Chapter VIII

They approached the long low house by a path that led them through a sweetly-smelling, trim, and brilliant garden. A gardener was mowing the grass at the side of the house, and the hum of the machine rose sleepily through the heat of the heavy afternoon. There was an old-fashioned charm about the place, about the house with its drapery of creepers, about the garden, even about the mellow sunlight on the grass and on the flower-beds, which seemed to Rusk to make it an ideal spot for two elderly maiden ladies to pass their quiet lives in. It all reminded him--with an odd jump back to other days--of the illustrations to certain mid-Victorian fictions, which in his childhood, on wet afternoons, he had now and then been allowed to colour--pictures found in magazines, woodcuts by Millais or Fred Walker. The ladies too were there, sitting in comfortable chairs, with a little table before them prepared for the tea a capped and aproned maid-servant was at that moment bringing from the house. The maid deposited her tray, and Rusk was introduced by Denis to Miss Birch, and then to Miss Anna Birch, before they all sat down. It seemed that their brother had not, after all, told them visitors were coming.

Miss Birch was prim and even a little shy. She looked at least half a dozen years older than her sister, and her manner was colourless and slightly nervous. But her face was pleasant, with its somewhat vague and wandering expression which made Rusk think of the Sheep in “Alice.” She expressed herself in a series of little general remarks of an unexacting nature, and Rusk found both the ladies charming. They certainly formed a striking contrast to the Bracknel family, and he felt himself at once to be perfectly at home in their garden, with its red brick wall against which the orange lilies just now were singularly brilliant, and its immensely thick hedges and dark, neat paths. It was a relief too, not to have to set himself psychological conundrums. The Miss Birches were more or less the kind of people he had lived among and understood, and he saw himself cultivating their acquaintance rather assiduously. Miss Anna, in particular, struck him as being extremely pleasant. Before he had talked to her for ten minutes he found himself wondering why she had never married. Her manner was sympathetic; she was intelligent; and even in her slight air of primness, which was after all but the feeblest reflection of her sister’s, he discovered a distinct charm. Besides, she was still nice-looking, her complexion was still fresh, though her dry, loose, black hair was half turned to silver. Both ladies appeared very pleased to make his acquaintance. They talked to him of Cambridge, which they had visited on two occasions while their brother was an undergraduate there. They perfectly remembered Rusk’s college--one of the smallest; they had paid a visit to its library and had seen the Pepys manuscript.

After tea the younger of the two visitors asked permission to go indoors and choose a book. He had nothing to read at home, he said, which caused Miss Birch to express the hope that Rusk would make use of her brother’s library whenever he felt inclined to. She had resumed the embroidery she had laid down on their arrival, and amid its soft folds her slender hands were as graceful as flowers. Rusk liked to watch her; it gave him a feeling of pleasant quiet that he enjoyed immensely. He took up a volume which was lying open on the grass and glanced at the title.

“Harriet makes me read aloud to her,” Miss Anna said. “We are just now in the middle of ’Mansfield Park.’”

“Do you like it?” He tilted back his chair and stretched his legs, a proceeding which secretly alarmed Miss Birch, but which signified that Rusk himself was feeling very comfortable.

“I should like it better if it did not invariably send Harriet to sleep. As it is, I not only have to read, but next day I have to tell what I have read all over again.”

“It is so very long,” said Miss Harriet mildly, “and it is so difficult to find one’s place when the marker comes out.”

Rusk laughed. The Miss Birches pleased him immensely. “I must be careful not to lose it, then.” And he laid the book down on the table.

They on their side were pleased with him. His fair hair, his clear, pleasant, blue eyes, his handsome boyish face, his modest, unassuming manner--all these things made it much easier to like Rusk than not. They wondered how he was getting on in the bosom of the Bracknel family, and presently they asked him. He replied that he liked his pupil extremely; he also said that he liked Mrs. Bracknel and May, but was silent in regard to the others. At this point they were joined by the Doctor.

He greeted Rusk anew, while his sisters scolded him for not having told them that Denis and Mr. Rusk were coming; they might have gone out, and what would Mr. Rusk have thought then? The Doctor only laughed.

“He’s a perfect egotist,” Miss Anna suddenly declared.

“Are you alluding to me?” her brother asked, “or are you returning to an earlier topic?”

“I’m returning to Mr. Bracknel. I remember once, shortly before Denis was born, he wanted something which he had left upstairs--at the very top of the house; and he insisted on his wife going up to look for it. She asked him to ring for a servant, but he said he didn’t care for servants rummaging among his things.”

“All the same she is very fond of him,” Rusk replied, knocking the ash from his cigarette.

“Of course he isn’t a gentleman,” Miss Harriet observed, as if this might explain much.

“Do you think she is _really_ fond of him, Mr. Rusk?” Miss Anna asked. “Don’t you think she only tries to be in order to make him more--more passable?”

“Oh, it is real enough,” Rusk said. As he spoke there came back to him very vividly two or three instances of Mrs. Bracknel’s tenderness.

“She is very nice, you know,” Miss Anna continued, “and she was one of the most beautiful young girls I have ever seen--much better looking than either of her daughters. I must show you her photograph some day. She had such a sweet face.”

“You remember her when she was young?”

“But she isn’t very old now, Mr. Rusk. She is a good deal younger than I am.”

“I should never have thought so,” Rusk confessed.

“She had a dreadful illness some years before Denis was born; that is what altered her.”

Doctor Birch, who had been listening somewhat impatiently to all this, rose to his feet. “You haven’t seen the garden yet, Mr. Rusk. Come and I will show it to you.”

“He can see it from here, I daresay,” Miss Anna murmured, but her brother led the young man off.

They strolled among the flower-beds, pausing every now and again before some finer specimen.

“Well, how do you like your pupil?” the Doctor asked abruptly.

Rusk was a little surprised. “Denis? I like him very much. He is very intelligent; very responsive.”

“You’ve found that--eh? A little too intelligent, a little too responsive--perhaps?”

Rusk stooped mechanically to smell a bunch of red roses. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I don’t believe in either quality as the soundest working basis for happiness.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“Oh, just that. My remark is founded on a good many years’ observation. Our young friend is too imaginative, too sensitive, too gentle, too meditative. There’s not enough of the ordinary boy about him. There’s not enough of the brute about him; not enough of the fighting animal.”

“No; he’s certainly not that.”

“Well, he ought to be. He’s too fond of dreaming. His mind is filled with all kinds of wandering ghosts.”

Rusk was again surprised. “But don’t you think he is very much above the average?” he questioned--“mentally, I mean? He is limited, of course, but in his own way he has a fineness!”

“He has.”

“And if he develops; if----” He suddenly paused, and his eyes fastened on his companion’s. “Why are you anxious about him?”

Doctor Birch did not reply at once. “Who said I was anxious about him?” he then brought out. Yet, as if in support of Rusk’s suspicion, he almost immediately went on, “It is not uncommon for a certain type of mind to lose in some measure its hold upon reality.”

Rusk’s thoughts on the instant leapt back to the scene in the wood, and the vague apprehension he had felt then took definite form. “You mean he may become insane?”

“Not at all. Don’t jump to any exaggerated notion of that sort, though of course any of us may become insane.” He seemed to study his young friend’s face. “Do you mind my being frank with you?--plainly, brutally frank?”

“I had much rather you were,” said Rusk.

“Well, you know, I suppose, that I was largely responsible for bringing you over here? but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I thought we might perhaps more or less work together.”

“Work together?” Rusk repeated, not quite following him. “In what way work together?”

Doctor Birch took his companion’s arm. “Herford told me about you,” he said, “and I was so sure you were the very man I wanted that I daresay I left him a little in the dark as to one or two points I ought to have made clear. To put the matter plainly, I was interested in the boy, and I had a feeling that you--I pictured you, I may tell you, from Herford’s description, just exactly as you turn out to be--that you could do a great deal for him. At the same time I wanted you to get your first impression of him for yourself, so I avoided giving you any information that might have biassed you in one way or another. I’m afraid I’m revealing my conduct as slightly tortuous; but, please accept my apologies. The fact is, the boy had several tutors before you came--impossible people, all of them, as anyone with a glimmer of intelligence could have seen. The father’s stupidity in the matter was incredible. It was really that which exasperated me into interference. What do you think of it all?” He stood still for a moment, and laid his hand familiarly on the young man’s shoulder.

Rusk hesitated and glanced back toward the house. “But don’t you think he may outgrow this tendency?”

“I do. That is why I am delighted to hear that you get on so well together, that you like him.” His pale, rather cold eyes rested on Rusk’s, and the young Englishman was conscious of the strength that lay behind them. He felt that he was in the presence of a will much more powerful than his own.

“You, my dear fellow,” the Doctor went on blandly, “are much more the physician he is in need of than I am. Of course it is hard in such matters to be absolutely sure, but I do not think he has lost any ground since--well, for a long time. He has probably gained a little. Two years ago something occurred which made me uneasy, but it has never been renewed.... Tell me, are you, by any chance, excitable or nervous? You don’t look it, of course, but I should like to have your word for it too.”

Rusk wondered what all this was leading to. He hated to be rushed into things; he liked to know exactly where he was going. Already, mentally, he was throwing up little defensive ramparts from behind which he could view his position in quiet, before committing himself in any way. It was oddly noticeable that as the Doctor’s manner grew more cordial, his own became more reserved. “I don’t know that I’m particularly nervous,” he replied.

“That’s right. If you were it would spoil everything.” The Doctor had the tremendous advantage of knowing exactly what was passing in the younger man’s mind, and of absolutely refusing to be kept at a distance, while poor Rusk knew nothing at all.

“You seem to want to make me so!” he retorted.

“I, my dear fellow! Why in the world should you think that?”

“You seem bent on putting me into an extraordinarily responsible position; or rather, you seem to assume that I’m in one already.”

“So you are, of course,” said Doctor Birch, smiling for the first time since they had begun to discuss the subject. “But never mind that. I don’t think you will regret it. No one ever regrets doing what is worth doing, though that may sound like a copy-book heading. And after all this is nothing more than to keep an eye upon our young friend, to influence him, to make him more like yourself.”

For some reason remarks about influencing people always irritated Rusk, even when he did not find them positively offensive; but he said nothing now, and Doctor Birch went on:

“Try not to be impatient. Try to understand; try to understand. The whole problem in this as in everything else is simply to understand.”

For a moment Rusk thought of saying something about the mysterious moon-worship he had discovered, but almost immediately he decided not to do so. He did not care for rushing into confidences, and after all he knew very little about Doctor Birch. Nor did he altogether like what he did know. He did not like his manner, nor the way he seemed suddenly to spring things on you. Rusk felt that he should have been told about all this long ago.

“Of course, sending him to school was the maddest thing in the world,” Doctor Birch went on. “But he is stronger now than he used to be; much stronger.”

Rusk, however, was not satisfied. He felt, indeed, a certain exasperation; he felt like telling Doctor Birch to mind his own business, only he supposed this was his business. “I think, you know, I ought to have been given a clearer idea of all this before I came here,” he protested. “I was told nothing except that the boy was delicate.”

“I know; I know,” Doctor Birch agreed. “In a way, however, it would have been impossible to enter into details beforehand--at all events it would have been useless; it would merely have prejudiced you against giving the thing a fair trial; you simply wouldn’t have come.”

“Perhaps not, but I think I should have been allowed to choose.”

Doctor Birch agreed again. “But in any case, that is all that is the matter,” he continued. “To talk about it one has to seem to lay stress on it--one exaggerates, without wishing to do so. Denis is just as you have found him. All I have said would apply equally well to any other very highly-strung boy. What really complicates matters is the fact that you are the only person coming in contact with him who has the faintest grain of common-sense. Stick to him, at all events, as long as you can. If you can’t, of course, why it all ends here.”

Rusk coloured a little. He kicked at the grass border. “I will do what you want,” he said, “but it is because I like him, not because of what you say.”

Doctor Birch smiled, and his smile caused Rusk’s blush to deepen. It seemed to convey that the Doctor was not greatly curious as to his motives, and that he thought the distinction unnecessary, and even a little childish. “You think we _have_ treated you badly--eh?” was what he said aloud.

“I don’t suppose it matters very much what I think,” answered Rusk, shortly. “I don’t want to be in a false position, that is all.”

Doctor Birch meditated. “So far as that goes, I am the only person who is to blame,” he presently remarked. “And if I have interfered it is only because I couldn’t very well avoid it.”

Rusk felt a little ashamed of his ill-humour. “Well, we’ll let the matter drop. I’ve told you I’ll do what I can.”

They had completed the tour of the garden; they had, in fact, very considerably prolonged it, and were again close to the spot where they had left the two ladies, whom they once more approached, Rusk preparing to take his leave. The Doctor went off to fetch Denis, leaving the visitor with his sisters.

“You must come back very soon,” Miss Anna said to him; and he promised to do so. He added that though a very unskilful artist he was extremely fond of sketching in water-colours, and that, if they would permit him to bring his paint-box with him, he should very much like to make a drawing of their garden. Miss Anna thought this idea a delightful one, and so did Miss Harriet. They were still discussing it when their brother reappeared, bringing Denis with him.