Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution Part 1

Rest Harrow.

by Maurice Hewlett.

BOOK I

OF THE NATURE OF A PROLOGUE, DEALING WITH A BRUISED PHILOSOPHER IN RETIREMENT

I

An observant traveller, homing to England by the Ostend-Dover packet in the April of some five years ago, relished the vagaries of a curious couple who arrived by a later train, and proved to be both of his acquaintance. He had happened to be early abroad, and saw them come on.

They were a lady of some personal attraction, comfortably furred, who, descending from a first-cla.s.s carriage, was met by a man from a third- cla.s.s, bare-headed, free in the neck, loosely clad in grey flannel trousers which flapped about his thin legs in the sea-breeze, a white sweater with a rolling collar, and a pair of sandals upon brown and sinewy feet uncovered by socks: these two. The man's garniture was extraordinary, but himself no less so. He had a lean and deeply bronzed face, hatchet- shaped like a Hindoo's. You looked instinctively for rings in his ears.

His moustache was black and sinuous, outlining his mouth rather than hiding it. His hair, densely black, was longish and perfectly straight.

His eyes were far-sighted and unblinking; he smiled always, but furtively, as if the world at large amused him, but must never know it. He seemed to observe everything, except the fact that everybody observed himself.

To have once seen such a man must have provided for his recollection; and yet our traveller, who was young and debonnaire, though not so young as he seemed, first recognised the lady. "Mrs. Germain, by George!" This to himself, but aloud, "Now, where's she been all this time?" The frown which began to settle about his discerning eyes speedily dissolved in wonder as they encountered the strange creature in the lady's company. He stared, he gaped, then slapped his thigh. "Jack Senhouse! That's the man. G.o.d of battles, what a start! Now, what on earth is Jack Senhouse doing, playing courier to Mrs. Germain?"

That was precisely the employment. His man had handed the lady out of her compartment, entered it when she left it, and was possessing himself of her littered vestiges while these speculations were afloat. Dressing-case, tea-basket, umbrellas, rugs, and what not, he filled his arms with them, handed them over to expectant porters, then smilingly showed their proprietress the carriage ridded. He led the way to the steamer, deposited his burdens and saw to the bestowal of others, fetched a chair, wrapped her in rugs, found her book, indicated her whereabouts to a mariner in case of need. All this leisurely done, in the way of a man who has privilege and duty for his warrants. Enquiring then, with an engaging lift of the eyebrows, whether she was perfectly comfortable, and receiving with a pleasant nod her answering nod of thanks, he left her and returned to the train. Tracked through the crowd, and easily by his height, bare head, and leisurely motions, he was next seen shouldering a canvas bag on his way back to the boat. Jack's belongings, his bag of tricks; Jack all over, the same inexhaustible Jack! It was delightful to our traveller to find Jack Senhouse thus verifying himself at every turn. He was for the steerage, it appears--and of course he was!--where depressed foreigners share with bicycles, motor cars, and newly boiled pigs the amenities of economical travel. In this malodorous and slippery well his interested friend saw him sit down upon his bundle, roll a cigarette, and fall into easy conversation with an Italian voyager who, having shaved, was now putting on a clean collar and a tartan necktie.

The traveller, Mr. William Chevenix, who had watched him so long, a well- dressed and cheerful Englishman of some five-and-thirty summers, with round eyes in a round and rosy face, now a.s.suring himself that he would be d.a.m.ned if he didn't have it out with the chap, descended the companion, picked his way through the steerage, and approached the seated philosopher. He saw that he was known, and immediately. Nothing escaped Senhouse.

"How d'ye do, how d'ye do?" He held out his hand. Senhouse rose and grasped it. The Italian took off his hat, and strolled away.

"I'm very well, thanks," he said. "Have you noticed those sh.o.r.es beyond the ca.n.a.l? Samphire there just as we have it at home. Leagues of samphire."

The younger man looked in the direction indicated cheerfully and blankly.

"'The samphire by the ocean's brim,'" he said lightly. "I attach no importance to it whatever, but it's very like you to lift one into your privacy at a moment's notice. I'm all for the formalities myself, so I observe that I haven't seen you for years. Years! Not since--why, it must be eighteen."

"It's precisely eight," said Senhouse, "and I've been abroad for four of them."

His friend inspected him with candid interest. "At your old games, I take it. You've filled England with hardy perennials and now you're starting on Europe. Great field for you. You'll want a pretty big trowel, though. A wheelbarrow might be handy, I should have said."

Senhouse fired. "I've been planting the Black Forest, you see. Great games. They gave me a free hand, and ten thousand marks a year to spend.

I've done some rather showy things. Now I want to go to Tibet."

The other's attention had wandered. "I saw you come on board," he said. "I watched you play the Squire of Dames to a rather pretty woman whom I happen to know. She was a Mrs. Germain in those days."

"She still calls herself so," Senhouse said. He was staring straight before him out to sea. The steamer was under way.

"Married a queer old file in Berkshire, who died worth a plum. Goodish time ago. They called him Fowls, or Fowls of the Air. So she's still a widow, eh?"

Senhouse nodded. "She's his widow." Then he asked, "You know her? You might go and amuse her. I can't, because of these bonds." He exhibited his sockless feet with a cheerful grin.

"Oh, I shall, you know," he was a.s.sured. "You're not dressy enough for Mrs. Germain. She'd never stand it."

"She doesn't," said Senhouse. "She dislikes a fuss, and thinks me rather remarkable."

"Well," said the other, "I think she's right. You always were a conspicuous beggar. Now look at me. Think I'll do?"

Senhouse peered at him. "I think you are exactly what she wants just now,"

he said. "Go in and approve yourself, Chevenix."

Mr. Chevenix, the spick and span, had something on his mind, however, which he did not know how to put. He continued to reflect upon Mrs.

Germain, but only by way of marking time. "She used to be very good fun in my young days. And she made things spin in Berkshire, they tell me. I know she did in London--while it lasted. What's she doing? There was a chap called Duplessis, I remember."

"There still is," Senhouse said, but in such a manner as to chalk No Thoroughfare across the field. Chevenix perceived this rather late in the day, and ended his ruminations in a whistle. "She kept him dangling--" he had begun. Instead of pursuing, he said abruptly, "I say, you remember Sancie Percival, of course."

A change came over Senhouse's aspect which a close observer might have noticed. He was very quiet, hardly moved; but he seemed to be listening with all his senses, listening with every pore of his skin. "Yes," he said, slowly. "Yes, I do; I'm not likely to forget her. She was my dearest friend, and is so still, I hope."

The solemnity of his intended message clouded Mr. Chevenix's candid brow.

"She's still at Wanless, you know."

Senhouse set a watch upon himself. "No doubt she is," he said. "She's well?"

The other probed him. "She's never made it up with her people. I think she feels it nowadays."

Senhouse asked sharply, "Where's Ingram?"

"Ingram," said Chevenix, "is just off for a trip. He's to be abroad for a year. India."

Senhouse shivered. "Alone?"

"Well, without her, anyhow. He always was a casual beggar, was Nevile." He could see now that he was making a hit. "Got old Senhouse where he lives,"

he told himself, and then continued. "Fact is, I've been out with him as far as Brindisi. He asked me to. I had nothing to do. But I want to see Sancie Percival again. I was awfully fond of her--of the whole lot of them." He reflected, as .a man might deliberate upon familiar things, and discover them to be wonders. "What a family they were, by Jove! Five--of-- the--loveliest girls a man could meet with. Melusine, what a girl she was!

Married Tubby Scales--fat chap with a cigar. Vicky, now. How about Vicky?

She was my chum, you know. She's married, too. Chap called Sinclair--in the Guides. But Sancie beat them all in her quiet way. A still water-- what?"

Senhouse, his chin clasped in his bony hands, contemplated the sea. His face was drawn and stern. There was a queer twitching of the cheek-bones.

"Got him, by Jove!" said Mr. Chevenix to himself, and pushed on. "I say, I wish you'd go and see her," he said.

Senhouse got up and leaned over the bulwarks. He was plainly disturbed.

Chevenix waited for him nervously, but got nothing.

Then he said, "The fact is, Senhouse, I think that you should go. You were the best friend she ever had." Senhouse turned him then a tragic face.

"No, I wasn't," he said. "I think I was the worst."

Chevenix blinked. "I know what you mean. If it hadn't been for you and your confounded theories, you imply that she--"

"I don't know--" Senhouse began. "G.o.d only knows what she might have done.

She was not of our sort, you know. I always said that she was unhuman."

"That's the last thing she was," said Chevenix, neatly. Senhouse scorned him.

"You don't know anything about it," he said. "What are the doings of this silly world, of our makeshift appearances, to the essentials? Antics-- filling up time! You speak as if she gave Ingram everything, and lost it.

She did, but he never knew it--so never had it. Ingram had what he was fitted to receive. Her impulse, her impulsion were divine. She has lost nothing--and he has gained nothing."

"If you talk philosophy I'm done," cried Mr. Chevenix. "Well, I say to you, my boy, Go and see her. She's so far human that she's got a tongue, and likes to wag it, I suppose. I don't say that there's trouble, and I don't say there's not. But there are the makings of it. She's alone, and may be moped. I don't know. You'd better judge for yourself."