Читать книгу Rogue Herries - Hugh Walpole - Страница 8

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Herries returned, one September morning, after his walk abroad, without his coat. It had been one of his finest, the plum-coloured coat laced with silver. He walked into the house in his white sleeves, and the old witch, Mrs. Wilson, leaned over the top of the stairs and smiled. She never laughed. ‘You’re grand without your coat,’ she said. They seemed to have a kind of understanding, the two of them. He, as did all the valley, believed her to be a witch. He thought none the worse of her for it. He was happy this morning like a boy. It was a bright fresh morning, with clean white clouds leaning negligently on the hills. With the beauty and the youth and the kindly look that he had when he was happy, he was a good sight for an old witch. And she was no misanthrope. Life was too busily interesting for her to despise mankind.

‘I’m going to the Fair,’ he said like a boy.

She nodded her head, put out her long brown hand, and touched the white linen of his sleeve.

‘You’re not to give t’coat,’ she said. ‘It’ll be remembered.’

He didn’t care whether it were remembered or no. Out on the Watendlath path, looking up at a bright silver waterfall poised like a broken ladder against the green cliff, he had seen by the stones of the beck a dead man with his throat cut and a woman shivering beside him. A dead man was no extraordinary sight; this man was naked save for his shirt, and his white legs stretched stiffly as though they had been carved. The woman did not cry nor ask for alms, but she shivered in the keen September air. He did not speak to her, but obeying the impulse of the instant, took off his plum-coloured coat and threw it over her trembling shoulders. He strode back to the house. Seeing Benjamin in the yard, he leaned from the window and bade him go and fetch the woman to the house. Ten minutes later Benjamin returned to say there was no sign of woman or man.

He did not care. He was too cheerful in spirit to be bothered by a dead man or a shivering woman.

He sat in his sleeves at the window looking out on to the beautifully coloured world, Glaramara plum-coloured like his coat, and the long stretch of green valley.

He was like a schoolboy about this Fair. It was an accidental chance-by-night Fair for Keswick. It had been intended for Kendal and then for Carlisle, a motley company of entertainers and rogues and rascals travelling slowly to Scotland.

But the smallpox was savage this summer in Kendal, and so they had changed to the smaller town. In the past Keswick had had few Fairs but its own. It was too small a place. The chartered Fair on the 2nd of August for the sale of leather, and the Cattle Fairs on the first Thursday in May and on each Thursday fortnight for six weeks after; on the Saturday nearest Whitsuntide and Martinmas for hiring servants, and on the first Saturday after the 29th of October for the sale of cheese and rams. Saturday the year through was market-day for provisions and corn.

But these Fairs were local, and business was their purpose. This present Fair was the maddest, wildest thing in Keswick’s memory. It would be generations before the week of it would be forgotten. They said, too, that there was a company of Chinese people travelling with the Fair, and they wore strange clothes, such as had never been seen in that neighbourhood, and they juggled with gold balls and swallowed silver swords, and had an old man with them three hundred years of age. It was always afterwards called the Chinese Fair.

But it was not of the Fair that Herries was now thinking as he sat at the window. He was thinking of how well satisfied he was with this place. He had been here full two years, and his strange instinct that had driven him here had been right. He already loved the valley, and had even now caught some of the sense of its intimacy that led its inhabitants to cling to it with an obstinacy and stubbornness that made them a byword for the rest of the world. It was said that the men of Borrowdale were so stupid as to be scarcely human, and that they did such idiotic things, like building a wall to keep the cuckoo in their valley, that they must be half-witted—that they never stirred from their valley, that some of them had never even seen Keswick, that they spoke a strange language of their own and were like men in a dream.

Herries had heard how the people in Keswick and from Newlands and St. John’s and the rest mocked and gibed, but he knew now what it was that held the men of Borrowdale: although he was not yet one of them (they were greatly suspicious of newcomers), one day he would be. Something was in his blood that was in their blood: it was a doom, a judgement, the fulfilment of a prophecy.

He thought of other things too, as he sat there. He was well pleased that he had cut himself off from his brother and his brother’s family. Since that day when Pomfret had ridden over to Herries he had never set foot in his brother’s house. Margaret and the children had visited—he did not care whether they did or no—and when he met Pomfret in Keswick he talked with him, but he had never been within his brother’s door.

He loved his pride, his fierce intolerance. He cherished it, fed it, adored it. It had been one of his fears, on coming to live in Herries, that perhaps he would find his brother a better fellow than he had thought he was, and so would be forced to see him and keep company with him because his heart drove him.

That was why, on the first evening at the inn, he had worn his finest clothes—because that might annoy his brother, and then Pomfret would appear less pleasant than he was. And so in the event it had been. Now he cherished his scorn of his brother—it was a fine silver flower in his coat.

The thing, however, of which he was mainly thinking now was what he should do to be rid of Alice Press, for rid of her he would be. Although so reckless a man, he knew, as every imaginative Herries has always known, that you can’t rid yourself of past deeds. Kill a fox, give your coat to a trembling woman, drink of the water of Sprinkling Tarn, and you are a doomed man. He was doomed because he had kissed Alice Press, doomed because he had shot off that young fool’s ear in Doncaster, doomed because on entering Herries he had put the right foot before the left, doomed anyway and a thousand times a day; but to be bored, because he was young and full of life, was a worse thing than to be doomed. And he was bored by Alice Press, bored to the very hilt of his sword. He thought now that he had always been bored with her, although there had been, at the very first, a flashing moment of startling splendour. Now he was bored with everything about her, from her heavy sallow face, her long sad brooding gaze at him, her stealthy eagerness to be alone with him, down to the paste buckles on her scarlet shoes, the scarlet shoes that he had once bought for her on a Fair day in Doncaster, and that she wore now in persistent petulant reminder. Moreover, she had been insulting to Margaret, and he would have no one rude to Margaret but himself. Yes, he must be rid of her, but how?

He looked out at the great shoulder of the hill. ‘How, old Glaramara? You are old enough to know. Come and tell me your plan.’

As though in answer to his question, hearing a deep breath he turned round to find Alice Press at his side.

She was very grand in black velvet, with a heavy silver chain and her scarlet shoes.

She came close to him, and the scent that she used, a scent of roses, stifled his nostrils.

‘Francis,’ she said, her large sombre eyes staring into his. ‘You will take me to the Fair, will you not?’

‘No,’ he answered, smiling at her and patting her white hand. She drew her hand away from the arm of his chair.

‘You promised me.’

‘I break my promise.’

‘You must not. I am bent to go. You have been unkind to me all these months, and I have borne you no grudge. I knew that I could wait. To-day it shall be like one of our old times.’

‘Old times never return,’ he answered her, looking at her with an intentness that matched her own. How strange it was, this passing of love! A never-ending marvel! At one moment the merest touch of the hand is Paradise, at the next, dead flesh.

‘Have you not been selfish in this,’ she went on quietly, ‘and blind too, perhaps? Because you are tired of loving me you think our intercourse is at an end. But no intercourse is at an end when two have loved one another as we have.’

‘Loved!’ he interrupted her. ‘Love and love! Do you call that love? I have never known what love is. ’Tis a wonder that waits always round the corner. If ever I do know, then I will be faithful. But our love! My dear, you use words too lightly.’

He hit her hard there, but she gave no sign. Her eyes did not quiver.

‘Of course you are faithless,’ she said. ‘I have always known that, but I am not quite like the other women you have kissed. I always told you I was not. You cannot rid yourself of me so easily.’

‘Can I not?’ He looked at her speculatively. ‘I have never been false to you. I warned you not to come here. I told you what it would be. Go back to Doncaster, my dear, and find a better man.’

That ‘better man’ hit her the hardest of all, because, although she thought him rotten, he was yet better for her than any other man in the world. A woman’s bitter fidelity is always the honestest thing she has.

‘Take me with you to the Fair to-day,’ she repeated, ‘and we will see. I’ve made no request for months but have faithfully stayed in this house, suffered every scorn at the hands of your wife, been hated by your children, been faithful to your interests—now, to-day, you will take me to the Fair.’

‘I will not,’ he answered, smiling up at her. ‘David is the only one who goes with me.’

She turned past him and stood facing him, with her back to the window, blotting out the scene as though she thought that the mountain, at which he gazed so persistently, was her enemy.

‘Listen, Francis. You are a bad man but a fair one. Here is a bargain. You have spoiled my life, shamed me before everyone, wrecked all my prospects, but I will feel nothing for all this if you will give me this day, one day as we used to have it, as we had it in Doncaster that Fair day when you bought me these shoes.’ He knew that she was saying to herself: ‘If I can but get him from this house and away with me as he used to be, I can charm him again.’

He answered her unspoken thought. ‘You cannot charm me any more, not by one day nor by twenty. It is over. All done. I never promised fidelity. I never loved you. I have never loved anyone save my son. These things are not for our asking, my dear. Nature is rough when she tosses us our moods. “This one for you,” she says, “and this for you,” and no tears or scarlet slippers will change her indifference. Blame no one. Life is not understood by scolding.’ Then he went on very kindly. ‘Alice, go back to Doncaster and forget me. There was that fellow—how was he named? Matthew Priestly—he always loved you. He loves you, I doubt not, still. Blow no more on these dead coals. Forgive my indifference. It is the fault of neither of us.’

She saw something in his face that she understood. She gave him one long look and then slowly went. An hour later he was riding with David to Keswick. He could not quite rid his mind of her. Oddly enough it was now in connection with David that he thought of her. David, ever since that quarrel between the two women, had kept his vow. He had refused to speak to Alice Press. The woman had taken it for the most part with a cold, haughty indifference, as though she could not be disturbed by the impertinence of a child, but yesterday there had been a scene. She had demanded of Herries that he should make his son answer her. Herries had ordered him. David, with set face and an odd little frown between his brows that was his father’s own, had refused. Herries would whip him for disobedience. David, his body drawn tight together, kept to his refusal. He was stripped and whipped. Herries drew blood from his young son’s white back, because he loved him so dearly and was so deeply bored with Alice Press. David put on his shirt and jacket without a word.

‘And now will you speak to her?’ his father asked him.

‘No,’ said David.

Then his father kissed him and gave him some fine ointment for his back. To-day it was as though this had never been. David was in perfect happiness as he rode Caesar, laughing and chattering as he did sometimes when he was excited, making Caesar gallop on the free turf of Cat Bells, coming down into Portinscale as though he were heading a charge. The boy was growing. There would soon come a time when he would judge with a man’s thoughts. He was a fine boy, of a stiff, brave, honest character, full of courage and obstinate. What would he think of his father?

The Fair was on the farther lake side of Keswick, on the broad meadows that ran to the lake’s edge, not far from Pomfret’s grand house, and it pleased Francis to think how greatly Pomfret must dislike to have all this rapscallion world at his very door. Keswick, at this time, was a town of one fair street and a huddle of filthy hovels. In the minor streets and ‘closes’ the cottages, little houses and pig-sties were thronged very largely with a foreign and wandering population—riff-raff of every sort who came to steal plumbago from the mines or were wandering their way northward, off the main route; these houses were crowded with foul middens and encroached on by large open cesspools, pig-sties and cow-sheds. The refuse stagnated and stained the air and tainted the soil. Here were women of ill-fame, hucksterers, thieves, many Jews who paid high prices for the stolen lead. At once on entering the town you were in another world from the honest and independent country of the statesmen and yeomen of the valleys—these statesmen who for centuries had lived on their own land, their own masters, and owed no man anything.

In the former year, 1731, in Keswick, out of a population of some twelve hundred, nearly five hundred persons had died of smallpox, cholera and black fevers. During the summer months the channels of ordure, the cesspools, became intolerable, and in the lower parts of the town respectable citizens could scarcely breathe.

The natural inhabitants of those parts, however, showed no discomfort and made no protest.

On this fine morning the principal street was shining with its white cobble-stones and a throng of people who pressed hither and thither, giving themselves up with complete child-like abandon to the fun of the occasion. The Fair had spread from its proper surroundings out into the street, and David and his father had to push through the groups surrounding booths and cheap-jacks and fancy quacks.

But the Fair itself, when they reached it, was a glory.

So many were the booths and stalls that the waters of the lake were invisible. On every side were announcements of wonders.

‘Here is the Dancing on the Ropes, after the French and Italian fashion, by a Company of the finest Performers that ever yet have been seen by the whole World. For in the same Booth will be seen the two Famous French Maidens, so much admired in all Places and Countries where they come, for their wonderful Performance on the Rope, both with and without a Pole; so far outdoing all others that have been seen of their sex, as gives a general satisfaction to all that ever yet beheld them, to which is added Vaulting on the High Rope and Tumbling on the Stage.’

And here again: ‘Here is to be seen a little Fairy Woman lately come from Italy, being but Two Foot Two Inches high, the shortest that ever was seen in England, and no ways Deformed, as the other two Women are, that are carried about the streets in Boxes from House to House for some years past, this being Thirteen Inches shorter than either of them.... Likewise a little Marmozet from Bengal that dances the Cheshire Rounds and Exercises at the word of Command. Also a strange Cock, from Hamborough, having three proper legs, and makes use of them all at one time.’

Here was a play announced in front of a booth all gay with crimson cloth and gold tinsel—

‘An Excellent new Droll called The Tempest or The Distressed Lovers. With the English Hero and the Highland Princess, with the Comical Humours of the Enchanted Scotchman, or Jockey and the three Witches. Showing how a Nobleman of England was cast away upon the Indian Shore, and in his Travels found the Princess of the Country, with whom he fell in love, and after many Dangers and Perils was married to her; and his faithful Scotchman, who was saved with him, travelling through Woods, fell in among Witches, where between them is abundance of Comical Diversion. There in the Tempest is Neptune with his Tritons in his Chariot drawn with Sea-Horses, and Mairmaids singing....’

And then the marvellous animals: ‘The true Lincolnshire Ox Nineteen Hands high and Four Yards long, from his Face to his Rump, and never was Calved nor never sucked, and two years ago was no bigger than another Ox, but since is grown to this prodigious Bigness. This noble Beast was lately shown at the University of Cambridge with great satisfaction to all that saw him....

‘The large Buckinghamshire Hog above Ten Foot long ... the wonderful Worcestershire Mare, Nineteen Hands high, curiously shaped, every way proportionable; and A little Black Hairy Pigmey, bred in the Deserts of Arabia, a Natural Ruff of Hair about his Face, Two Foot high, walks upright, drinks a glass of Ale or Wine, and does several other things to admiration; and the Remark from the East Indies; and the little Whifler, admired for his extraordinary Scent.’

Although David did not know it, some of these same animals must have been of an amazing age, because the celebrated Mr. Pinkeman had himself shown them in the days of Queen Anne.

For David, however, hours must pass before he could take in any detail. He did not know that already behind the colour and show there was disgust and discontent on the part of the showmen, because the takings were so small, and there was no one there but gaping country-fellows, the discontent leading in the last day of the Fair to a free fight and riot that spread, before all was over, into the heart of the town.

It all seemed to him so grand and magnificent that there had been nothing in the world like it before. Walking close at his father’s side he was caught up into a world of colour and scent—the faint September blue held the flare of the fires that blazed upon roasting meat and fish, popping corn and scented sweetmeats, the thick swaying tendrils of smoke that crawled about the booths, the waving of coloured pennants, the flaunting of flags, and, under this shifting roof of colour, everything broke and mingled again, dogs nosing for food, naked children sprawling in the mud, mummers in gold and blue, women, bare-breasted, shrieking after their men, tumblers somersaulting, a monkey loosed, dragging after him a silver chain, his face weary with age and loneliness, three dwarfs in crimson hose, with huge heads, counting money, a black woman, a yellow kerchief round her head, selling silver rings, clowns, soldiers, girls dressed like angels with white wings, the booths with the drum beating and shrill trumpets blowing, men stripped to the waist, their skin pouring sweat, fighting before a shouting crowd, everywhere eating and everywhere drinking, men tumbling women and women fingering men—and through these crowds the countrymen, the farmer, the dignified statesman, the gaping yokel moving like strangers, suspicious, aloof, and gradually tempted by ale and women and silver, by noise and food and curiosity, tumbling into the reeking tub and so kicking and shouting and screaming like the rest as the sun went up the sky.

Yes, hours passed. Somewhere, at some time, David had a sudden curious vision of all the colour, reek and noise of the Fair parting like a drawn curtain, and there in the clear space was the lake, misted yellow under a misted sun, cool and still, the line of Cat Bells rising softly above the woods on the farther side, the water still without a ripple, very cool and sweet. Then it closed again, and the stench of roasting meat and uncleanly bodies and painted boards melting in the heat of fires and frying corn and burning wood swept over him again, bringing with it into the very heart of his nostrils the whole pageant of bright colour, purple and gold and saffron, and the odd wildness of a thousand faces, eyes staring, mouths agape, and a roar of bells and whistles, shouts and curses and cries, the neighing of horses and barking of dogs and the shrill human scream of a crimson-pated cockatoo.

He was aware then that he had lost his father. He stood for a moment dismayed. On every side figures were pushing against and around him; now someone would run past him shouting; now two singing, falling from side to side, would lurch drunkenly his way; now with a cry, as though it had come from the ground itself, there would be a rush from a whole group; and all of this dreamlike—a flash of a sword, a trembling coloured flag, a creaking board of a booth, a ringing silver bell, the scream of the crimson-pated cockatoo, the wail of the lost monkey dragging his silver chain, a man bending a woman backwards against a boarded trestle, a naked muddied baby crying for its mother, all in a dream; where the clear, tranquil, golden-misted lake was, there was reality.

But he had no fear; he would see his father again; it was fine to be independent in a noisy world and to hold your own against the Devil. So, looking around him, he saw that he was before the very booth where he had most set his heart, the booth where the Chinamen were. On the outside of the booth a Chinese curtain hung in brilliant splashes of gold and red, a temple, a grove of golden bells, soldiers in armour, a bridge of blue, and in front of the curtain a Chinaman with a yellow face and an ebony pigtail was inviting everyone to enter. A bell clanged, the Chinaman called out in a shrill voice and at the same moment the thick pushing crowd shoved forward. David was caught in it, carried off his feet; he was pressed against smelling clothes and warm sweating flesh; he clutched, that he might not fall, at a man’s waist and held to it; his fingers stuck to the damp waist-belt and his arm was driven into a soft belly. For a moment he was almost under a dozen feet, then lifted up again on the sheet of a thousand smells and so almost hurled into the inside of the booth. He did not know whether he should pay money or no, he had lost his breath and found himself enclosed within the thick arm of a huge country-fellow, black-bearded, bare at the neck; their sense of one another was instantaneous, and the black-bearded man laughed, standing him in front of him, pressing him back against his chest, his hot naked arm against David’s cheek.

He could see where he was. He was high on some raised boards. Everything around him was quiet. The noise of the Fair had been shut out. On every side of him the people with staring eyes, speechless, stood waiting. A little empty stage was in front of him and above it some curtains idly flapped.

All his senses were centred on this empty stage. It became to him full of omen and suspense. What was about to happen? Who would come there? A very ancient man came with a long face of yellow parchment. He wore a long stiff garment of purple brocaded silk. He sat, quite silently and quite alone, on a little round stool. He was motionless, carved in colours against the dark shadows of the flapping tent. He looked neither to right nor left, was unaware of the sweating crowd. Perhaps he was the Chinaman who was three hundred years old. If you were three hundred years of age you would not pay attention to any crowd; you would have seen so many.

Then the curtains parted, two young men in gold trousers, stripped to the waist, their bodies glistening, came and threw into the air coloured balls. They threw up a dozen balls at once, and the balls, green, yellow, red, made whirls of colour above the head of the old man who never moved.

Then there came two short fat men with very yellow bodies; they were clad only in loin-cloths. Standing in a corner of the stage they began silently to wrestle.

Then six young men came in trousers of gold and jackets of silver; they had poles up which they climbed; they threw ropes to one another and with pointed red slippers on their feet walked on the ropes. Lastly a number of little yellow-faced children, also dressed in bright, shrill colours, ran silently forward, spread their legs and their arms and stood in a pyramid: the child who climbed to the top and stood balancing there with his little feet seemed only a baby with tiny black eyes and a doll’s pigtail.

Now all of them—the young men with the balls, the naked wrestlers, the men balancing on the ropes, the pyramid children who suddenly melted to the floor and were turning like bright bales a hundred somersaults and cart-wheels—were moving ceaselessly round the old man who sat motionless on his little stool, never flickering, you could be sure, an eyelid. Faster and faster they turned, but always without a sound, and as they moved the tightly packed crowd moved with them: the crowd began to sway and to murmur: everyone was smiling: the black-bearded countryman who smelt of good fresh dung put his arm tight round David’s neck, pressing his body to him. They were all smiling as though they were in a dream, and it must have seemed to many of them that they too were tossing balls into the air, turning somersaults, climbing poles, balancing on ropes. Their bodies must have appeared free to them and clean and strong: the ordure and the filth, the daily toil, the cruelty and sickness and pain, the darkness and rain and cold freezing nights, the life with animals and the wrestle with the hard ungrateful soil, the penury and ignorance and darkness, the loneliness of rejected lovers, the injustice of tyrannous masters, the narrow, constrained horizons, the proud brutalities of a swollen-headed upper class against whom they struggled dumbly, whom one day—and that day was not far distant—they would conquer—all these hard things fell away, the sky was bright and clear, the air fresh like crystal, all for a moment was joy and happiness in a free world where it was always day.

As for David he could see nothing but the silent old man sitting on his stool. The old man seemed to be staring directly into David’s eyes. However David moved his head he could not escape that old man. He began to be frightened. He wanted to run away. The old man appeared to have a message especially for him. In another moment something terrible would happen. His father was in danger. And it spread beyond the moment—all his life he would remember that old Chinaman, and whenever he remembered him he would shiver with apprehension. Life was dangerous, and you could only know how dangerous it was when you sat quite still and listened, waiting for a sound to break.

Anyway, he must go. He must find his father.

He wriggled away from his black-bearded friend, then, dropping down from the raised boards, pushing through legs and arms, shoving with his head now this way, now that, at one instant stifled by the human stench, at another brought up against a solid body that would never move again, at last he was by the flap of the tent and tumbled into the free air, leaving behind him, it seemed, a crowd hypnotised, in a trance, a dream....

He was in the open air again and frantically hungry. It must be afternoon. The sun was high in the sky.

So, looking rather desolate and half lost, his father, Francis Herries, saw him. Herries was a little drunk and soon would be more so. Somewhere in the heart of the Fair where they were bargaining about cattle he had discovered an old woman with a store of wine. She sat under an awning, on either side of her a cask of wine. A strange woman, very fat, with a purple face. She did not seem to want to sell her wine, but sat there idly. Once and again she broke into a strange raucous song in a deep, rumbling voice. She ladled the wine out of the casks into long, thin glasses: the wine was a shilling a glass, Portuguese on one side of her, Florence the other. Herries drank the Portuguese. What was it? He neither knew nor cared. Was it White Vianna or Passada or Barabar? Carcavellos or Ribadavia? He drank many glasses. The old woman did not speak to him nor he to the old woman. After that everything entertained him. He had always been very easily amused by little things, and there was something in him that liked the stench and the common crowd and the press of animals human and other——

He watched for a long while two men who, drunk with gin, tumbled about in the mud together. Close beside him was a fellow selling medicines. The two drunkards, suddenly weary, kissed one another and lay there in the mud head by head, looking up at the sunny sky.

The quack, long, thin and brown, like a gnarled tree-branch, with a high black hat—‘Here’s a plaister will cure old Ulcers and Fistulas, Contusions, Tumours and any Dislocations or Hurts, and when it has performed Fifty Cures ‘twill be ne’er the worse but still keep its Integrity.’

He moved leisurely, looking for a pretty face. Where were all the pretty women? Here at least not one. The country girls hanging on the arms of their lovers were each more blowzy than the other. There seemed to be none of his own class here. What was it that gave him a sudden sense of freedom so that he was happy as though he had thrown off bonds?

All these strange faces interested him, wizened and twisted and swollen; he could throw off his fine clothes, put on these tinsel rags and go wandering with them, drinking, wenching.... Then looking about him he saw his small son. With a pang of reproach, oddly sharp as he saw his air, half defiant, half frightened, he cursed himself for the rottenest parent. To leave that child in such a place, at such a time! And yet he did not move at once towards him, but watched him, loving him, proud of him, sturdy and self-reliant among all the oddities, the shouting, the flaming fires. Whatever occurred that boy would not cry out, but would stand on his courage to the last, letting endurance father him were no other father there. And was not that because he had no spirit of imagination? Imagination was the devil. Let your fancy move and there, by that booth where the boxing was, you could see the sun roll down from the sky and sweep them all—pimp and trollop, bully and jade, monkey and dwarf, Indian and Chinaman—with its fiery heat, screaming into perdition. As he one day would go. But David would not stir, not till he felt his duty was done.

Then he moved forward and was happy to see the boy’s pleasure spring into his eyes at sight of him.

‘Did you think me lost?’

‘No, father. I’ve been in the Chinaman’s tent.’

‘And what did you see there?’

‘There was an old man, they say he is three hundred years old, and young men throwing balls.’

Then he added rather wistfully:

‘Father, I’m hungry.’

‘Come, we’ll eat then.’

They moved through the packing crowd and came to a kind of temporary hostelry. It had a grander, larger front than the booths, and, inside, there were long trestle tables with benches stretched on the grass and at the far end a defended fire with a grid. The place was very full with people eating and drinking, and many were already drunk, singing and shouting. David and his father found places at the end of the tent near the fire. A stout jolly man with an apron and a white cap asked them what they would have. There was Pudding and Roast Beef, Boiled Beef and Ox Tripe, Pigeons, well moistened with butter, without larding.

‘Pudding and Boiled Beef,’ said David. It was then that he saw that his father had been nobly drinking. He was too thoroughly a boy of his time to be disturbed by drunkenness, but, during these last weeks, he had grown greatly and taken a more manly place in the world, and in nothing more than in his attitude to his father. His father was weak where he himself would never be. He did not know this with any priggish sense of virtue: it came to him simply that there were times when he must look after his father just as there were times when he must look after Deborah.

He was a sort of guard to them, not because he was better than they—all his life and through everything that happened he would always look up to them, but only because he loved them.

He was uneasy now, as looking about the tent he felt that in some way or another this was not a place for his father to be riotous in. The men and women around them were of mixed kinds: there were some sober and solid yeomen and townsmen, eating their meat with grave seriousness, with the Cumbrian air of guarding their own; there were some rascals of the Fair’s own company, one of them in a shabby gay jacket of gold thread, another like a pedlar in a crimson cap (he reminded David of the Stye Head Devil who gave him the little box) with a small gibbering monkey sitting on his shoulder. With them were two loose women very gaudily attired, laughing and shouting. One of the women fondled the pedlar, thrusting food into his mouth. Near his father was a group of better-class people. They might be townsmen from Kendal or Penrith. One was very stout with a double chin and little mouse-eyes. He was rather drunken already and spilt his meat on his green velvet waistcoat. Another was a little man, thin as a spider, with a shrill feminine voice. He was over-handsomely dressed with an elaborately curled wig, a full-bottomed coat of bright blue, and many rings on his fingers. He was also drunken, and said many times over that he wanted a full-bosomed woman to go to bed with, that he might wake in the morning and find her near to him.

Herries, as was his way when he was drunk, had become very grand and proud. The wine that now was brought to him, added to the wine that he had already had, increased his grand dignity. David, who very soon had eaten all that he wanted, began to be unhappy and to plan some way of escape out into the air again.

Glancing here and there he knew that there were a number in the tent who had recognised his father. He had long known that there was much curiosity about his father and his father’s family, as to why he had chosen to exile himself in Borrowdale, as to his dangerous liking for women, as to his mingling with anyone he met and caring nothing for the quality of his company, as to his having a fine mistress hidden away there in Herries and his flaunting her full in his wife’s face—David knew that all these things were said and that already a queer chancy air had grown about the building of Herries, and that they had all become the more suspicious to the outside world because on their first coming they had sheltered a Roman Catholic priest (and who knew on what errand he had vanished less than a year ago?), and had under their roof the most famous witch in Borrowdale.

All this was in David’s mind and consciousness. His determination was set on getting his father away before some open scandal occurred, and through all the murk and smell of the crowded tent, stinking of meat, spilt drink and unclean bodies of men, he saw the old Chinaman’s eyes, that Chinaman who was three hundred years old and sat like an image.

His father was very haughty, ate and drank without speaking to anyone. He seemed like a god to his son, sitting there so grand and handsome with his thin, brown face, his clear eyes and the silver waistcoat with the ruby buttons.

The spidery man in the full wig buried his nose in his glass, and then, in his shrill high voice, bowing to Herries, said:

‘A drink with you, sir.’

Herries drank.

‘I am from Kendal,’ the little man went on, while the very stout fellow laughed immoderately. ‘I have come hither to see the pretty women, but by Jesus there are none!’

‘There are several,’ Herries replied, eyeing him severely.

‘There are several.’ The little man tittered: ‘You are fortunate, sir. My name is Rosen—may I be honoured by knowing yours, sir?’

‘My name,’ said Herries very proudly, holding up his glass and looking at the beads of colour in the yellow wine, ‘is Charles Henry Nathaniel Winchester, Duke of the Pyrenees and the district of the Amazon.’

Mr. Rosen became very serious. His little brow was puckered.

‘I understand you, sir—a secret, between gentlemen.’

‘There are women here,’ said Herries, ‘but no gentlemen—all the gentlemen are at the lake’s bottom feasting with the mermaids.’

‘I have heard,’ said Mr. Rosen, who realised only the last word of Herries’ sentence, ‘that a mermaid was indeed seen off the northern coast of Scotland a month back. I was told by one who had read of it. I could go to bed with a mermaid,’ he hiccuped, and looked gravely distressed, ‘were her tail not too long. Could one choose one’s mermaid?’

It was then that a terrible thing occurred. David, more and more restless, seeing that the tent was now fully crowded, that several had moved near to them and were listening, had his eye on the tent’s door. Through it he could see a patch of bright sunlight, a woman dancing on a tub and many figures passing in shadow. It was clear by the door. Someone entered, a woman, Alice Press.

He stared, first thinking that he was blinded by the sunlight, then that he had mistaken some other woman of a like figure for her—there was no mistake. She was wearing the black velvet dress of the morning. He could see the silver chain lying against it. And she wore the scarlet shoes. She stood quite by herself, staring about her. She looked up and down the tent. Then she saw Herries. She saw him, looked full at him, then very slowly began to move up the tent.

David’s eyes were fixed. He had become an image of apprehension and fear. He could see only the green waistcoat of the fat man and that down it there was trickling a little stream of wine, while his big belly rose and fell in spasms of laughter. He did not look at his father, but he knew, quite suddenly, that his father had seen her. He felt for a moment his father’s hand touch his shoulder, then he heard Alice Press’ voice.

‘I have come, you see. Will you give me something to eat?’

There was a place at Herries’ other side. She took it with great ease and composure, but David, who, because of his detestation of her, had her in his very bones, knew as though it had been himself that she was suffering from throbbing nervousness and a devilish fear.

Herries, his face very stern, answered her quietly.

‘Yes, since you are come.... What will you have?’

She ordered something from the smiling man with the apron, and, attempting a perfect ease, looked about her. She must have seen at once that no women of any quality were there, but only drabs and Fair ladies. All stared at her. At the door-end of the tent a thick rabble was quarrelling and laughing at its own affairs, but at the fire-end all eyes were upon her.

She smiled swiftly at Herries, and then began to talk.

‘A kind fellow from Seathwaite brought me. I watched him passing. ’Twas dull at the house and the day bright, so I thought that I would venture for an hour. But I am hungry and ’tis three o’clock. ’Tis a gay Fair and of a size for a little town, as large as the Doncaster Fair. There are things to buy, I can be sure—will you buy me something, Francis?’ She put her hand for a moment on his arm, laughing in his face. ‘Yes,’ he answered slowly, ‘I will buy you something.’ He did not look at her, but stared in front of him as though he were lost in thought.

Her food was brought, and she began nervously to eat. The heat of the tent, her fear and excitement had brought colour to her sallow cheeks. The black dress suited her and her full half-revealed bosom. The little spidery man in the blue coat regarded her with all his eyes, his mouth open, the stout man also.

She continued talking:

‘And will you take me to see the sights? There is a Chinaman three hundred years old and a play ...’ She broke off. She was gathering courage. ‘’Tis time you showed me the world again.’

Herries, for the first time since she had come, looked at her.

‘I will show you the world. It would be ungracious did I not when you have come so far. First you shall eat ...’

It was then that the little Mr. Rosen of Kendal caught up his courage and spoke to her. He raised his glass.

‘May I drink to you, madam? You honour us by your company.’

She smiled at him, raising her glass, but her nervous thoughts were fast on Herries.

‘We are all friendly together here,’ she said. ‘Pleasant company. Can you tell me, sir, whether the Chinaman has truly three hundred years?’

‘They say so.’

‘A very Methuselah. Are you an inhabitant of Keswick?’

‘My town is Kendal.’ The little man’s eyes were now bursting from his head at the sight of the lady’s opulence and beauty.

‘’Tis a finer town than Keswick.’

‘Larger. ’Tis not for me to say that ’tis finer. We who are citizens of it have our private conceit.’ He sighed, swelled out his chest, felt for the hilt of his sword.

After a little she looked at Herries. ‘I have done eating,’ she said. ‘Will you take me to the sights?’

Herries drank his glass, looked at it after, with a firm hand, he had placed it on the table, then turned to her gently.

‘Alice,’ he said, ‘as you have taken this on yourself so you take the consequences. When we leave this tent we part.... You do not return to Herries.’

His voice was quiet, but he had not wished especially to lower it. Mr. Rosen and his stout friend, and indeed all at that end of the table, heard the words.

The colour in her face deepened. She put her hand to her bosom, an action of hers that David knew well.

‘Come, then,’ she said, half rising, ‘this is too public a place ...’

‘Nay.’ He put his hand on her arm, holding her down. ‘You have chosen it. Before we move hence you must tell me that you understand—at the tent door we part. You go no more to Herries.’

Her rage at the public insult—her temper was always beyond her command—flushed her cheeks. She, too, had in these ten minutes been drinking to give herself control. David saw her white hand pressed with desperate force on the table until the blue veins stood out.

‘Be ashamed,’ she murmured. ‘In this place....’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘In this place. I want your assurance.’

‘No, then,’ she cried, her voice suddenly rising. ‘You bought me. You shall keep me.’ It was odd how, with her anger and the freedom from the drink, the commonness that was in her blood suffused, like a rising colour, all her body and spirit.

‘I bought you. Yes,’ he answered quietly. ‘Then I can sell you again.’

Everyone around them was silent. The stout man, very drunk, rolling his head, suddenly exclaimed:

‘Aye, and who would not have her, this beautiful lady—though she cost him—his—his house and—and—horses?’

But David saw that she was very afraid.

‘Francis, you have been drinking. I did wrong to come—I confess it—I will do all that you wish. But not here—not in this place....’

But he went on steadily.

‘You have said it. I have bought you, and now, our bargain being ended, I will sell you again.’ He fixed Rosen with his eye: ‘You, sir, how much will you give me for this lady?’

Several men murmured shame, but everyone here was very drunken: there was some laughter, and a man began to sing a song. A woman very gaudily dressed and painted had come over and, leaning her bosom on the stout man’s back, eagerly watched the scene.

‘You insult the lady,’ little Rosen began, half rising from his seat and feeling for his sword: then something in Herries’ face constrained him, and he sat down again.

‘I am indeed serious,’ said Herries sternly. ‘This lady and I are weary of one another and would part, but she is mine and I would have compensation. You, sir,’ staring into Rosen’s face, ‘how much will you give for her?’

Alice Press rose—‘I will pay you for this ... in good coin....’ She made as though to go, but he rose also, laid his hand again on her arm, then, his voice clear so that all heard, said: ‘This lady is for sale—for the one who will bid the highest.’

Cries broke out—some were laughing, some swearing, most too drunken to understand the affair; the garish woman laughed loudest of all.

A man said: ‘Five silver shillings.’

Rosen, fuddled but struggling, in his funny feminine voice screamed: ‘You are a filthy dog—you shall be caned for this——’ Nevertheless he could not take his eyes from Alice Press. His whole body hung towards her.

Herries answered him quietly.

‘Come, sir, will you give me forty shillings?’

‘He’ll give forty shillings ...’ some drunken voice murmured like a refrain. The garish woman cried shrilly: ‘More than she’s worth, the bitch.’

Something happened then to Rosen. With a frenzied gesture he plunged his hand in his pocket, flung down on the table a heap of silver coin, then leaned forward, his face almost in Herries’.

‘I’ll take her. I’ll take her. She shall come if she’s willing—I’ll care for her—zounds and the devil, I will—an she’s willing.’

The money struck the table, and some of the coins, like live things, danced in the air, springing to the ground. A heap, shining there, lay before Herries.

‘Have her then,’ he said. ‘I drink to you both.’

As he did so Alice Press turned to him and struck the glass from his hand. The wine splashed in his face.

She said something to him that no one could hear. Then clearly:

‘You shall never be free from this.’

She looked about her once, proudly, and David, who still hated her, nevertheless at that moment mightily admired her.

Then she turned, brushed through the men and was gone.

Mr. Rosen rose and hurried after her.

Herries picked up one of the pieces of silver, looked at it intently, then placed it in the deep pocket of his coat.

Quietly, without any haste, he went out. David, his head up, his eyes shining, followed him.