Summer freshness after rain, a splendor of wet shimmering fields and
woods, gardens full of a hundred perfumes, a sky changing from azure to
opalescent gold on the horizon. The slow sweep of the river through the
dream of a summer day. White swans moving over the water; scattered
houses with black beams and plaster-work, or warm red walls, lifting
their gables amid sleeping trees. Now and again the plash of oars and
the sound of voices stealing down some quiet “reach.”
Two boats with cushions and banners at the stern were moving up-stream
while the day was still in its April hours. They were nearing Richmond,
stately in memories and in trees, and Sheen also, where the last of the
Tudors delivered up her queenship unto God. The two boats had pulled out
from Whitehall stairs that morning, carrying a river-party to my Lord
Gore’s house at Bushy. Discretion and the voice of some “back-stairs
friend” had hinted that my lord and his son would discover the country
preferable to the town until my Lord of Pembroke’s recovery should be
assured. The King had lately assumed a prejudice against brawls, and my
lord had left this chance indiscretion in the hands of Hortense, who
was—for the while—the King.
Stephen Gore had collected a few especial friends to go by river and
spend some days with him at Bushy. His deaf sister from Kensington had
been appointed state duenna for the week. With my lord were two
gentlemen of the same political tendencies as himself; my Lady Purcell,
fresh and fragrant as a Provence rose; a certain Sir Peter Marden’s wife
and daughter, blood relatives of the Gores; and Captain John, his son.
Moreover, in the same boat as her mother, with a scarlet cushion under
her arm, sat Mistress Barbara, solemn, and dark as some Proserpine to
whom the breath of the summer day presaged the shadows of a sadder
world.
Her mother would probably have left her at the house in Pall Mall had
not the girl displayed a sudden tractable cheerfulness that had
surprised Lady Anne into searching for motives. Nor had the fertile and
intuitive brain of woman far to seek. My Lady Purcell drew her own
amused conclusions, nor was she sorry to suspect the girl of such
reasonable yet uncharacteristic softness.
It so happened that Barbara and John Gore were not shipped in the same
boat, the son having taken charge of the second and smaller of the two,
with a cargo of luggage and servants, to say nothing of Master Sparkin,
who had scrambled into the bow, and amused himself alternately by
tickling the neck of the nearest waterman with a feather and dabbling
his hands in the water over gunwale. John Gore’s boat proved the faster
of the two, and though she started half a mile behind my lord’s, she had
drawn up by the time that they had reached Mortlake, much to the
satisfaction of Sparkin, who had urged the men on to a race. For a while
they pulled stroke and stroke, John Gore laughing and talking to the
guests in his father’s boat.
Stephen Gore was steering, his sister next him on his left, Lady Purcell
on his right. And the moment that the two boats had drawn level, Anne
Purcell had touched my lord’s knee with hers and glanced meaningly at
Barbara, who had been looking back at the flashing oars of John Gore’s
boat. Her mother had been on the watch for suggestions. And in such
matters the most commonplace incidents may appear significant. Yet
Barbara had merely been watching Sparkin’s drolleries, for one cannot
always breathe to the rhythm of tragic verse.
“Jack, my boy, when you put to sea with a boat-load of ‘baggage,’ you
will find yourself faster than stately dowager-ladened ships.”
My lord’s second cousin, my Lady Marden, a fat, happy woman eternally on
the verge of laughter, shook the large green fan that ladies used then
in the place of a parasol.
“Dowagers, indeed! I am sure we look younger than our daughters.”
“That is always the case,” said one of my lord’s friends.
“I would venture it that Captain John would rather be in our boat,” and
she glanced at Barbara as though for confirmation.
Anne Purcell’s daughter gazed at the far bank over the lady’s shoulder.
“Even a boat-load of aunts and cousins may be duller than a Barbary
prison,” quoth my lord, with a play upon words that no one understood.
“And even a weevily biscuit better than none—when you’re empty,” said
Sparkin, who seemed to consider himself perfectly justified in airing
his wit. But seeing that the venture drew a sharp and ominous glance
from the great gentleman in the other boat, Sparkin became suddenly
oblivious to its presence, and returned to tickling the brown neck of
the man who pulled the bow oar—an act that stamped him as the meanest
of opportunists, seeing that the man could not express himself in the
presence of “quality.”
The boats were still moving side by side when Mistress Catharine Gore,
the deaf duenna, began asking questions in her shrill, aggressive voice.
“Who’s that boy, Stephen?”
My lord assumed an alarmed look and held up a silencing hand.
“My dear Kate,” he shouted in her ear, “do not ask embarrassing
questions.”
His sister’s face betrayed a sudden gleam of shocked intelligence that
made my lord’s fooling appear more piquant. Deafness had developed a
habit of irritability in her, and she was accustomed to blurt out her
opinions in a voice that she probably intended for a whisper.
“You don’t say so, Stephen! I am astonished that your son should have
the effrontery. But these sailors—”
The other ladies began to giggle. My lord nudged his sister vigorously
with his knee.
“Jack brought the boy home from America with him.”
“Why don’t you speak louder, Stephen? What did you say her name was?”
But as she discovered that they were trying to hide their laughter
behind fans and coat-sleeves, Mistress Catharine Gore gave her brother
one stare, and relapsed into a silence that was not altogether amiable.
Nor did John Gore look the complaisant son smiling at his father’s
waggery. He nodded to his men, who quickened at the oars, making the
boat forge ahead of my lord’s galley. Barbara’s eyes met the
sea-captain’s as he glanced back for a moment to look at something,
perhaps at her. She was glad and yet sorry that they were not together,
for the secret that she concealed made his nearness a martyrdom and a
season of suspense. How could she keep the consciousness of that grim
blood-debt before her soul, with the beat of the ripples against the
boat and the flash of the sunlight on the water? She felt too close to
humanity to be able to look into her own haunted heart. These laughing,
chattering women, these mercurial, pleasure-loving men! She could only
sit there in a silence as in a trance, and let the shores and the tide
of life glide by, until she could wake in the tragic loneliness of
solitude—and of self.
The garden of my Lord Gore’s house at Bushy came down to the river with
a sweep of perfect sward. There was a stone boat-house with quaint
copper dragons on the recessed gable ends, and a gilded vane shaped like
a ship in sail. The steps that led up from the river had statues of
fauns and wood-nymphs upon their pillars, and along the bank
weeping-willows trailed their boughs in the brown water of the shallows.
The garden itself had all that quaint formalism, that stately simplicity
that was part of the lives of some of the Old-World gentry. A great
stretch of grass cut into four squares by gravel paths, with closely
clipped bays and yews set rhythmically along the walks. On the north, an
ancient yew alley, a gallery of green gloom. On the south, a broad
flower border, full of roses, pinks, and stocks, and all manner of
flowers and herbs. On the west, the stone terrace of the house, with
orange-trees in tubs ranged behind the balustrade. In the centre of all,
where the four walks met, a fountain playing, throwing a plume of spray
from the bosom of a river-god.
John Gore’s boat, half a mile ahead of my lord’s galley, disembarked
first at the steps, so that the servants were able to clear the baggage
into the house and help in preparing that most essential of all
incidents—dinner. John Gore sent Sparkin off to the kitchen, and passed
the time pacing the gravel walks, with the river before him and the air
sweet with the perfumes of the herbs. The stateliness of the place, its
repose and opulence, had a strong charm for the man after rough years of
voyaging and the squalid loneliness of prison. He contrasted it with the
weird brilliance and fragmental beauty of the countries of the Crescent.
Nothing could seem more rich to him than those splendid lawns, like
green samite spread without seam or wrinkle. Even the gilded vane on the
boat-house had memories, for he could remember coveting it as a child,
and the thing may have suggested the life of those who go down to the
sea in ships.
John Gore saw in season the flash of my lord’s oars, the bluff bow of
the galley pushing the ripples aside, the banner floating over the
stern. Going to the water-steps, he stood there and waited, hat in hand,
the quiet dignity of such a man seeming in keeping with such a scene.
With one foot on the gunwale, he gave a hand in turn to my lord’s
guests, while the rowers held the boat in place by using their oars as
poles.
The character of the different women might have been guessed by the way
each accepted the curtesy of the man upon the steps. Anne Purcell smiled
in his face with a full-blown and fragrant vanity. Mrs. Catharine Gore
gave him a severe stare. My Lady Marden might have melted his dignity
with her good-humor; her daughter faltered with assumed shyness, looking
at her feet and not into John Gore’s eyes. As for Barbara, she ignored
his hand unconcernedly, gazing straight before her with a straight mouth
and a passionless face.
The gentlemen followed, John Gore leaving them to their own legs. He had
turned and climbed the steps close on Barbara’s heels, noticing, as a
man does, the poise of her head and the proud youth in her figure. A
high-born and imperious spirit seemed proper from one who walked between
those stiff and stately trees. John Gore would not have wished for a
hoyden in such a setting.
The party moved up the central walk toward the house, my Lady Marden
verbosely pleased with everything that she saw. “But there were no
peacocks! Surely that sweet terrace should have been a proper place for
the birds to show their tails! But perhaps my Lord Gore did not like
their voices?” My lord replied that he saw so many peacocks at Whitehall
that there was nothing singular or distinctive about having such
commonplace birds on show. He would send for a barge-load if my Lady
Marden would promise to imitate a pea-hen in her dress. Anne Purcell
looked tried by the fat woman’s excessive and loquacious amiability. She
had Mrs. Catharine Gore for a stimulating “cup of bitters,” Mrs. Kate,
whose wood billet of a figure looked fit only for a great wheel
farthingale. My lord’s two gentlemen friends were walking one on either
side of my Lady Marden’s daughter, who pretended to be embarrassed, and
was not. She had a black patch at the corner of a very suggestive mouth,
and a figure that did not promise prudery. For the rest, John Gore and
Barbara Purcell were left pacing side by side like two grave and staid
strangers walking up the aisle of a church.
The party dined in the long salon whose windows opened upon the terrace
with its row of orange-trees. My Lady Marden careered in her
conversation like a fat mare turned out to grass. My lord alone appeared
inclined to keep step with her. After dinner there were wines and fruit:
wines of Spain and Burgundy; peaches, nectarines, apricots, and grapes.
After the fruit and wine, those who desired could steal a siesta, for
the river air is fresh after rain, and mature appetites minister at the
altar of Morpheus.
The two gentlemen were amusing themselves by making hot love to the
younger Marden, and watching the expression of keen curiosity and
chagrin on Mrs. Catharine Gore’s face. To be able to see so many
suggestive things, and to hear nothing! What more tantalizing position
for a duenna, and a spinster! John Gore could not keep back a smile as
he watched the drama. He rose, and went and stood by Barbara’s chair
with the quiet simplicity of a man who was not self-conscious.
“Do you remember the old place? I suppose you have been
here—often—since I was last here.”
“No, not for a long while.”
“Would you like to see the garden?”
She glanced up at him and rose.
“Yes.”
And that was all they said to each other for fully three minutes.
Probably their interest in glass houses, herb beds, and flowers was a
wholly subordinate affair, yet it served the purpose of bringing two
people together who desired to be near each other for very different
reasons. John Gore may have thought the girl curiously reserved and
silent. Yet he did not wish her otherwise, preferring her swarthy,
pale-skinned aloofness to red-faced and commonplace good temper. Men who
have seen the world have little use of people who let their
insignificant souls bolt from their mouths like a mouse out of a hole.
Hearts easily won are easily lost. The open field has no lure for the
imagination; high walls and a mass of dusky trees pretend to hide all
manner of mystery.
Neither of them referred to the brawl of the other night—Barbara, for
reasons known to her own heart; John Gore, from a sense of delicacy and
chivalrous understanding. He began to talk to her of the days when they
had been mere children, and the subject served to sweep away some of the
reserve that chilled the air between them.
They were in the fruit-garden, with its high, red-brick walls, when John
Gore recalled to her an incident of their irresponsible youth.
“Do you remember old Jock, the head gardener?”
She looked at him with a slight frown of thought.
“Jock, the Scotchman?”
“The old fellow with the bandy legs, and the head that lolled to and fro
when he walked. It was just here I played that trick on him. You were
standing there—by the door; I was behind a bush with the squirt. I can
see you laughing now, and the flick of your green skirt as you bolted
into the yew alley.”
She smiled, but her face grew grave again abruptly, as though reproved
by some power within.
“How long ago it seems! We have changed so much! And you have been
nearly over the whole world!”
He glanced at her as she spoke, finding by instinct in her a sense of
something to be overcome. It might be the natural strength of reserve in
her. Yet she appeared to him like a girl brought up in some fanatical
home where laughter was a sign of carnal inclinations. Her heart might
begin to smile, but some habit of self-repression stifled the impulse
before it could mature.
“You will tell me about your voyages?”
“If they are of any interest to you.”
Her eyes met his, and then swerved away with a flash of wayward feeling
that puzzled him.
“I should like to hear everything. It has an interest for me. And
then—you were in a Moorish prison?”
He looked into the distance with the air of a man ready to speak of his
very self.
“Prison. That is an experience that grinds the folly out of the heart. A
man is walled up with that strange riddle of a thing—himself. It made
me learn to understand those old hermits in the deserts. For the devils
who tempted them, and whom they fought and cast out into the night, were
the devils a man carried about with him in his own heart. Prison makes a
man a wild beast—or a philosopher.”
“More often a beast, Jack,” said my lord, who appeared at the gate
leading into the yew walk, fanning himself with a big fan that he had
borrowed from Anne Purcell.