The Lee Shore Part 33

Peter was addressing envelopes because a Robinson relative had given him the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't like the winds that play round street corners in winter). But Thomas was very much there, and had to be provided for; so Peter copied letters and addressed envelopes and earned twenty shillings weekly, and out of it paid for Thomas's drink and Thomas's Girl and his own food, and beds and a sitting-room and fires and laundry for both, and occasional luxuries in the way of wooden animals for Thomas to play with. So they were not extremely poor; they were respectably well-to-do. For Thomas's sake, Peter supposed it was worth while not to be extremely poor, even though it meant addressing envelopes and living in a great grey prison-house of a city, where one only surmised the first early pushings of the spring beyond the encompa.s.sing gloom.

Peter used to tell Thomas about that, in order that he might know something of the joyous world beyond the walls. He told Thomas in March, taking time by the forelock, about the early violets that were going some time to open blue eyes in the ditches by the roads where the spring winds walk; about the blackthorn that would suddenly make a white glory of the woods; about the green, sticky budding of the larches, and the keen sweet smell of them, and the damp fragrance of the roaming wind that would blow over river-flooded fields, smelling of bonfires and wet earth. He took him through the seasons, telling him of the blown golden armies of the daffodils that marched out for Easter, and the fragrant white glory of the may; and the pale pink stars of the hedge-roses, and the yellow joy of b.u.t.tercup fields wherein cows stand knee-deep and munch, in order to give Thomas sweet white milk.

"Ugh," said Thomas, making a face, and Peter answered, "Yes, I know; sometimes they come upon an onion-flower and eat that, and that's not nice, of course. But mostly it's gra.s.s and b.u.t.tercups and clover." Then he told him of hot July roads, where the soft white dust lies, while the horses and the cows stand up to their middles in cool streams beneath the willows and switch their tails, and the earth dreams through the year's hot noon; and of August, the world's welfare and the earth's warming-pan, and how, in the fayre rivers, swimming is a sweet exercise. "And my birthday comes then. Oh, 'tis the merry time, wherein honest neighbours make good cheer, and G.o.d is glorified in his blessings on the earth.

Then cometh September, Thomas"--Peter was half talking, half reading out of a book he had got to amuse Thomas--"then cometh September, and then he (that's you, Thomas) doth freshly beginne to garnish his house and make provision of needfull things for to live in winter, which draweth very nere.... There are a few nice things in September; ripe plums and pears and nuts--(no, nuts aren't nice, because our teeth aren't good, are they; at least mine aren't, and you've only got one and a half); but anyhow, plums, and a certain amount of yellow sunshine, and Thomas's birthday.

But on the whole it's too near the end of things; and in briefe, I thus conclude of it, I hold it the Winter's forewarning and the Summer's farewell. Adieu.... We won't pursue the year further, my dear; the rest is silence and impenetrable gloom, anyhow in this corner of the world, and doesn't bear thinking about."

Thus did Peter talk to Thomas of an evening, when they sat together after tea over the fire.

Sometimes he told him news of the world of men. One evening he said to him, very gently and pitifully, "Dear old man, your mother's dead. For her sake, one's glad, I suppose. You and I must try to look at it from her point of view. She's escaped from a poor business. Some day I'll read you the letter she wrote to you and me as she lay dying; but not yet, for I never read you sad things, do I? But some day you may be glad to know that she had thoughts for you at the last. She was sorry she left us, Thomas; horribly, dreadfully sorry.... I wish she hadn't been. I wish she could have gone on being happy till the end. It was my fault that she did it, and it didn't even make her happy. And I suppose it killed her at the last; or would she anyhow have escaped that way before long? But I took more care of her than he did.... And now she'll never come back to us. I've thought sometimes, Thomas, that perhaps she would; that perhaps she would get tired of him, so tired that she would leave him and come back to us, and then you'd have had a mother to do for you instead of only me and the Girl. Poor little Thomas; you'll never have a mother now.

I'm sorry, sorry, sorry about it. Sorry for you, and sorry for her, and sorry for all of us. It's a pitiful world, Thomas, it seems. I wonder how you're going to get through it."

Never before had he talked to Thomas like that. He had been used to speak to him of new-burnisht joys and a world of treasure. But of late Peter had been conscious of increasing effort in being cheerful before Thomas.

It was as if the little too much that breaks had been laid upon him and under it he was breaking. For the first time he was seeing the world not as a glorious treasure-place full of glad things for touch and sight and hearing, full of delightful people and absurd jokes, but as a grey and lonely sea through which one drifted rudderless towards a lee sh.o.r.e. He supposed that there was, somewhere, a lee sh.o.r.e; a place where the winds, having blown their uttermost, ceased to blow, and where wrecked things were cast up at last broken beyond all mending and beyond all struggling, to find the peace of the utterly lost. He had not got there yet; he and his broken boat were struggling in the grey cold waters, which had swept all his cargo from him, bale by bale. From him that hath not shall indeed be taken away even that which he hath.

It was Thomas who caused Peter to think of these things newly; Thomas, who was starting life with so poor a heritage. For Thomas, so like himself, Peter foresaw the same progressive wreckage. Thomas too, having already lost a mother, would lose later all he loved; he would give to some friend all he was and had, and the friend would drop him in the mud and leave him there, and the cold bitterness as of death would go over Thomas's head. He would, perhaps, love a woman too, and the woman would leave him quite alone, not coming near him in his desolation, because he loved her. He would also lose his honour, his profession, and the beautiful things he loved to handle and play with. "And then, when you've lost everything, and perhaps been involved in some of my disgraces, you'll think that at least you and I can stick together and go under together and help each other a little. And I daresay you'll find that I shall say, 'No, I'm going off to Ireland, or Italy, or somewhere; I've had enough of you, and you can jolly well sink or swim by yourself'--so you see you won't have even me to live for in the end, just when you want me most. That's the sort of thing that happens.... Oh, what chance have you?" said Peter very bitterly, huddled, elbows on knees, over the chilly fire, while Thomas slumbered in a shawl on the rug.

Bitterness was so strange in Peter, so odd and new, that Thomas was disturbed by it, and woke and wailed, as if his world was tumbling about his ears.

Peter too felt it strange and new, and laughed a little at it and himself as he comforted Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose--how that goes on and on through a lifetime! But at last it seems that the limit is reached, something snaps and breaks, and the loser rises up, philosopher no more, to take and grasp and seize. The l.u.s.t to possess, to wring something for Thomas and himself out of life that had torn from them so much--it sprang upon him like a wild beast, and fastened deep fangs into his soul and will.

Outside, a small April wind stirred the air of the encompa.s.sing city, a faint breath from a better world, seeming to speak of life and hope and new beginnings.

Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and Thomas, s.n.a.t.c.h some of it for themselves? The old inborn l.u.s.t for things concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat.

In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house or shop and carried away what he could of its beauties, and brought them home to Thomas, saying, "Anyhow, here's something for us to go on with."

He was in the mood in which some people take to drink, only Peter didn't like any drinks except non-alcoholic ones; or to reckless gambling, only he didn't find gambling amusing; or to some adventure of love, only to Peter love meant one thing only, and that was beyond his reach.

But when he had put Thomas to bed, in his little common cheap night-shirt, he went out into the streets with his weekly earnings in his pockets and spent them. He spent every penny he had. First he went to a florist's and bought daffodils, in great golden sheaves. Then he went to a toyshop and got a splendid family of fluffy beasts, and a musical box, and a Noah's Ark, and a flute. He had spent all his money by then, so he p.a.w.ned his watch and signet ring and bought Thomas some pretty cambric clothes and a rocking cradle. He had nothing else much to p.a.w.n. But he badly wanted some j.a.panese paintings to put in the place of the pictures that at present adorned the sitting-room. Thomas and he must have something nice and gay to look at, instead of the Royal Family and the Monarch of the Glen and "Grace Sufficient" worked in crewels. So he went into a shop in Holborn and chose some paintings, and ordered them to be sent up, and said, "Please enter them to me," so firmly that they did. Having done that once, he repeated it at several other shops, and sometimes they obeyed him and sometimes said that goods could not be sent up without pre-payment. Pre-payment (or, indeed, as far as Peter could look forward, post-payment) being out of the question, those goods had to be left where they were. But Peter, though handicapped by shabby attire, had an engaging way with him, and most shopmen are trustful and obliging. If they lost by the transaction, thought Peter recklessly, it was their turn to lose, not his. It was his turn to acquire, and he had every intention of doing so. He had a glorious evening, till the shops shut. Then he went home, and found that the daffodils had come, and he filled the room with them, converting its dingy ugliness into a shining glory. Then he took down all the horrible pictures and texts and stacked them behind the sofa, awaiting the arrival of the j.a.panese paintings. He thought Thomas would like the paintings as much as he did himself. Their room in future should be a bright and pleasant place, fit for human beings to live in.

He cleared the chimney-piece of its horrid, tinkling ornaments to leave s.p.a.ce for his brown pottery jars full of daffodils. He put the ornaments with the pictures behind the sofa, and when the Girl came in with his supper requested her at her leisure to remove them.

"I have been getting some new pictures, you see," he told her, and was annoyed at the way her round eyes widened. Why shouldn't he get as many new pictures as he chose, without being gaped at?

There was more gaping next day, when his purchases were sent up. He had warned his landlady and the Girl beforehand, that they might not tell the messengers it must be a mistake and send them away, on what would, no doubt be their stupid and impertinent impulse. So they gaped and took them in, and Peter hurried back early from his work and fetched Thomas in to watch him open parcels and admire the contents. He spread bright rugs over the horse-hair sofa and chairs, and flung big soft cushions about them, and said "Hurrah! The first time I've been really comfortable since I left Cambridge." Then he bathed Thomas and put him into a new little soft cambric night-shirt, and put him to bed in the rocking-cradle.

Thomas was delighted with it all. He had no doubt inherited Peter's love of all things bright and beautiful, and now for the first time he had them.

"That's more the style, isn't it, old man?" said Peter, stretching himself among cushions in the arm-chair. Thomas agreed that it was, and the two epicureans took their ease among the pleasures of the senses.

"What next?" Peter wondered. "We must have more things still, mustn't we?

Nice things of all sorts; not only the ones we can buy. But we must begin with the ones we can buy.... Mrs. Baker will have to wait for her rent for a time; I can't spare any for that.... I've a good mind, Thomas, to take a whole holiday; a long one. Chuck the envelopes and take to living like a lord, on tick. It's wonderful how far tick will carry you, if you try. m.u.f.fins for tea, you see, Thomas, only you can't have any. Well, what's the matter? Why shouldn't I have m.u.f.fins for tea? You've got milk, haven't you, and I'm not getting a share in that. Don't be grudging.... But we want more than m.u.f.fins and milk, Thomas; and more than cushions and daffodils and nice pictures. We want a good time. We want friends; we want someone to love us; we want a holiday. If Leslie was in England I'd go and say, 'Thomas and I are coming to stay with you for a time, and you've just got to fork out supplies for us and let us spend them.' Leslie would do it, too. But people are always away when one wants them most.... Oh, hang it all, Thomas, I'm not going on with those horrible envelopes; I'm not. I'm going to do things I like. Why shouldn't I? Why _shouldn't_ I? Lots of people do; all the best people.

I shall give notice to-morrow. No, I shan't; I shall just not turn up, then I shan't be bothered with questions.... And we're not going on with the friends we have here--Mrs. Baker, and the Girl, and the other envelope-gummers. No; we're going to insist on having nice amusing friends to play with; friends who are nicer than we are. The Girl isn't so nice, not by a long way. Rodney is; but he's too busy to be bothered with us much. We want friends of leisure. We will have them; we _will_.

Why should we be chucked out and left outside people's doors, just because they're tired of us? The thing that matters is that we're not tired of them.... To-morrow, Thomas, you and I are going down to a place called Astleys, in Berkshire, to visit some friends of ours. If they don't want us, they can just lump us; good for them. Why should they always have only the things they want? Be ready at nine, old man, and we'll catch a train as soon after that as may be."

Thomas laughed, thinking it a splendid plan. He had never seen Astleys in Berkshire, but he knew it to be a good place, from Peter's voice when he mentioned it.

"But I don't want to excite you so late at night," said Peter, "so don't think any more about it, but go to sleep, if you've finished that milk.

Does your head ache? Mine does. That's the worst of weak heads; they always ache just when things are getting interesting. But I don't care; we're going to have things--things to like; we're going to get hold of them somehow, if we die in gaol for it; and that's worth a headache or two. Someone says something about having nothing and yet possessing all things; it's one of the things with no meaning that people do say, and that make me so angry. It ought to be having nothing and _then_ possessing all things; because that's the way it's going to be with us.

Good night, Thomas; you may go to sleep now."

Thomas did so; and Peter lay on the sofa and gazed at the daffodils in the brown jars that filled the room with light.

CHAPTER XIX

THE NEW LIFE

Peter, with Thomas over his shoulder, stepped out of the little station into a radiant April world. Between green, budding hedges, between ditches where blue violets and joyous-eyed primroses peered up out of wet gra.s.s, a brown road ran, gleaming with puddles that glinted up at the blue sky and the white clouds that raced before a merry wind.

Peter said, "Do you like it, old man? Do you?" but Thomas's heart was too full for speech. He was seeing the radiant wonderland he had heard of; it crowded upon him, a vivid, many-splendoured thing, and took his breath away. There were golden ducklings by the gra.s.sy roadside, and lambs crying to him from the fields, and cows, eating (one hoped) sweet gra.s.s, with their little calves beside them. A glorious scene. The gay wind caught Peter by the throat and brought sudden tears to his eyes, so long used to looking on grey streets.

He climbed over a stile in the hedge and took a field path that ran up to a wood--the wood way, as he remembered, to Astleys. Peter had stayed at Astleys more than once in old days, with Denis. He remembered the keen, damp fragrance of the wood in April; the smooth stems of the beeches, standing up out of the mossy ground, and the way the primroses glimmered, moon-like, among the tangled ground-ivy; and the way the birds made every budding bough rock with their clamorous delight. It was a happy wood, full of small creatures and eager happenings and adventurous quests; a fit road to take questers after happiness to their goal. In itself it seemed almost the goal already, so alive was it and full of joy. Was there need to travel further? Very vividly the impression was borne in on Peter (possibly on Thomas too) that there was no need; that here, perhaps round the next twist of the little brown path, was not the way but the achievement.

And, rounding the next bend, they knew it to be so; for above the path, sitting at a beech-tree's foot among creeping ivy, with head thrown back against the smooth grey stem, and gathered primroses in either hand, was Lucy.

Looking round at the sound of feet on the path, she saw them, and smiled a little, not as if surprised, nor as if she had to change the direction of her thought, but taking them into her vision of the spring woods as if they were natural dwellers in it.

Peter stood still on the path and looked up at her and smiled too. He said, "Oh, Lucy, Thomas and I have come."

She bent down towards them, and reached out her hands, dropping the primroses, for Thomas. Peter gave her Thomas, and she laid him on her lap, cradled on her two arms, and smiled, still silently.

Peter sat down on the sloping ground just below her, his back against another tree.

"We've come to see you and Denis. You won't come to see us, so we had to take it into our own hands. We decided, Thomas and I, two days ago, that we weren't going on any longer in this absurd way. We're going to have a good time. So we went out and got things--lots of lovely things. And I've chucked my horrible work. And we've come to see you. Will Denis mind? I can't help it if he does; we've got to do it."

Lucy nodded, understanding. "I know. In thinking about you lately, I've known it was coming to this, rather soon. I didn't quite know when. But I knew you must have a good time."

After a little while she went on, and her clear voice fell strange and tranquil on the soft wood silence:

"What I didn't quite know was whether you would come and take it--the good time--or whether I should have to come and bring it to you. I was going to have come, you know. I had quite settled that. It's taken me a long time to know that I must: but I do know it now."

"You didn't come," said Peter suddenly, and his hands clenched sharply over the ivy trails and tore them out of the earth, and his face whitened to the lips. "All this time ... you didn't come ... you kept away...."

The memory of that black emptiness shook him. He hadn't realised till it was nearly over quite how bad it had been, that emptiness.

The two pale faces, so like, were quivering with the same pain, the same keen recognition of it.

"No," Lucy whispered. "I didn't come ... I kept away."

Peter said, steadying his voice, "But now you will. Now I may come to you. Oh, I know why you kept away. You thought it would be less hard for me if I didn't see you. But don't again. It isn't less hard. It's--it's impossible. First Denis, then you. I can't bear it. I only want to see you sometimes; just to feel you're there. I won't be grasping, Lucy."

"Yes," said Lucy calmly, "you will. You're going to be grasping in future. You're going to take and have.... Peter, my dear, haven't you reached the place I've reached yet? Don't you know that between you and me it's got to be all or nothing? I've learnt that now. So I tried nothing. But that won't do. So now it's going to be all.... I'm coming to Thomas and you. We three together will find nice things for one another."

Peter's forehead was on his drawn-up knees. He felt her hand touch his head, and shivered a little.

"Denis," he whispered.

She answered, "Denis has everything. Denis won't miss me among so much.