This distressing picture troubled Gabrielle for several days, and yet,
beneath her remembrance of anger and disgust, she could not help
feeling a curious excitement when she reflected that, for the first
time since she had known him, Arthur had shown her signs of pity and
tenderness. For a little while they lived under its shadow though
neither of them spoke of it again. Arthur, in particular, was awkward;
but whether he were ashamed of his cruelty, or merely of the effect
that it had produced on her, she could not say. Although she found it
difficult to believe in the first explanation she was deeply touched,
and perhaps a little flattered, by the possibility of the second.
Certainly his attitude toward her had changed. In everything that he
said or did, he now seemed pathetically anxious to please her, and even
this was encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened.
She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, in
a few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fear
proved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself.
The curious atmosphere that now developed between them revealed itself
more particularly in the letters which they were both of them writing
to Mrs. Payne at Overton. Arthur's had never been very fluent, but
Gabrielle had found an outlet for herself in this correspondence. In
his early letters from Lapton Arthur had rarely mentioned Gabrielle;
whenever he had done so it had been half contemptuously, as though the
feeling of repression which emanates from the best of schoolmasters had
attached itself to the schoolmaster's wife. At the same time Gabrielle
had been brief, but extremely natural. With the card-playing incident
a new situation had developed. Arthur, as we have seen, had been
inclined to turn up his nose at Gabrielle's society when it was thrust
upon him by Considine, while Gabrielle had given signs of a more
maternal care. In the later stages of this period Gabrielle, being
taken as a matter of course, had practically dropped out of Arthur's
letters. The episode of the rabbit changed all this, for while Arthur
now began to expand in a naïve enthusiasm, Gabrielle's attempts at
writing about him fell altogether flat. Judging by her letters Mrs.
Payne might reasonably have supposed that she had grown thoroughly sick
of the boy.
The real cause of her reticence was not so easily fathomable. I
suppose it was her instinctive method of withdrawing a subject that was
secretly precious to her from the knowledge of the one person in the
world who might reasonably assert a right to share it. If she had
analysed it, no doubt she would have proved that her interest in Arthur
was more intimate than she had ever confessed. But she didn't analyse
it. Neither, for that matter, did Mrs. Payne. Looking backward, a
year later, that good woman realised what a psychological howler she
had made. At the time she was merely thankful that Arthur was happy in
the society of a woman whom she liked and trusted--to whom, indeed, she
had more or less confided him--and sorry that at the very moment when
her influence might have counted, Gabrielle appeared to be losing
interest in the boy. It cheered her to think that Arthur was
expressing any admiration so human and, to be frank, so unlike himself.
She was even more cheered when she received Considine's report on him
at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. "_There have been one or
two unpleasant incidents,_" wrote the tactful Considine, "_but during
the latter part of the term I must say that your boy's conduct has been
practically unexceptionable. I think it is only right to tell you that
I have great hopes of him._" At the same time Gabrielle was silent.
Of course Considine didn't really know as much about it as she did. He
had seen the broad effects of Arthur's adoration--for that is what it
was now becoming--but he knew nothing of the struggles that had gone to
their making. During the latter part of the term his conduct had not
been by any means "unexceptionable"; but it was part of Gabrielle's
queer policy of secrecy to hide any lapse on Arthur's part from her
husband. She tackled them alone, forcing herself, against her own
compassionate instincts, to play upon Arthur's feelings. She had now
discovered that where appeals to general morality, or even to reason,
were bound to fail, the least sign of suffering on her part could
reduce Arthur to a miserable and perfectly genuine repentance. Such
was the end of all their struggles; and there were many; for she would
not let the least sign of his old weakness pass. At times she felt
that she was cruel, but she allowed herself to be harrowed, finding,
perhaps, in the pain that she inflicted on both of them, something that
was flattering both to her conscience and to her self-esteem.
During all this time there was nothing approaching intimacy between
them. To him, however he might adore her, she was always Mrs.
Considine. In all their relations they preserved the convention that
she was a creature of another world and of another age. No doubt his
childishness made the illusion easy to him. With her there must surely
have been moments of emotion when she realised that the barrier was
artificial. It is impossible to say how soon the first of these
moments came.
Certainly when he returned to Overton for the holidays with Considine's
encouraging report, she felt terribly lonely. For the last two months
she had concerned herself so passionately with the discovery--one might
almost say the creation--of his soul, that his departure left her not
only with a physical blank, but with a spiritual anxiety. She wondered
all the time what was happening to him; whether in her absence he was
keeping it up or drifting into a state of tragic relapse. On the
evening before he left she had made him promise to write to her, but
his boyish letters were wholly unsatisfactory. She believed that he
was telling her the truth in them, and yet he told her so little. She
even wished that she had kept up the habit of writing to Mrs. Payne;
for the least sidelight on the condition of affairs at Overton would
have been grateful to her. She did write to Mrs. Payne, but destroyed
the letter, feeling that a sudden revival of her custom when Arthur was
no longer at Lapton would seem merely ridiculous.
The Christmas holidays were a dreary time for her. Deserted by all
youth the Manor House slipped back into its ancient and melancholy
peace. Winter descended on them. She had been told that the climate
of South Devon resembled that of Connemara, but this was not the kind
of winter that she had known before. Snow never fell, as it used to
fall on her own mountains, turning Slieveannilaun into a great ghost,
and bringing the distant peaks of the Twelve Pins incredibly nearer.
Perhaps snow fell on Dartmoor; but from Lapton Dartmoor could not be
seen. In those deep valleys it could only be felt as a reservoir of
chilly moisture, or a barrier confining cold, dank air. Instead of
snowing it rained incessantly. The soft lanes became impassable with
mud, turning Lapton into a peninsula, if not an island.
At the New Year they went on a visit to Halberton House. During their
stay there Lady Barbara conceived a sudden and violent passion for
Gabrielle, that culminated in Gabrielle being taken solemnly to her
cousin's virginal bedroom and hearing the story of an old unhappy
love-affair. All the time that she listened to Lady Barbara's
plaintive voice Gabrielle was wondering what had happened at Overton,
and whether Arthur was keeping to the solemn undertaking that he had
given her. She wondered if it were possible that regard for his
mother's feelings might now be filling the place of her own influence;
if Mrs. Payne were arrogantly taking to herself the credit for the
miracle which Lapton had seen so laboriously begun. She hoped, knowing
that it was wicked of her to do so, that this had not happened. She
felt that the change in Arthur was hers and hers only. She found
herself forced to confess that she was jealous of Mrs. Payne....
"And then," said Lady Barbara, "just when I was certain, positively
certain that he cared for me--after that morning in church, you
know--his mother broke her leg huntin' in Leicestershire. The wire
came in with the mornin' letters, and the first thing I knew of his
goin' was seein' the luggage cart with his hat-box in the drive. Then,
poor dear, he met this widow at a dance at Belvoir. I begged mother to
let me go and stay with the Pagets at Somerby, but she said it would be
undignified. He was killed in the Chitral a year later. I felt I must
tell you, dear, because I can't help feelin' a little envious of your
happy marriage. Dr. Considine is such a man ... and I always feel it's
so safe marryin' a clergyman."
The idea of envying her marriage with Considine was so ridiculous that
Gabrielle couldn't repress an inexcusable smile, but Lady Barbara cut
short her blushing apology. "I don't begrudge you your happiness, my
dear," she said.
Seeing Lady Barbara sitting opposite to her with her thin arms sticking
straight out of a camisole, and two plaits of hair pathetically
trailing one on either side of her narrow forehead, Gabrielle was
suddenly overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own youth--not only
that, but her amazing difference in temperament from these people of
her own blood. Retiring from her cousin's chaste kisses to her own
room, she stood for a long while in front of her mirror, tinglingly
aware of her freshness and beauty and vitality. Considine, emerging
from his dressing-room, found her there.
"Vanity, vanity!" he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her.
Gabrielle suddenly thought how glad she would be to hand him over to
the admiring Lady Barbara. She remembered the chill kiss of her
cousin, and then the kiss of Considine. Neither of them, she decided,
was a real kiss.
The new term began on the twenty-fifth of January. Gabrielle had
awaited it with a subdued excitement. When the day came, she compelled
herself to appear more placid than usual. It was a sunny morning of
the kind that often gives a feeling of spring to the Devon winter, a
morning full of promise. Considine had suggested that she should drive
into Totnes and do some shopping before meeting the train from the
Midlands, but she would not do so. All morning she made herself busy
in the house, and later in the day, hearing the wheels of the wagonette
on the drive, she slipped out into the garden to visit a border where
the crocus spears were pushing through the soil. She could not explain
her own sudden shyness. She was tremulous, tremulous with life. There
was a smell of spring in the air. Arthur came out to find her in the
garden. His eyes glowed with the pleasure of seeing her again, but she
would not look at him.
"Well," she said, "what happened?"
"Oh, it was all right," he said. "I think it was all right. I'm
almost sure of it. I always thought of you, you see. Imagined what
you'd think of me." He didn't say that he had considered what his
mother would think. She was suddenly, jealously, thankful.
With his return she regained her content, feeling no longer the weight
of winter. He spoke no more regretfully of his exclusion from the
sports of the other pupils and they settled down once again into their
happy routine of walks and drives. In a little while the crocuses
burst into flame in the borders, and in the hedges the wild arums began
to unfold.
One Friday afternoon in the middle of March she asked Considine to let
Arthur drive her into Dartmouth. The day was so mild that they chose
the high-road that skirts the edge of Start Bay. There was a feeling
of holiday in the air, for the sea beneath them was of a pale and
shimmering blue like a stone blazing with imprisoned light or a
butterfly's wing. On the road they met a long procession of carriers'
vans heaped high with shopping baskets, and the happy faces of country
people stared at them from under the hoods. The road shone white,
having been scoured with rain, and all the hedgerows smelt of green
things growing, with now and then a waft of the white violet. The sky
was so clear that they could see the smoke of many liners, hull down,
making the Start. When they reached the crest of the hill above
Dartmouth a man-of-war appeared, a three-funnelled cruiser, steaming
fast towards the land. She was so fleet and strong that she seemed to
share in the exhilaration of the day. They dropped down slowly into
Dartmouth and lost sight of her.
Gabrielle had a great deal of shopping to do, and Arthur drove her from
one shop to another, waiting outside in the pony-trap while she made
her purchases. Then they had tea together in a restaurant on the quay.
They had never been more happy together. When they came out of the
tea-shop on to the pavement they found themselves entangled in a group
of sailors, liberty-men who had been disembarked from the cruiser that
now lay anchored in the mouth of the Dart. They came along the
footpath laughing, pleased to be ashore. Arthur and Gabrielle stood
aside to let them pass, and as they did so Gabrielle saw the name
_H.M.S. Pennant_ upon their cap-ribbons. She became suddenly pale and
silent. The light had faded from the day. She begged Arthur to drive
her home as quickly as he could.
Arthur was puzzled by her strangeness. He could not understand why she
did not speak to him. They drove on in silence through the dusk. So
they came to the point at which the coast road turns inward towards
Lapton Huish, a lonely spot where the cliffs break away into low hills,
and the highroad runs between a ridge of shingle on one side and on the
other two reedy meres. The night was windless, and they heard no sound
but a faint shivering of reed-beds, and the plash and withdrawal of
languid waves lapping the miles of fine shingle with a faint hiss like
that of grain falling on to a mound.
On the bridge that spanned the channel connecting the two meres
Gabrielle asked him to stop. He did so, wondering, and she climbed out
of the trap, and leaned upon the coping, looking out over the water.
He couldn't think what to make of her. He did not know how dear is
mystery to the heart of a woman. He stood by, awkwardly looking at
her. At last she said slowly, "I hate the sea.... I hate it. But I
love lake-water," which didn't lead much further. But he knew that she
was for some reason unhappy, and found this difficult to bear. He came
near to her, leaning over the bridge at her side.
"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter," he said. "It's all very well
your helping me, but it's a bit one-sided if I can't do anything for
you."
She gazed at his shadowy face in the darkness, and then gently put her
hand on his. She felt a kind of shudder go through him as he clasped
it.