by Forrest Reid
Dusk was falling now, and once or twice Tom’s eyelids closed. A white shape drifted noiselessly past the open window. He knew it was an owl, and wished it had perched on the sill and stared in at him, for he was fond of owls. They were beautiful and fierce and solemn, and he had once read, or somebody had told him, that when they mated it was for life. This had impressed him deeply. It was the old quality of faithfulness cropping up once more. He thought of it now and it led to other thoughts. His mind was a stilled pool over which he brooded: then gradually the pool dimmed, wavered, vanished.
CHAPTER XXI
Tom opened his eyes, but for a moment or two did not realize where he was. Then he remembered and sat up. Outside it was broad daylight; he must have slept the whole night through. He scratched his head, stretched out his arms, turned round from the window and saw—Philip.
He was lying on the bed fast asleep. Tom crossed the room quickly and stood looking down at him. When had he come? Could he have been here all night? He stooped lower and at last knelt beside the bed. His face was within a foot of Philip’s face; he was gazing so intently that he held his breath. And in that sleeping countenance he could certainly trace a definite resemblance to Uncle Stephen, though even now, even with his knowledge and his desire to prompt him, he saw far more difference than resemblance. He knew it was Uncle Stephen, but should he have known had he possessed only this shadowy likeness to guide him? Would other people—Mrs. Deverell, Sally, Mr. Flood, or Mr. Knox—know? And suddenly he found himself looking into two wide open eyes—blue, dark, questioning.
Tom drew back with a kind of spiritual shock. Though their colour and shape were the same (and it was a most uncommon colour), the expression in those eyes was not Uncle Stephen’s. Recognition there was in them, and friendliness; but the recognition and the friendliness were not Uncle Stephen’s.
‘Philip!’ he faltered.
The boy on the bed yawned, swung his legs round and assumed a sitting position. ‘Hello! Are you saying your prayers?’
Tom got up in some confusion. ‘I never heard you coming in last night.’
Is that why you were kneeling there staring at me?’
‘I wasn’t,’
‘ You weren’t!’
‘I mean—’ But, having begun his explanation, Tom could not end it, and Philip watched his embarrassment ironically. ‘I hope you were praying that you might become a nice truthful boy.’
‘Why shouldn’t I look at you?’ asked Tom, defending himself. ‘I thought you were asleep and I was wondering how you managed to get in last night without wakening me. It was last night, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course it was last night.’
‘What time?’
‘I don’t know: it was dark: and you were pretty sound asleep… . I say, aren’t you hungry? What about breakfast?’ Tom hurried to unpack the basket—the more readily in that it gave him time to think and helped him to conceal a growing anxiety.
‘I brought two thermos flasks,’ he mumbled, trying to speak in his ordinary voice. ‘But the tea in them must be quite cold by now.’ Having said this, it was as if he were afraid to risk further conversation, for in silence he spread out the contents of the basket, using the napkin Mrs. Deverell had wrapped round the sandwiches as a tablecloth, and drawing the table itself over beside the bed. He knew he was not behaving naturally, probably not looking natural, but he could not help it, he had grown all at once horribly nervous.
He fetched the chair and sat down. ‘ You haven’t told me yet what brought you here last night,’ said Philip.
‘No,’ answered Tom.
But he could not go on like this, and suddenly he blurted out, ‘There are other things I have to tell you. You said your name was Philip Coombe.’
‘Yes.’
‘ Well, it isn’t.’
Philip glanced at him, surprised, but unperturbed. ‘How do you know?’
‘I do know.’
‘Is that what’s worrying you? Coombe is the name of the place I came from:—Coombe Bridge. Philip is the name of a dog, a retriever:—our dog at home. They were the first names that came into my head. There’s nothing more in it than that.’
‘Why did you invent a name at all?’ asked Tom.
‘Well, I thought it safer, I suppose, and once I had done it, it didn’t seem worth while changing back. Your uncle’s name was another reason.’
‘Uncle Stephen?’
‘Stephen Collet. It gave me a considerable scare, you know, when you mentioned it; and I knew I’d got to be jolly careful. It isn’t a common name, and I was pretty certain he must be a relation though I’d never heard of him… . How did you find out, by the way? I mean, how did you find out that I wasn’t Philip Coombe?’ He looked at Tom in sudden suspicion.
‘I—I guessed,’ said Tom.
‘You must be a remarkably good guesser,’ Philip answered dryly.
He said no more, but Tom felt that a gulf straightway had opened between them. Nor was he astonished. He was making a mess of everything. He looked timidly at Philip, but Philip did not return his look, he went on quietly with his breakfast. Tom grew more and more unhappy. And to think he had insisted on this meeting! All the questions he had looked forward to asking were forgotten. He did not want Philip now; he had never wanted anybody less; he wanted only Uncle Stephen.
His trouble doubtless was visible in his face, for Philip asked him, ‘What’s the matter?’
Tom was gazing down at his paper of sandwiches, but without even pretending to eat. ‘I’m not very hungry, I think.’
Philip did not question him further. He appeared to be perfectly content that Tom should withhold his confidence, and it was Tom himself who was forced to break the silence, for the unruffled countenance of the boy opposite him had begun to be almost terrifying. ‘Philip,’ he said, don’t you remember anything?’
Philip shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why do you go on calling me that, if you know it isn’t my name?’
‘I can’t call you Uncle Stephen,’ said Tom miserably.
‘No; I dare say one Uncle Stephen is enough.’
‘Stephen, then: what does it matter!’
‘Nothing except that it is my name and you seemed rather particular about it a few minutes ago.’
Tom made a movement, half of impatience, half of hopelessness. ‘Listen,’ he began. ‘You must listen—’
‘I can listen a great deal better if you don’t get excited,’ said Philip. ‘You seem always either in one extreme or the other. If anybody has found out about me I suppose it’s your friend the gamekeeper—or whatever it is he calls himself. But if he thinks I’m going to pay him to hold his tongue he’s jolly well mistaken. For one thing, I’ve nothing to pay him with. At least—that’s not absolutely true; but the little I have I’ll require for myself.’
‘It’s not that: he’s not that sort. And anyway he’s not here now—’
‘Not here? Where has he gone?’
Tom’s hands clenched. ‘Oh, I don’t know. What does it matter where he has gone! Philip, do you remember talking about a dream—you called it a dream—a dream through which you got back to the past. Try to remember. It’s important. Awfully. I can’t tell you how important it is.’
Philip looked at him. ‘Got back to what past?’ he asked.
‘To your own past. To—to what you are now.’
‘Don’t you think we’d better change the subject?’
‘I knew you’d say something like that,’ answered Tom bitterly. ‘I’m trying to make you remember something—something that happened. If I could only even make you realize how much depends on it!’ He spoke with all the self-control he could command, but the thought that he might never succeed created in his mind a hardly bearable tension.
‘I don’t even know what “it” is,’ Philip replied, ‘so I can’t very well realize its importance. You seem to me to be talking nonsense, but I know you like to do that and I’ve no particular objection if it pleases you.’ He ha
d begun to look bored, however, and Tom’s sense of defeat deepened.
‘Don’t you remember Uncle Stephen?’ he asked.
‘I never saw Uncle Stephen in my life.’
‘Philip—Stephen, I mean—’
‘I haven’t the ghost of an idea what’s worrying you or what you’ve got into your head. That’s the honest, absolute truth; and if you can’t speak more plainly—’
‘Don’t interrupt me.’
‘Well, don’t talk so wildly then.’
‘But I must. I must make you remember. And I’m speaking as plainly as I can.’
He paused, and for a minute or two sat with his eyes narrowed and his head turned slightly away from the other boy, as if concentrating all his faculties on some interior vision.
‘I want you to think,’ he began slowly, ‘of a room—at night… . There is a lamp burning… . There is a bed—low and narrow—and beyond the bed—at the foot of it—a marble figure, broken, the arms missing, and the legs broken off below the knees—it is a statue of Hermes. There is someone sitting beside the bed—me. There is someone sitting up in the bed—you—with the pillows arranged behind you. You ask me to get a box from a cupboard in the wall, and I bring it to you—a flat wooden box ornamented with brass. Out of the box you take a leather case which opens when you press a spring, and inside is the picture of a boy painted, I think, on ivory—your own picture. There is a name on the inside of the lid—Stephen Collet.’
‘You’re right enough about the miniature,’ Stephen said with a dawning interest. ‘How on earth did you know? Father got it done as a birthday present for mother; but I’ll swear it’s never been out of our house—at least, I shouldn’t think so. Mr. Collet must be a relation of ours—a cousin of my father’s, or something. And they must have written to him about me. Is that how you guessed who I was?’
‘Oh, don’t bother about how I guessed,’ said Tom desperately. ‘Think of what I’ve told you. Of the room. Think—think.’
‘Well, I am thinking.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘I suppose you’ll be furious if I tell you, but what I remember is a missionary who once stayed over the week-end with us: my father’s a parson, you know.’
‘Yes?’
‘This missionary had had a sunstroke. It happened in Africa, I believe. He recovered all right, but sometimes—I say, there’s no use beginning to blub! I didn’t mean anything… . Tom!’ He jumped up and leaned over the younger boy’s chair.
Tom tried to smile. ‘It’s all right,’ he answered huskily. Only—only—it’s awful; and it’s all my fault?’ He hid his head in his arms which were stretched out on the table.
‘What is awful? What has happened? Tom, old man, what is the matter?’
Tom looked up wildly. For a moment, surely, though faintly and through a rougher, younger voice, he had heard the voice of Uncle Stephen! But it was only Philip who stood there patting him on his shoulder.
‘If you’ve got into a scrape perhaps I can help you: I’m pretty well used to them.’
Tom did not lift his head. He felt too miserable even to say that he had not got into a scrape… . Uncle Stephen had warned him of the danger, but like an obstinate fool he had refused to listen. For one sickening moment he felt the full weight of having betrayed Uncle Stephen. If even he had had sufficient strength of mind to keep awake last night this might not have happened: but he had felt sleepy and so had slept. His bitterness was too great to admit of self-pity: he was no good: he had prated about faithfulness, and he hadn’t been able to be faithful to the one person he loved.
‘If you like I’ll go back to the Manor House with you,’ Philip—or Stephen—offered. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’
Tom sat up. He drew his hand across his eyes, leaving a black smudge, but a glimmer of hope had been created by these words. Was it not just possible that in Uncle Stephen’s own room something might happen; the cloud might be lifted; and if it broke for even an instant he believed all would be well.
Will you, Stephen?’ he said slowly. ‘If you do I’ll—I’ll—It’s very good of you.’
‘No it isn’t. Come on: we’ll go at once.’
Tom got up. ‘I’m sorry I can’t explain why I want you to come,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about everything. I would try to explain only—it would be just like all the rest.’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen hastily, ‘don’t bother. Time enough when we see Mr. Collet.’
Tom followed him from the room, and they passed through the yard and round to the front of the house. Here Stephen abruptly thumped him on the back much as one might thump a dog. ‘It’s sure to be all right,’ he said, encouragingly. ‘You never know your luck. Did you tell him you were going to stay all night at the other house—Mr. Collet, I mean?’
‘Yes—no—I don’t know… . Please Stephen, don’t talk to me; I want to think.’
But all the thinking in the world, he knew, would help them little if this last experiment failed. What would happen then? Nobody would believe him. The whole thing was too unreal, too fantastic. He might call it an accident, but it was an accident which upset every law of nature and made the plain solid earth no better than a quicksand.
They plunged out of sunshine into woodland shadow, walking on dark moss, with a green roof above them, and the rustling of leaves in their ears. These tree voices were softer, thicker, and more blurred than they would be in autumn, when the leaves had grown thin and dry. This was the liquid murmur of life—rich, luxuriant. Stephen had begun to whistle, and the clear notes were answered from overhead and every side by trills and pipings that wove a delicate arabesque of sweetness round his common tune.
Tom looked at his watch. It was after ten. An hour ago Mrs. Deverell would have discovered that he and Uncle Stephen were not in the house… . Unless Uncle Stephen was there—all the time—asleep—dreaming! That had not occurred to him before, and the thought made him slightly dizzy. Better to wait: better not to think: it was all so uncertain… .
He hurried on, a slender eager figure, with Stephen close behind him, but when they reached the edge of the shrubbery he stopped. In the distance he saw George McCrudden wheeling a barrow, and the sight somehow was faintly, temporarily reassuring. He gathered from it at any rate that there had been no alarm raised as yet, and from behind the taller, sturdier Stephen, with his arm round him, and peeping over his shoulder, he gazed at the house.
‘What’s our next move?’ Stephen asked placidly.
‘We’ll go in,’ said Tom: but he did not stir till George had disappeared. ‘Thank you, Stephen, for coming with me.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. Only you’d better tell use what you want me to do.’
‘I—I don’t know yet.’
So much, indeed, depended on what Mrs. Deverell might already have done! And the first thing was to find our. While they were approaching the house his eyes searched window after window, but all were empty. Nor was there anybody in the porch—or in the hall. Suddenly Mrs. Deverell appeared.
She came our quickly from the dining-room at the sound of the closing door. Why, whatever has happened, Master Tom?’ she cried. ‘And where’s Mr. Collet?’
Tom saw her glance at Stephen, who grinned cheerfully in response. But Mrs. Deverell had no time just then to give to strange boys. Her eyes questioned Tom. ‘When Sally came and told me there was neither of you in the house I got quite a turn! I never have felt easy about leaving the master all alone at night, cut off from everything and everybody, without as much as a telephone in the house. There should be someone within call, even if it was only Robert. Suppose he was to be taken ill; or tramps were to break in!’
‘I’m within call,’ said Tom.
Mrs. Deverell looked as if she thought that made little difference. ‘When will the master be back?’ she asked.
It was the question Tom had been dreading. ‘He won’t be back… . At least, I don’t know when he’ll be back… . Perhaps not for some time.’<
br />
He tried to make his news sound as ordinary as possible, but the effect was to bring Mrs. Deverell’s attention on him in a swoop. ‘Not for some time!’ she repeated. ‘He’ll be back for dinner, won’t he?’
Something inside Tom was behaving exactly like a guilty conscience. He forced himself to return Mrs. Deverell’s gaze, but his cheeks burned. ‘No—and I’ve had breakfast. Uncle Stephen was called away on business—very early. It was important—and—and I went part of the way with him to see him off.’
‘You mean he’s gone by the train!’ Mrs. Deverell exclaimed.
‘ Yes—I mean, no. Earlier than that… . He went in a motor-car. The one that brought the message. Very early. A—a little after five, I think
Mrs. Deverell’s astonishment increased. ‘Why, he’s never done that—not in all the years I was with him!’ she pronounced half incredulously.
Her voice, her expression, her whole manner, had begun to exasperate Tom. ‘I can’t help it,’ he answered. ‘It was quite sudden, or of course he would have told you.’ Then he added, to get everything over at once, ‘Philip is to stay with me till he comes back.’
‘But, Master Tom, your bed wasn’t slept in last night.’
Tom’s face grew sullen. It was just as if she had set a trap for him. ‘Yes it was,’ he contradicted. ‘I made it after I got up.’ Mrs. Deverell did not ask him why he had done so; she said no more; but Tom knew it wasn’t because she was satisfied. She didn’t look satisfied: she looked as if she had ceased to question him only because she saw he wasn’t going to tell her the truth. Her eyes turned from him to Stephen, and immediately Tom realized how disreputable was Stephen’s appearance. Fortunately, Mrs. Deverell already knew about him—the boy at the other house—the boy for whom she had packed so many baskets. ‘If you would let me have Master Philip’s clothes,’ she said, ‘I could mend them and clean them.’
