Secret Bread Part 31

From that he had been saved, and he gave thanks without pretence, for with the freedom of his body was enwrapped the freedom of his soul. Yet he was still a young man when Nicky was nearing "double figures"--only in the early thirties. To him the years that had pa.s.sed since Nicky's birth were so different in quality from all that had gone before that it was small wonder they seemed to him another life and he himself another person. Nicky had been the dominating human factor; the public life of the times, as it affected his own corner in particular, the chief interest which had kept him hard at work, too busy for the dreams of his unsatisfied youth. He had altered, hardened, sharpened, become more of a man of the world, thought himself contented, and in action and practical affairs drowned mental speculation and emotion.

This was the Ishmael of the late 'seventies, a being altered indeed, but not more so than the England of that period was from the England of the 'fifties and 'sixties. That she had grown, improved, set her house in better order, it would have been futile to deny--the improvements were of the visible kind, patent to all men. That Mr. Disraeli's new policy of Imperialism was to be a great and splendid thing there were few men among the Liberals wise enough to foresee, and Ishmael was not yet amongst them. That he himself had grown, developed, become a useful member of society, no one who knew him would have denied, but whether his growth had been altogether towards the light was another question.

The old Parson was a wise and a patient man who had gone too far along life's road to take any stage in it as necessarily final, and he watched and bided the time perhaps more prayerfully, certainly more silently, than of yore. Ishmael never failed in consideration, in affection, but there had grown a barrier that was not entirely made of a difference in politics. He knew it even if Ishmael, the child of his heart, seemed not to care enough one way or the other to be aware of it.

One day, a sunlit blowy day of spring, when the cloud-shadows drew swiftly over the dappled hills and the young corn was showing its first fine flames of green, Ishmael received a letter. Long after it had come he sat with it in his hand, reading and re-reading it. A tinge of excitement, a heady something he had long not felt, because it was purely personal, went through and through him as he read. The letter was from Killigrew, from whom he had heard nothing for several years, and it held news to awake all the old memories in a flood. The letter began by asking for news of Ishmael, and went on with a brief dismissal of the writer's own life during the past years. It had been the "usual thing"--no small measure of success, friends.h.i.+ps, women, play and work.

What mattered was that Killigrew had suddenly taken it into his head he must come down again to Cloom. He was coming and at once. He gave a few characteristic reasons.

"I have lost something and till yesterday I couldn't for the life of me tell what," wrote Killigrew. "It's been a good time, and I've enjoyed most of it, but suddenly it occurred to me that really I wasn't enjoying it as much as I thought I was, as much as I used to. I lay on the lawn of this confounded suburban villa whence I'm writing to you now--I'm putting in a few days at my mother's--and I was doing nothing particular but think over a lot of old times. And there came into my mind without any warning--flashed into it rather--a saying of my old master's in Paris. He was a wise old bird, the wisest I ever knew--somehow reminds me of your old Padre, though you couldn't meet two men more different.

And what I remembered was this. 'The test of any picture, or indeed of any of the arts, is whether or not it evokes ecstasy.' I don't know whether it's the test of the arts, but I know it's the test of life. And that is what I've lost. Ecstasy! One still feels it now and again, of course, but how more and more rarely! Well, I lay on the lawn, with this light flooding in on me, and suddenly I opened my eyes and what do you think I saw? There was a flock of starlings in the sky, and I opened my eyes full on 'em, so that I got 'em against the west, which was full of sunset. They were flying in a dense ma.s.s between me and the glow. I could see their beating wings in serried ranks of black V-shapes. And, quite suddenly, at some bird-command communicated--heaven knows how--the whole flock of them heeled over, presenting nothing but the narrow edge of their wings, hair-fine, all but invisible. In that one flas.h.i.+ng moment the whole solid crowd of birds seemed to vanish, as though swallowed up by a shutter of sky. I'd never seen it before, and I might have gone through life without the luck to see it. I can tell you, it made me tingle. I could have shouted aloud, but the sound of my own voice would have spoilt it so. I got ecstasy all right that time, and I realised with a pang of gratefulness that it's the impersonal things that produce ecstasy. In personal contact you may get delirium, but that's not the same thing. This, says I, is the sort of thing I'm after.

And so of course I thought of you and that wonderful place of yours and that nice solid impersonality that always wrapped you round and made you so restful. So I'm coming down. I won't stay with you; find me digs somewhere--I'm better on my own."

Ishmael read so far, where the letter ended abruptly; there was, however, a postscript:--"P.S.--Do you remember Judith Parminter? She wants a holiday and is coming down with a friend. If Mrs. Penticost is still in the land of the living you might fix up for them there."

Ishmael followed out all Killigrew's instructions, but that night he took the letter over to Boase. It was as though the atmosphere of the old days re-established by its arrival, the habit of the old days, claimed him sub-consciously. The Parson read it, but did not comment beyond the obvious remark that it would all be very pleasant. After Ishmael had gone he sat and thought for a long while. What struck him as noteworthy was that Killigrew should have been satiated with the personal, which he had cultivated so a.s.siduously, at the moment when, or so it seemed to him, Ishmael, after a life spent for so long in the impersonal, might be expected to react in exactly the opposite direction. Ishmael, as he walked home, was only aware that the letter had stirred him beyond the mere pleasurable expectation of once again seeing his friend. That one word "ecstasy" had stung him to something that had long been dormant--the desire to feel life again as something wonderful, that did not only content but could intoxicate as well. He was unaware of this revulsion, and was only vaguely surprised that a queer discontent should mingle with his pleasure.

CHAPTER VII

PARADISE COTTAGE AGAIN

When the train came slowly into the station and clanked to rest with a long, tired sigh of steam, Ishmael's first search was for Killigrew's red beard and pale face. While his gaze roved up and down the line of carriages a couple of women, one of whom seemed to know him, swam into his range of vision and distracted his attention.

It was nearly ten years since he had seen Judith Parminter, and he stared for a moment in bewilderment. Fas.h.i.+on had undergone in those years one of its rare basic changes. Instead of the swelling curves which had been wont to encompa.s.s women, so that they seemed to float upon proud waves, skirts had become a species of swaddling clothes caught back below the knees, whence a series of frills clung tightly about the feet. Rows of flutings, tuckings and what-not, confounded simplicity of line, but all the drapery was pulled in a backwards direction and puffed to a sudden bulkiness behind, so that women looked as though they were walking in the face of a perpetual wind. On their heads they were wont to perch delicious little hats, poked forward, in contradistinction to the trend of the draperies, slanting nosewards and tilted up in the rear by plaited chignons.

Of the two women advancing towards Ishmael, the tall dark one, by far the elder, wore under a black silk jacket a gown of soft red, the terra-cotta then beginning to be in vogue amidst the artistic elect, but it was smartly cut, whereas the peac.o.c.k blue garment of her companion showed a depressing sloppiness, which was not helped out by the drooping rows of many-coloured beads which were slung round her throat or the peac.o.c.k feathers that trailed from her shovel hat of gauged silk.

This girl, Ishmael saw vaguely, had a pale chubby face like a child, but the long, dark countenance of the other, lit by a smile of recognition, was suddenly familiar to him. Only--Judy had become a woman, a thin, rather sad-looking woman, with a melancholy that was not the old effect of tragedy for which her monkey-look and the bistre shadows beneath her eyes had been responsible without any deeper cause. The monkey-look was there still, but Judy was almost beautiful in spite, or perhaps more truly because, of it. Ishmael felt her lean, strong hand, ungloved, come into his.

"I knew it was you!" exclaimed Judy in the husky voice he remembered.

"You've changed, but only along the lines one would have expected. Mr.

Killigrew can't come--not for a day or two. He told me to tell you he'd try to get down by the end of the week. May I introduce you to Miss Georgie Barlow?"

Another hand was thrust into his, with a sudden _gauche_ movement that was not without a girlish charm. Ishmael found himself looking at the pale chubby face, and the only thing he noticed in it was the mouth.

Georgie Barlow stayed in his mind as "the girl with the mouth," as she frequently did to those who met her even once. She had a wonderful mouth, and was wont to declare it to be her only feature. It was not very red, but very tenderly curved, the lips short, flat in modelling and almost as wide at the ends as the centre, which just saved them from being a cupid's bow. The corners were deeply indented, tucked in like those of a child. Not only the lips but the planes of the chin and cheeks immediately around them were good, very tender in colour and curves, with the faint blur of fine golden down to soften them still more.

Such was Georgie Barlow--a short, rounded little creature, with a bare neck that was not long but delicate, and surrounded by three "creases of Venus" like that of a baby. Her rather small but frank blue eyes held a boyish look that was intensified by the fact that her hair was cut short after the new fas.h.i.+on in a certain set and brushed almost to her fair eyebrows in a straight fringe in front, while on the nape of her neck it curved in little drake's tails of soft brown. The blue beads riding up her neck ruffled the tails like tiny feathers.

Both she in her "artistic" way and Judy in her quiet smartness were very different from the women Ishmael had been seeing of late years--the dowdy county ladies or Va.s.sie in her splendid flamboyance. He felt oddly shy with them; the ageing of Judy, so marked and somehow so unexpected--she had seemed such a child only ten years ago--made him feel she was as much of a stranger as her little companion, and there was also about her some new quality he could not but feel, a something aloof, a little hard, for all her gentleness of manner. He had never envisaged her as growing into this self-possessed woman, whose most noticeable quality, had it not been for her aloofness, would have been a certain worldliness. He felt his dreams of the old time rudely upset.

Killigrew's erratic defection, the altered feeling of Judy, which made him uncertain even whether to call her by her Christian name as of old or not, the presence of this oddly-attired girl with the mouth, were all so different from what he had been expecting. He told himself that when Killigrew did arrive he also would probably be a different creature from of old, not knowing that exactly what made Killigrew such a wearing person to keep up with was that he never changed, only became more himself.

Judith was not very illuminating on the subject when he questioned her, merely answering him with an affirmative when he asked her whether she had seen a good deal of Killigrew since the old days, and he was forced to keep company with his curiosity till Killigrew should appear out of the blue a few days hence.

Meanwhile, he drove the two ladies to Mrs. Penticost's, Judy saying that as they had luggage she thought it would be simpler to go straight there instead of stopping for supper at the Manor. The next day, however, both were to meet Boase there for tea.

Meanwhile Ishmael had to relinquish them to the care of Mrs. Penticost and go back to the Manor, feeling discontented and unable to settle to anything, while at the same time he was not at all sure he was glad that Killigrew had ever taken it into his head to come down and send his harem, as Ishmael annoyedly termed it to himself, before him. Not so Mrs. Penticost. She still called Judith her lamb, and after folding her to her portly breast was not likely to feel any tremors when she held her off to gaze at her.

"You'm gone through somethen' since I saw 'ee, my dear," she announced candidly. "There's lines under your pretty eyes that dedn' belong to be there. I shouldn' wonder if it wasn't the men as had putt en there.

Menfolk are like children--they'm a pack of worry, but the women can't get along happy wethout en."

"Well, at least I haven't any children, Mother Penticost," said Judy, laughing.

"Aren't married, are you, my dear? Mr. Ruan ded say 'Miss Parminter' to I when he came about the rooms."

"No, I'm not married."

"And why's that?" demanded the direct Mrs. Penticost. "Not because they haven't asked 'ee, I'll lay. Couldn't 'ee fancy none of en, my dear sawl?"

"Not enough for that, apparently."

"I used to think you and that Killigrew weth his red head and his free tongue would make a match of it, but I suppose it was not to be....

Never mind, my dear. We never goes to church weth the first one as takes our fancy."

"Oh, I shall never marry!" declared Judith lightly. "By the way, I hear Mr. Ruan has a beautiful boy, Mrs. Penticost."

"Aw, dear sawl, so he have. Best thing that flighty little f.a.ggot to the mill ever ded was to make that babe. Children's a deal of trouble, though, so they are. Some has boys and wants maids, and some has only maids and provokes the Lard to send en boys, as though there weren't enough men in the world. No pleasing some folks."

"They're a trouble that's well worth while, anyway. Children, I mean,"

said Judith.

"Ah! so some of us says as hasn't got en. We can all stand any joys that come along, but we'd all like to have the choosen' of our troubles,"

replied Mrs. Penticost non-committally.

"I certainly think children must be the nicest troubles one can choose,"

remarked Judith.

"There's many a poor maid that's thought otherwise," responded Mrs.

Penticost.

"Oh, well, I didn't mean that way ... that's a trouble for the children too when they grow up ... worse than for the mother. That's why it's wicked to have them like that. I meant if one were married."

"It's not all honey then, my dear. Look at Jenny Trewen down to the church-town. She'm never had naught but boys, and she sticks every virtue on that maid she always wanted and that never came. 'Twould have been just the same if it had been the other way on, if you see what I do mane. 'Tes the babes as never are born that lie nearest to a mother's heart...."

"What a terrible theory!" broke in Georgie, swinging her legs as she sat perched upon the corner of the table. "And according to the same theory, are the men one never meets the nicest, and the picture one never paints the finest, and the kiss that never comes off the sweetest?"

Mrs. Penticost turned and surveyed her with a kindly tolerance for her impertinent youth.

"You'm spaken' truer than you do knaw," she told her. "And truer than you'll knaw for many a day to come if you'm one of the lucky ones. Now I suppose you'll be like you always were, Miss Judy, was.h.i.+ng the life out of 'ee weth hot water? The bath's gone up overstairs."

Judy laughingly got to her feet and went up to her room. She was very tired; though she was tenacious of const.i.tution, the first elasticity of youth was gone from her, and she was glad of the warm water, the soft bed, the light meal of eggs and cocoa that Mrs. Penticost brought her when she was between the sheets. Ishmael was not the only one who felt a deadening of the spirit that night, and even on awakening the following morning. Judith had carried that about with her in her consciousness for enough years now to recognise the old weight upon her thoughts on awakening. But Georgie, triumphant, healthy, full of excitement at the new world that lay beyond the low wall of Paradise Cottage, ran into Judith's room, the "best" bedroom, the one Blanche Grey had had when the childish Judy had been wont to come in as Georgie came in to the woman Judy now. The turn of the wheel struck upon Miss Parminter's mind as she lay and watched the slim, st.u.r.dy young thing perched upon the end of the bed, her boyish head bare and a ray of morning sun tingeing its soft brown to a brighter hue and showing up the clearness of her pale matt skin.

"I don't think I much like your hero of romance," grumbled Georgie. "He took precious little notice of either of us, and he looks so surly."

"He's not my hero," objected Judy, "he's Joe's; and I'm sure he isn't really surly. I think he was disappointed at not seeing Joe."

"Well, it was very ungallant of him when we turned up all right. I have a good mind to flirt outrageously with him to punish him. And when he's deeply in love with me I shall say 'No, thank you, sir! I've no use for surly squires, and I've a young man of my own at home.'"

"Georgie, you're to do nothing of the sort. You know I told you all about him to make you careful. He was abominably treated by that cat Blanche, and I won't have it happen again."