CHAPTER XIV
“IN other words,” said Randolph, “loving an Englishman means hard work and plenty of it.”
They were on top of the fell and had been roaming about all the afternoon. Randolph had begun by amusing her and putting her into the best of tempers, then he had led her on to speak of her long and determined struggle to be many things foreign to her disposition and habit, evincing so deep and genuine an interest that Lee’s ego, so long the down-trodden subject of her imperious will, had leaped hilariously to its own and confessed itself steadily for two hours.
“I’m not disloyal for a moment, and you’re really my brother; and I could not speak to any one else living like this: the others I know as well would not understand. I don’t see why I complain. I’ve got almost everything I ever imagined myself wanting.”
“You’ve surrendered your individuality. It is that that gnaws, and almost devitalises you.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. I could be very quickly spoiled and get it all back; but that would mean that I should not be happy in the same way, nor Cecil either.”
“Are you happy?”
“I thought I was until lately—the last—oh, it ishard to say exactly. But I never was intended for quite such hard and fast routine. I feel positive that in certain conditions I should not mind being a mere second self to Cecil. When you love a man nothing much matters up to a certain point; and after that, nothing would matter at all if the nerves could be made to hum occasionally to something like uncertainty. This cut-and-dried life of England’s leisure class, which reminds me of a grandfather’s clock in magnificent running order, may suit many temperaments, but not mine. As you say, the old civilisations fascinate us who are two-thirds made up of the unruly instincts of the new, but they don’t satisfy, and they certainly do pall. Three years more of this and I shall be a machine without a nerve, or—I shall hate Cecil Maundrell. I’ve been horribly upset ever since you came; you actually brought an earthquake with you, and I’ve thought and thought and thought——”
“Well?” he said gently.
“If I’ve relapsed into the national monologue it’s your fault.”
“Have you been fashioning your mental habits on an up-to-date novelette? People always monologue in private life. Do go on.”
“You know I never had a morbid nor a hysterical moment; but there must come a time to all strong natures when all they have inherited and all they have been in their plastic years finds itself in violent conflict with an alien present. The problem would be solved if we could get away, if Cecil’s genius could make a leap into other lines. If I could only havehad a finger in the moulding of our two destinies Cecil would have been a great pioneer, an ‘Empire-maker,’ like Cecil Rhodes. There would have been no stagnation then; I should have felt all the stimulation of trampling down obstacles and defying the prejudices of a million little minds in opening up a new and savage country by the sheer insolent force of one great man’s personality. And then the excitement of not knowing what would happen next, where we or the whole country would be this time next year! And in a new country, where civilisation is still in the making, man is greater than the State, and he is much more alive and individual, much more primitive and at the same time many-sided than when he is the slow and logical result of a rounded and fagged civilisation which has caught him fast. But there is no hope.... Even if Cecil discovered the instinct of the pioneer in him he would not listen to it, for he is very proud and very ambitious. When a man towers in an isolated field like Mr. Rhodes, every man who plants his heels in the same field in the same epoch is a moon to Jupiter. And no two men in a century will ever have all the gifts of the Empire-maker united in one brain. Cecil is highly gifted, and he has enormous energy, but his gifts are on the old conservative lines.”
Randolph, who had been absently tearing up the heather by the roots, his eyes apparently absorbed in his task, extended himself at her feet.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“What can I do? It has been an unspeakable relief to talk to you—have I bored you?”
“I’ll not answer such a foolish question. Do you still love your husband?”
“Oh, I’m sure I do, down deep; but my brain is in a chaotic state; the whole of me in an ugly rebellious temper. We’ve had our first real misunderstanding these last two days, and Cecil is so absorbed in grouse he doesn’t even know it.”
Randolph laughed so heartily that Lee was forced to smile. “If that were all,” she said with a sigh.
“I can think of no better temporary remedy than that you should come back to California with us for a year. You might find that England had weaned you after all, and California was an idealised memory. And as for your husband—there is nothing like an occasional vacation. Mother is already homesick: we’ll return this year.”
“Cecil would never consent. He’s really devoted to me.”
“I should hope so. But English wives are not slaves, I suppose. If you asserted yourself he would neither tie you up nor divorce you.”
“He really needs me tremendously. If I were not a little beast I’d be contented with my lot. And as I’ve tried to make him happy for purely selfish reasons for three years, I don’t see that I have the right to make him miserable because I have wheeled about and want something that he can’t give me.”
“Or awakened?”
“It’s not only that. I shut my eyes deliberately to a great deal at the first—that I could not be everything to him, that there were depths in his nature that were way beyond me.”
“My dear child, no woman can be everything to a man; that would be Utopia.”
“He could at least be more to me.”
“Ah, that is another matter,” said Randolph softly.
They returned to the subject many times. Randolph spent but a part of the day on the moors. He was an admirable shot, and took care to distinguish himself, but was at no pains to conceal his lack of enthusiasm. On the fourth day of his visit, as Lee was showing him over the Abbey, she said abruptly:
“Did you ever get a letter I wrote to you the day after I arrived here?”
“The day after——”
“It was all about the Abbey. I told you that Emmy might leave nothing, and that everybody had expected Cecil to marry a fortune, or else lose his inheritance. They wanted him to marry that Miss Pix, and they all seemed to think I was a criminal for not being worth a million. I felt a fool, I can assure you, for not investing in the Peruvian mine.”
“And you wrote to your old slave to make a million for you. I did not get the letter, but I can see every word of it.”
“I don’t think I should have the same assurance to-day, but I’d be very thankful if you’d advise me.”
“Oh, you have changed! It’s really tragic!”
They were in the crypt of the Abbey, an immense rambling and shadowy vault. Lee put her hands to her face suddenly and began to cry. Randolph took her in his arms and patted her gently.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to make love to you. I’m only your big brother. But you must come back with me to California.”
“Oh, I want to go—the more I think of it, the more I want to go. The first time I have a chance I’ll speak to Cecil about it; but he comes home just in time to dress and is so tired he’s asleep before he’s fairly in bed and in the morning he’s gone before I’m awake.”
“You were certainly never intended for a sportsman,” said Randolph dryly. “I have written to mother to urge you to return with us. And as for the other matter, we’ll see to it when we get there——”
“I am serious about that. I love the Abbey. I should think I had been born to some purpose if I could save it. And I look upon it as almost my mission; for should Cecil lose it, it would be through me. I’d never forgive myself.”
“It strikes me that Cecil would have no one to blame but himself. He was no raw stripling when he married you, but a man with a remarkably mature mind——”
“But he was frightfully in love.”
“And never wiser. However, if you wish to make the Abbey your mission in life you can command my services, as always. I will take the matter in hand as soon as I get back.”
“Willyou?”
“Yes, but you must come too. It takes a month to get a letter answered from here, and business secrets cannot be cabled.”
“I will go then. A double object gives me doublecourage. But I’ve bored you long enough. You listen to my woes by the yard, and you never talk about yourself except to amuse me——”
“I came to England for no other purpose but to see you and to hear you talk.”
“Well, I can tell you then, that you were inspired by the real missionary spirit, for I needed you badly.”