Part 17

When he paddled in a certain way the whole boat, he found, began to swing out and round, and when he stopped paddling it went back against the bank. But it could not go completely round because of the tight way in which the ample-faced man had tied it to the rail of the steps. If the rope were tied quite at its end the boat could be paddled completely round. It would be beautiful to paddle it completely round with the waggling rudder up-stream instead of down.

That thought did not lead to immediate action. But within two minutes Peter was untying the boat and retying it in accordance with his ambitions.

In those days the Boy Scout movement was already in existence, but it had still to disseminate sound views about knot-tying among the rising generation. Peter’s knot was not so much a knot as a knot-like gesture. How bad it was he only discovered when he was back in the boat and had paddled it nearly half-way round. Then he saw that the end of the rope was slipping off the rail to which he had tied it as a weary snake might slink off into the grass. The stem of the boat was perhaps a yard from shore.

Peter acted with promptitude. He dropped his paddle, ran to the bows, and jumped. Except for his left leg he landed safely. His left leg he recovered from the water. But there was no catching the rope. It trailed submerged after the boat, and the boat with an exasperating leisureliness, with a movement that was barely perceptible, widened its distance from the bank.

For a time Peter’s mind wrestled with this problem. Should he try and find a stick that would reach the boat? Should he throw stones so as to bring it back in shore?

Or perhaps if he told some one that the boat was adrift?

He went up the steps to the towing-path. There was no one who looked at all helpful within sight. He watched the boat drift slowly for a time towards the middle of the stream. Then it seemed to be struck with an idea of going down to Maidenhead. He watched it recede and followed it slowly. When he saw some people afar off he tried to look as though he did not belong to the boat. He decided that presently somebody would appear rowing—whom he would ask to catch his boat for him. Then he would tow it back to its old position.

Presently Peter came to the white gate of a bungalow and considered the advisability of telling a busy gardener who was mowing a lawn, about the boat. But it was difficult to frame a suitable form of address.

Still further on a pleasant middle-aged woman who was trimming a privet hedge very carefully with garden shears, seemed a less terrible person to accost. Peter said to her modestly and self-forgetfully; “I _think_ there’s a boat adrift down there.”

The middle-aged woman peered through her spectacles.

“Some one couldn’t have tied it up,” she said, and having looked at the boat with a quiet intelligence for some time she resumed her clipping.

Her behaviour did much to dispel Peter’s idea of calling in adult help.

When he looked again the boat had turned round. It had drifted out into the middle of the stream, and it seemed now to be travelling rather faster and to be rocking slightly. It was not going down towards the lock but away towards where a board said “Danger.” Danger. It was as if a cold hand was laid on Peter’s heart. He no longer wanted to find the man with the ample face and tell him that his boat was adrift. The sun had set, the light seemed to have gone out of things, and Peter had a feeling that it was long past tea-time. He wished now he had never seen the man with the ample face. Would he have to pay for the boat? Could he say he had never promised to mind it?

But if that was so why had he got into the boat and played about with it?

His left shoe and his left trouser-leg were very wet and getting cold.

A great craving for tea and home comforts generally arose in Peter’s wayward mind. Home comforts and forgetfulness. It seemed to him high time that he asked some one the way to Limpsfield....

§ 16

When Noakley and Probyn arrived at Maidenhead bridge in the late afternoon it seemed to them that they had done all that reasonable searchers could do, and that the best thing now was to take the train back to Windsor. They were tired and they felt futile. And then, when hope was exhausted, they struck the trail of Peter. The policeman at the foot of the bridge had actually noted him. “’Ovvered about the bridge for a bit,” said the policeman, “and then went along the towing path. A little grave chap in grey flannel. Funny thing, but I thought ’E might be a runaway.... Something about ’im....”

So it was that Noakley and Probyn came upon the ample-faced man at the lock, in the full tide of his distress.

He was vociferous to get across to the weir. “The boat ought to have come down long ago,” he was saying, “unless it’s caught up in something. If he was in the boat the kid’s drowned for certain....”

Noakley had some difficulty in getting him to explain _what_ kid. It was difficult to secure the attention of the ample-faced man. In fact before this could be done he twice pushed back Noakley’s face with his hand as though it was some sort of inanimate obstacle.

It was a great and tragic experience for Probyn. They both went across by the lock to the island behind the lead of the lockkeeper and the ample-faced man. They came out in sight of the weir; the river was still full from the late September rains and the weir was a frothing cascade, and at the crest of it they saw an upturned boat jammed by the current against the timbers. A Japanese umbrella circled open in a foamy eddy below, stick upward. The sun was down now; a chill was in the air; a sense of coming winter.

And then close at hand, caught in some weedy willow stems that dipped in the rushing water Probyn discovered a little soddened straw hat, a little half-submerged hat, bobbing with the swift current, entangled in the willow stems.

It was unmistakable. It bore the white and black ribbon of High Cross School.

“Oh, my God!” cried Probyn at the sight of the hat, and burst into tears.

“Poor _little_ Peter. I’d have done anything for him!”

He sobbed, and as he sobbed he talked. He became so remorseful and so grossly sentimental that even Noakley was surprised....

§ 17

When next morning Mr. Grimes learnt by a long and expensive telegram from Mr. Mainwearing, followed almost immediately by a long explanatory letter, that Peter had run away from school and had been drowned near Boulter’s Lock, he was overcome with terror. He had visions of Aunt Phœbe—_doubled_, for he imagined Aunt Phyllis to be just such another—as an avenger of blood. At the bare thought he became again a storm of vibrations. His clerks in the office outside could hear his nails running along his teeth all the morning, like the wind among the reeds. His imagination threw up wild and hasty schemes for a long holiday in some inaccessible place, in Norway or Switzerland, but the further he fled from civilization the more unbridled the vengeance, when it did overtake him, might be. Lady Charlotte was still in England. On the day appointed and for two days after, the Channel sea was reported stormy. All her plans were shattered and she had stayed on. She was still staying on. In a spasm of spite he telegraphed the dire news to her. Then he went down to Windsor, all a-quiver, to see that Mr. Mainwearing did not make a fool of himself, and to help him with the inquest on Peter as soon as the body was recovered.

His telegram did have a very considerable effect upon Lady Charlotte, the more so as it arrived within an hour or so of a letter from Mrs. Pybus containing some very disconcerting news about Joan. At midday came Mr. Mainwearing’s story—pitched to a high note of Anglican piety. The body, he said, was still not found, “but we must hope for the best.” When Mr. Sycamore arrived at Chastlands in the afternoon he found Lady Charlotte immensely spread out in her drawing-room as an invalid, with Unwin on guard behind her. She lay, a large bundle of ribbon, lace, and distresses, upon a sofa; she had hoisted an enormous beribboned lace cap with black-and-gold bows. On a table close at hand were a scent-bottle, smelling-salts, camphor, menthol, and suchlike aids. There were also a few choice black grapes and a tonic. She meant to make a brave fight for it.

Mr. Sycamore was not aware how very dead Peter was at Chastlands and Windsor, seeing that he was now also at The Ingle-Nook in a state of considerable vitality. It was some moments before he realized this localized demise. Indeed it was upon an entirely different aspect of this War of the Guardians that he was now visiting the enemy camp.

At first there was a little difficulty made about admitting him. Cashel explained that Lady Charlotte was “much upset. Terribly upset.” Finally he found himself in her large presence.

She gave him no time to speak.

“I am ill, Mr. Sycamore. I am in a wretched state. Properly I should be in bed now. I have been unable to travel abroad to rest. I have been totally unable to attend to affairs. And now comes this last blow. Terrible! A judgment.”

“I was not aware, Lady Charlotte, that you knew,” Mr. Sycamore began.

“Of course I know. Telegrams, letters. No attempt to break it to me. The brutal truth. I cannot tell you how I deplore my supineness that has led to this catastrophe.”

“Hardly supine,” Mr. Sycamore ventured.

“Yes, supine. If I had taken up my responsibilities years ago—when these poor children were christened, none of this might have happened. Nothing.”

Mr. Sycamore perceived that he was in the presence of something more than mere fuss about Peter’s running away. A wary gleam came into his spectacles.

“Perhaps, Lady Charlotte, if I could see your telegram,” he said.

“Give it him, Unwin,” she said.

“Stole a boat—carried over a weir,” he read. “But this is terrible! I had no idea.”

“Give him the letter. No—not that one. The other.”

“Body not yet recovered,” he read, and commented with confidence, “It will turn up later, I feel sure. Of course, all this is—news to me; boat—weir—everything. Yes.”

“And I was ill already!” said Lady Charlotte. “There is reason to suppose my heart is weak. I use myself too hard. I am too concerned about many things. I cannot live for myself alone. It is not my nature. The doctor had commanded a quiet month here before I even _thought_ of travel—literally _commanded_. And then comes this blow. The wretched child could not have chosen a worse time.”

She gave a gesture of despair. She fell back upon her piled pillows with a gesture of furious exhaustion.

“In the last twenty-four hours,” she said, “I have eaten one egg, Mr. Sycamore.... And some of that I left.”

Mr. Sycamore’s note of sympathy was perhaps a little insincere. “Of course,” he said, “in taking the children away from their school—where they were at least safe and happy—you undertook a considerable responsibility.”

Lady Charlotte took him up with emphasis. “I admit no responsibility—none whatever. Understand, Mr. Sycamore, once for all, I am not responsible for—whatever has happened to this wretched little boy. Sorry for him—yes, but I have nothing to regret. I took him away from—undesirable surroundings—and sent him to a school, by no means a cheap school, that was recommended very highly, very highly indeed, by Mr. Grimes. It was my plain duty to do as much. There my responsibility ends.”

Mr. Sycamore had drifted quietly into a chair, and was sitting obliquely to her in an attitude more becoming a family doctor than a hostile lawyer. He regarded the cornice in the far corner of the room as she spoke, and replied without looking at her, softly and almost as if in soliloquy: “Legally—_no_.”

“I am not responsible,” the lady repeated. “If any one is responsible, it is Mr. Grimes.”

“I came to ask you to produce your two wards,” said Mr. Sycamore abruptly, “because Mr. Oswald Sydenham lands at Southampton tonight.”

“He has always been coming.”

“This time he has come.”

“If he had come earlier all this would not have happened. Has he really come?”

“He is here—in England, that is.”

Lady Charlotte gasped and lay back. Unwin handed her the bottle of smelling-salts. “I have done nothing more than my duty,” she said.

Mr. Sycamore became more gentle in his manner than ever. “As the person finally responsible—”

“_No!_”

“Haven’t you been just a little careless?”

“Mr. Sycamore, it was this boy who was careless. I am sorry to say it now that he— I can only hope that at the last— But he was not a good boy. Anything but a good boy. He had been altogether demoralized by those mad, violent creatures. He ran away from this school, an excellent school, highly recommended. And you must remember, Mr. Sycamore, that I was paying for it. The abnormal position of the property, the way in which apparently all the income is to be paid over to these women—without consulting me. Well, I won’t complain of that now. I was prepared to pay. I paid. But the boy was already thoroughly corrupted. His character was undermined. He ran away. I wash my hands of the consequences.”

Mr. Sycamore was on the point of saying something and thought better of it.

“At any rate,” he said, “I have to ask you on behalf of Mr. Oswald Sydenham to produce the other child—the girl.”

“She _can’t_ be produced,” said Lady Charlotte desperately.

“That really _does_ make things serious.”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me! The child is in excellent hands—excellent hands. But there are—neighbours. She was told to keep indoors, carefully told. What must she do but rush out at the first chance! She had had fair warning that there were measles about, she had had measles explained to her carefully, yet she must needs go and make friends with a lot of dirty little wretches!”

“And catch measles.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s why—?”

“That’s why—”

“There again, Lady Charlotte, and again with all due respect, haven’t you been just a little careless? At that nice, airy school in Surrey there was never any contagion—of any sort.”

“There was no proper religious teaching.”

“Was there any where you placed these children?”

“I was led to believe—”

She left it at that.

Mr. Sycamore allowed himself to point the moral. “It is a very remarkable thing to me, Lady Charlotte, most remarkable, that Catholic people and Church of England people—you must forgive me for saying it—and religious bodies generally should be so very anxious and energetic to get control of the education of children and so careless—indeed they are dreadfully careless—of the tone, the wholesomeness and the quality of the education they supply. And of the homes they permit. It’s almost as if they cared more for getting the children branded than whether they lived or died.”

“The school was an excellent school,” said Lady Charlotte; “an excellent school. Your remarks are cruel and painful.”

Mr. Sycamore again restrained some retort. Then he said, “I think it would be well for Mr. Oswald Sydenham to have the address of the little girl.”

Lady Charlotte considered. “There is nothing to conceal,” she said, and gave the address of Mrs. Pybus, “a most trustworthy woman.” Mr. Sycamore took it down very carefully in a little notebook that came out of his vest pocket. Then he seemed to consider whether he should become more offensive or not, and to decide upon the former alternative.

“I suppose,” he said reflectively as he replaced the little book, “that the demand for religious observances and religious orthodoxy as a first condition in schools is productive of more hypocrisy and rottenness in education than any other single cause. It is a matter of common observation. A school is generally about as inefficient as its religious stripe is marked. I suppose it is because if you put the weight on one thing you cannot put it on another. Or perhaps it is because no test is so easy for a thoroughly mean and dishonest person to satisfy as a religious test. Schools which have no claims to any other merit can always pass themselves off as severely religious. Perhaps the truth is that all bad schools profess orthodoxy rather than that orthodoxy makes bad schools. Nowadays it is religion that is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“If you have nothing further to say than this Secularist lecturing,” said Lady Charlotte with great dignity, “I should be obliged if you would find somewhere—some Hall of Science—... Considering what my feelings must be... Scarcely in the mood for—blasphemies.”

“Lady Charlotte,” said Mr. Sycamore, betraying a note of indignation in his voice; “this school into which you flung your little ward was a very badly conducted school indeed.”

“It was nothing of the sort,” said Lady Charlotte. “How dare you reproach me?”

Mr. Sycamore went on as though she had not spoken. “There was a lot of bullying and nasty behaviour among the boys, and the masters inflicted punishments without rhyme or reason.”

“How can you know anything of the sort?”

“On the best authority—the boy’s.”

“But how could he—”

“He was thrashed absurdly and set an impossible task for not answering to a silly nickname. There was no one to whom he could complain. He ran away. He had an idea of reaching Limpsfield, but when he realized that night was coming on, being really a very sensible little boy, he selected a kindly-looking house, asked to see the lady of the house, and told her he had run away from home and wanted to go back. He gave his aunt’s address at The Ingle-Nook, and he was sent home in the morning. He arrived home this morning.”

Lady Charlotte made a strange noise, but Mr. Sycamore hurried on. “How this delusion about a boat and a weir got into the story I don’t know. He says nothing about them. Indeed, he says very little about anything. He’s a reserved little boy. We have to get what we can out of him.”

“You mean to say that the boy is still alive!” cried Lady Charlotte.

“Happily!”

“In face of these telegrams!”

“I saw him not two hours ago.”

“But how do you account for these telegrams and letters?”

Mr. Sycamore positively tittered. “That’s for Mr. Grimes to explain.”

“And he is alive—and unhurt?”

“As fresh as paint; and quite happy.”

“Then if ever a little boy deserved a whipping, a thoroughly good whipping,” cried Lady Charlotte, “it is Master Peter Stubland! Safe, indeed! It’s outrageous! After all I have gone through! Unwin!”

Unwin handed the salts.

Mr. Sycamore stood up. He still had the essence of his business to communicate, but there was something in the great lady’s blue eyes that made him want to stand up. And that little tussock of fair hair on her cheek—in some indescribable way it had become fierce.

“To think,” said Lady Charlotte, “that I have been put to all this unutterable worry and distress—”

She was at a loss for words. Mr. Sycamore appreciated the fact that if he had anything more to say to her he must communicate it before the storm burst. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, and began to deliver his message with just the faintest quality of hurry in his delivery.

“The real business upon which I came to you today, Lady Charlotte, has really nothing to do with this—escapade at all. It is something else. Things have arisen that alter the outlook for those children very considerably. There is every reason to suppose that neither you nor the Misses Stubland are properly guardians of Joan and Peter at all. No. One moment more, Lady Charlotte; let me explain. Two young Germans, it would appear, witnessed the accident to the boat from the top of the Capri headland. They saw Mr. Stubland apparently wrestling with the boatman, then the boat overset and the two men never reappeared. They must have dragged each other down. The witnesses are quite certain about that. But Mrs. Stubland, poor young lady, could be seen swimming for quite a long time; she swam nearly half-way to land before she gave in, although the water was very choppy indeed. I made enquiries when I was in Naples this spring, and I do not think there would be much trouble in producing those witnesses still. They were part of the—what shall I call it?—social circle of that man Krupp, the gunmaker. He lived at Capri. If we accept this story, then, Lady Charlotte, Mrs. Stubland’s will holds good, and her husband’s does not, and Mr. Oswald Sydenham becomes the sole guardian of the children....”

He paused. The lady’s square face slowly assumed an expression of dignified satisfaction.

“So long as those poor children are rescued from those _women_,” said Lady Charlotte, “my task is done. I do not grudge any exertion, any sacrifice I have made, so long as that end is secured. I do not look for thanks. Much less repayment. Perhaps some day these children may come to understand—”

Unwin made a sound like the responses in church.

“I would go through it all again,” said Lady Charlotte—“willingly.... Now that my nephew has returned I have no more anxiety.” She made an elegant early-Georgian movement with the smelling-salts. “I am completely justified. I have been slighted, tricked, threatened, insulted, made ill ... but I am justified.”

She resorted again to the salts.

CHAPTER THE NINTH OSWALD TAKES CONTROL

§ 1

While Mr. Sycamore was regaling himself with the discomfiture of Lady Charlotte, Oswald Sydenham was already walking about the West End of London.

He had come upon a fresh crisis in his life. He was doing his best to accept some thoroughly disagreeable limitations. His London specialist had but confirmed his own conviction. It was no longer possible for him to continue in Africa. He had reached the maximum of blackwater fever permitted to normal men. The next bout—if there was a next bout—would kill him. In addition to this very valid reason for a return, certain small fragments of that Egyptian shell long dormant in his arm had awakened to mischief, and had to be removed under the more favourable conditions to be found in England. He had come back therefore to a land where he had now no close friends and no special occupations, and once more he had to begin life afresh.

He had returned with extreme reluctance. He could not see anything ahead of him in England that gripped his imagination at all. He was strongly tempted to have his arm patched up, and return to Africa for a last spell of work and a last conclusive dose of the fever germ. But in England he might be of use for a longer period, and a kind of godless conscience in him insisted that there must be no deliberate waste in his disposal of his life.

For some time he had been distressed by the general ignorance in England of the realities of things African, and by the general coarsening and deterioration, as he held it to be, of the Imperial idea. There was much over here that needed looking into, he felt, and when it was looked into then the indications for further work might appear. Why not, so far as his powers permitted, do something in helping English people to realize all that Africa was and might be. That was work he might do, and live. In Africa there was little more for him to do but die.

That was all very well in theory. It did not alter his persuasion that he was going to be intolerably lonely if he stayed on in England. Out there were the Chief Commissioner and Muir and half a dozen other people for whom he had developed a strong affection; he was used to his native servants and he liked them; he had his round of intensely interesting activities, he was accustomed to the life. Out there, too, there was sunshine. Such sunshine as the temperate zone can never reproduce. This English world was a grey, draughty, cloudy, lonely world, and one could not always be working. That sunshine alone meant a vast deprivation.