Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (203 page)

His walk had brought him to The Abbey, now untenanted. The fancy that one day it might be his home had often come to him. His mother had been a parlourmaid there. He pictured the perfect joy that it would give her to sit in its yellow drawing-room and reach out her hand to ring the bell.

He passed through the rose garden. Betty would love the rose garden. Roses she had made her hobby. But the air of Millsborough did not suit them. Here they were still wonderful in spite of neglect. He made a mental note to speak about it to Hobbs, the gardener. He knew what the answer would be. Twice that summer Hobbs had walked down to Millsborough with a tale of despair; and twice Anthony had written to Sir Harry Coomber. But what was a penurious baronet to do? Would Mowbray and Cousins never succeed in finding him a tenant? And so on. Anthony determined to provide Hobbs with help on his own responsibility. The rose garden, even if everything else had to go, must be preserved.

He passed on to the flower garden. It had always been Hobbs’ special pride. It had been well cared for and was now a blaze of colour. It lay between two old grey walls that had once enclosed the cloisters; and beyond one saw the great cedars that had been brought and planted there by Herbert de Combles on his return from the Crusades.

A yew hedge in which there was a wicket gate separated the two gardens. He paused by the gate with his arms resting upon it and watched the lengthening of the shadows.

And as he looked a girl came slowly up the path towards him.

He knew her quite well, but could not for the moment recollect where he had first seen her.

And then he remembered. It had been an afternoon back in the early spring. Sir Harry, pleading that he was too much of an invalid to venture out, had written asking Mr. Mowbray to come up to The Abbey to see him on business, and Mr. Mowbray, pleading engagements, had sent Anthony.

It had merely been to talk about the letting of the house. Sir Harry and his family had decided to live abroad for the present and were leaving almost immediately. Anthony had sat by the window making notes, and Sir Harry, giving unnecessary instructions, had been walking up and down the room with his hands behind him. The door had sprung open and a girl had burst into the room. Anthony had hardly had time to notice her. She had not expected a stranger and was evidently in doubt whether she was to be introduced or not. Her father had solved the problem for her by telling her to run away and not come back. And if she did to come in more quietly next time and not like a whirlwind. And she had made a grimace and had gone out again.

He had only seen her for those few seconds, and it rather surprised him that he recollected her so minutely, even to the dimple in her chin.

She came nearer and nearer. He was wondering whether to speak to her when for the first time she looked up and their eyes met. She was beside a great group of delphiniums. He noticed that their deep blue was almost the same colour as the dress she was wearing. She must have taken a swift step behind them during some instant when he had taken his eyes off her. He waited a while, expecting her to emerge, but she did not do so, and for him to linger there might seem impertinence.

On his way back, past the side entrance to the house, he came upon old Wilkins, the caretaker; he had once been the coachman.

“When did the family come back?” Anthony asked him. It was odd that Sir Harry had not written. It might be that they had returned to England only for a short visit and had not thought it worth while.

The man stared at him. “What do you mean?” he said. “There’s nobody here?”

“But I’ve just seen her,” said Anthony. “Miss Coomber.” He wished the next moment that he had not said it, for the old man’s face clearly showed that he thought Anthony mad.

“It must be her spirit, Mr. Anthony,” he said, “that you’ve seen. Her body ain’t here.”

Anthony felt himself flushing. He laughed.

“I must have been dreaming,” he said.

“That’s the only explanation I can see,” said Mr. Wilkins. He wished Anthony good afternoon and turned into the house. Anthony heard him calling to his wife.

It was dark before Anthony reached home.

CHAPTER X

MRS. TETTERIDGE was a pretty piquant lady. Her grey eyes no longer looked out upon the world with childish wonder. On the contrary they suggested that she now knew all about it, had found on closer inspection that there really was nothing to wonder about. A commonplace world with well-defined high-roads that one did well to follow, keeping one’s eyes in front of one, suppressing all inclination towards alluring byways leading to waste lands and barren spaces.

Tetteridge’s Preparatory and Commercial School had outgrown its beginnings. Mrs. Tetteridge had no objection to the “ambitious poor,” provided they were willing and able to pay increased school fees and to dress their sons in conformity with the standards of respectability. But they no longer formed the chief support of the Rev. Doctor Tetteridge’s Academy. The professional and commercial classes of Millsborough and its neighbourhood had discovered Mr. Tetteridge and were in the process of annexing him. Naturally they would prefer that he should get rid of the ragtag and bobtail that had flocked round him on his first coming. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, interviewing parents, found himself in face of the problem that had troubled the elder Miss Warmington when, years ago, in the very same room, she had sat over against Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, while stealing side glances at a self-possessed young imp perched on a horse-hair chair with one leg tucked underneath him.

The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge was sorry — had known himself the difficulty of meeting tailors’ bills. But corduroys, patched coats and paper collars! There were parents to be considered. A certain tone of appearance and behaviour must be maintained. The difficulty was not always confined to clothes. The children of agitators — of fathers who spoke openly and often against the existing order of society! In Millsborough there were many such. Unfortunate that the opinions of the fathers should be visited on the children. But so it was. Middle-class youth must be protected from possible contamination. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, remembering youthful speeches of his own at local debating societies, would flush and stammer. Mr. Tetteridge himself was not altogether averse to freedom of speech. But again the parents! The ambitious poor would give coarse expression to contemptuous anger and depart, dragging their puzzled offspring with them. Some of the things they said would hurt the Rev. Dr. Tetteridge by reason of their truth, especially things said by those among the poor who had known him when he was Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge, to whom success had not yet come.

Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge had thought to help the poor. In what way better than by educating their sons? For which purpose, it would seem, he had been granted special gifts. It was the thing that compensated him for giving up his dreams. Maybe the poor, not knowing the etiquette of these matters, might have overlooked his playing of the fiddle; perhaps, lacking sense of propriety, might have tolerated even odes to “Irene.”

An eccentric schoolmaster, an oddity of a schoolmaster, content with what the world called poverty so that he might live his own life, dream out his dreams, might have done this. If only he hadn’t got on. If only success — a strong-minded lady — was not gripping him so firmly by the arm, talking incessantly, without giving him a moment to think of the wonderful place to which she was leading him: a big house of many rooms, strongly built and solidly furnished, surrounded by a high brick wall pierced by a great iron gate; with men and women in uniform to see to his feeding and his clothing and his sleeping. At the proper times he would go to church. There would be a certain number of hours apportioned to him for exercise and even for recreation of an approved nature. And there would be times when his friends could come to see him. It had sounded to Emanuel Tetteridge as the description of a prison; but Mrs. Tetteridge had assured him it was a palace.

What further impressed him with the idea that it was to prison he was going was the information broken to him by Mrs. Tetteridge that before he could enter there he would have to take off his tweed suit and put on a black coat that buttoned close up to the neck, with a collar that fastened behind. Such, until his term of service was ended, would be his distinctive garb. He had put up opposition. But Mrs. Tetteridge had cried, and when she cried the Hardness went out of her eyes and she looked very pretty and pathetic; and Tetteridge had felt himself a brute and a traitor to love. So the day had come when he had taken off his old tweed suit for ever and had put on the long black coat that buttoned round the neck. And Mrs. Tetteridge had come to his assistance with the collar and had laughed and clapped her pretty hands and kissed him.

But when she had left him and the door was closed he had gone down on his knees and had asked God to forgive him for his hypocrisy. He had knelt long and the tears had come; and when he rose it seemed to him that God, looking in, had smiled at him a little sadly and had laid a hand on him, calling him “poor lad.” So that it remained with him that God understood what a difficult thing is life, and would, perhaps, give him another chance.

The time had come, so Mrs. Tetteridge had decided, for a move onward. The final destination, that country mansion standing in its own grounds, that she had determined upon, was still not yet in sight. Something half-way was her present idea, a large, odd-shaped house to the south of St. Aldys Church. It had once been a convent, but had been adapted to domestic purposes by an eccentric old East India trader who had married three wives. All his numerous progeny lived with him, and he had needed a roomy place. I was too big and too ugly for most people, and had been empty for years. It belonged to a client of Mowbray’s, and it occurred to Mrs. Tetteridge that he might consider even an inadequate rent better than nothing at all. At her request Anthony met her there one afternoon with the keys. The rusty iron gate squealed when Anthony pushed it open. They crossed a paved yard and mounted a flight of stone steps. The lock of the great oak door growled and grated when Anthony tried to turn the key. But it yielded at last, and a cold chill air crept up from the cellars and wrapped them round. Mrs. Tetteridge had difficulty in hiding her enthusiasm. The long tunnel-like rooms on the ground floor might have been built for class-rooms. On the first floor was the great drawing-room. It would serve for receptions and speech-making. There were bedrooms for a dozen boarders if they had luck. The high-walled garden behind was bare save for decrepit trees and overgrown bushes that could easily be removed. A few cartloads of gravel would transform it into an ideal playground. They returned to the ground floor. At the end of the stone corridor Mrs. Tetteridge found a door she had not previously noticed. It led to a high, vaulted room with a huge black marble mantelpiece representing two elephants supporting a smallsized temple. Opposite was a high-arched window overlooking the churchyard.

Mrs. Tetteridge surveyed it approvingly.

“This will be Emy’s study,” she said in a tone of decision. She was speaking to herself. She had forgotten Anthony.

Anthony was leaning against one of the elephants.

“Poor devil!” he said.

Mrs. Tetteridge looked up. There was a curious little smile about her pretty mouth.

“You don’t like me,” she said to Anthony.

“I should,” answered Anthony, “quite well, if I didn’t like Emy.”

She came to the other end of the mantelpiece, resting her hand upon it.

“I’ve got you here alone,” she said with a laugh, “and I’m going to have it out with you.

I’m sorry you don’t like me, because I like you very much. But that isn’t the important thing. I don’t want you taking Emy’s side against me. You’ve got great influence over him, and I’m afraid of you.”

Anthony was about to answer. She made a gesture.

“Let me finish,” she said, “then we shall both know what we’re up against. You think I’m spoiling his life, robbing him of his dreams. What were they, put into plain language? To compose a little music; to write a little poetry. He’d never have earned enough to live on. Perhaps before he died he might have composed something out of which a music publisher might have pocketed thousands. He might have written poems that would have brought him fame when it was too late. He’d never have made any real solid success. At that kind of work I couldn’t help him; and, left to himself, he isn’t the sort that ever does get on. At this work of schoolmastering I can help him. He has the talent and I have the business capacity. I’ve no use for dreamers. My father was a dreamer. He discovered things in chemistry that, if he had followed them up, would have made his fortune. They bored him. He was out for discovering a means of changing the atmosphere. I don’t remember the details. You released a gas, or you eliminated a gas, or you introduced a gas.

It was all about gases. That’s the only thing I do remember. People instead of breathing in depression and weariness breathed in light-heartedness and strength. It sounds like a fairy story, but if you’d listened to him you’d have been persuaded it was coming, that it was only a question of time, and that when the secret was discovered the whole human race would be feeling like a prisoner who had escaped from a dungeon. That was his dream. And to him it was possible. It was for the sake of that dream that he took the position of science master at St. Aldys at a hundred and sixty a year. It gave him leisure for research. And we children paid the price for it. Both my brothers were clever boys. Given the opportunity, they could have won their way in the world. One of them is a commercial traveller, and the other, as you know, a clerk in your office at eighty pounds a year. If he behaves himself and works hard he may, when he’s fifty, be your managing clerk at three hundred.”

She came closer to him and looked straight into his eyes.

“He’s there,” she said, “inside you — the dreamer. You know it and so do I,” she laughed. “I’ve looked at him too often. You’ve had sense enough to chain him up and throw away the key. Take care he doesn’t escape. If he does he’ll take possession of you, and all your strength and cleverness will be at his service. He’ll ride you without pity. He’ll ride you to death.”