"How do?" Bernard Clowes was saying an hour later. "So good of
you to look us up."
Lawrence, coming down from his own room after brushing his muddy
clothes, met his cousin with a good humoured smile which covered
dismay. Heavens, what a wreck of manhood! And how chill it
struck indoors, and how dark, after the June sunshine on the
moor! Delicately he took the hand that Clowes held out to him--
but seized in a grip that made him wince. Clowes gave his curt
"Ha ha!"
"I can still use my arms, Lawrence. Don't be so timid, I shan't
break to pieces if I'm touched. It's only these legs of mine
that won't work. Awkward, isn't it? But never mind that now,
it's an old story. You had a mishap on the moor, the servants
tell me? Ah! while I think of it, let me apologize for leaving
you to walk from the station. Laura, my wife, you know, forgot
to send the car. By the by, you know her, don't you? She says
she met you once or twice before she married me."
Like most men who surrender to their temperaments, Lawrence was
as a rule well served by his intuitions. Now and again they
failed him as with Isabel, but when his mind was alert it was a
sensitive medium. He dropped with crossed knees into his chair
and glanced reflectively at Bernard Clowes, heu quantum
mutatus. . . . When the body was wrecked, was there not nine
times out of ten some corresponding mental warp? Bernard's
fluent geniality struck him as too good to be true--it was not
in Bernard's line: and why translate a close friendship into
"meeting once or twice"? Was Bernard misled or mistaken, or was
he laying a trap?--Not misled: the Laura Selincourt of Hyde's
recollection was not one to stoop to petty shifts.
"'Once or twice?'" Lawrence echoed: "Oh, much oftener than that!
Mrs. Clowes and I are old friends, at least I hoped we were. She
can't be so ungracious as to have forgotten me?"
"She seems to have, doesn't she?" Bernard with his inscrutable
smile let the question drop. "Just touch that bell, will you,
there's a good fellow? So sorry to make you dance attendance--
Hallo, here she is!"
Laura had been waiting in the parlour, under orders not to enter
till the bell rang. She had heard all, and wondered whether it
was innocence or subtlety that had walked in and out of Bernard's
trap. She remembered Hyde was much like other fourth-year
University men except that he was not egotistical and not shy:
he had altered away from his class, but in what direction it was
difficult to tell: there was no deciphering the pleasant
blankness of his features or the conventional smile in his black
eyes.
"I haven't seen you for fourteen years," she said, giving him her
hand. "Oh Lawrence, how old you make me feel!"
"Shall I swear you haven't changed? It would be a poor
compliment."
"And one I couldn't return. I shouldn't have known you, unless
it were by your likeness to Bernard."
"Am I like Bernard?" said Lawrence, startled.
"That's a good joke, isn't it?" said Clowes. "But my wife is
right. If I were not paralysed, we should be a good bit alike."
Under the casual manner, it was in that moment that Hyde saw his
cousin for what he was: a rebel in agony. There was a tragedy at
Wanhope then, Lucian Selincourt had not exaggerated. Though
Lawrence was not naturally sympathetic, he felt an unpleasant
twinge of pity, much the same as when his dog was run over in the
street: a pain in the region of the heart, as well defined as
rheumatism. In Sally's case, after convincing himself that she
would never get on her legs again, he had eased it by carrying
her to the nearest chemist's: the loving little thing had licked
his hand with her last breath, but when the brightness faded out
of her brown eyes, in his quality of Epicurean, Lawrence had not
let himself grieve over her. Unluckily one could not pay a
chemist to put Bernard Clowes out of his pain! "This is going to
be deuced uncomfortable," was the reflection that crossed his
mind in its naked selfishness. "I wish I had never come near the
place. I'll get away as soon as I can."
Then he saw that Bernard was struggling to turn over on his side,
flapping about with his slow uncouth gestures like a bird with a
broken wing. "Let me--!" Laura's "No, Lawrence!" came too late.
Hyde had taken the cripple in his arms, lifting him like a child:
"You're light for your height," he said softly. He was as strong
as Barry and as gentle as Val Stafford. Laura had turned
perfectly white. She fully expected Clowes to strike his cousin.
She could hardly believe her eyes when with a great gasp of
relief he flung his arm round Hyde's neck and lay back on Hyde's
shoulder. "Thanks, that's damned comfortable--first easy moment
I've had since last night," he murmured: then, to Laura, "we must
persuade this fellow to stop on a bit. You're not in a hurry to
get off, are you, Lawrence?"
"Not I. I'll stay as long as you and Laura care to keep me."
"I and Laura, hey?"
Bernard's flush faded: he slipped from Hyde's arm.
"H'm, yes, you're old friends, aren't you? Met at Farringay?
I'd forgotten that." He shut his eyes. "And Laura's dying to
renew the intimacy. It's dull for her down here. Take him into
the garden, Lally. You'll excuse me now, Lawrence, I can't talk
long without getting fagged. Wretched state of things, isn't it?
I'm a vile bad host but I can't help it. At the present moment
for example I'm undergoing grinding torments and it doesn't amuse
me to make conversation, so you two can cut along and disport
yourselves in any way you like. Give Lawrence a drink, will you,
my love? . . . . Oh no, thanks, you've done a lot but you can't
do any more, no one can, I just have to grin and bear it. Laura,
would you mind ringing for Barry? I'm not sure I shall show up
again before dinner-time. It's no end good of you, old chap, to
come to such a beastly house. . ."
He pursued them with banal gratitude till they were out of
earshot, when Lawrence drew a deep breath as if to throw off
some physical oppression. Under the weathered archway, down the
flagged steps and over the lawn. . . . How still it was, and how
sweet! The milk-blooms in the spire of the acacia were beginning
to turn faintly brown, but its perfume still hung in the valley
air, mixed with the honey-heavy breath of a great white double
lime tree on the edge of the stream. There were no dense woods
at Wanhope, the trees were set apart with an airy and graceful
effect, so that one could trace the course of their branches; and
between them were visible hayfields from which the hay had
recently been carried, and the headlands of the Plain--fair
sunny distances, the lowlands bloomed over with summer mist, the
uplands delicately clear like those blue landscapes that in early
Italian pictures lie behind the wheel of Saint Catherine or the
turrets of Saint Barbara.
"A sweet pretty place you have here. I was in China nine weeks
ago. Everlasting mud huts and millet fields. I must say there's
nothing to beat an English June."
"Or a French June?" suggested Laura, her accent faintly sly.
"Lucian said he met you at Auteuil."
"Dear old Lucian! He seemed very fit, but rather worried about
you, Laura--may I call you Laura? We're cousins by marriage,
which constitutes a sort of tie. Besides, you let me at
Farringay."
"Farringay. . . . What a long while ago it seems! I can't keep
up any pretence of juvenility with you, can I? We were the same
age then so we're both thirty-six now. Isn't it strange to think
that half one's life is over? Mine doesn't seem ever to have
begun. But you wouldn't feel that: a man's life is so much
fuller than a woman's. You've been half over the world while
Berns and I have been patiently cultivating our cabbage patch.
I envy you: it would be jolly to have one's mind stored full of
queer foreign adventures and foreign landscapes to think about in
odd moments, even if it were only millet fields."
"I've no ties, you see, nothing to keep me in England. Come to
think of it, Bernard is my nearest male relative, since my father
died five years ago."
"I heard of that and wanted to write to you, but I wasn't sure of
your address"
"I was in Peru. They cabled to me to come home when he was taken
ill, but I was up country and missed it. The first news I had
was a second cable announcing his death. It was unlucky."
"For both of you," said Laura gently, "if it meant that he was alone
when he died." Sincere herself, Mrs. Clowes exacted from her friends
either sincerity or silence, and her sweet half-melancholy smile
pierced through Hyde's conventional regrets. He was silent, a little
confused.
They were near the river now, and in the pale shadow of the lime
tree Laura sat down on a bench, while Hyde threw himself on a
patch of sunlit turf at her feet. Most men of his age would have
looked clumsy in such an unbuttoned attitude, but Hyde was an
athlete still, and Laura, who was fond of sketching, admired his
vigorous grace. She felt intimate with him already: she was not
shy nor was Lawrence, but this was an intimacy of sympathy that
went deeper than the mere trained ease of social intercourse: she
could be herself with him: she could say whatever she liked.
And, looking back on the old days which she had half forgotten,
Laura remembered that she had always felt the same freedom from
constraint in Hyde's company: she had found it pleasant fourteen
years ago, when she was young and had no reserves except a
natural delicacy of mind, and it was pleasant still, but strange,
after the isolating adventure of her marriage. Perhaps she would
not now have felt it so strongly, if he had not been her
husband's cousin as well as her friend.
She sat with folded hands watching Lawrence with a vague, observant
smile. Drilled to a stately ease and worn down to a lean hardihood
by his life of war and wandering, he was, like his cousin, a big,
handsome man, but distinguished by the singular combination of black
eyes and fair hair. Was there a corresponding anomaly in his
temperament? He looked as though he had lived through many
experiences and had come out of them fortified with philosophy--that
easy negative philosophy of a man of the world, for which death is
only the last incident in life and not the most important. Of
Bernard's hot passions there was not a sign. Amiable? Laura fancied
that so far as she was concerned she could count on a personal
amiability: he liked her, she was sure of that, his eyes softened
when he spoke to her. But the ruck of people? She doubted whether
Lawrence would have lost his appetite for lunch if they had all been
drowned.
The pleasant, selfish man of the world is a common type, but she
could not confine Lawrence to his type. He basked in the sun:
with every nerve of his thinly-clad body he relinquished himself
to the contact of the warm grass: deliberately and consciously he
was savouring the honied air, the babble of running water, the
caress of the tiny green blades fresh against his cheek and hand,
the swell of earth that supported his broad, powerful limbs.
This sensuous acceptance of the physical joy of life pleased
Laura, born a Selincourt, bred in France, and temperamentally out
of touch with middle-class England.
Whether one could rely on him for any serviceable friendship
Laura was uncertain. As a youth he had inclined to idealize
women, but she was suspicious of his later record. Good or bad
it had left no mark on him. Probably he had not much principle
where women were concerned. Few of the men Laura had known in
early life had had any principles of any sort except a common
spirit of kindliness and fair play. Her brother was always
drifting in and out of amatory entanglements--the hunter or the
hunted--and he was not much the worse for it so far as Laura
could see. Perhaps Hyde was of the game stamp, in which case
there might well be no lines round his mouth, since lines are
drawn by conflict: or perhaps a wandering life had kept him out
of harm's way. It made no great odds to Laura--she had not the
shrinking abhorrence which most women feel for that special form
of evil: it was on the same footing in her mind as other errors
to which male human nature is more prone than female, a little
worse than drunkenness but not so bad as cruelty. From her own
life of serene married maidenhood such sins of the flesh seemed
as remote as murder.
The strong southern light broke in splinters on the dancing
water, and was mirrored in reflected ripplings, silver-pale,
tremulous, over the shadowy understems of grass and loosestrife
on the opposite bank. "And I never gave you anything to drink
after all!" said Laura after a long, companionable silence. "Why
didn't you remind me?"
"Because I didn't want it. Don't you worry: I'll look after
myself. I always do. I'm a charming guest, no trouble to any
one."
"At least have a cigarette while you're waiting for lunch! I'm
sorry to have none to offer you."
"Don't you smoke now? You did at Farringay."
"No, I've given it up. I never much cared for it, and Bernard
does so hate to see a woman smoking. He is very old-fashioned in
some ways."
"And do you always do as Bernard likes?" Lawrence asked with an
impertinence so airy that it left Laura no time to be offended.
"--It was a great shock to me to find him so helpless. Is he
always like that?"
"He can never get about, if that's what you mean." It was not all
Hyde meant, but Laura had not the heart to repress him; she felt
that thrill of guilty joy which we all feel when some one says
for us what we are too magnanimous to say for ourselves. "He
lies indoors all day smoking and reading quantities of novels."
"Fearfully sad. Very galling to the temper. But there are a lot
of modern mechanical appliances, aren't there, that ought to make
him fairly independent?"
"He won't touch any of them."
"Sick men have their whims. But can't you drag him out into the
sun? He ought not to lie in that mausoleum of a hall."
"He has never been in the garden in all our years at Wanhope."
Lawrence took off his straw hat to fan himself with. It was not
only the heat of the day that oppressed him. "Poor, wretched
Bernard! But I dare say I should be equally mulish if I were in
his shoes. By the by, was he really in pain just now?"
"Really in pain?" Laura echoed. "Why--why should you say that?"
She no longer doubted Lawrence Hyde's subtlety. "'He's
constantly in pain and he scarcely ever complains."
"Oh? I didn't know one suffered, with paralysis."
"He has racking neuritis in his shoulders and back."
"That's bad. I'm afraid he can't be much up to entertaining
visitors. Does he hate having me here?"
"No! oh no! I know he sometimes seems a little odd," said poor
Laura, wishing her guest were less clear-sighted: and yet before
he came she had been hoping that Lawrence would divine the less
obvious aspects of the situation, and perhaps, since a man can do
more with a man like Bernard than any woman can, succeed in
easing it. "But can you wonder? Struck down like this at five
and twenty! and he never was keen on indoor interests--sport and
his profession were all he cared about. Please, Lawrence, make
allowances for him--he had been looking forward so much to your
coming here! A man's society always does him good, and you know
how few men there are in this country: we have only the vicar,
and the doctor, and Jack Bendish and people who stay at the
Castle. And if you only realized how different he was with you
from what he is with most people, you would be flattered! He
won't let any one touch him as a rule, except Barry, whom he
treats like a machine. But he was quite grateful to you--he
seemed to lean on you."
"Did he?"
She had made Lawrence feel uncomfortable again in the region of
the heart, but he was deliberately stifling pity, as five years
ago, in a Peruvian fonda, he had subdued his filial tenderness
and grief. He was not callous: if he had had the earlier cable
he would have sailed for home without delay. But since Andrew
Hyde was dead and would never know whether his son wept for him
or not, Lawrence set himself to repress not only tears but the
fount of human feeling that fed them. He had dabbled enough in
psychology to know that natural emotions, if not indulged, may
only be driven down under the surface, there to work havoc among
the roots of nerve life. Lawrence however had no nerves and no
fear of Nemesis, and no inclination to sacrifice himself for
Bernard, and he determined, if Wanhope continued to inspire these
oppressive sensations to send himself a telegram calling him
away.
He changed the subject. "It's a long while since I've heard
stockdoves cooing. And, yes, that's a nightingale. Oh, you
jolly little beggar!" His face fell into boyish creases when he
smiled. "Do you remember the nightingales at Farringay? Laura--
may I say it?--while rusticating in Arden you haven't forgotten
certain talents you used to possess. The dress is delightful,
but where the masterhand appears is in the way it's worn. That
carries me back to Auteull."
"Nonsense!" said Laura, changing her attitude, but not visibly
displeased.
"Oh I shan't say don't move" Lawrence murmured. "The slippers
also. . . . Are there many trout in this river, I wonder? Hallo!
there's a big fellow rubbing along by that black stone! Must
weigh a cool pound and a half. I suppose the angling rights go
with the property?"
"You can fish all day long if you like: the water is ours, both
sides of it, as far south as the mill above Wharton and a good
half-mile upstream. The banks are kept clear on principle,
though none of us ever touch a line. The Castle people come
over now and then: Jack Bendish is keen, and he says our sport
is better than theirs because they fish theirs down too much.
Val put some stock in this spring."
"Val?"
"You seem to fit in so naturally," Laura smiled, "that I forget
you've only just come. Val is Bernard's agent, and I ought not
to have omitted him from our list of country neighbours, but he's
like one of the family. Bernard wants you, to meet him because
he was near you in the war. But I don't know that you'll have
much in common: Val was very junior to you, and he's not keen on
talking about it in any case. So many men have that shrinking.
Have you, I wonder?"
"I'm afraid I don't take impressions easily. Didn't your friend
enjoy it?"
"He had no chance. He had only six or seven weeks at the front;
he was barely nineteen, poor boy, when he was invalided out.
That was why Bernard offered him the agency--he was delighted to
lend a helping hand to one of his old brother officers."
"Wounded?"
"Yes, he had his right arm smashed by a revolver bullet. Then
rheumatic fever set in, and the trouble went to the heart, and he
was very ill for a long time. I don't suppose he ever has been
so strong as he was before. What made it so sad was the splendid
way he had just distinguished himself," Laura continued. She
gave a little sketch of the rescue of Dale, far more vivid than
Val had ever given to his family. "Perhaps you can imagine what
a fuss Chilmark made over its solitary hero! We're still proud
of him. Val is always in request at local shows: he appears on
the platform looking very shy and bored. Poor boy! I believe he
sometimes wishes he had never won that embarrassing decoration."
"What's his name?"
"Val Stafford. Why--do you remember him?"
"Er--yes, I do," said Lawrence. He took out his cigar case and
turned from Laura to light a cigar. "I knew a lot of the
Dorchesters. . . Amiable-looking, fair boy, wasn't he?"
"Middle height, and rather sunburnt. But that description fits
such dozens! However, I'm taking you up to tea there this
afternoon, if the prospect doesn't bore you, so you'll be able to
judge for yourself. He has a young sister who threatens to be
very pretty. Are you still interested in pretty girls, M. le
capitaine?"
"Immensely." Hyde lay back on one arm, smoking rather fast. "I
see no immediate prospect of my being bored, thanks. Rather fun
running into Stafford again after all these years! I shall love a
chat over old times." He raised his black eyes, and Laura
started. Was it her fancy, or a trick of the sunlight, that
conjured up in them that sparkle of smiling cruelty, gone before
she could fix it? "You say he doesn't care to talk about his
military exploits? He always was a modest youth, I should love
to see him on a recruiting platform. Wait till I get him to
myself, he won't be shy with me. Did you tell him I was coming?"
"I told his sister Isabel, who probably told him. I haven't seen
him since, he hasn't happened to come in; I suppose the hay
harvest has kept him extra busy--Dear me! why, there he is!"
In the field across the stream a young man on horseback had come
into view. Catching sight of Laura he slipped across a low
boundary wall, his brown mare, a thoroughbred, changing her feet
in a ladylike way on the worn stones, and trotted down to the
riverbank, raising his cap.
"Coming in to lunch, Val?" Laura called across the water.
"Thank you very much, I'm afraid I shan't have time."
"But you haven't been in since Sunday!" Laura's accent was
reproachful. "Why are you forsaking us? We need you more than
the farm does!"
Val's pleasant laugh was the avoidance of an answer. "So sorry!
But I can't come in now, Laura: I have to go over to Countisford
to talk to Bishop about the new tractor, and I want to get back
by teatime. Isabel tells me you're bringing Captain Hyde up to
see us." He raised his cap again, smiling directly at Lawrence,
who returned the salute with such gay good humour that Laura was
able to dismiss that first fleeting impression from her mind.
So this was Val Stafford, was it? And a very personable fellow
too! Hyde had not foreseen that ten years would work as great a
change in Val as in himself, or greater.
"I was going to call on you in due form, sir, but my young
sister hasn't left me the chance. You haven't forgotten me, have
you?"
"No, I remember you most distinctly. Delighted to meet you
again."
"Thank you. The pleasure is mutual. Now I must push on or I
shall be late."
"He can use his arm, then," said Lawrence, as Val rode away,
jumping his mare over a fence into the road. "Shaves himself and
all that, I suppose? He rides well."
"A great deal too well! and rides to hounds too, but he ought not
to do it, and I'm always scolding him. He can't straighten his
right arm, and has very little power in it. He was badly thrown
last winter, but directly he got up he was out again on Kitty."
"Living up to his reputation." Lawrence flicked the ash from his
cigar. "I should have known him anywhere by his eyes."
"He has kept very young, hasn't he? An uneventful life without
much anxiety does keep people young," philosophized Laura. "I
feel like a mother to him. But you'll see more of him this
afternoon."
"So I shall," said Lawrence, "if he isn't detained at
Countisford."