Part 10 (1/2)

Neale's soul recoiled upon itself in a shudder of horrified revolt. He recognized the traitor, a white terror on his face. Grinding his teeth, Neale leaped at his throat. With a roar the water closed over their heads ... he would never let him go, never, never.... Down they went to the depths, to the black depths, fiercely locked in each other's arms.

Neale smothered and strangled there ... and came up into another world, the world of books.

At the table that night, his father looked at him and asked, ”You're not getting a cold, are you, Neale?”

”No, I guess not,” said Neale, blinking his reddened eyelids, and eating with a ravenous appet.i.te his large slice of rare roast beef.

After that, time did not hang heavy on his hands. The days were not long enough. The volume which stood next to ”Great Expectations” was called ”The Tale of Two Cities.” ”Which two cities?” Neale wondered. He opened it and began to read. In a moment, wrapped in a caped great-coat, shod with muddy jack-boots, he was plodding up-hill beside the Dover Mail, his hand on his horse-pistol. The panting rider on his blown horse--the message, ”Wait at Dover for Mam'selle,”--the answer in capital letters, ”RECALLED TO LIFE!” With a long quivering breath Neale slid back a century and a quarter, into a world vibrating with sorrow, hope, indignation, hatred, love.

He dipped his handkerchief in the muddy wine spilled in the street; he looked up, not surprised to see the squalid joker scrawl ”BLOOD,” on the wall; he climbed the filthy staircase, and averted his eyes in horrified sympathy from the ruin of humanity who sat in the dark, cobbling shoes.

And then, brushed in with great colorful strokes, the causes and authors of the filthy stairway, the squalid joker, the ruined man, the endless misery. With the four serving-men pouring out the chocolate of Monseigneur, Neale began to burn, like a carefully constructed bon-fire, alight at last. He had never in his life before, given a conscious thought to social injustice or the poor, but every instinct for fair play, sound and intact in his heart, flared up hotly and honestly, as he gave himself navely to the spell of the magnetic exaggeration and over-emphasis of the story. He had ”had” the French Revolution in his history at Hadley Prep. and could have recited correctly almost any date in it. But, quite literally, he had no idea until after he had finished the story, that this panting, bleeding, weeping, thundering book had any connection with what he had learned at school.

”David Copperfield” was good, not so terribly exciting as the others, but solid food on which Neale, aware for the first time of his hunger, feasted with a deep content--all except the parts about Dora, who made him tired. After this for a change, he reached up to a shelf above and took down at random one of the set in green and gold binding. This was ”Kidnapped.” Thereafter he read nothing but green and gold, till his eyes gave out and his father drove him out to spend a whole afternoon on his wheel.

CHAPTER XIII

Although he had gone reluctantly, once he was out it seemed fine to be on his bicycle again. His forgotten body reacted with a rush to exercise and fresh air. Generally he expected to make at least fifty miles in a half-day but to-day was hot. Pedaling easily through Nutley he caught sight of a young man playing tennis against two girls and stopped in the shade of a maple to watch the game, still sitting on his wheel, his right pedal locked over the curb-stone. Tennis was not so universal then as now: Neale knew little about the game.

Presently a chance stroke sent the ball into the street. ”Out!”

announced the young man, and turning ran back to retrieve it. As any American would do anywhere in the world when a ball is in question, Neale stooped, picked it up and was just going to toss it back when amazement paralyzed his arm. Could this slim youth in immaculate flannels possibly be Don Roberts? Don, the big boy who had played s.h.i.+nny and vacant-lot baseball with him, whom he had never seen but with a dirty s.h.i.+rt and unkempt hair! The elegant youth cried out, ”Neale Crittenden! I'll be blessed if it isn't old man Crit! That's luck! Come on and meet my friends and we'll have a set of doubles.”

He ushered Neale up to the net, where laying a patronizing hand on his friend's shoulder, he presented him. ”Ladies, my old friend, Crittenden.

We used to be boys together long ago. Neale, the Misses Underhill, Nutley's peerless blondine duet, Polly and Natalie. Now, how about some doubles? Neale can use my old racket.”

”But I don't play,” said Neale, alarmed at the idea. ”No, I honestly don't. I've never had a racket in my hand. I'll watch.”

”Oh, fudge! That's all right. You'll learn. Nat and Neale, that's your team. Polly, my dear, come over to this court and back up your Uncle Don. No fair banging everything at Polly.”

The essential rudiments were explained. Neale gripped the racket and the game began. At first his partner politely kept her own court but as the completeness of his ineptness became awfully apparent, she began covering more and more territory, running across and s.n.a.t.c.hing the ball from in front of his hesitating racket. In vain, for Don continually placed his return down her undefended alley. The set was soon over, 6--love.

”Now, Crit,” said Don, jumping over the net, ”we'll have s.e.x against s.e.x.”

The second set went better. Now that he was playing on Don's side, Don gave him a little coaching. Neale learned to run in to the net and found volleying much simpler than playing ground strokes. Natalie's low returns often went through him and he did nothing with her service, but not infrequently he managed to pat back Polly's gentle offerings. When points were needed Don monopolized the court. The boys won,--a love set.

Don lit a cigarette and pretended to fan himself with his racket. ”How about lemonade for the victors?” he cried, but the girls demurred. It was five o'clock, they had to go home and dress. They laughed over nothing at all, shook hands with Neale, told a few friendly lies about his progress, and walked off laughing over nothing at all, swinging their rackets; white-shod, yellow-haired, pink-skinned.

”Dear little sweethearts, aren't they?” commented Don. ”A little insipid like most nice girls, but you have to take what you can get. Polly's a dub at tennis, of course, uses her racket like a snow-shovel, but she's not such a worse little flirt. Look here, Crit, old boy. I've got to stay in this stinking hole all summer, cramming for deficient exams. The old man won't let me go to the Water Gap till I can answer those d.a.m.n questions. And there isn't a soul to play with but those girls. It's rotten for my game. Why don't you come out here? Come to-morrow. Of course you can't play, but I'll teach you. I can teach anybody.”

Neale blushed and accepted the magnificent offer.

”Well, ta, ta, old man, sorry you can't stay to supper.”

Neale mounted his wheel with a very high heart. This was something like.

Something was beginning to happen in his life. Wasn't Don great? As he rode home he decided that he would ask his father to let him go to Princeton. Don was at Princeton.

But he didn't. Father read him Mother's latest letter, all about the particular great-aunt she was visiting in Cambridge, and after they had commented on this, Father looked at his evening paper sideways as he ate, and Neale went over in his mind the events of the afternoon, and the wonder of Don Roberts turning out such a splendid fellow, such a good sport, such clothes, such a way with him. Neale thought about him a great deal more than about the girls, and with vastly more admiration.

He was sure that David Copperfield's Steerforth was nothing to Don Roberts. Once when he glanced up, he saw Father looking at him instead of his newspaper.