Chapter X: Part 10

Stella let the letter fall into her lap. She was surprised. Somehow she had never thought of Gervase as a religious; she had never thought of him except as a keen young engineer—attractive, self-willed, eccentric, devout. His spiritual development had been so like hers—and she, as she knew well, had no vocation to the religious life—that she was surprised now to find such an essential difference. But her surprise was glad, for though she brushed aside his words of personal gratitude, she felt the thrill of her share in the adventure, and a conviction that it would be for her help as well as for his happiness. Moreover, this new development took away the twinges of self-reproach which she could not help feeling when she thought of her sacrifice of his content to Peter’s jealousy.

But her chief emotion was a kind of sorrowful envy. She envied Gervase not so much the peace of the cloister—not so much the definiteness of his choice—as his freedom. He was free—he had made the ultimate surrender and was free. She knew that he had now passed beyond her, though she had had a whole youth of spiritual experience and practice and he barely a couple of years. He was beyond her, not because of his vocation, but because of his freedom. His soul had escaped like a bird from the snare, but hers was still struggling and bound.

She would never feel for Peter as Gervase felt for her. Her utmost hope was, not to carry her love for him into a new, purged state, but to forget him—if she aimed at less she was deceiving herself, forgetting the manner of woman she was. She had not Gervase’s transmuting ecstasy—nor could she picture herself giving Peter “free kisses” in a Paradise where flesh and blood had no inheritance. Her loves would always be earthly—she would meet her friends in Paradise, but not her lovers.

§ 4

Well, there was no time for reflection, either happy or sorrowful—she must start off for Ashford, or her father would be kept waiting. Once again, after many times, she experience the relief of practical action. Her disposition was eminently practical, and the practical things of love and life and religion—kisses and meals and sacraments—were to her the realities of those states. A lover who did not kiss and caress you, a life which was based on plain living and high thinking, a religion without good outward forms for its inward graces, were all things which Stella’s soul would never grasp.

So she went out to the little “tenant’s fixture” garage, filled the Singer’s tank and cranked her up, and drove off comforted a little in her encounter with life’s surprises. The day was damp and mild. There was a moist sweetness in the air, and the scent of ploughed and rain-soaked earth. Already the spring sowings had begun, and the slow teams moved solemnly to and fro over the January fields. Surely, thought Stella, ploughing was the most unhurried toil on earth. The plough came to the furrow’s end, and halted there, while men and horses seemed equally deep-sunk in meditation. Whole minutes later the whip would crack, and the team turn slowly for the backward furrow. She wouldn’t like to do a slow thing like that—and yet her heart would ache terribly when it was all gone, and she would see the great steam ploughs tearing over the mile-long fields of the West ... she would then think sorrowfully of those small, old Sussex fields—the oldest in the world—with their slow ploughing; she would crave all the more for the inheritance which Peter might have given her among them....

She was beginning to feel bad again—and it was a relief to find that the car dragged a little on the steering, pulling towards the hedge, even though she knew that it meant a punctured tyre. The Singer always punctured her tyres like a lady—she never indulged in vulgar bursts, with a bang like a shot-gun and a skid across the road. Stella berthed her beside the ditch, and began to jack her up.

Well, it was a nuisance, seeing that her father would be kept waiting. But she ought to be able to do the thing in ten minutes ... she wished she was wearing her old suit, though. She would make a horrible mess of herself, changing wheels on a dirty day.... The car was jacked up, and Stella was laying out her tools on the running board when she heard a horse’s hoofs in the lane.

It seemed at first merely a malignant coincidence that the rider should be Peter; yet, after all, the coincidence was not so great when she reflected that she was now on the lane between Conster and Starvecrow. She had heard that Peter had lately taken to riding a white horse—it was all part of the picture he was anxious to paint of himself as Squire. He would emphasize his Squirehood, since to it he had sacrificed himself as freeman and lover.

She had never seen him looking so much the Squire of tradition as he looked today. He wore a broadcloth coat, corduroy breeches, brown boots and leggings and a bowler hat. Of late he had rather increased in girth, and looked full his forty years. Unaccountably this fact stirred up Stella’s heart into a raging pity—Peter middle-aged and getting stout, Peter pathetically over-acting his part of country gentleman—it stirred all the love and pity of her heart more deeply than any figure of romance and youth. She hoped he would not stop, but considering her position she knew she was hoping too much.

He hitched the white horse to the nearest gate and dismounted. They had not been alone together since the summer, though they had met fairly often in company, and now she was conscious of a profound embarrassment and restraint in them both.

“Have you punctured?” he asked heavily.

“No, but the tyre has,” said Stella.

The reply was not like herself, it was part of the new attitude of defence—a poor defence, since she despised herself for being on guard, and was therefore weaker.

“You must let me help you change the wheel.”

“I can do it myself, quite easily. Don’t bother, Peter—you know I’m used to these things.”

“Yes, but it’s dirty work for a woman. You’ll spoil your clothes.”

She could not insist on refusing. She went to the other side of the car, where her spare wheel was fastened, and bent desperately over the straps. She wondered how the next few minutes would pass—in heaviness and pertness as they had begun, or in technical talk of tyres and nuts and jacks, or in the limp politeness of the knight errant and distressed lady.

The next moment Peter made a variation she had not expected.

“Stella, is it true that you’re going away?”

“I—I don’t know. It isn’t settled.... Who told you?”

“Rose told me—but it can’t be true.”

“Why not?”

“Your father surely would never go away at his time of life—and Rose spoke of the Colonies. He’d never go right away and start afresh like that.”

“Father’s heard of a very good billet near Montreal. We haven’t settled anything yet, but we both feel we’d like a change.”

“Why?”

“Well, why shouldn’t we? We’ve been here more than twenty years, and as for Father being old, he’s not too old to want to see a bit more of the world.”

Peter said nothing. He was taking off the wheel. When he had laid it against the bank he turned once more to Stella.

“It’s queer how I always manage to hear gossip about you. But it seems that this time I’m right, while last time I was wrong.”

“Everyone gets talked about in a little place like this.”

She tried to speak lightly, but she was distressed by the way he looked at her. Those pale blue eyes ... Alard eyes, Saxon eyes ... the eyes of the Old People looking at her out of the Old Country, and saying “Don’t go away....”

The next minute his lips repeated what his eyes had said:

“Don’t go away.”

She trembled, and stepped back from him on the road.

“I must go.”

“Indeed you mustn’t—I can’t bear it any longer if you do.”

“That’s why I must go.”

“No—no——”

He came towards her, and she stepped back further still.

“Don’t go, Stella. I can’t live here without you.”

“But, Peter, you must. What good am I doing you here?”

“You’re here. I know that you’re only a few miles away. I can think of you as near me. If you went right away....”

“It would be much better for both of us.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Stella, it will break me if you go. My only comfort during the last six hellish months has been that at least you’re not so very far from me in space, that I can see you, meet you, talk to you now and then....”

“But, Peter, that’s what I can’t bear. That’s why I’m going away.”

Her voice was small and thin with agitation. This was worse, a hundred times worse, than anything she had dreaded five minutes ago. She prayed incoherently for strength and sense.

“If that’s what you feel, you’ve got to stay,” Peter was saying. “Stella, you’ve shown me—Stella, you still care.... Oh, I’ll own up, I’ll own that I’ve been a fool, and a blackguard to you. But if you still care, I can be almost happy. We’ve still something left. Only you’ll have to stay.”

“You mustn’t talk like this.”

“Why not—if you still care? Oh, Stella, say it’s true—say you still care ... a little.”

She could not deny her love, even though she was more afraid of his terrible happiness than she had been before of his despair. To deny it would be a profaning of something holier than truth. All she could say was—

“If I love you, it’s all the more necessary for me to go away.”

“It’s not. If you love me, I can be to you at least what you are to me. But if you go away, you’ll be as wretched as I shall be without you.”

“No ... if I go away, we can forget.”

“Forget!—What?—each other?”

“Yes.”

The word was almost inaudible. She prayed with all her strength that Peter would not come to her across the road and take her in his arms. His words she could fight, but not his arms....

“Stella—you’re not telling me that you’re going away to forget me?”

“I must, Peter. And you’ll forget me, too. Then we’ll be able to live instead of just—loving.”

“But my love for you is my life—all the life I’ve got.”

“No—you’ve got Vera, and soon you’ll have your child. When I’ve gone you can go back to them.”

“I can’t—you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you think I can ever feel again for Vera what I felt when I was fool enough——”

“Oh, don’t....”

“But I will. Why should you delude yourself, and think I’m just being unfaithful to my wife? It’s to you I’ve been unfaithful. I was unfaithful to you with Vera—and now I’ve repented and come back.”

They faced each other, two yards apart in the little muddy lane. Behind Peter the three-wheeled car stood forlornly surrounded by tools, while his horse munched the long soaking tufts under the hedge. Behind Stella the hedge rose abruptly in a soaring crown. Looking up suddenly, she saw the delicate twigs shining against a sheet of pale blue sky in a faint sunlight. For some reason they linked themselves with her mind’s effort and her heart’s desire. Here was beauty which did not burn.... She suddenly found herself calm.

“Peter, dear, there’s no good talking like that. Let’s be sensible. Rightly or wrongly you’ve married someone else, and you’ve got to stand by it and so have I. If I stay on here we will only just be miserable—always hankering after each other, and striving for little bits of each other which can’t satisfy. Neither of us will be able to settle down and live an ordinary life, and after all that’s what we’re here for—not for adventures and big passions, but just to live ordinary lives and be happy in an ordinary way.”

“Oh, damn you!” cried Peter.

It was like the old times when he used to rail against her “sense,” against the way she always insisted that their love should be no star or cloud, but a tree, well rooted in the earth. It made it more difficult for her to go on, but she persevered.

“You’ve tried the other thing, Peter—you’ve tried sacrificing ordinary things like love and marriage to things like family pride and the love of a place. You’ve found it hasn’t worked, so don’t do the whole thing over again by sacrificing your home and family to a love which can never be satisfied.”

“But it can be,” said Peter—“at least it could if you were human.”

Stella, a little to his annoyance, didn’t pretend not to know what he meant.

“No, it couldn’t be—not satisfied. We could only satisfy a part of it—the desire part—the part which wants home and children would always have to go unsatisfied, and that’s as strong as the rest, though it makes less fuss.”

“And how much satisfaction shall we get through never seeing each other again?”

“We shall get it—elsewhere. You will at least be free to go back to Vera—and you did love her once, you can’t deny it—you did love her once. And I——”

“—Will be free to marry another man.”

“I don’t say that, Peter—though also I don’t say that I won’t. But I shall be free to live the life of a normal human being again, which I can’t now. I shan’t be bringing unrest and misery wherever I go—to myself and to you. Oh, Peter, I know we can save ourselves if we stop now, stop in time. We were both quite happy last time I was away—I was a fool ever to come back. I must go away now before it’s too late.”

“You’re utterly wrong. When you first went away I could be happy with Vera—I couldn’t now. All that’s over and done with for ever, I tell you. I can never go back to her, whether you go or stay. It’s nothing to do with your coming back—it’s her fault—and mine. We aren’t suited, and nothing can ever bring us together again now we’ve found it out.”

“Not even the child?...”

“No—not even that. Besides, how do I know.... Stella, all the things I’ve sacrificed you to have failed me, except Starvecrow.”

“You’ve still got Starvecrow.”

“Yes, but I.... Oh, Stella, don’t leave me alone, not even with Starvecrow. The place wants you, and when you’re gone I’m afraid.... Vera doesn’t belong there; it’s your place. Oh, Stella, don’t say you can live without me, any more than I can live without you.”

She longed to give him the answer of her heart—that she could never, never live without him, go without the dear privilege of seeing him, of speaking to him, of sacrificing to him all other thoughts and loves. But she forced herself to give him the answer of her head, for she knew that it would still be true when her heart had ceased to choke her with its beating.

“Peter, I don’t _feel_ as if I could live without you, but I _know_ I can—and I know you can live without me, if I go away. What you’ve said only shows me more clearly that I must go. I could never stop here now you know I love you.”

“And why not?—it’s your damned religion, I suppose—teaching you that it’s wrong to love—that all that sort of thing’s disgusting, unspiritual—you’ve got your head stuffed with all the muck a lot of celibate priests put into it, who think everything’s degrading.”

She felt the tears come into her eyes.

“Don’t, my dear. Do you really believe—you who’ve known me—that I think love is degrading?—or that my religion teaches me to think so? Why, it’s because all that is so lovely, so heavenly and so good, that it mustn’t be spoilt—by secrecy and lies, by being torn and divided. Oh, Peter, you know I love love....”

“So much that you can apparently shower it on anyone as long as you get the first victim out of the way.”

They both turned suddenly, as the jar of wheels sounded up the hill. It would be agony to have the discussion broken off here, but Stella knew that she mustn’t refuse any opportunity of ending it. No longer afraid of Peter’s arms, she crossed swiftly to the dismantled car.

“Please don’t wait. I can manage perfectly now. Please go, Peter—please go.”

“I’ll go only if you promise to see me again before you leave.”

“Of course I will—I’ll see you again; but you must go now.”

The wagon of Barline, heavy with crimson roots, was lurching and skidding down the hill towards them. Peter went to his standing horse, and rode him off into the field. Stella turned to the car, and, crouched in its shelter, allowed herself the luxury of tears.

§ 5

She dried her eyes, came up from behind the car, and lost herself in the sheer labour of putting on the wheel. She was late, she must hurry; she strove, she sweated, and at last was once more in her seat, the damaged wheel strapped in its place, all the litter of tools in the dickie. She switched on the engine, pressed the self-starter pedal, slid the gear lever into place, and the little car ran forward. Then she realised what a relief it was to find herself in motion—some weight seemed to lift from her mind, and her numb thoughts began to move, to run to and fro. She was alive again.

But it hurt to be alive. Perhaps one was happier dead. For the thoughts that ran to and fro were in conflict, they formed themselves into two charging armies, meeting with horrible impact, terror and wounds. Her mind was a battle-field, divided against itself, and as usual the movement of the car seemed to make her thoughts more independent, more free of her control. They moved to the throb and mutter of the engine, as to some barbaric battle-music, some monotonous drum. She herself seemed to grow more and more detached from them. She was no longer herself—she was two selves—the self that loved Peter and the self that loved God. She was Stella Mount at prayer in Vinehall church—Stella Mount curled up on Peter’s knees ... long ago, at Starvecrow—Stella Mount receiving her soul again in absolution ... Stella Mount loving, loving, with a heart full of fiery sweetness.... Well, aren’t they a part of the same thing—love of man and love of God? Yes, they are—but today there is schism in the body.

During the last few months love had given her nothing but pain, for she had seemed to be swallowed up in it, away from the true richness of life. She had lost that calm, cheerful glow in which all things, even the dullest and most indifferent, had seemed interesting and worth while. Love had extinguished it. The difference she saw between religion and love was that religion shone through all things with a warm, soft light, making them all friendly and sweet, whereas love was like a fierce beam concentrated on one spot, leaving the rest of life in darkness, shining only on one object, and that so blindingly that it could not be borne.

She felt a sudden spasm of revolt against the choice forced upon her. Why should she have to choose between heaven and earth, which she knew in her heart were two parts of one completeness? Why should God want her to give up for His sake the loveliest thing that He had made?... Why should He want her to _burn_?

Now had come the time, she supposed, when she would have to pay for the faith which till then had been all joy, which in its warmth and definiteness had taught her almost too well how to love. It had made her more receptive, more warm, more eager, and had deprived her of those weapons of self-interest and pride and resentment which might have armed her now. Perhaps it was because they knew religion makes such good lovers that masters of the spiritual life have urged that the temptations of love are the only ones from which it is allowable to run away. It was her duty to run away from Peter now, because the only weapons with which she could fight him were more unworthy than surrender. With a grimmer, vaguer belief she might have escaped more easily—she might have seen evil in love, she might have distrusted happiness and shunned the flesh. But then she would not have been Stella Mount—she owed her very personality to her faith—she owed it all the intense joy she had had in human things. Should she stumble at the price?

If only the price were not Peter—Peter whom she loved, whom the love of God had taught her to love more than her heart could ever have compassed alone. Why must he be sacrificed? After all, she was offering him up to her own satisfaction—to her anxiety to keep hold of heavenly things. Why should he be butchered to give her soul a holiday? She almost hated herself—hated herself for her odious sense, for her cold-blooded practicalness. She proposed to go away not only so as to be out of temptation—let her be honest—but so that she could forget him and live the life of a normal happy woman ... which of course meant some other man.... No wonder he was disgusted with her—poor, honest, simple, unsatisfied Peter. She was proposing to desert him, sure of interior comforts he had never known, and secretly sure that the detestable adaptability of her nature would not allow her to mourn him long once he was far away. Oh, Peter—Peter!... “I will give you back the years that the locust hath eaten—I have it in my power. I can do it—I can give you back the locust’s years. I can do it still....”

She could do it still. She could tell her father that she did not want to go away after all—and he would be glad ... poor Father! He was only going for her sake. He would be glad to stay on among the places and the people that he loved. And she ... she could be a good, trusty friend to Peter, someone he could turn to in his loneliness, who would understand and help him with his plans for Alard and Starvecrow.... What nonsense she was talking. Silly hypocrite! Both sides of her, the Stella who loved Peter and the Stella who loved God, saw the futility of such an idea. She could never be any man’s friend—least of all Peter’s. If she stayed, it would be to love Peter, to be all that it was still possible for her to be to him, all that Vera was and the more that she was not.

But could she? Had she the power to love Peter with a love unspoilt by regret? Would she be able to bear the thought of her treachery to the Lord whose happy child she had been so long?—to His Mother and hers—to all His friends and hers, the saints—to all the great company of two worlds whom she would betray? For her the struggle contained no moral issue. It was simply a conflict between love and love. And all the while she knew in the depth of her heart that love cannot really be divided, and that her love of God held and sustained her love of Peter, as the cloud holds the rain-drop, and the shore the grain of sand.

The first houses of Ashford slid past, and she saw the many roofs of the railway-works. Traffic dislocated the strivings of her mind, and in time her thoughts once more became numb. They lay like the dead on the battle-field, the dead who would rise again.

§ 6

Gervase came to see Stella, according to promise, the following Sunday. He found her looking tired and heavy-headed, and able only mechanically to sustain her interest in his plans. Also he still found her unapproachable—she was not cold or contrary, but reserved, feeding on herself.

He guessed the source of her trouble, but shrank from probing it—keeping the conversation to his own affairs with an egotism he would normally have been ashamed of. What he noticed most was the extinction of joy in her—she had always seemed to him so fundamentally happy, and it was her profound and so natural happiness which had first attracted him towards her religion. But now the lamp was out. He was not afraid for her—it did not strike him that she could possibly fail or drop under her burden; but his heart ached for her, alone in the Dark Night—that very Dark Night he himself had come through alone.... Now he stood, also alone, in a strange dawn which had somehow changed the world, as the fields are changed in the whiteness of a new day.

It was not till he got up to go that he dared try to come closer. They had been talking about the difficulties of the life he had chosen.

“I’m afraid Christianity’s a hard faith, my dear,” he said as he took her hand—“the closer you get to the Gospel the harder it is. You’ve no idea what a shock the Gospels gave me when I read them again last year, not having looked at them since I was a kid. I was expecting something rather meek-and-mild, with a gentle, womanly Saviour, and all sorts of kind and good-natured sentiments. Instead of which I find that the Kingdom of Heaven is for the violent, while the Lion of Judah roars in the Temple courts ... He built His Church upon a Rock, and sometimes we hit that Rock mighty hard.”

“But I do hope you’ll be happy, Gervase.”

“I’m sure of that, though whether it will be in a way that will be easily recognised as happiness I’m not so sure.”

“When are you going?”

“It’s not quite settled yet. I leave off at Gillingham’s on the twenty-fifth, and I expect I’ll go to Thunders early in February. I’ll come and see you again before then. Goodbye, my dear.”

He kissed her hand before letting it go.

§ 7

He had said nothing to her about his sister Jenny, though her marriage was so close as to seem almost more critical than his own departure. He felt the unfairness of sharing with Stella so difficult a secret, also he realised that the smaller the circle to which it was confined the smaller the catastrophe when it was either accidentally discovered or deliberately revealed.

About a week before the day actually fixed for the wedding, the former seemed more likely. Jenny met Gervase on his return from Ashford with a pale, disconcerted face.

“Father guesses something’s up,” she said briefly.

“What?—How?—Has anyone told him?”

“No—he doesn’t really know anything, thank heaven—at least anything vital. But he’s heard I was at tea at Fourhouses twice last week. One of the Dengates called for some eggs, I remember, and she must have told Rose when Rose was messing about in the village. He’s being heavily sarcastic, and asking me if I wouldn’t like Mrs. Appleby asked in to tea, so that I won’t have to walk so far to gratify my democratic tastes.”

“But Peter’s had tea with them, too—you told me it was he who introduced you.”

“Yes, but that only makes it worse. Peter’s been at me as well—says he’d never have taken me there if he’d thought I hadn’t a better sense of my position. He was very solemn about it, poor old Peter.”

“But of course they don’t suspect any reason.”

“No, but I’m afraid they will. I’m not likely to have gone there without some motive—twice, too—and, you see, I’ve been so secret about it, never mentioned it at home, as I should have done if I’d had tea at Glasseye or Monkings or anywhere like that. They must think I’ve some reason for keeping quiet.... I hope they won’t question me, for I’m a bad liar.”

“You’ll be married in ten days—I don’t suppose they’ll get really suspicious before that.”

However, a certain amount of reflection made him uneasy, and after dinner he drove over to Fourhouses, to discuss the matter with Ben Godfrey himself.

When he came back, he went straight up to Jenny’s room—she had gone to bed early, so as to give her family less time for asking questions.

“Well, my dear,” he said when she let him in, “I’ve talked it over with Ben, and we both think that you’ll have to get married at once.”

“At once!—But can we?”

“Yes—the law allows you to get married the day after tomorrow. It’ll cost thirty pounds, but Fourhouses can rise to that, and it’s much better to get the thing over before it’s found out. Not that anyone could stop you, but it would be a maddening business if they tried, and anyhow I think the parents will take it easier if it’s too late to do anything.”

“I think you’re quite right—absolutely right. But——”

“But what?”

“Oh, nothing—only it seems such a jump, now I’m standing right on the edge.”

“You’re not afraid, Jenny?”

“No—only in the way that everyone’s afraid of a big thing. But you’re absolutely right. Now there’s a chance of us being found out, we must act at once. I don’t want to have to tell any lies about Ben. I suppose he’ll go up to town tomorrow.”

“Yes, and you and I will follow him the day after. I must see about a day off. I’m not quite clear as to what one does exactly to get a special license, but he’ll go to the Court of Faculties and they’ll show him how. He’s going to wire me at Gillingham’s—lucky I’m still there.”

“I don’t envy you, Gervase, having to break the news to Father and Mother.”

“No, I don’t think it’ll be much fun. But really it will be better than if you wrote—I can let them down more gently, and they won’t feel quite so outraged. As for the row—there’ll be one about my own little plan in a short time, so I may as well get used to them.”

Jenny said nothing. She had known of Gervase’s “little plan” only for the last week, and she had for it all the dread and dislike which the active Englishwoman instinctively feels for the contemplative and supernatural—reinforced now by the happy lover’s desire to see all the world in love. The thought of her brother, with all his eager experimental joy in life, all his profound yet untried capacity for love, taking vows of poverty and celibacy, filled her with grief and indignation—she felt that he was being driven by the backwash of his disappointment over Stella Mount, and blamed “those Priests,” who she felt had unduly influenced him at a critical time. However, after her first passionate protest, she had made no effort to oppose him, feeling that she owed him at least silence for all that he had done to help her in her own adventure, and trusting to time and recovery to show him his folly. She was a little reassured by the knowledge that he could not take his final vows for many years to come.

He was aware of this one constraint between them, and coming over to her as she lay in bed, he gave her a kiss. For some unfathomable reason it stung her, and turning over on her side she burst into tears.

“Jenny, Jenny darling—don’t cry. Oh, why ... Jenny, if you’ve any doubts, tell me before it’s too late, and I’ll help you out—I promise. Anything rather than....”

“Oh, don’t, Gervase. It isn’t that. Can’t you understand? It’s—oh, I suppose all women feel like this—not big enough ... afraid....”

§ 8

The wedding had always been planned to take place in London, so it was merely the time that was being altered. Both Gervase and Jenny had seen, and Ben Godfrey had been brought reluctantly to see, that to be married at home would double the risks; so a room had been taken and a bag of Godfrey’s clothes deposited in a Paddington parish, where the Vicar was liberal in his interpretation of the laws of residence, and an ordinary licence procured. The change of plans necessitated a special licence, and Jenny had to wait till Gervase came home the next evening to know if all was in order. However, after the shock of its inception, the new scheme worked smoothly. Jenny came down early the next morning and breakfasted with Gervase, then drove off in Henry Ford, leaving a message with Wills that she had gone to London for the day, and her brother was driving her as far as Ashford.

Everything was so quiet and matter-of-fact as to seem to her almost normal—she could not quite realise that she had left her old life behind her at Conster, even more completely than most brides leaving their father’s house; that ahead of her was not only all the difference between single and married, but all the difference between Alard and Godfrey, Conster and Fourhouses. She was not only leaving her home, but her class, her customs, her acquaintance. It was not till she was standing beside Godfrey in a strange, dark church, before a strange clergyman, that she realised the full strangeness of it all. For a moment her head swam with terror—she found herself full of a desperate longing to wake up in her bed at Conster and find it was a dream—she thought of the catastrophe of Mary’s marriage, and she knew that she was taking far bigger risks than Mary.... And through all this turmoil she could hear herself saying quite calmly—“I, Janet Christine, take thee, Benjamin, to be my wedded husband.” Some mechanical part of her was going on with the business, while her emotions cowered and swooned. Now she was signing her name in the register—Janet Christine Godfrey—now she was shaking hands with the clergyman and answering his inane remarks with inanities of her own. It was too late to draw back—she had plunged—Jenny Alard was dead.

They had lunch at a restaurant in Praed Street, and afterwards Gervase went with them to Paddington Station and saw them off to Cornwall. They were not going to be away long, partly on account of Godfrey’s spring sowings, and partly because Jenny felt that she could not leave her brother any length of time to stand the racket. She would still have liked to suppress his share in the business, but Gervase was firm—“It’s treating them better,” he said, “and, besides, it will help them a lot to have a scapegoat on the premises.”

Jenny felt almost sentimental in parting from the little brother, who had helped her so much in the path she had chosen, and who had taken for himself so rough and ridiculous a road. She kissed him in the carriage doorway, made him promise to write to her, and then did her best to put him out of her head for the first happy hours of the honeymoon.

Circumstances made this fairly easy. By the time they were at Mullion, watching the low lamps of the stars hanging over the violet mists that veiled Poldhu, even Gervase seemed very far away, and the household and life of Conster Manor almost as if they had never been. Nothing was real but herself and Ben, alone together in the midst of life, each most completely the other’s desire and possession. When she looked into his eyes, full of their new joy and trouble, the husband’s eyes which held also the tenderness of the father and the simplicity of the child, there was no longer any past or future, but only the present—“I love.”

The next day, however, recalled her rather abruptly to thoughts of her scapegoat. She received a telegram—

“Father kicked me out address Church Cottage Vinehall don’t worry
Gervase.”

Jenny was conscience-stricken, though she knew that Gervase would not be much hurt by his exile. But she was anxious to hear what had happened, and waited restlessly for a letter. None came, but the next morning another telegram.

“Father had stroke please come home Gervase.”

So Jenny Godfrey packed up her things and came home after two days’ honeymoon. Happiness is supposed to make time short, but those two days had seemed like twenty years.

§ 9

Gervase reproached himself for having done his part of the business badly, though he never felt quite sure how exactly he had blundered. He had reached Conster two hours before dinner, and trusted that this phenomenon might prepare his father for some surprise. But, disappointingly, Sir John did not notice his return—he had grown lately to think less and less about his youngest son, who was seldom at home and whom he looked upon as an outsider. Gervase had deliberately alienated himself from Alard, and Sir John could never, in spite of Peter’s efforts, be brought properly to consider him as an heir. His goings out and his comings in were of little consequence to the head of the house. So when at six o’clock Gervase came into the study, his father was quite unimpressed.

“May I speak to you for a minute, Sir?”

“Well, well—what is it?”

Sir John dipped _Country Life_ the fraction of an inch to imply a temporary hearing.

“It’s about Jenny, Sir.”

“Well, what about her?”

“She’s—I’ve been with her in town today. I’ve just come back. She asked me to tell you about her and young Godfrey.”

“What’s that? Speak up, Sir, can’t you? I can’t hear when you mumble. Come and stand where I can see you.”

Gervase came and stood on the hearthrug. He was beginning to feel nervous. Uncomfortable memories of childhood rushed up confusedly from the back of his mind, and gave him sore feelings of helplessness and inferiority.

“It’s about Jenny and young Godfrey, Sir.”

“Godfrey! Who’s Godfrey?”

“Benjamin Godfrey of Fourhouses—the man who bought your Snailham land.”

“Well, what about him?”

“It’s about him and Jenny, Sir.”

“Well, _what_ about ’em? What the devil’s he got to do with Jenny?”

“Don’t you remember she went to tea at Fourhouses last week?”

“She hasn’t been there again, has she?”

Gervase considered that the subject had been sufficiently led up to—anyhow he could stand no more of the preliminaries.

“Well, yes, Sir—at least she’s having tea with him now—at least not tea.... I mean, they were married this morning.”

Sir John dropped _Country Life_.

“Married this morning,” he repeated in a lame, normal voice.

“Yes, Sir, at St. Ethelburga’s, Paddington. They’ve been in love with each other for some time, but as they didn’t expect you’d quite see things as they did, they thought they’d better wait to tell you till after the ceremony.”

“And where—where are they now?”

“At Mullion, Sir—in Cornwall.”

Sir John said nothing. His face turned grey, and he trembled. Gervase was distressed.

“Don’t take it so dreadfully to heart, Father. I’m sure it’s really for the best. He’s a decent chap, and very well-to-do—he’ll be able to give her everything she’s been accustomed to”—remembering an old tag.

“Get out!” said Sir John suddenly.

“I’m frightfully sorry if you think we’ve treated you badly, Sir. But really we tried to do it in the way we thought would hurt you least.”

“Get out!” repeated his father—“get out of here. This is your doing, with your socialism, with your contempt for your own family, with your.... Get out of the room, or I’ll....”

His shaking hand groped round for a missile, and Gervase moved hastily to the door, too late, however, to escape a bound volume of _Punch_, which preceded him into the hall.

Wills was standing outside the dining-room door with a tray, and Gervase found it very difficult to look dignified. Such an attitude was even more difficult to keep up during the alarms that followed. He retreated to his bedroom, taking _Punch_ with him, partly as a solace, partly in a feeble hope of persuading Wills that to have a book thrown at your head is a normal way of borrowing it. He had not been alone a quarter of an hour before he was summoned by Speller, his mother’s maid. There followed an interview which began in reproaches, passed on to an enquiry into Jenny’s luggage—had she bought brushes and sponges in London, since she had taken nothing away?—and ended cloudily in hysterics and lavender water. Gervase went back to his room, which ten minutes later was entered by the sobbing Doris, who informed him he had “killed Mother,” who apparently required a post-mortem interview. Once again he went down to the boudoir with its rose-coloured lights and heavy scents of restoratives, and to the jerky accompaniment of Doris’s weeping told his story over again. He had to tell it a fourth time to Peter, who had been summoned from Starvecrow, and found that it was hardening into set phrases, and sounded rather like the patter of a guide recounting some historic elopement from a great house.

“They’ve been in love for some time, but as they didn’t expect you’d quite see things as they did——”

“My God!” said Peter.

He was perhaps the most scandalised of all the Alards, and had about him a solemn air of wounding which was more distressing to Gervase than his father’s wrath.

“I introduced him to her,” he said heavily—“I introduced him. I never thought ... how _could_ I think ... that she held herself so cheap—all of us so cheap.”

“You really needn’t treat the matter as if Jenny had married the rag-and-bone man——” began Gervase.

“I know Godfrey’s position quite well.”

“He farms his own land, and comes of good old stock. He’s well off, and will be able to give her everything she’s been accustomed to——”

“He won’t. She’s been accustomed to the society of gentlepeople, and he’ll never be able to give her that. She’s gone to live on a farm, where she’ll have her meals in the kitchen with the farm-men. I tell you I know the Godfreys, and they’re nothing more than a respectable, good sort of farming people who’ve done well out of the war. At least, I won’t call them even that now,” he added fiercely—“I won’t call a man respectable who worms himself into intimacy with my sister on the strength of my having introduced him.”

“However, it’s some comfort to think they’ve gone to the Poldhu hotel at Mullion,” said Lady Alard; “the Blakelocks were there once, you know, Doris, and the Reggie Mulcasters. She won’t notice the difference quite so terribly since he’s taken her there.”

“Yes, she will,” said Peter—“she’ll notice the difference between the kind of man she’s been used to meeting here and a working farmer, who wasn’t even an officer during the war. If she doesn’t—I’ll think worse of her even than I do now. And as for you——” turning suddenly on Gervase—“I don’t trust myself to tell you what I think of you. I expect you’re pleased that we’ve suffered this disgrace—that a lady of our house has married into the peasantry. You think it’s democratic and all that. You’re glad—don’t say you’re not.”

“Yes, I am glad, because Jenny’s happy. You, none of you, seem to think of that. You don’t seem to think that ‘the kind of man she’s been meeting here’ hasn’t been the slightest use to her—that all he’s done has been to trouble her and trifle with her and then go off and marry money—that now at last she’s met a man who’s treated her honourably——”

“Honourably! He’s treated her like the adventurer he is. Oh, it’s a fine thing of him to marry into our family, even if she hasn’t got a penny—his ancestors were our serfs—they ran at our people’s stirrups, and our men had the _droit du seigneur_ of their women——”

“And pulled out the teeth of your wife’s forefathers,” said Gervase, losing his temper. “If you’re going back five hundred years, I don’t think your own marriage will bear the test.”

He knew that if he stayed he would quarrel with them all, and he did not want to do that, for he was really sorry for them, wounded in their most sensitive feelings of family pride. He walked out of the room, and made for the attic stairs, seeking the rest and dignity of solitude. But it was not to be. The door of his father’s dressing-room opened as he passed, and Sir John came out on the landing, already dressed for dinner.

“You understand that after what has happened I cannot keep you here.”

He was quite calm now, and rather terrifying.

“I—oh, no—I mean yes, of course,” stammered Gervase.

“You have work at Ashford, so you can go and lodge near it. Or you can go to your Ritualist friends at Vinehall. I refuse to have you here after your treachery. You are a traitor, Sir—to your own family.”

“When—when would you like me to go?”

“You can stay till tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks—I’ll leave tonight.”

So the day’s catastrophe ended in Gervase driving off through the darkness in Henry Ford, his suit-case and a few parcels of books behind him. He had decided to go to Luce—the Priest would take him in till he was able to go to Thunders Abbey.

“Well, anyhow, I’m spared that other row,” he thought to himself; “or, rather, I’ve got through two rows in one. Father won’t mind what I do with myself after this.”

He felt rather forlorn as the lorry’s lights swept up the Vinehall road. During the last few months he had been stripped of so many things—his devotion to Stella, his comradeship with Jenny—he knew that he could never be to her what he had been before she married—and now his family and his home. And all he had to look forward to was a further, more complete stripping, even of the clothes he wore, so that in all the world he would own nothing.

§ 10

Any lack of cordiality in Luce’s welcome was made up by his quite matter-of-fact acceptance of this sudden descent upon him at a late hour of a young man and all his worldly goods, including a Ford lorry. The latter was given the inn stable as a refuge, while Gervase was told he could have the spare bedroom as long as he liked if he would clear out the apples. This done and some porridge eaten, he went to bed, utterly worn out, and feeling less like Gervase Alard than he had ever felt in his life.

The next day he went off to work as usual, sending a telegram to Jenny on his way. When he came back he found a message had arrived from Conster—he must go home at once; his father had had a stroke.

“I’ve a ghastly feeling it was brought on by this row,” he said to Luce, as he filled up the lorry’s tank for the new journey.

“It must have been,” was all the reassurance he got.

Gervase felt wretched enough. The message, which had been left by Dr. Mount, gave no details, and as the cottage was empty when he called, there had been no verbal additions or explanations. He thought of calling at the doctor’s on his way to Leasan—he had meant to go there anyhow this evening and tell them about Jenny’s marriage—but he decided it was best to lose no time, and drove straight to Conster.

Here he received his first respite. The stroke was not a severe one, and Dr. Mount was practically certain Sir John would get over it. However, he seemed to think the other members of the family ought to be sent for, and Doris had telegraphed to Mary but not to Jenny, as she didn’t think Jenny deserved it after what she had done. She did not think Gervase deserved it, either, but evidently Dr. Mount had taken it upon himself to decide, and left a message without consulting her.

He was not allowed to go near his father that night, and spent the hours intermittently sleeping and waking in his little cold bedroom, now empty of everything that was really his. The next morning he went out and sent a telegram to Jenny. But by the time she arrived her presence was useless. Sir John had recovered consciousness and would see none of his erring children. Mary, Gervase and Jenny waited together in the drawing-room in hopes that the edict would be revoked. But, as Doris came down to tell them at intervals, it was no use whatever. He refused to let them come near him—indeed, the mere mention of their names seemed to irritate him dangerously. Towards evening Dr. Mount advised them to go away.

“I’m afraid there’s no hope, at present anyhow—and it’s best not to worry him. There’s often a very great irritability in these cases. He may become calmer as his condition improves.”

So Jenny, scared and tired, was taken away by her husband to the shelter of Fourhouses, and Gervase prepared to go back to Vinehall. They were both rather guiltily conscious that they did not pity those who had been denied the presence so much as those who were bound to it—Doris, who as unofficial nurse and substitute scapegoat, was already beginning to show signs of wear and tear—and Peter, worn with a growing sense of responsibility and the uncertain future brought a step nearer ... no doubt the younger ones had made an easy escape.

Only Mary looked a bit wistful.

“It’s so long since I’ve seen him,” she said as she stood on the steps, waiting for the car which was to take her back to Hastings.

“Cheer up, my dear—he’ll change his mind when he gets better,” said Gervase.

Mary shook her head. She had altered strikingly since he had seen her last. She seemed all clothes—faultless, beautiful clothes, which seemed mysteriously a part of herself so that it was difficult to imagine her without them. Her real self had shrunk, faded, become something like a whisper or a ghost—she was less Mary Pembroke than a suit of lovely grey velvet and fur which had somehow come alive and taken the simulacrum of a woman to show off its beauty.

“Where are you going?” he asked her, moved with a sudden anxious pity.

“Back to Hastings. I’ve found a very comfortable small hotel, and I think I’ll stay there till I know more how things are going with Father. I expect I shall run over and see Jenny now and then.”

“I’m glad you’re going to do that,” he cried warmly—“it’ll mean a lot to her to have one of the family with her—especially when I’m gone.”

“You?—where are you going?”

He found himself quite unable to tell her of what he was looking forward to.

“Oh, my work at Ashford comes to an end in a week, and I’ll have to pack off somewhere else.”

He kissed her before she went away, and found an unexpected warmth in her lips. After all, the real Mary had always lived very far beneath the surface, and as years went by and the surface had become more and more ravaged she had retreated deeper and deeper down. But he was glad to think that at the bottom, and perhaps by queer, perverse means, she had somehow managed to keep herself alive.

§ 11

Jenny’s sudden return had the disadvantage of bringing her back into the midst of her family while the scandal of her marriage was still hot. As her father refused to see her, Ben had suggested taking her away again, but Jenny did not like to leave while Sir John was still in any danger, and by the time all danger was past, her husband’s affairs had once more fast bound him to the farm—besides, the various members of her family had adjusted themselves to her defection, and settled down either into hostility or championship, according to their own status in the tribe.

It was characteristic of the house of Alard that even its revolted members camped round it in its evil hour, held to it by human feeling after all other links were broken. No one would leave the neighbourhood while Sir John continued ill and shaken. Mary stayed at Hastings, and Gervase stayed at Vinehall, even after his apprenticeship to Gillingham’s had finally come to an end, and the men had given him a farewell oyster supper at the White Lion, with a presentation wrist-watch to add to the little stock of possessions he would have to give up in a few weeks.

However, by the beginning of February, Sir John had so far recovered as to make any waiting unnecessary. He still refused to see his disloyal son and rebellious daughters. His illness seemed to have hardened his obstinacy, and to have brought about certain irritable conditions which sometimes approached violence and made it impossible to attempt any persuasion.