Within the limits of this short section of our story we shall cram two months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages as they plod through it.
This is well within our power, since the position of the novelist in regard to his characters may be compared with that of the destiny which in the largest comedy moves to and fro mankind its actors. As destiny moves its puppets, so the novelist moves his—upraising, debasing; favouring, tormenting; creating, wiping from the page.
And of the pair the novelist is the more just. Has villainy in a novel ever gone unpunished? Has virtue ever failed of its reward? Your novelist is of all autocrats the most zealous of right and wrong. Villain may through two-thirds of his career enjoy his wicked pleasures, exceedingly prosper despite his baseness; but ever above him the cold eye of his judge keeps watch, and in the end he is apportioned the most horrible deserts that any could wish. Virtue may by the gods be hounded and harried till the reader's heart is wrung. But spare your tears; before Finis is written, down swoops the judge; the dogs are whipped off; Virtue is led to fair pastures and there left smiling.
Contrasted with this autocrat of the printed page, the destiny whose comedy began with the world and is indefinitely continued makes sorry show. Here the wicked exceedingly flourish and keep at it to the end of their chapter; here virtue, battling with tremendous waves of adversity, is at last engulfed and miserably drowned. Truly, their fit rewards are apportioned, we are instructed, after death. But there is something of a doubt; the novelist, in regard to his characters, takes no risks.
Upon another head, moreover, the novelist shows himself the more kindly autocrat. There is his power, so freely exercised, to bridge time. Whereas destiny makes us to watch those in whom we are interested plod every inch and step of their lives-over each rut, through each swamp, up each hill,-the novelist, upon his characters coming to places dull or too difficult, immediately veils from us their weary struggles. Destiny will never grant such a boon: we must watch our friends even when they bore us, even when they cause us pain. Yet this boon is the commonest indulgence of the novelist-as it now (to become personal) is mine.
I bridge two months.
And you must imagine this bridge as indeed a short and airy passage across a valley, down into which the persons of our story must carefully climb, across which they must plod, and up whose far side they must laboriously scramble to meet us upon the level ground. For we are much in the position, we novel readers, of village children curiously watching a caravan of gipsies passing through their district. The gipsies (who stand for our characters) plod wearily away along a bend of dusty road. The children cease following, play awhile; then by a short-cut through the fields overtake the travellers as again they come into the straight.
So now with you and me. We have no need to follow our gipsies down the valley that takes two months in the traversing: we skip across the bridge.
But, leaning over, we may take a shot or two at them as here and there they come into view.
Thus we see the meeting again of George and Mary.
When the agitated young man on the day following the cab accident had alighted from the omnibus at the bottom of Palace Gardens he was opposite No. 14 by half-past ten; waiting till eleven; going, convinced she did not live there; returning, upon the desperate hope that indeed she did; waiting till twelve—and being most handsomely rewarded.
Her face signalled that she saw him, but her eyes gave no recognition—quickly were averted from him; the windows behind her had eyes, she knew.
My agitated George, who had made a hasty step at the red flag that fluttered on her cheeks, as hastily stepped away beneath the chill of her glance; in tremendous perturbation turned and fled; in tremendous perturbation turned and pursued. In Regent's Park he saw her produce a brilliant pair of scarlet worsted reins, gay with bells; heard her hiss like any proper groom as tandemwise she harnessed David and Angela, those restive steeds.
The equipage was about to start—she had cracked her whip, clicked her tongue—when with thumping heart, with face that matched the flaming reins, hat in hand he approached; spoke the driver.
Her steeds turned about; with wide, unblinking eyes, searched his face and hers.
“Your faces are very red,” Angela said. “Are you angry?”
“You have got very red faces,” David echoed. “Are you in a temper?”
Mary told them No; George said they were fine horses; felt legs; offered to buy them.
His words purchased their hearts, which were more valuable.
After the drive they would return to the stable, which was this seat, Mary told him; she could not stay to speak to him any longer. George declared he was the stable groom and would wait.
Away they dashed at handsome speed, right round the inner circle; returned more sedately, a little out of breath. There had been, moreover, an accident: leader, it appeared, had fallen and cut his knees.
“I shied at a motor,” David explained, proud of the red blood now that the agony was past.
George unharnessed them; dressed the wounds; scolded the coachman because no feed had been brought for the horses; promised that to-morrow he would bring some corn—bun corn.
“Will you come to-morrow?” Angela asked.
George glanced at Mary. “Yes,” he told them.
“Every to-morrow?”
“Every to-morrow.”
Tremendous joy. Well delighted, they ran to a new game.
Every to-morrow ran but to three: George and Mary had by then exchanged their histories. The pending examination was discussed, and Mary simply would not speak to him if, wasting his time, he came daily to idle with the children (so she expressed it). She would abandon the Park, she told him—would take her charges to a Square gardens of which they had the entry, where George might not follow.
George did not press the point. As he wrestled out the matter in the hours between their meetings she was a fresh incentive to work. But once a week he must be allowed to come: here he was adamant, and she gladly agreeable. Saturday mornings was the time arranged.
Mary had been fearful at this first re-encounter that it would be the last. The children would certainly tell their mother; Mrs. Chater would certainly make an end to the acquaintance.
“Ask them not to tell,” George had suggested.
Impossible to think of such a thing: it would be to teach them deceit.
“Well, I'll ask them.”
“But that would be just as bad. No—if they tell, it cannot be helped. And after all—”
“Well, after all...?”
“After all—what would it matter?”
George said: “It would matter to me—a lot.”
He glanced at her, but she was looking after Angela and David. He asked: “Wouldn't it matter to you?”
She flushed a little; answered, with her eyes still averted towards the children, “Why—why, of course I should mind. I mean—”
But there are meanings for which it is difficult to find clothes in which they may decently take the air; and here the wardrobe of Mary's mind stood wanting.
George enticed. “Do you mean you would be sorry not to—not to—”
He also found his wardrobe deficient.
Then Mary sent out her meaning, risking its decency. “Why, yes, I would be sorry not to see you again; why should I mind saying so? I have liked meeting you.” And, becoming timid at its appearance, she hurried after it a cloak that would utterly disguise it. “I meet so few people,” she said.
But George was satisfied; she had said she would mind—nay, even though she had not spoken it, her manner assured him that indeed she would regret not again meeting him. It was a thought to hug, a memory to spur his energies when they flagged over his studies; it was a brush to paint his world in lively colours.
Nor, as the future occurred, need either have had apprehension that the children would tell their mother and so set up an insurmountable barrier between them. A previous experience had warned Angela that it were wise to keep from her mother joys that were out of the ordinary run of events.
Returning homeward that day, a little in advance of Mary, she therefore addressed her brother upon the matter.
“Davie, I hope that man will come to-morrow.”
“I hope it, too.”
“We won't tell mother, Davie.”
“Why?”
“Because mother'll say No.”
“Why?”
“Because shealwayssays No, stupid.”
“Why?”
“Oh, Davie, youarestupid! I don't know why; I onlyknow. Don't you remember that lady that used to talk to Miss Humf'ay and play with us? Well, when we told mother, mother said No, didn't she? and the lady played with those abom'able red-dress children that make faces instead.”
“Will he play with the abom'able red-dress children that make faces if we tell mother?”
“Ofcoursehe will.”
“Why?”
“They alwaysdo, stupid.”
“Why?”
Angela ran back. “Oh, Miss Humf'ay, Davie is soirrating!He will sayWhy....”
There is a lesson for parents in that conversation, I suspect.
Leaning from our bridge we may content ourselves with a hurried shot at George, laboriously toiling at his books, sedulously attending his classes, with his Mary spending glorious Saturday mornings that, as they brought him nearer to knowledge of her, sent him from her yet more fevered; and, straining towards another point, we will focus for an instant upon Margaret his cousin, and Bill Wyvern, her adored.
Mr. William Wyvern had most vigorously whacked about among events since that evening when his Margaret had composed her verses for George. At that time a fellow-student with George at St. Peter's Hospital, he had now abandoned the profession and was started upon the literary career (as he named it) that long he had wished to follow. The change had been come by with little difficulty. Professor Wyvern—that eminent biologist whose fame was so tremendous that even now a normally forgetful Press yet continued to paragraph him while he spent in absent-minded seclusion the ebb of that life which at the flood had so mightily advanced knowledge—Professor Wyvern was too much attached to his son, too docile in the hands of his loving wife, to gainsay any wish that Bill might urge and that Mrs. Wyvern might support.
Bill achieved his end: the stories he had had printed in magazines, secretly shown to his proud mother, were now brought forth and chuckled over with glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled through one of the stories, vowed he had read them all, cheerily patted Bill's arm with his shaky old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had held of seeing his son a great surgeon.
It was Bill's burning ambition to obtain a post upon a paper. Not until later did he learn that it is the men outside the papers who must have a turn for stringing sentences; that those inside are machines, cutting and serving the material with no greater interest in it than has the cheesemonger in the cheese he weighs and deals. Meanwhile, the glimpse we may take of him shows Bill Wyvern urging along his pen until clean paper became magic manuscripts; living upon a billow of hope when the envelopes were sped, submerged beneath oceans of gloom when they were returned; trembling into Fleet Street deliciously to inhale the thick smell of printer's ink that came roaring up from a hundred basements; with goggle eyes venerating the men who with assured steps passed in and out the swing-doors of castles he burned to storm; snatching brief moments for the boisterous society of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, those rare bull-terriers; and finally, expending with his Margaret moments more protracted—stealthy meetings, for the most part—in Mr. Marrapit's shrubbery.
But two more peeps from our bridge need we take, and then our characters will be ready to meet us upon the further side.
A glance from here will reveal to us Mrs. Major, that masterly woman, inscribing in her diary:
“Getting on with Mr. M. Should sue. Precip. fat.”
Fill out the abbreviations to which Mrs. Major, in her diary, was prone, and we have:
“Getting on with Mr. Marrapit. Should succeed. Precipitancy fatal.”
Succeed in what? To what would precipitancy of action be irreparable? Listen to a conversation that may enlighten us—spoken upon the lawn of Herons' Holt; Mr. Marrapit in his chair making a lap for the Rose of Sharon; Mrs. Major on a garden seat, crocheting.
A stealthy peep assuring her that his eyes were not closed, Mrs. Major nerved herself with a deep breath; with a long sigh let it escape in the form, “A year ago!”—dropped hands upon her lap and gazed wistfully at the setting sun. She had seen the trick very successfully performed upon the stage.
Mr. Marrapit turned his eyes upon her.
“You spoke, Mrs. Major?”
With an admirable start Mrs. Major appeared to gather in wandering fancies. “I fear I was thinking aloud, Mr. Marrapit. I beg pardon.”
“Do not. There is no occasion. You said 'A year ago.'”
“Did I, Mr. Marrapit?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Marrapit.
A pause followed. The wistful woman felt that, were the thing to be done properly, the word lay with her companion. To her pleasure he continued:
“To-day, then, is an anniversary?”
“It is.”
“Of a happy event, I trust?”
Mrs. Major clasped her hands; spoke with admirable ecstasy. “Oh, Mr. Marrapit, of a golden—golden page in my life.”
“Elucidate,” Mr. Marrapit commanded.
Mrs. Major put into a whisper:
“The day I came here.”
Mr. Marrapit slowly moved his head towards her.
Her eyes were averted. “The time has passed swiftly,” he said.
Mrs. Major breathed: “For me it has flown on—on—” She searched wildly for a metaphor. “On wings,” she concluded.
Again there was a pause, and again Mrs. Major felt that for this passage to have fullest effect the word lay with Mr. Marrapit. But Mr. Marrapit, himself considerably perturbed, did not speak. The moments sped. Fearful lest they should distance beyond recovery the sentiments she felt she had aroused, Mrs. Major hastened to check them.
She said musingly: “I wonder if they are right?”—sighed as though doubtful.
“To whom do you refer?”
“Why, the people who say that time flies when it is spent in pleasant company.”
“They are correct,” Mr. Marrapit affirmed.
“Oh, I do not doubt it for my part, Mr. Marrapit. I never knew what happiness was until I come here—came here. But if—” The masterly woman paused.
“Continue” Mr. Marrapit commanded.
The hard word was softly spoken. Mrs. Major's heart gave two little thumps; her plan clear before her, pushed ahead. “But if to you also, Mr. Marrapit, the time has seemed to fly, then—then Mr. Marrapit, my company has—has been agreeable to you?”
Certainly there was a softness in Mr. Marrapit's tones as he made answer.
“It has, Mrs. Major,” he said, “it has. Into my establishment you have brought an air of peace that had for some time been lacking. Prior to your arrival, I was often worried by household cares that should not fall upon a man.”
Earnestly Mrs. Major replied: “Oh, Isawthat. I strove to lift them.”
“You have lifted them. You have attended not only my cats but my kitchen. I am now able often to enjoy such evenings as these. This peace around us illustrates the tranquillity you have brought—”
The tranquillity was at that moment disastrously shattered. A bed of shrubbery lay within a few feet of where they sat. What had appeared to be a gnarled stump in its midst now quivered, broadened, fell into a line with the straightening back of Mr. Fletcher.
Mr. Marrapit was startled and annoyed. “What are you doing there, sir?”
“Snailin',” said Mr. Fletcher gloomily; exhibited his snail.
“Snail elsewhere. Do not snail where I am.”
“I snails where there's snails.”
“Cease snailing. You must have been there hours.”
“What if I have? This garden's fair planted with snails.”
“Snail oftener. Depart.”
Mr. Fletcher moved a few steps; then turned. “I should like to ast if this is to be part of my regular job. First you says 'cease snailin',' then you says 'snail oftener,' then you says 'snail elsewhere.' Snails take findin'. They don't come to me; I has to go to them. It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a lettuce-leaf.”
He gloomily withdrew.
Mr. Marrapit's face was angrily twitching. The moment was not propitious for continuing her conversation, and with a little sigh Mrs. Major withdrew.
But it was upon that night that she inscribed in her diary:
“Getting on with Mr. M. Should suc. Precip. fat.”
A last peep, ere we hurry across the bridge, will disclose to us Mr. Bob Chater still pressing upon Mary the attentions which her position, in relation to his, made it so difficult for her to escape. Piqued by her attitude towards him, he was the more inflamed than ordinarily he would have been by the fair face and neat figure that were hers. Yet he made no headway; within a month of the date of his return to Palace Gardens was as far from conquest as upon that night in the nursery.
To a City friend, Mr. Lemuel Moss, dining at 14 Palace Gardens with him one night, he explained affairs.
“Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is,” said Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after dinner. “Lucky beggar you are, Bob. My mater won't have even a servant in the place that wouldn't look amiss in a monkey-house. Knows me too well, unfortunately,” and Mr. Moss, taking a squint at himself in the overmantel, laughed—well enough pleased.
Bob pointed out that there was not so much luck about it as Mr. Moss appeared to think. “Never seen such a stand-offish little rip in all my life,” he moodily concluded.
“What, isn't she—?”
Bob understood the unvoiced question. “Won't even let a chap have two minutes' talk with her,” he said, “let alone anything else.”
Mr. Moss stretched himself along the sofa; rejoined: “Oh, rats! Rats! You don't know how to manage 'em—that's what it is.”
“I know as well as you, and a dashed sight better, I don't mind betting,” Bob returned with heat. In some circles it is an aspersion upon a man's manliness to have it hinted that a petticoat presenting possibilities has not been ruffled.
“Well, it don't look much like it. I caught her eye in the passage when we were coming downstairs, and you don't tell me—not much!”
“Did you though?” Bob said. Himself he had never been so fortunate.
“No mistake about it. Why, d'you mean to say you've never got as far as that, even?”
“Tell you she won't look at me.”
Mr. Moss laughed. Enjoyed the “score” over his host for a few moments, and then:
“Tell you what it is, old bird,” said he, “you're going the wrong way about it. I know another case just the same. Chap out Wimbledon way. His people kept a girl—topper she was, too—dark. He was always messing round just like you are, and she was stand-offish as a nun. One night he came home early, a bit screwed—people out—girl in. Met her in the drawing-room. Almost been afraid to speak to her before. Had a bit of fizz on board him now—youknow; didn't care a rip for anybody. Gave her a smacking great kiss, and, by Gad!—well, shewasall right. Told him she'd always stood off up to then because she was never quite sure what he meant—afraid he didn't mean anything, and that she might get herself into no end of a row if she started playing around. Same with this little bit of goods, I'll lay.”
Bob was interested. “Shouldn't be surprised if you're right,” he said; and moodily cogitated upon the line of action prescribed.
Mr. Moss offered to bet that where girls were concerned he was never far wrong. “Slap-dash style is what they like,” he remarked, and with a careless “It's all they understand” dismissed the subject.
It remained, however, in Bob's mind throughout the evening; sprang instantly when, after breakfast upon the following day, he caught a glimpse of Mary as he prepared for the City.
Standing for a moment in the hall, it occurred to him that this very evening offered the opportunity he sought. Mr. and Mrs. Chater were to dine at the house of a neighbour. The invitation had included Bob—fortunately he had refused it. Returning to the morning-room, “I shan't be in to-night,” he told his mother.
“Then I needn't order any dinner for you?”
“No.” He hung about irresolute, then lit a cigar, and between the puffs, “Shall you be late?” he asked carelessly.
“Sure to be,” Mrs. Chater told him. “It's going to be a big bridge drive, you know. We shan't get back before midnight. Don't sit up for us, dear.”
Bob inhaled a long breath from his cigar, exhaled it deliciously. The chance for the slap-dash style was at hand.
“Oh, I'll be later than you. Lemmy Moss has got a bachelors' party on. We're going to have a billiard match.”
“That's capital then, dear. I shall let the servants go to Earl's Court—I've promised them a long time.”
Bob whistled gaily as he mounted his 'bus for the City. The opportunity was surely exceptional.
At eight o'clock he returned; noiselessly let himself in.
The gas in the hall burned low. Beneath the library door gleamed a stronger light. Bob turned the handle.
Mary was curled in a big chair with a book. Certainly the opportunity was exceptional.
At the noise of his entry she sprang to her feet with a little cry. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed: “what a fright you gave me!”
Bob pushed the door. He laughed. “Did I?”; came towards her. “Are you all alone? What a shame!”
“Minnie is in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Chater said you wouldn't be in to-night.”
“Why do you think I came?”
“I don't know.”
“I came to see you.”
She gave a nervous little laugh and made to pass him.
Bob fell back a pace, guarding the door. “Don't you think that was thoughtful of me?”
“I don't know what you mean. There was no need.”
“What! No need! You all alone like this when all the rest are enjoying themselves!”
“So was I. A long evening with a book.”
She had fallen back as he, speaking, had slowly advanced.
Now the great chair in which she had been seated was alone between them.
“Oh, books! Books are rot.” He stepped around the chair.
She fell back; was cornered between the hearth and a low table.
Bob dropped into the chair; boldly regarded her; his eyes as expressive of his slap-dash intentions as he could make them: “Look here, I want you to enjoy yourself for once. I'm going to take you to a music-hall or somewhere.”
He stretched a foot; touched her.
She drew back close against the mantelpiece, her agitation very evident.
“Well, don't that please you?”
“You know it is impossible.”
Bob paid no regard. This was that same diffidence with which the chap near Wimbledon had had to contend.
“We'll come out of the show early and have a bit of supper and be back before half-past eleven. Who's to know? Now, then?”
“It's very kind of you. I know you mean it kindly—”
“Of course I do—”
“But I'd rather not.”
“Are you afraid?”
She was desperately afraid. Her face, the shaking of her hand where it was pressed back against the wall, and the catch in her voice advertised her apprehension. She was afraid of this big young man confidently lolling before her.
She said weakly: “It would not be right.”
Bob sat up. “Is that all?” he laughed. His hands were upon the arms of the chair, and he made to pull himself up towards her.
She saw her mistake. “No,” she cried hurriedly—“no; I would not go with you in any case.”
A shadow flickered upon Bob's face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say. Please let me pass.”
“I want to be friends with you. Why can't you let me?”
“Please let me pass. Mr. Chater.”
Bob lay back. He said with a laugh, “Well, I'm not stopping you, am I?”
She hesitated a moment. The passage between the table and the long chair was narrow. But truly he was not stopping her—so far as one might judge.
She took her skirts about her with her left hand; stepped forward; was almost past the chair before he moved.
Then he flung out a hand and caught her wrist, drawing her.
“Now!” he cried, and his voice was thick.
She gave a half-sound of dismay—of fear; tried to twist free. Bob laughed; pulled sharply on her arm. She was standing sideways to him—against the sudden strain lost her balance and half toppled across the chair.
As Bob reflected, when afterwards feeding upon the incident, had he not been as unprepared as she for her sudden stumble, he would have made—as he put it—a better thing of it. As it was, her face falling against his, he was but able to give a half kiss when she had writhed herself free and made across the room.
But that embrace of her had warmed Bob's passions. Springing up, he caught her as she fumbled with the latch; twisted her to him.
For a moment they struggled, he grasping her wrists and pressing towards her.
With the intention of encircling her waist he slipped his hold. But panic made her the quicker. Her outstretched arms held him at bay for a breathing space; then as he broke them down she dealt him a swinging blow upon the face that staggered him back a step, his hand to his cheek.
Mrs. Chater opened the door.
“Oh, he kissed me! He kissed me!” Mary cried.
Bob said very slowly, “You—infernal—little—liar.”
Mrs. Chater glowered upon Mary with cruel eyes. “It was a fortunate thing,” she said coldly, “that a headache brought me home. Go to your room, miss.”
We may hurry across the bridge.
Saturday was the day immediately following this scene.
George, on a 'bus carrying him towards Regent's Park, was in spirit at one with the gay freshness that gave this September morning a spring-like air.
A week of torrid heat, in which London crawled, groaned, and panted, had been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets. No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight, continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and polished; torrents had poured down the gutters—whenever temporarily the pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by the gurgle and rush of frantic streams driving before them the collected debris of many days.
Upon this morning, in the result, a tempest might have swept the town and found never a speck of dust to drive before it. The very air had been washed and sweetened; and London's workers, scurrying to and from their hives, seemed also to have benefited by some attribute of the downpour that tinted cheeks, sparkled eyes, and, rejuvenating limbs, gave to them a new sprightliness of movement.
George, from his 'bus, caught many a bright eye under a jaunty little hat; gave each back its gleam from the depths of gay lightness that filled his heart. Nearing the Park he alighted; made two purchases. From a confectioner bun-corn for David and Angela, those ramping steeds; from a florist the reddest rose that an exhaustive search of stock could discover.
Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear it back to Palace Gardens—it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom, and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him to lend him inspiration as he worked.
It is almost certain that such a part is one for which flowers were especially designed.
Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been duly exercised, groomed, and turned out to browse upon bun-corn, George rushed at once upon the matter that was singing within him.
Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from any but chance obtrusion. She had taken off her gloves, and George gave her hands, as they lay in her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap of the baton with which the conductor calls together his orchestra—for this was a song that George was about to tune, very confident that the chords of both instruments that should give the notes were in a harmony complete.
He said: “Mary, do you know what I am going to talk about?”
She had been a little silent that morning, he had thought; did not answer now, but smiled.
He laid a hand upon both hers. “You must say 'yes.' You've got to say 'yes' about twenty times this morning, so start now. Do you know what I'm going to talk about?”
“Yes.”
“No objections this time?”
“Yes.”
He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) “No, no; you are only to say 'yes' when I tell you. No objections to the subject this morning?”
His Mary told him “No.”
“Couldn't have a better morning for it, could we?”
She took a little catch at her breath.
George dropped the banter in his tone. “Nothing wrong to-day, is there, dear? Nothing up?”
How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined not to tell him until she more certainly knew its extent. She shook her head; reassuringly smiled.
“Well, that's all right—there couldn't be on a morning like this. Now we've got to begin at the beginning. Mary, I planned it all out last night—all this conversation. We've got to begin at the beginning—Do you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though, didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?”
“George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?”
“Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it. It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you.”
“After last Saturday.”
“Oh, Mary! Much earlier thanthat! You must have!”
“Well, I thought perhaps you—you cared after that first day when you came here.”
“Not before that?”
She laughed. “Come, howcouldI? Why, I'd hardly seen you.”
“Well, I did, anyway,” George told her. “I loved you from the very minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't the proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four words to you—just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you.”
She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so uniquely her own possession.
“Oh, I say, you mustn't do that,” George cried. He was really perturbed.
“I can't help it. You are so utterly foolish.”
“I'm not. It's the proper thing. I tell you I've planned it all out. I love you. I've never said it to you before. Now it's your turn.”
“But what on earth am I to say?”
“You've got to say that you love me.”
“You're making a farce of it.”
“No, I tell you I've planned it all out. I can't go on till you've said it.”
“You can't expect me to say: 'George, I love you.' It's ridiculous. It's like a funny story.”
“Oh, never mind what it's like. Do be serious, Mary. How can I be sure you love me if you won't tell me?”
For the first moment since its happening the thought of Bob Chater and of Mrs. Chater passed completely from Mary's mind. She looked around: there was no soul in sight. She listened: there was no sound. She clasped her fingers about his; leaned towards him, her face upturned....
He kissed her upon the lips....
“The plans,” said George after a moment, “have all gone fut. I never thought of that way.”
“It's much better,” Mary said.
“The other's not a patch upon it,” said George.
You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world an aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world from the material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at first—for the space of that silence after the first kiss—pushed very close by those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence—vagabond tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent and the interior becomes at one with the outer world. The process is gradual, indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of what has been done dawns suddenly. One knocks against an intruder especially drab, starts into wakefulness to rub the bruise, and looking around exclaims, “And this is love!”
Well, it was love. But a rose-garden will not long remain beautiful if no care is taken of what may intrude.
If we but stand sentinel at the door, exercising a nice discretion, the garden may likely remain unsoiled, its air uncontaminated.
George said that though across the first portion of the scheme he had so laboriously planned he had been shot at lightning speed by the vehicle of Mary's action, its latter portion yet remained to be discussed. “We've got to marry, dearest—and as quick as quick. We can't go on like this—seeing each other once a week. No, not even if it were once a day. It's got to be always.”
“Always and always, dear,” Mary said softly.
Women are more intoxicated than men by the sudden atmosphere of that new world. The awe of it was still upon her. The light of love comes strongly to men, with the sensation of bright sunshine; to women as through stained glass windows, softly.
She continued: “Fancy saying 'always' and being glad to say it! I never thought I could. Do you know—will this frighten you?—I am one of those people who dread the idea of 'always.' I never could bear the idea of looking far, far ahead and not seeing any end. It frightened me. Ever since father died, I've been like that—even in little things, even in tangible things. When we go to the seaside in the summer I never can bear to look straight across the sea. That gives me the idea of always—of long, long miles and miles without a turn or a stop. I want to think every day, every hour, that what I am doing can't go on—mustchange. It suffocates me to think otherwise. I want to jump out, to scream.”
Then she gave that laugh that seldom failed to come to her relief, and said: “It's a sort of claustrophobia—isn't that the word?—on a universal scale. But why is it? And why am I suddenly changed now? Why does the thought of always, always, endless always with you, bring a sort of—don't laugh, dear—a sort of bliss, peace?”
This poor George of mine, who was no deep thinker, nevertheless had the reason pat. He said:
“I think because the past has all been unhappy and because this, you know, means happiness.”
She gave a little sigh; told him: “Yes, that's it—happiness.”
And now they fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred of wool—George would do this and George would do that; here the house would be and thus would they do in the house. Probabilities were outraged, obstacles vaulted.
Castles that are builded in the air spring into being quicker than Aladdin's palace—bricks and mortar, beams and stones are featherweight when handled in the clouds; every piece is so dovetailed, marked and numbered that like magic there springs before the eye the shining whole—pinnacled, turreted, embattled.
Disaster arrives when the work is completed. “There!” we say, standing back, a little flushed and out of breath with the excitement of the thing. “There! There's a place in which to live! Could any existence be more glorious?” And then we advance a step and lean against the walls to survey the surrounding prospect. It is the fatal action. The material body touches the aerial structure and down with a crash the castle comes—back we pitch into the foundations, and thwack, bump, thwack, comes the masonry tumbling about us, bruising, wounding.
George had built the castle. Mary had sat by twittering and clapping her hands for glee as higher and higher it rose. He knew for a fact, he told her, that his uncle had not expended upon his education much more than half the money left him for the purpose. He was convinced that by hook or by crook he could obtain the 400 pounds that would buy him the practice at Runnygate of which the Dean had told him. They would have a little house there—the town would thrive—the practice would nourish—in a year—why, in a year they would likely enough have to be thinking of getting a partner! And it would begin almost immediately! In three weeks the examination would be held. He could not fail to pass—then for the 400 pounds and Runnygate!
And then, unhappily, George leaned against this castle wall; provoked the crash.
“Till then, dear,” he said, “you will stay with these Chater people. I know you hate it; but it will be only a short time, a few weeks at most.”
Instantly her gay twittering ceased. Trouble drove glee from her eyes. Memory chased dreams from her brain. Distress tore down the gay colours from her cheeks. She clasped her hands; from her seat half rose.
“Oh!” she cried; and again, “Oh! I had forgotten!”
“Forgotten? Forgotten what?”
“Dearest, I should have told you at the beginning, but I could not. I wanted to wait until I knew. I have not seen her yet this morning.”
My startled George was becoming pale. “Knew what? Seen whom? What do you mean?”
She said, “No, I won't tell you. I won't spoil all this beautiful morning we have spent. I will wait till next week.”
“Mary, what do you mean? Wait till next week? No. You must tell me now. How could I leave you like this, knowing you are in some trouble? What has happened? You must tell. You must. I insist.”
“Ah, I will.” Her agitation, as her mind cast back over the events of the previous night, was enhanced by the suddenness of the change from the sunshine in which she had been disporting to the darkness that now swept upon her. She was as a girl who, singing along a country lane, is suddenly confronted from the hedgeside by some ugly tramp.
She said, “You know that young Mr. Chater?”
Dark imaginings clouded upon George's brow. “Yes,” he said. “Yes; well—?”
“Last night—” And then she gave him the history of events.
This simple George of mine writhed beneath it.
It was a poison torturing his system, twisting his brow, knotting his hands. Her presence, when she finished, did not stay his cry beneath his rackings: he was upon his feet. “By Gad,” he cried, “I'll thrash the life out of him! The swine! By Gad, I'll kill him!”
She laid a hand upon his arm. “Georgie, dear,” she pleaded. “Don't, don't take it like that. I haven't finished.”
Roughly he turned upon her. “Well, what else? What else?”
“I haven't seen him since. He went away early this morning for the week-end. And I have not seen Mrs. Chater again either. I am to see her this afternoon. She sent me word to take the children as usual and that she would see me at three.”
My poor George bitterly broke out: “Oh! Will she? That's kind of her! That's delightful of her! Are you going to see her?”
“Of course I shall see her.”
“'Of course'! 'Of course'! I don't know what you mean by talking in that tone. You won't stay there another minute! That's what you'll tell her if you insist upon seeing her. If you had behaved properly you'd have walked out of the house there and then when it happened last night.”
Spite of her trouble Mary could not forbear to laugh. “Dearest, how could I?”
But this furious young man could not see her point. His fine passion swept him above contingencies.
“Well, then, this morning,” he laid down. “The first thing this morning you should have gone.” He supplied detail: “Packed your box, and called a cab and gone.”
His dictatory air drew from her another sad little laugh.
“Oh, George, dear,” she cried, “gone where?”
It was a bucket of water dashed upon his flames, and for a moment they flickered beneath it—then roared again: “Where? Anywhere!”
“Oh!” she cried, “you are stupid! You don't see—you don't understand! Easy to say 'anywhere,' but where—where? I have no money. I have no friends—I—”
The knowledge of her plight and her outlook crowded upon her speech; broke her voice.
Her distracted George in a moment had her hands in his. “Oh, my dear,” he cried, “what a fool I am! What a beast to storm like that! I was so wild. So mad. Of course you had to think before you moved. You were right, of course you were right. But, my darling, I'm right now. You see that, don't you? You can't stay a moment longer with those beasts.”
And then he laughed grimly. “Especially,” he added, “after what I'm going to do to Master Bob.”
She too laughed. The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied—this she saw clearly as the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about the task of explaining it to George.
She said: “Oh, my dear, you're not right. Georgie, I can't go—if Mrs. Chater will let me stay I must stay.”
He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to understand his Mary. “But why?” he asked. “Why?”
“Dearest, because I must bridge over the time until you are ready to take me. You see that?”
“Of course. But why there? You can easily get another place.”
“Oh, easily! If you had been through it as I have been! The first thing they ask you for is a reference from your former situation. Think what a reference Mrs. Chater would give me!”
He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering, man fashion: “In time you could get a place where they would not ask questions—or rather—yes, of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that happened. Who could see you and not believe you? Tell them everything. There must be some nice people in the world.”
“There may be. But they don't want helps or governesses—in my experience.” The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.
He was still angry. “You can't generalise like that. There are thousands who would believe you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have to wait a bit—well, you have a little money that she must give you; and I—oh, curse my poverty!—I can borrow, and I can sell things.”
The help that a man would give a woman so often has lack of sympathy; he is unkind while meaning to be kind. George's obdurateness, coming when she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble welled in her eyes.
“I wouldn't do that,” she said. “For one thing, we want all our money. Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which I shall only be for a few weeks longer? Another thing—another thing—” She dragged a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve; dabbed her brimming eyes. “Another thing—I'm afraid to risk it. I'm afraid to be alone and looking for a place again. There—now you know. I'm a coward.”
She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched George, cursing himself for the grief he had evoked, cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs. Chater, cursing his uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically moaned that he was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored forgiveness; entreated calm; by squeezing her with his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little damp ball, strove to stem the flood that alarmingly welled from them.
It was an awful position for any young man; and just as my poor George, distinguished in nothing, inept, bewildered, was in a mood murderous to the whole world save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman must needs come sunning himself down the path, making for this seat with hobbling limbs.
He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right, was struck with palpitations by sight of the heaving back of a young woman over whose shoulder glared at him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.
“Dear me, dear me,” said he; “nothing wrong, sir, I trust?”
“Go away!” roared my distracted George.
“Eh?” inquired the old gentleman, horribly startled.
“Go away! Go away!”
The fire of those baleful eyes, of that bellowing voice, struck terror into the aged heart. He clutched his stick.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said he; hobbled away at a speed dangerous to his life and limbs to seek protection of a park-keeper.
The sobs grew longer, less hysterical: changed into long “ohs” of misery; died away.
“There, there,” said George, patting, dabbing. “There, there.”
With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession.
“I'm a little f—fool,” said she.
“I'm a brute,” said George.
The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned.
Mary said, “Now you must listen and believe, dear.”
“Let me have your hand, then.”
She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she continued: “You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl”—she rebuked his negation with a gesture—“if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I should leave Mrs. Chater at once—walk out and not care what I might suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know—I have told you—what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go through it again. And after all-don't you see?—if Mrs. Chater will let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if anything. Mrs. Chater has always been—well, sharp. She may be a little worse—there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful and he—what shall I say? angry, ashamed—why, he will pay no further attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?—if only she will let me stay.”
“I don't like it,” George said. “I don't like it.”
“Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright about it. Am I not? Look at me.”
George looked. Then he said, “All right, old girl.”
She clapped her hands. “Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out—you mustn't touch the detestable Bob.”
With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said, “I suppose I mustn't.” He added, “I tell you what, though. You mustn't interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and marry you I'll pull him out—and pay him.”
They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just two minutes on Monday morning.
And each went home, thinking, not of that portending interview with Mrs. Chater, but upon the love they had declared.