The Journeying Boy (17 page)

For, of course, that there
were
matters to be cleared up was undeniable. Humphrey, although a perfectly ordinary boy when broadly regarded, had admittedly his uncomfortable side. He imagined things. More than that, he imagined things with such intensity that he set other people imagining too. During the fatigues of the recent railway journey had not Mr Thewless himself been persuaded into imagining quite a lot? He was resolved that with this sort of thing he would have no more to do. Let it be admitted that the boy had an almost hypnotic power of edging one into a world of fantasy. Let this be recognized and firmly guarded against…

‘I’m terribly afraid there’s something I ought to have told you earlier.’

Pitched conspiratorially low, Humphrey’s voice came out of the semi-darkness beside him. Mr Thewless smiled as one who now possesses an assured wisdom. For here was the boy off again; his tone betrayed it; he must be briefly humoured and then packed off to bed. It was already unconscionably late and they would be berthed in Belfast long before any normal breakfast-time.

‘Something you ought to have told me, Humphrey? Well, out with it. But – by Jove! – what about getting a final ginger-beer? I noticed that the bar is still open.’ Mr Thewless was uneasily aware that the epithet ‘sporty’ might be applied to his manner of making this proposition. With a movement towards gravity, he therefore continued, ‘And then we must certainly turn in.’

‘I suppose so.’ Humphrey had immediately begun to move towards the bar and the proposed refreshment, but his tone sounded slightly dejected. ‘Yes, I suppose we must try to sleep.’

‘Try to sleep!’ What Mr Thewless now heard in himself was an unnecessary jollity. ‘I’m certain you will sleep without rocking tonight. And tomorrow should be a good day. The light railway sounds most amusing.’

‘Yes.’ Humphrey sat down and placed his shot-gun (which he now rather absurdly persisted in carrying round) carefully beside him. ‘Do you know why I brought this? It wasn’t to go out shooting helpless birds.’

‘Perhaps it was in case the sheep look unhappy.’

‘The sheep?’ Humphrey was startled.

‘Didn’t Shelley somewhere go round with a gun benevolently putting sheep out of what he conceived to be their misery? It made the farmers very cross.’ Mr Thewless paused and sipped with a dishonest appearance of relish at his ginger-beer. ‘The story may not be true. But it does represent fairly enough Shelley on his freakish side. It was his marked weakness.’

‘I see.’ Humphrey stirred uneasily in his chair. ‘But what I wanted to–’

‘The powerful imagination of a poet,’ pursued Mr Thewless, ‘requires ceaseless discipline. Only by being confined within its own proper bounds does it maintain sufficient force and impetus for creative work. For a young artist any involving of his own day-to-day affairs in mere fanciful reverie is bad. It is likely to cripple his final achievement. By a strong effort of the will, therefore, he should abstain.’ Mr Thewless frowned, momentarily aware of the echo of some magistral voice long ago lecturing his own perplexed innocence on a somewhat different theme. ‘And this was what was meant by a poet in some ways superior even to Shelley – I refer, Humphrey, to John Keats, whom I am sure you have eagerly read – when he declared that the poet and the mere day-dreamer are sheer opposites. And what is the practical lesson of this? We should not allow ourselves to confuse–’

‘I didn’t bring the gun to shoot sheep. I brought it to shoot plotters and blackmailers and spies.’ Humphrey Paxton banged down his glass on the table before him and raised his voice to something like a shout. Fortunately, there was still a good deal of noise in the smoke-room and only one or two people looked round. ‘And I ought never to have left that compartment without it this evening.’

‘It sounds,’ said Mr Thewless, ‘as if what you really need is a revolver.’

‘Exactly.’ And Humphrey nodded soberly. ‘Have
you
got a revolver?’

‘Dear me, no. You see, plotters and spies don’t much come my way.’

‘I’m terribly afraid they are bound to…now.’ Into Humphrey’s voice had come something like compunction and apology. ‘Perhaps I should have considered that. It wasn’t really quite fair to drag you in. I hope Daddy pays you a decent screw?’

Mr Thewless smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, Humphrey, he is proposing to pay me a good deal more than is customary.’

‘That’s odd.’ And Humphrey Paxton looked sharply thoughtful. ‘Would it be dirt money, do you think?’

‘That sounds like something rather disagreeable.’

‘So it is. It’s the extra pay dockers and people get when doing something thoroughly nasty. Perhaps Daddy thinks that being my tutor is that.’ An expression of rather complacent pathos spread itself for a moment over Humphrey’s features. ‘Do you think I might have another ginger-beer?’

Mr Thewless fetched the ginger-beer. ‘No,’ he said; ‘definitely not dirt money. I believe your father finds you a little trying in spots. But he was confident that we should find considerable pleasure in working together. Which reminds me that we can make out a scheme of things when on the train tomorrow.’

‘Of course
dangerous
work gets extra pay too. Perhaps it was that. Perhaps he really did have an inkling.’

‘Perhaps he had an inkling that you would pitch me some pretty tall stories.’ Mr Thewless determined to be good-humoured. ‘I wonder if I could do it too? Tomorrow we might have a competition and see which of us can imagine the biggest adventure.’

Humphrey took a gulp at his ginger-beer. ‘This is going to be difficult,’ he said. ‘Of course I didn’t mean to tell you at all. I meant you just to find out – as you’re pretty sure to do. I meant it to be pretty well my own adventure right through. But now I don’t think I can do that. Not after what happened on the train.’

Mr Thewless looked at his watch. By one means or another this disjointed nonsense of Humphrey’s must be stopped. ‘I think–’ he began.

‘I suppose I’m frightened…rather.’ Humphrey looked gloomily at his gun. ‘Have you noticed how sometimes I get just like a kid?’

‘Yes, I have.’ Mr Thewless responded soberly to this odd appeal. ‘Our age is not always just what our birthday says. It’s the same with grown people sometimes. They can’t decide what age it’s sensible for them to be. Often people manage to be suddenly much older. Sometimes they manage to stay the same age for years and years. Sometimes they become younger and stay younger for quite a bit. It depends on the sort of things that happen to them. And sometimes people decide that it’s time to be no age at all – and then they die. So there’s nothing very odd or special in occasionally feeling rather a kid. I’ve known big chaps do it quite regularly at bed-time. Had to hug a teddy-bear – that sort of thing.’

Humphrey, who had listened carefully to this, slightly blushed. Perhaps he had some private reason for finding the reference to teddy-bears embarrassing. ‘You are a very sensible person,’ he said seriously. ‘It’s a pity you’re going to be such an ass over this.’ His blush deepened. ‘Sorry. I oughtn’t to have said “ass”. Not when I wasn’t in a temper.’

‘I certainly don’t want to be an ass. But had we not better have this talk in the morning?’

‘Very well.’ And Humphrey got to his feet, submissive but plainly discouraged. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it was the blackmailing that misled me. I – I handled that. And so I thought – But this turns out to be different.’

Mr Thewless allowed himself an inward sigh. Whatever fantasy was urgently waiting to tumble from Humphrey Paxton’s mind had better tumble now. For assuredly he would not sleep if sent to his cabin in his present nervous state. And Mr Thewless produced from his pocket a bar of milk chocolate which he proceeded to divide. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘we’re pretty private in this corner. So let me hear the trouble, Humphrey. And I’ll try not to be an ass.’

But Humphrey now seemed to find some difficulty in communication. He munched his chocolate, put up a thumb to lick – and was plainly disposed to let it remain performing the function of an infant’s comforter. Mr Thewless tried prompting. ‘You said something about blackmail before. What was it about?’

‘It was about a girl.’

‘A girl?’ Humphrey at this moment seemed so absurdly young that the words now jerked from him came to Mr Thewless without implication. ‘What do you mean, my dear boy?’

‘I know several girls.’ Humphrey was momentarily circuitous. ‘There’s Mary Carruthers, the poetess – although, of course, she’s really a grown woman. But this was Beverley Crupp. She works in a shop. Not that that’s any disgrace.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Thewless, automatically but forebodingly.

‘You
have
to learn about things and do them for the first time.’

Mr Thewless judged that a general acquiescence in this sentiment might be inexpedient. So he ate his last piece of chocolate and said nothing.

‘I used to fool around with Beverley in parks, and that sort of thing. The way you see people doing all over the place. It used to puzzle me a lot, even although I’d read books about it. But I wasn’t puzzled after knowing Beverley. It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it? So unlike anything else. So frightfully
exciting
.’

By the perfect innocence of this last word Mr Thewless felt considerably relieved. ‘Well,’ he said briskly, ‘what about this Beverley?’

‘One day there was a man taking photographs – the sort of man who snaps passers-by with a little camera and then hands them a card. I didn’t think anything of it. But it turned out to be blackmail.’

‘I see.’ Humphrey’s tutor looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Were you very much worried?’

‘At first I was – quite frightfully. It made me feel an absolute kid. But then I managed to use my brains. I could see that the thing was something that this photographer-man did regularly. It was more or less his trade. Well, if I refused to give him money and he sent the photograph to Daddy, or anything like that, it would probably be even more awkward for him than for me. For Daddy, of course, would tell the police, and the fellow would be hunted down and sent to prison. And, anyway, the risk wasn’t great. It wasn’t as if I had a mother to be upset. Daddy would be cross, but that isn’t so – so formidable. And he would quickly come to take a man’s view. He would even tell his more particular friends out of a sort of obscure vanity. For a man likes it to be – be borne in upon him that he has a son capable of having sons. A very queer and deep approval of just keeping the human race going is a factor in such cases.’

Mr Thewless felt within himself a moment’s mild panic. That Humphrey had managed to use his brains was undeniable. Attaining to the mere practical common sense of the matter had been in itself a considerable achievement of intelligence. But his appreciation of what might be called the underlying psychology of the situation was positively intimidating. ‘I take it, then, Humphrey, that you ignored this criminal’s demands?’

‘I handled the situation.’ Humphrey seemed to take particular satisfaction in this phrase. ‘Actually I don’t know that the fellow is quite choked off yet. But he has just ceased to worry me. And that has made me rather uppish. And that’s why I’m landed in
this
.’ Humphrey’s glance went warily round the now almost empty smoke-room. ‘It’s a pretty tight place. But I’ve asked for it.’

‘There is no doubt that you have had an unpleasant experience.’ Mr Thewless was genuinely sympathetic – and the more so because he now comfortably felt that full light on Humphrey had come to him. The narrative to which he had listened was sober truth, and at the same time it explained the genesis of a great deal of fiction. Early sexual experience, even of the comparatively innocent kind in which the boy had involved himself with his friend Beverley, may entail considerable nervous strain. Massive feelings of guilt (reflected Mr Thewless, who was a conscientiously well-read man) have to be contended with in the unconscious mind. And upon Humphrey, a sensitive boy so circumstanced, there had broken this horrid business of a petty blackmailer who preyed systematically upon adolescents. Humphrey’s brain, it was true – as also, what was not quite the same thing, an ability to use it in an awkward situation – had proved too much for the fellow. But the shock must have been there, all the same. And it had precipitated the deplorable world of fantasy into which the boy now so readily sank.

Mr Thewless felt relieved. There is always great satisfaction in the complete intellectual clarification of a problem. And now surely he had the key – the weapon, indeed, with which he could combat the lad’s insubstantial fears. He looked at Humphrey, still clutching his gun, with an increase of benevolence. ‘I am extremely glad,’ he said, ‘that you have told me all this. You don’t think, do you, that there was anything deeply shameful in your – your acquaintance with the girl Beverley?’

Humphrey frowned, as if he now had to recover this topic from a considerable distance. ‘Of course not,’ he said.

‘But the trouble is that there is a part of the mind – particularly of the
young
mind – which does think that. It is very deeply disturbed, and imagines all sorts of punishments which are bound to follow. The person finds himself imagining that he is ill–’

Humphrey looked startled. ‘I know about that,’ he said. ‘Just after I found out about babies I began to think I was going to die of appendicitis. It cleared up when I worked it out that somehow the two things were connected.’

‘Or the person imagines that he is being plotted against and has all sorts of cunning enemies. In the case of a boy, his father often figures in such fantasies. But we needn’t go into the reasons for that.’

Mr Thewless had abstracted his gaze in the endeavour to deal discreetly and lucidly with this unwanted territory. Otherwise Humphrey’s expression might have given him pause, for it was certainly not that of one who begins to feel lightened of a load of imaginary fears.

‘Again, he may feel that he is being dogged or shadowed by spies or avengers, that he will be imprisoned – or even that he has been imprisoned – in dark confined spaces. He may even see his imaginings just as if they were actually happening in the outside world. Shelley did that. He may see himself, or one like himself, apparently involved in similar obscure adventures. And all this just because he believes himself to have come into possession of some dangerous secret.’