Читать книгу Harper of Heaven - Robert William Service - Страница 10

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Our London visit was a huge success. Religiously we did the sights, enjoying more feeding the pigeons than St. Paul’s that harboured them. And the seagulls were the greatest attraction of the Thames Embankment. With my interest in people and my indifference to historic sights I gravitated slumward. Pubs, not palaces, were what intrigued me; costermongers, not countesses. Where I got my love of low life I do not know, but in every city I seek the ghettos and the gutters, the shadows and the shames.

Carrying my manuscript I introduced myself to Fisher Unwin. I must have brought a breath of the Latin Quarter for he stared at my broad sombrero and my flowing tie. The scene was an Adam room in Adelphi Terrace, and he was a dignified man with a beard and a frock coat. “Dictate to me,” he said, and feeling independent I replied: “I will.” So we discussed terms till reluctantly he agreed to my demands. Bullying an eminent publisher was a new experience for me, but I was having a vogue just then and several firms had offered to take my new book.

However, we finally settled matters and became the best of friends. The English market was so poor compared with the American I was inclined to despise it. Yet, in the end it was not so negligible for one time the old man sent me a cheque for two thousand pounds, and for three months it lay forgotten in a bureau drawer. Only when I was looking for a fan letter I discovered it. Then I had a letter from a furious publisher demanding why I had not turned it in, and I answered that I was holding it for a better exchange rate. He wrote saying that I was free to gamble at Monte Carlo but not with his cheques. All to show how indifferent I was to money.

One night I looked up my old school chum Jimmie, now Britain’s best journalist. For thirty years I had not seen him. We had been in the same semi-slum school in Glasgow where he was the toff of the class because he sported a hanky. We others wiped our noses on the backs of our hands and rubbed them on the seats of our pants. In place of the black haired boy with twinkling eyes I now saw a little man with a big bald head and an air of authority. Yet his eyes still twinkled and his wit was apt.

That night he had another visitor, Christopher Morley, whose work I admired. I offered to quote his poetry but he recoiled in horror. He need not have protested for all I remembered was the line—Bless God for Coal and a blazing fire suggested it. When he met me I could see a look of disappointment on his face but all he said was: “You’re different from what I thought you would be.” It was the old story. He who writes roughneck verse must look like a roughneck. As usual I was not my type. Striving to correct his sissified impression I told him I could walk on my hands, which I sometimes did, because the rush of blood to the brain quickened inspiration. He seemed interested and I would have done it right there, but someone produced a bottle of Scotch which we finished in the early hours. A rare writer of unpredictable power, his Songs for a Little House was one of the few books in my library the Boche failed to destroy.

I also saw the eminent editor who was Peter’s friend, and he took me to lunch at the Savage. When I told him of Peter’s position he said he would see what he could do, and when I returned to Paris my pal gleefully told me he had been commissioned to do a Sunday article for three guineas a week.... Yes, my fortnight in London was a success, for I failed to visit the Tower, Westminster or the National Gallery. Instead, I ate huge quantities of pork pies and Bath buns over the marble topped tables of tea houses and realised that I belonged to the Little People. I might make a pile of money but beyond my needs it meant nothing to me. I was hopelessly plebeian and would never get over it.

In the meantime I was in a hurry to get back to the Rabbit Hutch. And some hurry too—for were there not a dozen invitations in my mail to do things or go places. People were beginning to discover me. Soon I would be lost in a maze of social engagements. No more freedom to sit in pubs and watch the antics of my fellow men. The moment of escape was at hand. And this has always been my system—I never announce my arrival in a city until the day of my departure, and thus evade all tentacular hospitality.

But in dear Paris of the Latin Quarter I was free as the air, so having no longer work to do I would do nothing with gusto. For a year I would indulge in delectable laziness. Happy me! I sighed in the leafy Luxembourg, for I felt I could loaf serenely with no fear for the future. Then another idler came to share my bench—a young man with a long beard and an ironic smile. He was living in a room that gave on a back court. There with the cats and the ashcans he cultivated his sense of derision. His eyes never lost that satiric gleam, even when he became rich and famous. But I knew him when he had scarce a sou. I never admired his pictures and often wondered if through them he was not mocking the world as he did in the olden days in the leafy garden of the Luxembourg. His name was van Dongen.

How good to get back to the Rabbit Hutch again! On the first evening Peter came to see us, having noticed a light in our window. He brought us each a belated wedding gift. To my wife he gave a Cairngorm brooch, to myself a four volume edition of Stevenson’s letters. I believe he spent the first payment for his new articles in its purchase. He could not have pleased me more. Letters have always been my favourite reading. Not being written for publication they are so human and revealing. I do not say that Stevenson’s were all that, but of all his works I find them the least pretentious and most charming. After letters, I love diaries. Here again we have the artless expression that is above art. The finest reading is that which was never meant to be read.

But as I basked in the sunny smile of fortune I had one dreadful fear. I was living far below my means. If I went on I would be spending only the interest of my interest. Even a Scotsman would revolt at that. I must do something about it. So I bought the wife a bicycle, polished up my own and we started on a tour of Touraine. After doing the Château country we moved by easy stages into Brittany and at last came to the little fishing village where I had passed such a happy holiday. That evening we sat on the same rabbity hill on which I had spent so many hours of reverie.

There across the golden cove was the house I had bought—DREAM HAVEN. It looked lovelier than ever, but very lonely too. It seemed to reproach me; so I said to the wife: “There’s a cute cottage.” And she said: “It’s beautiful, but so sad. People should be living in it and how happy they would be!” And though we spoke of other things our eyes always returned to the little house with the red roof; so presently I said: “Let’s go over and have a look.”

Well, we climbed down the rocks, crossed the cove and unlatched the garden gate. My wife protested: “The owner might not like it if we go in. Perhaps they might set a dog on us.” But I said bravely: “There’s not a soul about.” So we approached the front door and I turned the handle. “Why, the door’s not even locked. I wonder what it’s like inside.” Again my wife objected: “We might be taken for burglars. We’ve already gone too far.” But intrepidly I advanced.... “We can say we want to buy it,” I suggested. “But how can we? We haven’t any money,” she said trembling. I frowned mysteriously. “There are ways and means. Perhaps the novel will be a success.”

So we peeked in timorously. To our surprise there were fresh flowers on the dining-room table and everything was neat as a new pin. “How well it’s kept,” said the Missus. “I believe it’s occupied after all. We had better knock.” Then she gave a scream, for the kitchen door opened and a smiling peasant woman greeted us: “Welcome, Monsieur,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you....” There! The jig was up. Turning to my wife I said: “I’m a miserable deceiver. I must make full confession. This house is mine, furnished complete to the car in the garage. It’s our future home. And now let me introduce Anastasia, our caretaker, and I hope she’ll hold the job for the rest of her life.”

“I have prepared supper,” said Anastasia, “and aired the beds as Monsieur wrote me to do. If you wish to sleep here this evening all is in readiness.” “Grand!” I told her. “We’re here at last and here we’ll bide and eat the meat the gods provide.” So we sat down to as fine a supper as ever I ate—a roast of veal, fresh vegetables from the garden, apples from the orchard and figs from the tree, all washed down by foaming cider. Naturally we were excited, but behind it I had a deep sense of peace and content. Here I had found my anchorage and in this beauty spot I would pass most of my life. And I was not wrong. For twenty-seven years I spent six months of each in Dream Haven. To that blessed sanctuary I owe today my hearty health and my hope of longevity.

I do not think I will ever again experience such emotions of sheer delight as those with which I took stock of my new possessions. The house was simply furnished but little was lacking. As we opened windows to the sea each was like a shell to which one puts an ear, only from each the murmur seemed different. The house was perched on that rocky promontory between two coves of honey-coloured sand. It seemed part of the rock itself, it was so staunch and time-defying. The cellars were hewn from the live stone, and it was so intimate with the sea that at high tide salt spray bespattered it. That night it was like a ship with the comforts of the land. As I lay in bed and heard the waves splashing on three sides I felt as if I were in mid-ocean with all the safety of the soil.

Oh, it was wonderful, my awakening! With a surge of joy I went from room to room, seeing the sunny ripple dappling the walls just as one sees it in the cabin of a ship.... Then buffeted by laughing waves I plunged into the sea, swimming far out and singing as I swam. When wearied a little, I floated gently, gazing at the house that smiled at me from its comforting solidity of grey walls and red roof. Behind it, in a blaze of triumph, was the yellow broom, and beyond it the sleeping village with its sunny spire. As I lay there in the trough of the sea I thought how happy I was. What had I done to deserve all this rapture? No one had a right to be so happy. Then I thought it was something in myself. Other people took pleasant things for granted but my emotion was special to me. It was a radiance for which I thanked the Gods. Perhaps only poets felt like that, and if feeling meant anything, then maybe I was a bit of a poet after all. So, gazing up into the sky once more I heard it, that magic music—the Harps of Heaven.

Yes, I was too happy, and in the halcyon days that followed I often had a strange chill of premonition. It was too good to last; something sinister was in the offing. Well, let us enjoy the moment as it comes and we will squeeze the ultimate happiness out of life. So I grew to love my house more and more till it was strange to think that by virtue of a few flimsy bills it was forever mine. By reason of silly words spilled on paper that tomorrow would be forgotten, this time defying loveliness would be my own to my dying day. I blessed my house and often I pressed my cheek against its granite wall and kissed it like a lover.

The months that followed were one sustained rapture in which we appraised our treasures: the fig tree by the well, the moss-grown wall up which pear and apple trees were trained: the lawn, the summer house, the pine grove where starlings sang at sunset. But it was inexact when I said that there was a car in the garage. It was in that of the village garagiste and had been brought from Paris. It was an open two-seater called a Sigma, a patrician of its kind, long and low with graceful lines and finished in brass that gleamed like gold. I have had many cars since, but never one so faithful and so sweet. When I exchanged it for a new one it was like dealing the death blow to an old friend.

One of my first acquisitions was a watch dog, a Breton spaniel called Coco. I bought him as a puppy and he almost cost me my life. It was this way.... I was on one of my walks and he was gambolling in front when a car bore down on us. It was going so fast I had no time to call in my dog. I shouted frantically but there he stood, right in the way of the car. Then, without a thought but to save him from death, I dashed in and grabbed him. I heard a shout as the driver of the car missed me by inches, and took the ditch.

A little dazed I stood there, when I saw a furious Frenchman running towards me from a powerful Panhard stalled down the road. I expected to be flayed with abuse. “You little devil,” I said softly to the frightened puppy. “You nearly cost me my bit of living in our precious world. This bearded Alphonse is coming to excoriate us and we will accept it humbly.”

However, there was no need to beg his pardon for I had not counted on my popularity. We were in front of a wayside hamlet and most of the peasants had seen what had happened. Now they came running forward, stout Bretons, all friends of mine. Did I not talk and drink with them, support the Church, give thousands of francs to the poor. ... “No, Monsieur Service was a fine gentleman and could do no wrong. The owner of the car was a pork butcher in Rennes and a cochon. Did he not drive past at that furious pace every day to the peril of their children and their chickens? But Monsieur Service always slowed up. He was considerate of us....”

“Espèce de brute!” screamed a woman. “Sale bête!” shouted a man. Before their menacing fists Alphonse flinched, before their angry advance he fled. Never a word I said, just caressed my pup, but I realised that I had friends all around me and through the years they have continued my friends. As for my dash in the way of the car I take no credit for it. “Died to save his dog,” might have made a pretty headline to a paragraph and some might have thought me a bit of a hero, but it wasn’t at all like that. My act was instinctive with no realisation of danger. Yet ... well, perhaps I might have done it all the same.

My second acquisition was a Canadian canoe I called Daisy, and if Coco nearly cost me my life Daisy was the means of saving another’s. There she was, her graceful form reposing on the sandy beach when screams for aid came from the sea. It was in the height of the season and the long beach was gay with summer visitors. The tide was running in with unusual force. The sands were studded with rocky islets that were covered at high water. On these fishers used to linger to the last moment before scurrying ashore, but this time one had lingered too long.

To be quite frank I was attending a cabinet meeting when I heard the cries of alarm, and scarce stopping to button up I ran out. It was as I suspected—a small boy was on one of those islets and the sea had already surrounded it. As he stood on the peak of the rock the water came to his knees. Below, it must have been four feet deep. In a few minutes it would be up to his neck and he would drown. There was no boat. I could hear agonized cries from the hundreds on the beach. Nothing could be done to save him for the distance was too great to reach him in time. How horrible to see someone drown before one’s eyes, and to all these people it looked as if he were doomed.

But they had forgotten little Daisy in her hidden cove. Swift as an arrow she shot to the rescue. She must have been a bonny sight, for the water was blue and the sunshine was golden. There was a moment of suspense. Would she reach the boy in time? Over the milk-smooth water she flashed and gained him just as the water swirled round his shoulders. He grabbed the canoe, nearly upsetting it, and I yanked him on board. Then he started to howl and pointed to his boots that were floating on the tide. Anti-climax. It took me more time to rescue those damned boots than it had the boy. How I cursed him as I shot ashore. The crowd cheered, but with a sour face I dumped the brat on the sands, swung round and returned Daisy to her cove.

Peter came down for a holiday and had the time of his life. He fell for Daisy right away. He had never navigated a canoe before, but the old Clyde yachtsman came out in him and he ventured where I feared to go. Opposite us was a big island shaped like a whale, with its blunt head brunting the ocean. This high blue cliff was always wildly wave swept, and as if in further defiance of the surging seas it shot out fantastic fangs like sharks’ teeth where in and out the foam snarled evilly. A sinister spot, shunned by fishermen. But one day we voyaged round the island, keeping well out from its dark bastion. Suddenly we noticed that the swell was sweeping us in among those jagged snags of rock where the evil foam was like a witches’ cauldron. The canoe was so frail a toy and the rip tide was roaring down on us. I was anxious, but Peter was serene. “She’s a sound little craft,” he grinned, “There’s no danger.”

I thought otherwise. A wind sprang up, chilly and damp, and with it a mist that soon enshrouded us. Though we paddled strongly, at one moment the headland loomed right over us and I could see dark depths of secret sea. Here, however, it was free of those granite fangs, and though the powerful swell swept us towards the iron face of the bluff we managed to clear it. But we had a nasty moment, during which Peter never ceased to laugh. He swore he’d enjoyed the whole thing and I felt he was a better man than I.

He seemed to grow ten years younger the month he was with us. He swam a steady breast stroke and his pudgy body hardened. He pottered around in the garden, loving flowers and all green growth. I can scarcely tell one flower from another. Peter could give plants their scientific names, which to me spoiled them. I was impressed, but I remembered he had once been a school master and had lectured botany. He took a great interest in my place, planning a pergola, a sundial and herbaceous borders. I had never seen him so happy. We drove through old Breton villages, picnicked in the ruins of mediaeval castles. He had a grand time and it did him a lot of good. Often afterwards he spoke of it and never ceased to envy me what he called my Shrimping Shack. But the old Adam was strong in him, and though we had both wine and cider for lunch, towards dinner he would make an excuse to go to the village. Then I would find him installed in an estaminet drinking his favourite Picon citron, surrounded by admiring natives for whom he bought cups of cider. He loved those rustic taverns and was immensely popular with the peasants. I think they would have liked to elect him Maire.

When at last he decided it was time to return to Paris I said to him: “Why not come down in winter and make the place your own? You would be so quiet and you could write Youth and a City.” He shook his head. “I love it here for a change but Montparnasse is my home and I’ll never leave it.”

When I look back on that first summer in Dream Haven it seems to me incredibly sweet. I marvel how so much joy could be compassed in a single season. I did no work, but read until the early morning hours with the waves plashing under my window. I went a three-hour walk over the sands, clad only in bathing trunks; or if the tide was high I tramped the land far and wide. I became notorious as a solitary walker, hailed by farm and fisher folk alike. And as I walked I dreamed. I planned new books, I savoured the success of old. I was at the zenith of life, enjoying it as never before. Again and again I said: “It’s too wonderful. It cannot last. Something sinister is beneath it all.” Then one afternoon I knew....

We were walking across the fields when I heard the village cloches begin to peal. Then all over the country from spire to spire the church bells took it up. The TOCSIN. Suddenly a neighbour woman came running down the path and she was weeping. “War,” she cried. “Our men will have to go. My husband ...”

She fled in a state bordering on panic. And now I could see the peasants leaving their fields, throwing down their hoes, unharnessing their horses. No more tilling the soil that day. They were hurrying to the village square to hear the dread news. We went too. In that serene and peaceful scene it was hard to realise the calamity that had befallen us. We saw fear in every face. Women were sobbing, men looked stunned.

In the village square the Garde Champètre read the mobilisation announcement, tears streaming down his grizzled cheeks. Then he finished up: “Vive la France!” After that everyone went to their homes, the men to prepare to join up, the women to aid them to pack. When that wild Tocsin ceased the calm that followed was like the hush of doom.

As I walked home I knew that the shadow of evil had fallen over the land and that things would never be the same again. Never again would we see that eager, careless world; never exult in the golden present, thinking that the future would be equally serene. Never, never again....