Part 8 (1/2)

She might have seen a flash of horror pa.s.s over Rickie's face. The horror disappeared, for, thank G.o.d, he was now a man, whom civilization protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were, behind the scenes, before our decorous drama opens, and there the elder boy had done things to him--absurd things, not worth chronicling separately. An apple-pie bed is nothing; pinches, kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, ghosts at night, inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little by themselves. But let them be united and continuous, and you have a h.e.l.l that no grown-up devil can devise. Between Rickie and Gerald there lay a shadow that darkens life more often than we suppose. The bully and his victim never quite forget their first relations. They meet in clubs and country houses, and clap one another on the back; but in both the memory is green of a more strenuous day, when they were boys together.

He tried to say, ”He was the right kind of boy, and I was the wrong kind.” But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation over by self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been a worse kind. He murmured, ”We are different, very,” and Miss Pembroke, perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him without reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people were engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he was criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in.

”I hope his ankle is better.”

”Never was bad. He's always fussing over something.”

”He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says.”

”I dare say he does.”

”Shall we be going?”

”Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I've had enough of cold feet.”

It was all very colourless and odd.

Gerald returned, saying, ”I can't stand your cook. What's she want to ask me questions for? I can't stand talking to servants. I say, 'If I speak to you, well and good'--and it's another thing besides if she were pretty.”

”Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute,” said Agnes. ”We're frightfully unpunctual this morning, and I daren't say anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if I complain again they might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved.”

”Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I've never eaten them.

They always stuff one.”

”And you thought you'd better, eh?” said Mr. Dawes, ”in case you weren't stuffed here.”

Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked annoyed.

The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, ”Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important letter about the Church Defence, otherwise--. Come in and see your room.”

He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much there. It was dreadful: they did not love each other. More dreadful even than the case of his father and mother, for they, until they married, had got on pretty well. But this man was already rude and brutal and cold: he was still the school bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran pins into them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done it?

Ought not somebody to interfere?

He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them.

Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other's arms.

He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain. The man's grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his knee, was pressing her, with all his strength, against him. Already her hands slipped off him, and she whispered, ”Don't you hurt--” Her face had no expression. It stared at the intruder and never saw him. Then her lover kissed it, and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty, like some star.

Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He thought, ”Do such things actually happen?” and he seemed to be looking down coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till G.o.ds of pure flame were born in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles of virgin snow.

While Mr. Pembroke talked, the riot of fair images increased.

They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. Their orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to stand aside for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him like a river. He stood at the springs of creation and heard the primeval monotony. Then an obscure instrument gave out a little phrase.

The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a listener might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes. n.o.bler instruments accepted it, the clarionet protected, the bra.s.s encouraged, and it rose to the surface to the whisper of violins. In full unison was Love born, flame of the flame, flus.h.i.+ng the dark river beneath him and the virgin snows above. His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was a jewel on his finger as he pa.s.sed it in benediction over the world.

Creation, no longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody, in brighter radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he a torrent of song?

Was he greater than either--the touch of a man on a woman?

It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted. But this he could not know.