Human nature is so constituted as to be incapable of lonely
satisfaction; man, like those plants which are formed to embrace
others, is led by an instinctive impulse to recline on his
species.--_Cicero_.
To account for Conway’s non-appearance at Kingsmore vicarage it will
be necessary to revert to the day of Dr. Berry’s meeting with Maude
upon the upland, because that encounter was in the main responsible,
although indirectly, for the young man’s absence. The scholar walked
back to the rectory, but did not open his books that evening.
Outpourings from the intellects of the immortals would not content him
then. In a heat he cast off an original poem and proceeded with it
into the garden of the Strath; and there he came upon Conway who was
confused by struggling memories and a present anxiety. Money had been
required of him for the settlement of accounts. Being unable to
comprehend the meaning of that demand he had taken his trouble to
Drayton; but the writer, who was entirely engrossed upon his
historical play, gave him little satisfaction. “If the woman asks for
money, give it her,” he said, and straightway had returned to his
work.
Dr. Berry’s understanding was less obscured. After listening to
Conway’s complaint, he advised him to leave the garden, and walk out
of the valley. “You will then perceive what should be done,” he added.
“If you require to write letters, go into my study, and write them
there.”
Conway did as he was directed, that is to say he left the garden; but
he did not enter the rectory. He walked out of the valley, and when
darkness came upon the country he was still walking, with his face set
towards the town. Night fell upon the Strath, but the master was
absent. The next day Drayton noticed that he was alone, but his mind
had no desire to learn the cause. Another day went, but Conway
remained absent. The next morning a letter came to Drayton, and the
dazed writer found himself charged with various heinous offences. It
appeared that the profligate’s furniture had been seized for
non-payment of rent, and among the articles on the inventory made by
the agent the two masks did not appear. Therefore, the writer argued,
Drayton had most perfidiously stolen them. The shaky epistle concluded
with the statement that the writer was about to return to Thorlund for
the sole purpose of dragging the “ungrateful, sponging, thievish
brute,” Drayton to-wit, out of his house by the ears.
“A strange document,” murmured the gentle scribe. “Interesting also as
illustrating a phase of the human mind. Penned, I should determine, by
a dissolute character, somewhat under the influence of _aqua-fortis_.”
As the letter was not of sufficient interest to be subjected to any
more critical analysis, he set it aside, and went into the orchard to
think of other things. Late in the evening Conway returned; but so
soon as he entered upon his property, shame took the place of anger.
He became dimly conscious that he had degraded himself during the past
three days. Very soon the determination, which he had made that
morning, to offer the Strath for sale, and to resume his former manner
of living, became forgotten. As he made towards the house, feeling
sleep settling again about his eyes, he encountered the perfidious
Drayton; but, instead of seizing the thief by the ears, he passed his
arm within that of the writer, and asked, “Have you finished the
translation of that ode of Horace, the song in which he deals with
woman’s love?”
Drayton put a hand to his forehead, and presently replied, “I have
forgotten. I will make you the English rendering to-night. Have you
not been out a long time?” he added.
“Yes,” said Conway absently. “I have been troubled with bad dreams of
late.” This was Conway’s first and final effort to break from the
influence of the Strath; and after failure his mind, like that of his
companion, succumbed entirely.
There came a day when rain soaked the moss-grown garden and the trunks
of the trees were black with moisture. Mists were exhaled from the
stagnant moat to form into shapes about the house. The spell-bound
wanderers, hovering between the seen and unseen, found the Strath
altered. It remained peaceful in its decay; there was neither
fluttering of tapestries nor whisper of misery; but over all brooded
an indefinable sensation of calamity impending.
In that room where Winifred Hooper had slept and written, Conway sat
alone, with her journal between his hands. The influence impelled him
to reason concerning himself. “What was he?” A card, engraved with a
mere name, lay on the table, but the words Charles Conway brought no
answer to his question. Perhaps he was a product of that damp old
house, an ephemeral growth like the mosses and lichens upon its walls,
or a passing shadow, with a name to distinguish it from other shadows.
One touch of sunlight might cause him to vanish into vapour. Or again
a little spark roving like Jack o’ lanthorn through space, seeking
another spark with which to unite and strike the wondrous flame called
life. He saw a face in the time-stained mirror. Was it that of Flora
Neill, or of Winifred Hooper, or of Lone Nance of the hills? The spark
which was himself became blown into fire, and waved to and fro.… The
place became a museum, and he a dry and dusty exhibit, catalogued
Charles Conway, and numbered 31. He was a curiosity, genuine and of
some practical use once, but now out of fashion. What had he done in
his foolish life? Walked out with his hair in papers, inhaling snuff
through the pepper-pot head of a clouded cane; sauntered at auctions,
or in the Mall; spent one quarter of the day in dressing, another in
dining, a third at the coffee-house, a fourth at play; half the night
in drawing-rooms, the other half in sleep. What noise had he made in
the world, beyond piping on the French horn, or springing the rattle
of a drunken watchman? If there had been work to his hand he had
closed his eyes. Work! Why should a man work? What was the reward for
a life devoted to tilling the ground, to fighting the French, to
ministering to the sick, to sitting at the king’s council? The finest
machine must break down some day, and rust, and become old framework.
Work! What about Southey, poet laureate, sweating heart and brain, and
confessing at the end that it had not been possible for him to lay by
anything for old age? What about old learned Johnson, putting off his
threadbare clothes upon his birthday, and muttering bitterly, “I can
now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been
done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent
part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of
pain, in gloomy discontent or importunate distress?” What about Lamb,
thanking for nothing a great minister who brought the reward of labour
as the hand of death dragged him off the scene?
The Strath was in a morbid mood. Drayton was pacing the saloon, crying
like a woman. The deaf crone prepared food in the kitchen, working out
her time indifferent to the drama. The rain poured heavily flooding
the worm-eaten boards of the upper rooms. Conway raised his hands,
which held the book in shagreen covers, brought the yellow pages
nearer to his eyes, and read aloud:
“To-day the wind is warm, and the birds sing merrily. For it is
spring, the gladdest time in all the year. Were this a letter to you,
my love, as I would cheer myself by believing, I might tell you much
that would bring you pleasure, and much that would not be true. I
might describe to you the beauty of the country. I might tell you how
happy I am to breathe the odours of the young larches, and to feel the
warmth of the sun. I might assure you how I laugh in the mornings, and
sometimes sing the songs you taught me, and how I watch the roads with
a light heart, sure that you are upon your way. And I might promise
you, praying God the same moment to forgive the lie, that I know no
trouble. But, alas, this is my journal, and here I may not cheat
myself.
“Spring will never come again, unless it brings you, Geoffrey. All day
I have sat beside a downstairs window, listening to the joyful sounds
of life, watching the little leaves unfolding, and the first yellow
butterfly playing across the lawn. Everything in nature has something
to do, and I alone am idle. I can only sit, with my hands together,
wondering that there should be joy upon earth for the brown sparrow,
and none for me. Yet the sparrow might pine and cease her twitter,
perchance give up her little ghost, were she to be imprisoned in a
cage. Even so there might be happiness for her. She might see her
mate, and sometimes hear his song.
“Last night my father threw at me a log of wood, which struck my
ankle, and to-day I cannot bear my shoe. Ah, Geoffrey, could you but
see my poor swollen foot! I dwell upon the happy thought that you are
nursing it in your dear hands, and looking up into my face with your
tender eyes. Would you not come through fire and water to save me? But
I know all now. The light of life has gone, and each morning and
evening the message of curfew comes, ringing, ‘No more! No more!’
“My father has admitted much over his wine. Your messengers have never
reached this valley. Perhaps they have been killed upon the highway,
for my father’s men are instructed to watch the roads, and he has lost
all scruples. I cannot warn you, Geoffrey. I am not able to bid you
keep away from me. Would I, if I could? I do not know. I have become
selfish. You might meet Sir John, and he is stronger than you. Were
they to carry you dead into this house.… well, we should be together
at last, for I would throw away my chance of heaven in the hope that
my soul might pass with yours through space. If you killed my father I
would yet receive you with the same love. I am unnatural indeed, but
he has beaten me with a cane when in his cruel mood, and has pulled me
to the ground by my hair, and closed his hand round my arm, tighter
and tighter like a vice, until I have satisfied his cruelty by
fainting.
“I know that my father is a highwayman and the most daring of them
all. It is when I am so unfortunate as to see him returning from some
expedition that he is more than usual pitiless. I have seen Thomas
Reed, his trusted man, leading the chestnut mare--the swiftest horse
in the country, they say--sweating to her stable at midnight, and I
have seen his masks, his pistols, and his sword. He will have this
Reed into the saloon to drink with him. I have heard them fighting,
but Reed is a strong-willed fellow, and know my father cannot break
with him, lest he should turn informer. I know the vileness of their
lives; but God also must know, and if there be justice above--which
sometimes I am wicked enough to doubt--an end must come, and soon.
“Placing before me the beloved face which I hold in my heart, I
painted your portrait, and finished it last Saturday at sunset. It was
a happy sorrow to kiss those cold lips, to touch and retouch that fair
hair, only one shade darker than my own, and to bring into being your
own dear smile. During that night the portrait seemed to me to have
taken life, and through the hours of darkness--for I sleep but
little--I thought you were protecting me, and I felt the warmth of
your eyes, and heard your breathing, and your soft whisper,
‘Winifred,’ just as you whispered it--ah, so long ago--with your lips
against my hair. It was so like you, Geoffrey. Even that tiny spot,
where you were cut as a child above your left eyebrow, was there in
all the beauty of its blemish. On Sunday I went to church, not indeed
to listen to Mr. Blair’s hypocrisies, but to pray with all my soul for
you and for myself; and returning hurried to your portrait to tell it
how I love you. But it had been cut into pieces, and the pieces were
strewed about the floor.
“I did not shed any tears. Indeed it is seldom that I cry now, not
because I am stronger, but perhaps I have shed them all. I began to
sing, and put a flower into my hair, and laughed and talked to you, so
that I might forget how I was shivering. I am made of tough stuff,
though I am small and white, and as for my heart is it not yours, and
did you not replace my loss with the gift of your own? It is your
strength that holds me up. But it was a good portrait, Geoffrey, else
my father had not recognised it.
“That night I saw a strong light pouring through the keyhole and the
chinks in the wood. While I looked the door came open, and there was
old Deborah, standing in her nightdress, with a candle in her hand,
and the passage round her was filled with light and a fragrant odour.
She made me a sign that I should not be afraid and said, ‘There is a
stranger waiting for you below.’ So I got up, and wrapped a cloak
round me, and went down. There was light everywhere, but I could not
see whence it came. Standing in the hall I saw an old man, clad in
white, with hair flowing upon his shoulders, and holding a great
pitcher between his hands. He came to me, when I stopped in fear, and
spoke in a low sweet voice, ‘I am bidden to return you these. They are
your tears.’ But when I held out my hands to take the pitcher it
dropped and I found myself standing among pearls, and it was dark, and
the old man was gone. Then I awoke and discovered that I had been
walking in my sleep.
“Do you not dream, dear, in your London home? Do you never see me,
bending low, drawing my hair across your face? Do you not hear me
calling? Cannot you feel my lips near yours in sleep? Am I never with
you? Oh, my love, I am there. Look, and you shall see me. Call, and I
will answer. Put out your hand, and I will touch it. What has space to
do with love? There is nothing between us, but the will of God. I am
yours, beloved, and you are mine until these shadows pass away.”
There the book fell, and it seemed to Conway that an invisible hand
had struck it out of his. He rose, leaving the journal lying open as
it had fallen, and hurried from the room. A gloom filled the passage,
and the house was full of horror, resounding with the sufferings of
its past inhabitants, and dripping with their tears. His hand closed
upon the damp balustrade, and the rotten wood exuded moisture like a
sponge. A minute later the owner, but not the master, of the Strath
was speeding through the garden, his being reaching out to find an
affinity, as embryonic life must grope into the darkness for its
promised soul.
The deluge had ceased. Milky rivulets bubbled down the chalk road and
dark clouds scudded across the hills, while Conway hastened in the
direction of Kingsmore, with Winifred Hooper’s piteous voice still
sounding in his ears. When he came near the grass-filled road which
led to Queensmore he thought he saw her. She reached scarcely to his
shoulder, the pretty pale maid, and over her white forehead the fair
hair clustered and tumbled into tendrils round her ears and neck.
There was a scar upon her delicate wrist, and she limped slightly as
she walked from the sign-post downwards. Her voice was exceedingly
plaintive, and the words caught in her throat with the sound of a sob.
Her eyes were large and blue, like two corn-flowers upon white satin,
and her features were small and very frail. They quivered when the
wind met them.
On the far side of the hills a more serious dreamer was at that moment
shaking out his umbrella in the porch of a little farm-house, while
its dainty bedecked mistress implored him to wait until the rain had
passed, and insisted upon retaining a precious bundle of
manuscript--of which she could understand no single word--that she
might study it alone. And the handsome dreamer remained yet another
hour, until the watery sun broke through the clouds and tinged the
mist with red, and when he departed the manuscript which he left
behind was not so precious as it had been.
At Kingsmore the sun was shining through the rain. A bow was bending
across the sky, one end of its span over the ruins of Queensmore, the
other filling a chalk-pit with coloured vapour. Mr. Price assumed one
of his shameful overcoats, a slouch hat, and long boots, and went out
upon the farm to poke about in ditches and free obstructed
drain-pipes. Mrs. Neill was upstairs, writing ungrammatical letters.
Flora roamed aimlessly about the house, yawning for dulness, and well
able to appreciate the saying of Chilo the sage, that one of the three
most difficult things in life is to make a profitable use of leisure
time.
Finally she wandered into the study, a room forbidden to her sex,
therefore the more attractive, and stood aghast at its untidiness. Mr.
Price was the most unmethodical man incarnate. Upon his writing-desk
were farming-reports, parish-magazines, bundles of twine, sermons,
cigarettes, horse-shoes, theological works, and samples of wool. More
books were piled upon a central table, novels, bibles, philosophical
works, and agricultural digests, thrown together with bags of grain,
much of which was scattered over the carpet, and eggs dated in blue
pencil. The fireplace was filled with rubbish, an old saddle, and a
broken reaping-hook. The single armchair was piled with horse-cloths.
The pictures on the walls, chiefly framed photographs of horses and
landscapes, were hanging awry and begrimed with dust. An open work of
Josephus was covered with cartridges, and a brace of pigeons, shot in
the early morning, were staining the right reverend bishop’s latest
charge. The remaining chairs were occupied with a jumble of tools,
coats, and hats. Boots and guns were lying about the carpet. A bust of
Shakspere supported a leather shooting-cap; and a little oak desk of
ecclesiastical design held a couple of soiled collars, an incomplete
copy of a book of common prayer tied together with string, a flask
half filled with sherry, some candle-ends, and a half-dozen unanswered
letters.
“No one would imagine uncle was well off,” Flora murmured, moving
through the confusion, with her skirts gathered round her. “I wonder
how much he loses every year on this stupid farm. It would be much
more sensible if he put by the money for me to spend later on.”
She approached the window and pushed it open; but while shaking some
rain-drops off the back of her hand footsteps became audible upon the
wet gravel. She knew it was not her uncle’s tread, and looking out saw
Conway, his garments splashed with chalky mud, and his face flushed by
the wind.
She was at the door before he could ring. He came up, and said
quickly, but solemnly, as though it were a matter of the last
importance, seizing her hand and looking into her eyes, “There is a
change to-day.”
The girl flushed, because she saw a crisis impending. Conway was
altogether different; younger, fresher, better-looking. There was not
a trace of nervousness in his manner.
“Won’t you come in?” she said. “How wet you are! Uncle is out, but
will be back soon, and then we will have tea. You are right about the
change. But we agricultural people wanted this rain.”
“It is the Strath,” he exclaimed. “The change is there.”
Flora looked round, with a very uncomfortable feeling. There was not a
sound in the house, except the ticking of a big clock in the hall.
“Come in,” she repeated.
“I cannot quite remember what has happened,” Conway went on rapidly,
his eyes fixed stupidly upon her. “I want you to come back with me.
The rain has stopped. I want to show you a room in my house, a room
with a blocked up window. I think you will recognise it.”
“Mr. Conway,” Flora exclaimed. “Do you know what you are talking
about?”
“I have something to show you there. I have made a discovery, and I
must share it with you. Is it not Cicero who says, ‘Were a man to be
carried up to Heaven, he would receive little pleasure from the scene,
if there were none to whom he might relate his experience?’”
“I cannot talk to you while you are in this state,” said Flora.
“Then will you come with me to Queensmore? We can cross by Deadman’s
Hill. I can tell you everything there, but here I cannot remember
things.”
“If you have anything to say to me I can hear it here,” Flora replied.
“Mother is in the house,” she added. “But, if you are going to
stay--come in.”
“You want to sit down?” said Conway. “Your ankle pains you still?”
The strong-minded girl looked at the speaker in dismay. This was sheer
madness.
“I have not hurt my ankle,” she said.
“It must have been some time ago,” he muttered.
“Mr. Conway, if you will take my advice you will live no longer in the
Strath,” Flora said strongly. “Remember what happened to your uncle
there. They have never been able to discover who killed him. No
stranger could have entered Thorlund without being observed. It is a
horrible place.”
Conway shook his head, perplexed at her argument. The Strath was to
him a Paradise.
“That is only because you are not there,” he answered. “Hooper is dead
now, and the house is yours. The Reeds were always interlopers. I want
you to take possession of the Strath at once.”
“You want me to have the Strath?” exclaimed Flora with a laugh.
“It waits for you,” he replied.
“And its master?” she said.
“There is no master. I am its servant, and yours.”
“You have made a quaint proposal, Mr. Conway,” the girl said
flippantly. “If the Strath were mine I would take uncle’s advice and
have it down; and if you were my servant--well, I might perhaps want
to give you notice and engage another. I think you had better not
stay,” she went on. “You are not yourself. I am sure you do not know
what you have been saying.”
“I cannot enjoy life alone,” cried Conway.
“Is Mr. Drayton so unsociable? Give up the Strath, Mr. Conway. Take my
advice--and another house, before it is too late.”
Then, as Conway still evinced no inclination either to enter the house
or to move away, Flora unsympathetically shut him out.