“It was terribly clever, Father. The engine was in little bits and pieces all over the floor, and Willy put it together again. It goes like the wind now. You saw us, didn’t you?”
“Where did you learn how to do it, Willy?”
“At Barstow,” replied Willy. “Oh, not in school, of course! They never teach you anything useful at school. There’s a very good mechanic in the garage near the station; Romford and I go and work there in our spare time.”
“You would be better employed playing cricket.”
“Romford and I are keen on engines. He’s going into his father’s engineering works when he leaves school and Mr. Romford says he’ll take me——”
“You’re going to Oxford.”
“No, Father,” said Willy, getting very red in the face. “No, I don’t want to go to Oxford. I want to go to Romford’s Works and learn about engines.”
“What a ridiculous idea!” exclaimed father, turning and walking up the drive to the house.
Willy hesitated and then wheeled the pup into the coach-house.
I followed more slowly with mother.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” said mother. “I was terribly worried when father said he’d seen you.”
“I’m sorry you were worried. It was lovely – and not a bit dangerous.”
“You looked dreadful! Your hair was flying and your skirt was up to your knees. You’re getting too old to behave like a tomboy, Sarah.”
“I’m sorry, but you see Willy has been working at it for days and I’ve been helping him – polishing bits and holding spanners. When he had finished and got the engine to start I was so excited that I had to go with him.”
“You are an awful girl,” said mother, smiling. She added, “I meant to be very cross with you and give you a lecture.”
I took her arm and said, “Please don’t ever be very cross with me because I couldn’t bear it.”
“Sarah, did you know about this absurd plan of Willy’s?”
“Not really. Of course I knew he was interested in mechanical things. He has always liked making things – you know that, don’t you? I wish you’d seen him putting the engine together. His hands are very clever and he knew exactly how to do it. You’ll let him go to Romford’s Works, won’t you?”
“That’s for Father to say.”
“But you’ll help, Mother? You see, Willy isn’t very good at explaining his ideas.”
“Willy hasn’t much tact,” admitted mother.
“But you’ve got masses of tact,” I told her.
She laughed and said, “I need it.”
This was perfectly true. Mother needed masses of tact to deal with all the troublesome people in the parish.
Nothing more was said at the time, but eventually Willy got his own way. Father wrote to Mr. Romford and it was arranged that when Willy had passed his exams he was to leave Barstow and go into Romford’s Works as an apprentice.
Meanwhile Lewis was very pleased to find the pup in good condition – as well he might be! – and he wrote Willy a very nice jokey letter which began:
Dear Vet,
I enclose ten bob as a small remuneration for your valuable services. My pet is now in the best of health and spirits; his previous owner is as sick as mud at having sold him to me . . . Willy was pleased with the letter and even more pleased with the ten bob. He bought a dilapidated electric radiator which wouldn’t work and put it in order and used it in his study.
Chapter Six
Now that the pup was in good condition Lewis came home quite often and sometimes brought a friend to lunch. We heard a lot about one of his friends who lived in lodgings in The High. His name was Reeder and his father had a big estate in Austria. Reeder was a good deal older than Lewis and had come to Oxford to read English literature and history.
“You must bring him home some day,” said father.
“Oh, he isn’t your sort; you wouldn’t like him.”
“I should be sorry to think I wouldn’t like a friend of yours.”
“Well, he’s – he’s Austrian,” explained Lewis. “He’s a Roman Catholic so he thinks it’s very queer for a priest to be married and have a family. I don’t know whether he’d want to come. He might, of course, because he’s a great chap for new experiences; he says they enlarge the outlook.”
“Perhaps he might enlarge our outlook,” said father, somewhat dryly.
“Oh, he’s a great chap,” declared Lewis. “He’s got a sports car and goes all over the place. Last Saturday the crazy fellow went to Limehouse ‘to see what it was like’ and got into a row with some dockers. He came back to college with a black eye! He got ragged about that, I can tell you!”
“He sounds very aggressive,” said mother apprehensively.
“He isn’t,” declared Lewis. “He’s got foreign manners – very polite, you know. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with blue eyes and reddish-brown hair.”
“I’d like to see the young man,” said father.
“Well, I can ask him,” said Lewis doubtfully.
Lewis asked him and he accepted, so the following Saturday the two came to lunch.
I was interested in Lewis’s friend and had been watching from the upstairs window, so I saw them arrive in a beautifully shiny sports car. As so often happens my mental picture of “Reeder” wasn’t in the least like the original. He was tall, of course, and he had dark brown hair with a reddish tinge in it . . . but still the picture didn’t fit.
“Reeder” uncurled his long legs and got out of the car and stood on the gravel, stretching himself and smiling.
“Oh, lovely!” he exclaimed. “This is the real England, Morris! This is Trollope’s England.”
“You mean Barchester and all that,” said Lewis.
“Yes, indeed! The house is old and beautiful; it has an air of its own. It has a perfume . . .”
At this moment the front door opened and father came out; he advanced with outstretched hand. “I’m very glad to see you,” he said. “It’s good of you to come.”
“It was exceedingly good of you to ask me, sir,” replied the visitor.
Mother was calling to me so I ran downstairs and found her putting the finishing touches to the luncheon table, straightening the knives and forks and rearranging the bowl of roses. “Do you think it looks nice, Sarah?” she asked anxiously. “I want him to see that it’s a good thing for priests to be married.”
“He may think it’s too nice.”
“Too nice? What do you mean?”
“Roman Catholic priests live very simply.”
“We live very simply,” declared mother. “And it isn’t Lent. Listen, Sarah, we must have lunch punctually because we’re starting with a soufflé. Minnie makes such delicious soufflés.”
“They’ve gone into Father’s study.”
“I know. He’s giving them sherry. I do hope he won’t keep them there too long. If father begins to talk about something that interests him he’s apt to forget the time. You’ll have to go and make them come, Sarah.”
Mother’s fears were not unjustified. They were deep in conversation when I was sent in to “make them come.”
Father said, “This is my daughter, Sarah.”
At once the visitor rose and bowed gravely – as if I were grown-up and important.
I bowed too; then I said, “Mother wants you to come to lunch now.”
“Presently,” said father, waving his hand. “Tell mother we’ll come when we’ve finished our sherry.”
“But it’s a soufflé. It’s a cheese soufflé, Father!”
Lewis’s friend smiled at me. He said, “Let us go, sir! With your permission we could take our glasses with us. Time and tide and soufflés wait for no man.”
Father laughed. “That’s rather good!”
Willy was at home that Saturday but not Lottie (she was spending the day at Riverside), so there were six of us at lunch. I could see that father liked Lewis’s friend; I liked him too; he was much more
interesting than Lewis’s other friends, and he had much better manners. Perhaps his manners were “foreign” but they were very pleasant.
“What shall we call you?” asked father, smiling at him.
“I have several names,” he replied, “It is good to have several names because one is several different people – a different person to each of one’s friends.”
Father nodded. “That’s true.”
“I am called Ludovic Charles Edward Reeder.”
“Charles Edward?”
“My mother was a MacDonald.”
“An admirable reason.”
“Perhaps you would care to call me Charles, sir?”
“Nobody calls you Charles!” exclaimed Lewis.
“But that is just the reason. I am a different person to-day at Fairfield.”
“You speak English wonderfully well,” said mother.
“Thank you, Mrs. Morris. I spoke it with my mother, so it is not difficult to me, but I am too stiff. I wish to learn to speak like an Englishman.”
“That’s the reason you’ve come to Oxford,” said father, nodding. “How do you like it, Charles?”
“Oh, I like it very much. I find the work extremely interesting . . . and the air is free. One can say what one likes.”
“I always say what I like,” said Lewis.
“You would not be able to do so if you lived in my country.”
“Have you made many friends here?” asked father.
Charles hesitated and then said, “Not real friends. I find the young men . . . unripe. Is that the correct word, sir?”
“It expresses your meaning perfectly well and, after all, we speak of a ‘ripe old age,’ so why not an ‘unripe youth’? But the word in common use is ‘immature.’”
“Thank you, sir,” said Charles. “Perhaps the young men are immature because England is a happy place . . .” He hesitated.
“You were going to say something more,” said father.
“Lewis has just told us he says what he likes. I find it difficult to put into words, but this is my thought: civilisation is like the crust of a pie which covers a mass of violence and barbarism. Here, in your island, the crust is so thick that you walk upon it with confidence, as if it were solid stone.”
“You mean we’re living in a fool’s paradise?”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps the crust is so thick here, in England, that there is no need for fear.”
Lewis had been left out of the conversation – and Charles was his friend. He smiled mischievously and said, “You’re having a dull Saturday compared with last week.”
“Dull?” asked Charles in surprise.
“You had a fight with a docker, hadn’t you? He gave you a black eye. Why don’t you tell us about it?”
“It was not a glorious battle,” said Charles uncomfortably.
“That’s nonsense!” Lewis declared. “It must have been a terrific battle. I wish I’d seen it.”
“Charles doesn’t want to talk about it,” said father.
“No, I would rather not talk about it,” agreed Charles. “I am not fond of battles but sometimes one is obliged to fight for what is right.” He sighed and added, “It is a wicked world and it is not getting any better.”
“There, I must disagree with you, Charles,” said father. “I’ve no wish to enter into a philosophical argument – I should probably get the worst of it – but I will just ask you to study history.”
“I am studying history, Mr. Morris.”
“Then you must realise that the world is becoming more humane.”
“More humane?” asked Charles.
“We have become kinder and more tolerant. A few hundred years ago you and I would have burnt each other at the stake; to-day you have accepted my hospitality and sit at my table, a welcome guest. . . . But we needn’t go back so far. Less than a hundred years ago little children were made to work in the mines and men were transported for stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving families. Nowadays children are cared for and educated and nobody need starve. It’s true that we read of dreadful things in the papers, of cruelty and violence and murders . . . but these things are news. There are hundreds of thousands of people, leading decent lives and trying to follow the teachings of Christ, but these people aren’t news so you don’t hear about them.”
Charles had been listening carefully. He nodded. “Yes, sir. It is true what you say. You have given me something to think about. I hope you will not misunderstand if I tell you I am surprised to find myself so happy and comfortable in your house.”
“I understand your feelings perfectly, but the fact that you expected to find us less congenial saddens me. There should be more coming and going between people of different nationalities, then it would be a very much better world.”
“Oh yes, how much I agree!” exclaimed Charles. “That is what I am trying to do. That is why I came to England! But perhaps it is not much use for one man to be ‘coming and going’?”
“It all helps,” declared father. “You’ll go back to your own country and tell your friends that you found us reasonably human.”
“I shall tell them you are good and kind.”
“Tell us about your home,” suggested mother; she smiled and added, “The ‘coming and going’ should work both ways.”
“It is so different from here,” said Charles slowly. “Everything is different: the people, the way of life, everything. I find it very difficult to explain.”
“What does your father do?” asked mother.
“He is a landowner. He has a castle and big estates; there are several farms and there are woods and meadows. One can ride for miles over the property. My mother died some years ago; my elder brother and my young sister live with my father. Rudolph is the heir, you understand, so there was no reason why I should not come to England; it is what my mother wished me to do.”
“Have you any relations in this country?” asked mother.
“I have a cousin in Scotland. He is a MacDonald and lives in Edinburgh. Perhaps some day I will write to him and suggest a meeting but I am a little shy. He might not like me.”
“Why shouldn’t he like you?” asked father, smiling.
“There are several reasons,” replied Charles seriously. “I am a ‘foreigner.’ I cannot speak English properly and I am of a different religion.”
Mother said, “Oh, yes, you’re a Roman Catholic of course.”
“That seems strange to you, Mrs. Morris?”
“Well, yes . . . it does, rather,” replied mother uncomfortably. “I mean I couldn’t imagine myself . . . being one.”
“My dear,” said father mildly. “If you had been born of Roman Catholic parents you would most certainly have been a Roman Catholic.”
“What do you mean, Henry!” exclaimed mother. “Papa is a pillar of the Episcopal Church at Ryddelton!”
“That is exactly what I meant,” said father, nodding. He rose and added, “This has been a most interesting conversation but I’m afraid I must leave you now; I’m expecting my churchwarden at two o’clock. We have one or two matters to discuss.”
When father had gone everyone began to talk at once.
Lewis exclaimed, “You see what father meant!”
“I don’t understand——” began mother.
“It is an interesting point——” said Charles.
“You must see it!” cried Lewis. “If you had been born of Moslem parents you’d be a Moslem, mewed up in a harem with all father’s other wives and concubines.”
“Lewis, dear, I don’t think——”
“But people do change sometimes,” put in Willy. “For instance there’s a chap at Barstow——”
I interrupted, “Yes, but mother isn’t the sort of person to change; that’s what father meant.”
“You are right, Miss Morris,” said Charles. “Your mother is a person who will always be loyal to the teaching of her childhood.”
Lewis wasn’t listening. He had got i
nto his stride and was telling mother all the different things she might have been if she hadn’t been born of Episcopalian parents . . . and poor mother was trying to look amused (at what was obviously one of Lewis’s clever jokes) but was really a little frightened. I used to think mother was like a hedge-sparrow who had hatched a cuckoo amongst her brood of nestlings; she was proud of her cuckoo, because he was big and beautiful and clever, but she didn’t understand him in the least.
I thought it was time to rescue mother so I asked if I should fetch the coffee and bring it into the drawing-room.
“Yes, Sarah,” said mother with a sigh of relief. “The tray will be too heavy for Minnie.”
We all rose and I ran to fetch the tray. I was surprised to find that Charles had followed me into the pantry.
“May I help you?” he inquired politely.
“It’s all right, thank you. I can manage.”
“But why should you carry a heavy tray when there is a strong man to help you, Miss Morris?”
“You’d better call me Sarah, hadn’t you? I mean if we’re going to call you Charles . . . but perhaps you just meant father and mother?”
He said gravely, “It will be very pleasant to call you Sarah, and I shall be honoured if you will call me Charles.”
I nodded . . . I was glad I had asked him. I wanted to call him Charles. “But perhaps I shall never see you again,” I said.
“Never see me again?” asked Charles in astonishment.
“I mean you’ve seen us now. You’ve seen an English priest with a family. It’s been a new experience and enlarged your outlook, so——”
“Oh dear! Is that what your brother said of me?”
“Isn’t it true?”
“Yes, it is true,” admitted Charles, laughing. “But it is not the whole truth. My outlook has been more enlarged than I expected and enlarged in a very surprising way.”
“You mean you like us?” I suggested.
“Very much,” he replied seriously. “I hope we may see each other frequently.”
I nodded and said, “So do I.”
“Perhaps you and Mrs. Morris will come to Oxford one day and have lunch with me. There is a hotel called The Mitre——”
Sarah Morris Remembers Page 5