The Prisoners of Hartling/Chapter 4

HE garden was certainly wonderful. The modern house, although it had a well-designed south elevation, in which effective use had been made of mullioned oriel windows corbelled out from the first floor, was less successful inside—if the architect's intention had been to give the impression of age and dignity. The decoration and arrangement conveyed the effect of a really first-class hotel rather than that of an Elizabethan Manor, or even of a, gentleman's country-house. This may have been due to the fact that it had been built in the late 'seventies of the last century, a bad period for country-house architecture; or it may have been a result of the exercise of old Mr Kenyon's domestic taste in furniture arrangement.

No such indictment could be brought against the garden. It was unique in its variety—full of contrasts and surprises; a place to explore, and to get lost in, but more particularly a place that had a dozen settings from which the seeker might choose a mood.

Arthur, finding new cause for astonishment and rapture at every turn, was enthusiastic in his expressions of admiration. After French battlefields, base hospitals, and Peckham, this garden seemed to him a true fairyland.

Even the melancholy Hubert became a trifle more cheerful.

"Yes, it is pretty good, isn't it?" he agreed. "'Course it has been worked at, day and night almost, you might say, for forty years."

"What happened to it during the war?" Arthur asked.

"Four of our gardeners were over age," Hubert said, "and we got boys to work under them. At first, that is. We had some wounded Tommies afterwards."

"You weren't in it yourself?" Arthur asked.

Hubert coloured faintly. "No, my grandfather got me a job in a Government office," he said. "I wanted to join up, but he wouldn't let me. I'm sort of steward to this place, you know. There are a couple of farms and so on to look after. Not that I have much to do. However, what I mean is that my grandfather made a tremendous point of keeping me out of the Army, and it was rather difficult for me to disobey him right out. He's—he's not altogether easy to handle."

"Bit of an autocrat in his way?" Arthur suggested.

Hubert looked uneasy. "In a way, yes," he agreed; and Arthur inferred that a tactful change of subject was advisable.

"Have you got names for all these different parts of the garden?" he asked, choosing the most obvious topic.

Hubert did not appear to have heard the question. He was frowning and fidgeting; he had the look of a weak man trying to make an important decision.

"You don't know him, do you?" he said. "What I mean is, you've never been here since you came as a boy, and you've never kept in with us or anything?"

"No, he's to all intents and purposes an utter stranger to me," Arthur agreed.

"Just come down to have a look at us, then?" Hubert continued, with a feeble affectation of sprightliness.

"Well, you and my aunt are about the only relations I've got," Arthur replied. "And as Aunt Hannah wrote out of the blue, as it were, and invited me to come down, I was glad of the opportunity."

"Oh! yes, exactly," Hubert said. "I can understand that all right."

Arthur was aware again of that sense of irritation that had come to him when he had been trying to talk to Miss Kenyon. He felt as if his cousin, in another manner, was also opposing him, was in some way suspicious and inimical.

"Well what is it you don't understand?" he asked curtly.

Hubert smiled, with the placatory air of a dog that has been threatened. He was standing with his feet crossed and rocked slowly from one to the other as he spoke.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted the old man's influence for anything, get you a job as medical attendant to anyone or something of that sort."

"Good Lord, no," Arthur returned brusquely. "Never entered my head for a moment. Didn't I tell you that I thought of going out to Canada for a year or two?"

So that was why these Kenyons had been unfriendly. They believed that he had come down there cadging for influence. He grew warm at the thought of that implication, and raised his voice slightly as he continued:—

"Pretty rotten aspersion to make that, wasn't it, Hubert? After Aunt Hannah had written and invited me to come down?"

"Don't see anything rotten in it. Natural enough," Hubert replied, still rocking gently and looking down at his crossed ankles. "However—sorry. There's no need to get excited about it." He looked up and added: "Here's Eleanor. You haven't met her yet."

They had been standing in a little cloister of formal garden, shut in by a sturdy box hedge, pierced only by two openings at the opposite corners, and Arthur's back had been presented to the opening through which they had entered. He turned with a touch of impatience at the indication of Hubert's introduction, to meet this new Kenyon connection—the orphan who acted as secretary to her grandfather. He was not predisposed in her favour. Hubert had put a new idea into his head by accusing him of cadging for influence. Was it not probable that all these descendants of the old man were, in some sense, at least, trying to "keep in" with him, trying to win his special favour for their own ends?

But at his first sight of her, Arthur saw that Eleanor was different from the others. There was something alive and individual about her, she had not that effect of a slight staleness which the other members of the family seemed to convey.

"This is Arthur Woodroffe," Hubert said, completing the introduction.

She gave Arthur her hand, regarding him, he thought, with a strangely intent look of anxiety.

"I heard you quarrelling as I came," she said. "Rather soon, isn't it?"

She had a pleasant voice, with a musical, soothing tone; the voice of a woman who would make a good nurse, Arthur thought.

"I don't know that we'd got as far as a quarrel," he said. "I confess that my new-found cousin, Hubert, annoyed me rather."

Hubert raised his eyebrows. He had not moved when Eleanor joined them, and still stood in that uneasy looking pose of his. "Can't imagine why," he said. "Only asked him if he wanted grandfather's influence to get a job anywhere."

Eleanor frowned faintly and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh! my good Hubert, how unoriginal of you," she said.

Arthur was faintly perplexed by the adjective. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I was just telling Hubert that what I want to do is to go out to Canada."

Eleanor's expression perceptibly brightened. She might have been the recipient of good news. "How splendid," she said warmly, "to go to a new and free country like that."

Arthur accepted that statement as a true expression of feeling. There had been a warmth, an air of admiring congratulation in her tone, that enchanted him after the chilliness of his reception in the drawing-room.

"It would be rather a jolly adventure," he said. "I've got enough money for my passage, and outfit, and all that, and I don't suppose I should have any difficulty in getting a post of some kind out there."

She was about to reply when Hubert unhitched himself and remarking that he had something to do before dinner, wandered aimlessly away in the direction of the lower garden.

For a moment the thread of the conversation was broken. Both Arthur and Eleanor were watching the departing figure of their cousin, and, as often happens when a third person leaves a group, the other two were aware of an impulse to speak of him.

"Poor old Hubert," Eleanor murmured in an undertone. "There's probably nothing in the world he would like better than to go to Canada."

Arthur was surprised. He had already made some sort of estimate of his cousin's character, and sized him up roughly as a "feeble sort of rotter."

"Well, then, why doesn't he?" he asked.

"I shouldn't be surprised if he did," Eleanor replied, looking thoughtfully across the formal garden. "However, I dare say he'll tell you about it himself when he knows you a little better. You're—you're rather new to us just at present. We're so secluded here. We don't very often see people from the outside."

Arthur marked that repetition of his aunt'taunt's [sic] phrase with a slight sense of uneasiness. "Queer thing to say," he remarked. "Why from the 'outside'? Aunt Hannah used the same expression at tea. Sounds rather as if you were all confined in a prison or an asylum."

Eleanor blushed and bit her lip. "Yes, it's a stupid phrase," she said quickly. "I didn't mean it the least in that way. Only we are so—what shall I say?—so self-sufficient. We've everything we want, nearly; and—oh! never mind. Is this as much of the garden as you've seen?" She led him across the little quadrangular enclosure as she continued: "I should like to show you my favourite place, if you haven't been there yet. It's just a little lower down, on the terrace, overlooking the stream and the lake. And I want you to tell me about Canada. You're a full-fledged doctor, aren't you? Aunt Hannah said you wrote from Peckham. Were you practising there?"

As they made their way to the terrace she had indicated, Arthur told her something of his work in Peckham and of his reasons for wishing to leave it. He expected sympathy from her, but he found none.

"I dare say it was dirty," was her comment—his insistence on that aspect had demanded a reply—"but it was work, real work. You were doing some good in the world."

They had reached the terrace now, and from where they stood they overlooked a croquet lawn—flush and smooth as a green carpet—bounded on its further side by the row of wych elms and the stream. Beyond, they could see the falling slope of the garden down to the shrubberies that hid the wall; but from this point there was no vista of the rich Sussex landscape without.

Arthur sighed. "I had had six years of it," he said, "and I had a sort of feeling that I wanted to—to recover my youth for a bit. I wanted to try something of this sort for a change."

"Of this sort?" she repeated on a note of perplexity.

"I suppose it's impossible for you to realise what it means to me," he replied. "You've had it always. You think just because this is what you're used to and perhaps tired of, that it's very splendid and exhilarating to work in the slums. If you had had my experience, you'd understand that to me this garden seems a sort of Paradise. You can't appreciate the attractions of this sort of life unless you come in, as I do—from the outside."

She was obviously troubled by that outburst. "And how long do you think you could stand being shut in here?" she asked, after a pause.

"At this moment, it seems to me that I could stand quite a lot of it," Arthur said.

He knew that he was not saying the things she wanted him to say. He could feel her longing to hear him disparage the delights of Hartling and enlarge upon those of what she had called "real work." But her very urgency made it impossible for him to respond in his present mood. Also, he was aware of a curious desire to contradict her, even to hurt her. It was, as he put it to himself, all very well for her to talk about things she knew nothing about. He looked at her with a new criticism, and her youth and freshness seemed almost an offence. The whiteness of her hands, the spotlessness of her pale gray linen dress, the clearness of her complexion and of her blue eyes, even the lines of her firm, well-nourished young figure were all effects of the protected life she had lived. It was not for her to find fault with him for wanting some share of the luxury that to the Kenyons had become commonplace.

"You surely don't mean that you would care to stay—to live here?" she was saying.

The little bark of laughter with which he replied held a note of derision.

"Does it seem so extraordinary," he said, "that after five years of dirt and disease and unmentionable minor tortures, a man should hanker after a little cleanliness and comfort?"

She shook her head. "No, no, of course not," she said. "I didn't in the least mean that. I'd like you to have a rest. You've earned it. It's just that … this sort of thing can't go on always. You wouldn't like, would you, to stay here indefinitely, even if you could?"

He knew that he was being a trifle perverse as he answered that. "Too good to be true," he said.

She looked at him again with that look of earnest inquiry with which she had first greeted him. "If you really think that …" she began, and then stopped abruptly. "We ought to be getting back," she went on in another tone. "Dinner is at eight. We shall only have half an hour to dress. You'll see my grandfather this evening. He sent you a message and I came out to give it to you, but … However, he told me to ask you if you couldn't stay on for a day or two; whether you need go back to town on Monday? I'll tell him what you've said. Do you mind if I go on? I have one or two things to see to before dinner."

Before he had time to answer, she was running back towards the house. She ran lightly and gracefully, with the ease and vigour of an active girl of twenty.

Arthur following, kept her in sight as long as he could.

"Rather a 'ripper,' " was the comment that came first to his mind. It was followed by the determination to stay at Hartling as long as they could put up with him—or he with them. In his thought of "them" he was picturing the "crowd" he had met at tea-time.

Dressing for dinner was a delightful experience. Eleanor, whether deliberately or not, had made a mistake in the time, and when Arthur had found his room with the help of the butler, he had a full thirty-five minutes in which to dress.

The first five of them were spent in a blissful revel in his surroundings. He had a bathroom all to himself—a perfect bathroom with white walls above a tiled dado of pale green that curved round smoothly at its base to form a tiled floor of the same colour. The bath and lavatory basin were of white porcelain with nickel-silver taps, and the ample bossy towel rails heated by hot water, were also of nickel silver.

And his bedroom was so bright and exquisitely clean. It was done in the modern style with simple effective furniture almost devoid of mouldings. The motive of the colour scheme was an unobtrusive blue, taken up in the carpet, the faintly patterned wallpaper and the linen curtains at the window. And from the window itself, the approach to which was not encumbered by furniture, he could look out above the shrubberies and the wall and catch glimpses between the trees of the great swelling lines of Sussex, of the immense background and setting of this jewelled Hartling garden.

He leaned out and sniffed the sweetness of the evening air. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been in the midst of London foulness, irritable with the grit and dust of a hot evening in late May. Now he had this freshness and sweetness to savour and delight in. The contrast was that between Hell and Heaven. Already his skin felt cleaner.

With a sudden whoop of joy he came back into the room and began to strip himself. He would have a bath at once, and another when he came to bed. Lovely hot water, nice soap, and splendid warm towels. Ripping house! Would he stay as long as he could? Wouldn't he rather! He would stay altogether if he had the chance. Lord, what fools these people were downstairs, not to know when they were well off.

He was putting on his dinner jacket as the second gong sounded, and he tore down the stairs just in time to join the straggling procession that was crossing the hall. They had not waited for him.

He caught his uncle looking at him with a smile, and ranged himself beside him.

"Feel pretty young, what?" his uncle said with a chuckle.

"Fairly fresh," Arthur agreed. "Jolly place, this."

"Yes, fine place," his uncle admitted.

Arthur, remembering that his uncle was the eldest son, and would probably inherit the property, decided that he was a person to be propitiated. Also, he seemed, on the whole, to be less inimical than the others.

When they reached the dining-room, Arthur had his first sight of the founder and head of the House of Kenyon.

He was already seated at the far end of the long, narrow table, and as the family went to their places he watched them with a calm paternal smile of satisfaction. Then, almost by chance it seemed, his glance rested on the new-comer, and his expression changed to one of more vivid interest. He made a slight inclination of the head in Arthur's direction, and turning to his daughter-in-law said in a clear, thin voice:—

"Hannah! Bring Arthur Woodroffe up and introduce him to me."

He called it an introduction, but there was, Arthur thought, a dignity about the formal request that gave the function almost the air of a presentation.

But here, at least, was no sign of that aloofness which had marked his reception by the rest of the family. The old man was gracious and friendly.

"Eleanor gave me your message," he said. "I'm so glad that you will be able to stay with us for a few days. We must have a talk. I want to hear something of your experiences in the war. But not to-night." His smile had again that gentle, paternal quality as he concluded with a nod of dismissal. "You must indulge the humours of a very old man, and let me choose my own time."

Arthur went back to his place at the other end of the table, with a faint sense of awe.

Mr Kenyon was certainly a wonderful old man. Arthur's mind reverted continually to that thought in the fairly long intervals between the snatches of polite conversation he held with Miss Kenyon, who was on his right at the foot of the table, or with his pretty but uninteresting Cousin Elizabeth on his other side. Hubert, who was immediately opposite, was plunged in a melancholy silence.

But in what, precisely, the wonder of Mr. Kenyon lay, Arthur was a little uncertain. His appearance was certainly striking. He had abundant white hair, not dead white like his eldest daughter's, but with the smooth sheen like the gloss of a pearl, and with something too of an old pearl's cream in the colour. His eyes were a pale blue, with a hint of brilliance that was lacking in his daughter, who greatly resembled him in many ways. But the queer thing that Arthur presently disentangled from his analysis was that the old man, in spite of his alertness and vigour, looked his age; looked, indeed, as if he might have been any age. His skin was not so much lined as crinkled. There were no deep furrows in his face, but the skin had the appearance of a piece of paper that had been crushed into a tight ball and then partly smoothed out. He seemed to have arrived at a stage in which he might remain indefinitely. He had achieved a physical type of the old man. He might very well look precisely as he did now, in ten, twenty, or fifty years' time.

Yet, when all the effect of his appearance had been allowed for, there remained a cause for wonder about him that had not been explained. He was so amazingly self-confident and serene. With all his air of gentleness and affection, he had some quality of supremacy.

Two things Arthur noted in the course of dinner, that gave him still further material for reflection. The first, in so far as its immediate .consequences were concerned, he could not understand.

The older generation at the further end of the table had been talking about Italy, and Arthur's uncle had apparently come to life and began an enthusiastic account of the beauties of a North Italian spring. He was talking, Arthur thought, surprisingly well. He had evidently the eyes of an artist for colour. Moreover, there was an emotional undertone in his descriptions that made them peculiarly vivid.

And then old Mr Kenyon, who had been listening with a kind, approving smile, said gently:—

"I have often wondered, Joe, why you don't live in Italy. I feel that, in many ways, you would be more at home there than here."

It seemed such a friendly, fatherly speech, but the effect of it was as if his son had been brutally reproved. He coloured slightly, hung his head, and went on with his dinner in an embarrassed silence. He had the look of a man who was thoroughly cowed. His sister, Mrs Turner, who was sitting on his right, also looked rather embarrassed.

The second observation was of another kind.

The entrée had just been removed when Arthur became aware of a curious hush that had fallen upon the room. The service throughout had been quiet, unostentatiously efficient, but now the butler and his two attendant parlour-maids were moving about on tip-toe, and every sound of conversation had ceased.

Instinctively Arthur looked up the table at Mr Kenyon.

He was leaning back in his chair, his hands clasping the arms, his eyes were wide open, but stared unseeingly down the room. He looked like a man in a trance; it flashed into Arthur's mind that he looked like a dreaming god.

The servants were standing now by the sideboard, doing nothing. And for perhaps a couple of minutes the progress of the dinner was suspended. Every one sat in silence and waited until the dreaming god smiled and leaned forward again in his chair. He came back to his world with no sign of disturbance or shock. He was to all appearances unaware of the interval that had passed. And immediately, with a quiet inevitableness the subdued sounds of footsteps and low conversation crept back into the room.

Arthur remembered the remark of the chauffeur who had driven him from the station. What was it he had said? "It's as if he were sound asleep with his eyes wide open." That explanation did not satisfy Arthur's feeling for physiological probability. He wondered if it might be a case of petit mal, minor epilepsy?

He looked round the table and thought that he could detect a general air of demure resignation in the bowed faces around him. Ninety-one! They were all remembering that the old man was ninety-one. Anything might happen at that age!

He glanced across the table again and saw that Eleanor was watching him. He smiled at her, but the smile with which she answered him had no warmth in it. It was nothing but a polite response.

How jolly she looked in that soft white dress!

He returned to the enjoyment of his dinner, which seemed to him to be the best he had ever eaten. It was a simple dinner: soup, entrée, a saddle of mutton, sweet, savory, and dessert; but it was perfectly cooked and served. The clear soup had had wine in it, and a flavour that was at once delicate and strong; the entrée had had just that touch of piquancy that gave one an appetite for the joint. And the saddle was a joint to remember, so firm and tender, its richness nicely mitigated by the new potatoes and green peas that accompanied it. Arthur had a palate and could appreciate these good things. Also, although he had had a limited experience of wine, he knew that the claret was no ordinary vintage. It had an aroma like fruit. At dessert there were magnificent strawberries. Arthur found a justification for the theory that such things as new peas, potatoes, and strawberries taste better in the third week of May than at the end of June. It was, he decided, because they brought a foretaste of summer, and the anticipation has always some exquisite flavour that is lacking in the present reality. He was pleased with this conceit and tried it on Miss Kenyon.

She regarded him thoughtfully. "It may be true when one is under forty," she said. "After that, one prefers to live in the present."

He was emboldened by the claret to press the old psychological truism to its conclusion. "And later still there comes a time, I believe, when one lives chiefly in the past," he hazarded.

"It may come to some people," Miss Kenyon said, and glanced at her father down the length of the table. She had an unimpeded sight of him above the low silver dishes of fruit, that with their reflection in the rich dark mirror of the polished mahogany were an ample decoration.

Arthur had not enough courage to name the exception she so obviously had in her mind.

Over the dessert and the coffee and cigarettes that followed before Miss Kenyon rose from the table, Arthur at last discovered a subject for discussion with his cousin Elizabeth. She was, it seemed, an expert croquet player, and wanted to play in tournaments. She grew quite animated in her talk of the game, although her technicalities were beyond his knowledge.

"I'll teach you, if you like," she said. "It'll be jolly to have some one new to play with. None of the others are any good really."

"I expect I'd pick it up pretty quickly," Arthur replied with a touch of pique. "I'm fairly good at those sort of games, billiards, and golf, and so on, you know."

Elizabeth smiled the condescending smile of the expert. "It's chiefly a matter of constant practice, of course," she said. "I generally put in a couple of hours every day."

In his heart Arthur thought that croquet was rather a piffling game, and had an "inner conviction that he would very soon be able to give his cousin a good match. He made an appointment with her to take his first lesson the next morning. The Kenyons were not Sabbatarians. "No one goes to church, hardly, except mother," Elizabeth told him.

Later he discovered another example of expertise in the family. Old Mr Kenyon did not accompany his family to the drawing-room, and after a few aimless minutes, in the course of which most of the family settled themselves down to the same occupations that had engaged them after tea, Mr Turner came across the room and asked if he would "care for a game of billiards."

Arthur assented with enthusiasm. He rather fancied himself as a billiard player, and in any case there was nothing else to do. Presently he might get up a flirtation with Elizabeth, but the beginning of that could very well wait until the croquet lesson. She had looked up at him and smiled as he was leaving the drawing-room, and he had returned the smile and waved his hand.

Eleanor, presumably, was with her grandfather.

His evening's billiards served him as an object-lesson, in how the game ought to be played. After the first game, Turner gave him two hundred start in three hundred up; a handicap that produced a fairly close finish.

Turner admitted that he kept himself in practice. "Nothing much else to do," he explained, "except get licked by Elizabeth at croquet."

"And what's your game?" Arthur asked Hubert, who had strolled in while they were playing and had been marking for them.

"Play golf a bit," Hubert said. "There's quite a decent course about a mile from here. I go over most days. Give you a game any time you like."

"Well, I didn't bring any clubs down," Arthur replied. "Had no practice to speak of, you see, in the last six years, but I used to be rather keen."

"Hubert is hot stuff," Turner commented. "Plus two, isn't it, now, Hubert?"

"Three, since I won the last medal," was his nephew's reply.

"Good Lord! Why that's Amateur Championship form," Arthur exclaimed.

"Oh! hardly that!" Hubert thought. He appeared to be quite indifferent to Arthur's admiration.

When he was alone in his delightful bedroom, Arthur made a reflective audit of his day's experience. The balance he arrived at was that he would thoroughly enjoy his visit to Hartling.

Miss Kenyon was rather a dragon—a cold, practical woman, probably a very good manager, was his estimate of her—and none of them had been particularly cordial to him, although old Turner had relaxed to a certain extent when they were playing billiards. But there were overwhelming compensations to set against this small discouragement.

He looked round his bedroom and drew a deep breath of contentment, then went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. The window was open and he drew back the curtain and leaned out. What a comfort it was not to be overlooked, to know that there was nothing out there but the sweetness and serenity of the night! It gave him a sense of freedom and cleanliness, of being in touch with Nature.

But when he was in his bath his thoughts turned back to less æsthetic compensations. The great and essential question of what he was going to do at Hartling, had been solved for him. There would be games, a succession of games of various kinds, to be played with skill against opponents from whom he would be learning all the time. (That old chap Turner was a fair nailer at billiards! He played all his shots with "drag" like a professional!) He would not, of course, be able to improve his own game appreciably in three or four days, but with luck he might be asked to stay a week. He would accept like a bird if they did ask him. … He must try to entertain the old man when that promised talk came off. He was evidently the boss still, in spite of his age. The invitation to stay had come straight from him. He was an impressive old fellow too, with a remarkable air of dignity and what one spoke of vaguely as "personality." He gave you the feeling that he would get his own way about things. … His eldest son did not take after him. Rather a sloppy chap, Uncle Joe. His tie had been all round his neck by the end of dinner. Funny the way he had shut up about Italy. He was probably only a gasser, and did not in the least want to live there. He would certainly let the property down when he came into it, unless he had some one to look after it for him.

Arthur had a contempt for slackness. His opinion of his cousin had gone up a hundred per cent. since he had learnt that Hubert's handicap was "plus three." That was a form of efficiency. Melancholy-looking devil, though. They were all a bit on that side for some reason or another; looked depressed and bored, as if they were tired of waiting for something … except Eleanor. She was different from the others. Different, but not necessarily nicer. There was a touch of the school-mistress about her. She wanted to do what she thought were the right things.

Elizabeth might be amusing when one got to know her better,