Walking about as I do under sentence, I am like a man of my acquaintance, a stodgy, a terrible Philistine, who cherished for years a fancy that he could write Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In all his life he had probably never rhymed anything more subtle than love, above and dove. Since any fool, in his opinion, could supply the music, he aspired only to the Gilbertian librettos. Incessantly and hopelessly out of key he went about humming the Sullivan tunes to the lyrics he alleged to have in his mind.
Similarly, I go about with a sense of mendacious buoyancy,—like a shipwrecked passenger bobbing helplessly in a troubled sea, but still alive; a flickering glimmer of hope, like a desperate man facing a tiger, but still undevoured.
Brazenly I still expect happiness to emerge, somehow, out of hopelessness.
It is easy, of course, to lapse into moods of despondency, into wishing I were dead, since I cannot live in happiness,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
But such moments pass. There is a sort of tonic in the rough of life when the smooth is absent, and the wits, my poor dull wits, brace themselves for the shock of action. I feel certain now that in all my years of tranquillity it is the salt of suffering that was lacking. Yet who would seek suffering for its own sake? I know, however, that I feel younger and more energetic to-day than ever I felt five years ago.
Even Pendleton has his uses. He is the thorn in the side, the fox gnawing at my vitals under the cloak, but here he is in my house as its guest.
He goes with me to the city of a morning on his quest for work, "a connection" as he calls it, and often I find him at home before me when I arrive, in my room, smoking, or out in the garden with the children. I wince inwardly, but I hope I do not show it.
I spoke of hating him, but that is untrue. You cannot persistently hate any man, notably a guest in your house. You can only suspect him. Yet, when I see the children still shy of him, why does it give me a throbbing sense of triumph? I do not know, but so it is. Randolph alone seems to approach him nearer as the days go by. They go on walks together and Randolph confides to Alicia that he is fascinated by the tales of his father's experiences in the tropics, of ships and islands and pearl-fishing and native customs. I fancy Pendleton must be selectively on the alert in his narratives with his young son as the listener. His past must contain many things that none of us in this quiet haven will ever hear recounted.
But I am indifferent to his past. I could listen and even tolerate him as my guest, if only the children were not passing to his care. He talks of "relieving" me of the burden.