§ 9
For a time, except for its distant sentinel, the caravan seemed absolutely deserted, and then a clump of bramble against the wall of the old chalk pit became agitated and a small rueful disillusioned white-smeared little Bealby crept back into the visible universe again. His heart was very heavy.
The time had come to go.
And he did not want to go. He had loved the caravan. He had adored Madeleine.
He would go, but he would go beautifully—touchingly.
He would wash up before he went, he would make everything tidy, he would leave behind him a sense of irreparable loss....
With a mournful precision he set about this undertaking. If Mergleson could have seen, Mergleson would have been amazed....
He made everything look wonderfully tidy.
Then in the place where she had sat, lying on her rug, he found her favourite book, a small volume of Swinburne’s poems very beautifully bound. Captain Douglas had given it to her.
Bealby handled it with a kind of reverence. So luxurious it was, so unlike the books in Bealby’s world, so altogether of her quality.... Strange forces prompted him. For a time he hesitated. Then decision came with a rush. He selected a page, drew the stump of a pencil from his pocket, wetted it very wet and, breathing hard, began to write that traditional message, “Farewell. Remember Art Bealby.”
To this he made an original addition: “I washt up before I went.”
Then he remembered that so far as this caravan went he was not Art Bealby at all. He renewed the wetness of his pencil and drew black lines athwart the name of “Art Bealby” until it was quite unreadable; then across this again and pressing still deeper so that the subsequent pages re-echoed it he wrote these singular words “Ed rightful Earl Shonts.” Then he was ashamed, and largely obliterated this by still more forcible strokes. Finally above it all plainly and nakedly he wrote “Dick Mal-travers....”
He put down the book with a sigh and stood up.
Everything was beautifully in order. But could he not do something yet? There came to him the idea of wreathing the entire camping place with boughs of yew. It would look lovely—and significant. He set to work. At first he toiled zealously, but yew is tough to get and soon his hands were painful. He cast about for some easier way, and saw beneath the hind wheels of the caravan great green boughs—one particularly a splendid long branch.... It seemed to him that it would be possible to withdraw this branch from the great heap of sticks and stones that stayed up the hind wheels of the caravan. It seemed to him that that was so. He was mistaken, but that was his idea.
He set to work to do it. It was rather more difficult to manage than he had supposed; there were unexpected ramifications, wider resistances. Indeed, the thing seemed rooted.
Bealby was a resolute youngster at bottom.
He warmed to his task.... He tugged harder and harder....