The Raft
moonlight fell between clumped trees and flooded all the meadows. Houses
became more frequent. Above the trotting of the horse the grumble of
traffic was heard. They were descending High-gate Hill; Peter put his
arm about his companion to prevent his slipping forward. He stirred and
muttered, “Poor old Ocky! Too bad! Too bad, going and getting drunk!
Just out of prison and all that.”
Peter bit his lips and drew his brows together. Life--how strange it
was! How slender, and fierce, and pantherlike and cruel! And yet how
beautiful at times and splendid! Who could foresee anything? Last night
he and the same moon had gazed on romance--to-night on disillusion. At
the bottom of the hill lay London, like an immense quarry, tunneled,
lamplit, treacherous, industrious, carved out of the precipice of
darkness. It seemed a clay modeling of a more huge world, placed there
for his inspection. Down there this man at his side had been crushed;
they had cast him out. They had told him, “If you won't come to Heaven,
then you'll have to go to----” Well, he'd been to hell, and now they'd
got to take him back. In his heart Peter dared them to refuse him.
He spoke to the cabby and gave him an address. The man complained of the
lateness of the hour. A reward persuaded him.
They were jingling through side-streets now. They came out on to a broad
road, with trees on either side and houses standing in gardens, with
steps going up to them. The horse halted and the cabman blew his nose
loudly. “Nice little jaunt you've 'ad.”
The house was all in darkness. Peter rang the bell. On the second story
a blind was raised; someone saw the lamps of the hansom. Feet descended
the stairs. The door opened timidly. Miss Florence stood there, her hair
in curl-papers, with a candle in her hand. She looked extraordinarily
angular and elderly. Behind her, peering over the banisters, were Miss
Effie, Miss Leah and Miss Madge, with petticoats thrown over their
shoulders. Peter entered the old-fashioned hall and explained his
errand. “You were going to do it once; he needs it more than ever now.”
“Bring him in,” Miss Florence said.
In an odd old-maidish room he undressed his uncle and slipped him into
one of the late Mr. Jacobite's night-shirts.
The situation was not without its humor. Before he left he promised to
be round early.
It was nearly midnight when he arrived home at Topbury Terrace. Only
his father was up. He opened the door to him. “You're late, Peter. We
thought something had happened.”
Peter waited until the door had closed behind him. “It has. I met Uncle
Waffles. You're tired; don't let's talk about it now. He's all right for
a little while, anyhow.”
His father drew a long breath. Peter knew what he was thinking: “So
the dead man has come back to die afresh!” They put out the lights in
silence and climbed the stairs. In the darkness his father laid his
hand on his shoulder. “You were always fond of Ocky; so was I once. Poor
fellow! I tried to be just.”
“You were just,” said Peter; “you had to be just. But it isn't justice
that he's needing now; it's--it's kindness.”
His father's voice became grave--a little stern, perhaps. “For years he
had the kindness; he was dragging us all down. He lied to me so often.
Well----. Humph! Can't be helped. Do what you can. Good night, son.”
As Peter entered his bedroom something fluttered. He struck a match.
It was a sheet of paper, written on in a round, girlish hand and pinned
against the door-panel. It read, “_Welcome home, Peterkins. All the time
I've been thinking of you. I've missed you most awfully. I wanted to sit
up, but they wouldn't let me. With love and ten thousand kisses, Kay_.”
His heart reproached him. Little Kitten Kay! In the last week he hadn't
thought much of her, and once--once she had been his entire world. He
had promised her once that he was never going to marry. And now there
was Cherry. It was Cherry he thought of as his eyes were closing--Cherry
and her saying that there are those who allow and those who love.
CHAPTER XXXIII--THE WORLD AND OCKY
Whenever Peter thought of the Misses Jacobite, the picture that formed
was of four lean-breasted women, who spoke in whispers and sat forever
in a room with the blinds down. They seemed to have no passions, no
desires, no grip on reality, no sense of life's supreme earnestness.
They were waiting, always waiting for something to return--something
which had once been theirs: youth, the hope of motherhood, love, the
admiration of men. The day of their opportunity had gone by them;
they could not forget. It was odd to remember that these gentlewomen,
prematurely aged, had once been high-stepping and courted--the belles of
Topbury. One of them sang, day in, day out, of the rest to be found
on the other side of Jordan; it was all that she had to hope for now.
Directly the front door opened you could hear her. The sound of her
singing sent shivers down your back. It made you think of a mourner,
sitting beside the dead; only the dead was not in the house. It had
never come to birth. It was something once expected, that no one dared
speak about.
When Peter called next morning he was aware of a changed atmosphere.
The sense of folded hands had vanished. The singing was no longer heard;
instead, there came to his ears a number of busy, orderly sounds--doors
softly opening and shutting, feet making discreet haste upon the stairs,
the clink of dishes in the basement and the sizzling of cooking.
As he had passed through the hall, with its varnished wall-paper, to the
drawing-room in which he waited, the portrait of old Mr. Jacobite had
gazed fiercely down. Quite evidently the old gentleman disapproved of
the use being made of his night-shirt.
Peter didn't seat himself; it would have been impossible to do so
without causing havoc. Every chair had its antimacassar, spread at its
correct old-maidish angle. He stood by the window, looking out into the
cool little garden--a green, shy sanctuary for birds, across which the
July sunlight fell. Overhead was the room in which Uncle Waffles had
slept--he hoped he had behaved himself. The chandelier shook; several
people were very industrious up there. And Peter wondered. Old Mr.
Jacobite--had he always disapproved of men where his daughters were
concerned? Had he kept them from marriage? Had the tall and reserved
Miss Florence ever been kissed by a man? In the light of his own
romantic experience he pitied all people who hadn't been kissed and
married. Life was wasted if that hadn't happened; it was meant for that.
The handle turned. It was Miss Effie, the little and talkative Miss
Jacobite, who entered. She was smiling and lifted to Peter a face all
a-flutter, thanking him with her eyes, as though he had given her a
present.
“How is he?” Peter asked. “I oughtn't to have brought him here at
all--let alone at such an hour. Only you see--you see there was nowhere
else to bring him.”
She seated herself on the edge of a chair, patting out her dress. “He's
tired.” She spoke with an air of concern. “He wasn't very well. We made
him stay in bed. We're going to keep him there; he needs feeding.”
She was flustered. Her hands kept clasping and unclasping. She seemed
afraid of being accused of immodesty. She raised her eyes shyly. “It's
so nice to have a man in the house. Not since poor dear father----. I
wonder what he'd have said.”
Peter didn't wonder. He thought it was high time that he made matters
clearer. “Of course, I'm not going to leave him on your hands. I only
brought him for a night because----”
She interrupted anxiously. “Oh, please, until he's better. He's so run
down. They made him work so hard in--in there.”
So he had brought his derelict uncle to the one spot on earth where he
was regarded as a treasure! He was so amazed at Miss Effie's attitude
that he doubted whether she was in full possession of the facts.
“But--but,” he faltered, “didn't Miss Florence tell you where he's come
from--where it was that he had to work?”
She answered in a low voice. “We've all done wrong.” It seemed she could
get no further. She sank her head, gazing straight before her, tracing
out the great red roses in the carpet. Peter thought of her sister,
Leah, the shadow-woman; he knew what she meant. She raised her eyes to
his with an effort. “We've all done wrong; I think to have done wrong
makes one more gentle. It makes one willing--not to remember.”
Miss Florence opened the door and looked in on them. “He's ready to see
you now.” She hated scenes. Because she saw that one was in preparation,
she made her voice and manner perfunctory. “You'd better go alone. You'd
better go on tiptoe. I wouldn't stop too long; he's got a bad head.”
Peter couldn't help smiling as he climbed the stairs, and yet it was a
tender sort of smiling. Didn't these innocent ladies know that too much
whisky invariably left a bad head? Or, with their divine faculty for
forgetting, were they willing to forget the whisky and only to remember
to cure the bad head?
It was a white room--a woman's room most emphatically. The pictures on
the walls were triumphs of sentimentality. Gallants were kissing
their ladies' hands and clutching them to their breasts in an agony of
parting, or looking meltingly at a flower which they had left. The seats
of the chairs wore linen covers to prevent their upholstery from getting
shabby. The window was wide; on the sill crumbs had been scattered.
Sparrows chattered and, grown bold from habit, flew in on to the carpet
and preened their feathers.
On the bed, the sheets drawn close up under his chin, lay Uncle Waffles.
He had the look that invalids sometimes have, of being made to appear
more ill by too much attention. He had not shaved--his cheeks were
grizzled; that help to make him look worse. The atmosphere of a sickroom
was completed by a table placed beside the counterpane, on which lay an
open Bible and some freshly plucked wall-flowers. Peter had never seen
his uncle in bed--for the moment he was embarrassed. He drew up a chair.
“How are you? Getting rested?”
Uncle Waffles hitched himself higher on the pillow, reached out and took
Peter's hand. A glint of the old love of fun-making crept into his
eyes. “I've not been treated like this since my mother--not since I
was married. They're pretending I'm ill because they want to nurse me.
Carried off my trousers, they did, to prevent me from getting dressed.
What's the matter with them? Don't they know who I am?”
“They know.”
“Then why are they doing it?”
“Because they've suffered themselves.”
Ocky tightened his grip on Peter's hand. “One of them been to--to where
I've been, you mean? Which one?” Peter shook his head. “They've all been
to prison in a sense--not the kind you speak of. They had a big tragedy,
when everything looked happy. Since then----. Well, since then people
have pitied and cut them. They've been left. They're glad you've come,
partly because life's been cruel to you, and partly----. Look here, I
don't want you to laugh!--partly because you're a man.”
Ocky pulled the late Mr. Jacobite's night-shirt tighter across his
shoulders. It was much too large for him--as voluminous as a surplice.
“Not much of a man,” he muttered; “not much of a man. Arrived here--you
know how. Before that had been hanging about street corners, watched by
the police and jostled into the gutter. My own wife won't look at me;
and yet you tell me these strangers----.”
His voice shook. “I don't understand--can't see why----.”
Peter spoke after an interval. “You--you haven't often been surprised by
too much kindness, have you? Comes almost like a blow at first?”
“Almost. It kind of hurts. But it's the right kind of hurting. It makes