antsey Marjory

antsey Marjory

I have thought myself justified in printing the following narrative, found

among the papers of my dead friend, Douglas Cameron, who left me

discretion to deal with them as I saw fit. It was written indeed, as its

opening words imply, rather for his own solace and relief than with the

expectation that it would be read by any other. But, painful and intimate

as it is in parts, I cannot think that any harm will be done by printing it

now, with some necessary alterations in the names of the characters

chiefly concerned.

Before, however, leaving the story to speak for itself, I should like to

state, in justice to my friend, that during the whole of my acquaintance

with him, which began in our college days, I never saw anything to

indicate the morbid timidity and weakness of character that seem to have

marked him as a boy. Reserved he undoubtedly was, with a taste for

solitude that made him shrink from the society of all but a small circle,

and with a sensitive and shy nature which prevented him from doing

himself complete justice; but he was very capable of holding his own on

occasion, and in his disposition, as I knew it, there was no want of moral

courage, nor any trace of effeminacy.

How far he may have unconsciously exaggerated such failings in the

revelation of his earlier self, or what the influence of such an experience

as he relates may have done to strengthen the moral fibre, are points on

which I can express no opinion, any more than I can pledge myself to the

credibility of the supernatural element of his story.

It may be that only in the boy's overwrought imagination, the innocent

Child-spirit came back to complete the work of love and pity she had

begun in life; but I know that he himself believed otherwise, and, truly, if

those who leave us are permitted to return at all, it must be on some

such errand as Marjory's.

Douglas Cameron's life was short, and in it, so far as I am aware, he met

no one who at all replaced his lost ideal. Of this I cannot be absolutely

certain, for he was a reticent man in such matters; but I think, had it

been so, I should have known of it, for we were very close friends. One would hardly expect, perhaps, that an ordinary man would remain faithful

all his days to the far-off memory of a child-love; but then Cameron was

not quite as other men, nor were his days long in the land.

And if this ideal of his was never dimmed for him by some grosser, and

less spiritual, passion, who shall say that he may not have been a better

and even a happier man in consequence.

* * * * *

It is not without an effort that I have resolved to break, in the course of

this narrative, the reserve maintained for nearly twenty years. But the

chief reason for silence is removed now that all those are gone who might

have been pained or harmed by what I have to tell, and, though I shrink

still from reviving certain memories that are fraught with pain, there are

others associated therewith which will surely bring consolation and relief.

I must have been about eleven at the time I am speaking of, and the

change which--for good or ill--comes over most boys' lives had not yet

threatened mine. I had not left home for school, nor did it seem at all

probable then that I should ever do so.

When I read (I was a great reader) of Dotheboys Hall and Salem House--

a combination of which establishments formed my notion of school-life--it

was with no more personal interest than a cripple might feel in perusing

the notice of an impending conscription; for from the battles of school-life

I was fortunately exempted.

I was the only son of a widow, and we led a secluded life in a London

suburb. My mother took charge of my education herself, and, as far as

mere acquirements went, I was certainly not behind other boys of my

age. I owe too much to that loving and careful training, Heaven knows, to

think of casting any reflection upon it here, but my surroundings were

such as almost necessarily to exclude all bracing and hardening

influences.

My mother had few friends; we were content with our own

companionship, and of boys I knew and cared to know nothing; in fact, I

regarded a strange boy with much the same unreasoning aversion as

many excellent women feel for the most ordinary cow. I was happy to think that I should never be called upon to associate with

them; by-and-by, when I outgrew my mother's teaching, I was to have a

tutor, perhaps even go to college in time, and when I became a man I

was to be a curate and live with my mother in a clematis-covered cottage

in some pleasant village.

She would often dwell on this future with a tender prospective pride; she

spoke of it on the very day that saw it shattered for ever.

For there came a morning when, on going to her with my lessons for the

day, I was gladdened with an unexpected holiday. I little knew then--

though I was to learn it soon enough--that my lessons had been all

holidays, or that on that day they were to end for ever.

My mother had had one or two previous attacks of an illness which

seemed to prostrate her for a short period, and as she soon regained her

ordinary health, I did not think they could be of a serious nature.

So I devoted my holiday cheerfully enough to the illumination of a text,

on the gaudy colouring of which I found myself gazing two days later with

a dull wonder, as at the work of a strange hand in a long dead past, for

the boy who had painted that was a happy boy who had a mother, and for

two endless days I had been alone.

Those days, and many that followed, come back to me now but vaguely. I

passed them mostly in a state of blank bewilderment caused by the

double sense of sameness and strangeness in everything around me;

then there were times when this gave way to a passionate anguish which

refused all attempts at comfort, and times even--but very, very seldom--

when I almost forgot what had happened to me.

Our one servant remained in the house with me, and a friend and

neighbour of my mother's was constant in her endeavours to relieve my

loneliness; but I was impatient of them, I fear, and chiefly anxious to be

left alone to indulge my melancholy unchecked.

I remember how, as autumn began, and leaf after leaf fluttered down

from the trees in our little garden, I watched them fall with a heavier

heart, for they had known my mother, and now they, too, were deserting

me. This morbid state of mind had lasted quite long enough when my uncle,

who was my guardian, saw fit to put a summary end to it by sending me

to school forthwith; he would have softened the change for me by taking

me to his own home first, but there was illness of some sort there, and

this was out of the question.

I was neither sorry nor glad when I heard of it, for all places were the

same to me just then; only, as the time drew near, I began to regard the

future with a growing dread.

The school was at some distance from London, and my uncle took me

down by rail; but the only fact I remember connected with the journey is

that there was a boy in the carriage with us who cracked walnuts all the

way, and I wondered if he was going to school too, and concluded that he

was not, or he would hardly eat quite so many walnuts.

Later we were passing through some wrought-iron gates, and down an

avenue of young chestnuts, which made a gorgeous autumn canopy of

scarlet, amber, and orange, up to a fine old red-brick house, with a high-

pitched roof, and a cupola in which a big bell hung, tinted a warm gold by

the afternoon sun.

This was my school, and it did not look so very-terrible after all. There

was a big bow-window by the pillared portico, and, looking timidly in, I

saw a girl of about my own age sitting there, absorbed in the book she

was reading, her long brown hair drooping over her cheek and the hand

on which it rested.

She glanced up at the sound of the door-bell, and I felt her eyes

examining me seriously and critically, and then I forgot everything but

the fact that I was about to be introduced to my future schoolmaster, the

Rev. Basil Dering.

This was less of an ordeal than I had expected; he had a strong,

massively-cut, leonine face, free and abundant white hair, streaked with

dark grey, but there was a kind light in his eyes as I looked up at them,

and the firm mouth could smile, I found, pleasantly enough.

Mrs. Dering seemed younger, and was handsome, with a certain

stateliness and decision of manner which put me less at my ease, and I was relieved to be told I might say good-bye to my uncle, and wander

about the grounds as I liked.

I was not surprised to pass through an empty schoolroom, and to descend

by some steep stairs to a deserted playground, for we had been already

told that the Michaelmas holidays were not over, and that the boys would

not return for some days to come.

It gave me a kind of satisfaction to think of my resemblance, just then, to

my favourite David Copperfield, but I was to have a far pleasanter

companion than poor lugubrious, flute-tootling Mr. Mell, for as I paced the

damp paths paved with a mosaic of russet and yellow leaves, I heard light

footsteps behind me, and turned to find myself face to face with the girl I

had seen at the window.

She stood there breathless for an instant, for she had hurried to overtake

me, and against a background of crimson creepers I saw the brilliant face,

with its soft but fearless brown eyes, small straight nose, spirited mouth,

and crisp wavy golden-brown hair, which I see now almost as distinctly as

I write.

'You're the new boy,' she said at length. 'I've come out to make you feel

more at home. I suppose you don't feel _quite_ at home just yet?'

'Not quite, thank you,' I said, lifting my cap with cerem.