WONDERFUL WORDS.
Fully aware of his son's disposition and partly acquainted with his
experiences, Mr. Belfield had urged Harry to "go slow" in his courting
of Vivien Wellgood. An opinion that marriage was Harry's best chance was
not inconsistent with advising that any particular marriage should be
approached with caution and due consideration, that a solid basis of
affection should be raised, calculated to stand even though the winds of
time carried away the lighter and more fairy-like erections of Harry's
romantic fancy. To do Harry justice, he did his best to obey the
paternal counsel; but ideas of speed in such matters, and of cautious
consideration, differ. What to Harry was sage delay would have seemed to
many others lighthearted impetuosity. He waited a full fortnight after
he was absolutely sure of--well, of the wonderful thing he was so sure
of--a fortnight after he was absolutely sure that Vivien was absolutely
sure also. (The fortnights ran concurrently.) Then he began to feel
rather foolish. What on earth was he waiting for? A man could not be
more than absolutely sure. Yet perhaps, in pure deference to his father,
he would have waited a week longer, and so achieved, or sunk to, an
almost cold-blooded deliberation. (He had known Mrs. Freere only a week
before he declared--and abjured--a passion!) He was probably right; it
was no good waiting. No greater security could be achieved by that.
Whether the pursuit were deliberate or impetuous, an end must come to
it. It was afterwards--when the chase was over and the quarry won--that
the danger came for Harry and men like him. Sage delay and a solid basis
of affection could not obviate that peril; the born hunter would still
listen to the horn that sounded a new chase. Somewhere in the world--so
the theory ran--there must live the woman who could deafen Harry's ears
to a fresh blast of the horn. On that theory monogamy depends for its
personal--as distinguished from its social--justification. So Mr.
Belfield reasoned, with a smile, and counselled delay. But there were no
means of ransacking the world, and even the theory itself was doubtful.
Harry was an eager advocate of the theory, but thought that there was no
need to search beyond little Meriton for the woman. At any rate, if
Meriton did not hold her, she did not exist--the theory stood condemned.
Still he would wait one week more--to please his father.
A thing happened, a word was spoken, the like of which he had never
anticipated. To defend himself laughingly against comparisons with the
proverbial Lothario, to protest with burlesque earnestness against
charges of susceptibility, fickleness, and extreme boldness of
assault--Harry played that part well, and was well-accustomed to play
it. But to suffer a challenge, to endure a taunt, to be subjected to a
sneer, as a slow-coach, a faint-heart, a boy afraid to tell a girl he
loved her, afraid to snatch what he desired! This was a new experience
for Harry Belfield, new and unbearable. And when he had only been trying
to please his father! Hang this pleasing of one's father, if it leads to
things like that!
He dashed up to Nutley one fine afternoon on his bicycle; he was
teaching Vivien the exercise, and she was finding that even peril had
its charms. But he was late for his appointment. Isobel Vintry sat alone
on the terrace by the water.
"How are you, Miss Vintry? I say, I'm afraid I'm late. Where's Vivien?"
"You're nearly half an hour late."
"Well, I know. I couldn't help it. Where is she?"
"She got tired of waiting for you, and went for a walk in the wood."
"She might have waited."
"Well, yes. One would think she'd be accustomed to it by now," said
Isobel. Her tone was lazily indolent, but her eyes were set on him in
mockery.
Harry looked at her with a sudden alertness. He looked at her hard.
"Accustomed to waiting for me?"
"Yes." She was exasperating in her malicious tranquillity, meaning more
than she said, saying nothing that he could lay hold of, quite grave,
and laughing at him.
"Any hidden meanings, Miss Vintry?" For, as a fact, Harry had generally
been punctual, and knew it.
"Nothing but what's quite obvious," she retorted, dexterously fencing.
"Or ought to be, to a man not so slow as I am?"
"You slow, Mr. Harry! You're Meriton's ideal of reckless dash!"
"Meriton's?"
"That's the name of the town, isn't it? Or did you think I said
London's?"
Harry laughed, but he was stung; she put him on his mettle. "Oh no, I
understood your emphasis."
"You needn't keep her waiting any longer--while you talk about nothing
to me. You'll find her in the west wood--if you want to. She left you
that message."
Harry had no doubt of what she meant, yet she had not spoken a word of
it. The saying goes that words are given us to conceal our thoughts; has
anybody ever ventured to say that lips and eyes are? Her meaning carried
without speech; understanding it, Harry took fire.
"I won't be late again, Miss Vintry," he said. "It would be a pity to
disappoint Meriton in its ideal!"
He would have liked to speak to her for a moment sincerely, to ask her
if she really thought--But no, it could not be risked. She would make
him feel and look ridiculous. Asking her opinion about the right moment
to--to--to come up to the scratch (he could find no more dignified
phrase)! Her eyes would never let him hear the end of that.
"Still lingering?" she said, stifling a yawn. "While poor Vivien waits!"
There are unregenerate atavistic impulses; Harry would dearly have liked
to box her ears. "Meriton's ideal" rankled horribly. What business was
it of hers? It could not concern her in the least--a conclusion which
made matters worse, since disinterested criticism is much the more
formidable.
"I can find her in a few minutes."
"Oh yes, if you look! Shall you be back to tea?"
"Yes, we'll be back to tea, Miss Vintry. Both of us--together!"
Isobel smiled lazily again. "Come, you are going to make an effort.
Nothing of the laggard now!"
"Oh, that's the word you've been thinking suits me?"
"It really will if you don't get to the west wood soon."
"I'll get there--and be back--in half an hour."
The one thing he could not endure was that any woman--above all, an
attractive woman--should find in him, Harry Belfield, anything that was
ridiculous. She might chide, she might admire; laugh she must not, or
her laugh should straightway be confounded. Isobel's hint that he had
been a laggard in love banished, in a moment, the uncongenial prudence
which he had been enforcing on himself.
She watched him with a contemptuous smile as he strode off on his quest.
Why had she mocked, why had she hinted? In part for pure mockery's sake.
She found a malicious pleasure in giving his complacency a dig, in
shaking up his settled good opinion of himself. In part from sheer
impatience of the simple obvious love affair, to which she was called by
her situation to play witness, chaperon, and practically accomplice. It
was quite clear how it was going to end--better have the end at once!
Her smile of contempt had been not so much for Harry as for the business
on which he was engaged; yet Harry had his share of it, since her veiled
banter had such power to move him. But that same thing in him had its
fascination; there was a great temptation to exercise her power when the
man succumbed to it so easily. In this case she had used it only to send
him a little faster whither he was going already; but did that touch the
limits of it?
So she speculated within herself, yet not quite candidly. Her feeling
for Harry was far from being all contempt. She mocked him with her
"Meriton ideal," but she was not independent of the Meriton standard
herself. To her as to the rest of his neighbours he was a bright star;
to her as to them his looks, his charm, his accomplishments appealed. In
her more than in most of them his emotions, so ready and quick to take
fire, found a counterpart. To her more than to most of them indifference
from him seemed in some sort a slight, a slur, a mark of failure.
Unconsciously she had fallen into the Meriton way of thinking that
notice from Harry Belfield was a distinction, his favour a thing marking
off the recipient from less happy mortals. She had received little
notice and little favour--a crumb or two of flirtation, flung from
Vivien's rich table!
To Vivien, after all the person most intimately concerned, Harry had
seemed no laggard; she would have liked him none the worse if he had
shown more of that quality. Nothing that he did could be wrong, but some
things could be--and were--alarming. Her fastidiousness was not hurt,
but her timidity was aroused. She feared crises, important moments, the
crossing of Rubicons, even when the prospect looked fair and delightful
on the other side of the stream.
To-day, in the west wood, the crossing had to be made. It by no means
follows that the man who falls in love lightly makes love lightly; he is
as much possessed by the feeling he has come by so easily as though it
were the one passion of a lifetime. In his short walk from Isobel
Vintry's side to Vivien's, Harry's feelings had found full time to rise
to boiling-point. Isobel was far out of his mind; already it seemed to
him inconceivable that he should not, all along, have meant to make his
proposal--to declare his love--to-day. How could he have thought to hold
it in for an hour longer?
"I know I was late, Vivien," he said. "I'm so sorry. But--well, I half
believe I was on purpose." He was hardly saying what was untrue; he was
coming to half-believe it--or very nearly.
"On purpose! O Harry! Didn't you want to give me my lesson to-day?"
"Not in bicycling," he answered, his eyes set ardently on her face.
She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, which had been stripped
of its bark and shaped into a primitive bench. He sat down by her and
took her hand.
"Your hand shakes! What's the matter? You're not afraid of me?"
"Not of you--no, not of you, Harry."
"Of something then? Is it of something I might do--or say?" He raised
her hand to his lips and kissed it.
It was no use trying to get answers out of her; she was past that; but
she did not turn away from him, she let her eyes meet his in a silent
appeal.
"Vivien, I love you more than all my life!"
"You--you can't," he could just hear her murmur, her lips scarcely
parted.
"More than everything in the world besides!"
What wonderful words they were. "More than everything in the world
besides!" "More than all my life!" Could there be such words? Could she
have heard--and Harry uttered them? Her hands trembled violently in his;
she was sore afraid amidst bewildering joy. Anything she had
foreshadowed in her dreams seemed now so faint, so poor, against
marvellous reality. Surely the echo of the wonderful words would be in
her ears for all her life!
She had none wherewith to answer them; her hands were his already; for
the tears in her eyes she could hardly see his face, but she turned her
lips up to his in mute consent.
"That makes you mine," said Harry, "and me yours--yours only--for ever."
She released her hands from his, and put her arm under his arm. Still
she said nothing, but now she smiled beneath her dim eyes, and pressed
his arm.
"Not frightened now?" he asked softly. "You need never be frightened
again."
She spoke at last just to say "No" very softly, yet with a wealth of
confident happiness.
"The things we'll do, the things we'll see, the times we'll have!" cried
Harry gaily. "And to think that it's only a month or two ago that the
idea occurred to me!" He teased her. "Occurred to us, Vivien?"
"Oh no, Harry. Well, then, yes." She laughed lightly, pressing his arm
again. "But never that it could be like this."
"Is this--nice?" he asked in banter.
"Is it--real?" she whispered.
"Yes, it's real and it's nice--real nice, in fact,"
laughed Harry.
"Don't talk just for a little while," she begged, and he humoured her,
watching her delicate face during the silence she entreated. "You must
tell them," she said suddenly, with a return of her alarm.
"Oh yes, I'll do all the hard work," he promised her, smiling.
She fell into silence again, the wonderful words re-echoing in her
ears--"More than everything in the world besides!" "More than all my
life!"
"I promised Miss Vintry we'd be back to tea. Do you think you can face
her?" asked Harry.
"Yes, with you. But you've got to tell. You promised."
"You'll have somebody to help you over all the stiles--now and
hereafter."
The suggestion brought a radiant smile of happiness to her lips; it
expressed to her the transformation of her life. So many things had been
stiles to her, and her father's gospel was that people must get over
their own stiles for themselves; that was the lesson he inculcated, with
Isobel Vintry to help him. But now--well, if stiles were still possible
things at all, with Harry to help her over they lost all their terrors.
"We'll remember this old tree-trunk. In fact I think that the proper
thing is to carve our initials on it--two hearts and our initials.
That's real keeping company!"
"Oh no," she protested with a merry little laugh. "Keeping company!
Harry!"
"Well, I'll let you off the hearts, but I must have the initials--very,
very small. Do let me have the initials!"
"Somewhere where nobody will look, nobody be likely to see them!"
"Oh yes; I'll find a very secret place! And once a year--on the
anniversary, if we're here--we'll come and freshen them up with a
penknife."
He had his out now, and set about his pleasant silly task, choosing one
end of the tree-trunk, near to the ground, where, in fact, nobody who
was not in the secret would find the record.
"There you are--a beautiful monogram; 'H' and 'V' intertwined. I'm proud
of that!"
"So am I--very proud, Harry!" she said softly, taking his arm as they
moved away. Was she not blessed among the daughters of women? To say
nothing of being the envy of all Meriton!
And for Harry the past was all over, the dead had buried its dead. The
new life--and the life of the new man--had begun.
Wellgood was back from a ride round his farms--a weekly observance with
him. He had been grimly encouraging the good husbandmen, badly scaring
the inefficient, advising them all to keep their labourers in order, and
their womankind as near to reason as could be hoped for. Now he had his
hour of relaxation over tea. He was a great tea-drinker--four or five
cups made his allowance. Tea is often the libertinism of people
otherwise severe. He leant back in his garden-chair, his gaitered legs
outstretched, and drank his tea, Isobel Vintry replenishing the
swiftly-emptied cup. She performed the office absent-mindedly--with an
air of detachment which hinted that she would fulfil her duties, routine
though they might be, but must not be expected to think about them.
"Where's Vivien?" he asked abruptly.
"In the west wood--with Mr. Harry. He said they'd be back for tea."
"Oh!" He finished his third cup and handed the vessel over to her to be
refilled. "Things getting on?"
"Yes, I think so. Here's your tea."
"Why do you think so? Give me another lump of sugar."
"Sugar at that rate'll make you put on too much weight. Well, I gave him
a hint that the pear was ripe."
"You did? Well, I'm hanged!"
"You think I'm very impudent?"
"What did you say? But I daresay you said nothing. You've a trick with
those eyes of yours, Isobel."
"I've devoted them solely to supervising your daughter's education, Mr.
Wellgood."
"Oh yes!" he chuckled. He liked impudence from a woman; to primitive
man--Wellgood had a good leaven of the primitive--it is an agreeable
provocation.
"I'll bet you," she said--with her challenging indolence that seemed to
say "Disturb me if you can!"--"I'll bet you we hear of the engagement in
ten minutes."
"You know a lot about it! What'll you bet me?"
"Anything you like--from a quarter's salary downwards!" said Isobel. She
sat facing the path from the west wood. On it she saw two figures, arm
in arm. Wellgood had his back turned that way. The situation was
favourable for Isobel's bet.
A light hand in flirtation could not be expected from a man to whom the
heavy hand--the strong decisive grip--was gospel in matters public and
private. Besides, he had grown impatient; his affair waited on Harry's.
"From a quarter's salary downwards? Will you bet me a kiss?"
"Yes," she smiled, "if losing means the kiss. Because I know I shall
win, Mr. Wellgood."
Harry and Vivien came near, still exalted in dreams, the new man and the
girl transformed. Wellgood had not noticed them, perhaps would have
forgotten them anyhow.
"If winning meant the kiss?" he said.
"I don't bet as high as that, except on a certainty,"
smiled Isobel. "Another cup?"
"No, but I tell you, Isobel--" He leant over the table towards her.
"Don't tell me, and don't touch me! They're just behind you, Mr.
Wellgood."
He swore under his breath. A plaguy mean trick this of women's--defying
just when they are safe! He had to play the father--and the
father-in-law to be; to seem calm, wise, benevolent, paternally
affectionate, patronizing to young love from the sage eminence of years
that he was just, a second ago, forgetting.
Since she had come into his house, to be Vivien's companion and
exemplar, a year ago, they had had many of these rough defiant
flirtations. He was not easily snubbed, she not readily frightened. They
had worked together over Vivien's rather severe training in a
matter-of-fact way; but there had been this diversion for hours of
leisure. Why not? Flirtation of this order was not the conventional
thing between the girl's father and the girl's companion. No matter!
They were both vigorously self-confident people; the flirtation suited
the taste of at least one of them, and served the ends of both.
The near approach of the lovers--the imminence of a declared
engagement--made a change. Wellgood advanced more openly; Isobel
challenged and repelled more impudently. The moment for which he had
waited seemed near at hand; she suffered under an instinctive impulse to
prove that she too had her woman's power and could use it. But, deep
down in her mind, the proof was more for Harry's enlightenment than for
Wellgood's subjugation. She had an overwhelming desire not to appear, in
Harry's conquering eyes, a negligible neglected woman. She mocked the
Meriton standard--but shared it.
"Look round!"
He obeyed her.
"Arm in arm!"
He started, and glowered at the approaching couple. Vivien hastily
dropped Harry's arm.
"Oh, that's nothing--she's just afraid! It's settled all the same. And
within my ten minutes!"
"Aye, you're a--!" He smiled in grim fierce admiration.
"Shall I take three months' notice, Mr. Wellgood?" She was lying back in
her chair again, insolent and serenely defiant. "I might have betted
after all, and been quite safe," she said.
Harry victorious in conquest, Vivien with her more precious conquest in
surrender, were at Wellgood's elbow. He had to wrench himself away from
his own devices.
"Well, what have you got to say, Vivien?" he asked his daughter rather
sharply. She was looking more than usually timid. What was there to be
frightened at?
"She hasn't got anything to say," Harry interposed gaily. "I'm going to
do the talking. Are you feeling romantic to-day, Mr. Wellgood?"
Wellgood smiled sourly. "You know better than to try that on me, Master
Harry."
"Yes! Well, I'll cut that, but I just want to mention--as a matter of
business, which may affect your arrangements--that Vivien has promised
to marry me."
Vivien had stolen up to her father and now laid her hand lightly on his
shoulder. He looked at her with a kindly sneer, then patted her hand.
"You like the fellow, do you, Vivien?"
"Yes, father."
"Then I daresay we can fix matters up. Shake hands, Harry."
Vivien kissed his forehead; the two men shook hands.
"I daresay you're not exactly taken by surprise," said Harry, laughing.
"I've been calling rather often!"
"It had struck me that something was up."
Wellgood was almost genial; he was really highly pleased. The match was
an excellent one for his daughter; he liked Harry, despite a lurking
suspicion that he was "soft;" and the way now lay open for his own plan.
"You haven't asked me for my congratulations, Vivien," said Isobel.
Vivien went over to her and kissed her, then sat down by the table, her
eyes fixed on Harry. She was very quiet in her happiness; she felt so
peaceful, so secure. Such was the efficacy of those wonderful words!
"And I wish you all happiness too, Mr. Harry," Isobel went on with a
smile. "Perhaps you'll forgive me if I say that I'm not altogether taken
by surprise either?"
Harry did not quite like her smile; there seemed to be a touch of
ridicule about it. It covertly reminded him of their talk before tea,
before he went to the west wood.
"I never had much hope of blinding your eyes, so I didn't even try, Miss
Vintry."
"I was thinking it must come to a head soon," she remarked.
Harry flushed ever so slightly. She was hinting at the laggard in love
again; it almost seemed as if she were hinting that she had brought the
affair to a head. In the west wood he had forgotten her subtle taunt; he
had thought of nothing but his passion, and how impatient it was. Now he
remembered, and knew that he was being derided, even in his hour of
triumph. He felt another impulse of anger against her. This time it took
the form of a desire to show her that he was no fool, not a man a woman
could play with as she chose. He would like to show her what a dangerous
game that was. He was glad when, having shot her tiny sharp-pointed
dart, she rose and went into the house. "You'll want to talk it all over
with Mr. Wellgood!" He did not want to think of her; only of Vivien.
"Poor Isobel!" said Vivien. "She's very nice about it, isn't she?
Because she can't really be pleased."
Both men looked rather surprised; each was roused from his train of
thought. Both had been thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of
neither consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"
"Why not?" asked Harry.
"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."
"Of course! I never thought of that."
"Don't you young people be in too great a hurry," said Wellgood, with
the satisfied smile of a man with a secret. "You're not going to be
married the day after to-morrow! There's lots of time for something to
turn up for Isobel. She needn't be pitied. Perhaps she may be tired of
you and your ways, young woman, and glad to be rid of her job!"
"Lucky there's somebody ready to take her place, then, isn't it?"
laughed Harry.
Wellgood laughed too as he rose. "It seems very lucky all round," he
said, smiling again as he left them. He was quite secure that they would
spend no time in thinking about good luck other than their own.
The lovers sat on beside the water till twilight fell, talking of a
thousand things, yet always of one thing--of one thing through which
they saw all the thousand other things, and saw them transfigured with
the radiance of the one. Even the bright hues of Harry's future grew a
hundredfold brighter when beheld through this enchanted medium, while
Vivien's simple ideal of life seemed heaven realized. Visions were their
only facts, and dreams alone their truth. Neither from without nor from
within could aught harm the airy fabric that they built--Vivien out of
ignorance, Harry by help of that fine oblivion of his.
For a long while Isobel Vintry--fled to her room lest Wellgood should
seek her--watched them from her window with envious eyes. For them the
dreams; for her, most uninspiring reality! At last she turned away with
a weary impatient shrug.
"Well, it's a good thing to have it over and done with, anyhow!" she
exclaimed, and smiled once more to think how she had stung Harry
Belfield with her insinuations and her "Meriton ideal." If we cannot be
happy ourselves, it is a temptation to make happy people a little
uncomfortable. In that lies an evidence of power consolatory to the
otherwise unfortunate.