Adrian Glynde (23 page)

Ellenger chose a third smoker, got in, shut the door, and leaned out of the window. “I was lucky to meet you,” he said, looking down at Adrian. Then a look of embarrassment crossed his face. “I wonder if you'd do me a favour,” he said awkwardly. “It's a strange thing
to ask, but if you would do your best to persuade Ronny to write occasionally.… You'll be seeing him, won't you?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I don't know if I shall. But if I do see him, I'll do what I can, you may be sure.”

“That's awfully kind of you,” said Ellenger.

The whistle blew and Adrian held out his hand. “I'm awfully glad you happened to catch sight of me,” he said.

“So am I,” said Ellenger. The train started. He grasped Adrian's hand. “You're a good chap,” he said, and withdrew suddenly from the window.

“The best of luck,” shouted Adrian, following the moving train. In the dimness of the corridor he saw Ellenger turn his head and make a motion with his hand, and then, with a pang at his heart, he caught, in a brief, unforgettable glimpse, the flash of tears in his old enemy's eyes.

Just before six o'clock that evening Adrian arrived at Dover Harbour. The smell of the clean, salt, chilly air as he followed the crowd along the platform and across to the quay, awoke in him a host of keen, sharply conflicting feelings. Fear struggled with the eagerness in his heart, a longing for the familiar comforts of Yarn with a deep sense of relief at his escape from the dreary life of the last six months, a small irrepressible thrill of adventure with a craven shudder at the unknown that awaited him across that forbidding, restless water, iron grey under the sombre evening sky. But secure in this tumult of emotions was his determination to go on.

The steamer, its decks and funnels and masts towering formidably above the quay, stirred uneasily on the choppy water of the harbour. Adrian made his way up the gangway and, stepping on board, felt the deck lift
under his feet. And at that strange, heaving motion of the great complicated creature he realised with a sudden thrill of misgiving that he had left the sureness and security of England behind him.

He set down his bag, put on his coat (for the breeze was chilly), and, leaning over the rail, watched the stream of passengers filtering along the steep gangway into the ship, watched the luggage swung deftly from the quay by the noisy crane, watched the harbour hands loose the ropes from the bollards as the ship's engines began to pulse under his feet. The gap of water between the boat and the quay yawned wider and wider; the darkly towering town drew back. The boat was divesting itself of the harbour as though putting off a cloak. Soon it had flung off the last long ribbon of pier. A chilly line of dim white cliffs opened out behind: lights twinkled like clusters of fireflies in the dark thicket of the landline: the boat drove straight for the grey emptiness ahead. It was not till the coming night had swallowed England that Adrian returned to his solitary self and to the deck on which he stood.

The sun was so hot that it was a relief to step out of the dazzling village street into the low, dim, stone-flagged room of the
estaminet
. There the air was cool and smelt of damp stone, and the dimness soothed the eyes. A scarlet curtain, brilliant against the outside glare, hung over the door that gave on the street. Sometimes it filled slowly with a passing breeze, bellied into the room, and shrank noiselessly back. On a dresser at the back of the room an array of copper cooking-vessels glowed with a subdued rosy lustre. Benches stood against the walls, and before the benches long tables.

Adrian shook the rucksack from his shoulders and, pushing his way in between a bench and a table, sat down and put the sack on the bench beside him. A stout, handsome woman had come from an inner room at the sound of his footsteps.

“May I have some
déjeuner
? I am very hungry,” he said to her in French.

She nodded her head. “Good!” she said. “You will eat well here, monsieur. Give me only a little half-hour.”

Adrian turned to his rucksack and got out a writing-pad, fumbled for a pencil in his pocket, and laid both on the table before him. He was hot, tired, and perfectly happy. Leaning back against the cool wall and stretching out his legs under the table, he sat for a while staring in front of him. Then he took out his watch. It was ten past twelve. The poor devils at Charminster would still be in morning school, or perhaps just coming out. Term had begun a week ago. Fancy, only just fancy, if he had
decided to stick it, spent his holidays like a good boy at Yarn and gone back to Charminster. He would have been there at this moment. Thank God he had made up his mind to do the right thing—or the wrong thing, he thought, with a little noiseless laugh. He wondered now how he had managed to pull it off, “because it really wasn't like me,” he thought; “not a bit.”

His thoughts turned to his aunt. She really was rather a brick, for he had undeniably treated her and Uncle Bob very badly. He hadn't even dared to trust them not to try to force him to return, and so, though he had written to her twice, he had not given any address until a week ago when, at least, they could not have got him back in time for the beginning of term. He had decided that it was useless to disguise his whereabouts any longer, because his money was beginning to peter out, and, when it did, he supposed he would have to return to England. Then he had given the address of the little hotel at Quillan which he had made his headquarters since leaving Carcassonne. Yesterday a letter with her familiar writing on the envelope had come for him, and he had opened it with some trepidation. How like Aunt Clara that letter had been—imperturbable, despite her just annoyance, strictly practical, coldly incisive in style, and yet, in the end, so magnanimous. At the thought of it he felt a glow of affection for her, and, taking it out of his pocket now, he read it through again.

“MY DEAR ADRIAN,—You are a very unaccountable person. On the last occasion of your running away, four years ago, when your mother tried to dragoon you into a visit to the Crowhursts, I secretly approved. But then you were running away from your mother, and I didn't approve of your mother. This
time you are running away from us, and you cannot expect me to be so acquiescent. I am annoyed partly that you should slink away and leave us to tidy up a troublesome situation which you have wilfully imposed upon us, and partly because I dislike all explosive and unaccountable behaviour. You get that, I suppose, from your mother: certainly not from us. You have passed the age when running away can be considered a kind of heroism, and I hope that in future you will face whatever situations you create. I have written to your grandfather and shall act on his wishes. I hope you will do the same and will not treat them with the airy disregard with which you treated mine. I need not point out that his happiness and peace of mind are of more importance than a temporary and, it seems to me, rather trifling dissatisfaction of your own. You know, I hope, that I am not one to bear malice. I think you have behaved badly and I have told you so candidly, and there's an end of it. When you decide to return, we shall be as glad as ever to see you. You need not have hesitated to let me have an address that would find you, for we should have spared you and ourselves a hue and cry. Your uncle was more annoyed over your escapade than I have seen him for years, but, like me, he is recovering. He called you a variety of names which it would be salutary for you to hear, but improper for me to repeat. Let us know if you want money: your dramatic flight need not entail the additional romance of squalor and starvation. I hope you are taking the opportunity to improve your French. Your uncle joins me in love.”

How like her to scold him and in the same breath to offer to send him money. And how inimitably like her
that last practical sentence: “I hope you are taking the opportunity to improve your French.” Whatever happened, Aunt Clara would always be practical. If he were to write and announce his capture by Turkish brigands, Aunt Clara in the course of a sympathetic reply would doubtless urge him not to waste the chance of learning Turkish. He took up his pencil and began to write to her.

He had finished his letter before his meal was ready, and on a sudden impulse he began a letter to Ronny. He had lately come to realise that in his determination to escape from the imaginary Ronny which had caused him so much unhappiness he had almost left the real one out of account. The real one was a very charming, kind-hearted fellow who had treated him generously. It seemed to him now, as he thought of Ronny, that, apart from those disturbing sentimental feelings towards him into which he had allowed himself to fall, he had for him the same sort of honest affection that he had for Phipps. He could think of him calmly and rationally now: it seemed as if he had at last managed to shake off his absurd obsession about him. It was nearly ten months now, he reflected as he sat, pencil in hand, since Ronny had left Charminster. It was certainly high time that he wrote to him. But perhaps by this time Ronny would not want to hear from him. He would be in new surroundings, among new people, and in his gay, adaptable fashion he would have dismissed Adrian and Charminster and his other school friends from his mind. The thought gave him a little stab of pain. Well, there was no harm in writing in any case. If he got no reply he would know that Ronny didn't want to be bothered with him. He pulled up his sleeves and began to write, telling of his desertion of Charminster and of his present vagrant existence.

A week later, to his astonishment and delight, a reply came in the well-known writing. The rush of emotion which the mere sight of it produced in him showed him how he had misread his own feelings.

“DEAR LITTLE MAN,” wrote Ronny, “I was awfully glad to get your letter this morning, forwarded from home. I was beginning to think you had clean forgotten me and had been meaning for a long time to write and tick you off. Well, upon my word, fancy you giving old Charminster the go-by like that. It takes one of you quiet, harmless little chaps to do a thing like that. I bet it made your people sit up. I'm settled in London now, a poor bloody clerk in a shipping office, so if there's anything you want to know about ships you've only got to drop a line to R. D., Esqre., at the above address and full particulars will be forwarded. I've got digs in Lennox Street, near Torrington Square, number 29. Beastly street, but fairly decent digs. Look me up, mind, when you are in London. So long.

“Yours,

“RONALD DAKYN.”

That short, commonplace letter stirred Adrian deeply. He read it over and over again; he minutely examined the disturbingly familiar writing. “Yes,” he thought to himself, “that's the way he always made his capital R's.” He gazed, fascinated and incredulous, at the envelope: then, with a deep sigh, folded the letter and put it carefully away in his breast-pocket. “Oh, bother,” he thought, “I've gone and started it all off again.”

The fact that Clara did not press Adrian to return to
England was due to the attitude of Oliver Glynde, who, as a result of the letters he had received from Adrian, wrote and urged her to leave him to his own devices. He wrote also to Adrian—one of those wonderful, copious letters of his, in which he told him he must remain in France as long as he wanted to. He recommended Avignon, Aries, Les Baux, Aigues Mortes, the Cevennes.

So Adrian stayed on, wandering about the country with a rucksack and sending his suitcase by rail when he moved to a new centre. The novelty of the life, the new country, the freedom and leisure, the French conversations with chance acquaintances in
estaminets
, cafes, hotels, or in the open country, were just what he needed. He walked incessantly. The walking kept him in fine condition: his mind had grown as healthy as his body. In the summer holidays Phipps joined him and they had a wonderful fortnight in the Pyrenees. But when the fortnight was over and he stood on the platform waving to Phipps, who waved back to him from the receding train, he felt for a moment lonely and exiled. Why hadn't he gone with Phipps? They would have had such a jolly journey home together.

That evening he decided to return home. But when he awoke next morning his mood had changed and he knew that he could not tear himself away yet.

When at last he reached Yarn the winter was at hand. He had been away over half a year. His dark hair was bleached at the ends to the colour of copper, he had the face and hands of a gypsy, the condition of his clothes was deplorable. In Clara's restrained and immaculate home he appeared as a disastrous intrusion. “My dear boy,” she remarked, aghast, “if you had come to the back door without warning you would certainly have been turned away.” She inspected him more closely, a smile on her face. “How very unlike a Glynde,” she said,
shaking her head. Then her eyes kindled with irrepressible admiration. “But I must say,” she said, “you look disgracefully well.”

They assembled at Abbot's Randale for Christmas. It seemed to Adrian years since he had been there, and he looked forward eagerly to returning. On the evening of their arrival it froze, and next morning the garden, in the grip of the hoar-frost, had the keen, cold, brittle purity of crystal. The hard weather seemed to Adrian to double the beauty of the place. As soon as breakfast was over, Oliver Glynde, hatted and coated, went out to enjoy it, and Adrian went with him. The paths and the lawn had an adamantine crust which rang hollow under their feet. Every blade of grass, every needle of the pines and firs, every twig of the bare branches of the times and beeches was furred with the delicate white crystallisation of the rime. Thickets and the shrubs in the borders had become a tangle of spun glass; the fountain-basin in the middle of the enclosed lawn contained not water, but a moulded block of darkly translucent flint. The fountain itself had ceased to play. It was ice-bound, and as it slowly froze it had built its waters into an elaborate, many-bossed shape of quartz, like the carved image of a Chinese god.