CHAPTER IX
TELLING HOW LUDOVIC QUAYLE AND HONORIA ST. QUENTIN WATCHED THE TROUT RISE IN THE LONG WATER
Some hour and a half later Miss St. Quentin passed down the flight of stone steps, leading from the southern end of the terrace to the grass slopes of the park. Arrived at the lowest step she gathered the skirt of her dress up over one arm, thereby securing greater freedom of movement, and displaying a straight length of pink and white petticoat. Thus prepared she fared forth over the still smoking turf. The storm had passed, but the atmosphere remained thick and humid. A certain opulence of colour obtained in the landscape. The herbs in the grass, wild-thyme, wild-balm, and star-flowered camomile, smelt strongly aromatic as she trod them under foot, while the beds of bracken, dried and yellowed by the drought, gave off a sharp, woody scent.
Usually, when thus alone and in contact with nature, such matters claimed Honoria's whole attention, ministering to her love of earth-lore and of Mother Earth—producing in her silent worship of those primitive deities who at once preside over and inhabit the waste-land and the tilth, the untamed forest and the pastures where heavy-uddered, sweet-breathed cows lie in the deep, meadow grass, the garden ground, all pleasant, orchard places, and the broad promise of the waving crops. But this afternoon, although the colour, odour, warmth, and all the many voices praising the refreshment of the rain, were sensibly present to her, Honoria's thought failed to be engrossed by them. For she was in process of worshipping younger and more compassionate deities, sadder, because more human, ones, whose office lies not with Nature in her eternal repose and fecundity but with man in his eternal failure and unrest. Not august Ceres, giver of the golden harvest-fields, or fierce Cybele, the goddess of the many paps, but spare, brown-habited St. Francis, serving his brethren with bleeding hands and feet, held empire over her meditations.—In imagination she saw—saw with only too lively realisation of detail—that eighteen-year-old lad, in the factory at Westchurch, drawn up—all the unspent hopes and pleasures of his young manhood active in him—by the loose gearing, into the merciless vortex of revolving wheels, and there, without preparation, without pause of warning, without any dignity of shouting multitude, of arena or of stake, martyred—converted in a few horrible seconds from health and wholeness into a formless lump of human waste. And up and down the land, as she reflected, wherever the great systems of trade and labour, which build up the mechanical and material prosperity of our day, go forward, kindred things happen—let alone question of all those persons who are born into the world already injured, or bearing the seeds of foul and disfiguring diseases in their organs and their blood.—Verily Richard Calmady's sad family was a rather terribly large one, well calculated to maintain its numbers, even to increase! For neither the age of human sacrifice nor of cannibalism is really over, nor is the practice of these limited to savage peoples in distant lands or far-away isles of the sea. They form the basis actually, though in differing of outward aspect, of all existing civilisations, just as they formed the basis of all past civilisations—a basis, moreover, perpetually recemented and relaid. And, as she considered—being courageous and fair-minded—it was inevitable that this should be so, unthinkable that it should be otherwise, since it made, at least indirectly, for the prosperity of the majority and development of the race.—Considering which—the apparently cruel paradox and irony of it—Honoria swung down past the scattered hawthorns, thick with ruddy fruit, across the fragrant herbs and short, sweet turf, through the straggling fern-brakes, which impeded her progress, plucking at her skirts, careless of the rich colour and ample beauty outspread before her.
But soon, as a bird after describing far-ranging circles drops at last upon the from at-first-determined spot, so her thought settled down, with relief yet in a way unwillingly—and that not out of any lingering repulsion, but rather from a certain proud modesty and self-respect—upon Richard Calmady himself. Not only did he apprehend all this, far more clearly, more intimately, than she could.—Had he not spoken of the advantages of a certain blackness?—Honoria's vision became somewhat indistinct.—But he set out to deal with it in a practical manner. And in this connection she began to understand how it had come about that through years of ingratitude and neglect, and of loose-living, on his part, his mother could still remain patient, could endure, and supremely love. For behind the obvious, the almost coarse, tragedy and consequent appeal of the man's deformity, there was the further appeal of something very admirable in the man himself, for the emergence and due blossoming of which it would be very possible, very worth while, for whoso once recognised its existence to wait. John Knott had been right in his estimate of Richard. Ludovic Quayle had been right. Lady Calmady had been right.—Honoria had begun to believe that, even before Richard had come forth from his self-imposed seclusion, in the spring. The belief had increased during her subsequent intercourse with him, had been reinforced during her few days' visit at Whitsuntide. Yet, until now, she had never freely and openly admitted it. She wondered why? And then hastily she put such wondering from her. Again a certain proud modesty held her back. She did not want to think of herself in relation to him, or of him in relation to herself. She wished, for a reason she refused to define, to exclude the personal element. Doing that she could permit herself larger latitude of admiration. His acknowledgment of fellowship with, and obligation of friendship towards, all victims of physical disaster kindled her enthusiasm. She perceived that it was contrary to the man's natural arrogance, natural revolt against the humiliation put upon him—a rather superb overcoming, in short, of nature by grace. Nor was it the outgrowth of any morbid or sentimental emotion. It had no tincture of the hysteric element. It took its rise in conviction and in experiment. For Richard, though still young, struck her as remarkably mature. He had lived his life, sinned his sins—she did not doubt that—suffered unusual sorrows, bought his experience in the open market and at a sufficiently high price. And this was the result! It pleased her imagination by its essential unworldliness, its idealism and individuality of outlook. She went back on her earlier judgment of him, first formulated as a complaint,—he was strong, whether for good or evil—now unselfishly for good—and Honoria, being herself among the strong, supremely valued and welcomed strength. And so it happened that the tone of her meditations altered, being increasingly attuned to a serious, but very real congratulation. For she perceived that the tragedy of human life also constitutes the magnificence of human life, since it affords, and always must afford, supreme opportunity of heroism.
She had traversed the open space of turf, and come to the tall, iron hurdles enclosing the paddock. She folded her arms on the topmost bar of the iron gate and stood there. She wanted to rest a little in these thoughts that had come to her. She was not quite sure of them as yet. But, if they meant anything, if they were other than mere rhetoric, they must mean a very great deal, into harmony with which it would be necessary to bring her thought upon many other subjects. She was conscious of an excitement, a reaching out towards some but-half-disclosed glory, some new and very exquisite fulness of life. But was it new, after all? Was it not rather the at-last-permitted activity of faculties and sensibilities hitherto refused development, voluntarily, perhaps cowardly, held in check and repressed? She appeared to be making acquaintance with unexpected depths of apprehension and emotion in herself. And this, for cause unknown, brought her into more lively commerce with her immediate surroundings and the sentiment of them. Her eyes rested on them questioningly, as though they might afford a tally to, perhaps an explanation of, the strange, yet lovely emotion which had invaded her.
Here in the valley, notwithstanding the recent drought, the grass was lush. Across the paddock, just within the circuit of the far railings, a grove of large beech trees broke the expanse of living green. Beyond, seen beneath their down-sweeping branches, the surface of the Long Water repeated the hot purple, the dun-colour and silver-pink, of the sky. On the opposite slope, extending from the elm avenue to the outlying masses of the woods and upward to the line of oaks which run parallel with the park palings, were cornlands. The wheat, a red-gold, was already for the most part bound in shocks. A company of women, wearing lilac and pink sunbonnets and all-round, blue, linen aprons faded by frequent washing to a fine clearness of tone, came down over the blond stubble. They carried, in little baskets and shining tins, tea for the white-shirted harvesters who were busy setting up the storm-fallen sheaves. They laughed and talked together, and their voices came to Honoria with a pleasant quality of sound. Two stumbling baby-children, hand in hand, followed them, as did a small, white-and-tan, spotted dog. One woman was bareheaded and wore a black bodice, which gave a singular value to her figure amid the all-obtaining yellow of the corn.
The scene in its simple and homely charm held the poetry of that happier side of labour, of that most ancient of all industries—the husbandman's—and of the generous giving of the soil. Set in a frame of opulently coloured woodland and sky, the stately red-brick and freestone house crowning the high land and looking forth upon it all, the whole formed, to Honoria's thinking, a very noble picture. And then, of a sudden, in the midst of her quiet enjoyment of it and a tenderness which the sight of it somehow begot in her, Honoria was seized by sharp, unreasoning regret that she must so soon leave it. Unreasoning regret that she had engaged to go abroad this winter, with poor, pretty, frivolous, young Lady Tobermory—spoilt child of society and of wealth—now half-crazed, rendered desperate, by the fear that disease, which had laid a threatening finger on her, might lay its whole hand cutting short her playtime and breaking her many toys. Of anything other than toys and playtime she had no conception.—"Those brutes of doctors tell Tobermory I must give up low gowns," she wrote. "And I adore my neck and shoulders. Every one always has admired them. It makes me utterly miserable to cover them up. And now that I am thinner I could have my gowns cut lower than ever, nearly down to my waist, which makes it all the more intolerable. I went to Dessaix about it, went over to Paris on purpose, though Tobermory was wild at my traveling in the heat. He—Dessaix, I mean, not poor T.—was just as nice as possible, and promised to invent new styles. Still, of course, I must look dowdy at night in a high gown. Everybody does. I shall feel exactly like our clergyman's wife at Ellerhay, when she comes to dine with us at Christmas and Easter and once in the summer. I refuse to have her oftener than that. She has a long back and about fourteen children, which she seems to think a great credit to her. I don't, as they are ugly, and she is dreadfully poor. She wears her Sunday silk with lacewoundabout, don't you know, but woundtight. That means full dress. I am buying some lace, Duchesse at three and a half guineas a yard. I suppose I shall come towindingthat of an evening. Then I shall look like her. It makes me cry dreadfully, and, as I tell Tobermory, that is worse for me than any number of lungs. Darling H., if you really love me in the least, bring nothing but high gowns. Perhaps I mayn't mind quite so much if I never see you in a low one."—There had been much more to the same effect, pathetic in its inadequacy and egoism. Only, as Honoria reflected, that is a style of pathos dangerously liable to pall upon one. She sighed, for the prospect of spending the winter participating in the frivolities, and striving to restrain the indiscretions of this little, damaged butterfly, did not smile upon her. She might have stayed on here, stayed on at Brockhurst, worked over the dear place as she had so often done before—helping Lady Calmady. Why had she promised?—Well—because she had been rather restless, unsettled, and at loose ends of late——
Whereupon the young lady bent down and unfastened the padlock with a certain decision of movement, closed the gate, relocking it carefully behind her, and started off across the deep grass of the paddock, her pale face very serious, her small head held high. She would keep faith with Evelyn Tobermory. Of course she would keep faith with her. It was not only a matter of honour, but of expediency. It was much, very much better to go. Yet whence this sudden heat proceeded, and why the Egyptian journey assumed suddenly such paramount desirability, she carefully did not stay to inquire—an omission not, perhaps, without significance.
The half-dozen dainty fillies, meanwhile, who had eyed her shyly from their station beneath the beech trees, trotted gently towards her with friendly whinnyings, their fine ears pricked, their long tails carried well away in a sweeping curve. Honoria went on to meet them. She was glad of something to occupy her hands, some outside, concrete thing to occupy her thought. She took the foremost, a dark bay, by the nose strap of its leather head-stall, patted the beast's sleek neck, looked into its prominent, heavy-lidded eyes,—the blue film over the velvet-like iris and pupil of them giving a singular softness of effect,—drew down the fine, aristocratic head, and kissed the little star where the hair turned in the centre of the smooth, hard forehead. It was as perfectly bred as she was herself—so clean, so fresh, that to touch it was wholly pleasant! Then she backed away from it, holding it at arm's-length, noting how every line of its limbs and body was graceful and harmonious, full of the purpose of easy strength, easy freedom of movement. That it was a trifle blown out in barrel, from being at grass, only gave its contours an added suavity. It was a lovely beast, a delicious beast! Honoria smiled upon it, talked to, patted and coaxed it. While another young beauty, waxing brave, pushed its black muzzle under her arm, and lipped at her jacket pockets in search of bread and of apples. And, these good things once discovered, the rest of the drove came about her, civilly, a trifle proudly, as befitted such fine ladies, with no pushings and bustlings of vulgar greed. And they charmed her. She was very much at one with them. She fed them fearlessly, thrusting one aside in favour of another, giving each reward in due turn. She passed her hands down over their slender limbs. The warm colours and the gloss of them were pleasant to her eyes. And they smelt sweet, as did the trampled grass beneath their unshod hoofs. For a while the human problem—its tragedy, magnificence, inadequacy alike—ceased to trouble her. The poetry of these beautiful, innocent, clean-feeding beasts was, for the moment, sufficient in and by itself.
But, even while she thus played with and rejoiced in them, remembrance of their owner came back to her, his maiming, as against their perfection of finish, the lamentable disparity between his physical equipment and theirs. Honoria's expression lost its nonchalant gaiety. She pushed her gentle, equine comrades away to left and right, not that they ceased to please but that the human problem and the tragedy of it once more became dominant. She walked on across the paddock rapidly, while the fillies, forming up behind her, followed in single file treading a sinuous pathway through the grass, the foremost one still pushing its black muzzle, now and again, under her elbow and nibbling insinuatingly at her empty jacket pockets.—If only that horrible misfortune had not befallen Richard Calmady! If—if—— But then, had it not befallen him, would he ever have been excited to so admirable effort, would he ever have attained so absorbing and vigorous a personality as he actually had? Again her thought turned on itself, to provocation of momentary impatience.—Honoria unfastened the second padlock with a return of her former decision.—There were conclusions she wished instinctively to avoid, from which she instinctively desired escape. She forced aside the all-too-affectionate, bay filly who crowded upon her, shot back the bar of the gate and relocked it. Then, once again, she kissed the pretty beast on the forehead as it stretched its neck over the top of the gate.
"Good-bye, dear lass," she said. "Win your races and, when the time comes, drop foals as handsome as yourself, and thank your stars you're under orders, and so have small chance to muddle your affairs—as with your good looks, my dear, you most assuredly would—like all the rest of us."
With which excellent advice she swung away down the last twenty yards of the avenue and out on to the roadway of the red-brick and freestone bridge. Here, in the open above the water, the air was sensibly fresher. From the paddock the deserted fillies whinnied to her. The voices of the harvesters came cheerily from the cornland. The men sat in the blond stubble, backed by a range of upstanding sheaves. The women, bright in those frail blues, clear pinks, and lilacs, knelt serving their meal. She of the black bodice stood apart, her hands upon her hips, looking towards the bridge and its solitary occupant. The tan-and-white, spotted dog ran to and fro chasing field-mice and yapped. The baby children staggered after it, uttering excited squeakings and cries. The lower cloud had parted in the west, disclosing an upper stratum of pale gold, which widened upward and outward as the minutes passed. Save immediately below, in the shadow of the bridge, this found reflection in the water, overlaying it as with the blond of the stubble and warmer tones of the sheaves. Honoria sat down sideways on the coping of the parapet. She watched the moor-hens, dark of plumage, a splash of fiery orange on their jaunty, little heads, swim out with restless, jerky motion from the edge of the reed-beds and break up the shining surface with diverging lines of rippling, brown shadow. In the shade cast by the bridge, trout rose at the dancing gnats and flies. She could see them rush upward through the brown water. Sometimes they leapt clear of it, exposing their silver bellies, pink-spotted sides, and the olive-green of their backs. They dropped again with a flop, and rings circled outward from the place of their disappearing.
All this Honoria saw, but dreamily, pensively. She realised, as never before, that, much as she might love this place and the life of it, she was a guest only, a pilgrim and sojourner. The completeness of her own independence ceased to please.—"Me this unchartered freedom tires." As she quoted the line, Honoria smiled. These were, indeed, new aspects of herself! Where would they carry her, both in thought and in action? It was a little alarming to contemplate that. And then her pensiveness increased, a strange nostalgia taking her—amounting almost to physical pain—for that same but-half-disclosed glory, that same new and very exquisite fulness of life, apprehension of which had lately been vouchsafed to her. If she could remain very still and undisturbed, if she could empty her consciousness of all else, bend her whole will to an act at once of determination and of reception, perhaps, it would be given her clearly to see and understand. The idealist, the mystic, were very present in Honoria just then. She fixed her eyes upon the shining surface of the water. A conviction grew upon her that, could she maintain a certain mental and emotional equilibrium, something of permanent and very vital importance must take place.
Suddenly she heard footsteps upon the gravel of the roadway. She started, turned deliberately, holding in check the agitation which possessed her, to find herself confronted by the tall, preeminently modern and mundane, figure of Ludovic Quayle. Honoria gave herself a little shake of uncontrollable impatience. For less than twopence-halfpenny she could have given the very gentlemanlike intruder a shake too! He let her down with a bump, so to speak, from regions mysterious and supernal, to regions altogether social and of this world worldly. And yet she knew that such feelings were not a little hard and unjust as entertained towards poor Mr. Quayle.
The young man, in any case, was happily ignorant of having offended. He sauntered out on to the bridge, hat in hand, his head a trifle on one side, his long neck directed slightly forward, his expression that of polite and intimate amusement—but whether amusement at his own, or his fellow-creatures' expense, it would have been difficult to declare.
"At last, I find you, my dear Miss St. Quentin," he said. "And I have sought for you as for lost treasure. Forgive a biblical form of address—a reminiscence merely of my father's morning ministrations to my unmarried sisters, the footmen, and the maids. He reads them the most surprising little histories at times, which make me positively blush—but that's a detail. To account for my invasion of your idyllic solitude—I learned incidentally you proposed coming here from Ormiston this week. I thought I would venture on an early attempt to find you. But I drew the house blank, though assisted by Winter—the terrace also blank. Then from the troco-ground I beheld that which looked promising, coquetting with Dickie's yearlings. So I followed on to know—my father and the maids again—followed on to—to my reward."
Mr. Quayle stood directly in front of her. He spoke with admirable urbanity, yet with even greater rapidity than usual. His beautifully formed mouth pursed itself up between the sentences, with that effect of indulgent superiority which was at once so attractive and so excessively provoking. But, for all that, Honoria perceived that, for once in his life, the young man was distinctly, not to say acutely, nervous.
"The reward will be limited I'm afraid," she replied, "for my temper is unaccountably out of sorts this afternoon."
"And, if one may make bold to inquire, why out of sorts, dear Miss St. Quentin?"
He sat down on the parapet near her, crossed his legs, and fell to nursing his left knee. The woman of the black bodice went up across the pale stubble to her companions. She talked to them, nodding her head in the direction of the bridge.
"I have promised to do a certain thing, and having promised, of course I must do it."
Honoria looked away towards the harvesters up there among the gold of the corn.
"And yet, now I have committed myself, thinking it over I find I dislike doing it warmly."
"The statement of the case is just a trifle vague," Mr. Quayle remarked. "But—if one may brave a suggestion—supersede a first duty by a second and, of course, a greater. With a little exercise of imagination, a little good-will, a little assistance from a true friend thrown in perhaps, it is generally quite possible to manage that, I think."
"And you are prepared to play the part of the true friend?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Then go to Cairo for the winter with Evelyn Tobermory. You must take no low gowns—ah! poor little soul, it is pathetic, though—she's forbidden to wear them. And—let me stay here!" Honoria said.
Ludovic gazed at his hands as they clasped his knee, then he looked sideways at his companion.
"Here, meaning—meaning Brockhurst, dear Miss St. Quentin?" he asked very sweetly.
"Meaning England," she declared.
"England?—ah! really. That pleases me better. Patriotism is an excellent virtue. The remark is not a wholly original one, but it comes in handy just now, all the same."
The young lady's head went up. Her face straightened. She was displeased. Turning sideways, she leaned both hands on the stonework and stared down into the water. But speedily she repented.
"See how the fish rise," she said. "It really is a pity one hasn't a fly-rod."
"I was under the impression you once told me that you objected to taking life, except in self-defense or for purposes of commissariat. The trout would almost certainly be muddy. And I am quite unconscious of being exposed to any danger—at least from the trout."
Miss St. Quentin kept her eyes fixed upon the water.
"I told you my temper was out of sorts," she said.
"Is that a warning?" Ludovic inquired, with the utmost mildness.
Honoria was busy feeling in her jacket pockets. At the bottom of them a few crumbs remained. She emptied these on to the surface of the water, by the simple expedient of turning the pockets inside out.
"I know nothing about warnings," she said. "I state a plain fact. You can make of it what you please."
The young man rose leisurely from his place, sauntered across the roadway, and stood with his back to her, looking down the valley. The harvesters, their meal finished, moved away towards the further side of the great corn-field. The women followed them slowly, gleaning as they went. It was very quiet. And again there came to Honoria that ache of longing for the but-half-disclosed glory and fulness of life. It was there, an actuality—could she but find it, had she but the courage and the wit. Then, from the open moorland beyond the park palings, came the sound of horses trotting sharply. Ludovic Quayle turned and recrossed the road. He smiled, but his superfine manner, his effect of slight impertinence were, for the moment, in abeyance.
"Miss St. Quentin," he said, "what is the use of fencing any longer? I have done that which I engaged to do, namely, displayed the patience of innumerable asses. And—if I may be pardoned mentioning such a thing—the years pass. Really they do. And I seem to get no forwarder! My position becomes slightly ludicrous."
"I know it, I know it!" Honoria cried penitently.
"That I am ludicrous?"
"No, no," she protested, "that I have been unreasonable and traded on your forbearance, that I have done wrong in allowing you to wait."
"That you could not very well help," he said, "since I chose to wait. And, indeed, I greatly preferred waiting as long as there seemed to be a hope there was something—anything, in short—to wait for."
"Ah! but that is precisely what I have never been sure about myself—whether there really was anything to wait for or not."
She sat straight on the coping of the parapet again. Her face bore the most engaging expression. There was a certain softness in her aspect to-day. She was less of a youth, a comrade, so it seemed to Mr. Quayle, more distinctly, more consciously a woman. But now, to the sound of trotting horse-hoofs was added that of wheels. With a clang the park gates were thrown open.
"And are you still uncertain? In the back of your mind is there still a trifle of doubt?—If so, give me the benefit of it," the young man pleaded, half laughingly, half brokenly.
A carriage passed under the gray archway of the red-brick and freestone lodges. Rapidly it came on down the wide, smooth, string-coloured road—a space of neatly kept turf on either side—under the shade of the heavy-foliaged elm trees. Mr. Quayle glanced at it, and paused with raised eyebrows.
"I call you to witness that I do not swear, dear Miss St. Quentin, though men have been known to become blasphemous on slighter provocation than this," he said. "However, the rather violently-approaching interruption will be soon over, I hope and believe; since the driving is that of Richard Calmady of Brockhurst when his temper—like your own—being somewhat out of sorts, he, as Jehu the son of Nimshi of old—my father's morning ministrations to the maids again—driveth furiously."
Then, with an air of humorous resignation, his mouth working a little, his long neck directed forward as in mildly-surprised inquiry, he stood watching the approaching mail-phaeton. The wheels of it made a hollow rumbling, the tramp of the horses was impetuous, the pole-chains rattled, as it swung out on to the bridge and drew up. The grooms whipped down and ran round to the horses' heads. And these stood, a little extended, still and rigid as of bronze, the red of their open nostrils and the silver mounting of their harness very noticeable. Lady Calmady called to Mr. Quayle. The young man passed round at the back of the carriage, and, standing on the far side of the roadway, talked with her.
Honoria St. Quentin remained sitting on the parapet of the bridge.
A singular disinclination to risk any movement had come upon her. Not the present situation in relation to Ludovic Quayle, but that other situation of the but-half-disclosed glory, the new and exquisite fulness of life oppressed her, penetrating her whole being to the point of physical weakness. Questioningly, yet with entire unself-consciousness, she looked up at Richard Calmady. And he, from the exalted height of the driving-seat, looked down at her. A dark, cloth rug was wrapped tight round him from the waist downward. It concealed the high driving-iron against which his feet rested. It concealed the strap which steadied him in his place. His person appeared finely proportioned. His head and face were surprisingly handsome seen thus from below—though it must be conceded the expression of the latter was very far from angelic.
"You were well advised to stay at home, Honoria," he said. There was a grating tone in his voice.
"The function was even more distinguished for dulness than you expected?"
"On the contrary, it was not in the least dull. It was actively objectionable, ingeniously unpleasant. Whereas this——"
His face softened a little. He glanced at the golden water and cornland, the lush green of the paddock, the rich, massive colouring of woodland and sky. Honoria glanced at it likewise, and, so doing, rose to her feet. That nostalgia of things new and glorious ached in her. Yet the pain of it had a strange and intimate charm, making it unlike any pain she had ever yet felt. It hurt her very really, it made her weak, yet she would not have had it cease.
"Yes, it is all very lovely, isn't it?" she said.
She laid her hand on the folded leather of the carriage hood. Again she looked up.
"It is a good deal to have this—always—your own, to come back to, Richard."
She spoke sadly, almost unwillingly. Dickie did not answer, but he looked down, a certain violence and energy very evident in him, his blue eyes hard, and, in the depth of them, desolate as the sky of a winter night. Calmly, yet in a way desperately, as those who dare inquiry beyond the range of permitted human speech, the young man and woman looked at one another. Lady Calmady's sweet voice, meanwhile, went on in kindly question. Ludovic Quayle's in well-placed, slightly elaborate answer. The near horse threw back its head and the pole-chains rattled smartly.—Honoria's lips parted, but the words, if words indeed there were, died in her throat. She raised her hands, as though putting a tangible and actual presence away from her. She did not change colour, but for the moment her delicate features appeared thickened, as by a rush of blood. She was almost plain. Yet the effect was inexpressibly touching. It was as though she had received some mysterious injury which she was dumb, incapable to express. She let her hands drop at her sides, turned away and walked to the far end of the bridge.
Suddenly Richard's voice came to her, aggressive, curt.
"Look out, Ludovic—stand clear of the wheel."
The horses sprang forward, the grooms scrambled up at the back, and the carriage swung away from the brightness of the open to the gloom of the avenue and up the long hill to the house.
Mr. Quayle contemplated it for a minute or so and then, with an air of amused toleration, he followed Miss St. Quentin across the bridge.
"Poor, dear Dickie Calmady, poor, dear Dickie!" he said. "He attempts the impossible. Fails to attain it—as a matter of course, and, meanwhile, misses the possible—equally as a matter of course. It is all very magnificent, no doubt, but it is also not a little uncomfortable, at times, for other people.—However that trifle of criticism is, after all, beside the mark. Now that the whirlwind has ceased, Miss St. Quentin, may the still, small voice of my own affairs presume to make itself——"
But there he stopped abruptly.
"My dear friend," he asked in quick anxiety, "what is the matter? Pardon me, but what on earth has happened to you?"
For Honoria leaned both elbows on the low, carved pillar terminating the masonry of the parapet. She covered her face with her hands. And, incontestably, she shuddered queerly from head to foot.
"Wait half a second," she said, in a stifled voice. "It's nothing—I'm all right."
Slowly she raised herself, and took a long breath. Then she turned to her faithful lover, showing him a brave, if somewhat drawn and tired countenance.
"Ludovic," she said gently, "don't, don't please let us talk any more about all that. And don't, I entreat you, wait any longer. If there was any uncertainty, if there was a doubt in the back of my mind, it's gone. Forgive me—this must sound brutal—but there is no more doubt. I can't marry you. I am sorry, horribly sorry—for you have been as charming to me as a man could be—but I shall never be able to marry you."
Mr. Quayle's expression retained its sweetness, even its effect of amusement, though his lips quivered, and his eyelids were a little red.
"I do not come up to the requirements of the grand passion?" he said. "Alas! poor me——"
"No, no, it isn't that," Honoria protested.
"Ah, then,"—he paused, with an air of extraordinary intelligence—"Perhaps some one else does?"
"Yes," she said simply, "I don't like it, but it's there, and so I've got to go through with it—some one else does."
"In that case it is indeed hopeless! I give it up," he cried.
He moved aside and stood gazing at the rising trout in the golden-brown water. Then he raised his head sharply, as in obedience to a thought suddenly occurring to him, and gazed at Brockhurst House. The brightness of the western sky found reflection in its many windows. A noble cheerfulness seemed to pervade it, as it crowned the hillside, amid its gardens and far-ranging woods.
"By all that's"—Mr. Quayle began. But he repressed the exclamation, and his expression was wholly friendly as he returned to Miss St. Quentin.
"Good-bye," he said.—"I am glad, honestly glad, you have found the grand passion, though the object of it can't, in the first blush of the affair be altogetherpersona gratato myself. But, to show that really I have a little root of magnanimity in me, I am quite prepared to undertake a winter at Cairo, plus Evelyn Tobemory and minus low dresses, if that will enable you to stay on here—I mean in England,—of course."
He pursed up his beautiful mouth, he carried his head on one side with the liveliest effect of provocation, as he held the young lady's hand while bidding her farewell.
"Out of my heart I hope you will be very happy," he said.
"I shall never be anything but Honoria St. Quentin," she answered rather hastily. Then she softened, forgiving him.—"Oh! why," she said, "why will you make me quarrel with you just now, just at the last?"
"Because—because—" Mr. Quayle's voice broke, though his superior smile remained to him.—"I think I will not prolong the interview," he said. "To be frank with you, dear Miss St. Quentin, I am about as miserable as is consonant with complete sanity and excellent health. I do not propose to blow my brains out, but I think—yes, thanks—you appreciate the desirability of that course of action too?—I think it is about time I went."
CHAPTER X
CONCERNING A DAY OF HONEST WARFARE AND A SUNSET HARBINGER NOT OF THE NIGHT BUT OF THE DAWN
That episode, upon the bridge spanning the Long Water, brought Richard would-be saint, Richard pilgrim along the great white road which leads onward to Perfection, into lively collision with Richard the natural man, not to mention Richard the "wild bull in a net." These opposing forces engaged battle, with the consequence that the carriage horses took the hill at a rather breakneck pace. Not that Dickie touched them, but that, he being vibrant, they felt his mood down the length of the reins and responded to it.
"Ludovic need hardly have been in such a prodigious hurry," he broke out. "He might have allowed one a few days' grace. It was a defect of taste to come over immediately—but then all that family's taste is liable to lapses."
Promptly he repented, ashamed both of his anger and such self-revealing expression of it.
"I dare say it's all for the best though. Better a thing should be nipped in the bud than in the blossom. And this puts it all on a right footing. One might easily drift into depending too much upon Honoria. I own I was dangerously near doing that this spring. I don't mind telling you so now, mother, because this, you see, disposes finally of the matter."
His voice contended oddly with the noise of the wheels, rattle of the pole-chains, pounding of the hoofs of the pulling horses. The sentences came to Lady Calmady's ears disjointed, difficult to follow and interpret. Therefore she answered slightly at random.
"My dearest, I could have kept her longer in the spring if I had only known," she said, a disquieting suspicion of lost opportunity assailing her. "But, from certain things which you said, I thought you preferred our being alone."
"So I did. I wanted her to go because I wanted her to stay. Do you see?"
"Ah, yes! I see," Katherine replied. And at that moment, it must be conceded, her sentiments were not conspicuously pacific towards her faithful adherent, Mr. Quayle.
"We've a good many interests in common," Dickie went on, "and there seemed a chance of one's settling down into a rather charming friendship with her. It was a beguiling prospect. And for that very reason, it was best she should depart. The prospect, in all its beguilingness, renewed itself to-day after luncheon."—He paused, handling the plunging horses.—"And so after all Ludovic shall be reckoned welcome. For, as I say, I might have come to depend on her. And one's a fool—I ought to have learnt that salutary lesson by this time—a rank fool, to depend on anybody, or anything, save oneself, simply and solely oneself"—his tone softened—"and upon you, most dear and long-suffering mother.—Therefore the dream of friendship goes overboard after all, along with the rest of one's little illusions. And every illusion one rids oneself of is so much to the good. It lightens the ship. It lessens the chances of sinking. Clearly it is so much pure gain."
That evening, pleading—unexampled occurrence in her case—a headache as excuse, Miss St. Quentin did not put in an appearance at dinner. Nor did Richard put in an appearance at breakfast next morning. At an early hour he had received a communication earnestly requesting his presence at the Westchurch Infirmary. His mission promised to be a melancholy one, yet he was not sorry for the demand made by it upon his time and thought. For, notwithstanding the philosophic tone he had adopted with Lady Calmady in speaking of that friendship which, if not nipped in the bud, might have reached perils of too luxuriant blossoming, the would-be saint and the natural man, the pilgrim on the highroad to Perfection and that very inconvenient animal "the wild bull in a net," kept up warfare within Richard Calmady. They were hard at it even yet, when, in the fair freshness of the September morning—the grasses and hedge-fruit, the wild flowers, and the low-growing, tangled coppices by the roadside, still heavy with dew—he drove over to Westchurch. The day was bright, with flying cloud and a westerly breeze. The dust was laid, and the atmosphere, cleared by the storm of the preceding afternoon, had a smack of autumn in it. It was one of those delicious, yet distracting, days when the sea calls, and when whosoever loves seafaring grows restless, must seek movement, seek the open, strain his eyes towards the margin of the land—be the coast-line never so far distant—tormented by desire for sight of the blue water, and the strong and naked joys of the mighty ridge and furrow where go the gallant ships.
With the upspringing of the wind at dawn, that calling of the sea had made itself heard to Richard. At first it suggested only the practical temptation of putting theReprieveinto commission, and engaging Lady Calmady to go forth with him on a three or four months' cruise. But that, as he speedily convinced himself, was but a pitifully cheap expedient, a shirking of voluntarily assumed responsibility, a childish cheating of discontent, rather than an honestly attempted cure of it. If cure was to be achieved, the canker must be excised, boldly cut out, not overlaid merely by some trifle of partially concealing plaster. For he knew well enough—as all sea-lovers know—and, as he drove through the dappled sunlight and shadow, frankly admitted—that though the sea itself very actually and really called, yet its calling was the voice and symbol of much over and above itself. For in it speaks the eternal necessity of going forward, that hunger and thirst for the absolute and ultimate which drives every human creature whose heart and soul and intellect are truly animate. And to him, just now, it spoke more particularly of the natural instincts of his manhood—of ambition, of passion, of headlong desire of sensation, excitement, adventure, of just all that, in fact, which he had forsworn, had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget. And, thinking of this, suspicion assailed him that forswearing had been slightly insincere and perfunctory. He accused himself of nourishing the belief that giving, he would also receive,—and that in kind,—while that any sacrifice which he offered would be returned to him doubled in value. Casting his bread upon the waters, he accused himself of having expected to find it, not "after many days," but immediately—a full baker's dozen ready to hand in his pocket. His motives had not been wholly pure. Actually, though not at the time consciously, he had assayed to strike a bargain with the Almighty.
Just as he reached the top of the long, straight hill leading down into Westchurch, Richard arrived at these unflattering conclusions. On either side the road, upon the yellow surface of which the sunlight played through the tossing leaves of the plane trees, were villas of very varied and hybrid styles of architecture. They were, for the most part, smothered in creepers, and set in gardens gay with blossom. Below lay the sprawling, red-brick town blotted with purple shadow. A black canal meandered through the heart of it, crossed by mean, humpbacked bridges. The huge, amorphous buildings of its railway station—engine sheds, goods warehouses, trailing of swiftly dispersed white smoke—the grime and clamour of all that, its factory buildings and tall chimneys, were very evident, as were the pale towers of its churches. And beyond the ugly, pushing, industrial commonplace of it, striking a very different note, the blue ribbon of the still youthful Thames, backed by high-lying chalk-lands fringed with hanging woods, traversed a stretch of flat, green meadows. Richard's eyes rested upon the scene absently, since thought just now had more empire over him than any outward seeing. For he perceived that he must cleanse himself yet further of self-seeking. Those words, "if thou wilt be perfect sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and follow thou Me," have not a material and objective significance merely. They deal with each personal desire, even the apparently most legitimate—with each indulgence of personal feeling, even the apparently most innocent—with the inward attitude and the atmosphere of the mind even more closely than with outward action and conduct. And so Richard reached the conclusion that he must strip himself yet nearer to the bone. He must digest the harsh truth that virtue is its own reward in the sense that it is its only reward, and must look for nothing beyond that. He had grown slack of late, seduced by visions of pleasant things permitted most men but to him forbidden, and wearied, too, by the length of the way and inevitable monotony of it now first heat of enthusiasm had evaporated. Well—it was all very simple. He must just re-dedicate himself. And in this stern and chastened frame of mind he drove through the bustle of the country town—Saturday, market day, its streets unusually alive—nodding to an acquaintance here and there in passing, two or three of his tenant farmers, Mr. Cathcart of Newlands in on county business, Goodall the octogenarian miller from Parson's Holt, and Lemuel Image, the brewer, bursting out of an obviously new suit of very showy tweeds. Then, at the main door of the Infirmary, helped by the stalwart, hospital porter, he got down from the dog-cart, and subsequently—raked by curious eyes, saluted by hardly repressed tittering from the out-patients waitingen queuefor admission to the dispensary—he made his slow way along the bare, vault-like, stone passage to the accident ward, in the far corner of which a bed was shut off from the rest by an arrangement of screens and of curtains.
And it was in the same chastened frame of mind that, some four or five hours later, Dickie entered the dining-room at Brockhurst. The two ladies had nearly finished luncheon and were about to rise from the table. Lady Calmady greeted him very gladly, but abstained from inquiry as to his doings or from comment on the lateness of the hour, since experience had long ago taught her that of all known animals man is the one of whom it is least profitable for woman to ask questions. He was here at home, alive, intact, her eyes were rejoiced by the sight of him, that was sufficient. If he had anything to tell her, no doubt he would tell it later. For the rest, she had something to tell him, but that too must wait till time and circumstance were propitious, since the conveying of it involved delicate diplomacies. It must be handled lightly. For the life of her she must avoid all appearance of eagerness, all appearance of attaching serious importance to the communication. Lady Calmady had learned, this morning, that Honoria St. Quentin did not propose to marry Ludovic Quayle. The young lady, whose charming nonchalance was curiously in eclipse to-day, had given her to understand so much, but very briefly, the subject evidently being rather painful to her. She was silent and a little distrait; but she was also very gentle, displaying a disposition to follow Katherine about wherever she went and a pretty zeal in doing small, odd jobs for her. Katherine was touched and tenderly amused by her manner, which was as that of a charming child coveting assurance that it need not be ashamed of itself, and that it has not really done anything naughty! But Katherine sighed too, watching this strong, graceful, capable creature; for, if things had been otherwise with Dickie, how thankfully she would have given the keeping of his future into this woman's hands! She had ceased to be jealous even of her son's love. Gladly, gratefully, would she have shared that love, accepting the second place, if only—but all that was beyond possibility of hope. Still the friendship of which he had spoken somewhat bitterly yesterday—poor darling—remained. Ludovic Quayle's pretensions—she felt very pitifully towards that accomplished gentleman, all his good qualities had started into high relief!—but, his pretensions no longer barring the way to that friendship, she pledged herself to work for the promotion of it. Dickie was too severe in self-repression, was over-strained in stoicism; and, ignoring the fact that in his fixity of purpose, his exaggerations of self-abnegation, he proved himself very much her own son, she determined secretly, cautiously, lovingly, to combat all that.
It was, therefore, with warm satisfaction that, as Honoria was about to rise from the table, she observed Richard emerge, in a degree, from his abstraction, and heard him say:—
"You told me you'd like to ride over to Farley this afternoon and see the home for my crippled people. Are you too tired after your headache, or do you still care to go?"
"Oh! I'm not tired, thanks," Honoria answered. Then she hesitated, and Richard, looking at her, was aware, as on the bridge yesterday, of a sudden and singular thickening of her features, which, while marring her beauty, rendered her aspect strangely pathetic, as of one who sustains some mysterious hurt. And to him it seemed, for the moment, as though both that hurt and the infliction of it bore subtle relation to himself. Common sense discredited the notion as unpermissibly fantastic, still it influenced and softened his manner.
"But you know you are looking frightfully done up yourself, Richard," she went on, with a charming air of half-reluctant protest. "Isn't he, Cousin Katherine? Are you sure you want to ride this afternoon? Please don't go out just on my account."
"Oh! I'm right enough," he answered. "I'd infinitely rather go out."
He pushed back his chair and reached down for his crutches. Still the fantastic notion that, all unwittingly, he had been guilty of doing Honoria some strange injury, clung to him. He was sensible of the desire to offer reparation. This made him more communicative than he would otherwise have been.
"I saw a man die this morning—that's all," he said. "I know it's stupid, but one can't help it—it knocks one about a bit. You see he didn't want to die, poor fellow, though, God knows, he'd little enough to live for—or to live with, for that matter."
"Your factory hand?" Honoria asked.
Richard slipped out of his chair, and stood upright.
"Yes, my factory hand," he answered. "Dear, old Knott was fearfully savage about it. He was so tremendously keen on the case, and made sure of pulling him through. But the poor boy had been sliced up a little too thoroughly."—Richard paused, smiling at Honoria. "So all one could do was to go with him just as far as is permitted out into the great silence, and then—then come home to luncheon. The home at Farley loses its point, rather, now he is dead. Still there are others, plenty of others, enough to satisfy even Knott's greed of riveting broken human crockery.—Oh yes! I shall enjoy riding over, if you are still good to come. Four o'clock—that'll suit you? I'll order the horses."
And so, in due time, the two rode forth together into the brightness of the September afternoon. The sea still called, but Dickie's ears were deaf to all dangerous allurements and excitations resident in that calling. It had to him, just now, only the pensive charm of a far-away melody, which, though no doubt of great and immediate import to others, had ceased to be any concern of his. Beside the death-bed in the hospital-ward he had renewed his vows, and the efficacy of that renewal was very present with him. It made for repose. It laid the evil spirit of defiance, of self-consciousness, of humiliation, so often obtaining in his intercourse with women—a spirit begotten by the perpetual prick of his deformity, and in part, too, by his determined adoption of the ascetic attitude in regard to the affections. He was spent by the emotions of the morning, but that also made for repose. For the time being devils were cast out. He was tranquil, yet exalted. His eyes had a smile in them, as though they looked beyond the limit of things transitory and material into the regions of the Pure Idea, where the eternal values are disclosed and Peace has her dwelling. And, precisely because of all this, he could take Honoria's presence lightly, be chivalrously solicitous of her entertainment and well-being, and talk to her with greater freedom than ever heretofore. He ceased to be on his guard with her because, in good truth, it seemed to him there ceased to be anything to guard against. For the time being, at all events, he had got to the other side of all that, and so she and his relation to her, had become part of that charming but faraway melody which was no concern of his—though mighty great and altogether worthy concern of others, of Ludovic Quayle, for example.—And in his present tranquil humour he could listen to the sweetness of that melody ungrudgingly. It was pleasant. He could enjoy it without envy—though it was none of his.
But to Honoria's seeing, it must be owned, matters shaped themselves very differently. For the usually unperturbed, the chaste and gallant soul of her endured violent assaults, violent commotions, the origin of which she but partially understood. And these Richard's frankness, his courteous, in some sort brotherly, good-fellowship, served to intensify rather than allay. The feeling of the noble horse under her, the cool, westerly wind in her face, went to steady her nerves, and restore the self-possession, courage of judgment, and clearness of thought, which had been lacking to her during the past twenty-four hours. Nevertheless she rode as through a but-newly-discovered country, familiar objects displaying alien aspects, familiar phrases assuming unlooked-for significance, a something challenging and fateful meeting her everywhere. The whole future seemed to hang in the balance, and she waited, dreading yet longing, to see the scale turn.
This afternoon the harvesters were carrying the corn. Red-painted waggons, drawn by sleek, heavy-made cart-horses, crawled slowly across the blond stubble. It was pretty to see the rusty-gold sheaves tossed up from the shining prongs of the pitchforks on to the mountainous load. Honoria and Richard watched this, a little minute, from the grass-ride bordering the roadway beneath the elms. Next came the high-lying moorland, beyond the lodges. The fine-leaved heath was thick with red-purple blossom. Patches of dusky heather were frosted with dainty pink. Spikes of genista and beds of needle-furze showed sharply yellow, vividly green, and a fringe of blue campanula, with frail, quivering bells, outlined all open spaces. The face of the land had been washed by the rain. It shone with an inimitable cleanliness, as though consciously happy in relief from all soil of dust. And it was here, the open country stretching afar on all sides, that Dickie began talking, not, as at first, in desultory fashion, but of matters nearly pertaining and closely interesting to himself.
"You know," he said, as they walked the horses quietly, neck to neck, along the moorland road, "I don't go in for system-making or for reforms on any big scale. That doesn't come within my province. I must leave that to politicians and to men who are in the push of the world. I admire it. I rejoice in the hot-headed, narrow-brained, whole-hearted agitator, who believes that his system adopted, his reform carried through, the whole show will instantly be put straight. Such faith is very touching."
"And the reformer has sometimes done some little good after all," Honoria commented.
"Of course he has!" Dickie agreed. "Only, as a rule, poor dear, he can't be contented but that his special reform should be the final one, that his system should be the universal panacea. And in point of fact no reform is final this side of death, and no panacea is universal, save that which the Maker of the Universe chooses to work out—is working out now, if we could any way grasp it—through the slow course of unnumbered ages. Let the reformer do all he can, but don't let him turn sour because his pet reform, his pet system, sinks away and is swallowed up in the great sea of things—sea of human progress, if you like. Every system is bound to prove too small, every reform ludicrously inadequate—be it never so radical—because material conditions are perpetually changing, while man in his mental, emotional and physical aspects remains always precisely the same."
They passed from the breezy upland into the high-banked lane which, leading downwards, joins the great London and Portsmouth Road just beyond Farley Row.
"And—and that is where I come in!" Richard said, turning a little in the saddle and smiling sweet-temperedly, yet with a suggestion of self-mockery, upon his companion. "Just because, in essential respects, mankind remains—notwithstanding modifications of his environment—substantially the same, from the era of the Pentateuch to the era of the Rougon-Macquarts, there must always be a lot of wreckage, of waste, and refuse humanity. The inauguration of each new system, each new reform—religious, political, educational, economic—practically they're all in the same boat—let alone the inevitable breakdown or petering out of each, necessarily produces a fresh crop of such waste and refuse material. And in that a man like myself, who does not aspire to cure or to construct, but merely to alleviate and to pick up the pieces, finds his chance."
And Honoria listened musing—approved, enthusiasm gaining her; yet protested—since, even while she admired, she rebelled a little on his account, and for his sake.
"But it is rather a hard life, surely Richard," she said, "which you propose to yourself? Always the pieces, the thing broken and spoiled, never the thing in its beauty, full of promise, and whole!"
"It is less hard for me than for most," he answered, "or should be so. After all, I am to the manner born—a bit of human wreckage myself, with which, but for the accident of wealth, things would have gone pretty badly. I used to be horribly scared sometimes, as a small boy, thinking to what uses I might be put if the kindly, golden rampart ever gave."
He became silent. As for Honoria, she had neither courage to look at, nor answer, him just then.
"And you see, I'm absolutely free," he added presently.—"I am alone, always shall be so. If the life is hard, I ask no one to share it, so I may make it what I like."
"Oh! no, no—you misunderstand, Richard! I didn't mean that," Honoria cried quickly, half under her breath.
Again he looked at her, smiling.
"Didn't you? All the kinder of you," he said.
Thereupon regret, almost intolerable in its poignancy, invaded Miss St. Quentin that she would have to go away, to go back to the world and all the foolish obtaining fashions of it; that she would have to take that preeminently well-cushioned and luxurious winter's journey to Cairo. She longed inexpressibly to remain here, to assist in these experiments made in the name of Holy Charity. She longed inexpressibly to—— And there Honoria paused, even in thought. Yet she glanced at the young man riding beside her—at the handsome profile, still and set in outline, the suggestion—it was no more—of a scar running downward across the left cheek, at the well-made, upright, broad-shouldered figure, and then at the saddle, peaked, back and front, with oddly-shaped appendages to it resembling old-fashioned holsters.—And, as yesterday upon the bridge, the ache of a pain at once sweet and terrible laid hold of her, making her queerly faint. The single street, sun-covered, sleepy, empty save for a brewer's dray and tax-cart or two standing before the solid Georgian portals of the White Lion Inn, for a straggling tail of children bearing home small shoppings and jugs of supper beer, for a flock of gray geese proceeding with suggestively self-righteous demeanour along the very middle of the roadway and lowering long necks to hiss defiance at the passer-by, and for an old black retriever dozing peacefully beneath one of the rustling sycamores in front of Josiah Appleyard, the saddler's shop—all these, as she looked at them, became uncertain in outline, reeled before Honoria's eyes. For the moment she experienced a difficulty in keeping steady in the saddle. But the horses still walked quietly, neck to neck, their shadows, and those of their riders growing longer, narrower, outstretched before them as the sun declined in the west. All the future hung in the balance, but the scale had not turned as yet.
Then Richard's voice took up its parable again.
"Perhaps it's a rather fraudulently comfortable doctrine, yet it does strike one that the justification of disaster, in all its many forms, is the opportunity it affords the individualist. He may use it for self-aggrandisement, or for self-devotion—though I rather shy at so showy a word as that last. However, the use he makes of it isn't the point. What is the point, to my mind at least, is this—though it doesn't sound magnificent, it hardly indeed sounds cleanly—that whatever trade fails, whatever profession, thanks to the advance of civilisation, becomes obsolete, that of the man with the dust-cart, of the scavenger, of the sweeper, won't."
Once more Richard smiled upon his companion charmingly, yet with something of self-mockery.
"And so, you see, having knocked about enough to grow careless of niceties of prejudice, and to acquire immense admiration for any vocation which promises permanence, I join hands with the dustman. In the light of science, and in that of religion alike, nothing really is common or unclean. And then—then, if you are outcasted in any case as some of us are, it's a little too transparently cheap to be afraid of soiling——" He broke off.—"Away there to the left, Honoria," he said. "You see the house? The yellow-washed one, with the gables and tiled roofs—there, back on the slope.—Bagshaw, the Bond Street poulterer, had it for years. His lease ran out in the spring, and happily he didn't care to renew. Had bought himself an up-to-date, villa residence somewhere in the suburbs—Chistlehurst, I believe. So I took the place over. It will do for a beginning—the small end of the wedge of my scavenger's business. There are over five acres of garden and orchard, and plenty of rooms on each floor, which gives good range for the disabled to move about in—and the stairs, only one flight, are easy. One has to think of these details. And—well, the house commands a magnificent view of Clerke's Green, and the geese on it, than which nothing clearly can be more exciting!"
The groom rode forward and opened the gate. Before the square, outstanding porch Richard drew up.
"I should like to come in with you," he said. "But you see it's rather a business getting off one's horse, and I can't very well manage the stairs. So I'll wait about till you are ready. Don't hurry. I want you to see all the arrangements, if it doesn't bore you, and make suggestions. The carpenters are there, doing overtime. They'll let you through if the caretaker's out."
Thus admonished, Miss St. Quentin dismounted and made her way into the house. A broad passage led straight through it. The open door at the farther end disclosed a vista of box-edged paths and flower-borders where, in gay ranks, stood tall sunflowers, hollyhocks, Michaelmas-daisies, and such like. Beyond was orchard, the round-headed apple-trees, bright with polished fruit, rising from a carpet of grass. The rooms, to left and right of the passage, were pleasantly sun-warmed and mellow of aspect, the ceilings of them crossed by massive beams. Honoria visited them, dutifully observant. She encountered the head carpenter, an acquaintance and ally during those four years so great part of which she had spent at Brockhurst. She talked with him, making inquiries concerning wife, children and trade, incident to such a meeting, her face very serious all the while, the skirt of her habit gathered up in one hand, her gait a trifle stiff and measured owing to her high riding-boots. But, though she acquitted herself in all kindliness of conversation, though she conscientiously inspected each separate apartment, and noted the cheerful comeliness of orchard and garden, it must be owned all these remained singularly distant from her actual emotion and thought. She was glad to be alone. She was glad to be away from Richard Calmady, though zealously obedient to his wishes in respect of this inspection. For his presence became increasingly oppressive from the intensity of feeling it produced in her, and which she was, at present, powerless to direct towards any reasonable and definite end. This rendered her tongue-tied, and, as she fancied, stupid. Her unreadiness mortified her. She, usually indifferent enough to the impression she produced on others, was sensible of a keen desire to appear at her best. She did in fact, so she believed, appear at her worst, slow of understanding and of sympathy.—But then all the future hung in the balance. The scale delayed to turn. And the strain of waiting became agitating to the point of distress.
At last the course of her so-dutiful survey brought her to a quaint, little chamber, situated immediately over the square, outstanding porch. It was lighted by a single, hooded window placed in the centre of the front wall. It was evidently designed for a linen room, and was in process of being fitted with shelves and cupboards of white pine. The floor was deep in shavings, long, curly, wafer-coloured, semi-transparent. They rustled like fallen leaves when Honoria stepped among them. The air was filled with the odour of them, dry and resinous as that of the fir forest. Ever after that odour affected Honoria with a sense of half-fearful joy and of impending fate. She stood in the middle of the quaint, little chamber. The ceiling was low. She had to bend her head to avoid violent contact between the central beam of it and the crown of her felt hat. But circumscribed though the space, and uncomfortable though her posture, she had an absurd longing to lock the door of the little room, never to come out, to stay here forever! Here she was safe. But outside, on the threshold, stood something she dared not name. It drew her with a pain at once terrible and lovely. She dreaded it. Yet once close to it, once face to face with it, she knew it would have her—that it would not take no for an answer. Her pride, her chastity, were in arms. Was this, she wondered, what men and women speak of so lightly, laugh and joke about? Was this love?—To her it seemed wholly awe-inspiring. And so she clung strangely to the shelter of the quaint, little room with its sea of rustling, resinous shavings. On the other side the door of it waited that momentous decision which would cause the scale to turn. Yet the minutes passed. To prolong her absence became impossible.
Just then there was a movement below, a crunching of the gravel, as though of a horse growing restless, impatient of standing. Honoria moved forward, opened the window, pushing back the casement against a cluster of late-blossoming, red roses, the petals of which floated slowly downward describing fluttering circles. Richard Calmady was just below. Honoria called to him.
"I am coming, Richard, I am coming!" she said.
He turned in the saddle and looked up at her smiling—a smile at once courageous and resigned. Yet, notwithstanding that smile, Honoria once again discovered in his eyes the chill desolation and homelessness of the sky of the winter night. Then the scale turned, turned at last—for that same lovely pain grew lovelier, more desirable than any possibility of ease, until such time as that desolation should pass, that homelessness be cradled to content in some sure harbourage.—Here was the thing given her to do, and she must do it! She would risk all to win all. And, with that decision, all her serenity and freedom of soul returned. The white light of a noble self-devotion, reckless of self-spending, reckless of consequence, the joy of a great giving, illuminated her face.
As to Richard, he, looking up at her, though ignorant of her purpose, misreading the cause of that inspired aspect, still thought he had never witnessed so graciously gallant a sight. The nymph whom he had first known, who had baffled and crossed him, was here still, strong, untamed, elusive, remote. But a woman was here too, of finest fibre, faithful and loyal, capable of undying tenderness, of an all-encircling and heroic love. Then the desires of the natural man stirred somewhat in Richard, just because—paradox though it undoubtedly was—she provoked less the carnal, perishing passion of the flesh, than the pure and imperishable passion of the spirit. Irrepressible envy of Ludovic Quayle, her lover, seized him, irrepressible demand for just all those things which that other Richard, the would-be saint, had so sternly condemned himself to repudiate, to cast aside and forget. And the would-be saint triumphed—beating down thought of all that, trampling it under foot—so that after briefest interval he called up to her cheerily enough.
"Well, what do you make of the dust-cart? Rather fascinating, isn't it? Notwithstanding its uncleanly name, it's really rather sweet."
To which she answered, speaking from out the wide background of her own emotion and purpose:—
"Yes, yes—it's sad in a way, Richard, penetratingly, splendidly sad. But one wouldn't have it otherwise; for it is splendid, and it is sweet, abundantly sweet."—Then her tone changed.—"I won't keep you waiting any longer, I'm coming," she said.
Honoria looked round the quaint, little room, with its half-adjusted shelves and cupboards, the floor of it deep in resinous, semi-transparent, wafer-coloured shavings, bidding it adieu. For good or evil, happiness or sorrow, she was sensible it told for much in her life's history. Then, something delicately militant in her carriage, she swung away down-stairs and out of the house. She was going forth to war indeed, to a war which in no shape or form had she ever waged as yet. Many men had wooed her, and their wooing had left her cold. She had never wooed any man. Why should she? To her no man had ever mattered one little bit.
So she mounted, and they rode away.—A spin across the level turf to hearten her up, satisfy the fulness of sensation which held her, and shake her nerves into place. It was exhilarating. She grew keen and tense, her whole economy becoming reliable and well-knit by the strong exercise and sense of the superbly healthy and unperplexed vitality of the horse under her. Honoria could have fought with dragons just then, had such been there to fight with! But, in point of fact, nothing more agressively dangerous presented itself for encounter than the shallow ford which divides the parish of Farley from that of Sandyfield and the tithing of Brockhurst. Snorting a little, the horses splashed through the clear, brown water and entered upon the rough, rutted road, grass grown in places, which, ending beneath a broken avenue of ancient, stag-headed oaks, leads to the entrance of the Brockhurst woods. These, crowned by the dark, ragged line of the fir forest, rose in a soft, dense mass against the western sky, in which showed promise of a fair pageant of sunset. A covey of partridges ran up the sandy ruts before the horses, and, rising at last with a long-drawn whir of wings, skimmed the top of the crumbling bank and dropped in the stubble-field on the right. A pause, while the keeper's wife ran out to open the white gate,—the dogs meanwhile, from their wooden kennels under the Spanish chestnuts upon the hillock behind the lodge, pulling at their chains and keeping up a vociferous chorus. Thus heralded, the riders passed into the mysteriously whispering quiet of the great woods.
The heavy, summer foliage remained as yet untouched by the hectic of autumn. Diversity was observable in form rather than in tint, and from this resulted a remarkable effect of unity, a singleness of intention, and of far-reaching secrecy. The multitudinous leaves and the all-pervading green gloom of them around, above, seemed to engulf horses and riders. It was as though they rode across the floor of ocean, the green tides sweeping overhead. Yet the trees of the wood asserted their intelligent presence now and again. Audibly they talked together, bent themselves a little to listen and to look, as though curious of the aspect and purposes of these wandering mortals. And all this, the unity and secrecy of the place, affected both Richard and Honoria strangely, circling them about with something of earth-magic, removing them far from ordinary conditions of social intercourse, and thus rendering it possible, inevitable even, that they should think such thoughts and say such words as part company with subterfuge and concealment, go naked, and speak uttermost truth. For, with only the trees of the wood to listen, with that sibilant whisper of the green tide overhead, with strong emotion compelling them—in the one case towards death of self, in the other towards giving of self—in the one towards austere passivity, in the other towards activity taxing all capital of pride, of delicacy, and of tact—developments became imminent, and those of the most vital sort.
The conversation had been broken, desultory; but now, by tacit consent, the pace became quiet again, the horses were permitted to walk. To have gone other than softly through the living heart of the greenwood must have savoured of desecration. Yet Richard was not insensible to a certain danger. He tried, rousing himself to conversation, to rouse himself also to the practical and commonplace.
"I am glad you liked my house," he said. "But I hear the aristocracy of the Row laments. It shies at the idea of being invaded by more or less frightful creatures. But I remain deaf. I really can't bother about that. It is so immeasurably more unpleasant to be frightful than to see that which is so, that I'm afraid my sympathies remain rather pig-headedly one-sided. I propose to educate the Row in the grace of pity. It may lay up merit by due exercise of that."
Richard took off his hat and rode bareheaded, looking away into the delicious, green gloom. Here, where the wood was thickest, oak and beech shutting out the sky, clasping hands overhead, the ground beneath them deep in moss and fern, that gloom was precisely like the colour of Honoria's eyes. He wished it wasn't so. He tried to forget it. But the resemblance haunted him. Look where he might, still he seemed to look into those singular and charming eyes. He talked on determinedly, putting a force upon himself—too often saying that which, no sooner was it out of his mouth, than, he wished unsaid.