Far-away Stories

I

AN OLD-WORLD EPISODE

I have often thought of editing the diary (which is in my possession) of one Jeremy Wendover, of Bullingford, in the county of Berkshire, England, Gent., who departed this life in the year of grace 1758, and giving to the world a document as human as the record of Pepys and as deeply imbued with the piety of a devout Christian as the Confessions of Saint Augustine. A little emendation of an occasional ungrammatical and disjointed text – though in the main the diary is written in the scholarly, florid style of the eighteenth century; a little intelligent conjecture as to certain dates; a footnote now and then elucidating an obscure reference – and the thing would be done. It has been a great temptation, but I have resisted it. The truth is that to the casual reader the human side would seem to be so meagre, the pietistic so full. One has to seek so carefully for a few flowers of fact among a wilderness of religious and philosophical fancy – nay, more: to be so much in sympathy with the diarist as to translate the pious rhetoric into terms of mundane incident, that only to the curious student can the real life history of the man be revealed. And who in these hurrying days would give weeks of patient toil to a task so barren of immediate profit? I myself certainly would not do it; and it is a good working philosophy of life (though it has its drawbacks) not to expect others to do what you would not do yourself. It is only because the study of these yellow pages, covered with the brown, almost microscopic, pointed handwriting, has amused the odd moments of years that I have arrived at something like a comprehension of the things that mattered so much to Jeremy Wendover, and so pathetically little to any other of the sons and daughters of Adam.

How did the diary, you ask, come into my possession? I picked it up, years ago, for a franc, at a second-hand bookseller's in Geneva. It had the bookplate of a long-forgotten Bishop of Sodor and Man, and an inscription on the flyleaf: "John Henderson, Calcutta, 1835." How it came into the hands of the Bishop, into those of John Henderson, how it passed thence and eventually found its way to Geneva, Heaven alone knows.

I have said that Jeremy Wendover departed this life in 1758. My authority for the statement is a lichen-covered gravestone in the churchyard of Bullingford, whither I have made many pious pilgrimages in the hope of finding more records of my obscure hero. But I have been unsuccessful. The house, however, in which he lived, described at some length in his diary, is still standing – an Early Tudor building, the residence of the maltster who owned the adjoining long, gabled malthouse, and from whom he rented it for a considerable term of years. It is situated on the river fringe of the little town, at the end of a lane running at right angles to the main street just before this loses itself in the market square.

I have stood at the front gate of the house and watched the Thames, some thirty yards away, flow between its alder-grown banks; the wide, lush meadows and cornfields beyond dotted here and there with the red roofs of farms and spreading amid the quiet greenery of oaks and chestnuts to the low-lying Oxfordshire hills; I have breathed in the peace of the evening air and I have found myself very near in spirit to Jeremy Wendover, who stood, as he notes, many and many a summer afternoon at that self-same gate, watching the selfsame scene, far away from the fever and the fret of life.

I have thought, therefore, that instead of publishing his diary I might with some degree of sympathy set forth in brief the one dramatic episode in his inglorious career.

The overwhelming factor in Jeremy Wendover's life was the appalling, inconceivable hideousness of his face. The refined, cultivated, pious gentleman was cursed with a visage which it would have pleased Dante to ascribe to a White Guelph whom he particularly disliked, and would have made Orcagna shudder in the midst of his dreams of shapes of hell. As a child of six, in a successful effort to rescue a baby sister, he had fallen headforemost into a great wood fire, and when they picked him up his face "was like unto a charred log that had long smouldered." Almost the semblance of humanity had been wiped from him, and to all beholders he became a thing of horror. Men turned their heads away, women shivered and children screamed at his approach. He was a pariah, condemned from early boyhood to an awful loneliness. His parents, a certain Sir Julius Wendover, Baronet, and his wife, his elder brother and his sisters – they must have been a compassionless family – turned from him as from an evil and pestilential thing. Love never touched him with its consoling feather, and for love the poor wretch pined his whole youth long. Human companionship, even, was denied him. He seems to have lived alone in a wing of a great house, seldom straying beyond the bounds of the park, under the tutorship of a reverend but scholarly sot who was too drunken and obese and unbuttoned to be admitted into the family circle. This fellow, one Doctor Tubbs, of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, seems to have shown Jeremy some semblance of affection, but chiefly while in his cups, "when," as Jeremy puts it bitterly, "he was too much like unto the beasts that perish to distinguish between me and a human being." When sober he railed at the boy for a monster, and frequently chastised him for his lack of beauty. But, in some strange way, in alternate fits of slobbering and castigating, he managed to lay the groundwork of a fine education, teaching Jeremy the classics, Italian and French, some mathematics, and the elements of philosophy and theology; he also discoursed much to him on the great world, of which, till his misfortunes came upon him, he boasted of having been a distinguished ornament; and when he had three bottles of wine inside him he told his charge very curious and instructive things indeed.

So Jeremy grew to man's estate, sensitive, shy, living in the world of books and knowing little, save at second-hand, of the ways of men and women. But with all the secrets of the birds and beasts in the far-stretching Warwickshire park he was intimately acquainted. He became part of the woodland life. Squirrels would come to him and munch their acorns on his shoulder.

"So intimate was I in this innocent community," says he, not without quiet humour, "that I have been a wet-nurse to weasels and called in as physician to a family of moles."

When Sir Julius died, Jeremy received his younger son's portion (fortunately, it was a goodly one) and was turned neck and crop out of the house by his ill-conditioned brother. Tubbs, having also suffered ignominious expulsion, persuaded him to go on the grand tour. They started. But they only got as far as Abbeville on the road to Paris, where Tubbs was struck down by an apoplexy of which he died. Up to that point the sot's company had enabled Jeremy to endure the insult, ribaldry and terror that attended his unspeakable deformity; but, left alone, he lost heart; mankind rejected him as a pack of wolves rejects a maimed cub. Stricken with shame and humiliation he crept back to England and established himself in the maltster's house at Bullingford, guided thither by no other consideration than that it had been the birthplace of the dissolute Tubbs. He took up his lonely abode there as a boy of three-and-twenty, and there he spent the long remainder of his life.

The great event happened in his thirty-fourth year. You may picture him as a solitary, scholarly figure living in the little Tudor house, with its mullioned windows, set in the midst of an old-world garden bright with stocks and phlox and hollyhocks and great pink roses, its southern wall generously glowing with purple plums. Indoors, the house was somewhat dark. The casement window of the main living-room was small and overshadowed by the heavy ivy outside. The furniture, of plain dark oak, mainly consisted of bookcases, in which were ranged the solemn, leather-covered volumes that were Jeremy's world. A great table in front of the window contained the books of the moment, the latest news-sheets from London, and the great brass-clasped volume in which he wrote his diary. In front of it stood a great straight-backed chair.

You may picture him on a late August afternoon, sitting in this chair, writing his diary by the fading light. His wig lay on the table, for the weather was close. He paused, pen in hand, and looked wistfully at the mellow eastern sky, lost in thought. Then he wrote these words:

O Lord Jesus, fill me plentifully with Thy love, which passeth the love of woman; for love of woman never will be mine, and therefore, O Lord, I require Thy love bountifully: I yearn for love even as a weaned child. Even as a weaned child yearns for the breast of its mother, so yearn I for love.

He closed and clasped the book with a sigh, put on his wig, rose and, going into the tiny hall, opened the kitchen door and announced to his household, one ancient and incompetent crone, his intention of taking the air. Then he clapped on his old three-cornered hat and, stick in hand, went out of the front gate into the light of the sunset. He stood for a while watching the deep reflections of the alders and willows in the river and the golden peace of the meadows beyond, and his heart was uplifted in thankfulness for the beauty of the earth. He was a tall, thin man, with the stoop of the scholar and, despite his rough, country-made clothes, the unmistakable air of the eighteenth-century gentleman. The setting sun shone full on the piteous medley of marred features that served him for a face.

A woman, sickle on arm, leading a toddling child, passed by with averted head. But she curtsied and said respectfully: "Good evening, your honour." The child looked at him and with a cry of fear shrank into the mother's skirts. Jeremy touched his hat.

"Good evening, Mistress Blackacre. I trust your husband is recovered from his fever."

"Thanks to your honour's kindness," said the woman, her eyes always turned from him, "he is well-nigh recovered. For shame of yourself!" she added, shaking the child.

"Nay, nay," said Jeremy kindly. "'Tis not the urchin's fault that he met a bogey in broad daylight."

He strolled along the river bank, pleased at his encounter. In that little backwater of the world where he had lived secluded for ten years folks had learned to suffer him – nay, more, to respect him: and though they seldom looked him in the face their words were gentle and friendly. He could even jest at his own misfortune.

"God is good," he murmured as he walked with head bent down and hands behind his back, "and the earth is full of His goodness. Yet if He in His mercy could only give me a companion in my loneliness, as He gives to every peasant, bird and beast – "

A sigh ended the sentence. He was young and not always able to control the squabble between sex and piety. The words had scarcely passed his lips, however, when he discerned a female figure seated on the bank, some fifty yards away. His first impulse – an impulse which the habit of years would, on ordinary occasions, have rendered imperative – was to make a wide detour round the meadows; but this evening the spirit of mild revolt took possession of him and guided his steps in the direction of the lady – for lady he perceived her to be when he drew a little nearer.

She wore a flowered muslin dress cut open at the neck, and her arms, bare to the elbows, were white and shapely. A peach-blossom of a face appeared below the mob-cap bound by a cherry-coloured ribbon, and as Jeremy came within speaking distance her dark-blue eyes were fixed on him fearlessly. Jeremy halted and looked at her, while she looked at Jeremy. His heart beat wildly. The miracle of miracles had happened – the hopeless, impossible thing that he had prayed for in rebellious hours for so many years, ever since he had realised that the world held such a thing as the joy and the blessing of woman's love. A girl looked at him smilingly, frankly in the face, without a quiver of repulsion – and a girl more dainty and beautiful than any he had seen before. Then, as he stared, transfixed like a person in a beatitude, into her eyes, something magical occurred to Jeremy. The air was filled with the sound of fairy harps of which his own tingling nerves from head to foot were the vibrating strings. Jeremy fell instantaneously in love.

"Will you tell me, sir," she said in a musical voice – the music of the spheres to Jeremy – "will you tell me how I can reach the house of Mistress Wotherspoon?"

Jeremy took off his three-cornered hat and made a sweeping bow.

"Why, surely, madam," said he, pointing with his stick; "'tis yonder red roof peeping through the trees only three hundred yards distant."

"You are a gentleman," said the girl quickly.

"My name is Jeremy Wendover, younger son of the late Sir Julius Wendover, Baronet, and now and always, madam, your very humble servant."

She smiled. Her rosy lips and pearly teeth (Jeremy's own description) filled Jeremy's head with lunatic imaginings.

"And I, sir," said she, "am Mistress Barbara Seaforth, and I came but yesterday to stay with my aunt, Mistress Wotherspoon. If I could trespass so far on your courtesy as to pray you to conduct me thither I should be vastly beholden to you."

His sudden delight at the proposition was mingled with some astonishment. She only had to walk across the open meadow to the clump of trees. He assisted her to rise and with elaborate politeness offered his arm. She made no motion, however, to take it.

"I thought I was walking in my aunt's little railed enclosure," she remarked; "but I must have passed through the gate into the open fields, and when I came to the river I was frightened and sat down and waited for someone to pass."

"Pray pardon me, madam," said Jeremy, "but I don't quite understand – "

"La, sir! how very thoughtless of me," she laughed. "I never told you. I am blind."

"Blind!" he echoed. The leaden weight of a piteous dismay fell upon him. That was why she had gazed at him so fearlessly. She had not seen him. The miracle had not happened. For a moment he lost count of the girl's sad affliction in the stress of his own bitterness. But the lifelong habit of resignation prevailed.

"Madam, I crave your pardon for not having noticed it," he said in an unsteady voice. "And I admire the fortitude wherewith you bear so grievous a burden."

"Just because I can't see is no reason for my drowning the world in my tears. We must make the best of things. And there are compensations, too," she added lightly, allowing her hand to be placed on his arm and led away. "I refer to an adventure with a young gentleman which, were I not blind, my Aunt Wotherspoon would esteem mightily unbecoming."

"Alas, madam," said he with a sigh, "there you are wrong. I am not young. I am thirty-three."

He thought it was a great age. Mistress Barbara turned up her face saucily and laughed. Evidently, she did not share his opinion. Jeremy bent a wistful gaze into the beautiful, sightless eyes, and then saw what had hitherto escaped his notice: a thin; grey film over the pupils.

"How did you know," he asked, "that I was a man, when I came up to you?"

"First by your aged, tottering footsteps, sir," she said with a pretty air of mockery, "which were not those of a young girl. And then you were standing 'twixt me and the sun, and one of my poor eyes can still distinguish light from shadow."

"How long have you suffered from this great affliction?" he asked.

"I have been going blind for two years. It is now two months since I have lost sight altogether. But please don't talk of it," she added hastily. "If you pity me I shall cry, which I hate, for I want to laugh as much as I can. I can also walk faster, sir, if it would not tire your aged limbs."

Jeremy started guiltily. She had divined his evil purpose. But who will blame him for not wishing to relinquish oversoon the delicious pressure of her little hand on his arm and to give over this blind flower of womanhood into another's charge? He replied disingenuously, without quickening his pace:

"'Tis for your sake, madam, I am walking slowly. The afternoon is warm."

"I am vastly sensible of your gallantry, sir," she retorted. "But I fear you must have practised it much on others to have arrived at this perfection."

"By heavens, madam," he cried, cut to the heart by her innocent raillery, "'tis not so. Could you but see me you would know it was not. I am a recluse, a student, a poor creature set apart from the ways of men. You are the first woman that has walked arm-in-arm with me in all my life – except in dreams. And now my dream has come true."

His voice vibrated, and when she answered hers was responsive.

"You, too, have your burden?"

"Could you but know how your touch lightens it!" said he.

She blushed to the brown hair that was visible beneath the mob-cap.

"Are we very far now from my Aunt Wotherspoon's?" she asked. Whereupon Jeremy, abashed, took refuge in the commonplace.

The open gate through which she had strayed was reached all too quickly. When she had passed through she made him a curtsey and held out her hand. He touched it with his lips as if it were sacramental bread. She avowed herself much beholden to his kindness.

"Shall I ever see you again, Mistress Barbara?" he asked in a low voice, for an old servant was hobbling down from the house to meet her.

"My Aunt Wotherspoon is bed-ridden and receives no visitors."

"But I could be of no further service to you?" pleaded Jeremy.

She hesitated and then she said demurely:

"It would be a humane action, sir, to see sometimes that this gate is shut, lest I stray through it again and drown myself in the river."

Jeremy could scarce believe his ears.

This was the beginning of Jeremy's love-story. He guarded the gate like Cerberus or Saint Peter. Sometimes at dawn he would creep out of his house and tramp through the dew-filled meadows to see that it was safely shut. During the day he would do sentry-go within sight of the sacred portal, and when the flutter of a mob-cap and a flowered muslin met his eye he would advance merely to report that the owner ran no danger. And then, one day, she bade him open it, and she came forth and they walked arm-in-arm in the meadows; and this grew to be a daily custom, to the no small scandal of the neighbourhood. Very soon, Jeremy learned her simple history. She was an orphan, with a small competence of her own. Till recently she had lived in Somersetshire with her guardian; but now he was dead, and the only home she could turn to was that of her bed-ridden Aunt Wotherspoon, her sole surviving relative.