by Hugh Walpole
All through May, June and July Mrs. Cole slowly pulled back to something like her natural health. The new infant, Barbara by name, was as strong as a pony, and kicked and screamed and roared so that the house was quite a new place. Her arrival had done a great deal for Helen, whose gaze had hitherto been concentrated entirely upon herself; now she suddenly discovered a new element in life, and it was found that she was “ideal with a baby” and “a great help to nurse.” This made her more human, and Barbara, realising as babies always do who understands and who does not, would behave with Helen when she would behave with no one else. Mary could not be expected to transfer her allegiance from Jeremy, and then Barbara was frightened at her spectacles; Jeremy, having Hamlet, did not need a baby!
There came a fine hot morning towards the end of July when Miss Jones said, suddenly, in the middle of the history lesson: “Saturday week we go to Rafiel.” Jeremy choked, kicked Mary under the table, and was generally impossible during the rest of the morning. It was Miss Jones’s fault; she should have chosen her occasion more carefully. Before the evening Jeremy was standing in the corner for drawing on his bedroom wall-paper enormous figures in the blackest of black lead. These were to mark the days that remained before Saturday week, and it was, Jeremy maintained, a perfectly natural thing to do and didn’t hurt the old wall-paper which was dirty enough anyway, and Mother had said, long ago, he should have a new one.
Meanwhile, impossible to describe what Jeremy felt about it. Each year Cow Farm and Rafiel had grown more wonderful; this was now the fifth that would welcome them there. At first the horizon had been limited by physical incapacity, then the third year had been rainy, and the fourth — ah, the fourth! There had been very little the matter with that! But this would be better yet. For one thing, there had never been such a summer as this year was providing — a little rain at night, a little breeze at the hottest hour of the day — everything arranged on purpose for Jeremy’s comfort. And then, although he did not know it, this was to be truly the wonderful summer for him, because after this he would be a schoolboy and, as is well known, schoolboys believe in nothing save what they can see with their own eyes and are told by other boys physically stronger than themselves.
Five or six days before the great departure he began to worry himself about his box. Two years ago he had been given a little imitation green canvas luggage box exactly like his father’s, except that this one was light enough to carry in one’s hand. Jeremy adored this box and would have taken it out with him, had he been permitted, on all his walks, but he had a way of filling it with heavy stones and then asking Miss Jones to carry it for him; it had therefore been forbidden.
But he would, of course, take it with him to Cow Farm, and it should contain all the things that he loved best. At first “all the things that he loved best” had not seemed so very numerous. There would, first of all, of course, be the Hottentot, a black and battered clown for whom he had long ceased to feel any affection, but he was compelled by an irritating sense of loyalty to include it in the party just as his mother might include some tiresome old maid “because she had nowhere to go to, poor thing.” After the Hottentot there would be his paint-box, after the paint-box a blue writing-case, after the writing-case the family photographs (Father, Mother, Mary and Helen), after the photographs a toy pistol, after the pistol Hamlet’s ball (a worsted affair rendered by now shapeless and incoherent), after the ball “Alice in Wonderland” (Mary’s copy, but she didn’t know), after “Alice,” “Herr Baby,” after “Herr Baby” the Prayer Book that Aunt Amy gave him last birthday, after the Prayer Book some dried flowers which were to be presented to Mrs. Monk, the lady of Cow Farm (this might be called carrying coals to Newcastle), after the flowers a Bible, after the Bible four walnuts (very dry and hard ones), after the walnuts some transfer papers, after the transfer papers six marbles — the box was full and more than full, and he had not included the hammer and nails that Uncle Samuel had once given him, nor the cigarette-case (innocent now of cigarettes, and transformed first into a home for walking snails, second a grave for dead butterflies, third a mouse-trap), nor the butterfly net, nor “Struuwelpeter,” nor the picture of Queen Victoria cut from the chocolate-box, nor — most impossible omission of all — the toy-village. The toy-village! What must he do about that? Obviously impossible to take it all — and yet some of it he must have. Mr. and Mrs. Noah and the church, perhaps — or no, Mrs. Monk would want to see the garden — it would never do not to show her the orchard with the apple-trees, and then the youngest Miss Noah! She had always seemed to Jeremy so attractive with her straight blue gown and hard red cheeks. He must show her to Mrs. Monk. And the butcher’s shop, and then the sheep, and the dogs and the cows!
He was truly in despair. He sat on the schoolroom floor with his possessions all around him. Only Helen was in the room, and he knew that it would be no use to appeal to her — she had become so much more conceited since Barbara’s arrival — and yet he must appeal to somebody, so he said to her very politely:
“Please, Helen, I’ve got my box and so many things to put into it and it’s nearly Saturday already — and I want to show the Noahs to Mrs. Monk.”
This would have been a difficult sentence for the most clear-headed person to unravel, and Helen was, at that moment, trying to write a letter to an aunt whom she had never seen and for whom she had no sort of affection, so she answered him rather roughly:
“Oh, don’t bother with your box, Jeremy. Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“You may be busy,” said Jeremy, rising indignantly to his feet, “but I’m busy too, and my business is just as good as yours with your silly old letter.”
“Oh, don’t bother!” said Helen, whereupon Jeremy crept behind her and pinched her stocking. A battle followed, too commonplace in its details to demand description here. It need only be said that Hamlet joined in it and ran away with Helen’s letter which had blown to the ground during the struggle, and that he ate it, in his corner, with great satisfaction. Then, when they were at their angriest, Helen suddenly began to laugh which she did sometimes, to her own intense annoyance, when she terribly wanted to be enraged, then Jeremy laughed too, and Hamlet yielded up fragments of the letter — so that all was well.
But the problem of the box was not solved — and, in the end, the only part of the toy village that Mrs. Monk ever saw was the youngest Miss Noah and one apple-tree for her to sit under.
II
The ritual of the journey to Cow Farm was, by this time, of course, firmly established, and the first part of the ritual was that one should wake up at three in the morning. This year, however, for some strange mysterious reason Jeremy overslept himself and did not wake up until eight o’clock, to find then that everyone was already busy packing and brushing and rushing about, and that all his own most sacred preparations must be squeezed into no time at all if he were to be ready. Old Tom Collins’s bus came along at twelve o’clock to catch the one o’clock train, so that Jeremy might be considered to have the whole morning for his labours, but that was not going to be enough for him unless he was very careful. Grown-up people had such a way of suddenly catching on to you and washing your ears, or making you brush your teeth, or sitting you down in a corner with a book, that circumnavigating them and outplotting them needed as much nerve and enterprise as tracking Red Indians. When things were fined down to the most naked accuracy he had apparently only two “jobs”: one to accustom Hamlet to walking with a “lead,” the other to close the green box; but of course Mary would want advice, and there would, in all probability, be a dispute or two about property that would take up the time.
It was indeed an eventful morning. Trouble began with Mary suddenly discovering that she had lost her copy of “Alice in Wonderland” and rushing to Jeremy’s box and upsetting all Jeremy’s things to see whether it were there. Jeremy objected to this with an indignation that was scarcely in the sequel justified, because Mary found the book jammed against the paint-box and a dry waln
ut nestling in its centre. She cried and protested and then suddenly, with the disgusting sentimentality that was so characteristic of her, abandoned her position altogether and said that Jeremy could have it, and then cried again because he said he didn’t want it.
Then Jeremy had to put everything back into the box again, and in the middle of this Hamlet ran off with the red-checked Miss Noah between his teeth and began to lick the blue off her dress, looking up at the assembled company between every lick with a smile of the loveliest satisfaction. Then, when the box was almost closed, it was discovered by a shocked and virtuous Helen that Jeremy had left out his Bible.
“There’ll be one there,” said Jeremy in an angry agitated whisper, hoping to escape the attention of Miss Jones.
“What’s that, Jeremy dear?” said Miss Jones.
“Oh, fancy, Miss Jones!” said Helen. “He’s taking all his dirty old toys and even his old clown, and he’s leaving out his Bible.”
“I’m not!” cried Jeremy, taking it and trying to squeeze it down between three walnuts and the toy pistol.
“Oh, Jeremy clear, that’s not the way to treat your Bible. I’ll give you some paper to wrap it up in, and you’d better take the things out again and put it in at the bottom of the box.” Yes, obviously he would not be ready in time.
The matter of Hamlet and the “lead” was also very exhausting. Hamlet had never, in all his days, been tied to anyone or anything. Of course no one could tell what had been his history before he came strolling on to the Cole horizon, and it may be that once as a very small puppy he had been tied on to something. On the whole, that is probable, his protests on this occasion being of a kind so vehement as to argue some reminiscences behind them. Mrs. Cole had bought a beautiful “lead” of black leather; of course he had already a collar studded with little silver nails, and the point was very simply to fasten the “lead” on to the collar. Jeremy had been promised that he should conduct Hamlet, and it had seemed, when the promise had been made, as though it would be a very simple thing to carry out. Hamlet no sooner saw the cord than he began his ingenious protests, sitting up and smiling at it, suddenly darting at the recumbent Miss Noah and rushing round the room with her, finally catching the “lead” itself in his teeth and hiding with it under Miss Jones’s skirt.
The result was that Tom Collins’s bus arrived when no one in the schoolroom was in the least prepared for it. Then what confusion there was! Mrs. Cole, looking strange in her hat and veil, as though she were dressed up for a play, came urging them to hurry, “because Father was waiting.” Then Hamlet tied himself and his “lead” round the leg of the table; then Mary said in her most tiresome manner, apropos of nothing at all, “You do love me, Jeremy, don’t you?” just at the moment when he was trying to unlace Hamlet, and her lip began to tremble when he said, “Oh, don’t bother,” so that he was compelled to add “Of course I do”; then Father came running up the stairs with “Really, this is too disgraceful. We shall miss that train!”
Then Uncle Samuel appeared, looking so queer that Jeremy was compelled to stare at him. Jeremy had seen very little of Uncle Samuel during these last months. He had hoped, after that wonderful adventure of the Christmas Pantomime, that they were going to be friends, but it had not been so. He had been away somewhere, in some strange place, painting, and then, on his return, he had hid himself and his odd affairs away in some corner of the house where no one saw him. He had had his life and Jeremy had had his.
Nevertheless Jeremy was delighted to see him. It would be fun to have him at Cow Farm with his squashy brown hat, his fat cheeks, his blue painting smock, and his short legs with huge boots. He was different, in some way, from all the rest of the world, and Jeremy, even at that early stage of his education, already perceived that he could learn more from Uncle Samuel than from any other member of the family.
Now he put his head in through the door and said: “Well, you kids, aren’t you ready? It’s time!” Then, seeing Miss Jones, he said: “Good morning,” and bolted like a rabbit. Even then Jeremy noticed that he had paint on his fingers, and that two of his waistcoat buttons were unfastened.
Then down in the hall what confusion there was! Boxes here, there and everywhere. Mother, Father, Aunt Amy, Uncle Samuel, and, most interesting of all, Barbara and the new nurse. The new nurse was called Mrs. Pateham, and she was stout, red-cheeked, and smiling. The bundle in white called Barbara was, most happily, sleeping; but Hamlet barked at Mrs. Pateham, and that woke Barbara, who began to cry. Then Collins came in with his coat off, and the muscles swelling on his shoulders, and handled the boxes as though they were paper, and the cook, and Rose, and William, the handy-boy, and old Jordan, the gardener, and Mrs. Preston, a lady from two doors down, who sometimes came in to help, all began to bob and smile, and Father said: “Now, my dear. Now, my dear,” and Hamlet wound himself and his lead round everything that he could see, and Helen fussed and said: “Now, Jeremy,” and Miss Jones said: “Now, children,” and last of all Collins said: “Now, mum; now, sir,” and then they all were bundled into the bus, with the cart and the luggage coming along behind.
The drive through the streets was, of course, as lovely as it could be; not in the least because anyone could see anything — that was hindered by the fact that the windows of the bus were so old that they were crusted with a kind of glassy mildew, and no amount of rubbing on the window-panes provided one with a view — but because the inside of the bus was inevitably connected with adventure — partly through its motion, partly through its noise, and partly through its lovely smell. These were, of course, Jeremy’s views, and it can’t definitely be asserted that all grown-up people shared them. But whenever Jeremy had ridden in that bus he had always been on his way to something delightful. The motion, therefore, rejoiced his heart, although the violence of it was such that everyone was thrown against everyone else, so that Uncle Samuel was suddenly hurled against the bonnet of Miss Jones, and Helen struck Aunt Amy in the chest, and Jeremy himself dived into his sister Barbara. As to the smell, it was that lovely well-known one that has in it mice and straw, wet umbrellas and whisky, goloshes and candle-grease, dust and green paint! Jeremy loved it, and sniffed on this occasion so often that Miss Jones told him to blow his nose. As to the noise, who is there who does not remember that rattle and clatter, that sudden, deafening report as of the firing of a hundred firearms, the sudden pause when every bolt and bar and hinge sighs and moans like the wind or a stormy sea, and then that sudden scream of the clattering windows, when it is as though a frenzied cook, having received notice to leave, was breaking every scrap of china in the kitchen? Who does not know that last maddened roar as the vehicle stumbles across the last piece of cobbled road — a roar that drowns, with a savage and determined triumph, all those last directions not to forget this, that, and the other; all those inquiries as to whether this, that, and the other had been remembered? Cobbles are gone now, and old buses sleep in deserted courts, and Collins, alas, is not. His youngest son has a motor-garage, and Polchester has asphalt — sic transit gloria, mundi.
Jeremy, clutching his green box with one hand and Hamlet’s lead with the other, was in an ecstasy of happiness. The louder the noise, the rocking motion, the stronger the smell, the better. “Isn’t it lovely?” he murmured to Miss Jones during one of the pauses.
It may be that it was at this moment that Uncle Samuel finally made up his mind about Jeremy. In spite of his dislike, even hatred of children, he had been coming slowly, during the last two years, to an affection for, and interest in, his nephew that was something quite new to his cynical, egoistic nature. It had leapt into activity at Christmas time, then had died again. Now as, flung first into his sister’s bony arms, then on to the terrified spectacles of his niece Mary, he tried to recover himself, he was caught and held by that picture of his small nephew, seated, solid and square, in his blue sailor suit, his bare knees swinging, his hand clutching his precious box with an energy that defied Fate itself to take it from him, his
mouth set, his eyes staring, radiant with joy, in front of him.
On arrival at the station it was found that the one o’clock to Liskane was “just about due,” so that there was no time to be lost. They had to rush along under the great iron dome, passing by the main line, disregarding the tempestuous express from Truxe that drew up, as it were disdainfully, just as they passed, and finding the modest side line to Liskane and St. Lowe. Here there was every kind of excitement for Jeremy. Anyone who has any kind of passion for observation must have discovered long ago that a side line has ever so much more charm and appeal about it than a main line. A main line is scornful of the station in whose heart it consents for a moment to linger, its eyes are staring forward towards the vast cities who are impatiently awaiting it; but a side line has its very home here. So much gossip passes from day to day above its rails (and gossip that has for its circumference five green fields, a country road, and a babbling brook), that it knows all its passengers by heart.
To the people who travel on a side line, the train itself is still something of a wonder. How much more was that true thirty years ago. On this especial line there were only two stations-Liskane and St. Lowe, and, of a certainty, these stations would not even now be in existence were it not that St. Lowe was a fishing centre of very great importance. The little district that comprehended St. Lowe, Garth in Roselands, Stoep in Roselands, Lucent-Polwint, Rafiel, and all the smaller hamlets around them, was fed by this line; but, even so, the little train was never crowded. Tourists did not, and even now do not, go to Polwint and St. Lowe because “they smell so fishy,” nor to Rafield “because it’s too far from the railway,” nor to the Roseland valleys “because there’s nothing to see there.”, May these reasons hold good for many years to come!