Bealby; A Holiday — The Wanderers Part Two
§ 7 “Do you know the wind on the heath—have you lived the Gypsy life?
Have you spoken, wanderers yourselves, with ‘Romany chi and Romany chal’ on the wind-swept moors at home or abroad?
Have you tramped the broad highways, and, at close of day, pitched your tent near a running stream and cooked your supper by starlight over a fire of pinewood?
Do you know the dreamless sleep of the wanderer at peace with himself and all the world?
” For most of us the answer to these questions of the Amateur Camping Club is in the negative.
Yet every year the call of the road, the Borrovian glamour, draws away a certain small number of the imaginative from the grosser comforts of a complex civilization, takes them out into tents and caravans and intimate communion with nature, and, incidentally, with various ingenious appliances designed to meet the needs of cooking in a breeze.
It is an adventure to which high spirits and great expectations must be brought, it is an experience in proximity which few friendships survive—and altogether very great fun.
The life of breezy freedom resolves itself in practice chiefly into washing up and an anxious search for permission to camp.
One learns how rich and fruitful our world can be in bystanders, and how easy it is to forget essential groceries....
The heart of the joy of it lies in its perfect detachment.
There you are in the morning sunlight under the trees that overhang the road, going whither you will.
Everything you need you have.
Your van creaks along at your side.
You are outside inns, outside houses, a home, a community, an _imperium in imperio_.
At any moment you may draw out of the traffic upon the wayside grass and say, “Here—until the owner catches us at it—is home!
” At any time—subject to the complaisance of William and your being able to find him—you may inspan and go onward.
The world is all before you.
You taste the complete yet leisurely insouciance of the snail.
And two of those three ladies had other satisfactions to supplement their pleasures.
They both adored Madeleine Philips.
She was not only perfectly sweet and lovely, but she was known to be so; she had that most potent charm for women, prestige.
They had got her all to themselves.
They could show now how false is the old idea that there is no friendship nor conversation among women.
They were full of wit and pretty things for one another and snatches of song in between.
And they were free too from their “menfolk.
” They were doing without them.
Dr. Bowles, the husband of the lady in the deerstalker, was away in Ireland, and Mr. Geedge, the lord of the inconspicuous woman, was golfing at Sandwich.
And Madeleine Philips, it was understood, was only too glad to shake herself free from the crowd of admirers that hovered about her like wasps about honey....
Yet after three days each one had thoughts about the need of helpfulness and more particularly about washing-up, that were better left unspoken, that were indeed conspicuously unspoken beneath their merry give and take, like a black and silent river flowing beneath a bridge of ivory.
And each of them had a curious feeling in the midst of all this fresh free behaviour, as though the others were not listening sufficiently, as though something of the effect of them was being wasted.
Madeleine’s smiles became rarer; at times she was almost impassive, and Judy preserved nearly all her wit and verbal fireworks for the times when they passed through villages....
Mrs. Geedge was less visibly affected.
She had thoughts of writing a book about it all, telling in the gayest, most provocative way, full of the quietest quaintest humour, just how jolly they had been.
Menfolk would read it.
This kept a little thin smile upon her lips....
As an audience William was tough stuff.
He pretended deafness; he never looked.
He did not want to look.
He seemed always to be holding his nose in front of his face to prevent his observation—as men pray into their hats at church.
But once Judy Bowles overheard a phrase or so in his private soliloquy.
“Pack o’ wimmin,” William was saying.
“Dratted petticoats.
_Dang_ ’em.
That’s what I say to ’um.
_Dang_ ’em!
” As a matter of fact, he just fell short of saying it to them.
But his manner said it....
You begin to see how acceptable an addition was young Bealby to this company.
He was not only helpful, immensely helpful, in things material, a vigorous and at first a careful washer-up, an energetic boot-polisher, a most serviceable cleaner and tidier of things, but he was also belief and support.
Undisguisedly he thought the caravan the loveliest thing going, and its three mistresses the most wonderful of people.
His alert eyes followed them about full of an unstinted admiration and interest;
he pricked his ears when Judy opened her mouth, he handed things to Mrs. Geedge.
He made no secret about Madeleine.
When she spoke to him, he lost his breath, he reddened and was embarrassed....
They went across the fields saying that he was the luckiest of finds.
It was fortunate his people had been so ready to spare him.
Judy said boys were a race very cruelly maligned; see how _willing_ he was!
Mrs. Geedge said there was something elfin about Bealby’s little face; Madeleine smiled at the thought of his quaint artlessness.
She knew quite clearly that he’d die for her....
§ 8 There was a little pause as the ladies moved away.
Then William spat and spoke in a note of irrational bitterness.
“Brasted Voolery,” said William, and then loudly and fiercely, “Cam up, y’ode Runt you.
” At these words the white horse started into a convulsive irregular redistribution of its feet, the caravan strained and quivered into motion and Bealby’s wanderings as a caravanner began.
For a time William spoke no more, and Bealby scarcely regarded him.
The light of strange fortunes and deep enthusiasm was in Bealby’s eyes....
“One Thing,” said William, “they don’t ’ave the Sense to lock anythink up—whatever.
” Bealby’s attention was recalled to the existence of his companion.
William’s face was one of those faces that give one at first the impression of a solitary and very conceited nose.
The other features are entirely subordinated to that salient effect.
One sees them later.
His eyes were small and uneven, his mouth apparently toothless, thin-lipped and crumpled, with the upper lip falling over the other in a manner suggestive of a meagre firmness mixed with appetite.
When he spoke he made a faint slobbering sound.
“Everyfink,” he said, “behind there.
” He became confidential.
“I been _in_ there.
I larked about wiv their Fings.
” “They got some choc’late,” he said, lusciously.
“Oo Fine!
” “All sorts of Fings.
” He did not seem to expect any reply from Bealby.
“We going far before we meet ’em?
” asked Bealby.
William’s deafness became apparent.
His mind was preoccupied by other ideas.
One wicked eye came close to Bealby’s face.
“We going to ’ave a bit of choc’late,” he said in a wet desirous voice.
He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the door.
“_You_ get it,” said William with reassuring nods and the mouth much pursed and very oblique.
Bealby shook his head.
“It’s in a little dror, under ’er place where she sleeps.
” Bealby’s head-shake became more emphatic.
“_Yus_, I tell you,” said William.
“No,” said Bealby.
“Choc’late, I tell you,” said William, and ran the tongue of appetite round the rim of his toothless mouth.
“Don’t want choc’late,” said Bealby, thinking of a large lump of it.
“Go on,” said William.
“Nobody won’t see you....
” “_Go_ it!
” said William....
“You’re afraid,” said William....
“Here, _I_’ll go,” said William, losing self-control.
“You just ’old these reins.
” Bealby took the reins.
William got up and opened the door of the caravan.
Then Bealby realized his moral responsibility—and, leaving the reins, clutched William firmly by his baggy nether garments.
They were elderly garments, much sat upon.
“Don’t be a Vool,” said William struggling.
“Leago my slack.
” Something partially gave way, and William’s head came round to deal with Bealby.
“What you mean pullin’ my cloes orf me?
” “That,”—he investigated.
“Take me a Nour to sew up.
” “I ain’t going to steal,” shouted Bealby into the ear of William.
“Nobody arst you to steal—” “Nor you neither,” said Bealby.
The caravan bumped heavily against a low garden wall, skidded a little and came to rest.
William sat down suddenly.
The white horse, after a period of confusion with its legs, tried the flavour of some overhanging lilac branches and was content.
“Gimme those reins,” said William.
“You be the Brastedest Young Vool....
” “Sittin’ ’ere,” said William presently, “chewin’ our teeth, when we might be eatin’ choc’late....
” “I ’ent got no use for _you_,” said William, “blowed if I ’ave....
” Then the thought of his injuries returned to him.
“I’d make you sew ’em up yourself, darned if I wount—on’y you’d go running the brasted needle into me....
Nour’s work there is—by the feel of it....
Mor’n nour....
Goddobe done, too....
All I got....
” “I’ll give you Sumpfin, you little Beace, ’fore I done wi’ you.
” “I wouldn’t steal ’er choc’lates,” said young Bealby, “not if I was starving.
” “Eh?
” shouted William.
“_Steal!
_” shouted Bealby.
“I’ll steal ye, ’fore I done with ye,” said William.
“Tearin’ my cloes for me....
Oh!
Cam _up_, y’old Runt.
We don’t want _you_ to stop and lissen.
Cam _up_, I tell you!
” § 8 They found the ladies rather, it seemed, by accident than design, waiting upon a sandy common rich with purple heather and bordered by woods of fir and spruce.
They had been waiting some time, and it was clear that the sight of the yellow caravan relieved an accumulated anxiety.
Bealby rejoiced to see them.
His soul glowed with the pride of chocolate resisted and William overcome.
He resolved to distinguish himself over the preparation of the midday meal.
It was a pleasant little island of green they chose for their midday pitch, a little patch of emerald turf amidst the purple, a patch already doomed to removal, as a bare oblong and a pile of rolled-up turfs witnessed.
This pile and a little bank of heather and bramble promised shelter from the breeze, and down the hill a hundred yards away was a spring and a built-up pool.
This spot lay perhaps fifty yards away from the high road and one reached it along a rutty track which had been made by the turf cutters.
And overhead was the glorious sky of an English summer, with great clouds like sunlit, white-sailed ships, the Constable sky.
The white horse was hobbled and turned out to pasture among the heather, and William was sent off to get congenial provender at the nearest public house.
“William!
” shouted Mrs. Bowles as he departed, shouting confidentially into his ear, “Get your clothes mended.
” “Eh?
” said William.
“Mend your clothes.
” “Yah!
’E did that,” said William viciously with a movement of self-protection, and so went.
Nobody watched him go.
Almost sternly they set to work upon the luncheon preparation as William receded.
“William,” Mrs. Bowles remarked, as she bustled with the patent cooker, putting it up wrong way round so that afterwards it collapsed, “William—takes offence.
Sometimes I think he takes offence almost too often....
Did you have any difficulty with him, Dick?
” “It wasn’t anything, miss,” said Bealby meekly.
Bealby was wonderful with the firelighting, and except that he cracked a plate in warming it, quite admirable as a cook.
He burnt his fingers twice—and liked doing it; he ate his portion with instinctive modesty on the other side of the caravan and he washed up—as Mr. Mergleson had always instructed him to do.
Mrs. Bowles showed him how to clean knives and forks by sticking them into the turf.
A little to his surprise these ladies lit and smoked cigarettes.
They sat about and talked perplexingly.
Clever stuff.
Then he had to get water from the neighbouring brook and boil the kettle for an early tea.
Madeleine produced a charmingly bound little book and read in it, the other two professed themselves anxious for the view from a neighbouring hill.
They produced their sensible spiked walking sticks such as one does not see in England; they seemed full of energy.
“You go,” Madeleine had said, “while I and Dick stay here and make tea.
I’ve walked enough to-day....
” So Bealby, happy to the pitch of ecstacy, first explored the wonderful interior of the caravan,—there was a dresser, a stove, let-down chairs and tables and all manner of things,—and then nursed the kettle to the singing stage on the patent cooker while the beautiful lady reclined close at hand on a rug.
“Dick!
” she said.
He had forgotten he was Dick.
“Dick!
” He remembered his personality with a start.
“Yes, miss!
” He knelt up, with a handful of twigs in his hand and regarded her.
“_Well_, Dick,” she said.
He remained in flushed adoration.
There was a little pause and the lady smiled at him an unaffected smile.
“What are you going to be, Dick, when you grow up?
” “I don’t know, miss. I’ve wondered.
” “What would you like to be?
” “Something abroad.
Something—so that you could see things.
” “A soldier?
” “Or a sailor, miss. ” “A sailor sees nothing but the sea.
” “I’d rather be a sailor than a common soldier, miss. ” “You’d like to be an officer?
” “Yes, miss—only—” “One of my very best friends is an officer,” she said, a little irrelevantly it seemed to Bealby.
“I’d be a Norficer like a shot,” said Bealby, “if I ’ad ’arf a chance, miss. ” “Officers nowadays,” she said, “have to be very brave, able men.
” “I know, miss,” said Bealby modestly....
The fire required attention for a little while....
The lady turned over on her elbow.
“What do you think you are _likely_ to be, Dick!
” she asked.
He didn’t know.
“What sort of man is your stepfather?
” Bealby looked at her.
“He isn’t much,” he said.
“What is he?
” Bealby hadn’t the slightest intention of being the son of a gardener.
“’E’s a law-writer.
” “What!
in that village.
” “’E ’as to stay there for ’is ’ealth, miss,” he said.
“Every summer.
’Is ’ealth is very pre-precocious, miss....
” He fed his fire with a few judiciously administered twigs.
“What was your own father, Dick?
” With that she opened a secret door in Bealby’s imagination.
All stepchildren have those dreams.
With him they were so frequent and vivid that they had long since become a kind of second truth.
He coloured a little and answered with scarcely an interval for reflection.
“’E passed as Mal-travers,” he said.
“Wasn’t that his name?
” “I don’t rightly know, miss. There was always something kep’ from me.
My mother used to say, ‘Artie,’ she used to say: ‘there’s things that some day you must know, things that concern you.
Things about your farver.
But poor as we are now and struggling....
Not yet....
Some day you shall know truly—_who you are_.
’ That was ’ow she said it, miss. ” “And she died before she told you?
” He had almost forgotten that he had killed his mother that very morning.
“Yes, miss,” he said.
She smiled at him and something in her smile made him blush hotly.
For a moment he could have believed she understood.
And indeed, she did understand, and it amused her to find this boy doing—what she herself had done at times—what indeed she felt it was still in her to do.
She felt that most delicate of sympathies, the sympathy of one rather over-imaginative person for another.
But her next question dispelled his doubt of her though it left him red and hot.
She asked it with a convincing simplicity.
“Have you any idea, Dick, have you any guess or suspicion, I mean, who it is you really are?
” “I wish I had, miss,” he said.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter, really—but one can’t help wondering....
” How often he had wondered in his lonely wanderings through that dear city of day-dreams where all the people one knows look out of windows as one passes and the roads are paved with pride!
How often had he decided and changed and decided again!
§ 9 Now suddenly a realization of intrusion shattered this conversation.
A
third person stood over the little encampment, smiling mysteriously and waving a cleek in a slow hieratic manner through the air.
“De licious lill’ corn’,” said the newcomer in tones of benediction.
He met their enquiring eyes with a luxurious smile, “Licious,” he said, and remained swaying insecurely and failing to express some imperfectly apprehended deep meaning by short peculiar movements of the cleek.
He was obviously a golfer astray from some adjacent course—and he had lunched.
“Mighty Join you,” he said, and then very distinctly in a full large voice, “Miss Malleleine Philps.
” There are the penalties of a public and popular life.
“He’s _drunk_,” the lady whispered.
“Get him to go away, Dick.
I can’t endure drunken men.
” She stood up and Bealby stood up.
He advanced in front of her, slowly with his nose in the air, extraordinarily like a small terrier smelling at a strange dog.
“I said Mighty Join you,” the golfer repeated.
His voice was richly excessive.
He was a big heavy man with a short-cropped moustache, a great deal of neck and dewlap and a solemn expression.
“Prup.
Be’r. Introzuze m’self,” he remarked.
He tried to indicate himself by waving his hand towards himself, but finally abandoned the attempt as impossible.
“Ma’ Goo’ Soch’l Poshishun,” he said.
Bealby had a disconcerting sense of retreating footsteps behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Miss Philips standing at the foot of the steps that led up to the fastnesses of the caravan.
“Dick,” she cried with a sharp note of alarm in her voice, “get rid of that man.
” A moment after Bealby heard the door shut and a sound of a key in its lock.
He concealed his true feelings by putting his arms akimbo, sticking his legs wider apart and contemplating the task before him with his head a little on one side.
He was upheld by the thought that the yellow caravan had a window looking upon him....
The newcomer seemed to consider the ceremony of introduction completed.
“_I_ done care for goff,” he said, almost vaingloriously.
He waved his cleek to express his preference.
“Natua,” he said with a satisfaction that bordered on fatuity.
He prepared to come down from the little turfy crest on which he stood to the encampment.
“’Ere!
” said Bealby.
“This is Private.
” The golfer indicated by solemn movements of the cleek that this was understood but that other considerations overrode it.
“You—You got to go!
” cried Bealby in a breathless squeak.
“You get out of here.
” The golfer waved an arm as who should say, “You do not understand, but I forgive you,” and continued to advance towards the fire.
And then Bealby, at the end of his tact, commenced hostilities.
He did so because he felt he had to do something, and he did not know what else to do.
“Wan’ nothin’ but frenly conversation sushus custm’ry webred peel,” the golfer was saying, and then a large fragment of turf hit him in the neck, burst all about him and stopped him abruptly.
He remained for some lengthy moments too astonished for words.
He was not only greatly surprised, but he chose to appear even more surprised than he was.
In spite of the brown-black mould upon his cheek and brow and a slight displacement of his cap, he achieved a sort of dignity.
He came slowly to a focus upon Bealby, who stood by the turf pile grasping a second missile.
The cleek was extended sceptre-wise.
“Replace the—Divot.
” “You go orf,” said Bealby.
“I’ll chuck it if you don’t. I tell you fair.
” “Replace the—DIVOT,” roared the golfer again in a voice of extraordinary power.
“You—you go!
” said Bealby.
“Am I t’ask you.
Third time.
Reshpect—Roos....
Replace the Divot.
” It struck him fully in the face.
He seemed to emerge through the mould.
He was blinking but still dignified.
“Tha’—was intentional,” he said.
