Guy and Pauline Part 31

"Doesn't the house look jolly from here? It's pretty old, you know.

About 1590 I believe. It's a wonderful place, isn't it? Hulloa, there's my housekeeper. Miss Peasey, here's my father. She's very deaf, so you'll have to shout."

Mr. Hazlewood, who never shouted even at the naughtiest boy in his school, shuddered faintly at his son's invitation and bowed to Miss Peasey with a formality of disapproval that seemed to include her in the condemnation of all he beheld.

"Quite a resemblance, I'm sure," Miss Peasey archly declared. "Tea will be ready at four o'clock and Mr. Hazlewood Senior's room is all in order for him." Then she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

"A little empty, I'm afraid," said Guy, as his father looked round the hall.

"Is that water I hear?"

"Yes, the river washes the back of the house."

"And this place isn't damp?"

"Not a bit," Guy declared positively.

"Well, it smells of bronchitis and double-pneumonia."

Guy showed his father the dining-room.

"I've got it rather jolly, I think," he ventured.

"Yes, my candlesticks and chairs, that your mother lent you for your rooms at Balliol, look very well," his father agreed.

Guy led the way to the spare bedroom.

"No wonder you spent all your money," Mr. Hazlewood commented, surveying the four-post bed and the Jacobean furniture. "How on earth did you manage to afford all this luxury?"

"Oh, I picked it up somehow," said Guy lightly. He had decided on second thoughts not to reveal the secret of the Rectory's loan.

When his father had rid himself of the dust from his journey, Guy introduced him proudly to his own room.

"Well, this is certainly quite a pleasant place," Mr. Hazlewood admitted. "If not too draughty with those two windows."

"You must scratch a motto on the pane with the diamond-pencil," Guy suggested.

"My motto is hard work."

"Well, write that. Or at any rate put your initials and the date."

His father took up the pencil with that expression of superiority which Guy most hated, and scratched his name rather awkwardly on the gla.s.s.

"I hope people won't suppose that is my ordinary hand," he said, grimly regarding the _John Hazlewood_ of his inscription. During tea Guy wondered when he ought introduce the subject of Pauline. Beyond G.o.dbold's unfortunate allusion on the drive, nothing had been said by either of them; and Plashers Mead had not as yet effected that enchantment of his father's senses which would seem to proclaim the moment as propitious. How remote they were from one another, sitting here at tea! Really his father had not accorded him any salutation more cordial than the coldly absent-minded 'good dog' he had just given to Bob. Yet there must be points of contact in their characters. There must be in himself something of his father. He could not so ridiculously resemble him and yet have absolutely nothing mentally in common. Perhaps his father did himself an injustice by his manner, for after all he had presented him with that 150. If he could only probe by some remark a generous impulse, Guy felt that in himself the affection of wonted intercourse over many years would respond immediately with a warmth of love. His father had cared greatly for his mother; and could not the love they had both known supply them with the point of sympathetic contact that would enable them to understand the ulterior intention of their two diverging lives?

"It was awfully good of you, Father, to come down and stay here," said Guy. "I've really been looking forward to showing you the house. I think, perhaps, you understand now how much I've wanted to be here?"

Guy waited anxiously.

"I've never thought you haven't wanted to be here," his father replied.

"But between what we want and what we owe there is a wide gap."

Oh, why was a use to be made of these out-of-date weapons? Why could not one or two of his prejudices be surrendered, so that there were a chance of meeting him half-way?

"But sometimes," said Guy desperately, "inclination and duty coincide."

"Very rarely, I'm afraid, in this world."

"Do they in the next then?" asked Guy a little harshly, hating the conventionality of the answer that seemed to crystallize the intellectual dishonesty of a dominie's existence. He knew that the next world was merely an arid postulate which served for a few theorems and problems of education, and that duty and desire must only be kept apart on account of the hierarchical formulae of his craft. He must eternally appear as half-inhuman as all the rest of the Pharisees: priests, lawyers and schoolmasters, they were all alike in relying for their livelihood upon a capacity for depreciating human nature.

"I was merely using a figure of speech," said his father.

Exactly, thought Guy, and how was he ever to justify his love for Pauline to a man whose opinions could never be expressed except in figures of speech? He made up his mind to postpone the visit to the Rectory until to-morrow. Evidently it was not going to be made even moderately easy to broach the subject of Pauline.

"I expect you'd like to have a look at some of my work," he suggested.

"Very much," said Mr. Hazlewood; and in a moment with his dry a.s.sent he had reduced all his son's achievement to the level of a fifth-form composition. Guy took the ma.n.u.scripts out of his desk, and disengaging from the heap any poems that might be ascribed to the influence of Pauline, he presented the rest to his father. Mr. Hazlewood settled himself as comfortably as he could ever seem to be comfortable and solemnly began to read without comment. Guy would have liked to get up and leave him alone, for though he a.s.sured himself that the opinion whether favourable or unfavourable did not matter, his suspense was sharp and the inexpression of his father's demeanour, that a.s.sumption of tutorial impartiality, kept him puzzling and unable to do anything but watch the critic's face and toy mechanically with the hair of Bob's sentimental head upon his knee.

At last the ma.n.u.scripts were finished, and Guy sat back for the verdict.

"Oh, yes, I like some very much," said Mr. Hazlewood. "But I can't help thinking that all of them could have been written as well in recreation after the arduousness of a decent profession. However, you've burned your boats as far as Fox Hall is concerned, and I shall certainly be the first to congratulate you, if you bring your ambition to a successful issue."

"You mean monetarily?" Guy asked.

His father did not answer.

"You wouldn't count as a successful issue recognition from the people who care for poetry?" Guy went on.

"I'm not particularly impressed by contemporary taste," said Mr.

Hazlewood. "We seem to me to be living in a time when all the great men have gone, and the new generation does not appear likely to fill very adequately the gap they have left."

"I wonder if there has ever been a time when people have not said just what you're saying? Do you seriously think you'd recognize a great man if you saw him?"

"I hope I should," said his father looking perfectly convinced that he would.

"Well, I don't believe you would," said Guy. "How do you know I'm not a great man?"

His father laughed dryly.

"I don't know, my dear Guy, of course and nothing would gratify me more than to find out that you were. But at least you'll allow me to observe that _great_ men are generally remarkable for their modesty."

"Yes, after they've been accorded the homage of the world," Guy argued.

"They can afford to be modest then. I fancy that most of them were self-confident in their youth. I hope they were, poor devils. It must have been miserable for most of them, if they weren't."

"However," said Mr. Hazlewood. "All these theories of juvenile grandeur, interesting though they may be, do not take us far along the road of practical politics. I'm to understand, am I, that you are quite determined to remain here?"

"For another year at any rate," Guy said. "That is until I have a volume of poems ready."

"And your engagement?" asked his father.