The first sign that two people no longer stand to each other in the
relation of mere acquaintances is generally that the tones of their
voices change, while they feel a slight and unaccountable constraint
when they happen to be left alone together.
Two days passed after the little incident which had occurred at dinner
before Clare and Johnstone were momentarily face to face out of Mrs.
Bowring's sight. At first Clare had not been aware that her mother was
taking pains to be always present when the young man was about, but when
she noticed the fact she at once began to resent it. Such constant
watchfulness was unlike her mother, un-English, and almost unnatural.
When they were all seated together on the terrace, if Mrs. Bowring
wished to go indoors to write a letter or to get something she invented
some excuse for making her daughter go with her, and stay with her till
she came out again. A French or Italian mother could not have been more
particular or careful, but a French or Italian girl would have been
accustomed to such treatment, and would not have seen anything unusual
in it. But Mrs. Bowring had never acted in such a way before now, and it
irritated the young girl extremely. She felt that she was being treated
like a child, and that Johnstone must see it and think it ridiculous. At
last Clare made an attempt at resistance, out of sheer contrariety.
"I don't want to write letters!" she answered impatiently. "I wrote two
yesterday. It is hot indoors, and I would much rather stay here!"
Mrs. Bowring went as far as the parapet, and looked down at the sea for
a moment. Then she came back and sat down again.
"It's quite true," she said. "It is hot indoors. I don't think I shall
write, after all."
Brook Johnstone could not help smiling a little, though he turned away
his face to hide his amusement. It was so perfectly evident that Mrs.
Bowring was determined not to leave Clare alone with him that he must
have been blind not to see it. Clare saw the smile, and was angry. She
was nineteen years old, she had been out in the world, the terrace was a
public place, Johnstone was a gentleman, and the whole thing was absurd.
She took up her work and closed her lips tightly.
Johnstone felt the awkwardness, rose suddenly, and said he would go for
a walk. Clare raised her eyes and nodded as he lifted his hat. He was
still smiling, and her resentment deepened. A moment later, mother and
daughter were alone. Clare did not lay down her work, nor look up when
she spoke.
"Really, mother, it's too absurd!" she exclaimed, and a little colour
came to her cheeks.
"What is absurd, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bowring, affecting not to
understand.
"Your abject fear of leaving me for five minutes with Mr. Johnstone. I'm
not a baby. He was laughing. I was positively ashamed! What do you
suppose could have happened, if you had gone in and written your letters
and left us quietly here? And it happens every day, you know! If you
want a glass of water, I have to go in with you."
"My dear! What an exaggeration!"
"It's not an exaggeration, mother--really. You know that you wouldn't
leave me with him for five minutes, for anything in the world."
"Do you wish to be left alone with him, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bowring,
rather abruptly.
Clare was indignant.
"Wish it? No! Certainly not! But if it should happen naturally, by
accident, I should not get up and run away. I'm not afraid of the man,
as you seem to be. What can he do to me? And you have no idea how
strangely you behave, and what ridiculous excuses you invent for me.
The other day you insisted on my going in to look for a train in the
time-tables when you know we haven't the slightest intention of going
away for ever so long. Really--you're turning into a perfect duenna. I
wish you would behave naturally, as you always used to do."
"I think you exaggerate," said Mrs. Bowring. "I never leave you alone
with men you hardly know--"
"You can't exactly say that we hardly know Mr. Johnstone, when he has
been with us, morning, noon, and night, for nearly a week, mother."
"My dear, we know nothing about him--"
"If you are so anxious to know his father's Christian name, ask him. It
wouldn't seem at all odd. I will, if you like."
"Don't!" cried Mrs. Bowring, with unusual energy. "I mean," she added in
a lower tone and looking away, "it would be very rude--he would think it
very strange. In fact, it is merely idle curiosity on my part--really, I
would much rather not know."
Clare looked at her mother in surprise.
"How oddly you talk!" she exclaimed. Then her tone changed. "Mother
dear--is anything the matter? You don't seem quite--what shall I say?
Are you suffering, dearest? Has anything happened?"
She dropped her work, and leaned forward, her hand on her mother's, and
gazing into her face with a look of anxiety.
"No, dear," answered Mrs. Bowring. "No, no--it's nothing. Perhaps I'm a
little nervous--that's all."
"I believe the air of this place doesn't suit you. Why shouldn't we go
away at once?"
Mrs. Bowring shook her head and protested energetically.
"No--oh no! I wouldn't go away for anything. I like the place immensely,
and we are both getting perfectly well here. Oh no! I wouldn't think of
going away."
Clare leaned back in her seat again. She was devotedly fond of her
mother, and she could not but see that something was wrong. In spite of
what she said, Mrs. Bowring was certainly not growing stronger, though
she was not exactly ill. The pale face was paler, and there was a worn
and restless look in the long-suffering, almost colourless eyes.
"I'm sorry I made such a fuss about Mr. Johnstone," said Clare softly,
after a short pause.
"No, darling," answered her mother instantly. "I dare say I have been a
little over careful. I don't know--I had a sort of presentiment that you
might take a fancy to him."
"I know. You said so the first day. But I sha'n't, mother. You need not
be at all afraid. He is not at all the sort of man to whom I should ever
take a fancy, as you call it."
"I don't see why not," said Mrs. Bowring thoughtfully.
"Of course--it's hard to explain." Clare smiled. "But if that is what
you are afraid of, you can leave us alone all day. My 'fancy' would be
quite, quite different."
"Very well, darling. At all events, I'll try not to turn into a duenna."
Johnstone did not appear again until dinner, and then he was unusually
silent, only exchanging a remark with Clare now and then, and not once
leaning forward to say a few words to Mrs. Bowring as he generally did.
The latter had at first thought of exchanging places with her daughter,
but had reflected that it would be almost a rudeness to make such a
change after the second day.
They went out upon the terrace, and had their coffee there. Several of
the other people did the same, and walked slowly up and down under the
vines. Mrs. Bowring, wishing to destroy as soon as possible the
unpleasant impression she had created, left the two together, saying
that she would get something to put over her shoulders, as the air was
cool.
Clare and Johnstone stood by the parapet and looked at each other. Then
Clare leaned with her elbows on the wall and stared in silence at the
little lights on the beach below, trying to make out the shapes of the
boats which were hauled up in a long row. Neither spoke for a long time,
and Clare, at least, felt unpleasantly the constraint of the unusual
silence.
"It is a beautiful place, isn't it?" observed Johnstone at last, for the
sake of hearing his own voice.
"Oh yes, quite beautiful," answered the young girl in a
half-indifferent, half-discontented tone, and the words ended with a
sort of girlish sniff.
Again there was silence. Johnstone, standing up beside her, looked
towards the hotel, to see whether Mrs. Bowring were coming back. But she
was anxious to appear indifferent to their being together, and was in no
hurry to return. Johnstone sat down upon the wall, while Clare leaned
over it.
"Miss Bowring!" he said suddenly, to call her attention.
"Yes?" She did not look up; but to her own amazement she felt a queer
little thrill at the sound of his voice, for it had not its usual tone.
"Don't you think I had better go to Naples?" he asked.
Clare felt herself start a little, and she waited a moment before she
said anything in reply. She did not wish to betray any astonishment in
her voice. Johnstone had asked the question under a sudden impulse; but
a far wiser and more skilful man than himself could not have hit upon
one better calculated to precipitate intimacy. Clare, on her side, was
woman enough to know that she had a choice of answers, and to see that
the answer she should choose must make a difference hereafter. At the
same time, she had been surprised, and when she thought of it afterwards
it seemed to her that the question itself had been an impertinent one,
merely because it forced her to make an answer of some sort. She decided
in favour of making everything as clear as possible.
"Why?" she asked, without looking round.
At all events she would throw the burden of an elucidation upon him. He
was not afraid of taking it up.
"It's this," he answered. "I've rather thrust my acquaintance upon you,
and, if I stay here until my people come, I can't exactly change my seat
and go and sit at the other end of the table, nor pretend to be busy all
day, and never come out here and sit with you, after telling you
repeatedly that I have nothing on earth to do. Can I?"
"Why should you?"
"Because Mrs. Bowring doesn't like me."
Clare rose from her elbows and stood up, resting her hands upon the
wall, but still looking down at the lights on the beach.
"I assure you, you're quite mistaken," she answered, with quiet
emphasis. "My mother thinks you're very nice."
"Then why--" Johnstone checked himself, and crumbled little bits of
mortar from the rough wall with his thumbs.
"Why what?"
"I don't know whether I know you well enough to ask the question, Miss
Bowring."
"Let's assume that you do--for the sake of argument," said Clare, with a
short laugh, as she glanced at his face, dimly visible in the falling
darkness.
"Thanks awfully," he answered, but he did not laugh with her. "It isn't
exactly an easy thing to say, is it? Only--I couldn't help noticing--I
hope you'll forgive me, if you think I'm rude, won't you? I couldn't
help noticing that your mother was most awfully afraid of leaving us
alone for a minute, you know--as though she thought I were a suspicious
character, don't you know? Something of that sort. So, of course, I
thought she didn't like me. Do you see? Tremendously cheeky of me to
talk in this way, isn't it?"
"Do you know? It is, rather." Clare was more inclined to laugh than
before, but she only smiled in the dark.
"Well, it would be, of course, if I didn't happen to be so painfully
respectable."
"Painfully respectable! What an expression!" This time, Clare laughed
aloud.
"Yes. That's just it. Well, I couldn't exactly tell Mrs. Bowring that,
could I? Besides, one isn't vain of being respectable. I couldn't say,
Please, Mrs. Bowring, my father is Mr. Smith, and my mother was a Miss
Brown, of very good family, and we've got five hundred a year in
Consols, and we're not in trade, and I've been to a good school, and am
not at all dangerous. It would have sounded so--so uncalled for, don't
you know? Wouldn't it?"
"Very. But now that you've explained it to me, I suppose I may tell my
mother, mayn't I? Let me see. Your father is Mr. Smith, and your mother
was a Miss Brown--"
"Oh, please--no!" interrupted Johnstone. "I didn't mean it so very
literally. But it is just about that sort of thing--just like anybody
else. Only about our not being in trade, I'm not so sure of that. My
father is a brewer. Brewing is not a profession, so I suppose it must be
a trade, isn't it?"
"You might call it a manufacture," suggested Clare.
"Yes. It sounds better. But that isn't the question, you know. You'll
see my people when they come, and then you'll understand what I
mean--they really are tremendously respectable."
"Of course!" assented the young girl. "Like the party you came with on
the yacht. That kind of people."
"Oh dear no!" exclaimed Johnstone. "Not at all those kind of people.
They wouldn't like it at all, if you said so."
"Ah! indeed!" Clare was inclined to laugh again.
"The party I came with belong rather to a gay set. Awfully nice, you
know," he hastened to add, "and quite the people one knows at home. But
my father and mother--oh no! they are quite different--the difference
between whist and baccarat, you know, if you understand that sort of
thing--old port and brandy and soda--both very good in their way, but
quite different."
"I should think so."
"Then--" Johnstone hesitated again. "Then, Miss Bowring--you don't think
that your mother really dislikes me, after all?"
"Oh dear no! Not in the least. I've heard her say all sorts of nice
things about you."
"Really? Then I think I'll stay here. I didn't want to be a nuisance,
you know--always in the way."
"You're not in the way," answered Clare.
Mrs. Bowring came back with her shawl, and the rest of the evening
passed off as usual. Later, when she was alone, the young girl
remembered all the conversation, and she saw that it had been in her
power to make Johnstone leave Amalfi. While she was wondering why she
had not done so, since she hated him for what she knew of him, she fell
asleep, and the question remained unanswered. In the morning she told
the substance of it all to her mother, and ended by telling her that
Johnstone's father was a brewer.
"Of course," answered Mrs. Bowring absently. "I know that." Then she
realised what she had said, and glanced at Clare with an odd, scared
look.
Clare uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Mother! Why, then--you knew all about him! Why didn't you tell me?"
A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Bowring sat with her face
turned from her daughter. Then she raised her hand and passed it slowly
over her forehead, as though trying to collect her thoughts.
"One comes across very strange things in life, my dear," she said at
last. "I am not sure that we had not better go away, after all. I'll
think about it."
Beyond this Clare could get no information, nor any explanation of the
fact that Mrs. Bowring should have known something about Brook
Johnstone's father. The girl made a guess, of course. The elder
Johnstone must be a relation of her mother's first husband; though,
considering that Mrs. Bowring had never seen Brook before now, and that
the latter had never told her anything about his father, it was hard to
see how she could be so sure of the fact. Possibly, Brook strongly
resembled his father's family. That, indeed, was the only admissible
theory. But all that Clare knew and could put together into reasonable
shape could not explain why her mother so much disliked leaving her
alone with the man, even for five minutes.
In this, however, Mrs. Bowring changed suddenly, after the first evening
when she had left them on the terrace. She either took a totally
different view of the situation, or else she was ashamed of seeming to
watch them all the time, and the consequence was that during the next
three or four days they were very often together without her.
Johnstone enjoyed the young girl's society, and did not pretend to deny
the fact in his own thoughts. Whatever mischief he might have been in
while on the yacht, his natural instincts were simple and honest. In a
certain way, Clare was a revelation to him of something to which he had
never been accustomed, and which he had most carefully avoided. He had
no sisters, and as a boy he had not been thrown with girls. He was an
only son, and his mother, a very practical woman, had warned him as he
grew up that he was a great match, and had better avoid young girls
altogether until he saw one whom he should like to marry, though how he
was to see that particular one, if he avoided all alike, was a question
into which his mother did not choose to enter. Having first gone into
society upon this principle, however, and having been at once taken up
and made much of by an extremely fashionable young woman afflicted with
an elderly and eccentric husband, it was not likely that Brook would
return to the threshold of the schoolroom for women's society. He went
on as he had begun in his first "salad" days, and at five-and-twenty he
had the reputation of having done more damage than any of his young
contemporaries, while he had never once shown the slightest inclination
to marry. His mother, always a practical woman, did not press the
question of marriage, deeming that with his disposition he would stand a
better chance of married peace when he had expended a good deal of what
she called his vivacity; and his father, who came of very long-lived
people, always said that no man should take a wife before he was thirty.
As Brook did not gamble immoderately, nor start a racing stable, nor
propose to manage an opera troupe, the practical lady felt that he was
really a very good young man. His father liked him for his own sake; but
as Adam Johnstone had been gay in his youth, in spite of his sober
Scotch blood, even beyond the bounds of ordinary "fastness," the fact of
his being fond of Brook was not of itself a guarantee that the latter
was such a very good young man as his mother said that he was. Somehow
or other Brook had hitherto managed to keep clear of any entanglement
which could hamper his life, probably by virtue of that hardness which
he had shown to poor Lady Fan, and which had so strongly prejudiced
Clare Bowring against him. His father said cynically that the lad was
canny. Hitherto he had certainly shown that he could be selfish; and
perhaps there is less difference between the meanings of the Scotch and
English words than most people suppose.
Daily and almost hourly intercourse with such a young girl as Clare was
a totally new experience to Brook Johnstone, and there were moments
when he hardly recognised himself for the man who had landed from the
yacht ten days earlier, and who had said good-bye to Lady Fan on the
platform behind the hotel.
Hitherto he had always known in a day or two whether he was inclined to
make love to a woman or not. An inclination to make love and the
satisfaction of it had been, so far, his nearest approach to being in
love at all. Nor, when he had felt the inclination, had he ever
hesitated. Like a certain great English statesman of similar
disposition, he had sometimes been repulsed, but he never remembered
having given offence. For he possessed that tactful intuition which
guides some men through life in their intercourse with women. He rarely
spoke the first word too soon, and if he were going to speak at all he
never spoke too late--which error is, of the two, by far the greater. He
was young, perhaps, to have had such experience; but in the social world
of to-day it is especially the fashion for men to be extremely young,
even to youthfulness, and lack of years is no longer the atrocious crime
which Pitt would neither attempt to palliate or deny. We have just
emerged from a period of wrinkles and paint, during which we were told
that age knew everything and youth nothing. The explosion into nonsense
of nine tenths of all we were taught at school and college has given
our children a terrible weapon against us; and women, who are all
practical in their own way, prefer the blundering whole-heartedness of
youth to the skilful tactics and over-effective effects of the
middle-aged love-actor. In this direction, at least, the breeze that
goes before the dawn of a new century is already blowing. Perhaps it is
a good sign--but a sign of some sort it certainly is.
Brook Johnstone felt that he was in an unfamiliar position, and he tried
to analyse his own feelings. He was perfectly honest about it, but he
had very little talent for analysis. On the other hand, he had a very
keen sense of what we roughly call honour. Clare was not Lady Fan, and
would probably never get into that category. Clare belonged amongst the
women whom he respected, and he respected them all, with all his heart.
They included all young girls, and his mother, and all young women who
were happily married. It will be admitted that, for a man who made no
pretence to higher virtues, Brook was no worse than his contemporaries,
and was better than a great many.
Be that as it may, in lack of any finer means of discrimination, he
tried to define his own position with regard to Clare Bowring very
simply and honestly. Either he was falling in love, or he was not.
Secondly, Clare was either the kind of girl whom he should like to
marry, spoken of by his practical mother--or she was not.
So far, all was extremely plain. The trouble was that he could not find
any answers to the questions. He could not in the least be sure that he
was falling in love, because he knew that he had never really been in
love in his life. And as for saying at once that Clare was, or was not,
the girl whom he should like to marry, how in the world could he tell
that, unless he fell in love with her? Of course he did not wish to
marry her unless he loved her. But he conceived it possible that he
might fall in love with her and then not wish to marry her after all,
which, in his simple opinion, would have been entirely despicable. If
there were any chance of that, he ought to go away at once. But he did
not know whether there were any chance of it or not. He could go away in
any case, in order to be on the safe side; but then, there was no reason
in the world why he should not marry her, if he should love her, and if
she would marry him. The question became very badly mixed, and under the
circumstances he told himself that he was splitting hairs on the
mountains he had made of his molehills. He determined to stay where he
was. At all events, judging from all signs with which he was
acquainted, Clare was very far indeed from being in love with him, so
that in this respect his sense of honour was perfectly safe and
undisturbed.
Having set his mind at rest in this way, he allowed himself to talk with
her as he pleased. There was no reason why he should hamper himself in
conversation, so long as he said nothing calculated to make an
impression--nothing which could come under the general head of "making
love." The result was that he was much more agreeable than he supposed.
Clare's innocent eyes watched him, and her mind was divided about him.
She was utterly young and inexperienced, but she was a woman, and she
believed him to be false, faithless, and designing. She had no idea of
the broad distinction he drew between all good and innocent women like
herself, and all the rest whom he considered lawful prey. She concluded
therefore, very rashly, that he was simply pursuing his usual tactics, a
main part of which consisted in seeming perfectly unaffected and natural
while only waiting for a faint sign of encouragement in order then to
play the part of the passionate lover.
The generalisations of youth are terrible. What has failed once is
despicably damned for ever. What is true to-day is true enough to-morrow
to kill all other truths outright. The man whose hand has shaken once
is a coward; he who has fought one battle is to be the hero of seventy.
Life is a forest of inverted pyramids, for the young; upon every point
is balanced a gigantic weight of top-heavy ideals, spreading
base-upwards.
To Clare, everything Johnstone said or did was the working of a
faithless intention towards its end. It was clear enough that he sought
her and stayed with her as long as he could, day by day. Therefore he
intended to make love to her, sooner or later, and then, when he was
tired, he would say good-bye to her just as he had said good-bye to Lady
Fan, and break her heart, and have one story more to laugh over when he
was alone. It was quite clear that he could not mean anything else,
after what she had seen.
All the same, he pleased her when he was with her, and attracted her
oddly. She told herself that unless he had some unusual qualities he
could not possibly break hearts for pastime, as he undoubtedly did, from
year's end to year's end. She studied the question, and reached the
conclusion that his strength was in his eyes. They were the most frank,
brave, good-humoured, clear, unaffected eyes she had ever seen, but she
could not look at them long. There was no reason why she should, indeed,
but she hated to feel that she could not, if she chose. Whenever she
tried, she at once had the feeling that he had power over her, to make
her do things she did not wish to do. That was probably the way in which
he had influenced Lady Fan and the other women, probably a dozen,
thought Clare. If they were really as honest as they seemed, she thought
she should have been able to meet them without the least sensation of
nervousness.
One day she caught herself wishing that he had never done the thing she
so hated. She was too honest to attribute to him outward defects which
he did not possess, and she could not help thinking what a fine fellow
he would be if he were not so bad. She might have liked him very much,
then. But as it was, it was impossible that she should ever not hate
him. Then she smiled to herself, as she thought how surprised he would
be if he could guess what she thought of him.
But there was no probability of that, for she felt that she had no right
to know what she knew, and so she treated him always, as she thought,
with the same even, indifferent civility. But not seldom she knew that
she was wickedly wishing that he might really fall in love with her and
find out that men could break their hearts as well as women. She should
like to fight with him, with his own weapons, for the glory of all her
sex, and make him thoroughly miserable for his sins. It could not be
wrong to wish that, after what she had seen, but it would be very wrong
to try and make him fall in love, just with that intention. That would
be almost as bad as what he had done; not quite so bad, of course,
because it would serve him right, but yet a deed which she might be
ashamed to remember.
She herself felt perfectly safe. She was neither sentimental nor
susceptible, for if she had been one or the other she must by this time
have had some "experience," as she vaguely called it. But she had not.
She had never even liked any man so much as she liked this man whom she
hated. This was not a contradiction of facts, which, as Euclid teaches
us, is impossible. She liked him for what she saw, and she hated him for
what she knew.
One day, when Mrs. Bowring was present, the conversation turned upon a
recent novel in which the hero, after making love to a woman, found that
he had made a mistake, and promptly made love to her sister, whom he
married in the end.
"I despise that sort of man!" cried Clare, rather vehemently, and
flashing her eyes upon Johnstone.
For a moment she had thought that she could surprise him, that he would
look away, or change colour, or in some way betray his most guilty
conscience. But he did not seem in the least disturbed, and met her
glance as calmly as ever.
"Do you?" he asked with an indifferent laugh. "Why? The fellow was
honest, at all events. He found that he didn't love the one to whom he
was engaged, and that he did love the other. So he set things straight
before it was too late, and married the right one. He was a very
sensible man, and it must have taken courage to be so honest about it."
"Courage!" exclaimed the young girl in high scorn. "He was a brute and a
coward!"
"Dear me!" laughed Brook. "Don't you admit that a man may ever make a
mistake?"
"When a man makes a mistake of that sort, he should either cut his
throat, or else keep his word to the woman and try to make her happy."
"That's a violent view--really! It seems to me that when a man has made
a mistake the best thing to do is to go and say so. The bigger the
mistake, the harder it is to acknowledge it, and the more courage it
needs. Don't you think so, Mrs. Bowring?"
"The mistake of all mistakes is a mistake in marriage," said the elder
woman, looking away. "There is no remedy for that, but death."
"Yes," answered Clare. "But don't you think that I'm right? It's what
you say, after all--"
"Not exactly, my dear. No man who doesn't love a woman can make her
happy for long."
"Well--a man who makes a woman think that he loves her, and then leaves
her for some one else, is a brute, and a beast, and a coward, and a
wretch, and a villain--and I hate him, and so do all women!"
"That's categorical!" observed Brook, with a laugh. "But I dare say you
are quite right in theory, only practice is so awfully different, you
know. And a woman doesn't thank a man for pretending to love her."
Clare's eyes flashed almost savagely, and her lip curled in scorn.
"There's only one right," she said. "I don't know how many wrongs there
are--and I don't want to know!"
"No," answered Brook, gravely enough. "And there is no reason why you
ever should."