Kenyon was more experienced. The public school boy hard by had given him an innings or two at his net, where Kenyon had picked up more than the rudiments of the game and a passion for Lillywhite. He had learnt there his pretty expressions, which were anything but popular at home. Mr. Harwood was a man of limited patience, with a still more limited knowledge of boys. He frightened Kenyon, and the boy was at his worst with him. A very sensitive man, of uncertain temper, he could not get on with his children, though Ethel was his right hand already. It was a secret trouble, an unacknowledged grief, to hard lonely Mr. Harwood. But it was his own fault; he knew that; he knew all about it. He knew too much of himself, and not enough of his children.
You could not blame Kenyon — Mr. Harwood would have been the last to do so — yet it was dreadful to see him so impatient for his father’s return, for perhaps the first time in his life, and now only for the sake of the stranger he was bringing with him; to see him peering through the blind at this stranger, without so much as glancing at his father or realising that he was there; to hear him talking volubly in the drawing-room after dinner (when the children came down) to a very young man whom he had never seen before; and to remember how little he ever had to say to his own father. Ethel felt it — all — and was particularly attentive to her father this evening. That peculiar man may also have felt it, and the root of Ethel’s attentions into the bargain; for he was very snubbing to her. He never showed much feeling. Yet it was to please Kenyon that Mr. Harwood had pressed Forrester to look him up, and not by any means (though this had been his way of putting it to his young kinsman, whom he scarcely knew) to cheer his own loneliness.
The cricketer was a sunburnt giant, disappointingly free from personal lustre, and chiefly remarkable for his hands. He had an enormous hand, and when it closed like jaws over Kenyon’s little one, this suffering student could well understand his Lillywhite characterising C. J. Forrester as “a grand field, especially in the country.” They talked cricket together from the first moment, and until Kenyon said good-night. Upstairs he told Ethel that so far they had got no further than the late match against Notts; that Forrester had described it “as if he’d only seen the thing;” and that she was quite right, and C. J. was far less cut up at the result than he was. It was Kenyon’s county which had been trounced by Nottinghamshire, and he went so far as to affirm that C. J. Forrester’s disappointing form had directly contributed to the disaster, and that he deserved to lose his place in the team. This, however, was but a drop of bravado in the first flood of enthusiasm for C. J.
Mr. Harwood watched and heard the frank, free, immediate intercourse between Kenyon and the visitor. He had never known Kenyon so bright and animated — so nearly handsome. The boy was at his best, and his best was a revelation to Mr. Harwood, who had never in his life had a real conversation with Kenyon such as Forrester was having now. He had talked to Kenyon, that was all. As he sat grimly listening, with Ethel snubbed to silence, he may have felt a jealous longing to be his small son’s friend, not merely his father; to interest him, as this complete stranger was doing, and he himself honestly interested; to love openly, and be openly loved. The man was self-conscious enough to feel all this, and to smile as he rose to look at the clock, and saw in the mirror behind it no trace of such feeling in his own thin-lipped, whiskered face. At nine the children said good-night, of their own accord, knowing better than to stay a minute over their time. Mr. Harwood kissed them as coldly and lightly as usual; but surprised them with a pleasantry before they reached the door.
“Wait, Kenyon. Forrester, ask him your average. He’ll tell you to a decimal. He knows what he calls his Lillywhite by heart.”
Kenyon looked extremely eager, though Mr. Harwood’s tone struck Forrester as a little sarcastic.
“You’ve been getting it up!” the cricketer said knowingly to Kenyon.
“I haven’t,” declared Kenyon, bubbling over with excitement.
“You needn’t ask him your own,” Ethel added, quite entering into it. “He knows them all.”
“Oh, we’ll have mine,” said Forrester, who felt slightly ridiculous but much amused. “What was it for the ‘Varsity — my first year?”
Kenyon had to think. That was three years ago, before he had known much about cricket; but he had read up that year’s Lillywhite — he read as many old Lillywhites as he could borrow — and he answered in a few moments:
“Nineteen point seven.”
“You have been getting it up!” cried Forrester.
Kenyon was beaming. “No, I haven’t — honestly I haven’t! Ask Ethel!”
“Oh, it’s genuine enough,” said Mr. Harwood; “it’s his accomplishment — one to be proud of, isn’t it? That’ll do, Kenyon; good-night, both of you.”
The door closed.
“He’s one to be proud of,” said Forrester pointedly, a vague indignation rising within him. “A delightful little chap, I call him! And he was right to a decimal. I never heard of such a fellow!”
“He’s cricket mad,” said Mr. Harwood. “I’m glad you like him.”
“I like him immensely. I like his enthusiasm. I never saw so small a boy so keen. Does he play?”
“Not properly; he’s not fit to; he’s rather delicate. No, it’s mostly theory with Kenyon; and I’m very much afraid he’ll bore you. You mustn’t let him. Indeed I fear you’ll have a slow time all round; but, as I told you, there’s a horse to ride whenever you want him.”
“Does the boy ride?”
“He’s not allowed to. Then we have a very respectable club in the town, where I can tuck you up and make you comfortable any time you like to come down. Only don’t, for your own sake, encourage Kenyon to be a nuisance; he doesn’t require very much encouragement.”
“My dear sir, we’re too keen cricketers to bore each other; we’re going to be tremendous friends. You don’t mean to say he bores you? Ah, with the scores, perhaps; but you must be awfully proud of having such a jolly little beggar; I know I should be! I’d make a cricketer of him. If he’s as keen as this now, in a few years’ time — —”
“You smoke, Forrester? We’ll go into the other room.”
Mr. Harwood had turned away and was putting out the lights.
II
Long before breakfast next morning — while the lawns were yet frosted with dew and lustrous in the level sunlight — Kenyon Harwood and C. J. Forrester, the well-known cricketer, met and fraternised. Kenyon and John had always spoken of Forrester as “C. J.”; and when Kenyon let this out, it was arranged, chiefly by C. J. himself, who was amused and pleased, that Kenyon should never call him anything else. Mr. Harwood, at breakfast, rather disapproved of the arrangement, but it was hardly a matter for the paternal ukase. Meanwhile Kenyon had personally conducted C. J. round the place, and had most impressively introduced him (in the potting-shed) to John, who looked so proud and so delighted as to put a head even on Kenyon’s delight and pride. C. J. was charmed with John; but he was less enthusiastic about a bricked quadrangle, in front of the gardener’s and coachman’s cottages, with wickets painted on a buttress, where Kenyon was constantly indulging in small cricket — notably in the dinner-hour of John, who bolted his food to come out and bowl to him. The skilled opinion of C. J. was not in favour of “snob,” as played by Kenyon with a racket and a soft ball.
“He says a racket is bad for you,” Ethel understood from Kenyon (to whom it was a very serious matter); “makes you play with a crooked bat, and teaches you to spoon. So there’s an end to snob! But what do you think? He’s going to take me into the town to choose a decent bat; and we’re going in for regular practice on the far lawn — John and all — if the governor lets us. C. J.’s going to coach me. Think of being coached by C. J. Forrester!”
“Father is sure to let you,” said Ethel; and certainly Mr. Harwood did not say no; but his consent was coldly given, and one thing he stipulated almost sternly.
“I won’t have Kenyon run. I shall put a stop to it if he d
oes. It might kill him.”
“Ah, he has told me about that.” Forrester added, simply, “I am so sorry!”
Kenyon, in fact, in explaining the system of scoring at snob — a most ingenious system — had said:
“You see, I mayn’t run my runs. I know the boundaries don’t make half such a good game, but I can’t help it. What’s wrong? I’m sure I can’t tell you. I’ve been to heaps of doctors, but they never say much to me; they just mess about and then send you back to the room where you look at the papers. Mother used to take me to London on purpose, and the governor’s done so twice. It’s my hip, or some rot. It’s a jolly bore, for it feels all right, and I’m positive I could run, and ride, and go to school. Blow the doctors!”
“But obey them,” C. J. had said, seriously; “you should go in for obeying orders, Kenyon.”
They got the bat. It was used a great deal during those few days, the too few days of C. J.’s visit; and was permitted to repose in C. J.’s cricket-bag, cheek by jowl with bruised veterans that had served with honour at Lord’s and at the Oval. Kenyon was very mindful of those services, and handled the big bats even more reverently than he shook his hero’s hand. They lent themselves to this sort of thing more readily than C. J. did. Small doubt that Kenyon — at all events at first — would have had his hero a trifle more heroic than the Almighty had made him. There was nothing intrinsically venerable in his personality, as there might have been. He was infinitely more friendly than Kenyon had dreamt of finding him; he was altogether nicer; but he did lack the vague inexpressible distinction with which the boy’s imagination invested the heroes of Lillywhite’s Guide.
That summer was the loveliest of its decade, and Kenyon made the most of it. He had never before seemed so strong, and well, and promising. For the first time in his life his really miserable little body seemed equal — at moments — to his mighty spirit; and the days of C. J. were the brightest and happiest he had ever known. In that jolly, manly companionship the unrealised want of an intensely masculine young soul was insensibly filled. Hard, perhaps, to fill it so completely for so short a time: the cricketer’s departure was so soon at hand! As it was he had put it off some days, because he liked Kenyon with an extraordinary liking. But he was wanted at the Oval on the last Thursday in July; his play with Kenyon and John (though John was a rough natural bowler) could by no stretch of imagination be regarded as practice for an important county match; he decided to tear himself away on the Tuesday morning.
He had been with them only a week, but the Harwoods had bitten deep into his life, a life not wholly consecrated to cricket. Forrester had definite aspirations, and some very noble intentions; and he happened to possess the character to give this spiritual baggage some value, in his case. Also he had a kind heart, which Kenyon had completely won. He liked Ethel; but one could not merely like Kenyon, with his frail little frame and his splendid spirit. Ethel, however, was very sweet; her eyes were like Kenyon’s in everything but their sadness, as deep and lustrous, but so often sad. Her love for Kenyon was the most pathetic thing but one that Forrester had ever seen. The more touching spectacle was that of the father of Ethel and Kenyon, who seemed to have very little love for his children, and to conceal what he had. He was nice enough to Forrester, who found him a different being at the club, affable, good-natured, amusing in his sardonic way. He talked a little to Forrester about the children, a very little, but enough to make Forrester sincerely sorry for him. He was sorrier for Mr. Harwood than for Ethel or for Kenyon himself. He pitied him profoundly on Kenyon’s account, but less because the boy might never live to grow up, than because, as Forrester read father and son, there would never be much love to lose between them. As for Kenyon, there was a chance for him yet: even the family doctor declared that he had never been so well as he was now. His vitality — his amazing vitality — seemed finally to upset a certain pessimistic calculation. His trouble might never become a greater trouble than it had been already; and this summer it had been no trouble at all, his very limp was no longer noticeable. He might yet go to school; and Forrester himself was going to start a small boys’ school the following summer, in partnership with an older man, in one of the healthiest spots in the island. St. Crispin’s had been spoken of for Kenyon. Kenyon himself spoke of little else during Forrester’s last day or two. To go to school at St. Crispin’s was now the dream of his life.
“I am sorry we told him about it,” Mr. Harwood said, gloomily. “He may never be able to go there; he may never again be so well as he is now; all the summer it has seemed too good to last!”
Forrester, for his part, thought it good for the boy to have things to look forward to, thought that, if he could go, the change of life and climate might prove the saving and making of him. Beyond this, he honestly hoped for the best (whereas Mr. Harwood seemed to look for the worst), and expressed his hope — often a really strong one — with all possible emphasis.
He carries with him still some intensely vivid impressions of this visit, but especially of the last day or two, when the weather was hotter than ever — despite one splendid shower — and Kenyon if anything more alert, active and keen. He remembers, for example, how Ethel and Kenyon and he tore to an outlying greenhouse for shelter from that shower, or rather how he carried Kenyon. In the greenhouse, accompanied by a tremendous rattle of rain on the sloping glass, Kenyon sang them “Willow the King,” the Harrow cricket song, which Tommy Barnard, the boy with the cricket-net, had taught Kenyon among less pretty things. Clear through the years Forrester can hear Kenyon’s jolly treble, and Ethel’s shy notes, and his own most brazen bass in the chorus; he even recollects the verse in which the singer broke down through too strong a sense of its humour: —
“Who is this?” King Willow he swore,
“Hops like that to a gentleman’s door?
Who’s afraid of a Duke like him?
Fiddlededee!” says the monarch slim.
“What do you say, my courtiers three?”
And the courtiers all said “Fiddlededee!”
But his last evening, the Monday evening, C. J. Forrester remembers best. They had an immense match — double-wicket. The head gardener, the coachman, John (captain) and the butler made one side; Forrester, Kenyon, Ethel (Kenyon insisted) and T. Barnard (home early, æger) were the other. “It’s Gentlemen and Players,” John said with a gaping grin; and the Players won, in spite of C. J., who, at the last, did all he knew, for Kenyon’s sake.
It was a gorgeous evening. The sun set slowly on a gaudy scene; the wealth of colour was almost tropical. The red light glared between the trees, their crests swayed gently against the palest, purest amber. Mr. Harwood looked on rather kindly with his cigar; and the shadow of his son, in for the second time, lay along the pitch like a single plank. Ethel was running for him, and it was really exciting, for there were runs to get; it was the last wicket; and Kenyon, to C. J.’s secret sorrow, and in spite of C. J.’s distinguished coaching, was not a practical cricketer. Yet he was doing really very well this evening. They did not bowl too easily to him, he would not have stood that; they bowled very nearly their best; but Kenyon’s bat managed somehow to get in the way, and once he got hold of one wide of his legs, and sent it an astonishing distance, in fact over the wall. Even Mr. Harwood clapped his hands, and Forrester muttered, “That’s the happiest moment of his life!” Certainly Kenyon knew more about that leg-hit ever afterwards than he did at the moment, for, it must be owned, it was a fluke; but the very next ball Kenyon was out — run out through Ethel’s petticoats — and the game was lost.
“Oh, Ethel!” he cried, his flush of ecstasy wiped out in an instant. “I could have run the thing myself!”
Ethel was dreadfully grieved, and showed it so unmistakably that Kenyon, shifting his ground, turned hotly to an unlucky groom who had been standing umpire.
“I don’t believe she was out, Fisher!” he exclaimed more angrily than ever. Mr. Harwood snatched his cigar from his mouth; but C. J. forestalled h
is interference by running up and taking Kenyon by the arm.
“My dear fellow, I’m surprised at you! To dispute the umpire! I thought you were such a sportsman? You must learn to take a licking, and go out grinning, like a man.”
Kenyon was crushed — by his hero. He stammered an apology, with a crimson face, and left the lawn with the sweetness of that leg-hit already turned in an instant to gall. And there was a knock at Forrester’s door while he was dressing for dinner, and in crept Kenyon, hanging his head, and shut the door and burst into tears.
“Oh, you’ll never think the same of me again, C. J.! A nice fellow you’ll think me, who can’t stand getting out — a nice fellow for your school!”
C. J., in his shirt and trousers, looked down very tenderly on the little quivering figure in flannels. Kenyon was standing awkwardly, as he sometimes would when tired.
“My dear old fellow, it was only a game — yet it was life! We live our lives as we play our games; and we must be sportsmen, and bide by the umpire’s decision, and go out grinning when it’s against us. Do you see, Ken?”
“I see,” said Kenyon, with sudden firmness. “I have learnt a lesson. I’ll never forget it.”
“Ah, you may learn many a lesson from cricket, Kenyon,” said C. J. “And when you have learnt to play the game — pluckily — unselfishly — as well as you can — then you’ve learnt how to live too!” He was only saying what he has been preaching to his school ever since; but now he says that no one has ever attended to him as Kenyon did.
Kenyon looked up with wet, pleading eyes. “Then — you will have me at St. Crispin’s?”
But C. J. only ruffled the boy’s brown hair.
III
A variety of hindrances prevented Forrester from revisiting Kenyon’s father until August in the following year, when he arrived in the grey evening of a repulsive day. As before, he came straight from the Nottingham match; he had started his school, but was getting as much cricket as he could in the holidays. It was raining heavily when he jumped out of the carriage which had been sent to meet him. Mr. Harwood shook his hand in the cold twilight of the hall. House and host seemed silent and depressed. Forrester looked for Kenyon — for his hat, for some sign of him — as one searches for a break in the clouds.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 413
