Chapter V: Book I: Halfway House (3)

He nodded, busy preparing a dish for the fire, a little silver dish, into which he was breaking eggs. “I’m going to make an omelette; you are to eat half of it. I’m an artist in omelettes, I do believe. Yes, I’m a sort of artist; a bad one, you know. But we’re all bad unless we’re the best of all—and there’s only one best. However, it’s all the same. You have your fun.”

“But—” She was looking about her with animation—“But where do you—? I mean, do you—?”

He chuckled, but mostly with his black eyes. “I know what you mean. Everybody asks the same questions, and breaks them off at the same point. I’ll tell you. I live here, at this moment. I do travel in that cart—and this is my tent—and that ghost over there is my white horse—and hulloa! you’ve woken Bingo.” A lithe grey dog came delicately forward into the light, with lowly head and lowly wagging tail. He was like a terrier, with hound’s ears, soft and sleek and silver grey. He sniffed at Mary’s dress and feet, sneezed over the bandage, and, edging up, put a cool nose against her neck, and then a warm tongue.

“Oh, what a darling!” she cried softly, and made much of him.

“He’s a Bedlington,” said his owner, above the sizzling eggs, “a beauty and a devil. He likes you evidently—and reasonably. He won’t curl up like that on every lady’s skirts, I assure you. Don’t talk though, or I can’t beat up this thing. Talk to Bingo; he’s my friend.”

This friendly, cool-tempered young man was, she thought, very odd to look at—long in the body and thin in the leg. He was quite new to her experience. Gentlefolk she knew, and other folk, her own, and all the infinite gradations between—county, clergy, professional, retired military, down to commercial and even lower. This was a gentleman certainly—and yet—well, there was Mr. Duplessis, for instance, with whom you were never to forget that he was a gentleman and you were village. Mr. Duplessis was very easy, until you were easy too—then he got stiff directly, and back you must go. But this strange gentleman didn’t seem to notice such things; he seemed too full of what he was thinking about, or doing—and if he looked at you by chance, as often as not he didn’t seem to see you; and when you looked at him, he never noticed it at all. She adjudged him “foreign,” and to be sure, he had a narrow, foreign face, very swarthy, with a pair of piercing black eyes, a baffling smile, and quick, sudden ways of turning both against you, as if he had that moment found you out, and was amused. At other times, as she came to learn, those eyes of his could be fathomless and vacant, could stare through you as if you were a winter hedge. His hair was jet-black, and straight, and his moustache followed his mouth and curled up when he smiled. She had never seen a man so deft with his fingers or so light and springy on his feet. Those long, eager fingers—she could still feel them at her ankle and marvel at their strength and gentleness as they sought about and plucked free the biting wire. His dress too was extraordinary—a long white sweater with a rolling collar, a pair of flannel trousers; no socks, but sandals on his feet. Long and bony feet they were, beautifully made, she said. Whatever he was or was not, certainly he was kind and interesting; and perhaps the most baffling quality about him was his effect upon herself—that she was entirely at home in his company, and had no care to know what he thought about her.

He served her with omelette hot and poured her out a glass of pale wine, which smelt like flowers, and was stronger, she found, than it seemed. A picnic at midnight! It was great fun! She glanced at her host, and was answered by a gleam. He was enjoying it, too. “Do you know what I’m going to do next?” he asked her, breaking the first silence he had kept since the encounter. “I shall catch that absorbed ghost, which is really a horse, and take you your three miles in my cart. Before that I shall mend your puncture for you.”

She wouldn’t allow that. “Please, not. I can mend it quite well to-morrow, and won’t have you spoil your supper. I have had mine, you must remember and if I am to have another, I insist upon your company.” He laughed “All right,” and fell to again.

Perhaps her wine made her talkative; but I think that she had leisure of mind to be interested. At any rate, she volleyed him a string of questions about himself, at all of which he laughed—but she found out mostly what she wanted to know. As thus—That cart contained his whole worldly property. “It’s my house, or my bed, or both; it’s my carriage and pair, my bank, studio, library, forcing-house, potting-shed, bath-room, bed-room, as I choose it. When it’s wet I can be dry in there; when it’s fine, I leave it alone. It’s all I have, and it’s more than enough. I’ve pared it down to the irreducible _minimum_, and yield now to one man only—the tramp. Him I believe to be the wisest son of man, for he has nothing at all. Now, you know, the less you have of your own, the more you have of everybody’s. The whole world is the tramp’s; but it can’t be mine, because of that shell on wheels. I am as the snail to the hare—but what are you, pray, and the rest of your shackled generation? . . .

“There’s a tent in that cart, which will go up in ten minutes—anywhere. And the materials of my trades are there—I’ve several. I scratch poetry—and paint in water-colours—and ain’t bad at tinkering.” At this she gazed with all her eyes; but he assured her, “I’ll mend you a kettle as soon as your bike. I learnt sawdering from a drunken old Welshman under the shadow of Plinlimmon. He died in my arms presently, and left me his tools as well as his carcase. . . . You need not be shocked. I do it because I like it—I don’t say that I should be ruined, mind you, if I gave it up . . . but one can’t paint against the mood, still less write. . . .

“I’ve done this sort of thing—and gardening (I’m a bit of a gardener, too)—for nine years or more, and shall never do anything else. Why should I? I’m perfectly happy, quite harmless, and (I do believe) useful in my small way. I could maintain that, I think, before a judge and jury.”

He had no need, certainly, to maintain it at length before his present hearer, who was very ready to believe him; but he seemed to feel in the vein to justify himself.

“You see, I’m self-sufficient. I renounced my patrimony on deliberation, and support myself and a little bit over. Tinkering don’t go far, I own—sometimes I do it for love, too. But I sell a picture now and then to a confiding poor devil who only asks to buy ’em, and do very well. I destroy most of ’em, because they don’t come off; if I had the nerve to sell those I should have more money for plants.”

She stopped him here. “Plants!” she said, puzzled, “but——”

He quizzed her. “You look for my conservatory? My herbaceous border? I defy you. You’ll never find them. If you could the game would be up. All the same, all my superfluous pence find their way to the nurserymen—nurserymen of sorts. . . .”

As she did not press him he resumed his monologue. “Mind you, I say that I have the best time of any man on this earth. But you’re judging me, I know. The women are always the worst. They think it such shameful waste of time, when one might be dressing one’s person, or looking at theirs.”

She wasn’t judging him at all; she was drinking him up—him and his wisdom. For the first time in her life she was really interested in something in a man which did not reside in his sex, or which, it is perhaps kinder to say, had no relation to her own. So absorbed was she that his cut at her kind did not affect her, if she heard it; but she noticed at once that he had stopped.

“Please go on—please tell me more about yourself—about your way of life, I mean. Oh, I think you are extraordinary!”

She had completely forgotten herself. Her eyes had not for a moment left searching his face; her hands cupped her cheeks, her knees supported her elbows; and all about her arms and shoulders her loose hair streamed and rippled. Her face was hot, her eyes like wet stars; she had never looked so pretty, perhaps because she neither knew nor cared anything about it, whether she looked well or whether he thought so. It was plain that he had other things to think of—and one thing is plainer, that if she had not, her hair would have been up long ago.

He laughed at her wonderment. “Oh, I don’t know that I’m extraordinary at all—on the contrary, everybody else seems extraordinary to me. It’s so simple. I don’t doubt but I could make you see what a great life I lead—that’s my business as an artist. But it would do you no sort of good—and I’m not a proselytizer. The thing is to get your fun out of what you’re obliged to do—or, if you prefer it, to make it your business to do what you like. The Socialists say so, and so do I. After that we differ. We differ as to ways and means. They say that people can only be made happy by dynamite. Dynamite first, Act of Parliament afterwards. Mr. Wells tones down the dynamite; talks about a comet. It’s dynamite he means. That’s where he’s wrong. You can shred people’s morals by blowing their neighbours up—but not their characters. Their morals will go to pieces because character remains. You don’t want that at all. Morals will always follow character, and that’s what you must get at, but not by dynamite. Well, how are you going to develop character? I say by Poverty. Pride’s Purge! There’s my nostrum for the world-sickness—Poverty, Poverty, Poverty! In fact, I’m a Franciscan—by temperament and opinion, and not because I’m in love with the Virgin Mary. I have nothing, and possess all things; I’m rich because I’m destitute; I’m always filling myself because I’m always empty. Do you see?”

She looked doubtfully, frowned a little, then took her eyes from him. “No, I don’t see. I don’t understand you. I know that you are not laughing at me; but I think you will now. Never mind; you’ve been very nice to me.”

“My dear young lady,” he said, his glass in mid-career, “I assure you that I’m not laughing at all. I’m telling you what I believe to be literal truth. Perhaps one of these days you will be really poor, and then you’ll agree with me. How can you fill yourself if you’re full already? and where do you find any pleasure in life except in wanting a thing, and getting it? Can’t you distinguish between having and using? Can’t you see that to possess this Common, fenced and guarded by keepers and varlets of sorts, would be exactly the same as to use it as I do now, with all the hamper of the stake in the county added on to it?”

She looked at her toes, frowned, tried to think—then raised her eyes. “Yes, yes, perhaps I see that. But you must know that I am quite poor. And yet——”

“Ah,” he said, “you’re not poor enough. You can’t allow yourself to be. It isn’t pence that you must hoard, but opinion, my friend, the sound opinion of your neighbours—and of yourself, too. Look here: apply what I’ve been saying about this Common to every blessed thing—from God to groundsel, from the Kingdom of Heaven to your villa at Putney—apply it to religion, to rank, to marriage, to murder, and blazes—and you’ll see. But you shall work it out at home, for I’m going to take you to bed.” He rose here and stretched himself, his hands deep in his pockets. Her eyes pleaded.

“Please, let me think of something first.”

“Think away. We’ll talk presently, but now I’m going to raise the ghost.” He went lightly after his cropping horse, and Mary sat by the fire.

How all this tilted her balances! He little guessed what deeps he had stirred within her simple soul. Deeps! Why, what fisherman had ever yet dropped his hook below the pretty surface? What evidence had she, or any one, that deeps there were? Oh, the great views at his will and pleasure—this gentleman-tinker’s, who made omelettes in the middle of the night, and talked like a ruler of men, putting down and setting up with unfaltering voice, altering respects, changing relationships like a lawgiver. Poverty—destitution—to go beggared of opinion as well as pence, and to be the richer for it? She might well pout her lips and wrinkle her little nose as she applied all this to her own concerns. Her heart sank to view her own belittling. Gossip, flirtation, little quarrels, and harsh judgments, a nod from Mrs. James, a smile from Miss de Speyne, dresses, a new blouse, young Perivale, Mr. Duplessis, Mr. ——. No, no, not Mr. Germain! Even now there was a faint throb of the heart as she thought of the day after to-morrow, and hugged the comfort of an excitement to come.

“Ready, if you are,” she heard, and rose to join her host. The gentleman-tinker was in the road with his horse and cart, passing the reins along. Bingo, snorting and stretching his hind legs, was very ready for the frolic.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Much better. Too much better.”

“Nonsense. That’s one of the things we _must_ have. I don’t preach abstinence from limbs.”

She laughed. “No, of course not. But I think that I should have liked to be kept in for a day—or two. And I know that I can’t be.”

“You’re better out, I suspect.”

“I’m not sure now—since you have been talking. You have made me think.”

“You’ll find it hard work. Meantime you had better get up—it’s gone midnight.” That sent her up with a little shocked cry. He lifted in the bicycle, and mounted beside her. “Now—where are we going?”

She told him. Misperton Brand was the first village he came to.

“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I had adventures there, ages ago. I encamped in a park—Lord Somebody’s park—and they turned me out. But I met that lord afterwards, and he proved to be rather a good sort of man.”

“He’s Lord Cantacute. Do you know the Rector, Mr. Germain?”

“No. I don’t get on with rectors. They seem to think that I should go to their churches, but I never do. I don’t ask them to mine; why should they ask me to theirs? There’s an obliquity about Christianity which beats me. What’s his name? Germain? Any relation of Lord George’s, I wonder? celebrated man, to whom the Americans ought to put up a statue. He gave them their country, I believe. Gave it away to them, you might put it.”

She knew nothing of Lord George. “There’s a Mr. John Germain,” she said, not quite ingenuously, “who is head of the family.”

He considered Mr. John Germain. “I believe I’ve come against him, too, somewhere. Germain—Germain—Shotaway—Shotover? That’s it—Shotover House—big red and white place, with a pediment and a park. Near Reading. Yes, I was turned out of that, too. Solemn old boy, thin, with glasses.”

She flushed up in the dark. “He’s very nice. He’s staying here. I know him. He’s kind.”

Her companion looked round. “Do you mean that he’s kind to you, or kind all round? He wasn’t very kind to me. He said that I fostered contempt for my class. I admitted it, and he got angry. Why shouldn’t I, if I believe it contemptible?”

“He’s very kind to me,” she replied seriously. “He’s a gentleman, you know, and——”

“And you’re a lady. Well, that’s not necessarily kind—to you.”

“But,” she said, “you don’t let me finish. I am not a lady, you know—not of—well, not of his class. That’s why I think him kind.”

“I’m sure I hope you are right,” her friend said. “How does his kindness show itself?” She made haste to justify Mr. Germain.

“Well, to begin with, in his being interested in me at all. He talks to me—he asks about my work.”

“What is your work?” she was shortly asked.

Teaching, she told him; she was a governess.

He looked at her now, strange man, with real interest. “Are you, though? By Heaven, then there’s a chance for you yet. You’re above us all. He may well be kind, with the next generation depending entirely on you. Teachers and mothers—no parson can beat that. Is Germain a schoolmaster?”

She began in a shocked voice, “Oh, no! He’s a gen—” but was drowned in laughter. He threw his head up and laughed to the sky.

“You’re a wonder, I must say. I beg him ten thousand pardons—I forgot. Of course, he’s a gentleman.”

Mary was piqued. “That’s not very kind of you,” she said, with reproach in her tones, and he humbled himself at once.

“I’m very sorry, but I’ll confess the whole. The fact is, you’ve jumped into a little pit which I had dug for you—headlong. Upon my word, I beg your pardon. But don’t you know that these class-boxes into which you plump every mother’s son of us, and are at such pains to keep guarded, lest one of us should step out, are the very things I’m vowed to destroy? Why, God be good to us, what are we to do in our boxes—with all this going on?” He stretched his arm out—“This dappled earth, singing, and spinning like a great dusty ball through star-space! Oh, I must talk to you again about all this—you, with children in your two hands to be made into men and women! But not now—it’s too serious. When are you coming to report your ankle, and tell me that I’m forgiven?”

She smiled upon him. “I’ve quite forgiven you. It was I who was foolish. I am sure you must be right. May I come on Sunday? That’s my free day. I should like to talk to you—about lots of things.”

“Delighted to see you,” he said. “Come by daylight this time, and come by road. Here’s your village opening.”

He set her down at the top of the street, since she would not allow him further. Prepared to thank him with her prettiest, the words died on her tongue. “Not a bit, not a bit,” he cut them down. “I love company. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely, orating away. You’re a rare listener; you seem as if you had never heard it before. Good-night.”

She held him up her hand—he touched it—turned the horse, and was gone.

When she had lighted her candle the first thing she did with it was to hold it up that she might look in the glass. Her hot eyes and burning cheeks were ignored for more serious disorders. “My hair!” And then she laughed. “He would not know whether I had any hair!”

Late as it was, and tired as she was, sleep was long in coming.

IX
THE WELDING OF THE BOLT

Poetry, Lord Cantacute was saying at dinner, is like a wind-egg—aberration in the producer, useless for consumption. You don’t attempt to eat a wind-egg. It is remarkable, perhaps; but, once gaped at, you had best leave it to the parent fowl that will be glad of it. “You encourage cannibalism?” asked the Rector, with a lifting eyebrow. Really, Lord Cantacute saw nothing against it. Perhaps it was a matter of taste—but so was poetry. And who else could thrive upon the stuff? Since all this was _apropos_ of the absent Tristram, whose talents and fluency were admitted while their trend was deplored, Mrs. James could not fail to remember a thriving consumer of his wares. Had she not caught him administering wind-egg by spoonfuls to a hatless young lady? The excursion was closed with a flash by Miss Hertha de Speyne, who, from her golden throne, said that poetry was very well if the mortal poet did not practise what he sang. No other art, she thought, had that grain of vice in it. Now, we were not ready to practise poetry.

Mr. Germain contributed nothing to the game, but ate his dinner, or gazed solemnly at one speaker after another. This was unusual; he was fond of abstract discussion, and had his ideas about poetry. He had his favourite practitioners, too—Virgil, Pope, Gray; poetry, for him, must be elegant above all things. Elegant, fastidious, deliberately designed. Dante he could not admire. Petrarch and Tasso were the Italians, their conceits not conceited, for him. He had even—but this was a profound secret—pitched a slender pipe of his own, and was now resuming the exercise. His vein was the courtly-pastoral. The nymph Mero, let us say, was sought by the God Sylvanus, who wooed her in a well-watered vale. Or a young shepherdess—call her Marina—was the dear desire of Cratylus the mature, who offered her with touching diffidence, the well-found hearth, the stored garners, the cellar, for whose ripe antiquity (alas!) he himself could vouch. The maid was not cold; it was himself who doubted whether he were not frigid. He besought her not to despise his silvering beard, the furrow on his brow. Boys, urged he, are hot and prone; but the wood-fire leaps and dies, while the steady glow of the well-pressed peats endures until the morning, and a little breath revives all its force. Thus Cratylus to Marina in his heart.

The inexpert poet is not content with numbers; as Miss de Speyne had said, he is apt to probe what he expounds. Also, by a merciful provision of our mother, no man is permitted to think himself ridiculous, nor indeed is necessarily so. The poets are right there. The intentions of mature Cratylus may be as honourable, his raptures as true, his sighs as deeply fetched as any of beardless Corydon’s. Only, when desire fades in us, o’ God’s name let us die. Our friend here cried in his heart that his had never bloomed before. Spell-bound to a beautiful vision, he walked enraptured in the light of it, travelling up the path of its beam, sighing, not that it should be so long, but that his steps should lag so short of his urgency. And to the lips of his heart—as it were—recurred and recurred the dear, familiar phrases, true once and true now to who so love. The well-found hearth, and One beside it: surely, happily there! Denied him for so long; now in full sight! The buffeting, windy world outside, the good door barred, the ruddy fire, the welcoming arms, the low glad voice! Happy, studious evenings—an arm within an arm, a petition implied, and a promise—a held-out hand, a little hand caught within it—a prayer, an exchange of vows, a secret shared—a secret, a wonderful hope! Happy Cratylus, happy poet! Nay, it was not too late for that—not too late, please God!

In his now exalted mood, every faculty shared the high tension. His reasoning was exalted, and told him that his deep distrust of his own class proceeded from deep experience. The fierce, querulous, and dead beauty of Lady Diana passed over the scene; palely and feverishly she hunted her pleasures; and Ægisthus stalked behind, attentive, to whisper in her ear at the offered moment. No hopes could be justified under the white light of that torturing memory. He knew very well, he told himself, that no woman of his daily acquaintance could give him what he longed for. In her degree each and every one must be for him a Diana Wymondesley—with her friendships, connexions, thousand calls this way, that way, every way, any way; with her flying, restless crowded life, winters in Cairo, summers in Cowes, Scottish autumns, Sicilian springs. When could she be at home? And he, with his longings for the hearth, that infinitely holy place, must stand, be courteous, play the great gentleman, flog himself to Cairo, Biarritz, Algiers, and feel behind the mask he wore the taloned bird rake at his vitals. Never, never more! Life is to be lived once, and to each his appointed way; appointed if you must, chosen if you can. Ah, me, if choice were his at this late hour! His heart was beating high as he rose in his place for the ladies to leave the dining-room. Miss de Speyne, presuming on familiar use or her prerogative, sailed out first, a very Juno; Mrs. James lingered for a parting shot at her Rector.

“You may be right, James—it is not for me to contradict you. But Tristram is better at Pau than here; and I have good reasons for saying so.” The Rector bowed to his wife, and for once approved Hertha’s easy manners.

Returned to the Rectory, when the Rector had gone to smoke his cigar, Mr. Germain had a little conversation with Mrs. James. If he did not deliberately seek, he deliberately provoked the turn it took. But it began innocently enough.

She asked him his time of departure on Monday, supposing that he must go, and tailed off into to-morrow’s engagements. It was now that his face went a thought greyer, and that a shade more stiffening thrilled his spine. A visit to certain Manwarings was proposed for the afternoon. “Your morning you claim, I imagine?” she had said.

“No,” he replied, “I gladly make it yours. To-morrow’s, that is,” and there he paused, and she waited.

He took up his tale greatly. “On Saturday my morning is arranged for. I have, as you know, taken upon myself to be interested in the concerns of your Miss Middleham”—he marked, but chose not to remark, the flash in the lady’s eyes. _Her_ Miss Middleham! “To-morrow I am to be allowed yet further into them; matters of moment, perhaps—I know not. That is for Saturday, at eleven.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. James—and the vowel held a volume, held it tightly. “Really she ought to be very much obliged to you.”

“Not at all. The obligation, in my view, is quite the other way. At my time of life, my dear Constantia, we are apt to plume ourselves upon the confidences of the young. I should not venture——”

“The confidences of that particular young person,” said Mrs. James with point—a dry point—“are likely to be modified on this occasion. But if she should happen to be unreserved, I could wish you would use your influence for her good.”

“Doubtless,” he agreed, “that is my sincere desire. If you could suggest to me any direction in which my services——”

Mrs. James looked at him, and he, while meeting her gaze, must needs remark upon her hard-rimmed eyes. It was as if they had been set in metal. “We spoke of Tristram at dinner—I don’t know whether you heard. I said that he was better even at Pau with poor Lord Bramleigh just now, than here. You may not have heard me.”

Mr. Germain blinked. “I am not sure that I should have conceived you, had I overheard the remark. You paint Misperton in dark colours, if what I have heard of young Bramleigh be true. And—to resume the first subject of our conversation——”

“Unfortunately the subjects are connected,” said Mrs. James, and saw him flinch. “Tristram is old enough to look after himself; but surely you will agree that his companionship is not the best for a girl in her position.”

He had not for nothing worn a mask some twenty years of his life. Wearers of these defences become very expert by use, and can turn them against themselves at will. Mrs. James got no joy out of her revelation, and he little pain; he gave her a stately bow.

“I entirely agree,” he said.

“Of course, of course.” She accepted him, but went on; “we cannot but regret it, those of us who take an interest. Unfortunately I can hardly speak to her upon such a subject, since I have no authority over her—and James will not. He is pleased to be diverted at what I have to tell him—you know his way. I don’t know how far your kindly inquiries——”

“We have hardly reached her matrimonial projects,” said Mr. Germain, so simply that Mrs. James lost her head.

“Matrimony! A nursery governess! My dear John, pray don’t misunderstand me.” He continued to blink urbanely at her, master now of the position.

“I wish to avoid precisely that. Little claim as I have to discuss such matters with Miss Middleham, I should certainly ask her to pause if I believed that she could accept the addresses of a young man like Tristram. Perhaps I am prejudiced—but——”

“Tristram,” said Mrs. James tartly, “is as likely to marry Mary Middleham as you are.”

“Is he, though?” he said, with a little jocularity. But he blinked again.

From the chamber of the beglamoured Cratylus I may pass to that of his Mero—or Marina, if you prefer it—who (with no Manwarings in prospect to afford distraction) had a day of routine to go through before the interview could be reached. There was little in this to fix her mind or woo it back from straying into the vague. It is not surprising, therefore, to find her on the morrow of her midnight adventure—a note of apology and excuse despatched to The Sanctuary—snug in her bed at an unwonted hour, nursing her cheek and remembrances together, as much alive to the fact that she had been interested yesterday as to those which promised her that she was to be absorbed to-morrow.

And then, as she lay wide-eyed, dreaming, wondering, softly-smiling, quick-breathing, her wide horizons opened up to her by flashes, or were clouded up suddenly, enfolded in the rosy mists of conscious pursuit. To know, as she must, that her company was desired, courted, deeply considered by a considerable gentleman could not but give a tinge of rose to her dream-senses. The warm fleeces enwrapped her, hugged her; they could be felt, they made her cheeks tingle as her blood coursed free. Against this passive ecstasy—this rapture of the chase—there rose in strife a new feeling, a dawning sense of power to judge and weigh, a discretion imparted, a dignity of choice. And as this prevailed and her mind leapt back to her friend of the night, see the mists thin and part and grow pallid; see her caught breath and brightening eyes as she strained to watch the far-stretching plains of life, the distant seas, blue hills—wonderful vistas, beholding which she seemed to lay her hand upon the pivot of the world. The battle raged over her form supine. Like a dormouse in her nest she lay, but within her breast, within her mind, the armies engaged swept forward and back.

A day of this must not be, and could not. She must have stimulant, she must have excitants, must do something or go mad. She recollected with a thumping heart that she might see her friend again. She was to report herself and her ankle; he had asked her and she had promised to come. There was an appointment. True, it had been for Sunday—but what were Sundays to him? It might be to-day. As she dressed she dallied with the temptation, and before she had finished she knew that she had fallen.

Early in the afternoon she sprang into her saddle, eager for the encounter. Her ankle was forgotten; she felt strong and, exulting in her strength, cleared the miles with that sense of delighted effort which a bicycle only can give—because it replies so readily. Her heart beat high as from Chidiocks, that suburb of Misperton, she saw the white hill atop of which the Common began. She walked it deliberately, holding herself back that she might play with the pleasure promised—a pleasure none the worse, mind you, for being perfectly lawful. This man was her friend, and she had never had a man for a friend before. She felt good, and very strong.

There, then, was the white peak of the tent. There, too, was the tilt-cart! So he was waiting for her promise to be kept! There again was the back of the prowling Ghost. Bingo ran on three legs across the road—dear Bingo! And there was her friend! Yes, but he was not alone. She was dismayed—had not expected that. A horseman talked to him from the road—a horseman? Ah, no, it was a horsewoman; and her friend (if she might continue to think him so) stood there in an animated discussion, and declaimed upon a paper in his hand. Her heart fell far, but she pressed on. Nothing in the world—neither tact, nor delicacy, nor fear of detection—could have stopped her. She must know more at any cost.

She went as far as she dared by the road, and then, dismounting, moved on to the turf and dropped her bicycle. Screened by furze-bushes she got to within fifty, thirty, twenty yards, and there stopped, knelt down, and watched with intensely bright eyes. The mounted lady was Miss de Speyne, the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, proud daughter of the Cantacutes, a personage so far out of her reach that her least act was acceptable as a stroke of great Fate—a sunstroke or a thunderbolt. Alas, for her joys!

But her friend, no less easy by day than by night, in one company than another, held in his hand a drawing—as she guessed—and talked vehemently of it. She could hear his words—“It’s not bad—it’s not at all bad—I admit it; and thanks very much for allowing me. But if you say that of a drawing, you say the cruellest, worst—unless you call it clever. It wants breadth, it wants _maîtrise_; it wants, as all half-art wants, the disdainful ease of Nature, to produce what Nature can never produce. There’s a fine line in Baudelaire—well, never mind that. No—I’ve done better than this. I did some Savernake things which pleased me—trees and glades, evening things. We had some yellow skies, shot green—wonderful, wonderful! I got some poetry into them. But this”—he gave it a flick of the fingers—“this is rather smug, you know.”

“I don’t think it smug,” said Miss de Speyne, with her great air of finality. “I like it.”

“Glad of that, anyhow,” was the artist’s thanksgiving. “Your praise is worth having.”

“I’ve worked very hard,” the lady said; “but I’m afraid I can talk better than I paint.”

“Ah, we all do that.”

“Yes,” she said, “that’s the worst of it.” They paused: she patted her horse, he looked with narrowed eyes into the weather. Presently she said, “I suppose you couldn’t come and see my things—and bring some of your own—could you, do you think? My people would be delighted.” He looked at her, considering.

“So should I be—charmed. Yes, I’ll come if you mean it. When?”

“Of course I mean it,” Miss de Speyne rejoined. “Could you come to luncheon, the day after to-morrow? That’s Sunday.”

“I know it is,” he said with a laugh. “What a heathen you think me! Yes, I’ll certainly come. But—where are you, exactly?”

“Misperton Brand—Misperton Park. You go through the village, and a little way beyond the Rectory you come to a lodge.”

“Oh, I know it!” Then he laughed at his memories. “I’ll tell you afterwards—after luncheon. Thanks, I’ll come. But I must be back pretty early in the afternoon.”

“Your own time, of course.” She gathered up her reins. “Till Sunday,” she said with a nod. He bowed—hatless as before. Miss de Speyne pushed homeward; and Mary Middleham, with hot splashes of colour in her cheeks, returned to her fallen bicycle, and never looked behind.

How much the grave benevolence of Mr. Germain may have gained by this little _contretemps_ we may guess. Broad vistas, after all, are very well indeed for the robust; they are bracing and tonic. But if I am to be snug, give me rosy mists.

X
CRATYLUS WITH MARINA: THE INCREDIBLE WORD

Upon the day designed by highest Heaven—as we are led to suppose—they took the way of Misperton Park, the enamoured gentleman and the lady. They sat under the famous Royal Oak—a shade with which she was, we know, familiar—Cratylus talked, Marina sat modestly listening. If he saw her the spirit of the tree—the peering Dryad Mero caught and held to his words, it’s all one. Her simple allure, her dainty reserves had ravished his senses; the tinge of sunburn in her cheeks, the glint of conscious pride in her eyes, beat back like blown flame upon his blood. That fired his brain. In a word, he loved, therefore he believed.

He spoke of himself to-day, of his youth and marriage. Lady Diana was not named, but her knife under the cloak was implied. Sadly, yet without complaint, he related the ossifying of all his generous hopes. “This,” he said, “was long ago, but the dead cannot all at once be hidden under the turf. I have been ten years long at a burying, and now have done. What remain to me of years, I know not truly; but they will be the more precious if they are to be few. I believe that I am very capable of happiness—perhaps even of bestowing it. My affairs are in good order; I have been fortunate, as you know, in worldly respects. A childless widower, I pick up my life again at fifty where I left it at five-and-twenty. And I tell myself—I have told myself but newly—that I may not be too late.”

To this sort of soliloquy, to the grave voice that rehearsed it, she had nothing to say. He found that he must import her bodily into his conversation.

“For one thing,” he continued, after a pause of exploration, “I now have leisure, as you have seen, to interest myself in my neighbours, and have derived so much pleasure from it that I am deeply grateful to those who have indulged me. You are one. I think that you must have remarked what happiness your society and your confidence have been to me.” Her shamefastness, which tied her tongue, compelled him to probe. “Have you not seen that?”

She murmured that he had been very kind, that she was grateful. “Not so, my dear,” said he, “but the persons must be transposed. The kindness is yours, the obligation upon me. Come! Can you not tell me that you have understood me? Can you not let me be satisfied that you realize your own benevolence? If you cannot, I must withhold what I was about to say to you. I should want for courage. I must ask for your assurance. You will not refuse it?”

Exciting, mystifying talk! She dared not look up—but she asked him, What it was that she was to tell him?

He luxuriated in her bashfulness. “Why, my dearest child,” he said, very near to her, “I want to know whether you believe me happy in your company?”

She would not look at him, but she said “I hope that you like me—I do hope that.”

Then he took her hand and held it in both of his own. He gazed tenderly down upon her hanging head—not one meek beauty of her escaped him, neither of burning cheek, curved lashes, of heavy eyelids, rising breast. “Then, dear child, I will tell you plainly that I love you most sincerely; that you have my heart, such as it is, in your little hands—just as certainly as one of those hands is here in mine. I have told you the truth about myself—what I hoped to be, what I was, what I am become. And now, if you can repay that confidence with a confidence, I shall be satisfied indeed. But I must ask you again, Can you value the love of a man twice your age? Remember, I shall not be hurt if you tell me that you cannot. I shall respect your confidence, whatever it may be; and shall never trouble you again. . . . What do you tell me now, Mary?”

She had started visibly at the word “love,” and had been revealed to him for a flash, which gave him the value of her wide eyes, and of the flying colour, which now left her very pale, then lapped her in flame again, and showed her like a red rose. A flash only; for immediately after she had bowed her head so deeply that her chin nearly touched her bosom, and she could have smelt the knot of carnations fastened there. Her hand was still his prisoner but she would have freed it if she could; for now she was startled indeed. Though she had been forewarned, her armour was not on. This word was a dart, and stabbed her deep. The incredible thing had come to pass.

She had been prepared for unbounded sentiment, for tenderness, for the captured hand; she had foreseen a breathless moment or so, a stoop, and a kiss. Such a string of episodes—just that string of them—would not have been strange to her by any means, and would have satisfied her anticipations perfectly. She would have been elated, would have made much of it in her mind, might possibly, after some interval, in some tender hour, have confided it to a bosom friend. On many dull days it would have shone like a lamp, assuring her of substantial things, of honour done, of a positive achievement of hers—to have won such condescension from a great gentleman. Here had been—you may say—a creditable triumph for the Middlehams. But a declaration in so many words—love offered and asked again; what could this mean but one astounding thing? She was frightened, and that’s a fact; frightened out of her wits. The averting of her head, which so enchanted Mr. Germain, was of a piece with ostrich strategy. If she could have run and hidden underground she would have done it. For what can that word love from such a man mean but marriage? I beg the lady’s pardon for leaving her hand in so embarrassing a case, her head so downcast, her breath so troublesome—but her difficulties must be faced.

Marriage, as she had been taught this world’s economy, is the be-all and end-all for women here. It is almost a disgrace, and quite a disaster for a girl to slip into womanhood and not be wedded. The enormous seriousness, then, of the affair! All men talk to women of love, and a girl had need be quick to discern which kind is the staple, which kind is aimed at lip-service, which at life-service. There will be both to reckon with; the two rarely coincide. Many a young man will seek the flower of a girl’s lips, sup of it at ease, and content himself—ah, and content her, too; whereas your serious wooer, with his eye upon comfort, a foothold, a mother for his children and a stay for himself, may well have other things to think of—a promotion, a partnership, a chance abroad, a legacy, a desirable corner house. Care will tighten his lips too hard for kissing. The future will be all that he reads after in your eyes. If he kisses, it will be by custom as likely as not; don’t I say that he will have other things to think of? Now, Mr. Germain had not kissed Mary, though, to be sure, he had spoken of his love. And yet—and yet—yes, he wanted to marry her. Frightened? Yes, she was frightened; but she was full of thought, too.

She knew very well that her ways were not those of the world above her, the world of the upper air, where Honourable Mrs. Germains, Cantacutes, Duplessis, and the like talked familiarly together of parties and public affairs. There, as she saw the heights the women were so obviously desirable that there was nothing for them to do but pick up their happiness as they chose, and as their due. There could surely be no anxiety there, no whispered debates over what he meant, or had looked, or was thinking. Their lives were full to brimming point from girlhood up; everything fell into their laps, or could be had for money. Nothing surprised her more in the lives of her betters than the frequency with which they bought—except the case of the transaction. One even paid for work, if one happened to be in the mood to work—as when Miss de Speyne, desiring to paint, hired an artist to go about with her, open a white umbrella here and there, and paint beside her. Grey, grey and hard seemed her outlook beside theirs, when (as now) she was driven to compare them. And here—O wonderful fate!—was this brimming, crowded life opening to her; to her, Mary Middleham, who had worked for pence a year, and fended for herself, and had adventures from her seventeenth to this her twenty-fifth summer. Terrible, wonderful thing! She had neither a word to say, nor a connected thought. She wanted to hide her burning cheeks, felt that she must never look up again—and all this while Mr. Germain held her cold hand. It felt dead to her: and what must he be thinking of her?

He was very patient. “Well, my dear, well!” was the note he harped upon, and (how he could read you!) “Poor child! So I have terrified you.” This idea seemed in some way to please him, for he expressed it several times; and, as he held her hand in one of his, patted it with the other—hoping, it would seem, to make her as comfortable as he was himself.

“Am I to be answered, Mary? Have you nothing to say to me?” She had not, for her life; she must have time. This she forced herself to explain.

“I don’t know what to say to you—I don’t, indeed.” But he seemed to find this quite as it should be.

He leaned a little towards her. “Shall I leave you?” he asked. “Would you wish to think it over? I will do all I can to make it easy for you.”

“Yes, please—no, I mustn’t trouble you. I mean—Oh, Mr. Germain, what ought I to say?” The russet wonder of her eyes was upon him, filled his being. He saw her quivering lip, wet from biting.

“Dearest child,” he urged her, “dearest child, consult your heart. If you think that you can be content with me—if you can believe what I tell you——”

She looked at him now as though he had hurt her. “I mustn’t believe you—I ought not—I know I ought not. I am not fit for you—not good enough—” She stammered, reproached him with her great eyes for a beating second—and then the storm broke and swept away her little defences.

She cried in his arms, for he took her there; he tasted her tears, for he began to kiss them away. At first she tried to disengage herself, but soon gave over the struggle, not daring to prolong a losing game. And it was a comfort, too, you see, to have strife done with. She hid her face, however, in his arm. He kissed her hair.

When she was quieted he talked to her—if you can call that talk which a man might use to a pretty dog, a leveret, or (if he were with it alone) to a baby; foolish, affectionate, happy nonsense, it was, charged full with pity for a creature so young and so simple. He soothed and touched her both; never had she dreamed of such kindness as this, nor of the comfort of it. So presently she lay still, looking wistfully out upon the green curves of the park, the dark masses of the summer trees, the tall deep bracken, and, afar a herd of deer feeding, twinkling their scuts as they moved slowly across the sunlit turf. Above her head she heard the murmur of his kind voice, hardly distinguished the words he used, but judged them generally to be all love and gentleness. What misgivings she may have had fell from her, as this peace claimed its rights. She thought that she could have stayed like this for ever; she thought that thus indeed it was to be. This, this was love, this how gentlemen loved. What a life was to be hers!

She sighed and snuggled more deeply into her luxury; his heart beat to feel the pressure of her. To doubt himself—whether he would fail of utter love and devotion for a confidence so exquisite as this—would have been a blasphemy. “My darling girl, my darling love, my Mary—” and, as she looked timidly up and shyly smiled her trust into his face, he bent over her transported, met and kissed her lips. She thrilled responsive and, smiling still, closed her eyes. “God helping me,” he said with a sob, “you shall never regret this day. . . .”

For their loitered progress homewards he put her hand into his arm, and it lay there so long as they were safe within the park. She hardly spoke, and only looked at him for seconds at a time. Her responses, when he called her by fond names or breathed some assurance of his love and happiness, were little pressures of the arm, flutterings of the eyelids, ghosts of smiles scarcely to be seen; but he was perfectly satisfied, the good man, sailing along upon his clouds, which were rosy and golden at the edges. He took her stoutly to her own door and left her there—would not venture himself within the sacred threshold. “I shall see you again before I go, my dearest. To-morrow I will come—ah, but you have given me wonderful to-morrows! You have made me happier than I ever dared hope to be. I will write to you, of course, from London—and do you write me again. Write me fully—confide in me—have no anxieties which I may not share. I call upon your parents in the course of the week. Dearest, will you not love me?”

She was now much moved; he might have seen her struggle to express herself—her bosom heaved in tumult and distress—a cry escaped her, “Oh, you are good, you are good! How can I help liking—how can I like you enough?” Love, she dared not say.

Respect for her held him in check; he must content himself with her hand, which, bare-headed, he kissed. “I am more than happy—I am exalted. Adieu, my love, adieu! Thank God, your days of servitude are over. Bid me good-bye now, and I will go.”

She hung her head, bashful again. He had to invite her once more, to draw her nearer, to stoop and to whisper her name. Blushing and glowing she swayed, caught by the hand, and then, as a sudden surge of gratitude swept over her, she put her hand upon his shoulder and leaned to him, looking up.

“I shall try to be good. I am sure that I love you—” she faltered; and he, swept out of propriety by her emotion and his own in confluence, took her in his arms and kissed her. At first she clung to him, and gave him kiss for kiss; but suddenly she stiffened and tried violently to get free. He felt that and released her at once, instantly himself again. In a flash she vanished. He kept his hat in his hand until he was beyond the wicket-gate, then walked back slowly to the Rectory luncheon. He had had no eyes for the passing of a tall, loosely clad young man, whose black, straight hair was uncovered, and his black eyes sideways upon everything, like a faun’s. He had had other things to do with his eyes—besides, he was near-sighted. But Mary had noticed, indeed, and was now standing in her little dark parlour, in a stare, her finger at her lip, her heart in full and open riot. He had seen her, he must have seen her—kissing, being kissed! Whatever happened, he must hear her explanation.

XI
COOL COMFORT