Читать книгу Old Pybus - Warwick Deeping - Страница 38
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ОглавлениеAt the door of his cottage John Pybus paused and looked up at his grandson. He was carrying a plate of bread and butter, with two slices of plum cake laid to one side.
“Just one moment. It’s rather important. Are you going to tell them at home?”
“No—I’m not.”
“Ought you to tell them?”
“They did not tell me.”
His grandfather appeared to consider the question before opening the door.
“Ashamed of me—of course. Quite natural. I dare say they did not want you to know. And you are up at Cambridge. It is conceivable that most young men——”
Said Lance with a kind of smiling seriousness——
“I have a friend at Trinity whose father was doing what you are doing, grandfather.”
“O, cleaning boots and fetching and carrying——”
“Yes—chap named Sorrell. Great man. Rather a peculiar coincidence—though.”
John Pybus opened the door.
“I haven’t quite made my mind up—yet.”
“About my people?”
“That’s it. There was a time when I was bitter, my lad, but bitterness comes back to you. That’s done with. I want to be fair.”
Lance, following him into the cottage, and closing the door, stood looking at the two photos on the mantelpiece. Old Pybus, putting the plate down on the oak table, went towards the kitchen to light the oil-stove on which he boiled his water, and to fetch a cup and plate for Lance. They talked through the doorway.
“Grandfather.”
“Hallo——”
“Why do you keep those photos there?”
He heard the Venerable strike a match.
“All sorts of reasons, mixed reasons. I call them the photos of my sons who were killed in the war.”
“They weren’t in the war.”
“No.”
“Is that—why——?”
“We never got on very well together. There seemed to be nothing of me in them, and nothing of them in me. Queer, but it’s a fact. They liked their mother, but I don’t think they ever liked me. I have often tried to work out how and where—I was to blame. Too strict, perhaps. Expected too much.”
“But they are not like you.”
“Not much——”
“Conrad’s a perfect swine.—Sorry, sir, I oughtn’t to have used that word.”
His grandfather was measuring tea into the teapot.
“I am more shy of using hard words than I was, lad. Because—we can’t always help ourselves. When a man was born a pig, it doesn’t help to call him a pig. It’s not piggery, it’s nature. I’m coming to believe that we carry our fate with us.”
“You’re a determinist, grandpater?”
“Suppose I am. Though it’s not all Mendelism. I have a feeling that something’s put in, or not put in. The divine spark. Anyway—it’s all mystery—mystery. That’s why that church tower is right to go on calling with its bells.”
There was a short silence. Then Lance said——
“Grandpater—my father and I have never exchanged a single word on anything that really matters.”
“To you?”
“Yes—I suppose I’m looking at it—like an egoist.”
“How else can you begin to look at it.”
“We’re strangers. It’s rather terrible—in its way.”
“They and I—were just such strangers. There are old souls and young souls. That’s how I look at it. And you can’t mix your souls. Different planes. The big soul, and the little greedy soul. Amazing rot—all this blather about equality. I’ll have the kettle boiling in a minute.”
Lance strolled to the mantelpiece, and having looked steadily at the portraits of his father and his uncle, he saw them as strangers, people to whom he would never have anything to say. Also, with all deference to the Venerable—Conrad was a perfect swine. No other two words fitted him as those two words did. As for his father——? Poor old pater, such a sedulous and flamboyant snob! Extraordinary world! People ashamed of their jobs, and ashamed of their own people for doing particular jobs. Blind as bats—too! And he himself was ashamed of his father’s snobbery, and his mother’s loud and florid nature.
He crossed to the window where the Venerable’s flowers were blooming—without taking thought. Good old Solomon! And from the kitchen came the sound of a purring kettle.
“Grandpater——”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you get very tired?”
“No, not very. There’s not too much for me.”
“You’re a wonder.”
“Simple living, my lad.”
“More than that. You are mediæval.”
“What?”
“You make me think of Sir Isumbras, and St. Christopher, and people who did simple and beautiful things. Service, you know. I’ve watched shepherds, and they seem to me to be about the only people in these days—who carry you back. Yes, sailors, too, in a way, and fishermen.”
“I get tips,” said his grandfather.
“Do people tip you?”
“Of course.”
“How perfectly—scandalous and splendid.”
“I take ’em, too. Bank balance and books. Besides—you never know. England isn’t India. You can’t be a sage—in England—on twopence-halfpenny.”
“Climate?”
“Call it that. I admit that I respect good blankets and a fire. Now for tea.”
He arrived with a little brown teapot, and, looking with new affection at his grandson, put down the teapot, and stood to say grace.
“For what we receive—let us be thankful.”
Lance sat down at the table with the air of a young man preparing to break some solemn fast.
