The Raft
turned out the lights and there was a rush of undergrads for the exits.
Peter and Harry burst into the night with the Proctor's bulldogs
close behind them. Then came the long run; the brilliant plan,
Peter's invention, that they should escape over walls instead of by
thoroughfares; the clambering and climbing, the dashes across gardens
and the final escape into freedom through the house of a startled old
gentleman who threw his slipper after them--but not for luck.
Harry, as a rule, was the initiator of their escapades; Peter championed
them to a finish gamely. The mouth-organ boy walked through the world
with a roving eye, seeking always new lands of innocent adventure.
When he had almost come to shipwreck on some wild coast of whimsical
absurdity, it was Peter who hurried to his rescue. The song which he had
sung in the tree-tops of Friday Lane had been a prophecy. He still sang
it in the austere city of gray walls and spires. It was a pæan of high
spirits and irrepressible youth:
“I've been shipwrecked off Patagonia,
Home and Colonia,
Antipodonia;
I've shot cannibals,
Funny-looking animals,
Top-knot coons;
I've bought diamonds twenty a penny there,
I've been somewhere, nowhere, anywhere--
And I'm the wise, wise man of the wide, wide world.”
When he sang it, he and Peter would look at one another, with eyes
laughing, and would talk of Kay--of how they had commenced their
friendship by fighting over her, and of how--of so many things that were
kind and golden, like memories of spring days when the wind is blowing.
Little Kay, with her delicate face and shining hair, she stood a white
flower in the shadow-wood of remembrance--a narcissus-shrine to which
their steps were continually returning. So, while undergraduates of
the Roy Hardcastle type shouted themselves hoarse on Saturday nights at
college wine-clubs, making a rowdy effort to be men, Peter and Harry,
without effort, remained boys and sat concocting fairy-tale letters to
a little girl at Topbury. They refused to credit the evidence of their
eyes, that she was growing up. They signed their letters jointly,
filling them with ridiculous tenderness. She received them every Monday
morning at breakfast, and was made to feel that she was still a sharer
in their lives. Because Cherry postponed her coming, Peter had to have
some outlet for his affection. In a curious way he made his little
sister the temporary substitute for the girl he loved. It did not occur
to him to inquire what motives prompted Harry's epistolary philanthropy.
Jehane did not at once fulfil her promise to send her girls to stay with
Professor Usk. On his return home for Christmas Peter discovered
the reason. Riska was in the throes of her first romance. At Topbury
shoulders were shrugged. Of course girls of fifteen did have their
flirtations, but it was only among the lower-classes that they were
openly acknowledged and dignified into love-affairs. Jehane, however,
took the matter seriously. She explained why. The young fellow was
a good catch and four years Riska's senior; he was the son of a
speculative builder who was invading Southgate with an army of
jerry-built villas. The story of how Riska had effected the young man's
capture proved that Jehane's training had been efficient. Riska had
shown a fine faculty for seizing her strategic opportunity. Barrington's
comment when he heard it was brief and to the point, “Ought to
be spanked. If she grows up this way, she'll make her face the
dumping-ground for anybody's kisses.”
That was just it; in her fear lest her girls should never marry, Jehane
had taught Riska, who was more apt a pupil than Glory, to welcome
any comer without fastidiousness. There was nothing heaven-sent about
marriage; it was a lucky-bag, into which you thrust your hand and
grabbed; or, to employ her old parable, maidenhood was a raft from which
girls who were wise escaped at the first opportunity, in cockle-boats,
on boards and even by swimming--the great object was to reach the land
of matrimony before the distance between the shore and the raft had
lengthened. Possibly one might get wet in the effort. One couldn't
be too nice over an affair so desperate. It was anything to attain a
marriage-song.
This was how Riska's first excursion from the raft occurred. She had
been out riding her bicycle and a hat had blown by her. The hat must
belong to a head. She espied the head and liked it; therefore she chased
the hat. Having caught it, she waited for the owner to come up. She
accepted his thanks and indulged in a few minutes' conversation. Next
day, riding along the same road at the same hour, she had encountered
the owner of the hat again. After that, good-luck and liking had taken
a hand in bringing them together. Soon he had been invited to tea at the
cottage. Jehane had made things easy for him. She had learnt that his
father was a self-made, ambitious man, who wore side-whiskers and hoped
to die a baronet.
“The Governor,” the boy had told her, “wants me to marry well.” There
lay the rub. Would his father consider Riska good enough? The name of
the young fellow was Bonaparte Triggers.
Jehane felt that it was absolutely necessary that young Triggers should
be socially impressed. She persuaded Barrington to allow Riska to bring
her suitor to Topbury. Before he came, she issued a careful warning
that no mention was to be made of Ocky Waffles. Closely questioned, she
admitted that, without deliberately lying, she had let the boy suppose
that she was a widow.
“But, if he's seriously in love with Riska, you'll have to tell him,”
Barrington objected.
Jehane's face clouded. “That's my affair. Who'd marry the daughter of a
convict? It's easy for you to talk.”
“Then you mean that----? Look here, I'm not criticizing; but don't
you think that this'll look like deception? Supposing he married Riska
without knowing, he'd be bound to find out after. Let Riska tell him.
If he's the right kind of a chap, he'll love her all the more for her
honesty.”
Jehane lost her temper as far as she dared. “You've always been against
me--always. Of course, if you're ashamed of us, and don't want Riska to
bring him----.”
There was no arguing along these lines. Barrington gave his reluctant
consent.
Riska came, bringing with her Bonaparte Triggers, a flashy youth with
a cockney thinness of accent. The purpose of his visit was to be
impressed; he made it clear from the start that he had come to impress.
He did not belong to a world of culture and felt, as Ocky Waffles
had felt before him, that an effort was being made to rob him of
his self-possession. He resisted the effort by smoking innumerable
cigarettes, and tried to parade his own paces by accompanying himself
on the piano while he sang music-hall ditties of the latest
hug-me-quick-and-not-too-delicately order. His visit was not a success.
He was jerry-built, like his father's villas.
After he had departed. Nan had the nervous desire to fling up all
the windows and to go through the house with a duster. It wasn't
snobbishness on her part, but she was unaccustomed to see fingers
squeezed and kisses exchanged in public. Barrington found her in the
drawing-room and slipped his hand into hers. “It's as I thought; Riska's
not in love with him. Her mother's trained her to believe that the first
man to come should be the first man accepted. And, d'you know, Nan----?”
“What, Billy?”
“Didn't you notice anything? She's pretty and she's sweet, because she's
young; but already she's getting hard and calculating like Jehane. I'm
afraid for her--she's more passion than her mother ever had. She's ripe
fruit, and not sixteen yet; if she isn't plucked, she'll fall to the
ground.---- It's a horrible thing to say of a young girl.”
And then, “I don't like him; but I hope he marries her.”
He didn't marry her; Peter and Glory were blamed for that. Without
telling anyone, they arranged to give Ocky a Christmas treat. What form
the treat was to take caused many secret discussions. They had to
be secret--all Glory's dealings with her stepfather were secret; the
mention of his name was forbidden by her mother.
“How about a theatre?” Peter suggested.
Glory shook her quiet head. “He's not very intellectual.”
“Well, a pantomime?”
Glory nodded. “I believe he'd like that.”
So once again she set out alone with her tall cousin on the top of a
bus. For a few brief hours he was to be hers entirely. In anticipating
the adventure, she had racked her brains to think of entertaining
subjects to talk about. She was terribly afraid she would bore him; she
believed him to be so extraordinarily clever. She needn't have worried.
He was a big boy on that winter's afternoon and not a man. Directly they
were out of sight of the Terrace, he took her arm.
“But Peter!” she protested, her face flushing.
“Don't be a little silly,” he told her; “you'll slip on the snow and
fall down.------ I say, Glory, you do look ripping. How you have got
yourself up! You've put on everything except the parlor sofa.”
At Topbury Corner he wanted to take a hansom, but she insisted on a bus.
“No, really. I prefer it. I've a reason--yes. But I wouldn't tell you
what it is for worlds.”
Her reason was that she was afraid to be left alone with him lest she
should grow self-conscious. It was easier to talk in crowds. And how
they did talk! Her little prepared speeches, her scraps of nervously
gathered information were all forgotten. They were two children
sailing through a Christmas world on a schooner of the London streets.
House-tops were white with snow; shops gay with decorations. In the
murky grayness of the sky a derelict sun wallowed, like a ship on fire.
It was a happy day; their eyes were bright to find something on every
hand to laugh about. Now it was a cutler's window, merry with mistletoe
and holly, all a-gleam with gnashing knives and razors, across which
was pasted the legend, “Remember the Loved Ones at Home.” Now it was an
undertaker's, in which stood a placard:
DO IT NOW JOIN MY COFFIN CLUB
ANYONE CAN LIVE
MAKE SURE OF GETTING
BURIED A TACTFUL CHRISTMAS PRESENT
GIVE A YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION
TO A FRIEND
Glory grew out of her shyness; she snuggled her chin against her
squirrel muff, laughing and chatting, saying things which surprised
herself. Peter kept glancing at her side-long. She was tender-looking.
Yes, she was like Kay. He'd noticed that before. He noticed her for a
day, and then forgot her for months. It had always been like that.
Was it his fault? She was like a snow-drop--she had a knack of hiding
herself.
They got off at Wardour Street, tunneling into dingy alleys from which
Italy watches strangers with sad brown eyes, dreaming of vineyards and
sun-baked towns.
Glory twitched his arm. “Down here. It's a short cut.”
“Hulloa! You don't mean to say that you've been here by yourself?”
She looked guilty; then smiled up from beneath her lashes. She had
nothing to fear from Peter. “Often, since you first brought me. Once a
week, at least; but don't tell mother. He's got no one to love except
Mr. Widow. I--I'm sorry for him.”
Mr. Widow certainly wasn't much to love. The secondhand shop had a
cheerless aspect. On this winter's day the door stood open; Mr. Widow
held that it was tempting to customers. Ocky crouched over a coke-stove,
rubbing his hands. The moment Glory entered, she hurried toward him,
putting her arms about his neck. His face lit up. “Why, it's Glory!
Little Glory!” He ran his hands over her. “How beautiful! But you
oughtn't to come. The Duchess'll find out. Oh yes, she will. She always
finds out. Then, there'll be a row.”