CHAPTER V

John had been invited to spend the first half of his Easter holidays at Marsh's. The second half was to be taken with the Vernleys. John wondered whether his acceptance of Marsh's invitation would hurt Vernley, but Marsh included Bobbie in the invitation. Vernley, however, was unable to accept; he was spending part of his time with an aunt in the north of Scotland. So they parted at Sedley Station, and two hours later John was being driven in from Loughboro towards Marsh's home. The gardener with a trap had met the boys at the station and they had about an hour's drive before they turned off the main road which intersected the village of Renstone. On the right was the Vicarage, standing back from the little street; on the left, across the road, stood the church, with its square tower, and near by, the Hall. Marsh's father was the Vicar of Renstone and Marsh had been born in the Vicarage. As the trap turned off the street, they entered through two wide gates which completely shut off the Vicarage from the village. Inside the gates there was a small courtyard, in the centre of which stood a great holly bush. The yard was closed in by the back of the house and in the middle was the main entrance porch with a wing of the domestic building. When John entered the porch and the door opened, he gave a cry of delight. He looked right through a small hall on the opposite side where wide low windows with small leaded panes overlooked two long lawns. A gravel path led down the centre to a line of magnificent elms that bordered the far edge of the garden, and through the elms John caught a vista of the country with the white main road, along which they had come, stretching away to the horizon.

John's admiration of the Vicarage was cut short by the entrance of a lady. She wore a large straw hat, and a pair of washleather gloves. In her hand was a basket full of clippings. She placed the basket on the settee and coming forward kissed Marsh, then turning to the boy standing shyly in the shadow of the door, said,

"This is John--of whom I have heard so much? How d'you do? We are so glad to see you."

After his momentary shyness, John found himself looking into the face of a fair little woman with kind eyes. She also examined John closely, noticed the shy flush on his face, the darkness of his eyes and the slim grace of his regular features and carriage. They immediately liked one another. John was at home again. She was one of those women who are mothers to whatever humanity seeks their love. So John looked long at her and knew that he had found a friend. He contrasted her with Mrs. Vernley, whom he also liked. But Mrs. Vernley was a woman of the world, determined, a lover of fashion. Mrs. Marsh was quite of a different order. John felt she was one who would understand sympathetically when others would judge harshly. She was the kind of woman to whom he would rather come if he had a confession to make.

He noticed how very frail she was, almost like a saint who had fasted. Her white hair, loosely fastened, seemed as a halo while she stood there in the dim hall with the sunlight behind rimming her head with light. Her hand was so thin that John could feel all the bones in it and her flesh was almost transparent.

Meanwhile Marsh had superintended their boxes.

"Come up to our room, Scissors!" he cried, and John followed him up an old oak staircase, along a narrow corridor that ran the whole length of the house, overlooking the courtyard on one side. Their room was at the end, and the beauty of it made John's heart leap up. It had two low casement windows, bordered with creeper drooping to the lawns below. Their two beds faced the windows; the dressing table, mantelpiece and writing desk were decorated with fresh bunches of violets. The perfume pervaded the room and mingled with the delightful smell of clean linen, which John had come to distinguish as a 'country house smell.'

"What a jolly room!" cried John.

Marsh seemed pleased at his approbation. "Not a bit like a parson's hole, is it?" he commented. "This room is modern--that's a copy of a Cezanne; that's a real Pizarro--you won't find on these walls any woolly legend 'God is Love,' or a dead aunt's knitting in five colours--'Blessed are the meek.' I ejected all those long ago."

"But what does your governor say?"

"Nothing--he merely smiles. I am the cuckoo's egg in the family nest."

John was a little shocked. He felt uneasy when Marsh talked in this strain. It was not that Marsh wanted to shock, but John was in an alien country, which his friend evidently knew well. Every day John was discovering some thing new about himself until his mind was in a condition of fear. Marsh was so splendidly cool about everything. When John asked him questions, he showed no surprise, or superiority, but explained and amplified from familiarity with his theme. Marsh dismissed certain things as "rotten," others he characterised as "smuggy." John always had a feeling that Marsh knew much more than he said. His knowledge of books, for instance, was extraordinary. John was discovering new books every day of his life, but he no sooner announced a fresh treasure than Marsh knew all about it, had read it long ago and could supplement the knowledge with personal information concerning the author and other books he had written. He was at home in French literature or English, which John accounted for later when he found that Mrs. Marsh had spent her youth in a French convent school. This discovery was made at tea-time in the study, a delightfully cosy room full of books and loose papers, and magazines, with big chairs in which you sank low and all the cushions gradually deflated as though the breath had been crushed out of them. Marsh talked to his mother in French, greatly to John's admiration.

"You mustn't mind Teddie talking French to me," said Mrs. Marsh, as she handed him a tea cup. "He thinks it is such a treat for me, as indeed it is, and Teddie is greatly afraid that I might forget how to speak French."

"I wish I could follow it all, Mrs. Marsh--you speak French so frenchily," said John, munching toast. He loved her already; there was something so comfortable about her.

"Well, you see I was sent to a French school when quite a little girl.

"Jolly good thing for me, Mater, wasn't it?" cried Marsh, linking his arm through his mother's.

"Why, dear?"

"'Cause I shouldn't have been here if you hadn't fallen in love with a red-haired young curate on a walking tour through Provence!"

Mrs. Marsh laughed.

"You naughty boy--what would your father say if he knew you called him a red-haired curate--his hair was golden then."

"That's the usual story--if a man has red hair they say it's golden; if a girl, they call it auburn."

"My mother had au-red hair," said John flushing. Mrs. Marsh looked quickly at the boy at her side, mingling her love with admiration of his courage.

"Sorry, Scissors--but it can't have been red, for you haven't a freckle. He's jolly good-looking, isn't he, Mother?"

John coloured; further confusion was checked by the abrupt opening of the door. A clerical collar told him that it was Mr. Marsh. After the formal introduction John was able to study the Reverend George Marsh while the latter questioned his son.

He was a tall man of striking appearance. His hair, although almost white, was thick, and a great wave of it lay over his brow. He had a tanned healthy face and laughing eyes. A smile was never long absent from his face, which was handsome in a broad-featured way. John noticed how large and strong were his hands. He had been a great cricketer in his day, and the athlete still lingered in his frame. He would have been recognised as an English country gentleman in any community, and his geniality was blended with an exquisite courtesy. Of the parson there was not a trace, and when afterwards he appeared without a clerical collar, there was no indication whatever that he was anything but a full-blooded English gentleman fond of his horse and his pipe.

He was at least ten years older than his wife, whom he called the "Skipper," greatly surprising and afterwards amusing John. He evidently troubled himself about nothing. If Marsh wanted anything, he was always told by the Vicar, "Ask the Skipper," or "Does the Skipper know?" On Saturday afternoon there was what Marsh assured John was the weekly tragi-comedy. He confessed he had not composed his sermon for the following day, and, like a penitent boy, was locked in his study with the threat that he should have no dinner until the sermon was completed. He must have been either a man of quick inspiration or short patience, for half an hour later as John walked by the study window he saw the vicar, pipe in mouth, stretched in his wicker chair, reading the _Nation_ which he waved joyously at John as though to say, "See! I defy the Skipper!"

Later, John discovered that the Vicar was a rebel at heart. He read the _Nation_ religiously, and had an intense enthusiasm for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was saying rude things about persons who kept pheasants, greatly to the vicar's delight, who knew how angry it would make the new tenant of Renstone Hall, who stood for King, the Conservative party, a covert full of pheasants and a house full of servants. Teddie, partly from perversity, and partly because he felt the lordship of youth, was a conservative, like his mother, and they had fierce arguments, in which the Vicar bravely kept his flag flying, despite assaults on either flank.

John's sympathies were with the Vicar. The Chancellor had the gift of phrase and epithet which he admired, and had also excelled in. He supported him therefore because that politician's brilliance delighted him. The Vicar was delighted. He ragged Teddie unmercifully, and commented gaily on the pleasure he derived from seeing that the new race at Sedley was enlightened, a playful thrust at his son's assumption of seniority in his attitude towards John in political discussions. John loved those tea-times when argument grew merry. It was all so good-humoured, the Vicar bantering his son and wife with great joy, they in their turn exposing his "democracy" by stories of a "brother" of the soil who had imposed upon him again and again.

John loved these debates. He felt he was one of the family, and after the bleakness of schooldays this comfort and intimacy were something to be treasured. His admiration of Mrs. Marsh grew daily. She was so clever that John no longer wondered at Teddie's amazing ability in all things. She could paint well, and had read deeply and widely; was an authority on Bartolozzi engravings and made beautiful jewellery as a hobby. In the evenings after dinner, they always had an hour's music in the drawing-room--an unique apartment decorated in black and white, with silver fittings and massive candelabra, holding twenty candles--"with enough dripping to make saute potatoes," commented Teddie. The corner of the drawing room was filled by a superbly-toned Beckstein grand, which Mrs. Marsh played with consummate skill.

She had studied at Vienna under Leschetiscky and her interpretation of Liszt and Brahms held John spellbound. Her rendering was quite unlike Lindon's. He played _con fuoco_. She caressed the piano so that it sang as though its heart was filled with grief. When she played Debussy and Ravel, it was as though the wind were making the aspens shake and glimmer in the sunlight. There was a series of delicate currents of sound which followed one another like the reflections of rippling water on the sides of a boat, and one floated down the stream with all the senses quiescent yet acute.

When the music ended and it was time for bed, for they retired early, there was the ceremony of blowing out the candles. Mrs. Marsh, Teddie and John joined hands round the candelabra and a fierce competition ensued. In the small hall they parted. The Vicar went off to his study, where he sat reading until one or two in the morning. His lamp threw a long strip of light across the lawn long after the boys had fallen asleep. On the first night, after Mrs. Marsh had kissed her son on the brow and said "Good night," she turned and half held out her hand to John, then with one of those sudden impulses, which endeared her to him, she asked,

"I wonder if my new boy is too big?" and smiling, she pressed John's head towards her and kissed him on the brow, then turned and went upstairs. John stood still for half a minute. He hoped the light was too dim for his friend to see, for his eyes were blurred. It was silly to be so frightfully sensitive, but kindness like this always upset him. It increased his sense of loneliness and loss and yet it made him happier.

Upstairs in their bedroom, John threw open a window and leaned out into the night. The air was warm, and a full moon hung low over the elm trees at the bottom of the garden, throwing their long shadows across the lawns. The distant woods, black and distinct, were silhouetted on the hills; there was a great silence over everything. The moon would look just like that peering over the gorge at Amasia. He wondered what his father was doing at that moment, and whether he knew how happy he was. Probably he was smoking his last cigarette on the verandah, watching the stream as it ran and flashed along its stony bed; perhaps the night was not silent like this, but full of the droning of the _saz_. And Ali?--he would be fast asleep, tired after a long day in the sun. Dear old Ali, how he longed to have him with him, to show him this wonderful English house, and have him hear Teddie talk--how he would stare at Teddie!

"I say, Scissors, how long are you going to hang out of that window?" It was Marsh, tooth-brush in hand, already in his pyjamas. "I'll bet I know your thoughts."

"You don't."

"I do--you're thinking about another place the moon hangs over and what everybody's doing there."

"How did you know?"

Marsh laughed delightedly at the confirmation of his guess. "Easy--when you turned just now you'd got the East in your eyes."

"The East--what do you mean?"

"Well, you look a bit Eastern at times. I thought so the first time I saw you, but you looked very much so just now, just as I imagine Lindon saw you."

"Lindon--" John gulped at the name--"saw me? What did he tell you?"

"Oh, he was telling us one day how you fainted when he played the _Drum Polonaise_--and how queer you looked at him just before you went. By the way, I don't think I ever told you Lindon lives near here."

The days slipped by at the Vicarage. Indeed, there was so little to do and yet they were so industriously idle that the day was over before all that was planned had been accomplished. John had been at the Vicarage just a week, when, one sunshiny Saturday morning, the trap came round to the door, with its well-groomed pony and shining harness, at which Marsh had laboured for an hour the previous evening with a bottle of polish--and the promise of half a crown. Mrs. Marsh and John and Teddie got in, the latter taking the reins, and they clattered merrily out of the courtyard, down the village street, where the little boys gaped, and the women in the doors curtseyed, out on to the highway stretching away beneath an avenue of over-reaching elms. They were bound for the market town of Loughboro, on a shopping expedition.

"There's nothing worth buying there," said Marsh, "which is the reason for the Mater's regular visit. She drags me round in the trap while she looks in every window. There's nothing to see and less to do."

"There's the Theatre, dear."

"What a show! 'East Lynne' by the celebrated London company or 'The Girl at the Cross Roads' preceded by the one act comedy, 'Sarah in the Soup.'"

"You should not run the place down--you will spoil John's anticipations."

They passed a couple of ragged men, bronzed and unshaven, who stood still while the trap passed.

"That's the ideal life," exclaimed Marsh, flicking the pony. "Nothing to do and no desire to do it. They remind me of Davies' lines--he was a tramp too--

_What is this life if full of care We have no time to stand and stare?_

This road's punctuated with these leisured gentlemen--that's another attraction of Loughboro--there's a fine workhouse. The Governor goes to preach there once a month, and always comes away regretting he's not an inmate--it fits in with his idea of the democratic communal life. But he always drinks sherry when he gets home--to kill the taste I suppose."

There were now signs of the approaching town. Cottages became more frequent, and then villas, pathetically attempting to keep on good relations with the country by burdening their windows with flower boxes and their square little front gardens with shrubs. Two gasometers loomed up in the distance, long monotonous buildings with tall chimneys suggesting some kind of industry. Then with a turn, they were trotting down the streets of the town itself. They pulled up under the Town Hall clock which projected itself over a market place greatly animated with booths and wandering groups of buyers, gossipers and gapers. Mrs. Marsh disappeared in a chemist's shop, where she exchanged her library books, and presently she emerged laden with three novels, the _English Review_, the _Nineteenth Century_ and _The Tatler_. These were deposited in the trap, whereupon she walked on again and disappeared in a dairy shop. Marsh flicked the pony and the trap jogged on, halting again outside the shop.

"This is how we progress on a shopping expedition. I follow the mater all round the market place while everybody comes to the shop doors, stares at me, asks, 'Do you know who that is?' until a wiseacre says, 'That's the parson's son--him what preaches at the workhouse.' Last summer I came down here in shorts and socks and the sight paralysed the market place; they had never seen so much male leg before. I shall bring my 'topper' home next term. It'll have a raging success."

For three quarters of an hour they slowly worked round the sides of the market place, while the trap got fuller and fuller and Mrs. Marsh redder and redder. John was busy carrying parcels from the shop to the trap.

"Thank heaven a market square has only four sides!" cried Marsh, as John deposited a two gallon jar of cider in the well of the trap.

"There's more to follow!" cried Scissors, darting back to the shop. He emerged a few minutes later, his arms full of small parcels with Mrs. Marsh following behind. He was so intent upon balancing his precariously held pile that he did not notice a youth and a girl who stood aside to let them pass, but as he turned to hand the things to Marsh he caught a glimpse and his heart gave a great thump as he coloured in confusion. Marsh noticed John's sudden uneasiness and turned in his seat.

"Lindon!" he cried. "What luck--how are you?"

It was Lindon--cool, immaculate. He raised his to Mrs. Marsh, with the alert manner that distinguished him. The girl at his side was obviously his sister. She had the same straight nose and keen eyes. Her fresh beauty made John stare at her. All that fascinated him in Lindon was there with the added grace of girlhood.

"Good morning, Mr. Lindon--good morning, Miss Lindon. You are shopping too, I suppose," said Mrs. Marsh genially; then noticing John nervously drawing back--"You know John, I think?"

"Rather," interrupted Marsh. "John's his fag."

Lindon laughed. "I'm afraid he knows me only too well." He turned to his sister. "This is Scissors--John Dean, Mabel." John raised his cap and took the proffered hand.

"How d'you do," she asked, "I've heard so much of you from Henry."

Then Lindon had spoken of him!--he had called him Scissors! A hundred thoughts raced through John's head. Had he forgiven--or was this mere politeness? He had talked about him to his sister, but perhaps that was before this miserable affair happened. He must speak to Lindon somehow before they parted, and say how sorry he was. The eye, he was relieved to see, showed no signs of his attack. In his imagination he had come to think of it as quite closed up.

Mabel Lindon looked at the boy who stood so silent before her. Possibly he was tongued-tied, certainly he was flushed, or was it his colour? He was very attractive, she thought, and his embarrassment flattered her.

"Will you not come over to see us?" she asked him. John was in a dilemma. Lindon was busily talking to Marsh and his mother, he had not heard the invitation. John waited, hoping he would hear and re-inforce it.

"I'm leaving here on Tuesday--so I'm sorry I shall be unable, thank you."

"Oh, that is a pity, for we are leaving next month, we are going to live in Worcestershire, and it is a shame, for we have such a wonderful garden and pond--you would love it."

"I'm sure I should."

They were saying good-bye now. He shook hands with Miss Lindon. Mrs. Marsh had got into the trap. John was about to follow, when Lindon spoke.

"Having a good time, Scissors?" he asked, in a friendly voice. John stammered with joy and relief. It was _Pax_.

"Awfully, thanks Lindon," he muttered. The reins had been jerked, the trap began to move. Miss Lindon walked on. Lindon raised his cap. "Good-bye!" he called to them. It was now or never.

"Please Lindon--I--I'm awfully sorry I was such a cad to you--and will you forgive me? I--I--"

"That's all right, Scissors," said Lindon, shaking John's hand. "I like fire in a kid. Are you coming over to see us?" he asked.

"I'm sorry I can't---I go on Tuesday--"

"Well--you must come to stay next hols. Good-bye!" and with a smile he was gone. All John's hero worship swelled up within him. How splendidly Lindon had dismissed the beastly affair! John hurried after the trap and clambered in. Marsh smiled at him with perfect understanding, and John felt how good was life. All the way back to the Vicarage his heart was singing within him. At the Vicarage door, as he carried in the parcels, he could not help whistling. Marsh took his arm.

"That storm over?" he asked, sympathetically.

John could not answer, but he nodded. They walked into the house.