Fortitude
by Hugh Walpole · English · Gutenberg #7887 · 942,865 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fortitude
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Fortitude
Author: Hugh Walpole
Release date: April 1, 2005 [eBook #7887]
Most recently updated: March 16, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7887
Credits: Text file produced by The Distributed Proofreading Team
HTML file produced by David Widger
*** START OF THE 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 vas
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/7887