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Chapter 2 Concerning Fathers

Bobby knelt down beside him, but there was no doubt. The man was dead. A last moment of consciousness, that sudden question, and then – the end.

Rather apologetically, Bobby put his hand into the dead man’s pocket and, drawing out a silk handkerchief, he spread it reverently over the dead face. There was nothing more he could do.

Then he noticed that in his action he had jerked something else out of the pocket. It was a photograph and in the act of replacing it he glanced at the pictured face.

It was a woman’s face, strangely haunting in quality. A fair woman with wide-apart eyes. She seemed little more than a girl, certainly under thirty, but it was the arresting quality of her beauty rather than the beauty itself that seized upon the boy’s imagination. It was the kind of face, he thought, not easy to forget.

Gently and reverently, he replaced the photograph in the pocket from which it had come, then he sat down again to wait for the doctor’s return.

The time passed very slowly – or at least so it seemed to the waiting boy. Also, he had just remembered something. He had promised his father to play the organ at the evening service at six o’clock and it was now ten minutes to six. Naturally, his father would understand the circumstances, but all the same he wished that he had remembered to send a message by the doctor. The Rev. Thomas Jones was a man of extremely nervous temperament. He was, par excellence, a fusser, and when he fussed, his digestive apparatus collapsed and he suffered agonizing pain. Bobby, though he considered his father a pitiful old ass, was nevertheless extremely fond of him. The Rev. Thomas, on the other hand, considered his fourth son a pitiful young ass, and with less tolerance than Bobby sought to effect improvement in the young man.

‘The poor old gov’nor,’ thought Bobby. ‘He’ll be ramping up and down. He won’t know whether to start the service or not. He’ll work himself up till he gets that pain in the tummy, and then he won’t be able to eat his supper. He won’t have the sense to realize that I wouldn’t let him down unless it were quite unavoidable – and, anyway, what does it matter? But he’ll never see it that way. Nobody over fifty has got any sense – they worry themselves to death about tuppeny-ha’peny things that don’t matter. They’ve been brought up all wrong, I suppose, and now they can’t help themselves. Poor old Dad, he’s got less sense than a chicken!’

He sat there thinking of his father with mingled affection and exasperation. His life at home seemed to him to be one long sacrifice to his father’s peculiar ideas. To Mr Jones, the same time seemed to be one long sacrifice on his part, ill understood or appreciated by the younger generation. So may ideas on the same subject differ.

What an age the doctor was! Surely he might have been back by this time?

Bobby got up and stamped his feet moodily. At that moment he heard something above him and looked up, thankful that help was at hand and his own services no longer needed.

But it was not the doctor. It was a man in plus fours whom Bobby did not know.

‘I say,’ said the newcomer. ‘Is anything the matter? Has there been an accident? Can I help in any way?’

He was a tall man with a pleasant tenor voice. Bobby could not see him very clearly for it was now fast growing dusk.

He explained what had happened whilst the stranger made shocked comments.

‘There’s nothing I can do?’ he asked. ‘Get help or anything?’

Bobby explained that help was on the way and asked if the other could see any signs of its arriving.

‘There’s nothing at present.’

‘You see,’ went on Bobby, ‘I’ve got an appointment at six.’

‘And you don’t like to leave –’

‘No, I don’t quite,’ said Bobby. ‘I mean, the poor chap’s dead and all that, and of course one can’t do anything, but all the same –’

He paused, finding it, as usual, difficult to put confused emotions into words.

The other, however, seemed to understand.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Look here, I’ll come down – that is, if I can see my way – and I’ll stay till these fellows arrive.’

‘Oh, would you?’ said Bobby gratefully. ‘You see, it’s my father. He’s not a bad sort really, and things upset him. Can you see your way? A bit more to the left – now to the right – that’s it. It’s not really difficult.’

He encouraged the other with directions until the two men were face to face on the narrow plateau. The newcomer was a man of about thirty-five. He had a rather indecisive face which seemed to be calling for a monocle and a little moustache.

‘I’m a stranger down here,’ he explained. ‘My name’s Bassington-ffrench, by the way. Come down to see about a house. I say, what a beastly thing to happen! Did he walk over the edge?’

Bobby nodded.

‘Bit of mist got up,’ he explained. ‘It’s a dangerous bit of path. Well, so long. Thanks very much. I’ve got to hurry. It’s awfully good of you.’

‘Not at all,’ the other protested. ‘Anybody would do the same. Can’t leave the poor chap lying – well, I mean, it wouldn’t be decent somehow.’

Bobby was scrambling up the precipitous path. At the top he waved his hand to the other then set off at a brisk run across country. To save time, he vaulted the churchyard wall instead of going round to the gate on the road – a proceeding observed by the Vicar from the vestry window and deeply disapproved of by him.

It was five minutes past six, but the bell was still tolling.

Explanations and recriminations were postponed until after the service. Breathless, Bobby sank into his seat and manipulated the stops of the ancient organ. Association of ideas led his fingers into Chopin’s funeral march.

Afterwards, more in sorrow than in anger (as he expressly pointed out), the Vicar took his son to task.

‘If you cannot do a thing properly, my dear Bobby,’ he said, ‘it is better not to do it at all. I know that you and all your young friends seem to have no idea of time, but there is One whom we should not keep waiting. You offered to play the organ of your own accord. I did not coerce you. Instead, faint-hearted, you preferred playing a game –’

Bobby thought he had better interrupt before his father got too well away.

‘Sorry, Dad,’ he said, speaking cheerfully and breezily as was his habit no matter what the subject. ‘Not my fault this time. I was keeping guard over a corpse.’

‘You were what?’

‘Keeping guard over a blighter who stepped over the cliff. You know – the place where the chasm is – by the seventeenth tee. There was a bit of mist just then, and he must have gone straight on and over.’

‘Good heavens,’ cried the Vicar. ‘What a tragedy! Was the man killed outright?’

‘No. He was unconscious. He died just after Dr Thomas had gone off. But of course I felt I had to squat there – couldn’t just push off and leave him. And then another fellow came along so I passed the job of chief mourner on to him and legged it here as fast as I could.’

The Vicar sighed.

‘Oh, my dear Bobby,’ he said. ‘Will nothing shake your deplorable callousness? It grieves me more than I can say. Here you have been brought face to face with death – with sudden death. And you can joke about it! It leaves you unmoved. Everything – everything, however solemn, however sacred, is merely a joke to your generation.’

Bobby shuffled his feet.

If his father couldn’t see that, of course, you joked about a thing because you had felt badly about it – well, he couldn’t see it! It wasn’t the sort of thing you could explain. With death and tragedy about you had to keep a stiff upper lip.

But what could you expect? Nobody over fifty understood anything at all. They had the most extraordinary ideas.

‘I expect it was the War,’ thought Bobby loyally. ‘It upset them and they never got straight again.’

He felt ashamed of his father and sorry for him.

‘Sorry, Dad,’ he said with a clear-eyed realization that explanation was impossible.

The Vicar felt sorry for his son – he looked abashed – but he also felt ashamed of him. The boy had no conception of the seriousness of life. Even his apology was cheery and impenitent.

They moved towards the Vicarage, each making enormous efforts to find excuses for the other.

The Vicar thought: ‘I wonder when Bobby will find something to do … ?’

Bobby thought: ‘Wonder how much longer I can stick it down here … ?’

Yet they were both extremely fond of each other.