Anthony John/Chapter 10
MRS. Tetteridge was a pretty piquante lady. Her grey eyes no longer looked out upon the world with childish wonder. On the contrary they suggested that she now knew all about it, had found on closer inspection that there really was nothing to wonder about. A commonplace world with well-defined high-roads that one did well to follow, keeping one's eyes in front of one, suppressing all inclination towards alluring byways leading to waste lands and barren spaces.
Tetteridge's Preparatory and Commercial School had outgrown its beginnings. Mrs. Tetteridge had no objection to the "ambitious poor," provided they were willing and able to pay increased school fees and to dress their sons in conformity with the standards of respectability. But they no longer formed the chief support of the Rev. Doctor Tetteridge's Academy. The professional and commercial classes of Millsborough and its neighbourhood had discovered Mr. Tetteridge and were in the process of annexing him. Naturally they would prefer that he should get rid of the ragtail and the bobtail that had flocked round him on his first coming. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, interviewing parents, found himself in face of the problem that had troubled the elder Miss Warmington when, years ago, in the very same room, she had sat over against Mrs. Strong'nth'arm, while stealing side glances at a self-possessed young imp perched on a horsehair chair with one leg tucked underneath him.
The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge was sorry—had known himself the difficulty of meeting tailors' bills. But corduroys, patched coats and paper collars! There were parents to be considered. A certain tone of appearance and behaviour must be maintained. The difficulty was not always confined to clothes. The children of agitators—of fathers who spoke openly and often against the existing order of society! In Millsborough there were many such. Unfortunate that the opinions of the fathers should be visited on the children. But so it was. Middle-class youth must be protected from possible contamination. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, remembering youthful speeches of his own at local debating societies, would flush and stammer. Mr. Tetteridge himself was not altogether averse to freedom of speech. But again the parents! The ambitious poor would give coarse expression to contemptuous anger and depart, dragging their puzzled offspring with them. Some of the things they said would hurt the Rev. Dr. Tetteridge by reason of their truth, especially things said by those among the poor who had known him when he was Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge, to whom success had not yet come.
Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge had thought to help the poor. In what way better than by educating their sons? For which purpose, it would seem, he had been granted special gifts. It was the thing that compensated him for giving up his dreams. Maybe the poor, not knowing the etiquette of these matters, might have overlooked his playing of the fiddle; perhaps, lacking sense of propriety, might have tolerated even odes to "Irene."
An eccentric schoolmaster, an oddity of a schoolmaster, content with what the world called poverty so that he might live his own life, dream out his dreams, might have done this. If only he hadn't got on. If only success—a strong-minded lady—was not gripping him so firmly by the arm, talking incessantly, without giving him a moment to think of the wonderful place to which she was leading him: a big house of many rooms, strongly built and solidly furnished, surrounded by a high brick wall pierced by a great iron gate; with men and women in uniform to see to his feeding and his clothing and his sleeping. At the proper times he would go to church. There would be a certain number of hours apportioned to him for exercise and even for recreation of an approved nature. And there would be times when his friends could come to see him. It had sounded to Emanuel Tetteridge as the description of a prison; but Mrs. Tetteridge had assured him it was a palace.
What further impressed him with the idea that it was to prison he was going was the information broken to him by Mrs. Tetteridge that before he could enter there he would have to take off his tweed suit and put on a black coat that buttoned close up to the neck, with a collar that fastened behind. Such, until his term of service was ended, would be his distinctive garb. He had put up opposition. But Mrs. Tetteridge had cried, and when she cried the hardness went out of her eyes and she looked very pretty and pathetic; and Tetteridge had felt himself a brute and a traitor to love. So the day had come when he had taken off his old tweed suit forever and had put on the long black coat that buttoned round the neck. And Mrs. Tetteridge had come to his assistance with the collar and had laughed and clapped her pretty hands and kissed him.
But when she had left him and the door was closed he had gone down on his knees and had asked God to forgive him for his hypocrisy. He had knelt long and the tears had come; and when he rose it seemed to him that God, looking in, had smiled at him a little sadly and had laid a hand on him, calling him "poor lad." So that it remained with him that God understood what a difficult thing is life, and would, perhaps, give him another chance.
The time had come, so Mrs. Tetteridge had decided, for a move onward. The final destination, that country mansion standing in its own grounds, that she had determined upon, was still not yet in sight. Something half-way was her present idea, a large, odd-shaped house to the south of St. Aldys Church. It had once been a convent, but had been adapted to domestic purposes by an eccentric old East India trader who had married three wives. All his numerous progeny lived with him, and he had needed a roomy place. It was too big and too ugly for most people and had been empty for years. It belonged to a client of Mowbray's and it occurred to Mrs. Tetteridge that he might consider even an inadequate rent better than nothing at all. At her request Anthony met her there one afternoon with the key. The rusty iron gate squeaked when Anthony pushed it open. They crossed a paved yard and mounted a flight of stone steps. The lock of the great oak door growled and grated when Anthony tried to turn the key. But it yielded at last, and a cold chill air crept up from the cellars and wrapped them round. Mrs. Tetteridge had difficulty in hiding her enthusiasm. The long tunnel-like rooms on the ground floor might have been built for class rooms. On the first floor was the great drawing-room. It would serve for receptions and speech-making. There were bedrooms for a dozen boarders if they had luck. The high-walled garden behind was bare save for decrepit trees and overgrown bushes that could easily be removed. A few cartloads of gravel would transform it into an ideal playground. They returned to the ground floor. At the end of the stone corridor Mrs. Tetteridge found a door she had not previously noticed. It led to a high vaulted room with a huge black marble mantelpiece representing two elephants supporting a small-sized temple. Opposite was a high-arched window overlooking the churchyard.
Mrs. Tetteridge surveyed it approvingly.
"This will be Emy's study," she said in a tone of decision. She was speaking to herself. She had forgotten Anthony.
Anthony was leaning against one of the elephants.
"Poor devil!" he said.
Mrs. Tetteridge looked up. There was a curious little smile about her pretty mouth.
"You don't like me," she said to Anthony.
"I should," answered Anthony, "quite well, if I didn't like Emy."
She came to the other end of the mantelpiece, resting her hand upon it.
"I've got you here alone," she said with a laugh, "and I'm going to have it out with you. I'm sorry you don't like me because I like you very much. But that isn't the important thing. I don't want you taking Emy's side against me. You've got great influence over him, and I'm afraid of you."
Anthony was about to answer. She made a gesture.
"Let me finish," she said, "then we shall both know what we're up against. You think I'm spoiling his life, robbing him of his dreams. What were they, put into plain language? To compose a little music; to write a little poetry. He'd never have earned enough to live on. Perhaps before he died he might have composed something out of which a music publisher might have pocketed thousands. He might have written poems that would have brought him fame when it was too late. He'd never have made any real solid success. At that kind of work I couldn't help him; and, left to himself, he isn't the sort that ever does get on. At this work of schoolmastering I can help him. He has the talent and I have the business capacity. I've no use for dreamers. My father was a dreamer. He discovered things in chemistry that, if he had followed them up, would have made his fortune. They bored him. He was out for discovering a means of changing the atmosphere. I don't remember the details. You released a gas, or you eliminated a gas, or you introduced a gas. It was all about gases. That's the only thing I do remember. People instead of breathing in depression and weariness breathed in light-heartedness and strength. It sounds like a fairy story, but if you'd listened to him you'd have been persuaded it was coming, that it was only a question of time, and that when the secret was discovered the whole human race would be feeling like a prisoner who had escaped from a dungeon. That was his dream. And to him it was possible. It was for the sake of that dream that he took the position of science master at St. Aldys at a hundred and sixty a year. It gave him leisure for research. And we children paid the price for it. Both my brothers were clever boys. Given the opportunity, they could have won their way in the world. One of them is a commercial traveller, and the other, as you know, a clerk in your office at eighty pounds a year. If he behaves himself and works hard he may, when he's fifty, be your managing clerk at three hundred."
She came closer to him and looked straight into his eyes.
"He's there," she said, "inside you—the dreamer. You know it and so do I," she laughed. "I've looked at him too often. You've had sense enough to chain him up and throw away the key. Take care he doesn't escape. If he does he'll take possession of you, and all your strength and cleverness will be at his service. He'll ride you without pity. He'll ride you to death."
She put her hands upon his shoulders and gave him a little shake.
"I'm talking to you for your good," she said. "I like you. Don't ever let him get the mastery over you. If he does, God help you."
She looked at her watch.
"I must be off," she said.
Anthony laughed.
"So like a woman," he said; "thinks that when she has said all that she's got to say that there's nothing more to be said."
"You shall have your say another time," she promised him.
Anthony kept on the house in Bruton Square. It was larger than they wanted now the Tetteridges were gone, but he liked the old-fashioned square with its ancient rookery among the tall elms. He let the big classroom for an office to a young architect who had lately come to Millsborough. His aunt was delighted with the change. She had hated Mrs. Tetteridge, who had disapproved of her sitting on sunny afternoons on a Windsor chair outside the front door. It had always been her habit. And why what was harmless in Moor End Lane should be sinful in Bruton Square she could not understand. She was growing feeble. It was want of work according to her own idea, which was probably correct. As a consequence she was looking forward to heaven with less eagerness.
"I used to think it would be just lovely," she confessed to Anthony one day, "sitting about and doing nothing for ever and ever. It sounds ungrateful, but upon my word I'm not so sure that I'll enjoy it."
"Uncle did believe in God," said Anthony. "I had a talk with him before he died. 'There must be somebody bossing it all,' he said. His hope was that God might think him of some use and find him a job."
"He was a good man, your uncle," answered his aunt. "I used to worry myself about him. But perhaps, after all, the Lord ain't as unreasonable as He's made out to be."
Mr. Mowbray was leaving the business more and more to Anthony. As a compensation for denial in other directions he was allowing himself too much old port and the gout was getting hold of him. Betty took him abroad as much as possible. Travelling interested him, and, away from his old cronies, he was easier to manage. He had always adored his children, and Betty, in spite of his failings, could not help being fond of him. Anthony knew that so long as her father lived she would never marry. Neither was he in any hurry. The relationship between them was that of a restful comradeship; and marriage could have made but little difference. Meanwhile the firm of Mowbray and Cousins was prospering. The private business was almost entirely in the hands of old Johnson, the head clerk. It was to his numerous schemes for the building up of Millsborough that Anthony devoted himself. The port of Millsborough was already an accomplished fact and its success assured. A syndicate for the construction of an electric tramway running from the docks to the farthest end of the densely populated valley had already got to work. A yet more important project was now in Anthony's mind. Hitherto Millsborough had been served by a branch line from a junction fifteen miles away. Anthony wanted a new track that should cross the river to the west of the new lock and, skirting the coast, rejoin the main line beyond the moor. It would bring Millsborough on to the main line and shorten the distance between London and the north by over an hour. It was the name of Mowbray that figured upon all documents, but Millsborough knew that the brain behind was Mowbray's junior partner, young Strong'nth'arm. Millsborough, believing in luck, put its money on him.
The Coomber family had returned to The Abbey somewhat unexpectedly. No tenant for the house had come forward. Also Sir Harry had come into unexpected legacy. It was not much, but with economy it would enable them to keep up the old place. It had been the home of the Coomber family for many generations, and Sir Harry, not expecting to live long, was wishful to die there.
Mr. Mowbray was away, and old Johnson, the head clerk, had gone up to The Abbey to welcome them home and talk a little business.
"I doubt if they'll be able to pull through," he said to Anthony on his return to the office. "The grounds are all going to rack and ruin, to say nothing about the outbuildings and the farm. Even to keep it up as it is will take two thousand a year; and it doesn't seem to me that, after paying the interest on the mortgage, he'll have as much as that left altogether."
"What does he say himself?" asked Anthony. "Does he grasp it?"
"'Oh, after me the deluge!' seems to be his idea," answered old Johnson. "Reckons he isn't going to live for more than two years, and may just as well live there. Talks of shutting up most of the rooms and eking out existence on the produce of the kitchen garden," he laughed.
"And Lady Coomber?" asked Anthony.
"Oh, well, he's fortunate there," answered Johnson. "Give her a blackbird to sing to her and a few flowers to look after and you haven't got to worry about her. Don't see how they're going to manage about the boy."
"He's in the army, isn't he?" said Anthony.
"In the Guards," answered Johnson. "They must be mad. Of course they've any amount of rich connections. But I don't see their coming forward to that extent."
"He'll have to exchange," suggested Anthony. "Get out to India."
"Or else they'll starve themselves to try and keep it up," answered Johnson. "Funny thing, you can never get any sense into these old families. It's the inter-breeding, I suppose. Of course, there's the girl. She may perhaps put them on their legs again."
"By marrying some rich old bug?" said Anthony.
"Or rich young one," answered Johnson. "I don't think I've ever seen anything more lovely. I expect that's why they've come back, if the truth were told. If her aunt took her up and ran her for a season in London there oughtn't to be much difficulty."
"Except perhaps the girl," suggested Anthony.
"Oh! they look at things differently in that class," answered old Johnson. "They've got to."
The house and shop in Platts Lane where Anthony had been born had been taken over by the old jobbing tinker and his half-witted son. The old man had never been of much use, but the boy had developed into a clever mechanic. Bicycles were numerous now in Millsborough, and he had gained the reputation of being the best man in the town for repairing them and generally putting them to rights. A question of repairs to the workshop had arisen. The property belonged to a client of Mowbray's, and Mr. Johnson was giving instructions to a clerk to call at the place on his way back from lunch and see what was wanted when Anthony entered the room.
"I'm going that way," he said. "I'll call myself."
Anthony stopped his cab a few streets off. He had carefully avoided this neighbourhood of sordid streets since the day he and his mother had finally left it behind them. The spirit of hopelessness seemed brooding there. The narrow grimy house where he was born was unchanged. The broken window in the room where his father had died had never yet been mended. The square of brown paper that he himself had cut out and pasted over the hole had worn well.
Anthony knocked at the door. It was opened by a slatternly woman, the wife of a neighbour. Old Joe Witlock was in bed with a cold. It was his son's fault, he explained. Matthew would insist on the workshop door being always left open. He would give no reason, but as it was he who practically earned the living his father thought it best to humour him. The old man was pleased to see Anthony, and they talked for a while about old days. Anthony explained his visit. It was the roof of the workshop that wanted repairing. Anthony went out again and round by the front way. The door was wide open, so that passing along the street one could see into the workshop. Matthew was repairing a bicycle. He had grown into a well-built good-looking young man. It was only about the eyes that one noticed anything peculiar. He recognized Anthony at once and they shook hands. Anthony was looking up at the roof when he heard a movement and turned round. A girl was sitting on a stool behind the open door. It was the very stool that Anthony himself had been used to sit upon as a child watching his father at his work. It was Miss Coomber. She held out her hand with a laugh.
"Father sent me out of the room last time I saw you," she said, "without introducing us. I am Eleanor Coomber. You are Mr. Anthony Strong'nth'arm, aren't you?"
"Yes," answered Anthony. "I heard you had returned to The Abbey."
"I was coming to see you—or rather Mr. Johnson," she said, "with a letter from father; but I ran into a cart at the bottom of the hill. I'm really only a beginner," she added by way of excuse.
"Then you ought not to ride down steep hills," said Anthony, "especially not in a town."
"I'll get off at The Three Carpenters next time," she said, "if you promise not to tell."
Anthony took the letter and promised to deliver it. "You've come back for good, haven't you?" he asked.
"Tell me," she said. "You do know all about it, don't you? Do you think we shall be able to? I do love it."
Anthony was silent for a moment. She was evidently hanging on his answer.
"It's possible," he said, "with strict economy."
She laughed as though relieved.
"Oh, that!" she said. "We're used enough to that."
Matthew was blowing the furnace. The light from the glowing embers flickered round them.
"You were born here, weren't you?" she asked.
"In the house adjoining, to be exact," he answered with a laugh. "But this was my nursery. I used to sit on that very stool with my leg tucked underneath me watching my father work. I loved it when he blew the bellows and made the shadows dance. At least I expect it's the same stool," he added. "There was the figure of a gnome that a strange old fellow I once knew carved upon it."
She sprang to the ground and examined it.
"Yes," she said. "It is the same. He must have been quite clever."
She reseated herself upon it. Her feet just touched the ground.
"I was born in Brazil," she said. "Father had a ranch near Rio. But we left there before I was three. The first thing I can really remember is The Abbey. We must have come on a visit, I suppose, to Sir William. It was the long garden between the cloister walls that was my first nursery. I used to play there with the flowers and make them talk to me."
"I saw you there," he said, "one afternoon."
She looked up at him. "When was that?" she asked.
"Oh, one evening in September," he said. "About two years ago." He had spoken without premeditation and now felt himself flushing. He hoped she might think it only the glow from the furnace fire.
"But we were in Florence," she said.
"I know," he answered, flushing still deeper. "I asked old Wilkins when you had come back, and he thought I was mad."
"It is curious," she answered gravely. "I dreamed one day that I was walking there and met your namesake, Anthony the Monk. He was standing by the wicket gate on the very spot where he was slain. He called to me, but I was frightened and hid myself among the flowers."
Anthony was interested.
"Who was the Monk Anthony?" he asked.
"Don't you know the story?" she said. "He was the son of one Giles Strong'nth'arm and Martha his wife, according to the records of the monastery. It seems to have been a common name in the neighbourhood, but I expect you were all one family. The abbot had died suddenly of a broken heart. It was the time of the confiscation of the monasteries by Henry VIII, and the monks had chosen Anthony to act for them although he was the youngest of them all. He spent all night upon his knees, and when our ancestor arrived in the morning with his men-at-arms he met them at the great door of the chapel—it was where the rose garden is now—and refused to let them pass. The soldiers murmured and hesitated, for he had made of his outstretched arms a Cross, and a light, it was said, shone round about him. They would have turned and fled. But it was to our ancestor, Percival de Combler—as it was then spelt—that The Abbey and its lands had been granted, and he was not the man to let it slip from his hands. He spurred his horse forward and struck down the Monk Anthony with one blow of his sword. And they rode their horses over his body and into the chapel."
"No," said Anthony. "I never heard the story. It always troubled my father, any talk about what his people had once been."
"You're so like him," she said. "It struck me the first time I saw you. You were sitting by the window writing. One of Sir Percival's young squires, who had been a student in Holland, made a picture of him from memory as he stood with his arms outstretched in the form of a Cross. Remind me next time you come to The Abbey and I'll show it you. It hangs in the library."
Matthew had finished. Anthony would not let her mount in the town. He insisted that she should wait until they got to The Three Carpenters, and walked beside her wheeling the bicycle. Her desire was to become an expert rider. A horse of her own was, of course, out of the question, and she had never cared for walking. They talked about The Abbey and the lonely moorland round about it. One of the misfortunes of being poor was that you could do so little to help people. The moor folk had been used to look to The Abbey as a sort of permanent Lady Bountiful. The late Sir William had always been open-handed. She did what she could. There was an old bed-ridden labourer who lived in a lonely cottage with his granddaughter. The girl had suddenly left him and there was no one to look after him. He could just crawl about and feed himself, but that was all. Anthony's conscience smote him. Betty was away. The old man was one of her pensioners and he had promised to keep an eye on them till she came back. They arranged to meet there. He would see about getting some help.