CHAPTER V
HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL
I
The village of Stoke was no whit intimidated by the news that Mrs. Readesowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men gaped and shooktheir heads, the children hung about the ruinous gate that shut them outfrom the twenty-yard strip of garden which led up to Stott's cottage.Curiosity was the dominant emotion. Any excuse was good enough to makefriendly overtures, but the baby remained invisible to all save Mrs.Reade; and the village community kept open ears while the lust of itseyes remained, perforce, unsatisfied. If Stott's gate slammed in thewind, every door that commanded a view of that gate was opened, andheads appeared, and bare arms--the indications of women who nodded toeach other, shook their heads, pursed their lips and withdrew for thetime to attend the pressure of household duty. Later, even that gateslamming would reinvigorate the gossip of backyards and front doorways.
The first stranger to force an entry was the rector. He was an Oxfordman who, in his youth, had been an ardent disciple of the school thatattempts the reconciliation of Religion and Science. He had beenambitious, but nature had predetermined his career by giving him a headof the wrong shape. At Oxford his limitations had not been clearlydefined, and on the strength of a certain speech at the Union, he creptinto a London west-end curacy. There he attempted to demonstrate theprinciple of reconciliation from the pulpit, but his vicar and hisbishop soon recognised that excellent as were his intentions, he wasdoing better service to agnosticism than to his own religion. As aresult of this clerical intrigue he was vilely marooned on the savageisland of Stoke-Underhill, where he might preach as much science as hewould to the natives, for there was no fear of their comprehending him.Fifteen years of Stoke had brought about a reaction. Nature had made hima feeble fanatic, and he was now as ardent an opponent of science as hehad once been a defender. In his little mind he believed that his earlyreading had enabled him to understand all the weaknesses of thescientific position. His name was Percy Crashaw.
Mrs. Stott could not deny her rector the right of entry, and he insistedon seeing the infant, who was not yet baptised--a shameful neglect,according to Crashaw, for the child was nearly six weeks old. Nor hadMrs. Stott been "churched." Crashaw had good excuse for pressing hiscall.
Mrs. Stott refused to face the village. She knew that the place was allagape, eager to stare at what they considered some "new kind of idiot."Let them wait, was Ellen Mary's attitude. Her pride was a laterdevelopment. In those early weeks she feared criticism.
But she granted Crashaw's request to see the child, and after theinterview (the term is precise) the rector gave way on the question of aprivate ceremony, though he had indignantly opposed the scheme when itwas first mooted. It may be that he conceived an image of himself withthat child in his arms, the cynosure of a packed congregation....
Crashaw was one of the influences that hastened the Stotts' departurefrom Stoke. He was so indiscreet. After the christening he would talk.His attitude is quite comprehensible. He, the lawgiver of Stoke, hadbeen thwarted. He had to find apology for the private baptism he haddenied to many a sickly infant. Moreover, the Stotts had broken anotherof his ordinances, for father and mother had stood as godparents totheir own child, and Crashaw himself had been the second godfatherordained as necessary by the rubric. He had given way on these importantpoints so weakly; he had to find excuse, and he talked himself into afalse belief with regard to the child he had baptised.
He began with his wife. "I would allow more latitude to medical men," hesaid. "In such a case as this child of the Stotts, for instance; itbecomes a burden on the community, I might say a danger, yes, a positivedanger. I am not sure whether I was right in administering the holysacrament of baptism...."
"Oh! Percy! Surely ..." began Mrs. Crashaw.
"One moment, my dear," protested the rector, "I have not fully explainedthe circumstances of the case." And as he warmed to his theme the imageof Victor Stott grew to a fearful grotesqueness. It loomed as a threatover the community and the church. Crashaw quoted, inaccurately,statistics of the growth of lunacy, and then went off at a tangent intothe theory of possession by evil spirits. Since his rejection ofscience, he had lapsed into certain forms of mediaevalism, and he nowbegan to dally with the theory of a malign incarnation which heelaborated until it became an article of his faith.
To his poorer parishioners he spoke in vague terms, but he changed theirattitude; he filled them with overawed terror. They were intenselycurious still, but, now, when the gate was slammed, one saw a facepressed to the window, the door remained fast; and the children nolonger clustered round that gate, but dared each other to run past it;which they did, the girls with a scream, the boys with a jeering"Yah--ah!" a boast of intrepidity.
This change of temper was soon understood by the persons most concerned.Stott grumbled and grew more morose. He had never been intimate with thevillagers, and now he avoided any intercourse with them. His wife keptherself aloof, and her child sheltered from profane observation.Naturally, this attitude of the Stotts fostered suspicion. Even thehardiest sceptic in the taproom of the Challis Arms began to shake hishead, to concede that there "moight be soomething in it."
Yet the departure from Stoke might have been postponed indefinitely, ifit had not been for another intrusion. Both Stott and his wife wereready to take up a new idea, but they were slow to conceive it.
II
The intruder was the local magnate, the landlord of Stoke, Wenderby,Chilborough, a greater part of Ailesworth, two or three minor parishes,and, incidentally, of Pym.
This magnate, Henry Challis, was a man of some scholarship, whoseambition had been crushed by the weight of his possessions. He had aremarkably fine library at Challis Court, but he made little use of it,for he spent the greater part of his time in travel. In appearance hewas rather an ungainly man; his great head and the bulk of his bigshoulders were something too heavy for his legs.
Crashaw regarded his patron with mixed feelings. For Challis, the man ofproperty, the man of high connections, of intimate associations with theworld of science and letters, Crashaw had a feeling of awed respect; butin private he inveighed against the wickedness of Challis, the agnostic,the decadent.
When Victor Stott was nearly three months old, the rector met his patronone day on the road between Chilborough and Stoke. It was three yearssince their last meeting, and Crashaw noticed that in the intervalChallis's pointed beard had become streaked with grey.
"Hallo! How d'ye do, Crashaw?" was the squire's casual greeting. "How isthe Stoke microcosm?"
Crashaw smiled subserviently; he was never quite at his ease inChallis's presence. "Rari nantes in gurgite vasto," was the tag he foundin answer to the question put. However great his contempt for Challis'sway of life, in his presence Crashaw was often oppressed with a feelingof inferiority, a feeling which he fought against but could not subdue.The Latin tag was an attempt to win appreciation, it represented a boastof equality.
Challis correctly evaluated the rector's attitude; it was with somethingof pity in his mind that he turned and walked beside him.
There was but one item of news from Stoke, and it soon came to thesurface. Crashaw phrased his description of Victor Stott in terms otherthan those he used in speaking to his wife or to his parishioners; butthe undercurrent of his virulent superstition did not escape Challis,and the attitude of the villagers was made perfectly plain.
"Hm!" was Challis's comment, when the flow of words ceased, "nigroquesimillima cygno, eh?"
"Ah! of course, you sneer at our petty affairs," said Crashaw.
"By no means. I should like to see this black swan of Stoke," repliedChallis. "Anything so exceptional interests me."
"No doubt Mrs. Stott would be proud to exhibit the horror," saidCrashaw. He had a gleam of satisfaction in the thought that even thegreat Henry Challis might be scared. That would, indeed, be a triumph.
"If Mrs. Stott has no objection, of course," said Challis. "Shall we gothe
re, now?"
III
The visit of Henry Challis marked the first advent of Ellen Mary's pridein the exhibition of her wonder. After the King and the RoyalFamily--superhuman beings, infinitely remote--the great landlord of theneighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole district.The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer, and make threat thatthe time was coming when he, the boaster, and Challis, the landlord,would have equal rights; but in public the socialist kow-towed to hismaster with a submission no less obsequious than that of the humblestconservative on the estate.
Mrs. Stott dropped a deep curtsy when, opening the door to theautocratic summons of Crashaw's rat-a-tat, she saw the great man of thedistrict at her threshold. Challis raised his hat. Crashaw did notimitate his example; he was all officiousness, he had the air of a chiefsuperintendent of police.
"Oh! Mrs. Stott, we should like to come in for a few minutes. Mr.Challis would like to see your child."
"Damn the fool!" was Challis's thought, but he gave it less abruptexpression. "That is, of course, if it is quite convenient to you, Mrs.Stott. I can come at some other time...."
"Please walk in, sir," replied Mrs. Stott, and curtsied again as shestood aside.
Superintendent Crashaw led the way....
Challis called again next day, by himself this time; and the day afterhe dropped in at six o'clock while Mr. and Mrs. Stott were at tea. Heput them at their ease by some magic of his personality, and insistedthat they should continue their meal while he sat among the collapsedsprings of the horsehair armchair. He leaned forward, swinging his stickas a pendulum between his knees, and shot out questions as to theStotts' relations with the neighbours. And always he had an attentiveeye on the cradle that stood near the fire.
"The neighbours are not highly intelligent, I suspect," said Challis."Even Mr. Crashaw, I fancy, does not appreciate the--peculiarities ofthe situation."
"He's worse than any," interpolated Stott. Ellen Mary sat in the shadow;there was a new light in her eyes, a foretaste of glory.
"Ah! a little narrow, a little dogmatic, no doubt," replied Challis. "Iwas going to propose that you might prefer to live at Pym."
"Much farther for me," muttered Stott. He had mixed with nobility on thecricket field, and was not overawed.
"No doubt; but you have other interests to consider, interests of fargreater importance." Challis shifted his gaze from the cradle, andlooked Stott in the face. "I understand that Mrs. Stott does not care totake her child out in the village. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, sir," replied Ellen, to whom this question was addressed. "I don'tcare to make an exhibition of 'im."
"Quite right, quite right," went on Challis, "but it is very necessarythat the child should have air. I consider it very necessary, a matterof the first importance that the child should have air," he repeated.His gaze had shifted back to the cradle again. The child lay with openeyes, staring up at the ceiling.
"Now, there is an excellent cottage at Pym which I will have put inrepair for you at once," continued Challis. "It is one of two together,but next door there are only old Metcalfe and his wife and daughter, whowill give you no trouble. And really, Mrs. Stott," he tore his regardfrom the cradle for a moment, "there is no reason in the world why youshould fear the attention of your neighbours. Here, in Stoke, I admit,they have been under a complete misapprehension, but I fancy that therewere special reasons for that. In Pym you will have few neighbours, andyou need not, I'm sure, fear their criticism."
"They got one idiot there, already," Stott remarked somewhat sulkily.
"You surely do not regard your own child as likely to develop into anidiot, Stott!" Challis's tone was one of rebuke.
Stott shifted in his chair and his eyes flickered uncertainly in thedirection of the cradle. "Dr. O'Connell says 'twill," he said.
"When did he see the child last?" asked Challis.
"Not since 'twere a week old, sir," replied Ellen.
"In that case his authority goes for nothing, and, then, by the way, Isuppose the child has not been vaccinated?"
"Not yet, sir."
"Better have that done. Get Walters. I'll make myself responsible. I'llget him to come."
Before Challis left, it was decided that the Stotts should move to Pymin February.
When the great landowner had gone, Mrs. Stott looked wistfully at herhusband.
"You ain't fair to the child, George," she said. "There's more than youor any one sees, more than Mr. Challis, even."
Stott stared moodily into the fire.
"And it won't be so out of the way far for you, at Pym, with your bike,"she continued; "and we _can't_ stop 'ere."
"We might 'a took a place in Ailesworth," said Stott.
"But it'll be so much 'ealthier for 'im up at Pym," protested Ellen."It'll be fine air up there for 'im."
"Oh! _'im_. Yes, all right for _'im_," said Stott, and spat into thefire. Then he took his cap and went out. He kept his eyes away from thecradle.
IV
Harvey Walters lived in Wenderby, but his consulting-rooms were inHarley Street, and he did not practise in his own neighbourhood;nevertheless he vaccinated Victor Stott to oblige Challis.
"Well?" asked Challis a few days later, "what do you make of him,Walters? No cliches, now, and no professional jargon."
"Candidly, I don't know," replied Walters, after a thoughtful interval.
"How many times have you seen him?"
"Four, altogether."
"Good patient? Healthy flesh and that sort of thing?"
"Splendid."
"Did he look you in the eyes?"
"Once, only once, the first time I visited the house."
Challis nodded. "My own experience, exactly. And did you return thatlook of his?"
"Not willingly. It was, I confess, not altogether a pleasantexperience."
"Ah!"
Challis was silent for a few moments, and it was Walters who took up theinterrogatory.
"Challis!"
"Yes?"
"Have you, now, some feeling of, shall I say, distaste for the child? Doyou feel that you have no wish to see it again?"
"Is it that exactly?" parried Challis.
"If not, what is it?" asked Walters.
"In my own case," said Challis, "I can find an analogy only in myattitude towards my 'head' at school. In his presence I was alwaysintimidated by my consciousness of his superior learning. I feltunpleasantly ignorant, small, negligible. Curiously enough, I seesomething of the same expression of feeling in the attitude of thatfeeble Crashaw to myself. Well, one makes an attempt at self-assertion,a kind of futile bragging; and one knows the futility of it--at thetime. But, afterwards, one finds excuse and seeks to belittle thepersonality and attainment of the person one feared. At school we didnot love the 'head,' and, as schoolboys will, we were always trying torun him down. 'Next time he rags me, I'll cheek him,' was our usualboast--but we never did. Let's be honest, Walters, are not you and Iexhibiting much the same attitude towards this extraordinary child?Didn't he produce the effect upon you that I've described? Didn't youhave a little of the 'fifth form' feeling,--a boy under examination?"
Walters smiled and screwed his mouth on one side. "The thing is soabsurd," he said.
"That is what we used to say at school," replied Challis.
V
The Stotts' move to Pym was not marked by any incident. Mrs. Stott andher boy were not unduly stared upon as they left Stoke--the childrenwere in school--and their entry into the new cottage was uneventful.
They moved on a Thursday. On Sunday morning they had their firstvisitor.
He came mooning round the fence that guarded the Stotts' garden from thelittle lane--it was hardly more than a footpath. He had a greatshapeless head that waggled heavily on his shoulders, his eyes werelustreless, and his mouth hung open, frequently his tongue lagged out.He made strange, inhuman noises. "A-ba-ba," was his nearest approach tospeech.
"Now, George," called Mrs. Stott,
"look at that. It's Mrs. 'Arrison'sboy what Mrs. Reade's spoke about. Now, is 'e anythink like ..." shepaused, "anythink like 'im?" and she indicated the cradle in thesitting-room.
"What's 'e want, 'angin' round 'ere?" replied Stott, disregarding thecomparison. "'Ere, get off," he called, and he went into the garden andpicked up a stick.
The idiot shambled away.