(2)The Rector was sitting at his study table. "Well," he said, as the envoy entered. "What does she say? You have been my last hope of persuading her to see things sensibly."Tristram crossed the room, and did not immediately answer. He had already professed himself convinced of Horatia's determination, but hope will lurk in such odd corners of the heart, that not till this moment did he know how the frail thing had really ceased to flutter in him."I am afraid," he said at last, "that I have been worse than useless, for I have promised to try to persuadeyou."The Rector veered round in his chair to face him. "You,you, Tristram, support her! Then the world has gone crazy!" He took off his glasses and for a full half-minute gazed at the figure standing rather rigidly before him. "You really mean to tell me that, knowing Horatia as you do, you think I ought to take seriously this passing fancy?""I'm afraid I do, Sir," said Tristram steadily; "but, then, I cannot think it a passing fancy now that I have seen her and talked to her. Horatia does not have whims. If she changes, she changes whole-heartedly, and I confess I have never seen anyone so altered." His voice wavered for a moment. "She has put her whole happiness in Armand de la Roche-Guyon, and if you thwart her, you will be taking a very heavy responsibility.""All the same," said the Rector stubbornly, "I shall take it. As you probably know, under French law my consent is a very important matter, and I shall certainly not give it. Allow my daughter to marry a foreigner, and a Papist—a Papist, Tristram, do you realise that?"Tristram gave a little sigh. "I do, indeed, only too well. That is what clinched the matter for me. I mean I thought, of course, that it would be a serious obstacle to Horatia's mind, yet when I suggested it as a difficulty, she only said, 'But I love him, what else matters?' For Horatia, with her upbringing and her views that means a great deal. I confess I hardly understand it.""Nor I," returned Mr. Grenville. "She has said the same to me, and even when I told her that her children would have to be brought up as Roman Catholics, she said that she did not like the idea, but she supposed that people always had to pay for happiness. He has bewitched her! But I shall save her from herself, Tristram. To throw herself away on the first wandering foreigner!""His father is a peer of France," said Tristram very quietly, "and Horatia will be a great lady. She is not throwing herself away in that sense."The Rector gave an impatient exclamation, and brought his hands down violently on his knees. "To hear you talk, Tristram, anyone might suppose that you had something to gain from her marriage! 'Pon my soul, the young men of the present day are beyond me! A fortnight ago, in this very room, you were telling me about your own feelings for Horatia, and now here you are, as calm and cool as any lawyer, trying to argue me into letting her marry this organ-grinder! Really I find it hard to remember that not long ago you were a boy yourself, and a boy, too, whom I had hoped to call my son!"It was the final turn of the screw. Tristram left him and went over to the window."I can't speak of that side of it," he said brokenly. "I have loved her distractedly ... I still love her ... but there is her happiness to think of, and if she ... if the Comte de la Roche-Guyon..." He could get no further, but laid his head against the cold glass."My dear boy, forgive me," exclaimed Mr. Grenville remorsefully. "I am so upset I don't know what I am saying. I'm a selfish old man, and you put me to shame ... you put me to shame...."Sighing heavily, he turned round his chair to the table. He felt himself suddenly what he had often mendaciously declared himself to be, an old man. Perhaps it was wrong to struggle against the young—to play Providence overmuch. Yet this was Horatia's whole life at stake. Still, the man who stood silent there at the window, in what bitter pain he could guess, was able to see her go. He put out his hand, and took up the brass of Allectus, lying neglected among a disarray of papers, and, in the silence studied the galley on the reverse. At last he said miserably:"What do you know about this young man?"Tristram told him about the family, while the Rector turned the coin over and over."Yes, that's all right, I suppose, but what about the young man himself?""Frankly, I don't know any more than you do.""But you have your suspicions, eh? Young Frenchmen don't bear a very good character, and you know that.""Nor do all young Englishmen."Mr. Grenville refused to be drawn off. "When you were in Paris, or wherever it was, Tristram, staying with his family, surely you must have heard something about him.""No, not a rumour of the kind you mean.""And yet," said the Rector, "you share my feelings about him. I know you do!""We have not either of us any right to have 'feelings' about him," retorted Tristram from the window. "We merely do not know. I would tell you if there had been anything. He may be a blackguard or he may be a hero. We don't know.""Very well, then," said the Rector judicially, laying down the coin with precision. "I'll put it in another way. Do you consider him a fit husband for Horatia?"Tristram started forward. "Mr. Grenville, don't drive me mad! You are putting me in a horrible position. Armand confides his interests to my hands; the first thing I do is to try to persuade Horatia not to marry him. Now you want to make me blacken his character ... I beg your pardon, Sir!"The Rector was on his feet. "It is for me to beg yours. My dear, dear boy, do forgive me! I am behaving abominably; I am not only selfish but mean—but if I do seem to have been trying to get you to say things against a rival (as I suppose I have), remember I am also trying to save Horatia from this ... this calamitous marriage, and you from your own fantastic principles. It is all such a confusion, but I am really trying for your own happiness as well as hers ... You know, Tristram, I'm sure you could still have her if you tried, when she has forgotten him.... But do say that you forgive me!"The young man took his outstretched hand. "As if I had anything to forgive, Sir!" Then he went back with him to the table and sat down beside him, and once again reiterated his conviction that Horatia would not forget her lover, that he himself had no chance now, probably never had, so that the case must be considered on its own merits, and that perhaps, after all, the two were made for each other—though here, indeed, the conviction sounded less sincere."Well," said the Rector, looking at him with affection as he finished, "however this turns out I am not likely to forget how you have behaved! And perhaps (but don't say so to Horatia) I may have to think about the possibility some day—but not yet ... no, not yet!"CHAPTER XIII(1)The ostler of the Red Lion at Compton Regis and one of the stablemen, who happened at the time to be conversing outside that hostelry, were the only persons in the village privileged to behold a certain blue and yellow postchaise draw up in front of the inn at dusk on an evening in October. Scenting a guest of importance, and preparing to summon the landlord, the ostler was, however, stayed by a curt inquiry from the postilion—"Be this the way to Little Compton?""Straight on, first road to the left," responded the ostler, advancing into one of the paths of radiance cut by the lamps in the damp autumn air. "You're no Oxford man or you'd not ask.""Well, why should I be an Oxford man?" retorted the postilion. "I'm from Salisbury, if you want to know, and damme, if that ain't as good as Oxford——"But here a head was thrust out of the far window of the chaise, and a voice with a trace of foreign accent—the voice of a young man—demanded what the devil they had stopped for, and, grumbling, the postilion shouted to the steaming horses. As the chaise rolled off the ostler caught sight of a much older face, lit by the travelling lamp within the carriage. He stared after the receding vehicle."'Ere, Bill," he called, "I've seen a Dook. Strike me, but it's 'im wot's going to stay with Mr. 'Ungerford down to Little Compton. 'Ear the posty say 'e come from Salisbury? That the Dook, sure enough, the old party. T'other'll be his son, the young spark wot was 'ere before.""Dook! Wot's a furrin Dook?" queried the exclusive Bill, and spat on the ground.(2)These worthies were quite right in their surmises, and Mr. Hungerford down to Little Compton was at that moment awaiting, with what equanimity he might, the visit of his all but successful rival and of his father, to whom he had been forced to offer a hospitality which would probably ensure that rival's complete triumph. Nor was Tristram unaware of the ironical humour of the situation.A week had scarcely passed since Armand's departure for Dorset—a week in which the transfigured Horatia had seemed to tread on air—when there came to her a letter from her lover saying that his father absolutely refused his consent to the match. Tristram did not like to think of the days that had followed, when Horatia went about the house dimmed and red-eyed—though she was generally invisible when he was at the Rectory—and when the Rector (so curiously are human beings compounded) raged alternately against Armand for his audacity and against the Duc de la Roche-Guyon for his prohibition. Nothing in fact could have done so much to forward the match, in so far as the Rector was concerned, as this obstacle: and at last, late one evening, Mr. Grenville came over to see Tristram quite broken, reiterating pitifully, "I am being driven to it. I can't have the child going into a decline," and ending up: "As for this Duke, it's preposterous! Who is he, I should like to know, to behave as if my Horatia were not good enough for his younger son? As you know, Tristram, I detest boasting of my connections, but if it comes to that——"And since Mr. Grenville could indeed claim cousinship of varying degrees with the Most Noble Richard Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of Buckingham, and his brother Lord Nugent, with the Marquis of Chandos, and little Earl Temple, and old Lord Grenville, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, it was hardly surprising that he was annoyed.Tristram could only suggest that the Duc might come round. "It seems so strange," complained Mr. Grenville, "that he should be so opposed to his son's wishes, when his son is not a minor—how old is he?—twenty-five or twenty-six, I suppose.... You don't think," he said suddenly, "that it's just a ruse on the young man's part to get out of marrying her—that he is repenting of it—that it was only a passing fancy onhispart? For if that should be so, Tristram, if he is capable of anything so vile, it will kill my girl." His voice shook with agitation. Gone for ever were the days when he would have hoped that such was the suitor's intention.Tristram tried to reassure him, for he did not believe this to be the case. After the Rector, somewhat comforted, had gone, there was nothing left for him to do but to pray convulsively for Horatia's happiness.And when, two days later, he got a letter from Armand, saying that as the King was moving to Holyrood in mid-October he had prevailed on his father to break the journey northward and come with him to Compton Regis, and that he, Armand, had hopes ... it was with real relief as well as with repugnance that Tristram did what Armand obviously hoped he would do, and invited his father and him to honour his roof during their sojourn. And if anything could have nerved him this evening to endure the position in which he had placed himself, it was the brief sight which he had of Horatia that day when he went over to tell the Rector that everything was arranged—of Horatia as she turned on him a sort of rainbow look of gratitude.That was this morning. Now he was out in the dark and the damp to welcome his guests, exchanging suitable greetings with the elder and submitting to Armand's embrace."Ah, mon cher, how amiable of you to receive us thus! We have had a dog of a journey. Mon père, enter then, while I pay the postilion; you should not expose yourself thus to the damp.""No, indeed," said Tristram. "If you will come in, M. le Duc..."In the hall, the face of M. le Duc de la Roche-Guyon appeared above the high collar of his full cloak, old, pale, rather bleached-looking. He was beginning a stately little speech when his son appeared, full of solicitude and hurried him upstairs. And Armand in person reappeared alone before dinner in order to get a few words with his host. Tristram had been preparing himself for this. The young man professed profound gratitude, was sure that if his father once saw the lady of his choice, all would be well. He himself was more hopeful than he had been for weeks past."In fact," he went on, his eyes sparkling, "I believe the day is already won. My grandmother supports me—and that will turn the scale. My father has great respect for her wishes. Her letter arrived, praise the saints, just before we left Lulworth."Tristram now remembered to have heard something of an autocratic old Dowager Duchess, the Duke's mother."She says—mais n'importe," went on the Comte. "Now, with your permission, and if my father does not appear too tired, I will leave you after dinner to yourselves.""You are trusting me with a good deal, La Roche-Guyon," Tristram was moved to remark."Parbleu, are you not my friend!" retorted the Frenchman. "Besides, you are one of those people whom it is natural to trust."Although the Duc, when he appeared, was very plainly, if immaculately attired, he somehow radiated from his person an air of courts and of diplomacy very foreign to Tristram's dining-room and its solid British furniture. He was grand seigneur to his finger-tips, polished, melancholy, affable, and perfectly simple in his address; but it required no effort to imagine the absent cordon bleu and stars on his breast. Armand behaved towards him with a mingled air of deference and affection which, while it amused Tristram—so far as he was capable of being amused by anything—did not displease him, for it appeared genuine and habitual. Apparently the young man considered the paternal health equal to a discussion, for after one glass of port he very unembarrassedly excused himself, and left the others still seated with their wineglasses at the polished mahogany.The Duc looked after him with a little smile of amusement and affection flitting across his delicate bloodless lips."That is the signal for us to begin our 'conversations,' Monsieur. You have plenipotentiary powers, I think?""I—not in the least!" said Tristram, somewhat alarmed. "I have no—no official position at all in the matter. It will be between yourself, M. le Duc, and the lady's father. Anything that I can arrange, in the way of a meeting between you, I shall be happy to do, and any information I have is at your service. Beyond that I cannot go."The older man bowed. "You are a kinsman, I think, Monsieur?""Distant," said Tristram. "I rather count myself an old friend.""Of M. Grenville or of Mademoiselle?""Of both.""And—pardon me if I ask an impertinent question, but we must know where we stand—as a kinsman and as an old friend, you have yourself no objection to this alliance?""I am solely desirous of Miss Grenville's happiness," responded Tristram, his eyes on the foot of his wineglass."And you think that the match with my son will ensure it?""How can I possibly say? But I hope that it may take place.""Merci, Monsieur, for your courtesy," said the Duc, very courteously himself. "Now I in my turn must make my position clear to you. I had other views for my son—in fact I thought he ... had other views for himself. I am, however, convinced that he is passionately in love with this lady, whom I doubt not I shall find to be all and more than all that he represents. But you know, Monsieur, that we French people do not look with favour upon marriages of love. We prefer that love should come after marriage. We find it better so. Then there is the difference of race. To these young people that seems nothing now, but it tells, Monsieur, it tells more and more through life. This objection naturally applies on your side also; not so the former, for you are more sentimental than we are." He was arranging two little groups of almonds with fingers as blanched as they."I seem to remember," commented Tristram, "that the Comte de Flahault, coming over to England, fell in love with an English lady and married her, and that they are living happily in Paris at this very moment.""Quite true," said the Duc, with the air of one acknowledging a point, and he added another almond to the smaller pile. "But I cannot wholly allow the parallel. M. de Flahault was an Imperialist—an aide-de-camp of Napoleon in fact; he is now an Orleanist, and the lady, she was titrée, noble in her own right, I believe, the Baroness Keats, or Keat, il me semble.""Keith," said Tristram. "But surely I do not need to remind M. le Duc, who has, I understand, lived much in England, that many of the members of our best families bear no titles, that with us the grandson of an earl, not being the heir, is plain Mr. So-and-so, and that some of the oldest families have never had titles at all—have, indeed, refused them.""That I know," conceded M. de la Roche-Guyon. "But it is not generally understood in France."Tristram pushed away his wineglass. "You must not suspect me of flattery, Sir, if I say that I should have thought your own ancient and illustrious name capable of covering any disparity in station between the parties, did such exist. But I should wish to remind you that Mr. Grenville is by no means the ordinary country parson that you have perhaps imagined. He is himself the younger son of a noble family; he has connections among the highest of our English nobility, and he is no pauper. I can sketch you his family tree if you wish.... As for the lady herself, she would grace the most exalted rank, and, as a kinsman and an old friend, I think I have the right to say that the man who wins her is to be congratulated indeed."The Duc lifted his eyes from the almonds and shot him a keen, rather disconcerting glance. "Ah, yes. You, Monsieur, the accredited ambassador, have espoused the match with warmth. How is it that M. Grenville then refused, in no uncertain terms, to entertain the thought of it; indeed, so far as I could gather, forbade my son the house?"For a second Tristram was taken aback by this pertinent inquiry, for he had really forgotten the Rector's one time vehement opposition."I think," he said, "that you will find Mr. Grenville ... in short, that that difficulty does not now exist."The Duc leant back in his chair. "Will you permit me, Monsieur, to say (since I am a man so much older than you) that there is something in you, I know not what, which pleases me very much. I will be franker with you than I had meant to be. My mother, the Dowager Duchess, to whose judgment I pay great deference, is in favour of this match. I have learnt the fact but this morning. I own that I am surprised, but Armand is her favourite grandson. There are reasons, with which I need not trouble you, why her wishes should have great weight with me. I am, therefore, little likely when I see this lady, by all accounts so charming, to find her unsuitable. But what of M. son père? It will not consort very well with my dignity (to which you must permit me to hold) if I approve my son's choice only to find that M. Grenville does not approve his daughter's."And in the gaze which he directed upon Tristram, in the tones of his thin, well-bred voice, there peeped out something of the arrogance of an ancient race.The younger man smiled. He felt suddenly very weary."You need not apprehend anything on that score, I can assure you, Sir. I saw Mr. Grenville this morning. When your son first asked for his daughter's hand he was startled, greatly startled, and surprised. He probably spoke words which he would have recalled afterwards. You will find him, I think, more than reconciled to the idea."The Duke seemed to have fallen into a short reverie."It is well to be young," he said at last, and there was faint regret in his tone. "The fire of youth—who shall give us that again? When I married my first wife, Emmanuel's mother, I was only twenty—but that was a mariage de convenance. Armand's mother was very beautiful; I loved her as Armand loves this lady, but he has the advantage of me ... he has the advantage of me ... for then I was no longer young." He sighed, and passed his handkerchief over his lips, and his face, deeply marked, seemed to wither and grow older than its sixty-five years. "But why am I talking thus to you, Monsieur, who still have that inestimable gift of youth? Mais tout passe, tout lasse ... I will do myself the honour of calling upon Mr. Grenville to-morrow morning at eleven, if you think that hour will be convenient to him."And he flicked with one long, polished nail at the two heaps of almonds, scattering them.(3)Not being present next morning at the momentous interview between the Duc and Mr. Grenville, Tristram could only guess at what happened. Armand, on fire with restlessness, spent the time walking round and round the not very extensive garden like a caged animal, and when Tristram went out to say that his father had returned and would like to see him in the study, he found the young man slashing with a stick at his rose trees."Oh, pardon if I have hurt them!" he exclaimed. "Mon Dieu, que je suis énervé! Yes, I will go at once. I had better have borrowed one of your horses and gone for a gallop.—He is in the study, you say, this good father of mine?"The irony of Tristram's own position oppressed him the more in proportion as his anxiety about Armand's intentions was relieved. Neither the Duc nor his son said much when they emerged from their conference, only the elder man informed his host that he was to dine alone at the Rectory that evening, and that he hoped then to make the acquaintance of Miss Grenville. As good luck so ordered, a colleague of Tristram's on the bench turned up at dinner time and had to be asked to stay. Never had Tristram so blessed his boring but steady flow of conversation, nor so welcomed his presence, which effectually prevented Armand from pouring out his own hopes and fears.There was no one, however, to save Tristram from the Duke's really enthusiastic praises of Miss Grenville when he returned from the Rectory, and expatiated on the gifts of heart and mind and person which he discerned in her."I shall keep that young rascal on tenterhooks a little longer," he declared. "Another sleepless night will not do him any harm, if he has had as many as he asserts. Besides, it is not absolutely arranged. With your permission, Mr. Grenville will come over here to-morrow morning to discuss matters with me. I will send Armand out; no doubt, even in this misty weather, his flame will keep him warm."He kept his word, and next morning the Comte, refusing a horse, went soberly off on foot in the direction of the Downs. Mr. Grenville arrived; Tristram was unable, and did not indeed particularly desire, to make an opportunity of seeing him alone before he left him and the Duc to their discussion. The whole thing was getting dreamlike to him now, losing the outlines of its reality as the Downs had lost theirs with the death of summer. He would be glad when this whirl of conferences was over, the result—already certain—announced, and Armand de la Roche-Guyon no longer under his roof—not that he minded even his presence very much. How he should get on afterwards, from day to day, he did not know, but at present he seemed to himself a being without passions, energy, or desires—a mere leaf whirled on the engulfing stream of destiny, and the future was hardly worth speculating about.He walked in his little orchard, for it was a morning gilded with the mellow brilliance of October, and noted the fallen apples. After a while, turning, he saw the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, his son and the Rector all coming over the grass towards him, conversing with an amiability which could have only one meaning. And dream-enveloped though he felt himself, leaf on the tide of fate though he might be, for a second Tristram saw nothing at all, neither figures, nor grass, nor sky, nor the bricks of his house; he was conscious only of a surging wave of rebellion that blotted them all out. Then they reappeared, and Armand, coming forward with both hands outstretched, said, in a voice of radiant happiness:"Congratulate me, mon ami! And ah, how much I owe it to you!"Next evening it was observed in Oriel Common Room that Dormer was unusually quiet. He withdrew earlier even than his wont, and while Newman and Hurrell Froude, going up their staircase, were commenting on the absence of light from his windows on the other side of the quadrangle, he was sitting by the fire, Tristram's read and re-read letter on his knee, and the half-bitter postscript of it running in his head, "Henceforward your fanatical ideas will easily carry the day with me. I shall never marry now." What he had dreamed of had come to pass—and his heart within him was desolate with pity.CHAPTER XIV(1)Morning on the Downs, with the clean, the thrilling wind, intoxicating even in autumn, the air that gives the sensation of a draught of the barest and intensest life, the air of the world's morning. Add to this youth, a good horse beneath you, and by your side, never henceforth to leave it, that one person who to you sums up the spirit of all these other things. What can Heaven give more?So, flashingly, thought Horatia, as she and Armand finished their gallop, and her green veil, outstreaming from her tall hat, fell to a position a little more composed. Laughing, a trifle breathless, "O, I should like to ride like this for ever!" she exclaimed, as the horses fell to a walk. "It was glorious!"Armand de la Roche-Guyon, sitting his big brown mare with the ease of the born rider—a lover of whom any girl might be proud—bent on her a long and smiling look. "We shall often ride in Brittany," he said. "If the peasants know mythology—which I doubt—they will take you for Diane chasseresse."Moving on, they came to the edge of the Downs, the great wind still blowing steadily upon them."There is Compton Regis, and there is Compton Parva," observed Horatia, pointing with her whip. "Do they not seem low from here? And—do you see?—that looks like Papa and Robin, deserting us and making off home." For the Rector, having ridden with the affianced couple, for propriety's sake, as far as the Downs, had refused to come any further. The protestations which his action had drawn forth had been singularly lacking in fervour."I think," went on Horatia, "that before we have another gallop, you had better tighten my girth for me, if you will.... But what are you looking at, down there?""I was trying to distinguish the road on which you first came to me, like an angel of mercy," said the young man, swinging off. "And the spot where Mr. Hungerford's horse so inexplicably cast a shoe! By the way," he went on, pulling at the girth, "speaking of your cousin, ma toute belle, reminds me that I have long wanted to ask you——""My cousin!" broke in Horatia, laughing. "Whom do you mean?—That is tight enough, I think.""Mais ce bon Tristram. He is your kinsman ... or have you all been deceiving me?""Certainly he is my kinsman, but a very distant one. His mother was my mother's third cousin, or something of the sort. I never think of him as a cousin, exactly; rather as a brother.""Not in any other capacity?" inquired Armand, his eyes mocking her as he leant against her horse's neck. "I have no right to ask you, perhaps—si, I think I have the right." He laughed. "If he were never in love with you, he ought to have been."Horatia looked away from his amused, lazily penetrating glance. "To tell you the truth," she said, flushing a little, "he was once—years ago. But that is all over, and the proof is, that we have been very good friends ever since.""Ah, I wondered. I am glad he had the good taste to be a soupirant once. Were you very cruel to him? He is an original; but I am very grateful to him. Had he been a rival I should have found things much more difficult.""No, you would not," said Horatia suddenly. "He would have behaved just the same, when he found that I really loved you."The Comte lifted his expressive eyebrows. "Forgive me, my angel, but I am totally unable to follow you there. Men don't do those things nowadays; we are not in the pages of Scudéry. You have a soul of the most romantic, my Horatia, in spite of your Greek and Latin; but romance is not in harmony with facts. Your 'cousin' is a capital fellow, but if I believed him capable of that sort of thing, ma foi, I should be inclined to recommend him for a madhouse. As it is, shall we ask him to stay with us one day?""If you like," said Horatia, looking at her horse's ears. There was a vague trouble in her voice."IfIlike! But yes, that is perhaps what it comes to. I warn you, I shall be like a tiger for jealousy, and you will turn every man's head who sees you.... Par exemple, I am sure you must have had many more victims than you will acknowledge. Passe Mr. Hungerford, but what of that so dear friend of his at the college of Oriel?"Horatia looked absolutely horrified. "Mr. Dormer!""Eh bien, why not? You shrink, my angel, as if I had suggested a thing improper, as though he were a priest—one of our priests. But he is not, and you must have met sometimes, and he is bel homme too, for all that austere air of his. Why, now I come to think of it in Mr. Hungerford's very drawing-room——""I cannot conceive why he talked to me that evening," said Horatia. "I have often thought of it since.... But I will not be catechised about such absurdities. And suppose I were to insist on knowing how many fair ladies have been in love with you, Monsieur?""And pray, Mademoiselle, what would you think of me if I answered that question?" asked her betrothed, regaining his saddle. "Ask me how many I have admired, and some day—perhaps—I will tell you."They rode on, talking of the—to French eyes—daring honeymoon that they were to spend, alone, at the Breton château, which had come to Armand through his mother. For, since they were to be married in England, nobody could prevent their going straight to Brittany after the tying, by civil as well as by double religious rites, of the triple knot which should, as Armand said, make the most beautiful hand in the world so very securely his.(2)Horatia was to stay in London with her aunt for some weeks previous to her marriage. The day before her departure, Tristram rode over to say good-bye. She was out when he arrived, but he was told that she would return shortly, and he went, he did not quite know why, into the garden, where he had so often sat and walked with her, where they had had so many discussions, where—to go back into a life that now scarcely seemed his own—he had run shouting as a boy, glad to escape from his lessons.Nothing remained of the glory of the summer, not even the corpses of the hollyhocks and the great sunflowers. All had been tidily removed for burial. It would have been more consonant with the wintry misery in his heart that those flowers which had witnessed his happiness should have been there still, black and withered, like his hopes. But the past seemed to have been neatly obliterated, for the Rector's gardener was very sedulous; the whole place had cast off its last guest and was ready for a new—the winter. To welcome this a bush or two of Michaelmas daisies was in flower, and a robin was singing. And it came into Tristram's mind, a reminiscence of his year abroad, that in foreign countries they would be keeping the festival of the dead, for it was the second of November.The garden was intolerable to him, yet he stayed there, walking up and down in the chilly twilight, because he was afraid that if he went in he would find that she had returned, and the moment of farewell would be upon him. For though he had promised her that he would be at her wedding—her threefold wedding—in London, this was to him the real parting. The other could not hurt after this.At last he saw the comfortable form of Mrs. Martha Kemblet, Horatia's maid, coming towards him."Miss Horatia has just come in, Sir; she's in the drawing-room.""Thank you," said Tristram. "By the way, you are going to France with her, Mrs. Kemblet, are you not?""Indeed I am, Sir," responded the faithful retainer with emphasis. She had been nurserymaid in the days of Horatia's childhood, had returned to the Rectory on her husband's death, and had successfully compassed the airs of the old family nurse. "My lamb shall have someone English about her in the midst of them jabbering foreigners." Evidently Mrs. Kemblet was not a fervent of the French marriage.After all, their parting was unimaginably short. Perhaps he would not have had it otherwise.She was standing in the drawing-room, when he got in, turning up a newly-lit lamp."Oh, my dear Tristram," she said, in a tone too matter-of-fact to be natural. "I am afraid that you have been here a long time, waiting. I am so sorry.""I was in the garden," he answered. "I could well wait...""I shall see you in London?" asked Horatia needlessly, turning to the lamp again."Yes, without fail. But you will be so occupied then that I must tell you now what I want to say. It is only this ... I want you to remember that if ever, at any time, you need me to ... to do anything for you, I am always ... I shall always..." Firmly as he had begun, he could not finish."You do not need to say that to me, Tristram," came her voice, very soft and moved. She still had her back half turned to him; the lamplight glanced through her hair. "I know it ... I am not worthy of it.... You have been a friend more kind..." Then she too stopped, and put her hands over her face.Tristram stood like a stone. He could not trust himself to go nearer. Moreover, the dark room, with its island of light and her at the heart of it, was threatening to turn round. Seconds passed; then he said more steadily, "I should very much like a memento of you—something you have worn. Is there anything you could spare?"He saw her drop her hands to her throat and unfasten something—something which, still half turned away, she held out to him without a word. He went forward to take it, and, dropping on one knee, kissed the hand that gave it to him, the hand lost to him for ever.Then he found himself outside the room, and in his palm, warm from her throat, the little gold fibula, saucer-shaped and delicately worked, which she habitually wore. A thousand years ago it had clasped the cloak over the breast of a woman as beloved, perhaps, as she, but the heart that had once beat under it was not now more dust and ashes than his own.BOOK IIBOOK IIGARISH DAYCHAPTER I(1)A great deal of wind made its entry with Armand and Horatia, and two dry leaves, scurrying gleefully over the polished floor, hurled themselves into oblivion under a chest. Roland the deerhound paced, very dignified, across the hall, and let himself down in front of the fire with a sigh. But his master and mistress lingered at the door, and when the tails of old Jean's livery had disappeared, Armand took Horatia into his arms and kissed her three times without a word. Then, hand in hand, like lovers and like children, they also crossed the hall to the fire."How I love coming in!" whispered Horatia. "Everyday it is different. Yesterday it was not so dark, but the portraits looked rather forbidding. To-day they are more friendly. Are they getting more used to me, do you think?" Her eyes ran along the row of observers."They are getting more jealous of you, I am afraid," said the young man, devouring her face, all aglow from the wind. "Unfasten your furs—let me do it. Not one of them was ever as beautiful as you." His hands shook a little as he unclasped the pelerine of marten skins. "How could they help but be jealous?"The heavy furs slipped to the ground. "Am I beautiful?" asked Horatia, slim and straight and smiling. "I never used to be." She sat down in the great carved chair in front of the fire, and pulled off her gloves. "Tell me about them; tell me about her." She indicated the portrait over the hearth—the lady in flowing draperies, half reclining in a sylvan landscape, a Louis Quinze Diana, the goddess's crescent moon shining in her close-dressed powdered hair, and on her lips a narrow riddle of a smile that already haunted the newcomer."Another day," answered Armand, kneeling beside her. "She is not lucky, my great-great-grandmother. I think I will have her removed from here. Besides, there is only one thing that I can possibly tell you—that I love you, I love you ... and that none of them was ever loved so much!" And, prisoning her hands, he kissed her.Ancestors and ancestresses round the half-dusk hall looked on unruffled, having seen something like this not once nor twice in the centuries of their vigils, having most of them enacted it themselves—except that young man in wig and cuirass, faintly resembling Armand himself, who fell at Fontenoy before he could bring home his bride. But Roland was disturbed by something outside his comprehension, and getting up, he tried to thrust his nose between the two."O, Armand, he is licking me—he is eating me!" protested Horatia, who could not lift a hand to keep off the intruder. "Let me go, dearest; I must change my dress.""But I like you in your furs," answered Armand, raising his head. His dark blue eyes sparkled. "I thought when we were walking together just now that you should always wear them. They do something—I don't know what—to that incomparable hair of yours." He touched it. "Will you always wear your furs, to please me?""Silly boy!" retorted his wife. "And only two or three years ago there was such an outcry against the danger of wearing even cloth dresses instead of muslins indoors! What is more foolish than a man?""Nothing, indeed, but a woman," replied the Comte, gazing at her. "Well, I shall at least come and prescribe what you are to wear for me to-night.""For you, Monsieur!" exclaimed Horatia. "Learn that I dress entirely to please myself! Adieu. Bring my furs." And slipping cleverly from her chair she was round it before he could get from his knees. If she did not actually run full-paced up the great staircase, at any rate she flitted up it with little of the dignity of a new-made wife. Armand, snatching up the pelerine, overtook her three stairs at a time.
(2)
The Rector was sitting at his study table. "Well," he said, as the envoy entered. "What does she say? You have been my last hope of persuading her to see things sensibly."
Tristram crossed the room, and did not immediately answer. He had already professed himself convinced of Horatia's determination, but hope will lurk in such odd corners of the heart, that not till this moment did he know how the frail thing had really ceased to flutter in him.
"I am afraid," he said at last, "that I have been worse than useless, for I have promised to try to persuadeyou."
The Rector veered round in his chair to face him. "You,you, Tristram, support her! Then the world has gone crazy!" He took off his glasses and for a full half-minute gazed at the figure standing rather rigidly before him. "You really mean to tell me that, knowing Horatia as you do, you think I ought to take seriously this passing fancy?"
"I'm afraid I do, Sir," said Tristram steadily; "but, then, I cannot think it a passing fancy now that I have seen her and talked to her. Horatia does not have whims. If she changes, she changes whole-heartedly, and I confess I have never seen anyone so altered." His voice wavered for a moment. "She has put her whole happiness in Armand de la Roche-Guyon, and if you thwart her, you will be taking a very heavy responsibility."
"All the same," said the Rector stubbornly, "I shall take it. As you probably know, under French law my consent is a very important matter, and I shall certainly not give it. Allow my daughter to marry a foreigner, and a Papist—a Papist, Tristram, do you realise that?"
Tristram gave a little sigh. "I do, indeed, only too well. That is what clinched the matter for me. I mean I thought, of course, that it would be a serious obstacle to Horatia's mind, yet when I suggested it as a difficulty, she only said, 'But I love him, what else matters?' For Horatia, with her upbringing and her views that means a great deal. I confess I hardly understand it."
"Nor I," returned Mr. Grenville. "She has said the same to me, and even when I told her that her children would have to be brought up as Roman Catholics, she said that she did not like the idea, but she supposed that people always had to pay for happiness. He has bewitched her! But I shall save her from herself, Tristram. To throw herself away on the first wandering foreigner!"
"His father is a peer of France," said Tristram very quietly, "and Horatia will be a great lady. She is not throwing herself away in that sense."
The Rector gave an impatient exclamation, and brought his hands down violently on his knees. "To hear you talk, Tristram, anyone might suppose that you had something to gain from her marriage! 'Pon my soul, the young men of the present day are beyond me! A fortnight ago, in this very room, you were telling me about your own feelings for Horatia, and now here you are, as calm and cool as any lawyer, trying to argue me into letting her marry this organ-grinder! Really I find it hard to remember that not long ago you were a boy yourself, and a boy, too, whom I had hoped to call my son!"
It was the final turn of the screw. Tristram left him and went over to the window.
"I can't speak of that side of it," he said brokenly. "I have loved her distractedly ... I still love her ... but there is her happiness to think of, and if she ... if the Comte de la Roche-Guyon..." He could get no further, but laid his head against the cold glass.
"My dear boy, forgive me," exclaimed Mr. Grenville remorsefully. "I am so upset I don't know what I am saying. I'm a selfish old man, and you put me to shame ... you put me to shame...."
Sighing heavily, he turned round his chair to the table. He felt himself suddenly what he had often mendaciously declared himself to be, an old man. Perhaps it was wrong to struggle against the young—to play Providence overmuch. Yet this was Horatia's whole life at stake. Still, the man who stood silent there at the window, in what bitter pain he could guess, was able to see her go. He put out his hand, and took up the brass of Allectus, lying neglected among a disarray of papers, and, in the silence studied the galley on the reverse. At last he said miserably:
"What do you know about this young man?"
Tristram told him about the family, while the Rector turned the coin over and over.
"Yes, that's all right, I suppose, but what about the young man himself?"
"Frankly, I don't know any more than you do."
"But you have your suspicions, eh? Young Frenchmen don't bear a very good character, and you know that."
"Nor do all young Englishmen."
Mr. Grenville refused to be drawn off. "When you were in Paris, or wherever it was, Tristram, staying with his family, surely you must have heard something about him."
"No, not a rumour of the kind you mean."
"And yet," said the Rector, "you share my feelings about him. I know you do!"
"We have not either of us any right to have 'feelings' about him," retorted Tristram from the window. "We merely do not know. I would tell you if there had been anything. He may be a blackguard or he may be a hero. We don't know."
"Very well, then," said the Rector judicially, laying down the coin with precision. "I'll put it in another way. Do you consider him a fit husband for Horatia?"
Tristram started forward. "Mr. Grenville, don't drive me mad! You are putting me in a horrible position. Armand confides his interests to my hands; the first thing I do is to try to persuade Horatia not to marry him. Now you want to make me blacken his character ... I beg your pardon, Sir!"
The Rector was on his feet. "It is for me to beg yours. My dear, dear boy, do forgive me! I am behaving abominably; I am not only selfish but mean—but if I do seem to have been trying to get you to say things against a rival (as I suppose I have), remember I am also trying to save Horatia from this ... this calamitous marriage, and you from your own fantastic principles. It is all such a confusion, but I am really trying for your own happiness as well as hers ... You know, Tristram, I'm sure you could still have her if you tried, when she has forgotten him.... But do say that you forgive me!"
The young man took his outstretched hand. "As if I had anything to forgive, Sir!" Then he went back with him to the table and sat down beside him, and once again reiterated his conviction that Horatia would not forget her lover, that he himself had no chance now, probably never had, so that the case must be considered on its own merits, and that perhaps, after all, the two were made for each other—though here, indeed, the conviction sounded less sincere.
"Well," said the Rector, looking at him with affection as he finished, "however this turns out I am not likely to forget how you have behaved! And perhaps (but don't say so to Horatia) I may have to think about the possibility some day—but not yet ... no, not yet!"
CHAPTER XIII
(1)
The ostler of the Red Lion at Compton Regis and one of the stablemen, who happened at the time to be conversing outside that hostelry, were the only persons in the village privileged to behold a certain blue and yellow postchaise draw up in front of the inn at dusk on an evening in October. Scenting a guest of importance, and preparing to summon the landlord, the ostler was, however, stayed by a curt inquiry from the postilion—
"Be this the way to Little Compton?"
"Straight on, first road to the left," responded the ostler, advancing into one of the paths of radiance cut by the lamps in the damp autumn air. "You're no Oxford man or you'd not ask."
"Well, why should I be an Oxford man?" retorted the postilion. "I'm from Salisbury, if you want to know, and damme, if that ain't as good as Oxford——"
But here a head was thrust out of the far window of the chaise, and a voice with a trace of foreign accent—the voice of a young man—demanded what the devil they had stopped for, and, grumbling, the postilion shouted to the steaming horses. As the chaise rolled off the ostler caught sight of a much older face, lit by the travelling lamp within the carriage. He stared after the receding vehicle.
"'Ere, Bill," he called, "I've seen a Dook. Strike me, but it's 'im wot's going to stay with Mr. 'Ungerford down to Little Compton. 'Ear the posty say 'e come from Salisbury? That the Dook, sure enough, the old party. T'other'll be his son, the young spark wot was 'ere before."
"Dook! Wot's a furrin Dook?" queried the exclusive Bill, and spat on the ground.
(2)
These worthies were quite right in their surmises, and Mr. Hungerford down to Little Compton was at that moment awaiting, with what equanimity he might, the visit of his all but successful rival and of his father, to whom he had been forced to offer a hospitality which would probably ensure that rival's complete triumph. Nor was Tristram unaware of the ironical humour of the situation.
A week had scarcely passed since Armand's departure for Dorset—a week in which the transfigured Horatia had seemed to tread on air—when there came to her a letter from her lover saying that his father absolutely refused his consent to the match. Tristram did not like to think of the days that had followed, when Horatia went about the house dimmed and red-eyed—though she was generally invisible when he was at the Rectory—and when the Rector (so curiously are human beings compounded) raged alternately against Armand for his audacity and against the Duc de la Roche-Guyon for his prohibition. Nothing in fact could have done so much to forward the match, in so far as the Rector was concerned, as this obstacle: and at last, late one evening, Mr. Grenville came over to see Tristram quite broken, reiterating pitifully, "I am being driven to it. I can't have the child going into a decline," and ending up: "As for this Duke, it's preposterous! Who is he, I should like to know, to behave as if my Horatia were not good enough for his younger son? As you know, Tristram, I detest boasting of my connections, but if it comes to that——"
And since Mr. Grenville could indeed claim cousinship of varying degrees with the Most Noble Richard Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of Buckingham, and his brother Lord Nugent, with the Marquis of Chandos, and little Earl Temple, and old Lord Grenville, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, it was hardly surprising that he was annoyed.
Tristram could only suggest that the Duc might come round. "It seems so strange," complained Mr. Grenville, "that he should be so opposed to his son's wishes, when his son is not a minor—how old is he?—twenty-five or twenty-six, I suppose.... You don't think," he said suddenly, "that it's just a ruse on the young man's part to get out of marrying her—that he is repenting of it—that it was only a passing fancy onhispart? For if that should be so, Tristram, if he is capable of anything so vile, it will kill my girl." His voice shook with agitation. Gone for ever were the days when he would have hoped that such was the suitor's intention.
Tristram tried to reassure him, for he did not believe this to be the case. After the Rector, somewhat comforted, had gone, there was nothing left for him to do but to pray convulsively for Horatia's happiness.
And when, two days later, he got a letter from Armand, saying that as the King was moving to Holyrood in mid-October he had prevailed on his father to break the journey northward and come with him to Compton Regis, and that he, Armand, had hopes ... it was with real relief as well as with repugnance that Tristram did what Armand obviously hoped he would do, and invited his father and him to honour his roof during their sojourn. And if anything could have nerved him this evening to endure the position in which he had placed himself, it was the brief sight which he had of Horatia that day when he went over to tell the Rector that everything was arranged—of Horatia as she turned on him a sort of rainbow look of gratitude.
That was this morning. Now he was out in the dark and the damp to welcome his guests, exchanging suitable greetings with the elder and submitting to Armand's embrace.
"Ah, mon cher, how amiable of you to receive us thus! We have had a dog of a journey. Mon père, enter then, while I pay the postilion; you should not expose yourself thus to the damp."
"No, indeed," said Tristram. "If you will come in, M. le Duc..."
In the hall, the face of M. le Duc de la Roche-Guyon appeared above the high collar of his full cloak, old, pale, rather bleached-looking. He was beginning a stately little speech when his son appeared, full of solicitude and hurried him upstairs. And Armand in person reappeared alone before dinner in order to get a few words with his host. Tristram had been preparing himself for this. The young man professed profound gratitude, was sure that if his father once saw the lady of his choice, all would be well. He himself was more hopeful than he had been for weeks past.
"In fact," he went on, his eyes sparkling, "I believe the day is already won. My grandmother supports me—and that will turn the scale. My father has great respect for her wishes. Her letter arrived, praise the saints, just before we left Lulworth."
Tristram now remembered to have heard something of an autocratic old Dowager Duchess, the Duke's mother.
"She says—mais n'importe," went on the Comte. "Now, with your permission, and if my father does not appear too tired, I will leave you after dinner to yourselves."
"You are trusting me with a good deal, La Roche-Guyon," Tristram was moved to remark.
"Parbleu, are you not my friend!" retorted the Frenchman. "Besides, you are one of those people whom it is natural to trust."
Although the Duc, when he appeared, was very plainly, if immaculately attired, he somehow radiated from his person an air of courts and of diplomacy very foreign to Tristram's dining-room and its solid British furniture. He was grand seigneur to his finger-tips, polished, melancholy, affable, and perfectly simple in his address; but it required no effort to imagine the absent cordon bleu and stars on his breast. Armand behaved towards him with a mingled air of deference and affection which, while it amused Tristram—so far as he was capable of being amused by anything—did not displease him, for it appeared genuine and habitual. Apparently the young man considered the paternal health equal to a discussion, for after one glass of port he very unembarrassedly excused himself, and left the others still seated with their wineglasses at the polished mahogany.
The Duc looked after him with a little smile of amusement and affection flitting across his delicate bloodless lips.
"That is the signal for us to begin our 'conversations,' Monsieur. You have plenipotentiary powers, I think?"
"I—not in the least!" said Tristram, somewhat alarmed. "I have no—no official position at all in the matter. It will be between yourself, M. le Duc, and the lady's father. Anything that I can arrange, in the way of a meeting between you, I shall be happy to do, and any information I have is at your service. Beyond that I cannot go."
The older man bowed. "You are a kinsman, I think, Monsieur?"
"Distant," said Tristram. "I rather count myself an old friend."
"Of M. Grenville or of Mademoiselle?"
"Of both."
"And—pardon me if I ask an impertinent question, but we must know where we stand—as a kinsman and as an old friend, you have yourself no objection to this alliance?"
"I am solely desirous of Miss Grenville's happiness," responded Tristram, his eyes on the foot of his wineglass.
"And you think that the match with my son will ensure it?"
"How can I possibly say? But I hope that it may take place."
"Merci, Monsieur, for your courtesy," said the Duc, very courteously himself. "Now I in my turn must make my position clear to you. I had other views for my son—in fact I thought he ... had other views for himself. I am, however, convinced that he is passionately in love with this lady, whom I doubt not I shall find to be all and more than all that he represents. But you know, Monsieur, that we French people do not look with favour upon marriages of love. We prefer that love should come after marriage. We find it better so. Then there is the difference of race. To these young people that seems nothing now, but it tells, Monsieur, it tells more and more through life. This objection naturally applies on your side also; not so the former, for you are more sentimental than we are." He was arranging two little groups of almonds with fingers as blanched as they.
"I seem to remember," commented Tristram, "that the Comte de Flahault, coming over to England, fell in love with an English lady and married her, and that they are living happily in Paris at this very moment."
"Quite true," said the Duc, with the air of one acknowledging a point, and he added another almond to the smaller pile. "But I cannot wholly allow the parallel. M. de Flahault was an Imperialist—an aide-de-camp of Napoleon in fact; he is now an Orleanist, and the lady, she was titrée, noble in her own right, I believe, the Baroness Keats, or Keat, il me semble."
"Keith," said Tristram. "But surely I do not need to remind M. le Duc, who has, I understand, lived much in England, that many of the members of our best families bear no titles, that with us the grandson of an earl, not being the heir, is plain Mr. So-and-so, and that some of the oldest families have never had titles at all—have, indeed, refused them."
"That I know," conceded M. de la Roche-Guyon. "But it is not generally understood in France."
Tristram pushed away his wineglass. "You must not suspect me of flattery, Sir, if I say that I should have thought your own ancient and illustrious name capable of covering any disparity in station between the parties, did such exist. But I should wish to remind you that Mr. Grenville is by no means the ordinary country parson that you have perhaps imagined. He is himself the younger son of a noble family; he has connections among the highest of our English nobility, and he is no pauper. I can sketch you his family tree if you wish.... As for the lady herself, she would grace the most exalted rank, and, as a kinsman and an old friend, I think I have the right to say that the man who wins her is to be congratulated indeed."
The Duc lifted his eyes from the almonds and shot him a keen, rather disconcerting glance. "Ah, yes. You, Monsieur, the accredited ambassador, have espoused the match with warmth. How is it that M. Grenville then refused, in no uncertain terms, to entertain the thought of it; indeed, so far as I could gather, forbade my son the house?"
For a second Tristram was taken aback by this pertinent inquiry, for he had really forgotten the Rector's one time vehement opposition.
"I think," he said, "that you will find Mr. Grenville ... in short, that that difficulty does not now exist."
The Duc leant back in his chair. "Will you permit me, Monsieur, to say (since I am a man so much older than you) that there is something in you, I know not what, which pleases me very much. I will be franker with you than I had meant to be. My mother, the Dowager Duchess, to whose judgment I pay great deference, is in favour of this match. I have learnt the fact but this morning. I own that I am surprised, but Armand is her favourite grandson. There are reasons, with which I need not trouble you, why her wishes should have great weight with me. I am, therefore, little likely when I see this lady, by all accounts so charming, to find her unsuitable. But what of M. son père? It will not consort very well with my dignity (to which you must permit me to hold) if I approve my son's choice only to find that M. Grenville does not approve his daughter's."
And in the gaze which he directed upon Tristram, in the tones of his thin, well-bred voice, there peeped out something of the arrogance of an ancient race.
The younger man smiled. He felt suddenly very weary.
"You need not apprehend anything on that score, I can assure you, Sir. I saw Mr. Grenville this morning. When your son first asked for his daughter's hand he was startled, greatly startled, and surprised. He probably spoke words which he would have recalled afterwards. You will find him, I think, more than reconciled to the idea."
The Duke seemed to have fallen into a short reverie.
"It is well to be young," he said at last, and there was faint regret in his tone. "The fire of youth—who shall give us that again? When I married my first wife, Emmanuel's mother, I was only twenty—but that was a mariage de convenance. Armand's mother was very beautiful; I loved her as Armand loves this lady, but he has the advantage of me ... he has the advantage of me ... for then I was no longer young." He sighed, and passed his handkerchief over his lips, and his face, deeply marked, seemed to wither and grow older than its sixty-five years. "But why am I talking thus to you, Monsieur, who still have that inestimable gift of youth? Mais tout passe, tout lasse ... I will do myself the honour of calling upon Mr. Grenville to-morrow morning at eleven, if you think that hour will be convenient to him."
And he flicked with one long, polished nail at the two heaps of almonds, scattering them.
(3)
Not being present next morning at the momentous interview between the Duc and Mr. Grenville, Tristram could only guess at what happened. Armand, on fire with restlessness, spent the time walking round and round the not very extensive garden like a caged animal, and when Tristram went out to say that his father had returned and would like to see him in the study, he found the young man slashing with a stick at his rose trees.
"Oh, pardon if I have hurt them!" he exclaimed. "Mon Dieu, que je suis énervé! Yes, I will go at once. I had better have borrowed one of your horses and gone for a gallop.—He is in the study, you say, this good father of mine?"
The irony of Tristram's own position oppressed him the more in proportion as his anxiety about Armand's intentions was relieved. Neither the Duc nor his son said much when they emerged from their conference, only the elder man informed his host that he was to dine alone at the Rectory that evening, and that he hoped then to make the acquaintance of Miss Grenville. As good luck so ordered, a colleague of Tristram's on the bench turned up at dinner time and had to be asked to stay. Never had Tristram so blessed his boring but steady flow of conversation, nor so welcomed his presence, which effectually prevented Armand from pouring out his own hopes and fears.
There was no one, however, to save Tristram from the Duke's really enthusiastic praises of Miss Grenville when he returned from the Rectory, and expatiated on the gifts of heart and mind and person which he discerned in her.
"I shall keep that young rascal on tenterhooks a little longer," he declared. "Another sleepless night will not do him any harm, if he has had as many as he asserts. Besides, it is not absolutely arranged. With your permission, Mr. Grenville will come over here to-morrow morning to discuss matters with me. I will send Armand out; no doubt, even in this misty weather, his flame will keep him warm."
He kept his word, and next morning the Comte, refusing a horse, went soberly off on foot in the direction of the Downs. Mr. Grenville arrived; Tristram was unable, and did not indeed particularly desire, to make an opportunity of seeing him alone before he left him and the Duc to their discussion. The whole thing was getting dreamlike to him now, losing the outlines of its reality as the Downs had lost theirs with the death of summer. He would be glad when this whirl of conferences was over, the result—already certain—announced, and Armand de la Roche-Guyon no longer under his roof—not that he minded even his presence very much. How he should get on afterwards, from day to day, he did not know, but at present he seemed to himself a being without passions, energy, or desires—a mere leaf whirled on the engulfing stream of destiny, and the future was hardly worth speculating about.
He walked in his little orchard, for it was a morning gilded with the mellow brilliance of October, and noted the fallen apples. After a while, turning, he saw the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, his son and the Rector all coming over the grass towards him, conversing with an amiability which could have only one meaning. And dream-enveloped though he felt himself, leaf on the tide of fate though he might be, for a second Tristram saw nothing at all, neither figures, nor grass, nor sky, nor the bricks of his house; he was conscious only of a surging wave of rebellion that blotted them all out. Then they reappeared, and Armand, coming forward with both hands outstretched, said, in a voice of radiant happiness:
"Congratulate me, mon ami! And ah, how much I owe it to you!"
Next evening it was observed in Oriel Common Room that Dormer was unusually quiet. He withdrew earlier even than his wont, and while Newman and Hurrell Froude, going up their staircase, were commenting on the absence of light from his windows on the other side of the quadrangle, he was sitting by the fire, Tristram's read and re-read letter on his knee, and the half-bitter postscript of it running in his head, "Henceforward your fanatical ideas will easily carry the day with me. I shall never marry now." What he had dreamed of had come to pass—and his heart within him was desolate with pity.
CHAPTER XIV
(1)
Morning on the Downs, with the clean, the thrilling wind, intoxicating even in autumn, the air that gives the sensation of a draught of the barest and intensest life, the air of the world's morning. Add to this youth, a good horse beneath you, and by your side, never henceforth to leave it, that one person who to you sums up the spirit of all these other things. What can Heaven give more?
So, flashingly, thought Horatia, as she and Armand finished their gallop, and her green veil, outstreaming from her tall hat, fell to a position a little more composed. Laughing, a trifle breathless, "O, I should like to ride like this for ever!" she exclaimed, as the horses fell to a walk. "It was glorious!"
Armand de la Roche-Guyon, sitting his big brown mare with the ease of the born rider—a lover of whom any girl might be proud—bent on her a long and smiling look. "We shall often ride in Brittany," he said. "If the peasants know mythology—which I doubt—they will take you for Diane chasseresse."
Moving on, they came to the edge of the Downs, the great wind still blowing steadily upon them.
"There is Compton Regis, and there is Compton Parva," observed Horatia, pointing with her whip. "Do they not seem low from here? And—do you see?—that looks like Papa and Robin, deserting us and making off home." For the Rector, having ridden with the affianced couple, for propriety's sake, as far as the Downs, had refused to come any further. The protestations which his action had drawn forth had been singularly lacking in fervour.
"I think," went on Horatia, "that before we have another gallop, you had better tighten my girth for me, if you will.... But what are you looking at, down there?"
"I was trying to distinguish the road on which you first came to me, like an angel of mercy," said the young man, swinging off. "And the spot where Mr. Hungerford's horse so inexplicably cast a shoe! By the way," he went on, pulling at the girth, "speaking of your cousin, ma toute belle, reminds me that I have long wanted to ask you——"
"My cousin!" broke in Horatia, laughing. "Whom do you mean?—That is tight enough, I think."
"Mais ce bon Tristram. He is your kinsman ... or have you all been deceiving me?"
"Certainly he is my kinsman, but a very distant one. His mother was my mother's third cousin, or something of the sort. I never think of him as a cousin, exactly; rather as a brother."
"Not in any other capacity?" inquired Armand, his eyes mocking her as he leant against her horse's neck. "I have no right to ask you, perhaps—si, I think I have the right." He laughed. "If he were never in love with you, he ought to have been."
Horatia looked away from his amused, lazily penetrating glance. "To tell you the truth," she said, flushing a little, "he was once—years ago. But that is all over, and the proof is, that we have been very good friends ever since."
"Ah, I wondered. I am glad he had the good taste to be a soupirant once. Were you very cruel to him? He is an original; but I am very grateful to him. Had he been a rival I should have found things much more difficult."
"No, you would not," said Horatia suddenly. "He would have behaved just the same, when he found that I really loved you."
The Comte lifted his expressive eyebrows. "Forgive me, my angel, but I am totally unable to follow you there. Men don't do those things nowadays; we are not in the pages of Scudéry. You have a soul of the most romantic, my Horatia, in spite of your Greek and Latin; but romance is not in harmony with facts. Your 'cousin' is a capital fellow, but if I believed him capable of that sort of thing, ma foi, I should be inclined to recommend him for a madhouse. As it is, shall we ask him to stay with us one day?"
"If you like," said Horatia, looking at her horse's ears. There was a vague trouble in her voice.
"IfIlike! But yes, that is perhaps what it comes to. I warn you, I shall be like a tiger for jealousy, and you will turn every man's head who sees you.... Par exemple, I am sure you must have had many more victims than you will acknowledge. Passe Mr. Hungerford, but what of that so dear friend of his at the college of Oriel?"
Horatia looked absolutely horrified. "Mr. Dormer!"
"Eh bien, why not? You shrink, my angel, as if I had suggested a thing improper, as though he were a priest—one of our priests. But he is not, and you must have met sometimes, and he is bel homme too, for all that austere air of his. Why, now I come to think of it in Mr. Hungerford's very drawing-room——"
"I cannot conceive why he talked to me that evening," said Horatia. "I have often thought of it since.... But I will not be catechised about such absurdities. And suppose I were to insist on knowing how many fair ladies have been in love with you, Monsieur?"
"And pray, Mademoiselle, what would you think of me if I answered that question?" asked her betrothed, regaining his saddle. "Ask me how many I have admired, and some day—perhaps—I will tell you."
They rode on, talking of the—to French eyes—daring honeymoon that they were to spend, alone, at the Breton château, which had come to Armand through his mother. For, since they were to be married in England, nobody could prevent their going straight to Brittany after the tying, by civil as well as by double religious rites, of the triple knot which should, as Armand said, make the most beautiful hand in the world so very securely his.
(2)
Horatia was to stay in London with her aunt for some weeks previous to her marriage. The day before her departure, Tristram rode over to say good-bye. She was out when he arrived, but he was told that she would return shortly, and he went, he did not quite know why, into the garden, where he had so often sat and walked with her, where they had had so many discussions, where—to go back into a life that now scarcely seemed his own—he had run shouting as a boy, glad to escape from his lessons.
Nothing remained of the glory of the summer, not even the corpses of the hollyhocks and the great sunflowers. All had been tidily removed for burial. It would have been more consonant with the wintry misery in his heart that those flowers which had witnessed his happiness should have been there still, black and withered, like his hopes. But the past seemed to have been neatly obliterated, for the Rector's gardener was very sedulous; the whole place had cast off its last guest and was ready for a new—the winter. To welcome this a bush or two of Michaelmas daisies was in flower, and a robin was singing. And it came into Tristram's mind, a reminiscence of his year abroad, that in foreign countries they would be keeping the festival of the dead, for it was the second of November.
The garden was intolerable to him, yet he stayed there, walking up and down in the chilly twilight, because he was afraid that if he went in he would find that she had returned, and the moment of farewell would be upon him. For though he had promised her that he would be at her wedding—her threefold wedding—in London, this was to him the real parting. The other could not hurt after this.
At last he saw the comfortable form of Mrs. Martha Kemblet, Horatia's maid, coming towards him.
"Miss Horatia has just come in, Sir; she's in the drawing-room."
"Thank you," said Tristram. "By the way, you are going to France with her, Mrs. Kemblet, are you not?"
"Indeed I am, Sir," responded the faithful retainer with emphasis. She had been nurserymaid in the days of Horatia's childhood, had returned to the Rectory on her husband's death, and had successfully compassed the airs of the old family nurse. "My lamb shall have someone English about her in the midst of them jabbering foreigners." Evidently Mrs. Kemblet was not a fervent of the French marriage.
After all, their parting was unimaginably short. Perhaps he would not have had it otherwise.
She was standing in the drawing-room, when he got in, turning up a newly-lit lamp.
"Oh, my dear Tristram," she said, in a tone too matter-of-fact to be natural. "I am afraid that you have been here a long time, waiting. I am so sorry."
"I was in the garden," he answered. "I could well wait..."
"I shall see you in London?" asked Horatia needlessly, turning to the lamp again.
"Yes, without fail. But you will be so occupied then that I must tell you now what I want to say. It is only this ... I want you to remember that if ever, at any time, you need me to ... to do anything for you, I am always ... I shall always..." Firmly as he had begun, he could not finish.
"You do not need to say that to me, Tristram," came her voice, very soft and moved. She still had her back half turned to him; the lamplight glanced through her hair. "I know it ... I am not worthy of it.... You have been a friend more kind..." Then she too stopped, and put her hands over her face.
Tristram stood like a stone. He could not trust himself to go nearer. Moreover, the dark room, with its island of light and her at the heart of it, was threatening to turn round. Seconds passed; then he said more steadily, "I should very much like a memento of you—something you have worn. Is there anything you could spare?"
He saw her drop her hands to her throat and unfasten something—something which, still half turned away, she held out to him without a word. He went forward to take it, and, dropping on one knee, kissed the hand that gave it to him, the hand lost to him for ever.
Then he found himself outside the room, and in his palm, warm from her throat, the little gold fibula, saucer-shaped and delicately worked, which she habitually wore. A thousand years ago it had clasped the cloak over the breast of a woman as beloved, perhaps, as she, but the heart that had once beat under it was not now more dust and ashes than his own.
BOOK II
BOOK II
GARISH DAY
CHAPTER I
(1)
A great deal of wind made its entry with Armand and Horatia, and two dry leaves, scurrying gleefully over the polished floor, hurled themselves into oblivion under a chest. Roland the deerhound paced, very dignified, across the hall, and let himself down in front of the fire with a sigh. But his master and mistress lingered at the door, and when the tails of old Jean's livery had disappeared, Armand took Horatia into his arms and kissed her three times without a word. Then, hand in hand, like lovers and like children, they also crossed the hall to the fire.
"How I love coming in!" whispered Horatia. "Everyday it is different. Yesterday it was not so dark, but the portraits looked rather forbidding. To-day they are more friendly. Are they getting more used to me, do you think?" Her eyes ran along the row of observers.
"They are getting more jealous of you, I am afraid," said the young man, devouring her face, all aglow from the wind. "Unfasten your furs—let me do it. Not one of them was ever as beautiful as you." His hands shook a little as he unclasped the pelerine of marten skins. "How could they help but be jealous?"
The heavy furs slipped to the ground. "Am I beautiful?" asked Horatia, slim and straight and smiling. "I never used to be." She sat down in the great carved chair in front of the fire, and pulled off her gloves. "Tell me about them; tell me about her." She indicated the portrait over the hearth—the lady in flowing draperies, half reclining in a sylvan landscape, a Louis Quinze Diana, the goddess's crescent moon shining in her close-dressed powdered hair, and on her lips a narrow riddle of a smile that already haunted the newcomer.
"Another day," answered Armand, kneeling beside her. "She is not lucky, my great-great-grandmother. I think I will have her removed from here. Besides, there is only one thing that I can possibly tell you—that I love you, I love you ... and that none of them was ever loved so much!" And, prisoning her hands, he kissed her.
Ancestors and ancestresses round the half-dusk hall looked on unruffled, having seen something like this not once nor twice in the centuries of their vigils, having most of them enacted it themselves—except that young man in wig and cuirass, faintly resembling Armand himself, who fell at Fontenoy before he could bring home his bride. But Roland was disturbed by something outside his comprehension, and getting up, he tried to thrust his nose between the two.
"O, Armand, he is licking me—he is eating me!" protested Horatia, who could not lift a hand to keep off the intruder. "Let me go, dearest; I must change my dress."
"But I like you in your furs," answered Armand, raising his head. His dark blue eyes sparkled. "I thought when we were walking together just now that you should always wear them. They do something—I don't know what—to that incomparable hair of yours." He touched it. "Will you always wear your furs, to please me?"
"Silly boy!" retorted his wife. "And only two or three years ago there was such an outcry against the danger of wearing even cloth dresses instead of muslins indoors! What is more foolish than a man?"
"Nothing, indeed, but a woman," replied the Comte, gazing at her. "Well, I shall at least come and prescribe what you are to wear for me to-night."
"For you, Monsieur!" exclaimed Horatia. "Learn that I dress entirely to please myself! Adieu. Bring my furs." And slipping cleverly from her chair she was round it before he could get from his knees. If she did not actually run full-paced up the great staircase, at any rate she flitted up it with little of the dignity of a new-made wife. Armand, snatching up the pelerine, overtook her three stairs at a time.