"I've got her and another girl," Harry announced when Andy turned up at the Artemis. "The nuisance is that Billy Foot here insists on coming too, so we shall be a man over. I've told him I don't want him, but the fellow will come."
"I'm certainly coming," said the tall long-faced young man—for Billy Foot was still several years short of forty—to whom Andy had listened with such admiration at Meriton. In private life hewas not oppressively epigrammatic or logical, and not at all ruthless; and everybody called him "Billy," which in itself did much to deprive him of his terrors.
The Artemis was a small and luxurious club in King Street. Why it was called the "Artemis" nobody knew. Billy Foot said that the name had been chosen just because nobody would know why it had been chosen—it was a bad thing, he maintained, to label a club. Harry, however, conjectured that the name indicated that the club was half-way between the Athenæum and the Turf—which you might take in the geographical sense or in any other you pleased.
Andy ate of several foods that he had never tasted before and drank better wine than he had ever drunk before. His physique and his steady brain made any moderate quantity of wine no more than water to him. Harry Belfield, on the contrary, responded felicitously to even his first glass of champagne; his eyes grew bright and his spirit gay. Any shadow cast over him by his interview with Mrs. Freere was not long in vanishing.
They enjoyed themselves so well that a cab had only just time to land them at their place of entertainment before the Nun, whose name was Miss Doris Flower, came on the stage. She was havinga prodigious success because she did look like a nun and sang songs that a nun might really be supposed to sing—and these things, being quite different from what the public expected, delighted the public immensely. When Miss Flower, whose performance was of high artistic merit, sang about the baby which she might have had if she had not been a nun, and in the second song (she was on her death-bed in the second song, but this did not at all impair her vocal powers) about the angel whom she saw hovering over her bed, and the angel's likeness to her baby sister who had died in infancy, the public cried like a baby itself.
"Jolly good!" said Billy Foot, taking his cigar out of his mouth and wiping away a furtive tear. "But there, she is a ripper, bless her!" His tone was distinctly affectionate.
But supper was the great event to Andy: that was all new to him, and he took it in eagerly while they waited for the Nun and her friend. Such a din, such a chatter, such a lot of diamonds, such a lot of smoke—and the white walls, the gilding, the pink lampshades, the band ever and anon crashing into a new tune, and the people shouting to make themselves heard through it—Andy would have sat on happily watching, even though he had got no supper at all. Indeed he was no more hungry than most of the other people there. One doesnot go to supper there because one is hungry—that is a vulgar reason for eating.
However supper he had, sitting between Billy Foot and the Nun's friend, a young woman named Miss Dutton, who had a critical, or even sardonic, manner, but was extremely pretty. The Nun herself contrived to be rather like a nun even off the stage; she did not talk much herself, but listened with an innocent smile to the sallies of Billy Foot and Harry Belfield.
"Been to hear her?" Miss Dutton asked Andy.
Andy said that they had, and uttered words of admiration.
"Sort of thing they like, isn't it?" said Miss Dutton. "You can't put in too much rot for them."
"But she sings it so—" Andy began to plead.
"Yes, she can sing. It's a wonder she's succeeded. How sick one gets of this place!"
"Do you come often?"
"Every night—with her generally."
"I've never been here before in my life."
"Well, I hope you like the look of us!"
Harry Belfield looked towards him. "Don't mind what she says, Andy. We call her Sulky Sally—don't we, Sally?—But she looks so nice that we have to put up with her ways."
Miss Dutton smiled reluctantly, but evidentlycould not help smiling at Harry. "I know the value of your compliments," she remarked. "There are plenty of them going about the place to judge by!"
"Mercy, Sally, mercy! Don't show me up before my friends!"
Miss Dutton busied herself with her supper. The Nun ate little; most of the time she sat with her pretty hands clasped on the table in front of her. Suddenly she began to tell what proved to be a rather long story about a man named Tommy—everybody except Andy knew whom she meant. She told this story in a low, pleasant, but somewhat monotonous voice. In truth the Nun was a trifle prolix and prosy, but she also looked so nice that they were quite content to listen and to look. It appeared that Tommy had done what no man should do; he had made love to two girls at once. For a long time all went well; but one day Tommy, being away from the sources of supply of cash (as a rule he transacted all his business in notes), wrote two cheques—the Nun specified the amounts, one being considerably larger than the other—placed them in two envelopes, and proceeded to address them wrongly. Each lady got the other lady's cheque, and—"Well, they wanted to know about it," said the Nun, with a pensive smile. So, being acquaintances, they laidtheir heads together, and the next time Tommy (who had never discovered his mistake) asked lady number one to dinner, she asked lady number two, "and when Tommy arrived," said the Nun, "they told him he'd find it cheaper that way, because there'd only be one tip for the waiter!" The Nun, having reached her point, gave a curiously pretty little gurgle of laughter.
"Rather neat!" said Billy Foot. "And did they chuck him?"
"They'd agreed to, but Maud weakened on it. Nellie did."
"Poor old Tommy!" mused Harry Belfield.
It was not a story of surpassing merit whether it were regarded from the moral or from the artistic point of view; but the Nun had grown delighted with herself as she told it, and her delight made her look even more pretty. Andy could not keep his eyes off her; she perceived his honest admiration and smiled serenely at him across the table.
"I suppose it was Nellie who was to have the small cheque?" Billy Foot suggested.
"No; it was Maud."
"Then I drink to Maud as a true woman and a forgiving creature!"
Andy broke into a hearty enjoying laugh. Nothing had passed which would stand a critical examination in humour, much less in wit; butAndy was very happy. He had never had such a good time, never seen so many gay and pretty women, never been so in touch with the holiday side of life. The Nun delighted him; Miss Dutton was a pleasantly acid pickle to stimulate the palate for all this rich food. Billy Foot and Harry looked at him, looked at one another, and laughed.
"They're laughing at you," said Miss Dutton in her most sardonic tone.
"I don't mind. Of course they are! I'm such an outsider."
"Worth a dozen of either of them," she remarked, with a calmly impersonal air that reduced her compliment to a mere statement of fact.
"Oh, I heard!" cried Harry. "You don't think much of us, do you, Sally?"
"I come here every night," said Miss Dutton. "Consequently I know."
The pronouncement was so confident, so conclusive, that there was nothing to do but laugh at it. They all laughed. If you came there every night, "consequently" you would know many things!
"We must eat somewhere," observed the Nun with placid resignation.
"We must be as good as we can and hope for mercy," said Billy Foot.
"You'll need it," commented Miss Dutton.
"Let's hope the law of supply and demand will hold good!" laughed Harry.
"How awfully jolly all this is!" said Andy.
He had just time to observe Miss Dutton's witheringly patient smile before the lights went out. "Hullo!" cried Andy; and the rest laughed.
Up again the lights went, but the Nun rose from her chair.
"Had enough of it?" asked Harry.
"Yes," said the Nun with her simple, candid, yet almost scornful directness. "Oh, it's been all right. I like your friend, Harry—not Billy, of course—the new one, I mean."
When they had got their cloaks and coats and were waiting for the Nun's electric brougham, Harry made an announcement that filled Andy with joy and the rest of the company with amazement.
"This is good-bye for a bit, Doris," he said. "I'm off to the country the day after to-morrow."
"What have we done to you?" the Nun inquired with sedate anxiety.
"I've got to work, and I can't do it in London. I've got a career to look after."
The Nun gurgled again—for the second time only in the course of the evening. "Oh yes," she murmured with obvious scepticism. "Well, comeand see me when you get back." She turned her eyes to Andy, and, to his great astonishment, asked, "Would you like to come too?"
Andy could hardly believe that he was himself, but he had no doubt about his answer. The Nun interested him very much, and was so very pretty. "I should like to awfully," he replied.
"Come alone—not with these men, or we shall only talk nonsense," said the Nun, as she got into her brougham. "Get in, Sally."
"Where's the hurry?" asked Miss Dutton, getting in nevertheless. The Nun slapped her arm smartly; the two girls burst into a giggle, and so went off.
"Where to now?" asked Harry.
Andy wondered what other place there was.
"Bed for me," said Billy Foot. "I've a consultation at half-past nine, and I haven't opened the papers yet."
"Bed is best," Harry agreed, though rather reluctantly. "Going to take a cab, Billy?"
"What else is there to take?"
"Thought you might be walking."
"Oh, walking be ——!" He climbed into a hansom.
"I'll walk with you, Harry. I haven't had exercise enough."
Harry suggested that they should go home bythe Embankment. When they had cut down a narrow street to it, he put his arm in Andy's and led him across the road. They leant on the parapet, looking at the river. The night was fine, but hazy and still—a typical London night.
"You've given me a splendid evening," said Andy. "And what a good sort those girls were!"
"Yes," said Harry, rather absently, "not a bad sort. Doris has got her head on her shoulders, and she's quite straight. Poor Sally's come one awful cropper. She won't come another; she's had more than enough of it. So one doesn't mind her being a bit snarly."
Poor Sally! Andy had had no idea of anything of the sort, but he had an instinct that people who come one cropper—and one only—feel that one badly.
"I'm feeling happy to-night, old fellow," said Harry suddenly. "You may not happen to know it, but I've gone it a bit for the last two or three years, made rather a fool of myself, and—well, one gets led on. Now I've made up my mind to chuck all that. Some of it's all right—at any rate it seems to happen; but I've had enough. I really do want to work at the politics, you know."
"It's all before you, if you do," said Andy in unquestioning loyalty.
"I'm going to work, and to pull up a bit allround, and—" Harry broke off, but a smile was on his lips. There on the bank of the Thames, fresh from his party in the gay restaurant, he heard the potent voice calling. It seemed to him that the voice was potent enough not only to loose him from Mrs. Freere, to lure him from London delights, to carry him down to Meriton and peaceful country life; but potent enough, too, to transform him, to make him other than he was, to change the nature that had till now been his very self. He appealed from passion to passion; from the soiled to the clean, from the turgid to the clear. A new desire of his eyes was to make a new thing of his life.
Mark Wellgood of Nutley had a bugbear, an evil thing to which he gave the name of sentimentality. Wherever he saw it he hated it—and he saw it everywhere. No matter what was the sphere of life, there was the enemy ready to raise its head, and Mark Wellgood ready to hit that head. In business and in public affairs he warred against it unceasingly; in other people's religion—he had very little of his own—he was keen to denounce it; even from the most intimate family and personal relationships he had always been resolved to banish it, or, failing that, to suppress its manifestations. Himself a man of uncompromising temper and strong passions, he saw in this hated thing the root of all the vices with which he had least sympathy. It made people cowards who shrank from manfully taking their own parts; it made them hypocrites who would not face the facts of human nature and human society, but sought tocover up truths that they would have called "ugly" by specious names, by veils, screens, and fine paraphrases. It made men soft, women childish, and politicians flabby; it meant sheer ruin to a nation.
Sentimentality was, of course, at the bottom of what was the matter with his daughter, of those things of which, with the aid of Isobel Vintry's example, he hoped to cure her—her timidity and her fastidiousness. But it was at the bottom of much more serious things than these—since to make too much fuss about a girl's nonsensical fancies would be sentimental in himself. Notably it was at the bottom of all shades of opinion from Liberalism to Socialism, both included. Harry Belfield, lunching at Nutley a week or so after his return to Meriton, had the benefit of these views, with which, as a prospective Conservative candidate, he was confidently expected to sympathise.
"I've only one answer to make to a Socialist," said Wellgood. "I say to him, 'You can have my property when you're strong enough to take it. Until then, you can't.' Under democracy we count heads instead of breaking them. It's a bad system, but it's tolerable as long as the matter isn't worth fighting about. When you come to vital issues, it'll break down—it always has. We, the governing classes, shall keep our position and our propertyjust as long as we're able and willing to defend them. If the Socialists mean business, they'd better stop talking and learn to shoot."
"That might be awkward for us," said Harry, with a smile at Vivien opposite.
"But if they think we're going to sit still and be voted out of everything, they're much mistaken. That's what I hope, at all events, though it needs a big effort not to despair of the country sometimes. People won't look at the facts of nature. All nature's a fight from beginning to end. All through, the strong hold down the weak; and the strong grow stronger by doing it—never mind whether they're men or beasts."
"There's a lot of truth in that; but I don't know that it would be very popular on a platform—even on one of ours!"
"You political fellows have to wrap it up, I suppose, but the cleverer heads among the working men know all about it—trust them! They're on the make themselves; they want to get where we are; gammoning the common run helps towards that. Oh, they're not sentimental! I do them the justice to believe that."
"But isn't there a terrible lot of misery, father?" asked Vivien.
"You can't cure misery by quackery, my dear," he answered concisely. "Half of it's their ownfault, and for the rest—hasn't there always been? So long as some people are weaker than others, they'll fare worse. I don't see any particular attraction in the idea of making weaklings or cowards as comfortable as the strong and the brave." His glance at his daughter was stern. Vivien flushed a little; the particular ordeal of that morning, a cross-country ride with her father, had not been a brilliant success.
"To him that hath shall be given, eh?" Harry suggested.
"Matter of Scripture, Harry, and you can't get away from it!" said Wellgood with a laugh.
Psychology is not the strong point of a mind like Wellgood's. To study his fellow-creatures curiously seems to such a man rather unnecessary and rather twaddling work; in its own sphere it corresponds to the hated thing itself, to an over-scrupulous worrying about other people's feelings or even about your own. It had not occurred to Wellgood to study Harry Belfield. He liked him, as everybody did, and he had no idea how vastly Harry's temperament differed from his own. Harry had many material guarantees against folly—his birth, the property that was to be his, the career opening before him. If Wellgood saw any signs of what he condemned, he set them down to youth and took up the task of a mentor with alacrity.Moreover he was glad to have Harry coming to the house; matters were still at an early stage, but if there were a purpose in his coming, there was nothing to be said against the project. He would welcome an alliance with Halton, and it would be an alliance on even terms; for Vivien had some money of her own, apart from what he could leave her. Whether she would have Nutley or not—well, that was uncertain. Wellgood was only forty-three and young for his years; he might yet marry and have a son. A second marriage was more than an idea in his head; it was an intention fully formed. The woman he meant to ask to be his wife at the suitable moment lived in his house and sat at his table with him—his daughter's companion, Isobel Vintry.
Isobel had sat silent through Wellgood's talk, not keenly interested in the directly political aspect of it, but appreciating the view of human nature and of the way of the world which underlay it. She also was on the side of the efficient—of the people who knew what they wanted and at any rate made a good fight to get it. Yet while she listened to Wellgood, her eyes had often been on Harry; she too was beginning to ask why Harry came so much to Nutley; the obvious answer filled her with a vague stirring of discontent. An ambitious self-confident nature does not like to be "countedout," to be reckoned out of the running before the race is fairly begun. Why was the answer obvious? There was more than one marriageable young woman at Nutley. Her feeling of protest was still vague; but it was there, and when she looked at Harry's comely face, her eyes were thoughtful.
Though Wellgood had business after lunch, Harry stayed on awhile, sitting out on the terrace by the lake, for the day was warm and fine. The coming of spring had mitigated the grimness of Nutley; the water that had looked dreary and dismal in the winter now sparkled in the sun. Harry was excellently well content with himself and his position. He told the two girls that things were shaping very well. Old Sir George Millington had decided to retire. He was to be the candidate; he would start his campaign through the villages of the Division in the late summer, when harvest was over; he could hardly be beaten; and he was "working like a horse" at his subjects.
"The horse gets out of harness now and then!" said Isobel.
"You don't want him to kill himself with work, Isobel?" asked Vivien reproachfully.
"Visits to Nutley help the work; they inspire me," Harry declared, looking first at Vivien, then at Isobel. They were both, in their different ways, pleasant to look at. Their interest in him—in allhe said and did, and in all he was going to do—was very pleasant also. "Oh yes, I'm working all right!" he laughed. "Really I have to, because of old Andy Hayes. He's getting quite keen on politics—reads all the evening after he gets back from town. Well, he's good enough to think I've read everything and know everything, and whenever we meet he pounds me with questions. I don't want Andy to catch me out, so I have to mug away."
"That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with a smile and a nod.
"Yes, the solid man."
"Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. He thought you behaved like a brick."
"He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him here, Harry?"
"He's in town all day; I'll try and get him here some Saturday."
"Does he still stay with the—with Mr. Rock?" asked Vivien.
"No; he's taken lodgings. He's very thick with old Jack still, though. Of course it wouldn't do to tell him so, but it's rather a bore that he should be connected with Jack in that way. It doesn't make my mother any keener to have him at Halton, and it's a little difficult for me to press it."
"It does make his position seem—just rather betwixt and between, doesn't it?" asked Isobel.
"If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien.
"O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing against butchers," was one of the rules.
"I know, but I would so much rather it had been a draper, or a stationer, or something—something clean of that sort."
"I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, Vivien!"
"However it's not so bad if he doesn't stay there any more," Harry charitably concluded. "Just going in for a drink with old Jack—everybody does that; and after all he's no blood relation." He laughed. "Though I dare say that's exactly what you'd call him, Vivien."
Just as he made his little joke Vivien had risen. It was her time for "doing the flowers," one of the few congenial tasks allowed her. She smiled and blushed at Harry's hit at her, looking very charming. Harry indulged himself in a glance of bold admiration. It made her cheeks redder still as she turned away, Harry looking after her till she rounded the corner of the house. In answering the call of the voice he had found no disappointment. Closer and more intimate acquaintance revealed her as no less charming than she had promised to be. Harry was surenow of what he wanted, and remained quite sure of all the wonderful things that it was going to do for him and for his life.
Suddenly on the top of all this legitimate and proper feeling—to which not even Mark Wellgood himself could object, since it was straight in the way of nature—there came on Harry Belfield a sensation rare, yet not unknown, in his career—a career still so short, yet already so emotionally eventful.
Isobel Vintry was not looking at him—she was gazing over the lake—nor he at her; he was engaged in the process of lighting a cigarette. Yet he became intensely aware of her, not merely as one in his company, but as a being who influenced him, affected him, in some sense stretched out a hand to him. He gave a quick glance at her; she was motionless, her eyes still aloof from him. He stirred restlessly in his chair; the air seemed very close and heavy. He wanted to make some ordinary, some light remark; for the moment it did not come. A remembrance of the first time that Mrs. Freere and he had passed the bounds of ordinary friendship struck across his mind, unpleasantly, and surely without relevance! Isobel had said nothing, had done nothing, nor had he. Yet it was as though some mystic sign had passed from her to him—he couldnot tell whether from him to her also—a sign telling that, whatever circumstances might do, there was in essence a link between them, a reminder from her that she too was a woman, that she too had her power. He did not doubt that she was utterly unconscious, but neither did he believe that he was solely responsible, that he had merely imagined. There was an atmosphere suddenly formed—an atmosphere still and heavy as the afternoon air that brooded over the unruffled lake.
Harry had no desire to abide in it. His mind was made up; his heart was single. He picked up a stone which had been swept from somewhere on to the terrace and pitched it into the lake. A plop, and many ripples. The heavy stillness was broken.
Isobel turned to him with a start.
"I thought you were going to sleep, Miss Vintry. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I threw a stone into the water. I'm afraid you were finding me awfully dull!"
"You dull! You're a change from what sometimes does seem a little dull—life at Nutley. But perhaps you can't conceive life at Nutley being dull?" Her eyes mocked him with the hint that she had discovered his secret.
"Well, I think I should be rather hard toplease if I found Nutley dull," he said gaily. "But if you do, why do you stay?"
"Perpetual amusement isn't in a companion's contract, Mr. Harry. Besides, I'm fond of Vivien. I should be sorry to leave her before the natural end of my stay comes."
"The natural end?"
"Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled with a good-humoured scorn at his homage to pretence.
"Well, of course, girls do marry. It's been known to happen," said Harry, neither "cornered" nor embarrassed. "But perhaps"—he glanced at her, wondering whether to risk a snub. His charm, his gift of gay impudence, had so often stood him in stead and won him a liberty that a heavy-handed man could not hope to be allowed; he was not much afraid—"Perhaps you'd be asked to stay on—in another capacity, Miss Vintry."
"It looks as if your thoughts were running on such things." She did not affect not to understand, but she was not easy to corner either.
"I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, a confession without much trace of penitence.
"Mine don't often; and they're never supposed to—in my position."
"Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, Miss Vintry. Why, a girl like you, with such—"
"Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry."
"You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how limited my powers are."
Harry Belfield could no more help this sort of thing than a bird can help flying. In childhood he had probably lisped in compliments, as the poet in numbers. In itself it was harmless, even graceful, and quite devoid of serious meaning. Yet it was something new in his relations with Isobel Vintry; though it had arisen out of a desire to dispel that mysterious atmosphere, yet it was a sequel to it. Hitherto she had been Vivien's companion. In that brief session of theirs—alone together by the lake—she had assumed an independent existence for him, a vivid, distinctive, rather compelling one. The impressionable mind received a new impression, the plastic feelings suffered the moulding of a fresh hand. Harry, who was alert to watch himself and always knew when he was interested, was telling himself that she was such a notable foil to Vivien; that was why he was interested. Vivien was still the centre of gravity. The explanation vindicated his interest, preserved his loyalty, and left his resolve unshaken. These satisfactory effects were all on himself; the idea of effects on Isobel Vintry did not occur to him. He was not vain, he was hardly a conscious or intentional "lady-killer." He really sufferedlove affairs rather than sought them; he was driven into them by an overpowering instinct to prove his powers. He could not help "playing the game"—the rather hazardous game—to the full extent of his natural ability. That extent was very considerable.
He said good-bye to her, laughingly declaring that after all he would prepare a catalogue, and send it to her by post. Then he went into the house, to find Vivien and pay another farewell. Left alone, Isobel rose from her chair with an abrupt and impatient movement. She was a woman of feelings not only more mature but far stronger than Vivien's; she had ambitious yearnings which never crossed Vivien's simple soul. But she was stern with herself. Perhaps she had caught and unconsciously copied some of Wellgood's anti-sentimental attitude. She often told herself that the feelings were merely dangerous and the yearnings silly. Yet when others seemed tacitly to accept that view, made no account of her, and assumed to regard her place in life as settled, she glowed with a deep resentment against them, crying that she would make herself felt. To-day she knew that somehow, to some degree however small, she had made herself felt by Harry Belfield. The discovery could not be said to bring pleasure, butit brought triumph—triumph and an oppressive restlessness.
Wellgood strolled out of the house and joined her. "Where's Harry?" he asked.
"He went into the house to say good-bye to Vivien; or perhaps he's gone altogether by now."
Wellgood stood in thought, his hands in his pockets.
"He's a bit inclined to be soft, but I think we shall make a man of him. He's got a great chance, anyhow. Vivien seems to like him, doesn't she?"
"Oh, everybody must!" She smiled at him. "Are you thinking of match-making, like a good father?"
"She might do worse, and I'd like her to marry a man we know all about. The poor child hasn't backbone to stand up for herself if she happened on a rascal."
Isobel had a notion that Wellgood was over-confident if he assumed that he, or they, knew all about Harry Belfield. His parentage, his position, his prospects—yes. Did these exhaust the subject? But Wellgood's downright mind would have seen only "fancies" in such a suggestion.
"If that's the programme, I must begin to think of packing up my trunks," she said with a laugh.
He did not join in her laugh, but his stern lips relaxed into a smile. "Lots of time to think about that," he told her, his eyes seeming to make a careful inspection of her. "Nutley would hardly be itself without you, Isobel."
She showed no sign of embarrassment under his scrutiny; she stood handsome and apparently serene in her composure.
"Oh, poor Nutley would soon recover from the blow," she said. "But I shall be sorry to go. You've been very kind to me."
"You've done your work very well. People who work well are well treated at Nutley; people who work badly—"
"Aren't exactly petted? No, they're not, Mr. Wellgood, I know."
"You'd always do your work, whatever it might be, well, so you'd always be well treated."
"At any rate you'll give me a good character?" she asked mockingly.
"Oh, I'll see that you get a good place," he answered her in the same tone, but with a hint of serious meaning in his eyes.
His plan was quite definite, his confidence in the issue of it absolute. But "one thing at a time" was among his maxims. He would like to see Vivien's affair settled before his own was undertaken. His idea was that his declaration andacceptance should follow on his daughter's engagement.
Isobel was not afraid of Mark Wellgood, as his daughter was, and as so many women would have been. She had a self-confidence equal to his own; she added to it a subtlety which would secure her a larger share of independence than it would be politic to claim openly. She had not feared him as a master, and would not fear him as a husband. Moreover she understood him far better than he read her. Understanding gives power. And she liked him; there was much that was congenial to her in his mind and modes of thought. He was a man, a strong man. But the prospect at which his words hinted—she was not blind to their meaning, and for some time back had felt little doubt of his design—did not enrapture her. At first sight it seemed that it ought. She had no money, her family were poor, marriage was her only chance of independence. Nutley meant both a comfort and a status beyond her reasonable hopes. But it meant also an end to the ambitious dreams. It was finality. Just this life she led now for all her life—or at least all Wellgood's! He was engrossed in the occupations of a country gentleman of moderate means, in his estate work and his public work. He hardly ever went to London; he never travelledfarther afield; he visited little even among his neighbours. Some of these habits a wife might modify; the essentials of the life she would hardly be able to change. Yet, if she got the chance, there was no question but that she ought to take it. Common sense told her that, just as it told Wellgood that it would be absurd to doubt of her acceptance.
Common sense might say what it liked. Her feelings were in revolt, and their insurrection gathered fresh strength to-day. It was not so much that Wellgood was nearly twenty years her senior. That counted, but not as heavily as perhaps might be expected, since his youthful vigour was still all his. It was the certainty with which his thoughts disposed of her, his assumption that his suit would be free from difficulty and from rivalry, his matter-of-course conclusion that Harry could come to Nutley only for Vivien's sake. If these things wounded her woman's pride, the softer side of her nature lamented the absence of romance, of the thrill of love, of being wooed and won in some poetic fashion, of everything—she found her thoughts insensibly taking this direction—that it would be for Harry Belfield's chosen mistress to enjoy. Nobody—least of all the man who was content to take her to wife himself—seemed to think ofher as a choice even possible to Harry. He was, of course, for Vivien. All the joys of love, all the life of pleasure, the participation in his career, the moving many-coloured existence to be led by his side—all these were for Vivien. Her heart cried out in protest at the injustice; she might not even have her chance! It would be counted treachery if she strove for it, if she sought to attract Harry or allowed herself to be attracted by him. She had to stand aside; she was to be otherwise disposed of, her assent to the arrangement being asked so confidently that it could hardly be said to be asked at all. Suppose she did not assent? Suppose she fought for herself, treachery or no treachery? Suppose she followed the way of her feelings, if so be that they led her towards Harry Belfield? Suppose she put forth what strength she had to upset Wellgood's plan, to fight for herself?
She played with these questions as she walked up and down the terrace by the lake. She declared to herself that she was only playing with them, but they would not leave her.
Certainly the questions found no warrant in Harry Belfield's present mood. He had made up his mind, his eager blood was running apace. That very evening, as his father and he sat alone together after dinner, in the long room graced bythe two Vandykes which were the boast of Halton, he broached the matter in confidence. Mr. Belfield was a frail man of sixty. He had always been delicate in health, a sufferer from asthma and prone to chills; but he was no acknowledged invalid, and would not submit to therôle. He did his share of county work; his judgment was highly esteemed, his sense of honour strict and scrupulous. He had a dryly humorous strain in him, which found food for amusement in his son's exuberant feelings and dashing impulses, without blinding him to their dangers.
"Well, it's not a great match, but it's quite satisfactory, Harry. You'll find no opposition here. I like her very much, and your mother does too, I know. But"—he smiled and lifted his brows—"it's a trifle sudden, isn't it?"
"Sudden?" cried Harry. "Why, I've known her all my life!"
"Yes, but you haven't been in love with her all your life. And, if report speaks true, you have been in love with some other women." Mr. Belfield was a man of the world; his tone was patient and not unduly severe as he referred to Harry's adventures of the heart, which had reached his ears from friends in London.
"Yes, I know," said Harry; "but those were only—well, passing sort of things, you know."
"And this isn't a passing sort of thing?"
"Not a bit of it; I'm dead sure of it. Well, a fellow can't tell another—not even his father—what he feels."
"No, no, don't try; keep all that for the lady. But if I were you I'd go a bit slow, and I wouldn't tell your mother yet. There's no particular hurry, is there?"
Harry laughed. "Well, I suppose that depends on how one feels. I happen to feel rather in a hurry."
"Go as slow as you can. Passing things pass: a wife's a more permanent affair. And undoing a mistake is neither a very easy nor a very savoury business."
"I'm absolutely sure. Still I'll try to wait and see if I can manage to get a little bit surer still, just to please you, pater."
"Thank you, old boy; I don't think you'll repent it. And, after all, it may be as well to give the lady time to get quite sure too—eh?" His eyes twinkled. He was fully aware that Harry would not think a great deal of time necessary for that. "Oh, by-the-bye," he went on, "I've a little bit of good news for you. I've interceded with your mother on Andy Hayes' behalf, and her heart is softened. She says she'll be very glad to see him here—"
"Hurrah! That's very good of the mater."
"—when we're alone, or have friends who we know won't object." He laughed a little, and Harry joined in the laugh. "A prudent woman's prudent provisoes, Harry! I wish both you and I were as wise as your mother is."
"Dear old Andy—he's getting quite the fashion! I'm to take him to Nutley too."
"Excellent! Because it looks as if Nutley would be coming here to a certain extent in the immediate future, and he'll be able to come when Nutley does." He rose from his chair. "My throat's bothersome to-night; I'll leave you alone with your cigarette."
Harry smoked a cigarette that seemed to emit clouds of rosy smoke. All that lay in the past was forgotten; the future beckoned him to glittering joys.
"Marriage is his best chance, but even that's a considerable chance with Master Harry!" thought his father as he sat down to his book.
The one man who had serious fears—or at least doubts—about Harry Belfield's future was his own father.
"I probably shan't live to see the trouble, if any comes," he thought. "And if his mother does—she won't believe it's his fault."
"Five all, and deuce!" cried Wellgood, who had taken on himself the function of umpire. He turned to Isobel and Vivien, who sat by in wicker armchairs, watching the game. "I never thought it would be so close. Hayes has pulled up wonderfully!"
"I think Mr. Hayes'll win now," said Vivien.
An "exhibition single" was being played, by request, before the audience above indicated. Andy Hayes had protested that, though of course he would play if they wished, he could not give Harry a game—he had not played for more than a year. At first it looked as if he were right: Harry romped away with the first four games, so securely superior that he fired friendly chaff at Andy's futile rushes across the court in pursuit of a ball skilfully placed where he least expected it. But in the fifth game the rallies became very long; Andy was playing for safety—playingdeadly safe. He did not try to kill; Harry did, but often committed suicide. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh game went to Andy. A flash of brilliancy gave Harry the eighth—five, three! The ninth was his service—he should have had it, and the set. Andy's returns were steady, low, all good length, possible to return, almost impossible to kill. But Harry tried to kill. Four, five. Andy served, and found a "spot"—at least Harry's malevolent glances at a particular piece of turf implied a theory that he had. Five all! And now "Deuce"!
"He's going to lick me, see if he isn't!" cried Harry Belfield, perfectly good-natured, but not hiding his opinion that such a result would be paradoxical.
Andy felt terribly ashamed of himself—he wanted to win so much. To play Harry Belfield on equal terms and beat him, just for once! This spirit of emulation was new to his soul; it seemed rather alarming when it threatened his old-time homage in all things to Harry. Where was ambition going to stop? None the less, eye and hand had no idea of not doing their best. A slashing return down the side line and a clever lob gave him the game—six, five!
Harry Belfield was the least bit vexed—amusedly vexed. He remembered Andy's clumsy elephantinesprawlings (no other word for them) about the court when in their boyhood he had first undertaken to teach him the game. Andy must have played a lot in Canada.
"Now I'll take three off you, Andy," he cried, and served a double fault. The "gallery" laughed. "Oh, damn it!" exclaimed Harry, indecorously loud, and served another. Andy could not help laughing—the first time he had ever laughed at Harry Belfield. Given a handicap of thirty, the game was, barring extraordinary accidents, his. So it proved. He won it at forty-fifteen, with a stroke that a child ought to have returned; Harry put it into the net.
"Lost your nerve, Harry?" said the umpire.
"The beggar's such a sticker!" grumbled Harry, laughing. "You think you've got him licked—and you haven't!"
"I'm glad Mr. Hayes won." This from Vivien.
"Not only defeated, but forsaken!" Harry cried. "Andy, I'll have your blood!"
Andy Hayes laughed joyously. This victory came as an unlooked-for adornment to a day already notable. A Saturday half-holiday, down from town in time to lunch at Nutley, tennis and tea, and the prospect (not free from piquant alarm) of dinner at Halton—this was a day for Andy Hayes! With an honest vanity—a vanitybased on true affection—he thought how the account of it would tickle Jack Rock. His life seemed broadening out before him, and he would like to tell dear old Jack all about it. Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, dining at Halton—here were things just as delightful, just as enlightening, as supping at the great restaurant in the company of the Nun and pretty sardonic Miss Dutton. He owed them all to Harry—he almost wished he had lost the set. At any rate he felt that he ought to wish it.
"It was an awful fluke!" he protested apologetically.
"You'd beat him three times out of five," Wellgood asserted in that confident tone of his.
Harry looked a little vexed. He bore an occasional defeat with admirable good-nature: to be judged consistently inferior was harder schooling to his temper. Triumphing in whatever the contest might be had grown into something of a custom with him. It brooked occasional breaches: abrogation was another matter. But "Oh no!" cried both the girls together.
Harry was on his feet again in a moment. Women's praise was always sweet to him, and not the less sweet for being open to a suspicion of partiality—which is, after all, a testimony to achievement in other fields.
Such a partiality accounted for the conviction of Harry's superiority in Vivien's case at least. She had grown up in the midst of the universal Meriton adoration of him as the most accomplished, the kindest, the merriest son of that soil, the child of promise, the present pride and the future glory of his native town. Any facts or reports not to the credit of the idol or reflecting on his divinity had not reached her cloistered ears. Wellgood, like Harry's own father, had heard some, but Wellgood held common-sense views even more fully than Mr. Belfield; facts were facts, and all men had to be young for a time. Now, if signs were to be trusted, if the idol's own words, eyes, and actions meant what she could not but deem they meant (or where stood the idol's honesty?), he proposed to ask her to share his throne; he, the adored, offered adoration—an adoration on a basis of reciprocity, be it understood. She did not grumble at that. To give was so easy, so inevitable; to receive—to be asked to accept—so wonderful. It could not enter her head or her heart to question the value of the gift or to doubt the whole-heartedness with which it was bestowed. It was to her so great a thing that she held it must be as great to Harry. Really at the present moment it was as great to Harry. His courtship of her seemed a very great thing,his absolute exclusive devotion a rare flower of romance.
But she had been glad to see Andy win. Oh yes, she was compassionate. She knew so well what it was not to do things as cleverly as other people, and how oppressive it felt to be always inferior. Besides Andy had a stock of gratitude to draw on; somehow he had, by his solidity, caused Curly to appear far less terrible. With a genuine gladness she saw him pluck one leaf from Harry's wreath. It must mean so much to Mr. Hayes; it mattered nothing to Harry. Nay, rather, it was an added chance for his graces of manner to shine forth.
They did shine forth. "Very good of you, ladies, but I think he holds me safe," said Harry.
"I shouldn't if you'd only play steady," Andy observed in his reflective way. "Taking chances—that's your fault, Harry."
"Taking chances—why, it's life!" cried Harry, any shadow of vexation utterly gone and leaving not the smallest memory.
"Well, ordinary people can't look at it like that," Andy said, with no touch of sarcasm, amply acknowledging that Harry and the ordinary were things remote from one another.
Was life taking chances? To one only of the party did that seem really true. Harry had saidit, but he was not the one. He was possessed by a new triumphant certainty; Wellgood by the thought of a mastery he deemed already established, and waiting only for his word to be declared; Vivien by a dream that glowed and glittered, refusing too close a touch with earth; Andy by a stout conviction that he must not think about chances, but work away at his timber (he still called it lumber in his inner mind) and his books, pausing only to thank heaven for a wonderful Saturday holiday.
But life was taking chances! Supine in her chair, silent since her one exclamation in championship of Harry Belfield, Isobel Vintry echoed the cry. Life was taking chances? Yes, any life worth having perhaps was. But what if the chances did not come one's way? Who can take what fate never offers?
All the present party was to meet again at Halton in the evening. It seemed hardly a separation when Harry and Andy started off together towards Meriton, Harry, as usual, chattering briskly, Andy listening, considering, absorbing. At a turn of the road they passed two old friends of his, Wat Money, the lawyer's clerk, and Tom Dove, the budding publican—"Chinks" and "The Bird" of days of yore.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Harry! Hullo, Andy!"said Chinks and the Bird. When they were past, the Bird nudged Chinks with his elbow and winked his eye.
"Yes, he's getting no end of a swell, isn't he?" said Chinks. "Hand-and-glove with Harry Belfield!"
"I suppose you don't see much of those chaps now?" Harry was asking Andy at the same moment. There was just a shadow of admonition in the question.
"I'm afraid I don't. Well, we're all at work. And when I do get a day off—"
"You don't need to spend it at the Lion!" laughed Harry. "As good drink and better company in other places!"
There were certainly good things to drink and eat at Halton, and Andy could not be blamed if he found the company at least as well to his liking. He had not been there since he was quite a small boy—in the days before Nancy Rock migrated from the house next the butcher's shop in High Street to preside over his home—but he had never forgotten the handsome dining-room with its two Vandykes, nor the glass of sherry which Mr. Belfield had once given him there. Mrs. Belfield received him with graciousness, Mr. Belfield with cordiality. Of course he was the first to arrive, being very fearful of unpunctuality. Even Harrywas not down yet. Not being able, for obvious reasons, to ask after her guest's relations—her invariable way, when it was possible, of opening a conversation—Mrs. Belfield expressed her pleasure at seeing him back in Meriton.
"My husband thinks you're such a good companion for Harry," she added, showing that her pleasure was genuine, even if somewhat interested.
"Yes, Hayes," said Mr. Belfield. "See all you can of him; we shall be grateful. He wants just what a steady-going sensible fellow, as everybody says you are, can give him—a bit of ballast, eh?"
"Everybody" had been, in fact, Jack Rock, but—again for obvious reasons—the authority was not cited by name.
"You may be sure I shall give him as much of my company as he'll take, sir," said Andy, infinitely pleased, enormously complimented.
Placidity was Mrs. Belfield's dominant note—a soothing placidity. She was rather short and rather plump—by no means an imposing figure; but this quality gave her a certain dignity, and even a certain power in her little world. People let her have her own way because she was so placidly sure that they would, and it seemed almost profane to disturb the placidity. Even her husband's humour was careful to stop short of that. Her physical movements were in harmonywith her temper—leisurely, smooth, noiseless; her voice was gentle, low, and even. She seemed to Andy to fit in well with the life she lived and always had lived, to be a good expression or embodiment of its sheltered luxury and sequestered tranquillity. Storms and stress and struggles—these things had nothing to do with Mrs. Belfield, and really ought to have none; they would be quite out of keeping with her. She seemed to have a right to ask that things about her should go straight and go quietly. There was perhaps a flavour of selfishness about this disposition; certainly an inaccessibility to strong feeling. For instance, while placidly assuming Harry's success and Harry's career, she was not excited nor what would be called enthusiastic about them—not half so excited and enthusiastic as Andy Hayes.
The dinner in the fine old room, under the Vandykes, with Mrs. Belfield in her lavender silk and precious lace, the girls in their white frocks, the old silver, the wealth of flowers, seemed rather wonderful to Andy Hayes. His life in boyhood had been poor and meagre, in manhood hard and rough. Here was a side of existence he had not seen; as luxurious as the life of which he had caught a glimpse at the great restaurant, but far more serene, more dignified. His opening mindreceived another new impression and a rarely attractive one.
But the centre of the scene for him was Vivien Wellgood. From his first sight of her in the drawing-room he could not deny that. He had never seen her in the evening before, and it was in the evening that her frail beauty showed forth. She was like a thing of gossamer that a touch would spoil. She was so white in her low-cut frock; all so white save for a little glow on the cheeks that excitement and pleasure brought, save for the brightness of her hair in the soft candle light, save for the dark blue eyes which seemed to keep watch and ward over her hidden thoughts. Yes, she was—why, she was good enough for Harry—good enough for Harry Belfield himself! And he, Andy, Harry's faithful follower and worshipper, would worship her too, if she would let him (Harry, he knew, would), if she would not be afraid of him, not dislike him or shrink from him. That was all he asked, having in his mind not only a bashful consciousness of his rude strength and massive frame—they seemed almost threatening beside her delicacy—but also a haunting recollection that she could not endure such a number of things, including butchers' shops.
No thought for himself, no thought of trying to rival Harry, so much as crossed his mind. Ifit had, it would have been banished as rank treachery; but it could not, for the simple reason that his attitude towards Harry made such an idea utterly foreign to his thoughts. He was not asking, as Isobel Vintry had asked that afternoon, why he might not have his chance. It was not the way of his nature to put forward claims for himself—and, above all, claims that conflicted with Harry's claims. The bare notion was to him impossible.
He sat by her, but for some time she gave herself wholly to listening to Harry, who had found, on getting home, a letter from Billy Foot, full of the latest political gossip from town. But presently, the conversation drifting into depths of politics where she could not follow, she turned to Andy and said, "I'm getting on much better with Curly. I pat him now!"
"That's right. It's only his fun."
"People's fun is sometimes the worst thing about them."
"Well now, that's true," Andy acknowledged, rather surprised to hear the remark from her.
"But I am getting on much better. And—well, rather better at riding." She smiled at him in confidence. "And nobody's said anything about swimming. Do you know, when I feel myself inclined to get frightened, I think about you!"
"Do you find it helps?" asked Andy, much amused and rather pleased.
"Yes, it's like thinking of a policeman in the middle of the night."
"I suppose I do look rather like a policeman," said Andy reflectively.
"Yes, you do! That's it, I think." The vague "it" seemed to signify the explanation of the confidence Andy inspired.
"And how about dust and dirt, and getting very hot?" he inquired.
"Isobel says I'm a bit better about courage, but not the least about fastidiousness."
"Fastidiousness suits some people, Miss Wellgood."
"It doesn't suit father, not in me," she murmured with a woeful smile.
"Doesn't thinking about me help you there? On the same principle it ought to."
"It doesn't," she murmured, with a trace of confusion, and suddenly her eyes went blank. Something was in her thoughts that she did not want Andy to see. Was it the butcher's shop? Andy's wits were not quick enough to ask the question; but he saw that her confidential mood had suffered a check.
Her confidence had been very pleasant, but there were other things to listen to at the table.Andy was heart-whole and intellectually voracious.
They, the rest of the company, had begun on politics—imperial politics—and had discussed them not without some friction. No Radical was present—Procul, O procul este, profani!—but Wellgood had the perversities of his anti-sentimental attitude. A Tory at home, why was he to be a democrat—or a Socialist—at the Antipodes? Competition and self-interest were the golden rule in England; was there to be another between England and her colonies? The tie of blood—one flag, one crown, one destiny—Wellgood suspected his bugbear in every one of these cries. Nothing for nothing—and for sixpence no more than the coin was worth—with a preference for five penn'orth if you could get out of it at that! He stood steady on his firmly-rooted narrow foundation.
All of Harry was on fire against him. Was blood nothing—race, colour, memories, associations, the Flag, the Crown, and the Destiny? A destiny to rule, or at least to manage, the planet! Mother and Daughters—nothing in that?
Things were getting hot, and the ladies, who always like to look on at the men fighting, much interested. Mr. Belfield, himself no politician, rather a student of human nature and addicted tothe Socratic attitude (so justly vexatious to practical men who have to do something, good, bad, or if not better, at least more plausible, than nothing) interposed a suggestion.
"Mother and daughters? Hasn't husband and wives become a more appropriate parallel?" He smiled across the table at his own wife. "No personal reference, my dear! But an attitude of independence, without any particular desire to pay the bills? Oh, I'm only asking questions!"
Andy was listening hard now. So was Vivien, for she saw Harry's eyes alight and his mouth eager to utter truths that should save the nation.
"If we could reach," said Harry, marvellously handsome, somewhat rhetorical for a small party, "if only we could once reach a true understanding between ourselves and the self-governing—"
"Oh, but that's going beyond my parallel, my dear boy," his father interrupted. "If marriage demanded mutual understanding, what man or woman could risk it with eyes open?"
"Doesn't it?" Isobel Vintry was the questioner.
"Heavens, no, my dear Miss Vintry! Something much less, something much less fundamentally impossible. A good temper and a bad memory, that's all!"
"Well done, pater!" cried Harry, readilyswitched off from his heated enthusiasm. "Which for the husband, which for the wife?"
"Both for both, Harry. Toleration to-day, and an unlimited power of oblivion to-morrow."
"What nonsense you're talking, dear," placidly smiled Mrs. Belfield.
"I'm exactly defining your own characteristics," he replied. "If you do that to a woman, she always says you're talking nonsense."
"An unlimited supply of the water of Lethe, pater? That does it?"
"That's about it, Harry. If you mix it with a little sound Scotch whisky before you go to bed—"
Andy burst into a good guffaw; the kindly mocking humour pleased him. Vivien was alert too; there was nothing to frighten, much to enjoy; the glow deepened on her cheeks.
But Wellgood was not content; he was baulked of his argument, of his fight.
"We've wandered from the point," he said dourly. ("As if wanderings were not the best things in the world!" thought more than one of the party, more or less explicitly.) "We give, they take." He was back to the United Kingdom and the Colonies.
"Could anything be more nicely exact to my parallel?" asked Belfield, socratically smiling."Did you ever know a marriage where each partner didn't say, 'I give, you take'? Some add that they're content with the arrangement, others don't."
"Pater, you always mix up different things," Harry protested, laughing.
"I'm always trying to find out whether there are any different things, Harry." He smiled at his son. "Wives, that's what they are! And several of them! Harry, we're in for all the difficulties of polygamy! A preference to one—oh no, I'm not spelling it with a big P! But—well, the ladies ought to be able to help us here. Could you share a heart, Miss Vintry?"
Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; she looked sumptuous. "I shouldn't like it," she answered.
"What has all this got to do with the practical problem?" Wellgood demanded. "Our trade with the Colonies is no more than thirty per cent—"
"I agree with you, Mr. Wellgood. The gentlemen had much better have kept to their politics," Mrs. Belfield interposed with suave placidity. "They understand them. When they begin to talk about women—"
"Need of Lethe—whisky and Lethe-water!" chuckled Harry. "In a large glass, eh, Andy?"
Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've lived in Canada. What do you say?"
Andy had been far too much occupied in listening. Besides, he was no politician. He thought deeply for a moment.
"A lot depends on whether you want to buy or to sell." He delivered himself of this truth quite solemnly.
"A very far-reaching observation," said Mr. Belfield. "Goes to the root of human traffic, and, quite possibly, to that of both the institutions which we have been discussing. I wonder whether either will be permanent!"
"Look here, pater, we're at dessert! Aren't you starting rather big subjects?"
"Your father likes to amuse himself with curious ideas," Mrs. Belfield remarked. "So did my father; he once asked me what I thought would happen if I didn't say my prayers. Men like to ask questions like that, but I never pay much attention to them. Shall we go into the drawing-room, Vivien? It may be warm enough for a turn in the garden, perhaps." She addressed the men. "Bring your cigars and try."
The men were left alone. "The garden would be jolly," said Harry.
Mr. Belfield coughed, and suddenly wheezed. "Intimations of mortality!" he said apologetically."We've talked of a variety of subjects—to little purpose, I suppose. But it's entertaining to survey the field of humanity. Your views were briefly expressed, Hayes."
"Everybody else was talking such a lot, sir," said Andy.
Belfield's humorous laugh was entangled in a cough. "You'll never get that obstacle out of the way of your oratory," he managed to stutter out. "They always are! Talk rules the world—eh, Wellgood?" He was maliciously provocative.
"We wait till they've finished talking. Then we do what we want," said Wellgood. "Force rules in the end—the readiness to kill and be killed. That's theultima ratio, the final argument."
"The women say that's out of date."
"The women!" exclaimed Wellgood contemptuously.
"They'll be in the garden," Harry opined. "Shall we move, pater?"
"We might as well," said Belfield. "Are you ready, Wellgood?"
Wellgood was ready—in spite of his contempt.