Waylaid by Wireless/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE FOREBODING BRITON
"I ran across him down at St. Albans last week," Preston obeyed willingly as they loitered easily along. "I had just come into town and concluded my frantic search of the inns—for what purpose you can decide for yourself later—and had been moping about most of the afternoon.
"After dinner, however, I dropped into the billiard room. My foreboding friend was in there with five or six other properly depressed and conventionally bored Britons playing pool. They had made up one of those pleasant little games where every player has a ball of a different color and the object of each player is to pocket as many of the other balls as possible. Every time he pockets a ball of a color not his own, he collects a shilling from the owner of the ball. The marker is the polite medium of the money.
"Well, their game was just getting to be expensive enough to be sociable when I dropped in and looked on longingly.
"As usual when an American enters the room, the British drew defensively together and waited patiently for me to shock or offend them. But as I did neither at once, they decided they had made a mistake, and that I must be a Canadian, or an Australian, or a South African, or somehow belong to the Empire, for before long one of them asked me to join the game.
"I discovered then that though it is highly commendable to take money from a stranger, it is not good etiquette for the true Briton to keep it. So, to solve the difficulty presented by the desire to win my shillings without obliging any one to receive money from me, they decided to play for charity; and with that worthy object to play for half a crown a point instead of a shilling.
"They had on the wall a box for contributions for the housing and sustenance of invalided cricketers, or inveterate smokers, or some other especially pitiful group of incurables who particularly appeal to the British heart; and every time any of us pocketed a ball, the owner dropped his half crown into this willing receptacle.
"Well, the Britons had me buying crutches and cigars for the home at the very start; but, about half-past nine, the whole seven of them began to play in real form, and I must have had half the invalids in the kingdom well started toward convalescence, when the whole crowd in succession put down my ball again.
"I had stopped paying in half crowns some time before, and was dropping in gold. I took a sovereign from my pocket, therefore, and went over to drop it dutifully into the box when I noticed, with new appreciation, the sign pasted above it—"This box is for voluntary contributions only!"
"I turned about to the English and smiled hopefully and said, 'Gentlemen, up to this point, of course, it has been all right to use this box. And, of course, I am still glad to support this worthy charity. But do you not think, gentlemen, that I could put this last mite more conscientiously into some of the other boxes?'
"Well, believe me, Miss Varris, the whole seven of them, marker and all, stopped the game, put down their cues, and filed by and shook and examined the box; ascertained that it was not yet full; made sure from the proprietor of the inn that the contents were properly counted, that a receipt was regularly given, and the funds turned over weekly to the authorized collector for the Home. Then they went into executive session as to whether or not each player should not have the right to choose his own charity.
"I listened sadly for a while, then apologized for breaking up their jolly little game, and went to bed."
"Yes; and then?" the girl asked, as he paused.
"Oh, the next morning when we were all in the hotel lounge—there had been a robbery the evening before and I was standing about, watching the intense lack of excitement—old Dunneston came up to me. I could see that he had been thinking over the difficulty half the night. But he had fairly determined it at last and was in peace.
"'I say, Mr. Preston,' he said, 'I say, Mr. Preston,'—and you've heard the way he says it,—'it was rather that word "voluntary" that you stuck at a bit last night, now wasn't it, what?'"
"And what did you say?"
"Nothing. What could I? I grasped his hand in gratitude—I had then decided to keep at the cathedral towns regularly rather than haphazard—and, as I found that Mr. Dunneston, too, was committed to them for a while, I attached myself skilfully to him and have been with him ever since. Do you blame me?"
"Quite the opposite!" the girl replied. "But since you evidently wish to keep me in suspense about your mysterious purpose in these towns, at least tell me what has committed Mr. Dunneston to them."
"What? Oh, didn't I tell you? He's qualifying for his income!"
"Qualifying for his income—by going about the cathedral towns?"
"Exactly." Preston smiled again as he recollected. "You see, so far as old John Bull has volunteered already, it seems that the founder of the family—whom he tells me he resembles, by the way—was some able old baronial marauder before the War of the Roses, or sometime 'way back when people still used to repent of the way they got their money. At any rate, this old chap, after robbing on foot and horseback till he had gathered an estate to entail, repented just before he died and made a penitential round of every cathedral then standing in England to gain forgiveness for making the money.
"Now, I couldn't quite make out from Dunneston whether his worthy ancestor enjoyed that tour so much that he wished no one else to miss it, or whether an opposite emotion led him to enjoin it upon his descendants. At any rate, he put the requirement into the entail that before entering upon his property every heir must make the round of the same churches and ask forgiveness for taking the money, I suppose. So, Dunneston's uncle having just died, Dunneston has procured from his barristers a list of the cathedrals standing as such in England in 1369, when his ancestor went around, and he is now making what he calls his 'qualifying round' of the church course." Preston looked down doubtfully. "He says he's now nine up and eleven still to pray," he ventured.
"I am glad," the girl smiled up at him forgivingly, "that you had the shame to attribute that to poor Mr. Dunneston."
"Oh, he's capable of worse—I mean much better than that, Miss Varris, really," Preston let himself go on, encouraged. "He was telling me just the other day that, thanks to the daily services, he expects to complete the round for a total of about thirty-five days. Bogie, he says, is thirty; and his great-uncle, who went about the course when they were making no repairs, made it in twenty-nine. Really, Miss Varris," he checked himself cautiously, "the English sense of humor isn't less than ours; it's merely different. Take the way they talk about themselves, for instance."
"What do you mean?" the girl asked.
"Well, I told you just a moment ago that Mr. Dunneston hasn't confided his name to me yet. He hasn't; but that's about the only thing he's withheld. He has told me fully and freely about himself and all his family and their affairs, how his father and mother fight, about his differences with his sisters, and all about his bad brother in the colonies, and what his cousins think of him, and about the family gout, and—"
"The what, Mr. Preston?" the girl broke in. "I don't want to interrupt again, truly. But the what, did you say? The family what?"
"The gout; the family gout. Don't laugh, now; I'm serious. He has told me all about it. And he has it—the gout, I mean, at times. It's the pride of his branch of the family. The other branch—the branch with the title—haven't the gout at all, apparently. I can't quite make out which counts the most with the English in general as an indication of aristocracy, the title or the gout; but Dunneston clearly considers the bandaged foot a far more conclusive evidence of blue blood than the coroneted head."
He caught his companion smiling up at him patiently again.
"Oh! I was saying that an Englishman will talk about his personal affairs as if they belonged to some one else; but tell you his name—never. Now, an American is just the other way. The first thing he tells is his name; but he will never mention—that is, any sort of an American won't—anything which we call personal. I think the English can't consider the same things personal. Yet the same Englishman who'll tell all his private scandal will, as I said, leave you to get his name from his luggage. And if, after that, you call him by name, he'll blush. Truly.
"You see, Miss Varris," he explained, "the American tells you his name and can't tell you anything more about himself without making it personal. But the Englishman, by not telling his name, can tell any private affair without recollecting that it is about himself at all. Really, I have believed sometimes that they forget that they themselves are present. That must be why it shocks them so to call them by name. It makes them remember."
"Oh! Now I see!" the girl comprehended at length. "And just before I came in Mr. Dunneston was discussing you in the same spirit?"
"Precisely!" Preston affirmed. "He had begun to fear that I was a thief; so, instead of romping off to discuss me with some third person, he merely went over the matter impersonally with me. And, while I do not deny
Far off to starboard the extreme point of Cornwall slid into the sea
there are defects in such a habit, I must admit that—from the point of view of the suspected one, at least—it has its advantages. But—isn't that Mrs. Varris with the gray parasol there waiting in front of 'Galilee'?"
They had halted before the wonderful west front of Ely, with the great castellated west tower, which seemed more military than ecclesiastical, standing as high sentinel to the blue heavens above them.
The ineffable sense of peace and calmness and permanency which breathed over them in the presence of that sure, commanding quiet in those mounting masses of carved and chiselled stone, struck the laugh and joke from their lips.
In the awe which always came to him as he confronted one of these wonderful buildings, young Preston turned to the girl gazing up at the tower before them.
"Do you remember, Miss Varris," he said quietly, "being made to read some of the really great books long before you could possibly possibly appreciate them; or being made to play, all uncomprehending, the great piece of music which could not yet be great to you—only difficult?"
"Yes," the girl replied, "I do."
"And when you finally are of the age to appreciate them, don't you always still find yourself rather—resenting them, therefore, in spite of yourself?"
"Yes," the girl said again; "why?"
"Because that is the way I have had to feel, in spite of myself, about these wonderful piles of architecture—and even about the churches themselves. Yet I can't help having a sneaking respect for them, after all. Especially Ely here. I remember, even as a boy I used to like it best; because here on the Isle of Ely I knew that Hereward, the 'last of the English,' made the last stand of the Saxons and held out against the Normans, after the Conquest, for almost five years. I always liked Ely. And I hope you understand my feeling against cathedrals in general," he concluded earnestly. "It isn't really against the cathedrals—or the towns. It's against the way we Americans take them; and against what we make them—a fashion."
"I know, of course," the girl replied, meeting his glance evenly. "And I hate it myself—though I have to do it. And mother just enjoys it thoroughly and doesn't think about it at all."
"I didn't mean to criticise you!" Preston cried guiltily. "I don't think your mother does it in the 'fashionable' way at all. But—I'm glad you hate it too, just the same," he confessed honestly.
"But now, Mr. Preston, explain yourself!" the girl cut short their serious confidences and turned to him teasingly again. "What are you doing here about these towns? You have evaded long enough. Confess!"
"Your mother sees us!" Preston replied. "Come. She is waiting. Or aren't you sure yet it is safe to take me to her without knowing why I am about these towns?"
"Well; I warn you that mother will require a reason much more than I. Remember, you've said even more to her than to me against 'her' cathedrals!" And:
"Mr. Preston!" Mrs. Varris's voice, true and clear as the girl's, greeted the young American with well feigned astonishment. "We hoped for this," she teased on, almost like the girl herself," when we saw your name on the register this morning. And, as we were not registered, I was going to leave a note for you; but when I recollected your expressed feelings about these towns, I thought it couldn't be you."
"Well—I, at least, Mrs. Varris," he replied, "am glad it is!"
"Oh, so are we—indeed!" she protested. "But what are you doing here?"
Preston looked down at the girl with an acknowledging smile. As he glanced up again, the Englishman they had left at the inn twenty minutes before came about the north front of the cathedral and advanced toward them.
"Look, Mr. Preston!" the girl interrupted, as the young American was about to reply. "Here is Mr. Dunneston. His eye is upon you!"
"I wonder what's happened?" Preston mused. "He's certainly even more foreboding than usual and his suspicions don't seem half so inconclusive as they were when we left him."
"I wonder—" the girl began.
"Oh, Mrs. Varris!" Preston recollected suddenly. "I beg your pardon. But perhaps I was getting to your answer after all.
"I suggested a partial explanation, or rather, excuse, for my presence about these towns which, if it didn't satisfy Miss Varris, at least seemed to reassure my travelling companion of the past week. Here he is. But now it doesn't seem to satisfy even him, so I will not try it upon you."
He hesitated, and then smiled mischievously to himself. "But perhaps he can give you a more convincing one; and one which, in your present position, you ought certainly to pass upon for yourself, Mrs. Varris. Oh, Mr. Dunneston!" he called, and committed himself before he could think again. "Mr. Dunneston!"