Aloud she said—

“Have you heard that the Mounts are leaving Vinehall?”

Her news caused all the commotion she could have wished.

“The Mounts leaving!”—“When?”—“Why?”—“Both of them?”

“Yes, both. I heard it at the Hursts; they seemed quite positive about

it, and you know they’re patients.”

“But where are they going?” asked Vera.

“That I don’t know—yet. The Hursts said something about a colonial

appointment.”

“I’m surprised, I must say. Dr. Mount’s getting old, and you’d think

he’d want to stay on here till he retired—not start afresh in a new

place at his age.”

“If you ask me, it’s Miss Stella’s doing. She’s lived here nearly all

her life and hasn’t got a husband, so she thinks she’ll go and try

somewhere else before it’s too late.”

“Then they’d certainly better go to the Colonies—there are no men left

in England. But I’m sorry for Dr. Mount.”

“I suppose you know it’s all over between her and Gervase?”

“Oh, is it—at last?”

“Yes—he hasn’t been there since his holiday in September. He has his

dinner on Sundays either at the Church Farm or alone with Mr. Luce.”

“Rose, how do you find out all these things?”

“The Wades told me this. They say she’s been looking awful.”

“Peter!” cried Vera irritably, as a small occasional table went to the

ground.

“No harm done,” he mumbled, picking it up.

“But you’re so clumsy. You’re always knocking things over....” She

checked herself suddenly, pleating angry folds in her gown.

Peter got up and went out.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” said Rose—“it’s much easier to talk without a man

in the room. I really do feel sorry for Stella—losing her last chance of

becoming Lady Alard.”

“You think it’s Gervase who’s cooled off, not she who’s turned him

down?”

“Oh, she’d never do that. She’s much too keen on getting married.”

“Well, so I thought once. But I’m not so sure now. I used to think she

was in love with Gervase, but now I believe she only kept him on as a

blind.”

“To cover what?”

“Peter.”

“You mean....”

“That they’ve been in love with each other the whole time.”

“Vera!”

Excitement at the disclosure was mingled in Rose’s voice with

disappointment that she had not been the one to make it.

“Yes,” continued her sister-in-law in a struggling voice—“they’ve always

been in love—ever since he married me—ever since he gave her up. They’ve

never been out of it—I know it now.”

“But I always thought it was all on her side.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t. Peter was infatuated with her, for some strange

reason—she doesn’t seem to me at all the sort of girl a man of his type

would take to. Being simple himself, you’d think he’d like something

more sophisticated.”

“But Stella is sophisticated—she’s artful. Look how she got Gervase to

change his religion, and break his poor brother’s heart. I often think

that it was Gervase’s religion which killed poor George, and Stella was

responsible for that. She may have pretended to be in love with him just

to get him over. You see she can be forgiven anything she does by just

going to confession.”

“Well, she needs forgiveness now if she never did before. So it’s just

as well she knows where to get it.”

“But, Vera, do you really think there’s anything—I mean anything wicked

between them?”

“I don’t know what you call wicked, Rose, if keeping a man’s affections

away from his wife who’s soon going to have her first child ... if that

isn’t enough for you.... No, I don’t suppose he’s actually slept with

her”—Vera liked shocking Rose—“She hasn’t got the passion or the spunk

to go so far. But it’s bad enough to know Peter’s heart isn’t mine just

when I need him most—to know he only married me just to put the estate

on its legs, and now is bitterly regretting it”—and Vera began to cry.

“But how do you know he’s regretting it? He doesn’t go about with

Stella, I can tell you that. I’d be sure to have heard if he did.”

“No, I daresay he doesn’t go about with her. I shouldn’t mind if he did,

if only his manner was the same to me. But it isn’t—every time we’re

together I can see he doesn’t love me any more. He may have for a bit—he

did, I know—but Stella got him back, and now every time he looks at me I

can see he’s regretting he ever married me. And if the baby’s a girl ...

my only justification now is that I may be the mother of an heir ... if

the baby’s a girl, I hope I’ll die. Oh, I tell you, Stella may be Lady

Alard yet.”

She threw herself back among the cushions and sobbed unrestrainedly.

Rose felt a thrill. She had always looked upon Vera as a superior being,

remote from the commonplaces of existence in Leasan; and here she was

behaving like any other jealous woman.

“Oh, I wish I’d never married,” sobbed Vera—“at least not this sort of

marriage. My life’s dull—my husband’s dull—my only interests are bearing

his children and watching his affair with another woman. I’m sick of the

County families—they’ve got no brains, they’ve got no guts—I’d much

better have married among my own people. They at least are alive.”

Rose was shocked. However, she valiantly suppressed her feelings, and

patted the big olive shoulder which had shrugged abandonedly out of the

purple wrappings.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she soothed—“you’re upset. I’m sure Peter’s all

right. It’s often rather trying for men in times like these ...” she

heaved on the edge of an indelicate remark ... “so they notice other

women more. But I’m quite sure there’s nothing really wrong between him

and Stella; because if there was,” she added triumphantly, “Stella

wouldn’t be going away.”

“Oh, wouldn’t she!”

“No, of course not. I expect she’s going only because she knows now

definitely that she’ll never get Peter back.”

“Nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense, dear. Don’t be so cross.”

“I’m sorry, Rose, but I’m ... anyhow Dr. Mount can’t go before I’m

through, and that’s three months ahead. I’ve half a mind not to have him

now. I feel sick of the whole family.”

“That would be very silly of you, Vera. Dr. Mount’s the best doctor

round here for miles, and it would only be spiting yourself not to have

him. After all he’s not responsible for Stella’s behaviour.”

“No, I suppose not. Oh, I daresay I’m an ass, going on like this.”

She sat up, looking more like the author of “Modern Rhymes.” Rose, who

had always been a little afraid of her, now had the privileged thrill of

those who behold the great in their cheaper moments.

“You’ll be all right, dear,” she said meaningly “in three months’ time.”

“All right, or utterly done in. O God, why can’t someone find out a way

of deciding the sex of children? I’d give all I possess and a bit over

to be sure this is going to be a boy. Not that I want a boy myself—I

like girls much better—but I don’t want to see Peter go off his head or

off with Stella Mount.”

“I don’t believe she’s got a single chance against you once you’re

yourself again. Even now I could bet anything that it’s all on her

side.”

“She’s got no chance against me as a woman, but as an Ancient Habit she

can probably do a lot with a man like Peter. But I’m not going to worry

about her any more—I’ve given way and made an utter fool of myself, and

it’s done me good, as it always does. Rose, you promise not to say a

word of this to anyone.”

“Of course I won’t. But I might try to get at the facts....”

“For God’s sake don’t. You’ll only make a mess.”

As she revived she was recovering some old contempt for her

sister-in-law.

§ 3

The post arrived just as Stella was setting out with the car one day

early the next month to meet her father in Ashford. He had been in

Canterbury for a couple of days, attending a dinner and some meetings of

the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and this afternoon she was to meet him

at Ashford Station and drive him home. She was in plenty of time, so

when she saw Gervase’s writing on the envelope handed to her, she went

back into the house and opened it.

It was now three months since she had spoken to Gervase or heard

anything directly from him. He still came over to Vinehall on Sundays

and to certain early masses in the week, but he never called at Dr.

Mount’s cottage, nor had she seen him out of church, not heard his voice

except in dialogue with the Priest—“I will go unto the Altar of God” ...

“Even unto the God of my joy and gladness”....

She wondered what he could have to say to her now. Perhaps he had

recovered, and was coming back. She would be pleased, for she missed his

company—also it would be good to have his letters when she was out in

Canada.... But Stella knew what happened to people who “recovered” and

“came back,” and reflected sadly that it would be her duty to discourage

Gervase if he thought himself cured.

But the letter did not contain what she expected.

Conster Manor

Leasan.

Sussex.

“Jan. 2, 1922

“_My dear Stella_,

“I’m writing to tell you something rather funny which has happened to

me. I don’t mean that I’ve fallen out of love with you—I never shall

and don’t want to. But I’m going to do something with my love which I

never expected.

“You know that in September, I went ‘into retreat’ for four days at

Thunders Abbey. I was sure I’d hate it—and so I did in a way—but when

I’d got there I saw at once that it was going to be more important

than I’d thought. At first I thought it was just a dodge of Father

Luce’s for making me uncomfortable—you know he looks upon me as a

luxury-loving young aristocrat, in need of constant mortification. I

don’t know what it was exactly that made me change—it was partly, I

think, the silence, and partly, I know, the Divine Office. At the end

of my visit I knew that Office as the great work of prayer, and

Thunders Abbey as just part of that heart of prayer which keeps the

world alive. And, dear, I knew that my place was in that heart. I

can’t describe to you exactly what I felt—and I wouldn’t if I could.

But you’re a Catholic, so you won’t think I’m talking nonsense when I

say that I feel I belong there, or, in plainer language, that I have a

vocation. You don’t believe that vocations come only to priggish

maidens and pious youth, but much more often to ordinary healthy,

outdoor people like you and me. Of course I know that even you will

think (as Father Luce and the Father Superior have thought) that my

vocation may possibly be another name for disappointment in love. I’ve

thought it myself, but I don’t believe it. Anyhow it’s at last been

settled that I’m going to be allowed to try. As soon as I’ve finished

at Gillingham’s I shall go. You know the Community, of course. It’s an

order for work among the poor, and has houses in London, Birmingham

and Leeds. At Thunders Abbey there’s a big farm for drunkards,

epileptics, idiots, and other pleasant company. I’d be useful there,

as they’ve just started motor traction, but I don’t know where they’ll

send me. Of course I may come out again; but I don’t think so. One

knows a sure thing, Stella, and I never felt so sure about anything as

about this—and it’s all the more convincing, because I went in without

a thought of it. I expect you will be tremendously surprised, but I

know you won’t write trying to dissuade me, and telling me all the

good I could do outside by letting out taxis for hire and things like

that. You dear! I feel I owe everything to you—including this new

thing which is so joyful and so terrifying. For I’m frightened a

bit—I’m not just going in because I like it—I don’t know if I do. And

yet I’m happy.

“Don’t say a word to anyone, except your father. I must wait till the

time is ripe to break the news to my family, and then, I assure you,

the excitement will be intense. But I felt I must write and tell you

as soon as I knew definitely they’d let me come and try, because you

are at the bottom of it all—I don’t mean as a disappointment in love,

but as the friend who first showed me the beauty of this faith which

makes such demands on us. Stella, I’m glad you brought me to the faith

before I’d had time to waste much of myself. It’s lovely to think that

I can give Him all my grown-up life. I can never pay you back for what

you’ve done, but I can come nearest to it by taking my love for you

into this new life. My love for you isn’t going to die, but it’s going

to become a part of prayer.

“May I come and see you next Sunday? I thought I would write and tell

you about things first, for now you know you won’t feel there are any

embarrassments or regrets between us. Dear Stella, I think of you such

a lot, and I’m afraid you must still be unhappy. But I know that this

thing I am going to do will help you as much as me. Perhaps, too, some

day I shall be a Priest—though I haven’t thought about that yet—and

then I shall be able to help you more. Oh my dear, it isn’t every man

who’s given the power to do so much for the woman he loves. I bless

you, my dear, and send you in anticipation one of those free kisses we

shall all give one another in Paradise.”

“GERVASE.

P.S. There is a rumour that you are going away, but as I can’t trace

its succession back further than Rose, I pronounce it of doubtful

validity.

P.P.S. Dear, please burn this—it’s more than a love-letter.

P.P.P.S. I hope I haven’t written like a prig.”

Stella let the letter fall into her lap. She was surprised. Somehow she

had never thought of Gervase as a religious; she had never thought of

him except as a keen young engineer—attractive, self-willed, eccentric,

devout. His spiritual development had been so like hers—and she, as she

knew well, had no vocation to the religious life—that she was surprised

now to find such an essential difference. But her surprise was glad, for

though she brushed aside his words of personal gratitude, she felt the

thrill of her share in the adventure, and a conviction that it would be

for her help as well as for his happiness. Moreover, this new

development took away the twinges of self-reproach which she could not

help feeling when she thought of her sacrifice of his content to Peter’s

jealousy.

But her chief emotion was a kind of sorrowful envy. She envied Gervase

not so much the peace of the cloister—not so much the definiteness of

his choice—as his freedom. He was free—he had made the ultimate

surrender and was free. She knew that he had now passed beyond her,

though she had had a whole youth of spiritual experience and practice

and he barely a couple of years. He was beyond her, not because of his

vocation, but because of his freedom. His soul had escaped like a bird

from the snare, but hers was still struggling and bound.

She would never feel for Peter as Gervase felt for her. Her utmost hope

was, not to carry her love for him into a new, purged state, but to

forget him—if she aimed at less she was deceiving herself, forgetting

the manner of woman she was. She had not Gervase’s transmuting

ecstasy—nor could she picture herself giving Peter “free kisses” in a

Paradise where flesh and blood had no inheritance. Her loves would

always be earthly—she would meet her friends in Paradise, but not her

lovers.

§ 4

Well, there was no time for reflection, either happy or sorrowful—she

must start off for Ashford, or her father would be kept waiting. Once

again, after many times, she experience the relief of practical action.

Her disposition was eminently practical, and the practical things of

love and life and religion—kisses and meals and sacraments—were to her

the realities of those states. A lover who did not kiss and caress you,

a life which was based on plain living and high thinking, a religion

without good outward forms for its inward graces, were all things which

Stella’s soul would never grasp.

So she went out to the little “tenant’s fixture” garage, filled the

Singer’s tank and cranked her up, and drove off comforted a little in

her encounter with life’s surprises. The day was damp and mild. There

was a moist sweetness in the air, and the scent of ploughed and

rain-soaked earth. Already the spring sowings had begun, and the slow

teams moved solemnly to and fro over the January fields. Surely, thought

Stella, ploughing was the most unhurried toil on earth. The plough came

to the furrow’s end, and halted there, while men and horses seemed

equally deep-sunk in meditation. Whole minutes later the whip would

crack, and the team turn slowly for the backward furrow. She wouldn’t

like to do a slow thing like that—and yet her heart would ache terribly

when it was all gone, and she would see the great steam ploughs tearing

over the mile-long fields of the West ... she would then think

sorrowfully of those small, old Sussex fields—the oldest in the

world—with their slow ploughing; she would crave all the more for the

inheritance which Peter might have given her among them....

She was beginning to feel bad again—and it was a relief to find that the

car dragged a little on the steering, pulling towards the hedge, even

though she knew that it meant a punctured tyre. The Singer always

punctured her tyres like a lady—she never indulged in vulgar bursts,

with a bang like a shot-gun and a skid across the road. Stella berthed

her beside the ditch, and began to jack her up.

Well, it was a nuisance, seeing that her father would be kept waiting.

But she ought to be able to do the thing in ten minutes ... she wished

she was wearing her old suit, though. She would make a horrible mess of

herself, changing wheels on a dirty day.... The car was jacked up, and

Stella was laying out her tools on the running board when she heard a

horse’s hoofs in the lane.

It seemed at first merely a malignant coincidence that the rider should

be Peter; yet, after all, the coincidence was not so great when she

reflected that she was now on the lane between Conster and Starvecrow.

She had heard that Peter had lately taken to riding a white horse—it was

all part of the picture he was anxious to paint of himself as Squire. He

would emphasize his Squirehood, since to it he had sacrificed himself as

freeman and lover.

She had never seen him looking so much the Squire of tradition as he

looked today. He wore a broadcloth coat, corduroy breeches, brown boots

and leggings and a bowler hat. Of late he had rather increased in girth,

and looked full his forty years. Unaccountably this fact stirred up

Stella’s heart into a raging pity—Peter middle-aged and getting stout,

Peter pathetically over-acting his part of country gentleman—it stirred

all the love and pity of her heart more deeply than any figure of

romance and youth. She hoped he would not stop, but considering her

position she knew she was hoping too much.

He hitched the white horse to the nearest gate and dismounted. They had

not been alone together since the summer, though they had met fairly

often in company, and now she was conscious of a profound embarrassment

and restraint in them both.

“Have you punctured?” he asked heavily.

“No, but the tyre has,” said Stella.

The reply was not like herself, it was part of the new attitude of

defence—a poor defence, since she despised herself for being on guard,

and was therefore weaker.

“You must let me help you change the wheel.”

“I can do it myself, quite easily. Don’t bother, Peter—you know I’m used

to these things.”

“Yes, but it’s dirty work for a woman. You’ll spoil your clothes.”

She could not insist on refusing. She went to the other side of the car,

where her spare wheel was fastened, and bent desperately over the

straps. She wondered how the next few minutes would pass—in heaviness

and pertness as they had begun, or in technical talk of tyres and nuts

and jacks, or in the limp politeness of the knight errant and distressed

lady.

The next moment Peter made a variation she had not expected.

“Stella, is it true that you’re going away?”

“I—I don’t know. It isn’t settled.... Who told you?”

“Rose told me—but it can’t be true.”

“Why not?”

“Your father surely would never go away at his time of life—and Rose

spoke of the Colonies. He’d never go right away and start afresh like

that.”

“Father’s heard of a very good billet near Montreal. We haven’t settled

anything yet, but we both feel we’d like a change.”

“Why?”

“Well, why shouldn’t we? We’ve been here more than twenty years, and as

for Father being old, he’s not too old to want to see a bit more of the

world.”

Peter said nothing. He was taking off the wheel. When he had laid it

against the bank he turned once more to Stella.

“It’s queer how I always manage to hear gossip about you. But it seems

that this time I’m right, while last time I was wrong.”

“Everyone gets talked about in a little place like this.”

She tried to speak lightly, but she was distressed by the way he looked

at her. Those pale blue eyes ... Alard eyes, Saxon eyes ... the eyes of

the Old People looking at her out of the Old Country, and saying “Don’t

go away....”

The next minute his lips repeated what his eyes had said:

“Don’t go away.”

She trembled, and stepped back from him on the road.

“I must go.”

“Indeed you mustn’t—I can’t bear it any longer if you do.”

“That’s why I must go.”

“No—no——”

He came towards her, and she stepped back further still.

“Don’t go, Stella. I can’t live here without you.”

“But, Peter, you must. What good am I doing you here?”

“You’re here. I know that you’re only a few miles away. I can think of

you as near me. If you went right away....”

“It would be much better for both of us.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Stella, it will break me if you go. My only comfort

during the last six hellish months has been that at least you’re not so

very far from me in space, that I can see you, meet you, talk to you now

and then....”

“But, Peter, that’s what I can’t bear. That’s why I’m going away.”

Her voice was small and thin with agitation. This was worse, a hundred

times worse, than anything she had dreaded five minutes ago. She prayed

incoherently for strength and sense.

“If that’s what you feel, you’ve got to stay,” Peter was saying.

“Stella, you’ve shown me—Stella, you still care.... Oh, I’ll own up,

I’ll own that I’ve been a fool, and a blackguard to you. But if you

still care, I can be almost happy. We’ve still something left. Only

you’ll have to stay.”

“You mustn’t talk like this.”

“Why not—if you still care? Oh, Stella, say it’s true—say you still

care ... a little.”

She could not deny her love, even though she was more afraid of his

terrible happiness than she had been before of his despair. To deny it

would be a profaning of something holier than truth. All she could say

was—

“If I love you, it’s all the more necessary for me to go away.”

“It’s not. If you love me, I can be to you at least what you are to me.

But if you go away, you’ll be as wretched as I shall be without you.”

“No ... if I go away, we can forget.”

“Forget!—What?—each other?”

“Yes.”

The word was almost inaudible. She prayed with all her strength that

Peter would not come to her across the road and take her in his arms.

His words she could fight, but not his arms....

“Stella—you’re not telling me that you’re going away to forget me?”

“I must, Peter. And you’ll forget me, too. Then we’ll be able to live

instead of just—loving.”

“But my love for you is my life—all the life I’ve got.”

“No—you’ve got Vera, and soon you’ll have your child. When I’ve gone you

can go back to them.”

“I can’t—you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you think I can

ever feel again for Vera what I felt when I was fool enough——”

“Oh, don’t....”

“But I will. Why should you delude yourself, and think I’m just being

unfaithful to my wife? It’s to you I’ve been unfaithful. I was

unfaithful to you with Vera—and now I’ve repented and come back.”

They faced each other, two yards apart in the little muddy lane. Behind

Peter the three-wheeled car stood forlornly surrounded by tools, while

his horse munched the long soaking tufts under the hedge. Behind Stella

the hedge rose abruptly in a soaring crown. Looking up suddenly, she saw

the delicate twigs shining against a sheet of pale blue sky in a faint

sunlight. For some reason they linked themselves with her mind’s effort

and her heart’s desire. Here was beauty which did not burn.... She

suddenly found herself calm.

“Peter, dear, there’s no good talking like that. Let’s be sensible.

Rightly or wrongly you’ve married someone else, and you’ve got to stand

by it and so have I. If I stay on here we will only just be

miserable—always hankering after each other, and striving for little

bits of each other which can’t satisfy. Neither of us will be able to

settle down and live an ordinary life, and after all that’s what we’re

here for—not for adventures and big passions, but just to live ordinary

lives and be happy in an ordinary way.”

“Oh, damn you!” cried Peter.

It was like the old times when he used to rail against her “sense,”

against the way she always insisted that their love should be no star or

cloud, but a tree, well rooted in the earth. It made it more difficult

for her to go on, but she persevered.

“You’ve tried the other thing, Peter—you’ve tried sacrificing ordinary

things like love and marriage to things like family pride and the love

of a place. You’ve found it hasn’t worked, so don’t do the whole thing

over again by sacrificing your home and family to a love which can never

be satisfied.”

“But it can be,” said Peter—“at least it could if you were human.”

Stella, a little to his annoyance, didn’t pretend not to know what he

meant.

“No, it couldn’t be—not satisfied. We could only satisfy a part of

it—the desire part—the part which wants home and children would always

have to go unsatisfied, and that’s as strong as the rest, though it

makes less fuss.”

“And how much satisfaction shall we get through never seeing each other

again?”

“We shall get it—elsewhere. You will at least be free to go back to

Vera—and you did love her once, you can’t deny it—you did love her once.

And I——”

“—Will be free to marry another man.”

“I don’t say that, Peter—though also I don’t say that I won’t. But I

shall be free to live the life of a normal human being again, which I

can’t now. I shan’t be bringing unrest and misery wherever I go—to

myself and to you. Oh, Peter, I know we can save ourselves if we stop

now, stop in time. We were both quite happy last time I was away—I was a

fool ever to come back. I must go away now before it’s too late.”

“You’re utterly wrong. When you first went away I could be happy with

Vera—I couldn’t now. All that’s over and done with for ever, I tell you.

I can never go back to her, whether you go or stay. It’s nothing to do

with your coming back—it’s her fault—and mine. We aren’t suited, and

nothing can ever bring us together again now we’ve found it out.”

“Not even the child?...”

“No—not even that. Besides, how do I know.... Stella, all the things

I’ve sacrificed you to have failed me, except Starvecrow.”

“You’ve still got Starvecrow.”

“Yes, but I.... Oh, Stella, don’t leave me alone, not even with

Starvecrow. The place wants you, and when you’re gone I’m afraid....

Vera doesn’t belong there; it’s your place. Oh, Stella, don’t say you

can live without me, any more than I can live without you.”

She longed to give him the answer of her heart—that she could never,

never live without him, go without the dear privilege of seeing him, of

speaking to him, of sacrificing to him all other thoughts and loves. But

she forced herself to give him the answer of her head, for she knew that

it would still be true when her heart had ceased to choke her with its

beating.

“Peter, I don’t _feel_ as if I could live without you, but I _know_ I

can—and I know you can live without me, if I go away. What you’ve said

only shows me more clearly that I must go. I could never stop here now

you know I love you.”

“And why not?—it’s your damned religion, I suppose—teaching you that

it’s wrong to love—that all that sort of thing’s disgusting,

unspiritual—you’ve got your head stuffed with all the muck a lot of

celibate priests put into it, who think everything’s degrading.”

She felt the tears come into her eyes.

“Don’t, my dear. Do you really believe—you who’ve known me—that I think

love is degrading?—or that my religion teaches me to think so? Why, it’s

because all that is so lovely, so heavenly and so good, that it mustn’t

be spoilt—by secrecy and lies, by being torn and divided. Oh, Peter, you

know I love love....”

“So much that you can apparently shower it on anyone as long as you get

the first victim out of the way.”

They both turned suddenly, as the jar of wheels sounded up the hill. It

would be agony to have the discussion broken off here, but Stella knew

that she mustn’t refuse any opportunity of ending it. No longer afraid

of Peter’s arms, she crossed swiftly to the dismantled car.

“Please don’t wait. I can manage perfectly now. Please go, Peter—please

go.”

“I’ll go only if you promise to see me again before you leave.”

“Of course I will—I’ll see you again; but you must go now.”

The wagon of Barline, heavy with crimson roots, was lurching and

skidding down the hill towards them. Peter went to his standing horse,

and rode him off into the field. Stella turned to the car, and, crouched

in its shelter, allowed herself the luxury of tears.

§ 5

She dried her eyes, came up from behind the car, and lost herself in the

sheer labour of putting on the wheel. She was late, she must hurry; she

strove, she sweated, and at last was once more in her seat, the damaged

wheel strapped in its place, all the litter of tools in the dickie. She

switched on the engine, pressed the self-starter pedal, slid the gear

lever into place, and the little car ran forward. Then she realised what

a relief it was to find herself in motion—some weight seemed to lift

from her mind, and her numb thoughts began to move, to run to and fro.

She was alive again.

But it hurt to be alive. Perhaps one was happier dead. For the thoughts

that ran to and fro were in conflict, they formed themselves into two

charging armies, meeting with horrible impact, terror and wounds. Her

mind was a battle-field, divided against itself, and as usual the

movement of the car seemed to make her thoughts more independent, more

free of her control. They moved to the throb and mutter of the engine,

as to some barbaric battle-music, some monotonous drum. She herself

seemed to grow more and more detached from them. She was no longer

herself—she was two selves—the self that loved Peter and the self that

loved God. She was Stella Mount at prayer in Vinehall church—Stella

Mount curled up on Peter’s knees ... long ago, at Starvecrow—Stella

Mount receiving her soul again in absolution ... Stella Mount loving,

loving, with a heart full of fiery sweetness.... Well, aren’t they a

part of the same thing—love of man and love of God? Yes, they are—but

today there is schism in the body.

During the last few months love had given her nothing but pain, for she

had seemed to be swallowed up in it, away from the true richness of

life. She had lost that calm, cheerful glow in which all things, even

the dullest and most indifferent, had seemed interesting and worth

while. Love had extinguished it. The difference she saw between religion

and love was that religion shone through all things with a warm, soft

light, making them all friendly and sweet, whereas love was like a

fierce beam concentrated on one spot, leaving the rest of life in

darkness, shining only on one object, and that so blindingly that it

could not be borne.

She felt a sudden spasm of revolt against the choice forced upon her.

Why should she have to choose between heaven and earth, which she knew

in her heart were two parts of one completeness? Why should God want her

to give up for His sake the loveliest thing that He had made?... Why

should He want her to _burn_?

Now had come the time, she supposed, when she would have to pay for the

faith which till then had been all joy, which in its warmth and

definiteness had taught her almost too well how to love. It had made her

more receptive, more warm, more eager, and had deprived her of those

weapons of self-interest and pride and resentment which might have armed

her now. Perhaps it was because they knew religion makes such good

lovers that masters of the spiritual life have urged that the

temptations of love are the only ones from which it is allowable to run

away. It was her duty to run away from Peter now, because the only

weapons with which she could fight him were more unworthy than

surrender. With a grimmer, vaguer belief she might have escaped more

easily—she might have seen evil in love, she might have distrusted

happiness and shunned the flesh. But then she would not have been Stella

Mount—she owed her very personality to her faith—she owed it all the

intense joy she had had in human things. Should she stumble at the

price?

If only the price were not Peter—Peter whom she loved, whom the love of

God had taught her to love more than her heart could ever have compassed

alone. Why must he be sacrificed? After all, she was offering him up to

her own satisfaction—to her anxiety to keep hold of heavenly things. Why

should he be butchered to give her soul a holiday? She almost hated

herself—hated herself for her odious sense, for her cold-blooded

practicalness. She proposed to go away not only so as to be out of

temptation—let her be honest—but so that she could forget him and live

the life of a normal happy woman ... which of course meant some other

man.... No wonder he was disgusted with her—poor, honest, simple,

unsatisfied Peter. She was proposing to desert him, sure of interior

comforts he had never known, and secretly sure that the detestable

adaptability of her nature would not allow her to mourn him long once he

was far away. Oh, Peter—Peter!... “I will give you back the years that

the locust hath eaten—I have it in my power. I can do it—I can give you

back the locust’s years. I can do it still....”

She could do it still. She could tell her father that she did not want

to go away after all—and he would be glad ... poor Father! He was only

going for her sake. He would be glad to stay on among the places and the

people that he loved. And she ... she could be a good, trusty friend to

Peter, someone he could turn to in his loneliness, who would understand

and help him with his plans for Alard and Starvecrow.... What nonsense

she was talking. Silly hypocrite! Both sides of her, the Stella who

loved Peter and the Stella who loved God, saw the futility of such an

idea. She could never be any man’s friend—least of all Peter’s. If she

stayed, it would be to love Peter, to be all that it was still possible

for her to be to him, all that Vera was and the more that she was not.

But could she? Had she the power to love Peter with a love unspoilt by

regret? Would she be able to bear the thought of her treachery to the

Lord whose happy child she had been so long?—to His Mother and hers—to

all His friends and hers, the saints—to all the great company of two

worlds whom she would betray? For her the struggle contained no moral

issue. It was simply a conflict between love and love. And all the while

she knew in the depth of her heart that love cannot really be divided,

and that her love of God held and sustained her love of Peter, as the

cloud holds the rain-drop, and the shore the grain of sand.

The first houses of Ashford slid past, and she saw the many roofs of the

railway-works. Traffic dislocated the strivings of her mind, and in time

her thoughts once more became numb. They lay like the dead on the

battle-field, the dead who would rise again.

§ 6

Gervase came to see Stella, according to promise, the following Sunday.

He found her looking tired and heavy-headed, and able only mechanically

to sustain her interest in his plans. Also he still found her

unapproachable—she was not cold or contrary, but reserved, feeding on

herself.

He guessed the source of her trouble, but shrank from probing it—keeping

the conversation to his own affairs with an egotism he would normally

have been ashamed of. What he noticed most was the extinction of joy in

her—she had always seemed to him so fundamentally happy, and it was her

profound and so natural happiness which had first attracted him towards

her religion. But now the lamp was out. He was not afraid for her—it did

not strike him that she could possibly fail or drop under her burden;

but his heart ached for her, alone in the Dark Night—that very Dark

Night he himself had come through alone.... Now he stood, also alone, in

a strange dawn which had somehow changed the world, as the fields are

changed in the whiteness of a new day.

It was not till he got up to go that he dared try to come closer. They

had been talking about the difficulties of the life he had chosen.

“I’m afraid Christianity’s a hard faith, my dear,” he said as he took

her hand—“the closer you get to the Gospel the harder it is. You’ve no

idea what a shock the Gospels gave me when I read them again last year,

not having looked at them since I was a kid. I was expecting something

rather meek-and-mild, with a gentle, womanly Saviour, and all sorts of

kind and good-natured sentiments. Instead of which I find that the

Kingdom of Heaven is for the violent, while the Lion of Judah roars in

the Temple courts ... He built His Church upon a Rock, and sometimes we

hit that Rock mighty hard.”

“But I do hope you’ll be happy, Gervase.”

“I’m sure of that, though whether it will be in a way that will be

easily recognised as happiness I’m not so sure.”

“When are you going?”

“It’s not quite settled yet. I leave off at Gillingham’s on the

twenty-fifth, and I expect I’ll go to Thunders early in February. I’ll

come and see you again before then. Goodbye, my dear.”

He kissed her hand before letting it go.

§ 7

He had said nothing to her about his sister Jenny, though her marriage

was so close as to seem almost more critical than his own departure. He

felt the unfairness of sharing with Stella so difficult a secret, also

he realised that the smaller the circle to which it was confined the

smaller the catastrophe when it was either accidentally discovered or

deliberately revealed.

About a week before the day actually fixed for the wedding, the former

seemed more likely. Jenny met Gervase on his return from Ashford with a

pale, disconcerted face.

“Father guesses something’s up,” she said briefly.

“What?—How?—Has anyone told him?”

“No—he doesn’t really know anything, thank heaven—at least anything

vital. But he’s heard I was at tea at Fourhouses twice last week. One of

the Dengates called for some eggs, I remember, and she must have told

Rose when Rose was messing about in the village. He’s being heavily

sarcastic, and asking me if I wouldn’t like Mrs. Appleby asked in to

tea, so that I won’t have to walk so far to gratify my democratic

tastes.”

“But Peter’s had tea with them, too—you told me it was he who introduced

you.”

“Yes, but that only makes it worse. Peter’s been at me as well—says he’d

never have taken me there if he’d thought I hadn’t a better sense of my

position. He was very solemn about it, poor old Peter.”

“But of course they don’t suspect any reason.”

“No, but I’m afraid they will. I’m not likely to have gone there without

some motive—twice, too—and, you see, I’ve been so secret about it, never

mentioned it at home, as I should have done if I’d had tea at Glasseye

or Monkings or anywhere like that. They must think I’ve some reason for

keeping quiet.... I hope they won’t question me, for I’m a bad liar.”

“You’ll be married in ten days—I don’t suppose they’ll get really

suspicious before that.”

However, a certain amount of reflection made him uneasy, and after

dinner he drove over to Fourhouses, to discuss the matter with Ben

Godfrey himself.

When he came back, he went straight up to Jenny’s room—she had gone to

bed early, so as to give her family less time for asking questions.

“Well, my dear,” he said when she let him in, “I’ve talked it over with

Ben, and we both think that you’ll have to get married at once.”

“At once!—But can we?”

“Yes—the law allows you to get married the day after tomorrow. It’ll

cost thirty pounds, but Fourhouses can rise to that, and it’s much

better to get the thing over before it’s found out. Not that anyone

could stop you, but it would be a maddening business if they tried, and

anyhow I think the parents will take it easier if it’s too late to do

anything.”

“I think you’re quite right—absolutely right. But——”

“But what?”

“Oh, nothing—only it seems such a jump, now I’m standing right on the

edge.”

“You’re not afraid, Jenny?”

“No—only in the way that everyone’s afraid of a big thing. But you’re

absolutely right. Now there’s a chance of us being found out, we must

act at once. I don’t want to have to tell any lies about Ben. I suppose

he’ll go up to town tomorrow.”

“Yes, and you and I will follow him the day after. I must see about a

day off. I’m not quite clear as to what one does exactly to get a

special license, but he’ll go to the Court of Faculties and they’ll show

him how. He’s going to wire me at Gillingham’s—lucky I’m still there.”

“I don’t envy you, Gervase, having to break the news to Father and

Mother.”

“No, I don’t think it’ll be much fun. But really it will be better than

if you wrote—I can let them down more gently, and they won’t feel quite

so outraged. As for the row—there’ll be one about my own little plan in

a short time, so I may as well get used to them.”

Jenny said nothing. She had known of Gervase’s “little plan” only for

the last week, and she had for it all the dread and dislike which the

active Englishwoman instinctively feels for the contemplative and

supernatural—reinforced now by the happy lover’s desire to see all the

world in love. The thought of her brother, with all his eager

experimental joy in life, all his profound yet untried capacity for

love, taking vows of poverty and celibacy, filled her with grief and

indignation—she felt that he was being driven by the backwash of his

disappointment over Stella Mount, and blamed “those Priests,” who she

felt had unduly influenced him at a critical time. However, after her

first passionate protest, she had made no effort to oppose him, feeling

that she owed him at least silence for all that he had done to help her

in her own adventure, and trusting to time and recovery to show him his

folly. She was a little reassured by the knowledge that he could not

take his final vows for many years to come.

He was aware of this one constraint between them, and coming over to her

as she lay in bed, he gave her a kiss. For some unfathomable reason it

stung her, and turning over on her side she burst into tears.

“Jenny, Jenny darling—don’t cry. Oh, why ... Jenny, if you’ve any

doubts, tell me before it’s too late, and I’ll help you out—I promise.

Anything rather than....”

“Oh, don’t, Gervase. It isn’t that. Can’t you understand? It’s—oh, I

suppose all women feel like this—not big enough ... afraid....”

§ 8

The wedding had always been planned to take place in London, so it was

merely the time that was being altered. Both Gervase and Jenny had seen,

and Ben Godfrey had been brought reluctantly to see, that to be married

at home would double the risks; so a room had been taken and a bag of

Godfrey’s clothes deposited in a Paddington parish, where the Vicar was

liberal in his interpretation of the laws of residence, and an ordinary

licence procured. The change of plans necessitated a special licence,

and Jenny had to wait till Gervase came home the next evening to know if

all was in order. However, after the shock of its inception, the new

scheme worked smoothly. Jenny came down early the next morning and

breakfasted with Gervase, then drove off in Henry Ford, leaving a

message with Wills that she had gone to London for the day, and her

brother was driving her as far as Ashford.

Everything was so quiet and matter-of-fact as to seem to her almost

normal—she could not quite realise that she had left her old life behind

her at Conster, even more completely than most brides leaving their

father’s house; that ahead of her was not only all the difference

between single and married, but all the difference between Alard and

Godfrey, Conster and Fourhouses. She was not only leaving her home, but

her class, her customs, her acquaintance. It was not till she was

standing beside Godfrey in a strange, dark church, before a strange

clergyman, that she realised the full strangeness of it all. For a

moment her head swam with terror—she found herself full of a desperate

longing to wake up in her bed at Conster and find it was a dream—she

thought of the catastrophe of Mary’s marriage, and she knew that she was

taking far bigger risks than Mary.... And through all this turmoil she

could hear herself saying quite calmly—“I, Janet Christine, take thee,

Benjamin, to be my wedded husband.” Some mechanical part of her was

going on with the business, while her emotions cowered and swooned. Now

she was signing her name in the register—Janet Christine Godfrey—now she

was shaking hands with the clergyman and answering his inane remarks

with inanities of her own. It was too late to draw back—she had

plunged—Jenny Alard was dead.

They had lunch at a restaurant in Praed Street, and afterwards Gervase

went with them to Paddington Station and saw them off to Cornwall. They

were not going to be away long, partly on account of Godfrey’s spring

sowings, and partly because Jenny felt that she could not leave her

brother any length of time to stand the racket. She would still have

liked to suppress his share in the business, but Gervase was firm—“It’s

treating them better,” he said, “and, besides, it will help them a lot

to have a scapegoat on the premises.”

Jenny felt almost sentimental in parting from the little brother, who

had helped her so much in the path she had chosen, and who had taken for

himself so rough and ridiculous a road. She kissed him in the carriage

doorway, made him promise to write to her, and then did her best to put

him out of her head for the first happy hours of the honeymoon.

Circumstances made this fairly easy. By the time they were at Mullion,

watching the low lamps of the stars hanging over the violet mists that

veiled Poldhu, even Gervase seemed very far away, and the household and

life of Conster Manor almost as if they had never been. Nothing was real

but herself and Ben, alone together in the midst of life, each most

completely the other’s desire and possession. When she looked into his

eyes, full of their new joy and trouble, the husband’s eyes which held

also the tenderness of the father and the simplicity of the child, there

was no longer any past or future, but only the present—“I love.”

The next day, however, recalled her rather abruptly to thoughts of her

scapegoat. She received a telegram—

“Father kicked me out address Church Cottage Vinehall don’t worry

Gervase.”

Jenny was conscience-stricken, though she knew that Gervase would not be

much hurt by his exile. But she was anxious to hear what had happened,

and waited restlessly for a letter. None came, but the next morning

another telegram.

“Father had stroke please come home Gervase.”

So Jenny Godfrey packed up her things and came home after two days’

honeymoon. Happiness is supposed to make time short, but those two days

had seemed like twenty years.

§ 9

Gervase reproached himself for having done his part of the business

badly, though he never felt quite sure how exactly he had blundered. He

had reached Conster two hours before dinner, and trusted that this

phenomenon might prepare his father for some surprise. But,

disappointingly, Sir John did not notice his return—he had grown lately

to think less and less about his youngest son, who was seldom at home

and whom he looked upon as an outsider. Gervase had deliberately

alienated himself from Alard, and Sir John could never, in spite of

Peter’s efforts, be brought properly to consider him as an heir. His

goings out and his comings in were of little consequence to the head of

the house. So when at six o’clock Gervase came into the study, his

father was quite unimpressed.

“May I speak to you for a minute, Sir?”

“Well, well—what is it?”

Sir John dipped _Country Life_ the fraction of an inch to imply a

temporary hearing.

“It’s about Jenny, Sir.”

“Well, what about her?”

“She’s—I’ve been with her in town today. I’ve just come back. She asked

me to tell you about her and young Godfrey.”

“What’s that? Speak up, Sir, can’t you? I can’t hear when you mumble.

Come and stand where I can see you.”

Gervase came and stood on the hearthrug. He was beginning to feel

nervous. Uncomfortable memories of childhood rushed up confusedly from

the back of his mind, and gave him sore feelings of helplessness and

inferiority.

“It’s about Jenny and young Godfrey, Sir.”

“Godfrey! Who’s Godfrey?”

“Benjamin Godfrey of Fourhouses—the man who bought your Snailham land.”

“Well, what about him?”

“It’s about him and Jenny, Sir.”

“Well, _what_ about ’em? What the devil’s he got to do with Jenny?”

“Don’t you remember she went to tea at Fourhouses last week?”

“She hasn’t been there again, has she?”

Gervase considered that the subject had been sufficiently led up

to—anyhow he could stand no more of the preliminaries.

“Well, yes, Sir—at least she’s having tea with him now—at least not

tea.... I mean, they were married this morning.”

Sir John dropped _Country Life_.

“Married this morning,” he repeated in a lame, normal voice.

“Yes, Sir, at St. Ethelburga’s, Paddington. They’ve been in love with

each other for some time, but as they didn’t expect you’d quite see

things as they did, they thought they’d better wait to tell you till

after the ceremony.”

“And where—where are they now?”

“At Mullion, Sir—in Cornwall.”

Sir John said nothing. His face turned grey, and he trembled. Gervase

was distressed.

“Don’t take it so dreadfully to heart, Father. I’m sure it’s really for

the best. He’s a decent chap, and very well-to-do—he’ll be able to give

her everything she’s been accustomed to”—remembering an old tag.

“Get out!” said Sir John suddenly.

“I’m frightfully sorry if you think we’ve treated you badly, Sir. But

really we tried to do it in the way we thought would hurt you least.”

“Get out!” repeated his father—“get out of here. This is your doing,

with your socialism, with your contempt for your own family, with

your.... Get out of the room, or I’ll....”

His shaking hand groped round for a missile, and Gervase moved hastily

to the door, too late, however, to escape a bound volume of _Punch_,

which preceded him into the hall.

Wills was standing outside the dining-room door with a tray, and Gervase

found it very difficult to look dignified. Such an attitude was even

more difficult to keep up during the alarms that followed. He retreated

to his bedroom, taking _Punch_ with him, partly as a solace, partly in a

feeble hope of persuading Wills that to have a book thrown at your head

is a normal way of borrowing it. He had not been alone a quarter of an

hour before he was summoned by Speller, his mother’s maid. There

followed an interview which began in reproaches, passed on to an enquiry

into Jenny’s luggage—had she bought brushes and sponges in London, since

she had taken nothing away?—and ended cloudily in hysterics and lavender

water. Gervase went back to his room, which ten minutes later was

entered by the sobbing Doris, who informed him he had “killed Mother,”

who apparently required a post-mortem interview. Once again he went down

to the boudoir with its rose-coloured lights and heavy scents of

restoratives, and to the jerky accompaniment of Doris’s weeping told his

story over again. He had to tell it a fourth time to Peter, who had been

summoned from Starvecrow, and found that it was hardening into set

phrases, and sounded rather like the patter of a guide recounting some

historic elopement from a great house.

“They’ve been in love for some time, but as they didn’t expect you’d

quite see things as they did——”

“My God!” said Peter.

He was perhaps the most scandalised of all the Alards, and had about him

a solemn air of wounding which was more distressing to Gervase than his

father’s wrath.

“I introduced him to her,” he said heavily—“I introduced him. I never

thought ... how _could_ I think ... that she held herself so cheap—all

of us so cheap.”

“You really needn’t treat the matter as if Jenny had married the

rag-and-bone man——” began Gervase.

“I know Godfrey’s position quite well.”

“He farms his own land, and comes of good old stock. He’s well off, and

will be able to give her everything she’s been accustomed to——”

“He won’t. She’s been accustomed to the society of gentlepeople, and

he’ll never be able to give her that. She’s gone to live on a farm,

where she’ll have her meals in the kitchen with the farm-men. I tell you

I know the Godfreys, and they’re nothing more than a respectable, good

sort of farming people who’ve done well out of the war. At least, I

won’t call them even that now,” he added fiercely—“I won’t call a man

respectable who worms himself into intimacy with my sister on the

strength of my having introduced him.”

“However, it’s some comfort to think they’ve gone to the Poldhu hotel at

Mullion,” said Lady Alard; “the Blakelocks were there once, you know,

Doris, and the Reggie Mulcasters. She won’t notice the difference quite

so terribly since he’s taken her there.”

“Yes, she will,” said Peter—“she’ll notice the difference between the

kind of man she’s been used to meeting here and a working farmer, who

wasn’t even an officer during the war. If she doesn’t—I’ll think worse

of her even than I do now. And as for you——” turning suddenly on

Gervase—“I don’t trust myself to tell you what I think of you. I expect

you’re pleased that we’ve suffered this disgrace—that a lady of our

house has married into the peasantry. You think it’s democratic and all

that. You’re glad—don’t say you’re not.”

“Yes, I am glad, because Jenny’s happy. You, none of you, seem to think

of that. You don’t seem to think that ‘the kind of man she’s been

meeting here’ hasn’t been the slightest use to her—that all he’s done

has been to trouble her and trifle with her and then go off and marry

money—that now at last she’s met a man who’s treated her honourably——”

“Honourably! He’s treated her like the adventurer he is. Oh, it’s a fine

thing of him to marry into our family, even if she hasn’t got a

penny—his ancestors were our serfs—they ran at our people’s stirrups,

and our men had the _droit du seigneur_ of their women——”

“And pulled out the teeth of your wife’s forefathers,” said Gervase,

losing his temper. “If you’re going back five hundred years, I don’t

think your own marriage will bear the test.”

He knew that if he stayed he would quarrel with them all, and he did not

want to do that, for he was really sorry for them, wounded in their most

sensitive feelings of family pride. He walked out of the room, and made

for the attic stairs, seeking the rest and dignity of solitude. But it

was not to be. The door of his father’s dressing-room opened as he

passed, and Sir John came out on the landing, already dressed for

dinner.

“You understand that after what has happened I cannot keep you here.”

He was quite calm now, and rather terrifying.

“I—oh, no—I mean yes, of course,” stammered Gervase.

“You have work at Ashford, so you can go and lodge near it. Or you can

go to your Ritualist friends at Vinehall. I refuse to have you here

after your treachery. You are a traitor, Sir—to your own family.”

“When—when would you like me to go?”

“You can stay till tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks—I’ll leave tonight.”

So the day’s catastrophe ended in Gervase driving off through the

darkness in Henry Ford, his suit-case and a few parcels of books behind

him. He had decided to go to Luce—the Priest would take him in till he

was able to go to Thunders Abbey.

“Well, anyhow, I’m spared that other row,” he thought to himself; “or,

rather, I’ve got through two rows in one. Father won’t mind what I do

with myself after this.”

He felt rather forlorn as the lorry’s lights swept up the Vinehall road.

During the last few months he had been stripped of so many things—his

devotion to Stella, his comradeship with Jenny—he knew that he could

never be to her what he had been before she married—and now his family

and his home. And all he had to look forward to was a further, more

complete stripping, even of the clothes he wore, so that in all the

world he would own nothing.

§ 10

Any lack of cordiality in Luce’s welcome was made up by his quite

matter-of-fact acceptance of this sudden descent upon him at a late hour

of a young man and all his worldly goods, including a Ford lorry. The

latter was given the inn stable as a refuge, while Gervase was told he

could have the spare bedroom as long as he liked if he would clear out

the apples. This done and some porridge eaten, he went to bed, utterly

worn out, and feeling less like Gervase Alard than he had ever felt in

his life.

The next day he went off to work as usual, sending a telegram to Jenny

on his way. When he came back he found a message had arrived from

Conster—he must go home at once; his father had had a stroke.

“I’ve a ghastly feeling it was brought on by this row,” he said to Luce,

as he filled up the lorry’s tank for the new journey.

“It must have been,” was all the reassurance he got.

Gervase felt wretched enough. The message, which had been left by Dr.

Mount, gave no details, and as the cottage was empty when he called,

there had been no verbal additions or explanations. He thought of

calling at the doctor’s on his way to Leasan—he had meant to go there

anyhow this evening and tell them about Jenny’s marriage—but he decided

it was best to lose no time, and drove straight to Conster.

Here he received his first respite. The stroke was not a severe one, and

Dr. Mount was practically certain Sir John would get over it. However,

he seemed to think the other members of the family ought to be sent for,

and Doris had telegraphed to Mary but not to Jenny, as she didn’t think

Jenny deserved it after what she had done. She did not think Gervase

deserved it, either, but evidently Dr. Mount had taken it upon himself

to decide, and left a message without consulting her.

He was not allowed to go near his father that night, and spent the hours

intermittently sleeping and waking in his little cold bedroom, now empty

of everything that was really his. The next morning he went out and sent

a telegram to Jenny. But by the time she arrived her presence was

useless. Sir John had recovered consciousness and would see none of his

erring children. Mary, Gervase and Jenny waited together in the

drawing-room in hopes that the edict would be revoked. But, as Doris

came down to tell them at intervals, it was no use whatever. He refused

to let them come near him—indeed, the mere mention of their names seemed

to irritate him dangerously. Towards evening Dr. Mount advised them to

go away.

“I’m afraid there’s no hope, at present anyhow—and it’s best not to

worry him. There’s often a very great irritability in these cases. He

may become calmer as his condition improves.”

So Jenny, scared and tired, was taken away by her husband to the shelter

of Fourhouses, and Gervase prepared to go back to Vinehall. They were

both rather guiltily conscious that they did not pity those who had been

denied the presence so much as those who were bound to it—Doris, who as

unofficial nurse and substitute scapegoat, was already beginning to show

signs of wear and tear—and Peter, worn with a growing sense of

responsibility and the uncertain future brought a step nearer ... no

doubt the younger ones had made an easy escape.

Only Mary looked a bit wistful.

“It’s so long since I’ve seen him,” she said as she stood on the steps,

waiting for the car which was to take her back to Hastings.

“Cheer up, my dear—he’ll change his mind when he gets better,” said

Gervase.

Mary shook her head. She had altered strikingly since he had seen her

last. She seemed all clothes—faultless, beautiful clothes, which seemed

mysteriously a part of herself so that it was difficult to imagine her

without them. Her real self had shrunk, faded, become something like a

whisper or a ghost—she was less Mary Pembroke than a suit of lovely grey

velvet and fur which had somehow come alive and taken the simulacrum of

a woman to show off its beauty.

“Where are you going?” he asked her, moved with a sudden anxious pity.

“Back to Hastings. I’ve found a very comfortable small hotel, and I

think I’ll stay there till I know more how things are going with Father.

I expect I shall run over and see Jenny now and then.”

“I’m glad you’re going to do that,” he cried warmly—“it’ll mean a lot to

her to have one of the family with her—especially when I’m gone.”

“You?—where are you going?”

He found himself quite unable to tell her of what he was looking forward

to.

“Oh, my work at Ashford comes to an end in a week, and I’ll have to pack

off somewhere else.”

He kissed her before she went away, and found an unexpected warmth in

her lips. After all, the real Mary had always lived very far beneath the

surface, and as years went by and the surface had become more and more

ravaged she had retreated deeper and deeper down. But he was glad to

think that at the bottom, and perhaps by queer, perverse means, she had

somehow managed to keep herself alive.

§ 11

Jenny’s sudden return had the disadvantage of bringing her back into the

midst of her family while the scandal of her marriage was still hot. As

her father refused to see her, Ben had suggested taking her away again,

but Jenny did not like to leave while Sir John was still in any danger,

and by the time all danger was past, her husband’s affairs had once more

fast bound him to the farm—besides, the various members of her family

had adjusted themselves to her defection, and settled down either into

hostility or championship, according to their own status in the tribe.

It was characteristic of the house of Alard that even its revolted

members camped round it in its evil hour, held to it by human feeling

after all other links were broken. No one would leave the neighbourhood

while Sir John continued ill and shaken. Mary stayed at Hastings, and

Gervase stayed at Vinehall, even after his apprenticeship to

Gillingham’s had finally come to an end, and the men had given him a

farewell oyster supper at the White Lion, with a presentation

wrist-watch to add to the little stock of possessions he would have to

give up in a few weeks.

However, by the beginning of February, Sir John had so far recovered as

to make any waiting unnecessary. He still refused to see his disloyal

son and rebellious daughters. His illness seemed to have hardened his

obstinacy, and to have brought about certain irritable conditions which

sometimes approached violence and made it impossible to attempt any

persuasion.

He came downstairs and took up his indoor life as usual, though out of

doors he no longer rode about on his grey horse. The entire overseership

of the estate devolved on Peter, with the additional burden that his

responsibility was without authority—his father insisted on retaining

the headship and on revising or overthrowing his decisions. Nothing

could be done without reference to him, and his illness seemed to have

made him queerly perverse. He insisted that an offer from a firm of

timber-merchants for the whole of Little Sowden Wood should be refused,

though Peter explained to him that at present the wood actually cost

more in its upkeep than was realised by the underwood sales in the local

market.

“Why should I have one of the finest woods on my estate smashed up by a

firm of war-profiteers? Confound you, Sir! Many’s the fox that hounds

have put up in Sowden, and the place was thick when Conster started

building.”

“But we’re in desperate need of ready money, Father. We can’t afford to

start repairs at Glasseye, and this is the third year we’ve put off.

There’s Monkings, too,—the place is falling to pieces, and Luck says

he’ll quit if he has to wait any longer.”

“Quit?—Let him. He needn’t threaten me. Tenants aren’t so scarce.”

“Good tenants are. We aren’t likely to get a man who farms the land as

well as Luck. He got the Penny field to carry seven bushel to the acre

last year. He’s clockwork with the rent, too—you know the trouble we

have over rent.”

“But I won’t have Sowden cut down to keep him. Timber! I thought we were

done with that shame when the war ended, and we’d lost Eleven Pounder

and Little Horn.”

“But I can’t see anything more shameful in selling timber than in

selling land, and you sold that Snailham piece last year to——”

Peter tried to retrieve his blunder, but his mind was not for quick

manœuvres and all he could do was to flush and turn guiltily silent. His

father’s anger blazed at once.

“Yes—we sold land last year, and a good business we made of it, didn’t

we! The bounder thought he’d bought my daughter into the bargain. He

thought he’d got the pull of us because we were glad to sell. I tell

you, I’ll sell no more of my land, if it puts such ideas into the heads

of the rascals that buy it, if it makes all the beastly tenants and

small-holders within thirty miles think they can come and slap me on the

back and make love to my daughters and treat me as one of themselves.

I’ll not sell another foot as long as I live. When I die, Sir, you may

not get a penny, but you’ll get the biggest estate in East Sussex.”

Peter groaned.

§ 12

Gervase did not think it advisable to go near his family when the time

came for him to leave Vinehall for Thunders Abbey. He would have liked

to see his mother, but knew too well that the interview would end only

in eau de Cologne and burnt feathers. Since he was exiled, it was best

to accept his exile as a working principle and not go near the house. He

knew that later on he would be given opportunities to see his parents,

and by then time might have made them respectively less hostile and less

hysterical.

So he wrote his mother a very affectionate letter, trying to explain

what he was going to do, but not putting any great faith in her

understanding him. He told her that he would be able to come and see her

later, and sent his love to Doris and Peter and his father. He also

wrote a line to Mary. His personal farewells were for Stella and Jenny

only.

To Stella he said goodbye the day before he left. He found her making

preparations for her own departure. She and her father were leaving for

Canada as soon as Mrs. Peter Alard was through her confinement, which

she expected in a couple of weeks. The practice had been sold, and the

escape into a new life and a new country was no longer a possible resort

of desperation but a fixed doom for her unwilling heart.

All she had been able to do during the last weeks had been to let her

father act without interference. Her entire conflict had been set in

withholding herself from last-moment entreaties to stay, from attempts

at persuading him to withdraw from negotiations over the practice, from

suggestions that their departure should be put off to the end of the

summer. So negative had been her battle that she had never felt the

thrill of combat—instead she felt utterly crushed and weary. She felt

both dead and afraid ... the only moments in which she seemed to live

were the moments in which she encountered Peter, passing him

occasionally on the road or meeting him in a neighbour’s house. They

were terrible moments of fiery concentrated life—she was glad afterwards

to fall back into her stupor. She and he had had no more private

conversations—she was able to pursue her negative battle to the extent

of avoiding these—but his mere presence seemed to make alive a Stella

Mount who was dying, whose death she sometimes thought of as a blessing

and sometimes as a curse.

When she saw Gervase, so quiet and sweet-tempered and happy, she

wondered if she would possibly be like that when her love for Peter was

dead, as his for her was dead. But then his love for her was not

dead—that was the whole point; like Enoch, it was translated—it was not,

because God had taken it. As she looked into his peaceful eyes, her own

filled with tears. She wondered if he had won his battle so quickly

because it had been a slighter one than hers, or because he was better

armed. Probably because of both. He was younger than she, his passions

still slept in his austere, hard-working youth—and would probably awake

only to find themselves reborn in his religious life—also, she realised

that he might be naturally spiritual, whereas she had never been more

than spiritually natural—a distinction. He was a man born to love God as

she had been born to love men, and she knew that, in spite of all he

said, he would have found his beloved sooner or later without any help

of hers.

“Goodbye, dear Gervase,” she said, and pressed his hand.

“Goodbye, Stella”—surprisingly he kissed her, like another girl. She had

not thought he would dare kiss her at all, and this warm, light, natural

kiss—the kiss of a gentle friend—showed her a self-conquest more

complete than any she had imagined—certainly than any she would ever

know. She might be strong enough to deny her kisses to Peter, but she

would never be able to give him the kiss of a friend.

§ 13

The next day Gervase drove off to Thunders Abbey, and went by way of

Icklesham. It was a windless afternoon; the first scent of primroses hid

in the hollows of the lanes, and the light of the sun, raking over the

fields, was primrose-coloured on the grass. The browsing sheep and

cattle cast long shadows, and the shadows of the leafless trees were

clear, a delicate tracery at their roots.

As he drove up and down the steep, wheel-scarred lanes he watched

familiar farms and spinneys go by as if it were for the last time. He

knew that he would see them all many times after this, but somehow it

would not be the same. Gervase Alard would be dead, as Jenny Alard was

dead, and he felt as Jenny had felt the night before her wedding—glad

and yet afraid. He remembered her words—“Can’t you understand?—It’s

because I don’t feel big enough ... afraid.” He, too, felt afraid of his

new life, and for the same reason—because he knew he was not big enough.

Yet, in spite of her fear, Jenny had gone on, and now she was happy. And

he was going on, and perhaps he would be happy, too.

He found her baking little cakes for tea. She tapped on the kitchen

window when the lorry rattled into the yard, and he came in and took her

in his arms, in spite of her protest that she was all over flour.

“Hullo, Gervase! this is splendid—I haven’t seen you for ages.”

She was wearing a blue gingham overall, and with her face flushed at the

fire, and her background of brick, scrubbed wood and painted canisters,

she looked more like a farmer’s wife than he could ever have imagined

possible. She had grown plump, too, since her marriage, and her eyes had

changed—they looked bright, yet half asleep, like a cat’s eyes.

“I’ve come to say goodbye, Jen. I’m off to Thunders.”

“When?—Tomorrow?”

“No—this very evening. I’ll go straight on from here.”

“Gervase!”

She looked sad—she understood him less than ever now.

“Father Lawrence wrote two days ago and said they were able to take

me—and I’ve nothing to wait for. Father won’t see me. I’ve written to

Mother—I thought it better than farewells in the flesh.”

“And Stella?”

“I’ve said goodbye to her.”

“Gervase, I know—I feel sure you’re only doing this because of her.”

“Well, I can’t show you now that you’re wrong, but I hope time will.”

“I hope it won’t show you that you’re wrong—when it’s too late. My

dear——” she went up to him and put her hands on his shoulders—“My dear,

you’re so young.”

“Don’t, Jen.”

“But it’s true. Why can’t you wait till you’ve seen more of life—till

you’ve lived, in fact?”

“Because I don’t want to give God just the fag-end of myself, the

leavings of what you call life. I want to give Him the best I’ve got—all

my best years.”

“If Stella had accepted you, you would have married her, and we

shouldn’t have heard anything about all this.”

“That’s true. But she refused me, and it was her refusal which showed me

the life I was meant for. The fact that I loved Stella, and she would

not have me, showed me that God does not want me to marry.”

He seemed to Jenny transparent and rather silly, like a child.

“But you’re only twenty-one,” she persisted gently, as she would with a

child. “You’d have been sure to fall in love again and marry someone

else.”

“And there’s no good telling you I’m sure I shouldn’t. However, my dear,

I’m not going to prison on a life sentence—I can come out tomorrow if I

don’t like it; and probably for a year or so the whole community will be

trying to turn me out—they’re as much afraid of a mistake as you are.”

“I don’t trust them. They only too seldom get hold of men in your

position.”

“My dear, don’t let’s talk any more about me. It’s making us quarrel,

and probably this is the last time I shall see you for months. Tell me

how you’ve been getting on. Has the County called yet?”

“Not so as you’d notice. As a matter of fact, the Fullers left cards the

other day. Agney’s far enough off for it not to matter very much, and I

think Mrs. Fuller has a reputation for being broad-minded which she’s

had to live up to. But I’m getting to like Ben’s friends—I told you I

should. There’s the Boormans of Frays Land and the Hatches of Old Place,

and a very nice, well-educated bailiff at Roughter, who collects prints

and old furniture. I see a lot of them—they’ve been here and I’ve been

to their houses; and as Mrs. Godfrey and the girls keep to their own

part of the house, I’ve got my hands full from morning to night, and

don’t have much time to think about anything I may have lost.”

“It seems to suit you, anyhow. You look fine.”

“I feel splendid. Of course, I couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for Ben. I

don’t pretend I’ve found everything in the life agreeable, after what

I’ve been used to. But Ben makes everything worth doing and worth

bearing.”

“And that’s how it is with me. Can’t you understand now, Jen?—I’ve got

something, too, which makes it all worth doing and worth bearing—though

I don’t pretend, any more than you do, that I expect to find everything

in my life agreeable.”

“I’ll try to understand, Gervase; but I don’t suppose I’ll succeed—and

you really can’t expect it of me.”

“All right, I won’t, just yet.” He picked his cap and gloves off the

table—“I really must be going now.”

“Won’t you stay and have some tea? I’ve got over the failure stage in

cakes—I really think these will be quite eatable.”

“No, thanks very much, I mustn’t stay. It’ll take Henry quite two hours

to get to Brighton.”

She did not seem to hear him—she was listening. He could hear nothing,

but a moment later a footstep sounded in the yard.

“There he is,” said Jenny.

She went out into the passage and closed the door behind her.

He was left alone in the big kitchen. The fire and the kettle hummed

together to the ticking of the clock, and there was a soft, sweet smell

of baking cakes. The last of the sunshine was spilling through the

window on to the scrubbed, deal table, and over all the scene hung an

impalpable atmosphere of comfort, warmth and peace. Outside in the

passage he could hear the murmuring of a man’s and a woman’s voices....

His eyes suddenly filled with tears.

They were gone when Jenny came back into the room with Ben, who had

evidently been told the reason for his brother-in-law’s visit, for he

shook hands in clumsy silence.

“How do you do?” said Gervase—“and goodbye.”

Ben still said nothing. He neither approved nor understood young Alard’s

ways. Religion was for him the ten commandments, Parson’s tithes, and

harvest thanksgivings—anything further smacked of Chapel and the piety

of small-holders. But he was too fond of Gervase to say openly what was

in his heart, and as he was not used to saying anything else, he was

driven into an awkward but well-meaning silence.

“I’m glad you’re taking Henry with you,” said Jenny, attempting

lightness—“It would have been dreadful if you’d had to leave him

behind.”

“Yes—‘The Arab’s Farewell to His Steed’ wouldn’t have been in it. But

I’m taking him as my dowry. They’ll find some use for him at

Thunders—he’s got at least one cylinder working. If they hadn’t wanted

him I’d have given him to Ben—just to encourage him to start machinery

on the farm.”

“I’d sooner keep my horses, thank you,” said Ben, relieved at having

something to say at last. “Give me a horse-ploughed field, even if it

does take twice the labour.”

“But you’ll be getting a tractor soon, won’t you? That’s another idea

altogether, and you’ll never find horses to beat that.”

Thus talking of machinery the three of them went to the door, and said

goodbye under cover of argument.

“You’ll see me again before long,” cried Gervase, as he drove off.

“Will you be able to write to us?”

“Of course I will—look out for a letter in a day or two.”

With hideous grindings, explosions and plaints, the lorry went off down

the drive. As it disappeared between the hedgerows, Jenny felt her heart

contract in a pang of helpless pity.

“Oh, Ben ... he’s so young—and he’s never had anything.”

She would have cried, but her husband’s arm slipped round her, drawing

her back into the darkening house.

§ 14

Jenny had been candid with Gervase in her account of herself. She was

happy—supremely so—but there was much that would have been difficult

were it not for the love which “made everything worth doing and worth

bearing.” She had nothing to complain of in Ben himself. He was after

marriage the same as he had been before it—gentle, homely, simple and

upright, with a streak of instinctive refinement which compensated for

any lack of stress on the physical cleanliness which was the god of her

former tribe. It is true that he expected more of her than Jim Parish,

for instance, would have done. The sight of Jenny rising at half-past

six to light the kitchen fire, cooking the breakfast, and doing all the

housework with the help of one small girl, did not strike him as the act

of wifely devotion and Spartan virtue that it seemed to her and would

have seemed to Jim. It was what the women of his experience did

invariably, and with a certain naïve thickheadedness he had not expected

Jenny, taken from a home of eight o’clock risings, to be different. But

in all other ways he was considerate—ways in which the men of her class

would most probably not have considered her; and she soon became used to

the physical labour of her days. Indeed, after the first surprise at his

attitude, she realised that anything else would have brought an

atmosphere of unreality into the life which she loved because it was so

genuine. Farmers’ wives—even prosperous farmers’ wives—did not lie in

bed till eight, or sit idle while the servants worked; and Jenny was now

a farmer’s wife—Mrs. Ben Godfrey of Fourhouses—with her place to keep

clean, her husband and her husband’s men to feed, her dairy and her

poultry to attend to.

But though she loved Ben, and loved working for him, there were other

things that were hard, and she was too clear-headed not to acknowledge

the difficulties she had chosen. She often longed to be alone with her

husband, instead of having to share him with his mother and sisters.

According to yeoman custom, his wife had been brought into his home,

which was also his family’s home, and she must take what she found

there. Jenny realised that she might have been worse off—she was

genuinely fond of Mrs. Godfrey and Lily and Jane, and their separate

quarters gave her a privacy and a freedom she would not have had on many

farms—but she would have been less sensitive to the gulf between her new

life and the old if she had been alone with Ben. His women, with their

constant absorption in housework—making it not so much a duty to be done

and then forgotten as a religion pervading the whole life—with their

arbitrary standards of decorum, and their total lack of interest in any

mental processes—often begot in her revolt and weariness, especially

when her husband was much away. She had not known till then how much she

depended on stray discussions of books and politics, on the interchange

of abstract and general ideas. Ben himself could give her these

stimulations, for the war had enlarged his education, and his love for

her made him eager to meet her on the ground she chose. But his work

often took him into the fields soon after dawn, and he would not be

privately hers again till night, for the meals at Fourhouses were

communal and democratic; not only Mrs. Godfrey and her daughters, but

the stockman, the cow-man, the carter and the ploughboys sat down to

table with the master.

Moreover, after a month or two, she began to feel her estrangement from

her people. She did not miss her old acquaintances among the county

families, but she felt the silence of her home more than she would ever

have imagined possible. No one from Conster—her father or mother or

Doris—had come near her or sent her a word. There had been the same

silence up at Starvecrow which surprised her more, for she and Vera had

always been friends—though of course Vera had her own special

preoccupations now. Rose had called, but evidently with a view to

replenishing her stores of gossip for Leasan tea-parties, and Jenny had

done all she could to discourage another visit. Mary generally came over

from Hastings once a week, but hers were only the visits of a

fellow-exile.

In her heart, the estrangement which Jenny felt the most was between

herself and Peter. She had not expected such treatment from him. She had

expected anger and disappointment, certainly, a stormy interview,

perhaps, but not this blank. Sometimes she told herself he was anxious

about Vera, and that his own troubles had combined with her misbehaviour

to keep him away. She forced herself to patience, hoping uncertainly

that the fortunate birth of an heir would bring old Peter to a better

frame of mind.

Meanwhile, she was reviving her friendship with Mary, or rather was

building up a new one, for in old times she had felt a little afraid of

her elegant, aloof sister. She was not afraid of Mary now—indeed, from

the vantage of her own happy establishment she almost pitied this woman

who had left so much behind her in dark places.

Mary liked Ben—but her temperament had set her at a great distance from

his homely concreteness. Though she stood by her sister in her

adventure, she evidently could not think “what Jenny saw in him,” and

she was openly full of plans for his improvement and education.

“Why don’t you lift him up to your level instead of stooping to his? You

could easily do it. He’s deeply in love with you, and, in my opinion,

very much above his own way of life. Fourhouses is a good estate and

he’s got plenty of money to improve it—with a little trouble he could

make it into a country house and himself into a small squire.”

“Thanks,” said Jenny—“that’s what I’ve just escaped from—country houses

and squires—and I don’t want to start the whole thing over again. Why

should Ben try to make himself a squire, when the squires are dying out

all over the country, and their estates are being broken up and sold

back to the people they used to belong to?”

“Jenny, you talk like a radical!—‘God gave the land to the people’ and

all that.”

“My husband’s a vice-president of the Conservative Club. It isn’t for

any political reasons that I don’t want to fight my way back into the

county. It’s simply that I’m sick of two things—struggle and pretence.

Situated as I am, I’ve got neither—if I tried to keep what I gave up

when I married Ben, I’d have both.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk like this now—when everything’s new.

Even I know what the first months of marriage can be like.... But later

on, when things have sobered down, you’ll feel different—you’ll want to

see some of your old friends again, and wish you hadn’t shut them out.”

“If you mean the Parishes and the Hursts and the Wades and all that lot,

nothing I could ever do would make them my friends again. You see,

they’re friends of Father’s, and, considering his attitude towards my

marriage—which would be the same whatever I did to ‘raise’ myself—they

can never be friends of mine. It isn’t as if I’d moved thirty miles off

and had a new sort of ‘county’ to visit me. I’m in the middle of the old

crowd, and they can never be friendly with me without offending my

people. No, I must be content with Ben’s friends—if I tried to ‘improve’

him we’d lose those, too, and then I’d have nobody.”

“I daresay you’re right, my dear—you sound practical, anyway. And I’ve

no right to teach anyone how to arrange their lives.... It’s queer,

isn’t it, Jen? I took, generally speaking, no risks when I married. I

married a man I loved, a man of my own class, whom my people approved

of—and look at me now. You, on the other hand, have taken every

imaginable risk—a runaway match, a different class, and the family

curse....”

“You’ll have to look at me twelve years hence to compare me with you.”

“I think you’re going to be all right, though—even if you don’t take my

advice.”

“I’m sure I shall be all right. You see, I’m doing everything with my

eyes open. You didn’t have your eyes open, Mary.”

“I know I didn’t. Very few women do. Most brides are like newborn

kittens with their eyes shut.”

“Are you happy now?”