by Hugh Walpole
“Ticket, please, sir!” said the long-legged young man at the little wooden gate. Seymour plunged down into the deep, high-hedged lane that even now, in winter, seemed to cover him with a fragrant odour of green leaves, of flowers, of wet soil, of sea spray. He was now so conscious of his company that the knowledge of it could not be avoided. It seemed to him that he heard them chattering together, knew that behind his back Sarah was trying to whisper horrid things in Bim’s ear, and that he was laughing at her, which made her furious.
“I must have eaten something,” he thought. “It’s the strangest feeling I’ve ever had. I just won’t take any notice of them. I’ll go on as though they weren’t there.” But the strangest thing of all was that he felt as though he himself were being taken. He had the most comfortable feeling that there was no need for him to give any thought or any kind of trouble. “You just leave it all to me,” some one said to him. “I’ve made all the arrangements.”
The lane was hot, and the midday winter sun covered the paths with pools and splashes of colour. He came out on to the common and saw the village, the long straggling street with the white-washed cottages and the hideous grey-slate roofs; the church tower, rising out of the elms, and the pond, running to the common’s edge, its water chequered with the reflection of the white clouds above it.
The main street of Clinton is not a lovely street; the inland villages and towns of Glebeshire are, unless you love them, amongst the ugliest things in England, but every step caught at Seymour’s heart.
There was Mr. Roscoe’s shop which was also the post-office, and in its window was the same collection of liquorice sticks, saffron buns, reels of cotton, a coloured picture of the royal family, views of Trezent Head, Borhaze Beach, St. Arthe Church, cotton blouses made apparently for dolls, so minute were they, three books, “Ben Hur,” “The Wide, Wide World,” and “St. Elmo,” two bottles of sweets, some eau-de-Cologne, and a large white card with bone buttons on it. So moving was this collection to Seymour that he stared at the window as though he were in a trance.
The arrangement of the articles was exactly the same as it had been in the earlier days — the royal family in the middle, supported by the jars of sweets; the three books, very dusty and faded, in the very front; and the bootlaces and liquorice sticks all mixed together as though Mr. Roscoe had forgotten which was which.
“Look here, Bim,” he said aloud, “I’ve left you up — I really am going off my head!” he thought. He hurried away. “If I am mad I’m awfully happy,” he said.
III
The white vicarage gate closed behind him with precisely the old-remembered sound — the whiz, the sudden startled pause, the satisfied click. Seymour stood on the sun-bathed lawn, glittering now like green glass, and stared at the house. Its square front of faded red brick preserved a tranquil silence; the only sound in the place was the movement of some birds, his old friend the robin perhaps in the laurel bushes behind him.
Although the sun was so warm there was in the air a foreshadowing of a frosty night; and some Christmas roses, smiling at him from the flower beds to right and left of the hall door, seemed to him that they remembered him; but, indeed, the whole house seemed to tell him that. There it waited for him, so silent, laid ready for his acceptance under the blue sky and with no breath of wind stirring. So beautiful was the silence, that he made a movement with his hand as though to tell his companion to be quiet. He felt that they were crowded in an interested, amused group behind him waiting to see what he would do. Then a little bell rang somewhere in the house, a voice cried “Martha!”
He moved forward and pulled the wire of the bell; there was a wheezy jangle, a pause, and then a sharp irritated sound far away in the heart of the house, as though he had hit it in the wind and it protested. An old woman, very neat (she was certainly a Glebeshire woman), told him that Mr. Trenchard was at home. She took him through the dark passages into the study that he knew so well, and said that Mr. Trenchard would be with him in a moment.
It was the same study, and yet how different! Many of the old pieces of furniture were there — the deep, worn leather arm-chair in which Mr. Lasher had been sitting when he had his famous discussion with Mr. Pidgen, the same bookshelves, the same tiles in the fireplace with Bible pictures painted on them, the same huge black coal-scuttle, the same long, dark writing-table. But instead of the old order and discipline there was now a confusion that gave the room the air of a waste-paper basket. Books were piled, up and down, in the shelves, they dribbled on to the floor and lay in little trickling streams across the carpet; old bundles of papers, yellow with age, tied with string and faded blue tape, were in heaps upon the window-sill, and in tumbling cascades in the very middle of the floor; the writing-table itself was so hopelessly littered with books, sermon papers, old letters and new letters, bottles of ink, bottles of glue, three huge volumes of a Bible Concordance, photographs, and sticks of sealing-wax, that the man who could be happy amid such confusion must surely be a kindly and benevolent creature. How orderly had been Mr. Lasher’s table, with all the pens in rows, and little sharp drawers that clicked, marked A, B, and C, to put papers into.
Mr. Trenchard entered.
He was what the room had prophesied — fat, red-faced, bald, extremely untidy, with stains on his coat and tobacco on his coat, that was turning a little green, and chalk on his trousers. His eyes shone with pleased friendliness, but there was a little pucker in his forehead, as though his life had not always been pleasant. He rubbed his nose, as he talked, with the back of his hand, and made sudden little darts at the chalk on his trousers, as though he would brush it off. He had the face of an innocent baby, and when he spoke he looked at his companion with exactly the gaze of trusting confidence that a child bestows upon its elders.
“I hope you will forgive me,” said Seymour, smiling; “I’ve come, too, at such an awkward time, but the truth is I simply couldn’t help myself. I ought, besides, to catch the four o’clock train back to Polchester.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Trenchard, smiling, rubbing his hands together, and altogether in the dark as to what his visitor might be wanting.
“Ah, but I haven’t explained; how stupid of me! My name is Seymour. I was here during several years, as a small boy, with Canon Lasher — in my holidays, you know. It’s years ago, and I’ve never been back. I was at Polchester this morning and suddenly felt that I must come over. I wondered whether you’d be so good as to let me look a little at the house and garden.”
There was nothing that Mr. Trenchard would like better. How was Canon Lasher? Well? Good. They met sometimes at meetings at Polchester. Canon Lasher, Mr. Trenchard believed, liked it better at Polchester than at Clinton. Honestly, it would break Mr. Trenchard’s heart if he had to leave the place. But there was no danger of that now. Would Mr. Seymour — his wife would be delighted — would he stay to luncheon?
“Why, that is too kind of you,” said Seymour, hesitating, “but there are so many of us, such a lot — I mean,” he said hurriedly, at Mr. Trenchard’s innocent stare of surprise, “that it’s too hard on Mrs. Trenchard, with so little notice.”
He broke off confusedly.
“We shall only be too delighted,” said Mr. Trenchard. “And if you have friends ...”
“No, no,” said Seymour, “I’m quite alone.”
When, afterwards, he was introduced to Mrs. Trenchard in the drawing-room, he liked her at once. She was a little woman, very neat, with grey hair brushed back from her forehead. She was like some fresh, mild-coloured fruit, and an old-fashioned dress of rather faded green silk, and a large locket that she wore gave her a settled, tranquil air as though she had always been the same, and would continue so for many years. She had a high, fresh colour, a beautiful complexion and her hands had the delicacy of fragile egg-shell china. She was cheerful and friendly, but was, nevertheless, a sad woman; her eyes were dark and her voice was a little forced as though she had accustomed herself to be in good spirits. The love bet
ween herself and her husband was very pleasant to see.
Like all simple people, they immediately trusted Seymour with their confidence. During luncheon they told him many things, of Rasselas, where Mr. Trenchard had been a curate, at their joy at getting the Clinton living, and of their happiness at being there, of the kindness of the people, of the beauty of the country, of their neighbours, of their relations, the George Trenchards, at Garth of Glebeshire generally, and what it meant to be a Trenchard.
“There’ve been Trenchards in Glebeshire,” said the Vicar, greatly excited, “since the beginning of time. If Adam and Eve were here, and Glebeshire was the Garden of Eden, as I daresay it was, why, then Adam was a Trenchard.”
Afterwards when they were smoking in the confused study, Seymour learnt why Mrs. Trenchard was a sad woman.
“We’ve had one trial, under God’s grace,” said Mr. Trenchard. “There was a boy and a girl — Francis and Jessamy. They died, both, in a bad epidemic of typhoid here, five years ago. Francis was five, Jessamy four. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ It was hard losing both of them. They got ill together and died on the same day.”
He puffed furiously at his pipe. “Mrs. Trenchard keeps the nursery just the same as it used to be. She’ll show it to you, I daresay.”
Later, when Mrs. Trenchard took him over the house, his sight of the nursery was more moving to him than any of his old memories. She unlocked the door with a sharp turn of the wrist and showed him the wide sun-lit room, still with fresh curtains, with a wall-paper of robins and cherries, with the toys — dolls, soldiers, a big dolls’-house, a rocking-horse, boxes of bricks.
“Our two children, who died five years ago,” she said in her quiet, calm voice, “this was their room. These were their things. I haven’t been able to change it as yet. Mr. Lasher,” she said, smiling up at him, “had no children, and you were too old for a nursery, I suppose.”
It was then, as he stood in the doorway, bathed in a shaft of sunlight, that he was again, with absolute physical consciousness, aware of the children’s presence. He could tell that they were pressing behind him, staring past him into the room, he could almost hear their whispered exclamations of delight.
He turned to Mrs. Trenchard as though she must have perceived that he was not alone. But she had noticed nothing; with another sharp turn of the wrist she had locked the door.
IV
To-morrow was Christmas Eve: he had promised to spend Christmas with friends in Somerset. Now he went to the little village post-office and telegraphed that he was detained; he felt at that moment as though he would never like to leave Clinton again.
The inn, the “Hearty Cow,” was kept by people who were new to him— “foreigners, from up-country.” The fat landlord complained to Seymour of the slowness of the Clinton people, that they never could be induced to see things to their own proper advantage. “A dead-alive place I call it,” he said; “but still, mind you,” he added, “it’s got a sort of a ‘old on one.”
From the diamond-paned windows of his bedroom next morning he surveyed a glorious day, the very sky seemed to glitter with frost, and when his window was opened he could hear quite plainly the bell on Trezent Rock, so crystal was the air. He walked that morning for miles; he covered all his old ground, picking up memories as though he were building a pleasure-house. Here was his dream, there was disappointment, here that flaming discovery, there this sudden terror — nothing had changed for him, the Moor, St. Arthe Church, St. Dreot Woods, the high white gates and mysterious hidden park of Portcullis House — all were as though it had been yesterday that he had last seen them. Polchester had dwindled before his giant growth. Here the moor, the woods, the roads had grown, and it was he that had shrunken.
At last he stood on the sand-dunes that bounded the moor and looked down upon the marbled sand, blue and gold after the retreating tide. The faint lisp and curdle of the sea sang to him. A row of sea-gulls, one and then another quivering in the light, stood at the water’s edge; the stiff grass that pushed its way fiercely from the sand of the dunes was white with hoar-frost, and the moon, silver now, and sharply curved, came climbing behind the hill.
He turned back and went home. He had promised to have tea at the Vicarage, and he found Mrs. Trenchard putting holly over the pictures in the little dark square hall. She looked as though she had always been there, and as though, in some curious way, the holly, with its bright red berries, especially belonged to her.
She asked him to help her, and Seymour thought that he must have known her all his life. She had a tranquil, restful air, but, now and then, hummed a little tune. She was very tidy as she moved about, picking up little scraps of holly. A row of pins shone in her green dress. After a while they went upstairs and hung holly in the passages.
Seymour had turned his back to her and was balanced on a little ladder, when he heard her utter a sharp little cry.
“The nursery door’s open,” she said. He turned, and saw very clearly, against the half-light, her startled eyes. Her hands were pressed against her dress and holly had fallen at her feet. He saw, too, that the nursery door was ajar.
“I locked it myself, yesterday; you saw me.”
She gasped as though she had been running, and he saw that her face was white.
He moved forward quickly and pushed open the door. The room itself was lightened by the gleam from the passage and also by the moonlight that came dimly through the window. The shadow of some great tree was flung upon the floor. He saw, at once, that the room was changed. The rocking-horse that had been yesterday against the wall had now been dragged far across the floor. The white front of the dolls’-house had swung open and the furniture was disturbed as though some child had been interrupted in his play. Four large dolls sat solemnly round a dolls’ tea-table, and a dolls’ tea service was arranged in front of them. In the very centre of the room a fine castle of bricks had been rising, a perfect Tower of Babel in its frustrated ambition.
The shadow of the great tree shook and quivered above these things.
Seymour saw Mrs. Trenchard’s face, he heard her whisper:
“Who is it? What is it?”
Then she fell upon her knees near the tower of bricks. She gazed at them, stared round the rest of the room, then looked up at him, saying very quietly:
“I knew that they would come back one day. I always waited. It must have been they. Only Francis ever built the bricks like that, with the red ones in the middle. He always said they must be....”
She broke off and then, with her hands pressed to her face, cried, so softly and so gently that she made scarcely any sound.
Seymour left her.
V
He passed through the house without any one seeing him, crossed the common, and went up to his bedroom at the inn. He sat down before his window with his back to the room. He flung the rattling panes wide.
The room looked out across on to the moor, and he could see, in the moonlight, the faint thread of the beginning of the Borhaze Road. To the left of this there was some sharp point of light, some cottage perhaps. It flashed at him as though it were trying to attract his attention. The night was so magical, the world so wonderful, so without bound or limit, that he was prepared now to wait, passively, for his experience. That point of light was where the Scarecrow used to be, just where the brown fields rise up against the horizon. In all his walks to-day he had deliberately avoided that direction. The Scarecrow would not be there now; he had always in his heart fancied it there, and he would not change that picture that he had of it. But now the light flashed at him. As he stared at it he knew that to-day he had completed that adventure that had begun for him many years ago, on that Christmas Eve when he had met Mr. Pidgen.
They were whispering in his ear, “We’ve had a lovely day. It was the most beautiful nursery.... Two other children came too. They wore their things....”
“What, after all,” said his Friend’s voice, “does it mean but that if you love enough
we are with you everywhere — for ever?”
And then the children’s voices again:
“She thought they’d come back, but they’d never gone away — really, you know.”
He gazed once more at the point of light, and then turned round and faced the dark room....
THE END
THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS
CONTENTS
ABSALOM JAY
FANNY CLOSE
THE HON. CLIVE TORBY
MISS MORGANHURST
PETER WESTCOTT
LUCY MOON
MRS. PORTER AND MISS ALLEN
LOIS DRAKE
MR. NIX
LIZZIE RAND
NOBODY
BOMBASTES FURIOSO
The first edition’s title page
TO
JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER
IN FRIENDSHIP
“After they were blown up they were blown down again, and then had to pause for a moment to get their breath..”
Hanspickle. HENRY GALLEON
AUTHOR’S NOTE
No character in this book is drawn from any person now living.
ABSALOM JAY
SOMEWHERE in the early nineties was Absalom Jay’s first period. He was so well-known a figure in London at that time as to be frequently caricatured in the weekly society journals, and Spy’s “Absalom,” that appeared in the 1894 volume of Vanity Fair, is one of his most successful efforts. In those days were any one so ignorant as to be compelled to ask who Jay was he would probably receive the answer: “Oh, don’t you know? He’s a cousin of John Beaminster’s. He founded the “Warrington” with Pemmy Stevens. He’s... Oh, I don’t know.... He goes everywhere. Knows more people than anyone else in London, I should imagine.”