“My Dear Gerty: I have just received a bill for L110 from Madame Smith for your dresses. May I ask you how long this sort of thing is to go on? I need not tell you that I have not the means to support you in such extravagance. I am, as you know, always anxious that you should go about in a style worthy of your position, but unless you can manage without calling on me to pay away hundreds of pounds every season to Madame Smith, you had better give up society and stay at home. I positively cannot afford it. As far as I can see, going into society has not done you much good. I had to raise L500 last month on Franklands; and it is too bad if I must raise more to pay your dressmaker. You might at least employ some civil person, or one whose charges are moderate. Madame Smith tells me that she will not wait any longer, and charges L50 for a single dress. I hope you fully understand that there must be an end to this.
“I hear from your mother that young Erskine is with you at Brandon’s. I do not think much of him. He is not well off, nor likely to get on, as he has taken to poetry and so forth. I am told also that a man named Trefusis visits at the Beeches a good deal now. He must be a fool, for he contested the last Birmingham election, and came out at the foot of the poll with thirty-two votes through calling himself a Social Democrat or some such foreign rubbish, instead of saying out like a man that he was a Radical. I suppose the name stuck in his throat, for his mother was one of the Howards of Breconcastle; so he has good blood in him, though his father was nobody. I wish he had your bills to pay; he could buy and sell me ten times over, after all my twenty-five years’ service.
“As I am thinking of getting something done to the house, I had rather you did not come back this month, if you can possibly hold on at Brandon’s. Remember me to him, and give our kind regards to his wife. I should be obliged if you would gather some hemlock leaves and send them to me. I want them for my ointment; the stuff the chemists sell is no good. Your mother’s eyes are bad again; and your brother Berkeley has been gambling, and seems to think I ought to pay his debts for him. I am greatly worried over it all, and I hope that, until you have settled yourself, you will be more reasonable, and not run these everlasting bills upon me. You are enjoying yourself out of reach of all the unpleasantness; but it bears hardly upon
“Your affectionate father,
“C.B. LINDSAY.”
A faint sketch of the lines Time intended to engrave on Gertrude’s brow appeared there as she read the letter; but she hastened to give the admiral’s kind regards to her host and hostess, and discussed her mother’s health feelingly with them. After breakfast she went to the library, and wrote her reply:
“BRANDON BEECHES,
“Tuesday.
“Dear Papa: Considering that it is more than three years since you paid Madame Smith last, and that then her bill, which included my court dress, was only L150, I cannot see how I could possibly have been more economical, unless you expect me to go in rags. I am sorry that Madame Smith has asked for the money at such an inconvenient time, but when I begged you to pay her something in March last year you told me to keep her quiet by giving her a good order. I am not surprised at her not being very civil, as she has plenty of tradesmen’s daughters among her customers who pay her more than L300 a year for their dresses. I am wearing a skirt at present which I got two years ago.
“Sir Charles is going to town on Thursday; he will bring you the hemlock. Tell mamma that there is an old woman here who knows some wonderful cure for sore eyes. She will not tell what the ingredients are, but it cures everyone, and there is no use in giving an oculist two guineas for telling us that reading in bed is bad for the eyes, when we know perfectly well that mamma will not give up doing it. If you pay Berkeley’s debts, do not forget that he owes me L3.
“Another schoolfellow of mine is staying here now, and I think that Mr. Trefusis will have the pleasure of paying her bills some day. He is a great pet of Lady Brandon’s. Sir Charles was angry at first because she invited him here, and we were all surprised at it. The man has a bad reputation, and headed a mob that threw down the walls of the park; and we hardly thought he would be cool enough to come after that. But he does not seem to care whether we want him or not; and he comes when he likes. As he talks cleverly, we find him a godsend in this dull place. It is really not such a paradise as you seem to think, but you need not be afraid of my returning any sooner than I can help.
“Your affectionate daughter,
“Gertrude Lindsay.”
When Gertrude had closed this letter, and torn up her father’s, she thought little more about either. They might have made her unhappy had they found her happy, but as hopeless discontent was her normal state, and enjoyment but a rare accident, recriminatory passages with her father only put her into a bad humor, and did not in the least disappoint or humiliate her.
For the sake of exercise, she resolved to carry her letter to the village post office and return along the Riverside Road, whereby she had seen hemlock growing. She took care to go out unobserved, lest Agatha should volunteer to walk with her, or Jane declare her intention of driving to the post office in the afternoon, and sulk for the rest of the day unless the trip to the village were postponed until then. She took with her, as a protection against tramps, a big St. Bernard dog named Max. This animal, which was young and enthusiastic, had taken a strong fancy to her, and had expressed it frankly and boisterously; and she, whose affections had been starved in her home and in society, had encouraged him with more kindness than she had ever shown to any human being.
In the village, having posted her letter, she turned towards a lane that led to the Riverside Road. Max, unaware of her reason for choosing the longest way home, remonstrated by halting in the middle of the lane, wagging his tail rapidly, and uttering gruff barks.
“Don’t be stupid, sir,” said Gertrude impatiently. “I am going this way.”
Max, apparently understanding, rushed after her, passed her, and disappeared in a cloud of dust raised by his effort to check himself when he had left her far enough behind. When he came back she kissed his nose, and ran a race with him until she too was panting, and had to stand still to recover her breath, whilst he bounded about, barking ferociously. She had not for many years enjoyed such a frolic, and the thought of this presently brought tears to her eyes. Rather peevishly she bade Max be quiet, walked slowly to cool herself, and put up her sunshade to avert freckles.
The sun was now at the meridian. On a slope to Gertrude’s right hand, Sallust’s House, with its cinnamon-colored walls and yellow frieze, gave a foreign air to the otherwise very English landscape. She passed by without remembering who lived there. Further down, on some waste land separated from the road by a dry ditch and a low mud wall, a cluster of hemlocks, nearly six feet high, poisoned the air with their odor. She crossed the ditch, took a pair of gardening gloves from her plaited straw hand-basket, and busied herself with the hemlock leaves, pulling the tender ones, separating them from the stalk, and filling the basket with the web. She forgot Max until an impression of dead silence, as if the earth had stopped, caused her to look round in vague dread. Trefusis, with his hand abandoned to the dog, who was trying how much of it he could cram into his mouth, was standing within a few yards of her, watching her intently. Gertrude turned pale, and came out hastily from among the bushes. Then she had a strange sensation as if something had happened high above her head. There was a threatening growl, a commanding exclamation, and an unaccountable pause, at the expiration of which she found herself supine on the sward, with her parasol between her eyes and the sun. A sudden scoop of Max’s wet warm tongue in her right ear startled her into activity. She sat up, and saw Trefusis on his knees at her side holding the parasol with an unconcerned expression, whilst Max was snuffing at her in restless anxiety opposite.
“I must go home,” she said. “I must go home instantly.”
“Not at all,” said Trefusis, soothingly. “They have just sent word to say that everything is settled satisfactorily and that you need not come.”
“Have they?” she said faintly. Then she lay down again, and it seemed to her that a very long time elapsed. Suddenly recollecting that Trefusis had supported her gently with his hand to prevent her falling back too rudely, she rose again, and this time got upon her feet with his help.
“I must go home,” she said again. “It is a matter of life or death.”
“No, no,” he said softly. “It is all right. You may depend on me.”
She looked at him earnestly. He had taken her hand to steady her, for she was swaying a little. “Are you sure,” she said, grasping his arm. “Are you quite sure?”
“Absolutely certain. You know I am always right, do you not?”
“Yes, oh, yes; you have always been true to me. You—” Here her senses came back with a rush. Dropping his hand as if it had become red hot, she said sharply, “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he said, resuming his indifferent manner with a laugh. “Are you better? Let me drive you to the Beeches. My stable is within a stone’s throw; I can get a trap out in ten minutes.”
“No, thank you,” said Gertrude haughtily. “I do not wish to drive.” She paused, and added in some bewilderment, “What has happened?”
“You fainted, and—”
“I did not faint,” said Gertrude indignantly. “I never fainted in my life.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Trefusis. I did not.”
“You shall judge for yourself. I was coming through this field when I saw you gathering hemlock. Hemlock is interesting on account of Socrates, and you were interesting as a young lady gathering poison. So I stopped to look on. Presently you came out from among the bushes as if you had seen a snake there. Then you fell into my arms—which led me to suppose that you had fainted—and Max, concluding that it was all my fault, nearly sprang at my throat. You were overpowered by the scent of the water-hemlock, which you must have been inhaling for ten minutes or more.”
“I did not know that there was any danger,” said Gertrude, crestfallen. “I felt very tired when I came to. That was why I lay so long the second time. I really could not help it.”
“You did not lie very long.”
“Not when I first fell; that was only a few seconds, I know. But I must have lain there nearly ten minutes after I recovered.”
“You were nearly a minute insensible when you first fell, and when you recovered you only rested for about one second. After that you raved, and I invented suitable answers until you suddenly asked me what I was talking about.”
Gertrude reddened a little as the possibility of her having raved indiscreetly occurred to her. “It was very silly of me to faint,” she said.
“You could not help it; you are only human. I shall walk with you to the Beeches.”
“Thank you; I will not trouble you,” she said quickly.
He shook his head. “I do not know how long the effect of that abominable water-weed may last,” he said, “and I dare not leave you to walk alone. If you prefer it I can send you in a trap with my gardener, but I had rather accompany you myself.”
“You are giving yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. I will walk. I am quite well again and need no assistance.”
They started without another word. Gertrude had to concentrate all her energy to conceal from him that she was giddy. Numbness and lassitude crept upon her, and she was beginning to hope that she was only dreaming it all when he roused her by saying,
“Take my arm.”
“No, thank you.”
“Do not be so senselessly obstinate. You will have to lean on the hedge for support if you refuse my help. I am sorry I did not insist on getting the trap.”
Gertrude had not been spoken to in this tone since her childhood. “I am perfectly well,” she said sharply. “You are really very officious.”
“You are not perfectly well, and you know it. However, if you make a brave struggle, you will probably be able to walk home without my assistance, and the effort may do you good.”
“You are very rude,” she said peremptorily.
“I know it,” he replied calmly. “You will find three classes of men polite to you—slaves, men who think much of their manners and nothing of you, and your lovers. I am none of these, and therefore give you back your ill manners with interest. Why do you resist your good angel by suppressing those natural and sincere impulses which come to you often enough, and sometimes bring a look into your face that might tame a bear—a look which you hasten to extinguish as a thief darkens his lantern at the sound of a footstep.”
“Mr. Trefusis, I am not accustomed to be lectured.”
“That is why I lecture you. I felt curious to see how your good breeding, by which I think you set some store, would serve you in entirely novel circumstances—those of a man speaking his mind to you, for instance. What is the result of my experiment? Instead of rebuking me with the sweetness and dignity which I could not, in spite of my past observation, help expecting from you, you churlishly repel my offer of the assistance you need, tell me that I am very rude, very officious, and, in short, do what you can to make my position disagreeable and humiliating.”
She looked at him haughtily, but his expression was void of offence or fear, and he continued, unanswered.
“I would bear all this from a working woman without remonstrance, for she would owe me no graces of manner or morals. But you are a lady. That means that many have starved and drudged in uncleanly discomfort in order that you may have white and unbroken hands, fine garments, and exquisite manners—that you may be a living fountain of those influences that soften our natures and lives. When such a costly thing as a lady breaks down at the first touch of a firm hand, I feel justified in complaining.”
Gertrude walked on quickly, and said between her teeth, “I don’t want to hear any of your absurd views, Mr. Trefusis.”
He laughed. “My unfortunate views!” he said. “Whenever I make an inconvenient remark it is always set aside as an expression of certain dangerous crazes with which I am supposed to be afflicted. When I point out to Sir Charles that one of his favorite artists has not accurately observed something before attempting to draw it, he replies, ‘You know our views differ on these things, Trefusis.’ When I told Miss Wylie’s guardian that his emigration scheme was little better than a fraud, he said, ‘You must excuse me, but I cannot enter into your peculiar views.’ One of my views at present is that Miss Lindsay is more amiable under the influence of hemlock than under that of the social system which has made her so unhappy.”
“Well!” exclaimed Gertrude, outraged. Then, after a pause, “I was under the impression that I had accepted the escort of a gentleman.” Then, after another pause, Trefusis being quite undisturbed, “How do you know that I am unhappy?”
“By a certain defect in your countenance, which lacks the crowning beauty of happiness; and a certain defect in your voice which will never disappear until you learn to love or pity those to whom you speak.”
“You are wrong,” said Gertrude, with calm disdain. “You do not understand me in the least. I am particularly attached to my friends.”
“Then I have never seen you in their company.”
“You are still wrong.”
“Then how can you speak as you do, look as you do, act as you do?”
“What do you mean? HOW do I look and act?”
“Like one of the railings of Belgrave Square, cursed with consciousness of itself, fears of the judgment of the other railings, and doubts of their fitness to stand in the same row with it. You are cold, mistrustful, cruel to nervous or clumsy people, and more afraid of the criticisms of those with whom you dance and dine than of your conscience. All of which prevents you from looking like an angel.”
“Thank you. Do you consider paying compliments the perfection of gentlemanly behavior?”
“Have I been paying you many? That last remark of mine was not meant as one. On my honor, the angels will not disappoint me if they are no lovelier than you should be if you had that look in your face and that tone in your voice I spoke of just now. It can hardly displease you to hear that. If I were particularly handsome myself, I should like to be told so.”
“I am sorry I cannot tell you so.”
“Oh! Ha! ha! What a retort, Miss Lindsay! You are not sorry either; you are rather glad.”
Gertrude knew it, and was angry with herself, not because her retort was false, but because she thought it unladylike. “You have no right to annoy me,” she exclaimed, in spite of herself.
“None whatever,” he said, humbly. “If I have done so, forgive me before we part. I will go no further with you; Max will give the alarm if you faint in the avenue, which I don’t think you are likely to do, as you have forgotten all about the hemlock.”
“Oh, how maddening!” she cried. “I have left my basket behind.”
“Never mind; I will find it and have it filled and sent to you.”
“Thank you. I am sorry to trouble you.”
“Not at all. I hope you do not want the hemlock to help you to get rid of the burden of life.”
“Nonsense. I want it for my father, who uses it for medicine.”
“I will bring it myself to-morrow. Is that soon enough?”
“Quite. I am in no hurry. Thank you, Mr. Trefusis. Good-bye.”
She gave him her hand, and even smiled a little, and then hurried away. He stood watching her as she passed along the avenue under the beeches. Once, when she came into a band of sunlight at a gap in the trees, she made so pretty a figure in her spring dress of violet and white that his eyes kindled as he gazed. He took out his note-book, and entered her name and the date, with a brief memorandum.
“I have thawed her,” he said to himself as he put up his book. “She shall learn a lesson or two to hand on to her children before I have done with her. A trifle underbred, too, or she would not insist so much on her breeding. Henrietta used to wear a dress like that. I am glad to see that there is no danger of her taking to me personally.”
He turned away, and saw a crone passing, bending beneath a bundle of sticks. He eyed it curiously; and she scowled at him and hurried on.
“Hallo,” he said.
She continued for a few steps, but her courage failed her and she stopped.
“You are Mrs. Hickling, I think?”
“Yes, please your worship.”
“You are the woman who carried away an old wooden gate that lay on Sir Charles Brandon’s land last winter and used it for firewood. You were imprisoned for seven days for it.”
“You may send me there again if you like,” she retorted, in a cracked voice, as she turned at bay. “But the Lord will make me even with you some day. Cursed be them that oppress the poor and needy; it is one of the seven deadly sins.”
“Those green laths on your back are the remainder of my garden gate,” he said. “You took the first half last Saturday. Next time you want fuel come to the house and ask for coals, and let my gates alone. I suppose you can enjoy a fire without stealing the combustibles. Stow pay me for my gate by telling me something I want to know.”
“And a kind gentleman too, sir; blessings.”
“What is the hemlock good for?”
“The hemlock, kind gentleman? For the evil, sir, to be sure.”
“Scrofulous ulcers!” he exclaimed, recoiling. “The father of that beautiful girl!” He turned homeward, and trudged along with his head bent, muttering, “All rotten to the bone. Oh, civilization! civilization! civilization!”
“What has come over Gertrude?” said Agatha one day to Lady Brandon.
“Why? Is anything the matter with her?”
“I don’t know; she has not been the same since she poisoned herself. And why did she not tell about it? But for Trefusis we should never have known.”
“Gertrude always made secrets of things.”
“She was in a vile temper for two days after; and now she is quite changed. She falls into long reveries, and does not hear a word of what is going on around. Then she starts into life again, and begs your pardon with the greatest sweetness for not catching what you have said.”
“I hate her when she is polite; it is not natural to her. As to her going to sleep, that is the effect of the hemlock. We know a man who took a spoonful of strychnine in a bath, and he never was the same afterwards.”
“I think she is making up her mind to encourage Erskine,” said Agatha. “When I came here he hardly dared speak to her—at least, she always snubbed him. Now she lets him talk as much as he likes, and actually sends him on messages and allows him to carry things for her.”
“Yes. I never saw anybody like Gertrude in my life. In London, if men were attentive to her, she sat on them for being officious; and if they let her alone she was angry at being neglected. Erskine is quite good enough for her, I think.”
Here Erskine appeared at the door and looked round the room.
“She’s not here,” said Jane.
“I am seeking Sir Charles,” he said, withdrawing somewhat stiffly.
“What a lie!” said Jane, discomfited by his reception of her jest. “He was talking to Sir Charles ten minutes ago in the billiard room. Men are such conceited fools!”
Agatha had strolled to the window, and was looking discontentedly at the prospect, as she had often done at school when alone, and sometimes did now in society. The door opened again, and Sir Charles appeared. He, too, looked round, but when his roving glance reached Agatha, it cast anchor; and he came in.
“Are you busy just now, Miss Wylie?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Jane hastily. “She is going to write a letter for me.”
“Really, Jane,” he said, “I think you are old enough to write your letters without troubling Miss Wylie.”
“When I do write my own letters you always find fault with them,” she retorted.
“I thought perhaps you might have leisure to try over a duet with me,” he said, turning to Agatha.
“Certainly,” she replied, hoping to smooth matters by humoring him. “The letter will do any time before post hour.”
Jane reddened, and said shortly, “I will write it myself, if you will not.”
Sir Charles quite lost his temper. “How can you be so damnably rude?” he said, turning upon his wife. “What objection have you to my singing duets with Miss Wylie?”
“Nice language that!” said Jane. “I never said I objected; and you have no right to drag her away to the piano just when she is going to write a letter for me.”
“I do not wish Miss Wylie to do anything except what pleases her best. It seems to me that writing letters to your tradespeople cannot be a very pleasant occupation.”
“Pray don’t mind me,” said Agatha. “It is not the least trouble to me. I used to write all Jane’s letters for her at school. Suppose I write the letter first, and then we can have the duet. You will not mind waiting five minutes?”
“I can wait as long as you please, of course. But it seems such an absurd abuse of your good nature that I cannot help protest!”
“Oh, let it wait!” exclaimed Jane. “Such a ridiculous fuss to make about asking Agatha to write a letter, just because you happen to want her to play you your duets! I am certain she is heartily sick and tired of them.”
Agatha, to escape the altercation, went to the library and wrote the letter. When she returned to the drawing-room, she found no one there; but Sir Charles came in presently.
“I am so sorry, Miss Wylie,” he said, as he opened the piano for her, “that you should be incommoded because my wife is silly enough to be jealous.”
“Jealous!”
“Of course. Idiocy!”
“Oh, you are mistaken,” said Agatha, incredulously. “How could she possibly be jealous of me?”
“She is jealous of everybody and everything,” he replied bitterly, “and she cares for nobody and for nothing. You do not know what I have to endure sometimes from her.”
Agatha thought her most discreet course was to sit down immediately and begin “I would that my love.” Whilst she played and sang, she thought over what Sir Charles had just let slip. She had found him a pleasant companion, light-hearted, fond of music and fun, polite and considerate, appreciative of her talents, quick-witted without being oppressively clever, and, as a married man, disinterested in his attentions. But it now occurred to her that perhaps they had been a good deal together of late.
Sir Charles had by this time wandered from his part into hers; and he now recalled her to the music by stopping to ask whether he was right. Knowing by experience what his difficulty was likely to be, she gave him his note and went on. They had not been singing long when Jane came back and sat down, expressing a hope that her presence would not disturb them. It did disturb them. Agatha suspected that she had come there to watch them, and Sir Charles knew it. Besides, Lady Brandon, even when her mind was tranquil, was habitually restless. She could not speak because of the music, and, though she held an open book in her hand, she could not read and watch simultaneously. She gaped, and leaned to one end of the sofa until, on the point of overbalancing’ she recovered herself with a prodigious bounce. The floor vibrated at her every movement. At last she could keep silence no longer.
“Oh, dear!” she said, yawning audibly. “It must be five o’clock at the very earliest.”
Agatha turned round upon the piano-stool, feeling that music and Lady Brandon were incompatible. Sir Charles, for his guest’s sake, tried hard to restrain his exasperation.
“Probably your watch will tell you,” he said.
“Thank you for nothing,” said Jane. “Agatha, where is Gertrude?”
“How can Miss Wylie possibly tell you where she is, Jane? I think you have gone mad to-day.”
“She is most likely playing billiards with Mr. Erskine,” said Agatha, interposing quickly to forestall a retort from Jane, with its usual sequel of a domestic squabble.
“I think it is very strange of Gertrude to pass the whole day with Chester in the billiard room,” said Jane discontentedly.
“There is not the slightest impropriety in her doing so,” said Sir Charles. “If our hospitality does not place Miss Lindsay above suspicion, the more shame for us. How would you feel if anyone else made such a remark?”
“Oh, stuff!” said Jane peevishly. “You are always preaching long rigmaroles about nothing at all. I did not say there was any impropriety about Gertrude. She is too proper to be pleasant, in my opinion.”
Sir Charles, unable to trust himself further, frowned and left the room, Jane speeding him with a contemptuous laugh.
“Don’t ever be such a fool as to get married,” she said, when he was gone. She looked up as she spoke, and was alarmed to see Agatha seated on the pianoforte, with her ankles swinging in the old school fashion.
“Jane,” she said, surveying her hostess coolly, “do you know what I would do if I were Sir Charles?”
Jane did not know.
“I would get a big stick, beat you black and blue, and then lock you up on bread and water for a week.”
Jane half rose, red and angry. “Wh—why?” she said, relapsing upon the sofa.
“If I were a man, I would not, for mere chivalry’s sake, let a woman treat me like a troublesome dog. You want a sound thrashing.”
“I’d like to see anybody thrash me,” said Jane, rising again and displaying her formidable person erect. Then she burst into tears, and said, “I won’t have such things said to me in my own house. How dare you?”
“You deserve it for being jealous of me,” said Agatha.
Jane’s eyes dilated angrily. “I!—I!—jealous of you!” She looked round, as if for a missile. Not finding one, she sat down again, and said in a voice stifled with tears, “J—Jealous of YOU, indeed!”
“You have good reason to be, for he is fonder of me than of you.”
Jane opened her mouth and eyes convulsively, but only uttered a gasp, and Agatha proceeded calmly, “I am polite to him, which you never are. When he speaks to me I allow him to finish his sentence without expressing, as you do, a foregone conclusion that it is not worth attending to. I do not yawn and talk whilst he is singing. When he converses with me on art or literature, about which he knows twice as much as I do, and at least ten times as much as you.” (Jane gasped again) “I do not make a silly answer and turn to my neighbor at the other side with a remark about the tables or the weather. When he is willing to be pleased, as he always is, I am willing to be pleasant. And that is why he likes me.”
“He does NOT like you. He is the same to everyone.”
“Except his wife. He likes me so much that you, like a great goose as you are, came up here to watch us at our duets, and made yourself as disagreeable as you possibly could whilst I was making myself charming. The poor man was ashamed of you.”
“He wasn’t,” said Jane, sobbing. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. I won’t bear it. I will get a divorce. I will—”
“You will mend your ways if you have any sense left,” said Agatha remorselessly. “Do not make such a noise, or someone will come to see what is the matter, and I shall have to get down from the piano, where I am very comfortable.”
“It is you who are jealous.”
“Oh, is it, Jane? I have not allowed Sir Charles to fall in love with me yet, but I can do so very easily. What will you wager that he will not kiss me before to-morrow evening?”
“It will be very mean and nasty of you if he does. You seem to think that I can be treated like a child.”
“So you are a child,” said Agatha, descending from her perch and preparing to go. “An occasional slapping does you good.”
“It is nothing to you whether I agree with my husband or not,” said Jane with sudden fierceness.
“Not if you quarrel with him in private, as wellbred couples do. But when it occurs in my presence it makes me uncomfortable, and I object to being made uncomfortable.”
“You would not be here at all if I had not asked you.”
“Just think how dull the house would be without me, Jane!”
“Indeed! It was not dull before you came. Gertrude always behaved like a lady, at least.”
“I am sorry that her example was so utterly lost on you.”
“I won’t bear it,” said Jane with a sob and a plunge upon the sofa that made the lustres of the chandeliers rattle. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I had thought you could be so hateful. I will never ask you again.”
“I will make Sir Charles divorce you for incompatibility of temper and marry me. Then I shall have the place to myself.”
“He can’t divorce me for that, thank goodness. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Agatha laughed. “Come,” she said good-humoredly, “don’t be an old ass, Jane. Wash your face before anyone sees it, and remember what I have told you about Sir Charles.”
“It is very hard to be called an ass in one’s own house.”
“It is harder to be treated as one, like your husband. I am going to look for him in the billiard room.”
Jane ran after her, and caught her by the sleeve.
“Agatha,” she pleaded, “promise me that you won’t be mean. Say that you won’t make love to him.”
“I will consider about it,” replied Agatha gravely.
Jane uttered a groan and sank into a chair, which creaked at the shock. Agatha turned on the threshold, and seeing her shaking her head, pressing her eyes, and tapping with her heel in a restrained frenzy, said quickly,
“Here are the Waltons, and the Fitzgeorges, and Mr. Trefusis coming upstairs. How do you do, Mrs. Walton? Lady Brandon will be SO glad to see you. Good-evening, Mr. Fitzgeorge.”
Jane sprang up, wiped her eyes, and, with her hands on her hair, smoothing it, rushed to a mirror. No visitors appearing, she perceived that she was, for perhaps the hundredth time in her life, the victim of an imposture devised by Agatha. She, gratified by the success of her attempt to regain her old ascendancy over Jane—she had made it with misgiving, notwithstanding her apparent confidence—went downstairs to the library, where she found Sir Charles gloomily trying to drown his domestic troubles in art criticism.
“I thought you were in the billiard room,” said Agatha.
“I only peeped in,” he replied; “but as I saw something particular going on, I thought it best to slip away, and I have been alone ever since.”
The something particular which Sir Charles had not wished to interrupt was only a game of billiards.
It was the first opportunity Erskine had ever enjoyed of speaking to Gertrude at leisure and alone. Yet their conversation had never been so commonplace. She, liking the game, played very well and chatted indifferently; he played badly, and broached trivial topics in spite of himself. After an hour-and-a-half’s play, Gertrude had announced that this game must be their last. He thought desperately that if he were to miss many more strokes the game must presently end, and an opportunity which might never recur pass beyond recall. He determined to tell her without preface that he adored her, but when he opened his lips a question came forth of its own accord relating to the Persian way of playing billiards. Gertrude had never been in Persia, but had seen some Eastern billiard cues in the India museum. Were not the Hindoos wonderful people for filigree work, and carpets, and such things? Did he not think the crookedness of their carpet patterns a blemish? Some people pretended to admire them, but was not that all nonsense? Was not the modern polished floor, with a rug in the middle, much superior to the old carpet fitted into the corners of the room? Yes. Enormously superior. Immensely—
“Why, what are you thinking of to-day, Mr. Erskine? You have played with my ball.”
“I am thinking of you.”
“What did you say?” said Gertrude, not catching the serious turn he had given to the conversation, and poising her cue for a stroke. “Oh! I am as bad as you; that was the worst stroke I ever made, I think. I beg your pardon; you said something just now.”
“I forget. Nothing of any consequence.” And he groaned at his own cowardice.
“Suppose we stop,” she said. “There is no use in finishing the game if our hands are out. I am rather tired of it.”
“Certainly—if you wish it.”
“I will finish if you like.”
“Not at all. What pleases you, pleases me.”
Gertrude made him a little bow, and idly knocked the balls about with her cue. Erskine’s eyes wandered, and his lip moved irresolutely. He had settled with himself that his declaration should be a frank one—heart to heart. He had pictured himself in the act of taking her hand delicately, and saying, “Gertrude, I love you. May I tell you so again?” But this scheme did not now seem practicable.
“Miss Lindsay.”
Gertrude, bending over the table, looked up in alarm.
“The present is as good an opportunity as I will—as I shall—as I will.”
“Shall,” said Gertrude.
“I beg your pardon?”
“SHALL,” repeated Gertrude. “Did you ever study the doctrine of necessity?”
“The doctrine of necessity?” he said, bewildered.
Gertrude went to the other side of the table in pursuit of a ball. She now guessed what was coming, and was willing that it should come; not because she intended to accept, but because, like other young ladies experienced in such scenes, she counted the proposals of marriage she received as a Red Indian counts the scalps he takes.
“We have had a very pleasant time of it here,” he said, giving up as inexplicable the relevance of the doctrine of necessity. “At least, I have.”
“Well,” said Gertrude, quick to resent a fancied allusion to her private discontent, “so have I.”
“I am glad of that—more so than I can convey by words.”
“Is it any business of yours?” she said, following the disagreeable vein he had unconsciously struck upon, and suspecting pity in his efforts to be sympathetic.
“I wish I dared hope so. The happiness of my visit has been due to you entirely.”
“Indeed,” said Gertrude, wincing as all the hard things Trefusis had told her of herself came into her mind at the heels of Erskine’s unfortunate allusion to her power of enjoying herself.
“I hope I am not paining you,” he said earnestly.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said, standing erect with sudden impatience. “You seem to think that it is very easy to pain me.”
“No,” he said timidly, puzzled by the effect he had produced. “I fear you misunderstand me. I am very awkward. Perhaps I had better say no more.” Gertrude, by turning away to put up her cue, signified that that was a point for him to consider; she not intending to trouble herself about it. When she faced him again, he was motionless and dejected, with a wistful expression like that of a dog that has proffered a caress and received a kick. Remorse, and a vague sense that there was something base in her attitude towards him, overcame her. She looked at him for an instant and left the room.
The look excited him. He did not understand it, nor attempt to understand it; but it was a look that he had never before seen in her face or in that of any other woman. It struck him as a momentary revelation of what he had written of in “The Patriot Martyrs” as
“The glorious mystery of a woman’s heart,”
and it made him feel unfit for ordinary social intercourse. He hastened from the house, walked swiftly down the avenue to the lodge, where he kept his bicycle, left word there that he was going for an excursion and should probably not return in time for dinner, mounted, and sped away recklessly along the Riverside Road. In less than two minutes he passed the gate of Sallust’s House, where he nearly ran over an old woman laden with a basket of coals, who put down her burthen to scream curses after him. Warned by this that his headlong pace was dangerous, he slackened it a little, and presently saw Trefusis lying prone on the river bank, with his cheeks propped on his elbows, reading intently. Erskine, who had presented him, a few days before, with a copy of “The Patriot Martyrs and other Poems,” tried to catch a glimpse of the book over which Trefusis was so serious. It was a Blue Book, full of figures. Erskine rode on in disgust, consoling himself with the recollection of Gertrude’s face.
The highway now swerved inland from the river, and rose to a steep acclivity, at the brow of which he turned and looked back. The light was growing ruddy, and the shadows were lengthening. Trefusis was still prostrate in the meadow, and the old woman was in a field, gathering hemlock.
Erskine raced down the hill at full speed, and did not look behind him again until he found himself at nightfall on the skirts of a town, where he purchased some beer and a sandwich, which he ate with little appetite. Gertrude had set up a disturbance within him which made him impatient of eating.
It was now dark. He was many miles from Brandon Beeches, and not sure of the way back. Suddenly he resolved to complete his unfinished declaration that evening. He now could not ride back fast enough to satisfy his impatience. He tried a short cut, lost himself, spent nearly an hour seeking the highroad, and at last came upon a railway station just in time to catch a train that brought him within a mile of his destination.
When he rose from the cushions of the railway carriage he found himself somewhat fatigued, and he mounted the bicycle stiffly. But his resolution was as ardent as ever, and his heart beat strongly as, after leaving his bicycle at the lodge, he walked up the avenue through the deep gloom beneath the beeches. Near the house, the first notes of “Grudel perche finora” reached him, and he stepped softly on to the turf lest his footsteps on the gravel should rouse the dogs and make them mar the harmony by barking. A rustle made him stop and listen. Then Gertrude’s voice whispered through the darkness:
“What did you mean by what you said to me within?”
An extraordinary sensation shook Erskine; confused ideas of fairyland ran through his imagination. A bitter disappointment, like that of waking from a happy dream, followed as Trefusis’s voice, more finely tuned than he had ever heard it before, answered,
“Merely that the expanse of stars above us is not more illimitable than my contempt for Miss Lindsay, nor brighter than my hopes of Gertrude.”
“Miss Lindsay always to you, if you please, Mr. Trefusis.”
“Miss Lindsay never to me, but only to those who cannot see through her to the soul within, which is Gertrude. There are a thousand Miss Lindsays in the world, formal and false. There is but one Gertrude.”
“I am an unprotected girl, Mr. Trefusis, and you can call me what you please.”
It occurred to Erskine that this was a fit occasion to rush forward and give Trefusis, whose figure he could now dimly discern, a black eye. But he hesitated, and the opportunity passed.
“Unprotected!” said Trefusis. “Why, you are fenced round and barred in with conventions, laws, and lies that would frighten the truth from the lips of any man whose faith in Gertrude was less strong than mine. Go to Sir Charles and tell him what I have said to Miss Lindsay, and within ten minutes I shall have passed these gates with a warning never to approach them again. I am in your power, and were I in Miss Lindsay’s power alone, my shrift would be short. Happily, Gertrude, though she sees as yet but darkly, feels that Miss Lindsay is her bitterest foe.”
“It is ridiculous. I am not two persons; I am only one. What does it matter to me if your contempt for me is as illimitable as the stars?”
“Ah, you remember that, do you? Whenever you hear a man talking about the stars you may conclude that he is either an astronomer or a fool. But you and a fine starry night would make a fool of any man.”
“I don’t understand you. I try to, but I cannot; or, if I guess, I cannot tell whether you are in earnest or not.”
“I am very much in earnest. Abandon at once and for ever all misgivings that I am trifling with you, or passing an idle hour as men do when they find themselves in the company of beautiful women. I mean what I say literally, and in the deepest sense. You doubt me; we have brought society to such a state that we all suspect one another. But whatever is true will command belief sooner or later from those who have wit enough to comprehend truth. Now let me recall Miss Lindsay to consciousness by remarking that we have been out for ten minutes, and that our hostess is not the woman to allow our absence to pass without comment.”
“Let us go in. Thank you for reminding me.”
“Thank you for forgetting.”
Erskine heard their footsteps retreating, and presently saw the two enter the glow of light that shone from the open window of the billiard room, through which they went indoors. Trefusis, a man whom he had seen that day in a beautiful landscape, blind to everything except a row of figures in a Blue Book, was his successful rival, although it was plain from the very sound of his voice that he did not—could not—love Gertrude. Only a poet could do that. Trefusis was no poet, but a sordid brute unlikely to inspire interest in anything more human than a public meeting, much less in a woman, much less again in a woman so ethereal as Gertrude. She was proud too, yet she had allowed the fellow to insult her—had forgiven him for the sake of a few broad compliments. Erskine grew angry and cynical. The situation did not suit his poetry. Instead of being stricken to the heart with a solemn sorrow, as a Patriot Martyr would have been under similar circumstances, he felt slighted and ridiculous. He was hardly convinced of what had seemed at first the most obvious feature of the case, Trefusis’s inferiority to himself.
He stood under the trees until Trefusis reappeared on his way home, making, Erskine thought, as much noise with his heels on the gravel as a regiment of delicately bred men would have done. He stopped for a moment to make inquiry at the lodge as he went out; then his footsteps died away in the distance.
Erskine, chilled, stiff, and with a sensation of a bad cold coming on, went into the house, and was relieved to find that Gertrude had retired, and that Lady Brandon, though she had been sure that he had ridden into the river in the dark, had nevertheless provided a warm supper for him.