Английский с улыбкой. Охотничьи рассказы / Tales of the Long Bow

She stopped in front of him and her pale, flying eyelids lifted from her blue-grey eyes.

“Why,” she said, “you are the boy that jumped in the river!”

“I’m no longer a boy,” answered Hood, “but I’m ready to jump in the river again.”

“Well, don’t jump on the railway-line,” she said, when he turned quickly in that direction.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I was thinking of jumping into a railway-train. Do you mind if I jump into your train?”

“Well, I’m going to Birkstead,” she said with some doubt in her voice.

Mr. Owen Hood did not care one bit where she was going, because he had decided to go there, but he actually remembered a little station on that line that lay very near to where he was going, so he tumbled into the carriage. The landscapes shot by them while they sat looking in a dazed and almost foolish manner at each other. At last the girl felt how absurd it all was and smiled.

“I heard about you from a friend of yours,” she said; “he came to call on us soon after it happened. At least that was when he first came. You know Dr. Hunter, don’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Owen, a shadow coming over his shining hour. “Do you… Do you know him well?”

“I know him pretty well now,” said Miss Elizabeth Seymour.

The shadow on his spirit became darker; he suspected something quite suddenly, and the idea made him furious. Hunter, in Crane’s old phrase, was not a man who would let the grass grow under his feet. It was so like him to use the incident as an introduction to the Seymours. Things were always stepping-stones for Hunter, and the little rock in the river had been a stepping-stone to the country-house. But was the country-house a stepping-stone to something else? Suddenly Hood realized that all his anger had been very abstract anger. He had never hated a man before. At that moment the train stopped at the station of Cowford.

“I wish you’d get out here with me,” he said quickly, “only for a little – and it might be the last time. I want you to do something.”

She looked at him with a curious expression and said in a rather low voice, “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to come and pick bluebells,” he said.

She stepped out of the train, and they went up a country road without a word.

“I remember!” she said suddenly. “When you get to the top of this hill you see the wood where the bluebells were, and your little island beyond.”

“Come on and see it,” said Owen.

They stepped on the top of the hill and stood. Below them the black factory threw its yellowish smoke into the air; and where the wood had been there were now rows of little houses like boxes, built of dirty yellow brick.

Hood spoke. “And when you see the abomination of desolation sitting in the Holy of Holies[21] – isn’t that when the world is supposed to end? I want the world to end now – with you and me standing on a hill.”

She was staring at the place with parted lips and she was paler than usual; he knew she understood something monstrous and symbolic in the scene; yet her first remark was short and trivial. On the nearest of the yellow brick boxes she could see the cheap colours of different advertisements; and larger than the rest a blue poster proclaiming “Vote for Hunter.” With a final touch of hatred, Hood remembered that it was the last and most important day of the election. But the girl had already found her voice.

“Is that Dr. Hunter?” she asked with very usual curiosity; “is he standing for parliament?”

A load that lay on Hood’s mind like a rock suddenly rose like an eagle; and he felt as if the hill he stood on were higher than Everest. He understood well enough that SHE would have known well enough whether Hunter was standing, if —

if there had been anything like what he supposed. Suddenly, the weight wasn’t there anymore, and he lost his balance and said something quite indefensible.

“I thought you would know. I thought you and he were probably… well, the truth is I thought you were engaged, though I really don’t know why.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Elizabeth Seymour. “I heard he was engaged to Sir Samuel’s daughter. They’ve got our old place now, you know.”

There was a silence and then Hood spoke suddenly in a loud and cheerful voice.

“Well, I say, ‘Vote for Hunter,’” he said cheerfully. “After all, why not vote for Hunter? Good old Hunter! I hope he’ll be a member of Parliament. I hope he’ll be Prime Minister. I hope he’ll be President of the World State. By George[22], he deserves to be Emperor of the Solar System.”

“But why,” she protested, “why should he deserve all that?”

“For not being engaged to you, of course,” he replied.

“Oh!” she said, and something of a secret shiver in her voice went through him like a silver bell.

Abruptly, all of a sudden, the rage of raillery seemed to have left his voice and his face, so that his Napoleonic profile looked earnest and eager and much younger, like the profile of the young Napoleon. His wide shoulders lost the slight stoop that books had given them, and his rather wild red hair fell away from his lifted head.

“There is one thing I must tell you about him,” he said, “and one thing you must hear about me. My friends tell me I am a drifter and a dreamer; that I let the grass grow under my feet; I must tell you at least how and why I once let it grow. Three days after that day near the river, I talked to Hunter; he was my doctor and he talked about it and you. Of course he knew nothing about either. But he is a practical man; a very practical man; he does not dream or drift. From the way he talked I knew he was thinking even then how this accident could be used; used for his purposes and perhaps for mine too (because he is good-natured; yes, he is quite good-natured). I think that if I had taken his hint and formed a sort of social partnership, I might have known you six years sooner, not as a memory, but – an acquaintance. And I could not do it. Judge me how you will, I could not bring myself to do it.

That is what is meant by being born with a bee in the bonnet[23], with an impediment in the speech, with a stumbling-block in the path. I could not bear to approach you by that door, with that gross and grinning lackey holding it open.

I could not bear that terrible snob to take so much space in my story or know so much of my secret. A revulsion I could never describe made me feel that the vision should remain my own even by remaining unfulfilled. It should not be vulgarized. That is what people mean when they say you are a failure in life. And when my best friend made a prophecy about me, and said there was something I should never do, I thought he was right.”

“Why, what do you mean?” she asked rather faintly, “what was it you would never do?”

“Never mind that now,” he said, with the shadow of a returning smile. “Rather strange things are moving in me just now, and who knows, maybe I will try something yet? But before all else, I must make clear for once what I am and for what I lived. There are men like me in the world; I am far from thinking they are the best or the most valuable; but they exist, to the irritation and surprise of all the clever people and the realists. There has been and there is only one thing for me; something that in the normal sense I never even knew. I walked about the world blind, with my eyes turned inside me, looking at you. For days after a night when I had dreamed of you, I was broken. I was like a man who had seen a ghost. I read over and over the solemn lines of the old poets, because only they were worthy of you. And when I saw you again by chance, I thought the world had already ended. It is like meeting you beyond the grave. It is too good to be true.”

“I do not think,” she answered in a low voice, “that life after death is too good to be true.”

When he looked at her a thrill went through him like a message too quick to be understood; and at the back of his mind something awoke that repeated again and again like a song the same words, “too good to be true.” There was always something distressing, even in her days of pride, about the short-sighted look of her half-closed eyes; but it was for other reasons that they were now blinking in the strong white sunlight, almost as if they were blind. They were blind and bright with tears:she gained control of her voice and it was steady.

“You talk about failures,” she said. “I suppose most people would call me a failure and all my people failures now – except those who would say we never failed, because we never had to try. Anyway, we’re all poor enough now. I don’t know whether you know that I teach music. I dare say we deserved to go. I dare say we were useless. Some of us tried to be harmless. But – but now I MUST say something, about some of us who tried rather hard to be harmless – in that way. The new rich people will tell you those ideals were aristocratic, and all that – well, it doesn’t matter what they say. They know quite as little about us as we about them. But to you, when you talk like that… what can I do, but tell you that you that if we were stiff, if we were cold, if we were careful and conservative, it was because deep down in our souls some of us DID believe that there might be loyalty and love like that, for which a woman can wait even to the end of the world. What is it to these people if we chose not to be drugged or distracted with anything less worthy? But it would be hard indeed if when I find it DOES exist after all… hard on you, harder on me, if when I have really found it at last…”

She stopped and couldn’t speak anymore. The silence caught and held her.

He took one stride forward as into the heart of a whirlwind; and they met on the top of that windy hill as if they had come from the ends of the earth.

“This is an epic,” he said, “and an epic demands actions, not words. I have lived with words too long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you have turned me into a man of action,” he replied. “As long as you were in the past, nothing was better than the past. As long as you were only a dream, nothing was better than dreaming. But now I am going to do something that no man has ever done before.”

He turned towards the valley and raised his hand with a gesture, almost as if the hand was holding a sword.

“I am going to break the Prophecy,” he cried in a loud voice. “I am going to make fun of my evil star. Those who called me a failure will admit I have succeeded where all humanity has failed. The real hero is not he who is bold enough to fulfil the predictions, but he who is bold enough to make them false. And you will see how it happens tonight.”

“What in the world are you going to do?” she asked.

He laughed suddenly. “The first thing to do,” he cried, turning around with a new look of resolution and even cheerfulness on his face, “the very first thing to do is to Vote for Hunter. Or, at any rate, help to get him into Parliament.”

“But why in the world,” she asked wondering, “do you want so much to get Dr. Hunter into Parliament?”

“Well, we must do something,” he said with an appearance of good sense, “to celebrate the occasion. We must do something; and after all he must go somewhere, poor devil. You will say, why not throw him into the river? It would make us feel better and make a splash. But I’m going to make something much bigger than a splash. Besides, I don’t want him in my nice river. I’d much rather pick him up and throw him all the way to Westminster. Much more sensible and suitable. Obviously there should be a brass band and a torchlight procession somewhere tonight; and why shouldn’t he have a bit of the fun?”

He stopped suddenly as if surprised at his own words. Indeed, for him his own phrase fell with the significance of a falling star.

“Of course!” he muttered. “A torchlight procession! I thought that what I wanted was trumpets and what I really want is torches. Yes, I believe it can be done! Yes, the hour has come! By stars and comets, I will give him a torchlight procession!”

He was almost dancing with excitement on the top of the hill; now he suddenly went running down the slope beyond, calling to the girl to follow, as carelessly as if they were two children playing. Strangely enough, perhaps, she did follow; more strangely still when we consider the extravagant scenes through which she allowed herself to be led. They were scenes from a completely different world than all her sensitive and even secretive dignity.

This world was loud with lies and vulgarity. For her it was like joining a travelling circus right before the end of the world. It was as if a Carnival day could also be a Day of Judgement. But the farce could no longer offend her, so the tragedy could no longer terrify. She went through it all with a pale smile, which probably nobody in the world understood. It was not in the normal sense excitement; yet it was something much more positive than patience. Perhaps in a way, more than ever before in her lonely life, she was sitting in her ivory tower; but it was all bright within, as if it were lit up with candles or decorated with gold.

Hood’s wide movements brought them to the bank of the river and the offices of the factory, all of which were covered with the coloured posters of Dr. Hunter, and one of which was obviously a busy committee-room. Hood actually met Mr. Low coming out of it, dressed in a fur coat and bursting with speechless effectiveness. But Mr. Low’s little black eyes glistened with an astonishment bordering on suspicion when Hood in the most friendly fashion offered his sympathy and co-operation. That strange subconscious fear, that underlay all the wealthy manager’s success and security in this country, always came to the surface at the sight of Owen Hood’s ironical face.

Just at that moment, however, one of the local agents ran to him with telegrams in his hand and distracted him. They didn’t have enough men, they didn’t have enough cars, they didn’t have enough speakers. The crowd at Little Puddleton had waited half an hour, Dr. Hunter could not come to them till ten past nine, and so on. The agent in his agony was ready to ask a black person to speak on behalf of a nationalist party without asking him about his own opinions. That’s how impractical all these practical people are. On that night Robert Owen Hood would have been encouraged to go anywhere and say anything; and he did. It might be interesting to imagine what the lady thought about it; but it is possible that she did not think about it. She had some memory of passing through a number of ugly rooms with gas lamps and piles of leaflets, where little irritated men ran about like rabbits. The walls were covered with large allegorical pictures printed in black and white or in a few bright colours, representing Dr. Hunter as a knight in shining armour, as killing dragons, as rescuing ladies who looked like classical goddesses, and so on. Just in case someone might think that Dr. Hunter had a habit of killing dragons as part of his everyday routine (as a form of exercise) the dragon had its name written down in large letters.

It seemed its name was “National Extravagance[24]”. For those who were not sure about the alternative to extravagance which Dr. Hunter had discovered the sword was decorated with the word “Economy.” Elizabeth Seymour, who was watching these pictures, could not avoid thinking that she herself had lately practised economy a lot and had resisted many temptations to extravagance; but she would have never thought about the action as about killing a big green monster with a sword.

In the central committee-room they actually came face to face for a moment with the candidate, who came in very hot and breathless with a silk hat on the back of his head. He probably had forgotten about it, because he did not take it off. She was a little ashamed of thinking about such little things, but she came to the conclusion that she would not like to have a husband going to Parliament.

“We’ve talked to all those people on Cold Road,” said Dr. Hunter. “We will not get any votes in The Hole and those dirty streets, so we shouldn’t waste time on them.”

“Well, we’ve had a very good meeting in the Masonic Hall,” said the agent cheerfully. “Sir Samuel Bliss spoke, and really he managed all right. He told some stories, you know, and they listened to him.”

“And now,” said Owen Hood, slapping his hands together in a cheerful manner, “what about this torchlight procession?”

“This what procession?” asked the agent.

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Hood sternly, “that preparations are not complete for the torchlight procession of Dr. Hunter? That you are going to let this night of triumph pass without making a hundred fires to light the road of the conqueror? Do you realize that the hearts of a whole people have spontaneously moved and chosen him? That the suffering poor whispered at night ‘Vote for Hunter’ long before his party made him a candidate? Do you not want the poor people make torches from their last cheap bits of furniture to do him honour? Why, from this chair alone – ” He took the chair on which Hunter had sat before that and began to break it enthusiastically. They stopped him in this; but he actually persuaded the company to follow his idea at the last possible moment.

In the evening he had actually organized his torchlight procession, escorting the triumphant Hunter, covered with blue ribbons, to the river. It looked as if the doctor was going to be baptized like a new Christian or killed like a witch.

Hood was holding his bright torch close to the Hunter’s astonished face. Then he climbed on some pile of rubbish on the bank of the river and spoke to the crowd for the last time.

“Dear citizens, we meet upon the shore of the Thames, the Thames which is to Englishmen as important as the Tiber ever was to Romans[25]. We meet in a valley which English poets love as much as English birds. We don’t have any other kind of art that is as native to our island as our old national tradition of landscape-painting in water-colour[26]. And the most elegant and delicate water-colour paintings are dedicated to these holy waters. One of the best of old English poets repeated in his poetic meditations the single line, ‘Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.’[27]

“There have been rumours that someone wants to bring trouble to these waters; but now we can be calm, because we have heard promises. People who are now as famous as our national poets and painters have promised that the stream is still as clear and pure and beautiful as in the old days. We all know the wonderful work that Mr. Bulton has done on filters. Dr. Hunter supports Mr. Bulton. I mean, Mr. Bulton supports Dr. Hunter. I may also mention no less a man than Mr. Low. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.

“But then, we all support Dr. Hunter. I myself have always found him quite supportable; sorry, I should say quite satisfactory. He is truly a progressive, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to watch him move forward. All of his patients in this locality will be very happy when he goes to the higher world of Westminster. I hope you understand what I mean. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.

“My only purpose tonight is to express that solidarity. Maybe there have been times when I had a different position then Dr. Hunter; but I am glad to say that all that has ended, and I have now nothing except for the most friendly feelings towards him. I will not say why, but I have a lot to say. As a symbol of this reconciliation I now solemnly throw away this torch. As this fire dies in the cool crystal waters of that sacred river, so will all such conflicts disappear in the pool of universal peace.”

Before anybody knew what he was doing, he raised his torch above his head and sent it flying like a meteor out into the dark water of the river.

The next moment a short, loud cry was heard, and every face in that crowd was staring at the river. You could see that all the faces were staring, because they were all lit up by a wide pale unnatural flame that rose up from the surface of the stream; a flame that the crowd watched as it would have watched a comet in the sky.

“There,” cried Owen Hood, turning suddenly to the girl and catching her arm, as if demanding congratulations. “Old Crane’s prophecy did not come true!”

“Who on Earth is Old Crane?” she asked, “and what prophesy did he say?”

“Only an old friend,” said Hood, “only an old friend of mine. It’s what he said that’s so important. He didn’t like my quiet way of sitting with books and fishing, and he said, while standing on that same island, ‘You may know a lot; but I don’t think you’ll ever set the Thames on fire. I’ll eat my hat if you do.’”

But the readers already know the story of how Old Crane ate his hat. And if they want to know any more about Mr. Crane or Mr. Hood, they must prepare themselves for reading the story of The Unobtrusive Traffic of Captain Pierce.

Chapter III. The unobtrusive traffic of captain pierce

People who know the stories about Colonel Crane and Mr. Owen Hood, the lawyer, may or may not be interested to know that they had an early lunch of eggs and bacon and beer at the inn called the Blue Boar, which stands at the turn of a road in the Western part of England.

Crane was fond of good cooking; and the cooking in that lonely inn was better than in a fashionable restaurant. Hood was fond of the legends and less-known aspects of the English countryside. Both had a healthy admiration for beauty, in ladies as well as landscapes; although (or more probably because) both were quite romantically attached to the wives they had married under rather romantic circumstances.

And the girl who served them, the daughter of the innkeeper, was herself a very beautiful thing to look at; she was of a slim and quiet sort with a head that moved like a brown bird, brightly and usually unexpectedly. Her manners were full of unconscious dignity, because her father, old John Hardy, was the type of old innkeeper who had the status, if not of a gentleman, at least of an independent man. He was not without education and talents; a gray-haired man with a clever, stubborn face.

There was little sound in the valley or the sky; the notes of birds fell only from time to time; only a distant aeroplane passed and re-passed, leaving a trail of faint thunder. The two men at lunch paid no more attention to it than if it had been a buzzing fly; but the way the girl looked at it every few minutes might have suggested that she was at least conscious of the fly. She looked at it, when no one was looking at her; the rest of the time, she tried to look indifferent to it.

“Good bacon you get here,” remarked Colonel Crane.

“The best in England, and in the matter of breakfast England is the Earthly Paradise,” replied Hood readily. “I can’t think why we should boast of the British Empire when we have bacon and eggs to boast of. It was bacon and eggs that gave all that morning glory to the English poets; only a man who had a breakfast like this who could rise with that giant gesture:‘Night’s candles are burnt out; and jocund day…’[28]”

Then, noticing the girl within earshot, he added:“We are saying how good your bacon is, Miss Hardy.”

“It is supposed to be very good,” she said with legitimate pride, “but I am afraid you won’t get much more of it. People aren’t going to be allowed to keep pigs much longer.”

“Not allowed to keep pigs!” cried the Colonel in astonishment.

“By the old regulations they had to be away from the house, and we’ve got ground enough for that, though most of the cottagers hadn’t. But now they say that some people are breaking the law, and the county council are going to stop pig-keeping altogether.”

“Stupid pigs,” snorted the Colonel.

“You should not call them that,” replied Hood. “Men are lower than swine when they do not appreciate pigs. But really I don’t know what the world’s coming to. What will the next generation be like without proper pork? And, talking about the next generation, what has become of our young friend Pierce? He said he was coming down, but he can’t have come by that train.”

“I think Captain Pierce is up there, sir,” said Joan Hardy in a correct voice, as she went away.

Her tone might have indicated that the gentleman was upstairs, but she looked for a second at the blue emptiness of the sky. Long after she was gone, Owen Hood remained staring up into it, until he saw the aeroplane darting and wheeling like a bird.

“Is that Hilary Pierce up there?” he asked, “doing tricks and behaving like a madman generally. What the devil is he doing?”

“Showing off,” said the Colonel shortly, and finished his beer.

“But why would he show off to us?” asked Hood.

“He jolly well wouldn’t,” replied the Colonel. “Showing off to the girl, of course.”

“A very good girl,” said Owen Hood gravely. “If there’s anything going on, you may be sure it’s all straight and serious.”

The Colonel blinked a little. “Well, times change,” he said. “I suppose I’m old-fashioned myself; but speaking as an old Tory, I must confess he might do worse.”

“Yes,” replied Hood, “and speaking as an old Radical, I should say he could hardly do better.”

While they were speaking the aviator had eventually landed on a flat field near the hill, and was now coming towards them. Hilary Pierce looked more like a poet than a professional aviator; and though he had distinguished himself in the war, he was very probably one of those whose natural dream was of conquering the air than conquering the enemy. His yellow hair was longer and more untidy than when he was in the army; and there was a touch of something irresponsible in his blue eye. He had a fighting spirit, however, as soon became clear.

He had paused to speak to Joan Hardy by the rather ruinous pig-sty in the corner, and when he came towards the breakfast-table he seemed transfigured as with flame.

“What’s all this infernal insane nonsense?” he demanded. “Who is so damned rude to tell the Hardys they mustn’t keep pigs? Look here, the time has come when we must fight against all this sort of thing. I’m going to do something desperate.”