Chapter I

Cailsham--one of those small antiquated towns which, in its day, has had its name writ in history--sits at the feet of the hills, like an old man, weary of toil, and gazes out with sleepy eyes over the garden of Kent. In the spring, the country is patched with white around--white, with the blossoms in the fruit plantations. Broad acres of cherry orchards spread their snow-white sheets out in the sun--a giant's washing-day. The little lanes wind tortuous ways between the fields of apple bloom, and off in the forest of the tree stems, lying lazily in the high-grown grass, dappled yellow with sunlight, you will find in every orchard a boy, idly beating a monotonous tattoo to scare away the birds. A collection of tin pots in various stages of dilapidation, each one emitting a different hollow note, are spread around him, and there he lies the day through till nightfall, eating the meals that are brought him, humming a tune between them to pass away the time; but ceaselessly beating a discordant dominant upon his sounding drums of tin. This is Cailsham in the spring. Cailsham at any time is more the country that surrounds it. All its colours, all its life, all its interests, it takes from those great, wide gardens of fruit as they break from leaf into blossom, blossom to fruit, from fruit to the black, naked branches of winter, when Cailsham itself sinks into the silence of a well-earned, lethargic repose. Then they talk of the fruit seasons that are past, and the fruit seasons that are to come. The lights burn out early in the windows, and by ten o'clock the little town is asleep.

This is Cailsham. The narrow High Street and the miniature Exchange, the square of the market-place and the stone fountain that stands with such an effort of nobility in the centre, bearing upon one of its rough slabs the name of the munificent donor, and the occasion on which the townspeople were presented with its cherished possession--these are nothing. They are only accessories. The real Cailsham is to be found in the apple, the plum, and the cherry orchards. From these, either as owners or as labourers, all the inhabitants draw their source of life, with the exception of those few shopkeepers whose premises extend in a disorderly fashion down the High Street; the Rector, who has his interest in the fruit season as well as the rest; and lastly, Mrs. Bishop, headmistress of that little school in Wyatt Street, where the sons of gentlemen are fitted for such exigencies of life as are to be met with between the ages of four and eight.

With the name of Lady Bray to conjure popularity, she had set up her establishment immediately after her husband's death. Then the old lady herself had fallen asleep--in her case a literal description of her disease. One night they had put her quietly to bed as usual, and in the morning she was still asleep--a slumber which really must be rest.

Fortunately for Mrs. Bishop the school was planted then. Twenty pupils sat round the cheap kitchen tables in the schoolroom--all sons of gentlemen--whose mothers paid occasional visits to the house and peeped into the schoolroom, after they had partaken of tea with Mrs. Bishop in the drawing-room. Whenever this incident occurred, the little boys rose electrically from their forms in courteous deference to the visitor; and the boy, whose mother it was, would blush with pride and look away, or he would frankly smile up to his mother's eyes. Then Mrs. Bishop would inevitably eulogize his progress as she sped the parting guest, making inquiries from her daughters afterwards to ascertain how near she had gone to the truth. One boarder only she accepted into the establishment. It had not been her intention to have any. But one day a lady had written from Winchester to say that through a friend of a friend of Lady Bray's, she had heard of Mrs. Bishop's preparatory school for the sons of gentlemen. She was compelled, she concluded in her letter, to go for some little time to live in London and, though she knew that Mrs. Bishop only accepted day pupils at her house, she would consider it a great favour if, for a term or so, she would consent to the admission of her son as a boarder. If such an arrangement were possible, she would be glad to know the terms which Mrs. Bishop would deem most reasonable.

For the rest of that day there had been unprecedented excitement at No. 17, Wyatt Street. Until late that evening Elsie and Dora Bishop, in consultation with their mother, went into all the financial details of the undertaking. Little Maurice Priestly could sleep in the small room at the top of the house, used then as a box room. The smallness of the window in the sloping ceiling could easily be disguised by lace curtains at six three-farthings a yard.

"Put that down," Mrs. Bishop had said; and the item of capital outlay had gone down on a half-sheet of note-paper.

To Cailsham they had brought with them an old armchair convertible, at considerable risk to the fingers, into a shake-down bed.

"We needn't buy a bed, then," said Mrs. Bishop.

"No; but it'll need some sort of coverlet to make it look decent. I've seen them at Robinson's in the High Street for two and eleven-three."

"Put that down," said Mrs. Bishop.

By ten o'clock the list of expenses had been compiled. By eleven o'clock it was decided what would be the cost of board and lodging for an adult--a little being added on to that for visionary extras--soap, light, towels, and suchlike, less visionary than others, but extras nevertheless.

When Mallins, the constable on night duty, passed down Wyatt Street at quarter-past eleven and saw a light in No. 17, he stopped in amazement and gazed through a chink in the old Venetian blind.

"It's 'ard on that Mrs. Bishop," he said to his wife the next morning, "the way she 'as to work."

That same morning a letter had been despatched to Mrs. Priestly, and by return of post came the reply--

"I suppose what you ask is quite reasonable. I am bringing Maurice to you the day after to-morrow."

"Suppose!" said Elsie.

"We couldn't do it for less," said Mrs. Bishop.

"And the box room'll look really quite comfortable," Dora joined in. "I've just put the bed up. I never thought it was such a nice little room."

Two days afterwards Mrs. Priestly and little Maurice had made their appearance. The slowest of the three flies in the town of Cailsham drove them up to the door and, for the moment, all work in the schoolroom had been suspended. The twenty sons of gentlemen, left to themselves, behaved as the sons of gentlemen--of any men, in fact-will do. There was an uproar in the schoolroom which Dora, before she had obtained a proper view of Mrs. Priestly from behind the door of the pantry at the end of the long hall, was compelled to go and reduce to silence. Having been deprived of the gratification of her curiosity, her effort had been with unqualified success. Between the ages of four and eight a boy can be quelled by a look. That look, the twenty sons of gentlemen received.

Mrs. Priestly was a tall woman, graceful and, for one who lived in one of the smaller of the provincial towns, elegantly dressed. Her face and its expression were sad. The quietness of her manner and the gentle reserve of her voice added to that sadness. The patient gaze of her deep grey eyes suggested suffering. Undoubtedly she had suffered. To the sympathetic observer, this would have been obvious; but to the calculating mind of Mrs. Bishop it presented itself in the form of a social aloofness which she was morbidly quick to see in any one.

Mrs. Priestly was dark. Little Maurice was fair--the Saxon stamped on his head, coloured in his blue eyes. He was six years old, abundant in extreme animal spirits, which his mother beheld with a love and pride in her eyes that was almost pathetic to see in one so possessed by the apathy of unhappiness, and which Mrs. Bishop observed with the silent resolve that Master Maurice was on no account to be allowed into her drawing-room.

When it had come to the moment of leaving her son to the glowing promises of Mrs. Bishop's tenderness and affection, Mrs. Priestly broke down, winding her arms tight about his little neck and pressing him fiercely to her bosom. Mrs. Bishop stood by with an indulgent smile.

Then Mrs. Priestly had looked up with tears heavy in her eyes.

"I'll come and see you, Mrs. Bishop," she had said with control--"I'll come and see you when I've said good-bye, before I go."

Mrs. Bishop had wisely taken the suggestion and departed to the end of the hall where her daughters were standing expectantly.

"Of course the child is spoilt," she said, in an undertone.

"Why?" they asked in chorus.

"Well, she's saying good-bye to him--crying over him. I call it very nonsensical. I came away. That sort of thing annoys me."

And in the drawing-room, mother and son were saying a long farewell that was to last them for a few weeks. It would be some time before she could come down from London, Mrs. Priestly had said. The tears were falling fast down their cheeks.

"You won't love any one else but mummy, will you, Maurie?"

"Shan't love her," he had said, with a thrusting of his head towards the door which Mrs. Bishop had just closed.

"And you'll say prayers every night and every morning?"

"Yes, mummy."

"And you'll say, 'God help mummy'"

"Will I pray for father?"

She took a deep breath as she looked above his head. He was too young to feel the weight of the pause. It meant nothing to him. He thought she had not heard.

"Will I pray for father?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said slowly; "pray for father, pray for him first, and then mummy, just before you go to sleep. God bless you, my little darling--" and in the fierce blinding passion which a mother alone can understand, she caught him again in her arms and crushed his yielding little body to her heart.

Such was the arrival of Master Maurice Priestly at No. 17, Wyatt Street.

When she arrived, some three weeks after this event, Sally found a little fair-haired boy with sad blue eyes whom at night, in the room next to hers, she sometimes heard crying. She had mentioned this to her mother.

"Oh, take no notice of it, Sally," she said. "It's probably a noise he makes in his sleep."

Sally had become a welcome addition to the household. She had offered to pay liberally for her board while she stayed there and, during that visit, however long it should prove to be, they had been able to dispense with the services of Miss Hatch, the music-mistress, who came regularly every morning from ten till twelve and was a considerable drain on the net profits of the establishment. Sally, unconscious of the change, filled her place. From a quarter-past ten, until half-past, her pupil was Maurice, and on the day she had spoken to her mother about his crying, she also questioned him.

"I wasn't crying," he said proudly. "I couldn't cry."

He found it easy to say that in the bright light of the morning. But it was a different matter at night. That very night again he wept. She could hear his sobs stifled in the pillow. She was going to bed. When the sound reached her ears, she stopped, listening. It _was_ crying! She opened her door gently. Certainly it was the sound of crying! Then, half-undressed, not thinking to cover her shoulders, she crept across the passage to his door, opened it and peered inside.

"Maurie," she whispered.

The crying stopped.

"Maurie," she repeated, "you are crying."

He admitted it--sadly; they had found him out. Now they would think he was a baby. That was the inevitable accusation in the mind of these people who were grown up--in the mind of every one, except his mother.

"But I'm not a baby!" he exclaimed.

Sally knelt down by the side of his bed. "Who said you were a baby?" she whispered.

"You were just going to."

"No, I wasn't. I don't think you are a baby. I cry sometimes."

"Do you?" There was a thin note of amazement in his voice. "What do you cry for?"

"Oh, lots of things. What do you?"

"For mummy--it's so cold in bed without mummy."

"Do you sleep with mummy, then?" she asked, and she slid a warm arm around his sturdy little neck.

"Yes--always. Mummy's so warm and she lies so tight. Your arm's warm--I like your arm." He felt it with his fingers. "What's that?" he asked suddenly.

"What's what?" said Sally.

"Something wet fell on the back of my hand. Why, it's you--it's you. You're crying. Aren't you? You're crying. Oh, I wonder if you're a baby. I don't see why you should be, if you don't think I am. Why are you crying?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, but you must know! I always know why I'm crying. I cry at nights when it's all dark, and you can't hear anything. I cry then because I want mummy. Mummy cries sometimes though, and she doesn't know why."

"Do you ask her, then?"

"Yes; and she says she doesn't know. So I suppose ladies don't know sometimes, but boys always do. But you won't say I cried, will you? Promise!"

"I promise," she said firmly.

"Because the others 'ud think I was a baby if they knew, and I'm not really a baby--not in the morning, am I?"

"No; not a bit."

"You wouldn't think I was a baby when you give me my music lesson, would you?"

"No; I always think you're very brave."

He twisted about in the bed. "Put your other arm round my neck, will you?--like mummy does. She always puts both arms--it's much warmer."

She clasped him with both arms.

"Ah; that's better," he said. "I hope mummy wouldn't mind, because she said I wasn't to love any one else but her. But, of course, I don't really love you, you know. I like you because you're warm."

"You don't love me, then?"

"No; how could I? I could only love mummy, really. Oh, there it is again! You're still crying, you know."

"Yes; I know I am."

"I suppose you wouldn't come into bed and cry--it's much warmer."

A sob broke in Sally's throat.

Here now it had come--so soon as this--the fulfilment of Janet's prophecy. The curse of Eve was no mystery to her now. She knew. She knew what life lacked.

"No; you must go to sleep now, Maurie," she said thickly. "You must go to sleep now. You mustn't cry any more."

"Very well, then," he said resignedly. "You must promise you won't too."

"I promise I won't. Good night."

And so, to keep her promise, lest he should hear as she had heard, she lay on her bed and buried her face in the pillow. But she cried.