No More Learning

Miss Pepperdine, like most generals who conceive their plans of campaign in secret, found that her troubles commenced as soon as she began to expose her scheme to criticism. Mr. Pepperdine, as a lifelong exponent of the art of letting things alone, wanted to know what she meant by disturbing everything when all was going on as comfortably as it could be. He was sure the boy had as much book-learning as the arch- bishop himself—besides, if he was sent away to school, he, Simpson Pepperdine, would have nobody to talk to about how they farmed in foreign countries. Judith, half recognising the force of her sister's arguments, was still angry with Keziah for allowing them to occur to her—she knew that the boy had crept so closely into her heart and had so warmed it with new fire that she hated the thought of his leaving her, even though Saxonstowe was only thirty miles away.
Miss Pepperdine fought many pitched battles with her brother and sister, and Simpson and Judith, who knew that she had more brains in her little finger than they possessed in their two heads, took to holding confer-
ences in secret in the vain hope of circumventing her designs.
It came as a vast surprise to these two conspirators that Lucian himself, on whose behalf they basely pro- fessed to be fighting, deserted to, or rather openly joined, the enemy as soon as the active campaign began. Miss Pepperdine, like the astute woman she was, gained the boy's ear and had talked him over before either Simpson or Judith could pervert his mind. He listened to all she had to say, showed that he was impressed, and straightway repaired to the vicarage to seek Mr. Chilverstone's advice. That evening, in the course of a family council, shared in by Mr. Pepperdine with a
Consequently
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
49
gloomy face and feelings of silent resentment against Keziah, and by Judith with something of the emotion displayed by a hen who is about to be robbed of her one chicken, Lucian announced that he would go to school, adding, however, that if he found there was nothing to be learnt there he would return to his uncle's roof. Mr. Pepperdine plucked up amazingly after this announcement, for he cherished a secret conviction that his nephew already knew more than any schoolmaster could teach him; but Judith shed tears when she went to bed, and ffelt ill-disposed towards Keziah for the rest of the week.
Lucian went to Saxonstowe presently with cheerful- ness and a businesslike air, and the three middle-aged Pepperdines were miserable. Mr. Pepperdine took to going over to the Grange at Wellsby nearly every night, and Judith was openly rebellious. Miss Pepperdine herself felt that the house was all the duller for the boy's absence, and wondered how they had endured its dumb monotony before he came. There was much of the Spartan in her, however, and she bore up without sign; but the experience taught her that Duty, when actually
done, is not so pleasing to the human feelings as it seems to be when viewed from a distance.
No word came from Lucian for two weeks after his
then the postman brought a letter addressed to Mr. Pepperdine, which was opened amidst great excitement at the breakfast table. Mr. Pepperdine, however, read it in silence.
departure;
* My dear Uncle Simpson Pepperdine,' wrote Lucian, * I did not wish to write to you until I had been at school quite two weeks, so that I could tell you what
I thought of and whether would suit me. It very nice school, and all the boys are very nice too,
Babbacombe, and his wife, and the masters. We have very good meals, and should be quite content in that respect one could sometimes have cup of decent coffee, but believe that im-
D
and like Dr.
a
I
it,
it I
is
if
I
is a
50
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
possible in England. They have a pudding here, sometimes, which the boys call Spotted Dog—it is very satisfying and I do not remember hearing of it before — it has what English people call plums in it, but they are in reality small dried raisins.
* I am perfectly content with my surroundings and my new friends, but I greatly fear that this system of education will not suit me. In some subjects, such as history and general knowledge, I find that I already know much more than Dr. Babbacombe
teaches to boys. As regards other subjects I find that it is not en regie to permit discussion or argument between master and pupil. I can quite see the reason- ableness of that, but it is the only way in which I have
ever learnt everything. I am not quick at learning anything — I have to read a thing over and over again before I arrive at the true significance. It may be that I would spend a whole day in accounting to myself why a certain cause produces a certain effect—the system of education in use here, however, requires one to learn many things in quite a short time. It reminds me of the man who taught twelve parrots aU at once. In more ways than one it reminds me of this, because I feel that many boys here learn the sound of a word and yet do not know what the word means. That is what I have been counselled to avoid.
usually
* I am anxious to be amenable to your wishes, but I think I shall waste time here. If I could have my own way I should like to have Mr. Chilverstone for a tutor, because he is a man of understanding and patience, and would fully explain everything to me. I am not easy in my mind here, though quite so in my body. Everybody is very kind and the life is com- fortable, but I do not think Dr. Babbacombe or his
masters are great savants, though they are gracious and estimable gentlemen.
* I send my love to you and my aunts, and to Mr. Chilverstone and Mr. and Mrs. Trippett. I have bought a cricket-bat for John Trippett and a doll for
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 51 Mary, which I shall send in a box very soon. —And I
am your affectionate kinsman,
* LuciAN Damerel.
As the greater part of this remarkable epistle was pure Greek to Mr. Pepperdine, he repaired to the
Chilverstone, who, having duly considered it, returned with Lucian's
vicarage
with it and laid it before Mr.
kinsman to the farm and there entered into solenm con- clave with him and his sisters. The result of their deliberations was that the boy was soon afterwards
taken from the care of the gracious and estimable gentlemen who were not savants, and placed, so far as his education was concerned, under the sole charge of the vicar.
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Chilverstone was one of those men upon whom many sorrows and disappointments are laid. He had set out in life with a choice selection of great ambi- tions, and at forty-five not one of them had fructified. Ill-health had always weighed him down in one direc- tion; ill-luck in another: the only piece of good fortune which had ever come to him came when the Earl of Simonstower, who had heard of him as an inoffensive man content to serve a parish without going to extremes in either of the objectionable directions, presented him to a living which even in bad times was worth five hundred pounds a year. But just before this prefer- ment came in his way Mr. Chilverstone had the mis- fortune to lose his wife, and the enjoyment of the fit things of a country living was necessarily limited to him for some time. He was not greatly taxed by his pastoral duties, for his flock, from the earl downwards, loved that tj^e of parson who knows how to keep his place, and only insists on his professional prestige on Sundays and the appointed days, and he had no great inclination to occupy himself in other directions. As the bitterness of his great sorrow slipped away from him he found his life resolving itself into a level—his time was passed in reading, in pottering about his garden, and, as she grew up, in educating his only child, a girl who at the time of her mother's death was little more than an infant. At the time of Lucian's arrival in the village Mr. Chilverstone's daughter was at school in Belgium—the boy's first visits to the vicarage were therefore made to a silent and lonely house, and they proved very welcome to its master.
Lucian's experience at the grammar-school was never repeated under the new regime. The vicar had been somewhat starved in the matter of conversation for
52
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 53
more years than he cared to remember, and it was a Godsend to him to have a keen and inquiring mind opposed to his own. His pupil's education began and was continued in an unorthodox fashion; there was no system and very Httle order in but was good for man and boy. They began to spend much time together, in the field as much as in the study. Mr. Chilverstone, encouraged thereto by Lucian, revived an ancient taste for archaeology, and the two made long excursions to the ruined abbeys, priories, castles, and
in their neighbourhood. Miss Pepperdine, to whom Lucian invariably applied for large supplies of
hermitages
occasions, had an uncomfortable suspicion that the boy would have been better employed
with copy-book or slate, but she had great faith in the vicar, and acknowledged that her nephew never got into mischief, though he had certainly set his room on fire one night by bad habit of reading in bed. She had become convinced that Lucian was an odd chicken, who had got into the brood by some freak of fortune, and she fell into the prevalent fashion of the family in regarding him as something uncommon that was not to be judged by ordinary rules of life or interfered with. To Mr. Pepperdine and to Judith he remained con- stant source of wonder, interest, and amusement, for his tongue never ceased to wag, and he communicated to them everything that he saw, heard, and thought,
with freedom and generosity that kept them in perpetual state of mental activity.
Towards the end of June, when Lucian had been three months at Simonstower, he walked into the vicar's study one morning to find him in state of mild excite- ment. Mr. Chilverstone nodded his head at letter which lay open on his desk.
The day after to-morrow,' he said, you will see
sandwiches on these
She coming home from school. ' Lucian made no answer. It seemed to him that this bare announcement wrought some subtle change. He
my daughter.
knew nothing whatever of girls—they had never come
is
a
a
'
a '
it, it
a
a a
a
a
54
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
into his life, and he was doubtful about them. He stared hard at the vicar.
' Will you be glad to see her? ' he asked.
* Why, surely ! ' exclaimed Mr. Chilverstone.
I have not seen her for nearly a year, and it is two
years since she left home. Yes — Millie is all I have. ' Lucian felt a pang of jealousy. It was part of his nature to fall in love with every new friend he made; in return, he expected each new friend to devote him- self to him. He had become very fond of the vicar;
they got on together excellently; it was not pleasant to think that a girl was coming between them. Besides, what Mr. Chilverstone said was not true. This Millie was not all he had—he had some of him, Lucian.
* You will like my little girl,' the vicar went on, utterly oblivious of the fact that he was making the boy furiously jealous. ' She is full of Hfe and fun—a real ray of sunshine in a house. ' He sighed heavily
and looked at a portrait of his wife.
tinued, ' she is quite a lively girl, my little Millie. A sort of tomboy, you know. I call her Sprats; it seems to fit her, somehow. '
Lucian almost choked with rage and grief. All the
all the long talks and walks; all the disputations and scholarly wrangles were to be at an end, and all because of a girl whose father
called her Sprats! It was unbelievable. He gazed at the unobservant clergyman with eyes of wonder; he
had come to have a great respect for him as a scholar, and could not understand how a man who could make the Greek grammar so interesting could feel any interest in a girl, even though that girl happened to be his own daughter. For women like his aunts, and Mrs. Trip- pett, and the housekeeper at the castle, Lucian had a great liking; they were all useful in one way or another,
either to get good things to eat out of, or to talk to when one wanted to talk; but girls — whatever place had they in the economy of nature ! He had never spoken to a
who was
old, pleasant companionship;
girl in his life, except to little Mary Trippett,
' Yes,' he con-
' Yes
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
55
nine, and to whom he sometimes gave sweets and dolls. Would he be expected to talk to this girl whose father called her Sprats? He turned hot and cold at the thought.
His visit to the vicarage that morning was a dead failure. Mr. Chilverstone's behaviour was foolish and ridiculous: he would talk of Sprats. He even went as far as to tell Lucian of some of Sprats 's escapades. They were mostly of the practical-joke order, and seemed to afford Mr. Chilverstone huge amusement — Lucian wondered how he could be so silly. He endeavoured to be as polite as possible, but he declined an invitation to stay to lunch. He would cheerfully listen to Mr. Chilverstone on the very dryest points of an irregular verb, but Mr. Chilverstone on Sprats was annoying —he almost descended to futility.
Lucian refused two invitations that afternoon. Mr. Pepperdine offered to take him with him to York, whither he was proceeding on business; Miss Judith asked him if he would like to go with her to the house of a friend in whose grounds was a haunted hermitage. He declined both invitations with great politeness and went out in solitude. Part of the afternoon he spent with an old man who mended the roads. The old man was stone-deaf and needed no conversational effort on the part of a friend, and when he spoke himself he talked of intelligent subjects, such as rheumatism, backache, and the best cure for stone in the bladder. Lucian thought him a highly intelligent man, and presented him with a screw of tobacco purchased at the village shop—it was a tacit thankoffering to the gods that the old man had avoided the subject of girls. His spirits improved after a visit to the shoemaker, who told him a brand-new ghost story for the truth of which he vouched with many solemn asseverations, and he was chatty with his Aunt Keziah when they took tea together. But that night he did not talk so much as usual, and he went to bed early and made no attempt to coax Miss Pepperdine into letting him have the extra
56
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
light which she had confiscated after he had set his bed
on fire.
Next day Lucian hoped to find the vicar in a saner
frame of mind, but to his astonishment and disgust Mr. Chilverstone immediately began to talk of Sprats again, and continued to do so imtil he became unbearable. Lucian was obliged to listen to stories which to him seemed inept, fatuous, and even imbecile. He was told of Sprats's first distinct words; of her first tooth; of her first attempts to walk; of the memorable occasion upon which she placed her pet kitten on the fire in order to warm it. The infatuated father, who had not had an
opportunity of retailing these stories for some time, and who believed that he was interesting his listener, continued to pour forth story after story, each more feeble and ridiculous than the last, until Lucian could have shrieked with the agony which was tearing his soul to pieces. He pleaded a bad headache at last and tried to slip away—Mr. Chilverstone detained him in order to give him an anti-headache powder, and accom- panied his researches into the medicine cupboard with a highly graphic description of a stomach-ache which Sprats had once contracted from too lavish indulgence in unripe apples, and was cured by himself with some simple drug. The vicar, in short, being a disingenuous
and a simple-minded man, had got Sprats on the brain, and he imagined that every word he said was meeting with a responsive thrill in the boy's heart.
Lucian escaped the fatuous father at last. He rushed out into the sunlight, almost choking with rage, grief, and disappomtment. He flung the powder into the
sat down on a stone-heap at the side of the road, and began to swear in Italian. He swore freely and fluently until he had exhausted that eloquent vocabulary which one may pick up in Naples and Venice and in the purlieus of Hatton Garden, and when he had finished he began it all over again and repeated
it with as much fervour as one should display, if one is honest, in reciting the Rosary. This saved him from
hedge-bottom,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
57
apoplexy, but the blood grew black within him and his soul was scratched. It had been no part of Lucian's plans for the future that Sprats should come between him and his friend.
He slept badly that night, and while he lay awake he said to himself that it was all over. It was a mere repetition of history—a woman always came between men. He had read a hundred instances — this was one more. Of course, the Sprats creature would oust him from his place—nothing would ever be as it had been. All was desolate, and he was alone. He read several pages of the fourth canto of Childe Harold as soon as it was light, and dropped asleep with the firm convic- tion that life is a grey thing.
All that day and the next Lucian kept away from the vicarage. The domestic deities wondered why he did not go as usual; he invented plausible excuses with facile ingenuity. He neglected his books and betrayed a suspicious interest in Mr. Pepperdine's recent pur- chases of cattle; he was restless and at times excited, and Miss Keziah looked at his tongue and felt his fore- head and made him swallow a dose of a certain home- made medicine by which she set great store. On the third day the suppressed excitement within him reached boiling-point. He went out into the fields mad to work it off, and by good or ill luck lighted upon an honest rustic who was hoeing turnips under a blazing mid- summer sun. Lucian looked at the rustic with the eye of a mocking and mischievous devil.
* Boggles,' he said, with a Mephistophelian coaxing, * would you like to hear some Italian? ' Boggles ruminated.
* Why, Master Lucian,' he said, ' I don't know as I ever did hear that language —can't say as I ever did, anyhow. '
' Listen, then,' said Lucian. He treated Boggles to a string of expletives, delivered with native force and energy, making use of his eyes and teeth until the man began to feel frightened.
LUCIAN THE DREMIER
58
think you was going to murder somebody —you look
'Lord sakes, Master Lucian! ' he said, 'one 'ud
that fierce. It's a queer sort o' language never heard nowt like it. It flays a body. '
that, sir— I
' It is the most delightful language in the world when
you want to swear,' said Lucian. ' It
. . . '
'Nonsense! It isn't a patch on German. You wait till I get over the hedge and I'll show you,' cried a ringing and very authoritative voice. ' I can reel off
twice as much as that. '
Lucian turned round with an instinctive feeling
that a critical moment was at hand. He caught sight of something feminine behind the hedgerow; the next instant a remarkably nimble girl came over a half-made man uttered an exclamation
The turnip-hoeing which had much joy in it.
gap.
' Lord sakes if it isn't Miss Milhe! ' he said, touching his cap. ' Glad to see 'ee once again, missie. _ They did tell me you was coming from them furrineerin'
countries, and there you be, growed quite up, as one
might say. ' answered Miss ' Not quite, ' but nearly, Boggles,'
Chilverstone. How's your rheumatics, as one might call 'em? They were pretty bad when I went away,
I remember. '
winter, miss,' said Boggles, leaning on his hoe and evincing a decided desire to talk, ' and a deal better in summer, alius pro-
viding the Lord don't send no rain. Fine, dry weather, miss, is what I want—the rain ain't no good to me. '
' A Httle drop wouldn't hurt the turnips, an^'way,' said Miss Chilverstone, looking about her with a know-
air. 'Seem pretty well dried up, don't they? ' She looked at Lucian. Their eyes met: the boy stared and blushed; the girl stared and laughed.
' Did it lose its tongue, then? ' she said teasingly.
' It seemed to have a very long and very ready one when it was swearing at poor old Boggles. What made him use such bad language to you, Boggles? '
ing
' They're always
bad i' th'
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 59
' Lord bless 'ee, missie,' said Boggles hurriedly, ' he didn't mean no harm, didn't Master Lucian—he was telling me how they swear in Eye-taUan. Not but what it didn't sound very terrible—but he wouldn't hurt a
Lucian, miss, he wouldn't
' I am Lucian, yes,' he answered.
* Do you know who I am? ' she asked, with a flashing
look.
Lucian stared back at her, and the shadow of a smile
stole into his face.
* I think,' he said musingly, ' I think you must be
Sprats.
'
Then the two faced each other and stared as only
stranger children can stare. observant, Mr. Boggles, his watery old eyes keenly
leaned his chin upon his hoe and stared also, chuckling to himself. Neither saw him; their eyes were all for each other. The girl, without acknowledging per- haps without knowing it, recognised the boy's beauty and hated him for in healthy fashion. He was too much of picture; his clothes were too neat; his collar too clean; his hands too white; he was altogether too much of fine and finicking little gentleman; he ought, she said to herself, to be stuck in velvet suit, and point-lace collar, and labelled. The spirit of mischief
entered into her at the sight of him.
Lucian examined this strange creature with care.
He was relieved to find that she was by no means beautiful. He saw strong-Hmbed, active-looking young damsel, rather older and rather taller than him- self, whose face was odd, rather than pretty, and chiefly remarkable for prodigality of freckles and healthy tan. Her nose was pugnacious and inclined to be of the snub order; her hair sandy and anything but tidy;
fly, wouldn't Master indeed. '
' Dear little lamb ! ' she said mockingly, * I shouldn't think he would. ' She turned on the boy with a sudden twist of her shoulders. * So you are Lucian, are you? ' she asked.
a
a
it a
a
a
a
a
a
it,
6o LUCIAN THE DREAMER
there was nothing beautiful in her face but a pair of brown eyes of a singularly clear and honest sort. As for her attire, it was not in that order which an exact- ing governess might have required: she wore a blue
a battered
frock in which she had evidently been climbing
serge
trees or scrambling through hedgerows,
straw hat wherein she or somebody had stuck the long feathers from a cock's tail; there was a rent in one of her stockings, and her stout shoes looked as if she had tramped through several ploughed fields in them. All over and round her glowed a sort of aureole of rude and vigorous health, of animal spirits, and of a love of mischief —the youthful philosopher confronting her recognised a new influence and a new nature.
' Yes,' she said demurely, ' I'm Sprats, and you've a cheek to call me so—who gave you leave, I'd like to know? What would you think if I told you that you'd look nice if you had a barrel-organ and a monkey on it? Ha! ha! had him there, hadn't I, Boggles? Well, do you know where I am going, monkey-boy? '
Lucian sighed resignedly.
'No,' he answered. ' ' Going to fetch you,' she said.
You haven't been to your lessons for two days, and you're to go this
instant minute. '
' I don't think I want any lessons to-day,' repHed
Lucian. said, * Hear him! ' she
making
do they do with little boys who won't go to school,
Boggles —eh? '
If Lucian had known more of a world with which he
had never, poor child, had much opportunity of making
he would have seen that Sprats was meditating mischief. Her eyes began to ghtter: she
smiled demurely.
' Are you coming peaceably? ' she asked.
' But I'm not coming at all,' replied Lucian.
* Aren't you, though? We'll soon settle that,
acquaintance,
a ' What grimace.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 6i
won't we, Boggles? ' she exclaimed. ' Now then,
monkey—off you go ! '
She was on him with a rush before he knew what
was about to happen, and had lifted him off his feet and swung him on to her shoulder ere he could escape her. Lucian expostulated and beseeched; Sprats,
and laughing, made for a gap in the hedge- row; Boggles, hugely delighted, following in the wake. At the gap a battle royal ensued—Lucian fighting to free himself, the girl clinging on to him with all the strength of her vigorous young arms.
shouting
* Let me go, I say! ' cried Lucian. * Let me down! '
* You'd best to go quiet and peaceable. Master
Lucian,' counselled Boggles. ' Miss Millie ain't one to
be denied of anything. '
* But I won't be carried! ' shouted Lucian, half mad
with rage. ' I won't . . . '
He got no further. Sprats, holding on tight to her
her foot in a branch as she struggled over the gap, and pitched headlong through. There was a steep bank at the other side with a wide ditch of water at its foot: Boggles, staring over the hedge with all his eyes, beheld captor and captive, an inextricable
mass of legs and arms, turn a series of hurried somer- saults and collapse into the duck-weed and water-lilies with a splash that drowned their mutual screams of rage, indignation, and delight.
captive, caught
CHAPTER VII
It followed as a matter of inevitable consequence that Lucian and Sprats when they emerged from the waters of the wayside ditch had become fast friends for life; from that time forward they were as David and Jonathan, loving much, and having full confidence in each other. They became inseparable, and their Hves were spent together from, an early hour of the morning until the necessary bedtime. The vicar was to a certain degree shelved: his daughter possessed the charm of youth and high spirits which was wanting in him. He became a species of elder brother, who was useful in teaching one things and good company on
He, like the philosopher which life had made him, accepted the situation. He saw that the devotion which Lucian had been about to pour out at his own feet had by a sudden whim of fate been diverted to his daughter, and he smiled. He took from these two children all that they gave him, and was sometimes
to satiety and sometimes kept on short com- mons, according to their vagaries and moods. Like all young and healthy things, they believed that the world had been made for their own particular benefit, and they absorbed it. Perhaps there had never been such
occasions.
gorged
as that which sprang up between these two. The trifling fact that one was a
boy and the other a girl never seemed to strike them: they were sexless and savage in their freedom. Under Sprats's fostering care Lucian developed a new side of his character: she taught him to play cricket and foot- ball, to climb trees and precipices, to fish and to ride,
a close companionship
and to be an out-of-door boy in every way.
his part, repaid her by filling her mind with ranch of his own learning: she became as famiUar with the scenes of his childhood as if she had lived in them herself.
62
He, on
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
63
For three years the vicar, Sprats, and Lucian lived in a world of their own, with the Pepperdines as a closely fitting environment. Miss Pepperdine was accustomed to remark that she did not know whether Lucian really lived at the farm or at the vicarage, but as the vicar often made a similar observation with respect to his daughter, things appeared to be equalised. It was true that the two children treated the houses with equal freedom. If they happened to be at the
farm about dinner-time they dined there, but the vicarage would have served them equally well if it had harboured them when the luncheon-bell rang. Mr. Pepperdine was greatly delighted when he found them filling a side of his board: their remarks on things in general, their debates, disputes, and more than all, their
afforded him much amusement. They were not so well understood by Miss Pepperdine, who con- sidered the young lady from the vicarage to be some- thing of a hoyden, and thought it the vicar's duty to marry again and provide his offspring with a mother.
' And a pretty time she'd have ! ' remarked Mr. Pepperdine, to whom this sage reflection was offered. ' A nice handful for anybody, is that young Sprats — as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat. But a good ge'l, a good ge'l, Keziah, and with a warm heart, you make no mistake. *
Sprats's kindness of heart, indeed, was famous throughout the village. She was her father's almoner, and tempered charity with discrimination in a way that would have done credit to a professional philanthropist. She made periodical visits through the village, followed by Lucian, who meekly carried a large basket contain- ing toothsome and seasonable doles, which were handed out to this or that old woman in accordance with Sprats's instructions. The instinct of mothering some- thing was strong within her. From the moment of her return from school she had taken her father in hand and had shaken him up and pulled him together. He had contracted bad habits as regards food and was
quarrels,
64
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
becoming dyspeptic; he was careless about his personal comfort and neglectful of his health —Sprats dragooned him into the paths of rectitude. But she extended her
instincts to Lucian even more than to her father. She treated him at times as if he were a child with whom it was unnecessary to reason; there was always an affectionate solicitude in her attitude towards him which was, perhaps, most marked when she bullied him into subjection. Once when he was ill and con- fined to his room for a week or two she took up her quarters at the farm, summarily dismissed Keziah and Judith from attendance on the invalid, and nursed him
back to convalescence. It was useless to argue with
mothering
as Boggles had truly said, was not one to be denied of anything, and every
her on these occasions. Sprats,
year made it more manifest that when she had picked Lucian up in the turnip-field and had fallen headlong into the ditch with him, it had been a figure of her future interest in his welfare.
It was in the fourth summer of Lucian 's residence at Simonstower, and he was fifteen and Sprats nearly two years older, when the serpent stole into their Para- dise. Until the serpent came all had gone well with them. Sprats was growing a fine girl; she was more rudely healthy than ever, and just as sunburned; her freckles had increased rather than decreased; her hair, which was growing deeper in colour, was a perpetual nuisance to her. She had grown a little quieter in
manner, but would break out at times; the mere fact that she wore longer skirts did not prevent her from climbing trees or playing cricket. And she and Lucian were still hand-in-glove, still David and Jonathan; she had no friends of her own sex, and he none of his; each was in a happy state of perfect content. But the stage of absolute perfection is by no means assured even in the Arcadia of childhood—it may endure for a time,
but sooner or later it must be broken in upon, and not seldom in a rudely sudden way.
The breaking up of the old things began one Sunday
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 65
morning in summer, in the cool shade of the ancient church. Nothing heralded the momentous event; everything was as placid as it always was. Lucian,
in the pew sacred to the family of Pepperdine, looked about him and saw just what he saw every Sunday. Mr. Pepperdine was at the end of the pew in his best clothes; Miss Pepperdine was gorgeous in black silk and bugles; Miss Judith looked very hand- some in her pearl-grey. In the vicarage pew, all alone, sat Sprats in solemn state. Her freckled face shone with much polishing; her sailor hat was quite straight; as for the rest of her, she was clothed in a simple blouse and a plain skirt, and there were no tears in either. All the rest was as usual. The vicar's surplice had been
sitting
washed, and Sprats had mended a bit of his hood, which had become frayed by hanging on a nail in the vestry, but otherwise he presented no different
appearance to that which always characterised him. There were the same faces, and the same expressions upon them, in every pew, and that surely was the same bee that always buzzed while they waited for the ser- vice to begin, and the three bells in the tower droned out. ' Come to church—come to church—come to
church ! *
It was at this very moment that the serpent stole into
Paradise. The vicar had broken the silence with ' When the wicked man turneth away from his wicked- ness,' and everybody had begun to rustle the leaves of
their prayer-books, when the side-door of the chancel opened and the Earl of Simonstower, very tall, and very gaunt, and very irascible in appearance, entered in advance of two ladies, whom he marshalled to the castle pew with as much grace and dignity as his gout would allow. Lucian and Sprats, with a wink to each other which no one else perceived, examined the earl's companions during the recitation of the General Con- fession, looking through the slits of their hypocritical
newly
to be a woman of fashion: she was dressed in a style not often seen at
fingers. The elder lady appeared
£
66 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
Simonstower, and her attire, her lorgnette, her vinai- grette, her fan, and her airs and graces formed a delightful contrast to the demeanour of the old earl, who was famous for the rustiness of his garments, and stuck like a leech to the fashion of the ' forties. '
But it was neither earl nor simpering madam at which Lucian gazed at surreptitious moments during the rest of the service. The second of the ladies to enter into the pew of the great house was a girl of sixteen, ravish- ingly pretty, and gay as a peacock in female flaunts and fineries which dazzled Lucian' s eyes. She was dark, and her eyes were shaded by exceptionally long lashes which swept a creamy cheek whereon there appeared the bloom of the peach, fresh, original, bewitching; her hair, curling over her shoulders from beneath a white sun-bonnet, artfully designed to com- municate an air of innocence to its wearer, was of the same blue-black hue that distinguished Lucian's own curls. It chanced that the boy had just read some extracts from Don Juan : it seemed to him that here was Haidee in the very flesh. A remarkably strange sensa- tion suddenly developed in the near region of his heart —Lucian for the first time in his life had fallen in love. He felt sick and queer and almost stifled; Miss Pepper- dine noticed a drawn expression on his face, and passed him a mint lozenge. He put it in his mouth —some- thing nearly choked him, but he had a vague suspicion that the lozenge had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Chilverstone had a trick of being long-winded if he found a text that appealed to him, and when Lucian heard the subject of that morning's discourse he feared that the congregation was in for a sermon of at least half an hour's duration. The presence of the Earl of Simonstower, however, kept the vicar within reasonable bounds, and Lucian was devoutly thankful. He had never wished for anything so much in all his life as he then wished to be out of church and safely hidden in the vicarage, where he always lunched on Sunday, or in some corner of the woods. For the girl in the earl's
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 67
pew was discomposing, not merely because of her prettiness but because she would stare at him, Lucian. He, temperamentally shy where women were con- cerned, had only dared to look at her now and then; she, on the contrary, having once seen him looked at nothing else. He knew that she was staring at him all through the sermon. He grew hot and uncomfortable
and Miss Judith increased his confusion by asking him if he were not quite well. It was with a great sense of relief that he heard Mr. Chilverstone
and wriggled,
wind up his sermon and begin the Ascription—he felt that he could not stand the fire of the girl's eyes any
longer. in the porch and seemed in a great He joined Sprats however,
hurry to retreat upon the vicarage. Sprats,
had other views — she wanted to speak to various old women and to Miss Pepperdine, and Lucian had to remain with her. Fate was cruel—the earl, for some
mad reason or other, brought his visitors down the church instead of taking them out by the chancel door;
close by Lucian. He looked at her; she raised demure eyelids and looked at him. The soul within him became as water—he was lost. He seemed to float into space; his head burned, and he shut his eyes, or thought he did. When he opened them again the girl,
a dainty dream of white, was vanishing, and Sprats and Miss Judith were asking him if he didn't feel \yell. New-bom love fostered dissimulation: he complained of a sick headache. The maternal instinct was
consequently
Haidee passed
his heart turned icy-cold,
aroused in Sprats: she conducted him homewards, stretched him on a comfortable sofa in a
immediately
room, and bathed his forehead with eau-de- Her care and attention were pleasant, but Lucian 's thoughts were of the girl whose eyes had
smitten him to the heart.
The sick headache formed an excellent cloak for the
darkened cologne.
of the afternoon and evening. He recovered sufficiently to eat some lunch, and he after-
shortcomings
68 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
wards lay on a rug in the garden and was tended by the faithful Sprats with a fan and more eau-de-cologne. He kept his eyes shut most of the time, and thought of Haidee. Her name, he said to himself, must be Haidee
no other name would fit her eyes, her hair, and her red lips. He trembled when he thought of her lips;
it, and wondered if he was going to have rheumatic fever or ague. She fetched a cHnical
thermometer out of the house and took his temperature.
It was quite normal, and she was reassured, but still a
Sprats
noticed
little puzzled. When tea-time came she brought his
tea and her own out into the garden—she observed
that he ate languidly, and only asked twice for straw-
berries. She refused to allow him to go to church in
the evening, and conducted him to the farm herself.
On the way, talking of the events of the day, she asked
him if he had noticed the stuck-up doll in the earl's
pew. Lucian dissembled, and replied in an indifferent
tone—it appeared from his reply that he had chiefly
observed the elder lady, and had wondered who she
was. Sprats was able to inform him upon this point— she was a Mrs. Brinklow, a connection, cousin, half-
cousin, or something, of Lord Simonstower's, and the girl was her daughter, and her name was Haidee.
Lucian knew it—it was Fate, it was Destiny. He had had dreams that some such mate as this was reserved for him in the Pandora's box which was now being opened to him. Haidee! He nearly choked with emotion, and Sprats became certain that he was
from indigestion. She had private conversa- tion with Miss Pepperdine at the farm on the subject of Lucian' s indisposition, with the result that a cooling draught was administered to him and immediate bed insisted upon. He retired with meek resignation; as a matter of fact solitude was attractive—he wanted to think of Haidee. —
In the silent watches of the night disturbed but twice, once by Miss Pepperdine with more medicine, and once by Miss Judith with nothing but solicitude —
suffering
V
LUCIAN THE DREAMER bg
he realised the entire situation. Haidee had dawned upon him, and the Thing was begun which made all poets mighty. He would be miserable, but he would be great. She was a high-bom maiden, who sat in the pews of earls, and he was—he was not exactly sure what he was. She would doubtless look upon him with scorn: well, he would make the world ring with his name and fame; he would die in a cloud of glory, fighting for some oppressed nation, as Byron did, and then she would be sorry, and possibly weep for him.
By eleven o'clock he felt as if he had been in love all his life; by midnight he was asleep and dreaming that Haidee was locked up in a castle on the Rhine, and that he had sworn to release her and carry her away to liberty and love. He woke early next morning, and wrote some verses in the metre and style of my Lord Byron's famous address to a maiden of Athens; by breakfast-time he knew them by heart.
It was all in accordance with the decrees of Fate that Lucian and Haidee were quickly brought into each other's company. Two days after the interchange of glances in the church porch the boy rushed into the dining-room at the vicarage one afternoon, and found himself confronted by a group of persons, of whom he for the first bewildering moment recognised but one. When he realised that the earth was not going to open and swallow him, and that he could not escape without shame, he saw that the Earl of Simonstower, Mrs.
Brinklow, Mr. Chilverstone, and Sprats were in the room as well as Haidee. It was fortunate that Mrs. Brinklow, who had an eye for masculine beauty and admired pretty boys, took a great fancy to him, and immediately began to pet him in a manner which he
bitterly resented. That cooled him, and gave him
He contrived to extricate himself from her caresses with dignity, and replied to the ques- tions which the earl put to him about his studies with modesty and courage. Sprats conducted Haidee to
the garden to inspect her collection of animals; Lucian
self-possession.
70
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
went with them, and became painfully aware that for every glance which he and Haidee bestowed on rabbits, white mice, piebald rats, and guinea-pigs, they gave two to each other. Each glance acted hke an electric thrill—it seemed to Lucian that she was the very spirit of love, made flesh for him to worship. Sprats, how- ever, had an opinion of Miss Brinklow which was
to his own, and she expressed it with great freedom. On any other occasion he would
diametrically opposed
have quarrelled with her: the shame and modesty of
love kept him
against one of her own sex.
silent; he dared not defend his lady
It was in the economy of Lucian's dream that he and Haidee were to be separated by cruel and inexorable Fate : Haidee, however, had no intention of permitting Fate or anything else to rob her of her just dues. On the afternoon of the very next day Lord Simonstower sent for Lucian to read an Italian magazine to him; Haidee, whose mother loved long siestas on summer days, and was naturally inclined to let her daughter manage her own affairs, contrived to waylay the boy with the beautiful eyes as he left the Castle, and as pretty a piece of comedy ensued as one could wish to
see. They met again, and then they met in secret, and Lucian became bold and Haidee alluring, and the woods by the river, and the ruins in the Castle, might have whispered of romantic scenes. And at last Lucian could keep his secret no longer, and there came a day when he poured into Sprats 's surprised and sisterly ear the momentous tidings that he and Haidee had plighted their troth for ever and a day, and loved more madly and despairingly than lovers ever had loved since
Leander swam to Hero across the Hellespont.
CHAPTER VIII
Sprats was o! an eminently practical turn of mind. She wanted to know what was to come of all this. To her astonishment she discovered that Lucian was already full of plans for assuring bread and butter and many other things for himself and his bride, and had arranged their future on a cut-and-dried scheme. He was going to devote himself to his studies more zeal- ously than ever, and to practise himself in the divine art which was his gift. At twenty he would publish his first volume of poems, in English and in Italian; at the same time he would produce a great blank verse tragedy at Milan and in London, and his name would be extolled throughout Europe, and he himself pro- bably crowned with laurel at Rome, or Florence, or somewhere. He would be famous, and also rich, and he would then claim the hand of Haidee, who in the meantime would have waited for him with the fideHty
that, of course, there would follow eternal bliss — it was not necessary to look
further ahead. But he added, with lordly condescen- sion, that he and Haidee would always love Sprats, and she, if she liked, might live with them.
' Did Haidee tell you to tell me so? ' asked Sprats,
No,
Lucian made no reply to this generous offer. He knew that there was no love lost between the two girls, and could not quite understand why, any more than he could realise that they were sisters under their skins.
of a Penelope. After
' because the prospect is not exactly alluring.
thank you, my dear—I'm not so fond of Haidee as all that. But I will teach her to mend your clothes and dam your socks, if you like—it will be a useful accomplishment. '
maternal, side; but Haidee was an ethereal being
He understood the Sprats of the sisterly, good-chum
71
72
LUCIAN THE DREAIVIER
though possessed of a sound appetite.