The Wooden Horse Part 11

It is so nice to have some one new in Pendragon--one gets used, you know, to the same faces and tired of them. In my old home, Penlicott in Surrey, near Marlwood Beeches--you change at Grayling Junction--or you used to; I think you go straight through now. But _there_ you know we knew everybody. You really couldn't help it. There was really only the Vicar and the Doctor, and he was so old. Of course there were the Draytons; you must have heard of Mr. Herbert Drayton--he paints things--I forget quite what, but I know he's good. They all lived there--such a lot of them and most peculiar in their habits; but one gets used to anything. They all lived together for some time, about fifteen there were. Mother and I dined there once or twice, and they had the funniest dining-room with pictures of Job all round the room that were most queer and rather disagreeable; and they all liked different things to drink, so they each had a bottle--of something--separately. It looked quite funny to see the fifteen bottles, and then 'Job' on the wall, you know."

But he really hadn't paid very much attention to her. He had been thinking and wondering. How was it that a man like Bethel had married such a wife? He supposed that things had been different twenty years ago, with them as with him. It was strange to think of the difference that twenty years could make. She had been, perhaps, a little pretty, dainty thing then--the style of girl that a strong man like Bethel would fall in love with. Then he thought of Miss Bethel--what was her life with a mother like that and a father who never thought about her at all? She must, he thought, be lonely. He almost hoped that she was. It gave them kinship, because he was lonely too. The conversation was not very animated; Mrs. Bethel was suddenly silent--she seemed to have collapsed with the effort, and sat huddled up in her chair, with her hands in her lap.

He realised that he had said nothing to Miss Bethel, and he turned to her. "You know London?" he said. He wondered whether she longed for it sometimes--its excitement and life.

"Oh yes," she said quickly; "we were there, you know, a long while ago, and I've been up once or twice since. But it makes one feel so dreadfully small, as if one simply didn't count, and no woman likes that."

"Pendragon makes one feel smaller," Harry said. "When one is of no account even in a small place, then one is small indeed."

He had not intended to speak bitterly, but she had caught the sound of it in his voice and she was suddenly sorry for him. She had been a little afraid of him before--even on that terrible afternoon at "The Flutes"; but now she saw that he was disappointed--he had expected something and it had failed him.

She said nothing then, and the meal came to an end. Bethel dragged Harry into his study to see the books. There was the same untidiness here. The table was littered with papers and pens, tobacco jars, numerous pipes, some photographs. From the floor to the ceiling were books--rows on rows--flung apparently into the shelves with no order or method.

"I'm no good as far as books go," said Harry, laughing. "There never was such a heathen. There have always been other things to do, and I must confess it is a mystery to me how men get time to read at all. If I do get time I'm generally done up, and a novel's the only thing I'm fit for."

"Ah, then, you don't know the book craze," Bethel Said. "It's worse than drink. I've seen it absolutely ruin a man. You can't stop--if you see a book you must get it, whether you really want it or no. You go on buying and buying and buying. You get far more than you can ever read. But you're a miser and you hate even lending them. You sit in your room and count the covers, and you're no fit company for man or beast."

Harry looked at him--"You've known it?"

"Oh yes! I've known it. I'm a bit better now--I'm out such a lot.

But even now there's a great deal here that I've never read, and I add to it continually. The worst of it is," he said, laughing, "that we can't afford it. It's very hard on Mary and the wife, but I'm a rotten loafer, and that's the end of it."

He said it so gaily and with so little sense of responsibility that you couldn't possibly think that it weighed on him. But he looked such a boy, standing there with his hands in his pockets and that half-penitent, half-humorous look in his eyes, that you couldn't be angry. Harry laughed.

"Upon my word, you're amazing!"

"Oh! you'll get sick of me. It's all so selfish and slack, I know.

But I struggled once--I'm in the grip now." He talked about Borrow and displayed a little grey-bound "Walden" with pride. He spoke of Richard Jefferies with an intimate affection as though he had known the man.

He gave Harry some of his enthusiasm, and he lent him "Lavengro." He described it and Harry compared mentally Isobel Berners with Mary Bethel.

Then they went up to the little drawing-room--an ugly room, but redeemed by a great window overlooking the sea, and a large photograph of Mary on the mantelpiece. Under the light of the lamp the silver frame glittered and sparkled.

He sat by the window and talked to her, and again he had that same curious sense of having known her before: he spoke of it.

"I expect it's in another existence then," she said; "as I've never been into New Zealand and you've never been out of it--at least, since I've been born. But, of course, I've talked about you to Robin. We speculated, you know. We hadn't any photographs much to help us, and it was quite a good game."

"Ah! Robin!"

"I want to speak to you about him," she said, turning round to him.

"You won't think me interfering, will you? but I've meant to speak ever since the other day. I was afraid that, perhaps--don't think it dreadfully rude of me--you hadn't quite understood Robin. He's at a difficult age, you know, and there are a lot of things about him that are quite absurd. And I have been afraid that you might take those absurdities for the real things and fancy that that was all that was there. Cambridge--and other things--have made him think that a certain sort of att.i.tude is essential if you're to get on. I don't think he even sincerely believes in it. But they have taught him that he must, at least, seem to believe. The other things are there all right, but he hides them--he is almost ashamed of any one suspecting their existence."

"Thank you!" Harry said quietly. "It is very kind of you and I'm deeply grateful. It's quite true that Robin and I haven't seemed to hit it off properly. I expect that it is my fault. I have tried to see his point of view and have the same interests, but every effort that I've made has seemed to make things worse. He distrusts me, I think, and--well--of course, that hurts. All the things in which I had hoped we would share have no interest for him."

"Don't you think, perhaps," she said, "that you've been a little too anxious--perhaps, a little too affectionate? I am speaking like this because I care for Robin so much. We have been such good friends for years now, and I think he has let me see a side of him that he has hidden from most people. He is curiously sensitive, and really, I think, very shy; and most of all, he has a perfect horror of being absurd. That is what I meant about your being affectionate. He would think, perhaps, that the rest were laughing at him. It's as if you were dragging something that was very sacred and precious out into the light before all those others. Boys are like that; they are terrified lest any one should know what good there is in them--it isn't quite good form."

They were silent for some time. Harry was throwing her words like a searchlight on the events of the past week, and they revealed much that had been very dark and confused. But he was thinking of her. Their acquaintance seemed to have grown into intimacy already.

"I can't thank you enough," he said again.

"It is so nice of you," she said laughing, "not to have thought it presumptuous of me. But Robin is a very good friend of mine. Of course you will find out what a sterling fellow he is--under all that superficiality. He is one of my best friends here!"

He got up to go. As he held out his hand, he said: "I will tell you frankly, Miss Bethel, that Pendragon hasn't received me with open arms.

I don't know why it should--and twenty years in New Zealand knocks the polish off. But it has been delightful this evening--more than you know."

"It has been nice for us too," Mary answered. "I don't know that Pendragon is exactly thronging our door night and day--and a new friend is worth having. You see I've claimed you as a friend because you listened so patiently to my sermon--that's a sure test."

She had spoken lightly but he had felt the bitterness in her voice.

Life was hard for her too, then? He knew that he was glad.

"I shall come back," he said.

"Please," she answered.

He said good-bye to Mrs. Bethel and she pressed his hand very warmly.

"You are very kind to take pity on us," she said, ogling him under the gas in the hall; "I hope you will come often."

Bethel said very little. He walked with him to the gate and laughed.

"We're absurd, aren't we, Trojan?" he said. "But don't neglect us altogether. Even absurdity is refreshing sometimes."

But Harry went up the hill with a happier heart than he had had since he entered Pendragon.

That promise of adventure had been fulfilled.

CHAPTER VI

Randal was only at "The Flutes" two days, but he effected a good deal in that time. He did nothing very active--called on Mrs. le Terry and rode over the Downs once with Robin--but he managed to leave a flock of very active impressions behind him. That, as he knew well, was his strong point. He could not be with you a day without vaguely, almost indistinctly, but nevertheless quite certainly, influencing your opinions. He never said anything very definite, and, on looking back, you could never a.s.sert that he had positively taken any one point of view; but he had left, as it were, atmosphere--an a.s.surance that this was the really right thing to do, this the proper att.i.tude for correct breeding to adopt. It was always, with him, a case of correct breeding, and that was why the Trojans liked him so very much.

"Randal," as Clare said, "knew so precisely who were sheep and who were goats, and he showed you the difference so clearly."

Whenever he came to stay some former acquaintances were dropped as being, perhaps, not quite the right people. He never said that any one was not the right person, that would be bad breeding, but you realised, of your own accord, that they were not quite right. That was why the impression was so strong--it seemed to come from yourself; your eyes were suddenly opened and you wondered that you hadn't seen it before.

He said very little of Trojan people this time; the main result of his visit was its effect on Harry's position.

Had you been a stranger you would have noticed nothing; the motto of the gentleman of good breeding is, "The end and aim of all true opinions is the concealing of them from the wrong person."

Randal was exceedingly polite to Harry, so polite that Robin and Clare knew immediately that he disapproved, but Harry was pleased. Randal spoke warmly to Robin. "You are lucky to have such a father, Bob; it's what we all want, you and I especially, a little fresh air let into our Cambridge dust and confusion; it's most refreshing to find some one who cares nothing about all those things that have seemed to us, quite erroneously probably, so valuable. You should copy him, Robin."

But Robin made no reply. He understood perfectly. There had been some qualities in his father that he had, deep down in his nature, admired.

He had seemed to be without doubt a man on whom one could rely in a tight corner, and in spite of himself he had liked his father's frankness. It was unusual. There was always another meaning in everything that Robin's friends said, but there was never any doubt about Harry. He missed the fine shades, of course, and was lamentably lacking in discrimination, but you did know where you were. Robin had, almost reluctantly, admired this before the coming of Randal. But now there could be no question. When Randal was there you had displayed before you the complete art of successful allusion. Nothing was ever directly stated, but everything was hinted, and you were compelled to believe that this really was the perfection of good breeding. Robin admired Randal exceedingly. He took his dicta very seriously and accepted his criticism. The judgment of his father completed the impression that he had begun to receive. He was impossible. Randal was going by the 10.45, and he would walk to the station.

"A whiff of fresh air, Robin, is absolutely essential. You must walk down with me. I hate to go, Miss Trojan."

"Very soon to return, I hope, Mr. Randal," answered Clare. She liked him, and thought him an excellent influence for Robin.

"Thank you--it's very kind--but one's busy, you know. It's been hard enough to s.n.a.t.c.h these few days. Besides, Robin isn't alone in the same way now. He has his father."