CHAPTER XV.
MINDEN COTTAGE.
Stark naked though I was, she did not flinch as I came; only her eyesseemed to widen upon me in wonder. And for all my desperate hurry Ihad time to see, first, that they were graver than other girls' eyes,and next that they were exceedingly beautiful.
In those days I had small learning (I have little enough, even now),or I might have fancied her some goddess awaiting me between thenight and the dawn. She stood, tall and erect, in a loose whitewrapper, the collar of which had fallen open and revealed thebodice-folds of her nightgown--a cloud at the base of her firmthroat. Her feet were thrust into loose slippers: and her hair hunglow on her neck in dark masses as she had knotted them for the night.
"Where do you come from, boy?" she asked; but an instant later sheput that question aside as an idle one. "Someone has beenill-treating you! Come indoors!"
She held out a hand and, as I clung to it, led me to the door; butturned with her other hand on the latch. "Is anyone following?"
I shook my head. She was attempting now, but gently, to draw backthe hand to which I clung; and, in resisting, my fingers met andpulled against a ring--a single ring of plain gold.
Seeing that I had observed it, she made no further effort, but lether hand lie, her eyes at the same moment meeting mine and searchingthem gravely and curiously.
"Come upstairs," she said; "but tread softly. My father is a lightsleeper."
She took me to a room in the corner of which stood a white bed withthe sheets neatly turned down, prepared and ready for a guest.The room was filled with the scent of flowers--fragrant scent ofroses and clean aromatic scent of carnations. There were fainterscents, too, of jasmine and lavender; the first wafted in from agreat bush beyond the open lattice, the second (as I afterwardsdiscovered) exhaled by the white linen of the bed. But flowers wereeverywhere, in bowls and jars and glasses; and as though otherreceptacles for them had failed, one long spray of small rosesclimbed the dressing-table from a brown pitcher at its foot.
She motioned me to a chair beside the bed, and, almost before I knewwhat was intended, she had fetched a basin of water and was kneelingto wash my feet.
"No--please!" I protested.
"But I love children," she whispered; "and you are but a child."
So I sat in a kind of dream while she washed away the dust and blood,changing the water twice, and afterwards dried each foot in a towel,pressing firmly but never once hurting me.
When this was done, she rose and stood musing, contemplating meseriously and yet with a touch of mirth in her eyes.
"You are such a little one!" she said. "Father's would never fit."And having poured out fresh water and bidden me wash my body, shestole out.
She returned with a white garment in her hand and real mirth now inher eyes. My toilet done, she slipped the garment over me. It fellto my feet in long folds, yet so lightly that I scarcely felt I wasclothed: and she clapped her hands in dumb-show. It was one of herown night-gowns.
I glanced uneasily towards the bed. Its daintiness frightened me,used as I was to the housekeeping--coarse if clean--of Mrs. Trapp.
"Your prayers first," she whispered. "Don't you know any?" She eyedme anxiously again. "But you are a good boy? Surely you are a goodboy? Don't boys say their prayers? They ought to."
Since passing out of Miss Plinlimmon's tutelage, I had sadlyneglected the habit: but I knelt down obediently and in silence.
She stepped close behind me. "But you're not speaking," shemurmured. "Father always says his aloud, and so do I. You mustn'tpretend, if you don't really know any. I can teach you."
She knelt down beside me, and began to say the Lord's Prayer softly.I repeated it after her, sentence by sentence: and this was reallyshamming, for of course I knew it perfectly. At the time I felt onlythat she--this beautiful creature beside me--was in a strange stateof exaltation which I could not in the least understand. I know nowsomething of the springs I had touched and loosened within her--I, anaked waif coming to her out of the night and catching her hand forprotection. It was not I she taught, nor over me that she yearned.She was reaching through me to a child unknown, using me to pressagainst a strange love tearing at the roots of her body, and to breakthe pain of it--the roots of her body, I say; for he who can separatea woman's soul from her body is a wiser man than I.
She rose from her knees; threw back the sheets and tucked them aboutme as I snuggled down.
"What is your name?"
"Harry Revel. Are you Miss Isabel Brooks?"
"I am Isabel."
"Why were you crying, out in the road?"
"Was I crying?"
"Well, not crying exactly: but you looked as if you wanted to."
She smiled. "We both have our secrets it seems; and you shall tellme yours to-morrow. Will yours let you sleep?"
"I think so, Miss Isabel. I am so tired--and so clean--and this bedis so soft--" I stretched out my arms luxuriously, and almost beforeI knew it she was bending to kiss me, and they were about her neck.Her hair fell over me in a shower and in the shade of it she laughedhappily, kissing me by the ear and whispering, "I have my happysecret, too!"
She straightened herself up, tossed back the dark locks with curvedsweep of arm and wrist, and moved to the door.
"Good night, Harry Revel!"
A bird was cheeping in the jasmine bush when I dropped asleep, andwhen I awoke he was cheeping there still. Of my dreams I onlyremember that they ended in a vague sense of discomfort, somehowarising from a vision of Mr. Rogers in the act of throwing bread atthe swans, and of the hen bird's flurry as she paddled away. But thesound which I took for the splashing of water came in fact from therings of the window curtain, which Miss Isabel was drawing to shutout the high morning sun.
She heard me stir and faced about, with her hand yet on the curtain."Awake?" she cried, and laughed. "You shall have a basin ofbread-and-milk presently: and after that you may get up and put onthese." She held out a suit of clothes which lay across her arm."I have borrowed them from Miss Belcher, who distributes all sorts ofgarments at Christmas among the youngsters hereabouts, and hasrummaged this out of her stock. And after that my father will beglad to make your acquaintance. We shall find him in the garden.Now I must go and see to preparing dinner: for it is past noon,though you may not know it."
Behold me, half an hour later, clad in a blue jacket very tight atthe elbows and corduroy breeches very tight at the knees and warm forthe time of year, as I descended with Isabel into the walled gardenat the back of the cottage. Its whole area cannot have been an acre,and even so the half of it was taken up by a plot of turf, smooth asa bowling green: but beyond this stretched a miniature orchard, andalong the walls ran two deep borders crowded with midsummer flowers--tall white lilies and Canterbury bells; stocks, sweet williams,mignonette, candytuft and larkspurs; bushes of lemon verbena, myrtle,and the white everlasting pea. Near the house all was kept innicest order, with trim ranks of standard roses marching level withthe turfed verges, and tall carnations staked and bending towardsthem across the alley: but around the orchard all grew riotous.The orchard ended in a maze of currant bushes, through which the pathseemed to wander after the sound of running water till it emergedupon another clearing of turf, with a tall filbert tree, and asummer-house beneath it, and a row of beehives set beside a stream.The stream, I afterwards learned, came down from Miss Belcher's park,and was the real boundary of the garden: but Miss Belcher had allowedthe Major to build a wall for privacy, on the far side of it, yet notso high as to shut off the sun from his bee-skeps; and had grantedhim a private entrance through it to the park--a narrow wooden doorapproached by a miniature bridge across the stream.
"Papa!" called Isabel.
I heard a movement in the summer-house, and her father appeared inthe doorway. He was old, but held himself so erect that his headalmost touched the lintel of the summer-house door, the posts ofwhich he gripped and so stood framed--a giant of close upon
six and ahalf feet in stature. He wore a brown holland suit, with greystockings and square-toed shoes; and at first I mistook him for aQuaker. His snow-white hair was gathered back from his temples,giving salience to a face of ineffable simplicity and goodness--theface of a man at peace with God and all the world, yet touched withthe scars of bygone passions.
"Papa, this is Harry Revel."
He bowed with ceremony, a little wide of me. I saw then that hiseyes were sightless.
"I am happy to make your acquaintance, young sir. My daughterinforms me that you are in trouble."
"He has promised to tell me all about it," Isabel put in. "We neednot bother him with questions just now."
"Assuredly not," he agreed. "Well, if you will, my lad, tell it toIsabel. What is your age? Barely fourteen? Troubles at that ageare not often incurable. Only whatever you do--and you will pardonan old man for suggesting it--tell the whole truth. When a man,though he be much older than you and his case more serious than yourscan possibly be--when a man once brings himself to make a cleanbreast of it, the odds are on his salvation. Take my word for that,and a wiser man's--By the way, do you understand Latin?"
"No, sir."
"I am sorry to hear it. But perhaps you play the drum?"
"I--I have never tried, sir."
"Dear, dear, this is unfortunate: but at least you can serve me byleading me round the garden and telling me where the several flowersgrow, and how they come on. That will be something."
"I will try, sir: but indeed I can hardly tell one flower fromanother."
At this his face fell again. "Do you, by chance, know a bee when yousee one?"
"A bee? Oh yes, sir."
"Come, we have touched bottom at length! Do you understand bees?Can you handle them?"
Here Isabel, seeing my chapfallen face, interposed.
"And if he does not, papa, you will have the pleasure of teachinghim."
"Very true, my dear. You must excuse me"--here Major Brooks turnedas if seeing me with his sightless eyes. "But understand that I likeyou far better for owning up. There are men--there is a clergyman inour neighbourhood for one--capable of pretending a knowledge of Latinwhich they don't possess."
"Doesn't Mr. Whitmore know Latin?" I asked.
"Hey? Who told you I was speaking of Whitmore?"
I glanced at Isabel, for her eyes drew me. They were fixed on mealmost in terror.
"I have heard him talk it, sir."
"Excuse me: you may have heard him pretending."
"But, papa--" Isabel put forth a hand as if in protest, and I notedthat it trembled and that the ring was missing which she had wornovernight. "You never told me that he--that Mr. Whitmore--"
"Was an impostor? My dear, had you any occasion to seek my opinionof him, or had I any occasion to give it? None, I think: and butfor Master Revel's incomprehensible guess you had not discovered itnow. I have been betrayed into gossip."
He turned abruptly and, feeling with his hand over the surface of thesummer-house table, picked up a small volume lying there. It struckme that his temper for the moment was not under perfect control.
Isabel cast at me a look which I could not interpret, and went slowlyback to the house.
"The meaning of my catechism just now," said her father, addressingme after listening for awhile to her retreating footsteps, "may bethe plainer when I tell you that I am translating the works of theRoman poet Virgil, line for line, into English verse, and have justreached the beginning of the Fourth Georgic. He is, I may tell you,a poet, and the most marvellous that ever lived; so marvellous, thatthe middle ages mistook him for a magician. That any age is likelyto mistake me--his translator--for a conjuror I think improbable.Nevertheless I do my best. And while translating I hold this book inmy hand, not that I can see to read a line of it, but because themere touch of it, my companion on many campaigns, seems to unloose mymemory. Except in handling this small volume, I have none of thedelicate gift of touch with which blind men are usually credited.But this is page 106, is it not?" He held out the open book towardsme, and added, with sudden apprehension, "You can read, I trust?"
I assured him that I could.
"And write? Good again! Come in--you will find pen, ink, and paperon the side-drum in the corner. Bring them over to the table andseat yourself. Ready? Now begin, and let me know when you cannotspell a word."
I seated myself, silently wondering what might be the use of theside-drum in the corner.
"Let me see--let me see--" He thumbed the book for a while,murmuring words which I could not catch; then thrust it behind hisback with a finger between its pages, straightened himself up, anddeclaimed:
"Next of aerial honey, gift divine, I sing. Maecenas, be once more benign!"
He paused and instructed me how to spell "aerial" and "Maecenas."The orthography of these having been settled, I asked his advice upon"benign," which, as written down by me (I forget how) did not seemconvincing.
"You are indisputably an honest boy," said he; "but I have yet toacquire that degree of patience which, by all accounts, consorts withmy affliction. Continue, pray:
"Prepare the pomp of trifles to behold: Proud peers--a nation's polity unrolled-- Customs, pursuits--its clans, and how they fight, Slight things I labour; not for glory slight, If Heaven attend and Phoebus hearken me. First, then, for site. Seek and instal your Bee--"
--"With a capital B, if you please. The poet says 'bees': but thesingular, especially if written with a capital, adds in my opinionthat mock-heroic touch which, as the translator must frequently missit for all his pains, he had better insert where he can. By the way,how have you spelt 'Phoebus'?"
"F.e.b.u.s," I answered.
"I feared so," he sighed. "And 'site'?"
"S.i.g.h.t." I felt pretty sure about this. He smote his forehead.
"That is how Miss Plinlimmon taught me," I urged almost defiantly.
"I beg your pardon--'Plinlimmon,' did you say? An unusual name.Do you indeed know a Miss Plinlimmon?"
"It is the name of my dearest friend, sir."
"Most singular! You cannot tell me, I dare say, if she happens to berelated to my old friend Arthur Plinlimmon?"
"She is his sister."
"This is most interesting. I remember her, then, as a girl.You must know that Arthur Plinlimmon and I were comrades in the oldFourth Regiment, and dear friends--are dear friends yet, I trust,although time and circumstances have separated us. His sister usedto keep house for him before his marriage. A most estimable person!And pray where did you make her acquaintance?"
"In the hospital, sir."
"The hospital? Not an eleemosynary institution for the diseased, Ihope?"
I did not know what this meant. "It's a place for foundlings, sir,"I answered.
"But--excuse me--Miss Plinlimmon--Agatha? Arabella? I forget forthe moment her Christian name--"
"Amelia, sir."
"To be sure; Amelia. Well, she could not be a foundling, nor--as Iremember her--did she in the least resemble one."
"Oh no, sir: she is the matron there."
"I see. And where is this hospital?"
"At Plymouth Dock."
"Hey?"
"At Plymouth Dock. A Mr. Scougall keeps it--a sort of clergyman."
"This is most strange. My friend Arthur's son, young ArchibaldPlinlimmon, is quartered with his regiment there, and often pays us avisit, poor lad."
"Indeed, sir?"
"His circumstances are not prosperous. Family troubles--moneylosses, you understand: and then his father made an imprudentmarriage. Not that anything can be said against the Leicesters--there are few better families. But the lady, I imagine, did not takekindly to poverty: never learnt to cut her coat according to thecloth. Her uncle might have helped her--Sir Charles, that is--thehead of the family--a childless man with plenty of money. For somereason, however, he had opposed her match with Arthur. A sad story!And now, when their
lad is grown and the time come for him to be asoldier, he must start in the ranks. But why in the world, if shelives at Plymouth Dock, has Archibald never mentioned his aunt tous?"
This was more than I could tell him. And you may be sure that thename Leicester made me want to ask questions, not to answer them.But just now Isabel came across the lawn, bearing a tray with aplateful of biscuits, a decanter of claret, and a glass.
"My dear," asked her father, "has our friend Archibald ever spoken toyou of an aunt of his--a Miss Plinlimmon--residing at Plymouth Dock?"
"No, papa." She turned on me, again with that fear and appeal in hereyes, as if in some way I was persecuting her; and the decanter shookand tinkled on the rim of the glass as she poured out the claret.
The old man lifted the wine and held it between his sightless eyesand the sunshine.
"A sad story," he mused: "but, after all, the lad is young and theworld young for him! Rejoice in your youth, Mr. Revel, and honouryour Creator in the days of it. For me, I enjoyed it by God's grace,and it has not forsaken me: no, not when darkness overtook and shutme out of the profession I loved. I cannot see the colour of thiswine, nor the face of this my daughter, nor my garden, yonder, fullof flowers."
"Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine--"
"Yet memory returns and consoles my blindness. The colour of thewine is there, the flowers are about me, and Isabel--I am told--resembles her mother. Yes, and away on the edge of Spain, the army Iserved is planting fresh laurels--my old regiment too, the King'sOwn, though James Brooks is by this time scarcely a name to it.Here I sit, hale in wind and limb, and old age creeps on me kindly,telling me that no man is necessary. And yet, if God should come andlay a command on me--some task that a blind man might undertake--I amat God's service. I sit with my loins girt and my soul, I hope,shriven. That is my sermon to you, young sir: a clean breast and nobaggage. I bid you welcome to Minden Cottage!" He drank to me.
"Is it named from the battle of Minden, sir?" I asked.
"It is, my lad."
"Were you there?"
He laughed. "My father won his captaincy there, in a regiment thatmistook orders, charged three lines of cavalry, and broke them oneafter another. It also broke a sound maxim of war by chargingbetween flanking batteries. The British Army has made half itsreputation by mistaking orders--you will understand why, if ever youhave the honour to belong to it. Isabel, get me my drum!"
She fetched it from its corner, with the drumsticks; hitched thesling over her beautiful neck; tightened the straps carefully; andbegan to play a soft tattoo.
The old man leaned back in his chair; felt in his pocket; and havingfound a silk bandanna handkerchief, unfolded it deliberately, cast itover his head and composed himself to slumber.
The tattoo ran on, peaceful as a brook. Isabel's arms hung lax andmotionless: only her hands stirred, from the wrists, and so slightly,or else so rapidly without effort, that they too scarcely seemed tomove. Her eyes were averted.
My ear could not separate the short taps. They ran on and onin a murmur as of bees or of leaves rustling together in a wood;grew imperceptibly gentler; and almost imperceptibly ceased.Isabel glanced at her father, and set the drum back in its corner.We stole out of the summer-house together, and across to the orchard.
But under the shade of the apple-boughs she turned and faced me.
"Boy, what do you know?"