Part 19 (2/2)

But it was not easy either to start him or to keep him at it. To begin with, as Ralph had warned her, the work itself, _Ramblings Through the Cotswolds_, was in an appalling mess, and Mr. Waddington seemed to have exhausted his original impetus in getting it into that mess. He had set out on his ramblings without any settled plan. ”A rambler,” he said, ”shouldn't have a settled plan.” So that you would find Mr. Waddington, starting from Wyck-on-the-Hill and arriving at Lechford in the Thames valley, turning up in the valley of the Windlode or the Speed. You would find him on page twenty-seven drinking ale at the Lygon Arms in Chipping Kingdon, and on page twenty-eight looking down on the Evesham plain from the heights south of Cheltenham. He would turn from this prospect and, without traversing any intermediate ground, be back again, where you least expected him, in his Manor under Wyck-on-the-Hill. For though he had no fixed plan, he had a fixed idea, and however far he rambled he returned invariably to Wyck. To Mr. Waddington Wyck-on-the-Hill was the one stable, the one certain spot on the earth's surface, and this led to his treating the map of Gloucesters.h.i.+re entirely with reference to Wyck-on-the-Hill, so that all his ramblings were complicated by the necessity laid on him of starting from and getting back to it.

So much Barbara made out after she had copied the first forty pages, making the first clearing in Mr. Waddington's jungle. The clearings, she explained to Ralph, broke your heart. It wasn't till you'd got the thing all clean and tidy that you realized the deep spiritual confusion that lay behind it.

After that fortieth page the Ramblings piled and mixed themselves in three interpenetrating layers. First there was the original layer of Waddington, then a layer of Ralph superimposed on Waddington and striking down into him; then a top layer of Waddington, striking down into Ralph. First, the primeval chaos of Waddington; then Ralph's spirit moving over it and bringing in light and order; then Waddington again, invading it and beating it all back to darkness and confusion. From the moment Ralph came into it the progress of the book was a struggle between these two principles, and Waddington could never let Ralph be, so determined was he to stamp the book with his own personality.

”After all,” Ralph said, ”it _is_ his book.”

”If he could only get away from Wyck, so that you could see where the other places _are_,” she moaned.

”He can't get away from it because he can't get away from himself. His mind is egocentric and his ego lives in Wyck.”

Barbara had had to ask Ralph to help her. They were in the library together now, working on the Ramblings during one of Mr. Waddington's periodical flights to London.

”He thinks he's rambling round the country but he's really rambling round and round himself. All the time he's thinking about nothing but his blessed self.”

”Oh, come, he thought a lot about his old League.”

”No, the League was only an extension of his ego.”

”That must have been what f.a.n.n.y meant. We were looking at his portrait and I said I wondered what he was thinking about, and she said she used to wonder and now she knew. Of course, it's Himself. That's what makes him look so absurdly solemn.”

”Yes, but think of it. Think. That man hasn't ever cared about anything or anybody but himself.”

”Oh--he cares about f.a.n.n.y.”

”No. No, he doesn't. He cares about his wife. A very different thing.”

”Well--he cares about his old mother. He really cares.”

”Yes, and you know why? It's only because she makes him feel young. He hates Horry because he can't feel young when he's there.”

”Why, oh why, did that angel f.a.n.n.y marry him?”

”Because she isn't an angel. She's a mortal woman and she wanted a husband and children.”

”Wasn't there anybody else?”

”I believe not--available. The man she ought to have married was married already.”

”Did my mother marry him?”

”Yes. And _my_ mother married the next best one.... It was as plain and simple as all that. And you see, the plainer and simpler it was, the more she realized why she was marrying Horatio, the more she idealized him. It wanted camouflage.”

”I see.”

”Then you must remember her people were badly off and he helped them. He was always doing things for them. He managed all f.a.n.n.y's affairs for her before he married her.”

”Then--he does kind things.”

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