Gentian Hill Read online

  The work was finished at last and he sat beneath the yew tree to wait for Stella. It was a gray day, but fine and clear and warm. He sat with his hands hanging between his knees, his head bent, Hodge at his feet, hearing the crying of the gulls and the wind in the branches above him. But he made no attempt to recover the ecstasy of the day when he had climbed into the branches, and they had held him, and the gulls had come beating up out of the gold. It would have been no use. Nothing of that sort can ever be recaptured.

  There was a gray moss-covered stone half buried in the earth at his feet, one of the many that lay here around the yew tree, and he looked at it dully, unconsciously kicking at it with one of his boots. A cushion of moss, loosened by the heavy rains, slipped and he thought he saw something carved upon the stone. He bent forward, idly pulling away the rest of the moss. There were faint marks upon the stone, almost obliterated by time and weather, something that might have been a fleur-de-lis such as was carved upon the wall in St. Michael’s Chapel, and upon the two old graves in the church-yard. He was too wretched to be particularly interested, but the thought of the chapel reminded him of the legend of the hermit, and Rosalind and her lover, and he suddenly thought of a plan that might keep Stella from forgetting him. He might be away for years, and she was only a little girl. How could he possibly expect that she would not forget? He had no right to bind her with any promise, but he could ask her to remember him in the same way that Rosalind’s lover had asked her-the sort of way that would appeal to a little girl. (Had Rosalind been a little girl?) And as time went on, if he did not soon return, she might remember that Rosalind and that boy had been lovers, and had married in the end.

  Hodge, lying at his feet, lifted his head, sniffed, then bounded up and leaped off down the hill. Looking around, Zachary saw Stella running up the path, in and out between the grazing sheep, quickly and lightly, as he had always imagined her, swinging his nummet tied up in a scarlet spotted handkerchief. He got up and stood waiting for her, staring so that he would never forget the picture that she made. She wore her scarlet cloak over her green gown and white apron, but the hood had fallen back from her tumbled dark curls.

  She stopped to pat Hodge, then looked up and saw him, and laughed, running on again with Hodge leaping beside her, her face rosy with the running uphill. The quiet gray sky, the green grass, and the gay figure dancing in and out between the sheep! It was not possible that he could ever forget. She was too excited by the unusual adventure of bringing him his nummet to notice his strained stillness. They sat down together beneath the yew tree, on two of the gray stones, the sheep about them, and she untied the scarlet handkerchief. Zachary stared at the sight of his nummet. Mother Sprigg was not a demonstrative woman, but she could always express her feelings through the medium of food, and she had packed up a nummet fit for the gods. A slice of pork pie. Apple pastry. Saffron cake. Devonshire splits with clotted cream and damson jam inside. Zachary knew that he must dispose of it all, though it choke him. Luckily, Stella and Hodge, sitting one on either side, were quite prepared to help.

  "I’ve got something I must tell you, Stella," he said when the nummet was finished.

  "Nice?" asked Stella, shaking the crumbs out of the scarlet handkerchief.

  “No."

  She looked at him, folded the handkerchief neatly, put it away in her hanging pocket, and clasped her hands quietly on her lap. The flush had gone and her pointed elfin face, with sweet mouth and somber eyes, had a very adult gravity. No, she was hardly a little girl-not like other little girls. She had some strange inheritance of wisdom that set her apart from other children of her age. Because of the wisdom it did not seem difficult, once he had begun, to tell her who he was, what he had done, what he was going to do. It had never seemed to him strange that she had never asked him any of the usual childish questions about himself, except just his name at that first meeting. It did not seem to him strange that when he had finished the story, she did not make any outcry, but accepted his going, as she had accepted his coming, without either astonishment or curiosity. That was like her. She had the courage that accepts instantly, without recoil, and the reverence in love that towards man is without possessiveness and towards God without rebellion. For a moment or two her stillness, her silence, so at one with the quiet and peace of the day, were like balm. Then he began to grow a little scared, and looked at her. She looked like an old woman, or a changeling who had never at any time been a child. In his panic he put his hand on her shoulder and shook it.

  "Stella!"

  She seemed to find it difficult to turn, to look at him, as though the blood in her veins had turned to ice, yet when she did speak it was childishly enough. "Zachary, I wanted you to be here for Christmas. There’s the wassailing and the carols and the mummers and everything. Zachary-" She caught her lower lip between her teeth and was silent again. He put his hands around hers, still lying clasped on her lap, and held them tightly, as though making a vow.

  "Stella, if I’m not at home this Christmas, I’ll be home for lots of other Christmases, I promise."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise. And when I’m away, you’ll write me a letter sometimes, Stella, won’t you? I’ll write to you."

  Stella nodded, the candles lighting up again in her eyes at the thought of letters building themselves up like a bridge over the awful chasm that had suddenly yawned between her and Zachary.

  "And there’s another thing you can do," he went on, "you can go to the Chapel of St. Michael, like Rosalind did, and remember there that I’m coming back again."

  Stella actually smiled. "I’ll go, like Rosalind. But that man was away for years, Zachary."

  "And I’ll only be away till I’ve licked Bony," he said, and laughed, and jumping up swung her to her feet. "I’ll race you down the hill, Stella."

  They did not run very fast. The race was a mere device to get them from the top of the hill to the garden gate, where they must say good-by. At the gate he picked her up and kissed her, holding her tightly, but only for a moment. Then he put her down, watched her until she reached the shelter of the porch, and then tramped quickly away down the lane around the corner by the orchard and up the hill towards the village without once looking back, fixing his mind upon a mental picture, resolutely conjured up, of Stella in the arms of comforting Mother Sprigg.

  But Stella had not gone to Mother Sprigg. She had stayed on the porch, sitting on the seat in the deep shadow. Even as a small child, it had never been her habit to run crying to Mother Sprigg with her cuts and bruises. She had always had the feeling that one’s hurts are private things, and the deeper the hurt the more private. And this parting from Zachary was the worst thing that had ever happened to her-indeed the only really bad thing that had ever happened to her in all her happy life! She did not know how she was going to bear it. She stayed for a long time on the porch, sitting very up right on the seat, crying silently. Presently she pulled out her mother’s locket which she wore beneath her dress and looked at it. She supposed her mother had had to bear a great many things. Grown-up people did. But she did not suppose that she had cried. She went on holding the locket until she had got the better of her tears, and then she went indoors and up to her room to wash her face.

  3

  The turmoil of packing over, and the two young men tactfully gone to bed early, Dr. Crane and Zachary sat for the last time talking in front of the study fire. The doctor had a few things that he wanted to say and he said them, though with small hope that they would penetrate the wretchedness of the boy beside him.

  "You’ve done the right thing, Zachary, though as far as you can see it's not done you any good. Not much glory about it, as far as you can see. You feel damnable. That’s of no consequence-feelings don’t matter. It’s action that matters, and from fine action some sort of glory always breaks in the end."

  "What is glory?" growled Zachary suddenly.

  "I can’t explain. You’ll know one day. But there’s one thing which, out of my doc
tor’s experience both in war and peace, I think I can explain, and that’s how to deal with fear."

  Zachary started, and the doctor thanked God he had captured his attention.

  "To begin with, don’t tight it, accept it without shame, just as you would accept any other limitation you happen to be born with, like a cast in the eye, or a lame foot. Willing acceptance is half the battle, as you’ve probably discovered before this. Be willing to be afraid, don’t be afraid of your fear. As a doctor, I can tell you that every man has within him a store of strength, both physical and spiritual, of which he is utterly unaware until the moment of crisis. You will not tap it until the moment of crisis, but you can be quite certain that when that moment comes it will not fail you. It’s not easy to believe this, but you must do it. And there’s another thing which you must do learn how to live with alien horrors and not let your nerves crack beneath the pressure of them."

  Again Zachary started, remembering his relief when he came to this house and realized that the fight to hold off that pressure was over at last.

  "Again, don’t light; if you fight, you’ll crack. You can’t fight foul language, foul smells, sweat, and dirt, and all the rest of it. The only thing you can do is to live amongst it both with acceptance and withdrawal. That sounds paradoxical but it’s perfectly possible. You’re not befouled by another man’s obscenities and brutalities, though you may feel you are, but only by your own, and if you have strangled your own, then the door of escape is open for you and you can go through it to the fortress when you wish. There is a fortress, you know."

  Zachary knew. The stones of the chapel had cried it out, and later, through that extra sense that adversity had developed in him, his mind had grasped the existence of that something behind. Yet what is the use of knowing a thing, he thought bitterly, when you are unable personally to experience the truth of it? Your knowledge is about as useful in the darkness as a lantern with no light in it.

  "You can experience the reality of what you believe in only one way, by putting it to the test," said the doctor, interpreting his silence aright. "There is nothing at all that will light up the flame in your lantern except the wind of your going. Nothing else at all."

  They were silent, and then Zachary said slowly, "I’ve said good-by to Stella." He felt he wanted the doctor to know how he felt about Stella, yet it seemed unexplainable.

  "She’ll not forget you," said the doctor, as though no explanation were necessary.

  "She’s only a little girl," said Zachary, moving restlessly in his chair. “I can’t expect-“

  “A very unusual little girl," said the doctor, "of whom unusual things may be expected. She is not the child of Father and Mother Sprigg."

  Zachary suddenly sat straight up in his chair, tense and eager. "Not the child of the Spriggs! Does she know that?"

  "Yes, she knows."

  "Why, Sir, she never told me!"

  "I imagine that loyalty to Mother Sprigg would have kept her from telling you. Mother Sprigg is possessive, and likes it to be thought that Stella is really her child. Stella, with her intuition, would sense that. But I think it is right that you should know. You’ll keep your mouth shut."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Dr. Crane, thankful to give Zachary something to think about apart from his own misery, told all that he knew of Stella, and Zachary listened eagerly. "That explains her," he said. "I could not understand where she got it from-her wisdom-not like a child’s."

  "Father and Mother Sprigg have plenty of wisdom."

  "Not that sort. Unearthly. As though she were a fairy’s child."

  "She’s human all right." The doctor laughed, went to his desk and came back with a folded scrap of paper. "This was written inside Stella’s mother’s locket. I copied it out in the Greek in which it was written. Your Greek is equal to the strain, I think. And you know ‘The Banquet" Zachary took the scrap of paper and translated slowly.

  "Love is the divinity who creates peace among men, and calm upon the sea, the windless silence of storms, repose and sleep in sadness. Love sings to all things which live and are, soothing the troubled minds of gods and men."

  Zachary had read the words often and they had had little meaning for him, yet now in his extremity it seemed as though they had actually been written for him. For a sudden brief moment he was in that core of quiet that exists at the heart of every storm-the fortress. He folded the paper again.

  "You can keep it," said the doctor. "And now we’d better go to bed."

  4

  Passengers joined the mail coach in the yard of the Crown and Anchor. Torquay had no church, and no resident doctor, but such was the thirst of both natives and visiting seamen that it had five little inns, and the Crown and Anchor was the most flourishing of them. It looked out over the harbor and had a bakery to one side of it, so that passengers could supply themselves with buns and pies, as well as bottles of ale and porter, before setting out on the hazardous two day journey to London.

  When the doctor, Tom Pearse, and Zachary in the doctor’s gig, followed by the two young officers in another hired from the Church House Inn, arrived at the yard, all was bustle and confusion. Samuel Rowe, the postmaster, who presided over the tiny room in a cottage at the Strand which was known as the Torquay Post Office, was delivering the mail with great volubility. He was a great character. He had been postmaster since 1796, and would continue in his office until 1846, his daughter Grace carrying round the letters for five pounds a year. Passengers, most of them young men in uniform entangled with weeping wives, were struggling to take their places, chickens were squawking, dogs barking, small boys darting hither and thither, the guard was blowing his horn to round up stragglers, and the driver was shouting to the landlord. A mixed crowd of sailors, ostlers, serving maids, the baker and his boy, ancient gaffers tottering on sticks; and all the rest of the human flotsam and jetsam that collects where anything is going on, were milling round in a state of pleasurable excitement.

  The mail coach provided Torquay’s only contact with the great world, apart from the comings and goings of the ships in the harbor. The stay-at-homes, watching the departure, could vicariously taste the excitement of travel, could journey to London along the grand new turnpike roads that were so much talked of, seeing the sights along the way-other counties and villages of England that were almost as strange to them as foreign lands. And the coach’s arrival was even more exciting than its departure, especially in these days of war when it brought news of king and court and parliament, of battles and great deeds. Not a few, watching the departure this morning, could remember the day only three years ago when the coach had dashed in decorated with laurels, the guard blowing his horn, and one of the travelers had stood upon the coach’s roof, after it had rocked to a standstill in the inn yard, the Extraordinary Gazette in his hand, and had read aloud to them the news of the peace of Amiens. All the bells had pealed, the bells of St. Mary Church, of Torre and Paignton, and the guns of the frigates in the bay had boomed out the news. There had been thanksgiving services in the churches, and bonfires lit upon the hills, and they had all gone mad with joy. But it had not lasted. Only two years later the coach had arrived with the news that war had broken out again. There was no trusting Bony. He did not want peace until he had conquered the world. And now, today, the times were as anxious as ever, and almost every traveler upon the coach was a young man in uniform.

  “Good-by, my son."

  Dr. Crane’s large hand descended upon Zachary’s shoulder and stayed there a moment or two, gripping hard, as though he were trying to give the boy some of his own immense vitality. His eyes, at the moment of his pride, were blazing. Zachary, bracing his shoulders beneath the painful grip, steeled himself to meet the doctor’s eyes, though the love in them turned him breathless with pain now that he must leave it.

  "Good-by, Sir." He turned and held out his hand to Tom Pearse. "Good-by, Tom." He turned his back on both of them and looked up at the coach without seeing it. They were to tra
vel outside, he remembered. But he saw Rupert Hounslow’s freckled face, smiling down at him, and his out-stretched hand. He grasped the hand and was swung up. He smelled the straw and the horses, heard the crack of the whip, and the coach wheels grinding over the cobbles. Looking down, he saw the doctor’s face once more and wondered why it should look so glad. The guard was blowing his horn again and the water in the harbor dazzled his eyes. There were still flowers in the gardens of the Strand, and smoke curled up from the cottage chimneys. The coach rocked over the bridge that crossed the Fleete and the sea was behind them, and at first sight it looked as though there were no way out from this enchanted valley. But there was a ribbon of a road winding between the round green hills and the coach found it and followed it. The sound of the horn died away in the distance, and presently the Strand was quiet again, with no sound except the crying of the gulls and the lapping of the water against the harbor wall.

  Book II

  THE SEA

  CHAPTER I

  1

  It was Sunday, October 20, 1805. Mass had been said in the old guest hall of Torre Abbey. This was now the Catholic church of the neighborhood, and the little group of worshippers, some of whom drove many miles over abominable roads through every kind of weather to their Sunday mass, was gathering now in the entrance hall, where beyond the great doors their carriages were waiting in the autumn sunshine. They were a small community, all aristocrats; as they moved there was the rustle of silks, the clink of a sword against stone, a breath of perfume, the music of gentle voices speaking gently. Many of them were very poor, but want was a vulgar thing that was not mentioned in polite society.