +join us if you like--" + +The fact was that Peter wasn't tactful. He showed Mrs. Rossiter much too +plainly that he disliked her intensely. He had no idea that he showed it +her. He thought, indeed, that he was very skilful in his disguise of his +feelings but Mrs. Rossiter knew and soon Clare knew also. + +Peter had no conception of subtlety in the matter. It was clear to him +that he had once been devoted to Clare and she to him, it was clear also +that that relationship had recently been dimmed. Now that Stephen was +gone that early intimacy must be restored and the fact that he was +willing on his side to do anything to bring it back seemed to him reason +enough for its restoration. That the whole matter was composed of +the most delicate and intricate threads never occurred to him for an +instant. Clare had loved him once. Clare would love him again--and the +sooner it happened the better for him. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Rossiter being enemy rather than ally there remained +Cards. + +But Cards was strange. Peter could never claim to have been intimate +with him--their relationship had been founded on an inequality, on a +recognition from Peter of Cards' superiority. Cards had always laughed +at Peter, always patronised him. But now, although Cards had been in the +place so much of late, the distance seemed farther than ever before. + +Cards was as kind as he could be--always in good spirits, always ready +to do anything, but Peter noticed that it was only when Clare was +present that Cards changed from jest to earnest. "He thinks Clare worth +talking to seriously.... I suppose it's because he was at Dawson's ... +but after all I'm not an imbecile." + +This attitude of Cards was in fact as vague and nebulous as all the +other things that seemed now to stand between Peter and Clare. + +Peter tried to talk to Cards--he was always prevented--held off with a +laughing hand. + +"What's the matter with me?" thought Peter. "What have I done? It's like +being out in a fog." + +At last one evening, after dinner, when Clare and Mrs. Rossiter had gone +upstairs he demanded an answer. + +"Look here, Cards, what have I done? You profess to be a friend of mine. +Tell me what crime I've committed?" + +Cards' eyes had been laughing. Suddenly he was serious. His dark, +clean-cut face was stern, almost accusing. + +"Profess, Peter? I hope you don't doubt it?" + +"No, of course not. You know you're the best friend I've got. Tell +me--what have I done?" + +"Done?" + +"Yes--you and Clare and her mother--all of you keep me at arms' +length--why?" + +"Do you really want a straight talking?" + +"Of course." + +"Well, I can only speak for myself--but--to tell the truth, old boy--I +think you've been rather hard on poor little Clare." + +For the first time since his marriage Peter resented Cards' words. "Poor +little Clare"--wasn't that a little too intimate? + +"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice a little harder. + +"Well--I don't think you understand her, Peter." + +"Explain." + +"She's a happy, merry person if ever there was one in this world. She +wants all the happiness you can give her--" + +"Well?" + +"Well, you don't seem to see that. Of course young Stephen's death--" + +"Let's leave that--" Peter's voice was harder again. + +"Oh, all right--just as you please. But most men would have seen what +a shock it must be to a girl, so young, who knew so little about the +cruelty of life. You didn't--you don't mind, Peter, do you?--you didn't +seem to think of that. Never tried to cheer her up, take her about, take +her out of herself. You just wrapped yourself up--" + +"You don't understand," muttered Peter, his eyes lowered. "If I'd +thought that she'd really minded Stephen's death--" + +"Oh! come Peter--that's grossly unfair. Why, she felt it all most +horribly. That shows how little you've understood her, how little you've +appreciated her. You've always been a gloomy, morbid devil and--" + +"All right, Cards--that'll do." + +Cards stood back from the table, his mouth smiling, his eyes hard and +cold. + +"Oh! no, it won't. You asked for it and now you're going to get it. +You've not only been gloomy and morbid all your life, you've been +selfish as well--always thinking of yourself and the books you were +going to write, and then when they did come they weren't such great +shakes. You oughtn't to have married at all--you've never considered +Clare at all--your treatment of her--" + +Peter stood up, his face white, so that his eyes and the lines of his +mouth showed black in the shadow. + +"Clear out--I've heard enough." + +"Oh! that's just like you--ask me for my opinion and then lose your +temper over it. Really, Peter, you're like a boy of ten--you don't +deserve to be treated as a grown-up person." + +Peter's voice shook. "Clear out--clear out or I'll do for you--get out +of my house--" + +"Certainly." + +Cards opened the door and was gone. Peter heard him hesitate for a +moment in the hall, get his hat and coat and then close the hall-door +after him. + +The house was suddenly silent. Peter stood, his hands clenched. Then he +went out into the hall. + +He heard Mrs. Rossiter's voice from above--"Aren't you two men ever +coming up?" + +"Jerry's gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Yes--we've had a row." + +Mrs. Rossiter made no reply. He heard the drawing-room door close. Then +he, too, took his coat and hat and went out. + + +V + +The night was cool and sweet with a great silver haze of stars above the +sharply outlined roofs and chimneys. The golden mist from the streets +met the night air and mingled with it. + +Peter walked furiously, without thinking of direction. Some clock struck +half-past nine. His temper faded swiftly, leaving him cold, miserable, +regretful. There went his damnable temper again, surging up suddenly so +hot and fierce that it had control of him almost before he knew that it +was there. How like him, too! Now when things were bad enough, when he +must bend all his energies to bringing peace back into the house again, +he must needs go and quarrel with the best friend he had in the world. +He had never quarrelled with Cards before, never had there been the +slightest word between them, and now he had insulted him so that, +probably, he would never come into their house again. + +And behind his immediate repentance at the quarrel there also bit into +his heart the knowledge that there was truth in the accusation that +Cardillac had flung at him. He _had_ been morbid, he _had_ been selfish. +Absorbed by his own grief at Stephen's loss he had given no thought +to any one else. He had expected Clare to be like himself, had made no +allowance for differences of temperament, had.... Poor Peter had never +before known an hour of such miserable self-condemnation. Had he known +where to find him he would have gone that very instant to beg Cards' +pardon. + +Now, in comparison with his own black deeds, Mrs. Rossiter seemed an +angel. He should show her in the future that he could mend his ways. +Clare should make no further complaint of him. He found himself in +Leicester Square and still wrapt in his own miserable thoughts went into +the Empire. He walked up and down the Promenade wondering that so many +people could take the world so lightly. Very far away a gentleman in +evening dress was singing a song--his mouth could be seen to open and +shut, sometimes his arms moved--no sound could be heard. + +The Promenade was packed. Up and down ladies in enormous hats walked +languidly. They all wore clothes that were gorgeous and a little soiled. +They walked for the most part in couples and appeared to be absorbed +in conversation, but every now and again they smiled mechanically, +recognised a friend or saw somebody who was likely very shortly to +become one. + +There was a great deal of noise. There were numbers of men--old +gentlemen who were there because they had always been there, young +gentlemen who were there because they had never been there before and a +few gentlemen who had come to see the Ballet. + +The lights blazed, the heat and noise steadily accumulated, corks were +popped in the bar behind, promises were broken in the Promenade +in front, and soon after eleven, when everything had become so +uncomfortable that the very lights in the building protested, the doors +were opened and the whole Bubble and Squeak was flung out into the cool +and starlit improprieties of Leicester Square. + +Peter could not have told you if he had been asked, that he had been +there, felt a devouring thirst and entered a building close at hand +where there were rows of little round tables and numbers of little round +waiters. + +Peter sat down at the first table that occurred to him and it was not +until he looked round about him that he discovered that a lady in a huge +black hat was sitting smiling opposite him. Her cheeks were rouged, her +gloves were soiled and her hair looked as though it might fall into a +thousand pieces at the slightest provocation, but her eyes were pathetic +and tired. They didn't belong to her face. + +"Hullo, dear, let's have a drink. Haven't had a drink to-night." + +He asked her what she would like and she told him. She studied him +carefully for quite a long time. + +"Down on your luck, old chum?" she said at last. + +"Yes, I am," Peter said, "a bit depressed." + +"I know. I'm often that way myself. We all catch it. Come home and have +a bit of supper. That'll cheer you up." + +"No, thanks," said Peter politely. "I must get back to my own place in a +minute." + +"Well," said the lady. "Please yourself, and I'll have another drink if +you don't very much mind." + +It was whilst he was ordering another drink that he came out of his own +thoughts and considered her. + +"That's right," she said smiling, "have a good look. My name's Rose +Bennett. Here's my card. Perhaps you'd like to come and have tea with me +one day." + +She gave him a very dirty card on which was written "Miss Rose Bennett, +4 Annton Street, Portland Place." + +"You're Cornish," he suddenly said, looking at her. + +She moved her soiled gloves up and down the little table--"Well, what if +I am?" she said defiantly, not looking at him. + +"I knew it," said Peter triumphantly, "the way you rolled your r's--" + +"Well, chuck it, dear," said Miss Bennett, "and let's talk sense. What's +Cornwall got to do with us anyhow?" + +"I'm Cornish too," said Peter, "it's got a good deal to do with us. You +needn't tell me of course--but what part do you come from?" + +Still sullenly she said: "Almost forgotten the name of it, so long ago. +You wouldn't know it anyway, it's such a little place. They called it +Portergwarra--" + +"I know," cried Peter, "near the Land's End. Of course I know it. There +are holes in the rocks that they lift the boats through. There's a +post-box on the wall. I've walked there many a time--" + +"Well, stow it, old man," Miss Bennett answered decisively. "I'm not +thinking of that place any more and I don't suppose they've thought of +me since. Why, it's years--" + +She broke off and began hurriedly to drink. Peter's eyes sought her +eyes--his eyes were miserable and so were hers--but her mouth was hard +and laughing. + +"It's funny talking of Cornwall," she said at last. "No one's spoken of +the place since I came up here. But it's all right, I tell you--quite +all right. You take it from me, chucky. I enjoy my life--have a jolly +time. There's disadvantages in every profession, and when you've got a +bit of a cold as I have now why--" + +She stopped. Her eyes sought Peter's. He saw that she was nearly crying. + +"Talking of Cornwall and all that," she muttered, "silly rot! I'm +tired--I'm going home." + +He paid for the drinks and got a hansom. + +At that moment as he stood looking over the horse into the dimly-lit +obscurities of the Square he thought with a sudden beating of the +heart that he recognised Cardillac looking at him from the doorway of a +neighbouring restaurant. Then the figure was gone. He had got Cardillac +on the brain! Nevertheless the suggestion made him suddenly conscious +of poor Miss Bennett's enormous hat, her rouge, her soiled finery that +allowed no question as to her position in the world. + +Rather hurriedly he asked her to get into the cab. + +"Come that far--" she said. + +He got in with her and she took off one glove and he held her hand and +they didn't speak all the way. + +When the hansom stopped at last he got down, helped her out and for a +moment longer held her hand. + +"We're both pretty unhappy," he said. "Things have been going wrong with +me too. But think of Cornwall sometimes and remember there's some one +else thinking of it." + +"You're a funny kid," she said, looking at him, "sentimental, I _don't_ +think!" + +But it was her eyes--tired and regretful that said goodbye. + +She let herself in and the door closed behind her. + +He turned and walked the streets; it was three o'clock before he reached +his home. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"MORTIMER STANT" + + +I + +Next morning Peter went round to Cardillac's flat and made his +apologies. Cardillac accepted them at once with the frankest expressions +of friendship. + +"My dear old Peter, of course," he said, taking both Peter's hands +in his, "I was horribly blunt and unpleasant about the whole thing. I +didn't mean half what I said, but the fact is that you got angry and +then I suppose I got angry--and then we both said more than we meant." + +"No," said Peter slowly, "for you were quite right. I have been selfish +and morbid. I see it all quite clearly. I'm going to be very different +now, Cards, old man." + +Cards' flat was splendid--everything in it from its grey Ascot +trouserings kind of wall paper to its beautiful old chairs and its +beautiful old china was of the very best--and Cards himself, in a dark +blue suit with a black tie and a while pearl and white spats on his +shining gleaming shoes, just ready to go out and startle Piccadilly was +of the very best. He had never, Peter thought, looked so handsome. + +At the door Cards put a hand on Peter's shoulder. + +"Get in late this morning, Peter?" + +"Why?" said Peter, turning round. + +"Oh, nothing," Cards regarded him, smiling. "I'll see you to-night at +the Lesters. Until then, old man--" + +Neither Mrs. Rossiter nor Clare made any allusion to the quarrel but +it had nevertheless, Peter felt, made reconciliation all the more +difficult. Mrs. Rossiter now seemed to imply in her additional +kindnesses to Cardillac that she felt for him deeply and was sorry that +he, too, should have been made to suffer under Peter's bear-like nature. + +There was even an implied atmosphere of alliance in the attitude of the +three to Peter, an alliance fostered and cemented by Mrs. Rossiter and +spread by her, up and down, in and out about the house. + +It was obvious indeed now that Mrs. Rossiter was, never again, under any +terms, to be won over. She had decided in her own slow mind that Peter +was an objectionable person, that he neglected his wife, quarrelled with +his best friends and refused to fulfil the career that he had promised +to fulfil. She saw herself now in the role of protectress of her +daughter, and that role she would play to the very end. Clare must, +at all costs, be happy and, in spite of her odious husband, happy she +should be. + +Peter discerned Mrs. Rossiter's state of mind on the whole clearly +enough, but with regard to Clare he was entirely in the dark. He devoted +his days now to her service. He studied her every want, was ready to +abandon his work at any moment to be with her, and was careful also to +avoid too great a pestering of her with attentions. + +"I know women hate that," he said to himself, "if you go down on your +knees to them and hang around them they simply can't stand it. I won't +show her that I care." + +And he cared, poor fellow, as he had never cared for her before during +their married life. The love that he had had for Stephen he would now +give to Stephen's mother would she but let him. + +But it was a difficult business. When Mrs. Rossiter was present he could +do nothing right. If he were silent she would talk to Clare about people +being morose; and what a pity it was that some people didn't think of +other people a little instead of being miserable about things for +which they had nobody to thank but themselves, and if he tried to be +light-hearted and amusing Mrs. Rossiter bore with his humour in so +patient and self-denying a spirit that his efforts failed lamentably and +only made the situation worse than it had been before. + +Clare seemed to be now entirely in her mother's hands; she put her +mother's large flat body between herself and Peter and, through that, +they were compelled to talk. + +Peter also knew now that Clare was exceedingly uncomfortable in his +presence--it was almost as though she had something to conceal. On +several occasions he had noticed that his sudden entrance into a room +had confused her; once he had caught her hurriedly pushing a letter out +of sight. She was now strangely timid when he was there; sometimes with +a sudden furious beating of the heart he fancied that she was coming +back to him again because she would make little half movements towards +him and then draw back. Once he found her crying. + +The impulse to beg her to confide in him was almost stronger than he +could resist, and yet he was terrified lest by some sudden move he +should frighten her and drive her back and so lose the little ground +that he had gained. The strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Rossiter +herself did not know what Clare's trouble was. She, of course, put it +all down to Peter, but she could accuse him of nothing specific. Clare +had not confided in her. + +Did Cards know? Peter suddenly asked himself with a strange pang of +jealousy. That he should be jealous of Cards, the most splendid, most +honourable fellow in the world! That, of course, was absurd. And yet +they were together so often, and it was with Jerry Cardillac alone that +Clare seemed now at ease. + +But Peter put all such thoughts at once away from him. Had it been any +other man but Cards he might have wondered... but he would trust Cards +alone with his wife in the wilderness and know that no ill could come +of it. With--other women Cards might have few scruples--Peter had heard +such stories--but with Peter's wife, no. + +Peter wondered whether perhaps Clare did not miss young Stephen more +than they knew! Oh, if that were the reason how he could take her into +his arms and comfort her and love her! Poor little Clare... the time +would come when she would show him that she wanted him. + +Meanwhile the months passed, the proofs of "Mortimer Stant" had been +corrected and the book was about to appear. To Peter now everything +seemed to hang upon this event. It became with him, during the weeks +before its appearance, a monomania. If this book were a success why then +dare and Mrs. Rossiter and all of them would come round to him. It was +the third book which was always so decisive, and there was ground +to recover after the comparative failure of the second novel. As he +corrected the proofs he persuaded himself that "Mortimer Stant" wasn't, +after all, so bad. It had been ambitious of him, of course, to write +about the emotions and experiences of a man of forty and there was +perhaps rather an overloaded and crude attempt at atmosphere, but there +was life in the book. It had, he thought, more swing in the telling of +it than the other two. + +It is possible, when one is correcting proofs to persuade oneself of +anything. The book appeared and was, from the first moment, loaded with +mishap. On the day of publication there was that terrible fire at the +Casino theatre--people talked of nothing else for a fortnight. Moreover +by an unlucky chance young Rondel's novel, "The Precipice," was +published on the very same day, and as the precipice was a novel one and +there were no less than three young ladies prepared to fall over it +at the same moment, it of course commanded instant attention. It was +incidentally written with an admirable sense of style and a keen sense +of character. + +But Peter was now in a fever that saw an enemy round every corner. The +English News Supplement only gave him a line:--"'Mortimer Stant.' A new +novel by the author of 'Reuben Hallard,' depicting agreeably enough the +amorous adventures of a stockbroker of middle-age." To this had all his +fine dreams, his moments of exultation, his fevered inspiration come! +He searched the London booksellers but could find no traces of "Mortimer +Stant" at any of them. His publishers told him that it was only the +libraries that bought any fiction, with the exception of volumes by +certain popular authors--and yet he saw at these booksellers novels by +numbers of people who could not lay claim to the success that "Reuben +Hallard" had secured for its writer. + +The reviews came in slowly, and, excepting for the smaller provincial +papers, treated him with an indifference that was worse than neglect. +"This interesting novel by Mr. Westcott"--"A pleasant tale of country +life by the author of 'Reuben Hallard.' Will please those who like a +quiet agreeable book without too much incident." + +One London weekly review--a paper of considerable importance--took +him severely to task, pointed out a number of incoherences of fact, +commented on carelessness of style and finally advised Mr. Westcott, "if +he is ever to write a book of real importance to work with greater care +and to be less easily contented with a superficial facility." + +But worse than these were the opinions of his friends. Henry Galleon was +indeed gone, but there were a few--Mrs. Launce, Alfred Lester, William +Trent, Alfred Hext--who had taken a real and encouraging interest in +him from the beginning. They took him seriously enough to tell him the +truth, and tell him the truth they did. Dear Mrs. Launce, who couldn't +bear to hurt anybody and saw perhaps that he was taking the book a great +deal more hardly than he had taken the others, veiled it as well as she +could:--"I do think it's got splendid things in it, Peter dear--splendid +things. That bit about the swimming and the character of Mrs. Mumps. But +it doesn't hang together. There's a great deal of repetition. It's as +though you'd written it with your mind on something else all the time." + +And so he had--oh! so he had! What cruel irony that because his mind was +set to winning Clare back to him the chief means for gaining her should +be ruined by his very care for her. + +What to do when all the things of life--the bustle and hurry, the +marriages and births and deaths--came in between him and his work so +that he could scarcely see it, so many things obscured the way. +Poor Mortimer! Lost indeed behind a shifting, whirring cloud of real +life--never to emerge, poor man, into anything better than a middle-aged +clothes' prop. + +For six weeks the book lingered in the advertisements. A second edition, +composed for the most part of an edition for America, was announced, +there were a belated review or two ... and then the end. The end of two +years' hopes, ambitions, struggles, sweat and tears--and the end, too, +of how much else? + +From the beginning, so far back as he could remember, he had believed +that he would one day write great books; had believed it from no conceit +in him but simply because he clung so tenaciously to ambition that it +had become, again and again, almost realised in the intensity of his +dreams of it. He had known that this achievement of his would take a +long time, that he must meet with many rebuffs, that he must starve and +despair and be born again, but, never at any moment, until now, had he, +in his heart of hearts, doubted that that great book was in front of +him. + +He had seen his work, in his dreams, derided, flouted, misunderstood. +That was the way with most good work, but what he had never seen was its +acceptance amongst the ranks of the "Pretty Good," its place given it +beside that rising and falling tide of fiction that covered every +year the greedy rocks of the circulating libraries and ebbed out again +leaving no trace behind it. + +Now, after the failure of "Mortimer Stant" for the first time, this +awful question--"What if, after all, you should be an Ordinary +Creature? What if you are no better than that army who fights happily, +contentedly, with mediocrity for its daily bread and butter? That +army, upon whose serried ranks you have perhaps, unconsciously, but +nevertheless with pity, looked down?... What if you are never to write +a word that will be remembered, never even to cause a decent attention, +amongst your own generation?" + +What if after all this stir and fluster, this pain and agony and +striving, there should be nothing exceptional about Peter? What rock to +stand on then? + +He had never, perhaps, analysed his feelings about it all. He had +certainly never thought himself an exceptional person ... but always in +his heart there had been that belief that, one day, he would write an +exceptional book. + +He was very young, not yet thirty, but he had had his chance. It seemed +to him, in these weeks following the death of "Mortimer Stant," that his +career was already over. There was also the question of ways and means. +Just enough to live on with the reviewing and a column for an American +paper and Clare's income, but if the books were all of them to fail as +this one had failed--why then it was a dreary future for them both. + +In fact there were now, at his feet, pits of so dismal and impenetrable +a blackness that he refused to look down, but clung rather to his +determination to make all things right with Clare again, and then things +would come round. + +If that failed him--why then, old black-faced father in Scaw House with +your drunken cook and your company of ghosts, you shall have your merry +way! + + +II + +Henry Galleon was dead. Mrs. Launce was, unfortunately, during the whole +of this period of Peter's career, away in the country, being burdened +with work, children and ill-health. He turned then once again to Bobby. + +He had seen very little of Bobby and Alice Galleon lately; he was +as fond of Bobby as he had ever been, but Bobby had always been a +background, some one who was there, one liked to think, if one wanted +him--but if there was any one more exciting, then Bobby vanished. +Lately--for quite a long time now--there had been Cardillac--and somehow +Cards and Bobby did not get on together and it was impossible to have +them both at the same time. But now Peter turned to Bobby with the +eagerness of a return to some comfortable old arm-chair after the +brilliant new furniture of a friend's palace. Bobby was there waiting +for him. It is not to be denied that the occasional nature of Peter's +appearances had hurt them both--wounded Bobby and made Alice angry. + +"He's given us up, Bobby, now that he's found so many new friends. I +shouldn't have expected him to do that. I'm disappointed." + +But Bobby nodded his head. "The boy's all right," he said, "he's +just trying to forget young Stephen and he forgets things better in +Cardillac's company than he does in mine--I'm not lively enough for that +kind of thing. He'll come back--" + +But, at the same time, Bobby was anxious. Things were wrong up there at +The Roundabout, very wrong. He knew Clare and Cards and Peter and Mrs. +Rossiter, in all probability better than any one alive knew them--and he +was no fool. + +Then Peter came back to him and was received as though he had never left +him; and Alice, who had intended to tell Mr. Peter what she thought of +his disloyalty, had no word to say when she saw his white drawn face and +his tired eyes. + +"There's something awfully wrong up there," said Alice to Bobby that +night. "Bobby, look after him." + +But Bobby who had heard by that time what Peter had to say shut his +mouth tight. Then at last: + +"Our friend Cardillac has a good deal to answer for," and left Alice to +make what she could out of it. + +Meanwhile up in Bobby's dusty old room, called by courtesy "The Study" +but having little evidence of literature about it save an edition of +Whyte-Melville and a miscellaneous collection of Yellow-backs, Peter had +poured out his soul: + +"Bobby, I feel as though I'd just been set up with my back against +the wall for every one to make shies at. Everything's going +wrong--everything. The ground's crumbling from under my feet. First +it's young Stephen, then it's Clare, then my book fails (don't let's +humbug--you know it's an utter failure) then I quarrel with Cards, then +that damned woman--" he stopped at the thought of Mrs. Rossiter and +drove his hands together. Then he went on more quietly. "It's like +fighting in a fog, Bobby. There's the thing I want somewhere, just +beside me--I want Clare, Clare as she used to be when we were first +married--but I can't get at her and yet, through it all, I don't know +what it is that stops me. + +"I know I hadn't thought of her enough--with the book and Stephen and +everything. Cards told me that pretty straight--but now I've seen all +that and I'm ready to do anything--anything if she'll only love me +again." + +"Go directly to her and tell her," said Bobby; "have it all out in the +open with her." + +"That's just it," Peter answered, "I never seem to get her alone. +There's always either her mother or Cards there. Cards sees her alone +much more than I do, but, of course, she likes his company better than +mine just now. I'm such a gloomy beggar--" + +"Nonsense," said Bobby roughly. "You believe anything that any one tells +you. They tell you that you're gloomy and depressing and so you think +you are. They didn't find you gloomy at Brockett's did they? And Alice +and I have never found you depressing. Don't listen to that woman. +Clare's always been under her influence and it's for you to take her +out of it--not to lie down quietly and say she's too much for you--but +there's another thing," he added slowly and awkwardly, after a moment's +pause. + +"What's that?" asked Peter. + +"Well--Cards," said Bobby at last. "Oh! I know you'll say I hate him. +But I don't. I don't hate him. I've always known him for what he was--in +those days at Dawson's when if you flattered him he was kind, and if you +didn't he was contemptuous. At Cambridge it was the same. There was only +one fellow there I ever saw him knock under to--a man called Dune--and +he was out and away exceptional anyhow, at games and work and +everything. Now _he_ made Cards into a decent fellow for the time +being, and if he'd had the running of him he might have turned all that +brilliance into something worth having. + +"But he vanished and Cards has never owned his master since. Everything +was there, ready in him, to be turned one way or the other, and after he +left Cambridge there was his silly mother and a sillier London waiting +to finish him--now he's nothing but Vanity and Fascination--and soon +there'll be nothing but Vanity." + +"You're unjust to him, Bobby, you always have been. + +"Well, perhaps I am. He's always treated me with such undisguised +contempt that it's only human that I should be a little prejudiced. But +that's neither here nor there--what is the point, Peter, is that he's +too much up at your place. Too much for his own good, too much for +yours, and--too much for--Clare's." + +"Bobby!" + +"Oh yes--I know I'm saying a serious thing--but you asked me for my +advice and I give it. I don't say that Cards means any harm but people +will talk and it wouldn't do you any damage in Clare's eyes either, +Peter, if you were to stand up to him a little." + +Peter smiled. "Dear old Bobby! If any one else in the world had said +such a thing of course I should have been most awfully angry, but I've +always known how unfair you were about Cards. You never liked him, even +in the Dawson days. You just don't suit one another. But I tell you, +Bobby, that I'd trust Cards more than I'd trust any one in the world. Of +course Clare likes to be with him and of course he likes to be with her. +They suit one another exactly. Why, he's splendid! The other day when +I'd been a perfect beast--losing my temper like a boy of ten--you should +have heard the way he took it. One day, Bobby, you'll see how splendid +he is." + +Bobby said no more. + +Peter went on again: "No, it's my mother-in-law's done the damage. +You're right, the thing to do is to get Clare alone and have it right +out with her. We'll clear the mists away." + +Bobby said: "You know Peter, both Alice and I would do anything in the +world to make you happy--anything." + +Peter gripped his hand. + +"I know you would. If I could forget young Stephen," he caught his +breath--"Bobby, I see him everywhere, all the time. I lie awake hours +at night thinking about him. I see him in my sleep, see him sometimes +grown-up--splendid, famous.... Sometimes I think he comes back. I can +see him, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling, and I say to +myself, 'Now if you don't move he'll stay there' ... and then I move +and he's gone. And I haven't any one to talk about him to. I never +know whether Clare thinks of him or not. He was so splendid, Bobby, so +strong. And he loved me in the most extraordinary way. We'd have been +tremendous pals if he'd lived. + +"I could have stood anything if I'd been able to see him growing up, had +him to care about.... I'm so lonely, Bobby--and if I don't make Clare +come back to me, now that the book's failed, I--I--I'll go back to Scaw +House and just drink myself to the devil there with my old father; he'll +be glad enough." + +"You once told me," Bobby said, "about an old man in your place when you +were a kid, who said once, 'It isn't life that matters but the courage +you bring to it--' Well, that's what you're proving now, Peter." + +"Yes, but why me? I've had a bad time all my life--always been knocked +about and cursed and kicked. Why should it go on all the time--all the +time?" + +"Because They think you're worth it, I suppose," said Bobby. + + +III + +And the result of that conversation was that, on that very night Peter +made his appeal. They had had a silent evening (Mrs. Rossiter was +staying in the house at this time), and at last they all had gone up to +bed. Peter stayed for a moment in his dressing-room, seeing his white +face in the looking-glass, hearing the beating of his heart and then +with a hand that strangely trembled, knocked on Clare's door. + +Her voice sounded frightened, he thought, as she called to him to come +in. Indeed, as he entered she folded a letter that she had been reading, +and put it in a drawer in the dressing-table at which she was sitting. + +It was only seldom now that he disturbed her in that room. She had +turned on the electric light over her dressing-table; the rest of the +room was in darkness. She seemed to Peter very fragile and tiny as she +sat there in her black evening frock, her breast rising and falling +as though something had suddenly frightened her, her eyes wide and +startled. He felt a gross, coarse brute as he stumbled, coming across +the dark floor to her. + +"My God," he cried in his heart, "put everything right now--let this +make everything right." + +His big square body flung huge fantastic shadows upon the wall, but +he looked, as he faced her, like a boy who had come to his master to +confess some crime. + +Apparently she was reassured now, for she took off her necklace and +moved about the things on her table as though to show him that she was +on the point of undressing. + +"Well, Peter, what is it?" she said. + +"I've come--Clare--just a moment--I want a talk." + +"But it's late, I'm tired--won't some other time do?" + +"No, I want it now." + +"What is it?" + +She was looking into the glass as she spoke to him. + +He pulled a little chair over to her and sat forward so that his knees +nearly touched her thin black dress. He put out his big hand and caught +one of her little ones; he thought for a moment that she was going to +resist--then it lay there cold as ice. + +"Clare--darling--look here, everything's been wrong with both of us--for +ages. And I've come--I've come--because I know it's been very largely my +fault. And I've come to say that everything will be different now and I +want you to let things--be--as they were before--" + +For a moment he fancied that he saw a light leap into her eyes; he felt +her hand tremble for a moment in his. Then the expression was gone. + +"How do you mean?" she said, still looking into the glass. "What do you +mean, Peter? I haven't noticed anything different." + +"Oh yes, you have. You know that--ever since Stephen died and before +that really--you've avoided me. You'd rather be without me than with +me. You've all thought me selfish and glum and so I suppose I was. But +I missed--the kid--a lot." Again Peter felt her hand tremble. He pressed +it. Then he went on, leaning more toward her now and putting an arm out +to touch her dress. + +"Clare--it's been like a fog all these weeks--we've never had it out, +we've never talked about it, but you've been disappointed in me. You +thought I was going to write great books and I haven't--and then your +mother--and I--don't get on. And then I suppose I'm stupid in society--I +can't talk a lot to any one who comes along as all you people can. I've +been brought up differently and--and--I know you don't like to think +about that either, and so I'll never bring my old friends into the house +and I'll see that I'm not such a gawk at your parties--" + +He paused for a moment; she was looking down now and he couldn't see her +eyes. He bent forward more closely--his arm caught her waist--his hand +crushed hers-- + +She tried desperately to pull herself together to say something-- + +"No--there's nothing. Well, if there is--Of course I suppose it happens +to all married people--" + +"What happens?" + +"Why, they find one another out a little. Things aren't quite as they +thought they'd be. That must happen always." + +"But tell me--tell me the things in me that have disappointed you and +then I can alter--" + +"Well--it's a little as you say. You have been rather rude to Mother. +And then--your quarrel--" + +"What! You mean with Cards!" + +"With--Jerry--yes. And then," her voice was high and sharp now--her +eyes avoided his--"I've always--been happy, until _I_ married. +Things frighten me. You don't understand me, Peter, how easily I'm +frightened--you never seemed to see that. Other people--know." + +"I've been selfish--I--" + +"Yes," she went on still in that high voice, "and you never consider me +in little things. And you laugh at me as though I were stupid. I don't +suppose it's all your fault. You were brought up--roughly. But you _are_ +rough. You hurt me often. I can't bear," her lip was trembling and she +was nearly crying--"I can't bear being unhappy--" + +"My God!" cried Peter, "what a beast I am! What a brute I've been!" + +"Yes--and you never seemed to think that I minded poor little Stephen's +death--the dear little thing--of course it hurt me dreadfully--and you +never thought of _me_--" + +"It's all going to be different now. Love me, Clare--love me and it will +all come back. And then if you'll only love me I'll be able to write the +most wonderful books. I'll be famous all the world over--if you'll only +love me, Clare darling--" + +He dropt on to his knees before her and looking up at her +whispered--"Clare--darling, darling--you're all that I've got +now--everything in the world. And in return I'll try to be everything +to you. I'll spend my life in making you happy. I'll care for only one +thing and that is to be your servant. Clare--Clare--" + +She gave a little protesting cry--"Peter, Peter--don't--I--I--can't--" +and then in a shuddering whisper--"Peter--I'm not good enough--I don't +love you now--I--can't--" + +But he had caught her, was holding her to him now, with both his arms +round her, pressing her against his shirt, hurting her--at last covering +her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks with kisses. + +He had not heard those words now, in the triumph of having her back +again, his as she had been on the first day of their marriage, did not +feel her body unresponsive, her hands cold, nor did he see the appeal, +wild and desperate, in her eyes.... + +At last he left her, closing, softly her door between them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PETER BUYS A PRESENT + + +I + +Peter did not hesitate now. He should win Clare back with his strong +right hand and he would rule The Roundabout with a rod of iron. Ruling +The Roundabout meant ruling Mrs. Rossiter and he was surprised at the +ease with which he won his victory over that lady. Had he considered it +more deeply that easy victory might have seemed to him ominous. + +At luncheon on the day after his talk with Clare they three sat +together--Mrs. Rossiter silent, Clare silent, Peter silent. + +Suddenly Peter said: "Oh by the way, Clare, I telephoned for seats this +morning for the new thing at the Criterion. I got two stalls." + +They had not been to the theatre together since Stephen's death. + +Clare lifted a white face--"I don't think I--" + +"Oh yes," said Peter, smiling across at her--"you'll enjoy it." + +Mrs. Rossiter stroking her large bosom with a flat white hand said, "I +don't think Clare--" + +"Oh yes," said Peter again, "it will do her good." + +Mrs. Rossiter smiled. "Get another stall, Peter, and I will come too." + +"I'm afraid," said Peter very politely, "that it's too late. The piece +is a thumping success. I was very lucky to get any seats at all." + +And then Mrs. Rossiter subsided, absolutely subsided ... very strange. + +That was not a very happy evening. Clare scarcely spoke, she answered +him with "Yes" and "No," she sat in the stalls looking like a little +unhappy ghost. She did not in any way repulse him--she let him take her +hand coming home in the cab. She shivered and he asked whether she were +cold and she said, Yes, she thought that she was. That night he came in, +took her for a moment in his hands, kissed her very gently on the lips, +and said-- + +"Clare, you're not angry with me for last night?" + +"No" she answered him. Then she added slowly, as though she were +repeating a part that she'd learnt, "Thank you for taking me to the +play, Peter. I was rather tired. But thank you for taking me." + +He went to bed thanking God for this change in her. "I'll make her love +me just as she used to, those days on our honeymoon. God bless her." + +Yes, Mrs. Rossiter was strangely altered. It all shows what one can do +with a woman when one tries. Her hostile placidity had given place to +something almost pathetic. One would have thought, had one not known +that lady's invariable assurance of movement, that she was perplexed, +almost distressed. + +Peter was conscious that Clare was now as silent with her mother as she +was with him. He perceived that Mrs. Rossiter was disturbed at Clare's +reticence. He fancied that he sometimes interrupted little conversations +between the mother and the daughter the intention of which was, on Mrs. +Rossiter's part at any rate, that "Clare should tell her something." +There was no doubt at all, that Mrs. Rossiter was anxious. +Even--although this seemed impossible--she appeared to be ready to +accept Peter as a friend and ally now--now after these many weeks of +hostility. Surely women are strange creatures. In any case, one may +observe the yellow brooch agitated now and ill at ease. + +Very soon, too, Cards came to make his farewells--he was going to Paris +for the whole of May. + +"What! Won't you be back for the beginning of the Season?" cried Peter +astonished. + +"No," Cards answered, laughing. "For once the Season can commence +without me." + +He was especially affectionate but seemed anxious to be gone. His dark +eyes avoided Peter's gaze. He didn't look well--a little anxious: and +Cards was generally the soul of light-hearted carelessness. + +What a splendid fellow he was! Peter looked him up and down taking +that same delight that he had always taken in his distinction, his good +looks, his ease. "He ought to have been born king of somewhere," Peter +used to think, "he ought really--no wonder people spoil him." + +"There's another thing," Peter said, "you're forgetting Clare's birthday +next week. She'll be dreadfully disappointed at your not being here for +it." + +"I'll have to remember it from Paris," Cards said. + +"Well--it's an awful pity that you're going for a whole month. I don't +know what we shall do without you. And you cheer Clare up--she's rather +depressed just now. Thinks of the kid a bit, I expect." + +"Well, I'll write," said Cards, and was gone. + + +II + +Peter received at this time a letter that showed him that he had, at any +rate, one friend, in the world who believed in him. It was from James +Maradick and it was strangely encouraging--now at this period of yawning +pits from whose blackness he so resolutely turned away. + +It asked him to go with Maradick as his guest to some Club dinner. Then +it went on.... "You know, Westcott, we don't meet as often as we should. +Like ships in the night, we signal every now and again and then pass. +But I am quite sure that we have plenty to say to one another. Once or +twice--you remember that party when I gassed about Cornwall?--we have +nearly said it, but something has always prevented. I remember that you +divided the world once in a fit of youthful confidence, into Explorers +and Stay-at-homes. Well, those words will do as well as any others to +describe the great dividing line. At any rate, you're an Explorer +and you're trying to get on terms with the Stay-at-homes, and I'm a +Stay-at-home and I'm trying to get on terms with the Explorers and +that's why we're both so uncomfortable. The only happy people, take my +word for it, are those who know the kind of thing they are--Explorers or +Stay-at-homes, and just stick at that and shut their eyes tight to the +other kind of people--_il n'existe pas_, that other world. Those are the +happy people, and, after all most people are like that. But we, you and +I, are uncomfortably conscious of the other Party--want to know them, in +fact, want them to receive us. + +"Well, I'm getting on and it's late days for me, but you've got all +your life before you and will do great things, take my word for it. Only +don't be discouraged because the Stay-at-homes don't come to you all at +once. Give 'em time--they'll come...." + +This seemed to Peter, at this moment of a whole welter of doubt and +confusion and misunderstanding of people's motives and positions, to +explain a great deal. Was that the reason why he'd been so happy in +old Zachary Tan's shop years ago? Why he'd been happy through all that +existence at the bookshop, those absurd unreal conspirators--happy, yes, +even when starving with Stephen in Bucket Lane. + +He was then in his right company--explorers one and all. Whereas +here?--Now? Had he ever been happy at The Roundabout except during the +first year, and afterwards when Stephen came? And was not that, too, the +explanation of young Stephen's happiness upon the arrival of Mr. Zanti +and Brant? Did he not recognise them for what they were, explorers? He +being a young explorer himself. + +On the other side Mrs. Rossiter, Clare, Cards, old Bobby who in spite of +his affection never understood half the things that Peter did or said, +the Galleons, old Mrs. Galleon and Percival and his sister?... Had Henry +Galleon known that dividing-line and suffered under it all his life, and +borne it and perhaps conquered it? + +And Peter suddenly, standing at his window watching London caught by the +evening light, saw for an instant his work in front of him again. London +with her towers, her roofs and chimneys--smoke and mist and haze weaving +a web--and then beneath it, humming, buzzing, turning, all the lives, +all the comedies, all the tragedies--Kings and princes, guttersnipes and +duchesses, politicians and newsboys, criminals and saints-- + +Waiting, that golden top, for some hand to set it humming. + +In that moment Peter Westcott, aged twenty-nine, with a book just behind +him that had been counted on every side the most dismal of failures, saw +himself the English Balzac, saw London open like a book at his feet, +saw heaven and all its glories... himself the one and only begetter of a +thousand masterpieces! + +But the sun set--the towers and roofs and chimneys were coldly grey, a +ragged wind rose through the branches of the orchard, dark clouds hid +the risen moon, newsboys were crying a murder in Whitechapel. + +"I hate this house," Peter said, turning away from the window, into a +room crowded now with dusk. + + +III + +It was the first of May, and the day before Clare's birthday. It was +one of the most beautiful days of the year, with a hint of summer in its +light and shadow, a shimmer of golden sun shaking through the trees in +the orchard, flung from there on to the windows of The Roundabout, to +dance in twisting lines along the floors and across the walls. + +All doors and windows seemed to be open; the scent of flowers--a +prophecy of pinks and roses where as yet there were none--flooded the +little Chelsea streets. + +The Velasquez on the walls of The Roundabout danced in her stiff skirts, +looking down upon a room bathed in green and gold shadow. + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon and Peter was going out to buy +Clare a present. He had seen a ruby pendant many months ago in a window +in Bond Street. He had thought of it for Clare but he had known that, +with young Stephen's education and the rest of the kid's expenses, he +could not dare to afford it. Now... things were different. + +It should sign and seal this new order.... + +He came downstairs. He looked into the little sitting-room. Clare was +standing there by the window looking at the gay trees in the orchard. On +the opposite wall the Velasquez danced.... + +She had not heard him come in and she was standing by the window with +her hands clasped tightly behind her, her body strung up, so it seemed, +by some height of determination. She wore a black dress with a little +white round her neck and at the sleeves. Her hair was rolled into a pile +on the top of her head and the sunlight from the orchard was shining +upon it. + +When Peter called her name she turned round with a startled cry and put +her hand to her throat. Then she moved back against the window as though +she were afraid that he was going to touch her. + +He noticed her movement and the words that he had intended to say were +checked on his lips. He stammered, instead, something about going out. +She nodded her head; she had pulled herself together and walked towards +him from the window. + +"Won't you come, too? It is such a lovely day," he asked her. + +"I've got a headache." + +"It'll do your headache good." + +But she shook her head--"No, I'm going upstairs to lie down." + +She moved past him to the door. Then with her hand on it she turned back +to him:-- + +"Peter, I--" she said. + +She seemed to appeal to him with her eyes beseeching, trying to say +something, but the rest of her face was dumb. + +The appeal, the things that she would have said suddenly died, leaving +her face utterly without expression. + +"Bobby and mother are coming to dinner to-night, aren't they?" + +"Yes--" + +She passed through the door across the sunlit hall, up the dark stairs. +She walked with that hesitating halting step that he knew so well: +her small, white hand lay, for a moment on the banisters--then she had +disappeared. + + +IV + +Coming through the hall Peter noticed that there was a letter in the +box. He took it out and found, with delight, that it was from Stephen +Brant. He had had no word from him since the day when he and Mr. Zanti +had paid their fateful visit. + +The letter said:-- + +_Dear Mr. Peter, + +This is a hurried line to tell you that He is dead at last, died in +drink cursing and swearing and now her mother and she, poor dear, are +going to America and I'm going to look after her hoping that we'll be +marrying in a few months' time and so realise my heart's wish. + +Dear Peter I sail on Thursday from Southampton and would be coming to +see you but would not like to inconvenience you as you now are, but my +heart is ever the same to you, Dear Boy, and the day will come when we +can talk over old times once again. + +Your affectionate friend, sir, + +Now about to be made the happiest man in all the world, + +Stephen. + +N.B. I hope the little kid is strong and happy. + +N.B. Zanti goes with us to America having heard of gold in California +and is to be my best man when the day comes._ + +So Stephen's long wait was ended at last. Peter's eyes were dimmed as +he put the letter away in his pocket. What a selfish beast, to be sure, +must this same Peter Westcott, be, for here he was wishing--yes, almost +wishing--that Stephen's happiness had not come to him. Always at the +back of everything there had been the thought of Stephen Brant. Let all +the pits in the world gape and yawn, there was one person in the world +to whom Peter was precious. Now--in America--with a wife... some of the +sunlight had gone out of the air and Peter's heart was suddenly cold +with that old dread. + +Another friend taken from him! Another link gone! Then he pulled +himself together, tried to rejoice with Stephen at his happiness, failed +dismally, walked down Piccadilly defiantly, with swinging shoulders and +a frowning face, like a sailor in a hostile country, and went into the +Bond Street jeweller's. + +He had been there on several former occasions and a large stout man who +looked as though he must have been Lord Mayor several years running came +forward and gave Peter an audience. Precious stones were of no account +in such a place as this, and the ruby pendant looked quite small and +humble when it was brought to Peter--nevertheless it was beautiful and +would suit Clare exactly. It seemed to appeal personally to Peter, as +though it knew that he wanted it for a very especial occasion. This +wasn't one of those persons who would come in and buy you as though you +were dirt. It meant something to Peter. It meant something indeed--it +meant exactly sixty pounds-- + +"Isn't that rather a lot?" said Peter. + +"It's as fine a ruby--" said the dignitary, looking over Peter's head +out of the window, as though he were tired of the affair and wanted to +see whether his car were there. + +"I'll take it," said Peter desperately. + +Sixty Pounds! Did one ever hear of such a thing? Sixty pounds ... Never +mind, it marked an occasion. The ruby smiled at Peter as it was slipped +into its case; it was glad that it was going to somebody who hadn't very +many things. + +He had several other matters to settle and it was nearly five o'clock +when he turned out of Knightsbridge down Sloane Street. The sun was +slipping behind the Hyde Park Hotel so that already the shadows were +lying along the lower parts of the houses although the roofs were bright +with sunshine. + +It was the hour when all the dogs were taken for the last exercise +of the day. Every kind, of dog was there, but especially the fat and +pampered variety--Poms, King Charles, Pekinese, Dachshunds--a few +bigger dogs, and even one mournful-eyed Dane who walked with melancholy +superiority, as a king amongst his vassals. + +The street stirred with the patterings of dogs. The light slid down the +sky--voices rang in the clear air softly as though the dying day had +besought them to be tender. The colours of the shops, of the green +trees, of slim and beautifully-dressed houses were powdered with +gold-dust; the church in Sloane Square began to ring its bells. + +Peter, as he turned down the street, was cold--perhaps because +Knightsbridge had been blazing with sunshine and the light here was +hidden.... No, it was more than that.... + +"They say," he thought, "that Cornishmen always know when a disaster's +coming. If that's true, something ought to be going to happen to me." + +And then, in a flash, that sound that he had been half-subconsciously +expecting, came--the sound of the sea. He could hear it quite +distinctly, a distant, half-determined movement that seemed so vast in +its roll and plunge, so sharp in the shock with which it met the shore, +and yet so subdued that it might be many thousands of miles away. It +was as though a vast tide were dragging back a million shells from an +endless shore--the dragging hiss, the hesitating suspense in mid-air, +and then the rattle of the returning wave. + +As though hypnotised he closed his eyes. Yes, he was walking along +the Sea Road. There was that range of rock that lay out at sea like a +crouching dog. There was that white twisting circle of foam that +lay about the Ragged Stone--out there by itself, the rock with the +melancholy bell. Then through the plunging sea he could hear its +note--the moan of some one in pain. And ever that rattle, that hiss, +that suspense, that crash. + +"I beg your pardon--" he had run into a lady's maid who was leading a +pompous King Charles. The spaniel eyed him with hatred, the maid with +distrust. He passed on--but the Sea had departed. + +To chase away his gathering depression he thought that he would go in +and have tea with Bobby and Alice. It was quite late when he got there, +and stars were in a sky that was so delicate in colour that it seemed as +though it were exhausted by the glorious day that it had had; a little +sickle moon was poised above the Chelsea trees. + +To his disgust he found that Percival and Millicent Galleon were having +tea with their brother. Their reception of him very quickly showed him +that "Mortimer Stant" had put a final end to any hopes that they might +have had of his career as an artist. + +"How's the book doing, Westcott?" said Percival, looking upon Peter's +loose-fitting clothes, broad shoulders and square-toed shoes with +evident contempt. + +"Not very well thank you, Galleon." + +"Ah, well, it didn't quite come off, did it, Westcott?--not quite. Can't +hit the nail every time. Now young Rondel in this Precipice of his has +done some splendid work. We had him to tea the other day and really he +seemed quite a nice unassuming fellow--" + +"Oh! shut up," Bobby growled. "You talk too much, Percival." + +Peter was growing. Quite a short time ago he would have been furious, +would have gone into his shell, refused to speak to anybody, been +depressed and glowering. + +Now, smiling, he said: + +"Alice, won't you consider it and come up and dine with us after all +to-night? It's only my mother-in-law beside ourselves--" + +"No, thanks, Peter. I mustn't. The boy's not quite the thing." + +"Well, all right--if you must." + +Nevertheless, it hurt, although it was only that young ass of a Galleon. +That, though, was one of the pits into which one must not look. + +He felt the little square box that contained the ruby, lying there so +snugly in his pocket. That cheered him. + +"I must be getting back. Good-night, everybody. See you at dinner, +Bobby." + +He went. + +After Percival and his sister had also gone Alice said:-- + +"Dear Peter's growing up." + +"Yes," said Bobby. "My sweet young brother wants the most beautiful +kicking and he'll get it very soon." Then he looked at the clock. "I +must go up and dress." + +"I'm rather glad," said Alice, "I'm not coming. Clare gets considerably +on my nerves just at present." + +"Yes," said Bobby, "but thank God Mr. Cardillac's in Paris--for the time +being." Then he added, reflectively-- + +"Dear old Peter--bless him!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MR. WESTCOTT SENIOR CALLS CHECKMATE + + +I + +Peter felt as he closed the hall door behind him that The Roundabout +was both cold and dark. The little hall drew dusk into its corners very +swiftly and now, as he switched on the electric light, he was conscious +almost of protest on the part of the place, as though it wished that it +might have been left to its empty dusk. + +A maid passed him. + +"Has your mistress gone upstairs?" he asked her. + +"I don't think she has come in, sir." + +"Not come in?" + +"No, sir, she went out about three o'clock. I don't think she's come +back, sir." + +She's running it pretty close, he thought as he looked at his +watch--then he went slowly up to dress. + +He had been more irritated by the superiorities of young Percival +Galleon than he had cared to confess. Peter had, at the bottom of his +soul, a most real and even touching humility. He had no kind of opinion +of his abilities, of his work in comparison with the other workers +that counted. Moreover he would not, were his ultimate critical sense +aroused, fail to admit to himself some certain standard of achievement. +Nothing that young Galleon could say mattered from the critical +standpoint--nevertheless he seemed to represent, in this case, a +universal opinion; even in his rejection of Peter one could see, behind +him, a world of readers withdrawing their approval. + +"Peter Westcott's no good.... Peter Westcott's no good.... Peter +Westcott's no good...." + +In any case that was quite enough to account for the oppression that +he was feeling--feeling with increasing force as the minutes passed. He +undressed and dressed again slowly, wondering vaguely, loosely, in the +back of his mind, why it was that Clare had not come in. Perhaps she +had come in and the maid had not heard her. He took the ruby out of his +pocket, opened the little case, looked at the jewel shining there under +the electric light, thought of Clare with a sudden rush of passionate +affection. "Dear thing, won't she look lovely in it? Her neck's so white +and she's never worn much jewellery--she'll be pleased. She'll know why +I'm giving it to her now--a kind of seal on what we agreed to the other +night. A new life ... new altogether...." + +He was conscious as he took his shirt off that his windows were open and +a strange scent of burning leaves was with him in the room. It was quite +strong, pungent--very pleasant, that sense of burning. Burning leaves +in the orchard.... But it was rather cold. Then he came back to his +looking-glass and, standing there, naked save for his dress trousers, +he saw that he was looking in much better health than he had looked for +weeks. The colour had returned to his face, his eyes were brighter and +more alert--the lines had gone. He was strong and vigorous as he stood +there, his body shining under the glow. He opened and shut his hands +feeling the strength, force, in his fingers. Thick-set, sturdy, with his +shoulders back again now, straight, not bent as they had been. + +"Oh, I'm all right--I'm all right you know. I'll write some stuff one +day..." and even behind that his thought was--"that young Galleon, by +jove, I could jolly well break him if I wanted to--just snap him up." + +And then the odour of the burnt leaves filled his nostrils again; when +he had dressed he turned out the light, opened the windows more widely, +and stood for a moment there smelling the smoke, feeling the air on his +forehead, seeing the dark fluttering shadows of the trees, the silver +moon, the dim red haze of the London sky.... + + +II + +He went down to his study. Clare must be in now. Bobby would be here +in a few minutes. He took up the _Times_ but his mind wandered. "Mr. +Penning Bruce was at his best last night in the new musical Comedy +produced at the Apollo Theatre--the humour of his performance as +Lieutenant Pottle, a humour never exaggerated nor strained...." + +But he couldn't attend. He looked up at the little clock and saw that it +was nearly dinner-time. Bobby ought to be here. + +He stood up and listened. The house was profoundly silent. It was often +silent--but to-night it was as though everything in the house--the +furniture, the pictures--were listening--as though The Roundabout itself +listened. + +He went into the hall--stood for a moment under the stairs--and then +called "Clare--Clare." He waited and then again "Clare, Clare--I say, +it's late. Come along--" + +There was no answer. + +Then, crossing the hall, he opened the door of the little drawing-room +and looked in. It was black and empty--here, too, he could smell the +burning leaves. + +He switched on the light and instantly, perched against the Velasquez +Infanta, saw the letter, white and still before the pink and grey of +the picture. At the sight of the letter the room that had been empty and +cold was suddenly burning hot and filled with a thousand voices. "Take +it--take it--why don't you take it? It's been waiting there for you a +long time and we've all been wondering when you were coming in for it. +It's waiting there for you. Take it--take it--take it!" + +At the sight of it too, the floor of the room seemed instantly to pitch, +slanting downwards, like the deck of a sinking ship. He caught on to the +back of a chair in order that he might not slip with it. His hands shook +and there was a great pain at his heart, as though some one were pulling +it tight, then squeezing it in their fingers and letting it go again. + +Then, as suddenly, all his agitation fled. The room was cold and empty +again, and his hands were steady. He took the letter and read it. + +It was written in great agitation and almost illegible, and at the +bottom of the paper there was a dirty smudge that might have been a tear +stain or a finger mark. It ran: + +_I must go. I have been so unhappy for so long and we don't get on +together, Peter, now. You don't understand me and I must be happy. I had +always been happy until I married you--perhaps it's partly my fault but +I only hinder your work and there is some one else who loves me. He has +always said so. + +I would not have gone perhaps if it had not been for what you did on +April 12. I know because some one saw you getting into a cab at midnight +with that horrible woman. That shows that you don't care about me, +Peter. But perhaps I would have gone anyhow. Once, the night I told you +about baby coming, I told you there'd be a time when you'd have to hold +me. It came--and you didn't see it. You didn't care--you can't have +loved me or you would have seen.... But anything is better than staying +here like this. I am very unhappy now but you will not care. You are +cruel and hard, Peter. You have never understood what a woman wants. + +I am going to Jerry in Paris. You can divorce me. I don't care about +anything now. I won't come back--I won't, I won't--Clare._ + +He read this all through, very carefully with a serious brow. He +finished it and then knew that he had not read a word of it. He went, +slowly, to the window and opened it because the room was of a stifling +heat. Then he took the letter again and read it. As he finished it again +he was conscious that the door-bell was ringing. He wondered why it was +ringing. + +He was standing in the middle of the room and speaking to himself: +"The humour of his performance as Lieutenant Pottle, a humour never +exaggerated nor strained ..." + +"The humour of his Lieutenant Pottle as a performer--never strained... +never exaggerated... never strained..." + +Bobby came in and found him there. Peter's face was so white that his +collar and shirt seemed to be a continuation of his body--a sudden +gruesome nakedness. Both his hands were shaking and his eyes were +puzzled as though he were asking himself some question that he could not +solve. + +Bobby started forward-- + +"God, Peter, what--" + +"She's gone away, Bobby," Peter said, in a voice that shook a little +but was otherwise grave and almost a whisper, so low was it. "She's gone +away--to Cardillac." Then he added to himself--"Cardillac is my best +friend." + +Then he said "Listen," and he read the letter straight through. He +repeated some of the phrases--"What you did on April 12." "That shows +that you don't care.... You are cruel and hard, Peter.... I am going to +Jerry in Paris...." + +"Jerry--that's Cardillac, you know, Bobby. He's in Paris and she's going +over to him because she can't stand me any more. She says I don't care +about her. Isn't that funny, when I love her so much?" + +Bobby went to him, put his arm round his neck-- + +"Peter--dear--Peter--wait," and then "Oh my God! we must stop her--" + +He drew himself away from Bobby's arm and, very unsteadily, went +across the room and then stood against the farther wall, his head bent, +motionless. + +"Stop her? Oh! no, Bobby. Stop her when she wants to go! I--" His voice +wasn't Peter's voice, it was a thin monotonous voice like some one +speaking at a great distance. + +Then it seemed that intelligence was flashed upon him. He lurched +forward and with a great voice--as though he had been struck by some +sudden agonising, immortal pain-- + +"Bobby--Bobby--My wife--Clare--" + +And at that instant Mrs. Rossiter was shown into the room. + + +III + +The maid who opened the door had apparently some suspicion that "things +were odd," because she waited for a moment before she closed the door +again, staring with wide eyes into the room, catching, perhaps, some +hint from her master's white face that something terrible had occurred. + +It was obvious enough that Mrs. Rossiter had herself, during the last +week, been in no easy mind. From the first glances at Peter and Bobby +she seemed to understand everything, for, instantly, at that glimpse +of their faces she became, for the first time in her life, perhaps, a +personality, a figure, something defined and outlined. + +Her face was suddenly grey. She hesitated back against the door and, +with her face on Peter, said in a whisper, to Bobby: + +"What--what has happened?" + +Bobby was not inclined to spare her. As an onlooker during these last +months he felt that she, perhaps, was more guiltily responsible for the +catastrophe than any other human being. + +"Clare," he said, trying to fix her eyes. "She's gone off to +Cardillac--to Paris." + +Then he was himself held by the tragedy of those two faces. They faced +each other across the room. Peter, with eyes and a mouth that were not +his, eyes not sane, the eyes of no human being, mouth smiling, drawn +tight like a razor's edge, with his hands spread out against the wall, +watched Mrs. Rossiter. + +Mrs. Rossiter, at Bobby's words, had huddled up, suddenly broken, only +her eyes, in her great foolish expressionless face, stung to an agony to +which the rest of her body could not move. + +Her little soul--a tiny scrap of a thing in that vague prison of dull +flesh--was suddenly wounded, desperately hurt by the only weapon that +could ever have found it. + +"Clare!" that soul whispered, "not gone! It's not possible--it can't +be--it can't be!" + +Peter, without moving, spoke to her. + +"It's you that have sent her away. It's all your doing--all your +doing--" + +She scarcely seemed to realise him, although her eyes never left his +face--she came up to Bobby, her hands out: + +"Bobby--please, please--tell me. This is absurd--there's a mistake. +Clare, Clare would never do a thing like that--never leave me like +that--why--" and her voice rose--"I've loved her--I've loved her as +no mother ever loved her girl--she's been everything to me. She knows +it--why she often says that I'm the only one who loves her. She'd never +go--" + +Then Peter came forward from the wall, muttering, waving his hands at +her--"It's you! You! You! You've driven her to this--you and your +cursed interference. You took her from me--you told her to deceive me +in everything. You taught her to lie and trick. She loved me before you +came into it. Now be proud, if you like--now be proud. God damn you, +for making your daughter into a whore--That's what you've done, you +with your flat face, your filthy flat face--you've made your daughter a +whore, I tell you--and it's nothing but you--you--you--!" + +He lifted his hand as though he would strike her across the face. She +said nothing but started back with her hands up as though to protect +herself. He did not strike her. His hand fell. But she, as though she +had felt a blow had her hand held to her face. + +He stood over her for a moment laughing, his head flung back. Then still +laughing he went away from them out into the hall. + +Then, through the open door they heard him. He passed through the upper +rooms crying out as he went--"Clare! Clare! Where are you? Come down! +They're here for dinner! You're wanted! It's time, Clare!--where are +you? Clare! Clare!" + +They heard him, knocking furniture over as he went. Then there was +silence. Mrs. Rossiter seemed, at that, to come to herself. She stood +up, feeling her cheek. + +"It's sent him off his head, Bobby. Go after him. He'll hurt himself." +Then as though to herself, she went on--"I must find Clare--she'll be in +Paris, I suppose. I must go and find her, Bobby. She'll want me badly." + +She went quietly from the room, still with her hand to her cheek. She +listened for a moment in the hall. + +She turned round to Bobby: + +"It doesn't say--the letter--where Clare's gone?" + +"No--only Paris." + +He helped her on with her cloak and opened the front door for her. She +slipped away down the street. + +Bobby turned back and saw that Peter was coming down the stairs. But now +the fury had all died from his face, only that look, as of some animal +wounded to death, a look that was so deep and terrible as almost to give +his white face no expression at all, was with him. + +It had been with him at Stephen's death, it was with him far more +intensely now. He looked at Bobby. + +"She's gone," in a tired, dull voice as of some one nearly asleep, "gone +to Cardillac. I loved Cards--and all the time he loved Clare. I loved +Clare and all the time she loved Cards. It's damned funny isn't it, +Bobby, old man?" + +He stood facing him in the hall, no part of him moving except his mouth. +"She says I treated her like a brute. I don't think I did. She says +there was something I did one night--I don't know. I've never done +anything--I've never been with another woman--something about a +cab--Perhaps it was poor Rose Bennett. Poor Rose Bennett--damned +unhappy--so am I--so am I. I'm a lonely fellow--I always have been!" + +He went past Bobby, back into the little drawing-room. Bobby followed +him. + +He turned round. + +"You can go now, Bobby. I shan't want you any more." + +"No, I'm going to stay." + +"I don't want you--I don't want any one." + +"I'm going to stay." + +"I'd rather you went, please." + +"I'm going to stay." + +Peter paid no more attention. He went and sat down on a chair by the +window. Bobby sat down on a chair near him. + +Once Peter said: "They took my baby. They took my work. They've taken my +wife. They're too much for me. I'm beaten." + +Then there was absolute silence in the house. The servants, who had +heard the tumbling of the furniture, crept, frightened to bed. + +Thus The Roundabout, dark, utterly without sound, stayed through the +night. Once, from the chair by the window in the little drawing-room +a voice said, "I'm going back to Scaw House--to my father. I'm going +back--to all of them." + +During many hours the little silver clock ticked cheerfully, seeing +perhaps with its little bright eyes, the two dark figures and wondering +what they did there. + + + + +BOOK IV -- SCAW HOUSE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SEA + + +I + +Peter Westcott was dead. + +They put his body into the 11.50 from Paddington. + + +II + +It was a day of high, swinging winds, of dappled skies, of shining +gleaming water. Bunches now and again of heavy black clouds clustered +on the horizon, the cows and horses in the fields were sharply defined, +standing out rigidly against a distant background. The sun came and was +gone, laughed and was instantly hidden, turned the world from light to +shadow and from shadow back to light again. + +Peter's body was alone in the compartment. It was propped up against +red velvet that yielded with a hard, clenched resistance, something +uncomfortable, had the body minded. The eyes of the body were the high +blank windows of a deserted house. Behind them were rooms and passages, +but lately so gaily crowded, so eager, with their lights and fires, +for hustling life--now suddenly empty--swept of all its recent company, +waiting for new, for very different inhabitants. + +The white hands motionless upon the knees, the eyes facing the light +but blind, the body still against the velvet, throughout the long, long +day.... + + +III + +There were occasions when some one came and asked for his ticket. Some +one came once and asked him whether "He would take lunch." Once a woman, +flushed and excited, laden with parcels, tumbled into his carriage and +then, after a glance at the white face, tumbled out again. + +Then, from very, very far away, came the first whispered breath of +returning consciousness. The afternoon sun now had banished the black +clouds--the wind had fallen--the sky was a quiet blue and birds rose and +fell, rivers shone and had passed, roads were white like ribbons, broad +and brown like crinkled paper, then ribbons again as the train flung +Devonshire, scornfully, behind its back. Peter was conscious that his +body was once more to be tenanted. But by whom? + +Here was some one coming to him now, some one who, as the evening light +fell about the land, dark with his cloak to his face, came softly upon +the house and knocked at the door. Peter could hear his knock--it echoed +through the empty passages, the deserted rooms, it was a knock that +demanded, imperatively, admittance. The door swung back, the black +passages gaped upon the evening light and were closed again. The house +was once more silent--but no longer untenanted. + + +IV + +Peter was now conscious of the world. That was Exeter that they had left +behind them and soon there would be Plymouth and then the crossing of +the bridge and then--Cornwall! + +Cornwall! His lips were dry--he touched them with his tongue, and knew, +suddenly, that he was thirsty, more thirsty than he had ever been. +He would never be hungry again, but he would always be thirsty. An +attendant passed. What should he drink? The attendant suggested a whisky +and soda. Yes ... a large whisky.... + +It was very long indeed since he had been in Cornwall--he had not been +there since his boyhood. What had he been doing all the time in between? +He did not know--he had no idea. This new tenant of the house was +not aware of those intervening years, was only conscious that he was +returning after long exile, to his home--Scaw House, yes, that was the +name ... the house with the trees and the grey stone walls--yes, he +would be glad to be at home again with his father. His father would +welcome him after so long an absence. + +The whisky and soda was brought to him and as he drank it they crossed +the border and were in Cornwall. + + +V + +They were at Trewth, that little station where you must change for +Treliss. It stood open to all the winds of heaven, two lines of paling, +a little strip of platform, standing desolately, at wistful attention +in the heart of gently breathing fields, mild skies, dark trees bending +together as though whispering secrets ... all mysterious, and from +the earth there rose that breath--sea-wind, gorse, soil, saffron, grey +stone--that breath that is only Cornwall. + +Peter--somewhere in some strange dim recesses of his soul--felt it about +his body. The wind, bringing all these scents, touched his cheek and his +hair and he was conscious that that dark traveller who now tenanted +his house closed the doors and windows upon that breath. It might +waken consciousness, and consciousness memory, and memory pain ... ah! +pain!--down with the shutters, bolt the doors--no vision of the outer +world must enter here. + +The little station received gratefully the evening light that had +descended upon it. A few men and women, dim bundles of figures against +the pale blue, waited for the train, a crescent moon was stealing above +the hedges, from the chimneys of two little cottages grey smoke trembled +in the air. + +Suddenly there came to Peter, waiting there, the determination to drive. +He could not stand there, surrounded by this happy silence any longer. +All those shadows that were creeping about the dark spaces beyond his +house were only waiting for their moment when they might leap. This +silence, this peace, would give them that moment. He must drive--he must +drive. + +In the road outside the station a decrepit cab with a thin rake of a man +for driver was waiting for a possible customer. The cab was faded, the +wheels encrusted with ancient mud, the horse old and wheezy, but the +cabman, standing now thinner than ever against the sky, was, in spite of +a tattered top hat, filled with that cheerful optimism that belongs to +the Cornishman who sees an opportunity of "doing" a foreigner. + +"I want to drive to Treliss," said Peter. + +They bargained. The battered optimist obtained the price that he +demanded and cocked his eye, derisively, at the rising moon. + +Peter surveyed the cab. + +"I'll sit with you on the box," he said. + +The thin driver made way for him. It was a high jolting cab of the +old-fashioned kind, a cab you might have sworn was Cornish had you +seen it anywhere, a cab that smelt of beer and ancient leather and salt +water, a cab that had once driven the fashion of Treliss to elegant +dances and now must rattle the roads with very little to see, for all +your trouble, at the end of it. + +The sleeping fields, like grey cloths, stretched on every side of them +and the white road cut into the heart of the distance. It was a quarter +to eight and a blue dusk. The driver tilted the top hat over one ear and +they were off. + +"I know this road as yer might say back'ards. Ask any one down along +Treliss way. Zachy Jackson they'll say--which is my name, sir, if yer +requirin' a good 'orse any time o' day. Zachy Jackson! which there ain't +no man,--tarkin' of 'orses, fit to touch 'im, they'll tell yer and not +far wrong either." + +But now with every stumbling step of that bony horse Peter was being +shaken into a more active consciousness, consciousness not of the +past, very slightly of the present, but rather of an eager, excited +anticipation of events shortly to befall him, of the acute sense--the +first that had, as yet, come to him--that, very shortly, he was to +plunge himself into an absolute abandonment of all the restraints and +discipline that had hitherto held him. He did not know, he could not +analyse to himself--for what purpose those restraints had been formerly +enforced upon his life. Only now--at this moment, his body was being +flooded with a warm, riotous satisfaction at the thought of the +indulgences that were to be his. + +Still this fortress of his house was bare and desolated, but now in some +of the rooms there were lights, fire, whispers, half-hidden faces, eyes +behind curtains. + +The wind struck him in the face. "Enough of this--you're done +for--you're beaten--you're broken... you're going back to your hovel. +You're creeping home--don't make a fine thing of it--" the wind said. + +The top of the hill rolled up to them and suddenly with the gust +that came from every quarter there was borne some sound. It was very +delicate, very mysterious--the sound, one might fancy, that the earth +would make if all spring flowers were to pierce the soil at one common +instant--so fugitive a whisper. + +"That's the sea," said Mr. Jackson, waving his whip in the air, "down to +Dunotter Cove. There's a wind to-night. It'll blow rough presently." + +Now from their hilltop in the light of a baby moon puddles of water +shone like silk, hedges were bending lines of listeners, far on the +horizon a black wood, there in one of those precipitous valleys cottages +cowering, overhead the blue night sky suddenly chequered with solemn +pompous slowly moving clouds. But here on the hilltop at any rate, a +bustle of wind--such a noise amongst the hedges and the pools instantly +ruffled and then quiet again; and so precipitous a darkness when a cloud +swallowed the moon. In the daylight that landscape, to any who loved +not Cornwall, would seem ugly indeed, with a grey cottage stuck here and +there naked upon the moor, with a bare deserted engine house upon the +horizon, with trees, deep in the little valley, but scant and staggering +upon the hill--ugly by day but now packed with a mystery that contains +everything that human language has no name for, there is nothing to do, +on beholding it, but to kneel down and worship God. Mr. Jackson had seen +it often before and he went twice to chapel every Sunday, so he just +whipped up his horse and they stumbled down the road. + +"Dirty weather coming," he said. + +Peter was disturbed. That whispering noise that had crept across the +country frightened him. If it went on much longer it would make him +remember--he must not remember. + +They turned down into a deep, mysterious lane and the whisper was +hidden. Now there was about them only the urgent crowding of the hedges, +the wild-flowers flinging their scent on to the night air, and above and +below and on every side of the old cab there streamed into the air the +sweet smell of crushed grass, as though many fields had been pressed +between giant's fingers and so had been left. + +Peter sat there and about him, like flames licking woodwork, evil +thoughts devoured his body. He was going now at last to do all those +things that, these many years, he had prevented himself from doing. That +at any rate he knew.... He would drink and drink and drink, until he +would never remember anything again ... never again.... Meanwhile as +the cab slowly began to climb the hill again Mr. Jackson was telling a +story. + +He rolled his r's as though life were indeed a valuable and happy thing, +and now and again, waving his thin whip in the air, he would seem to +appeal to the moon. + +"'Twas down to Dunotter Cove and I, a lad, my father bein' a fisherman, +and one night, I mind it as though it were yesterday, there was a mighty +wreck. Storm and wind and rain there was that night and there we were, +out in it, suddenly, all the village of us. I but a slip of a boy, you +must know, which it was thirty year back now and the rain sizzling on +the cobbles and the wind blawin' the chimneys crooked. Well--she were a +mighty wreck blawn right up against the Dunotter rocks, you understand, +and sendin' up rockets and we seein' her clear enough, black out to sea +which she seemed enormous in the night time and all. My father and +the rest of 'em went out in the boat--we waited and we waited and they +didn't come back.... They never come back--none of them only a crazed +luny, Bill Tregothny--'e was washed up against the rocks down to +Bosillian and 'e were just livin' ... And when it come daylight,"--Mr. +Jackson cleared his throat and paused--"when it come daylight there +wasn't no wreck--nothing--nor no bodies neither--nothing--only Bill +Tregothny the fool...." + +Peter had heard no single word of this. His ears were straining for the +return of that whisper. They were nearly once again at the hilltop. Then +in front of them there would be the sea--at the top of the hill there +would be the sea.... He was seized with a great terror--frightened like +a child in the dark.... "Bill Tregothny, you must understand sir, 'ad +always been a idiot--always, born so. When 'e was all well again 'e told +strange tales about the lot of them havin' boarded the vessel and there +bein' gold all over the decks--bars of it with the rain fallin' all +about it--piled in 'eaps and 'e said the sailors weren't like common +sailors yer knew, but all in silks with cocked hats and the gold lyin' +all about-- + +"O course Bill was the idiot you must understand, but it's true enough +that there were no vessel in the marnin'--no vessel at all--and my +father and the rest were never seen again--nor no bodies neither.... And +they _do_ say--" + +Here Mr. Jackson dropped his voice-- + +They were just at the top of the hill now. Peter was sitting with his +hands clenched, his body trembling. + +"... They do say that up in the potato field over Dunotter they've seen +a man all in a cocked hat and red silk and gold lace--a ghost you must +understand, sir--which Bill Tregothny says ..." + +The sea broke upon them with an instant, menacing roar. Between them +and this violence there was now only moorland, rough with gorse bushes, +uneven with little pits of sand, scented with sea pinks, with stony +tracks here and there where the moonlight touched it. + +But across it, like a mob's menace, fell the thunder, flung up to them +from below, swelling from a menace to a sudden crash, then from crash to +echo, dying to murmur again. It had in it anger and power, also pity and +tenderness, also scorn and defiance. It cared for no one--it loved every +one. It was more intimate than any confidence ever made, and then it +shouted that intimacy to the whole world. It flung itself into Peter's +face, beat his body, lashed his soul--"Oh! you young fool--you've come +slinking back, have you? After all these years you've come slinking +back. Where are all your fine hopes now, where all those +early defiances, those vast ambitions?--Worthless, broken, +defeated--worthless, broken, defeated." + +And then it seemed to change: + +"Peter--Peter--Hold out a little longer--the battle isn't over +yet--struggle on for a little, Peter--I'll help you--I'll bring your +courage back to you--Trust me, Peter--trust me...." + +Through the rattle of the surf there came the sick melancholy lowing of +the Bell Rock; swinging over a space of waters it fell across fields, +unutterably, abominably sad. + +And in the boy there instantly leapt to life his soul. Maimed and +bruised and stunned it had been--now alive, tearing him, bringing on +to his bending shoulders an awful tide of knowledge: "Everything is +gone--your wife, your boy, your friend, your work.... We have won, +Peter, we have won. The House is waiting for you...." + +And above those dreadful voices the thundering echo, indifferent to his +agonies, despising his frailties, flinging him, sea-wreck of the most +miserable, to any insignificant end.... + +Peter suddenly stood up, rocking on his box. He seized the whip from the +driver's hands. He lashed the miserable horse. + +"Get on, you devil, get on--leave this noise behind you--get out of it, +get out of it--" + +The cab rocked and tossed, Mr. Jackson caught the boy about the +shoulders, held him down. The horse, tired and weary, paid no heed to +anything that might be happening but stumbled on. + +"Good Lord, sir," Mr. Jackson cried, "you might have had us over--What's +it all about, sir?" + +But Peter now was huddled down with his coat about his ears and did not +move again. + +"Catchin' the whip like that--might 'ave 'ad us right into the 'edge," +muttered Mr. Jackson, wishing his journey well over. + +As they turned the corner the lights of Treliss burst into view. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SCAW HOUSE + + +I + +Mr. Jackson inquired as to the hotel that Peter preferred and was told +to drive anywhere, so he chose The Man at Arms. + +The Man at Arms had been turned, by young Mr. Bannister, from a small +insignificant hostelry into the most important hotel in the West of +England. It stood above the town, looking over the bay, the roofs of the +new town, the cottages of the old one, the curving island to the right, +the lighthouse to the left--all Cornwall in those grey stones, that blue +sea, the grave fishing boats, the flocks of gulls, far, far below. + +Mr. Bannister had spared no trouble over The Man at Arms, and now it +was luxuriously modern Elizabethan, with an old Minstrels' Gallery kept +studiously dusty, and the most splendid old oak and deep fire-places +with electric light cunningly arranged, and baths in every passage. +Of course you paid for this skilful and comfortable romance, but Mr. +Bannister always managed his bills so delicately that you expected to +find a poem by Suckling or Lovelace on the back of them. When Peter had +been last in Treliss The Man at Arms had scarcely existed, but he was +now utterly unconscious of it, and stood in the dim square hall talking +to Mr. Bannister like a man in a dream. + +He was aware now that he was exhausted with a fatigue that was beyond +anything that he had ever experienced. It was a weariness that was +not, under any conditions, to be resisted. He must lie down--here, +anywhere--now, at once and sleep ... sleep ... sleep. + +Mr. Bannister caught him by the arm as he swayed. + +"You looked played out, sir." + +"Done up... done up!" + +His eyes were closed. Then suddenly he had touched Mr. Bannister's +shoulder. He was looking at a wire letter rack, hanging by the +superintendent's little office. There were some telegrams and many +letters stretched behind the wire netting. One envelope was addressed-- + + _Miss Norah Monogue, + The Man at Arms Hotel. + Treliss, + Cornwall._ + +"Miss Monogue ... Miss Monogue ... have you any one here called Miss +Monogue?" + +"Yes, sir--been here some weeks. Poor lady, she's very ill I'm afraid. +Something to do with her heart--strained it in some way. Seemed much +better ... but the last few days...." + +Peter stumbled upstairs to his room. + + +II + +Some clock was striking five when he awoke and looking vaguely about +his room saw, by the light, that it must be late afternoon. He must have +slept for a day and a night. As he lay back on his bed his first moments +of consciousness were filled with a pleasant sense of rest and ease. He +remembered nothing ... he only knew that in the air there was the breath +of flowers and that through the open window there floated up to him a +song, a murmur of the sea, a rattle of little carts. + +He looked about his room. On a distant wall there was a +photograph--"Dunotter Rocks, from the East." Then he remembered. + +He flung the bed-clothes off him and hurried to dress. He must go up to +Scaw House at once, at once, at once. Not another moment must be wasted. +His hands trembled as he put on his clothes and when he came downstairs +he was dishevelled and untidy. He had eaten nothing for many hours but +food now would have choked him. He hurried out of the hotel. + +The town must have had many recollections to offer him had he observed +it but he passed through it, looking neither to the right nor the left, +brushing people aside, striding with great steps up the steep cobbled +street that leads out of the town, on to the Sea Road. + +Here on the Sea Road he paused. The wind, tearing, as it had always +done, round the corner met him and for a moment he had to pull himself +together and face it. He remembered, too, at that instant, Norah +Monogue. Where had he seen her? What had brought her to his mind +quite lately? What did she mean by interfering?--interfering? Then he +remembered. It was her name in the letter rack. She was at The Man at +Arms ill. Impatiently, he would have driven her from him, but all the +way down the Sea Road she kept pace with him. + +"I'm done with her.... I'm done with everybody. Damn it all, one keeps +thinking...." + +In the evening light the sea below the road was a pale blue and near +the shore a calm green. It was all very peaceful. The water lapped the +shore, the Bell Rock sighed its melancholy note across space; out a +little way, when some jagged stones sprang like shoulders from the blue, +gentle waves ringed them in foam like lace and broke with a whisper +against their sides. + +Except for the sea there was absolute silence. Peter alone seemed to +walk the world. As he strode along his excitement increased and his +knees trembled and his eyes were burning. He did not think of the +earlier days when he had walked that same road. That was another +existence that had nothing to do with him as he was now. The +anticipation that possessed him was parallel with the eager demand of +the opium-smoker. "Soon I shall be drugged. I'm going to forget, to +forget, to forget. Just to let myself go--to sink, to drown." + +He had still with him the consciousness of keeping at bay an army of +thoughts that would leap upon him if he gave them an opportunity. But +soon that would be all over--no more battle, no more struggle. He turned +the corner and saw Scaw House standing amongst its dark trees, with its +black palings in front of its garden and the deserted barren patch of +field in front of that again. The sun was getting low and the sky above +the house was flaming but the trees were sombre and the house was cold. + +It did not seem to him to have changed in any way since he had left it. +The windows had always been of a grim hideous glass, the stone shape of +the place always squat and ugly, and the short flight of steps that led +up to the heavy beetling door had always hinted, with their old hard +surface, at a surly welcome and a reluctant courtesy. It was all as it +had been. + +The sky, now a burning red, looked down upon an utterly deserted +garden, and the silence that was over all the place seemed to rise, like +streaming mist, from the heart of the nettles that grew thick along the +crumbling wall. + +The paint had faded from the door and the knocker was rusty; as Peter +hammered his arrival on to the flat silence a bird flew from the black +bunch of trees, whirred into the air and was gone.... + +For a long time after the echo of his knock had faded away there was +silence, and it seemed to him that this could be only another of those +dreams--those dreams when he had stood on the stone steps in the heart +of the deserted garden and woken the echoes through the empty house. At +last there were steps; some one came along the passage and halted on the +other side of the door and listened. They both waited on either side, +and Peter could hear heavy thick breathing. He caught the knocker again +and let it go with a clang that seemed to startle the house to its +foundations. Then he heard bolts, very slowly drawn back, again a pause +and then, stealthily the door swung open. + +A scent of rotten apples met him as the door opened, a scent so strong +that it was confused at once with his vision of the woman who stood +there, she, with her gnarled and puckered face, her brown skin +and crooked nose standing, as it were, for an actual and visible +personification of all the rotten apples that had ever been in the +world. + +He recognised also a sound, the drunken hesitating hiccough of the old +clock that had been there when he had come in that evening long ago +ready to receive his beating, that had kept pace with his grandfather's +snorings and mutterings and had seemed indeed, the only understanding +companion that the old man had ever had. The woman was, he saw, the +arms-akimbo ferocious cook of the old days, but now how wrinkled and +infirm!--separated by so many more years than the lapse of time allowed +her from the woman of his past appearance there. There was more in her +than the mere crumbling of her body, there was also the crumbling of +her spirit, and he saw in her old bleared eyes the sign of some fierce +battle fought by her, and fought to her own utter defeat. + +In her eyes he saw the thing that his father had become.... + +What did he want, she asked him, coming disturbing them at that hour, +but in her face there was, he fancied, something more than the surly +question justified, some curiosity, some eagerness that seemed to show +that she did not have many visitors here and that their company might be +an eager relief. + +"I'm Peter Westcott and I've come to see my father." + +She did not answer this, but only, with her hand to her breast stood +back a little and watched him with frightened eyes. She was wearing an +old, faded, green blouse, open at her scraggy neck and her skirt was a +kind of bed-quilt, odd bits of stuffs of many colours stuck together. +Her scanty hair was pulled into a bunch on the top of her head, her face +where it was not brown was purple, and her hands were always shaking +so that her fingers rattled together like twigs. But her alarmed and +startled eyes had some appeal that made one pity her poor battered old +body. + +"You don't remember me," he said, looking into her frightened eyes. But +she shook her head slowly. + +"You'd much better have kept away," she said. + +"Where is he?" he asked her. + +She shuffled in front of him down the dark hall. Except for this strange +smell of rotting apples it was all very much as it had been. The lamp +hanging at the foot of the stairs made the same spluttering noise and +there was the door of the room that had once been his grandfather's, and +Peter fancied that he could still see the old man swaying there in the +doorway, laughing at his son and his grandson as they struggled there on +the floor. + +The woman pushed open the dining-room door and Peter went in. + +Peter's first thought was that his father was not there. He saw standing +in front of the well-remembered fireplace a genial-looking gentleman +clothed in a crimson dressing-gown--a bald gentleman, rather fat, with a +piece of toast in one hand and a glass of something in the other. Peter +had expected he knew not what--something stern and terrible, something +that would have answered in one way or another to those early +recollections of terror and punishment that still dwelt with him. He had +remembered his father as short, spare, black-haired, grim, pale--this +gentleman, who was now watching him, bulged in the cheeks and the +stomach, was highly coloured with purple veins down the sides of his +nose and his rather podgy hands trembled. Nevertheless, it was his +father. When the red dressing-gown spoke it was in a kind of travesty +of that old sharp voice, those cutting icy words--a thickened and +degenerate relation: + +"My boy! At last!" the gentleman said. + +The room presented disorder. On the table were scattered playing cards, +a chair was overturned, under the cactus plant lay what looked like a +fiddle, and the only two pictures on the wall were very indecent old +drawings taken apparently from some Hogarthian prints. + +Peter stared at all this in amazement. It was, after the grim approach +and the deserted garden, like finding an Easter egg in a strong box. +Peter saw that his father was wearing under the dressing-gown a white +waistcoat and blue trousers, both of them stained with dark stains and +smelling very strongly of whisky. He noticed also that his father seemed +to find it difficult to balance himself on both his legs at the same +time, and that he was continually shifting his feet in an indeterminate +kind of way, as though he would like to dance but felt that it might not +be quite the thing. + +Mr. Westcott closed up both his eyes, opened his mouth and shut it again +and shook Peter excitedly by the hand. At the same time Peter felt that +his father was shaking his hand as much because he wanted to hold on to +something as for reasons of courtesy. + +"Well, I am glad. I wondered when you would come to see your poor old +father again--after all these years. I've often thought of you and said +to myself, 'Well, he'll come back one day. You only be patient,' I've +said to myself, 'and your son will come back to you--your only son, and +it isn't likely that he's going to desert you altogether.'" + +"Yes, father, I've come back," said Peter, releasing his hand. "I've +come back to stay." + +He thought of the many times in London when he'd pictured his father, +stern and dark, pulling the wires, dragging his wicked son back to +him--he thought of that ... and now this. And yet.... + +"Well now, isn't that pleasant--you've come to stay! Could I have wanted +anything better? Come and sit down--yes, that chair--and have something +to drink. What, you won't? Well, perhaps later. So you've come to keep +your old father company, have you? I'm sure that's delightful. Just what +a son ought to do. We shall get along very well, I'm sure." + +All the while that his father talked, still holding the toast and +the glass of something, Peter was intensely conscious of the silent +listening house. After all that grimness, that desertion, the old +woman's warning had gone for something. And yet, in spite of a kind of +dread that hung about him, in spite of a kind of perception that there +was a great deal more in his father than he at present perceived, he +could not resist a kind of warm pleasure that here at any rate was some +sort of a haven, that no one else in the world might want him, but here +was some one who was glad to see him. + +"Well, my boy, tell me all you've been doing these years." + +"I've been in London, writing--" + +"Dear, dear--have you really now? And how's it all turned out?" + +"Badly." + +"Dear me, I'm sorry for that. But there are better things in the world +than writing, believe me. I dare say, my boy, you thought me unkind in +those old days but it was all for your best--oh dear me, yes, entirely +for your best." + +Here, for an instant, his father's voice sounded so like his old +grandfather's that Peter jumped. + +"Married?" said his father. + +"My wife has left me--" + +"Dear me, I am sorry to hear that." Mr. Westcott finished the toast +and wiped his fingers on a very old and dirty red handkerchief. +"Women--bless them--angels for a time, but never to be depended on. Poor +boy, I'm sorry. Children?" + +"I had a son. He died." + +"Well now, I am indeed sorry, I'd have liked a grandson too. Don't want +the old Westcott stock to die out. Dear me, that is a pity." + +It was at this point that Peter was aware, although he could not have +given any reasonable explanation of his certainty, that his father had +been perfectly assured beforehand of all the answers to these questions. +Peter looked at the man, but the eyes were almost closed, and the smile +that played about the weak lips--once so stern and strong--told one +nothing. + +It was dark now. Mr. Westcott got, somewhat unsteadily, to his feet. + +"Come," he said, "I'll show you the house, my boy. Not changed much +since you were here, I'm sure. Wanted a woman's care since your dear +mother died of course--and your poor old grandfather--" + +He whispered over again to himself as he shuffled across the room--"your +poor old grandfather--" + +It had seemed to grow very suddenly dark. Outside in the hall, under the +spluttering lamp, Mr. Westcott found a candle. The house was intensely +silent. + +As they climbed the stairs, lighted only by the flickering candle-light, +Peter's feelings were a curious mixture of uneasiness and a strange +unthinking somnolence. Some part of him, somewhere, was urging him to an +active unrest--"Norah ... what does she want interfering? I'll just go +and see her and come back.... No, I won't, I'll just stay here ... never +to bother again ... never to bother again...." + +He was also, in some undefined way, expecting that at any moment +his father would change. The crimson dressing-gown swayed under the +flickering candle-light. Let it turn round and what would one see inside +it? His father never stopped talking for an instant--his thick wandering +voice was the only sound in the deserted house. + +The rooms were all empty. They smelt as though the windows had not +been opened for years. It was in the little room that had once been his +bedroom that the apples were stored--piles upon piles of them and most +of them rotten. The smell was all over the house. + +Mr. Westcott, standing with the apples on every side of him, flung +monstrous shadows upon the wall--"This used to be your room. I remember +I used to whip you here when you were disobedient. The only way to bring +up your child. The Westcotts have always believed in it. Dear me, how +long ago it all seems ... you can have this room again if you like. +Any room in the house you please. We'll be very good company for one +another...." + +All about Peter there was an atmosphere of extraordinary languor--just +to sit here and let the days slip by, the years pass. Just to stay here +with no one to hurt one, no need for courage.... + +They were out in the long passage. Mr. Westcott came and placed his +hand upon Peter's arm. The whole house was a great cool place where one +slept. Mr. Westcott smiled into Peter's face ... the house was silent +and dark and oh! so restful. The candle swelled to an enormous size--the +red dressing-gown seemed to enfold Peter. + +In another moment he would have fallen asleep there where he stood. With +the last struggle of a drowning man he pulled back his fading senses. + +"I must go back to the hotel and fetch my things." He could see his +father's eyes that had been wide open disappear. + +"We can send for them." + +"No, I must go for them myself--" + +For a moment they faced one another. He wondered what his father +intended to do. Then--with a genial laugh, Mr. Westcott said: "Well, my +boy, just as you please--just as you please. I know you'll come back to +your old father--I know you'll come back--" + +He blew the candle out and put his arm through his son's and they went +downstairs together. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +NORAH MONOGUE + + +I + +Peter found, next morning, Miss Monogue sitting by her window. She gave +him at once the impression of something kept alive by a will-power so +determined that Death himself could only stand aside and wait until it +might waver. + +She was so thin that sitting there in the clear white colours of the +sky beyond her window she seemed like fine silk, something that, at an +instant's breath, would be swept like a shadow, into the air. She wore +something loose and white and over her shoulders there was a grey shawl. +Her grey hair was as untidy as of old, escaping from the order that it +had been intended to keep and falling over her beautiful eyes, so that +continually she moved her hand--so thin and white with its deep purple +veins--to push it back. In this still white figure the eyes burnt with +an amazing fire. What eyes they were! + +One seemed, in the old days, to have denied them their proper splendour, +but now in this swiftly fading body they had gathered more life and +vigour, showing the soul that triumphed over so slender a mortality. + +She seemed to Peter, as he came into the room, to stand for so much +more than he had ever hitherto allowed her. Here, in her last furious +struggle to keep a life that had given to her nothing worth having, he +saw suddenly emblazoned about him, the part that she had played in his +life, always from the first moment that he had known her--a part that +had been, by him, so frequently neglected, so frequently denied. + +As she turned and saw him he was ashamed at the joy that his coming +so obviously brought her. He felt her purity, her unselfishness, her +single-heartedness, her courage, her nobility in that triumphant +welcome that she gave him. That she should care so much for any one so +worthless, so fruitless as he had proved himself to be! + +He had come to her with some dim sense that it was kind of him to visit +her; he advanced to her now across the room with a consciousness that +she was honouring him by receiving him at all. + +That joy, with which she had at first greeted him, had in it also +something of surprise. He had forgotten how greatly these last terrible +days must have altered his appearance--he told much more than he knew, +and the little sad attempt that he made, as he came to her, to present +as careless and happy an appearance as he had presented in the old +Brockett days was more pathetic and betraying than anything he could +have done. + +But she just closed both her burning hands about his cold one, made him +sit down in a chair by her side and, trembling with the excited joy of +having him with her, forced him to determine that, whatever came of it, +he would keep his troubles from her, would let her know nothing of his +old chuckling father and the shadowy welcome that Scaw House had flung +over him, would be still the Peter that he had been when he had seen her +last in London. + +"Peter! How splendid to have you here! When Mr. Bannister told me last +night I could have cried for happiness, and he, dear little man, was +surely as pleased to see me happy as though I'd been his own sister." + +"I'd just come down--" Peter began, trying to smile and conscious with +an alarm that surprised him, of her fragility and the way that her hand +went now and again to her breast, as though to relieve some pain there. +"Are you sure--" he broke off, "that I'm not doing you harm coming like +this--not agitating you too much, not exciting you?" + +"Harm! Why, Peter," she was smiling but he noticed too that her eyes +were searching his face, as though to find some clue to the change that +they saw there--"Why it's all the good in the world. It's what I've been +wanting all this time. Some change, a little excitement, for I've been +here, you know, quite a number of weeks alone--and that it should be +you--you! of all people in this lovely exciting surprising world." + +"How did it happen?" he asked, "your coming down?" + +"After I saw you last--I was very bad. My stupid old heart.... And the +doctor said that I must get away, to the sea or somewhere. Then--what +do you think?--the dears, all of them in Brockett's put their heads +together and got me quite a lot of money.... Oh! the darlings, and they +just as poor as church mice themselves. Of course I couldn't insult them +by not taking it. They'd have been hurt for ever--so I just pocketed my +pride and came down here." + +"Why Treliss?" asked Peter. + +"Well, hadn't you so often talked about it? Always, I'd connected you +with it in my mind and thought that one day I'd come down and see it. +I suggested it to the doctor--he said it was the very place. I used +to hope that one day you'd be with me here to explain it, but I never +expected it... not so soon... not like this." + +Her voice faltered a little and her hand held his more tightly. + +They were silent. The sounds of the world came, muffled, up to their +window, but they were only conscious of one another. + +Peter knew that, in another instant, he would tell her everything. He +had always told her everything--that is what she had been there for, +some one, like an elder sister, to whom he might go and confess. + +At last it came. Very softly she asked him: + +"Peter, what's the matter? Why are you here? What's happened?" + +Staring before him out of the window, seeing nothing but the high white +light of the upper sky, his heart, as it seemed to him, lying in his +hands like a stone to be tossed lightly out there into space, he told +her: + +"Everything's happened. Clare has run off with my best friend.... It has +just happened like that. I don't blame her, she liked him better--but +I--didn't know--it was going... to happen." + +He didn't look at her, but he heard her catch her breath sharply and he +felt her hand tighten on his. They were silent for a long time and +he was dimly aware in some unanalysed way that this was what she had +expected ever since he had come into the room. + +"Oh!" she said at last, holding his hand very tightly, "I'm sorry, I'm +sorry--" + +He had seen, of course, from the beginning that this business must be +told her, but his one desire was to hurry through it, to get it done and +banished, once and for all, from their conversation. + +"It happened," he went on gruffly, "quite suddenly. I wasn't in any way +prepared for it. She just went off to Paris, after leaving a letter. +With the death of the boy and the failure of my book--it just seemed the +last blow--the end." + +"The end--at thirty?" she said softly, almost to herself, "surely, +no--with the pluck that you've got--and the health. What are you going +to do--about it all?" + +"To do?" he smiled bitterly. "Do you suppose that I will ask her to come +back to me? Do you suppose that I want her back? No, that's all done +with. All that life's finished." Then he added slowly, not looking at +her as he spoke--"I'm going to live with my father." + +He remembered, clearly enough, that he had told her many things about +his early life at Scaw House. He knew that she must now, as he flung +that piece of information at her, have recalled to herself all those +things that he had told her. He felt rather than perceived, the +agitation that seized her at those last words of his. Her hand slowly +withdrew from his, it fell back on to her lap and he felt her whole body +draw, as it were, into itself, as though it had come into contact with +some terror, some unexplained alarm. + +But she only said: + +"And what will you do at home, Peter?" + +He answered her with a kind of bravado--"Oh, write, I suppose. I went up +to see the old man yesterday. Changed enormously since the old days. I +found him quite genial, seemed very anxious that I should come. I expect +he's a bit lonely." + +She did not answer this and there was a long awkward pause. He knew, as +they sat there, in troubled silence that his conscience was awake. It +had seemed to be so quiescent through his visit yesterday; it had been +drugged and dimmed all these last restless days. But now it was up +again. He was conscious that it was not, after all, going to be so +easy a thing to abandon all his energies, his militancies, the dominant +vigorous panoply of his soul. He knew as he sat there, that this sick +shadow of a woman would not let him go like that. + +He said good-bye to her for the moment, but, as he left the room he knew +that Scaw House would not see him again until he had done everything for +her that there was to be done. + + +II + +That evening he saw the doctor who attended on her. He was a nice young +fellow, intelligent, eager, with a very real individual liking for his +patient. "Ah! she's splendid--brave and plucky beyond anything I've ever +seen; so full of fun that you'd think that she'd an idea that another +three weeks would see her as well as ever again--whereas she knows as +well as I do that another three weeks may easily see her out of the +world altogether!" + +"There's no hope then?" asked Peter. + +"None whatever. There's every kind of complication. She must have always +had something the matter with her, and if she'd been cared for and +nursed when she was younger she might have pulled out of it. Instead of +that she's always worn herself to a thread--you can see that. She isn't +one of those who take life easily. She ought to have gone before this, +but she holds on with her pluck and her love of it all.... Lord! when +one thinks of the millions of people who just 'slug' through life--not +valuing it, doing nothing with it--one grudges the waste of their hours +when a woman like Miss Monogue could have done so much with them." + +"Am I doing her any harm, going in to see her?" + +"No--doing her good. Don't excite her too much--otherwise the company's +the best thing in the world for her." + +The days then, were to be dedicated to her service. He knew, of course, +that at the end of it--and the end could not be far distant--he would +go to Scaw House and remain there; meanwhile the thing was postponed. He +would not think about it. + +But on his second meeting with Norah Monogue he saw that he was not to +be allowed to dismiss it. He found her sitting still by her window; +she was flushed now with a little colour, her eyes burning with a more +determined fire than ever, her whole body expressing a dauntless energy. + +The sight of her showed him that there was to be battle and, strangely +enough, he found that there was something in himself that almost +welcomed it. Before he knew where he was he found that he was "out" to +defend his whole life. + +The first thing that she did was to draw from him a minute, particular +account of all that had happened during these last months. It developed +into a defence of his whole married life, as though he had been pleading +before a jury of Clare's friends and must fight to prove himself no +blackguard. + +"Ah! don't I know that I've made a mess of it all? Do you think that I'm +proud of myself?" he pleaded with her. "Honestly I cannot see where, +as far as Clare is concerned, I'm to blame. She didn't understand--how +could she ever have understood?--the way that my work mattered to me. I +wanted to keep it and I wanted to keep her too, and every time I tried +to keep her it got in the way and every time I tried to keep it she got +in the way. I wasn't clever enough to run both together." + +Norah nodded her head. + +"But there was more than that. Life has always been rough for me. Rough +from the beginning when my father used to whip me, rough at school, +rough when I starved in London, roughest of all when young Stephen died. +I'd wanted to make something out of it and I suppose the easiest way +seemed to me to make it romantic. This place, you know, was always in +my bones. That Tower down in the Market Place, old Tan's curiosity shop, +the sea--these were the things that kept me going. Afterwards in +London it was the same. Things were hard so I made them into a story--I +coloured them up. Nothing hurt when everything was romance. I made Clare +romance too--that was the way, you see, that all my life was bound up so +closely together. She was an adventure just as everything else had been. +And she didn't like it. She couldn't understand the Adventure point of +view. It was, to her, immoral, indecent. I went easily along and then, +one day, all the romance went out of it--clean--like a pricked bubble. +When young Stephen died I suddenly saw that life was real--naked--ugly, +not romantic a bit. Then it all fell to pieces like a house of +cards. It's easy enough to be brave when you're attacking a cardboard +castle--it's when you're up against iron that your courage is wanted. It +failed me. I've funked it. I'm going to run away." + +He could see that Norah Monogue's whole life was in the vigour with +which she opposed him-- + +"No, no, no. To give it up now. Why, you're only thirty--everything's in +front of you. Listen. I know you took Clare crookedly, I saw it in the +beginning. In the first place you loved her, but you loved her wrong. +You've been a boy, Peter, all the time, and you've always loved like a +boy. Don't you know that there's nothing drives a woman who loves a man +more to desperation than that that man should give her a boy's love? +She'd rather he hated her. Clare could have been dealt with. To begin +with she loved you--all the time. Oh! yes, I'm as certain of it as I +can be of anything. I know her so well. But the unhappiness, the +discomfort--all the things, the ugly things, that her mother was +emphasising to her all the time--frightened her. Knowing nothing about +life she just felt that things as they were were as bad as things could +be. It seems extraordinary that any one so timid as she should dare to +take so dangerous a plunge as running off to another man. + +"But it was just because she knew so little about Life that she could +do it. This other man persuaded her that he could give her the peace +and comfort that you couldn't. She doesn't know--poor thing, poor +thing--what it will mean, that plunge. So, out of very terror, she took +it. And now--Oh! Peter, I'm as certain as though I could see her, she's +already longing for you--would give anything to get back to you. This +has taught her more than all the rest of her life put together. She was +difficult--selfish, frightened at any trouble, supersensitive--but a man +would have understood her. You wanted affection, Peter--from her, from +me, from a lot of people--but it was always because of the things that +it was going to bring to you, never because of the things that you were +going to give out. You'd never grown up--never. And now, when suddenly +the real world has come to you, you're going to give it up." + +"I don't give it up," he said to her--"I shall write--I shall do +things--" + +She shook her head. "You've told me. I know what that means." Then +almost below her breath--"It's horrible--It's horrible. You mustn't do +it--you must go back to London--you must go back--" + +But at that he rose and faced her. + +"No," he said, "I will not. I've given the other things a chance--all +these years I've given them a chance. I've stood everything and at the +end everything's taken away from me. What shall I go back to? Who wants +me? Who cares? God!" he cried, standing there, white-faced, dry-eyed, +almost defying her--"Why should I go? Just to fail again--to suffer all +that again--to have them take everything I love from me again--to be +broken again! No, let them break the others--I'm done with it...." + +"And the others?" she answered him. "Is it to be always yourself? You've +fought for your own hand and they've beaten you to your knees--fight now +for something finer--" + +She seemed as she appealed to him to be shining with some great +conquering purpose. Here, with her poor body broken and torn, her +spirit, the purer for her physical pain, confronted him, shamed him, +stretched like a flaming sword before the mean paths that his own soul +would follow. + +But he beat her down. "I will not go back--you don't know--you don't +understand--I will not go." + + +III + +The little dusty Minstrels' Gallery saw a good deal of him during these +days. It was a lonely place at the top of the hotel, once intended to be +picturesque and romantic for London visitors, but ultimately left to its +own company with its magnificent view appreciated by no one. + +Here Peter came. Every part of him now seemed to be at war with every +other part. Had he gone straight to Scaw House with bag and baggage and +never left it again, then the Westcott tradition might have caught him +when he was in that numbed condition--caught him and held him. + +Now he had stayed away just long enough for all the old Peter to have +become alive and active again. + +He looked back upon London with a great shuddering. The torment that he +had suffered there he must never undergo again. Norah was now the one +friend left to him in the world. He would cut himself into pieces to +make these last days of hers happy, and yet the one thing that could +give her happiness was that he should promise to go back. + +She did not understand--no one could understand--the way that this +place, this life that he contemplated, pulled him. The slackness of it, +the lack of discipline in it, the absence of struggle in it. All the +strength, the fighting that had been in him during these past years, +was driven out of him now. He just wanted to let things drift--to wander +about the fields and roads, to find his clothes growing shabby upon him, +to grow old without knowing even that he was alive--all this had come to +him. + +She, on the other side, would drive him back into the battle of it all +once more. To go back a failure--to be pointed out as the man whose wife +left him because she found him so dull--to hear men like young Percival +Galleon laughing at his book--to sell his soul for journalism in order +to make a living--to see, perhaps, Clare come back into the London +world--to break out, ultimately, when he was sick and tired of it all, +into every kind of debauch ... how much better to slip into nothing down +here where nobody knew nor cared! + +And yet, on the other hand, he had never known until now the importance +that Norah Monogue had held in his life. + +Always, in everything he had done, in his ambitions and despairs, his +triumphs and defeats, she had been behind him. He'd just do anything in +the world for her!--anything except this one thing. Up and down, up and +down he paced the little Minstrels' room, with its dusty green chair and +its shining floor--"I just can't stand it all over again!" + +But every time that he went in to see her--and he was with her +continually--made his resistance harder. She didn't speak about it again +but he knew that she was always thinking about it. + +"She's worrying over something, Westcott--do you happen to know what it +is?" the doctor asked him. "It's bad for her. If you can help her about +it in any way--" + +The strain between them was becoming unbearable. Every day, when he +went in to sit with her, they would talk about other things--about +everything--but he knew that before her eyes there was that picture of +himself up at Scaw House, and of the years passing--and his soul and +everything that was fine in him, dying. + +He saw her growing daily weaker. Sometimes he felt that he must run away +altogether, go up to Scaw House and leave her to die alone; then he knew +that that cruelty at any rate was not in him. One day he thought her +brutal and interfering, another day it seemed that it was he who was +the tyrant. He reminded himself of all the things that she had done for +him--all the things, and he could not grant her this one request. + +Then he would ask himself what the devil her right was that she should +order his life in this way?... everyday the struggle grew harder. + +The tension could not hold any longer--at last it broke. + + +IV + +One evening they were sitting in silence beside her window. The room +was in dusk and he could just see her white shadow against the dim blue +light beyond the window. + +Suddenly she broke down. He could hear her crying, behind her hands. +The sound in that grey, silent room was more than he could bear. He went +over to her and put his arms round her. + +"Norah, Norah, please, please. It's so awfully bad for you. I oughtn't +to come if I--" + +She pulled herself together. Her voice was quite calm and controlled. + +"Sit over there, Peter. I've got to talk to you." + +He went back to his chair. + +"I've only got a few more weeks to live. I know it. Perhaps only a few +more days. I must make the very utmost of my time. I've got to save +you...." + +He said nothing. + +"Oh! I know that it must all have seemed to you abominable--as though I +were making use of this illness of mine to extort a promise from you, +as though just because I'm weak and feeble I can hold an advantage over +you. Oh! I know it's all abominable!--but I'll use everything--yes, +simply everything--if I can get you to leave this place and go back!" + +He could feel that she was pulling herself together for some tremendous +effort. + +"Peter, I want you now just to think of me, to put yourself out of +everything, absolutely, just for this half-hour. After all as I've only +a few half-hours left I've got that right." + +Her laugh as she said it was one of the saddest things he'd ever heard. + +"Now I'm going to tell you something--something that I'd never thought +I'd tell a soul. + +"I've not had a very cheerful life. It hasn't had very much to make +it bright and interesting. I'm not complaining but it's just been that +way--" She broke off for a moment. "I don't want you to interrupt or say +anything. It'll make it easier for me if I can just talk out into the +night air, as it were--just as though no one were here." + +She went on: "The one thing that's made it possible, made it bearable, +made it alive, has been my love for you. Always from the first moment +I saw you I have loved you. Oh! I haven't been foolish about it. I knew +that you'd never care for me in that kind of way. I knew from the very +first that we should be pals but that you'd never dream of anything more +romantic. I've never had any one in love with me--I'm not the kind of +woman who draws the romance out of men. + +"No, I knew you'd never love me, but I just determined that I'd make +you, your career, your success, the pivot, the centre of my life. + +"I wasn't blind about you--not a bit. I knew that you were selfish, +weak, incredibly young about the world. I knew that you were the last +person in existence to marry Clare--all the more reason it seemed to me +why I should be behind you. I was behind you so much more than you ever +knew. I wonder if you've the least idea what most women's lives +are like. They come into the world with the finest ideals, the most +tremendous energies, with a desire for self-sacrifice that a man can't +even begin to understand. Then they discover slowly that none of those +things, those ideals, those energies, those sacrifices, are wanted. The +world just doesn't need them--they might as well never have been born. +Do you suppose I enjoyed slaving for my mother, day and night for years? +Do you suppose that I gladly yielded up all my best blood, my vitality, +to the pleasure of some one who never valued it, never even knew that +such things were being given her? Before you came I was slowly falling +into despair. Think of all the women who are haunted by the awful +thought--'The time will come when death will be facing me and I shall be +forced to own that for any place that I have ever filled in the world +I might never have been born.' How many women are there who do not +pray every day of their lives, 'God, give me something to do before I +die--some place to fill, some work to carry out, something to save my +self-respect.' + +"I tell you that there is a time coming when women will force those +things that are in them upon the world. God help all poor women who are +not wanted! + +"_I_ wasn't wanted. There was nothing for me to do, no place for me to +fill... then you came. At once I seized upon that-God seemed to have +sent it to me. I believed that if I turned all those energies, those +desires, those ambitions upon you that it would help you to do the +things that you were meant to do. I was with you always--I slaved for +you--you became the end in life to which I had been called. + +"All the time you were only a boy--that was partly I think why I loved +you. You were so gauche, so ignorant, so violent, so confident one +moment, so plunged into despair the next. For a while everything seemed +to go well. I had thought that Clare was going to be good for you, was +going to make you unselfish. I thought that you'd got the better of all +that part of you that was your inheritance. Even when I came down here I +thought that all was well. I knew that I had come down to die and I had +thanked God because He _had_, after all, allowed me to make something +of my life, that I'd been able to see you lifted into success, that I'd +seen you start a splendid career.... Then you came and I knew that your +life was broken into pieces. I knew that what had happened to you might +be the most splendid thing in the world for you and might be the most +terrible. If you stay down here now with your father then you are done +for--you are done for and my life has, after all, gone for nothing." + +Her voice broke, then she leaned forward, catching his hands: + +"Peter, I'm dying--I'm going. If you will only have it you can take +me, and when I am gone I shall still live on in you. Let me give you +everything that is best in me--let me feel that I have sent you back to +London, sent you with my dying breath--and that you go back, not because +of yourself but because of everything that you can do for every one +else. + +"Believe me, Peter dear, it all matters so little, this trouble and +unhappiness that you've had, if you take it bravely. The courage that +you've wanted before is nothing to the courage that you want now if +you're going back. Let me die knowing that we're both going back. + +"Think of what your life, if it's fine enough, can mean to other people. +Go back to be battered--never mind what happens to your body--any +one can stand that. There's London waiting for you, there's life and +adventure and hardship. There are people to be helped. You'll go, with +all that I can give you, behind you ... you'll go, Peter?" + +He sat with his teeth set, staring out into the world. He had known from +the first sentence of her appeal to him that she had named the one thing +that could give him courage to fight his cowardice. Some one had once +said: "If any one soul of us is all the world, this world and the +next, to any other soul, then whoever it may be that thus loves us, the +inadequacy of our return, the hopeless debt of us, must strike us to our +knees with an utter humility." + +So did he feel now. Out of the wreck there had survived this one thing. +He remembered what Henry Galleon had once said about Fortitude, that the +hardest trial of all to bear was the consciousness of having missed the +Finest Thing. All these years she had been there by the side of him and +he had scarcely thought of her--now, even as he watched her, she +was slipping away from him, and soon he would be left alone with the +consciousness of missing the greatest chance of his life. + +The one thing that he could do in return was to give her what she +asked. But it was hard--he was under no illusion as to the desperate +determination that it would demand. The supreme moment of his life +had come. For the first time he was going to fling away the old Peter +Westcott altogether. He could feel it clinging to him. About him, in the +air, spirits were fighting. He had never before needed Courage as he +was needing it now. It seemed to him that he had to stand up to all the +devils in the world--they were thick on every side of him. + +Then, with a great uplifting of strength, with a courage that he had +never known before, he picked up Peter Westcott in his hands, held him, +that miserable figure, high in air, raised him, then flung him with +all his strength out, away, far into space, never to return, never to +encumber the earth again. + +"I'll go back," Peter said--and as he said it, there was no elation in +him, only a clear-sighted vision of a life of struggle, toil, torment, +defeat, in front of him, something so hard and arduous that the new +Peter Westcott that had now been born seemed small indeed to face it. + +But nevertheless he knew that at the moment that he said those words +he had broken into pieces the spell that had been over him for so many +years. That Beast in him that had troubled him for so long, all the dark +shadows of Scaw House ... these were at an end. + +He felt tired, discouraged, no fine creature, as he turned to her, but +he knew that, from that moment, a new life had begun for him. + +He put his arms round Norah Monogue and kissed her. + + +V + +He got up very early next morning and went down to the Harbour. The +fishing-boats were coming in; great flocks of gulls, waiting for the +spoil that was soon to be theirs, were wheeling in clouds about the +brown sails. + +The boats stole, one after another, around the pier. The air was filled +with shrill cries--the only other sound was the lapping of the water as +it curled up the little beach. + +As Peter stood there there crept upon him a sensation of awe. He took +off his hat. The gulls seemed to cease their cries. + +As another brown sail stole round the white point, gleaming' now in the +sun, he knew, with absolute certainty, that Norah Monogue was dead. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GREY HILL + + +I + +The day of Norah Monogue's funeral was fine and clear. Peter and little +Mr. Bannister were the only mourners and it was Peter's wish that she +should be buried in the little windy graveyard of the church where his +mother had been buried. + +There was always a wind on that little hill, but to-day it was gentler +than he had ever known it before. His mind went back to that other +funeral, now, as it seemed, such a lifetime ago. Out of all the world +these two women only now seemed to abide with him. As he stood beside +the grave he was conscious that there was about him a sense of peace and +rest such as he had never known before. Could it be true that some of +Norah Monogue's fine spirit had come to him? Were they, in sober fact to +go on together during the remainder of his days? + +He lingered for a little looking down upon the grave. He was glad to +think that he had made her last hours happy. + +Indeed she had not lived in vain. + + +II + +Heavy black clouds were banking upon the horizon as he went down the +hill and struck the Sea Road in the direction of Scaw House. Except +in that far distance the sky was a relentless, changeless blue. Every +detail in the scene was marked with a hard outline, every sound, the +sea, the Bell Rock, the cries of sheep, the nestling trees, was doubly +insistent. + +He banged the knocker upon the Scaw House door and when the old woman +came to open to him he saw that something had occurred. Her hair fell +about her neck, her face was puckered with distress and her whole +appearance was dismayed. + +"Is my father in?" he asked. + +"He is, but he's ill," she answered him, eyeing him doubtfully. "He +won't know yer--I doubt he'll know any one. He's had a great set-back--" + +Peter pushed past her into the hall--"Is he ill?" + +"Indeed he is. He was suddenly took--the other evenin' I being in my +kitchen heard a great cry. I came runnin' and there in the dining-room I +found him, standing there in the midst, his hands up. His eyes, you must +understand, sir, were wide and staring--'They've beaten me,' he cried, +'They've beaten me'--just like that, sir, and then down he tumbled in a +living fit, foaming at the mouth and striking his poor head against the +fender. Yer may come up, sir, but he won't know yer which he doesn't me +either." + +Peter followed her up to the dreary room that his father inhabited. Even +here the paper was peeling off the walls, some of the window-glass was +broken and the carpet was torn. His father lay on his back in an +old high four-poster. His eyes stared before him, cheeks were ashen +white--his hands too were white like ivory. + +His lips moved but he made no sound. He did not see Peter, nor did his +eyes turn from the blank stare that held them. + +"Has he a doctor?" Peter asked the old woman. + +"Ay--there's a young man been coming--" the old woman answered him. +She was, he noticed, more subservient than she had been on the former +occasion. She obviously turned to him now with her greedy old eyes as +the one who was likely soon to be in authority. + +Peter turned back to the door. "This room must be made warmer and more +comfortable. I will send a doctor from the hotel this evening--I will +come in again to-night." + +As he looked about the poor room, as he saw the dust that the sunlight +made so visible, he wondered that the house of cards could so recently +have held him within its shadow. He felt as though he had passed +through some terrible nightmare that the light of day rendered not only +fantastic but incredible. That old Peter Westcott had indeed been flung +out of the high window of Norah Monogue's room. + +Leaving Scaw House on his right he struck through the dark belt of trees +and came out at the foot of the Grey Hill. The dark belt of cloud was +spreading now fast across the blue--soon it would catch the sun--the +Tower itself was already swallowed by a cold grey shadow. + +Peter began to climb the hill, and remembered that he had not been there +since that Easter morning when he had kissed an unknown lady and so +flung fine omens about his future. + +Soon he had reached the little green mound that lay below the Giant's +Finger. Although the Grey Hill would have been small and insignificant +in hilly country here, by its isolation, it assumed importance. On every +side of it ran the sand-dunes--in front of it, almost as it seemed up to +its very feet, ran the sea. Treliss was completely hidden, not a house +could be seen. The black clouds now had caught the sea and only far away +to the right the waves still glittered, for the rest it was an inky +grey with a touch of white here and there where submerged rocks found +breakers. For one moment the sun had still evaded the cloud, then it was +caught and the world was instantly cold. + +Peter, as he sat there, felt that if he were only still enough the +silence would soon be vocal. The Hill, the Sea, the Sky--these things +seemed to have summoned him there that they might speak to him. + +He was utterly detached from life. He looked down from a height in air +and saw his little body sitting there as he had done on the day when he +had proposed to Clare. He might think now of the long journey that it +had come, he might watch the course of its little history, see the full +circle that it had travelled, wonder for what new business it was now to +prepare. + +For full circle he had come. He, Peter Westcott, sat there, as naked, as +alone, as barren of all rewards, of all success, of all achievements as +he had been when, so many years ago he had watched that fight in the inn +on Christmas Eve. The scene passed before him again--he saw himself, a +tiny boy, swinging his legs from the high chair. He saw the room thick +with smoke, the fishermen, Dicky the Fool, the mistletoe swinging, the +snow blocking in from outside, the fight--it was all as though it passed +once more before his eyes. + +His whole life came to him--the scenes at Scaw House, Dawson's, the +bookshop, Brockett's, Bucket Lane, Chelsea, that last awful scene there +... all the people that he had known passed before him--Stephen Brant, +his grandfather, his father, his mother, Bobby Galleon, Mr. Zanti, +Clare, Cards, Mrs. Brockett, Norah, Henry Galleon, Mrs. Rossiter, +dear Mrs. Launce ... these and many more. He could see them all +dispassionately now; how that other Peter Westcott had felt their +contact; how he had longed for their friendship, dreaded their anger, +missed them, wanted them, minded their desertion.... + +Now, behold, they were all gone. Alone on this Hill with the great sea +at his feet, with the storm rolling up to him, Peter Westcott thought of +his wife and his son, his friends and his career--thought of everything +that had been life to him, yes, even his sins, his temptations, his +desires for the beast in man, his surly temper, his furious anger, his +selfishness, his lack of understanding--all these things had been taken +away from him, every trail had been given to him--and now, naked, on a +hill, he knew the first peace of his life. + +And as he knew, sitting there, that thus Peace had come to him, how odd +it seemed that only a few weeks ago he had been coming down to Cornwall +with his soul, as he had then thought, killed for ever. + +The world had seemed, utterly, absolutely, for ever at an end; and +now here he was, sitting here, eager to go back into it all again, +wanting--it almost seemed--to be bruised and battered all over again. + +And perceiving this showed him what was indeed the truth that all his +life had been only Boy's History. He had gone up--he had gone down--he +had loved and hated, exulted and despaired, but it was all with a boy's +intense realisation of the moment, with a boy's swift, easy transition +from one crisis to another. + +It had been his education--and now his education was over. As he had +said those words to Norah Monogue, "I will go back," he had become a +man. Never again would Life be so utterly over as it had been two months +ago--never again would he be so single-hearted in his reserved adoption +of it as he had been those days ago, at Norah Monogue's side. + +He saw that always, through everything that boy, Peter Westcott had +been in the way. It was not until he had taken, on that day in Norah +Monogue's room, Peter Westcott in his hands and flung him to the four +winds that he had seen how terribly in the way he had been. "Go back," +Norah had said to him; "you have done all these things for yourself and +you have been beaten to your knees--go back now and do something for +others. You have been brave for yourself--be brave now for others." + +And he was going back. + +He was going back, as he had seen on that day, to no easy life. He was +going to take up all those links that had been so difficult for him +before--he was going to learn all over again that art that he had +fancied that he had conquered at the very first attempt--he was going +now with no expectations, no hopes, no ambitions. Life was still an +adventure, but now an adventure of a hard, cruel sort, something that +needed an answer grim and dark. + +The storm was coming up apace. The wind had risen and was now rushing +over the short stiff grass, bellowing out to meet the sea, blowing back +to meet the clouds that raced behind the hill. + +The sky was black with clouds. Peter could see the sand rising from the +dunes in a thin mist. + +Peter flung himself upon his back. The first drops of rain fell, cold, +upon his face. Then he heard: + +"Peter Westcott! Peter Westcott!" + +"I'm here!" + +"What have you brought to us here?" + +"I have brought nothing." + +"What have you to offer us?" + +"I can offer nothing." + +He got up from the ground and faced the wind. He put his back to the +Giant's Finger because of the force of the gale. The rain was coming +down now in torrents. + +He felt a great exultation surge through his body. + +Then the Voice--not in the rain, nor the wind, nor the sea, but yet all +of these, and coming as it seemed from the very heart of the Hill, came +swinging through the storm-- + +"Have you cast _This_ away, Peter Westcott?" + +"And this?" + +"That also--" + +"And this?" + +"This also?" + +"And this?" + +"I have flung this, too, away." + +"Have you anything now about you that you treasure?" + +"I have nothing." + +"Friends, ties, ambitions?" + +"They are all gone." + +Then out of the heart of the storm there came Voices:-- + +"Blessed be Pain and Torment and every torture of the Body ... Blessed +be Plague and Pestilence and the Illness of Nations.... + +"Blessed be all Loss and the Failure of Friends and the Sacrifice of +Love.... + +"Blessed be the Destruction of all Possessions, the Ruin of all +Property, Fine Cities, and Great Palaces.... + +"Blessed be the Disappointment of all Ambitions.... + +"Blessed be all Failure and the ruin of every Earthly Hope.... + +"Blessed be all Sorrows, Torments, Hardships, Endurances that demand +Courage.... + +"Blessed be these things--for of these things cometh the making of a +Man...." + +Peter, clinging to the Giant's Finger, staggered in the wind. The world +was hidden now in a mist of rain. He was alone--and he was happy, happy, +as he had never known happiness, in any time, before. + +The rain lashed his face and his body. His clothes clung heavily about +him. + +He answered the storm: + +"Make of me a man--to be afraid of nothing ... to be ready for +everything--love, friendship, success ... to take if it comes ... to +care nothing if these things are not for me-- + +"Make me brave! Make me brave!" + +He fancied that once more against the wall of sea-mist he saw +tremendous, victorious, the Rider on the Lion. But now, for the first +time, the Rider's face was turned towards him-- + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fortitude, by Hugh Walpole + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTITUDE *** + +***** This file should be named 7887-8.txt or 7887-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/8/8/7887/ + +Produced by The Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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. 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