Lord Welwoodham watched her out of sight with some complacency; there went the boys’ writer of the half-century, pledged to write only for The Prize during the coming year. But the thoughts of Mr. Ramage were touched with wistfulness and curiosity.
“There goes young Dickens,” he murmured, half to himself, staring down after the slender disappearing figure, “stumbling home after a day’s torture in the blacking factory with his head crammed to bursting with grotesques. And young Keats, hurrying off to forget the smell of drugs and the weight of the pestle in the summer fields—and young Kipling climbing into the gharry, too tired to sleep after putting The Pioneer to bed. Lucky young devils all! I’d give something to know what’s going on in her head at this moment, eh, Lord Welwoodham?”
“Yes—yes. It must all seem very exciting to her; she’s a funny little thing, quite—unworldly is the only word I can think of—apart from her gift.”
“Wait till she finds she can earn a lot of money,” said Mr. Ramage rather sadly. “That will soon cure her un-worldliness.”
“I hope not, but I fear so,” replied Lord Welwoodham, gathering up the yellow stick and the hogskin gloves in readiness to go home. “Still, money is very pleasant, you know, Ramage, very desirable. No harm in money, so long as it is harmlessly earned. Eh? Don’t trouble much about the stuff myself but then my tastes are simple, thank God, and I’ve always been able to gratify them and have a little over. That makes all the difference.”
You said it, thought Mr. Ramage somewhat coarsely, with a passing pang of impatient envy. Aristocrats! Between even the best of them and the ordinary salary-packet slave, how great a gulf lies fixed!
Homeward through the tired, hurrying crowds went Amy, just as she used to in that old dream of her childhood when the flock of hastening blank-faced strangers would not stop or notice her although she screamed her name at them and implored them with outflung arms. But this evening was quite different from all the others on which she had hurried home during the past four years because everything looked so amazingly exciting. The buses were such a brilliant blazing red and the petrol vapour that hung above them such a lustrous blue, the twisted copper leaves on the plane trees were so strange that she nearly got knocked down by a lorry as she stared up at them, the smoky yellow sunset far down between the tall buildings of offices and banks was so wonderfully far away and peaceful (it’s like that over the forests of Poland, where the bison are). The faces of the people on a level with her own in the stifling tube, under the glaring lights, were brimming with secrets and strangeness under their tired pallor. She devoured each one, stamping features, colour, expression, into her mind, thinking of a name for that woman, imagining that man’s house. Her heart beat heavily and she shut her eyes. Slow spirals of purple, green and bronze at once unrolled over a pale brown field, making the word “India” ring slowly through her mind. She opened her eyes again, and saw the pale faces full of secrets, the brilliance of the silver-violet lights, the dark wall of the tunnel rushing by.
I’m awfully tired to-night. It’s lovely about my story. Miss Lathom’ll be pleased, I must tell her. It’s Old Girls next Saturday, I can tell her then.
And suddenly, just as the train ran into Caledonian Road station, there exploded in her mind like a fountain of silver stars—
Down with the drawbridge and let him through—
The dreamer whose dreams came true!
That’s my favourite poem, and fancy, I’d almost forgotten it.
After supper if Dora’s out I’ll start the new River Boy story.
The train moved on into the tunnel, and once again, exactly as though the sea had flung up a wave and drenched her with spray sparkling in the sunlight of a secret land, the poem broke over her—making her shiver and her eyes fill suddenly with tears—
Down with the drawbridge and let him through—
The dreamer whose dreams came true!
PART TWO
CHAPTER XVI
THE OLD ROAD to Alva was a rutted track bordered by willow trees. On either side of it uncultivated fields rolled away to the mountains. The road was hardly used since the Depression hit Alva some years ago; in the winter it got blocked with snow and in the rainy weather it stood under water, and no-one cared except the few farmers who used it to send their vegetables and milk into Alva, and the pupils of the Jabez Culver Infant School, which provided education for the children in this lonely district. The children knew the old road well. They went bumping down it to school in the family Ford, or loitered home along it on the fall afternoons, picking golden rod and asters.
The air smelled wonderfully sweet on a spring night three years later, and the old road was beautiful in the moonlight.
Miss Ridgeway, of the Jabez Culver Infant School, was very busy about nine o’clock that evening. The curtains had just fallen on the last Tableau of the series given by the School at the End of Term Party, and the parents were still clapping and cheering. In this tableau Sally Best, aged seven, had appeared as Liberty in a white robe, a silver cardboard halo and a gold cardboard torch, bestowing a gold casket labelled Prosperity on Joe Murphy as The American Worker (wearing a boiler-suit and a white shirt), while Marguerite Frost, aged nine, stood on the one side impersonating Culture (pink robe, wreath of bay leaves from the Frost backyard), and Ruth Pittson, aged eight, stood on the other as Progress (blue robe, crown of golden stars) with a fat finger pointing unsteadily at a portable radio. The three little girls and the boy stood quite still, at first, against the background of the Stars and Stripes but as the fathers and mothers burst into murmurs and applause, the younger children began to wobble and bite their lips in their attempts not to laugh, and only The American Worker stood still as a statue. When the curtains swung back for the third time to display the tableau, Sally Best piped:
“Say, Miss Ridgeway, can Joe take Prosperity now? My arms is aching awful!”
—and the curtain came down for the last time amid a shout of delighted laughter from the parents.
“Joe, Sally, get your things off quickly and pack them away and wait for me in the hall, I won’t be long.” Miss Ridgeway dropped her hand for a second on the shoulder of The American Worker as the children moved off the stage. Miss Ridgeway had leanings to the Left which the Depression had not lessened, and Joe’s dress and character had been her contribution to the tableaux planned by her sister. “Then I’ll run you home, both of you.”
A few minutes later the boy and the little girl came out into the hall, where Miss Ridgeway stood with her sister saying good-night to the parents as they slowly streamed out of the schoolhouse, and receiving their congratulations.
“Gee, I’m hungry!” Sally did a little hop, her bright dark eyes darting about among the crowd.
Joe felt in his pocket and silently handed her two peanuts.
“Gosh, Joe Murphy, I hate peanuts!”
“Be hungry, then,” said Joe indifferently, but he shelled them for her and soon she was nibbling them, while Joe, huddled into his shabby old coat, stared at the crowd and exchanged waves and grins with his friends.
He was too old at twelve years to attend the school any longer, and now went to the Vine Falls High, but he had been so popular while at the Jabez Culver that Miss Ridgeway and all the children had decided to invite him to be in the Tableaux. He was perhaps the most popular boy in the neighbourhood; a spry, fresh, good-tempered kid, often in mischief but never in mischief of the wrong kind, intelligent and full of energy as yet undirected, the kind of boy for whom all the neighbours vaguely predict great things when he is grown up. His home was poor, for his father was a truck driver only in occasional work and his mother was delicate and could not work as hard as she wanted to, but the family was liked and respected by their neighbours south of the tracks in Vine Falls, and everybody in town knew Joe’s tow-coloured head and small twinkling blue eyes. His parents were not at the Party, because his father was away on a night trucking job and his mother was in bed with a three-days old bab
y. Sally Best was also alone at the party; her father and mother were two gay young people who found parenthood a tie, and had parked her on a grandmother who was too old to gad about at nights, even to admire Sally in a Tableau. But Miss Ridgeway was going to drive both children home: they would be quite safe with Miss Ridgeway.
Children were clustered in the hall, hooded and scarfed like elves, their round excited little faces suddenly yawning as they were picked up by Dad or big brother and suddenly discovered that they were sleepy. It was awful late! Most half-after nine! Gosh, there was the old moon up in the sky! One or two of the younger ones looked solemn; wasn’t there something about witches riding in the sky on Hallow’en? Oh, Miss Ridgeway said there weren’t any old witches and it wasn’t Hallowe’en. So that was all right.
“That sure was a swell party, Miss Ridgeway!”
“Didn’t Ruthie look cute!”
“Thanks for a lovely party, Miss Ridgeway!”
“G’d night!”
“G’d night!”
Slowly the crowd thinned, and one by one the cars got away, with everyone calling out laughing good-byes, until only Miss Ridgeway’s little car stood outside the school in the moonlight.
“Get in, will you, Joe, and help Sally? I won’t be a moment,” called Miss Ridgeway, busy in the hall.
“Sure.” And Joe advanced on Sally, who was hopping on and off the doorstep. “C’m on, kid. I’ll lift you in.”
“I don’t want you to lift me, Joe Murphy. I kin get in by myself.”
“Awright. Maybe you’d like to open the door as well, Sally Best, and put in the gasolene and drive the car right home?”
“I could too, Joe Murphy, so you leave me alone.” And Sally walked with dignity to the car, Joe sauntering after her, grinning. She was only a pint-size number, but such a fresh little thing with her Shirley Temple airs and her black fringe and her big brown eyes!
“Want me to open the door?”
“Well, Joe Murphy, are you dumb! How kin I get in if you don’t?”
Joe opened the door, picked her up, swung her into the back seat with a flash of white frills, and climbed in beside her.
“Gosh, Joe Murphy, be careful, liftin’ a lady up like that!”
“You ain’t a lady, you’re a rat,” said Joe coldly, suddenly bored with her airs. “Eat those an’ shut up.” He gave her three more peanuts, and they settled down to wait for Miss Ridgeway.
Earlier that evening, Bob turned his car away from Morgan and set out on the road for Vine Falls. He usually went home for week-ends, and this week-end he particularly wanted to be at home because Helen would be there, and he had not seen her for some time. Their vacations had coincided, but their plans had not: she had been south to visit relations, he had been north to visit friends, and he had been so busy this last year that he had not written to her so often as he used.
But he wanted to see her again, and the thought of seeing her gave a lift to his spirit and made him whistle softly as he sent the car along Sixteenth Street and into Mailey Avenue, where the pretty houses and unfenced gardens gave way to open lots and the country began.
Swell night, he thought. I’ll go home by the old road, it’s a short cut. More than one girl looked interestedly at the big fair young man driving the big car, for Bob in his early twenties had an air of natural happiness that attracted girls, sometimes against their will.
The last few years had been difficult ones for the Vorsts; Mr. Vorst had been forced to sell the last of the three newspapers to the Syndicate and had also lost large sums on the stock market. Irene had married Jesson, the Parlour Pink, and gone to live at Cape Cod, which was a long way from Vine Falls, and Boone had married again, a clever, hard newspaperwoman some years older than himself, and was living in New York; they seldom saw him. Only Lou and Bob were left at home. Mrs. Vorst would not have minded the scattering of her family, which was inevitable as they grew up, if she had felt sure that both her married children were happy. But Boone had been too embittered by Jeanette to make a success of a second marriage, and Irene refused to have children and was disappointed in her husband because he could not make a fortune. The days when the family had been so happy, in the golden Coolidge Prosperity Era, seemed like a dream, and Mrs. Vorst sometimes found the house on the hill very lonely.
Bob was the only one who did not seem to mind the change of fortune. He was not ashamed of owning an “old” car, though Myron suffered acutely and was always pointing out that everybody in town had a new car every six months and adding that Prosperity was likely to stay just around the corner while folks didn’t spend. Bob gave up his expensive flat in Morgan without a murmur and went into cheaper rooms; he did not complain when his father (who felt it far more than he did) broke it to him that his allowance for the year would only cover fees and lodging, and could not be stretched to take in subscriptions to expensive college clubs. He seemed to have a spring of happiness in himself that could not be dried up. His father was relieved that he took the economies without complaint, but he was also a little contemptuous and surprised. The boy didn’t seem to want to cut a dash at all! It wasn’t natural. Why, at his age. …! Irene said cuttingly that Bob was just a small town hick and always had been, with no drive and no push. Even Lou, trying to make the best of life in Vine Falls and put behind her the delightful vision of two years at an art school in New York, admitted that Bob had her guessing. The family finally decided that he was so crazy about his work that he did not mind what else he gave up so long as he could keep that.
They did not suspect that Vine Falls had produced one of the rarest specimens the modern world can show: a complete human being.
Miss Ridgeway came briskly over to the car and smiled at Joe and Sally.
“All set?”
“Sure, Miss Ridgeway!”
“Let’s go, then.”
She climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The moonlit road was empty. Very faint and faraway across the fields sounded the melancholy tolling of the night mail.
Miss Ridgeway started the engine, and the car moved off.
As soon as Bob left the town behind he let the car go fast. One or two cars flashed by him and the lamps began to string past in a golden chain. A low roar filled the air, and he smiled faintly as the speed increased. The cool, sweet-smelling air rushed past his face and he softly hummed an old song:
I’m one o’ those rarin-to-go galoots
That aim to die in my high top boots. …
while the needle moved on to seventy.
At the new Vinebridge road he slowed and turned down a narrower one bordered with elms, leading to the old Alva-Vine Falls road. He drove carelessly, for this part of the country was very lonely, with no lights, no houses, nothing but miles of rough fields, grey-green in the moonlight, stretching away to the hills. A real estate board, offering magnificent frontage for stores and homes on the main road, suddenly looked over a dark hedge. The lettering was faded: the board had been there two years. This district would have developed if Alva had developed; but Alva was dead, killed by the slump in real estate. Bob’s eyes were half-shut, he drove in a dream.
Once he passed a car drawn up to the side of the road with two motionless figures in it pressed close together. He drove on with a new turn to his thoughts. He had never been in love. Since Boone’s divorce he had had a horror of girls like Jeanette, who were beautiful but cruel; and in every girl he met he saw cruelty, the desire to boss and to hurt, under the soft skin and behind the clear eyes. Suppose he gave in to his longing to love, and loved one of those girls? Sooner or later she would hurt him, and he would be spoiled for life as Boone was spoiled.
If he could find a girl who was brave yet tender, like Jo in Lou’s old favourite, Little Women! That was the kind of girl he wanted, but American girls, lovely and grand as they were, were not like Jo—and would they laugh at the idea! He laughed a little to himself, as the car sped along the lonely road, at the thought of the expression on certain young
faces in Morgan if he announced that his ideal girl was Jo in Little Women!
A girl who did not want a man to give up everything for her, a girl who would do as she was told (Ah! what would the Morgan faces say to that?), a girl who was “tender and true” as the old song said. …
There was Helen, now; beautiful, clever and good, as nearly perfect as a girl could be. She was like a third sister to him and he loved her dearly, but imagine having to live up to Helen! It would take all a poor guy’s time to be worthy of her, it would be like having to house the Hope Diamond, one could never relax.
It was lucky that he and Helen had never felt that way about each other. They would never have suited.
The car went down into the warmair under some thick trees.
English girls were supposed to give in to their men much more than American girls did. But English girls were also supposed to be cold, and that would never do for him. Two of his friends had married English girls; and were mighty happy. They were rather surprised, because they could not get used to having their wives do what they were told, but they were certainly happy; that could be seen in their faces.
Oh, well, there was plenty of time, and meanwhile he was happy enough himself. And he began to whistle softly as the car came out into the moonlight once more.
Miss Ridgeway drove at her usual careful thirty-five miles an hour, keeping her eyes fixed on the moonlit road. Sally was sleepy and dozed in her corner, but Joe sang:
California, here I come
Right back where I started from!
and presently Sally’s little piping voice joined in. Miss Ridgeway smiled, not taking her steady eyes off the pale road moving towards her. Ten years of teaching had not cured her of loving children.