PART IVSTARVECROW
§ 1
“Father,” said Stella Mount—“I’m afraid I must go away again.”
“Go away, child? Why?”
“I—I can’t fall out of love with Peter.”
“But I thought you’d fallen out of love with him long ago.”
“Yes—I thought so too. But I can’t have done it really, or if I did I must have fallen in again. I’m frightfully sorry about it ... leaving you a second time, just because I’m not strong-minded enough to.... But it’s no use.... I can’t help....”
“Don’t worry, dear. If you’re unhappy you shall certainly go away. But tell me what’s happened. How long have you been feeling like this?”
“Ever since I knew Peter still cared.”
“Peter!—he hasn’t said anything to you, has he?”
“Oh, no—not a word. But I could see—I could see he was jealous of Gervase.”
“How could he possibly be jealous of Gervase?”
“He was. I met him one day in Icklesham street, and he congratulated me ... he said someone had told him Gervase and I were engaged....”
“The idea!—a boy six years younger than yourself!”
“Yes, I know. I never took him seriously—that was my mistake. Peter was ever so worked up about it, and when I told him it wasn’t true he seemed tremendously relieved. And every time I’ve met him since his manner’s been different.I can’t describe it, but he’s been sort of shy and hungry—or else restless and a bit irritable; and for a long time I could see he was still jealous—and it worried me; I felt I couldn’t bear doing anything Peter didn’t like, and I was wild at people talking, and upsetting him, so I pushed off poor Gervase and became cold and unfriendly.”
“Is that why he’s given up coming here on Sundays?”
“No—not exactly. We had rather a scene when he last came, just before his holiday, and he said he wouldn’t come back. You see he cares, Father—he cares dreadfully. I’m ever so sick with myself for not having realised it. I was so wrapped up in Peter.... I thought it was only a rave, like what the Fawcett boy had—but now I’m sure he really cares, and it must be terrible for him. That’s why I want to go away, for I’ll never be able to care for anyone else while I feel for Peter as I do.”
“But, my dear, it’s just as well you shouldn’t fall in love with Gervase. He’s a nice boy, but he’s much too young.”
“Yes, I know—it isn’t that. It’s being sure that however much he was the right age I couldn’t have cared—not because of anything lacking in him—but because of what’s lacking in me ... because of all that I’ve given to Peter, and that Peter can’t take.... Oh, Father, I’ve made some discoveries since Gervase went. I believe I refused Tom Barlow because of Peter. The reason I’m single now is because for years I’ve been in love with a man I can’t have. And that’s wrong—I know it’s wrong. It sounds ‘romantic’ and ‘faithful’ and all that—but it isn’t really—it’s wrong. Not because Peter’s a married man, but because I’m an unmarried woman. He’s keeping me unmarried, and I ought to get married—I don’t like Spinsters—and I know I was meant to be married.”
“So do I; and I’m sure that one day you will be.”
“But I can’t fall in love with anyone while I love Peter ... that’s why I must go away. I ought to go somewhere really far, out of the country perhaps. I feel dreadful leaving you, daddy, but I know I must go. It’s even more necessary than it was the first time. And there’s no good saying I couldhelp Peter if I stayed—I don’t help him—I can see that I only make him unhappy; I’m not cold enough to be able to help him. A calm strong dignified woman might be able to help him, but I’m not that sort. I want his love, his kisses, his arms round me.... I want to give.... O Father, Father....”
She sobbed breathlessly, her face hidden in the back of her chair. Dr. Mount stood beside her in silence; then he touched her gently and said—
“Don’t cry like that my dear—don’t—I can’t bear it. You shall go away—we’ll both go away. I’ve been in this place twenty years, and it’s time I moved on.”
“But you don’t want to go, and you mustn’t. You’re happy here, and I’d never forgive myself if you left because of me.”
“I’d like to see a bit more of the world before I retire. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought of a move, and if you want to go away, that settles it. I might get a colonial practice....”
Stella thought of some far away country with flat roofs and dust and a devouring sun, she thought of hundreds of miles of forest and desert and ocean lying between her and Peter, and her tears were suddenly dried up as with the hot breath of that far land. Dry sobs tore her throat, as she clutched the back of the chair. She pushed her father away—
“Go, dear—don’t stay—when I’m like this.”
He understood her well enough to go.
For a few seconds she sobbed on, then checked herself, and perfunctorily wiped her eyes. The four o’clock sun of early November was pouring into the room, showing all its dear faded homeliness, giving life to the memories that filled it. Long ago Peter had sat in that chair—she had sat on the arm ... she seemed to feel his warm hand on her cheek as he held her head down to his shoulder. O Peter, Peter—why had he left her when he loved her so?... Oh, yes, she knew he had treated her badly, and had only himself to blame. But that didn’t make her love him less. She felt now that she had been in love with him the whole time—all along—allthrough and since their parting. All the time that she thought she was indifferent, and was happy in her busy life—driving the car, seeing her friends, talking and writing to Gervase, cooking and sewing and going to church, wearing pretty frocks at the winter dances and summer garden-parties—all that time her love for Peter was still alive, growing and feeding itself with her life. It had not died and been buried as she had thought but had entered a second time into its mother’s womb to be born. She had carried it secretly, as a mother carries her child in her womb, nourishing it with her life, and now it was born—born again—with all the strength of the twice-born.
It would be difficult to say how the rumour got abroad in Vinehall and Leasan that the Mounts were going away. It may have been servants’ gossip, or the talk of some doctor come down to view the practice. But, whatever the source, the story was in both villages at the end of the month, and in the first week of December Rose Alard brought it to Starvecrow.
She had come to have tea with Vera, and Peter was there too. Vera was within three months of the heir, and displayed her condition with all the opulence of her race. Not even her purple velvet tea-gown could hide lines reminiscent of Sarah’s and Hannah’s exulting motherhood. Her very features seemed to have a more definitely Jewish cast—she was now no longer just a dark beauty, but a Hebrew beauty, heir of Rebecca and Rachel and Miriam and Jael. As Jenny had once said, one expected her to burst into a song about horses and chariots. She had for the time lost those intellectual and artistic interests which distinguished her from the other Alards. She no longer seemed to care about her book, for which she had so far been unable to find a publisher, but let it lie forgotten in a drawer, while she worked at baby clothes. Nevertheless she was inclined to be irritable and snap at Peter, and Peter himselfseemed sullen and without patience. Rose watched him narrowly—“He’s afraid it’s going to be a girl.”
Aloud she said—
“Have you heard that the Mounts are leaving Vinehall?”
Her news caused all the commotion she could have wished.
“The Mounts leaving!”—“When?”—“Why?”—“Both of them?”
“Yes, both. I heard it at the Hursts; they seemed quite positive about it, and you know they’re patients.”
“But where are they going?” asked Vera.
“That I don’t know—yet. The Hursts said something about a colonial appointment.”
“I’m surprised, I must say. Dr. Mount’s getting old, and you’d think he’d want to stay on here till he retired—not start afresh in a new place at his age.”
“If you ask me, it’s Miss Stella’s doing. She’s lived here nearly all her life and hasn’t got a husband, so she thinks she’ll go and try somewhere else before it’s too late.”
“Then they’d certainly better go to the Colonies—there are no men left in England. But I’m sorry for Dr. Mount.”
“I suppose you know it’s all over between her and Gervase?”
“Oh, is it—at last?”
“Yes—he hasn’t been there since his holiday in September. He has his dinner on Sundays either at the Church Farm or alone with Mr. Luce.”
“Rose, how do you find out all these things?”
“The Wades told me this. They say she’s been looking awful.”
“Peter!” cried Vera irritably, as a small occasional table went to the ground.
“No harm done,” he mumbled, picking it up.
“But you’re so clumsy. You’re always knocking things over....” She checked herself suddenly, pleating angry folds in her gown.
Peter got up and went out.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” said Rose—“it’s much easier to talkwithout a man in the room. I really do feel sorry for Stella—losing her last chance of becoming Lady Alard.”
“You think it’s Gervase who’s cooled off, not she who’s turned him down?”
“Oh, she’d never do that. She’s much too keen on getting married.”
“Well, so I thought once. But I’m not so sure now. I used to think she was in love with Gervase, but now I believe she only kept him on as a blind.”
“To cover what?”
“Peter.”
“You mean....”
“That they’ve been in love with each other the whole time.”
“Vera!”
Excitement at the disclosure was mingled in Rose’s voice with disappointment that she had not been the one to make it.
“Yes,” continued her sister-in-law in a struggling voice—“they’ve always been in love—ever since he married me—ever since he gave her up. They’ve never been out of it—I know it now.”
“But I always thought it was all on her side.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t. Peter was infatuated with her, for some strange reason—she doesn’t seem to me at all the sort of girl a man of his type would take to. Being simple himself, you’d think he’d like something more sophisticated.”
“But Stella is sophisticated—she’s artful. Look how she got Gervase to change his religion, and break his poor brother’s heart. I often think that it was Gervase’s religion which killed poor George, and Stella was responsible for that. She may have pretended to be in love with him just to get him over. You see she can be forgiven anything she does by just going to confession.”
“Well, she needs forgiveness now if she never did before. So it’s just as well she knows where to get it.”
“But, Vera, do you really think there’s anything—I mean anything wicked between them?”
“I don’t know what you call wicked, Rose, if keeping a man’s affections away from his wife who’s soon going to have her first child ... if that isn’t enough for you.... No, I don’t suppose he’s actually slept with her”—Vera liked shocking Rose—“She hasn’t got the passion or the spunk to go so far. But it’s bad enough to know Peter’s heart isn’t mine just when I need him most—to know he only married me just to put the estate on its legs, and now is bitterly regretting it”—and Vera began to cry.
“But how do you know he’s regretting it? He doesn’t go about with Stella, I can tell you that. I’d be sure to have heard if he did.”
“No, I daresay he doesn’t go about with her. I shouldn’t mind if he did, if only his manner was the same to me. But it isn’t—every time we’re together I can see he doesn’t love me any more. He may have for a bit—he did, I know—but Stella got him back, and now every time he looks at me I can see he’s regretting he ever married me. And if the baby’s a girl ... my only justification now is that I may be the mother of an heir ... if the baby’s a girl, I hope I’ll die. Oh, I tell you, Stella may be Lady Alard yet.”
She threw herself back among the cushions and sobbed unrestrainedly. Rose felt a thrill. She had always looked upon Vera as a superior being, remote from the commonplaces of existence in Leasan; and here she was behaving like any other jealous woman.
“Oh, I wish I’d never married,” sobbed Vera—“at least not this sort of marriage. My life’s dull—my husband’s dull—my only interests are bearing his children and watching his affair with another woman. I’m sick of the County families—they’ve got no brains, they’ve got no guts—I’d much better have married among my own people. They at least are alive.”
Rose was shocked. However, she valiantly suppressed her feelings, and patted the big olive shoulder which had shrugged abandonedly out of the purple wrappings.
“Don’t worry, dear,” she soothed—“you’re upset. I’m surePeter’s all right. It’s often rather trying for men in times like these ...” she heaved on the edge of an indelicate remark ... “so they notice other women more. But I’m quite sure there’s nothing really wrong between him and Stella; because if there was,” she added triumphantly, “Stella wouldn’t be going away.”
“Oh, wouldn’t she!”
“No, of course not. I expect she’s going only because she knows now definitely that she’ll never get Peter back.”
“Nonsense.”
“It isn’t nonsense, dear. Don’t be so cross.”
“I’m sorry, Rose, but I’m ... anyhow Dr. Mount can’t go before I’m through, and that’s three months ahead. I’ve half a mind not to have him now. I feel sick of the whole family.”
“That would be very silly of you, Vera. Dr. Mount’s the best doctor round here for miles, and it would only be spiting yourself not to have him. After all he’s not responsible for Stella’s behaviour.”
“No, I suppose not. Oh, I daresay I’m an ass, going on like this.”
She sat up, looking more like the author of “Modern Rhymes.” Rose, who had always been a little afraid of her, now had the privileged thrill of those who behold the great in their cheaper moments.
“You’ll be all right, dear,” she said meaningly “in three months’ time.”
“All right, or utterly done in. O God, why can’t someone find out a way of deciding the sex of children? I’d give all I possess and a bit over to be sure this is going to be a boy. Not that I want a boy myself—I like girls much better—but I don’t want to see Peter go off his head or off with Stella Mount.”
“I don’t believe she’s got a single chance against you once you’re yourself again. Even now I could bet anything that it’s all on her side.”
“She’s got no chance against me as a woman, but as an Ancient Habit she can probably do a lot with a man like Peter. But I’m not going to worry about her any more—I’ve given way and made an utter fool of myself, and it’s done me good, as it always does. Rose, you promise not to say a word of this to anyone.”
“Of course I won’t. But I might try to get at the facts....”
“For God’s sake don’t. You’ll only make a mess.”
As she revived she was recovering some old contempt for her sister-in-law.
The post arrived just as Stella was setting out with the car one day early the next month to meet her father in Ashford. He had been in Canterbury for a couple of days, attending a dinner and some meetings of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and this afternoon she was to meet him at Ashford Station and drive him home. She was in plenty of time, so when she saw Gervase’s writing on the envelope handed to her, she went back into the house and opened it.
It was now three months since she had spoken to Gervase or heard anything directly from him. He still came over to Vinehall on Sundays and to certain early masses in the week, but he never called at Dr. Mount’s cottage, nor had she seen him out of church, not heard his voice except in dialogue with the Priest—“I will go unto the Altar of God” ... “Even unto the God of my joy and gladness”....
She wondered what he could have to say to her now. Perhaps he had recovered, and was coming back. She would be pleased, for she missed his company—also it would be good to have his letters when she was out in Canada.... But Stella knew what happened to people who “recovered” and “came back,” and reflected sadly that it would be her duty to discourage Gervase if he thought himself cured.
But the letter did not contain what she expected.
Conster ManorLeasan.Sussex.
Conster ManorLeasan.Sussex.
Conster ManorLeasan.Sussex.
Conster Manor
Leasan.
Sussex.
“Jan. 2, 1922“My dear Stella,
“Jan. 2, 1922“My dear Stella,
“Jan. 2, 1922“My dear Stella,
“Jan. 2, 1922
“My dear Stella,
“I’m writing to tell you something rather funny which has happened to me. I don’t mean that I’ve fallen out of love with you—I never shall and don’t want to. But I’m going to do something with my love which I never expected.
“You know that in September, I went ‘into retreat’ for four days at Thunders Abbey. I was sure I’d hate it—and so I did in a way—but when I’d got there I saw at once that it was going to be more important than I’d thought. At first I thought it was just a dodge of Father Luce’s for making me uncomfortable—you know he looks upon me as a luxury-loving young aristocrat, in need of constant mortification. I don’t know what it was exactly that made me change—it was partly, I think, the silence, and partly, I know, the Divine Office. At the end of my visit I knew that Office as the great work of prayer, and Thunders Abbey as just part of that heart of prayer which keeps the world alive. And, dear, I knew that my place was in that heart. I can’t describe to you exactly what I felt—and I wouldn’t if I could. But you’re a Catholic, so you won’t think I’m talking nonsense when I say that I feel I belong there, or, in plainer language, that I have a vocation. You don’t believe that vocations come only to priggish maidens and pious youth, but much more often to ordinary healthy, outdoor people like you and me. Of course I know that even you will think (as Father Luce and the Father Superior have thought) that my vocation may possibly be another name for disappointment in love. I’ve thought it myself, but I don’t believe it. Anyhow it’s at last been settled that I’m going to be allowed to try. As soon as I’ve finished at Gillingham’s I shall go. You know the Community, of course. It’s an order for work among the poor, and has houses in London, Birmingham and Leeds. At Thunders Abbey there’s a big farm fordrunkards, epileptics, idiots, and other pleasant company. I’d be useful there, as they’ve just started motor traction, but I don’t know where they’ll send me. Of course I may come out again; but I don’t think so. One knows a sure thing, Stella, and I never felt so sure about anything as about this—and it’s all the more convincing, because I went in without a thought of it. I expect you will be tremendously surprised, but I know you won’t write trying to dissuade me, and telling me all the good I could do outside by letting out taxis for hire and things like that. You dear! I feel I owe everything to you—including this new thing which is so joyful and so terrifying. For I’m frightened a bit—I’m not just going in because I like it—I don’t know if I do. And yet I’m happy.
“Don’t say a word to anyone, except your father. I must wait till the time is ripe to break the news to my family, and then, I assure you, the excitement will be intense. But I felt I must write and tell you as soon as I knew definitely they’d let me come and try, because you are at the bottom of it all—I don’t mean as a disappointment in love, but as the friend who first showed me the beauty of this faith which makes such demands on us. Stella, I’m glad you brought me to the faith before I’d had time to waste much of myself. It’s lovely to think that I can give Him all my grown-up life. I can never pay you back for what you’ve done, but I can come nearest to it by taking my love for you into this new life. My love for you isn’t going to die, but it’s going to become a part of prayer.
“May I come and see you next Sunday? I thought I would write and tell you about things first, for now you know you won’t feel there are any embarrassments or regrets between us. Dear Stella, I think of you such a lot, and I’m afraid you must still be unhappy. But I know that this thing I am going to do will help you as much as me. Perhaps, too, some day I shall be a Priest—though I haven’t thought about that yet—and then I shall be able to help you more. Oh my dear, it isn’t every man who’s given the power to do somuch for the woman he loves. I bless you, my dear, and send you in anticipation one of those free kisses we shall all give one another in Paradise.”
“Gervase.
“Gervase.
“Gervase.
“Gervase.
P.S. There is a rumour that you are going away, but as I can’t trace its succession back further than Rose, I pronounce it of doubtful validity.
P.P.S. Dear, please burn this—it’s more than a love-letter.
P.P.P.S. I hope I haven’t written like a prig.”
Stella let the letter fall into her lap. She was surprised. Somehow she had never thought of Gervase as a religious; she had never thought of him except as a keen young engineer—attractive, self-willed, eccentric, devout. His spiritual development had been so like hers—and she, as she knew well, had no vocation to the religious life—that she was surprised now to find such an essential difference. But her surprise was glad, for though she brushed aside his words of personal gratitude, she felt the thrill of her share in the adventure, and a conviction that it would be for her help as well as for his happiness. Moreover, this new development took away the twinges of self-reproach which she could not help feeling when she thought of her sacrifice of his content to Peter’s jealousy.
But her chief emotion was a kind of sorrowful envy. She envied Gervase not so much the peace of the cloister—not so much the definiteness of his choice—as his freedom. He was free—he had made the ultimate surrender and was free. She knew that he had now passed beyond her, though she had had a whole youth of spiritual experience and practice and he barely a couple of years. He was beyond her, not because of his vocation, but because of his freedom. His soul had escaped like a bird from the snare, but hers was still struggling and bound.
She would never feel for Peter as Gervase felt for her. Her utmost hope was, not to carry her love for him into anew, purged state, but to forget him—if she aimed at less she was deceiving herself, forgetting the manner of woman she was. She had not Gervase’s transmuting ecstasy—nor could she picture herself giving Peter “free kisses” in a Paradise where flesh and blood had no inheritance. Her loves would always be earthly—she would meet her friends in Paradise, but not her lovers.
Well, there was no time for reflection, either happy or sorrowful—she must start off for Ashford, or her father would be kept waiting. Once again, after many times, she experience the relief of practical action. Her disposition was eminently practical, and the practical things of love and life and religion—kisses and meals and sacraments—were to her the realities of those states. A lover who did not kiss and caress you, a life which was based on plain living and high thinking, a religion without good outward forms for its inward graces, were all things which Stella’s soul would never grasp.
So she went out to the little “tenant’s fixture” garage, filled the Singer’s tank and cranked her up, and drove off comforted a little in her encounter with life’s surprises. The day was damp and mild. There was a moist sweetness in the air, and the scent of ploughed and rain-soaked earth. Already the spring sowings had begun, and the slow teams moved solemnly to and fro over the January fields. Surely, thought Stella, ploughing was the most unhurried toil on earth. The plough came to the furrow’s end, and halted there, while men and horses seemed equally deep-sunk in meditation. Whole minutes later the whip would crack, and the team turn slowly for the backward furrow. She wouldn’t like to do a slow thing like that—and yet her heart would ache terribly when it was all gone, and she would see the great steam ploughs tearing over the mile-long fields of the West ... she would then think sorrowfully of those small, old Sussex fields—the oldest in the world—with their slow ploughing; she would crave all themore for the inheritance which Peter might have given her among them....
She was beginning to feel bad again—and it was a relief to find that the car dragged a little on the steering, pulling towards the hedge, even though she knew that it meant a punctured tyre. The Singer always punctured her tyres like a lady—she never indulged in vulgar bursts, with a bang like a shot-gun and a skid across the road. Stella berthed her beside the ditch, and began to jack her up.
Well, it was a nuisance, seeing that her father would be kept waiting. But she ought to be able to do the thing in ten minutes ... she wished she was wearing her old suit, though. She would make a horrible mess of herself, changing wheels on a dirty day.... The car was jacked up, and Stella was laying out her tools on the running board when she heard a horse’s hoofs in the lane.
It seemed at first merely a malignant coincidence that the rider should be Peter; yet, after all, the coincidence was not so great when she reflected that she was now on the lane between Conster and Starvecrow. She had heard that Peter had lately taken to riding a white horse—it was all part of the picture he was anxious to paint of himself as Squire. He would emphasize his Squirehood, since to it he had sacrificed himself as freeman and lover.
She had never seen him looking so much the Squire of tradition as he looked today. He wore a broadcloth coat, corduroy breeches, brown boots and leggings and a bowler hat. Of late he had rather increased in girth, and looked full his forty years. Unaccountably this fact stirred up Stella’s heart into a raging pity—Peter middle-aged and getting stout, Peter pathetically over-acting his part of country gentleman—it stirred all the love and pity of her heart more deeply than any figure of romance and youth. She hoped he would not stop, but considering her position she knew she was hoping too much.
He hitched the white horse to the nearest gate and dismounted. They had not been alone together since the summer,though they had met fairly often in company, and now she was conscious of a profound embarrassment and restraint in them both.
“Have you punctured?” he asked heavily.
“No, but the tyre has,” said Stella.
The reply was not like herself, it was part of the new attitude of defence—a poor defence, since she despised herself for being on guard, and was therefore weaker.
“You must let me help you change the wheel.”
“I can do it myself, quite easily. Don’t bother, Peter—you know I’m used to these things.”
“Yes, but it’s dirty work for a woman. You’ll spoil your clothes.”
She could not insist on refusing. She went to the other side of the car, where her spare wheel was fastened, and bent desperately over the straps. She wondered how the next few minutes would pass—in heaviness and pertness as they had begun, or in technical talk of tyres and nuts and jacks, or in the limp politeness of the knight errant and distressed lady.
The next moment Peter made a variation she had not expected.
“Stella, is it true that you’re going away?”
“I—I don’t know. It isn’t settled.... Who told you?”
“Rose told me—but it can’t be true.”
“Why not?”
“Your father surely would never go away at his time of life—and Rose spoke of the Colonies. He’d never go right away and start afresh like that.”
“Father’s heard of a very good billet near Montreal. We haven’t settled anything yet, but we both feel we’d like a change.”
“Why?”
“Well, why shouldn’t we? We’ve been here more than twenty years, and as for Father being old, he’s not too old to want to see a bit more of the world.”
Peter said nothing. He was taking off the wheel. When he had laid it against the bank he turned once more to Stella.
“It’s queer how I always manage to hear gossip about you. But it seems that this time I’m right, while last time I was wrong.”
“Everyone gets talked about in a little place like this.”
She tried to speak lightly, but she was distressed by the way he looked at her. Those pale blue eyes ... Alard eyes, Saxon eyes ... the eyes of the Old People looking at her out of the Old Country, and saying “Don’t go away....”
The next minute his lips repeated what his eyes had said:
“Don’t go away.”
She trembled, and stepped back from him on the road.
“I must go.”
“Indeed you mustn’t—I can’t bear it any longer if you do.”
“That’s why I must go.”
“No—no——”
He came towards her, and she stepped back further still.
“Don’t go, Stella. I can’t live here without you.”
“But, Peter, you must. What good am I doing you here?”
“You’re here. I know that you’re only a few miles away. I can think of you as near me. If you went right away....”
“It would be much better for both of us.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Stella, it will break me if you go. My only comfort during the last six hellish months has been that at least you’re not so very far from me in space, that I can see you, meet you, talk to you now and then....”
“But, Peter, that’s what I can’t bear. That’s why I’m going away.”
Her voice was small and thin with agitation. This was worse, a hundred times worse, than anything she had dreaded five minutes ago. She prayed incoherently for strength and sense.
“If that’s what you feel, you’ve got to stay,” Peter was saying. “Stella, you’ve shown me—Stella, you still care.... Oh, I’ll own up, I’ll own that I’ve been a fool, and a blackguard to you. But if you still care, I can be almost happy. We’ve still something left. Only you’ll have to stay.”
“You mustn’t talk like this.”
“Why not—if you still care? Oh, Stella, say it’s true—say you still care ... a little.”
She could not deny her love, even though she was more afraid of his terrible happiness than she had been before of his despair. To deny it would be a profaning of something holier than truth. All she could say was—
“If I love you, it’s all the more necessary for me to go away.”
“It’s not. If you love me, I can be to you at least what you are to me. But if you go away, you’ll be as wretched as I shall be without you.”
“No ... if I go away, we can forget.”
“Forget!—What?—each other?”
“Yes.”
The word was almost inaudible. She prayed with all her strength that Peter would not come to her across the road and take her in his arms. His words she could fight, but not his arms....
“Stella—you’re not telling me that you’re going away to forget me?”
“I must, Peter. And you’ll forget me, too. Then we’ll be able to live instead of just—loving.”
“But my love for you is my life—all the life I’ve got.”
“No—you’ve got Vera, and soon you’ll have your child. When I’ve gone you can go back to them.”
“I can’t—you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you think I can ever feel again for Vera what I felt when I was fool enough——”
“Oh, don’t....”
“But I will. Why should you delude yourself, and think I’m just being unfaithful to my wife? It’s to you I’ve been unfaithful. I was unfaithful to you with Vera—and now I’ve repented and come back.”
They faced each other, two yards apart in the little muddy lane. Behind Peter the three-wheeled car stood forlornly surrounded by tools, while his horse munched the long soaking tufts under the hedge. Behind Stella the hedge rose abruptlyin a soaring crown. Looking up suddenly, she saw the delicate twigs shining against a sheet of pale blue sky in a faint sunlight. For some reason they linked themselves with her mind’s effort and her heart’s desire. Here was beauty which did not burn.... She suddenly found herself calm.
“Peter, dear, there’s no good talking like that. Let’s be sensible. Rightly or wrongly you’ve married someone else, and you’ve got to stand by it and so have I. If I stay on here we will only just be miserable—always hankering after each other, and striving for little bits of each other which can’t satisfy. Neither of us will be able to settle down and live an ordinary life, and after all that’s what we’re here for—not for adventures and big passions, but just to live ordinary lives and be happy in an ordinary way.”
“Oh, damn you!” cried Peter.
It was like the old times when he used to rail against her “sense,” against the way she always insisted that their love should be no star or cloud, but a tree, well rooted in the earth. It made it more difficult for her to go on, but she persevered.
“You’ve tried the other thing, Peter—you’ve tried sacrificing ordinary things like love and marriage to things like family pride and the love of a place. You’ve found it hasn’t worked, so don’t do the whole thing over again by sacrificing your home and family to a love which can never be satisfied.”
“But it can be,” said Peter—“at least it could if you were human.”
Stella, a little to his annoyance, didn’t pretend not to know what he meant.
“No, it couldn’t be—not satisfied. We could only satisfy a part of it—the desire part—the part which wants home and children would always have to go unsatisfied, and that’s as strong as the rest, though it makes less fuss.”
“And how much satisfaction shall we get through never seeing each other again?”
“We shall get it—elsewhere. You will at least be free to go back to Vera—and you did love her once, you can’t deny it—you did love her once. And I——”
“—Will be free to marry another man.”
“I don’t say that, Peter—though also I don’t say that I won’t. But I shall be free to live the life of a normal human being again, which I can’t now. I shan’t be bringing unrest and misery wherever I go—to myself and to you. Oh, Peter, I know we can save ourselves if we stop now, stop in time. We were both quite happy last time I was away—I was a fool ever to come back. I must go away now before it’s too late.”
“You’re utterly wrong. When you first went away I could be happy with Vera—I couldn’t now. All that’s over and done with for ever, I tell you. I can never go back to her, whether you go or stay. It’s nothing to do with your coming back—it’s her fault—and mine. We aren’t suited, and nothing can ever bring us together again now we’ve found it out.”
“Not even the child?...”
“No—not even that. Besides, how do I know.... Stella, all the things I’ve sacrificed you to have failed me, except Starvecrow.”
“You’ve still got Starvecrow.”
“Yes, but I.... Oh, Stella, don’t leave me alone, not even with Starvecrow. The place wants you, and when you’re gone I’m afraid.... Vera doesn’t belong there; it’s your place. Oh, Stella, don’t say you can live without me, any more than I can live without you.”
She longed to give him the answer of her heart—that she could never, never live without him, go without the dear privilege of seeing him, of speaking to him, of sacrificing to him all other thoughts and loves. But she forced herself to give him the answer of her head, for she knew that it would still be true when her heart had ceased to choke her with its beating.
“Peter, I don’tfeelas if I could live without you, but IknowI can—and I know you can live without me, if I go away. What you’ve said only shows me more clearly that I must go. I could never stop here now you know I love you.”
“And why not?—it’s your damned religion, I suppose—teaching you that it’s wrong to love—that all that sort of thing’s disgusting, unspiritual—you’ve got your head stuffed with allthe muck a lot of celibate priests put into it, who think everything’s degrading.”
She felt the tears come into her eyes.
“Don’t, my dear. Do you really believe—you who’ve known me—that I think love is degrading?—or that my religion teaches me to think so? Why, it’s because all that is so lovely, so heavenly and so good, that it mustn’t be spoilt—by secrecy and lies, by being torn and divided. Oh, Peter, you know I love love....”
“So much that you can apparently shower it on anyone as long as you get the first victim out of the way.”
They both turned suddenly, as the jar of wheels sounded up the hill. It would be agony to have the discussion broken off here, but Stella knew that she mustn’t refuse any opportunity of ending it. No longer afraid of Peter’s arms, she crossed swiftly to the dismantled car.
“Please don’t wait. I can manage perfectly now. Please go, Peter—please go.”
“I’ll go only if you promise to see me again before you leave.”
“Of course I will—I’ll see you again; but you must go now.”
The wagon of Barline, heavy with crimson roots, was lurching and skidding down the hill towards them. Peter went to his standing horse, and rode him off into the field. Stella turned to the car, and, crouched in its shelter, allowed herself the luxury of tears.
She dried her eyes, came up from behind the car, and lost herself in the sheer labour of putting on the wheel. She was late, she must hurry; she strove, she sweated, and at last was once more in her seat, the damaged wheel strapped in its place, all the litter of tools in the dickie. She switched on the engine, pressed the self-starter pedal, slid the gear lever into place, and the little car ran forward. Then she realised what a relief it was to find herself in motion—some weight seemed to lift fromher mind, and her numb thoughts began to move, to run to and fro. She was alive again.
But it hurt to be alive. Perhaps one was happier dead. For the thoughts that ran to and fro were in conflict, they formed themselves into two charging armies, meeting with horrible impact, terror and wounds. Her mind was a battle-field, divided against itself, and as usual the movement of the car seemed to make her thoughts more independent, more free of her control. They moved to the throb and mutter of the engine, as to some barbaric battle-music, some monotonous drum. She herself seemed to grow more and more detached from them. She was no longer herself—she was two selves—the self that loved Peter and the self that loved God. She was Stella Mount at prayer in Vinehall church—Stella Mount curled up on Peter’s knees ... long ago, at Starvecrow—Stella Mount receiving her soul again in absolution ... Stella Mount loving, loving, with a heart full of fiery sweetness.... Well, aren’t they a part of the same thing—love of man and love of God? Yes, they are—but today there is schism in the body.
During the last few months love had given her nothing but pain, for she had seemed to be swallowed up in it, away from the true richness of life. She had lost that calm, cheerful glow in which all things, even the dullest and most indifferent, had seemed interesting and worth while. Love had extinguished it. The difference she saw between religion and love was that religion shone through all things with a warm, soft light, making them all friendly and sweet, whereas love was like a fierce beam concentrated on one spot, leaving the rest of life in darkness, shining only on one object, and that so blindingly that it could not be borne.
She felt a sudden spasm of revolt against the choice forced upon her. Why should she have to choose between heaven and earth, which she knew in her heart were two parts of one completeness? Why should God want her to give up for His sake the loveliest thing that He had made?... Why should He want her toburn?
Now had come the time, she supposed, when she would have to pay for the faith which till then had been all joy, which in its warmth and definiteness had taught her almost too well how to love. It had made her more receptive, more warm, more eager, and had deprived her of those weapons of self-interest and pride and resentment which might have armed her now. Perhaps it was because they knew religion makes such good lovers that masters of the spiritual life have urged that the temptations of love are the only ones from which it is allowable to run away. It was her duty to run away from Peter now, because the only weapons with which she could fight him were more unworthy than surrender. With a grimmer, vaguer belief she might have escaped more easily—she might have seen evil in love, she might have distrusted happiness and shunned the flesh. But then she would not have been Stella Mount—she owed her very personality to her faith—she owed it all the intense joy she had had in human things. Should she stumble at the price?
If only the price were not Peter—Peter whom she loved, whom the love of God had taught her to love more than her heart could ever have compassed alone. Why must he be sacrificed? After all, she was offering him up to her own satisfaction—to her anxiety to keep hold of heavenly things. Why should he be butchered to give her soul a holiday? She almost hated herself—hated herself for her odious sense, for her cold-blooded practicalness. She proposed to go away not only so as to be out of temptation—let her be honest—but so that she could forget him and live the life of a normal happy woman ... which of course meant some other man.... No wonder he was disgusted with her—poor, honest, simple, unsatisfied Peter. She was proposing to desert him, sure of interior comforts he had never known, and secretly sure that the detestable adaptability of her nature would not allow her to mourn him long once he was far away. Oh, Peter—Peter!... “I will give you back the years that the locust hath eaten—I have it in my power. I can do it—I can give you back the locust’s years. I can do it still....”
She could do it still. She could tell her father that she did not want to go away after all—and he would be glad ... poor Father! He was only going for her sake. He would be glad to stay on among the places and the people that he loved. And she ... she could be a good, trusty friend to Peter, someone he could turn to in his loneliness, who would understand and help him with his plans for Alard and Starvecrow.... What nonsense she was talking. Silly hypocrite! Both sides of her, the Stella who loved Peter and the Stella who loved God, saw the futility of such an idea. She could never be any man’s friend—least of all Peter’s. If she stayed, it would be to love Peter, to be all that it was still possible for her to be to him, all that Vera was and the more that she was not.
But could she? Had she the power to love Peter with a love unspoilt by regret? Would she be able to bear the thought of her treachery to the Lord whose happy child she had been so long?—to His Mother and hers—to all His friends and hers, the saints—to all the great company of two worlds whom she would betray? For her the struggle contained no moral issue. It was simply a conflict between love and love. And all the while she knew in the depth of her heart that love cannot really be divided, and that her love of God held and sustained her love of Peter, as the cloud holds the rain-drop, and the shore the grain of sand.
The first houses of Ashford slid past, and she saw the many roofs of the railway-works. Traffic dislocated the strivings of her mind, and in time her thoughts once more became numb. They lay like the dead on the battle-field, the dead who would rise again.
Gervase came to see Stella, according to promise, the following Sunday. He found her looking tired and heavy-headed, and able only mechanically to sustain her interest in his plans. Also he still found her unapproachable—she was not cold or contrary, but reserved, feeding on herself.
He guessed the source of her trouble, but shrank from probing it—keeping the conversation to his own affairs with an egotism he would normally have been ashamed of. What he noticed most was the extinction of joy in her—she had always seemed to him so fundamentally happy, and it was her profound and so natural happiness which had first attracted him towards her religion. But now the lamp was out. He was not afraid for her—it did not strike him that she could possibly fail or drop under her burden; but his heart ached for her, alone in the Dark Night—that very Dark Night he himself had come through alone.... Now he stood, also alone, in a strange dawn which had somehow changed the world, as the fields are changed in the whiteness of a new day.
It was not till he got up to go that he dared try to come closer. They had been talking about the difficulties of the life he had chosen.
“I’m afraid Christianity’s a hard faith, my dear,” he said as he took her hand—“the closer you get to the Gospel the harder it is. You’ve no idea what a shock the Gospels gave me when I read them again last year, not having looked at them since I was a kid. I was expecting something rather meek-and-mild, with a gentle, womanly Saviour, and all sorts of kind and good-natured sentiments. Instead of which I find that the Kingdom of Heaven is for the violent, while the Lion of Judah roars in the Temple courts ... He built His Church upon a Rock, and sometimes we hit that Rock mighty hard.”
“But I do hope you’ll be happy, Gervase.”
“I’m sure of that, though whether it will be in a way that will be easily recognised as happiness I’m not so sure.”
“When are you going?”
“It’s not quite settled yet. I leave off at Gillingham’s on the twenty-fifth, and I expect I’ll go to Thunders early in February. I’ll come and see you again before then. Goodbye, my dear.”
He kissed her hand before letting it go.