The Dial (Third Series)/Volume 75/The Gold Coast
THE GOLD COAST
BY JOHN FREEMAN
A MORE beautiful dragon-fly had never been seen: he must follow it, catch it, release it unharmed and lovelier than before. Hovering at the edge of Crispin's Pool it seemed like a shining arrow of gold, shot from the sun and pausing before it fell. If it fell it would fall into the green water. Richard—Richard Corbet Clyne—had not been to the Pool since last winter, when it was frozen over and he tried to skate on the rimy surface, and skimmed pebbles upon it, and smiled to hear the noise. It was wonderful that he had walked and slid helplessly, where now, if this fine arrow of gold fell, it would be spoiled and drowned.
The dragon flashed suddenly past him and Richard plunged through the green bracken after it, wishing he had a cap instead of a flimsy handkerchief that would be so long in falling if he flung it. He scrambled up the sandy path, not stopping to notice how many rabbits must haunt the copses, and followed the dragon until it stayed and flashed its shaking light again. Richard, too, paused, for he was out of breath and knew he was too far off to attempt to catch the dragon-fly by tossing a handkerchief, and feared to fold a stone in it. How lucky were the boys who went out with nets. Next term he would sell all his stamps and buy a net—oh, but his mother would be sure to forbid it. His mother, he obscurely felt, was proud of him, and encouraged him in every serious pursuit—stamp collecting was one—but butterfly-hunting was merely hunting, a violent exercise and no more. If he needed play, there was chess; and he sighed to think that though he sold every stamp he possessed he would be no nearer getting a net. The Martins had nets, but he couldn't bring himself to borrow things he wanted for his own, especially since his mother disapproved. He might persuade her by showing her he really could play chess now, but he hated chess—and look, the sheeny wings were gone!
Richard sprang up and followed again, but a single glimpse of the brilliant being was all: the dragon-fly had vanished and the sky was empty. A hundred nets would make no difference now.
A man working at the hedge watched him as he turned away disappointed, and Richard tried to look as though he didn't care or was unconscious of dragon-flies burning swiftly through the air. The labourer saw the pretence and smiled, and Richard, not quite understanding the smile, was still lightly teased by it. The man was laughing at him! The man, truly, was not laughing at the boy, but at his own half-shaped thoughts on seeing the boy chasing and losing a fly; for he thought of himself as a boy and was conscious of looking a long way backwards—forty years away when lovely things tormented his eyes with their freedom and light. Had he spoken he could have said no more than "That minds me now." Richard's shadow was but a shadow falling upon a hidden nerve and waking it to brief sensitiveness.
Richard's shadow followed him through the thin wood, back towards Crispin's Pool, and before he reached it he stopped, and slid down at the foot of a beech. It was so pleasant to loll there, for in the softness of this early summer warmth he felt a kind of physical languor creeping over his frame, so that for a while it was better to be idle than active. But though he lay still, his head rubbing now and then against the stained trunk, his thoughts were busy enough; at first turning after the lost fly and then, as he looked up at the blue, following the limbs of the beech tree into the sky. How could a tree hold its arms so firm and still, when his own—stretched out level from his shoulders—became in a moment so heavy and tremulous? He dropped them and looked up again, and saw a sunbeam through the leaves gilding the pale green of a great member that sprang high into the blue—gold on the pale green. The unspoken word made him think of the Gold Coast and his father. The Gold Coast—sparkling gold on dull gold sands, gold sparkling under shallow waves, gold flowing down in almost imperceptible morsels with the river to the sea; the Gold Coast—muddy forests, and figures black as mud, shining like mud after rain, staggering down through forests under small heavy bales of gold. An alligator moving slowly made a swell in the river, and slowly heaved his bulk out of the river water—a score of tiny streams falling from his corrugated back, and gold dust sliding in them or caught between the horny channels, sparkling like golden frost in the sun. Golden frost—the gold of the tropics where the heat made everything faint, except these minute, hard particles of golden frost.
The Gold Coast! Once he had thought his father was King there—had conquered it, perhaps, and stayed to rule. But that early fancy had faded, for his father had not returned. Nor had he died, for his mother had not worn black nor talked of him as Aunt Marian had talked and wept when Uncle had died. His father couldn't be dead, yet could he still be on the Gold Coast? Surely letters at least would come, and gifts, and they would be rich. He couldn't say how long it was since his father had kissed him good-bye and promised him—"all sorts of things, Richard."
"A gun, father?"
"All sorts of things at any rate, Richard." But his mother interrupting said quietly, "Don't promise the boy."
Richard wondered why his father was not to promise, and why his father, hearing the interdict, merely looked at him with smiling eyes that still promised, and said no more, but turned towards the trunks, tied the straps, sprang into the seat, and with a splendid flourish of the whip drove off—to a ship, to the Gold Coast. How long ago was that? Three Christmases had gone—no, four, and no gun had come, no arrows, no African marvels, no letter even, no promise even. . . . Nothing! His mother had simply silenced him when he asked questions—silenced him with a look, a quiet, "I don't know, Richard," or "You must wait, Richard"—words said in that familiar way of hers which always expressed, Don't ask questions. But questions persisted though unasked, and he questioned himself; indeed of late he had questioned constantly the absence and the silence of his father. No letter had come, nor had he ever surprised his mother writing. How could she live so quietly without a word, when he himself, a child, hungered for a word? Why was his mother so quiet as to make him afraid to disturb her with his play? Why was he still a day-scholar, when he had so long been promised a boarding school? The Gold Coast—that was where his father had gone, and although he was no longer so stupid as to think of him as King of the Gold Coast, he couldn't understand why, since his father was there, they should be growing poorer at home. Everything had grown quieter; people no longer called at the house as they used to do when he was a small boy and his father was commonly at home; and his mother seldom met people outside now. Nobody spoke to him of his father, and although he was glad, yet he still wondered why nobody spoke. There was a fairy story he'd been told once, of a tower of silence, with the moon rising up one side and setting on the other, and in it was a silver Prince who had everything he wished for except the sound of a voice. He forgot what had happened to the Prince, but he saw the tower, its rising and falling moon, and the unmoving hands of the clock, with the Prince looking over the tower. If only his mother would say to him, "Richard, I'll tell you about your father now," he could bear anything she might tell him; for it must be something to bear. One day he would know, of course, he would insist upon knowing; but as yet he could not face his mother's steady look. And so thinking, he caught again the glimpse of the gliding beam and, feeling miserable now, stretched himself, rose, and walked on.
—But why walk so quickly, since he had the whole day? His mother had given him leave to roam as he would, with a packet of egg sandwiches and a stick of American chocolate; soon he would find a spot from which he could see things passing, and eat his lunch. Devil's Wood, that would be the place, for at the top of the wood were cross-roads and carts went by, farm wagons, sometimes fast motors; he could time them over the exact quarter-mile from the post-office to the cross-roads, proud of his silver watch that ticked off the seconds so loudly.
Half way to the wood he heard a voice and saw a schoolfellow approaching. "Hullo, Alexander"—"Hullo, Clyne!" for a mo- ment exhausted the intelligence of the twain; and then Richard said, "You haven't gone away yet, then?"
"No, hang it, we can't go for a day or two. They've got measles down in Cornwall and we've got to find a fresh place. When are you going?"
Richard was resentfully evasive. "I don't quite know yet . . . my mother—where are you going now?"
"Anywhere," and the two moved on together. They had never been great friends, for Richard didn't quite like young Boney, as Alexander was called. Young Boney was an awkward-looking, pallid, fat boy, suspected of Jewishness mainly on account of a nose which was thought conclusive evidence in spite of voluble denials and protests. His nose, thick lips, dark eyes, and pallid fleshiness gave the lie to his assertions; even his unvarying good nature argued against him.
"I'm going to leave after next term," said Boney; "my father will be home then and we're going to move. When I'm older I'm to have a pony. You haven't got a pony, have you?"
Richard shook his head, and the other pursued, "Rabbits?"
Again Richard shook his head and said no and then Boney cried, "I say, come and see mine. It isn't far." At first Richard hesitated, and then allowed himself to be led across the road to a path by the river side, over the hanging bridge that swayed, stooped, and recovered as they passed it, and then up between steep hot banks of dustless herbs. Twenty minutes brought them to a white gate, a short avenue of ragged elms, a barn with a gilded vane, another gate, and a courtyard which seemed to Richard a wonderful place for roller skates—large smooth flags with smaller flags for border, and grass growing at the edges. He had never been to the house before and looked round with a little envy at the spacious yard and the stone casements deep in the thick wall.
"Look at the date," said Boney, pointing to the 1617 cut over the doorway, with a faint A. M. traced in the greening stone. "Year after Shakespeare's death—always remember that now," he added. "Nobody at home, I expect, unless it's Myra."
Boney looked round before opening a heavy door: there wasn't a maid in sight; then with a furtive "Wait!" he entered and in a moment joined Richard with a canister of grain. "They won't let me feed them before feeding time," he explained, and laughed as they went under an arch and along a tiled path, soft with tarnishing mosses, into an orchard. The sun seemed cool under the trees, and as the wind shook the small pears and apples overhead, and bent the raspberry canes, Richard shivered as though the wind touched his branches also.
In a corner of the orchard the rabbit hutches hung, just beneath the glossy ivy. Boney thrust the canister into Richard’s hands, squeezed his head and shoulders into a door, and dragged out one by one the quivering white bodies. The sleek coats glistened in the sun as Boney held the quick-breathing startled creatures by the ears and felt the fatness of their bellies. "No, no one ever touches them, Clyne," said Boney, and refused to let Richard do more than stroke them and feel the silk of their ears. Suddenly a voice surprised the boys—"What on earth are you doing, Cassy?"
Richard was the first to turn and saw a girl of fifteen coming near over the grassy path, dressed in something richly red. He stared at the bright-hued figure, full and soft under the long face, and was confused as she stared back. "It's all right, Myra, I'm only showing Clyne my rabbits."
"But you know you're not allowed to feed them, Cassy. You make them so horribly fat—it's loathsome." She took no notice of Richard save to smile at him when she ended; but as she turned her face away she added, half to Richard and half to the sky, "Cassy's such a donkey with rabbits."
Her brother smiled. "Well, you're afraid of them—you're afraid of everything, silly."
Myra moved off. "You'd get into trouble, only mother's out."
Richard looked after her diminishing figure, as it swayed under the apple boughs. The sun and dappling shadow made her dress bright as a bird's plumage—peacock-like for richness; and as she passed from sight he heard her voice ambling an air, no, he couldn't be quite sure of the air, and only felt that the voice was rich and full. Boney was still feeding and fondling his rabbits, and after a moment's silence Richard asked him, "Is that your sister—Myra?"
"Yes, of course."
"Why did she call you Cassy?" And as Boney didn't answer at once, Richard pursued teasingly, "It might be short for so many names—Cassius, the envious Casca; why it might be Casabianca."
"I say," protested the other.
"What is it short for, then?" He was seized with a desire to drag his name from Boney, not because he was interested in names, but because real names were hidden and between the boys at school there was a rigid secrecy upon this most intimate and sacred subject. He wanted Boney's name because he shared the school's attitude of slightly despising Boney, Boney being clever, of rich parents, and with showy habits, and a generally mysterious origin. "What is Cassy short for?"
Boney was afraid to tell, but since Richard knew now that he was called Cassy he was afraid the name might be used at school. After a cunning moment he looked up and said, "Well, I'll tell you, on conditions of course."
"Well—what conditions?"
"You tell me yours, and we'll both swear a solemn oath—a really dreadful solemn oath—not to tell any one else."
"All right—I'll swear."
"A solemn oath, mind?"
"Yes, yes, anything you like."
"And you will tell me yours?"
"Well—yes, if you like."
"Then say after me, "I swear by Almighty God—"
Richard repeated the words, though now he regretted the oath, but when Boney began, "And by the—" Richard stopped him. "You can't swear any more after that, you know." He felt uncomfortable.
"All right then," said Boney, a little dubiously; and stepping nearer and lowering his voice said, "Caspar David." The syllables pleased him as he uttered them and he repeated proudly, "Caspar David Alexander. But you're not to tell, and you're never to call me Cassy."
"I didn't promise that," began Richard, but seeing the alarm on Boney's face he added, "But I won't tell."
"Now tell me yours," said Boney, with a hint of contempt for anything he might hear.
Richard was suddenly dismayed. How could he do what no other boy would do—except of course Boney, who wasn't like the others? The oath seemed now a snare, but the keeping of it a crime; he couldn't tell. He ought not to have sworn—and who was Boney, anyhow, to make him swear and tell?
"You won't repeat it, Boney, mind," he cried warningly.
"Of course I won't."
Looking at the other's eyes Richard became utterly mistrustful. . . . It would be wrong to tell—but how to get out of telling? In a swift moment he had decided.
"John Thomas—John Thomas Clyne." He was conscious of staring firmly at the other while he spoke the virtuous lie. Why should he tell him?
"Pah!" cried Boney contemptuously. "That's not much of a name to make a fuss about."
"But you've sworn."
"Of course . . . I say, it's stupid here. Come on and I'll show you things." Standing up he yawned and led the way back to the house. As they returned by the same mossy path Richard was teased by a regret. He'd deceived Boney and didn't mind that very much; he'd deceive him again, come to that. But he wanted to ask about Myra—what her name was; and he wanted to get Boney to talk about Myra and now he couldn't. His ears were stretched for the sound of her voice, as the boys went past the kitchen door and into the pantry, beyond which was a huge dark cupboard. That cupboard, Boney said, was his; and lighting a safety lantern he began to show his treasurers—earlier toys, a pair of roller skates, cards with butterfly's wings carelessly fixed on and now damaged. In a comer stood some nets. "These are mine, too," said Boney, gloatingly; and conscious of his wealth he grew suddenly expansive and taking one of the nets in his hand and testing the fabric, thrust it carelessly upon Richard. "You take it, Clyne. I've got a lot."
Richard was angry . . . the very thing, and he was angry. "I don't want it. I don't care about butterfly hunting. It's a silly game—all right for kids."
Boney took it back, seeming glad to keep it. The next moment Richard said, "I'm going on now," and moved to the door.
Boney put out the light and the two stepped away. Boney opened another door and Richard caught a glimpse of a high kitchen with heavy beams and a fire blazing behind a huge cook, who at once looked aggressive. Boney promptly shut the door, muttering, "Ugly old thing!" and led Richard towards the white gate. There he swung idly, and Richard said, "Next term is your last, then?"
"Yes. And I shall be jolly glad. I don't know where I'm going; my father hasn't settled it. He is in Russia, and he's coming back before Christmas. I've asked him for a Russian wolf-hound. Perhaps he'll take me with him next time he goes—me or Myra. Myra's going to Cheltenham when we move, so most likely it will be me. Just think, Clyne! Sledges in the snow, snow everywhere, and you wear everything fur. Wolves, lots of wolves, and you can hunt them—ugh! Frozen rivers, and big prairies in the summer—must be bigger than America."
"Does Myra want to go?" Richard was conscious of sadness at the thought that she might be leaving England.
"Myra? I don't know—I don't suppose so. . . . Girls—well. But even if I don't go next time I shall go soon, if mother will let me." Boney licked his lips at the prospect of Russian snows, and then said sharply, "Don't you wish you could go?"
"Rather—or somewhere else."
Boney's curiosity was pricked again—"Where?"
"Well, Africa."
"Why—what part?"
"The Gold Coast. It must be wonderful. Why it sounds wonderful. . . . Dangerous, too. You get fevers there; they use poisoned arrows. And there are snakes and—" He checked himself sharply, and wished he had held his tongue when the other asked, "But what could you do there? It sounds as if it isn't a place for a boy. . . . Got any people there?"
Richard shook his head, and anxious as he felt to change the subject, could think of nothing to divert it. Boney went on promptly. "I thought you said once that your father was there—you know, when we had to write an essay about countries. I thought you said it was Africa, somewhere."
"No—South America," answered Richard steadily. He couldn't bear that Boney should be trying thus to force him into talking of his secret thoughts.
"O well! Who wants to go to South America?" And as Boney ended Richard told him quickly, "I saw such a fine dragon-fly this morning—over by Crispin's Pool. I expect there'll be a lot there. Why don't you take your net?"
"It's too far to-day. I'm not supposed to go much away from the house while mother isn't at home. I might to-morrow."
"With Myra?"
"What an ass! She won't go and I shouldn't want to take her. Shed only be a nuisance if I did."
Richard looked angrily at Boney as he spoke, but the latter said, "I can't come any further, I shall have to run to get home for lunch."
The next minute Richard was watching Boney's awkward thick figure lurching hastily off. He murmured to himself in extremest disdain and envy, "Caspar David—Caspar David Alexander"; and then, "Myra Alexander, Myra. . . ." Miserable enough, he sat down at last to eat the lunch that had oozed its greasy patch against the lining of his old coat.
A dishevelled tramp shuffled by just as Richard finished his lunch. He scarcely saw the boy, but Richard watched him closely as he shambled on. He wondered how a man could like going about so dirty, so unwholesome, so avoided, through the fresh green country; or, perhaps, he couldn't help it, and would rather be clean and brisk if he could. But this man certainly looked as though he didn't care, and the boy dismissed him from his mind almost as soon as he passed from sight.
And so it was all the afternoon—one thing after another falling upon his mind like a cloud, and then moving off again and leaving him idle as sunny water in a shallow bed. All the time he was dissatisfied. It wasn't that he was solitary, for he liked being alone to watch things and wonder how they came; but something flawed his mind or memory, and the day became uneasy. It was nearly tea-time when he reached the village, and he quickened his steps because his home was at the other end. The village slept perfectly; everybody was asleep, or shut within the blind walls and drinking tea; it seemed the quietest place in the world—the dullest. Nothing could happen there. . . . And nothing happened when he reached home, except that his mother remarked that he was a little late, and asked how he had spent the day. She frowned, he fancied, when he spoke of Boney and Myra, but she was still sedate as ever when she asked if Mrs Alexander had been at home. After tea his mother reminded him of his promise to read French every day during the holidays, and with this and idler matters the evening began to slip softly away.
But his quiet mind was shaken by the casual sight of a book he had often meant to read—Captain Singleton, a recent gift from someone who knew nothing of it but that it was by the author of Robinson Crusoe. It was a sheer misadventure that led Richard to open it now, and read of—Africa, dark forests, cruelties done upon the black people of the mysterious land; everywhere echoes of the magical, dark, bright Gold Coast. Richard read, then dipped, his head confused by the tangle of suggestion and picture, a tangle thick and clinging as the creepers of the forests and the fever-creepers hanging there. The book dropped from his hand and he sat perfectly still, thinking not of the Captain nor of the subtle Quaker and the men, but of his father. His father was even yet, maybe, even this aching evening, lonely and unsupported on the Gold Coast. Why wouldn't his mother speak? He looked at her, as she sat upright, knitting. There was no noise in the room but that of the clicking needles, and the moth wings against the lamp-shade; she knitted so quickly that the clicking of her needles was like the quick plucking of strings from which all sweetness had gone; but her face was impassive—still and fine and reserved like a yellowing old ivory god brought from Bengal to stare unmoved upon the fretting of the West.
Richard looked at his mother and her eyes, lifting a second as at a summons, caught his. He tried to look boldly and challenge her with a glance; but it was his eyes that fell beneath quivering lids, and his courage that died. His mother still knitted steadily on and then, as if nothing had passed between them even while this mute challenge had sprung and quailed, she said:
"It's bedtime, Richard." His heart murmured, but his will was sunken into weakness.
It took him some time to get to sleep and he was restless, it seemed, all through restless centuries. The sound of a river soothed him and then excited him, for it was a shallow rapid river, with infinitesimal reflections beneath the water—gold, gold dust, gold particles clinging to the yellow pebbles. Huge black natives came stumbling towards him, sinister presences brandishing their arms and threatening, not him, but some other. They were threatening his father, but he could nowhere see him. "Father, father!" he cried, and rose from the bed; "Father, come away, come away from the Gold Coast."
It seemed that Myra Alexander was holding his arms firmly and leading him from the huge natives. "Father—Myra!" he muttered. The shining candle woke him, and the face that was Myra's became his mother's. "I thought I heard—" and then, remembering the rebuke of his mother's presence earlier in the evening, he said no more.