Pearl Buck - The Eternal Wonder

They were drawing near now, and suddenly all the lights of the castle flashed on, and it stood brightly outlined against the darkening sky.

“It is beautiful,” she murmured, half to herself. “I always forget how beautiful it is until I’ve been away and then come back to it. I’ve always come back alone until now. It’s rather nice having someone with me—which surprises me, somehow, since I’ve always wanted to come back alone after Moresby died—Morey, I called him.”

“It’s great luck for me,” he said. “Much better than wandering about London by myself—though I’m used to being alone too, being an only child at home and always too young for my schoolmates.”

“What did they do with you in school?” she asked curiously. “You must have been a brilliant little pigmy among big, stupid giants!”

He thought a moment, remembering. “I think they didn’t like me,” he said at last.

She laughed. “How could they? They hated you! Ordinary people always hate the rare few who have brains! Did you mind?”

“I didn’t have time to think of it,” he said. “I was always too busy—making something, reading about something—talking with my father—”

“Your father meant everything to you, didn’t he—”

“Yes.”

“Then he died.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s been no one else?”

He hesitated, then replied. “Yes… a professor—a very brilliant man—but—”

“You’re not friends anymore?”

She had a soft, persistent way with her. He wanted to tell her about Donald Sharpe and did not. He had resolutely tried to forget, and now to put that experience into words would make it all real again. That friendship, that affection—call it what he might—had gone very deep. There had been so much, so very much, about Donald Sharpe to like, even to love. There had been understanding such as he had not found since. It must not be recalled.

“No, we are not friends anymore,” he said abruptly.

And before she could ask why, they were crossing the bridge over the moat, gates were thrown open, and they were at the castle itself.

“Welcome to my home,” Lady Mary said.

THEY WERE IN THE GARDEN in the morning of this his first day in England. The previous night, after an early dinner, she had bade him good night almost coldly, and he had been shown to his room by a manservant, who drew his bath, turned down the bed covers, and laid out his pajamas. His suitcases had already been unpacked and his three suits hung in the closet of a dressing room. This he discovered when the man had left him after asking when he would like to be waked.

“What time is breakfast?” he had asked.

“Her Ladyship takes breakfast in her own rooms, sir,” the man had replied.

He was a short young man of perhaps twenty, round-faced and pug-nosed, his hair blond and stubbly. There was something humorous about his solemnity, and Rann had smiled.

“What would you advise?” he asked. “Remember, I’m only an American.”

The young man hid his own smile behind his hand and coughed slightly.

“As to that, sir, breakfast will be ready anytime after half past eight, sir, in the breakfast room just off the east terrace.”

“I’ll be there,” he had replied, “at half past eight.”

He had slept without waking until eight o’clock, and then was attacked by a monstrous hunger for food and, looking out the window, saw the morning sunny and warm in spite of the season. And after a breakfast vast enough, what with bacon and eggs and broiled kidneys, and much toast and marmalade and cups of coffee with thick cream, he saw Lady Mary in the garden, her slim figure very smart in a blue pantsuit, and her hair bright in the morning sun.

He left the table immediately and joined her, and without preliminaries she said, “Look at this exquisite piece of workmanship!”

She carried a thin bamboo walking stick with a carved ivory handle, and with it she pointed now at a spider’s web, the largest he had ever seen. The spider had caught branches of a holly tree in its spinning, and dew hung in silver drops upon the delicate threads.

“Beautiful,” he said, “and see how the drops of dew change their size—large on the periphery and infinitesimally small toward the center.”

The spider was in the exact center and at rest, a small black spider, motionless and watchful.

“But how,” she asked, “how does that bit of a creature know how to spin its web in mathematical perfection, the widening circles, the exact angles—”

“It’s all built into his nervous system,” he replied, “a sort of living computer.”

She laughed, and looking down into those laughing dark eyes, he saw admiration.

“Now, how do you know that?” she demanded.

“Koestler,” he replied simply. “Page thirty-eight, as I remember. Act of Creation —marvelous book.”

“Is there anything you haven’t read, you young monster?”

“I hope so—I’m longing now to get into the castle library.”

“Oh, those old books—nobody’s read them for generations! Morey’s books are all upstairs in his rooms. Go on about the spider. He looks wicked indeed, in my opinion, sitting there pretending he’s asleep while he waits for some poor harmless fly!”

“Well, I suppose it’s wicked in a way,” he agreed. “But then again it’s his nature. And he’s done his job perfectly. He’s attached his web to twelve points—see? It’s not always so many—depends on what he thinks necessary. But the pattern is always the same. The center of the web is always the center of gravity from the spider’s point of view and the intersection of the threads always make the same angles and—”

“Oh, stop,” she cried, “there’s an insect caught there in the far corner. Oh, get it out, Rannie!”

He broke off a twig and tried delicately to free the struggling insect without breaking the web—a tiny film of a moth it was—but it was too distracted.

“I can’t,” he said, “I’ll break the web.”

“Break it then,” she cried. “Oh, look at that nasty spider! He’s rushed straight to the poor thing—he’s wrapping his beastly little arms about it. Oh, I can’t look!”

She lifted her cane suddenly and struck at the web and ruined it. Spider and moth dropped into the leaves of the shrub and she walked away.

“I won’t let it spoil my morning,” she said with resolution.

“Of course not,” he agreed. “The spider was only acting according to its own built-in rules. Koestler points out that there is a ‘fixed code of rules, which may be innate or learned,’ though its functioning depends on the environment.”

“Oh, be quiet!” she cried, flashing her eyes at him. “I don’t want to hear any more of your old Koestler! Who is he, anyway?”

He was confounded, almost wounded, but he refused to yield to her. “A very great writer,” he said quietly, and was silent for so long that suddenly she smiled at him coaxingly.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I know you can’t help it.”

“Help what?” he inquired.

“Oh—being what you are—a brain, and all that. But you are so—so beautiful, too. Yes, you are, Rann—don’t blush! Why can’t I say you’re beautiful to look at? Why must you be handsome as well as everything else? If I weren’t such a kind, good-natured human being myself, I’d hate you for having everything—that curly hair, too! And blond! Why should you have exactly the color of hair I’ve always wanted—and blue eyes—not watery blue, but ocean blue? I think I do hate you!”

They were both laughing now, and suddenly she threw away her little cane and seized his hand.

“Let’s run!” she cried. “I love to run in the morning!”