Dance of the Years

by Margery Allingham

  James was really anxious to know if she was well and not overtired or distressed. When he put the formal question he betrayed the sincerity, and was surprised to see Samuel laugh and glance up at his half-sister.

  “Everyone is concerned for Mama,” said Phœbe, as she turned her back to the light so that Samuel could see what he was doing. “It is her chief remarker, don’t you think so, brother?”

  “Undoubtedly.” Samuel bent closer to his task, but James could see that he was blushing. Suddenly he straightened his back and continued in the tone he kept for his more consciously outrageous statements: “Indeed, we are evidences of that concern, are we not, Phœbe? The living results of overwhelming if somewhat thoughtless compassion.”

  She laughed. It was a spontaneous giggle of pure amusement, and James, who was by no means as green as they thought him, saw the full point of the bitter and scandalous little joke. Two natural children of different fathers living openly with their mother was an odd state of affairs even in that day and age.

  James found it extraordinary. His own situation was honourable compared to theirs; it made him feel slightly condescending until he remembered Lucius, and, of course, Edwin Castor, and got his balance again.

  He said with apparent artlessness: “Are there any more of you?”

  Both young people turned and eyed him with struggling respect. Phœbe was the first to recover her self-possession.

  “No,” she said, “there’s only the two of us. You must see us act. Are you coming to the play to-night? Samuel may be able to get you an order for the pit.”

  James thanked her, but said he would prefer to pay for his own seat. He had not meant to create an impression, although they were all at the age when that would seem to be the most important thing in life; but he happened to do so, and was not sorry to notice it.

  They were both interested. Samuel had assumed that James’s flight was something to do with money, and had been wasting a fellow feeling on him. The fact that he was in funds seemed to fascinate them; they said so frankly, and James who had been envying them for the fun they appeared to be having, was driven by curiosity into frankness himself.

  “What would you do with money if you had it?” he enquired.

  Phœbe stretched herself and flung her arms above her head. Although James was not considering her much at that time, he never forgot that pose of hers. It epitomized her to him and remained in his mind as the secret of her attraction for him, whereas of course it was nothing of the sort. James needed Phœbe for her brains and her sophistication, but he never saw that until it was far too late.

  “If I had money,” she said, bringing down her hand so that he could see the ring with the red glass in it, “if I had money, that would be a real ruby.”

  He looked at it, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say that something or other was above rubies, but he could not remember what it was, and so escaped priggishness.

  He stayed as long as he decently could, and took his leave, promising to come to the theatre in the evening. Both the Thorpes were very insistent on this, and they made a great fuss of him, as if they had decided he was worth cultivating. Samuel accompanied him as far as the street.

  “We shall meet again, shan’t we?” he said wistfully as they parted.

  “Of course,” said James in astonishment. Yet as he went off down the road, keeping a wary eye open for anyone who looked as though he might have something to do with Lucius, he felt slightly depressed by the whole incident, and found himself wishing that Samuel had turned out to be a different sort of person, even someone who had been too grand and too busy to have seen him.

  It was typical of James that he realized why he felt like that. Samuel was his only friend of his own age, and it followed that if Samuel was so pleased and anxious for his company, then Samuel for all his talk was not so good as James. On thinking it over, it seemed to him that for Samuel’s sake as well as his own he had jolly well better be something as soon as possible. It was the naïve Shulie in him walking hand in hand with old Galantry’s intellectual honesty. Between them they had produced a rum, simple youth, very human and peculiarly strong.

  Chapter Twelve

  James’s new, unhappy feeling tended to increase as he sat in the theatre waiting for the play to begin. He had been idealizing Samuel for some time, and now after the sight of the dark, untidy room, the leg painting and the toiling bravura, the ideal was fading. It made him feel very lonely, for human ideals are companionable things like distant landmarks on a march; and once they are past the traveller has nothing to look forward to until the next tower rises in sight.

  James was feeling this loneliness as he sat on the hard bench and sniffed the many odours of the playhouse. It was all much smaller and far more tawdry than he had expected. The notices about pickpockets were obviously necessary, and even the most attractive people round him looked silly and over-excited. Moreover, the lack of ventilation in the place almost stifled him. His childhood in the salt marshland had accustomed his lungs to large draughts of vital air, and now the little fœtid stream, lukewarm and mildly poisonous, scarce kept them going. He had half a mind to wash his hands of the whole business and go back to ‘The Golden Boar,’ when the curtain rose.

  A limping monster of a man, dressed in dusty black velvet and gold, came forward and said something which hit James squarely between the eyes.

  “Now,” said Richard of Gloucester, in a huge, rich, three times life size voice, “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

  James did not hear the end of the sentence, he was too astonished, for the words had said what he felt. They had expressed him. This was indeed the winter, the bare time, at which the only resurrection lies in new growth. The winter, yes, that was it; the winter of discontent. The words had snatched the feeling out of him and thrown it away in the air. It had been said, expressed, got rid of. He found the experience was astounding; it was like vomiting emotional poison.

  After that his eyes did not move from the stage. The play was Cibber’s version, of course, but even that consequential little hack could scarcely hurt it, nor could the woman who played Queen Margaret and muffed her lines in the very midst of her envy. James did not recognize her as Mrs. Thorpe. He had scarcely heard of Shakespeare before, but now as one country boy to another, he tumbled to his tremendous secret immediately.

  James saw at once that the people on the stage were saying, not so much what they thought as did people in real life, but also what they honestly felt. They were doing it, too, in the most economical way possible, and never seemed to be at a loss for a word. These were immortal folk who could bring up the last flavour of the passions in their hearts. To listen to them, James found, was to be reminded of every imprisoned emotional pain he had ever had, and to give himself the glorious experience of having them all liberated one after the other. It was something quite new to him, partly a game or an exercise, and partly a sort of cleansing process; and all the time, of course, there was the rhythm, the beautiful, steady music timed to the heartbeat running strongly as an accompaniment to the sense.

  James’s head began to sing and his mouth fell open a little.

  Phœbe came on to say her few lines, and the paint on her legs made her look only a shabby little Prince. James did not recognize her. To him she was the character, and he did not want to think of her as anyone else.

  The end of the play found him exalted and exhausted. He did not stay for the after-piece because he did not think he could bear any more. He blundered out into the dark, cobbled street and the soft air from the river came up to caress him, while the stars danced among the pointed roofs above.

  James knew he had made one of the great discoveries of his life. He also knew that it was quite all right and there was no catch in it, like there was in getting drunk. This new asset was a genuine one. If he had not the power of self-expression, he had discovered appreciation, which was the next best thing. He forgave Samuel everything, unconditionally. Samuel was justif
ied.

  In that first exalted mood, James even forgave Phœbe her painted legs.

  He was striding down the narrow entrance to the Butter Market when somebody sidled out of a doorway and came towards him. Presently he saw Whippy’s great shining moon-face appearing out of the dusk. He was pretty well speechless with mysteriousness, and James, who had been living in an earlier, more expansive age for the past few hours, very nearly kicked him off the footway, he was so annoyed with him.

  It was a long time before he could get any sense out of him at all, but gradually he gathered that Lucius himself was in the town, staying at the ‘White Horse,’ and that his man had already made enquiries for James at ‘The Golden Boar.’ Whippy said that old Jed was most anxious to see James at once. At any time James was proud enough to resent being hunted down, but now in the first flush of his liberation he found it insufferable. He objected very much to the hole-and-corner way in which Whippy smuggled him into ‘The Golden Boar.’ They went into a neighbour’s garden, climbed over a stable wall, crossed a crumbling parapet, and entered a window on the first floor. James disliked it all intensely, and by the time he was ushered into the kitchen he was very angry, and in the mood to say so.

  Jed listened to his outburst in silence.

  “No, no,” he said at last, “no, no. Not that I don’t like you for it, mind you. You don’t want to goo down there and talk to he. He’s your half-brother and he’s a lawyer, and that’s a wonderful strong kind of partnership. No, no. You be ruled by me. I’ve only come to the age I have by being wonderfully fly. I know his sort. Keep out of his way for half an hour and he’ll get tired, and then he’ll go off and mind his own business. Why should you be bothered by he? Now I’ll tell you what I have in my mind.” He was being very conciliatory, and Whippy, who never had this sort of treatment from his father, was overcome. James was irritated by his expression of dog-like reverence, and looked at him coldly. Old Jed followed his eyes, and was apparently exasperated, too, for he suddenly reached out to the side of the fireplace and, snatching up a blackthorn stick, lunged at his unfortunate youngest. Whippy fled. As the door closed behind him the old man chuckled bitterly.

  “That wouldn’t do for you,” he said.

  “No,” said James, “it would not.”

  “That’s right; that’s right,” said Jed, unperturbed. “Different cattle take different handling. You go down to your half-brother if you’re so minded and let him wriggle round you. Who am I to stop you?”

  He rocked the top part of him gently in his tight chair, and closed his eyes. The stratagem was obvious to James, but he was not to be made contrary by it.

  Presently he said with a prophecy of his future manner, “I think you’re my friend, Mr. Fletcher, and I know he’s not.…”

  “That he ain’t,” said Jed, opening an eye. “He’s doing nothing but going about the country advertising you for a good-for-nought.”

  James grew red at the injury done him.

  “What do you advise me?” he demanded.

  Jed woke up at once. “Now you’re being a sensible young gentleman,” he said. “Remarkably sensible for one of your years, if you’ll forgive me for being so personal. Now, just you listen to me.”

  He unfolded his plan with considerable energy, and reminded James strongly of his sister, Mrs. Jason. But whereas his excitability was liable to lead to mere well-meant confusion, Jed’s had a great deal of sense within it. It appeared that his eldest son, Gustus, was on the eve of setting out on his annual visit to Appleby Horse Fair, far away in the north country. It was an enormous distance, hundreds of miles, and Whippy was going with him. They aimed to pick up ten or a dozen “young things” and to bring them back for quiet winter trading. They were going to travel light on “little old nags,” would sleep where they could on the way, and in all proposed to be out of Ipswich for six or seven weeks. Mr. Fletcher’s suggestion was that James should accompany them. Gustus was an old hand, his father said, and he preferred “to travel cross-country wise through little back lanes, like a proper gyppo.”

  His eyes flickered as the unfortunate phrase escaped him, but James, who was quick to imitate anything he admired, did not appear to hear him.

  He was attracted by the suggestion, he knew that he would enjoy the trip more than anything else in the world, for all his life he had heard of Appleby Horse Fair, where every gypsy, every coper, every dealer met to haggle, and thousands of pounds’ worth of horseflesh changed hands every day.

  He knew the journey was a wise expedient, too, for among the lanes Lucius would never find him; yet he felt very bitter about it. They were all pushing him back to Shulie, friend and foe alike. Chance herself conspired to lead him back to where she knew he belonged. Damn them for it, James thought.

  He was still frowning when Jed spoke to him, answering his mind.

  “Don’t you worry, boy,” said the old man unexpectedly. “Blood’s blood. Rant and rage and die and clip, you can’t never alter it either way, so don’t worry. However, I can have a remarkable bad thoroughbred that I wouldn’t be pleased for anyone to see in my stable, and I can have a wonderfully good crossbred any man would be pleased to own. Good and bad, that’s what matters, and if any man tell you he don’t know the defference, he’s lying, or he’s not safe about by himself. Blood’s blood, but it’s only blood; it ain’t the whole boiling. I tell you one thing too,” he added, dancing about in his chair in excitement, “there’s a lot too much importance put on to blood, and why? Because that can’t be altered, see? Same as there’s a lot too much importance put on the size of a man and the face of a woman. Them as is fortunate keep up the idea because it’s them what benefits, and them as ain’t fortunate keep it up because they know it’s something they can’t have, whatever they do. So they think it must be wonderful, same as any little old child do. I’m a very thoughtful old man, and I’ve seen a powerful lot of men and a powerful lot of horses, and I’ll tell you about the blood horse, Mr. Galantry.

  “A Blood is a horse what’s been bred for a certain purpose, and for that work, if he’s a good ’un there naturally ain’t nothing to touch him. A lot of picked-out horses have gone to make him up, but put him to other work very likely he ain’t so good as the next. He can’t help it, he’s bred so. But a good cross horse is a fine animal, a proper fit beast to live and die on the earth that’s made for him. Don’t go forgetting the king word, though. That’s ‘good.’ Be a good ’un and don’t go worrying about blood. Now forgive me talking so round about, and go you off to bed. Three in the morning you’ll be starting from here.”

  This was one of the first of Jed’s many homilies, and James could not help but be influenced by them.

  He went to Appleby and learned there even more about horses than he knew before. He enjoyed himself, and betrayed powers of bargaining which brought respectful admiration even from Gustus Fletcher, who considered himself pretty good.

  Lucius never caught James, and, as Jed had predicted, soon gave up the chase and fell to minding his own affairs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  James never knew exactly when he fell in love with Phoebe. At first she was just Samuel’s half-sister, and then one of the three of them, and then one day he realized there was no woman in the world but she. That day came when he was nearly twenty-two and he could not welcome it. He put the thought of her out of his mind again and again, but there was no killing it, and one evening some time after the first revelation he stood alone in the dusk leaning over a gate some little way down the lonely road outside the town, thinking of her.

  It was very cold, and there was a heavy ground mist, but he did not stir for nearly an hour. His life was becoming a burden to him. All through the winter it had been growing difficult enough, but now that the spring had come searching into his blood there was no escape for him anywhere. Now he was suffocating in the grip of a deadly preoccupation, and had been forced to go off along like this hugging his love to himself like something alive.

&
nbsp; He had not told her yet, and for some time now had done his best to keep away from the theatre. But it was very difficult. He had a problem which he saw no way of solving; it lay in his own peculiar position and hers.

  The last seven years had been the happiest in his life, and in them he had found a background to replace the one he had lost for ever when old Galantry died and left him with fifteen thousand pounds, Dorothy to love him, and nothing else in the world. His new background was a curious one in all conscience, but he valued it enormously, for it was all he had, and he was a man who all his life felt the need of one. His present difficulty lay in the attitude taken up by Jed, Dorothy, and the Jasons.

  These, since they had connived at his escape, had in Chinese fashion ever afterwards considered him their own responsibility. They were the people who for the last seven and most impressionable years of his life had been helping to makes James into the sort of person they thought he ought to be, and in this their hands were strengthened because their ideas coincided so nearly with James’s own views on the subject.

  Jed had done his honest best by James, and it was because he had been so very honest, and even idealistic about it, that he had never treated him as a son. Ever since James had first entered ‘The Golden Boar,’ Jed had treated him as his master’s son, and in the England of those days that was a very different thing altogether.

  The others had abetted Jed, and thus James had grown up to fill a very definite position in the little world surrounding him. He had become a sort of squireling in exile, an East Anglian Bonnie Prince Charlie in miniature.

  His adherents were possessive; he was grateful to be possessed, and the feelings of responsibility, theirs to him and his to them, had grown enormous.

  It was an odd state of affairs, but inevitable in the circumstances.