Part 5 (1/2)

And here, in the heart of the Sannet Wood, is death from violence, death, naked, crude, removed from all sense of life as we know it. The High Tables avoid Carfax's body with all possible discretion; for an hour or two the Port has lost its flavour, Homer is hidden by a cloud, the gentle chatter is curtailed and silenced. Amongst the lower order--those wild and turbulent undergraduates--it is the only topic.

Carfax is very generally known; he had ridden, he had rowed, he had played cricket. A member of the only sporting club in the University, he had been known as a ”real sportsman and a d.a.m.ned good fellow” because he was often drunk and frequently spent an evening in London . . . and now he is dead.

In Saul's a number of very young spirits awake to the consciousness of death. Here is a red-faced hearty fellow as fit as anything one moment and dead the next. Never before had the fact been faced that this might happen to any one. Let the High Table dismiss it easily, it is none so simple for those who have not had time to build up those defending walls. For a day or two there is a hush about the place, voices are soft, men talk in groups, the mystery is the one sensation. . . . The time pa.s.ses, there are other interests, once more the High Table can taste its wine. Death is again bundled into noisier streets, into a harder, shriller air. . . .

2

Olva, on the morning after the discovery of the body, heard from Mrs.

Ridge speculations as to the probable criminal. ”You take _my_ word, Mr.

Dune, sir, it was one of them there nasty tramps--always 'anging round they are, and Miss Annett was only yesterday speakin' to me of a ugly feller comin' round to their back door and askin' for bread, weren't you, Miss Annett?”

”I was, indeed, Mrs. Ridge.”

”And 'im with the nastiest 'eavy blue jaw you ever saw on a man, 'adn't 'e, Miss Annett?”

”He had, indeed, Mrs. Ridge.”

”Ah, I shouldn't wonder--nasty-sort-o'-looking feller. And that Sannet Wood too--nasty lonely place with its old stones and all--comfortable?--I _don't_ think.”

Olva made inquiries as to the stones.

”Why, ever so old, they say--before Christ, I've 'eard. Used to cut up 'uman flesh and eat it like the pore natives, and there's a ugly lookin'

stone in that very wood where they did it too, or so I've 'eard. Would you go along that way in the dark, Miss Annett?”

”Not much--I grant _you_, Mrs. Ridge.”

”Oh yes! not likely on a dark night, I _don't_ think!--and that pore Mr.

Carfax--well, all I say is, I 'opes they catch 'im, that's all _I_ say . . .” with further reminiscence concerning Mrs. Birch who had worked on Carfax's staircase the last ten years and never ”'ad no kind of luck.

There was that Mr. Oliver---”

Final dismissal of Mrs. Ridge and Miss Annett.

Meanwhile, strange enough the relief that he felt because the body was actually removed from that wood. No longer possible now to see it lying there with the leg bent underneath, the head falling straight back, the ring on the finger. . . . Curious, too, that the matchbox had not been discovered; they must have searched pretty thoroughly by now--perhaps after all it had not been dropped there.

But over him there had fallen a strange la.s.situde. He was outside, beyond it all.

And then Craven came to see him. The event had wrought in the boy a great change. It was precisely with a character like Craven's that such an incident must cleave a division between youth and manhood. He had, until last evening, considered nothing for himself; his father's death had occurred when he was too young to see anything in it but a perfectly natural removal of some one immensely old. The world had seemed the easiest, the simplest of places, his years at Rugby had been delight.

Fully free from shocks of any kind. Good health, friends.h.i.+p, a little learning, these things had made the days pa.s.s swiftly. Rupert Craven had been yesterday, a child precisely typical of the system in which he had been drilled; now he was something different. Olva knew that he was capable of depths of feeling because of his extraordinary devotion to his sister. Craven had often spoken of her to Olva--”So different from me, the most brilliant person in the world. Her music is really wonderful----people who know, I mean, all say so. But you see we're the same age--only two of us. We've always been everything to one another.”

Olva wondered why Craven had told him. It was not as though they had ever been very intimate, but Craven seemed to think that Olva and his sister would have much in common.

Olva wondered, as he looked at Craven standing there in the doorway, how this sister would take the change in her brother. He had suddenly, as he looked at Craven, a perception of the number of lives with whose course his action had involved him. The wheel was beginning to turn. . . .

The light had gone from Craven's eyes. His vitality and energy had slipped from him, leaving his body heavy, unalert. He seemed puzzled, awed; there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were pale and his mouth had lost its tendency to smile, its lines were heavy; but, above all, his expression was interrogative. Finally, he was puzzled.

For an instant, as he looked at him, Olva felt that he could not face him, then with a deliberate summoning of the resources of his temperament he strung himself to whatever the day might bring forth.

”This is awful----”