Years of Plenty Part 33

But both knew that it was more than half the truth.

Their letters of renunciation crossed.

Chance and John Berrisford had been powerful allies.

X

On a still October afternoon Martin lay where the first slopes of Grey Knotts go sweeping up to the great mountain ma.s.s of The Gables and the Scawfells. He looked down upon Seatoller, diminutive below him, and on the curving beauty of Borrowdale, burnished with late bracken, aflame with autumnal trees. Behind him he knew, he felt, were the mountains that he loved, stretching crag upon crag to the desolate screes of Wast Water and the glimpse of the shimmering sea. Borrowdale ... there flashed suddenly upon his mind the verse of the Elfreyan poet and he quoted it now to the winds and rocks and a curious stone-finch:

"'The flaming bracken fires the breast Of bosky Borrowdale, Down swoops the sun in a riot of red Behind Scawfell to a watery bed, And the moon hath clomb o'er Skiddaw's head, So perfect and so pale."

With that pathetic verse came other memories, flowing torrentially through the opened flood-gates of his mind. For five years he had forgotten Elfrey and Berney's and all his schoolday toils and triumphs.

Only one week-end had he spent there and that in his 'fresher' year.

He had forgotten because Oxford had been so generous and had given him so much to think and feel and say. But now his recollections seemed strangely vivid despite their long storage in the lumber-room of his mind. Foskett had made another step on the pathway of prosperity, but Berney was still at work: Vickers had moved to higher things, but Barmy Walters lingered on, for he had reached the dotage in which years add nothing to decay. The same old jokes would be played, the crashing of the instrument-boxes, the pa.s.sing of fruit-bags and biscuit tins, and the pollution of his water with ink. And somehow, against the promptings of conscience, Martin felt that it was right for these things to go on. Poor Barmy! But with his uncle he believed in Inst.i.tutions.

Then the amazing disappearance of people broke in upon his mind.

Spots, for instance. His career had flickered out at Cambridge, where they had despised his athletics. Drink, perhaps. Cullen and Neave, surely they must be in the motor trade. Gregson had vanished utterly.

Everything demanded that he should be writing for the Rationalist Press, but where was he? Anstey was at the Bar, Rayner a subaltern in India. 'Granny' had recently been head of Berney's, Granny whom Martin had loathed and swiped. It seemed unreal and impossible. But now, as he looked back over that gap of five years, he realised that Elfrey with all its troubles and its narrowness had been kind. The avenging of Gideon and the night of pitchers, the bowling of "googlies," the friendship of Finney ... astonishing that things so good should have slipped away. Lazily chewing the long sweet stems of gra.s.s, he refought a hundred skirmishes.

More recent memories came floating down upon the stream. Galer and his 'deemagogues,' the Push, Chard and his career: very soon he would be paying a long farewell to all this world of evanescence. For such a world it was, good but transitory. It was not real as life's work would be real. True that Chard had taken his Union career as seriously as death itself, true that the Push had been serious about their discussions, those night-long tussles about G.o.d and Woman and the Universe: and anything taken seriously has value of a kind. But had their value been greater than that of an amusing prologue or a curtain-raiser which it would have been unfortunate to miss? It was good that these things should have been: it was not good that they should be for ever.

And Freda? World of evanescence again! She had pa.s.sed so utterly away that Martin could scarcely believe in the events and emotions of the winter. He had no regrets, and he believed that she had none: of late his plans and prospects had moved at such a pace that wounds could not linger and were easily forgotten. They had rendered each other mutual service and mutual relief. Once he had thought that he loved, but now he knew of his mistake: Freda had spoken the obvious truth when she said: "You aren't really in love with me, you're in love with love."

He had wanted sympathy and in his quest had idealised the first woman who gave it him. Only a fortnight ago his uncle had said: "Remember you're still only twenty-three. You haven't found out everything about life--or love." He had said it kindly and he had been right.

Now indeed he had fiercely reacted against his search for sympathy.

Surely a man should be able to face his work and go through with it, even if it was agony to do so, without running to a woman's arms for comfort. He was ashamed of his cowardice of the winter. Upon the hillside with the exhilaration of autumn in his blood it seemed so easy to face things and be resolute. This love! It was like religion, just Funk. Then he paused, angry with himself. He was erring as much on the one side as he had lately erred on the other. He could understand pa.s.sionate desire: he could understand sentimentality, for he had not forgotten Lawrence's defence of The Little Grey Home. But this Love--of which one heard and read--what was it? Perhaps some day...

He surrendered to his visions ... and he would come back with her to a good house in Devon, very square and grey, with smooth lawns and paddocks and covert-clad hills behind. There would he become an initiate in the avuncular mystery of Ham and Eggs. That religion at least he had it in him to respect.

Rendell and Lawrence were coming up the hill; they had been together for a week at Seatoller, renewing last year's successful holiday, and to-morrow they were to separate. It was the last reunion, for Martin was to sail next month. The other two had stayed in after lunch to answer letters: Martin was to await them on the hill and then they would walk.

As he watched them plodding up to him his mind wandered to the future.

When they reached him they were out of breath and demanded a moment's rest before they moved on. They lay in silence, basking in the strong October sun.

"I've been thinking," exclaimed Martin suddenly.

"Good," said Rendell. "Let's have it."

"It's about this India business. I think I'm glad on the whole."

"Well, I've had a year of the city," muttered Lawrence, "and I don't recommend it."

"After all, it's doing something," Martin went on. "Good or bad, it's action, administration, government of a sort. If I stayed in London, I would find it jolly hard to work: I'd probably do as the rest, just loaf."

"Thank you," said Rendell.

"I wasn't alluding to you. You haven't the talent for loafing, and I think I have, in a mild kind of way. It won't be bad for me to desert the world of conversations and ideas."

The other two remained silent, gazing at the wonderful valley below.

Martin wished they would speak. He did not know whether he really believed in what he was saying or whether he was trying to believe in it because there was comfort in such faith. If only one of them would confirm his opinions!

"Don't you ever feel that it's all petty and limited?" Martin continued. "Living in London, I mean, and never seeing the world and how it's run and the different tastes of men and the tendencies and forces? I want to get into the middle of it and, if I've got to do Government work, then I don't mind doing that. It isn't merely negative, like most of a barrister's work."

Eternal honesty and reliability of man with man! A woman would have caught his anxious tones and given him sympathy and confirmation at the expense of belying her convictions. Rendell merely said what he felt and later Martin was glad of it.

"If that is the case," Rendell answered quietly, "you're plainly the man for the job. It isn't often that the Empire gets an intelligent person who cares about his work."

"I believe I'll like it when I'm there," Martin added. "Of course I know there will be gaps and times of despair. But I feel that I have had my seven fat years and it's up to me to face seven lean ones. Then fatness ought to come again."

"Which, being interpreted," said Lawrence, "means seven years or so in the wilderness and then better jobs and a big screw and no end of a career."

"I won't be as detailed as that. But as I've got to eat the pie I shall dig about for the plums. What do you think, Rendell, K.C., M.P.?"

"I agree."

"And you, Lord Mayor?"

"I have every intention of making at least five thousand a year. My G.o.d, yes. If I go into that city I'll d.a.m.ned well fetch something out."

"Anyhow," said Martin after a pause, "we have had years of plenty. It was all good, the Push and digs and everything."

Rendell agreed. "It couldn't have been managed much better," he said.

"We had some capital times."

Lawrence yawned vastly. "You emotional lads," he said, "will soon be calling the Old School Ithaca and talking about 'stern nurses of men'

and 'dreaming spires.' I can't allow it. Let's walk."

They rose and went up silently into the hills like men who understand about walking.

THE END