A Child of the Age (Adams)/Chapter 5
II
i
Armstrong lived in London. As we were getting up in the early morning he found out that I too had to go to London, and asked me to have breakfast with him at Miller's, where they give you a decent tuck-in for 1/6, and besides Knight's is so dirty, and he hadn't paid his tick there yet for last term. I agreed to go with him, though in a glum sort of a way; for I was in an irresolute humour, half dissatisfied with everything and everybody, particularly myself. Well, into Miller's we went together—through the shop into a small poky gaslit room where, round a table, sat some four or five fellows 'tucking in' at coffee, bread, eggs and bacon, and jam. In a little, I got a seat next Tolby-Jenkins, a fat monitorial fool of ignoble sort.
Armstrong and I were coming down the grey-morning hill to the station before I returned to myself again. And then there was an entry into a tobacconist's just opened and a purchase by Armstrong of bird's-eye and some cigarettes.
'Aren't you going to get anything?' asked he, half-turning to look at me who was looking out of the door across the station yard to the station steps and doorway. I turned and met his look.
'Very well,' I said, 'give me a box of cigarettes.' And took out a shilling and 'lifted' it from where I was on to the counter.
We crossed into the station. A good many fellows were about. Armstrong had talk with some, and, in the end, I got into one of the London carriages after him and sat down next the fellow at the far end facing the engine. Directly opposite me was Norris our stroke, of the School House I mean, and in the corner Davidson. In the other comer of that side, friend Leslie on his last journey home from Glastonbury School. Armstrong next Leslie, Jones junior on my right, and Jacobson next him in the corner.
For the first hour we had a loud time of it. Norris sang solos of popular songs and the rest joined in deafening choruses, enlivened by occasional horse-play. I was set off almost smiling more than once at the thought of my solemn self sitting there, drawing every now and then from a desultory cigarette, and sending out a faint whiff of smoke into the rush of air that passed through one window rollingly out of the other. It wasn't that I didn't care for mirth, I thought; for there have been times when I have felt ready for a witch's sabbath over the hills, or any laughter-devilry you please; not to recall other times, when the readiness for a gibe at some young woman of the Beatrice stamp was all but irresistible, and prompted shouting and mirthfulness only ended by sheer exhaustion. But what was there in these 'earthy' fools (I mean, as if they were not unlike fat, half-lousy Flemish revellers among the barrels of a cellar: and yet not quite that!) to inspire mirth, or even laughter?—So I sat thinking, till, all at once, Norris set up a ringing sea-song that, after a little listening, made a cold shiver go down my back, and my eyes light up, and the necessity for a loud shout in the chorus a simple half-conscious satisfaction.
The rest of the journey was peaceful,—by comparison perhaps. Norris and Leslie left us at Bridgetown: Davidson got out soon after. We could hear the other London fellows in the next carriage singing for a little after that; but those in here grew quieter, reading or talking, while I sat still thinking. And so the time went.
At London there was a general shaking of hands all round and quick parting, and I changed to my second train.
At Portsmouth I went on board the boat. It was a heavenly afternoon; a mild sky streamed with tender colours, and the air mild, not hot or cool. I stood leaning against the rigging forward by the bowsprit, while the gentle scene went by. Faint unreality was with me and something dreamy.
'Altogether,' I said to myself, sitting in the engine-side corner of the waiting train with my hand in my cheek and my elbow in the window-ledge, 'to-day has been a day of dreamy changes: one unlike any one I know, save perhaps three or four of my fever days.' What I remember next was looking forth at Seabay on a long board we were passing. Then we stopped. I put my hand out of the door; turned the handle; shoved open the door with my knee; and got out. It was a hot late-afternoon, though a gentle sea-breeze was blowing. The sky was full of rare colours. A porter pulled my box out of the luggage van and landed it, over the stone border, on the brick-red gravel.
I stood by the box and the train went on and away: stood for some little, reflecting that I had forgotten Mr. Cholmeley's address and had neither his letter nor Colonel James's to refer to. It didn't trouble me. I stood still, thinking about things in a vague way. Then took to looking at the station and a tall grass bank opposite. There seemed no one in the station now. A hen fluttered out of some furze a little farther on into the line. Some ducks came paddling their bills along in a broad rut on the other side of it. I could hear a telegraph clock tick-tick-tick-ticking.
As my slow gaze went to the doorway and a small book-stall towards the other end of my side of the station, an old gentleman's head, bent shoulders, and black-clothed body came from just past the book-stall. He had a white stock round his neck. And then, between him and the book-stall, stepped a fair young girl.—They came on slowly along the brick-red gravel.
I observed them with a new feeling: them, neither the old gentleman particularly nor the girl. All at once, he stopped. Then she stopped.
He said:
'My dear, I don't see him.'
The girl raised her head, and looked towards me. Our eyes met. Every-thing in me stood still, effortlessly though. Then she looked down to him: lifted her hand to his arm, and said in a low tone:
'I expect that is Mr. Leicester there, father.' Up went his head; out came two horned glasses on to his nose, and he had a look at me. I smiled.
'God bless my soul,' he said, 'of course, of course! My dear, I'm as blind as a bat.' And on that we all were together, and he had shaken my hand with his two; and with 'This is my daughter Rayne,' she and I had shaken hands. Then we all turned together and went on our way over the gravel to the other end of the station.
'You see,' he was saying, 'it was my fault that we weren't up here to meet the train.—Yes, my dear,' he proceeded, 'it was my fault, I acknowledge it.'
'But where's your luggage?' said the girl, staying.
Mr. Cholmeley was seized with a sudden and violent fit of coughing.
'There is my box,' I said, turning and looking towards it; and, at that moment seeing a porter come out of a small room we had just passed, called to him. I turned back to them:
'Shall I tell him to … How? Are there cabs … or …'
'Well,' said Rayne, with the light of laughter in her eyes, 'there's the pony carriage outside, but … I'm afraid your box will be—rather too much for it!'
I laughed.
'Eh?' said Mr. Cholmeley, 'What? Eh? The box, my dear? you said it was too big?' He turned also: adjusted the two horned glasses, and took a look at it. The porter was waiting by us.
'Well,' I said, turning and speaking to him, 'will you manage to bring it up?'
'Yes, sir. I'll see it's brought up. Where to, sir?'
I paused: looked at Rayne: again laughed: and said:
'I don't know!—You see, sir,' I went on to Mr. Cholmeley, 'I forgot the address of the house I was going to, and I hadn't either your letter or Colonel James's in my pocket to refresh my memory with.'
'The Myrtles,' said Rayne to the porter: 'Well,' she added to me (he had gone with a queer comical look and a 'Yes, miss'), 'it was lucky we came to meet you then!'
'Very,' I said. Mr. Cholmeley had started slowly on in the original direction. We came up to him in a few steps, one on each side.
'I can't make out,' I went on, 'what could have made me so forgetful.'
'In the over-wrought condition of our nerves nowadays,' said Mr. Cholmeley, 'the wonder is that we remember anything.'
And with that we went out of the station to a small pony-carriage and a small brown fat pony, waiting by the kerb. Rayne drew back. Mr. Cholmeley got in, and made a motion to sit down in the front seat. I ran round to the other side to stop him, and succeeded. In a moment Rayne had jumped in: taken the reins: touched up the pony, and we were off at a smart trot.
Mr. Cholmeley was leaning back with his eyes closed.
Then Rayne asked something about my journey. And I answered in sort: till Mr. Cholmeley came into the conversation, and it drifted to Glastonbury. He asked me a good many questions about the school: the system of teaching the classics in use, the subjects taught in each form, the amount taught, and other things, I answering as I best could.
All at once:
'I do not care for Latin,' said Rayne. 'It is dry.'
Mr. Cholmeley lay back again with his eyes closed, smiling serenely.
'Nor do I, Miss Cholmeley,' I said, 'I can't understand Latin properly. It seems all so lifeless to me, as if they had all sat down and written it to pass away the wet afternoons. But Greek!—Homer, or even Xenophon. You remember that bit in the seventh book, I think, where they see the sea'
Mr. Cholmeley murmured:
'Καὶ τάχα δὴ ἀκούουσι βοώντων τῶν στρατιώτων, θάλαττα, θάλαττα, καὶ, παρεγτυώντων.—A beautiful little touch, that παρεγτυώντων.'
'What does it mean?' she asked.
I, looking at Mr. Cholmeley and perceiving his eyes still closed, answered rather diffidently:
'It means, passing the cry on to one another like the watchword, I think.'
'Yes,' said Rayne, 'but I never got as far as that! I read some Xenophon last January,' she added to me, 'but it was frightfully uninteresting, I thought. Nothing but: Thence he marches nineteen stages, twenty-seven parasangs to—some place or other; a city populous, prosperous and great. And the river Scamander (or Menander, or whatever it is), flows close to it, and there is a park and a palace in the middle of the city!'
'My dear!' said Mr. Cholmeley, smiling with still closed eyes, 'Menander!'
'I don't think I shall ever want to read any other Greek but Homer,' she went on, flicking with the whip-lash.
In a little:
'Perhaps, Miss Cholmeley,' I said, 'you'll like to read Plato some day, like Lady Jane Grey did. I have only read part of the Apology and the Crito; but it seemed to me that it was fine.'
'Eh? hey?' said Mr. Cholmeley, opening his eyes and erecting his head and body, 'Why, here we are!'
I gave a glance at the house. It was a small house at the other end of a garden pretty with bright flowers. There was a faint noise heard, like the wind in a row of tree-tops. Looking on, as I got down, I saw a line, about a quarter way up the house, with a pale blue band: the sea! The breeze came up softly. There was a boy waiting just by the gate for the pony, whose rein close by the mouth he now held.
I stretched my hand for Mr. Cholmeley. He rested on it, and getting down:
'It's a beautiful day for August—in Seabay,' he said, 'That is to say if I may believe what they tell me about it. An antiquarian friend of mine at Newport describes the place as a bed in a cucumber-frame, in summer. Myself I am inclined to doubt it—for reasons.'
Rayne was already down and on to open the gate; but I was there first, and unlatched and threw it inwards wide. Mr. Cholmeley passed in slowly, she following with a look at me like that of when she said: 'Well, there's the pony-carriage outside, but … I 'm afraid your box will be rather too much for it.' I went in last, with an arriving thought that I had seen her eyes somewhere before, and perhaps her face.
We went in, through a small green-covered porch, to a small hall: then to the right, down a passage that met the little hall at right-angles; down a staircase; along a little hall again with an open door at the end and green garden and bluey sea-view; then to the right into a large light room, in the middle of which was a laid table and, for the far-side, a large half-bay window with the two central flaps opened outwards.
Mr. Cholmeley sank down sighing in an armchair that Rayne turned a little to the window.
'Ah-h,' he said, 'I'm very soon tired out now!'
Then, in a little, recovering himself, and looking up at me standing by the window to his left:
'But perhaps Mr. Leicester is hungry' (turning his look up to Rayne above the right arm of the armchair). 'We forget that.—And dinner is not till half-past seven.'
'No,' I said, 'I am not hungry at all, thank you.'
'Are you sure?'
'Certain,' I said, 'I had some things on the way.'
A pause.
'Then I think,' he said, 'that the best thing to be done, will be for Rayne and you to go for a ramble along the shore together, and leave me here. I'm afraid I should be but poor company just at present. In fact, I confess that I should like a little nap before dinner. You remember, my dear, I had no siesta this afternoon, and I'm tired.' His voice fell.
We left him rather lingeringly, more particularly Rayne. We went down over the first plot of grass, the gravelled walk, and the lawn in silence. Then she led me round a clump of bushes, and on to a path whose front was a low sea-wall. There was a break of a yard therein a little farther on. Arrived there, I saw a ladder, like those from bathing-machines, that touched the sand.
We stayed a moment. Then I jumped down and held my hand up for her. She jumped past it alighting well, and stepped seawards, I following.
'I hope you didn't mind my father going to sleep,' she said as we moved off together through the dry loose sand tuneful to our heels. 'He usually takes his nap after lunch, but to-day your coming disturbed him so, that he couldn't take it, and he is easily exhausted . . . now.' Her voice too fell.
'I am sorry,' I said.
'Why should you be sorry?'
'To have disturbed him.'
'I didn't mean that! I meant that it had excited him, thinking you were coming, and so he couldn't get to sleep after lunch. But that wasn't your fault.'
We moved on in silence for a little. Then she said:
'How beautiful the sea is now, and the sky.'
We stopped a moment to look at them.
'I have never,' I said, 'seen the sea before that I can remember: and, I cannot tell you why, but it seems to make me wish now to laugh and then to cry.'
We walked on in silence again for some twenty steps. Then:
'It is so,' she said, 'sometimes, early in the morning, when I have come out, and the sun was shining, and everything seemed so happy, I have run down to the sea dancing and singing. But when I saw how it lifted itself up, and threw out its arms once—twice—over and over again—on to the sand; and it seemed so tired, so tired . . . I have stood and pitied it: till I felt the tears all coming out of my eyes.—I think it is God who makes you pity the sea.'
I laughed, and we moved on together again.
Then we talked of Greek, and how we both loved it, and of Homer. And I could have cried out with pleasure when she said straight off the line:
βη δ᾽ άκεων παρα θινα πολυφλοισβοιο θαλασσης,
which I had thought one of the most beautiful 'ideas' that I knew: the old man going in silence down by the loud-sounding sea. And then we traced the words with a stick on the clean smooth sand, and she said that she wished she knew how to put the accents on the words, for they didn't look quite right without them, and I said that the general rules for marking the accents were very simple, and explained about oxyton, paroxyton, proparoxyton, perispomen, properispomen, and other matters connected therewith.
From that, in some way or other, we went to French, of which I knew next to nothing; but, when I asked her and she spoke some of it, it pleased me to listen to it as it came from her lips,—some poetry she had learnt, and lastly a little song. I was sorry when the song was over, and went on by her without a word, for a little, as if the music would continue of itself. Then I remembered, and said that I liked to hear her sing. This led us somehow to Italian, and she repeated some Italian too for me.
'It must give you pleasure,' I said, looking at her 'to know these beautiful languages.'
'Well,' she answered, 'it does please me sometimes; but I've known them ever since I was quite small, and so they seem somehow natural to me.'
'I have never been out of England,' I said, 'I should like to see Italy. I think I should like to die in Italy, where the sun shines always, and there is no cold wind and rain, and the fields are full of flowers.'
'But the wind does blow,' she said, 'horribly sometimes. The sirocco in the autumn is terrible, and so are the spring winds in Florence—so piercing and cold. All the people wrap themselves up in great cloaks.'
'Ah but,' I said, looking at her, 'that's not the time I was thinking of.'
Then she began to tell me about Italy and their life there. I asked particularly about the pictures and statues, telling her that the only pictures I had ever seen were in the Painted Chamber at Greenwich, and described the one of Nelson rushing wounded on deck, and the other of him being taken up, a pale dead body, into heaven.
At that point we stopped (for walking on the bank of stones and shingle on which we were was toilsome) and she looked aside and up under the cliff, and I also. It was a sort of plateau a few yards higher than the bank, covered with thick grass, and having small trees here and there. She was looking at one part of it. There were two small streams, the one larger a little than the other, which made two small cascades flowing down from a higher elevation through the grass, gathered tufts of which and weeds guided the flow into the round earthen basin below. There was a gentle murmur, and by the right side, a tree, with a faint shadow against the earthen wall behind.
We climbed up.
It was a pretty place. Clear streaks of colour, all hues of red, on the earthen wall that was sheeted with the ruffled water: then, from an arched break up above, came the main stream, dividing, to cross and flow down the swaying grass and weeds into the round earthen basin.
Rayne sat down on a thick clump of grass under the tree; and I leant against the wall with the line of water just by me. We were both quite happy, I think. All at once she jumped up, looking along the shore to the brown cliff that ended the bay. I looked also.
'We're caught!' she said.
There was a play of foam, as she spoke, at the foot of the brown cliff behind which was the sun now almost, or altogether, set. She rose: crossed the plateau: jumped down on to the shingle, and started off at a run. I was up and after her in a moment. She ran well, for a girl. But the shingle, giving with each footfall, was tiring to the limbs, and then there were her petticoats. She began to flag a little. We were still quite a hundred yards from the point.
'Will you take my hand?' I said, passing her, 'let me help you. The stones!'
She would not. I fell back.
We ran on as before.
Looking down as we came on to some smooth half-hard sand, I saw the 'Βη δ᾽ ἀκεων' which we had written; the rest was washed out.
At last we came to the point. The waves were dashing up foamingly all round. She went straight to a boulder; jumped on to it, and, with her hand against the brown earthen side, was about to step to another, when up had come a large swelled sideward wave, swirled over the first ring of rocks, and the next moment she was in a shower of spray. I stepped to try the boulder on which she was; caught firm hold of her round the hips, and, lifting her up, made straight onward. Up came another wave, but smaller; swept past and through my legs up to the knees, but I kept to both her and the ground. She did not move, one arm holding me firmly round the shoulders. I looked aside. There was a large wave just off shore coming in swiftly. 'Now!'
The wave went back, I dashed on; stumbled over a stone; recovered myself; a small leap, a run, and we were in the light of the setting sun, and she was standing on the sand before me. The billow struck through the first ring of rocks, and burst full upon the cliff into a lit cloak-like shower of rainbow drops flying through the soft sunny air. Then I looked at her. Laughter was in her eyes, and on her lips, and in her face.
'I will never forgive you for not letting me get a ducking,' she said, 'I had set my heart on it!'
She turned, and we hurried on, not saying much. I never had felt so happy in all my life.
So we reached the garden wall, and she went up the ladder, and then I: along the path: round the bushes and out on to the lawn. There we saw Mr. Cholmeley looking through a pair of lorgnettes along the other shore.
She came up to him quietly, I following, and put her left arm round him and said:
'Here we are, daddy! I hope we haven't kept you waiting for dinner?'
'Eh? hey?' he said, smiling at her, with the lorgnettes lowered. Then, looking at me: 'Why, I thought you would be sure to go along the shore towards Gremlin, child!'
And we went over the grass together and up into the dining-room laughing and talking.