Читать книгу Cressage - A. C. Benson - Страница 5

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A week later Walter was waiting at Pendridge Station with a dog-cart. His depression had diminished in the course of the quiet days spent at home; but he was still in the undecided indifferent mood which follows when a melancholy disturbance has blown itself out, and when the smallest choice and the lightest decision seem arduous to make and disastrous when made. He was regretting now that he had ever asked Norton. What would Norton do with himself at Cressage? How would he endure his father's harangues and his mother's inconsequent comments? However, the thing was done, and presently he was driving across the uplands, with Norton very ill-attired and dilapidated-looking lounging beside him.

It was an incomparably beautiful afternoon, and the sunlight had the liquid golden look which comes only after days of rain. He and Norton were talking as friendly Anglo-Saxons are wont to talk, with the heavy irony which would be lambent if it could. But Norton became more and more absorbed in the scene, and when they passed the head of a valley through which was visible a great stretch of rich, well-watered plain just touched with opalescent haze and beautifully dotted and lined with the darker green of scattered woodlands, he broke out into an exclamation of pleasure. "A great slice of the world, seen at a distance, the ugliness all washed out of it--no noise, no stink--no wonder the Creator thinks it a success!"

"You think He doesn't come down to our level?"

"Don't be profane!" said Norton rather sharply. "That's the hall-mark of the peevish intellectual who can't do anything or feel anything, and can only spit and swear."

"Yes, it was stupid of me!" said Walter humbly. "Smartness--how sick one gets of that!"

Norton smiled and nodded. "How much more tempting the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them are from a pinnacle of the Temple, than when you have come down and face the roaring crowds!"

"I didn't know you were ambitious," said Walter in surprise.

"No, I try to think it a proud abstention from the world. What trouble one takes to humbug oneself about oneself! The Committee which one calls one's mind is a very low affair."

Walter did not answer. He did not feel he could keep at this level.

They passed a wild common, with a shallow, reed-fringed pool, many small thickets, and some old forest trees shouldering out of the brake. "That's very jolly," said Norton. A minute or two later the road began to descend the hill into a narrow little valley, mostly clothed with woods, which came up rather steeply from the plain below, folding in among the hills.

"This is where we begin," said Walter, as they diverged from the highroad and turned into a stony lane; and five minutes later they drew up at the little gate-house of Cressage Garnet Manor. Walter had wondered how the quaint Tudor gate-house would strike Norton--perhaps as pretentious and fantastic. It was a small building of mellow Tudor brick with an arched entrance, the heavy oak doors being thrown back; over the doorway was a big mullioned window, flanked by small octagonal turrets on either side, capped with stone, and above, the tiled roof of the gate-house and its two chimney-stacks of twisted brickwork, one at each end.

"What!" said Norton in an amazed tone. "This your house? Why was I never told? It's the most enchanting thing I ever set eyes upon! Have you any idea how beautiful it is? What is the date of it?"

"I haven't the remotest idea," said Walter.

An old man came out and took down Norton's very scanty luggage, and then held the horse while they descended. They went in under a pretty stone-groined roof. A flagged pathway led on to the Manor, with old lime-trees on either hand, rising out of the grass. On each side of the little enclosure was a brick wall with a coping of stone, and the roofs of barns and outbuildings rose on the left beyond them. The Manor had three gables in front. The windows were mullioned, the roof was tiled, and a dozen moulded brick chimneys held up their heads with an inquiring air. Doves sat crooning on the roof, in the bright golden air now enriched by the half-tinted evening.

"Good God," said Norton, who was devouring every detail with a sort of ecstasy. "The thing is simply too wonderful to be true!"

Walter consigned his burden to an elderly blinking butler. They were in a long low hall, paved with black and white squares of stone, the walls panelled, and with two or three bits of oak furniture. He led the way to a door on the right, and saying, "Here we are, Mother!" led Norton into a panelled room, not very large, but with an air of extreme comfort in its deep chintz-covered arm-chairs. On the walls hung two or three large and obscure landscape paintings. An elderly smiling lady rose to her feet. With her large eyes, her small smiling puckered mouth, her grey hair worn in smooth bandeaux, and attired as she was in a dark silk gown, with a gold chain sustaining a pair of glasses, she looked to Norton almost impossibly antique--the apotheosis of Victorianism.

"Well, it's very nice of you, Mr. Norton," she said in a smooth rich voice, "to consent to be brought down to this out-of-the-way place--and you have been so good to Walter--he simply adores you!"

"That's very embarrassing," said Norton, smiling; "but I am rather vexed with him for not telling me what an extraordinarily beautiful place I was coming to."

"It is thought to be very quaint and pretty, I believe," said Mrs. Garnet with many complacent nods and smiles. "But I have lived here so long that I hardly see it, you know. Mr. Garnet will like explaining it all to you. I haven't any head for dates, and it seems to be all dates, when he talks about it. The Wars of the Roses, I understand. But there's something older still. Show Mr. Norton my own view, Walter dear!"

Walter led Norton a little awkwardly to a deep panelled embrasure. The house stood on a rapidly falling slope, and from the window Norton saw a steep flight of stone steps descending to a gate, with high gateposts and stone balls on the top, and just beyond and below, in a tiny graveyard full of old leaning headstones, a little Norman chapel, strangely bulging and buttressed, crowned by a small timbered spire; beyond it the woods closed in on the falling slope, and above them rose the steep green pastureland of the further upland.

"I can see you like it, Mr. Norton," said the placid voice of Mrs. Garnet beside him; "so restful, is it not? You clever men at Oxford think that we poor folk who live in a corner like this have no troubles. You wouldn't believe what worries there are! Servants--even our good old servants, you know--have tempers, and must be smoothed down; and tenants' wives are very independent nowadays; but after a worrying talk, I often go and stand and look out there, and think how little it all matters; and then--you wouldn't think I could be so foolish--I pick out a nice place for my grave, in a sunny corner of the churchyard--that's rather morbid! And then in half an hour I am as anxious to live as anyone, and begin wondering if there is any fish for dinner." She smiled and nodded at Norton, and Walter felt a little ashamed. "But what am I thinking of?" she continued. "Go and tell dear papa, Walter; he will never forgive me if he isn't here to welcome our guest. He likes to have the first word. He is as proud as anything to have a great scholar here. He has a great respect for the University."

"Well, that is very comforting," said Norton. "I wish more people felt the same!"

"Oh, I'm sure they do," said Mrs. Garnet. "Do you know, you will think me very foolish, but I was just a wee bit afraid of meeting you myself. I thought, 'What shall I find to say to a learned man like Mr. Norton?' But now I feel quite reassured. The moment I saw you, I said to myself that you wouldn't despise us. You must be very kind, I think. I hope you like our dear Walter?"

"Yes, indeed," said Norton, "Who could help it? I am very fond of him, and very proud of him. I don't think I ever had a pupil I was more attached to!"

"Now that is most kind," said Mrs. Garnet, her eyes filling with tears. "Of course a mother is partial; but when I see Walter with other boys, I think there is something, what shall I say, more distinguished about him than most of them. You find him clever?"

But Norton's reply was cut short by the entry of a tall, handsome, fresh-faced, bearded man, very precisely dressed in an admirably fitting grey suit, his tie confined by a cameo ring. "Mr. Norton," he said, "a thousand apologies! I told them to warn me of the approach of your vehicle, that I might have the honour of receiving you at the gate. Your visit is deeply valued here. I am an unlearned man myself, but I respect learning. I know no distinctions of rank or class, but I respect learning, especially when it is combined with virtue and moreover accompanied by a most gratifying interest in the studies of our beloved Walter."

The Squire shook Norton's hand warmly, and Norton suspected him of having committed his little speech to memory.

Refreshment was proffered and refused, and as it was now near dinner-time, the Squire recommended "an adjournment to our respective rooms." He added, "You will find your things bestowed by our old butler; but you will no doubt have books and papers to arrange--we have a little study for your sole use, my dear sir, the privacy of which will be jealously respected. You must confer with Walter about our rustic time-table, and you must not scruple to suggest any alteration that will suit your hours of study. We shall only claim you in the afternoons and at our simple meals. You need have no anxiety on this head."