Читать книгу The Way Home - Basil King - Страница 3

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An incident like that of the missionary-box could not but fix in Charlie Grace's mind the approximate date of his first conscious wish to be a clergyman. Thinking it over in after life he reckoned that it must have been in 1874, when he was five years old. While other childish happenings grew dim to incoherence, this one stood out clearly. He came, indeed, to take it as the starting-point of his personal activity, referring back to it as the beginning of things rather than to his birth.

All sons of trifles would recall it—a packing-case of a certain size, a button of the pattern on his sailor suit, an old fashion-plate representing ladies in chignons and Grecian bends, the scent of table-linen, a mention of the Colorado Plains. The Colorado Plains in particular opened up new realms to the imagination of a little boy whose horizon had been bounded hitherto by the sky-line of Vandiver Place, and whose most important excursions into the world had been made on the horse-cars in Broadway.

Not that Broadway was then what it is to-day, nor Vandiver Place either, for the matter of that. The latter especially retained its character as one of those quiet thoroughfares known as residential. Except where its uniformity was broken, on one side by a row of grey free-stone dwellings in a pillared, pseudo-classic style, and on the other by the quasi-Gothic spires and gables of St David's Church and rectory, the brownstone front, with its high basement and high steps and quasi-Renaissance portico, gave to the little street an air of mid-nineteenth-century repose. Vandiver Place was still "up-town." Wealthy merchants and professional men were still its residents. The congregation of St David's was still representative of "old New York." The incumbency of St David's was still a thing to be desired by gifted or ambitious clergymen.

Charlie Grace was born in the old rectory. It was called the old rectory as early as 1874, though it was one of Robertson's creations, dating only from the fifties. As an expression of architectural taste it was inspired by the Oxford Movement, and the Gothic Revival as then understood. It is a matter of history that Robertson took Amiens Cathedral as his model for St David's Church, and as an Amiens Cathedral in Connecticut brownstone, dwarfed, denuded and deformed, bearing to its original the relation of a wizened baby to a full-grown man, it stands. For the rectory Robertson got his idea from an English deanery, edifying the New York of his day with a reproduction which was held to be truly ecclesiastical. Charlie Grace's first impressions were, therefore, of doors with pointed arches and corridors artificially vaulted. It was in a dining-room with early English windows adapting themselves awkwardly to muslin curtains and pots of jonquils in spring, that he first heard mention made of the Colorado Plains.

His father had been reading to his mother a letter of the kind familiar to well-disposed persons as an appeal.

"Mapleton is not a town; it is only a region where the shacks are nearer together than elsewhere. My wife and I find it a convenient centre for our work, while the school, elementary though it is, offers some opportunities to our children. We suffer chiefly, not from lack of food and shelter, but from want of books, clothing and household necessities. There is no town nearer than Proctor, at which we can purchase anything. Our children miss the natural amusements of youth, for the country in itself possesses few resources in that direction. You must understand that the plains are not really plains at all, but great sand-dunes, sparsely covered with vegetation. There are not infrequent signs of habitation, but on the smallest scale—here and there a shack with a few tiny outbuildings surrounded by a few meagre cottonwood trees. We are about half-way up on the long ascent of nearly five thousand feet, leading toward Denver. As one rides one sees nothing but mounting wave on mounting wave, while one has a sense of always approaching what I may call a jumping-off place at which one never arrives. Little grows besides a coarse kind of grass, a few wild flowers, and the sage-brush dotting the landscape with what look like innumerable green sponges. The shacks are often miles and miles apart, and the solitude is awful. My children are four in number. Bertha, the eldest, who is twelve years old, but small for her age, has need of..."

It was natural enough that during the next few weeks a little boy's fancy should transcend the limitations of Vandiver Place and the glories of Broadway to roam the endless mounting stretches of sand which produced so striking a novelty as green sponges. In some dim way he had understood the clergyman's life, as exemplified by his father, to be one of dignity; now he began to perceive that it could possess elements of romance. Later, when they filled the missionary-box, in the Gothic rectory drawing-room, he saw with his own eyes that it was also a career of privilege. Privilege, romance and dignity were enough to fire the ambition of any little boy, in whom the seed of intention to become someone in the world was already sprouting.

By dint of being an unheeded listener to letters and conversations supposed to be beyond his sphere of interest he was soon more familiar with the needs of the family on the Colorado Plains than any of the ladies bent on supplying them. He knew that it was Bertha who wanted the grammar-book, and that it was Georgie who lacked a warm winter coat, as well as the precise degree to which Tommy was hard on his boots. He knew how the baby boy was growing, and the gratitude Mrs Waters would feel to any kind mother who would help her to put the child "into pants." Intimate as he had grown with their separate needs, it was gratifying to see them so liberally met. Books, boots, clothes, underclothes, bed-linen, table-linen, tooth-brushes, tooth-powder, soap, flannel, candies, towels, ink, groceries, sponges, toys, went into the packing-case in turn. Now and then his mother came near enough to his chair for him to whisper, "Wasn't it kind of Miss Smedley to give Bertha that nice hat, mamma!" or, "Georgie won't be cold now, will he, mamma, with that nice reefer from Mrs Hornblower?" Once, when his mother stood beside him for a minute or two, he had time to say, "It's nice to be a clergyman and get all these nice presents, isn't it, mamma?" to which she replied, "Yes, dear. It's nice to be a clergyman for a good many reasons besides that." He thought he remembered adding. "Shan't I be a clergyman when I'm big, mamma, and get a nice big box of raisins and ink and tooth-brushes, too?" His mother had replied, "I hope so, dear," or something like that, before hurrying forward to take a fur cap or a box of sweets from the hands of some newly-arriving visitor.

From wondering at the donations he fell to thinking in a childish way of the power of those who could make such gifts without uncomfortably straining their resources. He had come to a sense that in this world there were people who were rich and people who were poor, and that the rich could do things impossible to gentlemen and ladies in the position of his parents. Perhaps he could not have lived in Vandiver Place, even as far back as 1874, without knowing it. The very children with whom he played forced the fact home upon him.

"You can't have a French governess like mine," Freddy Furnival had observed to him one day, not long before. "My mother says your mother can't afford it."

The remark was quite irrelevant, thrown out as they raced their wheel-barrows round the bit of grass-plot that lay between the rectory and the street, under the south transept of Amiens Cathedral.

Charlie Grace could only retort: "Well, your papa can't give out the hymns on Sunday, and make all the people get up and sit down."

"My papa don't want to. He's a doctor. He makes people sick. You didn't have rice-pudding to-day. We did."

Charlie Grace not having had rice-pudding that day felt at a disadvantage. He felt at a disadvantage on general principles, too. A word had been used that caused him a vague discomfort. Not that he knew its meaning—quite. It only distressed him, with a kind of atavistic alarm. It was as if it had been used like a whip on all the generations preceding him, as if he had felt its scourge in a previous life. He had it in his mind all that day. He had it in his mind as he knelt on his bed that night to say his prayers, his mother standing beside him, covering his folded hands with one of hers.

"God bless my papa and my mamma, and my brother Edward, and my sister Emma, and her little girl, and Mr Tomlinson, and Mr Legrand and Mrs Legrand, and Bridget and Julia and Remnant, and Miss Smedley because she gave me my wheel-barrow, and Mrs Hornblower because she gave me my rocking-horse, and make me a good boy. Amen. Mamma, what's afford?"

"What's what, dear?"

"Afford. Why can't people afford a French governess like Freddy Furnival?"

The word was explained to him. He had no trouble in understanding it. He felt it at once to be a term he had been in need of. It solved mysteries. It put people and things into perspective. It accounted for the strength of the strong and the weakness of the weak. Incidentally it ranged Freddy Furnival with the former and himself and his father and mother with the latter, and left a sense of dissatisfaction. He felt somewhat as a negro child must feel when the knowledge first comes to him that he has been born black.

So, from the bewildering excitement of largesse his mind travelled to those who were able to "afford" it. It did so less in envy than in emulation. There was little envy in his nature. What was really instinctive was his desire to do what others did—as much as they did, if not more. He was uneasy to see that others could contribute to the wants of the Waters family, while he was considered negligible, impotent. Rebellion against this paralysis of good intention grew acute when Mrs Furnival opened a cardboard box and said:

"See. My little Freddy has sent this. It will be lovely for the little boy."

Charlie Grace did not have to look a second time to know that the box contained a train that would go round in a circle when you touched a spring concealed in the engine. He knew, too, that the machinery was out of gear from over-usage, and that several of the tin wheels were off. He himself had inflicted some damage on the string of cars by kicking them over, in a moment of rage against Freddy, when they were in full career. These injuries diminished but slightly the value of the thing as a possession, since a train may be more a train than ever after it has been in collision or has met with accident. The point that hurt was that Freddy Furnival could send a present to the Waters child, while his own aid had never been invited. He felt himself overlooked, left out of the movement. Even the lack of personal recognition was secondary to the slight upon his powers.

In spite of his fear of obtruding himself too noticeably into the group of ladies circling about the packing-case like doves round a fountain, he glided from his perch and approached his mother, timidly.

"Mamma," he whispered, slipping his hand into hers, "can't I put something into the box, too?"

His mother smiled. "My poor darling, I don't think you've anything left. All your toys went to the last Christmas tree at the Mission Church, and all your old picture-books." Still smiling she lifted her sweet shy eyes on the ladies who had momentarily paused in their work. "We have to make so many clean sweeps that poor Charlie can never keep anything for himself."

"I've got my wheel-barrow," he corrected in a loud whisper.

"Oh, but that's too big, dear. Besides, Miss Smedley gave it to you, and she wouldn't like you to give it away."

"Well, my rocking-horse, then."

"Mrs Hornblower gave you that. She wouldn't like it, either."

"No; she wouldn't like it, either," Mrs Hornblower herself echoed in a deep voice. He would have made an attempt to plead with her, had she not added: "Come along, ladies. We must finish before lunch. Little boys mustn't bother," she added, crushingly.

That night he left Mrs Hornblower permanently out of his petitions.

In the meantime his energies were astir. That dogged element in his nature, which opposition was always to arouse, began to declare itself. He would put something into the missionary-box, no matter what, no matter how. He stole back to his high seat in the corner.

His plans had ripened before the last parcel was secured in its resting-place, and the whole achievement neatly covered with layers of old papers. It was to be Remnant's task to nail the cover on, and the rector's to write the address. The ladies could now troop off to the dining-room to refresh themselves.

Charlie Grace knew what he meant to do. Having first looked into his own small room to assure himself that there was nothing left in his possession that could be given away, he threaded the passages leading from the rectory to the church. In the church, as he expected, he found Remnant. Remnant was preparing for a funeral. Having set up the trestles, on which the coffin was to rest, he was leisurely dusting them.

"Burying Mrs Badger," he explained, as the boy drew near. "That'll be one boss less for me. There's women as don't see anything in religion but just to boss the sexton. Censorious is what I call 'em. This here Mrs Badger 'ud scent a speck o' dust in her pew before she'd turned the corner of Vandiver Place. There's a lot of hollerness to religion, sonny. If you was a sexton you'd know. Some people think it's a soft snap, being a sexton—just christening people and marrying 'em and burying 'em, like; but Lord! if they had this job. If some old lady's feet is cold, it's my fault; and if there's a draught down her neck, it's my fault; and if the church is stuffy, it's my fault; and if the windows is open, it's my fault; and if they're shut, it's my fault. I'll bet you if this here old Mrs Badger could speak she'd say it was my fault as she's gone to work and died."

Remnant waved the duster oratorically. He was a little dark man, not over thirty-five, covered up just now in a long black dust-cloak, like a gaberdine, which would presently be discarded for a beadle's gown, in honour of Mrs Badger. He was fond of saying he had been "born a sexton," his father in his lifetime having had the care of St David's, transmitting it to his son.

"Want to put something into that missionary-box, do you, sonny? Now I don't hold with them missionary-boxes, nohow. I say, Give a man a decent salary, and let him live on it. I say, Don't ask a man to get along on starvation wages, just so as you can keep him where he'll have to come and lick your hand in the hopes of getting a present. That's the way sextons is treated all over the world. They're kept down. The clergy is kept down, too, but not so much as sextons. There ain't an old lady as comes to St David's that don't think she's got me and your pa in her pocket—and me more than your pa. And that's what they call religion."

The little boy saw an opening. It was the ladies of Remnant's dislike who stood in the way of his making a contribution to the missionary-box. Would it not be a legitimate bit of retaliation if, by putting their heads together, they could outwit them? With some glee Remnant seized the idea before it was fully expressed.

"Say," he whispered. "Up in the loft above the Sunday-school room there's an old chest full of stuff. The Girls' Friendlies uses the things when they get up their plays. Come along and we'll see what there is."

"We haven't much time," the little boy warned him. "Unless I get it into the box while they're at lunch I can't do it at all."

Remnant looked at his watch. It was already late for their purpose. "Come along," he said again, and the preparations for burying Mrs Badger were suspended.

The loft was distant and up a dark stairway. Time was lost while Remnant looked for a candle to light them along. Thus there was no leisure for selection when at last they stood by the open chest.

"Just dive in your hand, sonny," Remnant counselled, "as if it was a bran-pie, like, and take the first thing you get hold of."

The element of chance appealing to Charlie Grace's sporting instincts he did as directed. Out of the dusty hodge-podge in the chest he drew forth a small, soft package, flat and shapeless, wrapped in silver paper. It was an occasion on which one thing was as good as another. The conspirators stole back to the school-room below. "Now, let's see," Remnant said eagerly.

On examining the prize and finding nothing but a wig, a man's iron-grey wig—clumsily made and shaggy, but still a wig—Remnant made no secret of his disgust.

"That won't do," he said contemptuously. "It's one of them Girls' Friendly things. It's for their plays. It'll be no use at all in a missionary-box."

But Charlie Grace was of a different opinion. Not only would this donation be on original lines, differing from the sponges and flannel and stationery of other contributors, but he could see already the uses to which Bertha and Georgie and Tommy would put it. To any company of children in the world a wig must be a possession, a source of inspiration, a point of departure. It could be turned to as many uses as a mask. Moreover, masks were common, toys were common, games and picture-books were common; but a wig was rare. With a wig to put on his head and stir his fancy there was no limit to the things he, Charlie Grace, could be. He could be a clergyman giving out hymns and pounding a pulpit; he could be General Grant leading the army to war; he could be a policeman, or a postman, or a garbage-man. Out on the Colorado Plains a wig must be even more a boon than in Vandiver Place, so to the Colorado Plains it should go.

He did not reason the subject out in words, or put it before Remnant otherwise than with the laconic assertion, "They'll like it, Remnant; I know they will," but he had his way. Within five minutes the wig was beneath the lowest of the layers of old newspapers, with which the contents of the packing case were protected, and Remnant, alive to the urgency of the moment, and chuckling over the neat way in which his "bosses" had been outflanked, was nailing up the box.