Chapter VII: Book I: Halfway House (5)

Mr. Germain drove down to Blackheath to greet his bride. Her shy welcome, with gladness behind, to make it real, charmed him altogether. The family, after a respectful interval, left him the parlour, for which he was grateful. It would have, no doubt, to be explained that in marrying Mary he had no intention of taking charge of her people. Admittedly they were impossible, but it is very odd that he loved the girl of his selection the more for being simply and unaffectedly one of them. He respected her for it, but there was more than that. At the bottom of his heart he knew that if she were to lose sight of her origin, his love would suffer. It was absolutely necessary—he felt it—that she must masquerade for life, be a sweet little _bourgeoise_ playing county lady; but playing it with sincerity, and obediently, doing her best because she was told. The unvoiced conviction lay behind what he now had to say to her. He told her, for instance, that he hoped she would see as much of her family as she pleased, after she was married, though, of course, she would have the duties of her new station to consider and to reconcile with others. He did not suppose, he told her, that it would be reasonable, or even true kindness, to ask them often to Southover. “I esteem your father highly, my dearest. He is in all respects what I should have expected your father to be. Your mother, too, is, I am sure, worthy of your love and gratitude; your sisters seem to me happy and affectionate girls. I doubt, however, if they would be comfortable among our friends at Southover—” Mary here said at once that she was sure they would not.

“They are different from you—quite different. We are quite poor people—you would call us middle-class people, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose that I should,” he admitted; “but would that hurt you, my love?”

“No, no, not at all. There is no harm in that; and we can’t help it—but——”

He leaned, put his arm round her waist and drew her to him. “Well, my darling, well—? Tell me of what you are thinking.”

“I was wondering—if you can see that they wouldn’t do at Southover, what made you think that I should do there, either?” He held her closer.

“I’ll tell you, my love. It was because I knew what I should feel if you were ever to be there. It was because my heart was full of you, so that I could never look on any scene that I loved without seeing you in it, and loving it the more for your presence there. When I thought of Southover, I saw you its little sovereign lady, and myself waiting upon you, showing you all the things about it which have been so dear to me in spite of—much unhappiness; and my heart beat high. I said to myself, You must be a miserable and lonely man, my friend, unless you can promise yourself this joy of service. Does my Mary understand me?” He stooped his head to hers, and asked her again, Did she understand? Yes, yes, she said, but she sighed, and turned her face away. Then he must needs kiss her.

Then she did try to speak, meaning, if possible, to lead herself up to a confession. She told him that she feared to disappoint him, that he rated her too highly. “I can tell you truthfully that your love has made me very proud and very happy; I must assure you that I shall do everything in my power to prove to you how proud I am. I will do my duty faithfully—you must tell me of the least thing which is not just as you like. I can’t do more than that, can I?”

“Nobody in the world could do more than that,” he told her.

“But there’s something else. Mrs. Germain at Misperton doesn’t like me at all——”

He nodded sadly. “I know, my dear, I know. She is a foolish, arrogant woman, but there are excuses——”

“Oh, of course there are!” She sat upon his knee. “I expect that she is right and that you are wrong—in a way.” Then her eyes opened widely upon him: the hour had come. “But she thinks—she says that I am—bad.” He turned grey. “Oh, no, my love, you misjudge her! Good Heavens—bad!”

She held her face back from him that she might look at him seriously. “She does, you know—but she makes no allowances. I have always tried to be a good girl—I assure you. Please believe that.” He held her to his heart.

“My dearest, my dearest, you distress me. Good! Who is good if you are not? Purest of the pure—my Mary.” But she shook herself free in a hurry.

“No, no, indeed, you mustn’t say that. That’s absurd. I am just an ordinary girl, who likes to be happy, and to be admired, and to have fun when I can——”

“Of course, of course. Oh, my beloved, do not reproach yourself.” Then she turned in his arms, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked gravely and imploringly into his face.

“Promise me one thing,” she said, “one thing only. I will ask you nothing more than that.” She could not have been resisted by the Assessing Angel.

“Speak, my adored one.”

“Whatever you hear of me—against me—ask me what I have to say before you condemn me. Promise me that.”

“My love and my life,” he said fervently; and she pouted her lips for a kiss. Thus she justified herself in this regard, and by a sophistry of her sex came in time to feel that she had made him a full confession. She told Jinny as much.

We were now in late August; the wedding was to be quietly at Blackheath at the end of September, and the exciting business of the trousseau must be undertaken. Mrs. James, it seems, had so far reconciled herself to the inevitable as to have consented to come to town and “see to things” which the child must have. Her own people being out of the question, Mary was to stay with her in Hill-street, which was one day to be her own house, and do her shopping. A liberal sum was in Mrs. James’s hands for the purpose. There was to be no white satin; but Jinny was to be allowed to walk as bridesmaid. There was no way out of this. Her dress was to be chosen for her, and then she must come to London to be fitted; but she was not to be asked to Hill-street.

XIV
THE NEWS REACHES THE PYRENEES

Pau, in August, being what no man could be expected to stand, Duplessis and his friend Lord Bramleigh went into Spain, and lounged at San Sebastian. Here on a blazing noon of mid-September, as they were breakfasting at leisure, a budget of letters was delivered.

Lord Bramleigh, cheerful, wholesome, and round-faced, chirped over his, according to his wont. He read most of them aloud, with comments. “Old Gosperton’s shoot—will I go? I’ll see him damned. Why should I go and see old Gosperton shoot beaters? Not if I know it. Who’s this? Mary St. Chad, by the Lord! Now what does _she_ want? . . . ‘I suppose you know that Bob Longford is . . .’ I’ll be shot if I know anything of the sort. I know he _wants to_ all right; but you can’t marry a chap’s wife—at least I don’t _think_ you can. . . . Oh, sorry! Fellow’s dead. . . . I say, Tristram, do you hear that? Old Bland-Mainways is dead, and Bob Longford’s married his relic—married her in a week, my boy. What do you say to that? You marry a man’s remains almost as soon as he’s remains himself. Pretty manners, what? . . .”

Duplessis took no heed; the babbler ran on. . . . “This is my mater—wonder what she’s got to say? I rather funk the Dowager. . . . Hulloa! By Gad, that’s rum. I say, Duplessis, did you know a chap called Senhouse at Cambridge? Pembroke, was he? Or King’s? King’s, I think . . . it _was_ King’s. Did you know him? Jack Senhouse—John Senhouse—rum chap.”

“Eh? Senhouse? Oh, yes, I knew him. Used to see him about.” Duplessis resumed his letters; one, especially, made him frown—then stare out of the window. He read others but returned to that.

Lord Bramleigh went on. “I want to tell you about this chap Senhouse. Of course, I never knew him at the Varsity—ages before me, he was. Good footer—player—ran with the beagles—ran like the devil; rowed a bit, painted a bit, sang a damned good song: Jack Senhouse. Well, he’s mad. Rich chap—at least, his father was rich—alderman somewhere, I b’lieve—say, Birmingham . . . one of those sort of places. Well, Jack Senhouse chucked all that—took to painting, scribbling, God knows what. His governor gets cross—sends him round the world on the chance he’ll settle down by’n by. Not he! Gets up to all sorts of unlawful games—cuts the ship and starts off on his own across Morocco; gets hung up at Fez—row with a Shereef about his wife or wives. Foreign Office has to get to work—makes it all right. Senhouse goes? Not he. Stays there all the same—to learn the language, I’ll ask you. Language and plants. He collects plants in the Atlas. So he goes on. Then he gets back home. ‘Hope you’ll settle down to the office, my boy,’ says his governor. ‘No, thank ye,’ says Jack, and doesn’t. He was off again on the tramp somewhere—turns up in Russia—if Warsaw’s in Russia—anyhow he turns up where Warsaw is—talking to the Poles about Revolution. Still collects plants. They put him over the frontier. He goes to Siberia after plants and politics. More rows. Well, anyhow, he came back a year ago, and said he was a tinker. He’d learned tinkerin’ somewhere round, sawderin’ and all that—and I’m damned if he didn’t set up a cart and horse and go about with a tent. He paints, he scribbles, he tinkers, he sawders—just as he dam’ pleases. And he turns England into a garden, and plants his plants. He’s got plants out all over the country. I tell you—the rummiest chap. Up in the Lakes somewhere he’s got a lot—growin’ wild, free and easy—says he don’t want hedges round his things. ‘Let ’em go as they please,’ he says. So he turns the Land’s End into a rockery and stuffs the cracks with things from the Alps. He’s made me promise him things from the Pyrenees, confound him—you’ll have to help me with ’em. And irises on Dartmoor—from the Caucasus! And peonies growin’ wild in South Wales—oh, he’s mad! You never saw such a chap. And so dam’ reasonable about it. I like the chap. _He’s_ all right, you know. He’s been turned out of every village in England pretty well, ’cause he _will_ talk and _will_ camp out, and plant his plants in other men’s land. I met him once bein’ kicked out of Dicky Clavering’s place—regular procession—and old Jack sittin’ up in his cart talkin’ to the policeman like an old friend. Admirin’ crowd, of course—the gels all love him, he’s so devilish agreeable, is Jack. I tell you, he learnt more than one sort of sawderin’. And as for his flowers—well, you know there’s a language of ’em. Well, now, what do you think? I’ve heard from the Dowager, and I’ll be shot if she hasn’t just turned old Jack out of my place! Found him campin’ in the park, with one of the maids boilin’ his kettle, and another cuttin’ bread and butter for him. Plantin’ peonies he was—in my park! Dam’ funny business; but the end’s funnier still. The Dowager, out driving, comes home—sees Master Jack waiting for his tea. Stops the carriage—sends the footman to order him off. Jack says he’ll go after tea. This won’t suit the Dowager by any means—so there’s a row. Jack comes up to explain; makes himself so infernally agreeable that I’ll be jiggered if the Dowager don’t ask him to dinner, and up he turns in evenin’ togs, just like you or me. After dinner—‘Good-night, my lady,’ says Jack. ‘I must be off early, as I’ve some saucepan bottoms waiting for me—and I’ve promised ’em for to-morrow sharp’—says Jack. Now—I say, I don’t believe you’ve heard a word of all this.”

Duplessis, I think, had not. He had been frowning at the glare outside, biting his cheek; in his hand was a crumpled-up letter.

“Look here, Bramleigh, I must get out of this,” he said. “I want to go home.” Lord Bramleigh, never to be surprised, emptied his tumbler.

Then he asked, “What’s up? No trouble, I hope?”

He had a gloomy stare for his first answer, and for second—“No, I don’t say that. I don’t know. That’s why I am off—to see.”

A man’s pleasure is a matter of course to your Bramleighs: the moral and social order must accommodate itself to that.

“That’s all right,” said Lord Bramleigh, therefore. “When do you go? To-morrow?”

“I go this evening.” The effect of this was to raise Lord Bramleigh’s scalp a shade higher.

“We swore we’d go to Madame Sop’s to-night, you know.” Madame Sop was a Madame Sopwith, a lady of uncertain age and Oriental appearance, who gave card-parties.

Duplessis said, “You must make my excuses—if she wants ’em. I’m going.”

“A woman, of course,” said Bramleigh, tapping a cigarette—but had no answer. Duplessis caught the Sun express, and, travelling straight through, reached Misperton Brand in less than two days.

On the afternoon of the third day he was at the door of the little house, Heath View, in Blackheath. The door was open, and within the frame of it stood a tall young woman with hair elaborately puffed over the ears and a complexion heightened by excitement.

“Good-afternoon,” says Duplessis. “Miss Middleham at home?”

“Yes,” says Jinny, “she is. Will you come in?”

He followed her into the parlour and was offered a chair. “Thanks very much,” he said, but did not take it. He stood by the window, and Jinny Middleham stood by the door.

Presently Jinny said, “I am Miss Middleham, you know. Or perhaps you didn’t know it.” Duplessis stared, then recovered.

“I beg your pardon. No, I didn’t grasp that. But you’re not my Miss Middleham.”

“I didn’t know that you had one,” said Jinny. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

He laughed. “You’ll think me very rude in a minute; but I’ll explain to you. It was your sister I wanted to see. She is—a friend of mine. My name is Duplessis. She may have told you.” Jinny was as stiff as a poker.

“I have heard my sister speak of you, certainly. I understood that you were—an acquaintance.”

Duplessis nodded easily. “Put it at that. I suppose I may see her?”

“She’s away,” said Jinny. “She’s staying in London—with the Honourable Mrs. Germain.”

He began to bite his cheek. “Can you give me Mrs. Germain’s address? It’s not Hill-street, I suppose?”

Jinny was very happy just now. “I suppose that a letter to Mrs. Germain at Misperton would find her. You are related to her, I believe?”

“My dear Miss Middleham,” said Duplessis candidly, “let’s keep to the point. It seems to me that you don’t want me to see your sister.”

“Oh,” says Jinny, “it don’t matter at all to me.” He knit his brows.

“Then you mean——?”

“I mean,” said Jinny, “that my sister is going to be married to Mr. Germain. That’s what it comes to.”

Duplessis bowed. “I see. Thank you very much. Than I think, if you’ll allow me—” He bowed again and went towards the door. The scene was to be over. Jinny put her hand upon the latch. “Where are you going?” she said, very short of breath. There was a thrill yet to be got out of this.

What was sport to her mortified him to death. “Really, I don’t know that I need trouble you any more,” he said. “You will give my kind regards to your sister, I hope.” But Jinny kept the door-handle in possession.

“Mr. Duplessis,” she said, “I ought to tell you that my sister would rather be excused from seeing you. At least, she says so. She said so to me. You best know why that may be.”

He ill concealed his mortification. “We won’t talk of your sister’s affairs, I think. I am happy to have made your acquaintance——”

Jinny tossed her head up. “My acquaintance, as you call it, is for them that want it. My sister’s is her own business. I tell you fairly, Mr. Duplessis, that she may be very unhappy.”

He flashed her a savage look. “Good Heavens, I believe that. Why, the thing’s monstrous! You might as well marry her to a nunnery. The fellow’s frozen—stark cold.” Jinny steadfastly regarded him.

“You know very well that you never meant to marry her,” she said. He grew cold instantly.

“Once for all, I must tell you that I decline to discuss your sister’s affairs with any one but herself. And since you tell me that I am not to see her, I will ask you to let me bid you good-afternoon. I am very sorry to have given you so much trouble.”

It was over; there was but one treatment for such a cavalier in Jinny’s code of manners. She opened the door wide. “Good-afternoon,” she said. He bowed and went out with no more ceremony.

He felt spotted, and was furious that such a squalid drama should have engaged him. A fluffed shop-girl—and Tristram Duplessis! Filthy, filthy business! But he went directly to Hill-street—whither a telegram had preceded him, terse and significant according to Jinny’s sense of the theatre. “Look out,” it said.

That sent the colour flying from Mary’s lips, and lighted panic in her eyes. She crushed it into a ball and dropped it; then she went directly to Mrs. James and asked leave to go home for a few days. She shook as she spoke. She said she was feeling very tired and unlike herself; she wanted her mother, she said simply, and as her lip quivered at the pathetic sound of that, her eyes also filled. Mrs. James, not an unkind woman by any means, was really sympathetic. “My dear child, I quite understand. Go home, of course, and get strong and well. Although you may hardly believe me, I care very much for your happiness—and John would wish it. If he could have been here I know he would have taken you. You shall have the carriage. Now, when would you like to——?”

“At once, please, Mrs. Germain—at once.” Mrs. Germain rang the bell and ordered the carriage. Mary could hardly wait for it; she spent the lagging moments pacing her room, and before it was fairly at the door she was on the doorstep. She took no luggage. Crouched in one corner of the hatefully dawdling thing, she stared quivering out of the window. At the corner of the square by Lansdowne House she gasped and cowered. A cab passed her, in which sat, scowling and great, Tristram Duplessis, his arms folded over the apron. Did he—? No, no, thank God, he had not seen her. She was safe in the ladies’ waiting-room; but the traverse of the platform was full of peril. Not until the train moved did she feel herself safe. She hungered for Jinny’s arms as never in her life before. The brave, the capable, the dauntless Jinny—Mercy of Heaven, to have given her such a sister in whom to confide!

But Mrs. James—the sweeping eye having lighted upon the ball of paper—Mrs. James wrote to her brother-in-law that night:—

“My dear John,—In case you may be hurrying back to town, I
think I should tell you that Mary has gone to her people for a
few days; she will write me the day and hour of her return.
There is nothing serious; but she complained of being
overtired—not to be wondered at. Even young ladies may find the
pleasures of shopping a tax. It is possible, I think, that
family matters, of which I know nothing—as I am not in her
confidence—may have called her home. She left this telegram
here. ‘Blackheath’ is on the stamp, you will notice. Mary spoke
of her mother to me when she said that she must go, and seemed
unhappy. I put this down to her being overwrought—and no doubt
you will hear from her by the post which brings you this. Most
of my work is done here, I am happy to say. I hope you will be
pleased with Mary’s things. I must say that she looks charming
in her wedding gown. But Ninon may be trusted _for style_. James
is getting restive without me. Soames is no doubt at his tricks
again. I shall be glad to be at my post. Your affecte. sister,

“Constantia Germain.”

“P.S.—Tristram is back from San Sebastian. I had a visit from
him this afternoon, some three minutes after Mary left. He asked
after her. You know that they were old acquaintances. Lord
Bramleigh remains in Spain. He seems in no hurry to greet his
bride. She is staying with the Gospertons at Brenchmore. They
expect him there from day to day.”

Next day Mr. Germain presented himself in Hill-street, nothing varied in his deliberate urbanity. He had not heard from Mary, he said, in reply to a question; there had been no time for a letter to reach Southover, and the absence of a telegram was reassuring. He intended to go to Blackheath in the course of the afternoon. No doubt she had overtired herself. He applied himself to other topics and said nothing of Duplessis nor of the Blackheath message until luncheon was over. Then, as Mrs. James went by him through the door which he held open for her, he said, “I had forgotten: you have Tristram back? If he should happen to call, pray tell him that I should be glad to see him if he could spare me a moment.”

Mrs. James stopped in her rustling career. “But I don’t think it at all likely he will call—again,” she said.

“No? Very well. Perhaps I shall encounter him somewhere. Or I could write.”

“Quite so,” said Mrs. James. “It is easy to write.” Then she shimmered away up the stairs. He went into the library, and, after some pacing of the floor, sat down at his desk, wrote, signed, and sealed a paper. He rang the bell.

“I wish you and Gutteridge to witness a paper for me, Jennings,” he said to the man. “Fetch him in here, please.” The two functionaries signed the sheet as he directed them. “Sign there, if you please, Jennings. And Gutteridge below your name. . . . That will do. Thank you.” He put the paper and a crumpled telegram together in a long envelope, sealed it, and wrote shortly on the outside. He locked it in his desk, then resumed his pacing of the room. As he walked his lips moved to frame words—“Impossible! Purity’s self. . . Her eyes ray innocence. . . .”

But he knew Tristram, and could not get his leisurely image away. And Tristram had been much at Misperton; and had a way of—his lips moved again—“My darling from the lions! From the power of the dog!” He went back to his desk, took out the envelope he had sealed, and would have torn it across—but did not. Instead, he put it in his breast-pocket, and left the house.

In the little parlour of Heath View he stood presently awaiting her. Jinny had seemed relieved to see him when she opened the door. Mary had been lying down, she said, and would come when she was tidy. He smiled and said he would wait. He was noticeably white and lined in the face.

She came into the room presently, flushed and very bright-eyed. He thought that she stood there like a mouse sensing the air for alarms, prompt to dart at a pinfall. His heart beat to see the youth and charm of her; his pain was swallowed up in longing for his treasured bliss. He almost sobbed as he held out his arms. “Mary—my child—my love;—” and when she ran in and clung to him with all her force, he clasped her in a frenzy. Whatever darksome fears his honest mind may have harboured, whatever beasts he may have fought, there were none after such a greeting as this. He poured out his love like water upon her, kissed her wet cheeks and shining eyes, and with, “There, my little lamb, there, my pretty one, be at rest, be at peace with me,” he soothed her, and felt the panic of her heart to die down. Then, sitting, he drew her to his knees and let her lie awhile with her head on his shoulder.

She whispered in his ear, “Oh, it was sweet of you to come! I wanted you dreadfully—you don’t know.”

“No, my precious one, I don’t indeed. But I am well content that you should have needed me. I pray that you always will, and that I may never fail you.”

She lifted her head back to look at him; she smiled like an April day. “_You_ fail me! Oh, no, you’ll never do that.” And of her own accord she kissed him. The good man simply adored her.

“Now will you tell me what upset you so much?” he asked her, but she shook her head roguishly and said that she didn’t know. “It was my stupidity—I was frightened—suddenly frightened of all the grandeur—the great rooms, the butler and footmen—the people in carriages who called—” She stopped here, her large eyes full upon his own. She breathed very fast. Then she said, “That’s partly the truth—but there’s more.”

He could not bear it. He could not face what she had to say. He knew that he was a coward, but he could not; despised himself, but could not.

He clasped her close. “Tell me nothing more, darling child. You will reproach yourself, and I cannot bear it.”

She struggled to be free. “Oh, listen, listen to me, please!”

He kissed her with passion. “My life is yours; would you rob me of it? I cannot listen to you——”

She gave over, and lay with hidden face until she dared to look up again. Then, when both were calmer, she showed her serious face. Playing with his eyeglasses, she did relieve her mind of one of her fears. “Do you know,” she said, “unless you are with me—always—I am sure that I shall do something mad, or bad. Run away from it all—hide myself.” She nodded her head sadly. “Yes, I’m quite sure.” He could afford to look at the future, not the past.

“Why, then, my love, I shall be with you always—night and day. Do you hear me? Night and day! How will you like that?” She hung her head, peered up at him for a second, and hung her head again. He could do nothing but kiss her after that.

He stayed to tea, which she prepared with her own quick hands. She and Jinny entertained him, and he had never liked that pronounced young woman so well. It was her birthday, Jinny’s birthday, he was told. “A few days only from mine,” he said, with a fine smile to Mary, which made her understand him, and blush. “Twenty-nine to-day,” said Jinny candidly, cutting cake. “This is my cake, Mr. Germain. I suppose you’ll give Mary a better one.”

“I shall give her the best I can, Miss Jinny, you may be sure,” he said heartily, and she nodded to him her confidence in his love. He treated her with grave politeness, which lost all its distance by the evident interest he took in her affairs. She gave herself no airs or graces, was neither pert nor sniffing for offence, nor airy, nor merely odious. Germain’s own manners were so fine, so based upon candour and honesty that one could not fail to respond. Even Jinny Middleham forgot herself; and as for Mary, she sat quietly on the watch, really happy, really at ease about the dread future—and whatever terrors she may have owed to Tristram she had none now. Yet she was to have one more chance. At parting she clung to him again, and begged him not to leave her for long. “I’m safe with you—I feel that. Oh, how did you make me like you?”

“By liking you myself, I expect, little witch.”

“I’m not a witch. I’m a dunce, and you know that I am. But listen——”

“I listen, dearest.”

“I am going to be the best girl in the world. I’m going to do everything that you tell me—always.”

“Beloved, I am sure.”

“Wait. You haven’t forgotten what you promised me?”

“What was that?”

“You have forgotten! Oh, but you must never forget it. It is important—to me.”

“Tell me again.”

“It was—always to ask me before you believe anything against me. That was it—and you promised.” He took her face between his hands and looked long into her eyes.

“My dearest heart,” he said, “I’ll promise you better. Not only shall I never believe anything against you—but I shall never even ask you of the fact. Never, never.”

She searched his face—her eyes wandered over it, doubting, judging, considering.

“I had rather you asked me,” she told him; but his answer was to kiss her lips.

She went with him to the garden gate, seemed most unwilling that he should go. Farewells spoken, her ring-hand kissed, she stood watching him down the terrace, and then, as he never looked back, walked slowly into the house and shut the door. Had she stayed a moment longer she would have seen an encounter he had at the corner where you turn up for the station. Perhaps it was better as it was; I don’t know. He had paused there to hail a fly with his umbrella, and having faced round towards his way, saw Duplessis advancing towards him. He felt himself turn cold and sick. The fly drew up. “Wait for me where you are,” he said, and went to meet the young man. Duplessis saw him on a sudden; his eyes, blue by nature, grew steely and intensely narrow.

“Good-evening, Tristram,” said Germain. “Constantia told me of your return.” Duplessis dug the pavement with his stick.

“Did she? Well, it is true, you see.”

“I do see. You are going to pay Mary a visit, I suppose. She’s not very well, I’m sorry to say—a little overtired. Otherwise, I am sure she would have been delighted.”

Duplessis made no reply, and the other continued: “I told Constantia that I hoped to see you—to tell you a small piece of news. I am about to be married again. Mary has been so kind as to confide her future happiness into my hands. Perhaps you won’t misunderstand me if I say that some little fraction of that happiness depends upon her not seeing you for the moment. When she is rested, we may hope—The wedding will naturally be a very quiet one. Her people wish it, and my taste agrees with theirs. Otherwise we should have liked to have you among our guests. We promise ourselves the pleasure of seeing you at Southover in the near future. I think the place will please you. You must give an account of my pheasants in December.”

“That’s very good of you, Germain,” said Duplessis, looking him full in the face.

Mr. Germain turned to his waiting fly. “Have you other engagements in Blackheath?”

“None,” said Duplessis.

“No? Then perhaps I can offer you a seat in my carriage.”

“Thanks,” said Duplessis, “I’m walking;” nodded, and went forward, the way of the heath.

“The station,” said Mr. Germain.

He could thank God, at least, that she had not meant to deceive him; he could thank God, at least, that she had done with the past. But he had received a mortal wound, and after his manner concealed it. His lovely image was soiled; the glass of his life to come dimmed already. He saw nothing more of Mary until the wedding day, though he wrote to her in his usual fashion and on his usual days. “My dear child,” and “Yours with sincere affection.” She did not guess that anything was amiss, could not know what they had cost him to write them twice a week. His brother and sister-in-law noticed his depression. Mrs. James indeed was tempted to believe that, at the eleventh hour—but the Rector knew him better. All his forces were now to put heart in the bridegroom. He spoke much of Mary.

XV
A PHILOSOPHER EMBALES

That young man with the look of a faun, at once sleepy and arch, the habit of a philosopher and the taste for gardening at large, whom we have seen very much at his ease in society quite various, was by name Senhouse—patronym, Senhouse, in the faith John, to the world of his familiars Jack Senhouse, and to many Mad Jack. But madness is a term of convenience to express relations, and to him, it may well be, the world was mad. He thought, for instance, that Lord Bramleigh was mad, to whom we are now to hear him talking, as much at his length and as much at his ease as of late we saw him in the company of Miss Mary Middleham, or of Miss Hertha de Speyne of the Cantacute stem.

Perhaps he was more at his ease. He lay, at any rate, before his tent, full length upon his stomach, his crook’d elbows supported his face, which was wrinkled between his hands. His pipe, grown cold by delay, lay on the sward before him. One leg, from the knee, made frequent excursions towards the sky, and when it did, discovered itself lean and sinewy, bare of sock. His sweater was now blue, and his trousers were grey; it was probably he had no more clothing upon him. Upon a camp-stool near by sat Lord Bramleigh of the round face, corded and gaitered, high-collared and astare. To express bewilderment, he whistled; concerned, he smiled.

“Well,” he said presently, “I think you might. We’re short of a gun—I’ve told you so.”

“My dear man,” said the other, “I shoot no birds. I’d as soon shoot my sister.”

“That’s rot, you know, Jack.”

“To me it’s plain sense. God save you, Bramleigh, have you ever seen a bird fly? It’s the most marvellous—no, it’s not, because we’re all marvels together; but I’ll tell you this—boys frisking after a full meal, girls at knucklebones, a leopard stalking from a bough, horses in a windy pasture—whatever you like of the sort has been done, and well done—but a bird in flight, never! There’s no greater sight—and you’ll flare into it with your filthy explosives and shatter a miracle into blood and feathers. Beastly work, my boy, butchers’ work.”

“Rot,” said Bramleigh—“But of course you’re mad. Why are my cartridges filthier than your pots of paint? Hey?”

“Well, I make something, you see—or try to, and you blow it to smithereens—However, we won’t wrangle, Bramleigh. You’re a nice little man, after all. Those Ramondias—it was really decent of you.”

“Much obliged,” said the young lord; and then—“I say, talking of the Pyrenees, you knew Duplessis? He’s our man short. He’s chucked, you know. He’s awfully sick.” Senhouse was but faintly interested.

“Yes, I knew him—Cleverish—conceited ass. What’s he sick about?”

“Gel. Gel goin’ to be married—to-day or something—end of September, I know. Tristram’s mad about it. He was at San Sebastian with me when he heard about it—and bolted off like a rabbit—mad rabbit.”

Senhouse yawned. “We’re all mad according to you, you know. So I take something off. I can understand his sort of madness, anyhow. Who’s the lady?”

“Oh, I don’t know her myself. Gel down at his place—in a poor sort of way, I b’lieve. Companion or something—he played about—and now she’s been picked up by a swell connexion of his—old Germain of Southover. Be shot, if he’s not going to marry her.”

The lengthy philosopher smiled to himself, but gave no other sign of recognition until he said, “I know that lady. Brown-eyed, sharp-eyed, quick, sleek, mouse of a girl.”

“Dessay,” said Lord Bramleigh. “They know their way about.” The philosopher threw himself upon his back and gazed into the sky.

“Yes, and what a way, good Lord! Idol-hunting—panting after idols. Maims herself and expects Heaven as a reward. I don’t suppose that she has been herself since she left her mother’s lap. And now, with an alternative of being sucked dry and pitched away, she is to be slowly starved to death. I only saw her once—no, twice. She had what struck me as unusual capacities for happiness—zest, curiosity, health—but no chances of it whatsoever. Ignorant—oh, Lord! They make me weep, that sort. So pretty and so foolish. But there, if I once began to cry, I should dissolve in mist.”

“Oh, come,” said Lord Bramleigh, “I don’t think she’s doin’ badly for herself. She was nobody, you know, and old Germain—well, he’s a somebody. He’s a connexion of mine, through his sister-in-law—she was Constantia Telfer—so I know he’s all right.”

“I’ll do her the justice to say,” Senhouse reflected aloud, “that she didn’t sell herself—she’s not a prostitute. She’s a baby—pure baby. She was dazzled, and misunderstood the sensation. She thought she was touched. She’s positively grateful to the man—didn’t see how she was to refuse. She’s a donkey, no doubt—but she had pretty ways. She could have been inordinately happy—but she’s not going to be. She’s in for troubles, and I’m sorry. I liked her.”

“She’d better look out for Tristram, I can tell you,” said Bramleigh. “He’s an ugly customer, if he don’t have his rights. Not that there were any rights, so far as I know—but that makes no difference to Tristram.”

“Is she worth his while? I doubt it.”

“She will be. Germain’s rich. Besides, Tristram sticks up for his rights—tenacious beggar.”

“Should have been kicked young,” quoth the philosopher, and sped Lord Bramleigh on his way.

“Mary Middleham, O Mary of the brown eyes and pretty mouth, I should like to see you married!” he thought, as he packed his tent. “There’s a woman inside you, my friend; you weren’t given her form for nothing. You are not going to be married yet awhile, you know. It’ll take more than a going to church to do that. You’ve got to be a woman first—and you’re not yet born!”

He lifted a shallow box of earth, and fingered some plants in it. “Ramondias—beauties! One of these springs there’ll be a cloud of your mauve flushing a black cliff over the green water. There’s a palette to have given old England! Mauve, wet black, and sea-green. I have the very place for you, out of reach of any save God and the sea-mews and me. But even with them you won’t have a bad ‘assistance.’ That’s a clever word, for how is the artist going to make a masterpiece unless the public makes half of it? Black, mauve, and green—all wet together! We’ll make a masterpiece in England yet. . . .

“That girl’s great eyes haunt me. Lakes of brown wonder—they were the colour of moorland water—a dainty piece! I could see love in her—she was made for it. A dark hot night in summer, and she in your arms. . . .! Good Lord, when the beast in a man gets informed by the mind of a god—there’s no ecstasy beyond the sun to compare with it. . . .

“Two things worth the world—: Power, and Giving. When a girl gives you her soul in her body, and you pour it all back into her lap, you are spending like a king. Why do women mourn Christ on His cross? Where else would He choose to be? A royal giver! To have the thing to give—and to give it all! He was to be envied, not mourned. . . .

“Old Germain—what’s he doing but playing the King on the Cross. He feels it—we all feel it—but has he got anything to give? It’s an infernal shame. He’s bought the child. She’ll never forgive him; she’ll harden, she’ll be pitiless—have no mercy when the hour strikes. There’ll be horrors—it ought to be stopped. I’ve half a mind——

“Damn it, no! She must go to school. If there’s woman in her, after travail she’ll be born. . . .

“To school? To Duplessis? Is he to school her, poor wretch? What are his ‘rights?’ Squatter’s rights, you may suppose. So she’s to be a doll for Germain to dandle, or an orange for Duplessis to suck, and betwixt the feeding and the draining a woman’s to be born! Wife, who’s no wife, mistress for an hour—and a pretty flower with the fruit unformed. . . .

“If I bedeck the bosom of England and star it with flowers, do I do better than Germain with his money, or Duplessis with his rights? And if I were to court her bosom . . . Oh, my brown-eyed venturer in deep waters, I could serve you well! Go to school, go to school, missy—and when you are tired, there’s Halfway House!”

That evening under the hunter’s moon he struck his camp. He had told young Bramleigh that he was soon for the West, where he preferred to winter. “I shall be in Cornwall by November,” he had said, “and that’s time enough;” and this being late September, it is clear that he projected a leisurely progress from Northamptonshire, where he now was, to the Cornish Sea. He had indeed no reason for hurry, but many for delay. That fairest of all seasons to the poet’s mind—that “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun” was to him foster-mother, whether her drowsy splendours fed him or he felt the tonic of her chill after-breath. He worked out, he said, in winter what he had dreamed in the autumn, and he could afford to lose no hours from her lap.

Loafer deliberately, incurably a tramp, he was never idle—whether mending kettles or painting masterpieces (for he had a knack of colour which now and then warranted that word), his real interest was in watching life and in establishing a base broad enough or simple enough to uphold it all. He was not too proud to learn from the beasts, nor enough of a prig to ignore his two-legged neighbours: but for the life of him he could not see wherein a Lord Bramleigh differed from a ploughboy, or a Mary Middleham from a hen partridge—and it was a snare laid for him that he was constantly to be tempted to overlook the fact that they differed at least in this, that they had the chance of differing considerably. He would have been greatly shocked to be told that he was a cynic, and yet intellectually he was nothing more. He did himself the honour of believing most people to be donkeys: if they were not, why under the sun did they not do as he was doing?

The answer to that was that if they did, he would immediately do something else, and find plenty reasons to support him. He had not worked that out—but it’s true.

It was also true—as he had told Mary Middleham—that he lived from hand to mouth. His father, Alderman Senhouse, J.P., of Dingeley, in the Northern Midlands, was proprietor of the famous Dingeley Main Colliery, and extremely rich. His mother had been a Battersby, well connected, therefore. He had been to Rugby and to Cambridge, just as Duplessis had been, and at the same times; like Duplessis he idled, but unlike him, he cost no man anything. For his needs, which were very simple, he could make enough by his water-colours, a portrait here and there, an essay, a poem. Then—and that was true, too—he had the art and mystery of tinkering at his disposition. He had earned his place in the guild of tinkers—a very real body—by more than one battle. He was accepted as an eccentric whose whim was to be taken seriously—and as such he made his way. He had never asked his father for a sixpence since he left Cambridge and was on very friendly terms with him. His brothers took the world more strenuously; one was partner at the colliery, another in Parliament, a third—the first born—was Recorder of Towcester.

So much for his talents—now for his accomplishments. He was an expert woodman, a friend to every furred and feathered thing, could handle adders without fear, and was said to know more about pole-cats, where they could still be found, and when, than any man in England. He had seen more badgers at ease than most people, and was infallible at finding a fox. All herbs he loved, and knew their virtues; a very good gardener in the West said that the gentleman-tinker could _make_ a plant grow. There’s no doubt he had a knack, as the rock-faces between Land’s End and St. Ives could testify—and may yet. He had a garden out there, which he was now on the way to inspect. But he had many gardens—that was his passion. He was but newly come from one in Cumberland.

He said of himself that he was a pagan suckled in a creed outworn, and that he was safely weaned. There was a touch of the faun about him; he had no self-consciousness and occasionally more frankness than was convenient. The number of his acquaintance was extraordinary, and, in a sense, so was that of his friends—for he had none at all. Accessible as he was up to a point, beyond that point I know nobody who could say he had ever explored Senhouse. That was where the secretiveness of the wild creature peeped out. Nobody had ever said of him that he had loved, either because nobody knew—or because nobody told. Yet his way with women was most effective; it was to ignore their sex. “I liked her,” he would say meditatively of a woman—and add, “She was a donkey, of course.” You could make little of a phrase of the sort—yet one would be glad to know the woman’s opinion. We have seen that he could be a sympathetic listener, we know that he could be more, in moments of difficulty—and there we stop.

Lastly, I am not aware that he had any shame. He seems always to have done exactly as he pleased—until he was stopped by some guardian of custom or privilege. This frequently happened; but so far as I can learn the only effect upon Senhouse was to set him sauntering elsewhere—to do exactly as he pleased. He never lost his temper, was never out of spirits, drank wine when he could get it, but found water quite palatable. He was perfectly sincere in his professions, and owned nothing in the world but his horse and cart, Bingo, the materials of his trade, and some clothes which had not been renewed for five years. We leave him at present, pushing to the West.

XVI
THE WEDDING DAY

Saint Saviour’s Church was by many sizes too large for the party—a modern edifice in the Gothic taste, carried out in pink brick with white facings. It was large and smelt of damp. The bridegroom wore his overcoat throughout the ceremony. It was distinctly high, and Mrs. James’s hands were many times up, and her eyes all about for witness of the “frippery” they beheld. Stations of the Cross were affixed to the pillars of the nave, lamps twinkled in the sanctuary; dimly in an aisle she made out the plaster effigy of a beardless young man in the Capuchin habit, pink cheeks, and a fringe, who carried lilies in a sheaf. “The hermaphrodite,” Mrs. James did not scruple to call him for his pains. “Can we not have some of these things taken out?” she had asked her lord; but the Rector was precise that they must have a faculty, and that they were ten minutes late as it was. He was to officiate, that was one comfort; but it diminished the bridegroom’s party by one.

That occupied, barely, the front pew on the right; the bride’s company that of the left. Mrs. James, Lady Barbara Rewish, an old friend, Miss Germain, a pale sister, Mr. Gradeley, Q.C., who was best man, and smiled at his own thoughts, and the Right Hon. Constantine Jess, like a large comfortable cat, who had been President of the Board of Trade and hoped to be again; that was all—but it was too much for the Middleham connexion, which shrank into a row of ciphers as the rite proceeded.

Jinny Middleham, whose shyness was taken for impudence, would have made a very handsome appearance if she had not been so painfully aware of it; the bride, shorter by a head, looked like a child. She wore pale grey cloth and feathers, and had a black hat. All that art could do for her had been done; her slight figure was enhanced, her little feet seemed smaller, her gloves were perfect—and yet, as Mrs. James recognized with lead in the heart, if John had picked her up in her poppies and white muslin, and married her then and there one could have understood it. A man might love a milkmaid—but a little doll in a smart frock, a suburban miss in masquerade—ah, the pity of it! And yet the girl’s eyes were like stars, and her face, if it was pale, was serious enough. “It won’t do—it will not do,” said Mrs. James to herself—“I despair.” She despaired from the moment of the bride’s entry upon the arm of her little anxious whiskered father—when she saw old Lady Barbara raise her lorgnette upon the group for one minute—and drop it again, and snuggle into her lace. “There’s nothing in it—not even romance,” that look told Mrs. James. “It’s ridiculous—it's rather low—but here I am. And Germain’s an old friend.” Lady Barbara Rewish, alone among his equals, sometimes called Mr. Germain Jack.

That anything possibly low could be set beside Mr. Germain seemed incredible—but, if credible, then tragic. He wore race in every span of his tall, thin figure, in every line of his fastidious, patient face. His simplicity was manifest, his courtesy never at fault. The slight stoop towards her which he gave his bride as she drew level with him—the humble appeal, the hope and the asking—should have struck the word from his old friend’s mind. Thus a man defers to a queen, she might have said—and yet in that she did not she was wiser, perhaps, in her generation than the children of light. Germain was really, now and throughout the ceremony, revelling in the æsthetic. The position, in its pathos and its triviality at once, appealed to the sensual in him. How lovely her humility, how exquisite, how pure his pride! Benevolence! Behold, I stoop and pick for my breast this hedgerow thing! See it for what it is in all this state—see it trembling here upon the edge of a new world! Is not this to be loved indeed—where I only give, and she must look to me alone? To be sought as a mother by a frightened child, to be source and fountain of all, to give—this is to be happy. And, incapable of expressing it by a sign, he was at this moment supremely happy, and, though he would have been aghast at the thought, supremely luxurious. He was, in fact, indulging appetite in the only way possible to him.

The Rector of Misperton, safe behind his panoply of shrugging eyebrows, hardened, too, by use and wont, administered the rite with calm precision. The words were said:—“I, John, take thee, Mary Susan,” “I, Mary Susan, take thee, John”—how she murmured them and how he loved her!—the book was signed—but Mr. Gradeley, Q.C., had no pleasantries at his command, and Mr. Constantine Jess had never had any. Old Lady Barbara kissed the cold bride, and hoped she would be happy. “I’m sure he’s in love with you,” she said, “and you must be good to him. I’ve been in love with him myself any time these ten years. But he wouldn’t look at me—and I don’t wonder. I’m such a wicked old woman.” She told the tale on the way to the Wheatsheaf Hotel, where the bride was to be sped, of how poor old Lord Morfiter had married his cook—“She was a Viennese—and, of course, they are wonderful—such tact! Or is it the stays? There’s a place in Wigmore-street. At any rate, it worked very well, and really there was nothing else to be done. No one understood him so well as she had—no one! She always cooked for him when they were alone—or had one or two people dining. Perhaps it’ll be all right here.”

Mr. Jess bowed. “I sincerely hope so. But—forgive me—do I understand—? Was Mrs. Germain——.”