The Journeying Boy

by Michael Innes

  When he had recovered from his first mild surprise at these unexpected appearances, Mr Thewless was distinctly pleased. There was unlikely to be anything rackety or pretentious here. It seemed to be a very good setting, indeed, for that labour of rehabilitation, both nervous and scholastic, to which he and his charge were dedicated. And, even as he made this reflection, Mr Thewless found further reassurance in an eminently quiet domestic scene. Below the terrace, and upon a large space of ground midway in character between a lawn and a hayfield, an elderly lady and gentleman sat beneath an ancient coloured umbrella the shade of which had crept away from them with the sinking sun. Beside them on a wicker table a silver tea equipage of considerable complication suggested an ordering of things at once sober and substantial. Some fifty yards beyond, and on the farther side of a low hedge, were two other figures whom Mr Thewless could at first distinguish merely as those of a younger man and a boy. These were bent over some object presently invisible; they straightened up and Mr Thewless heard a dull report; their conference was renewed and in a flash its nature became clear. The boy was being instructed in the use of a shot-gun – that same shot-gun which he had been disposed violently to repudiate at Euston. Humphrey had turned up.

  Perhaps because he was more relieved than he was prepared to acknowledge, Mr Thewless paid his fare without inquiry. He was then led, by a female servant markedly more disposed to hospitality than deference, across the decaying terrace and into the presence of the persons beneath the umbrella. He had only time to remark, with a twinge of obscure misgiving, that the lady was none other than his old acquaintance, Miss Liberty, when his attention was commanded by the volubility of his host.

  ‘My dear sir, I’m delighted to see you safe – most delighted. Gracie! bring another pot of tea… Yes, very pleased indeed and I hope you’re not unduly fatigued. Dinner, woman – dinner? Hold your tongue and do as you’re told – am I to be dinnered in my own house when I choose that it shall be tea-time still?… I think you know Miss Liberty. She took charge of Humphrey, you know – a nice lad, Bernard’s boy, and intelligent, I’d be inclined to say – took charge of him, you know, and they went off to search for you in Tannian’s car. But here you are, after the rascals have done their damnedest, eh?’

  ‘Done their damnedest?’ Mr Thewless was disturbed.

  But Mr Bolderwood largely laughed. ‘No animus, of course; nothing directed against you in particular, my dear sir. But first they let fly at you with a railway accident and then with this odd ambulance affair, eh? It’s their stupidity, you know. All the Irish are intensely stupid. Charming, of course; full of poetry and often extremely industrious; religious too – positively religious to a fault.’ Mr Bolderwood paused for a moment, and Mr Thewless conjectured that he was proposing to supply this last statement with some larger theological context. But all he did was to take breath the more effectively to shout across the length of the terrace: ‘Gracie, send out another fruit cake! And tell that woman to stop feeding the fowls.’ Mr Bolderwood turned this time to Miss Liberty. ‘Positively,’ he said, ‘I won’t feed the fowls if the fowls refuse to feed me. Would you believe, now, that there’s not an egg in the place, and that they won’t even send up a dozen – not a dozen, mark you! – from the village? And on a day, as Ivor there would tell you, that I distinctly had it in mind to order an omelette for dinner. By the way, I hope you’ll stop for a meal?’

  During these wandering remarks, Miss Liberty had been studying Humphrey’s tutor with a good deal of attention – and this with a frankness making the latter feel faintly like an object exposed behind plate-glass. But now the lady rose and drew on her gloves. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I am afraid I cannot accept your most kind invitation. Not, Mr Bolderwood, that I will claim to feel a stranger, or in any way unintroduced, after the curious circumstances in which we have met and the most friendly reception you gave me. When Humphrey was parted from Mr Thewless as a result of the mishap in the tunnel I felt it right to make what inquiries I could, and then to bring the boy on to his destination. But now I must find my inn. It is said to be most comfortable. Indeed, it was strongly recommended to my brother, Sir Charles. Personal recommendation is most important, do you not think? And now I propose to walk to the village, and nobody is to accompany me a single step.’

  Delivering herself of this command, Miss Liberty paused as if for a final survey of the scene. Ivor Bolderwood, unaware of the arrival of Mr Thewless, had wandered the length of some fields away, but the occasional pop of the shot-gun told that the boy’s education was proceeding. Further off in the same direction could be seen an arm of the sea, and beyond it a promontory running out and up to a commanding eminence from which cliffs dropped sheer to the water below. At this Miss Liberty pointed suddenly and with a decisive finger. ‘There must be a very fine view from there,’ she said to Mr Bolderwood.

  ‘View?’ Her host’s gaze went somewhat vaguely after her finger. ‘Oh, yes, capital – really capital.’

  ‘Particularly in the morning.’ Miss Liberty was now critically taking her bearings by the sun. She turned to Mr Thewless. ‘Say at ten o’clock.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Fleetingly – he was by now decidedly fatigued – Mr Thewless was aware of something dropping softly into the depths of his mind.

  ‘The shadows,’ said Miss Liberty. ‘The shadows over the bay must be just right then. Mr Bolderwood, I quite envy you living amid such beauties of Nature. Good-bye.’

  And Miss Liberty, having shaken hands with some ceremony, walked composedly away.

  This departure was the signal for Mr Thewless to be shown to his room – an operation which Mr Bolderwood directed in person, and which involved the services of a surprising number of assistants. The factotum Denis was present in something of the position of an interpreter, reiterating and augmenting the sufficiently considerable volubility of his employer. The lad called Billy Bone bumped about with suitcases. Gracie, having thumped the bed upon which the guest was to repose himself, with results very little to her satisfaction, fell to remaking it amid loud exclamations of indignation and shame. Two further maids appeared with large jugs of hot and cold water, and proceeded with such concentration to the mixing together of these in a basin that Mr Thewless had an alarmed feeling that these maidens, with a positively Homeric simplicity, intended themselves to wash him down there and then. This sense of mild personal insecurity was further increased when an enthusiastic youth, in feature disconcertingly like the traditional Irishman celebrated on comic postcards, slipped deftly behind him and neatly stripped him of his jacket – while at the same moment another lad, possibly a twin to the first, threw himself on the floor and seized Mr Thewless by a leg, although with no more hurtful intention, as it presently appeared, than of depriving him of his shoes and socks. Mr Bolderwood, meanwhile, stamped about the apartment, tugging at curtains which came off their rings, and knobs which came off their drawers, and cupboard doors which came off their hinges. The whole effect was like a page by Smollett or a print after Rowlandson; and Mr Thewless was rather sleepily aware of it as being – although by no means displeasingly – somewhat factitious in character. It was evidently a turn which this retired South American commercial magnate (for Mr Bolderwood, he recalled, was really that) pleased himself with putting up. And although Mr Thewless would certainly have preferred running water, decent seclusion, and drawers from which there was some prospect of extracting shirts and ties without exhausting operations with pocket-knives and shoe-horns, he was nevertheless quite prepared to take this harmless feudal fantasy in good part. Besides, he reflected, it might amuse Humphrey.

  Presently, however, Mr Bolderwood brought down the curtain abruptly on the scene by driving his retainers with something approximating to sudden physical violence from the room. Mr Thewless rather expected that he would follow, leaving his guest to pursue his own occasions until summoned to dinner. But Mr Bolderwood simply seated himself comfortably on the faded cretonne of a window-seat – gaining
himself thereby a pleasant bath of evening sunshine – and prepared to keep his guest company during his ablutions. ‘Soap?’ he said. ‘Yes, I see the rascals have remembered soap. Our ways are very informal at Killyboffin, very informal indeed. But I assure you, my dear sir, that we are very glad to see you. And I like cousin Bernard’s boy. Ivor and he are going to get on admirably. Ivor has a good touch with lads. For my part, I look forward to a very pleasant time while you are with us.’ Mr Bolderwood paused, and it appeared to his companion, peering at him from amid an abundant soapy lather, that some shade of doubt momentarily clouded his ingenuous brow. But this instantly explained itself. ‘If it wasn’t for the eggs,’ said Mr Bolderwood. ‘Did you ever hear of so outrageous a thing? And when we had positively planned an enormous omelette. I greatly fear that for dinner now we shall have to fall back upon stelk. Do you awfully mind?’

  Mr Thewless, reaching for a towel, murmured some inarticulate civility. Conceivably stelk was some very considerable delicacy which his host was heralding with modest disclaimers. But somehow it did not sound altogether promising.

  ‘But, of course, we might have boxty.’ Mr Bolderwood brightened. ‘Gracie’s boxty is very eatable, very eatable indeed. And you’ll agree that that’s more than can be said for boxty as a general rule.’

  Mr Thewless was again inarticulate. He did not think he would care for boxty – whether Gracie’s or another’s – and moreover he felt a scarcely rational apprehension lest Humphrey, also disliking it, might be prompted to some demonstration as with Lord Buffery and the cream-jug. He was casting round for some means of changing the subject when his host himself did this with some abruptness. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘that old girl – do you think she’s all right?’

  ‘All right?’ It took Mr Thewless some seconds to realize that this question, which had broken from Mr Bolderwood in a manner betraying considerable inner anxiety, referred to his late travelling-companion. And even when assured of this he was quite at sea as to its bearing. It was his first thought that the lady’s morals were being brought to the question; then it occurred to him that it was perhaps her social acceptability, and that Mr Bolderwood was fearful that accident had brought him into too familiar contact with a person of insufficient consideration. But these were both suppositions so absurd as to be untenable. ‘I really don’t know much about her,’ he said. ‘But, one way and another, she had a good deal of conversation with Humphrey.’

  ‘That is what I gathered. Did she talk–?’ And from his patch of sunshine, Mr Bolderwood looked in sharp interrogation at Humphrey’s tutor.

  ‘I thought she talked a lot of dangerous nonsense.’

  There was the effect of a good deal of stored-up irritation in Mr Thewless’ tone. For a moment Mr Bolderwood appeared to consider it on that basis. ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘Spy stories,’ said Mr Thewless, ‘and stuff of that sort. In ordinary circumstances it would, of course, be harmless enough. But in this particular case–’

  Here Mr Thewless hesitated. He was a man who, even when tired, continued to act from delicate feelings; and it went a little against the grain to announce so soon, even to one in whom confidence might quite properly be reposed, his discovery of his pupil’s infirmities. In this situation Mr Bolderwood, with a nice tact of which one would not have suspected him in his feudal moments, took the initiative. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I gather that Humphrey is a little difficult. A pity in so capable a boy.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Mr Thewless was much pleased by this perception. ‘The lad is thoroughly capable – which is no more than one would expect of his father’s son. Moreover, he is very attractive. Oddly young for his years at times, and yet at other times with a streak of disconcerting precociousness. But thoroughly nice.’ Mr Thewless paused, it may be, fleetingly surprised by the decided character of his own sentiments. ‘There is no doubt, however, that Humphrey can day-dream himself into some rather alarming world of romantic adventure, with nervous consequences that are by no means desirable. And I was a little annoyed with Miss Liberty – although I don’t doubt she is a well-meaning woman enough – for encouraging him. When there was this little hitch in the tunnel, and I was taken off under some absurd misapprehension in that ambulance, it appears that she got hold of a car and drove about the country with the boy looking for me. Heaven knows what melodramatic nonsense they stuffed into each other’s heads. And fancies of that sort propagate themselves rather easily.’ Mr Thewless paused. ‘As a matter of fact, I must confess to have got a little fanciful myself.’

  If Mr Bolderwood was at all interested in this tentative confession, his sense of civility prevented him from betraying the fact. ‘I quite follow you,’ he said, ‘about what is desirable for the boy. We have, of course, heard about him from Bernard. A little apt to do undisciplined and alarming things.’

  ‘He threw a cream-jug at Lord Buffery.’

  Mr Bolderwood received this information for what his guest designed it – a humorous touch on the situation which at the same time staked out a claim for forbearance should any such small untoward incidents occur at Killyboffin. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that we shall have no distinguished targets of that sort. But I can find Humphrey plenty of common-or-garden ones. I have a dozen rascals about the place for whom the experience would be thoroughly wholesome. Don’t, by the way, think of taking that dinner-jacket off its hanger. Our habits are of the simplest here from month’s end to month’s end.’

  By this time Mr Thewless had got used to the engaging familiarity of his host, who sat by him while he changed for all the world as if they had been at school together. So he now responded with unwonted warmth. ‘I look forward to my stay with you all the more. Going round doing private tutoring as I do, I get a little tired of formal households.’ He smiled. ‘Nor would they suit Humphrey. I have an idea that Sir Bernard’s rather magnificent manner of living may have rather an oppressive effect where his son is concerned.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Mr Bolderwood was now looking in some absence of mind out of the window, rather as if he had detected in the grounds below an illicit attempt to feed the disgraced Killyboffin poultry. ‘Hence, no doubt, the running away.’

  ‘The running away?’ Mr Thewless was startled.

  Mr Bolderwood chuckled. ‘Just something that Ivor tells me cousin Bernard mentioned about our young handful – that it wouldn’t be surprising if he cut off to sea or joined up with a circus. I suppose boys still do these things from time to time.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr Thewless, finding himself a pair of house-slippers in a suitcase, was dimly aware that, in fact, he didn’t quite see. ‘Well, we must make sure that we are not landed with anything like that.’

  ‘Most certainly we must.’ Mr Bolderwood was at once properly emphatic and charmingly amused. ‘Although, with exploits of that sort, one never knows, does one?’

  ‘Never knows?’ Despite his tardy tea, Mr Thewless was feeling hungry as well as tired, and the combination made him stupid.

  ‘Something was put in my head. Captains Courageous, and that sort of thing. I imagine that Humphrey has been a little fussed by his father – I don’t intend any serious criticism of Bernard, I need hardly say – and been brought up in an atmosphere of wealth, and formality, and at the same time of abstract and intellectual preoccupations rather depressing to a young mind. A bit of an escapade, and a bit of roughing it, might actually do him a world of good. Of course I may be quite wrong – and you, my dear fellow, have infinitely more experience with lads than I. It need hardly be said that we shall entirely rely upon you for the regulating of Humphrey’s ways during your stay.’

  This last was altogether a proper declaration. On the strength of it, Mr Thewless was quite prepared to accept in a cordial spirit his becoming his host’s dear fellow a little early in the day. And now Mr Bolderwood got to his feet. ‘If Humphrey did cast loose,’ he said idly, ‘it would be a considerable comfort that he has a brain to deal with things.’

  Mr Thewless, had he n
ot been engaged in brushing his hair, would certainly have accorded this proposition an emphatic nod. He recalled his pupil’s story of the blackmailer – a story which he was still disposed to regard as a little island of true report in the ocean of the unfortunate lad’s imaginings. And he decidedly agreed that if a child must be rum he had better be brainy as well.

  ‘You must tell us about your routine; when you want to work with the boy and when you want him taken off your hands. Ivor will be able, and most willing, to give him quite a lot of time. They seem to be getting on very well already. Steady work, plenty of absorbing occupation out of doors – shooting, swimming, and that sort of thing – and, above all, the sense of a quiet, ordered life.’ And Mr Bolderwood smiled benevolently on his guest, altogether the understanding and sympathetic host. ‘Yes,’ he repeated, ‘a quiet, ordered life.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Damnation!’ he shouted – and charging at Mr Thewless’ door, flung it open with the utmost violence, and proceeded bellowing angrily to the staircase across the corridor. Here, hanging hazardously over the battered elegance of a Georgian balustrade which looked as if it had suffered a good deal of Bolderwood impetuosity in its time, he fell to upbraiding the negligence and unpunctuality of his retainers after a fashion which the notable resonance of Killyboffin Hall rendered startlingly effective. Moreover, the cry was presently taken up by Denis somewhere below, and this impudent proposal to transmit rather than receive his master’s displeasure so irritated Mr Bolderwood that his own vociferations were redoubled. Mr Thewless was aware of a rather startled Humphrey peering out of the room adjoining his own, and then of the quiet voice of Ivor Bolderwood apparently composing and expediting matters below. Ivor seemed to be without his father’s disposition to put on squire-archal turns. Mr Thewless, as he made his way through the din in order to have a little conversation with his pupil, felt that the son of the house might turn out to be someone to rely upon.