Aliens Part 11

"There were three other chaps there as pupils, and it so happened that they were every one from the great public schools. One was from Haileybury, one from Eton, and another from Winchester. When they found I was not one of them they ragged me, of course, which was good and proper. I often think the ragging in public schools is one of the few useful things they do there. When these men found I intended to study my profession they thought I was stark mad. They were all nice young fellows and had money coming to them. Why should they bother? They thought I ought to look at it in the same light. Eventually I did. It was three to one. I found out that any amount of study and genuine merit would not carry me along in a profession. It was all well enough to be an engineer; but the main thing was to be a gentleman. Gradually I dropped the study, took afternoons off to go down west and began to worry my mother for more money.

"So it went on for the three years, my mother patiently waiting for me to get through my time and start in earnest as a professional man. My brother was at school, the one near Maldon, and was giving her a lot of trouble. I only saw him during the vacations. He was a big fellow, while as you see, I'm rather on the small side. I don't know that that should cause anybody any amus.e.m.e.nt! But because I was twenty and he was thirteen and nearly as tall as I was, he was for ever laughing. It seemed to him a huge joke. And as I thought about it the idea came to me that even nature was on his side and against me. It almost seemed as though she'd not only given him the brains, but the stature to be the great man my father and mother longed for. He was good-looking too, I remember, even then. My mother had to pack off a servant that vacation, a silly giggling little girl.

"I couldn't very well say anything to him, because I was getting into hot water myself for spending money. And when he wrote in mid-term for an extra sovereign, my mother blamed me for setting him a bad example.

Lord! I didn't have a sovereign a year when I was thirteen. Times had changed.

"I had been drifting along for some time, expecting when my time was up to be put on the staff, as was usual with pupils. They usually gave us a job until we could use our influence to get an appointment somewhere.

But in my case it didn't happen so. The day my three years' term was up, a beautiful spring day, the junior partner informed me that I could consider myself finished, and handed me a reference that, for all the use it was, might have gone into the waste-paper basket then and there.

"I was staggered. I had no idea of how to get a job. Why had I been pushed out? Simply because the firm had found out I had no influence with Sir Gregory Gotch, no standing socially at all. I was an alien in their ranks. I went out of that office with all the externals of a gentleman and a public-school boy, but inwardly an outsider as you may say. One thing I had though, and that was the firm conviction that 'pull' and not merit counted. I had to get some one to 'influence' a job in my favour. It would not have been gentlemanly to answer an advertis.e.m.e.nt!

"My mother thought at once of one of my uncles, who had retired from the sea and was now a marine superintendent in Fenchurch Street. I called to see him; but he was abroad attending to a damaged s.h.i.+p. I think it was a month before I happened to meet the Winchester boy who had been in the works with me. Quite by accident it was. Let me see now----"

Mr. Carville paused again, and leaning over to one of the geranium tubs knocked his pipe out. Suddenly he laughed.

"Why," he said, "I'm telling you the whole story."

"That's what we want you to do," I said, and the others nodded.

"The trouble is, you know," went on Mr. Carville, "one thing leads to another. You can't understand what I am without knowing how my brother and I came to be so--antagonistic. And to explain that it's necessary to show you how I grew up in this professional, easy-going, sn.o.bby atmosphere and took it all in, while he, my brother, cut out his own course and went his own way in defiance of everything. I remember now! I saw that Winchester chap--his father was a wine-merchant and Master of the Tinkers' Company--at Lord's. I had nothing to do, and instead of hunting round to get a job, I went to Lord's to see the cricket. There was old Belvoir clumping away at the nets. Engineering! Pooh! He had eight hundred a year his aunt left him--catch him practising as an engineer. He was going on a tour of all the Mediterranean watering-places with an M.C.C. team. Well, we had lunch in the pavilion, and I mentioned in a jolly sort of way that I'd been jounced out of the office. He said it was 'a bally shame,' Oh, I did envy that chap his eight hundred a year! Life seemed to him one grand, sweet song.

Cricket, Riviera, dances, clubs, country houses, everything. He was fenced in on every side, safe from the vulgarity of the world. He was hall-marked--a public-school man. He was a citizen of his world, I was an alien. He was rich. I had not even a savings-bank book.

"I was going away after the match when I discovered he had been thinking about me. That was Belvoir all over. He was a gentleman, and a gentleman to my mind is like an artist in one thing only, he is born--and then made. That was Belvoir. He had privileges as an English gentleman, but he had also duties. We had been together in the shop as pupils; that gave me a claim on him. He said he had an uncle in Yorks.h.i.+re who was chairman of an engineering firm, and he would write to him. More than that, he did write and I got an appointment in their London office in Victoria Street. Good old Belvoir! Remember Spion Kop? That was the last of Belvoir. Lord's, Riviera, clubs--Spion Kop....

"I settled down into that berth in Victoria Street as a cat settles into a cus.h.i.+on. I was warm, comfortable, well-paid, well-dressed and had all I wanted in reason. I lived at home and commuted to the city every day, travelling first cla.s.s, living first cla.s.s. I settled down. I was on the way to what my mother and father had in view, a comfortable position.

"My brother was at school, of course, down near Maldon. I never really got hold of my mother's private opinion of her second son. It was a mystery to me why she gave him so much pocket-money, I came to the conclusion afterwards that since she considered it her duty to give me a good start and put by all she could for my capital in business, there would be very little later on for my brother, so she was giving him tips now instead. She was able to say, 'I never stinted you at school, Francis,' It might have been better for him if she had. And yet, I don't know. I've come to think that men like my brother go their own road anyhow. Their hereditary nature is so strong that environment makes no difference, you might say.

"The main difference between us, when I was twenty-two and he was fifteen, was the subject of women. That sounds strange, I suppose. But go back. What did you know about women at fifteen? Or about yourself? My brother knew no more, but he _acted_ on the little he did know, we were afraid. Especially we who grow up in such a social life as I have been talking of; we are afraid. My brother was never afraid of anything. If he wants a thing he makes one bound and grabs it. If he hates a thing he makes another bound and hits it. I've seen a man flinch just because my brother looked at him. As for women, humph! He had only to hold up his hand.

"Now I don't offer it as a proof of virtue, but at twenty-one I had not bothered with girls much. I will explain in a minute why this was the case. For the same reason I did not smoke or play cards. Let me get back to my brother.

"One mid-term my mother got a letter from the head-master saying he regretted that he had been under the painful necessity of expelling Francis Carville from the school. He had been caught _flagrante delicto_, as the old chap said, and one of the maids had been dismissed.

You can imagine how a thing like that upset my mother. Old Colonial morality was pretty strict I have read, and in any case when these things happen in your own family it is very different from reading about them in the Press. But what raised our worry still higher was the curious fact that although he had been expelled and put on the London train at Maldon, he hadn't turned up."

There was another pause as Mr. Carville struck a match. It was nearly dark and we watched his face reflecting the glow. Suddenly Bill realized the time and rose.

"Won't you stay to dinner?" she asked.

"No thank you," he said. "Mrs. Carville's going into Newark this evening, I believe, and we're going to take the boys to a show." He rose. "I must get back. Good-night."

"Come in and finish your story," said Mac.

"All right. Good-night and thank you." He lifted his hat and stepped off the porch.

CHAPTER VII

DIAPORESIS

The discussion at dinner that evening was unexpectedly animated. We all had our theories to propound, our notes to compare and our criticisms to offer. To this I contributed my share, but reserved a conclusion to which I had been approaching all through the tale. I wished to submit it to the tests of coffee and music, to become more familiar with it before I exposed it to Bill's shrewd scrutiny and Mac's sardonic judgment.

To my surprise they insisted upon the strangeness of the story.

"To my mind," I said, "the story can scarcely be called strange, so far."

"I wonder where his brother got to after he was expelled," said Bill.

"Do you think Cecil's man is the brother?" asked Mac.

"You mean interesting," I continued.

"Well," said Mac, "interesting if you like. That don't make it any the less strange. Is Cecil's man----?"

"The really strange part of this man's story," I declared, oracularly, "is the fact that he is telling it; mark that! And a stranger thing still is the _way_ he is telling it!"

"Ex cathedra!" said Mac, sarcastically.

"Explain it all over again," said Bill.

I did so, but they saw no brilliance in my explanation. They were artistic, but not artistic enough to appreciate the nuance of the story-telling art. Perhaps this is nothing against them. Each to his trade. And yet--_sugar-plums_!

It pleased my friend that evening to undertake the rendering of a work which, unfortunately, can only be butchered on a piano. Of all Wagner's music the _Walkuren_ Ride is least adapted to our homely instrument.

Nevertheless the wild clatter, the exciting crepitation of the treble, the thunderous booming of the ba.s.s, and above all the tremendous crash with which it ends, always stimulates me to fresh mental effort. I saw plainly, as I listened, that my surmise was correct. I saw that I had no need to wait for the explanation of the phrase: "An author? Ah!" I saw, in short, that Mr. Carville, whatever he might be in the eyes of his wife, his brother, or of the world, was a potential artist. As I recapitulated to myself the various points in his tale, the careful balancing of his narrative with sententious criticism of life, the occasional fiction, to give verisimilitude to trivial events (the incident of Belvoir for example), and particularly his abrupt departure in the dusk, leaving us guessing, I felt certain that for me his tale would have a denouement of peculiar interest. Already I perceived the deliberate attempt of the man to convey the obscure and rare emotion which dominated his intellectual life.

Afterwards, in the studio, I suggested that the story of Turner's sugar-plums might throw some light upon Mr. Carville's story.

"How?" said Mac, who is reluctant to see profane hands touch the master-colourist's memory. I explained again.

"He is taking a lot of romantic episodes, mixing them up, adding a little imaginary landscape and offering it to us," I said. "We asked for a story. We shall have it, says he."

"He's such an ordinary looking chap," began Mac. Bill laughed.

"So am I," I retorted with a grin.

"You know what I mean," he protested. "I meant ordinary in voice and general tone. But if what you say is true he must be a d.a.m.n clever chap."

"An artist," I agreed.

"I can't make him out," said Bill, sewing busily. "What in the world has all this to do with his children? _I_ want to know where they met."

"So you will, dear lady, never fear," I said, smiling. "I think Mr.

Carville understands your desire perfectly."

"Oh, I know I'm a very simple person----" she began.