The Tower of Oblivion Part 59

"Of course I'm going to. But oh, how could I be so horrid to you about that note! As if you _would_ think that I should peep into a note anyway! You do forgive me, don't you?"

"If you're going to tell me tell me quickly," I groaned.

So this, if you please, is what came next:

"It was while we were in that pigeon-place, where the hen was. They look like rows and rows of little square holes, where the pigeons used to live I mean, but when you put your hand in they're quite big inside, all scooped out, lots of room for both pigeons and all their eggs. And one row hooks round inside one way and the other the other. I discovered that when I put my hand in, and I turned round to tell Derry. And do you know, Uncle George, he's got such a funny name for that place. He calls it the Tower of Oblivion. I didn't know what oblivion was, so I didn't know what he meant just at first, but I think it's a splendid name for it now. You see----"

"You were saying that you turned round to tell him something."

"I was just coming to that. So I turned round, and at first I had rather a fright, because I couldn't see him. I thought he'd gone, but I didn't see how he could, because there was only that one little way in and I was standing close to it. Then I saw him behind the bushes and things, all among the nettles, and his head was against the wall. I made a noise, but he didn't seem to hear me. So then I touched him.

"'What's the matter, M'sieur Arnaud?' I said. 'Is something the matter?'

"Well, he didn't move, Uncle George. For ever so long he didn't move.

Then he turned round, and oh, his poor eyes! I don't mean he was crying.

He didn't cry once all the time. But he made me so anxious I didn't know what to do.

"'What is the matter, M'sieur Arnaud? Do tell me what's the matter!' I said.

"'You mustn't call me that,' he said. 'It isn't my name.'

"'Not your name!' I said. 'But Sir George Coverham calls you that, and mother calls you that, and Sir George wouldn't have told mother so if it wasn't so, and they call you that where you live!'

"'They do, and it isn't my name,' he said. 'I want to tell you my name,'

he said.

"Well, I thought it awfully funny everybody calling him something that wasn't his name. So I said, 'Well, what _is_ your name?'

"'Rose,' he said.

"'What besides Rose?' I said.

"'Derwent,' he said. 'Derwent Rose. But George calls me Derry.'

"'George? Do you mean Sir George Coverham?' I said.

"'Yes. I sometimes call him George,' he said.

"And then, Uncle George, he put his head against the wall again and went on saying to himself, 'The Tower of Oblivion, the Tower of Oblivion,'

over and over again."

I closed my eyes, but it was like closing them in a swing, so sick and dizzy did I feel. I had never seen that Tower in my life, yet somehow I seemed to be there--walled in, cut off from the rest of mankind, with only that hot deep blue overhead, and the gra.s.ses that fringed the circular top minutely bright and intense against it. The loud droning of the thres.h.i.+ng-gin at the adjacent farm seemed to be in my ears, but in my heart was a more moving murmur. Gentle and forgotten place! With what croonings, what flutterings, had it not once been astir! Those little cavities into which she had thrust her hand were the cells of a once-throbbing heart. But who had built a Tower of stone to guard the dove's faithfulness? What masonry could make that, the very emblem of love, more secure? Of all birds, the constant dove to be thus immured?

Towers are for the defence of the helpless, not of that invulnerable meekness and strength. All the stones in the world could not more fortify those soft immutable hearts. Such humility, yet so stable: such defencelessness, yet so steadfast! It was in this wondrous place, thrice strong without but ten times strong within, that Derwent Rose had sought his atonement. He too, hard without, was all tenderness within. He had no choice but to lie to the rest of the world, but she must be told the truth. Arnaud would do well enough for others, but he had no peace unless to her he was Derwent Rose. It was his comfort to tell her so, and that Tower was in truth his confessional, the Oblivion of his dead years.

"But of course you know all about it, Uncle George," she went on. "I didn't, you see, and that's what made it sound so queer. So I said to him, 'But why do you call yourself Arnaud if your name is Rose?'

"'Because something once happened to me,' he said.

"'What?' I asked him.

"'I don't know,' he said. 'George doesn't know. n.o.body knows. A doctor once tried to tell me, but he didn't know either.'

"'But what sort of a thing?' I said. 'What does it do?'

"'It makes me younger,' he said. 'I'm years and years older than I look.

I'm not young at all.'

"'But I don't understand,' I said. 'If it makes you young then you _are_ young, aren't you?'

"And then he smiled. I was so glad to see him smile. He'd been fearfully mopey up to then.

"'That's so,' he said. 'And anyway it's all over now. If it wasn't I shouldn't be telling you. If it wasn't over I shouldn't be here, Jennie.'

"He called me Jennie for the first time. He hadn't called me anything up to then, ever.

"'Then if it's all over what are you bothering about it for?' I said.

'Was it your fault?'

"'No,' he said.

"'Then,' I said, 'if a thing isn't a person's fault I think we ought to be sorry for them, and it doesn't matter if it's all over. And,' I said, 'if Uncle George calls you Derry I'm going to call you Derry too. It really is all over, Derry dear?'

"'Look, Jennie,' he said.

"And then, Uncle George, he looked up at the sky out of the top of the Tower, and bent his knee and crossed himself three times, like this."

Over her young breast her hand did what his had done.

"'And you promise it wasn't your fault?' I said.

"'That was my promise, Jennie,' he said.

"'Then,' I said, 'I don't want to hear another word about it. I won't listen. You're not to tell me any more.'

"So I wouldn't listen, and when he opened his mouth I just did this----"

And laughingly, with her hands tight over her ears, she shook her head.

She would no more peep behind his word than she would have peeped into his note.

"And all this was yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Where is he to-day?"

"I only saw him just for a minute this morning. He wouldn't let me go with him to-day. He said I must come to you and tell you what I've just told you. So I waited till father and mother had gone out and then I came."

"And when father and mother come back? How do I stand? What am I to do?"