THEIR tryst was at the Charing Cross bookstall at one o’clock, and so Mr.
Frank Crosse was there at quarter-past twelve, striding impatiently up
and down, and stopping dead whenever a woman emerged from the entrance,
like a pointer dog before a partridge. Before he came he had been
haunted by the idea that possibly Maude might have an impulse to come
early—and what if she were to arrive and not find him there! Every
second of her company was so dear to him, that when driving to meet her
he had sometimes changed from one cab to another upon the way, because
the second seemed to have the faster horse. But now that he was on the
ground he realised that she was very exact to her word, and that she
would neither be early nor late. And yet, in the illogical fashion of a
lover, he soon forgot that it was he who was too soon, and he chafed and
chafed as the minutes passed, until at about quarter to one he was
striding gloomily about with despondent features and melancholy
forebodings, imagining a thousand miserable reasons for her inexplicable
delay. A good many people stared at him as they passed, and we may do so
among the number.
In person Frank Crosse was neither tall nor short, five feet eight and a
half to be exact, with the well-knit frame and springy step of a young
man who had been an athlete from his boyhood. He was slim, but wiry, and
carried his head with a half-defiant backward slant which told of pluck
and breed. His face was tanned brown, in spite of his City hours, but
his hair and slight moustache were flaxen, and his eyes, which were his
best features, were of a delicate blue, and could vary in expression from
something very tender to something particularly hard. He was an orphan,
and had inherited nothing from his parents save a dash of the artist from
his mother. It was not enough to help him to earn a living, but it
transformed itself into a keen appreciation and some ambitions in
literature, and it gave a light and shade to his character which made him
rather complex, and therefore interesting. His best friends could not
deny the shade, and yet it was but the shadow thrown by the light.
Strength, virility, emotional force, power of deep feeling—these are
traits which have to be paid for. There was sometimes just a touch of
the savage, or at least there were indications of the possibility of a
touch of the savage, in Frank Crosse. His intense love of the open air
and of physical exercise was a sign of it. He left upon women the
impression, not altogether unwelcome, that there were unexplored recesses
of his nature to which the most intimate of them had never penetrated.
In those dark corners of the spirit either a saint or a sinner might be
lurking, and there was a pleasurable excitement in peering into them, and
wondering which it was. No woman ever found him dull. Perhaps it would
have been better for him if they had, for his impulsive nature had never
been long content with a chilly friendship. He was, as we may see, a man
with a past, but it _was_ a past, now that Maude Selby had come like an
angel of light across the shadowed path of his life. In age he was
nearly twenty-seven.
There are one or two things which might be said for him which he would
not have said for himself. He was an only child and an orphan, but he
had adopted his grandparents, who had been left penniless through his
father’s death, and through all his struggles he had managed to keep them
happy and comfortable in a little cottage in Worcestershire. Nor did he
ever tell them that he had a struggle—fearing lest it should make their
position painful; and so when their quarterly cheque arrived, they took
it as a kindly but not remarkable act of duty upon the part of their
wealthy grandson in the City, with no suspicion as to the difference
which their allowance was making to him. Nor did he himself look upon
his action as a virtuous one, but simply as a thing which must obviously
be done. In the meantime, he had stuck closely to his work, had won
rapid promotion in the Insurance Office in which he had started as junior
clerk, had gained the goodwill of his superiors through his frank,
unaffected ways, and had been asked to play for the second Surrey eleven
at cricket. So without going the length of saying that he was worthy of
Maude Selby, one might perhaps claim—if it could be done without
endangering that natural modesty which was one of his charms—that he was
as worthy as any other young man who was available.
That unfortunate artistic soul of his, which had been in the tropics of
expectation, and was now in the arctic of reaction, had just finally
settled down to black despair, with a grim recognition of the fact that
Maude had certainly and absolutely given him up, when one boomed from the
station clock, and on the very stroke she hurried on to the platform.
How could he have strained his eyes after other women, as if a second
glance were ever needed when it was really she! The perfectly graceful
figure, the trimness and neatness of it, the beautiful womanly poise of
the head, the quick elastic step, he could have sworn to her among ten
thousand. His heart gave a bound at the sight of her, but he had the
English aversion to giving himself away, and so he walked quickly forward
to meet her with an impassive face, but with a look in his eyes which was
all that she wanted.
‘How are you?’
‘How do you do?’
He stood for a few moments looking at her in silence. She had on the
dress which he loved so much, a silver-grey merino skirt and jacket, with
a blouse of white pongee silk showing in front. Some lighter coloured
trimming fringed the cloth. She wore a grey toque, with a dash of white
at the side, and a white veil which softened without concealing the dark
brown curls and fresh girlish face beneath it. Her gloves were of grey
suède, and the two little pointed tan shoes peeping from the edge of her
skirt were the only touches of a darker tint in her attire. Crosse had
the hereditary artist’s eye, and he could only stand and stare and enjoy
it. He was filled with admiration, with reverence, and with wonder that
this perfect thing should really proclaim itself to be all his own.
Whatever had he done, or could he do, to deserve it?
She looked up at him in a roguish sidelong way, with the bright
mischievous smile which was one of her charms.
‘Well, sir, do you approve?’
‘By Jove, it is splendid—beautiful!’
‘So glad! I hoped you would, since you are so fond of greys. Besides,
it is cooler in this weather. I hope you have not been waiting.’
‘Oh no, that’s all right.’
‘You looked so solemn when first I saw you.’
‘Did I?’
‘And then you just jumped.’
‘Did I? I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I like our feelings to be our very very own, and never to
show them to any one else at all. I dare say it is absurd, but that is
my instinct.’
‘Never mind, dear, it wasn’t such a big jump as all that. Where are we
going?’
‘Come here, Maude, into the waiting-room.’
She followed him into the gloomy, smoky, dingy room. Bare yellow benches
framed an empty square of brown linoleum. A labouring man with his wife
and a child sat waiting with the stolid patience of the poor in one
corner. They were starting on some Saturday afternoon excursion, and had
mistimed their train. Maude Selby and Frank Crosse took the other
corner. He drew a jeweller’s box from his pocket and removed the lid.
Something sparkled among the wadding.
‘O Frank! Is that really it?’
‘Do you like it?’
‘What a broad one it is! Mother’s is quite thin.’
‘They wear thin in time.’
‘It is beautiful. Shall I try it on?’
‘No, don’t. There is some superstition about it.’
‘But suppose it won’t fit?’
‘That is quite safe. I measured it with your sapphire ring.’
‘I haven’t half scolded you enough about that sapphire ring. How could
you go and give twenty-two guineas for a ring?—oh yes, sir, that was the
price, for I saw a duplicate yesterday in the Goldsmith’s Company. You
dear extravagant old boy!’
‘I had saved the money.’
‘But not for that!’
‘For nothing half or quarter as important. But I had the other to the
same size, so it is sure to fit.’
Maude had pushed up her veil, and sat with the little golden circlet in
her hand, looking down at it, while the dim watery London sunlight poured
through the window, and tagged all her wandering curls with a coppery
gleam. It was a face beautiful in itself, but more beautiful for its
expression—sensitive, refined, womanly, full of innocent archness and
girlish mischief, but with a depth of expression in the eyes, and a
tender delicacy about the mouth, which spoke of a great spirit with all
its capacities for suffering and devotion within. The gross admirer of
merely physical charms might have passed her over unnoticed. So might
the man who is attracted only by outward and obvious signs of character.
But to the man who could see, to the man whose own soul had enough of
spirituality to respond to hers, and whose eye could appreciate the
subtlety of a beauty which is of the mind as well as of the body, there
was not in all wide London upon that midsummer day a sweeter girl than
Maude Selby, as she sat in her grey merino dress with the London sun
tagging her brown curls with that coppery glimmer.
She handed back the ring, and a graver expression passed over her mobile
face.
‘I feel as you said in your letter, Frank. There _is_ something tragic
in it. It will be with me for ever. All the future will arrange itself
round that little ring.’
‘Are you afraid of it?’
‘Afraid!’ her grey glove rested for an instant upon the back of his hand.
‘I _couldn’t_ be afraid of anything if you were with me. It is really
extraordinary, for by nature I am so easily frightened. But if I were
with you in a railway accident or anywhere, it would be just the same.
You see I become for the time part of you, as it were, and you are brave
enough for two.’
‘I don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I
have as many nerves as my neighbours.’
Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said
she.
‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and
miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to
be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I _know_ that I
am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and
no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’
She laughed with shining eyes.
‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so
beautiful about you.’
It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are
themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders.
‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he.
‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do?
I want you to choose.’
‘I am quite happy whatever we do. I am content to sit here with you
until evening.’
Her idea of a happy holiday set them both laughing.
‘Come along,’ said he, ‘we shall discuss it as we go.’
The workman’s family was still waiting, and Maude handed the child a
shilling as she went out. She was so happy herself that she wanted every
one else to be happy also. The people turned to look at her as she
passed. With the slight flush upon her cheeks and the light in her eyes,
she seemed the personification of youth, and life, and love. One tall
old gentleman started as he looked, and watched her with a rapt face
until she disappeared. Some cheek had flushed and some eye had
brightened at his words once, and sweet old days had for an instant lived
again.
‘Shall we have a cab?’
‘O Frank, we must learn to be economical. Let us walk.’
‘I can’t and won’t be economical to-day.’
‘There now! See what a bad influence I have upon you.’
‘Most demoralising! But we have not settled yet where we are to go to.’
‘What _does_ it matter, if we are together?’
‘There is a good match at the Oval, the Australians against Surrey.
Would you care to see that?’
‘Yes, dear, if you would.’
‘And there are matinées at all the theatres.’
‘You would rather be in the open air.’
‘All I want is that you should enjoy yourself.’
‘Never fear. I shall do that.’
‘Well, then, first of all I vote that we go and have some lunch.’
They started across the station yard, and passed the beautiful old stone
cross. Among the hansoms and the four-wheelers, the hurrying travellers,
and the lounging cabmen, there rose that lovely reconstruction of
mediævalism, the pious memorial of a great Plantagenet king to his
beloved wife.
‘Six hundred years ago,’ said Frank, as they paused and looked up, ‘that
old stone cross was completed, with heralds and armoured knights around
it to honour her whose memory was honoured by the king. Now the
corduroyed porters stand where the knights stood, and the engines whistle
where the heralds trumpeted, but the old cross is the same as ever in the
same old place. It is a little thing of that sort which makes one
realise the unbroken history of our country.’
Maude insisted upon hearing about Queen Eleanor, and Frank imparted the
little that he knew as they walked out into the crowded Strand.
‘She was Edward the First’s wife, and a splendid woman. It was she, you
remember, who sucked the wound when he was stabbed with a poisoned
dagger. She died somewhere in the north, and he had the body carried
south to bury it in Westminster Abbey. Wherever it rested for a night he
built a cross, and so you have a line of crosses all down England to show
where that sad journey was broken.’
They had turned down Whitehall, and passed the big cuirassiers upon their
black chargers at the gate of the Horse Guards. Frank pointed to one of
the windows of the old banqueting-hall.
‘You’ve seen a memorial of a queen of England,’ said he. ‘That window is
the memorial of a king.’
‘Why so, Frank?’
‘I believe that it was through that window that Charles the First passed
out to the scaffold when his head was cut off. It was the first time
that the people had ever shown that they claimed authority over their
king.’
‘Poor fellow!’ said Maude. ‘He was so handsome, and such a good husband
and father.’
‘It is the good kings who may be the dangerous ones.’
‘O Frank!’
‘If a king thinks only of pleasure, then he does not interfere with
matters of state. But if he is conscientious, he tries to do what he
imagines to be his duty, and so he causes trouble. Look at Charles, for
example. He was a very good man, and yet he caused a civil war. George
the Third was a most exemplary character, but his stupidity lost us
America, and nearly lost us Ireland. They were each succeeded by
thoroughly bad men, who did far less harm.’
They had reached the end of Whitehall, and the splendid panorama of
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament lay before them. The most
stately of ancient English buildings was contrasted with the most
beautiful of modern ones. How anything so graceful came to be built by
this tasteless and utilitarian nation must remain a marvel to the
traveller. The sun was shining upon the gold-work of the roof, and the
grand towers sprang up amid the light London haze, like some gorgeous
palace in a dream. It was a fit centre for the rule to whose mild sway
one-fifth of the human race acquiesces—a rule upheld by so small a force
that only the consent of the governed can sustain it.
Frank and Maude stood together looking up at it.
‘How beautiful it is!’ she cried. ‘How the gilding lights up the whole
building!’
‘And how absurd it is not to employ it more in our gloomy London
architecture!’ said Frank. ‘Imagine how grand a gilded dome of St.
Paul’s would look, hanging like a rising sun over the City. But here is
our restaurant, Maude, and Big Ben says that it is a quarter to two.