The world is a mirror into which we gaze and see the reflection of ourselves. So far to Peter it had been a foreground of small boys and their sisters, with a background of occasional adult relatives. But now, like a fledgling which has grown to strength lying snugly in its nest, he had looked out and seen the leafy distance below him. His curiosity was roused; the commonplace was a wonderland. What went on down there? Where did the parent birds go, and how did they find their way back? What was the meaning of this sun-and-shadow landscape that people called “living”? Because he was young, when he looked out of the nest, the distance below him seemed full of youngness. All that had happened up to now, the collapse of Aunt Jehane’s fortunes, the imprisonment of Uncle Waffles, his father’s problems and the marriage of Grace to her policeman, were mere stories which he had heard reported. There was a battle called life, going on somewhere, in which he had never participated. He was tired of being told about it. He wanted to feel the rush of wind under his outspread wings; this afternoon, in a gust of vivid and personal experience, he thought he had felt it. What was it? By what name should he call it? Because he was only fifteen, love sounded too large a word. And yet——- If it wasn’t love, what was it?
All along the dusty summer road, through the golden evening, as he tricycled back to London, he argued with himself. Kay interrupted occasionally and he answered, but his thoughts were elsewhere. They had discovered the gray-built city of Reality, and went from door to door tapping, demanding entrance. Ignorance had kept him unadventurous and contented; his contentedness was breaking down—he was glad of it. The urgent need was on him to explain creation and his presence in the world. How were people born? Why did they marry? How did they get money? The child’s mind, like the philosopher’s, goes back to fundamentals. All this outward pageant which had passed before his eyes for fifteeen years as a sight to be expected, had suddenly become packed with hidden significance. What was the meaning of this being born, this getting and spending, this disastrous and glorious loving, struggling and being buried? There was no one to whom he dared go for an answer; he must find the explanation within himself. In the isolation of that thought he felt a great gulf opening between himself and his little sister, between himself and everyone he loved. Whether he liked it or not, one day he must grow into a man; he was elated and terrified by the certainty. And all the while, set to the creaking music of the lumbering tricycle, one word sung itself over and over, “Cherry, Cherry, Cherry.”
0283m
No one, looking at his childish face, would have guessed the grave suspicions and wild hazards that walked in the desperate loneliness of his imagination. It was the key to existence that he sought. He had arrived at that crisis of soul and body, when every child is driven out, a John the Baptist, into the wilderness of conjecture, there to live on the locusts and wild honey of hearsay, till he finds the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
As they neared the suburbs, a stream of bicyclists—city clerks riding out with their sweethearts—met, engulfed and gave them passage. After all, it was a merry, laughing world! Above the tinkling of bells, evening birds were calling. All these people, how did they live? Where did they come from? Had they, too, slept and been awakened questioning, because a girl had touched them?
Down the road he saw his aunt’s cottage. Riska would be there by the gate, sitting behind her table spread with cakes, mineral-waters and glasses. He recalled all the things he had heard said of her, things to which he had paid no attention—that she was a born flirt and that her mother was teaching her to catch men. As they came up, she lifted her soft eyes and let them rest on him with contemptuous affection. Why did she do that? Why did she always seem to despise and tolerate men and boys? A bicyclist, who had ridden past, turned his head, caught sight of her and came back slowly. Peter felt that it was not thirst, but Riska’s prettiness that had recalled him. He felt angry with Riska—unreasonably angry, for she had said and done nothing.
“We’re late,” he told her; “we can’t stop.”
She nodded. She didn’t care. Her whole attitude seemed to tell Peter that he wasn’t worth wasting time on. Just as the pedals had begun to turn, Glory came out and stood in the porch. She waved to him and shouted something. He called to her that they were in a hurry. Further down the road, he turned his head; her eyes followed him.
It was nearly dark when they reached Topbury. Lamps stood like marigold splashes on the dusk in a quivering line along the Terrace. In the garden he found his parents, sitting close together beneath the mulberry-tree like lovers. They drew apart as Kay ran up to them.
“You’re late, children.” It was his mother talking. “We were getting nervous.”
He kissed her; for a moment, the old sense of security returned.
“It’s time Kay was in bed.”
She crossed the gravel path with her arm about the little girl, and disappeared up the white stone steps to the house.
Far away, as of old, like waves about the foot of a cliff, the roar of London threatened. It seemed to be telling him that he would not be always sheltered—that one day he would have to launch out, steering in search of the unknown future by himself. It was not the boldness, but the loneliness of the adventure that now impressed him.
“Father.”
“Yes.” The voice came to him out of the darkness. “What does it feel like to become a man?”
“Feel like, Peter! I don’t understand.”
“To have to—to have to fight for oneself?”
His father leant out and touched him. “Have you begun to think of that already? Fight for yourself! You won’t have to do that for a long while yet.”
“But——.” Peter allowed himself to be drawn into the arms of the man who had always stood between him and the world. “But when the time comes, I don’t want to fail like——,” he was going to have said like Uncle Waffles, but he said instead, “like some people.” And then, after a pause, “I feel so unprepared.”
“We’ve all felt that way, sonny. Somehow we get the strength. You’ll get it.”
Peter sighed contentedly. He was again in the nest with the creeper-covered walls about him. The strained note had gone out of his voice when he spoke now. “There’s so much to learn. It seems so strange to think that one day I’ll have to grow up, like you, and marry, and earn money, and have little boys and girls.”
His father laughed huskily. “Very strange! Strange even to me, Peter—and I’ve done it: And, d’you know, there are times when even a man looks back and is surprised that he’s grown up. He feels just what you’re feeling—the wonder of it. It seems only the other day that I was as small as you are; and only the other day that I was frightened of life and what it meant. Are you frightened?”
For answer Peter stood up. “Not so much frightened as puzzled.”
His father rose and led him out from beneath the leaves, which crowded above their heads. He pointed up past the roofs of houses. “We couldn’t see them under there,” he said. “Every night they come to their places and stand, shining. Some one sends them. Some one sent you and me, Peter. We don’t know why. There are people who sit always under trees and never look up. They’ll tell you that there aren’t any stars overhead. We’re not like that. We know that whoever is careful enough to hang lamps on the clouds, is careful enough to watch over us. So we needn’t be afraid of living, need we, old chap?”
Peter pressed his father’s hand. “I’ll try to remember.”
That night, when the house was all silent, he crept out of bed. Leaning from the open window, he looked down on London, stretching for miles and miles, with its huddled roofs spread over its huddled personalities. Why were things as they were? If some one lit lamps in the heavens and followed each life with care, why did four women, who loved children, sit forever with their arms empty, while one sang of the sweet fields of Eden; and why did Uncle Waffles——-? The questions were unanswerable and endless. And then, in defiant contrast, there came bounding into his memory the courageous figure of the Faun Man, with his cavalier attitudes and strong determination to make of life a laughing affair. The night quickened; the ghostly feet of a little breeze tiptoed across the tree-tops, causing their leaves to rustle. From the far distance, the throb of belated traffic reached him like the beat of a muffled drum. He heard London marching to the martial music of struggle; his heart was stirred. Life was a fight—well, what of it? When his time came, he must be ready. He looked again at the stars, remembering what his father had said. One need not be frightened. And then he looked away into the blackness; somewhere over there the houses ended and the wide peace of the country commenced. Somewhere over there was Cherry.
He waited impatiently for his next half-holiday, when he would be free to tricycle out. When he went, she was not in the Haunted Wood; nor the next time, nor the next. He wanted to ask the Faun Man, but postponed through shyness; he was afraid his secret would be guessed. He was always hoping and hoping that he would find her behind the green wall of leaves, where the little river ran. One afternoon, when tea was ended and Kay and Harry had gone out, he asked, “Does the girl who broke your pictures never come here now?”
The Faun Man looked up sharply and stared, trying to guess behind the question.
“I wasn’t very decent to you that day, was I? And I was beastly to her.”
“I think she was sorry,” said Peter softly. “I wish you’d let her——. Does she never come here now?”
The Faun Man leant forward across the table, with his face between his long brown hands. “Did you like her, Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Very much?”
Peter lowered his eyes. “Very much.”
When he dared to glance up, he found that the Faun Man wasn’t laughing. He reached out his hand to Peter. “You’re young,” he said. “Fifteen, isn’t it? Well, she’s a year older. It’s dangerous to like a girl very much—especially a little wild thing like Cherry. I’m a man and I know, because I, too, like some one very much; and it doesn’t always make me happy. You’ll like heaps of girls, Peter, before you find the right one.” He felt that Peter’s hand had grown smaller in his own and was withdrawing. “You think it isn’t true?” he questioned. “You think it wasn’t kind of me to say that? And you want to see her?” Peter gazed out of the cottage window to where sunlight fell aslant the Haunted Wood. Why should he want to see her more than anyone in the world? But he did. And he knew that because he was so young, most people would consider his desire absurd. But the Faun Man, who found so much to laugh at, was regarding him seriously. “And you want to see her?”
Peter whispered, “Yes.”
The Faun Man’s eyes filmed over in that curious way they had. He said: “I want you to trust me. There are reasons why you can’t see her. I’ve sent her away because I think that it’s best. I can’t tell you why or where I’ve sent her; or what right I have to send her. But I want you to know that I don’t smile at you for liking her. It doesn’t matter how old or young we are; when love comes, it always hurts. And it seems just as serious whether it comes late or early. But some day I’ll let you see her. To you at fifteen, some day seems very far from now. But if you wait, and still think you care for her, I’ll let you see her when the time comes. I don’t think we ought to speak of this again till then. We’ll keep it a secret which we never discuss; but we’ll each remember. Is that a bargain?”
Peter had no other choice than to accept. They shook hands.
Shortly after this Kay and Peter went away to a farm in North Wales for their summer holidays. Their first intention on their return was to visit the Faun Man and Harry. On going to the stable, they found that the tricycle was no longer there. Their father was very mysterious and unconcerned when they told him; evidently he knew what had happened. “All right,” he said, “just wait a day or two. You’ll see—it’ll come back.”
And one morning it did come back, ridden by a man with a face all smudges, who presented a bill for payment. It had entirely transformed itself, like a widow-lady who had been brisked up by an unexpected offer of marriage. From a sober, old-fashioned tricycle it had taken on an appearance almost modern and festive. Its handle-bars had been replated; its framework re-enameled; its tall wheels cut down; its solid tires removed and replaced by pneumatics. It sparkled in the sun, as though defying butcher-boys to jeer at it. The man, with the face all smudges, wheeled it through the stable into the garden; he left it beneath the mulberry-tree, and there the children, on arriving home from school, found it.
“Why, it’s a new tricycle!”
Peter looked it over, “No, it isn’t, Kitten Kay. It’s the old one altered.”
Their mother, hearing their shouts, came out into the garden, nearly as excited herself. They had visions of spinning out to the Happy Cottage at the breakneck speed of eight miles an hour. While they clambered on to it, examined it and spotted new improvements in the way of a lamp and saddles, she explained to them how it had happened. “It’s your father’s doing. He meant it as a surprise. He thought the old tires made it too heavy, so——.”
Kay interrupted. “Oh, Peter, do let’s take it out on to the Terrace and try it.”
As they wheeled it down the gravel path between the geranium beds, they chattered of how they would surprise Harry. But Harry was fated never to see it. On the Terrace, when they had mounted, while their mother watched them from the window, they found that everything was not well. The man with the face all smudges had been wise in demanding his money before his handiwork was tested. He had cut the wheels so low that, where the road was uneven, the pedals bumped against the ground. Life had, indeed, become serious for Peter; through his father’s well-intentioned kindness, his means of communication between reality and fairyland had been annihilated. For a time it looked as though so small an accident as the indiscreet remodeling of a tricycle had lost for him forever the new friendships formed at the Happy Cottage.
But one evening a dinner was given by Mr. Barrington to a famous man whose work he was anxious to publish. Kay and Peter were allowed to see him after dessert.
The moment Peter’s head appeared round the door the famous man rose up and shouted, “Hulloa, young ‘un, so at last I’ve found you! Where the dickens have you been hiding?”
Mr. Barrington lay back in his chair, his arms hanging limp on either side, the image of amazement. He heard his son explaining: “It was the tandem trike. Father wanted to be kind to us and——. Well, after he’d had it improved, it wouldn’t work. And so, you see, there was no way of getting to you.”
The Faun Man spread out his long legs, laughing uproariously; until the appearance of the children, he’d been most scrupulously conventional and polite. “But, Peter, an immortal friendship like ours cut short by a tandem trike! You little donkey, why didn’t you write?”
Kay rose up in her brother’s defence. “He isn’t a little donkey. We were all to be pretence people, don’t you remember? We didn’t know your address.”
The Faun Man stroked his chin and lengthened his face. “If you’d left me alone much longer,” he said, “you wouldn’t have found me; I’m moving into London.”
Then their parents began to ask questions; the story of Friday Lane and the mouth-organ boy came out.
That evening, after Lorenzo Arran had said good-by, he turned back to his host, just as the door was closing.
“Oh, I say! One minute, Barrington. That matter we were discussing yesterday—let’s consider it settled.”
Barrington watched the tall, lean figure go striding down the Terrace. He was so taken up with watching, that he didn’t know that Nan had stolen up behind him until she touched his hand. He turned; his mouth was crooked with amusement. “Did you hear that? He agrees—I’m to publish for him. And it’s Peter’s doing. One never knows where that boy won’t turn up.”
And Peter, snuggled cosily in bed, was wondering whether, now that he’d found the Faun Man, he’d refind Cherry. He reflected that when life could play such tricks on you, a lifetime of it wouldn’t be half bad. He was no longer frightened to remember that, whether he liked it or not, he must grow up.
And he refound her, when he had almost forgotten her. In those four long years, which stretch like a magic ocean between the island of boyhood and the misty coasts of early manhood, it is so easy to forget. Those years, between fifteen and nineteen, are the longest in life, perhaps.
They had been spent by Peter among books, watching, as in a wizard’s crystal, the dead world-builders at work; they had risen from their graves in the dusk of his imagination, stretched themselves, gathered strength and marched anew to the downfall of Troy and the conquest of befabled empires. How real those poignant religions were, telling of the loves of ruffianly gods for perishable earth-maidens—so real to him that he had paid little heed to the present.
In his outward life nothing had much altered; things were called by different names. They spoke of him as nearly a man now—servants addressed him as “sir”; they had never doubted that he was a boy once. Kay stood a few inches higher on her legs. Romance had retired from active business, leaving to her children the unthankful task of having kittens.
Just as Peter was said to be nearly a man and hadn’t changed, so the nursery was said to be his study, though it was almost the same in appearance. A student’s lamp had replaced the old gas-jet. Shelves, which had held fairy-tale volumes in which truth was depicted with a laughing countenance, now supported serious lexicons from which truth stared out with austerity. But his study retained reminders of those tremulous days when it was still a nursery, and hadn’t grown up—when it was the dreaming place of a girl whose arms were empty, in whose heart had begun to echo the patter of tiny footsteps. The tall guard stood before the fireplace, as though it feared that the long youth, who sat continually poring over a book with his eyes shaded by his hand, might shrink into the curly-headed urchin who hadn’t known that live coals burned. The laburnum still leant her arms upon the window-sill and tap-tap-tapped, shedding her golden tassels; she gazed in upon him with the same indiscretion as when he was a newcomer, with ungovernable arms and legs, who had to be tubbed night and morning. And she saw the same mother, who had sung him to sleep, peer in at the door on her way to bed, tiptoe across the threshold, ruffle his hair and whisper, “Peter, darling, you can’t learn everything between now and morning. Won’t you get some rest?”
He had exchanged tandem tricycles for lexicons as a means of locomotion to the land of adventure. His little sister could no longer accompany him; but the desire for wisdom had left room for the heart of tenderness. When his lamp shone solitary in the darkened house, he would straighten his shoulders and listen, fancying he heard the angel’s whistle.
In four months he was going up to Oxford, to live in gray cloisters where boys at once become men. His father shared his anticipation generously. “You’re going to recover my lost chances. Lucky chap!”
It was summer. He had risen early and sat by his study window reading the Iliad. The house was full of lazy morning sounds—bath-water running, breakfast being prepared, doors opening and shutting, footsteps on the stairs. Outside in the garden the sun dropped golden balls, which tumbled through the trees and rolled across the turf. Birds, hopping in and out the rose-bushes, were industriously foraging. Tripping up the gravel-path, with fresh-plucked flowers in her hands, he could see his little sister, her gold hair blowing. A tap fell upon his door. A maid, rustling in a starched dress, entered. “It’s just come, Master Peter.”
“For me? A telegram!”
He slit it open and read: “At Henley with ‘The Skylark! Can’t you come for Regatta? Cherry with me.”
Cherry with him! It was signed Lorenzo Arran. So he was keeping his promise! But why should Cherry be with him? And where had she been hiding all those long four years? So the Faun Man had taken his houseboat to Henley! It would be rather jolly to join him; but, after all, He ought to stick to his work. And this girl—did he want to see her?
The maid was waiting. A telegram at Topbury was a rarity in these days. It cost sixpence at the cheapest; therefore its use was restricted to the announcement of the extremes of joy and sorrow—births, deaths and financial losses. She showed relief when he looked up cheerily and said, “Tell the boy no answer.”
When she had gone he stood up, walked about the room excitedly and halted by the window. He wouldn’t go, of course; it would run his father into expense. Then, again he read the words, “Cherry with me.” It would be amusing to see her. He began to wonder—did she know that the Faun Man had sent for him? If she did——? His thoughts flew back across the years: he was in the Haunted Wood. The little river was singing, “Turn back, turn back, turn back.” He refused to turn back, and followed; suddenly, across the scrub-oak, he found himself gazing into the gray eyes of a girl. It was the grayness of her eyes and the whiteness of her feet that he remembered.
He leant over the table and closed the book with its unreal love-legends of gods and goddesses. “By Jove, but I’d like to go,” he said aloud.
The maid had spread the news of the unusual happening. As he entered the breakfast-room all eyes examined him. They waited for him to be communicative. At last his father said, “Had a telegram?”
Peter drew it from his pocket and passed it.
His father looked up. “‘Cherry with me.’ What does he mean by that?”
Peter raised his eyebrows, as much as to say “How can I tell?”
His father handed it back. “Are you going?”
“Costs money, and I’ve too much work.”
It was the mention of work that roused his mother. She smiled gently, and glanced down the table at her husband. “It would do him good, Billy.”
“Yes, it would do you good,” his father said. “Why don’t you go, old chap?”
“Yes, why don’t you go?” Kay echoed.
His things were quickly packed. In a flannel suit, with his straw hat in his hand, he was saying good-by on the doorstep. His father bethought him. “Here, wait a second, Peter; I’ll walk with you to the end of the Terrace.” While walking he delivered his warning, “This man Arran—personally I like him and I know he’s your friend, but——. I’ve nothing against him, but he’s a queer fellow —clever as the dickens and all that. The fact is, curious tales are told about him—all of them too far-fetched to be true. You know the saying about no smoke without fire, well——. It may be that he’s only different; but he strikes people as being fast and dangerous. Be careful; I’d trust you anywhere. Have a good time. I’ve got it off my chest—my sermon’s ended.”
At the bottom of the Crescent, to his great relief, Peter found that Cat’s Meat’s master was not on the stand. He wouldn’t have hurt Mr. Grace’s feelings for the world. He was free to jump into a spanking hansom. Cat’s Meat may have seen him; but Cat’s Meat couldn’t tell. Surely, at his age, he must have been glad to escape the long crawl to Paddington. The younger horse in the hansom stepped out gaily, making his hoofs ring smartly against the cobblestones. “Cherry, Cherry, Cherry,” they seemed to be saying. Taking short-cuts by side-roads, now following gleaming tram-lines, now dashing through mean streets, past public houses in plenty, they sped till they struck Paddington and drew up in the glass-roofed station. And then the drifting motion of the train and the unbelievable greenness of the country—the glimpses of silver water, quiet meadows and cottages in which people were born and died, and never traveled! And the holiday crowds on the platforms! The girls in summer dresses—the superb cleanness and coolness of them, and the happiness! It was exciting. The wheels beneath his carriage drummed out one word, “Cherry, Cherry, Cherry.” He didn’t know even yet whether he wanted to see her.
The train achieved the surprise of the century—it arrived early. He examined the expectant faces of the people; neither Harry nor the Faun Man was there. He refused to hang about; his legs ached to be moving. Picking up his bag, he set out to walk, hoping he would meet them.
Streets were garish—flowers in gardens, foamy toilets of women, college blazers and rowing colors, and, over all, swift white clouds and the fiercely gleaming sun. From under wide river-hats girls laughed up into men’s tanned faces. Everyone was young or, because the world was golden, seemed to be young. Peter wanted some one to laugh with. Walking down the middle of the street, the crowd moved in pairs, a man and a woman together, almost invariably. The old gray town, like Peter, looked lonely in this hubbub of jostling love and merriment.
As he came in sight of the Catherine Wheel, a distant cheering commenced. Feet moved faster. Men caught at women’s arms, and women caught up their dresses; the army of pleasure-seekers commenced to run. Because Peter was by himself he forged ahead and found a place on the bridge where people stood yelling and jammed, shoulder to shoulder. At first he could make out hardly anything, because of the sea of hats and backs in front of him. Then the crowd swayed; he took advantage of it and found himself leaning over the crumbling stone balustrade, gazing down on one of the most gallant sights in England. Through a steep bank of posies, made up of river gardens, house-boats and human faces, ran a silver thread. Approaching, with what seemed incredible slowness, were two specks about the size of matches. As the sun caught them, one saw the flash of blades, whipping the water with the regularity of clockwork. Stealthily, with infinite labor, one stole ahead. The garden of faces on either side of the silver thread trembled; a roar went up which gathered volume as it drew from out the distance. Peter pressed his lips against a man’s ear—a complete stranger—and shouted, “What is it?”
The man stared at him despisingly, “The Diamond Sculls. Roy Hardcastle again the Australian.” He turned away and paid Peter no more attention.
Peter, though not much wiser, at once became a partisan and screamed the one name he knew, “Hardcastle! Hardcastle! Hardcastle!” till his throat felt as if it had burst.
And now they were well in sight—two men with bent backs and arms that worked like levers, each seated in a machine as narrow as a needle, with long wooden legs which stuck out on either side, striding the water and keeping the balance. They looked like human egg-beaters gone mad. The river rose to its feet; the winning-post was nearing. The channel of free water seemed to narrow as skiffs, gigs, punts, dingeys and every kind of craft pressed closer to the booms which marked the course.
Something happened. Both men drooped inertly forward over trailing sculls. It was dramatic, this immediate transition from frantic energy to listless collapse. Hats were tossed up. Launches shrieked and whistled. Everyone tried to make more noise than his neighbor, Peter with the rest. “Well rowed. Well rowed, sir. Well rowed.”
When the clamor had died down he turned to where the man had been standing. “Who won?” And then, “Oh, I beg your pardon.”
He was gazing into the amused face of a girl with gray eyes and brown-black hair, that swept like a cloud across a Clear white forehead.
“Who won! Roy Hardcastle, of course. England’s not beaten yet.”
He wasn’t thinking of England’s honor; the race—it had never happened. He was looking at her mouth. They called her Cherry, because her lips were red.
She was going from him. How straight she was! How slender! Like a slim spring flower—a narcissus, perhaps. He went after her and raised his hat. “Forgive me for speaking to you. Just a minute before a man was standing there, and—-”
“That’s all right,” she said; “I understand.”
Again she was on the point of leaving. He had to make certain. “Since I’ve been so rude already, would you mind if I asked you one more question?”
She looked him over casually and seemed more satisfied that she was willing to admit to anyone but herself. “Not at all.”
He straightened his necktie nervously. “Then, can you tell me where I’ll findThe Skylark?It’s a house-boat belonging to Lorenzo Arran.”
She laughed softly and stood with her eyes cast down, tapping the pavement with her foot. He was sure now. She looked up. “Where have I seen you? Somehow you’re familiar. It’s annoying; you knew me in a flash.”
“You’re Cherry?”
“Only to a few of my dearest friends.”
He glanced away from her. “You were Cherry to me once for about an hour; you’ve been Cherry to me ever since then.”
There was a long pause. “And yet I don’t know you,” she said. “You must be the friend Mr. Arran was expecting down from London.”
Peter nodded.
“He and Harry went to meet you. You must have missed each other at the station. If you like, I’ll show you the way toThe Skylark; I’m going there. They’ll be wondering whether you’ve come. We’d better hurry.”
“Oh, please not yet.”
“But why not?” she asked, puzzled.
“Because I’m—I don’t know. My pride’s touched that you don’t know me. Would you think it awfully cheeky if I were to ask you to come and have tea with me first?”
She opened her parasol, gaining time while she made her mind up; and then, “I’m game. I haven’t had much adventure lately. I’m just out of a convent school in France.”
He opened his eyes wide. “Ah, so that was it!”
They entered the Red Lion and walked through into the garden. They ordered tea at a small table from which they could see the river.
“Why did you say that?” she asked.
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Ah, so that was it!’ You opened your mouth so wide when you said it that I thought you’d gape your head off. When I was a little girl in America we had a colored cook with a decapitating smile—it nearly met at the back of her neck. Well, your ‘Ah’ was a decapitating ‘Ah.’ Now tell me?”
“Because I’ve waited four years to find out where you’ve been hiding.”
“Four years!” She tried to think back.
He leant his elbows on the table, his face between his hands. “Seems a long while, doesn’t it? In four years one can grow up. Last time we were together you made me a promise—you said we’d meet again often in the same place. I went there and went there—you didn’t keep your word.”
She laughed. “I suppose it’s a trifle too late to say I’m sorry. I don’t suppose you minded much.” She waited for him to contradict that; when he didn’t she continued, “How much do you know about me? For instance, what’s my real name?”
He laughed in return. “You’ve got me there. All you told me was that people called you Cherry, because your lips were red.”
She sank her head between her shoulders; then she looked up flushing and pursing her lips together, like a child who wants to extract a favor by being loved. “Be a sportsman. You’re awfully tantalizing. Give me a pointer that’ll help me to guess. You know, I ought to know who you are; it isn’t good form for a girl to take tea with a strange young man.”
“Well,” he said, speaking slowly, “do you remember a day when you knocked down and walked over, oh, let’s say about twenty photographs of the same lady?”
“Do I remember!” She sniffed a little scornfully. “‘Tisn’t likely I’d forget; that was why the Faun Man sent me to a convent.”
She had said rather more than she intended. She was provoked with herself and with Peter, for the moment, because he had drawn her out. She twisted round on her chair, so that he could see only her shoulders.
Not realizing that he was being snubbed, he pushed the subject further, “What an unfair punishment! That doesn’t sound like the Faun Man. But, perhaps, you liked it. What did you do at the convent?”
“Always praying,” she answered, with her shoulders still toward him. “And, look here, don’t you say that the Faun Man was unfair. He wasn’t. He didn’t send me away only for breaking his pictures.” And then, inconsequently, “If it wasn’t too childish I’d go and smash them all afresh.”
Suddenly she swung round, “I know who you are. Hurray! You’re Peter. You see, I remember the name. Shall I give myself away and tell you why I remember?”
“Do. Do,” he urged.
The answer came promptly. “Because you paid me compliments. You thought that God said to Himself when He made me, ‘I’ll make the most beautiful person I’ve ever made.’—Hulloa! You don’t like that. It wasn’t quite what you expected. What did you expect? Until you tell me I won’t speak to you.”
Compelled by her silence, he confessed, “I did hope that you might have remembered me for something—something more romantic. You see, we met in the Haunted Wood, and there was the river, and you were going to drown yourself. You’d taken off your shoes and stockings as a first step, which was very economical of you. And I—I saw your feet, and——”
She waved her handkerchief at him, her eyes a-sparkle. “I know. I know. Very pretty and very foolish!” She rose. “We ought to be going.”
Outside the Red Lion, she turned toward the river; “I left my boat at one of the landings.”
When they had found it and he had helped her in, she said, “You can row, I suppose? All right, then, I’ll steer; you take the sculls.”
They drifted down with the stream, the gray bridge, spanning the river, growing more distant behind them; the wooded hills swimming up on every side to form a green cup, against which the sky stooped its lips. They floated by lazy craft, in which women lay back on cushions beneath sunshades and men with bare arms clasped about their knees watched them. Snatches of laughter reached them, to which the murmur of voices droned an accompaniment. On green lawns, beneath dreaming garden trees, little groups of brightly attired people clustered. From houseboats along the river-bank stole music, one air creeping into another as they passed, fashioning a medley—coon songs from America, Victorian ballads of sentiment, a wild scrap of Dvorak and the latest impertinence from London. Of all that they saw and heard, they alone were constant in the shifting landscape.
“After four years!” she murmured.
He stopped rowing and gazed at her wonderingly, repeating her words, “After four years!”
Then a familiar voice leapt out at them from a sky-blue house-boat, with sky-blue curtains fluttering in the windows and a rim of scarlet geraniums running round it in boxes. The voice lent the touch of humor to their tenderness, which saves sentiment from sadness and makes it ecstatic. It sang to the twinkling tones of a mandolin, struck sharply:
“Come, tickle me here;
For I ain’t what you thought me—
I ain’t so ‘igh and so ‘aughty, my dear.
But there’s right times for lovin’,
And cooin’ and dovin’,
And wrong ways of flirtin’
That’s woundin’ and hurtin’—
I’m a lydy, d’you hear?
But just under the neck,
Peck ever so softly—
I allow that, my dear.
Not my lips—you’re too near.
Come along, lovey; come along, duckie;
Tickle me, tickle me here.”
The Faun Man looked up from his writing. Peter had been with him onThe Skylarkfor five days—five gorgeous days. He had found to his surprise that the golden woman was of the party. So far as outward appearances went, the picture-smashing incident might never have happened; Cherry conducted herself as a good comrade and the golden woman called her “dear.” They had to act as friends, since the Faun Man had taken rooms for them at the same hotel that they might chaperone each other. The men slept on board the house-boat.
It was nearly six. The last of the Finals had been rowed; the Regatta was ended. Far up the course one could still hear the distant cheering from the lawn where prizes were being distributed. The most sensational race of the afternoon had been the Diamond Sculls, in which Hardcastle had won by a bare half-length. Peter still tingled with the madness of the excitement, the splendid grit of the contested fight and the wildness of the applause. He had seen a slight young hero lifted out of his shell and carried shoulder-high; he wanted something like that to happen to himself so that Cherry might approve of him. He had just come from accompanying her back to The Red Lion; in an hour, when she had changed for dinner, he was going to fetch her. He had one more night before him—the gayest of them all, when the crews broke training, and then——. How often would he see her again? The gray old town would recover from its invasion, and settle back into routine and eventless quiet. Would something similar happen to his life? Nevertheless, he had one more night.
As he climbed aboardThe Skylarkand entered, the Faun Man looked up. “Peter, i’m tired of being respectable—I want to be vulgar.”
Peter threw himself into a creaking wicker-chair. “That’s not difficult; it’s chiefly a matter of clothes.”
“And accent,” the Faun Man added; “refined speech is the soap and water of good manners.”
Peter chuckled. “Then don’t tub.”
The Faun Man stood up and stretched himself. “I haven’t. I’ve written a love-lyric that never saw a nailbrush. It’s calledThe Belle of Shoreditch. When I’ve sung it to you I’ll tell you why I wrote it. Isn’t this a ripping tune?” He tinkled it over; then sat down crosslegged on the floor and commenced to drawl the words out:
“My bloke’s a moke
And ‘e cawn’t tell me why;
But the fust time ‘e spoke
‘Twas no more than a sigh.
Says I, ‘Don’t mind me; we’ll soon be dead.’
Says ‘e, ‘If yer dies, I’ll break me ‘ead.’
Says I, ‘Why not yer ‘eart instead,
Yer quaint old moke?’
“For yer cawn’t be ‘appy when yer ‘alf in love—!
Yer must taik one road or the other;
Yer can maike o’ life an up’ill shove,
Or marry a bloke wot ain’t yer brother.”
“Chorus, Peter. Pick it up.”
The Faun Man nodded the time, swaying from the hips and rolling his head.
“For yer cawn’t be ‘appy when yer ‘alf in love.”
He laid his mandolin aside. “Catchy, isn’t it? There mayn’t be much soap about the dialect, but there’s plenty of philosophy in the sense. More than one person in this party is half in love. Take example from me, Peter; don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Peter’s face went red. He didn’t think he’d been so obvious. To escape further pursuit, he turned the corner rapidly, “When are you going to start being vulgar?”
“Ah, yes!” The Faun Man came back. He struck a pose, his left hand resting on his hip, his right beating against his breast. “To-night,” he said. “To-night I lose my identity. I cease to be Lorenzo Arran and become Bill Willow, with his performing troupe of eccentric minstrels. I wear a red nose. My clothes might have been picked out of any ash-barrel.”
Peter interrupted. “From where do you get the eccentric minstrels?”
The Faun Man grabbed him by the shoulder, as though he feared he might dash away when the full glory of the project was divulged. “My boy, you’re one of them. You operate upon a bun-bag folded over a hair-comb. You wear—let me see? You wear a sheet, with holes cut in it for your eyes and mouth. Your nose may remain incognito; I’ve seen better. In a word, you play the ghost to my Hamlet.”
“And Harry and the girls?”
The Faun Man passed his hand over his forehead and reflected. “Let me see! Harry blacks his physiognomy; the mouth-organ disguises the rest of him—it always does. And as for the girls—they hang their hair before their faces and sing through it. Believe me, nothing alters a woman’s appearance so much as letting down her hair; that’s why all divorces occur after marriage. Now, with me it’s different; I look my best in bed. Of course I can’t ask anyone to see me there—that’s why I’m a bachelor.—But to get back to vulgarity; we start to-night in a punt. We’ll wait till it’s dusk, and we’ll have lanterns. We’ll collect money for the private insane asylums of Alaska. I’ll make a little speech explaining our philanthropy. Young feller, Bill Willow and his minstrels are going to make this Old Regatta rememberable for years to come.”
“You mean it?”
The Faun Man grinned; all the boy in him was up.
“Peter, don’t look so pop-eyed; of course I mean it—I mean it just as truly as Martin Luther did when he said, ‘Here I take my stand, because I’ve got nowhere to sit down.’ A profound utterance! I’m tired of watching all these people spooning under trees, wearing Leander ties, comparing their girls’ eyes to the stars and being afraid to touch each other. They’re too much of ladies and gentlemen; even we are. To-night I’m going to be a ruffian. Cut along and fetch the girls. I’ve got to write another song and it’s almost time for rehearsal.”
“A dress rehearsal?”
“In spots,” said the Faun Man.
When Peter broke the news to the golden woman she covered her face and laughed through her hands. She had a trick of treating Cherry and Peter like children, although she looked no more than twenty herself. She put her arms round their shoulders, drawing their faces close together, on either side of hers. She was so happy and beautiful it would have been difficult not to love her. “My Loo-ard!” she said, “I’d do a skirt-dance to-night if it wasn’t for the water under the punt. I’m all against getting wet, aren’t you, Cherry?”
Peter looked knowing. “The first thing she’d do if she knew she was going to drown, would be to take off her shoes and stockings.”
The golden woman pinched the girl’s cheek. “Hulloa! Secrets already!—But I don’t like Lorie’s idea for disguising us. Let’s see what we can do with five minutes’ shopping.”
When they rowed up toThe Skylarkthey were met by a mysterious silence. Lifting out their parcels, they tiptoed into the cabin. Harry was bending over a table-cloth, with a tooth-brush in his hand and a bottle of blacking at his elbow. The Faun Man was melting the bottoms of candles and making them stick to the bottoms of empty jam-jars.
“What are you doing?”
They both looked up.
“I’m getting the illuminations ready,” said the Faun Man.
“And I’m making our flag,” said Harry, scrubbing hard at the table-cloth. “Blacking’s awful stuff; it’s so smudgy.” They crowded round him to inspect his handiwork and read:
The Faun Man affixed his last candle. “Now, then, you crazy people, rehearsal’s in five minutes. Let’s fortify our tummies.”
Behind the house-boat the sun was setting; in patches, where water lay most still among rushes, the river shone blood-red. Sometimes, beneath the window, they heard the dip of oars and a boat drifted past. They were miles from reality, in a hushed and painted world. They had become little children for the moment, though the Faun Man had called it “being vulgar.” They had become immensely serious over a thing which didn’t matter. There were the words of the songs to learn, and then the tunes. After that there were the cretonnes to cut out and run together into burlesque night-gowns, extremely ample so as to cover their proper dresses. The golden woman had surprised a prim widow in Hart Street by asking for “The ugliest materials you have in your shop.” She had met with success; no materials could have been uglier. One had a straw-colored background, strewn with gigantic poppies; across another floated, in a kind of sky-blue gravy, the unbarbered heads of bodyless angels. The Faun Man and Peter, when their needles lost the thread, gave up sewing and fastened theirs together with paper pins. And all the while beneath the absurdity of it there was an atmosphere of tenderness, as if folly had brought them all nearer. The Faun Man kept watching the golden woman; and Cherry the Faun Man; and Peter, Cherry. As for Harry, he was the only one whose eyes were free to take in everybody.
When night had fallen they slipped on their masks and stepped into the punt. Harry took the pole and pushed off fromThe Skylark. The Faun Man sat next to the golden woman, humming snatches of song beneath his breath, to which he picked out an accompaniment on the mandolin. She lay back gazing up at him.
Above a wooded knoll the moon rose, setting the river a-silver. Trees knelt along the banks like cattle, stooping to drink. In the distance the bridge leapt the chasm of darkness and lights of the town sprang up. Like a fleet of dreams against green wharfs of fairyland, illumined houseboats shone fantastic. Chains of lamps, strung through boughs of gardens, gleamed like jewels on the throat of the dusk. The river sang incoherently, in a voice that was half asleep. Peter slipped his hand into Cherry’s; her hand seemed quite unconscious of what he was doing.
And now they drew near to the crowd of pleasure-craft, which jostled one another and beat the water like a run of salmon in shallows. Harry laid aside the pole and took to the paddle. They lit their candles and flew their heraldry. In their disguises no one would know them; with the restraint of their identities lifted from them they scarcely recognized themselves. The Faun Man gave the word; the punt was allowed to drift. They all struck up:
“Go h’on away. Go h’on away.
Mind yer, I’m meanin’ wot I say.
My ‘air and ‘at-pin’s gone astray—
Stop yer messin’.
A pound a week yer earn yer say—
Oh, I don’t fink!- Two bob a day’s
More like. I loves yer. Yer can stay,
Yer bloomin’ blessin’.”
They tickled the people’s fancy; they were so obviously out for a lark and so evidently intended to have it. When “My bloke’s a moke” was sung, from bank to bank the chorus was taken up; even the strollers, hanging over the bridge, caught the swing of it.
“For yer cawn’t be ‘appy when yer ‘alf in love—
Yer must taik one road or the other;
Yer can maike o’ life an up’ill shove,
Or marry a bloke wot ain’t yer brother.”
The Faun Man turned to the golden woman and addressed the words to her shamelessly. He put his arm about her, and drew her head down against his shoulder. Through the slits in her mask her eyes gleamed up. Peter, watching, wondered why it was that she would only be kind to him in fun; he had noticed that, when the Faun Man was in earnest, she never responded.
They had been singing for an hour, pushed this way and that, too jammed to attempt steering. Their punt had drifted near a house-boat, all a-swing with lanterns and steep with flowers. Through the windows they could see that a dinner had just ended; tall young men in evening dress sprawled back in chairs. Corks were still popping.
The Faun Man whispered, “They’re one of the crews breaking training. What’ll we give ‘em? Oh, yes, this’ll do. Tune up.” So they tuned up:
“If yer gal ain’t all yer thought ‘er,
And for everyfing yer’ve bought ‘er
She don’t seem to care a ‘appenny pot o’ glue;
If she tells yer she won’t miss yer,
And she doesn’t want ter kiss yer,
Though yer’ve cuddled ‘er from ‘Ammersmif ter Kew;
If yer little side excurshiums
To lands of pink nasturtiums
Don’t make ‘er ‘arf so soft as they make you,
Why, never be down’earted,
For that’s the way love started—
Adam ended wery ‘appy—and that’s true.”
The young men had come out. They were slightly unsteady; some of them found difficulty in keeping their cigars in their mouths. They held one another’s arms and laughed loudly. Their faces were flushed and their hair ruffled. But, for all that, because they were young and had done their work gamely that afternoon, they seemed in keeping with the atmosphere of carnival. A voice on the edge of the darkness shouted one word, “Hardcastle.” The crowd stood up in their boats, and commenced to cheer. From the group of crewmen one tall fellow was pushed forward and lifted on a chair. He looked slim as a girl in his evening-dress; his thin, rather handsome face, wore a weak, inconsequential expression. When the babel of voices had died down he spoke thickly and hesitatingly. “Yes, I won. I dunno. Did I win? I can’t remember. Suppose I must have. One of you chaps tell me to-morrow.—Anyway, if I did win, here’s to the losers. Plucky devils!”
Cherry had been leaning forward; her mask had slipped aside in her eagerness. Hardcastle saw her. He stared—made an effort to pull his wits together. In a second he had jumped from the chair, had caught her by the hand, was helping her aboard the house-boat. She held on to Peter, laughing and dragging him after her. The others followed reluctantly—after all, they were out for adventure.
As soon as he had entered the cabin, Hardcastle slipped his arms about her and swung her up on to the table amid the clatter of breaking glasses. “Sing, you little beauty. Sing something.”
The Faun Man pushed his way forward; the matter was going beyond a joke—his intention was to stop it. The golden woman clutched him, “Don’t make a row, Lorie, They don’t know who we are. We’ve let ourselves in for it; let’s go through with it like sports.”
Cherry seemed not at all offended; the spirit of bacchanalia possessed her. Her usually pale face had a pretty flush. She stood tiptoe, her red lips pouting, watching through the slits in her mask these fine young animals whom the river had applauded. Her eyes came back to Hard-castle. “I don’t want to sing.” It was like a shy child talking. “If you like, I’ll dance.”
In a trice Hardcastle had lifted her again in his arms. To balance herself she had to cling to his neck and shoulders. “Clear the table,” he shouted.
With his free hand he commenced tugging at the cloth. Others helped him. With a jangle and smash that could be heard across the river, silver, glass and lighted candles were swept to the floor. He set her back on the polished surface and ran to the piano in the corner, crying, “I’ll tickle the ivories—you dance.”
With his head turned, he played and watched her. From the ruin she had caught up a red rose and held it between her red lips by the stalk. Her feet began to move, slowly at first—then wildly. She swayed and tossed, glided stealthily, bent and shot upward like a dart. Her breath was coming fast—all the while her gray eyes sought the man’s who watched her across his shoulder. The other men were infected by her madness—they took hands and circled the table, singing whatever came into their heads. To Peter it was torture. He thought that she knew it. He guessed that she had done it on purpose. He had wearied her with his respect He remembered one of the Faun Man’s sayings, “No woman likes to be respected; she prefers to be loved, even by a man whom she doesn’t want.”
The piano stopped. Hardcastle leapt up. “Here, I want to see her.”
“No. No,” cried Cherry.
“I do, and I will,” he retorted. He had stumbled against the table and caught her by the knees; his hands were groping up to tear aside her mask. An arm shot out; he staggered. Another blow struck him between the eyes. He measured his length on the floor. Peter dragged Cherry to him, pressing her against him. All was hubbub. The Faun Man and Harry were on either side of him, forming a guard. Of a sudden the lights went out—some one had knocked over the lamps. In the darkness the sound of scuffling subsided. The Faun Man’s voice was heard, saying, “Look here, you chaps, that wasn’t very decent of Hardcastle. He’s drunk, so we’ll say no more about it. But you’re gentlemen. Let us out. We’re going.”
As they stepped into the night, Cherry felt warm lips touch her forehead. She heard protesting voices, and one which whispered, “You get off with her. We’ll follow.” The punt stole out into the darkness of the river. When she lifted her head from the cushions she found that the ripples on the water were a-silver, and that a solitary figure was seated in the stern, paddling.