Scissors

BOOK III

GROWTH

CHAPTER I

I

The chronicles of youth, filled with trivial incidents, but acute at the moment of experience, swiftly pass. John found himself, on his seventeenth birthday, hardly aware that he was leaving boyhood behind him. He was very different from the shy sensitive youngster who on that momentous day of his arrival at Sedley had stood miserably on the platform watching with an aching heart the receding train. He had altered, almost incredibly, and yet he had not altered. In the handsome, self-possessed lad, a leader of his house, something of a god to the younger boys, with already a distinguished 'career' behind him, as athlete and scholar, a President of the Literary Society, a leading light in debate, the Editor of the school magazine, Sedley indeed had a creditable specimen of its training.

Had Mr. Fletcher, who had watched over him with a father's care, been asked for his most reliable boy, it would have been John that he named, or for his most promising, again, John, despite the dazzling brilliance of the fitful Marsh; and yet Mr. Fletcher knew his weaknesses—the tendency to dream, the sudden sensitiveness that made John seem afraid of life, and occasionally, but rarely now, that strange oriental preoccupation, that came over him, and shut him out from his fellows. There was always something a little mysterious, thought Mr. Fletcher. He loved and knew well all his boys. Even Marsh's fanciful versatility held no secrets from him. But he never quite plumbed the bottom of John's nature. Affectionate, deeply so, revealed in a hundred small acts of tribute, Mrs. Fletcher had drawn out the fires of devotion in the boy's heart, even sometimes, to little whimsical confessions that she knew were signs of his absolute trust. He had talked of his mother often. It was in Mrs. Fletcher's drawing-room, where she had first seen father and son together, that they talked of the reunion, after a parting of three years' duration. She laughed away all John's fears of that meeting, soothed his feverish anticipation.

"Oh, Mrs. Fletcher, will father think I've grown?" he would ask.

"Why of course,—you're almost a man now."

"But do you think I have grown as he would wish?"—half fearfully this, at which Mrs. Fletcher would laugh, "Why you silly boy, are you afraid your father won't be glad to see you?"

"Oh,—it's not that—only you know Mrs. Fletcher—he thought so much of me when I was a kid—I'm almost afraid he might be disappointed."

"Fathers and mothers never change, John, it's the children who do that," she answered him. "And look at all you've done and—" she was going to add, what a handsome fellow you've grown into, but she checked herself. She didn't believe in turning a boy's head.

So the momentous day came. John, up very early, very scrupulously dressed, excited by a confirmatory telegram, was filled with anxiety as to whether the taxicab would be in time to meet the train. He slacked shamelessly in form that morning, but the master was indulgent. Something of his anxiety and excitement permeated his friends. Even Vernley became aware of the meaning of nerves, good old Vernley, fatter and more faithful than ever, sharer of all joys, woes, triumphs, disasters, and food.

But the great moment came; the train drew up, the doors flew open, a sudden flooding of the platform, a boy's flushed face under a straw hat, an eager survey, with heart tremendously thumping, and a strong resolution not to ran or cry, a terrible fear that he had not come after all, and then—

There! His father! He had not changed!

"Dad!" he shouted rapturously, waving a hand. The father stared a while.

"John, my boy—what a great lad you are!" There was a swift, astonished survey. This tall, clean-limbed, laughing boy his son! This lad, with the glimmering grace of an athlete, the boy he had nursed at Amasia? His eyes lingered on every feature, noted the broadening shoulders, the straightness of his carriage, the direct level glance of the eyes. Presently they were seated side by side in the taxi, and then, absurdly enough, John found he had nothing to say, not one of those thousand premeditated questions to ask. The father, too, felt restrained, and waited.

"Ali sends his love," he said, at last.

"Dear old Ali! How is he, Dad?"

"Grown, but not like you, and quite a grave married man now."

"Married! What a joke—Ali married!"

"He does not think it a joke, he is very serious about it. He was married the week before I left. I met his father in Constantinople. Ali seemed a little sad because you did not write oftener. I showed him your last photograph. He looked at it for a long time and then said you were a great lord. I told him you were more probably a great anxiety."

Then followed lunch at Mr. Fletcher's—just his father and Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, and, by the way of a great favour to John in celebration of the event—Vernley and Marsh as special guests. John was frightfully anxious about his friends. He wanted them to admire his father as he did, and in turn he hoped desperately that his father would take to Vernley and Marsh. He was not long in doubt, for the elderly man had soon won his way into the boys' hearts, and had broken down their stiff reserve.

"Isn't he ripping, Scissors!" whispered Vernley, during the second course, "and you're alike as two peas." Under encouragement, Marsh was radiant. John felt his father was such a success that he would ask Lindon to the great tea in his study. A little in awe of the hypercritical god, he had held Lindon in reserve, but Marsh had been conquered and that young gentleman was critical and seldom approved of parents. "An outworn institution," he always declared as he observed them on Prize Day.

Marsh, however, rose to great heights of enthusiasm and made the tea party an unqualified success. It was true there were not enough buns, owing to the repetition of some guests before the plate reached others, and the kettle fell off the fire and soaked the muffins. These were incidents. The great event was Mr. Dean's stories of Asia Minor. And it was Marsh who kept him going, Marsh with an incredible knowledge of strange Eastern ways, and an insight and intelligent curiosity that amazed John's father. When the bell went and they all trooped away, John knew it had been a triumphant day.

Mr. Dean left the next morning. He had business to attend to before his holidays, but he crowned his success with his last act. He asked Vernley, Marsh and Lindon to join him and John for the first fortnight of the summer holidays. He had taken a house at Grasmere for a month, after which he and John were making visits to his friends. With this promise of a happy reunion, Mr. Dean left them.

That holiday became a great memory to John. They had a small house that nestled on the side of Fairfield, with wonderful views from all its windows of Grasmere and the lovely little lake, the road to sylvan Rydal, the fern covered side of Red Bank. These were days when they all set out, knapsack on backs, with stout boots, shorts and sweaters, to climb the mountains. And what talk was theirs! There was Marsh with his inimitable irony; where did he gather all that he knew? Mr. Dean said that he must be a reincarnation.

"No, please!" retorted Marsh. "Have you noticed how all the cranks who profess to be reincarnations always claim something regal or aristocratic or famous, for their previous existence? Mr. Smith will tell you he was Marc Antony, while little Miss Titmouse, who lives on nuts and uncooked food, and believes bad thoughts make bad weather, will assure you she was mother to Marcus Aurelius, which in some way explains that fellow's incessant moralising. Now if I have to be a reincarnation, let me be original. I don't want to be an echo of Demosthenes, or a second edition of Hannibal, or Henry the Eighth—I'm much more likely to have been dustman to Ptolemy the First, providing there were dustmen in that era."

In the evening, after dinner, when tired in every limb with a long jaunt across the mountains, with that pleasant ache that follows exercise, they would sit in the lamp-light listening to a reading from the poets; or a passage descriptive of the ground they would explore on the morrow. Perhaps, after many requests, Lindon would sit at the piano and play a ballade or a sonata, while they looked out across the gathering gloom at a solitary light on the opposite side of the valley; and they would notice how bright and lonely were the stars hanging over the mountain heights. As John sat there in the dimly lit room with his friends and his father, listening intently, a deep melancholy stole into his heart. This might never happen again, this strange jolly time, and there was his future in the world and all life so strange before him. But the sadness of these reflections brought him a glow of pleasure. He felt so acutely conscious of everything, he seemed so capable in this fresh experience of Life to accomplish anything he wanted. So he let himself dream pleasantly, which Vernley would notice and suddenly exclaim, "Scissors has gone East again!" for it was that old far-away expression which had so often come into John's face, but was rarer now.

So with crowded hours the end of the holiday came. Invitations to spend a week at Vernley's and at Marsh's were accepted, the rest of the holiday was to be spent by John and his father together. They travelled down with Vernley from Windermere to his home, and here Mr. Dean once more entered that large world of men and affairs with which he had lost touch. His holiday in England was not unconnected with a proposal that might result in his permanent return a few years hence, for which he was striving. It was essential that John should be kept in England and have a large field of opportunity at his disposal. He had made arrangements with Mr. Fletcher for John to enter at King's College when his time ended at Sedley, as it would, next year. It would be time enough then to decide upon John's career, if the boy had not revealed any preference.

He liked the Vernleys and was glad to find John had chosen his friends so well. He had hoped to take his son on a visit to some of his own friends, but it was obvious that John had chosen his friends with a regard for their quality of character. There was something very open and faithful about young Vernley and this was reflected by the whole household. However much Mr. Vernley might try to deceive himself, and believe and attempt to impress the belief that he was a man of affairs, Dean soon detected that he was naturally lazy and extremely good-hearted, with a passion for horses, a glass of port after dinner and a good cigar.

As for Muriel, that little fairy danced her way into the father's heart as she had into the son's. John had been very guarded in his remarks about Muriel, so guarded, that his father guessed all immediately. Muriel herself soon decided that Mr. Dean should have been Mr. Ribble's brother. There was the same genial, somewhat "curly-crinkly" appearance, as she called it, and as she confessed to him one evening when he had begged a kiss in return for a box of chocolates, she was glad he was not as serious as John, "who looks at me like a collie dog and wags his tail when I smile." Mr. Dean laughed heartily at this, it was so truly descriptive of John, who followed her in silence and devotion. When Mr. Dean left, he took Muriel on one side.

"I wonder if I can ask you a favour?—it's for John's sake," he added, as she looked up at him. "You see he has no brothers, and no sisters, which is even more important for a boy, and living somewhat lonely, I'm afraid he may become self-centred, which means being selfish, so I want you to be his official sister. He'll talk to you. I think he'll even tell you his dreams and ambitions, things he would never tell to other boys because he feels he is just a little different from them. I think he is, for instance, too highly sensitive. I want him to grow out of that; and only sharing confidences will help him. So I'm asking you, Muriel, to make a brother of him, if you will?"

Muriel had never quite looked at it in this light; then she had a swift intuition that Mr. Dean was not in the dark. A sister—that meant service in return. It meant something more than having John as a courtier—it meant, yes, running after him a little bit if necessary, and—oh clever Mr. Dean!—sharing him with other friends. She promised readily. She was going to be a sister to John.

Another week and they had left the Vernleys and were at the Marsh's. John's father had been doubtful regarding young Marsh for a day or two. There was no question of the boy's brilliance, but he distrusted precocious persons, and Marsh's omniscient cynicism was not healthy in a boy of seventeen. He attached too much importance to the smartness of a thing. All his opinions were original and brilliant, but they were dominated by those ends rather than by a love of truth. It was not good that John should see the ridiculous, bizarre or cynical aspect of life before he had tasted its wholesomeness; and there was that in Marsh's character, so restless, so desirous of things because they were new rather than good or genuine, which made his judgments unbalanced for all their refreshing enthusiasm.

But fuller knowledge of the boy modified these reservations. His was a razor-edge intellect, and highly combative. John, inclined to be sensitive, introspective, was shaken up and drawn out of himself by Marsh, who challenged all his ideas and made him defend them with passion. Moreover, Marsh had, for a mere youth, an amazing range, not of experience, but of thought. The literature of Greece, Rome, Germany, France and England were not strange to him. He read rapidly and talked volubly; true, his ideas were ill-digested, but he had ideas, and they flowed in his conversation. His curiosity was tireless as his enthusiasm. On their Lakeland holiday Mr. Dean had been amazed by his turbulent spirits, his readiness to rhapsodise, argue, and run, swim, box, climb, read and eat at any time of the day and night. He had no temper in the meaning of the word. His equanimity was never shaken.

"You know, sir," he said one day, "old Scissors thinks I'm the Voltaire of the party, but when he likes to wake up he can make us all take a back seat. Sometimes his quiet efficiency annoys me. He is always so infernally correct. Something-like always does for me, whether it's a quotation or a figure, but Scissors always has the exact thing and knocks you down with it, and the queer thing is, that he's got imagination—and they don't often go together; you don't get the Scottish lawyer working with the Welsh preacher."

Mr. Dean was amazed at this bit of schoolboy psychology, but it raised Marsh in his estimation, and from that time he saw there was something more than scintillating wit in Marsh's observation. With this view of the boy, all his preconceptions of his parents were shattered on meeting them. How came this bird of such bright plumage in so sombre a nest?

Teddy Marsh met them at Loughboro Station, in exuberant spirits as usual. "Good morning, sir," he cried, waving his straw hat as soon as he sighted the guests on the platform. "Hello, Scissors, you rusty old blade! Come along, sir, our wigwam on wheels awaits you. The pony's in a vile temper this morning, and will probably insist on going in the opposite direction. Yes, they're all well, thanks. Mother's got a new creed—let's see, what was it when you were here last, Scissors, a Nutfooder or a Christadelphian, or was it Rawsonism?—well now she's a Sunrayer. You'll hear all about it; they're a sect she's linked up with in middle America; they lie in the sunshine all day, think violet thoughts, and achieve salvation by sunburn. The governor's horrified and threatens excommunication. All aboard?—won't that bag topple over? Hold on, I'm going to tickle Flossie's flanks."

He whirled the whip and with a running fire of questions, answers and comments, they rolled along the leafy lanes towards the vicarage.

II

As before, that visit was composed of long sunny days in the garden, endless tennis sets, or cricket parties at the Hall, and always in the evening, after dinner, there was Mrs. Marsh's wonderful playing in the drawing-room. Tea-time was the favourite hour with John. He always felt glad when he saw the maid, changed from her pink and white dress for the morning into official black and white, with lace cap, bearing the folding table which she set under the walnut tree. Then hammock chairs appeared; after that a white tea cloth, and the rattle of china and the glint of the silver sugar basin—how he knew the design!—two folding lids, with soft white sugar like flour inside—jampot and teaspoons and cake knives. Then—after what seemed a long time—the glad tinkle of the tea-bell, with Mrs. Marsh crossing to the table, her first appearance for the afternoon. Mr. Marsh would follow a few minutes late, and sometimes Teddie would rouse him in the study, where he dozed after lunch when the weather was hot. Generally there were a couple of guests to make a tennis four, either the solicitor's daughter, or the governess from the Hall, who played the best tennis of any lady in the county and was always in danger of losing her situation because visitors at the Hall would always mistake her for the mistress.

It was a merry tea-time. Mr. Marsh was not always quite awake, and he had, at this function, quite a gift for Spoonerisms.

"Pass me the plake, kease," he would say.

"Certainly, sad," would respond Teddie.

After tea, John's father and Mr. Marsh usually disappeared. On two occasions they were challenged to a tennis double and to the amazement of exuberant youth, won. But generally they disappeared at the end of the garden.

"They've gone to talk roses again," commented Mrs. Marsh.

"The governor's mouth's watering with the names Mr. Dean's given him—he'll go about talking Turkish to the gardener for the next two months," said Teddie.

Dressing for dinner, too, was like a prelude to the delight of the meal and the music to follow. John's dress shirt and jacket and trousers lay neatly spread out on the bed.

There was, at six-thirty prompt, the copper jug, filled with hot water, with its initialled felt cover; and the country bathroom! John always wanted to sing in his. There was the low music of the running water, the lucid green shimmer, reflected on the porcelain sides, sending waves of rippling light over the ceiling.

Then, with gleaming shirt front and glossy hair, an immaculate boy would descend to the drawing room and wait with the others for the dinner gong. John soon grew to love those country sounds just before dinner; through the windows glowed long stretches of wooded country; often a thrush marked even song, and there was the retiring twitter of the birds. A cow driven byre-wards lowed in the valley, and the cawing of rooks in the Hall drive came on eddyings of the evening breeze.

At lamplight in the drawing-room, after coffee, Teddie would raise the dark reflective lid of the grand.

"Now, Mother, come and break the Beckstein," he said; almost a formula, that sentence, to John. And Mrs. Marsh would rise and seat herself at the keyboard, carefully adjusting the height of the seat, moving back the music-rack slide, playing a preparatory major scale, that descended in the minor, before proceeding to the real business.

Then, a momentary silence, the death of talk, and the first notes trembling into harmony. Never would John forget that first night on which, squatting on the floor at his father's feet, he heard Mrs. Marsh play Schumann's Papillons, It opened a new world to him; he seemed to be looking down a long grove of trees into a glade filled with moonlight, where an intruding wind, lost and hesitating, ran from bough to bough awakening whispers. That hesitating prelude, the slow, then quickening announcement of the theme, and the glad, butterfly-flutter of the melody, dying away again into melancholy and silence.

Somehow, as John sat there, with his father so near, it brought back other nights, nights on that verandah overlooking the silver Yeshil Irmak, as it flowed singing along the dark gorge, with the high moon peering over the cliffs of Amasia; and a great longing filled him to be back there again just once, to sit in that hot, spiced dusk, to hear the tinkle of the camel bells from the highway, and perhaps the soft voice of Ali, dear old Ali, dignified and melancholy, sitting cross-legged, and reading every mysterious sound of that Eastern night.

"There, that's enough for me," cried Mrs. Marsh, breaking across John's reverie. "Come along, John, you've got to sing."

"John, sing?" cried Mr. Dean. "I never knew he could sing."

"I can't, Dad, it's Mrs. Marsh's idea!"

"But he can! Come along, John," and she struck the opening chords of "Drink to me only." "Why, Mr. Dean, your lazy son used to sit here, watching me work night after night, and it was only by accident I found he had a voice—I heard him singing in the bathroom one morning."

"Mother's heard me in the bathroom," said Teddie, "but that's why she doesn't ask me."

"No shirking, John," called Mrs. Marsh, replaying the opening bars, and obediently John stood up and sang in a light baritone voice. When he had finished there was applause. There was feeling in John's voice; the spirit breaking through the flesh.

"You should hear him sing, 'Who is Sylvia?' Mr. Fletcher makes him sing it," said Teddie.

"But Mrs. Marsh has no music," answered John finding a loophole for escape.

"You fraud—you know you can play it."

Mrs. Marsh jumped up. "I believe he can do lots of things—and he sits selfishly here listening to us all blundering."

John sat down, placed his hands on the keyboard, and began softly, being very nervous, chiefly because his father was listening.

"Who is Sylvia, what is she?
That all her swains commend her.
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heavens grace did lend her,
That adored she might be."

"And now that's finished," said Teddie, "let's have Sedley Field Song."

"You asked me to sing 'Who is Sylvia,'" retorted John.

"I know, but ours is better."

"All right then, here you are,"—and once more John's hands pressed down the black and white keys while his voice went soaring into "Field Song."

"Summer days, winter days, when a fellow's young
And friends are many and pains are few,
When the ball going over filled every fellow's lung
With cheers for—"

Yes, those were beautiful nights in the lamp-lit vicarage drawing-room. Their memories sank deep into the heart of a happy impressionable boy. But one more impression. Enter, on Thursday night, two days before the termination of their visit, Veronica, aged seventeen and all the Spring sweetness thereof. It was thoughtful of Mrs. Marsh to ask a lonely girl from a neighbouring manor house, but she could not have seen the effect on John. He first saw her in the hall. He had just come down the stairs, immaculate and well-groomed, with shining hair and the rose-red of health in his face. He heard a mingling of voices—Mrs. Marsh's and another—that other! His heart stopped. It was like the trill of a bird. Then he saw a flimsy cloak fall away, revealing a thin, elfin girl, with gleaming shoulders and a dress swan-like in the dim hall light. She turned and he could see her face—an oval, petite face with a little whimsical mouth which might be just going to laugh or cry, and the small head tumbling with curls, short and bobbed, and shaking as she turned. It was a vision and the youth on the stairs paused—would she vanish into the darkness of the doorway again, or—

"Here's John," said Mrs. Marsh coming forward. "Veronica, this is John Dean, Teddie's friend."

"How d' you do," she said to John, and half held out her hand, but John, embarrassed, withheld his, and then bowed stiffly. Mrs. Marsh noticed his gaucherie, and guessed the cause.

"You're to take Veronica into dinner," she said, leading the way to the drawing-room. He should have said something polite in response, but he walked like a stick at the side of the girl, tongue-tied, and furious at his own stupidity. He had never known his self-possession to desert him in this manner. Even Muriel had not left him speechless. Here, he began a comparison with Muriel, and felt a twinge of disloyalty. Of course he was not disloyal—-and disloyal to what? But the thought perturbed, with the result that Miss Veronica Chase, used to adoration, found the good-looking youth at her side very dull, despite his romantic appearance. The entrance of Teddie with "Hello, Veronica old thing!" relieved the tension, and by the time they were seated at dinner, John had found his tongue. He had asked her if she lived thereabouts, when followed a minute description of their old manor house, with one of the thousands of beds which that poor restless queen, Elizabeth, was reported to have slept on.

"Why don't you and Teddie came over to-morrow for tea? It's only two miles from here."

"I should like to very much," said John. What an enchanting little hand she had; he watched the thin fingers as they played with a fork. When she turned to speak to Teddie, he took the opportunity to study her profile, fascinated by the beautiful curve of her neck, the little pink ear, half clouded in a curl, the mouth—with its pensive corners. This is perfection, thought John.

"Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
    It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:
Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky,
    And find thy fellows of an equal birth."

—He recalled Richard le Gallienne's lines. And the real John disappeared that night—he was a creature of mono-syllables, and Marsh had no flint on which to strike the sparks of his wit. He realised that John had been swamped in the flood of Beauty, and gallantly came to the rescue. True, John emerged somewhat in the drawing-room, and to-night, he sang readily and well, his effort being repaid by Veronica's "you sing beautifully—I could listen all night," although she jarred somewhat slightly by adding, "Do you know any comic songs?" Though he abhorred them, John would gayly have responded, and made a note to add a comic song to his repertoire.

The end of the evening came all too soon; the car waited outside to bear her away. The two boys lingered round it while the chauffeur tucked the rugs about his young mistress. Then she went with a farewell wave of the hand and a musical "Good night," which John, standing there in the porch, heard drift up to the star-light.

"Are you going to stand there forever, O stricken heart?" asked Marsh. "I want to fasten this door—and bar Love out."

John went in. Upstairs, in their room, he was silent.

"Scissors, you poor impressionable young calf, I hope you're not going to pine away in the night."

"Oh shut up!"

"That is not a gift of mine, as you know. Scissors, old thing, you're racing your phagocytes, as Metchnikoff would say, since all love is stimulation. She isn't worth it. I know old Veronica. She's a heart-cracker. She counts her conquests by the hundred."

"I don't think it's very decent of you to—" began John, a little peevish. Marsh's flippancy irritated him.

"To abuse our guest? No, it's not, Scissors, but I don't want to see you going about with sticking plaster on your heart. Old Veronica and I understand each other perfectly. She cracked me once, and then laughed. That kid hasn't the brains of a beetle; she's merely an agitator of pink youth. Flirt with her, yes, and she'll give you a good time, for she's got a sporting instinct—but don't take her seriously—she doesn't know what it means. Did you hear her ask you for a comic song?—and you did sing well to-night, Scissors—the nightingale to his mate."

Marsh touched the tender spot. That comic song request rankled.

"You didn't talk much with her?" asked Marsh.

"No."

"Well—do so to-morrow. Ask her what she reads, what she likes, the pictures she prefers. She's got a mind like an illustrated Sunday paper—you've had the comic supplement to-night."

John groaned. Marsh's arrows always hit.

"I think you're beastly about her," he said desperately.

"No, I'm not. Veronica and I are great pals, but she doesn't come deer-stalking on this estate. You're a sweet kid, Scissors, and I'm not going to let you cry yourself to sleep for a butterfly with the brains of a bat!"

"Oh rot—you do rag, Teddie."

"Well, well, dear infant, just investigate to-morrow."

Why did Marsh delight in pricking balloons? He was right: horribly right, thought John, as they drove away from the manor house next evening. That afternoon had been one long disillusionment. She was just as beautiful, just as attractive, and John feasted his eyes and heart on her. But she made a mistake when she took him down to pick gooseberries, in the far end of the garden, away from the others.

"Give me your hand," she cried, and he helped her up the bank. He tried to master an impulse to squeeze it, and just failing, was going to, when she anticipated him. That sent the first cool little wind around his heart. She laughed frankly into his eyes. She was irresistibly beautiful, "and she knows it," thought John.

"Shut your eyes, Scissors, and open your mouth."

He obeyed. A cool thin hand held his chin, the fingers of another pushed a berry in his mouth.

"Swallow!"

He swallowed obediently.

"Open!" she commanded.

He opened his eyes, her face was very near to his, her bewitching red mouth smiled at him, and he saw two little devils of mischief dancing in blue eyes that looked straight into his.

John looked back into them. There was a pause.

"You're shy," she said reproachfully.

"I know," he answered. Her hand slid off his shoulder.

"I wonder who's winning the game," she said, moving towards a bush. "Perhaps we ought to go back."

"But I want to talk to you," said John.

"Do you?—you are a strange boy," Veronica said.

"I'm not a boy—at least, no more than you are a girl," he retorted somewhat resentfully.

Another silence. They came to a summer house with a table in it, on which a book was turned down. John picked it up. It was by a popular woman novelist whose sex sentimentality swamped the bookstalls.

"Do you read Amelia Serkle?" she asked. "I love them."

"No—-I've never read her books—are you fond of reading?"

"Awfully."

"What do you like? Have you read Conrad?"

"No."

"Wells—or Bennett?" he added.

"Yes—one of Bennett's—I didn't like it. I like Amelia Serkle and Helena Thinne best."

"Oh," said John. She was fast losing marks.

"And poetry, I adore poetry!" she said ecstatically.

"So do I," said John, warming. "Isn't Masefield splendid, and Thompson and Swinburne—"

"I haven't read any of those, I think. I like Laurence Hope, and oh, I love Ella Wheeler Wilcox! Do you know her 'Poems of Passion?'"

"I looked at them—once," said John. There was no hope left in his voice. He did not disguise the fact very successfully.

"We'd better go back," she said.

They joined the others, who had finished their set. It was late and Marsh suggested going.

"Good-bye," he said, at the end of the drive, down which Veronica accompanied them. Even then John marvelled at her beauty, enhanced by the setting of those elms and the old manor house.

"Good-bye," she said, offering John her hand.

"Good-bye," he responded. And as he said the word it was obvious that they had lost all interest in each other. It really was "Good-bye," and neither minded.

Half a mile from the house, walked in comparative silence, Marsh burst into laughter.

"What's the joke?" asked John.

"I can't help laughing at that poor kid—she's so crude."

"Who—Veronica—why?"

"I'm wondering how many romances she's killed in the gooseberry bushes."

John glanced angrily at Marsh, and then the humour of it caught him and he laughed also.

"How did you guess?" he asked.

"Because I've shut my eyes and opened my mouth," said Marsh. "Poor old Veronica. She is a flirt! If only she had brains—just a few. And there are a lot like her. Now, I'll tell you of a girl that's my type, jolly sensible too. I want to see more of her next Prize Day."

"Who?" asked John interested.

"Vernley's sister," replied Marsh.

"Oh—yes," said John, knocking down a nettle with a swish of his tennis racquet.

Then came the end. The train drew away from Loughboro Station. John's father leaned back in his seat while John hung out of the window, waving to Teddie and Mr. and Mrs. Marsh on the platform, until the arch of the bridge shut them from sight. John sank back into his seat.

"Aren't they jolly, Dad!" he cried.

"Splendid, old son,—you make good friends."

III

There was one unsuccessful event in their holidays, that was the visit to John's uncle. Mr. Dean went, John thought, from a spirit of duty rather than pleasure. John had only seen his uncle once, when he had come to the school on Prize Day and had treated John as a child of five and adopted an air of patronage towards his father, which the boy deeply resented. They had not responded to each other in a single detail. "Just like his father," said Sir Henry to his wife, the next day, "as impractical as Charles and as wayward. The boy wants strong handling. I told his house-master so." He had departed without asking John home for the holidays, greatly to John's relief, for he would have gone in a spirit of martyrdom. John felt he was resented because he was his father's son. It must be galling to the uncle with no sons and two daughters, to know, unless he was more fortunate, that his nephew would inherit the title. It was the one unsuccessful fact in Sir Henry's life. He could and did ignore his brother, but hang it, he could not ignore his brother's son. He never read without anger in the Baronetage, "Heir-presumptive, Charles Dean q.v." and q.v. led him to John Narcissus Dean. Narcissus! What a preposterous name to give a boy—to an heir!

Their visit did not improve the mutual opinion. Charles Dean resented his brother's air of patronage, his smug self-satisfaction, his ill-disguised vanity over his estates which somehow he seemed to attribute to his own ability. Four tedious days, in which every minute held the possibility of friction, brought the visit to an end. John's father did not say much afterwards, but John realised all he thought. Once only did he reveal in words what John surmised.

"I hope you will never have cause to ask help from any relations—stand on your own feet, John," he said.

John accompanied his father down to Southampton. It seemed almost impossible that this was the end, that he would not see him again for two years. How far away was Amasia—and now that they were together, so closely together, it seemed as if they had never been apart.

"Two more years, John—and I shall have a directorship here—it won't be long, old son—you're seventeen and time flies at that age."

They stood at the top of the gangway. A gong was sounding, and an officer came down the deck. "Visitors ashore, please!" he shouted.

Father and son grasped hands. It was a long tight grip, with John trying to look squarely into his father's eyes, summoning a stiff lip to his aid, the father simply saying,

"Good-bye, dear lad."

"Good-bye, Father."

A loosening of the grip, a turn, and his feet were blundering down the steep, trellised gangway. He halted on the quay, while the ship was being warped out. They were too far apart for words, his father high up above him, leaning over the deck rail. Now the boat was away, the last rope drawn aboard; the stern propellers thrashed the waters into a white foam, the gulls cried, wheeled and followed. John pulled out his handkerchief and waved it, though he felt soon he might have to put it to another use. There was a responding flutter, and then distance grew between them, distance across which John's heart was stretching until it well nigh broke; a grey spot on the horizon, and it was all over.

He walked along the quay, the rain began to drizzle down. It turned cold and he shivered as he walked back to the station.

England seemed a lonely place to live in.

CHAPTER II

I

A busy year, a year filled with little successes, trials and triumphs, and John, taller and a little quieter, perhaps too quiet for a healthy lad of eighteen. He had achieved his object by winning the Mansell Exhibition, not of great value, it was true, but £50 would help and the real value of success lay in the fact that his father would know he had worked since they had parted. In June, Vernley and he had gone to Cambridge for the King's College entrance examination. It had not troubled either of them greatly, although Vernley, with an unshaken belief in his own stupidity, swore he had been ploughed. Their glimpse of Cambridge filled them with dreams of a golden age. They stayed on for a couple of days after the examination and made visits and excursions. Vernley's cousin was at Trinity and had a large bare room, reached by a winding staircase that looked on to the Backs, with a vista of bridges and elm-tree walks.

The day after their return to Sedley, Mr. Fletcher sent for John. It was late in the evening when young Jones came to his study with the summons, and John was just finishing a game of chess with Marsh. Vernley sat in the window trying to read "Henry Esmond" in the sunset light. The Triumvirate, as they were called, had recently moved into this large room in the corner of the quadrangle. It was regarded as the lap of luxury by the small boys who saw with envious eyes its easy chairs, the cretonne curtains and the piano which Marsh had imported.

"Shan't be long," said John going out. What could Fletcher want him for? Perhaps a house matter—he was a prefect now. He tapped at the green baize door, pushed it open, then crossed the small hall of the Fletcher household, and knocked again at the study door. Mr. Fletcher bade him enter.

"Oh—Dean, I want to see you—come in—sit down. It's about a matter—a—" he hesitated. Why did the man fumble so, and fidget with the blotter on his desk? The room was almost dark, he could hardly see the master's face. Suddenly Mr. Fletcher got up and walked across the room to the fireplace where he stood for a moment with his back to John. Then abruptly he turned.

"Dean—I hardly know what to say—how to tell you—I'm—I'm—you must be brave, my dear lad, but I know you will be—you will be," he repeated. John just stared at him. What had happened—and was he to blame in any way?

"What's the matter, sir?" he asked.

Fletcher drew near and put his hand on John's shoulder.

"I have sad news, John. Your father—"

John started to his feet; why had Mr. Fletcher's hand trembled so?

"There's nothing wrong, sir?" he asked, his heart sinking within him, for he knew now something was wrong.

"No, not wrong, Dean—but everything that could be brave, and like him. My poor boy, your father is dead—there—there, it is terrible for you, I know." Mr. Fletcher pressed him down on to his seat again.

"Dead!" said John,—"not—not dead, sir?" he pleaded, raising his hand as if to ward off a blow.

"This letter has just come, Dean, by express post."

John took it, and the master crossed the room to the electric switch.

"I'd rather it was dark, sir,—I think I can see it," said John.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Fletcher, and with an aching heart he watched the boy go to the window and peer over the letter. It seemed an eternity before John turned and spoke.

"There—there seems no hope, sir—the company has none," he said in an expressionless voice.

"No, Dean, I fear not—it is terrible."

"Yes," echoed John.

Why did the boy stand there so silent, so emotionless, with the letter in his hand? Anything was better than this unnatural calm. Did he realise yet?

"Dad—died fighting," said John, jerkily.

"Yes—to the last, they say. He defended them magnificently—you have that to remember. These massacres are terrible, terrible—I—" he paused. Still John stood there. Mr. Fletcher had expected an outburst, had prepared himself for it; and here they stood in the dark facing each other, silent; nothing but the ticking of the clock sounding in the abyss of these tense moments. The entrance of Mrs. Fletcher was welcome. She moved to John's side, saying nothing, but he felt her sympathy.

Then, folding up the letter, "Thank you, sir. I will go now," he said.

"Yes, Dean—if you would like to stay here—we can—"

"Thank you, sir, but I'll go—I'm—I'm all right, sir," he replied, moving towards the door. Mrs. Fletcher, saw his drawn face. He was so pitifully brave. He had reached the door now, was turning the handle. He hesitated a moment, they saw him pause and turn, then swiftly he moved towards them, flung himself face down on the couch, buried his face in the cushions, and sobbed like a child.

Mrs. Fletcher sat down beside him, and motioned to her husband to go. He went out silently, leaving them in the dark room.

"Oh, Mrs. Fletcher—my dear Dad! My dear Dad!"

Mrs. Fletcher put her hand on the bowed head and stroked his hair. There was nothing to say; she sat there, simply, her sympathy tending him, until the storm passed.

II

John never forgot the details of those three days that followed. First there was the anxiety of his father's fate. That he was dead he knew beyond hope, but there was a lack of details, of the manner and the circumstances. The letter from Messrs. Agnew & Cust merely quoted the cable they had received stating the death of his father at Amasia defending some Armenians who had taken refuge in his house during a massacre. That was all, and three days elapsed before they wrote again, enclosing another cable which said that his father had been shot through the head, had died instantaneously, while fighting his way out, with his servants, to effect a juncture with a relief detachment from the American hospital at Marsovan, where his body had been conveyed and buried. John wondered whether his father lay in that cemetery where, on a memorable day he had seen him crying over the grave of his mother.

During those days of waiting, John realised, more deeply then before, the meaning of friendship. Vernley and Marsh were always with him. They said little, for what could they say? They knew that John had rather they did not touch upon the knowledge so heavy on their hearts, and sometimes their watchfulness, their eagerness to serve him brought him to a point of open breakdown. For his own sake John went on with his form work. It was a slight distraction from the anxiety of the days that must pass before a letter could come from Asia Minor. One night, about a week after the receipt of the news, Vernley and Marsh sat in their study doing their preparation. John had been sent for by Mr. Fletcher, and had been absent some time. Vernley looked at his watch.

"Shall I get supper?" he asked—"Are you finishing?"

"Yes," replied Marsh, closing his Euripides. "I say, what a miserable devil old Euripides was; he's always talking about death. A good job some of his plays were burnt at Alexandria—-there were ninety of 'em. I hate thinking about death."

"And just now—with poor old Scissors," added Vernley.

"By the way, Bobbie," said Marsh, flinging one leg over the arm of his chair, "what's Scissors going to do? I don't like asking him."

"Do—how do you mean?"

"His future—you see there's the money question. I don't know much about his affairs—but Cambridge means money—and I don't know whether his governor had any—he seemed too jolly for money-making."

"Oh, he'll have left some—and there's the Exhibition," said Vernley. Money matters were always easily dismissed in his presence. "He'll be all right, I expect."

"Well—we've got to see."

"But it's no business of ours."

"It is," retorted Marsh.

"It is?" asked Vernley.

"Yes—supposing there is no money?"

Vernley had never supposed such a thing. He was silent a moment, thinking.

"You mean—he must go to Cambridge with us?"

"Of course—and that's three hundred a year."

"Three hundred?" said Vernley. He had never realised that so much was being spent on him. Then quietly, "Well—if old Scissors is stuck, we'll find it somehow."

"That's what I'm driving at. Three years at three hundred a year is nine hundred pounds—and that's college expenses only. It'll mean a thousand all told."

"That's nothing—my guvnor'll never miss it. He'd do anything for Scissors," said Vernley, cutting the cheese. "He'd adopt him and depose me to-morrow."

"And there's my governor—he'd want to come in," said Marsh.

"Well, there you are, that's settled!" Vernley took a large slice of cucumber. He disposed of money problems just as easily.

"But it's not settled, my child. You've forgotten the chief person in the settlement—there's Scissors."

"Well?"

"You can take a mule to the water, but you can't make him drink—suppose he wouldn't be helped?"

"Oh—he would!—he'd be quite decent about it—he'd know it would please us. But I don't think we need worry. He's sure to have some money and there's his relations."

"From all I've heard of his relations—we've a better chance," commented Marsh. "I suppose you guessed why Scissors refused the captaincy of the beagles last winter?"

"He wanted to work for his Exhibition."

"It wasn't that—really—he couldn't afford it."

"How do you know?"

"I heard him making discreet enquiries as to how much it would cost—and old Scissors wanted it awfully."

"I never knew that—I wouldn't have been captain had I known."

"That's why I didn't tell you," Marsh explained, "but it shows you that Scissors gets pressed. If he only—"

"Ssh," whispered Vernley as the door handle rattled. John entered. He looked worried and carried a letter.

"News?" asked Marsh eagerly.

"No—only a letter from the firm—about a job," said John.

"A job?" queried Vernley.

"Yes—they've offered me a junior clerkship at £80 a year in case I need it." He did not add that the wording had cut him to the quick with its "in excess of the customary figure at which our junior clerks begin, but in view of probable necessitous circumstances," etc.

"But you're going up to Cambridge with us!" cried Marsh.

"Of course, or we don't go," added Vernley.

"I don't know," said John, sitting down wearily. "It depends,—I may not be able. I don't know yet how I'm—"

"If it's a matter of—" began Marsh, when a warning look from Vernley cut him short.

"You're sure to hear soon, Scissors—I shouldn't worry yet," said Vernley. "We're all going up together, we've always said so. You know if you only think hard enough it always is so."

"Sounds like the mater and the Higher Thought circle," commented Marsh, wondering what plan Vernley had suddenly conceived when he sent that warning signal.

"Well—anyhow, I could eat something," said John, putting the letter in his pocket.

"Righto!—draw up!" said Vernley, passing the bread and cheese. "Oh—I've written home to say that you'll spend the holidays with us."

"He won't—at least he'll spend part with me," corrected Marsh.

"Thanks—but I can't make any plans, you see I don't know what's going to happen yet."

"But you must go somewhere, Scissors," cried Vernley lightly. The moment he had said it, and saw the dumb pain in John's eyes he would have torn his tongue out to retrieve the careless remark. "Scissors, I don't mean it that way—you know I don't!" he added desperately.

"No, I know you don't," agreed John, swallowing hard, and trying to look steadily back. They ate their supper in silence. Even Marsh's forced gaiety failed.

The weeks leading to the end of the term went swiftly. Bit by bit the news dribbled through, news of how his father had been killed—this in a letter from the doctor at the American Mission. His father had been buried next to his mother at Marsovan, under the same almond tree whose blossom John could still picture in his mind, so deeply was the first impression etched. Then later came Mr. Glass from his father's company, somewhat surprised and hurt at John's refusal of the clerkship. His father had been insured for £500. There was that, and a small balance at the bank, not more than £600 in all. Was he wise in refusing the opening, which would lead, in years to come, to a very good position? John looked at Mr. Glass, with his bald head, large stomach and expressionless face, and the result of success did not appeal to him. Mr. Glass prepared to depart.

"Well, you may think better of it, my boy. Your father would have wished it, I know. I don't see what more we can do for you—but there, if you do change your mind and need us, we are there, remember."

Clumsily done, but well meant, and John realising this, thanked him and shook the hand extended towards him. After Mr. Glass had gone Fletcher looked at John.

"I suppose you intend going up to King's?" he said. "I think you will pull through all right with care."

"No, sir, I feel I ought to begin doing what must be done—earn my living. Six hundred pounds is not much, and I shouldn't feel happy knowing that I was using it up."

"But Cambridge may lead to opportunities—a Fellowship—at least a degree, which is useful. At the worst you can become a—a schoolmaster." He smiled apologetically for the joke against himself.

"And meanwhile, sir, make expensive friends and acquire expensive tastes? Why shouldn't I do the last thing first, and learn whether I have the inclination."

"The last?" queried Mr. Fletcher.

"Yes, sir, I thought of getting a junior mastership—if I could. A year would not matter greatly. If I failed at that—then I would go up to Cambridge—it would not be too late."

"No, but you are wasting a year."

"Yes, sir, but I want—oh, I feel I must work it all out. I'm afraid you don't understand, sir," added John lamely.

"I think I do—this has altered your whole life, or at least you feel so—nothing really does affect our lives to anything like the extent we imagine it does. Experience proves that we are always ourselves. As for a mastership—it is not easy without a degree. I have a friend at a scholastic agency. If you wish I will write to him—that is, if you want to take this step. Personally, I advise you to—no, I won't advise you, John—you must decide for yourself."

Two weeks after that conversation, John was glad of the step he had taken. The insurance company had refused to pay the claim; the policy did not provide for the contingency in which Mr. Dean lost his life. John's capital now was £132. Mr. Fletcher's friend had obtained for him a junior mastership at a preparatory school in Hampshire.

"Sixty pounds a year, Dean, not much, but still you're a beginner—it will give you time to think," said Mr. Fletcher, handing him the letter. John wrote accepting the offer. There were vigorous protests from Vernley and Marsh. At the end of the term, after a terrible wrenching from the school, his friends, the Fletchers, and all the beloved corners and places and daily events of four happy years, he went down with Vernley to his home. The latter still believed that John would accompany him to King's. Marsh had gone home with the same belief. Vernley's faith was based on the ability of his father to bring John round to common sense. There was a talk one afternoon in the library that brought a lump into John's throat, and a mist into his eyes, as he listened to the self-effacing generosity and kindly plans of the big, bluff man sitting in front of him. But he remained true to his decision. Mr. Vernley mopped his brow, hot with the attempt to suggest, as delicately as possible, a way out, and afraid all the time of hurting the boy's feelings. John thanked him in a voice that trembled.

"Well, well, John, you're an obstinate boy, but I won't worry you. You can do me a great favour by keeping an eye on Bobbie, and you won't—and I'll owe you a grudge all my life. But if you do want to give me real pleasure—then come to me whenever you will—I won't say more than that. You understand, my boy, don't you?" and with that he placed a kindly hand on the lad's shoulder. "And—'pon my word, I admire your grit—you're the right stuff!"

Dismay, blank dismay, was written on Vernley's face when he heard of the result. It was no use appealing to John—the latter had heard him to the limit of his patience. Vernley went to Muriel. She could act when others failed. To his amazement she did not agree.

"Scissors is quite right. You can say what you like, or put it how you like, but it's charity, and John would know it, and you would know—and it might make a difference. I think you're blind."

"But why?" cried Vernley, plaintively.

"John refuses to be helped simply because he thinks so much of us—he's not going to jeopardise his friendship by indebtedness or reasonable gratitude. But you men never can see these things. Only a woman understands."