The Raft
never sink back into its deep unruffled calm and indifference. Was it
this that the river had tried to tell him, when he had heard it singing,
“Turn back, turn back, turn back”? It still sang, going round the
white feet of the girl in little waves and eddies, but its voice was
indistinct, like that of an old prophet, who mumbles a forgotten and
disregarded message.
The girl at his side stirred. “What do they call you?”
And he returned the question. She leant her head away from him on her
shoulder. “What do you think they call me? What name would suit me best?
But you'd never guess. They call me Cherry, because my lips are red.”
Cherry, because her lips were red! And who were _they_, who had called
her that? He felt jealous of them. _They_ knew so much about her; he
knew nothing. And here was the supreme marvel, that for years she had
been walking in the same world and, until now, he had found no hint
of her. He might have passed her in the street--might have come often
within touching distance of her. Some of this he tried to say to her;
she listened with a faint smile about her mouth. He fell silent, fearing
that he had amused her by his sentiment.
She patted his hand. “D'you know, you're rather wonderful? You put such
private thoughts into words. Do you always think behind things like
that?” Without waiting for him to reply, she continued, “But you never
passed me in the street. You couldn't have met me any earlier, because
I've lived always in America. I was born there. That's where I met----.”
She did not name the Faun Man, but her face clouded. “I must be getting
back,” she ended vaguely.
Outside the wood he would lose her--lose her because she had belonged
to other people first. He would become again a schoolboy, tricycling out
into the country with Kay. It would take years to become a man.
She stood up. “You must go now.”
How sweet and slight she looked, like a tall white flower swaying in the
shadows. He had read in books of spirit-women who, in the bygone days of
romance, had lifted up their faces from amid the bracken to lure knights
aside from their quest; and the knights, having once kissed them,
had lost them and hungered for their lips forever. He wanted to
speak--wanted to say something true, wanted to tell her of this dynamic
change that she had worked for him. All that he could say was, “Cherry”;
and then, “But how shall I find you?”
“Find me!” she laughed, tiptoeing on her bare feet with her hands
clasped behind her head. “Oh, you'll find me,” she nodded.
“But promise.”
She half-closed her eyes, as though tired by his urgency. Then she threw
her hands to her side. “I like you, Peter. I promise.”
Picking up her shoes and stockings she pushed back the bushes. “You're
not to follow.”
He listened. Was she standing there, hidden by the screen of leaves? He
had not heard the rustle of her going. Suddenly the branches were thrust
back, and again he saw her. Her eyes were alight with merriment and her
mouth was puckered. “Oh, little Peter, if you'd only been older----”
Like a secret door in a green wall closing, the branches swished back.
The wood muttered to itself as she went from him, and then fell so
silent that it seemed to stand with its finger pressed against its
mouth.
CHAPTER XXVIII--WAKING UP
The world is a mirror into which we gaze and see the reflection of
ourselves. So far to Peter it had been a foreground of small boys and
their sisters, with a background of occasional adult relatives. But now,
like a fledgling which has grown to strength lying snugly in its nest,
he had looked out and seen the leafy distance below him. His curiosity
was roused; the commonplace was a wonderland. What went on down there?
Where did the parent birds go, and how did they find their way back?
What was the meaning of this sun-and-shadow landscape that people called
“living”? Because he was young, when he looked out of the nest, the
distance below him seemed full of youngness. All that had happened up to
now, the collapse of Aunt Jehane's fortunes, the imprisonment of
Uncle Waffles, his father's problems and the marriage of Grace to her
policeman, were mere stories which he had heard reported. There was
a battle called life, going on somewhere, in which he had never
participated. He was tired of being told about it. He wanted to feel
the rush of wind under his outspread wings; this afternoon, in a gust of
vivid and personal experience, he thought he had felt it. What was
it? By what name should he call it? Because he was only fifteen, love
sounded too large a word. And yet----- If it wasn't love, what was it?
All along the dusty summer road, through the golden evening, as he
tricycled back to London, he argued with himself. Kay interrupted
occasionally and he answered, but his thoughts were elsewhere. They had
discovered the gray-built city of Reality, and went from door to door
tapping, demanding entrance. Ignorance had kept him unadventurous and
contented; his contentedness was breaking down--he was glad of it.
The urgent need was on him to explain creation and his presence in the
world. How were people born? Why did they marry? How did they get money?
The child's mind, like the philosopher's, goes back to fundamentals. All
this outward pageant which had passed before his eyes for fifteeen
years as a sight to be expected, had suddenly become packed with hidden
significance. What was the meaning of this being born, this getting
and spending, this disastrous and glorious loving, struggling and being
buried? There was no one to whom he dared go for an answer; he must find
the explanation within himself. In the isolation of that thought he
felt a great gulf opening between himself and his little sister, between
himself and everyone he loved. Whether he liked it or not, one day he
must grow into a man; he was elated and terrified by the certainty. And
all the while, set to the creaking music of the lumbering tricycle, one
word sung itself over and over, “Cherry, Cherry, Cherry.”
No one, looking at his childish face, would have guessed the grave
suspicions and wild hazards that walked in the desperate loneliness
of his imagination. It was the key to existence that he sought. He had
arrived at that crisis of soul and body, when every child is driven out,
a John the Baptist, into the wilderness of conjecture, there to live on
the locusts and wild honey of hearsay, till he finds the fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge.
As they neared the suburbs, a stream of bicyclists--city clerks riding
out with their sweethearts--met, engulfed and gave them passage. After
all, it was a merry, laughing world! Above the tinkling of bells,
evening birds were calling. All these people, how did they live? Where
did they come from? Had they, too, slept and been awakened questioning,
because a girl had touched them?
Down the road he saw his aunt's cottage. Riska would be there by the
gate, sitting behind her table spread with cakes, mineral-waters and
glasses. He recalled all the things he had heard said of her, things to
which he had paid no attention--that she was a born flirt and that her
mother was teaching her to catch men. As they came up, she lifted her
soft eyes and let them rest on him with contemptuous affection. Why did
she do that? Why did she always seem to despise and tolerate men and
boys? A bicyclist, who had ridden past, turned his head, caught sight of
her and came back slowly. Peter felt that it was not thirst, but Riska's
prettiness that had recalled him. He felt angry with Riska--unreasonably
angry, for she had said and done nothing.
“We're late,” he told her; “we can't stop.”
She nodded. She didn't care. Her whole attitude seemed to tell Peter
that he wasn't worth wasting time on. Just as the pedals had begun
to turn, Glory came out and stood in the porch. She waved to him and
shouted something. He called to her that they were in a hurry. Further
down the road, he turned his head; her eyes followed him.
It was nearly dark when they reached Topbury. Lamps stood like marigold
splashes on the dusk in a quivering line along the Terrace. In the
garden he found his parents, sitting close together beneath the
mulberry-tree like lovers. They drew apart as Kay ran up to them.
“You're late, children.” It was his mother talking. “We were getting
nervous.”
He kissed her; for a moment, the old sense of security returned.
“It's time Kay was in bed.”
She crossed the gravel path with her arm about the little girl, and
disappeared up the white stone steps to the house.
Far away, as of old, like waves about the foot of a cliff, the roar
of London threatened. It seemed to be telling him that he would not be
always sheltered--that one day he would have to launch out, steering in
search of the unknown future by himself. It was not the boldness, but
the loneliness of the adventure that now impressed him.
“Father.”
“Yes.” The voice came to him out of the darkness. “What does it feel
like to become a man?”
“Feel like, Peter! I don't understand.”
“To have to--to have to fight for oneself?”
His father leant out and touched him. “Have you begun to think of that
already? Fight for yourself! You won't have to do that for a long while
yet.”
“But----.” Peter allowed himself to be drawn into the arms of the man
who had always stood between him and the world. “But when the time
comes, I don't want to fail like----,” he was going to have said like
Uncle Waffles, but he said instead, “like some people.” And then, after
a pause, “I feel so unprepared.”
“We've all felt that way, sonny. Somehow we get the strength. You'll get
it.”
Peter sighed contentedly. He was again in the nest with the
creeper-covered walls about him. The strained note had gone out of his
voice when he spoke now. “There's so much to learn. It seems so strange
to think that one day I'll have to grow up, like you, and marry, and
earn money, and have little boys and girls.”
His father laughed huskily. “Very strange! Strange even to me,
Peter--and I've done it: And, d'you know, there are times when even a
man looks back and is surprised that he's grown up. He feels just what
you're feeling--the wonder of it. It seems only the other day that I
was as small as you are; and only the other day that I was frightened of
life and what it meant. Are you frightened?”
For answer Peter stood up. “Not so much frightened as puzzled.”
His father rose and led him out from beneath the leaves, which crowded
above their heads. He pointed up past the roofs of houses. “We couldn't
see them under there,” he said. “Every night they come to their places
and stand, shining. Some one sends them. Some one sent you and me,
Peter. We don't know why. There are people who sit always under
trees and never look up. They'll tell you that there aren't any stars
overhead. We're not like that. We know that whoever is careful enough
to hang lamps on the clouds, is careful enough to watch over us. So we
needn't be afraid of living, need we, old chap?”
Peter pressed his father's hand. “I'll try to remember.”
That night, when the house was all silent, he crept out of bed. Leaning
from the open window, he looked down on London, stretching for miles and
miles, with its huddled roofs spread over its huddled personalities.
Why were things as they were? If some one lit lamps in the heavens and
followed each life with care, why did four women, who loved children,
sit forever with their arms empty, while one sang of the sweet fields
of Eden; and why did Uncle Waffles-----? The questions were unanswerable
and endless. And then, in defiant contrast, there came bounding into
his memory the courageous figure of the Faun Man, with his cavalier
attitudes and strong determination to make of life a laughing affair.