Watersprings, Arthur Christopher Benson [free novels .txt] 📗

so well already. She has a great gift for letting one see into her mind and heart--and I know your father too, and Jack, and I want to know you; we must be a family party, and talk quite simply and freely about all our concerns."

"Oh, yes, indeed I will," said Maud--"and I find myself wondering how easy it is to talk to you. You do seem like a relation; as if you had always been here, indeed; but I must not talk too much about myself--I do chatter very freely to Cousin Anne; but I don't think it is good for one to talk about oneself, do you? It makes one feel so important!"

"It depends who one talks to," said Howard, "but I don't believe in holding one's tongue too much, if one trusts people. It seems to me the simplest thing to do; I only found it out a few years ago--how much one gained by talking freely and directly. It seems to me an uncivilised, almost a savage thing to be afraid of giving oneself away. I don't mind who knows about my own concerns, if he is sufficiently interested. I will tell you anything you like about myself, because I should like you to realise how I live. In fact, I shall want you all to come and see me at Cambridge; and then you will be able to understand how we live there, while I shall know what is going on here. And I am really a very safe person to talk to. One gets to know a lot of young men, year by year--and I'm a mine of small secrets. Don't you know the title so common in the old Methodist tracts--'The life and death and Christian sufferings of the Rev. Mr. Pennefather.' That's what I want to know about people--Christian sufferings and all."

Maud smiled at him and said, "I am afraid there are not many Christian sufferings in my life; but I shall be glad to talk about many things here. You know my mother died more than ten years ago--when I was quite a little girl--and I don't remember her very well; I have always said just what I thought to Jack, and he to me--till quite lately; and that is what troubles me a little. Jack seems to be rather drifting away from me. He gets to know so many new people, and he doesn't like explaining; and then his mind seems full of new ideas. I suppose it is bound to happen; and of course I have very little to do here; papa likes doing everything, and doing it in his own way. He can't bear to let anything out of his hands; so I just go about and talk to the people. But I am not a very contented person. I want something, I think, and I don't know what it is. It is difficult to take up anything serious, when one is all alone. I should like to go to Newnham, but I can't leave father by himself; books don't seem much use, though I read a great deal. I want something real to do, like Jack! Papa is so energetic; he manages the house and pays all the bills; and there doesn't seem any use for me--though if I were of use, I should find plenty of things to do, I believe."

"Yes," said Howard, "I quite understand, and I am glad you have told me. You know I am a sort of doctor in these matters, and I have often heard undergraduates say the same sort of thing. They are restless, they want to go out into life, they want to work; and when they begin to work all that disquiet disappears. It's a great mercy to have things to do, whether one likes it or not. Work is an odd thing! There is hardly a morning at Cambridge when, if someone came to me and offered me the choice of doing my ordinary work or doing nothing for a day, I shouldn't choose to do nothing. And yet I enjoy my work, and wouldn't give it up for anything. It is odd that it takes one so long to learn to like work, and longer still to learn that one doesn't like idleness. And yet it is to win the power of being idle that makes most people work. Idleness seems so much grander and more dignified."

"It IS curious," said Maud, "but I seem to have inherited papa's taste for occupation, without his energy. I wish you would advise me what to do. Can't one find something?"

"What does my aunt say?" said Howard.

"Oh, she smiles in that mysterious way she has," said Maud, "and says we have to learn to take things as they come. She knows somehow how to do without things, how to wait; but I can't do that without getting dreary."

"Do you ever try to write?" said Howard.

"Yes," said Maud, laughing, "I have tried to write a story--how did you guess that? I showed it to Cousin Anne, and she said it was very nice; and when I showed it to Jack, and told him what she had said, he read a little, and said that that was exactly what it was."

"Yes," said Howard, smiling, "I admit that it was not very encouraging! But I wish you would try something more simple. You say you know the people here and talk to them. Can't you write down the sort of things they say, the talks you have with them, the way they look at things? I read a book once like that, called Country Conversations, and I wondered that so few people ever tried it. Why should one try to write improbable stories, even NICE stories, when the thing itself is so interesting? One doesn't understand these country people. They have an idea of life as definite as a dog or a cat, and it is not in the least like ours. Why not take a family here; describe their house and possessions, what they look like, what they do, what their history has been, and then describe some talks with them? I can't imagine anything more interesting. Perhaps you could not publish them at present; but they wouldn't be quite wasted, because you might show them to me, and I want to know all about the people here. You mustn't pass over things because they seem homely and familiar--those are just the interesting things--what they eat and drink and wear, and all that. How does that strike you?"

"I like the idea very much indeed," said Maud. "I will try--I will begin at once. And even if nothing comes of it, it will be nice to think it may be of use to you, to know about the people."

"Very well," said Howard, "that is a bargain. It is exactly what I want. Do begin at once, and let me have the first instalment of the Chronicles of Windlow."

They had arrived by this time at a point high on the downs. The rough white road, full of flints, had taken them up by deep-hedged cuttings, through coverts where the spring flowers were just beginning to show in the undergrowth, and out on to the smooth turf of the downs. They were near the top now, and they could see right down into Windlow Malzoy, lying like a map beneath them; the top of the Church tower, its leaden roof, the roofs of the Vicarage, the little straggling street among its orchards and gardens; farther off, up the valley, they could see the Manor in its gardens; beyond the opposite ridge, a far-off view of great richness spread itself in a belt of dark-blue colour. It was a still day; on the left hand there was a great smooth valley-head, with a wood of beeches, and ploughed fields in the bottom. They directed their steps to an old turfed barrow, with a few gnarled thorn trees, wind-swept and stunted round it.

"I love this place," said Maud; "it has a nice name, the 'Isle of Thorns.' I suppose it is a burial-place--some old chief, papa says--and he is always threatening to have him dug up; but I don't want to disturb him! He must have had a reason for being buried here, and I suppose there were people who missed him, and were sorry to lay him here, and wondered where he had gone. I am sure there is a sad old story about it; and yet it makes one happy in a curious way to think about it all."

"Yes," said Howard, "'the old, unhappy, far-off things,' that turn themselves into songs and stories! That is another puzzle; one's own sorrows and tragedies, would one like to think of them as being made into songs for other people to enjoy? I suppose we ought to be glad of it; but there does not seem anything poetical about them at the time; and yet they end by being sweeter than the old happy things. The 'Isle of Thorns'! Yes, that IS a beautiful name."

Suddenly there came a faint musical sound on the air, as sweet as honey. Howard held up his hand. "What on earth or in heaven is that?" he said.

"Those are the chimes of Sherborne!" said Maud. "One hears them like that when the wind is in this quarter. I like to hear them--they have always been to me a sort of omen of something pleasant about to happen. Perhaps it is in your honour to-day, to welcome you!"

"Well," said Howard, "they are beautiful enough by themselves; and if they will bring me greater happiness than I have, I shall not object to that!"

They smiled at each other, and stood in silence for a little, and then Maud pointed out some neighbouring villages. "All this," she said, "is Cousin Anne's--and yours. I think the Isle of Thorns is yours."

"Then the old chief shall not be disturbed," said Howard.

"How curious it is," said Maud, "to see a place of which one knows every inch laid out like a map beneath one. It seems quite a different place! As if something beautiful and strange must be happening there, if only one could see it!"

"Yes," said Howard, "it is odd how we lose the feeling that a place is romantic when we come to know it. When I first went up to Cambridge, there were many places there that seemed to me to be so interesting: walls which seemed to hide gardens full of thickets, strange doorways by which no one ever passed out or in, barred windows giving upon dark courts, out of which no one ever seemed to look. But now that I know them all from the inside, they seem commonplace enough. The hidden garden is a place where Dons smoke and play bowls; the barred window is an undergraduate's gyp-room; there's no mystery left about them now. This place as I see it to-day--well, it seems the most romantic place in the world, full of unutterable secrets of life and death; but I suppose it may all come to wear a perfectly natural air to me some day."

"That is what I like so much about Cousin Anne," said Maud; "nothing seems to be commonplace to her, and she puts back the mystery and wonder into it all. One must learn to do that for oneself somehow."

"Yes, she's a great woman!" said Howard; "but what shall we do now?"

"Oh, I am sorry," said Maud, "I have been keeping you all this time--wouldn't you like to go and look for Jack? I think I heard a shot just now up the valley."

"No," said Howard,