How sweet are the Surrey lanes and woods, especially round about
Godalming! Innumerable are the pictures which artists have found there
and fixed upon canvas to delight and instruct. In spring and summer
peeps of fairyland reveal themselves almost at every turn. Small
forests of straight and stately trees are there, full of solemn
visions, lifting one's thoughts heavenward, and attuning the soul to
more than earthly glory. The earth is carpeted with wonders, and the
air is fragrant with subtle perfumes. The gentle declivities are
clothed in beauty, and the wondrous variety of greens and browns are a
marvel to behold.
It was a balmy night, and the skies were full of stars. A clear pool
reflected them, and Nansie and Kingsley stood upon the rustic bridge
and looked down in silence and love and worship.
"In the method of my education, my dear Nansie," said Kingsley, as
they walked from the bridge into the stillness of the woods, "I
recognize now one end."
"What end, Kingsley?" asked Nansie, looking up at him in hope.
"Nothing particular," said Kingsley. He spoke with his customary
lightness, but there was a dash of seriousness in his voice, not as
though he was troubled by the reflections which were passing through
his mind, but with a dim consciousness that something better than he
was able to accomplish might have been evolved. "That seems to me to
have been the method of it--nothing particular. Shall I try to explain
myself?"
"Please, dear. But kiss me first."
"Even in this kiss, my own dear wife," said Kingsley, "which, in what
it means to me, all the gold in the world could not purchase-- Ah,
Nansie, dear, how truly I love you!"
"And I you, Kingsley, with all the strength of my heart and soul."
"That is the beauty of it, and it is that which makes it
unpurchasable. It is my love for you, and yours for me; it is my faith
in you and yours in me, springing out of my heart and soul as it
springs out of yours, that makes me feel how inexpressibly dear you
are to me, and to know that my spiritual life would not have been
complete without you. But I am flying off at a tangent again."
"You were speaking of the method of your education, my darling."
"Yes, ending in nothing particular. God knows whether the fault is in
it or me, but so it strikes me just now. I have a smattering of Greek
and Latin, but nothing really tangible, I am afraid; nothing which
would warrant me in calling myself a scholar. Say that I _were_ one, a
scholar and a man, I do not see (because, perhaps, after all, the
fault or the deficiency is in my nature) how I could make a fortune
out of it. For you, Nansie."
"I know, my dear," said Nansie, "that you are thinking of me."
"I confess that, if I allowed it to take possession of me, I should be
more than perplexed; I should be seriously troubled. But, to go on. I
seem not to be able, except in words, to express myself or do myself
justice. For instance, I look into the stream, and see a wave of
stars. There is a poem there, and I feel it, but I could not write it.
Pitiful to reflect, isn't it? because, in our circumstances, it might
be sold for--twopence; but even that we might find useful."
"A great deal more, dear, if you could write it."
"If I could! There's the rub. Here, as I look around me, and at every
step I have taken, I see pictures; but I could not paint them. Now,
how is that?"
"Perhaps, my dear," said Nansie, timidly, "it is because life has
never been so serious to you as it is now with me by your side."
"Serious and sweet," said Kingsley; "remember that. We must not have
one without the other. The fact is, I dare say, that I never thought
of what I was to be, because I did not see the necessity of troubling
myself about it. My father was a rich man; everybody spoke of him as a
millionaire, and spoke the truth for once; and all my college chums
envied me my luck. But for that it may be that I should have applied
myself, and ripened into a poet or a painter, or something that would
come in useful now. Nothing very superior, perhaps, in any line,
because, my dear, you will be surprised when I confess to you that I
do not regard myself as an out-of-the-way brilliant fellow. But
there's no telling, is there, what may come out of a fellow if he puts
his shoulder to the wheel?"
"Something good would be sure to come out of such a head as yours,
Kingsley," said Nansie.
"You _will_ flatter me, my dear; but, after all, you may be right.
There are no end of clever men who were dull boys at school, and
thought to have nothing in them; though, now I think of it, I was not
at all a dull boy--rather bright, indeed, really, Nansie--and the fact
that dullards often prove themselves geniuses is rather against me. Do
you know what I've been told? That there is a lot of stuff in me, but
that I lack application; that is, the power of sticking long to one
thing. That is true, perhaps, and it is that quality, or failing, or
what you like, that makes me fly off at a tangent in the way I am in
the habit of doing. I've stuck pretty close to this conversation,
haven't I?"
"Yes, dear."
"Notwithstanding that there are a thousand things to distract my
attention. For instance, thoughts. Such as this: that it would be a
happy lot if you and I could wander forever side by side through such
lovely scenes as this, and in a night so sweet and beautiful."
"But that could not be, Kingsley, dear, and I am not sure whether it
would be a happy lot."
"You surprise me, Nansie. Not a happy lot! Our being always together,
and always without worry or trouble!"
"In course of time," said Nansie, a slight contraction of her eyelids
denoting that she was thinking of what she was saying, "we should grow
so used to each other that we should become in each other's eyes
little better than animated statues. The monotony of its being always
summer, of everything around us being always beautiful, would so weigh
upon us that we should lose all sense of the beautiful, and should not
be grateful for the sweet air, as we are now, Kingsley. We grow
indifferent to things to which we are regularly accustomed. Change
produces beauty. You are making me think, you see, and I am almost
pretending to be wise."
"Go on, Nansie. I want you to finish, and when you have done I have
something to say on an observation you have made, change produces
beauty. Now that is a theme profound."
"There is not a season in the year that is not full of sweetness, and
that we do not enjoy. If it were always spring the charm of spring
would be gone. If it were always summer we should lie down and sleep
the days away, and should gradually grow indifferent to the beautiful
shapes and colors with which nature adorns the world in the holiday
time of the year. Is not autumn charming, with its moons and sunsets
and changing colors? And what can be prettier and more suggestive of
fairy fancies than winter, in its garb of snow and icicle? There are
plenty of bad days in all the seasons, even in the brightest, and it
is those which make us enjoy the good all the more. In the last weeks
of my dear father's life I learned a great deal from him; it was
almost, Kingsley, as if he created a new life within me; and he had
the power, in a few words, of unfolding wonders and making you
understand them."
"Your dear father," said Kingsley, "was a wise and good man--a poet,
too, and could have been almost anything in the artistic world he
cared to aspire to. I have no doubt of that, Nansie, dear. And yet he
was always poor, and died so."
"It is true, Kingsley. I think it was because he lacked--"
But Nansie paused in sudden alarm, and the word she was about to utter
hung upon her tongue. It distressed her, also, that, in what was in
her mind as to the reason of her father's worldly failure, the very
words which Kingsley used towards himself should have suggested
themselves to her.
"Because he lacked"--prompted Kingsley. "Finish the sentence, Nansie."
"The desire to produce, to achieve," said Nansie, in a stumbling
fashion.
"No, Nansie, that was not the way you intended to finish the sentence.
I want it in the original, without correction or afterthought. Because
he lacked--"
"Application," said Nansie, desperately.
"Exactly. My own failing." Kingsley spoke gently, and as though he was
not in the least dismayed by the example of an aimless life which
presented itself in the career of Nansie's father. "Your father had
great powers, Nansie, and could have accomplished great things if he
had been industrious. But he was a happy as well as a good man. I
cannot recall, in any person I ever knew, one who was so thoroughly
happy as your father. He did harm to no man. His life was a good
life."
"Yes, Kingsley." And yet Nansie was not satisfied with herself for
being the cause of the conversation drifting into this channel.
"You see, my love," said Kingsley, in his brightest manner, and
Nansie's heart beat gratefully at his cheerful tone, "when a truth
comes home to a man he can, at all events, learn something from it,
unless he be a worthless fellow. When he sees an example before him he
can profit by it, if his mind be set upon it. He lays it before him,
he dissects it, he studies it, and he says, 'Ah, I see how it is.'
That is what I shall do. Your father and I, in this matter of
application and industry, somewhat resemble each other. A kind of
innate indolence in both of us. Well, what I've got to do is to tackle
it. Within me is an enemy, a bad influence, which I must take in hand.
'Come,' I say to this insidious spirit, 'let us see who will get the
best of it.' Thereupon we fall to. The right thing to do, Nansie?"
"Yes," she replied, "but you must not reproach yourself, my dear."
"Oh, I am not doing so," he said, quickly, before she could proceed.
"I am applying to the discovery I have made the touchstone of
philosophy. There is no doubt of the result, not the slightest. But I
don't think it is anything to lament that I seem to find a resemblance
in your father's character and mine."
"It is something to be deeply grateful for, my dear."
"And the discovery is made in time. After all, I am a young man, and,
as I told you, I intend to commence with a new slate. Really, I intend
to try my very best."
"And you will succeed, Kingsley," said Nansie, earnestly. "You are
sure to succeed."
"Now that's comforting. It gives a fellow strength. With you always by
my side, it will be very hard if I fail. But," and here he took off
his hat and passed his fingers through his hair with the
characteristic of vagueness in him which sometimes took a humorous and
sometimes a pitiful turn, but always perplexed--"succeed or fail in
what? That is the all-important question. There is no quarry in sight;
it will never do to follow a Will-o'-the-wisp. So much valuable time
lost. The very best thing, I take it, for a fellow in my position to
do, is to find out his groove and fall into it. Do you consider that a
practical idea?"
"Quite practical, my love."
"Yes, to find out the groove and fall into it. Could anything be done
with tools?"
His voice was wholly humorous now, and for the life of her Nansie
could not help smiling. "And what tools?" He looked at his hands, and
stretched out his arms. "Well, all that is in the future. I was going
to remark on an observation you made a little while ago. Oh, I
remember what it is. 'Change produces beauty.' Now that struck me as
serious. How about love?"
"I did not mean that, Kingsley, dear. Love stands apart from
everything else. The sweetness and beauty of love is to be found only
in perfection when it is constant and unchangeful. To me it is the
same as my faith in immortality. My love for you will abide in me
forever. Ah, Kingsley, do not misunderstand me, or misinterpret what I
said!"
"I do not," he said, folding her in his arms and embracing her; "I
could never have loved any other woman than you, I can never love
another. So you see, my dear, you are not quite logical. There is one
thing in which we should find no beauty in change."
They strolled through the woods, exchanging fond endearments, pausing
often in silence to drink in the sweetness and the beauty of the time
and scene. They listened to the notes of the nightingale, and recalled
the remembrances of the night when Kingsley came to Nansie in the
caravan.
"I have the daisies you threw up to my little window," said Nansie.
"We listened to the nightingale then."
Some few minutes afterwards Nansie spoke to Kingsley of his mother.
"When your affairs are settled," she said, "do you not think that she
would help you to make a start in life? You seldom speak of your
mother, Kingsley."
"I think a great deal of her and of my father," said Kingsley, "and I
have hidden something from you which I will tell you of presently. It
is wrong to have a secret from you, but I really did it because I felt
it would distress you. Between my mother and me, my dear, there was
never any very close tie. We had not those home ties which I think
must be necessary to bind parents and children together. Since I was a
young child, I have always been away for ten months or so every year
at school or college, and frequently in vacation I had no house in
London or elsewhere in which to spend my holidays. My father,
engrossed in his business, would be absent from England sometimes for
many months, and my mother would often accompany him. Then you must
understand that my parents are as one. What my father says is law, and
my mother obeys his instructions implicitly. She is entirely and
completely under his control, and has the blindest worship of him. She
cannot believe that he could do anything that was not just and right,
and if he says a thing is so, it is so, without question or
contradiction from her. That tells fatally against me in this
difference between my father and me. In her judgment--although she
does not exercise it, but submits unmurmuringly to his--he is
absolutely right in the course he has taken, and I am absolutely
wrong. During the last week I spent at home my mother said many times
to me, 'Kingsley, be guided by your father. For your own sake and ours
do not thwart him.' I tried to reason, to argue with her, but she
shook her head and would not listen, saying continually, 'I know all;
your father has told me everything.' I half believe if she had only
listened to me, and consented to see you, as I begged of her, that
there would be some hope; but she would not. Well, my dear, since your
dear father's funeral I have written to my mother."
"Yes, Kingsley," said Nansie, looking anxiously at him.
"No answer. I wrote to my father, too."
"Did he not reply, Kingsley?"
"He replied in a very effective manner. You know I received a letter
yesterday, which I led you to believe was from a lawyer?"
"Yes, my dear."
"It was not, my dear. It was the letter I wrote to my father, returned
to me unopened."
"Oh, Kingsley!"
"It was a blow, though I should have been prepared for it. My father
is a man of iron will, Nansie; there is no moving him, once he has
resolved upon a course. I dare say this inflexibility has helped him
to grow rich, but it is a hard thing for us. And now, my dear, let us
talk no more of this at present; it troubles me."
They diverged into other subjects, and Kingsley soon regained his
lightness of spirits. They passed into an open glade with trees all
around.
"A beautiful spot," said Kingsley; "and so suitable!"
"For what, dear?"
"For the caravan; one could be happy here for a long time. But that
castle is in the air, is it not, my love?"