Wood and Stone (45 page)

Luke cursed bitterly in his heart the rhythmic
incantations
of the old Norwich doctor. He had been thinking of a very different passage from that which his brother recalled. To change the conversation he asked how James wished to spend their free afternoon.

Andersen’s tone changed in a moment, and he grew rational and direct. “I am going for a walk,” he said, “and I think perhaps, if you don’t mind, I’ll go alone. My brain feels clouded and oppressed. A long walk ought to clear it. I think it will clear it; don’t you?” This final question was added rather wistfully.

“I’m sure it will. Oh, it certainly will! I expect the sun has hit you a bit; or perhaps, as Mr. Taxater would say, your headache is a relative one, due to my dragging in such things as Urn Burial. But I don’t quite like your going alone, Daddy James.”

The elder brother smiled affectionately at him, but went on quietly with his work without replying.

When they had finished their mid-day meal they both loitered out into the field together, smoking and chatting. The afternoon promised to be as clear and beautiful as the morning, and Luke’s spirits rose high. He hoped his brother, at the last moment, would not have the heart to reject his company.

The fineness of the weather, combined with the Saturday half-holiday, was attracting abroad all manner of Nevilton folk. Lads and maids, in merry noisy groups, passed and repassed. The platform of the little station was crowded with expectant
passengers
waiting for the train to Yeoborough.

As the brothers stood together, carelessly turning over with their sticks the fetid heads of a patch of meadow fungi, they observed two separate couples issuing, one after another, from the little swing-gate that opened on the level-crossing. They recognized both couples almost simultaneously. The first pair consisted of Annie Bristow and Phyllis Santon; the second of Vennie Seldom and Mr. Clavering.

The two girls proceeded, arm-in-arm, up the sloping path that led in the direction of Hullaway. Vennie and Mr. Clavering advanced straight towards the brothers. Luke had time to wonder vaguely whether this conjunction of Vennie and her Anglican pastor had any connection with last night’s happenings.

He was too closely associated with that Gargantuan gossip, Mrs. Fringe, not to be aware that for many weeks past Miss Seldom and the young clergyman had studiously avoided one another. That they should now be walking together, indicated, to his astute mind, either a quarrel between the young lady and Mr. Taxater, or an estrangement between the vicar and Gladys. Luke was the sort of philosopher who takes for granted that in all these situations it is love for love, or hate for hate, which propels irresistibly the human mechanism and decides the most trifling incidents.

James, looked angry and embarrassed at the
appearance
of the pair; but they were too close upon them for any escape to be possible.

“How are you today, Andersen?” began Mr. Clavering, with his usual well-meaning but indiscreet impulsiveness. “Miss Seldom tells me she was nervous about you last night. She was afraid you were working too hard.”

Vennie gave him a quick reproachful glance, and made a deprecatory movement with her hands. “Are all men,” she thought, “either without scruple or without common-sense?”

“I’m glad to see that I was quite mistaken,” she hastened to add. “You don’t look at all tired today, Mr. Andersen. And no wonder, with such a perfectly lovely afternoon! And how are you, Mr. Luke? I haven’t been down to see how that Liverpool font is getting on, for ever so long. I believe you’ll end by being quite as famous as your father.”

Luke received this compliment in his most courtly manner. He was always particularly anxious to impress persons who belonged to the “real” upper classes with his social sang-froid.

He was at this precise moment, however, a little agitated by the conduct of the two young people who had just passed up the meadow. Instead of
disappearing
into the lane beyond, they continued to loiter at the gate, and finally, after an interlude of audible laughter and lively discussion, they proceeded to stretch themselves upon the grass. The sight of two amiable young women, both so extremely well known to him, and both in evident high spirits, thus enjoying the sunshine, filled our faun-like friend’s mind with the familiar craving for frivolity. He caught Mr.
Clavering’s glance fixed gravely upon him. He also, it appeared, was not oblivious of the loitering
villagers
.

“I think there are other members of your flock, sir,” said James Andersen to the young vicar, “who are at the present moment more in need of your help than I am. What I need at this moment is air—air. I should like to be able to wander over the Quantocks this afternoon. Or better still, by the edge of the sea! We all need more air than we get here. It is too shut-in here—too shut-in and
oppressive
. There’s too much stone about; and too much clay. Yes, and the trees grow too close together. Do you know, Miss Seldom, what I should like to do? I should like to pull down all the houses—I mean all the big houses—and cut down all the trees, and then perhaps the wind would be free to blow. It’s wind we want—all of us—wind and air to clear our brains! Do you realize”—his voice once more took that alarming tone of confidential secretiveness, which had struck them so disagreeably the preceding evening;—“do you realize that there are evil spirits abroad in Nevilton, and that they come from the Hill over there?” He pointed towards the Leonian
escarpments
which could be plainly seen from where they stood, slumbering in the splendid sunshine.

“It looks more like a sphinx than a lion today, doesn’t it, Miss Seldom? Oh, I should like to tear it up, bodily, from where it lies, and fling it into the sea! It blocks the horizon. It blocks the path of the west-wind. I tell you it is the burden that weighs upon us all! But I shall conquer it yet; I shall be master of it yet!” He was silent a few
seconds, while a look of supreme disappointment clouded the face of his brother; and the two
newcomers
gazed at him in alarm.

“I must start at once,” he exclaimed abruptly. “I must get far, far off. It is air I need, air and the west-wind! No,” he cried imperiously, when Luke made a movement, as if to take leave of their
companions
. “I must go alone. Alone! That is what I must be today: alone—and on the hills!”

He turned impatiently as he spoke; and without another word strode off towards the level-crossing.

“Surely you will not let him go like that, Mr. Andersen?” cried Vennie, in great distress.

“It would do no good,” replied Luke, watching his brother pass through the gate and cross the track. “I should only make him much worse if I tried to follow him. Besides, he wouldn’t let me. I don’t think he’ll come to any harm. I should have a different instinct about it if there were real danger. Perhaps, as he says, a good long walk may really clear his brain.”

“I do pray your instinct is to be relied on,” said Vennie, anxiously watching the tall figure of the stone-carver, as he ascended the vicarage hill.

“Well, if you’re not going to do your duty,
Andersen
, I’m going to do mine!” exclaimed the vicar of Nevilton, setting off, without further parley, in pursuit of the fugitive.

“Stop! Mr. Clavering, I’ll come with you,” cried Vennie. And she followed her impulsive friend towards the gate.

As they ascended the hill together, keeping Andersen in sight, Clavering remarked to his companion, “I
believe that dissolute young reprobate refused to look after his brother simply because he wanted to talk to those two girls.”

“What two girls?” enquired Vennie.

“Didn’t you see them?” muttered the clergyman crossly. “The Bristow girl and little Phyllis Santon. They were hanging about, waiting for him.”

“I’m sure you are quite wrong,” replied Vennie. “Luke may have his faults, but he is devoted—madly devoted—to his brother.”

“Not at all,” cried Clavering almost rudely. “I know the man better than you do. He is entirely selfish. He is a selfish, sensual pleasure-seeker! He may be fond of his brother in his fashion, just because he
is
his brother, and they have the same tastes; but his one great aim is his own pleasure. He has been the worst influence I have had to contend with, in this whole village, for some time back!”

His voice trembled with rage as he spoke. It was impossible, even for the guileless Vennie, not to help wondering in her mind whether the violence of her friend’s reprobation was not impelled by an emotion more personal than public. Her unlucky knowledge of what the nature of such an emotion might be did not induce her to yield meekly to his argument.

“I don’t believe he saw the people you speak of any more than I did,” she said.

“Saw them?” cried the priest wrathfully,
quickening
his pace, as Andersen disappeared round the corner of the road, so that Vennie had to trot by his side like a submissive child. “I saw the look he fixed on them. I know that look of his! I tell you he is the kind of man that does harm wherever he
goes. He’s a lazy, sensual, young scoundrel. He ought to be kicked out of the place.”

Vennie sighed deeply. Life in the world of men was indeed a complicated and entangled matter. She had turned, in her agitation about the stone-carver, and in her reaction from Mr. Taxater’s reserve, straight to the person she loved best of all; and this was her reward,—a mere crude outburst of
masculine
jealousy!

They rounded the corner by her own gate, where the road to Athelston deviates at right angles. James Andersen was no longer in sight.

“Where the devil has the man got to?” cried the astonished clergyman, raging at himself for his
ill-temper
, and raging at Vennie for having been the witness of it.

The girl glanced up the Athelston road; and
hastening
, forward a few paces, scanned the stately slope of the Nevilton west drive. The unfortunate man was nowhere to be seen.

From where they now stood, the whole length of the village street was visible, almost as far as the Goat and Boy. It was full of holiday-making young people, but there was no sign of Andersen’s tall and unmistakable figure.

“Oh, this is dreadful!” cried Vennie. “What are we to do? Where can he have gone?”

Hugh Clavering looked angrily round. He was experiencing that curious sense, which comes to the best of men sometimes, of being the special and selected object of providential mockery.

“There are only two ways,” he said. “Either he’s slipped down through the orchards, along your wall,
or he’s made off to Nevilton Mount! If that’s what he’s done, he must be now behind that hedge, over there. We should see him otherwise.”

Vennie gazed anxiously in the direction indicated. “He can’t have gone into our garden?” she said. “No, he’d never do that! He talked about air and hills. I expect he’s where you say. Shall we go on?”

They hurried down the road until they reached a gate, on the further side of the hedge which ran to the base of Nevilton Mount. Here they entered the field. There was no sign of the fugitive; but owing to certain inequalities in the ground, and the
intervention
of some large elm-trees, it was still quite possible that he was only a few hundred yards in front of them. They followed the line of the hedge with all the haste they could; trusting, at every turn it made, that they would discover him. In this manner they very soon arrived at the base of the hill.

“I feel sure he’s somewhere in front of us!”
muttered
Clavering. “How annoying it is! It was outrageous of that young scoundrel to let him go like this;—wandering about the country in that mad state! If he comes to any harm, I shall see to it that that young man is held responsible.”

“Quick!” sighed Vennie breathlessly, “we’d better climb straight to the top. We
must
find him there!”

They scrambled over the bank and proceeded to make their way as hurriedly as they could through the entangled undergrowth. Hot and exhausted they emerged at last upon the level summit. Here, the grotesque little tower mocked at them with its
impassive
grey surface. There was no sign of the man they sought; but seated on the grass with their backs to
the edifice were the figures of the complacent Mr. Wone and one of his younger children, engaged in the agreeable occupation of devouring a water-melon. The mouth and chin of the Christian Candidate were bespattered with the luscious juice of this delectable fruit, and laid out carefully upon a magazine on his knees, was a pleasing arrangement of rind-peelings and well-sucked pips.

Mr. Wone waved his hand in polite
acknowledgment
of Clavering’s salute. He removed his hat to Vennie, but apologized for not rising. “Taking a little holiday, you observe!” he remarked with a satisfied smile. “I see you also are inclined to make the most of this lovely summer day.”

“You haven’t by any chance seen the elder
Andersen
, have you?” enquired Clavering.

“Not a bit of it,” replied the recumbent man. “I suppose I cannot offer you a piece of melon, Miss Seldom?”

The two baffled pursuers looked at one another in hopeless disappointment.

“We’ve lost him,” muttered the priest. “He must have gone through your orchard after all.”

Mr. Wone did not miss this remark. “You were looking for our good James? No. We haven’t seen anything of him. No doubt he is with his brother somewhere. I believe they usually spend their Saturdays out at Hullaway.”

“When does the election come off, Mr. Wone?” enquired Vennie, hastily, extremely unwilling that her tactless companion should disclose the purpose of their search.

“In a week’s time from next Monday,” replied the
Candidate. “This will be my last free day till then. I have to make thirty speeches during the next seven days. Our cause goes well. I believe, with God’s great help, we are practically certain of victory. It will be a great event, Miss Seldom, a great event.”

Mr. Clavering made a hopeless sign to Vennie, indicative of the uselessness of any further steps to retake the runaway.