Ficial Receivers with flaming swords to drive us out of our garden! I'd hoped we'd never have another Trek. Well--anyway, it won't be Crest Hill.... But it's hard on Teddy. He must be in such a mess up there. Poor old chap. I suppose we can't help him. I suppose we'd only worry him. Have some more soup George--while there is some?..."
The next day was one of those days of strong perception that stand out clear in one's memory when the common course of days is blurred. I can recall now the awakening in the large familiar room that was always kept for me, and how I lay staring at its chintz-covered chairs, its spaced fine furniture, its glimpse of the cedars without, and thought that all this had to end.
I have never been greedy for money, I have never wanted to be rich, but I felt now an immense sense of impending deprivation.
I read the newspapers after breakfast--I and my aunt together--and then I walked up to see what Cothope had done in the matter of Lord Roberts B. Never before had I appreciated so acutely the ample brightness of the Lady Grove gardens, the dignity and wide peace of all about me. It was one of those warm mornings in late May that have won all the glory of summer without losing the gay delicacy of spring. The shrubbery was bright with laburnum and lilac, the beds swarmed with daffodils and narcissi and with lilies of the valley in the shade.
I went along the well-kept paths among the rhododendra and through the private gate into the woods where the bluebells and common orchid were in profusion. Never before had I tasted so completely the fine sense of privilege and ownership. And all this has to end, I told myself, all this has to end.
Neither my uncle nor I had made any provision for disaster; all we had was in the game, and I had little doubt now of the completeness of our ruin. For the first time in my life since he had sent me that wonderful telegram of his I had to consider that common anxiety of mankind,--Employment. I had to come off my magic carpet and walk once more in the world.
And suddenly I found myself at the cross drives where I had seen Beatrice for the first time after so many years. It is strange, but so far as I can recollect I had not thought of her once since I had landed at Plymouth. No doubt she had filled the background of my mind, but I do not remember one definite, clear thought. I had been intent on my uncle and the financial collapse.
It came like a blow in the face now; all that, too, had to end!
Suddenly I was filled with the thought of her and a great longing for her. What would she do when she realised our immense disaster? What would she do? How would she take it? It filled me with astonishment to realise how little I could tell....
Should I perhaps presently happen upon her?
I went on through the plantations and out upon the downs, and thence I saw Cothope with a new glider of his own design soaring down wind to my old familiar "grounding" place. To judge by its long rhythm it was a very good glider. "Like Cothope's cheek," thought I, "to go on with the research. I wonder if he's keeping notes.... But all this will have to stop."
He was sincerely glad to see me. "It's been a rum go," he said.
He had been there without wages for a month, a man forgotten in the rush of events.
"I just stuck on and did what I could with the stuff. I got a bit of money of my own--and I said to myself, 'Well, here you are with the gear and no one to look after you. You won't get such a chance again, my boy, not in all your born days. Why not make what you can with it? '"
"How's Lord Roberts B?"
Cothope lifted his eyebrows. "I've had to refrain," he said.
"But he's looking very handsome."
"Gods!" I said, "I'd like to get him up just once before we smash. You read the papers? You know we're going to smash?"
"Oh! I read the papers. It's scandalous, sir, such work as ours should depend on things like that. You and I ought to be under the State, sir, if you'll excuse me"
"Nothing to excuse," I said. "I've always been a Socialist--of a sort--in theory. Let's go and have a look at him. How is he?
Deflated?"
"Just about quarter full. That last oil glaze of yours holds the gas something beautiful. He's not lost a cubic metre a week."...
Cothope returned to Socialism as we went toward the sheds.
"Glad to think you're a Socialist, sir," he said, "it's the only civilised state. I been a Socialist some years--off the Clarion. It's a rotten scramble, this world. It takes the things we make and invent and it plays the silly fool with 'em.
We scientific people, we'll have to take things over and stop all this financing and advertisement and that. It's too silly.
It's a noosance. Look at us!"
Lord Roberts B, even in his partially deflated condition in his shed, was a fine thing to stare up at. I stood side by side with Cothope regarding him, and it was borne in upon me more acutely than ever that all this had to end. I had a feeling just like the feeling of a boy who wants to do wrong, that I would use up the stuff while I had it before the creditors descended. I had a queer fancy, too, I remember, that if I could get into the air it would advertise my return to Beatrice.
"We'll fill her," I said concisely.
"It's all ready," said Cothope, and added as an afterthought, "unless they cut off the gas."...
I worked and interested myself with Cothope all the morning and for a time forgot my other troubles. But the thought of Beatrice flooded me slowly and steadily. It became an unintelligent sick longing to see her. I felt that I could not wait for the filling of Lord Roberts B, that I must hunt her up and see her soon. I got everything forward and lunched with Cothope, and then with the feeblest excuses left him in order to prowl down through the woods towards Bedley Corner. I became a prey to wretched hesitations and diffidence. Ought I to go near her now? I asked myself, reviewing all the social abasements of my early years.
At last, about five, I called at the Dower House. I was greeted by their Charlotte--with a forbidding eye and a cold astonishment.
Both Beatrice and Lady Osprey were out.
