Warning Hill (4 page)

From the rear of the house the land fell away into tufts of marsh grass, and a leaden expanse of tidal mud, toward which the ducks were moving. Nevertheless, it was pleasant behind the house, because there were so many things to see—a skiff anchored in the mud where the tide had left it, its mast and sail spread on the shore where mats of dead eel grass showed the tidal mark. Farther up the shore lay a pile of wooden decoy ducks, just like children's toys, and not far away were two small canvas-covered boats lying bottom upward. They were sneak floats, used for sculling in among the duck flocks in the autumn. All these, Tommy knew, were the tools of Mr. Street's other trade, for Mr. Street, besides being a carpenter, was a professional gunner in season. He knew the coast in any weather, and knew—it was only much later that Tommy knew how little or how much.

The two spaniels sat on their haunches, looking at Tommy and lolling their tongues, like two old gentlemen who knew the world. Four Canada geese with clipped wings came out of the marsh grass to stare at Tommy and to crane their necks. Tommy watched them. They lowered their necks and bent them, like snakes almost, into the summer breeze.

“Hello, geese,” Tommy said; “do you want to fly away?”

In those days it almost seemed that animals understood. The geese eyed Tommy unhappily and craned their necks again. Then Tommy heard steps behind him, and turned to see two other children, a boy and a girl, on the shore beside him. They were very dirty children with smeared faces and muddy bare toes, not at all like that other boy and girl in the high seat with the lady in black between them. Surely those had never gone with bare feet into the mud. Their hair had never been untidy, or their clothes in rags. This girl's hair was black and fell in snarls over her brown face, so that now and then she had to brush it aside quickly with her grubby little hand. The sharpness of her nose and the brightness of her eyes made her look like another wild thing wanting to fly away. The boy had the same thin face, the same dark restless eyes. Indeed, it would have been hard to tell one from the other, except that his hair was clipped short above his ears, evidently made even by a mixing bowl held inverted on his head.

“Who're you talkin' to?” inquired the boy.

“The geese,” said Tommy.

“Hey, Mary!” said the boy. “He's talkin' to the geese! Gee! He's
talkin'
to 'em!”

“That's nothing, Mal,” The voice of the little girl whose name was Mary seemed far away. “I talk to 'em myself—a whole lot some days.”

“Then he's a sissy,” said the boy named Mal. “Hey—ain't you a sissy?”

“What's a sissy?” inquired Tommy. You might have thought the boy named Mal would answer, but instead he scowled.

“Cripes! Don't you know nothin'? Don't you never play with kids?”

“Not often,” said Tommy. “I'd like to, though.”

“Well, you're a sissy all right. Say—do you wanna fight?”

“No,” said Tommy.

“Well, you gotta, anyways. When a new kid meets a new kid, they always gotta fight, ain't they?”

“Why?” said Tommy. “I don't see.”

As Tommy spoke there was a sinking feeling deep down in his stomach; he did not want to fight; he never had before.

“Well, you're gonna see.” Mal edged closer to him and spat on a grimy fist. Then the little girl spoke in the same far-away voice.

“You leave him be, Mal. You're bigger.”

“You shut up!” said Mal, and moved nearer Tommy. “My pa's better'n your pa.”

“He's not!” Tommy's voice was sharp. He was angry then, and his slim little body began to tremble; he wanted very much to cry. Tommy Michael felt very small and very far from everything he knew. He looked wildly about him, but his father was not in sight. Only the two water spaniels were there, looking at him with their wide brown eyes, and the very place where Tommy stood seemed changed into an unkind world. The wind, which had been so friendly that morning, as it rustled through the bushes of the Michael shore, was harsh upon his face. The sunlight, which not so long ago had made patterns through the trees, was pitilessly bright. And Tommy was all alone out in that sun and wind, without even a make-believe companion to stand by his right hand, facing something ugly, which he had never known.

Young Mal Street, lean-faced and bright of eye, with his inverted bowl of black hair, twisted his upper lip.

“Say that again, and I'll smash you in the eye. My pa's better'n your pa.”

Yes, Tommy was all alone. For the first time he felt the chill of that knowledge that help lay only within himself, a chill which he would often feel again. He wanted to turn and run, but he did not. Instead he felt his lips stiffen. They were thin lips like his mother's. “Whisper, whisper,” he could hear the old drake somewhere behind him. “Whisper, whisper.”

“He's not,” said Tommy. “My father's a—gentleman.”

The exact definition of that term Tommy did not know, but he knew it was worthy of respect. None the less it did not help Tommy Michael the day he met Mal Street on the dead eel grass of Welcome River. Tommy Michael's nose was a smear of red. His face was wet with tears and he was sobbing.

“Hi, there!” Jim Street was hastening from the barn, jumping awkwardly but surely over a pile of wood. Alfred Michael was approaching also, swinging his walking stick.

“Didn't I tell you?” It was Mal to whom Jim Street spoke. Mal turned to run for it, but Mr. Street caught the collar of his shirt, and then Mal's shoulder as the collar ripped. “Didn't I tell you next time I caught you fighting, I'd wear your pants right off? Mary break a lath off that hencoop!”

That was like Jim Street, always tearing pieces off of things for other purposes, but Tommy's father was speaking.

“Leave the lath on,” he said. “Jim, set down the boy.”

“Well, now, what's bitin' you, Alf?” Mr. Street, as one remembers, was never fast in shifting a mental process. There were wrinkles on Alfred Michael's forehead and about the corners of his eyes.

“They've started, haven't they? Tommy wouldn't want it stopped like this, would you, Tom?” He leaned over Tommy. His walking stick trembled beneath his hand. “Would you, Tom?”

Of course Tommy had to say he wouldn't—of course, because his father was asking.

“Alf Michael,” said Jim Street, “are you crazy?”

“Tommy,” Alfred Michael did not appear to hear, “what's the fight about? Tommy, stop that blubbering!”

“I—I'm not!” Even in those days Tommy had his pride.

“Good!” said Alfred Michael. “Speak up then and tell me.”

“He said,” Tommy found it hard to speak, “his father was better than—you.”

“God bless my soul!” said Alfred Michael. “Well, I can't help you now. Send in your boy, Jim, and I'll lay you two to one. Now go on and hit him, Tom! Hit him for all you're worth!”

That was how Tommy took his first licking, with his father standing white-faced, watching.

“Tom,” his father had dropped on his knees beside him, so that their faces were nearly level, and even then Tommy was surprised at the way his father's hand shook while wiping at his cheek, “Tom—please don't cry!”

“I—” Tommy choked before he could finish, “I'm not.”

“There,” said Alfred Michael, “there—that's better, because there's nothing to be ashamed of. You did the best you could, Tom, and you've got to learn. God help you, you've
got
to learn, even—”

There was something about Alfred Michael, even when the checked suit became a travesty, which made him somehow bright, and above the world which had brought him low.

“Even if Jessica's nose holds out better than yours, Tom, and I suppose it won't.”

Little did Tommy Michael realize that the mills of the gods were grinding in a process all their own, a process which was pitiful and slow. The mills of the gods already had left their trace on Tommy's tear-smeared cheeks, and somewhere within him was a bitter jagged scar. Never again would Tommy's eyes be as wide and guileless, quite. Beneath those invisible, inexorable stones, Tommy Michael had been cast, where all illusion and all make-believe must finally turn to dust, and where magic falters to vanish in a breath. And already it was going. The wind of Michael's Harbor was singing a different tune, and his father too had changed. Never would he be quite as fine again; as marvellous in his wisdom, as glowing in his strength. His father must have known it too, Tommy sometimes thought, because he threw his arm over Tommy's narrow shoulders, holding him very tightly, as though he knew, just as surely as anything, that something was leaving both of them, something beautiful which would never again come back.

“Gad!” he said, “I could make a better world without half trying. Give me a drink, Jim, and we'll be starting home.”

IV

Seated in his library room in his house on Warning Hill, Grafton Jellett was aware of no rumbling sound, but none the less the mills were grinding, and he should have known, because he had been through mills enough. Only very much later Tommy heard of that afternoon, but he could guess how it must have been.

“Don't try it on Grubby Jellett,” they used to say downtown; “he's been through the mill.”

Long ago they had given up trying. Yet one would not have guessed at all, just from looking at Mr. Jellett once. For one thing, he was a small man. His hair was sand-colored and growing thin on top. His face was plump and ruddy and cast in a tranquil mold. No, nothing could look milder than Mr. Jellett, in his leather chair with a book on his knee and a paper cutter in his stubby-fingered hand. Only when he glanced up, interrupted by a tapping on his door, did he show signs. His eyes were a cold, light blue, and nothing, absolutely nothing appeared to be behind them.

“Come in,” said Mr. Jellett, and as he spoke he raised his ivory cutter and ran it gently through another page. It was only Hewens, his private secretary.

“Will you see the children, sir?” inquired Hewens. “It's their hour, Miss Meachey says.”

“Where is Mrs. Jellett?” Mr. Jellett asked.

“She has a bad headache, sir, and is resting before dinner.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Jellett, “has she?” And deftly, quietly, he cut another page. “Any telephones or telegrams?”

“Mr. Cooper called again, sir—from the local bank, you know.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Jellett, “about what?”

“That matter about the Michaels.”

“The Michaels? Who are the Michaels? Oh, I remember now.” It was not strange that he should have his lapses, for he had so much to remember. “The one who owns the gunning shack and the beach, isn't it?—Cooper's an ass. I'm not an ass. I don't buy from people in holes. Hewens, have them hitch up a trap and go down and see this Cooper. Find out all you can about these Michaels and let me know, and when it's all over,” Mr. Jellett cut another page, “intimate that I'm not in the least interested. Make it very plain.”

Hewens raised a hand to his small mustache and looked like the Alice in Wonderland rabbit when he said, “My stars and whiskers!”

“You're not going to ask me how, are you, Hewens?”

Mr. Hewens knew too much for that.

“Good!” Mr. Jellett raised his paper cutter again. “Well, why are you waiting?”

“Will you see the children now?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Jellett, “and as you go out, tell Hubbard to bring me my whisky. And send down my man—the new one. What's his name?”

“Street, I think,” said Hewens.

“Well,” said Mr. Jellett, “aren't you going?”

“Good Lord, sir!” gasped Mr. Hewens. His neck craned above his strangling cut-away collar. “Do you know what you're doing? You're cutting the pages of a perfect first edition of ‘Jane Eyre'!”

A faint snowy smile hovered about Mr. Jellett's placid ruddy lips.

“A presentation copy,” he said. “Well, what of it, Hewens?”

“What of it?” cried Mr. Hewens. In his excitement he forgot himself so far as to reach out a thin white hand. “An uncut first edition is worth a hundred pounds, sir! Aren't you reducing its value to a mere nothing by cutting it?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Jellett, and cut another page. With difficulty Mr. Hewens found his voice.

“But why—” he began, “why, if you know it—?”

Mr. Jellett raised his paper knife languidly, and regarded Hewens for the first time that day as though he were a man.

“Because I damn' well want to! It amuses me,” Mr. Jellett answered.

“Amuses you?” echoed Mr. Hewens, and for a moment Mr. Hewens himself was more than a machine.

“That's it,” said Mr. Jellett. “It isn't every one who can cut one.”

“No,” said Hewens, “that's true.”

“Then you understand,” said Mr. Jellett. The light from the window fell on his sandy hair as he slouched down more comfortably. “I suppose,” he added complacently, “you think I'm a damned fool?”

“No,” said Mr. Hewens with a candor which surprised him. “I don't know what I think.”

“Saying that won't hurt you with me,” remarked Mr. Jellett placidly. “But I'm not, no matter what you think—Ho, hum.…” He pointed before him with his paper cutter to a wall which was lined with books, an exquisite wall of gold and leather tooling.

“I have two presentation copies of ‘Jane Eyre' with their pages uncut, in completely perfect preservation. My agent tells me they're the best extant, and I think he's right, because Mr. Morgan has been making me an offer for one of them. If I cut the pages of one, there'll be only one left. Get back as soon as you can. I'll have some telegrams to send.”

Left alone in his room, Mr. Jellett looked thoughtfully at his paper cutter, and cut another page. The parting of the paper made a tranquilizing sound. Mr. Jellett closed his eyes contentedly and rubbed his toes softly in the thick piling of an oriental carpet.