The Raft
ever met. She could say such lonely things, and almost as though he
were to blame for her loneliness. She could talk exquisitely of love and
little children. He wondered why the Faun Man hadn't married her.
One afternoon he had stopped longer than usual. They had walked through
Kew Gardens, and had sat in a teagarden watching the trippers. It had
been one of their gay days, when they had built up absurd philosophies.
She had told him that all that any woman could love was the sixth part
of any man--all the other five-sixths were distasteful. Her idea was
that every woman should be allowed to have six husbands; then, by taking
what she liked out of each of them, she would have one perfect man. They
had dawdled in the tea-garden out of compassion, rescuing wasps with
teaspoons from drowning in the jam. When they rose to go, evening was
gathering. On the bridge they paused, gazing down at the gray creeping
of the river and the slow drifting of the boats. Suddenly she reverted
from gay to sad.
“If I were old, Peter, you wouldn't come to see me so often. One day,
though I try to fight it off, one day I shall be old.” At the gate, in
the wistful twilight, she lifted up her face. “If I were to ask you to
kiss me, would you?”
“I think I would.”
But she didn't ask him.
A strange summer made up of waiting, visits to Kew and interludes of
work! In those interludes he studied hard, putting the finishing touches
to his preparation for Oxford. The first question he always asked the
golden woman--asked her breathlessly--was, “Is there any news of her?”
The answer was always the same--a negative. Sometimes she would read him
portions of letters which she had received from the Faun Man. There was
never any mention of Cherry. He grew sick at heart with waiting. The
golden woman alone shared his secret; he could not bring himself to
speak of it at home.
His holiday was short that year--three weeks in Surrey. On his return
Glory came to stay at Topbury. How she had escaped his memory! He was
a little surprised by her quiet beauty; his surprise wore off as he got
used to her. She laid so little emphasis on herself. People were only
aware that she had been there when she had gone--an atmosphere of
kindness was lacking. Then they looked up, were puzzled and remembered,
“Oh yes, Glory. Where's she vanished? Thought she was here.” She only
once penetrated into Peter's world--then only for a few hours. A boy in
love can think only of one woman.
That once occurred on a rainy morning, in the study which had been his
nursery. He had just sat down and had his nose in his books. Someone
touched him.
“Peter, you don't mind, do you? If you're busy now, I'll come again
later.”
He looked up, his head between his hands, his hair all ruffled. “Sorry.
Didn't see that you were there. Anything you want me to do?”
The sensitive face flushed. He noticed that. The white hands fluttered
against her breast. “You know about father.” Her voice was timid. It
strove and sank like a spent bird. “Nobody's told me. So, Peter, I came
to you.”
“That's a shame. He used to be our secret. What d'you want to know about
him, Glory?”
She faltered like a girl much younger. “I want you to take me to him.”
That afternoon on the top of a bus they set off to Soho together. What
that excursion meant to her, what thoughts tiptoed to and fro inside her
head, he never knew. He never guessed how proud she was to be seen alone
with him in public. Her thoughts tiptoed for that reason--so that no one
might ever guess. They found Uncle Waffles, waxed mustaches and dingy
spats, seated in a dingy shop. They had to descend a step to enter. The
riot of dirt distressed Glory. She wanted to busy herself with a duster,
until her stepfather discouraged her, telling her that it was no use--it
would be as bad to-morrow; in fact, in his line of trade, dirt was a
kind of advertisement.
Just as they were sitting down to tea, Mr. Widow, the murderer, joined
them. They found him a very severe old gentleman, with chop-whiskers
and an eye to other people's imperfections. Prison seemed to have
strengthened his moral views. Once he referred to “my poor wife,” in a
tone which implied that she had died respectably of bloodpoisoning or
cancer.
Before they left, Uncle Waffles took Peter aside and borrowed
two-and-sixpence in a whisper. So the tea was quite expensive. Perhaps
the ease with which he had contrived to borrow had something to do with
the heartiness of his invitation that they should drop in whenever they
were passing.
That evening, when Glory came to bid Peter good-night, she asked,
“You'll take me again, won't you. He's--I don't think he's happy.”
Peter dragged his thoughts away from his work. “Don't you? Perhaps Mr.
Widow isn't tremendously cheerful company. Of course I'll take you.”
His eyes were going back to his books. Glory hesitated at the door,
saw that he had forgotten her and slipped out. There was a song about a
rooted tree and a winged bird; had he looked up at that moment and seen
her expression, he might have remembered it.
CHAPTER XXXVI--THE SPREADING OF WINGS
He might have been setting out for Australia or to explore Tibet, they
made such a final matter of his going. The way in which he was waited
on, considered and admired brought to his remembrance those early days
when he had been sent to Miss Rufus to be cured of his 'magination.
“But motherkins, dearest, Oxford's only sixty miles--a two hours'
journey. I can write to you the last thing at night and you can be
reading me next morning at breakfast.”
Nan shook her head. “It's the spreading of wings, Peter--the first
flight from the nest. You'll come back, of course; but always more
rarely.”
She foresaw in this first departure, all the other departures that lay
ahead. The day was coming when she would be left alone. She pictured
herself as old and grayheaded, sitting listening to phantom footsteps
of memories which passed and repassed, but never brought the living
presence. Already she tasted the bitterness of the woman who, having
been first, must learn to be second in the affections of those who were
part of her body. Kay and Peter were growing up. They would soon have
their secrets--their interests which she could not share. They would
marry and enter her house as visitors. She pictured all that; the
spreading of wings had commenced.
When Peter had been a little boy at Sandport, certain lines had driven
the tears into her eyes with their wistful yearning. They were often on
her lips now:
“Oh, to come home once more, when the dusk is falling,
To see the nursery lighted and the children's table spread;
'Mother, mother, mother!' the eager voices calling,
'The baby was so sleepy that she had to go to bed.'”
Already the inexorable law of change had taken her babies from her, and
soon----. There would come a day when the rooms would be empty; her
home would become again what it was before she had entered it--merely a
house.
When Peter laughed at her tenderly, attempting to coax her into braver
thoughts, she clung to him, searching his face to discover the odd
little boy who had asked such curious questions. For his sake she would
smile through her tears, saying, “I'm just a silly woman, getting
old, Peter. Don't think that I grudge you anything. I don't, I don't,
only--only it's the first spreading of wings--the struggling out of the
nest.”
It was true--truer than she fancied; there was Cherry.
However late he worked in those last days, however noiseless he made his
feet upon the stairs, she heard him. Creeping from her room, she would
stand white-robed beside his bed, stoop above his face on the pillow and
tuck him up warmly. It wouldn't be for much longer--he was almost a man.
And Billy--he tried to laugh her out of a sentiment which he fought down
in himself. Manlike, he disguised his feelings. He took so much interest
in the preparations, that it might have been he, instead of Peter,
who was going up to Oxford. By day he pretended to be cheerful; but at
night, when she lay down beside him, after her excursions to Peter's
bedroom, he would take her in his arms, whispering the old endearments,
“Golden little Nan,” and “Princess Pepperminta,” just to let her
understand that, whoever went from her, he would be left.
One October afternoon Mr. Grace, the herald of Topbury's great
occasions, drew up against the pavement. Boxes were carried out. Cat's
Meat shuffled away into the distance. At the end of the Terrace, Peter
leant from the window; they were still there, waving from the steps.
He had begged them not to come to the station; he knew they would break
down. He turned the corner--his flight had begun in earnest. While
familiar sights lasted, he was conscious not of adventure, but
depression. Yes, that was the house from the dusk of whose garden a hand
had stretched out to grasp him. Strange, and this was the same Christmas
cab! Inanimate things hadn't changed; it was he who had altered.
Then came the excitement of Paddington--undergrads with golf-bags slung
across their shoulders; others who were spectacled and looked learned;
still others with ties of contrasting hues and secret significance--a
crowd superbly young and enthusiastic, which did its best to appear
blasé. And then the rush of the train, the exalted sense of opportunity,
the overwhelming consciousness of manhood, and that first night of
romantic speculation within the gray walls of Calvary College! Bells,
hanging so high and sounding so mellow that they seemed to swing from
clouds, struck out the hours. His mother had heard them, those same
bells, in her girlhood. By craning out, he could see the window from
which Jehane had caught first sight of his father and had called Nan's
attention. He was beginning his journey at the spot where his parents'
journey, halfway over, had commenced. Would he and Cherry tell their
children stories of where and how they had met? He and Cherry! It was of
her that he was thinking when Harry Arran entered and found him seated
among his partly opened boxes.
“Tried to reach you all summer,” Peter said.
Harry was taking stock of the room's contents. “I say, old boy, you've
brought no end of furniture. You'll be quite a swell.---- What's that?
Tried to reach us with letters, did you? We never got one of 'em. Never
knew our next address ourselves. Just went wandering, you know. My
brother's such an erratic chap.”
Peter turned away, so that his face would not be seen, and spoke in an
offhand manner. “Cherry with you?”
The question tickled Harry. He straddled his legs and watched his
friend's back, tilting his head toward his shoulder with a magpie
expression of impertinent knowledge. “Cherry with us! No, jolly fear.
She's a nice kid and all that, but we weren't out for love-affairs.
Fact is, I was trying to make that silly ass brother of mine forget one
woman. We carried knapsacks and went almost in rags. But what made you
ask?”
“I thought she was. The golden woman said----.”
Harry interrupted. “Oh, so you've been seeing _her!_” He pronounced
_her_ with his old hostility. “I wouldn't see too much of her.”
Peter smiled quietly. How unjust Harry had always been to his brother's
women friends! He was still the mouth-organ boy, only a little too old
now to climb trees to display his jealousy. Did he think that he could
protect the Faun Man forever from marrying? Didn't it ever enter his
head that he might fall in love himself? And yet Peter sympathized with
Harry, for he had the same feelings with regard to Kay. He would hate
any man who tried to win her. That was a long way off--she was only
thirteen at present. His thoughts came back to Harry. “So, if you were