CHAPTER XV--THE FLAME OF A SWORD

One morning, it seemed the one on which I had planned to sail, I awoke

in a strange room. I knew it was strange because the sun was pouring in

across the bed, and the sun never looked through my window at the

Misses Januaries’ till late in the afternoon. Something wet was on my

forehead--a kind of bandage that came down low across my eyes almost

preventing me from seeing anything. This set me wondering in a slow,

thick-witted manner.

I did not much care how I came to be there--I felt effortless and

contented; yet, in a lazy way, my mind became interested. I lay still,

piecing together little scraps of happenings as I remembered them. The

last thing I could recall that was rational was my attempting to get out

of bed. Then came vague haunting shapes, too sweet and too horrible

for reality--things which refused to be embodied and remained mere

atmospheres in the brain, terrors and delights of sleep which slowly

faded as the mind cleared itself.

I pulled my hand from under the sheets and was surprised at the effort

it took to raise it to my forehead. I heard the rustle of a starched

skirt: it was the kind of sound that Hetty used to make in my childhood,

when she came to dress me in the mornings and I pretended that I still

slept. I used to think in those days that it was a stern clean sound

which threatened me with soap and chilly water. Someone was bending over

me; a cool voice said, “Don’t move, Mr. Cardover. I’ll do that.”

The bandage was pushed back and in the sudden rush of light I saw a

young woman in a blue print-dress, standing beside my pillow. I tried

to speak to her, but my mouth was parched and my voice did not make the

proper sound.

“Don’t try to speak,” she said; “you’ve been sick, you know. Soon you’ll

feel better.”

I stopped trying to talk and obeyed her, just as I used to obey Hetty.

At the back of my mind I smiled to myself that I, a grown man, should

obey her; she looked such a girl. After she had put water to my lips and

passed a damp cloth over my face and hands, she nodded pleasantly and

went back to her seat by the window.

No--until now I had never seen this room. The walls were covered in

cherry-colored satin, which was patterned in vertical stripes, with

bunches of flowers woven in between the lines. All the wood-work was

painted a gleaming white. Chippendale chairs and old-fashioned delicate

bits of furniture stood about in odd corners. Between the posts of the

big Colonial bed I could see a broad bay-window, with a seat going round

it. Across the panes leafless boughs cast a net-work of shadows, and

through them fell a bar of solid sunlight in which dust-motes were

dancing by the thousand. Half-way down each side of the bed screens were

standing, so that I could only see straight before me and a part of the

room to the left and right beyond where they ended.

Through weakness I was powerless to speak or stir, yet my swimming

senses were anxiously alert. I saw objects without their perspective,

as though I were gazing up through water. In the same way with sounds,

I heard them thunderously and waited in suspense for their repetition.

Though I lay so still, nothing missed my attention.

By the quietness of the house I gathered that the hour was yet early.

Far away cocks crew their rural challenge. On a road near by footsteps

passed in a hurry. The whistle of a factory sounded; then I knew

they had been footsteps of people going to work. Beneath the window a

garden-roller clanged across gravel, and became muffled as it reached

the turf. A door banged remotely; a few seconds later someone tapped on

the door of my bedroom. The nurse laid aside her knitting and rustled

over to the threshold. A question was asked in a low whisper and the

nurse’s voice answered.

A woman entered into the bar of sunlight and stood regarding me from the

foot of the bed. With the immense indifference of weakness I gazed back.

Her long, fine-spun hair hung loose about her shoulders like a mantle.

She wore a blue dressing-gown, which she held together with one hand

across her breast. Her eyes were still sleepy; she had come directly she

had wakened to inquire after me. She smiled at me, nodding her head.

She seemed very distant; I wanted to return her smile, but I had not the

energy. I closed my eyes; when I looked again she had vanished.

For the next few days I do not know how many people came and looked

at me, whispered a few words and went. There was the old gray-haired

doctor, with his military-bearing and his trick of pursing his lips and

knitting his brows as he took my temperature. I had one visitor who was

regular--Randall Carpenter. He looked years older. Tiptoeing into the

room, he would seat himself in the bay-window; from there he would gaze

at me moodily without a word, with his knees spread apart, and his podgy

hands clasped together. Sometimes I would doze while he watched me and

would awake to find him still there, his position unaltered. One thing I

noticed; Vi and he were never in my room together.

In these first days, which slipped by uncounted, I realized that I had

been very near to death. It seemed to me that my spirit still hovered on

the borderland and looked back across the boundary half-regretful. I had

the feeling that life was a thing apart from me--something which I was

unanxious to share. All these people came and went, but I could not

respond to them. I desired only to be undisturbed.

Several times I had heard the shrill piping voice of Dorrie and the long

low _hush_ of someone warning her to speak less loudly. She would come

to the door many times in the day, inquiring impatiently whether I were

better. Sometimes she would leave flowers, which the nurse would put in

water and set down by the side of my bed. I would watch them dreamily,

saying to myself, “Dorrie’s flowers.”

One afternoon I heard her voice at the door, asking “Nurth, how ith

Dante?” The nurse had left the room for a moment, so no one answered

her question. I heard the door pushed wider, and stealthy feet slipping

across the carpet. Round the edge of the screen came the excited face

and little shining head. I held out my hand to her and tried to speak.

Then I tried again and whispered, “Dorrie! Dorrie darling!”

She took my hand in both her small ones, trying to mask the fear which

my changed appearance caused her. “Dear Dante,” she whispered, “I’m tho

thorry.”

“Kiss me, Dorrie,” I said.

“Dear Dante, you’ll get better, won’t you? For my thake, Dante! Then

we’ll play together, like we uthed to.” Tears trickled down her flushed

cheeks as she questioned.

As her soft lips brushed me and her silky curls fell about my forehead,

I felt for the first time that my grip on life was coming back. Lying

there thinking things over confusedly, it had seemed hardly worth while

trying to get better. It seemed worth while, now that I was reminded

that there was such beautiful innocence as Dorrie’s in the world.

When the nurse came back a few moments later, she shook her head at

Dorrie reproachfully and tried to take her away from me.

“But he wanths me,” cried Dorrie in self-defense, and I kept fast hold

of her.

After that I began to gather strength. I noticed that as I threw off my

lethargy, Vi’s visits grew less frequent. When she came her manner

was restrained; she entered hurriedly and made it appear that her only

reason for coming was to confer with the nurse. At first I would follow

her about with my eyes; but when I found how much it embarrassed her, I

pretended to be dozing when I heard her enter.

I could not understand how I came to be in Randall Carpenter’s house. I

dared not ask Vi or her husband; my presence implied too much already. I

was afraid to ask the nurse; I did not know how much I should be telling

by my question. There seemed to be a polite conspiracy of silence

against me. I wondered where it would all end.

I had grown to like the old doctor. He was a shrewd, wise, serious man.

He never spoke a word of religion, yet he made his religion felt by his

kindness. As he went about his work, he would become chatty, trying

to rouse my interest. He spoke a good deal about himself and told me

anecdotes of scenes which he had lived through in the War, when he had

been a surgeon in the Northern army. Out of his old tired eyes he would

watch me narrowly; I began to feel that he understood.

One day I whispered to him to send away the nurse. He invented an errand

for her, saying that he would stay with me till she returned. When she

had gone, he closed the door carefully and came and sat down on the side

of the bed. “Now, what is it, my boy?”

“What happened, doctor?”

He pursed his lips judicially and looked away from me for a full minute,

as though he would escape answering; then his eyes came back and I saw

that he was going to tell.

“I reckoned you’d be asking that question,” he said.

“The morning that you figured to sail, you were taken sick at the Misses

Januaries’. You were mighty bad when they sent for me; you had pneumonia

and a touch of brain-fever. It’s a close call you’ve had. I found you

wandering in your head--and saying things.”

“Things, doctor? Things that I wouldn’t want heard?”

He nodded gravely. “No one in Sheba knew anything about you. I saw that

you were in for a long spell, and that the Misses Januaries’ was no

place for you to get proper nursing.”

He halted awkwardly. “Then I came to Randall and told him.”

“Had I mentioned him in my delirium?”

“You’d mentioned her.”

I could feel the warm flush of color spreading through my body and

turned away my head. The old doctor gripped my hand. “That’s how it

happened, I guess.” Little by little he told me about Randall Carpenter.

During the first days of crisis he had scarcely gone to bed, but had

paced the house, always returning to my bedroom door to see if he could

be of any service.

“But, why should he care?” I questioned.

“Because she cared, I guess. He’s so fond of her that he wants to do

more than ever she could ask him. And then, Randall’s a mighty just man,

and he’s always most just when he’s most tempted.”

He looked down at me sidelong and silence fell between us. It was broken

by the footfall of the nurse along the passage. I asked him quickly when

I should be well enough to be moved.

“You’re some better now, but we mustn’t think of moving you yet, though,

of course, you must go at the earliest.” Towards midnight the nurse took

my temperature. I saw that she was surprised, for she took it a second

time. “Have you any pain?” she asked me.

Randall Carpenter came in and they went away together. I lay staring up

at the ceiling, my hands clenched and my eyes burning. They all knew; I

alone was ignorant of what things I had said.

A carriage came bowling up the driveway. I recognized whose it was, for

I had become familiar with the horse’s step. The doctor came into the

room; as he bent over me our eyes met. I clutched his arm and he stooped

lower. “Stay and talk with me,” I whispered. “You all look at me and

none of you will tell me. I can’t bear it--can’t bear it any longer.”

“What can’t you bear?”

“Not knowing.”

When he had told them that there was no change for the worse and had

sent them back to bed, he came and sat down beside me. The lights in the

room were extinguished, save for a reading lamp in a far corner where

the nurse had been sitting.

“I guess something’s troubling you. Take your time and tell me slowly.

I’ll sure help you, if I can.”

“Doctor, you know about me and Mrs. Carpenter?”

“I reckon you’re sort of fond of her--is that it?”

I buried my face against the cool pillow. I dared not look at him, but

he signaled me courage with the pressure of his hand.

“More than fond, that’s why I came to Sheba. I didn’t mean to let her

know that I’d ever been here; that last evening we met by accident. I

was a fool to have come. I’ve been unfair to her--unfair to everybody.”

He did not answer me; he could not deny my assertion.

“You remember what you said this afternoon--that I let things out in my

delirium. I want to know what they were. I’ve been trying to remember;

but it all comes wild and confused. Tell me, did I say anything that

would make her ashamed of me--anything that would make her hate me?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that would make her hate you. Perhaps,

that’s the worst of it.”

“Well then, anything that would damage her reputation? Was I brought

here only to prevent strangers from listening to what I said, just as

you’d shut a mad dog up for safety?”

In my feverish suspense, I gained sudden strength and raised myself up

on my elbow to face him. He patted me gently on the shoulder, saying,

“Lie down; it’s a sick man’s fancy. You’re guessing wide of the mark--it

was nothing such as that.” He tucked me up and smoothed out the sheets.

“Now stay still and I’ll tell you. You were calling for her when I

came to you. At first we didn’t know what you meant; then you mentioned

Dorrie. Only Miss Priscilla and I heard what you were saying; you can

trust Miss Priscilla not to speak about it. I let Randall know and

he brought his wife over with him. Directly she touched you, you grew

quiet. It was Randall suggested you being brought here; he was sorry for

you and it was kindness made him do it. All through your illness till

you came to yourself, Mrs. Carpenter sat by you; whenever she left you,

you grew restless. She and her husband saved your life, I guess.”

“But what makes them all so strange to me now?”

He fidgeted and cleared his throat. “It’s the truth I’m wanting,” I

urged.

“Randall saw what she meant to you.”

“Anything else?”

“And what you meant to her.”

Against my will a wave of joy throbbed through me. I felt like sobbing

from relief and happiness. Then a clear vision of the reality came

to me--the great silent man who stared at me for hours, and the

high-spirited woman, so suddenly grown timid, stealing in and out the

room with averted eyes in pallid meekness.

“What ought I to do?” My voice choked me as I asked it.

He turned his wise, care-wrinkled face towards me gravely. “I’m

wondering,” he said. “There’s only one thing to do--ask God about it.

You did wrong in coming--there’s no disguising that. But the good God’s

spared you. He knows what He means you to do. I’m an old fellow, and

I’ve seen a heap of suffering and trouble. I’ve seen men die on the

battlefield, and I’ve seen ’em go under when it was least expected. I

don’t know how I’d have come through, if I hadn’t believed God knew what

He was doing. I guess if He’d been lazy, like me and you, He’d just have

let you slip out, ’cause it seemed easiest. But He hasn’t, and He knows

why He hasn’t. I’d just leave it in His hands.”

Long after he had ceased to speak, I lay thinking of his words--thinking

how simple life would be if God were exactly like this old man. Then

I began to hope that He might be--a kind of doctor of sick souls, who

would get up out of bed and come driving through the night without

complaining, just to bring quiet to sinful people like myself. I closed

my eyes, trying to think that God sat beside me. Some time must have

elapsed, but when I looked round the doctor was still there. His head

was bowed forward from his bent shoulders, nodding.

“You’re tired. I can sleep now.”

He awoke with a jerk. His last words to me before he left were, “Just

leave it in His hands.”

From then on there was a changed atmosphere in the house. We had all

been afraid of one another and of one another’s misunderstandings.

When Dorrie had gone to bed, Vi would sit within the circle of the lamp

and read to me while I lay back on my pillows in the shadows, watching

how the gold light broke about her face and hands. She was always doing

something, either reading or sewing, as though when we were alone she

were afraid to trust herself.

One evening she said to me, “You haven’t asked if there are any

letters.”

“I wasn’t expecting any.”

“Weren’t expecting any! Why not?”

“Because none of my friends know that I’ve come to Sheba.”

She drew her face back from the lamp; her sewing fell from her hands. My

words had reminded us both of the guilty situation which lay unchanged

behind our present attitude.

It was she who broke the silence. “When you were taken ill I wrote

Ruthita and told her--and told her that you were being nursed in our

house.”

She brought me my letters and then made an excuse to leave me to myself.

My father had written; so had the Snow Lady. After expressing concern

for my health, the tone of their letters became constrained and

unnatural; they refrained from accusing me, but they had guessed.

Ruthita’s was an awkward, shamefaced little note--it puzzled me by

omitting to say anything of Halloway.

More and more after this Vi showed fear of being left alone with me; any

moment a slip of the tongue might betray our passion. Frequently during

the evening hours Mr. Carpenter would join us. He would steal into the

room while Vi was reading and sit down by my bedside. I began to

have great sympathy for the man. Vi’s actions to him were those of a

daughter, and he, when he addressed her, called her “My child.” Both

their attitudes to one another were wrong--it hurt me to watch them;

they made such efforts to create the impression that everything was

well. Sitting beside me while she read, he would fasten his eyes on

her. If she smiled across at him in turning a page, his heavy face would

flood with a quite disproportionate joy. He was too fine a man for the

part he was playing; he had strength of character and mastery over men.

Along his own lines he had a wonderful mind. It was always scheming for

efficiency, concentration, and bigger projects. If money was the reward

of his energy, the desire for power impelled him. But I could quite

understand how a woman might yearn for more human interests and more

subtle methods of conveying affection than the mere piling of luxury on

luxury. He could articulate his deepest emotions only in acts.

One evening when Vi had excused herself on the ground that she had

a headache, I took the opportunity to thank him for his kindness. He

became as confused as if I had discovered him in a lie.

“My dear boy, you mustn’t speak to me like that; you don’t owe me

anything. It is I who owe you everything.”

I was staggered by his disclaimer. Under existing circumstances it

seemed a superlative extravagance of language. Then he explained, “If it

hadn’t been for you, we shouldn’t have Vi.”

It was the first reference that any of us had made to what had happened

at Ransby.

After that Randall Carpenter and I grew to be friends. We didn’t do much

talking about it, but we each realized how the other felt....

I was almost sufficiently recovered to travel. I broached the subject of

my leaving several times--the first time at breakfast. Randall

glanced up sharply from the letter he was opening--his expression

clouded--instead of looking at me he stared at Vi. “Certainly not.

Certainly not,” he blustered. “Couldn’t hear of it.”

Dorrie added her piping protest. Vi alone was silent. Every time I

approached the subject it was the same. The truth was our relations were

so delicately balanced that the slightest disturbance would precipitate

a crisis--and the crisis we dreaded. We each one knew that the time for

frank speaking could scarcely be avoided, but we were eager to postpone

it. So we procrastinated, lengthening out our respite.

One afternoon I returned with Randall from a drive to find Vi waiting

for us at the gate. Her face was drawn with anxiety.

“What’s happened?” asked Randall, and the sharpness of suspense was in

his voice.

Vi handed me a cable. It was my recall--we all knew that. I ripped

the envelope in haste; what I read, strange to say, caused me no

elation--only the bitterness of finality. I raised my eyes; they were

both staring at me. “My grandfather’s dead. His will’s in my favor. I

must return to England immediately.”

They received the news as though a blow had fallen. Vi crept in and out

the rooms with a masked expression of unspoken tragedy. Dorrie caused

frequent embarrassment by her coaxing attempts to make me promise to

visit them again. Nevertheless, when she had gone to bed and we no

longer had her to distract us, we would pass more painful hours in

inventing small talk to tide us over dangerous topics.

The night before I sailed, we kept Dorrie up till she fell asleep

against me. Her innocence was a barrier between us. When she had been

carried to bed, Vi sat down to the piano and sang, while we two men

glowered desperately before the fire. I dared not watch her; I could not

bear the pain that was in her eyes. As I listened, I knew that her chief

difficulty in selections was what to avoid. We were in a mood to read

into everything a sentimental interpretation.

There were long pauses between her playing, during which no one spoke

and the only sound to be heard was the falling of ashes in the grate.

The way in which we were grouped seemed symbolic--she at the piano apart

from us, while we were side by side; by loving her, we had pushed her

out of both our lives. Randall turned querulously in his chair, “Why

don’t you go on playing, my child?”

Several times she half-commenced an air and broke off. Her voice was

a blind thing, tottering down an endless passage. For a horrid minute

there was dead silence--quivering suspense; then the keys crashed

discordantly as she gave way to a storm of weeping.

She rose with an appealing gesture, and slipped out. We heard her

footsteps trailing up the stairs, her door close, and then stillness.

I shuddered as though a window had been flung open behind me and a

cold wind blew across my back. The man at my side huddled down into his

chair; his fleshy face had lost its firmness; his eyes, like a statue’s,

seemed without pupils. The moment which we had dreaded and postponed had

arrived.

Randall followed her into the hall; he came back, shutting the door

carefully behind him. There was slow decision in his voice when he said,

“After all, we’ve got to speak about it.”

He sank down, his cheeks blotchy and his hands quivering as with palsy.

When he spoke, he tried to make his voice steady and matter-of-fact. It

was as though he were saying, “We’ve got to be commonsense, we men of

the world. We knew this would happen. There’s nothing to be gained by

losing our nerves.”

This is what he actually said, “It isn’t her fault. You and I are to

blame.”

“Not you,” I protested. “It’s I who’ve behaved abominably.”

He shifted in his chair; struck a match; raised it part way to his cigar

and let it flicker out. Without looking at me he answered, “We shan’t

gain anything by quarreling over who’s to blame. We’ve got her into a

mess between us--it’s up to us to get her out.”

“But you didn’t----”

He flung out his arm in irritation. “Don’t waste words. I married her

when she was too young to know what marriage meant; I loved her and

supposed that nothing else mattered. That’s my share. You made love to

my wife and followed her to Sheba. That’s yours. We’ve got her into a

mess between us, and we’ve got to get her out.”

He waited for me to make a suggestion; I was too much taken aback. We

couldn’t get her out; we could only help her to endure it. We both knew

that--so why discuss it?

Turning his head and staring hard at me, he continued, “There’s only one

thing to be considered--_her happiness_.”

“Perhaps she’ll forget when I’m gone,” I ventured.

“She won’t and you know it.”

He barked the words. His manner was losing its air of tired patience.

“See here, Cardover, you and I have got to get down to facts. We don’t

help one another by fooling ourselves. You went out of her life for a

year; she didn’t forget. It’s different now; you’ve been with her in this

house and everything will remind her of you. What are we going to do

about it?”

He repeated his question harshly, as though demanding an instant answer.

What could I tell him?

He broke the miserable silence. “Ever since you talked of leaving,

I’ve been studying this thing out. I knew we’d have to face it, and yet

somehow I hoped---- Never mind what I hoped. So you’ve nothing to say?

You can’t guess what I’m driving at?”

I shook my head.

His face became haggard and stern; only the twitching of the eye-lids

betrayed his nervousness.

“I’d give anything to see Vi happy. So would you--isn’t that correct?”

He darted a challenging look in my direction. “I’d give all I possess,

I say, factories, banks, good name, popularity. She’s more to me than

anything in the world.” Then reluctantly forcing himself to speak the

words, “There’s only one way out--only one way to make her happy.”

He leant forward, clutching my knee. “You must have her.”

I drew back from him amazed, startled out of my self-possession. There

was something so horribly commonsense about his offer; I could not take

him seriously for the moment. He was tempting me, perhaps, in order

that he might find out just how far Vi and I had gone together--he might

easily suspect that things had happened during that summer at Ransby

which had not been confessed.

Now as I met his cold gray eyes, I felt his power. His face was

inscrutable and set, his mouth relentless. I had often wondered as I

had watched him in his home-life what stern qualities his amiability

disguised--qualities which would account for his business success. I

knew now: here was a man who could state facts in their nudity and strip

problems of their sentiment--a man who could lay aside feeling and act

with the cruelty of logic.

“You must have her,” he repeated.

“Randall,” I broke out hoarsely, “you don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it.”

“She wouldn’t allow it.”

“She’d have to if I forced her; when I’d forced her, she’d be glad.”

“But it’s impossible. It isn’t honorable.”

“Honorable! If we’d been honorable, you and I, this wouldn’t have

happened.”

“But think what people would say?”

“What people would say doesn’t matter. There are some things which go so

deep that they concern only ourselves.”

“But Vi--before ever we decide anything, it would be honest to consult

her.”

“You had her decision to-night.” He spoke bitterly, with settled

finality. “You see it’s this way: I’ve tried to make her happy; because

of you I never shall. She wants you; she’s a right to have you.”

The fire had all but gone out; the room had grown chilly. We sat without

talking, thinking of her, reviewing the brutal cruelties of life. I had

reached the logical goal of my desire--the impossible had happened.

I let my fancy run a little way ahead, picturing the first freshness of

the days that were coming. Far away, with faery sounds, bugles of the

future were blowing. I was recalled to the ominous present by the frozen

hopelessness of this just man. We were placing society at defiance; we

were settling our problem on grounds of individual expediency. Would we

have strength to be happy in spite of condemnation? Would our conception

of what was just to Vi prove just in the end?

I began to waver. I thought I saw what had happened to Randall--the

tension of the last weeks had wrought upon his nerves. He had brooded

over the situation till remorse for his own share in it had made him

lose his regard for social standards. There was a tinge of insanity

about this quixotic determination to sacrifice himself.

I went over to the fireplace and pulled the smoldering logs together,

so that they broke into a feeble flame. I did it leisurely to gain time.

With my back towards him I inquired, “Have you reckoned the cost of all

this?”

“Probably.”

“But the cost to yourself?”

“As far as I can.”

“You can’t have. You wouldn’t propose it if you had. You know what’ll be

said.”

“What’ll be said?”

“That you wanted to get rid of her and that that was why you took me

into your house.”

“Leave me out of it. If love means anything, it means sacrifice. I love

her; you’ve come between us. My love’s injuring her now, and I’m not

going to see you spoil her life by going away without her.”

“But she’ll spoil her life if she goes with me. People----”

“People! Well, what’ll they say about her?”

“Everything defiling that hasn’t occurred.”

“And _you_ think that we ought to keep her miserable just because of

that--out of fear of tittle-tattle? If she stays with me she’ll be

wretched; I shall have to watch myself torturing her--paining her even

with my affection. If she goes with you----”

“If she goes with me she’ll become a social outcast. She couldn’t bear

that; she’d sink under it. No, Randall, we can’t decide this matter

as if it concerned only ourselves. It doesn’t. There are all kinds

of things involved in it. I’ve been your guest, and you’ve become my

friend. We’d look low-down in other people’s eyes. You want her to be

happy--none of us could ever be that if we did what you suggest. Don’t

you see that you’d be the only one who was playing a decent part? Vi’s

part and mine would be contemptible. We’d appear treacherous even to

ourselves. As for other people----!! You take me into your house when

I’m sick, and I run off with your wife! It can’t be done, Randall.”

“But that’s not what I’m proposing,” he said quietly; “I don’t want you

to run away together.”

“What then?”

“I’ll arrange that she shall divorce me. I’ve consulted lawyers.

According to the laws of Massachusetts an absolute divorce, which would

permit you to marry her within a reasonable time, is only granted on

one ground. I’ll provide her with fictitious evidence. She can bring the

case against me and I’ll let it go uncontested. She can win her freedom

respectably without your name being mentioned.”

My position was elaborately false. I wanted her with every atom of my

body, and here was I contending that I would not have her. At Ransby I

had been willing to steal her, and now she was offered me; but I had not

seen how much she meant to Randall then--at that time he was a hostile

figure in my imagination.

His unselfishness filled me with shame that I had ever thought to wrong

him. And yet the thing which he proposed was the inevitable consequence

of our actions; his cold reasoning had discerned that. If facts were as

he had stated them, what other way was there out?

“You agree, then?”

“I don’t. You’d save our faces for us, but what d’you suppose we’d think

of ourselves? The thing’s not decent. People don’t do things like that.

Men can run off with other men’s wives and still respect themselves;

if they did what you suggest--take the husband’s happiness and his good

name as well--they’d know what to call themselves, though no one else

suspected.”

“What’s that?”

“Blackguards.”

“So in your opinion it’s worse to take a wife with her husband’s consent

than to steal her? Humph!”

He leant across the table for a cigar. With great deliberation he

cut the end. When it was well alight, he thrust his thumbs into his

waistcoat pockets, looking me up and down. When he spoke, he left gaps

between his words. There was the rumble of suppressed anger in what he

said.

“I thought you were a strong man, Cardover, or I shouldn’t have spoken

to you the way I have. You fell in love with my wife without knowing

she was married; I don’t blame you for that. But after you knew, you

followed her--followed her to her home-town. You’ve made an impossible

situation. You can’t leave it at that; you’ve got to help out, and,

by God, you shall. I’ve got to lose her and stand the disgrace of it.

You’ve got to lose your self-respect. What d’you think life is, anyhow?

If you gamble, you incur debts. We’re going to play this game to a

finish. You talk of decency and honor; you should have thought of them

earlier. You came here to rob me of my wife; well, now I’m going to

give her to you because she can’t do without you. And now, out of

consideration for me, you want to crawl out at the last minute. Your

crawling out may save appearances, but it don’t alter facts. You’re

something worse than a blackguard--a quitter.”

He drew in his breath as if he were about to strike; then he flung out

his fist, shaking it at me. “Don’t you want her?”

“You know I want her.”

“Then what’s the matter? Are you afraid of the price?”

“The price she’d have to pay and you’d have to pay--yes.”

He frowned. His face was puckered with suspicion. “Isn’t it that you’re

afraid for yourself?”

The heat of his anger scorched me. I had watched this interpretation of

my conduct taking shape under my repeated refusals.

“I’ve been accused of counting the cost before to-day,” I said. “I’m not

counting the cost now. I’m thinking of Vi with her clean standards

and her sense of duty. If she were the woman to consent to what you’re

proposing, I wouldn’t want to marry her and you wouldn’t be willing to

sacrifice yourself for her. But she won’t consent, and I won’t consent.”

Lurching heavily to his feet, he stood over me threateningly. “Don’t you

know I can force you? If I divorced her you’d have to marry her.”

“But you won’t.”

“But I would if I thought it was only for my sake you were refusing.”

“It’s only partly for your sake.”

“Why, then?”

“I’ve shared your hospitality.”

“And because of that you won’t take her?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll make you---- For the last time, will you take her?”

“Not on those terms.”

Our voices had risen. A silence followed. Behind us we heard a sound.

The temperature of the room seemed lowered, as though something we had

killed had entered.

Turning, we saw Vi standing in the doorway. Her hair fell loose about

her shoulders. She was thinly clad and had risen hastily from bed. Our

quarrel must have reached her through the silent house. Her face was

pinched and pitiful. As she watched us her eyes searched Randall’s in

terror and her hands plucked at her breasts.

How much had she heard? How long had she been standing there? Did she

know how we had been degrading her? What had she gathered from my last

words? She had found us haggling over her as though she were a chattel,

each one trying to force the other to accept her, neither showing any

sign that he desired her for himself. In the chilly room we shivered,

hanging our heads.

Slowly she crossed the room. Her eyes were fixed on Randall; for all the

attention she paid me, I might not have been there.

“You didn’t mean it. You can’t have meant it.”

He lifted his head weakly, in one last effort to be firm.

“But I did, Vi. It’s for your sake--for your happiness.”

She flung her arms about him, holding him to her though he tried to draw

back.

“But you forgot----”

“I forgot nothing.”

“You did--there’s Dorrie.”

She buried her head on his shoulder, sobbing her heart out. He eyed

me sullenly. He looked an old man. Awkwardly, with a gesture that was

afraid of its tenderness, he let his hand wander across her hair. She

raised her face to his, clinging against him, and kissed him on the

mouth.

They traversed the room, going from me; their footsteps died out upon

the stairs.

Never once had she looked at me.

In the grayness of the morning, before the servants had begun to stir, I

packed my bag and left.

BOOK IV--THE FRUIT OF THE GARDEN

_Thou hast been in Eden. Thou shalt eat the fruit of thy doings, yea,

even the fruit of thy thoughts._

CHAPTER I--THE HOME-COMING

Leaving the hansom at the foot of Pope Lane and carrying my bags, I

walked up the avenue of limes. The wantonness of spring was in the air

and its melancholy. Above the high walls the golden hurry of the sunset

quivered. A breeze tore past me down the passage, twisting and turning

like a madcap ballet-dancer. Overhead in the young greenness of

the trees a host of sparrows fluttered, impudently publishing their

love-making.

At Plymouth on landing I had been met by letters from my lawyers and

from Uncle Obad. They were addressed to Sir Dante Cardover. It was

rather pleasant to be addressed as Sir Dante; until then I had not

realized my luck. The memory of that last night at Sheba had numbed

my faculties and taken my future from me. But now, with the thought of

Woadley, life began to weave itself into a new pattern.

On the run up to London, as the quiet of English landscapes and the

greenness of English meadows drifted by, I lost my bitter sense of

isolation: I belonged to this; it was part of me. At the same time, the

impassive wholesomeness of English faces awoke me in a strange way to

the enormity of what I had done. It was odd how far I had wandered from

old traditions and old landmarks in the delirium of the past two years.

Even I was a little scandalized by some of my recollections.

Next day I purposed to go down to Woadley; to-night I would spend with

my father at Pope Lane. There were explanations to be made; explanations

where my father was concerned, were never comfortable. I walked with a

pebble in my shoe till I had got them over. I had sure proof that he was

annoyed, for none of my letters, written to him since my recovery, had

been answered.

Thrusting my hand into the creeper, I found the knob. Far away at the

back of the house the bell tinkled; after an interval footsteps shuffled

down the path. The door opened cautiously; in the slit it made I saw the

face of Hetty. There was something in its expression that warned me.

“Father at home?” I asked cheerfully, pushing forward.

“Master Dante, or Sir Dante as I should say, don’t you go for to see

’im.”

“Why not?”

“’E’s bitter against you.”

“What nonsense! Here, take one of these bags. Why should he be bitter

against me?”

She crumpled her apron nervously. “’Cause of ’er--the woman in

Ameriky. I don’t know the rights of it, but ’e’s ’ardly spoke your

name since.”

“But I’ve come to see him. I’ve only just landed.”

She stared at me gloomily, barring the entrance. Across her shoulder I

could see the path winding round the house and down to the garden where

everything was familiar. Once I had longed to leave it! How much I would

now give to get back! The leaves shivered, making patches of sunlight

move like gold checkers, pushed forward and backward on the lawn. My

mind keenly visualized all the details that lay out of sight. I knew

just how my father must look sitting writing at his study-window. I

ought to have told him; he might have understood. But the barrier of

reticence had always divided us.

“If I was you, Sir Dante, I’d go away and write ’im. I’ll see that

’e reads it this time. Yes I will, if I loses my plaice.”

“_This time?_”

Her cheeks went crimson. “’E didn’t read the letters you sent

after ’ers. ’E tossed ’em aside.”

“But the Snow Lady and Ruthie, they’ll see me.”

She looked furtively over her shoulder at the house, then she slipped

out into the lane beside me, almost closing the door.

“There ain’t no Miss Ruthie now,” she said sadly. Then, in a voice which

betrayed pride, “She’s Lady Halloway. ’Is Lordship, ’e were a wery

’ot lover, ’e were--wouldn’t take no for an answer and suchlike.

After you’d gone away angry and no one knew where you’d gone, Miss

Ruthie felt kind o’ flat; but she kept on sayin’ no to ’is Lordship,

though she was always cryin’. Then that letter came from Americky. It

kind o’ took us by surprise; Miss Ruthie especially. We felt--well,

you know, sir--disrespectable. So she gave way like, and now she’s Lady

Halloway. And there you are. We’ve ’ad a ’eap of trouble.”

Little Ruthie the wife of that man! I had made them unrespectable, so

she had rectified my mistake by marrying the father of Lottie’s child!

“You’d better write.”

She had edged herself into the garden and held the door at

closing-point. I could see the house no longer. Her head looked out

through the slit as though it had no body. I was sick and angry--angry

because of Ruthita. Anger restored my determination. They should not

condemn me without a hearing; their morality was stucco-fronted--a cheap

imitation of righteousness.

I pushed roughly past Hetty like an insolent peddler, and left her

bleating protests behind. In the hall I dropped my bags and entered my

father’s study unannounced.

He glanced up from under the hand with which his eyes were shaded. His

mouth straightened. He went on with his writing, feigning that he had

not heard me enter. I remembered the trick well--as a boy it had made

punishment the more impressive. It was done for that purpose now; he had

never accustomed himself to think of me as a grown man.

I watched him. How lean, and threadbare, and overworked he looked! How

he tyrannized over himself! The hair had grown thin about the temples;

his eyes were weak, his forehead lined. He had disciplined joy out of

his life. But there was something big about him--a stern forcefulness of

character which came of long years of iron purpose. He had failed, but

he would not acknowledge his failure. All these years his daily routine

of drudgery had remained unchanged. Outside the spring was stirring,

just as it had stirred in his children’s lives. But his windows were

shut against the spring because he had to earn his daily bread. The

anger I had felt turned to pity. He was so lonely in his strength. Had

he been weaker, he would have been happier.

“You did not want to see me?”

He blotted his page carefully and laid aside his pen. “I had good

reason.” His voice was cold and tired.

“You can’t judge of that; you haven’t heard.”

“I can conjecture.”

“But I have at least the right to explain. You can’t conjecture the

details that led up to it.”

“These things are usually led up to by the same details. All I know is

that any meeting between us now can only cause pain, and I cannot afford

to be upset. You have your standards of honor; I have mine. Evidently

they are divergent. You didn’t give me your confidence before you

sailed; I don’t invite it now.”

He had allowed me to remain standing, making me feel my intrusion on his

privacy. I had always felt that in talking to him I was keeping him from

his work. My mind went back to the fear with which I had entered his

study in the old days. And this was the end of it.

“You can never have cared much for me,” I threw out bitterly, “if you

can break with me so lightly.”

His pale face flushed; his distant manner broke down. “How should you

know how much I cared?”

“How should I know! All my life you’ve been silent and there were

times----”

He interrupted. “It is because I cared so much. I was so anxious for you

and wanted you to do so well. I’m not demonstrative. I always hoped that

we might be friends. But you never came to me with your troubles from a

little chap, anyone was better than your father--servants, your Uncle

Spreckles, Ruthita, anybody. With me you were dumb.”

“You never encouraged my confidence and now you condemn me unheard.

Silence between us has become a habit.”

He stabbed the blotting-paper with his pen. His emotions were stirred;

he was afraid he might betray them. So he spoke hurriedly. “It’s too

late to cover old ground. We’ve drifted apart, that’s certain--and now

this has happened... this disgrace... this adultery of thoughts... this

lust for a married woman.”

I walked across to the window and drummed upon the panes. Across the

garden a soft gray dusk was falling. Along those paths Ruthita and I

had played; the garden was empty and very lonely. Scene after scene came

back, made kindly by distance. I turned. “Father, I’m not going to let

you turn me out until you know all about it. For the first time you’ve

told me frankly that you wanted me. I was always frightened as a little

chap.”

Instead of taking me up angrily as I expected, he spoke gently. “Why

shouldn’t I want you? I thought you’d understand by the way I worked.

Sit down, boy; why are you standing? How... how did it happen?”

The Snow Lady rapped on the door and almost entered. My father signed to

her to go away, saying that we would come to her later. Then I told him.

And while I told him I kept thinking how strange it was that until now,

when we had quarreled, we should never have found one another, but, like

two people eager to meet, had walked always at the same pace, in the

same direction, out of sight, round and round on opposite sides of the

same house.

It was dark when I finished. He leant out and laid his hand on my arm.

“And now that it’s all ended, we can make a new start together.”

“It may not be all ended.”

“But it is. You’re not going to tell me that you’re still hankering

after a married woman?”

“I am.”

The kindness went from his voice. He rang the bell, waited in silence

till Hetty brought the lamp, and took it from her at the door to prevent

her entering.

“You say it isn’t ended, this criminal folly. I can’t conceive what

you mean by it. One of these days you’ll drag my name through the

dirt. There are other people to consider besides yourself. There’s

Ruthita--her husband’s sensitive already. In fact, he doesn’t want to

meet you, and he doesn’t want you to meet her. What it comes to is this:

we can’t be friends unless you give this woman up absolutely.”

“It’s not possible. Randall threatened to divorce her. If he does, it

will be that I may marry her. I shall have to marry her, and I shall be

jolly glad to marry her. What has happened since I left I can’t tell.

Until I know, I hold myself prepared. So I can’t promise anything.”

“The choice is between her and your family.”

“I choose her.”

“Then until you’ve come to your senses, there can be no communication

between us.”

He sat down noisily at his desk. “You’ll excuse me; there’s nothing more

to be said.”

When I still waited, he took up his pen. “I have an article here that I

must get finished.”

I walked slowly down the lane. The door swung to behind me. I felt

that I was seeing this for the last time. All the old, trivial, sweet

associations came thronging back: the dying affections, the lost

innocence which had seemed so permanent, stretched out hands to restrain

me. Even Hetty had condemned; it was written in her face. Long ago Hetty

and I had viewed the world from the same angle, we had criticised and

schemed against our tyrants together. The chapter of home life was

ended. Whatever happened as regards Vi, there could be no going back.

CHAPTER II--DREAM HAVEN

I did not go to Woadley as I had planned. My position was too uncertain

at present for me to venture where further explanations would be

required. My father had made me aware of that. I was unwilling to cover

the same ground of argument with Grandmother Cardover, so I had my

lawyers visit me in London.

Until something had been definitely settled, I did not care to return to

Oxford or to seek out any of my friends; I should at once be called upon

to account for my erratic departure and prolonged absence. So I made

myself inconspicuous in the crowds of London, waiting for some final

word from Sheba. It was quite likely that none would ever come--and that

would be an answer in itself. Yet, now that I had done what had seemed

to me right and had thrust her from me, I hoped against hope that,

somehow, she might come back. I felt that though I might have to wait

for years, I would resolutely wait for her. No other woman could ever

take her place. And none of this could I tell her. She might think that

I had counted the cost and considered it too expensive. She might put

the worst construction on the words she had overheard on that last

night; yet unless she approached me first, I was irrevocably pledged to

silence.

Too late for my peace of mind I recognized my weakness: if I had wanted

her, I should have taken her strongly in the early days and faced

the consequences; now, through making truces with my conscience and

conventions, I had lived so long in thoughts of her that I should always

desire her.

I would like to have gone to Ruthita, but that was forbidden. Lord

Halloway riding the high horse of morality was exceedingly comic, but

I knew exactly how men of his stamp argued: to introduce a questionable

relation into the family was anathema. I wondered continually what

secret causes lay behind Ruthita’s marriage. I felt sure that she had

consented on the impulse, and that love had had nothing to do with it.

The suspicion that I was somehow responsible left me worried.

Spring had reached the point of perfection where it merges into summer.

The tides of life flowed strongly through the dazzling streets of

London; I was too young not to respond to their energy. Everywhere the

persistent hope of spring planted banners of green and set them waving.

Ragged shrubs in decrepit squares bubbled into blossom. Window-boxes

lent a touch of braveness. Water-carts passed up and down parched

streets, settling the dust. In the kind of suburb that walks always with

a hole in its stocking, slatternly maids pressed their bosoms against

area-railings chaffing with butcher-boy or policeman--their idea of

love. Where a street-organ struck up, little children gathered, dancing

in the gutter. Even the sullen Thames, the gray hair of London, was dyed

to gold between the bridges by the splendid sun. The spirit of youth had

invaded the city; flower-girls, shouting raucously above the traffic,

shaking their posies in the face of every comer, seemed heralds of a new

cheerfulness, shaming Despair of his defiance.

This severing of oneself from friendship was dull. Leisurely crowds

laughing along sunlit pavements, made me ache for companionship. I was

in this frame of mind when I chanced to think of Uncle Obad’s letter.

It had met me at Plymouth on my arrival, and bore the characteristically

flamboyant address of _Dream Haven, Dorking._

He must have chosen Dorking as a place of residence because it had

given its name to a famous breed of fowls. Perhaps he thought such a

neighborhood would be propitious to his own experiments. His letter was

brief and to the point: if I could spare the time, he and Aunt Lavinia

would feel honored to entertain me.

Uncle Obad was stilted in his written use of language; he felt _honored_

when he meant to say _jolly well glad_. There was always an obedient

servant ring about the way in which he signed himself. The training he

had undergone as secretary to charitable societies had spoilt him for

familiar letter-writing.

Since the Rapson incident, things had never been quite the same. My

good fortune made him uneasy; it placed a gap between us and, I suppose,

served to emphasize his non-success. Of his new mode of life since

the Christian Boarding House had been abandoned, I had only heard. The

thought of him had lain a dusty memory at the back of my mind--which

made it all the kinder that he should now remember me. Perhaps he had

heard before writing of how Pope Lane had planned to receive me.

As I steamed into the station I hung my head out of the window to catch

first sight of him. Yes, there he was. He had grown stouter; his purple

whiskers which still bristled like shaving-brushes, had faded to a milky

white. He was wearing a long fawn dust-coat which flapped about the

calves of his legs. He carried the old exaggerated air of blustering

importance, but was a trifle more careless in his dress. His

carelessness, however, was now the prosperous untidiness of one who

could afford it. In his lapel he wore a scarlet geranium.

As I stepped out, he came fussily towards me. “Very good of you to come,

I’m sure--kind and very thoughtful.”

It was his pretense manner--the one he adopted with grown-ups. I wanted

to remind him that with me he could take off his armor.

“Still go in for breeding hens?” I asked him.

His face brightened. “I should say so. Our little place is quite a

menagerie. We’ve cats, and dogs, and rabbits, and a parrot. And hens!

Well, I should say so.”

“_And hens_,” I laughed. “Remember the old white hen you gave me? It

laid one egg and then ate it; after that it died.”

“Should have given it gravel or oyster-shells.” Poultryraising was a

subject he never treated lightly. He fussed along beside me, explaining

with his old enthusiasm the mysterious ways of fowls.

Outside the station a dog-cart was standing, with a fat little piebald

pony between the shafts. We stuffed the baggage under the back-seat, and

squeezed into the front together. The pony started off at a smart trot.

“D’you know what this reminds me of?--That first day we spent together.

You remember--when you drove me away from Pope Lane behind Dollie?”

He pulled out his handkerchief and trumpeted. His eyes became dreamy

beneath his bushy brows. “A long time ago! They were good days, but not

as good as these, old chap.”

We fell to remembering. The pony slowed down to a walk. How everything

came back as we talked! And how ripping the old Spuffler had always

been, and how ripping it was to be near him now! He had put aside his

armor of pretense and was talking naturally. We talked together of that

first day when we had met the gipsies in the Surrey woodland, and we

talked of the Red House, and of all the times that we had been happy. A

warm wind fluttered about us. I caught Uncle Obad looking at me fixedly,

dropping his eyes and then looking up again, as though he were trying to

satisfy himself.

“That _Sir_ don’t seem to have spoiled you.”

The red walls of Dorking were left behind. A white chalky road stretched

before us, climbing upward to the skyey downs; over to the left rose a

wooded ridge, somnolent with pines; to the right lay a village-common

across which geese waddled in solemn procession.

Uncle Obad roused himself and shook the reins. “This won’t buy a pair of

shoes for the baby. Aunt Lavinia’s waiting for us; she’s just as keen as

I was to see whether you’ve altered.” Then to the pony, “Gee-up, Toby.”

We turned off into the pine-wood by a narrow roadway. The fragrance of

balsam made me long to close my eyes. At the edge of the road, on either

side, ran a ditch through which water tinkled over gravel. On its banks

grew fern and foxglove. The silent aisles of the wood were carpeted with

the tan of fallen needles. Sunlight, drifting between branches, slashed

golden rags in the olive-tinted shadows. My mind became a blank through

pure enjoyment as I listened to the monologue of gay chatter that was

going on beside me. He was doing for me now just what he had done for me

so often as a child, throwing down the walls of conventional tyrannies

and showing me the road of escape to nature.

Suddenly out of the basking stillness rose a farmyard clamor--cocks

crowing, ducks quacking, and the boastful clucking of hens. We had

reached the top of the ridge and were bowling along the level. Toby

pricked up his ears and quickened his trotting. Round a bend we swung

into sight of a low-thatched house, standing in a clearing. Its windows

were leaded and opened outwards. In front grew a garden, sun-saturated,

riotous with flowers, and partly hidden by a high hawthorn hedge. In the

hedge was a white swing-gate, from which a red-brick path ran up to the

threshold. Across the gate one had a glimpse of beehives standing a-row;

the air was heavy with mingled scents of pine, wild thyme, and honey.

The impression that fastened on my imagination was one of exquisite

cleanliness: the sky, the gleaming chalk road, the white-painted

woodwork of the cottage, everything was dazzlingly spotless.

Our wheels had hardly halted before the gate, when I saw Aunt Lavinia

in the doorway unfastening her apron. Neat and methodical as ever, she

folded it carefully, and laid it on a chair before coming out to us.

“Lavinia, Lavinia! We’re here,” shouted Uncle Obad.

She came down the path, prim and unhurried, determined not to let

herself go. “Repose is refinement” she used to tell me. Nothing in her

manner was ruffled. She still carried herself with a certain grave air

of sweet authority. The rustle of her starched print-dress gave her an

atmosphere of nurse-like austerity. She had not changed, save that the

look of worry had gone from her face, and her eyes were untired.

“It’s glad I am to see you.” She spoke quietly and, when she kissed me,

was careful not to crumple her dress.

“Dignified and graceful--that’s her,” said Uncle Obad.

We had plenty to talk about while we were getting over our first

strangeness. I had to see the house and all its arrangements. My room

was at the back, looking out from the ridge over smoking tree-tops far

away across undulating downs.

Windows and doors were always open, so the passages were blowy with the

dreamy, drowsy smell of green things growing. Creepers tumbled across

sills; leaves tapped whenever the breeze stirred them; pigeons flew

into the dining-room at meal-times and perched on Uncle Obad’s shoulder.

Usually everything within a house is man-made. At Dream Haven Nature was

encouraged to tiptoe across the threshold; so bees entered humming,

and blackbirds came for grain to the windows, and all day long the wild

things were sending their ambassadors. Beating wings of birds and cooing

of doves filled one’s ears with the peace and adventure of contentment.

These were the recreations of Dream Haven, but its stern business, as

one might suppose, was the raising of fowls. At the back of the cottage

on a southern slope were arranged coops, and pens, and houses, gleaming

white against the golden gravel like a miniature military encampment.

Each pen had its trumpeter, who strode forth at intervals to raise his

challenge; whereupon every male in camp tried to outdo him, from the

youngest stripling, whose shrill falsetto broke like a boy’s voice in

the middle, to the deep, rich tones of the oldest campaigner. Falsetto,

tenor, bass, baritone shook the stillness like an army on the

march, with rattle of accoutrements, and brass-bands playing,

_cock-a-doodle-doo, cock-a-doodle-doo_.

In the hush that followed from far away, as from scattered detachments

replying, came the counter-sign. Below the ridge in the village on the

downs every rooster felt his reputation endangered. In farmhouses out

of sight the challenge was caught up and the boast flung back. To one

listening intently, the clamor could be heard spreading across the

countryside till it spent itself at last in the hazy distance.

Then the ladies of the camp commenced their flatteries,

_tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck, our men did best, our men did best_.

Uncle Obad took childish delight in the comedy; he knew the voice of

each male bird in his yard and the sequence of precedence in which they

should aspire. If they got out of order, he would recognize at once

which cockerel was trying to oust his senior. If the ambitious fellow

was one of his experiments in crossing strains, he was vastly tickled.

To him they all had their personalities; he used to say that a

poultry-yard could teach you a whole lot about humans.

“Why don’t you men go out for a walk?” said Aunt Lavinia; “I’m sure

Dante would like to look about.”

She knew that we had always had our secrets. It was seven o’clock; there

were still some hours of daylight. We set off through the poultry-runs

down the hillside till we came to the edge of the clearing; Uncle Obad

looked round furtively to make sure that we were unobserved, then he

beckoned and slipped behind a shed. There he sat down with his back

against the warm wooden wall and we lit our pipes. “She makes me take

exercise now,” he grunted between puffs; “thinks I’m getting fat.”

“Perhaps she’s right. Aunt Lavinia’s always been right ever since I can

remember.”

“I should say so. She doesn’t look it, but she’s always worn the

trousers, and small blame to her. But she was wrong once.”

“When was that?”

He narrowed his eyes and watched the smoke curl up into the velvet air.

When it had drifted a few yards away, one could imagine that it was a

galleon cloud sailing slowly through infinity. I got to thinking how

much more picturesque the world becomes when we lose our standards of

perspective. Uncle Obad had won his happiness by making small things

important to himself.

He did not answer my question. I was too lazy to trouble him again. The

rich spicy fragrance of woodlands lulled my senses. I watched through a

gap in the trees how the sun’s rays shortened across the downs. All the

out-door world was bathed in tepid light. The fierceness had gone out of

the day.

The Spuffler always made me philosophize; he was a failure, but he had

found a secret. He had known how to discover nooks and crannies in

the persistent present where he could be content. I had lost that fine

faculty for carelessness since I had grown older.

He knocked out his pipe and commenced to refill it. “But she wasn’t

always right,” he chuckled. “I may be only an old knacker, but once

I was righter than her.--What d’you think of all this?” He jerked his

thumb across his shoulder.

“It’s the last word... just what we always dreamt.”

“That’s why I called it Dream Haven. Not so bad for a man of my years

after keeping a Christian Boarding House!”

“Make it pay?”

“Not yet. Don’t need to, by Golly.”

“Don’t need to! How’s that?”

“Business knowledge. Sound judgment. Backing my opinion when the odds

were against me. I doubled up my fists and stood square against the

world.”

“A kind of brave Horatius?”

“Who’s he?”

“Kept the bridge or something. Was a friend of Macaulay.”

“Never heard of him. Did he keep poultry?”

“May have done; he was the kind of man who’d keep anything he laid his

hands on. But how the dickens d’you hang on to this place if it isn’t

paying?”

“Got money. Got money to burn. Got enough to last me to my journey’s end

without earning a penny.”

He was a small boy boasting. What a lot of fun he’d have extracted from

being Squire of Woadley. I wished I might learn how to spuffle; it

so multiplied one’s opportunities for pleasure. But I couldn’t get

as excited as he expected; I had heard him talk this way before on a

certain day at Richmond.

“Did you make it out of the boarding-house?” I inquired incredulously.

He laughed deep down in his throat. “Not exactly. I received an

envelope one morning; inside was a slip of paper on which was written

‘_Compensation for a damaged character_’ There was no address.”

“But there must have been more than that.”

“You bet. There was a banker’s draft. How much for? Guess.”

“Can’t guess.”

“Five thousand pounds.”

“Whoof! One of your charitable bigwigs sent it?”

“Not half. Came from Rapson. That’s what comes of sticking to your

friends. That’s why I say that your Aunt wasn’t always wiser than the

poor old knacker.”

“Mines?”

“So he said. He’s been to see me since then. The way your Aunt Lavinia

treated him was as funny as a cock without feathers.--I always believed

in Rapson.--He had a bad streak though.”

“Which one?”

He passed over my slur. “Women.”

“Kitty?”

“That’s what I meant. He’s sorry now; wishes he’d married her.”

“Humph! If you don’t make your place pay, what are you doing?”

His face took on an expression of intense earnestness.

“Breeding the Spreckles. Remember them, don’t you? I had terrible work

at first; couldn’t make the strain permanent; in the third and fourth

generations it was always going back to the original crossings. Well,

now I’ve done it. Come and look at ’em.”

The old bond was established. His enthusiasm and my response to it swept

aside the misunderstandings of years. I seemed a little boy, following

him into a retreat of impossible glamour. He showed me a pen of

magnificent slate-blue fowls; they had the extra toe of the Dorking, the

drooping comb of the Leghorn, yellow legs of the Game, and full plump

body of the Plymouth Rock. He enumerated their merits, insisted that

I should guess what mixings of blood had gone to their making, and was

delighted when he found I had not forgotten the old knowledge he had

taught me. He was going to enter them at the shows this year, but he was

worried over one point--what name should he call them?

“But you’ve given them their name.”

“I know, I know, old chap; but my conscience troubles me. Yer see, I

shouldn’t have been able to do it if it hadn’t been for Rapson. I think

I ought to call ’em the _Rapsons_.”

“If you feel like that, why don’t you?”

“He won’t let me.”

“Share the glory then. Call ’em _Spreckles_ in public, and _Rapsons_

among ourselves.”

His simple old face lit up. “Believe you’ve solved it.” We returned to

our place by the shed, from which we could watch the haze of evening

drifting across the billowy uplands. In the village at our feet, cattle

were being driven home lowing to the milking. On the common boys were

playing cricket; their laughter came to us softened by distance.

“What made you ask me?” I said.

“Ask you? Ask you what?”

“To come and visit you.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not popular at Pope Lane at present; I believe

you know the reason. Grandmother Cardover must have told Aunt Lavinia

that this was going to happen. That was why you sent that letter to the

ship to meet me.”

He looked shy and awkward, and drew his hat down over his brows; I knew

that he was making up his mind not to answer.

“When I was a boy,” I continued, “I always felt that I could come to

you frankly. You, somehow, understood before anything had been said. I

thought, perhaps, you might have understood this time, and that that was

why you asked me.”

He threw his arm across my shoulder. “I did, old chap. But you’ve grown

older and, since you’ve got all this book-learning and all these grand

friends, I kind o’ felt I was a stranger--thought you didn’t need me

like you used to.”

“My grand friends and book-learning won’t help me this turn,” I grumbled

slowly. “I may need you pretty badly--perhaps, more than ever I did.

You’ve heard?”

“Umph!”

“What d’you think about it?”

“It doesn’t much matter what an old knacker thinks about anything.”

“Why on earth d’you keep calling yourself an old knacker?”

“Dunno. It’s amusin’. It’s a kind o’ luxury after spuffling all my life

to be able at last to depreciate one’s self. Everything’s amusin’.

I know you are; I suppose I am; there’s no doubt about your father.

Nothing’s overserious in this gay old world. Mustn’t take things to

heart, old chap. Look at me, what I’ve come through. Here I am and

not much the worse for wear--battered, but useful, yours truly Obadiah

Spreckles, successful breeder of an entirely new strain of perpetually

laying hens.” He gave himself a resounding whack upon the chest and

cocked his eye at me.

“What do I think about you and the lady in America? Speaking as the

ex-proprietor of a Christian Boarding House, I think it’s shocking.

Speaking as a man of leisure, I think it’s confoundedly human. Speaking

as a shipwrecked cabin-boy who’s suddenly been promoted to captain, I

should say that it’s one of life’s ups and downs. There’s no accounting

for how love takes a man; it’s as fluky as settings of eggs--all cocks

one day, all hens tomorrow, and the day after that nothing. Dash my

boots, I sometimes think that nobody’s to blame for anything. Love’s

shocking or interesting, according to your fancy. Take Lavinia and

myself. I haven’t made her a good husband. I’ve been a failure and a

slacker. I’ve made her happy now only by an accident. People look at

us and wonder what we find in one another. They don’t know--can’t see

beneath the surface. We never had any children. It’s been hard fighting.

But I swear she’s never regretted.--Aye, it’s wonderful the pains God

takes to bring a man and a woman together. These things ain’t accidents.

If you’re meant to have her, you may have to wait, but nothing can

stop you--just like me and my fowls. Life’s a _leading_. ‘He leadeth me

beside the still waters,’ eh, what! But it’s often rough treading till

you get there.--That’s all I have to say about it, old chap.”

“The door of Pope Lane’s shut against me,” I told him. “Ruthie’s married

the fellow I detested. They’re none of them talking to me now.”

The old fellow turned on me snorting like a stallion. “That don’t

matter, lad. You’re your own world. Do without ’em. Everything comes

right in the end.”

_Dream Haven!_ How cool the name sounds! What memories of sunshiny

mornings it brings back. Day after day I watched and waited for the

letter from America. There were times when I made sure that I could feel

it approaching. “It will be here to-morrow,” I said.

I tortured myself by picturing how different life would have been had

I taken Randall at his word. It was the kind of torture that became a

luxury. I should have brought her to Dream Haven, perhaps. I played

with my fancy, pretending that we were here together; so actual were my

imaginings that I was incredulous when, on coming to myself, I found her

absent. The dreams were more real than the reality.

Wakened in the morning by the twittering of birds, I would raise myself

on my elbow and marvel at the sweet flushed face beside me on the

pillow and the glorious, yellow streaming hair. Slowly it would fade and

vanish. There were walks which we took through the lonely woodlands when

all the delayed intimacies of love filled life with unashamed passion.

There were wild days on the downs, when rain and wind, driving our

bodies together, stung me to a new protecting ecstasy. There were quiet

evenings in the gloaming--Sunday evenings were the best--when Vi sat at

the piano playing and singing, while Dorrie knelt beside her, fingering

her dress. All these ghost-scenes stand clear in my memory as though

they had happened.

I must have cultivated this unreal life to the point of danger in my

effort to escape the ache of the present. Had I lived by myself I might

have crossed the border-line, but the comedy of Uncle Obad was always

drawing me back. He kept watch over me like a kind old spaniel.

In the morning from where I sat in the garden, I could see him farther

down the slope through the orchard, trotting in and out his pens with

his disreputable dust-coat flapping. Just as once, when he had no money,

the appearance of affluence had been his hobby, so now, when he could

afford to dress respectably, he delighted in looking shabby. He left

his clothes unfastened in the most unexpected places; Aunt Lavinia was

continually making grabs at him and buttoning him up. In the afternoon

she sent us off for long walks together to prevent his getting fat. On

these occasions he would explain his loose philosophy, which consisted

of a large-minded, stalwart carelessness.

“Keep your end up; it’s in each one of us to be happy. Don’t do too much

remembering; live your day as it comes. Your Grandmother calls me the

Spuffler--so I am. Where’d I be now, I ask you, if I hadn’t spuffled?”

So the summer fled by, and the woods grew browner, and the air had a

sharper tang. The letter from Sheba had not come. I could mark time no

longer; at last I left for Woadley.

CHAPTER III--NARCOTICS

I was twenty-six when I entered into possession of Woadley. By my

grandfather’s will I inherited an annual income of seven thousand

pounds. I was at an age when, for most men, everything of importance

lies in the future and that which lies behind is of no consequence--in

the nature of an experiment.

I did not regard my past in that light. It was vital. Until the woman

I loved should share my fortunes I felt the future to be an indefinite

postponement. How she could come into my life again I dared not surmise;

that she would come, I never doubted. I knew now that the letter which

I had both hoped for and dreaded, would never arrive. For Dorrie’s sake

they had decided to remain together. In my wiser moments I was glad

of it; I knew that, had she chosen otherwise, our love would have been

degraded.

Strong influences were brought to bear to press me into public life. My

situation and training entitled me to take up a position of some

local importance. I might have stood for Parliament, but I shrank

from publicity. All I asked was to be left alone to follow up my own

interests in quiet. I had come so suddenly into a sphere of power

which I had done nothing to merit, that ambitions which had still

other ambitions for their goal, ceased to allure me. My temperament was

natively bookish; by nature I was a Fellow of Lazarus and by compulsion

a conscientious country squire. When I was not at Oxford, dreaming in

libraries, I was at Woadley, superintending the practical management of

my estate.

The joy of sex and its fulfilment in a home, which apply the spur to

most men’s activities, to me were denied; it was unthinkable that I

should marry any woman other than Vi. The energies which should have

found a domestic expression with me became the mental stimulus of an

absorbing scholarly pursuit.

Through my Oxford lectures and fugitive contributions to periodicals,

I began to be known as an authority on the intellectual revolt of

the Renaissance; by slow degrees I set about writing the life of

that strange contradiction, half-libertine, half-saint, Æneas Sylvius

Piccolomini.

Engaged in these employments, I grew to love the smooth gray days of

Woadley which stole by ghost-like and unnumbered. And I came to love the

Woadley country with a passion which was as much due to its associations

as to its beauty. When I had grown tired of researches into things

ancient, one of my greatest joys was to plod to Ransby through rutted

lanes deep in hedges, and so out to the north beach where the sea

strummed against the land, and the wind raged, and the blackened hull of

the wreck crouched beneath the weight of sky.

Grandmother Cardover’s shop saw me often. There in the keeping-room,

with its dull red walls and leisurely loud ticking clock, we would talk

together of bygone times and of those which were, maybe, coming. At

first she urged me to marry, and to take up the position in the county

which should be mine. But soon, with the easy fatalism of old age, she

accepted me for what I was, and ceased to worry.

With my father I held no communication--the breach had become final; so

of Ruthita I heard next to nothing. But as regards Lord Halloway, quite

inadvertently I increased my knowledge.

One squally night I was returning from Ransby, driving up the sodden

road to the Hall, when my attention was attracted by a camp-fire.

I halted out of curiosity, and struck across the turf to the light.

Between me and the fire was a wind-break of young firs, a diminutive

plantation behind which, as behind bars, figures prowled. As the flames

shot up, the figures yearned toward the clouds; as the flames died down,

the figures seemed to creep into the ground. On reaching the wind-break

a lurcher growled, and I heard a man’s voice telling the beast to

lie quiet. I was about to declare myself, when a hand was laid on my

shoulder. I leapt aside, peering into the darkness.

“All right, brother,” a voice said huskily. “I’m meaning you no hurt.”

A woman’s face pushed itself out of the blackness; by the light of the

fire I saw that it was Lilith’s.

“Now you’re here, brother, we’ve come back to Woadley.”

She spoke as though our meeting had been pre-arranged.

Gazing through the trees I saw the old yellow caravan: and G’liath; the

gaudy woman was there, and the hag who had tried to tell Vi’s fortune on

the marshes.

The huddled gipsy tents became an accustomed sight and the center of

a new interest in my landscape. The proud lawlessness of the gipsies

appealed to my own suppressed wildness. They opened a door of escape

from commonplace environment. Their unannounced comings and goings had

an atmosphere of mystery and stealth which filled me with excitement. Of

a night I would look out from my bedroom windows and see the red glow of

their camp across the park-land; in the morning nothing would remain but

blackened turf and silence.

I went on many tramping expeditions with Lilith. She had become

curiously elflike and wilful since those early days. She seemed to live

wholly in the moods and sensations of the present; of the past she would

speak only in snatches. Sometimes, when she softened, she would mention

Ruthita; but it was long before I discovered her secret and the reason

why for so many years the gipsies had refused to camp at Woadley.

All one day in the height of summer we had wandered, across meadows

and by unfrequented by-roads, too content to pay heed to where we were

going; when evening overtook us we were miles from home. It was too late

to turn back, unless we walked on to the nearest village and hired a

trap and drove. Lilith scouted the proposal with scornful eyes as too

utterly conventional. We would make a camp for the night and return

to-morrow.

There, alone in the open, with great clouds thumbing the western sky,

and birds sinking into tree-tops singing, “Home, home, home,” life

liberated itself and rose in the throat as though it had never been

bound and civilized. We spoke only in monosyllables; even words were a

form of captivity. Collecting brushwood, we built our fire and ate our

meal between the walls of bushes. Slowly the silver trumpet of the moon

rose above leafy spires.

We made a strange pair, Lilith and I--she the untamed savage, gloriously

responsive, and I, for all my attitudes of mind, outwardly the sluggish

product of reserve and education. Through the gray smoke I watched her,

with her red shawl falling from her splendid shoulders, her glittering

ear-rings and her large soft eyes. I told myself stories about her quite

in the old childish vein. I recalled how the Bantam and I had always

been hoping to find her. What fun it would be to vanish for a time,

leaving responsibilities behind, and to take to the road together! White

mists, rising from the meadows, erected a tent about us which towered to

the sky. Here in the open was privacy from the impertinent knocking of

destiny.

But she was not thinking of me. Her eyes gazed far away. Her arm was

hollowed and her head bowed, as though a little one pressed against her.

With her right hand she fumbled at her breast, loosening her bodice. Her

body swayed slowly to and fro in a soothing, rocking motion. I had seen

her like this before when she thought no one was looking.

Leaning forward I plucked a twig from the fire to light my pipe. She

threw herself back from me startled and sprang to her feet. “Don’t touch

me.” Her voice was hoarse and choking.

Looking up from where I sat, I saw that her bosom panted and that her

nostrils were quivering with animal fright. But it was her eyes that

told me; they were wide and fixed like those of one who has been roused

from sleep, and is not yet fully awake.

“I wasn’t trying to touch you, Lil. I’m your pal, girl, Dante Cardover.”

When I spoke she came to herself and recognized me. Her fear vanished

and her arms fell limp to her side. “I’m goin’.”

“But what’s the trouble? I thought we were to camp here to-night.”

“Dun know.” She swept back the hair from her forehead and drew her

shawl tighter. “I dun this before, just the two of us--and it didn’t end

happy.”

“But not with me.”

“Afore ever I knew you, silly. When I was little more’n a child--long

time ago.”

We stamped out the fire before we left, and stole silently across the

moonlit meadows. She walked ahead at first in defiance; presently,

ashamed of the distrust she had shown, she fell back and we traveled

side by side.

“Lil, I watched you; you were dreaming that you had your little baby

back.”

She placed her hand in mine, but she gave me no answer.

“Who was he--the man who did this to you long ago, when you camped alone

together?”

She turned her face away; her voice shook with passion. “I don’t have to

tell you; you know ’im.”

The people were few with whom we were both acquainted. I ran over the

names in my mind; the truth flashed out on me.

“Was it because of that you wouldn’t camp at Woadley?”

She bent her head, but the cloud of hatred in her face would have told

me.

After learning this new fact about Halloway, he was never long absent

from my mind; for Lilith, though we never referred to him and she had

at no time mentioned him by name, was a continual reminder. I became

familiar with his doings through the papers. He was making a mark for

himself in politics; there was even a talk that he might find a seat

in the cabinet. I read of Lady Halloway’s seconding of her husband’s

ambitions. From time to time her portrait was printed among those of

society hostesses. But this Ruthita was unreal to me; she had nothing

to do with the shy girl-friend whom I had known. Of the true Ruthita I

learnt nothing.

I often wondered what was the condition of affairs between herself and

Halloway. Was she happy? Was he kind? Was it possible that she should

have outlived her first judgment of him? Perhaps all this outward

display of success had its hidden emptiness. Behind Halloway lay a host

of ruined lives, Lilith’s among them, the waste of which he could not

justify.

I had been five years at Woadley, when my work made it necessary that I

should spend some weeks in London in order to be near libraries. It was

just after Christmas that I came to town. With my usual clinging to

old associations, I took rooms at Chelsea, almost within sight of the

mansion which had witnessed my uncle’s brief reign of splendor. From my

windows I could see the turgid river sweeping down to Westminster,

and the nurse-girls with perambulators and scarlet dots of soldiers

loitering beneath bare trees of the Embankment.

On rising one morning, I found that the subdued grays and browns had

vanished--that London was glistening with snow. My spirits rose to an

unaccustomed pitch of buoyancy; I tossed aside my writing and went

out into the streets. Coming to the Spuffler’s old house I halted; the

memory of the Christmas I had spent there leapt into my mind with every

detail sharpened. Things which I had not thought of for years came back

luminously--scraps of conversation, gestures, childish excitements. This

wintry morning was reminiscent of a snow-lit, sun-dazzled morning of

long ago. I recalled how Ruthita had bounced into my room to let me see

her presents; how she had balanced herself on the edge of my bed in her

long white night-gown, with her legs curled under her and her small

feet showing; how she had laughed at my care of her when I wrapped the

counterpane about her shoulders to prevent her from catching cold. Every

memory was somehow connected with Ruthita. And here I stood, a man

of thirty, looking up at the windows from which we had once gazed out

together--and I had not seen her to speak to for five years.

I could not get her out of mind. I did not want to. I kept tracing

resemblances to her in the girls whom I passed in the streets. Some of

them were carrying their skates, with flying hair and flushed faces.

Others, whom I met after lunch in the theatre districts, were going to

matinées with school-boy brothers. I wanted to be back again in the old

intimacy, walking beside her. Since that was impossible, I set myself

deliberately to remember.

In the afternoon I strolled into the Green Park. Constitution Hill was

scattered with spectators all agape to see the quality drive by. Every

now and then a soldier or statesman would be recognized; the word

would pass from mouth to mouth with a flutter of excitement. The trees

enameled in white, the grass in its sparkling blanket, the sky banked

with soft clouds, the flushed faces--everything added its hint of

animated and companionable kindness.

Of a sudden in the throng of flashing carriages, my attention was

caught by an intense white face approaching, half-hidden in a mass

of night-black hair--the face was smaller than ever, and even more

pathetically patient. By her side sat the man whom I now almost hated,

looking handsome and important; the years had dealt well with him, and

had heightened his air of dignity and aristocratic assurance. He was

speaking to her lazily while she paid him listless attention, never

meeting his glance. It was plain to see that, whatever he had or had

not been to other women, his passion for her was unabated. She looked

a snow-drop set beside an exotic orchid; the demure simplicity of her

beauty was accentuated by the contrast. Her wandering gaze fell in my

direction; for an instant my gaze absorbed her. She started forward from

the cushions; her features became nipped with eagerness. Those wonderful

eyes of hers, which had always had power to move me, seemed to speak of

years of longing. A smile parted her lips; her listlessness was gone.

She leant out of the carriage, as though she would call to me.

Lord Halloway’s hand had gone to his hat, as he turned with a gracious

expression, searching the crowd to discover the cause of his wife’s

excitement. His eyes met mine. His face hardened. Seizing Ruthita’s arm,

he dragged her down beside him. The carriage swept by and was lost in

the stream of passing traffic. All was over in less time than it has

taken to narrate.

That night at Chelsea I could not sleep for thinking. Across the ceiling

I watched the lights of the police-boats flash in passing. I listened to

the river grumbling between its granite walls. Late taxis purred by; I

took to counting them. Big Ben lifted up his solemn voice, speaking to

the stars of change and time. I thought, imagined, remembered. What had

happened to us all that we were so gravely altered? What had happened

to her? What had he done to quench her? Then came the old, forgotten

question: had I had anything to do with it?

Next day I set myself to conquer my restlessness, but my accustomed

interests had lost their fascination. Neither that day, nor in those

that followed, could I recover my grip on my habitual methods of life.

What were the temptations, disappointments of a dead past

compared with those that were now in the acting? My scholarship, my

love of books, my undertakings at Woadley had only been in the nature of

narcotics; I had drugged myself into partial forgetfulness. Now the

old affections, like old wounds, ached and irked me. One glimpse of

Ruthita’s white intensity had stabbed me into keenest remembrance.

I _had_ to see her again; the hunger to hear her speak was on me--to

listen to the sound of her voice.

Several times I saw her driving in the Park, sometimes alone, sometimes

with Halloway. She never looked at me, but I was certain she was aware

of me by the way her cheek grew pale. Only a few years ago I had been

half her life, free to hold her, to come and go with her, to disregard

her; now she passed me unnoticed. I haunted all places where I might

expect to find her; whether I met or missed her my pain was the same. At

the back of my mind was the constant dread that her husband would hurry

her away to where I could not follow.

It was a blustering afternoon in early March, on a day of laughing and

crying--one of those raw spring days, before spring really commences,

capricious as a young girl nearing womanhood, without reason gay and

without reason serious. In the sunshine one could believe that it was

almost summer, but winter lurked in the shadows. A flush of young green

spread through the tree-tops; in open spaces crocuses shivered near

together. The streets were boisterous with gusty puffs of wind which

sent dust and papers circling. In stiff ranks, like soldiers, the houses

stood, erect, straining their heads into the sky, as if trying to appear

taller. Clouds hurried and fumed along overhead travel-routes, and rent

gashes in their sides as if with knives, letting through the sudden

turquoise. Presently slow drops began to patter. Umbrellas shot up.

Bus-drivers unstrapped their capes. In the Circus flower-girls picked up

their baskets and ran for shelter.

On arriving in the Mall I found people standing along the open pavement

in a lean, straggling line, despite the threatened deluge, I learnt

that royalty were expected. Soon I heard a faint and far-off cheering. A

policeman raised his arm; traffic drew up beside the curb. Just as I had

caught the flash of Life Guards and the clatter of their accoutrements,

a closed brougham reined in across my line of vision. With an

exclamation of annoyance I was moving farther down the pavement, when a

small gloved hand stretched out from the carriage-window and touched

me. I turned sharply, and found myself gazing into Ruthita’s eyes. She

signed to me to open the door. Before the coachman could notice who had

entered, I was beside her. Clutching my arm, she leant out and ordered,

“Drive to Pope Lane.”

CHAPTER IV--RUTHITA

We lay back against the cushions. We acted like conspirators--it was

difficult to tell why. The surprise of meeting her thus suddenly had

deprived me of words. It must have been the same with her; we clasped

hands in silence.

“I had to see you--had to speak to you.”

She was panting--almost crying.

“Of course. Why not? It was foolish to go on the way we were going.”

“Yes, foolish and heartbreaking. It wasn’t as though we were wanting to

do anything wicked--only to meet one another, as we used to.”

Her voice trailed off into a little shivering sob; she flickered her

eye-lids to prevent the tears from gathering.

“Ruthie, you mustn’t carry on so.” Then, “What has he done to you?” I

asked fiercely. “You’re afraid.”

“He’s guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“What you never knew.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t tell you. If you’d guessed, it might have made all the

difference.”

I did not dare to speak--her whisper was so ashamed. Her hand was hot in

mine. She withdrew it. When I leant over her she shuddered, just as the

trees had done when they knew the rain was coming, as though I were

a thing to her both sweet and dreadful. She took my face between her

hands, and yet shrank back from me. She delighted in and feared the

thing she was doing.

The rain volleyed against the carriage, shutting us in as with a tightly

drawn curtain; yet, did I look up, through the gray mist the tepid gold

of the sun was shining.

“Ruthie, it seems almost too good to be true that we’re alone at last

together--to have you all to myself.”

“Did you ever want me, Dannie?”

“_Did I ever want you!_”

“But as much as you wanted her?”

“Differently, yes.”

“You poor boy. And you didn’t get either of us.”

“Couldn’t be helped, Ruthie. That’s life--to be always wanting and never

getting. But I have you now and, perhaps, one day----”

“But how can you? She’s married.”

“One can’t tell. Things come unexpectedly. I didn’t expect half-an-hour

ago that I’d be with you.”

She fell to asking me little stabbing questions. When I only answered

her vaguely, “Don’t let’s start with secrets,” she implored me.

“But it’s five years--there’s so much to explain.”

“Yes--on both sides.”

“You seemed--seemed to dislike him,” I said. “I never understood----”

She took me up quickly. “Nor did I. Don’t let’s talk about it--not yet,

Dante.”

So I told her about my doings, the book I was writing and the little

daily round at Woadley; and then I told her of why I had quarreled with

my father.

“But he let me marry Halloway, and you’ve never----”

I laughed. “Ah, but

no matter what Halloway did as a bachelor, he was discreet when it came

to marriage.”

She drew me forward to the light; doubt was in her eyes. “But

you--you’re unhappy too.”

“I’ve gained everything I played for; I played to lose.”

“Everything?”

“I didn’t deserve Vi. And I didn’t deserve you; if I had, I shouldn’t

have lost you.”

Not until I had replied did she realize how much she had told me.

She was not happy! I wanted to ask her questions, so many

questions--questions which I had no right to ask, nor she to answer.

“And you--you have no children?”

She hesitated. “No.”

I rubbed the damp from the panes. We were in Stoke Newington. The storm

was over; streets and roof-tops shone as with liquid fire. Children

going home from school, were laughing and playing. They might have been

myself and Ruthie of years ago.

“They won’t see me,” I warned her.

“Who?”

“Folks at Pope Lane.”

“They’re not there. Only Hetty’s left to take care of the house. They’ve

gone away for a few days.”

“Then I can see it all again. We can walk in the garden together and

pretend that things are exactly as they were.”

“Oh, Dannie!” she cried. “I _can_ call you Dannie, can’t I?”

Time slipped away. She was my little sister now--no longer Lady

Halloway. At the posts before the passage we alighted--that was the

first news the coachman had of whom he had been driving. We went slowly

up the lane, where the shadows of the limes groped like tentacles

fingering the sunshine. When I felt beneath the creepers and the bell

jangled faintly, Ruthita clutched my arm, attempting to appear bold.

Hetty stared at us. “Well, I’ll be blowed!”

We pushed by her smiling, assuring her that we had no objection. Not

until we had rounded the house, did I hear the rattle of the door

closing.

Nothing ever changed in that walled-in garden. Flowers grew in the same

places--crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths. Peaches on the wall would

soon ripen. Presently sunflowers, like sentinels in gold helmets, would

stand in stately line. Pigeons strutted on the slates of houses opposite

or wheeled against the sky. There was the window of Ruthita’s bedroom,

up to which I had so often called.

The hole, which had been bricked up between the Favarts’ garden, was

still discernible. Everything retained its record; only we had changed.

Truants again, stealing an hour together, I listened expectant to hear

Hetty call, “Dant-ee. Dant-ee. Bedtime.” The old excitement clutched my

heart. Her starched skirt would rustle down the path, and we would

run into the gooseberry bushes to hide. I glanced at the study-window.

Surely I should see my father seated there, leaning across the desk with

his head propped by his arm. Surely that hand of Ruthita’s in my own was

growing smaller. I should turn to find a child in a short print-frock,

with clusters of ringlets on her shoulders. A shutter in my mind had

opened; the past had become present. Ah, but I was no longer anxious to

escape. The walled-in garden was all I wanted. I was tired of liberty.

I was ready to be commanded. I was willing that others should order my

life.

That the illusion might not slip from me, I half shut my eyes. Drip,

drip, drip, from eaves and branches! The earth was stirring in the

gentle quiet. Through drenched bushes and on the vivid stretch of lawn

blackbirds were hopping, delving with their yellow bills. Perhaps I was

dwindling into a small boy, just as I had once hoped in the forest that

I might suddenly shoot up into manhood. How absurd to believe that I was

thirty, and had seen so much of disillusionment! That was all a dream

out of which I was waking--I had been here all the time in the narrow

confines of the walled-in garden. The old enchantment of familiar

sensations stole upon me--I was Dannie Cardover of the Red House;

playing tricks with his imagination.

How did it happen? Was it I or was it Ruthie? Her lips were pressing

mine. A step came down the path behind us. We sprang apart, laughing

softly with reckless joy at our impropriety. Which of us would have

thought ten years ago that there would be anything improper in being

caught kissing?

Hetty pretended not to have seen us, but her flustered face told its

story.

“D’you remember, Hetty, how I once found you doing that to John?”

She writhed her hands under her apron, trying to appear shocked and

not to smile. “I remember, Sir Dante; ’t’aint likely I’d forget.” Then,

disregarding me for Ruthita, “I was about to h’arsk your ladyship,

whether I should get tea ready.”

Ruthita took her by the hand. “You didn’t talk to me that way once,

Hetty. I’m just Ruthie to you always, and Sir Dante is plain Dannie.”

She looked up and met the laughing reproach in our eyes. Her apron went

to her face and her bodice commenced to quiver. “Little did I think when

I washed and dressed yer little bodies that I should ever see this

day,” she sobbed. “It’s breakin’ me ’eart, that’s what it is, all this

quarrelin’. Why shouldn’t I speak to ’im if I wants ter? Why shouldn’t

’e kiss ’is own sister if he likes? Wot’s it matter if all the

neighbors was lookin’? There’s too little lovin’ and too little kissin’;

that’s wot I say. ’Tain’t right ter be ashamed o’ bein’ nateral. If it

’adn’t ’a’ been for bein’ afraid and ashamed, I might ’a’ married

John. The nus-girl next door got ’im. There’s allaws been someone

a-lookin’ when I was courtin’--there’s been too little kissin’ in my

life, and it’s yer Pa’s fault, if I do say it, wi’ ’is everlastin’

look of ‘Don’t yer do it.’”

“If it’s as bad as all that, Hetty, I’m sure you won’t mind if I----”

She made an emotional armful, but between struggling and giggling she

allowed me.

We had tea together in the formal dining-room, with its heavy furniture

and snug red walls. We made Hetty sit beside us; she protested and was

scandalized, but we wouldn’t let her wait. As we talked, the old freedom

of happiness came back to Ruthita’s laughter. The mask of enforced

prejudices lifted from Hetty’s face. All our conversation was of the

past--our adventures, childish mutinies, and punishments. We told Hetty

what a tyrant she had been to us. We asked her whether her nightgowns

were still of gray flannel. I accused her of being the start of all my

naughtiness in the explanation she had given me of how marriages were

concocted. It was like putting a wilted flower into water to see the

way she picked up and freshened. When she had nothing else to reply, she

wagged her head at us, exclaiming, “Oh, my h’eye--what goin’s on! It’s a

good thing walls ain’t got ears. What would your poor Pa say?”

We left her and wandered through the rooms together. We only opened

the study-door; we did not enter. It had always, even when we had been

invited, seemed to have been closed against us. Books lay on the desk,

dust-covered. It was allowed to be tidied only in my father’s presence.

We both felt that he must know of our trespassing, even though we could

not see him. I had the uncanny feeling that he was still there at the

table writing; any moment he might glance up, having completed his

sentence, and I should hear his voice. Not until we had climbed the

stairs did we rid ourselves of the shadow of his disapproval. In the old

days when we were romping, we had been accustomed to hear his dreaded

door open and his stern voice calling, “Children! Children! What d’you

think you’re doing? Not so much noise.” It was something of this kind we

were now expecting and with the same sensations of trembling.

The house was memory-haunted. Following our footsteps, yet so discreetly

that we never caught them, were a witch-faced girl and a sturdy boy.

Where pools of sunlight lay upon the floor we lost them; when we turned

into dark passages, again they followed. On entering rooms, we half

expected to find them occupied with their playing; when the budding

creeper stirred against the walls, it was as though they whispered. They

were always somewhere where we were not--either in the room we had just

left, or the room to which we were going.

We entered what had been my bedroom. The sun was westering, playing

hide-and-seek behind crooked chimneypots. Below us the garden lay in

shadow, cool and cloistered.

Kneeling beside the window, with our elbows on the sill, not watching

one another’s eyes, we whispered by fits and starts, leaving our

sentences unended. Most of what we said commenced with “Do you

remember?” and drifted off into silence as the picture formed. It was

like flinging pebbles into a pond and watching the circles spreading.

One after another memories came and departed--all that we had done

together and been to one another in that conspiracy of childhood. There

was the pink muffler she had made me, the guinea-pig about which I had

lied to her, the tragic departures and wild homecomings of schooldays,

and the week when the Bantam had declared his love for her. And there

were memories which preceded her knowledge--my quest for the magic

carpet. How I wished I might yet find it; I would fly by night to

her window and carry her off, re-visiting old happinesses while Lord

Halloway lay snoring.

I don’t know how we came to it--I suppose we must have been speaking

about Vi. Presently Ruthita said, “You could only love golden hair,

could you, Dannie?”

I didn’t know what she was driving at; her voice shook and her face was

flushing.

“Dark-haired girls never had any chance with you, did they? You told me

that long ago, after Fiesole. I remembered because--because----”

“I was a boy then, and was clumsy.”

“But you spoke the truth, though you did say that for sisters black

hair was the prettiest in the world. It hurt because at that time I

fancied--you can guess what.”

“You never showed it.”

“You never looked for it--never asked for it.”

I knew to what she referred. It was on the night of my sudden return

from the Red House because the Spuffler had lost our money. I was

sitting at this window as I was now sitting. A tap at the door had

startled me; then a timid voice had said, “It’s only Ruthita.” She had

crept in noiselessly as a shadow. Her dear arms went about my neck,

drawing down my face. “Oh, Dannie, I’m so sorry,” she had whispered;

“I’ve never missed welcoming you home ever since you went to school.”

She had nestled against me in the dark, her face looking frailer

and purer than ever. She had slipped on a long blue dressing-gown, I

remember, and her black hair hung about her shoulders like a cloud.

Just below the edge of the gown her pale feet twinkled. I noticed that

a physical change had come over her. Then I had realized for the first

time that she was different as I was different--we were no longer

children. I had fallen to wondering whether the same wistful imaginings,

exquisite and alluring, had come to her. With an overwhelming reverence,

I had become aware of the strange fascination of her appealing beauty.

In the confessing that followed I had told her of my jilting by Fiesole,

and had spoken those stupid words about loving only golden hair. How

wounding I had been in my boyish egotism! And that was not the last time

I had wounded her in my blindness.

Scene after scene came back to me--into each I read a new meaning in the

light of what she had told me: the Snow Lady’s hints before I sailed for

America; Ruthita’s appeal for my protection against Halloway, and her

sudden acceptance of him directly she heard that I was with Vi at Sheba.

“Ruthie, all this was very long ago; so many things have happened since

then, there can be no harm in talking about it. You wanted me right up

to the last--and I was too selfish to know it.”

“Right up to the last,” she whispered, and I knew she meant right up to

now.

“And this--and this is what your husband has guessed?”

She took my hands in both her own, speaking with quiet dignity. “I had

to tell you. Perhaps I too have been selfish, but I couldn’t let you

misunderstand me any longer. I’ve seen you watching for me, and I’ve had

to go by you without looking. We never had any secrets, you and I;

you must have wondered why I let my husband make me cut you--I’ve been

wicked--I couldn’t trust myself. When I heard that you’d gone to Sheba,

I didn’t care what happened. I’d always hoped and hoped that you might

come to love me. But it seemed I wasn’t wanted, so I just took---- He’s

been good to me, but it isn’t like living with the person you love best,

is it? You mustn’t hate him any more; to love a woman who can’t love

you back again makes even success empty--and he’s been used to take love

without asking.”

We sat very still. We saw Hetty come out into the garden and walk down

the path as though she were looking for us. We waited to hear her call,

but she re-entered the house, leaving the silence unruffled.

“I’ve made a pretty fair mess of things, haven’t I? There was Vi first,

and now there’s you. I’m a pretty fair blighter.”

She pressed herself against me to stop me. “Oh, you mustn’t say that. It

hurts. You mustn’t say it.”

“But I am. Even your husband knows it.”

“Some day you’ll marry and everything’ll come right.”

“For Vi, if we have the luck to come together. But what about you? What

about even Halloway?”

She avoided answering my self-accusations by attracting attention to

herself. “From the first he didn’t want me to know you; he gave

excuses, and I understood. Because I couldn’t give him love, I gave

him everything else that he wanted. But now--now that I’m going to be

a mother, I had to tell you. I want it to be a boy, Dannie. Waiting for

him, I’ve thought so much of old days. I felt that if you didn’t know,

somehow, things wouldn’t go right--because when he comes I want him to

be like you.”

She had risen, letting go my hand.

“I had always thought of you as my sister,” I faltered.

“I know--and

you were a dear brother. It was just my foolishness to want you to be

something else.”

For a moment she clung to me, hiding her face against my shoulder. Then

we passed down the stairs, afraid to be alone any longer.

“Goin’?” Hetty inquired. “You won’t tell the master, will yer?” She

glanced toward the study-door as though he were behind it and might have

overheard.

At the end of the lane the carriage was standing. In the presence of

the coachman Ruthita’s tones were conventional. “You’re going westwards?

Where can I drop you?”

In the carriage I asked her whether her husband would know of what we

had done.

“I shall tell him.”

“Don’t you think he might be willing to let us be friends?”

“I’ll ask him,” she said, “but----”

At Hyde Park Corner the carriage pulled up and I alighted. I watched her

eager face looking back at me, growing smaller and smaller.

Wandering aimlessly through the parks, I sat for a time by the

Serpentine. The nerves of all that had happened in the past five years

were cut. If I had married Ruthita, would she have been happy? The

thought of marrying her was just as impossible to me now as it had been

when Grandmother Cardover had mentioned it at Ransby. And yet, at a

time when I had been most sensitive of injustice, I had been unjust to

her---- And now she was going to be a mother--little Ruthita, who seemed

to me herself so much a child!

When I came into Whitehall, the pale twilight of spring still hovered

above house-tops; from streets the flare of London steamed up. The

opal of the sky reflected the marigold-yellow of illumined windows;

arc-lights, like ox-eye daisies, stared above the grass of the dusk.

I made my way to my club and sank into a chair, aimlessly skimming the

papers, reading scarcely a line. Few people were about; the room was

empty save for one other loiterer. Spring in the streets was calling.

The man strolled up to me, holding an illustrated weekly in his hand. I

knew him slightly and nodded.

“Writing a book on the Renaissance, ar’n’t you? Here’s something a bit

in your line. Funny how Paris’ll go mad over a thing like that!”

He smacked the page. “Girl comes from nowhere. Her lover writes a

play--that’s the story. There’s a mystery. The play’s difficult to

understand, so it must be brainy. Now I like a thing that don’t need no

explanation: Marie Lloyd, the Empire, musical comedy--that’s my cut.”