The Whirligig of Time Part 9

"I am of the opinion," replied Harry judicially, "that the honorable member's fears on that score are ungrounded. You see, Uncle G.," he went on, dropping his parliamentary manner, "I shall go back to America to go to college, anyway. I couldn't possibly go anywhere except to Yale.

We've gone to Yale, you see, for three generations already."

"I thought, when you came over here, that you couldn't possibly go to school anywhere except at St. Barnabas. It seems to me I remember something of that kind."

"This is quite different," said Harry firmly, "quite different. I was brought up in Yale, practically. I'm sure I could never be happy anywhere but there. Besides, I don't want to become an Englishman.

That's all rot."

"Well," said his uncle, "if that's the case, we'll risk it. And--" he unconsciously quoted his wife on a former occasion--"there are always the vacations."

But that is just where the honorable member proved himself mistaken. The vacations weren't there, after all. And that was where the mutual misunderstanding between the two ladies came in.

We don't mean to say that this was wholly responsible for the uninterrupted separation. Other things came into it; coincidence, mere fortuitous circ.u.mstances. Plans were made, on both sides of the Atlantic, but they were always interrupted, for some reason or another.

James and Cecilia would write cheerfully about coming over next summer and bringing young James and one or two of their own children with them.

That would be from about October to January. Then, along in the winter, it would appear that their plans for the summer were not settled, after all. Ruth was not well enough to travel this year, or James could not leave his work and Cecilia could not leave him. Or, on the other hand, Aunt Miriam would talk breezily at times of taking Giles over and showing him the country--Giles had never been to America except to marry his wife--and taking Harry too, of course; or she would casually suggest running over with him for a fortnight at Christmas. But Harry's summer vacation was so short, only eight weeks, and there were Visits to be made in September; the kind of visits that implied enormous shooting parties and full particulars in the _Morning Post_. And when Christmas drew near either Giles or Miriam would develop a bad bronchial cough and have to be packed off to Sicily. It is odd how things like that will crop up when two women are fully determined to have nothing to do with each other.

And the boys themselves, could they not go over alone and stay with their relations, at least as soon as they were old enough to make the voyage unaccompanied? James wanted to do something of that kind very much at times; wanted to far more than Harry, who thought that he would have enough of America later on and was meanwhile anxious to get as much out of the continent of Europe as possible. One reason why James never did anything of the sort was that he was afraid; actually a little afraid to go over, unsupported, and find out what they had made of Harry. James' thoughts were apt to run in fixed channels; after he had been a year or two at St. Barnabas, the idea that there was another school in the country, fit for Harry to attend, or in any other country, never entered his head. Harry's decision in favor of Harrow, and particularly Harry's lighthearted suggestion that he should come over and go to Harrow with him, filled his soul with consternation. He, James, leave St. Barnabas for Harrow!...

And to the receptive mind the mere fact that Aunt Cecilia was at this time his closest friend and confidante will explain much. She never made derogatory remarks to him about his Aunt Miriam, nor did she reveal to him, any more than to any one else, the antagonism of feeling that existed between them; but in some subtle, unfelt way she imparted her own att.i.tude to him, which was, in a word, Keep Away. She herself would have said, if any one asked her point blank, that she had Given Harry Up. She never approved of his staying over to be educated; she would have had him back, away from Miriam and Europe (Aunt Cecilia wasted no love on that Continent) inside two months, if she could have had her own way. But her opinion was worth nothing; she was not the boy's guardian!

There was a time, two or three years after his arrival in England, when Harry was consumed by a desire to see his brother again, if only for a few weeks. He told his Uncle Giles about it--he soon fell into the habit of confiding in him sooner than in his aunt--and Uncle Giles sympathized readily with his wish, and promised to run over to America with him the next summer. But when, a few days before the date of their sailing, Harry came home from school, his uncle met him in the library with a grave face and told him that he had been called upon to stand for his party in a by-election early in September, and could not possibly leave the country before that. Afterward there would be no time.

"It is quite a compliment to me," explained Sir Giles; "they want me to go in for them at West Bolton because it is a doubtful and important borough, and they think I can win it over to the Conservatives if any one can. Whereas Blackmoor is sure, no matter who runs. It pleases me in a way, of course, but I hate it for breaking up our trip."

"Oh, dear, I did want to see James," said Harry, leaning his elbows on the mantelpiece, and burying his face in his hands to hide his tears of disappointment.

"Poor boy, it is hard on you," said Sir Giles, and impulsively drew Harry to him and clasped him against his broad bosom. "Do you remember the man in the play, that always voted at his party's call and never thought of thinking for himself at all? That's me, and it makes me feel foolish at times, I can tell you. But if you want so much to see James, why can't he be brought over here?"

"I don't know," said Harry, "I wish he would come, but I'm sure he won't. I don't know what's the matter, but I'm certain that if I am to see him, it will have to be I that makes the journey. I've felt that for some time."

"Well, what about your going over alone? I could see you off at Liverpool, and they would meet you at New York."

But that would not do, either. Harry had counted so much on having his uncle with him and showing him all the interesting things in America that his uncle's defalcation took all the zest out of the trip for him.

So he remained in England and helped Sir Giles win the by-election, which interested him very much.

Lady Fletcher was right when she prophesied that Sir Giles would become fond of Harry. He was just such a boy as Sir Giles would have given his Parliamentary career, his K. C. B., and his whole fortune to have for his own son. The two got on famously together. Sir Giles liked to have Harry with him during all his vacations, and visits during summer holidays--visits, that is, on which Harry could not be included--were almost completely given up, as far as Sir Giles was concerned. They spent blissful days with each other on the golf links, or fis.h.i.+ng in a Scotch stream, or exploring the filthiest and most fascinating corners of some Continental town, while Aunt Miriam, gently satirical, though secretly delighted, went her own smart and fas.h.i.+onable way, joining them at intervals.

No one was prouder or more pleased than Harry when--a year or two after he came into the Rumbold property, curiously enough--Sir Giles was given a G. C. B. and a baronetcy by his grateful party; or when, in the Conservative landslide that followed the Boer War, he rose to real live ministerial rank, and had to go through a second election by his borough and became a "Right Honorable." The fly in the ointment was that he saw less of his uncle than formerly. The Fletchers moved from their smart but restricted quarters in Mayfair to an enormous place in Belgrave Square, "so as to be near the House," as Aunt Miriam plausibly but rather unconvincingly put it, and Sir Giles seemed to be always either at the House or the Colonial office--have we said that he became Secretary for the Colonies? However, Harry was treated as though he were a son of the house, and was given _carte blanche_ in the matter of asking school friends to stay with him when he came home. This permission also applied to Rumbold Abbey, the estate in Herefords.h.i.+re that formed the chief part of the aforementioned property. There was no abbey, but there was a late Stuart house of huge proportions; also parks and woods and streams that offered unlimited opportunities for the destruction of innocent fauna, of which Harry and a number of his contemporary Harrovians soon learned to take advantage.

On the whole, Harry led an extremely joyous and entertaining life during the days of his exile. At school he fared no less well than at home; he was never a leader among his fellows, but he was good enough at sports to win their respect and attractive enough in his personality to make many friends. The natural flexibility of his temperament enabled him to fit in fairly easily with the hard-and-fast ways of English school life.

He accepted all its conventions and convictions, and never realized, as long as he remained in England, that they were in any way different from those of the schools of his own country. He soon got to dress and to talk like an Englishman, though he never went to extremes in what he loved to irritate his schoolfellows by calling the "English accent."

While not exactly handsome, he became, as he reached man's estate, extremely agreeable to look upon. He had a clear pink complexion and dark hair, always a striking and pleasing combination, and he was tall and slim and moved with the stiff gracefulness that is the special characteristic of the British male aristocracy. In general, people liked him, and he liked other people.

His vacations, as has been said, were usually spent with Sir Giles either in the British Isles or on the Continent, but there was one Easter holiday--the second he spent in England--when he was, to quote a phrase of Aunt Miriam's, thrown on the parish. The Fletchers were booked to spend the holiday in a Mediterranean cruise on the yacht of a nautical duke, who was so nautical and so much of a duke that to be asked to cruise with him was not merely an Engagement; it was an Experience. In any case, there could be no question of taking Harry, and Lady Fletcher was in perplexity about what to do with him till Sir Giles suggested, "Why don't we send him to Mildred?" So to Mildred Harry went, and spent an important, if not a wildly exciting, month.

Mildred was Sir Giles' only sister, Lady Archibald Carson. She lived in a little house in the Surrey hills, and though the land that went with it was restricted, it was fertile and its mistress went in as heavily as her means would allow for herbaceous borders and rock gardens and j.a.panese effects. Her two children, both girls, lived there with her.

Her husband, Lord Archibald, was also, in a sense, living with her, but the verdant domesticity of the Surrey hills had no charm for him and he spent practically all of his time in London and other busy haunts of men, or even more busy haunts of women. He was a younger son of a long line of marquises who for their combination of breeding and profligacy probably had no match in the British peerage. Within five years of his marriage he had with the greatest casualness in the world run through his own patrimony and all he could lay his hands on of his wife's.

Having bullied and wheedled all that he could out of her he now consistently let her alone and depended for his income on what he could bully and wheedle out of his brother, the eleventh marquis, who was known as a greater rake than Lord Archibald merely because he had greater facilities for rakishness at his command.

Lady Archibald was a tall, light-haired, pale-eyed woman with a tired face and a gentle manner. She had no interests in life beyond her children and her garden, but she had a kind heart and welcomed Harry cordially on his arrival at the little house in Surrey. He had seen her once before at the Fletchers' in London, but he had never seen her children. It was, therefore, with a rather keen sense of curiosity that he walked through the house into the garden, where he was told that Beatrice and Jane were to be found. He saw them across the croquet lawn immediately, and he underwent a mild shock of disappointment on seeing, as he could, at a glance, that they were just as long of limb, just as straight of hair and just as angular in build as most English girls of their age.

The elder girl rose from her seat and sauntered slowly across the lawn, followed by her sister. She stared coolly at Harry as she walked toward him, but said nothing, even when she was quite near. He met her gaze with perfect self-possession, and suddenly realized that she was waiting to see if he would make the first move. He instantly determined not to do so, it being her place, after all, to speak first; so he stood still and stared calmly back at her for a few seconds, till finally the girl, with a sudden fleeting smile, held out her hand and greeted him.

"You're Harry Wimbourne, aren't you?" she said, cordially enough. "This is my sister Jane. We are very glad to see you; we've heard such a lot about you. Come over here and tell us about America."

In that meeting, in her rather rude little aggression and Harry's reception of it, was started a friends.h.i.+p. She deliberately tested Harry and found that he came up to the mark. He did not fidget, he did not blush, he did not stammer; he simply returned her stare, waiting for her to find her manners. Nothing he could have done would have pleased her better; she decided she would like him, then and there.

Harry on his side found her conversation, even in the first hour of their acquaintance, stimulating and agreeable, and like nothing that he had experienced before in any young girl of thirteen, English or American.

"You needn't be afraid that we shall ask foolish questions about America," Beatrice went on. "We know the Indians don't run wild in the streets of New York, and all that sort of thing. We even know what part of the country New Haven is in; we looked it up on the map. It's quite near New York, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Harry, "you're quite right; it is. But how do you p.r.o.nounce the name of the state it is in? Can you tell me that?"

"Connecticut," replied the girl, readily enough; but she sounded the second _c_, after the manner of most English people. Harry explained her mistake to her, and she took the correction smiling, quite without pique or resentment.

"Now go on and tell us something about the country. Something really important, you know; something we don't know already."

"Well," said Harry, "there seems to be more room there; that's about the most important difference. Except in the largest cities, and there there seems to be less, and that's why they make the buildings so high. And nearly all the houses, except in the middle of the towns, are made of wood."

He went on at some length, the two girls listening attentively.

At last Beatrice interrupted with the question:

"Which do you think you like best, on the whole, England or America?"

"Oh, America of course; but only because it's my own country. I can imagine liking England best, if one happened to be born here. Some things are nicer here, and some are nicer there."

"What do you like best in England?"

"Well, the old things. Cathedrals and castles. Also afternoon tea, which we don't bother about much over there. And the gardens."

"And what do you like best about America?"

"Trolley cars, and soda water fountains, and such things. And the climate. And the way people act. There's so much less--less formality over there; less bothering about little things, you know."

"Yes, yes, I know exactly. Silly little things, that don't matter one way or the other. I know I should like that about America."

"I think you would like America, anyway," said Harry, looking judicially at his interlocutrix. "You seem to be a free and easy sort of person."

"Well, I wouldn't like trolley cars," interrupted Jane with firmness, "They go too fast. I don't like to go fast. It musses my hair, and the dust gets into my eyes."

"Shut up, silly," said her sister; "you've never ridden in one."

"No, but I know what it is to go fast, and I don't like it. I don't think I should care much for America."

"Well," said Harry, laughing, "we won't make you go there. Or if you do go there, we won't make you ride on the trolley cars. You can ride in hacks all the time; they go slow enough for any one."

Beatrice's first impression of Harry underwent no disillusionment as the days went on. She seemed to find in him a companion after her own heart.

He had plenty of ideas of his own, and he was entirely willing to act on hers; he never affected to despise them as a girl's notions, nor did he ever object to her sharing in his amus.e.m.e.nts because of her misfortune of s.e.x. They climbed trees and crawled through the underbrush on their stomachs together with as much zest and _abandon_ as if there were no such things as frocks and stockings in the world. Harry had never known this kind of companions.h.i.+p with a girl before, and was delighted with her.