INSTINCTIVE PLANNING
Man’s unconscious action is a strange thing. Athlyne had just heard
words which took from him a strain under which he had suffered for a
whole week of waiting and watching; words which promised him the
opportunity for which he had longed for many weeks. His nerves had
been strung to tension so high that now it would seem only natural if
the relief sent him into a sort of delirium. But he quietly lit a
cigar, taking care that it was properly cut and properly lit, and
smoked luxuriously as he moved across the garden and into the street.
Joy from her window saw him go, and her admiration of his ease and
self possession and magnificent self-reliance sent fresh thrills
through her flesh.
When Athlyne went out of the garden he had evidently made up his mind,
consciously or unconsciously, to some other point in connection with
the motor for he visited such shops as were open and made some
purchases--caps, veils, cloaks and such like gear suitable for the use
of a tall young lady. These he took with him in a hired carriage to
the hotel at Bowness, where he added them to certain others already
sent from London. Then he told the chauffeur to give the car a careful
overhauling so that it be in perfect order, and went for a stroll up
the Lake.
Shortly he was in a mental and physical tumult; the period which had
elapsed since he heard the news of Colonel Ogilvie’s coming departure
had been but the prelude to the storm. At first he could not think; he
had no words, no sequence of ideas, not even vague intentions. He had
only sensations; and these though they moved and concentrated every
nerve in his body were without even physical purpose. He went like one
in a dream. But in the background of his mind was a fact which stood
out firm and solid like the profile of a mountain seen against the
glow of a western sunset. Joy would be alone to-morrow; the
opportunity he waited for was at last at hand! The recognition of this
seemed to pull him together, to set all his faculties working
simultaneously; and as each had a different method the tumult was in
reducing them to unison--in achieving one resultant from all the
varying forces. Gradually out of the chaos came the first clear
intent: he must so master the whole subject that when the opportunity
had come he should be able to avail himself of it to the full. From
this he proceeded to weigh the various possibilities, till gradually
he began to realise what vague purpose had been behind his wish to
have his automobile in perfect working order. It did not even occur to
him that with such machinery at his command he might try to carry her
off, either without her consent or with it. All that he wanted in the
first instance was to have fitting opportunity of discovering how Joy
regarded him. The last twenty-four hours had opened to his mind such
glorious possibilities that every word she had said, every look on her
eloquent face (though such looks had manifestly not been intended for
him) had a place in a chain which linked her heart to his. “Look at
me!” “I am glad I asked you to look at me!” though spoken to her
father seemed to have another significance. It was as though an eager
thought had at last found expression. “Good night! Good night,
beloved!” though ostensibly spoken to the twilight was breathed with
such fervour, with such languishing eyes and with such soft pouting of
scarlet lips that it seemed impossible that it should have other than
a human objective. These thoughts swept the man into a glow of
passion. He was young and strong and ardent, and he loved the woman
with all his heart; with all his soul; with all the strength of human
passion. It is a mistake to suppose--as some abstract thinkers seem to
do always, and most people at some moment of purely spiritual
exaltation--that the love of a man and a woman each for the other is,
even at its very highest, devoid of physical emotion. The original
Creator did not manifestly so intend. The world of thought is an
abstract world whose inner shrine is where soul meets soul. The world
of life is the world of the heart, and its beating is the sway of the
pendulum between soul and flesh. The world of flesh is the real world;
wrought of physical atoms in whose recurrent groupings is the
elaborated scheme of nature. Into this world has been placed Man to
live and rule. To this end his body is fixed with various powers and
complications and endurances; with weaknesses and impulses and
yieldings; with passions to animate, with desires to attract, and
animosities to repel. And as the final crowning of this wondrous work,
the last and final touch of the Creator’s hand, Sex for the eternal
renewing of established forces. How can souls be drawn to souls when
such are centred in bodies which mutually repel? How can the heart
quicken its beats when it may not come near enough to hear the
answering throb? No! If physical attraction be not somewhere, naught
can develop. Judy, the outspoken, had once almost horrified a little
group of matrons who were discussing the interest which a certain
young cleric was beginning to take in one of the young female
parishioners. When one of them said, somewhat sanctimoniously, that
his interest was only in the salvation of her immortal soul, that he
was too good a man to ever think of falling in love as ordinary men
do, the vivacious old maid replied:
“Not a bit of it, my dear! When a man troubles himself about an
individual young woman’s soul you may be quite certain that his eyes
have not neglected her body. And moreover you will generally, if not
always, find that she has a pair of curving red lips, or a fine bust,
or a well-developed figure somewhere!”
Athlyne loved Joy in all ways, so that the best of his nature
regulated the standard of his thoughts. His love was no passing fancy
which might or might not develop, flame up, and fade away. He had, he
felt, found the other half of him, lost in the primeval chaos; and he
wanted the union to be so complete that it would outlive the clashing
of worlds in the final cataclysm. Healthy people are healthy in their
loves and even in their passions. These two young people were both
healthy, both red-blooded, both of ardent, passionate nature; and they
were drawn together each to each by all the powers that rule sex and
character. To say that their love was all of earth would be as absurd
as to say that it was all of heaven. It was human, all human, and all
that such implies. Heaven and earth had both their parts in the
combination; and perhaps, since both were of strong nature and marked
individuality, Hell had its due share in the amalgam.
Athlyne thought, and thought, and thought; till the length of his own
shadow recalled the passing of time. He postponed the thinking over
his plans for to-morrow--the active part of them, and hastened back to
his place behind the lilacs.
He was just in time. The carriage stood at the door with Colonel
Ogilvie’s “grip-sack” at the driver’s feet. Then the Boots ran down
the steps and held the carriage door open. Joy came holding her
father’s arm. They got into the carriage and drove away. Athlyne
waited, sitting on the seat on the grass lawn smoking luxuriously. He
forgot that he was hungry and thirsty, forgot everything except that
he would before long see Joy again, this time _alone_. His thoughts
were evidently pleasant, for the time flew fast. Indeed he must have
been in something like a waking dream which absorbed all his faculties
for he did not notice the flight of time at all. It was only when,
recalled to himself by the passing of a carriage, he looked up and saw
Joy that he came back to reality. To his disappointment her head was
turned away. When within sight of the garden, she had noticed him and
as she did not wish him, just yet, to know that she knew of his
presence, she found her eyes fixed on the other side of the street. It
was the easiest and most certain way of avoiding complexities. He
slipped over to the lilacs to see her alight. When she had done so she
turned to the coachman and said:
“You understand I shall not want you in the morning as I shall be out
walking; but if I don’t send for you in the afternoon, or if you don’t
get any message you will meet my father at Windermere station at a
quarter to five.”
She went to the front of the carriage and stroked the horses’ noses
and necks after her usual fashion. He had as good a view of her
profile as the twilight would allow. Then with a pleasant “Good
evening!” to the coachman she tripped up the steps and disappeared.
For more than a quarter of an hour Athlyne watched the windows; but
she did not appear. This was natural enough, for she was behind the
curtains peeping out to see if he went back to his seat on the lawn.
When she saw that he did not return Joy, with a gentle sigh, went to
her room.
That sigh meant a lot. It was the reaction from an inward struggle.
All day she had been suffering from the dominance of two opposing
ideas, between which her inward nature swayed pendulum-wise. This
“inward nature” comprised her mind, her reason, her intelligence, her
fears, her hopes, her desires--the whole mechanism and paraphernalia
of her emotional and speculative psychology. She would fain have gone
out boldly into the garden and there met Mr. Hardy face to face--of
course by pure accident. But this vague intention was combated by a
maiden fear; one of those delicious, conscious apprehensions made to
be combated unless thoroughly supported by collateral forces; one of
those gentle fears of sex which makes yielding so sweet. Following
this came the fixed intention of that walk to be taken in the morning.
The morning was still far off and its apprehensive possibilities were
not very dreadful. Indeed she did not really fear them at all for she
had privately made up her mind that, fear or no fear, she was going on
that walk. The only point left open was its direction. The hour was
positively settled; an hour earlier than that at which for the past
few days she had driven out with Daddy! Even to herself she would not
admit that her choice of time was in any way controlled or influenced
by the fact that it was the same hour about which Mr. Hardy made his
appearance in the garden.
But all the same her thoughts and her intentions were becoming
conscious. For good or evil she was getting more reckless in her
desires; passion was becoming dominant--and she knew it.
This is perhaps the most dangerous phase of a woman’s trial. She knows
that there is at work a growing desire for self-surrender which it is
her duty to combat. She knows that all contra reasons which can be
produced will be--must be--overcome. She knows with all the subtle
instincts of her sex that she is deliberately setting her feet on a
slope down which some impulse, perhaps but momentary, will carry her
with resistless force. It is the preparatory struggle to defeat; the
clearing away of difficulties which might later be hampering or even
obstructive; the clamant _wish_ for defeat which makes for the
conquered the satisfaction if not the happiness of finality. To all
children of Adam, of either sex, this phase may come. To the strongest
and most resolute warrior must be a moment when he can no more; when
the last blow has been struck and the calling of another world is
ringing in his ears; to the resolute amongst men this moment is the
moment of death. To women it is surrender of self; surrender to the
embrace of Death--or to the embrace of Love. It is the true end of the
battle. The rest is but the carrying out of the Treaty of Peace, the
Triumph of the Victory in which she is now proud to have a part--if it
be only that of captive!
There was no sleep for Joy that night. She heard the hours strike one
after the other, never missing one. She was not restless. She lay
still, and quiet, and calm; patient with that patience which is an
acceptance that what is to come is good. In all the long vigil she
never faltered in her intention to take that walk in the forenoon.
What was to happen in it she did not guess. She had a conviction that
that tall figure would follow her discreetly; and that when she was
alone they would somehow meet. It might be that she would hear his
voice before she saw him; that was most likely, indeed almost certain,
for she would not turn till he had spoken … or at any rate till she
knew that he was close behind her. … Here her thoughts would stop.
She would lie in a sort of ecstasy … whatever might come after that
would be happiness. She would see Him … look into His eyes. …
“Look at me, Joy!” seemed to sound in her ears in sweet low music like
a whisper. Then she would close her eyes and lie motionless, passive,
breathing as gently as a child; high-strung, conscious, awake and
devoid of any definite intent.
When she was dressing for the day she put on one of the simplest and
prettiest of her dresses, one which she had directed over night to be
got ready; a sort of heavy gauze of dull white which fell in long full
folds showing her tall slim figure to its perfect grace. Her maid who
was a somewhat silent person, not given to volubility unless
encouraged, looked at her admiringly as she said:
“I do think miss that is the most becoming of all your frocks!” This
pleased her and sent a red glow through her cheeks. Then, fearing if
she seemed to think too much of the matter it might seem suspicious as
to some purpose, she said quietly:
“Perhaps then it would be better if I put on one of the lawn dresses.
I am going for a walk this morning and as it may be dusty a frock that
will not catch the dust may be better.”
“It does seem a pity miss to wear such a pretty frock and spoil it
when there is no one here to see it; not even your father.” This gave
Joy an opening of which she quickly availed herself. She had not the
least intention of changing the frock or of looking, if she could
avoid it, one whit below her best.
“Fie, Eugenie! one doesn’t put on frocks to attract. If you think that
way, I shall wear it; even if it is to get dusty.” The Abigail who was
a privileged person answered gravely:
“That’s quite true, Miss, exactly as you say it. _One_ doesn’t put on
nice frocks to attract; and that one is yourself. But all the rest
do!” Joy’s merry laugh showed the measure of her ebullient happiness.
“Dear me! Eugenie. You are quite an orthoëpist--indeed a
precisionist. I shall have to polish up my grammar. However I’ll keep
on the frock if only in compliment to your sense of terminological
exactitude!”
A little after breakfast, when the time for starting on the walk drew
nigh, Joy did not feel so elated. Woman-like she was not anxious to
begin. It was not that she in any way faltered in her purpose, but
merely that she was suffering from the nervousness which comes to
those of high strung temperaments in momentous crises. Humming merrily
she put on her hat and finished her toilet for her walk. In the
sitting room from the shelter of the curtain she looked out of the
window, as she tried to think, casually. Her eyes turned towards the
lilac bushes, but caught no indication of the tall figure that she
sought. Her heart fell. But a second later it leaped almost painfully
as she saw Mr. Hardy sitting out openly on the seat, and strange to
say--for she had come to identify that seat with the practice--not
smoking. He evidently had no present thought of being concealed. Why?
The answer to her own question came in a rush of blood to her face, a
rush so quick and thorough that it seemed for the moment to deplete
her heart which beat but faintly… When she looked again he had risen
and was moving toward the lilacs.
Without a word she walked downstairs and out through the hall-door.
Athlyne had not slept either that night. But the manner and range of
his thoughts showed the difference between the sexes. Both his
imagining and his reasoning were to practical purpose. He wanted to
see Joy, to speak with her, to prove to himself if his hoping was in
any way justified by fact. He had for so long been concentrating his
thoughts on one subject that doubts at first shadowy had become real.
It seemed therefore to him that in his planning for the morrow he was
dealing with real things, not imaginative ones. And, after all, there
is nothing more real than doubt--so far as it goes. Victor Cousin took
from its reality his subtlest argument for belief: “At this point
scepticism itself vanishes; for if a man doubt everything else, at
least he cannot doubt that he doubts.” So with Athlyne. By accepting
doubt as reality he began the experiment for its cure.
In the silence of the night, with nerves high-strung and with brain
excited he tried in those most earnest hours of his life, when for
good or ill he was to organise his intellectual forces, to arrange
matters so that at the earliest time he might with certainty learn his
fate. He had an idea that in such a meeting as was before him he must
not be over-precipitated. And yet he must not check impulsiveness as
long as its trend was in the right direction. He knew that a woman’s
heart is oftener won by assault than by siege. For himself he had
plenty of patience as well as a sufficiency of spirit; his task at
present therefore was one of generalship alone: the laying out of the
battle plans, the disposition of his forces. As he thought, and as his
ideas and his intentions came into order, he began to understand
better the purpose of those two preparations of his which were already
complete: the overhauling of his automobile, and the supplying it with
female wraps. He intended by some means or other, dependent on
developing opportunity, to bring her for a ride in the motor. There,
all alone, he would be able to learn, perhaps at first from her
bearing and then from her own lips, how she regarded him.
Athlyne was a young man, a very young man in his real knowledge of the
sex. There are hundreds, thousands, of half-pulseless boys, flabby of
flesh and pallid with enervating dissipation, who would have smiled
cynically--they have not left in them grit enough for laughter--at his
doubting.
He would not frighten her at first. Here for a time he took himself to
task for seeming to plot against the woman he loved. Surely it would
be better to treat her with perfect fairness; to lay his heart at her
feet; tell her with all the passionate force that swept him how he
loved her--tell it with what utterance he had. Then he should wait her
decision. No, not decision! That was too cold a word--thought. If
indeed there was any answering love to his, little decision would be
required. Had _he_ made any decision! From the first moment he had
looked in her beautiful grey eyes and lost himself in their depths,
his very soul had gone out to her. And it might be that she too had
felt something of the same self-abandonment. He could never forget how
on that afternoon visit at the Holland she had raised her eyes to his
in answer to his passionate appeal: “Joy, Look at me!” Then at that
memory, and at the later memory when she had spoken the words herself
only the day before--the sweetness of her voice was still tingling in
his ears, a sort of tidal wave of lover’s rapture swept over him. It
overwhelmed him so completely that it left him physically gasping for
breath. He was in a tumult; he could not lie in bed. He leaped to his
feet and walked to and fro with long, passionate strides. He threw up
the lower sash of the window and looked out into the moonlight,
craning his neck round to the right so that his eyes were in the
direction of Ambleside as though the very ardour of his gaze could
pierce through distance and stone walls and compel Joy’s white eyelids
to raise so that he might once more lose himself in those grey deeps
wherein his soul alone found peace.
In this passion of adoration all his doubts seemed to disappear, as
the sun drinks up the mist. He felt as though uplifted. At the very
idea of Joy’s loving him as he loved her he felt more worthy, more
strong, and with a sense of triumph which had no parallel in his life.
He stood looking out at the beauty of the scene before him, till
gradually it became merged in his thoughts with Joy and his hopes
which the morrow might realise. He never knew exactly how long he
stood there. It must have been a long time, for when he realised any
sense of time at all he was cramped and chill; and the forerunner of
the morning light coming from far away behind him was articulating the
fields on the hill-slopes across the lake.
He was then calm. All the thinking and reasoning and planning and
passion of the night had been wrought into unity. His mind was made up
as to the first stage of his undertaking. He would bring the car to
Ambleside and leave it with the chauffeur outside the town. Then he
would take his place in the garden and wait till she came out for that
walk of which she had told her father. He would cautiously follow her;
and when there was a fair opportunity for uninterrupted speech would
come to her. If he found there was no change in her manner to him--and
here once again the memory of those lifting eyes made him tremble--he
would try to get her to come for a ride in his car. There, wrapped in
the glory of motion and surrounded by all the grandeur of natural
beauty, he would pour out his soul to her and put his fate to the
touch. Then if all were well he would send on the letter to her father
and would pay his formal visit as soon as might be. He would take care
to have ready a luncheon basket so that if she would ride with him
they might have together an ethereal banquet.
It is strange that even those who are habitually cautious, whose
thoughts and deeds alike are compelled and ruled by reason, will in
times of exaltation forget their guiding principle. They will refuse
to acknowledge the existence of chance; and will proceed calmly on
their way as though life was as a simple cord, with Inclination
pulling at one end of it and Fact yielding at the other.