Deadham Hard Part 2

CHAPTER IV

WATCHERS THROUGH THE SMALL HOURS

Love, ill-health and debt being, as yet, unknown quant.i.ties to young Tom Verity, it followed that insomnia, with its thousand and one attendant miseries, was an unknown quant.i.ty likewise. Upon the eve of the stiffest compet.i.tive examination those, now outlived, years of tutelage had imposed on him, he could still tumble into bed secure of lapsing into unconsciousness as soon as his head fairly touched the pillow. Dreams might, and usually did, visit him; but as so much incidental music merely to the large content of slumber--t.i.ttering up and down, too airily light-footed and evanescent to leave any impress on mind or spirits when he woke.

This night, at Deadham Hard, marked a new departure; sleep proving a less absolute break in continuity of sensation, a less absolute barrier between day and day.

The Honourable Augustus and Mrs. Cowden, and Felicia Verity, not without last words, adjurations, commands and fussings, started on their twelve-mile drive home to Paulton Lacy about six o'clock. A little later Dr. McCabe conveyed himself, and his brogue, away in an ancient hired landau to catch the evening train from Marychurch to Stourmouth. Dinner followed, shortly after which Damaris vanished, along with her governess-companion, Miss Theresa Bilson--a plump, round-visaged, pink-nosed little person, permanently wearing gold eyegla.s.ses, the outstanding distinction of whose artless existence consisted, as Tom gathered from her conversation, in a tour in Rhineland and residence of some months' duration at the university town of Bonn.

Then, at last, came the harvest of the young man's excursion, in the shape of first-hand records of war and government--of intrigue and of sedition, followed by stern retributive chastis.e.m.e.nt--from that famous soldier, autocratic and practised administrator, his host.

In the opinion of a good many persons Tom Verity's b.u.mp of reference showed very insufficient development. Dons, head-masters, the pedagogic and professorial tribe generally, he had long taken in his stride quite unabashed. Church dignitaries, too, left him saucily cool. For--so at least he argued--was not his elder brother, Pontifex, private chaplain to the Bishop of Harchester? And did not this fact--he knowing poor old Ponty as only brother can know brother--throw a rather lurid light upon the spiritual and intellectual limitations of the Bench? In respect of the British aristocracy, his social betters, he also kept an open mind.

For had not Lord Bulparc's son and heir, little Oxley, acted as his f.a.g, boot-black and bacon-frier, for the best part of a year at school?

Notwithstanding which fact--Lord Oxley was of a mild, forgiving disposition--had not he, Tom, spent the cricket week several summers running at Napworth Castle; where, on one celebrated occasion, he bowled a distinguished Permanent Under-Secretary first ball, and, on another, chided a marquis and ex-Cabinet Minister for misquoting Catullus.

Yet now, sitting smoking and listening to those records of eastern rule and eastern battle, in the quiet lamp-light of the long room--with its dark book-cases, faintly gleaming Chinese images, and dumpy pillars--his native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism.

He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost.

There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of their long talk, did the young man detect any sign of personal feeling. Then for an instant, some veil seemed to be lifted, some curtain drawn aside; while, with dazzling effect, he became cognizant of underlying bitterness, underlying romance--of secret dealings of man with man, of man with woman, and the dealing, arbitrary, immutable, final, of Death and a Greater than Death, with both.

These revelations though of the briefest, over before he fairly grasped their import, gone like a breath, were still sufficient to discredit many preconceived ideas and enlarge his mental horizon to a somewhat anxious extent. They carried him very far from life as lived at Canton Magna Rectory; very far from all, indeed, in which the roots of his experience were set, thus producing an atmosphere of doubt, of haunting and insidious unrest.

And of that atmosphere he was particularly sensible when, standing in the hall, flat candlestick in hand, he at last bade Sir Charles Verity good night.

"It has been a wonderful evening, sir," he said, simply and modestly.

"You have been awfully kind in sparing me so much of your time; but, indeed, it has not been time wasted. I begin to measure a little what India means, I hope. Certainly I begin to measure the depth of my own ignorance. I see I have nearly everything of essential importance still to learn. And that is a pretty large order--almost staggeringly large now that, thanks to you, I begin to realize the vastness of the amount."

"The majority of men in your Service never realize it," Charles Verity returned. "They run in blinkers from first to last.--Not that I underrate their usefulness. They are honest, painstaking, thoroughly reliable, according to their lights. They do excellent journeyman work. But there lies the heart of the whole matter.--Are you content to do journeyman work only; or do you aspire to something greater?--If the former, then you had best forget me and all I have told you this evening as fast as possible. For it will prove a hindrance rather than a help, confusing the issues.--No--no--listen a moment, my dear boy"--

This kindly, indulgently even, as Tom made a gesture of repudiation and began to speak.

"If the latter--well, the door stands open upon achievement by no means contemptible, as the opportunities of modern life go; but, it is only fair to warn you, upon possibilities of trouble, even of disaster, by no means contemptible either. For, remember, the world is so const.i.tuted that if you elect to drive, rather than be driven, you must be prepared to take heavy risks, pay heavy penalties. Understand"--

He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder.

"I do not pose as a teacher, still less as a propagandist. I do not attempt to direct the jury. The choice rests exclusively with yourself.--And here rid your mind of any cant about moral obligations.

Both ways have merit, both bring rewards--of sorts--are equally commendable, equally right. Only this--whether you choose blinkers, your barrel between the shafts and another man's whip tickling your loins, or the reins in your own hands and the open road ahead, be faithful to your choice. Stick to it, through evil report as well as through good."

He lifted his hand off Tom's shoulder. And the latter, looking round at him was struck--in mingled admiration and repulsion--by his likeness to some shapely bird of prey, with fierce hooked beak and russet-grey eyes, luminous, cruel perhaps, yet very sad.

"Above all be careful in the matter of your affections," Sir Charles went on, his voice deepening. "As you value your career, the pride of your intellect,--yes--and the pride of your manhood itself, let nothing feminine tempt you to be unfaithful to your choice. Tempt you to be of two minds, to turn aside, to turn back. For, so surely as you do, you will find the h.e.l.l of disappointment, the h.e.l.l of failure and regret, waiting wide-mouthed to swallow you, and whatever span of life may remain to you, bodily up."

He checked himself, breaking off abruptly, the veil lowered again, the curtain drawn into place.

"There," he said, "we have talked enough, perhaps more than enough. You have a long day before you to-morrow, so my dear boy, go to bed. My quarters are down here."

He made a gesture towards the dark corridor opening off the far side of the hall.

"You know your way? The room on the right of the landing."

"Yes. I know my way, thanks, sir," Tom answered--

And, thus dismissed, went on upstairs, carrying the silver flat candlestick, while his shadow, black on the panelled wall, mounted beside him grotesquely prancing step by step.

The furnishing of his room was of a piece with all below, solid yet not uncomely. It included a four-post bed of generous proportions, hangings, curtains and covers of chintz, over which faded purple and crimson roses were flung broadcast on a honey-yellow ground. The colourings were discreetly cheerful, the atmosphere not unpleasantly warm, the quiet, save for the creaking of a board as he crossed the floor, unbroken.

Outwardly all invited to peaceful slumber. And Tom felt more than ready to profit by that invitation this last night on sh.o.r.e, last night in England. His attention had been upon the stretch for a good many hours now, since that--after all rather upsetting--good-bye to home and family at Canton Magna, following an early and somewhat peripatetic breakfast.

Notwithstanding his excellent health and youthful energy, mind and body alike were somewhat spent. He made short work of preparation, slipped in between the fine cool linen sheets, and laid his brown head upon the soft billowing pillows, impatient neither to think nor feel any more but simply to sleep.

For some two hours or so he did sleep, though not without phantasmagoria queerly disturbing. The sweep of his visions was wide, ranging from that redoubtable county lady, Harriet Cowden _nee_ Verity--first cousin of his father, the Archdeacon, and half-sister to his host--in her violet-ink hued gown, to fury of internecine strife amid the mountain fastnesses of Afghanistan,--from the austere and wistful beauty of the grey, long-backed Norman Abbey rising above the roofs and chimneys of the little English market-town, to the fierce hectic splendour of Eastern cities blistering in the implacable sun-glare of the Indian plains. Days on the Harchester playing fields, days on the river at Oxford, and still earlier days in the Rectory nursery at home; bringing with them sense of small bitter sorrows, small glorious triumphs, of laughter and uproarious fun, of sentimental pa.s.sages at b.a.l.l.s, picnics, garden parties, too, with charmingly pretty maidens who, in all probability, he would never clap eyes on again--all these, and impressions even more illusive and fugitive, playing hide-and-seek among the mazelike convolutions of his all too active brain.

Then, on a sudden, he started up in bed, aware of external noise and movement which brought him instantly, almost painfully, broad awake.

For a quite appreciable length of time, while he sat upright in the warm darkness, Tom failed either to locate the noise which had thus roused him, or to interpret its meaning. It appeared to him to start at the river foresh.o.r.e, pa.s.s across the garden, into and through the ground-floor suite of rooms and corridor which Sir Charles had indicated as reserved to his particular use.--What on earth could it be? What did it remind him of?--Why, surely--with a start of incredulous recognition--the sound of hoofs, though strangely confused and m.u.f.fled, such as a mob of scared, over-driven horses might make, floundering fetlock deep in loose sand.

Alive with curiosity he sprang out of bed, groped his way across to the window and, putting up the blind, leaned out.

A coppery waning moon hung low in the south-east, and sent a pale rusty pathway across the sea to where, behind the sand-bar, rippling waves broke in soft flash and sparkle. Its light was not strong enough to quench that of the stars crowding the western and the upper sky. Tom could distinguish the black ma.s.s of the great ilex trees on the right.

Could see the whole extent of the lawn, the two sentinel cannon and pyramid of ammunition set on the terrace along the top of the sea-wall.

And nothing moved there, nothing whatever. The outstretch of turf was vacant, empty; bare--so Tom told himself--as the back of his own hand.

The sounds seemed to have ceased now that sight denied them visible cause of existence; and he began to wonder whether his hearing had not played him false, whether the whole thing was not pure fancy, a delusion born of agitated dreams.

He pushed the sash up as far as it would go and leaned further out of the window. The luscious scent of a late flowering species of lonercera, trained against the house wall, saluted his nostrils, along with a fetid-sweet reek off the mud-flats of the Haven. Away in the village a dog yelped, and out on the salt-marshes water-fowl gave faint whistling cries. Then all settled down into stillness, save for the just audible chuckle and suck of the river as the stream met the inflowing tide.

The stillness pleased him. For so many nights to come there would be none of it; but ceaselessly the drumming of the engines, quiver of the screw, and wash of the water against the ship's side.--All the same he did not quite like the colour of the moon or that frayed flattened edge of it westward. Why is there always something a trifle menacing about a waning moon? He did not like the smell of the mud-flats either. It might not be actually unhealthy; but it suggested a certain foulness. He yawned, drew back into the room, and straightening himself up, stretched his hands above his head. He would get into bed again. He was dog-tired--yes, most distinctly bed!

Then he stopped short, listening, hastily knelt down by the window and again leaned out. For once more he heard horses coming up from the sh.o.r.e, across the garden, into and through the house, hustling and trampling one another as they shied away from the whip.--There were laggards too--one stumbled, rolled over in the sand, got on its feet after a nasty struggle, and tottered onward dead lame. Another fell in its tracks and lay there foundered, rattling in the throat.

The sounds were so descriptive, so explicit and the impression produced on Tom Verity's mind so vivid that, carried away by indignation, he found himself saying out loud:

"Curse them, the brutes, the cowardly brutes, mishandling their cattle like that! They"--

And he stopped confounded, as it came home to him that throughout the course of this cruel drama he had seen nothing, literally nothing, though he had heard so convincingly much. A shiver ran down his spine and he broke into a sweat, for he knew beyond question or doubt not so much as a shadow,--let alone anything material--had breasted the sea-wall, pa.s.sed over the smooth level turf, or entered--how should it?--the house.

The garden lay outspread before him, calm, uninvaded by any alien being, man or animal. The great ilex trees were immobile, fixed as the eternal stars overhead. And he shrank in swift protest, almost in terror, being called on thus to face things apparently super-normal, forces unexplored and uncharted, defying reason, giving the lie to ordinary experience and ordinary belief. Reality and hallucination, jostled one another in his thought, a giant note of interrogation written against each. For which was the true and which the false? Of necessity he distrusted the evidence of his own senses, finding sight and hearing in direct conflict thus.

The two or three minutes that followed were among the most profoundly disagreeable Tom ever had spent. But at last, a door opened below, letting forth a shaft of mellow lamp-light. It touched the flower-beds on the left edging the lawn, giving the geraniums form and colour, laying down a delicate carpet of green, trans.m.u.ting black into glowing scarlet.

Tall and spare in his grey and white sleeping-suit, Sir Charles Verity sauntered out, and stood, smoking, looking out to sea.

Earlier that night, downstairs in the sitting-room, he seemed a storm centre, generating much perplexity and disquiet. But now Tom welcomed his advent with a sense of almost absurd satisfaction. To see what was solidly, incontrovertibly, human could not but be, in itself, a mighty relief.--Things began to swing into their natural relation, man, living man, the centre, the dominant factor once more. He, Tom, could now shift all responsibility, moreover. If the master of the house was on guard, he might wash his hands of these hateful ghostly goings on--if ghostly they were--leaving the whole matter to one far stronger and more competent than himself.

Whereupon he went back to bed; and slept profoundly, royally, until Hordle the man-servant, moving about the bright chintz bedecked room, preparing his bath and laying out his clothes, awoke him to the sweetness of another summer day.

CHAPTER V

BETWEEN RIVER AND SEA