Ten Degrees Backward. Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
had it in him to do great things," said Arthur, "but he lost his chance. At least he did worse than lose it; he threw it away to the swine, and trampled it among the husks."
"But he may do something even yet," I argued.
"Genius—and Wildacre had genius—never grows old. And, hang it all, man, he isn't so old after all! He is only two or three years older than we are, and we aren't really old—only buried alive, which is quite a different thing. If we lived in London instead of in the blessed, peaceful country, we should still be considered young men about town. Mind you, I'm not grumbling: I should hate to be a young man about town, and I enjoy being buried alive; but I kick at being called old at forty-two. It's positively libellous!"
"It isn't because Wildacre is old that he won't do anything now," replied Arthur simply; "but because he is dead."
The words came to me with a shock. Though it was twenty years since I had seen Wildacre, I had never forgotten the vividness of his personality; somewhere at the back of my mind there had been a subconscious thought that he and I would meet again some day and pick up the thread of that friendship which at one time had meant so much to me. And now he was dead, and I should never see his handsome, laughing face again! The world seemed suddenly to have grown colder and darker.
"Tell me all about it," I said, lighting another cigarette with hands that trembled: and Arthur told me.
"Not long after you and Miss Kingsnorth had left England last February, to my great surprise I received a letter from Wildacre. In it he told me that he had spent the last twenty years of his life in Australia, but was stricken with a mortal disease, and had come home to die."
"Where did he write from?" I asked.
"From lodgings in West Kensington. He wrote further that his time was short, and he wanted to consult me about his affairs before he died. So I went at once."
A wave of intense regret swept over me that I had not been at home at the time so that I, too, could have seen Wildacre. And I was also conscious of a pang that he had written to Blathwayte in his need and not to me. The thought of my own ineffectiveness stabbed me once again in the place where it had stabbed me so often that the wound never really healed. So I was a failure even in friendship, as in everything else!
But all I said was, "Well?"
Arthur went on in his plodding way: it was always impossible to hurry him: "I found him a good deal altered. In spite of your notion that genius never grows old, he looked a good ten years older than you do, Reggie."
"I tell you I'm not old; only buried alive."
But Arthur took no notice of my interruption. That is where he was always so restful to be with: he plodded along in his own way, utterly unconscious of any fret or worry or interruption. This was his custom in great things as well as in little ones. In my own mind I always applied to him the words of Bacon: he "rested on Providence, moved in Charity, and turned upon the poles of Truth." But I do not attempt to deny that both in moving and turning he never exceeded a speed limit of eight miles an hour.
"Of course Wildacre was very ill, and that made him look still older; but one could see at a glance that he was a fellow who had gone the pace. His hair was quite grey, and his face deeply lined."
"Yet he wasn't so much older than we are." It was always better to humour Arthur when he was telling a story. If one attempted to hustle him he stumbled and fell, and had to begin all over again.
"But you look the youngest, Reggie. You are very young looking for your age. If you didn't wear a beard, I believe you'd still be taken for a mere boy."
"You go on about Wildacre," I remonstrated, "and never mind my beard." I was not hustling, I was merely gently guiding.
"Well, he told me that he had married nearly twenty years ago—an actress or a dancer or somebody of that kind, and that she died ten years later, leaving him with a twin son and daughter. His wife was an Australian, and he had lived out there ever since his marriage until he came home to die."
"Was she beautiful?" But the moment I had asked it I felt it was a superfluous question. Of course she was, otherwise Wildacre would not have loved her: the more sterling qualities never appealed to him. The dramatic force of the whole situation seized upon me: the brilliant poet being bewitched by a beautiful dancer, and for her sake banishing himself to the Antipodes. There was an air of adventure about the whole thing that stirred my blood, it was so far removed from anything in my decorous and commonplace experience. Beautiful dancers do not grow in backwaters.
"I haven't an idea," replied Arthur; "Wildacre didn't say anything about her looks, and it never occurred to me to ask him what she was like. Besides, it would have been an impertinence."
"I know it would, but I should have asked him, nevertheless, if I had been in your place. It is a great mistake to allow the fear of being impertinent to prevent one from obtaining useful and interesting information. But were there no photographs of her about the place?"
"I don't know, I never noticed any; but you know I am a poor hand at noticing things," replied Arthur, with some truth.
I nodded. "Pray don't mention it; it is a peculiarity of yours too obvious to require remark. But for goodness' sake get on about Wildacre!"
"To cut a long story short," said Arthur (a thing, by the way, which he was constitutionally incapable of doing), "he explained to me that he had sent for me because all his own relations were dead, and his wife's people, though well-to-do, had risen from too humble a rank of life to be entrusted altogether with the upbringing of his children, and he did not think it fair to the children to trust them after his death into an inferior social position to that to which they had been born. They would be comfortably provided for—about eight hundred a year each—but he felt they must have some one of his own rank of life to look after them until they were of age and capable of looking after themselves. You see, Reggie, there are so many temptations to beset the feet of the young—and especially if they have no competent person to guide and shelter them."
"Skip the temptations of the young," I said, "and get on with Wildacre's death."
Blathwayte's amiability was imperturbable, so he merely smiled indulgently as he endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to obey my behest. He was an excellent fellow in every respect, and I had the deepest regard and affection for him, but he was apt to drop into preaching unless carefully watched.
"Well, then, to come to the point, he wanted to know if I would consent to be the children's guardian until they came of age. There was no one else he should be so happy to leave them with, he said; but he felt that, being a parson, I should look after them and see that they didn't get into mischief, and all that, don't you know!"
This was a bomb-shell indeed: the reverend and middle-aged Arthur suddenly converted into an amateur pater-familias!
"And you consented?" I asked.
"Of course. What else could I do when Wildacre asked me, and he was dying?" That was exactly like Arthur: the thought of himself, and of the upset to his peaceful bachelor existence by the advent of two children into the well-ordered rectory, never once entered into his calculations.
"What age are they?" I asked.
"Eighteen. They are both leaving school this term, and the boy is dreadfully backward; I am going to cram him for Oxford."
We were both silent for a moment; then I felt myself smiling. "It will be rather fun, don't you think?" I ventured to remark.
Arthur smiled too. "That has occurred to me also. It will be such a change to have young things about the place with all their faults and fripperies and follies."
I heartily agreed with him. "It will; for you and Annabel and I have been getting terribly middle-aged lately. I've noticed it; particularly in the case of you and Annabel. And what are their names?"
"If you remember, Wildacre's name was Francis."
"I didn't ask what Wildacre's name was," I murmured persuasively. "I asked