The Raft
Mr. Grace had learnt to be patient under correction. “Now, Master Peter,
ain't that wot I said? I sez, 'She's a dustpot'; then you sez, 'Oh, a
dustpot!' 'Owever yer calls it, that's wot I calls 'er.”
They were sitting in an empty cab in the stable from which Mr. Grice
hired his conveyance. Peter touched the old man's hand affectionately.
“I've been wondering--thinking about you. You know, I'm going traveling
with Kay. My friend, the Faun Man, left me a thousand pounds to buy what
he called 'a year of youngness.' He was great on youngness, was the Faun
Man.”
Mr. Grace nodded. His eyes twinkled. “Remember that night, Peter, and
the song 'e made h'up about yer?
'Oh, Peter wuz 'is nime,
So Peterish wuz 'e,
'E wept the sun's h'eye back agen,
Lest 'e should never see.'
H'I orften 'um it ter the 'osses when h'I'm a-groomin' of 'em. Sorter
soothes 'em--maikes 'em stand quiet.”
“I remember,” said Peter; “but here's what I was going to say: you
hav'n't had an awful lot of youngness in your life and yet you're--how
old, Mr. Grace? Seventy? I should have guessed sixty. Well, it doesn't
seem fair that I----.”
“Nar then, Master Peter! H'it's fair enough. Don't you go a-wastin' o'
yer h'imagination. I don't need no pityin'.”
“But it doesn't seem fair, really; so I'm going to make you an offer--a
very queer offer. How'd you like to live in the country and get away
from Grace?”
“'Ow'd I like it? 'Ow'd a fly like ter git h'out o' the treacle? 'Ow'd a
dawg like ter find 'isself rid o' fleas? 'Ow'd a----? Gawd bless me
soul--meanin' no prefanity --wot a bloomin' silly quesching!” He paused
reflectively. “But a dawg, Master Peter, gits sorter useter 'is fleas,
and a fly might kinder miss the treacle. H'I'd like it well enough; but
if there warn't nothink ter taik me thoughts h'orf o' meself, I'd feel
lonesome wivout 'er naggin'.”
Peter laughed. “I'll give you something to do with your thoughts. My
Uncle Ocky----.”
Mr. Grace woke up, turned ponderously and surveyed Peter. “That's h'it,
is h'it? That awright. Rum old card, yer uncle! H'I never fancied
as h'I'd let h'anyone taik the plaice wot Cat's Meat 'eld in me
h'affections. 'E 'as. Tells me h'all 'is troubles, 'e does. Life's
gone 'ard wiv 'im since Mr. Widder sent 'im packin.' My fault--I'm not
denyin' h'it. We 'as our glass tergether and we both 'ates wimmen--or
sez we does. 'E borrers a bit from me nar and then. Mr. Waffles and me
is good pals--we 'as lots in common. You, for h'instance.”
Peter inquired from Mr. Grace where he would be likeliest to find his
uncle.
“Likeliest! H'if yer puts it that waie, h'I should saie yer'd be
likeliest ter find 'im in a pub.”
Out of the tail of his eye Ocky saw Peter entering.
“Horrid stuff,” he said loudly; then in a whisper to the barmaid, “Give
me another three penn'orth.---- Why, hulloa, old son!”
Peter led him into a private room and said he'd pay for it. “D'you
remember that night at the Trocadero--you know, when Glory was with us.
I told you what I'd do for you if I ever had money. Suppose I could give
you a chance to pull straight, what would you do with it?”
Tears came into Ocky's eyes; he'd grown unused to kindness. “Is it
the truth you're wanting, Peter?---- If you gave me the chance to pull
straight, I'd do what I've always done--mess it.”
Peter shook his head incredulously and smiled. “Don't believe you. You'd
pull straight fast enough if you knew that anyone cared for you.”
“No one does, except you, Peter.”
“Oh yes, there's someone--someone whom you and I, yes, and I believe all
of us, are always forgetting.”
Ocky looked up slowly. “You mean Glory.” He leant across the table,
tapping with his trembling fingers. “Know why I went to hell?--it sounds
weak to say it. I went to hell because I had no woman to hold me back
with love. If I could have Glory---. But she'll be thinking of marrying.
I've spoilt her chances enough already.”
“If you could have Glory,” Peter insisted, “and if you were to have,
say, five hundred pounds, what would you do then?”
“The truth again?”
“Nothing else would be of any use, would it?”
“If I had five hundred pounds and Glory, I'd move into the country and
buy a pub. I've lived to be over fifty, I've learnt only one bit of
knowledge from life.”
“What is it?”
Ocky flushed. “To you I'm ashamed to say it.”
“Never mind. Say it.”
Ocky twirled his mustaches, covering his confusion, “To know good beer
when I taste it.”
Peter leant back laughing, “That's something to start on, isn't it?”
Next day he told Glory, “They're willing--both of 'em.”
In searching the papers for advertisements, he came upon an
announcement.
_Near Henley, The Winged Thrush. Comfortable riverside hostelry;
pleasantly situated; suitable for artist or poet, desirous of combining
lucrative business with pleasure, etc. A bargain. Reason for selling,
going to Australia._
He remembered--that last night of the regatta, the sun-swept morning,
the glittering river, and the breakfast in the arbor with Cherry.
The purchase was arranged. Ocky, Glory and Mr. Grace went down to see
the place. Mr. Grace was to look after the 'osses--if there were any; if
there weren't, he was to help in serving customers. For a reason which
he would not explain, Peter refused to accompany them on their tour of
inspection.
During those last days, before he and Kay set out on their year of
youngness, he saw Glory often. From her he learnt of Riska and her many
love-affairs; how they always fell short of marriage because she carried
on two at once or because of the deceit concerning her father. She was
getting desperate; she had been taught that the sole purpose of
her being was to catch a man--so far she had failed. She still had
hope--there was Hardcastle. In a sly way, she saw a good deal of him.
Exactly how and where, she had pledged Glory not to divulge.
And Peter learnt of Eustace. Eustace had gone to Canada, to take up
farming with money lent by Barrington. Jehane, with her tragic knack of
hanging her expectations on loosened nails, boasted that Eustace was
to be her salvation. Perhaps he was careless, perhaps he had gained
a distaste for the atmosphere of falsity which had formed his home
environment; in any case, he wrote more and more rarely, and showed less
and less desire for his mother to join him as the period of his absence
lengthened. Jehane, as she had done with his father before him, invented
good news when good news was lacking, bolstering her pride in public.
Her children, despite her sacrifices for them, watched her with judging
eyes and, directly they arrived at a reasoning age, began to detect her
hollowness. Eustace was gone. Glory was going. Riska, failing another
accident, would soon be married to Hardcastle. Only Moggs, Ma's Left
Over as they had called her because of her tininess, remained. She was a
child of twelve, submissive in her ways, colorless in character and with
Ocky's weak affectionateness of temperament.
It was the morning of Kay's and Peter's departure. During breakfast, the
last meal together, Barrington had sat looking at the landscape by Cuyp,
as he always did in moments of crisis. The cab was at the door; the
luggage had been carried out. The adventure in search of youngness had
all but begun. The door bell rang and the knocker sounded. A telegram
was handed in. Barrington opened it--glanced at the signature. “Ah, from
Jehane!”
As he read it, his face grew grave. He passed it to Nan and led Peter
aside. “Don't tell Kay. It's about Riska. She's run off with that fellow
Hardcastle. Whether she's married to him or----. It doesn't say.”
His own rendering of the situation was plain--“Ripe fruit, ready to fall
to the ground.”
They entered the cab, driving into the great worldwideness. And Riska,
with her impatient mouth and pretty face, she also, in her stormy way,
had gone in quest of youngness.
CHAPTER XLV--LOVE KNOCKS AT KAY'S DOOR
The castle stood like a gleaming skull, balancing on the edge of a
precipice. The centuries had picked it clean. Through empty sockets,
about which moss gathered, it watched white wings of shipping flit
mothlike across the blue waters of the Gulf of Spezia. It had been the
terror of sailors once--a stronghold of pirates, Saracens and Genoese,
fierce men who had built the hunchback town that huddled against the
rocks behind it. Now it was nothing but a crumbling shell, picturesque
and meaningless save to tourists and artists. The tourists came because
Byron had written _The Corsair_ in its shadow, and the artists----.
One of them had left his canvas on an easel in a broken archway. Kay
tripped across and looked at it--a wild piece of composition, all white
and green and orange, splashed in with vigor, with the fierce Italian
sky above it. It interpreted the spirit of the place--its loneliness,
its lawless past, its brooding sense of unsatisfied passion. She turned
away, awed by its power, a little frightened by its intensity. It made
her feel that, from behind tumbled mastery, eyes were gazing at her.
Climbing the splintered tower, she watched the sunset. In the great
stillness she could hear stones dropping down the sheer cliff into the
racing tide beneath.
She had forgotten how time was passing. That low bass humming! It was
the voice of the sea; it seemed as though the sun's voice spoke to
her. Across the blue of the Mediterranean a golden track led up to the
horizon. At its end a fiery disc hung, like a gong against which the
waves tapped gently.
It had been a tumultuous day--a day of excited fears, winged hopes and
strategies. Harry was coming. Peter had received the astounding telegram
that morning.
“Queer chap! This was sent off from Genoa. He's almost here by now. Why
on earth didn't he let us know earlier?”
Why hadn't he? Kay knew--because, if he had, there would have been still
time for her to turn him back. The persistent mouth-organ boy, he was
always quite certain that he had only to make up his mind and he'd get
his desire. She didn't like him any the less for that, but----.
No, she wouldn't be there to meet him. She had excused herself to Peter
and had accompanied him to the sun-baked pier, at which the steamer
called on its way from Lerici to Spezia. She had waved and waved till he
was nearly out of sight--then she had fled.
Why? She couldn't say--couldn't say exactly, but very nearly. She
had forbidden her mouth-organ boy to come--and he was coming. She was
secretly elated to find herself defied. After all, she didn't own Italy,
and----. But Harry wasn't making the journey to see Italy, nor to see
Peter. She was well aware of that--Peter wasn't.
So she had persuaded one of her fishermen friends to sail her across the
gulf to Porto Venere. Down there in the sleepy harbor he was waiting,
his brown eyes lazily watching, his ear-rings glittering, his fingers
rolling cigarettes, not at all perturbed but wondering, with a shrug of
his shoulders, why she so long delayed.
And Harry, he too would be wondering, thinking her unkind. Peter had
probably brought him back to San Terenzo by now. They would have been on
the lookout for her directly the steamer rounded the cypressed headland.
When they hadn't found her on the pier, they would have made haste to
the yellow villa in which they lived, which had been Shelley's. And
again, they hadn't found her. She could imagine it all--just what had
happened: Peter's discreet apologies, and Harry's amused suspicion that
he was being punished. His laughter--she could imagine that as well; he
always laughed when he was hurt or annoyed.
Kay clasped her hands. It was rotten of her not to go to him. All day