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diff --git a/75675-0.txt b/75675-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58643d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/75675-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10992 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75675 *** + + + + + + FOLLOWING + DARKNESS + + BY + FORREST REID + + AUTHOR OF “THE BRACKNELS,” ETC. + + + “Lost, lost, for ever lost, + In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, + That beautiful shape!” + + SHELLEY. + + + LONDON + EDWARD ARNOLD + 1912 + + [_All Rights Reserved_] + + + + + TO E. M. F. + + + + + FOLLOWING DARKNESS + + +It is not without some hesitation that I offer to the public the +following fragment of an autobiography, even though in doing so I am +but obeying the obvious intention of its author. When the papers of +Mr. Peter Waring came into my possession I had indeed no idea of its +existence, and I have now no means of telling when it was written. +The fact that he left it unfinished proves nothing. He may have begun +it and abandoned it years ago: he may have been working at it shortly +before his death. That he intended to carry it to completion, there is, +I think, abundant evidence in a mass of detached notes and impressions +bearing on a later period of his life. These, rightly or wrongly, I +have not printed, partly because the earlier portion has in itself a +certain unity and completeness, which would be marred were I to add +anything to it, and partly because they never received his personal +revision. Moreover, many of them are in the highest degree fantastic +and exotic, so that it is at times difficult to take them literally, +especially if the simplicity and directness of the earlier pages be +borne in mind. + +Those who are familiar with Mr. Waring’s writings published during his +lifetime――writings in which the personal element is so slight――will +hardly be prepared for anything so intimate as this journal. His +critical methods were entirely scientific. Of their value I am not the +proper person to speak, having neither the necessary knowledge, nor, +to tell the whole truth, the necessary sympathy. Our paths, if they +seemed to run parallel for a moment, diverged very early in life, and +I could never take much interest in the work to which he devoted his +real, though, I venture to think, somewhat narrow gifts. He was still a +young man――barely thirty-six――when he died, but he had already become +eminent in his own particular line, that of the newer art criticism, +invented, I believe, by the Italian, Morelli. It was scarcely a career +to bring him much under the public eye, but his “Study of the Drawings +of the Early Italian Masters” gained him, I understand, the recognition +of a small number of persons, of various nationalities, occupied in +making similar researches. He was busy with the proofs of the second +and larger edition of this work when, on the 10th of September, 1911, +he died under tragic circumstances. The mystery of his death, about +which there was some noise in the papers at the time, will, I think, +never now be cleared up, though, to my own mind, it is perfectly clear +that he was murdered. + + * * * * * + +In relation to the autobiography, a word or two of comment and +explanation is possibly due to the reader. To begin with, I have +altered all the proper names save two――my own, and that of Mrs. +Carroll, of Derryaghy, Newcastle, County Down, his oldest friend, which +I have allowed to remain. I feel this, myself, to be unsatisfactory, +but I cannot see how at present it is to be avoided. Again, though I +have added nothing, I have left out a few pages――only a few――and none, +I believe, of importance, so far as the understanding of the whole is +concerned. For this I have no excuse to offer, except that it seemed to +me that he himself should have omitted them. + +In the main the portrait he has given of himself coincides with my +own impression of him in early life. I can remember very well when +I first came to know him at school. I was more struck by his gifts +then, perhaps, than I was later, though even at that time he seemed to +me to be intensely one-sided. He was very intelligent, but from the +beginning his whole manner of looking upon life was, in my opinion, +unfortunate. It may sound harsh to say so, but as the years passed I +do not think he improved. Latterly, he appeared to me to have little +but his fine taste. It was as if everything had become subservient to +an æsthetic sense, which was extraordinarily, morbidly acute. Yet even +while I write this I have a suspicion that I am not doing him justice. +If he had been nothing but what I say he was, I should not be able to +look back with tenderness upon the friendship of those early days, +whereas the recollection of that friendship will always remain one +of the pleasantest memories of my life. I regret that it should have +been broken, but that was almost inevitable. It came about slowly and +naturally, though no doubt the actual break was hastened by a mutual +friend of ours, who informed me that Waring had described me as borné +and tedious. That is the kind of thing which rankles. You may say to +yourself it is of no consequence, but to have an uneasy feeling that +your friend finds your company dull quickly becomes unendurable. A man +would rather be thought almost anything than a bore; hence it was that +for a long time I entirely ceased to see him. I regret it now, for he +may never have made the fatal remark, and even if he did, judging from +his journal, it need not have been inconsistent with affection. + +The last time I saw him was at Mrs. Carroll’s house, about a year +before his death. She had asked me down, I suppose by Waring’s request, +and I went, though I stayed only one night. I had not seen him for +years until this occasion, and I was struck, and even shocked, by his +altered appearance, and still more by his manner, which was that, +I imagined, of a man haunted by some secret thought that has come +between him and everything about him. This impression, though I do +not desire to lay stress upon it, may throw a light on certain of the +later notes I have not printed, and these, in turn, may afford some +clue as to the mystery surrounding his death, for it is evident that +he had come under the influence of strange and disreputable persons, +who professed to experiment in occult sciences――spiritualism, and +even magic. His hair had turned quite white at the temples. He seemed +restless and dissatisfied; and, whatever else he may have found in his +long wanderings, I could not believe he had found peace. + +Late in the evening we sat together. He was so silent that I looked at +him to see if he had fallen asleep. The room we were sitting in――the +morning-room――gave on to a garden at the side of the house, into which +one could easily pass through tall French windows. The night was warm, +and one of these windows stood wide open, letting in the scent of +flowers, but with a curtain drawn across it to keep out moths and other +winged creatures attracted by lamplight. I did not speak, but waited +for him to talk or to keep silent as he chose. After a while I got up +to examine a few black-framed etchings that hung upon the walls. These, +with some pieces of china, formed the only decorations. I drew back +the curtain and looked out into the night. The moon was high above +the trees, and I could hear the low sound of waves breaking on the +shore. When I turned round he was watching me, and I was struck by his +expression, which was that of a man on the point of making some very +private communication. But perhaps my sudden movement disconcerted him, +for he said nothing, and in a little I could see the impulse had left +him. I began to talk, not of my own work, which I thought would have no +interest for him, but of his, which I was surprised to find he seemed +to regard as equally unimportant. I asked him what had first led him to +take it up. + +“There was nothing else,” he answered. + +Seeing that I waited for him to go on, he made an effort to shake off +his abstraction. “If I hadn’t found it I should have bored myself to +death. What is there for a boy of eighteen, with no taste for society, +and left to wander about Europe alone, to do? Fortunately, I had always +cared for pictures, and early Italian art appealed to me particularly.” + +“Of course, you had your writing.” + +“I never wrote a line except to take notes. I was nearly thirty before +it occurred to me to publish anything. Even then, it was only for a +few pedants more or less like myself that I wrote. My writings are of +no account. The only people I can imagine it pleasant to write for +are quite young people. They might lend your work a sort of charm by +reading their own youth and enthusiasm into it. But it is not easy to +arouse enthusiasm by describing how Bernardino de’ Conti paints ears, +or how Pontormo models hands. For one thing, nobody wants to know. All +that it leads to is that presently you find yourself approaching the +most innocent work of art with the mind of a detective, revelling in +clues and the æsthetically unimportant. Nine-tenths of your enjoyment +comes from the gratified sense of your own ingenuity. Of course it is +wrong. When I was a boy I fell in love with one of Giotto’s frescoes +in the Upper Church at Assisi, a thing half-peeled from the wall, and +representing Saint Francis preaching to the birds. But why I liked it +had nothing in the world to do either with Giotto or Saint Francis. I +simply saw a bit of decoration, a Japanese print in gray and blue.... +That is the proper spirit. One day, however, a year or so later, I +was in the Louvre, in the Salle des Primitifs, and before me was a +beautiful little picture which hangs on the side wall, near the door. +Below it was printed an artist’s name, Gentile da Fabriano. I looked +at the picture again, and I said to myself, ‘Why Gentile, when it is +obviously by Jacopo Bellini?’ That was the beginning.” + +“You don’t think, then, it matters very much?” + +“About Gentile? Not in the least. I haven’t even persuaded them to make +the alteration in the catalogue.” + +But I could see he was talking merely not to be silent, so I got up and +we lit our candles. At the top of the staircase I said good-night, for +our bedrooms were on opposite sides of the house, but he pushed open a +door. “There is a picture here,” he said. + +I followed him into the big, dark room, black shadows that seemed +almost solid gliding away before us. He took my candle and held both +up so that their light flickered across a small canvas that hung +just above the level of our eyes. The painting represented the head +of a quite young girl, and I recognised it at once as a portrait of +Katherine Dale. I am no judge of pictures, so I will only say that this +picture gave me pleasure. Yet I should have hesitated to call the face +beautiful, and it certainly was not pretty. It reminded me rather of +an early Millais――that is to say, the subject reminded me of a Millais +type. There was the same breadth of forehead, the same rich colouring +and steadfast, serious eyes that were more like the eyes of a boy than +of a girl. I wondered why he had brought me in to look at it just now, +and thought it had perhaps been painted by a celebrated artist. + +“Whose is it?” I asked, and was greatly surprised when he told me he +had done it himself, from memory. I had never seen any of his work +before, and I congratulated him on his success, which seemed to me +to be really a genuine one. I asked another question, but he did not +reply. He merely returned me my candle, which I held up for another +look. The small, wavering, uncertain flame lent a curious air of life +to the portrait, and I continued to regard it, for the frankness and +simplicity of the young face gave me great pleasure. When I glanced +round I discovered I was alone. My companion had disappeared without +my noticing it, and evidently he had gone out, not by the way we had +entered, but by another door at the farther end of the room. That +this was the case I had more positive proof next moment, for a sudden +draught extinguished my candle so swiftly and unexpectedly that I had +an odd feeling that somebody had stolen up behind me and blown it out. + + OWEN GILL. + + + + + CHAPTER I + + +What is there in this house, in these surroundings, so utterly +different from those I was born amongst, that revives a swarm of +memories of my childhood and youth? My notes are piled up on the table +before me, they have been there for several days, and I have not +touched them, though I came here to work. A warm Italian sun floods +the stiff and formal garden stretching from my window, with its pale +paved walks, its fountain, and dark cypress-trees; but when I shut my +eyes, it is quite another garden that I see, and now, when I have at +last taken up my pen to write, it is not to fulfil the task I had set +myself, but to chatter idly of a boyhood passed under other skies, +grayer, softer, and colder. The odd fact is that ever since my arrival +here, in spite of my being upon “classic soil,” in a district rich +in historical suggestion, and full, too, of the colour and odour of +the south, I have been communing daily, hourly almost, with my own +youth. I should like to set down simply what that youth was, without +embroidery, without suppression, though, on the other hand, a mere bald +enumeration of the outward facts will be little to my purpose. The +facts in themselves are nothing. Unless I can recapture the spirit that +hovered behind them, my task will have been fruitless, and even though +in my effort to do so I shall probably accentuate it, alter it, clip +its wings and make it heavy, yet that must be my aim if I am to write +at all. I have little eloquence, and perhaps no power of evocation, but +the whole great, soft, time-toned picture is before me at this moment, +and I cannot resist the temptation to linger over it. If I linger over +it pen in hand, what matter? + + * * * * * + +In the foreground there must be the portrait of a boy, but painted in +the manner of Rembrandt rather than Bronzino. By this I mean there will +be less of firm, clear outline, than of light and shadow. The danger is +that in the end there may be too much shadow; but at least I shall not, +in the manner of a writer of fiction, have sacrificed my subject for +the sake of gaining an additional brightness and vivacity. The spirit +of youth is not merely bright and vivacious; above all, it is not +merely thoughtless and noisy. It is melancholy, dreamy, passionate; it +is admirable, and it is base; it is full of curiosity; it is healthy, +and it is morbid; it is animal, and it is spiritual; sensual, yet +filled with vague half-realised yearnings after an ideal――that is to +say, it is the spirit of life itself, which can never be adequately +indicated by the description of a fight or of a football match. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +Of my earliest childhood I can form no consecutive picture; I shall +therefore pass over it quickly. Certain incidents stand out with +extraordinary vividness, but the chain uniting them is wanting, and +it is even impossible for me to be quite sure as to the order in +which they occurred. Some are so trivial that I do not know why I +should remember them; others, at the time, doubtless, more important, +have now lost their significance; and countless others, again, I +must have completely forgotten. But it occurs to me, on looking back +deliberately, that I have changed very little from what I was in those +first years. I have developed, but what I was then I am now, what I +cared for then I care for now. In other words, like everybody else, +I came into this world a mere bundle of inherited instincts, for the +activity of which I was no more responsible than for the falling of +last night’s rain. + +Of the dawning of consciousness I have no recollection whatever. Back +farther than anything else there reach two impressions――one, of being +set to dance naked on a table, amid the laughter of women, and the +rhythmic clapping of their hands; the other, probably later in date, +of what must have been a house-cleaning, stamped on my mind by an +inexplicable fear of those flakey collections of dust which gather +under furniture that has not been moved for a long time. By then I had +certainly learned to talk, for those flakes of dust I called “quacks.” +I do not know where the name came from, nor why I should have disliked +“quacks,” but they affected me with a strange dread, and here was a +whole army of them where I had never seen but one or two. Some stupid +person running after me with a broom pretended to sweep them over me, +and I started bawling at the top of my voice. Then, for consolation, +I was lifted up to bury my nose in a bowl of violets, and the colour +and sweetness of the flowers took away my trouble. Probably it was +later than this that I first became aware of a peculiar sensibility to +dress――not to underclothing, but to my outer garments. To be dressed in +a new suit of clothes gave me a curious physical pleasure――a feeling +purely sensual, and that must, I imagine, have been connected with the +dawn of obscure sex instincts. Such things can be of little interest +save to the student of psychology, and it would be tedious to catalogue +them in full, but I have no doubt myself that if they, and others, +had been intelligently observed, the whole of my future could have +been cast from them. To me, I confess, they throw a disquieting light +upon all human affairs, reviving that sombre figure of destiny which +overshadowed the antique world. + +Another and happier instinct which I brought with me from the unknown +was an intense sympathy with animals. There was not a cat or dog or +goat or donkey in the village that I had not struck up a friendship +with. I even carried this sympathy so far as to insist on feeding daily +the ridiculous stone lions which flanked the doorsteps at Derryaghy +House. I don’t think I ever actually believed that their morning meal +of stale bread gave much pleasure to these patient beasts, and I had +with my own eyes seen sparrows and thrushes――who very soon came to look +out for me――snatch it from them before my back was turned; still, I +persevered, stroking their smooth backs, kissing their cold muzzles, +just as I lavished depths of affection on a stuffed, dilapidated, +velvet elephant who for many years was my nightly bed-fellow. + +My only impressions of my mother go back to those days or, possibly, +earlier――a voice singing gay songs to the piano, while I dropped +asleep in my bed upstairs――and then, again, somebody lifting me out of +this bed to kiss me, the close contact of a face wet with tears, the +pressure of arms that held me clasped tightly, that even hurt a little. +That is all. I cannot remember how she looked, or anything else. On the +evening when she said good-bye to me and left our house, I knew she was +crying, but, though it called up in me a sort of solemn wonder, I did +not understand it, and went to sleep almost as soon as she put me back +into my bed. It was not till next day that my own tears came, with the +first real sorrow I had known. + + * * * * * + +There follows now a sort of blank in my recollections, which continues +on to my ninth or tenth year. I do not know why this period should +have been so unproductive of lasting impressions. It is like a +tranquil water over which I bend in the hope of seeing some face or +vision ripple to the surface, but my hope is disappointed. Nothing +emerges――not even a memory of any of those ailments, measles and what +not, from which, in common with other children, I suppose I must have +suffered. Nor can I recollect learning to read. I can remember quite +well when I couldn’t read, for I have a very distinct recollection of +lying on my stomach, on the parlour floor, a book open in front of +me, along whose printed, meaningless lines I drew my finger, turning +page after page till the last was reached, though what solemn pleasure +I could have got from so dull a game――surely the most tedious ever +invented――I now utterly fail to comprehend. + +I was always very fond of being read to, except when the story had +a moral, or was about pious children, when I hated it. The last of +these moral tales I listened to was called “Cassy.” I particularly +disliked it, but I can remember now only one scene, where Cassy comes +into an empty house at night, and discovers a corpse there. This had an +effect on my mind which for several days made me extremely reluctant +to go upstairs by myself after dark. “Jessica’s First Prayer,” +“Vinegar Hill,” “The Golden Ladder”――how I loathed them all! Every +Sunday, after dinner, my father would take some such volume from the +shelf, open it, and put on his spectacles. Holding the book at a long +distance from his eyes, he would read aloud in a monotonous, unanimated +voice, while I sat on a high-backed chair and listened, for I was +not allowed to play the most innocent game, nor even to go out for a +walk. These miserable tales were full of the conversions of priggish +children; of harrowing scenes in public-houses or squalid city dens. +Some of them were written to illustrate the Ten Commandments; others +to illustrate the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. They contained not +the faintest glimmer of imagination or life: from cover to cover they +were ugly, dull, unintelligent, full of death, poverty and calamity. +On the afternoon when “Cassy’s” successor was produced――I forget its +name――in a state of exasperation, brought about by mingled boredom and +depression, I snatched the book out of my father’s hands and flung it +on the fire. I was whipped and sent to bed, but anything was better +than “Vinegar Hill,” and next Sunday, also, I refused to listen. Again, +with tingling buttocks, I was banished to the upper regions, but really +I had triumphed, for when the fateful day came round once more, the +book-case was not opened, and I had never again to listen to one of +those sanctimonious tales. + +Fairy stories and animal stories were what I liked best, while some of +the old nursery rhymes and jingles had a fascination for me. + + “How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten. + Can I get there by candlelight?―― + Yes, and back again.” + +Was it some magical suggestion in the word “candlelight” that +invariably evoked in a small child’s mind a definite picture of an old +fantastic town of towers and turrets, lit by waving candles, and with +windows all ablaze in dark old houses? Many of these rhymes had this +quality of picture making: + + “Hey, diddle diddle, + The cat and the fiddle, + The cow jumped over the moon: + The little dog laughed + To see such sport + When the dish ran away with the spoon.” + +That, I suppose, is pure nonsense, yet the magic was there. Before and +after the cow made her amazing leap the stuff was a mere jingle: it +was the word “Moon” that brought up the picture: and I saw the white, +docile beast, suddenly transformed, pricked by the sting of midsummer +madness, with lowered head and curling horns, poised for flight, for +the wonderful upward leap, while a monstrous, glowing moon hung like a +great scarlet Chinese lantern in the clouds, low against a black night. + +At this time I had few books I cared for, but as I grew older, and my +powers of understanding increased, I found more, for up at Derryaghy +House was a whole library in which I might rummage without any other +interference than that my father could exercise from a distance. +Sometimes when I brought a book home which he did not approve of, he +would send me back with it; but if I had begun it I always finished it. +I had made this a rule; though, on the other hand, if I had not begun +it, I let my father have his way. + +Everything connected with the East had a deep attraction for me――or, +shall I say, what I imagined the East to be――a country of magicians and +mysterious talismans, of crouching Sphinxes and wonderful gardens. I +delighted in the more marvellous stories in the “Arabian Nights,” and +I regretted infinitely that life was really not like that. To go for a +walk and fall straightway on some wonderful adventure, that was what I +should have loved. I remember poring over a big folio of photographs of +Eastern monuments. Those mystical, winged beasts with human heads, in +their attitude of eternal waiting and listening, touched some chord in +my imagination: they had that strangeness which I adored, and at the +same time they had an odd familiarity. I appeared to remember――but, oh, +so dimly!――having seen them before, not in pictures, but under a hot, +heavy, languid sun, long, long ago. The luxuriousness, the softness and +sleepy charm of the Asiatic temper――I had something in common with it, +I could understand it. The melodious singing of a voice through the +cool twilight; the notes of a lute dying slowly into silence; another +voice, low and clear and musical, reading from the “Koran”――where +had I heard all that? I pictured great coloured bazaars, where grave +merchants with long white beards sat cross-legged and silent, where +beautiful, naked, golden-skinned slaves stood waiting for a purchaser, +where you could buy silken carpets that would carry you over the world, +and black, ebony horses, swifter than light. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Carroll had given me one of the upstairs rooms at Derryaghy to +be my very own, and had let me furnish it myself from a store of +old, out-moded furniture, which, for I know not how long, had been +gathering dust and cobwebs in a kind of immense, low attic called the +lumber-room. Everything was more or less threadbare and worn, but I had +plenty to choose from, and the actual rummaging was as exciting as an +adventure on a desert island. I had discovered a quaint little piano, +with but two or three octaves of notes, and most of those silent, save +for a twangling of wires. This I thought must be Prudence Carroll’s +spinet, for it looked exactly like the one in her portrait; indeed, +that had been my principal reason for bringing it downstairs. With +Prudence Carroll I had been in love all my life, and sometimes, in the +dusk, when I struck very softly one of the cracked treble notes of the +spinet, I would imagine her spirit stealing on tip-toe up behind me +to listen. Another discovery, and perhaps the most exciting, was of +an old davenport, with a secret drawer at the back of it――not so very +secret, perhaps, since I had found it without looking for it, owing to +the weakness of the spring, and my own energetic dusting. Inside was +nothing more interesting than some old accounts, written on discoloured +paper, but anybody who opened it to-day would, I fancy, find more +appropriate documents.... + +There was a cushioned window-seat, low and deep, and from it I could +look out over the sea. In summer, with the window wide open, I could +listen to it also, and to all kinds of lovely songs coming through +it, dreamy and happy and sad. For there was a sort of undercurrent of +dreaming that ran through my life. The romance surrounding the picture +of Prudence Carroll, that peculiar, brooding quality of mind by which +I could give to such things a kind of spiritual life that had for me +an absolute reality, was, perhaps, only too characteristic of a mental +condition which might unsympathetically be called that of perpetual +wool-gathering. Though I played cricket and football, and bathed and +knocked about generally with the other boys in the village, I had no +close friend, and I dreamed of an imaginary playmate. For this playmate +and myself I invented appropriate adventures. He had a name, which I +shall not write here, and I still think he was an extraordinarily nice +boy, but he dropped out of my existence about my fifteenth year. I +had my secret world, too, where such adventures took place. Behind +this inner, imaginative life must have lurked a vague dissatisfaction +with life as I actually found it. Now and then I read something which +appeared to me to describe my other world, and, as I chanced on such +suggestions more frequently in verse than in prose, I became a great +reader of poetry. The passages that echoed so familiarly, though so +faintly, from my mysterious, lovely land, brought it up before me very +much as the scent of a flower may call up a vision of a high-walled +summer garden. Whether any reality lay behind it, I don’t know that I +even asked myself; but, on drowsy summer afternoons, dream and reality +would float and mingle together, and I would feel intensely happy. + +As I write I would give much to be able to live over again one of those +summer afternoons, when the air hung heavy with the scent of mignonette +and roses, and Mrs. Carroll sat reading or working, while I lay in the +grass on my back at her feet, and the low sound of the sea splashed +through the silence of my sleepy thoughts, and the booming of a bee +was the slumberous soul of June or July heat turned to music. In those +hours my other world was very, very near. + +Afterwards I sometimes wondered if there were a place where those lived +days were laid away, or if their beauty, happiness and peace, must be +quite lost. They had a quality of peacefulness that for me no later +days have had: I seemed to dip deep into their cleansing dreamy quiet, +as into a clear sea. + +Other dreams I had, that were not so pleasant, but they came only +at night. One I still remember vividly was unfortunately typical of +many. I seemed to be walking down a street with another boy, when +our attention was attracted by the high, bare wall of a house. There +was something, I know not what, about this house, which made it +different from its neighbours and aroused our curiosity. We noticed +in the wall, almost on the street level, a small window. This window +was open, and a fatal fascination drew us to it at once. I watched my +friend crawl through, for we knew the house was empty; then I followed +him, the opening being just wide enough to admit me. Inside, we found +ourselves on a gigantic marble staircase, spiral in form, and winding +up and down as far as we could follow it with our eyes. There were +no windows except the one we had entered by, and it, somehow, was +invisible from inside, yet the place was perfectly lighted. There +were no landings, no doors, nothing but this staircase, absolutely +uniform in its construction, with low, broad, marble steps which wound +down and down, and up and up. The place resembled a vast, still well, +and we could not hear the slightest sound as we stood listening. The +steps were very shallow, and we ran lightly down. The other boy went +more quickly than I did, and in a little while I lost sight of him, +though I still heard his footsteps, growing ever fainter, till at last +they died away, and the stillness closed in about me with a strange +heaviness. I continued to follow him, but all at once I noticed that +the stairs I trod were darker and stained with damp. A faint chill +odour and feeling of damp and decay rose, too, into my face, and the +light was growing dimmer. I knew I was going down into a great vault +or tomb far below the ground, a charnel-house, an unknown place of +death. I caught sight far below me of a light as of a lamp burning, and +I had an intuition, a consciousness that came to me in a flash, that +my companion had awakened something. This knowledge brought with it +a memory of mysterious horror, a memory that I had been here before. +Then, with an ever increasing terror, I began to run up the steps I +had just run down, but my feet had grown heavy and my limbs weak. Up +and up I hurried, seeing nothing before me but an endless stretch of +winding marble stairs. I did not know where my window was, I might even +now have passed it. I heard nothing, but I knew I was being followed, +and that whatever it was that followed me was gaining on me rapidly. I +could hardly breathe: an agony of fear shook me. Then I heard close to +my ear the bark of a dog. It was the window. I dropped on my knees and +squeezed my head and shoulders through; I was almost free when I felt +myself grasped from behind and with a scream I woke, shaking, panting, +bathed in sweat. + +There came a time when these nightmares occurred so frequently that +I got to be able to waken myself out of them. While I was actually +dreaming――when I would have run a few steps down the stair, for +example――a sudden foresight of what was coming would dawn upon me, and +by a violent struggle I would break through the net of sleep and sit +up in bed. Many of these dreams were connected with a dark, mahogany +wardrobe which stood in my father’s bedroom. When I had begun to dream +and found myself in that room I knew something evil was going to +happen, and I would watch the wardrobe door and struggle violently to +wake myself before it should open. Even when I was wide awake, and in +broad daylight, this so ordinary piece of furniture came to have, for +me, a sinister aspect. It was odd that I should have suffered so from +these grisly nocturnal terrors, for in ordinary life I was not in any +way a coward. A feeling of shame made me keep them a profound secret, +and as I grew older they diminished, till by the time I was fifteen +they had practically ceased. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps I should here attempt some slight description of my father, +whom I have already mentioned, and of my home. My father was the +National schoolmaster at Newcastle, County Down, and our house was next +door to the school. My bedroom window looked out over the sea, about +a hundred yards away, and behind the house were the Mourne Mountains, +and the Derryaghy estate, which took in the lower slopes of Slieve +Donard. Our house, when the Virginian creeper that covered it was red, +looked pretty enough from the road, but was poorly and even meagrely +furnished. The most that could be said for it was that it was clean +and tidy. The few attempts at ornamentation would have been better +away――the two or three pictures, the hideous vases on the mantelpiece. +My father had a strong liking for illuminated texts, and there were +several of these, in gilt frames, in every room in the house, including +the kitchen and the bath-room. What furniture there was was modern, +cheap, and objectionable: it was characteristic of my father that he +had never even bought himself a comfortable arm-chair. + +He was a tall man, thin and grizzled, pale, and dressed always in an +ill-cut, ready-made, black tail-coat and waistcoat, with dark gray +trousers. I always disliked his clothes, especially the two shining +buttons at the back of his coat. He wore a beard and moustache, both +somewhat ragged, and his brown eyes were indescribably melancholy. His +hands and feet were very coarse and large. There was power in his face, +but there was a depressing lack of anything approaching geniality. He +gave me the impression that he did everything from a sense of duty, +and nothing because he took a pleasure in it. The seriousness of his +expression was truly portentous: it was impossible that anything in +the world could matter so much as that. He was not well-off――that is +obvious from the position he occupied――but he lived in a way that was +unnecessarily economical. He was by no means ungenerous if it were +some case of distress that had come to his knowledge, but in ordinary +life he was excessively near. The only luxuries he had ever permitted +himself were these coloured texts, and they cost little. + +When I was with him I never felt quite at my ease, and this made me +sulky and perpetually on the defensive. I was not more with him than +I could help, and as we lived alone together, with only an old woman +who came in every day to look after the house and do the cooking, it +must have been easy for him to see that I avoided his society. I never +pretended to myself to have any particular affection for him, and I +don’t even know that it would have mended matters if I had. + +One night, when I was about fourteen, I woke up in the dark, with the +consciousness that it was very late and that I was not alone in my +room. The next moment I knew my father was there, kneeling beside my +bed. I lay absolutely quiet: I knew he was praying, and praying for me. +Presently I heard him sigh, and then rise noiselessly to his feet, but +I gave no sign. I heard him move away, I heard my door being softly +closed, the faint click of the latch as it slipped into its place. I +lay on with my eyes wide open, wondering why he had come in like this. +I did not like it. It made me feel uncomfortable, as all emotions do +when we are unable to respond to them. I believed my father cared for +me far more than for anything else in the world, yet somehow that did +not help matters. It was not the sort of love that begets love in +return. Though he loved me, I felt he did not trust me, or rather that +he believed I had an infinite capacity for yielding to temptation. By +this time I understood that when my mother left home she had gone to +somebody else. I knew at any rate that she was living, for she had sent +a sum of money for my education, which my father had returned, though +some scruple of conscience had made him think it right to tell me he +had done so. But he explained nothing and I asked no questions. As I +lay awake that night I thought of all this, and it occurred to me +that it might have much to do with his extraordinary anxiety about my +religious and moral life. He was afraid, and I lay awake for a long +time trying to puzzle out what it was he was afraid of. + + * * * * * + +It was quite impossible for him to make me religious. For one thing, +it was not in my nature. It was not so much that I disbelieved what +I was taught of religion, as that these instructions aroused in me +an implacable antagonism. I did not like the notion of an all-seeing +God, for instance. Imperfectly grasped, this conception represented +to my mind a kind of tyranny, a kind of espionage, which I strongly +resented. Moreover, I detested Sundays and everything connected with +them. When I went to church it was with a face like a thunder-cloud, +and once there, with an incredible obstinacy, I would shut my ears to +all that went on, prayers, hymns, and sermon. This fact, combined with +so many others, tended, as time passed, to make my relations with my +father more and more strained, for he was religious in the narrowest +and severest fashion. I remember his taking me, one Sunday evening, +when I was between twelve and thirteen, to hear a preacher who had come +from a considerable distance to hold two special services. The occasion +stands out from all others, because it was the only one upon which I +was startled out of my habitual attitude of sulky defiance. For the +first three-quarters of an hour all went as usual, and when the sermon +was about to begin I prepared myself to think of other things. But the +text, or texts, delivered in a quiet, impressive voice, arrested my +attention. + +“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: +and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and +pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from +heaven.... Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young +men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and I will +show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and +fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and +the moon into blood.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming +in a cloud, with power and great glory.” + +In spite of myself the words thrilled me with their vivid, menacing +suggestiveness, and I listened intently to what followed. It seemed +apparent that the end of the world was at hand. The signs were taken +up one by one, and it was shown, to my growing discomfiture, that all +had been fulfilled: nothing remained but the sounding of the last +trumpet, which, according to the preacher――he seemed even to regard +it as highly probable――might take place that very night. By the time +he had reached this point my disquietude had become abject fear, and +I joined fervently in the last prayer. But why had I never been told +of this imminent danger? When we got back from church, it was a very +subdued boy who sat by his father’s side, a Bible open on the parlour +table in front of him. I read with a feverish haste to prove my changed +way of life, and, it must be confessed, also to keep off as long as +possible the hour of bed-time. There was a horrible plausibility about +what I had heard. The concluding words kept ringing in my ears. “I see +no reason why it should not be this very night.” “Wouldn’t it, in fact, +be just the kind of thing that _would_ happen at night?” I asked myself +piteously; and I was tormented by a dread of the hideous trumpet note, +by a bloody moon, and by the apparition of dead and shrouded bodies, +rising up with glaring eyeballs and tied jaws and all the mouldering +signs of the grave――dreadful, galvanized corpses, risen from their +wormy beds to meet their Lord in the air. At length I could put off my +bed-time no longer. I could see my father was not convinced by the open +Bible, and, with his usual suspiciousness, had become curious as to +what passages I was so interested in. Ten minutes later, on my knees +in my small, candle-lit bedroom, I was lying to my God of a tremendous +love I had begun to feel for Him; but in spite of this I passed an +abominable night. In the morning I continued my miserable hypocrisy, +grovelling before this frightful Deity for Whom I had developed so +sudden and demonstrative an affection, and Whom, at the same time, I +begged naïvely not to come. Gradually, but not for several days, these +terrors faded, receiving their death-blow when my father told me that +all Jews must return to Jerusalem before the last day. Now there was a +Jewish family living at Castlewellan, whom I thought I could keep my +eye on, and as I had heard nothing of their moving I felt fairly safe. + + * * * * * + +Very quickly I became more emancipated as I began to think things +out for myself, and a year later I could laugh at these early fears. +My father told me a crude anecdote which he had read, I think, in +Mark Pattison’s “Memoirs.” A man in a public-house in Leicestershire +had used the oath, “God strike me blind,” and instantly he had been +struck blind by a flash of lightning. On becoming converted he had +recovered his sight while taking the Sacrament. This edifying tale was, +I believe, vouched for by a friend and disciple of Cardinal Newman’s, +but to me, I confess, it seemed as stupid and revolting as anything +I had ever heard. My father declared it to be true, yet I secretly +doubted it, and that afternoon, in my own room, standing by the window, +I said aloud, and very deliberately, “God strike me blind! God strike +me blind!” I waited with a mingled trepidation and incredulity, as if +I had thrown some mysterious bomb into the unknown. A sea-gull flew +past the window, white against the dark autumn sky: the leaves of the +Virginian creeper trembled and grew still. I said again and in a louder +voice, “God strike me blind!” But no flash of lightning followed. Down +below, on the beach, the gray waves curled over with a slow musical +splash. I looked into the sky, but it was calm and untroubled, and I +decided that the story was a myth. + +Most of my religious difficulties were, however, metaphysical. The +conception of eternity was one I could not grasp. I could, in a vague +way, figure myself as living on for ever, but I could not with the +same facility move my mind backward. I seemed able to imagine that +there might be no end, but I could not imagine that there had been no +beginning. “If there had been no beginning, how could we ever have +got as far as this?” I asked myself. “Where I am now――this particular +moment――must be at a certain distance from something, or it cannot be +anywhere. But if there is no beginning, then this moment cannot be any +further on than yesterday was!” My brain grew dizzy with vain efforts +to think impossible thoughts. I would break a stick and say, “God can +make it that I haven’t broken it. But if I shut my eyes, and when I +open them the stick is whole, that will only show He has mended it. Yet +He is all-powerful!” And so on, and so on; for whatever point I took +up, sooner or later I was met by an insoluble problem. These problems +were, nevertheless, just what fascinated me. The practical ethics +of religion, that I should simply be good and encourage in myself a +variety of Christian virtues――that kind of thing did not interest me +in the least. As a matter of fact, I possessed singularly few of these +virtues. It is true that I detested any kind of meanness or cruelty, +that I was truthful, straightforward, and, in certain directions, +loving and gentle enough; but I was egotistical, proud, and ludicrously +self-conscious, quick tempered, flying into violent passions for very +little, and, above all, I had a stubbornness nothing could move. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +It is difficult, as I have said, in looking back over those days, to +see things in any fixed order. It is as if one’s memories floated in +a kind of haze, appearing and disappearing, melting into one another. +But there is a definite point from which my story becomes consecutive, +and I can carry it back as far as that cold, clear January morning, +the morning of Mr. Carroll’s funeral, when I stood beside my father, +at some distance from the grave, among a group of people I did not +know, and whom I should never see again. I examined them all with a +mild and impartial curiosity, and was struck by the fact that none of +them showed the slightest emotion, though all alike wore a grave and +decorous demeanour. I could not blame them, for I did not feel sad +myself. Mr. Carroll had always been perfectly amiable to me, but I had +seen little of him, and when we did meet he had looked at me vaguely, +as if he were unable to remember who I was. I had only known him as +an invalid, occasionally hobbling about with the aid of two black, +silver-headed sticks, but for the most part keeping pretty closely +to his own rooms. He seemed to me to be very old, yet at his death +I learned that he was not old at all, his appearance of decrepitude +being simply the result of an excessively disorderly life, imposed upon +a naturally wretched constitution. I learned, at the same time, the +history of Mrs. Carroll’s marriage; how, before the first year was +out, she had ceased to see much of her husband, and a little later had +ceased to see him altogether. It was fifteen years afterwards, when +he had become the futile person I knew, that he had returned to her. +As the coffin, bared of its covering of sickly-smelling flowers, was +lowered into the ugly, gaping grave, and the damp red earth rattled +heavily on the lid with a hollow, brutal sound, I recalled the strange, +white face, the watery blue eyes, the fixed smile, the soft, polite +manner; but I was not in the least grieved to know I should never see +them again. And when, a week or so later, I was once more in and out of +the house just as of old, I had already ceased to think of him. Once +or twice, passing the closed door of his room in the dusk, the thought +of meeting his ghost, of hearing the tap, tap of his stick coming +toward me down the long passage, gave me a momentary thrill; but even +these poor tributes to his memory faded swiftly, passed into a total +oblivion. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +Scarlatina broke out in the village in the spring of that year, a week +or two before my sixteenth birthday. There were not many cases, and all +were mild, but there was much talk of closing the school. My father, +for I know not what reason, was against this, and in the end got his +own way, but about a month later he had the satisfaction of seeing me +catch the infection just when everybody else was getting better. I can +remember quite distinctly the day I took ill. I had not been feeling +well the day before, but had said nothing about it, and that morning I +went to school as usual. I might as well have stayed at home for all +the work I did. I sat there with a book before me, my head aching, my +throat dry and painful. The noise of the classes saying their lessons +at the tops of their voices, especially the junior class, to whom +Miss McWaters was repeating a stanza of poetry, line by line, while +they screamed it after her, irritated, even while it amused, me. Miss +McWaters was a thin and angular person, no longer young, endowed by +nature with a high-pitched voice, prominent teeth, and a red nose, and +by art with a yellow, fuzzy fringe. All these qualities now loomed +particularly large in my vision of her, though at other times I knew +she was a kind and friendly person. Her red nose and her fringe haunted +me, her whole face seemed to undergo extraordinary, kaleidoscopic +changes; she became a sort of fantastic witch who was exercising +horrible spells on these small children standing in a circle round her +chair; her mouth grew larger, her big white teeth seemed thirsting to +bury themselves in their soft little throats. This impression grew +suddenly so sharp that I had to shake myself and sit back in my seat +to get rid of it. Then once more she was only Miss McWaters, to whom +years ago I had repeated this same verse of poetry in that same shrill +sing-song tone which now was going through and through my head.... + +I looked about the room with heavy eyes――at the white walls, the torn, +ink-stained maps, the scored desks and forms, the wooden floor――and +the whole place seemed to move round and round like a wheel. I saw my +father, with a pointer in his hand, indicating differently shaped areas +on a large blank map of England, and asking a row of youngsters what +counties they represented. That was the kind of lesson I had always +detested myself and had never even attempted to learn. I knew from my +father’s angry, “Next――next――next,” that nobody in the class was giving +satisfaction. And then they all seemed to shrink and float back, while +the room shot out like a telescope, and I watched them from somewhere +miles and miles away. And the high, clear voice of Miss McWaters +proclaimed: + + “Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d, + And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.” + +And a dozen shrill voices replied: + + “Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d, + And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.” + +The words seemed mere nonsense in my ears, and I had a sort of +delirious vision of a big star, with a red nose and a fringe and large +white teeth, pointing out the time on a huge clock, while a lot of +little stars stood round in a ring and pulled watches out of their +waistcoat pockets and set them to the time told by the big clock. This +seemed funny to me, and I began to laugh; and then, next moment, I +wanted to lie down somewhere and be quiet. My head was throbbing like +a steamboat with a too powerful engine, and there was a dull aching at +the back of my eyeballs. I got up and tip-toed across the room, but my +foot caught the end of a form, and I nearly pitched through the door, +head first. + +I had intended going home, but with my hand on the latch of the gate I +decided to go up to Derryaghy instead. Singularly enough, the thought +that I might be sickening for scarlatina never occurred to me. The +distance to Derryaghy was not more than a quarter of a mile, yet it +seemed to me long, and before I arrived I regretted having started. +The hall-door being open when I reached the house, I went in without +ringing. I knew they would be at lunch, but I had no appetite, and as +I did not want to answer questions or talk, I went straight on up the +broad, low stairs, with the intention of going to my own room. At the +head of the staircase, full in the light, hangs the celebrated portrait +people come from far to admire. I sat down on the wide couch before it, +not because I wanted to look at what I had already seen thousands of +times, but because my head swam. I leaned against the back of the couch +and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the portrait being in front +of me, I could not help staring at it, in a dull way. It represents a +young man standing bare-headed on a hill-side, holding a gun in his +hand, and with an elderly dog seated sedately by him. The curiously +long, oval face, with its high forehead and narrow, pointed chin, has +much distinction, though little beauty, and its pallor contrasts oddly +with the faded red of the full sensuous lips, completely revealed +beneath the light, curled moustache. The eyes are dark, the hair light +brown. The hands are hidden by brown gauntlet gloves, and over the +dark brown doublet falls a lace collar. The trousers would look black +but for the darker shade of the long boots, and this darker note is +carried through to the trees behind, sombre and heavy against a yellow +sky. Both man and dog are obviously posing for their portraits――the +whole thing is a work of art, that is to say, it is something utterly +beyond nature. The highest light is in the face, but there is no white +anywhere, and, with the exception of the faint red of the lips, no +colour save the browns and blacks, the creamy flesh-tints. Over all, +the mellow tone of time has cast a kind of golden softness. I had been +told that it was by a great Spanish artist called Velasquez――his name, +indeed, was there, in large black letters on the dull gilt frame――and +that it was a very valuable painting, worth fabulous sums. I can affirm +to-day that it is really a fine work; but it is not by Velasquez. It is +by Mazo, and is, in fact, only a slightly modified copy of Velasquez’s +famous portrait of Philip in the Louvre. + +This picture had always had an odd fascination for me, though there +was something about the face I did not like, something cold and proud, +which I knew I should have detested in actual life. I gazed at it now +stupidly enough, and then I had a nervous thrill, for it seemed to me +to have come all at once to life. One part of my brain knew this to +be nonsense, and that I had been seeing queer things all day, but the +other part of my brain continued to watch it, with a half expectation +of seeing it descend out of its frame. The eyes had begun to move, and +the lips trembled; the mouth opened slowly in a yawn which the brown +gloved hand was raised languidly to conceal; and then from behind the +picture I heard a little mocking laugh. These things bewildered me, +but did not startle me; and through them I became conscious that Mrs. +Carroll was coming up the stair and that she was speaking to me. I +answered her in words which I knew were perfectly idiotic, and which +moreover sounded husky and strange, as if some other voice than my own +were speaking through my lips. Again I heard the little mocking laugh. +This time I thought it came from the top of the picture, and glancing +up I saw, sure enough, a black imp, like a small, naked, negro boy, +perched cross-legged, on the top of the frame, from which he grinned +down at me impudently, raising his fingers to his snub nose, and +spreading them out in a derisive and very familiar grimace. I began to +talk about the picture, about school, and about Miss McWaters. Then +a cloud waved back from my brain; the portrait slid into its place, +the imp disappeared, and everything was once more as it should be. +But I felt a burning thirst, and when Mrs. Carroll opened the door of +a large, bright, sunny room, I was glad to fling myself down on the +bed. Almost immediately I was seized by a deadly sickness. I managed +to get off the bed in time to avoid making a mess, but the vomiting +returned again and again, till I collapsed into a state of exhaustion. +Heavy clouds waved across my brain, obscuring my thoughts, and again +clearing, leaving consciousness to flicker up, like the flame in a +dying lamp, so that I knew I had been undressed and was safe in bed. +And all the time I wanted to drink――to drink.... More than one person +was in the room with me; Mrs. Carroll was there, and old Doctor +O’Brian. In the open doorway Miss Dick hovered. And then suddenly I +was alone. I could hear a fire crackling in the grate, and it had +grown darker. A lamp was burning on a table somewhere over beside the +fireplace. I listened to the fire, and presently it seemed to me I +could hear the lamp burning too. It burned with a soft low continuous +sound that was like the note of a flute, and it occurred to me that +everything in the world was only sound――the bed I was lying on, the +shadows flickering across the ceiling, the dancing firelight――all were +but notes of a tune. This appeared so strikingly obvious that I could +not understand why I had never noticed it before. I tried to make out +what the tune was, but it eluded me, flickering away from me like a +butterfly. I turned round in my bed, for I had heard a slight noise +at the door. All seemed now to have grown silent. I could not hear +the lamp burning, nor even the fire. This silence was surely unusual, +abnormal; it filled me with a vague disquietude. It grew deeper and +deeper till I could not hear, even when I strained my ears, the +faintest murmur either without or within the house. The silence was +like a liquid, luminous atmosphere, through which strange things were +floating nearer. It was like a sea, and gradually it darkened into +colour――there was a broad, dark, blue sea before me, in a strange, rich +light, as if I were watching it through old stained glass. I saw sirens +swimming about in the warm, swelling waves, appearing and disappearing. +They followed a high-pooped, fantastic ship, just as I had often seen +porpoises following a boat out in the bay. The ship moved along slowly, +and its broad, coloured sails were embroidered with green dragons +that shone like fire, and at its bow was a green, jewelled serpent’s +head. Then once more there was nothing but the room, and I heard a +faint noise as of someone moving in a chair. Another sound immediately +followed, and I started, for it was curiously different; it was the +sound one hears before something happens. I watched the handle of the +door turn, and the door itself open and close quickly yet stealthily. +Three figures had entered. One was a tall figure in brown, with a gun +in his gloved hand, and he was followed by a great dark brown dog, who +at once leaped on to the bed and sat at the foot, watching me with +sombre, burning eyes. The third figure was Miss McWaters. Her nose +was longer and redder than I had ever seen it before, and it kept +twitching from side to side in a curious way; her big teeth flashed +in an unpleasant grin, and her fringe waved and curled about as if it +were alive. For the third time I heard the strange little mocking laugh +that had come from behind the picture, but I could not discover who had +uttered it. Perhaps it was Miss McWaters, for I knew she was waiting +for me to say something――a verse of poetry――yes, I remembered: + + “Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d, + And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.” + +Then a dense, heavy darkness swept up, blotting out everything. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +I awoke in broad sunlight. The room was full of it, and the scent of +flowers floated in through the open windows and mingled with the faint +smell of drugs. For some time I lay there quietly, too languid to make +a movement or to speak. Then the door softly opened, and I saw Mrs. +Carroll come in and stand beside my bed. “Is he asleep?” I heard her +ask, for I had closed my eyes. I opened them and looked up at her. + +“No,” I answered, smiling. + +She smiled, too. “It’s time for you to take your medicine,” and the +nurse came forward to give it to me. When I had swallowed it, I lay +back among the soft pillows deliciously.... + + * * * * * + +The memory of my convalescence is a strange one, for it came at a +time when certain physical changes were taking place within me, and I +seemed to myself to be somehow different from what I had been before +I fell ill. My voice had altered; my mind was coloured by vague and +happy dreams. Sometimes when I turned in bed or stretched myself, the +contact of the fine linen sheets against my skin gave me a peculiar +thrill, which ran all down my spine. It appeared I had been very ill, +that it had been a touch-and-go matter whether I should manage to pull +through; yet now I did not feel that I wanted to get well too quickly. +The flowers, the fruit, the brightness, the big delightful room――so +different from my room at home――the care everybody took of me, the +books that were read to me, the sense of being here so securely, with +everything just as I liked it, and with Mrs. Carroll to look after +me――all that was delicious. The one jarring note was my father’s +letter, which I read, and then put back in its envelope. It was about +my escape, how near to death I had been, and how he hoped the mercy +that had been shown me would make me think seriously. I did not want +to think seriously: I wanted to bask in the sunshine of these pleasant +days while they lasted. If I had died it would have been all over by +this time, and since I hadn’t, why should I be different? It seemed to +me hardly the time to talk of God’s mercy, seeing that I had barely +scraped through a severe illness. It was like thanking a man, who has +just broken your head with a stick, for not killing you outright. My +father talked of a miracle, but I had slender faith in miracles, and I +regret to say his entire letter struck me as amazingly unintelligent. +In a kind of lazy and sublime egotism I began to ponder on the oddity +of a man like my father having a son such as I was; and while I was +engaged with these speculations Mrs. Carroll sat beside me, playing +“patience.” She told me my father could not come to see me for fear of +carrying the infection to school, and I received these tidings with +an immense relief, for I had been dreading that he would want to talk +to me about death, and perhaps make me join in returning thanks for +my recovery. I watched her as she sat there, her plump hands drawing +out the cards, her eyes seriously scanning the faces of those already +turned up. She was a large, placid lady, stout and ruddy. She must +always, even in her earliest youth, have been plain, but her face +was filled with an extraordinary kindness that made it infinitely +pleasant. It was not the sort of kindness which can be simulated; it +was something that was a natural part of her, and was reflected in all +she did and said. It had moulded the expression of her countenance, +just as time and weather will alter the features of a statue. Her +eyes were small and gray, and she wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which, +somehow, were becoming to her. I never saw her dressed in anything but +black, and with a light lace cap on her gray hair. She was extremely +fond of me, and I knew it, and I’m afraid imposed upon it, though I +loved her sincerely. At that time it appeared to me perfectly natural +that she should be fond of me; it was simply a part of the order of +things; it had always been so, and I couldn’t have imagined anything +else. It never even occurred to me that I had no claim upon her, except +that which she herself had established; it never occurred to me that I +might, in my relation to her, have been just like any of the other boys +in the village. On the contrary, I looked upon Derryaghy quite as if it +were a second, and certainly much my best-loved, home. + +The “patience” failed, and Mrs. Carroll swept up the cards. “Shall +I read to you?” she asked me, and, I having graciously given my +permission, she took up “Huckleberry Finn.” It was a book I rejoiced +in, but I don’t think Mrs. Carroll cared for it, I don’t think she even +found it funny. She spoke rather slowly, and it amused me infinitely +to hear her gentle voice reproduce the talk of Huck, or Pap, or the +King.... + +That same day, after lunch, the nurse left. I was getting on very well, +and was to be allowed up toward the end of the week. In the afternoon +Mrs. Carroll had gone out, and I found myself alone. I went on with +“Huck,” but a chapter or two brought me to the end. I began another +book, “Bevis,” but my eyes grew tired, and I let it drop on the bed +beside me. As I lay idle I was seized by a desire to get up. I resisted +it for a few minutes, and then I slid into a sitting posture, with +my legs hanging over the side of the bed. It struck me that they had +grown absurdly thin and long, and I felt wretchedly shaky. I stood +up, all the same, holding on to the bedpost till I got accustomed to +being on my feet, when I put on my dressing-gown, and walked somewhat +uncertainly as far as the door. I turned the handle and looked out +with a strange curiosity into the passage. It was as if I had been +ill for months, it all somehow seemed so queer and new. The long high +corridor, off which the rooms opened, was hung with tall portraits +that appeared, in the mellow sunlight of high far windows, to watch +me stiffly yet furtively. I liked them, I liked everything about the +place, I liked to look down the passage with its long row of closed +doors, which seemed so mysterious, reaching right on to the head of +the staircase. I listened for footsteps, but heard nothing. Miss Dick +probably was out, and the servants’ quarters were far away. I had a +feeling that I was really the son of the house, that everything about +it, its pictures, its ghosts, were mine. I went to my favourite picture +and stood beneath it. It was a portrait of a lady with dark hair and +dark blue eyes, and it was partly this peculiar contrast, I think, this +contrast of blue eyes and black hair, that had originally pleased me. +She was young and she had a strange quaint name――Prudence Carroll. The +artist had painted her as if she were just come in from the garden, +for she held still a bunch of flowers in her hand. She was standing +by a queer little piano――or was it a spinet?――the spinet I had now in +my room? It was open, and in a minute or two she would lay down her +flowers and play some air on it, or the accompaniment of some forgotten +ballad. Did the painter intend to show that these were the things she +was fondest of――music and flowers? Poor Prudence Carroll had been dust +these hundred years, the notes of her spinet were either cracked or +dumb, and her tardy lover had arrived a century too late, for she had +died unmarried, and but a year after this portrait was painted! Why +had no one cared for her? Perhaps some day, between twilight and dusk, +she would slip into my room and sing to me, “Rose softly Blooming,” +or “Voi che sapete!” A rustle of muslin, a ghostly scent of ghostly +flowers, the twangling notes of the spinet, and a voice singing a song +that would sound thin and far off, like the sound of wind――that is how +it would happen. + +I was charmed with these fancies, but I stood there only a few +minutes, for there was something odd in that silence of closed doors +and listening portraits, and I returned to the sunshine of my room. I +went to the window and leaned my forehead against the pane and looked +out. Far away I could see a stretch of sand, streaked with streams and +pools of water, for the tide was out: and beyond the sand, clear in the +sunlight, was the sea, blue-green under the soft blue sky, marked with +indigo and purple where the bottom was formed of rocks and seaweed. At +the water’s edge some children――from this distance I could not make out +who they were――were sailing toy boats. With trousers and petticoats +well rolled up from bare brown legs, with their scarlet jerseys and +caps and striped cotton dresses, they formed a bright note of colour, +and brought me into touch again with life out of doors. On the left +horn of the bay’s crescent the sand-hills, with their sparse covering +of bleached, wan grass, were pale and iridescent in the sun. + +A gardener was mowing the grass just below my window, and the sleepy +sound of the mowing-machine was delightful, and the smell of the fresh +green grass, turned over in bright cool heaps. I got back into bed +again, and took up “Bevis.” + +I read for half an hour, when my eyes once more grew tired. The sound +of the mowing-machine had ceased, and a deep silence filled the +afternoon. I lay listening to the silence, half-asleep, half-awake, +when all at once I heard a sound of scraping under my window. It +flashed across my mind that I was alone here in this part of the +house, and that burglars were taking the opportunity to break in, and +perhaps they would murder me. The thing was utterly nonsensical, and +would never have occurred to me had I been in my normal health, but +it had hardly entered my head when I saw a ladder shoot up past the +window, and strike with a grating sound against the wall. My heart +began to thump. I heard steps on the ladder; somebody was mounting it. +The next moment Jim’s face, brown and ruddy and grinning, popped in, +and I gasped with relief. Jim was a boy who worked in the garden, and +was about the same age as I was. He smiled broadly, and his bright, +brown eyes gazed at me with evident pleasure. “How are you, Master +Peter?” he grinned. “They’re nobody about, so I thought I’d look in.” + +“Oh, I’m all right,” I answered, “but you mustn’t stay there, or you’ll +be catching the infection.” + +“I wanted to see the skin peeling off you. What like is it underneath?” + +I felt disappointed at this callous explanation of what I had imagined +to be sympathy. “You can’t see it,” I answered crossly. “You’d better +clear out before somebody catches you.” + +Jim disappeared, but I called after him, “I say ... Jim――――” + +The round, ruddy-brown face bobbed up again. + +“Will you do something for me?” I asked. + +“Ay.” + +“Will you play something to me. I’m sick of lying here, doing nothing.” + +“I darn’t. Oul Thomas’d stop me, an’ I’d get in a row. I be to red up +all the grass, an’ rake the walk.” + +“All right.” + +I took no further interest in Jim, and he again vanished. There was a +further scraping noise, and the ladder, too, disappeared. I lay on in +a kind of waking-slumber till Mrs. Carroll came in, bringing me my tea. +When I had finished I once more fell into a doze, but opened my eyes in +the dusk, when I heard the notes of Jim’s flute under my window, in a +slow melancholy tune, with an occasional pause, as if the musician was +not very certain of his music. I recognised the air――the Lorelei. It +had a curious effect in the gathering twilight, as if the music and the +fading light were in some subtle way mingled. I knew that the unseen +musician was Jim, yet none the less the mournful notes, coming slowly +in a minor key, seemed the very soul of the deepening darkness, and +called up before me a world of imaginary sorrows, a passionate regret +for I knew not what, a kind of home-sickness for my dream-land. Tears +gathered in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. Fortunately nobody could +see them, but I was ashamed of them myself, though I knew they were +partly the result of my physical weakness. Still, it was ridiculous +that I should cry over Jim’s playing. Jim really couldn’t play at all. +It was stupid, idiotic; and the other day I had cried just in this same +senseless fashion over a book I had been reading; I had wept my soul +out in an ecstasy of love and misery. + +When Jim’s serenade was ended I lay on in the darkness, my tears drying +on my cheeks, and thought what a fool I was. Why should I have cried? +What was the matter with me? It was not that I was unhappy; on the +contrary, I was extremely happy. Yet somehow I felt dimly that there +was a greater happiness than any I had ever experienced or probably +ever should experience. The meaning of my emotions and desires never +became quite clear, though I seemed on the verge of discovery. It was +as if there were something stirring within me to which I could not give +freedom, something which remained unsatisfied even in the midst of my +keenest pleasures.... + +On a bright morning early in June I was allowed out for the first time +since my illness, and I insisted on going alone. As I came out into +the warmth of the sun I felt a charm as of a mysterious new birth. I +went straight to the woods. The green alleys winding in front of me +amid tall old trees, in all the vivid richness of early summer, seemed +exquisitely beautiful. It was as if I had never realized before how +lovely the world was. I lay down on my back on the warm, dry moss and +listened to a skylark singing as it mounted up from the fields near +the sea into the dark clear sky. No other music ever gave me the same +pleasure as that passionately joyous singing. It was a kind of leaping, +exultant ecstasy, a bright, flame-like sound, rejoicing in itself. And +then a curious experience befell me. It was as if everything that had +seemed to me external and around me were suddenly within me. The whole +world seemed to be within me. It was within me that the trees waved +their green branches, it was within me that the skylark was singing, +it was within me that the hot sun shone, and that the shade was cool. +A cloud rose in the sky, and passed in a light shower that pattered on +the leaves, and I felt its freshness dropping into my soul, and I felt +in all my being the delicious fragrance of the earth and the grass and +the plants and the rich brown soil. I could have sobbed with joy, but +in the midst of it I heard the sound of footsteps, and looked behind +me quickly, to see the figure of one of the two idiots, who lived in +a hovel outside the village, approaching. This was the man; there was +a woman also, his sister. He was perfectly harmless, and he drew near +now with smiles meant to be ingratiating. He held an empty pipe in his +hand, and made guttural noises that I knew were asking me for tobacco. +I told him I had none, but he would not go away. He stood right over +me, a grin on his deformed face. The big, misshapen head, the horrible, +slobbering mouth, the stupid persistence, all filled me with a cold +rage. He had spoiled everything; I hated him, and I could have killed +him, for it. But he still stood there and jibbered with his ugly, +dripping mouth. It was only when I struck at him savagely with my stick +that he moved off, glancing back at every step. And when he was gone +I felt nothing but a kind of cold disgust and animosity, mingled with +shame at my own conduct. All the beauty had gone out of the woods, and +I got up and went home. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +When, some time in July, Mrs. Carroll told me that she had invited +her nephew and niece, Gerald and Katherine Dale, to come on a visit +to Derryaghy, I became at once very curious to see them. I had never +even heard of them before, and now I learned such interesting items +as that they lived in London, were twins, and about my own age, or +perhaps a year older, Mrs. Carroll could not remember. They arrived +at the end of the month, and that night I went to dinner to meet +them. As it happened, I was late. My watch had stopped for half an +hour or so in the afternoon, and then gone on again, an annoying and +foolish trick it occasionally played me. I was told they were already +in the dining-room, but that dinner had only begun. The prospect of +meeting strangers always produced in me an unconquerable shyness, +and, to-night, partly because I was late, and partly because these +particular strangers were so nearly my own age, my shyness was doubled. +I did not look at either of them as I entered the room where, though +daylight had not yet quite failed, two softly shaded lamps burned, amid +a profusion of flowers, upon the white and silver table. I shook hands +with my hostess and with Miss Dick, mumbling out apologies, and had +begun a lengthy and involved description of the cause of my delay, when +Mrs. Carroll cut me short by introducing me to the Dales. I shook hands +with one and bowed to the other, blushing and incapable of finding a +word. I should never have guessed they were even brother and sister, +let alone twins, for in appearance they were utterly unlike. Katherine +pleased me. She was fresh and bright and attractive; I even thought her +beautiful, for there was something of the open air about her, something +of nature. At any rate she gave me that impression; her beauty had +a kind of grave simplicity; and, if I had been a poet, and had been +describing her, all my similes would have been taken from nature, from +open hill-sides, from the wind and the sky. As I sat down beside her, +her clear, dark, very blue eyes rested on me frankly, and with that she +suddenly set me puzzling over where I had seen her before, or whom she +reminded me of. I kept glancing at her furtively, but, seen in profile, +her face was no longer suggestive, and I decided I had made a mistake. +She appeared to me friendly and candid and unaffected, but I doubted if +she were clever. Her brother, on the other hand, probably _was_ clever. +I did not take to him, he was smaller than she, thin and brown and +subtle; also he had a way of looking at you that made you want to ask +him what it was he found amusing. + +“Peter will be able to show you everything, and take you everywhere,” +Mrs. Carroll explained, comprehensively, and then Katherine asked me if +I played golf. + +I answered, “No,” and felt ashamed. I went on to prove that it was not +my fault, that my father had refused to allow me to join the club, but +at that point I caught Gerald’s eyes watching me with an expression +of interest, and I suddenly blushed. “Do _you_ play?” I asked him +aggressively. + +He seemed surprised. His glance just brushed mine and rested on a +picture above my head. “No,” he answered quietly. + +“Gerald is studying music abroad,” said Mrs. Carroll, “at Vienna, +where I don’t suppose they have ever heard of golf. He is going to be a +musician.” + +“How interesting!” exclaimed Miss Dick. “Fancy, Vienna!” + +Miss Dick was Mrs. Carroll’s companion, and was even, in some distant +way, related to her. Her family, however, had fallen on evil days, and +she was permanently settled at Derryaghy. She was a gushing, fussy, +kindly creature, with a minimum allowance of brains, but overflowing +with good intentions and amazingly loyal in her affections, though +these latter, I must add, had never been bestowed upon me. I took Mrs. +Carroll’s word for it that she had once been very pretty, but now her +thinness, accentuating a peculiar type of feature, gave her an absurd +resemblance to a lean and restless fowl. I noticed that she had attired +herself to-night as for a striking festival. She was a person liable +to these unexpected changes in the degree of her brilliancy, which at +present was positively dazzling. She began to ask about Vienna, and +expressed a deep regret at never having visited that city. + +“We have had the piano specially tuned for you,” said Mrs. Carroll to +Gerald. + +“Oh you shouldn’t have bothered,” he answered. + +“You evidently don’t know what it was like before!” I began, and then +stopped short. Nobody took any notice. + +Miss Dick, who seemed determined, cost what it might, to keep the +conversation on the subject of music, mentioned that her mother had +heard Patti in “La Sonnambula,” and how, when that great prima donna +had paused in the middle of the opera to sing “Home Sweet Home,” the +entire house had risen to its feet with enthusiasm. “It has always +seemed to me that music is the most perfect of the arts,” she added, +fixing her lace collar. + +“Painting is the most perfect of the arts,” I contradicted. Somehow, +when they were uttered, all my remarks sounded unhappy, not to say +rude, though I was only trying to be agreeable. Miss Dick accentuated +this last one by helping herself to potatoes in significant silence. +“You can look at a picture oftener than you can read a book,” I went +on, addressing Gerald, “and oftener than you can listen to a piece of +music.” + +“I daresay,” he answered, and I resented his politeness. “Why can’t he +stand up for his own business?” I thought. + +I glanced at Katherine, and wanted to say something pleasant to her, +but that was apparently beyond my power. My solitary “No,” in answer to +her question about golf, had been the one word I had so far addressed +to her. I relapsed into silence and did not speak again till dinner was +over. + +When we went to the drawing-room it looked as if we were going to have +a musical evening, for Miss Dick sat down at the piano with all the air +of a person opening a concert. She played an arrangement of something +or other, by Thalberg. All Miss Dick’s pieces were arrangements, except +those that were fantasias, and it was a feature of them that the +beginning of the end could be heard about a couple of pages off, in a +series of frantic rushes and arpeggios. She played now with a fierce +concentration on the task to be accomplished; her face getting redder +as Thalberg became more surprising; her mouth screwed up slightly at +the right corner, through which just the tip of her tongue was visible; +her eyes glaring, devouring the sheet of music before her, at which +every now and then she made a frantic grab with her left hand, to turn +the page――she would never allow anybody to turn for her. + +When she had struck the last note, to which she indeed gave an +astonishing rap, there was a general sigh, as for a danger evaded. + +“My dear, I don’t know how you do it!” Mrs. Carroll murmured, almost as +breathless as the performer. + +“It does take it out of one,” Miss Dick panted complacently. + +Gerald sat looking on with a barely perceptible smile. “Won’t you play +something now?” Miss Dick said to him. + +His eyebrows twitched slightly. “Not just yet, I think. In a little. I +want to smoke a cigarette first.” He passed out on to the terrace, and +we all gazed after him. When he thought, I suppose, that the echoes +awakened by Miss Dick had had time to subside, he came back, and began +to fiddle with the music-stool, screwing it up and down. Yet when he +did commence to play, after many preliminaries, it was in a broken +fragmentary fashion, beginning things and suddenly dropping them after +a few bars. I was prepared not to like him, but he had not struck more +than a note or two when I knew I had never heard the piano really +played before. In spite of myself I felt the dislike I had conceived +for him slipping away, and then, just as I was commencing to enjoy +myself, he stopped abruptly. He got up and walked over to the window +where I sat. + +“You haven’t altered, Gerald,” said Mrs. Carroll dryly. + +“Do you mean my playing, Aunt?” he asked sweetly. “It is supposed to +have got rather better, but I am sure you are right.” + +Mrs. Carroll gave something as nearly resembling a sniff as she could +give. I saw she was not in love with her nephew; but Miss Dick’s cat +jumped on to his knee and he began to stroke it. There was something +in his extreme self-possession which, though I knew it to be based on +a profound sense of superiority to everybody present, I could not help +admiring, just as I could not help admiring his playing, or, for that +matter, his personal beauty, which was striking. And I admired the +way he was dressed. While remaining quite conventional, it managed to +suggest individuality, and its perfect taste, apparent in the slightest +details, gave him, as he sat there, something of the finish, of the +harmony and tone, of an old portrait. Again his glance met mine. I +believe he knew I had been watching him, and perhaps something of what +I had been thinking, and I turned away abruptly. Miss Dick, who had +taken a great fancy to him, begged him to play again. He refused, yet +a moment later he said, speaking so that nobody but I could hear him, +“Would you like me to?” + +“Not in the least,” I answered rudely. Rather ashamed of myself I got +up, crossed the room, and boldly took possession of a chair beside his +sister. But with that my boldness ended, and I could think of nothing +to say. I had not even sufficient courage to look her in the face, and +the fact that I had so deliberately come to sit beside her only to +maintain a fixed and gloomy silence made me feel ridiculous. + +“Do you play golf?” I stammered out at last, the inanity of my remark +only striking me after it had left my lips. “She will think I am a +fool, and dislike me,” I told myself miserably; but Katherine answered +as if the subject had never been alluded to before. Her reply only left +me to rack my brains anew. It was no use; a malignant spell appeared +to have been cast upon me, holding me tongue-tied, my mind a blank. +A perspiration broke out all over my body and I could feel my shirt +sticking to my back. Every minute was like an hour, yet I could think +of nothing but this accursed golf. I described the links and even the +Club House, and might have gone on to enumerate the caddies had I +remembered their names. I became suddenly conscious that my hands and +feet were enormous. I thrust my hands in my trouser pockets, but my +feet still remained visible. I knew my thick nose had neither shape nor +character, that my coarse, brown hair was more like a kind of tropical +plant than like hair, and that my overhanging brows and the shape of +my mouth gave me a sullen look. I had tried to alter my appearance +by doing my hair in different ways, but it was no use. I remembered +having noticed in the morning, when I was tying my tie, that a slight +frown made me more thoughtful looking, and I instantly assumed one. I +compared the appearance I imagined myself to present with Gerald’s, and +then I saw him watching me with what I believed to be a kind of veiled +mockery in his eyes. My shyness turned to rage. Katherine tried to talk +to me, but I answered in monosyllables, and, an hour earlier than I had +intended, I got up to say good-night. + +“We shall see you to-morrow, Peter,” Mrs. Carroll suggested, as I shook +hands with her. “What would you like to do to-morrow?” she added, +turning to Katherine. + +Katherine smiled at me as if we were quite old friends. “I want to +climb some of the mountains,” she said. “I planned that the minute I +saw them.” + +Again her face awakened in me the memory of another face I had +known――but where? when? + +“In that case you ought to start early,” Mrs. Carroll went on, “and you +could take your lunch with you. Peter knows all the different walks for +miles round.” + +I was on the point of declaring that I had an engagement, but I +overcame the temptation. I promised to come soon after breakfast, and +made my escape. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +I went home in a state of profound depression. I had made a hopeless +fool of myself; probably they were talking about it now. These thoughts +were rendered no brighter by being mingled with anticipations of what +I was returning to. Above all else in the world, perhaps, I hated, +and almost feared, that atmosphere of dullness and joylessness, which +hung like a mist over our house. It exasperated me, it seemed to sap +my vitality, and with all the strength of my nature I tried to resist +it. It was as if the narrowness and dinginess, the gray, colourless, +melancholy monotony of my father’s existence, had a hateful power of +penetrating into my brain, like the fumes of a drug, clouding my mind, +subduing it to a kind of cold lethargy: there were times when I had a +feeling that I was struggling for life. + +My father was in the parlour when I came in. He glanced up at the +clock, which meant that he was surprised at my returning so much +earlier than usual, but he made no remark. I sat down to take off my +boots; then I took up the book I was reading. My father all this time +had not spoken a word, and I had returned him silence for silence. +Sometimes, after a whole evening of this kind of thing, my feeling of +constraint would become so acute that the effort required to say even +good-night would appear almost insurmountable, and I would invent all +sorts of excuses for slipping out of the room without doing so. My +father was correcting exercises. The books were arranged in two piles +in front of him――those he had already finished with, and those he +had not yet touched. Behind him was the wall, with its cheap, ugly, +flowered paper, and illuminated texts. I glanced at him from time to +time over the top of my book. There was a perpetual dinginess in his +appearance; his linen was not often scrupulously clean, and his nails +never were. Just now I wanted to ask him to stop snuffing. How could I +read while he kept on making such disgusting noises! He had a peculiar +way of breathing through his nose so as to produce a sort of whistling +sound, which I could never get accustomed to. Often I had gone upstairs +and sat in an ice-cold bedroom merely to be rid of it. + +Suddenly he looked up over his spectacles and addressed me across the +table. “I intended to ask you about that book you have brought home. +Who gave it to you?” + +I at once assumed an air of elaborate nonchalance. “Nobody gave it to +me. I found it in the book-case.” + +“What are you reading in it?” + +“‘Venus and Adonis.’” + +“I don’t like the books you have been reading lately.” + +“But this is Shakespeare!” I exclaimed, feigning tremendous +astonishment. + +“I don’t care who it is. Why can’t you read what other boys read?” + +“I thought he was supposed to be the greatest poet in the world!” + +“You know very well what I mean. If you _do_ read him, why don’t you +read the plays――‘Julius Cæsar?’” + +“I’d rather have poems than plays. What is the harm in this?” + +“The harm is that it is not suited to your age. It is full of all kinds +of voluptuous images and thoughts. You have been too much at Derryaghy +lately.” + +The train of reasoning which connected voluptuous thoughts with +Derryaghy was difficult to follow, yet I was not surprised that my +father had come out there. With him all roads led to Derryaghy, +and I could never understand what he really felt about my position +in relation to Mrs. Carroll. When he spoke face to face with her +his manner always expressed something like a carefully repressed +disapproval, and at the same time he allowed me to remain under +countless obligations to her. For example, she looked after, that is +to say, she paid for, my clothing. Also it had been settled recently +that she was to pay my school, and later my university, expenses. I +believe a struggle was perpetually going on within him between his +consciousness of my interests and a desire to tell her to mind her own +business and to leave him to look after his son himself. This peculiar +combination of natural antipathy, a fear to give offence, and a sense +that it was his duty to be thankful, was singularly ill adapted to +produce a graceful attitude in his personal dealings with her, and I do +not think she cared for him. + +“Now that Mrs. Carroll has her nephew and niece, there is no need for +you to go there so often,” he went on. “I was glad to see that you did +not stay late to-night.” He added the last words in a conciliatory +tone, even with approval. + +“Why don’t you like her?” I asked simply. + +He fixed his eyes sternly upon me. “Why don’t I like whom?” + +“Mrs. Carroll.” + +“Mrs. Carroll! I don’t think I understand you!” + +As I gave no further explanation he returned to his exercises, but I +could see an irrepressible desire to justify himself working in his +mind. It broke out in another minute. “You don’t appear to realise +that your question accuses me of both ingratitude and hypocrisy! Or, +possibly, that is what you intended to do?” + +Oh, how well I knew this mood, and how we would go round and round +the same little circle, and how he would outwardly be so calm and +reasonable and not in the least annoyed, yet inwardly be perfectly +furious. “I think I’ll go to bed,” I murmured, getting up, and +pretending to yawn. + +My yawn was only meant to convey sleepiness, but my father saw in it +impertinence. “Why do you try to vex me?” he asked. + +“I don’t try to vex you. Why should I?” + +“Mrs. Carroll is different from us. Her position in life is different; +it alters her view of everything; it is only natural that she should be +more worldly.” + +“Is she very worldly?” I asked, without enthusiasm. Anybody less so, I +could hardly imagine, but there was no use arguing. + +My father branched off in another direction. “To-night, at dinner, were +you offered wine?” + +“I had some claret.” + +“You remembered I had told you I would rather you didn’t take anything?” + +“No.” + +“Are you speaking the truth, Peter?” + +“I don’t know whether I remembered or not,” I answered petulantly. “I +didn’t think it important enough to make a fuss about. You always want +me to do everything differently from other people. If I can’t do as +other people do, I’d rather not go at all.” + +“I’m not aware that I told you anything except what would please me,” +he answered coldly. “I left you perfectly free.” + +“How can you call it ‘leaving me free’ when you’re for ever asking me +whether I’ve done it? You say you don’t forbid me to do things, but you +always talk about them afterwards.” + +There was a pause. It was broken by my father who seemed now deeply +offended. “Did you make any arrangement about going back?” + +“I promised to go to-morrow, after breakfast.” + +“What for?” + +“I was asked to take the Dales somewhere.” + +“Can’t they find their own way? It isn’t very difficult.” + +“Does that mean I’m not to go?” + +“You can’t be always going there. You seem to me to live there.” + +“It’s easier than living at home,” I muttered. + +“It is pleasanter, I daresay; but I don’t want you to make yourself a +nuisance to strangers.” + +“Aren’t they the best judges of whether I’m a nuisance or not?” + +“Well, I don’t wish you to go to-morrow.” + +“You might have said so sooner,” I burst out. “What reason have you?” + +“I hope you don’t intend to be as disrespectful as you are,” my father +said slowly. “If I had no other reason for not wanting you to go, I +should have a very good one in the way it seems to make you behave when +you come back. I _have_ another reason, however: I don’t desire you to +grow up with an idea that you have nothing to think of in life but your +own pleasures. You are quite sufficiently inclined that way as it is.” + +He spoke quietly, but there was a concentrated feeling behind his +words. “What have I been doing?” I asked, trying to be equally calm, +though I knew my eyes were bright, my cheeks flushed, and my lips +pouting. + +“I wasn’t alluding to anything particular so much as to your whole way +of looking at things. You appear to wish to be absolutely independent, +to go out and in just as you please. You appear to think you have no +duty to me or to anybody else. You are becoming utterly selfish.” + +“Selfish!” I was too indignant to protest more than by simply repeating +the word. People always called you selfish, I thought, bitterly, when +you only wanted to prevent _them_ from being so. I was convinced I was +capable of making the most sublime sacrifices, if there were any need +for them. Indeed I had often imagined myself making such sacrifices, +making them secretly, but to be discovered in the end, when all my +unsuspected nobility would suddenly be revealed, in some rather public +way, perhaps, but too late to save those who had wilfully misunderstood +me from agonies of remorse. It was my father who was selfish, with his +idea of making everybody think and act exactly as he did. He was not +only selfish, but he was jealous. That was at the back of all these +objections to my going to Derryaghy. Only, he never realized his own +faults; he found moral justifications for them. One thing was certain, +I was going there to-morrow, whether he allowed me to or not. I was +so full of these thoughts that I missed a great deal of what he was +saying, but the gist of it I gathered――and I had heard it frequently +before――that I should have my living to earn, my way to make in the +world, that I shouldn’t have Mrs. Carroll always, and that the fewer +luxurious tastes I acquired, the more chance I should have of being +happy in the very obscure and humble path that was apparently all my +father saw before me. + +If he really wanted to inspire me with feelings of humility, however, +he could hardly have wasted his breath on a more thankless task. It +was not that I saw myself becoming remarkably successful, but simply +that I seemed to have had a glimpse of what an extraordinary youth +I was. My interview with my father had made me forget all about my +unhappy behaviour at Derryaghy, and as soon as I was in bed I began to +compose a passionate drama, of which I was, naturally, the hero, but +in which, without any rehearsal, Katherine Dale appeared as heroine. I +had braved my father’s anger in order to be with her, and now I was +no longer shy, the right words rushed from me in a torrent. Sometimes +our love story was happy, more often it was a perfect bath of tears. +Indeed, I think I must have had some inborn feeling for the stage, so +frequently did I lead up to the most telling and lime-lit situations, +on the very weakest of which a curtain could only go down to a thunder +of applause. In this present drama there was a fathomless well of +sentiment, of “love interest” of the most uncompromising type. I had +read lately, in bound volumes of _Temple Bar_, one or two novels by +Miss Rhoda Broughton, and as I lay there in my small room, with a text +above my head, I was far from anxious to “keep innocency.” On the +contrary, I was one of those bold, dark, rugged, cynical creatures, one +of those splendid ugly men, who carry in their breasts a smouldering +fire of passion for some girl “with eyes like a shot partridge”; one +of those men who gnaw the ends of their moustaches, and have behind +them the remembrance of a fearful life. My name was Dare Stamer, or +Paul Le Mesurier, and my heart was sombre and volcanic. The plot of our +romance did not vary a great deal. We met; we loved; we quarrelled. I +married somebody else――a cold, soulless, blonde beauty with magnificent +shoulders――and Katherine sometimes went into a consumption, and +sometimes did not, but in either case there was a last meeting between +us, when the veils of falsehoods were torn aside, and for one wild, +mad, delirious moment I held her in my arms, my lips pressed on hers. +It was these wild, mad, delirious moments that so appealed to me. They +followed one another thick and fast as rain-drops in a thunder-shower. +I was ever at a climax. The room was brimmed up with lovers’ tears +and lovers’ kisses, meetings and partings, yet never perhaps had the +text above my head, though I was far from thinking so, been obeyed so +literally and so successfully. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +I was wakened in the morning by Tony scratching at my door. Still +half-asleep, I got up to let him in, and then returned to bed, where +he had already taken the most comfortable place. He looked at me for a +moment or two and then closed his round, dark, innocent eyes till they +showed only as two slits of dim silver, and set up a loud snoring. I +was too lazy to get up, and lay idly watching him. He had a curious and +expressive beauty, resembling that of some wonderful piece of Chinese +porcelain, at once bizarre and attractive. There was something quaint +about him, an adorable simplicity. In colour he was white, decorated +with brindle patches. Leonardo would have made a drawing of him, would +have delighted in the superb limbs and wide deep chest, the big, broad, +heavy, wrinkled head, with its massive, low-hanging jaw, its upturned, +flat, black nose, its silky ears, like the petals of a rose, and those +dark, lovely eyes, in which, when he was at rest, a profound melancholy +floated. As a pup, able to walk and no more, he had been a birthday +present from Mrs. Carroll: now he weighed about sixty pounds and was +three years old. + +As I watched him I tried to make up my mind whether I should say +anything further about going to Derryaghy. In spite of all last night’s +bravery I knew well enough that, when it came to the point, it was +really rather impossible deliberately to disobey my father; and, what +is more, that I shouldn’t want to do so. I somehow kept seeing the +thing from his point of view, and this irritated me, because it made me +powerless to do anything but sit at home and sulk. + +“I’ll have to go up to the house and say that I can’t come,” I told +him after breakfast. He had risen from the table and was in the +act of taking down our Bibles from the book-shelf, preparatory to +“worship”――a function which took place every morning and evening, and +which consisted in my reading aloud a chapter from the Bible, and in +my father making a prayer. Sometimes he commented on what I read, +explained a verse, drew a lesson from it――interruptions I secretly +resented, as they tended to prolong “worship”――sometimes he listened in +silence. + +He put my Bible down beside my tea-cup before replying. Then, when he +had resumed his seat, and fumbled with his spectacle-case, he said, +“You may go with them: I have been thinking it over.” + +I answered nothing, though I had a sort of uncomfortable feeling that +thanks might possibly be expected. I wondered what would happen if I +were to say I didn’t want to go, that I should never go again, that I +would rather stay here with him quite alone, free from all “worldly +temptations.” It was really the most perfect opportunity imaginable +for a thoroughly sentimental scene, like those in the stories he used +to read to me. I pictured how it would be wrung out to the last drop +of sloppiness, and be promptly followed by my conversion, or even +death-bed. + +“I think it is the ninth chapter of Isaiah,” my father said, +interrupting these meditations. + +“I read the ninth yesterday,” I replied. “It’s the tenth.” + +My father turned another page, and I began: + +“‘Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees――’” I felt my cheeks +grow red, because the verse seemed to me so extraordinarily apt to the +decree about my not going to Derryaghy. I did not look at my father, +but keeping my eyes glued to the page went on. The rest of the +chapter, however, was less pertinent. + + “‘He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he + hath laid up his carriages: + + ‘They are gone over the passage: they have taken up their + lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. + + ‘Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim; cause it to be heard + unto Laish, O poor Anathoth. + + ‘Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather + themselves to flee,’” etc., etc. + +It was not wildly exciting in itself, and I cannot say my reading of it +made it more so. The only good point about it was that it did not lend +itself to exegesis. The kind of thing my father liked was, “Servants, +be obedient to them that are your masters.” Then he would interrupt me +to say, “That means, when their masters tell them to do what is right. +If we are told to do something we know to be wrong, we must refuse to +obey.” + +When I had finished we knelt down before our chairs. My father prayed +aloud, and I stared out of the window, and tried to decide whither +I should take the Dales. Between the sentences my father, as usual, +kept crossing and uncrossing his feet, and scraping them together, as +if he were trying to remove a tight pair of slippers. It seemed odd +to me that he could pray so earnestly and at the same time use such +artificial language, crammed with “thees” and “thous,” and “hearests” +and “doests.” Before he had reached “Amen” I was on my feet, dusting +the knees of my trousers. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +A quarter of an hour later, as I walked up to Derryaghy, Willie Breen, +the grocer’s son, a little boy of ten or eleven, ran out from the shop, +and, after gazing carefully up and down the road, slipped a small piece +of paper into my hand. One side of this paper was painted black; on the +other a single word, “Friday,” was printed in red ink. I put it in my +pocket and walked on without making any sign or uttering a word, which +was the proper etiquette to observe under these peculiar circumstances; +and in equal silence Willie returned to the shop. + +When I reached the house, though I had been intending all along to ask +for Katherine, I suddenly asked for Gerald instead. + +“Gerald isn’t down yet,” Mrs. Carroll informed me, coming into the hall +from the dining-room. “Probably he’s not even out of bed. Go up and +tell him to hurry. He’s in the room next yours. Katherine is seeing +about your lunch.” + +Rather reluctantly I went up to Gerald’s room and tapped at his door. +“Come in,” he said, sleepily. + +He was indeed still in bed, and, in spite of the fact of our +appointment, did not seem in any hurry to get out of it. + +“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning.” + +I felt uncomfortable, for I was sure he would think it queer my coming +into his room when I hardly knew him. “Good-morning,” I answered, +trying to imitate the tone he had used. “I was told to tell you to +hurry.” + +He sat up and yawned. “It’s late, I suppose,” he murmured. “They hadn’t +sense enough to send me up my breakfast.” + +“Do you always have breakfast in your room?” I asked. + +He looked out of the window as if I did not interest him. “No,” he +answered, after a perceptible pause, “but I have it when I want to.” + +I felt snubbed. I didn’t know whether to stay or go, but he decided +the matter by telling me to wait till he had had his bath, that he +shouldn’t be long. He put on a dressing-gown, and left me. When he came +back I didn’t know why he had asked me to stay, for he began to dress +without taking the slightest notice of me. I sat on the edge of the bed +and watched him. It seemed to me stupid that I should feel slightly +in awe of him, but there was no use pretending that I didn’t. I had +already made up my mind that I disliked him, yet somehow I could not be +indifferent to him――I wanted him to think me important, to admire me. +He was only a year older than I was, but he was infinitely more a man +of the world, and it was this, really, that impressed me. He dressed +very quickly, yet I noticed that the result was just as harmonious +as it had been last night. His clothes were of a light brown colour, +that was exactly the same shade as his hair, and a little darker than +his skin. A pale violet tie was loosely knotted over a cambric shirt. +His forehead was broad; his yellow-brown eyes were set widely apart, +and were neither large nor small; his nose was straight and his mouth +extraordinarily delicate. His ears seemed to me, too, to have their +own peculiar beauty. His skin was of a golden-brown colour, but clear +almost to transparency, and a tiny blue vein was faintly visible on his +left temple, running from the delicate eyebrow to the cheekbone. When +he listened his brows slightly wrinkled. I would have given a good +deal to have looked like him. + +Suddenly I caught his eyes in the mirror watching me ironically. “Do +you know you were extremely rude to me yesterday?” he said, without +turning round. + +I blushed and had nothing to reply. + +“Well, I forgive you.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m ready now. +Come along.” + +“Why wouldn’t you play properly when you were asked?” I blurted out, as +we went downstairs. + +“I would have played if there had been anybody to play to. Neither +Katherine nor Aunt Clara knows _God save the Queen_ from the _Moonlight +Sonata_, and that Dick person is too absurd for words. I’ll play for +you some time when they aren’t there. And now I must have breakfast; I +won’t keep you very long.... What do you want all that for?” he asked, +as Katherine suddenly appeared with a large basket. + +“For lunch; we’re not going to starve ourselves.” + +“Poor Katherine; evidently you’re not. We can each take our own lunch; +a basket like that is only a nuisance.” + +“You needn’t carry it,” said Katherine. “You and I will carry it by +turns,” she said to me. + +“What’s the use of talking like that,” answered Gerald. “It doesn’t +mean anything. If that huge thing has to be dragged all the way I +shan’t go at all.” + +He departed to the dining-room, while Katherine and I were left +standing in the hall, the basket between us. + +“We needn’t take any drinkables,” I began, “there’ll be plenty of +water.” + +“I haven’t put in any,” said Katherine. + +We sat down in the porch to wait for Gerald. When he rejoined us, which +he did very leisurely, I glanced at his shoes, and suggested that he +should change them for something more substantial. + +“Why? We’re not going through ploughed fields, are we? I haven’t any +hob-nails even if we were.” A panama hat shaded his face and he swung +a light cane in his hand. I knew at once we should have difficulty in +getting him any distance, and was very nearly proposing he should stay +at home. + +“Why aren’t we driving?” he asked. + +“Such nonsense!” exclaimed Katherine. “If Aunt Clara had wanted us to +drive she would have said so.” + +“I don’t mind making inquiries,” Gerald intimated. “I somehow feel it’s +the proper thing to drive.” + +“You’re not to say anything about it; Aunt Clara won’t like it, I know.” + +“I’ll drive with our young friend Peter, here,” he said airily, tapping +me on the shoulder with his cane. + +I could see Katherine was becoming impatient; Gerald was the only one +who was perfectly cool. “About carrying Katherine’s lunch,” he began. +“Hadn’t we better get a stick and put it through the handle of this +thing?” He kicked the basket lightly. “Then two of us could struggle +with it together.” + +The idea was a good one, and we put it into practice. + +Our road kept all the way by the coast: on the right, the mountains; +on the left, a strip of waste land, varying in width, and covered with +dry, sapless grass upon which, nevertheless, there were goats feeding; +below this, the steep drop down to the sea. Shadowless in the strong +sun, the road wound on ahead, white with dust, like a pale ribbon on +the green and russet landscape. We had gone about a mile when Gerald +suddenly announced, “I’m not going any further; it’s too hot.” + +This brought us again to a standstill. “It’s so like you to spoil +everything,” said Katherine. + +“What am I spoiling? I suppose I can please myself. Only, since I’m +not coming, I’d advise you to chuck some of that grub away.” He took +his cigarette-case from his pocket and offered me a cigarette, which I +refused. He lit one himself. + +“You know very well that if you go home Aunt Clara will think I +ought to have come with you, or at any rate be back for lunch,” said +Katherine quietly. + +“How should I know such absurd things? And I can’t help what she +thinks, can I?” + +“We could have stayed out all day.” + +Gerald had begun to whistle an air very softly, and I recognized it as +something he had played last night. His eyes were fixed on the distant +horizon, and he seemed slightly bored. + +“Perhaps if we were to bathe it might make a difference――who knows? +Suppose young Peter and I bathe while you watch the basket here in this +pleasant sunny spot; or you could walk on slowly with it, and we might +in the end even overtake you?” + +I turned to Katherine. “Come along,” I said brusquely. “What’s the use +of bothering about him?” + +He looked at me and coloured faintly. “Then I’m to say you won’t be +home till dinner-time?” he asked, speaking directly to his sister. + +Katherine hesitated. “Shall he say that?” + +“Let him say what he likes,” I returned, shortly. + +We moved on together, and I did not look back, though Katherine did, +more than once. “I’ll make no more arrangements with your brother,” I +remarked. + +Katherine was silent. “Perhaps we should come another day instead?” she +began presently, and in a hesitating way. + +“You mean you are going to give in to him?” I said, making up my mind +that there should be no other day, so far as I was concerned. + +She was again silent, and meanwhile we continued to walk on. I could +see she was uncertain as to what she ought to do, that she did not +want to disappoint me, and that, on the other hand, she was not sure +about Gerald. “He’s offended at something,” she began. “He takes +offence very easily.... He thinks you didn’t want him.” + +“Why should he think that?” + +“I don’t know.... But it is something of that sort, I’m sure.” + +I was going to say that I did not care a straw what he thought, but +checked myself. “He didn’t appear to me to be offended,” I replied. “It +was simply that he thought it too much fag.” + +“You don’t know him,” said Katherine. + +And we continued to trudge along, our feet white with dust. It really +_was_ very hot, and I was glad I had so little clothing on――merely a +light cotton tennis-shirt under my jacket. When we reached a low grey +bridge that spanned a shallow mountain stream we branched inland. This +was the Bloody Bridge, I told Katherine, and a religious massacre had +once taken place here. I pointed out the remains of an old church, +with its fallen tombs, and after resting for a few minutes we began +to climb the valley, which was the walk I had proposed to take them. +This valley was wonderfully beautiful, widening out gradually, and +gradually ascending; on each side of it steep dark mountains, covered +with heather, and grass, and gorse, and hidden streams which flowed +into the broader, deeper stream we followed. The colouring was rich +and splendid――dull gold, bronze, dark green and even black, with the +brighter purple of the heather woven through it, and the long, narrow, +pale, silver streak of water, glittering and gleaming, far, far up, +till in the end it was lost over the edge of a higher valley which +crossed ours at right angles. + +“These are the Mourne Mountains?” Katherine asked gazing up at them. +“I’ve seen them from the Isle of Man. On a clear day you can make them +out quite distinctly.” + +She began to talk to me about mountains, about Switzerland, where she +had been last spring, and I felt ashamed never to have been anywhere. +Yet, while she was describing it, I had an instinct that I should not +like Switzerland. By some chance I indeed pictured it very much as, +later on, I was actually to find it. Katherine’s enthusiasm could not +remove this conviction: in fact, what she said, secretly strengthened +my idea that it must be an odious country, and, years later, amid all +the showy banality of its picturesqueness, I remembered this particular +walk, and my own beautiful dark country rose up before me, with its +sombre hills, its dreamy, changing sky. + +But at the time I had nothing to say, I had no comparisons to make, I +had seen nothing. “I should like to go to a big city like London or +Paris,” I told her, “not to live there, but to see it.” + +“I don’t believe you’d like it.” + +“Why?” + +“I don’t know.... You’re so much a part of all this.” She glanced up at +the hills. + +“Do _you_ like cities?” + +“Oh, I simply love them; but then I’m quite different.” + +“I’d like the picture galleries any way,” I declared. + +“Are you fond of pictures?” + +“I’ve not seen many――only reproductions.” + +“I’m fond of them too. There was a splendid picture in the Academy this +year of a girl skating. She was holding a muff up to her face so that +it covered her mouth and chin, but she was awfully pretty, and when you +came into the room you would just think she was a real person. And the +snow was so nice, with a sort of pink light on it. If you come over to +London I’ll take you to see everything.” + +But again, just as in the case of Switzerland, my instinct told me I +should detest this picture. For a moment I had a feeling of depression; +it seemed to me of infinite importance that Katherine should like the +things that I liked. + +“I don’t care for pretty pictures,” I said. “I hate everything pretty,” +I went on almost angrily. + +“Would you rather have ugly ones?” asked Katherine, laughing, as if +she had caught me in an absurdity. I had no answer to give, though I +knew myself exactly what I meant. I felt lonely and melancholy. Then I +looked at Katherine. She was very beautiful, and in a quite different +way from her brother. And suddenly I knew where I had seen her +before――her eyes, at least――they were the eyes of Prudence Carroll.... +I gazed at her, seeking some further resemblance, but could discover +none. Her skin was very white, save where in her cheeks it flushed to a +soft radiant glow. Her brown, crisp hair was pulled back straight from +her forehead, though one or two little tufts had got loose and waved +in the faint wind. Her nose and mouth had the same delicate beauty as +Gerald’s, but her expression was quite different, and it was there +that her greatest beauty lay.... Yes, there again was a resemblance to +Prudence Carroll――her expression was the same as Prudence Carroll’s. +She had the same eyes, the same expression ... perhaps, then, the +same spirit.... A sort of daydream had begun to weave itself into my +thoughts. + +“How far can we go this way?” Katherine interrupted me. + +“As far as you can see. There is another valley beyond. We could go +along it and home over Slieve Donard, but it is a long distance.” + +We climbed slowly, not talking very much. It was past noon now, and +hotter than ever, and when we reached a deep green pool under a +waterfall we stopped to bathe our hands and faces in it. Its cool +sweetness was alluring, as if a water-sprite sang up through it into +the hot sunlight, and the white spray sparkled in the sun. “It would be +splendid for a bathe,” I murmured. + +“Bathe if you want to; I can walk on and you can overtake me.” + +I remembered Gerald, however, and refused to do this, being full to the +brim just now of unselfishness and chivalry. “We might have our lunch +here,” I suggested. “Then we could hide the basket somewhere, and not +be bothered by it again till we are going home.” + +We spread a napkin on a broad flat stone, and our lunch on top of that. +I now discovered why the basket had been so heavy, but, though it had +been a nuisance carrying it, its contents were extremely welcome. We +had almost finished when a peculiar feeling rather than a sound made +me look up, and I saw a man standing not more than three or four yards +from us. It was as if he had risen out of the earth. When you are +under the impression that you are miles away from any human being, +such a sudden apparition is a little startling, nor was the appearance +of this visitor reassuring. He was large and pale, with short brown +hair, and at the back of his head he wore a cap, like a boy’s cap, +which was too small for him. His clothes, without being ragged, were +stained and worn, and of a nondescript, brownish colour. He was young, +probably between twenty-five and thirty, and strongly built. There was +something coldly malevolent in the pale, clean-shaved face, something +indescribably corrupt and cruel, which seemed to stare out of the +hard brown eyes, and to hover about the smiling lips. He stood before +us, looking down in obvious enjoyment of our discomfiture, making +no movement to pass on. It was curious that features so perfectly +regular, features neither bloated nor disfigured, could give so vivid +an impression of ugliness. It was the ugliness of something positively +evil, and my first feeling was one of instinctive repugnance and +disgust, as if I had been touched by an obscene and noxious creature. I +felt, I can’t say why, that I was in the presence of something actively +dangerous, and not only to my body, but reaching beyond that: I felt +as if I were in the presence of some form of spiritual corruption or +decay, that I knew nothing about, and that yet I had a horror of, as +a young rabbit is afraid of a hawk. That prolonged, impudent stare, +passing over me, seemed to leave a trail of filth, of slime, of +something that defiled like a loathsome caress. His eyes slid from me +to Katherine with the same repulsive scrutiny. What was he doing here? +He was no country man. As my first startled feeling passed, my temper +began to rise. “What do you want?” I asked. “How much longer are you +going to stand there?” + +He laughed almost noiselessly, though he still neither moved nor spoke. +It was as if the sound of his laugh touched a spring within me, and I +lifted a sharp piece of stone lying near my feet. I felt a sudden rage, +an extraordinary desire to destroy. I could actually feel my lips draw +back ever so little, just like the lips of an angry terrier. I had no +longer the faintest sensation of fear: on the contrary, what I wanted +was for him to make a movement forward, a gesture that I could take +as threatening. And the rough, natural weapon I had picked up must +have acquired a sudden appearance of dangerousness, for our visitor +drew back and his face altered. Then he laughed more loudly and on a +different note as he passed on his way down the valley. I felt elated. +Somehow, I was certain my stone would not have missed its mark, and +that there would have been no hesitation, no lack of force, on the +part of the wielder. Katherine and I watched him as he retreated, now +disappearing from our sight, and now again appearing, but always at a +point farther down. + +“Well, he’s gone,” I said. “He was horrible looking.” I faced her with +a proud consciousness of having behaved very well. + +“Do you know what _you_ looked like?” asked Katherine. And before I +could answer: “You looked just like David when he threw the stone.” + +I blushed. Then, “I never cared much for David,” I answered +ungraciously, and moreover untruly, for I was, secretly, extremely +pleased and flattered. + +“Neither did I till a minute ago, but that was because I didn’t know +what he was like.” + +My blush deepened. “Well, the beast’s gone at any rate,” I said to +cover my gratification. “I will tell Michael when we get home. He can’t +be prowling about here for any good.” + +“Who is Michael?” + +“One of our policemen――the decentest.” + + * * * * * + +We hid the basket under the heather. A quiet had fallen upon us, +through which the noise of the splashing water seemed to weave itself +in patterns and arabesques of sound. + +“Shall we go up higher?” I asked, and without answering me Katherine +began to climb the hill-side, and I followed her over dry, springy, +fragrant heather, and between huge mossy boulders that had lain +undisturbed for centuries. We stopped to look at a fly-catching plant, +that curious, unpleasant mixture of the animal and the vegetable. +Katherine had never seen one before, and she examined the outspread, +concave disc, with the skeletons, the grey husks of flies, adhering to +its green surface. We found a bee struggling on his back on the purple +flower of a thistle, waving his legs in the air, a ridiculous picture +of intoxication. But in spite of these interruptions the silence +that had crept over us lingered still. When we reached a place where +the ground rose steeply for a yard or two I gave Katherine my hand +to help her, and when we came to more level ground we still went on +hand in hand. And with this light contact there came to me a strange, +thrilling pleasure, intense yet dreamy, unlike anything I had ever +known before. I did not look at my companion. When I spoke, telling her +to avoid a patch of soft ground that had here spread across the path, +the sound of my own voice astonished me, so unfamiliar was it, even +trembling slightly; and I felt my limbs trembling. But why should it be +so? What was there? Why was I nervous? Nothing had happened but this +short easy climb hand in hand. I threw my hat from me and flung myself +down among the heather, lying with my hands clasped behind my head, +and my face turned up to the dark blue sky. Far, far below us, the +sea, blue and deep, broad, beautiful and free, lay shimmering in the +hot sun. I had a sensation of intense happiness, physical and mental, +into which I seemed to be sinking deep and deeper. I felt my eyes grow +moist, and I turned away my head that my companion might not see my +face. + +Presently I looked round. Katherine was sitting beside me, gazing +straight out at the distant sea. The broad brim of her black hat +shadowed her face. The deep blue of her eyes seemed darker than before; +they had the blue now of the eyes Renoir so often painted, and that I +have seen nowhere else. I wanted to say something, I hardly knew what. +I hovered shyly on the verge of it, like a timid bather on the brink +of the sea, but there was no one to push me in, and my plunge was not +taken. + +“It’s jolly nice here!” Those feeble words were all I could find to +express the rapid rush of emotion that had shaken my whole being. +The vast and complex forces of nature were stirring within me almost +as unconsciously as the new leaf germinates in the growing plant. +Yet there was something which, without any words at all, I must +have expressed, had there been an observer to see it. I mean the +helplessness of youth, its pathetic credulity and good faith, its +brightness and briefness in the face of those hoary old hills, and of +feelings that were almost as ancient. + +I sat up and clasped my hands about my knees. “I wonder what it will be +like living in town?” I said. + +“Yes, you’re going away next month, aren’t you? Aunt Clara told me.” + +“My father wanted me to try for a post in a Government office. There +is a boy who lives here who is going to do that: he is working for his +exam. now.” Then I added, I don’t know why; “Mrs. Carroll is paying for +me, and will be afterwards, when I go to college. I’m to go to one of +the English universities――Oxford, I think. Of course my father couldn’t +afford to send me, and indeed he’d rather I didn’t go at all. He let me +decide, however, though there was really only one thing that made him +give in.” + +“What?” + +“My mother once sent money to be used for my education, and he would +not take it.” + +Katherine was mystified, and, as I saw this, it dawned on me that I +should not have spoken. I had taken it for granted that she knew all +about me. + +“You know, my mother doesn’t live at home,” I explained; and then, to +change the subject, I took the piece of paper Willie Breen had given me +that morning from my pocket. + +“Can you guess what that is?” I asked. + +She turned it over. + +“It means that on Friday there will be a meeting of a kind of club we +have,” I said. “It is a night club. The whole thing is a secret. We +have supper round a fire, and talk, and tell yarns, and all that.” + +“Outside?” + +“Yes; over on the golf-links usually.” + +“But why at night?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. Pretty late too――about half-past eleven or twelve. I +got it up last year with some of the boys who were staying down here. +And then, afterwards, I kept it up with two or three of the chaps at +school. This year I got sick of it, and I’ve only been to one meeting.” + +“At night! It must be rather queer. I love the sea at night. Are you +allowed to bring visitors?” + +“There is no rule; there are no rules of any kind. Would you like to +come?” + +Katherine hesitated. Then she laughed. “Yes. Would it matter?” + +“There’ll be nobody but boys there.” + +“But you’d take me; and of course, Gerald would come.” + +“I’ll take you if you’ll come by yourself,” I said. + +“Without Gerald? I couldn’t. What harm would he do?” + +I did not say; but without Gerald I knew I could carry the thing off, +with him it would be difficult. “You’d have to promise not to tell +anybody,” I explained. + +“Of course. If I told, I shouldn’t be there myself.” + +“But I mean even afterwards.” + +“I’ll not tell.” + +For a minute or two we looked down the hill-side, bathed in the +afternoon sun; then I made up my mind. “If you can promise that Gerald +won’t talk about it I’ll take you. But won’t you find it difficult to +get out?” I added immediately afterwards. + +“No; we’ll simply sit up later than the others. They seem to go to bed +about ten.” + +“But the lodge-gate will be locked.” + +“I can easily manage about that.” + +I regretted having mentioned the matter at all, yet I hadn’t the +courage to draw back. “I’ll tell you on Friday morning exactly when to +be ready,” I said. + +We sat silent. Katherine had taken off her hat and it lay on the ground +beside her; she was fastening a bunch of heather into her blue and +white muslin dress. + +“Have you looked at the portraits in the long passage yet?” I asked +suddenly. + +“Yes; not very particularly, but I noticed there were some.” + +“Did you see one of a dark lady standing by a spinet, holding a bunch +of flowers?” + +“I don’t remember. Who is she?” + +“Prudence Carroll,” I answered. “Look at her when you go in.” + +Katherine had completed her task. “Why?” she inquired, turning to me. + +“I think she is very like you――or you are very like her.” + +“I shall see; but suppose I don’t care for her?” + +“Then you can say I’m a fool. But you will care for her――at any rate, I +do. I don’t mean that your features are just the same as hers.” + +“And I’m not dark, am I?” + +“No; at all events not _so_ dark. However, you will see what I +mean――perhaps you will see.” + +“You’re not sure? It can’t be so very striking then.” + +“That’s just what it is――it _is_ striking. It mayn’t, however, be +exactly obvious to everybody. When I first saw you, I kept wondering +who you were like. I couldn’t get at it for a long time――then I knew.” + +“Well, I never even heard of her, but I’m shockingly ignorant of my +ancestors.” + +“She wasn’t an ancestor: she was never married; the likeness isn’t +physical.” + +“Oh, then I shan’t see it. Besides, I never _do_ see likenesses, even +when they’re much less mysterious than this.” + +“I don’t know,――perhaps, in a way, it is mysterious. I can see it more +clearly sometimes than others. I don’t think I should see it at all if +you were asleep or dead.” + +“What a horrid idea!” She laughed, but not quite easily. + +“Do you not feel that these hills are familiar to you?” I asked +dreamily. “I can imagine a person coming to some house like Derryaghy +for the first time, and then finding that he knew this room and that, +where this passage led to, what view he should see when he looked out +through that little window at the top of the stairs. Or it might be +that two people would come there together, and everything they said +would sound like an echo from something that had been spoken before, +and each, while they waited for it, would know the answer, before it +had left the other’s lips.” + +“I’m not sure that I follow you,” said Katherine prosaically, “but I +imagine you are trying to make out that I may be what-do-you-call-her +Carroll come to life again. You’re the strangest boy I ever met.” + +“You told me I was like David. But――but――pretend it for a moment. Say +you were Prudence Carroll, then who should I be?” + +“I haven’t any idea. Perhaps the apprentice of the artist who painted +her picture, if he had an apprentice.” + +I considered this. It had never occurred to me before. But I could not +get back, I could not discover even a faint gleam. It was not the time; +I was too saturated with my actual surroundings. + +I did not pursue the subject, for I saw it had no interest for +Katherine. Besides, I wanted to be quiet. I thought if we sat in +silence, if I held her hand; above all, if we sat in silence close +together, her arms about me, my cheek against her cheek, the past might +swim up into the present, and we should know. But instead of that we +began to talk, to talk of things that did not matter, until, by and by, +we got up to return home. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +I stayed in the house all the evening, but I could not read, and so I +sat down to write to Katherine. I wrote for more than an hour, though I +was very doubtful whether, in the end, I should post my letter. It was +the first time in my life I had ever written to anybody. Of course I +cannot remember now what I said: I can remember the sense of it, or the +nonsense, possibly, but not how I expressed it. Very badly, I suppose, +for I tore my first attempt up, and began another, over which I must +have spent an even longer time, since, to finish it, I was obliged to +get up and light the lamp. When I went out to the post it was quite +dark, and immediately after I had dropped my letter in the box I had a +strong desire to get it back again. Why had I been in such a hurry? I +should have kept it till morning. Then, as I pictured Katherine reading +it, a thrill of pleasure swept through my timidity. + +I did not go home, but strolled, instead, over the golf-links in the +direction of the sea. At such an hour they were absolutely deserted, +and the pale sand-hills, stretching away in the moonlight and beside +a dark waste of water, wore an unfamiliar, a slightly weird aspect, +suggestive of some desolate lunar landscape. I wandered on, utterly +oblivious to time, till I found a comfortable spot between two of these +hills, on a gentle slope that was almost like a couch. I was filled +with a passionate sense of life, and lying there, with the long thin +sapless grass about me and above me, and the soft white powdery sand +beneath, I could look out over the sea, and feel myself perfectly +alone. The water was a dark mass under the moon, darker than the beach, +darker than the sky, but not so dark as the Mourne Mountains, which +rose away on my left in smooth, bold, black curves. + +There was no wind. Down in the hollow where I lay I was as sheltered +as I should have been in bed. The night was washed through with the +soft sound of the waves as they splashed in a long curving line on +the flat strand that stretched on round to Dundrum, three miles away. +Moths hovered above me with a beating of pale delicate wings; and all +around, like a vast background for the sound of the sea, was the deep, +rich, summer silence of the slumbering world, a silence of unending +music, as though the great, living earth were breathing softly in its +sleep. I lay on my back, and above me was the vast, deep vault of the +sky, full of a floating darkness, in which the white moon hovered like +a ghost. And I lay there in luxurious enjoyment of the night, and of +the life that was running through my own body. It seemed to me at that +moment as if my spirit were no longer merely passively receptive of +what was borne in upon it, but that it had actually taken wing, had +grown lighter, more volatile, were flowing out through the surrounding +atmosphere, through the sky and the sea, were moving with the movement +of the water. The earth beneath me was living and breathing, and, +obedient to some obscure prompting of my body, I turned round and +pressed my mouth against the dry grass, closer and closer, in a long +silent embrace. + +It was very well there was no one to observe this exhibition of +primitive and eternal instinct. I felt a passionate happiness and +excitement. My head was bare, the salt sharp smell of the sea seemed +to have set all my nerves tingling, and I unfastened my shirt that +my breast might be bare also. All the past had slipped from me, and I +lived in this moment, squeezing out its ecstasy to the last drop, as I +might the juice of some ripe fruit. It seemed to me that I was on the +brink of finding something for which all my previous existence had been +but one long preparation and search. I was fumbling at the door of an +enchanted garden: in a moment it would swing open: already the perfume +of unknown flowers and fruits was in my nostrils. My feeling was deep +and pure and clear as a forest pool. In my mind I went over the story +of Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis.” I thought of the shepherd-boy +Endymion. I imagined myself Endymion, as I lay there half naked in the +moonlight. My eyes dimmed and the blood raced through my veins; it was +as if the heart of the summer had suddenly opened out, like a gorgeous +flower, and brought me some strange rapture.... + + * * * * * + +When I awakened to more commonplace things I knew that it was very late +indeed. I wondered what had possessed me, and what story I should tell +my father standing there in the hall, holding up a candle, looking at +me before he turned round to fasten the chain. I raced home to the +fulfilment of this vision, but it was already past midnight, and my +father would not listen to my excuses. He was very angry indeed, but +his anger could not come between me and my happiness. I listened to +it in a kind of dream, and as soon as a pause came, slipped away from +it and on upstairs. In the dark, as I undressed, the delicate scent +of heather still clinging to my clothes filled the small bedroom, +and seemed to bring the whole day back to me from the beginning. +Comfortably between the cool sheets I went over every incident of +it, while the scent of heather still floated about me; and now I had +acquired an extraordinary bravery; I gave utterance to every thought +arising in my mind; the embrace which had been so impossible was +perfectly easy. One by one exquisite pictures drifted in through the +windows of my closed eyes; one by one they opened out before me, like +flowers, full of delicious sweetness, and in the midst of them I fell +asleep. + +But my sleep was only a completer realization of my waking thoughts. I +was again with Katherine, and again we were alone on the mountain-side. +We were coming home and I was a little behind her, when she stooped +to gather a handful of heather. But instead of fastening it into her +dress she turned and flung it at me, and then ran on down the hill. +I followed quickly, and all at once she stopped running and we stood +there, hot and panting and laughing. Then she impulsively lifted her +face, and I kissed her. I held her close to me and kissed her again and +again.... And the scent of heather floated about my bed, the heather of +reality mingling with the heather of my dream. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +During the morning my father kept me working in the garden where he +was erecting a kind of arch of trellis-work above the gate, but after +our early dinner I went up to Derryaghy. Ever since I had awakened, my +mind had been filled with the letter I had written, and with guesses as +to how it would affect Katherine. I hurried along, for our dinner was +at two, while their lunch was at one, and I had made no appointment, +so that when I reached the house, and found they were all gone out, I +was not greatly surprised. Katherine and Gerald had gone out riding; +they would be back for tea. I left a message to say I would call some +time in the evening and went upstairs to choose a book. In the silent +library the faint sound of my feet on the thick carpet made little more +noise than the rustle of a ghost, and when I had found what I wanted I +paused with the book unopened in my hand. Through the window I could +look out into the afternoon garden, sunlit and mellow, but in the house +itself the silence of those upper rooms struck me, as always, with a +suggestion of a faint, bygone life, of spiritual presences, unseen, +yet watching and listening. I walked slowly down the passage, looking +at the portraits, and trying to picture the lives of those who had sat +for them. Were they aware of my scrutiny, of my curiosity, possibly +indiscreet? did I disturb the dust of the past, did they welcome or, +perchance, resent my intrusion into that delicate dream-life that +had fallen upon them? I loved to amuse myself with such fancies, idle +enough, not to be communicated to others. The air seemed heavy with a +kind of still, intense reverie, through which there came the vibration +of a hidden mysterious life. Were I the true son of the house, I told +myself, a sign of recognition might have been given to me; but I was +a stranger, an intruder, and my robuster, noisier presence could but +disturb their ethereal existence. There was something almost vulgar in +being physically alive among that shadowy company. I longed to pass +the threshold of their world and learn its secrets. Perhaps if I were +really to love that dark, sweet lady, Prudence Carroll, to declare my +love, to kiss her painted lips, I might be admitted to it. Would she +be jealous when I left her? To love a dream, a memory, that was very +possible; but to be faithful to it? Through the door I had left ajar a +golden stream of sunlight, filled with floating specks of dust, swam +across the shadowed passage, and just touched the flowers in her hand. +But my ghosts had never been afraid of sunlight: they were not afraid +to walk in the deserted garden or to pass me on the stairs or in the +hall. Often I had felt them to be there, and some day, I knew, I should +see them. With this thought there came to me a desire to revisit their +own garden, a walled place of dark green graves, where they wandered +undisturbed. + +I went out, forgetting after all my book, and took a short cut across +the fields and down a disused, mossy lane, purple with tall foxgloves, +and sleepy with droning bees, which brought me out abruptly at the old +church. Service was still held here, and as I came up I saw the door +was open. I went inside, and an old woman who was dusting the pews +wished me good-day. I talked to her for a few minutes and then began to +wander idly about, trying my Latin on the inscriptions, peeping behind +doors and through windows. A church on a week-day was for me quite +a different thing from a church on a Sunday. Its quiet appealed to +me, a sort of homely, gentle charm that was at once dissipated by the +entrance of a congregation. I went into the pulpit and imagined myself +preaching, while the old woman, Margaret Beattie, leaned on the handle +of her broom and watched me. + +“You’d make the queer fine curate, Master Peter,” she said, evidently +seeing in this exhibition the betrayal of a vocation. + +“They’ll never get me, Margaret,” I replied. “The Church is not what it +was. I believe you are an old witch,” I went on, for she was half-deaf, +“and when you have done your mischief here, you will ride away on that +broomstick.” + +I went out into the sunshine and pottered about among the graves. All +were old, for nobody was ever buried here now. Most of the head-stones +were stained green with age and weather, and the lettering was so worn +that it was often necessary to peer close to read a name or a date. I +lingered in the corner where lay the bones of some of those fine ladies +and gentlemen whose pictures I had been looking at. Well, it was a +pleasant place.... + +Margaret came out, locking the door after her. I heard her shambling +feet on the gravel, followed by the clanging of the iron gate that +left me to myself. Had my ghosts preceded me here, or did they still +linger in the upper rooms at Derryaghy? I threaded my way among the +graves to the low, sun-warmed wall, all golden and green and grey with +velvet moss on weathered stone. Before me lay the broad open country +I must cross to go home, rich and dark in the late afternoon light. +The gleam of water, of pool and stream, shone palely amid long grass +and darker gorse bushes: and beyond were trees, black and soft against +the western sky, as if rubbed in by a dusky thumb. Distant hills stood +out from the grey clouds and the softer, deeper background of luminous +sky. Everything shimmered and gleamed in a kind of romantic richness +and divine softness that I was to see later in dreamy landscapes by +Perugino. And over all was a great sea of light and sky――grey, faint +green, and deeper, warmer yellow, with clear silver where the water lay. + +I turned from it and sat down on the wall, facing the churchyard. It +was a quiet spot, designed for contemplation. The faint wind in the +trees was like a low pleasant tune, and there was nothing melancholy +in its charm. To me it had a kind of happy beauty which I loved. I had +fallen into a mood when I seemed close to my dreamland. It lay beyond +an enchanted sea, whose shore was that bright cloud there. I could hear +the low, continuous sound of surf breaking on the pale glistening sand; +I could see deep lagoons, and sleepy rivers winding slowly down through +green lawns and meadowlands. I tried to draw nearer, but it swam away +from me, leaving only a broken cloud, and beyond that the endless sky. +Had it already been, or was it still to come? Was all this world, +apparently so solid under my feet, but my dream, and should I presently +awaken to that other? I had a sudden temptation to risk everything: the +fascination of death stole over me, quickening my curiosity to know +what lay beyond. Only _should_ I know? Death might not really solve +anything! If I tried to force an entrance I might lose my only chance +of finding one. A large, splendid butterfly, a red admiral, flitted +over the wall and perched on one of the grave-stones, spreading his +gorgeous wings, black and crimson, flat against the grey, sun-baked +stone. He remained there with the stillness of a painted thing, +drinking in the heat, knowing nothing save that. + +The afternoon was waning. The sun had crept down the sky till he was +almost hidden, and the violet shadows were blurred on the tangled +grass. Again one of those strange, breathless silences seemed to wash +up as from some depth of Time, and I listened――listened for a sign, +a word, for in the stillness the faintest whisper would have reached +me. What were they, these strange pauses in life, in everything――these +feelings of suspense, of expectation? A kind of ineffable happiness +and peace descended upon me. A delicate spirit of beauty seemed to +be wandering through the unmown grass, which bent beneath its feet, +wandering under the broad-leaved trees, beside the grey old church. +Surely there was something of which all this was only the reflection! +I could feel it; I knew it. What did it mean? what was I waiting for? +what was it I desired? I thought of my soul as a little candle-flame, +hovering at my lips, ready to take flight. If I blew it from me it +might flicker away over the grass, down into the graves, up into the +air, a tiny tongue of flame, no bigger than a piece of thistledown. I +thought of the old, silent, listening house, darkening now to twilight, +mysterious, haunted, with its closed doors and brown portraits: a +dream-thing that, too, and all the ghosts who lived there. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +It was half-past eight when I left home to go to Derryaghy, but at the +corner of the Bryansford Road I met Willie Breen and stopped to get +particulars about our meeting to-morrow night. I did not mention the +Dales because I was almost sure that in the end Katherine would not +come, and in the midst of our talk he broke off abruptly with: “Here’s +your fine friends,” delivered half-contemptuously. At the same time he +stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off whistling. + +I wheeled round to face Miss Dick and Katherine and Gerald coming +towards me. I raised my straw hat. + +“We’re just going as far as the station and back,” said Katherine. “We +thought we’d meet you.” + +I dropped with her a little behind the others and walked as slowly as I +could. + +“I got your letter,” she went on, simply. “It was very nice of you to +write, but I hope you didn’t want an answer. Letters are beyond me.” + +“You weren’t angry?” I asked, timidly. + +“No. What was there to be angry about? Of course, I couldn’t make out +what it all meant: you didn’t intend me, I suppose, to take it quite +seriously: but it seemed very flattering and poetic.... I was sorry we +weren’t in when you came for us. Tell me what you did with yourself all +afternoon.” + +“I walked out to the old graveyard and sat there,” I replied. + +“How cheerful!” + +“It was rather: at any rate I liked it.... Let us go along here,” I +added. “We can get home round this way. It is a good deal longer, but―― +Do you mind?” + +“Not if it doesn’t keep us too late.” + +“I have been thinking about the artist’s apprentice,” I began. “Do you +smell the meadow-sweet?” + +“The artist’s apprentice? Oh, yes! Well, what were you thinking about +him?” + +“That he must paint your portrait.” + +“But can he?” + +“He can try, like other apprentices.” + +“When?” + +“Any time. To-morrow.” + +“Really? Do you paint?” + +“Only a little in water-colours. I’ve not had any lessons.” + +“And you’ve made pictures?” + +“No, just a few sketches. I never finish anything. Just something to +remind me of――things.” + +“You must show them to me.” + +“If you like; but you won’t see anything in them; nobody ever does. +They’re only meant for myself――and they’re no use anyway.” + +“What did you really mean by your letter, Peter?” + +“I don’t know――burn it. I meant everything that’s there, but I’m not +sure now what _is_ there. After I had written it I went out and lay +down on the golf-links and listened to the sea.... Would you like me to +take you to my old graveyard? I expect you’ll be going to church there +on Sunday.” + +“Do you mean now?” + +“Yes. It’s not far away――just across those fields.” + +We walked on through the scented darkness. + +“I don’t know that I like graveyards,” said Katherine, doubtfully. + +“I don’t either――new ones――but this is very old.” + +I helped her across the stile. Out of the shadow of the tall hedge, the +grassy country lay grey and unsubstantial under the rising moon. The +black spire of the church showed through the trees, and in a little +while we reached the low wall where I had sat all the afternoon. But +how changed the place was! Flooded with fantastic moonlight, only the +shadows now seemed real. + +“You do not want to go inside?” Katherine asked, dissuasively. + +“No; we can see it from here.” And I leaned over the low wall. “It +is not like a modern cemetery,” I again told her. “There is nothing +horrid here. There are no bodies;――nothing but a little dust, and a few +spirits, perhaps, that have not gone away.” + +“Ghosts? Are you not afraid of them?” + +“I don’t know. Not now, at any rate; these ghosts are friendly; they +are so old.” + +“Have you seen them?” + +“No. I saw one at home in my bedroom when I was a little chap, but it +was not nice; it was not like these.... You are buried here,” I added, +smiling. + +But Katherine turned away quickly. “Don’t,” she said. “Why do you like +to be so morbid? Besides, I don’t think it is right.” + +I could see that I had vexed her, and I changed the subject. + +Down by the grave just below us the tiny green light of a glow-worm +glimmered, but I did not point it out to Katherine. A fairy tale +of Hans Andersen’s came into my mind, and I saw Death, like an old +gardener, floating over the wall with a soul, like a baby, folded in +his arms; and I watched him lay it softly to sleep under the trees. +I had forgotten all the details of the story, but I made a story +for myself, and the moonlight on the grass and on the weather-worn +grave-stones, and the black, lurking shadows, and the still, +moon-drenched church, wove into it a mysterious beauty. It seemed to me +that something might happen now that would make, for me at least, all +things different for ever after, that would push the boundaries of life +infinitely further back, by bringing a dimmer, vaster world directly +into relation with me. In that world, perhaps, they dreamed of this, +just as I was now dreaming of it. + +I was aroused by Katherine. “We must go, Peter.” She laid her hand on +my arm. + +“All right.” + +I took a last look, and then stepped out briskly beside her. + +“I oughtn’t to have brought you here,” I said, “out of your way.” + +“I enjoyed coming. I am not in any hurry myself, but you know how early +they go to bed, and it must be getting late.” + +“Do you like me, Katherine,” I asked, pleasantly. + +“If I had disliked you I don’t suppose I should have tramped all these +miles with you.” + +“You are sure I don’t bore you, or anything?” + +“Not up to the present. Why do you ask?” she smiled. + +“I just wanted to make sure. Girls, as a rule, would rather have older +people than I am――wouldn’t they――fellows like the curate? I only +mention him because you happen to have met him. You’re seventeen, which +means that you’re grown up, and――――” + +“I can’t make up my mind what you are,” Katherine interrupted, laughing +aloud. “The first night I saw you you were frightened to open your +mouth, and now you’re saying all kinds of things.” + +“That shouldn’t be said?” + +“No; I like them. I daresay in ten years’ time I won’t care to be told +how old I am, but at present it’s all right.” + +“I didn’t mean anything except that there’s a difference between us. +Girls often get married at seventeen.” + +“I think, you know, you’re rather a dear in your own way,” she said, +thoughtfully. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +It was late, and the house was quiet. When I leaned out of my window I +could hear the sound of the waves, but no other sound; then I opened my +bedroom door softly, and crept out into the passage. From my father’s +room there came a heavy, muffled snoring as I made my way downstairs. +The hall-door I unfastened with the same elaborate precautions against +noise, but I left it open behind me, only slipping in the door-mat to +keep it from slamming. Once outside, I felt safe. + +The night was clear and full of moonlight, and my black shadow danced +fantastically before me on the white, bare road. Not a soul was abroad, +and as I walked I had a curious sense of freedom and exhilaration; old +songs of romance and adventure hummed in my ears, and I wanted them +to come true. Contrary to my expectation and to my desire, Katherine +and Gerald were waiting for me at the lodge-gate, in the shadow of the +hawthorn hedge, and Katherine held a parcel in her hand. + +We did not talk very much as we went quickly on, following the same +road we had taken on the morning of our picnic. I kept a sharp +look-out, but could see no sign of any of the other boys. Below us, +on our left, the sea murmured and splashed through the warm delicious +night; on the right, the Mourne Mountains rose, black against the sky. + +“I’m afraid we’re rather late,” I remarked after a while. Then I added, +“You’ll have to take an oath of secrecy.” + +I had already told them all they would have to do, but I was a little +nervous, for I had no idea what kind of reception they would get, and +to help to tide matters over I had recommended Katherine, if she came, +to bring a supply of provisions, which would always be so much in their +favour. For myself I didn’t care a straw, though I knew what I was +doing would make me unpopular. + +We had walked for about a quarter of an hour and had left the village +well behind us when down towards Maggie’s Leap I saw the red glow of a +bonfire. We turned to the sea, clambering over the rough ground, till +presently, in a hollow, we saw them, seven or eight boys, sitting round +a fire. Thirty feet below, the sea looked black and strange; and the +mysterious night floated about us, a night of wonderful beauty. + +There was an awkward moment when we advanced into the firelight, and +before I introduced them. A silence followed my very lame speech, in +the chill of which Gerald lit a cigarette, and we took our seats, +slightly beyond the main circle. Nobody made room for us, and when +Katherine produced her contributions to the supper I feared at first +they were going to be refused. We seemed to have dissipated the +romantic atmosphere of the gathering, nor was anything said about the +Dales taking a vow of secrecy, which was, nevertheless, one of the +rules of the club. I could see Sam Geoghegan, a boy whom I had never +liked, but who was the biggest boy there, whispering to his right-hand +neighbour, and I knew he was talking about us. + +However, as supper progressed, the atmosphere thawed somewhat, and I +began to hope things would turn out all right. Willie Breen, who had +been fumbling in his pocket, now produced a small bottle filled with +some bright red liquid and held it up to the light, gazing at it in +silence. Suddenly, when everybody’s attention was fixed on him, his +face stiffened into an expression of suppressed agony, and he gasped +for breath, drawing his hand across his forehead. + +“What’s the matter, Billy? Stomach bad?” asked Sam. + +But Willie’s eyes were closed. “If I fall down,” he sighed in a +whisper, “an’ a deadly pallor creeps over me, force open my teeth +with a knife, and pour a single drop of this blood-red liquid down my +throat――――” + +“How can you pour a drop?” interrupted Sam. + +“Unless it is too late,” said Willie, “you will see the colour slowly +come back to my cheeks and suffuse them with the glow of life, until at +last, when you don’t expect it, I’ll open my eyes and say, ‘Where am +I?’” + +“_Does_ he have fits?” Katherine whispered. + +“No: it’s only ‘Monte Cristo,’” I told her. + +Katherine looked at him wonderingly, but Willie had already his mouth +crammed with bread and sardines, the sardines she herself had brought. + +Most of the boys now lit cigarettes, which Gerald had given them. From +the darkness below, the sound of the sea rose up, weird and melancholy, +full of an inexpressible loneliness. The warm, ruddy light of the fire +flitted across fresh young faces. A dim fragrance seemed to be blown +down from the woods, and to mingle with the saltness of the sea. + +Sam Geoghegan said suddenly, “I’m a socialist.” + +This announcement fell rather flat. The beauty of the night had cast a +vague spell upon the other members of the club, and they were content +to be silent. + +“Do you mean like the chaps who were round last week with the cart?” +somebody asked indifferently, after a long pause. + +“They gave one of the wee books they had with them to my father,” said +Sam. + +“What is it?” asked Willie Breen. + +“What’s what?” + +“A socialist.” + +“It’s not an ‘it,’ it’s a man. It means that everybody ought to get the +same chance. There should be no privileges nor private property nor +anythin’.” + +“But whenever you’ve got things they’re yours,” said Willie Breen, +unconvinced. + +“You don’t have things――isn’t that what I’m saying? Everything belongs +to the State――they belong to everybody.” + +“Socialists are always poor,” put in Sam’s chum, Robbie McCann, +unenthusiastically. “Those lads that were round here tried to get up a +collection.” + +“Of course they’re poor,” said Sam, pityingly. “You can’t give up every +thin’ and be rich, can you? For dear sake have a bit of wit!” + +“Would _their_ aunt have to give up her place?” asked Willie Breen, +jerking his head toward the Dales. + +“Why wouldn’t she? Does it belong to her?” + +This was a bold idea, and Sam accompanied it with a glare of defiance +at Gerald, from whom, nevertheless, a minute ago he had accepted a +second cigarette. + +“Of course it belongs to her,” said Willie, wonderingly. + +“Not rightly. Man alive, but you’re all thick in the head. The point is +that nobody has a right to anything――more’n anybody else, I mean.” + +“You know all about it, don’t you?” asked Gerald, gently. + +“I know more than you, anyway, stink-pot,” said Sam. Two or three of +the bigger boys laughed, and I began to foresee trouble. + +“We needn’t start a row, need we?” I suggested, amicably. + +“I’m not startin’ a row; it was him. What call has he to put in his +jaw. He wasn’t asked to come.” + +“He was asked,” I replied. + +“Ay――maybe by you――that’s nothin’.” + +“Let’s tell stories,” Willie Breen proposed. “Do you know how they make +castor oil? There’s a woman told me she saw it. It was a big round +room, and corpses hanging from hooks in the ceiling; and from the ends +of their toes yellow drops were falling into a basin. That was castor +oil.” + +“I’m sure. Anybody can blether you up, Billy.” + +“I’m not saying I believe it.” + +“It’s a wonder.” + +Suddenly a deep, low boom rose up from the sea, as if coming out of the +infinite night, swelling, like the heavy bass note of an organ, and +dying away. + +Katherine laid her hand on my arm. “What was that?” she said. + +“It’s nothing,” I murmured; but a vague sense of awe had crept over the +little group. + +“It came last summer for the first time, didn’t it?” asked George Edge, +a boy who had not spoken before. He had been lying on his back, looking +up at the floating stars, but he now raised himself on his elbow and +looked out to sea. He was not one of the village boys, but his people +came down every summer for two months, and I had known him all my life. +“My mother gets frightened when she hears it,” he went on. + +There was a pause, and then the sound came again, floating up, weird +and mysterious, as from somewhere far out on the water. We drew closer +round the fire, and began again to talk, but the conversation had grown +darker. + +“It was here that the murder was,” said another boy, hidden in the +shadow of the rock, so that his voice seemed a disembodied sound +speaking out of the darkness. + +“Just over there,” said George Edge. + +“What murder?” asked Gerald. + +The voice from the shadow spoke again. “It was a man called Dewar. +There was two of them comin’ home one winter afternoon from Annalong, +O’Brian and Dewar. O’Brian had been gettin’ money, and they both had +their load of drink. It was dirty weather and no one on the road, and +maybe they fell out about somethin’. Any way, next day they got O’Brian +down below there on the stones, his face bashed in you wouldn’t know +him. Him and Dewar were seen leavin’ Annalong together, and they got +Dewar lying drunk in his own house, and he confessed and was hung for +it.” + +“But how did he do it?” Gerald asked. + +“He smashed him on the face with a lump of rock, and then threw him +down into the sea. They say there are nights when you can hear O’Brian. +It’s like this.” He gave a low wail that shrilled up to a cry. + +“I’m goin’ home,” said Willie Breen, rising to his feet. + +“Wee scaldy! You’ll have to go by yourself,” jeered Sam. “And you’ll +meet him as sure as death. You’ll know him, because he won’t have any +face on him, only a lock of blood. And Dewar with him, with his neck +broke.” Sam’s head drooped horribly to his shoulder. + +Willie Breen sat down. + +“When you talk about ghosts or spirits it’s supposed to bring them +near,” said George Edge. “It gives them a kind of power over you.” + +“For goodness sake stop all that rubbish,” cried Katherine, indignantly. +“Can’t you see you’re frightening the child out of his wits!” + +“Go to her, baby. Hold her hand,” mocked Sam. + +Willie turned angrily on his protectress. “I’m not frightened. It’s you +that’s frightened. You shouldn’t be here at all. There shouldn’t be any +women in the club.” + +“Faith, he’s right there!” Sam exclaimed. + +But George Edge, sitting up, pointed out to sea. “Listen,” he said +impressively. + +We all sat still, Willie Breen with wide-open eyes. A moment after, +with a blade of grass between his thumbs, Sam made an unearthly screech +in the little boy’s ear. It was too much, and Willie set up a howl. + +At the same instant Katherine turned to Sam and he received a +resounding slap on his fat face. Instantly there was tumult. Sam was +on his feet, red as a turkey-cock, blustering of all he would do if +Katherine were not a girl. Then he spied Gerald, and gave him a blow +on the chest that almost sent him into the fire. “That’s for you, you +‘get.’” + +Gerald drew back, neither speaking, nor returning the blow: the other +boys had surrounded them. I saw Gerald’s face, and it was very white; +but he did nothing, he was afraid. That he should be disgusted me, and +at the same time I was furious with Sam, whom, for that matter, I had +always detested. I waited just long enough to give Gerald a chance to +face him, if he wanted to; then I gave Sam a slap with my open hand on +his cheek. It was the second he had received within two minutes, and +somehow, even in the excitement, I couldn’t help being amused. + +We stripped to our shirts and trousers and moved out into the +moonlight. Katherine hovered in the background, but made no attempt +either to interfere or to go away. Gerald had disappeared. I looked at +Sam’s big fists. I knew he was taller and heavier than I was, but I was +not afraid of him; instead, I had a cold determination to lick him. I +felt elated; I was glad Gerald had drawn back, since it gave me this +chance of showing Katherine what a hero I was. We chose seconds, and +there was a time-keeper, though no one had a watch, for mine was wound +up and safe under my pillow at home. We had little science, but were +mortally in earnest. + +At the beginning of the second round the nervous tremor of Sam’s +mouth as he stepped into the ring gave me a cruel pleasure. I did not +believe very much in his pluck, and I was now quite confident as to +the finish. It was in the middle of the third round, and we were both +panting and bleeding, when Michael, the policeman, appeared on the +scene, springing up as if from the bowels of the earth. How he came to +be out of bed at such an hour, and in this particular spot, I never +discovered, but he stepped in between us and stopped the fight. + +“Well now, this is nice goings on! Will you tell me what it’s all +about?” + +“You go quietly to hell,” said Sam in a low voice. + +The others chimed in. “It’s none of your business, Michael, we’re not +in the town.” + +“Do you tell me that, now? Well, I’ll be troubling you to go home to +your beds every one of yous. This is no place for you, Miss,” he added, +having discovered Katherine in the background, “with a lot of young +rapscallions. I’ll see you safe home.” + +But Katherine did not move. + +“Let them finish, Michael. Nobody’ll ever know you were here. There’ll +be no talk.” + +Michael wavered. The presence of Katherine obviously both troubled and +puzzled him, for of course he knew who she was. He turned to her again, +but she had withdrawn into the shadow of the rocks, whither he followed +her, and they whispered together in inaudible tones. Then he came back. +Katherine had disappeared; possibly she had followed Gerald, who would +hardly have gone very far without her; at any rate I could not look +after her now. + +“Well, I suppose you’ll be wanting to settle this,” said Michael, +doubtfully. + +His words were received with an outburst of cheers and laughter. A +faint greyness of dawn was already spreading over the eastern sky. +“Time!” called George Edge, and I noticed that he had actually borrowed +Michael’s big silver watch. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +Next morning I got a rowing up from my father. Indeed, as soon as I +saw my face in the glass, I knew it would be quite useless to try to +hide what had happened, and I told him frankly I had been fighting. +Fortunately, it was not necessary for me to say anything about our +club, nor did I even mention Sam’s name. I simply told him that the +fight had taken place at night to prevent its being stopped, and +after that held my peace. My main feeling, in spite of my father’s +lecture, was that I was extraordinarily glad it _had_ taken place, for +I had come out of it victorious, even though I was pretty sure I had +received more punishment than I had given. My state of mind absurdly +resembled that of a young cock who gets up on a wall to crow, and +nothing my father could say had the least power to damp my spirits. My +face――especially all round my forehead and temples――was beautifully and +variously marked, yet there was nothing I more ardently desired than +that Katherine should see me in this condition. I even felt amicably +disposed towards Gerald, who, after all, couldn’t help being a coward. +Perhaps he would come round this morning to see how I had fared. + +But nobody came, and in the afternoon I determined to go up to +Derryaghy. Willie Breen, who now regarded me in the light of a hero, +accompanied me. When I left him at the lodge-gate, instead of going to +the hall-door, I went round to the back of the house, hoping to find +Katherine on the terrace. She was not there; nobody was there but Miss +Dick, who cried out at once on seeing my battered condition. Her tone +was certainly far enough removed from that of Willie Breen to have +cooled my conceit had such a thing been possible, but fortunately she +was too much occupied with a letter she kept folding and unfolding to +bestow any very lengthy attention on my appearance. “My sister, Mrs. +Arthur Jenkins,” she began, not because I was worthy of her confidence, +but because there was nobody else, “wants me to go and stay with her. I +don’t know what to do. Mrs. Carroll may not be able to spare me; though +I haven’t been there for a long time.” + +“Oh, you ought to go,” I said easily. “Where is everybody?” I looked +round, preparatory to making my escape. Miss Dick regarded me +doubtfully. + +“The last time I was there the youngest child had croup. They were very +anxious about him; indeed the doctor almost gave him up; though he +managed to pull through in the end, and is quite strong now. Not that +any of them are actually what you would call robust. They really take +after Arthur, Mr. Jenkins that is, though Sissie, that’s my sister, +always says _he’s_ stronger than he looks. I’m sure I hope so, for he +looks wretched. The whole family, you know, the whole Jenkins family +I mean, are vegetarians, and vegetarians, whatever they may feel, +invariably _look_ ill. When I say that to Sissie she always gets cross, +as if I could help it! But that’s what people are like. Arthur wants +to bring up the children in the same way, which is silly, and, to my +mind, trifling with their lives. Besides, it’s so difficult when you’ve +only one maid who has to do everything: and they only give fourteen, +and what can you get for fourteen nowadays, even in the country? +You certainly can’t expect a girl like that to cook two dinners a +day, because, you see, Sissie eats meat.” She stopped suddenly, as +if she had lost the thread of her discourse. “We’re all going to a +garden-party at Castlewellan. I’m just waiting for the others. Except +Gerald――he won’t come. You’ll find him over there,”――she waved her +left hand. “He’s put up a hammock and he’s been sleeping in it all +day. He’s dreadfully lazy. He won’t even practise. And though he’s so +polite and gentlemanly, I must say he’s really rather irritable: he got +quite cross at lunch. I don’t think Katherine understands him. People +with very artistic feelings, I’m sure, _are_ more easily annoyed than +others. It’s not as if he were just an ordinary person like you or me.” + +Whether I was an ordinary person or not, I didn’t relish being told so, +even by Miss Dick, and I decided, as I had frequently decided before, +that she was a stupid creature, and that I didn’t like her. I left +her referring to the epistle from Mrs. Arthur Jenkins, or Sissie, or +whatever she was called, and went to look for Gerald. + +He had heard me coming, for when I found him he had swung himself out +of his hammock and was standing beside it. + +“Are the others gone yet?” he asked. + +“They’re just starting. I only saw Miss Dick.” + +“They’re going to some party, thank the Lord!” + +“Yes; she told me.” + +A pause followed, for I didn’t know what to say, and he himself kept +silence. What I had intended to do was to put him at his ease, to let +him know that it was all right about last night, but my magnanimity and +sympathy were evidently quite superfluous, and I was annoyed at this. + +We strolled back slowly to the house. “Wouldn’t it be rather a good +time to play to me?” I said. “You promised to, and now we have the +place to ourselves.” + +“If you like.” + +We entered by the open window, and pulling the sofa over beside it, I +lay down in supreme laziness among a heap of coloured cushions. Gerald +went at once to the piano. + +“What sort of music do you care for?” he asked me. “Or shall I just +play anything?” + +“Yes; whatever you feel in the mood for.” + +His head was bent a little over the key-board, and he seemed to be +thinking of what he should play. I watched a tendril of clematis that +waved softly over my head, and every now and again I breathed in +the sweet scent of a stalk of mignonette I had gathered in passing. +My thoughts floated away through the quiet afternoon, and I began +to wonder what things were like when there was no one there to be +conscious of them. + +I know now that it was the fifteenth Prelude, but at the time I had +never even heard the name of Chopin, and all I was aware of was that +a soft, very delicate tune, was coming to me across the room, with a +curious pallor, suggestive of the whiteness of water. I half closed my +lids and lay absolutely still. Even in my ignorance I knew that the +beauty of Gerald’s playing was extraordinary. It may have had many +faults; he may have been incapable of doing all kinds of things that +professional pianists can do; he may have been, and probably was, +deficient in power: I do not know. He seemed to caress the notes rather +than to strike them, he seemed literally to draw the music out, and the +whole tone had a kind of liquid, singing quality, such as I have never +heard since save in the playing of Pachmann. As I listened, the music +gathered force and sombreness, growing louder and darker in a heavily +marked crescendo, and then once more it passed into the clear soft tune +with which it had begun. + +The sound had stopped. I said nothing; I simply waited. The cool, +pleasant summer afternoon had become full of lovely voices which +flickered, like waves of coloured light, across my senses. Pensively, +a little shyly even, a simple, drooping melody breathed itself out on +the air with a strange hesitation and indecision, rising and falling, +faltering, repeating itself, resting on the “F” with a kind of desire +that gathered intensity as the note swelled and died away, sinking back +into “D.” + +Listening to Gerald playing that sixth Nocturne, listening to him +playing all that followed it, you would have thought he was a youth +of the deepest feelings, yet I could never find any trace of those +feelings at any other time. Somewhere, I suppose, they must have been, +somewhere below the surface, but I was never able to discover them. It +was as if his soul only came into being when he sat down at a piano. +When he played you could see him listening to his own music, you could +see him drinking it up as if it were the perfume of my mignonette, as +if there were some finer echo audible only to himself. And his playing +would alter, would grow gayer, or a kind of weariness would creep into +it. I offer these only as the impressions I received at the time; what +I should receive now I cannot tell. Yet I find it hard to believe I was +utterly mistaken. It was never my fortune to hear him in later years, +when I had heard many famous pianists――and I suppose I have heard +practically all those of my time――but I cannot help thinking he might +have been among the greatest had he not chosen to be something else, +something I last saw at a café in Berlin. The puffed, horrible face, +the glazed, sodden eyes――no, there was no music there. Or if there was, +it was hidden, buried, lost for ever in that desecrated, half-paralysed +body, buried alive, like a lamp burning in a tomb. Now, I have nothing +to go upon save those first impressions of a boyish, uncultivated +taste, and the fact that in after years the playing of Vladimir de +Pachmann brought back sharply to me the memory of that afternoon. + +He played on for nearly two hours. In the end he stopped abruptly and +got up from the piano, while I thanked him. I knew that he knew he had +given me a tremendous pleasure, and there was no need to say much. He +told me the music I had been listening to was all, or nearly all, by +one composer. + +“And that last thing?” I asked. + +“That was one of the Studies――the one in A flat. I can’t play anybody +else. I don’t mean that other things are more difficult, but they don’t +suit me.” He was silent, until he added, “I may as well tell you that +I’m not as good as you think.” + +“I haven’t told you yet what I think,” I answered, smiling, for I +was still under the glamour of his mood, and indeed at that moment I +could have hugged him. I did not want to talk of ordinary things. The +music had wakened in me a feeling of melancholy, like a memory of some +delicious thing that had happened long ago, and would never happen +again. + +I tried to explain my very tenuous ideas to Gerald, but they did not +interest him. And already I felt our relation altering. When he was at +the piano he had seemed to me a kind of angel; now that other element, +that element of latent antagonism, was beginning to re-awaken in me. + +Tea had meanwhile been laid for us upon the terrace. Tony, who had +been asleep outside in the sun, threw off drowsiness like an outworn +garment, and sat up beside my chair, with raised head, and beautiful, +dark eyes that watched every movement I made, especially those which +happened to convey a piece of bread and butter or cake into my mouth. +When I looked at him he instantly gave half a dozen quick wags of his +tail, and then resumed his former attitude of motionless expectation, +to which attention was attracted by a variety of queer little highly +expressive noises he produced from somewhere in his throat. Nobody +being there to prevent me, I gave him about half the cake, piece by +piece, each of which he swallowed almost whole, and with a wag of the +tail to show how he appreciated this delicate pastime. + +“Did you get much hurt last night?” Gerald asked me suddenly. + +The question was unexpected, for I looked upon the whole incident as +closed. I glanced up from feeding Tony. “No; not much,” I answered. + +“And the other――I forget his name――Sam something?” + +“Oh, Sam’s all right.” + +“Do you think I should have fought him?” + +“One was enough,” I said carelessly. + +“Did you think I was afraid?” + +I looked away. His question seemed somehow to be all wrong. “I didn’t +think about it,” I answered, after a slight pause. + +“It must have looked as if I were afraid,” he went on. “I thought so +afterwards.” + +I couldn’t imagine what he was trying to get at. I wanted to stop him +talking like this. It was even less to my taste than his funking Sam +last night had been. + +“Are you working at anything besides music?” I asked him, jerkily. + +He shook his head. “Not very much. I have a tutor. Why won’t you talk +about last night?” + +“What is there to talk about? I’m sorry it turned out that way, but I +can’t help it, though of course it was my fault for taking you without +letting the others know. I should have told them beforehand.” + +“I’m not afraid of that lout, anyway. If I see him again――――” + +“Oh, well, what’s the use of worrying about it?” I interrupted, +disgusted with his persistence. + +The pause that followed was an uncomfortable one. If he had deliberately +tried to efface the impression his music had made upon me he could not +have succeeded better. + +He gave a strange little laugh. “I see you don’t believe me.” + +“No: I don’t believe you,” I answered bluntly, “and I don’t know why +you should want me to.” + +“I suppose you think it is pleasant to be taken for a coward?” + +“I’m sure it isn’t pleasant; but I can’t imagine that it matters +greatly to you what I think.” + +“Of course, if I hadn’t done what I did, you wouldn’t have had _your_ +particular little swagger!” + +“Isn’t that rather a rotten sort of thing to say?” I answered as I got +up. “I think I’ll move on. Come, Tony.” + +Gerald began to apologize. + +“Oh, it’s all right,” I said, coldly, leaving him there. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +Katherine, who had promised to sit to me for her portrait, kept putting +me off from day to day, and it was nearly a week later when I made my +first attempt. By some happy chance on that particular afternoon I had +found her alone, for as a rule Gerald was there, and even now it was +almost as if he were with us, since she began at once to talk about him. + +“You must take off your hat,” I said, ignoring her remarks. + +She obeyed me, and I began to draw in my outline. + +“Gerald likes you,” she said. “I wish you would be friends with him.” + +“But I am friends with him,” I answered, abstractedly. + +“Not very much. You would rather he was not with us.” + +“That doesn’t mean I’m not friends with him.” + +“He has so few friends,” she went on, still clinging to the subject. + +“Has he? I’m afraid, no matter how much I tried, we could never really +be chums.” + +“Why?” + +“I don’t understand him.” + +“Why don’t you understand him?” + +“I suppose because I’m stupid. Besides, what I do understand I don’t +greatly like.” + +She was not offended; she simply asked, “What is the matter with him?” + +I feared I had been horribly rude, but the words had slipped out before +I could check them. “There is nothing the matter with him,” I answered +hastily. “I wasn’t thinking of what I was saying. It is only that――that +we’re not suited to each other: we’re too different. At all events, it +is of very little importance, seeing that you’re going away in a few +days.” + +“We’ll be back again next year, I expect. Aunt Clara wants me to come. +_She_ isn’t very friendly to Gerald either.” + +“Oh, you only fancy that; of course she is. And there’s Miss Dick, who +worships the very ground he walks on.” + +“Miss Dick’s too silly for anything.” + +“There you are! And yet you want me to worship him too!” + +“I don’t want anything of the kind; and you know that. But of course if +you don’t like him I can’t make you. I think that night――the night we +went with you to your meeting――has something to do with it.” + +“Oh that!” I answered lightly. It seemed to me a long time ago, though +there was a yellow bruise still visible above my left eyebrow. + +I finished my outline and began to paint. The other picture had been +painted indoors, I reflected. I don’t know what made me think of it, +but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It kept floating between me and +my work, and I seemed to see it quite as clearly as I saw Katherine +herself. Still I persevered, though my progress was slow and from the +beginning unsatisfactory. I talked to Katherine, or rather I replied to +her, for what she said penetrated only the fringe of my consciousness. +She had brought a book out with her, and by and by she began to +read aloud, but I have no idea what it was she read. I painted away +most diligently, yet all the time I couldn’t get rid of a foolish +impression that I was being watched. And this fancy, utterly absurd if +you like, took possession of me, grew stronger and stronger, till it +seemed to tremble on the verge of reality. + +“What are you looking at?” Katherine asked me suddenly, having reached, +I suppose, the end of a chapter or a story. + +“Nothing,” I answered guiltily. + +But she wheeled round in her chair, and stared back at the house. I +dipped my brush in water, and remarked quite quietly, “It’s only that +I thought I saw someone at the window――the third window from the left, +upstairs.” + +Katherine shaded her eyes with her hand. “I can’t see anybody: the sun +catches the glass. It must be one of the maids, for there’s nobody else +in.” She yawned and took up the book again. “If it _is_ one of the +maids,” she added, “she might have had sufficient sense to bring us out +tea. I’ve been simply dying for some for the last half-hour, only I +didn’t like to disturb you.” + +“She hasn’t been there half an hour,” I replied. “I’ll go and tell +them. Promise you won’t look at what I’ve done while I’m away: it isn’t +finished.” + +“All right. I must see it when it _is_ though: you’re not to tear it up +or anything.” + +“No, of course not.” + +I walked back to the house, and not till I was quite close did I glance +up at the windows above me. Naturally there was nothing. I hesitated +in the hall. Had I been really sincere in thinking I had seen anything +or not? I couldn’t be quite sure, for there was no doubt I often +deliberately gave my imagination a kind of push in a certain definite +direction, started it off, as it were, and then left it to perform +all kinds of antics. Before me lay the broad, low staircase. Should +I go up? I leaned against the balusters and listened, gazing aloft +into the cool shadow. Suddenly I heard a door open near the kitchen, +then the rustle of a dress, and one of the servants appeared. I told +her that Miss Dale would like tea brought outside, and went into the +morning-room myself for a small folding-table, which I carried back +with me. + +I looked again at my drawing. “Tea will be here in a minute or two,” I +said. Then I handed the drawing to Katherine, for it was a failure, and +there was no use going on with it. + +“Don’t hold it so close to you,” I cried, and Katherine obediently +stretched out her arm full length. + +“I think it’s quite good, you know, if it wasn’t meant to be my +portrait,――but it’s no more like me than Adam.” + +“Don’t be so rude. Of course it’s like you.” + +A servant appeared with a tea-tray, and as soon as she was gone I +seated myself on the grass at Katherine’s feet. When I had finished tea +and had handed her back my empty cup I still sat there. + +“Do you see that strip of yellow sand down below? It always reminds me +of a certain poem.” + +I knew Katherine was not fond of poetry; she had told me so herself; +but I repeated the verses aloud for my own pleasure, in a sort of +sing-song, laying tremendous stress on the rhymes. + + “It was many and many a year ago, + In a kingdom by the sea, + That a maiden there lived whom you may know + By the name of Annabel Lee; + And this maiden she lived with no other thought + Than to love and be loved by me. + + “_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child, + In this kingdom by the sea; + But we loved with a love that was more than love―― + I and my Annabel Lee; + With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven + Coveted her and me. + + “And this was the reason that, long ago, + In this kingdom by the sea, + A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling + My beautiful Annabel Lee; + So that her highborn kinsmen came + And bore her away from me, + To shut her up in a sepulchre + In this kingdom by the sea. + + “The angels, not half so happy in heaven, + Went envying her and me―― + Yes!――that was the reason (as all men know + In this kingdom by the sea) + That the wind came out of the cloud by night, + Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. + + “But our love it was stronger by far than the love + Of those who were older than we―― + Of many far wiser than we―― + And neither the angels in heaven above, + Nor the demons down under the sea, + Can ever dissever my soul from the soul + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: + + “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; + And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes + Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; + And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side + Of my darling――my darling――my life and my bride, + In her sepulchre there by the sea, + In her tomb by the side of the sea.” + +I looked up at Katherine and saw that she was smiling. “It was written +about this place,” I declared, “about just that strip of yellow sand +and that blue sea.” + +“And about just this little boy,” said Katherine, stroking my hair back +from my forehead. + +“Just this little boy,” I answered, narrowing my eyes under her touch, +“whom you think such a very little boy indeed.” + +“Such a dear little boy,” murmured Katherine, lulling me with her +voice, and all the time stroking my hair. + +“Is he dear?” I asked eagerly. + +“I think so.” + +“And you like him?” + +“I like him very much.” + +“How much? What do you like about him?” + +She laughed. “I like everything about him?” + +“But what?” + +“The way he is: the way he looks: the way he pouts when he is cross: +the kind of things he says: the way he asks questions: even the way he +hesitates before some letters, so that you can see what he is going to +say in his eyes before he can get it out.” + +I was intensely happy. I leaned back my head, and Katherine’s dark +blue eyes looked straight down into mine. I could see nothing but that +clear dark blue which seemed to shut me out from the world, yet I knew +she was smiling. Then she bent lower and her lips lightly touched my +forehead. + +Almost at the same moment I heard the swish of petticoats rustling over +the grass from behind. I sat up straight, but did not look round till +the rattle of tea-cups had ceased, and the servant who was bearing them +off had almost reached the house. + +“Gracious! I hope she didn’t see me kissing you!” said Katherine, +half-laughing. + +“What matter?” + +“Of course it matters; and it’s your fault too, for pretending to be a +little boy and all that nonsense. I’m sure she’s telling the cook about +it at this moment. _She_ doesn’t think you’re a little boy. Get up at +once.” + +I knew Katherine wasn’t really much perturbed, but I got up and began +to put away my colours, and we went back to the house. I left my +painting materials on the window-sill, and, having made Katherine a +present of my drawing, we strolled down to the shore. As we walked +along the hard sand by the edge of the sea I wanted to tell her how +much I cared for her. It was an admirable opportunity, and, if I could +only get the first plunge over, I knew it would be all right. But I +couldn’t. White sea-gulls were swooping and wheeling over the dark +blue water, calling their peculiar lonely cry, and the foam of the +waves was white as snow. “I _will_ tell her: I _will_ tell her,” I kept +repeating to my soul; and all the time I maintained a most discreet +silence on the subject, and babbled instead of the regatta that would +take place on Saturday, and of the chance of a fine day. I had entered +for two swimming-races and a diving-competition, and Katherine was +coming to see me. I kept on talking about this, though I knew very well +everything would happen exactly as it had happened last year; that in +the swimming-races George Edge would be first and I should be second, +and that I should win the diving-competition; and moreover I didn’t in +the least care just then whether the regatta took place or not. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +As a matter of fact I didn’t win the diving-competition; I wasn’t even +second; and my defeat was brought about simply by my own exceeding +eagerness to show off. + +On that Saturday the village was a holiday village. The men and boys +perspired freely under heavy, ugly, Sunday clothes, and the women and +girls were decked out in all kinds of finery――bright dresses, trinkets, +ribbons, and cheap but brilliant hats. Why was it, I wondered, that all +these fine garments should have been chosen apparently for a mysterious +property they had of bringing out in the appearance of their wearers +a coarseness I never noticed on ordinary occasions? Sam Geoghegan’s +salmon-pink tie, Mr. McCann’s fancy waistcoat, the peacock-blue +dress of Annie Breen, with its white lace collar――these were things +positively bewildering, if one realized that they represented the +actual taste of the persons they adorned. + +Every year the same programme was followed. In the morning the +water-races――boat-races and swimming-races――took place; in the +afternoon there were sports――foot-races, tugs-of-war, wrestling――held +in one of Mrs. Carroll’s fields. + +I drifted about in the crowd with a group of boys. Our swimming-races +came off fairly early, but I was only third in each, and George Edge +second, for a youth, whom neither of us had ever seen or heard of +before, turned up and carried off both first prizes. This made me +anxious about the diving-competition, which he had also entered for. +We were to go in off the end of the pier, where a platform with a +spring-board had been erected for us. Then, when we had dived, we swam +round to the ladder and climbed up to take our turn again. It was the +last event but one of the morning’s programme, and had always been the +most popular. When the hour for it came round, having learned in the +meantime from some of the spectators that the victorious stranger was a +poor diver, I had regained confidence, and, as the crowd drew in closer +to watch us, I was fully prepared to show them what was what. As a +matter of fact, my first two dives were all right, but, before my third +and last, I caught sight of Katherine standing quite close to me, and +the result of this was that I determined to excel anything ever seen. +I took a tremendous race the full length of the platform, but, just at +the end of the spring-board, my foot slipped and I sprawled in flat on +my belly. The shock knocked all the wind out of me, and the smack I +gave the water could have been heard half a mile away. It was extremely +painful, and it put me out of the competition; yet when I clambered +up the iron ladder I was greeted by volleys of laughter and humorous +remarks. My accident, indeed, appeared to be by far the most enjoyable +event of the morning. It did not seem to occur to anybody, except one +of the stewards, that I might be badly hurt, and him, when he came to +ask me if I were all right, I sent about his business. I put on my +overcoat and went to the dressing-shed in a furious temper. + +The field where the sports took place lay about a mile out of +the village. Mrs. Carroll and some other ladies were dispensing +refreshments to all comers, and afterwards the prizes would be given +out. I went up to Derryaghy to call for Katherine and Gerald, to go +with them, but found they were going to ride over, and were all ready +to start when I arrived. It was the first time I had seen Katherine +on horseback, and she looked to me more beautiful than ever. In her +dark-blue riding-habit, with her sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, +her radiant youth and health, she made me think of the girl in the +equestrian portrait by Millais and Landseer, a coloured reproduction +of which I had cut out of a Christmas number and tacked up on the wall +in my bedroom. And straightway I saw in myself the page-boy who stands +by the gateway in that picture, his eyes fixed in rapt admiration upon +his mistress. They rode away, an amazingly handsome pair, telling me +they would see me later up at the field, and to this I answered, “Yes.” +Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dick had already gone on in the carriage, so I +was left quite alone. I decided immediately that I wouldn’t go to the +sports: if they chose to leave me like this I wasn’t going to run after +them. I mooned about, building a romance on the equestrian portrait +_motif_. I imagined myself as dying; some accident had happened to me, +and suddenly Katherine rode up and springing down from her horse threw +her arms round me, kneeling in the blood and dust of the road. She +kissed me passionately, careless of all the people who watched her, +repeating again and again, “I love you――I love you――I love you.” + +I gloated over this imaginary scene till I had squeezed the last drop +of colour out of it, and it ceased, by dint of much repetition, to +thrill me even faintly: then I went into the house and nosed about for +a book. A dozen had just come down from the library in town, and, with +a couple of volumes of “Two on a Tower” under my arm, I made my way to +the shore. + +Gradually, in the warmth of the sunlight, I grew drowsy, and the +beautiful, breaking sea, and the harsh crying of the gulls, soothed +me and seemed to build up an enchanted world about me, where I was +shut in with the romance of the tale I was reading. By and by, after +perhaps two hours, I closed my book, though still keeping my finger +in the place. I reflected that nobody up at the field had spent such +an afternoon as I had spent, and I compared my spiritual pleasure with +their rough commonplace pleasures, and the extraordinary superiority +of my soul became immediately apparent. Then my thoughts turned to +the story I had been reading. My sympathies were entirely enlisted by +Lady Constantine and her youthful astronomer, but particularly by Lady +Constantine. Even the fact that she was so much older than her lover +appealed to me. Her gentleness; her intense femininity; her dark eyes; +the softness of her skin; the perfume of her hair; and the delight of +her caresses――these were present to me vividly, almost physically, and +I rejoiced in the love-scenes in the tower with a frank and innocent +sensuality, filling in the picture, where it was blurred or vague, from +my own imaginings. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +During that last week of August, after the Dales had left, “I wandered +lonely as a cloud.” Up to the eve of their departure I had been happier +than I had ever been in my life, but as soon as they were gone I became +a prey to sentimental regret. If Katherine had cared for me as I cared +for her I might have found more comfort; but she didn’t, and I was +perfectly aware of the fact. Mingled with it all was an increasing +dread of the new existence I already saw opening out before me. I +distrusted it: I had, indeed, that instinctive distrust of life itself, +which contemplates anything unknown with uneasiness, and clings with +passion to familiar faces and things. + +When the day of my departure, a Saturday, came round, and I saw my +box all corded and ready in the hall, I felt extremely depressed. Now +that I had said good-bye to Mrs. Carroll it was as if I had cut myself +completely adrift from the past, and yet I believe I should have been +willing to go had I not been going to the McAllisters. The McAllisters +were our relations; the only ones I knew of. Aunt Margaret was my +father’s sister, and her husband kept a shop in a street called Cromac +Street. I had never been to their house, but they had been down a good +many times to visit us, and I did not care for them. There were four +children, and I disliked them all, except George, the eldest; and I +disliked Aunt Margaret in particular; while to Uncle George I was +indifferent, seeing that he did not very much count one way or the +other. But to live with them!... + +Mrs. Carroll had wanted to send me to a school in England, but my +father would not permit this. He had an idea, and nothing would ever +shake it, that English public schools were dens of iniquity. This he +had gathered from some article that had appeared in a review, and from +the story “Eric.” I suppose he thought I should fall a particularly +easy victim to the temptations I might be submitted to; take, like the +boys in “Eric,” to drink, “little by little,” or even quite rapidly; +come home disgraced; at any rate he would not run the risk, when, by +sending me to the McAllisters, he could provide me with the “influence +of a religious home.” For Uncle George was religious, and so was Aunt +Margaret; and so, I supposed, were the children――George, at least, I +had been told, was a communicant――and it was the thought of all this +that now lay heavy on my soul. + +I was not to go up to town till the afternoon, and as we sat down to +our early dinner I could not, though I knew it was absolutely useless, +refrain from again taking up the tabooed subject. I suggested how much +better it would be for me to go into lodgings of my own choosing. If +they were more expensive, Mrs. Carroll would not mind. “Whether she +would mind or not,” my father answered, “I should have thought you +would not have wanted to put her to any unnecessary expense.” + +“But she wouldn’t mind doing it,” I repeated, obstinately. “She told +you she wanted to.” + +“You know very well that is not the question,” my father said, more +coldly. “I have explained why I think it better that you should be +with those who will look after you. You are not old enough to be by +yourself.” + +“I don’t like the McAllisters,” I answered, sullenly. + +My father looked annoyed. “Perhaps you think they are not good enough +for you?” + +“They certainly aren’t,” I replied. + +It was a pity that our last meal together should have been somewhat +embittered by these remarks, but it was not altogether my fault. For +my father had been too extreme in his measures. Under the impression +that what I needed was to get into surroundings which would more or +less counteract the supposed relaxing influence of Mrs. Carroll’s +indulgence, he had arranged that I was not even to come home for +weekends, but was to submit myself during the entire term to the +bracing effect of the McAllister family. + +No more was said upon the subject, and my father gave me after dinner +a little book, called “Daily Light,” which I promised to read every +night and morning. He came to the station to see me off, and, as we +were far too early, he was obliged to stand for a quarter of an hour +at the window of the carriage, while I longed for the train to start, +and we both tried hard to find something to say. I was tormented by an +uncertainty as to whether he would expect me to kiss him when I said +good-bye. At the sound of the guard’s whistle I thrust out my hand. We +shook hands; that was all; and, with the train beginning to move out of +the station, I sat back in the corner of the empty third-class carriage. + +I had a sense of leaving everything behind me, as if I had been +starting for the world’s end; and, curiously enough, as much as, or +more than, by any human face, I was haunted by a vision of the house. +I had forsaken it, and I felt its low, faint call coming to me through +the rain. I could see the silent, closed rooms upstairs, the long +passage with its rows of brown portraits and the tall window at the +end, and it was as if a dust were dropping down upon these things, +covering them to sleep till I should return. The shadowy ghosts slipped +back into their picture-frames; gradually the life died out of their +eyes; and a cold, unbroken silence, like the chill of death, closed +over all that hidden under-world. Outside the apples had begun to +redden on the high brick walls of the fruit-garden, but within the +house all was frozen and lifeless. They were my spirits, my ghosts, and +could live only while I loved them. I loved them still, but I was too +far away, and I might not find them when I came back. + +The landscape gliding past me showed through a fine, grayish mist. It +was cold, and I pulled up the windows, which almost immediately became +covered with the same mist that drifted in the air outside. I wondered +where Katherine was, and what she was doing. I had not heard from her, +though I had written twice. Then I lay back in my uncomfortable corner +and tried to think of nothing. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +At the other end I was met by my cousin George, a big, red-haired +hobbledehoy of seventeen, with a curiously small face, bright brown +eyes with a reddish light in them, and a freckled skin. George, I +remembered, used to be amusing, and when I saw him standing on the +platform my spirits rose a little. He proposed that I should send on my +luggage, and that we ourselves should walk, as he wanted to make a call +on the way. When we had arranged this we set out. I had not been so +frequently in Belfast that I did not take an interest in the streets. +Just now, it being Saturday afternoon, they were full of people, and +at the end of the Queen’s Bridge some kind of noisy meeting――religious +or political――was in full swing, but we did not stop to listen. +Presently we turned to our left into a long straight street lined with +unattractive, unprosperous-looking shops, and so narrow that in one +place there was not room for two trams to pass. There was a liberal +sprinkling of public-houses, of cheap clothiers and greengrocers, while +here and there the gilded sign of a pawnbroker hung out over the greasy +pavement. I was about to ask why we had chosen such a disagreeable +route, when George touched my arm and said cheerfully, “Here we are.” + +“Here!” I echoed, with involuntary dismay. “But――――” + +“We live over the shop,” George explained. He had noticed my surprise, +however, and had coloured. + +I pretended to have been only astonished that we had reached our +journey’s end so quickly, but I don’t know that George was deceived. +Inwardly I was furious with my father for arranging for me to come to +live in such a place, with a public lavatory hardly ten yards away, and +facing the windows. The crowded street, the mean, dingy houses, the +mean, dingy people, the noise and rattle of innumerable trams: it was +all disgusting, even beyond my expectations! And I was to live here! I +simply wouldn’t do it. + +“We haven’t been here very long,” George continued. “We used to be +round in Shaftesbury Square.” Then, as I stood motionless on the +pavement, “Aren’t you coming in?” + +I followed him into the shop in silence. As he pushed open the door a +bell answered with a clear, decisive ping. There was a shop on either +side of the passage――one stocked with pipes, tobacco, cigarettes, and +sweets; the other with newspapers, stationery, and cheap editions of +books in hideous paper bindings. In the tobacco department there was +nobody; in the stationery department a girl was moving about, fixing +things. She turned round on our entrance and George introduced me: “My +cousin, Mr. Peter Waring, Miss Izzy.” + +Miss Izzy and I shook hands. She smiled brightly upon me and hoped I +was in good health. She evidently knew all about me, and had no need of +George’s introduction. I observed that she had a lot of glossy, brown +hair, which she wore twisted up in a coil on the top of her head in a +way I had never seen hair arranged before, and which was kept in its +place by long things like skewers, with large coloured balls at their +ends. She wore a pince-nez, and was neatly dressed in dark blue, with +a white linen collar and white cuffs, rather mannish in type. It was +very plain to me that Miss Izzy had a great deal of style. She had +also good features, but her femininity had been slightly eclipsed by +a tremendous air of business efficiency, and by the severity of her +pince-nez. I had never yet seen anybody nearly so business-like as Miss +Izzy looked, and if I had been an employer of labour I should have +engaged her as manager at a large salary on the spot. Through the open +door there came the shrill angry voices of small boys playing football +in an alley at the side of the house. There was a squabble in progress, +a cross-fire of abusive language suddenly broken by cries of, “Start a +new match――Start a new match.” + +George was standing against the counter, and had begun to pick his +teeth with a pin extracted from the bottom of his waistcoat. Miss Izzy +went back to her task of arranging a pile of new books, evidently +just come in. She was working out an elaborate pattern with their +pictured covers, and as she did so she read the titles aloud. “‘The +Hour of Vengeance,’” she proclaimed. “‘In Love’s Sweet Bondage,’” +she added, more dreamily. “‘The Clue of the Broken Ruby’; ‘Cynthia +Cyrilhurst’――it’s well for people that have names like that!” + +“I don’t think much of it,” said George. + +Miss Izzy sighed, “It’s better than some, any way.” + +“Don’t you like your own name?” I ventured. + +“My Christian name’s all right. But there’s no use being called Althea, +if it isn’t going to be backed up by anything! Althea Izzy is neither +one thing nor another.” + +“You can easily remedy that!” declared George, gallantly, from the +midst of his dental experiments. + +Miss Izzy scrutinised him. “It wouldn’t be McAllister that would do +it,” she said. + +But George continued placidly to attend to his teeth. “I hear Miss +Johnson’s getting married at eight o’clock next Friday,” he remarked. + +Miss Izzy bounced round, knocking over a box of note-paper. “How do +_you_ know?” she demanded, glaring at him. + +“Oh, I just heard,” said George, calmly. He carefully inspected the pin +before returning it to his waistcoat. + +“‘Just heard!’――through the key-hole, I suppose. It strikes me you +‘just hear’ a deal you’re not meant to. And they don’t want it talked +about――mind that!” + +“Why don’t they want it talked about,” I asked. + +“Because they want a quiet wedding. She’s in a bakery, and he’s a clerk +in Nicholl’s, and, if it got out, the church would be full.” + +The conversation was at this point interrupted by the entrance of +Uncle George, who appeared in the doorway, coming in from the street. +He was a quiet, gray little man, and his movements always reminded me +of those of a small dog in a strange room, wandering about, sniffing +furtively at the legs of chairs and tables. He was timid, and when +he spoke to you he rubbed his hands together with an affectation of +cheerfulness that was directly contradicted by his dark, melancholy +eyes. He had always struck me as being kind in his intentions, and I +regretted that they had seemed to count for so little when opposed to +Aunt Margaret’s. Uncle George was afraid of Aunt Margaret. He had an +air of assuming that there was perfect harmony between them, but I had +noticed that he rarely made a remark in her presence without glancing +at her to see how she would take it. He reminded me of one of those old +photographs one discovers at the backs of frames, their features almost +obliterated from long exposure. His whole face, indeed, in its pale +irregularity, had a suggestion of vagueness, as if it had been softly +sponged over. His manner too――there was something in it which seemed to +blur, to rub out, the impression of everything he said. His mind was +lit by a kind of twilight in which the outlines of things were lost, in +which opposites ceased to be contradictory, and impossibilities found +a friendly shelter. And this twilight was reflected in his eyes, in +their vague credulity, in the mildness of his glance, which peeped +out innocently from under ridiculously fierce and bushy eyebrows. I +knew Uncle George had failed in his business some years ago, and it was +difficult to believe that he could ever be successful. His interest +was not primarily in such things, but in the church, where he was a +more perpetual figure than the minister, and in the church meetings, +which he never missed, and which he sometimes even got up. I rather +liked him; there was something about him that made it easy to talk to +him; and though he was desperately religious, and held the same severe +doctrines as my father, his nature was so little aggressive that in +practice he was the most kindly and human creature in the world. + +“How are you?” he asked, shaking my hand. “We’re very glad to see you. +How’s your father?” His left eye twitched slightly while he talked, +giving him a comical appearance of winking very knowingly. + +“Quite well, thank you,” I answered. + +“Haven’t you been upstairs yet? Haven’t you seen your Aunt Margaret? +Why didn’t you take him to see mother, George? Well, come along now, +it’s time for tea. I think you might leave the shop, Miss Izzy, and +come too――a special occasion, you know, a special occasion!” he laughed +and patted me on the shoulder. + +“Thanks, I’ve had my tea already,” Miss Izzy returned, without +enthusiasm. “And you’re having yours upstairs to-night,” she added, +somewhat tartly, seeing him move in the wrong direction. + +“Oh! In the parlour; in honour of this young man; a special occasion, +a special occasion!” He repeated his pleasantry, chuckling softly and +rubbing his hands, while it was all I could do to keep from returning +his friendly and unconscious wink. + +“I’d rather stay here than run up and down stairs every time the bell +rings,” Miss Izzy continued, the invitation to tea evidently rankling +in her mind. From behind his father’s back George blew a kiss to her. + +Aunt Margaret welcomed me without effusion. She was an enormous woman, +dark, middle-aged, and with a peculiar smile that always made me feel +uneasy. Her lips parted and her teeth became visible, but otherwise +her face underwent no change, the expression in her hard, shining, +black eyes did not alter. It was, somehow, not a smile at all, but a +grimace, and disappeared with a startling suddenness, leaving no trace +behind it. When her face was at rest, her lips drew in, as if by some +mysterious suction. She wore a wig, and it was this I think that helped +to make her look peculiar, and even slightly uncanny. I had been told +that she suffered from some obscure, internal disease, which at times +caused her great pain, but though she was white and fat and puffy, +she presented no appearance of being an invalid. As she kissed me, a +ceremony I would gladly have dispensed with, I became conscious of a +vague, sickly odour, reminding me of the smell of a chemist’s shop. + +Uncle George asked her if tea would soon be ready, but she gave him +no answer; she only smiled in her strange fashion, and began to +question me about my father and my journey――one would have thought I +had been travelling all day. Two small boys held her by her voluminous +skirts, my cousins, Gordon and Thomas. They were about six or seven, +I suppose, and singularly unattractive, the kind of children who have +perpetual colds and are never provided with an adequate supply of +pocket-handkerchiefs. + +I shook hands with Gordon and Thomas; I really couldn’t do anything +more; but their mother noticed my omission, for they had raised damp, +red-nosed, little faces to be kissed, and though she only smiled again, +I was convinced that already she had taken a dislike to me. Possibly +her dislike dated back to an earlier period than our present meeting, +but, with a boy’s subtle instinct, I was certain of its existence. +Just then the door opened and another child entered the room. This was +Alice, a little girl of ten. She completed the family, though there +had been several others, who had died in infancy. Alice I did not kiss +either. Looking up, I saw my aunt’s hard black eyes fixed upon me. I +gave her back stare for stare, without flinching, and she turned away, +with that curious, grimacing smile I now hated. + +Alice herself did not appear to resent my coldness; she hung on to my +arm and laughed up at me as if we were the oldest friends in the world. +She was a strange, elf-like child, with a pale face and big black eyes +that were not hard like her mother’s. She looked as if she had been +allowed all her life to sit up too late. She was small for her age, and +extraordinarily fragile; she was like a little figure cut out of a Sime +drawing. + +Meanwhile Uncle George, who had been out in the rain, and had removed +his boots, was sitting before the gas-stove, presenting the soles of +two large, gray-socked feet to the red bars. A light steam began to +rise from them, and Uncle George declared that his new boots must +“let in,” and that he had a good mind to take them back to the man he +had bought them from, and that it was too bad. I sat down near him +and talked to him, while I watched the steam float up from his feet. +Aunt Margaret was getting tea ready in another room, and little Alice +hovered behind my chair. Every now and again she leaned over the back +of it and said something. She brought a book to show me, and while I +looked at it she put her arms round my neck and kissed my cheek. + +“Run away, Alice, and quit bothering Peter,” said Uncle George. “It’s +queer the way she’s taken to you,” he added in a gratified whisper. +“She’s usually that shy you couldn’t coax her out of a corner!” Alice +retreated, but almost immediately came back, and again put her arms +round me. She held her small white face close to mine and looked at +me with her great black eyes and smiled. She gave me an impression of +a little house haunted by queer and not altogether pleasant ghosts, +and yet somehow I felt sorry for her, and I stroked her thin hand that +rested on my sleeve, delicate and light as a leaf. + +“You’re a lovely big boy,” she whispered in my ear, rubbing her face up +and down against my jacket, as if it had been the fur of an animal. + +I couldn’t help laughing, and she cuddled close against me, her chin +on my shoulder. “She must be awfully nervous,” I thought, for the +thunderous approach of one of those hideous traction-engines, that I +was soon to find were a feature of the town, made her tremble. + +When we sat down to tea Alice insisted on sitting beside me. I had +an idea, possibly suggested by Miss Izzy’s words, that the room we +were in was not often used. I hoped it wasn’t, for it was stuffy and +uncomfortable, and so small that you felt everywhere beneath the table +the warm proximity of other people’s limbs. I hated being cramped in +this way; it seemed to me that all the time I was breathing other +people’s breaths, and once I got this notion into my head I couldn’t +forget it. The furniture was cheap, flimsy, and uncomfortable. The +curtains, the gaudy vases, the hideous wall-paper, were of the +brightest and least accordant colours, and I even preferred our parlour +at home, where, if the things were not less ugly, there were fewer of +them. Several pictures hung on the walls, and one hung directly in +front of me. It was an engraving, and represented a young man in armour +visibly torn between a desire for virtue, embodied in a flaxen-haired +lady in floating white drapery, and a deplorable weakness for all that +another lady might be taken as symbolising. This latter person was a +brunette, and rather more scantily, though quite decently, draped. She +held a glass of champagne in her hand, waving it triumphantly aloft, +like a torch. I confess that the work fascinated me, for it was my +first acquaintance with the type of art it represented. + +“A fine picture,” murmured Uncle George, seeing me gazing at it. “It’s +a Royal Academy picture that!” + +I said nothing. I did not know what a Royal Academy picture was, nor +did I admire this example. It was not so much that the figures looked +like unsuccessful waxworks, as that the banality of the moral irritated +me. It was the first time I had ever seen art of this extremely ethical +character, and in its spirit it reminded me of my old friends in the +“Golden Ladder Series.” + +I hoped tea would not last much longer. In the small room, the large +yellow slices of an extremely odoriferous cheese made the atmosphere +heavy and unpleasant. Moreover, when this cheese was offered to me +with hard, pink, sugared biscuits, I didn’t quite know what to do. I +had refused several things already, and I knew Aunt Margaret thought +I was turning up my nose at the food provided for me, and provided +specially, I could guess, from the behaviour of the others, because it +was my first night. So I accepted the cheese and sugared biscuits, and +struggled through them. + +After tea George asked if we were going to have “worship” now or later? +We had it “now,” and as soon as we rose from our knees he suggested +that we should “go out for a bit.” + +“Where are you going to?” Aunt Margaret inquired. + +“Oh, I don’t know: up the street just. We can’t sit in the house all +the evenin’. It’s quite fine now.” + +I was nothing loath, and clattered down the stairs after him. As soon +as we were outside George’s uncertainty as to our destination appeared +to vanish. “Did you ever see a boxing match?” he asked. + +“A boxing match?” + +“A fight――a prize-fight――whatever you like to call it. Come on an’ +we’ll go to the Comet, only for the Lord’s sake don’t say anythin’ +about it at home!” + +“Are you not allowed to go?” + +“Allowed! Wait till you know them a bit better. The boss’s idea of an +enjoyable evenin’ is some Sankey and Moody touch.” + +We turned down a side street, and then another and another, till I +completely lost my bearings; but very soon George said, “There it is, +Coxy. You’re goin’ to see a bit of life, eh?” and pointed to a small +theatre at the opposite side of the road. Above the entrance, a round +purplish globe threw down a pool of light on the dirty pavement. A +number of men and youths in caps, and with mufflers round their necks, +hung about the door, talking and spitting, and at the corner some small +boys looked on. George pushed boldly in and I followed. We took tickets +for the front seats from an extremely friendly and pock-marked person, +who wore a black patch over one eye. When we got inside we found there +were not many spectators in our part of the house, but the pit, at the +back, was already crowded. + +“That’s the thunder and lightning over there,” said George, jocosely, +“in other words, the nuts. How would you like to be in among them?” But +the stragglers who kept dropping in and taking seats all round us did +not seem to me to be very different. + +A branch of lights hung from the ceiling, and other lights fell from +the flies on to the curtainless stage. A kind of gray mist, doubtless +the accumulated smoke of many nights, floated in the air, and a +sickly-looking youth was hammering out music-hall tunes on a worn-out, +toneless piano. The stage was quite bare, save for three double rows +of yellow wooden chairs, that composed three sides of a parallelogram, +and within which was a space marked off by a thick rope stretched +about four stout posts clamped to the floor. Over this rope, at two +diagonally opposite corners, hung towels, and in each corner was a +chair, a heap of sawdust, a basin, a sponge, and a water-bottle. There +was no person on the stage, and these bare accessories, possibly +because I saw them now for the first time, had to my eyes a most +suggestive appearance. I began to feel excited: this unadorned stage +appeared to me to be distinctly thrilling. + +By degrees the house filled up. The audience, though mixed, was on the +whole a very rough one, and there were no women. + +“Twig the peelers,” said George, and I noticed half a dozen policemen +lounge in and take up positions in different parts of the auditorium. + +At about five minutes to eight even the chairs on the stage were +filled, and, at eight sharp, an important person with a cigar stepped +into the ring, and made a short speech introducing the first pair of +boxers. He retired amid loud applause, but the boxers, to my surprise, +turned out to be a couple of half-grown, ill-nourished, ill-washed +lads, no older than myself. They were naked except for short linen +drawers, and it seemed to me that it would have been no harm had they +been put into a bath prior to their appearance. They grinned sheepishly +at the audience, amongst whom they evidently recognised “pals”; and +these “pals,” in turn, greeted them with cries of “Go it, Bob,” “Go +on, the wee lad,” “Go on, the stripes”――this last in allusion to Bob’s +unambitious costume, which had all the appearance of being simply a +pair of bathing-drawers. They shook hands in a nerveless way, without +looking at each other, and began to spar feebly. Bob was so thin you +could count his ribs, and the big gloves at the ends of his long skinny +arms looked like gigantic puff-balls. The “wee lad” was sturdier, but +he seemed to me to be slightly deformed. Even to my inexperienced eye +it was perfectly obvious that the main concern of both was not to get +hurt, and they hadn’t finished the first round before the audience +was shouting, “Take them off them! Take them off them!” This was in +allusion to the gloves, but they also shouted other things, most of +which I daresay I had heard before, though never so many at one time, +and I reflected that George had managed to steer fairly clear of the +“Sankey and Moody touch.” + +The referee cautioned the unfortunate combatants, but the second round +was no better than the first, and in the middle of the third round the +fight was stopped. The sleek, well-fed persons occupying the chairs, +and the more impatient persons occupying the auditorium, had not paid +their money for stuff of that sort. There followed a fresh pair of +boxers, older, more experienced, and this time things were sufficiently +brisk. The battle was a hard, ding-dong struggle, and it was at least +exciting. At the sight of the first dark ugly streak of blood on one +of those white faces I felt a little queer, in fact my impulse was +to go away; but as round after round passed, and I watched the blood +from the same wound burst out afresh in each, it began to quicken a +sort of unsuspected lust of cruelty in me, and I took pleasure in it, +I wanted the fight to be a real one, the thud of a blow that got home +thrilled me. It was as if I had undergone some transformation. The +dirty theatre, the low faces, the foul language, ceased to matter. I +was carried out of myself. I longed at the same time for the fight to +continue, and for its climax. There would be only three more rounds, +and I wanted, before the last, to see somebody knocked out. The man +whose face was bleeding was the heavier of the two, but I thought he +had little chance. He was out-matched, he must have known it himself, +and yet he continued to come up with a kind of dogged stupidity. His +seconds spat water into his face, sponged him, rubbed him and fanned +him, slapped him with towels and massaged his muscles; but the +artificial invigoration this produced lasted only a few moments after +the beginning of each round, and, as I watched him weakening, I could +feel myself delivering the blows that dazed him, my muscles tightened +and slackened, I could hardly sit in my seat. “Now he’s got him,” I +said aloud, as he staggered into the ring for the last time. There was +a blow and a crash on the boards. The referee was counting over him, +one――two――three――four――five――six――seven――eight; and then this helpless +creature, out of whose swollen, hideous face all humanity had been +battered, staggered up almost blindly. He did not even lift his hands +to protect himself from the blow that smashed him down again, and with +that dull thud on the floor the fight came to an end. He lay on after +the counting had stopped, and as I watched him being supported, almost +carried, out of the ring, while the victor received congratulations, a +pang of misgiving assailed me. There was no doubt the whole thing was +absolutely brutal, and there was equally no doubt that when it had been +most brutal I had been most pleased. + +I should like to be able to add that I got up and left the theatre. I +did not. I reflected that _the_ fight was still to come: I even waited +for it eagerly, and when it took place, I was disappointed because +nobody bled, and because the decision was given on points at the end of +the twelfth round. + +As we walked home I proved to George that boxing matches were really +all right; that they were infinitely less dangerous than football +matches. Every one of my arguments convinced George, and after I +had finished he found some for himself, which I accepted as equally +incontrovertible. Considering that there was nobody to take up an +opposite point of view, our apologies might have appeared hardly +necessary, but George was able to give me, in addition, a list +of all the good qualities fighting brought out, or even brought +into existence. Most of these did not exactly fit in with my more +superficial impression of the audience, and there were others I could +not help feeling many of them would be better without――courage, for +instance. I had a dim idea that a little extra courage might result in +a majority of them figuring at the next Assizes. + +But when we were three-quarters way home I said to George, “It was all +pretty beastly, and that’s why we liked it――eh?” + +He got quite offended, telling me that if _he_ had thought it beastly +he wouldn’t have waited on to the end, as I did. + +This was just possible, yet my opinion of George sank. “If you admire +it so much,” I said, “I’ll give you a turn any time you like.” + +George was silent, and flushed slightly. + +“Well?” I kept on, pugnaciously. + +George mumbled something, I don’t know what, and I saw that I had +actually frightened him. We walked the rest of the way home in silence. +George was angry with me, but when we were in the house and had sat +down to supper he became friendly again. As I discovered later, company +was the one thing absolutely indispensable to him; he could have kept +on being angry with me, and, indeed, would have enjoyed doing so, had +he had anybody else to talk to, but solitude he could not bear. And I, +on my side, forgot his having sulked on the way home, just as, later +on, I was to forget more than one unpleasant thing, simply because he +amused me, because he could always make me laugh. + +After supper I said good-night to the others, and George and I went +upstairs. George went in front of me and lit the gas in the bedroom. +“Is this my room?” I asked, noticing that there were two beds in it. + +“Yours an’ mine,” George answered. + +His reply was unexpected. I had never slept with anybody in my life, +and it had not occurred to me that I should not have a room to myself. +I said nothing, but George, who was far from stupid, saw I did not like +the arrangement. “There is no other room,” he admitted frankly. “I +thought you knew. I thought ma put it in her letter.” + +“I didn’t see her letter,” I murmured. + +“Oh, we’ll be all right together, won’t we?” George went on, +pacifically. “You can have your bed moved wherever you would like it +best.” He had already begun to undress, and, after hanging up his +jacket, he took a photograph from an inside pocket and handed it to +me. It was the photograph of a lady extremely lightly clad. “I’ve +better ones than that,” said George, with a peculiar smile. He went +to a corner near the window and raised a loose board. From the hollow +beneath he drew out a large fat envelope, but, as he looked at me, he +hesitated. “I’ll show them to you some other time,” he suddenly said, +and returned the envelope to its hiding-place. He undressed rapidly, +and got into bed. + +I took longer, and all the time I felt George’s eyes fixed on me +curiously. I hated this lack of privacy. It wasn’t that I hadn’t +undressed hundreds of times before other boys, when we were going to +bathe; but this was different. I disliked the feeling of not being +alone. I hated to have somebody watch me all the time I was taking off +my clothes, or folding them. I determined to write to my father in the +morning. + +When I was in bed and in the dark I wanted to think of Katherine. I did +this every night; I looked forward to it, because it seemed to me that +this was the hour when everything became clearer; besides, there was +always the chance that if I thought of her I might dream of her. But +now George began to talk. + +“Do you know any girls?” he asked. + +“No,” I answered, shortly. + +“Don’t you like them?” George persisted. + +“No.” + +“What do you think of Miss Izzy? Not bad――eh?” + +“I don’t know anything about her.” + +George was silent a few minutes. Then, just as I was beginning to think +my own thoughts, he began again. + +“She’s nothin’ compared to Miss Johnson――the girl we were talkin’ about +to-day――who’s gettin’ married. Miss Johnson was in the shop before Miss +Izzy came. Ma sacked her for givin’ lip. Ma sacks them all.” + +George continued to talk until he grew sleepy, and I had no choice but +to listen. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +Next morning I was awakened by somebody singing, and opening my eyes I +saw George, in his shirt and trousers, strutting up and down the middle +of the floor, a hair-brush in his hand. It took me half a minute to +realise where I was, but George, when he saw I was awake, proceeded to +give me imitations of various music-hall artists, until there was a +sharp rap at our door, and Aunt Margaret’s voice told him to remember +what day it was. With that I remembered myself, and simultaneously made +up my mind that I wasn’t going to church. I determined that now I was +away from home I would be my own master, and do just what seemed good +in my own eyes, and that I would begin this policy at once. + +Our room was at the back of the house, and from where I lay I could +see through the window a strip of gray, desolate sky, broken here and +there by a chimney, and across which the dark branch of an unhealthy +tree waved. As I watched it, my mind strayed to a book of Japanese +decorations, and to the library at Derryaghy, and to other things I +cared for. I had already guessed from the little I had seen of the +McAllisters that their fortunes were drooping. It was not so much that +everything in the house was worn out and patched and on its last legs, +that the children were ill-clad and looked ill-nourished, as that I +seemed to scent that mysterious atmosphere of anxiety, worry, and +struggle, which invariably accompanies a decreasing ability to pay +one’s way. I hated it. I hated all that it implied――sordid economies +and cheap pleasures, a degrading and enchaining struggle to keep +things going. It did not awaken pity in me, but only disgust. It was +like a horrible monster that clung and squeezed with a thousand slimy +tentacles, sapping your strength, and sucking out your life-blood. I +could even sympathise with those who had freed themselves from it by +some bold decisive action, that might lie well outside the laws of +morality and society. + +In the midst of these reflections George informed me that I had better +get up. He was tying his tie. His red hair was carefully plastered +down with water, and he was examining his small, freckled face in the +looking-glass. George had not yet begun to shave, but he had long, +silly-looking hairs growing out of his chin, and I thought he looked +extremely ugly and horribly common as he stood there. + +When we went downstairs the others were just beginning breakfast. The +whole family was terribly _endimanchée_. Aunt Margaret was redolent +of cheap scent. Gordon and Thomas were dressed in green plush with +white mother-of-pearl buttons. Their little, damp, red, snub noses +seemed to have been set that very morning accidentally in the middle +of their round faces, which were of the complexion of fresh putty, and +their eyes were exactly like blue glass marbles. Uncle George, who was +breakfasting in his gray shirt sleeves, suggested that I might like to +go with George to the Bible-class, but I refused. I added, to prevent +all future trouble, that I preferred to take a walk on Sunday morning. + +“Do you go for walks when you are at home?” Aunt Margaret asked me, +with her strange smile. + +“No,” I answered. + +“Doesn’t your father expect you to go to church?” + +“I don’t know what he expects, I’m sure.” + +“And don’t you think yourself you ought to go?” + +“No.” I was quite certain about this at all events, and I added that, +once you were familiar with any particular ideas, no matter how +valuable, I couldn’t see that you gained very much by listening to them +being repeated ad infinitum. + +This explanation, far from convincing, evidently annoyed, Aunt +Margaret, though she only said, “I would rather you didn’t talk like +that before the children. They have been brought up to look upon +religion with respect.” + +I did not reply. + +“I think I’ll go for a walk too,” George announced, with a wink at me. + +“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” cried Aunt Margaret, flaring up +into a shrill rage. “You see what comes of such talk! I’ll have no +Sabbath-breaking in this house.” + +“Ssh――ssh,” Uncle George mildly intervened. “To force people to do +things against their will isn’t the proper way to take.” + +“You want your children to give up going to church, then?” + +“Nobody is giving up going to church. George is coming of course. +Young people very often say things without meaning them. If Peter is +for taking a walk this morning, I expect he will come out with us this +evening to hear Dr. Russell, won’t you, Peter?” + +But, altogether apart from Dr. Russell, that Sunday was a dreary day. +In the afternoon I accompanied George, and we loafed about in the +Ormeau Park, where he was evidently accustomed to meet his friends. +These friends of George’s were all in business, and all looked upon +themselves as young men. They smoked cheap cigarettes, wore their +handkerchiefs in their sleeves, and were tremendously knowing and +rakish, while the larger part of their conversation appeared to be +concerned with the merits of professional football players. I could +get on all right with George when he was by himself, but his friends, +among whom he was remarkably popular, did not improve him. It took no +great perspicacity to discover that they on their side regarded my +company as a very questionable acquisition. This feeling, far from +diminishing, obviously increased as the afternoon advanced. George +described our adventure of the night before with immense gusto, and +gave a burlesque imitation of the knock-out. To have an appreciative +audience was his greatest delight, and the others, for that matter, +left him a fairly free stage. Now that he had them he ignored me +utterly, so that, in the end, I was left practically alone. I fulfilled +a sort of highly disagreeable rôle of silent hanger-on. I did it most +reluctantly, yet I could not summon up sufficient moral courage to go +away. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + +On Monday morning I went to school. I arrived half an hour before the +proper time, and as my classes had already been arranged, I had nothing +to do but loiter about and take stock of the place. It stood, a long, +low, unlovely building of soot-darkened brick, in its own grounds, not +far from the centre of the town. Just now, on this gray autumn morning, +it presented an appearance of singular, of almost jail-like dullness, +though in summer, as I was to learn, when the grass was green, and the +tall dusty elms waved against a blue sky, and the sun shone through +narrow, small-paned windows, and splashed on wooden floors, on hacked +wooden desks and forms, on faded maps, and bare, discoloured walls, it +could be pleasant enough, in spite of the complete absence of anything +save the sunlight and the trees that might appeal to a sense of beauty. +Beside the main building was a Preparatory School, and at the back, +separated from it by a yard, where a score or so of boys were at +present kicking about a football, were the Mathematical Schools, and +beyond these, the larger playing-field. It was really a day-school, +only two masters living on the premises, with about a couple of dozen +boarders: the rest of the scholars, numbering between a hundred and +fifty and two hundred, were day-boys. + +As I hung about uneasily, not venturing to join the others, I was +painfully conscious of my isolation. Not one of those faces had I ever +seen before, nor had I the slightest knowledge of the school itself, +for George, who had been at a National School, could tell me nothing +about it. Nobody took any notice of me. Several masters passed, and +disappeared through mysterious doors, and when, at ten o’clock, a +white-haired, white-bearded patriarch rang a huge hand-bell in the +porch, and I watched the boys scattering with extraordinary rapidity in +various directions, it looked to me as if I might very easily spend my +whole day in the yard. I had no idea which door to try, yet at the same +time I was anxious not to be late. I was still hovering uncertainly +about the porch, like a soul strayed into the wrong Paradise, when a +boy, running past, glanced at me, stopped, and asked me where I wanted +to go to. + +I told him I wanted to go to Mr. Lowden’s class. + +“It’s the end door on the left over there,” he said, good-humouredly, +and I thanked him and hurried off. + +Coming in, I found the whole class already in their places, but a boy +at the end of the third form moved up to make room for me, and I sat +down. Mr. Lowden, who was standing, with a piece of chalk in one hand +and a duster in the other, close by the black-board, asked me my name, +and then informed me I was late and that he objected to lateness. I +said nothing, but took down on the slate in front of me the sum he had +just written out. + +I worked at it, and was struck by the animated conversations that were +going on all over the room, in spite of Mr. Lowden’s efforts to check +them. + +“Has anybody finished yet?” Mr. Lowden asked, and the boy who had +moved up to make room for me held up his hand, cracking his fingers. I +glanced at him. He had a round, merry face, rosy cheeks, bright eyes +and dimples. + +“How often have I told you not to crack your fingers, Knox?” asked Mr. +Lowden, discontentedly. “Well, what answer do you get?” + +“Ten bob, a deuce an’ a make.” + +“Come in to-day, Knox, at recess.” + +He wrote down another sum, and I had begun to copy it, when something +went off with a sharp report under my feet. Mr. Lowden was gazing +straight at me, and he instantly told me to stay in at recess. + +I knew well enough what had happened, that I had trodden on a wax match +softened and rolled up with the head inside. I told Mr. Lowden that I +hadn’t done it on purpose. + +“I can’t help that: you must stay in.” + +“But it wasn’t my fault if I didn’t know it was there,” I argued. + +“You must stay in,” repeated Mr. Lowden, in a silly, obstinate kind of +voice, horribly irritating, “and, Knox, you stay in after school as +well as at recess.” + +“I don’t see what _he_ has to do with it, any way,” I muttered. + +The boy beside me laughed. + +“Oh, yes: Knox put it there,” Mr. Lowden said monotonously. + +I had taken a dislike to Mr. Lowden, and at the same time I thought him +a fool. A few days later something happened to make me dislike him even +more. He had read aloud a problem which we were to work out mentally, +putting down our answers when he gave us the word. My answer was right, +but, unfortunately, when he asked me how I got it, the problem itself +had gone out of my head. For the life of me I couldn’t remember it; yet +I was ashamed to say so, and simply sat silent while he repeated two or +three times, as if it were some kind of refrain, “Well, now, how did +you work the sum, Waring?” + +As I was unable to tell him, he said, “You must have copied the answer +from Knox.” + +“I didn’t,” I protested, angrily. + +“Then why can’t you tell me how you got it?” + +Again silence. + +“You must be telling a lie, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Lowden, in his +apathetic voice, “and the silliest kind of lie, because it’s obvious to +everybody.” + +“I’m not telling a lie.” + +Mr. Lowden shrugged his shoulders; he never seemed to get angry, or +even moderately interested, no matter what the circumstances. “If +you’re not, then why can’t you tell me how you worked the sum? If you +had done it once, you could do it again.” + +“I did do it.” + +“Well, how?” + +Renewed silence. + +“You’d better stay in at recess.” + +And I stayed in. + +Yet Mr. Lowden was really only a mild and inoffensive young man, who +had been inspired with the unlucky idea that he could earn his living +by teaching boys, when he had neither the desire nor the capacity +to understand them. The aversion I felt for him was really founded +primarily upon grounds less rational than those I have mentioned. +The secret of the matter was that physically he was repulsive to me. +He suffered, I imagine, from some affection of the lungs or throat, +for he wore, winter and summer, a thick white muffler, fastened by +an opal pin. His face was pale, cadaverous, and hollow-cheeked; his +moustache scanty; his hair lank and damp; but what I disliked most was +his peculiar odour. Whether this emanated from his person, or from the +pastilles he was perpetually sucking, I don’t know. It was something +sickly and persistent, and for no reason that I know of I associated it +with death. When he sat down on the form beside me to work out a sum, I +used to edge gradually away from him, until he would notice it, and ask +me in a querulous voice what I was doing, and perhaps keep me in. This +physical repulsion I could never have conquered, even had it not been +backed up by that kind of mental sickliness which characterized him, +and which had made him punish me once at least unjustly. He left six +months later, and nobody among the boys ever knew or cared what became +of him. Perhaps he went to another school, perhaps the mysterious odour +which had sickened me had been really the odour of death.... + + * * * * * + +When I think now of those who were in charge of my education, upon my +word I cannot help but be filled with wonder. What did they teach me? +What did I ever get from them that I could not have got, with less +trouble, for myself? Never once did any of my masters show the faintest +interest in me, or make even the most perfunctory attempt to get to +know me, to get to know what I was capable of, if I had any definite +tastes, if I were good or bad, moral or immoral, intelligent or a fool. +What they did instead was to ask me a couple of questions from a book, +and, if I failed to answer either of these satisfactorily, keep me in +to sit for twenty minutes with my lesson-book open on the desk before +me and my thoughts miles away. Of my masters only one, Mr. Johnson, had +any distinction, and he, unfortunately, was a mathematician. He had +written a “Euclid” so perfect in its expression that he had managed to +get a kind of æsthetic charm into the dry bones of geometry. He was an +Englishman, but was slightly Jewish in type. He wore a long, flowing +beard and moustache, like an early northern chief, and he had small, +sleepy, gray eyes, which during school hours were usually closed. Most +of his time he passed, either in reverie or slumber, in his chair +on a daïs at the end of the room; but when aroused he had, for the +unmathematical, a richly terrifying voice, and a disheartening manner +of slashing down a long black cane on the desk, within a few inches of +your nose. His classes were models of order. Never a faintest sound. In +dead silence you played your game of noughts and crosses, or did your +Latin composition, or wrote out cricket teams――but you never spoke, +and rarely moved. Of all those whose business it was to mould my mind +his figure remains the least spoiled by time. I remember the shock I +received when, some years after I left school, I came upon Dr. Melling, +the head English master, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, sucking an orange, +and dressed in garments that Moses or Ikey would have bid for but +languidly. When I spoke to him he seemed so narrow, so unimaginative, +so unintelligent, that I felt half-ashamed, as one might who has +learned by accident a secret he ought never to have known. Even in +stature he was curiously shrunken, though he neither stooped nor showed +signs of decrepitude or age. But Johnson I can see now, as I saw him so +often then, coming up the path between the two front cricket-fields, +a large black bag in his hand, which one had been told contained his +lunch. I can see him leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, like +one of those beautiful owls that ignore from their cage in the Zoo the +staring stranger, his beard spread out over his waistcoat, his hands +folded on his stomach. Johnson was a gentleman, and, though he knew +nothing of, and cared little for, boys, if chance brought him into +temporary relation with one, even a very small and idle one, he took it +for granted that he was a gentleman too, and in his deep, slow, musical +voice, and in his sleepy eyes, there would come a curious charm. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + +I had formed no definite conception of what my new school would be +like, but there was a flatness about the reality for which I was +unprepared. I seemed to slip into my place at once, without attracting +the slightest attention either of boys or masters, and at a week’s end +any strangeness there might have been had completely worn off. I did +not play football, which was the only game played this term. I got to +know a good many boys, but I formed no friendships. I found my new +companions to be, on the whole, little, if at all, more congenial than +the boys at Newcastle, in spite of there being so many more to choose +from. I liked them well enough, and they were, with one exception, +perfectly decent to me, but it all ended there: that is to say, in +my relation with them I had invariably to approach them on their own +ground, I had to enter into _their_ world, they were incapable of +entering into mine, or even of meeting me halfway. There was a boy I +had felt attracted to, purely on account of his good-looks, and as our +ways home lay in the same direction I joined him one afternoon just as +he was going out at the gate. But the first words he uttered shattered +my illusions. He had a harsh, loud voice and spoke through his nose. +Almost at once he began to tell me what he imagined to be a funny +story, and before I had been with him five minutes I said good-bye +abruptly, and left him standing on the pavement, staring after me, nor +did I ever speak to him again. + +Day by day I went to school, neither liking it nor disliking it. Yet +it was all rather dismal, for life without any kind of human sympathy, +either given or received, is a dreadful, almost an impossible, thing. +I thought a good deal of Katherine, and wrote to her, but got only an +occasional scrappy note in reply. I did not see much of George, for he +was kept in his business till nearly seven o’clock, and in the evenings +I had to prepare my work for the next day. George, moreover, had his +own circle of friends, none of whom, as I have said, were particularly +eager for my company, while George himself, when he was among them, was +the least eager of all. Sometimes when I was with him alone I would +remember this and resent it, but he could always make me forgive him +when he wanted to: he could be extraordinarily pleasant when he wanted +to, and it was impossible to be bored in his company. + +We still shared the same bedroom, and at night he liked to talk before +going to sleep. He had obtained a considerable influence over me, +more than anybody else ever did or was to do, yet it is difficult +to describe what it consisted in, or why it should have come about. +I had an extremely poor opinion of him: I knew he had not even a +rudimentary conscience: frequently he repelled, and even disgusted, +me: but always, by some instinct, he seemed to know when he had +done so, and he had a special gift for recovering lost ground. His +influence was bad――absolutely――and yet what was so harmful to me did +not, so far as I know, have any particularly disastrous effect upon +George himself. He had an amazingly licentious imagination, and, +in this direction, a power of vivid suggestion. As I became more +accustomed to him, things that had at first jarred upon me ceased to +do so; but it was doubly unfortunate that I should have been thrown so +intimately into his society just at this particular time. Had I been +either older or younger, or had I had any other friends, the effect +would not have been so injurious. It was not that I had not heard +my share of Rabelaisian talk before. This was, somehow, different. +At all events, the other had passed off me easily, awakening no +after-thoughts, leaving my senses untroubled. It was not so now. My +mind became disturbed, and, above all, my dreams were coloured by +certain obsessions which George took a delight in evoking. In my dreams +his suggestions became realities, and his imagination seemed to brood +over them like an evil angel. I do not think he was himself conscious +of it, conscious, that is, that what for him appeared to be no more +than a sort of intellectual pastime, which he could shake from him as +easily as one might turn off a tap, assumed with me a darker form. His +words appeared to touch me physically, and with an appalling directness +and persistency. He had a trick of re-telling stories he had read, +twisting them and altering them with an astonishing ingenuity, so as +to introduce the element he revelled in, and he never became crude +or brutal till he had carefully prepared his ground. And it was all +transformed by a curious gift of humour, which was in itself something +quite inimitable, consisting, as it did, largely in his personality and +manner, in an unquenchable liveliness, and a faculty of mimicry. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + +Two months went by in this fashion, and I had begun to look forward to +Christmas and to count the weeks that separated me from the holidays, +when an incident occurred which was the means of my forming an +acquaintance that was to develop into the most intimate friendship of +my life. It befell in this way. + +A series of thefts had been committed, thefts of school-books. A boy +would leave his books down on a window-sill, or even in a class-room, +and when he came to get them again, one would perhaps be missing. I had +never lost anything myself, and knew nothing of what was going on till +the afternoon when the matter was divulged to the entire school. + +It was not far from three o’clock, I remember, the hour when we broke +up for the day, and I was in one of the English class-rooms, where, +every Monday, if you liked to pay half-a-crown a term extra, you had +the advantage of a lesson in elocution from Mr. (or was it Professor?) +Lennox. Professor Lennox was a fat, pale, absurd little man, with a +high-pitched tenor voice that struck against the drum of your ear like +the blow of a stick. He waxed his moustache, and greased his hair +into carefully arranged, solid-looking locks, while his skin, by some +natural process, greased itself. Professor Lennox was an amateur of +fancy trousers, of coloured waistcoats, of large breast-pins, of spats +with pearl buttons, and of rings more striking than precious. To-day +the whole class――some fifty or sixty boys――was reading after him, line +by line, a poem from Bell’s “Elocution.” + + “In arms, / the Aust / rian phal / anx stood, + A liv / ing wall, / a hum / an wood. + Impreg / nable / their front / appears, + All hor / rent with / project / ing spears.” + +Or, as it sounded according to local pronunciation, shared impartially +by the professor and the majority of his pupils: + + “In arms, / the Orst / rian phah / lanx stude, + Ah liv / ing wall, / ah hue / man wude. + Imprag / nable / their front / appears, + All hoar / rent with / projact / ing spears.” + +We had just reached “projacting spears,” when Dr. Melling, better known +by the name of Limpet, came in, followed by an old woman, who paused on +the threshold. Limpet turned round and waved her forward impatiently, +but a couple of yards from the door she stopped again, and all the time +she stared hard at us with small, sharp, gray eyes. Her bright little +eyes and hooked nose, taken with her air of timidity, gave her the +appearance of an innocent and frightened witch who has been dragged +out of her lair very much against her will. I wondered who she was, +but Limpet did not leave us long in doubt. It appeared that some boy +had stolen a number of school-books, the property of various other +boys, and had sold them to this woman, who was now here to identify +him. Limpet explained the situation with an air of wishing to get a +disagreeable duty over as quickly as possible, but to us it was quite +exciting. Each of us in turn stood up to undergo the witch’s scrutiny. +She had already, as I afterwards learned, been round the other classes, +and Limpet, who had accompanied her on this voyage of discovery, was +by now in rather a bad temper. Evidently he found the whole business +singularly distasteful, and as one boy after another received her +head-shake, he fidgeted and frowned nervously. She herself looked +frightened and bewildered; I expect she was secretly worried about her +own share in the matter, and considering how she could make the best +of it. As for me, I felt for the first time as if school-life really +bore some faint resemblance to the tales of the _Boy’s Own Paper_. Here +was one of the pet adventures actually taking place, except that the +old woman should have been a man with a small fur cap. When it came to +my turn to stand up, I had an extraordinary wish that she would pick +me out as the culprit. Sure of my innocence, I had a mind to be the +hero of this adventure, and I stood so long, waiting to be identified, +that Limpet told me sharply to sit down, and I could see had it on the +tip of his tongue to give me an imposition. My neighbour tugged me by +the jacket, and I resumed my seat abruptly amid suppressed laughter. +One by one each boy rose in his place and sat down again, and then, +in the back row of all, a boy stood up who _was_ identified. This boy +I did not know except by name, though he was in all my classes. He +was called Gill, and I had always looked upon him as rather odd and +unapproachable. When his turn came, he stood up indifferently, glancing +out through the window at the clock, which could only be seen when you +were on your feet. But next moment I saw the old woman say something to +Limpet, and the latter instantly told Gill to stand out. + +Gill stood out, his indifference gone, his face flushed and angry. + +“Is that the boy?” Limpet asked, as if daring her to say “Yes,” but the +old woman mumbled out an affirmative. + +“Do you know anything of this, Gill?” + +“No.” + +I was somehow pleased that he had not added the customary “Sir.” He +stood with his head up and gazed straight at Limpet and the old woman, +with a kind of contemptuous wrath, his gray eyes dark and very bright, +a frown on his face. + +The old woman was so obviously uncertain and uncomfortable that the +whole thing appeared to me ridiculous, and I impulsively gave voice to +this impression. “She doesn’t know anything about it,” I called out. +“Anybody could see she’s only trying it on.” + +Limpet on the spot gave me two hundred of Sir Walter Scott’s bad verses +to write out. My remark had the effect, nevertheless, of drawing a +wavering expression of uncertainty from the old woman herself, which, +in his now undisguised irritability, Limpet pounced on, as a cat +pounces on a mouse. “Why did you point to him, if you don’t know?” +he whipped out, frightening her nearly out of her wits. “Don’t you +understand that it’s a serious thing to bring an accusation of theft +against a boy? Sit down, Gill. I want to see you after school.” + +He was so angry that he forgot all about the half-dozen remaining boys, +and conducted his companion unceremoniously from the room. + +Gill sat staring straight in front of him. Certainly he did not look +guilty. He had a dark, narrow face, with a bright complexion. His +thick, rough, black hair grew low on an oval, narrow forehead, and +between his clear gray eyes there started a high-bridged, somewhat +aggressive-looking nose, the most striking feature of his rather +striking face. He had the reputation of being a peculiar kind of +chap, and he was sometimes made fun of――mildly, for he was extremely +quick-tempered and very strong――but anybody could see that he was a +fine fellow, and that an accusation such as had just been brought +against him would require a great deal of proof. + +When the bell rang he remained on in his seat while the rest of us +went out, I hung about the porch watching two little fellows playing +chestnuts, and when they stopped playing I still hung about with +nothing to watch, and with, indeed, no very definite purpose in view. +Presently Gill emerged, but whether he saw me or not, he took no +notice, as he walked on swiftly down toward the gate. + +Since I had flung about him the mantle of my protection, however, I had +begun to take a lively interest in him, and before he had gone fifty +yards I made up my mind and hurried in pursuit. He looked round at the +sound of my footsteps and waited, but without smiling. I had an idea +he had passed me deliberately in the porch, and now he received me +coldly enough. As we walked along together he made no attempt to defend +himself against the charge that had been brought against him; he did +not even refer to it, nor to what had taken place during his subsequent +interview with Limpet, from whom, nevertheless, he received next +morning a public apology. Though I was simply dying to hear what had +happened I couldn’t very well ask, and as we proceeded I had to talk +about other things. Then, quite suddenly, some change seemed to take +place within him, and he inquired abruptly if I had read any of the +writings of Count Tolstoy. I had never even heard of Count Tolstoy, but +I was not to remain much longer in ignorance. I like enthusiasm, and I +got it now. Gill had just finished “Anna Karénine,” and offered to lend +it to me, adding that it was in French. I had been learning French in +the way one did in those days, and perhaps does still; that is to say, +I had been learning it for six or seven years, and was now obliged to +confess I couldn’t read it. + +“Aren’t you coming out of your way?” he demanded with the queer +abruptness that characterized him. + +“Oh, no.” + +“Do you live up the Malone way?” + +“No; I live in the town.” + +“Then why isn’t it out of your way?” + +“That is only my fashion of telling you I want to come with you,” I +answered meekly. “Pure politeness.” + +He did not smile. “You haven’t been at school long?” he asked. His +manner was the oddest mixture of stiffness and shyness, and sometimes +he frowned portentously, while at the slightest thing he blushed. + +“No,” I answered. “Have you?” + +“Yes――all my life――ever since I was a kid.” He spoke quickly, one would +have imagined impatiently. + +“Have you? I thought, somehow, you hadn’t.” + +I don’t know why I should have made this wise remark, nor, apparently, +did Gill. + +“Why?” he asked me at once. + +I laughed. “You don’t seem to have very many friends.” + +He coloured, and I realized that my remark had been lacking in tact. + +“I have as many friends as I want,” he answered shortly. + +I saw I had touched him on a tender spot. “Does that mean you don’t +want any new ones?” I ventured, half-laughing, though I was serious +enough. + +His answer was startling. “Perhaps you think you are doing me a favour +by walking home with me?” + +I did not say anything, but I looked at him with some astonishment. He +was so odd that his manner had the effect of divesting me of all the +shyness I usually suffered from myself on making a new acquaintance, +nor did I even feel angry at his rebuff. + +“I came with you,” I said at length, “to please myself.” + +He turned crimson, began to speak, was silent, and then apologized. + +At the garden gate I would have left him, but he insisted on my coming +up to the door. “I will get you ‘Anna Karénine’; then we can talk about +it together――if we’re going to be friends.” He spoke the last words +shyly, and I knew that he had found a difficulty in saying them at all. + +“But I told you I couldn’t read French.” + +“You can if you like. Don’t try to translate it; read straight ahead.” + +He came back with two books bound in gray-blue paper, which he handed +to me. “It doesn’t matter if the covers get torn or the books come to +pieces. My father gets them all rebound in any case. By the way,” once +more he blushed, “you needn’t bother about those lines Limpet gave you.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I’ll be doing them.” + +“Oh, rot.” + +He frowned. “You can do them if you like, but it will be a waste of +time.” + +“I know that.” + +“I mean, I’m going to do them in any case, whether you do or not.” + +I laughed. “Couldn’t we each do half?” + +“I’m going to do them all.” + +“All right.” + +He strolled back down the garden path with me. “What’s your name?” he +asked. + +“Waring.” + +“I know that. I mean your first name.” + +“Peter.” + +“Mine is Owen. I’ll come part of the way back with you: I told them +inside.” + +“Shall I call you Owen?” + +“I don’t care,” he answered quickly, without looking at me. But before +we had gone another hundred yards he said: “That isn’t the truth. I +told you my name because I wanted you to call me by it.” + +“All right,” I said, smiling. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + +That night, for the first time, I felt George’s fascination falter, +and it is a fact rather melancholy in its significance that this +consciousness came to me in the form of a sense of freedom, of relief. +He began to talk to me, just as usual, as soon as he had turned out +the light, but I told him brusquely to shut up, that I wanted to go to +sleep, and when he tried to begin again I let him see I was in earnest. + +As I lay there I determined that at Christmas I would make another +effort to get into rooms of my own choosing. If I wanted to ask Owen +Gill, for instance, to come to see me, how could I do so? For one +thing, his people would not like him to come here; for another, I +should not myself care to ask him. I was by this time firmly convinced +that my aunt was frequently more or less under the influence of drugs. +It may have been on account of her illness; I could not say; but there +were times when she seemed hardly to know what she was doing, and +at such moments her dislike for me, which she usually more or less +successfully concealed, jumped to the surface. I had no idea how long +she had been in this condition; I was quite sure my father knew nothing +about it; yet she appeared to me to have already lost something of her +hold upon reality. I had heard her make statements so obviously untrue +that they could have deceived nobody but Uncle George. I had heard her +repeat a harmless remark made by Miss Izzy, and, by altering it ever +so slightly, give it a quite new and highly disagreeable meaning. But +Uncle George never dreamed of contradicting her, whether it was that he +was afraid of her, or whether he was simply blind, I could not tell. + +On the Sunday after my becoming acquainted with Owen I was alone in the +house with little Alice, who had been unwell and had not gone out with +the others to morning church. As usual, she had climbed up on my knee, +and was sitting with her thin brown arms round my neck, and her queer +little face close to mine. + +“Ma looked through all your pockets yesterday morning, when you were at +school,” she said. + +“What pockets?” I asked quietly. + +“The pockets of your clothes――every one.” + +“Well, did she find anything?” I murmured, in as indifferent a tone as +I could manage. + +“She found a letter――and some other things.” + +“And did she read the letter?” + +“Yes.” + +“How do you know? Where were you?” + +“I saw her.” + +“How did you see her?” + +“I saw her through the key-hole.” + +“Oh; I didn’t think you would look through key-holes.” + +“Didn’t you? I do――often.” + +“You shouldn’t. It isn’t nice, you know. You must never do it again.” + +“Why?” + +“Because it’s not a nice thing to do. It’s spying.” + +“I’ve often done it,” said Alice, with perfect detachment. “I’ve looked +at you through the key-hole.” + +“You must never do it again. Promise, or I won’t be friends with you +any more.” + +“If I promise, will you be friends?” + +“Yes. But you must keep your promise, remember.” + +I returned to “Anna Karénine.” “I must buy a desk,” I thought, “or some +kind of box I can lock up.” Presently little Alice began again. “I’ve +got a secret.” + +I had lugubrious forebodings in regard to this secret. “Have you?” I +answered dismally. + +“Don’t take any soup to-day,” the child said, softly. + +I laid down my book. There was something arresting about this +injunction, something even startling. I looked into the strange dark +eyes that seemed almost to fill the small elf-like face, and I knew +that a confidence of a highly unpleasant character was imminent. + +“I put a dead mouse into the soup,” little Alice whispered. + +“Oh;” I exclaimed feebly. I felt inclined to put her down very abruptly +from my knee, and it was with difficulty that I controlled this +impulse. “What made you do such a thing? Now it will all be wasted.” + +“Nobody knows about it,” the child continued artlessly, rubbing her +cheek against mine. “Once I put something in before, when people were +coming for dinner. It was fun to watch them all looking so stiff and +solemn, and eating away, and not knowing what was there all the time. I +laughed so much that ma sent me out of the room. But I wouldn’t do that +with you, because I love you.” + +Her strange little face turned to mine, and her eyes were fixed on me. +She must have seen the disgust I felt, for she began to tremble and her +eyes filled with tears. Then she hid her face against my shoulder and +clung to me. I was frightened to scold her. Even without my having said +anything she seemed to shrivel up like some bruised and broken plant. I +patted her head gently, and at once she brightened. She got down from +my knee and began to dance about the floor. + +Meanwhile I was left with the problem of the soup. If the soup were +strained the mouse, I supposed, would be discovered; but if it were, +as it was practically certain to be, simply turned out into a tureen, +the revelation might come too late. On the other hand, were I to turn +informer, little Alice would most surely be whipped, and, whether she +deserved it or not, the idea of that was as revolting to me as would +be the ill-treatment of a sick monkey. There was a young girl in the +kitchen who looked after the rougher work, and I thought of explaining +the matter to her, after swearing her to secrecy, but before I had made +up my mind I heard the others downstairs. + +They had evidently got back from church, and now I didn’t know what to +do. Uncle George, preceded by Gordon and Thomas in their green plush +suits, came into the parlour. Uncle George began to warm himself before +the gas-stove. “You should have come out this morning, Peter,” he said, +in his gentle voice. “You missed a treat.” + +I listened to his comments on the sermon, feeling all the time most +uncomfortable. Gordon and Thomas tried to climb about my chair, but I +kept them off with a firm hand. The parlour door was open, probably +the kitchen door too, for all at once there came a scream from that +department, not very loud, yet distinctly audible. I glanced at Alice. +The others hadn’t heard it. Uncle George was still in the midst of his +mild enthusiasm, and Gordon and Thomas, flattening their little round +red noses with a finger, were practising squinting with remarkable +success. Alice had become perfectly still, her big black eyes fixed on +mine: and, as for me, I knew the mouse had been discovered and felt +vastly relieved. Conceive of my amazement, therefore, when the soup +after all appeared at table. Alice and I did not take any, and Aunt +Margaret did not either, so that there was enough left to do Monday’s +dinner; but of the mouse I never heard again. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + +My friendship with Owen was at present the one quite satisfactory +thing in my life. Neither at school nor at home was I particularly +successful. I worked very little, merely sufficiently to prevent myself +from getting into trouble; I did not play games. I had gone to the +School of Art for a few weeks, but as I was never put to draw anything +except curves and squares and geometrical flowers, I got sick of this +and gave it up. + +I saw a good deal of Owen, though not so much as I should have liked. +Of course I saw him every day at school, but I had never been inside +his house, and I could not ask him to mine. I did not want to let him +see the kind of people I had sprung from. I was ashamed of them. On +Saturdays and Sundays we usually went for long walks together, during +which we threshed out the affairs of the universe, and built it over +again. It was all quite new to me, just as was the peculiar type of +Owen’s mind, its extraordinary eagerness in the pursuit of ideas. My +head already swarmed with an amazing mass of unsettled notions which +buzzed in it like bees in a shaken hive. It seemed to me we never +discussed anything less serious than the immortality of the soul. Owen +was not sure of the existence of God, and I, so far as Christianity +was concerned, was an Agnostic also. But to Owen it appeared to make +an enormous difference, he was positively unhappy about it; while to +me, though I did not let him suspect this, it was a matter of supreme +indifference. Levine’s acceptance of Christianity, at the end of “Anna +Karénine,” was for Owen an endless source of dissatisfaction and query. +We discussed it by the hour. Yet, when actually reading the book, I had +been far more struck by the appearance in Wronsky’s and Anna’s dreams +of the strange little man, who seems to pass out of vision into reality +just before the suicide. What did _that_ mean? Why was he there? Had +he, like some added flick of colour in the work of a master, been put +in, not because he was there in Nature, but because he was needed for +the picture? For me, at any rate, he had the effect of making all the +rest more convincing, and, while he appeared to be purely fantastic, +of corresponding to some esoteric reality. Or was the apparition at +the railway station also only a vision, in that case the vision of a +vision? To Owen such a question was of no interest whatever, and it was +Owen’s questions that we principally discussed. + +Very often I walked home with him and hung swinging on the iron +gate while we finished an argument. At such moments he exhibited an +exhilarating eagerness, and he was never anxious to get the better +of me in merely verbal dispute, as I frequently was of him. It was +the thing in itself he saw, and he went at it like a terrier at a +rabbit-hole, sending up showers of sand into the air, but never getting +to the bottom. Sometimes, when we were talking, he would catch me by my +arms and swing me slowly back and forward. Sometimes he would draw me +close up to him till my face almost touched his, and his eyes seemed to +look straight into my spirit, and then he would suddenly release me. He +had a very quick and passionate temper, and was ridiculously sensitive, +so that, though I employed infinitely more tact with him than I had +ever done with anybody else, I occasionally offended him. Then he would +leave me, his face as red as a turkey-cock, and his grey eyes dark and +bright. Possibly for the rest of that day he would ignore me utterly; +indeed, the first time it happened, I was sure we had quarrelled for +ever. But the next morning he came up to me with a shy and shamefaced +smile, saying he was sorry. At such times there would come into his +voice so charming a gentleness that it was impossible to remain angry +with him. + + * * * * * + +“Will you come to the opera to-night?” he asked me one morning, looking +up from an old, ink-stained Virgil. We were sitting in the window-seat, +where we always sat together, and which just held two. As Dr. Gwynn, +the head Classical-master, was very old, very blind, and rather deaf, +it was possible to pass the time quite pleasantly in this retreat. + +I had not yet been inside a theatre, and Owen had been but seldom. +“What is on?” I asked. + +“‘Faust.’” + +“‘Faust’? All right.” + +“I’ll meet you outside the theatre at a quarter to seven.” + +“Very well; I’ll be there.” + +I went home straight from school, in order to get my work done for the +next day, but when I pushed open the door I became conscious that an +altercation between Aunt Margaret and Miss Izzy was in progress in the +other shop. They were so busy that they did not even hear me enter, +though the shop-bell had rung, and, as I lingered on the threshold, I +gathered that the dispute was about a young man, and I guessed who he +was. I had seen him; his name was Moore; he travelled in the stationery +line, and he admired Miss Izzy. + +I heard Aunt Margaret’s familiar “_some_ people,” with an accent on the +“some.” It was in this indirect manner that she invariably produced +her most disagreeable remarks, and it was very much in the air just +now. Miss Izzy displayed an icy dignity by stiff elbows, an erect head, +and an elaborate preoccupation with the business of the shop. She +seemed all collar and cuffs and freezing silence, which she could not +quite keep up, for every now and again she threw out a retort. Aunt +Margaret’s ponderous black form filled up the inner doorway. Her large +face, her drawn-in mouth, her black, shining eyes, her wig, gave her +an alarming and bizarre appearance, but Miss Izzy was not in the least +alarmed. + +I came in, not wishing to be caught listening. Miss Izzy just cast a +glance at me, and tossed her head. + +I brushed past Aunt Margaret and went upstairs to my dinner, leaving +the parlour door open, however, so that I might still hear the conflict +going on below. When the shop-bell rang Aunt Margaret’s voice would +cease; then, when the customer had departed, it would begin again. +Presently I heard Uncle George shuffling downstairs, and his entrance +on the scene was followed by an outburst of both feminine voices +together. The noise was becoming exciting, but I could no longer make +out the words, though I hung over the balusters to listen. Then I heard +Aunt Margaret coming upstairs, and Uncle George following her. She was +in a violent passion. “Fool――fool――fool,” she screamed at him all along +the passage. Then came confused remonstrances in Uncle George’s quiet +voice, but they were interrupted by the banging of a door that shook +the whole house. I came out into the lobby once more. I heard Uncle +George trying to get into the room, but the door must have been locked +from the inside, and through it came a shrill torrent of abuse. Uncle +George’s face was white and strange as he turned round and caught me +staring at him. He told me to go away, but almost immediately he came +after me into the parlour, where I had sat down again to my dinner. He +told me Aunt Margaret was not well, that she had had a very bad attack +last night, and been kept awake and in pain all night long. I could see +that he would have liked to know if I had grasped the nature of several +of those words that had come out to him through the closed door, but I +continued stolidly to eat my dinner, without giving any sign. When I +had finished, I got out my books, but as soon as the coast was clear I +slipped downstairs to the shop. Miss Izzy was there alone, and affected +not to see me. + +“What’s the matter with Aunt Margaret?” I asked; at which ingenuous +question Miss Izzy gave a short contemptuous laugh. + +A blowzy girl, sucking a sweet, came in to buy a novelette, and when +she had gone I informed Miss Izzy that I was going that night to hear +“Faust.” Miss Izzy expressed not the faintest interest in this project. + +I turned over a book of views in melancholy silence――views of the +Linen Hall Library, and of Donegall Place; of the Cave Hill, and the +Albert Memorial; and I wondered if it would please Katherine were I to +send her a complete set. I looked at the price, written in Miss Izzy’s +secret code, on the back, and could not make up my mind. + +“When people can’t control themselves there are places where they can +have people to look after them,” Miss Izzy announced to a bundle of +“Horner’s Penny Stories,” which she next moment swept viciously into a +corner. + +This cryptic remark I took as referring to Aunt Margaret, but, seeing +my expectant face, Miss Izzy unkindly refused to follow it up. + +I was disheartened, and began to read aloud advertisements of art books +from the back of a magazine I had bought on my way home. The third of +these bore the simple title “Michael Angelo,” and Miss Izzy astonished +me by saying, “That’s one of Marie Corelli’s.” + +I ventured to tell her that Michael Angelo was a great painter and +sculptor, but the information was lost on Miss Izzy, who in the midst +of it said sharply, “Oh, don’t bother.” + +I waited for a while, digesting this snub. Then, “Was she talking about +Mr. Moore?” I asked, indiscreetly. + +Miss Izzy regarded me at first mildly and absently, but as the +sense of my question slowly forced its way through the meshes of +her cogitations, suddenly in extreme wrath: “If you’d mind your own +business,” she snapped, “you’d hear fewer lies. I don’t know what +you’re doing down here at all!” + +“I’m doing nothing,” I answered, crestfallen. + +“People talk about girls being curious and gossiping,” Miss Izzy went +on, scornfully, “but if other boys are like you――――” + +I retired upstairs without waiting for the conclusion of the parallel. +I worked for an hour and a half, and by then it was tea-time. Aunt +Margaret did not appear, and we were told she was lying down. George, +who had come home earlier than usual, inquired where I was going to, +and when I informed him, asked if he might come too. I did not like to +refuse, though I did not want him, and knew he and Owen would not get +on together. I told him I was going with Owen. + +“Is that the chap you’re so thick with? I don’t suppose he’ll mind me, +will he?” + +I introduced them to each other at the theatre door. We were early, +and had nearly three-quarters of an hour to wait. Owen and I began to +talk, but our conversation evidently bored George, who, in the midst of +it, introduced a characteristic remark of his own, at which I laughed, +though I did not want to. Owen, who did not always see a joke, and +who would have detested the best joke in the world of the particular +kind George most affected, instantly relapsed into silence. He looked +at George for a moment; then he took a copy of the “Golden Treasury” +translation of Plato’s “Republic” from his pocket and began to read. I +had known well enough something of this sort was bound to happen, and I +made no attempt to bridge it over. George nudged me with his elbow and +closed his left eye. Owen’s disapproval did not put him about in the +least, and he continued to chatter quite unabashed. + +Presently the fire-proof curtain went up, the lights were raised, and +the band straggled in and began to tune their fiddles. The conductor +followed, a fat little German with a bald head which shone like a large +ostrich egg. He faced the audience and bowed two or three times to +their applause; then, turning round, he tapped the music stand sharply +with his baton, and the first phrase was drawn slowly out on the +’cellos. + +With the end of the overture the lights were turned down, and the +curtain rose on the lonely Faust, seated before a skull, an hour-glass, +and a large book, in his study. I had already forgotten Owen, George, +and everything but what I saw before me. I was surprised to find that +this old, grey-bearded man, who looked, in the dimness, like an Albert +Durer print, had a fresh, strong, tenor voice. Outside I heard the +singing of the peasants; then followed the rage and despair of Faust, +and, in a flaming red light, the apparition of Mephistopheles. Faust +pleaded for his lost youth, and Mephistopheles tempted him; the wall of +the study suddenly dissolved like a mist, and the vision of Margaret, +seated at her spinning-wheel, rose before the unhappy philosopher; +and the swinging, sensual phrase, repeated again and again in the +orchestra, lulled me to a dreamy languor. + + _Faust._――“Heavenly vision!” + + _Mephistopheles._――“Shall she love thee?” + +There could be but one answer, and I saw Faust yield to the tempter; I +saw his rejuvenescence; and a triumphant duet between them brought the +act to a close. + +I had become lost in this appealing melodrama, and though my mood was +broken in the next act, in the third act, in the celebrated garden +scene, it was revived and intensified. The sugary sweetness of the +music had an almost hypnotic effect upon me, for I had never heard it +till now, and the ecstatic sensuality of the duet rapt me into a world +of love, where everything else was forgotten. It was all utterly new +to me; it thrilled me; it drowned me in erotic dreams that swept me +onward like the waves of the sea; and through all, subconsciously, as +I listened and watched, I was carrying on another love-making of my +own, with which Faust and Margaret had nothing to do. Through the next +two acts I followed more closely the fortunes of the unhappy heroine, +not without a naïve wonder why so much tragedy, so much remorse, +should attend on what appeared to me――but for the intervention of +the devil――a quite natural and straightforward courtship. For some +reason, possibly the fault of the libretto, more probably because I +could only catch about half the words, I could not discover wherein +lay the secret of the trouble, nor why the lovers did not get married. +I accepted the situation however: I accepted, I think, everything but +the absurd “Soldiers’ Chorus,” and the death-scene of Valentine. This +latter nearly made me sick at the time, though I forgot all about it +when the curtain rose to reveal the wretched Margaret in prison. With +enthusiasm I watched her reject her lover and the demon, and fling +herself on her knees to pour out her soul in a prayer which finished on +the high B. At last I saw her released from all the ills of life, her +body stretched on the miserable straw bed. And with that the walls of +the prison rolled back, and I had a vision of her soul being borne to +heaven by angels. It is true those white-clad, flaxen-haired creatures, +with glistening wings and golden crowns, bore a not remote resemblance +to several of the livelier persons I had seen mingling with the +soldiers and students at an earlier stage of the drama; nevertheless I +beheld them, in this pause on their way to heaven, with respect, if not +exactly veneration. + +“I doubt they’re as near it now as they’ll ever be,” said George, +cynically, pulling his cap from his jacket pocket. + +And out in the street, under the gas-lamp at the corner, I had to +submit to a deluge of criticism from both my companions. I don’t know +which I liked least, the scorn of Owen, who revealed the tangible +source of Margaret’s woes, and would have had it adopted by the State, +or, after Owen had left, the ribald jibes of George, who found Faust a +poor creature, requiring a moon, a garden, a casket of jewels, a devil, +and several incantations, before he could beguile an innocent rustic +maiden who was already in love with him. I resolved that I would go to +the opera every night that week, but that I would go alone. Between +the acts I had eagerly studied my programme, and the delightful, +unfamiliar, romantic names, “Tannhäuser,” “Il Trovatore,” “Aida,” +“Lohengrin,” were like syrens singing to me through the darkness, with +an irresistible and passionate sweetness. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + + +I went to the opera every night that week, as I had planned to do, +but the edge of my appetite was blunted, and, save in the case of +“Tannhäuser,” and of “Lohengrin,” I was disappointed. I had already +become more critical, and I now doubted if “Faust” were the admirable +work I had fancied it. + +One evening there came a letter for me, and, when I opened the +envelope, I found inside a card which told me that Miss L. Gill and +Master E. Gill would be “at home” on Friday, the 23rd of December. My +own name was written at the top of the card. In the bottom left-hand +corner was the word “Dancing,” followed by the numerals 8–12; and in +the corner opposite were four mysterious letters――“R.S.V.P.” + +I knew it to be an invitation to a party, but “R.S.V.P.” was puzzling. +Neither Uncle George nor Aunt Margaret could throw any light upon these +symbols, though Uncle George pondered over the card half the evening, +as if it had been a kind of magazine competition. Miss Izzy probably +would have known, but Miss Izzy had gone, and would not be back till +to-morrow morning, whereas I had a keen conviction that action should +be taken to-night. + +“Who are they?” Uncle George asked, referring to the Gills. + +“Mr. Gill is a solicitor. Owen Gill is in my classes at school.” + +Uncle George examined the card anew, bringing this fresh light to bear +on it. He held it at arm’s length, and then put on his glasses and +peered at it through them. “Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill,” he read +aloud slowly and solemnly. + +I laughed. “They’re Owen’s young sister and brother,” I explained. + +“A solicitor. I suppose he will have some letters after his name,” said +Uncle George, weakly. + +“Oh, they’re not those,” I answered, impatiently. It seemed to me that +everybody was very stupid. + +“R.S.V.P.” Uncle George threw out thoughtfully. He turned the card +round and examined the back. + +“Reply soon: very pressing,” suggested George. + +His father looked at him doubtfully, and laid the card on the table. +“It can’t be so pressing,” he said, glancing at the calendar, “when +it’s a fortnight off.” + +“You see they have to make sure he’s coming before they ask anybody +else,” George explained. “Rippin’ spread: veal pie.” + +“I suppose you think that funny,” I broke in; whereupon George, seeing +I was inclined to be cross, kept it up. + +“Royal spree: von’t you partake? Refined soirée: veather permittin’. +That’s it, da, right enough; you can leave the card by.” + +But Uncle George continued to regard it searchingly, glancing at me +every now and again over his spectacles. + +Nothing was done that night, and in the morning, before school, I +approached Miss Izzy on the subject; though when I saw her examine the +card almost as carefully as the others had done, my faith in her sank. + +“You’ll have to answer on a card,” said Miss Izzy, loftily, having at +any rate settled the first point, and waving aside the sheet of note +paper I held in my hand. + +“I haven’t got one.” + +“There’s a box of them in the shop somewhere. They’ve been there since +the dear knows when. Nobody ever asks for cards.” She hunted about in a +drawer under the counter, and at length succeeded in finding the box. +Without breaking the pink paper band that held the cards together she +carefully extracted one from the bundle. I took it and dipped my pen in +the ink and waited. + +“Just answer it in the usual way,” said Miss Izzy, offhandedly, with +the air of one who dashes off at least half a dozen such communications +every day. + +“I don’t know the usual way,” I confessed. + +Miss Izzy aggravatingly paused to shake out a paper lamp-shade. Then +she attended to a little boy who came in to buy a “Deadwood Dick” tale. + +“Tell me what to say,” I begged, humbly. + +“Mr. Peter Waring,” dictated Miss Izzy, with much dignity; and I wrote +“Mr. Peter Waring,” in terror all the time of making a blot. + +Miss Izzy glanced over my shoulder. “You’ve begun too high up,” she +said, reassuringly. Then, as I made a movement to tear the card, “Oh, +it’ll do.” + +“Mr. Peter Waring begs to thank Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill for +their very kind invitation.” + +The shop-bell had rung again. It was the little boy back to change his +story for another he had discovered in the window, and which it took +Miss Izzy hours to extract. “Corduroy Charlie,” she murmured, as she +handed it across the counter. It was the title of the work. + +“Yes?” I said, trying not to appear impatient. + +Miss Izzy came back to my affairs. “Oh! what have you got?” + +“Mr. Peter Waring begs to thank Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill for +their very kind invitation――――” + +“Invitation.... And will be very pleased to accept same for the date +mentioned.” + +“Yes?” + +“That’s all. Don’t be signing your name, stupid!” + +I hastily checked myself. + +“What do those letters in the corner mean?” I asked timidly. “I suppose +I oughtn’t to put them on mine?” + +“Of course not. They’re French, and mean they want an answer.” + +I read over what I had written and thanked Miss Izzy, but secretly I +was not satisfied. I felt sure there was something wrong somewhere. It +did not read well. I put it in an envelope, however, and posted it, +though immediately afterwards I became more unhappy about it than ever. +I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Carroll for information when I was at +home at Christmas. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + + +I had been asked to the Gills’ for eight o’clock, and at half-past +six I began to dress. After posting my acceptance my next care had +been in regard to the clothes I should wear. There is no doubt greatly +increased opportunities had tended to develop in me a latent dandyism. +At all events I took the matter of my dress quite seriously, and had +very definite ideas in regard to it. I went to the best tailor in +town, my bills were sent on to Mrs. Carroll, and that was all I knew +about them. I tried to get the soft greys and blacks and whites I +admired in old Spanish and Dutch portraits, with perhaps a colour-note +of olive green in my neck-tie, but always with the tones kept low +and harmonious. Dandyism certainly, but it was in its way merely an +expression of those same sensibilities that enabled me to see the charm +of the pictures I have mentioned; that is to say, it was not based on +any feeling of personal vanity, for I had no illusions in regard to my +beauty. So, in this particular instance, I took immense pains to see +that everything should be exactly right, and at the same time pleasing +to myself. The cloth I had chosen was of the very blackest and finest +and softest. Each garment had to be fitted on me till I could find no +fault in it. The broad braid down the sides of my trousers seemed to +me perfectly decorative. It was really in its use of linen that modern +dress most conspicuously failed: what would Franz Hals or Velasquez +have thought of the stiff, glazed collar convention obliged me to wear? + +When I had finished dressing I looked at myself critically in the +inadequate glass, beside which I had set two or three candles, standing +in pools of their own grease. It seemed to me that the peculiar, sullen +expression of my face, caused by the formation of my forehead and the +shape of my mouth, must always create an unfavourable impression. If +I could recognise it myself, it would probably be a great deal more +striking to other people. It disappeared when I smiled, but as soon as +I stopped smiling it came back again. + +I went downstairs and strutted about before Miss Izzy and little Alice, +that they might admire my fine feathers, and it was only when I reached +the Gills that every other feeling was swallowed up in a horrible +shyness. + +The whole house was brilliantly lit up, and I was shown to a room +already half-filled with boys, who were removing their overcoats, +putting on their dancing shoes, talking and laughing perfectly easily, +just as if the most frightful ordeal were not staring them in the +face. Evidently they all knew each other quite well, whereas I knew +nobody. Owen came up, indeed, and spoke to me, but forsook me almost +immediately, as people were arriving every minute, two or three of +them, I observed, quite grown-up. I wished Owen would come back. When I +saw a boy I knew slightly and heartily disliked, I was ready to welcome +him as the oldest and dearest of friends, but, not being in my solitary +condition, he merely nodded to me, and went over to join a group at +the other side of the room. I was left standing by myself, not knowing +what to do; and all the time fresh guests were arriving, and I felt I +was in the way, but could not summon up courage to make a movement. I +now bitterly regretted having been such a fool as to come. I noticed +several other boys with whom I had a casual acquaintance at school, but +beyond nodding they paid no attention to me, and I became filled with +rage against them and against Owen himself. Then I heard a voice saying +over my shoulder, “If you’re ready you may as well come upstairs.” + +It was Owen, and I followed him obediently. I passed a group of boys +loitering outside an open door, and found myself all at once in a +large room. The light at first half-dazzled me. With a heart furiously +beating I was led up to a tall, slight lady in black, who was standing +near the fireplace. This was Owen’s mother. I shook hands with her, +and with his father, and with one of his elder sisters. But when this +was accomplished I was again in that horrible position of not knowing +what to do and being afraid to move. Owen had once more deserted me. +All about me were a crowd of brightly-dressed girls, chattering and +laughing among themselves, and pretending not to look at me. The boys, +with whom I would have liked now to be back again, were hovering near +the door, and I tried to screw up my courage to the point of crossing +the room. Then somebody――I think it was Owen’s sister――gave me a +programme. I stood clasping it tightly in my hand. It seemed to me +now unthinkably idiotic that I should voluntarily have placed myself +in this position of torture, when all I had had to do was to refuse +the invitation and stay at home. At that moment a lady to whom I had +not been introduced spoke to me, though I was too much upset to hear +what she said. She had a pleasant smile, a voice soft and attractive, +and she asked me my name, and told me I must get some partners. Many +of the other boys, I noticed, had begun to ask for dances, and were +scribbling down names in their programmes. My new friend bore me off to +a fair-haired, fair-skinned, demure-looking maiden in a pink, fleecy +dress, and introduced me. Unfortunately, at this point, one of the +grown-up persons, a tall young man, called out, “Annie, half a mo,” +and my protectress turned away, leaving me to make my own advances. +I could do nothing. How could I ask this wretched girl to dance with +me when I had never danced in my life? For an agonizing moment I stood +there; then I stammered out something, turned on my heel abruptly, and +walked away. + +It was dreadful. Before me I saw a conservatory, the door of which +was open, and I escaped into it as my only refuge. I felt utterly +miserable. It occurred to me to slip out quietly and go home, but to +do that I should have to cross the room, and somebody would be sure to +pounce upon me. Besides, what would the McAllisters think? The first +dance had commenced, and I saw that my golden-haired maiden had found +another partner. He happened to be one of the boys I knew, and I was +certain she would tell him what I had done, and that everybody at +school would get to know about it. + +In the midst of the dance the lady called Annie bore straight down upon +me, having detected my hiding-place. But she did not seem angry; on the +contrary, she was laughing. She threaded her way among the palms, while +I felt my face becoming purple. + +“What do you mean by running away like that from the partners I choose +for you?” she asked gaily. “Elsie told me you wouldn’t ask her to +dance, and she says it’s my fault, that I made you come when you didn’t +want to.” + +“I can’t dance,” I answered huskily. Nevertheless, Elsie’s explanation +of my conduct, in spite of the fact that it redoubled its rudeness, +gave me relief. + +The “Annie” lady looked at me, still laughing. Then she said very +kindly, “Oh, don’t mind; it really doesn’t matter in the least. Come +and dance with me.” + +“But I can’t,” I muttered, “I never tried in my life.” + +“Well, come and talk to me then, and we can watch the others.” + +She led me back into the room. She asked me all kinds of questions +about myself, and very soon I was chattering away as if I had known her +all my life. I had forgotten what an extremely small boy I had been +only ten minutes ago, as I looked about me boldly, and gave “Annie” my +opinion on all kinds of things. + +We talked of the opera, and when she told me she preferred the +“Trovatore” to “Lohengrin” I thought her taste very crude. All the +same I liked her. She laughed in a nice way, and was interested in +everything you said to her. I pulled up my trousers a little so that +my delicate silk socks should be more visible. As I glanced round the +room I decided that I was much better dressed than anybody there, and +this conviction increased my confidence. I would have liked to ask +“Annie” what she thought of me from this point of view, but instead, +she inquired if I was fond of reading. I replied in the affirmative, +and she asked me if I had read “Tom Brown’s School-days.” I again said, +“Yes,” and asked her if she had read “Anna Karénine.” + +“What a curious book for you to get hold of! I should have thought you +would have preferred ‘The Coral Island,’ or ‘Midshipman Easy.’ Those +are the kind of books _my_ brothers like. That is one of my brothers +there, that fat ugly boy with red hair, dancing with the little girl in +white.” + +I inspected the brother. “‘Anna Karénine’ is a fine book,” I answered. +“Why didn’t she ask for the divorce at once, do you think? I mean as +soon as she went away with Wronsky?” + +Out of the tail of my eye I saw the young man who had before interfered +between us again approaching. She saw him too, and immediately called +out, “Bertie, we’re discussing ‘Anna Karénine.’ I’m sure you haven’t +read it.” + +We didn’t really discuss it, for she changed the subject directly +afterwards, without even having answered my question, and Bertie, +who I heard later was a football player of great renown, asked me +if my school was going to win the cup this year. The first square +dance “Annie” insisted on my dancing with her, and, so far as I could +judge, I shuffled through it all right. After that she left me to my +own resources, and I returned to Bertie. There was something between +Bertie and her, I believed. I was sure he had only come because she +had told him she was going to be there to help to look after the kids. +Bertie had danced all the dances up to this one, but he now told me +that if he didn’t have a smoke he should die, and asked me to come to +the billiard-room with him. We played a hundred up, Bertie going two +to my one, but I beat him, for I had often knocked the balls about +on the table at Derryaghy, though there was rarely anybody to have a +game with. Bertie said I should make a good player if I practised, +and he showed me a lot of strokes. He was very jolly and I liked +him. Presently he asked me if I didn’t want some supper, and we went +downstairs. Refreshments had been going on all the evening, but the +room happened to be empty when we came in. There was a great deal of +lemonade and stuff, but Bertie secured some champagne, and by the time +I had had two glasses I began to feel extremely comfortable and jolly. +Bertie’s jokes were twice as good as they had been before, and my own +conversation suddenly acquired an interest and brilliancy that made me +want to talk as much as possible. After my third glass Bertie suggested +I should try Apollinaris, but I refused. The room had somehow by this +time got full of people. Bertie told me to keep quiet, but just then he +was called away, and I was left to finish my supper alone. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + + +When I got to my feet to go back to the dancing-room, everything swayed +before my eyes, and I held on to the back of my chair till I had +steadied myself. I felt now as bold as a lion, and as soon as I clapped +eyes on Elsie, my golden-haired maiden whom I had insulted earlier +in the evening, I determined to apologize. I went up to her, looking +neither to right nor left, and placing myself in front of her asked her +to give me the next dance. + +She looked at me somewhat timidly, and said she was engaged already, +showing me her programme. I at once stroked the name out. + +“Now,” I said, “let’s go and sit down somewhere. He’ll never find us.” + +She hesitated, but only for a second or two. Then she rose and put her +hand lightly on my arm. + +“Don’t you think it’s awfully hot in here?” I went on, with amazing +aplomb. “Besides, we have to hide any way, haven’t we?” + +But outside, the landing was full of people. I glanced at the staircase +before us, seeming to lead up into regions of dim coolness and +solitude, and proposed we should try to find some place on the next +floor. + +There was indeed a seat there, in the dusk, but Elsie looked at it with +misgiving. “I don’t think we should have come so high up,” she said. +“I’m sure we’re not meant to. I think we’d better go down: nobody else +is coming up here.” + +“But isn’t that just the reason we came? It’s all right. If anybody +else does come we won’t be the only ones, and if they don’t who’s to +know anything about us?” + +I don’t know whether Elsie was convinced by this sophistry, but at any +rate she sat down. “I want to apologize to you,” I began softly. “Are +you very angry with me?” I was surprised at the amount of expression I +was able to throw into my voice, and I had a delightful feeling of not +caring a straw what I said or did. It was fairly evident that Elsie +rather admired the mood I was displaying, though I could see she was +slightly puzzled by it. + +“No,” she answered simply. “I knew you were shy.” She lifted her +innocent grey eyes to mine, and it came over me, very intensely, that +she was extremely pretty. She looked very soft and demure in her fleecy +pink dress, and with her hands folded in her lap. + +“Do you think I’m shy now?” I asked, smiling. + +“No,” she answered sweetly. + +I couldn’t help laughing. At the same time I felt a sudden tenderness +for her, which it seemed most essential that I should put into words. + +“You’ve forgiven me then?” I went on. + +She laughed. “What nonsense you talk. As if it mattered.” + +“It matters to me. Say you forgive me.” + +“I won’t. There’s nothing to forgive.” She blushed and looked down. + +“Say it,” I persisted, bending towards her. “If you don’t I’ll think +you dislike me.” + +She kept her eyes downcast, and I drew closer still. + +“Well?” + +“I don’t dislike you,” she whispered. + +I kissed her. She blushed a deep delightful blush, but did not move +away. The swinging melody of a waltz rose up to us through the dim cool +light. + +“Are you angry now?” I asked. + +She shook her head. I put my arms round her, and as I felt her yielding +I had a strong strange pleasure. I held her close to me, kissing her +again and again, while she closed her eyes like a cat that is being +stroked. For a moment I felt her lips touch mine, then she struggled +away from me, and without looking back hurried downstairs. + +I followed, but before I could rejoin her Owen caught me by the arm. +“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I’ve hardly seen you all the +evening. What have you been up to?” + +I laughed. + +He looked at me, slightly perplexed. “What is there so amusing?” he +inquired. + +But I didn’t try to explain. + +“What is the matter?” Owen went on, gazing at me. + +“Nothing,” I answered. + +“Come on upstairs: it’s cooler there. There’s a seat on the next lobby.” + +“Is there?” I replied, as I followed him. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + + +“I hope you haven’t been awfully bored?” was Owen’s first remark after +we sat down. + +“No; I think it’s a lovely party.” + +There was a silence. + +“What _is_ the matter, Peter?” Owen asked again. + +“Nothing, Owen, except natural excitement. Don’t be suspicious.” + +Owen looked unconvinced, but he decided to change the subject. “Do you +know the part of the book that I really like best? It is where Levine +mows the meadows with the peasants.” + +I knew we were back again at “Anna Karénine,” but I couldn’t bring my +mind to bear upon it. + +“That is the real kind of life,” Owen pursued, “where all is simple, +and natural; where there are no balls and clubs and lies and all the +rest. I hate towns. I shall always live somewhere in the country.” + +“It doesn’t suit everybody,” I brilliantly observed. + +“It doesn’t suit people like Anna and Wronsky.” + +“You’re always down on poor Anna.” + +“She’s not poor. She had every chance to be happy. Why couldn’t she +have been content to be friends with Wronsky? All the rest was pure +selfishness.” + +“You don’t understand,” I replied. + +Owen hated to be told this. “Understand what?” he demanded, impatiently. + +“The kind of love Anna and Wronsky had for each other.” + +“Why, then, as soon as she goes to live with Wronsky, does she begin to +talk so much of her love for her son? I don’t like her. It seems to me +that she deliberately spoiled the lives of her husband and her son for +her own gratification.” + +“She didn’t spoil her son’s life. He was only a little boy.” + +“But she forsook him.” + +“You don’t understand,” I was obliged to repeat. “You never _will_ +understand.” + +“Do you want to stick up for that sort of thing?” + +“I’m not sticking up for it; but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing +a person can accept or refuse just as if it were an invitation to a +party. If you knew anything about it you wouldn’t say they might have +been content to be friends.” + +“And do you like the way she makes fun of her husband to her lover?” + +“What has that to do with it?” + +“Even when she is making her confession to her husband she thinks only +of herself. She tells him that she hates him. It does not occur to her +that he can have any feelings, because his manner is stiff and he has a +habit of cracking his finger-joints.” + +“It didn’t much matter how she made her confession.” + +“It did. She needn’t have been brutal.” + +“Oh, she wasn’t brutal.” + +“And all the lies?” + +“But you never seem to think of her situation!” + +“I do. She deliberately brought about her own situation, after having +been warned by her husband. You admire her simply because she loves +Wronsky; but there is nothing very wonderful about that kind of love.” + +“I never said I admired her; I said I understood her. If she sacrificed +her husband, she sacrificed herself too.” + +“Yes――and her lover, and her friend Kitty, and her son, and everything. +Levine’s brother, who drinks himself to death, also sacrifices himself. +And Yavshine, who gambles away all his fortune.” + +“You don’t see any difference?” + +“I don’t see anything fine in the kind of love Anna felt. And when she +says she won’t have any more children, it seems to me that it becomes +simply disgusting. Have you thought what it means?” + +“Oh, I know what it means,” I answered sulkily. Owen had managed to +completely alter my mood, and I no longer felt pleased with myself or +pleased with him. I was irritated because he seemed, now as always, to +try to judge what was a matter of emotion by reasoning about it. + +“If you had ever loved anybody,” I said, “it would make you look at +such things differently.” + +“Perhaps I mightn’t see them any clearer for that.” + +“Perhaps not. But to judge human beings you require first of all to +understand something about human nature.” + +“Understand! You’re always harping on that! It’s a very cheap way of +arguing. Why should I think _you_ understand?” + +“Because I have felt what we are talking about, and you haven’t.” I +suddenly grew violently excited. “You don’t know what it is to care +for a person so that nothing else in the world matters, so that it is +like a kind of sickness, preventing you even from sleeping. You know +nothing, have felt nothing, and yet you bring out your miserable little +catechism arguments and pretend to pronounce judgment. I’d rather have +a man who had committed all the crimes on the earth than one of those +cold, fishy, reasonable creatures you admire, who never did anything +wrong, and never made anybody happy.” + +Owen looked at me in amazement, which is indeed hardly surprising. +But suddenly my excitement passed, and I felt only a passion of +home-sickness and regret. It swept over me like a heavy, resistless +rush of water. All that was here around me grew black as night. I +longed to get away from everything that could even remind me of my +life of the past few months. I seemed to have a sudden bright light in +which I saw myself clearly. In these few months I had deteriorated, the +quality even of my love for Katherine had deteriorated; it had become +less of the spirit, more of an obsession. And now, as I stood there +before Owen, I seemed to hear the soft breaking of waves, infinitely +peaceful, and I had a vision of my own bedroom, where I went to sleep, +and wakened up, with the low sound of the sea in my ears. I said +good-night hurriedly to the astonished Owen. I told him I was sorry for +speaking as I had done, but that I would explain it all to him another +time; only now I must go. I ran downstairs to the cloak-room, and a few +minutes later left the house, without having said good-night to Mrs. +Gill. + + * * * * * + +When I reached home I let myself in quietly with a latch-key, but as I +was undressing George wakened up and began to ask me about the party. I +did not feel in the least like going to sleep, and after I had got into +bed we lay talking. Presently George got up and lit the gas, which I +had turned out. I saw him go to the hiding-place he had shown me on the +night of my arrival, and again take from it that mysterious bundle of +photographs. He came over and sat down on the side of my bed. + +“I don’t want to see them,” I said, pushing him away; but he may have +detected a note of weakness in my voice, for he only laughed. + +“Don’t be a fool,” he answered brutally. “I’m not going to do you any +harm.” + +He drew them from the envelope and showed them to me, one by one, while +the gas flamed and flared above our heads. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + + +Owen stepped back off the foot-board on to the platform. + +“Good-bye,” I said, leaning out of the carriage window. “There’s no use +your waiting till the train starts. I hope you’ll have decent holidays.” + +He smiled. “I’m sure I will. I wish, all the same, you were going to be +with me. I thought of it, but then I thought you would rather go home.” + +“Yes,” I said. + +“Wouldn’t you really? Don’t you want to go home?” + +“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?” + +“I don’t know. You don’t seem, perhaps, quite so keen as you were――――” + +Owen still waited, but I had taken my seat. + +“Well, I’ll see you again in a fortnight,” he went on, cheerfully. +“Write to me, won’t you, if you aren’t too busy?” + +“Yes.” + +Another pause followed, while Owen looked up and down the platform. He +seemed to me extraordinarily happy. + +“Well, good-bye again,” he said. + +“Good-bye.” + +And this time the guard’s whistle blew, the train jolted forward with +a clatter of coupling-irons, and then glided steadily on. I waved my +hand to Owen, catching a last glimpse of his bright, animated face +before I settled down to the indifferent contemplation of the staler, +and coarser-looking persons who shared my compartment. What I had +been looking forward to for many weeks had come to pass; I was on my +way home; outwardly nothing was wanting; yet not even the thought of +seeing Mrs. Carroll again seemed to have power to awaken that joy I +had anticipated, though she had written to ask me to spend part of my +holidays with her, and I tried now to think of some scheme by which to +make this part as large as possible. + +I looked at the people opposite; I looked out of the window; I turned +the pages of _Punch’s Almanac_, which Owen had bought for me at the +bookstall. Then I shut my eyes and tried to doze. + +When the train drew in at the station I saw my father standing on the +platform. Somehow, I had not expected him to be there, and he upset my +calculations. I opened the carriage door, and as I shook hands with him +I realized how much easier it is to make plans than to carry them out, +and hoped Mrs. Carroll herself had approached him on the matter of my +going to Derryaghy. His careworn, anxious face was lit by a smile as +he asked me how I was. A porter meanwhile had secured my box and was +wheeling it on a truck along the platform. But, as we walked behind +him, that old stupid feeling of constraint had already begun to take +possession of me, and my replies to my father’s questions sounded, for +all I could do to the contrary, stiff, and even reluctant. + +It was after one o’clock and dinner was ready when we reached the house. + +“The train must have been late,” I remarked, indifferently, as we sat +down; and then I could think of nothing further to say. + +It struck me that my father was older and dimmer and shabbier than +I had remembered him. He presented the picture, drab and dreary, of +perfectly achieved failure, and I found myself looking out for all +his old habits, the peculiar noises he made with his nose, his fashion +of smacking his lips. I noticed that his hands were not very clean, +and that his coat looked as if he had brushed his hair over it. These +things struck me all the more forcibly, somehow, because I tried to +think how superficial and unimportant they were. I had a vision of +the solitary meals he must have taken for the past four months, and +I was sorry for him, though subconsciously, at the same time, I was +considering how soon it would do for me to mention my proposed visit to +Derryaghy. + +After dinner he asked me what I wanted to do. “It is nice and dry for +walking,” he said. “We have had quite a hard frost.” + +It sounded as if he intended coming with me, a thing he seldom or never +did. + +“I was thinking of going up to Derryaghy,” I answered, with an +assumption of carelessness that did not prevent my noting the immediate +change that came into his face. + +“Had you planned anything?” I asked hastily. + +“No, no.” + +“Perhaps you would like to go for a walk?” + +“No, no. Please yourself,” he replied. + +So I went up to Derryaghy, with a guilty sense that I had hurt his +feelings. It was a pity that I should have begun in this fashion; +that I could not, for once, have been cheerfully and spontaneously +unselfish, but my longing to get back to my old haunts was intense, and +I yielded to it. + +After all, when I reached Derryaghy, Mrs. Carroll was not there. She +had left a message for me to say that she had been obliged to go up +to town, but that she hoped I should be able to dine with her at the +usual hour. I wandered out into the winter woods, beautiful with the +strange and delicate beauty of naked trees. I loved this place really +with a kind of passion, and I was glad my father was not here, glad +that I was alone. Dark slender branches traced fantastic arabesques +against the grey sky above my head. The black- and silver-stemmed +birches gave the note that was carried out through all the colouring. +Only the fir-trees, laurels, and an occasional holly-tree, were green. +I loved the woods in winter; they seemed to me to have then a peculiar +grace they did not possess at any other season. And the wind whistled +so hollowly in the leafless trees, and the darting birds were so black +against the sky, and all was so silent and solitary, with a sort of +frozen loveliness, that I could conceive of nothing more beautiful even +in the green pomp and splendour of summer. And behind everything was +a vision of long, lamp-lit, fire-lit evenings, with dreamy, delicious +books. The leaves of the laurels and holly were coated with frost; +the dead fronds of the bracken were a dull brown; here and there the +sombre colouring was splashed with the red leaves of brambles. There +was a hint of approaching snow in the air, there was almost a silence +of snow, and I seemed to feel it drawing closer to me through the cold, +remote sky. The ground was hard as iron. Sometimes a single leaf, +pallid and faded, trembled still at the end of a twig, but almost all +the leaves that were going to fall had fallen long ago. I saw the flash +of fur, brown and white, in the frozen grass, but Tony, who followed at +my heels, was indifferent to rabbits. + +It was dusk when I returned. A servant preceded me into the +drawing-room, and lit the lamps, and made up the fire, throwing on +another log or two. I sat down in one of the big, soft armchairs and +began to turn over Christmas numbers――the _Graphic_, the _London News_, +_Holly Leaves_――looking at Caldecott’s, Sambourne’s, and Fred Barnard’s +drawings. I began to read a story by Bret Harte. It was extraordinarily +nice to be here again. This dear old house, how I loved it! The huge +wood fire, the roomy depth of my armchair, the soft, thick carpet, +all the surroundings of pleasantness and comfort, appealed to me +after my prolonged and reluctant experience of the McAllisters. The +fragrant China tea that was brought in to me tasted more deliciously +than anything I had ever tasted before, and when I had finished my +story (“The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge,” I think it was called) and the +servant had cleared away the tea-things, I sat and dozed. + +I had asked after Miss Dick, but of course she had gone home for +Christmas. I was really to be alone this time――just myself and Mrs. +Carroll. + +As I sat there, looking into the fire, I felt that it would have been +nicer of me to have gone home on this, the evening of my arrival, +but six o’clock, our tea hour, had struck ten minutes ago, and still +I had not budged from my chair. Curious thoughts, thoughts I should +have been ashamed to tell anybody, came to me unbidden, and for the +first time. It made a tremendous difference just who happened to be +one’s father, I reflected; and I thought of how the Dales were Mrs. +Carroll’s nearest relatives. “She likes me better than anybody else,” I +said to myself. “If I were by myself she would adopt me. All this――the +house――everything will belong one day to somebody else; but to whom?... +The house?” ... And I remembered she did not care for Gerald, and +that Gerald did not in the least try to make her alter her opinion. +Probably he had only come over last summer because his people had +insisted on it. All at once I realized that these speculations were not +particularly charming, and tried to put them from me. At the same time +I heard the sharp sound of a horse’s hoofs on the frozen ground, then +the crunch of gravel under carriage wheels, and I knew Mrs. Carroll had +returned. + +She opened the door and came straight to me, smiling and holding out +her hand. “You’ve grown so big,” she said, lifting her thick veil, “I +don’t know whether you want to be kissed or not, but I think I’ll risk +it.” She kissed me, and then held me at arm’s length to look at me. +She moved me a little so that the lamp-light fell on my face. “My dear +child,” she asked, with a sudden anxiety, “aren’t you well? How did +you get those black lines under your eyes? You can’t be getting enough +sleep. Have you been working too hard?” + +“No,” I answered, “but I was up late last night.” + +“You must be more careful: your health is infinitely more important +than any wretched examination. Well, at all events, I’m very glad to +see you.” + + * * * * * + +A couple of hours later, after dinner, she again took up the subject of +my appearance, which evidently did not satisfy her, though I assured +her there was nothing the matter. + +“You’ve altered,” she said, thoughtfully. “It isn’t only that you’ve +grown, but you, somehow, look older. Do you get your meals properly? +I expect you stop to play after school instead of coming home to your +dinner!” + +I changed the subject as soon as I could by asking after the Dales. +“Will they be here next summer?” + +“If you would like it I daresay we can manage it. In fact I invited +Katherine for Christmas, but she couldn’t come.” + +“I hope they will come in the summer.” + +I inquired after all the other people I could think of: I felt +interested in everything that had happened since I had gone away. Then +I sat quiet, and quite suddenly, when I thought she had forgotten all +about it, Mrs. Carroll said, “I wish you would tell me, Peter, just +what is troubling you.” + +“But there is nothing,” I answered, smiling. “I was only thinking how +nice it was to be back here again.” + +“Remember you are to come to stay for a few days, before the end of +your holidays. You must stay at least a week. When have you to go +back?” + +“On the eighth.” + +“And those people you are with――the What-do-you-call-ems――how do you +like them?” + +“The McAllisters?” I hesitated. “Not very much.” + +“Do they look after you properly?” + +“Oh yes.” + +“I think I’ll come and see you there. I would have gone before this, +only your father didn’t want it.” + +“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. + +“Why?” + +I had no answer and she went on: “I must call and have a talk with your +father before you go back.” + +“It won’t do any good so far as that is concerned. He wants me to be +there. Aunt Margaret is his sister.” + +“I know that, but you’d rather be by yourself, wouldn’t you? I can see +there is something you don’t like.” + +“My father wouldn’t let me. He has some idea about a home +influence――but I told you before, and of course he told you himself.” + +“Home fiddlesticks! You’d have been far better at a good +boarding-school. This, it seems to me, is neither one thing nor +another. I must speak to him.” + +“There is no use really,” I said, for I knew that if she were to take +the matter up again it might end in my not even being allowed to come +to stay at Derryaghy next week. + +“Your father is far too anxious about you. If there had been two or +three more of you it would have been much better.” + +“It isn’t that.” I waited a while before I brought it out: “He doesn’t +trust me.” + +“Doesn’t trust you? In what way doesn’t he trust you?” + +“In every way. He thinks I’m inclined naturally to――to do things――” + +“To do things? What sort of things?” + +“To be bad,” I said abruptly. + +Mrs. Carroll stared at me. “Nonsense, child,” she answered. “I don’t +know what can have put such an idea into your head!” + +“_He_ did,” I muttered. “There are times when I think he may be right,” +I went on dejectedly, “that he must surely have some reason. I don’t +know.... He is always thinking about my mother.” + +Mrs. Carroll had been on the point of speaking, but at this she paused. + +“I know nothing about her,” I pursued. “I can’t remember her at all, +and there is not even a photograph at home. What _is_ there? Do _you_ +know nothing?” + +Mrs. Carroll hesitated. “Nothing,” she then said. “Nothing more than +you know yourself, Peter dear,” she added. + +“You have never heard? I should like to go to see her.” + +“Yes?” There was a note of doubt in this monosyllable which made me +look up. + +“I should like to judge for myself,” I continued, impetuously. But the +question was, or to Mrs. Carroll appeared to be, an impossible one for +us to discuss together, and she made no reply. + +“And how do you like your school?” she asked presently, holding up a +magazine between her face and the blazing fire. “Tell me all about +it――about all your friends and everything you do.” + +I began to tell her, giving, as I went along a kind of rough, rambling +account of my ordinary day. I told of how I had come to know Owen; how +the real thief had never been discovered. I described Owen to her; I +said he was the only friend I had made. I told her of the party last +night, leaving out the episode of Elsie. + +“It makes such a difference when you find somebody who is more or less +like yourself.” + +“I don’t think he is very like me,” I answered. “I don’t think we’re +a bit alike, but――” I tried to puzzle it out: “I suppose we must have +some things in common.” + +“Tell me about him,” she encouraged me. + +“He’s a very good chap,” I said lamely. Then, as this didn’t in the +least express my meaning: “I mean he’s very straight, and decent, and +all that. He’s not like anybody else.” + +“What is the difference?” + +“Well, for one thing, he’s awfully serious. I don’t mean dull――but +serious about what things really mean and that sort of thing.” + +“Is he clever?” + +“I don’t know. He’s very simple.” + +“And George――isn’t that his name? the name of your cousin?――what is +_he_ like? Are you friends with him?” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“Tell me about George too.” + +“There’s nothing to tell. He’s in business. You wouldn’t much care for +him.” + +“Why not? Don’t you?” + +“Yes, very well.” And it suddenly struck me as strange that I did so, +that I did not positively detest him. + +“You do not seem enthusiastic. Is he not nice?” + +“Oh, he’s all right. He’s nice enough, I daresay――just as nice as I am.” + +“Why won’t you tell me what is the matter, Peter?” + +“There is nothing.” + +“You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?” + +“I don’t know.” + +I closed my eyes for a minute as I leaned back in my chair. A +silence had fallen on the room with my last words. Then suddenly my +self-control deserted me, and I hid my face against the arm of the +chair, just as if I had been a child. + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + + +It was a beautiful, clear, winter night when I walked home. Over the +low wall I looked out at the dark, smooth sea, stretching away, almost +black, save where the moonlight touched it. I trailed my right hand +on the wall as I walked, heedless of the cold, though it was freezing +keenly. The tide was in, and the chill, listless splash of the small +waves, running through my thoughts, seemed to increase their sadness. +On the verge of the distant golf-links a ruddy light from the big hotel +shone out into the night. + +As I turned up the Bryansford Road, I saw, in the moonlight, my father +standing leaning over the garden gate, and behind him the house door +was open. Unconsciously I slackened my pace. He was looking for me, +perhaps. He must have already heard me, for the sound of my footsteps +rang out sharply on the hard road. + +“Where have you been all this time?” he asked abruptly, as I came up. + +There was a hardness in his voice that, in my present mood, I shrank +from more than I should have from physical violence. I knew he knew +where I had been, and I thought he might have let the matter pass. +“I didn’t intend to stay so late,” I said, apologetically, “but Mrs. +Carroll had gone up to town and left a message for me, asking me to +wait. After dinner she wanted me to tell her all I had been doing since +I left home.” + +“I hope you were more communicative than you were to me. You hadn’t +time, I suppose, to come back and say you were staying. I waited tea +for you for nearly an hour.” + +“I didn’t think it mattered,” I mumbled. “I’m very sorry. I thought you +would understand.” + +I had already climbed half a dozen stairs on my way to bed, when my +father called me back. + +“Why are you rushing off like that, now?” + +I hastily returned. “I was going to bed: I didn’t know you wanted to +sit up.” I went on into the parlour, where there was a smoky fire in +the grate, just large enough to make you realize how cold it was, and +on the table some bread and butter, a jug of milk and a tumbler. I sat +down beside the fire. + +“I’m not going to sit up; but I don’t want you to treat your home as if +it were an hotel, a place where you come merely to sleep. I’ve no doubt +things are more to your taste at Derryaghy, but while this _is_ your +home, you must try to make the best of it.” + +I looked at my father helplessly, but I said nothing. I had an +uncomfortable vision of his sitting here all evening by himself. If he +would only make friends with somebody! I wondered if he had been happy +before mamma went away. + +“Seeing that it was your first day at home,” he went on, putting down +my silence to sulkiness, “you might at least have been content to be +out all the afternoon. Now that we are on the subject, I had better +let you know that Mrs. Carroll asked me to allow you to spend part of +your holidays at Derryaghy, but I told her you must decide that for +yourself.” He paused, with the intention of letting me say I didn’t +want to go. + +“She told me to-night,” I murmured. + +“Well?” + +“I think I’d like to go.” + +There was a silence, and I wondered how long we were going to sit +shivering here. + +“I had a letter to-night from your Aunt Margaret. She says you have +made friends with some people called Gill, and have been to a party at +their house.” + +“Yes: it was last night.” + +“Why do you never tell me of any of these things yourself? One would +think I was a total stranger to you!” + +“I didn’t know it would interest you.” + +All at once I remembered my visits to the opera, and I couldn’t +understand how my father had not heard of them. He had not mentioned my +laxity in regard to church either, and both these omissions puzzled me +greatly, seeing Aunt Margaret had made such a fuss about them at the +time. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + + +After breakfast I screwed up my courage to the point of broaching +the subject I had most on my mind. “There is something I want to say +to you,” I began, and my father instantly adopted an attitude of +motionless attention, so excessively attentive that it had the effect +of putting me out, and I forgot the phrases I had prepared beforehand, +and could only stammer awkwardly that it was my desire to leave the +McAllisters and choose some lodging for myself. + +A return to this question I saw was not pleasing to him, and I had +hardly expected it to be so. + +“You are very self-willed,” he said, slowly. + +I knew from the tone in which this opinion was uttered that he had +already made up his mind about my request, yet some obscure instinct +of self-preservation still kept me from giving in. I don’t suppose I +could have satisfactorily explained that instinct to my father, even +had I become perfectly confidential, and certainly no such thought ever +crossed my mind. The result was that he looked upon my wish as a mere +caprice. + +“It seems to me we have already fully discussed the question,” he +remarked unsympathetically. + +“I didn’t know then.... I mean I don’t like sleeping with George.” + +“Why? You have your own bed, haven’t you?” + +“Yes.” + +“George is your cousin.” + +“I know he is my cousin,” I answered wearily. “What difference does +that make?” Already I felt the whole thing was hopeless. + +“It is just this sort of nonsense which makes me object to your going +to stay at Derryaghy,” my father began impatiently. “You are pampered +with every luxury there, till you begin to dislike and look down upon +everybody who hasn’t had your advantages.” + +“I’m not thinking of advantages,” I muttered, with a sort of irony. + +“I didn’t know when I arranged for you to stay with them that they +would not be able to give you a room to yourself. On the other hand, I +don’t see that it is at all a sufficient reason for your leaving now +you are there. I told you so when I wrote to you. It is only an excuse +to get your own way. You have always been like that; though I should +have thought you would hardly have considered it worth while to bring +the matter up again after all these months.” + +I accepted my father’s decision without further protest. As a matter +of fact, a kind of listlessness had come upon me, an apathetic +indifference to whatever might happen. + +It was Christmas Eve. A heavy fall of snow had occurred during the +night, and on the hard, frozen ground it lay unmelted to the dark +border of the sea. All the morning I spent beside the fire reading +“Richard Feverel,” but about half-past three I went out for a walk +over the golf-links. The snow was several inches deep, but being +perfectly hard was not unpleasant for walking. I had slept badly last +night, a sleep broken by wretched dreams, and I had a mind to go for +a really long walk and tire myself out. In spite of being at home +again, in spite of this beautiful, bright, exhilarating weather, in +spite of the fact that I would be getting a Christmas-box from Mrs. +Carroll to-morrow, and a letter from Katherine, and another from +Owen, my spirits were of the gloomiest. Never before had I looked +so closely into my own soul, and never before had I found so little +there to comfort me. I knew that for months past my mind had been +gradually submitted to a poisonous influence that had filtered through +my blood, like a vapour from some fever-breeding marsh. Yet certain +seeds, I thought, could perhaps only have taken root within me, could +perhaps only so quickly have sprung to tall dark flower, because they +had found a soil already apt to receive them: and I remembered my +father’s suspicions in the past. I thought of a book I had been reading +lately――a book written for boys, and all about boys――and I compared +myself with its heroes. I compared the gloom that weighed upon me now +with the troubles they had experienced, and it seemed to me I must be +different, not in degree but in kind, from every boy in that book, from +the bad just as much as from the good. I remembered hours, whole days, +when I had been like them, like the decent ones I mean, for with the +others I had nothing in common――I had never wanted to shirk games; and +bullying, gambling, dishonesty, and “pubs,” had no attraction for me. +But it was just because there were bits of the book in which I could +see a part of myself that I was troubled by the absence of other parts, +of so many other feelings that none of these boys shared. I wondered +if I were quite abnormal, but how could I ever find out even that; +for just as nobody knew what I was, I knew nothing really of anybody +else, save what they cared to show me or took no trouble to hide. I was +hopelessly shut in to the little circle of my own sensations, desires, +and emotions. Owen, whom I knew better than any other boy,――what, after +all, did I know of him? I knew no one but myself, and of myself I knew +much that filled me with shame. + +A deep silence overshadowed all things, the silence of the fallen +snow. I had come to a stand-still. Around me was an infinite stretch of +whiteness, almost unbroken, save where the sea was dark and restless +under the whip of the rising wind. Dusk had crept up imperceptibly, +and more light now rose from the ground than fell from the leaden +sky overhead. Snow had again begun to fall. A few flakes turned and +fluttered down out of the darkness, but I knew this was only the +beginning. I walked to the edge of the black, desolate sea, and watched +the waves rolling in to break at my feet, and at that moment I felt +infinitely alone, and indeed for miles round there was probably no +other human being. But it was as if I were alone in a dead world. The +whirling flakes of snow fell ever faster out of the winter sky; the +barren, frozen land was wrapped in a stillness that was more like the +stillness of death than of sleep; the only sounds there were came from +the waves breaking at my feet, and from an occasional sweep of wind +forlorn as though no ears were there to listen. The creeping on of +night seemed to be the shutting out for ever of all life, and one could +imagine there would never be anything more, that the end had at last +been reached. + +And the thought of death came to me, without terror, came, rather, as a +solution. All that bound me to existence seemed now attenuated to the +thinnest cobweb. If I just lay down here and waited.... + +Tony, who had grown restless at my long delay, suddenly broke into +my consciousness. He began to urge me to come on, with a peculiar, +eager, discontented note in his voice. He jumped up with his large +paws against me. I knelt in the snow and hugged him in my arms, while +his warm red tongue passed rapidly over my face. I held him close, and +his black nose was pressed into my cheek, and he wagged his tail and +nibbled at my ears. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII + + +Two or three days before, I had sent off a small picture to Katherine +as a Christmas-box. It had taken me a long time to choose something I +thought she might care for, and which at the same time pleased myself. +In the end I had got her a photograph of Francia’s portrait of the +boy Federigo Gonzaga, the son of Isabella d’Este――the Miserden Park +picture. I had had it framed in a flat, dull, dark frame, and very +carefully packed; and over and over again I had pictured her opening +the parcel, her surprise. It was two days after Christmas when the +postman brought me a letter from her, but instead of reading it, I +put it in my pocket. It was a fairly thick packet, so, though her +writing was very large, I knew it must be a long letter. I could feel +it as it lay in the inner pocket of my jacket, and a dozen times that +day I drew it out and inspected it, but no more than that, for I had +determined not to read it till I went to bed. All day long I thought of +the pleasure I should have, and in the end I became so impatient that I +went to bed about nine o’clock. + +I put the letter on my pillow, and placed a lighted candle on the +painted, deal chest-of-drawers beside my bed. I undressed, got into +bed, and only then, with eager fingers, tore open the envelope and drew +out its contents. + +I looked at them as they lay upon the bright, patch-work counterpane, +a single sheet of note-paper, and a New Year card in the form of a +pocket calendar. My disappointment was so great that for a little I did +not even read the letter, but lay on my back and stared dismally at the +iron rail at the foot of my bed. My thoughts were bitter. I recalled +the many letters I had written to her, undiscouraged by her brief +replies. Some of these had been pages long; the one I had sent with +my present, for instance, I had given a whole evening to. I glanced +at what she had written――three sides of a sheet of note-paper hastily +scrawled over in huge characters, about two words to a line. She +thanked me for my picture, which was very pretty. She would have liked +to write me a really long letter, but there were some people staying in +the house, and she had to look after them, and had only been able to +snatch a moment to wish me a happy New Year. That was all. + +I blew out the candle and lay with my eyes wide open staring into the +darkness. The few, conventional phrases of her letter were vivid in +my mind. To begin with, the picture was not pretty; if it had been, +I shouldn’t have bought it. If she had wanted me to have a happy New +Year it would have been very easy for her to make it so. But it had +been too much trouble. I thought of how I had sat up far into the night +to finish my Christmas letter to her. I heard my father’s step on the +stairs, the shutting of his bedroom door. I pulled the bed-clothes +up to my chin, and as I did so my hand touched something――the +pocket-calendar. I tore it in two and flung the pieces at the opposite +wall. + +My mind was divided between despondency and anger. I pictured her +enjoying herself with a houseful of her own and Gerald’s friends, +while I was forgotten. Of course there was no particular reason why +she should remember me. Still, the irony of those foolish New Year’s +wishes might almost have been intentional had the whole letter not been +so thoughtless. She knew well enough how happy I must be now, stuck +in this wretched hole by myself; and I asked myself how anybody could +be so completely devoid of imagination, of sympathy, even of tact? I +began to compose a letter to be written to-morrow, a letter expressing +what I felt. I imagined her reading it in the midst of her friends, and +realizing how she had wounded me. I tossed and turned till I was almost +in a fever. Sleep was out of the question, for I knew it must be nearly +morning already, and I had half a mind to get up and dress.... + +When I opened my eyes it was broad daylight. I sprang out of bed and +hurried into my clothes. The first thing after breakfast I sat down +to write my letter of reproach, and wrote it at furious speed, a fire +burning in my soul. Yet when I came to read it over, it seemed childish +and stilted, and in my haste I had left out so many words and mis-spelt +so many others that I was obliged to make a fair copy of the whole. +This I posted, but had two days more of impatience before a reply +reached me. When it came, it had the effect of turning away my anger. +Katherine seemed really sorry; at any rate she said she was. She told +me that she cared far more for me than for any of the people I imagined +she found so delightful, and that I might have known this by now, even +if her letters _had_ been short. She said it had been horrid of her to +write such a miserable scrawl, but that, if she had guessed I should +mind it so much, she would have written me a whole book. + +I sat down to reply at once, but I cannot account for the unfortunate +tone my letter took. It was morbid and self-conscious, without being +in the least frank. I begged her forgiveness; I made a parade of a +melancholy that bore no resemblance to the kind of melancholy I really +felt; I talked vaguely about not being as good as she believed me to +be, and the whole production was a little sickening. I don’t know, or +rather I do know, what she made of it. She replied that she had never +for a moment thought me good, and that she should prefer not to hear +from me at all to getting letters like the last I had written. + +It was not, perhaps, extremely sympathetic, but I knew well enough +myself I had done the wrong thing. My letter had been odiously +self-conscious. I had accused myself of not being good, but what on +earth did that mean? It might mean that I went into the pantry at night +and stole the jam! + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + + +About this time, influenced by Amiel, whom I had come across in Mrs. +Humphry Ward’s translation, I had begun to keep a diary, or journal, +of my “sensations and ideas.” I unearthed it the other day, with the +paper time-staled as the sensations, and the ink faded as the ideas. +On reading it over I found it so unbalanced, so one-sided, that I can +scarce quote a passage as really expressive of what I actually was. +It expresses only what I was when I sat down to write my journal, and +I never appear to have done this except when I was in a particularly +unhealthy mood. Some of this journal is descriptive, some of it merely +notes certain thoughts that came to me and that I evidently, the +Lord knows why, imagined worthy of preservation. A single entry, the +description of a dream, will, I fancy, give an idea of the whole. + +“Last night I went out and wandered about the streets for a while, and +when I came home I went straight to bed. I did not go to sleep for a +long time. I remember hearing the clock strike two, and when I awoke +it was just four, but of course I cannot really tell how long my dream +lasted. + +“I was in a room with some people I knew very well. My father was +there, and Aunt Margaret and Uncle George. I was laughing at something, +I cannot remember what, only that it had to do with a question of +religion, when suddenly the figure of Christ appeared, in a long, +purple, velvet robe――a slight figure, with narrow effeminate face, +pointed beard, and a soft treacherous expression in the slanting eyes. +Everybody in the room except myself fell on their knees in fear, but +I stood still. He watched me and then came closer, holding out his +pierced hands and making the sign of the cross. He did not speak, but +I knew what he meant, and I detested him. He drew still nearer and +still I would not kneel. My defiance filled me with a mingled fear and +exultation, and, as he was about to touch me, I cried out, invoking +Satan, offering myself to him. A horrible look of baffled rage and +malice distorted the face of the Christ. Outside a storm was raging and +the wide window was a black square. With a shrill scream the Christ +vanished, and a man, naked, superb, the colour of dark, greenish +bronze, shot through the window as though propelled by some invisible +force. (From this on, an undertone of strange music floated through my +dream, rising and falling with the rise and fall of my emotions.) + +“The face of this dark angel was beautiful and proud. His forehead was +broad and low and slightly overhanging, giving him a stern and brooding +expression, but although I was afraid of him I loved him, and felt an +irresistible longing to put myself in his power. We were now alone +together in the room, which had suddenly grown dark, and he seized me. +I struggled, but in his grasp I was helpless as a young bird in the +clutches of a boy. He stripped me naked and rubbed my body over with +some kind of ointment that left no mark. And somehow I knew he was +going to send me down into hell, and that after a while I should return +again to earth, but that I should be his for ever. + +“‘I shall not be tortured?’ I asked him, and he answered in a deep +voice, ‘There are no tortures such as you are thinking of.’ + +“‘When I come back,’ I said, ‘I shall have forgotten all I saw there; +I shall think I have been only dreaming. Can you not mark me in some +way?’ + +“He placed me in front of the mirror that was at one end of the room, +and which seemed to shine in the dark as with fire. And in the glass +I saw over my right breast a red flush, and upon this a white streak, +broad and long as his fore-finger. He took my hand, and suddenly the +room I was in seemed to be dropping. Down and down it rushed, so +rapidly that the walls glowed red hot, but because of the ointment with +which I had been covered I felt nothing. And we seemed to be sinking +down through a bottomless sea that hissed in steam against the walls. +Then the speed increased a thousandfold and I lost consciousness. + +“I do not know what interval had elapsed, but it was evening and I was +back again in the room, our parlour at home. My father was kneeling +down and calling upon me in desperation to pray to God before it was +too late――to pray――to pray. But I would not pray. Mrs. Carroll was +there and she was crying. Then a voice said aloud above our heads, ‘It +was all only a dream,’ and for a little we believed this; and then all +at once I knew the voice was lying. My father read in my face what was +passing in my mind, and his own face grew white as paper. But I knew; +and I exulted and wept at the same moment. I tore away my shirt from my +breast. ‘Look――look! It is his mark!’ + +“A loud cry rang through the room, and I awoke, bathed in perspiration, +to the silence and darkness of night. I could hear George breathing +quietly in his sleep. Then I got up and lit the gas and looked to see +if the mark were indeed there upon my breast, but there was nothing.” + + * * * * * + +Could I have been mentally, morally, even physically, well when I +had this dream? Childish and foolish, perhaps, it had at the time an +intensity the effect of which lingered on long after I had awakened. +There is something disquieting in the thought that so slender a +veil should separate the world of order and sanity from a world of +disorder and delirium such as my eyes were opened to then. Yet that +other world is always there, waiting, and the veil may be torn at any +moment, letting tongues of the dreadful, flaming light shoot through. +The Christ of my dream was not a blasphemous creation of my own mind, +but a sort of distorted memory of one or two pictures in a book about +Byzantine wall-paintings I had looked at years before. The main fact, +however, psychologically, is, I suppose, the fact that I kept a journal +at all. Probably what was at the bottom of it was an idea of confession +which now haunted me. It came to me in several relations. I thought of +Owen, thought it was my duty to tell him everything about myself, and +that in this way we might make our friendship perfect. At other times +I feared that instead of doing this it might do just the opposite. I +was not sure, either, what my motive really was――whether it really +proceeded from a sense of duty, or only from a desire of personal +relief. It was strange that while in many respects I continued to have +an exaggerated opinion of myself, I should yet have been so frequently +visited just now by hours of despondency, when I imagined my life as +already irretrievably doomed to failure. I did not look upon myself +as an ordinary person, or the crisis through which I was passing as +an ordinary crisis. I began to ponder over the meaning of sin and +damnation, and I figured this latter quality as a condition of mind +which attracts evil, and from which no evil can be hidden. When I was +with Owen my troubles grew fainter, and even disappeared. Mentally, +morally, he had upon me much the same effect as, physically, a draught +of fresh air would have had, after long confinement in a stifling +atmosphere. I admired him; I envied him his freedom from all that made +my own life just now so difficult. I discussed the question of free +will with him, but I no more believed in it than did my Arabian Nights +heroes. I was as closely imprisoned in my own physical temperament as a +rat in a trap. And if I were to die? For the first time it dawned upon +me that one might pass into a spiritual world as dark and dreadful as +any I had ever seen in a dream. With this appalling thought it occurred +to me that a priest might be the best person to confess to, and I began +to consider to whom I could go. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV + + +The matter, as I soon perceived, was not at all so simple as in the +first flush of discovery it appeared to be. But one excellent effect it +had, and that was to make Sunday, which had been the dullest, the most +interesting, day of the week, while I went from church to church in +search of my confessor. In almost every case I could tell at once that +I had not found him, and I was on the point of giving up the whole idea +as hopeless, when one Sunday evening I went to St. Mary Magdalene’s. +The clergyman who took the service was already well past middle-age. +He was delicate and ascetic-looking, with a peculiar expression +on his worn face, as of one who had had to make a fight against +something――possibly it had only been ill-health――and who had come out +of the struggle victorious if not unscarred. He preached a sermon which +may have been slightly vague, but which appealed to my imagination. +Even the weakness of his voice and the almost colourlessness of his +manner had the curious effect of making what he said to me more real. +Listening to him was like listening to a spirit, to a disembodied +voice; and through all there flickered a kind of nervous exaltation, +like a tremulous, uncertain flame. There were no signs of that mental +and imaginative poverty which had so frequently discouraged me. But he +struck me, above all, as a man who had been unhappy, and therefore, +if he had found peace, there must be some reason for it. I returned +to hear him several times, and although my first impression was not +strengthened, it was not effaced. I persuaded Owen to come with me to +hear him, but Owen did not like him at all. + +Far from shaking me in my view, this unfavourable opinion helped to +confirm me. Not through any perversity, but simply because I knew the +person I was in search of would not particularly appeal to Owen. I +did not want a purely reasonable being, I did not perhaps even want +one whom Owen would consider quite healthy――I wanted one who would +understand. That night I wrote a letter to Henry Applin, asking if I +might come to him, and, if I might, would he tell me when. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV + + +As I walked home with Owen next day after school I wanted to tell him +what I had done, but it was somehow difficult to do so quite abruptly. +I turned the conversation to Roman Catholicism, and from that to the +general subject of confession to a priest, but to Owen this idea +appeared to be so distasteful that I did not attempt to introduce my +own particular case. + +On our way we met his mother, who told me to go on in and get something +to eat now, and to stay and dine with them at seven. I refused, having +an idea Owen didn’t particularly want me. I knew it was only because he +wished to finish an epitome he was making of Herbert Spencer’s “First +Principles” (he had told me he had reached the last chapter) and as I +had a strong desire to stay I felt annoyed. I came to the door with him. + +“You’d better come in,” he said. + +“What’s the use of my coming in when you don’t want me?” I replied. + +He laughed. “Of course I want you; don’t be an ass.” + +I came in. While we were having tea I looked over the epitome. It +represented a good deal of work, and I remembered having asked him to +read Blake’s “Songs,” and his refusing because he hadn’t time. It was +the same with nearly everything I recommended to him, though I was +always reading books to please him. He offered now to lend me the +“First Principles” as soon as he should have finished it. + +“I don’t want it,” I answered, discontentedly. “I’m sick of all that +stodgy stuff. You’re always complaining about not being able to be +religious, yet you’re never happy unless you’re reading something +against religion.” + +“I’m not anxious for a religion that won’t bear examination,” replied +Owen, coldly. + +“No religion _will_ bear it,” I said, and both speeches had that +infinite priggishness which not infrequently characterized our +conversation. + +“People who have read a hundred times more philosophy than I have have +been able to remain Christians,” Owen continued, with a naïveté that +was quite lost on me. He was particularly fond just now of talking +about people who had or had not read philosophy. + +“You’re thinking of Levine in ‘A.K.,’” I answered disrespectfully, a +decreasing enthusiasm having led me to abbreviate the title of this +work. + +“I’m not,” said Owen. + +“You are. And Levine doesn’t remain a Christian. He drops it and then +takes it up again, and, as he hasn’t any more reason for doing one than +the other, I don’t see what it proves.” + +“Why do you say he has no reason?” + +“I don’t call half a dozen words spoken by an ignorant peasant a +reason. If you claim religion to be the most valuable thing in life, it +oughtn’t to be at the mercy of a chance phrase. At any rate the words +that affected Levine seem far from wonderful to me.” + +“I don’t know that they aren’t wonderful,” Owen declared. + +“‘One man lives for his stomach,’” I jeeringly quoted, “‘another for +his soul, for God, in truth.’ You’d find the same thing in any tract. +And why should it turn you to Christianity particularly? A man who +believed in Pan could live just as much for his soul as a Christian.” + +“I don’t believe anybody ever believed in Pan,” said Owen, “any more +than they believe in Father Christmas. Because certain words happened +to help Levine, Tolstoy does not mean that they will help everyone.” + +“He does. Only you’re nearly as bad as Levine yourself.” + +Owen was not listening; he was working out an argument he would produce +as soon as I had done; but I was beginning to be tired of Tolstoy, and +I wanted to express my own point of view. “If one were to see a ghost, +it would make an enormous difference,” I admitted. “It would open your +eyes to a new world, to a deeper, finer world.” + +“Isn’t this one deep enough for you? And I don’t see that it +would necessarily be any finer. It might very well be extremely +objectionable. All that would happen if you saw a ghost is that it +would frighten you very much at the time, and afterwards you wouldn’t +believe in it.” + +“I don’t think it would frighten me. I don’t think it would frighten +anybody, if it were the ghost of somebody they had cared for a great +deal.” + +Owen considered this. “I don’t suppose the ghost of your mother would +frighten you. _Your_ mother is dead, isn’t she?” he added, and then +stopped short. “I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered, “I wasn’t thinking of +what I was saying.” + +I laughed. “It’s all right. My mother isn’t dead. Shall we go out +before dinner?” + +Owen got up. + +We walked by the road as far as Shaw’s Bridge, where we branched off +on to the river bank. It was already well on in April. The brilliant +tender green of the opening leaves had spread like a delicate green +flame over the black branches of the trees. The sky was clear, and +there was a sharpness in the air that made us walk quickly. Owen’s +dogs, two rough-haired Irish terriers, ran along the bank, sniffing +among the coarse grass, alert, eager to hunt anything, whether a rat or +a stick. + +Owen’s remark about my mother had reminded me that I had told him +singularly little about myself, or rather, about my people. He did not +know anything beyond the fact that we lived at Newcastle, and, from the +way I had spoken of it, he might easily have imagined that Derryaghy +was my home. I’m afraid an unconscious snobbery had kept me from +revealing the obscurity of my origin, and I was suddenly struck by the +stupidity and odiousness of this, especially with Owen, for whom such +things meant nothing. + +“Why did you think my mother was dead?” I asked him. + +“I don’t know. I suppose because you never――I don’t know, I’m sure.” + +“I want to tell you about my people.” + +Curiously enough, though I had been so reluctant to mention that my +father was a National schoolmaster, it did not trouble me in the least +to talk about my mother. I even had some dim notion that it made me +rather interesting; so I told him all I knew. “I have not seen her +since,” I wound up, “and perhaps my father is not my real father.” Why +I should have thrown in this after-touch I cannot conceive, as I had +never in my life had the faintest doubts concerning my legitimacy; but +I suppose it was to heighten the romance. + +“Do you think I ought to try to find out something more?” I asked. + +“You never did try!” exclaimed Owen. + +“Never very much. I don’t know who to ask. I can’t very well ask my +father.” + +“Why?” + +“I can’t.” + +“There must be somebody else who knows. Your friend, Mrs. Carroll.” + +“She won’t tell me.” + +“Have you asked her?” + +“I asked her the last time I was at home.” + +“And what did she say?” + +“She doesn’t like her.” + +“She said she didn’t like her?” + +“No, of course not; but I know it all the same.” + +“The whole thing,” Owen began, but tailed off abruptly “――it seems +rather queer.” + +We walked on for a long time in silence. I was determined to tell him +about Mr. Applin, but it was not till we were coming home that I began +my explanation. + +“And you’re really going to him!” Owen marvelled. + +“I’ll have to go now. That is, if he does not tell me not to.” + +“He can hardly do that. You’re not making fun?” + +“Fun?” + +Owen was silent. + +“I didn’t know whether you meant it,” he said. “What are you going +_for_?” he suddenly asked. “Just to talk to him?” + +“Yes, I suppose so.” + +“But what about?” + +“About?... Do you remember talking of confession?” + +“But it’s not that, is it?” said Owen, very seriously. “You’re not――――” + +“Why not?” I smiled dimly. + +“But what is the matter? Why should you? What have you done? And if you +have done anything, what is it to him?” + +We had come to a standstill on the lonely river bank. Owen’s eyes were +fixed upon me questioningly. I had nothing to say, or, rather, I could +not say it. I stood before him, looking on the ground, my hands in my +trouser pockets. + +Owen hesitated. He put his hands on my shoulders, but I did not look up. + +Presently I raised my head, but I looked away from him, and across the +fields. “Come along,” I said, quietly. “It’s getting late, and we must +hurry.” + + * * * * * + +When I reached home at about half-past nine little Alice came running +to meet me. Her white face, her bright black eyes, and long straight +black hair, brushed back from her forehead and spreading out on either +side of her face in the shape of a fan, were vivid in the gas-light, +under which she stood looking up at me while I opened the letter she +had brought me. It was from Mr. Applin, asking me to call on Wednesday +evening between nine and ten, or on Friday between the same hours, if +Wednesday did not suit me. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Since Christmas I had been working harder than I had ever done in my +life. The Intermediate examinations would be coming on in June, but +it was not any particular anxiety to shine in them that had goaded me +to this unprecedented industry; merely I had discovered that on the +plea of work I could sit in my bedroom in the evenings, and that the +work itself kept me from thinking of other things. To-night I went +straight upstairs as usual, but after writing to Mr. Applin to say I +would come on Wednesday, I sat idle. So it was all the next day, and +the next night: I had an open book in front of me, but I read without +comprehending what I read: I was intensely excited: a kind of emotional +cloud had descended upon my mind, and I could think of nothing but my +approaching interview. + +Ideas, words, shot across this mental haze like meteors, but I could +not follow them in their swift flight. On Wednesday afternoon when I +got home from school and had had my dinner I went out into the streets +and wandered aimlessly about. I had said to myself that I would not +think about the matter any more, but, needless to say, I thought of +nothing else, and so it was that when I came to a Roman Catholic church +and saw the door was open, I could not help going inside and sitting +down before one of the confessionals. The name of the priest, Father +Dempsey, was printed in large letters above it. I had a faint hope of +seeing somebody come out or go in, but in this I was disappointed. +Three little girls were busy with their beads, but they suspended their +acts of devotion to cast glances at me, and whisper, and even giggle. A +woman was kneeling before an altar that shone with ornaments suggestive +of decorations from a Christmas tree. Her eyes were fixed on a bright +oleograph of the Virgin, and her lips never ceased moving. A couple +of lighted candles seemed to sweat ugly yellow tears, which ran down +over dirty candlesticks. And then I saw a fat little sallow priest, his +chin, upper lip, and cheeks, blue from much shaving, come waddling down +the aisle, and I wondered if this were Father Dempsey. As he passed +he stared at me, and I saw in his dull little eyes that expression of +invulnerable stupidity I had noticed in the faces of so many of his +brothers when I met them in the street. + +The fascination that had drawn me into the church had disappeared. +Everything――the smell of stale incense, the cheap decorations, the bad +pictures, the kneeling woman, the girls with their beads――had become +almost nauseating. The appalling unintelligence of it all shocked me, +much as the display of a diseased body had now and then shocked me. It +was wrong, it was gross, anything less spiritual I could not imagine. +And my idea of confessing to a priest was wrong. I got up and left the +church, the last thing I saw being the thick sediment of dirt at the +bottom of the stoup. + +After tea I went up to my bedroom, George’s and mine, and got out my +books to do some work. At first I thought I would not go to Mr. Applin, +but as time passed this decision grew weaker, and presently, instead +of reading, I tried to make up my mind on the point. Then when it +drew near to nine o’clock I was no longer even uncertain. What had my +impressions of this afternoon to do with the step I was about to take? +Besides, they had been very superficial, and to be influenced by them +would be as stupid as to refuse to read a book because its binding +happened to be soiled. + +I walked quickly to Mr. Applin’s house and knocked boldly at the door. +It opened with a startling promptitude; evidently the servant had been +in the hall. + +“Is Mr. Applin at home?” I asked, my stammer suddenly beginning to +manifest itself. + +“He is. Who shall I say wants him?” + +“It doesn’t matter. He expects me.” I felt reluctant to give my name. + +The servant did not press me to, but disappeared upstairs. She came +back very soon and asked me to “step this way,” and I obeyed her +nervously. + +I entered a room and heard the door close behind me, as a man rose from +a table near the window, removing a green shade from his forehead. +I was conscious of tired eyes that looked at me out of a pale, dim, +emaciated face, but the flickering light that had seemed to shine +through them when he was preaching was not there, and his manner of +greeting me struck me as a little distant, a little chilly. I sat down +on the extreme edge of a chair and my impressions grew clearer. + +“You are Peter Waring, are you not?” + +“Yes,” I answered. + +He had taken the chair opposite mine, and he leaned a little forward, +the tips of his fingers joined, and blue veins showing under the loose +yellow skin of his hands. He was much older than I had imagined. He +was wearing a threadbare jacket which I did not like, and I noticed +that one of the buttons near the top was not the same as the others. +My confidence had suddenly drooped. I glanced round at the unfamiliar +room, at the book-shelves which made but a poor show, and maintained +an idiotic silence. It struck me that he might think I had come for a +subscription towards a cricket club. + +“I got your letter,” he said. “You want to speak to me? You are not a +member of my congregation, I think?” + +“No――I come sometimes in the evening.” + +I was glad I had said nothing in my letter but that I wanted to speak +to him, and he evidently hadn’t the least suspicion of the truth. + +“Yes――yes――I understand. Well, don’t be afraid. If I can do anything +for you I shall be very glad, very glad.” + +I thanked him and again became silent. It would have been absolutely +impossible for me to have said what I had come to say. He was too old, +too far away. It would have been like stretching out one’s hands to +warm them at the ashes in an early morning grate. I knew he wanted to +be kind, but I felt, somehow, that if I sat very still he would, in a +minute or two, forget I was in the room. + +“I think I had better write,” I murmured. + +“Write? But why? What is it about?” he spoke almost testily. + +There was a tap at the door, and a thin, middle-aged lady, possibly a +daughter, came in with a little tray on which were some biscuits and +a tumbler of hot milk. She bowed to me and wished me good-evening. I +wanted nothing now but to get away as quickly as possible, and I envied +her as she went out, closing the door softly behind her. Suppose I +had been in the middle of my confession when the hot milk came in, I +thought. The whole thing was somehow becoming lugubriously comic. + +“Are you in business or at school?” Mr. Applin asked, between two sips +of milk. “I hope you’ll excuse me taking this while it is hot, but I +had a funeral this afternoon, and I’m afraid I caught a slight chill.” + +“Certainly,” I answered hastily. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I have +really nothing to say. It is only that I liked your sermons so much, +and that I wanted to tell you so. I hope you’ll forgive me.” I got up. + +“Sit down――sit down,” he murmured. “It was a very kind and charming +impulse, and I’m glad you yielded to it.” + +I resumed my seat and he continued to drink his milk. He was quite +pleased with me. He asked me to what church I belonged; where I went to +school; all kinds of questions. I told him that I thought he must be +lonely sitting here by himself, and that he should have a dog, or even +a cat. I told him about Tony, and all the wonderful things he could do. +Before I came away he made me promise I would come to see him again. +Yet just as I was going out a sort of vague suspicion of other things +appeared to float into his consciousness. He detained me, with his hand +on my shoulder. “When you first came in,” he said, “I thought something +perhaps was worrying you, that you had something on your mind.” He +paused. For an instant I had seen in him what I had seen when I had +listened to him preach; for an instant I was on the point of resuming +my seat, and telling him all I had come to tell him, but he himself +broke the charm next moment by saying good-night. “And when you come +again you won’t be shy?” he added, smiling wanly. + +He did not accompany me downstairs, but stood on the landing till I had +opened the hall-door. And as I pulled it after me, and ran down the +steps, I knew I should never go back. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Spring gave place to summer, and still I kept studiously to my books. I +saw less of Owen, for in the afternoons I played cricket, and Owen did +not. On the thirteenth of June my examination commenced, and from the +first I did well, having good luck with the papers. On Tuesday evening +when I went home I had only one more exam. in front of me, and it would +take place the following afternoon. After that I should be free for the +summer. + +It was a hot, breathless kind of night, and I did not intend to work +too much. I loafed about the shop after tea, talking to Miss Izzy. She +had asked me to go to the Free Library to get her a book, but nothing +on the list she had given me, though it was a fairly long one, was in, +and I had come back with a tale of my own selecting. + +“You might have got one of Annie Swan’s,” Miss Izzy said, eyeing the +work I had chosen, dubiously, “but of course you couldn’t tell what +ones I’d read.” + +“Annie Swan’s?” + +“Yes; they’re all good. Mr. Spicer mentioned ‘Carlowrie’ from the +pulpit on Sunday, and you don’t often hear _him_ praise a novel.” + +“When he does it’s a spicy one,” said George, who was going out. + +Miss Izzy took no notice. + +“I’ve got to meet the girl at a quarter-to-eight, so I can’t stop,” +George threw back gaily from the door, which next moment swung after +him, as he stepped into the street, fixing a flower in his button-hole. + +“You get ‘Aldersyde’ and read it,” said Miss Izzy, “or ‘Across Her +Path.’” + +“I thought you said Carl-something-or-other.” + +“You’ll maybe like the others better. If George McAllister would join +the literary society instead of running about the streets at nights it +would answer him better. Who’s this girl he’s going to meet?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“It’s only talk, I suppose. Girls have more sense than to bother with +the likes of him.” + +“Do you think so?” I murmured sceptically. “The kind that George cares +for I don’t imagine have very much.” + +“You know nothing about them. If you’d any sisters you’d know more.” + +“I’m very glad I haven’t,” I replied. + +Miss Izzy bounced round. “Why?” she demanded sharply. “Girls can do +everything as well as men can; only they never get the chance.” + +“That’s all rot,” I said ungallantly. “They’re quite different. You +might as well compare cats and dogs.” + +“And we’re the cats, I suppose? It’s well you’re still a puppy.” + +“I didn’t mean you, Miss Izzy. I know there are exceptions. But most +girls don’t think; or if they do, it’s only about who’s going to marry +them.” + +“Don’t think! Well, of all!――And you and George McAllister and the +others――you think a lot, don’t you?” + +“George doesn’t,” I admitted. + +“But _you_ do――especially about yourself. Do you know this, Peter +Waring, you’re about as conceited and full of yourself as a monkey +that’s been taught a few tricks!” + +“Well, I’m going away to-morrow, and you’ll not see me again for a long +time.” + +This was not fair, as I knew it would soften Miss Izzy, and it had +indeed this result. “I don’t mind seeing you,” she confessed, with +a sigh, “if that’s all. It’s hearing you talk. You may give me your +photograph if you like.” + +I had had my photograph taken quite recently for Mrs. Carroll’s +birthday, and I ran upstairs and brought one down. Miss Izzy examined +it critically. “I’ve got a red plush frame at home that’s about your +mark.” + +“Don’t put me in red plush,” I begged. + +Miss Izzy looked up from the photograph to the original. “Is red plush +not good enough for you? You’d like a gold frame, maybe?” + +“It’s not that,” I said hastily. “It’s only that I don’t care much for +red plush. Can’t you get a plain frame? I will get one for you.” + +“No, thanks. I always put a plain person in an ornamental frame: it +gives them a better chance.” + +“All right.” + +There was never any use trying to get an advantage over Miss Izzy +in verbal skirmishes, so I gave in, and, as the shop appeared to be +comparatively deserted to-night, I sat down on an empty wooden box, and +read aloud to her the first two chapters of the novel I had brought +from the library. It was Hardy’s “Two on a Tower,” and as I turned the +pages, the circumstances, so different, under which I had read them +before, kept floating into my mind. When I had finished the second +chapter, and drummed for a while with my heels against the box, I went +upstairs, and got out my notes on French composition to look them over +before to-morrow’s examination. The room, although the window was wide +open, seemed to me unbearably stuffy, and moreover I had a slight +headache and felt tired and irritable. I put up with the heat for half +an hour, and then undressed and sat down in my nightshirt close to the +window, which looked out on to a dirty strip of back garden, threaded +with clothes-lines, and forming, after dark, a kind of debased Paradise +for dissipated cats. + +At half-past ten or so George stepped jauntily in. “Hello! Not done +yet?” He took the now withered flower from his button-hole and flung it +out among the cats; then he began to turn over some papers I had laid +down on the table in the exact order I required them. + +“You’ll mix those up,” I said crossly. “Leave them alone.” + +George threw the papers down. “All right. Keep your wool on!” Two or +three of the sheets fluttered to the floor. + +I picked them up in a very bad temper, and George began to whistle――the +same few bars over and over again. “Oh, shut up,” I cried. “Can’t you +see I’m working?” + +“Temper! Temper!” said George, cheerfully. “I’ll have to tell Katherine +about this!” + +He was standing before the looking-glass, and had begun to remove +his dickey; but at the very moment of speaking he knew he had made a +mistake. He looked round with a sort of foolish, apologetic grin. I, +too, knew that his words had slipped out unintentionally, for I had +never mentioned Katherine’s name to him. There were, in fact, only +two ways in which he could have come by his information: either Aunt +Margaret had managed to get hold of some of my letters again, or else +he had read one of them himself. + +“What do you mean?” I asked coldly, looking steadily into his eyes as +they were reflected in the glass. + +George tried to laugh it off. “I was only joking,” he said, nervously. + +But I wanted a better explanation than this. + +“Who told you about Katherine?” I asked, getting up from my chair +deliberately, and walking over to him, while he spun round to meet me +with bright eyes and a forced smile. + +“What’s the matter? What are you losin’ your rag about? I don’t want to +annoy you.” + +“The matter is this: I want to know if you have been reading my +letters? If you have, you must have unlocked the box I keep them in.” + +“I never unlocked any box.” George backed away from me, his eyes not +leaving mine. + +“You’d better tell me,” I said, but George would say nothing further. +He stood with his back now against the wall. I struck him on the cheek +with my open hand. “Answer,” I said. + +I saw his eyes turn to the door, and anticipated the spring he made +to get past me. The next moment I had him by the throat and we were +struggling together. Suddenly I released my hold, flinging him from me. +He struck out at me as I came toward him again, but it was the feeble, +half-hearted blow of a coward, and I felt my fist in contact with his +face, almost as if he had run up against it. He staggered back, and a +crimson stream poured down over his chin and on to his shirt, making +a horrible mess, while he stood blubbering like a baby. I did not hit +him again, but simply watched him. I knew he was really more frightened +than hurt, for though his nose was bleeding profusely, I had seen it +do that on several occasions before, quite spontaneously. We must, all +the same, have kicked up a considerable racket, for I heard the sound +of quick footsteps in the passage, and then our door was flung open +and a wild figure rushed in. It was Aunt Margaret, in a stained, red +dressing-gown, her black eyes blazing in her big, puffy face. Her huge +loose body shook and panted with rage as she turned from George to +me. I stepped quickly out of her way, for there was something rather +fearful in the great white mask of hate she turned on me. She said not +a word, but shooting out an arm, like a shoulder of mutton, gripped +me by the collar of my nightshirt, and began to rain down a torrent of +heavy blows on my head and uplifted arms. I protected myself as well +as I could, and at last, with a violent wrench, tore myself out of her +grasp, my nightshirt ripping down to the hem, a considerable portion of +it remaining in Aunt Margaret’s hand. “Stop that!” I shouted furiously, +but she came at me again, her fat body panting yet displaying an +incredible activity, her eyes shining with madness. + +I knew there would be mischief done, for I saw her catch up an iron rod +that was part of George’s trouser-stretcher. I was really frightened +now, and made a dive to get past her and out of the door. I felt her +nails tear my naked shoulder; at the same moment I flung up my arm and, +it may be, saved my life, for something crashed down over my elbow, +striking on the back of my head with a sickening jar that I seemed to +hear as the floor swept up to meet me. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +When I opened my eyes I was lying in bed, with a hot jar at my feet, +and the pungent irritation of smelling-salts in my nostrils. Uncle +George was in the room, and there was a stranger there also. I knew +what had taken place, and, if I hadn’t remembered, there was an +atrocious pain in my head to remind me. I put up my hand and discovered +my head was bandaged. + +“Well,” said the stranger, drawing closer. “How do you feel now?” + +“My head’s pretty sore,” I answered. + +He mixed me something in a glass and I drank it. Uncle George came over +and began to ask questions, but the doctor pulled him away. “Leave him +to go to sleep now: he’ll be better able to talk in the morning. It +might have been a nasty thing. I’ll look in to-morrow.” + +I had closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I was alone and +in the dark. A ray of moonlight floated through the window and lay +across the floor where George’s bed had been, but the bed itself was +gone, and I wondered languidly how they had been able to take it away +without my hearing anything. In spite of an abominable headache I felt +drowsy――perhaps it was the effect of whatever drug I had taken――and I +must very soon have lost consciousness. + +The first person I saw in the morning was Uncle George, who carried me +in my breakfast. My head still ached, though not nearly so violently. +While I drank a cup of tea Uncle George sat in silence, his eyes fixed +on me, with an expression of anxiety that was almost comic. As for me, +I felt better, and, when Uncle George had removed the tray, I allowed +him to tell me how sorry he was, but without replying or giving him any +encouragement. I could see he was dying for me to say something, but I +thought a little suspense would not do him any harm, so I maintained a +discreet quiet. Secretly I was glad, for this disagreeable adventure +gave me just what I had needed, but I was far from letting Uncle George +know that. + +“She wasn’t responsible,” said Uncle George, dejectedly, and plunging +straight to the heart of the subject. “You know she has to take drugs +sometimes on account of the pain she suffers, and they have an effect +upon her. I tell you this in confidence, and that last night she had +taken more than she intended to, and didn’t really know what she +was doin’. But you must forgive her, Peter. And then she is jealous +of you――I may as well tell you everything――she is jealous when she +thinks of the difference between you and George, and that you will be +a gentleman, while George and the others’ll have to get along as best +they can――and times are so bad, and there’s so few openings for lads +nowadays. This drug she had taken――――” He stopped and his eyes fastened +on mine appealingly. + +“What do you want me to do?” I asked, smoothing down the sheet. + +Uncle George moved nervously in his chair, but did not reply. + +“I’m going home to-day,” I went on. + +“Home? You’ll be waiting for a day or two――till you get quit of this +pain in your head, won’t you? And then there’s your examination! Will +they take marks off if you get a doctor’s certificate?” + +“A certificate for what?” + +“That you can’t go in for the examination.” + +“I’m going in for the exam. And I’m certainly going home.” + +Uncle George, who had never ventured to remonstrate with me on any +subject whatever since my arrival, and who treated me as, if anything, +slightly older than himself, did not begin now. “And what will you tell +them?” was all he asked. + +“Would you like me to say I fell downstairs?” I suggested innocently. + +Uncle George fidgeted. “I don’t want you to tell a lie,” he made +answer, which was a pretty big one for him. + +“Oh, I don’t mind,” I observed, pleasantly. + +Uncle George considered this. “I suppose there’s times, maybe, when +it’s best not to tell all the truth,” he brought out lamely. + +“This is one when I should think it would be best not to tell any of +it,” I replied. + +Uncle George was silent. I was not letting him off particularly easily. + +“There must, however, be two lies told,” I pursued. “The first by me, +and the second by you, in a letter saying you can’t take me back after +the holidays――that you haven’t room――any reason you like.” + +“But won’t you come back?” asked Uncle George, dolefully. “You were +always quite comfortable, quite happy till――till this accident. And +it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been knocking George about. I +don’t know what he had done on you.” + +“I was never happy,” I said impatiently. “Either you or Aunt Margaret +will have to write as I say, or I’ll tell my father exactly what +happened. This accident, as you call it, very nearly did for me: and +it’s only one thing out of a lot.” + +“Your poor aunt wants to come and tell you how sorry she is.” + +“My poor aunt needn’t bother. I know exactly how sorry she is. If it +had been the ceiling that had fallen on me and killed me outright, I +don’t fancy she’d have minded much――except for the mess.” + +Uncle George regarded me mournfully. “You’re very unforgiving,” he +said. “I know you’ve a right to say hard things, but――――” + +It seemed to me that this was going a bit too far. “What do you mean by +unforgiving?” I asked. “Haven’t I promised not to tell?” + +“It’s not that,” said Uncle George. + +“What is it then? Do you want me to sacrifice myself simply that +you may make so much a week out of me? Don’t you know that Aunt +Margaret has always hated me like poison? Don’t you know she is pretty +constantly under the influence of whatever it is she takes, though you +speak as if this were the first time? I’m not such a fool that I can’t +see what’s going on. She’s always prying about my things and reading my +letters. Besides, in the very beginning, you know as well as I do that +I came to live here expecting to have a room to myself and not to be +stuck with George.” + +Uncle George did not reply, but he looked as he sat there, with his +gray head bent, the picture of dejection. + +“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings, Uncle George, for you’ve been +always very kind and decent to me, and if there was no one here but you +and Alice I would come back certainly. But as it is, I can’t; I really +can’t. I wanted to leave at Christmas, only my father wouldn’t let me.” + +As I watched him lift his mild, sheep-like face, and go out, I pitied +him――almost enough to have promised to do what he wanted, which would +have been idiotic. “If he’d had any sense,” I told myself, “he’d have +clapped Aunt Margaret into a ‘home’ or an asylum, or whatever it is, +long ago. But he’s too soft-hearted to do anything but make himself +miserable.” + +During the morning little Alice came in several times to see me. The +doctor also called and examined my head, into which he had put a couple +of stitches last night. It was only a scalp wound, he said, and thought +I might go back to Newcastle that afternoon if I felt up to it. + +At dinner-time George appeared, looking very sheepish, and shuffling +his feet. “How are you?” he asked. “Ma says you’re goin’ home this +afternoon, so I thought I’d drop in an’ say good-bye. I’m sorry about +this. It’s my fault, an’ it’s rotten for your exam. I only read one +letter. I went to ma’s work-basket for the scissors, an’ I saw it there +lying open, an’ I read it without thinking. That’s the God’s truth, +whether you believe it or not, an’ there was nothin’ in it you need +mind.” + +“Oh, it’s all right,” I answered. + +“All the same it’s damned putrid luck about the exam.” + +“It can’t be helped. Besides, I’m going to have a shot at it.” + +“Well, I’ll have to cut on. So long, Peter.” He grinned as he held out +a big hand, which, like his face, was covered with freckles. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX + + +My examination was at three, and at two o’clock I got up. If I hadn’t +done so well on the other papers, probably I should have let it go, +but it seemed, in the circumstances, a pity to spoil my results if I +could possibly avoid it. Yet when I lifted my head from the pillow it +throbbed so violently that I thought I should have to lie down again. I +steadied myself, holding on to the bed-post, but presently I was able +to finish dressing and go downstairs. Miss Izzy was in the shop, alone, +and she gazed at me with keen curiosity. I smiled, though I was really +feeling fairly bad. + +“Are you better?” Miss Izzy asked, for some reason speaking in a kind +of hoarse whisper. + +“I’ve a beastly headache, that’s all.” + +“Not much wonder. _She_ did it, didn’t she?” Miss Izzy was all eyes and +secrecy. + +I nodded. + +“She’s getting worse,” Miss Izzy announced in an awed tone. “She’s +really not in her right senses. I don’t know what she’ll be doing next. +You’re going to-day, aren’t you?” + +“Yes――after the exam. I wish you would ask Alice to pack my things for +me; she can do it all right.” + +“I’ll help her. I’ll tell you this, I’ve been looking out for another +job this while back, and I think I’ve got one. That’s between +ourselves; but I can’t put up with her any longer. I’ll drop you a +postcard; give me your address.” + +I scribbled it on a bit of paper she handed me. + +Miss Izzy glanced at it and stuffed it in her pocket. “Right oh! Here’s +somebody coming in; they never give you a minute’s peace―――― Are you +away?” + +“Yes. I think I’ll take a cab.” + +The customer had entered, but Miss Izzy only glared at her. “I’m sure +you shouldn’t be going at all. It may just give you brain fever or +something!” + +“Oh, I don’t think so,” I smiled. + +Miss Izzy nodded at me as she advanced reluctantly to her duty. “I’ll +see you later.” + +“Yes. You’ll not forget to tell Alice?” + +“No; that’ll be all right.” + +At the stand by the gas-works I got into a hansom and drove off. I +kept my cap on the seat beside me, for any pressure on my head was +painful. Fortunately I had only a short distance to go, and once in the +cool airy hall I felt better. But my bandaged appearance created quite +a sensation. Everybody stared at me, and one of the superintendents +came to ask me if I had met with an accident. I told him I had fallen +downstairs, at which he indulged in a somewhat obvious jest. + +The paper suited me and did not require any great effort, but when I +had finished I was glad. Outside, I had to repeat my fiction of falling +downstairs, and listen to various versions of the superintendent’s +joke, before I was able to get Owen by himself. We went into the +Botanic Gardens and sat down on the first vacant bench, where I told +him what had actually happened. He did not appear to realize that +I might have been killed, and, in spite of his sympathy and the +questions he asked, I knew his thoughts were really hovering round +the examination, and that he was weighing the chances of his having +retained his last year’s exhibition. We talked of my adventure, but, +as we did so, unconsciously, he drew the examination paper from his +pocket and unfolded it. Owen had not been doing so well as I had, and +a good deal depended on the marks he got this afternoon. “I wouldn’t +mind,” he said, “only there’s something I’m doing which the pater will +make me give up if I don’t keep my ‘ex.’” + +“If I’d been killed,” I said, “I wonder if you’d have gone over the +questions with Grimshaw or O’Brian!” + +Owen glanced at me to see if I were serious. He had by this time spread +out the blue sheet on his knees. “What did you put for ‘cane-bottomed +chair?’” he asked, anxiously. + +But my interest in the exam. had vanished. “Oh, I don’t know――‘chaise +cannée,’ or something. Look here, Owen, will you come and see me off +at the station? I have to go back to the house, of course, to get my +things, but I’d rather have somebody with me.” + +“‘Chaise cannée?’ How did you think of it? I wonder if it’s right? I +put ‘au fond de jonc,’ but I’m sure that’s rot. ‘Chaise cannée.’ You +know, it’s not fair giving things like that! What do you think?” + +“Of ‘au fond de jonc’? I don’t think much of it.” + +Owen was depressed. “It doesn’t sound right, does it? What did you put +for ‘fire-dogs?’ O’Brian put ‘chiens de feu.’” + +“O’Brian’s a fool,” I answered, truthfully. + +Owen laughed, but without merriment, and I was pretty sure he had put +‘chiens de feu’ himself. “You might drop that beastly paper,” I said, +“and tell me if you’ll come or not.” + +“Of course I’ll come. But tell me just this one thing.” + +“What? ‘Fire-dogs?’――‘chenets.’” + +“‘Chenets?’ Are you sure? You’re awfully clever at those out-of-the-way +words!” + +“It’s not an out-of-the-way word. ‘Chiens de feu’ are the sort of +things that’ll be chasing you and O’Brian in the next world.” + +Owen laughed ruefully, but another question, in spite of his promise, +was already hovering on his lips. + +“Come along,” I said, getting up. “What good does it do worrying over +the rotten thing now?” And I tore my paper in two, and let the pieces +go fluttering down the path on the wind. + + + + + CHAPTER XL + + +In the morning Tony’s familiar scratching at my door reminded me that +I was home again, and this time for two long, idle months. I was very +sleepy, but I struggled out of bed with half-open eyes, and let him +in. As I closed the door again, I trod on one of his paws. He gave a +sharp yelp, and then a great wagging of his tail to show that he knew +it had been an accident. Jumping on to the bed he scrambled between the +sheets, and I followed, taking what room he would give me. I lay trying +to go to sleep, while he sprawled over me. Then when he had thoroughly +wakened me up he went to sleep himself. + +I lay listening to the sea and thinking of what I should do that +day. I would bathe after breakfast; I would take Tony with me, which +would mean bathing off the sand, for Tony could not dive, and had a +foolish habit, when on the rocks, of trying to lap the sea up to the +level he wanted it at. But I had forgotten my plastered head; bathing, +I supposed, would be out of the question for at least a week. So, +when breakfast was over, I stuffed a book into my jacket pocket, and +strolled in the direction of Derryaghy woods. I had the long June day +before me, and perfect freedom to do just as I pleased with it. The +book I had chosen was “Twelfth Night,” the influence of Count Tolstoy, +so far as I was concerned, having suffered an eclipse. I had read no +second work by him, and the questionings stirred up by “Anna Karénine” +had sunk quietly to sleep. Owen, a day or two ago, had got hold of +“Katia,” and “The Kreutzer Sonata,” but I, I regret to say, had not a +line of the master’s in my possession. + +In truth, I was but a degenerate disciple, and moreover unfaithful. For +Owen and I had sent the great man a letter for the New Year, protesting +allegiance, and had actually received a reply, which, considering +it had almost moved Owen to tears, I had allowed him to keep. He +regarded it with the kind of veneration that, in earlier days, a devout +pilgrim may have regarded some relic of a saint. I shouldn’t have been +surprised to learn that he wore it, tied up in a little bag, somewhere +beneath his clothes. Really it had been quite decent; though that a +man of world-wide fame, who must have been besieged by communications +of all kinds and from all sorts of persons, should have found time to +understand and reply kindly to the epistle of a couple of youngsters, +far away in a benighted island, I’m afraid did not strike me then as +quite the wonderful thing it was. The letter, however, was not to me, +and Owen, at all events, had found it wonderful enough. In spite of +my share in the matter, the spirit of our enterprise had been Owen’s. +The epistle we had concocted had expressed Owen, and Owen alone, and +it was delightfully intelligent of the master to have seen behind its +crudity something worth encouraging. He had actually asked us――that is +Owen――to write again――not at once and under the immediate influence +of his letter, but in a month or two. And Owen had written again. By +that time I had had the sense to recognize that I was only a shadow in +this matter, and to give him a free field. He had waited the full two +months, which I, had I felt his enthusiasm, could never have done, and +had then written the second letter. This letter I had insisted must be +private. I had refused to take any part in its composition, or even to +read it when it was finished, though Owen had told me all that was in +it――a complete account of himself, of his father’s position, of his own +acquirements and abilities, his prospects, his ideals, ending up with a +petition for advice as to the direction his studies ought to take, and +as to what career lay open to him. The reply to this effusion had not +yet come or I should have heard of it, but I hadn’t the slightest doubt +that when it did turn up Owen would follow its instructions minutely, +down to the smallest particulars, even were that to entail the wearing +of peas in his shoes. It was the sort of thing that was completely +beyond me. I could not have borne to admit, even to myself, that +anybody was so much my superior as all that. And then, very softly, at +the bottom of my soul, I preferred “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to “Anna +Karénine.” I not only preferred it, but I was sure it was a work of far +finer genius. Of course I was always sure that the things I happened +to prefer were far finer, but in this particular instance I have not +altered my opinion. + + * * * * * + +As I wandered up into the woods, followed by the lagging Tony, I knew +it was going to be a very hot day, though it was not nearly so hot at +present as Tony pretended. I hunted about till I had found a pleasant +place――where the rising ground formed a kind of natural couch, covered +with golden moss and bracken, and where the sun at noon would not be +too strong as it dropped down through thick green beech branches. +I took my book from my pocket, but it was only to make myself more +comfortable, not with any intention of reading. I lay there and let +the green summer morning steal into my soul, staining my mind to its +own deep cool colour, while Tony gnawed at the trunk of a fallen tree, +stripping off the bark in sheets, till he was tired and hot, when he +came over beside me and stretched himself on the bracken, with his red +tongue hanging out and his eyes nearly closed. And I lay on in the +enchanted morning, my hands under my head, gazing up through the flat, +shady branches, and thinking “long, long thoughts.” Already I seemed to +have cast from me, as a snake his old skin, the weight and grime of a +year of town life; already I felt better, cleaner, felt the sap of my +youth fresh and strong within me. + +After an hour or two I opened my book and began to read:―― + + “If music be the food of love, play on; + Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, + The appetite may sicken, and so die. + That strain again! it had a dying fall; + O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odour....” + +I was lost in that world of poetry and music, of lingering melodies and +songs, dreamy and happy and sad. Romance! romance! I felt it stirring +in my blood, singing within me! This play of passion, where passion is +never stormy, but a kind of dreaming of love, exactly suited my present +mood. Love was the world I lived in, love was in the rustling of the +beech-leaves, love was in the breaking of the invisible sea, love was +even in the snores of Tony. + +I closed the book, my mind filled with laughter and love and poetry. +Beautiful figures glided before me through the sun-washed, leaf-green +air――Viola in her boy’s clothes――Olivia――moving in an atmosphere of +sensuous sweetness. I imagined myself a page, visiting Olivia in her +palace; I imagined her falling in love with me; I began to weave a +romance of my own, in which scenes from other romances lingered, the +music of their words.... + +The sunlight splashed through the beech-leaves on to the green moss, +and where it fell the green took a hue of gold. Green arcades opened +out into the heart of the summer woods. Rarely came the note of a +bird, but the woods were full of life; the flashing whites and grays +of rabbits appeared on the clearing nearer the house; there were +mysterious movements in the brushwood. I roused reluctant Tony and we +went down to the stream. We were out in the broad sunshine here, and +the rocks were quite hot. The dark green silky waterweed spread out, +seeming to flow with the rapid, shallow water, and sleepy summer noon +held me spell-bound. In the shadow of the rocks were deep pools, where +the water looked almost black. Tony waded out into mid-stream and began +to lap up the water. Then he lifted his head, his red, dripping tongue +still hanging out, his dark, beautiful eyes half-closed, and looked at +me while he panted. The woods on either side were full of green shadow +and mystery. We walked home over soft turf and across a blazing field +dotted with fly-tormented cows. Tony was too hot even to give them a +passing bark. On the right the ground sloped down gently, forming a +vast meadow, with scattered trees and flaming gorse-bushes; and beyond, +under the deep blue sky, the great glorious sea danced and gleamed, +blue also, with a long white line where the surf curled up over the +flat, sun-drenched sand. + +I felt lazy and contented, conscious only of the warmth of the sun +and the beauty of this world, wrapped in a kind of sleepy happiness. +In the afternoon I would go in search of some of my old friends; go +out, perhaps, with Willie Breen in his boat, though as a rule boating +in any form bored me to death. Trivial and bizarre thoughts passed +through my mind. I wished the world was the way it is in old romances +and fairy-tales. I was sure that this was the very day on which some +wonderful thing would happen; when one might find a magic door leading +into a strange world that was yet quite close at hand; for all my life +long I had had the feeling that such a world was there. + + + + + CHAPTER XLI + + +During the next three weeks I led a solitary enough life, in the +woods and by the sea. I read a good deal, and dreamed still more. In +the mornings, and often in the afternoons as well, I went for long +swims, and, coming back, lay in the sun on the rocks, sometimes for +hours at a time, so that the skin all over my body had been tanned to +a deep golden brown. And I was growing stronger. I could feel it; I +could even see it in my limbs, which were becoming more muscular. And +with my increasing physical strength I suppose other alterations took +place――alterations in my outward appearance, marking the passage from +boyhood to adolescence. Annie Breen, for instance, had spoken to me +several times of late in a way that betokened a consciousness of this +change; and more than one girl whom I met on the road in the evenings, +when wishing me good-night, had put something into her greetings +which made it quite different from what it would have been last year. +Several of the village boys, no older than I, had already sweethearts, +and I knew I had but to give a sign to any of these girls to have a +sweetheart also; and while I held myself aloof, and responded with the +barest politeness, I none the less felt flattered. + +I received news of my examination. I had done better than I had +expected, getting first place in the school and third in Ireland. Owen, +too, had not done badly; at all events he had retained his exhibition. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII + + +I met Owen at the station, and, as he jumped out of the carriage, he +cried, “I’ve got the letter. It was waiting for me when I reached +home.” He waved it triumphantly in my face, beaming with the delight of +it and with the pleasure of showing it to me. + +“I can’t possibly read it here,” I said, grasping his bag. + +“And I say, you know, you did rippingly in the exams. I knew you would.” + +He had come down by the first train, and I wanted to take him for a +bathe, but he was so excited that he could hardly listen to me. I had +brought our towels, and I delivered Owen’s bag to a carman outside to +take up to the house. + +“Where are we going now? It was jolly decent of him writing, wasn’t it?” + +“Who? Tolstoy? Not bad. But we’re going to bathe: I waited for you. +It’s some distance away, unless you would rather wade in off the shore; +there’s plenty of time, however.” + +“I’ll do whatever you like.” + +“Then I think we’ll go round to Maggie’s Leap.” + +As we went we talked of his precious letter. “You won’t like it, I +daresay,” he said. “It’s not much in your line.” + +“I wish you would tell me what my line is. I’ve been trying to discover +during the last fortnight.” + +“I know very well.... There’s one thing he says that I can’t quite――――” + +“Well?” + +“Well, it’s this: He says everything is in the Gospels. What people +have got to do is to read over the words of Christ, and mark with a red +pencil everything that is perfectly clear to them.” + +“A red pencil?” + +Owen was too eager to notice anything. “Yes. What are you amused at? +Then you cut those bits out, and never bother about the rest. In what +you cut out you’ll find everything that it is necessary to know in +order to map out your life and your work. The whole teaching of Christ, +all that is essential, will be in those bits. Later on you may read +over the other things, that were obscure, and perhaps some of them +will by then be plain. I am to consider what kind of work I have a +taste for, and at the same time the work I devote myself to must fulfil +certain tests or I am to have nothing to do with it. Work you do with +your hands is best of all. I haven’t shown the letter at home yet. I +thought I’d think it quietly over down here and talk about it with you. +We’ll read the Gospels together. My father wants me to be a solicitor +and go into his place, but I don’t want that. On the other hand, I must +make up my mind soon, I suppose. I’m seventeen, you know.” + +I took the letter from him, and read it slowly and with some difficulty +as we walked along. After that, I thought over it for a while. + +“Will you have to earn your living?” + +“Yes, naturally. There are a good many of us, you know.” + +“Then I don’t see how the Gospels are going to help you, no matter what +way you mark them.” + +“Why not?” + +“Because you’ll have to live as other people do, unless you can afford +to be different; and other people don’t live according to the Gospels.” + +Owen was silent. + +“A carpenter, a gardener, for instance,” he began, “couldn’t they live +in accordance with the teaching of Christ? Tolstoy says I will never be +happy unless I do.” + +“It’s all very well for Tolstoy talking: he is his own master and has +plenty of money. But how can you be a carpenter or a gardener? Your +father would never allow you to, and the first thing would be a quarrel +with him. We go down here, over this wall.” + +Owen scrambled after me. + +“A man must leave his father and his mother.” + +“Yes, Owen dear, but you’re not a bit the kind of man who does, to say +nothing of leaving your brother and your sisters. At any rate, while +you are learning to be a gardener your father will have to keep you.” + +“I only mentioned those trades because they happened to occur to me; +there are plenty of others.” + +“There are not plenty: that’s just the difficulty I’ve been finding.” + +We clambered down on to the rocks, from which the sea stretched away, +deep and clear and blue, glittering in the hot sunshine, moving with a +low, smooth swell, like some huge, splendid, living creature. + +“You will require a profession in which you can be your own master from +the very beginning. It wouldn’t do to be subordinate to anybody who +hadn’t had a letter from Tolstoy, or perhaps even read ‘Anna Karénine.’ +If you go in for the Church, for example, you will have to do what you +are told until you get a church of your own, when you’ll be always +having rows with your parishioners and elders, for, of course, you’ll +have to preach the Tolstoy gospel or the tests will get in the way. If +you become a doctor you won’t make a living, because you will want to +doctor the widows and the fatherless, who are no use in the matter of +fees. I admit the lawyer idea is absurd――even without Tolstoy and the +Gospels it wouldn’t have done――and no doubt your father only thought +of it because he’s a solicitor himself. You’ll have to be content with +something that fulfils perhaps one or two of the tests. Then, when you +get married and have a swarm of children, your wife will rise in revolt +against them _all_.” + +“I can choose a suitable wife, and there’s no need to have a swarm +of children. I shall have just as many as I can afford to bring up +properly.... That reminds me, I brought you down the ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’ +It’s in my bag.” + +“That’s all right; but it’s always people like you, frightfully earnest +and moral and all the rest of it, who have families of twelve or +thirteen.” + +“I tell you I won’t have them,” said Owen, impatiently. + +“But Tolstoy himself――――” + +“I don’t care a hang about Tolstoy.” + +“Oh――h! Owen!” + +“Tolstoy could give his children a decent start in life; and if he can +do that, the more such a man has the better.” + +During the latter part of this conversation, all of which Owen was +taking in dead seriousness, we were undressing, and I now dived into +the deep, green, glittering water. I turned on my back and lay watching +Owen, distinctly uneasy, stand hesitating on the edge of the rock. + +“Is it cold?” he asked. + +“No; come along.” + +He pulled his shirt slowly off. “I brought you down some of the short +stories too.” + +I laughed. “All right; I’ll read them when I come out.” + +But Owen was really anxious now only about the temperature of the +water. He floundered in and came up spluttering. I was a much better +swimmer than he, and circled about him, showing off, delighting in the +power I felt. We swam out for fifty yards or so, and I timed my stroke +with Owen’s. He looked very funny. His eyes stared straight before +him as if he were set on some desperate adventure. On our way back I +splashed him a little and he got angry, swallowing a lot of water. I +told him how contrary to the teaching of the Gospels this was; when +I asked him to drink a pint of salt water he should swallow a quart; +etc., etc. + +When we got to the rocks and he had scrambled out, scraping his knees +and one of his elbows in doing so, for it was not easy to get out +unless you knew the way, he was quite offended, and would hardly speak +to me. I was shaking with laughter, but I said I was sorry and gave +him some sticking-plaster. He took the sticking-plaster, but would +have none of my sympathy, and on the way home I had to soothe him into +a better temper. Then, as usual, the cloud passed quite suddenly, and +he was all right. As we drew near the house I wondered, uneasily, +what he would think of my father, and what he would think of my home. +Before coming to us he had been staying in Scotland with people who +had evidently possessed yachts and motor-cars and all kinds of things, +whereas we could not even boast a spare bed, and he would have to sleep +with me. + +When we came in, I introduced him to my father, who was working in the +garden, and before dinner was over I was delighted to see that they +were going to get on well together. Owen seemed to notice none of his +peculiar habits, or, if he did, he was perfectly indifferent to them. +He displayed an extraordinary interest in the school, asking all kinds +of questions, and bringing out his own theories of education, which +may or may not have emanated from the sage in Russia. I let them talk +together without interfering much. I could see that my father was very +favourably impressed, though the fact that such an admirable youth +happened to be a particular friend of mine was naturally perplexing. +Owen was frightfully polite. He called my father “Sir,” and listened +deferentially to everything he had to say, never offering his own +opinion as of any particular value. They talked almost exclusively of +education. Owen told how he was teaching a boy at home in the evenings, +the son of their coachman, and how clever this boy was, and how he had +got Mr. Gill senior to promise to pay his college fees if he did well +at school during the next year or two. It was the first time I had +heard of the matter, but I supposed it was the mysterious something +which had interfered with his own work, and had made him so anxious +about retaining his exhibition. “Didn’t _he_ do splendidly?” Owen said +suddenly, nodding his head in my direction. + +“Peter can be clever enough when he chooses,” my father answered dryly. + +This was to prevent me from exaggerating the merit of my achievement, +but I did not care, for in my own mind my performance was somewhat +stale already, and I did not give a fig for such distinctions. It +occurred to me, as I watched them and listened to them, that Owen and +my father were perhaps more alike, mentally and spiritually, than Owen +and I, though my father had but a fraction of Owen’s fineness, and none +of his generosity. They were related as a coarse weed and a delicate +flower might be, but I was of a different genus. And then I thought +that, though I cared little for Gerald, and loved Owen, perhaps it was +Gerald with whom I had really most in common. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIII + + +Owen and I were standing by the low sea-wall, looking out across the +wet brown sands, when I saw her. It was a gray, cloudy day, and the air +was full of mist and damp, which hung in heavy, livid-coloured veils +over the black mountain-tops, and sometimes dropped half way down the +slopes. The tide was out and the noise of the waves sounded remote +and musical. The broad stretch of wet sand and shingle reached out to +the cold, gray-green sea, with its white curling line of foam; and +at the water’s edge, a little bent forward, her light dress floating +out behind her in the fresh wind, one hand raised, holding the brim +of her big black hat, she moved along, a solitary figure against the +broad line of sea and sky. It was Katherine, and as I watched her it +struck me that the whole picture, from her presence in it, became +curiously like a Whistler water-colour. The next thing I noticed was +that Katherine was quite grown-up, which had the effect of producing in +me a sudden shyness, so that I made no attempt to go to meet her. Yet +here was the meeting I had lain awake half the night imagining! I had +an almost overpowering impulse to turn tail and slink away, and perhaps +I might have done so had I been alone. + +Owen, who took no more interest in girls than in octogenarians, asked +me what I was staring at. + +“At Miss Dale,” I answered. + +“Who’s Miss Dale?” + +“Katherine.” + +“And who is Katherine?” + +“Mrs. Carroll’s niece.” + +Then Owen looked at me in surprise. “Aren’t you going to speak to her? +I thought you knew her very well?” + +“So I do.” + +We clambered over the wall and crossed the beach to intercept her +path. My idiotic nervousness was increased by Owen’s presence. She had +noticed our approach now, and altered her own course to meet us. As she +came up she smiled with her bright frank smile and held out her hand. +She was perfectly natural and easy in her greeting, while I began to +stammer and splutter. I managed to introduce Owen, saying he had come +down yesterday, and we all three walked on together. + +“I wondered if I should see you,” she said. “We arrived this morning. +Gerald is up at the house, but I had to come out and get some fresh air +after our travels.” + +“There’s p――plenty of it at all events,” I stuttered. + +“I like it. I like wind,” she added, turning her smile upon Owen. +“Don’t you? It’s very nice to be back here again. I always love coming +back to any place I know.” + +“When the tide is out it looks like a Whistler water-colour,” I went +on, thinking it a pity that this should be lost. + +But probably neither Katherine nor Owen had ever heard of Whistler. “It +looks to me very like rain,” said the former, glancing at the heavy +clouds over Slieve Donard. Owen took no notice at all of my remark. +“Conversation means nothing to Owen,” I reflected, impatiently, “unless +it takes the form of argument. Anything merely suggestive or decorative +is lost upon him.” And I felt annoyed because they had both begun to +chatter commonplaces about Katherine’s journey――what kind of passage +she had had; as if it mattered! + +Then I became lost in contemplation of her. A year had certainly made +a tremendous difference! “Last winter she probably came out,” I said +to myself, with vague memories of Miss Broughton’s novels. At all +events, in twelve months she had managed to put at least five years +between us. It was quite conceivable that she was already engaged to be +married, while I was but a timid school-boy, who could only envy from +afar the happiness of her lover. And the thought that perhaps there +_was_ a lover cast a vivid illumination on my own feeling for her, made +plainer than ever the difference, how carefully veiled soever, between +friendship and love. I loved her with that love which, idealize it as I +might, was really the expression of a simple law of nature. + +Meanwhile she was talking to Owen, who was explaining to her some +theory of the influence of the tides upon the earth, and of the moon +on the tides. How, in the first five minutes, he had contrived to get +on to such a subject I could not guess. It was fearfully like him, +nevertheless, and Katherine appeared to be interested. + +No matter in what company he found himself Owen never talked about +anything except the things he was interested in. Last night it had +been a little delicious to hear him discuss Plato’s “Republic” with +Miss Dick, who, though immensely pleased, was always at her silliest +when taken seriously. To converse with Miss Dick was like trying to +get a definite impression from a kaleidoscope; you no sooner fixed +your attention on one particular idea than it dissolved into something +quite different. And yet Miss Dick had views――political, religious, +social,――derived from a deceased parent, who had been an apostle +of free thought. Only she would interrupt her expression of the +profoundest of these to wonder if Sissie McIldowie was really engaged +to young Stevenson. + +And now Owen was talking to Katherine about the tides. I watched her +and knew she liked him. She liked his rough brown mane, his clear eyes, +with their kindness and innocence, for Owen, in spite of the “Kreutzer +Sonata” and the rest, was as innocent as a child. There was something +fine about Owen, and it was very visible in his face. + +At present he quite monopolized the conversation, turning it into a +sort of scientific discourse; and I knew so well that he had been +reading some little book about tides――probably in the train on his way +down. I yawned two or three times when he looked in my direction, but +I might have spared myself the rudeness, for it had not the slightest +effect upon him while Katherine kept on asking questions as if she +found what he said absorbing. My apparent indifference simply had the +result of producing a _tête-à-tête_ between them. + +“You ought to become a University Extension lecturer,” I said, +maliciously. “You should write and ask Tolstoy about it.” + +It was a highly disagreeable remark to make, and as soon as I had said +it I was filled with shame. Owen coloured and stopped talking at once. +I was very sorry. Inwardly I went down on my knees to him and begged +his pardon, but outwardly I showed only a sullen stolidity. I said +something to Katherine, but she answered coldly, and turned again to +Owen as if to make up to him for my bad manners. And at this my remorse +degenerated into sulkiness. + +Nevertheless, as we walked home together, I had the grace to apologize. +“I’m sorry for what I said,” I muttered. “It was a most beastly thing +to say. It’s not so much because it was rude as because it was rotten.” + +This distinction I cannot undertake here to explain; let it suffice +that in my mind it was a very clearly defined one. + +“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Owen. “I always do talk either too much +or too little.” + +After tea we went for a long walk and discussed all our old subjects. +But in my present mood they bored me, though I was determined not to +show it. What I really wanted just then was to be alone, that I might +recall the past and make plans for the future. We went to bed when we +came in, but long after Owen had dropped asleep I lay awake, wrapped +in beautiful, desolating dreams. I gave Owen a gentle kick, for he had +begun to snore, which troubled the quiet that was necessary for the +perfect enjoyment of my visions. It woke him up, which was not what I +had intended, but it couldn’t be helped, and, before he had dropped +asleep again, I was myself lost in slumber. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIV + + +I happened on the thing by the merest accident. My father had been +going through the papers in his desk the night before, tying up old +letters in bundles, and burning many in the grate. He had been quite +absorbed in this dusty task when Owen and I had come in from our walk, +and he had been still absorbed in it when we had left him and gone +up to bed. This afternoon we were to call for the Dales, and Owen +was waiting for me now in the garden, sitting on the wall, nibbling +nasturtium leaves, whistling, and swinging his legs to and fro, while +I, having broken my shoe-lace, was in the parlour replacing it. And as +I bent down, through the tail of my eye I caught a glimpse of something +white between the desk and the wall. I laced up my shoe, and then, +pushing the desk further to one side, with the help of the poker I +fished out an envelope. There was no writing on this envelope, and the +flap was loose, but inside I felt something stiff and flat, like a card +or a photograph. I pulled it out. It was a photograph, considerably +faded, and certainly most astonishing if it had fallen from my father’s +desk, as I supposed it must have. For it represented a person very much +like the ladies in the chorus at the Christmas pantomime I had gone +to see with George――better looking, possibly, than most of them, but +similarly clad, in doublet and tights, and with a velvet cap, with a +cock’s feather stuck in it, set rakishly at the side of a curly head. +The face wore the conventional simper such faces seem naturally to +assume in the presence of photographers, displaying an admirable set +of teeth. A sword dangled from the waist, a short cloak hung from the +shoulders, and the right hand was raised to the cap in a dashing and +coquettish salute. There was something so comical in the idea of my +father, of all persons in the world, having treasured up this souvenir +of what I took to be a youthful flight of fancy, that I laughed aloud, +and was on the point of calling in Owen to show it to him, when I +turned the photograph round and on the back read, in a sprawling +feminine hand, “From Milly.” + +I stopped short. Owen was still kicking his heels against the +whitewashed wall, still whistling, but I did not disturb him. I heard +my father coming downstairs, and my first impulse was to cram both +envelope and photograph into my pocket. I heard him in the hall, I +heard him turn the handle of the parlour door, and then I went to meet +him. + +“I found this,” I said, “on the floor.” And I held it out to him. + +My father glanced at it indifferently, but when he saw what it was a +faint flush crept into his face. It was the first time I had ever seen +him change colour. He took it from me without a word, and, putting it +back in its envelope, unlocked the desk. He opened a drawer somewhere, +and I saw him, still without speaking, slip in the envelope. Then he +pulled down the lid of the desk, which shut with a sharp click, and +turned to me. + +“Do you know who it was?” he asked, abruptly. + +I stammered and blushed. “I’m not sure――I think―― Wasn’t it mamma?” + +He turned away without answering. “Owen is waiting for you,” he said, +as I still hung about nervously. “I suppose you won’t be in for tea?” + +“No,” I replied, and went out to my friend. + +“I’m sorry for keeping you,” I apologized; and as we walked round to +Derryaghy I half thought of telling him of the incident. + +And my mother? I had known vaguely that she had been on the stage in +some not particularly brilliant capacity, but somehow the real thing, +in all its callous actuality, to have that suddenly thrust upon one, +was very different. I did not like it. + +Visions of the girls I had seen in the pantomime kept rising before me +with a disagreeable relevancy. They strutted before my mind’s eye just +as they had strutted, jaunty and assured, about the stage, their eyes +boldly seeking the male occupants of boxes. They swaggered by me with a +peculiar movement of the hips, a perfect self-confidence; one of them +even winked as she passed. And I saw their fat legs, their bold eyes; +I heard them laugh, and sing idiotic songs, in shrill falsetto, about +Bertie, and Charlie, and latch-keys, and staying out till three. + +I wished I had never found my mother’s portrait, though I tried to +persuade myself that she only looked like that because she was dressed +up for the theatre, and that in ordinary dress she must have been quite +different. But my attempts to _see_ her as different failed. I had +nothing to go upon, no memories, no other portrait; for me tights and +doublet would remain her perpetual garb. I was not disillusioned, for I +had had no illusions――that is to say, I had thought very little about +the matter――but I was certainly shocked. I remembered Mrs. Carroll’s +reserve on the few occasions when I had questioned her. Mrs. Carroll +must have known, and so must Miss Dick. + +It was, doubtless, fortunate that I had never built up any imaginary +and sentimental picture of my mother, as I might easily have done. Mrs. +Carroll’s presence in my life probably had prevented this. + +“Here we are,” cried Owen, catching me by the arm. “Wake up. I suppose +you don’t know that you’ve been fast asleep all the way!” + +We found Katherine at the lodge, talking to the gardener’s wife, a +stout, ruddy young woman, with a flaxen-headed little fellow clutching +her by the skirts, one of my father’s youthful scholars, or, more +likely, one of Miss McWaters’, since he was still at the age when +problems connected with “twice times” awaken bewildering difficulties. + +We stopped and joined in the conversation. + +“Isn’t your brother coming?” Owen asked, after a minute or two. + +“He said he was. He’s up at the house; he’s got some new music.” +Katherine smiled at me. “Do you mind hurrying him up? It’s a shame to +bother you, but if nobody fetches him he’ll never come.” + +I complied with an extremely bad grace. It seemed to me I was always +chosen for these messages. If Gerald didn’t like to come himself, why +couldn’t he be left behind? I knew the others wouldn’t even wait for +us; in fact, when I turned round, they had already begun to walk on +slowly. + +I found Gerald busy with his music, and not looking in the least as if +he intended to be anything else but busy with it all the afternoon. +“The others are waiting,” I said, with sulky abruptness. “Are you +ready?” + +He raised his head and his brown eyes rested on mine curiously. “They +won’t wait very long,” he replied. “Do you really want to climb that +ridiculous mountain?” + +I looked down sullenly. “Why not? We arranged to do so, didn’t we? Owen +wants to.” + +“Let them go alone, then. They’ve begun to study botany. Katherine was +examining things through a little lens all yesterday evening.” + +His drawling irony made me furious. “We must go,” I said, shortly. I +knew well enough that he knew what was passing in my mind, and that I +had been fighting against it for the last fortnight. He was the only +one, I fondly imagined, who _did_ know, and I had begun to think that +the spectacle of my jealousy was pleasing to him, and that he had his +own delicate ways of encouraging it. He did not like Owen, yet, for +some reason I could not fathom, he appeared to regard favourably his +friendship with Katherine. That friendship had made astonishing strides +in the past week or two. When we went anywhere together now, it was +invariably Owen who was Katherine’s escort. Things seemed to arrange +themselves naturally in that way, and this afternoon was no exception. + +It was not till I told him I would follow the others, and was leaving +the room, that Gerald made up his mind to accompany me, and even then, +about a quarter way up Slieve Donard, he announced that he had gone +far enough and would wait here till they came down. Owen and Katherine +were not in sight, for Gerald had made the ascent at the pace of the +pilgrims in “Tannhäuser,” and I had had to keep with him. He stretched +himself full length on the grass, and, as if it were an amusing +question, asked me what I proposed doing. I did not know myself whether +to wait with him here or to finish the climb. I stood hesitating, with +a face like a thunder-cloud. + +“I suppose they’re at the top by this time,” said Gerald, casually, and +his supposition decided me. + +I climbed up alone and full of bitter thoughts. Presently I saw +Owen and Katherine far above me, but they never once looked back. I +remembered that day, long ago it now seemed when Katherine and I had +climbed the hill from the Bloody Bridge Valley, and how I had helped +her over rough places, as I supposed Owen was helping her now, and +walked hand in hand with her. + +When I reached the summit I saw them standing together under the lee +of a huge gray rock, gazing seaward. They heard my approach and turned +round. + +“Where did you leave Gerald?” Katherine asked, amused. “I didn’t think +he would get very far!” + +“You might have waited for me then,” I answered gruffly. “You were in a +mighty hurry to start.” + +It gave me a sort of stupid pleasure to think I was showing by my +manner that I considered myself neglected, so I proceeded deliberately +to be as unpleasant as possible. That I had joined them had obviously +not annoyed them in the least――Katherine had certainly shown no +annoyance when she had greeted me――yet I told myself that this was only +pretence, and that they wished me away. And then, as I thought how +there might have been some secret understanding between them, and that +perhaps Katherine had arranged to be down at the lodge when we arrived +so that she might send me back to the house for Gerald, I felt――though +I really did not believe in any such scheming――a violent anger against +them both. When she saw the kind of humour I was in, Katherine ceased +to take any notice of me, and this made me worse. I had not sense +enough to leave them. A kind of perversity seemed to force me to do +everything I could to make myself objectionable. I had an insane desire +to quarrel with Owen, and presently I contradicted him flatly when he +said something I knew to be perfectly true. He flushed and his eyes +brightened angrily, but he controlled himself. “What is the matter with +you, Peter?” he asked. + +“Nothing,” I muttered. + +I bounded away from them. I ran down the mountain-side at the risk of +breaking an ankle, leaping from one point to another. I did not pause +when I came to where Gerald lay in the grass, but continued my headlong +descent till I reached the woods. I had come down in an incredibly +short time, and the violence of my flight had relieved me. I walked now +at an ordinary pace, wondering what the others would think, conscious +that I had made a fool of myself, yet laying all the blame on Katherine. + +The woods were silent save for the occasional note of a robin or the +low twitter of a swallow. I stopped by a marshy hollow to look at a +vivid splash of yellow irises, and I gathered an armful of them for +Mrs. Carroll. + + + + + CHAPTER XLV + + +Owen and I dined at Derryaghy that night, but all through dinner I sat +very quiet. No allusion was made by the others to my having left them, +which showed, I thought, that they had discussed it among themselves +and had agreed not to take any notice. + +After dinner Gerald stayed behind to smoke a cigarette, and I stayed +with him. When we followed the others to the drawing-room, he went to +the piano and began to play. Owen sat by the window looking out. He +had not once spoken to me since I had left him and Katherine at the +top of Slieve Donard; I thought he had even avoided meeting my glance, +but I was not sure. Katherine and Miss Dick had each some needlework. +Mrs. Carroll was not with us. From my corner of the room I watched +Katherine as she worked, her beautiful head bowed in the lamp-light, +and secretly, in my soul, I knew Owen was more fitted to be her mate +than I. It is true, I did not believe he could love her so intensely, +but the love he gave her would be more unselfish. I became lost in +gloomy thoughts. I knew they both belonged to a world where I was a +stranger, an outcast. In that hour I recognized my moral inferiority +to Owen, and suddenly I felt how peaceful and quiet it would be in the +thick darkness, with the grass over my head, and everything finished +and forgotten. + +Gerald had begun to play the “Moonlight Sonata,” Chopinizing it, as +he did everything, and perhaps this unhappy vision came to me from his +music. At all events, it hovered before me in an intensity of sadness +beneath which I shut my eyes. I got up by-and-by and crossed the room +to where Katherine sat at her work. I pulled forward a chair and sat +down near to her, and with my back to the others, so that what I said +should be heard by her alone. + +“Will you come out with me?” I asked, in a low voice. + +“Out? _Now_, do you mean?” She looked up in surprise, but she also +spoke in lowered tones, and with, I thought, a certain coldness. At +this my anger was stirred afresh. + +“Now,” I answered. + +She seemed on the point of refusing. “Are you afraid?” I sneered. + +She appeared not to understand me. “Afraid! What is there to be afraid +of?” After a moment she decided. “I will come in a minute or two; I +want to finish this flower.” + +She returned perfectly calmly to her work. She was embroidering a +table-cloth for her mother’s birthday, and was always saying she should +never have it finished in time. I, with a burning heart, got up and +strolled out on to the terrace, my hands in my pockets, and whistling +below my breath, which I imagined lent an air of off-handedness to my +exit. Once beyond the windows, however, my whistling ceased abruptly, +and I hurried round to the other side of the house, where I waited in a +fever till she should come. + +She did not keep me long. She had not put on a hat, nor even a loose +wrap about her shoulders; evidently she intended our interview to be a +short one. I hastened from the shadow to meet her. + +“Do you know what I want?” I began gloomily. + +“You want to speak to me about something, I suppose?” Again I was +conscious of a coldness in her voice. + +“Yes. I have so few opportunities now.” + +“I think you have plenty of opportunities, considering you see me every +day.” + +We walked on slowly, side by side. “Are you angry with me?” I asked, +trying to speak penitently. + +“About what?” + +There was something in her air of calm deliberation that held me at a +distance. + +“Everything――this afternoon, for instance.” + +“I thought you weren’t very nice to your friend.” + +“I wasn’t. Nor to you.” + +“Oh, it doesn’t matter about me.” + +“Why?” I asked miserably. + +“Well, it doesn’t matter so much. I’m not your guest――and――I don’t +suppose I’m as fond of you as he is.” + +There was something cruel in those last words, though their cruelty may +have been unconscious. For a minute or two I could not speak. + +“Why have you changed, Katherine?” I said at length, my voice still not +very secure. + +“It is you who have changed.” + +“Have I?” + +“You were not like this last summer.” + +“I think I was.” + +“I don’t know what it is, but there is a difference. I suppose it may +be only that you are growing up. I like people to be either men or +boys. Why can’t you be natural? Why can’t you be content to be as you +were?” + +“I don’t think you have treated me fairly.” + +“I can’t help it. Why should you be so jealous? It’s horrid. Everything +is changed, as you say. It is not nearly so nice. I first began to +notice it in your letters, but I thought when I saw you it would be all +right. If I had known you were going to be like this I wouldn’t have +come at all.” + +There was something in her manner I couldn’t understand, something +mysterious, as if her words hid a regret, though whether it was for our +old friendship or not I could not say. + +“Tell me what it is you don’t like,” I said, thickly. + +Katherine’s dark blue eyes rested on me while she hesitated. “I can’t. +I’m stupid. Perhaps I don’t really know myself.” Then suddenly she +broke out, “Don’t speak to me or I shall cry or do something idiotic. +Let us go back.” Without waiting for me she began to walk hastily in +the direction of the house. I ran after her; I was lost in wonderment; +but I made no attempt to detain her or to question her. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVI + + +No allusion was made to our absence when we returned to the others. +Gerald was still playing, but he got up as soon as we entered, and +strolled over to the window, where he stood beside Owen, looking out. + +“There should be white peacocks here,” he murmured idly. “I’ve always +longed to live in a house where there were white peacocks. They are +the most poetic creatures in the world. They come over the lawn in the +moonlight, delightful fowls, and knock with their beaks against the +windows to be fed. They love moonlight. They’re extraordinarily morbid +and decadent. Their only quite healthy taste is that they want to be +fed. Shouldn’t you like them, Miss Dick?” + +Miss Dick, to whom all Gerald’s words were pearls of wisdom, listened +to these with close attention. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Carroll about them,” +she said. “It _would_ be nice to have them.” + +Gerald smiled sweetly, and Owen moved away from him, an expression on +his face of mingled contempt and disgust, which, had I not been so +miserable, I should have found highly comic. There was nothing, I knew, +irritated him more than this kind of talk, which Gerald manufactured +with extreme ingenuity, principally for Owen’s benefit. For Owen’s +sake he would talk in a world-weary fashion of the “colour” of life, +and ever since he had discovered that the word “Philistine” was +peculiarly exasperating, it had figured more frequently than any other +in his conversation. He dragged it in at every turn, nearly always with +absolute irrelevancy. He began to talk of Philistines now, à propos of +some concert at which he declared he had been asked to play――a concert +he had probably invented for the occasion. + +Owen stood with his back against the chimney-piece, his eyes bright, +his cheeks red. “There is one class, at any rate, that is a good +deal more disgusting than your Philistines――the people who imagine +themselves superior to them.” + +But Gerald could keep perfectly cool. “These people you mention,” he +began in his most elaborate manner, “I strongly suspect to be only the +commanders of the Philistine hosts――their Tolstoys, their chief-priests +and scribes. It is the Philistine who imagines himself superior to +other Philistines. This is the one flight his imagination is capable +of. The artist may be superior, but that, I think, is not what you +mean?” + +“You’re right,” said Owen, fiercely, “it’s not what I mean. And I +suppose _you_ are an artist?” + +“My dear Gill, it is apparent.” + +“I’m not your dear Gill,” said Owen, who had lost his temper. + +“Shut up, Owen,” I interrupted. “What’s the use of taking everything so +seriously?” + +“Because everything _is_ serious. You may say a lot of chatter about +white peacocks and Philistines doesn’t mean anything if you like, +but it does. It is a mask for other things that are real enough――for +selfishness, and immorality.” + +We all gazed at him in silence, almost open-mouthed, Gerald with a +faint smile on his handsome face. Miss Dick alone found it incumbent +upon her to say something, and she remarked that the Charity +Organization Committee to which she belonged had been able to do a +great deal, and that the lecture with lime-light views had brought in +over three pounds――she meant even after all expenses had been paid. + +These observations could not fill up the breach. Nobody, indeed, took +any notice of them. Katherine had laid down her work, and her eyes +were fixed on Owen’s angry face, with, I thought, an expression of +admiration and sympathy. + +“What has morality to do with art?” Gerald asked calmly. “Peter +supports you because he is not an artist, but only a person of taste, +who likes to listen to my playing. I _am_ an artist, and I know. You +not being even a person of――I beg your pardon――you being a person of +different tastes from Peter, and uninterested in art, naturally are at +a disadvantage when you discuss it. I do not mean that rudely; I say it +merely in self-defence. Is anyone coming down in the direction of the +station?” + +He went out, but nobody offered to accompany him. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVII + + +Owen and I left shortly afterwards. He was very quiet as we walked +home, but when we were in bed he said to me, “I’ve decided to go back +to town to-morrow.” + +I heard the words with a thrill of mingled pleasure and misgiving. +“To-morrow? Why?” I asked. “You must stay till the end of the week in +any case.” Then something made me add, “Is it because I was rude to you +this afternoon?” + +“No.” + +I thought for a little. “Has that nothing to do with it?” I persisted. + +“No; at least, not directly. I may as well be quite frank about it. +I know you would rather I went; that is my reason. I ought to have +seen it before, but I didn’t, though I had a kind of feeling several +times that there was something wrong. It is partly your own fault +that I didn’t guess sooner. You always mentioned Katherine as if you +were quite indifferent to her; and that first day you seemed even to +hesitate about going to speak to her. I remember now what you told me +on the night of our party, but until to-day I never connected it with +her.” + +“You think I’m jealous?” I said in a low voice. + +“I know you are, but I didn’t know it until this afternoon. Don’t +imagine I’m offended or any silly rot of that kind. There is no reason +why I should be. Of course I should have liked it better if you had +told me openly――but――well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t understand your +feeling, but that doesn’t matter, either; if you have it, it is enough. +I like Katherine, I like her very much, but, after all, it is you who +are my friend.” + +“She won’t want you to go,” I said miserably. At that moment I +certainly preferred Owen to Katherine. + +“She won’t mind very much, and I really can’t knock about with her +brother. I hate the very sight of him.” + +“Couldn’t we knock about by ourselves?” + +“I’m afraid it would hardly do to drop them now.” + +There was a silence. + +“Owen?” + +“Yes.” + +“I don’t know what to do.” + +“About what?” + +“About anything. About your going away. About Katherine.” + +“But when I’m away won’t it be all right?” + +“No; it will be all wrong. I’ve been beastly to you as it is. And she +doesn’t like me――I mean she only likes me middling――not even as much as +she did――she told me so, this evening.” + +“But you will have plenty of time to make it up.” + +“It isn’t that――it isn’t that we’ve quarrelled. And the other――it is no +use――it only irritates me. I wish I could explain. Things――things come +into my mind.” + +Owen was silent. + +“And I’ve been beastly to you,” I went on. + +“Oh, nonsense.” + +He was silent again till he said, “There’s one way, but I know you +won’t take it.” + +“What is it?” + +“Come back with me, and spend the rest of your holidays with me.” + +I lay quiet. + +“Will you?” + +In the dark I shook my head. Then, remembering he could not see me, I +answered, “No: I can’t.” + +“Why not? It is only a matter of will.” + +“But I haven’t any will, except to get what I want.” + +“You could try it for a few days.” + +“No. There are not a great many days altogether. They will be leaving +before the end of the month.” + +“Well, if you should change your mind, come at any time――I mean without +bothering to write.” + +“Very well.” + +Owen was silent so long that I thought he had dropped asleep, when +suddenly he spoke again. + +“Peter?” + +“Yes.” + +“I didn’t know if you were asleep or not. It is this. I wrote to my +people about you――about your having to go to lodgings when you come up +to town after summer; and they want you to come to live with us.” + +I felt myself grow hot with shame. + +“You see there are plenty of bedrooms,” Owen went on, “and my study, I +daresay, would do for both of us to work in. I hope you’ll come: they +all want you to. If you think of it I’ll speak to your father; but of +course if you’d rather be in ‘digs’ by yourself, it would be better for +me not to mention it to him.” + +“Do you really want me to come?” I asked. + +“Of course I want you.” + +“I mean, do you really and truly want me?” + +He laughed pleasantly. “Of course I really and truly want you.” + +“You’re not doing it out of kindness or anything like that?” + +“The kindness will be all on your side.” + +“No: but I mean it. You must tell me.” + +“I suggested it because I’d like to have you. I wasn’t a bit sure +whether you’d come or not. My reason for asking you is exactly the same +as my reason for asking you every Sunday to come for a walk with me.” + +“I’ll come,” I said. “Thanks awfully.” But my pleasure was spoiled by +the remorse I felt for my own conduct as host. It seemed to me I was a +fairly second-rate specimen of humanity, hardly good enough to be taken +out and drowned. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVIII + + +I do not know whether Katherine attributed Owen’s sudden departure to +me or not, but I think it extremely probable that she did, although she +never mentioned it. Yet we sometimes spoke of Owen himself during the +days that followed. In those days we slipped back more or less into +our former friendship, and I tried to feel that it was just the same. +Yet something of the old freedom had gone, and I could not forget what +Katherine had said to me the night before Owen’s departure. After a few +days, indeed, it came into my romantic mind that there might be another +interpretation of her behaviour on that occasion, one I hardly dared +even to dream of, so much was it what I desired. But it influenced me +nevertheless. I longed to have another day alone with her――a day such +as we had had last year, and I determined to ask her to come somewhere +with me alone, to come, that is, without Gerald. + +I went up to Derryaghy one afternoon with this intention, and was shown +into the morning-room, where I found Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dick. Mrs. +Carroll informed me that Katherine had been washing her hair, and was +now drying it at the kitchen fire. She told me to go on in if I wanted +to speak to her, but I hung back bashfully. In the end I went, all the +same, and discovered Katherine sitting on a stool, a book open on her +knee, and her long, thick, dark brown hair hanging loose in the red +glow of the kitchen range. + +“It’s well for you you haven’t to undergo torments of this kind!” she +exclaimed. “I was baked nearly ten minutes ago. My hair was simply +full of salt. I don’t know how it gets in under my bathing-cap.” + +The situation may seem more homely than romantic, but I thought she +looked extremely lovely, and gazed at her in silent admiration. Perhaps +she noticed it, for she coloured as she laughed. + +“My dear Peter, aren’t you going to say good-morning to me? I’m not the +Sleeping Beauty, you know?” + +“What beautiful hair you have,” I said, in an awed tone, and +involuntarily I touched it with my hand. + +She laughed again, but drew back. “Did you come in just to admire it? +It’s very nice of you.” + +“I came to ask you to go for a walk with me this afternoon, round +by the Hilltown Road――by the road under the mountains――just you by +yourself.” + +“‘Me by myself!’ When do you want to go?” + +“After lunch.” + +“Very well――if it’s not too hot.” + +The readiness with which she consented made me consider myself a fool +for not having asked her sooner, and I began to regret all my lost +opportunities. + +On my way home I met Gerald, who wanted to know if I had bathed yet. + +“I bathed before breakfast. Where have you been?” + +“Oh, just down to the Club House.” + +I turned back with him. I had made up my mind to say something he might +possibly resent, but I plunged into my subject without beating about +the bush. “Don’t you think you are rather a fool to go down there so +often?” + +“Down where?” asked Gerald. “To the Club House?” + +“Yes; though I was thinking more of the hotel. It seems to me you go to +the hotel nearly every evening now.” + +He smiled, indifferently. “There’s nothing else to do.” + +“It seems stupid to chum up with people about twice your age,” I +persisted. + +“They’re not twice my age. Some of them aren’t very much older than I +am. What harm does it do?” + +“Well, I was only with you once, but I didn’t like what I saw there, +especially towards the end of the evening.” + +“What didn’t you like, Peter?” he asked, good-humouredly. + +“I thought it looked silly――and a little disgusting. There were you, a +chap barely eighteen, calling Captain Denby, who’s about fifty, by his +Christian name. You must know well enough that he’s as gross as a pig. +What does he care about your playing? And what pleasure, anyway, can it +give you to play a lot of waltzes and popular songs?” + +“He cares as much for my playing as you do.” + +“My dear Gerald, if you think that you’re a fool.” + +“You sat quiet enough at the time. You were afraid to open your mouth.” + +“That may be so, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I was infinitely +superior to anyone in that room except yourself.” + +“I daresay you were, Peter. I never doubt your superiority. There’s one +thing you forget, however, and that is that any friendship there may be +between you and me is a pretty one-sided affair.” + +“What do you mean?” I asked, uncomfortably. + +“Only that you’ve never given it much encouragement.” + +“Why?” + +“I don’t know, I’m sure. Partly, I should think, because you rather +dislike me. That always stands in the way of such things.” + +His irony rang unpleasantly true. “Why should you think I dislike you?” +I said, very weakly. + +“It would take too long to explain. It never gave me any particular +pleasure to think so――at first, just the reverse――and I mention it now +merely at your request.” + +I didn’t quite know what to say. “Isn’t my speaking to you about this +matter a proof of my not disliking you?” I risked. “I thought we had +always been friends.” + +“No, Peter, your friend is a prig called Owen Gill.” + +“Owen isn’t a prig,” I said warmly, glad to have a chance to put him in +the wrong, but my chance did not last. + +“I beg your pardon,” said Gerald, “even if he was, I shouldn’t have +called him one to you.” + +“Better say it to me, if you’re going to say it at all. I can defend +him.” + +“I daresay there is no harm in being a prig.” + +“Owen is a good deal finer chap than either you or I.” + +“And yet neither of us would change with him! But the point is hardly +worth discussing.” + +“I don’t want to discuss it.” + +“You want to give me good advice? Well, fire ahead.” + +“Oh, there’s no use in my saying anything. You know it all well enough +yourself, and if you think it better to go on as you are doing, I can’t +interfere. But it seems to me stupid to get into bad habits.” + +“Have you no bad habits, Peter?” + +“I’m not talking about myself.” + +“That’s true.” + +“You said the other night you were an artist; but you know as well as I +do, that if you are going to do anything in that way you will have to +work, and that you won’t work if you begin to loaf about, taking drinks +with this person and that. I can’t even understand why you should want +to. If _I_ had any particular gift I would cultivate it for all it was +worth.” + +“Have you no gift?” + +“No. As you also remarked, I am a person of taste.” + +“I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean anything.” + +“You believed it all the same.” + +“I’m not sure that I did. You’re clever enough.” + +“Thank you. I’ll not come any further.” + +“Won’t you? It was good of you bothering about me, and I took it very +well, didn’t I?” He smiled. + +“You didn’t take it at all; but that’s not my fault.” + + + + + CHAPTER XLIX + + +It was a cloudless afternoon when I went back to Derryaghy. Katherine +was quite ready and we set out immediately. As I walked beside her, +in her simple cotton dress, and with her gay parasol, I thought her +adorable. + +“Do you remember our picnic?” I asked, for I was for ever harking back +to it in my mind. + +“Which? There have been so many!” + +“I mean our own――the one we went together――the first of all.” + +“It seems centuries ago. I wonder if Bryansford isn’t too far for this +afternoon? The others were saying something about driving. That would +be better.” + +“It was a day very like this,” I went on, “a perfect summer day.” And a +strange thrill passed through me as I recalled its incidents. + +The air was as soft as velvet. The August sun streamed over the fields. +We followed a lane which led us past a long, low house, where an +immense cherry-tree, with a trunk nine or ten feet in circumference, +spread its branches in a small green orchard. I repeated aloud some +lines of a poem I remembered: + + “I know a little garden-close + Set thick with lily and red rose, + Where I would wander if I might + From dewy dawn to dewy night, + And have one with me wandering.” + +Two friendly dogs wagged their tails, and a cat lounging on the gray +stone wall unclosed its eyes in sleepy yellow slits. + +“Can’t we be friends, Katherine, as we were then?” I pleaded. + +“But aren’t we friends?” she asked, with a shade of impatience in her +voice. + +“You know what I mean.” + +“I’m afraid I _don’t_ know what you mean, Peter.” Then she unexpectedly +added: “You’re a very queer mixture. I often wonder how you’ll come out +in the end.” + +“I haven’t an idea,” I replied, somewhat taken aback. The remark +appeared to me peculiar, and I felt as if she had pushed me farther +away; and with this my self-confidence began to evaporate. + +We walked on in silence. There was, at the particular point we had +now reached, a certain grandeur in the landscape, which even at that +agitated moment impressed me with a sense of solemnity. From childhood +I had imagined it――quite without historical foundation――as the scene +of ancient Druidical worship. I thought of the dark soil as having +drunk up the hot, sweet blood of human sacrifice, while the “pale-eyed +priest” lifted his gaze to the clear autumn sky, and watched against +it, just that same dark curving line of quiet hills that I was watching +now. + +Yet, when we began to speak again it was of things about which we were +both profoundly indifferent, and I had a sickening feeling that I was +failing to interest my companion, and that while she was talking to me +her thoughts were elsewhere. Somehow it appeared to be impossible to +raise our conversation out of the rut of deadly commonplace into which +it had fallen. It seemed to me almost as if Katherine were keeping it +there on purpose, and before we came to Bryansford, I proposed trying +to get tea at one of the cottages, for I felt that any interruption +would be a relief. + +When we had finished, and paid for, our refreshment, instead of +continuing our way round under the mountains, as I had intended, +Katherine decided that we ought to start for home. + +“Let us at least go back through the woods,” I begged. “We don’t want +to tramp along that dusty road again.” + +She yielded to my persuasion, and we entered the estate that lay beyond +Derryaghy. It was strangely still in the late afternoon. Not a leaf +stirred. On and on we walked, hardly speaking, and suddenly the dead +silence, and our complete solitude, became, as it were, visible to +me; and with that there rose in my mind, with intense vividness, a +memory――the memory of Elsie at Owen’s party. The whole thing came back +to me almost with the strength of hallucination: her lips on mine, my +own kisses, her yielding body as she closed her eyes under my embrace. +I was horribly nervous. I felt myself trembling and a faint mist swam +before my eyes. I put out my hand and tried to take Katherine’s, but +she drew away from me at once. I stopped short, facing her, on the +narrow path. “I want to speak to you,” I said. “What have I done?” + +She made as if to pass me, but I barred the way. I was conscious once +more, through other things, of a smouldering anger against her. “Why do +you draw back when I touch you? You once told me you cared for me. You +wrote to me that you did.” + +“So I do,” she answered quietly, though her face had altered. “I don’t +know what you want, nor why you aren’t satisfied.” + +And, all the time, that other vision was acting like an hypnotic +suggestion upon my mind. “You know that I love you,” I persisted, +hoarsely, my voice sounding queer, though I tried to speak naturally. +“Tell me, would you rather have Owen?” + +“I don’t think you should speak to me like this. I wish you would allow +me to pass, please.” + +Her dark blue eyes were fixed on me; she was very near. I was +passionately conscious of her attraction for me; my heart was thumping, +and the blood began to drum in my temples, while a sort of shadow +veiled my sight. I threw my arms round her; I could feel her body +straining away from me, her breath on my face. For a moment she seemed +to submit as I kissed her, but the next instant she struggled from me, +and I felt a blow across my face. She had struck me with her parasol, +which now hung broken in her hand. + +Her eyes flashed on me like a withering fire. She was furiously angry. +“How dare you touch me! Let me pass at once, you――you beast.” + +My arms dropped to my sides. A sudden, bitter shame overcame me. I saw +her pass me with head erect and flaming cheeks, and then I dropped on +my face on the ground. + +When I got up she was out of sight. I did not know how long I had lain +there, but I made no attempt to follow her. As I brushed mechanically +the earth and bits of grass and twigs from my clothes, I felt almost +dazed. It had all passed, and I did not want to think. I heard the +drowsy prattle of a stream, and became aware that I was hot and +thirsty. I went down to it and followed the bank till I reached a deep +green pool, from which, lying flat on my belly, I drank greedily. As +I raised my head I saw my own image in the water――my bright eyes, my +dark, flushed face, my coarse, ruffled hair. + + + + + CHAPTER L + + +I had told my father I should be dining at Derryaghy, yet he made no +remark when, instead, I came in an hour late for tea. Fresh tea simply +was prepared for me, and again, while I sat at table, I was conscious +of something peculiar in the way he watched me, so that for an instant +it even flashed upon me that he might have heard of what had happened +in the wood. + +It was only when I had finished eating that he spoke. “I had a letter +from your Uncle George this afternoon,” he said, and I knew at once, +not so much from his voice as from the face he turned to me, that +something serious had happened. + +My thoughts darted straightway to Aunt Margaret, to vague, gruesome +tragedies, murder or suicide. “What’s the matter?” I asked, uneasily. +Perhaps it had to do with little Alice? Why couldn’t he tell me at +once? Then I noticed that he had pushed a bundle of photographs to me +across the table. + +“Do you know anything of these?” he asked, in a strange voice. + +I started. A glance at the top one had been sufficient. I recognized +the photographs George had kept hidden in his room, or others like +them. I looked at my father watching me, not angrily, but in a kind +of hopeless way; I looked into his gray, still face while he went on +speaking. “They were found in your bedroom hidden under the floor. +Uncle George says that George knows nothing about them, and, that +being the case, he felt it his duty to tell me. He does not mention +your name. I don’t know what to do. I have been trying to think.” He +looked at the wretched things, as they lay there, with a kind of horror. + +I sat silent for a moment. “They’re not mine,” I then said. “I have +nothing to do with them.” + +A gleam of relief came into his face, but it faded quickly. “You never +saw them before?” + +I lifted the top one, but immediately put it back again. “I don’t know +whether I saw them before or not,” I answered. “If I didn’t see these +particular ones I saw others like them.” My father winced. “But they +never belonged to me. Even if I had wanted them I wouldn’t have known +where to get them.” + +“Did you know of this hiding place?” + +“Yes.” + +“And of what was there?” + +“Yes.” + +“Only you and George occupied that room.” + +“And George says they aren’t his.” I looked towards the window. + +My father hesitated. Then he said solemnly, “Will you give me your word +of honour, Peter, that you had nothing to do with their being there?” + +“I had nothing to do with it.” I answered quietly. “I knew they were +there, because George showed them to me. If he was here he would not +say they were mine. I knew what he was like from the first day I went +there. Those things were there then, and on the very first night he +wanted to show them to me, but he was frightened to. I did not see them +till a long time afterwards. I would never have seen them at all, if +you had let me leave when I first wrote to ask you to.” + +“You gave me no reason,” said my father, sadly. “Do you think I should +have allowed you to stay an hour in the place if I had known?” + +“You might have guessed there was _some_ reason. And at the time I +couldn’t give any――I didn’t know myself.” + +“Had that anything to do with your not wanting to go back there after +Christmas?” + +“In a way――more or less,” I answered. “Not exactly that, but other +things――――” + +My father sighed. He tore the photographs in two, and placed them +in the empty grate, where he set fire to them. It was like an act +of purification, and when it was concluded he turned round and said +gloomily, “I’m sorry if I misjudged you. I accept your word.” + +But he didn’t accept it――he couldn’t. Secretly, and underneath +everything, and, without admitting it even to himself, he couldn’t +help being doubtful, and I knew he was doubtful. If I had suddenly +told him the photographs were mine, and expressed appropriate remorse, +I believe it would have made him happier than my denial did. As I saw +the wretchedness of his face the injustice of the whole thing became +intolerable. “Do you believe me, or do you not?” I asked brusquely. + +“I have told you I believe you.” + +“You don’t look as if you did.” + +“I can’t pretend to treat the matter as of no importance. My believing +you means that I must disbelieve George.” + +“Why should you trouble about George? And, at any rate, though he did +have those things, he’s decent enough in some ways. I’m pretty sure he +would have burnt them himself after a while.” + +I’m afraid this speech did neither George nor myself any good. It +simply made my father think me callous. + +I went out on the golf-links with Tony, and sat looking at the sea. +I began to think of my father and of the failure of his life. This +last incident seemed but to fit with all the others into its tragic +grayness. And I reflected how for him I must compose a large part +of that failure. Thinking of me could bring him little consolation, +probably just the reverse. It was a pity. I doubtless was not, +particularly from his point of view, much to boast of, but I was better +than he thought me. I might be below the average in most things, but I +was not below it in all.... + +And then my natural egotism rose once more to the surface. My mind +turned to Katherine, and it seemed to me I was making a horrible mess +of my whole existence. I got up and walked slowly back to the town. A +wandering troupe of open-air entertainers had arrived during the day, +and were busy erecting tents and hobby-horse machines in a large field +not far from our house. Most of the natives, both young and old, were +superintending these preparations with an unflagging interest which +had already stretched over hours, but I was in no mood to join them. I +determined to walk as far as the pier and then go home. I had not gone +above a hundred yards when I felt my face burning. Before me, coming in +my direction, were Katherine and Gerald. Nothing but a straight stretch +of road and footpath lay between us, and it was certain that they must +have already seen me. I would have liked to turn back, but my pride +prevented such a step, and I walked on, my head up, a flaming blush on +my face. Gerald and I raised our caps. My eyes sought Katherine’s, but +her glance just brushed mine to rest on some distant point beyond me. +The next moment we had passed. Hot tears rose to my eyes, but I walked +as far as I had intended to. On the pier steps I sat down and put my +arms round Tony’s broad back and kissed him. If I had committed the +greatest crime on earth, I thought, he would have licked my cheek and +pretended to bite my ear just as he did now. + + + + + CHAPTER LI + + +“I want to go up to Belfast to-day,” I said to my father next morning +at breakfast. + +His reply was exactly the one I had anticipated. “What do you want to +go to Belfast for?” + +“I want to see Owen about something.” + +“Hadn’t you a whole fortnight when you saw him every day?” + +“I want to speak to him,” I answered, very low-spiritedly. I knew he +was thinking of the railway-fare, and if I had had any money myself I +should never have asked him. + +“Can’t you write?” he demanded, querulously. + +“I want to speak to him.” + +“Don’t go on repeating the same thing like a child.” + +“But why can’t I go?” I asked helplessly. + +“Because it is a waste of money.” + +“It will only cost five shillings.” + +“Five shillings is a great deal too much to spend upon nothing.” + +“It isn’t nothing. I want to speak to him. I never asked to go before.” + +“You’ll be seeing him very soon――in another fortnight――and you will +have plenty of time to talk to him then.” + +“I want to speak to him now,” I persisted. “Can’t I go?” + +“Peter, you are dreadfully obstinate. What do you want to see him about +that won’t keep for a few days?” + +“I sent him a telegram before breakfast, asking him to meet me, and I +can’t very well not go.” + +“It is your own fault if you do things without consulting me.” + +Nevertheless, in the end, he allowed me to go, and I caught the first +train. + +I had asked Owen to meet me in the Botanic Gardens, for I did not want +to call at his house, and, as I arrived some few minutes before the +appointed time, I began to pace disconsolately up and down one of the +paths, my head filled with dreary thoughts. Two or three gardeners with +long rakes were raking the walks, and a man with a pair of clippers +was trimming the edges of the grass. As they pottered over their work +they carried on a disjointed conversation, principally about religion, +or rather about the evils of Roman Catholicism. I listened to their +idiotic remarks, which at another time might have amused me. The man +with the clippers was describing some form of service which he called +“High Rosary,” and the rakers from time to time interpolated words and +grunts. A few little boys were playing hide-and-seek, and now and then +a nurse passed, wheeling a perambulator. An old pensioner, sucking an +empty pipe, hobbled up to the seat I had taken a corner of, though +all the others were vacant, and began with much fumbling to unfold a +greasy-looking newspaper. The sight of his futile senility somehow +irritated me, and I stared at him fiercely, but he sat on. I began to +think that perhaps Owen would not come: for all I knew he might be away +from home. Two or three untidy, vulgar, little girls, with smaller +brothers and sisters in tow, came up to inquire “the right time.” After +I had satisfied their curiosity they still hovered near me, gazing at +me in a silence that it was difficult to construe as flattering. At a +distance of three or four yards they then settled down stolidly to some +obscure game, in which a great deal of monotonous, rhymed dialogue +was the principal feature. They intoned this in shrill, unmodulated +voices, but all the time keeping a sharp look-out on my movements. The +old pensioner turned his watery eyes on me and made a remark about the +weather. I pretended not to hear him, but he only made it again, and +I had to answer. He began to talk politics. His fumbling hands, his +foolish, empty pipe, his bleared and rheumy eyes, depressed me, and I +wondered why he couldn’t be put into a lethal chamber. Then I saw Owen +turn the corner and sprang up to meet him. + +“Why didn’t you come to the house? Where are your things?” he asked. +The little girls had suspended their game to watch us with breathless +interest. + +“I’m not going to stay, Owen. I came up just because I wanted to speak +to you about something―――― Get away!” This last remark was addressed to +a child who had drawn nearer, so as not to miss what we were saying. +She stared at me with an expression of solemn idiocy, but without +budging an inch from the position she had taken up. + +“That’s all right,” said Owen, “but of course you’ll stay now you’re +here. I can lend you everything you need, and I’ve told them at home to +expect you.” + +“I can’t. My father would hardly let me come; even as it was.” + +“Get yer hair cut,” suggested the polite child, putting out her tongue. + +“Owen, I want to tell you something: I want your advice.” + +He at once became serious. He took my arm and we strolled down toward +the pond, followed by the whole band of children, who, captained by the +same odious little girl, screamed now in chorus, “Get yer hair cut! Get +yer hair cut!” + +The din they made was terrific. I waited till we had turned the corner +and were out of sight of the gardeners and the pensioner. Then I swung +round quickly and made a grab at the ringleader. In about two seconds, +kicking and screaming, she was across my knee, and I was administering +as sound a spanking as she had ever received in her life. + +“I say,” cried Owen, “what on earth are you doing?” + +I released my captive, who with crimson, tear-drenched face, and open +mouth, went bawling back in the direction she had come from. + +“That’s all right, any way,” I said to the astonished Owen. “There’s +nothing like taking these things in time.” + +The rest of the children had retreated, moving backwards, with round +eyes fixed on me, but perfectly callous to the woes of their comrade. + +“You’ll be having someone coming and kicking up the mischief of a row,” +said Owen, uneasily. + +“I don’t care. Can’t we find a quiet place?” + +Owen considered. “Come down the Lagan walk: there’s never anybody +there.” + +I let him take me, and we walked till we were stopped by a low parapet, +over which we had a charming view of the black mud-banks of the river, +for the tide was out, and beyond this a strip of waste land, dotted +with mill chimneys and the backs of dirty houses. It was neither a +cheerful nor a beautiful outlook, but we both stood gazing over the +wall, as if beyond it lay the New Jerusalem. + +“It’s horribly smelly,” I discovered at length. + +“I thought you wanted somewhere quiet,” Owen apologized. + +“I didn’t mean this sort of thing. I’m sure there’s a dead cat or dog +in that sack down there. Come away.” + +“I didn’t know the tide was out,” said Owen patiently. + +But I found it difficult now to begin my story. Those wretched children +had upset everything. I was quite unreasonably cross, too, with Owen, +for bringing me to these hideous mud-banks, with their litter of old +boots, of empty tins and broken bottles. I even had it on the tip of +my tongue to tell him it was just like him, but refrained. + +We retraced our steps and found a seat near the pond. Here we sat in +silence, Owen waiting for me to begin my tale. + +“Something very unpleasant happened yesterday,” I murmured, branching +off to a secondary subject. + +“Happened to you?” + +“Not to me only―――― It was a letter my father got from Uncle George――the +people I was living with in town here, you know.” + +“I know.” + +“You remember the chap who came with us to ‘Faust?’” + +“Your cousin?” + +I nodded. “He had some photographs which he kept hidden under the floor +in our bedroom.” + +“Why?” + +“So that nobody would get hold of them. They were――that kind. I don’t +know where he got them from.” + +“Bad?” + +I nodded again. “And they were found a few days ago, and he denied that +they were his, so Uncle George wrote to my father.” + +“Saying they must be yours?” + +“It came to that, though he didn’t actually say it.” + +“But you denied it too?” + +“Yes――only――I don’t know that my father believes me.” + +“Even now?” + +“He says he does, but I’m not sure. At any rate it has upset him a lot.” + +“He must be an awfully low cad.” + +“George? He’s not up to much. But I expect it never occurred to him +that his people would write, and I suppose he thought, now I was out of +the way, it wouldn’t much matter to me whether they blamed me or not. +Neither would it have mattered, if Uncle George hadn’t written.” + +“Of course it would have. What is your father going to do?” + +“I don’t know. There is nothing he _can_ do, except tell them what I +say.” I felt suddenly sad and doubtful――doubtful of the quality of +my own innocence, which had seemed perfectly clear before. “I’m not +sure that I’m giving you a right impression,” I went on, after a short +silence. “I knew George had these things: I had looked at them: I knew +where he kept them.” + +“It all seems to me very rotten,” said Owen, disgustedly. + +“It is, rather. Aunt Margaret may write to Mrs. Carroll, for instance, +just out of spite.” + +“She can hardly do that now.” + +“I don’t know. She hates me. And it would be horrible if she did, +though Mrs. Carroll wouldn’t believe her.” + +I was silent a while. “But that isn’t really what I came up to tell +you,” I suddenly began. Then I related what had happened yesterday in +the wood. + +Owen stared in front of him at the drab, seedy-looking, little ducks, +who were paddling about on the dirty sheet of water. A rat stole out, +and seeing us scuttled back again. + +“Why did you behave like that? It was most extraordinary!” + +I made no answer. + +“It wasn’t very gentlemanly, you know,” Owen continued, “to say the +least of it.” + +“I never said I was a gentleman,” I interrupted. “I’m not one, in the +ordinary sense of the word, nor even in the other, according to you.” + +“Oh, that’s rot.” He sat trying to puzzle it out. He looked at me and +unexpectedly smiled. + +I smiled too, but my heart was heavy as lead. “Well, that’s all I came +up to tell you,” I muttered, “――not very much!” + +He saw I was not happy. “I know I’m not very experienced in matters of +this kind,” he confessed, “but if I were you, Peter, I should go to +Derryaghy and ask to see her. Would you like me to do anything?” + +“There’s nothing you could do. Would it not be better for me to write?” + +“I don’t think so. It might be easier.” + +“It would be. And suppose she won’t see me?” + +“You can only try.” + +“Well, I’ll go back and think it over.” + +“But won’t you stay, really?” + +“No. I must go.” + +“Before this happened she liked you very much――she told me so herself.” + +I shook my head. “It is all over. She will never speak to me again.” + +“If she doesn’t――――” He stopped. + +“What?” I asked. + +“She isn’t worth bothering about,” Owen concluded. + +“Oh, you don’t know.” + +“What was there, after all, so very dreadful? It’s not as if you were +in any way repulsive!” + +He tried to persuade me to change my mind about going home as we walked +toward the park gate, but I was firm. “Good-bye, Owen,” I said. “Thank +you for coming. I will write to you if there is anything to write +about.” + +I got on a tram, and he stood on the footpath, looking after me. + + + + + CHAPTER LII + + +Owen had cheered me up a little; I was glad I had come; and during my +return journey I pondered the advice he had given me and decided that +I must follow it. I waited till nine o’clock, by which hour I thought +Gerald would probably have gone out, for I wanted to avoid him: then I +went up to Derryaghy. So far as I could see, the only way was to call +just as usual, and trust to luck to get a few minutes with Katherine +alone. + +But at the door my courage failed me, and I stepped softly round to +the terrace, and, standing hidden in the deep shadow of the house, +looked to see who was in the room. The curtain was as usual undrawn +and the room was full of lamplight. They were all there. Gerald was +sprawling on his back on the sofa; Katherine was working at her +table-cloth, her head bent over it so that I could not see her face; +Miss Dick was writing; Mrs. Carroll was playing “Patience.” Presently +Katherine looked up, and, for a moment or two, before she returned to +her work, I saw her gaze out into the darkness. The others, except +Mrs. Carroll, had their backs to me; a small fire was burning in the +grate. I stood there under a kind of fascination. The impression was +strange, and even slightly weird. Looking in upon them, all so silent +and so unconscious of my presence, I had a peculiar feeling that, if +I came right into their line of vision, they would still not see me. +I had a strange feeling that I was actually invisible, and, moreover, +that I was not the only watcher there, and, that if we were invisible +to the inmates of the room, we might not be invisible to each other. +Other faces, pale and dim, peered in at other windows; the house was +surrounded by shadowy presences――shadowy forms that hovered outside +here on the terrace, that glided up and down the wide, dark, creaking +staircase, or stood motionless in the upper rooms. I stepped back and +looked up at the long line of black, unlit windows, with just here and +there a glimmering light. And I felt as if I no longer belonged to the +same world as the occupants of the room I watched. I was but a memory, +a ghost; my place was upstairs; in dim passages; by trembling blinds, +pulled aside for just a moment that we might peep out; in shadowy +rooms; behind doors whose handles the timid maid, hurrying by in her +glimmer of unsteady candlelight, feared to turn. I was the breath +that set the curtains at the bed’s head trembling; the faint sound +as of a chair pushed back on the upper floor; the draught――was it a +draught?――that made the lamp-flame flicker; the pale reflection passing +across the looking-glass and gone before there was time to strike a +match. I was that mysterious something one turned one’s head quickly to +see, and did not see; the cold touch that awakened just before dawn; +the gray, ghostly figure sitting by the window in the first wan light, +and that was no longer there when one rubbed one’s eyes; the tapping on +the window-pane as of a leaf――the tapping that must surely be only a +leaf moved by the wind. + +I do not know how long I stood there: it may have been but a few +minutes, yet it was long enough for me to realize that the simple +act of entering the room was become an impossibility. It would have +required too violent an effort, too sharp and brutal a wrench, an +effort I shrank from as from physical pain. I must write to Katherine. +How could I go in there as if nothing had happened? If she came out +on to the terrace I might find courage to speak to her, but she would +not come. Gerald, on the other hand, almost certainly would; and if he +discovered me prowling about like this what would he think? I slipped +away, then, like a veritable ghost, my footsteps making no noise upon +the faded grass. + + + + + CHAPTER LIII + + +I wrote that night to Katherine, but she did not reply to my letter, +and I had no heart to send a second. Two days passed, during which +I did not go near Derryaghy, but took to gardening, and when Gerald +came down on the second afternoon I offered this as my excuse for not +going with him. The fact was that I felt uncomfortable in his society, +not knowing how much he knew. He had witnessed my discomfiture on the +night Katherine had cut me, and of course he must have questioned her +afterwards. + +During these days I made one or two attempts to come to a more cordial +relation with my father; yet it seemed to me that he suspected the +genuineness of my timid advances, and at all events his unresponsiveness +discouraged me from repeating them. + +On the evening of the third day, having nothing else to do, I +strolled listlessly in the direction of the field occupied by the +booths of the steam-circus proprietors. It was recognizable from +afar by a luminous cloud that hung above it like a curtain of fire +against the night. The wind was blowing from that direction, and, as +I advanced, my ears were filled with the rough music blared out by a +couple of steam-organs, a music broken every now and again by short +convulsive shrieks as of demoniac laughter. Swings, shooting-galleries, +throwing-competitions――all were in the full energy of life when +I approached; but the chief centres of attraction were the two +hobby-horse machines, brightly painted and flashing with mirrors and +gilding. I mingled in the outer ring of spectators about the larger of +these two wheeling monsters, and stood gazing at it, as it turned round +swiftly and rhythmically to the throbbing din of brazen pipes. White +puffs of steam shot up against the black sky in the coloured glare +of naphtha lamps. Girls with flushed, excited faces, tossed hair and +shining eyes, leaned sideways from the horses’ backs, laughed, swayed +in a kind of innocent abandon toward their accompanying sweethearts. +Arms were round waists, the pops of guns mingled with the blare +of the music, the shrieks of the steam-whistle, the shrillness of +feminine voices. Standing there, in lonely contemplation of all this +Dionysian revelry, I felt as hopelessly out of touch with it, as if I +had wandered thither from another planet. Suddenly I felt a hand laid +lightly on my arm, and looking round saw the laughing face of Annie +Breen. + +She asked me if I had seen their Willie, but without waiting for an +answer went on to chatter about all the people who were here to-night. +A whole crowd had come over from Castlewellan; and there were a lot of +excursionists from Belfast, who had missed the last train, and nobody +knew where they were going to sleep, for there wasn’t a room to be had +in the hotels. Wasn’t it fun? They would have to stay out all night; +and if it rained wouldn’t it be awful? + +“There’s room for two there,” she cried, “those white horses. Ellen +Gibson and Brian Seery are getting off.” + +I made a half-hearted movement forward, but in my lack of enthusiasm +was ousted by a more eager couple whose eyes had been as quick as +Annie’s. There was no hint of reproach, however, in the smile the girl +turned on me. + +“We’ll get them next time, and I’d just as soon watch, any way. +Wouldn’t you?” + +“There’s Willie over there,” I suggested. “Perhaps you would like――――” + +But she interrupted me. “I don’t care about the horses. Only maybe I’m +keeping you: maybe you’re waiting for somebody?” + +“No,” I answered, hurriedly. + +“Let’s go round the tents then. Will you?” + +We moved over to the one which appeared to have attracted the largest +crowd. In the foreground, just beyond the barrier, was a long counter +or table covered with cheap ornaments, artificial jewelry, and boxes +of unhealthy-looking cigars; and behind this, set in tiers against +the canvas back of the tent itself, were three rows of grotesque, +painted, wooden busts, waiting to be knocked down. Surrounded by a +group of encouraging spectators, George Edge was stolidly bombarding +these figures with a good deal of success, though what he intended to +do with his prizes it was difficult to imagine. We stood and watched +him, and every now and again a loud smack was instantly followed by the +disappearance of one of the dolls. + +“Have a throw you,” said Annie. “Go on. I’m sure you can do it better +than him.” + +An obliging lady handed me three wooden balls, about the size of tennis +balls, in exchange for two pence; but in absence of mind I came within +an ace of sending the first of these at the head of the proprietor +himself, which just then bobbed up close to the dolls, and in features, +colouring, and expression, startlingly resembled them. At my third +shot I was successful, and Annie chose a gold and turquoise cross. We +passed on to the next booth, leaving George still pegging away, with a +perseverance that must have cost him about half-a-crown already. Annie +herself now won a walking-stick, by throwing a wooden ring over it, and +this trophy was presented to me. + +“Let’s get out of the glare for a minute,” she said unexpectedly. “It’s +that hot with all the lights and things I can’t hardly breathe.” + +We passed behind the tents, and a few steps brought us into shadow, +and a few steps more to a bank under a hawthorn-hedge, where we sat +down. I had nothing to say to her, and, as it did not seem to matter +to Annie whether we talked or not, I pursued my own thoughts. She +leaned up against me confidingly, but I was hardly more conscious +of her presence than of the bank upon which I sat. I was thinking, +and presently I put a question to her, put it perfectly seriously. +“Suppose, Annie,” I began very deliberately,――“suppose you were friends +with somebody――somebody like me, say. Suppose you knew he was very fond +of you, and, one day, when you were alone together, without asking you +if he might, he put his arms round you and kissed you――would you be +very angry with him, so angry that you would never speak to him nor +look at him again?” + +I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground as I awaited her reply, and I +awaited it with some anxiety. It seemed to me a long while coming. All +at once I felt two warm lips pressed against my cheek. I was so taken +aback by the unexpected nature of this answer that I’m afraid I drew +away from it. I understood that poor Annie had seen in my question +only a somewhat timid method of courtship. It was distinctly awkward. +She leaned her head sentimentally on my shoulder, and we sat in this +absurd position for several minutes, while I had time to reflect on the +hopeless inconsistency of feminine nature. As soon as I could, without +hurting her feelings, I got up. “We must try the hobby-horses now,” I +said, with feeble sprightliness, seizing on the only pretext I could +think of to escape from a disagreeable situation. + +Annie rose too, but with no great alacrity: in fact, she remarked that +she was sick of the hobby-horses. I pretended not to believe her. We +went back to the spot where she had first spoken to me, and, when the +machine came to a standstill, secured two riderless steeds. Mine was +on the outside and Annie’s of course next to it, but we were no sooner +in possession of them than I became aware of Katherine and Gerald +among the spectators quite close to us. I looked the other way, and I +felt my face grow crimson. It seemed to me that the engine-man would +never set us in motion. Already we appeared to have been waiting for +an eternity. Annie was laughing and chattering, and I answered at +random, though, indeed, to the kind of remarks she was making, any sort +of answer served. Had she, too, seen the Dales? for her vivacity had +suddenly become much more noisy and familiar, with something about it +that smacked rather of town than of country? I noticed that all the +other riders were obviously in couples, and that most of the youths +were supporting their partners in a strikingly gallant fashion. Annie +had already given me permission to follow their example by telling me +half a dozen times she was sure she’d fall off. I didn’t care very much +whether she did or not. At last, with a shrill and frivolous scream, +the huge construction began to revolve slowly, and our horses to move +up and down on their polished brass rods. We swept by within a yard +or two of Katherine and Gerald, but I looked straight before me, my +face burning. I would have liked to pretend that I was there for a +solitary ride, quite independent of Annie, but her manner made any such +hypocrisy perfectly futile. Round we came a second time, and a third, +gathering velocity at every moment. Annie had taken off her hat and put +it on my horse’s head, and her skirts streamed out behind, and flapped +against my right leg. + +“Peter!” + +It was Katherine’s voice. She had called my name. It came to me through +the night, and an indescribable emotion shook me. I could not have +spoken: my eyes were blinded with tears: and again the huge machine +swept round. But in the place where Katherine and Gerald had been I +could no longer see them. Where were they gone? The organ belched its +coarse music, the steam throbbed, the whistle hooted, we rushed on +faster and faster. Where were they? She had called me. Perhaps they had +gone home. I could not wait any longer, but slipped from my horse’s +back. Annie screamed; the man who was going round collecting the fares +while the ride was in progress made a grab at me; but I jumped――jumped +and fell headlong, rolling over and knocking all the breath out of +my body, though luckily not breaking any bones. Instantly there was +commotion. A crowd gathered about me, and everybody seemed to think +I had either gone mad or been seized with a fit. I scrambled to my +feet as soon as I had pumped a little wind into myself, and, without +waiting to brush the dust from my clothes, without answering any of the +questions that poured in upon me from all sides, pushed my way through +the people, who appeared inclined to detain me by force, and hurried, +as fast as my still rather breathless condition would allow, in pursuit +of Katherine and Gerald. Alas, I could see no sign of them. They had +vanished as completely and mysteriously as Persephone on that summer +morning in the meadows. I clambered through the hedge out on to the +road, but there was no one there. I ran on till I reached the turning, +but there was no one there either, and I knew I had missed them, for +the road here lay straight and bare in both directions. I stood still +by the sea-wall. I could not go back. The glare and din were now +become impossible, to say nothing of Annie, whom I had flouted in so +unscrupulous a fashion. + +I took my old path over the golf-links till I reached the hollow where +I always came when I wanted to be quite alone. I flung myself down on +the soft, white, powdery sand, among the thin gray grasses, in the +pallid starlight. My heart was surging with emotions, at once happy +and desolating. I could not understand what had occurred; only I heard +again and again the sound of my name, as it had come to me in that +loved voice through the night. + +I lay there for a long time. I was crying, I think, but I did not know +I was crying, though I kept wiping my tears away. I was unconscious +of everything around me, I was blind and deaf, and it was only when +I felt a hand on my shoulder that I looked up, startled, and saw +Katherine bending over me. + +“Peter, what is the matter? Is it my fault?” + +Her voice was all gentleness; in her face a beautiful tenderness; but I +could not speak. + +“It is nothing,” I stammered out at last. “Only I thought――you were +never going to speak to me again, and――” + +“I was horrid. I can’t think now why I was so horrid. Forget about it, +Peter dear, won’t you? Tell me you will.” + +“It was my fault,” I muttered. “It was all my fault.” + +“Never mind whose fault it was. Let us forget about it.” + +“I can’t forget,” I said. “It was my fault.” + +“But why――when I want you to? Can’t you forget, even if you know I love +you?” + +I scrambled to my feet and stood facing her. “Do you really?” I +faltered. “Don’t say it if――if it is not true.” + +“It is true.” + +“How is it true?” I asked. “How much? Do you love me as much as you +love Gerald?” + +She hesitated, and it seemed to me that it was because she feared to +wound me. “Yes,” she said at last, in a low voice. There was something +that touched me, through all my longing and pain, in her desire to +be perfectly honest. “Better than Gerald. Better than anybody,” she +pursued, doubtfully, “better than anybody, I think, except mother.” + +I sighed; I could not help it. + +She looked at me sadly. “Why aren’t you content, Peter? Why do you +always want more than I can give, when I have given you so much?” + +“And Owen?” I asked, though I was ashamed of myself for doing so. + +“I like Owen very much. I think he is very nice, but that is all. And +now tell me you are content. I must go, and I shan’t be happy unless I +know _you_ are.” + +“I am happy,” I lied most dismally. I saw indeed that it was all +hopeless, and that she would never understand. + +“I will see you to-morrow. I can’t stay now; Gerald is waiting for me +over at the Club House.” + +“Where were you when I looked for you?” I asked. “I heard you call my +name, and I jumped off, but when I went to look for you, you were gone.” + +“Miss Dick was with us, and she wanted to go home; but we went round +the other way――not by the sea. We had to go all the way back with Miss +Dick, but I got Gerald to come out again, for I thought, I don’t know +why, I might find you here. And I’m very glad I came. I couldn’t go on +any longer without making it up. But I mustn’t really wait now. I told +Gerald I should only be five minutes. Good-night, Peter. Come to-morrow +morning.” + +“Good-night.” + +She was gone, and I was left alone to whatever felicity I might be able +to discover. + + + + + CHAPTER LIV + + +Of the days that followed our reconciliation I tried to make the most. +Too much time already had been wasted and spoiled by clouds of jealousy +and other troubles. I knew the kind of love Katherine offered me was +very different from the kind of love I had desired, and in the old days +dreamed of, but more than this I did not know, and some instinct kept +me from trying to find out. We had become again such friends as we +had been last year, and I lent myself to a certain protective quality +in her affection for me, because I felt that it was in this way she +could care for me most. From her point of view I knew that if I could +have dropped back two or three years nearer to my childhood it would +really have been preferable. She would have liked to pet me and tell me +stories. + +What her brother thought of our quarrel, and of our making up again, I +never heard. He gave no sign of having noticed anything. I had ceased, +indeed, to see very much of him, for he had taken to knocking about +the Club House and the hotel more and more. This left Katherine and +me almost wholly to each other’s company. I saw her each morning, +afternoon, and evening, and I moved through day after day in a kind of +dream, as if this ideal life were to last for ever. + +One afternoon I went up to Derryaghy as usual, but the servant who +answered the door told me Mrs. Carroll wished to see me, and when I was +shown into the morning-room I found her there alone. + +“Oh, I wanted to speak to you, Peter,” she said. “Katherine is out with +her mother, who arrived an hour ago. They went out after lunch.” + +I stared my surprise. “I didn’t know she was coming!” I murmured. + +“Neither did anybody else. She didn’t even send a telegram.” + +From her tone I gathered that Mrs. Carroll was not altogether pleased +by this unexpected visit. “What has she come _for_?” I asked. + +“That’s just what I want you to tell me. The woman is raging with me, +and now we’re alone we’d better have the whole matter out.” + +“But what matter?” I inquired innocently. “What have _I_ to do with it?” + +“Goodness knows! Sit down, child; I want to talk to you seriously.... +Miss Dick said something to me more than once, but Miss Dick is a +perfect fool when it comes to questions of this kind, and I paid no +attention to her.” She looked at me. “Don’t you understand? It is about +Katherine――about you and Katherine. Mrs. Dale’s visit is the result of +some letter which Katherine sent to her, and which I haven’t seen. How +was I to imagine such things? I had always looked upon you as children, +and now she arrives, simply furious, and accuses me of not looking +after her daughter.” + +I had begun to blush. + +“Tell me exactly how much there is in it all?” Mrs. Carroll continued. +“You are the only person who appears to have any common-sense.” + +“What does she say?” I asked ingenuously. + +“She says―― Oh! what doesn’t she say? She says she’s going to take +Katherine home with her to-morrow, and that she thought she should have +been able to trust me!” + +I looked at her helplessly, but made no reply. + +“I knew you liked Katherine,” Mrs. Carroll went on, “but it never +occurred to me there was any particular reason why you shouldn’t like +her――nor, indeed, do I see any now. They didn’t expect, I suppose, that +she was going to spend all her time with a couple of old women like me +and Miss Dick!” She paused. “You _are_ very fond of her, aren’t you?” + +“Yes,” I replied, as if I were repeating my catechism. + +“And apparently she is fond of you.” + +I shook my head. Then, as she looked at me interrogatively, “Not like +that――not in the same way,” I murmured. + +Mrs. Carroll continued to regard me. “Not like what? What do you mean?” + +“She doesn’t even understand,” I pursued. + +Mrs. Carroll’s face altered, grew graver, though not less kind. “Then +there _is_ something in it? You really care――very much?” + +“Yes.” + +“But――――” her perplexity seemed to increase. + +I waited, twirling my straw-hat on my knee, and only now and then +glancing up. She eyed me thoughtfully. “You know it is all quite +impossible,” she brought out slowly. “And you’re so ridiculously +young!” For a moment she smiled. Then she put her hand sympathetically +upon mine, which rested on the arm of my chair. Yet I could see she +still more or less regarded the affair in the light of a sentimental +fancy that would dissolve as quickly as dew under the sun. + +I got up. “I think I’ll go now,” I said, plucking at the ribbon of my +hat. + +“I’ll not keep you, Peter, if you want to go. Remember, I’m not +scolding you, or angry with you in any way,” she added. “As I told +you, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be fond of Katherine. I can +perfectly trust you. It is just that you are a boy, and of course such +things can come to nothing so far as you are concerned; whereas, in +Katherine’s case, and especially since she is a year older than you, it +is quite different. Her mother probably has her eye on a husband for +her already. That, I am afraid, is the secret of all this indignation. +However, I’ve taken your part. I told her exactly what you are――that +you are a gentleman, and would never do anything dishonourable; that +a word would be enough; and that it was perfectly ridiculous to talk +of taking Katherine home before the natural end of her visit, which +will be on Friday or Saturday of this week. If she _does_ take her, +not one of them shall ever enter this house again. That, at least, is +certain. I’m not going to have any nonsense about it. Will you dine +here to-night?” + +I shook my head. + +“Where are you going now?” + +“Out into the woods just.” + +She kissed me. “Well, whatever happens, I’ll promise that Katherine +shan’t go without saying good-bye to you. Be a good boy, and come to +see me to-morrow.” + + + + + CHAPTER LV + + +When I left Mrs. Carroll I did not go out at once, but scribbled first +a note to Katherine, telling her I had gone to the summer-house, and +should wait for her there all afternoon. I then went in search of Jim, +who had always been my friend, and whom I could rely upon absolutely. +I found him working with Thomas in the greenhouses, and, as soon as +I could attract his attention, I beckoned him outside. He was a very +different Jim from the one who had climbed a ladder to see my skin +peeling off, though he had the same round rosy candid face, like a ripe +russet apple, and though he still played doleful tunes on his flute. +But he had developed amazingly: he had grown into a strapping big +fellow, with limbs like a youthful Hercules. When I explained to him +that I wanted him to give a note to Miss Dale, but that nobody must see +him do it, he promised to try his best. + +I went on to the summer-house and lay down among the bracken close by. +I had been there fully two hours before I saw Katherine coming. She +smiled brightly as I rose from my ferny bed to greet her. + +“Why did I come without an umbrella?” she exclaimed gaily. “It’s just +going to pour!” And she turned to look at the heavy clouds that were +gliding up rapidly against the wind. + +“You can shelter in the summer-house,” I said, laconically. + +“I loathe summer-houses, especially when they’re like this old thing, +crammed with earwigs and spiders.” + +“The rain is going to be heavy: you’d better come in now,” I went on, +without attempting to emulate her lightness of manner. I dusted the +rough seat for her with my pocket-handkerchief, in silence, just as the +first big drops came pattering down on the leaves. + +She sat down, and I stood near the door, looking at her. “Mrs. Carroll +told me your mother arrived to-day, because of some letter of yours +about me.” + +Katherine coloured a little. “I know,” she answered, eagerly. “It’s +awfully silly of mamma. I’ve been talking to her about it.” + +“And you are to go home at once――to-morrow――perhaps this evening.” + +She laughed. “Certainly not this evening. How could we? And at any +rate, we should have been going in a few days. But I told mamma she was +taking it all absurdly seriously, and behaving exactly like a furious +parent in a novel.” + +“It is serious to me,” I said, quietly, “though to you it may be +amusing.” That she should laugh in this way hurt me deeply. + +It had grown rapidly dark, and now a heavy rain began, cold and +sad, sweeping through the trees, very soon making it plain that the +summer-house was in need of repair. From the distance there came the +crying of a sea-gull, a mournful, solitary note. + +“Don’t be angry with me, Peter,” said Katherine, coming to the door and +looking out. “I know it was stupid of me to write, but I never dreamt +of mamma coming over like this.... Why has it got so dark?” + +Before I could answer there came a blinding flash of lightning, +accompanied, nearly instantaneously, by a hideous din of thunder, +which seemed to burst out just over us. A blank silence succeeded this +ear-splitting crash, and Katherine said, “Some tree must have gone!” + +“I wish it had been this summer-house,” I muttered bitterly. + +She looked at me, her face grown graver. The flash was followed by no +other, but the rain continued in a fierce downpour, beating through our +flimsy shelter, and streaming down the paths in brown muddy rivulets. + +“I can’t understand why mamma should have made such a fuss,” Katherine +went on, but no longer in the same tone, though I knew well enough the +alteration in it was due merely to what I had said. “She is usually +very sensible.” + +“How can you be so indifferent?” I asked, in a rough voice, for her +calmness exasperated me. + +“I’m not indifferent. I’m sorry I wrote. But we should have been going +in three or four days, at any rate. You know that.” Her manner was +tinged with a faint reproach. + +I answered nothing, and she went on. “It is getting lighter――the rain +will soon be over.” + +“Do you want to go?” I asked furiously. “Don’t let me keep you if you +do!” + +“Why do you speak like that, Peter? I told you I was sorry.” + +“This is the last time I shall see you alone.” + +“Nonsense.” + +“If you are going to-morrow, will you promise to meet me to-night +somewhere――here――or on the golf-links?” + +“I can’t possibly. There are people coming to dinner. Won’t _you_ +come――or come in afterwards, at least?” + +“Shall I see you by yourself if I do?” + +“By myself?” + +“Will you come out here with me?” + +She sighed at my unreasonableness. “How can I? You know mamma and the +others will be there, and how can I leave them? But say you’ll come.” + +“I certainly won’t,” I answered sullenly. “What does it matter to you +whether I do or not?” + +I felt her lips touch my cheek. Her face was wet and cold with the +rain. I put my arms round her very gently, and kissed her hair and +her cheek, but no more than that, for I knew her own embrace had been +given merely to console me, and because it was for the last time. Her +dark eyes caressed me, and she smiled a little. She laid her hand on my +shoulder. “Will you walk back to the house with me now, Peter? You are +not angry with me?” + +“No,” I answered. + +“I can’t stay any longer, because mamma knows I came out, and she will +suspect it was to meet you. She is not so bad about it as she was when +she first arrived. I managed to convince her that she had been alarming +herself unnecessarily.” + +“Very unnecessarily,” I thought, but I said nothing. + +I walked back with her, and then on down the drive and home. + + + + + CHAPTER LVI + + +I was writing to Owen when my father brought me Katherine’s letter. +It was to say good-bye to me, and there was a veiled reproach at my +not having come to the station to see them off. She had looked out for +me up to the last moment; so that in the end it was really I who had +failed! I smiled dimly. + +As I write it now, in this quiet, gray, autumn morning, it appears to +me that the thought then hovering at the back of my mind was, after +all, not so very foolish. Death, coming without disease, without +weakness, before life has grown stale, before illusions have been +shattered and innocence marred;――simply upon the bright, fresh comedy +of life, the dropping of a dark, rapid curtain. + +I finished my letter to Owen, and addressed it; but when that was done +I still sat on at the table, holding my pen, on which the ink had long +since dried. Then I bent down and leaned my forehead upon Katherine’s +open letter. When I looked up the sun was shining in the garden, and +shining in on me through the window; nothing had changed.... + +In the afternoon I went up to Derryaghy, where Mrs. Carroll received +me. I spoke quite quietly to her, just as usual; but all I remember now +is that there were some red dahlias in a bowl on the table, and that +Mrs. Carroll proposed taking me to Paris for my Christmas holidays. + +It was when I had left her and had gone out to walk in the woods, that +I suddenly felt the full reality of what had happened. It meant that +everything was finished, that I should never see Katherine again. I was +filled with desolation, with a kind of sick feeling that my love had +been superfluous, wasted, and perhaps distasteful. Last year I had been +sorry to say good-bye to her; I had dreaded the new life opening out +before me; but I had had the prospect of meeting her again at a year’s +end, and the belief that she cared for me and would remember me. Now +there was nothing――nothing. + +My grief was mingled with a kind of bitter, impotent rage against I +knew not what. I kicked a stick that lay in my path savagely out of +the way, cursing it under my breath. I flung myself down among the +bracken. Sometimes a kind of blank would come into my mind, and I would +find myself staring stupidly at the trees, while for a few moments an +altogether different thought would slip into my brain; then my grief +would overwhelm me once more, and blot out the world. + +But was this grief I felt? I do not know. It was different from what +I felt later. It was something violent and maddening, sweeping over +me in paroxysms, leaving me intervals of cold insensibility. And late +that night, when, thoroughly wearied out, I went to bed, and from sheer +exhaustion would be dropping off to sleep, from time to time it would +pierce through my numbing senses, and waken me sharply, as if some one +had violently pulled me, so that I would start up, yet for a moment not +realize what it was that had wakened me. + +I did not go back to Derryaghy on the next day or the next. I took +long walks, and it was during these solitary rambles that the thought +of death came irresistibly to me. I felt that my life was become an +intolerable burden, and in my inexperience I imagined that the pain I +felt now I should feel always. I thought of shooting myself, of taking +poison, only I disliked the idea of other people knowing. Was there +not a better way? I thought of swimming out so far that it would be +impossible to return, but I dreaded the pain of suffocation. Then, two +days before my time for leaving home, and when Owen had written saying +that they expected me and that he would be at the station to meet me, +there came a night of wind and rain, and it seemed to me I had found +the solution to my problem. + +Shortly before midnight, when my father’s snores had become deep and +regular, I stole out of the house, as I had so often done in the old +days of our club. I had put on my overcoat, but under it I wore only +my night-shirt, and I hurried down the road and across the golf-links +in the cold, driving rain. When I reached an exposed spot, I took off +my coat and lay down on the soaking ground, letting the wind and rain +sweep over me. I lay there till morning. It did not matter if I were +seen returning to the house then; it would simply be thought that I had +gone out for an early bathe. As I staggered to my feet my limbs were so +stiff and cramped that at first I could hardly hobble along, but after +I had gone a little way it became easier. + +I got into bed in my wet night-shirt, but I could not go to sleep. My +head ached and I was shivering; yet a few minutes later I no longer +felt cold; on the contrary, a burning heat seemed like a fire under my +skin. I could not lie for two minutes without altering my position; and +when I got up to dress I knew I was really ill. At breakfast I only +pretended to eat. My father noticed there was something the matter and +questioned me, when I answered that I was all right, and presently he +left me to go to the school, which was being whitewashed and made ready +for the re-opening next week. As for me, I was glad I should not have +to repeat my experiment twice, and I had even a naïve curiosity as to +the precise nature of my illness. + +Before night I began to feel much worse. My father went out to a +meeting in connection with church matters, and I was left alone. I +should have gone to bed, had not the task of climbing two flights of +stairs and undressing appeared almost insurmountable; so I half sat, +half lay, in a chair, with my eyes shut and my head leaning back. I was +extremely thirsty, and at every breath I drew my side hurt me, the pain +being increased by the fact that I had begun to cough a little. It had +all come on so quickly that I wondered if I should die that night. + +When my father came in he immediately saw I was worse, and sent me to +bed, giving me something hot to drink; but all that night I hardly +slept, and in the morning he went for Doctor O’Brian. By that time +I had almost forgotten the cause of my illness; what had led me to +seek it; whether I desired it to be fatal or not. I was examined, +stethoscoped, asked questions, gazed at. “Acute pneumonia.” I caught +the words through a kind of lethargy into which I had fallen. They +were talking together, my father and the doctor, but neither could +understand how the disease had developed so rapidly.... + + + + + CHAPTER LVII + + +And, after all, I failed! I did not die. I got better, though not quite +well, for my lungs remained delicate, and in October Mrs. Carroll took +me to be examined by a specialist. I was examined, sounded, tapped, a +sample of my blood taken, and other odious things done to me, before it +was finally decided that I must go abroad. I listened to the discussion +that followed, taking no part in it myself, but simply sitting on the +sofa in the consulting-room. + +“For the winter, I suppose?” + +“For the winter certainly.” + +“And afterwards?” + +“Afterwards? I’m afraid it is impossible to say. There is no use making +promises which may never be fulfilled. Would there be anything to +prevent his living abroad always, supposing it should be the best thing +for him?” + +“There is only the difficulty of his future――that is, of a profession. +He was to have gone to Oxford next year.” + +“I see. It is certainly unfortunate. But apart from that, there is +nothing?” + +“To prevent his living abroad? Not that I know of.” + +There were such things as tutors, it then appeared; young gentlemen +of excellent scholastic attainments, just fresh from one or other +of the Universities, who could be induced to combine the rôles of +travelling-companion, mentor, and pedagogue. + +And on this hopeful note we came away. We had lunch in town, and +caught the next train home. When we arrived at Newcastle we took +one of the station cars. I was staying at Derryaghy to complete my +convalescence; so Mrs. Carroll stopped at our house to give my father +the news, telling me to drive on by myself. The October sunlight, still +with a little of the warmth of summer in it, slanted through the trees, +as I drove in at the lodge-gate. There was a charming autumnal languor +in the still air――a kind of dreamy, happy beauty, which made me think +of some verses of La Fontaine’s:―― + + “J’étais libre et vivais seul et sans amour; + L’innocente beauté des jardins et des jours + Allait faire à jamais le charme de ma vie.” + +And, far out on the dark sea, a white sail gleamed in the sun. + +The thought of leaving it all behind me, and of passing the rest of my +life in exile, was too painful to dwell upon; yet I knew that, once I +went away, I might very easily never be back. It had struck me that the +doctor had been anything but optimistic, and I knew this meant that my +chance must be a pretty poor one. + +I went upstairs to my own room. I sat down in my old window-seat and +began a letter to Owen, which I did not finish, for it occurred to me +that, later on, I might have more definite news to give him; and, at +any rate, if I were going away, he must come down first to stay with +me. With my incomplete letter before me I sat dreaming. I wondered +if, in years to come, another boy would have this room as his own, +and sit in this window-seat; and if his thoughts would for a moment +perhaps touch mine? All _my_ thoughts would be dead then; my dreams +vanished; the life that had unfolded here be gone out. A feeling of +sadness stole over me. I had been a very little chap when I had first +taken possession of this room. If the ghost of that little boy, who +had been me, could only come back, how I should have hugged him! For I +loved him: he seemed quite different from the “me” who was thinking +about him now. Only he was gone, and just one person in the world knew +anything about him, and he, too, I supposed, as years passed would +forget.... + + * * * * * + +“Why are you sitting up here in the cold, child?” + +Mrs. Carroll had opened the door and was speaking to me. “How long have +you been here? Come down to tea.” + +I looked round and saw that the room had filled with dusk. “Oh, not +very long.” I smiled. “I’m not cold.” But I shivered slightly as I +spoke. + +“That means you have been here ever since you came in. It is really +very wrong of you, Peter. The fire is laid, and all you had to do was +to put a match to it.” + +I followed her downstairs. There was no one in the drawing-room, and +I was glad we were going to be by ourselves. I sat on the hearth-rug, +hugging my knees, gazing into the red, glowing grate. + +“Is Miss Dick out?” I asked. + +“She went out to tea.” + +I waited till the servant had come in and cleared away the tea-things. +Then I said, “I have something to tell you.” + +Mrs. Carroll, her plump, rather large hands moving swiftly and deftly +amid soft, fleecy wool, was knitting what looked remarkably like an +under-garment for me. “Yes, dear,” she replied. + +But instead of proceeding I asked a question: “Won’t it cost a great +deal, my going away――with a tutor, and all that?” + +“Not very much. It is of no importance.” + +“But you will be paying for it, won’t you?” I urged. + +“My dear child, why do you want to discuss such things now?” + +“I have a reason.” + +“I don’t think it can be a good one.” + +“If I were related to you――if I were your nephew――it would be +different.” + +“What would be different?” + +“If I were worth it it would be different too. But I’m not.” + +“Aren’t you?” Her needles clicked placidly. + +“Why should you think me so?” + +“Because, I suppose, from the days when you were quite a little boy, +you have been the principal thing I have had to think about. There was +a time when I tried very hard, and very selfishly, I’m afraid, to be +allowed to look after you altogether, when I wanted this house to be +your home.” + +“Suppose I told you that all this――all my illness――was not accidental?” + +Mrs. Carroll displayed no alarm. “I don’t know what you mean, Peter, +I’m sure,” she said, gently, disengaging her ball of wool from Miss +Dick’s cat, who had stretched out a tentative paw. + +“I mean that I did it myself,” I answered, bringing it all out at last. +“I did it on purpose.... I wanted to die, to kill myself, and I thought +of this way. I went out and lay on the golf-links one whole night, in +the rain, with nothing on but my night-shirt; and next morning I took +ill.” + +Mrs. Carroll said nothing, but she had stopped knitting. I felt her +hand rest on my head. + +“Is that true, Peter?” she asked at last, after a long pause, and in a +low voice. + +“It’s true.” I stared into the fire. + +She was again silent, but she did not draw away her hand. “Why did you +do this?” she asked presently. + +“Because I felt miserable.” + +“But――but it was a dreadful thing to do! Don’t you know that?” Her +voice trembled slightly. + +I got on my knees. I put my arms round her neck and pressed my +cheek against hers. “I have spoiled everything, I made a mess of +everything,” I muttered quickly. “I am not very old, but I have made a +mess of any life I have had.” + +She drew my head down on her breast and held me close. For some time +she did not speak. + +“It will all come right, if you try,” she said at last. “The beginning +is not everything.” + +“It is not for myself I care. It is for you.” + +“For me, then.” She paused. “But for me you are what you have always +been and always will be, since I have no boy of my own. You are my son, +the one being whom I love. Your future is what I think of and make +plans for; and whenever I pray it is that you may be happy.” + + + THE END + + + + + _Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._ + + + + + SELECTIONS FROM + MR. EDWARD ARNOLD’S + LIST OF + NEW AND RECENT BOOKS + + + NEW FICTION + +Bella. _By EDWARD CHARLES BOOTH, Author of “The Cliff End,” “The +Doctor’s Lass,” etc. 6s._ + +A story of life at Spathorpe――perhaps the most beautiful and attractive +of all the watering-places on the English East Coast. Rupert Brandor, a +young and wealthy man, and a poet with some pretension to fame, comes +to Spathorpe to spend a few weeks of the season. Under rather amusing +circumstances he makes the acquaintance on the beach of a young and +very fascinating little girl, by name Bella Dysart, who is staying +with her mother at Cromwell Lodge――a large and well-known villa on the +esplanade. Bella’s personal charm and the unsophisticated frankness +of her disposition win the poet’s interest and affection. Shortly he +makes the acquaintance of Mrs. Dysart, and with her enters the new, and +deeper, and more dangerous element into the poet’s story. As the days +go by, the poet and Bella and Mrs. Dysart draw into a closer circle of +friendship. Meanwhile, they have come to be noted by Spathorpe’s busy +eyes. This beautiful woman and her scarcely less beautiful daughter, +and the handsome boy, attract a large measure of public notice; and the +inevitable whispers arise. Mrs. Dysart’s reputation suffers tarnish; +her acquaintance with the poet is construed according to the canons of +the world. Their uncloaked intimacy acquires the character of scandal. +From this point onward the action of the story accelerates. In the +final chapters it is a study in temptation, and the story occupies +itself with the youthful and poetic temperament under influence of +seductive womanly beauty and the counter-influences of a pure and +girlish friendship. + + +Following Darkness. _By FORREST REID. 6s._ + +A study of boyhood and adolescence. The hero is the son of a National +schoolmaster in a village on the north coast of Ireland, and the +contrast of temperaments between father and son is from the beginning +strongly marked. A domestic tragedy having culminated in the +disappearance of his mother, the boy becomes the protégé of a wealthy +lady living in the neighbourhood. Her influence, and still more the +influence of her surroundings, of the house above all, which occupies +a distinct place in the story, tend to widen still further the breach +between him and his father. The advent of this lady’s niece, a charming +girl who comes on a visit, and by her presence transforms everything, +introduces the element of romance, and is the prelude to a story of +first love, really the central theme of the book. + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +The Bracknels. A Family Chronicle. 6s. + +“A work of rare distinction.”――_Daily News._ + +“An admirable novel, from which one has had no ordinary amount of +pleasure.”――_Manchester Guardian._ + + +The Soul of Unrest. _By EMILY JENKINSON, Author of “Silverwool,” etc. +6s._ + +In her new book, “The Soul of Unrest,” Miss Jenkinson amply fulfils +the promise shown in her first novel, “Silverwool,” which was so +favourably received by the public two years ago. Here once again the +author delineates her various characters with great sympathy and +understanding, while her descriptions of their environment is marked by +that quiet strength and charm which so distinguished her earlier work. + + +Tinker’s Hollow. _By Mrs. F. E. CRICHTON, Author of “The Soundless +Tide,” “Peep-in-the-World,” etc. 6s._ + +The story moves in a Presbyterian village in Co. Antrim, in Victorian +days. Here Sally Bruce’s childhood is passed amid the kindly austerity +of old servants and an elderly uncle and aunts. Her acquaintance with +the Beausires, an old Huguenot family settled in the same county, +leads to the discovery of a kindred spirit in Anthony, the last of the +line. Their few meetings are the only outward events of her life, and +one spring morning in the Tinker’s Hollow they realize their love for +each other. Their lives throughout are interwoven with those of the +Irish country people――Rachael, the old nurse, Mrs. McGovern of the +post-office, and the unhappy young school-mistress, Esther Conway. + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +The Soundless Tide. _6s._ + +“The book is one to be really read, and by most people to be really +loved.”――_Morning Post._ + +“Here is a wholly delightful novel written by a delightful personality. +This story will be read and re-read, and there is much wisdom in +it.”――_British Weekly._ + + +Tante. _By ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK, Author of “Franklin Kane,” “Valérie +Upton,” etc. 6s. Fifth Impression._ + +“I stand amazed by the qualities of the author’s genius. She really +can create characters, quite original, and, as it were, not fanciful, +not fantastic, but solid samples of human nature. 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Also a limited Edition de Luxe, 42s. net._ + + +The Sport of Shooting. _By OWEN JONES. With Illustrations, 10s. 6d. +net._ + + +The Dudley Book of Cookery and Household Recipes. _By GEORGIANA, +COUNTESS OF DUDLEY. Handsomely bound, 7s. 6d. net. Fourth Impression._ + + +Common-Sense Cookery. _By Colonel A. KENNEY-HERBERT. Over 500 pages. +Illustrated. 6s. net._ + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +Fifty Breakfasts, _2s. 6d._ + +Fifty Luncheons, _2s. 6d._ + +Fifty Dinners, _2s. 6d._ + + +LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W. + + + * * * * * + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. + + ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. + + ――Inconsistent hyphenation and compound words were made consistent only + when a predominant form was found. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75675 *** |