Elizabeth was sitting with her cousin in the garden-house at the end of the croquet-lawn, waiting for the sound of the gong which should announce to her that the motor was round to take her for a drive with Aunt Julia. She had arrived the evening before, after spending a week at Paris with some relations of her mother, and had, at Mrs. Hancock's special desire, breakfasted in her room that morning, this being the correct after-cure for any journey that implied a night in the train or a crossing of the Channel, for had Mrs. Hancock started at midday from Calais and come to her journey's end at Dover she would certainly have had breakfast in her room next day. Elizabeth, as a matter of fact, feeling extremely vigorous when she woke this morning at six, had let herself discreetly out of the house, and much enjoyed a two hours' ramble, returning in time to steal back unobserved to her room, where she ate her breakfast with remarkable heartiness at nine. Soon after, she had come out with Edith, while her aunt read small paragraphs in the paper and saw the cook. The usual schedule for the day had been altered so that Elizabeth might have a good long drive that morning, and the motor had been ordered for half-past eleven, instead of twelve; she could then get a good long rest in the afternoon, which should complete the journey-cure inaugurated by breakfasting in bed. But this dislocation of hours had proved too serious to face, and Lind had come out half an hour ago to say that if it suited Miss Elizabeth equally well, the car would come round at twelve—or a few minutes before—as usual.
Elizabeth, as has previously been mentioned, had not looked forward to this summer in England with her aunt, nor had she considered that the well-remembered comfort of the house was an advantage. But on this glittering summer morning, after the dust of trains and the roar of towns, she found herself in a singularly contented, amused and eager frame of mind. There was, for the present, a charm for her in the warm airy house, the exquisitely kept garden, the cheerful serenity of her aunt. As is the way of youth, she delighted in new impressions, and she found that in her two years' absence from England, for she had spent the last summer in the Hills, she had forgotten the aroma of home life. She was recording those new impressions to Edith with remarkable volubility.
"But the most beautiful bath!" she said. "All white tiles, and roses at the window, and silver handles for everything. You should see our Indian bathroom, Edith! There is a horrible little brown shed opening from your bedroom, and a large tin pan in a corner, and if you are lucky a tap for the water. Usually you are unlucky, and there are only tin jugs of water. In the hot weather the first thing you have to do is to look carefully about to see that a cobra hasn't come to share it with you. Then there are no bells; nobody knows why, but there aren't; and if you want your ayah you shout. If she doesn't want to come she doesn't appear for a quarter of an hour or so, and explains that she didn't hear you shout."
"Then how did she know you shouted?" said Edith brightly.
"That is what you ask her, and she explains at such length that you wish you were dead. Oh, look at the grass—real grass, and there's still dew on it in the shadow. I long to take off my shoes and stockings and walk about on it. May I?"
"Oh, Elizabeth, I think not!" said Edith, slightly alarmed. "Ellis would think it so odd."
"Ellis? Oh, the gardener! He looks like a clergyman, with his side-whiskers. But does it matter much what he thinks? Servants must think such a lot of awful things about us. However, I don't mind. I wanted my bath tremendously this morning, if you'll promise not to tell, because it wasn't exactly what Aunt Julia meant. You see, she thought I was tired, and really I wasn't, so I got up at six and had a delicious ramble. I went on to a quiet common covered with heath, and there was nobody there but a sort of lunatic with a butterfly net, running madly about. He caught his foot in a root of heather and fell flat down at my feet. Of course I howled with laughter."
"Mr. Beaumont," remarked Edith in a tone of inspiration.
"So he told me, because we sat and talked after that. I rather liked him, and he gave me a cigarette."
"A cigarette?" asked Edith. "You don't mean——"
Elizabeth laughed.
"Oh, dear, have I done anything improper?" she asked. "But, anyhow, Ellis wasn't there. He is rather mad, I suppose, isn't he—Mr. Beaumont, I mean? Then while we were sitting there an awful woman came along the path, like a witch in spectacles and the most enormous boots I ever saw."
"Yes?" said Edith, rather apprehensively.
"You would never guess; it was his sister. After I had said she was like a witch. Then she became like a policeman and took him in charge, and I was left smoking my cigarette all alone. The heather smelt so good, better than the cigarette. But everything smells good in England, and reminds you of being clean and happy and cool. But oh, Edith, the Indian smell, the old tired wicked smell! There's always a little bit of it smouldering in my heart like a joss-stick. It's made of incense and hot sand and brown naked people and the filth of the streets and the water-cart; it's savage and eternal, and it reeks of—it doesn't matter.... Oh look! Ellis is brushing the grass's hair! Docs he comb it as well?"
Edith had but little chance of saying anything at all while these remarkable statements were being poured out by her cousin, but as a matter of fact she was well content to listen. Two years ago, when she had seen Elizabeth last, the latter was a tall, thin, sallow girl, with bursts of high spirits and long intervals of languid silences, and now, with the strength of two years added and the flow of her adolescent womanhood tingling in her veins, she was a very different creature. Her sallow face was tinged with warm blood, giving her the warm brown complexion that goes with black hair and soft dark eyes; it was as impossible not to feel the kindly effect of her superb vitality as to be insensible to the glow of a frosty-burning fire. She was taut and poised, and full of vigour as a curled spring of steel or the strained wings of a hovering hawk, with the immobile balance that implies so intense an energy. Edith, with a rather unaccustomed flight of imagination, compared herself to a sparrow hopping cheerfully about a lawn, with a nest in the ivy, and an appetite for bread-crumbs.... But apparently the sparrow had to chirrup.
"And now I want to hear all sorts of things, Edith," she said. "Tell me about Mr. Beaumont, and the witch, and who lives next door on that side and on that. On that side"—and she pointed with her long brown hand—"I saw a roundabout little woman like a cook, sitting on a bench and reading the paper. Was it the cook? Was she looking in the advertisements for another place, I wondered."
"No; Mrs. Dobbs," said Edith. "She's a friend of mother's and mine."
"Tell me about her. What does she think about?"
It had never occurred to Edith to conjecture what Mrs. Dobbs thought about. You did not connect Mrs. Dobbs with the idea of thought.
"She is very fond of dogs," said Edith.
"I saw them too, curled and brushed. I expect she blacks the ends of their noses like horses' hoofs. I don't call them dogs. But what does she think about if she lies awake at night? What you think about lying awake is what you really think about. Perhaps she doesn't lie awake. We'll leave her. I don't seem to be interested in her. Who lives there?"
"Mr. Holroyd."
"Whom Aunt Julia said was coming to dinner to-night? She called him Edward—dear Edward, I think—and I am sure she was going to tell me something about him when the old man—Lind, isn't it?—came in to say Mrs. Williams was waiting. So I came out here. Tell me about Edward. Is he a relation? Shall I call him Edward?"
Elizabeth gave one glance at Edith's face, stopped suddenly, and clapped her hands.
"I guess, I guess!" she said. "He isn't a relation, but he is going to be. Edith, my dear, how exciting! I want to hear all about him instantly."
She stopped again.
"I think he must have come out of his front gate in rather a hurry at nine o'clock," she said. "Is he rather tall and clean-shaven, with the look that some people have as if he had washed twice at least that morning? Also, he was whistling Schumann's first Novelette, very loud and quite out of tune. I thought that was rather nice of him, and I whistled too, out of my bedroom window. I had to; I couldn't help it. Of course I didn't let him see me, and he stopped and looked up at the sky to see where it came from. My dear, tell me all about Edward instantly."
Edith gasped in the grip of this genial whirlwind of a girl.
"You are quite right, Elizabeth," she said; "and—and there's nobody like him. I should have come up to talk to you last night, but mother said you would be tired. How did you guess? It was quick of you."
Elizabeth laughed.
"Not very, dear!" she said. "You looked as if—as if you were in church. And as you weren't, it was obvious you were in love. 'Mr. Holroyd'—you said it like that, like an 'Amen.' My dear, what fun! But I do hope he's good enough for you, and attractive enough. A man has to be so tremendously attractive to make up for being a man at all, with their tufts of hair all over their faces. Of course, I shall never marry at all. I shall——Oh dear, I've begun to talk about myself, and really I'm not the least interested in myself. Tell me straight off all about Cousin Edward."
This was a task of which Edith was hopelessly incapable. She could no more talk about him than she could talk about religion. Reticent at all times, on this subject her inability to speak amounted almost to dumbness. Her thoughts, unable not to hover round him, were equally unable to alight, to be put into words. The very thought of speaking of him embarrassed her.
"Quick!" said Elizabeth, putting her arm round her.
"I can't! I can't say anything about him except that he is he. You must see for yourself. But oh, Elizabeth, fancy his wanting me! And fancy that when he asked me first I didn't really care. But very soon I began to care, and now I care for him more than anything. If I go on like this I shall begin not to care about anybody else. Oh, there is the gong; that is for the motor. You must go. But in the interval I think you are a dear. I care for you."
Edith got up, hearing the sonorous Chinese music, but Elizabeth pulled her back to her seat again.
"Surely the motor can wait five minutes," she said. "We are beginning to know each other."
"But mother doesn't like waiting," said Edith.
"Nor does daddy; but he very often has got to. What do you and Cousin Edward talk about? I shall call him Cousin Edward at once, I think, to show him that I know. Or is that forward and tropical of me?"
Lind approached swiftly across the grass.
"Mrs. Hancock is waiting, miss," he said to Elizabeth. "She thinks you can't have heard the gong out here."
Elizabeth gave him a ravishing smile.
"Oh, I heard it beautifully!" she said. "Say I'm coming."
"I think Mrs. Hancock expects you at once, miss," said Lind, quite unsoftened, and continuing to stand firmly there until Elizabeth should move.
Under these circumstances it was impossible to continue anything resembling an intimate conversation, and Elizabeth rose just as Mrs. Hancock herself came out on to the gravel walk below the drawing-room window. She had been waiting at least three minutes—a thing to which she was wholly unaccustomed except when going by train. Then, for the sake of the corner seat facing the engine, she cheerfully waited twenty.
Elizabeth was quite unconscious of any severity of scrutiny on the part of her aunt as she ran across the lawn and jumped over a flower-bed, nor did she detect the slightest intention of sarcasm in Mrs. Hancock's greeting.
"Arc you nearly ready, Elizabeth?" she asked. "If so the car has been waiting some time."
"I'm quite ready, Aunt Julia," she said, "and I am so looking forward to my drive."
The usual detailed discussion was gone through with Denton as to their exact route, and Mrs. Hancock put her feet up on the footstool that had been bought for the journey to Bath.
"Now we're off," she said; "and if you would put down your window two more holes, dear, or perhaps three, we shall be quite comfortable. You look quite rested; that's what comes of stopping in your room for breakfast. And if you get a good long rest again this afternoon, while Edith and I are out, I've no doubt you'll be quite brisk this evening. Mr. Holroyd is coming to dinner, and you'll hear him play. That will be quite a treat for you as you are so fond of music. And now I want to tell you——"
Elizabeth interrupted her aunt. To this also she was unaccustomed.
"I think I know," she said. "Do you mean about Mr. Holroyd? Edith told me. But she didn't seem able to describe him at all. Do tell me about him! Is he good enough for her? I think she's a dear!"
"Edward is a young man in a thousand," began Mrs. Hancock.
"Yes; but is he the right young man in a thousand? I hope he's rich too, though of course that doesn't matter so much for Edith. Aunt Julia, what a lovely car! May I drive it some day? Would your chauffeur lend me his cap and coat? I used often to drive daddy, till one day when I went into a ditch. It was so funny; one door was jammed, of course, against the side of the ditch and we couldn't open the other. Mamma was inside. We thought we should have to feed her through the window. But daddy said afterwards that it wasn't entirely my fault. May I drive now? Or perhaps I had better learn about the car first. And now about Cousin Edward?"
Mrs. Hancock had received several shocks during this hurricane speech, and she had to collect herself a little before she could reply. But before she could reply Elizabeth was away again.
"Oh, here we are on that nice heath!" she said. "It did smell so good! Oh, Aunt Julia, I think I had better confess! I couldn't stop in bed this morning, though it was nice of you to want me to get rested, and I went for a walk about six."
"My dear! All alone?"
"Some of the time. I met a man whom I thought was a lunatic with a butterfly net, but Edith says it was Mr. Beaumont. He fell down, so we talked. And his sister came out of a wood! Oh, I believe that is he again, coming along the road towards us now!"
"But, my dear, what odd conduct on your part!"
"Was it? It seemed the only thing to do. Had I better bow to him, Aunt Julia?"
Mrs. Hancock felt slightly bewildered by so puzzling a question of etiquette as that involved by a girl conversing with a total stranger—particularly when that stranger turned out to be Mr. Beaumont—at six o'clock in the morning. Prudence prevailed.
"We will both look at the view out of the side-window," she said, and Mr. Beaumont encountered a pair of profiles.
But Mr. Beaumont and his butterfly net being left behind, Mrs. Hancock thought well to take advantage of the opportunity for a few general remarks. Already she had been kept waiting, been interrupted, and been faced with this problem arising from quite unheard-of conduct on Elizabeth's part. And as a gentian thrusts blossoms through the snow, so at the base of her cordiality of tone lay a frozen rigidity. As her custom was, when she wanted to say something of the correcting and improving nature, she laid her hand softly—then squeezed—on Elizabeth's. This was symbolical of the affectionate nature of her intention.
"I can't tell you, dear Elizabeth," she said, "how I have been looking forward to your coming here, and I am quite certain we shall have the happiest summer together. And I hope you won't find the manners and customs expected of a young lady in England very strange, though I know they are so different to what is quite right and proper in India, with all its deserts and black people. Most interesting it all must be, and I am greatly looking forward to hearing about it all, and I'm sure when you tell me I shall want to go to India myself. But here, for instance, dear Edith would never dream of taking a walk at six o'clock in the morning all alone, when there might be all kinds of people about, or talking to strangers, or thinking even of driving a motor-car. My dear, if you would reach down that tube and blow through it and then say, 'To the right, please, Denton,' he will take us a very pleasant round, and we shall get back ten minutes before lunch and have time to rest and cool. Had we started a few minutes sooner, when the car came round, we should have had time to go a long round, past a very pretty mill which I wanted to show you. As it is, we will take a shorter round."
There was all Mrs. Hancock's quiet masterfulness in these agreeable remarks, all the leaden imperturbability which formed so large a factor in the phenomenon of her getting her own way in her own manner, and of everybody else doing, in the long run, what she wished, until they were reduced to the state of abject vassalage in which her immediate circle found themselves. The effect it produced on Elizabeth, though not complete, was material.
"I'm afraid that it was my fault we didn't start punctually, Aunt Julia," she said. "But couldn't we go round by the mill all the same and be a little late for lunch?"
Mrs. Hancock laughed.
"And make other people unpunctual as well?" she said. "No, my dear; when anybody has been unpunctual—I am never unpunctual myself—my rule is to get back to punctuality as soon as possible and start fair again. We will go to the mill another day, for I hope we shall have plenty of drives together. About Mr. Beaumont, I hardly know what to do. If only, you naughty girl, you had not got up but stayed quietly in bed, as I meant you to do, it would never have happened. I think the best plan will be for me to ask him to lunch with us and then introduce you quite fresh, so that he will see that we all mean to forget about your meeting on the heath. Look, here are the golf links! Very likely we shall see Mr. Martin playing. He is our clergyman, and we are most lucky to have him. Yes, upon my word, there he is! Now he sees my car and is waving his cap! Well, that was a coincidence, meeting him, for now you will recognize him again when you see him in his surplice and hood in church to-morrow morning. Dear me, it is the first Sunday in the month, and there will be the Communion after Morning Service. Mr. Martin never calls it Matins; he says that is a Roman Catholic name. How quickly the Sundays come round!"
Elizabeth looked out of the window at the celebrated Mr. Martin, and saw that here was an opportunity for saying what she felt she must say to her aunt before Sunday morning. The talk she had had with her father on the reality of religious beliefs to her had been renewed before she left India, and, with his consent, she had made up her mind not to go to church while the reason for so doing remained inconclusive to her. To attend public worship seemed to her a symbolical act, an outward sign of something that, in truth, was non-existent.... It was like a red Socialist joining in the National Anthem. But she had promised him—and, indeed, the promise was one with the desire of her heart—to pray, not to let neglect cement her want of conviction.
"Aunt Julia," she said, "I want to tell you something. It is that I don't want to go to church. It—it doesn't mean anything to me. Oh, I'm afraid you are shocked!"
It seemed a justifiable apprehension.
"Elizabeth!" said Mrs. Hancock. "How can you say such wicked things?"
This roused the girl.
"They are not wicked!" she said hotly. "It is very cruel of you to say so. I had a long talk, two talks, with daddy about it. He agrees with me. He was very sorry, but he agrees."
It is hard to convey exactly the impression made on Mrs. Hancock's mind. If Elizabeth had confessed to a systematic course of burglary or murder she would not have been more shocked, nor would she have been more shocked if her niece had announced her intention of appearing at dinner without shoes and stockings. The conventional outrage, in fact, was about as distressing to her as the moral one. She knew, of course, perfectly well that even in well-regulated Heathmoor certain most respectable inhabitants, who often sat at her table, were accustomed to spend Sunday morning on the golf-links instead of at public worship, but she never for a moment thought of classing them with Elizabeth. She could not have explained that; it was merely matter of common knowledge that grown-up men did not seem to need to go to church so much. Similarly it was right for them to smoke strong cigars after dinner, whereas the fact that Elizabeth had consumed one of Mr. Beaumont's cigarettes, had she been cognizant of that appalling occurrence, would have seemed to her an almost inconceivable breach of decency. Girls went to church, and did not smoke; here was the statement of two very simple fundamental things.
"I hardly know what to say to you," she said. "Talking to Mr. Beaumont is nothing to this. I must ask you to be silent for a little while, Elizabeth, while I collect my thoughts, and on our first drive too, which I hoped we should enjoy so much, although your being late made it impossible for us to go round by the mill as I had planned."
The poor lady's pleasure was quite spoiled, and not being accustomed to arrange her thoughts in any order, except when she was forming careful plans for her own comfort, she found the collection of them, which she desired, difficult of attainment. But very quickly she began to see that her own comfort was seriously involved, and that gave her a starting-point. It would be known by now throughout Heathmoor that her niece from India had come to stay with her for the summer, and it would be seen that no niece sat with her in the pew just below the pulpit. Almost all the seats in the church faced eastwards; this, with one or two others, ran at right angles to them, and was thus in full view of the congregation. It followed that unless she explained Elizabeth's absence, Sunday by Sunday, when there was always a general chat—except on the first Sunday of the month—at the gate into the churchyard, by a cold or some other non-existent complaint (and this was really not to be thought of), her circle of friends would necessarily come to the most shocking conclusion as to Elizabeth's non-appearance. Certainly Mr. Martin would notice it, and it would be his duty to inquire into it. That would be most uncomfortable, and if inquiries were made of her she could not imagine herself giving either the real reason or a false one. No doubt if Mr. Martin talked to Elizabeth he could soon awake in her that sense of religious security, of soothed, confident trust—a trust as complete as that with which any sane person awaited the rising of the sun in the morning, which to Mrs. Hancock connoted Christianity, but that he should talk to her implied that he must know what ailed her. And in any case the rest of Heathmoor would notice Elizabeth's absence from church.... It was all very dreadful and puzzling, and was no doubt the result of a prolonged sojourn in India, where heathens, in spite of all those missions to which she did not subscribe, were still in such numerical preponderance. But the cause of Elizabeth's proposed absence did not in reality so greatly trouble her. What spoiled her pleasure, in any case, was the uncomfortableness of the situation if Elizabeth was seen to be consistently absent from the eleven o'clock service.
Then the light began to break, and conventional arguments flocked to the assistance of her beleaguered conventionality.
"I am so shocked and distressed, dear," she said, "though you will tell me, I dare say, that there is little good in that, and on this lovely morning, too. But of the reason for your not going to church I will not speak now. I am thinking of the effect. Every one knows that you are here with me, and, unless I am to say you are unwell every Sunday morning, what am I to say? And, indeed, I could not bring myself to say you are unwell, and keep on repeating it. Of course we all say, 'Not at home,' when it is not convenient to receive callers, but on a subject like this it would be out of the question. There is Mr. Beaumont again; we seem always to be meeting him. And the servants, too. Lind and Denton and Filson will all certainly know you don't go to church, and Mrs. Williams, who can't go, though I am sure she would if her duties allowed her to, will be certain to hear you moving about from the kitchen. They will talk among themselves and say how odd it is. It will offend them, dear, and you know what is said about giving offence. I am sure you did not think of that"—Mrs. Hancock had only just thought of it—"or consider what effect your absence would have. I assure you that often and often I have felt inclined not to go on Sunday morning, and should much prefer, when it is wet, to read the psalms and lessons at home. Even then Lind and Filson and the others would know that it was only the weather that prevented me, and they would see the prayer-books and Bibles lying about."
Elizabeth again interrupted.
"You needn't say any more, Aunt Julia," she said. "Certainly I will go to church on Sunday. It seems to me that it would be an offence against your hospitality for me to refuse. It is part of the routine, is it not, a rule of the house? On those grounds I will go. Will that satisfy you?"
Mrs. Hancock found that all that had "shocked and distressed her" was sensibly ameliorated. The feelings of Lind and Filson would be spared, and the chat at the churchyard gate would be as cheerful as usual. She beamed on her niece.
"I knew you would see it in the right light, if it was put to you," she said. "And, with regard to your reasons for not wanting to go, would you like to talk to Mr. Martin about it? He is so wise. Anyhow, you will hear him preach, and I cannot imagine any one hearing Mr. Martin preach without feeling the absolute truth of what he says. But that we will talk of another time. Dear me, we are back at the golf links again; we have made a loop, you see. And if that isn't Mr. Martin going into the club-house. Fancy seeing him twice in a morning! Well, we have had a nice drive, after all. And when we get in you must remind me to give you a volume of sermons by your grandfather, in which he tells about his own doubts when he was a young man, and how he fought and overcame them. It is all so beautifully put, and after that he never had any more doubts at all. And we shall get back ten minutes before luncheon-time, which is just what I like to do."
Edward was the only guest that evening, and during dinner Elizabeth found herself observing him somewhat closely, and coming to no conclusions whatever about him. Certainly he was good-looking, he was well-bred and quiet of voice, but she found nothing in him to distinguish him from the host, nothing that to her could account for the lighting up of Edith's face when she looked at him. He had a couple of Stock Exchange jokes to repeat, one of which made Mrs. Hancock call him naughty, and the subjects of perennial interest, such as the weather and the train-service—it appeared that the directors were going to cut off the vexing three minutes in the evening train from town—took their turns with the hardy annuals, such as the forthcoming croquet tournament and the ripening strawberry crop. New plays going on in town, the criticisms of which Mrs. Hancock had read in theMorning Post,followed, and the much-debated action of the Censor in refusing to license the Biblical drama called "David" infused a tinge of extra vividness in discussion, and Mrs. Hancock exhibited considerable ingenuity in avoiding the word "Bathsheba."
"Mr. Beaumont was talking to me about it the other day," she said, "and he said his cousin, who is in the Lord Chamberlain's office, told him that there was no question about its having the licence refused. There were episodes quite unfit for the stage."
Everybody looked regretfully at the dessert.
"I am very glad it was stopped," continued Mrs. Hancock. "I feel so uncomfortable at the theatre if I think there is something coming which isn'tquite——"
"But we have it all read in the lessons in church, don't we, Aunt Julia?" asked Elizabeth.
"Yes, my dear; but what is suitable to read is often not suitable for the stage. For my part, even if they do give 'Parsifal' in town, I shall not think of going to it."
"But that is not quite parallel to David and Bathsheba," said Elizabeth straight out. Lind was at her elbow, too, with the savoury.
"And do come in to-morrow afternoon, Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, with extraordinary presence of mind, "and play these two young ladies at croquet."
Smoking, of course, was not allowed in Mrs. Hancock's drawing-room, and Edward was firmly shut into the dining-room, with the injunction not to stop there long. No word was said regarding Elizabeth's awful lapse, nor did any silence reproach her. The one swift change of subject at the moment of the crisis had called sufficient attention to it. The table with patience cards was set ready, and Mrs. Hancock, over her coffee, got instantly occupied and superficially absorbed in her game. Before long Edward, as commanded, reunited himself.
"And now give us our usual treat, dear Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, building busily from the king downwards in alternate colours, "and play us something. That beautiful piece by Schumann now, where it keeps coming in again."
From this indication Edward was quick enough to conjecture the first of the Noveletten, and opened the Steinway grand, covered with a piece of Italian embroidery on which stood a lamp, two vases of flowers, and four photograph frames. Edith moved round to the other side of the card-table, where she could see the player; Elizabeth, with a flash of delighted anticipation, shifted round in her chair and put down the evening paper. She adored the piece "which kept coming in again," and, knowing it well herself, felt the musician's intense pleasure at the idea of hearing what somebody else thought about it. Somewhat to her surprise, Edward put the music in front of him; more to her surprise, he did not show the slightest intention of moving the lamp, the vase of flowers, or the photograph frames.
Then he began with the loud pedal down, as the composer ordered, and Elizabeth listened amazed to an awful, a conscientious, a correct performance. Never were there so many right notes played with so graceless a result; no one could have imagined there was so much wood in the whole human system as Edward contrived to concentrate into his ten fingers, those fingers which, Elizabeth noticed, looked so slender and athletic, and for all purposes of striking notes properly were as efficient as a row of wooden pegs. He made the piano bellow, he made it shriek, he made it rattle; and when he played with less force he made it emit squeaks and little hollow gasps. As for phrasing, there was of course none at all; each chord was played as written, each sequence that made up the phrase played with laborious and precise punctuality. To any one of musical mind the result was of the most excruciating nature, or would have been had not the entire performance been so extremely funny. As a parody of how some quite accomplished but unsympathetic pianist performed the Novelette it was beyond all praise. Elizabeth rocked with noiseless laughter. So much for the sound, and then Elizabeth, looking at his face in the twilight of the shaded lamp, saw that in it was all that his hands lacked. The features that at dinner, when she somewhat studied him, had appeared so meaninglessly good-looking, were irradiated, transfigured; he heard all that his fingers could not make others hear, his eyes saw and danced with seeing, all the abounding grace and colour that lay in the melodies his hands were incapable of rendering. Then, in three inflexible leaps, as if a wooden marionette jumping down from platform to platform of rock, the piece came to an end.
Edith gave a great sigh.
"Oh, it's splendid!" she said.
Mrs. Hancock triumphantly put the knave of hearts on to the queen of clubs.
"Thank you, Edward!" she said. "I like it where it comes in again. There! I believe it's going to come out!"
He faced round on his music-stool to receive their compliments, his eyes still glowing, and met Elizabeth's look. Perception flashed between the two, wordless and infallible. He knew for certain that she knew, knew all the exultant music meant to him, knew all the entire incompetence of his rendering. He got up and went to her.
"You play, don't you?" he said, speaking rather low. "Can't you take the taste of that out of our mouths?"
Elizabeth almost laughed for pleasure at the complete understanding so instantaneously established between them.
"Yes. What shall I play?" she asked.
"If only you happened to know that first Novelette," he said.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Shall I really?" she said. "I think I know it."
"And won't you give us that other delicious one?" said Mrs. Hancock, plastering the cards down. "The one I like next best, which is sad in the middle."
Elizabeth did not answer, but went straight over to the piano. He had shut the book from which he played, and she did not open it, for, though she suspected she might not be note-perfect, she intended to play, not to practise. Mrs. Hancock, absorbed in the patience that really was "coming out," did not notice that she had no reply to her question, and the click of her triumphant sequence of cards continued. Edith, who had not heard what had passed between the two, remembered that Elizabeth was fond of music, but felt surprised and slightly nervous at the thought that she should think of playing when the echoes of that reverberating performance still lingered in the air. But neither Elizabeth nor Edward seemed to heed her.
Elizabeth sat down, then half-rose again, and gave a twirl to the music-stool. Then she paused for a moment, with her hands before her face, and without any preliminary excursions, plunged straight into the first Novelette again. And all that had been in Edward's brain, all that could not communicate itself to his hands, streamed from her firm, soft finger-tips. The images imprisoned in his brain broke out and peopled the room with colour and with fire. Banners waved, and a throng of laughing youths passed, jewel-decked, in wonderful processions down a street of noble palaces. At every corner fresh members joined them, for on this joyful morning the whole world of those spirit-presences kept festival, and whether they sang or not, or whether the marching melody was but the sound of joy, he knew not.... Innumerable as the laughter of the sea they glittered along, until by some wonderful transformation they were the waves on a spring morning, and over them a song floated.... Or were they a field of daffodils, and over them the scent of their blossoming hovered? From the sunlight they passed into a clear blue shadow, and out of it, as out of waters, came the strain.... From shadow into sunlight again they passed, and from sunlight into waves with singing sea-birds flashing white-winged over them. Once more sun and banners, and in the sunlight a fountain of water aspired.... Where under his hands the wooden doll had tumbled from rock to rock, bouquets of rainbowed water fell from basin to basin of crystal.... And that was the first Novelette.
Mrs. Hancock had noticed the change of performer, though not at first, for it only occurred to her that Edward was playing the same piece over again. But it struck her very soon that he was not "keeping the time" with such precision as usual, and the moment afterwards that this was altogether different from the tune that kept coming in again, as rendered before. Then, looking up, she saw it was Elizabeth at the piano, and there followed a couple of obviously wrong notes. How foolish and forward of this girl to play after Edward, to play his piece, too, and make mistakes in it. And when the tune came in again she didn't put half the force into it that Edward did. Certainly she had not Edward's "touch," nor his masculine power, that stamped out the time with such vigour.
Her natural geniality prevented her saying or even hinting at any of these things, and she was extremely encouraging.
"Thank you, Elizabeth!" she said. "What a coincidence that you should be learning one of Edward's tunes. Now youhaveheard it played, haven't you? I am sure you will get it right in time. You must play it to Edward again next week, when you have practised, and he will see how you have got on."
"Ah, do play it again to me next week," said he, "or before next week."
"And now, Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, "do let us have the tune that gets sad in the middle."
He turned to her, with face that music still vivified.
"After that all my tunes would be sad," he said—"beginning, middle, and end. But won't Miss Fanshawe play again?"
Mrs. Hancock thought that charming of him; it was so tactful to make Elizabeth think she had played well; poor Elizabeth, with her wrong notes that any one with an ear could detect. As a matter of fact she did not care one particle who played or if anybody played, so long as her patience came out. She perceived nothing of the situation, guessed nothing about the fire from the girl's fingers which tingled in his brain.
But Edith saw more; she saw, at any rate, that something in Elizabeth's playing had enormously pleased and excited her lover. And he had said that it was surely she herself who lay behind melody, she whom he sought. She went to Elizabeth and gently pushed her back on to the music-stool.
"Do play again, dear!" she said. "It gives us such pleasure."
Elizabeth, as her father knew, was conscious of little else than her "German Johnnies," when there was singing in her brain, and she sat down at once.
"Do you know this?" she said. "Quite short."
She touched the keys once and then again, as if to test the lightness of her fingers, and then broke into the Twelfth Etude of Chopin, letting the piano whisper—a privilege so seldom accorded to that belaboured instrument. Even Mrs. Hancock responded to it, and laid down her cards and spoke.
"What a delicious tune, my dear," she said. "Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti!"
The tune was still hovering and poised. Elizabeth put her hands firmly down on a suspension and stopped.
"But what an abrupt end!" said Mrs. Hancock.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, turning round on the stool.
When Mrs. Hancock had had enough patience and conversation she secretly rang an electric bell which was fixed to the underside of her card-table, upon which Lind brought in a tray of glasses and soda-water, which was rightly regarded by her guests as a stirrup-cup. This signal occurred rather earlier than usual to-night, for it was likely that the two lovers would wish to say a few words to each other in the library before parting. This was made completely easy for them by Mrs. Hancock's suggestion that Edith would find Edward's hat and coat for him, as Lind no doubt had gone to bed—he had left the soda-water tray about three minutes before—and the two went out together.
The words of parting were short, and Edward, still tingling with music, still inflamed by that lambent fire, went back to his house. In musical matters, despite his own incompetence in matter of performance, he had an excellent judgment, and he knew that he had been listening that night to the real thing. There was no question as to the quality of Elizabeth's playing; she had authority, without which the most agile execution is no more than a mere facility of finger, acquirable like the nimble manoeuvres of a conjurer, and in itself as devoid of artistic merit. That magic, like his, is a matter of mere manipulation, and no more constitutes a pianist than does the power of pronouncing words without stammer or stumbling constitute an actor. But behind Elizabeth's playing sat the master, who understood by virtue of perception the meaning of music, and by virtue of hands co-ordinated with that burning perception, could interpret. And, above all, he felt that in music she spoke his language, uttered the idioms he understood but could not give voice to. Her soul and his were natives of the same melodious country; not foreigners to each other.
He told himself, and honestly believed it, that there was no more than this—as if this was not enough—in the hour he had spent in Mrs. Hancock's drawing-room. He was not even sure whether he liked Elizabeth or not; certainly she was as different as might well be from the type of marriageable maidenhood which had so greatly and so sanely attracted him that he rejoiced to know that his future life would be intimately and entirely bound up in hers. All through dinner Elizabeth hadmeantnothing at all to him, and he had noted, rather than admired, her vitality, for certainly she was like a light brought into a dusky room, dispersing the shadows that completely and somnolently brooded in the corners, and restoring colour to mere grey outlines. But he was not very sure that he desired or appreciated this unusual illumination; they had all of them got on very nicely in the dark, where if you dozed a little, there was not much probability of being detected, and of late he had sat with chair close to Edith's, so to speak, and listened with tenderness to Mrs. Hancock talking on in her sleep. Into this had Elizabeth come with her vivid bull's-eye lantern, which got in one's eyes a little, and was slightly disconcerting.
So had it been until she played, and at that moment and in that regard he found her simply and utterly adorable; and he poured out his homage for her as he would have done for some splendid Brunnhilde awaking and hailing the sun. And he knew the nature of the homage he brought, so he as yet confidently told himself, a homage as sexless and impersonal as that which prompts the presentation of wreaths to elderly and perspiring conductors at the close of an act. It needed not a Brunnhilde to evoke that, for it was merely the tribute to artistic interpretation manifested by man or woman, and responded to by those who could appreciate. Mrs. Hancock's deplorable ejaculation of "Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti" was of the same nature. It was not a tribute to Elizabeth, nor was his abandonment of himself to her spell, or, at the most, it was a tribute to her fingers, for the music that flowed from them. But how he would have worshipped that gift in another; if only it had been Edith who played!
He had sat himself down in the broad window-seat of his drawing-room, which looked out into the garden and trees that a fortnight before had stood made of ebony and ivory in the blaze of the May moonlight, on the night when the house next door had been empty. To-night it was tenanted, tenanted by the girl who, within a few months, would come across so short a space of lawn and make her home with him, tenanted also by the dark, vivid presence of her who had made music to them. In his drawing-room where he sat, empty and blazing with electric light, for some unaccounted impulse had made him turn on all the switches, stood his big black piano, with inviolate top, standing open. How would Elizabeth awake the soul in it, even as Siegfried had by his kiss awakened Brunnhilde, by the magic of her comprehending fingers! Almost he could see her there, with her profile, a little defiant, a little mutinous, cut, cameo-wise, against the dark grey of his walls, with her eye kindling as she listened to the music in her brain, which flowed like some virile, tumultuous heart-beat out of her fingers. How well she understood the tramp and colour of that Novelette!—yet he knew he understood it quite as well himself—how unerringly her fingers marshalled and painted it! In her was the secret, the initiation, and—oh, how much it meant!—in her also was the mysterious power of communication. She was not one of those incomplete souls who are born dumb, as so many were. She could speak.... Others were born empty, and so their power of speech was but a bottle of senseless sounds, of flat wooden phrases.... And then, with a shock of surprise to himself, he became aware that he was thinking no longer about the music which Elizabeth made, but Elizabeth who made it.
Business on the Stock Exchange had been, as was not uncommon, somewhat slack during this month of June, and Edward found it easy to get down to Heathmoor by the train that arrived soon after five instead of that which started an hour later. It was natural for him, after getting rid of the habiliments of town, to come round next door, where he would find Mrs. Hancock and Edith ready to give him a slightly belated cup of tea in the garden-house that adjoined the croquet-lawn. As a rule Elizabeth was not there, but her whereabouts was indicated by the sound of the piano, for she was practising with the energy of the enthusiast, and found this hour, when the house was empty and she could escape from the sense of disturbing or being disturbed, the most congenial time in which to make as much noise as she chose, or to practise a particular bar in endless repetition. Mrs. Hancock continued to believe—and to reiterate—that Edward was themaestroand that Elizabeth followed, faint but pursuing, in the wake of his victorious fingers, and she often asked him how he thought she was getting on. He frequently dined there, and, with the regularity that characterized her, she insisted on his playing one or more of his "pieces" when he had smoked the cigarette that detained him in the dining-room. And on these occasions his eye was wont to seek Elizabeth's in tacit apology, and though no word had passed between them on the subject the situation was quite clear to them both. More than once he had attempted to convince Mrs. Hancock that while he could only strum abominably her niece played, and she, perfectly incredulous, thought it was nice of him to be so modest himself and to encourage Elizabeth. So, protest being utterly useless, he played, with Elizabeth in his confidence. But the sense of this secret between them—for Edith shared her mother's belief in themaestro—gave him a peculiar and, so he still told himself, an inexplicable satisfaction. With that knowledge he enjoyed, rather than otherwise, his own long-drawn murders of the classical authors, and he completely understood the dimpling smile that fluttered, light-winged, over Elizabeth's face as he performed his ruthless deeds.
During this last fortnight life at Arundel had pursued, to all outward appearance, the regulated and emotionless course that characterized existence at Heathmoor. The time of strawberries had come, and therefore also the time of garden parties; and a quarter of an hour after the arrival of the evening train from town the well-laid roads were thick with hurrying flannelled figures, carrying lawn-tennis racquets or croquet mallets, for this latter game was taken with extreme seriousness, and nobody among the regular players would have dreamed of trusting to a mallet of the house. Elizabeth naturally had her share in these invitations, and it was a source of never-ending surprise to see young and athletically limbed men, of the same species apparently as those who in India spent their leisure in polo and pig-sticking, pursuing their laborious way through hoop after hoop, and talking about the game afterwards with greater gusto and minuteness than if they had been tiger-shooting. Chief amongst those heroes of the lawn was Edward, but he, as she did him the justice to observe, preserved the reticence of the accustomed conqueror and sat silent when the Vicar and Mr. Dale "lived their triumphs o'er again." Elizabeth felt that to be like him, but she made the admission grudgingly.
The fact that she grudged him such credit was symptomatic of her feelings towards him, and in especial of those feelings which she did not admit. Though she would honestly have denied it, she was fighting him. Again and again, not knowing why, she assured herself that he was a very ordinary young man, that Edith must be blind, so to speak, to see anything in him. Except in one point, she told herself that there was nothing there, that a lanky frame—it was beyond her power to deny his inches—crowned by a vacant face, was the harbourage of an insignificant soul. He spent his day among the money-bags, his evening on the croquet-lawn, and found that sufficient for him. He was not nearly worthy of Edith or of Edith's inexplicable adoration; he was not even, so he appeared to Elizabeth's eye, in love with her, which would have been a foundation for worthiness. He seemed indulgent of her, kind to her, sometimes a little impatient of her. There Elizabeth did not wholly acquit her cousin of blame; she set him, willy-nilly, on a pedestal, and those on pedestals, for he did not deprecate the plinth, are bound to stoop. But he should have stepped down from the pedestal, he should not have consented to be edified into the statuesque; here was the ground of Elizabeth's censure of him. In fine, she reminded herself twenty times a day of some reason for belittling to her own mind her cousin's betrothed, and concealed from herself that she belittled him. That was an affair of her instinct, and instinctively she knew, though she whispered it not to herself, why she did it, for she feared to give rein to her liking for him.
One exception she made in this policy of self-defence; in one thing she gave him his due, for she never attempted to deny or belittle the validity of his musical passion. It was a fingerless passion, so to speak; between his brain and his hands there seemed to be a total want of co-ordination; he was paralytic, but she could not doubt the intensity of his perception. He was but an alphabet-babbler when he tried to communicate, but when she played to him she knew by a glance at his face whether she did ill or well. Thus, ironically, Mrs. Hancock's judgment of him asmaestroand Elizabeth as pupil was strangely correct, and the girl did not attempt to conceal from herself that it was of him and his opinion that she thought, when she practised, with a greater diligence and fire than had ever been hers before, the music which he understood and loved so discerningly. Day by day she slaved exultingly at the piano, and the thought that he would appreciate her progress became an inspiration to her. But at present this reverence for his gift was like an insoluble lump in the cup of her cold indifference towards him; it neither sweetened nor embittered the beverage. But certainly through him she was beginning to get closer every day to the ineffable spring and spirit from which that bewildering beauty of sound is poured forth, that "dweller in the innermost," one glance from whom sends the beholder mad with melody.
On one afternoon at the end of the month, graciously exempt from garden-parties, Elizabeth was alone in the house, for the hour after lunch had been too hot for Mrs. Hancock's drive, and the whole curriculum of the day had been upset, tea having taken place at the very unusual hour of half-past four, so that she might enjoy a cooler progress between that time and dinner—a dislocation of affairs that had not occurred since the year before last. But the heat was so intense that she really hardly cared at all whether Denton and Lind thought it odd or not, and punctually at five she had set out with Edith, leaving a message with Lind that if Mr. Holroyd came round he was to be told that they were out, but would be back by half-past six. Thus—here Denton became concerned—they would have time to go round by the mill, proceeding very slowly where the road had been newly mended, and so forth. But if—here Lind was attentive again—Mr. Holroyd came by the six o'clock train he might be offered a whisky and soda and asked to wait, but if by the five o'clock train the original message should be delivered. Then Filson brought out a light dust-cloak and the heavier blue one was taken out; then it was put back again in case the evening got chilly. They passed over the bridge by the station the moment after the five o'clock train got in, and Edith thought she saw Edward stepping out of it, but she was not sure. But Edward saw the motor and its passengers without any doubt whatever.
He went straight to his house and out into the garden. There from the open French windows of the house next door the piano was plainly audible. Elizabeth was playing the first of the Brahms' intermezzi, and the air sang like a bed of breeze-stirred flowers.... In less than a minute he had rung the bell, and in answer to Lind's message had said he would come in and wait. In spite of the fact that the offer of whisky and soda applied only to the six o'clock train Lind suggested it. But Edward said he wanted nothing, and, turning the handle of the drawing-room door very softly, he entered.
Elizabeth, utterly intent on her music, heard nothing of his coming, and he sat down in a chair close to the door, knowing that he was doing a rude and an ill-bred thing, knowing, too, in his heart that he was doing worse than that, for he was definitely indulging infidelity, even though the infidelity was, in fact, no more than listening to the girl's playing. But he knew quite well why he listened, and it was not for the sake of the music alone; it was to allow himself, unseen and unsuspected—for there was in this questionable conduct something of the self-effacing quality of love—to see incarnated the dreams from which he had roused himself when a month ago he engaged himself to Edith. For years of his youth he had cherished this unrealized vision, fondling it in his dreams; now, when too early he had told himself that the time for dreaming was done and he must awake to the average humdrum satisfaction of domesticity with a delightful partner, the dream incarnate had walked into his waking hours.
The sound of what she played had been the magnet which drew him here, but now that he had come he was scarcely conscious of her music, which throughout this month had been that which attracted him to her. Now it was as if that had done its work, for it had brought his heart to her, and Nature, or the law of attraction, threw it aside like a discarded instrument, and for the first moments that he sat here he scarcely heard the sweetness of the melody. Then it seemed to him that the strong and tender tune was Elizabeth's soul made audible; she played, thinking she was alone, as she had never played before. She seemed to reveal herself.... And then it struck him that he had done, and was doing, what was equivalent to looking through a keyhole at somebody who thought she was alone. Shame awoke in him for that, but shame passed and was swallowed up in his intense consciousness of her, of Elizabeth and the tune that was Elizabeth herself.
She finished, and sat still for a moment with her fingers still resting on the last chord. Then she gave a long sigh, and, turning round, saw him.
"Cousin Edward!" she said, almost incredulously, feeling exactly what just now he had felt, namely, that he had been looking through a keyhole at her.
He got up, only dimly conscious of the rebuke in her voice.
"I came in after you had begun that intermezzo," he said, "and I didn't want to disturb you. I know how you hate an interruption. I——"
He paused a moment, dead to all else except the fact of her.
"I never heard you play like that before," he said. "It was you."
She still looked troubled.
"I don't think you should have done that," she said. "Didn't Lind tell you that Aunt Julia and Edith were out?"
"Yes. If you think I oughtn't to have come in I am sorry. But I can't help rejoicing that I have heard you play like that."
Suddenly it seemed to Elizabeth that it was ridiculous of her to object to what he had done. She had often played to him alone before, and what difference did it make if on this occasion she did not know of his presence? But her reason was at variance with her instinct.
She smiled at him.
"It is nothing," she said; "I was absurd to mind. I am glad you thought I played it well. Have you had tea? Shall we go into the garden?"
He saw his danger slipping away from him; he had but to make a commonplace reply and it would be past. But he saw his dream, that had become incarnate, slipping away from him also, and at the moment that meant everything in the world to him. He was reckless, on fire, and came close to her and stammered a little when he spoke.
"For the last fortnight," he said, "I have thought of nothing else but you——"
Loyalty and cowardice mixed caused him to stop. He saw amazement and utter surprise flood Elizabeth's face; he saw also, faint as the reflection of far-away lightning, something that responded to him, something that leaped towards him instead of recoiling from him. But all the rest of her was lost in pure bewilderment, which only wanted to get rid of him. She did not even answer him, but, with finger and following eye, pointed to the door.
"I beg your pardon!" he said quickly.
"Please go!" said the girl.
She sat down on the music-stool which she had so lately left, and while waiting for her brain to work again struck a random note or two. As far as she felt anything she felt surprise. Then in a flash came indignation that, while he was but a month old in his engagement to Edith, he should speak thus to her. And following instantly on that, like some burglar violently breaking into her mind, came the unbidden thought, "He cares for me."
She tried to eject it; she called for help, so to speak, but the burglar contemplated her quite calmly, as if he had a right to be there. He seemed to speak to her, to say, "You will have to get used to me." In turn she looked at him and ceased calling for help. Something inside her—that, without doubt, which Edward had seen faintly behind her first amazement and surprise—seemed to recognize, to smile at him.... And Elizabeth ceased from being surprised at Edward and became surprised at herself. But what was to be done? Beyond all doubt the answer was clear. There was nothing to be done at all; at any rate, there was nothing for her to do. It was ludicrous to contemplate telling Aunt Julia; it would not have been more ludicrous to tell Edith. Nobody must know; nobody must ever so faintly conjecture what had happened. Edward was going to marry Edith on the eighth of October, and there were to be six bridesmaids, of whom she herself was to be one.
Elizabeth's surprise at herself waxed and grew, and her surprise was due to the fact that she was not in the least shocked. She made one unsuccessful attempt to tell herself that Edward had not meant what he said, but she swiftly gave that up, being quite aware that he meant much more than he had said. His trembling voice, his fingers that plaited themselves together, told her that. He was quite in earnest. Then, as suddenly as if she had been shaken out of some deep sleep, she obtained complete control and consciousness of herself. She was not shocked because she welcomed what he had said, because she responded to it. Shame and a secret rapture overwhelmed her, and the burglar went neck and crop out of the wide-flung window of her mind. It was not till she had turned him out that any struggle in her own mind began. She knew now why she had made a habit of belittling and criticizing him to herself: she had been defending herself against him. Now she had to defend herself against herself as well. She had to inquire into the fidelity of her own garrison. And she knew that there were traitors among them. But still she was not the least shocked; certainly they must be turned out or executed or drawn and quartered, but their crime against herself did not anger her against them.
The practical aspect of the situation engaged her again, and she saw now that there was just one thing to be done, namely, to obliterate altogether what had happened—not to think of it any more at all. No doubt it was very bad that Edith's affianced lover should have said what he had said, should have meant so much more than he said, and that she should not have been horrified at him, but only surprised, and when her surprise was passed that she should have found that there was response to him in her soul. But all this must be expunged, and if she could not forget it she must remember it only as some queer distorted dream that in reality is nonsense, though, while the dreamer still slept, it seemed so intensely real. She felt she could answer for herself in this matter, that she was quite competent to seal the affair up in her mind, as bees seal up in wax some intruder to their hive. Edward must also see that to her the whole episode was no longer existent, since non-existence was undoubtedly the best fate for it, and thus her manner to him must be exactly what it had been before he had made his unfortunate intrusion. Hardly less important was it that Edith and her aunt should remain unaware that anything had occurred between Edward and herself. This gave a reason the more for her treating him quite normally. Only ... how did she treat him before?... How did she look at him? Did she usually smile when she spoke to him? She felt that to meet him again now without consciousness of what had just happened would be like meeting a perfect stranger. But it had got to be done. To admit in her bearing to him that any recollection of the scene still had a place in her mind, to indicate even by coldness of manner and an aloof demeanour that he must keep his distance was impossible, for Edith would be sure to notice it, and, above everything almost, it was essential that Edith should be utterly unaware of any—she hardly knew what to call it—any understanding or misunderstanding between them. Over those three minutes there must be pasted a sheet of white paper. It seemed to her well within her power to do that. And she must continue to make her mind fight and belittle and criticize him. That ought to be easy now that he had done what she knew to be a despicable thing. Unfortunately she did not despise him for being despicable, or, at the most, her reason did, but not her instinct.
She heard the sound of the motor-wheels crunching the gravel, and felt perfectly prepared to resume not only her natural manner, but her normal consciousness. She swung round on her music-stool and began the intermezzo again, getting up as her aunt entered with Edith.
"Well? And I hope you've had a good practice, dear!" said Mrs. Hancock very cordially. "And we've had a pleasant drive, and not so dusty as I expected it would be. But we hurried back sooner than I intended originally, because there was a huge black cloud coming up, and Denton said he wouldn't be surprised if it came on to rain very suddenly. So I think I shall sit out in the garden to get a little more air, and you and Edith might have a game of croquet. I expect Edward will come in when the six o'clock train arrives. Dear me, it is after six. Perhaps he has been, Edith, and went back. Lind will know. Then you can all three play croquet. If you touch the bell, dear."
Elizabeth found the natural manner perfectly easy.
"He came in," she said, "and went back to his house again, I think. I was practising."
Suddenly she found herself wondering whether her manner was quite natural, and she glanced at Edith, who was "touching" the bell.
"No doubt he did not want to disturb your practice," said Mrs. Hancock, who always liked to remind herself of the comforts she showered on other people, "for I have given strict orders, dear, that you are not to be disturbed when you are practising. Perhaps he is in the garden. We will call to him over the wall. I want him to come in to dine, and you shall both play to us afterwards. I wonder if we could not get some nice duets with an easy part for you, dear, which you could play together. Look, it has begun to rain already; Denton was quite right. I am glad he advised us to turn, though it was Edith who saw the big black cloud first. There is an end to our going into the garden and to your croquet, I am afraid, but I will send a note round to Edward. I think that was a flash of lightning. Perhaps you would write the note for me, Edith, and give it to Lind. Oh yes, Lind, there will be a note. Yes, there is the thunder. Quite a loud clap. What a blessing we turned!"
Lind's wooden face looked inquiringly round when he was told that there was a note for Edward to be taken round, as if he expected to find him concealed under the piano.
"I thought Mr. Edward was here, ma'am," he said. "Perhaps he is in the garden. He said he would wait."
Elizabeth, gathering her music together, made a sudden awkward movement and spilled it.
"No, he went back home, Aunt Julia," she said. "He came in when I was practising, as I told you."
"I told him you were out, ma'am," repeated Lind, "and he said he would wait."
Elizabeth felt a wild exasperation. There was nothing to explain, and yet she had to go on explaining.
"But he went away again," she repeated.
"Yes, dear; I quite understand," said Mrs. Hancock. "He saw you were practising. Did he say he would come back? If so, I need not send this note!"
It all seemed like a plot of the Inquisition.
"No, he said nothing," remarked Elizabeth rather shortly, feeling that this perfectly straightforward visit was somehow becoming suspicious.
"Did he stop long?" asked Edith, quite casually.
"No, five minutes—ten, perhaps," said Elizabeth. "I really did not time him."
Mrs. Hancock always kept a feather in a small vase of water on her writing-table. With this she smeared the gum on the flap of envelopes in preference to the more ordinary use of the tongue on such occasions. It seemed to her slightly indelicate to put out her tongue—even the tip of it—in public; and besides, who knew what the gum was made of or who had been touching it? This genteel observance singularly annoyed Elizabeth, and it was her privilege to snatch away envelopes from her aunt and lick them herself, with, so to speak, yards of tongue protruding, rather than allow the use of the horrible feather. Here she saw her opportunity, and with a complete resumption of her natural manner, which up to that moment had not been a complete success, upset the feather's water and brought an end to the senseless catechism.
Lind was obliging enough to take the note himself, and prepared for this expedition of about forty yards by putting on a cap, a mackintosh, and goloshes, and providing himself with an umbrella. There was need only for a verbal answer, but he waited some five minutes before an acceptance came. By this time the rain had completely ceased, but Edward, from his window, saw him put up his umbrella again—no doubt to guard against drippings from the trees. He observed this with a very minute detached feeling of interest. Then he sprang up to call to Lind and substitute "regrets" for his "delight." Then that impulse died also, and he sat down to think over what had happened.
He did not fall into the mistake of considering it a little thing, though the incident in itself was nothing. It was, at the least, a feather of carded cloud high up in the heavens, that told, though so insignificant and remote a thing, of the great wind that blew there. He had not spoken idly; rather, he scarcely knew that he had spoken at all until his own words sounded in his ears. He had not addressed pretty words to a pretty girl; it seemed to him that they had been squeezed, as it were, by some force infinitely superior to his power of will out of his resisting mouth. His whole conduct, from the chance hearing of the Brahms' intermezzo in his garden, leading on to his ill-bred and silent intrusion into the room where Elizabeth played and his words, all seemed to have been dictated by an irresistible power that arose out of the sense of his incarnate dream. It had been perfectly true that for the last fortnight he had thought of nothing else but her, that the affairs of every day had for him moved like shadows across that solid background.... In the meantime he had promised his substance and his life to one of the shadows, and, as far as he knew or guessed, he was nothing more than a shadow, rather a distasteful one, to the girl who for him was the only reality.
Then the practical side of the situation, the "what next" which always hastens to stir the boiling pottage of our emotions with its bony fingers, held his attention, even as it had held Elizabeth's. He came to the same conclusions, but with an important reservation. She had consigned the whole affair to complete oblivion, whether or no the consignment lay in her power; he was as glad as she to consign it also, until and unless, in legal phrase, something modified the existing conditions. He knew very well what he connoted by that modification: it meant some sign, some signal from Elizabeth that should confirm the secret welcome that her amazement had so instantly smothered. Just now he had told himself that he was but a distasteful shadow to her; now again the remembrance of her soul's leap towards him told that he was not that. Yet he had had no right to see that smothered welcome any more than he had a right to intrude himself privately into her presence. But in his heart of hearts he was ashamed of neither feat. Only his surface, his sense of breeding, his respect for things like conduct and convention rebuked him. He himself, the seer of dreams, cared not at all; rather, he hugged himself on it.
He had drifted away from practical considerations and wrenched himself back to them. On the eighth of October next, as matters stood, he was to be married to Edith, and his conduct—again with that reservation—must be framed on the lines demanded by that condition. He felt no doubt whatever that Elizabeth would breathe no word of what had passed to her aunt or Edith, for, if she did so, it would imply wanton mischief on her part, of which he knew her to be incapable, or the determination to stop his marriage for—for other reasons.... She would only speak if she intended to spoil or to stop. She might, it was very likely that she would, interpose between herself and him that screen of manner, invisible as a sheet of glass, which yet cuts off all rays of heat from a fire, while it suffers to pass through it the sparkle of its brightness. She would probably appear to others to shine on him as before, but he, poor shivering wretch, would know that all warmth had been cut off from him.
For a moment his passion blazed up within him, and he felt himself barbarian and primitive man without code of morals, without regard for honour and environment. He who spent his innocuous days in an office making money, wearing a black coat, living the dull, respectable, stereotyped life, who spent his leisure in reading papers about affairs that he cared not one drop of heart's blood about, in tapping foolish croquet balls through iron hoops, in playing the piano at Heathmoor dinner-parties, in enveloping himself and his soul in the muffled cotton-wool of comfort and material ease, knew that within this swathed cocoon of himself, that lay in a decorous row of hundreds of other similar cocoons, there lurked, in spite of all contrary appearance, an individual life. He found himself capable of love and utterly indifferent to honour or obligations, regarding them only as arbitrary rules laid down for the pursuance of the foolish game of civilized existence. In essentials he believed himself without morals, without religion, without any of the bonds that have built up corporate man and differentiate life from dreams. And this flashed discovery did not disconcert him; he felt as if he had found a jewel in the muddy flats of existence.
Then, in another flash, he was back in his cocoon again, prisoner in this decorous roomful of things which he did not want. There was a silver cigarette-box on a polished table; there was an ivory paper-knife stuck into the leaves of a book he was reading, a parquetted floor spread with Persian rugs, and all these things were symbols of slavery, chains that bound him, or, at the best, bright objects by which a baby is diverted from its crying for the moon. And the clock chiming its half-hour after seven told him he must conform to the prison rules and go to dress for dinner at Mrs. Hancock's.
He took out of his coat-pocket an envelope about which, up to this moment, he had completely forgotten. It contained the ticket for a box at the opera, which he had bought that day for a performance of "Siegfried" in a week's time. He hoped to persuade the ladies next door to be his guests, and since the pursuance of this formed part of the resumption of ordinary normal life he meant to propose his plans to them. But both when he bought the ticket and now, he saw that it might bear on the life that lay within the cocoon. More than all the material diversion or business of the world he wanted to go with Elizabeth to "Siegfried." And, with his hat, when he started to dinner, he took the book of the music with him.