Dance of the Years (13 page)

All the same, after they had sidled down a narrow passage, passed several lighted doorways revealing little nests of smoke and chatter, they paused at last before a very low door upon which Whippy knocked softly, and the truly tremendous roar which greeted them seemed to justify the preliminary caution.

James followed Whippy into a low-ceilinged kitchen which was very bright and clean, but so packed with miscellaneous oddments of all kinds that he could scarcely see across it. By the fire sat Mrs. Jason's brother, Jed, and a very impressive old person he was at first sight. His bandaged foot was propped up, as he said himself, like a gentleman's, and he looked if not a king upon his throne at least a baron in his castle. He was a plump little man with jowls, and a circular melon of a belly, and he sat in a wooden armchair which was too small for him, so that he looked like a turkey's egg in a cup. His thick, white hair was brushed into a breaker on the top of his head, and his small eyes lighted on the intruders wrathfully.

“I o'nt have it! I o'nt have it,” he said. “You be off to bed, Whippy. I o'nt be disturbed at me thinking times.”

The broad country accent, homely and packed with emphasis, welcomed James if the words did not, and he was glad when Whippy, advancing spaniel-fashion, produced the locket. His father took it and looked at it as if he were being asked to value it, but gradually recognition dawned on his face, and at once it was as if the whole fount and spring of the family's eccentricities appeared before James's eyes. The wrath died out of the old man and he became blank and important. He set the locket on the table before him, with magisterial solemnity, and addressed his son.

“Goo you into bed, boy,” he said, although it was scarce nine o'clock and Whippy was over twenty and not an idiot. “I won't have ye crawling about the public rooms to all hours! Be off! I'll attend to the gentleman myself.”

Whippy went off like a lamb. His father waited until the door closed behind him, and as soon as he heard the latch, lowered his bandaged foot to the ground and got himself out of his chair; an operation which was like drawing a cork from a bottle.

When he was safely upright he addressed James in an entirely new character.

“You'll forgive me for not getting up when you first come in, sir,” he said. “What would you be wanting, if you please?”

The sudden leap to formal inn-keeping was unexpected, but James saw at once that now was the time when the speech Mrs. Jason had outlined should be produced. Although it had sounded ridiculous when she had told it to him, it was in point of fact just exactly the right thing to say to this particular man, and it occurred to James how interesting it was that one-half of anything may well appear idiotic when seen without the other.

So he said his piece.

“I come from young Joan, who married Dick Jason, who worked for my father. Pray give me the best room. I am a gentleman, and can pay my way, but do not tell anyone that I am here.”

“Ah!” said Jed Fletcher, with complete comprehension, and he set a chair before the fire and begged James to take a glass of the hot Hollands and water he was drinking himself.

When James was seated, Jed sat down also, and leant forward confidingly.

“That's very interesting,” he said. “You and me must have a word together, if you'll excuse of me being so forward.”

After this pretentious opening he was at first rather disappointing, for he asked after the “little old girl,” his sister, and revealed that he did not realize that she was a day older than when he had last seen her some twenty years before. As he went on talking he soon began to show that he knew a surprising amount about all that had happened at Groats, even to the latest news about old Galantry's death. In some ways James found him a very terrifying old man. He made no reference to any of these things directly, but let it become clear from little hints that he knew much, and all the time he sat and watched the visitor, his eyes shining under his low forehead and great cockatoo's curl.

At that time James had no inkling of the grape-vine of carters, carriers, whips and postillions through which all news travelled so fast, and he was startled into awkwardness.

“I expect you've heard of my mother,” he said, blaming Mrs. Jason. His host did not appear to hear him, and afterwards James discovered that among the many gifts Jed possessed, this was one of the most remarkable. Sometimes he appeared not to have heard quite literally, so that the visitor was convinced that his own words had been thought and not uttered.

On this occasion James was not quite sure.

Jed sipped his hot spirits thoughtfully and appeared engrossed in a
vast inner world. Presently he said as calmly as if James had told him all:

“A young gentleman like yourself often finds it necessary to lie low until his relations and the lawyers have done chattering over his heritage. You'll find this old house the safest place you could have come to, especially as no doubt you've a wonderfully good eye for a hack. This is a right good old place for cattle.”

James said nothing, and presently Jed said unexpectedly:

“You'll excuse me enquiring into what don't concern me, but do you know any gentlemen in the town?”

James said he knew Samuel Thorpe, and had been at school with him.

“Mr. Samuel Thorpe.” Jed turned the name over on his tongue once or twice, and then as if a most unexpected number had popped up in his mind, he regarded James with veiled curiosity. “Little darkish kind of a fellow a year or two above your age; lives down the Butter Market?”

“Yes,” said James firmly. “With his mother.”

“Ah, yes. With his mother.”

There was another pause before he relaxed disarmingly.

“We have to be wonderfully careful not to give offence in my line of business,” he said naïvely. “However, likely you'll understand me. The little old girl, Joan, she'd have the hide off me. (Know she would, she's the spit of her mother.) She'd flay me if you was to come to any mishap through no fault of your own while you was under my roof. You'll pardon me for being so personal, but if you're going down to the theatre to see your friends to-morrow, as no doubt you'll be inclined to, you'll give me great pleasure if you'll accept of the loan of my little old safe to lock up any valuables you might be a-carrying about with you. This is a remarkable strange town, as you'll be aware, and there's a wonderful lot of queer persons in it who soon get to know if a young fellow is on his own. I do hope and pray you're not affronted with an old man who's only thinking of his young sister.”

The old Will Galantry in James began to laugh at these protestations, a reaction which took Jed by surprise. He went off like an alarum clock at once, protesting that he was a nervous old fool, that sons of his own had made him wise, and that James must forgive his forwardness which had got him into trouble before.

James begged him to be at ease. The suggestion which had seemed to be so very prudent was a relief to him for Dorothy's savings were worrying him considerably. So he accepted the offer at once, and with a gratitude which sealed a lasting friendship between them. Jed was delighted. He produced the safe at once, which turned out to
be a small iron sea chest, as heavy as an anvil. It contained the deeds of the house, a considerable quantity of money, two or three horse pedigrees not worth the paper they were written on, and his marriage lines—all of which he showed James. The box was kept under his chair in the daytime and under his bed at night, and was certainly secure.

James took four sovereigns out of Dorothy's bag and had no hesitation in consigning the rest to the Fletcher store. Jed insisted on giving him a receipt for the money, and he put the locket in the chest as well. Then he made all fast again and returned the key to its hiding-place, which was on a string round his neck.

“Same as you've treated me, I'll treat you,” he said with earnest honesty. “I shall shake hands on it!”

It was all a little unusual and theatrical; but so was Jed and his sister, too, for that matter, not to mention Whippy. So James took the hand and the bargain was sealed.

What James never did quite realize even to the end of his days was that in escaping being bound apprentice to a tailor, what he actually did was to bind himself to a master horse coper and publican. But even so, it is very doubtful if anybody on earth could have compared with Jed as a mentor, trainer and foster parent. It was an odd turn for events to take, but the Dance of the Years is always taking such turns, and after all it is how the dancers tread their individual measures which makes their performance what it is, the path being, as it were, but their place on the platform for the time being.

James's first meeting with the Thorpe family was a momentous occasion for him. Whatever he expected of Samuel's mother, he was certainly not prepared for what he found when he went round to Number 7, The Butter Market. It was a bonnet shop, for one thing, and after diving nervously through it he came up a narrow flight of stairs to a nest of rooms on the first floor. He was hesitating before the three closed doors, which lined the shabby landing, when the centre one opened and a petite, but very anxious looking woman put her head out, looked at him, and said forlornly:

“Oh! It isn't you!”

She was so charming and so helpless that James was stirred. He
began to explain most anxiously who he was and how he had come to see Samuel, but from the moment he set eyes on her his mind was more on her troubles than on his own. She did not let him get very far though, for she withdrew as suddenly as she had come and left him, although embarrassed, yet very concerned for her. He was still wondering how he could possibly help her when one of the other doors opened, and Samuel himself came out.

He was obviously astounded to see his visitor, and also, it seemed to James, a little disconcerted, but in a moment he recovered himself and came forward laughing, with the same self-depreciating and derisive smile, which James knew so well in him at school. It was a sign that he was bringing all his defences into position, and was preparing to flutter and skate his way out of any embarrassment which might be coming his way.

“How d'ye do, my dear James?” he said. “Come in. My mother reported you too young and too pretty for a dun. What are you doing here, my dear fellow? Come to spy behind the curtain?”

His voice was still squeaky, James noticed, but it had grown some new affectations.

“Come to find you, Sam,” said James, taking his hand with a warmth which touched Samuel, and made him feel once again the more important person of the two.

“In trouble, James?” he demanded hopefully.

The younger boy laughed, and his bright teeth and eyes shone against his dark skin in the dusk of the passage.

“I'm in hiding, Samuel,” he said.

“Really?” The information worked like a charm. Such a story was clearly a password to the Thorpe lodgings and family heart. Samuel was frankly delighted.

“Come in! Come in!” he said, as if James was being actively pursued. “Come in here! We're very much
en famille
, of course. Ah, yes. James, this is my half-sister, Phœbe.”

The final piece of information came just in time, for James, who had followed him into the room, was already backing out again. It was not a large room and was lit by a single window high in the wall, and to James it presented an astounding picture since it seemed to be as tightly packed with furniture as a box-room, and to be littered with drapery, baskets, bottles, lion-skins, and the most extraordinary collection of odds and ends he had ever seen.

However, he had little opportunity to look about him, for standing on a table in the centre was by far the most remarkable object of all. This was a girl. She was about fifteen years old and she was not wearing a skirt. The top part of her was muffled in a voluminous garment which looked to James like one of his father's old ruffled
shirts; while the rest was clad simply in a pair of very short black drawers to the top of her thighs, and a pair of short black stockings bound just above her knees with black ribbon. The translucent, white hiatus between the two was in the process of disguise to judge by the pot of lamp-black at her feet and the brush in her hand.

Until that moment all young women might have been solid and mermaid-like above the knee as far as James was concerned, and he regarded her with simple, undisguised dismay; while she, seeing his face, began to laugh at him.

That was the first time James ever saw Phœbe, and that time she had the advantage of him. It was one of those sly little tricks of fortune. Phœbe went on feeling that she had the advantage of James until it was too late. But that belongs to later in the story.

At this time they were still children, and when James could at last bring himself to look at her the first thing he noticed was that she was not at all like Samuel.

She was a tall girl with bones too slender for her height, and fair hair which was now almost straw-coloured. On the other hand, her eyes were a very dark and intelligent blue which turned almost as black as James's own when she was interested. For the rest, she was not exactly beautiful, but had an ill-drawn, peculiarly expressive face with great charm about it. Between herself and Samuel there existed, James noticed, a bond of comradeship which was almost a confederacy. At first he was jealous of her place in Samuel's affections, but afterwards when he heard them talking he was fascinated by the strength which he saw the union gave them both. He had never known this kind of friendship himself; this welding of contemporaries allied against circumstance, and he recognized its powers for defence, and would have liked to have joined it.

The more the two chattered the more obvious it became, and James growing more at ease listened to them eagerly. He did not altogether approve of the new world they showed him, and he swallowed nothing wholesale, but he took it all in with great curiosity.