Alma Wyatt was at home again--was once more an inmate of the
much-decried semi-detached which was an exact counterpart of all the
Rosebanks, and Hollybanks, and Belmonts, and Heathfields, which go to
line the regulation suburban road.
The said regulation road was ankle-deep in dust--even the foliage of the
trees and garden patches, which fronted each monotonous row of villas,
was dried and gasping, and sprinkled with the same powdery substance.
The atmosphere was of the stuffy, moist, enervating character
inseparable from low-lying riverside resorts. Small wonder, then, that
Alma, at home again now, should find herself drawing bitter contrasts
between commonplace, cockneyfied Surbiton, and the bounteous glories of
the mighty Alps--the thunder of the mountain torrent, and the cool
fragrance of the shadowy pine forest; the cloudless skies and the
soaring peaks; the sheeny ice-slopes, and the blue, castellated masses
of the _seracs_, and, not least, the bracing exhilaration of the air.
"At home again! At _home_ again!"--as she kept bitterly repeating to
herself. At home again, to enact the part of a butt for her mother's
nagging and ever-discontented tongue; at home again, to fall into the
old _role_ of self-obliteration, to hold herself in readiness to
sacrifice every inclination of her own, to devote all her time, all her
energies, to the convenience of the family idol, her younger sister, and
especially to look for no appreciation of, or thanks for, the same. And
such is home!
How her soul sickened as she looked around on the mediocrity of it all--
the flat, ditchwater circumstances of life, the stagnation, the deadly
monotony. There was the same narrow round, the same bi-weekly run up to
Town on shopping intent, the same local gossip and feeble attempts at
entertainment, the same evening visits from the same bevy of Constance's
admirers--City youths mostly, all as like each other as the immaculacy
of their collars, the sheen of their hats, the lack of expression in
their countenances and the inanity of their conversation, could render
them. These would redeem the time with some feeble singing and feebler
wit, and evening after evening would Alma be called upon to sit it all
out and endeavour to make herself agreeable. Constance on such
occasions was in her element, but to the sucking Couttses and Barings
and Rothschilds Alma was a stumbling-block and a wet blanket.
"Sort of garl, baai Jove, who ought to have a chappie built to her
ordar, don't cher know. Ordinary fellar not good enough," the principal
dry wag of the coterie was wont to remark.
When she had told Philip Orlebar she detested the place and everything
to do with it, Alma had spoken no more than the literal truth. But if
she detested it then, it strikes her now as ten times more detestable.
The suburban mediocrity, the much-belauded river--a mere muddy
playground for 'Arry and 'Arriet--pall upon her with nauseous monotony.
Never did the hideous Cockney twang grate more offensively upon her
ears, never did the obtrusive vulgarity of the low-class Briton--the
most irredeemably vulgar animal in the world--revolt her sensibilities
as now, when contrasted with the pleasant speech and innately refined
manners of the same class of Continental peoples. Assuredly with no
feeling of gladness or even contentment did Alma Wyatt return home.
This may have been wrong; it was undoubtedly lamentable. But, under the
circumstances, it was very natural.
We should be sorry to make oath that apart from this pardonable
discontent with her most uncongenial surroundings there was not another
phase of canker eating into her mind and destroying its peace. We have,
elsewhere, and more than once, emphasised the fact that a certain young
reprobate, hight Philip Orlebar, was one of those dangerous persons of
whom the opposite sex is prone to become very fond. Now Alma's
opportunities of doing so had been exceptional and many--and, in point
of fact, she had so become.
Often now, in the stagnant monotony of her home life, does that bright
young face rise up before her, as she first saw it, gazing with scarcely
disguised admiration upon her own, as she has so frequently, so
constantly seen it since--the sunny blue eyes, with their straight,
frank glance, lighting up with a world of welcoming gladness when
meeting her for the first time in the day or after a few hours' absence.
She sees it, too, as she saw it in the black, driving cloud, high up on
the perilous rock _arete_ of the Cape au Moine, anxious on her account,
otherwise fearless and resolute--she sees it, as she saw it in the
sinking sunshine of that same day, tender, apprehensive, as its owner
hung upon the reply which her lips should frame--but, oh, so attractive!
Again, she sees it as she saw it last--crushed, hopeless, despairing,
and as it appears thus before her the proud, self-contained nature
partially breaks down, and, being alone, she cannot repress a convulsive
sob or two, and a few tears damp the handkerchief which she passes
rapidly over her eyes.
Does she ever regret--repent of her haste in thus giving him his
_conge_! Does it ever occur to her that she may have judged him
hastily, harshly--in fact, unheard? Well, her nature is a fearfully
proud, a fearfully sensitive one. Did he not put a public slight upon
her, make her the laughing stock of a number of nondescript people? Yet
even here she cannot further justify herself in the idea that he had
merely been amusing himself at her expense. The feeling was there, warm
and genuine--as to that there could be no mistake whatever.
Characteristically, however, she proceeds to impale him upon the other
horn of the dilemma. He had shown weakness. If that other girl had
really any claim upon him, if there was really any engagement between
them, he ought to have broken it off definitely and decisively before
presuming to offer his affection to herself. Yes, he had been guilty of
lamentable weakness--an unpardonable fault in Alma Wyatt's eyes.
There is even more behind, however, than all this. On hearing of his
accident, did she not write him a letter of condolence--a really kind
letter of sympathy and interest, asking to be informed how he got on--a
letter, indeed, in which it was just possible for any man not actually a
born fool to "read between the lines," affording him, with a little
diplomacy, a chance of crying "Peccavi," and eventually reinstating
himself? But how had he answered it? He had not answered it at all!
No, from that day to this he had not answered it. There could be no
explanation. She had learned indirectly through those who were in the
same hotel at the time, that his accident, though tiresome, was not
serious--never sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for writing.
And she had been at Zinal long enough to have heard from him over and
over again; added to which, every letter which had arrived there for her
uncle and aunt, even some time after their departure, had been
scrupulously forwarded and safely received. The postal arrangements
could not be to blame; clearly, then, he had deliberately and of set
purpose elected to take no notice of her letter.
Well, that dream was over. She felt a little hard--a little bitter. It
was no easy matter to gain Alma's good opinion, but of Philip Orlebar
she had managed to become very fond--more so, in fact, than she herself
had suspected at the time. And sometimes now a satirical smile would
curve her lips as she reflected bitterly that after all he had certainly
shown no weakness in choosing to ignore her own gracious advance, and
the reflection did not tend in any degree to restore either peace or
contentment to herself.
Bearing in mind Alma's character and general temperament, it need hardly
be said that concerning this, the great event of her trip abroad, she
let fall neither word nor hint. She would, indeed, sometimes smile
bitterly to herself as she pictured her mother's wrath and disgust did
the latter become aware that she had refused the heir to a baronetcy--a
poor one certainly, but still a baronetcy. Why, life would thenceforth
cease to be worth living. It would be the last straw. And for this, in
her heart of hearts, she admitted that, looking at it from a strictly
mundane point of view, there was some excuse. The chances matrimonial,
to a girl situated as she was, were poor enough, in fact they were
mainly confined to the City youths of mediocre lineage and strictly
limited incomes, who constituted her sister's sworn admirers, or a
delicate handed and mustachioed curate who had for some time evinced an
unmistakable partiality for herself. Still she was nothing if not
characteristic. She was not going to sacrifice her clearly-formed
judgment upon the altar of expediency. So she strove to dismiss Philip
Orlebar from her mind, and to fall back into her old groove with what
contentment she might.
That Alma did not "get on well at home" was not surprising--indeed, the
wonder would have come in had things been the other way. The
problematical amalgamation of oil and water was a trifle more
conceivable than the existence of any cordiality or even a good
understanding between herself and her mother. For the latter was not a
lovable person. To start with, her brain power was of the scantiest
order, her mind of the narrowest; it follows, therefore, that she was
intensely, aggressively obstinate. And in the art of nagging she was a
past mistress. She was one of those women to whom battle is as the air
they breathe, and she had a knack of starting a fray gently,
insidiously, sorrowfully even, as though marvelling herself that there
should ensue any hostilities at all. Her younger daughter, Constance,
then just eighteen, was an excellent replica of her in disposition--that
is to say, had not a single redeeming point in her character; and,
_pace_ the gushing philanthropist, there are such persons. But the
girl, with her blue eyes and smooth skin, her golden hair and fresh
complexion, was extremely pretty; and in stating this we have said all
there is to be said for her; for as a set-off against these advantages
she was selfish, wilful, and conceited to the last degree, as, indeed,
was only natural, seeing that from her birth upward she had been
thoroughly and consistently spoiled.
There were those who wondered whence Alma had inherited her fine
character. Those in a position to speak--old General Wyatt for
instance--declared that she had inherited all her father's good
qualities and none of her mother's bad ones, whereas in the case of
Constance the positions were exactly reversed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Alma, I want you to get on your hat, quick, and come along up the
river," cried Constance, bursting in upon her sister one bright summer
afternoon. The latter had sought out the coolest corner of the stuffy
little drawing-room, and was busily engaged in the--to her in her then
frame of mind--very congenial task of sticking a number of Alpine views
into an album. She had a touch of headache, and was not in the most
amiable frame of mind herself. In fact the above invitation struck
within her no responsive chord, and she said as much.
"Of course!" snapped the younger girl. "Isn't that always the way!
Here one has been indoors the whole day, and directly it gets cool
enough to move you say you wont. Just because you know I want to.
Well--well. One never can get to the bottom of the selfishness of some
people."
"Speak for yourself, Constance!" returned Alma, quickly but quietly.
"Does it never strike you that I may now and then feel tired, or
disinclined for exertion. And I certainly feel that way this
afternoon."
But the other's rejoinder was a shrill, jeering, ringing laugh.
"All very well," she cried, flinging her sailor hat into the air and
catching it. "All very well. But that won't go down with me. Can't
tear yourself away from those old Swiss photos. I know all about it.
By the way, which is the place you met _him_ in?" she jeered, going over
to the table and feigning a deep interest in the views which lay ranged
upon it ready for sticking in the book. "Which was it? You might as
well tell a fellow, instead of being as close as Death itself. Which
was it, Alma, and what's he like? You needn't keep it all so dark. I
won't let on."
For the life of her, Alma could not restrain the colour which came into
her face. She was in a rather unamiable mood just then, as we have
said, and now she felt stung to retort.
"Whoever `he' is, or isn't, which is nearer the truth, I should be sorry
to scrape together such a tenth-rate brigade as you seem to delight in
gathering round you. And now having shown how intensely and
objectionably silly you can make yourself, Constance, how would it be to
start off on your walk and leave me in peace?"
"Well, that is a nice way to talk to your sister, I must say, Alma,"
said Mrs Wyatt, entering the room in time to hear the latter half of
the above remark.
"Pooh, mother. What odds!" cried Constance, maliciously. "Alma's only
mad because I chaffed her about her mysterious `mash.'"
"My dear Connie, don't use those vulgar words," expostulated the mother,
but in a very different tone to that employed when speaking to her elder
daughter. The younger went on--
"It's a fact, mother. Alma has made a mysterious `mash' while she was
away. She's as close as death about it, but I've drawn her at last.
Don't you see now why she can't tear herself loose from her beloved
Swiss views? All enchanted land, don't you know."
Mrs Wyatt sniffed, and up went her virtuous nose into the air, sure
prelude to the coming storm.
"Ah well, my dear," she said, in her most aggrieved and acidulated tone.
"Ah well, we can't all have uncles and aunts to think that nothing's
good enough for us, to take us frisking round the world. And I'm afraid
such changes are not for everybody's good. Apt to make them return home
more dissatisfied, more discontented than ever." And emitting another
sniff, Mrs Wyatt paused and awaited the reply which she expected and
ardently hoped for.
But it did not come. More and more repellent to Alma did these almost
daily wrangles become. The girl's fine nature scorned and loathed them,
recognising their tendency to degrade and lower the self-respect of all
parties concerned; indeed, there were times when it was as much as she
could do to keep herself from extending that scorn and loathing to their
originator.
Thus disappointed, Mrs Wyatt nagged on, saying a few of the most
stinging things she could think of--stinging because unjust and untrue--
to move her daughter to a reply; but still it didn't come. At last,
pushing back her chair, with a sigh Alma said--
"Where do you want to go to, Constance? I suppose I may as well go with
you as"--stay here to be reviled, she was nearly saying, but put it--"as
not."
"All right, come along then," was the reply. And this compliance having
the effect of damming up the stream of the maternal eloquence, the two
girls sallied forth.
At any other time, moved by the sheer and wanton contrariety of her
disposition, Constance would have declined to profit by this
concession--would have delighted to stand by and deftly add fuel to the
fire. To-day, however, she had a reason for acting otherwise. And as
they gained the tow-path of the river that reason took definite shape--
the shape of a youth.
He who stood there waiting for them was a medium-sized youth of about
twenty, a good-looking boy, on the whole, with dark hair and eyes of a
Jewish type, but remarkable for nothing in particular, unless it was a
full, free, and perfectly unaffected conceit--on which latter account
Alma was inclined to dislike him; but among Constance's galaxy of
adorers he held, just then, a foremost place. He rejoiced in the name
of Ernest Myers.
That he was there by appointment was obvious. He was clad in flannels,
and in one hand held the bow rope of a light boat which he had drawn up
to the side. With a half smile, Alma understood now her sister's
disgust when she had refused to come out. She, Alma, was wanted to make
a third. Well, she didn't mind that. If it amused Constance to carry
on a harmless flirtation with young Myers--for it was not likely she
could think seriously of a bank clerk with an extremely limited salary--
why should she baulk her? Besides, what were they but a couple of
children, after all. So she was gracious to the young man, and allowed
Constance to monopolise his conversation and attentions to her heart's
content, earning a subsequent encomium from her sister to the effect
that when she chose she could be the very ideal of a perfect
"gooseberry."
They paddled up-stream in the evening sunshine. Alma, by common
consent, was voted to the tiller ropes, but as it was neither Saturday
nor Sunday, and the personality of 'Arry was comparatively absent, her
skill and attention were by no means overtaxed. There was nothing in
the clearness of one of the four and a half fine days, which go to make
up an English summer, to suggest it--and she had often handled the
tiller ropes since--nothing in the green glow of the emerald meadows, or
the droop of the pollard willows, to recall the furious, misty, leaden
surface of a storm-lashed lake. Yet the recollection did come back to
her that evening, and with unaccountable vividness, of the day when,
tossing before the howling wrath of the tempest, they had given
themselves up for lost. Even the varying demeanour of the different
members of their boat's crew, when thus brought face to face with
death--from the cynical indifference of Fordham, to the abject, craven
terror displayed by the chaplain, Scott--rose up clearly before her
mind's eye, and looking back upon it all, and upon the days that
followed, she was conscious of a strangely blank feeling as of a want
unsupplied.
"Hallo!--By Jove! Look out! Excuse me, Miss Wyatt. But you as nearly
as possible took us right bang into that boat."
It was young Myers who spoke. Upon Alma the warning was needed. In the
middle of his words she had pulled her right rope only just in time.
But as the boat, which they had so narrowly grazed, shot by she obtained
a distinct view of its occupants. And they were two, the one a
fine-looking, well-built specimen of young English manhood, who was
sculling, the other a dark, handsome girl seated in the stern-sheets.
The boats had passed each other, as it were, in a flash. But in that
brief moment the faces of both its occupants were vividly stamped upon
Alma's vision. And that of the man was that of none other than Philip
Orlebar.
She had seen him, but he had not recognised her. He was bending forward
talking to his companion in that airy, half-caressing, half-confidential
tone that Alma knew so well. She had seen him clearly and distinctly,
but he had failed to recognise her, and for this the droop of her
sunshade might account.
The droop of a sunshade! On such frail pivots do the fortunes of
mankind turn! But for the droop of that sunshade the end of this story
might, we trow, have to be written very differently.
"Why, Miss Wyatt! You do look startled!" exclaimed young Myers. "We
are well out of it now, though, and a miss is as good as a mile when
all's said and done. But it was a near thing."
He might well remark on her aspect. The suddenness of the interruption,
the unexpectedness of the recognition, had startled every trace of
colour from her face. Looking back, cautiously at first, and still
under cover of the parasol, she gazed after the receding boat, now a
long way astern. Yes, it was him. But who was his companion? Well he
had not been slow to console himself, she thought bitterly.
"How very stupid of me," she replied. "It was, as you say, a near
thing. I must not neglect my responsible duties again though."
But while the two younger members of the trio were in high spirits and
laughed and chatted, and bantered each other for the rest of the time
they were out, Alma was silent and _distraite_. And an hour or so later
when they landed at the tow-path in the dusk and bade good-bye to their
escort and chief oarsman it seemed to Alma that that day had somehow
drawn down a curtain across her life. For this brief glimpse of her
former lover had stirred her heart with a dull and aching sense of void.
She recognised now that she had been fonder of Philip Orlebar than she
had chosen to admit, had, in fact, loved him. Well, it was too late now
for regrets. She it was who in her scorn and bitter anger had sent him
away from her, and now he had already begun to console himself.