RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
"Fond Fancy And Other Stories,"
Selwyn & Blount, London, 1931
"Fond Fancy And Other Stories,"
Selwyn & Blount, London, 1931
THEY said it couldn't be done; and they looked at each other rather glumly. Volnak said:
"Of course you could get a society girl."
But Jadis Casey, with milky coffee-coloured eyes watering behind thick pebble glasses, was not comforted. "Aw, that—a society girl!"
"Well," said Volnak, on the defensive and stuttering with an accent vaguely supposed to be Greek, "something you must have, and quickly you must have it—three, four, you try, and we to the big expense going!"
"There isn't anyone could touch it—not among the old gang," replied Casey, bitterly, pulling at a smooth and robust cigar peculiarly like himself.
"There is Peggy Riveen," suggested Volnak, wistfully.
"Some doll," replied Casey, bitterly. "Don't she show the lipstick and the rouge on a close-up? My God. When did she last have a birthday? Ain't she been on every lay-out in a harem get-up, advertising the kind of cigarette they pay you to smoke and the brand of champagne you give your grandmother the day before she dies? Aw, get a move on."
"I ain't got no thinking left. You the mistake make in this high-throw, uplift film-taking. We ain't got no pure icy Angelinas in this trade."
"You're on the wrong rail again, Volnak. Can the pure icy Angelina stunt! I want just a good, sweet English gentlewoman with a lovely face."
"Help! I tell you a society girl. And you smile."
"I smile. Do you think, Volnak, a society girl looks like a good, sweet English gentlewoman, even with a year's training and five hundred a week to make her smile?"
But Volnak was sullen; he looked reflectively up at a large mezzotint of Lady Blessington by Laurence, which was above the practical desk in the flamboyant office; under this hung forlornly from a rack the first "pulls" of the synopsis of A Noble Lady, the new film of Regency times, which the "Sunbright Film Company" had brought to such perfection in every particular save that of the leading part, which was that of the heroine of the tale, the young, fair, high-born and immaculate Countess of Parthmore.
"You can't even find the face," sighed Casey.
"You might find the face—but it would be earning a fat figure with some other show—or on a tin of toothpaste," said Volnak. "But what for do you stand for the real thing, Casey? Some doll can dress the part, sure, smart enough for the fans in front."
"I gotta artistic conscience," said Casey, doggedly, wiping the weak eyes behind the pebbles. "I gotta find that girl."
Volnak rose wearily.
"Coming down to see the highway scenes shot?" he asked. "Where?"
"Grinton has found a first-class place; kind o' Garden o' Eden, home-sweet-home and kneeling at mother's knee, I heard the angels smile place. Sheep got blue ribbons on, daisies, nice churchyard—moss over everything, houses falling down and you don't get no bathroom. Grinton's God Almighty keen. Gotta rustle down."
"I'm along."
The huge sleek Rolls-Royce, revealing a perfection of scientific elegance, was a source of wonder in King's Lawn, which had never seen anything save an occasional char-a-banc, for the village was quite off any track, beaten or otherwise, being isolated in a little-known part of Somerset. A source of lesser but insistent admiration were the other cars, a small fleet of them that brought the actors who came over every day from the big town to play in the highway scenes of A Noble Lady—scenes that could be taken without the heroine, and for which King's Lawn formed a background that Grinton, the stage manager, described again and again with that poor overworked word, "ideal."
A long street of white-fronted, thatched houses, with gay little gardens and bloomy orchards at the back, sloped down to meadows where the early hay stood breast-high and the lark sang all day, and beyond that to woods and copses full of bluebells and late violets and wild roses.
Casey and Volnak, who really loved their work and were both intelligent him producers and kindly, active men, hastened about in the big blue car, distributing largesse to the villagers to whom they were unintelligible, and making themselves generally extremely popular.
"I'd put Lady Parthmore in this scene," said Grinton, sadly, "if we'd got Lady Parthmore."
He was a nice young Englishman, who was enjoying his job; the exquisite weather and the idyllic scenery were making him feel quite romantic.
"Stepping out of the coach, you know," he added, "on to the village green—and then, again, among those apple blossoms. Something dark, you know, and fine and sparkling—"
"Lead me to her," groaned Casey.
"There must be such girls about," said Grinton, reflectively. "Think of the lots of pretty girls—"
"Aw, don't want no pretty girls," replied Casey, "but you find the sort of thing I do want, and there is a good time coming to you."
"Well," said Grinton, "you never know. Maybe there is someone's ancestral round here with one fair daughter pining 'mid decayed splendour."
Grinton sometimes wrote sub-tides for the screen, and the flavour thereof had crept into his speech.
"Maybe," said Volnak, thoughtfully.
But there wasn't; not even a modern villa residence disturbed the fields, the farms, the orchards, the meadows round King's Lawn.
Grinton wanted a "shot" of the church, and it was considered only civil (the "Sunbright Film" people were always anxious to be civil) to ask the permission of the Vicar.
Casey and Volnak shot along the frequent lanes in the big Rolls-Royce; the vicarage and the church were even more lovely than the village—embowered in sweetness of hawthorn, apple bloom and wine-hued lilac round the little house and a green of dank grass and yew trees round the little church.
"The real thing," said Casey.
"But what would you to live here think of?" asked Volnak. Then words failed him; he gazed dumbly at the solitude.
"It ain't living," replied Casey comfortably, "it is just being part of a bit of mould. And mould don't have no feeling."
The opulent chauffeur's clatter on the tiny door brought out a frightened maid, who blushed and stammered and giggled and finally admitted that Mr. Hawkins was "out," but Miss Hawkins was in.
"It makes you think of figures in a weather clock," said Casey. "Miss Hawkins. Teeth. Ankles. Slab-sided. Count her hairs."
"Must be some comic," agreed Volnak. "But the type is getting scarce. Could we fix her up for a one-reel scream? 'How Miss De Lay missed her last chance?'"
But Casey did not answer; he was gazing fixedly up the vicarage path that was lined with tiny bright blue flowers.
A girl, putting aside the lilacs, had stepped on to this path and was coming towards the gate.
She wore a gown of white spotted muslin with a blue velvet ribbon round the waist that flowed to the hem, and in one hand she held a large cheap straw hat.
"Look!" hissed Casey.
Volnak looked.
The two men clung together in the car.
"Lady Parthmore," they sighed together.
The girl opened the gate and smiled graciously.
"Did you wish to see my father? He is visiting in the village. I am so sorry."
"Miss Hawkins?" said Casey, feebly clutching at his hat.
And Volnak could not say anything.
For there she stood, tall, graceful, with the dark curls and the large dark eyes, the straight profile, the curved lips, the pure complexion and the regal bearing; not above twenty at the most and as fragrant as her own spring flowers.
"I am Harriet Hawkins," she said with her precise remote manner. "Could I help you at all?"
"Would you believe it?" muttered Volnak.
But Casey, being a practical man, did believe the evidence of his own eyes; in the back of his head he was already running over "terms."
"We wanted to photograph the church, Miss Hawkins," he said aloud in his most correct manner. "Charming old place. Perhaps we might wait a little not to disturb you."
But Miss Hawkins said, Oh yes, of course, and invited them both into the garden.
In half an hour Casey with his kind civility had probed for her history, and she, with her beautiful serenity, had given it.
It was incredible, of course—you had known that it must be when you had seen her come along between the blue flowers wearing that muslin dress.
She had never been anywhere; till two years ago she had "helped" nurse an invalid mother (Casey had guessed that), and now she "helped" father in the parish.
The living was very poor, and their holiday was spent at some local seaside place; she "helped" in the house, she made her own clothes, she wrote for the parish magazine, she presided at "teas" and "treats"; there really was, she said, plenty to do and no lack of company, and she quoted four elderly maiden ladies as her "best friends."
Volnak was awestruck.
"Ain't you never heard of no beauty competitions?" he suggested timidly, but it appeared that the vicarage only took in one local weekly newspaper.
"You—you don't know much about films?" gulped Casey.
No, she had never seen a film; but last Christmas they had some wonderful slides in the church room of Jerusalem; the films, she supposed, were something the same.
Casey and Volnak went away smitten into silence; two miles out of the village they stopped the car and began to talk business.
"Say, you're a boob not to have offered her a contract on the nail. Who knows what will come prowling about snapping her up?"
"Stay steady. She ain't been snapped up for twenty years."
"She's a kid. Wait till someone sees her," said Casey shrewdly. "Or wait till she sees herself. She don't know—anything. Sitting there working mats and kettle-holders!"—he became eloquent—"bun fights and school children! She don't know that she's alive—yet. Ain't she glorious? Got the air right, got the walk right—a good looker, too!"
"It's a type you don't get to meet in a hurry," said Volnak with professional zest. "A queenly kid. How are you going to fix it?"
"I'm thinking," replied Casey, who was a fair dealer. "She's worth big money, we don't want no sore feeling when she finds out what she's worth."
That afternoon two exotic-looking men in crêpe de chine shirts and other ultra-expensive clothes sat in the vicarage parlour and talked with the Rev. Septimus Hawkins and his daughter Harriet.
They were flanked and ambushed by chairs and whatnots, ferns and brackets, antimacassars and wool mats; framed photographs and "views" of Venice and Cardiff formed the background.
They drank strong tea out of the kind of Chinese cups you buy at a fancy bazaar, and ate home-made buns with clotted cream.
Mr. Hawkins had the broad-mindedness of extreme candour and simplicity; when Casey had mustered enough plain English to make him understand what he wanted he "saw no objection" to his daughter "being photographed for the play," which Casey had most earnestly impressed on him had a high educational, historical and religious value.
"We just want your daughter to be herself, Mr. Hawkins—we'll show her just what to wear and just what to do. The more often she goes to church and says her prayers the better we'll like it; that is just the atmosphere we want to get across to the public."
Miss Hawkins thought that it would be "nice "; her beautiful serenity was not ruffled.
"Of course she could not be away long, there was so much to do in King's Lawn."
"Just this one film as a try-out," pleaded Casey. "And then, if you like the life, we'll fix up another contract."
Mr. Hawkins was quite excited.
"Two earnest, good men," he remarked when the visitors had gone, "though peculiar in appearance. Is it not wonderful what is being done for people nowadays in the way of moral instruction?"
"I shall rather like to go to London," said Miss Hawkins, dreamily.
"As my parochial duties will not permit me to accompany you, perhaps we could arrange for Miss Widlet to do so."
"But, father, the expense?"
"Surely, my dear, these two gentlemen will be responsible for the expense?" They were.
The contract offered to Miss Hawkins was repelled with frightened nervousness.
It was too much money! Oh, too much!
The expenses of the two ladies and perhaps a small honorarium for his daughter, protested Mr. Hawkins.
So his daughter was engaged for a fifth of the sum Casey had offered, and even then seemed dazed.
Miss Widlet, a red-haired individual of fifty years and a great force of character, literally jumped at the chance, that is to say she really leaped into the air when it was suggested that she should chaperon Harriet to town.
Casey, who accepted her at once as an intellectual equal, tried to make an ally of her.
"You beat it up to town with us and you'll never regret it. This place is only fit to go on a two-a-penny picture postcard—it's no sort of dug-out for a woman like you."
"I agree," said Miss Widlet
"But, say," added Casey, "when I last went to Miss Hawkins there was a young fella hanging around. I guess he is no attraction?"
"None whatever," said Miss Widlet, firmly. "That is the new doctor, a very ordinary young man."
She was re-named Doreen Desmond. Casey said, "I don't stand for those two 'H's,'" and Grinton said people liked a "hint" of Irish.
In silks and lace shawls, in pearls and high combs, in riding-habits and billowing ball dresses, she sailed through A Noble Lady, always with her beautiful serenity, her aloof little smile, her chill little air.
They all agreed that she was "exquisite "; there was really no other word for her. "I'm glad I do it well," was all she said, smiling kindly on their praises.
Casey began to think out half a dozen plots with this lovely figure as the centre.
"But if she don't stay?" suggested Volnak timidly. "There's big firms after her with big money."
"She is a Christian," said Casey. "We found her. She'll stay. She's a nice kid," added the fatherly little man, wiping his eyes behind the thick glasses, "and I'm fond of her—"
"We're all fond of her," sighed Volnak. "She's a little girl I should like to see have a real good time, but, somehow, it don't seem easy. My Sarah, she takes for her the big fancy."
This was Mrs. Volnak. Eastern softness, always in good black and real pearls, overflowing in flesh and kindness, she petted the new star in a soft polyglot and predicted for her a future that would have made an houri in Paradise envious.
"Ain't you the fortunate baby?" she cooed. "Do you ever think of when you were 'way back with them teas and Sunday readings?"
"I do," said Harriet, "and it makes me cry."
"You'll make me cry if you leave the 'Sunbright,'" answered Mrs. Volnak.
"But other people offer very good contracts," put in Miss Widlet with a gleam in her voice.
After the trade show of A Noble Lady had been received with tumultuous approval by the buyers they gave the little girl from the country, who looked like a great lady, a big banquet at the "Resplendant," and there Harriet, silent in full dress of lilac and silver tissue, met Stephen Hope, the young millionaire flying man who was such a hero in so many worlds.
Casey and Volnak watched the young people nervously.
Hope was a nice brown young man with grey eyes, as unspoilt as Harriet herself, and, from the very first, quite tremendously smitten by the stately dark young beauty who was so entirely different from any other "star," film or otherwise.
"This is where she finishes with us," said Volnak gloomily.
But both his wife and Casey were optimistic. It was more fun, they said, acting for the films and being the success Harriet was even than being married to a man like Hope.
And every sensible girl knew it.
Miss Widlet, approached on the subject, would not commit herself; a huge American company was "after" Harriet, and Mr. Hope was really very delightful—and Harriet, darling child, was so very quiet and reserved, such a prudent, careful Little thing. She was no doubt thinking out, as it was her duty to think out, what was the very best thing for her to do at this important stage of her career.
Harriet saw a good deal of Mr. Hope; he took her out in his silver car, he sent her orchids and roses and carnations and boxes of chocolates so gorgeous that you would not know that they were chocolates at all, and finally he asked her to marry him. Harriet told Miss Widlet with no ruffling of her beautiful serenity.
"It means the abandonment of your career," said the elder lady dubiously. She had had her hair shingled and her features rejuvenated and was understudying Jezebel in a vamp film Casey was bringing out. "I should not like your father to know," she had said, "but they say I have a most forceful personality and the right kind of thinness for one of these harem frocks and I like the work.
"There are three contracts to choose from," she added briskly, "and Mr. Hope is quite the best of your countless admirers."
"I wonder what father would advise," said Harriet dreamily, playing with a long string of pearls.
"I shouldn't ask him," replied Miss Widlet. "He is quite happy in King's Lawn—so obviously the right man in the right place."
That evening Stephen Hope called to plead his own cause.
Miss Widlet was in the next room practising sinuous movements before a long glass framed in gilt wreaths of cupids.
"You've got the world at your feet," she heard the lover say. "I've no right to expect you to look at me—"
Miss Widlet remembered how dishonourable it was to eavesdrop and how many maids she had dismissed for this vice, and crept to the crack of the door and listened with both her ears wide open.
In a light that was all amber and opal and rose Harriet sat on a striped yellow couch in a simple shell-pink frock that had cost a hundred guineas; she wore her dark curls in the "period" style of the Regency that she had made fashionable by a thousand photographs, and she listened quite seriously while Stephen Hope talked.
"You don't know how wonderful things can be— there's the Riviera—Egypt—Algiers, yachting—the Alps—England, too, in the autumn, hunting, you'd like that—"
"I'm sure it all sounds very nice," said Harriet when he had talked himself out. "I'll let you know tomorrow."
And when he had gone, reluctantly, leaving a sheaf of white lilac and tuberoses on the couch, Miss Widlet saw Harriet take something from her pearl-sewn bag and kiss it; something small that could not be distinguished in that rosy, amber, opal light.
The next morning Miss Widlet (she called herself Lava Upsilof now, by the way) was lying in bed in a nest of pale blue baby pillows when the maid brought in her breakfast.
There was a note on the tortoise-shell tray:
Dear Miss Widlet,
I am returning home by the 8.15.
Father is beginning to miss me, and I am sadly behind in my parish duties.
I feel sure that you will not wish to accompany me, and I am just going quietly, to avoid any fuss.
With love,
Your sincere friend,
Harriet.
And she had gone, really gone, in the provincial coat and skirt she had travelled to London in, and carrying a small handbag.
Miss Widlet rang up Casey, then rang up Volnak— then collapsed.
Mr. Hawkins himself opened the door to Casey.
The lilacs and roses were over now, but the garden was glad with sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies, and there was a desirable smell of burning leaves.
Casey, nested in a coat lined with curly fur, enquired with trepidation after Miss Hawkins.
"Ah, yes," replied the Vicar, pleasantly. "My daughter and our little maid are down at the schoolrooms preparing the Jumble Sale for this afternoon. She has been much missed in the parish, sir, much missed—but she quite enjoyed her little change in town. The photographs were, I take it, successful?"
"You don't never see no papers, do you?" said Casey, slowly.
"Daily journals? No, my dear sir, we are really far too busy in King's Lawn. Will you come inside and wait?"
"No. I'll get along to that Jumble Sale and see your daughter."
And he tried to think, "Perhaps it's just a stunt to put up her price."
He went to the hideous 1860 schoolroom (the one hideous thing in King's Lawn), and there she was, arranging old boots and mats and chipped vases and elephants of every degree of whiteness with that same regal air, that same beautiful serenity.
The interview was short and disastrous for Casey; he left with that tempting contract unsigned in his pocket and a pile of kettle-holders, tea-cosies and egg-warmers made out of old felt hats and the residue of some miser's string bag, which Harriet had made him purchase.
On the way back he bedewed them with his tears.
"She likes it," he murmured. "She likes it I Would you believe it?"
Miss Widlet was not defeated so easily.
"Nonsense," she said sternly to Casey, "I will go down and bring her back."
She was warmly welcomed at the vicarage, where she stayed, as she had long since disposed of her own house; but she made no progress in moving Harriet's resolution.
"I don't really care for London," said the girl sweetly. "And all those people were funny. Very kind, but I wanted to go home."
That evening Miss Widlet, nosing round for an explanation of a blank mystery, did some more eavesdropping.
In the lovely blue autumn twilight she had seen Harriet and a young man seated on the pedestal of the sundial, and, like the unscrupulous person she was, she went and hid in the adjacent summer-house, after having ascertained that the young man was that very ordinary person, the new doctor.
And this is what she heard.
"Of course, Donald, I don't care to keep all that money. I think it is quite a lot."
"I will invest it for you, darling, and we will leave it untouched, capital and interest. I would much rather we began first on my income."
"So would I," blissfully from Harriet. "It will be more than enough. And so comfortable, too, being near father."
"You were away a long time, Harriet!" reproachfully in the man's voice, "and you never told me any of your adventures."
"Oh," vaguely and disinterestedly, "nothing happened, really; everyone was very kind. Some of my frocks were pretty, but not really good style."
"I saw your picture in the papers," gloomily.
"I couldn't help that," apologised Harriet eagerly, "and no one will know who Doreen Desmond is, will they?"
"I suppose not," admitted the lover reluctantly, "but of course I don't want you to do this kind of thing again."
"Oh no, Donald, of course not! It was all very silly, and I am glad that it is over."
Not a word of her success, of the contracts offered, of the luxury and homage, not a word of Stephen Hope; she was sitting on the sundial base in the moonlight that was slowly silvering the dusk, and looking up at her lover with humble, happy adoration. Just an ordinary young man with wide shoulders and big bands, earning about as much in a year by hard work as she could command in a week.
"If you hadn't come back soon I should have come and fetched you," he said authoritatively, putting his arm round her.
"Oh, Donald darling, when I got your letter with the sprig of rosemary in it I couldn't stay another minute!"
They kissed.
Miss Widlet blushed. For herself. "What is that old woman here for?" asked the young man.
"Oh, she wants me to go back."
"Silly old fool!"
"Oh, darling, she is a dear, really. And she likes being in London and acting for the films."
"Good heavens! Well, poor old thing!"
They kissed again.
"Oh, Donald!" murmured Harriet. "It is good of you to love me!"
Miss Widlet left the summer-house and went indoors to ask the vicar for the trap for the station in the morning.
"You have heard that Donald Ferguson and Harriet are engaged?" beamed Mr. Hawkins. "Such a fortunate match for the child, a really steady, clever, hardworking young man. I tell Harriet she is very lucky. A man in a thousand!"
"Would you believe it!" exclaimed Miss Widlet faintly.
SHE was nearly beautiful, nearly forty, nearly sure of herself; her eyes were almost green, her hair almost titian red—in fine, she was almost a success.
She had achieved gowns in two lines, hats in two curves, complexions in two tints, always the last in lines, curves and tints.
She spent more time and patience over these things than a hermit over his prayers and mortifications, and employed as much shrewdness in paying for them, or avoiding paying for them, as an acute financier in avoiding the law.
Yet, withal, she had that infantile appearance that Nature, in her most ironic moods, will give to the female of the human species; how much safer the world would be if birds of prey had the hawk-like, vulturelike look, and whiffed of carrion instead of peau d'espagne.
She called herself, after much consideration, Avice; she had had husbands, but no one asked after them; their fate was taken for granted; besides, she was a celebrity; she wrote stories, Guy de Maupassant diluted with toilet vinegar, and she lisped lectures in drawing-rooms and the more expensive hotels; it didn't matter what these lectures were about, for she had always concluded before the women had finished admiring her clothes and the men admiring her impudence.
After a season when she had not been photographed quite so often as usual, and when her beauty-parlour bills had begun to mount to an indecent figure, she married Edgar Walsingham, who was at a loss to understand her condescension.
A vice, he declared, was too good to be true, and he did not know how right he was, for he chanced to be a nice man.
He enjoyed indulging A vice; it was like, he said, giving a cat milk to make it purr, only milk wasn't the favourite drink of A vice; he liked hearing people refer to "the beautiful Mrs. Walsingham," only he didn't hear the comments added; people kept those till he was out of sight, for it was generally known that he was a nice man.
A vice rather liked "rummaging" in his beautiful old house. She discovered one or two really lovely "bits." It was astonishing how well these old fragments of the past looked when cleaned up. She even sought in the damp old cellar for neglected lumber. There was talk of puce-coloured lustres that are so fashionable now. Edgar remembered his grandmother talking of puce-coloured lustres; A vice wished to find them; instead, there was nothing discovered but a sword with a rotting scabbard. It was brought upstairs to A vice because the hilt was rather fine and hung with elaborate gilt and tarnished tassels.
Edgar knew nothing about it; it might have belonged to his grandfather, who had been killed in the Crimea. Five generations of them had been soldiers. It might have been older still. Anyhow, it was a horrid symbol of forgotten achievements, for when Avice dragged it from the mouldy case it was eaten away with rust.
"Look at the rust," said Edgar, who somehow found the sight horrible.
"What is rust?" lisped Avice. (Edgar loved this defect. Like many another he did not know that it was due to adenoids.)
"I couldn't say," he said, without much thought, and gazing on her fondly. "Fungus or something— a disease—acids."
"It is rather pretty," reflected Avice. "And how strange that it should be able to eat away steel. Look at the little holes. It is useless, quite ruined, and all through that silly-looking rust! But it is a pretty colour—the rust, I mean."
"It is like your hair," said the infatuated Edgar, "which reminds me of all the metals, gold, silver and copper, and even iron and rust, too—"
The covert glance of Avice hit the mirror; she made a mental note of some stinging comments to be administered to her hairdresser; she had to remember that everyone wasn't in Edgar's state of inanity. And while he sighed over visions of wedded love, she (without sighing) was deep in calculations that had nothing to do with visions of any kind.
The years passed on, according to their usual habit, and Edgar Walsingham, the big, fine, hearty man, lay deadly ill; other people besides the doctors were puzzled by his case; there appeared to be nothing the matter with him, yet he was dying.
Avice was a most devoted wife—devoted to her own interests and her husband's bank account; she seemed decorously grieved about Edgar, but not much surprised; she was writing a book called Soul Mates, and preparing a lecture on "Sex Charm," so she really hadn't much time for a peevish invalid, who seemed also, in some peculiar way, to have lost all his money and all his friends, well, not all, but nearly all, whereas Avice was more admired, more a "celebrity" than ever before; her photograph now appeared in the Press as often as that of any disreputable woman, and if her beauty-parlour bills were high they were justified by their works.
A lively young baronet, très blonde, très jeune, très riche, testified to the handiwork of the beauty-parlours, and the clever brain behind this handiwork; he liked to go about with Avice, he didn't mind if he "trailed" behind; if he heard the comments after the remark "there goes the beautiful Mrs. Walsingham," he didn't mind either, and no one would have cared if he had minded; even those who found him most useful would never have called him a nice man.
Edgar Walsingham lay dying; Avice hovered near with a cup of sweet milk, and he turned his face to the wall.
"You've gnawed me away like the rust gnawed the steel," he muttered. "You remember how pretty it was, small and harmless-seeming?"
"Light-headed," whispered the doctor, searching his notebook for the address of a luncheon engagement "He won't last the day."
The nurse smoothed the bedclothes and slipped a novel from under her apron; Avice crept downstairs to talk to the baronet on the telephone....
She was now quite beautiful, quite forty, quite sure of herself, her eyes were quite green, her hair quite titian red, in fact she was quite a success.
And she had achieved gowns in one line, hats in one curve, complexions in one tint that did not follow the latest fashion but set the next Edgar Walsingham died while she was planning her mourning; at the end he persisted in murmuring "rust"; the doctor, a travelled man, said prettily that it referred to a foreign word meaning "rest."
"For women are but world's gear."
—Burns.
ADRIAN QUIN had never written anything until he wrote "a best seller," at least, nothing above and beyond very minor journalism which just brought in the necessary daily bread; then his novel World's Gear, written shyly and published tentatively, produced what the elate publisher called "an avalanche of success," which was rather a complex metaphor, but a correct one, if Quin was supposed to be the person overwhelmed, for that was exactly the effect that his triumph had had on him—he was flattened out, smothered, rendered breathless and terrified. Beside the ordinary modest man's horror of being lionised he had several good reasons for his dismay.
His famous book, written in an excess of youthful cynicism, was a ferocious and perfectly innocent attack on women, showing, with a wealth of scathing detail, how the fascinating hero escaped the wiles of various wholly respectable sirens and finally fled to the Welsh hills to write poetry in peace and live "his own life in solitary grandeur."
Now Quin, not having the least idea that he would even become a celebrity, had published his book under his own name, and by the time it was running into the tenth edition his portrait (by no agency of his own, he could have sworn) was in every newspaper, magazine, placard, bookstall and bookshop in the three kingdoms, and it had been loudly proclaimed through every possible channel of advertisement that the attractive young woman-hater was unmarried.
Quin fled from hat to fiat, from club to club, from hotel to hotel, but in vain; his name, his face, his dislike of women had been too well advertised; and then the Post Office pursued him with sheaves of embarrassing, agonising, irritating letters; it seemed to Quin, in his state of feverish self-consciousness, as if the attention of every woman in England was focussed on him.
The more he affected the recluse the more he was chased, and as he really was a quiet fellow, horribly sensitive to ridicule, he resolved to copy his own hero and seek a complete and absolute retreat.
The estate agents listened to his request with polite gravity; no, they had nothing in the Welsh mountains; in fact, all the residences they had on their books seemed to boast of being connected with railway station, village church, post office, and to offer considerable social activities.
"Haven't you anything," asked Quin desperately, "that no one else wants? I'm eccentric—very."
The clerk smiled respectfully.
"I quite understand, sir," he murmured.
He knows me, thought Quin with angry despair; as his desperate eye roved round the office he saw a blushing young typist sidling up with a fountain-pen and a book with his photograph on the jacket.
"Search the country for the loneliest house you can find," he implored as he fled—straight into the arms of an ardent young journalist who had watched him go in and watched for him to come out.
"Won't you give me a little message for our readers?" she wheedled. "I'm the Daily Screech—put something on 'Why I dislike women—'"
"Because they remind me of Niagara Falls!" shrieked Quin, barking his shins with the haste with which he leapt into a passing taxi.
"Splendid!" cooed the journalist, and rushed off to write a column on how women, Mr. Quin thought, were like the great Fails—devastating, immense... fatal... etc, etc.
Within twenty-four hours the estate agents had sent round the following results of their labours:
"Ombra," Beckwith, on Lincolnshire fens; ten miles from station, six from church, shops, etc., twenty miles from nearest town.
This delightful old residence, popularly supposed to date from the reign of King Lear, and at one time the dwelling of the celebrated Queen Grun, stands at the bottom of a hill crowned by some fascinating ruins of the famous "picturesque" period; large commodious rooms, glorious views over marsh; own pond and well; wild fowl, three miles down muddy lane from nearest road, avoided by rural population on account of reputation of being haunted; some repairs required; nearest house three miles away, inhabited by confirmed and solitary misanthrope. In winter entirely inaccessible.
Quin picked up the telephone receiver, which he kept prudently disconnected, and directed that "Ombra" be taken, furnished, and the grimmest of domestics installed.
"That is the place," he cried enthusiastically to himself. "There I will write something really worth while—away from this fake glitter."
He checked himself, realising that, as he was not writing a novel, it was unnecessary to drop into platitudes.
His banking account revealed the one really satisfactory side of his success; it rendered possible the instant acquisition of "Ombra" (Latin for umbrella, the agents said, and adopted from the curious shape of the trees), some strictly needful repairs, the stern, scant furniture required for one who wished to lead the simple life.
Recklessly cutting "at homes," dinners, lunches, lures, wiles and snares of all kinds, Adrian Quin departed to his new retreat, resolved to commune with his soul in peace and write "a really good book," that despair of publishers.
In London it had seemed quite spring-like, but in the country it seemed dull and raw; despite those purple patches in World's Gear describing dawn in a woodland glen and the wind on the winter heath (written in London lodgings in August), Quin found that he did not really much like the look of bare trees, drab marsh and muddy fields under the light of a February sky; and the drive to "Ombra" was nothing short of uncomfortable.
The house almost exceeded his expectations; it stood in perfect isolation on a spit of land running out into the reedy waters of the fiats, the ruins, on a bare knoll, stood up bleakly against the darkling sky, the lane was a mere sheep-track across the inland fields.
"I shan't be disturbed here," said Quin as he followed his boxes into the house. "No motor, no telephone— nothing but the dear old simplicities of life."
He inhaled the salt air with relish and turned briskly to the taciturn driver of the crazy vehicle that had brought him from the station.
"No one ever comes along here?" he asked.
"It is no favoured spot," replied the man. "The last owner he went mad, and the one before that he hanged himself in those there ruins. In Chancery now the place is—ain't no one that will be bothered with it."
"Good," said Quin briskly, "the very place for me."
And when his further enquiries had elicited the fact that he was still more cut off from his fellow-creatures, still further from the village, church, post office, that nucleus of civilisation to which most of us cling so eagerly, he congratulated himself with ostentatious loudness and proceeded to inspect his domain.
The domestic staff which had been procured for him with immense trouble and difficulty (so the lady expert from the estate agents had informed him) proved to be one nervy old woman who seemed to view life through the medium of a very distinct grievance and who kept muttering long diatribes, the only word of which intelligible to Quin was "help, help," repeated with monotonous insistence.
Each room seemed larger, more stony and chilly than the other; most of the windows were barred, the doors creaked with rusty bolts and hinges; the place had certainly been an isolation hospital, a lunatic asylum, or a prison.
"Splendid, splendid," muttered Quin mechanically as he realised stone floors, no bath, open fires, draughty windows, a well a quarter of a mile away, an old woman with a grievance who was only "obliging" for a favour and who kept following him round asking for "help, help."
Quin promised help, he promised everything.
"The women again," he thought bitterly, "always the cause of the trouble—this hag is going to destroy my peace of mind. Why am I so weak as to be dependent on this miserable creature? Cannot I draw my own water and hew my own wood."
He had to; the old dame refused to consider this as any part of her dudes, which she appeared to have defined to herself most definitely, and her performance of which seemed to be entirely hanging on her receiving the "help, help."
Still, here it was, what he had always thought was the ideal life, and which he had earned thousands of pounds writing about—sheer primitive conditions, complete loneliness, entire absence of women.
Here a man could think his thoughts untrammelled, live his life unfettered and give his soul to the world in immortal works.
Quin quoted with great exultation these words from the last page but one of World's Gear and felt for the first time in his life, which had been either hampered by poverty or overwhelmed by riches and fame, a sense of true freedom.
This was increased the next morning when he had contrived to sleep despite the howling of the wind, to make his toilet despite a cupful of muddy water at the bottom of a zinc bath on a stone floor (the lady expert had been most conscientious in keeping to the (presumed) period of King Lear), and a very indifferent meal cooked and served by his mumbling handmaiden.
Firmly seating himself on a hard chair by a deal table on which was a pile of virgin foolscap and a bottle of village shop ink, and grasping a quill pen, Adrian Quin wrote:
"CHAPTER ONE"
Having got thus far he leant back and sternly contemplated the stretch of fen land visible from the uncurtained window.
"How wonderful," he murmured, "how refreshing I No newspapers! No telephone! No callers! No post! No women!"
Even as he spoke and luxuriously stretched out his hand for his faithful pipe the ancient servitor shuffled into the room, gave him a glance of intense ill-will, and announced:
"A young lady to see you, sir."
Quin looked and felt petrified; there was a sensation over his scalp as if his hair was turning white.
"I'm not at home," he gibbered in hollow formula. "If it's an autograph, my hand's paralysed—if it's charity, I'm bankrupt—if it's a journalist, I'm dead— if it's to know why I hate women—"
"It ain't," interrupted the old woman with chilly indifference to his agony. "It's the Rector's daughter, and she wants to see you particular."
Quin, with the swiftness of despair, visualised the Rector's daughter; she wanted him to go to church, she wanted him to save his soul.
"I won't see her," he said with insane ferocity; but even as he spoke he did see her, pale, stooping, spectacled, a figure as if it had been turned the wrong way, feet like a pedestal, a bodice with tuckers, tracts bulging from a shabby bag—saw her like this so clearly in his mind's eye that he shouted again, "I won't see her!" just as a pretty voice in the doorway said:
"I thought I had better come in and explain."
A young woman advanced with that deadly composure which Quin knew and dreaded.
"You're Adrian Quin, of course, and I'm disturbing you dreadfully, but I promised Mrs. Madder that I would call as soon as possible."
Quin grinned sheepishly to hide his misery.
"Who is Mrs. Madder?" he asked idiotically.
"She's your charwoman—you didn't catch the name? I'm Damaris Oughtred, and she used to work for us."
The subject of conversation was a novelty; Quin began to breathe with greater freedom. He offered his visitor the one chair and became calm enough to notice that she was extraordinarily pretty, prettier than anyone need be, really.
The lady took the chair, and gazing at him without any of the awe, envy, admiration, coquetry or challenge to which he had become so deadly used, said firmly:
"You see, Mrs. Madder must have help."
"So I gathered from her conversation—I'm perfectly willing to give her all the help there is."
"But there isn't any," replied the young lady earnestly, "not here. And the house is dreadfully inconvenient—uninhabitable, really. You see, that is why the lady expert came to me. She said you wanted everything as rough as possible, and yet some sort of a servant. Of course, there wasn't anyone who would come, so I lent Mrs. Madder, who helps our maid. I hope she made you comfortable?" she broke off to add.
"Oh, very comfortable," said Quin hastily. It was a lie, but it had the accent of truth, for Quin was not a domesticated man and he dreaded to lose this one link with civilisation.
"Well, she can't stay without help," answered Miss Oughtred, "and I haven't been able to find any help. Why don't you do everything for yourself? That's the true simple life."
"I have my work," murmured Quin feebly.
"Oh, that!" she glanced lightly at the pile of foolscap. "You write, don't you?"
This was refreshing.
"I've written one book," he ventured.
"What was it called?" she asked.
Her ignorance was not quite as pleasing as he had thought it would be.
"I'm Adrian Quin," he announced rather stiffly.
"I know, the lady expert told me. What was it you wrote, now?"
"World's Gear"
"Oh yes, that silly thing about women—it did make us laugh!"
"Really, Miss Oughtred!"
"Oh, you don't mind, do you? I thought you'd written it for a kind of joke, or else when you were about fifteen. Of course, if you meant it seriously—"
"It's awful rot, really," admitted Quin in a burst of frankness.
"I'm so glad you think so," smiled Miss Oughtred. "People without a sense of humour are so boring. I write, too," she added, "and so I know all about it."
"For the parish magazine?" was Quin's revenge.
"Yes—and now about Mrs. Madder?" responded Miss Oughtred. "I suppose she is a bit of World's Gear too, so why can't you do without her?"
"I feel I ought to—really—but—"
"You haven't quite the courage?"
"There is my novel," protested Quin weakly.
"And is this all part of it—the advertisement, I mean? How you write far away from the madding (or is it maddening?) crowd."
"Oh, Lord, no," said Quin hastily. "This is genuine."
The girl looked at him reflectively and he looked at her; it was the first time that he had ever looked a woman squarely in the face, on equal terms as it were, since he had written his famous book. She was really beautiful in her flame-coloured jumper and cap and the big white scarf and her dark curls and fresh vivid lips and brilliant eyes.
"I'm keeping you from your book," she said sweetly. "I'm afraid Mrs. Madder won't stay. She finds it lonely and the work hard. I hoped she would take a liking to you—but—"
The pause was expressive.
"We could give you some of your meals at the Rectory," she added kindly. "It is quite close really, by the footpath across the fen—"
"But I'm a recluse, a hermit—a misanthrope—a woman-hater!" cried Quin desperately. "I came here to get away from all that kind of thing."
"I thought that was all rot," said Miss Oughtred, frankly. "You don't look silly. Of course, if you've got to five up to that awful book—"
She broke off and glanced round the room.
"What will you do for food?" she enquired briskly.
"When I am hungry I shall shoot a wild duck," returned Quin savagely.
"Have you a gun?"
"No!—But I shall strangle it—"
"Well, you'll have to strangle a loaf too, and some salt and tea and butter and sugar—I'm sure you take lots of sugar—good-bye, I hope your book is a great success. Mrs. Madder will cook your dinner and she'll be five and sixpence."
"Thank you so much," said Quin grimly. "Of course, it's going to be a splendid book, full of zip and zest and the salt tang of primitive life—"
"Do come to tea when you feel you want a little relaxation," interrupted Miss Oughtred. "We aren't primitive, but we are so nice—good-bye."
She was gone, and the room and the view seemed bleaker than before.
"Didn't ask for my autograph," mused Quin; "didn't seem to want it either. Didn't try to convert me from hatred of women, didn't seem to want to do that either. Queer thing."
He thought it over a while, then returned to his novel.
At the end of two hours the sheet of foolscap bore:
"CHAPTER ONE"
in bold, confident writing, two fancy sketches of a lady's head with inky curls and a wool cap and scarf and the rough sketch of a futurist poem where "Madder" rhymed with "badder" and "had a."
"It is this quiet," said Quin desperately, "this wonderful, refreshing quiet—my nerves aren't used to it."
Mrs. Madder prepared a meal; it had somehow the air of a funeral feast.
She couldn't stop, she declared, if it was ever so; the butcher and the baker would call, but the milk and groceries—
"—are dumb, I suppose?" said Quin savagely.
"My good woman, it's nothing to me, oh, nothing whatever!—I'm here for peace, quiet, nature, solitude—"
"Miss Oughtred said I wasn't to take any notice of anything you said, sir," responded the charlady with dignity, "so I won't argufy."
He pretended that he was glad to see her go, but with her departure an added gloom seemed to descend over the old house; absurd, it was the taint of the City still over him...
He began to recall what his own creation, the hero of World's Gear, had done under similar circumstances—all those popular bits about the wonderful meals, trout cooked in wood ashes, dips by dawnlight in sparkling streams, the fragrance of coffee by a gipsy fire, the joy of sleep under the stars ... of course, he'd got the wrong scenery and the wrong time of year... still, he wasn't going to be beaten.
At the end of three days spent in struggling with fires, draughts, pails of water, lumps of flesh in frying-pans, meals of bread and cheese—and the horrors of washing up when he had been left entirely alone save for a visit or so from grinning tradesmen's boys, when not a line of his new novel was written and a few more sketches of ladies' heads with inky curls and woollen caps had been added to the expectant foolscap, Adrian Quin hailed with tremulous delight the approach of a lad whose belt and red bicycle proclaimed him as bearer of a telegram.
It was from his publisher, the only person who knew his address:
NEW NOVEL "PEARLS FOR TEARS" ECLIPSING SALE "WORLD'S GEAR." HERMIT STUNT NO USE; WIRE TITLE, SYNOPSIS NEW NOVEL, RETURN AT ONCE.
Quin sent no answer; he was too embittered by the fact that even his publisher looked upon his retreat as a publicity dodge, but he did feel something of a strange thrill at thought of the author whose sales were eclipsing his own.
"What a rotten tide," he said viciously.
A letter followed the next day. Pearls for Tears, written by some fool of a woman to prove that all the suffering in the world came through men, had proved a powerful counterblast to World's Gear, with its theme of all the trouble in the world being due to women; the idiot called herself Dolly Diamond, and was supposed to be lurking in the deep seclusion of a convent, where she nursed a broken heart, "the vibrating wail of which," her publisher's 'blurb' declared, "echoes through the pages of this entrancing romance."
Adrian Quin was certainly vexed to read that the public was running after this masterpiece instead of his own; a pity if he should lose his public just when he was going to write a really good work!
And it was impertinence too; this book had obviously been written by someone who was trying to guy World's Gear.
He cooked with disgust and swallowed with loathing his clumsy chop and greyish potatoes, flung the "washing-up" with fury under the sink, and took a long walk across the fens, fighting with the wind and getting himself into perfect condition for a good meal.
When he had gloomily returned to his gloomy abode he found Miss Damaris Oughtred waiting for him; she seemed to have made herself perfectly at home.
"I've brought you something," she said cheerfully.
"I know, the first primroses or news of the cuckoo," said the cynic bitterly.
"Nothing of the kind; an excellent beef steak and apple pie, lots of cream, some top-hole coffee, cigarettes—and a bottle of father's claret—not the kind the grocer sells."
"Is it your birthday?" asked Quin weakly.
"No. I've come into a lot of money. Isn't it nice? I shall be able to buy a really and truly hat."
"But why the feast?" asked Quin feebly, snuffing at the savour on the air.
"Well, father said you were trying to be St. Anthony and I had better be the temptation so as not to disappoint you. I'm sure," she added, "a decent meal is a temptation. You look like a wolf."
Quin, conscious of a wild, dishevelled appearance, flushed, but he grinned too; he was desperately hungry.
"If you can cook," he said; it was his flag of surrender.
"It is the one thing I can do," smiled Miss Oughtred.
She did not boast; she was that rare thing, a heavensent cook, and she had actually managed to make that awful room really comfortable; somehow the fire was burning brightly, the lamp gave a good light, the table was set in an appetising fashion, and in about ten minutes a really excellent meal was served.
"Am I inviting you or are you inviting me?" asked Quin.
"Both—you provide the house, I the meal—it's the one you wouldn't come to fetch at the Rectory— Mahomet and the mountain, you know."
"I don't feel a bit like a mountain just now."
"And I don't feel a bit like Mahomet."
"I mean, I'm awfully crushed."
"Poor thing, that's living alone, I expect."
"Not altogether; someone else has written a kind of—take-off of World's Gear."
"The copy cat!"
"Yes, a woman," he said, but his gloom was tempered by his good dinner. "Not much of a woman—"
"I suppose not—we none of us are, are we, Mr. Quin? 'World's Gear,' as poor Burns said, not that he was what you would call very unworldly himself— was he?"
"Of course, if you're going to rag," protested Quin; he was quite in a good-humour, really, "but it doesn't matter. I'm going to write a really worthwhile yarn this time."
"Here's to it," she said, raising her glass to his (what a pretty wrist and hand she had!), "and, please," as she sipped the twinkling red wine, "do put a nice woman into it, won't you?"
"I mean to," he responded with fervour, warmed, fed, comfortable.
"One who can cook?"
"Good Lord, yes."
"And make a fire?"
"Yes!"
"With a charitable heart to take pity on St Anthony and hermits and woman-haters—"
"One with black hair and an orange cap and a white scarf," he said in revenge.
Miss Oughtred looked politely interested.
"Oh, that must be the girl you've been drawing all over your foolscap. I thought she looked an awfully forward creature."
"Have you been looking at my manuscripts?" enquired Quin sternly.
"Well, I wanted something to light the fire with, and I thought perhaps—"
"If my second attempt was no better than my first that might do?"
"Oh no—you made a frightful lot of money, didn't you?" smiled Miss Oughtred. "Dad's corning over after supper—he's going to ask for some to repair the church—"
"I don't care about the church, my dear lady—"
"But I do. I might be getting married there some day."
"Oh, you might?"
"Yes, really—I'm only twenty-eight, and I've just come into a lot of money."
"Good idea getting married," mused Quin. "I might try it—"
"Think what a stunt for your publisher—'famous misanthrope in love!' etc., etc.—and etc., with photos of the bride, such a dinky little thing, the heroine of the great new novel, in which the great woman-hater pays homage to the divinest of her sex—"
"I say, you've got that rather well," remarked Quin, staring.
"I told you I wrote, didn't I?"
"Yes—but—I wonder if you'd know how to deal with autograph hunters and journalists and invitations and, and sirens—"
"Rather," said the lady firmly. "They'd never drive me into a house like this."
"I've fallen in love with the heroine of my new book," sighed Quin.
"And I like my new hero—he's such a dear, shy and plain, and can't write for nuts, and thought he hated women, the silly old stupid—and he's ever so much nicer than Orbert."
"Who's Orbert?—rotten name," said Quin antagonistically.
"He's the hero of Pearls for Tears."
"You—you never wrote that?"
"I did. I'm Dolly Diamond. Isn't it nice?"
"But—you—she—Dolly—is supposed to have a broken heart—"
"And you are supposed to hate women."
Quin gazed at her with fatuous admiration.
"I say, shouldn't we make a thundering good thing of it if we went into partnership!"
When Adrian Quin returned to town with a beautiful young wife by the name of Damaris, some people said that he had gone away on purpose for a secret marriage, others that it was a new advertisement dodge, and everyone lost interest in him altogether; but Dolly Diamond's royalties were quite enough to have allowed him to write masterpieces that wouldn't sell if he had wanted to: but he didn't—
World's Gear, in every sense of the word, was, he decided, quite attractive after all.
MR. MITCHELL had been a postman for forty years, and retired in a general acclaim of admiration.
For he had been a rather peculiar kind of postman, a rather special kind of messenger; his round lay across one of the wildest and loneliest tracks in England, not across moor or fell, but across a great waste of shingle and beach, where nothing grew but sea poppies, and where the wind rushed up unchecked from the Channel.
Mr. Mitchell, every day save the seventh, for forty years had crossed this bleak wilderness to deliver letters to a few isolated coastguard cottages and a signalling station with a famous name; in tempest, in snow, in rain and hail, in fog and frost and blazing sun Mr. Mitchell had never failed in that laborious daily task. He had to wear "pattens," wooden shoes, to keep him from slipping on the miles of beach, and in the winter he carried a storm lantern; for the rest, he made no extraordinary defences against Nature, but set out in the worst of weathers from the comfortable little village across the wilderness with no more than his official waterproof.
Yet Mr. Mitchell was able to boast that he had "never had a day's illness," and at sixty he was a very hearty old man, relinquishing his work with extreme reluctance.
They gave him a little festival in the chapel hall, his old friends, his new friends, and many who did not know him at all, but had watched his sturdy figure set out so staunchly on that wild, lonely walk day after day.
"I don't know how you did it, Mr. Mitchell-stormy days when you couldn't keep your feet, foggy days when you couldn't see your way, and cold days when you couldn't feel your feet," said the minister in his little speech.
The old postman stood up; the room was hot and stuffy, full of yellow light and friendly faces, applause and good will. He thanked them; he said he'd "Got used to it—forty years is a bit, and I come to know every stone and every wind and every kind of storm—maybe I saw things on them open spaces, and maybe I didn't, but it was always friendly like—yes, I thought them powers that be, them dreadful winds and frosts, were friendly to old Ted Mitchell on his rounds."
They cheered him, they shook him by the hand, they gave him a purse with twenty pounds, a white wool muffler and a silver-mounted umbrella.
The meeting broke up in an orgy of kindly admiration for Mr. Mitchell, who was still, everyone agreed, so hale and strong, and had so many years of leisure and ease, comfort and pleasure before him.
"You'll be able to look after yourself now, Mr. Mitchell; you'll be glad to think that you haven't got that tramp before you, come wind, come rain, come snow or hail."
The minister said good-bye to him on the doorstep of the hall and the crowd lingered about him a little, going over the successes of the evening, fingering the soft whiteness of the muffler, admiring the bountiful glitter of the massive crook of the umbrella.
For Christmas-time it was a mild evening, but to please them all he must put on the muffler, and presently, when a little chill rain began to fall, open the umbrella.
With his flustered, proud old wife beside him, he got away at last and went home.
"To think of them giving me these things," he wondered, "and all the drenchings I've had and all the blowings—and never nothing happened."
"Ah, but now you're able to look after yourself, Ted, you don't need to go tempting Providence no longer."
"But they was friendly," insisted the old man wistfully. "I tell you all them dreadful powers was friendly—and this here umbreller and muffler seems like an insultin' of 'em."
Mrs. Mitchell laughed at his fancies; for a week the old man lived cosily and never went out except with his two gifts, one wound carefully round his throat, the other held carefully over his head, to the vast admiration of the neighbours and the great comfort of his family.
The next Sunday he could not go to chapel because he had a cold; the following Sunday he was dying of pneumonia.
"It was them presents," he mourned in his last moments. "A tempting of Providence that was—an umbreller and a muffler for one what's friendly with the wind and the rain! They ought to have let me be with me job and the powers that be. Interfering! But the twenty pounds will be useful for me funeral, Mary."
MR. SHANKLIN felt that not quite enough was being made of a wonderful chance.
Of course, he couldn't say so; he began to feel with increasing irritation that you could not often say what you really thought.
Especially when you were one of a party.
The Slowberry Literary Debating Society, to be exact, that had clubbed together to visit Paris for one of those marvellous "everything included" tours. Miss Harness, the honorary secretary, kept repeating that it was a great intellectual opportunity, and it must have been some sort of a devil that prompted Mr. Shanklin to think that he didn't want any intellectual opportunities.
There was plenty in Slowberry.
They had always haunted Mr. Shanklin in the shape of cheap editions of the classics (translated, with notes) in still cheaper "courses" at various colleges and in all the different clubs and societies of Slowberry, which was so serenely an intellectual place that it still retained a Browning society. Mr. Shanklin was a middle-aged clerk at the small branch of the local bank, and being mentally and physically unfitted for masculine pursuits was glad to fill his bachelor leisure by shining among the local "intelligentsia," which, being largely feminine, welcomed anything that gave them a flavour of the other sex.
Mr. Shanklin had always found this very gratifying, and had always very much enjoyed himself in a sort of barley-water way, as an apostle of culture.
But somehow that visit to Paris had rather upset the balance of things.
It was almost too much of an excitement.
Of course, there were quite a lot of people in Slowberry who went to Paris, and made tours of the battlefields, and even to Florence, from whence they brought back "ideas" for their back gardens, but they belonged to that young wildish set which the "intelligentsia" coldly discouraged.
This trip was quite different; they all had guidebooks, sketch-books, note-books, and fifty francs to buy souvenirs; something, of course, really good.
They were in the hands of a very efficient touring agency and a perfectly good char-a-banc took them duly to all the "places of interest," including tea-shops where English was spoken, which was rather to the disappointment of Miss Harness, who thought secretly she could have made herself understood in French. They tramped through out-sizes in museums and picture-galleries till Mr. Shanklin's feet felt five times the size of his boots and his spine seemed twisted as if he was facing the wrong way; they trailed through a wilderness of a cemetery where all guide-books forsook them and where Miss Harness, pallid but firm, kept murmuring: "We must find Chopin."
They didn't, and when they tried to thread their way out they couldn't find the char-a-banc either; Mr. Maydew, who unfortunately had that bump of topography that gives people a false air of authority, had led them to the wrong entrance.
Rebellion seethed in Mr. Shanklin's breast; he wanted to look in the shops; he wanted to go off on his own; he had decided that he didn't like museums, or picture-galleries, or cemeteries; he was vexed because he couldn't turn his head to look at the posters without Miss Harness saying: "Vulgarity is the downfall of French art," as if it were a quotation, and Miss Bland saying: "Do you remember 4 Paul and Virginia,' dear?" which had been the subject of last winter's "reading."
Mr. Quaverly, who played the organ in Slowberry church, maintained on the other hand that Paris had pulled herself together in a wonderful manner; the place was quite respectable, he declared, quite clean and fine in atmosphere; he supposed it must be the effect of all the English who had passed through during the Great War; "we are such a clean-minded nation," he kept on repeating; it made Mr. Shanklin think of yellow soap and a scrubbing-brush.
He didn't believe it, anyhow.
Paris was Paris, the "gay city," "the city of pleasure," you couldn't get away from that; all the associations with the word Paris were of that kind of thing, if you excepted Napoleon (there was his tomb to be seen and another museum at the back of it). No, it was no use for Mr. Quaverly to talk like that; you might as well say Babylon was as respectable as Brixton if you got into the right set, or that Sodom was full of chapels, and Gomorrah had a healthy gravel soil and was recommended for old ladies with rheumatism.
Mr. Shanklin knew better—from inherited instinct.
Besides, he'd seen things—in shop windows, on the kiosks; pictures, statuettes; yes, he'd seen them even as the char-a-banc hurtled by.
He thrilled when he heard they were going to the theatre; he even pleaded for something typically "French."
It was.
They sat in an empty theatre with a girls' school behind them and a few English tourists like themselves to right and left and listened to Racine.
Mr. Shanklin preferred the museums, even the cemetery. He secretly labelled Racine as a national calamity as he gazed glassily at the stout figures in classic robes declaiming endless rhetoric, as he sat through the arid waits, as he listened to Miss Harness' piercing whispered interpretation from her book of the words, as all his senses became strained in an attempt to look as if he understood.
It was late when they were released; even Miss Harness staggered a little, and Mr. Quaverly said in a hollow tone that he admired the intellectual courage that gave these masterpieces in their entirety.
Mr. Shanklin devoured his rather meagre dinner at the very "family" hotel (kept by an Englishwoman as the cooking patriotically proclaimed) in sombre silence.
A classic concert was to fill the evening. He had been to one before.
Bach, Liszt, Beethoven, the sort of people Racine would have encouraged, the sort of people who educated themselves in the evenings after working twelve hours for sixpence.
He knew.
And somewhere there were cafes where music was playing, music with a tune too, and ladies seated at little tables with real wine in front of them, something in a bottle with a label, not stuff in what looked like a bedroom carafe and not enough to go round, anyway.
Mr. Shanklin went upstairs to his stuffy little bedroom that was so like home that even the cake of soap was a familiar friend (it was sold largely in Slowberry).
He put on his hat and coat, he took his umbrella (for the pleasure of grasping firmly something, for the night was a cloudless June one), he put his whole fifty francs and a little odd change into his pocket, and he passed furtively, yet boldly, out into the twilight. He didn't leave any message, he felt as reckless as a chapel sewing-party making crêpe-de-chine knickers. He went straight to those big wide terrifying streets he had heard called the "boulevards." It was a pity that the shops were shut—
But the cafés weren't—
And the lights were up and there were a lot of people moving to and fro; Mr. Shanklin was surprised to see how many of them looked quite ordinary, quite like the home folk in Slowberry.
Then again, others didn't
After wandering about for an hour and hoping that something would happen in the way of an adventure, and dreading lest it might, he boldly passed into one of the largest and most resplendent cafes, actually stepping out in time to the Hungarian music and selecting his table with a casual air.
It was all that it ought to have been; lights and plate-glass, a blaring orchestra, jaded waiters, little marble-topped tables and plush seats against the walls.
Although it was very late, nearly half-past nine, the cafe was quite full, and many of the customers were women with something very dashing and peculiar about their appearance.
Not that they wore more powder or Up salve than the vicar's daughter at Slowberry, or that they had shorter sleeves or lower fronts and backs, but, well, it was the way they did it.
Mr. Shanklin was hungry, but as he saw no one was eating he gave his nervous order for coffee, then warmed by that for an apéritif (he hoped it was an intoxicant, though it sounded so like a medicine).
He drank three of these (the waiter's selection) and felt much better.
To the point of being really sorry for Quaverly and Maydew listening to Beethoven, or perhaps Bach. Fellows like that didn't really know what life was. He discovered that he could get sandwiches and pickles (the foreign touch that—pickles) and some really good wine.
Stuff that made you feel different at once.
It rather weighed on his mounting spirits that he kept seeing his own reflection in the glaring mirrors.
But then he was quite sure that your really dangerous deep dog, your proper cynical man of the world usually looked small and baldish, pale and quiet, even a little, well, provincial. He'd read that somewhere—or did it refer to criminals?
He gazed again at his mild reflection and decided that he might easily have passed for a murderer—given a wife and a frock-coat.
He even gave a sinister smile as he imagined himself married to Miss Harness and murdering her in some very clever way, and then he saw the girl, intercepting as it were his smile and casting it back.
She sat two tables away, alone, and she was what he called smart.
No make-up—nothing flashy.
She was drinking chocolate, too; it was the first time he had associated that beverage with the things the curate meant when he said "er-hem!"
Mr. Shanklin continued to smile; it seemed to him that his mouth had slipped and was clasping his face like a stretched elastic band; it went on smiling.
It must have been the wine and that queer music with a hitch in it.
The girl didn't smile.
But she came over and sat at his table; Mr. Shanklin felt a tingling round the roots of his hair.
"I'm sure," he said politely, "we've met before."
"Can it," replied the lady in pure American.
"Paris," ventured Mr. Shanklin, "attracts me very much."
"I believe you," she said, and ordered another cup of chocolate. "I'll just die if I don't have a talk with you—you're the very thing I've been looking for. You haven't half seen the sights, I bet."
Mr. Shanklin beamed; golden visions floated before him, he had fifty francs to spend; he would take her out to dinner; they would go to some desperate sort of a dance-place or music-hall—his imagination even ran to a drive home in a cab—this was seeing life—this was what he had come to Paris for.
The lady seemed to divine his thoughts fairly clearly.
"I suppose you'd like to take me out to supper?" she said, "and jazz around with me afterwards? Oh, I know baby's pretty ways."
Mr. Shanklin's smile slipped still further; he felt how wasted, how unappreciated he had been in Slowberry.
"You're one of those quiet ginks," continued the lady, "that beat the lively ones to a frazzle. Slip me some money. I need it."
"I haven't much change," answered Mr. Shanklin, thrilling.
"I don't want change. I want all the money you've got For a charity," said the lady thoughtfully.
He gallantly handed her his fifty-franc note; he had a "reserve" at the hotel, he would dash back and get it, with her, in a cab.
Again she seemed to divine his reflections.
"Where I'm going to take you there isn't any change," she remarked as she pocketed the note.
"I shouldn't mind if there was," smiled Mr. Shanklin, wondering if he ought to say "dearie "; "that money was for souvenirs, but a pleasant memory is a very pretty souvenir—"
"Souvenirs!" exclaimed the lady, "my, that's the cocktail they put the absinthe dope in! And you were going to put away fifty francs worth! You've met your guardian angel."
"I'm sure," said Mr. Shanklin rather confusedly, "it is what I've always wanted."
His eyes, that seemed rather loose in his head, rolled a glad glance at a very pretty girl who was sauntering between the tables.
"Who's the doll?" asked his companion tersely.
Mr. Shanklin put two fingers to his lips and uttered.
"Friend of mine," he said, "little friend of mine."
"You," answered the lady, promptly, "are coming right away out of this. After you've paid."
He did pay; it took every cent he possessed; but he didn't care; he followed her out into the street, dizzy with anticipations of secret haunts of pleasure, of Bacchanalian dances—of all the sort of things he didn't know anything about and wanted to.
The lady drew him down a side turning away from the noise and crowd.
"I'm going to speak to you," she said, "in the way mother didn't. You'll throw a nervous fit by the time I've finished. Do you know why your face is the colour of a bad dam?. That's vice. Do you know why you've a figure a self-respecting shrimp would try to exchange? That's vice. You're just one of the sin spots of this great iniquitous city—the kind of thing we are out to efface—just a vile, bad, corrupt man, the sort we are fighting."
"I don't understand," quivered Mr. Shanklin.
"I'm one of the Patrols of the Militant Virtue League. I sit about in these very worst cafes saving souls. And getting subscriptions," answered the lady. "We are holding a service to-night, if you'll trot along. You'd hear things that would make you feel like a poached egg on a mat."
"I think I feel like that now," murmured Mr. Shanklin.
She surveyed him complacently.
"I'm secretary, too, of the League for the Endowment of Girls nearly or completely without Beauty. I guess I'll slip them your fifty francs. Just read over these and come to see me when you feel better. I guess you left your umbrella behind. Good night—"
She left him staring crazily at a leaflet she had given him, on the top of which was printed:
"Blessed are the Pure in heart—"
"I'M sorry," murmured Lily Bapty plaintively, "but I don't see how I can leave Oliver, he is so pitiful."
Her lover had no answer to what he had heard so often before; the entrancing creature he had so long adored was sentimentally afraid of hurting a husband she detested; between her desires and Roger Vane's passion she had always opposed this pitiful image of a dependent, pathetic, trusting and unsuspecting Oliver.
As she glanced now at Roger's unpleasant expression her own quivered near to tears.
"I can't help it," she protested. "I know how he looks to me for everything—there is nothing else in his world but myself."
"And powder blue china," snapped Roger.
"But that is all part of me," explained Lily Bapty, with the exasperation of one who has too often laboured the same point. "He associates me with powder blue—I had, by a cruel chance, a piece in my hand when he first saw me; he thought I was a connoisseur, and that it matched my eyes ..."
"And you have gone on collecting the wretched stuff ever since to please him," said Roger grimly. "Damn powder blue."
They looked with dismay, with despair at the vases, plates, cups surrounding them; the room and the house was full of powder blue, nay, had been built to receive it; all Oliver Bapty's spare money went in these purchases, auction rooms had been stormed, private collections raided; he called it "Lily-Ware," after his wife; the vapid foolishness was a great compliment coming from a shy man of his deep reserve.
"I dislike, I detest, I loathe powder blue," Mrs. Bapty's voice rose desperately, "but I dare not say so—he thinks I am as absorbed as he is."
"Are you sure he is really so keen?" groaned Roger.
"My dear, do you think he would not have noticed that I was in love with someone else if he had not had an obsession?"
Roger rose and stared angrily at a big fat vase built into a special niche above the mantelshelf.
"Well, Lily, it really is an ultimatum. I've got to take this appointment abroad; it's a big chance, and if you don't care to come—"
"Care!" she wailed. "But Oliver and his collection I We have catalogued it, written about it, been interviewed, photographed with it—if I go away he loses everything all at once!"
"He could divorce you and still keep the crockery," said Vane rather brutally.
"But it is all one," she insisted frantically, "his love for me—his passion for powder blue—"
"Then it's good-bye," answered Vane bitterly. "These platonic friendships aren't in my line, Lily. I'm moving on; there's work and chances abroad. I want you to share them."
"I'll write," murmured Mrs. Bapty faintly. As she lay in her lover's arms for his farewell kiss she was sure that she would write "Yes," but when Mr. Bapty came home hugging another bit of powder blue for her to admire, annotate and display, she knew that she would write "No." With inflexible courage she carried out this resolution, and though the magnitude of her sacrifice overwhelmed her she was gratified that she had been able to make it.
After all, how utterly impossible to hurt Oliver, who had married her believing that she was absorbed in the collection of powder blue!
She had wanted to marry the pleasant quiet man with the "nice" position, and she had "played up" to his delusions. Well, after you've "played up" to a thing for ten years the only decent behaviour is to continue to "play up" for the rest of your life.
So, at least, it seemed to Lily Bapty. With bitter anguish but an inner rapture of self-immolation she renounced Roger Vane, and continued to trail her long dresses and her bright smile through Oliver Bapty's collection of powder blue. Roger Vane had written fiercely; he did not at all appreciate the nobility of her conduct.
And he really went away.
Mrs. Bapty felt life falling away to dust and ashes at the core when she realized that the break was final, and that all the excitement, interest and romance of a lover were gone out of her life.
"I hear that Vane has gone abroad," said Mr. Bapty. "I was wondering why I did not see him about the house any more."
"He got a very good appointment, bridge-budding," replied Mrs. Bapty sweetly.
"Gone for long?"
She could not resist the martyr's gesture with which she replied:
"Gone for ever, I think, Oliver darling."
Some remote emotion flushed Mr. Bapty's placid cheek.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "Why, dear?"
"Why?—well—he was just beginning to take an interest in powder blue—"
The pathos of this was so sharp that Mrs. Bapty had to turn her head away, but it was only to see her husband's disconsolate reflection in the gleaming polish of a powder blue vase.
That evening Mr. Bapty did not come home. When his wife had waited, telephoned, and wondered to no purpose, a special messenger brought her a letter:
My dear Lily,
I've taken the night boat to Paris with a woman. I'll give your lawyer all the details, and I hope you'll divorce me. I was waiting for you to clear out with Vane, but though I gave you plenty of scope it didn't come off, because I'm afraid you're that unmanageable thing, Lily, a 'good' woman.
I can't stand it any longer. I've had ten years of it, trying to live up to you and your craze for powder blue. I thought if I indulged you it would wear off or I should get it myself; neither happened, and if I hadn't got away I should have run amok and smashed the lot.
Yours with regrets,
Oliver.
SYLVIA tried so hard to be domestic that she began to think of things in the concise, but vital, terms of the cookery book; when people referred to her husband as a "rising young barrister," she pictured him as slowly swelling under heat, turning a satisfactory brown; and when she heard that he had "stirred the court," she imagined him revolving all the people round with a wooden spoon; she felt that there ought to be more adjectives in the language.
She became a good cook, and her husband appreciated her labours. By entirely subduing her personality, habits, opinions and sentiments to his personality, habits, opinions and sentiments, by using all her intelligence in an effort to please him, and by acting as cook, housekeeper, secretary, and companion with tireless patience, she earned his kindly toleration, and he was quite pleased with his marriage, though, of course he never told her so—was even careful not to allow her to guess his satisfaction; he was very English.
And what English people call an excellent husband.
He had been married before, and Sylvia had to be very careful and tactful about that; she was very fond of him, and really desired to be respectful and tender towards the memory of Marie, who seemed to have left nothing behind her save an inarticulate emotion in her husband's heart.
On this subject he had made one confidence to Sylvia.
"Don't think me a bore, but I wish you'd never wear yellow—particularly yellow silk—"
"Oh?" She had never guessed that he had any taste in dress.
"No—you see, Marie—well, she had a dress like that, and I shouldn't care—"
"Of course," interrupted Sylvia quickly, "I under-stand. I'm so glad you told me—"
But she wasn't; she thought he might have forgotten about yellow silk; what sort of yellow did he mean? He was nearly colour-blind, anyway; she had to eschew all yellow, and she liked yellow.
When her care of the flat and cooking became necessary to Harry's health, temper and pocket (a dreary procession of odd inefficients who called themselves "generals" had temporarily put Sylvia out of love with life) she ceased to trouble about the embargo; there was really no time to wear any silk of any kind.
She had given up everything she used to care about; but then she was fond of Harry.
Aunt Puce said (and knew) that it wouldn't last; she suggested that Sylvia joined her hardly successful business of house decorators. Sylvia had wonderful taste, Aunt Puce thought, except in the matter of Harry.
But Sylvia was loyal to the good old slogan: "marriage a one time job," "woman's place in the home," etc. etc.—and etc..
Sylvia didn't dare tell Aunt Puce about the yellow silk episode; Harry thought Aunt was too "modern," which was obviously foolish, since they were, all of them, just exactly of their own precise moment, and how could they possibly be anything else?
Aunt Puce thought Harry had no sense of humour; she hated a little "matrimonial happiness recipe" he had written out in tribute, he said, to Sylvia's "love of cooking "; it hung above his desk:
"Take Harry and Sylvia, mix with love and kisses"
and so on.
Once she had seen that Aunt Puce almost disliked Harry; Sylvia said he had plenty of humour—only he was working rather hard.
"People with brains and humour don't work hard," said Aunt Puce, "they get there, though."
Harry sometimes spoke of his late wife; they had decided to do so.
One day he said:
"Marie Elizabeth"
And Sylvia:
"The Sardine?"
"My dear! I mean Marie—"
"I didn't know she had two names. I'm so sorry!"
"Yes, Marie Elizabeth."
"Well, it is a sardine—an excellent one," Sylvia added. Silence ensued.
Harry seemed to have had enough; he picked up the paper and began to read about the "Follies of the Times." The bi-weekly article had let fling at the more lucrative professions, such as beauty-parlours, and dressmakers who administered to the universal decadence.
Sylvia wasn't sympathetic; if you belonged to the "Times"—why not to the "Follies "?
It was the same when she shingled her hair—Harry made a remark about the charm of flowing tresses; in brief, he endeavoured to prevent Sylvia from playing the grand game of "Trying to Look Like Everyone Else."
Sylvia grew a little dispirited; Harry might be "rising," but she—?
Aunt Puce asked her advice about a yellow room she was decorating: the forbidden colour attracted Sylvia; when Aunt Puce came to see her she was reading her cookery book; underneath each recipe was a dismal little note: "causes of failure," the oven too hot or too cold, the mixture too strong or too weak, all the horrid reasons why you had to throw castor sugar on the top or be apologetic or defiant according to your mood.
Sylvia was reading about savouries; she had been hard put to it lately about savouries—without sardines—and since that remark of Harry's, well, it was ridiculous, no doubt, but once you had seen the picture of Marie Elizabeth, a sardine in a shawl, well, again, some women had figures like fish up-ended, and perhaps Harry's first wife—
Sylvia did not dare trouble Aunt Puce with these absurd trivialities; she listened instead to the description of the Yellow Silk Room. Silk, all silk, stretched silk on the walls, silk-covered chairs, silk curtains, a delicious quince-yellow.
"I don't think I ought to be interested," said Sylvia at last. "You see, Harry's first wife had a yellow silk dress—"
As Sylvia stopped short Aunt Puce asked:
"Was she married in it or buried in it, or what?"
"What, I think," answered Sylvia thoughtfully. "Harry never said—oh! Aunt Puce, do you know, I've just remembered that olive oil is yellow."
This confirmed the elder lady in her belief that Sylvia was going crazy from excess of domesticity; it has happened before.
She carried Sylvia off to see the Yellow Room, and that night Harry had a cold supper.
The Yellow Room haunted Sylvia; the forbidden colour, the forbidden material, yellow silk!
Aunt Puce had thought that there was rather too much of that one colour, but it had been the whim of the owner of the house, and Aunt Puce's artist conscience was only her secondary consideration, coming, naturally, well after (hobbling after, as it were) the claims of her bank account.
She presented Sylvia with a necklet of choker pearls that Harry promptly declared hideous; it is difficult to live with a man who has no sympathy with absurdity.
Harry told Sylvia that she was a "dear little woman," but he made her feel silly, and she began to take an interest in other things besides him; he didn't know this or he would have been surprised.
Aunt Puce had a lovely piece of the yellow "left over "; she offered it to Sylvia to make an evening dress; it was quite a long time since she had had a new evening dress; Aunt Puce must have forgotten what Sylvia had told her about yellow silk.
But perhaps she hadn't.
Sylvia said she couldn't accept it, didn't want it— but all the time it dwelt with her—a yellow silk dress.
On what occasion had Marie Elizabeth worn yellow silk?
Sylvia was sorry that there were no photos of her predecessor about, something to prevent her thinking of the lady as that queer fish-like shape in a dress, not of quince, but olive-oil yellow, something to prevent her thinking of Marie Elizabeth in this perpetual, aimless pose, in a garment of that one colour.
"She ought to have lived," was one of Sylvia's conclusions. "I am sure she suited Harry—exactly."
That was after dear Aunt had asked them to supper and there had been sardines in the savouries, and Harry had muttered something about bad taste when Aunt Puce had said:
"Don't you think Marie Elizabeth delicious?"
The next day Sylvia accepted the length of yellow silk; thinking about it kept her quiet till it came back from the dressmaker's evolved into a slim, straight evening dress.
She didn't mean to show it to Harry; she didn't want to hear him say "bad taste" a second time.
But he was the sort of man you couldn't easily get away from; when he was in, he was in, and if he wasn't treading on your heels he was poking his very long nose over your shoulder (of course, it had taken Sylvia up to now to notice this—the length of nose, in fact, bad broken on her like a discovery).
That must have been the day she fell out of love, it is generally a harder bump than falling in, but one that clears the head.
So Harry came straight in while she was stealthily trying on her new finery.
And Harry had a great deal to say; perhaps he also had long been repressing straining feelings.
He talked about his "dear wife" and her gown of that colour, of "sacred associations "; he used a lot of expressions that usually have the decency to confine themselves to hymns, after-dinner speeches and epitaphs.
Sylvia bore quite a lot of it, until he began to tell her how different she looked from her predecessor—how trivial and foolish and "unworthy."
And then Sylvia, who must have really been a little overwrought, said:
"Well, anyhow, I don't look like a Sardine in Oil."
He left her on that, with one ghastly look.
(Aunt Puce said afterwards that the first Mrs. Harry had looked like, well, you know—no shoulders, boneless, a skirt too tight and too long, with feet like a hat-stand on a tail, and head looking up with a mouth looking down, and eyes you only seemed to see one at a time.)
Sylvia didn't go after him; she thought—
"I shall enjoy eating sardines again, and wearing yellow silk."
And before she left to join Aunt Puce (leaving him three cold potatoes, a mutton bone and a packet of gelatine in the larder) she added a postscript to his jaunty "Recipe for Matrimonial Happiness," still coyly pinned above his desk.
Reasons for failure—
Too much Marie Elizabeth—not enough Yellow Silk.
"IT'S a study in going without, that's what it is."
And Mrs. Mellish added, with the good-humoured philosophy of her race:
"It's a good thing I'm over fifty and never was one for looks."
With a dogged courage that was wholly unconscious she slipped into the worn black serge, Cousin Sarah's cast-off, that was to be "turned about" for her winter dress.
Cousin Sarah had been steadily generous in handing over these cast-offs. She was a sombre, stout woman of dull taste and a dull sense of duty; Mrs. Mellish had always detested her garments, but knew that without them it would have been impossible to be clothed at all, since it was clearly hopeless to dress herself on the five pounds given her by Mr. Mellish on her birthday and the scarce odd pence she might wrest from the meagre housekeeping allowance.
The Mellishes were what the neighbours called "well to do" and even "warm" people; he had been a clerk in a tea warehouse all his life at a steadily rising salary, and she had always been a good manager; the children were well placed, there were savings, the mean and inconvenient house was as near a mean ideal of safe comfort as labour could make it; but no one had ever thought of Mrs. Mellish's clothes or pocket-money.
Perhaps because she was plain, and always working, Cousin Sarah's worn-out garments and five pounds on her birthday from Mr. Mellish seemed a most sensible arrangement; Mr. Mellish had never departed from it, nor mentioned it; the two sons and the two daughters never thought of giving Mother presents, unless it was "something for the house," a cinder sifter, for instance, or a fern for the parlour; they were all sensible, thrifty people, the kind that "gets on "; money was wanted for so many things, clothes, amusements ... they needed it for themselves.
Mrs. Mellish still had a comely figure; no one seemed to have ever noticed it, but, slim and erect, she defied a lifetime's toil; of course, her feet were deplorable, as she said herself— what with standing and boots—
You might have thought that by now she would have been utterly resigned, completely indifferent; but there are some passions that only die with the body they inhabit, and such was the dumb passion of Mrs. Mellish for clothes, for what she herself called frankly "finery."
Her father had been a stingy man; her whole girlhood had been devoid of any frivolity, any prettiness; she had been married in her "Sunday best," a stern, blue cashmere, bought for service, and a white rice straw hat with muslin cornflowers that something in her loathed secretly.
Perhaps it was this wedding apparel that had placed her once and for all in the estimation of Mr. Mellish; had she achieved a white gown and a wreath, perhaps he would never have dared ignore her clothes for a generation.
At first it had not been so bad, for everyone seemed to be, more or less, in the same plight, everyone that is whom Mrs. Mellish met, and then there was the War, when you were supposed to "do without."
But lately there had been a very riot of fine feathers; everyone had got some, everyone but Mrs. Mellish.
She could not get away from them.
There were the papers.
And the shops.
The things you read about now!
Plumes dipped in gold dust, royal blue heels, capes of ermine, coats of leopard skin, flowers made of plaited chiffon ... and the "make up" orange, ochre and mauve powder, blue paint for putting under the eyes, hair cropped close and beeswaxed ... all in the Sunday papers for you to read when you had a bit of leisure.
Not only for girls or young women; everyone was very clear and firm about that; well-known people, like widows of murderers, deposed royalties and winners of beauty competitions, wrote earnestly in these same papers to prove that you ought to be beautiful, that you must be beautiful ... up to any age; no one was old; people who would have been considered senile a generation ago wore flesh-coloured stockings, choker pearls, frocks like a roll of linoleum, and declared that modern science had so prolonged life that one wasn't interesting till one was "fortyish," and that if you kept your tissues from wasting you were young, even at sixty.
All this awoke the hydra-headed desires of Mrs. Mellish; the desires, the passions for beauty, admiration, adornment, splendour.
The shops overflowed with concrete dreams, even the local shops, and when she could scrape up the fare to town, to Oxford Street, or Regent Street, her head went fairly round.
Now that her last girl was married there was a fair amount of time for these expeditions, but no more money; the housekeeping allowance had been proportionately reduced; the profit of the smaller family remained with Mr. Mellish.
In those same marvellous papers there were grand, bold words, very often about the equality of women, a wife's wages, equal share of the income, etc.; you were reminded you'd got the vote.
Mrs. Mellish was never impressed.
"They don't know Mr. Mellish," she would reflect, and turn again to the fashion page; this, like secret drug-taking, was her own peculiar and delicious consolation.
And the Shops.
The cascades of twinkling silks; the arrays of delicate shoes, high-arched, high-heeled, fine, impudent, the crystal and amber jars of delicious essences; the noble furs, the colour of wet dead leaves, or snow, or an autumn haze; the gauzy, flimsy, exquisite "undies" (the papers Mrs. Mellish read always called them "undies"; she secretly cherished the word).
Such colours, too, with such names!
Peach, mignonette, flesh, orchid, tangerine, champagne, rose, tinsel, silver.
All the delights of life symbolised by these delicious extravagances; you could say them over as you went home, stifling in the Tube, and think you saw them again.
Then Mrs. Mellish had a legacy; thirty-five pounds. "It's a tidy sum," said Mr. Mellish. "You could spend it," she reflected, "all, on a bit o' fur."
He thought that she was light-headed with her good fortune.
"Well," he said playfully, "you won't want any more birthday presents from me."
Her drab-coloured face flushed.
"Not if I can keep this—"
"Of course you can keep it." He trusted her prudence, having never known her other than a pattern of thrift; it was near her birthday, too; there would be a clear immediate saving of five pounds, and Emily would have capital to draw on—for the rest of her life.
But Mrs. Mellish meant to spend it all on clothes, a "peach," a "champagne" nightgown, silk, thick silk stockings, a pale misty bottle of perfume with a French name—clothes she'd be ashamed of, clothes she couldn't show, clothes that would be as hidden as her lifetime's passion, as secret as sin.
She began with a nightdress, a peach-coloured nightdress with ecru lace; it cost thirty-five shillings; as she bore it home she felt as giddy as a lifetime abstainer who has suddenly drunk a whole glass of wine.
On this reckless wave of intoxication she decided to buy rouge, powder and some of that grease stuff they used; her features weren't so bad; it was her complexion.
She looked boldly round the Tube carriage. Why, some of these other women now, take away the hats and the impudence and put 'em behind a wash-tub, and they would be no better than she was.
The nightgown, shaken out of tissue paper, affronted the detestable room; no sleeves, just bands of ribbon; how were they ever warm enough? It was like Cleopatra, or whatever was the name of that hussy you kept seeing outside the movies ... but it was lovely.
She smuggled it away in the despicable chest of drawers when Mr. Mellish returned home.
He had bad news.
"Mary's husband has lost his job; no fault of his; reducing staff."
"And the winter coming on and Mary expecting in January!" exclaimed Mrs. Mellish.
"Seemed a bit upset," her husband admitted. "Came over to see me dinner-time. I told him not to worry—I said, 'Mother's a rich woman now—she's got capital,' meaning your legacy."
"Meaning my legacy?" mumbled Mrs. Mellish.
"Well, I knew you'd be only too glad to help 'em out—told George so; said nothing would please you more, first grandchild and all."
Mrs. Mellish pushed her supper aside that evening, remarking that she'd "no stomach for a bloater."
"Why do you buy 'em then?" remarked Mr. Mellish tersely. "I've got to eat 'em, stomach or no stomach— that's the difference; I'm hard-working, and you've nothing to do but gad about."
"Haven't you got capital, father?" she asked timidly. "After all these years, and we being so careful?"
"And if I have," he retorted fiercely, "what's it for? To look after you when I'm not there to work for you. And how much do you think it is? I suppose you don't think I'm a gold mine, after bringing up a family and keeping a home going all these years?"
"I wasn't thinking of a gold mine," said Mrs. Mellish patiently, "but in the matter of helping George and Mary."
"That's where your legacy comes in handy. What do you want the money for, with everything provided? Besides, George'll pay you back when he gets another job."
Mrs. Mellish sent the money minus two pounds.
"I'm keeping that instead of my birthday present," she explained.
Mr. Mellish was satisfied; he suggested that she bought a present "from both of them" for Mary's baby.
Mrs. Mellish had only ten shillings; she had meant to buy a bottle of scent to put in the nightdress in the bottom drawer, but now she purchased a white woolly coat for seven and eleven, and kept the change for the Tube.
One flash of hope animated her; she suggested that she shopped for Baby.
A chance to get into those shops again, to handle money, to handle pretty things. But Mary was surprised.
"Of course, I want to get everything myself, and you wouldn't know, Mother, it's all so different since your time."
Only fair, of course, only reasonable. Somehow no one seemed to have ever been fair and reasonable with Mrs. Mellish. Not even God.
Before the baby was born, Mrs. Mellish caught influenza; her boots let in the wet; she'd been waiting till her birthday to get them repaired; she was chilled, low-spirited at the time; well, somehow she caught influenza.
Mr. Mellish said it was a nuisance—if she hadn't been gadding now ...
On the third day Mrs. Mellish appeared entirely to realise how her illness would end.
She confided in Mrs. Brown from next door, who had come in to nurse her.
"I think Mr. Mellish is the sort to do everything respectable—flowers, I mean, and two coaches following ..."
"I'm sure," soothed Mrs. Brown. "You can rest your mind easy there."
"But what I was going to say," whispered the dying woman, "was—if I could have some of those flowers now, waxy, expensive ones, Lilies, and roses, now they're out of season, and maybe a bottle of scent, and a lace cap, what you call 'budwar' caps. I was always fond of pretty things ..."
The day she died the baulked woman made another attempt to gratify her unslaked desires; she told Mrs. Brown about the nightgown.
"I meant it as a present for Mary's wedding," she lied, "but it didn't seem suitable, but I thought if I could wear it, afterwards..."
Mrs. Brown surveyed the garment.
"It's like they wear now," she conceded. "My Jane's got some, in lemon—but I don't know if they're any more suitable for a laying-out than for a wedding."
"I'd like to wear it," persisted Mrs. Mellish desperately. "It doesn't matter if it's suitable. I suppose you can have your own way—in your coffin ..."
She had not been dead very long before they went through her drawers, looking for a pair of white stockings, and Mrs. Brown found the nightgown and told Mary what Mrs. Mellish had told her; Mary pocketed the prize.
"Rather mean to keep it so long, seeing she knew I was so fond of pretty things," the girl remarked; she was labouring under the grievance of Mother dying "just now when she would have been so useful."
It was a beautiful funeral; a cross of white lilies, an anchor of white roses, a broken pillar of white carnations, several wreaths, all glossy, gleaming and smart; no one could see inside the coffin where Mrs. Mellish lay in a mended sheet that she had turned "sides to middle" herself some time ago.
Mrs. Brown had said it was a shame to take anything good with times so hard, and Mary expecting ...
The neighbourhood approved Mr. Mellish, described on the anchor as:
"A heartbroken, a sorrowing Husband."
In that dramatic moment when the hearse really started with the wreaths nicely in place round the varnished oak coffin, one woman remarked:
"Well, she was always a good wife and mother, and I'm sure she's suitably rewarded."
ROBERT DACRE was glad that his name was Robert Dacre, it sounded well, and it looked well when written down. It was a little piece of good luck, and he could congratulate himself that there were, in his own opinion, at least several little bits of good luck about his person and his character. He was nice-looking, for instance, and everyone admitted that he was nice-mannered; he had been successful at school, though more with the masters than with the boys, and he had never given any trouble at home. No one could have ventured to call him a prig, or effeminate, for he had a fine manly appearance; and it was really very fortunate and gratifying to think he had been so well favoured by the gods and so much appreciated by his fellow-mortals.
He had no vices. He thought vices silly, and always had his eye on the consequences. No doubt he was not very gifted, and he certainly was not very rich; so far, he had had to work quite hard for a humble livelihood, but he felt confident that fortune would smile on him—and before very long. He was such a universal favourite, and everyone had so many kind words for him and so many pleasant prophecies as to his future.
His home life had been rather arid; his mother had married again, and though there was no question of the justice and kindness of his stepfather, still it rather (as Robert put it to himself) "loosened things out. You didn't feel there was so very much call to a home where you had a stepfather and no brothers or sisters." He was rather glad of that too; he had seen too many other fellows hampered, sometimes almost ruined by the calls of some insistent affection of mother or father, or brother or sister. After all, if you looked at it in a level-headed sort of way, it was better to be quite free of all that sort of thing. In his case, now, he had nothing to worry about but himself. Sentiment apart (and sentiment, of course, was really all nonsense), who could deny that this was a very satisfactory state of affairs?
Robert could spend all his spare time and all his spare cash, not on enjoying himself, as more vulgar youths under these felicitous circumstances might have done, but on improving himself. He was an articled pupil in the office of a quite influential engineer, and had nearly finished the three years of his training. He lodged with some very quiet, genteel sort of people; he went to evening classes and lectures, and was always extremely careful to buy the right sort of clothes and cultivate the right sort of accent—not in a self-conscious sort of way, but carelessly and as if these things were his by right; and of course they were not really quite his by right, for Robert belonged to precisely that class where attempts at self-improvement may be taken as presumption by the really superior people who do not need to improve themselves, since they belong to a society where all faults are forgiven. Robert didn't.
He really owed all his present advantages to himself, and of course that is rather unforgivable in the eyes of a good many of just those kind of people whose acquaintance Robert wished to cultivate.
His fellow-pupils and the clerks in the office looked up to him with rather sulky, envious deference, but Robert was very careful not to allow this to turn his head or fill him with undue arrogance. He reminded himself, with commendable prudence, that one should never rely on the admiration of one's inferiors.
Cautious as he was, however, he permitted himself to be elated by the very gratifying notice of Mr. Forter, the engineer in whose office he worked. Mr. Forter really seemed to think a good deal of him, and Robert exerted himself strenuously to deserve this happy turn of fortune.
It had been the same at school; he always seemed to have the luck to attract the approbation of those older and wiser than himself; he didn't quite know how he did it, and he hoped it wouldn't make him stuffy or smug; but of course it was a very useful asset, and he cultivated it with extreme diligence. Mr. Forter was a precise sort of man—a widower, and very well-off. He read the classics, and was meticulous in his person. He belonged to one or two of those clubs which always seemed to Robert the very zenith of correctness and exclusiveness, and he appeared to appreciate passionately prudence and industry in youth. He considered the times in which he lived almost unspeakably degenerate, and every symptom of disorder and folly which he perceived (and the daily papers in which he indulged took good care that many such symptoms should be brought to his notice) called forth from him measured but bitter condemnation.
In the face of this very pronounced attitude on the part of Mr. Forter, Robert rather wondered how Elsie Wylie got into the office; for she certainly was very typical of the frivolity of the times against which Mr. Forter was always using his decorous invective. But then, perhaps (Robert argued), Mr. Forter didn't notice Elsie at all. To him she was just part of her machine. She contrived somehow—a miracle it seemed to Robert—to be a good typist, and perhaps that was all that Mr. Forter demanded. Perhaps he was able to overlook the blatant flimsiness of Elsie in the blatant solidity of the machine behind which she sat.
Robert couldn't. He was in the office too much, and sat too near Elsie too often.
Elsie was about nineteen, and common; common in just the same sort of way as Robert would have been if he hadn't been so prudent and careful.
Elsie was neither prudent nor careful; she was just exactly as common as she had always been meant to be. She was also extremely pretty—"like a chocolate box," Robert would say to himself. For Robert rather dealt in cliches, despite the evening classes and the lectures on English literature that he so sedulously attended. And yet, when you came to argue the matter out in a logical manner, didn't they always put the most charming of faces on chocolate boxes? And wouldn't most girls be simply delighted to look exactly like those sirens who smiled out between the bows of ribbon in the confectioners' shops?
Elsie was fair. Her shingled locks were beginning to grow. She had copied the very newest fashion out of the picture page of one of the evening papers, and underneath an imitation tortoise-shell comb genuine golden curls were twisted upwards in quite an entrancing manner. Elsie had blue eyes—quite unstrained, unshadowed blue eyes—and most delicious features, and a charming colouring of cream and roses, thought Robert, dropping into clichés again; and yet he really could think of no two other words that so exactly expressed Elsie's fragrant loveliness.
She had no sense, and the worst of taste. She bought far too many cheap hats; but she knew how to drag them on at a most becoming angle. She also wore pearls that you can buy by the yard; but there's no doubt that they looked very delightful round her charming throat.
Elsie went to all the dances and "movies "—hideous word to Robert—that she could afford, or to which she could induce anyone to take her. She always had a trashy novel in her bag; she used a quite unnecessary lipstick and experimented in the less expensive perfumes. Robert was convinced that she didn't go to night clubs purely through lack of opportunity, and on one regrettable occasion, when he had chanced into the same teashop, he had seen her drinking ginger-ale at four o'clock in the afternoon with an air as if she raised a cocktail. Robert, who knew it was a great mistake to be "superior," gave Elsie her good points and tried to be tolerant towards her defects. The girl seemed kind-hearted, and she certainly enjoyed herself. An atmosphere of happiness and pleasure surrounded the shallowness of Elsie. She did her job not only efficiently but cheerfully. She kept her cigarettes and chocolates dutifully out of the office. Robert wished she could have kept her own provoking person out of the office. There was no doubt that she disturbed him. And of course it was quite ridiculous for a youth like Robert to be disturbed by a girl like Elsie, especially just now, when Mr. Forter was taking so much notice of him—even asking him down to his place on the river where he stayed in the spring, and introducing him to his daughter and heiress, Winifred.
Robert had thought a good deal about Winifred even before he had met her. A promising youth who has been commended by his master can hardly help thinking about that master's daughter. Wasn't it a very, very old story—the industrious apprentice and the rich master's charming child? Only—as so often and so unfortunately happens—real life was not quite so pleasant as the romance.
Winifred Forter was not charming. She was too tall, wore glasses, and had a Degree in Domestic Science. Like Robert himself, she had done all she could to improve her natural abilities; but, unlike Robert, she had scorned to improve her natural appearance. While his thick locks showed a becoming permanent wave, Winifred Forter had cropped hers into her neck and let them hang. She represented, however, all that towards which Robert had striven so persistently and so laboriously: culture, leisure, easy means. She had travelled; she could ride, manage a boat, swim, play tennis excellently. She had graceful manners and a fund of intelligent conversation. What a pity that she was not as pretty as Elsie, and what a pity that he had to be sorry that she wasn't as pretty as Elsie! The worse pity of the two that he, on the plane to which he had raised himself, should ever have noticed that Winifred Forter did not possess cheap and superficial attractions. He reminded himself continuously that beauty is but skin deep, and was annoyed that the reflection would always follow, without his own volition, that the skin is very important, and if you get as deep as that it's about as deep as you often need to get, especially in a girl.
His pride became more and more gratified by the continued kindness of the Forters. Robert tried to persuade himself that Winifred was not really so plain; if it hadn't been for that drab whiteness of her complexion and those rather ashy-looking eyes behind the glasses, the lightness of her hair that was rather the tint of dead grass—well, she might have been quite a presentable young woman; and Robert, the more frequently that he was a visitor at that charming house at Maidenhead, tried to persuade himself, with a fierce determination, that not only might she be a presentable young woman, but she actually was so; for as that very gratifying spring unfolded itself he was convinced that she favoured him, and that her father wished her to favour him.
"What an excellent match it would be!" thought Robert. He would inherit the fortune and the business; a well-planned, easy, honourable career straight ahead of him. At one step he would have moved into competence, and those upper circles which he had always gazed at with longing and envious eyes. He was really very fortunate—almost as fortunate, he reminded himself, as he deserved to be. One didn't want to be priggish or conceited, but after all he was really a very good-looking, amiable young man, industrious and clever, without a single vice, and he had taken a very great deal of pains with himself. Even with all her financial advantages Winifred Forter wasn't exactly the kind of girl that a young man like himself would be liable to lose his head over. She might, he reminded himself, consider herself almost as lucky as he considered himself. Of course, nothing was settled yet. They had been to tennis-parties and tea-parties together, and up the river, and to lectures; and her father had smiled on these proceedings. Robert's work was really very good, and Mr. Forter declared that a steady domesticated young man of presentable appearance and courteous manners was extremely difficult to find in these wretched, decayed days. In one genial moment he had even hinted quite broadly that he would not be ill-pleased to see Robert, after he had served a sufficient apprenticeship in work and love, installed as his partner and son-in-law.
Meanwhile, Robert had a great deal of clerical work to do, and was bound to see rather too much of Elsie. To keep this young woman in her place—for she was, in her free way, a great deal too familiar—Robert contrived casually to remark on the frequency of his visits to the Forters.
This move did not seem to have much effect.
"I've seen her," smiled Elsie, and made no further comment.
Robert, exasperated, could not resist handing Elsie marked copies of papers and magazines in which a retired clergyman, making a good deal of money out of journalism, lamented the decadence of modern femininity, and pointed out the horrors of backless swimming suits, platinum hair, jazz, and the loss of the chaperone.
What impression this made on Elsie he did not know, for she offered no comment whatever; but one day, after he had silently laid on her typewriter a peculiarly pungent article entitled "Modern Jezebels," she asked him if he would take her out to a dance that evening, as her young man, she added casually, had "fallen through."
Robert sniffed a temptation to reply, "Fallen through what?" and pleaded, with correct courtesy, a prior engagement.
"Going to a lecture?" asked Elsie.
And Robert smiled in a manner that he strove to render-compassionate, as if the impertinence of Elsie were really beneath notice.
It was a lovely spring, even in London. There was hardly a street that was not adorned by packed baskets of flowers in the arms of hawkers or standing on the kerbs. The parks were misty with young green, and sharp with the new fragrance of the bells of daffodil and hyacinth.
Elsie always had violets by her typewriter, and sometimes violets at her breast. There were flowers in the Forters' drawing-room too; but they were brought in from a conservatory and were somehow different. Robert vaguely felt the spring to be out of tune with his affair with the Forters—an obbligato that did not fit with the melody. Could it be the plainness of Winifred that was wrong? She said she disliked the spring, and preferred the autumn, and complained of the long, bleak, lightish evenings, which Robert felt were full of beckoning wind and an enticing perfume.
One evening he happened to come into the office to fetch some drawings just as Elsie was locking up her typewriter. He paused beside her without being able in the least to help it. She wore a hat and a dress of a colour that he had always found peculiarly seductive—a pale lily-of-the-valley green—and a quite absurd grey silk coat; but in that twilight, with the dewy violets in her hand, she could hardly have looked more entrancing if she had been exquisitely gowned in the most expensive materials. The cheapness of her attire did not matter in the least—not even to Robert, sedulously cultivated as was his taste. Why must he think to himself, "I've nothing to do this evening "? Of course he'd something to do! Wasn't there always work—self-improvement—study? He lingered and hesitated. One ought to be sorry for Elsie; poor little thing, what was going to be the end of her? No one would marry her, of course; inefficient, untrained, silly, good for nothing but to amuse herself and thump, a typewriter.
"Lovely evening," she remarked, looking up.
Yes, it was a lovely evening. He had noticed that himself. Such a pellucid sky above the darkness of the houses! Such a crystal slip of moon rising above the straight lines of the chimney-pots! Such an odour of the spring, and the streets so deliciously filled with twilight shadows!
"You don't seem in a hurry," smiled Elsie.
And he said stiffly:
"Are you doing anything to-night?"
"I don't know yet," she replied pertly. "Is that your way of asking me out, Mr. Dacre?"
"We might go somewhere," said Robert, thinking instantly that after all no one need ever know; and it was part of life, wasn't it, even for the best of young men, just occasionally to amuse themselves with girls like Elsie? No wild oats, of course, but just a cautious surveying of the ground where they might possibly have been sown ... the "movies," as she called them, for instance, or a dance-hall, or—
"Let's go to the pictures!" Elsie interrupted his thoughts perfectly casually, as if there was nothing in such an episode. "I haven't seen 'Flaming Hearts' yet; we might go there. I don't suppose it's up to much, but it passes the time."
Robert wanted to say how utterly he scorned such places.
"There's a dance-room there, too," said Elsie, "and you can get supper. Let's go—it will be fun!" And she gave the young man a look which plainly showed him that she found him desirable. Such a different took from the glances with which Winifred Forter had told him she did not regard him with disfavour.
"All right," he said stiffly; and he was at once involved in a picture of the cinema house; the warm, yellowish dark, the smoke, the smell of the disinfectants—sweetish, strong; the sense of dust and perfume; the muggy heat; and the voluptuous pictures—embraces, kisses, clinging arms, pressing hands, human bodies viewed from all possible angles—beautiful, seductive, always making love ... that had been his impression of the cinema the few times he had been. There was no doubt that there was a sort of heady effect about it, and with Elsie beside him—Elsie in her thin silks, with her violets wilting in the heat, and those little yellow curls at the nape of her neck, and her blue eyes; Elsie with her white fingers busy with a box of chocolates, happy, graceful, yielding.... What a cheap temptation for a young man like Robert to be assailed with! Go home and study!
The girl's eyes forbade this withdrawal. He yielded as many have yielded before, out of a fear of looking a fool in the eyes of an inferior. Already she seemed to mock him as much as to say, "You don't dare!" And that was enough for Robert. They found themselves in the street together, and Elsie did not disguise her gratification and her admiration for her handsome cavalier.
Of course she soon proved herself even more distressingly ignorant and stupid than he had thought she was. Yet there was a certain native shrewdness about her that prevented him from setting her down as altogether a fool. He shuddered to think of the fate in store for the man who would be infatuated enough to marry Elsie.
He spoke rather mechanically of the Forters. He said what extraordinarily nice people they were, and how extraordinarily kind they had been to him; how charming and cultured Winifred was. Elsie cut in cheerfully and said yes, old Forter wasn't a bad sort if you took him in the right way, and as for Winifred, she dared say she couldn't help her face, poor girl!
Robert said stiffly that Miss Forter had considerable charm, and Elsie said well, yes, she supposed that was what you did say about people when you couldn't say anything else kind! The Imperial, which was showing "Flaming Hearts," proved to be a much more gorgeous affair than Robert had ever imagined. It all might be—and no doubt was—in the very worst of taste, and yet he could not deny that it was imposing and effective; so many gilt pillars, so many vast mirrors, so many clustering lights and so many pretty girls, haughty and aloof in grotesque uniforms, selling programmes, and such a very loud and harmonious orchestra; and then such comfortable seats, and such an air of being a patron, of having paid for the best and having got it ...
Elsie accepted chocolates as a matter of course. He noticed that, in contradiction to all the medical articles he had ever read, despite her smoking and sweet-eating, her teeth were remarkably good.
As soon as the sumptuous lights went down the couple in front at once passed their arms round each other's waists, and Robert wondered if he should do the same with Elsie; but no doubt the other two were engaged, or going to be ... and he blushed at the effrontery of his own thoughts. Good gracious, if he wasn't careful he would find himself really involved! He must cling firmly to his principles and the thought of the future in store for him with the Forters.
He had heard Winifred Forter speak of the cinema passion as "a manifestation of the pleasure-loving tendency of the age," and he must remember it in that light. He secretly thought, however, that the film shown was, despite its absurd title, extremely good. Of the beauty of the female stars there could be no doubt, although in the close-ups their paint was rather obvious.
Elsie kept up a running fire of acute and slightly contemptuous criticisms, yet she was obviously enjoying herself. In the interval she had ices and criticised with good-nature but penetration all the other girls whom she could perceive through the smoky atmosphere.
After the film was over she suggested dancing, and Robert didn't know how to dance. And his efforts to appear unashamed of this fact made him rather disagreeable. He would certainly have liked very much to dance with Elsie; he couldn't imagine ever wanting to dance with Winifred—and there seemed something wrong there somehow. Was it altogether wise, he put to his slightly muddled brain, to want to marry a woman with whom you didn't want to dance? He tried to steady himself by the anchor labelled "Intellectual Affinity." He would be bored with Elsie in a week, and surely it must be the devil who was whispering to him that it would be a good week first—a rather worthwhile week.
He had noticed that she was one of the prettiest girls there, and a good many other young men were glancing at her; cheap, common young men, of course.... Robert Dacre himself felt a dreadful cheapness and commonness to-night, exactly as if this were where he belonged, and always had belonged—a sort of "coming home" feeling. How genial and pleasant everything was after those dull evenings studying in his own room, attending classes or lectures, or spent in the arid company of Winifred.
They went to look at the dancing despite his protests; and he hated vehemently all the other youths who were able to sail with such a negligent air across the polished floor, carelessly holding some adoring girl. Elsie would have looked like that at him if he had been able to dance with her.... She was just the right height too; they would have been quite the handsomest couple in the room. And he resolved that he would have dancing lessons on the morrow. After all, as a man of the world—and he hoped that quite soon he could call himself a man of the world—he ought to know how to dance; and it didn't look difficult either.
Winifred Forter had always smiled wearily when dancing was mentioned, and Robert caught himself in the ungenerous thought that perhaps this was because she was by no means sure of partners.
They left at last, and Elsie said that it had been a pleasant evening. He thought this was, in the circumstances, very kind of her, and he stopped and bought her flowers from an old woman standing by the station who had still a large basket of red and cream-coloured roses.
He had never been so extravagant with flowers before, for he had not thought it "quite the thing" to give floral offerings to Winifred Forter; but he bought shillingsworths of these stiff foreign roses with the long stems, and felt a remarkable pleasure in putting them into Elsie's pretty arms.
She accepted the charming gift without embarrassment. He saw her home, and on the doorstep she said "Good night and thank you!" quite frankly.
Robert went home wondering.
The morning brought discretion, of course; but for several days he slackened in his attentions to Winifred Forter. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to go down and see her, or to meet her in town. Even when Mr. Forter began to look rather dry and glacial, still Robert couldn't quite bring himself. He meant to in the end, of course; he meant to seize this golden opportunity. But he was content to let it dangle within his reach just a little longer. After all, he was sure of Winifred; he had, of course, his ready excuses; he was studying hard, he had had to visit relations. Meanwhile he was taking surreptitious dancing lessons, and occasionally escorting Elsie out in the evenings; occasionally, for she did not seem very often free.
Once he asked her to kiss him, but she replied placidly: "Well, I don't suppose it would hurt either of us," and, without passion, allowed him to kiss her. "It's all very well for her," he thought grimly, "I say she's used to it; but if one isn't—" He drew back from the abyss of temptation.
He intended on the next Saturday to call on Winifred Forter with flowers and excuses. He ventured on the flowers now, for his brief but vivid experiences with Elsie had given him more confidence in his dealings with women. Those were not blooms bought in the street, of course, but really expensive exotic flowers from a florist. Rather silly to take them to her when she grew them herself, but still he felt it was the right gesture; and, laden with his frail exotics, he presented himself in the pleasant drawing-room of the riverside house determined to devote himself, in the immediate future at least, exclusively to Winifred Forter, and not, in the immediate future at least, to take Elsie out again.
Winifred was playing tennis with a lean and hungry-looking young man who cut an odious figure, Robert thought, in flannels, and was, he knew, a University Extension Lecturer whose acquaintance they had mutually made a few months ago. Robert did not admire him as much as he had once done, and did not think with the same enthusiasm of the hobby they had once shared—that for "prehistoric remains."
Winifred received him coldly, though she was gratified by the gift of flowers. Though it was so early in the year she had contrived to become unpleasantly sunburnt. She was that kind of girl. And her tennis-frock was too short and too skimpy, and made her appear as if she had more joints than is usual in the human anatomy. Elsie seemed put together by curves, not by hinges. Still, Robert reminded himself sharply, he must not think of these stupid comparisons. He decided he had better quench his wandering thoughts by an instant proposal to Winifred Forter.
He did not have an immediate opportunity, however, for the other young man lingered and monopolised both Winifred and the conversation.
Winifred devoted herself to this raw-boned fellow with such enthusiasm that Robert began almost to suspect that spies had been at work. Yet, of course, that was impossible; Elsie and Winifred moved in such different worlds that at no possible point could they touch; and, conscious of his immense superiority over this unattractive rival, he patiently bided his time, but in vain. When the young man, replete with tea and admiration, at length left, Winifred remarked— not without a flash of malice—that she was engaged to him, and "quite the happiest girl in the world "; and didn't Mr. Dacre think he was delightful?
Pride enabled Robert to bear this shattering blow with some equanimity. He told himself that never had she looked plainer. He was quite sure that if she had known he was going to propose marriage, she would have allowed him to do so for the mere gratification of her vanity; and he congratulated himself on this escape. Of course, on his return to London his sense of defeat was bitter in his mind—a big loss, too. That abominable, scrawny wretch would come into the Forter fortune; things wouldn't be quite so easy for him, Robert Dacre, as he had hoped they might be. But there was Elsie.... Of course, he couldn't marry Elsie; he'd have to marry a woman who could help him along—an intelligent woman with a little money; but meanwhile he might "go about" with Elsie. Winifred had no call on him now, he thought viciously, and he needn't be so careful not to offend Mr. Forter's old-fashioned susceptibilities. Already Robert had begun to call them "old-fashioned."
He regretted the money he had spent on the flowers for Winifred, and wished he had laid it out for Elsie, and he began to dream fatuously that perhaps, with time and goodwill, one might educate and polish Elsie— subdue her cheapness and commonness.
He called at her modest home on the Sunday, but she was out. He felt a pang of jealousy.
On Monday morning she was at her place with an even more than usually large bunch of violets beside her typewriter.
For the first time he wondered if she bought these violets for herself, or if he had one (or perhaps several) rivals. She certainly went out a good deal; but then they said that nowadays this didn't mean anything to girls.
When he stopped to speak to her he found, to his amazement, that she knew of Winifred Forter's engagement.
"I hope," she said frankly, "it isn't because you've been taking me out. You never know with that sort, do you? I certainly thought you had a good chance there; and I hope I haven't spoiled it," she added with a friendly smile.
Robert hated this, but laughed airily, and suggested that they should go out somewhere that evening with as casual an air as he could command.
Elsie fluttered a hand on which showed a big diamond.
"I can't go out with you any more," she said candidly. "I'm engaged now—' the happiest girl in the world,' isn't that what one ought to say? I want to finish my week's work here, and then—good-bye to girlie!"
"You're engaged, too?" asked Robert with a sinking heart
"Yes—didn't you see it coming on?" she smiled. "He's been paying me a lot of attention, though he liked to keep it quiet These are his violets I have here always. A pretty thought, wasn't it?" said the wretched girl with a sentimental look. "Last night we settled it all, and he spoke to mother and father. He's taking me to the Riviera and buying me lots of pretty clothes; and now that Winifred's going to get married it won't matter—we shall be all to ourselves. Of course, he's a bit old, but I always said he was a good sort if you knew how to manage him."
"To whom are you referring?" asked Robert icily.
"Why, to Mr. Forter, of course!" said Elsie, tossing her head. "A girl's got her value nowadays, I can tell you. Fooling about is all very well, but I want to settle down."
Robert passed into the next room. He felt that he understood very little of human character and human motives. Mr. Forter and that little fool! She to enjoy the fortune that he had worked for, that he, with all his industry and fortune, deserved, and after all that Mr. Forter had said, too ...
Robert felt that there was something very wrong somewhere.
EVELINA HASTYN sat up in bed and looked blank at the array of wedding presents still concealed and tied up.
A little heap of letters and telegrams completed the array that met her just-opened eyes; she thought, lazily, that they all looked rather ugly in her exquisite opal-coloured room, and that, when they were untied, there would be a still uglier confusion of paper, string and cards.
On the heavy lace coverlet of her bed was a sheaf of white roses, perfect, formal, redolent of the greenhouse and the florist.
Evelina looked at them, sniffed them, and yawned.
With an ivory paper-knife she slit up the wrappers of several expensive weekly papers; as the glossy leaves uncurled she saw in each her own portrait, in pearls and a chiffon hat, in a brocade slip, holding a plume of feathers or gleaming through a gauze scarf; in one photograph a small likeness of a weak-looking man was attached in one corner, in another he was of equal size with herself, and they occupied two ovals tilted together and joined by fluttering ribbons, orange blossoms and cherubs.
Evelina yawned again.
She sipped her tea out of a translucent cup that the liquid changed from pearl to amber; she nibbled dry toast and gazed at her reflection in the oval mirror that hung facing the foot of the bed, on the wall covered with dove and apricot-coloured brocade. She thought she looked rather pale, as if her fairness was unnaturally bleached, and that the gold lace on her cap (which entirely concealed her hair) was too heavy and gave a hollow look to her cheeks; the long pale arms left uncovered by the apricot-tinted crêpe de chine nightgown appeared thin.
Evelina sighed.
Yet why worry about her appearance? Her prettiness was the one thing about her no one disputed ... she was pretty without having to trouble about it, and would be for years and years.
And she had always cultivated that air of delicacy and fragility—so that she had been likened to a wisp of gold gauze or a floating plume of frail feathers or rosy white wine in a Venetian glass.
Why, indeed, worry about anything?
There never had been much to worry about in the life of Evelina, only money ... elegance was so costly and there had been contrivances and debts ... nothing unpleasant, but that they could not have gone on very much longer ... and now there was no need that they should go on any longer; in a fortnight's time she was marrying a very wealthy man.
As she thought of the bridegroom, Evelina yawned again.
She opened the letters one after another, glanced at the delicate sheets and flung them down; she picked up some of the parcels and put them aside; one, wrapped in a pale gleaming olive paper, she opened; the handwriting was one she had not seen for a long time, and over the address was written in those familiar characters of the past: "Fragile—with care."
Evelina drew a letter from the wrappings of silver paper, rolls of cardboard and cotton-wool.
"I send you—' Fragile—with care.' Please look after her as she deserves.—L.P."
Evelina lifted a mirror of Venetian glasswork from the wrappings; it was wreathed with the most delicate flowers, white roses, yellow hyacinths, deeper primroses, pink tulips, white and crimson speckled carnations and pale greenery, all of the most frail and exquisite workmanship. As she raised it Evelina saw her own face reflected in the circle of looking-glass with the blooming flowers curving round.
"'Fragile—with care,' am I?" she smiled faintly. "Rather an obvious sneer, my dear Lucas."
For the gift was from Lucas Pollitt, the man she would have married if he had had only just a little more money.
But it was not meant as a sneer, and Evelina knew that it wasn't; she curled herself up in the bed; the lilies fell to the floor and she took no heed.
The Venetian mirror she propped on to her pillow and gazed into it.
"With care "—had he noticed, then, what infinite pains she took with herself, or did he just refer to her marriage, which would so hedge and fence her from every need of care?
"With care"—well, you couldn't go on looking eighteen when you were nearly thirty without care— she would have to take more and more care.
Evelina smiled.
What would become of the adoration of men even like Lucas Pollitt if she didn't take "care "—if she "let herself go"?
A little tinkle made her again sit up in the bed.
Evelina lifted a gay doll in gold panniers off the telephone and listened.
Camilla! The silly gossip!
No, Evelina couldn't lunch with her—"though I should love to, most awfully."
"What an awful bore!" rippled the thin little silver voice. "I've got some awfully decent people coming— the woman who painted that skeleton picture, she's most awfully nice, and Grida Hake, who's just swum the Channel or somewhere or other, Tim Tilden—and, oh, my dear, have you heard the news about Lucas Pollitt?"
Evelina, who had been listening with a bored look, gripped the silver receiver rather tightly.
"No—getting married?" she asked lazily.
"Married?" came Camilla's delicate scream. "My dear! Ruined! Harry told me in confidence—"
"Then don't tell me," interrupted Evelina languidly.
"But you were such friends, weren't you?"
"Were we? I've forgotten."
"It is the most awful thing," persisted Camilla. "That firm he is in is going to fail—no one knows—"
"They will soon, won't they?" drawled Evelina. "I haven't told a soul but you," replied Camilla reproachfully, "and now I won't tell you the worst—"
"The worst?"
"Yes—Harry says it's quite well known there is something fishy—Lucas has been plunging. Oh, my dear, Harry says there'll be a warrant out—"
"What a bore," said Evelina very slowly.
"Harry says I mustn't ask him to the house—so I thought I'd just let you know—you were about together an awful lot, weren't you?"
"Were we?" remarked Evelina. "So sorry I can't come to lunch—what a bore!"
She hung up the receiver and mechanically replaced the gay doll. Seated on the edge of the bed, she lit a yellow-tinted cigarette and smoked it through a long amber holder.
How hateful Camilla was—she had just rung up to give that horrible piece of news; how could she know of such a thing? These disasters came with a crash.
Still, Camilla's fat unpleasant husband was very much "in the city," and he had a horrid way of finding out coming scandals and troubles; and what did she, Evelina, know her side?
Nothing at all of these sort of affairs and how they could be discovered or no.
But she did recall how frantic Lucas had been to make money, how desperately he had talked, in his high-handed way, of "means to an end" and everything being justified "if you weren't found out—"
Perhaps he had been talking like that to Harry, and the nasty little man had been "nosing" about.... Camilla was, of course, delighted; she had always wanted Lucas for her own tame cat.
Evelina's knowledge of finance consisted of being aware that if you couldn't pay people something off their bills they worried you and that, even extended by limitless credit, her own income wasn't adequate, but she never gambled or speculated, and misadventures such as Camilla had spoken of were outside her sphere.
She did not unfasten the rest of the wedding gifts, nor pick up the perfunctory flowers sent her by the man she was going to marry; she sat on the edge of the lace bed, rather pale and frowning.
And when she had consumed one of her ridiculous little cigarettes she lit another.
Suddenly the brocade doll was again unthroned and Evelina rang up her lawyer.
She asked him some questions, very casually and with infinite tact.
They were questions about the firm to which Lucas Pollitt belonged.
And when she had been answered she hung up the receiver absently and this time forgot to replace the gold-skirted doll.
Evelina rang for Dawson, and when that excellent maid appeared, was quite angry because she began to snip the string off the parcels.
"Put them all away, Dawson, exactly as they are. But the little mirror you may hang up above my bed—the colours just suit the wall."
And when she was dressed, pearl colour, floating mist-hued gauze, floating silver plume, she rang up another lawyer with whom she had a slight but pleasant acquaintance.
"Oh, could you tell me," said Evelina, really smiling so that her voice might sound deliciously nattering, "what one does if one has committed some kind of crime and doesn't want to be arrested? I mean, it used to be Spain, I know, for the man who took grandmama's diamonds went there—such a bore!"
"My dear young lady!" boomed along the wires.
Evelina became even more sweet.
"I'm writing a novel, you know—and the hero fakes accounts—or something silly—and the heroine wants to help him out of England—what is the best place to goto?"
"Anywhere—as long as you're not discovered—if you mean the extradition treaty—"
"I'm sure I do—"
"Well, there is nowhere but Mexico—and a few odd islands, mostly savage—"
"Thank you so much—that will do splendidly."
Evelina sat down rather wearily; as she left the telephone the animation went out of her bearing.
She eyed the unopened letters.
Many of them were bills ... perhaps Mexico was safe against creditors, too?
A clear spring sunshine streamed through the thin straw-coloured silk curtains, the veiled sound of distant traffic made a murmuring in the room; Evelina glanced up at the mirror to which still hung the label.
"Fragile—with care," and saw her own pathetic reflection therein.
"One can cook on a chafing dish," she murmured. "I wonder if there are chafing dishes in Mexico—what an awful bore to be hard up!"
She stood a moment reflecting, then took off the hat with the floating silvery plumes, the gleaming pearl-coloured gloves; she thought of herself without lovely frocks, a comfortable car, a perfect little flat, an excellent maid ... and she thought of Lucas.
"Heigho," said Evelina, and once more she pulled the doll off the telephone.
Now she rang up the young man whose portrait showed in the oval beside hers in the least smart of the smart papers (of course, the very up-to-date ones had done with ribbons and cherubs and even with putting the bridegroom as large as the bride).
Twice she got the wrong number, and then there was a pause, for the number was engaged.
Evelina was very thoughtful as she waited.
At last the tiny tinkle; the line clear and Lord Merriland speaking.
Evelina's voice was rose leaves and honey.
"Oh, Jim, my child, is that you? How nice of you to be you! I can't come to lunch to-day, dressmakers—isn't it an awful bore? And, Jim—don't you think this wedding business is—an awful bore and all that? Shall we scratch?"
"I am rather funking it," came faintly and yet clearly. "Bridesmaids and all that—such an awful bore—seems quite mid-Victorian, doesn't it?"
"Mid-Africa, I think," replied Evelina. "And I've had such atrocious presents. I'm longing to send them back—shall we call it off?"
"And get married at a nice ivy-covered register office with dear little choir boys?"
"You are thinking of a village church a hundred years ago, my poor boy. No, that isn't for horrid, frivolous folk like us—but for people who are really and truly in love—"
"I say, I'm most awfully keen on you—"
"I know—it's so nice of you. But I've changed my mind, really. I'm going away—to—Mexico—I think—"
"What an awful bore," the disconsolate lover's voice sighed along the wires.
"Isn't it? But you're being most fearfully decent. I'll see you before I go and tell you all about it—you're most frightfully lucky to get rid of me, really."
"I say—"
But Evelina rang off the protests.
Next she was speaking to an exclusive agency that attended to many of her needs.
"Will you have this inserted in all the leading papers—" She paused, then dictated slowly:
"The marriage arranged between Miss Evelina Hastyn and Lord Merriland will not take place—"
The next call was not undertaken without some trepidation.
"Can I speak to Mr. Pollitt?"
Mr. Pollitt himself answered.
"I'm Evelina Hastyn—I want to thank you for your—pretty present. But I'm afraid you'll have to have it back."
"Why? Wedding off?"
"Yes," said Evelina coldly. "Jim and I were never keen on each other, really."
"Of course I knew that," came the calm answer. "Haven't you a better reason?"
"Much. I want to marry you."
"You wouldn't when I asked you."
"I've changed my mind. Please say something nice—quick—"
"I can't—I've fainted."
"Don't be silly, Lucas, please. You're going to see now what a great mistake you've made about me. I'm not 'fragile,' and I don't require to be labelled 'With care.'"
"Oh, darling!"
"No, I don't. I've learnt cooking, I mean I'm going to, eggs and things, and I'm brave enough to leave my debts and clear off at once—of course, I know it will be an awful bore being without everything you want, and I hate the idea of Mexico-——"
"What are you talking about?" gently interrupted the happy lover.
"Mexico," replied Evelina heroically. "I know everything. That's why I want to marry you—please don't be stupid—it is most frightfully important We ought to leave the country at once."
"As soon as you like, of course, but why?"
"Because of the mess you're in, poor dear, of course."
"Evelina! You mean you want to sacrifice yourself for me? You think I'm ruined—disgraced and obliged to fly to—Mexico?"
"Yes." There was a sob in Evelina's voice. "And I don't—care. I want to come, too."
There was a short pause.
"You don't know much—about some things, do you, Evelina?" asked Mr. Pollitt tenderly. Evelina misunderstood.
"What I don't know I'll learn. You've no idea how useful I can be—I'll go without—"
"But, Evelina, I've heaps of money, heaps and heaps—"
"Heaps of money?"
"Yes."
"But Camilla told—"
"Just what I asked her to. I wanted to see if you were still interested—I couldn't tell you I'd made a fortune, could I?"
"But the firm," faltered Evelina. "Of course, I didn't believe Camilla—but I heard from someone else—"
"Oh, the firm is going bankrupt all right—that is what put the idea into my head—but I left it ages ago, and I've really made a lot of money—"
"Wretch!" murmured Evelina.
"But I had to—when I'd made up my mind to marry someone labelled—' Fragile—with care.'"
"Of course, I'll never see you again," said Evelina decisively.
"I'll be round in half an hour," was the answer, and Mr. Pollitt rang off.
Evelina glanced into her new mirror, kissed the brocade doll before she replaced her on the telephone, and called Dawson.
"Dawson—please send those parcels back to the addresses inside—and, Dawson, Mr. Pollitt is calling and will stay to lunch—and, Dawson, isn't a telephone really a great convenience?"
POLLARD was in Paris in the spring; the chestnut trees in the Tuileries were prodigiously full of bloom, the tresses of Persian lilac in the Palais Royal hung in luxurious beauty on to the rich earth, the wide river was strewn in every ripple with flakes of transient gold, the blue air was vibrant with fragrance, with melody, with colour.
Pollard was excited by this splendour, which, however, he regarded with a wistfulness touched by greed. He was thirty-seven and of a melancholy disposition; a man never sure of himself, he was sure enough of his destiny, that is, he knew that in no way would he ever be exceptional; his luck, like his attainments, would always be moderate; he dreaded the passing of his youth, for he feared that he would lose touch with a world which seemed, he thought, made for the young.
Looking ahead he saw himself a lonely, rather despised figure, ageing among a generation who regarded him with no more than a kindly tolerance.
The shining opulence of this spring in Paris sharply reminded him of how much he had missed: "I must do something to attach myself to life."
But crude pleasures could not hold him; an almost morbid fastidiousness had always been his bane, giving him infinite capacity for self-torture.
Why had he, comely, attractive, well off, not married?
Morrison asked him this question as they sat under the striped awnings of a cafe near the Louvre; Morrison was never uneasy, never at odds with the commonplace; as he sipped his apéritif he pointed out half a dozen likely matches for Pollard among their mutual acquaintances.
Pollard tried to laugh away these practical suggestions, he was watching the intricate maze of light and shade beyond the awning, the sparse leaves of the plane trees that seemed riddled with gold, the figures of the passers-by who seemed to be rendered impalpable by the haze of sunshine.
"Where is fond fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?" he misquoted.
Morrison told him that he had got the line wrong; "but I know what you mean—you're a romantic, a sentimentalist."
Pollard shrugged as if he cast off these terms of reproach; yet he was vexed that he always remained ashamed of the best in himself; why did ordinary, hearty successful fellows like Morrison, so assured and insensitive, make him feel inferior and ready to deny those exquisite dreams that alone kept his soul alive?
An old woman passed with a basket of red roses packed close, stacked high and tight; moisture glittered on the long thick green stems and bright leaves; two lovers paused to purchase; the sunshine slipped beneath her open bodice, outlining her breast; their hands met over the glittering foliage and crimson thorns, their voices were at once drowsy and quick; they did not know what they were saying, they laughed foolishly as the hawker beguiled more sous out of his worn purse and more roses into her work-seared hands.
"It would be horrible," said Pollard, "to come to Paris when one was old."
Morrison grinned above his tall, thick glass.
"Well, then, make the best of it while you are young; you have plenty of opportunities."
Pollard was of "independent means "; he wrote himself "gentleman" on his passport; he was also a dilettante and had once been secretary to a German princess, once companion to an English bishop, travelling in Italy; Morrison had to work for his living, he represented a London bank in Paris; Pollard respected his shrewdness, his knowledge of solid affairs, his capacity for keeping a level humour.
And Morrison was genuinely sorry for Pollard.
"You must really," he advised, "make an effort to get what you want—"
The words hung in Pollard's mind; love of course was what he wanted, a delicate idyllic affair with some rare woman with whom he could spend his life: understanding, companionship, passion, why, he lacked all these and must find them before it was too late and he would be forced, in despair, to accept some sham— perhaps even to purchase some trumpery imitation.
He strolled into the picture galleries of the Louvre and watched the little parties of tourists and guides passing with decorous awe and muted wonder through the brown obscurity of the austere apartments; through the high grim windows fell shafts of sunshine in which millions of motes danced; the pictures on the walls and the light blurred view of Paris beyond these windows seemed unreal to Pollard.
He watched the women; their long skirts swept over the polished floors, their mantles concealed their figures, their bonnets hid their faces, but he could tell by their movements, their voices who were excited and who were bored.
As he lingered by the window embrasure a young woman came into the beam of light; she wore a queer little frogged jacket, too heavy for the sudden heat, and a plain travelling hat with a veil; her hair hung in a net beneath, he judged it as heavy as it was bright.
She paused and stared down at the sparkle of the river; he thought that she was weary, that the smooth brow ached and the broad white lids longed to close.
Her features were such as he had always termed "classic "; her complexion, though faded by fatigue, was very pure; despite her heavy and unbecoming attire he thought she could be no more than twenty years of age.
Evidently sensing his presence the other side of the window-place, she turned to glance at him; her eyes were slightly reddened as from lack of sleep; the sunlight in the pupils divided the hazel colour into flecks of brown and green; he could see her separate lashes shine a veritable gold.
"It is she," he thought, heavy with happiness; her grave glance appeared to acknowledge his mute claim.
She moved away slowly, her movements full of lassitude; he watched her join a party of several other women and two elderly men; when he had assured himself that there was no possible lover among these people Pollard took no further notice of them.
The stranger had grown out of his longing as a flower grows out of a bud; he had found a shape into which to cast his tender aspiring fancies, and all the gala of the spring seemed of a sudden personal to him; she moved before him like the point of light on a bubble radiant with myriad hues.
It was as if the whole world were well-wishing him as he followed her from one stately sombre room to another, as if he had part in all the potential happiness of the world.
He was careful not to cause her any embarrassment, and took pains not to be observed by her friends; he contrived to see her in mirrors, reflected in pictures, and, by passing rapidly through connecting corridors, to meet her coming through the tall doorways, her little guide-book in her languid hand, her head bent wearily under the weight of plaited hair.
He was sure she saw him; once even she faintly smiled, without coquetry, but with an imploring sweetness.
He was in her train when she left the Louvre; he called up a fiacre to follow her through the spring dust and observed the little party alight at a modest hotel in the Rue du Bac.
She was English; he had not heard her speak, but had caught the voices of her companions; he made various excuses to call at her hotel; once he saw her going up the narrow stairs; she wore a white cashmere dress, an Andalusian shawl; she looked back at him as she turned the newel post. He was sure that they understood each other perfectly.
He was delighted to observe that she was not rich, nor distinguished, nor even very beautiful; this made his not inconsiderable assets appear more worth the offering.
The next day he had resolved to make her acquaintance; he anticipated no difficulty; his perfect happiness seemed predestined.
But when he reached the little hôtel de famille which lodged his treasure he saw a carriage loaded with luggage at the door; she was stepping in; her gloved hand closed the window; she glanced at him from under the shade of a sarcenet bonnet and was gone.
Pollard questioned the porter; ah, yes, an English family and some friends, they were returning to England, their holiday was over—the name of the young lady? But there were several.
Pollard had noticed only one; he was impatient with the man's stupidity; there was no other woman in the party to be compared to her... the young lady in the striped sarcenet bonnet who had been closing the door of the carriage?
The man pocketed the pourboire and replied that the stout gentleman in the check cape was her father; the address could be procured; he presently fetched this written on a poor paper in a thin ink to which the sand stuck: "The Rev. Herbert Allard, Conford Rectory, Kent."
Pollard was satisfied; he paused and dallied with his happiness; there seemed to him no need for haste; he had some engagements in Germany which he fulfilled—it was not till six weeks later that he arrived at the small Kentish village of Conford and took a room at the "Ewe and Lamb."
Her image by then absorbed the whole of his waking thoughts, all his dreams; it was a superb July; the very ditches were gorgeous with meadow-sweet, the poorest cottage gardens richly decked with profuse roses.
The Rectory was as Pollard had imagined it; low roofed, timbered, apple trees behind, grass lawns in front. His inquiries revealed that all was as he would have it; Mr. Allard was a widower, the only child was Selina, she was about twenty years of age; Pollard wandered about the summer lanes, hoping to meet her unexpectedly.
He had to wait till Sunday, when he saw her in the white-washed Norman church.
She was changed by the difference in her attire; she wore a muslin gown, a straw hat, neither net nor veil, and a delicate rosy colour in her carnation cheeks, a clearness in her eyes, a quickness in her movements showed a joyous health; also he found that her hair was darker than he had thought; there had then been magic abroad that spring morning in Paris—faery gold; but she was all the dearer to him for her mere humanity; and from this new sight of her his thirsty fancy drank strong draughts of inspiration; her two images, the tired sightseer in Paris, the blooming girl praying in the Kentish church became fused in one radiance.
He made the acquaintance of her father with due decorum—a request of the keys of the church, a few questions about a Saxon font; Pollard's credentials did the rest; his family, his fortune, his career, his dubs, his views were such as Mr. Allard could take no exception to; he was indeed delighted with this well-to-do, pleasant-looking, amiable man who so soon declared himself a suitor for Selina, who, for her part, accepted him with a grateful candour as if she had long expected him—the good Rector hardly tried to conceal his pleasure at this good luck; eligible partis were not common in Conford.
Selina, like a young plant delicately trained, shyly grew into the shape of her lover's fancy; he was not disappointed in her response; she promised delight for all the empty places of his life; he was pleased that she did not ever mention the meeting in the Louvre, that mystical encounter of spirits akin, now to be for ever united.
But as the courtship, without blot or flaw, proceeded. Pollard began to be vexed by the Rector's too frequent references to his daughter's good fortune—"How strange that you, Henry, a travelled man, belonging to a larger world, should have chanced on this remote spot to find a wife "—then with a jovial curiosity: "I never have been quite able to understand what did bring you here!"
Pollard at length took up the challenge; with his glance on Selina, who was sewing lavender buds into pale muslin bags, he detailed his visit to the galleries of the Louvre up to that point when he had followed to the hotel in the Rue du Bac; the silence of father and daughter then made him pause; Selina, bent low over her flying needle, gave him no look; perhaps he had outraged a spiritual confidence by thus mentioning their first meeting?
The Rector coughed; he seemed embarrassed; Pollard leant expectantly towards Selina, who, without raising her head, asked:
"Who was the lady who so attracted you?"
"What!" exclaimed Pollard. "Is it possible that you did not see me?"
"I have never been in Paris," she replied.
He was irritated; this was carrying a whim too far.
"It was you I followed—I saw you on the stairway of the hotel and leaving for the station the following morning.
"Impossible," interrupted the Rector, highly displeased. "My daughter has never left Kent—it is seventeen years since I was in Paris—forgive me, my dear Henry, but this jest seems to me in rather bad taste!"
Stung by the rebuke, Pollard related how he had obtained the address from the porter of the hotel ... an awkward silence followed; everyone felt deceived and cheated.
"I suppose," said Mr. Allard, "you hardly expect me to call witnesses to prove that my daughter has been here all her life?"
"No, no—but I really cannot understand—"
"But it makes no difference, does it?" put in Selina. "It isn't important, I mean "—she glanced at Pollard shyly—"just a mistake like that—"
"Of course not," the father replied for the silent lover, "since you two found each other, eh?"
Pollard made an effort to throw off a sensation of being trapped, to reassure Selina and to pass over the whole incident, and he had sufficient art to give a natural turn to the conversation.
But, at the first opportunity, the Rector called him aside and asked what he had meant by inventing such an obvious fiction?
In reply, Pollard showed him the slip of paper with his own address on it which had been foolishly cherished for so many weeks.
The Rector was confounded, but soon came upon the link—the doctor of the neighbouring village, a close personal friend of his, had gone to Paris that spring with a party of tourists—yes, yes, that must be it, some confusion, they would drive over to Fordingham and find out....
"It is of no consequence," protested Pollard falsely.
A spell had been broken; the fused image of the beloved was disintegrating, the woman in the Louvre became a different creature from Selina Allard, who was only an ordinary pleasant young Englishwoman— while that other ...
He had been betrayed by fancy, by the yearning of his empty heart, by Paris in the spring; but, of course, it must be Selina whom he loved—had she not become very dear to him during these weeks of intimacy?—did they not agree in everything?
But he sickened at the thought of his approaching marriage.
The Rector insisted on driving Pollard over in his gig to Fordingham; they had all agreed to treat the queer episode as a joke, but the address, ah, that must be gone into!
Doctor Wherrett thought that he could explain; that last letter that he had written to his friend Allard he had seen lying on the table in the hall as he left for the train and been angry at the delay in posting it—no doubt the rascal porter had gone in and copied that address just to satisfy an eccentric stranger—
"You should have asked the manager, Mr. Pollard, these porters never know anything."
"Well," cried the Rector jovially, "so that is cleared up and it all looks like the hand of Fate, since it eventually led you to Selina—"
Pollard knew that he was expected to say no more of the affair, yet contrived a word with Doctor Wherrett—who were the ladies of his party?—one of them must have had a resemblance to Selina?
The Doctor did not think so; there had been his wife and sister and some strangers, people whom they had met on the boat—who had shared the carriage to the station—no, he could not recall the names; when they had visited the Louvre another party had joined theirs, indeed he could not possibly distinguish one lady from another; it was surprising how many females travelled nowadays, even unescorted....
Pollard could press the matter no more; he dare not confess that he remembered the details of the person of the unknown which he had so keenly observed—the odd little frogged jacket, the chignon and veil, the look of fatigue, then the white cashmere gown and Andalusian shawl; all lost, all useless memories now; the white spikes of chestnut blossom in the Tuileries would be long since brown and fallen, the opulent tresses of the lilac shrivelled away; the gold of that particular spring would never return, the gold of each succeeding spring would be but tarnished metal for Pollard.
He became conscious of a most bitter boredom; he was alien to these people, to this landscape; the meetings with Selina's friends, the presenting of her to his friends galled him with a sense of stale weariness almost unendurable; congratulations on his unexpected, his romantic marriage engagement stung him like mocks.
He made the sad discovery of the uselessness of reason as a curb for emotion, of the hopelessness of any attempt to argue oneself into happiness, of the imperative demand of the soul for dreams, fancies, visions.
He forced himself to believe that he loved Selina, but she vexed him in a hundred ways; her very fond affection for him, her very delight in their approaching union, irritated him; he felt that her happiness was a proof of her obtuseness; she ought to have sensed that the glamorous bond that had drawn them together had dissolved like star-dust with the dawn.
She even suggested Paris for their honeymoon.
"Since you thought that you saw me there would it not be charming for us to go?"
"Paris is not so agreeable in the autumn."
"Oh, I should enjoy it any season, I know I Consider that I have never been abroad!"
"We will go to Italy."
"That is so far—and we should have to go through Paris, should we not?"
"To Brussels, then."
They walked in her father's garden at twilight; the first fallen leaves by on the beds where the short-lived, over-coloured flowers of late summer bloomed; from the orchard, hidden in the dusk, came the scent of ripe apples in heaps beneath the dry leafy trees; a bat fluttered away across a sky of bleached azure.
"I wish that you were not going away again to-morrow," sighed Selina.
"I have so much business to attend to in London," he lied.
"Does it not seem strange to think that we shall be married in a month?"
She spoke at random, with too much sentiment; her fight shawl blended with the blue gloom about them; Pollard deliberately told himself how charming, how desirable she was; but an unutterable nostalgia invaded his resignation.
As they parted at the low white gate she said:
"I wonder who that other girl was?"
"Which girl?" he evaded.
"The girl you saw in the Louvre."
"Oh, that! What does it matter?"
"But it was a strange fancy for you to have—"
"Fancy is always strange, Selina. And foolish, too—go in now, dear, the air is very chill—"
But she lingered.
"Doctor Wherrett stayed a day in Calais on his return from France—the rest of the party came back directly; yesterday Mrs. Wherrett met one of them in Maidstone."
"What has it to do with us, dear?"
"Nothing, of course, only—"
"Well, Selina—" Pollard turned up his high collar, the wind was keen; with his chin sunk in his coat his face was scarcely visible.
"Mrs. Wherrett's friend, Miss Grove, said that a rather sad thing happened on the journey, a girl was taken ill and had to be left behind at Dover—"
"She looked very tired!" he exclaimed, "as if her head ached—"
"You noticed that? How queer! Perhaps, then, it was she—"
"Most unlikely! Why did you tell me all this, Selina?"
"I don't know—I thought perhaps—Mrs. Wherrett said she was about my age. She didn't know her, she was just staying at the same hotel with her mother; they had come from Italy—I think her father was a Consul somewhere and they were just coming home for a holiday—"
"Now, Selina, you must go in—it is really bitterly cold and your shawl is thin—"
She clung to him impulsively, whispering:
"You do love me, don't you?"
"Of course I love you, dear."
With her face next his cheek she added:
"I hope she was all right, the girl whom they left behind at Dover."
"Why shouldn't she be? Besides, she is a stranger to both of us,"
"Henry—you—liked that girl because she resembled me—did you not? You—aren't disappointed?"
It was easier to reassure her by kisses than by words; he broke free of her tenderness and rapidly took the twilit road, bending before the strong evening wind.
He passed through the village and came to an upland where either side the valleys dipped to dim horizons; there he paused, alone and blown by the lonely wind.
There was no comfort in his self-communing— "through what a desolate country does the human soul wander towards what dim-guessed goal—"
He had really very little to do in London; Selina's charming future home in Highgate had received the approval of all her relatives; his affairs were in good order; he accused himself of idleness, of a life too easy, too trivial.
"Had my days not been so empty I had not filled them with this—fond fancy." ¦
The waning summer was cloudy in the City; most of Pollard's friends had not yet returned from the country; he found desolation in his chambers, in his clubs, in the streets; a hurdy-gurdy playing the wistful melodies from Don Pasquale under the gas lamp at the street corner had power to wound him sorely ... three weeks, then two weeks to his marriage and Selina wondering why he did not return to Conford.
He sent her a present too costly, too carelessly chosen, and took the train to Dover; a storm light filled the gloomy rooms of "The Warden of the Channel" when Pollard arrived there; his half unavowed quest then seemed ridiculous to him; he had no courage to make what would seem absurd inquiries.
He decided to return to London, to Conford; but not at once; the harsh ugly desolation of the seaport in the yellowish glare of the storm was in harmony with his jangled mood.
He took his dinner in the pompous public room; there were a few travellers present and a plain little woman in black who appeared to be a resident in the hotel; she had a little dog, a reticule, a yellow-boarded novel, fragments of a home. Pollard afterwards found her in the gaunt, large drawing-room, trying, dismally, to knit, to read, to play with the timid little animal.
He endeavoured to distract himself by performing some little courtesy that opened an acquaintance; he remarked on the gloom, the dull ugliness of the hotel—and in the waning year—how sad!
"Yes, indeed," she answered eagerly. "And so odd, too, no one stays long—just a few hours, a night at most—but I have been here since the spring—"
"Indeed, madam? Surely very lonely—"
"Oh, yes, but I should be lonely anywhere. I haven't the heart to move. I've been abroad so long—twenty-five years."
Her smile, that pleaded for his attention, was full of misery; she fumbled with her knitting, patted the dog and had forgotten both.
"A long time," said Pollard, his trouble eased by this other trouble; the gas in the heavy chandelier sent a bleak light over them; he felt they were very small, dwarfed by the large, gaunt, unfriendly room.
"No one would remember me—I've no near relatives now—things change, don't they?" The lonely woman's story gushed out under this unexpected sympathy of attention, of glance, of silence. "My husband died a year ago—and then I thought I would bring my daughter home—England was her home, you know, though she had been born abroad—wouldn't you call England her home, sir?"
"Yes, yes, indeed!"
"We were both quite happy, we made so many plans, Mary was so excited!"
She stared away from Pollard, at the mean fire on the large hearth that neither warmed nor lit the room.
"Isn't it cold here? And still really summer! They grudge the coals, I think—"
"I will see they bring more. Your daughter—you were saying, madam?"
"My daughter—ah, yes I She was taken very ill on the journey—that is why we stopped here. She died of typhus at the hospital. They made her go to the hospital!"
Pollard bowed his forehead against the high dark grey marble mantelpiece.
"They thought she must have caught it in Paris— the water, you know—that's why I stay here. There doesn't seem any object in doing anything, in going anywhere—does there?"
"No—ah, indeed no."
He raised his eyes; in the depths of the vast mirror above the fireplace he could see the gas-jets in opaque glass reflected, a circle of garish light in a dull gloom.
The little woman was crying, he knew; a faint sniffing and whimpering muffled the words:
"I have all her luggage here—I don't know what to do, I really don't. Mary was so capable—Mary would have known—"
She wiped her eyes and nose and exclaimed fiercely: "It doesn't seem real."
"I wonder if it is," murmured Pollard. He turned stiffly; the bowed woman in the black horsehair chair was fumbling a small book from her reticule.
"This is the last thing that Mary bought—I can't get out of the way of carrying it about—"
It was a guide to the Louvre galleries; Pollard found it in his hand, found himself turning the pages.
"We stopped in Paris, that was a mistake, but how was I to know?"
Pollard saw "May 16th, 1860" written firmly and underlined across the page that described the apartments where they had met on that day.
"This date?"
Even through her own pain she noted his dreadful look.
"I'm afraid I've distressed you. One gets so selfish—and used to people not caring—everyone seems so wrapped up in their own affairs. But you're very kind. I never knew why Mary wrote that—perhaps it was when first she felt ill...."
Pollard returned the book.
"Mary was full of fancies—
"She—your daughter—forgive me, I really forgot what I was about to say—I was thinking that it would have been even more tragic if she—if—she had been married or about to be married—"
"Oh, no, Mary was heart whole. We were all in all to each other. She was difficult, you know. Romantic. I was myself once, but that seems strange now."
As if conscious of having said too much the little woman hurriedly put away her confused possessions.
"How late it is!" she added, with a lamentable air of bravery. "I am usually in bed by now—I don't sleep very well—"
Pollard's thought finished her sentence with—"for thinking of the wet wind across her grave close by."
The stranger hesitated, eyeing him wistfully.
"I daresay I shan't see you in the morning—I don't suppose you're staying?"
"No—I shall have to leave early—"
"Ah, yes—no one stays here. I shall have to make an effort myself soon and get away. But it is so difficult when nothing seems to matter. Thank you for being so kind."
She was gone and Pollard was alone in the vast unendurable room; he rang the bell and asked for more coals, he was chilled to the marrow.
Yes, it was all difficult when nothing seemed to matter; but no doubt he would make Selina Allard an admirable husband.
Curious to think that in the spring he had been terrified of age and that now he longed for that, or death, to stay his infinite nostalgia, to cure his impalpable pain.
MONSEIGNEUR le Marquis looked at his wife with increasing dislike; he considered it very unpleasant that he had to see her at all; the wedding had been a quite acute annoyance, but this meeting with Madame, from whom he had been separated thirty years, was worse than an annoyance.
He looked at his watch and wished that he had ordered his coach earlier; he longed intensely to be back in Paris.
He was now alone with Madame, the bridal couple had departed and all the guests; there remained only the ancient dames who attended the Marquise in her long seclusion, and they had wheeled their mistress out on to the wide terrace where the last gleams of spring sunshine fell. Madame was partially paralysed and had not walked for many a year.
Monseigneur considered her a more than disagreeable object.
Principally because she reminded him how old they both were.
He, too, spent most of his days in a shawl and easy chair, gossiping with cronies and dozing over a book, but he had never considered himself as really old. He still made a figure when he went abroad, he flattered himself that with his clothes and his manners he could very well disguise his age; and on this tiresome occasion of his grandson's wedding he had, he considered, cut a better figure than the rather clumsy bridegroom, even though his hands were shaking with the palsy and his wrinkles were too deep for any rouge and powder to disguise.
But Madame, who was younger than he, and had led a saintly life, which was, he had heard, healthy, made not the least attempt to soften the facts of her age and infirmity; she had given up all attempts at grace with a frankness that the Marquis considered indecent. Even to-day, though she was fond of her grandson and had tiresomely insisted on the marriage being in her chateau, she had made no effort whatever to honour the festivity of the occasion. Her rusty, shapeless garments seemed part of herself and part of the worn velvet chair she never left save to be lifted into her great dark bed. She sat huddled as if boneless, her limbs disappeared vaguely in the beaded tawny satins and musty laces: the only thing about her that seemed solid was her head that projected forward, hard and heavy, and ill-balanced on the haggard neck.
An old and ugly wig, mouse-coloured and stuck with tufts of feather, came down to her brows, her upper lip was stained with snuff and so was the bosom of her gown; in her shaking hand she held the snuff-box, and her white flaccid and expressionless face was turned towards the sunset, which was spreading gold and purple almost round the entire circle of the horizon and flushing through the blossoming hawthorns and the budding limes in the park below the terrace.
The Marquis did not look at the sunset, he hated such things, he glanced again at his watch.
"You seem to be in a hurry to be gone," remarked Madame; her voice was shrill, and when she spoke she showed her shrunk gums and her two remaining teeth.
The Marquis inwardly shivered; how ugly she was; she had never been pretty, certainly, but he remembered their marriage day and her curious freshness and grace—their marriage day, yes, but that had been under the Regency, he did not care to dunk how many years ago.
"And I have not had your company for thirty years," continued the Marquise, turning on him her blurred eyes.
"Ah, is it thirty years?" he replied.
"You know it is. And we have been married fifty."
"Polite conversation does not allow of these observations," he returned tardy.
"And you must be nearly eighty," continued the old woman unmoved.
He seated himself on the parapet of the terrace, he could not stand very long without fatigue, even with the aid of his stout (though slim and beautiful) malacca cane.
It was the first time anyone had spoken to him directly of his age; he was used to flattery, even to the smiles of women, for his was a great name and he was very wealthy.
Decidedly, he thought, Madame was vulgar, but then she was a provincial born, and after thirty years of this—
He glanced round at the beautiful domain he had given to his wife when they had finally separated: yes, it would be difficult to keep one's polish in this wilderness.
"You have been contented here?" he asked in sheer curiosity. "Quite."
She replied decidedly and looked at him keenly; his figure was shapely and his leanness was disguised by the flowing lines of his turquoise velvet suit with the huge skirt and cuffs gallooned in gold. His scraggy throat was swathed in cambric and fine lace, and his skilfully arranged peruke with the powdered curls softened the long lines of his head; but the face was fallen and puckered and tired, and the head quivered with a perpetual little nod.
"Quite happy?" he asked again.
"Why not?" she answered. "As soon as I had left you I was quite happy."
"I am glad," he said drily.
Of course she had been happy; what did these good women want beyond their books of devotion? She had always been so dull and stupid, he reflected with pity.
"And you, I suppose," she continued, rather in a mumble, "have been happy in Paris?"
M. le Marquis laughed, with his handkerchief to his mouth because of his teeth.
One did not apply the word happy to one of his quality; but she was right, he had enjoyed his life immensely.
"I wonder what you have been doing—all these years?" she quavered. He was amused.
"You would scarcely understand if I told you, Madame."
He felt a contempt, not untouched with pity, for her useless, foolish existence—these good women!
"Perhaps I always understood a little better than you thought," she said.
"Perhaps."
He nodded, humouring her.
"I understood about Madame de Fontenoy, for example," she added.
"Ah," he had some difficulty in recalling Madame de Fontenoy.
"That red-haired creature with the jealous husband," insisted Madame.
He recalled her—a love of forty years; strange that Madame should remember—strange, when he reflected, that Madame had even known. He had certainly thought the affair secret. So Madame had known, had she?
He glanced at her with a slight respect.
"And after that there was Gabrielle de Conflaus," continued the Marquise.
"Everyone knew about that," he replied rather testily.
"Oh, no," corrected the old woman keenly, "for you were then engaged with Madame de Montsauge, and you were afraid she would find out."
"I congratulate you on your memory," returned M. le Marquis, drily.
"Yes," she said, "I have a good memory."
"You have largely, one would surmise, lived on memories."
"Yes, Monseigneur."
"Strange company!"
"Oh, pleasant enough," she answered. "Do you remember Pélagie, my cousin's wife, who was so kind to me at my wedding, because I was a little provincial and knew nothing about Paris?"
The Marquis' old eyelids drooped for a moment.
"So you knew about that!"
"Yes, Monseigneur—before we had been married a month, I knew all about that. How I cried!" and she laughed at the recollection.
"So you were not so stupid as I thought," he remarked thoughtfully.
"Not nearly," said Madame. "You never fooled me once. I could give you the names of all of them."
He lifted his shoulders.
"Well, we might talk of worse things—pretty names and pretty women, Marquise!"
He began to feel almost flattered; the trend of the conversation was not displeasing; he thought how he would amuse his friends in Paris by telling them how his pious wife had amused his leisure by dwelling on her ancient rivals.
"Yes, Monsieur; they were all the pretty women," said the Marquise; "I suppose I was the only plain woman you ever knew." He made her a little bow.
"Ah, Madame, I never noticed that you were plain!"
"No," she answered, "because you never noticed me at all."
"We lived together twenty years," he reminded her.
"Twenty years!" quavered Madame.
It seemed strange to him as he put it into words, but it had been twenty years, exact almost to the month.
"And we had three children," grinned the Marquise; "I was glad when the boys died."
His artificial manner was a little shaken by this. He had been absolutely indifferent himself about the loss of his sons, but it was their mother's place to regret them.
"Why?" he asked sharply.
"They were so like you," she answered.
"Your manners have become provincial," he said.
"Thirty years of this!" she muttered, and took a pinch of snuff.
"It was your own choice, Madame. We never agreed except the day we decided to separate—you chose this chateau."
"I had my reasons." Her knotted hand traced the crumbs of snuff down the soiled lace on her bosom.
"And you have been happy?" His lipless mouth curled in dry amusement.
"Yes."
"Oh, Madame, I congratulate you on your repose of mind and your piety!"
Looking at her, he thought: "She can never die, for she has never Lived."
"And now Helene's son is married," murmured the old woman as if speaking to herself, "and there is really nothing more to trouble about."
She glanced at the Marquis.
"Do you ever see Madame de Soubire now?" she asked abruptly.
"Mon Dieu, no!" he answered with disgust, "Why, she must be nearly as old as you—"
"And as ugly," grinned the Marquise with relish. "Do you remember how pretty she was?"
"It is curious that you do," he returned.
She laughed.
"It is all so long ago, Monsieur, and we are so very old. It would be foolish for me to be jealous now, would it not?"
"And disgusting," he replied tardy.
"Yes, disgusting," she agreed; "we shall soon be dead, both of us, and all the best part of us is already dead. Do you know, Monsieur, I think of your loves quite kindly? I am even sorry for them."
"Oh, sorry?"
"You were always such a hard, wicked man," she added.
He laughed cynically. "And you such a stupid woman!"
They looked at each other as if peering over an open double grave, looked and peered with a curiosity a little malign, but without passion or emotion of any kind.
They were more than strangers, they were like ghosts returned.
"So stupid and so good!" he said. "And so dull and so jealous."
"That is strange to think of now—that I was even jealous of you," she nodded, patting her twisted, useless knees.
"Well," he said, "we can talk of these things calmly now—at last. I bear you no ill-will. You were the kind of woman one marries."
"And I had the kind of fortune that is useful," she returned. "My acres were convenient to sell when your little dancing girls were expensive."
He grinned.
"What fine times," he said with relish. "What fine times!"
And he glanced almost with pity at the poor creature who had missed so much.
"It is strange that you did not break my heart," commented the Marquise. "I suppose you would have done if I had cared for you."
"Eh?" he said, a little startled.
"If I had cared for you," she repeated.
M. le Marquis stared.
"You thought I did?"
"You are my wife," he said; he had always taken her humble devotion for granted.
"I suppose," answered Madame, "that was precisely why I could never like you or admire you. I was jealous, of course, being a woman and young. But how I used to wonder at those others!"
His shaking hands gripped tighter on the shining cane; his mouth worked as he listened.
"You were never even handsome," she continued; "such a nose!"
"I was one of the most elegant men of my day, Madame."
"Yes? I do not recall that, Monsieur. But what does any of it matter? It would be disgusting, as we said, if we were to trouble about those things now."
"Certainly," he agreed drily.
"And we never agreed, as you said, and I was so plain and so stupid, you cannot care if I admired you or not!"
M. le Marquis laughed, rocking to and fro. "No, Madame, you need not flatter yourself that I care!"
"It would be horrible if you did," she said calmly; "we can talk of everything as frankly as if we were dead."
"I wonder," returned the Marquis, "if we shall be so very frank when we are dead, or if we shall find it worth while to talk of these things at all."
"I do not know what else there will be to talk of," said the old woman.
"Ah, I forgot," he sneered, "Madame will go to heaven—how pleasant to retain these antique beliefs."
She nodded at him, clutching the worn arms of her velvet chair.
The last glow of the beautiful sunset was rosy on the stones of the old chateau, on the long space of the terrace and on the two figures: the face of Madame was coloured red as if it had been stained, the ugliness of her dress and wig as softened; the splendid appointments of the Marquis glittered, his gold lace and his diamonds gave forth gleams of light, but the man himself, even in this hour, appeared frail and thin and withered to an incredible degree, and the face that peered between the heavy curls of the peruke had little likeness to humanity.
"Antique beliefs," muttered Madame, "would you be sorry to lose yours, Monsieur?"
He shrilled his difficult laugh; he was genuinely amused.
"Do you really think that I had ever believed in anything?" She smiled.
"Until to-day, Monsieur believed that his wife had been fond of him—had admired him, at least."
"An affair of so little importance!" he shrugged.
"Ah, yes, Monsieur, and, as we said, nothing matters at all now: we can laugh at those foolish old times, can we not?"
"Certainly," he replied drily. "But there is so little amusing about you, Madame."
"So you always said. I remember that quite well, but I can tell you something that will amuse you."
"Ah?"
She leant forward in her chair; the sun was now hidden by the oak trees in the park and the red glow had suddenly disappeared; the old woman's bloodless face was without colour.
"Would it amuse you to hear that I had a lover?" she chuckled.
He stared.
"A woman so plain, so stupid?" she added. "But I was loved—mon Dieu, how I was loved!"
"You had a lover?" he stammered.
"Two," replied Madame. She glanced at his face.
"Jealousy would be disgusting," she added; "we can talk of these things freely, can we not?"
"Of course," said the Marquis, his voice was without life—
"I have laughed about it so much," continued the old woman; "you always thought me a good creature—and without attraction for anyone! Why do you not laugh?" she added. "Do you not think it a good joke?"
"A joke?" he repeated, leaning forward. "Is it a joke or true?"
She leant forward also, so that their two old faces were peering at each other in the pale and vanishing light.
"Oh, it is quite true," she said, "I have lived my life also. How good it was! And you thought I was so pious! You never guess about the notes in between the Prayer-book—and other things!"
The old loose lips of the Marquis worked, but no words came.
"We are so old and it is so long ago—you are not jealous, are you, Monsieur?"
"Jealous?" Now he laughed, laughed till he coughed and had to hold his side.
"I thought you would find it amusing," chuckled Madame. "You were so deceived! You see I was not so stupid."
"You must have been very close," he said. "Who were the gentlemen?"
"The first was the Chevalier St. Vincent"
"I thought he had better taste," remarked the Marquis; his face was a bleached yellow and the white and red paint seemed to stand away from the skin in flakes as if ready to drop off.
"But the man I really loved was Monsieur de Nesle."
"Henri de Nesle!"
"Yes. That is why I came here," she explained confidently; "he was so near, my neighbour. What joy, what peace! We loved each other so much, and when he died I could not weep—there were so many memories."
"But Henri de Nesle was my friend," said the Marquis through chattering teeth.
"So was the husband of Gabrielle de Conflaus and Monsieur de Montsauge."
"And he was your lover!"
"For fifteen years. Yes, Monsieur, I have been as happy here as you were in Paris. He thought I was beautiful. Oh, how he loved me, my dear!" Her cracked voice shook a little and she pursed up her lips.
"This is a pretty story to tell me," muttered the Marquis. "The Comte de Nesle, mon Dieu! He was my friend! He used to congratulate me on having such an amiable, good, obedient wife."
"I thought it would amuse you," nodded Madame; "it will make a diverting story for you to tell in Paris."
"Diverting," said the Marquis, "diverting—"
His shaking head pushed forward nearer hers.
"Why not?" she answered. "I am sure your love-affairs amuse me."
He placed his quivering hands on the arms of her invalid chair.
"So you had lovers—you, my wife, the Marquise de Roubaix," his voice sounded as if it whistled thinly through hollow places.
"Yes, indeed," she said, "and such lovers—"
She became suddenly frightened at his face.
"Don't come so near," she squealed, "you hurt me!"
His hands shot up and gripped her throat.
"You deceived me, did you?" he chattered. "You made a mock of my honour—"
"Honour!" she gurgled.
He shook her to and fro, he thrust her down into the chair; she fell together limply, her peruke dropped off and her head showed small and covered with scraps of grey hair; her breath surged up once in her throat and she coughed.
The Marquis straightened himself and looked quickly at his hands.
He felt very exhausted; he snatched his stick that was leaning against the terrace and leant on it heavily; he pulled down his coat and arranged his ruffles, then stared at the thing in the invalid chair; it was now so dark that he could see Utile beside the shape of the pale, small, almost bald head.
Monseigneur tottered away towards the house; his man came to meet him with a torchlight.
"There is something on the terrace," said the Marquis. "It had better be taken away. I hope the coach is ready. I have been considerably bored."
"YOU'LL come in for some rare windfalls, Sally," said Mrs. Vidler dreamily. "There ain't a better furnished farm in Oxton, and you should know, seeing as how long you've worked here."
"Twenty year, Mrs. Vidler," returned Sally, standing heavy and awkward, her hands soft and red from hot water, her cotton gown straining over her full bust, her hair in wisps from the perspiration induced by the kitchen fire. "And I've brought up the last of the blackberry jelly, mum."
The dying woman moved her head on the huge, coarse, clean pillows; her hair, in the narrow ash-grey plaits, hung on to the shoulders of her flannel nightgown; her mouth was sucked in; her eyes filmed.
"Keep it for the master if it's the last," she said slowly. "'Taint going to do me no good. I'm past the jelly, Sally. The Reverend he come to-day.
"Reading prayers he was. Sorry I hadn't been more to the church. I never had no time, did I, Sally, with the master wanting a hot dinner on Sundays?"
"Did the Reverend say as you was dying, mum?" asked the servant fearfully.
"No, but he wouldn't have come else," returned the sick woman simply. "I couldn't rightly follow what he read. Them big words. But it's plain it's rest coming. And that's what I want."
Sally snivelled.
"You didn't ought to die—you ain't had no illness," she whispered.
"I'm wore out," said Mrs. Vidler, "fair wore out, like them old saucepans what's past the tinker. That's the worst of work—it wears you out. And them babies," she added in a weaker voice. "I got fretty them coming and going. Making them little shirts and allers putting them back into the drawers but the one you keep out for the burying. That wears a woman, Sally."
"It 'ud have been more work if them babies had lived, mum."
"Seeing your children in their coffins takes more out of you nor a lot of work," returned Mrs. Vidler petulantly. "But I didn't mean to go dwelling on them babies—the Reverend says as how I'll see them soon; all in white with crowns on. Don't seem natural—I'd rather see them coming home with their faces washed— home, that's a better word than heaven."
She was silent a moment; her eyes, with the lids puckered and the pupils like spots of black light, glanced with loving pride round the large, spotless, low-ceilinged room, with the sloping floor and great presses, the rows of photographs, the texts, the large case of stuffed magpies.
"You'll stay with Mr. Vidler?" she asked.
"It 'ud seem funny—going," muttered Sally.
"You're a sensible girl, Sally, and a good girl; you've done your duty—ever since we took you out of the orphanage, ain't you? And—now you'll have all the windfalls—what you've dusted and cleaned. Mr. Vidler, he'll marry you."
The inarticulate woman listening slowly reddened, her jaw slightly fell.
"I've spoke to him," added the wife, whose voice whistled more faintly still through her bare gums.
"He knows there ain't none could make him more comfortable, he said. He and you—you'll work the farm, like as if I were here. You knows my ways and how he wants things."
"I knows," whispered Sally with gleaming, faithful eyes.
"And you wouldn't grudge me a few of those geranium slips for me headstone? Takes it off—the hard look, I mean—and a bunch of flowers now and then?"
"You'll have 'em, mum," muttered Sally, the long tears running down her cheeks.
"I'm easy in my mind, Sally. You'll be a good capable wife—I couldn't a-borne it if he'd married one of them hussies—I don't want no planner or granny-phone here."
"There won't be," said the servant, flushed by the awful effort of emotional speech. "It'll be as you had it—allers."
"I leave you them windfalls," answered Mrs. Vidler in a confidential whisper. "Me brooches, the chancy set, them magpies, the sheets and tablecloths, the parlour ornaments and the pictures of me family."
"For me, mum?" gasped Sally.
The dying woman actually smiled to see the passion of joy and gratitude glowing in the rugged features of the servant.
"And the name of Vidler," she added with dignity, "which there ain't better in Sussex. And there's money, Sally. The master, he never said how much— but there's money in the Hastings bank."
She sighed and slightly moved her thin limbs under the honeycomb quilt.
"Don't bury me in one of them best sheets," she said. "It 'ud spoil the set."
Mrs. Vidler died, and the villagers enjoyed a decorous, even pompous funeral, and the local stonemason received orders for a stone for her on which was to be also inscribed the names of the four children "who died in infancy."
On the day after the funeral Mr. Vidler, a tall, taciturn farmer with a long blue-grey beard and very bright little eyes, spoke to Sally.
"You be going to stay and look after the house, Sally?"
Flushed crimson, embarrassed, the woman stood awkwardly in her fragrant kitchen twisting a clean cloth round and round a polished earthenware bowl. "Missus asked me to stay," she got out "Spoke to me too, she did. If you're willing, I'm willing. Ain't got many equals for housework, I'll say that!"
"I'm—willing," muttered Sally in an exquisite inner tumult of wild joy and slavish gratitude.
He looked at her more keenly than he had ever looked before. It was the practical glance of a man who sells and buys animals and crops, fruit and fowls, trees and seeds on the sheer value of their material growth.
Sally was a heavy, stout woman of thirty-eight, with large hands and feet, a homely face, and hair the colour of thatch; she showed order, peace, health and womanly patience in her aspect, her eye was clear, her skin white, her bosom deep.
"We'll have a talk," said Mr. Vidler, "when I've got me seeds in."
Sally nodded.
Speech was impossible to her; to the usual taciturnity of the Sussex peasant she added the repression of a childhood in a pauper orphanage, and the cowed feelings attendant on a friendless and dependent state.
She had never known any friends but the Vidlers, and there had been no emotion in this relationship.
To Sally it had been just doing her duty—working, working, in the house, on the farm, with just a little time for sleep and food.
She went on working with no break or change in the daily routine; she kept the house passionately clean, she milked, she made butter, she set cream, she fed the chickens, she looked after the flower-garden Mrs. Vidler had planted, she mended Mr. Vidler's shirts and socks on Saturday nights, she blacked his boots.
Every Friday he paid her, as usual, the eight shillings that was her weekly wage; Sally took it with deeply secret, furiously shy thoughts of "saving up" for "something to get married in."
The work was heavier without Mrs. Vidler's feeble but practised hands; Sally went more heavily than before on tired feet.
The seeds were sown, the wet winds of winter swept across the full dykes of the marsh, the snowdrops and the grape hyacinth came out in the farm garden borders, the apple trees blossomed and warmer winds stripped them, honeysuckle bloomed in the hedge that divided the farm from the road, the lambs lamented separation from the shorn sheep, a late hay crop was being taken in, and the grain was fading to a dry gold.
And still Mrs. Vidler's headstone wasn't put in place, and still Mr. Vidler hadn't spoken any more of his marriage to Sally.
He was kind; one day, coming back from Tenterden market day, he brought her a little sachet—white cottony sachet painted with a bunch of violets.
Sally clutched it in a deep silence; when she was alone her face wrinkled up with a spasm and she cried—for sheer joy.
No one had ever given her anything; she had never had any possessions save the clothes she wore.
On Sundays, when the dinner was in the oven, and the tablecloth laid, she would go ponderously about the house gazing rapturously at the "windfalls" as Mrs. Vidler had called them.
The china "dessert service," the drawers full of linen and blankets, the little box of brooches and chains, the pictures and the beautiful magpies, with the painted background, in the heavy glass case—all hers, actually hers.
The big bedroom was empty now; Mr. Vidler had the smaller room the other side of the landing. Sally slept where she had slept for twenty years—in the little closet off the kitchen.
But the big bedroom was her pride; she kept it aired and swept and dusted. In a perfectly inarticulate way she visualised in some dim, secret fashion the moment when she, the second Mrs. Vidler, would take possession of this wonderful apartment.
The magnificence of the thought really stunned her faculties; twice she managed to go to evening services at the church; she went with the sole purpose of asking God to be good to "Mr. Vidler," "and Jane, his wife," she added in the wording of the tombs that crowded without the placid budding.
Sally thought it rather a liberty to pray for one certainly in heaven, but her loyalty would not permit her to omit the dead woman's name.
She had her geranium slips ready, but there was no headstone.
Sally, patient by nature and by training, did not even to herself lament the long delay that kept her from perfect bliss.
"You can't expect a man to think of marriage when there's the hay to get in, and one fine day in three wet," she told herself with a wistfulness that was unconscious.
And, again, "it wouldn't be decent marrying before the missus had got her headstone."
The hay was in and the corn garnered, and the apples began to swell on the trees that shaded Sally's kitchen window; there were marigolds and roses and stocks in the garden, and hog's-weed and flea's-bane and loosestrife in the hedgerows; the sea was blue beyond the marshes where those white and yellow and purple flowers grew tall and strong.
Sally cleaned and scoured, cooked and sewed, also kept that big room aired and that big bed polished, and every mat and photograph and text exactly where Mrs. Vidler had placed them.
Once, going through the big roomy drawers, she came upon, wrapped in "silver paper," the small shirts and robes, stiff with hard embroidery, that Mrs. Vidler had prepared for "them babies."
Sally was kneeling at the moment of this discovery in the bottom drawer, her clumsy hands folded with dignity, a convulsion of feeling shook the heavy hips, the full bosom; as the sensation (it was not a thought) of her possible maternity touched her she looked grand, even beautiful.
"Perhaps"—her reflection was, as the hot blood beat in her cheeks—"they'll come in—useful."
She put some lavender between the little clothes; she had visions—poor, slow, dull Sally, who never had had hopes of anything till now—visions that ended in a tall lad calling, "Mother!"
That day, after supper, Mr. Vidler, smoking his pipe in a short interval of rest, spat a sentence out of his taciturnity.
"I bought a pianner to-day and one of them talking horns in Tenterden."
Sally stood taut
Mr. Vidler fondled the long blue-grey beard. "Come to-morrow they will."
"The missus allers said she hated 'em," muttered Sally.
"Reckon she won't hear 'em in the churchyard," said Mr. Vidler gravely.
"Who's to play the planner?" asked Sally, clearing away the dishes with sudden vigour.
"I bought it," he answered laboriously, "as an ornament"
"The missus ain't got her headstone," said Sally heavily.
"Headstones," said Mr. Vidler, "is too showy. We never had more than wooden boards—a many hasn't but mounds. Headstones won't make no difference at the blessed judgment."
"You've stopped 'em making it?" asked Sally dully.
"Well, the cost kept rising every time I see'd young Martin—and them babies, with two names each, as the missus thought of when she was a bit light-headed like—it seemed foolish. And as he hadn't got no names on, young Martin said as he'd sell it to old Smith for his son. There's the text, but texts ain't go no sex."
Sally stood still by the drawer during this speech; her back was towards Mr. Vidler; he glanced at the broad expanse and went on:
"I'm getting married agin, Sally. The daughter of the man what keeps 'The Vine Leaves' at Tenterden. Ain't natural for a man to live single."
Sally did not move.
"You'll stay on?" asked Mr. Vidler. "Elsie'll want help."
"I'm not staying," said Sally thickly. "As soon as you're suited I'll go."
"You ain't thinking," said the farmer laboriously, "of anything—what the missus said?"
"I ain't thinking of anything," muttered the woman, pushing the dishes into place.
"You're sensible and humble-minded," remarked Mr. Vidler with relief. "Alters was—humble."
"Yes, I'm humble," said Sally.
"I'm sorry you can't stay, Sally—but Elsie, well, she's near a lady, town bred, as you might say, perhaps it's better you should go. She might have different ways.
"She'd have different ways," said Sally.
The apples swelled and flushed; the first light winds of autumn, tumbling from the sea, cast them into the garden by Sally's row of geranium slips; Mr. Vidler went often into Tenterden; Sally worked in the same routine—careful, slow, heavy.
Mr. Vidler was married in Tenterden, and Sally found another "place" at a farm on the marsh.
On the day the farmer was coming home with his bride she prepared the house for them; she stretched the sheets on the big bed; she laid the pillows side by side; she drew the coverlet smooth; she laid the supper and put out her pies and cakes; she had the kettle boiling for tea.
The piano and gramophone were in place now; Sally dusted them too; she was only the servant.
On the big expanse of the wide chest of drawers she laid the painted sachet; she counted her shillings and wondered what the headstone cost.
"With all them babies' names," she thought with slow passion, "same as missus thought it out— Cynthia Jane, John Clement, Bertha Lily and Irene Mary."
As the wedded couple were due, she went upstairs heavily again and stared at the magpies in the glass case.
"Them windfalls," she muttered in agony.
They arrived, and Sally left the house. Her box had gone that morning; she had only an empty basket in her hands; even the geraniums weren't hers to take.
She wanted to see the bride. She stared as the girl got out of the gig; a pasty slip was Elsie, with rabbit jaw and hollow chest, and teeth dotted with decay. But she was very young; she had a lot of yellow hair pulled out under a lace hat, she had a smart blue crêpe dress and silk stockings, and she owned pretty eyes and kept giggling.
"Worse than the missus for child-bearing," thought Sally. She did not speak.
The bride ran into her home, so exact, so spotless, so ordered as the result of another woman's tod. Sally moved away.
Mr. Vidler looked at her awkwardly.
"Don't go empty-handed," he said; he looked at the ruddy apples lying on the shaven grass. "Take some of them windfalls in your basket—they're a fine flavour, is windfalls."
IT was impossible to think of the monkey as having ever been free, or the man as ever having been young; both were withered by some far-away heat, both jabbered in a foreign Language, both wore weather-stained rags. The animal was the better-looking of the two; its suit was in a fairer condition, some blue remained in the jacket, some scarlet in the breeches, whereas the man's patched garments had faded to the dead hue of leaf mould.
The monkey never Lacked food; people were quite eager to bring it apples, nuts, even bananas and grapes. No one offered the man dainties. Sometimes he would finish a half-chewed fruit the monkey threw aside.
The old man was lively, gay. Sometimes he leapt and sang as he turned the handle of the crazy little hurdy-gurdy, but the monkey, even when feasting most richly, was always melancholy. Above the little organ stood a cage with a bird in it, half-hidden by a worn tarpaulin. In front of this prison was pasted a notice: "For 2d. the bird will tell the fortune of any lady or gentleman."
The organ-grinder had to keep to the side streets because of the motor traffic; even in the quietest ways of London the thin jangle of Don Pasquale or Minuet Fleuri was likely to be drowned by the passing vehicles; but enough coppers must have been dropped into the tattered hat to enable the three creatures to exist somewhere.
To Dennistoun the whole queer little affair was the oddest possible relic of a far-distant age, "almost the last of the old organ-grinders," he had heard people say when he was a boy home for the holidays. When he was a young man the ancient musician looked no older and still perambulated the same neighbourhood. Dennistoun wondered if it was the same monkey, the same bird. He was slightly ashamed of his interest in anything so poor and ancient, for he was very much of his generation, lucky, well off, talented, good-looking. The organ-grinder seemed the very opposite of himself in everything, perhaps that was why the wretch aroused his intense pity.
Dennistoun had never mentioned to anyone his foolish longing to have his fortune told by the bird under the tarpaulin. He often put money in the filthy hat, but was too shy to request a glimpse into the future. Indeed, he kept secret altogether his interest in the organ-grinder, as people will hide away something which they feel to be poignant but know to be trivial.
But one June day when the plane trees showed full green by the houses, Dennistoun stopped in the great square and said to Sicele: "There's that old tune again—the old boy who tells fortunes. Let's consult the oracle."
Sicele, passionately absorbed in herself, had the wit to humour him; they were not married yet and she meant that they should be.
"If one were searching for symbols," suggested Dennistoun, timidly, "one might think that bird was the soul—" He spoke awkwardly, instinctively aware of her lack of sympathy which she did not altogether trouble to conceal.
"But darling, who wants symbols? They're too Bloomsbury." She was not sure whether the old organ was "period" and ought to be raved over, or unhygienic like the dust carts, and ought to be destroyed; she stood, barely tolerant, while Dennistoun paid his "2d." and asked for his fortune to be told.
She was vexed by his gravity, by the break in his absorption in her, by the pause in their rapid walk. She was rabid for movement, speed, sensation. At twenty-three she was jealous of girls of seventeen and she talked incessantly of modernity, of being up-to-date, of that "post-war old stuff." She was pleased with Dennistoun; he had money, was personable; people said he was going to be a brilliant poet—very "modernistic."
The cage door was opened; a small soft green bird with a curved waxy bill flew into the sunlight and pulled a paper from the soiled row in front of the bent wires. The old man took it from the bird's beak, gave it to Dennistoun, then the bird returned to the darkness under the tarpaulin. Sicele read the dingy pink slip from over his shoulder—"Love, fame, children, health, wealth—all for two pence only."
"It's too silly," laughed the girl "Do come along—"
The scene would be long impressed on his mind; the large, heavy, Victorian houses in the fine square, newly painted white, the blue sky above; the trees with blunt leaves and lopped side-branches on the well-kept circle of grass behind the railings in the centre; striped canvas over doors and windows, an air of emptiness, dullness, the intolerable loneliness of an afternoon sunshine.
His first collection of poems had been published that day. There was an eager stir among the "advance" readers. It might be a real, a definite, a brilliant success. He was going to marry Sicele. He thought of her at the dance, in the swimming pool, at the wheel of her elegant car, the perfect health of her lively face, made piquant by an audacious maquillage. He had every reason to be supremely happy. And the contrast of his fortunes with those of the miserable trio made him wince. He gave money; he could do nothing else.
He passed on with Sicele. At her house that night the telephone rang again and again—messages that had pursued him from house and club. "Have you seen the review in So-and-so?"
"Congratulations! You're made."
Her parents were radiant. She bloomed splendidly in this atmosphere of success. They danced to the savage beat of a valse to which an emasculate voice whined a love song in a transient argot. Dennistoun reflected that one day it would sound as out-of-date, as faded as Don Pasquale.
Warm air blew through the plane trees in the square and stirred her pearl-white satin gown which flowed fluid like water round her long limbs, showing her amber sun-brown arms, bust, back and neck. The night was encumbered by melodies sent out from all over the world—snatched up—turned off—louder—fainter— Paris, London, Berlin, crossing and recrossing, broken by the tearing rush of cars speeding past. Dennistoun was in love with all this energy, all this power; a thousand poems sang in his head as he danced with Sicele.
"Darling, I do love you—" Was he not a happy young man? Surely for such as he, this new world had been made; he felt intoxicated with delight ... success ... success.
It was many years before Dennistoun visited that square again; he only returned after a number of things had happened to him. It was autumn; the large Victorian houses needed repainting, the plane trees were shedding rusty leaves; on the grass patch a bonfire sent out an acrid smell.
"It is not so long ago," shuddered Dennistoun, "it can't be ten years—" He paused by the house that had belonged to Sicele's parents; it was now a second-rate hotel with an exotic name on a hideous fascia. He had not married Sicele after all; that, looking back, seemed queer—why not? Postponement, an operation for her, a visit to New York for him, and then everything changed. Why? He could not understand it; they had surely been violently in love. But she had married someone whom Dennistoun could just remember as "a decent fellow," and he had never written another book.
His feeble spurt of fame had burnt out quickly; he had made very little money. In trying to commercialise his talent he had killed it. He had pleased neither the vulgar nor the elect by his essays, his articles, his verse that had never been gathered from the pages of magazines and newspapers.
"Why should I remember all that? I'm still young." With an air of defiance he sauntered round the square. He tried to recapture the exquisite triumph of that evening—how long ago? It seemed such incredible bad luck that it had all come to nothing.
He turned into a street of shops. A long mirror showed him himself; figure, teeth going, shabby clothes too—yes, if you faced it, it must be nearer twenty than ten years. And he was now a failure. He had tried so much; there had seemed endless time, endless opportunity. He could not endure to think out quite how it had all happened—his father's money, his own chances all gone, suddenly.... Well, he had "just enough"; a pittance was the residue of all those bright imaginings.
Outside one of the shops an old man was playing a hurdy-gurdy. Dennistoun remembered Don Pasquale. There was the chained monkey, the bird under the tarpaulin, the dirty packet of printed papers, the notice, "For 2d."
Dennistoun turned aside; he had always guessed that there was an infernal immortality about the three creatures whom he had pitied in their apparent excess of wretchedness.
He stared blindly into the book shop—reviewers' copies, publishers' remainders, classics in heavy bindings crowded the shelves. Dennistoun moved away, lingered round the entrance, hoping the hurdy-gurdy would leave the street before he need turn and see it again. Through the traffic he could hear the jingle of Minuet Fleuri. A box of second-hand books was in front of him; he turned over the volumes and picked out his own—the poems that had nearly made him famous but had so soon been dropped into oblivion. How endurable life would be without memories.
The hurdy-gurdy moved nearer; he could see the reflection of it in the glass window; and in front his dispirited shadow with the soiled unread book in his hand.
On the box from which he had taken it was a pencilled card marked: "Two pence only."
MARY stood at the window of her dressing-room being her grey satin bodice with a thick scarlet bee; it was the hour of a June sunset and the small lightly furnished and low-ceilinged room looked on to the shadowy fragrance of a garden in full summer pride.
The keen scent of sweetbriar came in through the casement set ajar on the sweetness of the outer air, and round the wooden window-frame showed the palely coloured blossoms of the passion-flower.
A full moon was rising over the distant fields beyond the garden; there was neither light nor shade in their fleeting moments, but a still, luminous dimness in which everything was visible but faintly as if behind a veil.
A circular mirror stood on the table before the window, and Mary, had she been in the mood to look, would have seen her own reflection there, also dim, all her brightness subdued as it would have been under deep clear water.
But Mary Briarley was not thinking of her mirror, though she was more conscious than usual of her beauty; but to-night it filled her with a resentment almost savage with fury and hate against the fate that had made her fair, that had made the world fair, and that had created such a night as this and turned it all to nought.
She was in arms against the world, filled with a passion and a bitterness that was all the more passionate and bitter in that it was scarcely as she knew herself, under any point of view, justified—it was merely that she was thwarted, baulked in all her desires, that she felt wasted as a rose flung on the arid sand to die, that life was not remotely what she thought it ought to be, what she deemed it could be, what she had dreamed it might, that her days must be empty or filled with the futile sourness of little quarrels, big quarrels, disagreements, sullenness, all the exhausting bitterness of dissension; she had been married two years and to-night she had taken off her wedding-ring, set her teeth in it and flung it fiercely on to the floor; the fact that she knew she had to put it on again had made her gesture and her look the fiercer.
She was a slave, a chattel with no weapon but her tongue, and she was nauseated with using her tongue; she knew that the exercise of her violent temper was not a lovely thing and roused contempt and scorn, and she did not wish in any way to mar her beauty— she wanted to be sweet and gracious.
Her beauty—there was only one man who had the right to admire it and he had long ceased to know whether she was fair: she drew the red lace sullenly tighter, desperately rebellious against the very heavens for her present plight.
Her lord was her cousin and of a type too much like her own, the same in looks, in pride, in temper, the sharp faults and headstrong desires of the family of Briarley; she had loved him, perhaps because she had seen so few men, and none who contrasted well with him. She had married him, perhaps because he owned all the family fortunes and she, the daughter of a second son, had but a wretched pittance with which to exploit her beauty and indulge her pride—and now she looked back to those days of love, of wooing, and surrender with an exceeding wrath because of the price she had had to pay for them.
At the time they had been very sweet and had seemed worth the forfeiture of her liberty—her vague hopes and desires—now—
She finished being the red silk and stood erect, stretching her white shapely arms in the dusk; the fine cambric of her under-bodice heaved over an angry heart and the dark coils of her rich hair slipped unheeded on to her shoulders. She bit her rebellious lips and her shadowed eyes were dangerous and sombre in their glance.
It was intolerable that she must be this man's creature to take his humours and feed out of his hand, and yet she must, she must—for though her courage might run to the breaking of conventions, she had no one to encourage her in revolt, and lack of money held her as securely as lock and key.
She lived in all the ease and plenty that wealth alone could provide, but she never had a piece of silver that she did not have to account for, and she had absolutely no chance of getting money nor any knowledge of how it could be procured; her husband, no niggard where his own pleasures were concerned, was extremely prudent in the regulating of other people's expenditure.
Standing there in the dusk, staring past the mirror and the silver candlesticks, through the open window at the twilight garden, at the primrose-coloured moon rising above the young foliage of the apple trees, Mary Briarley wondered why this master of hers had taken her; he had not been kind, he had not been faithful, when he was not vexed he was (worst insult of all!) indifferent.
Perhaps he had not expected her to be so fierce or exacting, perhaps he had taken it for granted that docility and meekness were in the bond.
She leant forward suddenly and peered at herself in the mirror; surely somewhere in the world there was love and joy and delight for this fair creature she saw before her; but she did not know where to find them!
Though so young in years she felt old and passed by; life to her was a series of locked doors on which she must beat in vain.
When she looked ahead she saw nothing but this— the daily round at Briarley Court, the few friends too well known to offer the least excitement, the house and grounds loathed as a prison, the village despised, the dull country town scorned—the distant vision of London, so passionately desired, so unattainable.
Sir Mark Briarley had no great interest in London; he found all the work and all the amusements he wanted near his Devonshire home, and he gave no thought to his lady, who had neither work nor amusements and who had always regarded the capital as the epitome of all she longed for; she believed that there she would find admiration for her beauty, scope for her wit, her talents, a setting for her neglected personality, diversion and employment for her active mind; she thought that in such an environment she would become the completely charming person she had always meant to be, not the fierce sullen creature she was becoming, and most bitterly she hated the master who placed over her these cruel restrictions that were lolling the very life in her: she knew very little, or nothing of the world, but she had read many romances and plays, she had listened to much gossip, and she guessed a great deal of adventure—power—excitement—sin—and passion.
Darkness now entirely enclosed her, the mirror and the candlesticks were but dim gleams in shadow: the garden by veiled and colourless beneath a moon brightening to a disk of pure gold in a violet sky.
Lady Briarley was in no mood to finish her dressing, she impatiently pushed back her heavy hair, went to the window and rested her white elbows on the sill.
The stillness was suddenly broken by a voice, her husband's voice, Mary thought, and her face became yet more sullen.
It was an angry voice speaking in sarcastic tones, coming from the room beneath, and sounding like the sudden lift of wrath in a hitherto whispered and prudent conversation; another person answered in an equally fierce but more careful note, and at the sound of this second voice the woman dropped her hands to the sill and leant farther out of the window.
For she had heard that the last speaker was her husband, and she was wondering who was the first who had a voice so much alike, and who spoke in that accent of scorn and impatience so common to Mark and herself.
But the conversation dropped again and Mary's straining ears could catch no sound beyond a low murmur.
She drew herself erect, reflecting a moment, here was some excitement, here was a novelty—someone who, she was quite sure, was a stranger was below, talking to Mark in the Briarley voice and in the Briarley manner. Her moment's thought showed her how to both vex her husband and gratify her own curiosity; she would not ring for her maid or candles, for she did not wish to be delayed. Deftly she put up her hair, fastening it with a comb with coral balls, flung over her shoulder a fine black silk shawl with a long fringe and hastened downstairs.
Without hesitation, for fear of being told by some servant that Sir Mark wished for privacy, she opened the door of her husband's cabinet, which was the room from which had issued the voices she had overheard, and stepped in with an air of challenge and defiance.
This of necessity, for she and her husband had last spoken in terms of high disagreement on the subject of his attentions to another woman and the eternal contention of a season in town, and in ordinary circumstances she would not have been on speaking terms with her lord.
The room was richly fit by the light of a pendent crystal lamp; another, of red copper with a red silk shade, stood on the large dark desk by the open window; there sat Sir Mark, handsome, angry, in his plain dark velvets, with his wavy auburn hair neatly clubbed and his white stock precisely folded and his fine hand with the great gold signet-ring laid out on the desk amid the gold and silver seals, pens, and candlesticks.
Mary had no eyes for him; her glance went straight to the other man.
He was standing before the steel and irons on the empty hearth, with his hands in the pockets of his gold-laced coat, his whole attitude suggestive of indifference and contempt.
He was very like Sir Mark in build, in feature, and in air, but he was much more splendid in dress and bearing, handsomer in face, younger, and of a far greater luxury in his appointments; the principal colour of his attire was a wine-red, and he had some fine paste at his neck and on his waistcoat; his hair was unpowdered, as befitted one travelling, and he carried a thin dark blue silk cloak, a riding-crop, and a plumed hat and soft gloves; all these things on his arm and in his hand, as if he had been by no means invited to set them down.
My lady, in her grey and black with the red lace at her bodice and the red comb in her hair and her radiant face that was so like the faces of the two men before her, stared boldly at the stranger, then dropped a little curtsey that held more of mockery than respect.
"I interrupt?" she asked, and flicked a glance towards her husband.
"I would be alone, Madame," replied Sir Mark. He was pale with anger, and with difficulty, it seemed, restrained himself from some violence. Mary could easily see that he was equally infuriated by the interview and the interruption.
She merely smiled; her bold glance had returned to the stranger, who was gazing at her with audacity and composure equal to her own.
"You are slow in presenting this gentleman," she cried.
"I think there will be no need of a presentation," said the stranger easily. "You must be my cousin Mary."
And he glanced from her to her husband with what seemed considerable amusement.
Lady Briarley's effrontery was shaken by sheer surprise; childhood memories, long-ago stories rose up in a medley of remembrance to confound her calm.
Sir Mark spoke.
"You'll please leave us, Madame."
She gave no heed to him, her eyes were on the other man.
"And you are my cousin Brian, the naughty boy I used to play with I The one who ran away to sea. I thought you were dead."
And she smiled to think that she had dismissed in this manner one so full of vitality whose life, she was sure, would make her own seem colourless in comparison.
"It would have been better," remarked Sir Mark, with quiet but intense bitterness, "if he had been dead—years ago."
The other smiled good-humouredly, his dark handsome face did not change colour.
"Come, come," he said, "that trite sentiment does not help you, Mark—I have not troubled you over much."
"The fact of your existence has troubled me."
"That was fairly foolish of you," replied Brian, with a certain good-humour. "I soon left you to enjoy the fruit of your virtues. I never had a penny out of the estate."
"You were never spoken of," struck in Mary, with a certain excitement. "I swear he let everyone think that you were dead."
Sir Mark rose.
"Woman!" he cried hotly. "Will you be gone?"
"Oh," smiled Brian. "Is this how you and Cousin Mary agree together? I thought you would have made a more docile husband, Mark."
Lady Briarley stepped forward till she was exactly between the two men.
"I am going to stay—I am a Briarley by birth as well as marriage. I want to hear how this thing is settled. It interests me."
She pulled at her red lace as she spoke and looked at her new-found cousin with her head held back.
"Why, you can stay for me," he said easily. "There is nothing to say that I mind you hearing. I have come for money."
"Well, Mark has plenty," she answered, "but he is not generous, cousin; you will find that."
"I did not expect to find him generous," replied the younger brother, "but I did not expect that he would make so much talk about giving what he knows he will have to give—"
"Oh, Mark will make it as difficult as he can for you, of course," said Lady Briarley. "He will make you feel that he hates you. He can do that—quite well."
Her husband looked as if he could have struck her; he had laid hands on her before now in their fierce quarrels and instinctively she drew away a little in the direction of the other man.
Instantly Sir Mark controlled himself.
"You will be disappointed, you jade," he said, "if you think to provoke bloodshed by your insolence. I know how to manage the pair of you. Do you think," he swung fiercely towards his brother, "that I am frightened by your whinings for money?"
Now Brian's olive cheek was flushed with angry blood.
"I have never whined to God or Devil," he retorted violently. "I am not here like the returned prodigal—"
"What else?"
"I need money—you will give me money—I have never asked before—I shall not ask again."
"Bah—we know what that means—once you think you can get money from me you'll become a sponge to absorb my last farthing."
"I have managed without you so far—"
"Yes, by means that have made your name—my name, notorious in every capital in Europe—"
Brian gave a short laugh.
"I regret nothing. I repent nothing. Give me the money, I can scarcely wait longer. I mean to return to Exeter to-night."
He spoke rather as if he addressed an inferior; whatever their relative positions might be they seemed now that they were face to face, as the great gentleman and the country squire.
Mary Briarley, looking at Brian, thought, "That is the man I should have married"; and her heart swelled.
"We are a pretty family," she said, "and we've come to a pretty pass. I suppose it is only Brian among us who has enjoyed his life—"
"I am well enough save for your tongue, Madame," replied Sir Mark.
"Poor Mary," said the other brother softly. "You should have been a man, my dear, and have come adventuring with me, you would have enjoyed it better."
Her whole being quivered in response; her great eyes flashed as she gazed at him. Sir Mark looked from one to the other and snarled.
Brian lifted his shoulders, smiled, and turned away, so that he was not looking either at his brother or his brother's wife.
Mary was suddenly silent, suddenly withdrawn into herself. She gathered together her slippery black shawl, her trailing grey skirts, and with bent head left the room.
Sir Mark turned to his desk, wrote something hastily, viciously it seemed, on a piece of paper.
It was an order on his banker for the sum of money for which his brother had asked him.
"And now go," he said sullenly.
Brian took the order. He was absolutely at his ease. He carefully put it away in a handsome leather case he carried in his laced pocket, smiled at his brother with slightly lifted eyebrows as if that person's bitter wrath was surprising but by no means disconcerting.
He said nothing, did not even voice the most formal of thanks, for his perceptions of the meaning of the whole scene were too clear, his sense of the whole situation too acute, his humour too strong to permit him to attempt any hollow professions of any kind; and he felt no emotion that might have stirred him into speech—not even hatred, for towards his brother and the whole house of Briarley he felt a profound indifference. He made a little bow and left the cabinet, only relieved that Sir Mark had so suddenly cut short the unnecessary disagreeables of protest and insult and briefly come to the point by presenting him with the money without which he certainly would not have departed from Briarley.
He surmised, with that cool penetration of his which had stood him in good stead in many a difficult place, that Sir Mark had found the interference of his termagant wife absolutely unbearable and was willing to be rid of his brother at any price rather than to tolerate any repetition of such scenes.
At any rate it did not matter to him what Sir Mark's ideas were, he had pocketed the money and was free to leave a house that seemed as unpleasant to him now as it had done in the days of his perverse and wayward childhood.
He flung his thin cloak about his shoulders as he stepped into the corridor and was glad of the cool night air on his face.
This fresh breeze came from the front door, which he perceived stood wide open.
He also and instantly observed that his cousin was waiting there, a robust and shapely figure in the voluminous skirts and long fine shawl, her form obscured slightly by the trailing, twisting leaves and blossoms of the flowering creeper that clung about the porch and which showed in soft dark outline against the moonlit garden, which was now full from end to end with colourless light.
Brian passed her without a pause, as if he had not seen her; but he was perfectly aware that she would follow him, and when she did so he turned as if it had been the most natural thing in the world.
Brian touched his hat in easy salutation. "I remember you so well, Polly," he said. She ignored that.
"I want to walk with you to the gate," she said.
"I'll not ask you if that will make Sir Mark angry, for it is clear he is as angry as he can be," replied Brian lightly; "so come, my dear. 'Tis a perfect night to walk through your sweet garden."
"My sweet garden!" came the woman's voice scornful through the dusky moonlight. "My prison—"
He was silent for a moment as if he considered a new idea.
"You have never left this place since I saw you last—a child?"
"No—never. Till I married I lived at the Dower House."
"That was not so much of a prison?"
"The same. Only the jailer was different there— my mother. We quarrelled."
"Ah, the House of Briarley!"
"And then I married Mark. And it is worse."
"But if you know of nothing else?" he asked curiously.
"Do you think," she flashed, "that I have not had my dreams?"
"What of— I wonder?"
"Of life—"
He laughed.
"You know nothing of anything, of course, and Mark is not kind to you—a hard devil!"
"I hate Mark. Really hate him. But I did not come with you to talk of that. The gate is in sight."
"What did you want to ask?" he said, and looked steadily into her moonlit face which was turned expectantly towards him.
"Oh, I want to ask about the world—your world— what you have done—what you are going to do—what it all means—"
The look of amusement faded from his dark face.
"The gate is too near—there is not time," he answered.
"Tell me something—you are so free—it must be wonderful!"
"Poverty," he said, rather harshly, "is as narrow a cage as this garden. I have had to work—and almost starved at the same time."
Lady Briarley was impatient.
"I do not mean that—I mean the real things.
"That was real enough, my lady."
"But it passed."
"Ah, yes—but it might come again. There is no security in such a life as mine."
"I loathe security. I would risk anything to be free," returned Mary Briarley.
They were nearly at the gate now for all the slow pace she set; everything about them showed through veils of moon mist and moonlight; yet the vagueness of light and shade could not disguise to the woman the bars of her hated cage.
The time was getting short and she began to speak rapidly of these emotional matters that most appealed to her starved, wild nature.
"Are you married?" she asked.
"I was married. To a Spanish lady," he replied.
"Ah!" she seemed to scent the longed-for romance.
"Forgive me—but I want to know about her— about that—"
He interrupted her hurriedly.
"I married her for her money, Polly. And they say she died because of my ill-behaviour. And now the money has gone."
She still clung to her beliefs.
"On what?"
"Nothing beautiful," he answered rather harshly.
She walked beside him with bowed head; he could hear her deep breathing as he waited for her next question.
It came rapidly.
"Why did you want that money from Mark?"
He was silent for a moment, the delicate iron bars of the gate were revealed very clearly before them straight and dark, enclosing the garden from that outer world veiled with moon mist indistinct beneath the June night sky.
Mary Briarley looked eagerly, aridly at the cloaked figure at her side, who seemed to her to be the most wonderful person she had ever met in that he held the key to this world beyond the gate.
"I wanted the money," he said at length, "because I have another chance to marry an heiress and I must make some sort of a figure."
"Oh!"
"Mark told you that I was an adventurer," he responded.
"Yes—" her tone was eager again. "I want to know about it—will you not tell me?—I know nothing except that I am going mad here—mad—tell me about the world—"
The gate stayed their further progress; they paused, facing each other.
"That would be too long a story for now," said the man.
Mary Briarley put out her hot hands and shook the cold iron bars of the gate.
"I want to get out!" she cried. "I want to get out!" She paused and added in a lower, sullen tone. "If I were a man I could come with you."
"If you were a man I would ask you to come," he replied.
The sharp edge of that bitter truth pierced the passion of her mood.
"I am like you in everything just except in being a woman," she said, "but that is—a woman! And I must remain this side of the gate."
"I am afraid so, my poor Polly."
To her the moon mists seemed full of gorgeous figures and rich colourings, broken fragments of nebulous dreams; she put out her hands and clung to the cloak of the stranger; he had his hand on the gate, which stood ajar.
"This may be my last chance," said Mary Briarley desperately. "My last as it is my first—"
"It is no chance at all," said he gently, "the best thing you can do is to stay with Mark."
Her hands dropped from his cloak.
"Is that the advice you give me?"
He opened the gate.
"Good-bye, cousin Polly," he said. "I am sorry for you."
She heard the verdict on her folly in those words— the sentence on her stupidity, the visions vanished, leaving the blank colourless moon mist which enveloped her from head to foot like a shroud.
"Good-bye," she answered dully.
He opened the gate and stepped into obscurity, closed the gate with a clang, and was gone.
The woman who was a prisoner stared at the spot where there had stood the man who was free, and then like a beaten creature, stole back to the house.
THE squirrels, or the wood rats, or some rabbit in the grip of a weasel had cleared a long space, more than the length of a man, in the wet dead leaves and disturbed the surface of the earth—some of the sods seemed to have been turned over; but it had been raining all day and the ground was now almost smoothed and the dead leaves washed back into place.
The girl who was leaning against the trunk of the largest tree idly and sullenly noticed this.
She wondered what creature of the wood had been here, in this trysting-place chosen by herself and her lover many months ago and the scene of many a joyous meeting. Then she became impatient at something so trivial attracting her attention, and shivered deeper into her worn frieze cloak and glanced up angrily at the even grey sky disclosed between the boughs of the oak tree that sheltered her with the last clusters of dry reddish leaves. She had no means of knowing the time, but she was sure that it was long past the appointed hour, and her lover had never been late before.
The rain fell steadily, the autumn was over, and the air was chill from long sunlessness. Barbara Pryde had never been vexed by the rain before; all weathers found her abroad; she was a wild creature, country-bred. Through wind and rain she and her lover had wandered often, in the damp woods, under the drippings of the trees, out on the open moor, over the hills of heather, with the mist closing in around them and the wet stinging their faces; and it had always been joyous.
But to-day he did not come, and the grey depressed and the rain vexed and the familiar prospect became monotonous.
The oaks and beeches stretched to the edge of the moor which joined her brother's property to that of her lover's brother. She could see, through the brown bracken and the dropped red leaves, the path she had worn in coming.
Where the wood ended was a rocky fall in the ground, and a little stream that hurried away under the twisted boughs of the trees to lose itself in the moor.
The noise of the stream, swollen by the long wet, was the only sound beyond the unceasing dropping of the rain on the boughs and on the ground.
For the first time in her life Barbara felt a dislike, almost a horror, of the woods; and as she was a woman who scorned fear she was angry with herself and left her shelter with a sudden movement of impatience.
The rain had not passed her rough cloak, but she was cold, colder than she had realised until she began to move; she shivered, and as she was not used to shivering, she was still further angered.
She had no idea what she intended doing; she had not even any great desire to see her lover, her heart seemed numbed, as was her body; but she knew she did not wish to return to her dreary home where poverty and pride kept company on an untidy hearth. By this hour her brother would be intoxicated and sprawling with his companions and his dogs, and Barbara had no feminine interests to endear her to the desolate house.
She preferred the rain—the forest and the moor—to the kin she despised and the home she neglected.
She walked on until the wood ended abruptly in the lawns of Mulgrave Hall; she could see the house, set on the hill-side amongst trees and looking towards the now rain-filled valley where the Dove swept past the stones and rocks.
For a moment she paused, for the rain, out in the open, stung her face like the blow of an open hand.
Across the soaking grass and through the stripped bushes of laurel and bay came the stout figure of a man. Barbara knew him once for her lover's groom.
He approached her with a certain eagerness.
"Oh, ma'am," he said and then paused.
She looked at him sharply; she was on frank terms with all her inferiors and disdained to hide her love-affairs.
"Where is Mr. Richard?" she asked. The man shook his head. "Gone."
"Gone!" Barbara stamped her foot in the rage long smouldering that culminated at the hearing of that word. "Do you mean that he has gone to London?"
"I do not know, ma'am. He left the house last night; belike he went down to the 'Peacock' to take the coach to Chesterfield."
The man spoke half sullenly, looking at the ground.
"Why should he take the stage?" demanded Barbara.
The groom answered quickly.
"Because he has left his horses—even Robin. He never said a word to me."
"He has never travelled by the stage," said Barbara; she had forgotten the rain beating on her from head to foot; her eyes shone at the thought that some deceit or trick had been played her.
"That is what I say," replied the groom eagerly. "And he has never left Robin. Not if it was for a short journey. And even to go to town he has always taken him and me to the first stage."
"He has never left me in this manner," said Barbara. "What makes you think he has gone to town?"
"My lord says so."
"Ah! When did my lord come?"
"Two days ago."
Barbara thought she understood; they had quarrelled, and Richard had flung out of the house; it would not be for the first time; but never had he gone without saying good-bye to Barbara, without renewing his vows—his protestations.
"Tell me how it was?" she said. She huddled further into her cloak and they drew by common consent into the partial shelter of the great bush of laurel that stood between lawn and wood.
The fellow was eager to speak; he was full of a subject that had evidently been minutely discussed among the servants; he spoke with clearness and intelligence, for he was no mere boor, but a sharp-witted Yorkshireman with a genius for horses—a wild dissolute fellow with a great love for the master who had protected him in a hundred devilries.
"My lord came back unannounced, wanted to see into his affairs, he said—he was going to stay and be his own steward—came upon us like a fiend and put us to rights."
"My lord stay here!" exclaimed Barbara, then dunking of the only possible reason. "Belike he has been in trouble—"
The groom's dark face lit with a flash of triumphant agreement.
"That is what Mr. Richard said. 'You've been up to Hell's own work in London, my lord,' he says, 'before you come here—it is a place you've always hated.' 'This is my home,' says my lord, 'and I've come home for a while; and I'm the master here and you'll do well to remember it!' 'For God's sake,' says Mr. Richard, 'leave me in peace, my lord, I ask nothing more.' And my lord laughs and says: 'Get back to madam your wife, Dick, she's pining'—this all in the stable yesterday."
"Well," sighed Barbara, drawing a deep breath; she was well aware of the attitude of the brothers towards each other; in this home, as in her own, there was an atmosphere of hate and turmoil.
"All that day it was as if there was thunder in the house," continued the man. "The two gentlemen not speaking to each other, and my lord finding fault with all that was done. He was closeted with Mr. Merton and went over all the books and quarrelled with all—"
"But that is usual," said Barbara. "My lord never comes but there is trouble. What was there in this to make Mr. Richard leave the house?"
"I do not know, ma'am. But towards the evening Mr. Richard came back to the stables, and he was greatly moved. 'Get Robin ready,' says he, 'for we'll be on our travels again.' 'Will you go so soon, sir?' said I. 'Why, if I don't go I'll be turned out of the house,' he said bitterly, 'my lord is black with me.'"
"Did he say that he was going back to his wife?" asked Barbara.
"No, I thought that was what he meant—in the evening he was shut in the library with my lord. I was in the house waiting for his orders—we could hear their voices, hot and angry, and we waited on till near ten of the clock; and Kate, the new chambermaid, was at the kitchen window and saw a lantern cross the lawn, and I ran out thinking it was Mr. Richard come for Robin, but I couldn't overtake him. I first saw the figure and the lantern—he was going slowly, but he was too far ahead—it was a bitter night. When I got back I sent one of the maids for Mr. Merton to tell him there had been trouble; but he would not go to the library for fear of my lord, not till an hour later, and then he found the library door locked and went away, glad of the excuse. He bid us all to bed, but I sat up.
"It was midnight when my lord came out of the library; he had his candle in his hand and he was blazing drunk. 'What are you waiting for?' says he softly. 'Mr. Richard said he might want me, my lord,' says I, facing him. 'Mr. Richard has gone to town,' says he, 'and it's a foul night for travelling, but you'll not see him here again. And look you,' says he, coming toward me,' I've broken a glass and cut my hand,' and he showed me his wrist ruffles all bloody; 'tie it up for me,' he says, 'so as not to frighten the women.' 'It is a strange thing,' says I, while I was doing his wound up for him with his pocket-handkerchief, 'that Mr. Richard should leave at this hour and without Robin, and the coach not going till six in the morning.' 'He'll go to the "Peacock,"' says my lord, 'or sleep in the woods.' Then he fired up. 'A tramp to Hell!' he shouts, and goes up to his room, and though he was more than common drunk he walks straightly without spilling a drop of grease from the candle."
"He had flung Richard out of the house," added Barbara.
"I went into the library afterwards," continued the groom, intent on his recital, "and there was not a drop of wine in any of the bottles, and a huge fire rushing up the chimney; it seemed they had been burning papers for there was a lot of ash, and the long windows on the lawn stood open: one could see that Mr. Richard had left that way and that my lord had been after him, to bring him back, belike, for there was his riding cloak all wet over a chair."
"Where did Mr. Richard get the lantern?" asked the girl. "He must have been to the stables first."
"Yes—and up to his room, for his portmanteaux has gone and the box where he locked his letters, his man tells me."
"Did my lord send down to the 'Peacock' this morning?" asked Barbara.
"No, but I went," said the man simply, "and Mr. Richard had not been there. He may have waited on the road for the coach—though it would be strange to wait all those hours in the dark and wet; still, he may have waited. I was going down to King's Stanton now to ask the coachmen when the stage returns from Chesterfield."
"Go," said Barbara, "and I will go and speak to my lord."
They spoke as equals, united by their common interest in the same person. To the groom Barbara was only "Mr. Richard's Miss," and lower in his respect and affections than the black horse Robin; to Barbara the man was but a village good-for-nothing, whom her lover had taken into his service; but for the moment they had a common cause, for it seemed that they were the only people concerned by the hasty departure of Mr. Richard Strange.
Both were utterly unconscious: the groom had never seen a fine lady, and Barbara, gentle by birth and primitive by nature, had had no training in sensitiveness nor reserve, scarcely in modesty. She was aware that everyone knew she was the lover of Richard, as they knew he had a wife in town, married for her money and long neglected; and as this did not in the least affect her life or the respect she inspired among the country-folk as a Pryde, she did not care about it at all. She had been too long in the charge of her besotted brother, too entirely secluded in a desolate isolation, to be nice in her standards or precise in her conduct.
It seemed quite natural to her and quite natural to the groom that she should go and ask Lord Mulgrave about his brother.
She had not seen her lover for four days, nor received any message from him, and now she had heard that he had left his home she could not return without some more definite news.
Her heart was hot within her as she walked slowly, impeded by her heavy damp clothes, across the soaking lawns; she felt more rage at Richard's desertion than grief at his loss.
She had had to support his absence before and had not been unhappy, she had resources within herself.
But he had never gone like this—a quarrel with his brother hardly excused him: he might so easily have waited another day, if not at the hall, at the inn, and have come to her trysting-place and explained his troubles and his difficulties as he had so often explained them before; and she had never faded him, she had always been sympathetic, never critical of his excuses (when he troubled to make any); nor backward in advice and comfort.
But now he had gone without a word.
Was he tired of her?—It was possible.
Her figure straightened and her countenance hardened as she faced the thought; yet it was not one that was new to her; she had a very cool-headed idea both of her own value and of the ways of men. She had known, not as a matter of vanity but as a matter of common sense, that Richard was in love with her: she was quite ready to accept with the same impartial judgment that he might cease to be, but if this was so she would come near to disliking him, not with passion, but coolly, as a thing that had faded.
As she neared the Hall she paused; she did not wish to encounter any of the servants, not because she was in any way ashamed to be seen by them, but because she did not wish to be delayed.
She thought of the library windows, which opened on the terrace and of which the groom had spoken, and crossed the grey flags under the shadow of the Tudor budding and came to these arched windows.
They were, as she had hoped, open, and there was also, as she had hoped. Lord Mulgrave within. He was standing by the light of a fire which filled the whole dark panelled room with brilliant light; it seemed that he had been burning something, for he was bending over the flames and thrusting the fire-irons deep into the pile of blazing logs.
Barbara entered; she was aware now, by the warmth and shelter of the room, how wet she was, how cold— even tired and in want of food. It was a long, rough walk from Pryde House to the trysting-place.
She was angry as she thought of her appearance, with anyone else she knew she would not have minded, but with Lord Mulgrave she felt it put her at a disadvantage. The damp cloth of her cloak cumbered her walk, her gown was bordered with mud and dead leaves, her shoes squelched wet, the water dripped from her mantle, she felt her hair fallen inside the hood and knew her face flushed from the rain, her hands red.
Therefore she spoke with a certain defiance.
"Good evening, Lord Mulgrave."
"Good evening, Barbara."
He had turned at the sound of her step, and if he was surprised he did not show it. He stood with his back to the fire and looked at her with a smile.
She had known him all her life, but she had seen very little of him; he had always been abroad or in town, only lately had begun to come much to his Derby seat which hitherto he had left largely in the hands of his brother.
This was the first time Barbara had had to deal personally and directly with him, and therefore she looked keenly at him that she might judge him.
She had not heard much of him except from his brother, who never mentioned him without a curse; and personally she was not prepared to like him, because he had power over Richard, and therefore to a certain extent over herself; and Barbara was of a nature to rebel fiercely against the power and authority of others when her own affairs were concerned.
Therefore she looked sternly, and even bitterly, at Lord Mulgrave.
And he waited, pleasantly returning her scrutiny. He happened to be the handsomest creature she had ever seen; his was a face that would have been the handsomest among a far greater number than those Barbara had ever known. His was the gift of beauty, complete and without a fault, and if the type was so masculine as to be almost brutal, breeding and training and the perfection of dress and appointments disguised the fact, as his exquisitely cut cloth coat, embroidered satins and laces, disguised the fact that he had the make and muscles of a Hercules, massive in the thorax, slender in the hips: not tall, but erect and graceful, with the unconscious grace of strength in that all his movements had been trained by swordsmanship and horsemanship, as his voice and manners had been disciplined to quiet and courtesy, though his native passions made it difficult for him to maintain the continual air of indifference usual in one of his rank and experience. The superiority of Lord Mulgrave's person had never been anything but a source of annoyance to Barbara, for Richard, though strong and good-looking, was by no means the equal of his brother, beside whom he seemed an ordinary man; and this galled Barbara as reflecting on herself in some subtle way, for though without vanity she was very proud.
"You are wet," remarked Lord Mulgrave.
Barbara flushed; she unclasped her heavy cloak and hung it over one of the chairs of gilded leather.
Again they stood looking at each other: the girl, freed from the cumbrous folds of the mantle, showed tall and fine, beautifully made, fair of complexion, delicate of feature, with a graceful neck and carriage, with grey eyes and bright hair which hung in a mass of shining locks, gold and silver threads seemingly mingled with threads of copper and bronze; this hair was the most noticeable thing about her, and the only colour, for her woollen dress was of a grey faded to lavender, a blue that blended with the shadows.
"Come to the fire," smiled Lord Mulgrave.
But she remained erect, like one on guard, facing him.
"I have come to ask about Richard," she said with enmity in her tone.
"You could hardly," he replied, "have had any other motive in coming here."
"Please tell me," she said, "please, my lord—where Richard is?"
"You know that he has left?"
"Yes, I met Grant, the groom."
"You were waiting for Richard to-day?"
"Yes."
"At the usual place?"
She was slightly discomposed at this.
"Yes—how do you know about it?" she demanded.
"I know more than you think, ma'am," he replied.
Barbara was silent; she could not believe that Richard would discuss her with his brother, nor could she think of anyone who would trouble to spy and report on a love-affair so open and so obvious.
"What interest is it to you, my lord?" she asked.
He answered with a certain impatience.
"Come to the fire, you are wet—your gown, your shoes—how long have you waited in the rain for that fool?"
She did not defend her lover.
"You see," she said in a hard tone, "I had nothing eke to do."
Lord Mulgrave seemed well pleased; there was an excitement in his manner that puzzled her, for he had all the right and all the power on his side, and great superiority of manner, person and rank, and she had nothing at all, not even the right to ask for her lover's whereabouts, not even much beauty to give her courage; she had thought that he would be much shorter with her request.
For the third time he asked her to come to the fire.
Barbara moved slowly towards the hearth; she was tired and her feet were aching with cold, so tired and cold that when she seated herself in the great leather chair with arms she felt a certain pain of relief in all her limbs and knew that she would not be able easily to move.
"I feel fatigued," she admitted; she looked round the room with a sensation of pleasure; the comfort, the luxury were so different from the home her brother's vices had stripped—the shelves of rich books, the dark painted ceding, the polished panels of the walk bearing the massive silver sconces, the stone mantelpiece with the handsome portrait of a Mulgrave above, the beautiful kerb and fire-irons, the generous blaze of the fire, the furniture, expensive, comfortable, the thick carpet, all enriched by the golden fight of the fire—all these things combined to give her an impression of ease, almost of protection.
She glanced covertly at my lord; he seemed to have more than ever the advantage of her; she felt it hopeless to talk to him of the poor concerns of herself and Richard.
My lord was not looking at her, but down at the fire, the red glow was on him from head to foot, catching in the gold threads that embroidered his red waistcoat, in the diamond brooch that held his lace cravat, and casting shadows in the folds of his full brown coat.
Barbara keenly noted these details of clothes in contrast to her own rough attire: they made a curious impression on her senses; she had always taken a pleasure in Richard's fine clothes, but Richard's appointments had never been of this quality.
She glanced from my lord's clothes to my lord's face.
His low forehead, his dark eyes under the sweeping arch of the brows, his short, clearly defined features, the waving dull brown hair, unpowdered and fastened with a black ribbon, were as clearly revealed by the firelight against the shadows as a painting against the dark background of the canvas.
Barbara wished that she was not so tired, wished that she had never sat down by the fire.
"I am waiting for you to speak," said my lord quietly.
"I want to know what has become of Richard," she answered.
"Richard has left."
"That much I know."
"And he will never return," said my lord, looking at her, "that I can swear to you."
It was like a challenge, a haunting of his power. Barbara's pride rose in arms. "Where is he?"
"I do not know."
"Where was he going when he left last night?"
"To Jamaica—the Indies."
"Ah!" she caught her breath at thought of her loss—rage shook her at Richard's faithlessness. "Like that—without a word—but you sent him away!"
"Yes," said my lord.
Barbara was silent, striving to face the situation clearly and with wisdom; it was not so easy with that handsome presence watching her so closely.
Richard, she knew, was dependent on his brother, he had long consumed his own inheritance and all of his wife's money that he could touch. He had long ago given up even the pretence at finding a post in politics or the Army, he was, she believed, encumbered with debts; but she had troubled very little about this side of Richard: he was attractive, he was gay, he was in love with her, and that had been enough to fill their walks.
That the brothers, too alike in temperament and vices, hated each other she also knew, and that all the power was in the hands of the elder, but she had not given much thought even to that; she had believed that the strength of blood and tradition would make Lord Mulgrave supply Richard indefinitely with a home and money; he was very wealthy.
But now he was banished from Mulgrave Hall, and she realised what a hideous gap in her life it would make and how her brother would laugh; and the great dreariness of the days ahead of her with love and companionship and excitement suddenly extinguished, like a lamp blown rudely out.
"You quarrelled?" she asked, looking up.
"Yes: we quarrelled."
"What about?" asked Barbara. She was sure that it had been money, but then they had quarrelled so often before; she wondered what had made this disagreement so bitter and so final.
"A woman," said my lord. "Let me take off your shoes—they are very wet."
And suddenly he was on his knees before her, unfastening the buckles and the soaked leather thongs.
Barbara was utterly surprised by his answer and his action; she grew rigid at the very gentle touch of his fingers on her foot; she stared at his bent head; the thick stiffly waving hair, the low forehead, the rather fierce eyes gave her the same impression of sulky imperious power that she had observed in the front of a young bull. As he stooped she could see also the massive shape of his shoulders and the great width of his neck; these also reminded her of an animal, yet he was very much the fine gentleman.
He pulled off her woollen stockings with a quick movement and her fine feet showed bare and damp in the red fight.
She was silent, without movement; he looked at her feet intently, his mouth set as if he was studying something of great importance; then he smiled slightly to himself as if at some inner thought.
Barbara watched him; she had recovered from her surprise and was thinking of his answer to her last question.
"A woman?" she repeated; she believed Richard had been faithful to their lawless love and she was puzzled and angry.
He placed her shoes and stockings to dry on the andirons and rose.
The feel of the soft carpet was pleasing to her feet, as was the heat from the blazing fire; she glanced at the long window, and the rain and grey without seemed horrible.
"What woman?" she demanded.
"Does it matter?" asked my lord. "Richard has gone, and I swear to you it is for ever."
"What right had you to send him away?" she cried.
"What right had he to expect to feed out of my hand for ever?"
"He is your brother—only chance makes you the elder."
"He has had his share of the family fortunes," said my lord grimly. "He went his own road to ruin."
"And you have flung him out of the house?"
"At last."
"You always hated him!"
"Always," said my lord firmly, "as he hated me."
She knew that was true; she could recall Richard's bitter curses at mention of his brother's name.
"You might have thought of me," she answered with fierce dignity. "Since you knew about me."
"What the whole country-side knows," he added. "I do not deny it," He laughed.
"You are a woman of spirit, Barbara," he said quietly. "A pity that you did not ruin yourself for a better man than my brother."
Barbara laughed.
"Ruined! That is one of your town words. You mean it insolently."
"Why should I not be insolent to you? You were Richard's creature."
She rose; even with her bare feet she was nearly his height.
"Do not confound me with your London dollies," she said. "I was Richard's lover, not his kept Miss."
A light hashed into his keen eyes.
"What did you see in Richard?" he demanded. "You knew he was married?"
"What did that matter to me?" she replied. "He would never have married me, in any case. I am too poor."
"Perhaps you would not have had him as a husband," suggested my lord.
"Perhaps not," answered Barbara. "I never thought about it,"
"But as a lover he served."
"He was my choice," said the girl. "He was all I had—he meant everything to me. And now you have sent him away. Bring him back, my lord, bring him back."
"I swear to God I cannot," he replied fiercely. "Why? He cannot be beyond the first stage—you can send after him."
"I cannot."
But Barbara continued, half protesting, half pleading.
"What difference does it make to you? You are so seldom here. He cannot cost you much—and you can afford it—"
"Perhaps he would not come back," suggested my lord grimly.
Barbara flushed.
"You mean that he is tired of me?" she said sharply.
The circumstances of her lover's departure, the long useless wait to-day stung in the recollection.
"Why should he be tired of me?" she said more to herself than to my lord.
Her hair was slipping uncomfortably from the pins, she put up her hands to readjust these and her locks fell free over her shoulders, the beautiful bright colour gleaming in the firelight.
My lord came softly up to her, put his hands lightly under her upraised arms and kissed her gently many times.
Barbara stood quite still. "Who was the woman?" she asked. He was silent; he continued to kiss her. "Let me go," said Barbara.
He removed his light touch; she looked at him doubtfully, frowning; then she suddenly leant forward and kissed him on the cheek, lightly as he had kissed her. She felt him shudder from head to foot; he gave a sharp exclamation and turned away.
Barbara thrilled with the sense of power; she was startled and amazed; her slight bosom lifted rapidly with a somewhat desperate breathing; she continued to pin up her hair, looking at the ground.
My lord went to the dark cupboard between the bookshelves and brought out a bottle of wine and a heavy cut-glass chalice, he filled this with the deep-coloured Malaga and offered it to Barbara.
She drank, more to gain time than anything else, for she did not know what to say or do; was it about her that they had quarrelled last night? It seemed impossible.
He watched her drink.
"Do you want that young man back?" he asked at length.
"If he left me of his own free will I do not," she replied.
"Yet you came here to ask me to bring him back."
"I came here for an explanation," she replied. "I believe I have it. Now I can go."
She turned towards the window, forgetting her bare feet
He took no notice of the movement. "You regret Richard?" he asked. "You need not—the better man has won." Barbara paused. "You quarrelled about me?" My lord smiled.
"You have seen so little of me!" exclaimed Barbara.
He was beside her now.
"That does not matter. You please me greatly— greatly! I want you, so much—so much!"
She was sincerely amazed; she could hardly believe that this being from another world, who had everything in his power to achieve, could really be moved by her; she had never thought of it as being possible.
"The other women—" she said, half faltering.
"Leave the other women—they are past," he answered; "over and done with. There was never one like you. I have never had a woman like you. I am not so easy. I have had women in my arms that I have not cared to kiss, but with you it is different—so different."
He had her in his embrace and kissed her again and again with increasing passion; Barbara felt utterly small and feeble in his grasp, her very bones seemed brittle beside his strength; he pressed upon her so that in bending back from him she lost her foothold, but he held her so tightly that she did not even stagger.
And still her prevailing emotion was wonder that he should so care for her.
"You sent Richard away because of me?" she cried.
"Yes," he said almost absently; he ceased to kiss her and she twisted away from him, but he held her still by one arm.
"When have you seen me?" asked Barbara, her face flushed, her hair tumbled, and her breast heaving desperately under the drab gown.
"What does it matter?" he answered, still looking at her as if he was absorbed by her to the exclusion of every other thought. He lifted her free hand and examined it with great tenderness.
"You think I am a doll to be taken so easily," she cried.
"All women are dolls," he answered, "but you are a doll that opens its eyes and talks...."
"How did you know about me?" she insisted.
"I have seen you with Richard," he replied, as if it was a matter of little moment. "I have long noticed you."
She recalled that he had passed them once or twice— recalled some casual meeting; she took her hands away from him and faced him; she could not speak because she had too much to say; she wished to go away and think.
"I must return home before it is dark," she said quietly after a while. "I will come with you.
"No," said Barbara.
She came to the fire and took up her steaming shoes; my lord turned to stare at her.
"You cannot put on those," he said. "You cannot return in this rain."
"I shall do both," she answered.
She glanced at him covertly; he was perfectly controlled; she admired that, she thrilled to think that at a touch she could destroy that control.
He was a splendid man and would be a splendid lover; she had almost forgotten Richard—she was intensely conscious of herself, of her slenderness, of her bright thick hair, of the beautiful feet she was hiding with the coarse shoes and stockings, of her fine hands— she felt herself to be suddenly of greater value than she had ever realised.
He made no effort to interfere with her or prevent her going; yet the way he looked at her seemed to put her completely in his possession; she felt that all she did was done upon his sufferance.
She picked up her rough cloak.
"When are you coming back?" he asked.
Barbara did not answer.
He came to her and, taking her arm, turned back the loose sleeve and kissed the arm from wrist to elbow, very gently and tenderly.
Still the girl did not speak.
"You want Richard back?" he demanded. "He was between us and he had to go. He could never have kept you—a man like that—"
"Perhaps not," she answered. "Perhaps no man can keep me for long. I do not know. I am too frank. But you seem one who understands."
She spoke so low that he could hardly hear her words.
"My dear, my sweet," he said. "When I first saw you I knew—that woman is mine, like a king taking possession of his kingdom I take you—you cannot escape me if you will—you are part of me."
"I am going," answered Barbara. "I want to go out into the rain and the dusk and think—please let me go."
"I am not touching you."
"Yet you know that you hold me."
"Ah," cried my lord, "you know that you are mine!" She would not answer.
"Go," he added. "I shall come for you soon, Barbara, my Barbara."
He overtook her on the threshold of the room.
"Answer me first," he said. He caught hold of her, through the thick cloak and dress she felt the grip of his fingers.
"Answer you—what answer do you want?" she whispered faintly. "Tell me you know that you are mine, Barbara." She held up her face.
"Kiss me—give me a kiss," she said; she put up her trembling hands and clung to his shoulders.
He gave a little rough exclamation and pressed his mouth to hers. Barbara, almost suffocating, pulled herself away; he steadied himself.
"I am answered," he said; his dark eyes flashed triumph, an answering fire sprang into hers. She hastened swiftly away from the light and warmth and almost ran over the wet lawns; she did not look back.
The rain had almost ceased now, but the day was fading into evening and was grey and chill; everything was wet, the trees so dripping that it scarcely seemed as if water had ceased to fall from the low clouds.
But this surrounded dreariness could not abate the fire in Barbara's blood.
A more glorious love than that she had lost was offered her; she felt exalted in her own eyes as she had never felt before.
She had in her hurried nervous walk reached the edge of the wood when she was overtaken by Grant, the groom.
"I was waiting for you," he said rather breathlessly. Barbara paused and stared at him; she was too suddenly snatched from whirling thought to place the man instantly. "I've been down to King's Stanton," he continued, "and spoken to the guard of the Chesterfield stage. Mr. Richard did not join it on the road."
Barbara was impatient; her mood had changed since last she had spoken to this fellow. What did it matter now what had become of the lover who had left her? She did not believe that he would return, and if he did his brother would deal with him; they would fight for her, she would be glad of that; and my lord would prove the better man, she would be glad of that too, for she would be the prize of the better man.
"Mr. Richard knows his own business," she said.
"It is strange that he should leave Robin," insisted the groom,
"It is strange that he should leave me," said Barbara.
The fellow's interest and concern in the departure of his master, which had been so one with her own mood an hour ago, were now distasteful to her as diverting the current of her own thoughts.
"You got no satisfaction out of my lord?" asked the man.
She looked at him and saw that he was really troubled; it amazed her to think of what different quality from hers this affection was; she paused, rather confused.
"My lord said he had gone to Jamaica, the Indies— swore he would never come back."
The servant's face clouded with sullen wrath.
"My lord was always a devil," he declared, "and a mean, hard devil, too. Mr. Richard is worth twenty of him, though he is always in some trouble, and my lord escapes every time—by reason of the money and the name."
"Well," said Barbara, "what can we do? He has gone. And with scant courtesy. And I cannot doubt that my lord meant what he said when he vowed Mr. Richard should not return."
The man glanced at her, suspicious of her resignation.
"My lord's an ugly devil," he said vindictively. "You, always here, don't know much of him, ma'am; but I've been in town with the two of them, and I know some of the things he has done, and that he is judged for a dark and sinister man, for all his fine air and manner of greatness."
"But he has had his way with the women," said Barbara, "always."
The groom did not make much account of that; he laughed.
"That's a big boast! He's strong and rich, and there's all there is to that, ma'am. I doubt if a good maiden has ever thought of him; no gentlewoman would take him, knowing him—and she would know him by the first glance at his face."
"What do you know of good maidens?" cried Barbara bitterly, "or of my lord either for that matter?"
She paused, controlling herself. "As for Mr. Richard, I know nothing."
She thought the fellow looked at her with some contempt, but after the briefest glance he turned away.
She watched his stout figure and crooked legs disappear round the corner of the house; she was quite sure that he was going to sit with his master's horse; this gave her a curious sensation.
"Would some women have loved Richard like that?" she wondered, "or are all women like me?"
She turned into the wood; the ground was wet and slippery beneath her feet; the water dripped heavily from the trees.
Barbara walked slowly.
The cold air cooled the blood heated by my lord's wine and my lord's kisses; she could reflect reasonably on what had occurred; she could be utterly frank with herself in this solitude.
My lord desired her; for her sake he had sent Richard away, now he claimed her, and she could not resist: she did not want to resist, though she felt kindly towards Richard, there was no slight in his going since he had been forced to that by the more powerful man.
At this point in her reflections she paused; the strangeness of the whole thing occurred to her clearsightedness.
Why had Richard given her up so quietly? Why had he gone without a word?
He loved her and he hated his brother, and he was of a bold and haughty spirit; it was curious that he should have been so meek. And why had he left the house at dead of night, without his man and his horse? And why, if he did not mean to wait for the tryst, did he not come over to Pryde Manor and see her there, in the morning? And now it appeared that he had not taken the coach.
And yet he had taken his portmanteau with him— she could not think of Richard on foot, carrying his own baggage.
And then he had had a stable lantern, they said—and had gone towards the woods.
Yet this was not the way to the road, but led over open country.
Perhaps he had come to look at the trysting-place again.
She felt sorry for Richard, she balanced him in her mind with his brother; she knew without a doubt whom she preferred, and she hoped Richard might not return.
My lord had been very sure that he would not. Why?
How could he account for the doing of one of the temper of Richard? Even if he was forbidden Mulgrave Hall, my lord could not forbid his coming to Pryde Manor.
And why should he go to Jamaica or the Indies?
Money could hardly be the reason; even if his brother withdrew all help she knew that Richard was not so ruined as to be reduced to that strait.
Perhaps he had done something dishonourable and had to fly the country.
This seemed to her the most likely solution, but it was not a very convincing one. Richard had been in and out of trouble so often, and run the gamut of most Lawlessness without being reduced to such an extreme; besides, he had always made her his friend in this matter, and he had never even hinted at approaching disaster, nor had he appeared to have anything on his mind. And yet my lord, with a sincerity that carried conviction, had sworn that Richard had left and would not return.
She was sure that neither she nor anyone else would get another answer, and if, as was not likely, someone should dare to make inquiries about the younger brother, my lord, as the groom had said, was a hard devil.
"As long as he loves me as he loves me now," thought Barbara, "that does not matter to me."
She walked on slowly and the light was beginning to fade. She would have to pass the trysting-place, but she did not mind as it was already beginning to lack meaning for her.
She tried not to think of Richard, yet he occupied her thoughts, not as an object of passion but of curiosity.
She could not prevent her acute mind from dwelling on the problem of his disappearance though her senses were thrilling at the recollection of my lord.
It occurred to her that he might be waiting for her at the tryst now—might have come late—or that he might be at the house when she returned; and she winced at the thought of seeing him.
Then it occurred to her that he might be dead, and she stood still in the narrow woodland path.
Of course he was dead.
Such a terror seized her that she wanted to dash hither and thither like a bird caught in a net; but she controlled herself even in this loneliness and stood still with her fingers to her lips.
A dozen facts crowded into her mind, fitting with cruel precision into one monstrous whole: the brothers hated each other, last night they had quarrelled—my lord had stayed till late in the library, he was drunk, he had cut his hand—blood on his ruffles.
But she remembered his hands, there was no bandage or scratch on either.
And his mantle was wet and he had been burning things—even to-day when she came upon him he was thrusting something into the flames.
And that figure with the lantern, walking slowly with a burden—who could see if it was Richard?
And if one went to the stables for a lantern could one not also fetch a spade?
And could not my lord conceal his brother's portmanteau and easily disguise his appearance? Had he not had all night alone to do what he pleased? Drunk—yes, but not with any wine.
Was it not all in his power and he free from all question?
She suddenly hastened on; when she was in sight of the trysting-place she paused again, her knees bent with an extraordinary sensation of weakness.
She was looking at the space of turned-over ground beneath the tree where she had waited for Richard; even then it had occurred to her that it was about the length of a man.
She crept closer; very cautiously, as if she feared to be struck in the face, and stared down at the rain-blurred outline of the shallow grave.
And her thought was—
"I must tell him to dismiss Grant before he suspects."
"THERE'S Lord Maskell's steward been this hour in the parlour; shall I send him on his road again?"
"And what will Lord Maskell's steward be doing here?" was the impatient answer.
"Nothing that's good, my lord. Shall I put him on his road again?"
The young man to whom this eager question was addressed dismounted from his beautiful horse, hesitated, then said: "No, I'll see him."
The servant, now holding the dark animal's head, protested with a stern anxiety:
"You'll see him? And it's the steward—the gentleman not coming himself?"
Lord Beltarbet paused on the steps of his decayed mansion. The wind was blowing about his hair, the autumn leaves scurried round his feet; it was the earliest hour of a lovely soft twilight.
"Maybe there's trouble," mused he, smiling wistfully at the servant. "I've heard there'll be more risings in County Clare—maybe in County Wicklow. I was told but now of two men arrested in Rathdrum and they are sending soldiers to Camaderry and Thoulagie."
"That, my lord," replied the stately servant, with a hard grim look, "will be no affair of Lord Masked or his steward."
"They're English," said Beltarbet, with cold bitterness, and he entered his ancient, ill-kept house. He flung off his hat in the shabby hall and, still holding his riding-whip behind him, entered the parlour where the Englishman waited. It was a gloomy room of tarnished mirrors, spaces where pictures should have been, hooks where tapestry should have hung, and chairs with the damask threadbare; mutton-fat candles smoked in pewter sticks, there were all the sharp evidences of a dreary poverty.
Lord Beltarbet dryly told his visitor to keep his chair, but himself remained standing. The Englishman introduced himself—Mr. Simon Ware, Lord Maskell's agent; though his manner was respectful, the little, neat man conveyed perfectly well he knew he was one of the conquerors speaking to one of the conquered; his very civility had an air of pity. To him the dark young man in the worn riding-suit was merely a member of a despised and defeated race, the descendants of generations of rebels whose estates and tides were confiscated and who was only suffered to retain such property and barren honours as he possessed through the charity of the British Government—a young man who was barred from honourable employment in Court or Army, who had been educated by a priest and a servant, and had made but one short appearance in Dublin where his religion and his poverty had alike excluded him from the society of his equals. Lord Beltarbet knew the figure he cut in the opinion of the Englishman, and stern and proud he looked in response to the appraising glances from the agent's not unkindly, but shrewd, eyes.
Beltarbet had naturally another estimation of himself, and it was one that was shared by thousands of his countrymen. Beltarbet should have been one of the least of his tides and Fournaughts one of the least of his demesnes; he was by right Clare and Thomond, this Murrough O'Brien, one of the most famous names in Ireland. The O'Briens had been princes in Clare before the Romans entered Britain, and generations of them had fallen on foreign battlefields rather than submit to the English; but Beltarbet's father had come home to die, and through the intercession of kindly folk at St. James's this little parcel of land in Wicklow and this small title of honour had been allowed to the last of the Princes of Clare.
Lord Maskell, whose steward stood near him now, had been granted most of the Clare estate, and it was rumoured that the young Englishman, who had rendered brilliant service in the field, was soon to be rewarded with a revival of the ancient tides of Clare and Thomond in his favour. Lord Beltarbet who had grown up with pride and poverty, bitter, reckless, thriftless, trained in nothing but loneliness, hated all the English, and hated more than any other man Lord Maskell, who ruled in Clare and who was on the Lord-Lieutenant's staff; definitely one of the conquerors.
The agent was not discomposed by the young man's stormy glance, but came concisely to the heart of his errand.
"Lord Maskell charged me to ask, sir, if you would reconsider your refusal in the matter of Diarmuid, the horse?"
"You've wasted your errand," returned Beltarbet dryly, "six months ago I told your master that the horse was not for sale."
"Lord Maskell thought," said the Englishman, smoothly, "that possibly you had reconsidered. He is prepared to give even a higher price—he recognises Diarmuid is a very fine beast."
"There's no finer horse in Ireland," cried Beltarbet, with a hash.
"There'll be no finer price ever paid for a horse, if you take what Lord Maskell offers. It's fifteen thousand pounds, and that"—with a sly glance round the staring poverty of the room—"a large sum, Lord Beltarbet."
"I'll not sell the horse—the money is nothing to me."
"This is a queer obstinacy, my lord; there are other horses in Ireland, and fifteen thousand pounds is not so easily come by—"
"If there are other horses in Ireland," replied Beltarbet, grimly, "let your master buy them."
The Englishman gave a covert glance at the young lord who was so formidable and so stern, yet so helpless in his poverty and outcast faith and nationality.
"You said as much before, Lord Beltarbet," he reminded him slyly, "in the matter of Earl Sigurd's bowl."
My lord turned his back upon the speaker and struggled for control by tapping the handle of his riding-whip on the worn window-frame; in all his short, unhappy life he had never done anything that he reviewed with such remorse and regret as the selling of Earl Sigurd's bowl, the last treasure of his family, of which a lovingly credited tradition said had been snatched from the defeated invader by an O'Brien on the fierce and bloody held of Clontarf.
"I sold the bowl to keep the horse," he muttered, "and that's enough."
"Fifteen thousand pounds?" queried Mr. Ware, distinctly, casually.
Beltarbet faced him:
"You know my poverty; you do not know, it seems, some other things of me. The horse is not for sale."
"A pity!" The steward seemed to regret the sumptuous foolishness of this young man as well as the disappointment to his master. "Lord Maskell meant to enter him for the races. The Lord-Lieutenant is entering Comet, the English horse—"
"And I am entering mine—Diarmuid," said Beltarbet sternly.
Mr. Simon Ware was definitely surprised. His pursed lips and his raised eyebrows showed that he considered it an ostentatious and ridiculous gesture of defiance for a penniless young Irishman to dare to compete in races which were the diversion of the English gentlemen in Dublin.
"There'll be a good many guineas on him—all that I and my friends can scrape up," said Beltarbet, frowning him down.
"You'd be safer, sir, to take the money that's offered; it is a reckless risk to put all on the hazard of the winning of a race."
"My family," smiled Beltarbet, bitterly, "are used to living at a hazard, sir."
The Englishman rose, took his hat and cane, and smiled agreeably.
"Just one word of warning, sir," he said, with a dry compassion for the dark young man. "It is as well for you to have some friend at the Viceregal Court.... The times are difficult for one in your position.... Lord Maskell might be able, some day, to do you a service."
"The day when I shall ask Lord Maskell, or any other Englishman, to do me a service will never dawn," replied Beltarbet quietly. "You may tell your master as much, and beg him, out of a common courtesy, to leave me in peace in my beggarly retreat. He has got my estates and will have, I hear, my tides. He has Earl Sigurd's bowl which was my last treasure, he shall not have the horse. I have no more to say, sir, nor any hospitality to offer you."
The Englishman bowed, by no means discomposed. "There are rumours of trouble," he said, flicking his gloves on his hat.
"Did you ever hear of an Ireland where there were not rumours of trouble?"
"I live in Dublin," remarked the Englishman, "something at the seat of affairs; I hear a good deal that, perhaps, does not come to your lordship's ears in Fournaughts. A Roman Catholic gentleman with Irish sympathies would do well to be very careful during the next few weeks."
"Careful!" cried Beltarbet, "and why should I be careful? I've neither wife nor child, I'm the last of my house, I have nothing to lose. Tell your master that, if he sent this warning."
"And you'll not sell the horse offered for in a fair and friendly fashion?"
"Good-day to you, Mr. Ware, or the dark will overtake you on the Dublin road."
Lord Maskell's steward drove away in his neat carriage from the demesne of Fournaughts. Beltarbet came out on to the sunken threshold step and into the sweet windy evening. Luke Tandy, the servant, was waiting there like a sentinel; the delicate pearly dusk was descending on the green fields of Wicklow, the blue of the mountains melting into the purpling sky, a sprinkle of stars glittered in the soft violet air, the gentle, mellow wind stirred the first fallen golden leaves of autumn to an aerial dance.
"He came to buy the horse," frowned Beltarbet. "That was his errand, Luke."
"You've sent him away?" asked Tandy eagerly.
"I've sent him away," smiled Beltarbet; "I said I was putting Diarmuid into the October races, and he laughed at me with his eyes, as meaning—'How should an Irishman dare to interfere in their diversions?' But I'll ride the horse, though all the English in Ireland be there to laugh at me."
"Did he say anything of the troubles?" asked Luke Tandy, keenly scanning his master's face.
"He gave me some manner of warning," replied Beltarbet; "maybe from his master. But what's the matter for that to me? I've nothing in the world to lose—except the horse and you, Luke Tandy."
He smiled into the elder man's eyes.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, the same height, something of the same build; but forty years, and all the difference between royal and peasant blood, between them. They loved each other. Luke Tandy had twice saved the life of Beltarbet's father in foreign battles; Luke Tandy had brought Beltarbet himself, as a small child, home to the miserable demesne that was all that was left to the heir of Clare; Luke Tandy had taught him all he knew of arms and horsemanship, and brought him up in the love and lore of Ireland, the legends and history of it, the tales of the Shee and other unseen folk that haunt the oppressed and desolate land; Luke Tandy had served him without wage or thought of a wage, for a poor bare living; he had been his close companion, his loving teacher in wood and held, walking by the banks of the Liffey, strolling in the shaded valley of Clare, riding through the haunted hollows of Boyne fields, beneath the tombs of Irish kings, or climbing the noble sides of Slieve Donard, blue in the blue. To Luke Tandy Beltarbet was a prince of ancient and pure race, and a boy dearer to him than his own two sons whom he had lost in the dreary hardships of long exile.
As they stood together in the lovely twilight they possessed nothing but this love for each other and their common misfortunes—master and serving-man, they smiled at each other with infinite understanding.
"Luke Tandy," sighed Beltarbet, "if there's a rising, why should I not lead it—what is this but the life of a dog? Their toleration is worse than their hostility. I should have died where my forefathers fell—behind some foreign hag, facing the Saxon."
"It was a dream your father had, sir, for you to return to the old country, and, maybe, build up the name again."
"It was the dream of a dying man and a visionary," sighed Beltarbet. "It may be we die in Wicklow, it may be we die in a foreign country, or an alien battlefield—it's one and the same to us, Luke Tandy. We're defeated, downcast, and despised."
"There was never," replied Luke Tandy in a tone of strong emotion, "harder life any had to live than that of the Princes of Clare; and who should keep you back from the struggle, my lord? Though it will but be more floggings in the Devil's Acre, and hangings, and burnings, and more of the young men of Ireland exiled beyond the seas ... I saw empty houses in Ballymore, and loaded gallows at Boltinglass."
Beltarbet gazed earnestly at the face of his one friend.
"I had no right to refuse to sell the horse," he said. "There were pride and temper in that, although the animal is my own darling. I should have taken the money, and, maybe, bud t up the house again, and helped the creatures who starve to pay my rent, and see that you had more comfort and less work, Luke Tandy."
"There is no money could pay for the horse, my lord; haven't you bred him and broken him yourself, with perhaps some help from me? Isn't he famous not only in Ireland but in England, where the gentlemen talk over him at Court? Didn't you have the Lord-Lieutenant himself offering for him last year in Dublin? Isn't he like a glory to the house and an honour and a credit and a pride to you? We have so little—God help us!—for which to take honour, and glory, and credit."
Beltarbet knew that The horse stood for beauty and nobility in his life, which was otherwise so thriftless and barren. The animal had always seemed to him of more than mortal grace and power, as if he came from the Shee, or was a descendant of the immortal steeds of fire and wings who had borne the Princes of Clare into a hundred battles.
But Beltarbet shook his head sadly and mocked at himself.
"I paid more than I could afford for the horse, I sold Earl Sigurd's bowl to keep him, and I had no right to refuse the price for him, Luke Tandy. This poverty is breaking the heart in me and I need the money, if it's only to pay for my journey away, so that the English shall not see how I die."
"You'll win the race and make a fortune," consoled the old servant, peering at his master lovingly and wistfully through the increasing azure twilight, so soft, so pure.
"I'll win the race," said Beltarbet, "but who'll put money on an Irish horse whose owner cannot afford to give him a rider but must ride him himself? The Catholic gentlemen have no money, Luke Tandy, and the English will bet on their own animals. But I'll do it, just to beat Maskell's horse—just for once in my life, Luke Tandy, to get the better of Lord Maskell. He's had everything—all of mine and, maybe, God'll not grudge me just that one moment when I ride Diarmuid to the winning-post."
Luke Tandy knew that there was more behind those words than the words themselves. The Englishman had indeed had everything—not only the estates, but the titles, the money, and the honours that should, in happier times for Ireland, have gone to the heir of Clare and Thomond; also the graces and favours of a lovely woman, fit bride for an O'Brien.
In Dublin last winter Beltarbet had allowed his heart to mislead him; proud, sombre, galled and outfaced by the English and the Protestant-Irish gentry, he had made but a short appearance at the stately Court of the amiable Lord-Lieutenant. Yet it had been long enough for him to meet in the painted ballroom of Dublin Castle a lady who had caused some dreams to stir in his desolate heart—dreams which might never come again; and he had been blinded enough to believe that she had favoured him; but she was English and Protestant, and surrounded by an ambitious family, and, before Beltarbet had left Dublin for the only retreat that his pride and poverty could tolerate, he had learned that the gay and splendid Kitty Archer was betrothed to Lord Maskell. The only person in the world who knew of this secret and exquisite wound was Luke Tandy, who had stood by for many a steady month and watched the recklessness of grief, humbled pride and thwarted aspirations of the lonely young man, and comforted, strengthened and supported him as best he could—not by words, but by companionship and service, by being there in the midst of his desolation and humiliation—always Luke Tandy, a friend, a servant, a subject of the Princes of Clare.
Something of the poetry and romance of that brief, inarticulate and thwarted passion for the woman had passed into Beltarbet's feelings for the horse, this creature that seemed to have the wonder of all the four elements— the swiftness of the wind, the ardour of fire, the flowing grace of water, and the beauty of glittering earth— who symbolised all the joy and pride of life which had been denied to Beltarbet. When he rode Diarmuid along the roads of Wicklow he could imagine himself proudly following in the victorious train of that exiled house for whom his family had given all and which was now itself no more; or galloping over a hard-fought field to those victories which had only existed in the visions of the O'Briens since the days when they drove the Northerners from the land, or persuading himself of another vision which would never be more than a vision, a prince riding beside a woman—highbred, fastidious and beautiful. All these proud and lovely illusions he owed to the beautiful horse; when he was on foot he felt no better than a beggar—a ruined Irish gentleman, despised and useless. When he was on the horse's back he was an O'Brien and a Prince of dare, and the wildest, and brightest, and most foolish of hopes dazzled and consoled the idle futility of his days.
With an instinct to escape from his present distresses he went through the soft gentle azure twilight down to the stables where Luke Tandy kept Diarmuid with a passion of tender care. Beltarbet leant in the doorway and looked at the noble creature; he thought that the line and lustre of him, the glow and colour of him, were like an uprising poem or a swell of music.
The young man caressed the loving creature who understood both his affection and his pain, and pressed his face against the smooth warm roan coat which was red like a rowan leaf, and knew in his heart that he ought to have taken the English gold; that winter he and Luke Tandy and the few poor creatures who looked to him might be brought very low. The demesne was ill-managed, they were all reckless, thriftless, idle, as the English said; you might put it they had broken hearts.
There was no one to turn to and the only means the Irishman had of obtaining even a dingy livelihood was by becoming a Protestant, when, perhaps, the conquerors might allow him to crawl into some post in the Army, or mean position in the Government offices, or about the Viceregal Court. But if, driven to the extreme of desperation, he sold his horse it would not be to Lord Maskell; Beltarbet thought of the Englishman with a passion of bitterness and a fury of hatred, always smouldering in his soul, but to-day blown into complete flame by this visit of the quiet steward with his civilly insolent offer, his cold-friendly warning, and his glance—keen, reserved and sly—round the undefended poverty of the mean room.
Beltarbet left the stables and paused again in the pure delicious air; though the grounds near the mansion were full of nettles and burdocks—for many a year nothing but the common field blooms and the plentiful lush weeds of Ireland had grown here—the forlorn demesne was yet tranquil and beautiful, and in the dark the old mansion showed with a melancholy grandeur against the clear, starlit sky, and did not reveal the cracks and the damp on the walls, nor the panes gone from the windows, nor the broken parapet and the sunken steps.
Beltarbet took a way that he could have found in the moonless dark, through a sombre tangle of ash wood, to an ancient church—built a thousand years ago, men said—with a high round tower which was older yet and was set up, they believed, by the pagans before St. Patrick came to the court of King Laoghaire at Tara, among the rich meadows of Meath. The church was dismantled and roofless, and where the chancel and nave had been were gravestones, half-hidden by tufts of the dark green and white flowers of nettle and parsley, the red of sorrel and grass, and overshadowed by rank bushes of elder, now dropping over-ripe black berries on the flat grey stones. The Lady Chapel had been recently and roughly roofed over, there the walls had been scraped clean of moss and repaired, windows rudely framed and glazed; the floor swept and a primitive table-altar of vast antiquity set decorously in place. Beltarbet passed this with a heartfelt reverence of bent head and bowed knee, and entered the little sacristy which he had helped to build out of the fallen masonry. Beltarbet, Luke Tandy, Father Thaddeus Moran and the few remaining peasants repaired the old church, kept it clean, and the graves free from a complete oblivion of weeds.
The little room that Beltarbet entered was neat and fresh; there were a table, a cupboard for Father Moran's vestments and the few poor pewter pieces of church plate. Here had stayed a great treasure, as safe in that rough cupboard in the lonely woods as if it had been locked in a London bank, for it was the last heirloom of the O'Briens and sacred to all the Irish— Earl Sigurd's bowl of silver-gilt with squares of flashing, angry-seeming red and orange stone round it and strange lettering that no one had been skilful enough to decipher. Last year Beltarbet had sold this bowl to Lord Maskell in order to make some show in Dublin, without parting with his costly horse.
There was a little oil lamp on the table and Father Moran sitting by it; the old, quiet and resigned man liked to retreat to this lonely spot and sit there amid the graves. Luke Tandy said that it was because he was so saintly and so closely in touch with God that the Shee, even sometimes Finvarra, the King of the Shee, would creep across the grey tombs to keep him company, and Beltarbet, who had his own philosophy, found nothing disconcerting in the conjuncture of God and the Shee.
He sat down in the dim light, the ruin and the night and took his dark face in his fine hands and opened his soul, not for the first time, to the sad, thoughtful priest, told him how Lord Maskell's agent had tempted him to sell Diarmuid, and of the arrest of men in Rathdrum, and soldiers in the Vale of Clare, of the peasantry gathering in Ballinalea, and how ill it went with him, a young man and strong, with a great name, to be there corrupting in idleness, and how he would rather die Uke Murrough at the battle of Clontarf, cut down with his flag in his hand, and hidden beneath piles of dead, than live as he was living now, which was worse than a captive or an exile, outcast from all, denied everything ... with ruin about him, and despair and idleness ...
The gentle priest closed his worn book, trimmed his shabby lamp, and listened with loving patience. He heard the young man's soft voice grow mournful and passionate, he saw his dark grey eyes flash with an intensity of feeling, and marked his handsome face flush, the veins swell in his throat, and the priest sighed for the ardent, impetuous fire of youth which must sometimes waste itself in futile burning, and sometimes be quenched by a rain of tears.
When Beltarbet had exhausted himself in overflowing speech the priest spoke, and his kind voice was Uke a shadow and a chill over the bold, despairing energy of the other.
"Ireland cannot rise! How can a man who is shackled to the ground struggle to his feet? This will mean but more widows and orphans, more houses Uke your house, Lord Beltarbet, and churches Uke mine."
Luke Tandy had said the same; Beltarbet knew these two men, so different in their several ways, had spoken the dreadful truth. No revolt in Ireland could be anything but a desperate convulsion of extreme despair and would be most horribly punished.
"You have a responsibility," urged the priest gently; "you must lead the people towards peace and submission, not towards a useless and costly striving which can have but one end. When the foot is on the neck and the yoke is on the shoulder, when the chains hang heavy and the prison walls close round, there's nothing left but resignation, Lord Beltarbet."
"Resignation!" cried Beltarbet; "it's a difficult thing to stand by with one's arms folded!"
"I believe you are able to do difficult things, my son.
"I am not able to do such a difficult thing as to stay in Ireland. When I've won the race and earned my guineas, you and I, the horse and Luke Tandy will go abroad "—the young man gave a wild smile—"and seek our fortunes."
The priest shook his grey head compassionately.
"My place is here, Beltarbet, but I don't say that you wouldn't do well to go away, into Spain or Italy, and see some service while you're young, and take some action while your blood's hot; Luke Tandy will go with you."
"And we'll be two more Irish adventurers," smiled Beltarbet, bitterly, with a heaving breast, "unwanted, despised, maybe, but it's a way of escape and I'll take it ... I've relatives in Spain and Russia, and I'll go with Diarmuid and Luke Tandy, and find them."
Father Thaddeus Moran blessed him wherever he might go and whatever he might be doing, and reminded him that they, and Ireland, and the Faith waited humbly the pleasure of Almighty God.
Beltarbet, something comforted by the force of his own resolution and that way of escape, grim and stern as it was, opening before him, turned and went back through the dark wood to his dark mansion.
The young man picked up the horn lantern in the hall and, holding it above his head, went from room to room, calling for Luke Tandy to whom he wished to impart his resolution. But a little waiting and the race, and perhaps a few guineas from it, and then away! And escape from the humiliation of inaction.... "Eh, Luke! Luke Tandy!"
No answer; though he searched from desolate chamber to chamber, went to the stables where his darling was safe, then around the whispering wood, he could not find his servant.
He was peering through the bushes with an increasing impatience and a growing dismay when a small, crying, ragged boy ran out from the dark and told him that when he had gone to see the priest the red-coats had ridden up to the house in haste and power, had arrested Luke Tandy and carried him off along the Dublin road.
Beltarbet had Diarmuid out. How well the fine noble beast had been named after the noble hero who had slain the great enchanted Boar of Benbulten!
They pursued the soldiers through the mild, warm night, and came up with them when they were halfway to their destination; but little was the satisfaction Beltarbet got from the meeting. The prisoner was a known rebel who had been going about the country and stirring up the people against the Government. He would be lodged that night in Dublin Castle. Lord Beltarbet argued passionately with the British officer that it was a mistake, he could swear to it, his man would have done nothing without his knowledge. Neither he nor Luke Tandy knew anything of the risings, he demanded deliverance of the pinioned prisoner. When he could not get a hearing, and the officer impatiently ignored him, he rode behind the cavalcade to Dublin, and his heart was like to fly out of his bosom with shame and grief.
That night Luke Tandy was flung into one of the evil cells in Dublin Castle, whose high barred windows looked on to the courtyard called the Devil's Acre, from being the scene of floggings, executions and torments. Beltarbet and Diarmuid passed the night in a poor inn which was yet better than he could afford, and where he was treated with princely courtesy because his name was Murrough O'Brien.
The Irish rebellion had for months muttered, smouldered, flamed, and now been nearly quenched; where armed men had risen in furious revolt armed men had met them—in Cork, in Connaught, in Wicklow, in Clare, the English had smitten suddenly and heavily; the county jails, the gallows, were full; in every garrison town the soldiers swept out across the land, shooting, arresting, burning. The Lord-Lieutenant dare not, would not hear any plea for any rebel; these new foreign fleets threatening the coasts—the beach at Sligo. Beltarbet was not received when he put in his passionate plea for Luke Tandy; his petitions not answered. A friendly Englishman to whom he had appealed, told him he had best return to Fournaughts before he attracted attention to himself; it was dangerous to be a Murrough O'Brien when the English were arresting rebels.
By use of grim patience and black determination Beltarbet at last forced himself into the presence of the governor of the Castle prison.
The interview with Luke Tandy he begged was denied him, but he got this news for his consolation.
To-morrow the old man would be flogged in the Devil's Acre; he had refused any manner of confession; if he did confess and give the names of his accomplices he would be hanged; if he refused to confess he would be flogged again and, maybe, put to other tortures.
The English governor, a not unkindly man, was something confounded by the sight of Beltarbet's distress, but it was not in his power to grant him the interview, or, indeed, any privilege to any of his prisoners.
"Have you no friend at the Court among the English?" he asked, curious, interested, a little sorry.
"A friend—I—an O'Brien?"
"I saw you with Lord Maskell last year; he has some influence, and the lady he is to marry is the Commander-in-chiefs daughter and high in the friendship of the Lord-Lieutenant's wife—you might do something there, sir."
"You send me to the man who has got my estates, will have my titles?" asked Beltarbet, thinking this an insult to his misery.
But the governor had not so intended his advice: "Lord Masked might consider that an obligation; he is easy and generous—you should try him if you can think of no one else."
Easy and generous! The words beat bitterly in Beltarbet's distracted mind. Since he had come to Dublin he had heard the talk, which had now come to the coffee-houses, that Lord Maskell and Brocas would be gazetted Earl of Clare and Thomond that winter.... Beltarbet flung back to his wretched lodging and rode Diarmuid out of his poor stable along the road to Howth, the Wicklow hills on one side and the horizon of the sea on the other; the autumn air, so blue and pearly, blowing about him, and his heart so hot and heavy in his breast. As he watched the waves beating on that lonely shore he was tasting the supreme bitterness of complete defeat; a man disarmed before misfortune and bound before his enemies; he slowly rode to the ancient battlefield of Clontarf—the broken church with the ruined tower and fields of dead, dry heather running into the stretches of sand. He gazed at the magic island called Ireland's Eye, beyond the hill of Howth, which seemed to be suspended between earth and sky in the tender haze that veiled heaven and the ocean. Murrough O'Brien wished that the ghosts of his own ancient dead would rise up from the old battlefield and claim him and take him and his steed away to the land of the Shee before ever he did the thing he had to do, or suffer what he had to suffer ... but no ghost or fairy came to his aid.
That night Beltarbet called at Lord Maskell's fine mansion in Kildare Street and waited, in vain, for a bitter hour. The Englishman was abroad—he had been occupied with the troubles, with his military dudes; Beltarbet had been forced to stay in a rich room where Earl Sigurd's bowl stood with silver pieces in a cabinet as if it had been no more than a trifle, or a curiosity from China. His distress, sharply increased by the delay, sent Beltarbet to a club in Merrion Square where my lord might be, and there, by chance, he found him with a number of his companions—English noblemen and officers, gay and splendid, animated by the successful crushing of the rebellion, the prospect of a struggle with the French. Beltarbet sent in his name, which must have sounded surprisingly in that company, and my lord left his gaming and came out to him.
The two men met in the high elegant chamber, with its painted ceding and the Italian marble chimney-piece. Beltarbet was in his suit of an outdated fashion, shabby and worn, but brushed and mended by the landlord's daughter; the Englishman was in full regimentals, fair, handsome, confident, and contemptuous of anyone who was not of the same race and caste as himself, and carrying that air of good-humoured superiority which had always maddened the humiliated pride of Beltarbet.
The mansion was full of English and the loyal Irish-Protestants, officers of the Castleknock Light Horse, the Rathdown Dragoons, the Dublin Volunteers, who had helped them establish their supremacy in the country; they were all alert and excited, Beltarbet could hear their voices, keen and eager; in the lead he had seen their helmets with black plumes and orange cockades; the intended rebellion had reached dangerous proportions and there was talk of a French descent on the coast of Sligo encouraged by the Society of United Irishmen. 'Lord Maskell, the able, energetic man whose life had been full of affairs, of movement, of responsibility and interest, considered the Irishman with a courteous surprise; Beltarbet was in everything alien to his company and his surroundings—in his dark complexion and hair, his Celtic fire and passion, in his shabby civilian suit—one of the conquered, one of the defeated race of the outcast faith.
"I have come about my horse, Diarmuid," he said sternly.
"You'd sell him?" asked Lord Masked agreeably.
"No, I'd not sell him, but I've come to bargain about him. And that's difficult, sir, for I cannot remember ever in my life having bargained before."
"Nor I," smiled the English officer, haughtily. "What, sir, can we have to bargain about?"
"Very little, as you may suppose," smiled Beltarbet, also grimly. "You have the tides and the estates which should go with the name I hold—it's a queer thing for a Murrough O'Brien to come to an Englishman and talk of bargaining, is it not? There's little indeed I have left to trade with, Lord Masked—only the horse and it's desperate the plight I must be in before I talk of parting from him, for in all County Wicklow he's called 'Beltarbet's Darling.'"
"It's a beautiful horse," remarked the Englishman smoothly, "I have always admired him, and I have offered you what I believe, Lord Beltarbet, is a fair, and even a generous price."
"It's not the price I want," replied Murrough O'Brien, desperately. "There's a man of mine—a servant, a friend—in Dublin Castle, under suspicion of being implicated in these risings, and I can do nothing: I am a penniless, landless man with no influence, Lord Masked; and there's none that'll be listening to me. But, if you lend me your influence for the sake of Luke Tandy, I'll give you the horse."
"A bribe!" murmured Lord Maskell, softly, with his hand on his hip, where his scarlet sash was knotted over his sword-hilt.
"It will be in time for the races," added the Irishman; "he's not entered yet, and he'd win you the prize, for you'd have many friends that will put the golden guineas on him. I am offering you a large fortune, Lord Masked—not that you need it, but money seldom comes amiss to any man."
"And what," asked the English officer dryly, "precisely do you wish of me?"
Beltarbet told him, standing there in his worn old-fashioned attire before the marble chimney-piece, his youth and beauty haggard and wasted from days of anxiety and nights of despair.
"Luke Tandy is to be flogged to-morrow in what we cad the Devil's Acre; it may be after that he'll be hanged, and maybe he'd be flogged again, and maybe he'll be put to some other torture; and that he's innocent I might take upon my honour; but, innocent or guilty, I'd have you use your influence to get him off, sir."
"I doubt I've influence enough to get a rebel pardoned," remarked Lord Masked, slowly.
"There's your lady that's to be," suggested Beltarbet quietly; "she's the daughter of the Commander-in-chief—-it may be she would say a word. Miss Kitty Archer was ever gentle and kind."
The two men glanced at each other and then away again; a little silence followed the mention of the lady's name.
Then Masked asked:
"Who is this Luke Tandy?"
"He's the one friend I've left—the one servant and follower; he thinks of me still as if I were a prince in Clare; he saved my father's life twice abroad and brought me home. He taught me all I know of action, as the priests have taught me all I know of thought, A brave and loyal man, Lord Masked, he would do nothing to bring trouble on my house or me, knowing I'm deep enough in that already."
"The country," replied the Englishman, staring into the fire, "is threatened with a foreign invasion and a revolt I know not what there is against this fellow, but I doubt if I can do anything."
"You can stop the flogging," said Beltarbet, with flash. "Perhaps you'll not think of that with pleasure yourself—hardly a soldier's business... they tie up men and flog them, sir, for no more than loyalty to Ireland."
Masked was silent; his fair composed face was expressionless.
"And if you couldn't stop it," added the Irishman, with a heaving breast and a note of desperate earnestness in his soft voice, "perhaps you could do this. Lord Masked—allow me to stand beside him in the Devil's Acre while he takes his torment."
The Englishman glanced up with narrowed eyes.
"Perhaps I could do that," he conceded. "And you'd give me your horse, for which I have offered fifteen thousand pounds, for so slight a favour?"
"No slight favour to me, Lord Masked; the O'Briens have always stood by their friends and servants. I've no right to ask anything from you—we're not friends or equals," he added with a flash in eyes and voice, "and there's that between us should make us enemies. It has not been the easiest thing in the world for me to come to you, Lord Masked; I'd cad it a bargain—not the begging of favour."
"And I am to enter your horse?" smiled the Englishman, "and win the race with him, and a power of guineas besides, eh? And who's to mount him? I hear you intended to ride him yourself."
"He would give his best with me; with others he's a fine horse, the most splendid animal in Ireland; but with me he's like a thing from the Shee—all wind and flame!" The Irishman lifted his head and his grey eyes gleamed. "I'd tell you this, Lord Maskell, if you'd do what you can for Luke Tandy, I'll ride the horse for you at the races."
"And yet you can have no cause to wish to serve me, Beltarbet."
"I've not! I've the wrongs of a hundred years and more between us. You, and the like of you, Lord Masked, have made my own country so hateful to me that, until this came upon me, I was going abroad again and taking with me the horse and Luke Tandy and, maybe, the old priest—all of us becoming like the leaves on the road again in a foreign land where my forefathers died."
"And join our enemies?" suggested the Englishman quietly.
"It may be," said Beltarbet. "What have we ever been but enemies—Irish and English—since the days when Strongbow landed? Conquered and conquerors! And I wish that my father had let me take my lost fortune and stay in exile."
"If you would give up your popery and serve the King," remarked Lord Masked, "you might yet find life desirable; such an existence as you lead, Beltarbet— idle, lonely, is damning to a man."
"I'll neither leave my faith nor serve the foreigner," replied Murrough O'Brien. "It wasn't to discuss this that I came here—but to ask you to do what you can for Luke Tandy. I have offered you the horse and to ride him for you and win the race—on my honour."
Lord Masked asked:
"You have no other friend—no other hope?"
"None," replied the Irishman simply, "or I should never have come to you."
"You hate me, I suppose," mused the Englishman, "because my grandfather had your estates?"
"Hate? I don't know. They say you'd be Clare and Thomond ... those are queer titles for a man whose name is Henry Tresham. I'm Murrough O'Brien, and that's all the difference there is between us. Now, will you take my bargain or not?"
"What would you do if I refused?" asked the Englishman curiously.
"I could stand at the door of your damned jail tomorrow," flashed Murrough O'Brien, "and hope that Luke Tandy would know that I was there..."
"I'd see what I can do," said Masked, negligently. "Will you stay and entertain yourself with me and my friends, Beltarbet?"
"Such is not my humour," replied the Irishman, sternly. He gave the address of the miserable hostelry on the Howth road where he was to be found. "I'll be waiting there all night for your news, Lord Masked."
He left the warmly lit, aristocratic mansion, with its company of gay, laughing officers, gambling, drinking, confident; and passed through the splendid stately streets of Dublin which the English had built, and came out into the native part of the city towards the Howth road to the poor inn on the flats of the estuary, fetched out the horse and rode along the road to where it skirts Dublin Bay, past the ruins of the Dominican monastery, black under the autumn moon, and the haunted chapel of Drumcondra, and through the low misty fields of Malahide, so to the little fishing village of Clontarf. Diarmuid the horse picked his way delicately over the ancient battlefield, and the young rider peered through the moon-mist at the bay, the sea, the island—all wreathed in the pearly azure mist of night.
Might not here, on this tragic and enchanted ground, Diarmuid and the man whose name was Murrough O'Brien seek for consolation? Might he not suppose that out of the ruins would come Firvanna, the King of the Shee himself, and guide him and the lovely horse to Faery land? Might not here, in this consolation of loneliness, one feel free of the foreigner, the alien, the usurper, the conqueror? Here, where the invader had been driven back after the sands were piled deep with dead, and the fluttering raven-black banner of the Dane cut down at the edge of the surf into which it had been thrust, while the flags of Murrough and Brian Burrough were held high above the frantic conflict. The horse snorted and tossed his small noble head on the delicate arched neck as if he scented the gallant company of his peers, and trod carefully as though he made his way among a gathering of phantom warriors ... as if he knew that he passed over ground rich with Irish blood and bones.
"Ah, my darling, and if Luke Tandy can be saved, I must ride the race with you for another man, and then may never mount you again. If Luke Tandy is not to be saved, if the Englishman will do nothing, then you and I must die, Diarmuid; some way, not daring to live when we were useless at a push like this. We'd gallop into the sea, Diarmuid, my darling, where the Danish ravens went down, and as the surf goes over us, perhaps Firvanna himself will catch your bridle and lead us to the company of the Shee. We'd then possess the land, my darling, and ride over it day and night with the English never seeing us."
When the Wicklow hills showed in an azure circle in the blue dawn, and the shadow Irish sea gleamed and sparkled, Beltarbet turned back to Dublin.
He led the beautiful horse to the dingy stable and himself saw to his comfort, then caressed him, and lingered long beside him, for he must hope that he would soon have to part with him.
In the murky light, for it was not yet full day, he saw Luke Tandy standing, eagerly waiting by the rough table in the poor parlour.
"I'm free!" cried Luke Tandy hoarsely. He had been broken with jail-fever, but his eyes were radiant.
Not till after a full five minutes of warm delight and gratitude did Beltarbet consider Diarmuid must go.
"And I'd be the Englishman's jockey in the race!" And he wondered how he should give this news to Luke Tandy, who would not consider himself worth such a price.
The servant caressed his master's hand and talked wistfully, eagerly, of their dear project of leaving Ireland and trying some fortune abroad.
"And you've a friend, my lord, who gave me this."
He put a letter into Beltarbet's hand. The Irishman opened it It was addressed to "The Earl of Clare and Thomond."
"Why, who calls me this, Luke? The name that was lost a hundred years ago, and never heard since save in the mouths of foreigners."
He carried the letter to the mean window and in the pale light that entered read the large resolute hand:
My Lord,
Keep your titles, your servant, your horse. Indeed, no man can deprive you of them. I send you, with this, passports which will see you all safely beyond the seas; for your affairs in Ireland I will be steward. Perhaps we shall meet on the battlefield. I recommend to you, my lord, a life of action. The titles which I now give you shall never be my signature; but I shall always remain
Your obedient servant, Sir,
Maskell and Brocas.
The bitterness of a hundred years lifted from the soul of Beltarbet—he had his horse, his servant, an open port, a generous enemy; a stern but noble fate beckoned him from his present ruin; cause and country were lost, but nothing would make his faith less than inviolate, and in the tumult of a world in arms one more Irishman might find an honourable foreign grave—nay, not so foreign, for, difficult to discover a spot the blood of the exiles had not hallowed.
The sunshine was very fair and pleasant—the pale tender sunshine of Ireland shining through the pure azure veils on the Wicklow hills melting round Slieve Donard, on the grey-blue waters of Dublin Bay, and penetrating the mean court of a poor inn where two men and a horse set out on a long journey—"with, maybe, the unseen people to guide us," mused Beltarbet, "for, I believe Firvanna walks at Diarmuid's head and tells him the Shee go with us."
HE wound up the gramophone and placed it in the window; she would hear it as she came through the sunk garden, as she passed the thicket of short apple trees, the hedge of russet pears; the monotonous, pathetic melody quavered out into the lovely pale green evening.
The sun had set, but the afterglow was of a persistent clarity and vividness; there was light abroad, without fire.
The solitary farm-house was deep in the heart of the orchard and meadows, some trees of which rose up, blocking the heavens from the windows that dimly lit the rooms always dark, damp, and greenish in atmosphere, filled with old, unregarded, melancholy things; so many disheartened people had lived here, people who had been failures, people who had had neither gaiety nor pride, people who had cared about nothing but mean, stingy comfort, and lost even that.
Wilmot had bought the farm because it was so lonely; he had never seen another place so entirely unobserved; it was possible to go to and fro the station without anyone noticing you; a small local station at that; so Wilmot had bought the melancholy place and the sombre furniture and kept it in the hope that one day Barbara would come to stay with him there; it would be so easy; no one would ever know.
And beautiful: they both had such a panic terror of the mean and the sordid, the trivial and the cheap, degrading their deep, but rather fluttering and palpitating passion. Never had they spoilt this passion by any ordinary subterfuge of what is so queerly called— illicit love.
It had always been, with them, complete frustration or some such episode as this—the sad, secret old farmhouse in the hollow, with a hedge of large russet pears and a bouquet of graceful trees rising on the crest of the uphill orchard.
Wilmot had prepared the place himself; the fire, the meal, the lamp, the room upstairs; he had picked clumsy bunches of lavender and honeysuckle and put them in strange, lifeless jugs, heavy, glazed, the colour of dry cream, that he had found in the kitchen.
This evening Barbara was coming; after years of weary arguments, protests, miseries, debates, Barbara was coming.
They would have three whole days together; three days of delight in each other and the passion of love so long denied; he was not due back till the Tuesday; he was believed to be in Scotland, and had ready been there two days to more surely cover his tracks. And as for Barbara's absence, she was so insignificant that no one would miss her; she was having her week's holiday from the office where she worked.
He was afraid that, after all, she might not come; he wished that she had allowed him to meet her in London, but Barbara, so shy and fastidious, had preferred to come to the farm alone; he had told her the station and the straight road to the left—till she came to the sunk farm where he would be waiting at the gate.
And now perhaps she would not come.
The train was late, or his clock was wrong, or she had lingered on the way, or missed the way; he had been to and fro the gate so often, into the clear colourless silence of the afterglow, and there was never a figure on the long, straight road.
He became so nervous that he started the gramophone again; the jingle seemed to hide the throb of his outraged nerves.
He had good cause to be nervous.
Going again to the gate he saw her; coming not so triumphantly as he had hoped, but slowly.
Wilmot would not go to meet her; he waited at the gate. When she came up she paused a little way from him; too far for him, leaning over the gate, to kiss her. She looked windblown and cold, though the evening was still and mild; she carried a small valise.
"The gramophone," she said, "what is it playing?"
"That old waltz—'Les Fantoches'—you know the weathercock figures that go round and round with every wind and never get anywhere."
Wilmot was glad to speak of this, because he did not know quite how to control himself at this moment; she had ready come.
And they seemed so isolated, almost desolate, that it frightened him, the supreme loneliness.
Barbara said:
"Do you think we are like that?" Wilmot was startled at the comparison.
"What makes you say that?"
"I don't know, dear, we have gone round and round this—moment—so often, and never come up to it before—and even now perhaps, something might, blow us— round away—"
"What could?"
"Nothing, of course."
They passed into the house.
"I'll stop the thing." He silenced the gramophone; she saw his trembling hands and pressed up to him so that he might embrace her. He took her suddenly in his arms; her travelling cap fed off, showing her rich flattened hair.
"It is beautiful here," she said queerly. "Old, isn't it? And how lonely."
"I've got a fire. And tea."
"I know. I saw—quite a long way down the road, your little sunk light."
"I like the place. Did you ever see hedges of pears before?"
"No. Doesn't that clock rick loudly! I'm tired-no, not tired—"
They looked at each other helplessly; the advancing shadows encroaching on the dim ochre light of the cottage lamp; the night beyond the window was a pool of pale purple crossed by the black tracery of trees.
"I'd go upstairs."
He bent over the kettle.
"The room over this—there's a candle and matches on the drawers."
She went out. Soon he could hear her walking overhead. The man shuddered; he was terrified of joy, who wore a strange face to him, for his life had been drab and dun.
If only she didn't begin talking about Lily. She had always been frightened of Lily. She would talk about her, praise her, pity her, keep on about her— atrocious as Lily was, Barbara would always talk about her. To-night she mustn't, mustn't.
His water boded; he made tea carefully. He looked anxiously at his meal, so meticulously arranged.
Two cups—two plates—the bread—the butter—the kind of cake she liked—her footsteps overhead—Ah, those stories were true, about Delight and Love and Beauty.
As long as she didn't talk about Lily.
Perhaps in the darkness, in the middle of that quiet, quiet September night, she, lying on his pillow, might begin to talk about Lily.
Lily was his wife.
Barbara came down eluded with cold water, her hair twinkling in the firelight (little feathers of gold at the nape of the firm young neck), and helped him make the toast.
She praised the room with the big beams and the sloping floors and the dark corners with cavernous cupboards, but she said that she didn't think that anyone who lived here had been very happy.
"I don't care," muttered Wilmot. "There is enough happiness now—"
"Is the house yours?" she asked.
"Yours, if you like."
Barbara, who had never owned anything, even her own time or soul, smiled incredulously, then flushed impetuously.
"You mustn't give me presents—now."
"You've never let me give you presents."
"I know. How could I?"
"Isn't that a superstition?"
Barbara looked intently into the fire.
"I don't dare think—what is superstition—I daren't."
"Of course," he answered, "it is all superstition."
"All?"
"Your—delaying this—all our hesitation—our being afraid. Hiding away."
"About—your wife," she said bluntly. "Was that superstition, too?"
She had mentioned Lily; it came on him like a disaster—she had mentioned Lily.
"You needn't talk of her," he returned sullenly.
"I've been thinking about her, all the way in the train—how terrible she must have been, how awful it all was. I suppose I was trying to justify myself."
"I'm past that," said Wilmot. "We've had too much reason, logic, argument. Aren't you here at last?"
Barbara glanced round the shadowy room as if she suspected the presence of a third person.
"It is very lonely and quiet," she remarked. "Did you hear that owl?"
They drank their tea; Barbara looked at the crude lithograph pasted inside the lid of the gramophone; the weathercock dancers revolving slowly, quickly, sadly, purposelessly with every breath of wind.
"Lily—couldn't get between us now?" asked Wilmot suddenly. "Couldn't?"
"Now? I'm here. Of course not. Why did you ask?"
"You spoke about her—said you were thinking about her. I don't," his voice rose passionately, "want her to interfere—any more."
"She can't, she shan't," promised Barbara quickly. "I don't know what made me speak of her—I don't know."
They finished their meal and cleared it away; the silence of the old house seemed a definite thing, something tangible, bearing down, overpowering.
Barbara seemed so different here; her humanity was much more apparent than it had been in London; she bloomed and palpitated out of the dusky shadow, so alive, so vital, so important.
They sat down again in that ochreish glow of the humble lamp, in the red glow of the fire; they had not drawn the curtains, and that pool of the night showed as dark now as a dead violet, a darkness that had engulfed the black trees, the rising orchard, the apple thicket and the pear hedge.
The silence pressed on Barbara, urging her to speak.
She resisted this.
She rose and set the gramophone playing; the melancholy dance of the weathercock dolls who went this way and that with any puff of wind and never got anywhere. Never would.
Had she and he been irresolute? Were they people of fluctuating wills, unstable purpose?
They had been so true to each other that it seemed hard to so condemn them—yet how long it had taken them to come to this moment—and even now ...
She raised her head to find that he was looking at her, and his dark frown made her uneasy.
"Don't," she said. "Lily can't come between now."
She had said, simply and for the first time, "Lily," not "Your wife."
"No," he replied, "Lily can't come between now."
Surely it was very late; no, only nine o'clock, but so silent, and outside so dark. The house, too, seemed drenched with darkness against which the lamp and fire made but a weak effort.
The gramophone played into the silence without affecting it; you thought of the stillness, not of the pitiful quaver of the tune.
Barbara closed her eyes.
He was waiting for her; he sat so quiet that she might have thought that he, too, was pressed on, urged by the stillness.
She said:
"I'd go upstairs. Will you put the lamp out?" He nodded.
Barbara went upstairs; a latch-door that clicked sharply, creaking boards, another latch-door that clicked sharply, her footsteps overhead again. The man moved in his chair and stared vacantly at the gramophone; he did not know that it was playing.
When her footsteps overhead ceased, he would go up and tell her all the things he had wanted to tell her ever since he had first seen her, but which could never be whispered in furtive interviews, in odd corners.
A latch-door that clicked, creaking boards, and another latch-door that clicked.
She was in the room.
"Forgotten anything?" His lips were stiff.
"No. There is something I must tell you."
He tried to ward off her revelation.
"Haven't we done with words, Barbara? Don't let's talk any more."
"I've got to—there's something making me. I think it is the silence. If I'd come anywhere else I could have held out—but this place—"
"Leave it tid the morning. Can't you? When we're here, at last,"
She looked at him pitifully.
"I can't. That's why I came downstairs. I couldn't let you come up. Tid you knew."
Wilmot turned sullenly so that she could not see his face; he was all lapped round with shadow.
And Barbara spoke out of shadow, the other side of the pallid, opal globe of the lamp.
"Lily lulled herself this morning. I saw it in the evening paper as I came down. You must have just missed it."
Wilmot sighed.
"I ought to have turned back," continued Barbara wearily. "I daresay you might have married me in the end. But I didn't want that. I wanted just our few days together—in this place—just what we always longed for and had been afraid to take. You see, I'm a beast."
Wilmot looked at her now, with a brooding intentness. "You're not—after all—letting Lily come between?" he demanded.
"No. I'm not afraid. But I had to let you know."
"I suppose so."
"You see—it is rather awful—I feel she guessed about you and me."
"She knew," said Wilmot, "She found out—not much, but enough. She was atrocious. I told her I'd done with her. Haven't we done with her, Barbara? Haven't we?"
"I don't know," stammered Barbara. "If you can forgive me—if you don't think I'm a beast."
"A beast? I saw the evening paper, too, Barbara. I lit this fire with it."
"You knew then?"
"Yes."
"And you were—going on?"
"Yes. For your reasons—I wanted just these few days—I wanted to forget Lily."
They stared at each other.
"She was your wife," said Barbara queerly. "I suppose you thought you loved her once. Oh, my God! I shouldn't have the nerve to die the way she did! I suppose you'd have to see her—not straight from me— not from me to look at her."
She took up her coat and hat, her bag from the chair.
"There's a train at ten-thirty. I looked it up in case—in case I couldn't put it through—I know the way, straight on to the left."
"You're going?" asked Wilmot. "What have I done you didn't do?"
"Nothing—but it's different—being a beast myself—and knowing you're a beast too—it's different—"
"Different?" He was stupid with misery.
"Yes. One's bearable. The other isn't. Good night"
She crept away through the pear hedge, the apple thicket, towards the station.
The tune of "Les Fantoches" stopped with a jerk as the gramophone ran down.
AS she stood on the threshold of the home that was his, and would soon (so soon!) be hers, her heart was filled with a noble happiness.
She paused, with a delicate hesitation, delaying a moment of yet deeper joy that she might dwell on it with a longer delight, beside the ancient cypress that hugely overshadowed the long terrace, and looked at the beautiful outlines of Fordyce Hall. Turrets and gables, the work of different budders in different ages, showed dark and clear against an autumn sky of golden grey, and beyond the house miles of hushed wood and park-land swept to the misty horizon.
Below the terrace where Ann Vereker stood, the gardens dipped in old and perfect arrangement of walk and fountain, rosary and quidnunc, arbour and bowling-green. The bright, large flowers of the late year glowed against the worn stone and the rich lawns; there was nothing to disturb the ordered loveliness that had been so wisely planned and so long-enduring.
"And in this place I shad be his wife," thought Ann.
She looked at him as he paused a few paces away from her; he stood in the shadow of the cypress, and was gazing past the gardens to the fair, open prospect beyond. She had never seen him in these surroundings before; always their background had been a town— London, Bath, and Wells, a fashionable world, gaiety, a crowd—the proper natural setting for those born to aristocratic ease. A country life was not the mode, and it had not seemed strange to Ann that Sir Richard made no suggestion of showing her his home until their betrothal was nearly at an end.
Yet she had always longed for this moment, always wished to see him in the place where he belonged, where he was master—the place where he was born, and his fathers born before him, back to the time of the first Norman king.
It was more beautiful than she had expected, he was more completely one with this setting than she had pictured. Suddenly all the time they had spent together in London seemed wasted; she thought coldly of the town mansion that was being refurnished.
"We will live here," she decided.
She looked at the open door through which she had not yet passed, and then again at him.
"Dick," she said, and her voice was low, "how long is it since you were here?"
"Three years," he answered quietly.
"Why did you never bring me before?" asked Ann.
He looked at her and seemed to brace himself.
"Oh, my dear," he said— "my dear!" He raised his hand and let it fad as if dismissing a subject impossible of expression.
She noticed then that he was unusually grave—she remembered that he had been grave ever since they had left her brother in the coach in obedience to her wish to see the place alone with him, and they entered the grounds together.
"Did you think I would not care?" she asked. It occurred to her that perhaps he thought her frivolous—that perhaps he had not read her intense desire to take her position and future responsibilities seriously. Her sensitive, mobile face flushed; she leaned her slender figure against the warm, hard stone of the terrace, and fixed her eyes on the house; she trembled with the desire to convey to him what she felt for this house of his and all the tradition it stood for. His race had bred fine, useful men and women; she wanted to tell him that she would be worthy of them.
But he was so silent that her delicate desires were abashed. "Shad we go into the house?" she said.
"Ah, yes," he answered. "I hope, Ann, that you will like it," he added; and she smiled, for it seemed to her that his tone was a very formal one to be used between such complete friends and lovers as they were; but it did not displease her; she liked the surprises his moods afforded—she was even glad of his present gravity; she felt reserved herself in her own deep happiness.
They walked along the terrace to the side door that stood open; the sunlight had parted the grey veil of clouds and lay lightly over the steps as Ann Vereker ascended them and entered Fordyce Hall.
In accordance with her wish there were no servants to welcome them. "Let me be quite alone with you for the first time," she had said, and he had acceded to her whim without comment.
She had always been exquisite in her observation and keen In her perceptions, and since she had met Richard Fordyce she had known the great sharpening of the senses a strong passion brings; colours, sounds, light, and perfume were now to her so many ecstasies, almost unbearable in their poignancy. And all that he now revealed to her—the fine corridors—the great dining-room, the ballroom, the old carving, the old painted ceilings, the old tapestries, the old furniture— gave her a pleasure that deepened to pain.
In the deep oriel window his quarterings showed, and the bearings of the various heiresses who had at one time or another graced the name of Fordyce. In the dining-room hung the portraits of his ancestors— men and women who seemed strangely remote and aloof, and who yet shared his dear traits in their dark, masterful features. An atmosphere of loneliness and desertion hung heavy in these rooms, but that did not sadden Ann; she felt the place was stately with memories—chambers where so many had lived and died must convey this air of regret. She hushed her footsteps and her voice, and thought that this house peopled with shadows of past achievements would make a worthy background for a warm and living love.
They had not gone above the ground floor when he led her to the great had and state entrance, and, opening the portals that were stiff on their hinges, showed her the famous view across the woodland and river that embraced three counties.
She stood, with the soft airs blowing her nut-brown curls beneath the wide brim of her leghorn hat and gazed on the entrancing prospect. Directly before her, half-concealed by a little belt of elm trees, was a squat Norman church.
"Your church?" she questioned.
"Yes," said Sir Richard, "but it is the only church for the village too-—they come here on Sunday, but they marry and bury at Earl's Stanton, ten miles away."
She touched his arm half-timidly; he did not look at her, and a faint sensation of coldness on his part tinged her happiness with apprehension.
"May I see the church now?" she asked, on a sudden impulse.
"Whatever you wish, Ann," he answered.
They crossed the open lawn and the broad drive, and entered a green gate in a red wad which admitted them, not, as she expected, into the churchyard, but into a fruit garden that sloped down the side of a little hill.
The fully ripe peaches and apricots hung amid the curling leaves on the sun-burnt walls, and some had escaped the nets that held them and lay on the freshly-turned earth, and clusters of St. Michael's daisies and sunflowers grew amid the plum and pear trees. Sir Richard crossed the end of the garden and opened another door in the farther wad; as he held it aside for Ann, she stepped past him and found herself among the graves.
A few yew trees rose in still darkness from the even grass that was scattered with the scarlet berries that fed from the sombre boughs. The flat, discoloured gravestones were mostly in shade, but over those upright against the wad the misty sunshine fed in a dreamy radiance; above the wad the fruit trees showed, and Ann noticed how the fruit had faden and lay among the graves.
An old man was trimming the grass; at sight of Sir Richard he took off his hat and stood respectfully at attention. Ann smiled at him; this place was sacred, but not sad to her; she wondered why Sir Richard had arranged their marriage for a London church—she would like to have been married here where some day she would be buried—a Fordyce among her kin.
They entered the church; it was small, old, sunken, and dedicated to a forgotten saint—Vedust. The painted glass in the windows was ancient and beautiful, the worn rood-screen had guarded the altar for two hundred years; there were some beautiful brasses in the chancel, and in the Lady Chapel a tomb in fair painted marble.
One name was repeated on brasses and marble, the name of Fordyce; as Ann Vereker stood in a reverent attitude behind the altar she saw this word again and again on tomb and tablet with varying inscriptions and tides of honour.
Among the newer mural tablets which showed white among the time-stained stones were those of his father, his mother, his sister. And, newest of all, one that made Ann catch her breath with a sense of shock.
It was the small square of alabaster dedicated to the memory of his first wife. His first wife. Ann read the inscription:
Sacred to the Memory of Margaret,
Daughter of John Basinghall of Salop
and Wife of Richard Fordyce,
Baronet of Fordyce, Hampshire,
who died May, 1725, aet. 23.
Nothing else; no word of love or regret. Ann was glad that there was no parade of mock sentiment; she had been little in his life, Ann was convinced—he never spoke of her, and Ann tried to forget her existence, had succeeded indeed in closing her mind to all thoughts of her—what was she but an incident to be forgotten?—the wife of two years who had died without children. Yet standing here in the sombre silence, Ann found herself forced to consider this woman. Somewhere near she was actually lying in her coffin. "Perhaps," thought Ann, "I am standing over her now."
She turned to Sir Richard; his face was inscrutable, his figure dark in the shadows. "Were you—?" she broke off, unable to form the words: she had wanted to ask him if he had been married in this church.
It was suddenly horrible that he had ever been married before.
She glanced at their pew and saw that to sit there would be to sit in fud view of this white tablet— "Sacred to the Memory of Margaret ... Wife of Richard Fordyce."
"How close the air is!" she said. "Shall we not go?"
He moved away in silence, and they came together out of the hushed church into the hushed graveyard. The sun had withdrawn behind the increasing grey vapours and would be seen no more that day; the elms that half-concealed the house were shaking in a little breeze, and the yellow leaves were drifting steadily down. The place was sad—sad with an atmosphere her happiness could not defy; the air had become chill, and she shivered in her silk coat.
In the distance the old man was cleaning the moss from a headstone. It occurred to Ann that he had seen (many times!) this Margaret; she wished to stop and question him, for a great curiosity now pressed her about the woman whose existence she had hitherto been content to ignore—had this dead wife of his been dark or fair, sad or gay, beautiful or lovable?
She had heard nothing of her; she was sure that she had been an insignificant personality, but she wanted to ask the old gardener and be certain.
"How silent you are, Ann!" said Sir Richard.
She looked up at him with a little start, "So are you," she smiled.
"The day is overcast," he answered, "and a gloomy one in which to overlook an empty house."
"But I will see the rest," she interrupted. "An empty house! Your home, Dick, and mine to be."
"You like the place?" he asked.
She wanted to say so much, and words were so inadequate—she wished he would look at her. "I love every stone," she said passionately.
"We shad not be here much," replied Sir Richard, opening the gate.
"Why not? the place Lacks a master."
"Oh, it is old—and dreary—and in need of repair."
"That can be altered," she smiled; in her heart she was wondering if he had trodden these churchyard grasses, or crossed the end of this fruit garden, since his first wife had died.
She was sure he had not; no, nor entered the house. Were old memories holding him silent? The thought tortured her; yet she tried to reason it away and to dispel this shadowy menace of Margaret Fordyce, She had always known that he had been married, and always been able to ignore it; in no way had it come between them. Why should it now?
Yet the old perfect happiness did not return even when they had entered the house again together; the solemn atmosphere of the ancient church seemed to lurk in the quiet rooms; she could not people them with the sweet visions of her own future and his—it was the past that seemed to fid them, and when she mounted the wide, dark stairs she pictured Margaret Fordyce going up them in her bridal dress and being carried down them in her coffin.
He took her to the armoury, and she stood pale and thoughtful among the beautiful weapons with which the walls were lined; he showed her his father's sword, his own favourite weapon, and a light French rapier water-waved in gold.
"Do you fence?" he asked, as he hung the rapier back next another of the same weight and length.
"No," said Ann. He made no comment, but she knew now that his first wife had fenced with him— with those two rapiers, in this very room.
They went into the picture-gallery, and she was blind to the beauty of painting and carving, for her eyes were straining, half-guiltily, half-fearfully, for a portrait of Margaret Fordyce.
He showed her one after another of his ancestors, explaining their lives and actions, and when he came to the great picture of his father on horseback, with the taking of Namur in the distance, her heart was beating fast, and her eyes searching furtively for a woman's face. But Margaret Fordyce was not there; yet Ann detected a bare space next to the likeness of Richard's sister—as if, she thought, a painting had been hung there and removed.
It seemed that it would have only been natural for her to ask for his first wife, but she could not, though she was aware that her remarks were vague and forced; he, too, seemed absorbed in some inner thought, and did not notice her distraction.
As they came out from the picture-gallery on to the great stairs again, she was struck anew by the chid and ominous atmosphere of the house. She regretted now her desire to have the house empty on her first visit; some servant or kinsman would have been a relief, someone who could have spoken casually and naturally of Margaret Fordyce.
He showed her the paintings on the stairway, and they mounted higher into a region of silence and shadows. The windows were shuttered, the blinds drawn, and the furniture in linen covers.
Without waiting for Sir Richard, Ann hurried through the first suite of rooms; she was looking still for some sign of Margaret, some portrait. These were—had been—a woman's rooms. Would she have to live in them?—to use this furniture, to gaze at herself in these mirrors?
At the end of the suite was a locked door; she tried the handle with a sudden desperation, as if she expected to find the solution of some mystery.
Sir Richard was quickly beside her. "There is nothing of interest there," he said quietly.
She turned, and they looked at each other for the first time since they had entered the house together.
"Why may I not go in?" asked Ann.
"I did not forbid you," he said. He was pale, but smiling; the expression of his face was so different from any that she had ever seen there before that he seemed to her for the moment a stranger.
"I want to go in," she said, trying to smile too, but with a bitter sensation that everything was becoming ghastly and unnatural; she endeavoured to struggle against this; she had been perfectly happy a few moments ago—and nothing had happened, she told herself; nothing had happened.
"May I not see this room?" she asked, not knowing what impulse goaded her to insist.
Without answering, he took a key from the pocket of his brocade waistcoat. He carried the key with him then—perhaps all the while, ever since she had known him, he had had this key to the past next his heart.
In silence he unlocked the door, and in silence she entered. The chamber was small, the air close and oppressive; the first glance showed Ann that it was a lady's apartment, and that it had been locked away hastily, with every article untouched as the former occupant had left it Beyond was another room, the door of which was half-open; Ann could see a bed, with curtains of fine needlework, and a mirror covered with a white cloth.
Dust was over everything; Ann could hardly fetch her breath; she unlatched one of the shutters, and the sad autumn light revealed the ruin wrought by time and neglect. Cobwebs clung round the windows, the gilt chairs were tarnished, dust lay grey and heavy in the folds of the curtains. On a side-table was a bunch of flowers—changed to a little powder among the wired and faded ribbons of the bouquet; near it was a box of gloves half opened, the string and wrappings thrown carelessly down, the yellow, shrivelled gloves unworn.
In one corner of the room stood a harpsichord, open and covered with sheets of music, some of which had fallen to the floor. Beside this, standing against the wad, was a large picture in a dark frame, concealed by a red cloak flung over it.
Ann was drawn by this picture to a forgetfulness of everything else—even to a forgetfulness of Richard, who stood motionless on the threshold. She crossed the floor, and the boards creaked beneath her feet; a startled mouse sprang across her path and disappeared into the dark bedroom.
She stopped and lifted the red cloak. A woman's face looked at her from the glowing canvas.
A beautiful face, alive, alert, fair and proud, with a peculiar triumphant smile on the lips. She was painted against a dark curtain and a glimpse of summer trees; her unpowdered hair was bound with a purple ribbon, and her brocaded dress was cut low over her jewelled bosom. The painting was stiff and precise, but marvellously lifelike and glowing in colour.
In the left-hand corner was written in white letters, "Margaret Fordyce, May, 1725 "—the year, the month she died.
Ann stepped back from the painting; her heart was beating thickly, and the world was rapidly changing about her; she put out her hand and touched by chance the keyboard of the harpsichord, that gave forth a dismal and jangled sound that she echoed with a low and horrified cry. Sir Richard stepped into the room.
"After three years," he said, looking round—"after three years—"
"What has happened?" murmured Ann. "What has happened?" She leaned weakly against the corner of the harpsichord and gazed still at that third presence in the room—the portrait of Margaret Fordyce.
"Why did you not tell me?" she asked faintly. He made no defence.
"We are quite strangers," continued Ann.
He turned his eyes on her, but still she did not speak.
"How did she die?" asked Ann.
"She was flung from her horse ... on her birthday—she was wearing that cloak."
"Why did you not tell me?" repeated Ann Vereker.
"I thought—I hoped—" he broke off.
"You loved her," said Ann.
He stumbled to the bouquet and fingered the ruins of the roses.
"This is as she left it," said Ann. "You shut it away as she left it—but she is still here. In this room. In this house. In the church. How she must laugh at me!"
He stared at her.
"She called you. You could not help coming here—even though it meant bringing me. I was to help you forget."
The triumphant face on the canvas seemed to deepen its disdainful smile.
"You will never forget," continued Ann. "You love her."
"She is dead," said Sir Richard, and he braced his shoulders with the action of a man who endeavours to shake off the oppression of a hideous dream. "Dead. Dead."
"She is here," repeated Ann.
Sir Richard turned his eyes fearfully, hungrily to the portrait. "Oh, God!" he said sharply.
"This is tragedy," thought Ann. She seemed dull in a dull world; she looked across the harpsichord, and noticed that the rain was falling aslant the dry leaves on the withered trees outside. When last the sun shone she had been supremely happy. What had happened?
Nothing ... save that she had seen the portrait of Margaret Fordyce.
She had loved him so sincerely, and he had used this love of hers as an opiate—and now the other woman triumphed.
"Dick," she said, in a hopeless voice, "I am going."
He did not answer; the painted figure seemed to step from the frame and dominate both of them. Before her beauty, her assurance, Ann felt insignificant, a creature who did not matter.
Sir Richard picked up one of the faded white gloves and sank on to the tarnished chair; he looked at the portrait, and Ann knew that the last three years had rolled away for him. He belonged to the other woman.
Ann Vereker, the intruder, left him with his wife, and went away for ever.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.