Harding's Luck Part 30

"Shall I go up by myself to where he lives and see if he's all right?"

"Not much," said Mr. Beale; "if I goes I goes, and if I stays away I stays away. It's just the not being able to make me mind up."

"If he's there," said d.i.c.kie, "don't you think you _ought_ to go, just on the chance of him being there and wanting you?"

"If you come to oughts," said Beale, "I oughter gone 'ome any time this twenty year. Only I ain't. See?"

"Well," said d.i.c.kie, "it's your lookout. I know what I should do if it was me."

Remembrance showed him the father who had leaned on his shoulder as they walked about the winding walks of the pleasant garden in old Deptford--the father who had given him the little horse, and insisted that his twenty gold pieces should be spent as he chose.

"I dunno," said Beale. "What you think? Eh, matey?"

"I think _let's_," said d.i.c.kie. "I lay if he's alive it 'ud be as good as three Sundays in the week to him to see you. You was his little boy once, wasn't you?"

"Ay," said Beale; "he was wagoner's mate to one of Lord Arden's men. 'E used to ride me on the big cart-horses. 'E was a fine set-up chap."

To hear the name of Arden on Beale's lips gave d.i.c.kie a very odd, half-pleasant, half-frightened feeling. It seemed to bring certain things very near.

"Let's," he said again.

"All right," said Beale, "only if it all goes wrong it ain't my fault--an' there used to be a foot-path a bit further on. You cut through the copse and cater across the eleven-acre medder, and bear along to the left by the hedge an' it brings you out under Arden Knoll, where my old man's place is."

So they cut and catered and bore along, and came out under Arden Knoll, and there was a cottage, with a very neat garden full of gay flowers, and a brick pathway leading from the wooden gate to the front door. And by the front door sat an old man in a Windsor chair, with a brown spaniel at his feet and a bird in a wicker cage above his head, and he was nodding, for it was a hot day, and he was an old man and tired.

"Swelp me, I can't do it!" whispered Beale. "I'll walk on a bit. You just arst for a drink, and sort of see 'ow the land lays. It might turn 'im up seeing me so sudden. Good old dad!"

He walked quickly on, and d.i.c.kie was left standing by the gate. Then the brown spaniel became aware of True, and barked, and the old man said, "Down, Trusty!" in his sleep, and then woke up.

His clear old eyes set in many wrinkles turned full on d.i.c.kie by the gate.

"May I have a drink of water?" d.i.c.kie asked.

"Come in," said the old man.

And d.i.c.kie lifted the latch of smooth, brown, sun-warmed iron, and went up the brick path, as the old man slowly turned himself about in the chair.

"Yonder's the well," he said; "draw up a bucket, if thy leg'll let thee, poor little chap!"

"I draws water with my arms, not my legs," said d.i.c.kie cheerfully.

"There's a blue mug in the wash-house window-ledge," said the old man.

"Fetch me a drop when you've had your drink, my lad."

Of course, d.i.c.kie's manners were too good for him to drink first. He drew up the dripping oaken bucket from the cool darkness of the well, fetched the mug, and offered it br.i.m.m.i.n.g to the old man. Then he drank, and looked at the garden ablaze with flowers--blush-roses and damask roses, and sweet-williams and candytuft, white lilies and yellow lilies, pansies, larkspur, poppies, bergamot, and sage.

It was just like a play at the Greenwich Theatre, d.i.c.kie thought. He had seen a scene just like that, where the old man sat in the sun and the Prodigal returned.

d.i.c.kie would not have been surprised to see Beale run up the brick path and throw himself on his knees, exclaiming, "Father, it is I--your erring but repentant son! Can you forgive me? If a lifetime of repentance can atone ..." and so on.

If d.i.c.kie had been Beale he would certainly have made the speech, beginning, "Father, it is I." But as he was only d.i.c.kie, he said--

"Your name's Beale, ain't it?"

"It might be," old Beale allowed.

"I seen your son in London. 'E told me about yer garden."

"I should a thought 'e'd a-forgot the garden same as 'e's forgot me,"

said the old man.

"'E ain't forgot you, not 'e," said d.i.c.kie; "'e's come to see you, an 'e's waiting outside now to know if you'd like to see 'im."

"Then 'e oughter know better," said the old man, and shouted in a thin, high voice, "Jim, Jim, come along in this minute!"

Even then Beale didn't act a bit like the prodigal in the play. He just unlatched the gate without looking at it--his hand had not forgotten the way of it, for all it was so long since he had pa.s.sed through that gate.

And he walked slowly and heavily up the path and said, "Hullo, dad!--how goes it?"

And the old man looked at him with his eyes half shut and said, "Why, it _is_ James--so it is," as if he had expected it to be some one quite different.

And they shook hands, and then Beale said, "The garden's looking well."

And the old man owned that the garden 'ud do all right if it wasn't for the snails.

That was all d.i.c.kie heard, for he thought it polite to go away. Of course, they could not be really affectionate with a stranger about. So he shouted from the gate something about "back presently," and went off along the cart track towards Arden Castle and looked at it quite closely. It was the most beautiful and interesting thing he had ever seen. But he did not see the children.

When he went back the old man was cooking steak over the kitchen fire, and Beale was at the sink straining summer cabbage in a colander, as though he had lived there all his life and never anywhere else. He was in his shirt-sleeves too, and his coat and hat hung behind the back-door.

So then they had dinner, when the old man had set down the frying-pan expressly to shake hands with d.i.c.kie, saying, "So this is the lad you told me about. Yes, yes." It was a very nice dinner, with cold gooseberry pastry as well as the steak and vegetables. The kitchen was pleasant and cozy though rather dark, on account of the white climbing rose that grew round the window. After dinner the men sat in the sun and smoked, and d.i.c.kie occupied himself in teaching the spaniel and True that neither of them was a dog who deserved to be growled at. d.i.c.kie had just thrown back his head in a laugh at True's sulky face and stiffly planted paws, when he felt the old man's dry, wrinkled hand under his chin.

"Let's 'ave a look at you," he said, and peered closely at the child.

"Where'd you get that face, eh? What did you say your name was?"

"Harding's his name," said Beale. "d.i.c.kie Harding."

"d.i.c.kie _Arden_, I should a-said if you'd asked _me_," said the old man.

"Seems to me it's a reg'lar Arden face he's got. But my eyes ain't so good as wot they was. What d'you say to stopping along of me a bit, my boy? There's room in the cottage for all five of us. My son James here tells me you've been's good as a son to him."

"I'd love it," said d.i.c.kie. So that was settled. There were two bedrooms for Beale and his father, and d.i.c.kie slept in a narrow, whitewashed slip of a room that had once been a larder. The brown spaniel and True slept on the rag hearth-rug in the kitchen. And everything was as cozy as cozy could be.

"We can send for any of the dawgs any minute if we feel we can't stick it without 'em," said Beale, smoking his pipe in the front garden.

"You mean to stay a long time, then," said d.i.c.kie.

"I dunno. You see, I was born and bred 'ere. The air tastes good, don't it? An' the water's good. Didn't you notice the tea tasted quite different from what it does anywhere else? That's the soft water, that is. An' the old chap.... Yes--and there's one or two other things--yes--I reckon us'll stop on 'ere a bit."

And d.i.c.kie was very glad. For now he was near Arden Castle, and could see it any time that he chose to walk a couple of hundred yards and look down. And presently he would see Edred and Elfrida. Would they know him? That was the question. Would they remember that he and they had been cousins and friends when James the First was King?