Part 1 (2/2)

Madge Merewether, her old schoolfellow, had told her she was to help amuse the little girls. Heaven knew how she was to do it. Already the unintelligibility of Lancas.h.i.+re speech had filled her with dismay. The array of hard-faced little girls daunted her; she turned to the boys, but she only saw one--the little hatless, coatless scarecrow with the perfect features And arresting grace, who stood out among his smug companions with the singularly vivid incongruity of a Greek Hermes in the central hall of Madame Tussaud's waxwork exhibition. Fascinated, she strayed down the line toward him. She halted, looked for a second or two into a pair of liquid black eyes and then blushed in agonized shyness. She stared at the beautiful boy, and the beautiful boy stared at her, and not a word could she find in her head to speak. She turned abruptly and moved away. The boy broke rank and slowly followed her.

For little Paul Kegworthy the heavens had opened and flooded his senses, till he nearly fainted, with the perfume of celestial lands.

The intoxicating sweetness of it bewildered his young brain. It was nothing delicate, evanescent, like the smell of a flower. It as thick, pungent, cloying, compelling. Mouth agape and nostril wide, he followed the exquisite source of the emanation like one in a dream, half across the yard. A curate laughingly and unsuspectingly brought him back to earth by laying hands on him and bundling him back into his place.

There he remained, being a docile urchin; but his eyes remained fixed on Maisie Shepherd. She was only a rosebud beauty of an English girl, her beauty heightened by the colour of distress, but to Paul the radiance of her person almost rivalled the wonder of her perfume. It was his first meeting of a G.o.ddess face to face, and he surrendered his whole being in adoration.

In a few minutes the children were marched through the squalid streets, a strident band, to the dingy railway station, a grimy proletariat third-cla.s.s railway station in which the sign ”First Cla.s.s Waiting Room” glared an outrage and a mockery, and were marshalled into the waiting train. The wonderful experience of which Paul had dreamed for weeks--he had never ridden in a train before--began; and soon the murky environs of the town were left behind and the train sped through the open country.

His companions in the railway carriage crowded at the windows, fighting vigorously for right of place; but Paul sat alone in the middle of the seat, unmoved by the new sensation and speed, and by the glimpses of blue sky and waving trees above the others' heads. The glory of the day was blotted out until he should see and smell the G.o.ddess again. At the wayside station where they descended he saw her in the distance, and the glory came once more. She caught his eye, smiled and nodded. He felt a queer thrill run through him. He had been singled out from among all the boys. He alone knew her.

Brakes took them from the station down a country road and, after a mile or so, through stone gates of a stately park, where wonder after wonder was set out before Paul's unaccustomed eyes. On either side of this roadway stretched rolling gra.s.s with clumps and glades of great trees in their July bravery--more trees than Paul imagined could be in the world. There were sunlit upland patches and cool dells of shade carpeted with golden b.u.t.tercups, where cattle fed lazily. Once a herd of fallow deer browsing by the wayside scuttled away at the noisy approach of the brakes. Only afterward did Paul learn their name and nature: to him then they were mythical beasts of fairyland. Once also the long pile-of the Tudor house came into view, flas.h.i.+ng-white in the suns.h.i.+ne. The teacher in charge of the brake explained that it was the Marquis of Chudley's residence. It was more beautiful than anything Paul had ever seen; it was bigger than many churches put together; the word ”Palace” came into his head--it transcended all his preconceived ideas of palaces: yet in such a palace only could dwell the radiant and sweet-smelling lady of his dream. The certainty gave him a curious satisfaction.

They arrived at the spot where the marquees were erected, and at once began the traditional routine of the school treat-games for the girls, manlier sports for the boys. Lord Chudley, patron of the living of St.

Luke's, Bludston, and Lord Bountiful of the feast, had provided swing-boats and a merry-go-round which discoursed infernal music to enraptured ears. Paul stood aloof for a while from these delights, his eye on the section of the girls among whom his G.o.ddess moved. As soon as she became detached and he could approach her without attracting notice, he crept within the magic circle of the scent and lay down p.r.o.ne, drinking in its intoxication, and, as she moved, he wriggled toward her on his stomach like a young snake.

After a time she came near him. ”Why aren't you playing with the other boys?” she asked.

Paul sat on his heels. ”Dunno, miss,” he said shyly.

She glanced at his rapscallion attire, blushed, and blamed herself for the tactless question. ”This is a beautiful place, isn't it?”

”It's heavenly,” said Paul, with his eyes on her.

”One scarcely wants to do anything but just-just-well, be here.” She smiled.

He nodded and said, ”Ay!” Then he grew bolder. ”I like being alone,” he declared defiantly.

”Then I'll leave you,” she laughed.

The blood flushed deep under his unwashed olive skin, and he leaped to his feet. ”Aw didn't mean that!” he protested hotly. ”It wur them other boys.”

She was touched by his beauty and quick sensitiveness. ”I was only teasing. I'm sure you like being with me.”

Paul had never heard such exquisite tones from human lips. To his ears, accustomed to the harsh Lancas.h.i.+re burr, her low, accentless voice was music. So another of his senses was caught in the enchantment.

”Yo' speak so pretty,” said he.

At that moment a spruce but perspiring young teacher came up. ”We're going to have some boys' races, miss, and we want the ladies to look on. His lords.h.i.+p has offered prizes. The first is a boys' race-under eleven.”

”You can join in that, anyhow,” she said to Paul. ”Go along and let me see you win.”

Paul scudded off, his heart aflame, his hand, as he ran, tucking in the s.h.i.+rt whose evasion from the breeches was beyond the control of the single brace. Besides, crawling on your stomach is dislocating even to the most neatly secured attire. But his action was mechanical. His thoughts were with his G.o.ddess. In his inarticulate mind he knew himself to be her champion. He sped under her consecration. He knew he could run. He could run like a young deer. Though despised, could he not outrun any of the youth in Budge Street? He took his place in the line of competing children. Far away in the gra.s.sy distance were two men holding a stretched string. On one side of him was a tubby boy with a freckled face and an amorphous nose on which the perspiration beaded; on the other a lank, consumptive creature, in Eton collar and red tie and a sprig of sweet William in his b.u.t.tonhole, a very superior person.

Neither of them desired his propinquity. They tried to hustle him from the line. But Paul, born Ishmael, had his hand against them. The fat boy, smitten beneath the belt, doubled up in pain and the consumptive person rubbed agonized s.h.i.+ns. A curate, walking down repressing bulges and levelling up concavities, ordained order. The line stood tense.

Away beyond, toward the goal, appeared a white ma.s.s, which Paul knew to be the ladies in their summer dresses; and among them, though he could not distinguish her, was she in whose eyes he was to win glory. The prize did not matter. It was for her that he was running. In his childish mind he felt pa.s.sionately identified with her. He was her champion.

The word was given. The urchins started. Paul, his little elbows squared behind him and his eyes fixed vacantly in s.p.a.ce, ran with his soul in the toes that protruded through the ragged old boots. He knew not who was in front or who was behind. It was the madness of battle.

He ran and ran, until somebody put his arms round him and stopped him.

”Steady on, my boy-steady on!”

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