Speed, in virtue of his position as music-master, found himself involved in the scurry and turmoil of preparation. This concert, he decided, with his customary enthusiasm, should be the best one that Millstead had had for many a year. He would have introduced into it all sorts of innovations had he not found, very soon after he began to try, that mysteriously rigid traditions stood in the way. He was compelled, for instance, to open with the Millstead School Song. Now the Millstead School Song had been likened by a witty though irreverent Master to the funeral-march of a smoked haddock. It began with a ferocious yell of "Haec olim revocare" and continued through yards of uneuphonious Latin into a remorselessclump-clumpof a chorus. Speed believed that, even supposing the words were sacrosanct, that ought to be no reason for the tune to be so, and suggested to the Head that some reputable modern composer should be commissioned to write one. The Head, of course, would not agree. "The tune, Mr. Speed, has—um, yes—associations. As a newcomer you cannot be expected to feel them, but, believe me, they do—um, yes—they do most certainly exist. An old foundation, Mr. Speed, and if you take away from us our—um—traditions, then you—um—take away that which not enriches you and makes us, urn, yes—poor indeed." And, with a glint of satisfaction at having made use of a quotation rather aptly, the Head indicated that Speed must not depart from the recognised routine.
Even without innovations, however, the concert demanded a great deal of practising and rehearsal, and in this Speed had the rather hazy co-operation of Raggs, the visiting organist. He it was who told Speed exactly what items must, on no account, be omitted; and who further informed him of items which must on no account be included; these latter consisted chiefly of things which Speed suggested himself. It was finally arranged, however, and the programme submitted to and passed by the Head: there was to be a pianoforte solo, a trio for piano, violin and 'cello, a good, resounding song by the choir, a quartet singing Christmas carols, and one or two "suitable" songs from operas. The performers, where possible, were to be boys of the school, but there were precedents for drawing on the services of outsiders when necessary. Thus when it was found that the school orchestra lacked first violins, Raggs gave Speed the names of several ladies and gentlemen in the town who had on former occasions lent their services in this capacity. And among these names was that of Miss Clare Harrington.
Speed, making his preparations about the middle of November, was in a dilemma with this list of names. He knew that, for some reason or other, Helen did not care for Clare's company, and that if Clare were to take part, not only in the concert itself, but in all the preceding rehearsals, she would be brought almost inevitably into frequent contact with Helen. He thought also that if he canvassed all the other people first, Clare might, if she came to hear of it, think that he had treated her spitefully. In the end he solved the difficulty by throwing the burden of selection on to Raggs and undertaking in exchange some vastly more onerous task that Raggs was anxious to get rid of. A few days later Raggs accosted Speed in the cloisters and said: "I've got you a few first violins. Here's their names and addresses on this card. They'll turn up to the next rehearsal if you'll send them word."
When Raggs had shambled away. Speed looted curiously at the card which he had pushed into his hand. Scanning down the list, scribbled in Raggs' most illegible pencilled script, he found himself suddenly conscious of pleasure, slight yet strangely distinct; something that made him go on his way whistling a tune. Clare's name was on the list.
Those crowded winter nights of rehearsals for the concert were full of incident for Speed. As soon as the school had finished preparation in the Big Hall, the piano was uncovered and pushed into the middle of the platform; the violinists and 'cellists began to tune up; the choir assembled with much noise and a disposition to regard rehearsals as a boisterous form of entertainment; lastly, the visitors from the town appeared, adapting themselves condescendingly to the rollicking atmosphere.
Speed discovered Clare to be a rather good violinist. She played quietly and accurately, with an absence (rare in good violinists) of superfluous emotion. Once she said to Speed, referring to one of the other imported violinists: "Listen! This Mozart's only a decorative frieze, and that man's playing it as if it were the whole gateway to the temple of Eros." Speed, who liked architectural similes himself, nodded appreciatively. Clare went on: "I always want to laugh at emotion in the wrong place. Violinists who are too fond of the mute, for instance." Speed said, laughing: "Yes, and organists who are too fond of thevox humana." To which Clare added: "And don't forget to mention the audiences that are too fond of both. It's their fault principally."
At ten o'clock, when rehearsals were over, Speed accompanied Clare home to the shop in High Street. There was something in those walks which crept over him like a slow fascination, so that after the first few occasions he found himself sitting at the piano during the rehearsal with everything in his mind subordinate to the tingling anticipation of the stroll afterwards. When they left the Big Hall and descended the steps into the cool dusk of the cloisters, his spirits rose as with wine; and when from the cloisters they turned into the crisp-cold night, crunching softly over the frosted quadrangle and shivering joyously in the first keen lash of the wind, he could have scampered for sheer happiness like a schoolboy granted an unexpected holiday. Sometimes the moon was white on roofs and roadways; sometimes the sky was densely black; sometimes it was raining and Millstead High Street was no more than a vista of pavements with the yellow lamplight shining on the pools in them: once, at least, it was snowing soft, dancing flakes that covered the ground inches deep as they walked. But whatever the world was like on those evenings on which Speed accompanied Clare, one thing was common to them all: an atmosphere of robust companionship, impervious to all things else. The gales that romped and frolicked over the fenlands were no more vigorous and coldly sweet than something that romped and frolicked in Speed's inmost soul.
Once they were discussing the things that they hated most of all. "I hate myself more than anything else—sometimes," said Speed.
Clare said: "And I hate people who think that a thing's bound to be sordid because it's real: people who think a thing's beautiful merely because it's hazy and doesn't mean anything. I'm afraid I hate Mendelssohn."
Speed said: "Mendelssohn? Why, that was what Helen used to be keen on, wasn't it?—last term, don't you remember?"
A curious silence supervened.
Clare said, after a pause: "Yes, I believe it was."
Helen's attitude towards Clare at this time was strangely at variance with her former one. As soon as she learned that Clare was playing in the concert she wrote to her and told her always to come into Lavery's before the rehearsal began. "It will be nice seeing you so often, Clare," she wrote, "and you needn't worry about getting back in the evenings because Kenneth will always see you home."
Speed said, when he heard of Helen's invitation: "But I thought you didn't like Clare, Helen?"
"Oh, I was silly," she answered. "I do like her, really. And besides, we must be hospitable. You'll see her back in the evenings, won't you?"
"I daresay Icando," he said.
Then, suddenly laughing aloud, he caught her into his arms and kissed her. "I'm so glad it's all right again, Helen. I don't like my little Helen to throw away her old friends. It isn't like her. You see how happy we shall all be, now that we're friendly again with Clare."
"I know," she said.
"I believe you are the most lovable and loving little girl in the world except—" he frowned at her playfully—"when the devil persuades you that you don't like people. Some day he'll persuade you that you don't like me."
"He won't," she said.
"I hope he won't."
She seemed to him then more than ever a child, a child whose winsomeness was alloyed with quaint and baffling caprice. He loved her, too, very gladly and affectionately; and he knew then, quite clearly because the phase was past that her announced dislike of Clare had made him love her not quite so much. But now all was happy and unruffled again, so what did it matter?
Smallwood was one of a type more commonly found at a university than at a public school; in fact it was due to his decision not to go to the former that he had stayed so long at Millstead. He was nineteen years old, and when he left he would enter his father's office in the City. The disciplinary problems of dealing with him and others of his type bristled with awkwardness, especially for a Master so young as Speed; the difficulty was enhanced by the fact that Smallwood, having stayed at Millstead long enough to achieve all athletic distinctions merely by inevitability, was a power in the school of considerable magnitude. Personally, he was popular; he was in no sense a bully; he was a kindly and certainly not too strict prefect; his disposition was friendly and easy-going. But for the unfortunate clash at the beginning of the term Speed might have found in him a powerful ally instead of a sinister enemy. One quality Smallwood possessed above all others—vanity; and Speed, having affronted that vanity, could count on a more virulent enmity than Smallwood's lackadaisical temperament was ordinarily capable of.
The error lay, of course, in the system which allowed Smallwood to stay at Millstead so long. Smallwood at nineteen was distinctly and quite naturally a man, not a boy; and whatever in him seemed unnatural was forced on him by the Millstead atmosphere. There was nothing at all surprising in his study-walls being covered with photographs of women and amorous prints obtained from French magazines. Nor was it surprising that he was that very usual combination—the athlete and the dandy, that his bathroom was a boudoir of pastes and oils and cosmetics, and that, with his natural good looks, he should have the reputation of being a lady-killer. Compelled by the restraints of Millstead life to a resignation of this branch of his activities during term-time, he found partial solace in winking at the less unattractive of the school-servants (who, it was reported, were chosen by the matron on the score of ugliness), and in relating to his friends lurid stories of his adventures in London during the vacations. He had had, for a nineteen-year-old, the most amazing experiences, and sometimes the more innocuous of these percolated, by heaven knows what devious channels, to the amused ears of the Masters' Common-Room. The Masters as a whole, it should be noted, liked Smallwood, because, with a little flattery and smoothing-down, they could always cajole him into agreement with them. Titivate his vanity and he was Samson shorn of his locks.
Now the masters, for various reasons, did not like Speed so much in his second term as they had done in his first. Like all bodies of averagely tolerant men they tended to be kindly to newcomers, and Speed, young, quiet, modest, and rather attractively nervous, had won more of their hearts than some of them afterwards cared to remember. The fact that his father was a titled man and that Speed never talked about it, was bound to impress a group of men who, by the unalterable circumstances of their lives, were compelled to spend a large portion of their time in cultivating an attitude of snobbery. But in his second term Speed found them not so friendly. That was to be expected in any case, for while much may be forgiven a man during his first probationary term, his second is one in which he must prepare to be judged by stricter standards. Besides the normal hardening of judgment, Speed was affected by another even more serious circumstance. He had committed the unpardonable offence of being too successful. Secretly, more than half the staff were acutely jealous of him. Even those who were entirely ineligible for the post at Lavery's, and would not have accepted it if it had been offered them, were yet conscious of some subtle personal chagrin in seeing Speed, after his first term, step into a place of such power and dignity. They had the feeling that the whole business had been done discreditably behind their backs, although, of course, the Masters had no right, either virtual or technical, to be consulted in the matter of appointments. Yet when they arrived at Millstead at the beginning of the term and learned that Speed, their junior by ever so many years, had married the Head's daughter during the vacation and had been forthwith appointed to the mastership of Lavery's, they could not forbear an instant sensation of ruefulness which developed later into more or less open antagonism. Not all the talk about the desirability of young married housemasters could dispel that curious feeling of having been slighted.
Secretly, no doubt, they hoped that Lavery's would be too much for Speed. And on the occasion of the row between Speed and Smallwood they sympathised with the latter, regarding him as the victim of Speed's monstrous and aggressive self-assertion. The circumstance that Speed took few meals now in the Masters' Common-Room prevented the legend of his self-assertiveness from being effectively smashed; as term progressed and as Speed's eager and pertinacious enthusiasm about the concert became apparent, the legend rather grew than diminished. Clanwell, alone, perhaps, of all the staff, still thought of Speed without feelings of jealousy, and that was rather because he regarded him as one of his elder boys, to be looked after and advised when necessary. He formed the habit of inviting Speed into his room to coffee once or twice a week, and on these occasions he gave the young man many hints drawn from his full-blooded, though rather facile, philosophy.
At the conclusion of one of these evening confabulations he caught hold of Speed's arm as the latter was going out by the door and said: "I say, Speed,—just before you go—there's a little matter I've been wondering all night whether I'd mention to you or not. I hope you won't be offended. I'm the last man to go round making trouble or telling tales, and I'm aware that I'm risking your friendship if I say what I have in mind."
"You won't do that," said Speed. "Say what you want to say." He stared at Clanwell nervously, for at a call such as this a cloud of vague apprehensions would swarm round and over him, filling the future with dark dreads.
"It's about your wife," said Clanwell. "I'm not going to say much. It isn't anything to worry about, I daresay. Perhaps it doesn't justify my mentioning it to you. Your wife..."
"Well?"
"I should—keep an eye on her, if I were you. She's young, Speed, remember. She's—"
"What do you mean—keep an eye on her? What should I keep an eye on her for?"
"I told you, Speed, I wasn't going to say much. You mustn't imagine yourself on the verge of a scandal—I don't suppose there's anything really the matter at all. Only, as I was saying, she's young, and she—she's apt to do unwise things. Once or twice lately, while you've been out, she's had Smallwood in to tea."
"Smallwood!—Alone?"
"Yes, alone."
Speed blushed furiously and was silent. A sudden new feeling, which he diagnosed as jealousy, swept across him; followed by a further series of feelings which were no more than various forms of annoyance and exacerbation. He clenched his fists and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.
"How do you know all this?" he queried, in the staccato bark that was so accurate a register of his temper.
"Smallwood isn't the fellow to keep such an affair secret," replied Clanwell. "But don't, Speed, go and do anything rash. If I were you I should go back and—"
"I shan't do anything rash," interrupted Speed, curtly. "You needn't worry. Good-night.... I suppose I ought to thank you for your kindness in telling me what you have."
When he had gone he regretted that final remark. It was, he decided, uselessly and pointlessly cynical.
It was a pity, perhaps, that in his present mood he went straight back to Lavery's and to Helen. He found her sitting, as usual, by the fire when he entered; he made no remark, but came and sat opposite to her. Neither of them spoke for a few moments. That was not unusual for them, for Helen had frequent fits of taciturnity, and Speed, becoming familiar with them, found himself adopting similar habits. After, however, a short space of silence, he broke it by saying: "Helen, do you mind if we have a serious talk for a little while."
She looked up and said, quietly: "Where have you been?"
"Clanwell's," he replied, and as soon as he had done so he realised that she would easily guess who had informed him. A pity that he had answered her so readily.
"What do you want to ask me?"
He said, rather loudly, as always when he was nervous: "Helen, I'm going to be quite straightforward. No beating about the bush, you understand?—You've had Smallwood in here to tea lately, while I've been out."
"Well?" Her voice, irritatingly soft, just as his own was irritatingly loud, contained a mixture of surprise and mockery. "And what if I have?"
He gripped the arms of the wicker-chair with his fists, causing a creaking sound that seemed additionally to discompose him. "Helen, you can't do it, that's all. You mustn't. It won't do.... It..."
Suddenly she was talking at him, slowly and softly at first, then in a rising, gathering, tempestuous torrent; her eyes, lit by the firelight, blazed through the tears in them. "Can't I? Mustn't I? You say it won't do? You can go out whenever and wherever you like, you can go out to Clanwell's in the evening, you can walk down to the town with Clare, you can have anybody you like in to tea, you choose your own friends, you live your own life—and then you actually dare to tell me I can't!—What is it to you if I make a friend of Smallwood?—Haven't I the right to make friends without your permission?—Haven't I the right to entertainmyfriends in here as much as you have the right to entertainyourfriends?—Kenneth, you think I'm a child, you call me a child, you treat me as a child.That'swhat won't do. I'm a woman and I won't be domineered over. So now you know it."
Her passion made him suddenly icily cool; he was no longer the least bit nervous. He perceived, with calm intuition, that this was going to be their first quarrel.
"In the first place," he began quietly, "you must be fair to me. Surely, it is not extraordinary that I should go up to see Clanwell once or twice during the week. He's a colleague and a friend. Secondly, walking down into the town to see Clare home after rehearsals is a matter of common politeness, which you, I think, asked me particularly to do. And as for asking people in to tea, you have, as you say, as free a choice in that as I have, except when you do something absolutely unwise. Helen, I'm serious. Don't insist on this argument becoming a quarrel. If it does, it will be our first quarrel, remember."
"You think you can move me by talking like that!"
"My dear, I think nothing of the sort. I simply do not want to quarrel. I want you to see my point of view, and I'm equally anxious to see yours. With regard to this Smallwood business, you must, if you think a little, realise that in a place like Millstead you can't behave absolutely without regard for conventions. Smallwood, remember, is nearly your own age. You see what I mean?"
"You mean that I'm not to be trusted with any man nearly my own age?"
"No, I don't mean that. The thought that there could be anything in the least discreditable in the friendship between Smallwood and you never once crossed my mind. I know, of course, that it is perfectly honest and above-board. Don't please, put my attitude down to mere jealousy. I'm not in the least jealous."
What surprised him more than anything else in this amazing chain of circumstances, was that he was sitting there talking to her so calmly and deliberately, almost as if he were arguing an abstruse point in a court of law! Of this new cold self that was suddenly to the front he had had no former experience. And certainly it was true to say that at that moment there was not in him an atom of jealousy.
She seemed to shrivel up beneath the coldness of his argument. She said, doggedly: "I'm not going to give way, Kenneth."
They both looked at each other then, quite calmly and subconsciously a little awed, as if they could see suddenly the brink on which they were standing.
"Helen, I don't want to domineer over you at all. I want you to be as free to do what you like as I am. But there are some things, which, for my sake and for the sake of the position I hold here, you ought not to do. And having Smallwood here alone when I am away is one of those things."
"I don't agree. I have as much right to make a friend of Smallwood as you have to make a friend of—say Clare!"
The mention of Clare shifted him swiftly out of his cool, calculating mood and back into the mood which had possessed him when he first came into the room. "Not at all," he replied, sharply. "The cases are totally different. Smallwood is a boy—a boy in my House. That makes all the difference."
"I don't see that it makes any difference."
"Good heavens, Helen!—You don't see? Don't you realise the sort of talk that is getting about? Doesn't it occur to you that Smallwood will chatter about this all over the school and make out that he's conducting a clandestine flirtation with you? Don't you see how it will undermine all the discipline of the House—will make people laugh at me when my back's turned—will—"
"And I'm to give up my freedom just to stop people from laughing at you, am I?"
"Helen,whycan't you see my point of view? Would you like to see me a failure at Lavery's? Wouldn't you feel hurt to hear everybody sniggering about me?"
"I should feel hurt to think that you could only succeed at Lavery's by taking away my freedom."
"Helen, marriage isn't freedom. It's partnership. I can't do what I like. Neither can you."
"I can try, though."
"Yes, and you can succeed in making my life at Millstead unendurable."
She cried fiercely: "I won't talk about it any longer, Kenneth. We don't agree and apparently we shan't, however long we argue. I still think I've a right to ask Smallwood in to tea if I want to."
"And I still think you haven't."
"Very well, then—" with a laugh—"that's a deadlock, isn't it?"
He stared at the fire silently for some moments, then rose, and came to the back of her chair. Something in her attitude seemed to him blindingly, achingly pathetic; the tears rushed to his eyes; he felt he had been cruel to her. One part of him urged him to have pity on her, not to let her suffer, to give way, at all costs, rather than bring shadows over her life; to appeal, passionately and perhaps sentimentally, that she would, for his sake, if she loved him, make his task at Lavery's no harder than it need be. The other part of him said: No, you have said what is perfectly fair and true; you have nothing at all to apologise for. If you apologise you will only weaken your position for ever afterwards.
In the end the two conflicting parts of him effected a compromise. He said, good-humouredly, almost gaily, to her: "Yes, Helen, I'm afraid it is a deadlock. But that's no reason why it should be a quarrel. After all, we ought to be able to disagree without quarrelling. Now, let's allow the matter to drop, eh? Eh, Helen? Smile at me, Helen!"
But instead of smiling, she burst into sudden passionate sobbing. Her head dropped heavily into her hands and all her hair, loosened by the fall, dispersed itself over her hands and cheeks in an attitude of terrific despair. On Speed the effect of it was as that of a knife cutting him in two. He could not bear to see her misery, evoked by something said or done, however justifiably, by him; pity swelled over him in a warm, aching tide; he stooped to her and put a hand hesitatingly on her shoulder. He was almost afraid to touch her, and when, at the first sensation of his hand, she drew away hurriedly, he crept back also as if he were terrified by her. Then gradually he came near her again and told her, with his emotion making his voice gruff, that he was sorry. He had treated her unkindly and oh—he wassosorry. He could not bear to see her cry. It hurt him.... Dear, darling Helen, would she forgive him? If she would only forgive him she could have Smallwood in to tea every day if she wished, and damn what anybody said about it! Helen, Helen....
Yet the other part of him, submerged, perhaps, but by no means silent, still urged: You haven't treated her unkindly, and you know you haven't. You have nothing to apologise for at all. And if she does keep on inviting Smallwood in you'll have the same row with her again, sooner or later.
"Helen,dearHelen—doanswer me!—Don't cry like that—I can't bear it!—Answer me, Helen, answer me!"
Then she raised her head and put her arms out to him and kissed him with fierce passion, so that she almost hurt his neck. Even then she did not, for a moment, answer, but he did not mind, because he knew now that she had forgiven him. And strangely enough, in that moment of passionate embrace, there returned to him a feeling of crude, rudimentary jealousy; he felt that for the future he would, as Clanwell had advised him, have to keep an eye on her to make sure that none of this high, mountainous love escaped from within the four walls of his own house. He felt suddenly greedy, physically greedy; the thought, even instantly contradicted, of half-amorous episodes between her and Smallwood affected him with an insurgent bitterness which made the future heavy with foreboding.
She whispered to him that she had been very silly and that she wouldn't have Smallwood in again if he wished her not to.
Even amidst his joy at her submission, the word "silly" struck him as an absurdly inadequate word to apply to her attitude.
He said, deliberately against his will: "Helen, darling, it was I who was silly. Have Smallwood in as much as you like. I don't want to interfere with your happiness."
He expected her then to protest that she had no real desire to have Smallwood in, and when she failed to protest, he was disappointed. The fear came to him that perhaps Smallwood did attract her, being so good-looking, and that his granting her full permission to see him would give that attraction a chance to develop. Jealousy once again stormed at him.
But how sweet the reconciliation, after all! For concentrated loveliness nothing in his life could equal the magic of that first hour with her after she had ceased crying. It was moonlight outside and about midnight they leaned for a moment out of the window with the icy wind stinging their cheeks. Millstead asleep in the pallor, took on the semblance of his own mood and seemed tremulous with delight. Somewhere, too, amidst the dreaming loveliness of the moon-washed roofs and turrets, there was a touch of something that was just a little exquisitely sad, and that too, faint, yet quite perceptible, was in his own mood.
There came the concert in the first week of December. No one, not even those of the Common-Room who were least cordially disposed to him, could deny that Speed had worked indefatigably and that his efforts deserved success. Yet the success, merited though it was, was hardly likely to increase his popularity among those inclined to be jealous of him.
Briskly energetic and full of high spirits throughout all the rehearsals, and most energetic of all on the actual evening of the performance, he yet felt, when all was over and he knew that the affair had been a success, the onrush of a wave of acute depression. He had, no doubt, been working too hard, and this was the natural reaction of nerves. It was a cold night with hardly any wind, and during the evening a thick fog had drifted up from the fenlands, so that there was much excited talk among the visitors about the difficulties of getting to their homes. Nothing was to be seen more than five or six yards ahead, and there was the prospect that as the night advanced the fog would become worse. The Millstead boys, enjoying the novelty, were scampering across the forbidden quadrangle, revelling in the delightful risk of being caught and in the still more delightful possibility of knocking over, by accident, some one or other of the Masters. Speed, standing on the top step of the flight leading down from the Big Hall, gazed into the dense inky-black cloisters where two faint pin-pricks of light indicated lamps no more than a few yards away. He felt acutely miserable, and he could not think why. In a way, he was sorry that the bustle of rehearsals, to which he had become quite accustomed, was all finished with; but surely that was hardly a sufficient reason for feeling miserable? Hearing the boyish cries from across the quadrangle he suddenly felt that he was old, and that he wished he were young again, as young as the youngest of the boys at Millstead.
Since the quarrel about Smallwood he and Helen had got on tolerably well together. She had not asked Smallwood in to tea again, and he judged that she did not intend to, though to save her dignity she would still persist in her right to do so whenever she wished. The arrangement was quite satisfactory to him. But, despite the settlement of that affair, their relationship had suddenly become a thing of fierce, alternating contrasts. They were either terrifically happy or else desperately miserable. The atmosphere, when he came into Lavery's after an absence of even a quarter of an hour, might either be dull and glowering or else radiant with joy. He could never guess which it would be, and he could never discover reasons for whichever atmosphere he encountered. But invariably he was forced into responding; if Helen were moody and silent he also remained quiet, even if his inclinations were to go to the piano and sing comic songs. And if Helen were bright and joyful he forced himself to boisterousness, no matter what press of gravity was upon him. He sometimes found himself stopping short on his own threshold, frightened to enter lest Helen's mood, vastly different from his own, might drag him up or down too disconcertingly. Even their times of happiness, more wonderful now than ever, were drug-like in possessing after-effects which projected themselves backward in a tide of sweet melancholy that suffused everything. He knew that he loved her more passionately than ever, and he knew also that the beauty of it was mysteriously impregnated with sadness.
She stole up to him now in the fog, dainty and pretty in her heavy fur cloak. She put a hand on his sleeve; evidently this was one of her happy moods.
"Oh, Kenneth—whata fog! Aren't you glad everything's all over? It went off wonderfully, didn't it? Do you think the Rayners will be able to get home all right—they live out at Deepersdale, you know?"
Replying to the last of her queries, he said: "Oh yes, I don't think it's quite bad enough to stop them altogether."
Then after a pause she went on: "Clare's just putting her things on and I told her to meet you here. You'll see her home, won't you?"
He wondered in a vague kind of way why Helen was so desperately anxious that he should take Clare on her way home, but he was far too exhausted mentally to give the matter sustained excogitation. It seemed to him that Helen suddenly vanished, that he waited hours in the fog, and that Clare appeared mysteriously by his side, speaking to him in a voice that was full of sharp, recuperative magic. "My dear man, aren't you going to put your coat on?" Then he deliberately laughed and said: "Heavens, yes, I'd forgotten—just a minute if you don't mind waiting!"
He groped his way back into the hall and to the alcove where he had laid his coat and hat. The yellow light blurred his eyes with a film of half-blindness; phantasies of doubt and dread enveloped him; he felt, with that almost barometric instinct that he possessed, that things momentous and incalculable were looming in the future. This Millstead that had seemed to him so bright and lovely was now heavy with dark mysterious menace; as he walked back across the hall through the long avenues of disturbed chairs it occurred to him suddenly that perhaps this foreboding that was hovering about him was not mental at all, but physical; that he had overworked himself and was going to be ill. Perhaps, even, he was ill already. He had a curious desire that someone should confirm him in this supposition; when Clare, meeting him at the doorway, said: "You're looking thoroughly tired out Mr. Speed," he smiled and answered, with a touch of thankfulness: "I'm feeling, perhaps, a little that way."
"Then," said Clare, immediately, "please don't trouble to see me home. I can quite easily find my own way, I assure you. You go back to Lavery's and get straight off to bed."
The thought, thus presented to him, of foregoing this walk into the town with her, sent a sharp flush into his cheeks and pulled down the hovering gloom almost on to his eyes; he knew then, more acutely than he had ever guessed before, that he was desiring Clare's company in a way that was a good deal more than casual. The realisation surprised him just a little at first, and then surprised him a great deal because at first it had surprised him only a little.
"I'd rather come with you if you don't mind," he said. "The walk will do me good."
"What,thisweather!" she exclaimed softly, and then laughed a sharp, instant laugh.
That laugh galvanised him into determination. "I'm coming anyway," he said quietly, and took her arm and led her away into the fog.
Out in the high road it was blacker and denser; the school railings, dripping with grimy moisture, provided the only sure clue to position. Half, at least, of Speed's energies were devoted to the task of not losing the way; with the other half he was unable to carry out much of the strange programme of conversation that had been gathering in his mind. For many days past he had been accumulating a store of things to say to her upon this memorable walk which, so far as he could judge, was bound to be the last; now, with the opportunity arrived, he said hardly anything at all. She chattered to him about music and Millstead and odd topics of slight importance; she pressed her scarf to her lips and the words came out curiously muffled and deep-toned, with the air of having incalculable issues depending on them. But he hardly answered her at all. And at last they reached Harrington's shop in the High Street, and she shook hands with him and told him to get back as quickly as he could and be off to bed. "And don't work so hard," were her last words to him, "or you'll be ill."
Thicker and blacker than ever was the fog on the way back to the school, and somehow, through what error he never discovered, he lost himself amongst the narrow, old fashioned streets in the centre of the town. He wandered about, as it seemed to him, for hours, creeping along walls and hoping to meet some passer-by who could direct him. Once he heard Millstead Parish Church beginning the chime of midnight, but it was from the direction he least expected. At last, after devious manœuvring, he discovered himself again on the main road up to the School, and this time with great care he managed to keep to the route. As he entered the main gateway he heard the school clock sounding the three-quarters. A quarter to one! All was silent at Lavery's. He rang the bell timorously. After a pause he heard footsteps approaching on the other side, but they seemed to him light and airy; the bolts were pushed back, not with Burton's customary noise, but softly, almost frightenedly.
He could see that it was Helen standing there in the porch, not Burton. She flashed an electric torch in his face and then at his feet so that he should see the step.
She said: "Come in quickly—don't let the fog in. You're awfully late, aren't you? I told Burton to go to bed. I didn't know you were going to stay at Clare's."
He answered: "I didn't stay at Clare's. I got lost in the fog on the way back."
"Lost!" she echoed, walking ahead of him down the corridor towards his sitting-room. The word echoed weirdly in the silence. "Lost, were you?—So that's why you were late?"
"That's why," he said.
He followed her into the tiny lamp-lit room, full of firelight that was somehow melancholy and not cheerful.
She was silent. She sat in one of the chairs with her eyes looking straight into the fire; while he took off his coat and hat and drew up his own chair opposite to hers she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed to him as he watched her that the room grew redder and warmer and more melancholy; the flames lapped so noisily in the silence that he had for an instant the absurd fear that the scores of sleepers in the dormitories would be awakened. Then he heard, very faintly from above, what he imagined must be an especially loud snore; it made him smile. As he smiled he saw Helen's eyes turned suddenly upon him; he blushed as if caught in some guilty act. He said: "Can you hear somebody snoring up in the Senior dormitory?"
She stared at him curiously for a moment and then replied: "No, and neither can you. You said that to make conversation."
"I didn't!" he cried, with genuine indignation. "I distinctly heard it. That's what made me smile."
"And do you really think that the sound of anybody snoring in the Senior dormitory would reach us in here? Why, we never hear the maids in a morning and they make ever such a noise!"
"Yes, but then there are so many other noises to drown it. However, it may have been my imagination."
"Or it may have been your invention, eh?"
"I tell you, Helen, Ididthink that I heard it! Itwasn'tmy invention. What reason on earth should I have for inventing it? Oh, well, anyway, it's such a trifling matter—it's not worth arguing about."
"Then let's stop arguing. You started it."
Silence again. The melancholy in the atmosphere was charged now with an added quality, something that weighed and threatened and was dangerous. He knew that Helen had something pressing on her mind, and that until she flung it off there would be no friendliness with her. And he wanted friendliness. He could not endure the torture of her bitter silences.
"Helen," he said, nervously eager, "Helen, there's something the matter. Tell me what it is."
"There's nothing the matter."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
"Then why are you so silent?"
"Because I would rather be silent than make conversation."
"That's sarcastic."
"Is it? If you think it is——"
"Helen, please be kind to me. If you go on as you are doing I'm sure I shall either cry or lose my temper. I'm tired to death after all the work of the concert and I simply can't bear this attitude of yours."
"Well, I can't change my attitude to please you."
"Apparently not."
"Nowwho's sarcastic? Good heavens, do you think I've nothing to do but suit your mood when you come home tired at one o'clock in the morning—You spend half the night with some other woman and then when you come home, tired out, you expect me to soothe and make a fuss of you!"
"Helen, that's a lie! I walked straight home with Clare. You specially asked me to do that."
"I didn't specially ask you to stay out with her till one o'clock in the morning."
"I didn't stay with her till then. To begin with, it isn't one o'clock even yet.... Remember that the concert was over about eleven. I took Clare straight home and left her long before midnight. It wasn't my fault I lost my way in the fog."
"Nor mine either. But perhaps it was Clare's, eh?"
"Helen, I can't bear you to insinuate like that! Tell me frankly what you suspect, and then I'll answer frankly!"
"You wouldn't answer frankly. And that's why I can't tell you frankly."
"Well, I think it's scandalous——"
She interrupted him fiercely with: "Oh, yes, it's scandalous that I should dare to be annoyed when you give all your friendship to another woman and none to me, isn't it? It's scandalous that when you come home after seeing this other woman I shouldn't be perfectly happy and bright and ready to kiss and comfort you and wheedle you out of the misery you're in at having to leave her! You only want me for a comforter, and it's so scandalous when I don't feel in the humour to oblige, isn't it?"
"Helen, it's not true! My friendship belongs to you more than to——"
"Don't tell me lies just to calm me into suiting your mood. Do you think I haven't noticed that we haven't anything in common except that we love each other? We don't know what on earth to talk about when we're alone together. We just know how to bore each other and to torture each other with our love. Don't you realize the truth of that? Don't you find yourself eagerly looking forward to seeing Clare; Clare whom you can talk to and be friendly with; Clare who's your equal, perhaps your superior, in intellect? Lately, I've given you as many chances to see her as I could, because if you're going to tire of me I'd rather you do it quickly. But I'm sorry I can't promise to be always gay and amusing while it's going on. It may be scandalous that I can't, but it's the truth, anyway!"
"But, my dear Helen, what an extraordinary bundle of misunderstandings you've got hold of! Why——"
"Oh yes, you'd like to smooth me down and persuade me it's all my own misunderstanding, I daresay, as you've always been able to do! But the effect doesn't last for very long; sooner or later it all crops up again. It's no use, Kenneth. I'm not letting myself be angry, but I tell you it's not a bit of use. I'm sick to death of wanting from you what I can't get. I've tried hard to educate myself into being your equal, but it doesn't seem to make you value me any more. Possibly you like me best as a child; perhaps you wouldn't have married me if you'd known I was really a woman. Anyway, Kenneth, I can't help it. And there's another thing—I'm miserably jealous—of Clare. If you'd had a grain of ordinary sense you might have guessed it before now."
"My dear Helen——"
Then he stopped, seeing that she was staring at him fearlessly. She was different, somehow, from what she had ever been before; and this quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was also different both in size and texture. There was no anger in her; nothing but stormy sincerity and passionate outpouring of the truth. A new sensation overspread him; a thrill of surprised and detached admiration for her. If she were always like this, he thought—if she were always proud, passionate, and sincere—how splendidly she would take possession of him! For he wanted to belong to her, finally and utterly; he was anxious for any enslavement that should give him calm and absolute anchorage.
His admiration was quickly superseded by astonishment at her self-revelation.
"But Helen—" he gasped, leaning over the arm of his chair and putting his hand on her wrist, "Helen, I'd no idea!Jealous! You jealous of Clare! What on earth for? Clare's only an acquaintance! Why, you're a thousand times more to me than Clare ever is or could be!"
"Kenneth!" She drew her arm away from the touch of his hand with a gesture that was determined but not contemptuous. "Kenneth, I don't believe it. Perhaps you're not trying to deceive me; probably you're trying to deceive yourself and succeeding. Tell me, Kenneth, truthfully, don't you sometimes wish I were Clare when you're talking to me? When we're both alone together, when we're neither doing nor saying anything particular, don't you wish you could make me vanish suddenly and have Clare in my place, and—and—" bitterness crept into her voice here—"and call me back when you wanted the only gift of mine which you find satisfactory? You came back to-night, miserable, because you'd said good-bye to Clare, and because you couldn't see in the future any chances of meeting her as often as you've been able to do lately. You wanted—you're wanting it now—Clare's company and Clare's conversation and Clare's friendship. And because you can't have it you're willing to soothe yourself with my pretty little babyish ways, and when you find you can't havethemeither you think it's scandalous! Kenneth, my dear, dear Kenneth, I'm not a baby any longer, even if I ever was one—I'm a woman now, and you don't like me as much. I can't help it. I can't help being tortured with jealousy all the time you're with Clare. I can't help wanting what Clare has of you more than I want what I have of you myself. I can't help—sometimes—hating her—loathing her!"
He was speechless now, made so by a curious dignity with which she spoke and the kindness to him that sounded in everything that she said. He was so tired and sorry. He leaned his head in his arms and sobbed. Some tragedy that had seemed to linger in the lamp-lit room ever since he had come into it out of the fog, was now about his head blinding and crushing him; all the world of Millstead, spread out in the panorama of days to come, appeared in a haze of forlorn melancholy. The love he had for Helen ached in him with a sadness that was deeper now than it had ever been.
And then, suddenly, she was all about him, kneeling beside him, stroking his hair, taking his hand and pressing it to her breast, crying softly and without words.
He whispered, indistinctly: "Helen, Helen, it's all right. Don't you worry, little Helen. I'm not quite well to-night, I think. It must be the strain of all that concert work.... But I'll be all right when I've had a rest for a little while.... Helen, darling, you mustn't cry about me like that!"
Then she said, proudly, though her voice still quivered: "I'm not worrying, dear. And you'll see Clare again soon, because I shall ask her to come here. You've got to choose between us, and Clare shall have a fair chance, anyway.... And now come to bed and sleep."
He gave her a smile that was more babyish than anything that she had ever been or done. And with her calm answering smile the sadness seemed somehow a little lifted.
He was in bed for three days with a temperature (but nothing more serious); Howard, the School doctor, chaffed him unmercifully. "You're a lucky man. Speed, to be ill in bed with Mrs. Speed to nurse you! Better than being up in the Sick-room, isn't it?" Once the idea occurred to Speed that he might be sickening for some infectious complaint, in which case he would be taken away and isolated in the Sanatorium. When he half-hinted the possibility of this to Howard, the latter said, laughing loudly: "You needn't worry, Speed. I know you don't want to lose your pretty little nurse, do you? I understand you, young man—I was your age once, you know."
But the strange thing was that what Howard supposed Speed didn't want was just what he did want. He wanted to lose Helen for a little while. Not because he didn't love her. Not because of any reason which he could dare to offer himself. Merely, he would admit, a whimsical desire to be without her for a short time; it would, he thought, clutching hold of the excuse, save her the work of attending to him. He could hardly understand himself. But the fact was, Helen saddened him. It was difficult to explain in detail; but there was a kind of aura of melancholy which seemed to follow her about wherever she went. In the short winter afternoons he lay awake watching her, listening to the distant cheering on the footer pitches, sniffing the aroma of tea that she was preparing for him; it was all so delicious and cosy, and yet, in a curious, blinding way, it was all so sad. He felt he should slide into madness if he were condemned to live all his days like these, with warm fires and twilit meals and Helen always about him in attendance. He could not understand why it was that though he loved her so dearly yet he should not be perfectly happy with her.
How strange it was to lie there all day listening to all the sounds of Millstead! He heard the School-bell ringing the end of every period, the shouts of the boys at call-over, the hymns in the chapel—(his Senior organ-pupil was deputising for him)—Burton locking up at night, the murmur of gramophones in the prefects' studies; and everything, it seemed to him, was full of this same rich sadness. Then he reasoned with himself; the sadness must be a part of him, since he saw and felt it in so many things and places. It was unfair to blame Helen. Poor Helen, how kind she was to him, and how unkindly he treated her in return! Sometimes he imagined himself a blackguard and a cad, wrecking the happiness of the woman who would sacrifice everything for his sake. Once (it was nearly dark, but the lamp had not yet been lit) he called her to him and said, brokenly: "Helen, darling—Helen, I'm so sorry." "Sorry for what, Kenneth?" she enquired naturally. And he thought and pondered and could only add: "I don't know—nothing in particular. I'm just sorry, that's all." And once also he lashed himself into a fervour of promises. "Iwillbe kind to you, Helen, dearest. Wewillbe friends, we two. There's nothing that anybody shall have of me that you shan't have also. Idowant you to be happy, Helen." And shewashappy, then, happy and miserable at the same time; crying for joy at the beautiful sadness of it all.
Those long days and nights! The wind howled up from the fenlands and whiffed through the ivy on the walls; the skies were grey and desolate, the quadrangle a waste of dingy green. It was the time of the terminal House-Matches, and when Milner's beat School House in the Semi-Final the cheering throng passed right under Speed's window, yelling at the tops of their voices and swinging deafening rattles. In a few days Milner's would play Lavery's in the Final, and he hoped to be up by then and able to watch it.
Of course, he had visitors. Clanwell came and gave him endless chatter about the House-Matches; a few of the less influential prefects paid him a perfunctory visit of condolence and hoped he would soon be all right again. And then Doctor and Mrs. Ervine. "Howard tells me it is nothing—um—to be—um, er, perturbed about. Just, to use an—um—colloquialism, run down, eh, Speed? The strain of the—um—concert must have been quite—um—considerable. By the way, Speed, I ought to congratulate you—the whole evening passed in the most—um, yes—the most satisfactory manner." And Mrs. Ervine said, in her rather tart way: "It's quite a mercy they only come once a year, or we should all be dead very soon, I think."
And Clare.
Helen had kept her promise. She had written to Clare asking her to tea on a certain afternoon, and she had also contrived that when Clare came she should be transacting important and rather lengthy business with the Matron. The result was that Speed, now in his sitting-room though still not allowed out of doors, was there alone to welcome her.
He had got into such a curious state of excitement as the time neared for her arrival that when she did come he was almost speechless. She smiled and shook hands with him and said, immediately: "I'm so sorry to hear you haven't been very well. I feel partly responsible, since I dragged you all that way in the fog the other night. But I'm not going to waste too much pity on you, because I think you waste quite enough on yourself, don't you?"
He laughed weakly and said that perhaps he did.
Then there was a long pause which she broke by saying suddenly: "What's the matter with you?"
"Matter with me? Oh, nothing serious—only a chill——"
"That's not what I mean. I want to know what's the matter with you that makes you look at me as you were doing just then."
"I—I—I didn't know I was. I—I——"
He stopped. What on earth were they going to talk about? And what was this look that he had been giving her? He felt his cheeks burning; a fire rising up all around him and bathing his body in warmth.
She said, obviously with the desire to change the subject: "What are you and Helen going to do at Christmas?"
Pulling himself together with an effort, he replied: "Well, we're not certain yet. My—er—my people have asked us down to their place."
"And of course you'll go."
"I'm not certain."
"But why not?"
He paused. "Well, you see—in a way, it's a private reason. I mean——"
"Oh, well, if it's a private reason, you certainly mustn't tell me. Let's change the subject again. How are the House-Matches going?"
"Look here, I didn't mean to be rude. And I do want to tell you, as it happens. In fact, I wouldn't mind your advice if you'd give it me. Will you?"
"Better put the case before me first."
"Well, you see, it's like this." He was so desperately and unaccountably nervous that he found himself plunging into the midst of his story almost before he realised what he was doing. "You see, my people were in Australia for a holiday when I married Helen. I had to marry her quickly, you remember, because of taking this housemastership. And I don't think they quite liked me marrying somebody they'd never seen."
"Perfectly natural on their part, my dear man. You may as well admit that much of their case to start with."
"Yes, I suppose it is rather natural. But you don't know what my people are like. I don't think they'll care for Helen very much. And Helen is bound to be nervous at meeting them. I expect we should have a pretty miserable Christmas if we went."
"I should think in your present mood you'd have a pretty miserable Christmas whatever you did. And since you asked for my advice I'll give it you. Buck yourself up; don't let your imagination carry you away; and take Helen to see your people. After all, she's perfectly presentable, and since you've married her there's nothing to be gained by keeping her out of their sight, is there? Don't think I'm callous and unfeeling because I take a more practical view of things than you do. I'm a practical person, you see, Mr. Speed, and if I had married you I should insist on being taken to see your people at the earliest possible opportunity."
"Why?"
"Because," she answered, "I should be anxious for them to see what an excellent choice you'd made!"
That was thoughtlessly said and thoughtfully heard. After a pause Speed said, curiously: "That brings one to the question—supposing I had married you, should I have made an excellent choice?"
With a touch of surprise and coldness she replied: "That wasn't in my mind, Mr. Speed. You evidently misunderstood me."
And at this point Helen came into the room.
During that strange twilight hour while the three of them were tea-drinking and conducting a rather limp conversation about local matters, Speed came suddenly to the decision that he would not see Clare again. Partly, perhaps, because her last remark just before Helen entered had hurt him; he felt that she had deliberately led him into a position from which she could and did administer a stinging snub. But chiefly his decision was due to a careful and pitiful observation of Helen; he saw her in a dazzling white light of admiration, for she was deliberately (he could see) torturing herself to please him. She was acutely jealous of Clare, and yet, because she thought he liked Clare, she was willing to give her open hospitality and encouragement, despite the stab that every word and gesture must mean to her. It reminded him of Hans Andersen's story about the mermaid who danced to please her lover-prince even though each step cost her agonies. The pathos of it, made more apparent to him by the literary comparison, overwhelmed him into a blind fervour of resolution: he would do everything in his power to bring happiness to one who was capable of such love and such nobility. And as Helen thus swung into the focus of his heroine-worship, so Clare, without his realising it, took up in his mind the other inevitable position in the triangle; she was something, at least, of the adventuress, scheming to lure his affections away from his brave little wife. The fact that he was not conscious of this conventional outlook upon the situation prevented his reason from assuring him that Clare, so far from scheming to lure his affections from Helen, had just snubbed him unmercifully for a remark which any capable adventuress would have rejoiced over.
Anyway, he decided there and then, he would put a stop to this tangled and uncomfortable situation. And after tea, when Helen, on a pretext which he knew quite well to be a fabrication, left him alone again with Clare, he could think of no better method of procedure than a straightforward request.
So he summed up the necessary determination to begin: "Miss Harrington, I hope you won't be offended at what I'm going to say——"
Whereat she interrupted: "Oh, I don't often take offence at what peoplesay. So please don't be frightened."
"You see ..." He paused, watching her. He noticed, curiously enough for the first time, that she was—well, not perhaps pretty, but certainly—in a way—attractive. In the firelight especially, she seemed to have the most searching and diabolically disturbing eyes. They made him nervous. At last he continued: "You see, I'm in somewhat of a dilemma. A quandary, as it were. In fact—in fact I——"
"Supposing we use our ordinary English language and say that you're in a mess, eh? 'Quandary'! 'Dilemma'!" She laughed with slight contempt.
"I don't—I don't quite see the point of—of your—objection," he said, staring at her with a certain puzzled ruefulness. "What has my choice of a word got to do with it?"
"To do with what?" she replied, instantly.
"With what—with what we're going to talk about."
"Since I haven't the faintest idea what we're going to talk about, how can I say?"
"Look here!" He got up out of his chair and stood with his back to the fire. He kept a fretful silence for a moment and then said, with a sharp burst of exasperation: "Look here, I don't know what you're driving at! I only know that you're being most infernally rude!"
"Don't forget that a moment ago you were asking me not to take offence."
"You're damned clever, aren't you?" he almost snarled.
That was all he could think of in the way of an answer to her. He stood there swaying lightly in front of the fire, nursing, as it were, his angry bafflement.
"Thank you," she replied. "I regard that as a very high tribute. And I'm nearly as pleased at one other thing—I seem to have shaken you partly out of your delightful and infuriating urbanity.... But now, we're not here to compliment each other. You've got something you want to say to me, haven't you?"
He stared at her severely and said: "Yes, I have. I want to ask you not to come here any more."
"Why?" She shot the word out at him almost before he had finished speaking.
"Because I don't wish you to."
"You forget that I come at Helen's invitation, not at yours."
"I see I shall have to tell you the real reason, then. I would have preferred not to have done. My wife is jealous of you."
He expected her to show great surprise, but the surprise was his when she replied almost casually: "Oh yes, she was jealous ofyouonce—that first evening we met at the Head's house—do you remember?"
No, he did not remember. At least, he did now that she called it to his memory, but he had not remembered until then. Curious ...
He was half-disappointed that she was so calm and unconcerned about it all. He had anticipated some sort of a scene, either of surprise, remorse, indignation, or sympathy. Instead of which she just said "Oh, yes," and indulged in some perfectly irrelevant reminiscence. Well, not perhaps irrelevant, but certainly inappropriate in the circumstances.
"You see," he went on, hating her blindly because she was so serene; "you see she generously invites you here, because she thinks I like you to come. Well, of course, I do, but then, I don't want to make it hard for her. You understand what I mean? I think it is very generous of her to—to act as she does."
"I think it is very foolish unless she has the idea that in time she can conquer her jealousy.... But I quite understand, Mr. Speed. I won't come any more."
"I hope you don't think——"
"Fortunately I have other things to think about. I assure you I'm not troubling at all. Even loss of friendship——"
"But," he interrupted eagerly, "surely it's not going to mean that, Miss Harrington? Just because you don't come here doesn't mean that you and I——"
She laughed in his face as she replied, cutting short his remarks: "My dear Mr. Speed, you are too much of an egoist. It wasn't your friendship I was thinking about—it was Helen's. You forget that I've been Helen's friend for ten years.... Well, good-bye...."
The last straw! He shook hands with her stiffly.
When she had gone his face grew hard and solemn, and he clenched his fists as he stood again with his back to the fire. He felt—the wordcameto his mind was a staggering inevitability—he feltdead. Absolutely dead. And all because she had gone and he knew that she would not come again.
Those were the dark days of the winter term, when Burton came round the dormitories at half-past seven in the mornings and lit all the flaring gas-jets. There was a cold spell at the beginning of December when it was great fun to have to smash the film of ice on the top of the water in the water-jugs, and one afternoon the school got an extra half-holiday to go skating on one of the neighbouring fens that had been flooded and frozen over. Now Speed could skate very well, even to the point of figure-skating and a few easy tricks, and he took a very simple and human delight in exhibiting his prowess before the Millstead boys. He possessed a good deal of that very charming boyish pride in athletic achievement which is so often mistaken for modesty, and there was no doubt that the reports of his accomplishments on the wide expanse of Dinglay Fen gave a considerable fillip to his popularity in the school.
A popularity, by the way, which was otherwise very distinctly on the wane. He knew it, felt it as anyone might have felt it, and perhaps, additionally, as only he in all the world could feel it; it was the dark spectre in his life. He loved success; he was prepared to fight the sternest of battles provided they were victories on the road of progress; but to see his power slipping from him elusively and without commotion of any kind, was the sort of thing his soul was not made to endure. Fears grew up in him and exaggerated reality. He imagined all kinds of schemes and conspiracies against him in his own House. The enigma of the Head became suddenly resolved into a sinister hostility to himself. If a boy passed him in the road with a touch of the cap and a "Good morning" he would ask himself whether the words contained any ominous subtlety of meaning. And when, on rare occasions, he dined in the Masters' Common-Room he could be seen to feel hostility rising in clouds all about him, hostility that would not speak or act, that was waiting mute for the signal to uprise.
He was glad that the term was nearly over, not, he told himself, because he was unhappy at Millstead, but because he needed a holiday after the hard work of his first term of housemastership. The next term, he decided, would be easier; and the term after that easier still, and so on, until a time would come when his work at Millstead would be exactly the ideal combination of activity and comfort. Moreover, the next term he would not see Clare at all. He had made up his mind about that It would be easier to see her not at all than to see her only a little. And with the absolute snapping of his relations with her would come that which he desired most in all the world; happiness with Helen. He wanted to be happy with Helen. He wanted to love her passionately, just as he wanted to hate Clare passionately. For it was Clare who had caused all the trouble. He hugged the comfortable thought to himself; it was Clare, and Clare only, who had so far disturbed the serenity of his world. Without Clare his world would have been calm and unruffled, a paradise of contentment and love of Helen.
Well, next term, anyway, his world should be without Clare.
On the day that term ended he felt quite boyish and cheerful. For during that final week he and Helen had been, he considered, perfectly happy; moreover, she had agreed to go with him to his parents for Christmas, and though the visit would, in some sense, be an ordeal, the anticipation of it was distinctly pleasant. Somehow—he would not analyse his sensation exactly—somehow he wanted to leave the creeper-hung rooms at Lavery's and charge full tilt into the world outside; it was as if Lavery's contained something morbidly beautiful that he loved achingly, but desired to leave in order that he might return to love it more and again. When he saw the railway vans being loaded up with luggage in the courtyard he felt himself tingling with excitement, just as if he were a schoolboy and this the close of his first miserable term. Miserable! Well, yes, looking back upon it he could agree that in a certain way it had been miserable, and in another way it had been splendid, rapturous, and lovely. It had been full, brimming full, offeelings. The feelings had whirled tirelessly about him in the dark drawing-room, had wrapped him amidst themselves, had tossed him high and low to the most dizzy heights and the most submerged depths; and now, aching from it all, he was not sorry to leave for a short while this world of pressing, congesting sensation.
He even caught himself looking forward to his visit to his parents, a thing he had hardly ever done before. For his parents were, he had always considered, "impossible" parents, good and generous enough in their way, but "impossible" from his point of view. They were—he hesitated to use the word "vulgar," because that word implied so many things that they certainly were not—he would use instead the rather less insulting word "materialist." They lived in a world that was full of "things"—soap-factories and cars and Turkey carpets and gramophones and tennis-courts. Moreover, they were almost disgustingly wealthy, and their wealth had followed him doggedly about wherever he had tried to escape from it. They had regarded his taking a post in a public-school as a kind of eccentric wild oats, and did not doubt that, sooner or later, he would come to his senses and prefer one or other of the various well-paid business posts that Sir Charles Speed could get for him. Oh, yes, undoubtedly they were impossible people. And yet their very impossibility would be a relief from the tensely charged atmosphere of Lavery's.
On the train he chatted gaily to Helen and gave her some indication of the sort of people his parents were. "You mustn't be nervous of them," he warned her. "They've pots of money, but they're not people to get nervous about. Dad's all right if you stick up for yourself in front of him, and mother's nice to everybody whether she likes them or not. So you'll be quite safe ... and if it freezes there'll be ice on the Marshpond...."
At the thought of this last possibility his face kindled with anticipation. "Cold, Helen?" he queried, and when she replied "Yes, rather," he said jubilantly: "I shouldn't be surprised if it's started to freeze already."
Then for many minutes he gazed out through the carriage window at the pleasant monotony of the Essex countryside, and in a short while he felt her head against his shoulder. She was sleeping. "I do love her!" he thought triumphantly, giving her a side-glance. And then the sight of a pond with a thin coating of ice gave him another sort of triumph.
"BEACHINGS OVER, near Framlingay, Essex. Tel. Framlingay 32. Stations: Framlingay 2½ miles; Pumphrey Bassett 3 miles."
So ran the inscription on Lady Speed's opulent bluish notepaper. The house was an old one, unobtrusively modernised, with about a half-mile of upland carriage-drive leading to the portico. As Helen saw it from the window of the closed Daimler that had met them at Framlingay station, her admiration secured momentary advantage of her nervousness.
In another moment Speed was introducing her to his mother.
Lady Speed was undoubtedly a fine woman. "Fine" was exactly the right word for her, for she was just a little too elderly to be called beautiful and perhaps too tall ever to have been called pretty. Though she was upright and clear-skinned and finely-featured, and although the two decades of her married life had seemed to leave very little conspicuous impression on her, yet there was a sense, perhaps, in which she looked her age; it might have been guessed rightly as between forty and fifty. She had blue eyes of that distinctively English hue that might almost be the result of gazing continually upon miles and miles of rolling English landscape; and her nose, still attractivelyretroussé, though without a great deal of the pertness it must have had in her youth, held just enough of patricianly bearing to enable her to manage competently the twenty odd domestics whose labours combined to make Beachings Over habitable.
She kissed Helen warmly. "My dear, I'm so pleased to meet you. But you'll have to rough it along with us, you know—I'm afraid we don't live at all in style. We're just ordinary country folks, that's all.... And when you've had your lunch and got refreshed I must take you over the house and show you everything...."