Warning Hill

by John P. Marquand

  “Come up the steps, son,” said Mr. Jellett, “and you can see it all.”

  They walked up the steps, and the garden lay beneath them,—terrace after terrace of garden. Suddenly the gardens seemed to Tommy Michael like a great wall, which was towering high above him.

  “How do you like it, son?” asked Mr. Jellett. “Still think it’s as good as your garden, eh?”

  Tommy drew in his breath, and loyalty gripped him for the things he had always known.

  “I like our garden better,” he repeated. “We’ve got some roses too, awful big roses off some of the bushes by the barn.”

  “Awful big, eh?” said Mr. Jellett. “Well, well, you don’t say, and here’s my house. I suppose yours is pretty big too, eh?”

  “Yes,” said Tommy, “our house is pretty big.”

  Mr. Jellett chuckled again.

  “Come inside, son,” he said, “and see if it’s like your house.”

  Tommy knew just as well as he knew anything that there was only one reason why Mr. Jellett let him in. Mr. Jellett was diverted by a grubby little boy who was standing by his guns. Now surely that was a cowardly thing to do, as Tommy himself could understand. Who says that children do not understand the niceties of life? A hatred for all the newness and all the splendor of it left Tommy close to tears of helpless anger, and all he could do was let Mr. Jellett chuckle and walk silently beside him.

  “After you,” said Mr. Jellett. “Here’s the hall.”

  Now heaven knows Mr. Jellett’s hall was a terrific place. It was a golden oaken glory which formed a horrid parody of an English country house. The stairs mounted to a gallery with Oriental rugs hanging over its balustrades; and upon the newel post an enormous gilded lady in a nightgown held a lamp. Close beside Tommy a huge open fireplace surrounded by colored tiles gaped like a cave, and on either side of it were two suits of armor. It was all very still and cool and filled with a dustless odor. Mr. Jellett was pointing to some pictures on the yellow oak paneling, close to a great door.

  “Turners,” said Mr. Jellett. “Turner was a great artist, and there’s a Burne-Jones. I like him better myself, and here—” he opened a door—“here’s the dining room.”

  Tommy had a glimpse of a tremendous table and a row of chairs with high pointed backs, and a sideboard as large as a boathouse, all covered with plates and candlesticks of a yellow metal. They were gold.

  “Does it remind you of home, son?” inquired Mr. Jellett.

  “No,” said Tommy. He could not keep his glance on one thing at a time. “No.”

  “Doesn’t, eh?” said Mr. Jellett. “Well, what do you think of it?”

  “It’s not so bad,” repeated Tommy, and drew his breath in hard. Who says that boys do not know? He could feel the humiliation of it as keenly as though he were a man. He wished he had never come. He wished that Marianne had called the gardeners to chase him home.

  “Not so bad, eh?” said Mr. Jellett. “Dear me, now. Come this way, son.” He walked across the hall and opened another door. “Here’s one of the drawing-rooms.”

  It was all satin and plush and filled with chairs and tables that had very tiny crooked legs. The floor was as shiny and smooth as glass, and everywhere were mirrors and chandeliers, surrounded by twinkling glass prisms.

  “Not so bad either, is it?” said Mr. Jellett. “And here’s my library.” He opened a door and pushed Tommy ahead of him into another room with bookcases along its walls almost to the ceiling. Through a soft haze of cigar smoke Tommy saw that three gentlemen were seated in soft leather chairs. They all stared at him in a way that made him cold. They all had on rich silk cravats, and enormous gold watch chains decorated their vests, but for a moment their faces were a blur.

  “Now what the deuce,” one of them said to Mr. Jellett, “have you brought in?”

  “A young visitor,” said Mr. Jellett. “I’ve been showing him the house and garden, and he says it’s not so bad.”

  Two of the gentlemen who were younger than the third began to laugh.

  “Bully!” cried one. “Perfectly bully!” He was the one who had spoken first, a thin man in a blue suit with a hard brown face. “I’d never have guessed you had a sense of humor, Jellett. But there—something’s wrong with him. He doesn’t join together.”

  The other younger man stopped laughing and also became very serious. He leaned over and stared cautiously at Tommy. He was pale; his hair was yellow and parted in the center.

  “There actually is something wrong,” he remarked. “What made you bring him in here to spoil my concentration? Am I wrong or am I right? Is something hanging out of him? Am I wrong, or am I right?”

  Tommy turned crimson and tugged at his middle. It was his stomach string again.

  “Curious,” said the pale gentleman, “most awfully curious. Maybe we all are parting in the middle. It may be the end—to be parted in the middle.”

  “Oh, Lord!” said the brown-faced gentleman. “Why won’t you go home, Wilmer?”

  Then Tommy knew who the pale gentleman was. The man at the post office frequently spoke of Mr. Horatio Wilmer. They said he was very fast, though Tommy could see nothing speedy about him.

  “Now Willie Judkins,” said Mr. Wilmer to the brown-faced man, “it isn’t right to say that. It isn’t kind. If I am not behaving, it is all your fault. Now stop, because you spoil my concentration.”

  “Oh, Lord!” repeated Mr. Judkins. “Why won’t you go home? My car can take you. Where’s Marianne, Jellett? Weren’t you going to bring in the child?”

  Mr. Jellett indicated Tommy with a stubby forefinger and chuckled.

  “I couldn’t find her,” he explained. “I brought him in instead. Tell us about your house, son. He’s got some roses too, and some of them are awful big, down by the barn.”

  The third gentleman leaned forward. He had not appeared to be enjoying the conversation, but had sat looking at every one with half closed eyes.

  “Oh, dry up, Grafton,” he said. “Of course you’ve got a good garden, but what the devil will it matter in a hundred years?”

  He spoke in a hoarse loud voice which made everybody turn to where he sat heavily, as though he had eaten too much to move. He turned his head slowly toward Tommy and raised a heavy hand.

  “Sit down, boy,” he said, “and have a drink. Jellett, ring the bell and get him ginger ale. You asked him into your house, didn’t you? Then show your manners. Go on, Jellett, ring the bell.”

  “I was just going to, of course,” said Mr. Jellett. “What’ll you have, son, ginger ale?”

  A man had come to the door. Tommy knew enough to realize he was a butler.

  “Ginger ale for the young man,” said the heavy gentleman, twisting a pair of gray mustaches. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere, boy? Don’t you work in the bank?”

  Tommy nodded. A glass was in front of him, but he did not touch it. Everybody kept looking at him.

  “What doing, boy?”

  Tommy wished the heavy gentleman would not be kind, because kindness made it worse.

  “What Mr. Cooper tells me,” said Tommy. “He had me work for him ever since my father died. We’ve got to work at home.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Jellett can understand that,” remarked the heavy gentleman. “He used to do what people told him, too. And what’s your name, boy? My name’s Danforth, Simeon Danforth, since our host doesn’t introduce us.”

  “Confound it, man!” Mr. Jellett’s face was different, Tommy could see, though it appeared as placid as ever. “How do I know what his name is? I picked him up in the garden. He’d sailed over the harbor in a skiff, and when he said the garden was not so bad—”

  Mr. Danforth nodded sympathetically.

  “Oh, quite all right with me, Grubby,” he said. “Don’t let it bother you for a moment. What is your name, boy?”

  “It’s Michael,” said Tommy. “Thomas Jefferson Michael.”

  For some reason Mr. Jellett seemed surprised, though his face looked jus
t the same. In fact, every one seemed surprised.

  “Michael, eh?” he said. “You’re not the son of Alfred Michael?”

  Mr. Danforth coughed behind his hand, and shook the ice in his glass. Mr. Wilmer aroused himself.

  “Michael?” he said. “Michael? Why, they’re the ones who won’t sell you that land, eh, what? That beach land, eh, what? Won’t some one tell me? It spoils my concentration!”

  “Oh, Wilmer,” said Mr. Judkins, “do shut up!”

  Mr. Jellett, however, did not seem disturbed. His concentration, at any rate, was perfect.

  “And Mr. Cooper has you work in the bank?” he inquired. “Well, well—how much does he pay you, son?”

  And now, at last, Tommy could speak proudly without pretending.

  “Eight dollars a week,” he answered, “when I’m not in school. I don’t know what they’d do at home, if it weren’t for me.”

  “Eight dollars,” said Mr. Jellett, “is a lot of money.” In later years Tommy learned to recognize the exact inflection of Mr. Jellett. He spoke as others might speak of the wind and tide and other laws of nature, with heads bowed before inexorable fact. It was the way in which very rich men always spoke of money, Tommy was to learn. The smaller the sum, the greater would be their reverence, because of course it was a symbol, like the rune on a pagan sword.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Jellett, “eight dollars is a lot of money.” And he looked ahead of him at nothing and pursed his lips. Mr. Wilmer seized the occasion to giggle like a boy in church in the midst of prayer.

  “Say it again,” Mr. Wilmer begged; “oh, please, now, say it.”

  “Oh, Wilmer,” said Mr. Judkins, “do shut up!”

  Mr. Jellett seemed to rouse himself from a daydream.

  “I don’t see what’s amusing,” he said mildly, “when I remark that eight dollars is a lot of money.”

  For some reason every one fell silent. All those three gentlemen looked at Mr. Jellett curiously and soberly, as though waiting for something to happen next, but nothing happened. Mr. Jellett sat down in a leather chair, and at almost the same moment a door opened, admitting a tired-looking young man with a small mustache.

  “The office is on the wire, sir,” he said. Mr. Jellett rose.

  “All right, Hewens.” His gaze rested on Tommy, as though Tommy were a piece of misplaced furniture. “Show this young man out, will you? Good-by, son.”

  Mr. Jellett should have known. He had not been stupid, when he was young. Tommy could read what Mr. Jellett meant, which was something he did not say. He meant, “I’m through with you. Get out, you little snipe.”

  “Come on. This way!” said the tired young man. He meant, “Come on, you dirty little village boy.”

  Yes, Tommy had sense enough to see, if the rest of them did not. They were putting him out of that house like a tramp, after inviting him inside. There was reason enough for his lips to close tight and for his eyes to grow wet and bright. His pride could not hold back what lay within him, as he ran down those broad stone steps from the terrace toward the mass of color from those garden beds. Tears sprang to his eyes; his shoulders shook. And there was the end of his voyage in a boat with a sail to a strange, far land. It was ending as many a voyage has ended—in a wild longing for what lay behind—for his own place where the wind was gentle in the elms and nothing was new, where weeds grew high upon the drive, and paint blistered on warped clapboards, and friendly voices called him from porches along the village street.

  Then, as though a hand had fallen on his shoulder, Tommy Michael stopped his running and turned toward the brown-stone house, and said the most ridiculous thing.

  “You just wait! I’ll be as rich as you some day!”

  XI

  The tide had risen over the small sandy beach, so that the skiff was afloat; not that it made any difference to Tommy, in the bitterness which had fallen on his spirit. As Tommy passed that tumble-down shack by the beach, he was startled by some one calling. He had forgotten Marianne, but there she was, slender and eager in her ruffled dress.

  “Why didn’t you hurry?” said Marianne, with her lips curved slightly downward. “Aren’t you going to sail me across the harbor the way you said?”

  All Tommy’s hatred veered like a weathercock, and centered on Marianne. He splashed into the water, shoes and all, and snatched up the anchor.

  “Come on, then, if you like. Climb aboard, if you’re not afraid of getting wet!”

  “Wait!” called Marianne. “How can I get out there? Wait till I take off my shoes!”

  “I won’t wait!” She must have caught a hint of his anger, for she gave a startled cry. “Climb in or stay out! What do I care about your shoes?”

  The water was nearly at his knees when he scrambled over the skiff’s side, and snatched at the tiller and the sheet. Marianne was angry too, so angry that she waded out and climbed in beside him. Her dress was wet; she had bruised her leg, and she was crying. How was Tommy to know that never, never had any one spoken so to Marianne before?

  “You nasty boy!” How hard and shrill her voice was! Marianne had her own fits of temper. “Only a—” she thought hard for a word and found it—“a mucker would treat a girl like that!”

  A gust of wind caught the sail. The skiff heeled over on her beam. With a shriek Marianne clutched Tommy’s shoulder.

  “Say that again,” said Tommy, “and I’ll tip us both over, and then see how you like it!” And for the first time in Marianne’s career, she did not answer back. Not that she was afraid. She was so angry that there seemed nothing at all to say. She was so angry that her lips set tight like Tommy’s, and her thin little fingers closed tight on the side of the skiff. Gladly would she have let him tip them over, if she had thought that Tommy would have drowned.

  “I hate you—hate you!” whispered Marianne.

  Without her telling, Tommy Michael knew she hated him, and the knowledge that he was strong enough to make some one hate filled him with a most unholy joy.

  “What do I care?” He gave the sheet a jerk. “I hate you too. I hate your garden, and your house and everything in it, and your father, if you want to know.”

  They were tacking up Welcome River before she spoke again.

  “I hate you—hate you!” repeated Marianne.

  Perhaps because he hated himself by then, Tommy did not answer, and what was worse, he felt like crying right before a girl.

  “What’s that?” said Marianne. “There’s some one shouting at you from the shore.”

  Tommy looked forward. Mal Street was standing up to his knees in the water. Until that moment he had forgotten about Mal.

  “Come ashore, you yellow-bellied thief!” Mal’s shout rang very clear across the water. “Yeh! Come ashore! I’ll teach you to steal my boat!”

  Marianne’s eyes flashed. She looked at Tommy in a way that no one else had looked.

  “Ugh!” said Marianne. “I might have known you stole the boat. I’m glad I can see him beat you for it, too!”

  Tommy did not answer, but Marianne’s voice was enough. It struck him like a whip. He put up the helm and drove straight for the shore. Almost before the skiff grounded in the mud, Tommy and Mal Street were rolling in that doubtful element, clawing, scratching, biting, without regard for chivalry and rules. Tommy Michael was no longer afraid. Dimly he could hear Marianne’s shrieks and the barking of the water spaniels, but only dimly, for he was filled with a new magic—the magic which knows no pain. He did not know that Mal had pulled out a handful of his hair. He only knew that Mal was under him, and that he was striking Mal Street’s face. He could feel the thud every time he drove his fist.

  “Oh!” shrieked Marianne. She had forgotten half her anger in the glory of an unknown sight. “Get up! Do get up and hit him!”

  And Mal did his best with all the knowledge of a boy who has risked his body in a hundred frays. And there was a sight for you, the story of which, one recalls, shook all Michael’s Harbor. Marianne Jellett from Warni
ng Hill, in a dress which was made in Paris, was standing in the mud of the Street dooryard with shining eyes and restless, parted lips. Surely it was a thing to remember, a revolt against all propriety and law.

  Something pulled Tommy Michael up, and Tommy, willing still, struck out blindly, until all at once he perceived he was no longer struggling with Mal, but with a man. Mr. Street had a hold on Tommy’s shirt. When the shirt began to tear, quickly he threw another arm around him.

  “Easy, Tom,” said Mr. Street “Easy with them hands!” It was like coming to the surface of deep water to hear him. Mr. Street was never upset by such affairs. “I wouldn’t have pulled you off, but I guess Mal’s had enough.”

  There was no doubt for once, at least, that Mal had had enough. A cloud was rolling from Tommy’s consciousness. He could see the sun again, and the litter of the dooryard. Mal was getting to his knees, and was rubbing a fist across his mouth, and the way Mal looked was most astounding. Mal was staring at Tommy as though he saw a ghost.

  “Did I lick him?” Tommy was very hoarse.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Street gently, “yes, sir. You licked him, Tom. I didn’t think it was in you—but you’re like your father, a dead game sport, and there’s something in sports, I guess.”

  Thus, in his languid way, Mr. Street unburdened himself of his knowledge of the world, and though it came largely from gutters and back alleys and a logging camp or two, and from the forecastle of a tramp steamer, it had the same justice as Mr. Jellett’s statement that eight dollars is a lot of money. Mal did not say a single word, but he must have known, as Tommy knew, that something strange had happened that afternoon—that Tommy Michael was not the boy who had sailed across the harbor an hour or two before. As Tommy Michael sometimes said, it seemed that he had stepped into a land he had always feared and hated, and had stood in it alone and entirely unafraid. For once, there was no need of thinking, or of calling on phantom crews. For once he had his footing on the hard ground of fact.