SHELTON cannot be described; it lay along the river, near heavenly back
waters, where reeds rustled, and the rushes sighed softly, and it was
within reach of the woods.
They all went there, each one hiding their real feelings from the
others, except Mrs. Cooper. Her feelings were described by the word
blissful; she derived much satisfaction from the donning of her best
dress every day. It was made of silk; in her youth a lady was dressed in
nothing but silk. Driving every day with a footman, and having a maid to
button her boots, completed her happiness. She never noticed her
daughter’s depression. Sylvia had recovered. She was more silent, just
as good-looking, and Mr. George hovered about her with sympathy in his
eye and with sorrowful attentions.
Mr. Wainbridge, Paul, and the Member for Hackney each felt the
inhabitants of the cottage were under his special protection, and each
one frowned at the frequent visits of the others.
Paul had received and accepted his invitation before he had told Launa
to give up Mr. Wainbridge, and he came to Shelton. All was not yet lost.
Mr. Wainbridge was obviously nervous. Launa looked unhappy. To her life
in the country was a relief. Of late the strain on her mind had been
trying. Paul’s presence was a comfort to her, with an underlying feeling
of torture, of the intolerableness of fate, life, destiny.
Mr. Wainbridge made continual demands on her feelings—demands which
sometimes were hard, impossible to fulfil, especially that she should
love him.
He was quite aware that he frequently asked for the impossible and
obtruded himself in a way which was foolish, and before Paul he was
often reckless. A mad joy because of his possession of Launa filled his
mind, for he knew a mad anguish filled the breast of Paul Harvey.
To Launa Mr. Bolton was like an invigorating breeze after a hot day. He
knew that she was appropriated. He expected scars from an intimacy with
her, but they were worth it. He was waiting for news from Africa before
formally becoming Lord Fairmouth. Meanwhile he forgot ambition and
wandered about the fields with her, looking for mushrooms which he never
saw, because he found her so much more delightful. She was original and
charming, her voice was soft and low. Had it a sound of sadness or of
joy? One day one thing, the next another. What was she—heart-whole,
heart-divided, or only a woman without a heart?
Mr. Bolton found some amusement from the comedy—or was it a
tragedy?—that was being played. He had no fear for his own emotions:
they were pretty much the same as those possessed by the other two, and
he kept them under excellent control. He sometimes wondered if ambition
had any part in Miss Archer’s plans. Would he, as Lord Fairmouth, have
any chance? He enjoyed most of her society. Mr. Wainbridge’s visits were
uncertain, and whenever Paul and Mr. Bolton were there, Paul took Sylvia
out in the canoe.
Mrs. Cooper fortunately discovered an ancient enemy living four miles
away, and she drove with frequency and glory, because of the footman, to
discuss the past and its joys. The enemy’s joys were present ones.
Together they found argument unconvincing and therefore agreeable.
* * * * *
It was Sunday.
They were all walking across the fields coming from church. Launa and
Mr. Bolton were first; Mr. Wainbridge had been detained by his uncle at
the church door. He caught up to Mrs. Cooper, who insisted on discussing
the sermon—which was on “Eternal Damnation.”
The preacher was staying at the Court—Lord Wainbridge’s place—and was
specially favoured by her ladyship, who had nodded with frequency and
approval at each point to which he gave utterance, and which she
considered reduced her husband to ashes here, and to flames hereafter.
In her theology there was nothing so quiet and peaceful as ashes
afterwards. But Lord Wainbridge had not observed these signs of
approval. He regarded his nephew with attention, and Miss Archer with
admiration. He looked at his wife—a faded unhealthy specimen of an
aristocratic worn-out family, in black bombazine and a dowdy bonnet, and
he thought of the other woman and of Launa. He observed her intently;
her head well carried, and her hair well dressed, her pretty soft
throat—he could not see her face, but she was certainly desirable, and
he had never met her. So he stopped his nephew on his way to join Miss
Archer, and suggested that Hugh should come over to the Court that
afternoon.
Mr. Wainbridge listened to Mrs. Cooper’s remarks in silence. He did not
care about the sermon, but he did care for Launa’s society, and she
would spend the afternoon with Mr. Bolton or Mr. Harvey. He regretted he
had not refused his uncle’s invitation, but that gentleman had appeared
so sad, so old, and Lady Wainbridge sniffed with such depressing
regularity, that to have refused would have been cruel.
“I dislike that church,” said Launa to Mr. Bolton. “It already makes me
feel as if religion were contemptible and as if it were merely useful to
occupy old women. I am sorry I went to it to-day.”
“It would be very wrong and very radical of you to neglect your own
church. A good Conservative always supports the institutions of his
country,” he said.
“That is the good of being women,” she answered, looking at him with a
mixture of friendship and mischief. “We are not allowed to vote, and we
need not be a Conservative or anything, and as for the institutions of
the country, I am not sure that I like them, or even know what they
are.”
“Marriage is one.”
“With or without love? For love is not an institution.”
“Sometimes; well, you know as well as I do that we can get on without
love.”
“Love,” said Launa, “is _the_ thing in life, it is—”
“What do you love?”
“Whom? What? I love life and movement—the wind and the sea. The being
alive to-day is joy. Look at the grass, the river, the water! If I could
only be at ‘Solitude,’ to smell the air as it comes across that sweep of
woods!”
“To smell it alone?”
“Alone,” she replied.
“You arrange life on a basis of love.” He laughed. “It is not always
fine. In winter the wind is cold and it shrieks unpleasantly; it is not
warm like love—real love—and then there is success. Not to-day, nor
to-morrow, but in a month or a year you would, I think, grow weary of
your paradise alone.”
“Why did you laugh?”
“At myself and your basis of love.”
His philosophy kept him amused, because he was aware of his own
foolishness. If there was a certain amount of pain in the laughter no
one noticed it. The others caught up to them.
“I do not like that preacher,” said Mrs. Cooper.
“He is one of my aunt’s favourites,” answered Mr. Wainbridge. “She says
his descriptions of hell are so reviving for the sinner.”
“So is lunch,” said Launa, “and I am hungry.”
After lunch Mr. Wainbridge followed Launa to her own sitting-room. He
intended to conduct a parting. Emotions brighten the desert of life.
He put his arms round her.
“I like your necktie and your pin,” she said.
“I will give you the pin.”
He took it out and handed it to her.
“Here, dearest.”
“Now go and sit there. It is too hot for—”
“You never kiss me or let me kiss you.”
“I hate kissing—indiscriminate kissing.”
“You will not always hate it,” he answered. “I must go, I want to settle
things with my uncle. You will accept their invitation to stay there?”
He found it best to forget the day she had asked him to set her free.
She remembered it and his confession always.
“Not yet. I could not leave here until Mrs. Cooper and Sylvia go.”
“You will have me with you there all day—it will be perfect.”
“Nothing is perfect,” she answered. “You will be back—when?”
“After dinner. How I wish I could stay here now, but my uncle is so
lonely. Good-bye.”
He put his arms round her gently and she let him—he stifled her, while
he protected her. To suffer any embrace was unusual for her. He was
still, glad to hold her. She was sorry he was leaving her; with him
near, certain things were impossible—he was an anchor. But there was
the rest of the afternoon and Paul.
“Institutions are good sometimes,” she said.
“That is obscure to me. Good-bye.”
And Launa sang a little song to herself:
“Love light come, light go,
Love light come, light go.”
As it was the fashion to observe love critically, with unbelief, she
would do it too.
Paul came in at the window. He had a book in his hand.
“I am lonely,” he said. “May I stay? I never see you alone now, Launa.”
“Are the others all right? We will talk about the war. Where is Mrs.
Cooper?”
“They are all asleep, Sylvia too. Bolton is writing letters, answering
the bundle he got this morning. Wainbridge, thank Heaven, has gone to
see his uncle.”
“Probably to arrange about our marriage.”
She seated herself opposite him and said this rather defiantly. She
wanted to remember Mr. Wainbridge and her marriage.
“You are not married yet. . . . To-day is ours.”
“What shall we do now? You and I?”
“You and I,” he repeated, with joy. “Talk. Be glad we are together.”
“And can talk—about Canada.”
“Yes, about Canada,” he replied. “The products or the people?”
“The people,” she answered slowly.
“We will talk of the women.”
“Yes,” she said.
“About you, for you are a woman.”
“I wish I were not.”
“Why?”
“Because—because men have so much the best of it. . . . Do men like
independent women? No, men like them clinging. What does a clinging
woman do?”
“I don’t take the faintest interest in inscrutable women,” he replied.
“Come out and sit among the pine trees and think of ‘Solitude’ and the
lake—”
“And forget everything except _now_ which is ours?” she said.
“Come then—come.”