"To-morrow afternoon at five o'clock" the reconciliation was complete. No secrets were revealed.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE RETURN
Peter Westcott, meanwhile, had been passing his London summer in a strange state of half-expectant happiness and tranquillity. It was a condition quite new to him, this almost tranced state of pause as though he were hesitating outside the door of some room; was some one coming who would enter with him? Was he expecting to see some treasure within that might after all not be there? Was he afraid to face that realization?
Throughout the whole of that solitary August he had with him three joys—London, the book that was now slowly day by day growing, and Millie. When he was young he had taken all he could get—then everything had been snatched from him—now in his middle age life had taught him to savour everything slowly, to expect nothing more than he perceived actually before him; he had grown selfish in his consciousness of his few treasures. If he shared with others perhaps the gods would grow jealous and rob him once again.
People might deride or condemn. He was shy now; his heart went out as truly, as passionately as it had ever done, but he alone now must know that. Henry and Millie, yes—they might know something—had he not sworn comradeship with them? But not even to them could he truly speak of his secrets. He had talked to Henry of his book and even discussed it with him, but he would not put into spoken words the desires and ambitions that, around it, were creeping into his heart. He scarcely dared own them to himself.
Of his feeling about London he did not speak to any one because he could not put it into words. There was something mysterious in the very soul of the feeling. He could tell himself that it was partly because London was a middle-aged man's town. Paris was for youth, he said, and New York too and Berlin perhaps, but London did not love you until you were a little tired and had known trouble and sorrow and lost your self-esteem. Then the grey-smoked stone, the grey of pigeon's wings and the red-misted sky and the faint dusty green of the trees settled about your heart and calmed you. Now when the past is something to you at last, and the scorn of the past that you had in your youth is over, London admits you into her comradeship. "There is no place," he said to himself, "where one can live in such tranquillity. She is like a woman who was once your mistress, whom you meet again after many years and with whom at last, now that passion is gone, you can have kind, loving friendship. Against the grey-white stone and the dim smoke-stained sky the night colours come and go, life flashes and fades, sounds rise and fall, and kindliness of heart is there at the end." He found now that he could watch everything with a passionate interest. Marylebone High Street might not be the most beautiful street in London, but it had the charm of a small country town where, closing your eyes you could believe that only a mile away there was the country road, the fir-wood, the high, wind-swept down. As people down the street stopped for their morning gossip and the dogs recognized their accustomed friends and the little bell of the tiny Post Office jangled its bell, London rolled back like a thick mist on to a distant horizon and its noise receded into a thin and distant whisper of the wind among the trees. Watching from his window he came to know faces and bodies and horses, he grew part of a community small enough to want his company, but not narrow enough to limit his horizon.
His days during those months were very quiet and very happy. He worked in the morning at his book, at some reviewing, at an occasional article. His few friends, Campbell, Martha Proctor, Monteith perhaps, James Maradick, one or two more, came to see him or he went to them. There was the theatre (so much better than the highbrows asserted), there were concerts. There was golf at a cheap little course at Roehampton, and there were occasional week-ends in the country . . . as a period of pause before some great event—those were happy months. Perhaps the great event would never come, but never in his life before had he felt so deeply assured that he was moving towards something that was to change all his life. Even the finishing of his book would do that. It was called The Fiery Tree, and it began with a man who, walking at night towards a town, loses his way and takes shelter in an old farmhouse. In the farmhouse are two men and an old woman. They consent to put him up for the night. He goes to his room, and looking out from his window on to the moonlit garden he sees, hiding in an appletree. . . . What does he see? It does not matter. In the spring of 1922 the book will be published—The Fiery Tree, By Peter Westcott: Author of Reuben Hallard, etc.: and you be able to judge whether or no he has improved as a writer after all these years. Whether he has improved or no the principal fact is that day after day he got happiness and companionship and comfort from his book. It might be good: it might be bad: he said he did not know. Campbell was right. He did his best, secured his happiness. What came when the book was between its cover was another matter.