Annabel was a most regular church-goer: our Sunday's dinner was always fixed at an hour which gave her time to attend the evening service and change into a black evening dress. Annabel would have died at the stake rather than not change her dress for dinner; but she always wore black on Sunday evenings, as a sort of concession to the day. She went to church for three reasons: to worship God, to save her own soul, and to see that Arthur Blathwayte didn't do anything ritualistic.
Every spring Annabel stood between me and the East wind by insisting on our going abroad together for February and March. There was not the slightest reason for any coolness, so to speak, between the East wind and me: I was as capable of meeting it in the teeth as is any normal Englishman; but my sister condemned it as one of the disagreeable things of life, and therefore felt herself in honour bound to stand between me and it. But she also felt herself bound to return before the end of Lent, in case—without her restraining presence—Blathwayte should be led into any ritualism on Easter Day.
And it was on the day of our return home from one of these East-wind-eluding excursions, when Arthur and I were smoking after dinner in the Manor dining-room, that he asked the curtain-raising question: "Reggie, do you remember Wildacre?"
Of course I remembered him; who that had ever known Wildacre could help remembering him? And the memory conjured up a vision of one of the most attractive personalities I had ever met. Wildacre had been a friend of Blathwayte's and mine at Oxford; but after we left college the friendship had gradually fizzled out, owing to the extreme (not to say dull) respectability of Arthur and myself, and the exact opposite on the part of Wildacre. But what charm he had—what superabundant vitality—what artistic genius! All of which came back to me with a rush as I answered Arthur's question.
"Remember Wildacre? Rather! But why? Have you heard anything about him?"
"Yes," replied Blathwayte in his turn. "I've heard a good deal while you've been abroad. In fact, I've seen him."
"Seen him! Lucky old Arthur! I should like to see him too. It would almost make one young again to see Wildacre."
"Well, it didn't exactly have that effect, as he was dying, you see."
Wildacre dying! The idea seemed impossible. Wildacre had always been so full of life that one couldn't imagine him and Death hobnobbing; they could have nothing in common with each other! And as to that Other Life beyond the grave—in which in my own way I believed quite as firmly as did Arthur—one couldn't imagine Wildacre at home there either.
"Wildacre mustn't die yet!" I exclaimed; "not till he's done something with all that genius of his and that overflowing energy! I couldn't bear to think of his dying until he's made a name for himself. Wildacre is a real poet, and he'll be a great poet some day."