Chapter IV: The Process of Formation

"We alter day by day;
Each little moment, as life's current rolls,
Stamps some faint impress on our yielding souls;
We may not rest nor stay,
Drifting on tides unseen to one dread goal and sure."
L. MORRIS.

"WALK, Jean?" asked Mr. Trevelyan, putting his head into the Rectory dining-room, one early October afternoon. He was not given to the use of superfluous words.

Jean had been alone for an hour, busily working and busily thinking. She had a good deal to occupy her mind just then. Jem and his mother were expected at Dutton Rectory next day; and Evelyn and Miss Moggridge had arrived three nights earlier at the Park; and Cyril was at the Brow, and moreover was very perplexing.

Perhaps the last-named topic claimed the larger share of her attention, for Jean was provoked with Cyril. She could not forgive him the ridiculous speech he had made in the Academy. As a mere joke it was nothing, but Cyril had looked self-conscious ever since, and his looking so made her feel the same. Jean detested to feel self-conscious. Besides, the whole thing, was absurd. That she should ever marry Cyril—Cyril, with his dainty tastes and fanciful ways!—Impossible!

Cyril was unlike his real self—the real self she had known—and Jean, in popular phraseology, could not tell what to be at with him. What she called being unlike himself, was actually being like his present self, and only unlike his former self. He had so long been her slave, that she did not know what to think of herself or of him, under the new position of affairs. When she had seen him last, he had been a mere unformed lad, submissive to her lightest wish. She had laughed at his bondage, and had told him to think for himself; yet now that the bondage existed no more, she found that she had valued it.

For the young man had ceased to watch Jean with wistful devotion, as the lad had done. He had sprung into a different being. He was pleasantly conscious of his title, his position, his age, his good looks, his gifts, his belongings; above all, of his Manhood. The manhood of twenty-one, though full of potentialities, since at that age, one can seldom guess where may lurk an embryo Shakespeare or an undeveloped Wellington, is such overpowering a matter to other people: but to the individual himself, it is often vast in possibilities.

One leading characteristic of early manhood is, not seldom, a disposition to worship womanhood—using the word "worship" in its conventionally poetic sense. But Jean did not represent Womanhood to Cyril. She was only Jean. He had run after her persistently from infantine days: he had always looked up to and leant upon Jean. Now he wanted somebody who should look up to and lean upon himself. And Jean was hopelessly capable of standing alone.

The idea of some day marrying Jean was an old idea, so familiar that it had slipped out, unexpectedly, at the Academy, surprising himself as much as Jean. Her reception of the speech had rather nettled Cyril: not so much at the moment as afterwards, when he recalled her look. He resolved no longer to trot meekly in her wake. It was time that Jean should learn who and what Sir Cyril Devereux of Ripley Brow really was.

As for marrying—there was plenty of time, and plenty of choice. Any number of nice girls might be glad to become Lady Devereux. Cyril was too modern a young man to be troubled by any morbid humility on the score of his own attractions. True, he did not much care for the ordinary run of "nice girls," since he prided himself on his fine discrimination of taste—whether exercised on sauces and stews, or on pictures and young ladies. But none the less, he was conscious of a wide field before him.

Jean was not ordinary, and therein lay her charm. Somebody else, whom he had come across, was also not ordinary, and therein lay Cyril's perplexity. For this somebody was by no means of so independent a temper as Jean. She had looked up to Cyril, had appealed to his judgment, had treated him in a pleasing manner as something superior to herself. Serious difficulties in that direction threatened to bar advances on the part of Cyril, beyond a certain point: but he was not disposed to deny himself present enjoyment, because of what might come after. The future could take care of itself.

Still, all his life he had been used to tell everything to Jean, and this habit of mind continued unchecked, even after fifteen months of separation. When at the Brow, he suffered from a haunting desire to wander incessantly towards the Rectory. Whether he would ever require Jean for his wife, he did not know. The only thing about which he felt absolutely sure, was that he did not wish Jean to marry anybody else.

The outcome of these ups and downs was a variableness of mood which exasperated Jean. It is a pity that we of modern days cannot go through life with the innocent simplicity of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, who seem habitually to have slided and glided into love, without the remotest suspicion beforehand of what was going to happen next. One can picture the surprise that it must have been for those dear old people—when they were young—one day to be in blissful unconsciousness of anything unusual; the next day to wake up and find themselves over head and ears in a world of new sensations. But even then they never dreamt of tearing their new-found love into little bits, to examine its component parts. They had not come to an introspective and analytic age.

Cyril could no more have walked unconsciously into love with Jean—or with the other girl—than he could have strolled unconsciously into the middle of his deepest pond. One half of himself was always watching the other half with a jealous eye. The minutest symptom of a change of state in either half had no chance of escaping observation. Whether he would rightly read the meaning of each symptom is a different question; for the power of self-gauging is in most people very limited; but at least it would be seen and commented upon.

Cyril had been at home a fortnight, and almost every day, on one pretext or another, he had made his appearance at the Rectory. When he came, he was vexed with himself for coming; and when he stayed away he was miserable. In fact, he very seldom did stay away. He only resolved each day to do so; and each morrow, he failed to carry out yesterday's resolution.

"If he would just be natural and sensible!" murmured the much-exercised Jean. "Or if he would amuse himself at home! . . . Does he haunt the Rectory because he thinks I wish it? He might know better! . . . Well, I shall not have much leisure for him now, with Evelyn and Jem and Cousin Chrissie! . . . After all, I believe it is only that he is a little spoilt. He will find his level by-and-by."

At this juncture, Mr. Trevelyan put his head into the room, and uttered his brief question—

"Walk, Jean?"

"Yes. Anywhere particular, father?"

To herself, Jean added, "So much the better! If he comes, he will find me out."

"Up the gorge. Cottages beyond the V-point. I can't take you in, for there's a case of diphtheria—where from, nobody can imagine. But you may wait for me on the bridge."

"I'll be ready in three minutes."

Strictly in three minutes they were off, through the garden and towards the river. They had a glimpse of the stepping-stones, standing up, solid and square; and Jean saw a little vision of a small white-faced boy, crouching thereon, with pitiful wails for help. Cyril was a great deal changed since those days! She had leisure for recollections, since Mr. Trevelyan never talked for talking's sake, but only spoke when he had something definite to say. He seemed to-day in a silent mood, yet Jean knew well that he liked to have her with him.

They struck away at a brisk pace up the path which led through the gorge. Golden-brown water flowed below; rocky banks rose sharply on either side; and a complex pattern was sketched upon the ground by sunlight through clustering leaves. Autumn colouring had begun to appear in sharp patches of rod and yellow; dying tints, beautiful in death. Jean loved this slow fair fading of foliage in autumn, because of the silent promise embedded therein of winter's quiet sleep, to be followed by spring's Resurrection.

"It is delicious here," she said, as she pressed upward with a light step; and not till they had gone some distance, did she note a movement of her father's—the taking out of his pocket-handkerchief to wipe his face. Jean looked at him in surprise. They were wont to pelt at full speed up this gorge, without "turning a hair," either of them.

"Why, father—are we going too fast?"

"No," rather breathlessly, and as if ashamed. "It is nothing. Warm day."

"I thought the weather perfect." Jean seldom thought it aught else. Sunshine and frost, storm and calm, came alike to her.

She would have slackened speed, but Mr. Trevelyan pressed forward, as if bent on proving to Jean how entirely he was his usual self. The attempt was hardly successful. Reaching the bridge, he came to a pause, leant against the wooden parapet, and actually gasped for breath.

"I don't think you ought to do so much," Jean remarked, mindful of her aunt's parting injunction. She knew better than to show any marked concern, but it was impossible to avoid seeing his condition. For some seconds, he was unable to speak: his eyes had grown dim; a livid paleness overspread his face; and when he again swept away the streaming damp, large drops started anew on his brow.

"It's all right," he said at length, breathing hard. "Nothing of consequence. I am a little out of condition, perhaps. Now I must leave you here."

"May I not come with you? I am not afraid of infection."

"If it were your duty to go, I would say nothing; but it is not. No; take a stroll for fifteen minutes, if you like, and then wait within sight of the bridge. I may be twenty minutes or half-an-hour. Barclay's cottage is only five minutes beyond the others."

"Must you see him to-day?"

"As well go, when I am so near. He was rude last time I called, so the more need that I should call again soon. A strange man—but the poor fellow has had everything in life to harden and embitter him—nothing softening or humanising."

"Then is it his fault that he is what he is?"

Mr. Trevelyan went off at his usual pace, unheeding the words: and Jean crossed the bridge into the path beyond, which led towards the Brow plantations. She was busied with the question she had asked, and with this difficult now parishioner, whom she had not yet so much as seen.

He was, as Mr. Trevelyan said, a strange being; gloomy and repellent; a man who had tasted the dregs of sin and humiliation. After years of penal servitude, followed by the semi-freedom of a ticket-of-leave existence, he was now at liberty to make a fresh start. But he was soured, and friendless. The present had for him no happiness, the future no hope. He seemed to have come to Dulveriford chiefly because he knew nobody there: and the one thing he demanded was to be left alone. He had no doubt something, however little, to live on, since he made no effort to find work. His was a solitary existence. He exchanged amenities with none; rarely entered the village except after dark; and haunted lonely lanes, to the terror of cottage children. Kind words won no response; and kindness in action was spurned. He had lost or flung away all faith in God and in man: and thus far Mr. Trevelyan had failed to make any impression on him.

Jean knew all this, and Mr. Trevelyan's involuntary utterance was a further revelation.

Everything in life against the man! Everything hardening; everything embittering; nothing softening; nothing humanising. Then, how far could he help being what he had become? How far was Barclay responsible? Might he have emerged from such surroundings aught else than the miserable and guilty being that he was? Surely, yes—had he the will to emerge! But could the crippled and stunted will so assert itself? There lay the real core of the problem, rather felt than expressed by Jean. Suppose Barclay to have chosen his own line of life; then he would be responsible for the outcome of that choice. Suppose him to have had no power of choice; then he would only be responsible for the use he had made of surroundings from which he could not escape. Jean saw distinctly the two positions.

"And oh; it is puzzling," she sighed, bending to look at a delicate cobweb, with its silken spokes and parallels, scattered drops of sticky fluid, and spotted crouching owner, all moored by a long elastic cable to a bough overhead.

"The life of lower animals seems so much simpler. They only have to do this or that, without freedom of choice . . . Yet how little we can tell! Even they may have more freedom than we know: and the higher they rise, the more they must decide for themselves . . . A dog can choose whether to obey or disobey; and Prince has a conscience for right or wrong. But then again comes in the question of training. What a different animal Prince would be, if he had run wild in the streets all his life! And he could not have helped the difference."

Precisely at the fifteen minutes' end, she reached the Bridge, and stood there waiting.

It was a pleasant place to wait in, and Jean was in no haste. Like most natures of a finely-strung and intellectual type, hers included a strong love of solitude, and great enjoyment of a tête-à-tête with Nature. The most intimate friend standing by must in some degree detract from this peculiar happiness. Perfectly to enter into Nature's moods, to hear Nature's voices, to be swayed by Nature's influences, one must be absolutely alone with Nature—that is to say, with Nature inanimate and animate, excluding only man.

Nature's mood that day was calm. Just above the rustic bridge the river-bed narrowed, rocks rising perpendicularly on either side; and the golden water flowed between in a steadfast shoot, slanting downward through a fluted channel, which had been polished by the continual rush into smoothness. Near the base of this channel, the swift watery shoot impinged on a projecting rock—of harder texture than surrounding rocks, therefore more slowly worn away—and glanced aside in a continuous rebound, a broad sheet of water, yellow-brown and translucent, curving gracefully from left to right, the edges of the curved sheet being folded as a sheet of iron might have been folded. All this was a temporary arrangement between rock and water; for each drop of water that swept against or over the rock helped to fret away the solid substance; and each passing year would witness further changes in the river-bed.

It is always so in life. Everything tells upon everything else—everybody upon everybody else—by the mere force of impact: and nothing can stand still in a lasting changelessness.

How long the waters had been carving for themselves this fluted rock-channel, who may venture to say? No doubt in past ages, the stream had poured over opposing boulders, making a waterfall beyond: and what was then a waterfall had been since transformed into a swift shoot. Inanimate Nature is very thorough in her mode of work; never getting into a flurry, never stamping aught that she undertakes, but steadily persistent through centuries.

Trees grew around; oak mingling with birch and sycamore with beech, in a very labyrinth of foliage. Creeping ivy had embraced whole trunks, and flung itself from bough to bough. Abundant bracken crowded the banks, turning fast to brown and gold, more fair in its dying than in its fuller life. Mosses and lichens dressed the grey stones with borrowed beauty. Not a breath of air stirred, and not a leaf moved, except where one loose birch-bough near the stream swayed to and fro, swung by the breath of the rushing water. No wonder the rush was strong; for the whole river had to gather itself together and pour through this slender sluice, in the same time that it would loiter below through a bed of unlimited width capabilities. Lack of space had to be balanced by excess of speed.

Jean leant on the parapet, to gaze and listen. She gathered first the broad utterance of the stream, a continuous sound, busy and loud, not unlike the murmur of a town. Then she separated the whole utterance into its many voices, as a trained ear can separate the instruments of an orchestra, listening first to flute, then to violin, and then to 'cello. Jean could hear the little inner whispers, the low gurgles and mutters, of tiny watery whirls and waves, together with the swish of runlets checked by opposing boulders: all of which voices mingled together into one chorus.

A heavy step drawing near brought Jean to an upright position; and at once she was face to face with a gaunt man, tall though slouching, dark-browed and sullen. Jean did not like his look. In a general way, she thought nothing of meeting a stranger in a lonely spot; and personal fear had been hitherto a sensation almost unknown to her. But at the sight of this man, strange to say, fear sprang into existence. She became aware of her unprotected position.

"Good-evening," she said, as he came nearer.

It was the country custom at Dulveriford for everybody to greet everybody in passing; and Jean thought it best to speak, showing no alarm. She moved to leave the bridge, purposing to walk on and meet her father; but this plan was frustrated. The man placed himself at the entrance of the bridge, barring exit on that side.

Should she retreat to the other side? It would look like flight; and the man might follow. To escape along the long path which led towards the Brow plantation, with such a pursuer, seemed worse than to stay where she was. Moreover, she would then be out of Mr. Trevelyan's reach; and here, at any moment, he might appear.