CHAPTER XII CHILDREN DANCING IN THE DUSK

Nigel was late for supper that evening. He came in very quietly, and slipped into his place without a word. He had very little to say about the races.

"Lost your money on Midsummer Moon?" said Leonard. "Well, you needn't look so glum—it was only five bob."

But Janey knew that was not the matter, though she knew nothing more. After supper she put her arm through his, and drew him out into the garden. They walked up and down in front of Sparrow Hall. At first she had meant to ask him questions, but soon she realised that the questions would not come—only a great stillness between her and Nigel, and a fierce clutch of their hands. They walked up and down, up and down, breathing the thick scents of the garden—touched with autumn rottenness, sodden with rain and night. Gradually they pulled each other closer, till she felt the throb of his heart under her hand....

The next day Nigel worked hard with Len at weed-burning. It was strange what a lot of weed-burning there was to do, thought he—not only at Sparrow Hall, but at Wilderwick, and Swites Farm, and Golden Compasses, and the Two-Mile Cottages, and all those places from which little curls of blue, dream-scented smoke were drifting[Pg 136] up against the sky. Men were burning the tangles of their summer gardens, they were piling into the flame those trailing sweets, now dead. For autumn was here, and winter was at hand, and a few dead things that must be burnt were all that remained of June.

Nigel wondered if his June had not gone too, and if he had not better burn at once those few sweet, dead, tangled thoughts it had left him. He thought of the dim lane by Goatsluck Farm, with the glare of two motor lights on the hedges. He saw the puddles gleam, and Tony erect in the trickery of light and darkness, shapeless in his coat. Then across the aching silence of his heart came her words—"I can't bear it!—I—I'm so—disappointed."

That was the end of June—and he ought to have expected it. His friendship with Tony Strife could never have lasted in a neighbourhood where both were known and talked about. It had ended a little suddenly, that was all. He did not reproach himself for deceiving her; he did not even regret it, though he guessed what she must think. The doorway of the house of light had stood open, and he had crept in like a beggar, knowing that he must soon be turned out, but resolute meanwhile to bask and be glad.

But he wished she had not been "disappointed," that was so pathetic. Poor little girl! the memory of him would eat into her heart for a while. Girls of her age were righteous, and he had cheated her into friendship with unrighteousness. She would hate him for a bit. "I am so disappointed"—it[Pg 137] seemed as if all his seething desires for goodness and peace had died into that little wail of outraged girlhood, and come back to haunt the empty house of his heart.

During the first few days of separation he childishly hoped that he might hear from her—surely she would write if only to upbraid. But no letter came. His coat was returned the next morning, but he searched the parcel in vain for a message. How cruel of Tony!—and yet all children, even girl-children, are cruel. Their experience of sorrow is limited to its tempestuous side—they do not know its aching calms; they quench their thirst with great gulps, and do not know the relief of small drops of water. This was the price he had to pay for seeking his comfort in the gaiety of boys and girls instead of in the more stable sympathy of his contemporaries.

The next two weeks were heartsick and lonely. All day long a piteous consciousness of Tony was present in the background of his thoughts, waiting till night to creep into the foreground of his dreams, and torment him with hungry wakings. Everything that reminded him even of her type was painful. Little ridiculous things twanged chords of plaintive memory—a picture of the Roedean hockey-team, with their short skirts and pig-tails, the demure flappers he sometimes met in his walks, a correspondence on "moral training in girls' schools" which was being waged in a daily paper—everything that reminded him of healthy, growing, undeveloped girlhood, reminded him of Tony,[Pg 138] and made his heart ache and yearn and grieve after her.

He wandered about by himself a good deal in the lanes, snatching his few free moments after dusk. He no longer tramped furiously—he roamed, with slow steps and dreaming eyes, drinking a faint peace from the darkness of the fields. He found comfort, too, in his fiddle, and every evening he would play through his banal repertory, "O Caro Nome," from Rigoletto, "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," the overtures to Zampa and La Gazza Ladra, the Finale from Lucia di Lammermoor. He became wonderfully absorbed in his fiddling, and had recovered a certain amount of his old skill and flexibility.

One day he took his violin to East Grinstead, as the sounding post had fallen down. He came back by a long road—through Hophurst and New Chapel and Blindley Heath. He stopped at the last to have a drink—it was a dreary collection of cottages, scattered round a flat, windswept heath. There were ponds in the corners of the heath, and their waters were always ruffled by a strange wind. Right in the middle of the waste was a little house squatting in its own patch of tillage, an island, a tumble-down oasis, in the great dreariness.

The scene, with the grey, scudding sky behind it, became stamped on Nigel's brain, as he stood with his beer in the pothouse door. It was one of those days when it seems as if our own hopelessness has at last impressed the unfeeling mask[Pg 139] of Nature, and caused it to put on the grimace of our despair.

One or two children were playing in the road in front of the tavern, the wind fluttering their pinafores, and blowing their clothes against their limbs. A little boy with a mouth-organ was playing a vague and plaintive tune, to which two little girls were dancing. Nigel stood listening for some minutes, till both the moaning wind and the creaking tune had woven themselves together into a symphony of wretchedness.

Then he put down his beer, and took up his violin. He unfastened the case, unrolled the chrysalis of wrappings, and laid the instrument against his shoulder. The next minute a shrill wail rose up and challenged the wind.

The bar was nearly empty, but Nigel would not have cared had it been full. He stood in the doorway, his hair blowing and ruffling madly, his body swaying, as he forced his fiddle into a duet with the wind. He had never before tried to extemporise, his violin had been for him a memory of sugary tunes, each wrapped up in the tinsel of a little past—he had never tried to wring the present out of it in a sudden, fierce expression of the emotions that tortured him as he played. This evening he wanted to join the wind in its wailing race, to rush with it over the common, to tear with it through the hedges, and sweep with it over the water. He forced out of his fiddle the cries of his own heart—they rose up and challenged the wind. The wind hushed a little—fluttered, throbbed—was still ... the fiddle tore through the silence and[Pg 140] shattered it ... then the wind rose, and drummed savagely. Nigel dashed his bow down on the deep strings, and forced deep sounds out of them. The wind galloped up to a shriek—and Nigel's hand tore into harmonics, and wailed there till the wind was only puffing and sobbing. Then the fiddle sobbed. The fiddle and the wind sobbed together ... till the wind swung up a scale—up came the fiddle after it ... the wind rushed higher and higher, it whistled in the dark eaves of the inn, and the fiddle squeaked higher and higher, and Nigel's fingers strained on the fingerboard—he would not be beaten, blind Nature should not defeat him, two should play her game. The wind was like a maniac as it whistled its arpeggios—the casements of the house were rattling like tin, the trees were swishing and bending, the water in the ruts of the lane was rippling, doors were creaking and banging, the fiddle was straining and shrieking ... then suddenly the string broke. Nigel dropped his bow, angry and defeated. The duet with the wind was over.

Then he noticed a strange thing. He had been staring blindly and stupidly ahead of him, all his senses merged into sound, but now he saw that the road was crowded with children, and they were all dancing—little girls with their petticoats held high, little boys jumping aimlessly in their clumsy boots. They stopped as his hand fell, and stared at him in surprise, as if they had expected the music to go on for ever.

"Hullo!" said Nigel—then suddenly he laughed;[Pg 141] they all looked so forlorn, holding out their pinafores and pointing their feet.

"Wait a bit," he said, "my string's broken, but I'll have another on in no time."

So he did—but not to play a duet with the wind. He played the Intermezzo from Cavalleria, and the dance went on as raggedly as before. After the Intermezzo he played the Overture to Zampa, which was immensely popular, then threaded a patchwork of La Somnambula, the Bohemian Girl, La Tosca, and Aida, till mothers began to appear on the doorsteps with cries of "Supper's waiting."

Supper was waiting for Nigel when he appeared at Sparrow Hall. Len and Janey asked no questions—it was pathetic how few questions they asked him nowadays—but they both noticed he was happier. He did not speak much—he sat in a kind of dream, with a wistful tremulousness in the corners of his mouth. His mouth had always been the oldest part of him—hard in repose and fierce in movement—but to-night it had taken some of the extreme childishness of his eyes. Nigel felt very much the same as a child that cries for the moon and is given a ball to play with—the ball almost makes him forget that he wants the moon so badly. Those dancing children had, for some strange reason, partly filled the place of stalwart Tony in his heart. That night they came and danced in his dreams—in a pale light, to a tinkling tune. He found himself forming plans for making them dance again. He would never be on the old footing with Tony, but those children should dance for him and help him to forget.

[Pg 142]

So the next evening he went out again with his fiddle, and played at Blindley Heath. Again the children danced—with clumping boots and high petticoats they danced outside the Sweepers Inn. But this time he did not stay long—he went on to Dormans Land, to see if they would dance there. It was nearly dark now, and one or two misty stars shone above the village roofs—the wind was heavy with approaching rain as it soughed up the street towards him. He did not stand at the inn, but where the road to Lingfield joins the road to Cowden, close to the schools. One or two children came and looked at him curiously.

"He wants a halfpenny," said one, "I'll ask my mumma for it."

"No," said Nigel, "I want you to dance."

The children giggled, but at last the little girl who had suggested the halfpenny picked up her skirts, and then it was not long before they were all dancing to the waltz from Traviata.

Every day afterwards, when evening fell, Nigel took his violin, and went out into the lanes and the dark-swept villages, and played for the children to dance. They grew to expect him, and to clamour for old tunes. "Give us the jiggy one," they would cry, and he would play "O Caro Nome." "Give us the twirly one," and he would play "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls." But sometimes he would not give them what they wanted—he would play what he chose, strange things that came into his head and would not leave it till he had sent them wailing into the dusk. One day he played a duet with some long grass[Pg 143] that rustled and sighed behind him; another day it was with a wood, brown and naked, but full of palpitating mysteries; another time he played an accompaniment to the stars as they crept timidly one by one into the deserts of the sky. He knew the constellations, and gave gentle, bird-like notes to the dim Pleiades, and low, sonorous tones to Orion, and heavy quavers to the Wain; there was a sudden scale for Casseopeia, and harmonics for the Ram. By the time he had finished all the children had gone, and he was alone in the breeze and darkness, in a great, grief-stricken silence, which, he realised painfully, greeted the stars far more fitly than any strivings of his.

It was impossible for this new life to be hidden from the brother and sister at Sparrow Hall. One evening Leonard burst into the kitchen where Janey was sitting.

"What do you think Nigel's up to now?"

"What?"

"Playing the fiddle outside pubs for kids to dance to."

Janey gasped.

"Are you sure, Len?"

"Absolutely pos. Old Pilcher was telling me—the lad was fiddling away for an hour outside the Sweepers at Blindley Heath, and all the brats were on their hind legs, kicking up no end. Janet, do you think he's all there?"

"I—I don't know—I've been wondering."

"There's no doubt that he's been strange ever since he came out of quod. Poor old Nigel—life's hit him hard, and bruised him a lot."

[Pg 144]

"He was funny about kids from the first. He took a tremendous fancy to that odious little Ivy Batt who comes for the milk."

"I expect this is part of the same game."

"I expect it is—but it hurts me to think of it."

She turned to the fire, and a sigh shook her breast—life had a habit of hitting hard all round.

A few minutes later Nigel came in. He set down his violin, and went over to the hearth, kneeling beside Janey. She put her arms round him, and drew his head to her shoulder.

"Old man ... is it really true that you go about the villages fiddling to kids?"

"Yes—I like to see 'em dance."

"Are you fond of them?"

"Only when they dance."

"What a funny old man you are."

"Ain't I, Janey!"