Bealby; A Holiday — The Unobtrusive Parting Part Two
“_Dick!
_” The Professor got up and strolled round behind the caravan.
Then he returned.
“No boy there.
” “He _heard_!
” said Mrs. Bowles in a large whisper and making round wonder-eyes.
“She _says_,” said Douglas, “that the chances are he’s got into the secret passages....
” The Professor strolled out to the road and looked up it and then down upon the roofs of Winthorpe-Sutbury.
“No,” he said.
“He’s mizzled.
” “He’s only gone away for a bit,” said Mrs. Geedge.
“He does sometimes after lunch.
He’ll come back to wash up.
” “He’s probably taking a snooze among the yew bushes before facing the labours of washing up,” said Mrs. Bowles.
“He _can’t_ have mizzled.
You see — in there — He can’t by any chance have taken his luggage!
” She got up and clambered—with a little difficulty because of its piled-up position, into the caravan.
“It’s all right,” she called out of the door.
“His little parsivel is still here.
” Her head disappeared again.
“I don’t think he’d go away like this,” said Madeleine.
“After all, what is there for him to go to—even if he is Lady Laxton’s missing boy....
” “I don’t believe he heard a word of it,” said Mrs. Geedge....
Mrs. Bowles reappeared, with a curious-looking brown paper parcel in her hand.
She descended carefully.
She sat down by the fire and held the parcel on her knees.
She regarded it and her companions waggishly and lit a fresh cigarette.
“Our link with Dick,” she said, with the cigarette in her mouth.
She felt the parcel, she poised the parcel, she looked at it more and more waggishly.
“I _wonder_,” she said.
Her expression became so waggish that her husband knew she was committed to behaviour of the utmost ungentlemanliness.
He had long ceased to attempt restraint in these moods.
She put her head on one side and tore open the corner of the parcel just a little way.
“A tin can,” she said in a stage whisper.
She enlarged the opening.
“Blades of grass,” she said.
The Professor tried to regard it humorously.
“Even if you have ceased to be decent you can still be frank....
I think, now, my dear, you might just straightforwardly undo the parcel.
” She did.
Twelve unsympathetic eyes surveyed the evidences of Bealby’s utter poverty.
“He’s coming,” cried Madeleine suddenly.
Judy repacked hastily, but it was a false alarm.
“I said he’d mizzled,” said the Professor.
“And without washing up!
” wailed Madeleine, “I couldn’t have thought it of him....
” § 8 But Bealby had not “mizzled,” although he was conspicuously not in evidence about the camp.
There was neither sight nor sound of him for all the time they sat about the vestiges of their meal.
They talked of him and of topics arising out of him, and whether the captain should telegraph to Lady Laxton, “Boy practically found.
” “I’d rather just find him,” said the captain, “and anyhow until we get hold of him we don’t know it’s her particular boy.
” Then they talked of washing-up and how detestable it was.
And suddenly the two husbands, seeing their advantage, renewed their proposals that the caravanners should put up at the golflinks hotel, and have baths and the comforts of civilization for a night or so—and anyhow walk thither for tea.
And as William had now returned—he was sitting on the turf afar off smoking a nasty-looking short clay pipe—they rose up and departed.
But Captain Douglas and Miss Philips for some reason did not go off exactly with the others, but strayed apart, straying away more and more into a kind of solitude....
First the four married people and then the two lovers disappeared over the crest of the downs....
§ 9 For a time, except for its distant sentinel, the caravan seemed absolutely deserted, and then a clump of bramble against the wall of the old chalk pit became agitated and a small rueful disillusioned white-smeared little Bealby crept back into the visible universe again.
His heart was very heavy.
The time had come to go.
And he did not want to go.
He had loved the caravan.
He had adored Madeleine.
He would go, but he would go beautifully—touchingly.
He would wash up before he went, he would make everything tidy, he would leave behind him a sense of irreparable loss....
With a mournful precision he set about this undertaking.
If Mergleson could have seen, Mergleson would have been amazed....
He made everything look wonderfully tidy.
Then in the place where she had sat, lying on her rug, he found her favourite book, a small volume of Swinburne’s poems very beautifully bound.
Captain Douglas had given it to her.
Bealby handled it with a kind of reverence.
So luxurious it was, so unlike the books in Bealby’s world, so altogether of her quality....
Strange forces prompted him.
For a time he hesitated.
Then decision came with a rush.
He selected a page, drew the stump of a pencil from his pocket, wetted it very wet and, breathing hard, began to write that traditional message, “Farewell.
Remember Art Bealby.
” To this he made an original addition: “I washt up before I went.
” Then he remembered that so far as this caravan went he was not Art Bealby at all.
He renewed the wetness of his pencil and drew black lines athwart the name of “Art Bealby” until it was quite unreadable; then across this again and pressing still deeper so that the subsequent pages re-echoed it he wrote these singular words “Ed rightful Earl Shonts.
” Then he was ashamed, and largely obliterated this by still more forcible strokes.
Finally above it all plainly and nakedly he wrote “Dick Mal-travers....
” He put down the book with a sigh and stood up.
Everything was beautifully in order.
But could he not do something yet?
There came to him the idea of wreathing the entire camping place with boughs of yew.
It would look lovely—and significant.
He set to work.
At first he toiled zealously, but yew is tough to get and soon his hands were painful.
He cast about for some easier way, and saw beneath the hind wheels of the caravan great green boughs—one particularly a splendid long branch....
It seemed to him that it would be possible to withdraw this branch from the great heap of sticks and stones that stayed up the hind wheels of the caravan.
It seemed to him that that was so.
He was mistaken, but that was his idea.
He set to work to do it.
It was rather more difficult to manage than he had supposed; there were unexpected ramifications, wider resistances.
Indeed, the thing seemed rooted.
Bealby was a resolute youngster at bottom.
He warmed to his task....
He tugged harder and harder....
§ 10 How various is the quality of humanity!
About Bealby there was ever an imaginative touch; he was capable of romance, of gallantries, of devotion.
William was of a grosser clay, slave of his appetites, a materialist.
Such men as William drive one to believe in born inferiors, in the existence of a lower sort, in the natural inequality of men.
While Bealby was busy at his little gentle task of reparation, a task foolish perhaps and not too ably conceived, but at any rate morally gracious, William had no thought in the world but the satisfaction of those appetites that the consensus of all mankind has definitely relegated to the lower category.
And which Heaven has relegated to the lower regions of our frame.
He came now slinking towards the vestiges of the caravanners’ picnic, and no one skilled in the interpretation of the human physiognomy could have failed to read the significance of the tongue tip that drifted over his thin oblique lips.
He came so softly towards the encampment that Bealby did not note him.
Partly William thought of remnants of food, but chiefly he was intent to drain the bottles.
Bealby had stuck them all neatly in a row a little way up the hill.
There was a cider bottle with some heel-taps of cider, William drank that; then there was nearly half a bottle of hock and William drank that, then there were the drainings of the Burgundy and Apollinaris.
It was all drink to William.
And after he had drained each bottle William winked at the watching angels and licked his lips, and patted the lower centres of his being with a shameless base approval.
Then fired by alcohol, robbed of his last vestiges of self-control, his thoughts turned to the delicious chocolates that were stored in a daintily beribboned box in the little drawers beneath the sleeping bunk of Miss Philips.
There was a new brightness in his eye, a spot of pink in either cheek.
With an expression of the lowest cunning he reconnoitred Bealby.
Bealby was busy about something at the back end of the caravan, tugging at something.
With swift stealthy movements of an entirely graceless sort, William got up into the front of the caravan.
Just for a moment he hesitated before going in.
He craned his neck to look round the side at the unconscious Bealby, wrinkled the vast nose into an unpleasant grimace and then—a crouching figure of appetite—he crept inside.
Here they were!
He laid his hand in the drawer, halted listening....
What was that?...
Suddenly the caravan swayed.
He stumbled, and fear crept into his craven soul.
The caravan lurched.
It was moving....
Its hind wheels came to the ground with a crash....
He took a step doorward and was pitched sideways and thrown upon his knees....
Then he was hurled against the dresser and hit by a falling plate.
A cup fell and smashed and the caravan seemed to leap and bound....
Through the little window he had a glimpse of yew bushes hurrying upward.
The caravan was going down hill....
“Lummy!
” said William, clutching at the bunks to hold himself upright....
“Ca-arnt be that drink!
” said William, aspread and aghast....
He attempted the door.
“Crikey!
Here!
Hold in!
My shin!
” ...
“’Tis thut Brasted Vool of a Boy!
” “....
” said William.
“....
——....
[Illustration: —— —— ——.
” “——.
”] § 11 The caravan party soon came to its decision.
They would stay the night in the hotel.
And so as soon as they had had some tea they decided to go back and make William bring the caravan and all the ladies’ things round to the hotel.
With characteristic eagerness, Professor Bowles led the way.
And so it was Professor Bowles who first saw the release of the caravan.
He barked.
One short sharp bark.
“Whup!
” he cried, and very quickly, “Whatstheboydoing?
” Then quite a different style of noise, with the mouth open “Wha—hoop!
” Then he set off running very fast down towards the caravan, waving his arms and shouting as he ran, “Yaaps!
You _Idiot_.
Yaaps!
” The others were less promptly active.
Down the slope they saw Bealby, a little struggling active Bealby, tugging away at a yew branch until the caravan swayed with his efforts, and then—then there was a movement as though the thing tossed its head and reared, and a smash as the heap of stuff that stayed up its hind wheels collapsed....
It plunged like a horse with a dog at its heels, it lurched sideways, and then with an air of quiet deliberation started down the grass slope to the road and Winthorpe-Sutbury....
Professor Bowles sped in pursuit like the wind, and Mrs. Bowles after a gasping moment set off after her lord, her face round and resolute.
Mr. Geedge followed at a more dignified pace, making the only really sound suggestion that was offered on the occasion.
“Hue!
Stop it!
” cried Mr. Geedge, for all the world like his great prototype at the Balkan Conference.
And then like a large languid pair of scissors he began to run.
Mrs. Geedge after some indefinite moments decided to see the humour of it all, and followed after her lord, in a fluttering rush, emitting careful little musical giggles as she ran, giggles that she had learnt long ago from a beloved schoolfellow.
Captain Douglas and Miss Philips were some way behind the others, and the situation had already developed considerably before they grasped what was happening.
Then obeying the instincts of a soldier the captain came charging to support the others, and Miss Madeleine Philips after some wasted gestures realized that nobody was looking at her, and sat down quietly on the turf until this paralyzing state of affairs should cease.
The caravan remained the centre of interest.
Without either indecent haste or any complete pause it pursued its way down the road towards the tranquil village below.
Except for the rumbling of its wheels and an occasional concussion it made very little sound: once or twice there was a faint sound of breaking crockery from its interior and once the phantom of an angry yell, but that was all.
There was an effect of discovered personality about the thing.
This vehicle, which had hitherto been content to play a background part, a yellow patch amidst the scenery, was now revealing an individuality.
It was purposeful and touched with a suggestion of playfulness, at once kindly and human; it had its thoughtful instants, its phases of quick decision, yet never once did it altogether lose a certain mellow dignity.
There was nothing servile about it; never for a moment, for example, did it betray its blind obedience to gravitation.
It was rather as if it and gravitation were going hand in hand.
It came out into the road, butted into the bank, swept round, meditated for a full second, and then shafts foremost headed downhill, going quietly faster and faster and swaying from bank to bank.
The shafts went before it like arms held out....
It had a quality—as if it were a favourite elephant running to a beloved master from whom it had been over-long separated.
Or a slightly intoxicated and altogether happy yellow guinea-pig making for some coveted food....
At a considerable distance followed Professor Bowles, a miracle of compact energy, running so fast that he seemed only to touch the ground at very rare intervals....
And then, dispersedly, in their order and according to their natures, the others....
There was fortunately very little on the road.
There was a perambulator containing twins, whose little girl guardian was so fortunate as to be high up on the bank gathering blackberries.
A ditcher, ditching.
A hawker lost in thought.
His cart, drawn by a poor little black screw of a pony and loaded with the cheap flawed crockery that is so popular among the poor.
A dog asleep in the middle of the village street....
Amidst this choice of objects the caravan displayed a whimsical humanity.
It reduced the children in the perambulator to tears, but passed.
It might have reduced them to a sort of red-currant jelly.
It lurched heavily towards the ditcher and spared him, it chased the hawker up the bank, it whipped off a wheel from the cart of crockery (which after an interval of astonishment fell like a vast objurgation) and then it directed its course with a grim intentness towards the dog.
It just missed the dog.
He woke up not a moment too soon.
He fled with a yelp of dismay.
And then the caravan careered on a dozen yards further, lost energy and—the only really undignified thing in its whole career—stood on its head in a wide wet ditch.
It did this with just the slightest lapse into emphasis.
_There!
_ It was as if it gave a grunt—and perhaps there was the faintest suggestion of William in that grunt—and then it became quite still....
For a time the caravan seemed finished and done.
Its steps hung from its upper end like the tongue of a tired dog.
Except for a few minute noises as though it was scratching itself inside, it was as inanimate as death itself.
But up the hill road the twins were weeping, the hawker and the ditcher were saying raucous things, the hawker’s pony had backed into the ditch and was taking ill-advised steps, for which it was afterwards to be sorry, amidst his stock-in-trade, and Professor Bowles, Mrs. Bowles, Mr. Geedge, Captain Douglas and Mrs. Geedge were running—running—one heard the various patter of their feet.
And then came signs of life at the upward door of the caravan, a hand, an arm, an active investigating leg seeking a hold, a large nose, a small intent vicious eye; in fact—William.
William maddened.
Professor Bowles had reached the caravan.
With a startling agility he clambered up by the wheels and step and confronted the unfortunate driver.
It was an occasion for mutual sympathy rather than anger, but the Professor was hasty, efficient and unsympathetic with the lower classes, and William’s was an ill-regulated temperament.
“You consummate _ass_!
” began Professor Bowles....
When William heard Professor Bowles say this, incontinently he smote him in the face, and when Professor Bowles was smitten in the face he grappled instantly and very bravely and resolutely with William.
For a moment they struggled fearfully, they seemed to be endowed instantaneously with innumerable legs, and then suddenly they fell through the door of the caravan into the interior, their limbs seemed to whirl for a wonderful instant and then they were swallowed up....
The smash was tremendous.
You would not have thought there was nearly so much in the caravan still left to get broken....
A healing silence....
At length smothered noises of still inadequate adjustment within....
The village population in a state of scared delight appeared at a score of points and converged upon the catastrophe.
Sounds of renewed dissension between William and the Professor inside the rearing yellow bulk, promised further interests and added an element of mystery to this manifest disaster.
§ 12 As Bealby, still grasping his great branch of yew, watched these events, a sense of human futility invaded his youthful mind.
For the first time he realized the gulf between intention and result.
He had meant so well....
He perceived it would be impossible to explain....
The thought of even attempting to explain things to Professor Bowles was repellent to him....
He looked about him with round despairful eyes.
He selected a direction which seemed to promise the maximum of concealment with the minimum of conversational possibility, and in that direction and without needless delay he set off, eager to turn over an entirely fresh page in his destiny as soon as possible....
To get away, the idea possessed all his being.
From the crest of the downs a sweet voice floated after his retreating form and never overtook him.
“Di-ick!
” § 13 Then presently Miss Philips arose to her feet, gathered her skirts in her hand and with her delicious chin raised and an expression of countenance that was almost businesslike, descended towards the gathering audience below.
She wore wide-flowing skirts and came down the hill in Artemesian strides.
It was high time that somebody looked at her.
CHAPTER V THE SEEKING OF BEALBY
