CHAPTER XII

That evening Teresa got no word alone with David.

The next morning at breakfast it was proposed that Dick, Concha and Rory, and Arnold, should motor to the nearest links, play a round or two, and have luncheon at the clubhouse; and David asked if he might go with them to “caddy.”

Harry and Guy had to leave by an early train.

The day wore on; and Teresa noticed that the Doña kept looking at her anxiously, in a way that she used to look at her when she was a child and had a bad cold.

In the afternoon she took a book and went down to the orchard; but she could not read. The bloom was on the plums; the apples were reddening.

So silently they one to th’other come,As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.

So silently they one to th’other come,

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.

At about four o’clock there was the sound of footsteps behind her, and looking round she saw David. He was very white.

“I’ve come to say good-bye,” he said.

“Good-bye?But I thought ... you were staying some days.”

“No ... I doubt I must be getting back. I told Mrs. Lane last night, I’m going by the five-thirty.”

He stood gazing down at her, looking very troubled.

“Why have you suddenly changed your plans?” she said, in a very low voice.

He gazed at her in silence for a few seconds, and then said, “I’m not so sure if I had any ... well, anyplans, so to speak, to change ... at least, I hope ... but, anyway, I’m going ... now,” and he paused.

She felt as if she were losing hold of things, as in the last few seconds of chloroform, before one goes off.

“That play of yours ... that Don ... he was a great sinner,” he was saying.

“He repented,” she said, in a small, dry voice.

“After ... he’d had what he wanted. That’s a nice sort of repentance!” and he laughed harshly.

From far away a cock, then another, gave its strange, double-edged cry—a cry, which, like Hermes, is at once the herald of the morning and all its radiant denizens, and the marshaller to their dim abode of the light troupe of passionate ghosts: Clerk Saunders and Maid Margaret, Cathy and Heathcliff.

He laughed again, this time a little wildly: “Hark to the voice of one in the wilderness crying, ‘repent ye!’ Do you remember Newman’s translation of theÆterne Rerum Conditor? How does it go again? Wait ...

Hark! for Chanticleer is singing,Hark! he chides the lingering sun

Hark! for Chanticleer is singing,

Hark! he chides the lingering sun

Something ... something ... wait ... how does it go....

Shrill it sounds, the storm relentingSoothes the weary seaman’s ears;Once it wrought a great repentingIn that flood of Peter’s tears.”

Shrill it sounds, the storm relenting

Soothes the weary seaman’s ears;

Once it wrought a great repenting

In that flood of Peter’s tears.”

Its rhythm, when his voice stopped, continued rumbling dully along the surface of her mind.... Once it wrought a great repenting in that flood of Peter’s tears.... Once it wrought a.... Funny!It was the same rhythm as aToccataofGaluppi’s....

Oh! Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very hard to findOnce it wrought a great repenting in that flood of Peter’s....

Oh! Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very hard to find

Once it wrought a great repenting in that flood of Peter’s....

It would have to be “in that flood of Peter’smind....” Not very good.... What was he saying now?

“I remember your saying once that the Scotch thought an awful lot about the sinfulness of sin.... I firmly believe that the power of remitting sin has been given to the priests of God ... but are we, like that knight, going to ... well to exploit, that grand expression of God’s mercy to His creatures, the Sacrament of Penance? Well? So you don’t think that knight was a bad man?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said wearily. “Good, bad ... what does it all mean?”

“You know fine what it all means. You wrote that play,” a ghost of a smile came into his eyes. “Well ... I suppose ... it’s getting late ...” he sighed drearily, and then held out his hand.

For a few seconds she stood as if hypnotised, staring at him. Then in a rush, the waste, the foolishness of it all swept over her.

“David! David!” she cried convulsively, seizing his arm. “David! What is it all about? Don’t you see?... there’s you, here’s me. Plasencia’s up there where we’ll all soon be having tea and smoking cigarettes. Oh, it’s a plot! it’s a plot! Don’t be taken in ... why, it’s mad! You’re not going to become apriest!” Then her words were stifled by hysterical gasps.

He took hold firmly of both of her wrists. “Hush, you wee thing, hush! You’re havering, you know, just havering.You—Sister Pilar—you’re not going to try and wreck a vocation! You’d never do that!You know fine that there’s nothing so grand as sacrifice—to offer up youth and love to God. It’s not a sacrifice if it doesn’t cost us dear. I don’t think, somehow, that a bread made of wheat would satisfy you and me long. Remember, my dear, this isn’t everything—there’s another life. Hush now! Haven’t you a handkerchief? Here’s mine, then.”

With a wistful smile he watched her wipe her eyes, and then he said, “Well, I doubt ... I must be going. The motor will be there. God bless you ... Pilar,” he looked at her, then turned slowly and walked away in the direction of the house.

She made as if to run after him, and then, with a gesture of despair, sank down upon the ground.

So silently they one to th’other come,As colours steale into the Pear or Plum,And, Aire-like, leave no pression to be seenWhere e’re they met, or parting place has been.

So silently they one to th’other come,

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum,

And, Aire-like, leave no pression to be seen

Where e’re they met, or parting place has been.

Well, it was over. She had shut up Life into a plot, and there had been a counterplot, the liturgical plot into which Rome compresses life’s vast psychic stratification; and, somehow or other, her plot and the counterplot had become one.

Why had he looked so happy when he arrived—only yesterday? Was it joy at the thought of so soon saying his first mass? She would never know. The dead, plotting through a plot, had silenced him for ever.

Oh, foolish race of myth-makers! Starving, though the plain is golden with wheat; though their tent is pitched between two rivers, dying of thirst; calling for the sun when it is dark, and for the moon when it is midday.

The sun was setting, and the shadows were growing long. Some one was coming. It was the Doña, looking, in the evening light, unusually monumental, and, as on that September afternoon last year when the children were clinging round her skirts, symbolic. But now Teresa knew of what she was the symbol.

She came up to her and laid her hand on her head. “Come in, my child; it’s getting chilly. I’ve had a fire lit in your room.”

Paris,4 rue de Chevreuse,1923.

GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.

FOOTNOTES[1]TheMoreríawas the quarter in Spanish towns assigned to Moorish colonists.[2]A Spaniard who could prove that his ancestry was free from any taint of Jewish or Moorish blood, was known as an “Old Christian.”[3]It was looked upon as a grave crime for a Christian to do this.[4]It was a superstition of the Middle Ages that crows were born pure white.[5]Alguaciles: the Spanish equivalent in the Middle Ages to policemen.

FOOTNOTES

[1]TheMoreríawas the quarter in Spanish towns assigned to Moorish colonists.

[2]A Spaniard who could prove that his ancestry was free from any taint of Jewish or Moorish blood, was known as an “Old Christian.”

[3]It was looked upon as a grave crime for a Christian to do this.

[4]It was a superstition of the Middle Ages that crows were born pure white.

[5]Alguaciles: the Spanish equivalent in the Middle Ages to policemen.

Messrs.COLLINS’Latest NovelsMessrs. COLLINS will always be glad to send their book lists regularly to readers who will send name and address.Crown 8vo.7/6net ClothSayonaraJOHN PARISKimono, Mr. John Paris’s first novel, has proved one of the most remarkably successful books published since the war. It has been a “best seller” in England and America; it has become famous all over the Far East and in Canada and Australia, besides being translated into several foreign languages. Its successor—Sayonara—has been eagerly awaited. The theme is based on the familiar aphorism that “East is East and West is West,” and that any attempt to reconcile them usually means disaster. 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The plot is so original, the characters so sharply drawn and interesting, the interest so sustained, and the whole thing so witty and amusing, that I could not put it down.” So wrote Miss Gertrude Atherton to the author ofThe Hat of Destiny. Oh, that hat! that incomparably fascinating hat, what dire rivalries it engendered, what domestic tribulations it sardonically plotted when it arrived in Newport amongst those cosmopolitan butterflies!The Soul of Kol NikonELEANOR FARJEONIs the fantasy of a boy in a Scandinavian village, who from his birth is treated as a pariah because his mother declares that he is a Changeling. He himself grows up under the same belief, and the story, treated in the vein of folklore, leaves it an open question whether there is some truth in it, or whether it is the result of public opinion upon a distorted imagination. 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The scene is chiefly laid in a rich northern suburb.The Peregrine’s Saga:and Other StoriesHENRY WILLIAMSONIllustrated byWarwick ReynoldsThere have been other stories about birds and animals, but seldom before has an author combined the gifts of great prose writing and originality of vision, with a first-hand knowledge of wild life. Mr. Williamson knows flowers, old men, and children as well as he knows falcons, otters, hounds, horses, badgers, “mice, and other small deer.”A Perfect DayBOHUN LYNCH5/-netAuthor ofKnuckles and Gloves, etc.Has any one ever experienced one really perfectly happy day? Mr. Lynch has made the interesting experiment of showing his hero, throughout one long summer day, in a state of perfect bliss. The perfect day is a very simple one and well within the range of possibility.The CounterplotHOPE MIRRLEESThe Counterplotis a study of the literary temperament. 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What was Uncle Keziah doing at Middlebourne? This is the first novel by Mr. J. S. Fletcher we have had the pleasure of publishing, and we are very glad to say that we have contracted for several more books from his able pen.Ramshackle HouseHULBERT FOOTNERAuthor ofThe Owl Taxi,The Deaves Affair, etc.This is Hulbert Footner’s finest mystery story. It tells how Pen Broome saved her lover, accused of the brutal murder of a friend; how she saved him first from the horde of detectives searching for him in the woods round Ramshackle House, and then, when his arrest proved inevitable, how, with indomitable courage and resource, she forged the chain of evidence which proved him to have been the victim of a diabolical plot. A charming love story and a real “thriller.”The Finger-PostMrs. HENRY DUDENEYAuthor ofBeanstalk, etc.The scene of this book is the Sussex Weald, and the story is concerned with the Durrants, who have for generations been thatchers. The book opens with the birth of a second boy, Joseph, a sickly, peculiar lad, considered to be half-witted. The theme is his struggle against his lot, his humble station, his crazy body, the mournful demands of his spirit. When he becomes a man, his clever brain develops and his worldly progress bewilders his relatives and neighbours—all of them still refusing to believe that he is not the fool they have always declared him to be.A Bird in a StormE. MARIA ALBANESIAuthor ofRoseanne, etc.Anne Ranger, brought up in a very worldly atmosphere, finds herself confronted by a most difficult problem and coerced by her former school friend—Joyce Pleybury, who has drifted into a bad groove—to take an oath of secrecy which reacts on Anne’s own life in almost tragic fashion, shattering her happiness from the very day of her marriage, and thereafter exposing her like a bird in a storm to be swept hither and thither, unable to find safe ground on which to stand.Mary Beaudesert, V.S.KATHARINE TYNANAuthor ofA Mad Marriage, etc.Is the story of an aristocratic young woman who feels the call of the suffering animal creation and obeys it, leaving tenderly loved parents, an ideal home, and all a girl’s heart could desire, to qualify as a veterinary surgeon. How she carries out her vocation is told in this story, which is full of the love of animals.

Messrs.COLLINS’Latest Novels

Messrs. COLLINS will always be glad to send their book lists regularly to readers who will send name and address.

Crown 8vo.7/6net Cloth

Sayonara

JOHN PARIS

Kimono, Mr. John Paris’s first novel, has proved one of the most remarkably successful books published since the war. It has been a “best seller” in England and America; it has become famous all over the Far East and in Canada and Australia, besides being translated into several foreign languages. Its successor—Sayonara—has been eagerly awaited. The theme is based on the familiar aphorism that “East is East and West is West,” and that any attempt to reconcile them usually means disaster. Here again, as inKimono, are found the most vivid pictures of Japan, old and new; Tokyo and its underworld, a powerful picture of Japanese farm life, and the cruel slavery of the “Yoshiwara.”

Told by an Idiot

ROSE MACAULAY

Author ofDangerous Ages,Mystery at Geneva,Potterism, etc.

Miss Macaulay here presents her philosophy of life, through the examination of the sharply contrasted careers of the sharply contrasted members of a large family, from 1879 to 1923.

The Imperturbable DuchessAnd Other Stories

J. D. BERESFORD

Author ofThe Prisoners of Hartling,An Imperfect Mother, etc.

This is the first collection of magazine stories which Mr. Beresford has published. In “An Author’s Advice,” which he has written as a foreword, he deals searchingly with the technique of the modern short story, and shows how drastically the type of story to-day is dictated by the editors of the great American magazines.

The Hat of Destiny

Mrs. T. P. O’CONNOR

“The best light novel I ever read. The plot is so original, the characters so sharply drawn and interesting, the interest so sustained, and the whole thing so witty and amusing, that I could not put it down.” So wrote Miss Gertrude Atherton to the author ofThe Hat of Destiny. Oh, that hat! that incomparably fascinating hat, what dire rivalries it engendered, what domestic tribulations it sardonically plotted when it arrived in Newport amongst those cosmopolitan butterflies!

The Soul of Kol Nikon

ELEANOR FARJEON

Is the fantasy of a boy in a Scandinavian village, who from his birth is treated as a pariah because his mother declares that he is a Changeling. He himself grows up under the same belief, and the story, treated in the vein of folklore, leaves it an open question whether there is some truth in it, or whether it is the result of public opinion upon a distorted imagination. The tale is told with all the poetry, charm, and imaginative insight which madeMartin Pippin in the Apple-Orchardsuch a wonderful success.

The Richest Man

EDWARD SHANKS

Though in the interval Mr. Shanks has published volumes of verse and criticism, this brilliantly clever study is the only novel he has written since 1920.

Anthony Dare

ARCHIBALD MARSHALL

WithAnthony DareMr. Marshall returns to the creation of that type of novel with which his name is most popularly associated, after two interesting experiments of another kind, that genial “Thick Ear” shocker,Big Peter, and that charming and very successful phantasy,Pippin. It is a study of a boy’s character during several critical years of its development. The scene is chiefly laid in a rich northern suburb.

The Peregrine’s Saga:and Other Stories

HENRY WILLIAMSON

Illustrated byWarwick Reynolds

There have been other stories about birds and animals, but seldom before has an author combined the gifts of great prose writing and originality of vision, with a first-hand knowledge of wild life. Mr. Williamson knows flowers, old men, and children as well as he knows falcons, otters, hounds, horses, badgers, “mice, and other small deer.”

A Perfect Day

BOHUN LYNCH

5/-net

Author ofKnuckles and Gloves, etc.

Has any one ever experienced one really perfectly happy day? Mr. Lynch has made the interesting experiment of showing his hero, throughout one long summer day, in a state of perfect bliss. The perfect day is a very simple one and well within the range of possibility.

The Counterplot

HOPE MIRRLEES

The Counterplotis a study of the literary temperament. Teresa Lane, watching the slow movement of life manifesting itself in the changing inter-relations of her family, is teased by the complexity of the spectacle, and comes to realise that her mind will never know peace till, by transposing the problem into art, she has reduced it to its permanent essential factors.

The Groote Park Murder

FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

Author ofThe Cask.

The Groote Park Murderis as fine a book asThe Cask, and there can be no higher praise. Here again a delightfully ingenious plot is masterly handled. From the moment the body of “Albert Smith” is found in the tunnel at Middelberg, the police of South Africa and subsequently of Scotland, find themselves faced with a crime of extreme ingenuity and complexity, the work of a super-criminal, who, as nearly as possible, successfully evades justice.

The Kang-He Vase

J. S. FLETCHER

Who murdered the man found roped to the gibbet on Gallows Tree Point? Who stole Miss Ellingham’s famous Kang-He Vase? What was Uncle Keziah doing at Middlebourne? This is the first novel by Mr. J. S. Fletcher we have had the pleasure of publishing, and we are very glad to say that we have contracted for several more books from his able pen.

Ramshackle House

HULBERT FOOTNER

Author ofThe Owl Taxi,The Deaves Affair, etc.

This is Hulbert Footner’s finest mystery story. It tells how Pen Broome saved her lover, accused of the brutal murder of a friend; how she saved him first from the horde of detectives searching for him in the woods round Ramshackle House, and then, when his arrest proved inevitable, how, with indomitable courage and resource, she forged the chain of evidence which proved him to have been the victim of a diabolical plot. A charming love story and a real “thriller.”

The Finger-Post

Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY

Author ofBeanstalk, etc.

The scene of this book is the Sussex Weald, and the story is concerned with the Durrants, who have for generations been thatchers. The book opens with the birth of a second boy, Joseph, a sickly, peculiar lad, considered to be half-witted. The theme is his struggle against his lot, his humble station, his crazy body, the mournful demands of his spirit. When he becomes a man, his clever brain develops and his worldly progress bewilders his relatives and neighbours—all of them still refusing to believe that he is not the fool they have always declared him to be.

A Bird in a Storm

E. MARIA ALBANESI

Author ofRoseanne, etc.

Anne Ranger, brought up in a very worldly atmosphere, finds herself confronted by a most difficult problem and coerced by her former school friend—Joyce Pleybury, who has drifted into a bad groove—to take an oath of secrecy which reacts on Anne’s own life in almost tragic fashion, shattering her happiness from the very day of her marriage, and thereafter exposing her like a bird in a storm to be swept hither and thither, unable to find safe ground on which to stand.

Mary Beaudesert, V.S.

KATHARINE TYNAN

Author ofA Mad Marriage, etc.

Is the story of an aristocratic young woman who feels the call of the suffering animal creation and obeys it, leaving tenderly loved parents, an ideal home, and all a girl’s heart could desire, to qualify as a veterinary surgeon. How she carries out her vocation is told in this story, which is full of the love of animals.

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