CHAPTER II

IN WHICH OUR HERO IMPROVES HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH MANY THINGS--HIMSELF

INCLUDED

It came about in this wise. Roger Ormiston was expected at Brockhurst,

after an absence of some years. He had served with distinction in the

Sikh war; and had seen fighting on a grand scale in the battles of

Sobraon and Chillianwallah. Later, the restless genius of travel had

taken hold on him, leading him far eastward into China, and northward

across the Himalayan snows. He had dwelt among strange peoples and

looked on strange gods. He had hunted strange beasts, moreover, and

learnt their polity and their ways. He had seen the bewildering

fecundity of nature in the tropic jungle, and her barren and terrible

beauty in the out-stretch of the naked desert. And the thought of all

this set Dickie's imagination on fire. The return of Roger Ormiston

was, to him, as the return of the mighty Ulysses himself.

For a change was coming over the boy. He began to weary of fable and

cry out for fact. He had just entered his fourteenth year. He was

growing fast; and, but for that dwarfing deformity, would have been

unusually tall, graceful and well-proportioned. But along with this

increase of stature had come a listlessness and languor which troubled

Lady Calmady. The boy was sweet-tempered enough, had his hours, indeed,

of overflowing fun and high spirits. Still he was restless and tired

easily of each occupation in turn. He developed a disquieting relish

for solitude; and took to camping-out on one of the broad window-seats

of the Long Gallery, in company with volumes of Captain Cook's and

Hakluyt's voyages, old-time histories of sport and natural history; not

to mention Robinson Crusoe and the merry but doubtfully decent pages of

Geoffrey Gambado. And his mother noted, not without a sinking of the

heart, that the window-seat, which in his solitary moods Dickie most

frequented, was precisely that one of the eastern bay which

commanded--beyond the smooth, green expanse and red walls of the

troco-ground--a good view of the grass ride, running parallel with the

lime avenue, along which the horses from the racing stables were taken

out and back, morning and evening, to the galloping ground. Then fears

began to assail Katherine that the boy's childhood, the content and

repose of it, were nearly past. Small wonder that her heart should

sink!

On the day of her brother's return, Katherine, after rather anxious

search, so found Richard. He was standing on the book-strewn

window-seat. He had pushed open the tall narrow casement and leaned

out. The April afternoon was fitfully bright. A rainbow spanned the

landscape, from the Long Water in the valley to the edge of the forest

crowning the table-land. Here and there showers of rain fell, showing

white against huge masses of purple cloud piled up along the horizon.

And as Katherine drew near, threading her way carefully between the

Chinese cabinets, oriental jars, and many quaint treasures furnishing

the end of the great room, she saw that, along the grass ride, some

twenty race-horses, came streeling homeward in single file--a long line

of brown, chestnut, black, and of the raw yellows and scarlets of

horse-clothing against the delicate green of springing turf and opening

leaves. Beside them, clad in pepper-and-salt mixture, breeches and

gaiters complete, Mr. Chifney pricked forward soberly on his handsome

gray cob. The boys called to one another now and then, admonished a

fretful horse breaking away from the string. One of them whistled

shrilly a few bars of that then popular but undistinguished tune, "Pop

goes the weazel." And Richard craned far out, steadying himself against

the stone mullion on either side with uplifted hands, heedless alike of

his mother's presence and of the heavy drops of rain which splattered

in at the open casement.

"Dickie, Dickie," Katherine called, in swift anxiety. "Be careful. You

will fall."

She came close, putting her arm round him. "You reckless darling," she

went on; "don't you see how dangerous the least slip would be?"

The boy straightened himself and looked round at her. His blue eyes

were alight. All the fitful brightness, all the wistful charm of the

April evening was in his face.

"But it's the only place where I can see them, and they're such

beauties," he said. "And I want to see them so much. You know we always

miss them somehow, mummy, when we go out."

Katherine was off her guard. Three separate strains of feeling

influenced her just then. First, her growing recognition of the change

in Richard, of that passing away of childhood which could not but make

for difficulty and, in a sense, for pain. Secondly, the natural

excitement of her brother's homecoming, disturbing the monotony of her

daily life, bringing, along with very actual joy, memories of a past,

well-beloved yet gone beyond recall. Lastly, the practical and

immediate fear that Dickie had come uncommonly near tumbling

incontinently out of the window. And so, being moved, she held the boy

tightly and answered rather at random, thereby provoking fate.

"Yes, my dearest, I know we always miss them somehow when we go out. It

is best so. But do pray be more careful with these high windows."

"Oh! I'm all right--I'm careful enough." His glance had gone back to

where the last of the horses passed out of sight behind the red wall of

the gardens. "But why is it best so? Ah! they're gone!" he exclaimed.

Katherine sat down on the window-seat, and Richard, clinging on to the

window-ledge, while she still held him, lowered himself into a sitting

position beside her.

"Thank you, mummy," he said. And the words cut her. They came so often

in each day, and always with the same little touch of civil dignity.

The courtesy of Richard's recognition of help given, failed to comfort

her for the fact that help was so constantly required. Lady Calmady's

sense of rebellion arose and waxed strong whenever she heard those

thanks.

"Mother," he went on, "I want to ask you something. You won't mind?"

"Do I ever mind you questioning me?" Yet she felt a certain tightening

about her heart.

"Ah, but this is different! I've wanted to for a long while, but I did

not know if I ought--and yet I did not quite like to ask Auntie Marie

or Julius. And, of course, one doesn't speak to the servants about

anything of that sort."

Richard's curly head went up with a fine, little air of pride as he

said the last few words. His mother smiled at him. There was no doubt

as to her son's breeding.

"Well, what then?" she said.

"I want to know--you're sure you don't mind--why you dislike the

horses, and never go to the stables or take me there? If the horses are

wrong, why do we keep them? And if they're not wrong, why, mother,

don't you see, we may enjoy them, mayn't we?"

He flushed, looking up at her, spoke coaxingly, merrily, a trifle

embarrassed by his own temerity, yet keen to prove his point and

acquire possession of this so coveted joy.

Katherine hesitated. She was tempted to put aside his question with

some playful excuse. And yet, where was the use? The question must

inevitably be answered one day; and Katherine, as had been said, was

moved just now, dumbness of long habit somewhat melted. Perhaps this

was the appointed time. She drew her arm from around the boy and took

both his hands in hers.

"My dearest," she said, "our keeping the horses is not wrong. But--one

of the horses killed your father."

Richard's lips parted. His eyes searched hers.

"But how?" he asked presently.

"He was trying it at a fence, and it came down with him--and trampled

him."

There was a pause. At last the boy asked rather breathlessly: "Was he

killed then, mother, at once?"

It had been Katharine's intention to state the facts simply, gravely,

and without emotion. But to speak of these things, after so long

silence, proved more trying than she had anticipated. The scene in the

red drawing-room, the long agony of waiting and of farewell rose up

before her after all these years with a vividness and poignancy that

refused to be gain-said.

"No," she answered, "he lived four days. He spoke to me of many things

he wished to do. And--I have done them all, I think. He spoke to me of

you----" Katherine closed her eyes. "The boy might care for the

stables. The boy must ride straight." For the moment she could not look

at Richard, knowing that which she must see. The irony of those

remembered words appeared too great.--"But he suffered," she went on

brokenly, "he suffered--ah! my dear----"

"Mummy, darling mummy, don't look like that!" Dickie cried. He wrenched

his hands from her grasp and threw his arms impulsively about her neck.

"Don't--it hurts me. And--and, after all," he added, reasoningly,

consolingly, "it wasn't one of these horses, you know. They've never

done anybody any harm. It was an accident. There must always be

accidents sometimes, mustn't there? And then, you see, it all happened

long, long ago. It must have, for I don't remember anything about it.

It must have happened when I was a baby."

"Alas, no," Katherine exclaimed, wrung by the pathos of his innocent

egoism; "it happened even before then, my dearest, before you were

born."

With the unconscious arrogance of childhood, Richard had, so far, taken

his mother's devotion very much as a matter of course. He had never

doubted that he was, and always had been, the inevitable centre of all

her interests. So now, her words and her bearing, bringing--in as far

as he grasped them--the revelation of aspects of her life quite

independent of his all-important, little self, staggered him. For the

first time poor Dickie realised that even one's own mother, be she

never so devoted, is not her child's exclusive and wholly private

property, but has a separate existence, joys and sorrows apart.

Instinctively he took his arms from about her neck and backed away into

the angle of the window-seat, regarding her with serious and somewhat

startled attention. And, doing so, he for the first time realised

consciously something more, namely, the greatness of her beauty.

For the years had dealt kindly with Katherine Calmady. Not the great

sorrows of life, or its great sacrifices, but fretfulness, ignoble

worries, sordid cares, are that which draw lines upon a woman's face

and harshen her features. At six and thirty Lady Calmady's skin was

smooth and delicate, her colour, still clear and softly bright. Her

hair, though somewhat darker than of old, was abundant. Still she wore

it rolled up and back from her forehead, showing the perfect oval of

her face. Her eyes, too, were darker; and the expression of them had

become profound--the eyes of one who has looked on things which may not

be told and has chosen her part. Her bosom had become a little fuller;

but the long, inward curve of her figure below it to the round and

shapely waist, and the poise of her rather small hips, was lithe and

free as ever. While there was that enchanting freshness about her which

is more than the mere freshness of youth or of physical health--which

would seem, indeed, to be the peculiar dowry of those women who, having

once known love in all its completeness and its strength, of choice

live ever afterwards in perfect chastity of act and thought.

And a perception not only of the grace of her person, as she sat

sideways on the window-seat in her close-fitting, gray gown, with its

frilled lace collar and ruffles at the wrists, came to Richard now. He

perceived something of this more intimate and subtle charm which

belonged to her. He was enthralled by the clear sweetness, as of dewy

grass newly turned by the scythe, which always clung about her, and by

the whispering of her silken garments when she moved. A sudden

reverence for her came upon him, as though, behind her gracious and so

familiar figure, he apprehended that which belonged to a region

superior, almost divine. And then he was seized--it is too often the

fate of worshippers--with jealousy of that past of hers of which he had

been, until now, ignorant. And yet another emotion shook him, for, in

thus realising and differentiating her personality, he had grown

vividly, almost painfully, conscious of his own.

He turned away, laying his cheek against the stone window-ledge, while

the drops of a passing scud of rain beat in on his hot face.

"Then--then my father never saw me," he exclaimed vehemently. And,

after a moment's pause, added, "I am glad of that--very glad."

"Ah! But, my dearest," Lady Calmady cried, bewildered and aghast, "you

don't know what you are saying--think."

Richard kept his face to the splashing rain.

"I don't want to say anything wrong; but," he repeated, "I am glad."

He turned to her, his lips quivering a little, and a desolate

expression in his eyes, which told Katherine, with only too bitter

assurance, that his childhood and the repose of it were indeed over and

gone.

She held out her arms to him in silent invitation, and drew the dear

curly head on to her bosom.

"You're not displeased with me, mummy?"

"Does this seem as if I was displeased?" she asked.

Then they sat silent once more, Katherine swaying a little as she held

him, soothing him almost as in his baby days.

"I won't lean out of the window again," he said presently, with a sigh

of comfort. "I promise that."

"There's a darling. But I am afraid we must go. Uncle Roger will be

here soon."

The boy raised his head.

"Mother," he said quickly, "will you send Clara, please, to put away

these books? And may I have Winter to fetch me? I--I'm tired. If you

don't mind? I don't care to walk."

Yet, since happily at thirteen Richard's moods were still as many and

changeful as the aspects of that same April day, he enjoyed some

royally unclouded hours before he--most unwillingly--retired to bed

that night. For on close acquaintance the great Ulysses proved a very

satisfactory hero. Roger Ormiston's character had consolidated. It was

to some purpose that he had put away the pleasant follies of his youth.

He looked out now with a coolness and patience, born of wide experience,

upon men and upon affairs. He had ceased to lose either his temper or

his head. Acquiescing with undismayed and cheerful common sense in

the fact that life, as we know it, is but a sorry business, and that

rough things must of necessity be done and suffered every day, he had

developed an active--though far from morbidly sentimental--compassion

for the individual, man and beast alike. Not that Colonel Ormiston

formulated all that, still less held forth upon it. He was content, as

is so many another Englishman, to be a dumb and practical philosopher--for

which those who have lived with philosophers of the eloquent sort will

unquestionably give thanks, knowing, to their sorrow, how often

handsome speech is but a cloak to hide incapacity of honest doing.

And so, after dinner, under plea of an imperative need of cigars,

Ormiston had borne Dickie off to the Gun-Room; and there, in the

intervals of questioning him a little about his tastes and occupations,

had told him stories many and great. For he wanted to get hold of the

boy and judge of what stuff he was made. Like all sound and

healthy-minded men he had an inherent suspicion of the abnormal. He

could not but fear that persons unusually constituted in body must be

the victims of some corresponding crookedness of spirit. But as the

evening drew on he became easy on this point. Whatever Richard's

physical infirmity, his nature was wholesome enough. Therefore when, at

close upon ten o'clock, Lady Calmady arrived in person to insist that

Dickie must go, there and then, straight to bed, she found a pleasant

scene awaiting her.

The square room was gay with lamplight and firelight, which brought

into strong relief the pictures of famous horses and trophies of

old-time weapons--matchlocks, basket-handled swords, and neat

silver-hilted rapiers, prettiest of toys with which to pink your

man--that decorated its white-paneled walls.

Ormiston stood with his back to the fire, one heel on the fender, his

broad shoulders resting against the high chimneypiece, his head bent

forward as he looked down, in steady yet kindly scrutiny, at the boy.

His face was tanned by the sun and wind of the long sea voyage--people

still came home from India by the Cape--till his hair and moustache

showed pale against his bronzed skin. And to Richard, listening and

watching from the deep armchair drawn up at right angles to the hearth,

he appeared as a veritable demigod, master of the secrets of life and

death--beheld, moreover, through an atmosphere of fragrant tobacco

smoke, curiously intoxicating to unaccustomed nostrils. Dickie had

tucked himself into as small a space as possible, to make room for

young Camp, who lay outstretched beside him. The bull-dog's great

underhung jaw and pendulous, wrinkled cheeks rested on the arm of the

chair, as he stared and blinked rather sullenly at the fire--moved and

choked a little, slipping off unwillingly to sleep, to wake with a

start, to stare and blink once more. The embroidered _couvre-pieds_,

which Dickie had spread across him, gathering the top edge of it up

under the front of his Eton jacket, offered luxurious bedding. But Camp

was a typical conservative, slow-witted, stubborn against the ingress

of a new idea. This tall, somewhat masterful stranger must prove

himself a good man and true--according to bull-dog understanding of

those terms--before he could hope to gain entrance to that faithful,

though narrow heart.

Ormiston meanwhile, finely contemptuous of canine criticism, greeted

his sister cheerily.

"You're bound to give us a little law to-night, Kitty," he said,

holding out his hand to her. "We won't break rules and indulge in

unbridled license as to late hours again, will we, Dick? But, you see,

we've both been doing a good deal, one way and another, since we last

met, and there were arrears of conversation to make up."--He smiled

very charmingly at Lady Calmady, and his fingers closed firmly on her

hand.--"We've been getting on famously, notwithstanding our long

separation." He looked down at Richard again. "Fast friends, already,

and mean to remain so, don't we, old chap?"

Thereupon Lady Calmady's soul received much comfort. Her pride was

always on the alert, fiercely sensitive concerning Richard. And the joy

of this meeting had, till now, an edge of jealous anxiety to it. If

Roger did not take to the boy, then--deeply though she loved him--Roger

must go. For the same elements were constant in Katherine Calmady. Not

all the discipline of thirteen years had tamed the hot blood in her

which made her order out the Clown for execution. But as Ormiston

spoke, her face softened, her eyes grew luminous and smiled back at him

with an exquisite gladness. The soft gloom of her black velvet dress

emphasised the warm, golden whiteness of her bare shoulders and arms.

Ormiston seeing her just then, understanding something of the drama of

her thought, was moved from his habitual cool indifference of bearing.

"Katherine," he said, "do you know you take one rather by surprise.

Upon my word you're more beautiful than ever."

And Richard's clear voice rang out eagerly from the depths of the big

chair--

"Yes--yes--isn't she, Uncle Roger--isn't she--delicious?"

The man's smile broadened almost to laughter.

"You young monkey," he said very gently; "so you have discovered that

fact already, have you? Well, so much the better. It's a safe basis to

start from; don't you think so, Kitty?"

But Lady Calmady drew away her hand. The blood had rushed into her face

and neck. Her beauty, now, for so long, had seemed a negligible

quantity, a thing that had outlasted its need and use--since he who had

so rejoiced in it was dead. What is the value of ever so royal a crown

when the throne it represents has fallen to ruin? And yet, being very

much a woman, those words of praise came altogether sweetly to

Katherine from the lips of her brother and her son. She moved away,

embarrassed, not quite mistress of herself, sat down on the arm of

Richard's chair, leaned across him and patted the bull-dog--who raised

his heavy head with a grunt, and slapped Dickie smartly in the stomach

with his tail, by way of welcome.

"You dear foolish creatures," she said, "pray talk of something more

profitable. I am growing old, and, in some ways, I am rather thankful

for it. All the same, Dickie, darling, you positively must and shall go

to bed."

But Colonel Ormiston interrupted her. He spoke with a trace of

hesitation, turning to the fireplace and flicking the ash off the end

of his cigar.

"By the bye, Katherine, how's Mary Cathcart? Have you seen her lately?"

"Yes, last week."

"Then she's not gone the way of all flesh and married?"

"No," Lady Calmady answered. She bent a little lower, tracing out the

lines on the dog's wrinkled forehead with her finger. "Several men have

asked her to marry. But there is only one man in the world, I fancy,

whom Mary would ever care to marry--poor Camp, did I tickle you?--and

he, I believe, has not asked her yet."

"Ah! there," Ormiston exclaimed quickly, "you are mistaken."

"Am I?" Katherine said. "I have great faith in Mary. I suppose she was

too wise to accept even him, being not wholly convinced of his love."

Lady Calmady raised her eyes. Ormiston looked very keenly at her. And

Richard, watching them, felt his breath come rather short with

excitement, for he understood that his mother was speaking in riddles.

He observed, moreover, that Colonel Ormiston's face had grown pale for

all its sunburn.

"And so," Katherine went on, "I think the man in question had better be

quite sure of his own heart before he offers it to Mary Cathcart

again."

Ormiston flung his half-smoked cigar into the fire. He came and stood

in front of Richard.

"Look here, old chap," he said, "what do you say to our driving over to

Newlands to-morrow? You can set me right if I've forgotten any of the

turns in the road, you know. And you and Miss Cathcart are great chums,

aren't you?"

"Mother, may I go?" the boy asked.

Lady Calmady kissed his forehead.

"Yes, my dearest," she said. "I will trust you and Uncle Roger to take

care of each other for once. You may go."

The immediate consequence of all which was, that Richard went to bed

that night with a brain rather dangerously active and eyes rather

dangerously bright. So that when sleep at last visited him, it came

burdened with dreams, in which the many impressions and emotions of the

day took altogether too lively a part, causing him to turn restlessly

to and fro, and throw his arms out wide over the cool linen sheets and

pillow.

For there was new element in Dickie's dreams to-night:--namely, a

recurrent distress of helplessness and incapacity of movement, and

therefore of escape, in the presence of some on-coming multitudinous

terror. He was haunted, moreover, by a certain stanza of the ballad of

Chevy Chase. It had given him a peculiar feeling, sickening yet

fascinating, ever since he could remember first to have read it, a

feeling which caused him to dread reading it beforehand, yet made him

turn back to it again and again. And to-night, sometimes Richard was

himself, sometimes his personality seemed merged in that of

Witherington, the crippled fighting-man, of whose maiming and deadly

courage that stanza tells. And the battle was long and fierce, as from

out a background of steeple-shaped, honey-combed rocks and sparse trees

with large golden leaves--like those on the panels of the great,

lacquered cabinets in the Long Gallery--innumerable hordes of fanatic

Chinamen poured down on him, a hideous bedizenment of vermilion

war-devils painted on their blue tunics and banners and shields. And

he, Richard,--or was it he, Witherington?--alone facing them all,--they

countless in number, always changing yet always the same. From under

their hard, upturned hats, a peacock feather erect in each, the cruel,

oblique-eyed, impassive faces stared at him. They pressed him back and

back against the base of a seven-storied pagoda, the wind bells of

which jangled far above him from the angles of its tiers of fluted

roofs. And the sky was black and polished. Yet it was broad, glaring

daylight, every object fearfully distinct. And he was fixed there,

unable to get away because--yes, of course, he was Witherington, so

there was no need of further explanation of that inability of escape.

And still, at the same time, he could see Chifney on the handsome gray

cob, trotting soberly along the green ride, beside the long string of

race-horses coming home from exercise. The young leaves were fragile

and green now, not sparse and metallic, and the April rain splashed in

his face. He tried to call out to Tom Chifney, but the words died in

his throat. If they would only put him on one of those horses! He knew

he could ride, and so be safe and free. He called again. That time his

voice came. They must hear. Were they not his own servants, after all,

and his own horses--or would be soon, when he was grown up? But neither

the trainer, nor the boys so much as turned their heads; and the living

ribbon of brown and chestnut swept on and away out of sight. No one

would heed him, no one would hearken to his cry.

Once his mother and some man, whom he knew yet did not know, passed by

him hand in hand. She wore a white dress, and smiled with a look of

ineffable content. Her companion was tall, gracious in bearing and

movement, but unsubstantial, a luminous shadow merely. Richard could

not see his face. Yet he knew the man was of near kin to him. And to

them he tried to speak. But it was useless. For now he was not Richard

any more. He was not even Witherington, the crippled fighting-man of

the Chevy Chase ballad. He was--he was the winged sea-gull, with wild,

pale eyes, hiding--abject yet fierce--among the vegetable beds in the

Brockhurst kitchen-gardens, and picking up loathsome provender of

snails and slugs. Roger Ormiston, calm, able, kindly, yet just a trifle

insolent, cigar in mouth, sauntered up and looked at the bird, and it

crawled away among the cabbages ignominiously, covered with the shame

of its incompleteness and its fallen estate.

And then from out the honey-combed rocks, under the black, polished

sky, the blue tunicked Chinamen swept down on Richard again with the

maddening horror of infinite number. They crushed in upon him, nearer

and nearer, pressing him back against the wall of that evil pagoda. The

air was hot and musky with their breath and thick with the muffled roar

of their countless footsteps. And they came right in on him, trampling

him down, suffocating, choking him with the heat of them and the dead

weight.

Shouting aloud--as it seemed to him--in angry terror, the boy woke. He

sat up trembling, wet with perspiration, bewildered by the struggle and

the wild phantasmagoria of his dream. He pulled open the neck of his

nightshirt, leaned his head against the cool brass rail of the back of

the bedstead, while he listened with growing relief to the rumble of

the wind in the chimney, and the swish of the rain against the

casements, and watched the narrow line of light under the door of his

mother's room.

Yes, he was Richard Calmady, after all, here in his own sheltered

world, among those who had loved and served him all his life. Nothing

hurtful could reach him here, nothing of which he need be afraid. There

was no real meaning in that ugly dream.

And then Dickie paused a moment, still sitting up in the warm darkness,

pressing his hands down on the mattress on either side to keep himself

from slipping. For involuntarily he recalled the feeling which had

prompted his declaration that he was glad his father had never seen

him; recalled his unwillingness to walk, lest he should meet Ormiston

unexpectedly; recalled the instinct which, even during that glorious

time in the Gun-Room, had impelled him to keep the embroidered

_couvre-pieds_ carefully over his legs and feet. And, recalling these

things, poor Dickie arrived at conclusions regarding himself which he

had happily avoided arriving at before. For they were harsh

conclusions, causing him to cower down in the bed, and bury his face in

the pillows to stifle the sound of the tearing sobs which would come.

Alas! was there not only too real a meaning in that same ugly dream and

that shifting of personality? He understood, while his body quivered

with the anguish of it, that he had more in common with, and was

nearer, far nearer, to the maimed fighting-man of the old ballad, even

to the poor seagull robbed of its power of flight, than to all those

dear people whose business in life it seemed to pet and amuse him, and

to minister to his every want--to the handsome soldier uncle, whose

home-coming had so excited him, to Julius March, his indulgent tutor,

to Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, his delightful companion, to Clara, his

obedient playfellow, to brown-eyed Mary Cathcart, and even to his

lovely mother herself!

Thus did the bitter winds of truth, which blow forever across the

world, first touch Richard Calmady, cutting his poor boyish pride as

with a whip. But he was very young. And the young, mercifully, know no

such word as the inevitable; so that the wind of truth is ever tempered

for them--the first smart of it over--by the sunshine of ignorant and

unlimited hope.