FOUR: THE TRAPEZE BOY
A hardfrost came early in February.
“If this lasts,” said Mr. Dunnock eagerly, “we shall have skating the day after to-morrow,” but his face clouded quickly, and he put down his cup with a gesture of annoyance. The day after to-morrow would be Sunday.
“We may be in for a long spell of frost,” said Anne, but, reminded of his duties, her father was not in the mood to be consoled. “A frost brings more suffering than you or I can quite realize, my dear,” he said severely. “Think of the poor, without the coal or the blankets to keep them warm; think of the seamen in the rigging of ships; think of the outcasts on the roads; think of the birds.”
“Think of the polar bears,” said Anne under her breath, as her father rose from the table and scooped out the crumb of the loaf.
“The trap ought to be here in ten minutes; I shall be back from Ely by the eight o’clock train,” he said, and with these words went to the front door where an impatient flock of sparrows was waiting his arrival.
When the trap came, she went to the gate and watched her father drive away, wondering whether he would meet Enid in the street. “I am glad I am not going. Now the rest of the day is mine. Mine, and I am free to do whatever I choose!”
The road was like iron; it rang under the pony’s hoofs, and Anne thought she had never seen a lovelier morning; the spell of the frost was more beautiful than the enchanted world of the snow had been a month before, though it was not so strange. Every twig was fledged with rime, for there had been a fog during the night, but already the sun had broken through the mist, the sky was showing blue overhead, and the white tops of the elms were blushing in the sunshine.
“Every tree is smothered in snowy blossom; it is as if spring had come,” and she thought that the flowering time of the cherry in Japan could not equal the beauty of this February morning in England. When she turned to go back into the house she noticed that the bare wall of the vicarage was covered with hoarfrost, an opalescent bloom shining in the sunlight.
“A fairy palace fit for the Snow Queen or the Sleeping Beauty,” she said, and the words reminded her that Maggie must be waiting for her to make the beds.
“You ought to see the fat woman,” said Maggie Pattle. “Her bosom was bigger than that pair of marrows Mr. Lambert gave for Harvest Festival; there’s a paper outside says she is only twenty and weighs nineteen stone. I shall never call Ida Whalley fat again, after last night.”
Linton Fair lasted two days, and the merry-go-rounds were staying till the end of the week.
“I went in the swing-boats, and I went to the circus, and I spent seven shillings altogether,” said Maggie with triumph.
Anne shuddered at the fat woman, but when Maggie spoke of the circus, of the little lady who rode on a pink horse and jumped through paper hoops, and of a horse that undressed and went to bed and drew up the sheets with its teeth, she wished that she could go herself.
“Why not? Why not?” she wondered. “Why should I not go this afternoon? There is no disgrace in going to the fair, and there are the drawing-pins that I have to buy at Linton. I must begin trying to do some fashion plates. Besides, I should enjoy the walk on a day like this.”
The six miles of road brought a glow of colour into her cheeks, and she felt her heart beat with excitement as she crossed the old bridge over theOuse, and entered the little town. The streets were crowded with men and beasts; the market place was full of farmers and machinery, and half a dozen cheap-jacks, each surrounded by a dense crowd, were shouting against each other.
Anne quickened her pace; the noise of a steam organ told her that the merry-go-rounds were in a field near the railway station, but when she had passed the first booths, the coco-nut shies, the rifle-range, and the places where she was invited to win cups and saucers by throwing rings, she suddenly became embarrassed. Just in front of her were the swing-boats sure enough, laden with shrieking girls; beyond them a great merry-go-round painted with all the majesty of a heathen temple, and loaded with strange idols: swans, dolphins, lions, and ostriches, turned slowly round like a monstrous humming-top, and near by was the vast curving canvas wall of the circus.
She was surrounded by a happy crowd, but she could not mingle with it.
Already her pink cheeks had drawn upon her the notice of a group of young farmers; it was clear to her that she could not visit the circus unless she went with a companion. At that moment she envied Maggie her freedom as she hadnever done before; Maggie, who might laugh or scream until her voice drowned the hurdy-gurdy, and who could answer back when a man spoke to her without anyone thinking the worse.
What would be said if she, Miss Dunnock, the daughter of the vicar of Dry Coulter, were to try to win a coco-nut? Many of her father’s parishioners must be in town, and, with flagging footsteps, Anne passed by the entrance to the field full of merry-go-rounds, and walked slowly on towards the railway station.
Within the great tent of the circus she could hear the thumping of the ponies’ hoofs, the crack of the circus-master’s whip, and the falsetto note of a clown’s voice, followed by a roar of rustic laughter and clapping hands; then, passing on, she came in view of the showmen’s encampment: a score of caravans with smoking chimneys, groups of hobbled ponies, and women carrying pails of water, hanging out washing, and preparing the evening meal.
“A curious life,” the girl said to herself. “Wandering from town to town, roaming from one country to another, for the circus I see here may be at Nizhninovgorod next summer and in Italy or Spain six months after that. The women must have a hard life, but I would rather be one of them than the wife or daughter of aclergyman. If I were to join them; but that cannot be—some dark woman would stab me rather than have me for her daughter-in-law, yet if one of these handsome gipsies asked me, I would not hesitate to go with him. I would rather that my son were a clown or a lion-tamer than an archdeacon or a bishop.”
Anne roused herself after a few minutes; the sun was setting, she felt chilly, and her thoughts had depressed her. “My mind runs in a circle,” she said. “Whatever I see, whatever I do, I come back to the thought that I am an outcast unable to share in the life around me, or to enjoy it, and that somehow I must escape from my surroundings, for I cannot live any longer without friends.”
She turned back towards the market place, for there is nothing more gloomy than an empty railway station, resolving to buy what she needed and then go home without delay.
“Loneliness is terrible, and I have not got a friend in the world. The worst fate which can befall a human being is to be born a young lady,” and meeting the gaze of a handsome gipsy with gold earrings, she added: “I can see that I do not attract him; he does not care for young ladies, and he is wise. We are an unhealthy, artificial breed; his women are better; they smell oftallow and wood ashes, and have the spirit and the health of mares.”
Anne bought her drawing-pins and decided to go home, but first she would have a cup of tea, and threading her way past a steam plough with seven shares, and through a series of galvanized iron cisterns, at which a group of farmers were gazing with intellectual doubt written on their faces, she crossed the market place and went into White’s. The turmoil of the fair had not penetrated inside the confectioner’s shop, and she would have thought that they had no knowledge of it there if it were not that a greater primness reigned, and that the very gingerbread seemed weary of the flesh. Anne sipped her cup of tea with distaste, asking herself what the young ladies behind the counter would have said if she had given way to her desires, and they had seen her mounted on an ostrich.... Did they suffer from such temptations themselves?
She had almost finished her cup of tea when the door opened and a little girl came in, followed by a short, thick-set, white-bearded man of sixty. It was Rachel, her favourite, and her father, Mr. Sotheby. Rachel smiled, and all Anne’s depression was laid aside; even the tea, tasting of wet boots, seemed changed by the pleasure of their meeting.
“Well, Rachel, have you been enjoying yourself at the fair?” she asked, looking into the pale little face, framed in short dark curls. The child nodded her head quickly.
“Yes, Miss Dunnock, thank you very much. I have been on the switchback, and enjoyed seeing the fair very much.” Rachel’s voice was always a trifle stilted, her words always polite, and her sentiments always perfectly correct, but Anne noticed that on this occasion the child’s usual gaiety was lacking. A few words with the grocer were sufficient to explain the cause: Mr. Sotheby had brought Rachel into Linton to see the fair, he had taken her twice on the roundabout, but his business was waiting for him and must be done, and since he did not think it suitable to let the child go to the circus alone, he was leaving her at White’s, where she would keep warm.
“Come and choose yourself a cake, Rachel,” he said.
“May I take her to the circus, Mr. Sotheby?” asked Anne.
There could be no refusal, and the two friends set off at once, Rachel carrying the cheese-cake she had chosen, in her hand.
When the time came to meet Mr. Sotheby in the market place the two girls left the circus,and still under the spell of the wonders they had seen, it seemed as if they could never express sufficiently their admiration and their astonishment. The pink horse and the fair rider of which Maggie had spoken that morning, and the clowns, who had appeared so suddenly that one might have thought a shower of frogs had fallen into the ring after a thunderstorm, were discussed in detail, but best of all they had liked the handsome young man who had stood on his head on a trapeze, and who, without holding on with his hands, had swung rapidly from one side of the great roof of the circus to the other.
Mr. Sotheby was driving out of the inn-yard as they reached the market place, and Anne was about to say good-bye, when the grocer offered her a seat in his dog-cart, saying that he would not hear of her walking back alone. She was grateful for his offer, for she had no great fancy for the six-mile walk herself, and soon they were all ready, tucked up in a large rug, with nothing to be seen of Rachel, crouching against their legs, but the tassel of her woollen cap. Mr. Sotheby flicked the pony with his whip, and in a few moments they had crossed the old bridge over the river, and had left Linton behind.
During the drive home, Anne’s thoughts ranon the young man, dressed in scarlet tights like Mephistopheles; she could not forget his proud and serious face, intent only on his trapeze and indifferent to the audience; she would never forget that unsmiling face, looking up at the trapeze above him, as he deliberately rubbed first the soles of his shoes, and then his hands, in a box of sand.
But she could not speak of the young man, or of the circus, to Mr. Sotheby, whom she disliked; she could not continue her happy talk with Rachel in front of him, and they drove in silence—a silence broken at last by the grocer remarking on the number of foreigners that there were at the fair.
“Nothing interests us country folk more than to see a foreigner,” said he. “A black man will draw a crowd anywhere, and no wonder either, for however contented we may be with our own lives, we always wish to learn about those of other people.”
“He is a foreigner, of course,” Anne was saying to herself. “Perhaps if I went to the circus again to-morrow I might learn his name, and whether he is an Italian or a Spaniard,” but she roused herself, for Mr. Sotheby was still speaking, and then, wondering whether his words required an answer, she looked about her.
The risen moon was nearly full: there were no stars, and the road before them sparkled with frost. “How fast we are driving,” she reflected. “There is nothing like a frost to make a pony go, and no doubt he is thinking of his stable.” The sound of the hoofs rang out; the air was much colder than in the morning, so cold that it hurt her to breathe.
“My son Richard is abroad, living in Paris,” said the grocer, and hearing his voice, Anne told herself that politeness required her to listen. If she married the trapezist she might live in Paris, too—or else they would travel from town to town wherever there were circuses.
“Before that boy was eight years old,” Mr. Sotheby went on, “I knew that he would have to be a gentleman, and I am proud to say that I always encouraged him to do what he wanted with his life.”
She would call him Lorenzo. What did it matter whether Lorenzo was a gentleman or not? And Anne said this to herself, certain that the boy who had swung so gracefully on the trapeze was a gentleman. “For what is gentility but pride and perfect dignity? And he is as proud as Lucifer.”
“Everyone says that I spoil Richard,” and the old man beside her cracked his whip gaily.“But as long as I can make money I shall send it to him.”
“I am sure you are quite right,” said Anne. Money! If only she had a little money! How that would simplify things!
Mr. Sotheby had needed no encouragement, and went on speaking: “All these farmers hoard their money, and laugh at me for spending mine, but I always say that we are both in the right, for they haven’t sons like my Richard. What good is money to my wife and me?” he asked, but, without waiting for a reply, continued: “To him it means books, education, painting in the best studios, and the company of his equals, for he would not find his equals about here.”
“Yes, money means all that and more,” thought Anne, but aloud she said:
“Is Lorenzo a painter, then?”
“My son Richard? No, he is an artist. I am fond of pictures myself, so I can understand him. I have seen some by the great men: Rembrandt, Turner, and Wouverman. There is a fine gallery at Norwich.”
“I am very fond of pictures, too,” said Anne. “I have always wanted to try oils; perhaps I shall one day.”
“I thought at first of sending Richard toCambridge,” said the grocer, for he was not interested in Anne’s chances of painting. “But he said no to it. ‘There’s only one place where I can learn to be an artist,’ he said. ‘Paris is the only place for that.’”
Mr. Sotheby shook the reins, and murmured to his pony as they crossed a little bridge, then he continued: “One hears a great deal about the wickedness of Paris; several of our ministers have spoken to me about it, but I console myself with thinking that none of those men would mind letting their boys go to sea, and there is as much wickedness in Hull or Swansea as anywhere on earth.”
Rachel shifted her position under the rug, and suddenly thrusting her head out, looked about her with curiosity, like a little monkey.
“Do the sailors believe in the Pope of Rome, father?” she asked in her precise voice.
Anne did not listen to the reply. Of course Lorenzo was a Roman Catholic. Her father would be heartbroken, but she would give up everything for Lorenzo. Together they would voyage over the roads of Europe, their horses trotting on through the night, while the van they were sleeping in rocked gently on its springs. In the early morning she would wake to find that they were encamped by the side of astream; the curling smoke of the wood fire would be rising beneath an ash tree; and near at hand the piebald horses would be hobbled, and happily grazing on the dew-soaked grass. She would wander along the hedge-row, startling a wood pigeon which would rise from the cornfield, and catching sight of the black and white of a magpie stealing along the edge of the wood. Soon she would return with her arms full of dog-roses, and would give one to Lorenzo to wear in his buttonhole; and in the evening she would see the fragile flower pinned to his breast as he swung on the trapeze.
“Scripture tells us,” said Mr. Sotheby, “that children should honour their parents, but I feel a respect for my son which I never felt for my father, and which I don’t expect Richard to feel for me. I know that he works as hard at his painting as I should expect him to work if he had stayed in the shop, though of course he earns no money by it. Perhaps he never will, for the qualities necessary are not the same, and Richard has spoken of men as great as Wouverman, living and painting in Paris to-day, who cannot sell their pictures. I would rather that Richard were to become a great master than that he were to sell a picture for hundreds of guineas, and incur the contempt of such men.Money is not everything: one need only read one’s Bible to see that.”
The pony slackened its speed, and turned a corner; they were back at Dry Coulter.
“Steady, boy,” said the grocer, pulling up at the vicarage gate.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Sotheby,” said Anne.
“A pleasure, Miss Dunnock; thank you for taking Rachel to the circus.”
“Good-night, Mr. Sotheby. Good-night Rachel.”
“Good-night, Miss Dunnock, thank you for your kindness,” came the child’s voice as the pony darted off impatiently.
“What a glorious moon,” Anne said to herself. “And what a hard frost! There will be skating without a doubt.” She would have liked to go for a long walk to straighten out her tangled feelings, but it was half-past seven: it was time to lay the table for dinner.
“Perhaps Lorenzo is married,” she said to herself suddenly. “Then we can only be friends,” she added as she opened the door.