Sinister Street

Alan shook his head.

To Abercrombie and the other immortals Michael came up quickly and breathlessly.

"I say, you chaps, I'm sorry I made such an a.s.s of myself yesterday; I felt chippy over that friend of mine being killed."

"That's all right, old bangabout," said Abercrombie cordially, and the chorus guffawed their forgiveness. They did more. They called him 'Bangs' thereafter, commemorating, as schoolboys use, with an affectionate nickname their esteem.

The next day a letter came for Michael from Mrs. Ross, and impressed with all the clarity of writing much of what he had dimly reached out for in his friends.h.i.+p with Alan. He read the letter first hurriedly on his way to school in the morning; but he read it a second and third time along those serene and intimate streets where he and Alan had walked the day before.

COBBLE PLACE,

_March, 1900_.

_My dearest Michael,_

_You and Alan are the only people to whom I can bear to write to-day. I am grieving most for my young son, because he will have to grow up without his father's splendid example always before him.

I won't write of my own sorrow. I could not._

_My husband, as you know, was very devoted to you and Alan, and he had been quite worried (and so had I) that you and he seemed to have grown away from one another. It was a moment of true delight to him, when he read a long letter from dear old Alan describing his gladness at playing football again with you. Alan expresses himself much less eloquently than you do, but he is as deeply fond of you as I know you are of him. His letters are full of you and your cleverness and popularity; and I pray that all your lives you will pull together for the good. Kenneth used always to admire you both so much for your ability to 'cope with a situation.' He was shot, as you know, leading his men (who adored him) into action.

Ah, how I wish he could lead his own little son into action. You and Alan will have that responsibility now._

_It is sweet of you to thank me for being so 'stunning' to you. It wasn't very difficult. But you know how high my hopes have always been and always will be for you, and I know that you will never disappoint me. There may come times which with your restless, sensitive temperament you will find very hard to bear. Always remember that you have a friend in me. I have suffered very much, and suffering makes the heart yearn to comfort others. Be very chivalrous always, and remember that of all your ideals your mother should be the highest. I hope that you'll be able to come and stay with us soon after Easter. G.o.d bless you, dear boy, and thank you very much for your expression of the sorrow I know you share with me._

_Your loving_

_Maud Ross._

_I wonder if you remember how you used to love Don Quixote as a child. Will you always be a Don Quixote, however much people may laugh? It really means just being a gentleman._

Chapter XIII: _Sentiment_

Back once more upon his pedestal in the frieze, Michael devoted himself to enjoying, while still they were important to his life, the conversation and opinions of the immortals. He gave up worrying about the war and yielded himself entirely either to the blandishments of his seniority in the school or of dreams about himself at Oxford, now within sight of attainment. Four more terms of school would set him free, and he had ambitions to get into the Fifteen in his last year. He would then be able to look back with satisfaction to the accomplishment of something. He actually threw himself into the rowdiest vanguard of Mafeking's celebrators, and accepted the occasion as an excuse to make a noise without being compelled to make the noise alone. These Baccha.n.a.lia of patriotism were very amusing, and perhaps it was a good thing for the populace to be merry; moreover, since he now had Alan to idealize, he could

He spent much time with Alan in discussing Oxford and in building up a most elaborate and logical scheme of their life at the University. He was anxious that Alan should leave the cla.s.sical Lower Sixth, into which he had climbed somewhat hardly, and come to join him in the leisure of the History Sixth. He spoke of Strang whose Captaincy of Cricket shed such l.u.s.tre on the form, of Terry whose Captaincy of Football next year would shed an equal l.u.s.tre. But Alan, having found the journey to the Lower Sixth so arduous, was disinclined to be cheated of the intellectual eminence of the Upper Sixth which had been his Valhalla so long.

Michael and Alan had been looking forward to a visit to Cobble Place during the Easter holidays; but Mrs. Fane was much upset by the idea of being left alone, and Michael had to decline the invitation, which was a great disappointment. In the end he and his mother went to Bournemouth, staying rather grandly at one of the large hotels, and Michael was able to look up some old friends, including Father Moneypenny of St.

Bartholomew's, Mrs. Rewins, their landlady of three years back, and Mr.

Prout.

The pa.s.sion-flower at Esdraelon had grown considerably, but that was the only thing which showed any signs of expansion, unless Mr. Prout's engagement to be married could be accepted as evidence of expansion.

Michael thought it had a contrary effect, and whether from that cause or from his own increased age he found poor Prout sadly dull. It was depressing to hear that unpleasantness was expected at the Easter vestry that year; Michael could not recall any year in which that had not been the case. It was depressing to learn that the People's Churchwarden was still opposed to the a.s.sumption. It was most depressing of all to be informed that Prout saw no prospect of being married for at least five years. Michael, having failed with Prout, tried to recapture the emotion of his first religious experience at St. Bartholomew's. But the church that had once seemed so inspiring now struck him as dingily and poorly designed, without any of the mystery which once had made it beautiful.

He wondered if everything that formerly had appealed to his imagination were going to turn out dross, and he made an expedition to Christchurch Priory to test this idea. Here he was relieved to find himself able to recapture the perfect thrill of his first visit, and he spent a rich day wandering between the grey church and the watery meadows near by, about whose plashy levels the green rushes were springing up in the fleecy April weather.

Michael concluded that all impermanent emotions of beauty proved that it was merely the emotion which had created an illusion of beauty, and he was glad to have discovered for himself a touchstone for his aesthetic judgments in the future. He would have liked to see Alan in the cloistral glooms of the Priory, and thought how he would have enhanced with his own eternity of cla.s.sic shape the knights and ladies praying there. Michael sympathized with the trousered boy whom Flaxman, contrary to every canon, might almost be said to have perpetrated. He felt slightly muddled between cla.s.sic and romantic art, and could not make up his mind whether Flaxman's attempt or the mediaeval sculptor's achievement were worthier of admiration. He tried to apply his own test, and came to the conclusion that Flaxman was really all wrong. He decided that he only liked the trousered boy because the figure gave him sentimental pleasure, and he was sure that true cla.s.sical art was not sentimental. Finally he got himself in a complete muddle, sitting among these hollow chantries and pondering art's evaluations; so he left the Priory behind him, and went dreamily through the water-meadows under the spell of a simple beauty that needed no a.n.a.lysis. Oxford would be like this, he thought; a place of bells and singing streams and towers against the horizon.

He waited by a stile, watching the sky of which sunset had made a tranced archipelago set in a tideless sea. The purple islands stood out more and more distinct against the sheeted gold that lapped their indentations; then in a few moments the gold went out to primrose, the purple isles were grey as mice, and by an imperceptible breath of time became merged in a luminous green that held the young moon led downwards through the west by one great sulphur star.

This speculation of the sky made Michael late for dinner, and gave his mother an opportunity to complain of his daylong desertion of her.

"I rather wish we hadn't come to Bournemouth," said Michael. "I think it's a bad place for us to choose to come together. I remember last time we stayed here you were always criticizing me."

"I suppose Bournemouth must have a bad effect on you, dearest boy," said Mrs. Fane in her most gentle, most discouraging voice.

Michael laughed a little bitterly.

"You're wonderful at always being able to put me in the wrong," he said.

"You're sometimes not very polite, are you, nowadays? But I dare say you'll grow out of this curious manner you've lately adopted towards me."

"Was I rude?" asked Michael, quickly penitent.

"I think you were rather rude, dear," said Mrs. Fane. "Of course, I don't want you never to have an opinion of your own, and I quite realize that school has a disastrous effect on manners, but you didn't apologize very gracefully for being late for dinner, did you, dear?"

"I'm sorry. I won't ever be again," said Michael shortly.

Mrs. Fane sighed, and the meal progressed in silence. Michael, however, could never bear to sulk, and he braced himself to be pleasant.

"You ought to come over to Christchurch, mother. Shall we drive over one day?"

"Well, I'm not very fond of looking at churches," said Mrs. Fane. "But if you want to go, let us. I always like you to do everything you want."

Michael sighed at the ingenuity of his mother's method, and changed the subject to their fellow-guests.

"That's rather a pretty girl, don't you think?"

"Where, dear?" asked Mrs. Fane, putting up her lorgnette and staring hard at the wife of a clergyman sitting across the room from their table.

"No, no, mother," said Michael, beaming with pleasure at the delightful vagueness of his mother which only distressed him when it shrouded his own sensations. "The next table--the girl in pink."

"Yes, decidedly," said Mrs. Fane. "But dreadfully common. I can't think why those sort of people come to nice hotels. I suppose they read about them in railway guides."

"I don't think she's very common," said Michael.

"Well, dear, you're not quite at the best age for judging, are you?"

"Hang it, mother, I'm seventeen."

"It's terrible to think of," said Mrs. Fane. "And only such a little while ago you were the dearest baby boy. Then Stella must be sixteen,"

she went on. "I think it's time she came back from the Continent."

"What about her first concert?"

"Oh, I must think a lot before I settle when that is to be."

"But Stella is counting on it being very soon."