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Anthony John
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Reading this work reminds one of the times the author lived, and of his contemporaries. There is a touch of his quintessential humour, but much more of his characteristic dilemma, between need of faith versus a questioning mind that rejects blind following of dogma. Most famous contemporaries of the author rejected dogma outright and had their own thought to show them a path, but Jerome K. Jerome keeps a step short of quite cutting the cord, while straining against it often enough and straying far.
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"The Strong’nth’arms had once been prosperous yeomen and had hunted with the gentry. Rumour had it that scattered members of the family were even now doing well in the colonies, and both husband and wife still cherished the hope that some far-flung relation would providentially die and leave them a fortune. Otherwise the future promised little more than an everlasting struggle against starvation. He had started as a mechanical engineer in his own workshop. There were plenty of jobs for such in Millsborough, but John Strong’nth’arm seemed to be one of those born unfortunates doomed always to choose instinctively the wrong turning. An inventor of a kind. Some of his ideas had prospered — other people."
"Assured of a satisfactory income, a woman might have found him lovable, have been indulgent to his helplessness. But the poor have no use for weakness. They cannot afford it. The child instinctively knew that his mother despised this dreamy-eyed, loose-lipped man always full of fear; but though it was to his mother that he looked to answer his questions and supply his wants, it was his father he first learnt to love."
"“You didn’t notice, by any chance, where I put a little brass wheel yesterday — about so big?” would be the question. John, the man, would go on with his job; and a minute later Anthony, the child, would return with the lost wheel. Once the man had been out all the afternoon. On entering the workshop in the evening he stood and stared. The bench had been cleared and swept; and neatly arranged upon it were laid out all his tools. He was still staring at them when he heard the door softly opened and a little, grinning face was peering round the jar. The man burst into tears, and then, ashamed of himself, searched in vain for a handkerchief. The child slipped a piece of clean waste into his hand and laughed."
"But sometimes, on days when in the morning his father had cursed fate more than usual, had raised clenched hands towards the roof of the workshop more often than wont, his mother would disappear for many hours, returning with good things tied up in a brown-paper parcel. And in the evening Somebody who dwelt far away would be praised and blessed."
Little Anthony confused him with God, until his mother let him accompany her.
"They left the din and smoke of Millsborough behind them. They climbed by slow degrees to a wonderful country. The child longed to take it in his arms, it was so beautiful. The woman talked at intervals, but the child did not hear her. At the journey’s end the gate stood open and they passed in."
He remarked to his mother on the way back, about God being not all that glorious, and had his confusion cleared up.
"It was longer, the way home. He offered no protest at being sent to bed early. He dreamed he was wandering to and fro in a vast place, looking for God. Over and over again he thought he saw Him in the distance, but every time he got near to Him it turned out to be Sir William Coomber, who patted him on the head and gave him a shilling."
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He visited his uncle and aunt Newt and was told his uncle was going to hell; his aunt explained why.
"Earnest young ministers of all denominations generally commenced their career in Millsborough by attempting his conversion, much encouraged during the earlier stages of the contest by Mr. Newt’s predisposition in all matters towards what he called a “waiting game.” The “knock-out” blow had not yet been delivered. His wife had long since abandoned him to Satan. The only thing, as far as she could see, was to let him enjoy as much peace and comfort in this world as circumstances would permit. In Anthony John’s eyes the inevitable doom awaiting him gave to his uncle an interest and importance that Mr. Newt’s somewhat insignificant personality might otherwise have failed to inspire. The child had heard about hell. A most unpleasant place where wicked people went to when they died. But his uncle, with his twinkling eyes and his merry laugh, was not his idea of a bad man.
"“Is uncle very, very wicked?” he once demanded of his aunt.
"“No; he’s not wicked,” replied his aunt, assuming a judicial tone. “Better than nine men out of ten that I’ve ever come across.”
"“Then why has he got to go to hell?”
"“He needn’t, if he didn’t want to,” replied his aunt. “That’s the awful thing about it. If he’d only believe, he could be saved.”
"“Believe what?” inquired Anthony John.
"“Oh, I haven’t got time to go into all that now,” replied his aunt. She was having trouble with the kitchen stove. “Believe what he’s told.”
"“Who told him?” “Everybody,” explained his aunt. “I’ve told him myself till I’m sick and tired of it. Don’t ask so many questions. You’re getting as bad as he is.”
"It worried him, the thought of his uncle going to hell. Why couldn’t he believe this thing, whatever it was, that everybody else believed?"
He confronted his uncle.
"He insinuated his hand into his uncle’s grimy paw.
"“Why don’t you believe?” he asked.
"His uncle turned on him his little twinkling eyes.
"“Believe what?” he counter-questioned.
"“What everybody believes,” the child answered.
"The little man shook his head.
"“Don’t you believe them,” he answered. “They don’t believe any more than I believe. They just say it because they think they’re going to get something out of it.”"
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"It had been a slack year. Many of the mills had had to close down. Added to this there came a strike among the miners and distress grew daily. Mrs. Newt took the opportunity to buy a secondhand tombstone. It had been ordered by one of the pumpmen for his mother, but when the strike came the stonemason suggested payment on account, and as this was not forthcoming he had put the stone aside. Unfortunately for him he had already carved as far as “Sacred to the Memory of Mildred,” which was not a common name in Millsborough. It happened, however, to be Mrs. Newt’s, though on her conversion she had dropped it as savouring too much of worldliness, employing instead her second name, which was Emily. Hearing of the incident, Mrs. Newt called upon the stonemason and, taking full advantage of the man’s dilemma, had secured the stone for about one-third of its value. She had had the rest of the lettering completed, leaving to be filled in only the date of her death. It was an imposing-looking stone, and Mrs. Newt was proud of it. She would often go and gaze at it where it stood in an out-of-the-way corner of the stonemason’s yard; and one day she took Anthony to see it. Her only anxiety now was about her grave. There was one particular site near to a willow tree that she much desired. It belonged to a baker who had secured it some years before on learning that he was suffering from an intermittent heart. The unemployment among the weavers, added to the strike of the miners, was making it difficult for him to collect his money, and Mrs. Newt was hopeful that an offer of ready cash at the right moment might induce him to sell."
"It promised to be a hard winter for the poor of Millsborough. The coal strike had ended only to make way for trouble in the steel works. Somewhere the other side of the world the crops had failed. Bread rose in price each week; and there were pinched and savage faces in the streets."
Anthony asked his aunt.
"“Why doesn’t God stop it?” he demanded suddenly. His knowledge had advanced since the day he had thought Sir William Coomber was God.
"“Stop what?” inquired his aunt continuing her knitting.
"“The strike..Why doesn’t He put everything all right? Can’t He?”"
It led to Adam and Eve.
"“But why did God let the Devil tempt him — or her, whichever it was. Can’t God do everything? Why didn’t He kill the Devil?”"
"His aunt, though visiting was not much in her line, dropped in on his mother a day or two later. Mrs. Plumberry happened to have looked in for a gossip and a cup of tea the same afternoon. His aunt felt sure that Anthony John would be helpful to his father in the workshop.
"In the evening his mother informed him that she and his father had decided to give to him the opportunity of learning whatever there was to be learnt about such things as God and sin and the everlasting soul of man. She didn’t put it in these words, but that was the impression she conveyed. On the very next Sunday that was he should go to chapel; and there kind ladies and gentlemen who understood these matters, perhaps even better than his aunt herself, would answer all his questions and make all things plain to him.
"They were most kind and sympathetic to him at the Sunday school. His aunt had prepared them for him, and they welcomed him as promising material. There was one young man in particular with an aesthetic face and long black hair that he had a habit of combing with his hand; and a plain young woman with wonderfully kind eyes, who in the middle of a hymn suddenly caught him up and hugged him. But they didn’t really help him.
"They assured him God loved us and wanted us all to be good and happy. But they didn’t explain to him why God had overlooked the Devil. He had never said a word to Adam about the Devil — had never so much as warned him. It seemed to Anthony John that the serpent had taken God as much by surprise as he had Adam and Eve. It seemed unfair to Anthony John that the whole consequences of the unforeseen catastrophe should have been visited on Adam and Eve; and even more unfair that he himself, Anthony John, coming into the world thousands of years later, and who, as far as he could see, had had nothing whatever to do with the business, should be deemed, for all practical purposes, as an accomplice before the act.
"It was not that he argued it thus to himself. All he was conscious of was a vague resentful feeling that it wasn’t fair. When his mother had sent him out on his first errand she had warned him of bad boys who would try to take his money away from him, as a result of which he had kept a sharp lookout, and, seeing a couple of boys who looked as though they might be bad, he had taken the precaution of walking close behind a policeman. It seemed to him that Adam hadn’t been given a dog’s chance.
"They told him that, later on, God was sorry for us and had put things right by letting His only Son die for us. It was a beautiful story they told him about this Jesus, the Son of God. He wondered who had suggested the idea, and had decided that it must have been the little lad Jesus who had first thought of it and had persuaded God to let Him do it. Somehow he convinced himself that he would have done just the same. Looking down from heaven on the poor people below, and thinking of their all going to hell, he would have felt so sorry for them.
"But the more he thought about it all the more he couldn’t understand why God instead of merely turning Satan out of heaven, hadn’t finished him off then and there. He might have known he would be up to mischief.
"At first his teachers had encouraged him to ask them questions, but later on they changed their minds. They told him he would understand all these things better as he grew up. Meanwhile he mustn’t think, but listen and believe."
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"With improved financial outlook the Strong’nth’arms had entered the Church of England. When you were poor it didn’t matter; nobody minded what religion you belonged to; church or chapel, you crept into the free seats at the back and no one turned their eyes to look. But employers of labour who might even one day be gentlefolks! The question had to be considered from more points of view than one.
"Mr. Strong’nth’arm’s people had always been chapel folk; and as his wife had often bitterly remarked, much good it had done him. Her own inclination was towards the Established Church as being more respectable; and arguing that the rent of a side pew was now within their means, she had gained her point."
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"The period of prosperity following the visit of Wandering Peter had lasted all but two years. It came to an end with the death of his father. It was while working on his new invention that the accident had happened."
"Anthony was dubbed “Pauper,” “Charity boy.” On the bench the boys right and left of him would draw away so that they might not touch him. In the playground he was left severely to himself. That he was quick and clever at his lessons and that the masters liked him worked still further to his disadvantage. At first young Saunders stuck up for him, but finding this made him a sharer of Anthony’s unpopularity soon dropped him, throwing the blame upon Anthony.
"“You see it isn’t only your having come in on the ‘Foundation,’” he explained one day to Anthony, having beckoned him aside to a quiet corner behind a water-butt. “You ought to have told me your mother was a dressmaker.”
"“So is young Harringay’s mother,” argued Anthony.
"“Yes; but she keeps a big shop and employs girls to do the sewing,” explained Saunders. “Your mother lives in Snelling’s Row and works with her own hands. You ought to have told me. It wasn’t fair.”"
"The chorus of opinion afterwards was that it had been a pretty fight. That Norcop had done his best and that no disgrace attached to him. And that Strong’nth’arm was quite the best man for his years and weight that St. Aldys had produced so far back as the oldest boy could remember. The monitors shook hands with him, and the smaller fry crowded round him and contended for his notice. From ostracism he passed in half an hour to the leadership of the third class. It seemed a curious way of gaining honour and affection. Anthony made a note of it.
"This principle that if a thing had to be done no pains should be spared towards the doing of it well he applied with equal thoroughness to the playing of his games."
"But it was not for the sake of the game that he played. Through sport lay the quickest road to popularity. Class distinctions did not count. You made friends that might be useful. One never knew.
"His mother found it more and more difficult to make both ends meet. If she should fail before he was ready! Year by year Millsborough increased in numbers and in wealth. On the slopes above the town new, fine houses were being built. Her mill owners and her manufacturers, her coalmasters and her traders, with all their followers and their retainers, waxed richer and more prosperous. And along the low-lying land, beside the foul, black Wyndbeck, spread year by year new miles of mean, drab streets; and the life of her poor grew viler and more cursed."
"AN idea occurred to Anthony. The more he turned it over in his mind the more it promised. Young Tetteridge had entered upon his last term. The time would soon come for the carrying out of Anthony’s suggestion that in some mean street of Millsborough he should set up a school for the sons of the ambitious poor.
"Why should not one house do for them both? To Mr. Tetteridge for his classroom and study the ground floor; to his mother for her dressmaking and millinery the floor above; the three attics for bedrooms; in the basement the common diningroom and kitchen. There were whole streets of such houses, with steps up to the front door and a bow window. Mr. Tetteridge would want someone to look after him, to “do for” him. Whom more capable, more conscientious than Mrs. Strong’nth’arm? The gain would be mutual. His mother would be working for better-off customers. She could put up her prices. Mr. Tetteridge would save in rent and board.
"Mr. Tetteridge was quite carried away by the brilliance and simplicity of the proposal."
"A friendship had grown up between Anthony and young Mowbray. It had been chiefly of Edward Mowbray’s seeking, but Anthony had been attracted by Edward’s gentleness and kindness. Mowbray’s father had also taken a liking to him, and he came to be a frequent visitor at The Priory."
"It was by Edward and his sister that Anthony was introduced to politics. They were ardent reformers. They dreamed of a world in which there would be no more poor. They thought it might be brought about in their time, at least so far as England was concerned. Edward was the more impatient of the two. He thought it would have to come by revolution, Elizabeth (or Betty as she was generally called for short) had once been of the same opinion. But she was changing. She pointed out the futility of the French Revolution. And even had there been excuse for it the need no longer existed."
"They were tramping the moors. The wind had compelled her to take off her hat and carry it and had put colour into her cheeks. Anthony thought she looked very handsome with her fine eyes flashing beneath their level brows.
"In their talk they had lost their tracks and were making a bee line for the descent. A stream barred their way. It babbled over stones and round the roots of trees. Edward picked her up to carry her across, but at the margin hesitated, doubting his muscles.
"“You’ll be safer with Anthony,” he said, putting her down.
"“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind getting my feet wet.” But Anthony had already lifted her in his arms.
"“You’re sure I’m not too heavy?” she asked.
"He laughed and stepped down with her into the stream.
"He carried her some distance beyond the bank, explaining that the ground was still marshy. He liked the pressure of her weight upon his breast."
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"IT was just before Easter that Edward wrote his father and Betty that he had developed diabetes and was going for a few weeks to a nursing home at Malvern. The doctor hoped that with care he would soon be much better. In any case he should return to Oxford some time during the summer term. He expected to be done with it by Christmas.
"To Anthony he wrote a different letter. The doctor had, of course, talked cheerfully; it was the business of a doctor to hold out hope; but he had the feeling himself that his chance was a poor one. He should return to Oxford, if the doctor did not absolutely forbid it, for Betty’s sake. He did not want to alarm her. And, of course, he might pull through. If not, his idea was that Anthony should push on with his studies at high speed and become as soon as possible a junior partner in the firm. It was evident from his letter that he and Betty were in agreement on this matter and that she was preparing the way with her father. Mr. Mowbray’s appetite for old port was increasing. He was paying less and less attention to the business. It would soon need someone to pull it together again."
"Anthony read the letter again. His friendship with Edward meant more to him than he had thought. It was as if a part of himself were being torn away from him, and the pain that he felt surprised him. Evidently he was less self-centred, less independent of others than he had deemed himself. Outwardly his life would go on as before. He would scheme, manœuvre, fight and conquer. But there was that other Anthony, known only to himself, of whom even he himself had been aware only dimly and at intervals: Anthony the dreamer. It seemed that he too had been growing up, that he too had hopes, desires. He it was who had lost his friend and would not be comforted. And almost it seemed as if from his sorrow he had gained strength. For as time went by this Anthony, the dreamer, came more often, even interfering sometimes with business."
"Edward had gone to Switzerland for the summer. Anthony had hoped to see him before he went, but examinations had interfered; and Edward himself had been more hopeful. He had written that in spite of all he felt he was going to live. His mind was getting lighter. He was forming plans for the future. And then suddenly there had come a three-word telegram:
"“I want Betty.”
"Mr. Mowbray was away when it came. He had gone, without saying a word to anyone, the day before, and had not as usual left Anthony any address. He did not return until the end of the week, and then it was all over. Betty had wired that she was bringing the body back with her. Mr. Mowbray broke down completely when Anthony told him, throwing himself upon his knees and sobbing like a child.
"“Betty will hate me,” he moaned through his tears, “and it will serve me right. I seem to do nothing but hurt those I love. I loved my wife and I broke her heart. There is no health in me.”
"Edward was buried in St. Aldys’ Churchyard beside his mother. Anthony had seen the exgoverness and made all things clear to her. Mr. Mowbray seemed inclined to settle down to business a reformed character. Anthony had taken out his articles and had been admitted into partnership, though the firm would still remain Mowbray and Cousins."
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He met Miss Coomber.
"“You were born here, weren’t you?” she asked.
"“In the house adjoining, to be exact,” he answered with a laugh. “But this was my nursery. I used to sit on that very stool with my leg tucked underneath me watching my father work. I loved it when he blew the bellows and made the shadows dance. At least I expect it’s the same stool,” he added. “There was the figure of a gnome that a strange old fellow I once knew carved upon it.”
"She sprang to the ground and examined it. “Yes,” she said. “It is the same. He must have been quite clever.”
"She reseated herself upon it. Her feet just touched the ground.
"“I was born in Brazil,” she said. “Father had a ranch near Rio. But we left there before I was three. The first thing I can really remember is The Abbey. We must have come on a visit, I suppose, to Sir William. It was the long garden between the cloister walls that was my first nursery. I used to play there with the flowers and make them talk to me.”
"“I saw you there,” he said, “one afternoon.” She looked up at him. “When was that?” she asked.
"“Oh, one evening in September,” he said. “About two years ago.” He had spoken without premeditation and now felt himself flushing. He hoped she might think it only the glow from the furnace fire.
"“But we were in Florence,” she said.
"“I know,” he answered, flushing still deeper. “I asked old Wilkins when you had come back, and he thought I was mad.”
"“It is curious,” she answered gravely. “I dreamed one day that I was walking there and met your namesake, Anthony the Monk. He was standing by the wicket gate on the very spot where he was slain. He called to me, but I was frightened and hid myself among the flowers.”"
"IT came so suddenly that neither of them at first knew what had happened. A few meetings among the lonely byways of the moor that they had honestly persuaded themselves were by mere chance. A little walking side by side where the young leaves brushed their faces and the young ferns hid their feet. A little laughing, when the April showers would catch them lost in talk, and hand in hand they would race for the shelter of some overhanging bank and crouch close pressed against each other among the twisted roots of the stunted firs. A little lingering on the homeward way, watching the horned moon climb up above the woods, while the song of some late lark filled all the world around them. Until one evening, having said good-bye though standing with their hands still clasped, she had raised her face to his and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met.
"Neither had foreseen it nor intended it. It had been so spontaneous, so natural, that it seemed but the signing of a pact, the inevitable fulfilling of the law. Nothing had changed, except that now they knew.
"He turned his footsteps away from the town. A deep endless peace seemed to be around him. So this was what Edward had meant when he had written, so short a while before the end, that love was the great secret leading to God, that without it life was meaningless and void.
"It was for this that he had waited, like some blind chrysalis not knowing of the day when it should be born into the sunlight.
"He laughed, remembering what his dream had been: wealth, power, fame: the senseless dream of the miser starving beside his hoarded gold. These things he would strive for now with greater strength than ever — would win them, not for themselves, but for Love’s sake, as service, as sacrifice.
"He had no fear. Others had failed. It was not love, but passion that burns itself out. There was no alloy in his desire for her. She was beautiful he knew. But he was drawn by it as one is moved by the beauty of a summer’s night, the tenderness of spring, the mystery of flowers. There was no part of her that whispered to him. The thought of her hands, her feet, the little dimple in her chin; it brought no stirring of his blood. It was she herself, with all about her that was imperceptible, unexplainable, that he yearned for; not to possess, but to worship, to abide with."
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"Lady Coomber was a curiously shy, gentle lady, somewhat of an enigma to those who did not know her history; they included her two children. Her name had been Edith Trent. She came of old Virginia stock. Harry Coomber, then a clerk in the British Embassy, had met her in Washington, where she was living with friends, both her parents being dead. They had fallen in love with one another, and the marriage was within a day or two of taking place when the girl suddenly disappeared.
"Young Harry, making use of all the influence he could obtain, succeeded in tracing her. She was living in the negro quarter of New Orleans, earning her living as a school teacher. She had discovered on evidence that had seemed to her to admit of no doubt that her grandmother had been a slave. It was difficult to believe. She was a beautiful, olive-skinned girl with wavy, dark brown hair and finely chiselled features. Young Harry Coomber, madly in love with her, had tried to persuade her that even if true it need not separate them. Outside America it would not matter. He would take her abroad or return with her to England. His entreaties were unavailing. She regarded herself as unclean. She had been bred to all the Southern American’s hatred and horror of the negro race. Among her people the slightest taint of the “tar brush” was sufficient to condemn man or woman to lifelong ostracism. She would have inflicted the same fate upon another, and a sense of justice compelled her not to shirk the punishment in her own case.
"Five years later a circumstance came to light that proved the story false, and the long-delayed marriage took place quietly at the Sheriff’s office of a small town in Pennsylvania.
"But the memory of those five years of her life, passed in what to her had been a living grave, had changed her whole character. An outcast among outcasts, she had drunk to the dregs their cup of terror and humiliation. In that city of shame, out of which for five years she had never once emerged, she had met men and women like herself: refined, cultured, educated. She had shared their long-drawn martyrdom. For her, the veil had been lifted from their tortured souls."
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"THEY were married abroad, as it happened. Jim had exchanged; but his regiment, before going on to India, had been appointed to the garrison at Malta. There the family had joined him for the winter.
"Fate had spared Sir Harry his last disappointment in life. Jim had not told him about Eleanor. There was no hurry. It could be done at any time. And he had died, after a few days’ illness, early in the spring. He had been busy, unknown to the others, fixing up with his sister Mary for Eleanor to come out in London during the season, and had built great hopes upon the result. Thus, so far as that matter was concerned, the poor old gentleman had died happy. Eleanor and her mother stopped on at a little place up in the hills. Anthony came out at the end of the summer; and they had been married in the English church. It was arranged that Lady Coomber should remain at Malta till Jim left for India; it might be the next year or the year after. Then she would come back to England and live with them at The Abbey. Anthony had not hoped to be able to take Eleanor back to The Abbey, but the summer had brought him unusual good fortune. As a matter of fact, everything seemed to be prospering with him just now. He was getting nervous about it, wondering how long it would last. He was glad that he had been able to pay Jim a good price for the place; beyond that, when everything was cleared up and Lady Coomber’s annuity provided for, there would not be much left."
"“I suppose it’s only my fancy,” said Mr. Mowbray, “but you seem to me to grow more like Ted every year. I don’t mean in appearance, though even there I often see a look in your eyes that reminds me of him. But in other ways. Sometimes I could almost think it was he speaking.”
"“I have changed,” said Anthony. “I feel it myself. His death made a great void in my life. I felt that I had been left with a wound that would never heal. And then one day the thought came to me — it can hardly be called a thought. I heard his very voice speaking to me, with just that little note of irritation in it that always came to him when he was arguing and got excited. ‘ I am not dead,’ he said. ‘How foolishly you are talking. How can I be dead while you are thinking of me — while you still love me and are wanting me. Who wants the dead? It is because you know I live, and that I love you, and always shall, that you want me. I am not dead. I am with you.’”
"“Yes,” said Mr. Mowbray after a little pause, “he loved you very dearly. I was puzzled at first, because I thought you so opposite to one another. But now I know that it was my mistake.”"
"Betty had been quite frank with him, or so he had thought.
"“It’s fortunate we didn’t marry,” she said. “What a muddle it would have ended in — or else a tragedy. Do you remember that talk we had one evening?”
"“Yes,” he answered. “You said that if you ever married it would be a man who would ‘like’ you — think of you as a friend, a comrade.”
"“I know,” she laughed. “To be candid, I had you in my mind at the moment. I thought that you would always be so sane — the sort of husband one could rely upon never to kick over the traces. Curious how little we know one another.”
"“Would you really have been satisfied?” he asked, “when it came to the point. Would not you have demanded love as your right?”
"“I don’t think so,” she answered, musing. “I suppose the explanation is that a woman’s love is maternal rather than sexual. It is the home she is thinking of more than the lover. Of course, I don’t mean in every case. There are women for whom there exists one particular He, or no other. But I fancy they are rare.”
"“I wonder sometimes,” he said, “what would have happened to me if I’d never met her? I suppose I should have gone on being quite happy and contented.”
"“There are finer things than happiness,” she answered."
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"They came together over John Anthony, the elder and the younger Mrs. Strong’nth’arm."
"LADY COOMBER joined them in the spring. ... She took more interest in the child than Eleanor had expected. She stole him away one morning, and was laughing when she brought him back. She had shown him to her birds and they had welcomed him with much chirruping and fluttering; and after that, whenever he saw her with her basket on her arm, he would stretch out his arms to her for her to take him with her.
"Another child was born to them in the winter. They called him after Eleanor’s brother Jim; and later came a girl. They called her Norah. And then Eleanor fell ill. Anthony was terror-stricken. ... He would set to work at once upon those model dwellings. It was always easy for him now to find financial backing for his plans. He remembered Betty’s argument: “I wouldn’t have anything started that couldn’t be made to pay its own way in the long run. If it can’t do that it isn’t real. It isn’t going to last.” She was right. As a sound business proposition, the thing would live and grow. It was justice not charity that the world stood most in need of. He worked it out. For the rent these slum landlords were exacting for insanitary hovels the workers could be housed in decent flats. Eleanor’s illness had been pronounced dangerous. No time was to be lost. The ground was bought and cleared. Landripp, the architect, threw himself into his labours with enthusiasm."
"Eleanor came back to him more beautiful, it seemed to him, than she had ever been. They walked together, hand in hand, on the moor. She wanted to show him how strong she was. And coming to the old white thorn at the parting of the ways, she had raised her face to his; and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met, as if it had been for the first time.
"She would be unable to bear more children, but that did not trouble them. Little Jim and Norah grew and waxed strong and healthy. Norah promised to be the living image of her mother. She had her mother’s faults and failings that Anthony so loved; her mother’s wilfulness with just that look of regal displeasure when anyone offended or opposed her. But also with suggestion of her mother’s graciousness and kindness.
"Jim, likewise, took after the Coomber family. He had his uncle’s laughing eyes and all his obstinacy, so Eleanor declared. He was full of mischief, but had coaxing ways and was the idol of the servants’ hall.
"John was more of the dreamer. Lady Coomber had taught him to read. She had grown strangely fond of the child. In summer time they would take their books into the garden. They had green hiding-places known only to themselves. And in winter they had their “cave” behind the great carved screen in the library.
"As time went by Eleanor inclined more towards the two younger children. They were full of life and frolic, and were always wanting to do things. But Anthony’s heart yearned more towards John, his first-born."
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"Landripp had been killed during the building of the model dwellings. It had been his own fault. For a stout, elderly gentleman to run up and down swaying ladders, to scramble round chimney stacks, and balance himself on bending planks a hundred feet above the ground was absurd. There were younger men who could have done all that, who warned Mr. Landripp of the risks that he was running. He had insisted on supervising everything himself. The work from its commencement had been to him a labour of love. He was fearful lest a brick should be ill-laid.
"Anthony had a curious feeling of annoyance as he looked upon the bruised and broken heap of rubbish that had once been his friend. Landripp had been dead when they picked him up. They had put him on a stretcher and carried him round to his office. Anthony had heard the news almost immediately, and had reached Bruton Square as the men were coming out. The body lay on the big table in the room where he and Anthony had had their last long talk. The face had not suffered and the eyes were open. There may have been a lingering consciousness still behind them, for it seemed to Anthony that for an instant they smiled at him. And then suddenly the light went out of them."
"Landripp had left his daughter a few thousands, and she had decided to open a school again at Bruton Square, in the rooms that her father had used for his offices. Inheriting his conscientiousness, she had entered a training college to qualify herself as a teacher. Towards the end quite a friendship had existed between Mrs. Strong’nth’arm and the Landripps. With leisure and freedom from everlasting worry her native peasant wit had blossomed forth and grown; and Landripp had found her a wise talker. She had become too feeble for the long walk up to The Abbey, but was frightened of the carriage with its prancing horses. So often Eleanor would send little John down to spend the afternoon with her. Old Mrs. Newt was dead, and, save for a little maid, she was alone in the house. She made no claim with regard to the two younger children. It was only about John she was jealous.
"One day she took the child to see the house in Platt’s Lane where his father had been born. Old Witlock had finished his tinkering. His halfwitted son Matthew lived there by himself. No one else ever entered it. Matthew cooked his own meals and kept the place scrupulously clean. Most of the twenty-four hours he spent in the workshop. His skill and honesty brought him more jobs than he needed, but he preferred to remain single-handed. The workshop door was never closed. All day, summer and winter, so long as Matthew was there working, it remained wide open. At night Matthew slept there in a corner sheltered from the wind, and then it would be kept halfclosed, but so that anyone who wished could enter. He would never answer questions as to this odd whim of his, and his neighbours had ceased thinking about it. They took a great fancy to one another, Matthew and the child. Old Mrs. Strong’nth’arm would sometimes leave him there, and his father would call for him on the way home. He had taken for his own the stool on which wandering Peter had many years ago carved the King of the Gnomes. And there he would sit by the hour swinging his little legs, discussing things in general with Matthew while he worked. At the child’s request Anthony had bought the house and workshop so that Matthew might never fear being turned out.
"There grew up in the child a strange liking for this dismal quarter, or rather three-quarters of the town of Millsborough that lay around Platt’s Lane. Often, when his father called for him of an afternoon at Bruton Square he would plead for a walk in their direction before going home. He liked the moorland, too, with its bird life and its little creeping things in brake and cover that crouched so still while one passed by. There he would shout and scamper; and when he was tired his father would carry him on his shoulder. But in the long, sad streets he was less talkative.
"One day, walking through them, Anthony told him how, long ago, before the mean streets came, there had been green fields and flowers, with a little river winding its way among the rocks and through deep woods."
"It had to be further explained to John that the riches of the valley did not belong to the people who lived and died in the valley, who dug the coal and iron or otherwise handled it. To be quite frank, these sad-eyed men and women who now dwelt beside the foul, black Wyndbeck were perhaps worse off than their forbears who had dwelt here when the Wyndbeck flowed through sunlit fields and shady woods, undreaming of the hidden wealth that lay beneath their careless feet. But to a few who lived in fine houses, more or less far away, in distant cities, in pleasant country places. It was these few who had been made well off and happy by the riches of the valley. The workers of the valley did not even know the names of these scattered masters of theirs."
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"There came a day when Betty returned to take up her residence at The Priory. Since her father’s death she had been travelling. At first she and Anthony had corresponded regularly. They had discussed religion, politics, the science of things in general; he telling her of changes and happenings at home, and she telling him of her discoveries abroad. She wanted to see everything there was to be seen for herself, and then seek to make use of her knowledge. She would, of course, write a book. But after his eldest son’s death, which had happened when the child was about eight years old, Anthony for a time had not cared to write. Added to which there were long periods during which Betty had disappeared into ways untrodden of the postman. Letters had passed between them at ever-lengthening intervals, dealing so far as Anthony was concerned chiefly with business matters. It seemed idle writing about himself, his monotonous prosperity and unclouded domestic happiness. There were times when he would have been glad of a friend to whom he could have trusted secrets, but the thread had been broken. Conscious of strange differences in himself, he could not be sure that Betty likewise had not altered. Her letters remained friendly, often affectionate, but he no longer felt he knew her. Indeed there came to him the doubt that he ever had.
"It was on a winter’s afternoon that Anthony, leaving his office, walked across to The Priory to see her. She had been back about a week, but Anthony had been away up north on business."
"He was looking up at her puzzled. “I’ve got it,” he said suddenly.
"“Got what?” she laughed.
"“The difference in you,” he answered. “You were the elder of us when I saw you last, and now you are the younger. I don’t mean merely in appearance.”
"“It’s a shame,” she answered gravely. “You’ve been making money for me to spend. It’s that has made you old. They’re all so old, the moneymakers. I’ve met so many of them. Haven’t you made enough?”
"“Oh, it isn’t that,” he answered. “It gets to be a habit. I shouldn’t know what else to do with myself now.”
"She made him talk about himself. It was difficult at first, there seemed so little to tell. Jim was at Rugby and was going into the Guards. His uncle, Sir James, had married, and had three children, a boy and two girls. But the boy had been thrown from his pony while learning to ride and was a cripple. So it was up to young Strong’nth’arm to take over the Coomber tradition. As he would have plenty of money all would be easy. His uncle was still in India, but was coming back in the spring. He had been appointed to Aldershot.
"Norah was at Cheltenham. The Coomber girls had always gone to Cheltenham. She had ideas of her own and was anxious herself to cut school life short and finish her education abroad in Vienna. One of the disadvantages of being rich was that it separated you from your children. But for that the boy could have gone to his old friend Tetteridge. So far as education was concerned, he would have done better. The girl could have gone to Miss Landripp’s at Bruton Square. They would have been all together and it would have been jolly.
"Eleanor was wonderful. Betty would find her looking hardly a day older than when she had last seen her.
"Betty laughed. “Good for you, lad,” she said. “It means you are still seeing her through lover’s eyes. It’s seventeen years ago, the date you are speaking of.”
"Anthony could hardly believe it at first, but had to yield to facts. He still maintained that Eleanor was marvellous. Most women in her position would have clamoured for fashion and society, would have filled The Abbey with her swell friends and acquaintances, among whom Anthony would always have felt himself an outsider; would have insisted on a town house and a London season, Homburg and the Riviera, all that sort of thing, leaving Anthony to grind away at the money mill in Millsborough. That was what his mother had always feared. His mother had changed her opinion about Eleanor long ago. She had come to love her. Of course, when Norah came home there would have to be changes. But by that time it would all fit in. He would be done with money-making. He had discovered — or, rather, Eleanor had discovered it for him — that he was a good speaker. She had had to bully him at first into making the attempt, and the result had surprised even her. He might go into Parliament. Not with any idea of a political career, but to advocate reforms that he had in his mind. Parliament gave one a platform. One spoke to the whole country.
"Tea had been brought. They were sitting opposite to one another at a small table near the fire.
"“It reminds one of old times,” said Betty. “Do you remember our long walks and talks together up on the moor, we three. We had to shout to drown the wind.”
"He did not answer immediately. He was looking at a reflection of himself in a small Venetian mirror on the opposite wall. It came back to him what old Mr. Mowbray had once said to him as to his growing likeness to Ted. There was a suggestion, he could see it himself, especially about the eyes.
"“Yes,” he answered. “I remember. Ted was the dreamer. He dreamed of a new world. You were for the practical. You wanted improvements made in the old.”
"“Yes,” she answered. “I thought it could be done.”
"He shook his head.
"“You were wrong,” he said. “We were the dreamers. It was Ted had all the common sense.”
"“Oh, yes, I go on,” he said in answer to her look. “What else is to be done. There used to be hope in the world. Now one has to pretend to hope. I hoped model dwellings were going to do away with the slums. There are miles more slums in Millsborough to-day than there were ten years ago; and myself, if I had to choose now I’d prefer the slums. I’d feel less like being in prison. But we did all we could. We put them in baths. It was a new idea in Millsborough. The local Press was shocked. ‘Pampering the Proletariat,’ was one of their headlines. They could have saved their ink. Our bath was used to keep the coals in. If they didn’t do that they emptied their slops into it. It saved them the trouble of walking to the sink. We gave them all the latest sanitary improvements, and they block the drains by turning the places into dustbins. And those that don’t, throw their muck out of window. They don’t want cleanliness and decency. They were born and bred in mud and the dirt sticks to them; and they bring up their children not to mind it. And so it will go on. Of course, there are the few. You will find a few neat homes in the filthiest of streets. But they are lost among the mass, just as they were before. It has made no permanent difference. Millsborough is blacker, fouler, viler than it was when we started in to clean it. Garden suburbs. We began one of those five years ago on the slopes above Leeford, and already it has its Alsatia where its disreputables gather together for mutual aid and comfort. What is it all but clearing a small space and planting a garden in the middle of a jungle. Sooner or later the jungle closes in again. Every wind blows in seeds."
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Betty told about travelling from San Francisco to Hong Kong and conversation with a Chinese gentleman.
" ... Suddenly I heard him say that the great stumbling-block in the way of man’s progress was God. Coming from anybody else the remark would have irritated me; but I knew he wasn’t trying to be clever; and as he went on to explain himself I found myself in agreement with him. Man’s idea of God is of some all-powerful Being who is going to do everything for him. Man has no need to exert himself. God, moving in mysterious ways, is labouring to make the world a paradise where man may dwell in peace and happiness. All man has to do is to trust in God and practise patience. Man, if he took the task in hand for himself could turn this world into a paradise to-morrow without waiting for God. But it would mean man giving up his greeds and passions. It is easier to watch and pray. God has promised man the millennium, in the dim and distant future. Men by agreeing together could have the millennium ready in time for their own children. ..."
"“God is within us. We are God. Man’s free will is boundless. His future is in his own hands. Man has only to control his evil instincts and heaven is here; Man can conquer himself. Of his own will, he does so every day. For the purposes of business, of pleasure, of social intercourse, he puts a curb upon his lusts and passions. It is only the savage, the criminal that lets them master him. Man is capable of putting greed and selfishness out of his life. History, a record of man’s sin and folly, is also a record of man’s power to overcome within himself the obstacles that stand in the way of his own progress.
"“Garibaldi called upon his volunteers to disregard all worldly allurements, to embrace suffering, wounds and death for the cause of Italian unity.
"And the young men flocked to his banners. Let the young men once grasp that not God but they themselves can win for all mankind freedom and joy, and an ever-increasing number of them will be willing to make the necessary sacrifice."
"Betty put in two or three years at The Priory on and off, occupying herself chiefly with writing. But the wanderlust had got into her blood, and her book finished she grew restless."
"She was going into central Russia. She had passed through there some years ago and had happened upon one of its ever recurring famines. There was talk of another in the coming winter.
"“The granary of Europe,” she continued. “I believe we import one-third of our grain from Russia. And every year the peasants die there of starvation by the thousand. That year I was there they reckoned a hundred thousand perished in one valley. They were eating the corpses of the children. And on my way to St. Petersburg I passed stations were the corn was rotting by the roadside. The price had fallen and it wasn’t worth transporting. The devil must get some fun looking down upon the world.”"
"There had followed a silence. How long it lasted neither could have told. The door opened and Eleanor entered.
"Betty explained that they might not be meeting again for some time. She was off to Russia. Eleanor was curious and Betty explained her plans.
"Eleanor was seated on the arm of Anthony’s chair.
"She jumped down from her perch, and taking Betty’s face in her hands kissed her.
"“How fine of you,” she said. “I rather envy you.”"
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"In the morning there had been the unveiling of the war memorial, the great granite cross with the four bronze guns at its base. It stood high up on the crest of the moor, for all the town to see, the sky for its background; and carved in golden letters round its pedestal, so that the cold grey cross seemed, as it were, to have grown out of their blood, the names of the young men who had given their lives that England might rejoice. His speech had been a supreme success. It had moved the people as such speeches rarely do, for with every word he uttered he had been thinking of himself.
"Even his two children, occasionally critical of him, had congratulated him. The boy had had tears in his eyes. He had looked very handsome in his weather-stained uniform, in spite of the angry scar across his cheek. He had taken things into his own hands at the beginning of the war, had enlisted as a private, and had won his commission on the field. For Norah, the war had happened at a providential moment. During the suffrage movement she had caused Eleanor many a sleepless night. The war had caught her up and directed her passions into orthodox channels. It had done even better for her. It had thrown her into the company of quite a nice boy, with only a consumptive cousin between him and an ancient peerage. To Anthony himself, the war had brought, without any effort of his own, increasing wealth and power. Millsborough had become a shining centre for the output of munitions. Anthony’s genius for organization had been the motive force behind. At the luncheon that had followed the unveiling of the memorial a Cabinet Minister had dropped hints. Eleanor’s prophecy of long ago that Anthony would become a millionaire with a seat in the House of Lords would all come true.
"In the evening the great new dining-room, fashioned out of the ruins of what had once been the monk’s refectory, had been thrown open for the first time. All their world and his wife had dined there; his fellow-townsmen who had grown up with him, who had watched, admired and envied his marvellous career; county folk from far and near; famous folk, humble folk. The Reverend Horace Pendergast, most eloquent of divines, and soon to be a bishop, had proposed the toast of “The uncrowned king of Millsborough,” his dear and well-beloved cousin Anthony Strong’nth’arm — had quoted scripture appropriate in speaking of one so evidently singled out for favour by the Lord. General Sir James Coomber, in a short, blunt speech, had seconded the toast, claiming merit for himself as having from the first, and against family opposition, encouraged his sister to stick to her guns and marry the man of her choice. Not that she had needed much encouragement, Jim had added amid laughter. She would have done it, was Jim’s opinion, if all the King’s horses and all the King’s men had tried to prevent her. And from Eleanor, seated at the other end of the long table, had come a distinct “Hear, hear,” followed by more laughter. Others, one after another, had risen spontaneously to add their testimony to the honour and affection with which he was regarded throughout Millsborough, and all round about."
"He had made his plans. He would rent a small house, next door to where his mother still lived in Bruton Square, and practise there as a solicitor. The old lady was still active and capable. If need be — if he had to go alone — she could keep house for him. He was keen on Bruton Square. It was where the mean part of the town began. It would not be too far for the poor to come to him. The little modest house would not frighten them with suggestion of charges beyond their means, of contemptuous indifference to their unprofitable bits of business. He would be able to help them, to keep them from falling into the hands of charlatans. They would come to trust him in their troubles. He might often be able to serve as mediator, as peacemaker between them. It would be a legitimate way of earning his living.
"It was essential that he should earn his living. That seemed to him of tremendous importance."
"HE had not asked her for an answer. She had promised to think it out. She might wish to talk it over with Jim. She and Jim had always been very near to one another. And there were the children to be consulted. She was to be quite free to choose. Everything would be arranged according to her decision. He had said nothing to persuade her — unless he had hoped that by explaining to her his own reasons he might influence her — and beyond a few questions she had remained a silent listener. It was shamefacedly, as one confessing a guilty secret, that he had told her. From the tones of his voice, the look in his eyes, she had read his unconscious pleading to her to come with him. But whether she went with him or stayed behind would make no difference to his going. It was that had hardened her.
"To a certain extent she had been prepared. Ever since the child John’s death she had felt the change that was taking place in him. There was an Anthony she did not know, dimly associated in her mind with that lover of her dream who standing by the latchet gate had beckoned to her, and from whom she had hidden herself, afraid. She had set herself to turn his thoughts aside towards social reform, philanthropy. It was with this idea she had urged him to throw himself into public affairs, to prepare for Parliament. She had hoped for that. There she could have helped him. It would have satisfied her own craving to be doing something herself.
"And then the war had engulfed them, obliterating all other horizons: it had left her nothing but her animal emotions. Her boy’s life! She could think of nothing else. Norah was in France; and she also was in the danger zone. The need of work — distraction obsessed her. She had found a rambling old house, far away upon the moors, and had converted it into a convalescent hospital.
"Labour was scarce and the entire management had fallen upon her own shoulders. Anthony’s duties had confined him to Millsborough. For years they had seen one another only for a few hours at a time. There had been no opportunity for intimate talk. It was not until her return home to The Abbey that her fear had come back to her. There was no definable reason. It was as if it had always been there — a presence, waiting its time. One evening, walking in the garden, she had seen him standing there by the latchet gate, and had crept back into the house. She had the feeling that it would be there, by the latchet gate, that he would tell her. So long as she could avoid meeting him there she could put it off, indefinitely. The surer she felt of it, the more important it seemed to her to put it off — for a little while longer."
"Why should it seem so impossible? Her present ordered existence, mapped out from year to year, calling for neither thought nor effort, admitting of neither hope nor fear, the sheltered life of a pampered child — had not that also its dullness, its monotony? Why did rich people rent sæters in Norway, live there for months at a time on hunter’s fare, doing their own cooking and cleaning — welcome the perils and hardships of mountain climbing; of big game shooting; of travels into unknown lands: choose danger, privation and toil, and call it a “holiday”? Had not she herself found the simple living and hard work of the hospital a welcome change from everlasting luxuriousness?"
" ... It came back to her, the memory of her girlhood’s days when they had lived in third-rate boarding-houses in Rome and Florence; rented small furnished appartements in French provincial towns; cheap lodgings in Dresden and Hanover. There had been no lack of fun and laughter in those days. Those musical evenings to which each student brought his own beer, and was mightily careful to take back with him the empty bottles, for which, otherwise, ten pfennigs would be charged. How busy she and her mother had been beforehand, cutting the sandwiches and how sparing of the butter. Some of the players had made world-famous names; and others had died or maybe still lived — unknown. One of them she had heard just recently, paying ten guineas for her box; but his music had sounded no sweeter than when she had listened to it sitting beside Jim on the uncarpeted floor, there not being chairs enough to go round. Where had she heard better talk than from the men with shiny coat sleeves and frayed trousers who had come to sup with her father off macaroni and chianti at two lire the flask? There might be clever, brilliant men and women even in Millsborough. So far as she could judge she had never succeeded in securing any of them for her great receptions at The Abbey. They might be less shy of dropping in at Bruton Square."
"Had she thought like that, during the war, of the men who had given money but who had shirked the mud and blood of the trenches — of the shouters who had pointed out to others the gate of service?
"Neither rich nor poor, neither great nor simple — only comrades. Would it ever be won, the war to end war — man’s victory over himself?"
"And suddenly it came to her that this was the Great Adventure of the World, calling to the brave and hopeful to follow, heedless, where God’s trumpet led. Somewhere — perhaps near, perhaps far — there lay the Promised Land. It might be theirs to find it — at least to see it from afar. If not — ! Their feet should help to mark the road.
"Yes, she too would give up her possessions; put fear behind her. Together, hand in hand, they would go forward, joyously."
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October 08, 2020 -
October 12, 2020 - October 13, 2020.
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