The garden at Halton was a pleasant place on a fine evening, with a moon waxing, yet not obtrusively full, with billowing shrubberies, clear-cut walks, lawns spreading in a gentle drabness that would be bright green in to-morrow's sun—a place pleasant in its calm, its spaciousness and isolation. They all sat together in a ring for a while; smoke curled up; a servant brought glasses that clinked as they were set down with a cheery, yet not urgent, suggestion.
"I suppose you're right to go in for it," said Wellgood to Harry. "It's your obvious line." (He was referring to a public career.) "But, after all, it's casting pearls before swine."
"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. "Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"
"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through their noses—that's the thing for them!"
"Has anybody got a copy—well, another copyof 'Coriolanus'?" Harry inquired in an affectation of eagerness.
"Casting pearls before swine is bad business, of course," said Belfield in his husky voice—he was really unwise to be out of doors at all; "but there are degrees of badness. If your pearls are indifferent as pearls, and your swine admirable as swine? And that's often the truth of it."
"My husband is sometimes perverse in his talk, my dear," said Mrs. Belfield, aside to Vivien, to whom she was being very kind. "You needn't notice what he says."
"He's rather amusing," Vivien ventured, not quite sure whether the adjective were respectful enough.
"Andy, pronounce!" cried Harry Belfield; for his friend sat in his usual meditative absorbing silence.
"If I had to, I'd like to say a word from the point of view of the—swine." Had the moon been stronger, he might have been seen to blush. "I don't want to be—oh, well, serious. That's rot, I know—after dinner. But—well, you're all in it—insiders—I'm an outsider. And I say that what the swine want is—pearls!"
"If we've got them?" The question, or insinuation, was Belfield's. He was looking at Andy with a real, if an only half-serious, interest.
"Swine are swine," remarked Wellgood. "They mustn't forget it. Neither must we."
"But pearls by no means always pearls?" Belfield suggested. "Though they may look the real thing if a pretty woman hangs them round her neck."
Their talk went only for an embellishment of their general state—so comfortable, so serene, so exceptionally fortunate. Were not they pearls? Andy had seen something of the swine, had perhaps even been one of them. A vague protest stirred in him; were they not too serene, too comfortable, too fortunate? Yet he loved it all; it was beautiful. How many uglies go to make one beautiful? It is a bit of social arithmetic. When you have got the result, the deduction may well seem difficult.
"It doesn't much matter whether they're real or not, if a really pretty woman hangs them round her neck," Harry laughed. "The neck carries the pearls!"
"But we'd all rather they were real," said Isobel Vintry suddenly, the first of the women to intervene. "Other women guess, you see."
"Does it hurt so much if they do?" Belfield asked.
"The only thing that really does hurt," Isobel assured him, smiling.
"Oh, my dear, how disproportionate!" sighed Mrs. Belfield.
"I'd never have anything false about me—pearls, or lace, or hair, or—or anything about me," exclaimed Vivien. "I should hate it!" Feeling carried her into sudden unexpected speech.
Very gradually, very tentatively, Andy was finding himself able to speak in this sort of company, to speak as an equal to equals, not socially only, but in an intellectual regard.
"Riches seem to me all wrong, but what they produce, leaving out the wasters, all right." He let it out, apprehensive of a censuring silence. Belfield relieved him in a minute.
"I'm with you. I always admire most the things to which I'm on principle opposed—a melancholy state of one's mental interior! Kings, lords, and bishops—crowns, coronets, and aprons—all very attractive and picturesque!"
"We all know that the governor's a crypto-Radical," said Harry.
"I thought Carlyle, among others, had taught that we were all Radicals when in our pyjamas—or less," said Belfield. "But that's not the point. The excellence of things that are wrong, the narrowness of the moral view!"
"My dear! Oh, well, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Belfield.
"I've got a touch of asthma—I must say what I like." Belfield humorously traded on his infirmity. "A dishonest fellow who won't pay his tradesmen, a flirtatious minx who will make mischief, a spoilt urchin who insists on doing what he shouldn't—all rather attractive, aren't they? If everybody behaved properly we should have no 'situations.' What would become of literature and the drama?"
"And if nobody had any spare cash, what would become of them, either?" asked Harry.
"Well, we could do with a good deal less of them. I'll go so far as to admit that," said Wellgood.
Belfield laughed. "Even from Wellgood we've extracted one plea for the redistribution of wealth. A dialectical triumph! Let's leave it at that."
Mrs. Belfield carried her husband off indoors; Wellgood went with them, challenging his host to a game of bezique; Harry invited Vivien to a stroll; Isobel Vintry and Andy were left together. She asked him a sudden question:
"Do you think Harry Belfield a selfish man?"
"Selfish! Harry? Heavens, no! He'd do anything for his friends."
"I don't mean quite in that way. I daresay he would—and, of course, he's too well-mannered to be selfish about trifles. But I suppose even to ask questions about him is treason to you?"
"Oh, well, a little bit," laughed Andy. "I'm an old follower, you see!"
"Yes, and he thinks it natural you should be," she suggested quickly.
"Well, if it is natural, why shouldn't he think so?"
"It seems natural to him that he should always come first, and—and have the pick of things."
"You mean he's spoilt? According to his father, that makes him more attractive."
"Yes, I'm not saying it doesn't do that. Only—do you never mind it? Never mind playing second fiddle?"
"Second fiddle seems rather a high position. I hardly reckon myself in the orchestra at all," he laughed. "You remember—I'm accustomed to following the hunt on foot."
"While Harry Belfield rides! Yes! Vivien rides too—and doesn't like it!"
She was bending forward in her chair, handsome, sumptuous in her white and gold (Wellgood had made her a present the quarter-day before), with her smile very bitter. The smile told that she spoke with a meaning more than literal. Andy surveyed, at his leisure, possible metaphorical bearings.
"Oh yes, I think I see," he announced, after an interval fully perceptible. "You mean she doesn'treally appreciate her advantages? By riding you mean—?"
"Oh, really, Mr. Hayes!" She broke into vexed amused laughter. "I mustn't try it any more with you," she declared.
"But I shall understand if you give me time to think it over," Andy protested. "Don't rush me, that's all, Miss Vintry."
"As if I could rush any one or anything!" she said, handsome still, now handsomely despairing.
To Andy she was a problem, needing time to think over; to Wellgood she was a postulate, assumed not proved, yet assumed to be proved; to Harry she was—save for that subtle momentary feeling on the terrace by the lake—Vivien's companion. She wanted to be something other than any of these. Follow the hounds on foot? She would know what it was to ride! Know and not like—in Vivien's fashion? Andy, slowly digesting, saw her lips curve in that bitter smile again.
From a path near by, yet secluded behind a thick trim hedge of yew, there sounded a girl's nervous flutter of a laugh, a young man's exultant merriment. Harry and Vivien, not far away, seemed the space of a world apart—to Isobel; Andy was normally conscious that they were not more than twenty yards off, and almost within hearing if theyspoke. But he had been getting at Isobel's meaning—slowly and surely.
"Being able to ride—having the opportunity—and not caring—that's pearls before—?"
"I congratulate you, Mr. Hayes. I can imagine you making a very good speech—after the election is over!"
Andy laughed heartily, leaning back in his chair.
"That's jolly good, Miss Vintry!" he said.
"Ten minutes after the poll closed you'd begin to persuade the electors!" She spoke rather lower. "Ten minutes after a girl had taken another man, you'd—"
"Give me time! I've never thought about myself like that," cried Andy.
No more sounds from the path behind the yew hedge. She was impatient with Andy—would Harry never come back from that path?
He came back the next moment—he and Vivien. Vivien's face was a confession, Harry's air a self-congratulation.
"I hope you've been making yourself amusing, Andy?" asked Harry. His tone conveyed a touch of amusement at the idea of Andy being amusing.
"Miss Vintry's been pitching into me like anything," said Andy, smiling broadly. "She saysI'm always a day after the fair. I'm going to think it over—and try to get a move on."
His good-nature, his simplicity, his serious intention to attempt self-improvement, tickled Harry intensely. Why, probably Isobel had wanted to flirt, and Andy had failed to play up to her! He burst into a laugh; Vivien's laugh followed as an applauding echo.
"A lecture, was it, Miss Vintry?" Harry asked in banter.
"I could give you one too," said Isobel, colouring a little.
"She gives me plenty!" Vivien remarked, with a solemnly comic shake of her head.
"It's my business in life," said Isobel.
Just for a second Harry looked at her; an impish smile was on his lips. Did she think that, was she honest about it? Or was she provocative? It crossed Harry's mind—past experiences facilitating the transit of the idea—that she might be saying to him, "Is that all a young woman of my looks is good for? To give lectures?"
"You shall give me one at the earliest opportunity, if you'll be so kind," he laughed, his eyes boldly conveying that he would enjoy the lesson. Vivien laughed again; it was great fun to see Harry chaffing Isobel! She liked Isobel, but was in awe of her. Had not Isobel all the difficultvirtues which it was her own woeful task to learn? But Harry could chaff her—Harry could do anything.
"If I do, I'll teach you something you don't know, Mr. Harry," Isobel said, letting her eyes meet his with a boldness equal to his own. Again that subtle feeling touched him, as it had on the terrace by the lake.
"I'm ready to learn my lesson," he assured her, with a challenging gleam in his eye.
She nodded rather scornfully, but accepting his challenge. There was a last bit of by-play between their eyes.
"It's really time to go, if Mr. Wellgood has finished his game," said Isobel, rising.
The insinuation of the words, the by-play of the eyes, had passed over Vivien's head and outside the limits of Andy's perspicacity. To both of them the bandying of words was but chaff; by both the exchange of glances went unmarked. Well, the whole thing was no more than chaff to Harry himself; such chaff as he was very good at, a practised hand—and not ignorant of why the chaff was pleasant. And Isobel? Oh yes, she knew! Harry was amused to find this knowledge in Vivien's companion—this provocation, this freemasonry of flirtation. Poor old Andy had, of course, seen none of it! Well, perhaps it needed a bit of experience—besides the temperament.
Indoors, farewell was soon said—hours ruled early at Meriton. Soon said, yet not without some significance in the saying. Mrs. Belfield was openly affectionate to Vivien, and Belfield paternal in a courtly way; Harry very devoted to the same young lady, yet with a challenging "aside" of his eyes for Isobel; Andy brimming over with a vain effort to express adequately but without gush his thanks for the evening. Belfield, being two pounds the better of Wellgood over their bezique, was in more than his usual good-temper—it was spiced with malice, for the defeat of Wellgood (a bad loser) counted for more than the forty shillings—and gave Andy his hand and a pat on the back.
"It's not often one has to tell a man not to undervalue himself," he remarked. "But I fancy I might say that to you. Well, I'm no prophet; but at any rate be sure you're always welcome at this house for your own sake, as well as for Harry's."
Getting into the carriage with Isobel and her father, Vivien felt like going back to school. But in all likelihood she would see Harry's eyes again to-morrow. She did not forget to give a kindly glance to solid Andy Hayes—not exciting, nor bewildering, nor inflaming (as another was!), but somehow comforting and reassuring to think of. She sat down on the narrow seat, fronting herfather and Isobel. Yes—but school wouldn't last much longer! And after school? Ineffable heaven! Being with Harry, loving Harry, being loved by—? That vaulting imagination seemed still almost—nay, it seemed quite—impossible. Yet if your own eyes assure you of things impossible—well, there's a good case for believing your eyes, and the belief is pleasant. Wellgood sore over his two pounds, Isobel dissatisfied with fate but challenging it, sat silent. The young girl's lips curved in sweet memories and triumphant anticipations. The best thing in the world—was it actually to be hers? Almost she knew it, though she would not own to the knowledge yet.
Happy was she in the handkerchief flung by her hero! Happy was Harry Belfield in the ready devotion, the innocent happy surrender, of one girl, and the vexed challenge of another whom he had—whom he had at least meant to ignore; he could never answer for it that he would quite ignore a woman who displayed such a challenge in the lists of sex. But there was a happier being still among those who left Halton that night. It was Andy Hayes, before whom life had opened so, who had enjoyed such a wonderful day-off, who had been told not to undervalue himself, had been reproached with being a day after the fair, had undergone (as it seemed) an initiation into alife of which he had hardly dreamt, yet of which he appeared, in that one summer's day, to have been accepted as a part.
Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest—happier even than Harry, to whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told that her challenge should be taken up—some day! Mrs. Belfield was intent on sleeping well, as she always did; Mr. Belfield on not coughing too much—as he generally did. They were not competitors in happiness.
Andy walked home. Halton lay half a mile outside the town; his lodgings were at the far end of High Street. All through the long, broad, familiar street—in old days he had known who lived in well-nigh every house—his road lay. He walked home under the stars. The day had been wonderful; they who had figured in it peopled his brain—delicate dainty Vivien first; with her, brilliant Harry; that puzzling Miss Vintry; Mr. Belfield, who talked so whimsically and had told him not to undervalue himself; Wellgood, grim, hard, merciless, yet somehow with the stamp of aman about him; Mrs. Belfield serenely matching with her house, her Vandykes, her garden, and the situation to which it had pleased Heaven to call her. Soberly now—soberly now—had he ever expected to be a part of all this?
High Street lay dark and quiet. It was eleven o'clock. He passed the old grammar school with a thought of the dear old father—B.A. Oxon, which had something to do with his wonderful day. He passed the Lion, where "the Bird" officiated, and Mr. Foulkes' office, where "Chinks" aspired to become "gentleman, one etc"—so runs the formula that gives a solicitor his status. All dark! Now if by chance Jack Rock were up, and willing to listen to a little honest triumphing! It had been a day to talk about.
Yes, Jack was up; his parlour lights glowed cosily behind red blinds. Yet Andy was not to have a clear field for the recital of his adventures; it was no moment for an exhibition of his honest pride, based on an unimpaired humility. Jack Rock had a party. The table was furnished with beer, whisky, gin, tobacco, and clay pipes. Round it sat old friends—Chinks and the Bird; the Bird's father, Mr. Dove, landlord of the Lion; and Cox, the veterinary surgeon. After the labours of the week they were having a little "fling" on Saturday night—convivially, yet in all reasonable temperance.The elder men—Jack, Mr. Dove, and Cox—greeted Andy with intimate and affectionate cordiality; a certain constraint marked the manner of Chinks and the Bird—they could not forget the afternoon's encounter. His evening coat too, and his shirt-front! Everybody marked them; but they had a notion that he might have caught that habit in London.
Andy's welcome over, Mr. Dove of the Lion took up his tale at the point at which he had left it. Mr. Dove had not Jack Rock's education—he had never been at the grammar school but he was a shrewd sensible old fellow, who prided himself on the respectability of his "house" and felt his responsibilities as a publican without being too fond of the folk who were always dinning them into his ears.
"I says to the girl, 'We don't want no carryings-on at the Lion.' That's what I says, Jack. She says, 'That wasn't nothing, Mr. Dove—only a give and take o' nonsense. The bar between us too! W'ere's the 'arm?' 'I don't like it, Miss Miles,' I says, 'I don't like it, that's all.' 'Oh, very good, Mr. Dove! You're master 'ere, o' course; only, if you won't 'ave that, you won't keep up your takings, that's all!' That's the way she put it, Jack."
"Bit of truth in it, perhaps," Jack opined.
"There's a lot of truth in it," said the Bird solemnly. "Fellers like to show off before a good-looking girl—whether she's behind a bar or whether she ain't."
"If there never 'adn't been barmaids, I wouldn't be the one to begin it," said Mr. Dove. "I knows its difficulties. But there they are—all them nice girls bred to it! What are ye to do with 'em, Jack?"
"A drink doesn't taste any worse for being 'anded—handed—to you by a pretty girl," said Chinks with a knowing chuckle.
"Then you give 'er one—then you stand me one—then you 'ave another yourself—just to say 'Blow the expense!' Oh, the girl knew the way of it—I ain't saying she didn't!" Mr. Dove smoked fast, evidently puzzled in his mind. "And she's a good girl 'erself too, ain't she, Tom?"
Tom blushed—blushed very visibly. Miss Miles was not a subject of indifference to the Bird.
"She's very civil-spoken," he mumbled shamefacedly.
"That she is—and a fine figure of a girl too," added Jack Rock. "Know her, Andy?"
Well, no! Andy did not know her; he felt profoundly apologetic. Miss Miles was evidently a person whom one ought to know, if one wouldbe in the world of Meriton. The world of Meriton? It came home to him that there was more than one.
Mr. Cox was a man who listened—in that respect rather like Andy himself; but, when he did speak, he was in the habit of giving a verdict, therein deviating from Andy's humble way.
"Barmaids oughtn't to a' come into existence," he said. "Being there, they're best left—under supervision." He nodded at old Dove, as though to say, "You won't get any further than that if you talk all night," and put his pipe back into his mouth.
"The doctor's right, I daresay," said old Dove in a tone of relief. It is always something of a comfort to be told that one's problems are insoluble; the obligation of trying to solve them is thereby removed.
Jack accepted this ending to the discussion.
"And what have you been doing with yourself, Andy?" he asked.
Andy found a curious difficulty in answering. Tea and tennis at Nutley, dinner at Halton—it seemed impossible to speak the words without self-consciousness. He felt that Chinks and the Bird had their eyes on him.
"Been at work all the week, Jack. Had a day-off to-day."
Luckily Jack fastened on the first part of his answer. He turned a keen glance on Andy. "Business doin' well?"
"Not particularly," Andy confessed. "It's a bit hard for a new-comer to establish a connection."
"You're right there, Andy," commented old Mr. Dove, serenely happy in the knowledge of an ancient and good connection attaching to the Lion.
"Oh, not particularly well?" Jack nodded with an air of what looked like satisfaction, though it would not be kind to Andy to be satisfied.
"Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, weren't you?" asked Chinks suddenly.
All faces turned to Andy.
"Yes, I was, Chinks," he said.
"Half expected you to supper, Andy," said Jack Rock.
"Sorry, Jack. I would have come if I'd been free. But—"
"Well, where were you?"
There was no help for it.
"I was dining out, Jack."
Andy's tone became as airy as he could make it, as careless, as natural. His effort in this kind was not a great success.
"Harry Belfield asked me to Halton."
A short silence followed. They were goodfellows, one and all of them; nobody had a jibe for him; the envy, if envy there were, was even as his own for Harry Belfield. Cox looked round and raised his glass.
"'Ere's to you, Andy! You went to the war, you went to foreign parts. If you've learned a bit and got on a bit, nobody in Meriton's goin' to grudge it you—least of all them as knew your good father, who was a gentleman if ever there was one—and I've known some of the best, consequent on my business layin' mainly with 'orses."
"Dined at Halton, did you?" Old Jack Rock beamed, then suddenly grew thoughtful.
"Well, of course, I've always known Harry Belfield, and—" He was apologizing.
"The old gentleman used to dine there—once a year reg'lar," Jack reminded him. "Quite right of 'em to keep it up with you." But still Jack looked thoughtful.
Eleven-thirty sounded from the squat tower of the long low church which presided over the west end—the Fyfold end—of High Street. Old Cox knocked out his pipe decisively. "Bedtime!" he pronounced.
Nobody contested the verdict. Only across Andy's mind flitted an outlandish memory that it was the hour at which one sat down to supper at the great restaurant—with Harry, the Nun,sardonic Miss Dutton, Billy Foot, and London at large—and at liberty.
"You stop a bit, my lad," said Jack with affection, also with a touch of old-time authority. "I've something to say to you, Andy."
Andy stayed willingly enough; he liked Jack, and he was loth to end that day.
Jack filled and pressed, lit, pressed, and lit again, a fresh clay pipe.
"You like all that sort of thing, Andy?" he asked. "Oh, you know what I mean—what you've been doin' to-day."
"Yes, I like it, Jack." Andy saw that his dear old friend—dear Nancy's brother—had something of moment on his mind.
"But it don't count in the end. It's not business, Andy." Jack's tone had become, suddenly and strangely, persuasive, reasonably persuasive—almost what one might call coaxing.
"I've never considered it in the light of business, Jack."
"Don't let it turn you from business, Andy. You said the timber was worth about two hundred a year to you?"
"About that; it'll be more—or less—before I'm six months older. It's sink or swim, you know."
"You've no call to sink," said Jack Rock withemphasis. "Your father's son ain't goin' to sink while Jack Rock can throw a lifebelt to him."
"I know, Jack. I'd ask you for half your last crust, and you'd soak it in milk for me as you used to—if you had to steal the milk! But—well, what's up?"
"I'm gettin' on in life, boy. I've enough to do with the horses. I do uncommon well with the horses. I've a mind to give myself to that. Not but what I like the meat. Still I've a mind to give myself to the horses. The meat's worth—Oh, I'll surprise you, Andy, and don't let it go outside o' this room—the meat's worth nigh on five hundred a year! Aye, nigh on that! The chilled meat don't touch me much, nor the London stores neither. Year in, year out, nigh on five hundred! Nancy loved you; the old gentleman never said a word as showed he knew a difference between me and him. Though he must have known it. I'm all alone, Andy. While I can I'll keep the horses—Lord, I love the horses! You drop your timber. Take over the meat, Andy. You're a learnin' chap; you'll soon pick it up from me and Simpson. Take over the meat, Andy. It's a safe five hundred a year!"
So he pleaded to have his great benefaction accepted. He had meant to give in a manner perhaps somewhat magnificent; what he gave wasto him great. The news of tea and tennis at Nutley, of dinner at Halton, induced a new note. Proud still, yet he pleaded. It was a fine business—the meat! Nor chilled meat, nor stores mattered seriously; his connection was so high-class. Five hundred a year! It was luxury, position, importance; it was all these in Meriton. His eyes waited anxiously for Andy's answer.
Andy caught his hand across the table. "Dear old Jack, how splendid of you!"
"Well, lad?"
For the life of him Andy could say nothing more adequate, nothing less disappointing, less ungrateful, than "I'd like to think it over. And thanks, Jack!"
Andy Hayes had never supposed that he would be the victim of a problem, or exposed to the necessity of a momentous choice. Life had hitherto been very simple to him—doing his work, taking his pay, spending the money frugally and to the best advantage, sparing a small percentage for the Savings Bank, and reconciling with this programme the keen enjoyment of such leisure hours as fell to his lot. A reasonable, wholesome, manageable scheme of life! Or, rather, not a scheme at all—Andy was no schemer. That was the way life came—the way an average man saw it and accepted it. From first to last he never lost the conception of himself as an average man, having his capabilities, yet strictly conditioned by the limits of the practicable; free in his soul, by no means perfectly free in his activities. Andy never thought in terms of "environment" or such big words, but he always had a strong senseof what a fellow like himself could expect; the two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the same thing.
In South Africa he had achieved his sergeant's stripes—not a commission, nor the Victoria Cross, nor anything brilliant. In Canada he had not become a millionaire, nor even a prosperous man or a dashing speculator; he had been thought a capable young fellow, who would, perhaps, be equal to developing the English side of the business. Andy might be justified in holding himself no fool: he had no ground for higher claims, no warrant for anything like ambition.
Thus unaccustomed to problems, he had expected to toss uneasily (he had read of many heroes who "tossed uneasily") on his bed all night through. Lawn-tennis and a good dinner saved him from that romantic but uncomfortable ordeal; he slept profoundly till eight-thirty. Just before he was called—probably between his landlady's knock and her remark that it was eight-fifteen (she was late herself)—he had a brief vivid dream of selling a very red joint of beef to a very pallid Vivien Wellgood—a fantastic freak of the imagination which could have nothing to do with the grave matter in hand.
Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile in the leisure of Sunday morning, with no trainto catch, he remembered his father's B.A. Oxon; he recalled his mother's unvarying designation of old Jack as "the butcher;" he recollected Nancy's pride in marrying "out of her class"—it had been her own phrase, sometimes in boast, sometimes in apology. Though Nancy had a dowry of a hundred pounds a year—charged on the business, and now returned to Jack Rock since Nancy left no children—she never forgot that she had married out of her class. And into his father's? And into his own? "I'm a snob!" groaned Andy.
He grew a little drowsy again, and in his drowsiness again played tennis at Nutley, again dined at Halton, again saw Vivien in the butcher's shop, and again was told by Mr. Belfield not to undervalue himself. But is to take nigh on five hundred pounds a year to undervalue yourself—you who are making a precarious two? And where lies the difference between selling wood and selling meat—wood from Canada and meat in Meriton? Andy's broad conception of the world told him that there was none; his narrow observation of the same sphere convinced him that the difference was, in its practical bearings, considerable. Nay, confine yourself to meat alone: was there no difference between importing cargoes of that questionable "chilled" article and disposing of joints of unquestionable"home-bred" over the counter? All the argument was for the home-bred. But to sell the home-bred joints one wore a blue apron and carried a knife and a steel—or, at all events, smacked of doing these things; whereas the wholesale cargoes of "chilled" involved no such implements or associations. Once again, Canada was Canada, New Zealand New Zealand, Meriton Meriton. With these considerations mingled two pictures—dinner at Halton, and Jack Rock's convivial party.
"I'll get up," said Andy, too sore beset by his problem to lie abed any more.
Church! The bells rang almost as soon as Andy—he had dawdled and lounged over dressing and breakfast in Sunday's beneficent leisure—was equipped for the day. In Meriton everybody went to Church, except an insignificant, tolerated, almost derided minority who frequented a very small, very ugly Methodist chapel in a by-street—for towns like Meriton are among the best preserves of the Establishment. Andy always went to church on a Sunday morning, answering the roll-call, attending parade, accepting the fruits of his fathers' wisdom, as his custom was. "Church, and a slice of that cold beef, and then a jolly long walk!" he said to himself. He had a notion that this typical English Sunday—the relative value ofwhose constituents he did not, and we need not, exactly assess—might help him to settle his problem. The cold beef and the long walk made part of the day's character—the "Church" completed it. This was Andy's feeling; it is not, of course, put forward as what he ought to have felt.
So Andy went to church—in a cut-away coat and a tall hat, though it drizzled, and he would sooner have been in a felt hat, impervious to the rain. He sat just half-way down the nave, and it must be confessed that his attention wandered. He had such a very important thing to settle in this world; it would not go out of his mind, though he strove to address himself to the issues which the service suggested. He laboured under the disadvantage of not being conscious of flagrant iniquity, though he duly confessed himself a miserable offender. He looked round on the neighbours he knew so well; they were all confessing that they were miserable offenders. Andy believed it—it was in the book—but he considered most of them to be good and honest people, and he was almost glad to see that they did not look hopelessly distressed over their situation.
The First Lesson caught and chained his wandering attention. It was about David and Jonathan; it contained the beautiful lament of friend for friend, the dirge of a brotherly love.The Rector's voice was rather sing-song, but it would have needed a worse delivery to spoil the words: "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished!" Thus ended the song, so rich in splendour, so charged with sorrow.
"Clinking!" was Andy's inward comment. Then in a flash came the thought, "Why, of course, I must ask Harry Belfield; he'll tell me what to do all right."
The reference of his problem to Harry ought to have disposed of it for good, and left Andy free to perform his devotions with a single mind. But it only set him wondering what Harry would decide, wondering hard and—there was no escaping from it—jealously. His service in the ranks, his residence in communities at least professedly democratic, had not made him a thorough democrat, it seemed. He might have acquired the side of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the harder task of seeing himself, whatever his workor station, as any man's equal—at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? That would mean that Harry thought of him (for all his kindness) as of Chinks or of the Bird. Could he risk discovering that, after all, Harry—and Harry's friends—thought of him like that? A sore pang struck him. Had he been at Nutley—at Halton—only on sufferance? He had an idea that Harry would send him to the butcher's shop—would do the thing ever so kindly, ever so considerately, but all the same would do it. "Well, it's the safe thing, isn't it, old chap?" he fancied Harry saying; and then returning to his own high ambitions, and being thereafter very friendly—whenever he chanced to pass the shop. Andy never deceived himself as to the quality of Harry's friendship: it lay, at the most, in appreciative acceptance of unbounded affection. It was not like Jonathan's for David. Andy was content. And must not acceptance, after all, breed some return? For whatever return came he was grateful. In this sphere there was no roomeven for theories of equality, let alone for its practice.
For some little time back Andy had been surprised to observe a certain attribute of his own—that of pretty often turning out right. He accounted for it by saying that an average man, judging of average men and things, would fairly often be right—on an average; men would do what he expected, things would go as he expected—on an average. Such discernment as was implied in this Andy felt as no endowment, no clairvoyance; rather it was that his limitations qualified him to appreciate other people's. He would have liked to feel able to except Harry Belfield who should have no limitations—only he felt terribly sure of what Harry Belfield would say: Safety, and the shop!
By this time the church service was ended, the cold beef eaten, most of the long walk achieved. For while these things went straight on to an end, Andy's thoughts rolled round and round, like a squirrel in a cage.
"A man's only got one life," Andy was thinking to himself for the hundredth time as, having done his fifteen miles, he came opposite the entry to Nutley on his way home after his walk. What a lot of thoughts and memories there had been on that walk! Walking alone, a man is the victim—orthe beneficiary—of any number of stray recollections, ideas, or fancies. He had even thought of—and smiled over—sardonic Miss Dutton's sardonic remark that he was worth ten of either Billy Foot or—Harry Belfield! Well, the poor girl had come one cropper; allowances must be made.
Cool, serene, with what might appear to the eyes of less happy people an almost insolently secure possession of fortune's favour, Harry Belfield stood at Nutley gate. Andy, hot and dusty, winced at being seen by him; Harry was so remote from any disarray. Andy's heart leapt at the sight of his friend—and seemed to stand still in the presence of his judge. Because the thing—the problem—must come out directly. There was no more possibility of shirking it.
Vivien was flitting—her touch of the ground seemed so light—down the drive, past the deep dark water, to join Harry for a stroll. His invitation to a stroll on that fine still Sunday afternoon had not been given without significance nor received without a thousand tremblings. So it would appear that it was Andy's ill-fortune to interrupt.
Harry was smoking. He took his cigar out of his mouth to greet Andy.
"Treadmill again, old boy? Getting the fat off?"
"You're the one man I wanted to see." Then Andy's face fell; it was an awful moment. "I want to ask your advice."
"Look sharp!" said Harry, smiling. "I've an appointment. She'll be here any minute."
"Jack Rock's offered to turn the shop over to me, as soon as I learn the business. I say, I—I suppose I ought to accept? He says it's worth hard on five hundred a year. I say, keep that dark; he told me not to tell anybody."
"Gad, is it?" said Harry, and whistled softly.
Vivien came in sight of him, and walked more slowly, dallying with anticipation.
"Splendid of him, isn't it? I say, I suppose I ought to—to think it over?" He had been doing nothing else for what seemed eternity.
Harry laughed—that merry irresponsible laugh of his. "Blue suits your complexion, Andy. It seems damned funny—but five hundred a year! Worth that, is it now, really? And he'd probably leave you anything else he has."
Silently-flitting Vivien was just behind Harry now. Andy saw her, Harry was unaware of her presence. She laid her finger on her lips, making a confidant of Andy, in her joy at a trick on her lover.
"Of course it—well, it sort of defines matters—ties you down, eh?" Harry's laugh broke outagain. "Andy, old boy, you'll look infernally funny, pricing joints to old Dove or Miss Pink! Oh, I say, I don't think you can do it, Andy!"
"Don't you, Harry?" Andy's tone was eager, beseeching, full of hope.
"But I suppose you ought." Harry tried to be grave, and chuckled again. "You'd look it uncommon well, you know. You'd soon develop the figure. Old Jack never has—doesn't look as if his own steaks did him any good. But you—we'd send you to Smithfield in no time!"
"What are you two talking about?" asked Vivien suddenly.
"Oh, there you are at last! Why, the funniest thing! Old Andy here wants to be a butcher."
"I don't want—" Andy began.
"A butcher! What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Harry!" She stood by Harry's side, so happy in him, so friendly to Andy.
"Fact!" said Harry, and acquainted her with the situation.
Vivien blushed red. "I—I'm very sorry I said what—what I did to you. You remember?"
"Oh yes, I remember," said Andy.
"Of course I—I never knew—I never thought—Of course, somebody must—Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Hayes!"
Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. "All this is a secret to me."
"I—I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like—well—places where they sold meat—raw meat, Harry."
"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy asked.
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, old man," he said. "You've looked at all sides of it, of course. It's getting latish, Vivien."
Andy would almost rather have had the verdict which he feared. "Your choice, old man"—and a shrug of the shoulders. Yet his loyalty intervened to tell him that Harry was right. It was his choice, and must be. He found Vivien's eyes on him—those distant, considering eyes.
"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, Miss Wellgood?" he asked, mustering a smile with some difficulty.
Vivien's lips drooped; her eyes grew rather sad and distinctly remote. She gave no judgment; she merely uttered a regret—a regret in which social and personal prejudice (it could not be acquitted of that) struggled with kindliness for Andy.
"Oh, I thought you were going to be a friend of ours," she murmured sadly. She gave Andy a mournful little nod of farewell—of final farewell, as it seemed to his agitated mind—and walked offwith Harry, who was still looking decidedly amused.
That our great crises can have an amusing side even in the eyes of those who wish us well is one of life's painful discoveries. Andy had expected to be told that he must accept Jack Rock's offer, but he had not thought that Harry would chaff him about it. He tried, in justice to Harry and in anxiety not to feel sore with his hero, to see the humorous side for himself. He admitted that he could not. A butcher was no more ridiculous than any other tradesman. Well, the comic papers were rather fond of putting in butchers, for some inscrutable reason. Perhaps Harry happened to think of some funny picture. Could that idea give Andy a rag of comfort to wrap about his wound? The comfort was of indifferent quality; the dressing made the wound smart.
He was alone in the road again, gay Harry and dainty Vivien gone, thinking little of him by now, no doubt. Yes, the choice must be his own. On one side lay safety for him and joy for old Jack; on the other a sore blow to Jack, and for himself the risk of looking a sad fool if he came to grief in London. So far the choice appeared easy.
But that statement of the case left out everything that really tugged at Andy's heart. For the first time in his existence he was, vaguely anddimly, trying to conceive and to consider his life as a whole, and asking what he meant to do with it. Acutest self-reproach assailed him; he accused himself inwardly of many faults and follies—of ingratitude, of snobbishness, of a ridiculous self-conceit. Wasn't it enough for a chap like him to earn a good living honestly? Oughtn't he to be thankful for the chance? What did he expect anyhow? He was very scornful with himself, fiercely reproving all the new stirrings in him, yet at the same time trying to see what they came to; trying to make out what they, in their turn, asked, what they meant, what would content them. He could not satisfy himself what the stirrings meant nor whence they came. When he asked what would content them he could get only a negative answer; keeping the shop in Meriton would not. In regard neither to what it entailed nor to what it abandoned could the stirrings find contentment in that.
He had been walking along slowly and moodily. Suddenly he quickened his pace; his steps became purposeful. He was going to Jack Rock's. Jack would be just having his tea, or smoking the pipe that always followed it.
Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and his pipe already alight. When he saw Andy's face he chuckled.
"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" he exclaimed joyfully. "Not as you did when you went away last night."
"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed at this greeting.
"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; and so you have, and better than that."
All unknown to himself, Andy's face had answered to his feelings—to the sense of escape from bondage, of liberty restored, of possibilities once more within his reach. The renewed lightness of his heart had made his face happy and triumphant. But it fell with a vengeance now.
"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of expression was bewildering.
"I'm sorry—I've never been so sorry in my life—but I—I can't do it, Jack."
Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin' so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where does the fun come in, Andy?"
"O lord, Jack, I can't—I can't tell you about it. I—"
"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose you've got to do it."
Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. Jack took it and gave it a squeeze.
"I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over things since last night—and goin' back to old things too—about the old gentleman and Nancy."
"It seems so awfully—Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten, Jack."
"No, it don't," said old Jack quietly. "It's a bit of a facer for me—I tell you that straight—but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm sorry like."
"If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it is—there isn't."
"I'm not so sure about that." He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy with Jack.
"You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there, I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country through—I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy, though."
"Well, if there's anything else in the world—"
"I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman—well, as I've told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin—unless I can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit of—of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you, lad?" Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "No call for you to go back across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more about the shop."
Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack."
"You'll come to me first—you won't go to any one before me?" old Jack insisted jealously.
"I'll come to you first—and last," said Andy.
"Aye, lad." The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. "Then it'll be our race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pass the post first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you? The favourite don't always win."
"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool as that."
"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin' my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see—not him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy, "Dinin' at Halton again to-night?"
"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll have me. What have you got?"
"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good condition."
"Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt."
"We don't dress for supper—not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely.
"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door.
"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven,"Jack called after him, pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.
Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king," and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded. There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence. And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in London.
Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with these stern resolves. Memories of his "Saturday-off" glided across his mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very comfortablelittle apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All doors were open now.
"I thought you were going to be a friend of ours." Andy, sitting in the twilight, listening to the bells, smiled at the echo of those regretful words. He cherished their kindliness, and smiled at their prejudice. The shop and Vivien were always connected in his mind since the first day he had met her. Her words came back to him now, summing up all that he would have lost by acceptance, hinting pregnantly at all that his refusal might save or bring.
He stretched his arms and yawned; mind and body both enjoyed a happy relaxation after effort.
"What a week-end it's been!" he thought. Indeed it had—a week-end that was the beginning of many things.
Fully aware of his son's disposition and partly acquainted with his experiences, Mr. Belfield had urged Harry to "go slow" in his courting of Vivien Wellgood. An opinion that marriage was Harry's best chance was not inconsistent with advising that any particular marriage should be approached with caution and due consideration, that a solid basis of affection should be raised, calculated to stand even though the winds of time carried away the lighter and more fairy-like erections of Harry's romantic fancy. To do Harry justice, he did his best to obey the paternal counsel; but ideas of speed in such matters, and of cautious consideration, differ. What to Harry was sage delay would have seemed to many others lighthearted impetuosity. He waited a full fortnight after he was absolutely sure of—well, of the wonderful thing he was so sure of—a fortnight after he was absolutely sure that Vivien wasabsolutely sure also. (The fortnights ran concurrently.) Then he began to feel rather foolish. What on earth was he waiting for? A man could not be more than absolutely sure. Yet perhaps, in pure deference to his father, he would have waited a week longer, and so achieved, or sunk to, an almost cold-blooded deliberation. (He had known Mrs. Freere only a week before he declared—and abjured—a passion!) He was probably right; it was no good waiting. No greater security could be achieved by that. Whether the pursuit were deliberate or impetuous, an end must come to it. It was afterwards—when the chase was over and the quarry won—that the danger came for Harry and men like him. Sage delay and a solid basis of affection could not obviate that peril; the born hunter would still listen to the horn that sounded a new chase. Somewhere in the world—so the theory ran—there must live the woman who could deafen Harry's ears to a fresh blast of the horn. On that theory monogamy depends for its personal—as distinguished from its social—justification. So Mr. Belfield reasoned, with a smile, and counselled delay. But there were no means of ransacking the world, and even the theory itself was doubtful. Harry was an eager advocate of the theory, but thought that there was no needto search beyond little Meriton for the woman. At any rate, if Meriton did not hold her, she did not exist—the theory stood condemned. Still he would wait one week more—to please his father.
A thing happened, a word was spoken, the like of which he had never anticipated. To defend himself laughingly against comparisons with the proverbial Lothario, to protest with burlesque earnestness against charges of susceptibility, fickleness, and extreme boldness of assault—Harry played that part well, and was well-accustomed to play it. But to suffer a challenge, to endure a taunt, to be subjected to a sneer, as a slow-coach, a faint-heart, a boy afraid to tell a girl he loved her, afraid to snatch what he desired! This was a new experience for Harry Belfield, new and unbearable. And when he had only been trying to please his father! Hang this pleasing of one's father, if it leads to things like that!
He dashed up to Nutley one fine afternoon on his bicycle; he was teaching Vivien the exercise, and she was finding that even peril had its charms. But he was late for his appointment. Isobel Vintry sat alone on the terrace by the water.
"How are you, Miss Vintry? I say, I'm afraid I'm late. Where's Vivien?"
"You're nearly half an hour late."
"Well, I know. I couldn't help it. Where is she?"
"She got tired of waiting for you, and went for a walk in the wood."
"She might have waited."
"Well, yes. One would think she'd be accustomed to it by now," said Isobel. Her tone was lazily indolent, but her eyes were set on him in mockery.
Harry looked at her with a sudden alertness. He looked at her hard. "Accustomed to waiting for me?"
"Yes." She was exasperating in her malicious tranquillity, meaning more than she said, saying nothing that he could lay hold of, quite grave, and laughing at him.
"Any hidden meanings, Miss Vintry?" For, as a fact, Harry had generally been punctual, and knew it.
"Nothing but what's quite obvious," she retorted, dexterously fencing.
"Or ought to be, to a man not so slow as I am?"
"You slow, Mr. Harry! You're Meriton's ideal of reckless dash!"
"Meriton's?"
"That's the name of the town, isn't it? Or did you think I said London's?"
Harry laughed, but he was stung; she put him on his mettle. "Oh no, I understood your emphasis."
"You needn't keep her waiting any longer—while you talk about nothing to me. You'll find her in the west wood—if you want to. She left you that message."
Harry had no doubt of what she meant, yet she had not spoken a word of it. The saying goes that words are given us to conceal our thoughts; has anybody ever ventured to say that lips and eyes are? Her meaning carried without speech; understanding it, Harry took fire.
"I won't be late again, Miss Vintry," he said. "It would be a pity to disappoint Meriton in its ideal!"
He would have liked to speak to her for a moment sincerely, to ask her if she really thought—But no, it could not be risked. She would make him feel and look ridiculous. Asking her opinion about the right moment to—to—to come up to the scratch (he could find no more dignified phrase)! Her eyes would never let him hear the end of that.
"Still lingering?" she said, stifling a yawn. "While poor Vivien waits!"
There are unregenerate atavistic impulses; Harry would dearly have liked to box her ears. "Meriton's ideal" rankled horribly. What business wasit of hers? It could not concern her in the least—a conclusion which made matters worse, since disinterested criticism is much the more formidable.
"I can find her in a few minutes."
"Oh yes, if you look! Shall you be back to tea?"
"Yes, we'll be back to tea, Miss Vintry. Both of us—together!"
Isobel smiled lazily again. "Come, you are going to make an effort. Nothing of the laggard now!"
"Oh, that's the word you've been thinking suits me?"
"It really will if you don't get to the west wood soon."
"I'll get there—and be back—in half an hour."
The one thing he could not endure was that any woman—above all, an attractive woman—should find in him, Harry Belfield, anything that was ridiculous. She might chide, she might admire; laugh she must not, or her laugh should straightway be confounded. Isobel's hint that he had been a laggard in love banished, in a moment, the uncongenial prudence which he had been enforcing on himself.
She watched him with a contemptuous smile as he strode off on his quest. Why had she mocked, why had she hinted? In part for pure mockery'ssake. She found a malicious pleasure in giving his complacency a dig, in shaking up his settled good opinion of himself. In part from sheer impatience of the simple obvious love affair, to which she was called by her situation to play witness, chaperon, and practically accomplice. It was quite clear how it was going to end—better have the end at once! Her smile of contempt had been not so much for Harry as for the business on which he was engaged; yet Harry had his share of it, since her veiled banter had such power to move him. But that same thing in him had its fascination; there was a great temptation to exercise her power when the man succumbed to it so easily. In this case she had used it only to send him a little faster whither he was going already; but did that touch the limits of it?
So she speculated within herself, yet not quite candidly. Her feeling for Harry was far from being all contempt. She mocked him with her "Meriton ideal," but she was not independent of the Meriton standard herself. To her as to the rest of his neighbours he was a bright star; to her as to them his looks, his charm, his accomplishments appealed. In her more than in most of them his emotions, so ready and quick to take fire, found a counterpart. To her more than to most of them indifference from him seemed insome sort a slight, a slur, a mark of failure. Unconsciously she had fallen into the Meriton way of thinking that notice from Harry Belfield was a distinction, his favour a thing marking off the recipient from less happy mortals. She had received little notice and little favour—a crumb or two of flirtation, flung from Vivien's rich table!
To Vivien, after all the person most intimately concerned, Harry had seemed no laggard; she would have liked him none the worse if he had shown more of that quality. Nothing that he did could be wrong, but some things could be—and were—alarming. Her fastidiousness was not hurt, but her timidity was aroused. She feared crises, important moments, the crossing of Rubicons, even when the prospect looked fair and delightful on the other side of the stream.
To-day, in the west wood, the crossing had to be made. It by no means follows that the man who falls in love lightly makes love lightly; he is as much possessed by the feeling he has come by so easily as though it were the one passion of a lifetime. In his short walk from Isobel Vintry's side to Vivien's, Harry's feelings had found full time to rise to boiling-point. Isobel was far out of his mind; already it seemed to him inconceivable that he should not, all along, have meant to make his proposal—to declare hislove—to-day. How could he have thought to hold it in for an hour longer?
"I know I was late, Vivien," he said. "I'm so sorry. But—well, I half believe I was on purpose." He was hardly saying what was untrue; he was coming to half-believe it—or very nearly.
"On purpose! O Harry! Didn't you want to give me my lesson to-day?"
"Not in bicycling," he answered, his eyes set ardently on her face.
She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, which had been stripped of its bark and shaped into a primitive bench. He sat down by her and took her hand.
"Your hand shakes! What's the matter? You're not afraid of me?"
"Not of you—no, not of you, Harry."
"Of something then? Is it of something I might do—or say?" He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
It was no use trying to get answers out of her; she was past that; but she did not turn away from him, she let her eyes meet his in a silent appeal.
"Vivien, I love you more than all my life!"
"You—you can't," he could just hear her murmur, her lips scarcely parted.
"More than everything in the world besides!"
What wonderful words they were. "Morethan everything in the world besides!" "More than all my life!" Could there be such words? Could she have heard—and Harry uttered them? Her hands trembled violently in his; she was sore afraid amidst bewildering joy. Anything she had foreshadowed in her dreams seemed now so faint, so poor, against marvellous reality. Surely the echo of the wonderful words would be in her ears for all her life!
She had none wherewith to answer them; her hands were his already; for the tears in her eyes she could hardly see his face, but she turned her lips up to his in mute consent.
"That makes you mine," said Harry, "and me yours—yours only—for ever."
She released her hands from his, and put her arm under his arm. Still she said nothing, but now she smiled beneath her dim eyes, and pressed his arm.
"Not frightened now?" he asked softly. "You need never be frightened again."
She spoke at last just to say "No" very softly, yet with a wealth of confident happiness.
"The things we'll do, the things we'll see, the times we'll have!" cried Harry gaily. "And to think that it's only a month or two ago that the idea occurred to me!" He teased her. "Occurred to us, Vivien?"
"Oh no, Harry. Well, then, yes." She laughed lightly, pressing his arm again. "But never that it could be like this."
"Is this—nice?" he asked in banter.
"Is it—real?" she whispered.
"Yes, it's real and it's nice—real nice, in fact," laughed Harry.
"Don't talk just for a little while," she begged, and he humoured her, watching her delicate face during the silence she entreated. "You must tell them," she said suddenly, with a return of her alarm.
"Oh yes, I'll do all the hard work," he promised her, smiling.
She fell into silence again, the wonderful words re-echoing in her ears—"More than everything in the world besides!" "More than all my life!"
"I promised Miss Vintry we'd be back to tea. Do you think you can face her?" asked Harry.
"Yes, with you. But you've got to tell. You promised."
"You'll have somebody to help you over all the stiles—now and hereafter."
The suggestion brought a radiant smile of happiness to her lips; it expressed to her the transformation of her life. So many things had been stiles to her, and her father's gospel was that people must get over their own stiles forthemselves; that was the lesson he inculcated, with Isobel Vintry to help him. But now—well, if stiles were still possible things at all, with Harry to help her over they lost all their terrors.
"We'll remember this old tree-trunk. In fact I think that the proper thing is to carve our initials on it—two hearts and our initials. That's real keeping company!"
"Oh no," she protested with a merry little laugh. "Keeping company! Harry!"
"Well, I'll let you off the hearts, but I must have the initials—very, very small. Do let me have the initials!"
"Somewhere where nobody will look, nobody be likely to see them!"
"Oh yes; I'll find a very secret place! And once a year—on the anniversary, if we're here—we'll come and freshen them up with a penknife."
He had his out now, and set about his pleasant silly task, choosing one end of the tree-trunk, near to the ground, where, in fact, nobody who was not in the secret would find the record.
"There you are—a beautiful monogram; 'H' and 'V' intertwined. I'm proud of that!"
"So am I—very proud, Harry!" she said softly, taking his arm as they moved away. Was she not blessed among the daughters of women? To say nothing of being the envy of all Meriton!
And for Harry the past was all over, the dead had buried its dead. The new life—and the life of the new man—had begun.
Wellgood was back from a ride round his farms—a weekly observance with him. He had been grimly encouraging the good husbandmen, badly scaring the inefficient, advising them all to keep their labourers in order, and their womankind as near to reason as could be hoped for. Now he had his hour of relaxation over tea. He was a great tea-drinker—four or five cups made his allowance. Tea is often the libertinism of people otherwise severe. He leant back in his garden-chair, his gaitered legs outstretched, and drank his tea, Isobel Vintry replenishing the swiftly-emptied cup. She performed the office absent-mindedly—with an air of detachment which hinted that she would fulfil her duties, routine though they might be, but must not be expected to think about them.
"Where's Vivien?" he asked abruptly.
"In the west wood—with Mr. Harry. He said they'd be back for tea."
"Oh!" He finished his third cup and handed the vessel over to her to be refilled. "Things getting on?"
"Yes, I think so. Here's your tea."
"Why do you think so? Give me another lump of sugar."
"Sugar at that rate'll make you put on too much weight. Well, I gave him a hint that the pear was ripe."
"You did? Well, I'm hanged!"
"You think I'm very impudent?"
"What did you say? But I daresay you said nothing. You've a trick with those eyes of yours, Isobel."