I returned to Oxford. My rooms at Lazarus were in Fellows’ Quad--one
was a big room in which I lived and worked, the other was a small
bedroom leading out of it. My windows overlooked the smooth lawns and
gravel paths of the college garden. Flowers were over, hanging
crumpled and brown on their withered stalks. Here and there, a solitary
late-blooming rose shone faintly. The garden stood upon the city-wall,
overlooking the meadows of the Broad Walk. Every evening white mists
from the river invaded it, billowing across the open spaces, breaking
against the shrubs, climbing higher and higher, till the tops of the
trees were covered. Sitting beside my fire I could hear the leaves
rustle, and turning my head could see them falling.
The ceiling of my living-room was low; the walls were paneled in white
from bottom to top. The furniture was covered in warm red. The hearth
was deep and the fender of polished steel, which reflected the glow of
the coals when the day drew near its close. It was a room in which to
sit quietly, to think, and to grow drowsy.
It was October when I returned. Meadows were turning from green to
ash-color. Virginia-creeper flared like scarlet flame against pale
walls. The contented melancholy of the austere city was healing. It
cured feverishness by turning one’s thoughts away from the present. In
its stoic calm it was like an old man--one who had grown indifferent to
the world’s changefulness. In healthy contrast to its ancientness was
the exuberant youth of the undergrads.
Most grief arises from a thwarted sense of one’s own importance. Here,
among broken records of the past, the impermanence of physical existence
was written plainly.
Defaced hopes of the ages encountered one at every corner. Of all the
men who had wrought here, nothing but the best of what they had thought
stood fast; their personalities, the fashion of their daily lives were
lost beneath the dust of decades. No place could have been found better
in which to doctor a wounded heart.
Through the winter that followed Vi’s departure, the new conception I
had of her nobility upheld me. I could not sink beneath her standard of
honor. When the temptation to write to her came over me, I shamed myself
into setting it aside.
I recognized now what would have been the inevitable penalty, had we
followed our inclination that night. Only the madness of the moment
could have blinded me to its result. We should have become persons cast
off by society--insecure even in our claim on one another’s affections,
continually fleeing from the lean greyhound of remorse. Never for a
day should we have been permitted to forget the irregularity of our
relation. We should have been continually apologizing for our fault. We
should have been continually hiding from curious, unfriendly eyes. The
shame with which other people regarded us would have re-acted on our
characters. And then there was Dorrie! She would have had to know one
day.
We had the man by the harbor and “Lady Halloway” to thank for our
escape. The strange combination of influences they had exerted at our
hour of crisis, had saved us.
Black moments came when I gazed ahead into the vacant future. I must
go through life without her. Unless some circumstance unforeseen should
arise, we would never meet again. Then I felt that, to possess her, no
price of disgrace would be too high to pay.
I trained myself like an athlete to defeat the despair which such
thoughts occasioned. I tried to banish her from my mind. In my conscious
moments I succeeded by keeping myself occupied. But in sleep she came to
me in all manner of intimate and forbidden ways.
I crowded my hours with work that I might keep true to my purpose. And
yet this method of fighting, when analyzed, consisted chiefly in running
away. I took up tutorial duties at my college. I commenced to make
studies for a biography of that typical genius of the Renaissance, half
libertine, half mystic, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, known to history
in his old age as Pope Pius II. I tried to fill up my leisure with new
friendships. In none of these things could I become truly interested.
My thoughts were crossing the ocean. When I was deepest in study I would
start, hearing her voice, sharp and poignant.
One afternoon I was sitting with my chair drawn up to the hearth, my
feet on the fender, a board across my knees, trying to write. A tap fell
on the door. Lord Halloway entered.
He took a seat on the other side of the fireplace. “I’ve been wanting to
speak to you for some time,” he said, “wanting to explain.”
“Wanting to explain what?”
“Myself in general. You don’t like me; I think you’re mistaken. I’m not
the man I was.”
“But why should you explain to me?”
“Because I like you.”
“Don’t see why you should. Woadley’s probably coming to me--which you
once thought was to be yours.”
“That doesn’t worry me. I’ll have the Lovegrove estates when my father
dies. But I don’t like to feel that any man despises me--it hampers a
chap in trying to do right. You pass me in the quads with a nod, and
hurry as you go by so that I shan’t stop you. Why?”
“Want to know the truth?”
“Yes.”
“It’s because of the woman they call ‘Lady Halloway’ and all the other
girls you’ve ruined.”
“I thought it. That was why I wanted to tell you that I’m done with that
way of life. I was a colossal ass in the old days. But, you know, a good
many fellows have been what I was, and they’ve married, and settled down
and become respected.”
“And what of the girls they’ve ruined?”
He leant forward, clasping his hands and spreading his knees apart.
“You’re blaming me for the injustices of society. Women have always had
to suffer. But I’ve always done the sportsmanlike thing by the girls
I’ve wronged. All of them are provided for.”
“These things are your own affairs,” I said shortly; “but I’ve always
felt----”
“Felt what?”
“Felt that the most disreputable thing about most prodigals is the
method of their returning. They leave all the women they’ve deceived
and all their bastards in the Far Country with the swine and the husks,
while they hobble home to forgiveness and luxury. Simply because
they acknowledge the obvious--that they’ve sinned and disgraced their
fathers--they expect to escape the rewards of their profligacy. It’s
cheap, Halloway. You speak as though marriage will re-instate your
morals. A man should be able to bring a clean record to the woman he
marries.” The off-hand manner in which he referred to his villainies had
made me cold with a sense of justice. His lolling, fashionably attired
person and his glib assertion that he had done with that way of life,
roused my anger when I remembered his idiot son and the scene on the
esplanade. He regarded me with a friendly man-of-the-world smile,
pointing his delicate fingers one against the other. I would have liked
him better had he shown resentment.
“You make things hard,” he objected. “If everyone thought as you do,
there’d be no incentive for reformation. The man who had been a little
wild would never be anything else. According to your way of thinking,
he’d be more estimable as a rake than as the father of a family. You
shut the door against all coming back.”
He spoke reasonably, trying to lift what had started as a personal
attack, on to the impartial plane of a sociological discussion.
“It’s the unfairness of it that irks me,” I said. “You tempt a girl and
leave her to her disgrace. She bears both her own and your share of the
scandal, while you scramble back into respectability. If you brought her
back with you, I shouldn’t object. But, after you’ve persuaded her to go
down into the pit, you draw up the ladder and walk away.”
He gave his high-pitched laugh. “That’s how the world’s made. It’s none
of my doing. If I married one of these girls, neither of us would be
happy. One of these days I shall be Earl of Lovegrove. They’re better as
they are. You know that, surely?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then, why prevent me, when I’m trying to get on to higher ground? I
know I’ve been a rotter. I’ve made a mess of things. I don’t need anyone
to remind me.”
I held out my hand, saying, “I’ve been censorious. I’m sorry.”
After this he dropped in often to see me. He was coaching the Lazarus
toggers that autumn; his usual time for calling was between four and
five, on his way up from the river. I got to know him well and to look
for him. His big robustness and high color filled the student atmosphere
of my room with an air of outdoor vitality. He was always cheerful. And
yet I could not get away from the idea that he was making use of me for
some undisclosed purpose.
He was an egoist at heart--a charming egoist. Much of his conversation
turned about himself. “Now that you know me better, do you still think
that I’m barred from marriage?” he would ask.
“All kinds of people marry. It still seems unfair to me that, after
knocking about the way you have, you should marry anyone who doesn’t
know the world pretty thoroughly.”
“You mean I’m tarnished and should marry a woman who is tarnished.
You don’t understand me, Cardover. My very knowledge of evil makes me
worship feminine purity.”
It was difficult to regard Lord Halloway as tarnished when you looked
at his splendid body. His healthy physical handsomeness seemed an
excuse for his transgressions. He upset all your ideas of the degrading
influences of immorality.
After Christmas I had Ruthita down to stay at Oxford. We were walking
along the tow-path towards Iffley on the afternoon of her arrival, when
the Lazarus Eight went by. Halloway was mounted, riding along the bank,
shouting orders to the cox. As he passed us, he recognized Ruthita. I
saw her color flame up. She halted abruptly, following him with her eyes
round the bend of the river.
“Shall we meet them again if we go on?”
I told her we should be certain to meet them, as they would turn at
Iffley Lock.
“But I don’t want to meet them.” Then, in a whisper, “I’m afraid of him,
Dante.”
We retraced our steps to Folly Bridge and walked out to Hinksey to avoid
him.
“You’re an odd little creature, Ruthie. Why on earth should you be
afraid of him? He can’t do you any harm.”
“It’s his eyes. When he looks at me so hard, I forget all that I know
about him, and begin to like him. And then, when he’s gone, I come to
myself and feel humiliated.”
Now that I had found someone who would run him down, I changed sides and
began to plead his cause. “Seems to me it’s a bit rough on the chap to
remember his old faults. He’s quite changed.”
“But the woman at Ransby hasn’t,” she retorted bitterly. “He didn’t
leave her a chance.”
It was pleasant having Ruthita with me. I liked to hear the swish of her
skirts as she walked, and to feel the light pressure of her hand upon my
arm. She spoke with her face tilted up to mine. It was such a tiny face,
so emotional and innocent. The frost in the air had brought a color to
her cheeks and a luster to her hair. She loved to make me feel that she
was my possession for the moment; I knew that I pleased her when I
used her as though she were all mine. We treated one another with frank
affection.
“D’you ever hear from Vi?” she asked.
“Never.”
“It was awfully strange the way she left Ransby--so suddenly, without
saying good-by. I had just one little note from her before she sailed;
that was all. I’ve written to her several times since then, but she’s
never answered.”
I turned the subject by saying, “What’s this about Uncle Obad? Is he
giving up the boarding-house?”
“Yes, he’s going down into Surrey to raise fowls. He’s already got his
farm. Aunt Lavinia’s wild about it.”
“But where does he get his money?”
“Nobody knows, and he refuses to tell. Papa says that he must have found
another Rapson.”
“But he isn’t selling shares again, is he?”
“Oh dear no. He’s become wonderfully independent, and says he doesn’t
need to make his poultry pay. It’s just a hobby.”
“Dear old chap! I hope he doesn’t come another cropper.”
“He says he can’t, but he won’t explain why. And d’you know, I believe
he’s given Papa back the two thousand pounds that he lost.”
“I don’t believe it. What makes you think that?”
“Because Papa’s stopped talking against him, and because I caught him
looking up those guide-books to Italy again.”
We turned off from the Abingdon Road and curved round to the left
through the sheep-farms of Hinksey. Hedges bristled bare on either side.
Uplands rose bleak against the steely sky. Rutted lanes were brittle
beneath our feet, crusted over here and there with ice. On thatched
roofs of cottages sparrows squatted with ruffled feathers. Icicles hung
down from spouts. The lambing season was just commencing. As we drew
near farms the warm smell of sheep packed close together assailed our
nostrils. From far and wide a constant, distressful bleating went up.
Quickly and silently, rising out of the ground, dropping down from the
sky, darkness closed in about us. In the cup of the valley, with the
river sweeping round it, lay Oxford with its glistening towers and
church spires. Little pin-points of fire sprang up, shining hard and
frosty through the winter’s shadows. They raced through the city, as
though a hundred lamp-lighters had wakened at once and were making up
for lost time. Soon the somber mass was a blazing jewel, flinging up a
golden blur into the night.
Ruthita hugged my arm. “Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive? I’m never
so happy as when I’m alone with you, Dante. It isn’t what we say that
does it. It’s just being near one another.”
She spoke like a child, groping after words, feeling far more than
she could ever utter. But I knew what she meant. The woman in her was
striving. Just as her flowerlike womanhood, unfolding itself to me
secretly, made me hungry for Vi, so my masculinity stung her into
wistful eagerness for a man’s affection.
“You’re a queer little kiddie. What you need’s a husband. I shall be
frightfully jealous of him. At first I shall almost hate him.”
“If you hated him, I shouldn’t marry him. Besides, I don’t believe I
shall ever marry.”
We trudged back to Oxford in a gay mood, carrying on a bantering
conversation. When we had entered Lazarus, I left her at the lodge,
telling her to go to Fellows’ Quad while I ordered tea at the pantry. As
I approached my rooms, I heard the sound of voices. Opening the door, I
saw the lamp had not been lit. By the flare of the fire, I made out the
profile of Ruthita as she leant back in the arm-chair, resting her feet
on the fender. Standing up, looking down on her, with his arm against
the mantelshelf was Lord Halloway.
He glanced towards me in his careless fashion. “This is quite the
pleasantest thing that could have happened. I’ve often thought about
the drive to Woadley and wondered whether we three should ever meet all
together again.” Then, turning to Ruthita, “Your brother’s so secretive,
Miss Cardover. He never breathed a word about your coming.”
“My sister’s name is not Cardover,” I corrected him.
He drew himself to his full height languidly. “I must apologize for
having misnamed you, Miss--Miss----”
“My name is Favart,” put in Ruthita.
“Isn’t it strange,” he asked, “that a brother and sister should be named
differently?”
Then I had another illustration of how he could draw out women’s
confidence. Ruthita had just run three miles in the opposite direction
to avoid him, yet here she was eagerly telling him many things that were
most intimate--all about her father and the Siege of Paris, and how
I climbed the wall and discovered her, and how we had run off to get
married and stayed with the gipsies in the forest.
The tea-boy came and set crumpets and muffins down by the hearth. I lit
the lamp. Still they went on talking, referring to me occasionally, but
paying little heed to my presence.
The bell began to toll for Hall.
Halloway rose. “How long are you going to be in Oxford, Miss Favart?”
“That depends on Dante, and how long he will have me.
“Then you’re staying a little while?”
“Yes.”
“I ask, because I’d like to take Cardover and yourself out driving. I
have my horses in Oxford and you ought to see some of the country.”
“That depends on Dante.”
“We’ll talk it over to-morrow,” I said brusquely.
For the next few days, wherever we went we were unaccountably coming
across Halloway. He always expressed surprise at meeting us, and always
made himself delightful after we had met. If we walked out to Cumnor, or
Sandford or Godstow, it made no difference in which direction, we were
sure to hear the sharp trit-trotting of his tandem, and to see his high
red dog-cart gaining on us above the hedges. Then he would rein up, with
a display of amazed pleasure at these repeated accidents, and insist on
our mounting beside him. Ruthita told me that she was annoyed at the way
he broke up our privacy; but her annoyance was saved entirely for his
absence. In his company she allowed him to absorb her.
I had accompanied Ruthita back to the _Mitre_, where she was staying. It
was her last night. On returning to my rooms, I found Halloway waiting.
I was surprised, for the hour was late. I noticed that his manner was
unusually serious and pre-occupied for such an habitual trifler. When I
had mixed him a whiskey and soda, I sat down and watched him. He tapped
his teeth with his thumbnail.
I grew restless. “What is it?” I asked. “Something on your mind?”
“Don’t know how to express it. You’ve made it difficult for me.”
“How?”
“By the things you’ve said from time to time. You see, it’s this way.
Until I met Miss Favart I was quite unashamed of myself. Her purity and
goodness made me view myself in a new light. Since then I’ve tried to
retrieve my past to some extent. Of course, I can never be worthy of
her, but----”
“Worthy of her! I don’t understand.” I leant forward in my chair,
frowning.
“You do understand,” he said quietly. “You must have guessed it from the
first. I’m in love with her and intend to make her my wife.”
“Intend!” I repeated.
He rose to his feet, as though willing to show me his fine body, and
began to pace the room with the stealthy tread of a panther. He kept
his eyes on mine. When he spoke there was a purring determination in his
voice.
“Yes, intend. I’ve always had my way with women. You’ll see; I shan’t
fail this time. I may have to wait, perhaps.”
“Halloway,” I said, “I don’t suppose you’re capable of realizing how
decent people feel about you. Of course there are many men who disguise
their feelings when they see you trying to do better. But very few of
those same men would introduce you to their sisters, or daughters, or
wives. To put it plainly, they’d feel they were insulting them. So now
you know how I feel about what you’ve just told me.”
He paused above me, looking down with an amused smile.
“My dear Cardover, that’s just what I expected from you. You virgin men
are so brutally honest where your ideals are concerned--so hopelessly
evasive in facing up to realities. Don’t you know that life _is_ a
coarse affair? I’ve lived it naturally--most strong men have at some
time. I’ve been open in what I’ve done. Everybody knows the worst there
is to know about me. Most men do these things in secret. I couldn’t be
secret and preserve my self-respect. Skeletons in the cupboard ar’n’t
much in my line. Ruthita knows me at my wickedest now; when she knows me
at my best, she’ll love me.”
“When my sister marries,” I said coldly, “it’ll be to a man who can
bring her something better than the dregs of his debaucheries.”
He gave his foolish laugh. “That’s a new name for the Lovegrove titles.
I’d better be going. If I stay longer, you may make me angry.”
I rose to see him take his departure. He had passed out and gone a few
steps down the passage, when I heard him returning. The door just opened
wide enough for him to look in on me. “My dear Cardover,” he said, “I
came back to remind you of another of those evasive realities. You know,
she isn’t your sister.”
A week later I received an indignant letter from Ruthita, saying that
Lord Halloway had been to Pope Lane to see my father, and had asked for
her hand in marriage. She had refused even to see him. By the same mail
came a letter from the Snow Lady, couched in milder terms and asking for
information. She wanted to know whether Halloway was as black as he was
painted. I referred her to Ruthita, telling her to ask her to describe
what happened on the esplanade. As a result I received a final letter,
agreeing with me that the matter was impossible, but at the same time
enlarging on the wealth and prestige of the Lovegrove earldom.
For a fortnight I refused to have anything to do with my cousin, but
his imperturbable good-humor made rancor impossible. In the cabined
intimacies of college life a quarrel was awkward. To the aristocratic
much is forgiven; moreover he was a splendid all-round athlete and one
of the hardest riders to hounds that the ’Varsity had ever had. So he
was popular with dons and undergraduates alike. One morning when he
stopped me in Merton Street, offering me his hand, I took it, agreeing
to renew his acquaintance. My commonsense told me that the defeated
party had most cause for grievance. His sporting lack of bitterness sent
him up in my estimation.
Spring broke late on the world that year in a foam of flowers. Like
a swollen tide it swept through our valley in wanton riot and stormed
across the walls of our gray old town. It surged into shadowy cloisters
and dashed up in spray of may-blossom and lilac. Every tree was crested
with the flying foam of its hurry. The Broad Walk, leading down to the
barges, was white with blown bloom of chestnuts.
Quadrangles became gay with geraniums. Through open windows music
and men’s laughter sounded. Flanneled figures, carrying rackets and
cricket-bats, shot hither and thither on bicycles. At evening, in the
streets beneath college windows, groups of strolling minstrels strummed
on banjos and sang. Fresh-faced girls, sweethearts and sisters of
the undergraduates, drifted up and down our monastic by-ways, smiling
eagerly into their escort’s eyes, leaving behind them ripples of
excitement.
All live things were mating. The instinct for love was in the air. My
longing for Vi was quickened. The sight of girls’ faces filled me
with poignancy. Every beauty of sound, or sight, or fragrance became
commemorative of her. By day I traced her resemblance in the features of
strangers. Inflamed desire wove tapestries of passion on the canvas of
the night. Roaming through lanes of the countryside, I would meet young
lovers in secluded places, and flee from them in a tempest of envy. Had
she sent me one little sign that she still cared, I would have abandoned
everything and have gone to claim her. My mind was burning. I poured
out my heart to her in letters which, instead of sending, I destroyed. I
became afraid.
Halloway was in the same plight. He never mentioned Ruthita; but he
would come to my room, and pause before her photograph and fall
silent. However, he knew how to shuffle his fortune to convenience his
environment. He had his comforters. Gorgeous young females fluttered in
and out of his apartments, like painted butterflies. His only discretion
was in the numbers of his choice. They might have been the daughters
of dukes by their appearance, but you knew they were chorus-girls from
London. One day when I questioned him, he threw me a cynical smile,
saying, “I’m trying the expulsive power of a new affection.”
The phrase took root. If I was to do the honorable thing by Vi, I also
must employ my heart in a new direction. The thing was easy to say, but
it seemed impossible that I should ever be attracted by another woman.
It had become my habit to spend much of my time sitting by the open
window of my room, gazing out into the college garden. Hyacinths,
tulips, crocuses bubbled up from beneath the turf. Every day brought a
change. In the spring breeze the garden tossed and nodded, applauding
its own endeavor. Songsters had returned to their last year’s nests.
From morn to dusk they caroled in the shrubberies. Twittering their
love-songs or trailing straws, they flashed across gulfs which separated
the chestnuts. Over Bagley Wood, as I sat at work, I could hear the
cuckoo calling. From the unseen river came the shouting of coaches to
their crews, and the long and regular roll of oars as they turned in
their rowlocks.
I glanced up from my books one evening. The glow of sunset, hovered
along the city-wall. Leaning over its edge, looking down into the
meadows, a tall girl was standing. Her back was towards me. She was
dressed in the palest green. Her hair was auburn. She held her skirt
daringly high, disclosing the daintiest of ankles. Her open-work
stockings were also of green to match the rest of her attire. Her
companion was Brookins, the assistant chaplain, an effeminate little
man, who was known among the undergraduates as the doe-priest. He seemed
ill at ease; she was manifestly flirting with him. In the stillness of
the garden the penetrating cadence of her gay voice reached me. It was
friendly, and had the lazy caressing quality of a summer’s afternoon
when bees are humming in and out of flowers. I was tantalized by a
haunting memory. She turned her face part way towards me. I caught her
mocking profile. The way the red-gold curls fell across her forehead
was familiar; and yet I could not remember. She came along the terrace,
walking in long, slow, undulating strides. The west shone full upon
her. She was brilliant and gracious, and carried herself with an air of
challenging pride. Her tall, slim figure broke into exquisite lines as
she walked, revealing its shapely frailty. Her narrow face, with its
arch expression of innocence, promised a personality full of secrets and
disguises.
I stepped across the sill of my window into the garden. They were near
enough now for me to catch an occasional word of their conversation.
I approached across the lawn towards them. She glanced in my direction
casually; then she steadied her gaze. I saw that her eyes were green,
specked with gold about the iris. She stooped her head, still gazing at
me, and asked a question of the doe-priest in a lowered voice. I heard
him speak my name. A bubbling laugh sprang from her lips. She came
tripping towards me with her hand extended.
“You’re not going to pretend you don’t know me?”
“I do know you, and yet I can’t recall where we have met or what is your
name.”
“Were you ever in Sneard’s garden at the Red House?”
“You’re------”
“Fiesole Cortona, and you’re Dante.”
We stood there holding one another’s hands, searching one another’s
faces and laughing gladly.
“Well I never!” I kept repeating. “Fancy meeting you after all these
years!”
“Am I much changed?” she questioned.
“You’re more beautiful,” I said boldly.
She nodded her head roguishly. “I can see you’re no longer afraid
of girls. You were once, you remember.” The doe-priest had stood by
watching us nervously. It was plain that Fiesole had scared him--he
was glad to be relieved of her. The bell in the tower began to toll for
dinner. Brookins jangled his keys, edging towards the gate.
“Poor Mr. Brookins, are you hungry? Must you be going?”
“I don’t like to be late at high table, Miss Cortona,” he replied
stiffly. “The Warden is very particular about punctuality.”
“Never mind, Brookins,” I said, “I’ll look after Miss Cortona. You cut
along.”
Brookins made his farewells with more alacrity than politeness. Fiesole
gazed after his departing figure with mischievous merriment in her eyes.
“He thinks me a dangerous person,” she pouted. “He thinks I was luring
him on to be naughty. He’ll go and preach a sermon about me. He’s
bristling with righteousness. And now that he’s managed to escape,
he’s locking poor innocent you, Dante, all alone in the garden with the
wicked temptress.”
“I rather like it. Besides, I know a way out--over there, through my
window.”
As we strolled across the lawn I asked her, “Where, under the sun, did
you pick up Brookins? He doesn’t seem just your sort.”
“I picked him up at Aix-les-Bains. He was sowing his wild oats
imaginatively and eyeing the ladies in _La Villa des Fleurs_. He was
trying to find out what it felt like to be truly devilish.”
“That doesn’t sound like Brookins. I suppose he was gathering
experience, so that he might be able to deal understanding with erring
undergrads.”
“You’re charitable. At any rate, when I met him he was playing the
truant from morality. I was in the Casino.”
“What doing? Gambling?”
She nodded. “You see I was nearly as bad as Mr. Brookins. He came and
stood behind my chair while I was playing. When I got up and went
out into the garden, he followed. It was all dusky and dimly lit with
faery-lamps. I suppose it made him feel romantic. I saw what he was
doing out of the corner of my eye; so, for the fun of it, I tried to
fascinate him.”
“I’ll warrant you did. It was the old game you played with me and the
Bantam. You take delight in making other people uncomfortable. It’s
the most adventurous thing about you, Fiesole. You’ve got the name of a
lullaby and the manners of a mustard-plaster. You’ll be trying to sting
me presently, when you catch me sleepy and unaware.”
“Not you, Dante.”
She spoke my name coaxingly, veiling her eyes with her long lashes.
“But you did once.”
“Did I? So you still remember?”
I was unwilling to be sentimental. “What did you do next to poor
Brookins?”
She took up the thread of her story with feigned demureness. “I chose
out a bench well hidden in the shadows. He came and seated himself on
the edge of it, as far away as he could get from me. He cleared his
throat several times. I could hear him moistening his lips. Then
he whispered, almost turning his back on me, ‘Je vous aime.’ And I
whispered, turning my back on him, ‘Do you? Now isn’t that lovely!’”
“And then?”
“Oh, then, finding I was English, he became more comfy. He began to
boast about Oxford and mentioned Lazarus. So I thought to-day the least
I could do was to call on him. I didn’t know he was a parson. You should
have seen his face when he saw me. I’ve been getting even with him all
this afternoon. He thinks I’ve risen out of the buried past to haunt
him.”
She broke into low musical laughter, shaking her shoulders.
“You were cruel, Fiesole. What he said to you was the sum total of the
intent of his wickedness. He had reached the limit of his daring.”
“I know it. That’s why I don’t like him. He isn’t thorough. He told
me that his name was Jordan at Aix. When I asked for him at the lodge
to-day, the porter said there weren’t no sich purson. I was turning
away, when I saw him coming across quad in full clericals, walking by
the side of a stooping old gentleman shaped like the letter C.”
“That would be the Warden.”
“Oh, was it? Well, he didn’t see me and was walking right by me. I
tapped him on the arm and said, ‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Jordan.’ He paled
to his lips and stared. The old gentleman raised his hat to me and said,
‘This is Mr. Brookins, not Mr. Jordan, my dear young lady. You must be
mistaken.’ ‘Jordan’s my pet name for him,’ I answered. The old gentleman
smiled, and smiled again and left us. Then I turned to Mr. Brookins and
said, ‘Je vous aime. Be sure your sins will find you out.’ After that I
tried to be very nice to him, but somehow I couldn’t make him happy.”
“I’m not surprised. Brookins was wondering how he could explain to the
Warden not knowing a charming young lady, who had a pet name for him.
They’re asking him about it now at the high-table, and he’s lying fit
to shame the devil. His pillow will be drenched to-night with tears
of penitence. You rehearsed the Judgment Day to him. You’ve turned the
tables on him, because, you know, that’s his profession every Sunday.”
I helped her to step across the sill of my window. She gazed round my
room, taking in the pipes and tobacco-ash and clothes strewn about. “I
love it,” she said. “It’s so cosy and mannish.”
She perched herself on the arm of a chair, so that the golden,
after-glow fell athwart her. I watched her, thinking how little she had
changed from the old Fiesole. She was still tantalizing, as mischievous
as a school-girl; once she had fiddled with boys’ heartstrings, now she
took her pastime in breaking men’s.
She was a creature of vivid mysteries, alternately wooing and repelling.
She could beckon you on with passionate white arms and thrust you from
her with hands of ice. She came out of nowhere like a wild thing from a
wood. You looked up and saw her--she vanished. She courted capture and
invited pursuit; but you knew that, though you caught her, you would
never tame her.
She had plucked a deep-cupped daffodil from a vase on the table. She was
bending over it with a tender air of contemplation. She held the long
slim stalk low down in her dainty, long, slim fingers. The golden dust
of the petals seemed the reflection of the golden glint that was in
her hair. The stalk was the color of her eyes. Her tempestuous
loveliness--made to lure and torture men, to fill them with cravings
which she could not satisfy--was resting now.
She looked up at me with calculated suddenness. She read admiration in
my eyes.
“You find me pretty nice, don’t you, Dante?”
“I’m not disguising it, am I?”
“I thought, maybe, you were cross with me about Brookins. We never quite
approved of one another, did we, Dante? You thought and still think me a
coquette.”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“With some people, but not with you. I only played with the Bantam to
draw you out of your shell.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Then the absurdity of being serious over an affair of childhood struck
us and we went off into gales of laughter.
“Let’s be sensible,” I said. “What are you doing? Staying at Oxford with
friends?”
“No. I’m traveling alone with my maid.”
“Have you any engagement for this evening?”
“No.”
“Then why shouldn’t we spend it together?”
“No reason in the world.”
“Where’ll we spend it?”
“Here, if you like.”
“But we can’t spend it here, just you and I. The college doesn’t allow
it. Besides, you haven’t had dinner. Where’ll we dine?”
“Anywhere.”
“What do you say to punting down to Sandford and dinner at the inn
there?”
“I’m game.”
As we passed through the quads, men were coming out of Hall from dinner.
Some of them went thundering up wooden-stairs to their rooms, tearing
off their gowns. Others strolled arm-in-arm joking and conversing,
smoking cigarettes. At sight of Fiesole, they hauled up sharply. She was
a man’s woman, and they were struck by her beauty. With one accord they
turned unobstrusively and hurried their steps towards the lodge, to
catch one more glimpse of her face as she passed out. She betrayed no
sign that she was aware of the sensation she was creating. She advanced
beside me with eyes modestly lowered, enhancing her allurement with a
serene air of innocence. Out in the street her manner changed.
“The men do that always,” she said, “and, do you know, I rather like
them for it.”
“What do they do?”
“Stare after me.”
“Don’t wonder Brookins was shocked by you, Fiesole. You’re a very
shocking person. You say the most alarming things.”
She laid her hand on my arm for a second. “But I say them charmingly.
Don’t I?”
On our way through the meadows to the barges, I asked her what she had
been doing all these years.
“For a time I tried the stage, but lately I’ve been traveling in Europe.
I have no relations--nothing to keep me tethered. I roam from place to
place with my maid, moving on and on again.”
“Not married?”
“I’m not the kind of woman who marries. Men like me, but when it comes
to making me their wife, it’s ‘Oh no, thank you.’ They want a woman a
little more stupid. Are you married?”
“Hardly.”
She shot me a penetrating glance. “Engaged?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
We came to the Lazarus barge. I piled cushions in a punt for her. She
lay with her back to the prow, so that she faced me. I took the pole and
pushed off into midstream.
We had the river to ourselves; its restful loneliness caused us to fall
silent. We left the barges quickly; then we drifted slowly. Fields were
growing white and vaporous. The air was damp, and cool, and earthy.
Behind us the spires of Oxford shone like a clump of spears against
the embattled, orange-tinted sky. Before us, swimming in blue haze,
was Iffley Mill. Everything was becoming ill-defined--receding into
nothingness. Far away across meadows to the right we caught sounds of
gritting hoofs and the grinding of a wagon. Sometimes a bird uttered one
long fluty cry. Sometimes a swallow swooped near us.
“Dante, all the others have passed on, and there’s only you and I.
What’s happened to the Bantam?”
“Married in Canada. He’s farming.”
“I believe you thought you loved me in the old days.”
“I could tell you some things to prove it.”
“You didn’t do much to prove it at the time. You were a terribly shy and
stubborn boy. You left me to do all the courting. I’ve often laughed at
the things I did to try and make you kiss me.”
“And that was what I was wanting most to do all the time. D’you know
what sent me to the infirmary?”
Then I told her how I had crept out of bed and out of doors in the
middle of the night to visit the summer-house.
“What a little beast I was,” she said. “I’m always being a little beast,
Dante. That’s the way I’m made. Can’t help it. But I’ll never be like
that to you again.”
By the time we got to Sandford it was night. Lamps in the inn were
lighted, shining through the trees across the river. We had dinner
in the room next to the bar, in an atmosphere of beer and sawdust and
tobacco. The windows were open; the singing of water across the weir was
accompaniment to our conversation.
She told me the beginning of many things about herself with a strange
mixture of frankness and restraint. She spoke of the early days in Italy
before her parents died, and of the ordered quiet of her convent life
at Tours. After her expulsion from the Red House she had returned to
France, and fallen in with the artistic set that had been her father’s
in Paris. Her guardian, an old actor, had persuaded her to train for the
stage. For a time she had succeeded, but had dropped her profession to
go traveling.
“I’m an amateur at living,” she told me; “I’m always chopping and
changing. I’ll find what I want some day.”
Her restlessness had carried her into many strange places. Northern
Africa was known to her; she had been through India and Persia. Speaking
in her lazy voice, with the faintest trace of a foreign accent, she
painted pictures of sun-baked deserts with caravans of nodding camels;
of decayed, oriental cities sprawled out like bleached bones in
palm-groves beside some ancient river-bank; of strange fierce rituals in
musty temples, demanding the blood-sacrifice. She made me feel while she
spoke how narrowly I had lived my life. Like a fly on a window-pane I
had crawled back and forth, back and forth, viewing the adventure of the
great outside, rebellious at restraint, but never taking any rational
measures for escape.
The river droned across the weir. In the bar-room next door glasses
clinked; yokels’ voices rose and fell hoarsely in argument. Fiesole came
to a halt and leant back in her chair, gazing searchingly into my face
across the table.
“You look queer, Dante. What’s the matter?”
I laughed shortly. “You’ve been putting the telescope to my eye. You’ve
been making me see things largely. How was it that you broke loose that
way?”
“I had a horror of growing stodgy. I was born to be a South Sea Islander
and to run about naked in the sunshine.”
“How long are you to be in Oxford?”
“Don’t know. I’ve made no plans. I hadn’t expected to spend more than
one night. But now----”
She did not finish the sentence. We rose from the table. In the porch we
loitered, breathing in the deep, cool stillness.
“You’ll stay a little while, won’t you, Fiesole?”
She took my arm and smiled. “Of course--if you want me.”
Going down through the arbors, we stepped into the punt. The river was
a-silver with moonlight.