Jan the Icelander/Chapter 5
It is now five-and-twenty years since the beginning of our story, and we are back in Sixoaks. In the interval the railway has changed the face of England, and the telegraph has altered the condition of its social life. In the place of the watchman there is the policeman; in the place of the post-boy the railway porter: in the place of the town crier the newspaper boy. Knee-breeches and broad-brimmed hats have given way to trousers and short jackets. The old generation has gone, a new generation has arisen, and the ways of the world seem to be different.
It is Easter Sunday morning; the early train has just arrived, and a railway porter, carrying an antiquated bag on his shoulder, comes up to the door of the inn.
"Who's this belonging to?" says the landlord.
"Old party just in by the 10.15," says the porter.
The landlord looks at the bag. "Any label? Where's he out of?"
"Out of Noah's Ark, I should say," says the porter. "Never saw such a father Methusalum in all my days. Knee-breeches and silver- buckled shoes, and a wide-a-wake hat! Travels first-class though, and gives me and the police sergeant half-a-crown apiece. The sergeant's taking him round the town afore fetching him up."
"Foreigner, I suppose. Bring his bag in, porter."
The church bells begin to ring for morning service, and some of the churchgoers go in at the lych gate. As they do so a police-sergeant comes along with a white-headed old man, walking heavily with a stick, and wearing the costume of five-and-twenty years before. He dismisses the police-sergeant, then he steps to the foot of the statue and leans against it as the people pass. He is watching the church-goers. They look at him, and whisper and laugh a little, going by. Standing below the statue he seems to be the living counterpart of the figure in marble. Face, expression, dress, everything is identical. When the congregation has passed through, the bells stop, and the landlord comes out again.
"Good morning, sir."
Then speaking with compassionate distinctness, as if to a foreigner: "Your bag has come—your bag, I say. I've sent it upstairs."
"I thank you," says the old gentleman; "but you must not disturb yourself too much. I shall not be staying long."
"Not a foreigner after all," thinks the landlord. The old gentleman has seated himself on the bench outside the porch.
The landlord tries again. "Travelled far, sir?"
"Yes, a long way."
"Friends here, sir?"
"No—yes—that is to say, there," pointing to the churchyard.
"Just so, sir. . . . Poor old Methuselah!
Looks as if he'll be there himself before long."
"Have you been many years here, landlord?"
"Six-and-twenty come Michaelmas, sir."
Then growing garrulous by degrees, he goes on to tell of how he took the business over when his old master died, a matter of fifteen years ago.
He was his pot-boy once on a time.
"Just so," says the old gentleman. "Was it the post-boy that brought my baggage, landlord?"
"The post-boy, sir? We haven't had a post- boy in the county this score of years. . . . Where in the world has the old fellow been, I wonder. . . .We call him the porter, sir."
"The porter! In my time, landlord, what we called a porter was something to drink."
The landlord laughs. He supports the reputation of a humorous dog.
"Well, it ain't so much different now, sir. What we call a porter is allus wanting to drink something."
"And what do you call the man who brought me here?"
"Do you mean the sergeant, sir?"
"The man in blue clothes with silver buttons."
"Is it the policeman, sir?"
"What is the p'liceman?"
"Lor' sake! . . . . You know—the p'liceman, sir—the bobby!"
"What does he do, landlord?"
"The bobby?" Another knowing laugh from the humorous dog. "Blest if I know that, sir. It's more nor anybody knows."
"Is he the watch, landlord?"
"The watch! Why, sir, we ain't had no watch in Sixoaks these five-and-twenty years at least."
"Is he dead, then?"
"The last watchman, sir?"
"Yes."
"No, but in bed with rheumatics. Only he had his jacket taken off for being blind polatic one night five-and-twenty year ago, when-well, when there was a murder in these parts."
The old gentleman rises uneasily. "You must excuse, me, landlord. I've been a long time out of England, and the ways of life in the old country seem to be a good deal altered since I went away."
It is Larry Clough When the landlord has left him he looks around.
"The old church! I used to go there every Sunday when I was a child—in the postchaise with my father. The green cloth of our pew was wearing grey, I remember—it must be white by this time. My father's monument! Not a stain on its marble yet! And the dear old house—her house and mine! Just as I have seen it in my dreams on the Greenland sees—only more dream-like—more like a vision that will die out and leave me. Nothing changed in all the weary years—nothing but one thing—myself. I might be my own ghost—walking the footsteps of my wasted life. Lucy's home now! Our little Lucy I can only think of her as a child. She died to me then, and left her little figure in my heart for ever. If I could see her for a moment I think I should be satisfied. Only for a moment—in her home, her happiness! Unseen, unknown, unrevealed, from the window of a room in the inn, perhaps. A happy wife—a happy mother! It would help me to go back—to bear what is left of my life, and be thankful—The banker at Whitby will settle everything. She'll want for nothing. I've tried to make amends. Amends! What amends can I make to her who is gone?—They'll be in church now. If I could look through the house where I lived with her! The rooms wherein we spent so many days together! The servants will be the only ones at home. I'll risk it. I'll ring the bell. Perhaps Mary, the nurse, will answer it. She'll be an old woman herself by this time. How quiet everything is on this bright spring morning! Yes, the world goes on its way though one old man is so feeble and tired—so very tired. I didn't come too soon, either. How weak I am! Only a little longer and it would have been too late to look upon my dear children's happiness."
He pulls the bell.
"How the years roll back," he thinks. "I could almost fancy I see her still—with her bright eyes and her merry laugh, and her happy step, and our little one riding on her back! Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!"
After a moment a young woman comes out laughing, with a young child by the hand. It is Lucy, his daughter. He lifts his head and sees her, and it seems to him at the moment as if all the cruel years had in one moment rolled back, and she was her mother returned to life. With a look of awe he uncovers his head as if a spirit had passed before him.
At sight of the old man, so strangely clad, Lucy's laughter stops suddenly.
"Have we startled you, sir?"
"Forgive me, madam!" the old man says.
"My eyes are not so good as they used to be, and it seemed to me that you were someone I had seen before—someone I had known—long years ago."
"Poor old gentleman," thinks Lucy.
She puts the child to his feet, and says, "But was it you that rang the bell, sir?"
The old man recovers himself. "Does Mr Henry Crow live here?"
"Oh, yes! Mr. Crow is my husband. Who shall I say has asked for him?"
"Someone who met him on the Greenland seas —five years ago, and more."
"I know! I think I know! Are you—You are Jan the Icelander, aren't you?" The old man bends his head. "How glad my husband will be to see you. What a surprise it will be for him! But he always said you would come to see us someday. He talks of you constantly. I seem to know you quite well already. My husband gave me all your messages. And see "—showing a locket she was wearing—" don't you remember it? It's your wedding present. I've worn it ever since."
The old man draws the little one to him.
"And this is, your little girl?"
"No, but my little boy, and I'll leave him with you while I run and fetch my husband."
As she goes into the house the old man gazes after her with looks of tenderness.
"My child! My Lucy! But I must be strong," he thinks; "I must never betray myself. She must never know."
He looks down on the boy, sits on a, seat on the piazza, and embraces the child with yearning looks of love.
"My child's child! My son! My grandson!"
"Do you like ickle boys?" says the child.
"Yes; and little girls, too, my darling."
"And have you got little boy and girls in your house, then?"
"Once I had. It was a little girl, and she was just like you—but that was long ago, and my sweet bird has found a nest of her own and left me."
"I like ickle birds," says the child.
"And what is your name, my son?"
"Jan."
"Did you say Lan?"
"No, Jan—Jan Aruasson Crow," says the child.
"My name on the Greenland seas. Will you not sit on my knee, my angel?"
"I like you," says the little one.
"Bless you, my sweet boy. There!" He crosses his legs and puts the child on one knee.
"That's comfortable, isn't it? And now you're my little boy as well."
He draws a long breath and gazes at the boy. The child looks down at the latchets of his shoes and says, " What pretty buckles you've got on your slippers."
"Have I? Well, you shall have prettier ones still, little man—you shall have everything you want, everything."
"I love you," says the child.
"And I love you, my darling. With all my starved old heart I love you, my little cherub."
The child looks at his knee-breeches. "And what funny clothes you've got on! Are they new ones?"
"No; but very old ones, little boy Twenty- five years old, at the least I kept them all that time in a box on a big, big ship, and when I wanted to see my little boy and his mamma and his papa they were the only ones I had to come in."
"Why, they're ]ust the same as grandfather's," says the child, pointing to the statue.
"See! Up there! And your hat's the same, too, and your hair, and your face, and—and— everything."
It falls on him like a thunderbolt. The last thing he could have thought of was that he might grow to be the living image of his saintly father. "I must go back," he thinks "I hadn't intended to stay long, but I must leave this place at once. What the child has seen others will see also. I must not stay to be a danger and disgrace to my children."
He calls to the child, who has run up to the statue, takes his watch out of his fob, and puts the chain about the child's neck.
"A tick-tick! Is it for me?" says the child.
"Yes, it is for you, and you are to keep it and prize it as long as you live, little one."
"I like tick-tick!"
"It belonged to a good man once, dear.
That was long, long ago, when I was a little boy like you are. And now that I am going back to the big, big ship, on the great, great water, I want to remember that I gave it to another little boy who will bear my name and grow up to be a good man, too—a better man than I have been—and far, far more worthy to own it and wear it. Put it away now, my liltle man, your mother is coming."
Lucy comes back, bringing her husband with her. Harry holds out both hands. "Jan! Jan Arnasson!" he cries. "Well, this is a surprise! Welcome! welcome. So you've come to see old England at last, How do you find it? Anything like what you expected?"
"Like and unlike, sir. Much like an old friend who has grown a beard—the same, and yet different."
"So you've given no blubber-hunting for good and all?"
"I don't know about that, sir, but your good people of England have given up burning the whale oil, and so the fish is going to the bad, and you see I'm a rat that leaves the sinking ship, you know."
Little Jannie had been showing his mother the watch, and pointing to the statue and then to the old man, and Lucy's eyes have been following him with looks of amazement; but she steps up with the little one, and, pointing to the watch on the child's breast, she says, "See what the boy has got, papa."
"A watch. My conscience alive. What a man it is to be sure. Then you've made the acquaintance of your little namesake, Jan?"
"You and your good lady have done me a great honour, sir, and I am very proud and happy."
"Honour! The boot's on the other leg, old friend. When my boy was born I said to my wife, 'We'll call him by the name of the best man I ever knew in this world, or ever expect to know —Jan Arnasson, the Icelander.' "
The old man's face breaks up visibly, and he answers hoarsely, "You bring all my mother into my eyes, sir, and I cannot speak to thank you."
"Well, come, let's go into the house. What questions I've got to ask you."
"And I, too," says Lucy, "Such lots and lots of questions."
"About your father, lady?"
"Yes, about my father. My husband was so stupid; he didn't ask the right ones. You men never do. Nothing like a woman for asking questions. See if I don't get it all out of you. Come along, Jannie."
The child, who has been occupied with his present, says: "But l haven't shown my tick-tick to Nursie yet."
"Give the gentleman your hand then, and go indoors to her."
The old man and the child pass into the house hand in hand, and Henry is following them when Lucy touches him on the shoulder. "Henry," she says, " haven't you noticed the strange resemblance?"
"What strange resemblance?"
"His resemblance to the statue of my grandfather."
Henry looks round at the statue, and says :
"Well, yes, now that you mention it—"
"The boy observed it first," says Lucy.
"It's quite extraordinary."
Henry looks again, and says : "So it is."
"Quite terrifying," says Lucy.
"Why, Lucy, surely you don't think—"
"I don't know what to think, I feel as I were standing on the edge of a precipice and were afraid to look over."
"But you don't really suppose, dear—"
"Let us go to him," she says, and he follows her with looks of bewilderment.