H‘I’m a better man than you are,” said Mr. Grace.
“In wot respeck?” asked Mr. Somp.
“In h’every respeck,” said Mr. Grace. “Nice wye yer’ve got o’ h’arsking fer me darter’s ‘and.”
Mr. Somp rubbed his nose, finished off his beer and winked at the barmaid. Then he turned with a smile of tolerant patronage to his future father-in-law. ‘Any’ow, Cockie, h’I didn’t need to h’arsk yer. Yer must allaws remember that you come in on the second h’act.”
“Wot d’yer mean?”
“H’I mean the curtain was h’up and the play’d began when you h’entered.”
“H’information ter me—I’m larnin’.” Mr. Grace tossed off his pot to show his supreme contempt and signed for another. Having wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he spoke reflectively. “So I h’entered when the bloomin’ curtain was h’up! Now I h’allaws thought as I wuz be’ind the scenes and ‘elped ter mike ‘er.”
“A peep be’ind the scenes,” chirped the barmaid; “read a book called that once. Mr. Grice this ‘ouse is respeckable. If you ain’t careful you’ll get chucked h’out.”
Mr. Somp looked deeply shocked. “That ain’t no subjeck to mention before ladies—birth ain’t a matter ter be discussed in publick. It ‘appens to h’all of us, but people as is well brought h’up tries to ferget it.”
Glancing round and seeing that opinion was against him, Mr. Grace retreated a step in the argument. “You said as h’I came in on the second h’act. As ‘ow?”
“H’after I’d h’arsked yer darter and she’d said ‘yus.’ In ‘igh society h’it’s considered perlite to h’arsk the purmission o’ the parent.”
“‘Igh society be blowed. Pooh!”
“Well, and ‘avn’t I been purmoted?” said Mr. Somp importantly, scenting an affront.
Mr. Grace was surprised into an expression of astonishment. Then, in an effort to recover lost ground, “Wot mug purmoted you?” To the barmaid he said, “H’I’ll be King’s jockey if h’I wite long enough.”
Mr. Somp swelled out his chest. “H’I got purmotion fer nabbin’ that bloke Waffles. Wot d’yer sye ter me proposal now?”
An audience of tap-room loafers had gathered; there was a reputation to be won. “H’I sye wot h’I’ve awready said. H’I’m a better man than you are and me darter’s better.”
“In wot respeck?” Mr. Somp was tenacious.
“She’s a h’orator as yer’ll soon find h’out if yer marry ‘er.”
The policeman gazed at the cabman sombrely. “That don’t mike ‘er no better; h’it mikes ‘er wuss. H’I’ve found that h’out. It’s my h’opinion that wimen should be seen and not ‘eard.”
“So yer’ve found it h’out, ‘ave yer?” Into Mr. Grace’s voice had crept a sudden warmth of fellow-feeling and friendliness.
“Ter my regret,” sighed Grace’s policeman, wagging a mournful head. “If I’d knowed before h’I got ter love ‘er—— Ah, well! It don’t mend matters ter talk abart it.”
Mr. Grace heaved himself off the bench. “Shike ‘ands, old pal; yer goin’ ter suffer.”
Mr. Somp gloomily accepted the proffered hand, looking at the barmaid. “H’I’m afraid I h’am.”
“Then why not taik me?” asked the barmaid cheerily.
“And why not? That’s the question. My dear, you might mike me suffer wuss.”
“And I mightn’t ‘ave you,” she said coyly. “Any’ow, Mr. Somp had no sympathy with the Salvation Army old top, try me next. Yours truly, Gertie, h’always ready ter oblige a friend.”
It was the day after the honeymoon, which had consisted of a steamer-trip to Greenwich, that Mr. Somp confided to Mr. Grace, “Too much religion abart your gel.” At that hour Mr. Somp and Grace’s father became friends.
0227m
Grace’s husband had no sympathy with the Salvation Army—he didn’t feel the need of conversion; and Grace, for her part, had no patience with men who refused to sign the pledge. Mr. Somp took revenge for domestic wrongs in his official capacity, by moving his wife along when he found her beating her drum at street corners. Mrs. Somp punished him by keeping him awake at night while, to use his own words, she sneaked to God abart him. She even addressed God in the highways on this intensely private matter, when she saw her husband approaching. She followed St. Paul’s advice by being urgent in season and out in her rebuking, long-suffering, teaching and exhorting. Her lofty sense of right and wrong depressed him; he grew slack, lost his standing in the force and gradually ceased to work. His self-confidence melted before her superior morality.
So she went back to the Barringtons by the day to do charring and to give extra help. That was how Peter came to know all about her intimate matrimonial problems. He heard the other side from Mr. Grace and Mr. Somp, who now had a common grievance—they wanted to drink and Grace tried to prevent them. “Don’t you never marry a good woman,” they both advised him; “good wimen is bad.”
Grace, on the other hand, despite her frequent complaints, held that her husband was a very decent man, but bone-lazy. Having proved prayer useless, she could think of only one other remedy. “If I was ter die, father’d be sorry and my ‘usband ‘ad ‘ave ter work; but I ain’t got the ‘eart ter do it.”
To which Cookie would reply, “I’m sure yer ‘aven’t, dearie. It’s them as should do the dyin’.”
After Ocky’s arrest a period of flatness followed. The uncertainty which had kept the household nervous and hoping for the best no longer buoyed them up. Until they heard that Waffles had been sentenced, they could make no plans for Jehane’s future. Barrington placed money at his disposal for his defence and went to see him once. He never disclosed what happened; but his face was ashen when he returned. All that evening, when anyone spoke to him, he seemed to have to wake before he could answer. Next morning he told Jehane, “Ocky wants to see you.” She shook her head. “He’s dragged me low enough. I never intend to see him again.”
“If that’s the way you feel, you couldn’t help him; it’s better that you shouldn’t visit him.”
She looked into the shrewd gray eyes fiercely. She wanted to find anger there—she could resent anger; she found only quiet judgment. “You don’t mean that you actually expected me to go to him?”
“I expected nothing, but he’s in trouble. You’ve given him children—he’s your husband. In all your years together there must have been some hours that are sweet to remember. I did rather hope that, now that he’s in trouble, you might have remembered them.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m ashamed that I ever had them.”
“All right. It’s strange; but I think I understand. He still loves you, Jehane, and you could have helped the chap.”
“Love! What’s the value of his love?”
“I think its value once was whatever you cared to make it.”
Later in the day he said to her, “And you wouldn’t let Glory see him, I suppose? He mentioned her.”
“No, I wouldn’t. He’s not her father. Captain Spashett was a gentleman.”
The children were never told what occurred at the trial; all they knew was that the man who had laughed and played with them, who had loved the sunshine so carelessly, was to be locked up for a time so long that it seemed like the “ever and forever” of the Bible. It was like burying someone who was not dead—they seemed to hear him tapping. And they must not go to him; they must pretend they had not heard. He was a thing to be shunned and forgotten.
Jehane was anxious to earn her living. But how? She had been trained to do nothing. Barrington bought her a little cottage near Southgate, which at this time was still in the country. Gradually he got into the habit of letting her do a little outside reading for his firm—he did it to enable her to pretend that she was self-supporting. To his surprise she developed a faculty for the work and he began to trust her judgment. She had inherited a literary instinct of which, during her married life, she had remained unaware. It was a feeble instinct, but in the end it proved sufficiently rewarding. She took to writing sentimental novelettes, which found a market. Whatever her faults of heart, she had always been capable and gifted with a strong sense of duty; so, now that she had found a means of making money, she worked hard with her pen, stinting herself and treating her children with foolish liberality.
Her chief regret was that Ocky had spoilt the marriage chances of her girls; she tried to rub out this social stain by creating the impression that her husband was dead. She had two extravagances—the purchase of hair-tonics and a mania for visiting fortune-tellers. She had one great hope—that in the future she might re-marry. This would entail Ocky’s death; but she was not so cruel as to reason that out. She had one great mission—to teach her daughters to catch men. Her chief theme of conversation with her children was the wickedness of their father and the heroic loyalty of her own conduct. No doubt there were times when her conscience troubled her.
Peter was just fifteen and Kay was nearly nine when all this happened. It made a deep impression on both of them, but especially on Peter. For months the crushed shoulders and sunken face of Uncle Waffles haunted his memory, so that it seemed a crime to be happy. He could not bear to enter the stable; he was always expecting to hear a hoarse voice addressing him in a whisper from the loft, calling him a ha’penny marvel or enquiring whether he knew the story of the husband whose wife had black hair. Often in the street he would turn sharply at the sight of some shabby outcast, shuffling through the crowd with bowed head. He would run to the window, hardly daring to own what he expected, when he heard the mournful singing along the Terrace of a group of out-of-works:
“We’ve got no work to do,
We’ve got no work to do;
We’re all thrown out, poor labourin’ men,
And we’ve got no work to do.”
Sooner or later he would recognize, he knew, in one of the tattered singers his Uncle Waffles. Peter was suffering from a suddenly awakened social conscience; he did not know enough to call it that.
It was partly because Barrington had observed and was distressed by his boy’s sadness, that he granted his desire. He granted it to give him a new interest. Peter had always dreamt of a day when he should polish up the tandem tricycle, put Kay on the back seat and ride off with her into the country.
“Well, Peter, I’ll let you do it if you’ll promise to be very careful.”
It was early summer when these splendid adventures commenced. Peter had to do all the work—Kay’s legs were too short to reach the pedals. But what did he care? Just to have his little sister all to himself, London dropping away behind and the world growing greener before him—what more could a boy ask to make him happy?
The tandem trike was a clumsy solid-tired affair—desperately heavy and beyond belief old-fashioned. Peter managed to accomplish six miles an hour on it. The way out, along Green Lanes to Wood Green and up Jolly Butcher’s Hill, would have been full of ignominy for anybody less light-hearted. Kay’s flying hair and plunging legs would have attracted attention had the tricycle been ever so new and handsome.
Errand-boys stood still and whistled after them. Tradesmen followed them in their carts, offering to race them and grinning ridicule. Very frequently insult set itself to the words of a street song then in fashion:
“It won’t be a stylish marriage;
For I can’t afford a carriage;
But you’ll look sweet with your two little feet
On a tricycle made for two.”
What did Peter care? Ill-nature failed to touch him. Little boys who pulled faces at him from the pavements, made long noses at him or stuck out their tongues, did it in envy. He wished he could take them too. So he and Kay turned their heads and threw back laughter. It was fun—all fun. And then there was the anticipation of lunch; two shillings between two people can buy so much.
Shortly after Jolly Butcher’s Hill the country began. At Southgate they would stop to see their cousins. Riska affected to despise their means of traveling. She was shooting up into a tall girl, like her mother; she was darkly handsome and carried herself with a gipsy slouch. Jehane’s philosophy, of teaching her girls how to catch men, was already beginning to take effect. Outside the cottage-gate she had a little table from which she sold ginger-beer to Cockney cyclists. She did it to make pocket-money; even as a child, by this means of introduction she gathered about her a group of boy-lovers. She was learning early how to attract when she cared. Her mother was pleased by her foolish conquests—in the rose-scented air of the cottage garden they seemed very guileless and humorous. In the presence of men, whatever their years, Riska invariably tried to fascinate.
“It’s an instinct with her, the little puss,” said Barrington; “she even tries to make love to her old uncle.”
It was a subject for laughter in the family.
On these short visits Kay and Peter saw hardly anything of Glory—she was doing the work. Just as they were going she would come out from the kitchen, untying her apron, or would pop her head out of a bedroom window to shake a duster and smile at them. Then, as the pedals began to turn, Riska would sing half-tauntingly, and Eustace and Moggs would join in with her pipingly:
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true,
I ‘m half-crazy, all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
For I can’t afford a carriage,
But you’ll look sweet-”
The words would be lost as the tricycle lumbered into the sunshine between the hedges.
Kay used to say, when she was very little, that the gladness went into her feet when she was happy. On these expeditions it went everywhere, into her feet, her eyes, her lips, her hands. She did the things that boys do, and yet she had the sweetness of a girl. She ran like a boy and she swam like a boy. She was a darling and a puzzle to Peter; he could never make her out. He was always trying to put her dearness into words and always failing.
“Your voice is like the laughter of birds,” he said. “But why do you love me so much, Peter?”
He slanted his eyes. “Because I borned you.” He knew better than that now.
Sometimes they spoke of their cousins.
“I did something horrid this morning.”
“Don’t believe it.”
“Oh, but yes. I was brushing the dust off my shoes in the kitchen, and what do you think I found?”
“Hurry up and tell me.”
“That Glory hadn’t had time to eat her breakfast and that some of the dust had gone into her plate of porridge.”
“Oh, Peter! How careless! Did you tell her?”
“She came in and saw it. You’d never guess what she said.—‘Never mind, old boy. One’s got to eat a peck o’ dirt before one dies. So mother says.’ And she took a spoon and——-”
“And ate it?”
Peter nodded, trying to look penitent, but laughing.
Then Kay became grave-eyed and asked one of her questions. “But do you?”
“Do you what?”
“Have to eat a peck of dirt before you die?”
Peter wriggled his toes in his shoes and looked down to see them moving. “Don’t know. You and I don’t. But that’s what Glory says.”
Having learnt to walk like a boy, Kay learnt to whistle. One hot summer’s afternoon they had ridden out and were lying on their backs in a field tall with grass, nearly ready for cutting. Peter had almost drowsed with the heavy smell of the wild flowers, when he sat up suddenly and seized his sister by the arm quite roughly. She was only whistling a little tune softly and was surprised at the strength he used.
“Peterkins, what’s the matter? You’re hurting. I’m sure you’ve made a bruise.”
He paid no attention to her protest. “Where’d you learn that?”
“What?”
“That tune you were whistling?”
“Don’t know. Just made it up, I suppose. I never heard it.”
“But you must have.”
“But I haven’t, Peter.” She was frightened by his earnestness, mistaking it for anger.
“Did you never hear it in the cupboard in the bedroom—the one that was yours and mine?”
She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. I’m in dead seriousness.”
The tears came. “I’m telling the truth. I never knew it till this moment.”
“Whistle it again.”
“I can’t. I forget it.”
As the children’s legs grew stronger they went further afield, conquering new territory, exploring all kinds of dusty lanes and by-roads. They had turned off from Potter’s Bar to Northaw, working round through Gough’s Oak to Cheshunt when they were hailed by a freckled boy, about Peter’s age, who sat astride a gate, playing a mouth-organ.
“Hey, kids! Want to buy anything?”
They jammed on the brakes and addressed him from the trike. “Got anything to sell?”
“Nope. Just wanted to talk and had to say something.”
“But who are you?”
“I’ve lived in America and now I’m living here in Friday Lane. I’ve often seen you go by.”
They looked round to discover Friday Lane; on every side was a sweep of country, rolling away in sun-dazzled fields and basking woodlands.
“But—but it’s lonely here.”
“Yup. But it’s lonelier where I come from. Nothing but Indians and prairie.”
Even Indians didn’t turn them aside; they were trying to unravel the mystery of Friday Lane.
“Is this road the Lane?”
“That’s the Lane.” The boy pointed with a brown hand to a grass-grown field-track starting from the gate on which he sat and vanishing between a line of tall oaks—oaks which had probably been standing when the land was part of the royal chase.
“But there aren’t any houses.”
The boy laughed. “Oh, aren’t there? There’s our house, right over there, out of sight.”
“And who are you?” Kay and Peter asked together.
“I’m Harry Arran and the house belongs to my brother. He’s the Faun Man; I kind o’ look after him and keep him straight. He’s a wonder; you’d be lucky if you knew him.”
“We’d like to know him. We’d both like to know him very much.” Again they spoke together.
The boy thrust his hands in his pockets and eyed them.
“Don’t know so much about that. I’m very particular about my brother. I don’t let him know just anybody.”
He twisted round on the gate, turning his back on them, and re-commenced playing, giving them plainly to understand that their too eager interest in his family affairs had made conversation undesirable.
It was the way in which the boy had said “just anybody.” Peter gazed beyond the gate into the green mysterious depth of country—an Eden from which he was excluded by that hostile back. His eyes followed Friday Lane: it ran on, trees, sunshine and shadows, tremulous with the wings of birds, a canopied track, across fields, into the heart of wooded fairyland. What promises lay over there? A voice of ecstasy kept calling.
Reluctantly he set his feet against the pedals, glanced across his shoulder to Kay and was going to have said—
Something that glistened shot down her cheek and swiftly vanished.
Very deliberately he dismounted. Yankee-Doodle, or a tune not unlike it, was being played at the moment. He thumped the student of the mouth-organ in the place from which Eve was created. Kay, all legs, flushed face and blown hair, watched from the back seat of the trike the novel sight of her brother being violent.
The boy tumbled from his perch, putting the gate between himself and Peter. Yankee-Doodle ended abruptly—the mouth-organ slipped from his hand. The freckled good humor of his face changed to an expression of amused and fierce intelligence. It was his way to be amused when he was angry or in danger—Kay and Peter were to learn that later. He bobbed in the grass, recovered his fallen treasure, rubbed it on his sleeve, stuffed it into his knickerbockers’ pocket and grimaced across the rail.
“You’re a fresh kid.”
Peter removed his cap; his curly hair fell about his forehead. “You’ve made my sister cry,” he said. His hands were clenched.
One leg hopped over the gate; then another. “I haven’t,” the boy denied stoutly.
“You have. You called her ‘just anybody.’”
The boy stepped into the road—a pugnacious little figure. “Pshaw! What of it? Girls cry for nothing.”
Peter drew himself erect. “My sister doesn’t.”
The boy raised his eyes and met Kay’s. Ashamed of himself, but more ashamed of showing it, he spoke stubbornly, “She’s doing it now.”
There was silence. A small strained voice, which sounded not at all like Peter’s, said, “I never hurt people. I never fought in my life. But if I did ever fight, I’d like to punch your head. And—and I think I could do it.”
The boy lost his shame and became happy. “Guess you can’t. Anyhow, why don’t you have a shot at it?”
Without waiting for a reply, he commenced to take off his coat and to roll up his shirt-sleeves. He did it with an air of competence which was calculated to intimidate. All the while he carried on a monologue. “So he’d like to punch my head—myhead. Why, I could get his goat by just looking at him. In America I’ve licked boys twice his size, and they hadn’t curly hair, either.” He faced Peter, doubling his fore-arm, and inviting him to feel his muscle. “See that. Say, kid, I’m sorry for you.—Ready?”
Peter nodded; before his nod had ended something hit him on the nose. He threw up his arms to defend himself, but the something seemed all about him. Always smiling into his own was the freckled face of a pleasant looking boy—so pleasant that it was hard to believe that it was he who was doing the hurting. And Peter—he hit back valiantly; but somewhere at the back of his brain he kept on seeing pictures of the boy dead. It was disconcerting; every now and then, when he should have pressed home his advantage, he shortened his blows intentionally, with the strong weakness of the humanitarian.
A bird rose twittering out of a hedge. From a meadow across the road, a cow hung its mild head over, looked shocked, switched its tail disapprovingly, mooed loudly, swung round and lumbered away uncertainly, like a distressed old lady with gathered skirts, in a futile endeavor to bring help.
Peter saw it all. His faculties were unnaturally and desperately alert. It was odd how time lengthened its minutes—how much he saw and heard: the deep blue stillness of sky-lagoons, the foam and wash of traveling clouds, the erect and listening quiet of tree-sentinels and hedges, and, somewhere out of sight, the sigh-sigh-sighing of wind in distant country.
There was a cry behind him. How long had he been fighting? He could not guess. Between himself and the boy rushed a little girl. Her small hands commenced to beat the boy furiously. She could not speak; she was choked with sobbing. The boy’s arms fell to his side; he let her aim her puny blows at his impudent face, making no attempt to stop her. Suddenly she swayed and sank into the flowers at the side of the road. Peter stooped; his arms went about her. The boy looked on, gazing from these strange invaders to the waiting trike. It was he who was excluded now. He wanted to say something—opened his mouth several times and halted. At last he stumbled out the words.
“I’m—I’m sorry. And you’re not just anybody.” And then, “I say, you’re plucky ‘uns—won’t you shake hands?”
The bird came back to the hedge and dropped into its nest. The cow, having sought help in vain, looked distractedly into the road and saw a boy pushing open a gate, while another boy, a little bruised and battered, pushed an ancient tandem tricycle into a meadow, and a small girl, with flushed face and blowy corn-colored hair, dabbed her eyes furtively with the hem of her dress.
The trike had to be hidden. It was unlikely, but always possible, that it might be coveted by tramps. Friday Lane lay before them. The boy turned to them with abrupt frankness. “Here, what your names?”
“Mine’s Peter, and my sister’s is Kay.”
“Well, Peter, I guess I hit harder than I meant. But—but I reckon you could have punched my head if you’d chosen. Didn’t get warmed up to the work before she stopped us—was that it?”
They were up to their knees in the meadow-world; the air was full of kind new fragrances. Peter’s eyes were dreamy. The boy rambled on, leading deeper into the avenue of oaks, so that already the first straggling fringe of woods commenced. “My brother’s like that. In Alaska, when the dogs took to fighting, he’d just stand still and laugh and holler at them. Then, all of a sudden, when he saw that they were eating one another, he’d go clean mad and wade in among ‘em and lay ‘em out with the butt of his rifle. He’s a wonder, my brother.”
“I’m sure he is,” said Peter, and Kay, trotting closely by his side, repeated his words to show her interest.
The boy, flattered by the attention of his audience, with the treachery of the born story-teller, sharpened their appetite by suspense. He wagged his head mysteriously. “I could tell you heaps about him if you were to come here often.”
He waited to see what effect that would have. Kay had been hiding behind her brother, clinging to his hand. Now she came level with him, bending her face across him so that she could meet the eyes of the boy. She asked, “May we, Peter? Do you think we can?”
“Not often,” said Peter guardedly; “but as often as we can.”
The boy held out a further inducement. “One day I might show him to you. He’s like that with dogs and—and especially with girls: laughs at ‘em, hollers at ‘em, and then——-. He’s the most glad-eyed chap that ever came down the pike, I reckon. That’s what gives me all my trouble.”
Neither Kay nor Peter knew exactly what was meant. So Peter said, “You’ve been everywhere, haven’t you? And we—we just tricycle out and——”
The boy had drawn his mouth-organ from his pocket and was playing, stamping his feet and swaying his body. Suddenly he stopped and his voice took up the air:
“I’ve been shipwrecked off Patagonia,
Home and Colonia,
Antipodonia;
I’ve shot cannibals,
Funny looking animals,
Top-knot coons;
I’ve bought diamonds twenty a penny there,
I’ve been somewhere, nowhere, anywhere—
And I’m the wise, wise man of the
Wide, wide world.”
They gazed at him wide-eyed in the hushed summer woodland. Then they beat their hands together, crying, “Oh, again, again, please.”
The boy smiled tantalizingly. “Can you climb?” He shot the question out. The next moment he was scrambling up a tall oak. Sometimes his body was lost in leaves. Sometimes it sounded as though he were tumbling, tumbling through the branches to the ground. At last, from a bough high up where the sky commenced, his impish face gazed down on them. First they heard the mouth-organ, then the voice, singing of somewhere, nowhere, anywhere—of the splendidly imagined No-Man’s-Land through which every child has longed to wander.
And they believed his song, as though it were autobiography. In a picture-flash they saw the world, beautiful, tumultuous, full of terrors—saw it as a vast balloon, swimming through eternal clouds, painted with the dreams of young desire: islands in sun-drenched seas, where palms stood motionless, pointing to the skies with silent hands; countries of yellow men, small and crafty, who lived in paper houses and fed on flowers; enfeebled cities, dazzlingly white, whose eyes had been burnt out by the door of hell left open in the iron heavens; and snow-deserts where the frost carved Titans with his breath.
This freckled pugnacious master of the mouth-organ,
This pugnacious master of the mouth organ, caroling a street song in the tree-turrets of Friday Lane, became for them the embodied soul of adventure.
0243m
The boy came slithering down. Kay watched him, how he dangled by his arms, caught on with his legs, dug in with his toes, got himself completely dirty and always saved himself at the last moment from falling.
He dropped breathless at their feet. “It’s fine up there. Different from down here. Up there it belongs to anybody.”
Kay wasn’t quite sure that she approved of him. He had ripped his coat, and it didn’t seem quite kind to give his mother so much work. She spoke reproachfully. “D’you like tearing your clothes?”
He gazed at her out of the corners of his eyes with a sly expression. “I don’t mind. Don’t need to mind—my clothes are magic. They mend themselves.”
“Mend themselves!” She tugged at Peter, to see in what spirit he was accepting this amazing assertion. “Why, how wonderful!” And then, reluctant to show doubt, “But—but how can they?”
The boy grinned broadly. “Not really, you know—just pretence. I—I mend them myself. I’m an awful liar. Come on now.”
Confession had made him self-conscious; he darted ahead. Kay and Peter followed slowly. He turned. “Aren’t you coming?”
It was Peter who answered. “But to where?”
“To where I live—the Happy Cottage.”
Was this also pretence? The name sounded too good to be true—and yet it was the kind of name you tried to believe, despite yourself.
The boy left the grassy avenue and broke into the undergrowth of woods. He went in front, parting the branches for Kay. He explained to them, “Friday Lane’s shorter, you know; but this other way’s heaps jollier.”
Presently above the rustle of their passage they heard a little singing sound. Sometimes it grew quite loud and near them; sometimes it died away into the merest breath.
It was like someone who was almost asleep, humming over and over the first two notes of a tune that refused to be remembered. Kay snuggled her hand into Peter’s; she was a little scared. Everything was so dark and eerie. The sound drew near and seemed to slip away from under her very feet. She cried out; it was as though someone had touched her and had vanished before she could turn round.
The boy heard her cry and looked back. He nodded reassuringly. “It’s always doing that—plays no end of pranks. You needn’t be frightened; it won’t hurt you.”
“But what is it? What won’t hurt you?” Peter asked almost angrily.
The boy laid his finger on his lips. “The wood’s haunted. That’s the queen fairy calling. There are all kinds of fairies hidden about here. When you see them, they turn into rabbits and birds, and——” Because Kay had covered her face, he stopped. “I’m—I’m an ass. It isn’t really, you know. I just tell myself that.”
“Then what is it?” asked Peter, slightly awed, for the voice kept on singing.
The boy laughed. “It’s the tiniest little river that’s lost itself. It creeps about under the bushes and wriggles through the leaves on its tummy, trying to find a way out.”
“And does it find it?” asked Kay, plucking up her courage.
“You bet you. Wait till we get to the Happy Cottage.” And all of a sudden they got there. It was as though the little river had led them, for just where they broke out into the sunlight it rushed past them, flashing silver and singing merrily, with all the words of its song remembered. At first they saw a green, green stretch of grass, over which the yellow of cowslips drifted like blown gold-dust. Then they saw Friday Lane, with its tall oaks holding back the woods, like big policemen marshaling a crowd when a procession is expected. And then they saw the Happy Cottage—a bee-hive, with low-thatched roof, set down in a refuge of flowers. It had one chimney, from which smoke was lazily ascending; and it must be logs that the fire was burning, for the air was filled with the indescribable homey smell that sets one dreaming of all the country cottages, tucked away in gardens, and all the summer happiness he has ever chanced on.
They followed the little stream right up to the high hedge which went about the Happy Cottage; they crossed it by a plank, pushed open a gate and entered. Flowers, flowers everywhere and the banjo-music of bees humming. A red-tiled path, moss-grown and edged with box, led through a wilderness of beauty, comfortably untrimmed and neglected. The door of the cottage stood open; across its threshold lay a Great Dane, which rose up and growled at sound of their footsteps. The boy called to him, “All right, Canute, old dog. Come here, old fellow.”
Canute came with the solemn suspicion of majesty, ignoring the strangers, and placed his great head against his master’s breast, gazing up attentively.
“Canute, this is Kay and this is Peter. They’re my friends. You’ve got to look after them. D’you understand?”
The dog blinked his eyes and turned away indifferently, as much as to say, “Your friends! Humph! We’ll see. Very sudden!”
“He’s always like that with newcomers,” said the boy. “He’s very particular about my brother. Guess he’s thinking what I said, that he don’t let the Faun Man know just anybody.” Fearful lest he should have given offence, he made haste to add, “But you’re not just anybody any longer.”
The door opened without ceremony directly into the living-room. The leaded windows were pushed back; roses stared in and bent inquisitively across the sills, spilling their petals. The house was silent; it was like stealing into someone’s heart when the soul was absent. Guns on the walls, brilliant little sketches, golf-sticks in a corner, old oak furniture, a mandolin lying in a chair—everything betrayed the room’s habitation by a strong and alluring personality. Peter, looking round, became conscious of a spirit of loneliness and yearning. On the walls were pictures of many beautiful women, but in the house itself were no signs of a woman’s hands.
The boy explained. “He’s not here to-day. He’s gone to town. This is where we play; it’s upstairs that he works.” He volunteered no information concerning the task at which the Faun Man worked. Casting his eyes round the walls, he said, “Those are all his girls. Pretty! Oh, yes. But they give me an awful lot of trouble. Want some tea? Yes?”
He went out into the kitchen at the back. He let the children follow him, but refused their offers of help. “I’m a rare little cook, I can tell you. Had to be on our ranch in America—there was no one else. You just watch me.”
But Kay had been thinking. She had supposed that there were mothers everywhere—that every boy had a——. She said, “Where are your mother and sisters?”
He looked up from toasting some bread. “Haven’t any.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “But—but didn’t you ever have any?”
He answered cheerfully, not at all sorry for himself, “Nope. Not that I remember.”
She glanced at her brother. “Peter and I’ve always been together.”
Peter added, “So that’s why you thought girls cried for nothing? You don’t know anything about them. I shouldn’t have been angry.”
The boy winked joyfully. “Oh, don’t I know anything! Leave that to the Faun Man. I know just as much as I want to. But say, I’d have liked to have had your sister for my sister. I really would have.”
Kay leant over his shoulder as he knelt before the fire. “If I were your sister, d’you know what I’d do for you? I’d tell you not to climb trees and, if you did do it, I’d mend your clothes for you.”
He told them something of his history as they sat at table. How he’d left England with his brother when he was so little that he couldn’t remember. How he’d lived on a cattle ranch and knew how to ride anything. He tried to make them understand the freedom and the solitariness of his life in those wide stretches, where there weren’t any street lamps but only stars, and where one gazed on green-gray grass for miles and never saw a single house. And he told them of the places he had been to—the queerly natural ghost corners of the earth, Alaska, Mexico and the South Sea Islands. Every now and then his imagination would gallop away with him. Then he’d twist his head and stoop forward, as if listening for the first expression of doubt. Before it came, he would try to forestall it by saying, “You know, that last part’s not really.”
When he had said it several times Kay laughed softly. The boy looked up, a little offended. “What is it?”
Her eyes were dancing with happiness. “You’re—you’re a very pretence person, aren’t you? Peter and I, we’re pretence persons. We’re always going to one place and telling ourselves we’re going somewhere else.”
The boy sank his head between his hands. His words came timidly. “It makes one happy to pretend, especially when one’s always been lonely. It’s like climbing a tall tree—it belongs to anyone up there.” He turned slowly, staring at his guests. They wondered what was in his mind. At last he said, “I wish—I wish you’d call me Harry. And please don’t tell me where you come from. Let’s be pretence persons—— I’d like to be your friend.”
With the quaint solemnity of childhood, they clasped hands. Outside the bees played their banjo-music, the flowers whispered, laying their faces close together, and the stream ran singing past the cottage, with all the words of its song remembered.