Best Stories of Walter de la Mare , livre ebook

Best Stories of Walter de la Mare
by Walter de la Mare

Firstpublished in 1942
Thisedition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria,BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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Best Stories of Walter de la Mare




by Walter de la Mare

THE ALMOND TREE
My old friend, 'the Count' as we used to call him, made very strangeacquaintances at times. Let but a man have plausibility, a point ofview, a crotchet, an enthusiasm, he would find in him an eager andexhilarating listener. And though he was often deceived and disappointedin his finds, the Count had a heart proof against lastingdisillusionment. I confess, however, that these planetary cronies of hiswere rather disconcerting at times. And I own that meeting him oneafternoon in the busy High Street, with a companion on his arm even morethan usually voluble and odd—I own I crossed the road to avoid meetingthe pair.
But the Count's eyes had been too sharp for me. He twitted meunmercifully with my snobbishness. 'I am afraid we must have appeared toavoid you to-day,' he said; and received my protestations withcontemptuous indifference.
But the next afternoon we took a walk together over the heath; andperhaps the sunshine, something in the first freshness of the Mayweather, reminded him of bygone days.
'You remember that rather out-of-the-world friend of mine yesterday thatso shocked your spruce proprieties, Richard? Well, I'll tell you astory.'
As closely as I can recall this story of the Count's childhood I haverelated it. I wish, though, I had my old friend's [Pg 8] gift for such things;then, perhaps, his story might retain something of the charm in thereading which he gave to it in the telling. Perhaps that charm lieswholly in the memory of his voice, his companionship, his friendship. Torevive these, what task would be a burden?...
'The house of my first remembrance, the house that to my last hour onearth will seem home to me, stood in a small green hollow on the vergeof a wide heath. Its five upper windows faced far eastwards towards theweather-cocked tower of a village which rambled down the steepinclination of a hill. And, walking in its green old garden—ah,Richard, the crocuses, the wallflowers, the violets!—you could see inthe evening the standing fields of corn, and the dark furrows where theevening star was stationed; and a little to the south, upon a crest, arambling wood of fir-trees and bracken.
'The house, the garden, the deep quiet orchard, all had been a weddinggift to my mother from a great-aunt, a very old lady in a kind ofturban, whose shrewd eyes used to watch me out of her picture sitting inmy high cane chair at meal-times—with not a little keenness; sometimes,I fancied, with a faint derision. Here passed by, to the singing of thelark, and the lamentation of autumn wind and rain, the first long nineof all these heaped-up inextricable years. Even now, my heart leaps upwith longing to see again with those untutored eyes the lofty clouds ofevening; to hear again as then I heard it the two small notes of theyellow-hammer piping from his green spray. I remember every room of theold house, the steep stairs, the cool apple-scented pantry; I rememberthe cobbles by the scullery, the well, my old dead raven, the bleak andwhistling elms; but best of all I remember the unmeasured splendour ofthe heath, with its gorse, and its deep canopy of sunny air, the havenof every wild bird of the morning.
'Martha Rodd was a mere prim snippet of a maid then, pale and grave,with large contemplative, Puritan eyes. Mrs. Ryder, in her stiff bluemartial print and twisted gold brooch, was [Pg 9] cook. And besides these,there was only old Thomas the gardener (as out-of-doors, and asdistantly seen a creature as a dryad); my mother; and that busy-mindedlittle boy, agog in wits and stomach and spirit—myself. For my fatherseemed but a familiar guest in the house, a guest ever eagerly desiredand welcome, but none too eager to remain. He was a dark man with greyeyes and a long chin; a face unusually impassive, unusually mobile. Justas his capricious mood suggested, our little household was dejected orwildly gay. I never shall forget the spirit of delight he could conjureup at a whim, when my mother would go singing up and down stairs, and inher tiny parlour; and Martha in perfect content would prattle endlesslyon to the cook, basting the twirling sirloin, while I watched in thefirelight. And the long summer evenings too, when my father would find asecret, a magic, a mystery in everything; and we would sit together inthe orchard while he told me tales, with the small green applesoverhead, and beyond contorted branches, the first golden twilight ofthe moon.
'It's an old picture now, Richard, but true to the time.
'My father's will, his word, his caprice, his frown, these were thetables of the law in that small household. To my mother he was the verymeaning of her life. Only that little boy was in some wise independent,busy, inquisitive, docile, sedate; though urged to a bitterness ofsecret rebellion at times. In his childhood he experienced such hours ofdistress as the years do not in mercy bring again to a heart that mayanalyse as well as remember. Yet there also sank to rest the fountain oflife's happiness. In among the gorse bushes were the green mansions ofthe fairies; along the furrows before his adventurous eyes stumbledcrooked gnomes, hopped bewitched robins. Ariel trebled in the sunbeamsand glanced from the dewdrops; and he heard the echo of distant andmagic waters in the falling of the rain.
'But my father was never long at peace in the house. Noth [Pg 10] ing satisfiedhim; he must needs be at an extreme. And if he was compelled to concealhis discontent, there was something so bitter and imperious in hissilence, so scornful a sarcasm in his speech, that we could scarcelybear it. And the knowledge of the influence he had over us served onlyat such times to sharpen his contempt.
'I remember one summer's evening we had been gathering strawberries. Icarried a little wicker basket, and went rummaging under the aromaticleaves, calling ever and again my mother to see the "tremenjous" berry Ihad found. Martha was busy beside me, vexed that her two hands could notserve her master quick enough. And in a wild race with my mother myfather helped us pick. At every ripest one he took her in his arms toforce it between her lips; and of those pecked by the birds he made arhymed offering to Pan. And when the sun had descended behind the hill,and the clamour of the rooks had begun to wane in the elm-tops, he tookmy mother on his arm, and we trooped all together up the long stragglingpath, and across the grass, carrying our spoil of fruit into the cooldusky corridor. As we passed into the gloaming I saw my mother stoopimpulsively and kiss his arm. He brushed off her hand impatiently, andwent into his study. I heard the door shut. A moment afterwards hecalled for candles. And, looking on those two other faces in thetwilight, I knew with the intuition of childhood that he was suddenlysick to death of us all; and I knew that my mother shared my intuition.She sat down, and I beside her, in her little parlour, and took up hersewing. But her face had lost again all its girlishness as she bent herhead over the white linen.
'I think she was happier when my father was away; for then, free fromanxiety to be for ever pleasing his variable moods, she could entertainherself with hopes and preparations for his return. There was a littlesummer-house, or arbour, in the garden, where she would sit alone, whilethe swallows coursed in the evening air. Sometimes, too, she would takeme for a [Pg 11] long walk, listening distantly to my chatter, only, I think,that she might entertain the pleasure of supposing that my father mighthave returned home unforeseen, and be even now waiting to greet us. Butthese fancies would forsake her. She would speak harshly and coldly tome, and scold Martha for her owlishness, and find nothing but vanity andmockery in all that but a little while since had been her daydream.
'I think she rarely knew where my father stayed in his long absencesfrom home. He would remain with us for a week, and neglect us for amonth. She was too proud, and when he was himself, too happy and hopefulto question him, and he seemed to delight in keeping his affairs secretfrom her. Indeed, he sometimes appeared to pretend a mystery where nonewas, and to endeavour in all things to make his character and conductappear quixotic and inexplicable.
'So time went on. Yet, it seemed, as each month passed by, the house wasnot so merry and happy as before; something was fading and vanishingthat would not return; estrangement had pierced a little deeper. I thinkcare at last put out of my mother's mind even the semblance of herformer gaiety. She sealed up her heart lest love should break forth anewinto the bleakness.
'On Guy Fawkes' Day Martha told me at bedtime that a new household hadmoved into the village on the other side of the heath. After that myfather stayed away from us but seldom.
'At first my mother showed her pleasure in a thousand ways, withdainties of her own fancy and cooking, with ribbons in her dark hair,with new songs (though she had but a small thin voice). She read toplease him; and tired my legs out in useless errands in his service. Anda word of praise sufficed her for many hours of difficulty. But by andby, when evening after evening was spent by my father away from home,she began to be uneasy and depressed; and though she made no complaint,her anxious face, the incessant [Pg 12] interrogation of her eyes vexed andirritated him beyond m