“The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean?
Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and
the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache. I know
I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; but glad
or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be
complete. You have felt all this.”
“Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am
sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I often
think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release.”
“If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had
not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched
money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite
unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I
should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good
husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a husband
better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they were to be
made that you could make a better husband than I should be--I feel it.”
“I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself.
He never went in for the country people; he never would have people
at the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a
convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the
wrong people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't
understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have
expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount
Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds,
shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have married
very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would have been
saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my father brings all
his troubles on himself.”
“So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I
had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now.”
“But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--”
“Yes, I did love her.”
“I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a
very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you like
me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as you
know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to do to
look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not think
of marrying Lizzie Baker?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would
you like to marry Maggie?”
“Yes, of course I should.”
“I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best
thing you could do.”
They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking
a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's box.
The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful
crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel,
and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands.
The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the
pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary
and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow,
and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace.
Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After
dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with
affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her
stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At
ten every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his
accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields
talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so
the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life. There
were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of
reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the
first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly
hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he waited
unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; and in
such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a letter from
Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as comes on
swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, and was
sucked down in his passion.
The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of
the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas
with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos
and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and
Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical--his
eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling,
the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been
cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of
the walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of
which he could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved,
but he was leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as
children, as girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the
quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful
garden where he had played and passioned in all varying moments of grief
and glee, he re-lived the past; and leaning out of the carriage window
he gazed fondly, and cried out: “Alas, those were Spring Days.”