On the third day of the Easter recess Percy Dacier landed from the Havre
steamer at Caen and drove straightway for the sandy coast, past fields
of colza to brine-blown meadows of coarse grass, and then to the low
dunes and long stretching sands of the ebb in semicircle: a desolate
place at that season; with a dwarf fishing-village by the shore; an East
wind driving landward in streamers every object that had a scrap to fly.
He made head to the inn, where the first person he encountered in
the passage was Diana's maid Danvers, who relaxed from the dramatic
exaggeration of her surprise at the sight of a real English gentleman in
these woebegone regions, to inform him that her mistress might be found
walking somewhere along the sea-shore, and had her dog to protect her.
They were to stay here a whole week, Danvers added, for a conveyance
of her private sentiments. Second thoughts however whispered to her
shrewdness that his arrival could only be by appointment. She had been
anticipating something of the sort for some time.
Dacier butted against the stringing wind, that kept him at a rocking
incline to his left for a mile. He then discerned in what had seemed a
dredger's dot on the sands, a lady's figure, unmistakably she, without
the corroborating testimony of Leander paw-deep in the low-tide water.
She was out at a distance on the ebb-sands, hurtled, gyred, beaten to
all shapes, in rolls, twists, volumes, like a blown banner-flag, by the
pressing wind. A kerchief tied her bonnet under her chin. Bonnet and
breast-ribands rattled rapidly as drummer-sticks. She stood near the
little running ripple of the flat sea-water, as it hurried from a long
streaked back to a tiny imitation of spray. When she turned to the shore
she saw him advancing, but did not recognize; when they met she merely
looked with wide parted lips. This was no appointment.
'I had to see you,' Dacier said.
She coloured to a deeper red than the rose-conjuring wind had whipped
in her cheeks. Her quick intuition of the reason of his coming barred a
mental evasion, and she had no thought of asking either him or herself
what special urgency had brought him.
'I have been here four days.'
'Lady Esquart spoke of the place.'
'Lady Esquart should not have betrayed me.'
'She did it inadvertently, without an idea of my profiting by it.'
Diana indicated the scene in a glance. 'Dreary country, do you think?'
'Anywhere!'--said he.
They walked up the sand-heap. The roaring Easter with its shrieks and
whistles at her ribands was not favourable to speech. His 'Anywhere!'
had a penetrating significance, the fuller for the break that left it
vague.
Speech between them was commanded; he could not be suffered to remain.
She descended upon a sheltered pathway running along a ditch, the border
of pastures where cattle cropped, raised heads, and resumed their one
comforting occupation.
Diana gazed on them, smarting from the buffets of the wind she had met.
'No play of their tails to-day'; she said, as she slackened her steps.
'You left Lady Esquart well?'
'Lady Esquart... I think was well. I had to see you. I thought you would
be with her in Berkshire. She told me of a little sea-side place close
to Caen.'
'You had to see me?'
'I miss you now if it's a day!'
'I heard a story in London...'
'In London there are many stories. I heard one. Is there a foundation
for it?'
'No.'
He breathed relieved. 'I wanted to see you once before... if it was
true. It would have made a change in my life-a gap.'
'You do me the honour to like my Sunday evenings?'
'Beyond everything London can offer.'
'A letter would have reached me.'
'I should have had to wait for the answer. There is no truth in it?'
Her choice was to treat the direct assailant frankly or imperil her
defence by the ordinary feminine evolutions, which might be taken for
inviting: poor pranks always.
'There have been overtures,' she said.
'Forgive me; I have scarcely the right to ask... speak of it!'
'My friends may use their right to take an interest in my fortunes.'
'I thought I might, on my way to Paris, turn aside... coming by this
route.'
'If you determined not to lose much of your time.'
The coolness of her fencing disconcerted a gentleman conscious of his
madness. She took instant advantage of any circuitous move; she gave him
no practicable point. He was little skilled in the arts of attack, and
felt that she checked his impetuousness; respected her for it, chafed
at it, writhed with the fervours precipitating him here, and relapsed on
his pleasure in seeing her face, hearing her voice.
'Your happiness, I hope, is the chief thought in such a case,' he said.
'I am sure you would consider it.'
'I can't quite forget my own.'
'You compliment an ambitious hostess.'
Dacier glanced across the pastures, 'What was it that tempted you to
this place?'
'A poet would say it looks like a figure in the shroud. It has no
features; it has a sort of grandeur belonging to death. I heard of it as
the place where I might be certain of not meeting an acquaintance.'
'And I am the intruder.'
'An hour or two will not give you that title.'
'Am I to count the minutes by my watch?'
'By the sun. We will supply you an omelette and piquette, and send you
back sobered and friarly--to Caen for Paris at sunset.'
'Let the fare be Spartan. I could take my black broth with philosophy
every day of the year under your auspices. What I should miss...'
'You bring no news of the world or the House?'
'None. You know as much as I know. The Irish agitation is chronic. The
Corn-law threatens to be the same.'
'And your Chief--in personal colloquy?'
'He keeps a calm front. I may tell you: there is nothing I would not
confide to you: he has let fall some dubious words in private. I don't
know what to think of them.'
'But if he should waver?'
'It's not wavering. It's the openness of his mind.'
'Ah! the mind. We imagine it free. The House and the country are the
sentient frame governing the mind of the politician more than his ideas.
He cannot think independently of them:--nor I of my natural anatomy. You
will test the truth of that after your omelette and piquette, and marvel
at the quitting of your line of route for Paris. As soon as the mind
attempts to think independently, it is like a kite with the cord cut,
and performs a series of darts and frisks, that have the look of wildest
liberty till you see it fall flat to earth. The openness of his mind is
most honourable to him.'
'Ominous for his party.'
'Likely to be good for his country.'
'That is the question.'
'Prepare to encounter it. In politics I am with the active minority on
behalf of the inert but suffering majority. That is my rule. It leads,
unless you have a despotism, to the conquering side. It is always the
noblest. I won't say, listen to me; only do believe my words have some
weight. This is a question of bread.'
'It involves many other questions.'
'And how clearly those leaders put their case! They are admirable
debaters. If I were asked to write against them, I should have but to
quote them to confound my argument. I tried it once, and wasted a couple
of my precious hours.'
'They are cogent debaters,' Dacier assented. 'They make me wince now
and then, without convincing me: I own it to you. The confession is not
agreeable, though it's a small matter.'
'One's pride may feel a touch with the foils as keenly as the point of a
rapier,' said Diana.
The remark drew a sharp look of pleasure from him.
'Does the Princess Egeria propose to dismiss the individual she
inspires, when he is growing most sensible of her wisdom?'
'A young Minister of State should be gleaning at large when holiday is
granted him.'
Dacier coloured. 'May I presume on what is currently reported?'
'Parts, parts; a bit here, a bit there,' she rejoined. 'Authors find
their models where they can, and generally hit on the nearest.'
'Happy the nearest!'
'If you run to interjections I shall cite you a sentence, from your
latest speech in the House.'
He asked for it, and to school him she consented to flatter with her
recollection of his commonest words:
'“Dealing with subjects of this nature emotionally does, not advance us
a calculable inch.”'
'I must have said that in relation to hard matter of business.'
'It applies. There is my hostelry, and the spectral form of Danvers,
utterly depaysee. Have you spoken to the poor soul? I can never discover
the links of her attachment to my service.'
'She knows a good mistress.--I have but a few minutes, if you are
relentless. May I..., shall I ever be privileged to speak your Christian
name?'
'My Christian name! It is Pagan. In one sphere I am Hecate. Remember
that.'
'I am not among the people who so regard you.'
'The time may come.'
'Diana!'
'Constance!'
'I break no tie. I owe no allegiance whatever to the name.'
'Keep to the formal title with me. We are Mrs. Warwick and Mr. Dacier.
I think I am two years younger than you; socially therefore ten in
seniority; and I know how this flower of friendship is nourished and may
be withered. You see already what you have done? You have cast me on the
discretion of my maid. I suppose her trusty, but I am at her mercy, and
a breath from her to the people beholding me as Hecate queen of Witches!
... I have a sensation of the scirocco it would blow.'
'In that event, the least I can offer is my whole life.'
'We will not conjecture the event.'
'The best I could hope for!'
'I see I shall have to revise the next edition of THE YOUNG MINISTER,
and make an emotional curate of him. Observe Danvers. The woman is
wretched; and now she sees me coming she pretends to be using her wits
in studying the things about her, as I have directed. She is a riddle. I
have the idea that any morning she may explode; and yet I trust her and
sleep soundly. I must be free, though I vex the world's watchdogs.--So,
Danvers, you are noticing how thoroughly Frenchwomen do their work.'
Danvers replied with a slight mincing: 'They may, ma'am; but they
chatter chatter so.'
'The result proves that it is not a waste of energy. They manage their
fowls too.'
'They've no such thing as mutton, ma'am.'
Dacier patriotically laughed.
'She strikes the apology for wealthy and leisurely landlords,' Diana
said.
Danvers remarked that the poor fed meagrely in France. She was not
convinced of its being good for them by hearing that they could work on
it sixteen hours out of the four and twenty.
Mr. Percy Dacier's repast was furnished to him half an hour later. At
sunset Diana, taking Danvers beside her, walked with him to the line of
the country road bearing on Caen. The wind had sunk. A large brown disk
paused rayless on the western hills.
'A Dacier ought to feel at home in Normandy; and you may have sprung
from this neighbourhood,' said she, simply to chat. 'Here the land is
poorish, and a mile inland rich enough to bear repeated crops of colza,
which tries the soil, I hear. As for beauty, those blue hills you see,
enfold charming valleys. I meditate an expedition to Harcourt before I
return. An English professor of his native tongue at the Lycee at Caen
told me on my way here that for twenty shillings a week you may live
in royal ease round about Harcourt. So we have our bed and board in
prospect if fortune fails us, Danvers!
'I would rather die in England, ma'am,' was the maid's reply.
Dacier set foot on his carriage-step. He drew a long breath to say a
short farewell, and he and Diana parted.
They parted as the plainest of sincere good friends, each at heart
respecting the other for the repression of that which their hearts
craved; any word of which might have carried them headlong, bound
together on a Mazeppa-race, with scandal for the hounding wolves, and
social ruin for the rocks and torrents.
Dacier was the thankfuller, the most admiring of the two; at the
same time the least satisfied. He saw the abyss she had aided him in
escaping; and it was refreshful to look abroad after his desperate
impulse. Prominent as he stood before the world, he could not think
without a shudder of behaving like a young frenetic of the passion.
Those whose aim is at the leadership of the English people know, that
however truly based the charges of hypocrisy, soundness of moral fibre
runs throughout the country and is the national integrity, which may
condone old sins for present service; but will not have present sins to
flout it. He was in tune with the English character. The passion was in
him nevertheless, and the stronger for a slow growth that confirmed its
union of the mind and heart. Her counsel fortified him, her suggestions
opened springs; her phrases were golden-lettered in his memory; and
more, she had worked an extraordinary change in his views of life and
aptitude for social converse: he acknowledged it with genial candour.
Through her he was encouraged, led, excited to sparkle with the witty,
feel new gifts, or a greater breadth of nature; and thanking her, he
became thirstily susceptible to her dark beauty; he claimed to have
found the key of her, and he prized it. She was not passionless: the
blood flowed warm. Proud, chaste, she was nobly spirited; having an
intellectual refuge from the besiegings of the blood; a rockfortress.
The 'wife no wife' appeared to him, striking the higher elements of
the man, the commonly masculine also.--Would he espouse her, had he
the chance?--to-morrow! this instant! With her to back him, he would be
doubled in manhood, doubled in brain and heart-energy. To call her wife,
spring from her and return, a man might accept his fate to fight Trojan
or Greek, sure of his mark on the enemy.
But if, after all, this imputed Helen of a decayed Paris passed,
submissive to the legitimate solicitor, back to her husband?
The thought shot Dacier on his legs for a look at the blank behind him.
He vowed she had promised it should not be. Could it ever be, after
the ruin the meanly suspicious fellow had brought upon her?--Diana
voluntarily reunited to the treacherous cur?
He sat, resolving sombrely that if the debate arose he would try what
force he had to save her from such an ignominy, and dedicate his life to
her, let the world wag its tongue. So the knot would be cut.
Men unaccustomed to a knot in their system find the prospect of cutting
it an extreme relief, even when they know that the cut has an edge to
wound mortally as well as pacify. The wound was not heavy payment for
the rapture of having so incomparable a woman his own. He reflected
wonderingly on the husband, as he had previously done, and came again to
the conclusion that it was a poor creature, abjectly jealous of a
wife, he could neither master, nor equal, nor attract. And thinking
of jealousy, Dacier felt none; none of individuals, only of facts: her
marriage, her bondage. Her condemnation to perpetual widowhood angered
him, as at an unrighteous decree. The sharp sweet bloom of her beauty,
fresh in swarthiness, under the whipping Easter, cried out against that
loathed inhumanity. Or he made it cry.
Being a stranger to the jealousy of men, he took the soft assurance that
he was preferred above them all. Competitors were numerous: not any won
her eyes as he did. She revealed nothing of the same pleasures in
the shining of the others touched by her magical wand. Would she have
pardoned one of them the 'Diana!' bursting from his mouth?
She was not a woman for trifling, still less for secresy. He was as
little the kind of lover. Both would be ready to take up their burden,
if the burden was laid on them. Diana had thus far impressed him.
Meanwhile he faced the cathedral towers of the ancient Norman city,
standing up in the smoky hues of the West; and a sentence out of her
book seemed fitting to the scene and what he felt. He rolled it over
luxuriously as the next of delights to having her beside him.--She wrote
of; 'Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, coloured by some odd passion
of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the funeral waste of
day.'--His bluff English anti-poetic training would have caused him to
shrug at the stuff coming from another pen: he might condescendingly
have criticized it, with a sneer embalmed in humour. The words were
hers; she had written them; almost by a sort of anticipation, he
imagined; for he at once fell into the mood they suggested, and had
a full crop of the 'bare dark outlines' of thoughts coloured by his
particular form of passion.
Diana had impressed him powerfully when she set him swallowing and
assimilating a sentence ethereally thin in substance of mere sentimental
significance, that he would antecedently have read aloud in a
drawing-room, picking up the book by hazard, as your modern specimen of
romantic vapouring. Mr. Dacier however was at the time in observation of
the towers of Caen, fresh from her presence, animated to some conception
of her spirit. He drove into the streets, desiring, half determining, to
risk a drive back on the morrow.
The cold light of the morrow combined with his fear of distressing her
to restrain him. Perhaps he thought it well not to risk his gains. He
was a northerner in blood. He may have thought it well not further to
run the personal risk immediately.