The Sailor Part 60

A little after five had struck by the church of St. Clement at the bottom of Brinkworth Street, he rose again from his bed. He flung on his clothes, draped a scarf round his neck in lieu of a collar, crept downstairs and out of the front door of No. 14 into the streets of the metropolis.

This morning there was a coolness in the air. And as soon as he felt it he was able to think more clearly. A sharp thrill ran through his brain. It was hardly three months since he had roamed the streets of London in the morning hours with tumult in his heart.

Since that night he had explored whole continents; hardly anything remained of many former worlds he had inhabited; but there was a spear in the side of Ulysses, and he must always remember that none could pluck it out.

As he reached the bottom of the street and Thames in his majesty smiled grimly upon him, he knew that he was in terrible case. He was no more than a frail mortal, caught in the toils of irresistible forces. What hope had such a one of outfacing the decrees of fate?

It was not until he had walked for an hour by the waters of Thames that he returned to Brinkwater Street, to breakfast. A letter with the Woking postmark was at the side of his plate. It said:

Greylands.

Thursday.

MY DEAR MR. HARPER,

Your view of 'The Egoist' is a new light to me on a most wonderful book. It is not exactly how I see it myself, but I somehow feel you are very near the truth. But when you say that a man such as Willoughby is not quite sane there is a point for argument. You are also too severe, I think, in your judgment of the author of his being.

You say he could never really have known what life is. There I frankly don't agree with you, but of course we look at things so differently, and that is the great charm of your long letter. This is a very stupid one, but I won't apologize for it, because it is the best I can write, and I shall not have the presumption to try to meet you on your own ground. You have sailed the High Seas, whereas I have only read about them. Looking back on the conversations we have had I see you as a master mariner. This is not an idle compliment. You have not yet gained your full stature, you have yet to declare yourself in your power, but believe me you have the strength of a giant, and if such a wish is not an impertinence I hope you will have the courage to achieve your destiny.

Yours always most sincerely, MARY PRIDMORE.

This letter was like a draft of wine to the Sailor. He read it many times before that day was out, but he turned to it again and again long after he knew every word by heart. It gave him a new zest for his work. He had quite a good day with the pen. Under these high auspices he took new courage to go on. Much was asked of him by this sacred intimacy. By deeds alone could he show himself worthy.

In reply to this letter he wrote a very long one to Miss Pridmore, at Greylands, near Woking. It was not so discreet and carefully considered as the one he had intended to write; he let himself go far more than he felt he ought to have done. And the reply he received the day before the fortnight was up was similarly expansive and just as entrancing as the former one. But the whole effect was marred by a grievous disappointment. Instead of returning from Greylands on the morrow, which was Sat.u.r.day, she was going to stay another week.

How could he bear the burden of existence for such an intolerable length of time without a sight of her? It was asking more of flesh and blood than flesh and blood thought reasonable.

The next day, Sat.u.r.day, was a time of gloom. He could not work at all, and it was no use making a pretence of it. But in the evening, sadly smoking a pipe after so meager a dinner that Mr. Paley was quite disconcerted, there came an inspiration.

Why not pay a visit to Woking on the morrow? Why not make his way to Greylands--wherever Greylands might be--and without revealing an unsanctioned presence, gaze upon Athena in all her glory as she came out of church, which he knew she attended every Sunday?

The idea at once took possession of him. And presently it flamed so hot in his mind that he borrowed a Bradshaw from Mr. Paley and found, as he had surmised, that there was no lack of trains to Woking on the morrow. He decided that the one which arrived at 9.20 would be the best for his purpose. That would give him plenty of time to locate Greylands, and ample opportunity, no doubt, to reach it.

Sunday came, a fair June day, and the Sailor, having made an early, but in the circ.u.mstances surprisingly efficient, breakfast, set forth to Waterloo Station. Such an adventure could receive no sanction from men or G.o.ds, but after all, reflected Henry Harper as he went his way, no possible harm can come of it if I don't let her see me!

The train arrived at Woking only five minutes late, which was really not bad for the Sabbath. Only one porter was to be seen on the deserted platform, and he, with the gruffness of a martyr ill resigned, had "never heard on it," that is to say, had never heard of Greylands.

This was a rebuff. The clerk in the booking office, suffering also from a sense of injustice, was equally unhelpful. However, outside the station was a solitary flyman in charge of a promiscuous vehicle, and he, it seemed, had heard of Greylands, moreover, scenting a fare, knew how to get there.

"It's afore you come to Bramshott, just off the Guildford Road. How far? All out three mile. But I shan't ask more than four s.h.i.+lling."

The Sailor declined this offer with politeness. He would have plenty of time to walk, which was what he wanted to do. The flyman, in spite of a keen disappointment, received such a sincere and cordial "Good morning," that he returned it without discourtesy.

The first thing to enkindle the senses of the Sailor was the smell of the fresh country earth. A very little rain had fallen in the night, but enough to renew with a divine cleanliness these wide s.p.a.ces, these open heaths.

The bracken, young and green and a ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ning crystals, was uncurling itself on each side of the road. The birds were in full choir, the trees were near the pomp of midsummer, the sun of June made a glory of the distant hills. It was a n.o.ble world. Long before the Sailor came to Greylands he was like a harp strung and touched to ecstasy by the implicit hand of nature.

He knew he was speculating on the bare chance of a sight of Athena.

There was nothing to tell him that she would go that morning to Bramshott parish church. The only guide he had was that she went to church at least once every Sunday, and sometimes twice, but whether this would involve attendance at the local service must be the part of faith to answer.

At any rate, whether he set eyes on her or not, he was trudging to Greylands through the bracken in ease of mind and high expansion of spirit. He might not see her, yet he was giving himself the glorious opportunity. It was on the knees of the G.o.ds, but already he felt stronger, braver, saner, for having put it to the touch.

A little after ten he came to Bramshott village. It was a small place of quaint timber-framed houses, and in the middle was a church. But it all seemed commonplace enough. There was nothing here to minister to an intense emotion; nothing but the sun, the birds, the sky, the bracken, the perfumed loveliness of mother earth.

He was not such a fool as to fear his ecstasy. Come what might he would live his hour. The towers of Greylands, he was told in the village, could be seen from the church porch. There they were, sure enough, banked and ma.s.sive, cutting across the sun with their importunate red brick. This, at any rate, was her local habitation.

It was his to gaze upon even if no other guerdon rewarded him.

As became a true sailorman, who had sailed six years before the mast, he had brought home a pocket of horse sense from his wanderings.

Therefore, as soon as he had drunk his fill of those flanked towers, he went inside the church and found a decrepit pew-opener who was full of information.

The service began at eleven. Reverend Manson was the vicar and also the squire of the parish, although Greylands was the rich folk, and they always came of a Sunday morning, whatever the weather, if the Fambly was at home. Their name was Ellis, and they were very rich.

Armed with this knowledge, the Sailor decided upon a bold course. He took up a position in a corner of the church some way behind the Greylands pew, which had been duly pointed out to him. Here he sat unseen with one solid pillar to conceal him. But he had taken care that in spite of the pillar a clear sight of the Greylands pew should be his.

It seemed a long time to eleven. But it came at last, and with it, or rather shortly before it, by the courtesy of the G.o.ds, came Mary Pridmore. She entered before the Sailor, counting the seconds in his fastness, realized that she was there.

She wore a simple dress of soft gray and a black hat. But in no particular had she abated a whit of her regality. In that fine outline was a quality that made his pulses leap. As she went down the aisle with two white-spatted, ultra-princelike cavaliers, and two ladies, older than she, yet in garb more fanciful, the Sailor caught just a glimpse of her face. Yes, this was Athena herself, a creature altogether splendid yet restrained, who drew the Sailor's very soul and held it, while she knelt on her ha.s.sock, with an air of gravest submission and dignity.

Suddenly he realized that she was praying. With a rather irrational impulse of shame he fell on his knees. The knowledge abased him that he had neglected this obvious duty, but yet he had the excuse, such as it was, that this was the very first time in his life he had entered a church.

Hitherto--if the Sailor must face the truth--the whole of his intercourse with religious things had been confined to two tea and bun fights with addresses to follow, under the aegis of that light of his youth, the Reverend Rogers, at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall.

Therefore he didn't know in the least what to do. However, let him keep his eyes in front of him. When Athena got up he must get up, when she sat down he must sit down. And kneeling as she kneeled, he devoutly hoped that he was rendering homage to the same G.o.d as she, although with far less whole-hearted allegiance than hers at the moment.

It was hard to know what use to make of the Book of Common Prayer that the verger had given him. He had never opened such a volume before.

To the best of his recollection one had been lent him at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall, but certainly it had not been opened. It would have been no use to do so, seeing that he could not read a word of it then. But he could read it now, and he desired to render thanks for that miraculous, that crowning mercy.

The service was long, but to the Sailor it was entrancing. The imperial outline of Athena was ever before him; and yet in despite of her he had at least a part of a devout mind to spare for an ancient mystery. Reverend Manson in his dual role of vicar and squire of Bramshott was something of a patriarch. It was a fine face, and to the Sailor it was a symbolical presence. He was simple and sincere, and whatever his learning may have been he wore it like a flower. Somehow, Reverend Manson spoke to the heart of the Sailor. During that enchanted hour he followed him into an unknown kingdom. Yet as he did this the young man was thrilled by the thought that he did not journey alone. Athena was with him at every step he took.

The prayers pa.s.sed and the singing, which affected him strangely; then came the sermon, and after that more singing, and then came the verger with the collection plate. The Sailor put in half a sovereign; anything but gold seemed a profanation of a most solemn rite. And then he did an immensely wise thing. He glided swiftly, in the midst of the hymn, out of the church, and out of Bramshott village into the lanes of Surrey.

X

More than one long and golden hour the Sailor wandered through bracken and heather. He didn't know in the least where he was going, and there seemed no reason why he should care. He had a wonderful sense of adventure. Here was something real. This was the n.o.ble and gorgeous life to which the streets of Blackhampton, the deck of the _Margaret Carey_, the sojourn at King John's Mansions were the dreadful but necessary prelude.

After a long beat across country, and away, away he knew not where, he struck a path which carried him into a charming village tucked away under a hill. It then occurred to him that he was very hungry. The sign of "The Chequers" in the village street brought the fact home. At this neat hostelry with a roof of thatch he was able to declare himself a _bona fide_ traveler, and was rewarded with a n.o.ble chunk of bread and cheese and a gla.s.s of beer, a thin and tepid brew whose only merit was the quality of wetness. But such fare and an hour's rest on a wooden bench in a cool parlor with a sanded floor was Elysium.

After that again the road--but only the road in a manner of speaking.

The Sailor, roaming now the high seas of his desire, was in no mood at present for the ordered routes of commerce. Let it be the open country. Let him be borne across mult.i.tudinous seas on the wings of fancy. Therefore, as a bird flies, he struck across the pathless heather. The bracken rose waist high, but wherever it ran he followed it, now through the close-grown woods, now across furzy common and open s.p.a.ces.

On and on he wandered all the golden afternoon. And then quite suddenly came evening and an intense weariness which was not made less because he didn't know where he was. He only knew that he was in Surrey and very tired. But, all at once, Providence declared itself in an unexpected way. Straight ahead among the trees was a tiny opening, and threading it a hum of telegraph wires.

This could only mean that a main road was at hand. Quickened to new life by such a rare piece of luck he pushed on, thanking his stars.

Evidently he could not be far from a town or a railway. As a fact, he had struck the Guilford Road, and a hundred yards or so along it the friendliest milestone he had ever met a.s.sured him that he was three miles from the country town of Surrey.

Those three miles, honest turnpike as they were, proved a test of endurance. But they ended at last. Footsore and limping now, he crossed a bridge and entered a railway station where the lamps were lit already. And then Providence really surpa.s.sed itself! The last train to London was due in twenty minutes.