Читать книгу Uncle Stephen - Forrest Reid - Страница 8

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About two hours later they rattled into Kilbarron station where, having got wind of the accident, quite a number of persons had assembled. Tom’s arrival thus became a rather public matter. Everybody stared at him as he walked to the exit beside Mr. Knox, who also accompanied him down the main street, and then, on the outskirts of the town, pointed out his way. He was to go straight on for about a mile and a half, when he would reach a bridge crossing the river. Here he was to take the first turning on his left—Tinker’s Lane, it was called—a short cut which would bring him out close to the house. He would see a wall, and he was to follow this wall till he came to a wooden gate; he couldn’t make a mistake for there was no other house near.

So along the road Tom trudged, swinging the famous parcel, his shoes white with dust. The sun had almost reached the horizon, leaving a green liquid sky against which homing birds were black as ink. And not a soul did he meet till he drew near the bridge, where a young man stood facing him, with his right arm stretched along the parapet. It was perhaps the solitude of this unexpected figure which caused Tom, though only while one might draw a breath, to slacken his pace. The attitude of the loiterer was graceful and indolent, he might have been standing for his portrait, yet somehow at that first glance Tom had received a faintly disquieting impression, which the dark eyes fixed on him intently did nothing to remove. He thought of gipsies, for this young man, in his rough homespun jacket and leather leggings, did not look like a farm labourer, though he might have been a gamekeeper; but his deeply tanned complexion and the bright scarlet neckcloth he wore loosely knotted round his muscular throat were very much in keeping with Tom’s conception of a gipsy, and he wondered if there was a camp in the neighbourhood.

And all this time he continued to advance, though with a growing embarrassment. For the young man’s stare was persistent, and Tom could not escape from it, even though he kept his own gaze averted. Nor did he altogether like the brown surly face upon which short black hairs showed a weekly shave to be nearly due. There was something in its expression to which he was unaccustomed—something boldly investigatory, vaguely predatory. He himself kept his eyes fixed on the landscape, nor was it till he was actually abreast of the figure leaning against the parapet that the latter spoke. ‘Evening!’ he said.

Tom replied with equal brevity, and had passed on a few yards, when an unaccountable impulse made him turn and ask, ‘Is this Tinker’s Lane?’ He pointed to the only lane there was, branching off on the left, and which he knew very well must be the one he wanted.

And instantly he knew that the young man knew he knew. He did not even trouble to reply, but their eyes met and Tom blushed crimson. Then, with a smile that was only just sufficient to show a gleam of very small and very perfect teeth, the young man asked, ‘Who’ll you be looking for?’

‘I want the Manor House.’

‘Collet’s? You going to work there?’

‘No,’ answered Tom, and pursued his way.

He had not gone more than twenty yards before he heard footsteps behind him. He was startled, though there was no reason why he should be, except that the young man on the bridge had presented a picture of a kind of feline laziness not likely to be abandoned without a purpose. Tom’s inclination was to walk more quickly, but pride and annoyance prevented him from doing so, with the consequence that in two or three minutes the young man was by his side though not actually abreast with him.

‘Beg your pardon, sir: I made a mistake; but there’s no offence I hope.’

Tom, without turning, replied that it was all right; yet his companion did not drop behind. On the contrary, they were now walking in step together, the young man having accommodated his stride to the boy’s. ‘My mother’s Mr. Collet’s housekeeper,’ he said, in a deep, slightly husky voice. ‘But she doesn’t sleep there. Deverell’s her name—and mine. Our cottage is across them fields.’

This time Tom did not answer. Out of the tail of his eye he could see that young Deverell’s face was turned to him, and he had again the unpleasant sense of being subjected to a prolonged and very searching scrutiny.

‘I thought I’d better tell you, because unless something’s kept her working late you’d maybe be knocking a long while and nobody hear you. The girl—Sally Dempsey—she doesn’t sleep in either.... You’ll be a friend of Mr. Collet’s perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ said Tom, quickening his pace.

The young man’s stride—noiseless, effortless—still kept step with him: he might as well have tried to out-distance a leopard or a wolf.

‘I don’t mind seeing you in these parts before. Would the old gentleman be expecting you to-night?’

‘No,’ Tom replied.

‘Then he mightn’t hear you knocking, and him reading in his books. So if you’d come to the cottage mother would go back with you.’

‘I think I’ll go on to the house, thanks. Your mother mayn’t be at the cottage.’

Tom spoke, or imagined he spoke, coldly and distantly, but he was not very good at producing such effects, and his companion seemed to notice nothing amiss. He continued to walk close by his elbow. ‘You’ll be staying on a visit with Mr. Collet, likely?’ he suggested.

‘I dare say. I don’t know.’

To make it perfectly plain that he wished to be alone, he stepped aside, and began to walk along the grass close to the hedge. But this manœuvre was unsuccessful: he caught his foot in a bramble. He tripped, and would have fallen had he not instantly been steadied by a firm grasp round his body. There was something so miraculously swift in the movement which had saved him that even through his annoyance Tom felt a reluctant admiration.

‘It’s not easy seeing in this light,’ Deverell said quietly. ‘You’d best keep to the middle of the road.’

Tom, a little out of countenance, accepted the advice. Between the high banks, topped by still higher hedgerows, the light had deepened to twilight. Moths were astir; a white cloudy moon was rising; and when they came to a stile he caught a glimpse of the river, its winding course indicated by a faint mist that hung above it. Tom paused and looked out across the fading meadows, while Deverell waited beside him.

But it was getting late and he stood there only for a minute or two. ‘I’ll take this for you,’ said Deverell gruffly, possessing himself of the parcel without paying any attention to Tom’s refusal.

And they walked on again, now in silence, except that Deverell had begun to whistle softly and in a plaintive minor key. It would be lighter, Tom supposed, when they got out of the lane, which seemed to grow deeper and deeper as they proceeded, that solitary stile being the only gap they had yet come to. The faint scent of brier and meadowsweet was pleasant in the dusk. He kept his gaze fixed on the track before him so that he might avoid treading on the snails.

And by and by he took the paper of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it to Deverell. ‘You may as well have them: I don’t want to smoke any more.’

The lane had been bearing all the time to the right, and now began to wind uphill. They must soon reach the end of it, Tom thought, and indeed before Deverell had finished his cigarette they emerged on to a road which he knew was the one he wanted. Along one side of it ran a stone wall higher than his head, and beyond the wall rose the trees of what must be the Manor estate. At this point Deverell stopped and held out the parcel. ‘I think I’ll be bidding you good-night here. The gate’s just round that bend.’

Tom took the parcel shamefacedly. ‘It was very good of you to carry it, and to come all this distance out of your way.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Deverell.

Tom fumbled with the string of his parcel: he wanted to say something more—something that might make up a little for the suspicions he had shown; but all he could think of was, ‘My name is Tom Barber’.

In the shadow, where they had halted, he guessed, rather than saw, that Deverell’s dark eyes were looking at him—guessed really from his attitude more than anything, for he had put his hands in his pockets and was standing, with his legs slightly apart, directly facing him. ‘What were you frightened of?’ he asked unexpectedly.

‘Nothing,’ answered Tom. ‘I thought you were——’ He was on the point of saying ‘a gipsy’, but checked himself in time, though he could hit on no politer explanation of his behaviour.

‘Still, you were frightened, and then about half roads down the lane it stopped.’

‘That’s quite true,’ said Tom simply. Then he added, ‘How did you know?’

‘I knew well enough.’

‘You mean——’

‘Ay,’ answered Deverell laconically.

It was not much of an answer, but Tom knew it was all he should get, and for the first time since their encounter he laughed. Deverell did not echo his amusement (he was, Tom guessed, in his own way, quite as serious a person as Mr. Knox), but none the less their relation had undergone a modification of some kind when he said, ‘Good-night, Mr. Tom.’

‘Good-night,’ Tom replied.

Next minute he was alone, and the minute after had broken into a jog-trot, for it really was very late, far too late to be arriving at a strange house. A most alarming thought occurred to him, that perhaps Uncle Stephen went to bed early. People living in the country often did, and though no doubt he would be able to waken him by hammering at the door, he did not think he should have the courage to do this; he would rather spend the night in the open air. He would be pretty sure to find some kind shelter, and at any rate it was quite warm.

He stopped, and in the brightening moonlight looked at his watch:—twenty-five past ten. Here, anyhow, was the gate—a white wooden gate—very likely the back entrance. But he pressed down the latch with a fluttering heart, for all his misgivings had returned, accompanied by not a few new ones.

In the avenue he had to proceed warily. The moon was not yet clear of the tree tops, and it was so dark that more than once he found himself blundering into the bushes. The black trees towered above him; everything was black—and alarmingly still. He was sure now that Uncle Stephen would have gone to bed, and the prospect of spending a night out of doors was much less attractive than it had been only a few minutes ago. He wanted to hurry, but that was impossible. It was difficult enough, even when walking slowly and carefully, to keep to the path, which wound this way and that way, so that there was always a wall of trees directly facing him.

Then suddenly he saw the house. It was there, in the moonlight, dark and solid, and though from this distance he could make out no architectural details apart from two projecting wings and a flat roof, there was a light, there were several lights, warm and bright and friendly.

Tom crossed the intervening silver-grey lawn, and on the broad gravel sweep stood still. The porch was wide and deep, but before mounting the two shallow steps leading to it he had to summon up all his resolution. It was a brief struggle, however: he entered the porch, and began to search for the bell. He could not find one, but he found a knocker, and gave two lamentably timid raps.

They were hardly loud enough to have disturbed a mouse, let alone to have waked up Uncle Stephen, yet barely had the discreet sound subsided when he heard footsteps in the hall, and next instant the door opened wide, letting out a flood of light, through which he faced a small, fragile, elderly woman—Mrs. Deverell, he supposed.

‘Does Mr. Collet live here?’ he was beginning nervously, when his question was interrupted.

‘Why, it must be Master Tom! I’d given up expecting you, Master Tom, and was getting ready to go home.’

‘I know I’m awfully late. I couldn’t help it.’ He stopped suddenly in the bewildering realization that he had been expected. He gazed with astonished eyes at Mrs. Deverell, but the housekeeper had replunged into her own explanations.

‘You see the master wasn’t quite sure which day you’d be coming, and it was only this morning he asked me had I got your room fixed up. And then, even if you came by the last train, I made sure you’d be here by nine o’clock. But your room’s all ready, sir, and your supper’s ready. So you walked from the station! Even so, the train must have been terribly late. And they’ve never sent on your things: it’s just like them! However, you’d better go and speak to the master first, and then I’ll show you your room. I kept up a fire, thinking you might like a bath, so the water will be nice and hot. Leave your parcel there on the hall table and I’ll take it up. Just follow me, sir.’

But Tom had not yet regained sufficient composure to follow her, or even to produce any very intelligible speech, though he did manage to say the engine had broken down. It was as if he clung to this as the one comprehensible fact in a maze of unreality. Then it flashed across his mind that Jane might have sent a telegram to announce his arrival. But why should she? It wasn’t a bit like her to do such a thing. Besides, if there had been a telegram Mrs. Deverell would have known definitely he was coming.

And all this time she was waiting, and had even begun to peer at him rather anxiously. ‘Uncle Stephen expected me?’ he said, with an effort forcing his conflicting thoughts into a coherent question. Yet involuntarily he added, ‘How can he have expected me? How can he have known?’

Mrs. Deverell continued to look at him, while an expression of uncertainty slowly deepened in her own eyes. ‘Didn’t you write him a letter, sir?’ she murmured. ‘Or him to you?’ Her frail and faded features seemed to beg him to answer ‘Yes’.

‘I hadn’t time. I——’

‘Ah, well,’ she caught at this as better than nothing, ‘that’s why he couldn’t say whether it would be to-day or to-morrow.’ And her manner struck Tom as carrying an odd note of not wishing to push the matter further. ‘You’d better come with me now, sir, and tell him you’ve arrived.’

The hall, of whose appearance Tom was only beginning to take in a conscious impression, was square and carpeted; and half way down it, against the panelled wall, a grandfather’s clock ticked with a homely, comforting sound. Beyond this was a wide low staircase, branching off on the first landing to right and left, where it was backed by three tall narrow windows. From the foot of the stairs dimly lit passages also extended to right and left, following the lines of the upper flights. It was towards the passage on the left that Mrs. Deverell by the gentlest push now impelled him, and halfway down it she knocked on a door, opening it, however, at the same time. ‘Here’s Master Tom now, sir,’ she said in a toneless voice, her thin hand grasping Tom’s sleeve as if to prevent him from running away.

There had been no summons from within, but firmly Mrs. Deverell pushed him forward, while simultaneously she herself withdrew, closing the door softly behind her, and leaving Tom, dumb and motionless, on the threshold of what was the longest room he had ever seen, and which in fact must have covered nearly the whole area of the east wing of the house.

He had, in his nervousness, a blurred impression of high book-lined walls, of a soft floating light that dimmed and shaded off into a surrounding darkness, but above all, though at what seemed to be an immense distance from him, of a figure seated by a table, a figure whose grave, kind face and silver hair were surmounted by a black skull-cap. There was a perceptible pause and an intense silence. The room rapidly became brimmed with this silence, which passed over Tom in wave after wave, so that he might have been deep down under the sea. His heart was thumping, his cheeks burned, and all at once an unutterable misery swept over him. His mouth quivered; he was at that moment on the very verge of tears; but he forced them back, biting on his lower lip. At the same time the seated figure had risen, looking tall, though slightly stooped, in a black costume that vaguely suggested an earlier period than the present, and which showed only a touch of soft white linen at throat and wrist. But this movement seemed to have the effect of decreasing the distance between them, and Tom advanced. It was all strange enough, for no word had yet been spoken, and Tom came forward slowly, step by step, his arms hanging by his sides, his head drooping a little. He came on and on till at last he felt a hand resting on each of his shoulders, and at this he looked up into eyes of the darkest deepest blue he had ever beheld. His own eyes were misty and again he was biting on his lip, but he felt a hand brushing lightly over his head, and then more firmly, so that, obedient to its pressure, he tilted it back a little, and at the same time closed his eyelids. The hand came to rest, still pressing lightly on the tumbled hair, and Tom all at once had the oddest and loveliest impression. He didn’t know whence it came—perhaps out of the Bible—but he knew—and it was as if he had never known anything so deeply, so beautifully—that Uncle Stephen had blessed him.

He felt suddenly at rest: he felt happy: he even smiled faintly—shyly—but contentedly—after a little, rather sleepily. And still he said nothing:—nor did Uncle Stephen. Thus, in fact, Mrs. Deverell found them when she came back. It seemed to Tom as if she had been gone only an instant, though it must have been longer, much longer. She had come to say that Master Tom’s room was ready, and that she thought he’d better have his supper now and go to bed, after which she herself would go home.

Tom held out his hand to Uncle Stephen, and they said good-night: then Mrs. Deverell took him off to the dining-room.

He obeyed her in a kind of dream. It had all come about so wonderfully that by now he had ceased to question anything. He supposed he should understand in time, but not to-night—nor did it matter if he never understood. Strangest of all perhaps, was his sense of having plunged into a world utterly unknown to him, but in which he was not unknown, and which appeared to have been always there waiting for him.

And, if he did not understand, he at any rate knew; for this was Uncle Stephen—his Uncle Stephen. He had seen him before—twice—though it was only to-night he had seen his face. And he had known the sound of his voice—known it before he had heard it bidding him good-night. Moreover, he thought Uncle Stephen knew too....

‘You’re dropping asleep on your feet, Master Tom,’ Mrs. Deverell said as he smiled at her. ‘And little wonder after the day you’ve had. The minute you’ve finished your supper you must go straight to bed.’

He had forgotten how hungry he was, but he realized it when he sat down at the table. Mrs. Deverell had prepared nothing elaborate for him, but there was cold chicken and ham, a fresh green salad, and rolls and butter. While he ate she sat knitting, and more than once, when he glanced up, he caught her eyes fixed on him in a mildly speculative gaze, as if she were searching for an answer to a riddle his advent had suggested. She did not tell him that a delicate moustache of milk marked his upper lip, that there was a sooty smudge down one of his cheeks from temple to chin, that his hands were shockingly dirty. Of the last fact, before the end of his meal, Tom himself became conscious. ‘I say, I shouldn’t have sat down like this,’ he apologized.

‘Well, I was going to take you upstairs,’ Mrs. Deverell answered, ‘but I hadn’t the heart to keep you starving any longer. You’d better wash your hands and face though, before you get into bed, or I don’t know what my sheets will be like in the morning. I suppose they’ll be sending up your luggage first thing to-morrow.’

‘They won’t,’ answered Tom, his mouth full of lettuce. ‘I mean, I haven’t any. Except that parcel.’

Mrs. Deverell suspended her knitting to look at him. ‘But bless you, child, there’s nothing in your parcel except your pyjamas and two or three handkerchiefs and collars and an old pair of flannel trousers!’

‘I know. You see I couldn’t bring anything that would be missed. I came away unexpectedly.’

‘Unexpectedly!’ Mrs. Deverell resumed her knitting and for a time the clicking of needles and the munching of lettuce leaves provided the only sounds in the room. At last, however, she spoke, ‘I don’t rightly know what “unexpectedly” means, nor if I’m intended to know, or just to mind my own business.’

‘You don’t even know my name, do you?’ said Tom.

‘Not your second name,’ Mrs. Deverell admitted, ‘unless it’s Collet?’

‘It isn’t: it’s Barber; but my mother was a Collet....’

‘She’s dead,’ Tom added, after finishing his milk, ‘and my father died last Friday.’

Mrs. Deverell at this laid down her knitting. ‘Oh, you poor lamb!’ she cried. ‘And me sitting here asking you questions. Now don’t you be bothering about anything I may have said.’

‘But you haven’t said anything,’ Tom assured her. ‘You haven’t asked a single question. I ran away, but that was really only because I thought my step-mother wouldn’t let me come. I mean, I would rather have asked her, only I couldn’t risk it.’

‘And have you told your uncle that?’

‘Uncle Stephen?’

‘Yes: you must tell him: you’d have been better to tell him at once when you were having your talk to-night, but it will do in the morning.’

‘All right, I’ll tell him in the morning.’

‘And I must say I hope your step-mother will allow you to stay. Because your uncle has taken to you: that’s very plain. And I won’t deny I had my doubts about it beforehand—when he first told me you might be coming. He’s never had visitors of any sort so long as I’ve known him. And a boy seemed the last in the world....’

‘But I’m his nephew,’ said Tom.

‘Nephew or no nephew. Well, as I say, it’s easy to see he’s taken to you, and it will do him a world of good to have somebody.’

Tom wiped his mouth, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, and said, ‘I met your son on the way here.’

Mrs. Deverell looked up without a smile. ‘Oh, him!’ was all she replied, with a slight shake of her head.

‘He wanted me to go back to your house, because he thought I wouldn’t be able to get in here. He thought you’d be at home.’

‘You needn’t be paying much attention to what he’d think or not think. I suppose he begun asking you questions.’

‘I asked him one first.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t bother your head about him. Mr. Collet wouldn’t want you to be making friends with him. I’m his mother, and perhaps oughtn’t to say it, but it’s little good he’s ever done either to himself or anyone else. If you’ve finished, Master Tom, I’ll show you your room, for it’s late and I must be going. I’ll leave the things here for Sally to clear up in the morning.’

Tom jumped to his feet, while Mrs. Deverell turned down the lamp. ‘You’re room’s right over this,’ she continued, as she preceded him upstairs, ‘and your uncle’s is at the end of that other passage.’ She paused to point it out before opening Tom’s door. ‘Your uncle thought you’d like this room best, it being so bright and cheerful and getting all the sun.’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Tom, looking round him, ‘and it must be bright with so many windows.’ All of them, he noticed, had cushioned window-seats, and he admired the four-poster with its flowered chintz counterpane on which, looking absurdly small on that immense expanse, his pyjamas were laid out. ‘I never slept in a bed like this before. It will be like going to sea in a Spanish galleon.’

‘Well, so long as you don’t get lost in it,’ Mrs. Deverell said. ‘And you’ve a bathroom to yourself—through that door there. But you’re not to take a bath to-night, after all that supper. There’s a hot jar in your bed, though it’s such a warm night perhaps you’d be more comfortable without it. I only put one blanket on, so if you feel cold you can spread the eiderdown over you.’

‘Oh, I won’t feel cold: at the present moment I’m boiling. What time am I to get up?’

‘The master has his breakfast at nine. But Sally will wake you in the morning. She’ll be bringing you a cup of tea, and if you leave your clothes on a chair outside the door she’ll take them away and brush them. I brought you a pair of the master’s slippers, but I doubt if they’ll be any use unless you can manage to tie them on. And now good-night, Master Tom, and I hope you’ll sleep well. I must be off.’

‘Good-night, and thank you very much.’

But Tom, left to himself, did not at once begin to undress. He first went to the windows and pulled up all the blinds Mrs. Deverell had drawn down: then he made a tour of inspection, opening and shutting drawers and doors. In the big carved rosewood wardrobe there was a mirror in which he could see himself from top to toe. The carpet was thick and soft under his bare feet as he padded about, and at last, having heard the hall-door closing behind Mrs. Deverell, he got into his pyjamas. Now he and Uncle Stephen were alone in the house. Not a sound, not a murmur, either outside or within. It was queer, it was really rather thrilling.

Tom opened his bedroom door cautiously and looked out. The passage was dim, lit only by the light that floated through from his own room, for Mrs. Deverell had taken away the lamp. He carried a chair out and hung his clothes over the back of it; then stood for a moment or two listening. But there was nothing to hear, except the remote ticking of a clock, and he tip-toed—a small pallid figure—along the passage to the staircase, where he hung over the banisters gazing down into the hall. A broad river of moonlight stretched from the landing windows down the central staircase. Tom knew that, according to the way he allowed his thoughts to turn, this silent house might become a place haunted by fear, or by a spirit of extraordinary peacefulness and beauty. But there was no fear in his heart. What actually kept him hovering there in the cool though not cold darkness was a desire to go down to Uncle Stephen. What prevented him from going down was the thought that Uncle Stephen might be displeased if he did. And beneath both the impulse and its repression was the memory of a time when his mother used to come to say good-night to him after he was snugly in bed. That was long ago, but now he wanted—wanted most awfully—Uncle Stephen to come. He remembered his dream. Would there ever be a time when he should be able to talk to Uncle Stephen about it? Why did things never really come right except in dreams? But perhaps they did—here. There had been those minutes—he did not know how many—in the room downstairs, before Mrs. Deverell had returned....

The mellow chiming of the grandfather’s clock rose from the hall, dispersing his reverie. ‘Dickory, dickory, dock,’ Tom chanted. The spell somehow had been broken, and he ran back to his room, where five minutes later he was sound asleep.