Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  JAMES SETS OUT_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_

  Those August days! Have there been any like them before? I realise withdifficulty that the future holds in store for me others as golden.

  The island was crammed with trippers. They streamed in by every boat.But James and I were infinitely alone. I loved him from the first, fromthe moment when he had rowed out of the unknown into my life, clad in adressing-gown. I like to think that he loved me from that moment, too.But, if he did, the knowledge that he did came to him only after acertain delay. It was my privilege to watch this knowledge stealgradually but surely upon him.

  We were always together; and as the days passed by he spoke freely ofhimself and his affairs, obeying unconsciously the rudder of my tactfulinquisitiveness. By the end of the first week I knew as much about himas he did himself.

  It seemed that a guardian--an impersonal sort of business man with asmall but impossible family--was the most commanding figure in hisprivate life. As for his finances, five-and-forty sovereigns, theremnant of a larger sum which had paid for his education at Cambridge,stood between him and the necessity of offering for hire a sketchyacquaintance with general literature and a third class in the classicaltripos.

  He had come to Guernsey to learn by personal observation what chancestomato growing held out to a young man in a hurry to get rich.

  "Tomato growing?" I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense ofbathos, "People _have_ made it pay. Of course, they work veryhard."

  "M'yes," said James without much enthusiasm.

  "But I fancy," I added, "the life is not at all unpleasant."

  At this point embarrassment seemed to engulf James. He blushed,swallowed once or twice in a somewhat convulsive manner, and stammered.

  Then he made his confession guiltily.

  I was not to suppose that his aims ceased with the attainment of atomato-farm. The nurture of a wholesome vegetable occupied neither thewhole of his ambitions nor even the greater part of them. To write--theagony with which he throatily confessed it!--to be swept into themaelstrom of literary journalism, to be _en rapport_ with theunslumbering forces of Fleet Street--those were the real objectives ofJames Orlebar Cloyster.

  "Of course, I mean," he said, "I suppose it would be a bit of astruggle at first, if you see what I mean. What I mean to say is,rejected manuscripts, and so on. But still, after a bit, once get afooting, you know--I should like to have a dash at it. I mean, I thinkI could do something, you know."

  "Of course you could," I said.

  "I mean, lots of men have, don't you know."

  "There's plenty of room at the top," I said.

  He seemed struck with this remark. It encouraged him.

  He had had his opportunity of talking thus of himself during our longrambles out of doors. They were a series of excursions which he wasaccustomed to describe as hunting expeditions for the stocking of ourlarder.

  Thus James would announce at breakfast that prawns were the day'squarry, and the foreshore round Cobo Bay the hunting-ground. And toCobo, accordingly, we would set out. This prawn-yielding area extendsalong the coast on the other side of St. Peter's Port, where two haltshad to be made, one at Madame Garnier's, the confectioners, the otherat the library, to get fiction, which I never read. Then came a journeyon the top of the antediluvian horse-tram, a sort of _diligence_on rails; and then a whole summer's afternoon among the prawns. Cobo isan expanse of shingle, dotted with seaweed and rocks; and Guernsey is aplace where one can take off one's shoes and stockings on the slightestpretext. We waded hither and thither with the warm brine lappingunchecked over our bare legs. We did not use our nets veryindustriously, it is true; but our tongues were seldom still. The slowwalk home was a thing to be looked forward to. Ah! those memorablehomecomings in the quiet solemnity of that hour, when a weary sunstoops, one can fancy with a sigh of pleasure, to sink into the bosomof the sea!

  Prawn-hunting was agreeably varied by fish-snaring, mussel-stalking,and mushroom-trapping--sports which James, in his capacity of HeadForester, included in his venery.

  For mushroom-trapping an early start had to be made--usually betweensix and seven. The chase took us inland, until, after walking throughthe fragrant, earthy lanes, we turned aside into dewy meadows, whereeach blade of grass sparkled with a gem of purest water. Again thenecessity of going barefoot. Breakfast was late on these mornings, mymother whiling away the hours of waiting with a volume of DiogenesLaertius in the bow-window. She would generally open the meal with theremark that Anaximander held the primary cause of all things to be theInfinite, or that it was a favourite expression of Theophrastus thattime was the most valuable thing a man could spend. When breakfast wasannounced, one of the covers concealed the mushrooms, which, under mysuperintendence, James had done his best to devil. A quiet dayfollowed, devoted to sedentary recreation after the labours of the run.

  The period which I have tried to sketch above may be called the periodof good-fellowship. Whatever else love does for a woman, it makes heran actress. So we were merely excellent friends till James's eyes wereopened. When that happened, he abruptly discarded good-fellowship. I,on the other hand, played it the more vigorously. The situation wasmine.

  Our day's run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office ofHead Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was withus--triumphant, and no longer to be skirted round by me; fresh,electric, glorious in James.

  We talked--we must have talked. We moved. Our limbs performed theirordinary, daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that secondperiod. When, by the strongest effort of will, I can let my mind standby those perfect moments, I seem to hear our voices, low and measured.And there are silences, fond in themselves and yet more fondlyinterrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. What we really said,what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do not know. Wewere together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. Itis not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not thatthe scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It isbecause the dream is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blurrecurs because the blur was there. A love vast as ours is penalised, asit were, by this blur, which is the hall-mark of infinity.

  In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245Gerrard to 137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegratingblur.

  A third period succeeded. I may call it the affectionately practicalperiod. Instantly the blur vanishes. We were at our proper distancefrom the essence of things, and though infinity is something one yearnsfor passionately, one's normal condition has its meed of comfort. Iremember once hearing a man in a Government office say that thepleasantest moment of his annual holiday was when his train rolled backinto Paddington Station. And he was a man, too, of a naturally lazydisposition.

  It was about the middle of this third period, during amushroom-trapping ramble, that the idea occurred to us, first to me,then--after reflection--to James, that mother ought to be informed howmatters stood between us.

  We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her.

  She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of _TheDeipnosophists_ of Athenaeus.

  "Good morning," she said, looking at her watch. "It is a little pastour usual breakfast time, Margie, I think?"

  "We have been looking for mushrooms, mother."

  "Every investigation, says Athenaeus, which is guided by principles ofNature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach. Haveyou found any mushrooms?"

  "Heaps, Mrs. Goodwin," said James.

  "Mother," I said, "we want to tell you something."

  "The fact is, Mrs. Goodwin----"

  "We are engaged."

  My mother liked James.

  "Margie," she once said to me, "there is good in Mr. Cloyster. He isnot for ever offering to pass me things." Time had not caused her tomodify this opinion. She received our news calmly, and inquired intoJames's means and prospects. Jame
s had forty pounds and some oddsilver. I had nothing.

  The key-note of my mother's contribution to our conference was, "Wait."

  "You are both young," she said.

  She then kissed me, smiled contemplatively at James, and resumed herbook.

  When we were alone, "My darling," said James, "we must wait. Tomorrow Icatch the boat for Weymouth. I shall go straight to London. My firstmanuscript shall be in an editor's hands on Wednesday morning. I willgo, but I will come back."

  I put my arms round his neck.

  "My love," I said, "I trust you. Go. Always remember that I know youwill succeed."

  I kissed him.

  "And when you have succeeded, come back."