Uncle Stephen

by Forrest Reid

  ‘Naturally… . It’s only the juice that really does any good, and there’s so little of it.’

  But Tom was not thinking of the virtue of dock leaves. ‘Why do you say “naturally”? Plenty of people don’t learn Greek.’

  ‘At my school it was compulsory.’

  ‘That’s queer. Wasn’t there a modern side?’

  ‘I never heard of any.’

  Tom pondered. He wished Philip wasn’t so uncommunicative.

  It made it difficult to ask him even the simplest questions. He had never been told the name of this school, for instance, though he had once asked. He had an idea that it was a good deal more distinguished than his own, but that was all.

  ‘Did you like it?’ he said.

  ‘Like what? Greek? No.’

  This was discouraging, but once he had begun Tom was determined to go on. ‘Of course, with Uncle Stephen it isn’t like school. There’s no “prep”, and he doesn’t mind if your construe is pretty wobbly. I don’t mean to say that he doesn’t put you right, but what he really wants you to do is not to translate but to get the meaning without—to read as if you were reading your own language; and I’m beginning to be able to—a little. And then he tells you things, and he has all sorts of pictures—photographs, you know, and plans and maps. It makes it all true, somehow—talking about it… . I mean, that river, for instance—our river—it seems different—you begin to think of it differently—to think of it as alive. Everything comes alive, becomes in a way the same as us, so that you wouldn’t be awfully surprised if the river became friends with you, and appeared in a human form, or at any rate spoke. You see he is our river—and we ought to dedicate our hair to him as a bond of friendship.’

  Philip did not answer, and Tom, glancing at him, saw a faint smile on his face. He coloured. What he had said, of course, had been vague and confused—he couldn’t put things the way Uncle Stephen did—but still—For a minute or two he sat without speaking, offended. Then he asked, Will you come in the mornings?’

  ‘To do Greek and talk about rivers? No.’

  Again there was a pause, but it was broken abruptly by Philip. ‘Who’s this?’

  Tom looked up. He followed the direction of Philip’s gaze and his face changed. ‘He’s a chap called Deverell,’ he said uneasily, at the same time half rising to his feet. ‘I say, let’s move on. He mayn’t have seen us: I don’t think he has.’

  Deverell was still at a considerable distance. He was approaching along the bank of the river, but he was moving at a sauntering pace, sometimes coming to a standstill, while his dog, with flapping ears, hunted in and out among the sedges.

  ‘Let’s go before he sees us,’ Tom repeated more urgently.

  ‘He has seen us already,’ Philip replied.

  ‘Well, let’s go anyway: we might as well.’

  Still Philip did not budge. ‘Are you frightened of him?’ he asked. ‘You seem to be.’

  ‘Of course I’m not frightened,’ Tom muttered in annoyance. Nor was he, for, though he wanted to avoid this encounter, what really troubled him was the feeling that he had behaved shabbily to Deverell—letting day after day pass without ever going near him. ‘Once they had met by accident—or so Tom supposed—and even on that occasion, after five minutes or so, he had invented an excuse to get away. Moreover, he had not given the true reason, for he had said not a word about having to keep an appointment with Philip. He had said not a word about Philip to Deverell and not a word about Deverell to Philip. Now he was reaping the consequence.

  Deverell meanwhile had begun to climb the hill, striking a diagonal course which would bring him straight to where they sat. He had given no sign of recognition; he was not even looking in their direction; but that, Tom knew, was characteristic. Philip might have come away when he had asked him to! And that was characteristic also. He glanced at him. Philip was sitting bolt upright, watching the approaching figure with an expression of extraordinary coldness. Tom stretched himself on his side, pillowed his head on his arm, and pretended to go to sleep.

  He was perfectly aware how these ostrich tactics would strike the boy beside him, and also of their futility, but the minutes passed—perhaps they weren’t really so many as they seemed, or perhaps Deverell had turned back. Suddenly he felt against his cheek, first the touch of a blunt cold nose, and then the rapid caress of a warm tongue. Even in his embarrassment he could not suppress a stifled laugh. At the same moment a deep voice growled, ‘Here, Dingo, come out o’ that.’ The voice assumed its ordinary pitch. ‘Doin’ a sleep, Mr. Tom?’

  ‘Yes, said Tom, opening his eyes.

  ‘Bathin’ makes you sleepy like, don’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom once more.

  He sat up, and saw that Deverell’s gaze was directed not at him but at Philip, in a hard fixed stare. ‘Mr. Tom, he likes to play at peep-bo, Deverell dropped grimly. ‘Isn’t that so, Mr. Tom?’

  ‘No it isn’t,’ said Tom. He smiled up at the poacher and his bright eyes were lit with friendliness. He felt that Deverell recognized the friendliness, that even for a moment he responded to it, and that then, deliberately, he rejected it. And Tom understood this too: it was strange how much better he knew Deverell than he knew Philip: it was as if one similarity of temperament were stronger than all that was unlike. ‘All the same,’ he went on, ‘I think it must look extremely like that.’ He smiled again, and there was in his voice a curious blend of provocativeness, appeal, apology, and mischief. The young poacher’s dark eyes rested on him sombrely, but not angrily. Simultaneously Tom became aware that Philip also was looking at him, with a faint and slightly disdainful surprise. But he didn’t care. It wasn’t Philip’s business to choose his friends for him: he would be friends with whoever he wanted.

  ‘Mr. Tom nearly promised to go fishin’ with me,’ Deverell said slowly, ‘but in the latter end he drew out of it.’

  ‘Oh, I never!’ cried Tom. ‘You asked me and that was all. You mustn’t say that, really: I mean, you mustn’t think it, because whatever else I don’t do I keep my promises.’

  ‘Well, I won’t say you were very keen on the sport of it,’ Deverell admitted. ‘Maybe this other young gentleman is more of the sportin’ kind than what you are. He wouldn’t be any friend of yours, would he?’

  ‘Do you mean a relation? He isn’t a relation, but of course he’s a friend.’ It was at this point that he might have performed an introduction if it hadn’t been for the frozen expression on Philip’s face. Tom gave it up in despair.

  ‘I seen you about with him these last two weeks,’ Deverell went on, ‘but my mother says there’s no one stayin’ at the Manor barrin’ yourself’

  ‘Neither there is,’ Tom answered.

  ‘And I didn’t hear any word of him down in the town. Perhaps he’d be coming over from a distance each day?’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better be moving on?’ Philip abruptly asked, his eyes as blue as ice and as cold.

  Deverell looked at him, thrust his hands into his breeches pockets, then turned and spat before facing him once more. ‘So that’s the kind of talk, is it?’ he said softly.

  ‘Yes, that’s the kind of talk. Just show me how quickly you can get down that hill again.’

  ‘At ‘your bidding, perhaps? Look see, my young cock, if you weren’t a friend of Mr. Tom’s here, I’d give you a clip on the ear might learn you manners.’

  Philip rose to his feet. ‘Clear out,’ he said. ‘And don’t let me see you molesting Mr. Tom again.’

  ‘Molestin’—molestin’—and when was I molestin’ him? Isn’t it for Mr. Tom himself to choose who he’ll—’

  ‘No, it isn’t for Mr. Tom. And if I catch you hanging round here—’

  ‘Well, what will you do?’ asked Deverell, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. At the same time he advanced a step, and the effect was so suddenly threatening that Tom sprang in between them.

  ‘Oh, I say, stop it,’ he cried. ‘What’s the sense in all this
!’ He turned half angrily to Philip. ‘He’s as much right to be here as we have, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t speak to me. I’m going to speak to him anyway, and I’m going fishing with him too.’ Philip remained for a moment quite still. Then he wheeled round. ‘Good-bye,’ he dropped over his shoulder, and walked off without another glance.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom muttered to Deverell, who was standing with his eyes bent gloomily on the ground. But the young poacher did not answer.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Tom repeated half petulantly. ‘I wish you wouldn’t be angry with me. I know I’ve behaved rottenly, but I’ll really go out with you one of these days—if you’ll let me—if you want me. I’ll send a message by your mother… . I don’t know why he spoke to you like that, though it was partly my fault, and a little bit yours too, perhaps. I mean he didn’t like your asking questions about him… . And—I think I’d better go after him now… . You see, he is my pal (you remember what you once asked me?) though I don’t think I’m his very much. I mean, he likes me well enough, but—not in the way you do. That’s how it is, really, and I can’t help it.’

  Still Deverell said nothing, and Tom, after a further hesitation, began slowly to follow on Philip’s track. Presently he broke into a trot, and Philip must have heard him, though he did not stop nor look round. Even when Tom came up with him he continued to march straight on without a word.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Tom pacifically. ‘What are you in such a rage about? What have I done?’

  Philip stared in front of him and walked on.

  ‘Oh well, if you won’t speak—All I tried to do was to prevent a row. What chance would you have had if it had come to that?’

  ‘Not very much, I dare say, unless you had backed me up: but I expect that’s hardly in your line.’

  Tom flushed. ‘If you think I’m a coward you’re welcome to do so: I don’t care.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you do, and I’ll know another time what to expect.

  What have I done?’ Tom repeated. ‘Is it because I told you he had a right to speak to me?’

  ‘Yes, you said that when he was there—after telling me first he’d been annoying you.’

  ‘That’s a lie: I told you no such thing.’

  Philip immediately confronted him, blocking the way. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he asked, raising his hand.

  Tom flinched ever so little, but he stood his ground. ‘Yes,’ he muttered, biting on his lower lip to prevent it from betraying him. He waited for Philip to strike him, as he had waited in more than one such crisis at school, but no blow came. Instead, Philip thrust his hands into his pockets.

  ‘I don’t think you’re a coward,’ he said, with a kind of angry honesty, ‘and you mayn’t actually have said he had annoyed you; but you implied it; you even wanted to run away from him.’

  ‘It wasn’t for that reason.’

  ‘So I see now. Why didn’t you stay with him, then? I gave you the opportunity.’

  Tom answered nothing, and after a moment Philip once more began to walk on towards the Manor woods, whereupon Tom also walked on beside him.

  In this fashion they proceeded, without uttering a word, but Tom was not good at keeping up a quarrel, and very soon his sole desire was to find an excuse for ending this one. ‘It wasn’t Deverell’s fault,’ he began. ‘It was really mine. It must have looked to him exactly as if I wanted to avoid speaking to him, and I had been quite friendly before.’

  ‘A good deal too friendly, I should imagine.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I be friendly?’

  ‘He’s the surliest-looking brute I ever saw. You seem ready to trust anybody.’

  It was on the tip of Tom’s tongue to reply, ‘I trusted you‘, but he refrained. All he said was, ‘You might have done what I asked you to: then none of this would have happened.’

  ‘What did you ask me to do?’

  ‘To clear out when we saw him coming.’

  ‘That’s not the way to get rid of him,’ returned Philip impatiently. ‘You’ve got to take strong measures with a person like that: you’ve got to send him about his business. He admitted himself he’d been spying after us and asking questions. Do you think I’m going to have a chap like that prying round, or to hide every time I see him?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to send him about his business. I’ve got nothing against him. It was only because you were there that I wanted to avoid him.’

  ‘Yes, I know that—now. You needn’t go on repeating it. Have you arranged to meet him to-morrow?’

  ‘No, but I’ve promised to meet him one of these days, and I’m going to.’ After which he was silent until he added, ‘You see, you won’t even try to understand. The reason why I wanted you to come away at the beginning was partly because I had broken my word to him, but chiefly because I knew you wouldn’t get on together.’

  ‘You were right about that at any rate: though you told him you hadn’t broken your word.’

  ‘Not literally, but I never went near him.’

  ‘Why?

  ‘Because of you, I suppose.’

  Philip’s face did not clear, though he answered less angrily: ‘Well, if you take my advice, you won’t go near him.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be rather mean if I took your advice?’ Tom asked quietly. ‘After all, I must form my own judgements of people.’

  ‘Then you think I’m mean?’

  ‘I think you’re unfair and prejudiced. You’ve taken a dislike to him without any cause—simply because he asked me who you were.’

  ‘It wasn’t only that. It wasn’t even principally that.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  ‘It was because I know he won’t do you any good; and I do know it.’

  ‘I don’t see how he can do me any harm. Surely I can look after myself!’

  ‘Yes, if you wanted to: but you seem to like him.’

  ‘So I do,’ Tom answered.

  The statement, nevertheless, did not bring him much comfort, and later, walking home alone, he became unhappier still. The quarrel had ended, but it had not ended like his quarrels with Jane; it had left a feeling of estrangement behind it; there had been no ‘making up’.

  CHAPTER XV

  As Tom sat up, a single chime—deep, distant, mellow—reached his still drowsy ears. He knew it came from the grandfather’s clock in the hall, and it was strange, he thought, that he never seemed to hear it in the daytime. But at night, though he was far away and his door shut, if he happened to be awake he could always hear it, and if he opened his door, even the slow tick, tock tick, tock—rose up quite distinctly through the well of the staircase.

  He had drawn up his blinds—always so carefully drawn down by Mrs. Deverell—before getting into bed; the windows were open, and the moon was shining into the room. Perhaps it was the moon which had awakened him. There had been a thunderstorm and a heavy fall of rain a few hours earlier, but now the night must have cleared, and Tom, slipping out of bed, went to the window to breathe its freshness. He leaned over the sill, and the garden lay below him filled with light and darkness, black and white like an etching. Motionless trees threw their shadows across the grass. There were shadows everywhere. In spite of the flood of moonlight, Tom thought it would be easy for an enemy to approach the house unseen… .

  He leaned farther out, trying to view the garden from a different angle, and in doing so his elbow knocked against a book on the dressing-table, which fell with a thud to the floor.

  ‘Damn!’ Tom muttered under his breath.

  The book was the first volume of Arabia Deserta, and he had put it there so as to be sure to remember it next day. It was for Philip. Not that he had asked for it—nor indeed for any book—the idea was Tom’s own. He had thought a travel book might interest him since he was going to be a traveller, and Uncle Stephen had said this was a good one.

  He thought of Philip and he thought of Deverell. It was because of what had taken place that afternoon. H
e did not believe Deverell would readily forgive or forget an injury—he would be far more likely to exaggerate one. His temperament was passionate and brooding: and, quite apart from the insult he had received, Tom knew he must be jealous. Suppose he had followed them. They had taken no precautions; they had not once looked round. Nothing indeed seemed more probable than that he had followed them; and once he knew Philip’s hiding-place, what was to prevent him from going back at night when he would be sure to find him alone?

  Tom’s thoughts might not have taken this turn in broad daylight, nor even had he lain on snugly in bed, but now, looking out into that mysterious garden, it became increasingly difficult to dismiss them.

  Swiftly and silently in the moonlight he redressed himself. He opened his door noiselessly, and tiptoed along the passage and down the stairs. With equal caution he stole along a second and darker passage, branching off on the right from the hall, and leading to the kitchen. The kitchen door was locked, but the key was in the lock and Tom turned it. Then, very gingerly, he pushed open the door.

  Not that he felt any ghostly terrors: what he actually dreaded (the result of one memorable descent to the kitchen in Gloucester Terrace) was cockroaches. But cockroaches or no cockroaches he must get his shoes. He lit his candle, cast a rapid glance round the tiled floor, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Having found his shoes and put them on, he returned to the hall. His every movement was made with the utmost carefulness, for, though the darkness told him Uncle Stephen had gone to bed, he might not yet be asleep. Tom opened the hall-door—always left on the latch for Mrs. Deverell in the morning—and instantly was face to face with a white, crystalline world—glittering, treacherous—like a landscape in the moon.

  Beyond the shining pallor of the lawn was a black wall of trees. Keeping on the grass, so that his footsteps should be noiseless, he passed the row of dark windows at the front of the house, then broke into a run, and in a minute or two had reached the outer fringe of the wood. He by this time knew his way to the other house so well that he believed the darkness would not matter, but almost immediately he blundered into the bushes and fell headlong. He was not hurt, but it showed him how useless it was to hurry. He lit the ‘candle he had brought with him. Here, in the close shelter of the trees, the flame burned almost steadily, yet the light it cast was equivocal, seeming to illuminate Tom himself much more than his surroundings. It was better than nothing, however; it helped him to avoid overhanging branches, and he moved slowly on. His daily journeys had beaten down a well-marked track, but it was narrow, and even with the light he carried not easy to follow. Now and then he heard a rustle in the brushwood, and once he heard a distant scream that might have been the scream of an owl or of a cat, but he saw no living thing except snails, and the pale-winged moths his candle attracted—creatures fragile and insubstantial as the ghosts of white hawthorn.