Howard woke early, after sweet and wild dreams of great landscapes and rich adventures; as his thoughts took shape, he began to feel as if he had passed some boundary yesterday; escaped, as a child escapes from a familiar garden into great vague woodlands. There was his talk with Mrs. Graves first—that had opened up for him a new region, indeed, of the mind and soul, and had revealed to him an old force, perhaps long within his grasp, but which he had never tried to use or wield. And the vision too of Maud crossed his mind—a perfectly beautiful thing, which had risen like a star. He did not think of it as love at all—that did not cross his mind—it was just the thought of something enchantingly and exquisitely beautiful, which disturbed him, awed him, threw his mind off its habitual track. How extraordinarily lovely, simple, sweet, the girl had seemed to him in the dim room, in the faint light; and how fearless and frank she had been! He was conscious only of something adorable, which raised, as beautiful things did, a sense of something unapproachable, some yearning which could not be satisfied. How far away, how faded and dusty his ordinary contented Cambridge life now seemed to him!
He breakfasted alone, read a few letters which had been forwarded to him, and went to the library. A few minutes later Miss Merry tapped at the door, and came in.
"Mrs. Graves asked me to say—she was sorry she forgot to mention it—that if you care for shooting or fishing, the keeper will come in and take your orders. She thinks you might like to ask Jack to luncheon and go out with him; she sends you her love, and wants you to do what you like."
"Thank you very much!" said Howard, "I rather expect Jack will be round here and I will ask him. I know he would like it, and I should too—if you are sure Mrs. Graves approves."
"Oh, yes," said Miss Merry, smiling, "she always approves of people doing what they like."
Miss Merry still hesitated at the door. "May I ask you another question, Mr. Kennedy—I hope I am not troublesome—I wonder if you could suggest some books for us to read? I read a good deal to Mrs. Graves, and I am afraid we get rather into a groove. We ought to read some of the new books; we want to know what people are saying and thinking—we don't want to get behind."
"Why, of course," said Howard, "I shall be delighted—but I am afraid I am not likely to be of much use; I don't read as much as I ought; but if you will tell me the sort of things you care about, and what you have been reading, we will try to make out a list. Won't you sit down and see what we can do?"
"Oh, I don't like to interrupt you," said Miss Merry. "But if you would be so kind."
She sat down at the far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a solid kind. He asked if they had any plan.
"No, indeed," said Miss Merry, "we just wander on; one thing suggests another. Mrs. Graves likes LONG books; she says she likes to get at a subject quietly—that there ought not to be too many good things in books; she likes them slow and spacious."
"I am afraid one has to go back a good way for that!" said Howard. "People can't afford now to know more than a manual of a couple of hundred pages can tell them about a subject. I can tell you some good historical books, and some books of literary criticism and biography. I can't do much about poetry or novels; and philosophy, science, and theology I am no use at all for. But I could get you some advice if you like. That's the best of Cambridge, there are so many people about who are able to tell what to read."
While they were making out a list, Jack arrived breathlessly, and Miss Merry shamefacedly withdrew. Howard said: "Perhaps that will do to go on with—we will have another talk to-morrow. I begin to see the sort of thing you want."
Jack was in a state of high excitement.
"What on earth were you doing," he said, as the door closed, "with that sedate spinster?"
"We were making out a list of books!"
"Ah," said Jack with a profound air, "books are dangerous things—that's the intellectual way of making love! You must be a great excitement here, with all your ideas!—but now," he went on, "here I am—I hurried back the moment breakfast was over. I have been horribly bored—a lawn-tennis party yesterday, the females much to the fore—it's no good that, it's not the game; at least it's not lawn-tennis; it's a game all right, but I much suspect it has to do with love-making rather than exercise."
"You seem very suspicious this morning," said Howard; "you accuse me of flirting to begin with, and now you suspect lawn-tennis."
Jack shook his head. "I do hate love-making!" he said, "it spoils everything—it gets in the way, and makes fools of people; the longer I live, the more I see that most of the things that people do are excuses for doing something else! But never mind that! I said I had got to get back to be coached; I said that one of our dons was staying in the village and had his eye on me. What I want to know is whether you have made any arrangements about shooting or fishing? You said you would if you could."
"The keeper is coming in," said Howard, "and we will have a talk to him; but mind, on one condition—work in the morning, exercise in the afternoon; and you are to stop to lunch."
"Cousin Anne is bursting into hospitality," said Jack, "because Maud is coming in for the afternoon. I haven't had time to pump Maud yet about you, but, by George, I'm going to pump you about her and father. Did you have a very thick time last night? I could see father was rather licking his lips."
"Now, no more chatter," said Howard; "you go and get some books, and we will set to work at once." Jack nodded and fled.
When he came back the keeper was waiting, a friendly old man, who seemed delighted at the idea of some sport. Jack said, "Look here, I have arranged it all. Shooting to-day, and you can have father's gun; he hardly ever uses it, and I have my own. Fishing to-morrow, and so on alternately. There are heaps of rabbits up the valley—the place crawls with them."
Howard taught Jack for an hour, as clearly and briskly as he could, making him take notes. He found him quick and apt, and at the end, Jack said, "Now if I could only do this every day at Cambridge, I should soon get on. My word, you do do it well! It makes me shudder to think of all the practice you must have had."
Howard set Jack down to prepare some further work by himself, and attacked his own papers; and very soon it was time for lunch.
Mrs. Graves greeted Jack with much affectionateness, and asked what they had arranged for the afternoon. Howard told her, and added that he hoped she did not object to shooting.
"No, not at all," said Mrs. Graves, "if YOU can do it conscientiously—I couldn't! As usual I am hopelessly inconsistent. I couldn't kill things myself, but as long as I eat meat, I can't object. It's no good arguing about these things. If one begins to argue about destroying life, there are such excellent reasons for not eating anything, or wearing anything, or even crossing the lawn! I have long believed that plants are conscious, but we have got to exist somehow at each other's expense. Instinct is the only guide for women; if they begin to reason, they get run away with by reason; that is what makes fanatics. I won't go so far as to wish you good sport, but you may as well get all the rabbits you can; I'll send them round the village, and try to salve my conscience so."
They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending, but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.
"I don't get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren't ask a modern young man to come and see two old frumps—one old frump, I mean! But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues that we can hold! It wouldn't be possible to live, if we knew that all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all perfectly well known and canvassed by all our friends. However, as long as we only enjoy each other's faults, and don't go in for correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don't DISAPPROVE of people, Jack! That's the hopeless attitude."
"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal they are; and when it's like that, I should be sorry if they improved."
"I won't go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be thankful that their lack of improvement can still entertain me. One can never be thankful enough for really grotesque people. But I confess I don't enjoy seeing people spiteful and mean and vicious. I want to obliterate all that."
"I want it to be obliterated," said Mrs. Graves; "but I don't feel equal to doing it. Oh, well, we mustn't get solemn over it; that's the mischief! But I mustn't keep you gentlemen from more serious pursuits—'real things,' I believe, Jack?"
"Mr. Kennedy has been sneaking on me," said Jack. "I don't like to see people mean and spiteful. It gives me pain. I want all that obliterated."
"This is what happens to my pupils," said Howard. "Come on, Jack, you shall not expose my methods like this."
They went off with the old keeper, who carried a bag of writhing ferrets, and was accompanied by a boy with a spade and a line and a bag of cartridges. As they went on, Jack catechised Howard closely.
"Did my family behave themselves?" he said. "Did you want them obliterated? I expect you had a good pull at the Governor, but don't forget he is a good chap. He is so dreadfully interested, but you come to plenty of sense last of all. I admit it is last, but it's there. It's no joke facing him if there's a row! he doesn't say much then, and that makes it awful. He has a way of looking out of the window, if I cheek him, for about five minutes, which turns me sick. Up on the top he is a bit frothy—but there's no harm in that, and he keeps things going."
"Yes," said Howard, "I felt that, and I may tell you plainly I liked him very much, and thought him a thoroughly good sort."
"Well, what about Maud?" said Jack.
Howard felt a tremor. He did not want to talk about Maud, and he did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don't know as yet—I only had one talk with her. I can't tell. I thought her delightful; like you with your impudence left out."
"The little cat!" said Jack; "she is as impudent as they make them. I'll be bound she has taken the length of your foot. What did she talk about? stars and flowers? That's one of her dodges."
"I decline to answer," said Howard; "and I won't have you spoiling my impressions. Just leave me alone to make up my mind, will you?"
Jack looked at him,—he had spoken sharply—nodded, and said, "All right! I won't give her away. I see you are lost; but I'll get it all out of you some time."
They were by this time some way up the valley. There were rabbit burrows everywhere among the thickets. The ferrets were put in. Howard and Jack were posted below, and the shooting began. The rabbits bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction, quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circumstances, at finding that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and in a masterly way.
"You are rather good at this!" said Jack. "Won't I blazon it abroad up at Beaufort. You shall have all the credit and more. I can't see how you always manage to get them in the head."
"It's a trick," said Howard; "you have got to get a particular swing, and when you have got it, it's difficult to miss—it's only practice; and I shot a good deal at one time."
Howard was unreasonably happy that afternoon. It was a still, sunny day, and the steep down stretched away above them, an ancient English woodland, with all its thorn-thickets and elder-clumps. It had been like this, he thought, from the beginning of history, never touched by the hand of man. The expectant waiting, the quick aim, the sudden shot, took off the restlessness of his brain; and as they stood there, often waiting for a long time in silence, a peculiar quality of peace and contentment enveloped his spirit. It was all so old, so settled, so quiet, that all sense of retrospect and prospect passed from his mind. He was just glad to be alive and alert, glad of his friendly companion, robust and strong. A few pictures passed before his mind, but he was glad just to let his eyes wander over the scene, the steep turf ramparts, the close-set dingles, the spring sunshine falling softly over all, as the sun passed over and the shadows lengthened. At last a ferret got hung up, and had to be dug out. Howard looked at his watch, and said they must go back to tea. Jack protested in vain that there was plenty of light left. Howard said they were expected back. They left the keeper to recover the ferret, and went back quickly down the valley. Jack was in supreme delight.
"Well, that's an honest way of spending time!" he said. "My word, how I dangle about here; it isn't good for my health. But, by George, I wish I could shoot like you, Mr. Kennedy, Sir."
"Why this sudden obsequiousness?" said Howard.
"Oh, because I never know what to call you," said Jack. "I can't call you by your Christian name, and Mr. Kennedy seems absurd. What do you like?"
"Whatever comes naturally," said Howard.
"Well, I'll call you Howard when we are together," said Jack. "But mind, not at Beaufort! If I call you anything, it will have to be Mr. Kennedy. I hate men fraternising with the Dons. The Dons rather encourage it, because it makes them feel youthful and bucks them up. The men are just as bad about Christian names. Gratters on getting your Christian name, you know! It's like a girls' school. I wonder why Cambridge is more like a girls' school than a public school is? I suppose they are more sentimental. I do loathe that."
When they got back they found Maud at tea; she had been there all the afternoon; she greeted Howard very pleasantly, but there was a touch of embarrassment created by the presence of Jack, who regarded her severely and called her "Miss."
"He's got some grudge against me," said Maud to Howard. "He always has when he calls me Miss."
"What else should I call you?" said Jack; "Mr. Kennedy has been telling me that one should call people by whatever name seems natural. You are a Miss to-day, and no mistake. You are at some game or other!"
"Now, Jack, be quiet!" said Mrs. Graves; "that is how the British paterfamilias gets made. You must not begin to make your womankind uncomfortable in public. You must not think aloud. You must keep up the mysteries of chivalry!"
"I don't care for mysteries," said Jack, "but I'll behave. My father says one mustn't seethe the kid in its mother's milk. I will leave Miss to her conscience."
"Did you enjoy yourself?" said Mrs. Graves to Howard.
"Yes, I'm afraid I did," said Howard, "very much indeed."
"Some book I read the other day," said Mrs. Graves, "stated that men ought to do primeval things, eat under-done beef, sleep in their clothes, drink too much, kill things. It sounds disgusting; but I suppose you felt primeval?"
"I don't know what it was," said Howard. "I felt very well content."
"My word, he can shoot!" said Jack to Mrs. Graves; "I'm a perfect duffer beside him; he shot four-fifths of the bag, and there's a perfect mountain of rabbits to come in."
"Horrible, horrible!" said Mrs. Graves, "but are there enough to go round the village?"
"Two apiece," said Jack, "to every man a damsel or two! Now, Maud, come on—ten o'clock, to-morrow, Sir—and perhaps a little fishing later?"
"You had better stay to lunch, whenever you come and work in the morning, Jack," said Mrs. Graves; "and I'll turn you inside out before very long."
Howard went off to his work with a pleasant sense of the open air. They dined together quietly; after dinner he went and sate down by Mrs. Graves.
"Jack's a nice boy," she said, "very nice—don't make him pert!"
"I am afraid I shan't MAKE him anything," said Howard. "He will go his own way, sure enough; but he isn't pert—he comes to heel, and he remembers. He is like the true gentleman—he is never unintentionally offensive."
Mrs. Graves laughed, and said, "Yes, that is so."
Howard went on, "I have been thinking a great deal about our talk yesterday, and it's a new light to me. I do not think I fully understand, but I feel that there is something very big behind it all, which I want to understand. This great force you speak of—is it an AIM?"
"That's a good question," said Mrs. Graves. "No, it's not an aim at all. It's too big for that; an aim is quite on a lower level. There's no aim in the big things. A man doesn't fall ill with an aim—he doesn't fall in love with an aim. It just comes upon him."
"But then," said Howard, "is it more than a sort of artistic gift which some have and many have not? I have known a few real artists, and they just did not care for anything else in the world. All the rest of life was just a passing of time, a framework to their work. There was an artist I knew, who was dying. The doctor asked him if he wanted anything. 'Just a full day's work,' he said."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is like that in a way; it is the one thing worth doing and being. But it isn't a conscious using of minutes and opportunities—it isn't a plan; it is just a fulness of life, rejoicing to live, to see, to interpret, to understand. It doesn't matter what life you live—it is how you live it. Life is only the cup for the liquor which must else be spilled. I can only use an old phrase—it is being 'in the spirit': when you ask whether it is a special gift, of course some people have it more strongly and consciously than others. But it is the thing to which we are all tending sooner or later; and the mysterious thing about it is that so many people do not seem to know they have it. Yet it is always just the becoming aware of what is there."
"How do you account for that?" said Howard.
"Why," said Mrs. Graves, "to a great extent because religion is in such an odd state. It is as if the people who knew or suspected the secret, did all they could to conceal it—just as parents try to keep their children ignorant of the ideas of sex. Religion has got so horribly mixed up with other things, with respectability, social order, conventions, doctrines, metaphysics, ceremony, music—it has become so specialised in the hands of priests who have a great institution to support, that dust is thrown in people's eyes—and just as they begin to think they perceive the secret, they are surrounded by tiresome dogmatists saying, 'It is this and that—it is this doctrine, that tradition.' Well, that sort of religion IS a very special accomplishment—ecclesiastical religion. I don't deny that it has artistic qualities, but it is a poor narrow product; and then the technically religious make such a fuss if they see the shoal of fish escaping the net, and beat the water so vehemently that the fish think it safer to stay where they are, and so you get sardines in tins!" said Mrs. Graves with a smile—"by which I mean the churches."
"Yes," said Howard, "that is perfectly true! Christianity was at first the most new, radical, original, anarchical force in the world—it was the purest individualism; it was meant to over-ride all human combinations by simply disregarding them; it was not a social reform, and still less a political reform; it was a new spirit, and it was meant to create a new kind of fellowship, the mere existence of which would do away with the need for organisation; it broke meekly, like water, through all human partitions, and I suppose it has been tamed."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is not now the world against religion. It is organised religion against real religion, because religion is above and apart from all institutions. Christ said, 'When they persecute you in one city, flee into another'; and the result of that is the Monroe doctrine!"
"But are you not a Christian?" said Howard.
"I believe myself to be one," said Mrs. Graves; "and no doubt you will say, 'Why do you live in wealth and comfort?' That's a difficulty, because Christ meant us to be poor. But if one hands over one's money to Christian institutions now, one is subsidising the forces of the world—at least so I think. It's very difficult. Christ said that we should bestow our goods upon the poor; but if I were to divide my goods to-morrow among my neighbours, they would be only injured by it—it would not be Christian of them to take them—they have enough. If they have not, I give it them. It does less harm to me than to them. But this I know is very irrational; and the point is not to be affected by that. I could live in a cottage tomorrow, if there was need."
"Yes, I believe you could," said Howard.
"As long as one is not dependent upon money," said Mrs. Graves, "it doesn't very much matter. The real point is to take the world as it comes, and to be sure that one is on the side of what is true and simple and sincere; but I do not pretend to have solved everything, and I am hoping to learn more. I do learn more every day. One can't interfere with the lives of people; poverty is not the worst evil. It is nice to be clean, but I sometimes think that the only good I get from money is cleanliness—and that is only a question of habit! The real point is to be in life, to watch life, to love it, to live it; to be in direct relations with everyone, not to be superior, not to be KIND—that implies superiority. I just plod along, believing, fearing, hoping, loving, glad to live while I may, not afraid to die when I must. The only detachment worth having is the detachment from the idea of making things one's own. I can't appropriate the sunset and the spring, the loves and cares of others; it is all divided up, more fairly than we think. I have had many sorrows and sufferings; but I am more interested than ever in life, glad to help and be helped, ready to change, desiring to change. It isn't a great way of living; but one must not want that—and believe me, dear Howard, it is the only way."
The first day or two of Howard's stay at Windlow seemed like a week, the succeeding week seemed like a day, as soon as he had settled down to a certain routine of life. He became aware of a continued sympathetic and quite unobtrusive scrutiny of him, his ways, his tastes, his thoughts, on the part of his aunt—her questions were subtle, penetrating, provocative enough for him to wish to express an opinion. He did not dislike it, and used no diplomacy himself; he found his aunt's mind shrewd, fresh, unaffected, and at the same time inspiring. She habitually spoke with a touch of irony—not bitter irony, but the irony that is at once a compliment and a sign of affection, such as Socrates used to the handsome boys that came about him. She was not in the smallest degree cynical, but she was very decidedly humorous. Howard thought that she did people even more than justice, while she was frankly delighted if they also provided her with amusement. She held nothing inconveniently sacred, and Howard admired the fine balance of interest and detachment which she showed, her delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing. Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it—it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting. How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon—she had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet holding the whole group in view. Solitary, frail, secluded as she was, she was like an unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her affection on all alike, callers, villagers, servants; and yet he never saw her tired or depressed. She took life as she found it, and was delighted with its simplest combinations. He found her company entirely absorbing and inspiring. He told her, in answer to her frank interest—she seemed to be interested on her own account, and not to please him—more about his own life than he had ever told a human being. She always wanted facts, impressions, details: "Enlarge that—describe that—tell me some more particulars," were phrases often on her lips. And he was delighted, too, by the belief that her explorations into his mind and life pleased and satisfied her. It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of rich experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a development—"That was in my discontented days," she said once. "It is impossible to think of you as discontented," he had said. "Ah," she said lightly, "I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw at last that one must TAKE life—one can't MAKE it—and accept its limitations with enjoyment."
One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter—he had been there about a fortnight—from his aunt. He opened it, expecting that it was to say that she was ill. He found that it ran as follows:
"MY DEAR BOY,—I always think that business is best done by letter and not by conversation. I am getting an old woman and my life is uncertain. I want to make a statement of intentions. I may tell you that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came to about sixty thousand pounds. Now I intend to leave that back to his family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are not wealthy people; but I have saved money too; and it is my wish to leave you this house and the residue of my fortune, after arranging for some small legacies. The estate is not worth very much—a great deal of it is wild downland. But you would have the place, when I died, and about twelve hundred a year. It would be understood that you should live here a certain amount—I don't believe in non-resident landlords. But I do not mean to tie you down to live here altogether. It is only my wish that you should do something for your tenants and neighbours. If you stayed on at Cambridge you could come here in vacations. But my hope would be that you might marry. It is a house for a family. If you do not care to live here, I would rather it were sold. While I live, I hope you will be content to spend some time here, and make acquaintance with our neighbours, by which I mean the village people. I shall tell Cousin Frank my intentions, and that will probably suffice to make it known. I have a very great love for the place, and as far as I can see, you will be likely to have the same.
"You need not feel overburdened with gratitude. You are my only near relation; and indeed I may say that if I were to die before I have signed my will, you would inherit all my fortune as next-of-kin. So you will see that instead of enriching you, I am to a great extent disinheriting you! Just tell me simply if you acquiesce. I want no pledges, nor do I want to bind you in any way. I will not say more, except that it has been a very deep delight to me to find a son in my old age. I had always hoped it would turn out so; and in my experience, God is very careful to give us our desires, just or unjust, great or small.—Your loving Aunt,"ANNE GRAVES."
Howard was stupefied for a moment by this communication, but he was more affected by the love and confidence it showed than by the prospect of wealth—wealth was not a thing he had ever expected, or indeed thought much about; but it was a home that he had found. The great lack of his life had been a local attachment, a place where he had reason to live. Cambridge with all its joys had never been quite that. A curious sense of emotion at the thought that the sweet place, the beautiful old house, was to be his own, came over him; and another far-off dream darted into his mind as well, which he did not dare to shape. He got up and wrote a short note.
"MY DEAR AUNT,—Your letter fills me with astonishment. I can only say that I accept in love and gratitude what you offer me. The feeling that I have found a home and a mother, so suddenly and so unexpectedly, fills me with joy and happiness. I think with sadness of all the good years I have missed, by a sort of stupid perversity; but I won't regard that now. I will only thank you once more with all my heart for the proof of affection which your letter gives me.—Your grateful and affectionate nephew,"HOWARD KENNEDY."
The old house had a welcoming air as he passed through it that morning; it seemed to hold him in its patient embrace, to ask for love. He spent the morning with Jack, but in a curiously distracted mood.
"What has happened to you?" said Jack at the end of the morning. "You have not been thinking about what you are doing. You seem like a man who has been stroking a winning crew. Has the Master been made a Dean, and have you been elected Master? They say you have a chance."
Howard laughed and said, "You are very sharp, Jack! I have NOT been attending. Something very unexpected has happened. I mustn't tell you now, but you will soon know. I have drawn a prize. Now don't pump me!"
"Here's another prize!" said Jack. "You are to lunch with us to-morrow, and to discuss my future career. There's glory for you! I am not to be present, and father is scheming to get me invited to luncheon here. If he fails, I am to take out some sandwiches and to eat them in the kitchen garden. Maud is to be present, and 'CONFER,' he says, 'though without a vote'!"
Howard met Mrs. Graves in the drawing-room; she kissed him, and holding his hand for a moment said, "Thank you for your note, my dear boy. That's all settled, then! Well, it's a great joy to me, and I get more than I give by the bargain. It's a shameless bribe, to secure the company of a charming nephew for a sociable old woman. Some time I shall want to tell you more about the people here—but I won't bore you; and let us just get quietly used to it all. One must not be pompous about money; it is doing it too much honour; and the best of it is that I have found a son." Howard smiled, kissed the hand which held his, and said no more.
The Vicar turned up in the afternoon, and apologised to Mrs. Graves for asking Howard to luncheon on the following day. "The fact is," he said, "that I am anxious to have the benefit of his advice about Jack's future. I think we ought to look at things from all sorts of angles, and Howard will be able, with his professional knowledge of young men, to correct the tendency to parental bias which is so hard to eliminate. I am a fond father—fond, but I hope not foolish—and I trust we shall be able to arrive at some conclusion."
"Then Jack and Maud can come and lunch with me," said Mrs. Graves; "you won't want them, I am sure."
"You are a sorceress," said Mr. Sandys, "in the literary sense of course—you divine my thought!"—but it was evident that he had much looked forward to using a little diplomacy, and was somewhat disappointed. He went on, "It will be very kind of you to have Jack, but I think I shall want Maud's assistance. I have a great belief in the penetration—in the observation of the feminine mind; more than I have, if you will excuse my frankness, in their power of dealing with a practical situation. Woman to interpret events, men to foresee contingencies. Woman to indicate, man to predicate—perhaps I mean predict! No matter; the thought, I think, is clear. Well, then, that is settled! I claim Howard for luncheon—a very simple affair—and for a walk; and by five o'clock we shall have settled this important matter, I don't doubt."
"Very well," said Mrs. Graves; "but before you go, I must claim YOU for a short stroll. I have something to tell you; and as Howard and Jack are dying to get away to deprive some innocent creatures of the privilege of life, they had better go and leave us."
That evening Howard had a long, quiet talk to his aunt. She said, "I am not going to talk business. Our lawyer is coming over on Saturday, and you had better get all the details from him. You must just go round the place with him, and see if there is anything you would like to see altered. It will be an immense comfort to put all that in your hands. Mind, dear boy," she said, "I want you to begin at once. I shall be ready to do whatever is necessary." Then she went on in a different strain. "But there is one other thing I want to say now, and that is that I should above all things like to see you married—don't, by the way, fall in love with dear Jane, who worships the ground you tread on! I have been observing you, and I feel little doubt that marriage is what you most need. I don't expect it has been in your mind at all! Perhaps you have not had enough to marry on, but I am not sorry for that, for a special reason; and I think, too, that men who have the care of boys and young men have their paternal instinct to a large extent satisfied; but that is only a small part of marriage! It isn't only that I want this house to be a home—that's merely a sentimental feeling—but you need to love and be loved, and to have the anxious care of someone close to you. There is nothing like marriage. It probably is not quite as transcendental an affair as you think. That's the mistake which intellectual people so often make—it's a very natural and obvious thing—and of course it means far more to a woman than to a man. But life is not complete without it. It is the biggest fact which happens to us. I only want you just to keep it in your mind as a possibility. Don't be afraid of it! My husband was your age when he married me, and though I was very unreasonable in those days, I am sure it was a happy thing for him, though he thought he was too old. There, I don't want to press you, in this or in anything. I do not think you will be happy living here without a wife, even if you go on with Cambridge. But one can't mould things to one's wishes. My fault is to want to organise everything for everybody, and I have made all my worst blunders so. I hope I have given up all that. But if I live to see it, the day when you come and tell me that you have won a wife will be the next happiest day to the day when I found a son of my heart. There, dear boy, I won't sentimentalise; but that's the truth; I shall wake up to-morrow and for many days, feeling that some good fortune has befallen me; but we should have found each other some time, even if I had been a poor and miserable old woman. You have given me all that I desired; give me a daughter too, if you can!"
"Well," said Howard, smiling, "I have no theory on the subject. I never regarded marriage as either impossible or possible. It seemed to me that one was either caught away in a fiery chariot, or else was left under one's juniper tree; and I have been very comfortable there. I thought I had all I wanted; and I feel a little dizzy now at the way in which my cup of life has suddenly been seized and filled with wine to the brim. One doesn't find a home and a mother and a wife in a fortnight!"
"I don't know!" said Mrs. Graves, smiling at him. "Some of the best marriages I know have been made in haste. I remember talking to a girl the other day who was engaged to a man within ten days of the time they had met. I said, 'Well, you have not wasted time.' 'Oh,' she said, apparently rather hurt, 'I kept Henry waiting a long time. I had to think it all over. I wasn't by any means sure I wanted to marry him.' I quoted a saying of an old friend of mine who when he was asked why he had proposed to a girl he had only known three days, said, 'I don't know! I liked her, and thought I should like to see more of her!'"
"I think I must make out a list of possible candidates," said Howard, smiling. "I dare say your Jane would help me. I could mark them for various qualities; we believe in marks at Cambridge. But I must have time to get used to all my new gifts."
"Oh, one doesn't take long to get used to happiness," said Mrs. Graves. "It always seems the most natural thing in the world. Tennyson was all wrong about sorrow. Sorrow is always the casual mistress, and not the wife. One recovers from everything but happiness; that is one's native air."
The Vicarage was a pleasant house, with an air of comfort and moderate wealth about it. It was part of Frank Sandys' sense, thought Howard, that he was content to live so simple and retired a life. He did not often absent himself, even for a holiday. Howard was shown into the study which Mr. Sandys had improved and enlarged. It was a big room, with an immense, perfectly plain deal table in the middle, stained a dark brown; and the Vicar showed Howard with high glee how each of the four sides of the table was consecrated to a different avocation. "My accounts end!" he said, "my sermon side! my correspondence end! my genealogical side!" There were a number of small dodges, desks for holding books, flaps which could be let up and down, slits in the table through which papers could be dropped into drawers, a cord by which the bell could be rung without rising from his place, a cord by which the door could be bolted. "Not very satisfactory, that last," said the Vicar, "but I am on the track of an improvement. The worst of it is," said the good man, "that I have so little time. I make extracts from the books I read for my sermons, I cut out telling anecdotes from the papers. I like to raise questions every now and then in the Guardian, and that lets me in for a lot of correspondence. I even, I must confess, sometimes address questions to important people about their public utterances, and I have an interesting volume of replies, mostly from secretaries. Then I am always at work on my Somersetshire genealogies, and that means a mass of letters. The veriest trifles, of course, they will seem to a man like yourself; but I fail in mental grasp—I keep hammering away at details; that is my line; and after all it keeps one alert and alive. You know my favourite thesis—it is touch with human nature that I value, and I am brought into contact with many minds. I don't exaggerate the importance of my work, but I enjoy it; and after all, that is the point! I daresay it would be more dignified if I pretended to be a disappointed man," said the Vicar, with a smile which won Howard's heart, "but I am not—I am a very happy man, as busy as the fabled bee! I shouldn't relish a change. There was some question, I may tell you, at one time, of my becoming Archdeacon, but it was a relief to me when it was settled and when Bedington was appointed. I woke up in the morning, I remember, the day after his appointment was announced, and I said to myself—'Why, it's a relief after all!' I don't mean that I shouldn't have enjoyed it, but it would have meant giving up some part of my work. I really have the life I like, and if my dear wife had been spared to me, I should be the happiest of men; but that was not to be—and by the way, I must recollect to show you some of her drawings. But I must not inflict all this upon you—and by the way," said the Vicar, "Mrs. Graves did me the honour of telling me yesterday her intentions with regard to yourself, and I told her I was heartily glad to hear it. It is an immense thing for the place to have some one who will look into things a little, and bring a masculine mind to bear on our simple problems. For myself, it will be an untold gain to be brought in touch with a more intellectual atmosphere. I foresee a long perspective of stimulating discussions. I will venture to say that you will be warmly welcomed here, and indeed you seem quite one of us already. But now we must go and get our luncheon—we have much to discuss; and you will not mind Maud being present, I know; the children are devoted to each other, and though I have studied their tastes and temperaments very closely, yet 'crabbed age and youth' you know, and all that—she will be able, I think, to cast some light on our little problem."
They went together into the drawing-room, a pleasant old-fashioned room—"a temple of domestic peace," said the Vicar, "a pretty phrase of Carlyle's that! Maud has her own little sitting-room—the old schoolroom in fact—which she will like to show you. I think it very necessary that each member of a family should if possible have a sanctum, a private uninvaded domain—but in this room the separate strains unite."
Maud was sitting near the window when the two came in. She got up and came quickly forward, with a smile, and shook hands with Howard. She had just the same look of virginal freshness and sweetness in the morning light—a little less mysterious, perhaps; but there came upon Howard a strange feeling, partly of intense admiration, partly a sort of half-jealousy that he should know so little of the girl's past, and a half-terror of all other influences and relations in the unknown background of her life. He wanted to know whom and what she cared about, what her hopes were, what her thoughts rested upon and concerned themselves with. He had never felt any such emotion before, and it was not wholly agreeable to him. He felt thrown off his balance, interfered with, diverted from his normal course. He wanted to do and say something which could claim her attention and confidence; and the frank and almost sisterly regard she gave him was not wholly to his mind. This was mingled, too, with a certain fear of he knew not what; he feared her criticism, her disapproval; he felt his own dulness and inelasticity. He seemed to himself empty, heavy, awkward, disconcerted by her quiet and expectant gaze. This came and went like a flash, and gave him an almost physical uneasiness.
"Well, here we are," said the Vicar. "I must say this is very comfortable—a sort of family council, with matters of importance to discuss." Maud led the way to the dining-room. "I said we would have everything put on the table," said the Vicar, "and wait on ourselves; that will leave us quite free to talk. It's not a lack of any respect, Howard—quite the contrary; but these honest people down here pick up all sorts of gossip—in a quiet life, you know, a little gossip goes a long way; and even my good maids are human—I should be so in their place! Howard, a bit of this chicken—our own chickens, our own vegetables, our country cider—everything home-grown; and now to business, and we will settle Master Jack in a turn. My own belief is, in choosing a profession, to think of all possibilities and eliminate them one by one."
"Yes," said Howard, "but we are met by this initial difficulty; that one might settle a dozen professions for Jack, and there is not the smallest guarantee that he would choose any of them. I think he will take his own line. I never knew anyone who knew so definitely what he intended to do, and what he did not intend to do!"
"You have hit it," said the Vicar, "and I do not think you could have said anything which could please me more. He is independent; it is my own temperament over again! You will forgive a touch of vanity, Howard, but that is me all over. And that simplifies our plan of action very considerably, you know!"
"Yes," said Howard, "it undoubtedly does. I have no doubt from what Jack told me that he intends to make money. It isn't, in him, just the vague desire to have the command of money, which most young men have. I have to talk over their careers with a good many young men, and it generally ends in their saying they would like a secretaryship, which would give them interesting work and long holidays and the command of much of their time, and lead on to something better, with a prospect of early retirement on a pension."
The Vicar laughed loudly at this. "Excellent!" he said, "a very human view; that's a real bit of human nature."
"But Jack," said Howard, "isn't like that. He enjoys his life and gets what fun out of it he can; but he thinks Cambridge a waste of time. I don't know any young man who is so perfectly clear that he wants real work. He is not idle as many young men are idle, prolonging the easy days as long as they can. He is an extraordinary mixture; he enjoys himself like a schoolboy, and yet he wants to get to work."
"Well, I think that a very encouraging picture!" said the Vicar; "there is something very sensible about that. I confess I have mostly seen the schoolboy side of Jack, and it delights one to know that there is a serious side! Let us hear what Maud thinks; this kind of talk is really very enjoyable."
"Yes," said Maud, looking up. "I am sure that Mr. Kennedy is quite right. I believe that Jack would like to go into an office to-morrow."
"There," said the Vicar, "you see she agrees with you. It is really a pleasure to find oneself mistaken. I confess I had not discerned this quality in Jack; he had seemed to me much set on amusement."
"Oh yes," said Howard, "he likes his fun, and he is active enough; but it is all passing the time."
"Well, this is really most satisfactory," said the Vicar. "So you really think he is cut out for business; something commercial? Well, I confess I had rather hankered after something more definitely academic and scholastic—something more intellectual! But I bow to your superior knowledge, Howard, and we must think of possible openings. Well, I shall enjoy that. My own money, what there is of it, was made by my grandfather in trade—the manufacture of cloth, I believe. Would cloth now, the manufacture of cloth, appear to provide the requisite opening? I have some cousins still in the firm."
"I think it would do as well as anything else," said Howard, "and if you have any interest in a particular business, it would be worth while to make inquiries."
"Before I go to bed to-night," said the Vicar, "I will send a statement of the case to my cousin; that will set the ball rolling."
"Won't you have a talk with Jack first?" said Howard. "You may depend upon it he will have some views."
"The very thing," said the Vicar. "I will put aside all my other work, and talk to Jack after tea; if any difficulty should arise, I may look to you for further counsel. This is really most satisfactory. This matter has been in my mind in a nebulous way for a long time; and you enter the scene with your intellectual grip, and your psychological penetration—if that is not too intricate a word—and the situation is clear at once. Well, I am most grateful to you."
The talk then became general, or rather passed into the Vicar's hands. "I have ventured," he said, "to indicate to Maud what Cousin Anne was good enough to tell me last night—she laid no embargo on the news—and a few particulars about your inheritance will not be lacking in interest—and on our walk this afternoon, to which I am greatly looking forward, we will explore your domains."
This simple compliment produced a curious effect on Howard. He realised as he had not done before the singular change in his position that his aunt's announcement had produced: a country squire, a proprietor—he could not think of himself in that light—it was like a curious dream.
After luncheon, Mr. Sandys excused himself for a few minutes; he had to step over and speak to the sexton. Maud would take Howard round the garden, show him her room, "just our simple background—we want you to realise that!"
As soon as they were alone together, Howard said to Maud, "We seem to have settled Jack's affairs very summarily. I hope you do agree with me?"
"Yes," said Maud, "I do indeed. It is wonderful to me that you should know so much about him, with all your other pupils to know. He isn't a boy who talks much about himself, though he seems to; and I don't think my father understood what he was feeling. Jack doesn't like being interfered with, and he was getting to resent programmes being drawn up. Papa is so tremendously keen about anything he takes up that he carries one away; and then you come and smooth out all the difficulties. It isn't always easy—" she broke off suddenly, and added, "That is what Jack wants, what he calls something REAL. He is bored with the life here, and yet he is always good about it."
"Do you like the life here?" said Howard. "I can't tell you what an effect it all produces on me; it all seems so simple and beautiful. But I know that one mustn't trust first impressions. People in picturesque surroundings don't always feel picturesque. It is very pleasant to make a drama out of one's life and to feel romantic—but one can't keep it up—at least I can't. That must come of itself."
Howard felt that the girl was watching him with a look of almost startled interest. She said in a moment, "Yes, that's quite true, and it IS a difficulty. I should like to be able to talk to you about those things—I hear so much about you, you know, from Jack, that you are not like a stranger at all. Now papa has got the gift of romance; every bit of his life is interesting and exciting to him—it's perfectly splendid—but Jack has not got that at all. I seem to understand them both, and yet I can't explain them to each other. I don't mean they don't get on, but neither can quite see what the other is aiming at. And I have felt that I ought to be able to do something. I can't understand how you have cleared it up; but I am very glad and grateful about it: it has been a trouble to me. Cousin Anne is wonderful about it, but she seems able to let things alone in a way I can't dare to."
"Oh, one learns that as one gets older," said Howard. "One can't argue things straight. One can only go on hoping and wishing, and if possible understanding. I used to make a great mess of it with my pupils at one time, by thinking one could talk them round; but one can't persuade people of things, one can only just suggest, and let it be; and after all no one ever resents finding himself interesting to some one else; only it has got to be interest, and not a sense of duty."
"That is what Cousin Anne says," said Maud, "and when I am with her, I think so too; and then something tiresome happens and I meddle, I meddle! Jack says I like ruling lines, but that it is no good, because people won't write on them."