June in England sometimes combines the tender afternoon of spring with
the dawning beauty of summer. There is joyful potency in the sunshine,
but no white colorless glare; it seems to proceed almost as much from
the face of the earth as from the sun. The air, both in light and in
shadow, is of an even warmth--the happy medium between heat and
cold--which, like perfect health, exhilarates us with so much subtlety
that we are hardly aware of it until it is no more. Nature, who has no
memory, triumphs over our weary hearts by telling over once more the
sweet story, repeated a myriad times, and with such youthful zest as
half to beguile us into the belief that it is new indeed. So, too, the
infant man begins the heavy journey whose end we know too well,
unshadowed by the gloom of our grim experience, shielded from our dreary
sophistries by the baby wisdom brought from Heaven, which we can never
learn. We know how soon he must lose that shield of light, yet we
prolong for him, if we may, the heavenly period. For our human life is a
valley, the gloom of whose depths would be too terrible to endure did we
not believe that its limits, on either side, bordered on the sky.
Mr. Grant was, perhaps, peculiarly appreciative of the charm of this
English season, because he had been so long exiled to the torrid damps
of India. One morning, accordingly, when the family were seated round
the breakfast-table, with the fresh air and sunshine streaming through
the open window, he pulled out of his fob the large old-fashioned gold
watch which he always carried, and having consulted it, said:
“ ’Tis now eight o’clock, Mrs. Lockhart. Shall you be ready in an hour?”
To which Mrs. Lockhart, who had all that morning worn upon her gentle
countenance an expression of mysterious presage, strangely alien to her
customary aspect of guileless amenity, replied, mantling with a smile,
“Quite ready, Mr. Grant.”
“At nine o’clock, then, we will set out. Marion, get on your
riding-habit; you and Mr. Lancaster must accompany us on horseback.”
Philip and Marion looked inquiringly at each other, and then at their
elders, and Philip said: “Is this another Popish plot?”
“Nothing so unsubstantial,” Mr. Grant replied. “Mrs. Lockhart and I are
going to drive to Richmond Hill, and Marion and you are to escort us.
The carriage and the horses will be at the door an hour hence. So--no
cookery and no poetry in this house to-day!”
Marion went round to her mother and kissed her cheek. “But Mr. Grant is
having a bad effect on you, mamma,” she said. “You never kept a secret
from me before!”
By nine o’clock everything and everybody were ready. Philip, booted and
spurred, and with a feather in his steeple-crowned hat, was as handsome
as one of the heroes of his own poems, who, indeed, all, more or less,
resembled him, and Marion had never looked so well as in her dark blue
riding-habit. As for Mrs. Lockhart and Mr. Grant, they were at least as
youthful as any of the party, and the June morning glorified them all.
The two elder people took their seats in the carriage; Philip helped
Marion into her saddle and then leaped into his own; the coachman
gathered up his reins and they started off. In a few minutes they were
moving along the broad highway toward Kew Bridge, Marion and Philip
riding side by side in advance. The tall elms shook green shadows from
their rustling leaves, interspersed with sunbeams and sweet
bird-voices; veils of thinnest cloud softened the tender horizon and
drew in tranquil arcs across the higher blue. A westerly breeze, coming
from the coolness where the dawn was still beginning, breathed past
their faces and sent freshness to their hearts. The horses shook their
heads and stretched their limbs, and slanted forward anticipative ears.
Marion’s cheeks were red and her eyes sparkled.
“I wish Richmond Hill were t’other side the world,” she said, “and we to
ride there!”
“I would ride with you as far as that, and then home the other way,”
said Philip.
“We should lose our road, perhaps.”
“No matter, if we did not lose each other.”
“Could you write poetry on horseback?”
“ ’Tis better to ride through a poem than to write one.”
“Would this poem be blank verse or rhyme?”
“Rhyme!” cried Philip.
“Why?”
“Because that poem should make Marion rhyme with Philip.”
“Yes--when it is written!”
“I would rather be the author of that poem than of any other.”
Marion laughed. “You would find it very poor prose when it was done.”
“It would turn all my prose into poetry, if I might hope even to begin
it. Marion--”
She reined in her horse. “We are going too fast and too far,” she said
gravely. “The carriage is almost out of sight.”
“But your mother will trust you with me,” said Philip, looking at her.
“You do not know that; nor whether I care to be trusted.”
“Ah! that is what I fear,” said Philip, biting his lip. “You prefer to
ride alone; I don’t.”
“You’re not accustomed to it, perhaps?”
“I have been alone all my life!”
Marion laughed again. “I thought the Marquise Desmoines was a
horsewoman,” she said.
Philip blushed; and the carriage having by this time come up, the
conversation was carried no further.
But it was impossible to be dispirited on a day like this. The deep
smile of a summer morning, though it may seem to mock the dreariness of
age, is generally found contagious by youth. The mind must be powerfully
preoccupied that can turn its eyes inward, when such a throng of outward
loveliness invites it. As the party approached the bridge, a narrow and
hump-backed structure, which made up in picturesqueness what it lacked
in convenience, the broad reaches of the river came into view, widening
down on the left toward distant London, and, on the right, curving round
the wooded shores of Kew. The stream echoed with inward tones the blue
aloft, varying its clear serenity with a hundred frets and trills of
sparkling light. Many boats plied to and fro, oared by jolly young
watermen who dreamt not of railways and steam-launches. There were
voices of merry-makers, laughter, and calling, after the British
fashion, all taking so well the color of the scene as to appear to be
its natural utterance; though when, with a finer ear, you caught the
singing of the birds, that seemed the natural utterance too. Crossing
the bridge, and winding past Kew Green, they began to behold, at the
distance of a mile or so, the pleasant town of Richmond grouped betwixt
the river and the hill. Leaving a venerable hostelry on the right, and
turning sharply westward, carriage and horses trundled and tramped
conspicuous along the high-shouldered street; butcher-boys and loafers
turned to stare; shop-keepers stood in their doorways, rubbing
super-serviceable hands, and smirking invitations; a postboy, standing
at the door of the Castle Inn with a pot of ale in his hand, emptied it
to Marion’s health; while the neat barmaid who had fetched it for him
paused on the threshold with the corner of her apron to her lips, and
giggled and reddened at handsome Philip’s nod. Anon they breasted the
hill, whose sudden steepness made the horses bob their heads and dig
their iron toes sharply into the road. As they mounted to higher air, so
did the arc of the horizon seem to mount with them, and the wide levels
of rich country lying between retired from verdurous green to remote
blue, divided by the lazy curves of glancing Thames. It is the most
cultivated prospect in the world, and second to none in wealth and
variety of historical association. It gives range and breathing room to
the spirits; it has endless comely charm, but it is not inspiring. It is
redolent of the humdrum flatness of respectable and prosperous
mediocrity. The trees look like smug green cauliflowers; and the blue of
the distance seems artificial.
“I am sure there can be nothing so lovely as that in India, Mr. Grant,”
said Mrs. Lockhart.
“A bare rock would be lovelier than India to me if it bore the name of
England,” he replied. “I thank God that I shall die, after all, within
hail of so sweet a plain as that.”
“No!” said Marion, in a low, disturbed voice. Her horse was standing
close to that side of the carriage on which Mr. Grant sat, and the word
was audible only to him. He looked round at her and added with a smile,
“In the fullness of time.”
The coachman began to point out the points of interest: “That’s
Twickenham Church, ma’am. Mr. Pope’s willa is a bit furder down.
Yonder’s Mr. Orace Walpole’s place. Of a clear day, sir, you may see
Winser Cassel, twenty mile off. Hepsom will be that-away, sir.”
“What do you think of it?” Philip asked Marion.
“It has a homely look,” she answered--“home-like, I mean.”
“Yes; we might ride round the world, and not find a better home than
that,” said he, pointing down the declivity to a house that stood by the
margin of the river, on a smooth green lawn overshadowed by stately
elms.
“Or a worse one, maybe!” she returned coldly. But the next moment she
glanced at him with a smile that was not so cold.
The party moved on once more, and at the end of a little more climbing,
reached the famous inn, which, at that epoch, was a much less
grandiloquent structure than it is now, and infinitely more humane
toward its guests. The riders dismounted, the horses were led to the
stable; and Mr. Grant, having had a confidential consultation with the
host and the head waiter, proposed to his friends a ramble in the park.
So off they all went, at first in a group; but after a while Mrs.
Lockhart wished to sit down on a bench that was wedged between two oaks
of mighty girth; and as Mr. Grant seemed equally inclined to repose,
Philip presently drew Marion away across the glade. It dipped through a
fern-brake, and then sloped upward again to a grove of solemn oaks, each
one of which might have afforded house room to a whole family of dryads.
“I remember this grove,” Philip remarked; “I was here long ago--nearly
twenty years. I was an Eton boy then. It has changed very little.”
“Less than you have.”
“I sometimes doubt whether I am much changed either. What is it changes
a man? His body grows, and he fills his memory with good and bad. But
only so much of what he learns stays with him as naturally belongs to
him; the knowledge he gains is only the confirmation of what he knew
before. A word is not changed by magnifying it.”
“But if you put in another syllable--?”
“Yes, then it becomes different: either more or less than it was before,
or, may be, nonsense. But it is not learning that can put a new syllable
into a man.”
“What does, then?”
Philip did not immediately reply; but by-and-by he said, “I believe
Providence meant our brains only to show us what fools we are. At least,
that’s the most mine have done for me. The more fuel we put into it, and
the more light it gives out, the more clearly does it reveal to us our
smallness and poverty.”
“Perhaps--if we turn the light against ourselves. But clever people
generally prefer to throw light upon the smallness and poverty of
others.”
Again Philip paused for several moments; then he said suddenly, his eyes
darkening, “By God, were I to be tried for my life, I would not choose
you for my judge!”
They were sitting together on the roots of one of the oaks. Marion
turned her head slowly and encountered Philip’s look. She put out her
hand and touched his, saying, “Forgive me.”
He grasped her hand and held it. At first she made a movement as if to
withdraw it; but, meeting his eyes again, she let it remain. She looked
away; a long breath, intermittently drawn, filled her bosom. The contact
of her hand, sensitive and alive, was more significant than a kiss to
Philip. He did not venture to move or to speak; thoughts flew quickly
through his mind--thoughts that he could not analyze; but they were born
of such emotions as joy, eagerness, self-distrust, the desire to be
nobler and better than he had ever been: a feeling of tender pathos. A
voice in his heart kept repeating “Marion! Marion! Marion!” with a
sense that everything womanly and sacred was implied in that name. He
felt, also, that a sort of accident had brought him nearer to her than
he had as yet a right to come: that he must wait, and give her time.
They got up, at last, by a mutual impulse, after how long a time they
knew not. They had spoken no words. They looked at each other for a
moment, and each beheld in the other something that had not been visible
before: there was a certain surprise and softness in the look. The touch
of the hands was over; but they seemed to be encircled by a secret
sympathy that sweetly secluded them from all foreign approach. The
nearness was spiritual, and demanded a degree of physical severance.
They moved along, with a space between them, but intimately conscious of
each other.
Presently Philip said, “I am changed now; but you see, it was not memory
or knowledge that changed me.”
“Do you like the change?” she asked.
“I don’t like to think how much time I have wasted without changing.”
“Perhaps, since it pleases you so well, you’ll want to change again?”
“I’m afraid you will never change!” he returned, with a cadence of
half-humorous expostulation. “There’ll be no more change in me this side
death.”
As he spoke he looked toward her; she was walking with eyes downcast, a
doubtful smile coming and going about her lips. About a hundred yards
beyond, in the line of his glance, a man and a woman on horseback passed
rapidly across an opening between two groups of trees. Just before they
swept out of sight the woman turned her face in Philip’s direction, and
immediately made a gesture with her right hand. Whether it were a signal
of recognition, or whether it had no reference to him, Philip could not
decide. A painful sensation passed through his mind; but he was glad
that the episode had escaped Marion’s notice. Soon after they rejoined
Mrs. Lockhart and Mr. Grant; and Marion seemed to be relieved to be once
more, as it were, under their protection. The importunity of an ungauged
and unfamiliar joy may affect the heart like a danger.
For the rest of the day, accordingly, the four remained together, and,
save for some slight intermittent anxiety on Philip’s part, they were
all as happy as human beings are apt to be. Marion and Philip said very
little to each other, and that of the most conventional description; but
an inward smile, that seldom ventured beyond the eyes, illuminated both
of them. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lockhart certainly, and Mr. Grant apparently,
were most comfortably unconscious of anything exceptional having taken
place. The serene geniality of the weather was perfectly reflected in
the sentiments of those who enjoyed it. When the air of the hill had
made them remember that something was to be done at the inn, they betook
themselves thither, and were shown into a western room, whose open
window gave upon the famous prospect. Here a table was set out and
dinner served by a profoundly respectable and unexceptionable waiter,
who had the air of having spent his previous life in perfecting himself
for this occasion. They had a couple of bottles of very delicate
Lafitte; and always, before raising his glass to his lips, Philip lifted
his eyes, and quaffed an instant’s sweet intelligence from Marion’s.
“How do you find the wine, Lancaster?” Mr. Grant asked.
“I wish I might never drink any other,” was his reply.
“It is very good, but it goes to my head,” remarked Mrs. Lockhart.
“It goes to my heart,” said Philip.
“All the same, you may feel the worse for it to-morrow morning,” said
Marion, with one of her short laughs.
“A heartache instead of a headache,” smiled Mr. Grant.
“Heartache would come only from being denied it,” Philip rejoined.
“I must try and get you some of it to drink at home,” said guileless
Mrs. Lockhart.
“ ’Tis Lafitte--you may get it anywhere,” put in Marion. As she spoke she
pushed back her chair from the table, adding, “Come, mamma, we have had
enough; let us go out on the terrace.” So she triumphed over Philip in
having the last word.
The afternoon was mellowing toward evening by the time the
unexceptionable waiter announced that the carriage and horses were
waiting. As Philip helped Marion to her seat he said:
“After all, it is not so long a ride round the world, is it?”
She answered: “I don’t know. We are not got home yet, remember.”
Going down the hill, they halted at the spot whence they had first
caught the view on ascending, to take a farewell look at it. A noise of
hoofs following down the road above caused Philip to look around, and he
saw approaching the same lady and gentleman whom he had caught a glimpse
of in the park that morning. The blood flew to his face, and he set his
teeth against his lips.
The lady, riding up, saluted him with her whip, exclaiming laughingly,
“Philip Lancaster, after all! You naughty boy--then it _was_ you I saw
coming out of the grove, and you would not answer my greeting!”
“Indeed!” was all Philip found to reply.
She reined her horse and extended her hand to him. “Indeed! Yes. But
you were always so! ... well, I forgive you because of your poetry.” Here
she turned her eyes, which were very bright and beautiful, upon the
occupants of the carriage. “Surely I have known this lady,” she
murmured. “Madame, are you not Mrs. Lockhart? Oh--then this--yes, this
must be Marion!” She clapped her hands together with a sort of
child-like gayety. “And you have all forgotten me! You have forgotten
Perdita Bendibow!”
Hereupon ensued a sociable turmoil--giving of hands--presentation of Mr.
Grant--and of Perdita’s cavalier, who was no other than Tom Bendibow,
the hero of the coach-upsetting exploit. But the chief turmoil was in
Philip’s mind. Everything passed before his eyes like a dream--and an
extremely uncongenial one. Once or twice he glanced at Marion; but she
was not looking his way--she was laughing and chatting with the Marquise
and Tom Bendibow alternately; there was vivid color in her cheeks.
Philip was also aware that the Marquise occasionally spoke to him, or at
him, in very friendly and familiar terms. It was charming. And at last
she said:
“There, I cannot stay--I am late; but you will come--mind! You have all
promised. There will be no one but ourselves. Thursday--a week from this
day--at six o’clock. Mr. Grant and all. You will not forget, Mr. Grant?”
“I shall not forget, madame,” he said gravely and courteously.
“And you, _ma chère_,” she continued, turning to Marion; and then
playfully tapping Philip with her whip, “because then we shall be sure
of him! Mrs. Lockhart, I have so much to talk to you of your dear
husband ... he saved my husband’s life! ... I must kiss you!” She forced
her horse to the side of the carriage, and, bending low from the saddle,
touched the old lady’s cheek with her lovely lips. The next moment she
was erect again. “Come, Tom!” she exclaimed, “we must gallop! Good-by,
all of you!” and down the hill they rode at speed.
“How charming and beautiful she is!” said Mrs. Lockhart, smiling with
tears in her eyes. “She has a warm heart. She has made the day quite
perfect.”
“Yes, she appeared at the right moment,” assented Marion lightly.
In one sense, certainly, Perdita could be said to have been the
consummation of the holiday; but, even in a party of four, the same
event may have widely different meanings.