The Stranger from the Sea

by Paul Binding

  Restored? Not exactly. Will’s presence had changed something in the quality of the afternoon. Both Barton Cunningham and Lucinda Hough seemed magnetized by him, listening to him as though—well, as though he were W. T. Stead himself!

  Then, as if to bring me back to the reality of my Kent life, to my job on The Advertiser, Edmund said to me: “I haven’t yet spoken to you, Martin, about tomorrow morning. A bit of a treat for you, you might say, a contrast to the daily round, the common task.”

  “Oh, it’s a treat and a half all right!” put in Barton, once again implying distinct ambiguity toward his alma mater.

  “Mr. Whittington is expecting you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in his Headmaster’s study in School House, to tell you about all his plans for the Founder’s Day ceremonies on the First of June. I suggest you take the train leaving Dengate for Kingsbarrow at ten minutes to nine—it’s a mere forty-five-minute journey—with a five-minute walk to St. Stephen’s the other end.”

  Well, St. Stephen’s had played such a part in so many interconnected lives that I was now aware of, it was surely high time I saw the establishment for myself?

  Now attention focused on Will—again! His quick-fire sketches of the assembled company were a huge success. George, Lotty, Edmund, Hans, and even Elsie came in for the rapid attentions of his pencils, and praises were soon being poured on him for both the accuracy and the humor of his work.

  It was rather good, too, I have to admit. But ungenerously I could have done without having to see, and gasp over, so many dazzling examples of his proficiency. They helped to make me feel a sudden irrelevance, a mere addendum to a lively enough party, a wallflower, even a gooseberry. For—I could scarcely credit my ears—Edmund declared himself so impressed by Will’s efforts as to give him, on the spot, a commission. The Advertiser, as I have explained, used illustrations fairly sparingly at this period for reasons of reproduction costs, but Edmund, as I knew, was already a true enthusiast for the pictorial “as more than just a re-enforcement of the verbal,” (and greatly looked forward to being able to use photographs in the paper). So, on his own lawn, the happy idea came to him that his article-inprogress should be accompanied by drawings showing not just the deficiencies of Dengate’s Church Steps that had spelled such disaster for Mr. Betterton but the merits of their counterparts in neighboring places, some of which he now knew to be thoughtfully equipped with handrails. The first sketches would have to be in by late Tuesday afternoon to meet the printers’ requirements, the second lot (of places outside Dengate) could be done a bit later. Would Will be able to take two or three days out of his precious time to carry out this task out-of-the-blue?

  Of course, Will would be glad and proud to do so. As it happened he didn’t have to be back in The Smoke till the end of the week when he took up his new duties.

  Like a sulky schoolboy whose desk mate has just got higher marks than himself in some test that really counts toward the final order-of-class, I was not particularly glad to learn this. Not glad at all, to tell the truth.

  While the discussion of the drawings was to do was in full progress, Hans and I found ourselves isolated from the others, standing in the shadow of a white lilac tree. He turned to me and said, in a low, somehow urgent voice: “This new friend of yours, are you glad he is here?”

  “Of course,” I said, “Will’s my oldest friend, from my London days.”

  Hans’s face had a pale gravity that made me turn away from it. “He does not treat you as I treat you,” he insisted.

  And how would you describe that? I found myself inwardly inquiring. So much about my dealings with Hans had, I thought, an almost painful incompleteness about it.

  Then Hans said: “He does not share things with you. I do!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Peregrine Falcon and a Rite of Passage

  Cyril drove us back to Castelaniene; quite a squeeze, with three passengers in the dog-cart. Will talked to Cyril all downhill journey long. Though calling himself “a good Socialist, for all that a hero of mine, Charlie Bradlaugh, deplores that term,” he seemed nearly as familiar with the ups-and-downs of the commodity market as the driver himself. He also told him of the many “fair damsels” he’d encountered on his walking-tour. He spoke of the importance of the countryside to him, townsman though he was, praised his own recent sketches of Hampshire and Sussex, and then was pleased to remark: “I take my hat off to your sister, Lucinda. She really understands how important it is for all Britons to know nature properly—a woman after my own heart.” And this to her own brother! Crikey! “These out-of-doors classes she gives to the kids of the town—I bet they’ll remember ’em all their lives.” So now he knew about them too.

  Once back in St. Ethelberga’s Road, Hans felt he needed to rest. This enabled Will and me to be by ourselves. We went for a walk through the Royal Gardens, where he was much impressed by the emergent bandstand (“jolly good design, that,” he remarked knowledgeably, “there’s one pretty similar in Lewisham, and it earned the builders no end of compliments”), and then out onto the Esplanade. There was no lull in our conversation—was there ever a lull in talk with Will?—but it didn’t, I thought, flow with its former strong current. I’d changed (or been changed) since last in his company, and he had not recognized that yet. Yet I managed to assert myself for a moment by saying:

  “I shouldn’t mention to my—our landlady where I am going tomorrow morning.”

  “Why ever not? From the way Edmund spoke of it”—Edmund already, eh!—“it was a proper commission he was giving you.” Will smiled ironically at his own observation. “A visit to the breeding-ground of an entire tribe of young imperialist snobs. Is that what you left the Smoke to be doing?”

  I controlled my irritation for the same notion was bothering me. “Whatever we might think of it, it’s best not to mention St. Stephen’s College to Mrs. Fuller. The place has bad associations for her.”

  “To do with the pretty little widow’s late lamented husband?”

  For all my own difficulties with her I didn’t like hearing Mrs. Fuller spoken of in these breezy terms. “Something like that!” I said. “And it may not be quite what it seems, my visit to the school. St. Stephen’s.” For I was now determined to ferret into the pasts of George and Horace Fuller.

  “Anarchy is stirring down in the goodly Isle of Thanet, eh?” smiled Will, his mind naturally going to the political and public.

  I thought this jocular response intolerable, especially when looking ahead to the chalk cliffs gleaming in early evening sunshine with a refreshed whiteness and with little waves curling stealthily over the pebbles below them.

  “And you,” I said, “about to assume the role of Second-in-Command on our old paper, and now all set to draw sketches of Dengate for The Advertiser, how’s your radicalism these days?”

  Will stopped in his tracks and turned the searchlights of his dark eyes on me. And when Will did that, I was lost, yes, lost to his charm, as I had been the very first time he’d looked at me in that way, at the end of the first week of our acquaintance, so long ago now.

  “Martin, there is radicalism afoot in London as never before, I promise you. The majority of our good burghers never bothers to pay attention to what might be stirring in the Engineers’ Union or the Gas Workers’ Union, organizations they’d probably deride as soon as they heard ’em mentioned. But the time is coming when the names of men in these organizations will be on all thinking lips—to use a phrase I coined in our paper a while back. And let me tell you that the scenes of activity that will bring these blokes their deserved fame won’t be the factory or the tool-shop you might expect, but right down there in the good old London docks.”

  The words “good old London docks” could not but remind me of our expedition to Limehouse, and this—today of all days, in the bosom of a happy, virtuous family where a beautiful, virtuous girl was its principal jewel—was a direction in which I emphatically did not want my mind to travel.

  The “l
ight collation” Mrs. Fuller was pleased to serve up to her enlarged household was not so very “light”; in truth a deal more than I wanted after the huge luncheon at the Houghs’: a generous selection of cold meats, potato, and beetroot salads, and then treacle tart with junket. And my judgment of people and their mutual reactions one to another proved, with every minute of the supper, rather less than acute. Even before he had burst upon us, all bright and brash, on the Furzebank lawn, it had occurred to me that Mrs. Fuller, that chilly paragon of refinement, would find my visitor too “common” and too confident. Not at all!—he seemed positively to delight her, even to command her respect, with his unstoppable flow of strong opinions and jokiness. His political affinities she would appear sympathetic to also, receiving stories of his and his friends’ radical antics almost eagerly.

  It was after one of these anecdotes we all had a surprise. Hans, who up till this moment had remained silent (understandably, thought I), suddenly piped up: “This is all very interesting to me. You see in Norway we have a Left party actually in government—Venstre. It addresses itself to working-people, particularly workers on the land. Our leader, Johan Sverdrup is himself a lawyer and gets great support from lawyers. He wants our country to become a real democracy uniting all different factions. My patron, Herr Strømme—he’s a shipping magnate, and you might expect him to belong to the Høyre, the Right—but he is very proud of what we are trying to achieve in Norway, the only country in Europe with no nobility. He has met Herr Sverdrup on many occasions. Already the man has widened the—what do you call it?—the franchise.”

  Had one of the two cats in the room, Ham and Japheth, delivered himself of a brief taxonomic guide to mice, rats, and voles, Hans’s fellow collation-partakers could scarcely have been more surprised.

  Mrs. Fuller’s response was: “Interesting! It’s really so good of you to tell us about it, Hans. I sometimes think we in England do not know enough about other European societies.”

  Hans smiled as he received her tribute; the cliché of a smile “lighting a face up” really applied. I had, begrudgingly, to admit to myself that it was kind of Mrs. Fuller to respond to him as she had. And not only kind! Why, she sounded as if the information meant something to her. Will, on the other hand, was not going to admit he was hearing anything new to him.

  “What’s going on in your country,” he said airily, somehow making it sound even further away than it geographically was, “is a matter of congratulation. But Britain is so much more complicated a case than all other societies except perhaps France; we’re industrial, mercantile, colonial, agricultural, with the biggest cities in the world and a complex traditional caste system, so it has problems and solutions to ’em all its own. But,” he then conceded gallantly, “I’m sure we could cast a glance elsewhere and profit by doing so.”

  I rather wished Herr—what was it?—Sverdrup could appear as if by magic at our dining table. He would surely be able to take Will down a necessary peg or two. For all his many talents my old friend was not going to become Prime Minister of anywhere.

  In bed I lay ceaselessly asking myself: Will he? Won’t he? Perhaps the crowded day we’ve all had will have so exhausted him he’s already sound asleep? Or perhaps old Will’s presence in the house will deter him. The grandfather clock on the landing below struck eleven—surely more slowly than it usually did!—and every boom proclaimed: No, Hans will not appear. What a day it had been!—Cyril Hough, Susan Hough, Elsie Woodison, Lucinda turning out the girl I’d so admiringly observed in the Royal Gardens, the croquet game, the appearance of both Barton and Will, like peacocks advancing toward me, tails raised to show their full colors. But shouldn’t I be thinking about my assignment tomorrow? A bright idea came to me: I would take an earlier train to Kingsbarrow than that recommended me by Edmund; I knew one left every hour. I would therefore go up to St. Stephen’s on the ten minutes to eight. This would give me time for some “snooping” around the precincts of the College, or at any rate a soaking up of atmosphere. Good thinking, young man! I told myself.

  And then I saw—though I didn’t hear—the bedroom door opening. Hans was always stealthy like some nocturnal animal. My heart beat the faster for his appearance, and a warming gratitude suffused me. I spoke not a word, but shifted over in the bed to make more room for him.

  If Hans Lyngstrand were by inclination more talkative than most of his countryfolk, with their reputation for taciturnity, he still had the Norwegian preference for simple statements or presentations. He was no chatterbox like Will, no gossip like Barton. Having shot his bolt, his doubt about Will Postgate, he showed, as he eased himself beside me, no inclination to go over the eventful day past, to chat about Edmund or his family or my old London friend. His very action of lying reposeful under the same sheets as me was a wordless speech in itself.

  After a long immeasurable silence Hans leaned his head toward me and in a half-whisper asked: “Why don’t we tell each other a story, Martin?”

  Well, the stories Hans had told me so far I had taken so deeply into my own self they had become virtually personal experiences of my own.

  “Yes, but you must begin!”

  “The story I’d like to tell is not about myself but about another sailor-boy who served on a ship in the Mediterranean.”

  “You’ve never served there?”

  “No, I’ve not yet seen the South, the Midi, the Mezzogiorno. But I’d like to do so, very much, and I believe that one day I will . . . Anyway, one day down in those parts this sailor-boy saw a bird caught in the tackle-yard of the ship’s mast. He was pretty sure it was a peregrine falcon, a female because of the size, and after watching her struggles, he knew he had to rescue her. Are you familiar with peregrine falcons?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “Not at all!” should have been my answer.

  “They’re the fastest creatures on earth, that’s what Bo’sun Johnston always said, faster even than cheetahs. They hunt on the wing, swooping down speedily on their prey. When they mate, it’s for life, and the female is always quite a bit bigger than the male. They’re about the size of the average duck; in fact in America, Bo’sun Johnston said, they call them ‘duck hawks,’ though that isn’t nearly so good a name for them as ‘peregrine’ which means ‘wanderer’ in Latin. And Scandinavian peregrine falcons do make the most enormous journeys migrating for the winter. They have long pointed wings the color of slate, but with black tips, and the bars on their underparts are black too, and most of their faces also, but underneath each curved beak you find a white chin. Their sound is a kek-kek-kek which sometimes turns into a kaark.”

  “And you say one of these birds”—for I had their picture (and their sounds) now—“was tangled up in the ship’s mast.”

  “Yes, and spent nearly an hour trying to extricate herself, the poor, brave thing, until our sailor-boy felt he had a duty to rescue her, though the rest of the crew mocked him and told him doing so wasn’t worth his while. His climb up the mast was difficult and also pretty dangerous because a strong wind was blowing making it sway about violently—and, Martin, I know only too well what scaling a mast in weather conditions like that can be like! But just as difficult and dangerous was the actual business of recovering the bird herself because she didn’t at first understand he was trying to help her. She glared fiercely at him out of her yellow eyes, she scratched at him with her talons, she even bit him with her cruel beak, on the thumb so hard it bled. In fact, to carry her down to safety inside his jacket, the sailor-boy was obliged to give her a blow on the head which temporarily knocked her out. But get her down on deck he did, and, after she’d got her senses back, and with some of the other hands still jeering at him, he released the bird into the air. Can you imagine the triumph he felt watching her fly away, rapidly soaring above the rough sea!

  “Time passed, then this same boy joined another ship, a schooner, which put into the Norwegian port of Bodø.”

  “Is that near where you grew up? Near Bergen?”

&n
bsp; Hans chuckled. “It’s not in the least near Bergen, it’s right up in the north of Norway; I have never been to the town myself but Herr Strømme has ships which call there. It’s a port just inside the Arctic Circle, on a peninsula with a wilderness of mountains behind. In high summer there is no night whatever, and even in April when our young sailor went there, he was amazed at how late it was still light. He was pleased at the bustle of the town, though it was by no means an entirely safe place: so much to do, so many stalls to buy things from, and a good many Lapps and Kvens around the place, folk he hadn’t encountered before. One evening our young sailor got permission from the First Mate to go ashore—”

  “As it might have been you,” I interpolated, “in a different port.”

  “As it might have been me,” agreed Hans, contentedly, moving up under the bedclothes even closer to myself. “First he visited the various booths down by the harbor and bought himself some oranges—oranges seemed such strange things to see right up there in Nordland—and then he wandered ’round more or less randomly until he reached the outskirts of the town. And there he saw standing outside her own house a very pretty young girl.”

  As it might have been me catching sight of Lucinda Hough in the Royal Gardens.

  “This girl looked at the young sailor and the young sailor looked at the girl, but when he asked her what she was looking at, she said she was trying to see the man she would marry. But it wouldn’t be like him, she suggested with a laugh.”

  “Not very kind of her to say that.”

  “No, but I don’t think she meant it in any way unkindly. Anyway, what she said had the effect of making the boy bold. He said he would give her one of the oranges he’d bought—she’d never tasted one before, and they smelled wonderful!—in exchange for a kiss. She thought for a moment and then said yes, she would give him a kiss as payment.”

  And promptly I had an image of myself exchanging a kiss with the girl of the afternoon—Lucinda.