The Lee Shore Part 34

Denis is the luckiest, the most prosperous, the most succeeding person I know. Peter, let me try and tell you about Denis and me."

She paused for a moment, leaning her head back against the beech-tree and looking up wide-eyed at the singing roof overhead.

"You know how it was, I expect," she said, with the confidence they always had in each other's knowledge, that saved so many words. "How Denis came among us, among you and me and father and Felicity and our unprosperous, dingy friends, and how he was all bright and s.h.i.+ning and beautiful, and I loved him, partly because he was so bright and beautiful, and a great deal because you did, and you and I have always loved the same things. And so I married him; and at the time, and oh, for ever so long, I didn't understand how it was; how it was all wrong, and how he and I didn't really belong to each other a bit, because he's in one lot of people, and I'm in another. He's in the top lot, that gets things, and I'm in the under lot, with you and father and all the poorer people who don't get things, and have to find life nice in spite of it.

I'd deserted really; and father and Felicity knew I had; only I didn't know, or I'd never have done it. I only got to understand gradjully"

(Lucy's long words were apt to be a blur, like a child's), "when I saw what a lot of good things Denis and his friends had, and how I had to have them too, 'cause I couldn't get away from them; and oh, Peter, I've felt smothered beneath them! They're so heavy and so rich, and shut people out from the rest of the world that hasn't got them, so that they can't hear or see each other. It's like living in a palace in the middle of dreadful slums, and never caring. Because you _can't_ care, however much you try, in the palace, the same as you can if you're down in the middle of the poorness and the emptiness. Wasn't it Christ who said how hardly rich men shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it's harder still for them to enter into the other kingdoms, which aren't heaven at all. It's hard for them to step out from where they are and enter anywhere else. Peter, can anyone ever leave their world and go into another. I have failed, you see. Denis would never even begin to try; he wouldn't see any object. I don't believe it can be done. Except perhaps by very great people. And we're not that. People like you and me and Denis belong where we're born and brought up. Even for the ones who try, to change, it's hard. And most of us don't try at all, or care ... Denis hardly cares, really. He's generous with money; he lets me give away as much as I like; but he doesn't care himself. Unhappiness and bad luck and disgrace don't touch him; he doesn't want to have anything to do with them; he doesn't like them. Even his friends, the people he likes, he gets tired of directly they begin to go under. You know that. And it's dreadful, Peter. I hate it, being comfortable up there and not seeing and not hearing and not caring. Seems to me we just live to have a good time.

Well, of course, people ought to do that, it's the thing to live for, and I usen't to mind before I was rich, and father and Felicity and you and I had a good time together. But when you're rich and among rich people, and have a good time not because you make it for yourself out of all the common things that everyone shares--the suns.h.i.+ne and the river and the nice things in the streets--but have a special corner of good things marked off for you, then it gets dreadful. 'Tisn't that one thinks one ought to be doing more for other people; I don't think I've that sort of conscience much; only that _I don't belong_. I can't help thinking of all the down-below people, the disreputable, unlucky people, who fail and don't get things, and I know that's where I really belong. It's like being born in one family and going and living in another. You never fit in really; your proper family is calling out to you all the time. Oh, not only because they aren't rich and lucky, but because they really suit you best, in little ways as well as big ways. You understand them, and they understand you. All the butlers and footmen and lady's-maids frighten me so; I don't like telling them to do things; they're so--so solemn and respectable. And I don't like creatures to be killed, and I don't like eating them afterwards. But Denis and his friends and the servants and everyone thinks it's idiotic to be a vegetarian. Denis says vegetarians are nearly all cranks and bounders, and long-haired men or short-haired women. Well, I can't help it; I s'pose that shows where I really and truly belong, though I don't like short-haired women; it's so ugly, and they talk so loud very often. And there it is again; I dislike short hair 'cause of that, but Denis dislikes it 'cause _it isn't done_. That's so often his reason; and he means not done by his partic'lar lot of top-room people.... So you see, Peter, I don't belong there, do I? I don't belong any more than you do."

Peter shook his head. "I never supposed you did, of course."

"Well," she said next, "what you're thinking now is that Denis wants me.

He _doesn't_--not much. He's not awf'ly fond of me, Peter; I think he's rather tired of me, 'cause I often want to do tiresome things, that aren't done. I think he knows I don't belong. He's very kind and pleasant always; but he'd be as happy without me, and much happier with another wife who fitted in more. He only took me as a sort of luxury; he didn't really need me. And you do; you and Thomas. You want me much more than he ever did, or ever could. You want me so much that even if Denis did want me a great deal, I should come to you, because you want me more, and because all his life he's had the things he wanted, and now it's your turn. 'Tisn't _fair_. Why shouldn't you have things too--you and Thomas?

Thomas and you and I can be happy together with no money and nothing else much; we can make our own good time as we go along, if we have each other. Oh, Peter, let's!"

She bent down to him, reaching out her hands, and Thomas smiled on her lap. So for a moment the three stayed, and the woods were hushed round them, waiting. Then in the green roof above a riot of shrill, sweet triumph broke the hush, and Peter leaped to his feet and laughed.

"Oh, Lucy, let's. Why not? I told Thomas the day before yesterday that we were going to have a good time now. Well, then, let's have it. Who's to prevent it? It's our turn; it's our turn. We'll begin from now and take things and keep them.... Oh, d'you mean it, Lucy? D'you mean you'll come and play with us, for ever and ever?"

"'Course I will," she said, simply, like a child.

He fell on his knees beside her and leant on his hands and peered into Thomas's face.

"Do you hear, Thomas? She's coming; she's coming to us, for always. You wanted her, didn't you? You wanted her nearly as much as I did, only you didn't know it so well.... Oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy ... I've wanted you so ..."

"I've wanted you too," she said. "I haven't talked about that part of it, 'cause it's so obvious, and I knew you knew. All the time, even when I thought I cared for Denis, I was only half a person without you. Of course, I always knew that, without thinking much about it, from the time we were babies. Only I didn't know it meant this; I thought it was more like being brother and sister, and that we could both be happy just seeing each other sometimes. It's only rather lately that I've known it had to be everything. There's nothing at all to say about the way we care, Peter, because it's such an old stale thing; it's always been, and I s'pose it always will be. 'Tisn't a new, surprising, sudden thing, like my falling in love with Denis. It's so deep, it's got root right down at the bottom, before we can either of us remember. It's like this ivy that's all over the ground, and out of which all the little flowers and things grow. And when it's like that...."

"Yes," said Peter, "when it's like that, there's only one way to take.

What's the good of fighting against life? We're not going to fight any more, Thomas and I. We're going simply to grab everything we can get.

The more things the better; I always knew that. Who wants to be a miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane.

Here begins the new life."

They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the birds sang how it was spring-time. The fever of the spring was in Peter's blood, flowing through his veins like fire, and he knew only that life was good and lovely and was calling to the three of them to come and live it, to take the April paths together through green woods. The time was not long past, though it seemed endless years ago, when he would have liked them to be four, when he would have liked Denis to come too, because he had so loved Denis that to hurt him and leave him would have been unthinkable. But the time was past. Peter and Lucy had come to the place where they couldn't share and didn't want to, and no love but one matured. They had left civilisation, left friends.h.i.+p, which is part of civilisation, behind, and knew only the primitive, selfish, human love that demands all of body and soul. They needed no words to explain to one another their change of view. For always they had leaped to one another's thoughts and emotions and desires.

Lucy said wistfully, after a time, "Denis will never see us again."

But thoughts of Denis did not, could not, dim the radiant vision of roads running merrily through the country of the spring.

Thomas here said that it was milk-time, and Peter, who had thoughtfully remembered to bring his bottle, produced it from his pocket and applied it, while Lucy looked on and laughed.

"In future," she said, "I shall take over that job."

"I wonder," murmured Peter, "exactly what we contemplate living on. Shall we sell boot-laces on the road, or play a barrel-organ, or what?"

"Oh, anything that's nice. But I've got a little, you know. Father hadn't much, but there was something for Felicity and me. It's seemed nothing, compared with what I've been living on lately; but it will look quite a lot when it's all we've got.... Father'd be glad, Peter, if he knew. He'd say we ought to do it, I know he would. It's partly him I've been hearing all this time, calling and calling to me to come away and live. He did so hate fat and sweetness and all smothering things. They just bored him dreadfully. He wouldn't ever come and stay with us, you know.... Oh, and I've written to Felicity, telling her what I meant to do. I don't quite know what she'll say; n.o.body ever does know, with Felicity.... Now I'm going back to the house, Peter, and you and Thomas must go back too. But first we'll settle what to do, and when to do it."

It didn't take much settling, between three people who saw no difficulties anywhere, but said simply, "Let us do this," and did it, as children do. But such plans as they thought desirable they made, then parted.

"I shall tell Denis," said Lucy, "I must do that. I'll explain to him all I can, and leave the rest. But not yet. I shall tell him on Sunday night."

"Yes," Peter agreed, simply, while the shadow fell again momentarily on his vision. "You must do that, of course...."

He left it at that; for Denis he had no words.

Lucy got up, and laid Thomas in Peter's arms.

"How much I've talked and talked, Peter. I've never talked so much before, have I? And I s'pose I never will again. But it had to be all said out once. I'm tired of only thinking things, even though I knew you understood. Saying things makes them alive. They're alive now, and always will be. So good-bye."

They stood and looked at one another for a moment in silence, then turned and took their opposite ways.

Peter didn't go back to London till the late afternoon. He had things to show Thomas on this his first day in the country. So he took him a long walk, and Thomas sat in meadows and got a near view of cows and sheep, and saw Peter paddle in a stream and try to catch minnows in an old tin pot that he found.

Another thing that he found, or rather that found them, was a disreputable yellow dog. He was accompanying a tramp and his wife along the road. When the tramp sat down and untied a handkerchief full of apple pie and cold potatoes (tramps have delightful things to eat as a rule) the dog came near and asked for his share, and was violently removed to a distance by the tramp's boot. He cried and ran through the hedge and came upon Peter and Thomas, who were sitting on the other side, in a field. Peter looked over the hedge and said, "Is he yours?" and was told, "Mine! No, 'e ain't. 'E's been follerin' us for miles, and the more I kick 'im the more 'e follers. Wish someone'd pison 'im. I'm sick of 'im."

His wife, who had the weary, hopeless, utterly resigned face of some female tramps, said, "'E'll do for 'im soon, my man will," without much interest.

"I'll take him with me," said Peter, and drew the disreputable creature to him and gently rubbed his bruised side, and saw that he had rather a nice face, meant to be cheerful, and friendly and hopeful eyes. Indeed, he must be friendly and hopeful to have followed such companions so far.

"Will you be our dog?" said Peter to him. "Will you come walking with us in future, and have a little bit of whatever we get? And shall we call you San Francesco, because you like disreputable people and love your brother, the sun, and keep company with your little sisters, the fleas?

Very good, then. This is Thomas, and you may lick his face very gently, but remember that he is smaller than you and has to be tenderly treated lest he break."

San Francesco stayed with them through the afternoon, and accompanied them back to London, smuggled under a seat, because Peter couldn't afford a ticket for him. He proved a likeable being on further acquaintance, with a merry grin and an amused c.o.c.k of the eye; obviously one who took the world's vagaries with humorous patience. Peter conveyed him from Paddington to Mary Street with some difficulty, and bought a bone for him from a cat's-meat-what-orfers man, and took him up to the bright and beautiful sitting-room. Then he told his landlady that he was about to leave her.

"It isn't that I'm not satisfied, you know," he added, fearing to hurt her, "but I'm going to give up lodgings altogether. I'm going abroad, to Italy, on Monday."

"_I_ see." Mrs. Baker saw everything in a moment. Her young gentleman had obviously been over-spending his income (all these new things must have cost a pretty penny), and had discovered, what many discover, that flight was the only remedy.

"About the rent," she began, "and the bills ..."

Peter said, "Oh, I'll pay you the rent and the bills before I go. I promise I will. But I can't pay much else, you know, Mrs. Baker. So when people come to dun me, tell them I've gone no one knows where. I'm awfully sorry about it, but I've simply no money left."

His smile, as always, softened her, and she nodded.

"I'll deal with 'em, sir ... I knew you was over-spending yourself, as it were; I could have told you, but I didn't like. You'd always lived so cheap and quiet till the day before yesterday; then all these new things so suddenly. Ader and I said as you must 'ave come in for some money, or else as (you'll excuse me, sir) you was touched in the 'ead."

"I wasn't," said Peter. "Not in the least. I wanted the things, so I got them. But now I come to think of it, I shan't want most of them any more, as I'm going away, so I think I'll just return them to the shops they came from. Of course they won't be pleased, but they'll prefer it to losing the money _and_ the things, I suppose, won't they. And we haven't spoiled them a bit, except that cus.h.i.+on Francesco has just walked over, and that can be cleaned, I expect. I had to have them, you know, just when I wanted them; I couldn't have borne not to; but I don't really need them any more, because I'm going to have other things now. Oh, I'm talking too much, and you want to be cooking the supper, don't you, and I want to put Thomas to bed."

CHAPTER XX

THE LAST LOSS

Three days later it was Easter Day. In the evening, about half-past nine, when Thomas lay sleeping and Peter was packing the rugs and cus.h.i.+ons and pictures he hadn't paid for into brown paper parcels (a tedious job), Rodney came in. Peter hadn't seen him for some time.

"What on earth," said Rodney, lighting his pipe and sitting down, "are you doing with all that upholstery? Has someone been sending you Easter presents? Well, I'm glad you're getting rid of them as speedily as may be."

Peter said ruefully, because he was tired of the business, "The stupid things aren't paid for. So I'm packing them up to be sent back directly the shops open again. I can't afford them, you see. Already most of my belongings are in p.a.w.n."