He had planned his visit to London full with many a pilgrimage. The London of Dickens and De Quincey—its inns, its gardens and churches! That old mansion3 at the northwest corner of Greek Street, where Mr. Brunell had given a lodging4 and a bundle of law papers for a pillow, to his youthful client—all were to be visited with a thrill of excitement and a hope that they would not fall short of the images he had made of them in his thoughts. But the glamour5 had faded from all these designs. He paced the streets, and indeed all day, but it was to get through the long dismal6 hours and he walked like one in a maze7.
He knew no one and throughout the four days no one spoke8 to him at all. He moved through the crowded thoroughfares unnoticed as a wraith9; he sat apart in restaurants; and as his father had done, he tramped by night the hollow-sounding streets of the city where the lamp-posts kept their sentry10 guard. On the fifth day, however, the expected letter did come by the first post from Mr. Ferguson.
“If you will travel to Pulburo’ in Sussex by the 3.55 P. M. train from Victoria on the day you receive this, Colonel Vanderfelt will send a car to meet you at the station and will put you up for the night. Will you please send a telegram to him”; and the Colonel’s address followed.
Paul sent off his telegram at once and followed it in the afternoon. Outside Pulboro’ station a small grey car was waiting and a girl of his own age, with brown eyes and a fresh pretty face and a small bright blue hat sitting tightly on her curls, was at the wheel.
“I am Phyllis Vanderfelt,” she explained. “My father asked me to drive in and fetch you. He has had to be away to-day and won’t get home much before dinner time, I’m afraid.”
She turned the car and drove westwards under the railway arch talking rather quickly as people who are uneasy and dread11 an awkward silence will do. They passed through a little town of narrow winding12 streets and high walls clustered under a great church with a leaping spire13, like a piece of old France, and swung out onto a high wide road which dipped and rose, with the great ridge14 of the South Downs sweeping15 from Chanctonbury Ring to Hampshire on their left, forests and bush-strewn slopes of emerald and cliffs of chalk silver-white in the sun, and from end to end of the high rolling barrier the swift shadows of the clouds flitting like great birds.
They had ceased to talk now and there was no awkwardness in the silence. Paul was leaning forward gazing about him with a queer look of eagerness upon his face.
“To come home to country like this!” he said in a low voice. “You can’t think what it means after months of brown earth and hot skies.”
Upon their right a low wall bordered the road, and on the other side of the wall fallow-deer grazed in a Park. Beyond, a line of tall oaks freshly green was the home of innumerable rooks who strewed16 the air about the topmost branches, wheeling and cawing. The square tower of a church stood upon a little hill.
“It’s friendly, isn’t it?” he cried, and a look of commiseration17 made the eyes of the girl at his side tender. Would he think this countryside so friendly when the evening was over and he had got to his room?
“Do you know our Downs?”
“I wonder,” he answered. “Could I have forgotten them if I had once known them? I seem to have been within a finger’s breadth of recognising something.”
“When you have seen my mother we will walk through the village. We shall have time before dinner,” said Phyllis, and she turned the car into the carriage-way of a square old house with big windows level with the wall, which stood close to the road.
Mrs. Vanderfelt, a middle-aged19 woman with shrewd and kindly20 eyes received him with a touch of nervousness in her manner and, as her daughter had done, talked volubly and a little at random whilst she was giving him some tea.
“I don’t know what you would like to do until dinner time,” she said, and Phyllis said:
“I am going to show Mr. Ravenel the village.”
A glance of comprehension was swiftly exchanged between the mother and the daughter, but not so swiftly but that Paul intercepted21 it.
“You can get the key at Rapley’s,” said Mrs. Vanderfelt.
The two young people came to four cross-roads, and Paul exclaimed:
“Up the hill to the right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
They mounted the hill and Paul stopped. He pointed22 with his stick towards the signboard of an inn built on the high bank above the road.
“Now I know. I lived here once as a child. I always wondered why the Horse Guards had an inn here, and what sort of people they were. I used to imagine that they were half-horse, like the Centaurs23, and I always hoped to see them.”
Phyllis Vanderfelt laughed.
“Isn’t that like a man? I show you a place as beautiful as any in England and the only thing which you have remembered of it from the time when you were four is the place where you could get a drink.”
“Yes, the Horseguards’ Inn,” repeated Paul cheerfully. “Let us go on!”
But it was now Phyllis who stopped with a face from which the merriment had gone.
“I don’t know,” she said indecisively. “It shall be as you wish. But I wonder. We talked it all over at home. We couldn’t tell whether it would be helpful to you, whether you would care to remember everything to-morrow—whether you already remembered. My father was quite clear that you should see everything. But I am not sure—”
Paul felt the clutch of fear catching24 his breath once more as he looked into the girl’s compassionate25 eyes.
“I am with your father,” he said. “My recollections are too faint. I can only remember what I see. Let us go on!”
“Very well!”
Phyllis Vanderfelt went into one of the cottages and came out again with a big key in her hand. Beyond the cottages a thick high hedge led on to an old rose-red house with an oriel window looking down the road from beneath a gable and a tiled roof golden with lichen27. Wisteria draped the walls in front with purple.
“It is empty,” said Phyllis, as she put the key into the lock and opened the door. The rooms were all dismantled28, the floors uncarpeted. Paul Ravenel shook his head.
“I remember nothing here.”
Phyllis led him through a window into a garden. A group of beech29 trees sheltered the house from the southwest wind and beyond the beech trees from a raised lawn their eyes swept over meadows and a low ridge of black firs and once more commanded the shining Downs. Paul stood for a little while in silence, whilst Phyllis watched his face. There came upon it a look of perplexity and doubt. He turned back towards the house. On its south side, a window had been thrown out; on its tiled roof a wide band of white clematis streamed down like a great scarf. On the wall beside the window a great magnolia climbed.
“Wait a moment,” cried Paul; and as he gazed his vision cleared. He saw, as the gifted see in a crystal, a scene small and distant and very bright.
There was a table raised up on some sort of stand upon the gravel30 paths outside this window. A man was sitting at the table and a small crowd of people, laughing and jeering31 a little—an unkindly crowd—was gathered about him. And furniture and ornaments32 were brought out. He turned to Phyllis. “There was a sale here, ever so long ago—and I was present outside the crowd, looking on. I lived here, then?”
“Yes,” said Phyllis.
“And it was our furniture which was being sold?”
“Yes.”
So far there was no surprise for Paul Ravenel, nothing which conflicted with his conception and estimate of his father. Monsieur Ravenel had sold off his furniture, just as he had changed his name and abode33. It was part of the process of destroying all his associations with the country and people of his birth. Only—his recollections had revealed something new to him—and disquietingly significant.
“Why were those who came to buy unfriendly and contemptuous?” he asked slowly.
“Are you sure that they were?” Phyllis returned. But she did not look at Paul’s face and her voice was a little unsteady.
“I am very sure about that,” said Paul. “A woman was with me, holding my hand. She led me away—yes—I was frightened by those noisy, jeering people, and she led me away. It was my nurse, I suppose. For my mother was dead.”
“Yes,” replied Phyllis, and then, not knowing how hard she struck, she added, “Your mother had died a couple of months before the sale.”
Paul Ravenel, during the last days, had been schooling34 himself to a reserve of manner, but this statement, as of a thing well known which he too must be supposed to know, loosened all his armour35. A startled cry burst from his lips.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed, and with a frightened glance at his white face Phyllis repeated her words.
“I thought you knew,” she added.
“No.”
Paul walked a little apart. One of the garden paths was bordered by some arches of roses. He stood by them, plucking at one or two of the flowers and seeing none of them at all. The keystone of the explanation which he had built in order to account for and uphold his father was down now and with it the whole edifice36. It had all depended upon the idea of a passionate26, enduring love in his father’s heart for the wife who had died in giving birth to her son, the enemy. And in that idea there was no truth at all!
Paul reflected now in bitterness that there never had been any reason why he should have held his belief—any wild outburst from Monsieur Ravenel, any word of tender remembrance. He had got his illusion—yes, he reached the truth now in this old garden—from an instinct to preserve himself from hating that stranger with whom he lived and on whom he depended for his food and the necessities of his life. He turned suddenly back to Phyllis Vanderfelt.
“What I don’t understand, Miss Phyllis, is how it is that remembering so much of other things here, I can remember nothing of my mother.”
“She only came home here to die,” Phyllis replied gently.
Paul pressed his hands over his eyes for a moment or two in a gesture of pain which made the young girl’s heart ache for him. But he looked at her calmly afterwards and said: “I am afraid that Colonel Vanderfelt has very bad news to tell me to-night.”
Phyllis Vanderfelt laid her hand gently upon his arm.
“You will remember that you have made very real friends here in a very short time, won’t you?” she pleaded. “My mother and myself.”
“Thank you,” said Paul.
Yet another shock was waiting for him in Colonel Vanderfelt’s house. For as he entered the drawing room three-quarters of an hour later, a tall man lifted himself with an effort from an easy chair and with the help of a stick limped across the room towards him.
“This is my husband,” said Mrs. Vanderfelt, and before Paul could check his tongue, the cry had sprung from his lips:
“The man with the medals!”
The older man’s eyes flashed with a sudden anger. Mrs. Vanderfelt gasped37 and flushed red. Phyllis took a step forward. All had a look as if they had suffered some bitter and intolerable insult.
Paul quickly explained. “My father and I crossed you one night a long time ago when you were coming from a banquet at the Guildhall. You called to my father. I was a child, and I always remembered you as the man with the medals. The phrase jumped out when I saw you again.”
“We will talk of all these things after dinner,” he said gently, and his hand clasped the youth’s arm. “Let us go in now.”
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1
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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2
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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3
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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4
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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6
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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7
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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8
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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9
wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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10
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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11
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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12
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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13
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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14
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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15
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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16
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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17
commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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18
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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19
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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20
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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21
intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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22
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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23
centaurs
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| n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 ) | |
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24
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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25
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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26
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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27
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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28
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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29
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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30
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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31
jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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32
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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33
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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34
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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35
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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36
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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37
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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38
sheathed
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| adj.雕塑像下半身包在鞘中的；覆盖的；铠装的；装鞘了的v.将（刀、剑等）插入鞘( sheathe的过去式和过去分词 )；包，覆盖 | |
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