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Title: The Dark Flower
Author: John Galsworthy
Release Date: May, 2000 [Etext #2192]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[Most recently updated: January 5, 2002]
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This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
THE DARK FLOWER
by John Galsworthy
"Take the flower from my breast, I pray thee,
Take the flower too from out my tresses;
And then go hence, for see, the night is fair,
The stars rejoice to watch thee on thy way."
--From "The Bard of the Dimbovitza."
THE DARK FLOWER
Part I
Spring
I
He walked along Holywell that afternoon of early June with his
short gown drooping down his arms, and no cap on his thick dark
hair. A youth of middle height, and built as if he had come of two
very different strains, one sturdy, the other wiry and light. His
face, too, was a curious blend, for, though it was strongly formed,
its expression was rather soft and moody. His eyes--dark grey,
with a good deal of light in them, and very black lashes--had a way
of looking beyond what they saw, so that he did not seem always to
be quite present; but his smile was exceedingly swift, uncovering
teeth as white as a negro's, and giving his face a peculiar
eagerness. People stared at him a little as he passed--since in
eighteen hundred and eighty he was before his time in not wearing a
cap. Women especially were interested; they perceived that he took
no notice of them, seeming rather to be looking into distance, and
making combinations in his soul.
Did he know of what he was thinking--did he ever know quite
definitely at that time of his life, when things, especially those
beyond the immediate horizon, were so curious and interesting?--the
things he was going to see and do when he had got through Oxford,
where everybody was 'awfully decent' to him and 'all right' of
course, but not so very interesting.
He was on his way to his tutor's to read an essay on Oliver
Cromwell; and under the old wall, which had once hedged in the
town, he took out of his pocket a beast. It was a small tortoise,
and, with an extreme absorption, he watched it move its little
inquiring head, feeling it all the time with his short, broad
fingers, as though to discover exactly how it was made. It was
mighty hard in the back! No wonder poor old Aeschylus felt a bit
sick when it fell on his head! The ancients used it to stand the
world on--a pagoda world, perhaps, of men and beasts and trees,
like that carving on his guardian's Chinese cabinet. The Chinese
made jolly beasts and trees, as if they believed in everything
having a soul, and not only being just fit for people to eat or
drive or make houses of. If only the Art School would let him
model things 'on his own,' instead of copying and copying--it was
just as if they imagined it would be dangerous to let you think out
anything for yourself!
He held the tortoise to his waistcoat, and let it crawl, till,
noticing that it was gnawing the corner of his essay, he put it
back into his pocket. What would his tutor do if he were to know
it was there?--cock his head a little to one side, and say: "Ah!
there are things, Lennan, not dreamed of in my philosophy!" Yes,
there were a good many not dreamed of by 'old Stormer,' who seemed
so awfully afraid of anything that wasn't usual; who seemed always
laughing at you, for fear that you should laugh at him. There were
lots of people in Oxford like that. It was stupid. You couldn't
do anything decent if you were afraid of being laughed at! Mrs.
Stormer wasn't like that; she did things because--they came into
her head. But then, of course, she was Austrian, not English, and
ever so much younger than old Stormer.
And having reached the door of his tutor's house, he rang the
bell. . . .
II
When Anna Stormer came into the study she found her husband
standing at the window with his head a little on one side--a tall,
long-legged figure in clothes of a pleasant tweed, and wearing a
low turn-over collar (not common in those days) and a blue silk
tie, which she had knitted, strung through a ring. He was humming
and gently tapping the window-pane with his well-kept finger-nails.
Though celebrated for the amount of work he got through, she never
caught him doing any in this house of theirs, chosen because it was
more than half a mile away from the College which held the 'dear
young clowns,' as he called them, of whom he was tutor.
He did not turn--it was not, of course, his habit to notice what
was not absolutely necessary--but she felt that he was aware of
her. She came to the window seat and sat down. He looked round at
that, and said: "Ah!"
It was a murmur almost of admiration, not usual from him, since,
with the exception of certain portions of the classics, it was
hardly his custom to admire. But she knew that she was looking her
best sitting there, her really beautiful figure poised, the sun
shining on her brown hair, and brightening her deep-set, ice-green
eyes under their black lashes. It was sometimes a great comfort to
her that she remained so good-looking. It would have been an added
vexation indeed to have felt that she ruffled her husband's
fastidiousness. Even so, her cheekbones were too high for his
taste, symbols of that something in her character which did not go
with his--the dash of desperation, of vividness, that lack of a
certain English smoothness, which always annoyed him.
"Harold!"--she would never quite flatten her r's--"I want to go to
the mountains this year."
The mountains! She had not seen them since that season at San
Martino di Castrozza twelve years ago, which had ended in her
marrying him.
"Nostalgia!"
"I don't know what that means--I am homesick. Can we go?"
"If you like--why not? But no leading up the Cimone della Pala for
ME!"
She knew what he meant by that. No romance. How splendidly he had
led that day! She had almost worshipped him. What blindness!
What distortion! Was it really the same man standing there with
those bright, doubting eyes, with grey already in his hair? Yes,
romance was over! And she sat silent, looking out into the street--
that little old street into which she looked day and night. A
figure passed out there, came to the door, and rang.
She said softly: "Here is Mark Lennan!"
She felt her husband's eyes rest on her just for a moment, knew
that he had turned, heard him murmur: "Ah, the angel clown!" And,
quite still, she waited for the door to open. There was the boy,
with his blessed dark head, and his shy, gentle gravity, and his
essay in his hand.
"Well, Lennan, and how's old Noll? Hypocrite of genius, eh? Draw
up; let's get him over!"
Motionless, from her seat at the window, she watched those two
figures at the table--the boy reading in his queer, velvety bass
voice; her husband leaning back with the tips of his fingers
pressed together, his head a little on one side, and that faint,
satiric smile which never reached his eyes. Yes, he was dozing,
falling asleep; and the boy, not seeing, was going on. Then he
came to the end and glanced up. What eyes he had! Other boys
would have laughed; but he looked almost sorry. She heard him
murmur: "I'm awfully sorry, sir."
"Ah, Lennan, you caught me! Fact is, term's fagged me out. We're
going to the mountains. Ever been to the mountains? What--never!
You should come with us, eh? What do you say, Anna? Don't you
think this young man ought to come with us?"
She got up, and stood staring at them both. Had she heard aright?
Then she answered--very gravely:
"Yes; I think he ought."
"Good; we'll get HIM to lead up the Cimone della Pala!"
III
When the boy had said good-bye, and she had watched him out into
the street, Anna stood for a moment in the streak of sunlight that
came in through the open door, her hands pressed to cheeks which
were flaming. Then she shut the door and leaned her forehead
against the window-pane, seeing nothing. Her heart beat very fast;
she was going over and over again the scene just passed through.
This meant so much more than it had seemed to mean. . . .
Though she always had Heimweh, and especially at the end of the
summer term, this year it had been a different feeling altogether
that made her say to her husband: "I want to go to the mountains!"
For twelve years she had longed for the mountains every summer, but
had not pleaded for them; this year she had pleaded, but she did
not long for them. It was because she had suddenly realized the
strange fact that she did not want to leave England, and the reason
for it, that she had come and begged to go. Yet why, when it was
just to get away from thought of this boy, had she said: "Yes, I
think he ought to come!" Ah! but life for her was always a strange
pull between the conscientious and the desperate; a queer, vivid,
aching business! How long was it now since that day when he first
came to lunch, silent and shy, and suddenly smiling as if he were
all lighted up within--the day when she had said to her husband
afterwards: "Ah, he's an angel!" Not yet a year--the beginning of
last October term, in fact. He was different from all the other
boys; not that he was a prodigy with untidy hair, ill-fitting
clothes, and a clever tongue; but because of something--something--
Ah! well--different; because he was--he; because she longed to take
his head between her hands and kiss it. She remembered so well the
day that longing first came to her. She was giving him tea, it was
quite early in the Easter term; he was stroking her cat, who always
went to him, and telling her that he meant to be a sculptor, but
that his guardian objected, so that, of course, he could not start
till he was of age. The lamp on the table had a rose-coloured
shade; he had been rowing--a very cold day--and his face was
glowing; generally it was rather pale. And suddenly he smiled, and
said: "It's rotten waiting for things, isn't it?" It was then she
had almost stretched out her hands to draw his forehead to her
lips. She had thought then that she wanted to kiss him, because it
would have been so nice to be his mother--she might just have been
his mother, if she had married at sixteen. But she had long known
now that she wanted to kiss, not his forehead, but his lips. He
was there in her life--a fire in a cold and unaired house; it had
even become hard to understand that she could have gone on all
these years without him. She had missed him so those six weeks of
the Easter vacation, she had revelled so in his three queer little
letters, half-shy, half-confidential; kissed them, and worn them in
her dress! And in return had written him long, perfectly correct
epistles in her still rather quaint English. She had never let him
guess her feelings; the idea that he might shocked her
inexpressibly. When the summer term began, life seemed to be all
made up of thoughts of him. If, ten years ago, her baby had lived,
if its cruel death--after her agony--had not killed for good her
wish to have another; if for years now she had not been living with
the knowledge that she had no warmth to expect, and that love was
all over for her; if life in the most beautiful of all old cities
had been able to grip her--there would have been forces to check
this feeling. But there was nothing in the world to divert the
current. And she was so brimful of life, so conscious of vitality
running to sheer waste. Sometimes it had been terrific, that
feeling within her, of wanting to live--to find outlet for her
energy. So many hundreds of lonely walks she had taken during all
these years, trying to lose herself in Nature--hurrying alone,
running in the woods, over the fields, where people did not come,
trying to get rid of that sense of waste, trying once more to feel
as she had felt when a girl, with the whole world before her. It
was not for nothing that her figure was superb, her hair so bright
a brown, her eyes so full of light. She had tried many
distractions. Work in the back streets, music, acting, hunting;
given them up one after the other; taken to them passionately
again. They had served in the past. But this year they had not
served. . . . One Sunday, coming from confession unconfessed, she
had faced herself. It was wicked. She would have to kill this
feeling--must fly from this boy who moved her so! If she did not
act quickly, she would be swept away. And then the thought had
come: Why not? Life was to be lived--not torpidly dozed through in
this queer cultured place, where age was in the blood! Life was
for love--to be enjoyed! And she would be thirty-six next month!
It seemed to her already an enormous age. Thirty-six! Soon she
would be old, actually old--and never have known passion! The
worship, which had made a hero of the distinguished-looking
Englishman, twelve years older than herself, who could lead up the
Cimone della Pala, had not been passion. It might, perhaps, have
become passion if he had so willed. But he was all form, ice,
books. Had he a heart at all, had he blood in his veins? Was
there any joy of life in this too beautiful city and these people
who lived in it--this place where even enthusiasms seemed to be
formal and have no wings, where everything was settled and
sophisticated as the very chapels and cloisters? And yet, to have
this feeling for a boy--for one almost young enough to be her son!
It was so--shameless! That thought haunted her, made her flush in
the dark, lying awake at night. And desperately she would pray--
for she was devout--pray to be made pure, to be given the holy
feelings of a mother, to be filled simply with the sweet sense that
she could do everything, suffer anything for him, for his good.
After these long prayers she would feel calmed, drowsy, as though
she had taken a drug. For hours, perhaps, she would stay like
that. And then it would all come over her again. She never
thought of his loving her; that would be--unnatural. Why should he
love her? She was very humble about it. Ever since that Sunday,
when she avoided the confessional, she had brooded over how to make
an end--how to get away from a longing that was too strong for her.
And she had hit on this plan--to beg for the mountains, to go back
to where her husband had come into her life, and try if this
feeling would not die. If it did not, she would ask to be left out
there with her own people, away from this danger. And now the
fool--the blind fool--the superior fool--with his satiric smile,
his everlasting patronage, had driven her to overturn her own plan.
Well, let him take the consequences; she had done her best! She
would have this one fling of joy, even if it meant that she must
stay out there, and never see the boy again!
Standing in her dusky hall, where a faint scent of woodrot crept
out into the air, whenever windows and doors were closed, she was
all tremulous with secret happiness. To be with him among her
mountains, to show him all those wonderful, glittering or tawny
crags, to go with him to the top of them and see the kingdoms of
the world spread out below; to wander with him in the pine woods,
on the Alps in all the scent of the trees and the flowers, where
the sun was hot! The first of July; and it was only the tenth of
June! Would she ever live so long? They would not go to San
Martino this time, rather to Cortina--some new place that had no
memories!
She moved from the window, and busied herself with a bowl of
flowers. She had heard that humming sound which often heralded her
husband's approach, as though warning the world to recover its good
form before he reached it. In her happiness she felt kind and
friendly to him. If he had not meant to give her joy, he had
nevertheless given it! He came downstairs two at a time, with that
air of not being a pedagogue, which she knew so well; and, taking
his hat off the stand, half turned round to her.
"Pleasant youth, young Lennan; hope he won't bore us out there!"
His voice seemed to have an accent of compunction, to ask pardon
for having issued that impulsive invitation. And there came to her
an overwhelming wish to laugh. To hide it, to find excuse for it,
she ran up to him, and, pulling his coat lapels till his face was
within reach, she kissed the tip of his nose. And then she
laughed. And he stood looking at her, with his head just a little
on one side, and his eyebrows just a little raised.
IV
When young Mark heard a soft tapping at his door, though out of
bed, he was getting on but dreamily--it was so jolly to watch the
mountains lying out in this early light like huge beasts. That one
they were going up, with his head just raised above his paws,
looked very far away out there! Opening the door an inch, he
whispered:
"Is it late?"
"Five o'clock; aren't you ready?"
It was awfully rude of him to keep her waiting! And he was soon
down in the empty dining-room, where a sleepy maid was already
bringing in their coffee. Anna was there alone. She had on a
flax-blue shirt, open at the neck, a short green skirt, and a grey-
green velvety hat, small, with one black-cock's feather. Why could
not people always wear such nice things, and be as splendid-
looking! And he said:
"You do look jolly, Mrs. Stormer!"
She did not answer for so long that he wondered if it had been rude
to say that. But she DID look so strong, and swift, and happy-
looking.
Down the hill, through a wood of larch-trees, to the river, and
across the bridge, to mount at once by a path through hay-fields.
How could old Stormer stay in bed on such a morning! The peasant
girls in their blue linen skirts were already gathering into
bundles what the men had scythed. One, raking at the edge of a
field, paused and shyly nodded to them. She had the face of a
Madonna, very calm and grave and sweet, with delicate arched brows--
a face it was pure pleasure to see. The boy looked back at her.
Everything to him, who had never been out of England before, seemed
strange and glamorous. The chalets, with their long wide burnt-
brown wooden balconies and low-hanging eaves jutting far beyond the
walls; these bright dresses of the peasant women; the friendly
little cream-coloured cows, with blunt, smoke-grey muzzles. Even
the feel in the air was new, that delicious crisp burning warmth
that lay so lightly as it were on the surface of frozen stillness;
and the special sweetness of all places at the foot of mountains--
scent of pine-gum, burning larch-wood, and all the meadow flowers
and grasses. But newest of all was the feeling within him--a sort
of pride, a sense of importance, a queer exhilaration at being
alone with her, chosen companion of one so beautiful.
They passed all the other pilgrims bound the same way--stout square
Germans with their coats slung through straps, who trailed behind
them heavy alpenstocks, carried greenish bags, and marched stolidly
at a pace that never varied, growling, as Anna and the boy went by:
"Aber eilen ist nichts!"
But those two could not go fast enough to keep pace with their
spirits. This was no real climb--just a training walk to the top
of the Nuvolau; and they were up before noon, and soon again
descending, very hungry. When they entered the little dining-room
of the Cinque Torre Hutte, they found it occupied by a party of
English people, eating omelettes, who looked at Anna with faint
signs of recognition, but did not cease talking in voices that all
had a certain half-languid precision, a slight but brisk pinching
of sounds, as if determined not to tolerate a drawl, and yet to
have one. Most of them had field-glasses slung round them, and
cameras were dotted here and there about the room. Their faces
were not really much alike, but they all had a peculiar drooping
smile, and a particular lift of the eyebrows, that made them seem
reproductions of a single type. Their teeth, too, for the most
part were a little prominent, as though the drooping of their
mouths had forced them forward. They were eating as people eat who
distrust the lower senses, preferring not to be compelled to taste
or smell.
"From our hotel," whispered Anna; and, ordering red wine and
schnitzels, she and the boy sat down. The lady who seemed in
command of the English party inquired now how Mr. Stormer was--he
was not laid up, she hoped. No? Only lazy? Indeed! He was a
great climber, she believed. It seemed to the boy that this lady
somehow did not quite approve of them. The talk was all maintained
between her, a gentleman with a crumpled collar and puggaree, and a
short thick-set grey-bearded man in a dark Norfolk jacket. If any
of the younger members of the party spoke, the remark was received
with an arch lifting of the brows, and drooping of the lids, as who
should say: "Ah! Very promising!"
"Nothing in my life has given me greater pain than to observe the
aptitude of human nature for becoming crystallized." It was the
lady in command who spoke, and all the young people swayed their
faces up and down, as if assenting. How like they were, the boy
thought, to guinea-fowl, with their small heads and sloping
shoulders and speckly grey coats!
"Ah! my dear lady"--it was the gentleman with the crumpled collar--
"you novelists are always girding at the precious quality of
conformity. The sadness of our times lies in this questioning
spirit. Never was there more revolt, especially among the young.
To find the individual judging for himself is a grave symptom of
national degeneration. But this is not a subject--"
"Surely, the subject is of the most poignant interest to all young
people." Again all the young ones raised their faces and moved
them slightly from side to side.
"My dear lady, we are too prone to let the interest that things
arouse blind our judgment in regard to the advisability of
discussing them. We let these speculations creep and creep until
they twine themselves round our faith and paralyze it."
One of the young men interjected suddenly: "Madre"--and was silent.
"I shall not, I think"--it was the lady speaking--"be accused of
licence when I say that I have always felt that speculation is only
dangerous when indulged in by the crude intelligence. If culture
has nothing to give us, then let us have no culture; but if culture
be, as I think it, indispensable, then we must accept the dangers
that culture brings."
Again the young people moved their faces, and again the younger of
the two young men said: "Madre--"
"Dangers? Have cultured people dangers?"
Who had spoken thus? Every eyebrow was going up, every mouth was
drooping, and there was silence. The boy stared at his companion.
In what a strange voice she had made that little interjection!
There seemed a sort of flame, too, lighted in her eyes. Then the
little grey-bearded man said, and his rather whispering voice
sounded hard and acid:
"We are all human, my dear madam."
The boy felt his heart go thump at Anna's laugh. It was just as if
she had said: "Ah! but not you--surely!" And he got up to follow
her towards the door.
The English party had begun already talking--of the weather.
The two walked some way from the 'hut' in silence, before Anna
said:
"You didn't like me when I laughed?"
"You hurt their feelings, I think."
"I wanted to--the English Grundys! Ah! don't be cross with me!
They WERE English Grundys, weren't they--every one?"
She looked into his face so hard, that he felt the blood rush to
his cheeks, and a dizzy sensation of being drawn forward.
"They have no blood, those people! Their voices, their
supercilious eyes that look you up and down! Oh! I've had so much
of them! That woman with her Liberalism, just as bad as any. I
hate them all!"
He would have liked to hate them, too, since she did; but they had
only seemed to him amusing.
"They aren't human. They don't FEEL! Some day you'll know them.
They won't amuse you then!"
She went on, in a quiet, almost dreamy voice:
"Why do they come here? It's still young and warm and good out
here. Why don't they keep to their Culture, where no one knows
what it is to ache and feel hunger, and hearts don't beat. Feel!"
Disturbed beyond measure, the boy could not tell whether it was in
her heart or in his hand that the blood was pulsing so. Was he
glad or sorry when she let his hand go?
"Ah, well! They can't spoil this day. Let's rest."
At the edge of the larch-wood where they sat, were growing numbers
of little mountain pinks, with fringed edges and the sweetest scent
imaginable; and she got up presently to gather them. But he stayed
where he was, and odd sensations stirred in him. The blue of the
sky, the feathery green of the larch-trees, the mountains, were no
longer to him what they had been early that morning.
She came back with her hands full of the little pinks, spread her
fingers and let them drop. They showered all over his face and
neck. Never was so wonderful a scent; never such a strange feeling
as they gave him. They clung to his hair, his forehead, his eyes,
one even got caught on the curve of his lips; and he stared up at
her through their fringed petals. There must have been something
wild in his eyes then, something of the feeling that was stinging
his heart, for her smile died; she walked away, and stood with her
face turned from him. Confused, and unhappy, he gathered the
strewn flowers; and not till he had collected every one did he get
up and shyly take them to her, where she still stood, gazing into
the depths of the larch-wood.
V
What did he know of women, that should make him understand? At his
public school he had seen none to speak to; at Oxford, only this
one. At home in the holidays, not any, save his sister Cicely.
The two hobbies of their guardian, fishing, and the antiquities of
his native county, rendered him averse to society; so that his
little Devonshire manor-house, with its black oak panels and its
wild stone-walled park along the river-side was, from year's end to
year's end, innocent of all petticoats, save those of Cicely and
old Miss Tring, the governess. Then, too, the boy was shy. No,
there was nothing in his past, of not yet quite nineteen years, to
go by. He was not of those youths who are always thinking of
conquests. The very idea of conquest seemed to him vulgar, mean,
horrid. There must be many signs indeed before it would come into
his head that a woman was in love with him, especially the one to
whom he looked up, and thought so beautiful. For before all beauty
he was humble, inclined to think himself a clod. It was the part
of life which was always unconsciously sacred, and to be approached
trembling. The more he admired, the more tremulous and diffident
he became. And so, after his one wild moment, when she plucked
those sweet-scented blossoms and dropped them over him, he felt
abashed; and walking home beside her he was quieter than ever,
awkward to the depths of his soul.
If there were confusion in his heart which had been innocent of
trouble, what must there have been in hers, that for so long had
secretly desired the dawning of that confusion? And she, too, was
very silent.
Passing a church with open door in the outskirts of the village,
she said:
"Don't wait for me--I want to go in here a little."
In the empty twilight within, one figure, a countrywoman in her
black shawl, was kneeling--marvellously still. He would have liked
to stay. That kneeling figure, the smile of the sunlight filtering
through into the half darkness! He lingered long enough to see
Anna, too, go down on her knees in the stillness. Was she praying?
Again he had the turbulent feeling with which he had watched her
pluck those flowers. She looked so splendid kneeling there! It
was caddish to feel like that, when she was praying, and he turned
quickly away into the road. But that sharp, sweet stinging
sensation did not leave him. He shut his eyes to get rid of her
image--and instantly she became ten times more visible, his feeling
ten times stronger. He mounted to the hotel; there on the terrace
was his tutor. And oddly enough, the sight of him at that moment
was no more embarrassing than if it had been the hotel concierge.
Stormer did not somehow seem to count; did not seem to want you to
count him. Besides, he was so old--nearly fifty!
The man who was so old was posed in a characteristic attitude--
hands in the pockets of his Norfolk jacket, one shoulder slightly
raised, head just a little on one side, as if preparing to quiz
something. He spoke as Lennan came up, smiling--but not with his
eyes.
"Well, young man, and what have you done with my wife?"
"Left her in a church, sir."
"Ah! She will do that! Has she run you off your legs? No? Then
let's walk and talk a little."
To be thus pacing up and down and talking with her husband seemed
quite natural, did not even interfere with those new sensations,
did not in the least increase his shame for having them. He only
wondered a little how she could have married him--but so little!
Quite far and academic was his wonder--like his wonder in old days
how his sister could care to play with dolls. If he had any other
feeling, it was just a longing to get away and go down the hill
again to the church. It seemed cold and lonely after all that long
day with her--as if he had left himself up there, walking along
hour after hour, or lying out in the sun beside her. What was old
Stormer talking about? The difference between the Greek and Roman
views of honour. Always in the past--seemed to think the present
was bad form. And he said:
"We met some English Grundys, sir, on the mountain."
"Ah, yes! Any particular brand?"
"Some advanced, and some not; but all the same, I think, really."
"I see. Grundys, I think you said?"
"Yes, sir, from this hotel. It was Mrs. Stormer's name for them.
They were so very superior."
"Quite."
There was something unusual in the tone of that little word. And
the boy stared--for the first time there seemed a real man standing
there. Then the blood rushed up into his cheeks, for there she
was! Would she come up to them? How splendid she was looking,
burnt by the sun, and walking as if just starting! But she passed
into the hotel without turning her head their way. Had he
offended, hurt her? He made an excuse, and got away to his room.
In the window from which that same morning he had watched the
mountains lying out like lions in the dim light, he stood again,
and gazed at the sun dropping over the high horizon. What had
happened to him? He felt so different, so utterly different. It
was another world. And the most strange feeling came on him, as of
the flowers falling again all over his face and neck and hands, the
tickling of their soft-fringed edges, the stinging sweetness of
their scent. And he seemed to hear her voice saying: "Feel!" and
to feel her heart once more beating under his hand.
VI
Alone with that black-shawled figure in the silent church, Anna did
not pray. Resting there on her knees, she experienced only the
sore sensation of revolt. Why had Fate flung this feeling into her
heart, lighted up her life suddenly, if God refused her its
enjoyment? Some of the mountain pinks remained clinging to her
belt, and the scent of them, crushed against her, warred with the
faint odour of age and incense. While they were there, with their
enticement and their memories, prayer would never come. But did
she want to pray? Did she desire the mood of that poor soul in her
black shawl, who had not moved by one hair's breadth since she had
been watching her, who seemed resting her humble self so utterly,
letting life lift from her, feeling the relief of nothingness? Ah,
yes! what would it be to have a life so toilsome, so little
exciting from day to day and hour to hour, that just to kneel there
in wistful stupor was the greatest pleasure one could know? It was
beautiful to see her, but it was sad. And there came over Anna a
longing to go up to her neighbour and say: "Tell me your troubles;
we are both women." She had lost a son, perhaps, some love--or
perhaps not really love, only some illusion. Ah! Love. . . . Why
should any spirit yearn, why should any body, full of strength and
joy, wither slowly away for want of love? Was there not enough in
this great world for her, Anna, to have a little? She would not
harm him, for she would know when he had had enough of her; she
would surely have the pride and grace then to let him go. For, of
course, he would get tired of her. At her age she could never hope
to hold a boy more than a few years--months, perhaps. But would
she ever hold him at all? Youth was so hard--it had no heart! And
then the memory of his eyes came back--gazing up, troubled, almost
wild--when she had dropped on him those flowers. That memory
filled her with a sort of delirium. One look from her then, one
touch, and he would have clasped her to him. She was sure of it,
yet scarcely dared to believe what meant so much. And suddenly the
torment that she must go through, whatever happened, seemed to her
too brutal and undeserved! She rose. Just one gleam of sunlight
was still slanting through the doorway; it failed by a yard or so
to reach the kneeling countrywoman, and Anna watched. Would it
steal on and touch her, or would the sun pass down behind the
mountains, and it fade away? Unconscious of that issue, the black-
shawled figure knelt, never moving. And the beam crept on. "If it
touches her, then he will love me, if only for an hour; if it fades
out too soon--" And the beam crept on. That shadowy path of
light, with its dancing dust-motes, was it indeed charged with
Fate--indeed the augury of Love or Darkness? And, slowly moving,
it mounted, the sun sinking; it rose above that bent head, hovered
in a golden mist, passed--and suddenly was gone.
Unsteadily, seeing nothing plain, Anna walked out of the church.
Why she passed her husband and the boy on the terrace without a
look she could not quite have said--perhaps because the tortured
does not salute her torturers. When she reached her room she felt
deadly tired, and lying down on her bed, almost at once fell
asleep.
She was wakened by a sound, and, recognizing the delicate 'rat-tat'
of her husband's knock, did not answer, indifferent whether he came
in or no. He entered noiselessly. If she did not let him know she
was awake, he would not wake her. She lay still and watched him
sit down astride of a chair, cross his arms on its back, rest his
chin on them, and fix his eyes on her. Through her veil of
eyelashes she had unconsciously contrived that his face should be
the one object plainly seen--the more intensely visualized, because
of this queer isolation. She did not feel at all ashamed of this
mutual fixed scrutiny, in which she had such advantage. He had
never shown her what was in him, never revealed what lay behind
those bright satiric eyes. Now, perhaps, she would see! And she
lay, regarding him with the intense excited absorption with which
one looks at a tiny wildflower through a magnifying-lens, and
watches its insignificance expanded to the size and importance of a
hothouse bloom. In her mind was this thought: He is looking at me
with his real self, since he has no reason for armour against me
now. At first his eyes seemed masked with their customary
brightness, his whole face with its usual decorous formality; then
gradually he became so changed that she hardly knew him. That
decorousness, that brightness, melted off what lay behind, as
frosty dew melts off grass. And her very soul contracted within
her, as if she had become identified with what he was seeing--a
something to be passed over, a very nothing. Yes, his was the face
of one looking at what was unintelligible, and therefore
negligible; at that which had no soul; at something of a different
and inferior species and of no great interest to a man. His face
was like a soundless avowal of some conclusion, so fixed and
intimate that it must surely emanate from the very core of him--be
instinctive, unchangeable. This was the real he! A man despising
women! Her first thought was: And he's married--what a fate! Her
second: If he feels that, perhaps thousands of men do! Am I and
all women really what they think us? The conviction in his stare--
its through-and-through conviction--had infected her; and she gave
in to it for the moment, crushed. Then her spirit revolted with
such turbulence, and the blood so throbbed in her, that she could
hardly lie still. How dare he think her like that--a nothing, a
bundle of soulless inexplicable whims and moods and sensuality? A
thousand times, No! It was HE who was the soulless one, the dry,
the godless one; who, in his sickening superiority, could thus deny
her, and with her all women! That stare was as if he saw her--a
doll tricked out in garments labelled soul, spirit, rights,
responsibilities, dignity, freedom--all so many words. It was
vile, it was horrible, that he should see her thus! And a really
terrific struggle began in her between the desire to get up and cry
this out, and the knowledge that it would be stupid, undignified,
even mad, to show her comprehension of what he would never admit or
even understand that he had revealed to her. And then a sort of
cynicism came to her rescue. What a funny thing was married life--
to have lived all these years with him, and never known what was at
the bottom of his heart! She had the feeling now that, if she went
up to him and said: "I am in love with that boy!" it would only
make him droop the corners of his mouth and say in his most satiric
voice: "Really! That is very interesting!"--would not change in
one iota his real thoughts of her; only confirm him in the
conviction that she was negligible, inexplicable, an inferior
strange form of animal, of no real interest to him.
And then, just when she felt that she could not hold herself in any
longer, he got up, passed on tiptoe to the door, opened it
noiselessly, and went out.
The moment he had gone, she jumped up. So, then, she was linked to
one for whom she, for whom women, did not, as it were, exist! It
seemed to her that she had stumbled on knowledge of almost sacred
importance, on the key of everything that had been puzzling and
hopeless in their married life. If he really, secretly, whole-
heartedly despised her, the only feeling she need have for one so
dry, so narrow, so basically stupid, was just contempt. But she
knew well enough that contempt would not shake what she had seen in
his face; he was impregnably walled within his clever, dull
conviction of superiority. He was for ever intrenched, and she
would always be only the assailant. Though--what did it matter,
now?
Usually swift, almost careless, she was a long time that evening
over her toilette. Her neck was very sunburnt, and she lingered,
doubtful whether to hide it with powder, or accept her gipsy
colouring. She did accept it, for she saw that it gave her eyes,
so like glacier ice, under their black lashes, and her hair, with
its surprising glints of flame colour, a peculiar value.
When the dinner-bell rang she passed her husband's door without, as
usual, knocking, and went down alone.
In the hall she noticed some of the English party of the mountain
hut. They did not greet her, conceiving an immediate interest in
the barometer; but she could feel them staring at her very hard.
She sat down to wait, and at once became conscious of the boy
coming over from the other side of the room, rather like a person
walking in his sleep. He said not a word. But how he looked! And
her heart began to beat. Was this the moment she had longed for?
If it, indeed, had come, dared she take it? Then she saw her
husband descending the stairs, saw him greet the English party,
heard the intoning of their drawl. She looked up at the boy, and
said quickly: "Was it a happy day?" It gave her such delight to
keep that look on his face, that look as if he had forgotten
everything except just the sight of her. His eyes seemed to have
in them something holy at that moment, something of the wonder-
yearning of Nature and of innocence. It was dreadful to know that
in a moment that look must be gone; perhaps never to come back on
his face--that look so precious! Her husband was approaching now!
Let him see, if he would! Let him see that someone could adore--
that she was not to everyone a kind of lower animal. Yes, he must
have seen the boy's face; and yet his expression never changed. He
noticed nothing! Or was it that he disdained to notice?
VII
Then followed for young Lennan a strange time, when he never knew
from minute to minute whether he was happy--always trying to be
with her, restless if he could not be, sore if she talked with and
smiled at others; yet, when he was with her, restless too,
unsatisfied, suffering from his own timidity.
One wet morning, when she was playing the hotel piano, and he
listening, thinking to have her to himself, there came a young
German violinist--pale, and with a brown, thin-waisted coat,
longish hair, and little whiskers--rather a beast, in fact. Soon,
of course, this young beast was asking her to accompany him--as if
anyone wanted to hear him play his disgusting violin! Every word
and smile that she gave him hurt so, seeing how much more
interesting than himself this foreigner was! And his heart grew
heavier and heavier, and he thought: If she likes him I ought not
to mind--only, I DO mind! How can I help minding? It was hateful
to see her smiling, and the young beast bending down to her. And
they were talking German, so that he could not tell what they were
saying, which made it more unbearable. He had not known there
could be such torture.
And then he began to want to hurt her, too. But that was mean--
besides, how could he hurt her? She did not care for him. He was
nothing to her--only a boy. If she really thought him only a boy,
who felt so old--it would be horrible. It flashed across him that
she might be playing that young violinist against him! No, she
never would do that! But the young beast looked just the sort that
might take advantage of her smiles. If only he WOULD do something
that was not respectful, how splendid it would be to ask him to
come for a walk in the woods, and, having told him why, give him a
thrashing. Afterwards, he would not tell her, he would not try to
gain credit by it. He would keep away till she wanted him back.
But suddenly the thought of what he would feel if she really meant
to take this young man as her friend in place of him became so
actual, so poignant, so horribly painful, that he got up abruptly
and went towards the door. Would she not say a word to him before
he got out of the room, would she not try and keep him? If she did
not, surely it would be all over; it would mean that anybody was
more to her than he. That little journey to the door, indeed,
seemed like a march to execution. Would she not call after him?
He looked back. She was smiling. But HE could not smile; she had
hurt him too much! Turning his head away, he went out, and dashed
into the rain bareheaded. The feeling of it on his face gave him a
sort of dismal satisfaction. Soon he would be wet through.
Perhaps he would get ill. Out here, far away from his people, she
would have to offer to nurse him; and perhaps--perhaps in his
illness he would seem to her again more interesting than that young
beast, and then--Ah! if only he could be ill!
He mounted rapidly through the dripping leaves towards the foot of
the low mountain that rose behind the hotel. A trail went up there
to the top, and he struck into it, going at a great pace. His
sense of injury began dying away; he no longer wanted to be ill.
The rain had stopped, the sun came out; he went on, up and up. He
would get to the top quicker than anyone ever had! It was
something he could do better than that young beast. The pine-trees
gave way to stunted larches, and these to pine scrub and bare
scree, up which he scrambled, clutching at the tough bushes,
terribly out of breath, his heart pumping, the sweat streaming into
his eyes. He had no feeling now but wonder whether he would get to
the top before he dropped, exhausted. He thought he would die of
the beating of his heart; but it was better to die than to stop and
be beaten by a few yards. He stumbled up at last on to the little
plateau at the top. For full ten minutes he lay there on his face
without moving, then rolled over. His heart had given up that
terrific thumping; he breathed luxuriously, stretched out his arms
along the steaming grass--felt happy. It was wonderful up here,
with the sun burning hot in a sky clear-blue already. How tiny
everything looked below--hotel, trees, village, chalets--little toy
things! He had never before felt the sheer joy of being high up.
The rain-clouds, torn and driven in huge white shapes along the
mountains to the South, were like an army of giants with chariots
and white horses hurrying away. He thought suddenly: "Suppose I
had died when my heart pumped so! Would it have mattered the least
bit? Everything would be going on just the same, the sun shining,
the blue up there the same; and those toy things down in the
valley." That jealousy of his an hour ago, why--it was nothing--he
himself nothing! What did it matter if she were nice to that
fellow in the brown coat? What did anything matter when the whole
thing was so big--and he such a tiny scrap of it?
On the edge of the plateau, to mark the highest point, someone had
erected a rude cross, which jutted out stark against the blue sky.
It looked cruel somehow, sagged all crooked, and out of place up
here; a piece of bad manners, as if people with only one idea had
dragged it in, without caring whether or no it suited what was
around it. One might just as well introduce one of these rocks
into that jolly dark church where he had left her the other day, as
put a cross up here.
A sound of bells, and of sniffing and scuffling, roused him; a
large grey goat had come up and was smelling at his hair--the
leader of a flock, that were soon all round him, solemnly curious,
with their queer yellow oblong-pupilled eyes, and their quaint
little beards and tails. Awfully decent beasts--and friendly!
What jolly things to model! He lay still (having learnt from the
fisherman, his guardian, that necessary habit in the presence of
all beasts), while the leader sampled the flavour of his neck. The
passage of that long rough tongue athwart his skin gave him an
agreeable sensation, awakened a strange deep sense of comradeship.
He restrained his desire to stroke the creature's nose. It
appeared that they now all wished to taste his neck; but some were
timid, and the touch of their tongues simply a tickle, so that he
was compelled to laugh, and at that peculiar sound they withdrew
and gazed at him. There seemed to be no one with them; then, at a
little distance, quite motionless in the shade of a rock, he spied
the goatherd, a boy about his own age. How lonely he must be up
here all day! Perhaps he talked to his goats. He looked as if he
might. One would get to have queer thoughts up here, get to know
the rocks, and clouds, and beasts, and what they all meant. The
goatherd uttered a peculiar whistle, and something, Lennan could
not tell exactly what, happened among the goats--a sort of "Here,
Sir!" seemed to come from them. And then the goatherd moved out
from the shade and went over to the edge of the plateau, and two of
the goats that were feeding there thrust their noses into his hand,
and rubbed themselves against his legs. The three looked beautiful
standing there together on the edge against the sky. . . .
That night, after dinner, the dining-room was cleared for dancing,
so that the guests might feel freedom and gaiety in the air. And,
indeed, presently, a couple began sawing up and down over the
polished boards, in the apologetic manner peculiar to hotel guests.
Then three pairs of Italians suddenly launched themselves into
space--twirling and twirling, and glaring into each other's eyes;
and some Americans, stimulated by their precept, began airily
backing and filling. Two of the 'English Grundys' with carefully
amused faces next moved out. To Lennan it seemed that they all
danced very well, better than he could. Did he dare ask HER? Then
he saw the young violinist go up, saw her rise and take his arm and
vanish into the dancing-room; and leaning his forehead against a
window-pane, with a sick, beaten feeling, he stayed, looking out
into the moonlight, seeing nothing. He heard his name spoken; his
tutor was standing beside him.
"You and I, Lennan, must console each other. Dancing's for the
young, eh?"
Fortunately it was the boy's instinct and his training not to show
his feelings; to be pleasant, though suffering.
"Yes, sir. Jolly moonlight, isn't it, out there?"
"Ah! very jolly; yes. When I was your age I twirled the light
fantastic with the best. But gradually, Lennan, one came to see it
could not be done without a partner--there was the rub! Tell me--
do you regard women as responsible beings? I should like to have
your opinion on that."
It was, of course, ironical--yet there was something in those
words--something!
"I think it's you, sir, who ought to give me yours."
"My dear Lennan--my experience is a mere nothing!"
That was meant for unkindness to her! He would not answer. If
only Stormer would go away! The music had stopped. They would be
sitting out somewhere, talking! He made an effort, and said:
"I was up the hill at the back this morning, where the cross is.
There were some jolly goats."
And suddenly he saw her coming. She was alone--flushed, smiling;
it struck him that her frock was the same colour as the moonlight.
"Harold, will you dance?"
He would say 'Yes,' and she would be gone again! But his tutor
only made her a little bow, and said with that smile of his:
"Lennan and I have agreed that dancing is for the young."
"Sometimes the old must sacrifice themselves. Mark, will you
dance?"
Behind him he heard his tutor murmur:
"Ah! Lennan--you betray me!"
That little silent journey with her to the dancing-room was the
happiest moment perhaps that he had ever known. And he need not
have been so much afraid about his dancing. Truly, it was not
polished, but it could not spoil hers, so light, firm, buoyant! It
was wonderful to dance with her. Only when the music stopped and
they sat down did he know how his head was going round. He felt
strange, very strange indeed. He heard her say:
"What is it, dear boy? You look so white!"
Without quite knowing what he did, he bent his face towards the
hand that she had laid on his sleeve, then knew no more, having
fainted.
VIII
Growing boy--over-exertion in the morning! That was all! He was
himself very quickly, and walked up to bed without assistance.
Rotten of him! Never was anyone more ashamed of his little
weakness than this boy. Now that he was really a trifle
indisposed, he simply could not bear the idea of being nursed at
all or tended. Almost rudely he had got away. Only when he was in
bed did he remember the look on her face as he left her. How
wistful and unhappy, seeming to implore him to forgive her! As if
there were anything to forgive! As if she had not made him
perfectly happy when she danced with him! He longed to say to her:
"If I might be close to you like that one minute every day, then I
don't mind all the rest!" Perhaps he would dare say that to-
morrow. Lying there he still felt a little funny. He had
forgotten to close the ribs of the blinds, and moonlight was
filtering in; but he was too idle, too drowsy to get up now and do
it. They had given him brandy, rather a lot--that perhaps was the
reason he felt so queer; not ill, but mazy, as if dreaming, as if
he had lost the desire ever to move again. Just to lie there, and
watch the powdery moonlight, and hear faraway music throbbing down
below, and still feel the touch of her, as in the dance she swayed
against him, and all the time to have the scent about him of
flowers! His thoughts were dreams, his dreams thoughts--all
precious unreality. And then it seemed to him that the moonlight
was gathered into a single slip of pallor--there was a thrumming, a
throbbing, and that shape of moonlight moved towards him. It came
so close that he felt its warmth against his brow; it sighed,
hovered, drew back soundless, and was gone. He must have fallen
then into dreamless sleep. . . .
What time was it when he was awakened by that delicate 'rat-tat' to
see his tutor standing in the door-way with a cup of tea?
Was young Lennan all right? Yes, he was perfectly all right--would
be down directly! It was most frightfully good of Mr. Stormer to
come! He really didn't want anything.
Yes, yes; but the maimed and the halt must be attended to!
His face seemed to the boy very kind just then--only to laugh at
him a very little--just enough. And it was awfully decent of him
to have come, and to stand there while he drank the tea. He was
really all right, but for a little headache. Many times while he
was dressing he stood still, trying to remember. That white slip
of moonlight? Was it moonlight? Was it part of a dream; or was
it, could it have been she, in her moonlight-coloured frock? Why
had he not stayed awake? He would not dare to ask her, and now
would never know whether the vague memory of warmth on his brow had
been a kiss.
He breakfasted alone in the room where they had danced. There were
two letters for him. One from his guardian enclosing money, and
complaining of the shyness of the trout; the other from his sister.
The man she was engaged to--he was a budding diplomat, attached to
the Embassy at Rome--was afraid that his leave was going to be
curtailed. They would have to be married at once. They might even
have to get a special licence. It was lucky Mark was coming back
so soon. They simply MUST have him for best man. The only
bridesmaid now would be Sylvia. . . . Sylvia Doone? Why, she was
only a kid! And the memory of a little girl in a very short
holland frock, with flaxen hair, pretty blue eyes, and a face so
fair that you could almost see through it, came up before him. But
that, of course, was six years ago; she would not still be in a
frock that showed her knees, or wear beads, or be afraid of bulls
that were never there. It was stupid being best man--they might
have got some decent chap! And then he forgot all--for there was
SHE, out on the terrace. In his rush to join her he passed several
of the 'English Grundys,' who stared at him askance. Indeed, his
conduct of the night before might well have upset them. An Oxford
man, fainting in an hotel! Something wrong there! . . .
And then, when he reached her, he did find courage.
"Was it really moonlight?"
"All moonlight."
"But it was warm!"
And, when she did not answer that, he had within him just the same
light, intoxicated feeling as after he had won a race at school.
But now came a dreadful blow. His tutor's old guide had suddenly
turned up, after a climb with a party of Germans. The war-horse
had been aroused in Stormer. He wished to start that afternoon for
a certain hut, and go up a certain peak at dawn next day. But
Lennan was not to go. Why not? Because of last night's faint; and
because, forsooth, he was not some stupid thing they called 'an
expert.' As if--! Where she could go he could! This was to treat
him like a child. Of course he could go up this rotten mountain.
It was because she did not care enough to take him! She did not
think him man enough! Did she think that he could not climb what--
her husband--could? And if it were dangerous SHE ought not to be
going, leaving him behind--that was simply cruel! But she only
smiled, and he flung away from her, not having seen that all this
grief of his only made her happy.
And that afternoon they went off without him. What deep, dark
thoughts he had then! What passionate hatred of his own youth!
What schemes he wove, by which she might come back, and find him
gone-up some mountain far more dangerous and fatiguing! If people
did not think him fit to climb with, he would climb by himself.
That, anyway, everyone admitted, was dangerous. And it would be
her fault. She would be sorry then. He would get up, and be off
before dawn; he put his things out ready, and filled his flask.
The moonlight that evening was more wonderful than ever, the
mountains like great ghosts of themselves. And she was up there at
the hut, among them! It was very long before he went to sleep,
brooding over his injuries--intending not to sleep at all, so as to
be ready to be off at three o'clock. At NINE o'clock he woke. His
wrath was gone; he only felt restless and ashamed. If, instead of
flying out, he had made the best of it, he could have gone with
them as far as the hut, could have stayed the night there. And now
he cursed himself for being such a fool and idiot. Some little of
that idiocy he could, perhaps, retrieve. If he started for the hut
at once, he might still be in time to meet them coming down, and
accompany them home. He swallowed his coffee, and set off. He
knew the way at first, then in woods lost it, recovered the right
track again at last, but did not reach the hut till nearly two
o'clock. Yes, the party had made the ascent that morning--they had
been seen, been heard jodelling on the top. Gewiss! Gewiss! But
they would not come down the same way. Oh, no! They would be
going home down to the West and over the other pass. They would be
back in house before the young Herr himself.
He heard this, oddly, almost with relief. Was it the long walk
alone, or being up there so high? Or simply that he was very
hungry? Or just these nice friendly folk in the hut, and their
young daughter with her fresh face, queer little black cloth sailor
hat with long ribbons, velvet bodice, and perfect simple manners;
or the sight of the little silvery-dun cows, thrusting their broad
black noses against her hand? What was it that had taken away from
him all his restless feeling, made him happy and content? . . . He
did not know that the newest thing always fascinates the puppy in
its gambols! . . . He sat a long while after lunch, trying to draw
the little cows, watching the sun on the cheek of that pretty
maiden, trying to talk to her in German. And when at last he said:
"Adieu!" and she murmured "Kuss die Hand. Adieu!" there was quite
a little pang in his heart. . . . Wonderful and queer is the heart
of a man! . . . For all that, as he neared home he hastened, till
he was actually running. Why had he stayed so long up there? She
would be back--she would expect to see him; and that young beast of
a violinist would be with her, perhaps, instead! He reached the
hotel just in time to rush up and dress, and rush down to dinner.
Ah! They were tired, no doubt--were resting in their rooms. He
sat through dinner as best he could; got away before dessert, and
flew upstairs. For a minute he stood there doubtful; on which door
should he knock? Then timidly he tapped on hers. No answer! He
knocked loud on his tutor's door. No answer! They were not back,
then. Not back? What could that mean? Or could it be that they
were both asleep? Once more he knocked on her door; then
desperately turned the handle, and took a flying glance. Empty,
tidy, untouched! Not back! He turned and ran downstairs again.
All the guests were streaming out from dinner, and he became
entangled with a group of 'English Grundys' discussing a climbing
accident which had occurred in Switzerland. He listened, feeling
suddenly quite sick. One of them, the short grey-bearded Grundy
with the rather whispering voice, said to him: "All alone again to-
night? The Stormers not back?" Lennan did his best to answer, but
something had closed his throat; he could only shake his head.
"They had a guide, I think?" said the 'English Grundy.'
This time Lennan managed to get out: "Yes, sir."
"Stormer, I fancy, is quite an expert!" and turning to the lady
whom the young 'Grundys' addressed as 'Madre' he added:
"To me the great charm of mountain-climbing was always the freedom
from people--the remoteness."
The mother of the young 'Grundys,' looking at Lennan with her half-
closed eyes, answered:
"That, to me, would be the disadvantage; I always like to be mixing
with my own kind."
The grey-bearded 'Grundy' murmured in a muffled voice:
"Dangerous thing, that, to say--in an hotel!"
And they went on talking, but of what Lennan no longer knew, lost
in this sudden feeling of sick fear. In the presence of these
'English Grundys,' so superior to all vulgar sensations, he could
not give vent to his alarm; already they viewed him as unsound for
having fainted. Then he grasped that there had begun all round him
a sort of luxurious speculation on what might have happened to the
Stormers. The descent was very nasty; there was a particularly bad
traverse. The 'Grundy,' whose collar was not now crumpled, said he
did not believe in women climbing. It was one of the signs of the
times that he most deplored. The mother of the young 'Grundys'
countered him at once: In practice she agreed that they were out of
place, but theoretically she could not see why they should not
climb. An American standing near threw all into confusion by
saying he guessed that it might be liable to develop their
understandings. Lennan made for the front door. The moon had just
come up over in the South, and exactly under it he could see their
mountain. What visions he had then! He saw her lying dead, saw
himself climbing down in the moonlight and raising her still-
living, but half-frozen, form from some perilous ledge. Even that
was almost better than this actuality of not knowing where she was,
or what had happened. People passed out into the moonlight,
looking curiously at his set face staring so fixedly. One or two
asked him if he were anxious, and he answered: "Oh no, thanks!"
Soon there would have to be a search party. How soon? He would,
he must be, of it! They should not stop him this time. And
suddenly he thought: Ah, it is all because I stayed up there this
afternoon talking to that girl, all because I forgot HER!
And then he heard a stir behind him. There they were, coming down
the passage from a side door--she in front with her alpenstock and
rucksack--smiling. Instinctively he recoiled behind some plants.
They passed. Her sunburned face, with its high cheek-bones and its
deep-set eyes, looked so happy; smiling, tired, triumphant.
Somehow he could not bear it, and when they were gone by he stole
out into the wood and threw himself down in shadow, burying his
face, and choking back a horrible dry sobbing that would keep
rising in his throat.
IX
Next day he was happy; for all the afternoon he lay out in the
shade of that same wood at her feet, gazing up through larch-
boughs. It was so wonderful, with nobody but Nature near. Nature
so alive, and busy, and so big!
Coming down from the hut the day before, he had seen a peak that
looked exactly like the figure of a woman with a garment over her
head, the biggest statue in the world; from further down it had
become the figure of a bearded man, with his arm bent over his
eyes. Had she seen it? Had she noticed how all the mountains in
moonlight or very early morning took the shape of beasts? What he
wanted most in life was to be able to make images of beasts and
creatures of all sorts, that were like--that had--that gave out the
spirit of--Nature; so that by just looking at them one could have
all those jolly feelings one had when one was watching trees, and
beasts, and rocks, and even some sorts of men--but not 'English
Grundys.'
So he was quite determined to study Art?
Oh yes, of course!
He would want to leave--Oxford, then!
No, oh no! Only some day he would have to.
She answered: "Some never get away!"
And he said quickly: "Of course, I shall never want to leave Oxford
while you are there."
He heard her draw her breath in sharply.
"Oh yes, you will! Now help me up!" And she led the way back to
the hotel.
He stayed out on the terrace when she had gone in, restless and
unhappy the moment he was away from her. A voice close by said:
"Well, friend Lennan--brown study, or blue devils, which?"
There, in one of those high wicker chairs that insulate their
occupants from the world, he saw his tutor leaning back, head a
little to one side, and tips of fingers pressed together. He
looked like an idol sitting there inert, and yet--yesterday he had
gone up that mountain!
"Cheer up! You will break your neck yet! When I was your age, I
remember feeling it deeply that I was not allowed to risk the lives
of others."
Lennan stammered out:
"I didn't think of that; but I thought where Mrs. Stormer could go,
I could."
"Ah! For all our admiration we cannot quite admit--can we, when it
comes to the point?"
The boy's loyalty broke into flame:
"It's not that. I think Mrs. Stormer as good as any man--only--
only--"
"Not quite so good as you, eh?"
"A hundred times better, sir."
Stormer smiled. Ironic beast!
"Lennan," he said, "distrust hyperbole."
"Of course, I know I'm no good at climbing," the boy broke out
again; "but--but--I thought where she was allowed to risk her life,
I ought to be!"
"Good! I like that." It was said so entirely without irony for
once, that the boy was disconcerted.
"You are young, Brother Lennan," his tutor went on. "Now, at what
age do you consider men develop discretion? Because, there is just
one thing always worth remembering--women have none of that better
part of valour."
"I think women are the best things in the world," the boy blurted
out.
"May you long have that opinion!" His tutor had risen, and was
ironically surveying his knees. "A bit stiff!" he said. "Let me
know when you change your views!"
"I never shall, sir."
"Ah, ah! Never is a long word, Lennan. I am going to have some
tea;" and gingerly he walked away, quizzing, as it were, with a
smile, his own stiffness.
Lennan remained where he was, with burning cheeks. His tutor's
words again had seemed directed against her. How could a man say
such things about women! If they were true, he did not want to
know; if they were not true, it was wicked to say them. It must be
awful never to have generous feelings; always to have to be
satirical. Dreadful to be like the 'English Grundys'; only
different, of course, because, after all, old Stormer was much more
interesting and intelligent--ever so much more; only, just as
'superior.' "Some never get away!" Had she meant--from that
superiority? Just down below were a family of peasants scything
and gathering in the grass. One could imagine her doing that, and
looking beautiful, with a coloured handkerchief over her head; one
could imagine her doing anything simple--one could not imagine old
Stormer doing anything but what he did do. And suddenly the boy
felt miserable, oppressed by these dim glimmerings of lives
misplaced. And he resolved that he would not be like Stormer when
he was old! No, he would rather be a regular beast than be like
that! . . .
When he went to his room to change for dinner he saw in a glass of
water a large clove carnation. Who had put it there? Who could
have put it there--but she? It had the same scent as the mountain
pinks she had dropped over him, but deeper, richer--a scent moving,
dark, and sweet. He put his lips to it before he pinned it into
his coat.
There was dancing again that night--more couples this time, and a
violin beside the piano; and she had on a black frock. He had
never seen her in black. Her face and neck were powdered over
their sunburn. The first sight of that powder gave him a faint
shock. He had not somehow thought that ladies ever put on powder.
But if SHE did--then it must be right! And his eyes never left
her. He saw the young German violinist hovering round her, even
dancing with her twice; watched her dancing with others, but all
without jealousy, without troubling; all in a sort of dream. What
was it? Had he been bewitched into that queer state, bewitched by
the gift of that flower in his coat? What was it, when he danced
with her, that kept him happy in her silence and his own? There
was no expectation in him of anything that she would say, or do--no
expectation, no desire. Even when he wandered out with her on to
the terrace, even when they went down the bank and sat on a bench
above the fields where the peasants had been scything, he had still
no feeling but that quiet, dreamy adoration. The night was black
and dreamy too, for the moon was still well down behind the
mountains. The little band was playing the next waltz; but he sat,
not moving, not thinking, as if all power of action and thought had
been stolen out of him. And the scent of the flower in his coat
rose, for there was no wind. Suddenly his heart stopped beating.
She had leaned against him, he felt her shoulder press his arm, her
hair touch his cheek. He closed his eyes then, and turned his face
to her. He felt her lips press his mouth with a swift, burning
kiss. He sighed, stretched out his arms. There was nothing there
but air. The rustle of her dress against the grass was all! The
flower--it, too, was gone.
X
Not one minute all that night did Anna sleep. Was it remorse that
kept her awake, or the intoxication of memory? If she felt that
her kiss had been a crime, it was not against her husband or
herself, but against the boy--the murder of illusion, of something
sacred. But she could not help feeling a delirious happiness too,
and the thought of trying to annul what she had done did not even
occur to her.
He was ready, then, to give her a little love! Ever so little,
compared to hers, but still a little! There could be no other
meaning to that movement of his face with the closed eyes, as if he
would nestle it down on her breast.
Was she ashamed of her little manoeuvres of these last few days--
ashamed of having smiled at the young violinist, of that late
return from the mountain climb, of the flower she had given him, of
all the conscious siege she had laid since the evening her husband
came in and sat watching her, without knowing that she saw him?
No; not really ashamed! Her remorse rose only from the kiss. It
hurt to think of that, because it was death, the final extinction
of the mother-feeling in her; the awakening of--who knew what--in
the boy! For if she was mysterious to him, what was he not to her,
with his eagerness, and his dreaminess, his youthful warmth, his
innocence! What if it had killed in him trust, brushed off the
dew, tumbled a star down? Could she forgive herself for that?
Could she bear it if she were to make him like so many other boys,
like that young violinist; just a cynical youth, looking on women
as what they called 'fair game'? But COULD she make him into such--
would he ever grow like that? Oh! surely not; or she would not
have loved him from the moment she first set eyes on him and spoke
of him as 'an angel.'
After that kiss--that crime, if it were one--in the dark she had
not known what he had done, where gone--perhaps wandering, perhaps
straight up to his room. Why had she refrained, left him there,
vanished out of his arms? This she herself hardly understood. Not
shame; not fear; reverence perhaps--for what? For love--for the
illusion, the mystery, all that made love beautiful; for youth, and
the poetry of it; just for the sake of the black still night
itself, and the scent of that flower--dark flower of passion that
had won him to her, and that she had stolen back, and now wore all
night long close to her neck, and in the morning placed withered
within her dress. She had been starved so long, and so long waited
for that moment--it was little wonder if she did not clearly know
why she had done just this, and not that!
And now how should she meet him, how first look into his eyes?
Would they have changed? Would they no longer have the straight
look she so loved? It would be for her to lead, to make the
future. And she kept saying to herself: I am not going to be
afraid. It is done. I will take what life offers! Of her husband
she did not think at all.
But the first moment she saw the boy, she knew that something from
outside, and untoward, had happened since that kiss. He came up to
her, indeed, but he said nothing, stood trembling all over and
handed her a telegram that contained these words: "Come back at
once Wedding immediate Expect you day after to-morrow. Cicely."
The words grew indistinct even as she read them, and the boy's face
all blurred. Then, making an effort, she said quietly:
"Of course, you must go. You cannot miss your only sister's
wedding."
Without protest he looked at her; and she could hardly bear that
look--it seemed to know so little, and ask so much. She said: "It
is nothing--only a few days. You will come back, or we will come
to you."
His face brightened at once.
"Will you really come to us soon, at once--if they ask you? Then I
don't mind--I--I--" And then he stopped, choking.
She said again:
"Ask us. We will come."
He seized her hand; pressed and pressed it in both his own, then
stroked it gently, and said:
"Oh! I'm hurting it!"
She laughed, not wishing to cry.
In a few minutes he would have to start to catch the only train
that would get him home in time.
She went and helped him to pack. Her heart felt like lead, but,
not able to bear that look on his face again, she kept cheerfully
talking of their return, asking about his home, how to get to it,
speaking of Oxford and next term. When his things were ready she
put her arms round his neck, and for a moment pressed him to her.
Then she escaped. Looking back from his door, she saw him standing
exactly as when she had withdrawn her arms. Her cheeks were wet;
she dried them as she went downstairs. When she felt herself safe,
she went out on the terrace. Her husband was there, and she said
to him:
"Will you come with me into the town? I want to buy some things."
He raised his eyebrows, smiled dimly, and followed her. They
walked slowly down the hill into the long street of the little
town. All the time she talked of she knew not what, and all the
time she thought: His carriage will pass--his carriage will pass!
Several carriages went jingling by. At last he came. Sitting
there, and staring straight before him, he did not see them. She
heard her husband say:
"Hullo! Where is our young friend Lennan off to, with his luggage--
looking like a lion cub in trouble?"
She answered in a voice that she tried to make clear and steady:
"There must be something wrong; or else it is his sister's
wedding."
She felt that her husband was gazing at her, and wondered what her
face was like; but at that moment the word "Madre!" sounded close
in her ear and they were surrounded by a small drove of 'English
Grundys.'
XI
That twenty mile drive was perhaps the worst part of the journey
for the boy. It is always hard to sit still and suffer.
When Anna left him the night before, he had wandered about in the
dark, not knowing quite where he went. Then the moon came up, and
he found himself sitting under the eave of a barn close to a chalet
where all was dark and quiet; and down below him the moon-whitened
valley village--its roofs and spires and little glamorous unreal
lights.
In his evening suit, his dark ruffled hair uncovered, he would have
made a quaint spectacle for the owners of that chalet, if they had
chanced to see him seated on the hay-strewn boards against their
barn, staring before him with such wistful rapture. But they were
folk to whom sleep was precious. . . .
And now it was all snatched away from him, relegated to some
immensely far-off future. Would it indeed be possible to get his
guardian to ask them down to Hayle? And would they really come?
His tutor would surely never care to visit a place right away in
the country--far from books and everything! He frowned, thinking
of his tutor, but it was with perplexity--no other feeling. And
yet, if he could not have them down there, how could he wait the
two whole months till next term began! So went his thoughts, round
and round, while the horses jogged, dragging him further and
further from her.
It was better in the train; the distraction of all the strange
crowd of foreigners, the interest of new faces and new country; and
then sleep--a long night of it, snoozed up in his corner,
thoroughly fagged out. And next day more new country, more new
faces; and slowly, his mood changing from ache and bewilderment to
a sense of something promised, delightful to look forward to. Then
Calais at last, and a night-crossing in a wet little steamer, a
summer gale blowing spray in his face, waves leaping white in a
black sea, and the wild sound of the wind. On again to London, the
early drive across the town, still sleepy in August haze; an
English breakfast--porridge, chops, marmalade. And, at last, the
train for home. At all events he could write to her, and tearing a
page out of his little sketch-book, he began:
"I am writing in the train, so please forgive this joggly writing--"
Then he did not know how to go on, for all that he wanted to say
was such as he had never even dreamed of writing--things about his
feelings which would look horrible in words; besides, he must not
put anything that might not be read, by anyone, so what was there
to say?
"It has been such a long journey," he wrote at last, "away from the
Tyrol;" (he did not dare even to put "from you,") "I thought it
would never end. But at last it has--very nearly. I have thought
a great deal about the Tyrol. It was a lovely time--the loveliest
time I have ever had. And now it's over, I try to console myself
by thinking of the future, but not the immediate future--THAT is
not very enjoyable. I wonder how the mountains are looking to-day.
Please give my love to them, especially the lion ones that come and
lie out in the moonlight--you will not recognize them from this"--
then followed a sketch. "And this is the church we went to, with
someone kneeling. And this is meant for the 'English Grundys,'
looking at someone who is coming in very late with an alpenstock--
only, I am better at the 'English Grundys' than at the person with
the alpenstock. I wish I were the 'English Grundys' now, still in
the Tyrol. I hope I shall get a letter from you soon; and that it
will say you are getting ready to come back. My guardian will be
awfully keen for you to come and stay with us. He is not half bad
when you know him, and there will be his sister, Mrs. Doone, and
her daughter left there after the wedding. It will be simply
disgusting if you and Mr. Stormer don't come. I wish I could write
all I feel about my lovely time in the Tyrol, but you must please
imagine it."
And just as he had not known how to address her, so he could not
tell how to subscribe himself, and only put "Mark Lennan."
He posted the letter at Exeter, where he had some time to wait; and
his mind moved still more from past to future. Now that he was
nearing home he began to think of his sister. In two days she
would be gone to Italy; he would not see her again for a long time,
and a whole crowd of memories began to stretch out hands to him.
How she and he used to walk together in the walled garden, and on
the sunk croquet ground; she telling him stories, her arm round his
neck, because she was two years older, and taller than he in those
days. Their first talk each holidays, when he came back to her;
the first tea--with unlimited jam--in the old mullion-windowed,
flower-chintzed schoolroom, just himself and her and old Tingle
(Miss Tring, the ancient governess, whose chaperonage would now be
gone), and sometimes that kid Sylvia, when she chanced to be
staying there with her mother. Cicely had always understood him
when he explained to her how inferior school was, because nobody
took any interest in beasts or birds except to kill them; or in
drawing, or making things, or anything decent. They would go off
together, rambling along the river, or up the park, where
everything looked so jolly and wild--the ragged oak-trees, and huge
boulders, of whose presence old Godden, the coachman, had said: "I
can't think but what these ha' been washed here by the Flood, Mast'
Mark!" These and a thousand other memories beset his conscience
now. And as the train drew closer to their station, he eagerly
made ready to jump out and greet her. There was the honeysuckle
full out along the paling of the platform over the waiting-room;
wonderful, this year--and there was she, standing alone on the
platform. No, it was not Cicely! He got out with a blank
sensation, as if those memories had played him false. It was a
girl, indeed, but she only looked about sixteen, and wore a
sunbonnet that hid her hair and half her face. She had on a blue
frock, and some honeysuckle in her waist-belt. She seemed to be
smiling at him, and expecting him to smile at her; and so he did
smile. She came up to him then, and said:
"I'm Sylvia."
He answered: "Oh! thanks awfully--it was awfully good of you to
come and meet me."
"Cicely's so busy. It's only the T-cart. Have you got much
luggage?"
She took up his hold-all, and he took it from her; she took his
bag, and he took it from her; then they went out to the T-cart. A
small groom stood there, holding a silver-roan cob with a black
mane and black swish tail.
She said: "D'you mind if I drive, because I'm learning."
And he answered: "Oh, no! rather not."
She got up; he noticed that her eyes looked quite excited. Then
his portmanteau came out and was deposited with the other things
behind; and he got up beside her.
She said: "Let go, Billy."
The roan rushed past the little groom, whose top boots seemed to
twinkle as he jumped up behind. They whizzed round the corner from
the station yard, and observing that her mouth was just a little
open as though this had disconcerted her, he said:
"He pulls a bit."
"Yes--but isn't he perfectly sweet?"
"He IS rather decent."
Ah! when SHE came, he would drive her; they would go off alone in
the T-cart, and he would show her all the country round.
He was re-awakened by the words:
"Oh! I know he's going to shy!" At once there was a swerve. The
roan was cantering.
They had passed a pig.
"Doesn't he look lovely now? Ought I to have whipped him when he
shied?"
"Rather not."
"Why?"
"Because horses are horses, and pigs are pigs; it's natural for
horses to shy at them."
"Oh!"
He looked up at her then, sidelong. The curve of her cheek and
chin looked very soft, and rather jolly.
"I didn't know you, you know!" he said. "You've grown up so
awfully."
"I knew you at once. Your voice is still furry."
There was another silence, till she said:
"He does pull, rather--doesn't he, going home?"
"Shall I drive?"
"Yes, please."
He stood up and took the reins, and she slipped past under them in
front of him; her hair smelt exactly like hay, as she was softly
bumped against him.
She kept regarding him steadily with very blue eyes, now that she
was relieved of driving.
"Cicely was afraid you weren't coming," she said suddenly. "What
sort of people are those old Stormers?"
He felt himself grow very red, choked something down, and answered:
"It's only he that's old. She's not more than about thirty-five."
"That IS old."
He restrained the words: "Of course it's old to a kid like you!"
And, instead, he looked at her. Was she exactly a kid? She seemed
quite tall (for a girl) and not very thin, and there was something
frank and soft about her face, and as if she wanted you to be nice
to her.
"Is she very pretty?"
This time he did not go red, such was the disturbance that question
made in him. If he said: "Yes," it was like letting the world know
his adoration; but to say anything less would be horrible,
disloyal. So he did say: "Yes," listening hard to the tone of his
own voice.
"I thought she was. Do you like her very much?" Again he
struggled with that thing in his throat, and again said: "Yes."
He wanted to hate this girl, yet somehow could not--she looked so
soft and confiding. She was staring before her now, her lips still
just parted, so evidently THAT had not been because of Bolero's
pulling; they were pretty all the same, and so was her short,
straight little nose, and her chin, and she was awfully fair. His
thoughts flew back to that other face--so splendid, so full of
life. Suddenly he found himself unable to picture it--for the
first time since he had started on his journey it would not come
before him.
"Oh! Look!"
Her hand was pulling at his arm. There in the field over the hedge
a buzzard hawk was dropping like a stone.
"Oh, Mark! Oh! Oh! It's got it!"
She was covering her face with both her hands, and the hawk, with a
young rabbit in its claws, was sailing up again. It looked so
beautiful that he did not somehow feel sorry for the rabbit; but he
wanted to stroke and comfort her, and said:
"It's all right, Sylvia; it really is. The rabbit's dead already,
you know. And it's quite natural."
She took her hands away from a face that looked just as if she were
going to cry.
"Poor little rabbit! It was such a little one!"
XII
On the afternoon of the day following he sat in the smoking-room
with a prayer book in his hand, and a frown on his forehead,
reading the Marriage Service. The book had been effectively
designed for not spoiling the figure when carried in a pocket. But
this did not matter, for even if he could have read the words, he
would not have known what they meant, seeing that he was thinking
how he could make a certain petition to a certain person sitting
just behind at a large bureau with a sliding top, examining
artificial flies.
He fixed at last upon this form:
"Gordy!" (Why Gordy no one quite knew now--whether because his
name was George, or by way of corruption from Guardian.) "When Cis
is gone it'll be rather awful, won't it?"
"Not a bit."
Mr. Heatherley was a man of perhaps sixty-four, if indeed guardians
have ages, and like a doctor rather than a squire; his face square
and puffy, his eyes always half-closed, and his curly mouth using
bluntly a voice of that refined coarseness peculiar to people of
old family.
"But it will, you know!"
"Well, supposin' it is?"
"I only wondered if you'd mind asking Mr. and Mrs. Stormer to come
here for a little--they were awfully kind to me out there."
"Strange man and woman! My dear fellow!"
"Mr. Stormer likes fishing."
"Does he? And what does she like?"
Very grateful that his back was turned, the boy said:
"I don't know--anything--she's awfully nice."
"Ah! Pretty?"
He answered faintly:
"I don't know what YOU call pretty, Gordy."
He felt, rather than saw, his guardian scrutinizing him with those
half-closed eyes under their gouty lids.
"All right; do as you like. Have 'em here and have done with it,
by all means."
Did his heart jump? Not quite; but it felt warm and happy, and he
said:
"Thanks awfully, Gordy. It's most frightfully decent of you," and
turned again to the Marriage Service. He could make out some of
it. In places it seemed to him fine, and in other places queer.
About obeying, for instance. If you loved anybody, it seemed
rotten to expect them to obey you. If you loved them and they
loved you, there couldn't ever be any question of obeying, because
you would both do the things always of your own accord. And if
they didn't love you, or you them, then--oh! then it would be
simply too disgusting for anything, to go on living with a person
you didn't love or who didn't love you. But of course SHE didn't
love his tutor. Had she once? Those bright doubting eyes, that
studiously satiric mouth came very clearly up before him. You
could not love them; and yet--he was really very decent. A feeling
as of pity, almost of affection, rose in him for his remote tutor.
It was queer to feel so, since the last time they had talked
together out there, on the terrace, he had not felt at all like
that.
The noise of the bureau top sliding down aroused him; Mr.
Heatherley was closing in the remains of the artificial flies.
That meant he would be going out to fish. And the moment he heard
the door shut, Mark sprang up, slid back the bureau top, and began
to write his letter. It was hard work.
"DEAR MRS. STORMER,
"My guardian wishes me to beg you and Mr. Stormer to pay us a visit
as soon as you come back from the Tyrol. Please tell Mr. Stormer
that only the very best fishermen--like him--can catch our trout;
the rest catch our trees. This is me catching our trees (here
followed a sketch). My sister is going to be married to-morrow,
and it will be disgusting afterwards unless you come. So do come,
please. And with my very best greetings,
"I am,
"Your humble servant,
"M. LENNAN."
When he had stamped this production and dropped it in the letter-
box, he had the oddest feeling, as if he had been let out of
school; a desire to rush about, to frolic. What should he do?
Cis, of course, would be busy--they were all busy about the
wedding. He would go and saddle Bolero, and jump him in the park;
or should he go down along the river and watch the jays? Both
seemed lonely occupations. And he stood in the window--dejected.
At the age of five, walking with his nurse, he had been overheard
remarking: "Nurse, I want to eat a biscuit--ALL THE WAY I want to
eat a biscuit!" and it was still rather so with him perhaps--all
the way he wanted to eat a biscuit. He bethought him then of his
modelling, and went out to the little empty greenhouse where he
kept his masterpieces. They seemed to him now quite horrible--and
two of them, the sheep and the turkey, he marked out for summary
destruction. The idea occurred to him that he might try and model
that hawk escaping with the little rabbit; but when he tried, no
nice feeling came, and flinging the things down he went out. He
ran along the unweeded path to the tennis ground--lawn tennis was
then just coming in. The grass looked very rough. But then,
everything about that little manor house was left rather wild and
anyhow; why, nobody quite knew, and nobody seemed to mind. He
stood there scrutinizing the condition of the ground. A sound of
humming came to his ears. He got up on the wall. There was Sylvia
sitting in the field, making a wreath of honeysuckle. He stood
very quiet and listened. She looked pretty--lost in her tune.
Then he slid down off the wall, and said gently:
"Hallo!"
She looked round at him, her eyes very wide open.
"Your voice is jolly, Sylvia!"
"Oh, no!"
"It is. Come and climb a tree!"
"Where?"
"In the park, of course."
They were some time selecting the tree, many being too easy for
him, and many too hard for her; but one was found at last, an oak
of great age, and frequented by rooks. Then, insisting that she
must be roped to him, he departed to the house for some blind-cord.
The climb began at four o'clock--named by him the ascent of the
Cimone della Pala. He led the momentous expedition, taking a hitch
of the blind-cord round a branch before he permitted her to move.
Two or three times he was obliged to make the cord fast and return
to help her, for she was not an 'expert'; her arms seemed soft, and
she was inclined to straddle instead of trusting to one foot. But
at last they were settled, streaked indeed with moss, on the top
branch but two. They rested there, silent, listening to the rooks
soothing an outraged dignity. Save for this slowly subsiding
demonstration it was marvellously peaceful and remote up there,
half-way to a blue sky thinly veiled from them by the crinkled
brown-green leaves. The peculiar dry mossy smell of an oak-tree
was disturbed into the air by the least motion of their feet or
hands against the bark. They could hardly see the ground, and all
around, other gnarled trees barred off any view.
He said:
"If we stay up here till it's dark we might see owls."
"Oh, no! Owls are horrible!"
"What! They're LOVELY--especially the white ones."
"I can't stand their eyes, and they squeak so when they're
hunting."
"Oh! but that's so jolly, and their eyes are beautiful."
"They're always catching mice and little chickens; all sorts of
little things."
"But they don't mean to; they only want them to eat. Don't you
think things are jolliest at night?"
She slipped her arm in his.
"No; I don't like the dark."
"Why not? It's splendid--when things get mysterious." He dwelt
lovingly on that word.
"I don't like mysterious things. They frighten you."
"Oh, Sylvia!"
"No, I like early morning--especially in spring, when it's
beginning to get leafy."
"Well, of course."
She was leaning against him, for safety, just a little; and
stretching out his arm, he took good hold of the branch to make a
back for her. There was a silence. Then he said:
"If you could only have one tree, which would you have?"
"Not oaks. Limes--no--birches. Which would you?"
He pondered. There were so many trees that were perfect. Birches
and limes, of course; but beeches and cypresses, and yews, and
cedars, and holm-oaks--almost, and plane-trees; then he said
suddenly:
"Pines; I mean the big ones with reddish stems and branches pretty
high up."
"Why?"
Again he pondered. It was very important to explain exactly why;
his feelings about everything were concerned in this. And while he
mused she gazed at him, as if surprised to see anyone think so
deeply. At last he said:
"Because they're independent and dignified and never quite cold,
and their branches seem to brood, but chiefly because the ones I
mean are generally out of the common where you find them. You
know--just one or two, strong and dark, standing out against the
sky."
"They're TOO dark."
It occurred to him suddenly that he had forgotten larches. They,
of course, could be heavenly, when you lay under them and looked up
at the sky, as he had that afternoon out there. Then he heard her
say:
"If I could only have one flower, I should have lilies of the
valley, the small ones that grow wild and smell so jolly."
He had a swift vision of another flower, dark--very different, and
was silent.
"What would you have, Mark?" Her voice sounded a little hurt.
"You ARE thinking of one, aren't you?"
He said honestly:
"Yes, I am."
"Which?"
"It's dark, too; you wouldn't care for it a bit."
"How d'you know?"
"A clove carnation."
"But I do like it--only--not very much."
He nodded solemnly.
"I knew you wouldn't."
Then a silence fell between them. She had ceased to lean against
him, and he missed the cosy friendliness of it. Now that their
voices and the cawings of the rooks had ceased, there was nothing
heard but the dry rustle of the leaves, and the plaintive cry of a
buzzard hawk hunting over the little tor across the river. There
were nearly always two up there, quartering the sky. To the boy it
was lovely, that silence--like Nature talking to you--Nature always
talked in silences. The beasts, the birds, the insects, only
really showed themselves when you were still; you had to be awfully
quiet, too, for flowers and plants, otherwise you couldn't see the
real jolly separate life there was in them. Even the boulders down
there, that old Godden thought had been washed up by the Flood,
never showed you what queer shapes they had, and let you feel close
to them, unless you were thinking of nothing else. Sylvia, after
all, was better in that way than he had expected. She could keep
quiet (he had thought girls hopeless); she was gentle, and it was
rather jolly to watch her. Through the leaves there came the faint
far tinkle of the tea-bell.
She said: "We must get down."
It was much too jolly to go in, really. But if she wanted her tea--
girls always wanted tea! And, twisting the cord carefully round
the branch, he began to superintend her descent. About to follow,
he heard her cry:
"Oh, Mark! I'm stuck--I'm stuck! I can't reach it with my foot!
I'm swinging!" And he saw that she WAS swinging by her hands and
the cord.
"Let go; drop on to the branch below--the cord'll hold you straight
till you grab the trunk."
Her voice mounted piteously:
"I can't--I really can't--I should slip!"
He tied the cord, and slithered hastily to the branch below her;
then, bracing himself against the trunk, he clutched her round the
waist and knees; but the taut cord held her up, and she would not
come to anchor. He could not hold her and untie the cord, which
was fast round her waist. If he let her go with one hand, and got
out his knife, he would never be able to cut and hold her at the
same time. For a moment he thought he had better climb up again
and slack off the cord, but he could see by her face that she was
getting frightened; he could feel it by the quivering of her body.
"If I heave you up," he said, "can you get hold again above?" And,
without waiting for an answer, he heaved. She caught hold
frantically.
"Hold on just for a second."
She did not answer, but he saw that her face had gone very white.
He snatched out his knife and cut the cord. She clung just for
that moment, then came loose into his arms, and he hauled her to
him against the trunk. Safe there, she buried her face on his
shoulder. He began to murmur to her and smooth her softly, with
quite a feeling of its being his business to smooth her like this,
to protect her. He knew she was crying, but she let no sound
escape, and he was very careful not to show that he knew, for fear
she should feel ashamed. He wondered if he ought to kiss her. At
last he did, on the top of her head, very gently. Then she put up
her face and said she was a beast. And he kissed her again on an
eyebrow.
After that she seemed all right, and very gingerly they descended
to the ground, where shadows were beginning to lengthen over the
fern and the sun to slant into their eyes.
XIII
The night after the wedding the boy stood at the window of his
pleasant attic bedroom, with one wall sloping, and a faint smell of
mice. He was tired and excited, and his brain, full of pictures.
This was his first wedding, and he was haunted by a vision of his
sister's little white form, and her face with its starry eyes. She
was gone--his no more! How fearful the Wedding March had sounded
on that organ--that awful old wheezer; and the sermon! One didn't
want to hear that sort of thing when one felt inclined to cry.
Even Gordy had looked rather boiled when he was giving her away.
With perfect distinctness he could still see the group before the
altar rails, just as if he had not been a part of it himself. Cis
in her white, Sylvia in fluffy grey; his impassive brother-in-law's
tall figure; Gordy looking queer in a black coat, with a very
yellow face, and eyes still half-closed. The rotten part of it all
had been that you wanted to be just FEELING, and you had to be
thinking of the ring, and your gloves, and whether the lowest
button of your white waistcoat was properly undone. Girls could do
both, it seemed--Cis seemed to be seeing something wonderful all
the time, and Sylvia had looked quite holy. He himself had been
too conscious of the rector's voice, and the sort of professional
manner with which he did it all, as if he were making up a
prescription, with directions how to take it. And yet it was all
rather beautiful in a kind of fashion, every face turned one way,
and a tremendous hush--except for poor old Godden's blowing of his
nose with his enormous red handkerchief; and the soft darkness up
in the roof, and down in the pews; and the sunlight brightening the
South windows. All the same, it would have been much jollier just
taking hands by themselves somewhere, and saying out before God
what they really felt--because, after all, God was everything,
everywhere, not only in stuffy churches. That was how HE would
like to be married, out of doors on a starry night like this, when
everything felt wonderful all round you. Surely God wasn't half as
small as people seemed always making Him--a sort of superior man a
little bigger than themselves! Even the very most beautiful and
wonderful and awful things one could imagine or make, could only be
just nothing to a God who had a temple like the night out there.
But then you couldn't be married alone, and no girl would ever like
to be married without rings and flowers and dresses, and words that
made it all feel small and cosy! Cis might have, perhaps, only she
wouldn't, because of not hurting other people's feelings; but
Sylvia--never--she would be afraid. Only, of course, she was
young! And the thread of his thoughts broke--and scattered like
beads from a string.
Leaning out, and resting his chin on his hands, he drew the night
air into his lungs. Honeysuckle, or was it the scent of lilies
still? The stars all out, and lots of owls to-night--four at
least. What would night be like without owls and stars? But that
was it--you never could think what things would be like if they
weren't just what and where they were. You never knew what was
coming, either; and yet, when it came, it seemed as if nothing else
ever could have come. That was queer-you could do anything you
liked until you'd done it, but when you HAD done it, then you knew,
of course, that you must always have had to . . . What was that
light, below and to the left? Whose room? Old Tingle's--no, the
little spare room--Sylvia's! She must be awake, then! He leaned
far out, and whispered in the voice she had said was still furry:
"Sylvia!"
The light flickered, he could just see her head appear, with hair
all loose, and her face turning up to him. He could only half see,
half imagine it, mysterious, blurry; and he whispered:
"Isn't this jolly?"
The whisper travelled back:
"Awfully."
"Aren't you sleepy?"
"No; are you?"
"Not a bit. D'you hear the owls?"
"Rather."
"Doesn't it smell good?"
"Perfect. Can you see me?"
"Only just, not too much. Can you?"
"I can't see your nose. Shall I get the candle?"
"No--that'd spoil it. What are you sitting on?"
"The window sill."
"It doesn't twist your neck, does it?"
"No--o--only a little bit."
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Wait half a shake. I'll let down some chocolate in my big bath
towel; it'll swing along to you--reach out."
A dim white arm reached out.
"Catch! I say, you won't get cold?"
"Rather not."
"It's too jolly to sleep, isn't it?"
"Mark!"
"Yes."
"Which star is yours? Mine is the white one over the top branch of
the big sycamore, from here."
"Mine is that twinkling red one over the summer house. Sylvia!"
"Yes."
"Catch!"
"Oh! I couldn't--what was it?"
"Nothing."
"No, but what WAS it?"
"Only my star. It's caught in your hair."
"Oh!"
"Listen!"
Silence, then, until her awed whisper:
"What?"
And his floating down, dying away:
"CAVE!"
What had stirred--some window opened? Cautiously he spied along
the face of the dim house. There was no light anywhere, nor any
shifting blur of white at her window below. All was dark, remote--
still sweet with the scent of something jolly. And then he saw
what that something was. All over the wall below his window white
jessamine was in flower--stars, not only in the sky. Perhaps the
sky was really a field of white flowers; and God walked there, and
plucked the stars. . . .
The next morning there was a letter on his plate when he came down
to breakfast. He couldn't open it with Sylvia on one side of him,
and old Tingle on the other. Then with a sort of anger he did open
it. He need not have been afraid. It was written so that anyone
might have read; it told of a climb, of bad weather, said they were
coming home. Was he relieved, disturbed, pleased at their coming
back, or only uneasily ashamed? She had not got his second letter
yet. He could feel old Tingle looking round at him with those
queer sharp twinkling eyes of hers, and Sylvia regarding him quite
frankly. And conscious that he was growing red, he said to
himself: 'I won't!' And did not. In three days they would be at
Oxford. Would they come on here at once? Old Tingle was speaking.
He heard Sylvia answer: "No, I don't like 'bopsies.' They're so
hard!" It was their old name for high cheekbones. Sylvia
certainly had none, her cheeks went softly up to her eyes.
"Do you, Mark?"
He said slowly:
"On some people."
"People who have them are strong-willed, aren't they?"
Was SHE--Anna--strong-willed? It came to him that he did not know
at all what she was.
When breakfast was over and he had got away to his old greenhouse,
he had a strange, unhappy time. He was a beast, he had not been
thinking of her half enough! He took the letter out, and frowned
at it horribly. Why could he not feel more? What was the matter
with him? Why was he such a brute--not to be thinking of her day
and night? For long he stood, disconsolate, in the little dark
greenhouse among the images of his beasts, the letter in his hand.
He stole out presently, and got down to the river unobserved.
Comforting--that crisp, gentle sound of water; ever so comforting
to sit on a stone, very still, and wait for things to happen round
you. You lost yourself that way, just became branches, and stones,
and water, and birds, and sky. You did not feel such a beast.
Gordy would never understand why he did not care for fishing--one
thing trying to catch another--instead of watching and
understanding what things were. You never got to the end of
looking into water, or grass or fern; always something queer and
new. It was like that, too, with yourself, if you sat down and
looked properly--most awfully interesting to see things working in
your mind.
A soft rain had begun to fall, hissing gently on the leaves, but he
had still a boy's love of getting wet, and stayed where he was, on
the stone. Some people saw fairies in woods and down in water, or
said they did; that did not seem to him much fun. What was really
interesting was noticing that each thing was different from every
other thing, and what made it so; you must see that before you
could draw or model decently. It was fascinating to see your
creatures coming out with shapes of their very own; they did that
without your understanding how. But this vacation he was no good--
couldn't draw or model a bit!
A jay had settled about forty yards away, and remained in full
view, attending to his many-coloured feathers. Of all things,
birds were the most fascinating! He watched it a long time, and
when it flew on, followed it over the high wall up into the park.
He heard the lunch-bell ring in the far distance, but did not go
in. So long as he was out there in the soft rain with the birds
and trees and other creatures, he was free from that unhappy
feeling of the morning. He did not go back till nearly seven,
properly wet through, and very hungry.
All through dinner he noticed that Sylvia seemed to be watching
him, as if wanting to ask him something. She looked very soft in
her white frock, open at the neck; and her hair almost the colour
of special moonlight, so goldy-pale; and he wanted her to
understand that it wasn't a bit because of her that he had been out
alone all day. After dinner, when they were getting the table
ready to play 'red nines,' he did murmur:
"Did you sleep last night--after?"
She nodded fervently to that.
It was raining really hard now, swishing and dripping out in the
darkness, and he whispered:
"Our stars would be drowned to-night."
"Do you really think we have stars?"
"We might. But mine's safe, of course; your hair IS jolly,
Sylvia."
She gazed at him, very sweet and surprised.
XIV
Anna did not receive the boy's letter in the Tyrol. It followed
her to Oxford. She was just going out when it came, and she took
it up with the mingled beatitude and almost sickening tremor that a
lover feels touching the loved one's letter. She would not open it
in the street, but carried it all the way to the garden of a
certain College, and sat down to read it under the cedar-tree.
That little letter, so short, boyish, and dry, transported her
halfway to heaven. She was to see him again at once, not to wait
weeks, with the fear that he would quite forget her! Her husband
had said at breakfast that Oxford without 'the dear young clowns'
assuredly was charming, but Oxford 'full of tourists and other
strange bodies' as certainly was not. Where should they go? Thank
heaven, the letter could be shown him! For all that, a little stab
of pain went through her that there was not one word which made it
unsuitable to show. Still, she was happy. Never had her favourite
College garden seemed so beautiful, with each tree and flower so
cared for, and the very wind excluded; never had the birds seemed
so tame and friendly. The sun shone softly, even the clouds were
luminous and joyful. She sat a long time, musing, and went back
forgetting all she had come out to do. Having both courage and
decision, she did not leave the letter to burn a hole in her
corsets, but gave it to her husband at lunch, looking him in the
face, and saying carelessly:
"Providence, you see, answers your question."
He read it, raised his eyebrows, smiled, and, without looking up,
murmured:
"You wish to prosecute this romantic episode?"
Did he mean anything--or was it simply his way of putting things?
"I naturally want to be anywhere but here."
"Perhaps you would like to go alone?"
He said that, of course, knowing she could not say: Yes. And she
answered simply: "No."
"Then let us both go--on Monday. I will catch the young man's
trout; thou shalt catch--h'm!--he shall catch--What is it he
catches--trees? Good! That's settled."
And, three days later, without another word exchanged on the
subject, they started.
Was she grateful to him? No. Afraid of him? No. Scornful of
him? Not quite. But she was afraid of HERSELF, horribly. How
would she ever be able to keep herself in hand, how disguise from
these people that she loved their boy? It was her desperate mood
that she feared. But since she so much wanted all the best for him
that life could give, surely she would have the strength to do
nothing that might harm him. Yet she was afraid.
He was there at the station to meet them, in riding things and a
nice rough Norfolk jacket that she did not recognize, though she
thought she knew his clothes by heart; and as the train came slowly
to a standstill the memory of her last moment with him, up in his
room amid the luggage that she had helped to pack, very nearly
overcame her. It seemed so hard to have to meet him coldly,
formally, to have to wait--who knew how long--for a minute with him
alone! And he was so polite, so beautifully considerate, with all
the manners of a host; hoping she wasn't tired, hoping Mr. Stormer
had brought his fishing-rod, though they had lots, of course, they
could lend him; hoping the weather would be fine; hoping that they
wouldn't mind having to drive three miles, and busying himself
about their luggage. All this when she just wanted to take him in
her arms and push his hair back from his forehead, and look at him!
He did not drive with them--he had thought they would be too
crowded--but followed, keeping quite close in the dust to point out
the scenery, mounted on a 'palfrey,' as her husband called the roan
with the black swish tail.
This countryside, so rich and yet a little wild, the independent-
looking cottages, the old dark cosy manor-house, all was very new
to one used to Oxford, and to London, and to little else of
England. And all was delightful. Even Mark's guardian seemed to
her delightful. For Gordy, when absolutely forced to face an
unknown woman, could bring to the encounter a certain bluff
ingratiation. His sister, too, Mrs. Doone, with her faded
gentleness, seemed soothing.
When Anna was alone in her room, reached by an unexpected little
stairway, she stood looking at its carved four-poster bed and the
wide lattice window with chintz curtains, and the flowers in a blue
bowl. Yes, all was delightful. And yet! What was it? What had
she missed? Ah, she was a fool to fret! It was only his anxiety
that they should be comfortable, his fear that he might betray
himself. Out there those last few days--his eyes! And now! She
brooded earnestly over what dress she should put on. She, who
tanned so quickly, had almost lost her sunburn in the week of
travelling and Oxford. To-day her eyes looked tired, and she was
pale. She was not going to disdain anything that might help. She
had reached thirty-six last month, and he would be nineteen to-
morrow! She decided on black. In black she knew that her neck
looked whiter, and the colour of her eyes and hair stranger. She
put on no jewellery, did not even pin a rose at her breast, took
white gloves. Since her husband did not come to her room, she went
up the little stairway to his. She surprised him ready dressed,
standing by the fireplace, smiling faintly. What was he thinking
of, standing there with that smile? Was there blood in him at all?
He inclined his head slightly and said:
"Good! Chaste as the night! Black suits you. Shall we find our
way down to these savage halls?"
And they went down.
Everyone was already there, waiting. A single neighbouring squire
and magistrate, by name Trusham, had been bidden, to make numbers
equal.
Dinner was announced; they went in. At the round table in a
dining-room, all black oak, with many candles, and terrible
portraits of departed ancestors, Anna sat between the magistrate
and Gordy. Mark was opposite, between a quaint-looking old lady
and a young girl who had not been introduced, a girl in white, with
very fair hair and very white skin, blue eyes, and lips a little
parted; a daughter evidently of the faded Mrs. Doone. A girl like
a silvery moth, like a forget-me-not! Anna found it hard to take
her eyes away from this girl's face; not that she admired her
exactly; pretty she was--yes; but weak, with those parted lips and
soft chin, and almost wistful look, as if her deep-blue half-eager
eyes were in spite of her. But she was young--so young! That was
why not to watch her seemed impossible. "Sylvia Doone?" Indeed!
Yes. A soft name, a pretty name--and very like her! Every time
her eyes could travel away from her duty to Squire Trusham, and to
Gordy (on both of whom she was clearly making an impression), she
gazed at this girl, sitting there by the boy, and whenever those
two young things smiled and spoke together she felt her heart
contract and hurt her. Was THIS why that something had gone out of
his eyes? Ah, she was foolish! If every girl or woman the boy
knew was to cause such a feeling in her, what would life be like?
And her will hardened against her fears. She was looking brilliant
herself; and she saw that the girl in her turn could not help
gazing at her eagerly, wistfully, a little bewildered--hatefully
young. And the boy? Slowly, surely, as a magnet draws, Anna could
feel that she was drawing him, could see him stealing chances to
look at her. Once she surprised him full. What troubled eyes! It
was not the old adoring face; yet she knew from its expression that
she could make him want her--make him jealous--easily fire him with
her kisses, if she would.
And the dinner wore to an end. Then came the moment when the girl
and she must meet under the eyes of the mother, and that sharp,
quaint-looking old governess. It would be a hard moment, that!
And it came--a hard moment and a long one, for Gordy sat full span
over his wine. But Anna had not served her time beneath the gaze
of upper Oxford for nothing; she managed to be charming, full of
interest and questions in her still rather foreign accent. Miss
Doone--soon she became Sylvia--must show her all the treasures and
antiquities. Was it too dark to go out just to look at the old
house by night? Oh, no. Not a bit. There were goloshes in the
hall. And they went, the girl leading, and talking of Anna knew
not what, so absorbed was she in thinking how for a moment, just a
moment, she could contrive to be with the boy alone.
It was not remarkable, this old house, but it was his home--might
some day perhaps be his. And houses at night were strangely alive
with their window eyes.
"That is my room," the girl said, "where the jessamine is--you can
just see it. Mark's is above--look, under where the eave hangs
out, away to the left. The other night--"
"Yes; the other night?"
"Oh, I don't--! Listen. That's an owl. We have heaps of owls.
Mark likes them. I don't, much."
Always Mark!
"He's awfully keen, you see, about all beasts and birds--he models
them. Shall I show you his workshop?--it's an old greenhouse.
Here, you can see in."
There through the glass Anna indeed could just see the boy's quaint
creations huddling in the dark on a bare floor, a grotesque company
of small monsters. She murmured:
"Yes, I see them, but I won't really look unless he brings me
himself."
"Oh, he's sure to. They interest him more than anything in the
world."
For all her cautious resolutions Anna could not for the life of her
help saying:
"What, more than you?"
The girl gave her a wistful stare before she answered:
"Oh! I don't count much."
Anna laughed, and took her arm. How soft and young it felt! A
pang went through her heart, half jealous, half remorseful.
"Do you know," she said, "that you are very sweet?"
The girl did not answer.
"Are you his cousin?"
"No. Gordy is only Mark's uncle by marriage; my mother is Gordy's
sister--so I'm nothing."
Nothing!
"I see--just what you English call 'a connection.'"
They were silent, seeming to examine the night; then the girl said:
"I wanted to see you awfully. You're not like what I thought."
"Oh! And what DID you think?"
"I thought you would have dark eyes, and Venetian red hair, and not
be quite so tall. Of course, I haven't any imagination."
They were at the door again when the girl said that, and the hall
light was falling on her; her slip of a white figure showed clear.
Young--how young she looked! Everything she said--so young!
And Anna murmured: "And you are--more than I thought, too."
Just then the men came out from the dining-room; her husband with
the look on his face that denoted he had been well listened to;
Squire Trusham laughing as a man does who has no sense of humour;
Gordy having a curly, slightly asphyxiated air; and the boy his
pale, brooding look, as though he had lost touch with his
surroundings. He wavered towards her, seemed to lose himself, went
and sat down by the old governess. Was it because he did not dare
to come up to her, or only because he saw the old lady sitting
alone? It might well be that.
And the evening, so different from what she had dreamed of, closed
in. Squire Trusham was gone in his high dog-cart, with his famous
mare whose exploits had entertained her all through dinner. Her
candle had been given her; she had said good-night to all but Mark.
What should she do when she had his hand in hers? She would be
alone with him in that grasp, whose strength no one could see. And
she did not know whether to clasp it passionately, or to let it go
coolly back to its owner; whether to claim him or to wait. But she
was unable to help pressing it feverishly. At once in his face she
saw again that troubled look; and her heart smote her. She let it
go, and that she might not see him say good-night to the girl,
turned and mounted to her room.
Fully dressed, she flung herself on the bed, and there lay, her
handkerchief across her mouth, gnawing at its edges.
XV
Mark's nineteenth birthday rose in grey mist, slowly dropped its
veil to the grass, and shone clear and glistening. He woke early.
From his window he could see nothing in the steep park but the soft
blue-grey, balloon-shaped oaks suspended one above the other among
the round-topped boulders. It was in early morning that he always
got his strongest feeling of wanting to model things; then and
after dark, when, for want of light, it was no use. This morning
he had the craving badly, and the sense of not knowing how weighed
down his spirit. His drawings, his models--they were all so bad,
so fumbly. If only this had been his twenty-first birthday, and he
had his money, and could do what he liked. He would not stay in
England. He would be off to Athens, or Rome, or even to Paris, and
work till he COULD do something. And in his holidays he would
study animals and birds in wild countries where there were plenty
of them, and you could watch them in their haunts. It was stupid
having to stay in a place like Oxford; but at the thought of what
Oxford meant, his roaming fancy, like a bird hypnotized by a hawk,
fluttered, stayed suspended, and dived back to earth. And that
feeling of wanting to make things suddenly left him. It was as
though he had woken up, his real self; then--lost that self again.
Very quietly he made his way downstairs. The garden door was not
shuttered, not even locked--it must have been forgotten overnight.
Last night! He had never thought he would feel like this when she
came--so bewildered, and confused; drawn towards her, but by
something held back. And he felt impatient, angry with himself,
almost with her. Why could he not be just simply happy, as this
morning was happy? He got his field-glasses and searched the
meadow that led down to the river. Yes, there were several rabbits
out. With the white marguerites and the dew cobwebs, it was all
moon-flowery and white; and the rabbits being there made it
perfect. He wanted one badly to model from, and for a moment was
tempted to get his rook rifle--but what was the good of a dead
rabbit--besides, they looked so happy! He put the glasses down and
went towards his greenhouse to get a drawing block, thinking to sit
on the wall and make a sort of Midsummer Night's Dream sketch of
flowers and rabbits. Someone was there, bending down and doing
something to his creatures. Who had the cheek? Why, it was
Sylvia--in her dressing-gown! He grew hot, then cold, with anger.
He could not bear anyone in that holy place! It was hateful to
have his things even looked at; and she--she seemed to be fingering
them. He pulled the door open with a jerk, and said: "What are you
doing?" He was indeed so stirred by righteous wrath that he hardly
noticed the gasp she gave, and the collapse of her figure against
the wall. She ran past him, and vanished without a word. He went
up to his creatures and saw that she had placed on the head of each
one of them a little sprig of jessamine flower. Why! It was
idiotic! He could see nothing at first but the ludicrousness of
flowers on the heads of his beasts! Then the desperation of this
attempt to imagine something graceful, something that would give
him pleasure touched him; for he saw now that this was a birthday
decoration. From that it was only a second before he was horrified
with himself. Poor little Sylvia! What a brute he was! She had
plucked all that jessamine, hung out of her window and risked
falling to get hold of it; and she had woken up early and come down
in her dressing-gown just to do something that she thought he would
like! Horrible--what he had done! Now, when it was too late, he
saw, only too clearly, her startled white face and quivering lips,
and the way she had shrunk against the wall. How pretty she had
looked in her dressing-gown with her hair all about her, frightened
like that! He would do anything now to make up to her for having
been such a perfect beast! The feeling, always a little with him,
that he must look after her--dating, no doubt, from days when he
had protected her from the bulls that were not there; and the
feeling of her being so sweet and decent to him always; and some
other feeling too--all these suddenly reached poignant climax. He
simply must make it up to her! He ran back into the house and
stole upstairs. Outside her room he listened with all his might,
but could hear nothing; then tapped softly with one nail, and,
putting his mouth to the keyhole, whispered: "Sylvia!" Again and
again he whispered her name. He even tried the handle, meaning to
open the door an inch, but it was bolted. Once he thought he heard
a noise like sobbing, and this made him still more wretched. At
last he gave it up; she would not come, would not be consoled. He
deserved it, he knew, but it was very hard. And dreadfully
dispirited he went up to his room, took a bit of paper, and tried
to write:
"DEAREST SYLVIA,
"It was most awfully sweet of you to put your stars on my beasts.
It was just about the most sweet thing you could have done. I am
an awful brute, but, of course, if I had only known what you were
doing, I should have loved it. Do forgive me; I deserve it, I
know--only it IS my birthday.
"Your sorrowful
"MARK."
He took this down, slipped it under her door, tapped so that she
might notice it, and stole away. It relieved his mind a little,
and he went downstairs again.
Back in the greenhouse, sitting on a stool, he ruefully
contemplated those chapletted beasts. They consisted of a crow, a
sheep, a turkey, two doves, a pony, and sundry fragments. She had
fastened the jessamine sprigs to the tops of their heads by a tiny
daub of wet clay, and had evidently been surprised trying to put a
sprig into the mouth of one of the doves, for it hung by a little
thread of clay from the beak. He detached it and put it in his
buttonhole. Poor little Sylvia! she took things awfully to heart.
He would be as nice as ever he could to her all day. And,
balancing on his stool, he stared fixedly at the wall against which
she had fallen back; the line of her soft chin and throat seemed
now to be his only memory. It was very queer how he could see
nothing but that, the way the throat moved, swallowed--so white, so
soft. And HE had made it go like that! It seemed an unconscionable
time till breakfast.
As the hour approached he haunted the hall, hoping she might be
first down. At last he heard footsteps, and waited, hidden behind
the door of the empty dining-room, lest at sight of him she should
turn back. He had rehearsed what he was going to do--bend down and
kiss her hand and say: "Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful
lady in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight upon the
earth," from his favourite passage out of his favourite book, 'Don
Quixote.' She would surely forgive him then, and his heart would
no longer hurt him. Certainly she could never go on making him so
miserable if she knew his feelings! She was too soft and gentle
for that. Alas! it was not Sylvia who came; but Anna, fresh from
sleep, with her ice-green eyes and bright hair; and in sudden
strange antipathy to her, that strong, vivid figure, he stood dumb.
And this first lonely moment, which he had so many times in fancy
spent locked in her arms, passed without even a kiss; for quickly
one by one the others came. But of Sylvia only news through Mrs.
Doone that she had a headache, and was staying in bed. Her present
was on the sideboard, a book called 'Sartor Resartus.' "Mark--from
Sylvia, August 1st, 1880," together with Gordy's cheque, Mrs.
Doone's pearl pin, old Tingle's 'Stones of Venice,' and one other
little parcel wrapped in tissue-paper--four ties of varying shades
of green, red, and blue, hand-knitted in silk--a present of how
many hours made short by the thought that he would wear the produce
of that clicking. He did not fail in outer gratitude, but did he
realize what had been knitted into those ties? Not then.
Birthdays, like Christmas days, were made for disenchantment.
Always the false gaiety of gaiety arranged--always that pistol to
the head: 'Confound you! enjoy yourself!' How could he enjoy
himself with the thought of Sylvia in her room, made ill by his
brutality! The vision of her throat working, swallowing her grief,
haunted him like a little white, soft spectre all through the long
drive out on to the moor, and the picnic in the heather, and the
long drive home--haunted him so that when Anna touched or looked at
him he had no spirit to answer, no spirit even to try and be with
her alone, but almost a dread of it instead.
And when at last they were at home again, and she whispered:
"What is it? What have I done?" he could only mutter:
"Nothing! Oh, nothing! It's only that I've been a brute!"
At that enigmatic answer she might well search his face.
"Is it my husband?"
He could answer that, at all events.
"Oh, no!"
"What is it, then? Tell me."
They were standing in the inner porch, pretending to examine the
ancestral chart--dotted and starred with dolphins and little full-
rigged galleons sailing into harbours--which always hung just
there.
"Tell me, Mark; I don't like to suffer!"
What could he say, since he did not know himself? He stammered,
tried to speak, could not get anything out.
"Is it that girl?"
Startled, he looked away, and said:
"Of course not."
She shivered, and went into the house. But he stayed, staring at
the chart with a dreadful stirred-up feeling--of shame and
irritation, pity, impatience, fear, all mixed. What had he done,
said, lost? It was that horrid feeling of when one has not been
kind and not quite true, yet might have been kinder if one had been
still less true. Ah! but it was all so mixed up. It felt all
bleak, too, and wintry in him, as if he had suddenly lost
everybody's love. Then he was conscious of his tutor.
"Ah! friend Lennan--looking deeply into the past from the less
romantic present? Nice things, those old charts. The dolphins are
extremely jolly."
It was difficult to remember not to be ill-mannered then. Why did
Stormer jeer like that? He just managed to answer:
"Yes, sir; I wish we had some now."
"There are so many moons we wish for, Lennan, and they none of them
come tumbling down."
The voice was almost earnest, and the boy's resentment fled. He
felt sorry, but why he did not know.
"In the meantime," he heard his tutor say, "let us dress for
dinner."
When he came down to the drawing-room, Anna in her moonlight-
coloured frock was sitting on the sofa talking to--Sylvia. He kept
away from them; they could neither of them want him. But it did
seem odd to him, who knew not too much concerning women, that she
could be talking so gaily, when only half an hour ago she had said:
"Is it that girl?"
He sat next her at dinner. Again it was puzzling that she should
be laughing so serenely at Gordy's stories. Did the whispering in
the porch, then, mean nothing? And Sylvia would not look at him;
he felt sure that she turned her eyes away simply because she knew
he was going to look in her direction. And this roused in him a
sore feeling--everything that night seemed to rouse that feeling--
of injustice; he was cast out, and he could not tell why. He had
not meant to hurt either of them! Why should they both want to
hurt him so? And presently there came to him a feeling that he did
not care: Let them treat him as they liked! There were other
things besides love! If they did not want him--he did not want
them! And he hugged this reckless, unhappy, don't-care feeling to
him with all the abandonment of youth.
But even birthdays come to an end. And moods and feelings that
seem so desperately real die in the unreality of sleep.
XVI
If to the boy that birthday was all bewildered disillusionment, to
Anna it was verily slow torture; SHE found no relief in thinking
that there were things in life other than love. But next morning
brought readjustment, a sense of yesterday's extravagance, a
renewal of hope. Impossible surely that in one short fortnight she
had lost what she had made so sure of! She had only to be
resolute. Only to grasp firmly what was hers. After all these
empty years was she not to have her hour? To sit still meekly and
see it snatched from her by a slip of a soft girl? A thousand
times, no! And she watched her chance. She saw him about noon
sally forth towards the river, with his rod. She had to wait a
little, for Gordy and his bailiff were down there by the tennis
lawn, but they soon moved on. She ran out then to the park gate.
Once through that she felt safe; her husband, she knew, was working
in his room; the girl somewhere invisible; the old governess still
at her housekeeping; Mrs. Doone writing letters. She felt full of
hope and courage. This old wild tangle of a park, that she had not
yet seen, was beautiful--a true trysting-place for fauns and
nymphs, with its mossy trees and boulders and the high bracken.
She kept along under the wall in the direction of the river, but
came to no gate, and began to be afraid that she was going wrong.
She could hear the river on the other side, and looked for some
place where she could climb and see exactly where she was. An old
ash-tree tempted her. Scrambling up into its fork, she could just
see over. There was the little river within twenty yards, its
clear dark water running between thick foliage. On its bank lay a
huge stone balanced on another stone still more huge. And with his
back to this stone stood the boy, his rod leaning beside him. And
there, on the ground, her arms resting on her knees, her chin on
her hands, that girl sat looking up. How eager his eyes now--how
different from the brooding eyes of yesterday!
"So, you see, that was all. You might forgive me, Sylvia!"
And to Anna it seemed verily as if those two young faces formed
suddenly but one--the face of youth.
If she had stayed there looking for all time, she could not have
had graven on her heart a vision more indelible. Vision of Spring,
of all that was gone from her for ever! She shrank back out of the
fork of the old ash-tree, and, like a stricken beast, went
hurrying, stumbling away, amongst the stones and bracken. She ran
thus perhaps a quarter of a mile, then threw up her arms, fell down
amongst the fern, and lay there on her face. At first her heart
hurt her so that she felt nothing but that physical pain. If she
could have died! But she knew it was nothing but breathlessness.
It left her, and that which took its place she tried to drive away
by pressing her breast against the ground, by clutching the stalks
of the bracken--an ache, an emptiness too dreadful! Youth to
youth! He was gone from her--and she was alone again! She did not
cry. What good in crying? But gusts of shame kept sweeping
through her; shame and rage. So this was all she was worth! The
sun struck hot on her back in that lair of tangled fern, where she
had fallen; she felt faint and sick. She had not known till now
quite what this passion for the boy had meant to her; how much of
her very belief in herself was bound up with it; how much clinging
to her own youth. What bitterness! One soft slip of a white girl--
one YOUNG thing--and she had become as nothing! But was that
true? Could she not even now wrench him back to her with the
passion that this child knew nothing of! Surely! Oh, surely! Let
him but once taste the rapture she could give him! And at that
thought she ceased clutching at the bracken stalks, lying as still
as the very stones around her. Could she not? Might she not, even
now? And all feeling, except just a sort of quivering, deserted
her--as if she had fallen into a trance. Why spare this girl? Why
falter? She was first! He had been hers out there. And she still
had the power to draw him. At dinner the first evening she had
dragged his gaze to her, away from that girl--away from youth, as a
magnet draws steel. She could still bind him with chains that for
a little while at all events he would not want to break! Bind him?
Hateful word! Take him, hankering after what she could not give
him--youth, white innocence, Spring? It would be infamous,
infamous! She sprang up from the fern, and ran along the hillside,
not looking where she went, stumbling among the tangled growth, in
and out of the boulders, till she once more sank breathless on to a
stone. It was bare of trees just here, and she could see, across
the river valley, the high larch-crowned tor on the far side. The
sky was clear--the sun bright. A hawk was wheeling over that hill;
far up, very near the blue! Infamous! She could not do that!
Could not drug him, drag him to her by his senses, by all that was
least high in him, when she wished for him all the finest things
that life could give, as if she had been his mother. She could
not. It would be wicked! In that moment of intense spiritual
agony, those two down there in the sun, by the grey stone and the
dark water, seemed guarded from her, protected. The girl's white
flower-face trembling up, the boy's gaze leaping down! Strange
that a heart which felt that, could hate at the same moment that
flower-face, and burn to kill with kisses that eagerness in the
boy's eyes. The storm in her slowly passed. And she prayed just
to feel nothing. It was natural that she should lose her hour!
Natural that her thirst should go unslaked, and her passion never
bloom; natural that youth should go to youth, this boy to his own
kind, by the law of--love. The breeze blowing down the valley
fanned her cheeks, and brought her a faint sensation of relief.
Nobility! Was it just a word? Or did those that gave up happiness
feel noble?
She wandered for a long time in the park. Not till late afternoon
did she again pass out by the gate, through which she had entered,
full of hope. She met no one before she reached her room; and
there, to be safe, took refuge in her bed. She dreaded only lest
the feeling of utter weariness should leave her. She wanted no
vigour of mind or body till she was away from here. She meant
neither to eat nor drink; only to sleep, if she could. To-morrow,
if there were any early train, she could be gone before she need
see anyone; her husband must arrange. As to what he would think,
and she could say--time enough to decide that. And what did it
matter? The one vital thing now was not to see the boy, for she
could not again go through hours of struggle like those. She rang
the bell, and sent the startled maid with a message to her husband.
And while she waited for him to come, her pride began revolting.
She must not let him see. That would be horrible. And slipping
out of bed she got a handkerchief and the eau-de-Cologne flask, and
bandaged her forehead. He came almost instantly, entering in his
quick, noiseless way, and stood looking at her. He did not ask
what was the matter, but simply waited. And never before had she
realized so completely how he began, as it were, where she left
off; began on a plane from which instinct and feeling were as
carefully ruled out as though they had been blasphemous. She
summoned all her courage, and said: "I went into the park; the sun
must have been too hot. I should like to go home to-morrow, if you
don't mind. I can't bear not feeling well in other people's
houses."
She was conscious of a smile flickering over his face; then it grew
grave.
"Ah!" he said; "yes. The sun, a touch of that will last some days.
Will you be fit to travel, though?"
She had a sudden conviction that he knew all about it, but that--
since to know all about it was to feel himself ridiculous--he had
the power of making himself believe that he knew nothing. Was this
fine of him, or was it hateful?
She closed her eyes and said:
"My head is bad, but I SHALL be able. Only I don't want a fuss
made. Could we go by a train before they are down?"
She heard him say:
"Yes. That will have its advantages."
There was not the faintest sound now, but of course he was still
there. In that dumb, motionless presence was all her future. Yes,
that would be her future--a thing without feeling, and without
motion. A fearful curiosity came on her to look at it. She opened
her gaze. He was still standing just as he had been, his eyes
fixed on her. But one hand, on the edge of his coat pocket--out of
the picture, as it were--was nervously closing and unclosing. And
suddenly she felt pity. Not for her future--which must be like
that; but for him. How dreadful to have grown so that all emotion
was exiled--how dreadful! And she said gently:
"I am sorry, Harold."
As if he had heard something strange and startling, his eyes
dilated in a curious way, he buried that nervous hand in his
pocket, turned, and went out.
XVII
When young Mark came on Sylvia by the logan-stone, it was less
surprising to him than if he had not known she was there--having
watched her go. She was sitting, all humped together, brooding
over the water, her sunbonnet thrown back; and that hair, in which
his star had caught, shining faint-gold under the sun. He came on
her softly through the grass, and, when he was a little way off,
thought it best to halt. If he startled her she might run away,
and he would not have the heart to follow. How still she was, lost
in her brooding! He wished he could see her face. He spoke at
last, gently:
"Sylvia! . . . Would you mind?"
And, seeing that she did not move, he went up to her. Surely she
could not still be angry with him!
"Thanks most awfully for that book you gave me--it looks splendid!"
She made no answer. And leaning his rod against the stone, he
sighed. That silence of hers seemed to him unjust; what was it she
wanted him to say or do? Life was not worth living, if it was to
be all bottled up like this.
"I never meant to hurt you. I hate hurting people. It's only that
my beasts are so bad--I can't bear people to see them--especially
you--I want to please you--I do really. So, you see, that was all.
You MIGHT forgive me, Sylvia!"
Something over the wall, a rustling, a scattering in the fern--
deer, no doubt! And again he said eagerly, softly:
"You might be nice to me, Sylvia; you really might."
Very quickly, turning her head away, she said:
"It isn't that any more. It's--it's something else."
"What else?"
"Nothing--only, that I don't count--now--"
He knelt down beside her. What did she mean? But he knew well
enough.
"Of course, you count! Most awfully! Oh, don't be unhappy! I
hate people being unhappy. Don't be unhappy, Sylvia!" And he
began gently to stroke her arm. It was all strange and troubled
within him; one thing only plain--he must not admit anything! As
if reading that thought, her blue eyes seemed suddenly to search
right into him. Then she pulled some blades of grass, and began
plaiting them.
"SHE counts."
Ah! He was not going to say: She doesn't! It would be caddish to
say that. Even if she didn't count--Did she still?--it would be
mean and low. And in his eyes just then there was the look that
had made his tutor compare him to a lion cub in trouble.
Sylvia was touching his arm.
"Mark!"
"Yes."
"Don't!"
He got up and took his rod. What was the use? He could not stay
there with her, since he could not--must not speak.
"Are you going?"
"Yes."
"Are you angry? PLEASE don't be angry with me."
He felt a choke in his throat, bent down to her hand, and kissed
it; then shouldered his rod, and marched away. Looking back once,
he saw her still sitting there, gazing after him, forlorn, by that
great stone. It seemed to him, then, there was nowhere he could
go; nowhere except among the birds and beasts and trees, who did
not mind even if you were all mixed up and horrible inside. He lay
down in the grass on the bank. He could see the tiny trout moving
round and round the stones; swallows came all about him, flying
very low; a hornet, too, bore him company for a little. But he
could take interest in nothing; it was as if his spirit were in
prison. It would have been nice, indeed, to be that water, never
staying, passing, passing; or wind, touching everything, never
caught. To be able to do nothing without hurting someone--that was
what was so ghastly. If only one were like a flower, that just
sprang up and lived its life all to itself, and died. But whatever
he did, or said now, would be like telling lies, or else being
cruel. The only thing was to keep away from people. And yet how
keep away from his own guests?
He went back to the house for lunch, but both those guests were
out, no one seemed quite to know where. Restless, unhappy,
puzzled, he wandered round and about all the afternoon. Just
before dinner he was told of Mrs. Stormer's not being well, and
that they would be leaving to-morrow. Going--after three days!
That plunged him deeper into his strange and sorrowful confusion.
He was reduced now to a complete brooding silence. He knew he was
attracting attention, but could not help it. Several times during
dinner he caught Gordy's eyes fixed on him, from under those puffy
half-closed lids, with asphyxiated speculation. But he simply
COULD not talk--everything that came into his mind to say seemed
false. Ah! it was a sad evening--with its glimmering vision into
another's sore heart, its confused gnawing sense of things broken,
faith betrayed; and yet always the perplexed wonder--"How could I
have helped it?" And always Sylvia's wistful face that he tried
not to look at.
He stole out, leaving Gordy and his tutor still over their wine,
and roamed about the garden a long time, listening sadly to the
owls. It was a blessing to get upstairs, though of course he would
not sleep.
But he did sleep, all through a night of many dreams, in the last
of which he was lying on a mountain side, Anna looking down into
his eyes, and bending her face to his. He woke just as her lips
touched him. Still under the spell of that troubling dream, he
became conscious of the sound of wheels and horses' hoofs on the
gravel, and sprang out of bed. There was the waggonette moving
from the door, old Godden driving, luggage piled up beside him, and
the Stormers sitting opposite each other in the carriage. Going
away like that--having never even said good-bye! For a moment he
felt as people must when they have unwittingly killed someone--
utterly stunned and miserable. Then he dashed into his clothes.
He would not let her go thus! He would--he must--see her again!
What had he done that she should go like this? He rushed
downstairs. The hall was empty; nineteen minutes to eight! The
train left at eight o'clock. Had he time to saddle Bolero? He
rushed round to the stables; but the cob was out, being shoed. He
would--he must get there in time. It would show her anyway that he
was not quite a cad. He walked till the drive curved, then began
running hard. A quarter of a mile, and already he felt better, not
so miserable and guilty; it was something to feel you had a tough
job in hand, all your work cut out--something to have to think of
economizing strength, picking out the best going, keeping out of
the sun, saving your wind uphill, flying down any slope. It was
cool still, and the dew had laid the dust; there was no traffic and
scarcely anyone to look back and gape as he ran by. What he would
do, if he got there in time--how explain this mad three-mile run--
he did not think. He passed a farm that he knew was just half-way.
He had left his watch. Indeed, he had put on only his trousers,
shirt, and Norfolk jacket; no tie, no hat, not even socks under his
tennis shoes, and he was as hot as fire, with his hair flying back--
a strange young creature indeed for anyone to meet. But he had
lost now all feeling, save the will to get there. A flock of sheep
came out of a field into the lane. He pushed through them somehow,
but they lost him several seconds. More than a mile still; and he
was blown, and his legs beginning to give! Downhill indeed they
went of their own accord, but there was the long run-in, quite
level; and he could hear the train, now slowly puffing its way
along the valley. Then, in spite of exhaustion, his spirit rose.
He would not go in looking like a scarecrow, utterly done, and make
a scene. He must pull himself together at the end, and stroll in--
as if he had come for fun. But how--seeing that at any moment he
felt he might fall flat in the dust, and stay there for ever! And,
as he ran, he made little desperate efforts to mop his face, and
brush his clothes. There were the gates, at last--two hundred
yards away. The train, he could hear no longer. It must be
standing in the station. And a sob came from his overdriven lungs.
He heard the guard's whistle as he reached the gates. Instead of
making for the booking-office, he ran along the paling, where an
entrance to the goods'-shed was open, and dashing through he fell
back against the honeysuckle. The engine was just abreast of him;
he snatched at his sleeve and passed it over his face, to wipe the
sweat away. Everything was blurred. He must see--surely he had
not come in time just not to see! He pushed his hands over his
forehead and hair, and spied up dizzily at the slowly passing
train. She was there, at a window! Standing, looking out! He
dared not step forward, for fear of falling, but he put out his
hand--She saw him. Yes, she saw him! Wasn't she going to make a
sign? Not one? And suddenly he saw her tear at her dress, pluck
something out, and throw it. It fell close to his feet. He did
not pick it up--he wanted to see her face till she was gone. It
looked wonderful--very proud, and pale. She put her hand up to her
lips. Then everything went blurred again and when he could see
once more, the train had vanished. But at his feet was what she
had thrown. He picked it up! All dry and dark, it was the flower
she had given him in the Tyrol, and stolen back from his
buttonhole.
Creeping out, past the goods'-shed, he made his way to a field, and
lay down with his face pressed to that withered thing which still
had its scent. . . .
The asphyxiated speculation in his guardian's eyes had not been
without significance. Mark did not go back to Oxford. He went
instead to Rome--to live in his sister's house, and attend a school
of sculpture. That was the beginning of a time when nothing
counted except his work.
To Anna he wrote twice, but received no answer. From his tutor he
had one little note:
"MY DEAR LENNAN,
"So! You abandon us for Art? Ah! well--it was your moon, if I
remember--one of them. A worthy moon--a little dusty in these
days--a little in her decline--but to you no doubt a virgin
goddess, whose hem, etc.
"We shall retain the friendliest memories of you in spite of your
defection.
"Once your tutor and still your friend,
"HAROLD STORMER."
After that vacation it was long--very long before he saw Sylvia
again.
PART II
SUMMER
I
Gleam of a thousand lights; clack and mutter of innumerable voices,
laughter, footsteps; hiss and rumble of passing trains taking
gamblers back to Nice or Mentone; fevered wailing from the violins
of four fiddlers with dark-white skins outside the cafe; and above,
around, beyond, the dark sky, and the dark mountains, and the dark
sea, like some great dark flower to whose heart is clinging a
jewelled beetle. So was Monte Carlo on that May night of 1887.
But Mark Lennan, at one of the little marble-topped tables, was in
too great maze and exaltation of spirit and of senses to be
conscious of its glare and babel, even of its beauty. He sat so
very still that his neighbours, with the instinctive aversion of
the human creature to what is too remote from its own mood, after
one good stare, turned their eyes away, as from something
ludicrous, almost offensive.
He was lost, indeed, in memory of the minutes just gone by. For it
had come at last, after all these weeks of ferment, after all this
strange time of perturbation.
Very stealthily it had been creeping on him, ever since that chance
introduction nearly a year ago, soon after he settled down in
London, following those six years of Rome and Paris. First the
merest friendliness, because she was so nice about his work; then
respectful admiration, because she was so beautiful; then pity,
because she was so unhappy in her marriage. If she had been happy,
he would have fled. The knowledge that she had been unhappy long
before he knew her had kept his conscience still. And at last one
afternoon she said: "Ah! if you come out there too!" Marvelously
subtle, the way that one little outslipped saying had worked in
him, as though it had a life of its own--like a strange bird that
had flown into the garden of his heart, and established itself with
its new song and flutterings, its new flight, its wistful and ever
clearer call. That and one moment, a few days later in her London
drawing-room, when he had told her that he WAS coming, and she did
not, could not, he felt, look at him. Queer, that nothing
momentous said, done--or even left undone--had altered all the
future!
And so she had gone with her uncle and aunt, under whose wing one
might be sure she would meet with no wayward or exotic happenings.
And he had received from her this little letter:
"HOTEL COEUR D'OR,
"MONTE CARLO.
"MY DEAR MARK,
"We've arrived. It is so good to be in the sun. The flowers are
wonderful. I am keeping Gorbio and Roquebrune till you come.
"Your friend,
"OLIVE CRAMIER."
That letter was the single clear memory he had of the time between
her going and his following. He received it one afternoon, sitting
on an old low garden wall with the spring sun shining on him
through apple-trees in blossom, and a feeling as if all the desire
of the world lay before him, and he had but to stretch out his arms
to take it.
Then confused unrest, all things vague; till at the end of his
journey he stepped out of the train at Beaulieu with a furiously
beating heart. But why? Surely he had not expected her to come
out from Monte Carlo to meet him!
A week had gone by since then in one long effort to be with her and
appear to others as though he did not greatly wish to be; two
concerts, two walks with her alone, when all that he had said
seemed as nothing said, and all her sayings but ghosts of what he
wished to hear; a week of confusion, day and night, until, a few
minutes ago, her handkerchief had fallen from her glove on to the
dusty road, and he had picked it up and put it to his lips.
Nothing could take away the look she had given him then. Nothing
could ever again separate her from him utterly. She had confessed
in it to the same sweet, fearful trouble that he himself was
feeling. She had not spoken, but he had seen her lips part, her
breast rise and fall. And HE had not spoken. What was the use of
words?
He felt in the pocket of his coat. There, against his fingers, was
that wisp of lawn and lace, soft, yet somehow alive; and stealthily
he took it out. The whole of her, with her fragrance, seemed
pressed to his face in the touch of that lawn border, roughened by
little white stars. More secretly than ever he put it back; and
for the first time looked round. These people! They belonged to a
world that he had left. They gave him the same feeling that her
uncle and aunt had given him just now, when they said good-night,
following her into their hotel. That good Colonel, that good Mrs.
Ercott! The very concretion of the world he had been brought up
in, of the English point of view; symbolic figures of health,
reason, and the straight path, on which at that moment, seemingly,
he had turned his back. The Colonel's profile, ruddy through its
tan, with grey moustache guiltless of any wax, his cheery, high-
pitched: "Good-night, young Lennan!" His wife's curly smile, her
flat, cosy, confidential voice--how strange and remote they had
suddenly become! And all these people here, chattering, drinking--
how queer and far away! Or was it just that he was queer and
remote to them?
And getting up from his table, he passed the fiddlers with the
dark-white skins, out into the Place.
II
He went up the side streets to the back of her hotel, and stood by
the railings of the garden--one of those hotel gardens which exist
but to figure in advertisements, with its few arid palms, its paths
staring white between them, and a fringe of dusty lilacs and
mimosas.
And there came to him the oddest feeling--that he had been there
before, peering through blossoms at those staring paths and
shuttered windows. A scent of wood-smoke was abroad, and some dry
plant rustled ever so faintly in what little wind was stirring.
What was there of memory in this night, this garden? Some dark
sweet thing, invisible, to feel whose presence was at once ecstasy,
and the irritation of a thirst that will not be quenched.
And he walked on. Houses, houses! At last he was away from them,
alone on the high road, beyond the limits of Monaco. And walking
thus through the night he had thoughts that he imagined no one had
ever had before him. The knowledge that she loved him had made
everything seem very sacred and responsible. Whatever he did, he
must not harm her. Women were so helpless!
For in spite of six years of art in Rome and Paris, he still had a
fastidious reverence for women. If she had loved her husband she
would have been safe enough from him; but to be bound to a
companionship that she gave unwillingly--this had seemed to him
atrocious, even before he loved her. How could any husband ask
that? Have so little pride--so little pity? The unpardonable
thing! What was there to respect in such a marriage? Only, he
must not do her harm! But now that her eyes had said, I love you!--
What then? It was simply miraculous to know THAT, under the stars
of this warm Southern night, burning its incense of trees and
flowers!
Climbing up above the road, he lay down. If only she were there
beside him! The fragrance of the earth not yet chilled, crept to
his face; and for just a moment it seemed to him that she did come.
If he could keep her there for ever in that embrace that was no
embrace--in that ghostly rapture, on this wild fragrant bed that no
lovers before had ever pressed, save the creeping things, and the
flowers; save sunlight and moonlight with their shadows; and the
wind kissing the earth! . . .
Then she was gone; his hands touched nothing but the crumbled pine
dust, and the flowers of the wild thyme fallen into sleep.
He stood on the edge of the little cliff, above the road between
the dark mountains and the sea black with depth. Too late for any
passer-by; as far from what men thought and said and did as the
very night itself with its whispering warmth. And he conjured up
her face, making certain of it--the eyes, clear and brown, and wide
apart; the close, sweet mouth; the dark hair; the whole flying
loveliness.
Then he leaped down into the road, and ran--one could not walk,
feeling this miracle, that no one had ever felt before, the miracle
of love.
III
In their most reputable hotel 'Le Coeur d'Or,' long since
remodelled and renamed, Mrs. Ercott lay in her brass-bound bed
looking by starlight at the Colonel in his brass-bound bed. Her
ears were carefully freed from the pressure of her pillow, for she
thought she heard a mosquito. Companion for thirty years to one
whose life had been feverishly punctuated by the attentions of
those little beasts, she had no love for them. It was the one
subject on which perhaps her imagination was stronger than her
common sense. For in fact there was not, and could not be, a
mosquito, since the first thing the Colonel did, on arriving at any
place farther South than Parallel 46 of latitude, was to open the
windows very wide, and nail with many tiny tacks a piece of
mosquito netting across that refreshing space, while she held him
firmly by the coat-tails. The fact that other people did not so
secure their windows did not at all trouble the Colonel, a true
Englishman, who loved to act in his own way, and to think in the
ways of other people. After that they would wait till night came,
then burn a peculiar little lamp with a peculiar little smell, and,
in the full glare of the gaslight, stand about on chairs, with
slippers, and their eyes fixed on true or imaginary beasts. Then
would fall little slaps, making little messes, and little joyous or
doleful cries would arise: "I've got that one!" "Oh, John, I
missed him!" And in the middle of the room, the Colonel, in
pyjamas, and spectacles (only worn in very solemn moments, low down
on his nose), would revolve slowly, turning his eyes, with that
look in them of out-facing death which he had so long acquired, on
every inch of wall and ceiling, till at last he would say: "Well,
Dolly, that's the lot!" At which she would say: "Give me a kiss,
dear!" and he would kiss her, and get into his bed.
There was, then, no mosquito, save that general ghost of him which
lingered in the mind of one devoted to her husband. Spying out his
profile, for he was lying on his back, she refrained from saying:
"John, are you awake?" A whiffling sound was coming from a nose,
to which--originally straight--attention to military duties had
given a slight crook, half an inch below the level of grizzled
eyebrows raised a little, as though surprised at the sounds
beneath. She could hardly see him, but she thought: "How good he
looks!" And, in fact, he did. It was the face of a man incapable
of evil, having in its sleep the candour of one at heart a child--
that simple candour of those who have never known how to seek
adventures of the mind, and have always sought adventures of the
body. Then somehow she did say:
"John! Are you asleep?"
The Colonel, instantly alive, as at some old-time attack, answered:
"Yes."
"That poor young man!"
"Which?"
"Mark Lennan. Haven't you seen?"
"What?"
"My dear, it was under your nose. But you never do see these
things!"
The Colonel slowly turned his head. His wife was an imaginative
woman! She had always been so. Dimly he perceived that something
romantic was about to come from her. But with that almost
professional gentleness of a man who has cut the heads and arms off
people in his time, he answered:
"What things?"
"He picked up her handkerchief."
"Whose?"
"Olive's. He put it in his pocket. I distinctly saw him."
There was silence; then Mrs. Ercott's voice rose again, impersonal,
far away.
"What always astonishes me about young people is the way they think
they're not seen--poor dears!"
Still there was silence.
"John! Are you thinking?"
For a considerable sound of breathing, not mere whiffling now, was
coming from the Colonel--to his wife a sure sign.
And indeed he WAS thinking. Dolly was an imaginative woman, but
something told him that in this case she might not be riding past
the hounds.
Mrs. Ercott raised herself. He looked more good than ever; a
little perplexed frown had climbed up with his eyebrows and got
caught in the wrinkles across his forehead.
"I'm very fond of Olive," he said.
Mrs. Ercott fell back on her pillows. In her heart there was just
that little soreness natural to a woman over fifty, whose husband
has a niece.
"No doubt," she murmured.
Something vague moved deep down in the Colonel; he stretched out
his hand. In that strip of gloom between the beds it encountered
another hand, which squeezed it rather hard.
He said: "Look here, old girl!" and there was silence.
Mrs. Ercott in her turn was thinking. Her thoughts were flat and
rapid like her voice, but had that sort of sentiment which
accompanies the mental exercise of women with good hearts. Poor
young man! And poor Olive! But was a woman ever to be pitied,
when she was so pretty as that! Besides, when all was said and
done, she had a fine-looking man for husband; in Parliament, with a
career, and fond of her--decidedly. And their little house in
London, so close to Westminster, was a distinct dear; and nothing
could be more charming than their cottage by the river. Was Olive,
then, to be pitied? And yet--she was not happy. It was no good
pretending that she was happy. All very well to say that such
things were within one's control, but if you read novels at all,
you knew they weren't. There was such a thing as incompatibility.
Oh yes! And there was the matter of difference in their ages!
Olive was twenty-six, Robert Cramier forty-two. And now this young
Mark Lennan was in love with her. What if she were in love with
him! John would realize then, perhaps, that the young flew to the
young. For men--even the best, like John, were funny! She would
never dream of feeling for any of her nephews as John clearly felt
for Olive.
The Colonel's voice broke in on her thoughts.
"Nice young fellow--Lennan! Great pity! Better sheer off--if he's
getting--"
And, rather suddenly, she answered:
"Suppose he can't!"
"Can't?"
"Did you never hear of a 'grande passion'?"
The Colonel rose on his elbow. This was another of those occasions
that showed him how, during the later years of his service in
Madras and Upper Burmah, when Dolly's health had not been equal to
the heat, she had picked up in London a queer way of looking at
things--as if they were not--not so right or wrong as--as he felt
them to be. And he repeated those two French words in his own way,
adding:
"Isn't that just what I'm saying? The sooner he stands clear, the
better."
But Mrs. Ercott, too, sat up.
"Be human," she said.
The Colonel experienced the same sensation as when one suddenly
knows that one is not digesting food. Because young Lennan was in
danger of getting into a dishonourable fix, he was told to be
human! Really, Dolly was--! The white blur of her new boudoir cap
suddenly impinged on his consciousness. Surely she was not
getting--un-English! At her time of life!
"I'm thinking of Olive," he said; "I don't want her worried with
that sort of thing."
"Perhaps Olive can manage for herself. In these days it doesn't do
to interfere with love."
"Love!" muttered the Colonel. "What? Phew!"
If one's own wife called this--this sort of--thing, love--then, why
had he been faithful to her--in very hot climates--all these years?
A sense of waste, and of injustice, tried to rear its head against
all the side of him that attached certain meanings to certain
words, and acted up to them. And this revolt gave him a feeling,
strange and so unpleasant. Love! It was not a word to use thus
loosely! Love led to marriage; this could not lead to marriage,
except through--the Divorce Court. And suddenly the Colonel had a
vision of his dead brother Lindsay, Olive's father, standing there
in the dark, with his grave, clear-cut, ivory-pale face, under the
black hair supposed to be derived from a French ancestress who had
escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Upright fellow
always, Lindsay--even before he was made bishop! Queer somehow
that Olive should be his daughter. Not that she was not upright;
not at all! But she was soft! Lindsay was not! Imagine him
seeing that young fellow putting her handkerchief in his pocket.
But had young Lennan really done such a thing? Dolly was
imaginative! He had mistaken it probably for his own; if he had
chanced to blow his nose, he would have realized. For, coupled
with the almost child-like candour of his mind, the Colonel had
real administrative vigour, a true sense of practical values; an
ounce of illustration was always worth to him a pound of theory!
Dolly was given to riding off on theories. Thank God! she never
acted on 'em!
He said gently:
"My dear! Young Lennan may be an artist and all that, but he's a
gentleman! I know old Heatherley, his guardian. Why I introduced
him to Olive myself!"
"What has that to do with it? He's in love with her."
One of the countless legion that hold a creed taken at face value,
into whose roots and reasons they have never dreamed of going, the
Colonel was staggered. Like some native on an island surrounded by
troubled seas, which he has stared at with a certain contemptuous
awe all his life, but never entered, he was disconcerted by thus
being asked to leave the shore. And by his own wife!
Indeed, Mrs. Ercott had not intended to go so far; but there was in
her, as in all women whose minds are more active than their
husbands', a something worrying her always to go a little farther
than she meant. With real compunction she heard the Colonel say:
"I must get up and drink some water."
She was out of bed in a moment. "Not without boiling!"
She had seriously troubled him, then! Now he would not sleep--the
blood went to his head so quickly. He would just lie awake, trying
not to disturb her. She could not bear him not to disturb her. It
seemed so selfish of her! She ought to have known that the whole
subject was too dangerous to discuss at night.
She became conscious that he was standing just behind her; his
figure in its thin covering looked very lean, his face strangely
worn.
"I'm sorry you put that idea into my head!" he said. "I'm fond of
Olive."
Again Mrs. Ercott felt that jealous twinge, soon lost this time in
the motherliness of a childless woman for her husband. He must not
be troubled! He should not be troubled. And she said:
"The water's boiling! Now sip a good glass slowly, and get into
bed, or I'll take your temperature!"
Obediently the Colonel took from her the glass, and as he sipped,
she put her hand up and stroked his head.
IV
In the room below them the subject of their discussion was lying
very wide awake. She knew that she had betrayed herself, made
plain to Mark Lennan what she had never until now admitted to
herself. But the love-look, which for the life of her she could
not keep back, had been followed by a feeling of having 'lost
caste.' For, hitherto, the world of women had been strictly
divided by her into those who did and those who did not do such
things; and to be no longer quite sure to which half she belonged
was frightening. But what was the good of thinking, of being
frightened?--it could not lead to anything. Yesterday she had not
known this would come; and now she could not guess at to-morrow!
To-night was enough! To-night with its swimming loveliness! Just
to feel! To love, and to be loved!
A new sensation for her--as different from those excited by the
courtships of her girlhood, or by her marriage, as light from
darkness. For she had never been in love, not even with her
husband. She knew it now. The sun was shining in a world where
she had thought there was none. Nothing could come of it. But the
sun was shining; and in that sunshine she must warm herself a
little.
Quite simply she began to plan what he and she would do. There
were six days left. They had not yet been to Gorbio, nor to
Castellar--none of those long walks or rides they had designed to
do for the beauty of them. Would he come early to-morrow? What
could they do together? No one should know what these six days
would be to her--not even he. To be with him, watch his face, hear
his voice, and now and then just touch him! She could trust
herself to show no one. And then, it would be--over! Though, of
course, she would see him again in London.
And, lying there in the dark, she thought of their first meeting,
one Sunday morning, in Hyde Park. The Colonel religiously observed
Church Parade, and would even come all the way down to Westminster,
from his flat near Knightsbridge, in order to fetch his niece up to
it. She remembered how, during their stroll, he had stopped
suddenly in front of an old gentleman with a puffy yellow face and
eyes half open.
"Ah! Mr. Heatherley--you up from Devonshire? How's your nephew--
the--er--sculptor?"
And the old gentleman, glaring a little, as it seemed to her, from
under his eyelids and his grey top hat, had answered: "Colonel
Ercott, I think? Here's the fellow himself--Mark!" And a young
man had taken off his hat. She had only noticed at first that his
dark hair grew--not long--but very thick; and that his eyes were
very deep-set. Then she saw him smile; it made his face all eager,
yet left it shy; and she decided that he was nice. Soon after, she
had gone with the Ercotts to see his 'things'; for it was, of
course, and especially in those days, quite an event to know a
sculptor--rather like having a zebra in your park. The Colonel had
been delighted and a little relieved to find that the 'things' were
nearly all of beasts and birds. "Very interestin'" to one full of
curious lore about such, having in his time killed many of them,
and finding himself at the end of it with a curious aversion to
killing any more--which he never put into words.
Acquaintanceship had ripened fast after that first visit to his
studio, and now it was her turn to be relieved that Mark Lennan
devoted himself almost entirely to beasts and birds instead of to
the human form, so-called divine. Ah! yes--she would have
suffered; now that she loved him, she saw that. At all events she
could watch his work and help it with sympathy. That could not be
wrong. . . .
She fell asleep at last, and dreamed that she was in a boat alone
on the river near her country cottage, drifting along among spiky
flowers like asphodels, with birds singing and flying round her.
She could move neither face nor limbs, but that helpless feeling
was not unpleasant, till she became conscious that she was drawing
nearer and nearer to what was neither water nor land, light nor
darkness, but simply some unutterable feeling. And then she saw,
gazing at her out of the rushes on the banks, a great bull head.
It moved as she moved--it was on both sides of her, yet all the
time only one head. She tried to raise her hands and cover her
eyes, but could not--and woke with a sob. . . . It was light.
Nearly six o'clock already! Her dream made her disinclined to
trust again to sleep. Sleep was a robber now--of each minute of
these few days! She got up, and looked out. The morning was fine,
the air warm already, sweet with dew, and heliotrope nailed to the
wall outside her window. She had but to open her shutters and walk
into the sun. She dressed, took her sunshade, stealthily slipped
the shutters back, and stole forth. Shunning the hotel garden,
where the eccentricity of her early wandering might betray the
condition of her spirit, she passed through into the road toward
the Casino. Without perhaps knowing it, she was making for where
she had sat with him yesterday afternoon, listening to the band.
Hatless, but defended by her sunshade, she excited the admiration
of the few connoisseurs as yet abroad, strolling in blue blouses to
their labours; and this simple admiration gave her pleasure. For
once she was really conscious of the grace in her own limbs,
actually felt the gentle vividness of her own face, with its nearly
black hair and eyes, and creamy skin--strange sensation, and very
comforting!
In the Casino gardens she walked more slowly, savouring the
aromatic trees, and stopping to bend and look at almost every
flower; then, on the seat, where she had sat with him yesterday,
she rested. A few paces away were the steps that led to the
railway-station, trodden upwards eagerly by so many, day after day,
night after night, and lightly or sorrowfully descended. Above
her, two pines, a pepper-tree, and a palm mingled their shade--so
fantastic the jumbling of trees and souls in this strange place!
She furled her sunshade and leaned back. Her gaze, free and
friendly, passed from bough to bough. Against the bright sky,
unbesieged as yet by heat or dust, they had a spiritual look, lying
sharp and flat along the air. She plucked a cluster of pinkish
berries from the pepper-tree, crushing and rubbing them between her
hands to get their fragrance. All these beautiful and sweet things
seemed to be a part of her joy at being loved, part of this sudden
summer in her heart. The sky, the flowers, that jewel of green-
blue sea, the bright acacias, were nothing in the world but love.
And those few who passed, and saw her sitting there under the
pepper-tree, wondered no doubt at the stillness of this dame bien
mise, who had risen so early.
V
In the small hours, which so many wish were smaller, the Colonel
had awakened, with the affair of the handkerchief swelling visibly.
His niece's husband was not a man that he had much liking for--a
taciturn fellow, with possibly a bit of the brute in him, a man who
rather rode people down; but, since Dolly and he were in charge of
Olive, the notion that young Lennan was falling in love with her
under their very noses was alarming to one naturally punctilious.
It was not until he fell asleep again, and woke in full morning
light, that the remedy occurred to him. She must be taken out of
herself! Dolly and he had been slack; too interested in this queer
place, this queer lot of people! They had neglected her, left her
to. . . Boys and girls!--One ought always to remember. But it was
not too late. She was old Lindsay's daughter; would not forget
herself. Poor old Lindsay--fine fellow; bit too much, perhaps, of
the--Huguenot in him! Queer, those throw-backs! Had noticed in
horses, time and again--white hairs about the tail, carriage of the
head--skip generations and then pop out. And Olive had something
of his look--the same ivory skin, same colour of eyes and hair!
Only she was not severe, like her father, not exactly! And once
more there shot through the Colonel a vague dread, as of a
trusteeship neglected. It disappeared, however, in his bath.
He was out before eight o'clock, a thin upright figure in hard
straw hat and grey flannel clothes, walking with the indescribable
loose poise of the soldier Englishman, with that air, different
from the French, German, what not, because of shoulders ever
asserting, through their drill, the right to put on mufti; with
that perfectly quiet and modest air of knowing that, whatever might
be said, there was only one way of wearing clothes and moving legs.
And, as he walked, he smoothed his drooping grey moustache,
considering how best to take his niece out of herself. He passed
along by the Terrace, and stood for a moment looking down at the
sea beyond the pigeon-shooting ground. Then he moved on round
under the Casino into the gardens at the back. A beautiful spot!
Wonderful care they had taken with the plants! It made him think a
little of Tushawore, where his old friend the Rajah--precious old
rascal!--had gardens to his palace rather like these. He paced
again to the front. It was nice and quiet in the early mornings,
with the sea down there, and nobody trying to get the better of
anybody else. There were fellows never happy unless they were
doing someone in the eye. He had known men who would ride at the
devil himself, make it a point of honour to swindle a friend out of
a few pounds! Odd place this 'Monte'--sort of a Garden of Eden
gone wrong. And all the real, but quite inarticulate love of
Nature, which had supported the Colonel through deserts and
jungles, on transports at sea, and in mountain camps, awoke in the
sweetness of these gardens. His dear mother! He had never
forgotten the words with which she had shown him the sunset through
the coppice down at old Withes Norton, when he was nine years old:
"That is beauty, Jack! Do you feel it, darling?" He had not felt
it at the time--not he; a thick-headed, scampering youngster. Even
when he first went to India he had had no eye for a sunset. The
rising generation were different. That young couple, for instance,
under the pepper-tree, sitting there without a word, just looking
at the trees. How long, he wondered, had they been sitting like
that? And suddenly something in the Colonel leaped; his steel-
coloured eyes took on their look of out-facing death. Choking down
a cough, he faced about, back to where he had stood above the
pigeon-shooting ground. . . . Olive and that young fellow! An
assignation! At this time in the morning! The earth reeled. His
brother's child--his favourite niece! The woman whom he most
admired--the woman for whom his heart was softest. Leaning over
the stone parapet, no longer seeing either the smooth green of the
pigeon-shooting ground, or the smooth blue of the sea beyond, he
was moved, distressed, bewildered beyond words. Before breakfast!
That was the devil of it! Confession, as it were, of everything.
Moreover, he had seen their hands touching on the seat. The blood
rushed up to his face; he had seen, spied out, what was not
intended for his eyes. Nice position--that! Dolly, too, last
night, had seen. But that was different. Women might see things--
it was expected of them. But for a man--a--a gentleman! The
fullness of his embarrassment gradually disclosed itself. His
hands were tied. Could he even consult Dolly? He had a feeling of
isolation, of utter solitude. Nobody--not anybody in the world--
could understand his secret and intense discomfort. To take up a
position--the position he was bound to take up, as Olive's nearest
relative and protector, and--what was it--chaperon, by the aid of
knowledge come at in such a way, however unintentionally! Never in
all his days in the regiment--and many delicate matters affecting
honour had come his way--had he had a thing like this to deal with.
Poor child! But he had no business to think of her like that. No,
indeed! She had not behaved--as--And there he paused, curiously
unable to condemn her. Suppose they got up and came that way!
He took his hands off the stone parapet, and made for his hotel.
His palms were white from the force of his grip. He said to
himself as he went along: "I must consider the whole question
calmly; I must think it out." This gave him relief. With young
Lennan, at all events, he could be angry. But even there he found,
to his dismay, no finality of judgment. And this absence of
finality, so unwonted, distressed him horribly. There was
something in the way the young man had been sitting there beside
her--so quiet, so almost timid--that had touched him. This was
bad, by Jove--very bad! The two of them, they made, somehow, a
nice couple! Confound it! This would not do! The chaplain of the
little English church, passing at this moment, called out, "Fine
morning, Colonel Ercott." The Colonel saluted, and did not answer.
The greeting at the moment seemed to him paltry. No morning could
be fine that contained such a discovery. He entered the hotel,
passed into the dining-room, and sat down. Nobody was there. They
all had their breakfast upstairs, even Dolly. Olive alone was in
the habit of supporting him while he ate an English breakfast. And
suddenly he perceived that he was face to face already with this
dreadful situation. To have breakfast without, as usual, waiting
for her, seemed too pointed. She might be coming in at any minute
now. To wait for her, and have it, without showing anything--how
could he do that?
He was conscious of a faint rustling behind him. There she was,
and nothing decided. In this moment of hopeless confusion the
Colonel acted by pure instinct, rose, patted her cheek, and placed
a chair.
"Well, my dear," he said; "hungry?"
She was looking very dainty, very soft. That creamy dress showed
off her dark hair and eyes, which seemed somehow to be--flying off
somewhere; yes--it was queer, but that was the only way to put it.
He got no reassurance, no comfort, from the sight of her. And
slowly he stripped the skin from the banana with which he always
commenced breakfast. One might just as well be asked to shoot a
tame dove or tear a pretty flower to pieces as be expected to take
her to task, even if he could, in honour. And he sought refuge in
the words:
"Been out?" Then could have bitten his tongue off. Suppose she
answered: "No."
But she did not so answer. The colour came into her cheeks,
indeed, but she nodded: "It's so lovely!"
How pretty she looked saying that! He had put himself out of court
now--could never tell her what he had seen, after setting, as it
were, that trap for her; and presently he asked:
"Got any plans to-day?"
She answered, without flinching in the least:
"Mark Lennan and I were going to take mules from Mentone up to
Gorbio."
He was amazed at her steadiness--never, to his knowledge, having
encountered a woman armoured at every point to preserve a love that
flies against the world. How tell what was under her smile! And
in confusion of feeling that amounted almost to pain he heard her
say:
"Will you and Aunt Dolly come?"
Between sense of trusteeship and hatred of spoiling sport; between
knowledge of the danger she was in and half-pitying admiration at
the sight of her; between real disapproval of an illicit and
underhand business (what else was it, after all?) and some dim
perception that here was something he did not begin to be able to
fathom--something that perhaps no one but those two themselves
could deal with--between these various extremes he was lost indeed.
And he stammered out:
"I must ask your aunt; she's--she's not very good on a mule."
Then, in an impulse of sheer affection, he said with startling
suddenness: "My dear, I've often meant to ask, are you happy at
home?"
"At home?"
There was something sinister about the way she repeated that, as if
the word "home" were strange to her.
She drank her coffee and got up; and the Colonel felt afraid of
her, standing there--afraid of what she was going to tell him. He
grew very red. But, worse than all, she said absolutely nothing;
only shrugged her shoulders with a little smile that went to his
heart.
VI
On the wild thyme, under the olives below the rock village of
Gorbio, with their mules cropping at a little distance, those two
sat after their lunch, listening to the cuckoos. Since their
uncanny chance meeting that morning in the gardens, when they sat
with their hands just touching, amazed and elated by their own good
fortune, there was not much need to say what they felt, to break
with words this rapture of belonging to each other--so shyly, so
wildly, so, as it were, without reality. They were like epicures
with old wine in their glasses, not yet tired of its fragrance and
the spell of anticipation.
And so their talk was not of love, but, in that pathetic way of
star-crossed lovers, of the things they loved; leaving out--each
other.
It was the telling of her dream that brought the words from him at
last; but she drew away, and answered:
"It can't--it mustn't be!"
Then he just clung to her hand; and presently, seeing that her eyes
were wet, took courage enough to kiss her cheek.
Trembling and fugitive indeed that first passage of their love.
Not much of the conquering male in him, nor in her of the ordinary
enchantress.
And then they went, outwardly sober enough, riding their mules down
the stony slopes back to Mentone.
But in the grey, dusty railway-carriage when she had left him, he
was like a man drugged, staring at where she had sat opposite.
Two hours later, at dinner in her hotel, between her and Mrs.
Ercott, with the Colonel opposite, he knew for the first time what
he was faced with. To watch every thought that passed within him,
lest it should by the slightest sign betray him; to regulate and
veil every look and every word he spoke to her; never for a second
to forget that these other persons were actual and dangerous, not
merely the insignificant and grotesque shadows that they seemed.
It would be perhaps for ever a part of his love for her to seem not
to love her. He did not dare dream of fulfilment. He was to be
her friend, and try to bring her happiness--burn and long for her,
and not think about reward. This was his first real overwhelming
passion--so different to the loves of spring--and he brought to it
all that naivete, that touching quality of young Englishmen, whose
secret instinct it is to back away from the full nature of love,
even from admitting that it has that nature. They two were to
love, and--not to love! For the first time he understood a little
of what that meant. A few stolen adoring minutes now and then,
and, for the rest, the presence of a world that must be deceived.
Already he had almost a hatred of that orderly, brown-faced
Colonel, with his eyes that looked so steady and saw nothing; of
that flat, kindly lady, who talked so pleasantly throughout dinner,
saying things that he had to answer without knowing what they
signified. He realized, with a sense of shock, that he was
deprived of all interests in life but one; not even his work had
any meaning apart from HER. It lit no fire within him to hear Mrs.
Ercott praise certain execrable pictures in the Royal Academy,
which she had religiously visited the day before leaving home. And
as the interminable meal wore on, he began even to feel grief and
wonder that Olive could be so smiling, so gay, and calm; so, as it
seemed to him, indifferent to this intolerable impossibility of
exchanging even one look of love. Did she really love him--could
she love him, and show not one little sign of it? And suddenly he
felt her foot touch his own. It was the faintest sidelong,
supplicating pressure, withdrawn at once, but it said: 'I know what
you are suffering; I, too, but I love you.' Characteristically, he
felt that it cost her dear to make use of that little primitive
device of common loves; the touch awoke within him only chivalry.
He would burn for ever sooner than cause her the pain of thinking
that he was not happy.
After dinner, they sat out on a balcony. The stars glowed above
the palms; a frog was croaking. He managed to draw his chair so
that he could look at her unseen. How deep, and softly dark her
eyes, when for a second they rested on his! A moth settled on her
knee--a cunning little creature, with its hooded, horned owl's
face, and tiny black slits of eyes! Would it have come so
confidingly to anyone but her? The Colonel knew its name--he had
collected it. Very common, he said. The interest in it passed;
but Lennan stayed, bent forward, gazing at that silk-covered knee.
The voice of Mrs. Ercott, sharper than its wont, said: "What day
does Robert say he wants you back, my dear?"
He managed to remain gazing at the moth, even to take it gently
from her knee, while he listened to her calm answer.
"Tuesday, I believe."
Then he got up, and let the moth fly into the darkness; his hands
and lips were trembling, and he was afraid of their being seen. He
had never known, had not dreamed, of such a violent, sick feeling.
That this man could thus hale her home at will! It was grotesque,
fantastic, awful, but--it was true! Next Tuesday she would journey
back away from him to be again at the mercy of her Fate! The pain
of this thought made him grip the railing, and grit his teeth, to
keep himself from crying out. And another thought came to him: I
shall have to go about with this feeling, day and night, and keep
it secret.
They were saying good-night; and he had to smirk and smile, and
pretend--to her above all--that he was happy, and he could see that
she knew it was pretence.
Then he was alone, with the feeling that he had failed her at the
first shot; torn, too, between horror of what he suddenly saw
before him, and longing to be back in her presence at any cost. . . .
And all this on the day of that first kiss which had seemed to
him to make her so utterly his own.
He sat down on a bench facing the Casino. Neither the lights, nor
the people passing in and out, not even the gipsy bandsmen's music,
distracted his thoughts for a second. Could it be less than
twenty-four hours since he had picked up her handkerchief, not
thirty yards away? In that twenty-four hours he seemed to have
known every emotion that man could feel. And in all the world
there was now not one soul to whom he could speak his real
thoughts--not even to her, because from her, beyond all, he must
keep at any cost all knowledge of his unhappiness. So this was
illicit love--as it was called! Loneliness, and torture! Not
jealousy--for her heart was his; but amazement, outrage, fear.
Endless lonely suffering! And nobody, if they knew, would care, or
pity him one jot!
Was there really, then, as the ancients thought, a Daemon that
liked to play with men, as men liked to stir an earwig and turn it
over and put a foot on it in the end?
He got up and made his way towards the railway-station. There was
the bench where she had been sitting when he came on her that very
morning. The stars in their courses had seemed to fight for them
then; but whether for joy he no longer knew. And there on the seat
were still the pepper berries she had crushed and strewn. He broke
off another bunch and bruised them. That scent was the ghost of
sacred minutes when her hand lay against his own. The stars in
their courses--for joy or sorrow!
VII
There was no peace now for Colonel and Mrs. Ercott. They felt
themselves conspirators, and of conspiracy they had never had the
habit. Yet how could they openly deal with anxieties which had
arisen solely from what they had chanced secretly to see? What was
not intended for one's eyes and ears did not exist; no canon of
conduct could be quite so sacred. As well defend the opening of
another person's letters as admit the possibility of making use of
adventitious knowledge. So far tradition, and indeed character,
made them feel at one, and conspire freely. But they diverged on a
deeper plane. Mrs. Ercott had SAID, indeed, that here was
something which could not be controlled; the Colonel had FELT it--a
very different thing! Less tolerant in theory, he was touched at
heart; Mrs. Ercott, in theory almost approving--she read that
dangerous authoress, George Eliot--at heart felt cold towards her
husband's niece. For these reasons they could not in fact conspire
without, in the end, saying suddenly: "Well, it's no good talking
about it!" and almost at once beginning to talk about it again.
In proposing to her that mule, the Colonel had not had time, or,
rather, not quite conviction enough as to his line of action, to
explain so immediately the new need for her to sit upon it. It was
only when, to his somewhat strange relief, she had refused the
expedition, and Olive had started without them, that he told her of
the meeting in the Gardens, of which he had been witness. She then
said at once that if she had known she would, of course, have put
up with anything in order to go; not because she approved of
interfering, but because they must think of Robert! And the
Colonel had said: "D--n the fellow!" And there the matter had
rested for the moment, for both of them were, wondering a little
which fellow it was that he had damned. That indeed was the
trouble. If the Colonel had not cared so much about his niece, and
had liked, instead of rather disliking Cramier; if Mrs. Ercott had
not found Mark Lennan a 'nice boy,' and had not secretly felt her
husband's niece rather dangerous to her peace of mind; if, in few
words, those three had been puppets made of wood and worked by law,
it would have been so much simpler for all concerned. It was the
discovery that there was a personal equation in such matters,
instead of just a simple rule of three, which disorganized the
Colonel and made him almost angry; which depressed Mrs. Ercott and
made her almost silent. . . . These two good souls had stumbled on
a problem which has divided the world from birth. Shall cases be
decided on their individual merits, or according to formal codes?
Beneath an appearance and a vocabulary more orthodox than ever, the
Colonel's allegiance to Authority and the laws of Form was really
shaken; he simply could not get out of his head the sight of those
two young people sitting side by side, nor the tone of Olive's
voice, when she had repeated his regrettable words about happiness
at home.
If only the thing had not been so human! If only she had been
someone else's niece, it would clearly have been her duty to remain
unhappy. As it was, the more he thought, the less he knew what to
think. A man who had never had any balance to speak of at his
bank, and from the nomadic condition of his life had no exaggerated
feeling for a settled social status--deeming Society in fact rather
a bore--he did not unduly exaggerate the worldly dangers of this
affair; neither did he honestly believe that she would burn in
everlasting torment if she did not succeed in remaining true to
'that great black chap,' as he secretly called Cramier. His
feeling was simply that it was an awful pity; a sort of unhappy
conviction that it was not like the women of his family to fall
upon such ways; that his dead brother would turn in his grave; in
two words that it was 'not done.' Yet he was by no means of those
who, giving latitude to women in general, fall with whips on those
of their own family who take it. On the contrary, believing that
'Woman in general' should be stainless to the world's eye, he was
inclined to make allowance for any individual woman that he knew
and loved. A suspicion he had always entertained, that Cramier was
not by breeding 'quite the clean potato' may insensibly have
influenced him just a little. He had heard indeed that he was not
even entitled to the name of Cramier, but had been adopted by a
childless man, who had brought him up and left him a lot of money.
There was something in this that went against the grain of the
childless Colonel. He had never adopted, nor been adopted by
anyone himself. There was a certain lack about a man who had been
adopted, of reasonable guarantee--he was like a non-vintage wine,
or a horse without a pedigree; you could not quite rely on what he
might do, having no tradition in his blood. His appearance, too,
and manner somehow lent colour to this distrust. A touch of the
tar-brush somewhere, and a stubborn, silent, pushing fellow. Why
on earth had Olive ever married him! But then women were such
kittle cattle, poor things! and old Lindsay, with his vestments and
his views on obedience, must have been a Tartar as a father, poor
old chap! Besides, Cramier, no doubt, was what most women would
call good-looking; more taking to the eye than such a quiet fellow
as young Lennan, whose features were rather anyhow, though pleasant
enough, and with a nice smile--the sort of young man one could not
help liking, and who certainly would never hurt a fly! And
suddenly there came the thought: Why should he not go to young
Lennan and put it to him straight? That he was in love with Olive?
Not quite--but the way to do it would come to him. He brooded long
over this idea, and spoke of it to Mrs. Ercott, while shaving, the
next morning. Her answer: "My dear John, bosh!" removed his last
doubt.
Without saying where he was going, he strolled out the moment after
breakfast--and took a train to Beaulieu. At the young man's hotel
he sent in his card, and was told that this Monsieur had already
gone out for the day. His mood of marching straight up to the guns
thus checked, he was left pensive and distraught. Not having seen
Beaulieu (they spoke of it then as a coming place), he made his way
up an incline. That whole hillside was covered with rose-trees.
Thousands of these flowers were starring the lower air, and the
strewn petals of blown and fallen roses covered the light soil.
The Colonel put his nose to blossoms here and there, but they had
little scent, as if they knew that the season was already over. A
few blue-bloused peasants were still busy among them. And suddenly
he came on young Lennan himself, sitting on a stone and dabbing
away with his fingers at a lump of putty stuff. The Colonel
hesitated. Apart from obvious reasons for discomfiture, he had
that feeling towards Art common to so many of his caste. It was
not work, of course, but it was very clever--a mystery to him how
anyone could do it! On seeing him, Lennan had risen, dropping his
handkerchief over what he was modelling--but not before the Colonel
had received a dim impression of something familiar. The young man
was very red--the Colonel, too, was conscious suddenly of the heat.
He held out his hand.
"Nice quiet place this," he stammered; "never seen it before. I
called at your hotel."
Now that he had his chance, he was completely at a loss. The sight
of the face emerging from that lump of 'putty stuff' had quite
unnerved him. The notion of this young man working at it up here
all by himself, just because he was away an hour or two from the
original, touched him. How on earth to say what he had come to
say? It was altogether different from what he had thought. And it
suddenly flashed through him--Dolly was right! She's always right--
hang it!
"You're busy," he said; "I mustn't interrupt you."
"Not at all, sir. It was awfully good of you to look me up."
The Colonel stared. There was something about young Lennan that he
had not noticed before; a 'Don't take liberties with me!' look that
made things difficult. But still he lingered, staring wistfully at
the young man, who stood waiting with such politeness. Then a safe
question shot into his mind:
"Ah! And when do you go back to England? We're off on Tuesday."
While he spoke, a puff of wind lifted the handkerchief from the
modelled face. Would the young fellow put it back? He did not.
And the Colonel thought:
"It would have been bad form. He knew I wouldn't take advantage.
Yes! He's a gentleman!"
Lifting his hand to the salute, he said: "Well, I must be getting
back. See you at dinner perhaps?" And turning on his heel he
marched away.
The remembrance of that face in the 'putty stuff' up there by the
side of the road accompanied him home. It was bad--it was serious!
And the sense that he counted for nothing in all of it grew and
grew in him. He told no one of where he had been. . . .
When the Colonel turned with ceremony and left him, Lennan sat down
again on the flat stone, took up his 'putty stuff,' and presently
effaced that image. He sat still a long time, to all appearance
watching the little blue butterflies playing round the red and
tawny roses. Then his fingers began to work, feverishly shaping a
head; not of a man, not of a beast, but a sort of horned, heavy
mingling of the two. There was something frenetic in the movement
of those rather short, blunt-ended fingers, as though they were
strangling the thing they were creating.
VIII
In those days, such as had served their country travelled, as
befitted Spartans, in ordinary first-class carriages, and woke in
the morning at La Roche or some strange-sounding place, for paler
coffee and the pale brioche. So it was with Colonel and Mrs.
Ercott and their niece, accompanied by books they did not read,
viands they did not eat, and one somnolent Irishman returning from
the East. In the disposition of legs there was the usual
difficulty, no one quite liking to put them up, and all ultimately
doing so, save Olive. More than once during that night the
Colonel, lying on the seat opposite, awoke and saw her sitting,
withdrawn into her corner, with eyes still open. Staring at that
little head which he admired so much, upright and unmoving, in its
dark straw toque against the cushion, he would become suddenly
alert. Kicking the Irishman slightly in the effort, he would slip
his legs down, bend across to her in the darkness, and, conscious
of a faint fragrance as of violets, whisper huskily: "Anything I
can do for you, my dear?" When she had smiled and shaken her head,
he would retreat, and after holding his breath to see if Dolly were
asleep, would restore his feet, slightly kicking the Irishman.
After one such expedition, for full ten minutes he remained awake,
wondering at her tireless immobility. For indeed she was spending
this night entranced, with the feeling that Lennan was beside her,
holding her hand in his. She seemed actually to feel the touch of
his finger against the tiny patch of her bare palm where the glove
opened. It was wonderful, this uncanny communion in the dark
rushing night--she would not have slept for worlds! Never before
had she felt so close to him, not even when he had kissed her that
once under the olives; nor even when at the concert yesterday his
arm pressed hers; and his voice whispered words she heard so
thirstily. And that golden fortnight passed and passed through her
on an endless band of reminiscence. Its memories were like
flowers, such scent and warmth and colour in them; and of all, none
perhaps quite so poignant as the memory of the moment, at the door
of their carriage, when he said, so low that she just heard: "Good-
bye, my darling!"
He had never before called her that. Not even his touch on her
cheek under the olives equalled the simple treasure of that word.
And above the roar and clatter of the train, and the snoring of the
Irishman, it kept sounding in her ears, hour after dark hour. It
was perhaps not wonderful, that through all that night she never
once looked the future in the face--made no plans, took no stock of
her position; just yielded to memory, and to the half-dreamed
sensation of his presence close beside her. Whatever might come
afterwards, she was his this night. Such was the trance that gave
to her the strange, soft, tireless immobility which so moved her
Uncle whenever he woke up.
In Paris they drove from station to station in a vehicle unfit for
three--'to stretch their legs'--as the Colonel said. Since he saw
in his niece no signs of flagging, no regret, his spirits were
rising, and he confided to Mrs. Ercott in the buffet at the Gare du
Nord, when Olive had gone to wash, that he did not think there was
much in it, after all, looking at the way she'd travelled.
But Mrs. Ercott answered:
"Haven't you ever noticed that Olive never shows what she does not
want to? She has not got those eyes for nothing."
"What eyes?"
"Eyes that see everything, and seem to see nothing."
Conscious that something was hurting her, the Colonel tried to take
her hand.
But Mrs. Ercott rose quickly, and went where he could not follow.
Thus suddenly deserted, the Colonel brooded, drumming on the little
table. What now! Dolly was unjust! Poor Dolly! He was as fond
of her as ever! Of course! How could he help Olive's being young--
and pretty; how could he help looking after her, and wanting to
save her from this mess! Thus he sat wondering, dismayed by the
unreasonableness of women. It did not enter his head that Mrs.
Ercott had been almost as sleepless as his niece, watching through
closed eyes every one of those little expeditions of his, and
saying to herself: "Ah! He doesn't care how I travel!"
She returned serene enough, concealing her 'grief,' and soon they
were once more whirling towards England.
But the future had begun to lay its hand on Olive; the spell of the
past was already losing power; the sense that it had all been a
dream grew stronger every minute. In a few hours she would re-
enter the little house close under the shadow of that old Wren
church, which reminded her somehow of childhood, and her austere
father with his chiselled face. The meeting with her husband! How
go through that! And to-night! But she did not care to
contemplate to-night. And all those to-morrows wherein there was
nothing she had to do of which it was reasonable to complain, yet
nothing she could do without feeling that all the friendliness and
zest and colour was out of life, and she a prisoner. Into those
to-morrows she felt she would slip back, out of her dream; lost,
with hardly perhaps an effort. To get away to the house on the
river, where her husband came only at weekends, had hitherto been a
refuge; only she would not see Mark there--unless--! Then, with
the thought that she would, must still see him sometimes, all again
grew faintly glamorous. If only she did see him, what would the
rest matter? Never again as it had before!
The Colonel was reaching down her handbag; his cheery: "Looks as if
it would be rough!" aroused her. Glad to be alone, and tired
enough now, she sought the ladies' cabin, and slept through the
crossing, till the voice of the old stewardess awakened her:
"You've had a nice sleep. We're alongside, miss." Ah! if she were
but THAT now! She had been dreaming that she was sitting in a
flowery field, and Lennan had drawn her up by the hands, with the
words: "We're here, my darling!"
On deck, the Colonel, laden with bags, was looking back for her,
and trying to keep a space between him and his wife. He signalled
with his chin. Threading her way towards him, she happened to look
up. By the rails of the pier above she saw her husband. He was
leaning there, looking intently down; his tall broad figure made
the people on each side of him seem insignificant. The clean-
shaved, square-cut face, with those almost epileptic, forceful
eyes, had a stillness and intensity beside which the neighbouring
faces seemed to disappear. She saw him very clearly, even noting
the touch of silver in his dark hair, on each side under his straw
hat; noting that he seemed too massive for his neat blue suit. His
face relaxed; he made a little movement of one hand. Suddenly it
shot through her: Suppose Mark had travelled with them, as he had
wished to do? For ever and ever now, that dark massive creature,
smiling down at her, was her enemy; from whom she must guard and
keep herself if she could; keep, at all events, each one of her
real thoughts and hopes! She could have writhed, and cried out;
instead, she tightened her grip on the handle of her bag, and
smiled. Though so skilled in knowledge of his moods, she felt, in
his greeting, his fierce grip of her shoulders, the smouldering of
some feeling the nature of which she could not quite fathom. His
voice had a grim sincerity: "Glad you're back--thought you were
never coming!" Resigned to his charge, a feeling of sheer physical
faintness so beset her that she could hardly reach the compartment
he had reserved. It seemed to her that, for all her foreboding,
she had not till this moment had the smallest inkling of what was
now before her; and at his muttered: "Must we have the old fossils
in?" she looked back to assure herself that her Uncle and Aunt were
following. To avoid having to talk, she feigned to have travelled
badly, leaning back with closed eyes, in her corner. If only she
could open them and see, not this square-jawed face with its intent
gaze of possession, but that other with its eager eyes humbly
adoring her. The interminable journey ended all too soon. She
clung quite desperately to the Colonel's hand on the platform at
Charing Cross. When his kind face vanished she would be lost
indeed! Then, in the closed cab, she heard her husband's: "Aren't
you going to kiss me?" and submitted to his embrace.
She tried so hard to think: What does it matter? It's not I, not
my soul, my spirit--only my miserable lips!
She heard him say: "You don't seem too glad to see me!" And then:
"I hear you had young Lennan out there. What was HE doing?"
She felt the turmoil of sudden fear, wondered whether she was
showing it, lost it in unnatural alertness--all in the second
before she answered: "Oh! just a holiday."
Some seconds passed, and then he said:
"You didn't mention him in your letters."
She answered coolly: "Didn't I? We saw a good deal of him."
She knew that he was looking at her--an inquisitive, half-menacing
regard. Why--oh, why!--could she not then and there cry out: "And
I love him--do you hear?--I love him!" So awful did it seem to be
denying her love with these half lies! But it was all so much more
grim and hopeless than even she had thought. How inconceivable,
now, that she had ever given herself up to this man for life! If
only she could get away from him to her room, and scheme and think!
For his eyes never left her, travelling over her with their
pathetic greed, their menacing inquiry, till he said: "Well, it's
not done you any harm. You look very fit." But his touch was too
much even for her self-command, and she recoiled as if he had
struck her.
"What's the matter? Did I hurt you?"
It seemed to her that he was jeering--then realized as vividly that
he was not. And the full danger to her, perhaps to Mark himself,
of shrinking from this man, striking her with all its pitiable
force, she made a painful effort, slipped her hand under his arm,
and said: "I'm very tired. You startled me."
But he put her hand away, and turning his face, stared out of the
window. And so they reached their home.
When he had left her alone, she remained where she was standing, by
her wardrobe, without sound or movement, thinking: What am I going
to do? How am I going to live?
IX
When Mark Lennan, travelling through from Beaulieu, reached his
rooms in Chelsea, he went at once to the little pile of his
letters, twice hunted through them, then stood very still, with a
stunned, sick feeling. Why had she not sent him that promised
note? And now he realized--though not yet to the full--what it
meant to be in love with a married woman. He must wait in this
suspense for eighteen hours at least, till he could call, and find
out what had happened to prevent her, till he could hear from her
lips that she still loved him. The chilliest of legal lovers had
access to his love, but he must possess a soul that was on fire, in
this deadly patience, for fear of doing something that might
jeopardize her. Telegraph? He dared not. Write? She would get
it by the first post; but what could he say that was not dangerous,
if Cramier chanced to see? Call? Still more impossible till three
o'clock, at very earliest, to-morrow. His gaze wandered round the
studio. Were these household gods, and all these works of his,
indeed the same he had left twenty days ago? They seemed to exist
now only in so far as she might come to see them--come and sit in
such a chair, and drink out of such a cup, and let him put this
cushion for her back, and that footstool for her feet. And so
vividly could he see her lying back in that chair looking across at
him, that he could hardly believe she had never yet sat there. It
was odd how--without any resolution taken, without admission that
their love could not remain platonic, without any change in their
relations, save one humble kiss and a few whispered words--
everything was changed. A month or so ago, if he had wanted, he
would have gone at once calmly to her house. It would have seemed
harmless, and quite natural. Now it was impossible to do openly
the least thing that strict convention did not find desirable.
Sooner or later they would find him stepping over convention, and
take him for what he was not--a real lover! A real lover! He
knelt down before the empty chair and stretched out his arms. No
substance--no warmth--no fragrance--nothing! Longing that passed
through air, as the wind through grass.
He went to the little round window, which overlooked the river.
The last evening of May; gloaming above the water, dusk resting in
the trees, and the air warm! Better to be out, and moving in the
night, out in the ebb and flow of things, among others whose hearts
were beating, than stay in this place that without her was so cold
and meaningless.
Lamps--the passion-fruit of towns--were turning from pallor to full
orange, and the stars were coming out. Half-past nine! At ten
o'clock, and not before, he would walk past her house. To have
this something to look forward to, however furtive and barren,
helped. But on a Saturday night there would be no sitting at the
House. Cramier would be at home; or they would both be out; or
perhaps have gone down to their river cottage. Cramier! What
cruel demon had presided over that marring of her life! Why had he
never met her till after she had bound herself to this man! From a
negative contempt for one who was either not sensitive enough to
recognize that his marriage was a failure, or not chivalrous enough
to make that failure bear as little hardly as possible on his wife,
he had come already to jealous hatred as of a monster. To be face
to face with Cramier in a mortal conflict could alone have
satisfied his feeling. . . . Yet he was a young man by nature
gentle!
His heart beat desperately as he approached that street--one of
those little old streets, so beautiful, that belonged to a vanished
London. It was very narrow, there was no shelter; and he thought
confusedly of what he could say, if met in this remote backwater
that led nowhere. He would tell some lie, no doubt. Lies would
now be his daily business. Lies and hatred, those violent things
of life, would come to seem quite natural, in the violence of his
love.
He stood a moment, hesitating, by the rails of the old church.
Black, white-veined, with shadowy summits, in that half darkness,
it was like some gigantic vision. Mystery itself seemed modelled
there. He turned and walked quickly down the street close to the
houses on the further side. The windows of her house were lighted!
So, she was not away! Dim light in the dining-room, lights in the
room above--her bedroom, doubtless. Was there no way to bring her
to the window, no way his spirit could climb up there and beckon
hers out to him? Perhaps she was not there, perhaps it was but a
servant taking up hot water. He was at the end of the street by
now, but to leave without once more passing was impossible. And
this time he went slowly, his head down, feigning abstraction,
grudging every inch of pavement, and all the time furtively
searching that window with the light behind the curtains. Nothing!
Once more he was close to the railings of the church, and once more
could not bring himself to go away. In the little, close, deserted
street, not a soul was moving, not even a cat or dog; nothing alive
but many discreet, lighted windows. Like veiled faces, showing no
emotion, they seemed to watch his indecision. And he thought: "Ah,
well! I dare say there are lots like me. Lots as near, and yet as
far away! Lots who have to suffer!" But what would he not have
given for the throwing open of those curtains. Then, suddenly
scared by an approaching figure, he turned and walked away.
X
At three o'clock next day he called.
In the middle of her white drawing-room, whose latticed window ran
the whole length of one wall, stood a little table on which was a
silver jar full of early larkspurs, evidently from her garden by
the river. And Lennan waited, his eyes fixed on those blossoms so
like to little blue butterflies and strange-hued crickets, tethered
to the pale green stems. In this room she passed her days, guarded
from him. Once a week, at most, he would be able to come there--
once a week for an hour or two of the hundred and sixty-eight hours
that he longed to be with her.
And suddenly he was conscious of her. She had come in without
sound, and was standing by the piano, so pale, in her cream-white
dress, that her eyes looked jet black. He hardly knew that face,
like a flower closed against cold.
What had he done? What had happened in these five days to make her
like this to him? He took her hands and tried to kiss them; but
she said quickly:
"He's in!"
At that he stood silent, looking into that face, frozen to a
dreadful composure, on the breaking up of which his very life
seemed to depend. At last he said:
"What is it? Am I nothing to you, after all?"
But as soon as he had spoken he saw that he need not have asked,
and flung his arms round her. She clung to him with desperation;
then freed herself, and said:
"No, no; let's sit down quietly!"
He obeyed, half-divining, half-refusing to admit all that lay
behind that strange coldness, and this desperate embrace; all the
self-pity, and self-loathing, shame, rage, and longing of a married
woman for the first time face to face with her lover in her
husband's house.
She seemed now to be trying to make him forget her strange
behaviour; to be what she had been during that fortnight in the
sunshine. But, suddenly, just moving her lips, she said:
"Quick! When can we see each other? I will come to you to tea--
to-morrow," and, following her eyes, he saw the door opening, and
Cramier coming in. Unsmiling, very big in the low room, he crossed
over to them, and offered his hand to Lennan; then drawing a low
chair forward between their two chairs, sat down.
"So you're back," he said. "Have a good time?"
"Thanks, yes; very."
"Luck for Olive you were there; those places are dull holes."
"It was luck for me."
"No doubt." And with those words he turned to his wife. His
elbows rested along the arms of his chair, so that his clenched
palms were upwards; it was as if he knew that he was holding those
two, gripped one in each hand.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "that fellows like you, with nothing in
the world to tie them, ever sit down in a place like London. I
should have thought Rome or Paris were your happy hunting-grounds."
In his voice, in those eyes of his, a little bloodshot, with their
look of power, in his whole attitude, there was a sort of muffled
menace, and contempt, as though he were thinking: "Step into my
path, and I will crush you!"
And Lennan thought:
"How long must I sit here?" Then, past that figure planted solidly
between them, he caught a look from her, swift, sure, marvellously
timed--again and again--as if she were being urged by the very
presence of this danger. One of those glances would surely--surely
be seen by Cramier. Is there need for fear that a swallow should
dash itself against the wall over which it skims? But he got up,
unable to bear it longer.
"Going?" That one suave word had an inimitable insolence.
He could hardly see his hand touching Cramier's heavy fist. Then
he realized that she was standing so that their faces when they
must say good-bye could not be seen. Her eyes were smiling, yet
imploring; her lips shaped the word: "To-morrow!" And squeezing
her hand desperately, he got away.
He had never dreamed that to see her in the presence of the man who
owned her would be so terrible. For a moment he thought that he
must give her up, give up a love that would drive him mad.
He climbed on to an omnibus travelling West. Another twenty-four
hours of starvation had begun. It did not matter at all what he
did with them. They were simply so much aching that had to be got
through somehow--so much aching; and what relief at the end? An
hour or two with her, desperately holding himself in.
Like most artists, and few Englishmen, he lived on feelings rather
than on facts; so, found no refuge in decisive resolutions. But he
made many--the resolution to give her up; to be true to the ideal
of service for no reward; to beseech her to leave Cramier and come
to him--and he made each many times.
At Hyde Park Corner he got down, and went into the Park, thinking
that to walk would help him.
A great number of people were sitting there, taking mysterious
anodyne, doing the right thing; to avoid them, he kept along the
rails, and ran almost into the arms of Colonel and Mrs. Ercott, who
were coming from the direction of Knightsbridge, slightly flushed,
having lunched and talked of 'Monte' at the house of a certain
General.
They greeted him with the surprise of those who had said to each
other many times: "That young man will come rushing back!" It was
very nice--they said--to run across him. When did he arrive? They
had thought he was going on to Italy--he was looking rather tired.
They did not ask if he had seen her--being too kind, and perhaps
afraid that he would say 'Yes,' which would be embarrassing; or
that he would say 'No,' which would be still more embarrassing when
they found that he ought to have said 'Yes.' Would he not come and
sit with them a little--they were going presently to see how Olive
was? Lennan perceived that they were warning him. And, forcing
himself to look at them very straight, he said: "I have just been
there."
Mrs. Ercott phrased her impressions that same evening: "He looks
quite hunted, poor young man! I'm afraid there's going to be
fearful trouble there. Did you notice how quickly he ran away from
us? He's thin, too; if it wasn't for his tan, he'd look really
ill. The boy's eyes are so pathetic; and he used to have such a
nice smile in them."
The Colonel, who was fastening her hooks, paused in an operation
that required concentration.
"It's a thousand pities," he muttered, "that he hasn't any work to
do. That puddling about with clay or whatever he does is no good
at all." And slowly fastening one hook, he unhooked several
others.
Mrs. Ercott went on:
"And I saw Olive, when she thought I wasn't looking; it was just as
if she'd taken off a mask. But Robert Cramier will never put up
with it. He's in love with her still; I watched him. It's tragic,
John."
The Colonel let his hands fall from the hooks.
"If I thought that," he said, "I'd do something."
"If you could, it would not be tragic."
The Colonel stared. There was always SOMETHING to be done.
"You read too many novels," he said, but without spirit.
Mrs. Ercott smiled, and made no answer to an aspersion she had
heard before.
XI
When Lennan reached his rooms again after that encounter with the
Ercotts, he found in his letterbox a visiting card: "Mrs. Doone"
"Miss Sylvia Doone," and on it pencilled the words: "Do come and
see us before we go down to Hayle--Sylvia." He stared blankly at
the round handwriting he knew so well.
Sylvia! Nothing perhaps could have made so plain to him how in
this tornado of his passion the world was drowned. Sylvia! He had
almost forgotten her existence; and yet, only last year, after he
definitely settled down in London, he had once more seen a good
deal of her; and even had soft thoughts of her again--with her
pale-gold hair, her true look, her sweetness. Then they had gone
for the winter to Algiers for her mother's health.
When they came back, he had already avoided seeing her, though that
was before Olive went to Monte Carlo, before he had even admitted
his own feeling. And since--he had not once thought of her. Not
once! The world had indeed vanished. "Do come and see us--
Sylvia." The very notion was an irritation. No rest from aching
and impatience to be had that way.
And then the idea came to him: Why not kill these hours of waiting
for to-morrow's meeting by going on the river passing by her
cottage? There was still one train that he could catch.
He reached the village after dark, and spent the night at the inn;
got up early next morning, took a boat, and pulled down-stream.
The bluffs of the opposite bank were wooded with high trees. The
sun shone softly on their leaves, and the bright stream was ruffled
by a breeze that bent all the reeds and slowly swayed the water-
flowers. One thin white line of wind streaked the blue sky. He
shipped his sculls and drifted, listening to the wood-pigeons,
watching the swallows chasing. If only she were here! To spend
one long day thus, drifting with the stream! To have but one such
rest from longing! Her cottage, he knew, lay on the same side as
the village, and just beyond an island. She had told him of a
hedge of yew-trees, and a white dovecote almost at the water's
edge. He came to the island, and let his boat slide into the
backwater. It was all overgrown with willow-trees and alders, dark
even in this early morning radiance, and marvellously still. There
was no room to row; he took the boathook and tried to punt, but the
green water was too deep and entangled with great roots, so that he
had to make his way by clawing with the hook at branches. Birds
seemed to shun this gloom, but a single magpie crossed the one
little clear patch of sky, and flew low behind the willows. The
air here had a sweetish, earthy odour of too rank foliage; all
brightness seemed entombed. He was glad to pass out again under a
huge poplar-tree into the fluttering gold and silver of the
morning. And almost at once he saw the yew-hedge at the border of
some bright green turf, and a pigeon-house, high on its pole,
painted cream-white. About it a number of ring-doves and snow-
white pigeons were perched or flying; and beyond the lawn he could
see the dark veranda of a low house, covered by wistaria just going
out of flower. A drift of scent from late lilacs, and new-mown
grass, was borne out to him, together with the sound of a mowing-
machine, and the humming of many bees. It was beautiful here, and
seemed, for all its restfulness, to have something of that flying
quality he so loved about her face, about the sweep of her hair,
the quick, soft turn of her eyes--or was that but the darkness of
the yew-trees, the whiteness of the dovecote, and the doves
themselves, flying?
He lay there a long time quietly beneath the bank, careful not to
attract the attention of the old gardener, who was methodically
pushing his machine across and across the lawn. How he wanted her
with him then! Wonderful that there could be in life such beauty
and wild softness as made the heart ache with the delight of it,
and in that same life grey rules and rigid barriers--coffins of
happiness! That doors should be closed on love and joy! There was
not so much of it in the world! She, who was the very spirit of
this flying, nymph-like summer, was untimely wintered-up in bleak
sorrow. There was a hateful unwisdom in that thought; it seemed so
grim and violent, so corpse-like, gruesome, narrow and extravagant!
What possible end could it serve that she should be unhappy! Even
if he had not loved her, he would have hated her fate just as much--
all such stories of imprisoned lives had roused his anger even as
a boy.
Soft white clouds--those bright angels of the river, never very
long away--had begun now to spread their wings over the woods; and
the wind had dropped so that the slumbrous warmth and murmuring of
summer gathered full over the water. The old gardener had finished
his job of mowing, and came with a little basket of grain to feed
the doves. Lennan watched them going to him, the ring-doves, very
dainty, and capricious, keeping to themselves. In place of that
old fellow, he was really seeing HER, feeding from her hands those
birds of Cypris. What a group he could have made of her with them
perching and flying round her! If she were his, what could he not
achieve--to make her immortal--like the old Greeks and Italians,
who, in their work, had rescued their mistresses from Time! . . .
He was back in his rooms in London two hours before he dared begin
expecting her. Living alone there but for a caretaker who came
every morning for an hour or two, made dust, and departed, he had
no need for caution. And when he had procured flowers, and the
fruits and cakes which they certainly would not eat--when he had
arranged the tea-table, and made the grand tour at least twenty
times, he placed himself with a book at the little round window, to
watch for her approach. There, very still, he sat, not reading a
word, continually moistening his dry lips and sighing, to relieve
the tension of his heart. At last he saw her coming. She was
walking close to the railings of the houses, looking neither to
right nor left. She had on a lawn frock, and a hat of the palest
coffee-coloured straw, with a narrow black velvet ribbon. She
crossed the side street, stopped for a second, gave a swift look
round, then came resolutely on. What was it made him love her so?
What was the secret of her fascination? Certainly, no conscious
enticements. Never did anyone try less to fascinate. He could not
recall one single little thing that she had done to draw him to
her. Was it, perhaps, her very passivity, her native pride that
never offered or asked anything, a sort of soft stoicism in her
fibre; that and some mysterious charm, as close and intimate as
scent was to a flower?
He waited to open till he heard her footstep just outside. She
came in without a word, not even looking at him. And he, too, said
not a word till he had closed the door, and made sure of her. Then
they turned to each other. Her breast was heaving a little, under
her thin frock, but she was calmer than he, with that wonderful
composure of pretty women in all the passages of love, as who
should say: This is my native air!
They stood and looked at each other, as if they could never have
enough, till he said at last:
"I thought I should die before this moment came. There isn't a
minute that I don't long for you so terribly that I can hardly
live."
"And do you think that I don't long for you?"
"Then come to me!"
She looked at him mournfully and shook her head.
Well, he had known that she would not. He had not earned her.
What right had he to ask her to fly against the world, to brave
everything, to have such faith in him--as yet? He had no heart to
press his words, beginning then to understand the paralyzing truth
that there was no longer any resolving this or that; with love like
his he had ceased to be a separate being with a separate will. He
was entwined with her, could act only if her will and his were one.
He would never be able to say to her: 'You must!' He loved her too
much. And she knew it. So there was nothing for it but to forget
the ache, and make the hour happy. But how about that other truth--
that in love there is no pause, no resting? . . . With any
watering, however scant, the flower will grow till its time comes
to be plucked. . . . This oasis in the desert--these few minutes
with her alone, were swept through and through with a feverish
wind. To be closer! How not try to be that? How not long for her
lips when he had but her hand to kiss? And how not be poisoned
with the thought that in a few minutes she would leave him and go
back to the presence of that other, who, even though she loathed
him, could see and touch her when he would? She was leaning back
in the very chair where in fancy he had seen her, and he only dared
sit at her feet and look up. And this, which a week ago would have
been rapture, was now almost torture, so far did it fall short of
his longing. It was torture, too, to keep his voice in tune with
the sober sweetness of her voice. And bitterly he thought: How can
she sit there, and not want me, as I want her? Then at a touch of
her fingers on his hair, he lost control, and kissed her lips. Her
surrender lasted only for a second.
"No, no--you must not!"
That mournful surprise sobered him at once.
He got up, stood away from her, begged to be forgiven.
And, when she was gone, he sat in the chair where she had sat.
That clasp of her, the kiss he had begged her to forget--to
forget!--nothing could take that from him. He had done wrong; had
startled her, had fallen short of chivalry! And yet--a smile of
utter happiness would cling about his lips. His fastidiousness,
his imagination almost made him think that this was all he wanted.
If he could close his eyes, now, and pass out, before he lost that
moment of half-fulfilment!
And, the smile still on his lips, he lay back watching the flies
wheeling and chasing round the hanging-lamp. Sixteen of them there
were, wheeling and chasing--never still!
XII
When, walking from Lennan's studio, Olive reentered her dark little
hall, she approached its alcove and glanced first at the hat-stand.
They were all there--the silk hat, the bowler, the straw! So he
was in! And within each hat, in turn, she seemed to see her
husband's head--with the face turned away from her--so distinctly
as to note the leathery look of the skin of his cheek and neck.
And she thought: "I pray that he will die! It is wicked, but I
pray that he will die!" Then, quietly, that he might not hear, she
mounted to her bedroom. The door into his dressing-room was open,
and she went to shut it. He was standing there at the window.
"Ah! You're in! Been anywhere?"
"To the National Gallery."
It was the first direct lie she had ever told him, and she was
surprised to feel neither shame nor fear, but rather a sense of
pleasure at defeating him. He was the enemy, all the more the
enemy because she was still fighting against herself, and, so
strangely, in his behalf.
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Rather boring, wasn't it? I should have thought you'd have got
young Lennan to take you there."
"Why?"
By instinct she had seized on the boldest answer; and there was
nothing to be told from her face. If he were her superior in
strength, he was her inferior in quickness.
He lowered his eyes, and said:
"His line, isn't it?"
With a shrug she turned away and shut the door. She sat down on
the edge of her bed, very still. In that little passage of wits
she had won, she could win in many such; but the full hideousness
of things had come to her. Lies! lies! That was to be her life!
That; or to say farewell to all she now cared for, to cause despair
not only in herself, but in her lover, and--for what? In order
that her body might remain at the disposal of that man in the next
room--her spirit having flown from him for ever. Such were the
alternatives, unless those words: "Then come to me," were to be
more than words. Were they? Could they be? They would mean such
happiness if--if his love for her were more than a summer love?
And hers for him? Was it--were they--more than summer loves? How
know? And, without knowing, how give such pain to everyone? How
break a vow she had thought herself quite above breaking? How make
such a desperate departure from all the traditions and beliefs in
which she had been brought up! But in the very nature of passion
is that which resents the intrusion of hard and fast decisions. . . .
And suddenly she thought: If our love cannot stay what it is,
and if I cannot yet go to him for always, is there not still
another way?
She got up and began to dress for dinner. Standing before her
glass she was surprised to see that her face showed no signs of the
fears and doubts that were now her comrades. Was it because,
whatever happened, she loved and was beloved! She wondered how she
had looked when he kissed her so passionately; had she shown her
joy before she checked him?
In her garden by the river were certain flowers that, for all her
care, would grow rank and of the wrong colour--wanting a different
soil. Was she, then, like those flowers of hers? Ah! Let her but
have her true soil, and she would grow straight and true enough!
Then in the doorway she saw her husband. She had never, till to-
day, quite hated him; but now she did, with a real blind horrible
feeling. What did he want of her standing there with those eyes
fixed on her--those forceful eyes, touched with blood, that seemed
at once to threaten, covet, and beseech! She drew her wrapper
close round her shoulders. At that he came up and said:
"Look at me, Olive!"
Against instinct and will she obeyed, and he went on:
"Be careful! I say, be careful!"
Then he took her by the shoulders, and raised her up to him. And,
quite unnerved, she stood without resisting.
"I want you," he said; "I mean to keep you."
Then, suddenly letting her go, he covered his eyes with his hands.
That frightened her most--it was so unlike him. Not till now had
she understood between what terrifying forces she was balancing.
She did not speak, but her face grew white. From behind those
hands he uttered a sound, not quite like a human noise, turned
sharply, and went out. She dropped back into the chair before her
mirror, overcome by the most singular feeling she had ever known;
as if she had lost everything, even her love for Lennan, and her
longing for his love. What was it all worth, what was anything
worth in a world like this? All was loathsome, herself loathsome!
All was a void! Hateful, hateful, hateful! It was like having no
heart at all! And that same evening, when her husband had gone
down to the House, she wrote to Lennan:
"Our love must never turn to earthiness as it might have this
afternoon. Everything is black and hopeless. HE suspects. For
you to come here is impossible, and too dreadful for us both. And
I have no right to ask you to be furtive, I can't bear to think of
you like that, and I can't bear it myself. I don't know what to do
or say. Don't try to see me yet. I must have time, I must think."
XIII
Colonel Ercott was not a racing man, but he had in common with
others of his countrymen a religious feeling in the matter of the
Derby. His remembrances of it went back to early youth, for he had
been born and brought up almost within sound of the coaching-road
to Epsom. Every Derby and Oaks day he had gone out on his pony to
watch the passing of the tall hats and feathers of the great, and
the pot-hats and feathers of the lowly; and afterwards, in the
fields at home, had ridden races with old Lindsay, finishing
between a cow that judged and a clump of bulrushes representing the
Grand Stand.
But for one reason or another he had never seen the great race, and
the notion that it was his duty to see it had now come to him. He
proposed this to Mrs. Ercott with some diffidence. She read so
many books--he did not quite know whether she would approve.
Finding that she did, he added casually:
"And we might take Olive."
Mrs. Ercott answered dryly:
"You know the House of Commons has a holiday?"
The Colonel murmured:
"Oh! I don't want that chap!"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ercott, "you would like Mark Lennan."
The Colonel looked at her most dubiously. Dolly could talk of it
as a tragedy, and a--a grand passion, and yet make a suggestion
like that! Then his wrinkles began slowly to come alive, and he
gave her waist a squeeze.
Mrs. Ercott did not resist that treatment.
"Take Olive alone," she said. "I don't really care to go."
When the Colonel went to fetch his niece he found her ready, and
very half-heartedly he asked for Cramier. It appeared she had not
told him.
Relieved, yet somewhat disconcerted, he murmured:
"He won't mind not going, I suppose?"
"If he went, I should not."
At this quiet answer the Colonel was beset again by all his fears.
He put his white 'topper' down, and took her hand.
"My dear," he said, "I don't want to intrude upon your feelings;
but--but is there anything I can do? It's dreadful to see things
going unhappily with you!" He felt his hand being lifted, her face
pressed against it; and, suffering acutely, with his other hand,
cased in a bright new glove, he smoothed her arm. "We'll have a
jolly good day, sweetheart," he said, "and forget all about it."
She gave the hand a kiss and turned away. And the Colonel vowed to
himself that she should not be unhappy--lovely creature that she
was, so delicate, and straight, and fine in her pearly frock. And
he pulled himself together, brushing his white 'topper' vigorously
with his sleeve, forgetting that this kind of hat has no nap.
And so he was tenderness itself on the journey down, satisfying all
her wants before she had them, telling her stories of Indian life,
and consulting her carefully as to which horse they should back.
There was the Duke's, of course, but there was another animal that
appealed to him greatly. His friend Tabor had given him the tip--
Tabor, who had the best Arabs in all India--and at a nice price. A
man who practically never gambled, the Colonel liked to feel that
his fancy would bring him in something really substantial--if it
won; the idea that it could lose not really troubling him.
However, they would see it in the paddock, and judge for
themselves. The paddock was the place, away from all the dust and
racket--Olive would enjoy the paddock! Once on the course, they
neglected the first race; it was more important, the Colonel
thought, that they should lunch. He wanted to see more colour in
her cheeks, wanted to see her laugh. He had an invitation to his
old regiment's drag, where the champagne was sure to be good. And
he was so proud of her--would not have missed those young fellows'
admiration of her for the world; though to take a lady amongst them
was, in fact, against the rules. It was not, then, till the second
race was due to start that they made their way into the paddock.
Here the Derby horses were being led solemnly, attended each by a
little posse of persons, looking up their legs and down their ribs
to see whether they were worthy of support, together with a few who
liked to see a whole horse at a time. Presently they found the
animal which had been recommended to the Colonel. It was a
chestnut, with a starred forehead, parading in a far corner. The
Colonel, who really loved a horse, was deep in admiration. He
liked its head and he liked its hocks; above all, he liked its eye.
A fine creature, all sense and fire--perhaps just a little straight
in the shoulder for coming down the hill! And in the midst of his
examination he found himself staring at his niece. What breeding
the child showed, with her delicate arched brows, little ears, and
fine, close nostrils; and the way she moved--so sure and springy.
She was too pretty to suffer! A shame! If she hadn't been so
pretty that young fellow wouldn't have fallen in love with her. If
she weren't so pretty--that husband of hers wouldn't--! And the
Colonel dropped his gaze, startled by the discovery he had stumbled
on. If she hadn't been so pretty! Was that the meaning of it all?
The cynicism of his own reflection struck him between wind and
water. And yet something in himself seemed to confirm it somehow.
What then? Was he to let them tear her in two between them,
destroying her, because she was so pretty? And somehow this
discovery of his--that passion springs from worship of beauty and
warmth, of form and colour--disturbed him horribly, for he had no
habit of philosophy. The thought seemed to him strangely crude,
even immoral. That she should be thus between two ravening
desires--a bird between two hawks, a fruit between two mouths! It
was a way of looking at things that had never before occurred to
him. The idea of a husband clutching at his wife, the idea of that
young man who looked so gentle, swooping down on her; and the idea
that if she faded, lost her looks, went off, their greed, indeed,
any man's, would die away--all these horrible ideas hurt him the
more for the remarkable suddenness with which they had come to him.
A tragic business! Dolly had said so. Queer and quick--were
women! But his resolution that the day was to be jolly soon
recurred to him, and he hastily resumed inspection of his fancy.
Perhaps they ought to have a ten-pound note on it, and they had
better get back to the Stand! And as they went the Colonel saw,
standing beneath a tree at a little distance, a young man that he
could have sworn was Lennan. Not likely for an artist chap to be
down here! But it WAS undoubtedly young Lennan, brushed-up, in a
top-hat. Fortunately, however, his face was not turned in their
direction. He said nothing to Olive, not wishing--especially after
those unpleasant thoughts--to take responsibility, and he kept her
moving towards the gate, congratulating himself that his eyes had
been so sharp. In the crush there he was separated from her a
little, but she was soon beside him again; and more than ever he
congratulated himself that nothing had occurred to upset her and
spoil the day. Her cheeks were warm enough now, her dark eyes
glowing. She was excited no doubt by thoughts of the race, and of
the 'tenner' he was going to put on for her.
He recounted the matter afterwards to Mrs. Ercott. "That chestnut
Tabor put me on to finished nowhere--couldn't get down the hill--
knew it wouldn't the moment I set eyes on it. But the child
enjoyed herself. Wish you'd been there, my dear!" Of his deeper
thoughts and of that glimpse of young Lennan he did not speak, for
on the way home an ugly suspicion had attacked him. Had the young
fellow, after all, seen and managed to get close to her in the
crush at the paddock gateway?
XIV
That letter of hers fanned the flame in Lennan as nothing had yet
fanned it. Earthiness! Was it earthiness to love as he did? If
so, then not for all the world would he be otherwise than earthy.
In the shock of reading it, he crossed his Rubicon, and burned his
boats behind him. No more did the pale ghost, chivalrous devotion,
haunt him. He knew now that he could not stop short. Since she
asked him, he must not, of course, try to see her just yet. But
when he did, then he would fight for his life; the thought that she
might be meaning to slip away from him was too utterly unbearable.
But she could not be meaning that! She would never be so cruel!
Ah! she would--she must come to him in the end! The world, life
itself, would be well lost for love of her!
Thus resolved, he was even able to work again; and all that Tuesday
he modelled at a big version of the fantastic, bull-like figure he
had conceived after the Colonel left him up on the hillside at
Beaulieu. He worked at it with a sort of evil joy. Into this
creature he would put the spirit of possession that held her from
him. And while his fingers forced the clay, he felt as if he had
Cramier's neck within his grip. Yet, now that he had resolved to
take her if he could, he had not quite the same hatred. After all,
this man loved her too, could not help it that she loathed him;
could not help it that he had the disposition of her, body and
soul!
June had come in with skies of a blue that not even London glare
and dust could pale. In every square and park and patch of green
the air simmered with life and with the music of birds swaying on
little boughs. Piano organs in the streets were no longer wistful
for the South; lovers already sat in the shade of trees.
To remain indoors, when he was not working, was sheer torture; for
he could not read, and had lost all interest in the little
excitements, amusements, occupations that go to make up the normal
life of man. Every outer thing seemed to have dropped off,
shrivelled, leaving him just a condition of the spirit, a state of
mind.
Lying awake he would think of things in the past, and they would
mean nothing--all dissolved and dispersed by the heat of this
feeling in him. Indeed, his sense of isolation was so strong that
he could not even believe that he had lived through the facts which
his memory apprehended. He had become one burning mood--that, and
nothing more.
To be out, especially amongst trees, was the only solace.
And he sat for a long time that evening under a large lime-tree on
a knoll above the Serpentine. There was very little breeze, just
enough to keep alive a kind of whispering. What if men and women,
when they had lived their gusty lives, became trees! What if
someone who had burned and ached were now spreading over him this
leafy peace--this blue-black shadow against the stars? Or were the
stars, perhaps, the souls of men and women escaped for ever from
love and longing? He broke off a branch of the lime and drew it
across his face. It was not yet in flower, but it smelled lemony
and fresh even here in London. If only for a moment he could
desert his own heart, and rest with the trees and stars!
No further letter came from her next morning, and he soon lost his
power to work. It was Derby Day. He determined to go down.
Perhaps she would be there. Even if she were not, he might find
some little distraction in the crowd and the horses. He had seen
her in the paddock long before the Colonel's sharp eyes detected
him; and, following in the crush, managed to touch her hand in the
crowded gateway, and whisper: "To-morrow, the National Gallery, at
four o'clock--by the Bacchus and Ariadne. For God's sake!" Her
gloved hand pressed his hard; and she was gone. He stayed in the
paddock, too happy almost to breathe. . . .
Next day, while waiting before that picture, he looked at it with
wonder. For there seemed his own passion transfigured in the
darkening star-crowned sky, and the eyes of the leaping god. In
spirit, was he not always rushing to her like that? Minutes
passed, and she did not come. What should he do if she failed him?
Surely die of disappointment and despair. . . . He had little
enough experience as yet of the toughness of the human heart; how
life bruises and crushes, yet leaves it beating. . . . Then, from
an unlikely quarter, he saw her coming.
They walked in silence down to the quiet rooms where the Turner
watercolours hung. No one, save two Frenchmen and an old official,
watched them passing slowly before those little pictures, till they
came to the end wall, and, unseen, unheard by any but her, he could
begin!
The arguments he had so carefully rehearsed were all forgotten;
nothing left but an incoherent pleading. Life without her was not
life; and they had only one life for love--one summer. It was all
dark where she was not--the very sun itself was dark. Better to
die than to live such false, broken lives, apart from each other.
Better to die at once than to live wanting each other, longing and
longing, and watching each other's sorrow. And all for the sake of
what? It maddened, killed him, to think of that man touching her
when he knew she did but hate him. It shamed all manhood; it could
not be good to help such things to be. A vow when the spirit of it
was gone was only superstition; it was wicked to waste one's life
for the sake of that. Society--she knew, she must know--only cared
for the forms, the outsides of things. And what did it matter what
Society thought? It had no soul, no feeling, nothing. And if it
were said they ought to sacrifice themselves for the sake of
others, to make things happier in the world, she must know that was
only true when love was light and selfish; but not when people
loved as they did, with all their hearts and souls, so that they
would die for each other any minute, so that without each other
there was no meaning in anything. It would not help a single soul,
for them to murder their love and all the happiness of their lives;
to go on in a sort of living death. Even if it were wrong, he
would rather do that wrong, and take the consequences! But it was
not, it COULD not be wrong, when they felt like that!
And all the time that he was pouring forth those supplications, his
eyes searched and searched her face. But there only came from her:
"I don't know--I can't tell--if only I knew!" And then he was
silent, stricken to the heart; till, at a look or a touch from her,
he would break out again: "You do love me--you do; then what does
anything else matter?"
And so it went on and on that summer afternoon, in the deserted
room meant for such other things, where the two Frenchmen were too
sympathetic, and the old official too drowsy, to come. Then it all
narrowed to one fierce, insistent question:
"What is it--WHAT is it you're afraid of?"
But to that, too, he got only the one mournful answer, paralyzing
in its fateful monotony.
"I don't know--I can't tell!"
It was awful to go on thus beating against this uncanny, dark,
shadowy resistance; these unreal doubts and dreads, that by their
very dumbness were becoming real to him, too. If only she could
tell him what she feared! It could not be poverty--that was not
like her--besides, he had enough for both. It could not be loss of
a social position, which was but irksome to her! Surely it was not
fear that he would cease to love her! What was it? In God's name--
what?
To-morrow--she had told him--she was to go down, alone, to the
river-house; would she not come now, this very minute, to him
instead? And they would start off--that night, back to the South
where their love had flowered. But again it was: "I can't! I
don't know--I must have time!" And yet her eyes had that brooding
love-light. How COULD she hold back and waver? But, utterly
exhausted, he did not plead again; did not even resist when she
said: "You must go, now; and leave me to get back! I will write.
Perhaps--soon--I shall know." He begged for, and took one kiss;
then, passing the old official, went quickly up and out.
XV
He reached his rooms overcome by a lassitude that was not, however,
quite despair. He had made his effort, failed--but there was still
within him the unconquerable hope of the passionate lover. . . .
As well try to extinguish in full June the beating of the heart of
summer; deny to the flowers their deepening hues, or to winged life
its slumbrous buzzing, as stifle in such a lover his conviction of
fulfilment. . . .
He lay down on a couch, and there stayed a long time quite still,
his forehead pressed against the wall. His will was already
beginning to recover for a fresh attempt. It was merciful that she
was going away from Cramier, going to where he had in fancy watched
her feed her doves. No laws, no fears, not even her commands could
stop his fancy from conjuring her up by day and night. He had but
to close his eyes, and she was there.
A ring at the bell, repeated several times, roused him at last to
go to the door. His caller was Robert Cramier. And at sight of
him, all Lennan's lethargy gave place to a steely feeling. What
had brought him here? Had he been spying on his wife? The old
longing for physical combat came over him. Cramier was perhaps
fifteen years his senior, but taller, heavier, thicker. Chances,
then, were pretty equal!
"Won't you come in?" he said.
"Thanks."
The voice had in it the same mockery as on Sunday; and it shot
through him that Cramier had thought to find his wife here. If so,
he did not betray it by any crude look round. He came in with his
deliberate step, light and well-poised for so big a man.
"So this," he said, "is where you produce your masterpieces!
Anything great since you came back?"
Lennan lifted the cloths from the half-modelled figure of his bull-
man. He felt malicious pleasure in doing that. Would Cramier
recognize himself in this creature with the horn-like ears, and
great bossed forehead? If this man who had her happiness beneath
his heel had come here to mock, he should at all events get what he
had come to give. And he waited.
"I see. You are giving the poor brute horns!"
If Cramier had seen, he had dared to add a touch of cynical humour,
which the sculptor himself had never thought of. And this even
evoked in the young man a kind of admiring compunction.
"Those are not horns," he said gently; "only ears."
Cramier lifted a hand and touched the edge of his own ear.
"Not quite like that, are they--human ears? But I suppose you
would call this symbolic. What, if I may ask, does it represent?"
All the softness in Lennan vanished.
"If you can't gather that from looking, it must be a failure."
"Not at all. If I am right, you want something for it to tread on,
don't you, to get your full effect?"
Lennan touched the base of the clay.
"The broken curve here"--then, with sudden disgust at this fencing,
was silent. What had the man come for? He must want something.
And, as if answering, Cramier said:
"To pass to another subject--you see a good deal of my wife. I
just wanted to tell you that I don't very much care that you
should. It is as well to be quite frank, I think."
Lennan bowed.
"Is that not," he said, "perhaps rather a matter for HER decision?"
That heavy figure--those threatening eyes! The whole thing was
like a dream come true!
"I do not feel it so. I am not one of those who let things drift.
Please understand me. You come between us at your peril."
Lennan kept silence for a moment, then he said quietly:
"Can one come between two people who have ceased to have anything
in common?"
The veins in Cramier's forehead were swollen, his face and neck had
grown crimson. And Lennan thought with strange elation: Now he's
going to hit me! He could hardly keep his hands from shooting out
and seizing in advance that great strong neck. If he could
strangle, and have done with him!
But, quite suddenly, Cramier turned on his heel. "I have warned
you," he said, and went.
Lennan took a long breath. So! That was over, and he knew where
he was. If Cramier had struck out, he would surely have seized his
neck and held on till life was gone. Nothing should have shaken
him off. In fancy he could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling,
battered about by those heavy fists, but always with his hands on
the thick neck, squeezing out its life. He could feel, absolutely
feel, the last reel and stagger of that great bulk crashing down,
dragging him with it, till it lay upturned, still. He covered his
eyes with his hands. . . . Thank God! The fellow had not hit out!
He went to the door, opened it, and stood leaning against the door-
post. All was still and drowsy out there in that quiet backwater
of a street. Not a soul in sight! How still, for London! Only
the birds. In a neighbouring studio someone was playing Chopin.
Queer! He had almost forgotten there was such a thing as Chopin.
A mazurka! Spinning like some top thing, round and round--weird
little tune! . . . Well, and what now? Only one thing certain.
Sooner give up life than give her up! Far sooner! Love her,
achieve her--or give up everything, and drown to that tune going on
and on, that little dancing dirge of summer!
XVI
At her cottage Olive stood often by the river.
What lay beneath all that bright water--what strange, deep,
swaying, life so far below the ruffling of wind, and the shadows of
the willow trees? Was love down there, too? Love between sentient
things, where it was almost dark; or had all passion climbed up to
rustle with the reeds, and float with the water-flowers in the
sunlight? Was there colour? Or had colour been drowned? No scent
and no music; but movement there would be, for all the dim groping
things bending one way to the current--movement, no less than in
the aspen-leaves, never quite still, and the winged droves of the
clouds. And if it were dark down there, it was dark, too, above
the water; and hearts ached, and eyes just as much searched for
that which did not come.
To watch it always flowing by to the sea; never looking back, never
swaying this way or that; drifting along, quiet as Fate--dark, or
glamorous with the gold and moonlight of these beautiful days and
nights, when every flower in her garden, in the fields, and along
the river banks, was full of sweet life; when dog-roses starred the
lanes, and in the wood the bracken was nearly a foot high.
She was not alone there, though she would much rather have been;
two days after she left London her Uncle and Aunt had joined her.
It was from Cramier they had received their invitation. He himself
had not yet been down.
Every night, having parted from Mrs. Ercott and gone up the wide
shallow stairs to her room, she would sit down at the window to
write to Lennan, one candle beside her--one pale flame for comrade,
as it might be his spirit. Every evening she poured out to him her
thoughts, and ended always: "Have patience!" She was still waiting
for courage to pass that dark hedge of impalpable doubts and fears
and scruples, of a dread that she could not make articulate even to
herself. Having finished, she would lean out into the night. The
Colonel, his black figure cloaked against the dew, would be pacing
up and down the lawn, with his good-night cigar, whose fiery spark
she could just discern; and, beyond, her ghostly dove-house; and,
beyond, the river--flowing. Then she would clasp herself close--
afraid to stretch out her arms, lest she should be seen.
Each morning she rose early, dressed, and slipped away to the
village to post her letter. From the woods across the river wild
pigeons would be calling--as though Love itself pleaded with her
afresh each day. She was back well before breakfast, to go up to
her room and come down again as if for the first time. The
Colonel, meeting her on the stairs, or in the hall, would say: "Ah,
my dear! just beaten you! Slept well?" And, while her lips
touched his cheek, slanted at the proper angle for uncles, he never
dreamed that she had been three miles already through the dew.
Now that she was in the throes of an indecision, whose ending, one
way or the other, must be so tremendous, now that she was in the
very swirl, she let no sign at all escape her; the Colonel and even
his wife were deceived into thinking that after all no great harm
had been done. It was grateful to them to think so, because of
that stewardship at Monte Carlo, of which they could not render too
good account. The warm sleepy days, with a little croquet and a
little paddling on the river, and much sitting out of doors, when
the Colonel would read aloud from Tennyson, were very pleasant. To
him--if not to Mrs. Ercott--it was especially jolly to be out of
Town 'this confounded crowded time of year.' And so the days of
early June went by, each finer than the last.
And then Cramier came down, without warning on a Friday evening.
It was hot in London . . . the session dull. . . . The Jubilee
turning everything upside down. . . . They were lucky to be out of
Town!
A silent dinner--that!
Mrs. Ercott noticed that he drank wine like water, and for minutes
at a time fixed his eyes, that looked heavy as if he had not been
sleeping, not on his wife's face but on her neck. If Olive really
disliked and feared him--as John would have it--she disguised her
feelings very well! For so pale a woman she was looking brilliant
that night. The sun had caught her cheeks, perhaps. That black
low-cut frock suited her, with old Milanese-point lace matching her
skin so well, and one carnation, of darkest red, at her breast.
Her eyes were really sometimes like black velvet. It suited pale
women to have those eyes, that looked so black at night! She was
talking, too, and laughing more than usual. One would have said: A
wife delighted to welcome her husband! And yet there was
something--something in the air, in the feel of things--the
lowering fixity of that man's eyes, or--thunder coming, after all
this heat! Surely the night was unnaturally still and dark, hardly
a breath of air, and so many moths out there, passing the beam of
light, like little pale spirits crossing a river! Mrs. Ercott
smiled, pleased at that image. Moths! Men were like moths; there
were women from whom they could not keep away. Yes, there was
something about Olive that drew men to her. Not meretricious--to
do her justice, not that at all; but something soft, and-fatal;
like one of these candle-flames to the poor moths. John's eyes
were never quite as she knew them when he was looking at Olive; and
Robert Cramier's--what a queer, drugged look they had! As for that
other poor young fellow--she had never forgotten his face when they
came on him in the Park!
And when after dinner they sat on the veranda, they were all more
silent still, just watching, it seemed, the smoke of their
cigarettes, rising quite straight, as though wind had been
withdrawn from the world. The Colonel twice endeavoured to speak
about the moon: It ought to be up by now! It was going to be full.
And then Cramier said: "Put on that scarf thing, Olive, and come
round the garden with me."
Mrs. Ercott admitted to herself now that what John said was true.
Just one gleam of eyes, turned quickly this way and that, as a bird
looks for escape; and then Olive had got up and quietly gone with
him down the path, till their silent figures were lost to sight.
Disturbed to the heart, Mrs. Ercott rose and went over to her
husband's chair. He was frowning, and staring at his evening shoe
balanced on a single toe. He looked up at her and put out his
hand. Mrs. Ercott gave it a squeeze; she wanted comfort.
The Colonel spoke:
"It's heavy to-night, Dolly. I don't like the feel of it."
XVII
They had passed without a single word spoken, down through the
laurels and guelder roses to the river bank; then he had turned to
the right, and gone along it under the dove-house, to the yew-
trees. There he had stopped, in the pitch darkness of that
foliage. It seemed to her dreadfully still; if only there had been
the faintest breeze, the faintest lisping of reeds on the water,
one bird to make a sound; but nothing, nothing save his breathing,
deep, irregular, with a quiver in it. What had he brought her here
for? To show her how utterly she was his? Was he never going to
speak, never going to say whatever it was he had in mind to say?
If only he would not touch her!
Then he moved, and a stone dislodged fell with a splash into the
water. She could not help a little gasp. How black the river
looked! But slowly, beyond the dim shape of the giant poplar, a
shiver of light stole outwards across the blackness from the far
bank--the moon, whose rim she could now see rising, of a thick gold
like a coin, above the woods. Her heart went out to that warm
light. At all events there was one friendly inhabitant of this
darkness.
Suddenly she felt his hands on her waist. She did not move, her
heart beat too furiously; but a sort of prayer fluttered up from it
against her lips. In the grip of those heavy hands was such
quivering force!
His voice sounded very husky and strange: "Olive, this can't go on.
I suffer. My God! I suffer!"
A pang went through her, a sort of surprise. Suffer! She might
wish him dead, but she did not want him to suffer--God knew! And
yet, gripped by those hands, she could not say: I am sorry!
He made a sound that was almost a groan, and dropped on his knees.
Feeling herself held fast, she tried to push his forehead back from
her waist. It was fiery hot; and she heard him mutter: "Have
mercy! Love me a little!" But the clutch of his hands, never
still on the thin silk of her dress, turned her faint. She tried
to writhe away, but could not; stood still again, and at last found
her voice.
"Mercy? Can I MAKE myself love? No one ever could since the world
began. Please, please get up. Let me go!"
But he was pulling her down to him so that she was forced on to her
knees on the grass, with her face close to his. A low moaning was
coming from him. It was horrible--so horrible! And he went on
pleading, the words all confused, not looking in her face. It
seemed to her that it would never end, that she would never get
free of that grip, away from that stammering, whispering voice.
She stayed by instinct utterly still, closing her eyes. Then she
felt his gaze for the first time that evening on her face, and
realized that he had not dared to look until her eyes were closed,
for fear of reading what was in them. She said very gently:
"Please let me go. I think I'm going to faint."
He relaxed the grip of his arms; she sank down and stayed unmoving
on the grass. After such utter stillness that she hardly knew
whether he were there or not, she felt his hot hand on her bare
shoulder. Was it all to begin again? She shrank down lower still,
and a little moan escaped her. He let her go suddenly, and, when
at last she looked up, was gone.
She got to her feet trembling, and moved quickly from under the
yew-trees. She tried to think--tried to understand exactly what
this portended for her, for him, for her lover. But she could not.
There was around her thoughts the same breathless darkness that
brooded over this night. Ah! but to the night had been given that
pale-gold moon-ray, to herself nothing, no faintest gleam; as well
try to pierce below the dark surface of that water!
She passed her hands over her face, and hair, and dress. How long
had it lasted? How long had they been out here? And she began
slowly moving back towards the house. Thank God! She had not
yielded to fear or pity, not uttered falsities, not pretended she
could love him, and betrayed her heart. That would have been the
one unbearable thing to have been left remembering! She stood long
looking down, as if trying to see the future in her dim flower-
beds; then, bracing herself, hurried to the house. No one was on
the veranda, no one in the drawing-room. She looked at the clock.
Nearly eleven. Ringing for the servant to shut the windows, she
stole up to her room. Had her husband gone away as he had come?
Or would she presently again be face to face with that dread, the
nerve of which never stopped aching now, dread of the night when he
was near? She determined not to go to bed, and drawing a long
chair to the window, wrapped herself in a gown, and lay back.
The flower from her dress, miraculously uncrushed in those dark
minutes on the grass, she set in water beside her at the window--
Mark's favourite flower, he had once told her; it was a comfort,
with its scent, and hue, and memory of him.
Strange that in her life, with all the faces seen, and people
known, she had not loved one till she had met Lennan! She had even
been sure that love would never come to her; had not wanted it--
very much; had thought to go on well enough, and pass out at the
end, never having known, or much cared to know, full summer. Love
had taken its revenge on her now for all slighted love offered her
in the past; for the one hated love that had to-night been on its
knees to her. They said it must always come once to every man and
woman--this witchery, this dark sweet feeling, springing up, who
knew how or why? She had not believed, but now she knew. And
whatever might be coming, she would not have this different. Since
all things changed, she must change and get old and be no longer
pretty for him to look at, but this in her heart could not change.
She felt sure of that. It was as if something said: This is for
ever, beyond life, beyond death, this is for ever! He will be
dust, and you dust, but your love will live! Somewhere--in the
woods, among the flowers, or down in the dark water, it will haunt!
For it only you have lived! . . . Then she noticed that a slender
silvery-winged thing, unlike any moth she had ever seen, had
settled on her gown, close to her neck. It seemed to be sleeping,
so delicate and drowsy, having come in from the breathless dark,
thinking, perhaps, that her whiteness was a light. What dim memory
did it rouse; something of HIM, something HE had done--in darkness,
on a night like this. Ah, yes! that evening after Gorbio, the
little owl-moth on her knee! He had touched her when he took that
cosy wan velvet-eyed thing off her!
She leaned out for air. What a night!--whose stars were hiding in
the sheer heavy warmth; whose small, round, golden moon had no
transparency! A night like a black pansy with a little gold heart.
And silent! For, of the trees, that whispered so much at night,
not even the aspens had voice. The unstirring air had a dream-
solidity against her cheeks. But in all the stillness, what
sentiency, what passion--as in her heart! Could she not draw HIM
to her from those woods, from that dark gleaming river, draw him
from the flowers and trees and the passion-mood of the sky--draw
him up to her waiting here, so that she was no more this craving
creature, but one with him and the night! And she let her head
droop down on her hands.
All night long she stayed there at the window. Sometimes dozing in
the chair; once waking with a start, fancying that her husband was
bending over her. Had he been--and stolen away? And the dawn
came; dew-grey, filmy and wistful, woven round each black tree, and
round the white dove-cot, and falling scarf-like along the river.
And the chirrupings of birds stirred among leaves as yet invisible.
She slept then.
XVIII
When she awoke once more, in daylight, smiling, Cramier was
standing beside her chair. His face, all dark and bitter, had the
sodden look of a man very tired.
"So!" he said: "Sleeping this way doesn't spoil your dreams. Don't
let me disturb them. I am just going back to Town."
Like a frightened bird, she stayed, not stirring, gazing at his
back as he leaned in the window, till, turning round on her again,
he said:
"But remember this: What I can't have, no one else shall! Do you
understand? No one else!" And he bent down close, repeating: "Do
you understand--you bad wife!"
Four years' submission to a touch she shrank from; one long effort
not to shrink! Bad wife! Not if he killed her would she answer
now!
"Do you hear?" he said once more: "Make up your mind to that. I
mean it."
He had gripped the arms of her chair, till she could feel it quiver
beneath her. Would he drive his fist into her face that she
managed to keep still smiling? But there only passed into his eyes
an expression which she could not read.
"Well," he said, "you know!" and walked heavily towards the door.
The moment he had gone she sprang up: Yes, she was a bad wife! A
wife who had reached the end of her tether. A wife who hated
instead of loving. A wife in prison! Bad wife! Martyrdom, then,
for the sake of a faith in her that was lost already, could be but
folly. If she seemed bad and false to him, there was no longer
reason to pretend to be otherwise. No longer would she, in the
words of the old song:--'sit and sigh--pulling bracken, pulling
bracken.' No more would she starve for want of love, and watch the
nights throb and ache, as last night had throbbed and ached, with
the passion that she might not satisfy.
And while she was dressing she wondered why she did not look tired.
To get out quickly! To send her lover word at once to hasten to
her while it was safe--that she might tell him she was coming to
him out of prison! She would telegraph for him to come that
evening with a boat, opposite the tall poplar. She and her Aunt
and Uncle were to go to dinner at the Rectory, but she would plead
headache at the last minute. When the Ercotts had gone she would
slip out, and he and she would row over to the wood, and be
together for two hours of happiness. And they must make a clear
plan, too--for to-morrow they would begin their life together. But
it would not be safe to send that message from the village; she
must go down and over the bridge to the post-office on the other
side, where they did not know her. It was too late now before
breakfast. Better after, when she could slip away, knowing for
certain that her husband had gone. It would still not be too late
for her telegram--Lennan never left his rooms till the midday post
which brought her letters.
She finished dressing, and knowing that she must show no trace of
her excitement, sat quite still for several minutes, forcing
herself into languor. Then she went down. Her husband had
breakfasted and gone. At everything she did, and every word she
spoke, she was now smiling with a sort of wonder, as if she were
watching a self, that she had abandoned like an old garment,
perform for her amusement. It even gave her no feeling of remorse
to think she was going to do what would be so painful to the good
Colonel. He was dear to her--but it did not matter. She was past
all that. Nothing mattered--nothing in the world! It amused her
to believe that her Uncle and Aunt misread her last night's walk in
the dark garden, misread her languor and serenity. And at the
first moment possible she flew out, and slipped away under cover of
the yew-trees towards the river. Passing the spot where her
husband had dragged her down to him on her knees in the grass, she
felt a sort of surprise that she could ever have been so terrified.
What was he? The past--nothing! And she flew on. She noted
carefully the river bank opposite the tall poplar. It would be
quite easy to get down from there into a boat. But they would not
stay in that dark backwater. They would go over to the far side
into those woods from which last night the moon had risen, those
woods from which the pigeons mocked her every morning, those woods
so full of summer. Coming back, no one would see her landing; for
it would be pitch dark in the backwater. And, while she hurried,
she looked back across her shoulder, marking where the water,
entering, ceased to be bright. A dragon-fly brushed her cheek; she
saw it vanish where the sunlight failed. How suddenly its happy
flight was quenched in that dark shade, as a candle flame blown
out. The tree growth there was too thick--the queer stumps and
snags had uncanny shapes, as of monstrous creatures, whose eyes
seemed to peer out at you. She shivered. She had seen those
monsters with their peering eyes somewhere. Ah! In her dream at
Monte Carlo of that bull-face staring from the banks, while she
drifted by, unable to cry out. No! The backwater was not a happy
place--they would not stay there a single minute. And more swiftly
than ever she flew on along the path. Soon she had crossed the
bridge, sent off her message, and returned. But there were ten
hours to get through before eight o'clock, and she did not hurry
now. She wanted this day of summer to herself alone, a day of
dreaming till he came; this day for which all her life till now had
been shaping her--the day of love. Fate was very wonderful! If
she had ever loved before; if she had known joy in her marriage--
she could never have been feeling what she was feeling now, what
she well knew she would never feel again. She crossed a new-mown
hayfield, and finding a bank, threw herself down on her back among
its uncut grasses. Far away at the other end men were scything.
It was all very beautiful--the soft clouds floating, the clover-
stalks pushing themselves against her palms, and stems of the tall
couch grass cool to her cheeks; little blue butterflies; a lark,
invisible; the scent of the ripe hay; and the gold-fairy arrows of
the sun on her face and limbs. To grow and reach the hour of
summer; all must do that! That was the meaning of Life! She had
no more doubts and fears. She had no more dread, no bitterness,
and no remorse for what she was going to do. She was doing it
because she must. . . . As well might grass stay its ripening
because it shall be cut down! She had, instead, a sense of
something blessed and uplifting. Whatever Power had made her
heart, had placed within it this love. Whatever it was, whoever it
was, could not be angry with her!
A wild bee settled on her arm, and she held it up between her and
the sun, so that she might enjoy its dusky glamour. It would not
sting her--not to-day! The little blue butterflies, too, kept
alighting on her, who lay there so still. And the love-songs of
the wood-pigeons never ceased, nor the faint swish of scything.
At last she rose to make her way home. A telegram had come saying
simply: "Yes." She read it with an unmoved face, having resorted
again to her mask of languor. Toward tea-time she confessed to
headache, and said she would lie down. Up there in her room she
spent those three hours writing--writing as best she could all she
had passed through in thought and feeling, before making her
decision. It seemed to her that she owed it to herself to tell her
lover how she had come to what she had never thought to come to.
She put what she had written in an envelope and sealed it. She
would give it to him, that he might read and understand, when she
had shown him with all of her how she loved him. It would pass the
time for him, until to-morrow--until they set out on their new life
together. For to-night they would make their plans, and to-morrow
start.
At half-past seven she sent word that her headache was too bad to
allow her to go out. This brought a visit from Mrs. Ercott: The
Colonel and she were so distressed; but perhaps Olive was wise not
to exert herself! And presently the Colonel himself spoke,
lugubriously through the door: Not well enough to come? No fun
without her! But she mustn't on any account strain herself! No,
no!
Her heart smote her at that. He was always so good to her.
At last, watching from the corridor, she saw them sally forth down
the drive--the Colonel a little in advance, carrying his wife's
evening shoes. How nice he looked--with his brown face, and his
grey moustache; so upright, and concerned with what he had in hand!
There was no languor in her now. She had dressed in white, and now
she took a blue silk cloak with a hood, and caught up the flower
that had so miraculously survived last night's wearing and pinned
it at her breast. Then making sure no servant was about, she
slipped downstairs and out. It was just eight, and the sun still
glistened on the dove-cot. She kept away from that lest the birds
should come fluttering about her, and betray her by cooing. When
she had nearly reached the tow-path, she stopped affrighted.
Surely something had moved, something heavy, with a sound of broken
branches. Was it the memory of last night come on her again; or,
indeed, someone there? She walked back a few steps. Foolish
alarm! In the meadow beyond a cow was brushing against the hedge.
And, stealing along the grass, out on to the tow-path, she went
swiftly towards the poplar.
XIX
A hundred times in these days of her absence Lennan had been on the
point of going down, against her orders, just to pass the house,
just to feel himself within reach, to catch a glimpse of her,
perhaps, from afar. If his body haunted London, his spirit had
passed down on to that river where he had drifted once already,
reconnoitring. A hundred times--by day in fancy, and by night in
dreams--pulling himself along by the boughs, he stole down that dim
backwater, till the dark yews and the white dove-cot came into
view.
For he thought now only of fulfilment. She was wasting cruelly
away! Why should he leave her where she was? Leave her to profane
herself and all womanhood in the arms of a man she hated?
And on that day of mid-June, when he received her telegram, it was
as if he had been handed the key of Paradise.
Would she--could she mean to come away with him that very night?
He would prepare for that at all events. He had so often in mind
faced this crisis in his affairs, that now it only meant
translating into action what had been carefully thought out. He
packed, supplied himself liberally with money, and wrote a long
letter to his guardian. It would hurt the old man--Gordy was over
seventy now--but that could not be helped. He would not post it
till he knew for certain.
After telling how it had all come about, he went on thus: "I know
that to many people, and perhaps to you, Gordy, it will seem very
wrong, but it does not to me, and that is the simple truth.
Everybody has his own views on such things, I suppose; and as I
would not--on my honour, Gordy--ever have held or wished to hold,
or ever will hold in marriage or out of marriage, any woman who
does not love me, so I do not think it is acting as I would resent
others acting towards me, to take away from such unhappiness this
lady for whom I would die at any minute. I do not mean to say that
pity has anything to do with it--I thought so at first, but I know
now that it is all swallowed up in the most mighty feeling I have
ever had or ever shall have. I am not a bit afraid of conscience.
If God is Universal Truth, He cannot look hardly upon us for being
true to ourselves. And as to people, we shall just hold up our
heads; I think that they generally take you at your own valuation.
But, anyway, Society does not much matter. We shan't want those
who don't want us--you may be sure. I hope he will divorce her
quickly--there is nobody much to be hurt by that except you and
Cis; but if he doesn't--it can't be helped. I don't think she has
anything; but with my six hundred, and what I can make, even if we
have to live abroad, we shall be all right for money. You have
been awfully good to me always, Gordy, and I am very grieved to
hurt you, and still more sorry if you think I am being ungrateful;
but when one feels as I do--body and soul and spirit--there isn't
any question; there wouldn't be if death itself stood in the way.
If you receive this, we shall be gone together; I will write to you
from wherever we pitch our tent, and, of course, I shall write to
Cicely. But will you please tell Mrs. Doone and Sylvia, and give
them my love if they still care to have it. Good-bye, dear Gordy.
I believe you would have done the same, if you had been I. Always
your affectionate--MARK."
In all those preparations he forgot nothing, employing every minute
of the few hours in a sort of methodic exaltation. The last thing
before setting out he took the damp cloths off his 'bull-man.'
Into the face of the monster there had come of late a hungry,
yearning look. The artist in him had done his work that
unconscious justice; against his will had set down the truth. And,
wondering whether he would ever work at it again, he redamped the
cloths and wrapped it carefully.
He did not go to her village, but to one five or six miles down the
river--it was safer, and the row would steady him. Hiring a skiff,
he pulled up stream. He travelled very slowly to kill time,
keeping under the far bank. And as he pulled, his very heart
seemed parched with nervousness. Was it real that he was going to
her, or only some fantastic trick of Fate, a dream from which he
would wake to find himself alone again? He passed the dove-cot at
last, and kept on till he could round into the backwater and steal
up under cover to the poplar. He arrived a few minutes before
eight o'clock, turned the boat round, and waited close beneath the
bank, holding to a branch, and standing so that he could see the
path. If a man could die from longing and anxiety, surely Lennan
must have died then!
All wind had failed, and the day was fallen into a wonderful still
evening. Gnats were dancing in the sparse strips of sunlight that
slanted across the dark water, now that the sun was low. From the
fields, bereft of workers, came the scent of hay and the heavy
scent of meadow-sweet; the musky odour of the backwater was
confused with them into one brooding perfume. No one passed. And
sounds were few and far to that wistful listener, for birds did not
sing just there. How still and warm was the air, yet seemed to
vibrate against his cheeks as though about to break into flame.
That fancy came to him vividly while he stood waiting--a vision of
heat simmering in little pale red flames. On the thick reeds some
large, slow, dusky flies were still feeding, and now and then a
moorhen a few yards away splashed a little, or uttered a sharp,
shrill note. When she came--if she did come!--they would not stay
here, in this dark earthy backwater; he would take her over to the
other side, away to the woods! But the minutes passed, and his
heart sank. Then it leaped up. Someone was coming--in white, with
bare head, and something blue or black flung across her arm. It
was she! No one else walked like that! She came very quickly.
And he noticed that her hair looked like little wings on either
side of her brow, as if her face were a white bird with dark wings,
flying to love! Now she was close, so close that he could see her
lips parted, and her eyes love-lighted--like nothing in the world
but darkness wild with dew and starlight. He reached up and lifted
her down into the boat, and the scent of some flower pressed
against his face seemed to pierce into him and reach his very
heart, awakening the memory of something past, forgotten. Then,
seizing the branches, snapping them in his haste, he dragged the
skiff along through the sluggish water, the gnats dancing in his
face. She seemed to know where he was taking her, and neither of
them spoke a single word, while he pulled out into the open, and
over to the far bank.
There was but one field between them and the wood--a field of young
wheat, with a hedge of thorn and alder. And close to that hedge
they set out, their hands clasped. They had nothing to say yet--
like children saving up. She had put on her cloak to hide her
dress, and its silk swished against the silvery blades of the
wheat. What had moved her to put on this blue cloak? Blue of the
sky, and flowers, of birds' wings, and the black-burning blue of
the night! The hue of all holy things! And how still it was in
the late gleam of the sun! Not one little sound of beast or bird
or tree; not one bee humming! And not much colour--only the starry
white hemlocks and globe-campion flowers, and the low-flying
glamour of the last warm light on the wheat.
XX
. . . Now over wood and river the evening drew in fast. And first
the swallows, that had looked as if they would never stay their
hunting, ceased; and the light, that had seemed fastened above the
world, for all its last brightenings, slowly fell wingless and
dusky.
The moon would not rise till ten! And all things waited. The
creatures of night were slow to come forth after that long bright
summer's day, watching for the shades of the trees to sink deeper
and deeper into the now chalk-white water; watching for the chalk-
white face of the sky to be masked with velvet. The very black-
plumed trees themselves seemed to wait in suspense for the grape-
bloom of night. All things stared, wan in that hour of passing
day--all things had eyes wistful and unblessed. In those moments
glamour was so dead that it was as if meaning had abandoned the
earth. But not for long. Winged with darkness, it stole back; not
the soul of meaning that had gone, but a witch-like and brooding
spirit harbouring in the black trees, in the high dark spears of
the rushes, and on the grim-snouted snags that lurked along the
river bank. Then the owls came out, and night-flying things. And
in the wood there began a cruel bird-tragedy--some dark pursuit in
the twilight above the bracken; the piercing shrieks of a creature
into whom talons have again and again gone home; and mingled with
them, hoarse raging cries of triumph. Many minutes they lasted,
those noises of the night, sound-emblems of all the cruelty in the
heart of Nature; till at last death appeased that savagery. And
any soul abroad, that pitied fugitives, might once more listen, and
not weep. . . .
Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling;
and a corn-crake churred in the young wheat. Again the night
brooded, in the silent tops of the trees, in the more silent depths
of the water. It sent out at long intervals a sigh or murmur, a
tiny scuttling splash, an owl's hunting cry. And its breath was
still hot and charged with heavy odour, for no dew was falling. . . .
XXI
It was past ten when they came out from the wood. She had wanted
to wait for the moon to rise; not a gold coin of a moon as last
night, but ivory pale, and with a gleaming radiance level over the
fern, and covering the lower boughs, as it were, with a drift of
white blossom.
Through the wicket gate they passed once more beside the moon-
coloured wheat, which seemed of a different world from that world
in which they had walked but an hour and a half ago.
And in Lennan's heart was a feeling such as a man's heart can only
know once in all his life--such humble gratitude, and praise, and
adoration of her who had given him her all. There should be
nothing for her now but joy--like the joy of this last hour. She
should never know less happiness! And kneeling down before her at
the water's edge he kissed her dress, and hands, and feet, which
to-morrow would be his forever.
Then they got into the boat.
The smile of the moonlight glided over each ripple, and reed, and
closing water-lily; over her face, where the hood had fallen back
from her loosened hair; over one hand trailing the water, and the
other touching the flower at her breast; and, just above her
breath, she said:
"Row, my dear love; it's late!"
Dipping his sculls, he shot the skiff into the darkness of the
backwater. . . .
What happened then he never knew, never clearly--in all those after
years. A vision of her white form risen to its feet, bending
forward like a creature caught, that cannot tell which way to
spring; a crashing shock, his head striking something hard!
Nothingness! And then--an awful, awful struggle with roots and
weeds and slime, a desperate agony of groping in that pitchy
blackness, among tree-stumps, in dead water that seemed to have no
bottom--he and that other, who had leaped at them in the dark with
his boat, like a murdering beast; a nightmare search more horrible
than words could tell, till in a patch of moonlight on the bank
they laid her, who for all their efforts never stirred. . . .
There she lay all white, and they two crouched at her head and
feet--like dark creatures of the woods and waters over that which
with their hunting they had slain.
How long they stayed there, not once looking at each other, not
once speaking, not once ceasing to touch with their hands that dead
thing--he never knew. How long in the summer night, with its
moonlight and its shadows quivering round them, and the night wind
talking in the reeds!
And then the most enduring of all sentient things had moved in him
again; so that he once more felt. . . . Never again to see those
eyes that had loved him with their light! Never again to kiss her
lips! Frozen--like moonlight to the earth, with the flower still
clinging at her breast. Thrown out on the bank like a plucked
water-lily! Dead? No, no! Not dead! Alive in the night--alive
to him--somewhere! Not on this dim bank, in this hideous
backwater, with that dark dumb creature who had destroyed her! Out
there on the river--in the wood of their happiness--somewhere
alive! . . . And, staggering up past Cramier, who never moved, he
got into his boat, and like one demented pulled out into the
stream.
But once there in the tide, he fell huddled forward, motionless
above his oars. . . .
And the moonlight flooded his dark skiff drifting down. And the
moonlight effaced the ripples on the water that had stolen away her
spirit. Her spirit mingled now with the white beauty and the
shadows, for ever part of the stillness and the passion of a summer
night; hovering, floating, listening to the rustle of the reeds,
and the whispering of the woods; one with the endless dream--that
spirit passing out, as all might wish to pass, in the hour of
happiness.
PART III
AUTUMN
I
When on that November night Lennan stole to the open door of his
dressing-room, and stood watching his wife asleep, Fate still
waited for an answer.
A low fire was burning--one of those fires that throw faint shadows
everywhere, and once and again glow so that some object shines for
a moment, some shape is clearly seen. The curtains were not quite
drawn, and a plane-tree branch with leaves still hanging, which had
kept them company all the fifteen years they had lived there, was
moving darkly in the wind, now touching the glass with a frail tap,
as though asking of him, who had been roaming in that wind so many
hours, to let it in. Unfailing comrades--London plane-trees!
He had not dared hope that Sylvia would be asleep. It was merciful
that she was, whichever way the issue went--that issue so cruel.
Her face was turned towards the fire, and one hand rested beneath
her cheek. So she often slept. Even when life seemed all at sea,
its landmarks lost, one still did what was customary. Poor tender-
hearted thing--she had not slept since he told her, forty-eight
hours, that seemed such years, ago! With her flaxen hair, and her
touching candour, even in sleep, she looked like a girl lying
there, not so greatly changed from what she had been that summer of
Cicely's marriage down at Hayle. Her face had not grown old in all
those twenty-eight years. There had been till now no special
reason why it should. Thought, strong feeling, suffering, those
were what changed faces; Sylvia had never thought very deeply,
never suffered much, till now. And was it for him, who had been
careful of her--very careful on the whole, despite man's
selfishness, despite her never having understood the depths of him--
was it for him of all people to hurt her so, to stamp her face
with sorrow, perhaps destroy her utterly?
He crept a little farther in and sat down in the arm-chair beyond
the fire. What memories a fire gathered into it, with its flaky
ashes, its little leaf-like flames, and that quiet glow and
flicker! What tale of passions! How like to a fire was a man's
heart! The first young fitful leapings, the sudden, fierce,
mastering heat, the long, steady sober burning, and then--that last
flaming-up, that clutch back at its own vanished youth, the final
eager flight of flame, before the ashes wintered it to nothing!
Visions and memories he saw down in the fire, as only can be seen
when a man's heart, by the agony of long struggle, has been
stripped of skin, and quivers at every touch. Love! A strange
haphazard thing was love--so spun between ecstacy and torture! A
thing insidious, irresponsible, desperate. A flying sweetness,
more poignant than anything on earth, more dark in origin and
destiny. A thing without reason or coherence. A man's love-life--
what say had he in the ebb and flow of it? No more than in the
flights of autumn birds, swooping down, alighting here and there,
passing on. The loves one left behind--even in a life by no means
vagabond in love, as men's lives went! The love that thought the
Tyrol skies would fall if he were not first with a certain lady.
The love whose star had caught in the hair of Sylvia, now lying
there asleep. A so-called love--that half-glamorous, yet sordid
little meal of pleasure, which youth, however sensitive, must eat,
it seems, some time or other with some young light of love--a
glimpse of life that beforehand had seemed much and had meant
little, save to leave him disillusioned with himself and sorry for
his partner. And then the love that he could not, even after
twenty years, bear to remember; that all-devouring summer passion,
which in one night had gained all and lost all terribly, leaving on
his soul a scar that could never be quite healed, leaving his
spirit always a little lonely, haunted by the sense of what might
have been. Of his share in that night of tragedy--that 'terrible
accident on the river'--no one had ever dreamed. And then the long
despair which had seemed the last death of love had slowly passed,
and yet another love had been born--or rather born again, pale,
sober, but quite real; the fresh springing-up of a feeling long
forgotten, of that protective devotion of his boyhood. He still
remembered the expression on Sylvia's face when he passed her by
chance in Oxford Street, soon after he came back from his four
years of exile in the East and Rome--that look, eager, yet
reproachful, then stoically ironic, as if saying: 'Oh, no! after
forgetting me four years and more--you can't remember me now!' And
when he spoke, the still more touching pleasure in her face. Then
uncertain months, with a feeling of what the end would be; and then
their marriage. Happy enough--gentle, not very vivid, nor
spiritually very intimate--his work always secretly as remote from
her as when she had thought to please him by putting jessamine
stars on the heads of his beasts. A quiet successful union, not
meaning, he had thought, so very much to him nor so very much to
her--until forty-eight hours ago he told her; and she had shrunk,
and wilted, and gone all to pieces. And what was it he had told
her?
A long story--that!
Sitting there by the fire, with nothing yet decided, he could see
it all from the start, with its devilish, delicate intricacy, its
subtle slow enchantment spinning itself out of him, out of his own
state of mind and body, rather than out of the spell cast over him,
as though a sort of fatal force, long dormant, were working up
again to burst into dark flower. . . .
II
Yes, it had begun within him over a year ago, with a queer unhappy
restlessness, a feeling that life was slipping, ebbing away within
reach of him, and his arms never stretched out to arrest it. It
had begun with a sort of long craving, stilled only when he was
working hard--a craving for he knew not what, an ache which was
worst whenever the wind was soft.
They said that about forty-five was a perilous age for a man--
especially for an artist. All the autumn of last year he had felt
this vague misery rather badly. It had left him alone most of
December and January, while he was working so hard at his group of
lions; but the moment that was finished it had gripped him hard
again. In those last days of January he well remembered wandering
about in the parks day after day, trying to get away from it. Mild
weather, with a scent in the wind! With what avidity he had
watched children playing, the premature buds on the bushes,
anything, everything young--with what an ache, too, he had been
conscious of innumerable lives being lived round him, and loves
loved, and he outside, unable to know, to grasp, to gather them;
and all the time the sands of his hourglass running out! A most
absurd and unreasonable feeling for a man with everything he
wanted, with work that he loved, quite enough money, and a wife so
good as Sylvia--a feeling that no Englishman of forty-six, in
excellent health, ought for a moment to have been troubled with. A
feeling such as, indeed, no Englishman ever admitted having--so
that there was not even, as yet, a Society for its suppression.
For what was this disquiet feeling, but the sense that he had had
his day, would never again know the stir and fearful joy of falling
in love, but only just hanker after what was past and gone! Could
anything be more reprehensible in a married man?
It was--yes--the last day of January, when, returning from one of
those restless rambles in Hyde Park, he met Dromore. Queer to
recognize a man hardly seen since school-days. Yet unmistakably,
Johnny Dromore, sauntering along the rails of Piccadilly on the
Green Park side, with that slightly rolling gait of his thin,
horseman's legs, his dandified hat a little to one side, those
strange, chaffing, goggling eyes, that look, as if making a
perpetual bet. Yes--the very same teasing, now moody, now
reckless, always astute Johnny Dromore, with a good heart beneath
an outside that seemed ashamed of it. Truly to have shared a room
at school--to have been at College together, were links
mysteriously indestructible.
"Mark Lennan! By gum! haven't seen you for ages. Not since you
turned out a full-blown--what d'you call it? Awfully glad to meet
you, old chap!" Here was the past indeed, long vanished in feeling
and thought and all; and Lennan's head buzzed, trying to find some
common interest with this hunting, racing man-about-town.
Johnny Dromore come to life again--he whom the Machine had stamped
with astute simplicity by the time he was twenty-two, and for ever
after left untouched in thought and feeling--Johnny Dromore, who
would never pass beyond the philosophy that all was queer and
freakish which had not to do with horses, women, wine, cigars,
jokes, good-heartedness, and that perpetual bet; Johnny Dromore,
who, somewhere in him, had a pocket of depth, a streak of hunger,
that was not just Johnny Dromore.
How queer was the sound of that jerky talk!
"You ever see old Fookes now? Been racin' at all? You live in
Town? Remember good old Blenker?" And then silence, and then
another spurt: "Ever go down to 'Bambury's?' Ever go racin'? . . .
Come on up to my 'digs.' You've got nothin' to do." No persuading
Johnny Dromore that a 'what d'you call it' could have anything to
do. "Come on, old chap. I've got the hump. It's this damned east
wind."
Well he remembered it, when they shared a room at 'Bambury's'--that
hump of Johnny Dromore's, after some reckless spree or bout of
teasing.
And down that narrow bye-street of Piccadilly he had gone, and up
into those 'digs' on the first floor, with their little dark hall,
their Van Beers' drawing and Vanity Fair cartoons, and prints of
racehorses, and of the old Nightgown Steeplechase; with the big
chairs, and all the paraphernalia of Race Guides and race-glasses,
fox-masks and stags'-horns, and hunting-whips. And yet, something
that from the first moment struck him as not quite in keeping,
foreign to the picture--a little jumble of books, a vase of
flowers, a grey kitten.
"Sit down, old chap. What'll you drink?"
Sunk into the recesses of a marvellous chair, with huge arms of
tawny leather, he listened and spoke drowsily. 'Bambury's,'
Oxford, Gordy's clubs--dear old Gordy, gone now!--things long
passed by; they seemed all round him once again. And yet, always
that vague sense, threading this resurrection, threading the smoke
of their cigars, and Johnny Dromore's clipped talk--of something
that did not quite belong. Might it be, perhaps, that sepia
drawing--above the 'Tantalus' on the oak sideboard at the far end--
of a woman's face gazing out into the room? Mysteriously unlike
everything else, except the flowers, and this kitten that was
pushing its furry little head against his hand. Odd how a single
thing sometimes took possession of a room, however remote in
spirit! It seemed to reach like a shadow over Dromore's
outstretched limbs, and weathered, long-nosed face, behind his huge
cigar; over the queer, solemn, chaffing eyes, with something
brooding in the depths of them.
"Ever get the hump? Bally awful, isn't it? It's getting old.
We're bally old, you know, Lenny!" Ah! No one had called him
'Lenny' for twenty years. And it was true; they were unmentionably
old.
"When a fellow begins to feel old, you know, it's time he went
broke--or something; doesn't bear sittin' down and lookin' at.
Come out to 'Monte' with me!"
'Monte!' That old wound, never quite healed, started throbbing at
the word, so that he could hardly speak his: "No, I don't care for
'Monte.'"
And, at once, he saw Dromore's eyes probing, questioning:
"You married?"
"Yes."
"Never thought of you as married!"
So Dromore did think of him. Queer! He never thought of Johnny
Dromore.
"Winter's bally awful, when you're not huntin'. You've changed a
lot; should hardly have known you. Last time I saw you, you'd just
come back from Rome or somewhere. What's it like bein' a--a
sculptor? Saw something of yours once. Ever do things of horses?"
Yes; he had done a 'relief' of ponies only last year.
"You do women, too, I s'pose?"
"Not often."
The eyes goggled slightly. Quaint, that unholy interest! Just
like boys, the Johnny Dromores--would never grow up, no matter how
life treated them. If Dromore spoke out his soul, as he used to
speak it out at 'Bambury's,' he would say: 'You get a pull there;
you have a bally good time, I expect.' That was the way it took
them; just a converse manifestation of the very same feeling
towards Art that the pious Philistines had, with their deploring
eyebrows and their 'peril to the soul.' Babes all! Not a
glimmering of what Art meant--of its effort, and its yearnings!
"You make money at it?"
"Oh, yes."
Again that appreciative goggle, as who should say: 'Ho! there's
more in this than I thought!'
A long silence, then, in the dusk with the violet glimmer from
outside the windows, the fire flickering in front of them, the grey
kitten purring against his neck, the smoke of their cigars going
up, and such a strange, dozing sense of rest, as he had not known
for many days. And then--something, someone at the door, over by
the sideboard! And Dromore speaking in a queer voice:
"Come in, Nell! D'you know my daughter?"
A hand took Lennan's, a hand that seemed to waver between the
aplomb of a woman of the world, and a child's impulsive warmth.
And a voice, young, clipped, clear, said:
"How d'you do? She's rather sweet, isn't she--my kitten?"
Then Dromore turned the light up. A figure fairly tall, in a grey
riding-habit, stupendously well cut; a face not quite so round as a
child's nor so shaped as a woman's, blushing slightly, very calm;
crinkly light-brown hair tied back with a black ribbon under a neat
hat; and eyes like those eyes of Gainsborough's 'Perdita'--slow,
grey, mesmeric, with long lashes curling up, eyes that draw things
to them, still innocent.
And just on the point of saying: "I thought you'd stepped out of
that picture"--he saw Dromore's face, and mumbled instead:
"So it's YOUR kitten?"
"Yes; she goes to everybody. Do you like Persians? She's all fur
really. Feel!"
Entering with his fingers the recesses of the kitten, he said:
"Cats without fur are queer."
"Have you seen one without fur?"
"Oh, yes! In my profession we have to go below fur--I'm a
sculptor."
"That must be awfully interesting."
What a woman of the world! But what a child, too! And now he
could see that the face in the sepia drawing was older altogether--
lips not so full, look not so innocent, cheeks not so round, and
something sad and desperate about it--a face that life had rudely
touched. But the same eyes it had--and what charm, for all its
disillusionment, its air of a history! Then he noticed, fastened
to the frame, on a thin rod, a dust-coloured curtain, drawn to one
side. The self-possessed young voice was saying:
"Would you mind if I showed you my drawings? It would be awfully
good of you. You could tell me about them." And with dismay he
saw her open a portfolio. While he scrutinized those schoolgirl
drawings, he could feel her looking at him, as animals do when they
are making up their minds whether or no to like you; then she came
and stood so close that her arm pressed his. He redoubled his
efforts to find something good about the drawings. But in truth
there was nothing good. And if, in other matters, he could lie
well enough to save people's feelings, where Art was concerned he
never could; so he merely said:
"You haven't been taught, you see."
"Will you teach me?"
But before he could answer, she was already effacing that naive
question in her most grown-up manner.
"Of course I oughtn't to ask. It would bore you awfully."
After that he vaguely remembered Dromore's asking if he ever rode
in the Row; and those eyes of hers following him about; and her
hand giving his another childish squeeze. Then he was on his way
again down the dimly-lighted stairs, past an interminable array of
Vanity Fair cartoons, out into the east wind.
III
Crossing the Green Park on his way home, was he more, or less,
restless? Difficult to say. A little flattered, certainly, a
little warmed; yet irritated, as always when he came into contact
with people to whom the world of Art was such an amusing unreality.
The notion of trying to show that child how to draw--that feather-
pate, with her riding and her kitten; and her 'Perdita' eyes!
Quaint, how she had at once made friends with him! He was a little
different, perhaps, from what she was accustomed to. And how
daintily she spoke! A strange, attractive, almost lovely child!
Certainly not more than seventeen--and--Johnny Dromore's daughter!
The wind was bitter, the lamps bright among the naked trees.
Beautiful always--London at night, even in January, even in an east
wind, with a beauty he never tired of. Its great, dark, chiselled
shapes, its gleaming lights, like droves of flying stars come to
earth; and all warmed by the beat and stir of innumerable lives--
those lives that he ached so to know and to be part of.
He told Sylvia of his encounter. Dromore! The name struck her.
She had an old Irish song, 'The Castle of Dromore,' with a queer,
haunting refrain.
It froze hard all the week, and he began a life-size group of their
two sheep-dogs. Then a thaw set in with that first south-west
wind, which brings each February a feeling of Spring such as is
never again recaptured, and men's senses, like sleepy bees in the
sun, go roving. It awakened in him more violently than ever the
thirst to be living, knowing, loving--the craving for something
new. Not this, of course, took him back to Dromore's rooms; oh,
no! just friendliness, since he had not even told his old room-mate
where he lived, or said that his wife would be glad to make his
acquaintance, if he cared to come round. For Johnny Dromore had
assuredly not seemed too happy, under all his hard-bitten air.
Yes! it was but friendly to go again.
Dromore was seated in his long arm-chair, a cigar between his lips,
a pencil in his hand, a Ruff's Guide on his knee; beside him was a
large green book. There was a festive air about him, very
different from his spasmodic gloom of the other day; and he
murmured without rising:
"Halo, old man!--glad to see you. Take a pew. Look here!
Agapemone--which d'you think I ought to put her to--San Diavolo or
Ponte Canet?--not more than four crosses of St. Paul. Goin' to get
a real good one from her this time!"
He, who had never heard these sainted names, answered:
"Oh! Ponte Canet, without doubt. But if you're working I'll come
in another time."
"Lord! no! Have a smoke. I'll just finish lookin' out their
blood--and take a pull."
And so Lennan sat down to watch those researches, wreathed in cigar
smoke and punctuated by muttered expletives. They were as sacred
and absorbing, no doubt, as his own efforts to create in clay; for
before Dromore's inner vision was the perfect racehorse--he, too,
was creating. Here was no mere dodge for making money, but a
process hallowed by the peculiar sensation felt when one rubbed the
palms of the hands together, the sensation that accompanied all
creative achievement. Once only Dromore paused to turn his head
and say:
"Bally hard, gettin' a taproot right!"
Real Art! How well an artist knew that desperate search after the
point of balance, the central rivet that must be found before a
form would come to life. . . . And he noted that to-day there was
no kitten, no flowers, no sense at all of an extraneous presence--
even the picture was curtained. Had the girl been just a dream--a
fancy conjured up by his craving after youth?
Then he saw that Dromore had dropped the large green book, and was
standing before the fire.
"Nell took to you the other day. But you always were a lady's man.
Remember the girl at Coaster's?"
Coaster's tea-shop, where he would go every afternoon that he had
money, just for the pleasure of looking shyly at a face. Something
beautiful to look at--nothing more! Johnny Dromore would no better
understand that now than when they were at 'Bambury's.' Not the
smallest good even trying to explain! He looked up at the goggling
eyes; he heard the bantering voice:
"I say--you ARE goin' grey. We're bally old, Lenny! A fellow gets
old when he marries."
And he answered:
"By the way, I never knew that YOU had been."
From Dromore's face the chaffing look went, like a candle-flame
blown out; and a coppery flush spread over it. For some seconds he
did not speak, then, jerking his head towards the picture, he
muttered gruffly:
"Never had the chance of marrying, there; Nell's 'outside.'"
A sort of anger leaped in Lennan; why should Dromore speak that
word as if he were ashamed of his own daughter? Just like his
sort--none so hidebound as men-about-town! Flotsam on the tide of
other men's opinions; poor devils adrift, without the one true
anchorage of their own real feelings! And doubtful whether Dromore
would be pleased, or think him gushing, or even distrustful of his
morality, he said:
"As for that, it would only make any decent man or woman nicer to
her. When is she going to let me teach her drawing?"
Dromore crossed the room, drew back the curtain of the picture, and
in a muffled voice, said:
"My God, Lenny! Life's unfair. Nell's coming killed her mother.
I'd rather it had been me--bar chaff! Women have no luck."
Lennan got up from his comfortable chair. For, startled out of the
past, the memory of that summer night, when yet another woman had
no luck, was flooding his heart with its black, inextinguishable
grief. He said quietly:
"The past IS past, old man."
Dromore drew the curtain again across the picture, and came back to
the fire. And for a full minute he stared into it.
"What am I to do with Nell? She's growing up."
"What have you done with her so far?"
"She's been at school. In the summer she goes to Ireland--I've got
a bit of an old place there. She'll be eighteen in July. I shall
have to introduce her to women, and all that. It's the devil!
How? Who?"
Lennan could only murmur: "My wife, for one."
He took his leave soon after. Johnny Dromore! Bizarre guardian
for that child! Queer life she must have of it, in that bachelor's
den, surrounded by Ruff's Guides! What would become of her?
Caught up by some young spark about town; married to him, no doubt--
her father would see to the thoroughness of that, his standard of
respectability was evidently high! And after--go the way, maybe,
of her mother--that poor thing in the picture with the alluring,
desperate face. Well! It was no business of his!
IV
No business of his! The merest sense of comradeship, then, took
him once more to Dromore's after that disclosure, to prove that the
word 'outside' had no significance save in his friend's own fancy;
to assure him again that Sylvia would be very glad to welcome the
child at any time she liked to come.
When he had told her of that little matter of Nell's birth, she had
been silent a long minute, looking in his face, and then had said:
"Poor child! I wonder if SHE knows! People are so unkind, even
nowadays!" He could not himself think of anyone who would pay
attention to such a thing, except to be kinder to the girl; but in
such matters Sylvia was the better judge, in closer touch with
general thought. She met people that he did not--and of a more
normal species.
It was rather late when he got to Dromore's diggings on that third
visit.
"Mr. Dromore, sir," the man said--he had one of those strictly
confidential faces bestowed by an all-wise Providence on servants
in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly--"Mr. Dromore, sir, is not in.
But he will be almost sure to be in to dress. Miss Nell is in,
sir."
And there she was, sitting at the table, pasting photographs into
an album--lonely young creature in that abode of male middle-age!
Lennan stood, unheard, gazing at the back of her head, with its
thick crinkly-brown hair tied back on her dark-red frock. And, to
the confidential man's soft:
"Mr. Lennan, miss," he added a softer: "May I come in?"
She put her hand into his with intense composure.
"Oh, yes, do! if you don't mind the mess I'm making;" and, with a
little squeeze of the tips of his fingers, added: "Would it bore
you to see my photographs?"
And down they sat together before the photographs--snapshots of
people with guns or fishing-rods, little groups of schoolgirls,
kittens, Dromore and herself on horseback, and several of a young
man with a broad, daring, rather good-looking face. "That's
Oliver--Oliver Dromore--Dad's first cousin once removed. Rather
nice, isn't he? Do you like his expression?"
Lennan did not know. Not her second cousin; her father's first
cousin once removed! And again there leaped in him that
unreasoning flame of indignant pity.
"And how about drawing? You haven't come to be taught yet."
She went almost as red as her frock.
"I thought you were only being polite. I oughtn't to have asked.
Of course, I want to awfully--only I know it'll bore you."
"It won't at all."
She looked up at that. What peculiar languorous eyes they were!
"Shall I come to-morrow, then?"
"Any day you like, between half-past twelve and one."
"Where?"
He took out a card.
"Mark Lennan--yes--I like your name. I liked it the other day.
It's awfully nice!"
What was in a name that she should like him because of it? His
fame as a sculptor--such as it was--could have nothing to do with
that, for she would certainly not know of it. Ah! but there was a
lot in a name--for children. In his childhood what fascination
there had been in the words macaroon, and Spaniard, and Carinola,
and Aldebaran, and Mr. McCrae. For quite a week the whole world
had been Mr. McCrae--a most ordinary friend of Gordy's.
By whatever fascination moved, she talked freely enough now--of her
school; of riding and motoring--she seemed to love going very fast;
about Newmarket--which was 'perfect'; and theatres--plays of the
type that Johnny Dromore might be expected to approve; these
together with 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear' were all she had seen.
Never was a girl so untouched by thought, or Art--yet not stupid,
having, seemingly, a certain natural good taste; only, nothing,
evidently, had come her way. How could it--'Johnny Dromore duce,
et auspice Johnny Dromore!' She had been taken, indeed, to the
National Gallery while at school. And Lennan had a vision of eight
or ten young maidens trailing round at the skirts of one old
maiden, admiring Landseer's dogs, giggling faintly at Botticelli's
angels, gaping, rustling, chattering like young birds in a
shrubbery.
But with all her surroundings, this child of Johnny Dromoredom was
as yet more innocent than cultured girls of the same age. If those
grey, mesmeric eyes of hers followed him about, they did so
frankly, unconsciously. There was no minx in her, so far.
An hour went by, and Dromore did not come. And the loneliness of
this young creature in her incongruous abode began telling on
Lennan's equanimity.
What did she do in the evenings?
"Sometimes I go to the theatre with Dad, generally I stay at home."
"And then?"
"Oh! I just read, or talk French."
"What? To yourself?"
"Yes, or to Oliver sometimes, when he comes in."
So Oliver came in!
"How long have you known Oliver?"
"Oh! ever since I was a child."
He wanted to say: And how long is that? But managed to refrain,
and got up to go instead. She caught his sleeve and said:
"You're not to go!" Saying that she looked as a dog will, going to
bite in fun, her upper lip shortened above her small white teeth
set fast on her lower lip, and her chin thrust a little forward. A
glimpse of a wilful spirit! But as soon as he had smiled, and
murmured:
"Ah! but I must, you see!" she at once regained her manners, only
saying rather mournfully: "You don't call me by my name. Don't you
like it?"
"Nell?"
"Yes. It's really Eleanor, of course. DON'T you like it?"
If he had detested the name, he could only have answered: "Very
much."
"I'm awfully glad! Good-bye."
When he got out into the street, he felt terribly like a man who,
instead of having had his sleeve touched, has had his heart plucked
at. And that warm, bewildered feeling lasted him all the way home.
Changing for dinner, he looked at himself with unwonted attention.
Yes, his dark hair was still thick, but going distinctly grey;
there were very many lines about his eyes, too, and those eyes,
still eager when they smiled, were particularly deepset, as if life
had forced them back. His cheekbones were almost 'bopsies' now,
and his cheeks very thin and dark, and his jaw looked too set and
bony below the almost black moustache. Altogether a face that life
had worn a good deal, with nothing for a child to take a fancy to
and make friends with, that he could see.
Sylvia came in while he was thus taking stock of himself, bringing
a freshly-opened flask of eau-de-Cologne. She was always bringing
him something--never was anyone so sweet in those ways. In that
grey, low-cut frock, her white, still prettiness and pale-gold
hair, so little touched by Time, only just fell short of real
beauty for lack of a spice of depth and of incisiveness, just as
her spirit lacked he knew not what of poignancy. He would not for
the world have let her know that he ever felt that lack. If a man
could not hide little rifts in the lute from one so good and humble
and affectionate, he was not fit to live.
She sang 'The Castle of Dromore' again that night with its queer
haunting lilt. And when she had gone up, and he was smoking over
the fire, the girl in her dark-red frock seemed to come, and sit
opposite with her eyes fixed on his, just as she had been sitting
while they talked. Dark red had suited her! Suited the look on
her face when she said:
"You're not to go!" Odd, indeed, if she had not some devil in her,
with that parentage!
V
Next day they had summoned him from the studio to see a peculiar
phenomenon--Johnny Dromore, very well groomed, talking to Sylvia
with unnatural suavity, and carefully masking the goggle in his
eyes! Mrs. Lennan ride? Ah! Too busy, of course. Helped Mark
with his--er--No! Really! Read a lot, no doubt? Never had any
time for readin' himself--awful bore not having time to read! And
Sylvia listening and smiling, very still and soft.
What had Dromore come for? To spy out the land, discover why
Lennan and his wife thought nothing of the word 'outside'--whether,
in fact, their household was respectable. . . . A man must always
look twice at 'what-d'you-call-ems,' even if they have shared his
room at school! . . . To his credit, of course, to be so careful
of his daughter, at the expense of time owed to the creation of the
perfect racehorse! On the whole he seemed to be coming to the
conclusion that they might be useful to Nell in the uncomfortable
time at hand when she would have to go about; seemed even to be
falling under the spell of Sylvia's transparent goodness--
abandoning his habitual vigilance against being scored off in
life's perpetual bet; parting with his armour of chaff. Almost a
relief, indeed, once out of Sylvia's presence, to see that
familiar, unholy curiosity creeping back into his eyes, as though
they were hoping against parental hope to find something--er--
amusing somewhere about that mysterious Mecca of good times--a
'what-d'you-call-it's' studio. Delicious to watch the conflict
between relief and disappointment. Alas! no model--not even a
statue without clothes; nothing but portrait heads, casts of
animals, and such-like sobrieties--absolutely nothing that could
bring a blush to the cheek of the young person, or a glow to the
eyes of a Johnny Dromore.
With what curious silence he walked round and round the group of
sheep-dogs, inquiring into them with that long crinkled nose of
his! With what curious suddenness, he said: "Damned good! You
wouldn't do me one of Nell on horseback?" With what dubious
watchfulness he listened to the answer:
"I might, perhaps, do a statuette of her; if I did, you should have
a cast."
Did he think that in some way he was being outmanoeuvered? For he
remained some seconds in a sort of trance before muttering, as
though clinching a bet:
"Done! And if you want to ride with her to get the hang of it, I
can always mount you."
When he had gone, Lennan remained staring at his unfinished sheep-
dogs in the gathering dusk. Again that sense of irritation at
contact with something strange, hostile, uncomprehending! Why let
these Dromores into his life like this? He shut the studio, and
went back to the drawing-room. Sylvia was sitting on the fender,
gazing at the fire, and she edged along so as to rest against his
knees. The light from a candle on her writing-table was shining on
her hair, her cheek, and chin, that years had so little altered. A
pretty picture she made, with just that candle flame, swaying
there, burning slowly, surely down the pale wax--candle flame, of
all lifeless things most living, most like a spirit, so bland and
vague, one would hardly have known it was fire at all. A drift of
wind blew it this way and that: he got up to shut the window, and
as he came back; Sylvia said:
"I like Mr. Dromore. I think he's nicer than he looks."
"He's asked me to make a statuette of his daughter on horseback."
"And will you?"
"I don't know."
"If she's really so pretty, you'd better."
"Pretty's hardly the word--but she's not ordinary."
She turned round, and looked up at him, and instinctively he felt
that something difficult to answer was coming next.
"Mark."
"Yes."
"I wanted to ask you: Are you really happy nowadays?"
"Of course. Why not?"
What else to be said? To speak of those feelings of the last few
months--those feelings so ridiculous to anyone who had them not--
would only disturb her horribly.
And having received her answer, Sylvia turned back to the fire,
resting silently against his knees. . . .
Three days later the sheep-dogs suddenly abandoned the pose into
which he had lured them with such difficulty, and made for the
studio door. There in the street was Nell Dromore, mounted on a
narrow little black horse with a white star, a white hoof, and
devilish little goat's ears, pricked, and very close together at
the tips.
"Dad said I had better ride round and show you Magpie. He's not
very good at standing still. Are those your dogs? What darlings!"
She had slipped her knee already from the pummel, and slid down;
the sheep-dogs were instantly on their hind-feet, propping
themselves against her waist. Lennan held the black horse--a
bizarre little beast, all fire and whipcord, with a skin like
satin, liquid eyes, very straight hocks, and a thin bang-tail
reaching down to them. The little creature had none of those
commonplace good looks so discouraging to artists.
He had forgotten its rider, till she looked up from the dogs, and
said: "Do you like him? It IS nice of you to be going to do us."
When she had ridden away, looking back until she turned the corner,
he tried to lure the two dogs once more to their pose. But they
would sit no more, going continually to the door, listening and
sniffing; and everything felt disturbed and out of gear.
That same afternoon at Sylvia's suggestion he went with her to call
on the Dromores.
While they were being ushered in he heard a man's voice rather
high-pitched speaking in some language not his own; then the girl:
"No, no, Oliver. 'Dans l'amour il y a toujours un qui aime, et
l'autre qui se laisse aimer.'"
She was sitting in her father's chair, and on the window-sill they
saw a young man lolling, who rose and stood stock-still, with an
almost insolent expression on his broad, good-looking face. Lennan
scrutinized him with interest--about twenty-four he might be,
rather dandified, clean-shaved, with crisp dark hair and wide-set
hazel eyes, and, as in his photograph, a curious look of daring.
His voice, when he vouchsafed a greeting, was rather high and not
unpleasant, with a touch of lazy drawl.
They stayed but a few minutes, and going down those dimly lighted
stairs again, Sylvia remarked:
"How prettily she said good-bye--as if she were putting up her face
to be kissed! I think she's lovely. So does that young man. They
go well together."
Rather abruptly Lennan answered:
"Ah! I suppose they do."
VI
She came to them often after that, sometimes alone, twice with
Johnny Dromore, sometimes with young Oliver, who, under Sylvia's
spell, soon lost his stand-off air. And the statuette was begun.
Then came Spring in earnest, and that real business of life--the
racing of horses 'on the flat,' when Johnny Dromore's genius was no
longer hampered by the illegitimate risks of 'jumpin'.' He came to
dine with them the day before the first Newmarket meeting. He had
a soft spot for Sylvia, always saying to Lennan as he went away:
"Charmin' woman--your wife!" She, too, had a soft spot for him,
having fathomed the utter helplessness of this worldling's wisdom,
and thinking him pathetic.
After he was gone that evening, she said:
"Ought we to have Nell to stay with us while you're finishing her?
She must be very lonely now her father's so much away."
It was like Sylvia to think of that; but would it be pleasure or
vexation to have in the house this child with her quaint grown-
upness, her confiding ways, and those 'Perdita' eyes? In truth he
did not know.
She came to them with touching alacrity--very like a dog, who, left
at home when the family goes for a holiday, takes at once to those
who make much of it.
And she was no trouble, too well accustomed to amuse herself; and
always quaint to watch, with her continual changes from child to
woman of the world. A new sensation, this--of a young creature in
the house. Both he and Sylvia had wanted children, without luck.
Twice illness had stood in the way. Was it, perhaps, just that
little lack in her--that lack of poignancy, which had prevented her
from becoming a mother? An only child herself, she had no nieces
or nephews; Cicely's boys had always been at school, and now were
out in the world. Yes, a new sensation, and one in which Lennan's
restless feelings seemed to merge and vanish.
Outside the hours when Nell sat to him, he purposely saw but little
of her, leaving her to nestle under Sylvia's wing; and this she
did, as if she never wanted to come out. Thus he preserved his
amusement at her quaint warmths, and quainter calmness, his
aesthetic pleasure in watching her, whose strange, half-hypnotized,
half-hypnotic gaze, had a sort of dreamy and pathetic lovingness,
as if she were brimful of affections that had no outlet.
Every morning after 'sitting' she would stay an hour bent over her
own drawing, which made practically no progress; and he would often
catch her following his movements with those great eyes of hers,
while the sheep-dogs would lie perfectly still at her feet,
blinking horribly--such was her attraction. His birds also, a
jackdaw and an owl, who had the run of the studio, tolerated her as
they tolerated no other female, save the housekeeper. The jackdaw
would perch on her and peck her dress; but the owl merely engaged
her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which never ended in victory for
either.
Now that she was with them, Oliver Dromore began to haunt the
house, coming at all hours, on very transparent excuses. She
behaved to him with extreme capriciousness, sometimes hardly
speaking, sometimes treating him like a brother; and in spite of
all his nonchalance, the poor youth would just sit glowering, or
gazing out his adoration, according to her mood.
One of these July evenings Lennan remembered beyond all others. He
had come, after a hard day's work, out from his studio into the
courtyard garden to smoke a cigarette and feel the sun on his cheek
before it sank behind the wall. A piano-organ far away was
grinding out a waltz; and on an hydrangea tub, under the drawing-
room window, he sat down to listen. Nothing was visible from
there, save just the square patch of a quite blue sky, and one soft
plume of smoke from his own kitchen chimney; nothing audible save
that tune, and the never-ending street murmur. Twice birds flew
across--starlings. It was very peaceful, and his thoughts went
floating like the smoke of his cigarette, to meet who-knew-what
other thoughts--for thoughts, no doubt, had little swift lives of
their own; desired, found their mates, and, lightly blending, sent
forth offspring. Why not? All things were possible in this
wonder-house of a world. Even that waltz tune, floating away,
would find some melody to wed, and twine with, and produce a fresh
chord that might float in turn to catch the hum of a gnat or fly,
and breed again. Queer--how everything sought to entwine with
something else! On one of the pinkish blooms of the hydrangea he
noted a bee--of all things, in this hidden-away garden of tiles and
gravel and plants in tubs! The little furry, lonely thing was
drowsily clinging there, as if it had forgotten what it had come
for--seduced, maybe, like himself, from labour by these last rays
of the sun. Its wings, close-furled, were glistening; its eyes
seemed closed. And the piano-organ played on, a tune of yearning,
waiting, yearning. . . .
Then, through the window above his head, he heard Oliver Dromore--a
voice one could always tell, pitched high, with its slight drawl--
pleading, very softly at first, then insistent, imperious; and
suddenly Nell's answering voice:
"I won't, Oliver! I won't! I won't!"
He rose to go out of earshot. Then a door slammed, and he saw her
at the window above him, her waist on a level with his head;
flushed, with her grey eyes ominously bright, her full lips parted.
And he said:
"What is it, Nell?"
She leaned down and caught his hand; her touch was fiery hot.
"He kissed me! I won't let him--I won't kiss him!"
Through his head went a medley of sayings to soothe children that
are hurt; but he felt unsteady, unlike himself. And suddenly she
knelt, and put her hot forehead against his lips.
It was as if she had really been a little child, wanting the place
kissed to make it well.
VII
After that strange outburst, Lennan considered long whether he
should speak to Oliver. But what could he say, from what
standpoint say it, and--with that feeling? Or should he speak to
Dromore? Not very easy to speak on such a subject to one off whose
turf all spiritual matters were so permanently warned. Nor somehow
could he bring himself to tell Sylvia; it would be like violating a
confidence to speak of the child's outburst and that quivering
moment, when she had kneeled and put her hot forehead to his lips
for comfort. Such a disclosure was for Nell herself to make, if
she so wished.
And then young Oliver solved the difficulty by coming to the studio
himself next day. He entered with 'Dromore' composure, very well
groomed, in a silk hat, a cut-away black coat and charming lemon-
coloured gloves; what, indeed, the youth did, besides belonging to
the Yeomanry and hunting all the winter, seemed known only to
himself. He made no excuse for interrupting Lennan, and for some
time sat silently smoking his cigarette, and pulling the ears of
the dogs. And Lennan worked on, waiting. There was always
something attractive to him in this young man's broad, good-looking
face, with its crisp dark hair, and half-insolent good humour, now
so clouded.
At last Oliver got up, and went over to the unfinished 'Girl on the
Magpie Horse.' Turning to it so that his face could not be seen,
he said:
"You and Mrs. Lennan have been awfully kind to me; I behaved rather
like a cad yesterday. I thought I'd better tell you. I want to
marry Nell, you know."
Lennan was glad that the young man's face was so religiously
averted. He let his hands come to anchor on what he was working at
before he answered: "She's only a child, Oliver;" and then,
watching his fingers making an inept movement with the clay, was
astonished at himself.
"She'll be eighteen this month," he heard Oliver say. "If she once
gets out--amongst people--I don't know what I shall do. Old
Johnny's no good to look after her."
The young man's face was very red; he was forgetting to hide it
now. Then it went white, and he said through clenched teeth: "She
sends me mad! I don't know how not to--If I don't get her, I
shall shoot myself. I shall, you know--I'm that sort. It's her
eyes. They draw you right out of yourself--and leave you--" And
from his gloved hand the smoked-out cigarette-end fell to the
floor. "They say her mother was like that. Poor old Johnny!
D'you think I've got a chance, Mr. Lennan? I don't mean now, this
minute; I know she's too young."
Lennan forced himself to answer.
"I dare say, my dear fellow, I dare say. Have you talked with my
wife?"
Oliver shook his head.
"She's so good--I don't think she'd quite understand my sort of
feeling."
A queer little smile came up on Lennan's lips.
"Ah, well!" he said, "you must give the child time. Perhaps when
she comes back from Ireland, after the summer."
The young man answered moodily:
"Yes. I've got the run of that, you know. And I shan't be able to
keep away." He took up his hat. "I suppose I oughtn't to have
come and bored you about this, but Nell thinks such a lot of you;
and, you being different to most people--I thought you wouldn't
mind." He turned again at the door. "It wasn't gas what I said
just now--about not getting her. Fellows say that sort of thing,
but I mean it."
He put on that shining hat and went.
And Lennan stood, staring at the statuette. So! Passion broke
down even the defences of Dromoredom. Passion! Strange hearts it
chose to bloom in!
'Being different to most people--I thought you wouldn't mind'! How
had this youth known that Sylvia would not understand passion so
out of hand as this? And what had made it clear that he (Lennan)
would? Was there, then, something in his face? There must be!
Even Johnny Dromore--most reticent of creatures--had confided to
him that one hour of his astute existence, when the wind had swept
him out to sea!
Yes! And that statuette would never be any good, try as he might.
Oliver was right--it was her eyes! How they had smoked--in their
childish anger--if eyes could be said to smoke, and how they had
drawn and pleaded when she put her face to his in her still more
childish entreaty! If they were like this now, what would they be
when the woman in her woke? Just as well not to think of her too
much! Just as well to work, and take heed that he would soon be
forty-seven! Just as well that next week she would be gone to
Ireland!
And the last evening before she went they took her to see "Carmen"
at the Opera. He remembered that she wore a nearly high white
frock, and a dark carnation in the ribbon tying her crinkly hair,
that still hung loose. How wonderfully entranced she sat, drunk on
that opera that he had seen a score of times; now touching his arm,
now Sylvia's, whispering questions: "Who's that?" "What's coming
now?" The Carmen roused her to adoration, but Don Jose was 'too
fat in his funny little coat,' till, in the maddened jealousy of
the last act, he rose superior. Then, quite lost in excitement,
she clutched Lennan's arm; and her gasp, when Carmen at last fell
dead, made all their neighbours jump. Her emotion was far more
moving than that on the stage; he wanted badly to stroke, and
comfort her and say: "There, there, my dear, it's only make-
believe!" And, when it was over, and the excellent murdered lady
and her poor fat little lover appeared before the curtain, finally
forgetting that she was a woman of the world, she started forward
in her seat and clapped, and clapped. Fortunate that Johnny
Dromore was not there to see! But all things coming to an end,
they had to get up and go. And, as they made their way out to the
hall, Lennan felt a hot little finger crooked into his own, as if
she simply must have something to squeeze. He really did not know
what to do with it. She seemed to feel this half-heartedness, soon
letting it go. All the way home in the cab she was silent. With
that same abstraction she ate her sandwiches and drank her
lemonade; took Sylvia's kiss, and, quite a woman of the world once
more, begged that they would not get up to see her off--for she was
to go at seven in the morning, to catch the Irish mail. Then,
holding out her hand to Lennan, she very gravely said:
"Thanks most awfully for taking me to-night. Good-bye!"
He stayed full half an hour at the window, smoking. No street lamp
shone just there, and the night was velvety black above the plane-
trees. At last, with a sigh, he shut up, and went tiptoe-ing
upstairs in darkness. Suddenly in the corridor the white wall
seemed to move at him. A warmth, a fragrance, a sound like a tiny
sigh, and something soft was squeezed into his hand. Then the wall
moved back, and he stood listening--no sound, no anything! But in
his dressing-room he looked at the soft thing in his hand. It was
the carnation from her hair. What had possessed the child to give
him that? Carmen! Ah! Carmen! And gazing at the flower, he held
it away from him with a sort of terror; but its scent arose. And
suddenly he thrust it, all fresh as it was, into a candle-flame,
and held it, burning, writhing, till it blackened to velvet. Then
his heart smote him for so cruel a deed. It was still beautiful,
but its scent was gone. And turning to the window he flung it far
out into the darkness.
VIII
Now that she was gone, it was curious how little they spoke of her,
considering how long she had been with them. And they had from her
but one letter written to Sylvia, very soon after she left, ending:
"Dad sends his best respects, please; and with my love to you and
Mr. Lennan, and all the beasts.--NELL.
"Oliver is coming here next week. We are going to some races."
It was difficult, of course, to speak of her, with that episode of
the flower, too bizarre to be told--the sort of thing Sylvia would
see out of all proportion--as, indeed, any woman might. Yet--what
had it really been, but the uncontrolled impulse of an emotional
child longing to express feelings kindled by the excitement of that
opera? What but a child's feathery warmth, one of those flying
peeps at the mystery of passion that young things take? He could
not give away that pretty foolishness. And because he would not
give it away, he was more than usually affectionate to Sylvia.
They had made no holiday plans, and he eagerly fell in with her
suggestion that they should go down to Hayle. There, if anywhere,
this curious restlessness would leave him. They had not been down
to the old place for many years; indeed, since Gordy's death it was
generally let.
They left London late in August. The day was closing in when they
arrived. Honeysuckle had long been improved away from that station
paling, against which he had stood twenty-nine years ago, watching
the train carrying Anna Stormer away. In the hired fly Sylvia
pressed close to him, and held his hand beneath the ancient dust-
rug. Both felt the same excitement at seeing again this old home.
Not a single soul of the past days would be there now--only the
house and the trees, the owls and the stars; the river, park, and
logan stone! It was dark when they arrived; just their bedroom and
two sitting-rooms had been made ready, with fires burning, though
it was still high summer. The same old execrable Heatherleys
looked down from the black oak panellings. The same scent of
apples and old mice clung here and there about the dark corridors
with their unexpected stairways. It was all curiously unchanged,
as old houses are when they are let furnished.
Once in the night he woke. Through the wide-open, uncurtained
windows the night was simply alive with stars, such swarms of them
swinging and trembling up there; and, far away, rose the
melancholy, velvet-soft hooting of an owl.
Sylvia's voice, close to him, said:
"Mark, that night when your star caught in my hair? Do you
remember?"
Yes, he remembered. And in his drowsy mind just roused from
dreams, there turned and turned the queer nonsensical refrain: "I
never--never--will desert Mr. Micawber. . . ."
A pleasant month that--of reading, and walking with the dogs the
country round, of lying out long hours amongst the boulders or
along the river banks, watching beasts and birds.
The little old green-house temple of his early masterpieces was
still extant, used now to protect watering pots. But no vestige of
impulse towards work came to him down there. He was marking time;
not restless, not bored, just waiting--but for what, he had no
notion. And Sylvia, at any rate, was happy, blooming in these old
haunts, losing her fairness in the sun; even taking again to a
sunbonnet, which made her look extraordinarily young. The trout
that poor old Gordy had so harried were left undisturbed. No gun
was fired; rabbits, pigeons, even the few partridges enjoyed those
first days of autumn unmolested. The bracken and leaves turned
very early, so that the park in the hazy September sunlight had an
almost golden hue. A gentle mellowness reigned over all that
holiday. And from Ireland came no further news, save one picture
postcard with the words: "This is our house.--NELL."
In the last week of September they went back to London. And at
once there began in him again that restless, unreasonable aching--
that sense of being drawn away out of himself; so that he once more
took to walking the Park for hours, over grass already strewn with
leaves, always looking--craving--and for what?
At Dromore's the confidential man did not know when his master
would be back; he had gone to Scotland with Miss Nell after the St.
Leger. Was Lennan disappointed? Not so--relieved, rather. But
his ache was there all the time, feeding on its secrecy and
loneliness, unmentionable feeling that it was. Why had he not
realized long ago that youth was over, passion done with, autumn
upon him? How never grasped the fact that 'Time steals away'?
And, as before, the only refuge was in work. The sheep--dogs and
'The Girl on the Magpie Horse' were finished. He began a fantastic
'relief'--a nymph peering from behind a rock, and a wild-eyed man
creeping, through reeds, towards her. If he could put into the
nymph's face something of this lure of Youth and Life and Love that
was dragging at him, into the man's face the state of his own
heart, it might lay that feeling to rest. Anything to get it out
of himself! And he worked furiously, laboriously, all October,
making no great progress. . . . What could he expect when Life was
all the time knocking with that muffled tapping at his door?
It was on the Tuesday, after the close of the last Newmarket
meeting, and just getting dusk, when Life opened the door and
walked in. She wore a dark-red dress, a new one, and surely her
face--her figure--were very different from what he had remembered!
They had quickened and become poignant. She was no longer a child--
that was at once plain. Cheeks, mouth, neck, waist--all seemed
fined, shaped; the crinkly, light-brown hair was coiled up now
under a velvet cap; only the great grey eyes seemed quite the same.
And at sight of her his heart gave a sort of dive and flight, as if
all its vague and wistful sensations had found their goal.
Then, in sudden agitation, he realized that his last moment with
this girl--now a child no longer--had been a secret moment of
warmth and of emotion; a moment which to her might have meant, in
her might have bred, feelings that he had no inkling of. He tried
to ignore that fighting and diving of his heart, held out his hand,
and murmured:
"Ah, Nell! Back at last! You've grown." Then, with a sensation
of every limb gone weak, he felt her arms round his neck, and
herself pressed against him. There was time for the thought to
flash through him: This is terrible! He gave her a little
convulsive squeeze--could a man do less?--then just managed to push
her gently away, trying with all his might to think: She's a child!
It's nothing more than after Carmen! She doesn't know what I am
feeling! But he was conscious of a mad desire to clutch her to
him. The touch of her had demolished all his vagueness, made
things only too plain, set him on fire.
He said uncertainly:
"Come to the fire, my child, and tell me all about it."
If he did not keep to the notion that she was just a child, his
head would go. Perdita--'the lost one'! A good name for her,
indeed, as she stood there, her eyes shining in the firelight--more
mesmeric than ever they had been! And, to get away from the lure
of those eyes, he bent down and raked the grate, saying:
"Have you seen Sylvia?" But he knew that she had not, even before
she gave that impatient shrug. Then he pulled himself together,
and said:
"What has happened to you, child?"
"I'm not a child."
"No, we've both grown older. I was forty-seven the other day."
She caught his hand--Heavens! how supple she was!--and murmured:
"You're not old a bit; you're quite young." At his wits' end, with
his heart thumping, but still keeping his eyes away from her, he
said:
"Where is Oliver?"
She dropped his hand at that.
"Oliver? I hate him!"
Afraid to trust himself near her, he had begun walking up and down.
And she stood, following him with her gaze--the firelight playing
on her red frock. What extraordinary stillness! What power she
had developed in these few months! Had he let her see that he felt
that power? And had all this come of one little moment in a dark
corridor, of one flower pressed into his hand? Why had he not
spoken to her roughly then--told her she was a romantic little
fool? God knew what thoughts she had been feeding on! But who
could have supposed--who dreamed--? And again he fixed his mind
resolutely on that thought: She's a child--only a child!
"Come!" he said: "tell me all about your time in Ireland?"
"Oh! it was just dull--it's all been dull away from you."
It came out without hesitancy or shame, and he could only murmur:
"Ah! you've missed your drawing!"
"Yes. Can I come to-morrow?"
That was the moment to have said: No! You are a foolish child, and
I an elderly idiot! But he had neither courage nor clearness of
mind enough; nor--the desire. And, without answering, he went
towards the door to turn up the light.
"Oh, no! please don't! It's so nice like this!"
The shadowy room, the bluish dusk painted on all the windows, the
fitful shining of the fire, the pallor and darkness of the dim
casts and bronzes, and that one glowing figure there before the
hearth! And her voice, a little piteous, went on:
"Aren't you glad I'm back? I can't see you properly out there."
He went back into the glow, and she gave a little sigh of
satisfaction. Then her calm young voice said, ever so distinctly:
"Oliver wants me to marry him, and I won't, of course."
He dared not say: Why not? He dared not say anything. It was too
dangerous. And then followed those amazing words: "You know why,
don't you? Of course you do."
It was ridiculous, almost shameful to understand their meaning.
And he stood, staring in front of him, without a word; humility,
dismay, pride, and a sort of mad exultation, all mixed and seething
within him in the queerest pudding of emotion. But all he said
was:
"Come, my child; we're neither of us quite ourselves to-night.
Let's go to the drawing-room."
IX
Back in the darkness and solitude of the studio, when she was gone,
he sat down before the fire, his senses in a whirl. Why was he not
just an ordinary animal of a man that could enjoy what the gods had
sent? It was as if on a November day someone had pulled aside the
sober curtains of the sky and there in a chink had been April
standing--thick white blossom, a purple cloud, a rainbow, grass
vivid green, light flaring from one knew not where, and such a
tingling passion of life on it all as made the heart stand still!
This, then, was the marvellous, enchanting, maddening end of all
that year of restlessness and wanting! This bit of Spring suddenly
given to him in the midst of Autumn. Her lips, her eyes, her hair;
her touching confidence; above all--quite unbelievable--her love.
Not really love perhaps, just childish fancy. But on the wings of
fancy this child would fly far, too far--all wistfulness and warmth
beneath that light veneer of absurd composure.
To live again--to plunge back into youth and beauty--to feel Spring
once more--to lose the sense of all being over, save just the sober
jogtrot of domestic bliss; to know, actually to know, ecstasy
again, in the love of a girl; to rediscover all that youth yearns
for, and feels, and hopes, and dreads, and loves. It was a
prospect to turn the head even of a decent man. . . .
By just closing his eyes he could see her standing there with the
firelight glow on her red frock; could feel again that marvellous
thrill when she pressed herself against him in the half-innocent,
seducing moment when she first came in; could feel again her eyes
drawing--drawing him! She was a witch, a grey-eyed, brown-haired
witch--even unto her love of red. She had the witch's power of
lighting fever in the veins. And he simply wondered at himself,
that he had not, as she stood there in the firelight, knelt, and
put his arms round her and pressed his face against her waist. Why
had he not? But he did not want to think; the moment thought began
he knew he must be torn this way and that, tossed here and there
between reason and desire, pity and passion. Every sense struggled
to keep him wrapped in the warmth and intoxication of this
discovery that he, in the full of Autumn, had awakened love in
Spring. It was amazing that she could have this feeling; yet there
was no mistake. Her manner to Sylvia just now had been almost
dangerously changed; there had been a queer cold impatience in her
look, frightening from one who but three months ago had been so
affectionate. And, going away, she had whispered, with that old
trembling-up at him, as if offering to be kissed: "I may come,
mayn't I? And don't be angry with me, please; I can't help it." A
monstrous thing at his age to let a young girl love him--compromise
her future! A monstrous thing by all the canons of virtue and
gentility! And yet--what future?--with that nature--those eyes--
that origin--with that father, and that home? But he would not--
simply must not think!
Nevertheless, he showed the signs of thought, and badly; for after
dinner Sylvia, putting her hand on his forehead, said:
"You're working too hard, Mark. You don't go out enough."
He held those fingers fast. Sylvia! No, indeed he must not think!
But he took advantage of her words, and said that he would go out
and get some air.
He walked at a great pace--to keep thought away--till he reached
the river close to Westminster, and, moved by sudden impulse,
seeking perhaps an antidote, turned down into that little street
under the big Wren church, where he had never been since the summer
night when he lost what was then more to him than life. There SHE
had lived; there was the house--those windows which he had stolen
past and gazed at with such distress and longing. Who lived there
now? Once more he seemed to see that face out of the past, the
dark hair, and dark soft eyes, and sweet gravity; and it did not
reproach him. For this new feeling was not a love like that had
been. Only once could a man feel the love that passed all things,
the love before which the world was but a spark in a draught of
wind; the love that, whatever dishonour, grief, and unrest it might
come through, alone had in it the heart of peace and joy and
honour. Fate had torn that love from him, nipped it off as a sharp
wind nips off a perfect flower. This new feeling was but a fever,
a passionate fancy, a grasping once more at Youth and Warmth. Ah,
well! but it was real enough! And, in one of those moments when a
man stands outside himself, seems to be lifted away and see his own
life twirling, Lennan had a vision of a shadow driven here and
there; a straw going round and round; a midge in the grip of a mad
wind. Where was the home of this mighty secret feeling that sprang
so suddenly out of the dark, and caught you by the throat? Why did
it come now and not then, for this one and not that other? What
did man know of it, save that it made him spin and hover--like a
moth intoxicated by a light, or a bee by some dark sweet flower;
save that it made of him a distraught, humble, eager puppet of its
fancy? Had it not once already driven him even to the edge of
death; and must it now come on him again with its sweet madness,
its drugging scent? What was it? Why was it? Why these
passionate obsessions that could not decently be satisfied? Had
civilization so outstripped man that his nature was cramped into
shoes too small--like the feet of a Chinese woman? What was it?
Why was it?
And faster than ever he walked away.
Pall Mall brought him back to that counterfeit presentment of the
real--reality. There, in St. James's Street, was Johnny Dromore's
Club; and, again moved by impulse, he pushed open its swing door.
No need to ask; for there was Dromore in the hall, on his way from
dinner to the card-room. The glossy tan of hard exercise and good
living lay on his cheeks as thick as clouted cream. His eyes had
the peculiar shine of superabundant vigour; a certain sub-festive
air in face and voice and movements suggested that he was going to
make a night of it. And the sardonic thought flashed through
Lennan: Shall I tell him?
"Hallo, old chap! Awfully glad to see you! What you doin' with
yourself? Workin' hard? How's your wife? You been away? Been
doin' anything great?" And then the question that would have given
him his chance, if he had liked to be so cruel:
"Seen Nell?"
"Yes, she came round this afternoon."
"What d'you think of her? Comin' on nicely, isn't she?"
That old query, half furtive and half proud, as much as to say: 'I
know she's not in the stud-book, but, d--n it, I sired her!' And
then the old sudden gloom, which lasted but a second, and gave way
again to chaff.
Lennan stayed very few minutes. Never had he felt farther from his
old school-chum.
No. Whatever happened, Johnny Dromore must be left out. It was a
position he had earned with his goggling eyes, and his astute
philosophy; from it he should not be disturbed.
He passed along the railings of the Green Park. On the cold air of
this last October night a thin haze hung, and the acrid fragrance
from little bonfires of fallen leaves. What was there about that
scent of burned-leaf smoke that had always moved him so? Symbol of
parting!--that most mournful thing in all the world. For what
would even death be, but for parting? Sweet, long sleep, or new
adventure. But, if a man loved others--to leave them, or be left!
Ah! and it was not death only that brought partings!
He came to the opening of the street where Dromore lived. She
would be there, sitting by the fire in the big chair, playing with
her kitten, thinking, dreaming, and--alone! He passed on at such a
pace that people stared; till, turning the last corner for home, he
ran almost into the arms of Oliver Dromore.
The young man was walking with unaccustomed indecision, his fur
coat open, his opera-hat pushed up on his crisp hair. Dark under
the eyes, he had not the proper gloss of a Dromore at this season
of the year.
"Mr. Lennan! I've just been round to you."
And Lennan answered dazedly:
"Will you come in, or shall I walk your way a bit?"
"I'd rather--out here, if you don't mind."
So in silence they went back into the Square. And Oliver said:
"Let's get over by the rails."
They crossed to the railings of the Square's dark garden, where
nobody was passing. And with every step Lennan's humiliation grew.
There was something false and undignified in walking with this
young man who had once treated him as a father confessor to his
love for Nell. And suddenly he perceived that they had made a
complete circuit of the Square garden without speaking a single
word.
"Yes?" he said.
Oliver turned his face away.
"You remember what I told you in the summer. Well, it's worse now.
I've been going a mucker lately in all sorts of ways to try and get
rid of it. But it's all no good. She's got me!"
And Lennan thought: You're not alone in that! But he kept silence.
His chief dread was of saying something that he would remember
afterwards as the words of Judas.
Then Oliver suddenly burst out:
"Why can't she care? I suppose I'm nothing much, but she's known
me all her life, and she used to like me. There's something--I
can't make out. Could you do anything for me with her?"
Lennan pointed across the street.
"In every other one of those houses, Oliver," he said, "there's
probably some creature who can't make out why another creature
doesn't care. Passion comes when it will, goes when it will; and
we poor devils have no say in it."
"What do you advise me, then?"
Lennan had an almost overwhelming impulse to turn on his heel and
leave the young man standing there. But he forced himself to look
at his face, which even then had its attraction--perhaps more so
than ever, so pallid and desperate it was. And he said slowly,
staring mentally at every word:
"I'm not up to giving you advice. The only thing I might say is:
One does not press oneself where one isn't wanted; all the same--
who knows? So long as she feels you're there, waiting, she might
turn to you at any moment. The more chivalrous you are, Oliver,
the more patiently you wait, the better chance you have."
Oliver took those words of little comfort without flinching. "I
see," he said. "Thanks! But, my God! it's hard. I never could
wait." And with that epigram on himself, holding out his hand, he
turned away.
Lennan went slowly home, trying to gauge exactly how anyone who
knew all would judge him. It was a little difficult in this affair
to keep a shred of dignity.
Sylvia had not gone up, and he saw her looking at him anxiously.
The one strange comfort in all this was that his feeling for her,
at any rate, had not changed. It seemed even to have deepened--to
be more real to him.
How could he help staying awake that night? How could he help
thinking, then? And long time he lay, staring at the dark.
As if thinking were any good for fever in the veins!
X
Passion never plays the game. It, at all events, is free from
self-consciousness, and pride; from dignity, nerves, scruples,
cant, moralities; from hypocrisies, and wisdom, and fears for
pocket, and position in this world and the next. Well did the old
painters limn it as an arrow or a wind! If it had not been as
swift and darting, Earth must long ago have drifted through space
untenanted--to let. . . .
After that fevered night Lennan went to his studio at the usual
hour and naturally did not do a stroke of work. He was even
obliged to send away his model. The fellow had been his
hairdresser, but, getting ill, and falling on dark days, one
morning had come to the studio, to ask with manifest shame if his
head were any good. After having tested his capacity for standing
still, and giving him some introductions, Lennan had noted him
down: "Five feet nine, good hair, lean face, something tortured and
pathetic. Give him a turn if possible." The turn had come, and
the poor man was posing in a painful attitude, talking, whenever
permitted, of the way things had treated him, and the delights of
cutting hair. This morning he took his departure with the simple
pleasure of one fully paid for services not rendered.
And so, walking up and down, up and down, the sculptor waited for
Nell's knock. What would happen now? Thinking had made nothing
clear. Here was offered what every warm-blooded man whose Spring
is past desires--youth and beauty, and in that youth a renewal of
his own; what all men save hypocrites and Englishmen would even
admit that they desired. And it was offered to one who had neither
religious nor moral scruples, as they are commonly understood. In
theory he could accept. In practice he did not as yet know what he
could do. One thing only he had discovered during the night's
reflections: That those who scouted belief in the principle of
Liberty made no greater mistake than to suppose that Liberty was
dangerous because it made a man a libertine. To those with any
decency, the creed of Freedom was--of all--the most enchaining.
Easy enough to break chains imposed by others, fling his cap over
the windmill, and cry for the moment at least: I am unfettered,
free! Hard, indeed, to say the same to his own unfettered Self!
Yes, his own Self was in the judgment-seat; by his own verdict and
decision he must abide. And though he ached for the sight of her,
and his will seemed paralyzed--many times already he had thought:
It won't do! God help me!
Then twelve o'clock had come, and she had not. Would 'The Girl on
the Magpie Horse' be all he would see of her to-day--that
unsatisfying work, so cold, and devoid of witchery? Better have
tried to paint her--with a red flower in her hair, a pout on her
lips, and her eyes fey, or languorous. Goya could have painted
her!
And then, just as he had given her up, she came.
After taking one look at his face, she slipped in ever so quietly,
like a very good child. . . . Marvellous the instinct and finesse
of the young when they are women! . . . Not a vestige in her of
yesterday's seductive power; not a sign that there had been a
yesterday at all--just confiding, like a daughter. Sitting there,
telling him about Ireland, showing him the little batch of drawings
she had done while she was away. Had she brought them because she
knew they would make him feel sorry for her? What could have been
less dangerous, more appealing to the protective and paternal side
of him than she was that morning; as if she only wanted what her
father and her home could not give her--only wanted to be a sort of
daughter to him!
She went away demurely, as she had come, refusing to stay to lunch,
manifestly avoiding Sylvia. Only then he realized that she must
have taken alarm from the look of strain on his face, been afraid
that he would send her away; only then perceived that, with her
appeal to his protection, she had been binding him closer, making
it harder for him to break away and hurt her. And the fevered
aching began again--worse than ever--the moment he lost sight of
her. And more than ever he felt in the grip of something beyond
his power to fight against; something that, however he swerved, and
backed, and broke away, would close in on him, find means to bind
him again hand and foot.
In the afternoon Dromore's confidential man brought him a note.
The fellow, with his cast-down eyes, and his well-parted hair,
seemed to Lennan to be saying: "Yes, sir--it is quite natural that
you should take the note out of eyeshot, sir--BUT I KNOW;
fortunately, there is no necessity for alarm--I am strictly
confidential."
And this was what the note contained:
"You promised to ride with me once--you DID promise, and you never
have. Do please ride with me to-morrow; then you will get what you
want for the statuette instead of being so cross with it. You can
have Dad's horse--he has gone to Newmarket again, and I'm so
lonely. Please--to-morrow, at half-past two--starting from here.
--NELL."
To hesitate in view of those confidential eyes was not possible; it
must be 'Yes' or 'No'; and if 'No,' it would only mean that she
would come in the morning instead. So he said:
"Just say 'All right!'"
"Very good, sir." Then from the door: "Mr. Dromore will be away
till Saturday, sir."
Now, why had the fellow said that? Curious how this desperate
secret feeling of his own made him see sinister meaning in this
servant, in Oliver's visit of last night--in everything. It was
vile--this suspiciousness! He could feel, almost see, himself
deteriorating already, with this furtive feeling in his soul. It
would soon be written on his face! But what was the use of
troubling? What would come, would--one way or the other.
And suddenly he remembered with a shock that it was the first of
November--Sylvia's birthday! He had never before forgotten it. In
the disturbance of that discovery he was very near to going and
pouring out to her the whole story of his feelings. A charming
birthday present, that would make! Taking his hat, instead, he
dashed round to the nearest flower shop. A Frenchwoman kept it.
What had she?
What did Monsieur desire? "Des oeillets rouges? J'en ai de bien
beaux ce soir."
No--not those. White flowers!
"Une belle azalee?"
Yes, that would do--to be sent at once--at once!
Next door was a jeweller's. He had never really known if Sylvia
cared for jewels, since one day he happened to remark that they
were vulgar. And feeling that he had fallen low indeed, to be
trying to atone with some miserable gewgaw for never having thought
of her all day, because he had been thinking of another, he went in
and bought the only ornament whose ingredients did not make his
gorge rise, two small pear-shaped black pearls, one at each end of
a fine platinum chain. Coming out with it, he noticed over the
street, in a clear sky fast deepening to indigo, the thinnest slip
of a new moon, like a bright swallow, with wings bent back, flying
towards the ground. That meant--fine weather! If it could only be
fine weather in his heart! And in order that the azalea might
arrive first, he walked up and down the Square which he and Oliver
had patrolled the night before.
When he went in, Sylvia was just placing the white azalea in the
window of the drawing-room; and stealing up behind her he clasped
the little necklet round her throat. She turned round and clung to
him. He could feel that she was greatly moved. And remorse
stirred and stirred in him that he was betraying her with his kiss.
But, even while he kissed her, he was hardening his heart.
XI
Next day, still following the lead of her words about fresh air and
his tired look, he told her that he was going to ride, and did not
say with whom. After applauding his resolution, she was silent for
a little--then asked:
"Why don't you ride with Nell?"
He had already so lost his dignity, that he hardly felt disgraced
in answering:
"It might bore her!"
"Oh, no; it wouldn't bore her."
Had she meant anything by that? And feeling as if he were fencing
with his own soul, he said:
"Very well, I will."
He had perceived suddenly that he did not know his wife, having
always till now believed that it was she who did not quite know
him.
If she had not been out at lunch-time, he would have lunched out
himself--afraid of his own face. For feverishness in sick persons
mounts steadily with the approach of a certain hour. And surely
his face, to anyone who could have seen him being conveyed to
Piccadilly, would have suggested a fevered invalid rather than a
healthy, middle-aged sculptor in a cab.
The horses were before the door--the little magpie horse, and a
thoroughbred bay mare, weeded from Dromore's racing stable. Nell,
too, was standing ready, her cheeks very pink, and her eyes very
bright. She did not wait for him to mount her, but took the aid of
the confidential man. What was it that made her look so perfect on
that little horse--shape of limb, or something soft and fiery in
her spirit that the little creature knew of?
They started in silence, but as soon as the sound of hoofs died on
the tan of Rotten Row, she turned to him.
"It was lovely of you to come! I thought you'd be afraid--you ARE
afraid of me."
And Lennan thought: You're right!
"But please don't look like yesterday. To-day's too heavenly. Oh!
I love beautiful days, and I love riding, and--" She broke off and
looked at him. 'Why can't you just be nice to me'--she seemed to
be saying--'and love me as you ought!' That was her power--the
conviction that he did, and ought to love her; that she ought to
and did love him. How simple!
But riding, too, is a simple passion; and simple passions distract
each other. It was a treat to be on that bay mare. Who so to be
trusted to ride the best as Johnny Dromore?
At the far end of the Row she cried out: "Let's go on to Richmond
now," and trotted off into the road, as if she knew she could do
with him what she wished. And, following meekly, he asked himself:
Why? What was there in her to make up to him for all that he was
losing--his power of work, his dignity, his self-respect? What was
there? Just those eyes, and lips, and hair?
And as if she knew what he was thinking, she looked round and
smiled.
So they jogged on over the Bridge and across Barnes Common into
Richmond Park.
But the moment they touched turf, with one look back at him, she
was off. Had she all the time meant to give him this breakneck
chase--or had the loveliness of that Autumn day gone to her head--
blue sky and coppery flames of bracken in the sun, and the beech
leaves and the oak leaves; pure Highland colouring come South for
once.
When in the first burst he had tested the mare's wind, this chase
of her, indeed, was sheer delight. Through glades, over fallen
tree-trunks, in bracken up to the hocks, out across the open, past
a herd of amazed and solemn deer, over rotten ground all rabbit-
burrows, till just as he thought he was up to her, she slipped away
by a quick turn round trees. Mischief incarnate, but something
deeper than mischief, too! He came up with her at last, and leaned
over to seize her rein. With a cut of her whip that missed his
hand by a bare inch, and a wrench, she made him shoot past, wheeled
in her tracks, and was off again like an arrow, back amongst the
trees--lying right forward under the boughs, along the neck of her
little horse. Then out from amongst the trees she shot downhill.
Right down she went, full tilt, and after her went Lennan, lying
back, and expecting the bay mare to come down at every stride.
This was her idea of fun! She switched round at the bottom and
went galloping along the foot of the hill; and he thought: Now I've
got her! She could not break back up that hill, and there was no
other cover for fully half a mile.
Then he saw, not thirty yards in front, an old sandpit; and Great
God! she was going straight at it! And shouting frantically, he
reined his mare outwards. But she only raised her whip, cut the
magpie horse over the flank, and rode right on. He saw that little
demon gather its feet and spring--down, down, saw him pitch,
struggle, sink--and she, flung forward, roll over and lie on her
back. He felt nothing at the moment, only had that fixed vision of
a yellow patch of sand, the blue sky, a rook flying, and her face
upturned. But when he came on her she was on her feet, holding the
bridle of her dazed horse. No sooner did he touch her, than she
sank down. Her eyes were closed, but he could feel that she had
not fainted; and he just held her, and kept pressing his lips to
her eyes and forehead. Suddenly she let her head fall back, and
her lips met his. Then opening her eyes, she said: "I'm not hurt,
only--funny. Has Magpie cut his knees?"
Not quite knowing what he did, he got up to look. The little horse
was cropping at some grass, unharmed--the sand and fern had saved
his knees. And the languid voice behind him said: "It's all right--
you can leave the horses. They'll come when I call."
Now that he knew she was unhurt, he felt angry. Why had she
behaved in this mad way--given him this fearful shock? But in that
same languid voice she went on: "Don't be cross with me. I thought
at first I'd pull up, but then I thought: 'If I jump he can't help
being nice'--so I did--Don't leave off loving me because I'm not
hurt, please."
Terribly moved, he sat down beside her, took her hands in his, and
said:
"Nell! Nell! it's all wrong--it's madness!"
"Why? Don't think about it! I don't want you to think--only to
love me."
"My child, you don't know what love is!"
For answer she only flung her arms round his neck; then, since he
held back from kissing her, let them fall again, and jumped up.
"Very well. But I love you. You can think of THAT--you can't
prevent me!" And without waiting for help, she mounted the magpie
horse from the sand-heap where they had fallen.
Very sober that ride home! The horses, as if ashamed of their mad
chase, were edging close to each other, so that now and then his
arm would touch her shoulder. He asked her once what she had felt
while she was jumping.
"Only to be sure my foot was free. It was rather horrid coming
down, thinking of Magpie's knees;" and touching the little horse's
goat-like ears, she added softly: "Poor dear! He'll be stiff to-
morrow."
She was again only the confiding, rather drowsy, child. Or was it
that the fierceness of those past moments had killed his power of
feeling? An almost dreamy hour--with the sun going down, the lamps
being lighted one by one--and a sort of sweet oblivion over
everything!
At the door, where the groom was waiting, Lennan would have said
good-bye, but she whispered: "Oh, no, please! I AM tired now--you
might help me up a little."
And so, half carrying her, he mounted past the Vanity Fair
cartoons, and through the corridor with the red paper and the Van
Beers' drawings, into the room where he had first seen her.
Once settled back in Dromore's great chair, with the purring kitten
curled up on her neck, she murmured:
"Isn't it nice? You can make tea; and we'll have hot buttered
toast."
And so Lennan stayed, while the confidential man brought tea and
toast; and, never once looking at them, seemed to know all that had
passed, all that might be to come.
Then they were alone again, and, gazing down at her stretched out
in that great chair, Lennan thought:
"Thank God that I'm tired too--body and soul!"
But suddenly she looked up at him, and pointing to the picture that
to-day had no curtain drawn, said:
"Do you think I'm like her? I made Oliver tell me about--myself
this summer. That's why you needn't bother. It doesn't matter
what happens to me, you see. And I don't care--because you can
love me, without feeling bad about it. And you will, won't you?"
Then, with her eyes still on his face, she went on quickly:
"Only we won't talk about that now, will we? It's too cosy. I AM
nice and tired. Do smoke!"
But Lennan's fingers trembled so that he could hardly light that
cigarette. And, watching them, she said: "Please give me one. Dad
doesn't like my smoking."
The virtue of Johnny Dromore! Yes! It would always be by proxy!
And he muttered:
"How do you think he would like to know about this afternoon,
Nell?"
"I don't care." Then peering up through the kitten's fur she
murmured: "Oliver wants me to go to a dance on Saturday--it's for a
charity. Shall I?"
"Of course; why not?"
"Will YOU come?"
"I?"
"Oh, do! You must! It's my very first, you know. I've got an
extra ticket."
And against his will, his judgment--everything, Lennan answered:
"Yes."
She clapped her hands, and the kitten crawled down to her knees.
When he got up to go, she did not move, but just looked up at him;
and how he got away he did not know.
Stopping his cab a little short of home, he ran, for he felt cold
and stiff, and letting himself in with his latch-key, went straight
to the drawing-room. The door was ajar, and Sylvia standing at the
window. He heard her sigh; and his heart smote him. Very still,
and slender, and lonely she looked out there, with the light
shining on her fair hair so that it seemed almost white. Then she
turned and saw him. He noticed her throat working with the effort
she made not to show him anything, and he said:
"Surely you haven't been anxious! Nell had a bit of a fall--
jumping into a sandpit. She's quite mad sometimes. I stayed to
tea with her--just to make sure she wasn't really hurt." But as he
spoke he loathed himself; his voice sounded so false.
She only answered: "It's all right, dear," but he saw that she kept
her eyes--those blue, too true eyes--averted, even when she kissed
him.
And so began another evening and night and morning of fever,
subterfuge, wariness, aching. A round of half-ecstatic torment,
out of which he seemed no more able to break than a man can break
through the walls of a cell. . . .
Though it live but a day in the sun, though it drown in tenebrous
night, the dark flower of passion will have its hour. . . .
XII
To deceive undoubtedly requires a course of training. And,
unversed in this art, Lennan was fast finding it intolerable to
scheme and watch himself, and mislead one who had looked up to him
ever since they were children. Yet, all the time, he had a feeling
that, since he alone knew all the circumstances of his case, he
alone was entitled to blame or to excuse himself. The glib
judgments that moralists would pass upon his conduct could be
nothing but the imbecilities of smug and pharisaic fools--of those
not under this drugging spell--of such as had not blood enough,
perhaps, ever to fall beneath it!
The day after the ride Nell had not come, and he had no word from
her. Was she, then, hurt, after all? She had lain back very
inertly in that chair! And Sylvia never asked if he knew how the
girl was after her fall, nor offered to send round to inquire. Did
she not wish to speak of her, or had she simply--not believed?
When there was so much he could not talk of it seemed hard that
just what happened to be true should be distrusted. She had not
yet, indeed, by a single word suggested that she felt he was
deceiving her, but at heart he knew that she was not deceived. . . .
Those feelers of a woman who loves--can anything check their
delicate apprehension? . . .
Towards evening, the longing to see the girl--a sensation as if she
were calling him to come to her--became almost insupportable; yet,
whatever excuse he gave, he felt that Sylvia would know where he
was going. He sat on one side of the fire, she on the other, and
they both read books; the only strange thing about their reading
was, that neither of them ever turned a leaf. It was 'Don Quixote'
he read, the page which had these words: "Let Altisidora weep or
sing, still I am Dulcinea's and hers alone, dead or alive, dutiful
and unchanged, in spite of all the necromantic powers in the
world." And so the evening passed. When she went up to bed, he
was very near to stealing out, driving up to the Dromores' door,
and inquiring of the confidential man; but the thought of the
confounded fellow's eyes was too much for him, and he held out. He
took up Sylvia's book, De Maupassant's 'Fort comme la mort'--open
at the page where the poor woman finds that her lover has passed
away from her to her own daughter. And as he read, the tears
rolled down his cheek. Sylvia! Sylvia! Were not his old
favourite words from that old favourite book still true? "Dulcinea
del Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world, and I the most
unfortunate knight upon the earth. It were unjust that such
perfection should suffer through my weakness. No, pierce my body
with your lance, knight, and let my life expire with my honour. . . ."
Why could he not wrench this feeling from his heart, banish
this girl from his eyes? Why could he not be wholly true to her
who was and always had been wholly true to him? Horrible--this
will-less, nerveless feeling, this paralysis, as if he were a
puppet moved by a cruel hand. And, as once before, it seemed to
him that the girl was sitting there in Sylvia's chair in her dark
red frock, with her eyes fixed on him. Uncannily vivid--that
impression! . . . A man could not go on long with his head in
Chancery like this, without becoming crazed!
It was growing dusk on Saturday afternoon when he gave up that
intolerable waiting and opened the studio door to go to Nell. It
was now just two days since he had seen or heard of her. She had
spoken of a dance for that very night--of his going to it. She
MUST be ill!
But he had not taken six steps when he saw her coming. She had on
a grey furry scarf, hiding her mouth, making her look much older.
The moment the door was shut she threw it off, went to the hearth,
drew up a little stool, and, holding her hands out to the fire,
said:
"Have you thought about me? Have you thought enough now?"
And he answered: "Yes, I've thought, but I'm no nearer."
"Why? Nobody need ever know you love me. And if they did, I
wouldn't care."
Simple! How simple! Glorious, egoistic youth!
He could not speak of Sylvia to this child--speak of his married
life, hitherto so dignified, so almost sacred. It was impossible.
Then he heard her say:
"It can't be wrong to love YOU! I don't care if it is wrong," and
saw her lips quivering, and her eyes suddenly piteous and scared,
as if for the first time she doubted of the issue. Here was fresh
torment! To watch an unhappy child. And what was the use of even
trying to make clear to her--on the very threshold of life--the
hopeless maze that he was wandering in! What chance of making her
understand the marsh of mud and tangled weeds he must drag through
to reach her. "Nobody need know." So simple! What of his heart
and his wife's heart? And, pointing to his new work--the first man
bewitched by the first nymph--he said:
"Look at this, Nell! That nymph is you; and this man is me." She
got up, and came to look. And while she was gazing he greedily
drank her in. What a strange mixture of innocence and sorcery!
What a wonderful young creature to bring to full knowledge of love
within his arms! And he said: "You had better understand what you
are to me--all that I shall never know again; there it is in that
nymph's face. Oh, no! not YOUR face. And there am I struggling
through slime to reach you--not MY face, of course."
She said: "Poor face!" then covered her own. Was she going to cry,
and torture him still more? But, instead, she only murmured: "But
you HAVE reached me!" swayed towards him, and put her lips to his.
He gave way then. From that too stormy kiss of his she drew back
for a second, then, as if afraid of her own recoil, snuggled close
again. But the instinctive shrinking of innocence had been enough
for Lennan--he dropped his arms and said:
"You must go, child."
Without a word she picked up her fur, put it on, and stood waiting
for him to speak. Then, as he did not, she held out something
white. It was the card for the dance.
"You said you were coming?"
And he nodded. Her eyes and lips smiled at him; she opened the
door, and, still with that slow, happy smile, went out. . . .
Yes, he would be coming; wherever she was, whenever she wanted
him! . . .
His blood on fire, heedless of everything but to rush after
happiness, Lennan spent those hours before the dance. He had told
Sylvia that he would be dining at his Club--a set of rooms owned by
a small coterie of artists in Chelsea. He had taken this
precaution, feeling that he could not sit through dinner opposite
her and then go out to that dance--and Nell! He had spoken of a
guest at the Club, to account for evening dress--another lie, but
what did it matter? He was lying all the time, if not in words, in
action--must lie, indeed, to save her suffering!
He stopped at the Frenchwoman's flower shop.
"Que desirez-vous, monsieur? Des oeillets rouges--j'en ai de bien
beaux, ce soir."
Des oeillets rouges? Yes, those to-night! To this address. No
green with them; no card!
How strange the feeling--with the die once cast for love--of
rushing, of watching his own self being left behind!
In the Brompton Road, outside a little restaurant, a thin musician
was playing on a violin. Ah! and he knew this place; he would go
in there, not to the Club--and the fiddler should have all he had
to spare, for playing those tunes of love. He turned in. He had
not been there since the day before that night on the river, twenty
years ago. Never since; and yet it was not changed. The same
tarnished gilt, and smell of cooking; the same macaroni in the same
tomato sauce; the same Chianti flasks; the same staring, light-blue
walls wreathed with pink flowers. Only the waiter different--
hollow-cheeked, patient, dark of eye. He, too, should be well
tipped! And that poor, over-hatted lady, eating her frugal meal--
to her, at all events, a look of kindness. For all desperate
creatures he must feel, this desperate night! And suddenly he
thought of Oliver. Another desperate one! What should he say to
Oliver at this dance--he, aged forty-seven, coming there without
his wife! Some imbecility, such as: 'Watching the human form
divine in motion,' 'Catching sidelights on Nell for the statuette'--
some cant; it did not matter! The wine was drawn, and he must
drink!
It was still early when he left the restaurant--a dry night, very
calm, not cold. When had he danced last? With Olive Cramier,
before he knew he loved her. Well, THAT memory could not be
broken, for he would not dance to-night! Just watch, sit with the
girl a few minutes, feel her hand cling to his, see her eyes turned
back to him; and--come away! And then--the future! For the wine
was drawn! The leaf of a plane-tree, fluttering down, caught on
his sleeve. Autumn would soon be gone, and after Autumn--only
Winter! She would have done with him long before he came to
Winter. Nature would see to it that Youth called for her, and
carried her away. Nature in her courses! But just to cheat Nature
for a little while! To cheat Nature--what greater happiness!
Here was the place with red-striped awning, carriages driving away,
loiterers watching. He turned in with a beating heart. Was he
before her? How would she come to this first dance? With Oliver
alone? Or had some chaperon been found? To have come because she--
this child so lovely, born 'outside'--might have need of
chaperonage, would have been some comfort to dignity, so wistful,
so lost as his. But, alas! he knew he was only there because he
could not keep away!
Already they were dancing in the hall upstairs; but not she, yet;
and he stood leaning against the wall where she must pass. Lonely
and out of place he felt; as if everyone must know why he was
there. People stared, and he heard a girl ask: "Who's that against
the wall with the hair and dark moustache?"--and her partner
murmuring his answer, and her voice again: "Yes, he looks as if he
were seeing sand and lions." For whom, then, did they take him?
Thank heaven! They were all the usual sort. There would be no one
that he knew. Suppose Johnny Dromore himself came with Nell! He
was to be back on Saturday! What could he say, then? How meet
those doubting, knowing eyes, goggling with the fixed philosophy
that a man has but one use for woman? God! and it would be true!
For a moment he was on the point of getting his coat and hat, and
sneaking away. That would mean not seeing her till Monday; and he
stood his ground. But after to-night there must be no more such
risks--their meetings must be wisely planned, must sink
underground. And then he saw her at the foot of the stairs in a
dress of a shell-pink colour, with one of his flowers in her light-
brown hair and the others tied to the handle of a tiny fan. How
self-possessed she looked, as if this were indeed her native
element--her neck and arms bare, her cheeks a deep soft pink, her
eyes quickly turning here and there. She began mounting the
stairs, and saw him. Was ever anything so lovely as she looked
just then? Behind her he marked Oliver, and a tall girl with red
hair, and another young man. He moved deliberately to the top of
the stairs on the wall side, so that from behind they should not
see her face when she greeted him. She put the little fan with the
flowers to her lips; and, holding out her hand, said, quick and low:
"The fourth, it's a polka; we'll sit out, won't we?"
Then swaying a little, so that her hair and the flower in it almost
touched his face, she passed, and there in her stead stood Oliver.
Lennan had expected one of his old insolent looks, but the young
man's face was eager and quite friendly.
"It was awfully good of you to come, Mr. Lennan. Is Mrs. Lennan--"
And Lennan murmured:
"She wasn't able; she's not quite--" and could have sunk into the
shining floor. Youth with its touching confidence, its eager
trust! This was the way he was fulfilling his duty towards Youth!
When they had passed into the ballroom he went back to his position
against the wall. They were dancing Number Three; his time of
waiting, then, was drawing to a close. From where he stood he
could not see the dancers--no use to watch her go round in someone
else's arms.
Not a true waltz--some French or Spanish pavement song played in
waltz time; bizarre, pathetic, whirling after its own happiness.
That chase for happiness! Well, life, with all its prizes and its
possibilities, had nothing that quite satisfied--save just the
fleeting moments of passion! Nothing else quite poignant enough to
be called pure joy! Or so it seemed to him.
The waltz was over. He could see her now, on a rout seat against
the wall with the other young man, turning her eyes constantly as
if to make sure that he was still standing there. What subtle fuel
was always being added to the fire by that flattery of her
inexplicable adoration--of those eyes that dragged him to her, yet
humbly followed him, too! Five times while she sat there he saw
the red-haired girl or Oliver bring men up; saw youths cast longing
glances; saw girls watching her with cold appraisement, or with a
touching, frank delight. From the moment that she came in, there
had been, in her father's phrase, 'only one in it.' And she could
pass all this by, and still want him. Incredible!
At the first notes of the polka he went to her. It was she who
found their place of refuge--a little alcove behind two palm-
plants. But sitting there, he realized, as never before, that
there was no spiritual communion between him and this child. She
could tell him her troubles or her joys; he could soothe or
sympathize; but never would the gap between their natures and their
ages be crossed. His happiness was only in the sight and touch of
her. But that, God knew, was happiness enough--a feverish, craving
joy, like an overtired man's thirst, growing with the drink on
which it tries to slake itself. Sitting there, in the scent of
those flowers and of some sweet essence in her hair, with her
fingers touching his, and her eyes seeking his, he tried loyally
not to think of himself, to grasp her sensations at this her first
dance, and just help her to enjoyment. But he could not--
paralyzed, made drunk by that insensate longing to take her in his
arms and crush her to him as he had those few hours back. He could
see her expanding like a flower, in all this light, and motion, and
intoxicating admiration round her. What business had he in her
life, with his dark hunger after secret hours; he--a coin worn thin
already--a destroyer of the freshness and the glamour of her youth
and beauty!
Then, holding up the flowers, she said:
"Did you give me these because of the one I gave you?"
"Yes."
"What did you do with that?"
"Burned it."
"Oh! but why?"
"Because you are a witch--and witches must be burned with all their
flowers."
"Are you going to burn me?"
He put his hand on her cool arm.
"Feel! The flames are lighted."
"You may! I don't care!"
She took his hand and laid her cheek against it; yet, to the music,
which had begun again, the tip of her shoe was already beating
time. And he said:
"You ought to be dancing, child."
"Oh, no! Only it's a pity you don't want to."
"Yes! Do you understand that it must all be secret--underground?"
She covered his lips with the fan, and said: "You're not to think;
you're not to think--never! When can I come?"
"I must find the best way. Not to-morrow. Nobody must know, Nell--
for your sake--for hers--nobody!"
She nodded, and repeated with a soft, mysterious wisdom: "Nobody."
And then, aloud: "Here's Oliver! It was awfully good of you to
come. Good-night!"
And as, on Oliver's arm, she left their little refuge, she looked
back.
He lingered--to watch her through this one dance. How they made
all the other couples sink into insignificance, with that something
in them both that was better than mere good looks--that something
not outre or eccentric, but poignant, wayward. They went well
together, those two Dromores--his dark head and her fair head; his
clear, brown, daring eyes, and her grey, languorous, mesmeric eyes.
Ah! Master Oliver was happy now, with her so close to him! It was
not jealousy that Lennan felt. Not quite--one did not feel jealous
of the young; something very deep--pride, sense of proportion, who
knew what--prevented that. She, too, looked happy, as if her soul
were dancing, vibrating with the music and the scent of the
flowers. He waited for her to come round once more, to get for a
last time that flying glance turned back; then found his coat and
hat and went.
XIII
Outside, he walked a few steps, then stood looking back at the
windows of the hall through some trees, the shadows of whose
trunks, in the light of a street lamp, were spilled out along the
ground like the splines of a fan. A church clock struck eleven.
For hours yet she would be there, going round and round in the arms
of Youth! Try as he might he could never recapture for himself the
look that Oliver's face had worn--the look that was the symbol of
so much more than he himself could give her. Why had she come into
his life--to her undoing, and his own? And the bizarre thought
came to him: If she were dead should I really care? Should I not
be almost glad? If she were dead her witchery would be dead, and I
could stand up straight again and look people in the face! What
was this power that played with men, darted into them, twisted
their hearts to rags; this power that had looked through her eyes
when she put her fan, with his flowers, to her lips?
The thrumming of the music ceased; he walked away.
It must have been nearly twelve when he reached home. Now, once
more, would begin the gruesome process of deception--flinching of
soul, and brazening of visage. It would be better when the whole
thievish business was irretrievably begun and ordered in its secret
courses!
There was no light in the drawing-room, save just the glow of the
fire. If only Sylvia might have gone to bed! Then he saw her,
sitting motionless out there by the uncurtained window.
He went over to her, and began his hateful formula:
"I'm afraid you've been lonely. I had to stay rather late. A dull
evening." And, since she did not move or answer, but just sat
there very still and white, he forced himself to go close, bend
down to her, touch her cheek; even to kneel beside her. She looked
round then; her face was quiet enough, but her eyes were strangely
eager. With a pitiful little smile she broke out:
"Oh, Mark! What is it--what is it? Anything is better than this!"
Perhaps it was the smile, perhaps her voice or eyes--but something
gave way in Lennan. Secrecy, precaution went by the board. Bowing
his head against her breast, he poured it all out, while they
clung, clutched together in the half dark like two frightened
children. Only when he had finished did he realize that if she had
pushed him away, refused to let him touch her, it would have been
far less piteous, far easier to bear, than her wan face and her
hands clutching him, and her words: "I never thought--you and I--
oh! Mark--you and I--" The trust in their life together, in
himself, that those words revealed! Yet, not greater than he had
had--still had! She could not understand--he had known that she
could never understand; it was why he had fought so for secrecy,
all through. She was taking it as if she had lost everything; and
in his mind she had lost nothing. This passion, this craving for
Youth and Life, this madness--call it what one would--was something
quite apart, not touching his love and need of her. If she would
only believe that! Over and over he repeated it; over and over
again perceived that she could not take it in. The only thing she
saw was that his love had gone from her to another--though that was
not true! Suddenly she broke out of his arms, pushing him from
her, and cried: "That girl--hateful, horrible, false!" Never had
he seen her look like this, with flaming spots in her white cheeks,
soft lips and chin distorted, blue eyes flaming, breast heaving, as
if each breath were drawn from lungs that received no air. And
then, as quickly, the fire went out of her; she sank down on the
sofa; covering her face with her arms, rocking to and fro. She did
not cry, but a little moan came from her now and then. And each
one of those sounds was to Lennan like the cry of something he was
murdering. At last he went and sat down on the sofa by her and
said:
"Sylvia! Sylvia! Don't! oh! don't!" And she was silent, ceasing
to rock herself; letting him smooth and stroke her. But her face
she kept hidden, and only once she spoke, so low that he could
hardly hear: "I can't--I won't keep you from her." And with the
awful feeling that no words could reach or soothe the wound in that
tender heart, he could only go on stroking and kissing her hands.
It was atrocious--horrible--this that he had done! God knew that
he had not sought it--the thing had come on him. Surely even in
her misery she could see that! Deep down beneath his grief and
self-hatred, he knew, what neither she nor anyone else could know--
that he could not have prevented this feeling, which went back to
days before he ever saw the girl--that no man could have stopped
that feeling in himself. This craving and roving was as much part
of him as his eyes and hands, as overwhelming and natural a longing
as his hunger for work, or his need of the peace that Sylvia gave,
and alone could give him. That was the tragedy--it was all sunk
and rooted in the very nature of a man. Since the girl had come
into their lives he was no more unfaithful to his wife in thought
than he had been before. If only she could look into him, see him
exactly as he was, as, without part or lot in the process, he had
been made--then she would understand, and even might not suffer;
but she could not, and he could never make it plain. And solemnly,
desperately, with a weary feeling of the futility of words, he went
on trying: Could she not see? It was all a thing outside him--a
craving, a chase after beauty and life, after his own youth! At
that word she looked at him:
"And do you think I don't want my youth back?"
He stopped.
For a woman to feel that her beauty--the brightness of her hair and
eyes, the grace and suppleness of her limbs--were slipping from her
and from the man she loved! Was there anything more bitter?--or
any more sacred duty than not to add to that bitterness, not to
push her with suffering into old age, but to help keep the star of
her faith in her charm intact!
Man and woman--they both wanted youth again; she, that she might
give it all to him; he, because it would help him towards
something--new! Just that world of difference!
He got up, and said:
"Come, dear, let's try and sleep."
He had not once said that he could give it up. The words would not
pass his lips, though he knew she must be conscious that he had not
said them, must be longing to hear them. All he had been able to
say was:
"So long as you want me, you shall never lose me" . . . and, "I
will never keep anything from you again."
Up in their room she lay hour after hour in his arms, quite
unresentful, but without life in her, and with eyes that, when his
lips touched them, were always wet.
What a maze was a man's heart, wherein he must lose himself every
minute! What involved and intricate turnings and turnings on
itself; what fugitive replacement of emotion by emotion! What
strife between pities and passions; what longing for peace! . . .
And in his feverish exhaustion, which was almost sleep, Lennan
hardly knew whether it was the thrum of music or Sylvia's moaning
that he heard; her body or Nell's within his arms. . . .
But life had to be lived, a face preserved against the world,
engagements kept. And the nightmare went on for both of them,
under the calm surface of an ordinary Sunday. They were like
people walking at the edge of a high cliff, not knowing from step
to step whether they would fall; or like swimmers struggling for
issue out of a dark whirlpool.
In the afternoon they went together to a concert; it was just
something to do--something that saved them for an hour or two from
the possibility of speaking on the one subject left to them. The
ship had gone down, and they were clutching at anything that for a
moment would help to keep them above water.
In the evening some people came to supper; a writer and two
painters, with their wives. A grim evening--never more so than
when the conversation turned on that perennial theme--the freedom,
spiritual, mental, physical, requisite for those who practise Art.
All the stale arguments were brought forth, and had to be joined in
with unmoved faces. And for all their talk of freedom, Lennan
could see the volte-face his friends would be making, if they only
knew. It was not 'the thing' to seduce young girls--as if,
forsooth, there were freedom in doing only what people thought 'the
thing'! Their cant about the free artist spirit experiencing
everything, would wither the moment it came up against a canon of
'good form,' so that in truth it was no freer than the bourgeois
spirit, with its conventions; or the priest spirit, with its cry of
'Sin!' No, no! To resist--if resistance were possible to this
dragging power--maxims of 'good form,' dogmas of religion and
morality, were no help--nothing was any help, but some feeling
stronger than passion itself. Sylvia's face, forced to smile!--
that, indeed was a reason why they should condemn him! None of
their doctrines about freedom could explain that away--the harm,
the death that came to a man's soul when he made a loving, faithful
creature suffer.
But they were gone at last--with their "Thanks so much!" and their
"Delightful evening!"
And those two were face to face for another night.
He knew that it must begin all over again--inevitable, after the
stab of that wretched argument plunged into their hearts and turned
and turned all the evening.
"I won't, I mustn't keep you starved, and spoil your work. Don't
think of me, Mark! I can bear it!"
And then a breakdown worse than the night before. What genius,
what sheer genius Nature had for torturing her creatures! If
anyone had told him, even so little as a week ago, that he could
have caused such suffering to Sylvia--Sylvia, whom as a child with
wide blue eyes and a blue bow on her flaxen head he had guarded
across fields full of imaginary bulls; Sylvia, in whose hair his
star had caught; Sylvia, who day and night for fifteen years had
been his devoted wife; whom he loved and still admired--he would
have given him the lie direct. It would have seemed incredible,
monstrous, silly. Had all married men and women such things to go
through--was this but a very usual crossing of the desert? Or was
it, once for all, shipwreck? death--unholy, violent death--in a
storm of sand?
Another night of misery, and no answer to that question yet.
He had told her that he would not see Nell again without first
letting her know. So, when morning came, he simply wrote the
words: "Don't come today!"--showed them to Sylvia, and sent them by
a servant to Dromore's.
Hard to describe the bitterness with which he entered his studio
that morning. In all this chaos, what of his work? Could he ever
have peace of mind for it again? Those people last night had
talked of 'inspiration of passion, of experience.' In pleading
with her he had used the words himself. She--poor soul!--had but
repeated them, trying to endure them, to believe them true. And
were they true? Again no answer, or certainly none that he could
give. To have had the waters broken up; to be plunged into
emotion; to feel desperately, instead of stagnating--some day he
might be grateful--who knew? Some day there might be fair country
again beyond this desert, where he could work even better than
before. But just now, as well expect creative work from a
condemned man. It seemed to him that he was equally destroyed
whether he gave Nell up, and with her, once for all, that roving,
seeking instinct, which ought, forsooth, to have been satisfied,
and was not; or whether he took Nell, knowing that in doing so he
was torturing a woman dear to him! That was as far as he could see
to-day. What he would come to see in time God only knew! But:
'Freedom of the Spirit!' That was a phrase of bitter irony indeed!
And, there, with his work all round him, like a man tied hand and
foot, he was swept by such a feeling of exasperated rage as he had
never known. Women! These women! Only let him be free of both,
of all women, and the passions and pities they aroused, so that his
brain and his hands might live and work again! They should not
strangle, they should not destroy him!
Unfortunately, even in his rage, he knew that flight from them both
could never help him. One way or the other the thing would have to
be fought through. If it had been a straight fight even; a clear
issue between passion and pity! But both he loved, and both he
pitied. There was nothing straight and clear about it anywhere; it
was all too deeply rooted in full human nature. And the appalling
sense of rushing ceaselessly from barrier to barrier began really
to affect his brain.
True, he had now and then a lucid interval of a few minutes, when
the ingenious nature of his own torments struck him as supremely
interesting and queer; but this was not precisely a relief, for it
only meant, as in prolonged toothache, that his power of feeling
had for a moment ceased. A very pretty little hell indeed!
All day he had the premonition, amounting to certainty, that Nell
would take alarm at those three words he had sent her, and come in
spite of them. And yet, what else could he have written? Nothing
save what must have alarmed her more, or plunged him deeper. He
had the feeling that she could follow his moods, that her eyes
could see him everywhere, as a cat's eyes can see in darkness.
That feeling had been with him, more or less, ever since the last
evening of October, the evening she came back from her summer--
grown-up. How long ago? Only six days--was it possible? Ah, yes!
She knew when her spell was weakening, when the current wanted, as
it were, renewing. And about six o'clock--dusk already--without
the least surprise, with only a sort of empty quivering, he heard
her knock. And just behind the closed door, as near as he could
get to her, he stood, holding his breath. He had given his word to
Sylvia--of his own accord had given it. Through the thin wood of
the old door he could hear the faint shuffle of her feet on the
pavement, moved a few inches this way and that, as though
supplicating the inexorable silence. He seemed to see her head,
bent a little forward listening. Three times she knocked, and each
time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that seeing-sense of
hers she must know he was there; his very silence would be telling
her--for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless sound.
Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move
away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in
the studio, like a madman.
No sound of her any more! Gone! It was unbearable; and, seizing
his hat, he ran out. Which way? At random he ran towards the
Square. There she was, over by the railings; languidly,
irresolutely moving towards home.
XIV
But now that she was within reach, he wavered; he had given his
word--was he going to break it? Then she turned, and saw him; and
he could not go back. In the biting easterly wind her face looked
small, and pinched, and cold, but her eyes only the larger, the
more full of witchery, as if beseeching him not to be angry, not to
send her away.
"I had to come; I got frightened. Why did you write such a tiny
little note?"
He tried to make his voice sound quiet and ordinary.
"You must be brave, Nell. I have had to tell her."
She clutched at his arm; then drew herself up, and said in her
clear, clipped voice:
"Oh! I suppose she hates me, then!"
"She is terribly unhappy."
They walked a minute, that might have been an hour, without a word;
not round the Square, as he had walked with Oliver, but away from
the house. At last she said in a half-choked voice: "I only want a
little bit of you."
And he answered dully: "In love, there are no little bits--no
standing still."
Then, suddenly, he felt her hand in his, the fingers lacing,
twining restlessly amongst his own; and again the half-choked voice
said:
"But you WILL let me see you sometimes! You must!"
Hardest of all to stand against was this pathetic, clinging,
frightened child. And, not knowing very clearly what he said, he
murmured:
"Yes--yes; it'll be all right. Be brave--you must be brave, Nell.
It'll all come right."
But she only answered:
"No, no! I'm not brave. I shall do something."
Her face looked just as when she had ridden at that gravel pit.
Loving, wild, undisciplined, without resource of any kind--what
might she not do? Why could he not stir without bringing disaster
upon one or other? And between these two, suffering so because of
him, he felt as if he had lost his own existence. In quest of
happiness, he had come to that!
Suddenly she said:
"Oliver asked me again at the dance on Saturday. He said you had
told him to be patient. Did you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was sorry for him."
She let his hand go.
"Perhaps you would like me to marry him."
Very clearly he saw those two going round and round over the
shining floor.
"It would be better, Nell."
She made a little sound--of anger or dismay.
"You don't REALLY want me, then?"
That was his chance. But with her arm touching his, her face so
pale and desperate, and those maddening eyes turned to him, he
could not tell that lie, and answered:
"Yes--I want you, God knows!"
At that a sigh of content escaped her, as if she were saying to
herself: 'If he wants me he will not let me go.' Strange little
tribute to her faith in love and her own youth!
They had come somehow to Pall Mall by now. And scared to find
himself so deep in the hunting-ground of the Dromores, Lennan
turned hastily towards St. James's Park, that they might cross it
in the dark, round to Piccadilly. To be thus slinking out of the
world's sight with the daughter of his old room-mate--of all men in
the world the last perhaps that he should do this to! A nice
treacherous business! But the thing men called honour--what was
it, when her eyes were looking at him and her shoulder touching
his?
Since he had spoken those words, "Yes, I want you," she had been
silent--fearful perhaps to let other words destroy their comfort.
But near the gate by Hyde Park Corner she put her hand again into
his, and again her voice, so clear, said:
"I don't want to hurt anybody, but you WILL let me come sometimes--
you will let me see you--you won't leave me all alone, thinking
that I'll never see you again?"
And once more, without knowing what he answered, Lennan murmured:
"No, no! It'll be all right, dear--it'll all come right. It must--
and shall."
Again her fingers twined amongst his, like a child's. She seemed
to have a wonderful knowledge of the exact thing to say and do to
keep him helpless. And she went on:
"I didn't try to love you--it isn't wrong to love--it wouldn't hurt
her. I only want a little of your love."
A little--always a little! But he was solely bent on comforting
her now. To think of her going home, and sitting lonely,
frightened, and unhappy, all the evening, was dreadful. And
holding her fingers tight, he kept on murmuring words of would-be
comfort.
Then he saw that they were out in Piccadilly. How far dared he go
with her along the railings before he said good-bye? A man was
coming towards them, just where he had met Dromore that first fatal
afternoon nine months ago; a man with a slight lurch in his walk
and a tall, shining hat a little on one side. But thank Heaven!--
it was not Dromore--only one somewhat like him, who in passing
stared sphinx-like at Nell. And Lennan said:
"You must go home now, child; we mustn't be seen together."
For a moment he thought she was going to break down, refuse to
leave him. Then she threw up her head, and for a second stood like
that, quite motionless, looking in his face. Suddenly stripping
off her glove, she thrust her warm, clinging hand into his. Her
lips smiled faintly, tears stood in her eyes; then she drew her
hand away and plunged into the traffic. He saw her turn the corner
of her street and disappear. And with the warmth of that
passionate little hand still stinging his palm, he almost ran
towards Hyde Park.
Taking no heed of direction, he launched himself into its dark
space, deserted in this cold, homeless wind, that had little sound
and no scent, travelling its remorseless road under the grey-black
sky.
The dark firmament and keen cold air suited one who had little need
of aids to emotion--one who had, indeed, but the single wish to get
rid, if he only could, of the terrible sensation in his head, that
bruised, battered, imprisoned feeling of a man who paces his cell--
never, never to get out at either end. Without thought or
intention he drove his legs along; not running, because he knew
that he would have to stop the sooner. Alas! what more comic
spectacle for the eyes of a good citizen than this married man of
middle age, striding for hours over those dry, dark, empty
pastures--hunted by passion and by pity, so that he knew not even
whether he had dined! But no good citizen was abroad of an autumn
night in a bitter easterly wind. The trees were the sole witnesses
of this grim exercise--the trees, resigning to the cold blast their
crinkled leaves that fluttered past him, just a little lighter than
the darkness. Here and there his feet rustled in the drifts,
waiting their turn to serve the little bonfires, whose scent still
clung in the air. A desperate walk, in this heart of London--round
and round, up and down, hour after hour, keeping always in the
dark; not a star in the sky, not a human being spoken to or even
clearly seen, not a bird or beast; just the gleam of the lights far
away, and the hoarse muttering of the traffic! A walk as lonely as
the voyage of the human soul is lonely from birth to death with
nothing to guide it but the flickering glow from its own frail
spirit lighted it knows not where. . . .
And, so tired that he could hardly move his legs, but free at last
of that awful feeling in his head--free for the first time for days
and days--Lennan came out of the Park at the gate where he had gone
in, and walked towards his home, certain that tonight, one way or
the other, it would be decided. . . .
XV
This then--this long trouble of body and of spirit--was what he
remembered, sitting in the armchair beyond his bedroom fire,
watching the glow, and Sylvia sleeping there exhausted, while the
dark plane-tree leaves tap-tapped at the window in the autumn wind;
watching, with the uncanny certainty that, he would not pass the
limits of this night without having made at last a decision that
would not alter. For even conflict wears itself out; even
indecision has this measure set to its miserable powers of torture,
that any issue in the end is better than the hell of indecision
itself. Once or twice in those last days even death had seemed to
him quite tolerable; but now that his head was clear and he had
come to grips, death passed out of his mind like the shadow that it
was. Nothing so simple, extravagant, and vain could serve him.
Other issues had reality; death--none. To leave Sylvia, and take
this young love away; there was reality in that, but it had always
faded as soon as it shaped itself; and now once more it faded. To
put such a public and terrible affront on a tender wife whom he
loved, do her to death, as it were, before the world's eyes--and
then, ever remorseful, grow old while the girl was still young? He
could not. If Sylvia had not loved him, yes; or, even if he had
not loved her; or if, again, though loving him she had stood upon
her rights--in any of those events he might have done it. But to
leave her whom he did love, and who had said to him so generously:
"I will not hamper you--go to her"--would be a black atrocity.
Every memory, from their boy-and-girl lovering to the desperate
clinging of her arms these last two nights--memory with its
innumerable tentacles, the invincible strength of its countless
threads, bound him to her too fast. What then? Must it come,
after all, to giving up the girl? And sitting there, by that warm
fire, he shivered. How desolate, sacrilegious, wasteful to throw
love away; to turn from the most precious of all gifts; to drop and
break that vase! There was not too much love in the world, nor too
much warmth and beauty--not, anyway, for those whose sands were
running out, whose blood would soon be cold.
Could Sylvia not let him keep both her love and the girl's? Could
she not bear that? She had said she could; but her face, her eyes,
her voice gave her the lie, so that every time he heard her his
heart turned sick with pity. This, then, was the real issue.
Could he accept from her such a sacrifice, exact a daily misery,
see her droop and fade beneath it? Could he bear his own happiness
at such a cost? Would it be happiness at all? He got up from the
chair and crept towards her. She looked very fragile sleeping
there! The darkness below her closed eyelids showed cruelly on
that too fair skin; and in her flax-coloured hair he saw what he
had never noticed--a few strands of white. Her softly opened lips,
almost colourless, quivered with her uneven breathing; and now and
again a little feverish shiver passed up as from her heart. All
soft and fragile! Not much life, not much strength; youth and
beauty slipping! To know that he who should be her champion
against age and time would day by day be placing one more mark upon
her face, one more sorrow in her heart! That he should do this--
they both going down the years together!
As he stood there holding his breath, bending to look at her, that
slurring swish of the plane-tree branch, flung against and against
the window by the autumn wind, seemed filling the whole world.
Then her lips moved in one of those little, soft hurrying whispers
that unhappy dreamers utter, the words all blurred with their
wistful rushing.
And he thought: I, who believe in bravery and kindness; I, who hate
cruelty--if I do this cruel thing, what shall I have to live for;
how shall I work; how bear myself? If I do it, I am lost--an
outcast from my own faith--a renegade from all that I believe in.
And, kneeling there close to that face so sad and lonely, that
heart so beaten even in its sleep, he knew that he could not do it--
knew it with sudden certainty, and a curious sense of peace.
Over!--the long struggle--over at last! Youth with youth, summer
to summer, falling leaf with falling leaf! And behind him the fire
flickered, and the plane-tree leaves tap-tapped.
He rose, and crept away stealthily downstairs into the drawing-
room, and through the window at the far end out into the courtyard,
where he had sat that day by the hydrangea, listening to the piano-
organ. Very dark and cold and eerie it was there, and he hurried
across to his studio. There, too, it was cold, and dark, and
eerie, with its ghostly plaster presences, stale scent of
cigarettes, and just one glowing ember of the fire he had left when
he rushed out after Nell--those seven hours ago.
He went first to the bureau, turned up its lamp, and taking out
some sheets of paper, marked on them directions for his various
works; for the statuette of Nell, he noted that it should be taken
with his compliments to Mr. Dromore. He wrote a letter to his
banker directing money to be sent to Rome, and to his solicitor
telling him to let the house. He wrote quickly. If Sylvia woke,
and found him still away, what might she not think? He took a last
sheet. Did it matter what he wrote, what deliberate lie, if it
helped Nell over the first shock?
"DEAR NELL,
"I write this hastily in the early hours, to say that we are called
out to Italy to my only sister, who is very ill. We leave by the
first morning boat, and may be away some time. I will write again.
Don't fret, and God bless you.
"M. L."
He could not see very well as he wrote. Poor, loving, desperate
child! Well, she had youth and strength, and would soon have--
Oliver! And he took yet another sheet.
"DEAR OLIVER,
"My wife and I are obliged to go post-haste to Italy. I watched
you both at the dance the other night. Be very gentle with Nell;
and--good luck to you! But don't say again that I told you to be
patient; it is hardly the way to make her love you.
"M. LENNAN."
That, then, was all--yes, all! He turned out the little lamp, and
groped towards the hearth. But one thing left. To say good-bye!
To her, and Youth, and Passion!--to the only salve for the aching
that Spring and Beauty bring--the aching for the wild, the
passionate, the new, that never quite dies in a man's heart. Ah!
well, sooner or later, all men had to say good-bye to that. All
men--all men!
He crouched down before the hearth. There was no warmth in that
fast-blackening ember, but it still glowed like a dark-red flower.
And while it lived he crouched there, as though it were that to
which he was saying good-bye. And on the door he heard the girl's
ghostly knocking. And beside him--a ghost among the ghostly
presences--she stood. Slowly the glow blackened, till the last
spark had faded out.
Then by the glimmer of the night he found his way back, softly as
he had come, to his bedroom.
Sylvia was still sleeping; and, to watch for her to wake, he sat
down again by the fire, in silence only stirred by the frail tap-
tapping of those autumn leaves, and the little catch in her
breathing now and then. It was less troubled than when he had bent
over her before, as though in her sleep she knew. He must not miss
the moment of her waking, must be beside her before she came to
full consciousness, to say: "There, there! It's all over; we are
going away at once--at once." To be ready to offer that quick
solace, before she had time to plunge back into her sorrow, was an
island in this black sea of night, a single little refuge point for
his bereaved and naked being. Something to do--something fixed,
real, certain. And yet another long hour before her waking, he sat
forward in the chair, with that wistful eagerness, his eyes fixed
on her face, staring through it at some vision, some faint,
glimmering light--far out there beyond--as a traveller watches a
star. . . .
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Dark Flower, by John Galsworthy