Читать книгу Conrad in Quest of His Youth: An Extravagance of Temperament - Merrick Leonard - Страница 6

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He felt very lonely. Something of the Christmas spirit descended on him—the true, the unacknowledged Christmas spirit, in which, after we have directed the last stack of cards, and hurried out aglow with the last parcel, we sit before the bare mantel-piece, discovering that most of our acquaintances have become too advanced to observe the season. We are quite sure it is "advancement," though it looks a little like stinginess. He wondered, as he entered the lane, whether the other child he was remembering would have proved a disappointment too; wondered if the ache in his heart would be intelligible to her, or if he would appear to her absurd. It interested him to wonder. Conjecturing the disposition of the strange woman whose whereabouts he did not know, he endued her with many attributes that he admired, and she moved before his mental vision gradually as a fair and slightly pathetic figure, prepared to be his confidante. He fancied she was unhappy with her husband. At least the sadness of life had touched her enough to tinge her sentiment with cynicism, and she had flashes of wit on rainy days.

It surprised him that he had made no attempt to trace her; his curiosity was awake. Many things were more unlikely than that she was living in the town. As he passed Rose Villa he was in two minds about ringing the bell and trying to gather information from the present occupants. He would probably have obeyed the impulse, but while he hesitated the householder came out—a middle-aged little man, with a sanguine complexion, and gaiters.

Conrad accosted him. "Excuse me," he began.

The gentleman saluted with his crop. "'Morning," he said.

"I was looking at your bell with the idea of troubling you with an inquiry about a 'missing friend.' May I ask if you happen to know the address of your predecessor here—Dr. Page?"

"Who?" said the little man briskly.

"Dr. Page."

"No. Don't know the name. Took the place of people called—er—Greames. … Agents might tell you—Chipper and Stokes in the High Street. Page? Doctor? N-no." He shook his head. "Sorry."

"I thank you."

"Not at all. Neighbours, I think, sir? For long?"

"No; it's a very temporary pleasure of mine," said Conrad.

"Congratulate you," said the little man. "If your friend was a doctor, probably knew better than to stop. Much misled myself. Recommended here for my health. Most in-ju-rious! Damp, sir, Sweetbay is damp. They call it a 'humid atmosphere'; 'humid atmosphere' be damned, sir! Take your clothes off the peg in the morning and wring 'em out. That's not a humid atmosphere—it's a death-trap."

"You astonish me," said Conrad. "I understood the climate was so salubrious that the inhabitants would all live to be a hundred if they didn't die of the dulness young." He lifted his hat. "I am obliged."

"Pleasure," said the neighbour. "Er—hope we shall—er, er——"

"I hope so too," smiled Conrad. "Er—no doubt."

"'Morning," said the gentleman, saluting with his crop.

It was discomfiting to find the occupant of Mary's former home so completely ignorant of Mary. Such ignorance, there, on the very threshold, in view of the sun shutters that had framed her face, seemed rather callous of him. As Conrad watched him swagger up the lane, he resented the usurper's privilege to stretch his gaitered legs on the hearth to whose history he was so utterly indifferent.

Somehow the drawing-room looked emptier still to Conrad for the colloquy, when he went indoors. In the violent disassociation of the next house from Mary Page, this one seemed suddenly foreign to him; suddenly he felt that he had committed a fatuous and a mournful act in taking it. Sweetbay had meant to him four persons, and of these, three had fled, and the fourth was lost. Why should he stay here? He thought vaguely of a little dinner at "Odd-and-even's," and a stall at the Alhambra. He nearly stretched his arm for the time-table—and all the while the melancholy that oppressed him urged him to remain and find Mary. His mind demanded her more insistently than before. It was no longer a whim: it was a strenuous desire. "After all, it would be a crazy thing, to go to London for pleasure!" he mused. "I'll hear what the agents have to say."

He strolled to their office after luncheon, and a small boy told him that Mr. Stokes was in. For once Conrad chafed at the local languor. The torpid tradesmen, unconcerned whether he bought or not, had amused him, but the heavy young man who gazed at him with vacant eyes was irritating.

"Dr. Page?" echoed the young man dully; "Rose Villa? There was a Dr. Page in Esselfield, wasn't there?"

"I don't know," said Conrad. "Perhaps you can tell me. Where is Esselfield?"

"That's along the Esselfield Road," said Mr. Stokes with deliberation. "What do you want to know for?"

"I'm trying to learn the address of a friend who has moved," Conrad explained, labouredly polite.

"Oh y-e-s." He paused so long that it seemed doubtful if he would speak again. "There was a Dr. Page in Esselfield; I can't say if he's there still."

"The gentleman I mean was—well, he must be an elderly man," said Conrad. He could not remember in the least how Dr. Page had looked; he wished he knew his Christian name. "An elderly man. He had a family. They used to be at Rose Villa, next door to Mowbray Lodge. I'm talking of years ago—a good many years ago. … Perhaps your partner might be able to assist me?"

"Major Bompas lives at Rose Villa now," said Mr. Stokes. His tone was a little firmer, the tone of one who says a helpful thing.

"And he took it of people called 'Greames'; I know all that. Dr. Page had the house before the Greames."

"Oh," murmured Mr. Stokes, "did he? Y-e-s. … No, I couldn't say, I'm sure. Mr. Greames lived there before Major Bompas. Mr. Greames was there a long while back."

"Dr. Page lived there in—let me think, where are we now? It must have been in eighteen seventy-seven."

"Oh Gawd!" said the young man faintly. For the first time an expression humanised his countenance, an expression of dismay tempered with entertainment. It made Conrad feel prehistoric. "Eighteen sev-enty-sev-en? I'm sure I couldn't tell you who lived there then." A snigger escaped him. "There was a Dr. Page at Esselfield," he repeated; "he may have been at Rose Villa first."

"Is there any place in the town," asked Conrad, with frank disgust, "where it's possible to see an old directory?"

"I shouldn't think," averred the heavy young man, "that a directory was published in Sweetbay in 'sev-enty-sev-en." There was nearly a twinkle in his eyes.

"Thank you," said Conrad. "Good afternoon."

He went forth to seek the Esselfield Road incensed as well as disappointed now. 'Seventy-seven? Who was this blank-faced dolt to jeer at 'seventy-seven? Sweetbay had been an infinitely more attractive place in 'seventy-seven than it was to-day. The High Street bored him as he walked. Once it had been stimulating, replete with interest, and now it was unworthy his attention. He looked at it as a young girl looks at a married man. There was a fresh-coloured woman dandling her baby behind the glass door of a baker's shop as he passed, and he recognised with a frown that she had not been born in 'seventy-seven. It was a small matter, but it depressed him more.

The sepulchral window of a monumental mason caught his glance. Overhead was the inscription, "Established 1852." He wavered in his course and entered. The interior was like a premature graveyard, ranged with marble tombstones waiting for allotment, and brittle wreaths lamenting the dissolution of "Beloved" relatives who were still alive. There seemed to him something appropriate in pursuing his investigations among the tombstones. But though the business had been established in 1852, the mason himself proved to be very recent. When he realised that his interlocutor was not there to give an order, the sympathetic droop of his bearing evaporated, and he straightened into a careless soul to whom the mention of 'seventy-seven was almost as disconcerting as it had been to Mr. Stokes.

The Esselfield Road was thick with mud after the heavy rains. His long tramp—for he had learnt that it was necessary to walk—had no enlivening effect on Conrad's mood, nor was the village cheering when he reached it. A few houses were scattered beside a common; some geese waddled around a pond. Beyond an inn, a labourer in his cups shouted a refrain of the London music-halls.

Conrad went into the "bar-parlour" and asked for beer. In the sensitiveness to his years which was being so rapidly developed in him he observed with satisfaction that the untidy proprietress was middle-aged. "Yes, there had been a Dr. Page,". she told him. "Not what you might call a regular doctor—he didn't do nothing. She believed he had moved into Sweetbay, so as to be near the sea."

"I understood that he moved here from Sweetbay. An elderly man. He had a family," said Conrad with fatigue.

"There was two young gals," she agreed. "They was always about."

"'About'?" he murmured.

"Picking, and skating, and that. I used to say they was never at 'ome."

"Oho?" said Conrad. And added to himself, "The younger children grown up. Girls of spirit!"—"When did they leave?" he continued.

"Oh, it must be a long time," she answered. She turned to a man who had the air of being her husband. "'Ow long is it since that Dr. Page was 'ere, pa?"

"Dr. Page," drawled the man wonderingly. "Oh, it's a long time ago."

"Yes," she repeated, "it's a long time ago."

"But, roughly, how long?" persisted Conrad.

"W-e-ll, it must be—eight years or more," she said, visibly resenting an occasion to be definite.

In his soul he groaned; if eight years seemed so remote, what would they think of twenty-five? Again he was bowed beneath the sense of senility. "You don't happen to know where he settled in Sweetbay?" he proceeded.

She shook her head, she had no idea at all; neither of the pair had any idea, so he finished his ale, and paid for some cigars, which there was of course no need to smoke.

The lamps were winking through the dusk when he drew in sight of Sweetbay. At a stationer's he bought a directory of the current year, and studied it at the counter. It contained a "Captain Page," and "John Page, milkman." He found also "Miss Page, ladies' outfitter," and "Mrs. Page, laundress," but there was no "Page" of promise among the leaves. He availed himself of the opportunity to inquire again concerning the likelihood of his discovering an ancient copy of the work, but at his reference to 'seventy-seven the stationer, too, fell agape. It recurred to Conrad that in connection with Mr. Boultbee the post-office had been suggested. Physically he was tired by now, but mentally he was unflagging, and he bent his steps to the general post-office forthwith. The clerk who sold the stamps to him "couldn't say"; she retired, however, to repeat his question to the postmistress, and it was at this point that the outlook brightened. The postmistress was a young and gracious woman in a pink blouse, and she came forward with a confident smile to inform him that Dr. Page was no longer a resident of Sweetbay, but had removed to Redhill. "Redhill?" He had not suspected that anyone ever got out there.

"An elderly man. He had a family," he reiterated with exhaustion. "Two young girls."

"Oh, yes," she nodded, "that's the same. Very pretty, tall young ladies? They were always in and out."

"Really?" said Conrad. Mary's sisters began to beckon to him. "Can you help me to communicate with Dr. Page?"

"We have the address he left with us—the one we used to forward letters to; I don't know if he's there still." She confessed the limitation of her knowledge with regret. "It's some years since he went from Sweetbay."

"Perhaps you would be so merciful as to give me the one you have? I am an old friend of Dr. Page's family—very old—and till Providence directed my steps to you I despaired of finding them again." He outlined the difficulties he had encountered, but he had grown diffident of mentioning 'seventy-seven.

The postmistress laughed quite mirthfully at his recital, which, encouraged by her appreciation, he falsified sufficiently to make amusing. After bidding the clerk turn to a book, she announced to him that the address was "Home Rest, Peregrine Place," and the assurances of his gratitude seemed amply to repay her.

Conrad went to bed with much more exhilaration than he had looked for. The day, after all, had seen something accomplished. Within his head, when he punched the pillow, the project of running Dr. Page to earth on the morrow promised agreeable developments. At the onset the interview would be a trifle embarrassing he foresaw, inasmuch as the gentleman on whom he intruded would certainly have no recollection of his name; but the ice would break under a few suave references to "My first visit to the neighbourhood since I was a boy," and "My little playmates of long ago"—he would put her in the plural, his inquiries could be concentrated gradually. If Mary herself were living in Redhill he might remain there. He would intimate that he thought of doing so—it would forefend the suspicion of impetuosity.

The sun was shining when he woke. The birds chirruped among the fir trees, and there were echoes of old-time music in his heart while he brushed his hair—until he fought to draw up a sailor's knot under one of those "double collars" that have led to so much domestic unhappiness at the breakfast-table.

He travelled by the South-Eastern and Chatham, but he reached Redhill, and smelt the tannery as he searched for an exit from the station. The salient features of Redhill are the smell of leather, the shrieks of trains, and the all-night barking of mongrels. He was directed to Station Road, and told to "bear to the left." The townlet seemed to him to blend the most unpleasant characteristics of Clapham Junction and Hanley in the Potteries. He started briskly. The way was long, and several times he paused to seek further information. Occasionally a carriage passed, the occupants with protesting noses. By degrees all the villas and the pavement dropped behind him; the smell of the tannery was fainter, and the path on either side was bordered by a hedge. From the altitude of a butcher's cart a boy in blue encouraged him with the assurance that Peregrine Place was "straight on." Presently the way wound, and a terrace of small semi-detached houses with little front gardens gladdened his view. As he drew close he saw "Home Rest" painted on the gate-post at the corner. Outside, in the sequestered road, a venerable tenant, with a velvet skull-cap and silvery hair, was pottering around a camera. At Conrad's approach he lifted his head, and regarded him with gentle curiosity. The sight of the blue eyes and placid face seemed suddenly familiar to Conrad; he felt far-off memories stirring in him as his gaze met the old man's features, and, doffing his hat, he murmured, with the deference that sat so well upon him:—