Valeria studied her companion’s excited face.
“Are you in revolt against the very basis of existence?” she asked curiously.
“No: at least ... but this is not what I am driving at exactly,” replied Hadria, turning uneasily away from the close scrutiny. “Don’t you know—oh, don’t you see—how many women secretly hate, and shrink from this brutal domestic idea that fashions their fate for them?”
Miss Du Prel’s interest quickened.
“Nothing strikes me so much as the tamely acquiescent spirit of the average woman, and I doubt if you would find another woman in England to describe the domestic existence as you do.”
“Perhaps not; tradition prevents them from using bad language, but theyfeel, theyfeel.”
“Young girls perhaps, brought up very ignorantly, find life a little scaring at first, but they soon settle down into happy wives and mothers.”
“As the fibre grows coarser,” assented Hadria.
“No; as the affections awaken, and the instincts that hold society together, come into play. I have revolted myself from the conditions of life, but it is a hopeless business—beating one’s wings against the bars.”
“The bars are, half of them, of human construction,” said Hadria, “and againstthoseone may surely be allowed to beat.”
“Of human construction?”
“I mean that prejudice, rather than instinct, has built up the system that Mrs. Gordon so amiably represents.”
“Prejudice has perhaps taken advantage of instinct to establish a somewhat tyrannical tradition,” Miss Du Prel admitted, “but instinct is at the bottom of it. There is, of course, in our society, no latitude for variety of type; that is the fault of so many institutions.”
“The ordinary domestic idea may have been suitable when women were emerging from the condition of simple animals,” said Hadria, “but now it seems to me to be out of date.”
“It can never be entirely out of date, dear Hadria. Nature has asked of women a great and hard service, but she has given them the maternal instinct and its joys, in compensation for the burden of this task, which would otherwise be intolerable and impossible. It can only be undertaken at the instigation of some stupendous impetus, that blinds the victim to the nature of her mission. It must be a sort of obsession; an intense personal instinct, amounting to madness. Nature, being determined to be well served in this direction, has supplied the necessary monomania, and the domestic idea, as you call it, grows up round this central fact.”
Hadria moved restlessly to and fro by the river bank. “One presumes to look upon oneself, at first—in one’s earliest youth,” she said, “as undoubtedly human, with human needs and rights and dignities. But this turns out to be an illusion. It is as ananimalthat one has to play the really important part in life; it is by submitting to the demands of society, in this respect, that one wins rewards and commendation. Of course, if one likes to throw in a few ornamental extras, so much the better; it keeps up appearances and the aspect of refined sentiment—but the main point——”
“Youareextravagant!” cried Miss Du Prel. “That is not the right way to look at it.”
“It is certainly not the convenient way to look at it. It is doubtless wise to weave as many garlands as you can, to deck yourself for the sacrifice. By that means, you don’t quite see which way you are going, because of the masses of elegant vegetation.”
“Ah! Hadria, you exaggerate, you distort; you forget so many things—the sentiments, the affections, the thousand details that hallow that crude foundation which you see only bare and unsoftened.”
“A repulsive object tastefully decorated, is to me only the more repulsive,” returned Hadria, with suppressed passion.
“There will come a day when you will feel very differently,” prophesied Miss Du Prel.
“Perhaps. Why should I, more than the others, remain uninfluenced by the usual processes of blunting, and grinding down, and stupefying, till one grows accustomed to one’s function, one’sintolerablefunction?”
“My dear, my dear!”
“I am sorry if I shock you, but that is how I feel. I have seen this sort of traditional existence and nothing else, all my life, and I have been brought up to it, with the rest—prepared and decked out like some animal for market—all in the most refined and graceful manner possible; but how can one help seeing through the disguise; how can one be blind to the real nature of the transaction, and to the fate that awaits one—awaits one as inexorably as death, unless by some force of one’s own, with all the world—friends and enemies—in opposition, one can avert it?”
Miss Du Prel remained silent.
“Youcanavert it,” she said at last; “but at what cost?”
“Miss Du Prel, I would rather sweep a crossing, I would rather beg in the streets, than submit to the indignity of such a life!”
“Then what do you intend to do instead?”
“Ah! there’s the difficulty. Whatcanone do instead, without breaking somebody’s heart? Nothing, except breaking one’s own. And even putting that difficulty aside, it seems as if everyone’s hand were against a woman who refuses the path that has been marked out for her.”
“No, no, it is not so bad as that. There are many openings now for women.”
“But,” said Hadria, “as far as I can gather, ordinary ability is not sufficient to enable them to make a scanty living. The talent that would take a man to the top of the tree is required to keep a woman in a meagre supply of bread and butter.”
“Allowing for exaggeration, that is more or less the case,” Miss Du Prel admitted.
“I have revolted against the common lot,” she went on after a pause, “and you see what comes of it; I am alone in the world. One does not think of that when one is quite young.”
“Would you rather be in Mrs. Gordon’s position than in your own?”
“I doubt not that she is happier.”
“But would you change with her, surrendering all that she has surrendered?”
“Yes, if I were of her temperament.”
“Ah! you always evade the question. Remaining yourself, would you change with her?”
“I would never have allowed my life to grow like hers.”
“No,” said Hadria, laughing, “you would probably have run away or killed yourself or somebody, long before this.”
Miss Du Prel could not honestly deny this possibility. After a pause she said:
“A woman cannot afford to despise the dictates of Nature. She may escape certain troubles in that way; but Nature is not to be cheated, she makes her victim pay her debt in another fashion. There is no escape. The centuries are behind one, with all their weight of heredity and habit; the order of society adds its pressure—one’s own emotional needs. Ah, no! it does not answer to pit oneself against one’s race, to bid defiance to the fundamental laws of life.”
“Such then are the alternatives,” said Hadria, moving close to the river’s brink, and casting two big stones into the current. “There stand the devil and the deep sea.”
“You are too young to have come to that sad conclusion,” said Miss Du Prel.
“But I haven’t,” cried Hadria. “I still believe in revolt.”
The other shook her head.
“And what about love? Are you going through life without the one thing that makes it bearable?”
“I would not purchase it at such a cost. If I can’t have it without despoiling myself of everything that is worth possessing, I prefer to go without.”
“You don’t know what you say!” exclaimed Miss Du Prel.
“But why? Love would be ruined and desecrated. I understand by it a sympathy so perfect, and a reverence so complete, that the conditions of ordinary domestic existence would be impossible, unthinkable, in connection with it.”
“So do I understand love. But it comes, perhaps, once in a century, and if one is too fastidious, it passes by and leaves one forlorn; at best, it comes only to open the gates of Paradise, for a moment, and to close them again, and leave one in outer darkness.”
“Always?”
“I believe always,” answered Miss Du Prel.
The running of the river sounded peacefully in the pause that followed.
“Well,” cried Hadria at length, raising her head with a long sigh, “one cannot do better than follow one’s own instinct and thought of the moment. Regret may come, do what one may. One cannot escape from one’s own temperament.”
“One can modify it.”
“I cannot even wish to modify mine, so that I should become amenable to these social demands. I stand in hopeless opposition to the scheme of life that I have grown up amongst, to the universal scheme of life indeed, as understood by the world up to this day. Audacious, is it not?”
“I like audacity,” returned Miss Du Prel. “As I understand you, you require an altogether new dispensation!”
Hadria gave a half smile, conscious of her stupendous demand. Then she said, with a peculiar movement of the head, as if throwing off a heavy weight, and looking before her steadily: “Yes, I require a new dispensation.”
HUBERT TEMPERLEY made a point of going to the tennis-party, on Tuesday, at Dunaghee, in order to talk to Miss Fullerton. He had not expected to find original musical talent in this out-of-the-way place.
Hadria was in a happy mood, for her mother had so far overcome her prejudice against Miss Du Prel, as to ask her to join the party.
The festivity had, therefore, lost its usual quality of melancholy.
It was a warm afternoon, and every one seemed cheerful “and almost intelligent,” Hadria commented. The first words that Mr. Temperley uttered, made her turn to him, in surprise. She was so unaccustomed to be interested in what the people about here had to say. Even intelligent visitors usually adopted the tone of the inhabitants. Hubert Temperley’s manner was very polished. His accent denoted mental cultivation. He spoke with eloquence of literature, and praised enthusiastically most great names dating securely from the hallowed past. Of modern literature he was a stern critic; of music he spoke with ardour.
“I hear that you not only perform but compose, Miss Fullerton,” he said. “As soon as I heard that, I felt that I must make your acquaintance. My friends, the Gordons, are very charming, but they don’t understand a note of music, and I am badly off for a kindred spirit.”
“My composing is a very mild affair,” Hadria answered. “I suppose you are more fortunate.”
“Not much. I am pretty busy you see. I have my profession. I play a good deal—the piano and the’celloare my instruments. But my difficulty is to find someone to accompany me. My sister does when she can, but of course with a house and family to look after——I am sometimes selfish enough to wish she had not married. We used to be such good friends.”
“Is that all over?”
“It is different. She always manages to be busy now,” said Temperley in a slightly ironical tone.
He plunged once more, into a musical discussion.
Hadria had reluctantly to cut it short, in order to arrange tennis-matches. This task was performed as usual, somewhat recklessly. Polite and amiable in indiscriminate fashion, Hadria ignored the secret jealousies and heart-burnings of the neighbourhood, only to recognise and repent her mistakes when too late. To-day she was even more unchastened than usual in her dealings with inflammable social material.
“Hadria!” cried Mrs. Fullerton, taking her aside, “Howcouldyou ask Cecilia Gordon to play with young McKenzie? Youknowtheir families are not on speaking terms!”
Everyone, except the culprit, had remarked the haughty manner in which Cecilia wielded her racket, and the gloomy silence in which the set was played.
Hadria, though not impenitent, laughed. “How does Miss Gordon manage to be energetic and chilling at the same time!” she exclaimed.
The Gordons and the McKenzies, like hostile armies, looked on grimly. Everyone felt awkward, and to feel awkward was nothing less than tragic, in the eyes of the assembly.
“Oh, Hadria, howcouldyou?” cried Mrs. Gordon, coming up in her elaborate toilette, which expressed almost as much of the character of its wearer as was indicated by her thin, chattering tones, and unreposeful manner. Her mode of dress was rich and florid—very obvious in its effects, verynaïf. She was built on a large scale, and might have been graceful, had not her mental constitution refused to permit, or to inspire, that which physical construction seemed to intend. She distributed smiles on all hands, of no particular meaning. Though still a young woman, she looked worn and wearied. However, herrôlewas cheerfulness, and she smiled on industriously.
“I am so sorry,” said Hadria, “the quarrel went clean out of my head. They are so well matched. But your sister-in-law will never forgive me.”
“Oh, well, never mind, my dear; it is your way, I know. Only of course it is awkward.”
“What can be done? Shall I run in and separate them?”
“Oh, Hadria, youareridiculous!”
“I was not meant for society,” she said, in a depressed tone.
“Oh, you will soon get into the way of it,” cried Mrs. Gordon encouragingly.
“I am afraid I shall.”
Mrs. Gordon stared. “Mr. Temperley, I can never make out what Miss Fullerton really means. Do see if you can.”
“How could I expect to succeed where you have failed?”
“Oh, you men are so much cleverer than we poor women,” cried the lady archly. Temperley was obviously of the same opinion. But he found some appropriate Chesterfieldian reply, while Hadria, to his annoyance, hurried off to her duties, full of good resolutions.
Having introduced a couple of sisters to their brother, she grew desperate. A set had just ended, and the sisters were asked to play. This time, no mistake had been made in the selection of partners, so far as the question of sentiment was concerned, but they were fatally ill-assorted as to strength. However, Hadria said with a sigh, if their emotions were satisfied, it was really all they could expect. Considering the number of family feuds, she did not see her way to arranging both points, to everyone’s satisfaction.
Hadria was surrounded by a small group, among whom were Temperley, Harold Wilkins, and Mr. Hawkesley, the brother who had been introduced to his sisters.
“How very handsome Hadria is looking this afternoon,” said Mrs. Gordon, “and how becoming that dark green gown is.”
Mrs. Fullerton smiled. “Yes, she does look her best to-day. I think she has been improving, of late, in her looks.”
“That’s just what we have all noticed. There is so much animation in her face; she is such a sweet girl.”
Miss Du Prel, who was not of the stuff that martyrs are made of, muttered something incoherent and deserted her neighbour. She came up to the group that had gathered round Hadria.
“Ah, Miss Du Prel,” cried the latter, “I am so glad to see you at large again. I was afraid you were getting bored.”
“I was,” said Miss Du Prel frankly, “so I came away.”
The young men laughed. “If only everybody could go away when he was bored,” cried Hadria, “how peaceful it would be, and what small tennis-parties one would have!”
“Always excepting tennis-parties atthishouse,” said Hubert Temperley.
“I don’t think any house would survive,” said Miss Du Prel. “If people do not meet to exchange ideas, I can’t see the object of their meeting at all.”
“What a revolutionary sentiment!” cried Temperley, laughing. “Where would society be, on that principle?”
Hadria was called away, at that moment, and the group politely wavered between duty and inclination. Temperley and Miss Du Prel strolled off together, his vast height bent deferentially towards her. This air of deference proved somewhat superficial. Miss Du Prel found that his opinions were of an immovable order, with very defined edges. In some indescribable fashion, those opinions partook of the general elegance of his being. Not for worlds would he have harboured an exaggerated or immoderate idea. In politics he was conservative, but he did not abuse his opponents. He smiled at them; he saw no reason for supposing that they did not mean quite as well as he did, possibly better. What hedidsee reason to doubt, was their judgment. His tolerance was urbane and superior. On all questions, however, whether he knew much about them or little, his judgment was final and absolute. He swept away whole systems of thought that had shaken the world, with a confident phrase. Miss Du Prel looked at him with increasing amazement. He seemed unaccustomed to opposition.
“A vast deal of nonsense is talked in the name of philosophy,” he observed, in a tone of gay self-confidence peculiar to him, and more indicative of character than even what he said. “People seem to think that they have only to quote Spencer or Huxley, or take an interest in heredity, to justify themselves in throwing off all the trammels, as they would regard them, of duty and common sense.”
“I have not observed that tendency,” said Miss Du Prel.
“Really. I regret to say that I notice everywhere a disposition to evade responsibilities which, in former days, would have been honestly and contentedly accepted.”
“Our standards are all changing,” said Miss Du Prel. “It does not follow that they are changing for the worse.”
“It seems to me that they are not so much changing, as disappearing altogether,” said Temperley cheerfully, “especially among women. We hear a great deal about rights, but we hear nothing about duties.”
“We are perhaps, a little tired of hearing about duties,” said Miss Du Prel.
“You admit then what I say,” he returned placidly. “Every woman wants to be Mary, and no one will be Martha.”
“I make just the opposite complaint,” cried Miss Du Prel.
“Dear me, quite a different way of looking at it. I confess I have scant patience with these interfering women, who want to turn everything upside down, instead of quietly minding their duties at home.”
“I know it is difficult to make people understand,” said Miss Du Prel, with malice.
“I should esteem it a favour to be enlightened,” returned Temperley.
“You were just now condemning socialism, Mr. Temperley, because you say that it attempts to ignore the principle of the division of labour. Now, when you lose patience with the few women who are refusing to be Marthas, you ignore that principle yourself. You want all women to do exactly the same sort of work, irrespective of their ability or their bent of mind. May I ask why?”
“Because I consider that is the kind of work for which they are best fitted,” replied Temperley serenely.
“Thenyouare to be judge and jury in the case;youropinion, not theirs, is to decide the matter. SupposingIwere to take upon myself to judge whatyouwere best fitted for, and were to claim, therefore, to decide for you what sort of life you should live, and what sort of work you should undertake——?”
“I should feel every confidence in resigning myself to your able judgment,” said Temperley, with a low bow. Miss Du Prel laughed.
“Ah,” she said, “you are at present, on the conquering side, and can afford to jest on the subject.”
“It is no joke to jest with an able woman,” he returned. “Seriously, I have considerable sympathy with your view, and no wish to treat it flippantly. But if I am to treat it seriously, I must admit frankly that I think you forget that, after all,Naturehas something to say in this matter.”
Engrossed in their conversation, they had, without thinking what they were doing, passed through the open gate at the end of the avenue, and walked on along the high road.
Swarms of small birds flew out of the hedges, with a whirring sound, to settle further on, while an incessant chatter was kept up on each side.
“I often think that modern women might take example from these little creatures,” said Temperley, who, in common with many self-sufficient persons, was fond of recommending humility to others. “Theynever attempt to shirk their lowly tasks on the plea of higher vocations. Not one turns from the path marked out by our great Mother, who also teaches her human children the same lesson of patient duty; but, alas! by them is less faithfully obeyed.”
“If our great Mother wanted instinct she should not have bestowed reason,” said Miss Du Prel impatiently.
Temperley had fallen into the dulcet strains of one who feels, not only that he stands as the champion of true wisdom and virtue, but that he is sure of support from the vast majority of his fellows. Miss Du Prel’s brusqueness seemed to suit her less admirablerôle.
Temperley was tolerant and regretful. If Miss Du Prel would think for a moment, she could not fail to see that Nature ... and so forth, in the same strain of “pious devotion to other people’s duties” as his companion afterwards described it. She chafed at the exhortation to “think for a moment.”
At that instant, the solitude was broken by the apparition of a dusty wayfarer in knickerbockers and soft felt hat, coming towards them up the road. He was a man of middle height and rather slim. He appeared about five-and-thirty years of age. He had fair hair, and a strange, whimsical face, irregular of feature, with a small moustache covering the upper lip.
Miss Du Prel looked startled, as she caught sight of the travel-stained figure. She flushed deeply, and her expression changed to one of bewilderment and uncertainty, then to one of incredulous joy. She hastened forward, at length, and arrested the wayfarer.
“Professor Fortescue, don’t you remember me?” she cried excitedly.
He gazed at her for a second, and then a look of amazement came into his kind eyes, as he held out his hand.
“Miss Du Prel! This is incredible!”
They stood, with hand locked in hand, staring at one another. “By what happy misunderstanding am I thus favoured by the gods?” exclaimed the Professor.
Miss Du Prel explained her presence.
“Prodigious!” cried Professor Fortescue. “Fate must have some strange plots in the making, unless indeed we fall to the discouraging supposition that she deigns to jest.”
He said that he was on a walking tour, studying the geology of the district, and that he had written to announce his coming to his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton, and to ask them to put him up. He supposed that they were expecting him.
Miss Du Prel was greatly excited. It was so long since they had met, and it was so delightful to meet again. She had a hundred enquiries to make about common friends, and about the Professor’s own doings.
She forgot Temperley’s name, and her introduction was vague. The Professor held out his hand cordially. Temperley was not allowed to feel an intrusive third. This was in consequence of the new-comer’s kindliness of manner, and not at all because of Miss Du Prel, who had forgotten Temperley’s elegant existence. She had a look of surprise when he joined in the conversation.
“I can scarcely believe that it is ten years since I was here,” cried the Professor, pausing to look over a gate at the stretch of country.
“I used to visit my friends at Dunaghee every autumn, and now if some one were to assure me that I had been to sleep and dreamt a ten years’ dream, I should be disposed to credit it. Every detail the same; the very cattle, the very birds—surely just those identical sparrows used to fly before me along the hedgerows, in the good old times, ten years ago! Ah! yes, it is only the human element that changes.”
“One is often so thankful for a change in that,” Temperley remarked, with an urbane sort of cynicism.
“True,” said Miss Du Prel; “but what is so discouraging is that so often the charm goes, like the bloom of a peach, and only the qualities that one regrets remain and prosper.”
“I think people improve with time, as often as they fall off,” said the Professor.
The others shook their heads.
“To him that hath shall be given, but to him that hath not——” The Professor smiled a little sadly, in quoting the significant words. “Well, well,” he said, turning to Miss Du Prel, “I can’t say how happy I am to see you again. I have not yet got over my surprise. And so you have made the acquaintance of the family at Dunaghee. I have the warmest respect and affection for those dear folks. Mrs. Fullerton has the qualities of a heroine, kind hostess as she is! And of what fine Scottish stuff the old man is made—and a mind like crystal! What arguments we used to have in that old study of his! I can see him now. And how genial! A man could never forget it, who had once received his welcome.”
Such was Miss Du Prel’s impression, when ten minutes later the meeting took place between the Professor and his old friend.
It would indeed have been hard to be anything but genial to the Professor. Hadria remembered him and his kindness to her and the rest of the children, in the old days; the stories he used to tell when he took them for walks, stories full of natural lore more marvellous than any fairy tale, though he could tell fairy tales too, by the dozen. He had seemed to them like some wonderful and benevolent magician, and they adored him, one and all. And what friends he used to be with Ruffian, the brown retriever, and with every living creature on the place!
The tennis-party began to break up, shortly after the Professor’s arrival. Temperley lingered to the last.
“Is that a son of the celebrated Judge Temperley?” asked one of the bystanders.
“His eldest son,” answered Mr. Gordon; “a man who ought to make his mark, for he has splendid chances and good ability.”
“I have scarcely had a word with you, the whole afternoon,” Temperley said to Hadria, who had sunk upon a seat, tired with making herself agreeable, as she observed.
“That is very sad; but when one has social gatherings, one never does have a word with anybody. I think that must be the object of them—to accustom people to do without human sympathy.”
Temperley tried to start a conversation, taking a place beside her, on the seat, and setting himself to draw her out. It was obvious that he found her interesting, either as a study or in a less impersonal sense. Hadria, feeling that her character was being analysed, did what many people do without realizing it: she instinctively arranged its lights and shades with a view to artistic effect. It was not till late that night, when the events of the day passed before her in procession, that she recognized what she had done, and laughed at herself. She had not attempted to appear in a better light than she deserved; quite as often as not, she submitted to appear in a worse light; her effort had been to satisfy some innate sense of proportion or form. The instinct puzzled her.
Also she became aware that she was interested in Hubert Temperley. Or was it that she was interested in his interest in her? She could not be certain. She thought it was direct interest. She felt eager to know more of him; above all, to hear him play.
On returning to the house, after Temperley had, at last, felt compelled to depart, Hadria found her father and mother and their guest, gathered together before the cheery fire in the study. Hearing his daughter’s step, her father opened the door and called her in. Till now, the Professor had not seen her, having been hurried into the house, to change his clothes and have something to eat.
As she entered, rather shyly, he rose and gave a gasp of astonishment.
“You mean to tell me that this is the little girl who used to take me for walks, and who had such an inordinate appetite for stories! Good heavens, it is incredible!”
He held out a thin, finely-formed hand, with a kind smile.
“They change so much at that age, in a short time,” said Mrs. Fullerton, with a glance of pride; for her daughter was looking brilliantly handsome, as she stood before them, with flushed cheeks and a soft expression, which the mere tones of the Professor’s voice had power to summon in most human faces. He looked at her thoughtfully, and then rousing himself, he brought up a chair for her, and the group settled again before the fire.
“Do you know,” said the Professor, “I was turning into a French sweet-shop the other day, to buy my usual tribute for the children, when I suddenly remembered that they would no longer be children, and had to march out again, crestfallen, musing on the march of time and the mutability of things human—especially children.”
“It’s ridiculous,” cried Mr. Fullerton. “I am always lecturing them about it, but they go on growing just the same.”
“And how they make you feel an old fogey before you know where you are! And I thought I was quite a gay young fellow, upon my word!”
“You, my dear Chantrey! why you’d be a gay young fellow at ninety!” said Mr. Fullerton.
The Professor laughed and shook his head.
“And so this is really my little playfellow!” he exclaimed, nodding meditatively. “I remember her so well; a queer, fantastic little being in those days, with hair like a black cloud, and eyes that seemed to peer out of the cloud, with a perfect passion of enquiry. She used to bewilder me, I remember, with her strange, wise little sayings! I always prophesied great things from her! Ernest, too, I remember: a fine little chap with curly, dark hair—rather like a young Italian, but with features less broadly cast; drawn together and calmed by his northern blood. Yes, yes; it seems but yesterday,” he said, with a smile and a sigh; “and now my little Italian is at college, with a bored manner and a high collar.”
“Oh, no; Ernest’s a dear boy still,” cried Hadria. “Oxford hasn’t spoilt him a bit. I do wish he was at home for you to see him.”
“Ah! you mustn’t hint at anything against Ernest in Hadria’s presence!” cried Mr. Fullerton, with an approving laugh.
“Not for the world!” rejoined the Professor. “I was only recalling one or two of my young Oxford acquaintances. I might have known that a Fullerton had too much stuff in him to make an idiot of himself in that way.”
“The boy has distinguished himself too,” said Mr. Fullerton.
“Everyone says he will do splendidly,” added the mother; “and you can’t think how modest he is about himself, and how anxious to do well, and to please us by his success.”
“Ah! that’s good.”
The Professor was full of sympathy. Hadria was astonished to see how animated her mother had become under his influence.
They fell again to recalling old times; little trivial incidents which had seemed so unimportant at the moment, but now carried a whole epoch with them, bringing back, with a rush, the genial memories. Hadria remembered that soon after his last visit, the Professor had married a beautiful wife, and that about a year or so later, the wife had died. It was said that she had killed herself. This set Hadria speculating.
The visitor reminded his companions of various absurd incidents of the past, sending Mr. Fullerton into paroxysms of laughter that made the whole party laugh in sympathy. Mrs. Fullerton too was already wiping her streaming eyes as the Professor talked on in his old vein, with just that particular little humourous manner of his that won its way so surely to the hearts of his listeners. For a moment, in the midst of the bright talk and the mirth that he had created, the Professor lost the thread, and his face, as he stared into the glowing centre of the fire, had a desolate look; but it was so quick to pass away that one might have thought oneself the victim of a fancy. His was the next chuckle, and “Do you remember that day when——?” and so forth, Mr. Fullerton’s healthy roar following, avalanche-like, upon the reminiscence.
“We thought him a good and kind magician when we were children,” was Hadria’s thought, “and now one is grown up, there is no disillusion. He is a good and kind magician still.”
He seemed indeed to have the power to conjure forth from their hiding-places, the finer qualities of mind and temperament, which had lain dormant, perhaps for years, buried beneath daily accumulations of little cares and little habits. The creature that had once looked forth on the world, fresh and vital, was summoned again, to his own surprise, with all his ancient laughter and his tears.
“This man,” Hadria said to herself, drawing a long, relieved breath, “is the best and the most generous human being I have ever met.”
She went to sleep, that night, with a sweet sense of rest and security, and an undefined new hope. If such natures were in existence, then there must be a great source of goodness and tenderness somewhere in heaven or earth, and the battle of life must be worth the fighting.
THE Professor’s presence in the house had a profound influence on the inmates, one and all. The effect upon his hostess was startling. He drew forth her intellect, her sense of humour, her starved poetic sense; he probed down among the dust and rust of years, and rescued triumphantly the real woman, who was being stifled to death, with her own connivance.
Hadria was amazed to see how the new-comer might express any idea he pleased, however heterodox, and her mother only applauded.
His manner to her was exquisitely courteous. He seemed to understand all that she had lost in her life, all its disappointments and sacrifices.
On hearing that Miss Du Prel was among the Professor’s oldest friends, Mrs. Fullerton became suddenly cordial to that lady, and could not show her enough attention. The evenings were often spent in music, Temperley being sometimes of the party. He was the only person not obviously among the Professor’s admirers.
“However cultivated or charming a person may be,” Temperley said to Hadria, “I never feel that I have found a kindred spirit, unless the musical instinct is strong.”
“Nor I.”
“Professor Fortescue has just that one weak point.”
“Oh, but he is musical, though his technical knowledge is small.”
But Temperley smiled dubiously.
The Professor, freed from his customary hard work, was like a schoolboy. His delight in the open air, in the freshness of the hills, in the peace of the mellow autumn, was never-ending.
He loved to take a walk before breakfast, so as to enjoy the first sweetness of the morning; to bathe in some clear pool of the river; to come into healthy contact with Nature. Never was there a brighter or a wholesomer spirit. Yet the more Hadria studied this clear, and vigorous, and tender nature, the more she felt, in him, the absence of that particular personal hold on life which so few human beings are without, a grip usually so hard to loosen, that only the severest experience, and the deepest sorrow have power to destroy it.
Hadria’s letters to her sister, at this time, were full of enthusiasm. “You cannot imagine what it is, or perhaps youcanimagine what it is to have the society of three such people as I now see almost every day.
“You say I represent them as impossible angels, such as earth never beheld, but you are wrong. I represent them as they are. I suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could keep a farthing; he would always give it away to undeserving people. Miss Du Prel, I find on closer acquaintance, is not without certain jealousies and weaknesses, but these things just seem to float about as gossamer on a mountain-side, and one counts them in relation to herself, in about the same proportion. Mr. Temperley—I don’t know quite what to say about him. He is a tiny bit too precise and finished perhaps—a little wanting inélan—but he seems very enlightened and full of polite information; and ah, his music! When he is playing I am completely carried away. If he said then, ‘Miss Fullerton, may I have the pleasure of your society in the infernal regions?’ I should arise and take his arm and reply, ‘Delighted,’ and off we would march. But what am I saying? Mr. Temperley would never ask anything so absurd.
“You would have thought that when Miss Du Prel and Professor Fortescue arrived on the scene, I had about enough privileges; but no, Destiny, waking up at last to her duties, remembers that I have a maniacal passion for music, and that this has been starved. So she hastens to provide for me a fellow maniac, a brother in Beethoven, who comes and fills my world with music and my soul with——But I must not rave. The music is still in my veins; I am not in a fit state to write reasonable letters. Here comes Mr. Temperley for our practice. No more for the present.”
Temperley would often talk to Hadria of his early life, and about his mother and sister. Of his mother he spoke with great respect and affection, the respect perhaps somewhat conventional, and allowing one to see, through its meshes, the simple fact that she was looked up to as a good and dutiful parent, who had worshipped her son from his birth, and perfectly fulfilled his ideas of feminine excellency. From her he had learnt the lesser Catechism and the Lord’s Prayer, since discarded, but useful in their proper season. Although he had ceased to be an orthodox Christian, he felt that he was the better for having been trained in that creed. He had a perfect faith in the system which had produced himself.
“I think you would like my mother,” said Temperley.
Hadria could scarcely dispute this.
“And I am sure she would like you.”
“On that point I cannot offer an opinion.”
“Don’t you ever come to town?” he asked.
“We go to Edinburgh occasionally,” she replied with malice, knowing that he meant London.
He set her right.
“No; my father hates London, and mother never goes away without him.”
“What a pity! But do you never visit friends in town?”
“Yes; my sister and I have spent one or two seasons in Park Lane, with some cousins.”
“Why don’t you come this next season? You ought to hear some good music.”
Thetête-a-têtewas interrupted by the Professor. Temperley looked annoyed. It struck Hadria that Professor Fortescue had a very sad expression when he was not speaking. He seemed to her lonely, and in need of the sort of comfort that he brought so liberally to others.
Although he had talked to Hadria about a thousand topics in which they were both interested, there had been nothing personal in their conversation. He was disposed, at times, to treat her in a spirit of affectionate banter.
“To think that I should ever have dared to offer this young lady acidulated drops!” he exclaimed on one occasion, when Hadria was looking flushed and perturbed.
“Ah! shall I ever forget those acidulated drops!” she cried, brightening.
“You don’t mean to say that you would stoop to them now?”
“It is not one’s oldest friends who always know one best,” she replied demurely.
“I shall test you,” he said.
And on that same day, he walked into Ballochcoil, and when he returned, he offered her, with a solemn twinkle in his eye, a good-sized paper bag of the seductive sweetmeat; taking up his position on the top of a low dyke, and watching her, while she proceeded to make of that plump white bag, a lank and emaciated bag, surprising to behold. He sat and looked on, enjoying his idleness with the zest of a hard worker. The twinkle of amusement faded gradually from his face, and the sadness that Hadria had noticed the day before, returned to his eyes. She was leaning against the dyke, pensively enjoying her festive meal. The dark fresh blue of her gown, and the unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks, gave a vigorous and healthful impression, in harmony with the weather-beaten stones and the windy breadth of the northern landscape.
The Professor studied the face with a puzzled frown. He flattered himself that he was a subtle physiognomist, but in this case, he would not have dared to pronounce judgment. Danger and difficulty might have been predicted, for it was a moving face, one that could not be looked upon quite coldly. And the Professor had come to the conclusion, from his experience of life, that the instinct of the average human being whom another has stirred to strong emotion, is to fasten upon and overwhelm that luckless person, to burden him with responsibilities, to claim as much of time, and energy, and existence, as can in any way be wrung from him, careless of the cost to the giver.
Professor Fortescue noticed, as Hadria looked down, a peculiar dreaminess of expression, and something indefinable, which suggested a profoundly emotional nature. At present, the expression was softened. That this softness was not altogether trustworthy, however, the Professor felt sure, for he had seen, at moments, when something had deeply stirred her, expressions anything but soft come into her face. He thought her capable of many things of which the well-brought-up young Englishwoman is not supposed to dream. It seemed to him, that she had at least two distinct natures that were at war with one another: the one greedy and pleasure-loving, careless and even reckless; the other deep-seeing and aspiring. But which of these two tendencies would experience probably foster?
“I wonder what you like best, next to acidulated drops,” he said at length, with one of his half-bantering smiles.
“There are few things in this wide world that can be mentioned in the same breath with them, but toffy also has its potency upon the spirit.”
“I like not this mocking tone.”
“Then I will not mock,” she said.
“Yes, Hadria,” he went on meditatively, “you have grown up, if an old friend may make such remarks, very much as I expected, from the promise of your childhood. You used to puzzle me even then.”
“Do I puzzle you now?” she asked.
“Inexpressibly!”
“How amusing! But how?”
“One can generally see at a glance, or pretty soon, the general trend of a character. But not with you. Nothing that I might hear of you in the future, would very much surprise me. I should say to myself, ‘Yes, the germ was there.’”
Hadria paled a little. “Either good or bad you mean?”
“Well——”
“Yes, I understand.” She drew herself together, crossing her arms, and looking over the hills, with eyes that burned with a sort of fear and defiance mingled. It was a singular expression, which the Professor noted with a sense of discomfort.
Hadria slowly withdrew her eyes from the horizon, and bent them on the ground.
“You must have read some of my thoughts,” she said. “I often wonder how it is, that the world can drill women into goodness at all.” She raised her head, and went on in a low, bitter tone: “I often wonder why it is, that they don’t, one and all, fling up theirrôlesand revenge themselves to the best of their ability—intentionally, I mean—upon the world that makes them live under a permanent insult. I think, at times, that I should thoroughly enjoy spending my life in sheer, unmitigated vengeance, and if I did”—she clenched her hands, and her eyes blazed—“if I did, I would not do my work by halves!”
“I am sure you would not,” said the Professor dryly.
“But I shall not do anything of the kind,” she added in a different tone; “women don’t. They always try to be good, always,always—the more fools they! And the more they are good, the worse things get.”
“Ah! I thought there was some heterodox sentiment lurking here at high pressure!” exclaimed the Professor.
Hadria sighed. “I have just been receiving good advice from Mrs. Gordon,” she said, flushing at the remembrance, “and I think if you knew the sort of counsel it was, that you would understand one’s feeling a little fierce and bitter. Oh, not with her, poor woman! She meant it in kindness. But the most cutting thing of all is, that what she said istrue!”
“Thatisexactly the worst thing,” said the Professor, who seemed to have divined the nature of Mrs. Gordon’s advice.
Hadria coloured. It hurt as well as astonished her, that he should guess what had been said.
“Ah! a woman ought to be born without pride, or not at all! I wish to heaven that our fatal sex could be utterly stamped out!”
The Professor smiled, a little sadly, at her vehemence.
“We are accused of being at the bottom of every evil under heaven,” she added, “and I think it is true.Thatis some consolation, at any rate!”
In spite of her immense reverence for the Professor, she seemed to have grown reckless as to his opinion.
The next few days went strangely, and not altogether comprehensibly. There was a silent warfare between Professor Fortescue and Hubert Temperley.
“I have never in my life before ventured to interfere in such matters,” the Professor said to Miss Du Prel; “but if that fellow marries Hadria, one or both will live to rue it.”
“I think it’s the best thing that could happen to her,” Miss Du Prel declared.
“But they are not suited to one another,” said the Professor.
“Men and women seldom are!”
“Then why——?” the Professor began.
“He is about as near as she will get,” Valeria interrupted. “I will never stand in the way of a girl’s marrying a good, honest man. There is not one chance in ten thousand that Hadria will happen to meet exactly the right person. I have made a mistake in my life. I shall do all in my power to urge her to avoid following in my footsteps.”
It was useless for the Professor to remonstrate.
“I pity Mr. Temperley, though I am so fond of Hadria,” said Miss Du Prel. “If he shattersherillusions, she will certainly shatterhis.”
The event that they had been expecting, took place. During one of the afternoon practices, when, for a few minutes, Mrs. Fullerton had left the room, Temperley startled Hadria by an extremely elegant proposal of marriage. He did not seem surprised at her refusal, though he pleaded his cause with no little eloquence. Hadria found it a painful ordeal. She shrank from the ungracious necessity to disappoint what appeared to be a very ardent hope. Happily, the interview was cut short by the entrance of Mr. Fullerton. The old man was not remarkable forfinesse. He gave a dismayed “Oh!” He coughed, suppressed a smile, and murmuring some lame enquiry as to the progress of the music, turned and marched out of the room. The sound of laughter was presently heard from the dining-room below.
“Father is really too absurd!” cried Hadria, “there isnotragedy that he is incapable of roaring at!”
“I fear his daughter takes after him,” said Temperley with a tragi-comic smile.
When Hadria next met her father, he asked, with perfect but suspicious gravity, about the music that they had been practising that afternoon. He could not speak too highly of music as a pastime. He regretted having rushed in as he did—it must have been so disturbing to the music. Why not have a notice put up outside the door on these occasions: “Engaged”? Then the meanest intelligence would understand, and the meanest intelligence was really a thing one had to count with, in this blundering world!
HUBERT TEMPERLEY left Drumgarren suddenly. He said that he had business to attend to in town.
“That foolish girl has refused him!” exclaimed Valeria, when she heard of it.
“Thank heaven!” ejaculated Professor Fortescue.
Valeria’s brow clouded. “Why are you so anxious about the matter?”
“Because I know that a marriage between those two would end in misery.”
Valeria spoke very seriously to Hadria on the subject of marriage, urging the importance of it, and the wretchedness of growing old in solitude.
“Better even that, than to grow old in uncongenial company,” said Hadria.
Valeria shrugged her shoulders. “One could go away when it became oppressive,” she suggested, at which Hadria laughed.
“What an ideal existence!”
“Are you still dreaming of an ideal existence?”
“Why not?”
“Well, dream while you may,” said Miss Du Prel. “My time of dreaming was the happiest of all.”
On one occasion, when Hadria and the Professor went to call at Craw Gill, they found Miss Du Prel in the gloomiest of moods. Affection, love?—the very blood and bones of tragedy. Solitude, indifference?—its heart. And if for men the world was a delusion, for women it was a torture-chamber. Nature was dead against them.
“Why do you say that?” asked Hadria.
“Because of the blundering, merciless way she has made us; because of the needs that she has put into our hearts, and the preposterous payment that she demands for their fulfilment; because of the equally preposterous payment she exacts, if we elect to do without that which she teaches us to yearn for.”
Professor Fortescue, admitting the dilemma, laid the blame on the stupidity of mankind.
The discussion was excited, for Valeria would not allow the guilt to be thus shifted. In vain the Professor urged that Nature offers a large choice to humanity, for the developing, balancing, annulling of its various forces of good and evil, and that it is only when the choice is made that heredity steps in and fixes it. This process simulates Necessity, or what we call Nature. “Heredity may be a powerful friend, or a bitter enemy, according as we treat her,” he said.
“Then our sex must have treated her very badly!” cried Miss Du Prel.
“Oroursex must have obliged yours to treat her badly, which comes to the same thing,” said the Professor.
They had agreed to take a walk by the river, towards Ballochcoil. It was hoped that the fresh air and sunshine would cheer Miss Du Prel. The Professor led the conversation to her favourite topic: ancient Greek literature, but this only inspired her to quote the discouraging opinion of theMedeaof Euripedes.
The Professor laughed. “I see it is a really bad attack,” he said. “I sympathize. I have these inconsolable moods myself, sometimes.”
They came upon the Greek temple on the cliff-side, and paused there to rest, for a few minutes. It was too cold to linger long under the slender columns. They walked on, till they came in sight of the bare little church of Ballochcoil.
The Professor instinctively turned to compare the two buildings. “The contrast between them is so extraordinary!” he exclaimed.
Nothing could have been more eloquent of the difference in the modes of thought which they respectively represented.
“If only they had not made such fools of their women, I should like to have lived at Athens in the time of Pericles!” exclaimed Hadria.
“I,” said Valeria, “would choose rather the Middle Ages, with their mysticism and their romance.”
The discussion on this point continued till the church was reached. A psalm was being sung, in a harsh but devout fashion, by the congregation. The sound managed to find its way to the sweet outer air, though the ugly rectangular windows were all jealously closed against its beneficence.
The sky had become overcast, and a few drops of rain having given warning of a shower, it was thought advisable to take shelter in the porch, till it was over. The psalm was ground out slowly, and with apparent fervour, to the end.
Then the voice of the minister was heard wrestling in prayer.
The Professor looked grave and sad, as he stood listening. It was possible to hear almost all the prayer through the red baize door, and the words, hackneyed though they were, and almost absurd in their pious sing-song, had a naïf impressiveness and, to the listener, an intense pathos.
The minister prayed for help and comfort for his congregation. There had been much sickness in the village during the summer, and many were in trouble. The good man put forth his petition to the merciful and mighty Father, that strength might be given to the sufferers to bear all that was sent in chastisement, for they knew that nothing would be given beyond their ability to endure. He assured the great and mighty Lord that He had power to succour, and that His love was without end; he prayed that as His might and His glory were limitless, so might His mercy be to the miserable sinners who had offended Him.
Age after age, this same prayer, in different forms, had besieged the throne of heaven. Age after age, the spirit of man had sought for help, and mercy, and inspiration, in the Power that was felt, or imagined, behind the veil of mystery.
From the village at the foot of the hill, vague sounds floated up, and presently, among them and above them, could be heard the yelping and howling of a dog.
The minister, at the moment, was glorifying his Creator and his race at the same time, by addressing Him as “Thou who hast given unto us, Thy servants, dominion over the beasts of the field and over every living thing, that they may serve us and minister unto us——”
Again, and more loudly, came the cry of distress.
“I must go and see what is the matter,” exclaimed the Professor. At the moment, the howling suddenly ceased, and he paused. The minister was still appealing to his God for mercy. “Out of the deep have I cried unto Thee, O Lord——,” and then there was a general prayer, in which the voices of the congregation joined. Some more singing and praying took place, before the sound of a sudden rush and movement announced the conclusion of the service.
“We had better go,” said Miss Du Prel.
They had no more than time to leave the porch, before the doors burst open, and the people streamed forth. A whiff of evil-smelling air issued from the building, at the same time. The dog was howling more piteously than ever. Someone complained of the disturbance that had been caused by the creature’s cries, during worship. The congregation continued to pour out, dividing into little groups to discuss the sermon or something of more mundane interest. An appearance of superhuman respectability pervaded the whole body. The important people, some of whom had their carriages waiting to drive them home, lingered a few moments, to exchange greetings, and to discuss sporting prospects or achievements. Meanwhile, one of the creatures over whom God had given them dominion, was wailing in vain appeal.
“I can’t stand this,” cried the Professor, and he started off.
“I will come too,” Hadria announced. Miss Du Prel said that she could not endure the sight of suffering, and would await their return.
And then occurred the incident that made this afternoon memorable to Hadria. In her last letter to her sister, she had said that she could not imagine the Professor contemptuous or angry. She had reason now to change her mind. His face was at once scornful and sad. For a moment, Hadria thought that he was displeased with her.
“I sometimes feel,” he said, with a scornful bitterness that she had not suspected in him, “I sometimes feel that this precious humanity of ours that we are eternally worshipping and exalting, is but a mean, miserable thing, after all, not worth a moment’s care or effort. One’s sympathy is wasted. Look at these good people whining to their heavenly Father about their own hurts, craving for a pity of which they have not a spark themselves!—puffed up with their little lordship over the poor beasts that they do not hesitate to tear, and hurt, and torture, for their own pleasure, or their own benefit,—to whom they, in their turn, love to play the God. Cowards! And having used their Godhead for purposes of cruelty, they fling themselves howling on their knees before their Almighty Deity and beg for mercy, which He too knows how to refuse!”
“Thank heaven!” exclaimed Hadria. She drew a deep sigh of relief. Without precisely realizing the fact, she had been gradually sinking into an unformulated conviction that human beings are, at heart, ruthless and hard, as soon as they are brought beyond the range of familiar moral claims, which have to be respected on pain of popular censure. Self-initiated pity was nowhere to be found. The merciless coldness of many excellent people (kind and tender, perhaps, within these accepted limits) had often chilled her to the heart, and prompted a miserable doubt of the eventual victory of good over evil in the world, which her father always insisted was ruled by mere brute force, and would be so ruled to the end of time. She had tried to find a wider, more generous, and less conventional standard in her oracle, Miss Du Prel, but to her bitter disappointment, that lady had shrugged her shoulders a little callously, as soon as she was asked to extend her sympathy outside the circle of chartered candidates for her merciful consideration. Hadria’s hero-worship had suffered a severe rebuff. Now, as the Professor spoke, it was as if a voice from heaven had bidden her believe and hope fearlessly in her race, and in its destiny.
“I had almost come to shrink a little from people,” she said, “as from something cruel and savage, at heart, without a grain of real, untaught pity.”
“There is only just enough to swear by,” said the Professor sadly. “We are a lot of half-tamed savages, after all, but we may be thankful that a capacity for almost infinite development is within us.”
“I wish to heaven we could get on a little faster,” exclaimed Hadria.
The incident proved, in the end, a fortunate one for the homeless, and almost starving terrier, of plebeian lineage, whose wail of distress had summoned two friends to the rescue. The creature had been ill-treated by some boys, who found Sunday afternoon hang heavy on their hands. The Professor carried the injured animal across the fields and through the woods, to Dunaghee.
Here the wounds were dressed, and here the grateful creature found a new and blissful home. His devotion to the Professor was unbounded; he followed him everywhere.
Hadria’s reverence and admiration rose to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Her father laughed at her. “Just as if any decent fellow would not have done as much for a wounded brute!”
“There must have been a strange dearth of decent fellows in church that morning then.”
It was not merely the action, but the feeling revealed by the Professor’s words on that occasion, that had turned Hadria’s sentiment towards him, into one of worship.
Algitha warned her that even the Professor was human.
Hadria said she did not believe it, or rather she believed that he was inordinately, tenderly, superlatively human, and that he had gone many steps farther in that direction than the rest of his generation. He was dowered with instincts and perceptions belonging to some kinder, nobler race than ours.
Miss Du Prel looked grave. She took occasion to mention that the Professor had never ceased to grieve for his wife, to whom he had been passionately attached, and that he, almost alone among men, would never love any other woman.
“I admire him only the more for that,” said Hadria.
“Don’t let yourself care too much for him.”
“Too much!”
“Don’t fall in love with him, if I must be frank.”
Hadria was silent. “If onewereto fall in love at all, I don’t see how it would be possible to avoid his being the man,” she pronounced at last. “I defy any creature with the least vestige of a heart to remain indifferent to him.” (Valeria coloured.) “Why there isn’t a man, woman, child, or animal about the place who doesn’t adore him; and what canIdo?”