The Raft
sacrifice. Where was the old Riska, impatient of restraint, eager to
catch men, with the petulant, fluttering mouth? The passion which
should have destroyed had purified, just as his grief which might have
embittered had made him more anxious to help.
On the way to England she told him of Hardcastle. “I got so tired
of trying and trying to get married. All the men found out
something--father, or my shallowness, or something. I don't blame them.
And all the time, ever since I was a little girl, mother talked about
the raft and what happened if a girl didn't escape from it. I grew
desperate and frightened. It was anything to catch a man. And then
Roy----. He said he'd marry me in Paris; afterwards he put off and put
off. When he'd deserted me, I didn't like to write. After the baby
came----. I don't know, it may be all wrong, but I wasn't a bit ashamed
of myself. I didn't write then because I couldn't bear to think of
people despising him. If the golden woman hadn't met me---- Oh, well, I
should have gone on somehow, earning money for baby with my
hands.----But, dear Peter, I'm so glad you found me. I never understood
you till now.”
At Topbury that first night, after a hurried reference to Kay, they
didn't trust themselves to talk about her. They tortured themselves the
more by their reticence. Everything spoke so loudly of her absence. Nan
sat with Riska's child in her arms--the child which should have been
unwelcome. It seemed to fill a gap in her life; they all knew what
was passing behind her eyes. The evening grew late. She and Riska went
slowly up to bed.
Peter turned to his father. For hours he had sat grimly watching
the landscape by Cuyp, where the comfortable burgher walked forever
unperturbed by the banks of the gray canal.
“Father.”
“Yes.”
“We're not doing right.”
“Right!” He shrugged his shoulders. His gesture accused God defiantly.
“No, father--not doing right. One of the last things she said was that
she'd know and be unhappy if we broke our hearts about her. She does
know, and--and I think we've been making her sad.”
For a long time his father sat brooding. He stretched out his hand,
“Your imagination, Peter--you've never outgrown it. But--but we don't
want to make her sad.”
The house was hushed. It was some hours since they had climbed the
stairs. He crept out of his room into the one that had been hers. It was
the same as when, years ago, they two had shared it. He gazed across the
lamp-lit gulf to where Hampstead lay shrouded beneath the night. And
he remembered: the moon letting down her silver ladder and bidding him
ascend; the windows in streets he had never traversed, which had seemed
to watch him like the eyes of cats; the mysterious whistling from the
powder-cupboard, “Coming! Coming! Coming!”
He tried, as of old, to eliminate barriers by the magic of imagination.
It was true, surely, and he hadn't grown up. Soon he would hear the
angel whistle. On the straight unruffled bed he would see the gentle
little body, with the tumbled honey-colored hair.
He forgot his promise not to break his heart about her. Throwing himself
down, he knelt beside the pillow, with his empty arms spread out.
A sound! Someone was holding him--someone who, coming on the same
errand, had discovered him. “Peterkins! Peterkins, don't cry.”
His arms went about her neck. “Little mother, it's long since you called
me that. I'm so tired--tired of pretending to be brave and trying to be
a man.”
They sent for Jehane next day and the next; at last they had to go
and fetch her. Her heart was hard because of the disgrace of what had
happened. She spoke with bitterness of her children. Glory's joining her
stepfather at The Winged Thrush she construed as an act of treachery. “A
daughter of mine,” she said, “serving in a public-house!” She had given
up all hope that Eustace would ever ask her to come to Canada. His
infrequent letters had given her to understand tacitly that she was
not wanted. Only Moggs was left--a subdued child, a little like Glory.
Against disappointment from that quarter Jehane forearmed herself by
taking disappointment for granted. Her sense of injustice centered in
the paradox that Ocky was happy, despite his mismanagement, while she,
after all her painstaking rectitude, was sad.
Throughout the journey to Topbury she insisted vigorously that she would
never take Riska back. As she entered the hall of his house, Barrington
heard the last repetition of her assertion. “We don't want you to,” he
said; “she and her child are going to live with us.” Then Jehane saw
Riska, and recognized the change; promptly she turned her accusals
against herself. She had been unwise. She had spoilt her life both
as wife and mother. Her calamities were her own doing. She needed
Riska--wanted her. “You'll come with your mother, won't you?”
Riska shook her head gently--so gently that for a minute she looked like
Glory. “Mother dear, I can't. I would if it were only myself; I've baby
to consider. You'd do for him just what you've done----. You couldn't
help it. I'm going to stay here with Aunt Nan and learn--learn to be
like her--like Kay.”
Jehane covered her face with her hands. “I'm a bitter woman--yes, and
jealous. But that my own child should tell me--and should be able to say
it truly!”
She looked up. “If I were to try to be different, if I could prove to
you that I was different----.”
Riska put her arms about her mother's neck, “That's all in the future.
But, oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry. I know you've done your best.”
“My best!” Her voice was full of self-despisings. “Oh, well----!”
She had lost her last illusion--her faith in her own righteousness.
Barrington, watching the disillusioned woman, tried to trace in her
features the eager face, tell-tale of dreamings, that had beckoned
to him from a window on a summer's afternoon in Oxford. He found no
resemblance.
He turned to Riska, who had played life's game so recklessly, plunging
off the raft of maidenhood, swimming and drifting on chance-found débris
to the land of maternity, about which her mother was always talking.
In searching Riska's face he found Jehane's dreamings come
true--self-fulfilment and mastery. Sacrifice, by the road of sin,
had accomplished them. He recollected how he had said of her, “Ripe
fruit--ready to fall to the ground.” He smiled wisely, remembering his
own unwisdom.
CHAPTER XLVIII--AND GLORY
He was late. It didn't matter; no one had been warned of his coming.
He punted down the last stretch of river. It had been Peterish, yet
appropriate of him to choose this means of travel. He had arrived in
Henley that morning. Had he gone by road, he could have been at The
Winged Thrush for lunch. Now, full behind him, spying beneath the bent
arm of a willow stooped the setting sun.
All day he had had the sense of things watching--memories, associations
of the past, hopes and dreads which had lost their power to help or
harm him. A new hope had become his companion; he gazed back, taking a
farewell glance at the old affections.
As he stole down the streak of silver, through ash-gray autumn meadows,
he had many thoughts. Cherry and the last time he had made that journey!
The Faun Man and himself--the way in which men mistake their love!
Withered reeds rustled with the motion of his passing. Fallen leaves,
scarlet and brown and yellow, starred the water's surface. Thrusting
himself forward, he sang and hummed,
“I've been shipwrecked off Patagonia,
Home and Colonia,
Antipodonia-.”
He broke off, smiling whimsically. In a figurative sense his own
autobiography--almost a fulfilled prophecy! A brave song! He liked
it--it paid no heed to regret and recorded only the joy of pressing on.
Letting the punt drift, he stared back into the evening redness. It took
courage to learn what things to remember and how to forget. For some
weeks he had been trying to learn--this river-journey was the testing.
He rounded a bend. Ahead swans sailed placidly. Cattle stood knee-deep
in water. In the stream, tethered to a landing, boats swung idly. On
a close-cut lawn green tables were set out in the shadow of trees.
Everything stood hushed and huddled in the gilded quiet.
He stepped out and strolled up through the trellised garden. Finding no
one, he wandered round the inn to the back. From the stable-yard came
the splashing that water makes when a brush is plunged into a bucket;
then a droning sound, punctuated with the hissing of an ostler. Peter
laughed inwardly.
“Whoa there, boy! You ain't a patch on Cat's Meat. Call yerself a
'oss?--- Ah, would yer! Shish-shish-shish.
Oh Peter wuz 'is nime,
So Peterish wuz 'e,
'E wept the sun's h'eye back agen
Lest 'e should never see.”
“Hulloa, Mr. Grace!”
The old man started and overset his bucket. “Ho, me tripe and h'onions,
wot a fright yer did give me!--- Why, Master Peter, 'oo'd 'ave thought
ter see you 'ere. Thought yer'd forgotten h'us and wuz never comin'. H'I
wuz just a-singin' about yer. H'I h'orften does when h'I'm a-groomin' of
a 'oss. Sorter soothes 'im--maikes 'im stand quiet.”
“Where's Uncle Ocky?”
“Gone ter 'Enley, white spats and h'all.”
“And Glory?”
Mr. Grace caught the tremble in the question and glanced up sharply.
“And Glory!” He passed his hand in front of his mouth, “Miss Glory,
she----. H'it's lonely for 'er, a bit of a gel, with two old codgers,
like me and yer h'uncle. We does our best, but----. Ho, yes! Where
is she? On the river, maybe, a-dreamin'. If yer'll wite till h'I've
finished with this 'ere 'oss----
“On the river!” Peter spoke quickly, to himself rather than to his
friend. “Couldn't have passed her. Must be lower down.”
He was turning away. Mr. Grace called after him, “'Alf a mo'! Got
somethink ter tell yer.” Peter halted. “H'it's abart me darter, Grice;
h'unexpected like she's----” Peter waved his hand and passed out of
ear-shot. Mr. Grace winked his eye at the horse. “Ho, beg parding!”
The sun had sunk behind the trees; the moon was rising. A little breeze
shook the brittle leaves, laughing softly among them as they broke from
their anchorage and swooped like bats through the dusk. On the edge
of the lawn, overhanging the river, a white post stood ghostly. As
he untied his punt, Peter looked up and read the legend, _The Winged
Thrush_. On the sign was depicted a brown bird, fluttering its wings
in a gilded cage. He pushed off into the stream, creeping sharp-eyed
between misty banks through the twilight.
_And Glory!_ Until the last few months his world had consisted of other
people--people who had seemed so important--and Glory. But now--now that
he could no longer follow the shining head of his little sister, he had
halted. Looking back, all through the years from childhood he seemed
to hear Glory, tiptoeing behind him. He had noticed her so rarely. He
remembered the time when he had told her to remain seated on the garden
wall, had forgotten her, had missed her and had recollected her only
to find her still waiting for him, crying in the darkness. The terror
seized him that to-night he might have remembered too late--might have
lost her.
Something tapped against the side of his punt. He leant out--a floating
oar! The stream was beginning to quicken; ahead rose the low booming of
water rushing across a weir. He gazed about him. Down the shadowy river,
darkly a-silver in moonlight, a black thing, like a log, bobbed in the
current. As he came up with it, a figure huddled in the stern, called
nervously to him, “Oh please, I've dropped my oars; do help me.” He
maneuvered alongside. “Why, Peter! Dear Peter----!”