§ 1
never had the gracious eastward face of shonts looked more beautiful than it did on the morning of the lord chancellor’s visit. it glowed as translucent as amber lit by flames, its two towers were pillars of pale gold. it looked over its slopes and parapets upon a great valley of mist-barred freshness through which the distant river shone like a snake of light. the south-west fa?ade was still in the shadow, and the ivy hung from it darkly greener than the greenest green. the stained-glass windows of the old chapel reflected the sunrise as though lamps were burning inside. along the terrace a pensive peacock trailed his sheathed splendours through the dew.
amidst the ivy was a fuss of birds.
and presently there was pushed out from amidst the ivy at the foot of the eastward tower a little brownish buff thing, that seemed as natural there as a squirrel or a rabbit. it was a head,—a ruffled human head. it remained still for a moment contemplating the calm spaciousness of terrace and garden and countryside. then it emerged further and rotated and surveyed the 57house above it. its expression was one of alert caution. its natural freshness and innocence were a little marred by an enormous transverse smudge, a bar-sinister of smut, and the elfin delicacy of the left ear was festooned with a cobweb—probably a genuine antique. it was the face of bealby.
he was considering the advisability of leaving shonts—for good.
presently his decision was made. his hands and shoulders appeared following his head, and then a dusty but undamaged bealby was running swiftly towards the corner of the shrubbery. he crouched lest at any moment that pursuing pack of butlers should see him and give tongue. in another moment he was hidden from the house altogether, and rustling his way through a thicket of budding rhododendra. after those dirty passages the morning air was wonderfully sweet—but just a trifle hungry.
grazing deer saw bealby fly across the park, stared at him for a time with great gentle unintelligent eyes, and went on feeding.
they saw him stop ever and again. he was snatching at mushrooms, that he devoured forthwith as he sped on.
on the edge of the beech-woods he paused and glanced back at shonts.
then his eyes rested for a moment on the clump of trees through which one saw a scrap of the head gardener’s cottage, a bit of the garden wall....
a physiognomist might have detected a certain lack of self-confidence in bealby’s eyes.
58but his spirit was not to be quelled. slowly, joylessly perhaps, but with a grave determination, he raised his hand in that prehistoric gesture of the hand and face by which youth, since ever there was youth, has asserted the integrity of its soul against established and predominant things.
“ketch me!” said bealby.
§ 2
bealby left shonts about half-past four in the morning. he went westward because he liked the company of his shadow and was amused at first by its vast length. by half-past eight he had covered ten miles, and he was rather bored by his shadow. he had eaten nine raw mushrooms, two green apples and a quantity of unripe blackberries. none of these things seemed quite at home in him. and he had discovered himself to be wearing slippers. they were stout carpet slippers, but still they were slippers,—and the road was telling on them. at the ninth mile the left one began to give on the outer seam. he got over a stile into a path that ran through the corner of a wood, and there he met a smell of frying bacon that turned his very soul to gastric juice.
he stopped short and sniffed the air—and the air itself was sizzling.
“oh, krikey,” said bealby, manifestly to the spirit of the world. “this is a bit too strong. i wasn’t thinking much before.”
then he saw something bright yellow and bulky just over the hedge.
59from this it was that the sound of frying came.
he went to the hedge, making no effort to conceal himself. outside a great yellow caravan with dainty little windows stood a largish dark woman in a deerstalker hat, a short brown skirt, a large white apron and spatterdashes (among other things), frying bacon and potatoes in a frying pan. she was very red in the face, and the frying pan was spitting at her as frying pans do at a timid cook....
quite mechanically bealby scrambled through the hedge and drew nearer this divine smell. the woman scrutinized him for a moment, and then blinking and averting her face went on with her cookery.
bealby came quite close to her and remained, noting the bits of potato that swam about in the pan, the jolly curling of the rashers, the dancing of the bubbles, the hymning splash and splutter of the happy fat....
(if it should ever fall to my lot to be cooked, may i be fried in potatoes and butter. may i be fried with potatoes and good butter made from the milk of the cow. god send i am spared boiling; the prison of the pot, the rattling lid, the evil darkness, the greasy water....)
“i suppose,” said the lady prodding with her fork at the bacon, “i suppose you call yourself a boy.”
“yes, miss,” said bealby.
“have you ever fried?”
“i could, miss.”
“like this?”
60“better”
“just lay hold of this handle—for it’s scorching the skin off my face i am.” she seemed to think for a moment and added, “entirely.”
in silence bealby grasped that exquisite smell by the handle, he took the fork from her hand and put his hungry eager nose over the seething mess. it wasn’t only bacon; there were onions, onions giving it—an edge! it cut to the quick of appetite. he could have wept with the intensity of his sensations.
a voice almost as delicious as the smell came out of the caravan window behind bealby’s head.
“ju-dy!” cried the voice.
“here!—i mean,—it’s here i am,” said the lady in the deerstalker.
“judy—you didn’t take my stockings for your own by any chance?”
the lady in the deerstalker gave way to delighted horror. “sssh, mavourneen!” she cried—she was one of that large class of amiable women who are more irish than they need be—“there’s a boy here!”
§ 3
there was indeed an almost obsequiously industrious and obliging boy. an hour later he was no longer a boy but the boy, and three friendly women were regarding him with a merited approval.
he had done the frying, renewed a waning fire with remarkable skill and dispatch, reboiled a neglected kettle in the shortest possible time, laid almost without direction a simple meal, very 61exactly set out campstools and cleaned the frying pan marvellously. hardly had they taken their portions of that appetizing savouriness, than he had whipped off with that implement, gone behind the caravan, busied himself there, and returned with the pan—glittering bright. himself if possible brighter. one cheek indeed shone with an animated glow.
“but wasn’t there some of the bacon and stuff left?” asked the lady in the deerstalker.
“i didn’t think it was wanted, miss,” said bealby. “so i cleared it up.”
he met understanding in her eye. he questioned her expression.
“mayn’t i wash up for you, miss?” he asked to relieve the tension.
he washed up, swiftly and cleanly. he had never been able to wash up to mr. mergleson’s satisfaction before, but now he did everything mr. mergleson had ever told him. he asked where to put the things away and he put them away. then he asked politely if there was anything else he could do for them. questioned, he said he liked doing things. “you haven’t,” said the lady in the deerstalker, “a taste for cleaning boots?”
bealby declared he had.
“surely,” said a voice that bealby adored, “’tis an angel from heaven.”
he had a taste for cleaning boots! this was an extraordinary thing for bealby to say. but a great change had come to him in the last half-hour. he was violently anxious to do things, 62any sort of things, servile things, for a particular person. he was in love.
the owner of the beautiful voice had come out of the caravan, she had stood for a moment in the doorway before descending the steps to the ground and the soul of bealby had bowed down before her in instant submission. never had he seen anything so lovely. her straight slender body was sheathed in blue; fair hair, a little tinged with red, poured gloriously back from her broad forehead, and she had the sweetest eyes in the world. one hand lifted her dress from her feet; the other rested on the lintel of the caravan door. she looked at him and smiled.
so for two years she had looked and smiled across the footlights to the bealby in mankind. she had smiled now on her entrance out of habit. she took the effect upon bealby as a foregone conclusion.
then she had looked to make sure that everything was ready before she descended.
“how good it smells, judy!” she had said.
“i’ve had a helper,” said the woman who wore spats.
that time the blue-eyed lady had smiled at him quite definitely....
the third member of the party had appeared unobserved; the irradiations of the beautiful lady had obscured her. bealby discovered her about. she was bareheaded; she wore a simple grey dress with a norfolk jacket, and she had a pretty clear white profile under black hair. she answered to the name of “winnie.” the beautiful lady 63was madeleine. they made little obscure jokes with each other and praised the morning ardently. “this is the best place of all,” said madeleine.
“all night,” said winnie, “not a single mosquito.”
none of these three ladies made any attempt to conceal the sincerity of their hunger or their appreciation of bealby’s assistance. how good a thing is appreciation! here he was doing, with joy and pride and an eager excellence, the very services he had done so badly under the cuffings of mergleson and thomas....
§ 4
and now bealby, having been regarded with approval for some moments and discussed in tantalizing undertones, was called upon to explain himself.
“boy,” said the lady in the deerstalker, who was evidently the leader and still more evidently the spokeswoman of the party, “come here.”
“yes, miss.” he put down the boot he was cleaning on the caravan step.
“in the first place, know by these presents, i am a married woman.”
“yes, miss.”
“and miss is not a seemly mode of address for me.”
“no, miss. i mean—” bealby hung for a moment and by the happiest of accidents, a scrap of his instruction at shonts came up in his mind. “no,” he said, “your—ladyship.”
64a great light shone on the spokeswoman’s face. “not yet, my child,” she said, “not yet. he hasn’t done his duty by me. i am—a simple mum.”
bealby was intelligently silent.
“say—yes, mum.”
“yes, mum,” said bealby and everybody laughed very agreeably.
“and now,” said the lady, taking pleasure in her words, “know by these presents—by the bye, what is your name?”
bealby scarcely hesitated. “dick mal-travers, mum,” he said and almost added, “the dauntless daredevil of the diamond-fields horse,” which was the second title.
“dick will do,” said the lady who was called judy, and added suddenly and very amusingly: “you may keep the rest.”
(these were the sort of people bealby liked. the right sort.)
“well, dick, we want to know, have you ever been in service?”
it was sudden. but bealby was equal to it. “only for a day or two, miss—i mean, mum,—just to be useful.”
“were you useful?”
bealby tried to think whether he had been, and could recall nothing but the face of thomas with the fork hanging from it. “i did my best, mum,” he said impartially.
“and all that is over?”
“yes, mum.”
“and you’re at home again and out of employment?”
65“yes, mum.”
“do you live near here?”
“no—leastways, not very far.”
“with your father.”
“stepfather, mum. i’m a norfan.”
“well, how would you like to come with us for a few days and help with things? seven-and-sixpence a week.”
bealby’s face was eloquent.
“would your stepfather object?”
bealby considered. “i don’t think he would,” he said.
“you’d better go round and ask him.”
“i—suppose—yes,” he said.
“and get a few things.”
“things, mum?”
“collars and things. you needn’t bring a great box for such a little while.”
“yes, mum....”
he hovered rather undecidedly.
“better run along now. our man and horse will be coming presently. we shan’t be able to wait for you long....”
bealby assumed a sudden briskness and departed.
at the gate of the field he hesitated almost imperceptibly and then directed his face to the sabbath stillness of the village.
perplexity corrugated his features. the stepfather’s permission presented no difficulties, but it was more difficult about the luggage.
a voice called after him.
“yes, mum?” he said attentive and hopeful. 66perhaps—somehow—they wouldn’t want luggage.
“you’ll want boots. you’ll have to walk by the caravan, you know. you’ll want some good stout boots.”
“all right, mum,” he said with a sorrowful break in his voice. he waited a few moments but nothing more came. he went on—very slowly. he had forgotten about the boots.
that defeated him....
it is hard to be refused admission to paradise for the want of a hand-bag and a pair of walking-boots....
§ 5
bealby was by no means certain that he was going back to that caravan. he wanted to do so quite painfully, but—
he’d just look a fool going back without boots and—nothing on earth would reconcile him to the idea of looking a fool in the eyes of that beautiful woman in blue.
“dick,” he whispered to himself despondently, “daredevil dick!” (a more miserable-looking face you never set eyes on.) “it’s all up with your little schemes, dick, my boy. you must get a bag—and nothing on earth will get you a bag.”
he paid little heed to the village through which he wandered. he knew there were no bags there. chance rather than any volition of his own guided him down a side path that led to the nearly dry bed of a little rivulet, and there he sat down on some weedy grass under a group of 67willows. it was an untidy place that needed all the sunshine of the morning to be tolerable; one of those places where stinging nettles take heart and people throw old kettles, broken gallipots, jaded gravel, grass cuttings, rusty rubbish, old boots—.
for a time bealby’s eyes rested on the objects with an entire lack of interest.
then he was reminded of his not so very remote childhood when he had found an old boot and made it into a castle....
presently he got up and walked across to the rubbish heap and surveyed its treasures with a quickened intelligence. he picked up a widowed boot and weighed it in his hand.
he dropped it abruptly, turned about and hurried back into the village street.
he had ideas, two ideas, one for the luggage and one for the boots.... if only he could manage it. hope beat his great pinions in the heart of bealby.
sunday! the shops were shut. yes, that was a fresh obstacle. he’d forgotten that.
the public-house stood bashfully open, the shy uninviting openness of sunday morning before closing time, but public-houses, alas! at all hours are forbidden to little boys. and besides he wasn’t likely to get what he wanted in a public-house; he wanted a shop, a general shop. and here before him was the general shop—and its door ajar! his desire carried him over the threshold. the sabbatical shutters made the place dark and cool, and the smell of bacon and cheese 68and chandleries, the very spirit of grocery, calm and unhurried, was cool and sabbatical, too, as if it sat there for the day in its best clothes. and a pleasant woman was talking over the counter to a thin and worried one who carried a bundle.
their intercourse had a flavour of emergency, and they both stopped abruptly at the appearance of bealby.
his desire, his craving was now so great that it had altogether subdued the natural wiriness of his appearance. he looked meek, he looked good, he was swimming in propitiation and tender with respect. he produced an effect of being much smaller. he had got nice eyes. his movements were refined and his manners perfect.
“not doing business to-day, my boy,” said the pleasant woman.
“oh, please ’m,” he said from his heart.
“sunday, you know.”
“oh, please ’m. if you could just give me a nold sheet of paper ’m, please.”
“what for?” asked the pleasant woman.
“just to wrap something up ’m.”
she reflected, and natural goodness had its way with her.
“a nice big bit?” said the woman.
“please ’m.”
“would you like it brown?”
“oh, please ’m.”
“and you got some string??
“only cottony stuff,” said bealby, disembowelling a trouser pocket. “wiv knots. but i dessay i can manage.”
69“you’d better have a bit of good string with it, my dear,” said the pleasant woman, whose generosity was now fairly on the run, “then you can do your parcel up nice and tidy....”
§ 6
the white horse was already in the shafts of the caravan, and william, a deaf and clumsy man of uncertain age and a vast sharp nosiness, was lifting in the basket of breakfast gear and grumbling in undertones at the wickedness and unfairness of travelling on sunday, when bealby returned to gladden three waiting women.
“ah!” said the inconspicuous lady, “i knew he’d come.”
“look at his poor little precious parsivel,” said the actress.
regarded as luggage it was rather pitiful; a knobby, brown paper parcel about the size—to be perfectly frank—of a tin can, two old boots and some grass, very carefully folded and tied up,—and carried gingerly.
“but—” the lady in the deerstalker began, and then paused.
“dick,” she said, as he came nearer, “where’s your boots?”
“oh please, mum,” said the dauntless one, “they was away being mended. my stepfather thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind if i didn’t have boots. he said perhaps i might be able to get some more boots out of my salary....”
the lady in the deerstalker looked alarmingly 70uncertain and bealby controlled infinite distresses.
“haven’t you got a mother, dick?” asked the beautiful voice suddenly. its owner abounded in such spasmodic curiosities.
“she—last year....” matricide is a painful business at any time. and just as you see, in spite of every effort you have made, the jolliest lark in the world slipping out of your reach. and the sweet voice so sorry for him! so sorry! bealby suddenly veiled his face with his elbow and gave way to honourable tears....
a simultaneous desire to make him happy, help him to forget his loss, possessed three women....
“that’ll be all right, dick,” said the lady in the deerstalker, patting his shoulder. “we’ll get you some boots to-morrow. and to-day you must sit up beside william and spare your feet. you’ll have to go to the inns with him....”
“it’s wonderful, the elasticity of youth,” said the inconspicuous lady five minutes later. “to see that boy now, you’d never imagine he’d had a sorrow in the world.”
“now get up there,” said the lady who was the leader. “we shall walk across the fields and join you later. you understand where you are to wait for us, william?”
she came nearer and shouted, “you understand, william?”
william nodded ambiguously. “’ent a vool,” he said.
the ladies departed. “you’ll be all right, dick,” cried the actress kindly.
71he sat up where he had been put, trying to look as orphan dick as possible after all that had occurred.
§ 7
“do you know the wind on the heath—have you lived the gypsy life? have you spoken, wanderers yourselves, with ‘romany chi and romany chal’ on the wind-swept moors at home or abroad? have you tramped the broad highways, and, at close of day, pitched your tent near a running stream and cooked your supper by starlight over a fire of pinewood? do you know the dreamless sleep of the wanderer at peace with himself and all the world?”
for most of us the answer to these questions of the amateur camping club is in the negative.
yet every year the call of the road, the borrovian glamour, draws away a certain small number of the imaginative from the grosser comforts of a complex civilization, takes them out into tents and caravans and intimate communion with nature, and, incidentally, with various ingenious appliances designed to meet the needs of cooking in a breeze. it is an adventure to which high spirits and great expectations must be brought, it is an experience in proximity which few friendships survive—and altogether very great fun.
the life of breezy freedom resolves itself in practice chiefly into washing up and an anxious search for permission to camp. one learns how rich and fruitful our world can be in bystanders, 72and how easy it is to forget essential groceries....
the heart of the joy of it lies in its perfect detachment. there you are in the morning sunlight under the trees that overhang the road, going whither you will. everything you need you have. your van creaks along at your side. you are outside inns, outside houses, a home, a community, an imperium in imperio. at any moment you may draw out of the traffic upon the wayside grass and say, “here—until the owner catches us at it—is home!” at any time—subject to the complaisance of william and your being able to find him—you may inspan and go onward. the world is all before you. you taste the complete yet leisurely insouciance of the snail.
and two of those three ladies had other satisfactions to supplement their pleasures. they both adored madeleine philips. she was not only perfectly sweet and lovely, but she was known to be so; she had that most potent charm for women, prestige. they had got her all to themselves. they could show now how false is the old idea that there is no friendship nor conversation among women. they were full of wit and pretty things for one another and snatches of song in between. and they were free too from their “menfolk.” they were doing without them. dr. bowles, the husband of the lady in the deerstalker, was away in ireland, and mr. geedge, the lord of the inconspicuous woman, was golfing at sandwich. and madeleine philips, it was understood, was only too glad to shake herself 73free from the crowd of admirers that hovered about her like wasps about honey....
yet after three days each one had thoughts about the need of helpfulness and more particularly about washing-up, that were better left unspoken, that were indeed conspicuously unspoken beneath their merry give and take, like a black and silent river flowing beneath a bridge of ivory. and each of them had a curious feeling in the midst of all this fresh free behaviour, as though the others were not listening sufficiently, as though something of the effect of them was being wasted. madeleine’s smiles became rarer; at times she was almost impassive, and judy preserved nearly all her wit and verbal fireworks for the times when they passed through villages.... mrs. geedge was less visibly affected. she had thoughts of writing a book about it all, telling in the gayest, most provocative way, full of the quietest quaintest humour, just how jolly they had been. menfolk would read it. this kept a little thin smile upon her lips....
as an audience william was tough stuff. he pretended deafness; he never looked. he did not want to look. he seemed always to be holding his nose in front of his face to prevent his observation—as men pray into their hats at church. but once judy bowles overheard a phrase or so in his private soliloquy. “pack o’ wimmin,” william was saying. “dratted petticoats. dang ’em. that’s what i say to ’um. dang ’em!”
as a matter of fact, he just fell short of saying it to them. but his manner said it....
74you begin to see how acceptable an addition was young bealby to this company. he was not only helpful, immensely helpful, in things material, a vigorous and at first a careful washer-up, an energetic boot-polisher, a most serviceable cleaner and tidier of things, but he was also belief and support. undisguisedly he thought the caravan the loveliest thing going, and its three mistresses the most wonderful of people. his alert eyes followed them about full of an unstinted admiration and interest; he pricked his ears when judy opened her mouth, he handed things to mrs. geedge. he made no secret about madeleine. when she spoke to him, he lost his breath, he reddened and was embarrassed....
they went across the fields saying that he was the luckiest of finds. it was fortunate his people had been so ready to spare him. judy said boys were a race very cruelly maligned; see how willing he was! mrs. geedge said there was something elfin about bealby’s little face; madeleine smiled at the thought of his quaint artlessness. she knew quite clearly that he’d die for her....
§ 8
there was a little pause as the ladies moved away.
then william spat and spoke in a note of irrational bitterness.
“brasted voolery,” said william, and then loudly and fiercely, “cam up, y’ode runt you.”
at these words the white horse started into 75a convulsive irregular redistribution of its feet, the caravan strained and quivered into motion and bealby’s wanderings as a caravanner began.
for a time william spoke no more, and bealby scarcely regarded him. the light of strange fortunes and deep enthusiasm was in bealby’s eyes....
“one thing,” said william, “they don’t ’ave the sense to lock anythink up—whatever.”
bealby’s attention was recalled to the existence of his companion.
william’s face was one of those faces that give one at first the impression of a solitary and very conceited nose. the other features are entirely subordinated to that salient effect. one sees them later. his eyes were small and uneven, his mouth apparently toothless, thin-lipped and crumpled, with the upper lip falling over the other in a manner suggestive of a meagre firmness mixed with appetite. when he spoke he made a faint slobbering sound. “everyfink,” he said, “behind there.”
he became confidential. “i been in there. i larked about wiv their fings.”
“they got some choc’late,” he said, lusciously. “oo fine!”
“all sorts of fings.”
he did not seem to expect any reply from bealby.
“we going far before we meet ’em?” asked bealby.
william’s deafness became apparent.
his mind was preoccupied by other ideas. one 76wicked eye came close to bealby’s face. “we going to ’ave a bit of choc’late,” he said in a wet desirous voice.
he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the door. “you get it,” said william with reassuring nods and the mouth much pursed and very oblique.
bealby shook his head.
“it’s in a little dror, under ’er place where she sleeps.”
bealby’s head-shake became more emphatic.
“yus, i tell you,” said william.
“no,” said bealby.
“choc’late, i tell you,” said william, and ran the tongue of appetite round the rim of his toothless mouth.
“don’t want choc’late,” said bealby, thinking of a large lump of it.
“go on,” said william. “nobody won’t see you....”
“go it!” said william....
“you’re afraid,” said william....
“here, i’ll go,” said william, losing self-control. “you just ’old these reins.”
bealby took the reins. william got up and opened the door of the caravan. then bealby realized his moral responsibility—and, leaving the reins, clutched william firmly by his baggy nether garments. they were elderly garments, much sat upon. “don’t be a vool,” said william struggling. “leago my slack.”
something partially gave way, and william’s head came round to deal with bealby.
77“what you mean pullin’ my cloes orf me?”
“that,”—he investigated. “take me a nour to sew up.”
“i ain’t going to steal,” shouted bealby into the ear of william.
“nobody arst you to steal—”
“nor you neither,” said bealby.
the caravan bumped heavily against a low garden wall, skidded a little and came to rest. william sat down suddenly. the white horse, after a period of confusion with its legs, tried the flavour of some overhanging lilac branches and was content.
“gimme those reins,” said william. “you be the brastedest young vool....”
“sittin’ ’ere,” said william presently, “chewin’ our teeth, when we might be eatin’ choc’late....”
“i ’ent got no use for you,” said william, “blowed if i ’ave....”
then the thought of his injuries returned to him.
“i’d make you sew ’em up yourself, darned if i wount—on’y you’d go running the brasted needle into me.... nour’s work there is—by the feel of it.... mor’n nour.... goddobe done, too.... all i got....”
“i’ll give you sumpfin, you little beace, ’fore i done wi’ you.”
“i wouldn’t steal ’er choc’lates,” said young bealby, “not if i was starving.”
“eh?” shouted william.
“steal!” shouted bealby.
78“i’ll steal ye, ’fore i done with ye,” said william. “tearin’ my cloes for me.... oh! cam up, y’old runt. we don’t want you to stop and lissen. cam up, i tell you!”
§ 8
they found the ladies rather, it seemed, by accident than design, waiting upon a sandy common rich with purple heather and bordered by woods of fir and spruce. they had been waiting some time, and it was clear that the sight of the yellow caravan relieved an accumulated anxiety. bealby rejoiced to see them. his soul glowed with the pride of chocolate resisted and william overcome. he resolved to distinguish himself over the preparation of the midday meal. it was a pleasant little island of green they chose for their midday pitch, a little patch of emerald turf amidst the purple, a patch already doomed to removal, as a bare oblong and a pile of rolled-up turfs witnessed. this pile and a little bank of heather and bramble promised shelter from the breeze, and down the hill a hundred yards away was a spring and a built-up pool. this spot lay perhaps fifty yards away from the high road and one reached it along a rutty track which had been made by the turf cutters. and overhead was the glorious sky of an english summer, with great clouds like sunlit, white-sailed ships, the constable sky. the white horse was hobbled and turned out to pasture among the heather, and william was sent off to get congenial provender 79at the nearest public house. “william!” shouted mrs. bowles as he departed, shouting confidentially into his ear, “get your clothes mended.”
“eh?” said william.
“mend your clothes.”
“yah! ’e did that,” said william viciously with a movement of self-protection, and so went.
nobody watched him go. almost sternly they set to work upon the luncheon preparation as william receded. “william,” mrs. bowles remarked, as she bustled with the patent cooker, putting it up wrong way round so that afterwards it collapsed, “william—takes offence. sometimes i think he takes offence almost too often.... did you have any difficulty with him, dick?”
“it wasn’t anything, miss,” said bealby meekly.
bealby was wonderful with the firelighting, and except that he cracked a plate in warming it, quite admirable as a cook. he burnt his fingers twice—and liked doing it; he ate his portion with instinctive modesty on the other side of the caravan and he washed up—as mr. mergleson had always instructed him to do. mrs. bowles showed him how to clean knives and forks by sticking them into the turf. a little to his surprise these ladies lit and smoked cigarettes. they sat about and talked perplexingly. clever stuff. then he had to get water from the neighbouring brook and boil the kettle for an early tea. madeleine produced a charmingly bound little book and read in it, the other two professed themselves anxious for the view from a neighbouring 80hill. they produced their sensible spiked walking sticks such as one does not see in england; they seemed full of energy. “you go,” madeleine had said, “while i and dick stay here and make tea. i’ve walked enough to-day....”
so bealby, happy to the pitch of ecstacy, first explored the wonderful interior of the caravan,—there was a dresser, a stove, let-down chairs and tables and all manner of things,—and then nursed the kettle to the singing stage on the patent cooker while the beautiful lady reclined close at hand on a rug.
“dick!” she said.
he had forgotten he was dick.
“dick!”
he remembered his personality with a start. “yes, miss!” he knelt up, with a handful of twigs in his hand and regarded her.
“well, dick,” she said.
he remained in flushed adoration. there was a little pause and the lady smiled at him an unaffected smile.
“what are you going to be, dick, when you grow up?”
“i don’t know, miss. i’ve wondered.”
“what would you like to be?”
“something abroad. something—so that you could see things.”
“a soldier?”
“or a sailor, miss.”
“a sailor sees nothing but the sea.”
“i’d rather be a sailor than a common soldier, miss.”
81“you’d like to be an officer?”
“yes, miss—only—”
“one of my very best friends is an officer,” she said, a little irrelevantly it seemed to bealby.
“i’d be a norficer like a shot,” said bealby, “if i ’ad ’arf a chance, miss.”
“officers nowadays,” she said, “have to be very brave, able men.”
“i know, miss,” said bealby modestly....
the fire required attention for a little while....
the lady turned over on her elbow. “what do you think you are likely to be, dick!” she asked.
he didn’t know.
“what sort of man is your stepfather?”
bealby looked at her. “he isn’t much,” he said.
“what is he?”
bealby hadn’t the slightest intention of being the son of a gardener. “’e’s a law-writer.”
“what! in that village.”
“’e ’as to stay there for ’is ’ealth, miss,” he said. “every summer. ’is ’ealth is very pre-precocious, miss....”
he fed his fire with a few judiciously administered twigs.
“what was your own father, dick?”
with that she opened a secret door in bealby’s imagination. all stepchildren have those dreams. with him they were so frequent and vivid that they had long since become a kind of second truth. he coloured a little and answered with 82scarcely an interval for reflection. “’e passed as mal-travers,” he said.
“wasn’t that his name?”
“i don’t rightly know, miss. there was always something kep’ from me. my mother used to say, ‘artie,’ she used to say: ‘there’s things that some day you must know, things that concern you. things about your farver. but poor as we are now and struggling.... not yet.... some day you shall know truly—who you are.’ that was ’ow she said it, miss.”
“and she died before she told you?”
he had almost forgotten that he had killed his mother that very morning. “yes, miss,” he said.
she smiled at him and something in her smile made him blush hotly. for a moment he could have believed she understood. and indeed, she did understand, and it amused her to find this boy doing—what she herself had done at times—what indeed she felt it was still in her to do. she felt that most delicate of sympathies, the sympathy of one rather over-imaginative person for another. but her next question dispelled his doubt of her though it left him red and hot. she asked it with a convincing simplicity.
“have you any idea, dick, have you any guess or suspicion, i mean, who it is you really are?”
“i wish i had, miss,” he said. “i suppose it doesn’t matter, really—but one can’t help wondering....”
how often he had wondered in his lonely wanderings 83through that dear city of day-dreams where all the people one knows look out of windows as one passes and the roads are paved with pride! how often had he decided and changed and decided again!
§ 9
now suddenly a realization of intrusion shattered this conversation. a third person stood over the little encampment, smiling mysteriously and waving a cleek in a slow hieratic manner through the air.
“de licious lill’ corn’,” said the newcomer in tones of benediction.
he met their enquiring eyes with a luxurious smile, “licious,” he said, and remained swaying insecurely and failing to express some imperfectly apprehended deep meaning by short peculiar movements of the cleek.
he was obviously a golfer astray from some adjacent course—and he had lunched.
“mighty join you,” he said, and then very distinctly in a full large voice, “miss malleleine philps.” there are the penalties of a public and popular life.
“he’s drunk,” the lady whispered. “get him to go away, dick. i can’t endure drunken men.”
she stood up and bealby stood up. he advanced in front of her, slowly with his nose in the air, extraordinarily like a small terrier smelling at a strange dog.
“i said mighty join you,” the golfer repeated. his voice was richly excessive. he was a big 84heavy man with a short-cropped moustache, a great deal of neck and dewlap and a solemn expression.
“prup. be’r. introzuze m’self,” he remarked. he tried to indicate himself by waving his hand towards himself, but finally abandoned the attempt as impossible. “ma’ goo’ soch’l poshishun,” he said.
bealby had a disconcerting sense of retreating footsteps behind him. he glanced over his shoulder and saw miss philips standing at the foot of the steps that led up to the fastnesses of the caravan. “dick,” she cried with a sharp note of alarm in her voice, “get rid of that man.”
a moment after bealby heard the door shut and a sound of a key in its lock. he concealed his true feelings by putting his arms akimbo, sticking his legs wider apart and contemplating the task before him with his head a little on one side. he was upheld by the thought that the yellow caravan had a window looking upon him....
the newcomer seemed to consider the ceremony of introduction completed. “i done care for goff,” he said, almost vaingloriously.
he waved his cleek to express his preference. “natua,” he said with a satisfaction that bordered on fatuity.
he prepared to come down from the little turfy crest on which he stood to the encampment.
“’ere!” said bealby. “this is private.”
the golfer indicated by solemn movements of the cleek that this was understood but that other considerations overrode it.
85“you—you got to go!” cried bealby in a breathless squeak. “you get out of here.”
the golfer waved an arm as who should say, “you do not understand, but i forgive you,” and continued to advance towards the fire. and then bealby, at the end of his tact, commenced hostilities.
he did so because he felt he had to do something, and he did not know what else to do.
“wan’ nothin’ but frenly conversation sushus custm’ry webred peel,” the golfer was saying, and then a large fragment of turf hit him in the neck, burst all about him and stopped him abruptly.
he remained for some lengthy moments too astonished for words. he was not only greatly surprised, but he chose to appear even more surprised than he was. in spite of the brown-black mould upon his cheek and brow and a slight displacement of his cap, he achieved a sort of dignity. he came slowly to a focus upon bealby, who stood by the turf pile grasping a second missile. the cleek was extended sceptre-wise.
“replace the—divot.”
“you go orf,” said bealby. “i’ll chuck it if you don’t. i tell you fair.”
“replace the—divot,” roared the golfer again in a voice of extraordinary power.
“you—you go!” said bealby.
“am i t’ask you. third time. reshpect—roos.... replace the divot.”
it struck him fully in the face.
he seemed to emerge through the mould. he 86was blinking but still dignified. “tha’—was intentional,” he said.
he seemed to gather himself together....
then suddenly and with a surprising nimbleness he discharged himself at bealby. he came with astonishing swiftness. he got within a foot of him. well, it was for bealby that he had learnt to dodge in the village playground. he went down under the golfer’s arm and away round the end of the stack, and the golfer with his force spent in concussion remained for a time clinging to the turf pile and apparently trying to remember how he got there. then he was reminded of recent occurrences by a shrill small voice from the other side of the stack.
“you gow away!” said the voice. “can’t you see you’re annoying a lady? you gow away.”
“nowish—’noy anyone. pease wall wirl.”
but this was subterfuge. he meant to catch that boy. suddenly and rather brilliantly he turned the flank of the turf pile and only a couple of loose turfs at the foot of the heap upset his calculations. he found himself on all fours on ground from which it was difficult to rise. but he did not lose heart. “boy—hic—scow,” he said, and became for a second rush a nimble quadruped.
again he got quite astonishingly near to bealby, and then in an instant was on his feet and running across the encampment after him. he succeeded in kicking over the kettle, and the patent cooker, without any injury to himself or loss of pace, and succumbed only to the sharp turn behind the end of the caravan and the steps. he hadn’t 87somehow thought of the steps. so he went down rather heavily. but now the spirit of a fine man was roused. regardless of the scream from inside that had followed his collapse, he was up and in pursuit almost instantly. bealby only escaped the swiftness of his rush by jumping the shafts and going away across the front of the caravan to the turf pile again. the golfer tried to jump the shafts too, but he was not equal to that. he did in a manner jump. but it was almost as much diving as jumping. and there was something in it almost like the curvetting of a great horse....
when bealby turned at the crash, the golfer was already on all fours again and trying very busily to crawl out between the shaft and the front wheel. he would have been more successful in doing this if he had not begun by putting his arm through the wheel. as it was, he was trying to do too much; he was trying to crawl out at two points at once and getting very rapidly annoyed at his inability to do so. the caravan was shifting slowly forward....
it was manifest to bealby that getting this man to go was likely to be a much more lengthy business than he had supposed.
he surveyed the situation for a moment, and then realizing the entanglement of his opponent, he seized a camp-stool by one leg, went round by the steps and attacked the prostrate enemy from the rear with effectual but inconclusive fury. he hammered....
“steady on, young man,” said a voice, and he 88was seized from behind. he turned—to discover himself in the grip of a second golfer....
another! bealby fought in a fury of fear....
he bit an arm—rather too tweedy to feel much—and got in a couple of shinners—alas! that they were only slippered shinners!—before he was overpowered....
a cuffed, crumpled, disarmed and panting bealby found himself watching the careful extraction of the first golfer from the front wheel. two friends assisted that gentleman with a reproachful gentleness, and his repeated statements that he was all right seemed to reassure them greatly. altogether there were now four golfers in the field, counting the pioneer.
“he was after this devil of a boy,” said the one who held bealby.
“yes, but how did he get here?” asked the man who was gripping bealby.
“feel better now?” said the third, helping the first comer to his uncertain feet. “let me have your cleek o, man.... you won’t want your cleek....”
across the heather, lifting their heads a little, came mrs. bowles and mrs. geedge, returning from their walk. they were wondering whoever their visitors could be.
and then like music after a dispute came madeleine philips, a beautiful blue-robed thing, coming slowly with a kind of wonder on her face, out of the caravan and down the steps. instinctively everybody turned to her. the drunkard with a gesture released himself from his 89supporter and stood erect. his cap was replaced upon him—obliquely. his cleek had been secured.
“i heard a noise,” said madeleine, lifting her pretty chin and speaking in her sweetest tones. she looked her enquiries....
she surveyed the three sober men with a practised eye. she chose the tallest, a fair, serious-looking young man standing conveniently at the drunkard’s elbow.
“will you please take your friend away,” she said, indicating the offender with her beautiful white hand.
“simly,” he said in a slightly subdued voice, “simly coring.”
everybody tried for a moment to understand him.
“look here, old man, you’ve got no business here,” said the fair young man. “you’d better come back to the club house.”
the drunken man stuck to his statement. “simly coring,” he said a little louder.
“i think,” said a little bright-eyed man with a very cheerful yellow vest, “i think he’s apologizing. i hope so.”
the drunken man nodded his head. that among other matters.
the tall young man took his arm, but he insisted on his point. “simly coring,” he said with emphasis. “if—if—done wan’ me to cor. notome. nottot.... mean’ say. nottot tat-tome. nottotome. orny way—sayin’ not-ome. no wish ’trude. no wish ’all.”
90“well, then, you see, you’d better come away.”
“i ars’ you—are you tome? miss—miss pips.” he appealed to miss philips.
“if you’d answer him—” said the tall young man.
“no, sir,” she said with great dignity and the pretty chin higher than ever. “i am not at home.”
“nuthin’ more t’ say then,” said the drunken man, and with a sudden stoicism he turned away.
“come,” he said, submitting to support.
“simly orny arfnoon cor,” he said generally and permitted himself to be led off.
“orny frenly cor....”
for some time he was audible as he receded, explaining in a rather condescending voice the extreme social correctness of his behaviour. just for a moment or so there was a slight tussle, due to his desire to return and leave cards....
he was afterwards seen to be distributing a small handful of visiting cards amidst the heather with his free arm, rather in the manner of a paper chase—but much more gracefully....
then decently and in order he was taken out of sight....
§ 10
bealby had been unostentatiously released by his captor as soon as miss philips appeared, and the two remaining golfers now addressed themselves to the three ladies in regret and explanation.
the man who had held bealby was an aquiline grey-clad person with a cascade moustache and 91wrinkled eyes, and for some obscure reason he seemed to be amused; the little man in the yellow vest, however, was quite earnest and serious enough to make up for him. he was one of those little fresh-coloured men whose faces stick forward openly. he had open projecting eyes, an open mouth, his cheeks were frank to the pitch of ostentation, his cap was thrust back from his exceptionally open forehead. he had a chest and a stomach. there, too, he held out. he would have held out anything. his legs leant forward from the feet. it was evidently impossible for a man of his nature to be anything but clean shaved....
“our fault entirely,” he said. “ought to have looked after him. can’t say how sorry and ashamed we are. can’t say how sorry we are he caused you any inconvenience.”
“of course,” said mrs. bowles, “our boy-servant ought not to have pelted him.”
“he didn’t exactly pelt him, dear,” said madeleine....
“well, anyhow our friend ought not to have been off his chain. it was our affair to look after him and we didn’t....
“you see,” the open young man went on, with the air of lucid explanation, “he’s our worst player. and he got round in a hundred and twenty-seven. and beat—somebody. and—it’s upset him. it’s not a bit of good disguising that we’ve been letting him drink.... we have. to begin with, we encouraged him.... we oughtn’t to have let him go. but 92we thought a walk alone might do him good. and some of us were a bit off him. fed up rather. you see he’d been singing, would go on singing....”
he went on to propitiations. “anything the club can do to show how we regret.... if you would like to pitch—later on in our rough beyond the pinewoods.... you’d find it safe and secluded.... custodian—most civil man. get you water or anything you wanted. especially after all that has happened....”
bealby took no further part in these concluding politenesses. he had a curious feeling in his mind that perhaps he had not managed this affair quite so well as he might have done. he ought to have been more tactful like, more persuasive. he was a fool to have started chucking.... well, well. he picked up the overturned kettle and went off down the hill to get water....
what had she thought of him?...
in the meantime one can at least boil kettles.
§ 11
one consequence of this little incident of the rejoicing golfer was that the three ladies were no longer content to dismiss william and bealby at nightfall and sleep unprotected in the caravan. and this time their pitch was a lonely one with only the golf club house within call. they were inclined even to distrust the golf club. so it was decided, to his great satisfaction, that bealby 93should have a certain sleeping sack mrs. bowles had brought with her and that he should sleep therein between the wheels.
this sleeping sack was to have been a great feature of the expedition, but when it came to the test judy could not use it. she had not anticipated that feeling of extreme publicity the open air gives one at first. it was like having all the world in one’s bedroom. every night she had relapsed into the caravan.
bealby did not mind what they did with him so long as it meant sleeping. he had had a long day of it. he undressed sketchily and wriggled into the nice woolly bag and lay for a moment listening to the soft bumpings that were going on overhead. she was there. he had the instinctive confidence of our sex in women, and here were three of them. he had a vague idea of getting out of his bag again and kissing the underside of the van that held this dear beautiful creature....
he didn’t....
such a lot of things had happened that day—and the day before. he had been going without intermission, it seemed now for endless hours. he thought of trees, roads, dew-wet grass, frying-pans, pursuing packs of gigantic butlers hopelessly at fault,—no doubt they were hunting now—chinks and crannies, tactless missiles flying, bursting, missiles it was vain to recall. he stared for a few seconds through the wheel spokes at the dancing, crackling fire of pine-cones which it had been his last duty to replenish, stared and 94blinked much as a little dog might do and then he had slipped away altogether into the world of dreams....
§ 12
in the morning he was extraordinarily hard to wake....
“is it after sleeping all day ye’d be?” cried judy bowles, who was always at her most irish about breakfast time.
