It was a closer observation than she knew when Jane said that Julius
Liddiard came to Bridnorth to be alone.
He was a lonely man. There is that condition of loneliness more
insuperable than others, the loneliness of mind in a body surrounded by
the evidences of companionship. In this condition he suffered, unable
to explain, unable to express.
Much as he loved it, in his own home at times he felt a stranger, whose
presence within its walls was largely upon sufferance. Mastery, he
claimed, exacting the purpose of his will, but in the very consciousness
that it must be forced upon those about him, he felt his loneliness the
more.
Authority was not his conception of a home. He had looked for unity,
but could not find it. His wife and her sister who lived with them, the
frequent visits of their friends and relations, these were the evidences
of a companionship that served merely to drive him further and deeper
into the lonely companionship of himself.
She had her right to life, he was forced in common justice to tell
himself, and if she chose the transitory gayeties, finding more
substance of life in a late night in London than an early morning on
Somersetshire downs, that was her view of things to which she was fully
entitled.
Of his own accord, he had invited her sister to live with them, seeking
to please her; hoping to please himself. She made her home there. It
was too late actually to turn her away when he had discovered the habit
of her life was an incurable laziness which fretted and jarred against
the energies of his mind.
"We make our lives," he said, enigmatically to Mary, that first day when
they were playing golf. "Lord knows what powers direct us. I may make
the most perfect approach on to this green, but nothing on earth can
tell me exactly which way the ball is going to kick."
He had approached his life with all the precision of which he was
capable, but the kick had come and it had come the wrong way. There was
no accounting for its direction. It was obvious to him he could not see
the world through his wife's eyes. After some years it had become no
less obvious that she could not see it through his.
He wandered through the rooms of his own house, a stranger to the sounds
of meaningless laughter that echoed there. He took his walking-stick,
called a dog and strode out on to the downs, glad to be in fact alone.
Gradually such laughter as there was in him--he had his full share of
it--died out of him. Much as he loved his wife, much as she loved him,
he knew he was becoming more and more of a disappointment to her. In
the keener moments of consciousness of his loneliness, she found him
morose, until, unable to sing or laugh with the songs and laughter of
that house, he came at times to believe he was morose himself.
"What's happening to me," he would say when he was alone; "what's
happening to me is that I'm losing the joy of life."
Yet the sight of the countryside at Springtime seemed to himself to give
him more sense of joy than all the revels in London that made his wife's
eyes dance with youth.
He had laughed inordinately once; had won her heart by the compound of
his spirits, grave and gay. It was quite true when she accused him of
becoming too serious-minded. He heard the absence of his laughter and
sometimes took himself away and alone that she might notice it the less.
There were times when it seemed she had lost all touch with his mind
that once had interested her. He took his mind away and left his heart
there at Wenlock Hall behind him.
What can happen with a man's mind when he holds it alone in his keeping
is what happened to Julius Liddiard.
Jane was more accurate than she knew when she declared that he had come
to Bridnorth to be alone.
It was his intention to sketch and play golf with the professional until
such time as the longing for his home again would urge him back with a
mind ready to ignore its disappointments in the joy of mating and
meeting with his heart again.
Upon his first appearance on the golf links, the professional had
disappointed him. Mary Throgmorton had stepped into the breach,
recommended by the secretary as being able to give him as good a game as
many of the members.
For the first half, they had played with little interchange of
conversation. As they left the ninth green, she was two up. Then he
had looked at her with an increasing interest, seeing what most men saw,
the strong shoulders, the straight line of her back, the full strength
of her figure, the firm stance she took as she played her game.
It was not until after the game was over and they sat at tea in the Club
Room, that he noticed her face with any interest. Had this observation
been denied him, he would have gone away from Bridnorth, describing her
as a girl of the country, bred on sea air; the type of mother for sons
of Englishmen, if ever she found her proper mate.
But across that tea-table, his mind saw more. He saw in flashes of
expression out of the gray eyes that faced him, that soul which Mary had
only so lately discovered in herself. He saw a range of emotion that
could touch in its flight the highest purpose; he heard in her voice the
laughter his mind could laugh with, the thoughts his mind could think
with.
"Well, we've had a good game," he had said steadily. "Do you think I've
a chance of beating you if we play again to-morrow?"
"I like to win," said she, "if there's a chance of being beaten. I
expect you'll beat me next time. You don't know the course yet."
"We'll play to-morrow," he said.
And it had been arranged.