THE MOTHER AND THE SON
To Mrs. Pendyce, Chelsea was an unknown land, and to find her way to
George's rooms would have taken her long had she been by nature what she
was by name, for Pendyces never asked their way to anything, or believed
what they were told, but found out for themselves with much unnecessary
trouble, of which they afterwards complained.
A policeman first, and then a young man with a beard, resembling an
artist, guided her footsteps. The latter, who was leaning by a gate,
opened it.
“In here,” he said; “the door in the corner on the right.”
Mrs. Pendyce walked down the little path, past the ruined fountain with
its three stone frogs, and stood by the first green door and waited. And
while she waited she struggled between fear and joy; for now that she
was away from Mrs. Bellew she no longer felt a sense of insult. It was
the actual sight of her that had aroused it, so personal is even the
most gentle heart.
She found the rusty handle of a bell amongst the creeper-leaves, and
pulled it. A cracked metallic tinkle answered her, but no one came; only
a faint sound as of someone pacing to and fro. Then in the street beyond
the outer gate a coster began calling to the sky, and in the music of
his prayers the sound was lost. The young man with a beard, resembling
an artist, came down the path.
“Perhaps you could tell me, sir, if my son is out?”
“I've not seen him go out; and I've been painting here all the morning.”
Mrs. Pendyce looked with wonder at an easel which stood outside another
door a little further on. It seemed to her strange that her son should
live in such a place.
“Shall I knock for you?” said the artist. “All these knockers are
stiff.”
“If you would be so kind!”
The artist knocked.
“He must be in,” he said. “I haven't taken my eyes off his door, because
I've been painting it.”
Mrs. Pendyce gazed at the door.
“I can't get it,” said the artist. “It's worrying me to death.”
Mrs. Pendyce looked at him doubtfully.
“Has he no servant?” she said.
“Oh no,” said the artist; “it's a studio. The light's all wrong. I
wonder if you would mind standing just as you are for one second; it
would help me a lot!”
He moved back and curved his hand over his eyes, and through Mrs.
Pendyce there passed a shiver.
'.hy doesn't George open the door?' she thought. 'What--what is this man
doing?'
The artist dropped his hand.
“Thanks so much!” he said. “I'll knock again. There! that would raise
the dead!”
And he laughed.
An unreasoning terror seized on Mrs. Pendyce.
“Oh,” she stammered, “I must get in--I must get in!”
She took the knocker herself, and fluttered it against the door.
“You see,” said the artist, “they're all alike; these knockers are as
stiff as pokers.”
He again curved his hand over his eyes. Mrs. Pendyce leaned against the
door; her knees were trembling violently.
'.hat is happening?' she thought. 'Perhaps he's only asleep,
perhaps---- Oh God!'
She beat the knocker with all her force. The door yielded, and in the
space stood George. Choking back a sob, Mrs. Pendyce went in. He banged
the door behind her.
For a full minute she did not speak, possessed still by that strange
terror and by a sort of shame. She did not even look at her son, but
cast timid glances round his room. She saw a gallery at the far end,
and a conical roof half made of glass. She saw curtains hanging all
the gallery length, a table with tea-things and decanters, a round iron
stove, rugs on the floor, and a large full-length mirror in the centre
of the wall. A silver cup of flowers was reflected in that mirror.
Mrs. Pendyce saw that they were dead, and the sense of their vague and
nauseating odour was her first definite sensation.
“Your flowers are dead, my darling,” she said. “I must get you some
fresh!”
Not till then did she look at George. There were circles under his eyes;
his face was yellow; it seemed to her that it had shrunk. This terrified
her, and she thought:
'. must show nothing; I must keep my head!'
She was afraid--afraid of something desperate in his face, of something
desperate and headlong, and she was afraid of his stubbornness, the
dumb, unthinking stubbornness that holds to what has been because it has
been, that holds to its own when its own is dead. She had so little of
this quality herself that she could not divine where it might lead him;
but she had lived in the midst of it all her married life, and it seemed
natural that her son should be in danger from it now.
Her terror called up her self-possession. She drew George down on the
sofa by her side, and the thought flashed through her: 'How many times
has he not sat here with that woman in his arms!'
“You didn't come for me last night, dear! I got the tickets, such good
ones!”
George smiled.
“No,” he said; “I had something else to see to!”
At sight of that smile Margery Pendyce's heart beat till she felt sick,
but she, too, smiled.
“What a nice place you have here, darling!”
“There's room to walk about.”
Mrs. Pendyce remembered the sound she had heard of pacing to and fro.
From his not asking her how she had found out where he lived she knew
that he must have guessed where she had been, that there was nothing for
either of them to tell the other. And though this was a relief, it
added to her terror--the terror of that which is desperate. All sorts of
images passed through her mind. She saw George back in her bedroom after
his first run with the hounds, his chubby cheek scratched from forehead
to jaw, and the bloodstained pad of a cub fox in his little gloved hand.
She saw him sauntering into her room the last day of the 1880 match
at Lord's, with a battered top-hat, a blackened eye, and a cane with
a light-blue tassel. She saw him deadly pale with tightened lips that
afternoon after he had escaped from her, half cured of laryngitis, and
stolen out shooting by himself, and she remembered his words: “Well,
Mother, I couldn't stand it any longer; it was too beastly slow!”
Suppose he could not stand it now! Suppose he should do something rash!
She took out her handkerchief.
“It's very hot in here, dear; your forehead is quite wet!”
She saw his eyes turn on her suspiciously, and all her woman's wit stole
into her own eyes, so that they did not flicker, but looked at him with
matter-of-fact concern.
“That skylight is what does it,” he said. “The sun gets full on there.”
Mrs. Pendyce looked at the skylight.
“It seems odd to see you here, dear, but it's very nice--so
unconventional. You must let me put away those poor flowers!” She went
to the silver cup and bent over them. “My dear boy, they're quite nasty!
Do throw them outside somewhere; it's so dreadful, the smell of old
flowers!”
She held the cup out, covering her nose with her handkerchief.
George took the cup, and like a cat spying a mouse, Mrs. Pendyce watched
him take it out into the garden. As the door closed, quicker, more
noiseless than a cat, she slipped behind the curtains.
'. know he has a pistol,' she thought.
She was back in an instant, gliding round the room, hunting with her
eyes and hands, but she saw nothing, and her heart lightened, for she
was terrified of all such things.
'.t's only these terrible first hours,' she thought.
When George came back she was standing where he had left her. They
sat down in silence, and in that silence, the longest of her life, she
seemed to feel all that was in his heart, all the blackness and bitter
aching, the rage of defeat and starved possession, the lost delight,
the sensation of ashes and disgust; and yet her heart was full enough
already of relief and shame, compassion, jealousy, love, and deep
longing. Only twice was the silence broken. Once when he asked her
whether she had lunched, and she who had eaten nothing all day answered:
“Yes, dear--yes.”
Once when he said:
“You shouldn't have come here, Mother; I'm a bit out of sorts!”
She watched his face, dearest to her in all the world, bent towards the
floor, and she so yearned to hold it to her breast that, since she
dared not, the tears stole up, and silently rolled down her cheeks. The
stillness in that room, chosen for remoteness, was like the stillness
of a tomb, and, as in a tomb, there was no outlook on the world, for the
glass of the skylight was opaque.
That deathly stillness settled round her heart; her eyes fixed
themselves on the skylight, as though beseeching it to break and let
in sound. A cat, making a pilgrimage from roof to roof, the four dark
moving spots of its paws, the faint blur of its body, was all she saw.
And suddenly, unable to bear it any longer, she cried:
“Oh, George, speak to me! Don't put me away from you like this!”
George answered:
“What do you want me to say, Mother?”
“Nothing--only----”
And falling on her knees beside her son, she pulled his head down
against her breast, and stayed rocking herself to and fro, silently
shifting closer till she could feel his head lie comfortably; so, she
had his face against her heart, and she could not bear to let it go. Her
knees hurt her on the boarded floor, her back and all her body ached;
but not for worlds would she relax an inch, believing that she could
comfort him with her pain, and her tears fell on his neck. When at last
he drew his face away she sank down on the floor, and could not rise,
but her fingers felt that the bosom of her dress was wet. He said
hoarsely:
“It's all right, Mother; you needn't worry!”
For no reward would she have looked at him just then, but with a deeper
certainty than reason she knew that he was safe.
Stealthily on the sloping skylight the cat retraced her steps, its four
paws dark moving spots, its body a faint blur.
Mrs. Pendyce rose.
“I won't stay now, darling. May I use your glass?”
Standing before that mirror, smoothing back her hair, passing her
handkerchief over her cheeks and eyes and lips, she thought:
'.hat woman has stood here! That woman has smoothed her hair, looking
in this glass, and wiped his kisses from her cheeks! May God give to her
the pain that she has given to my son!'
But when she had wished that wish she shivered.
She turned to George at the door with a smile that seemed to say:
'.t's no good to weep, or try and tell you what is in my heart, and so,
you see, I'm smiling. Please smile, too, so as to comfort me a little.'
George put a small paper parcel in her hand and tried to smile.
Mrs. Pendyce went quickly out. Bewildered by the sunlight, she did not
look at this parcel till she was beyond the outer gate. It contained an
amethyst necklace, an emerald pendant, and a diamond ring. In the little
grey street that led to this garden with its poplars, old fountain, and
green gate, the jewels glowed and sparkled as though all light and life
had settled there. Mrs. Pendyce, who loved colour and glowing things,
saw that they were beautiful.
That woman had taken them, used their light and colour, and then flung
them back! She wrapped them again in the paper, tied the string, and
went towards the river. She did not hurry, but walked with her eyes
steadily before her. She crossed the Embankment, and stood leaning on
the parapet with her hands over the grey water. Her thumb and fingers
unclosed; the white parcel dropped, floated a second, and then
disappeared.
Mrs. Pendyce looked round her with a start.
A young man with a beard, whose face was familiar, was raising his hat.
“So your son was in,” he said. “I'm very glad. I must thank you again
for standing to me just that minute; it made all the difference. It
was the relation between the figure and the door that I wanted to get.
Good-morning!”
Mrs. Pendyce murmured “Good-morning,” following him with startled eyes,
as though he had caught her in the commission of a crime. She had a
vision of those jewels, buried, poor things! in the grey slime, a prey
to gloom, and robbed for ever of their light and colour. And, as though
she had sinned, wronged the gentle essence of her nature, she hurried
away.
CHAPTER VI
GREGORY LOOKS AT THE SKY
Gregory Vigil called Mr. Paramor a pessimist it was because, like other
people, he did not know the meaning of, the term; for with a confusion
common to the minds of many persons who have been conceived in misty
moments, he thought that, to see things as they were, meant, to try and
make them worse. Gregory had his own way of seeing things that was very
dear to him--so dear that he would shut his eyes sooner than see them
any other way. And since things to him were not the same as things to
Mr. Paramor, it cannot, after all, be said that he did not see things as
they were. But dirt upon a face that he wished to be clean he could not
see--a fluid in his blue eyes dissolved that dirt while the image of the
face was passing on to their retinae. The process was unconscious, and
has been called idealism. This was why the longer he reflected the more
agonisedly certain he became that his ward was right to be faithful
to the man she loved, right to join her life to his. And he went about
pressing the blade of this thought into his soul.
About four o'clock on the day of Mrs. Pendyce's visit to the studio a
letter was brought him by a page-boy.
“GREEN'S HOTEL,
“Thursday.
“DEAR GRIG,
“I have seen Helen Bellew, and have just come from George. We have all
been living in a bad dream. She does not love him--perhaps has never
loved him. I do not know; I do not wish to judge. She has given him up.
I will not trust myself to say anything about that. From beginning to
end it all seems so unnecessary, such a needless, cross-grained muddle.
I write this line to tell you how things really are, and to beg you, if
you have a moment to spare, to look in at George's club this evening and
let me know if he is there and how he seems. There is no one else that
I could possibly ask to do this for me. Forgive me if this letter pains
you.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“MARGERY PENDYCE.”
To those with the single eye, the narrow personal view of all things
human, by whom the irony underlying the affairs of men is unseen and
unenjoyed, whose simple hearts afford that irony its most precious
smiles, who; vanquished by that irony, remain invincible--to these no
blow of Fate, no reversal of their ideas, can long retain importance.
The darts stick, quaver, and fall off, like arrows from chain-armour,
and the last dart, slipping upwards under the harness, quivers into the
heart to the cry of “What--you! No, no; I don't believe you're here!”
Such as these have done much of what has had to be done in this old
world, and perhaps still more of what has had to be undone.
When Gregory received this letter he was working on the case of a woman
with the morphia habit. He put it into his pocket and went on working.
It was all he was capable of doing.
“Here is the memorandum, Mrs. Shortman. Let them take her for six weeks.
She will come out a different woman.”
Mrs. Shortman, supporting her thin face in her thin hand, rested her
glowing eyes on Gregory.
“I'm afraid she has lost all moral sense,” she said. “Do you know, Mr.
Vigil, I'm almost afraid she never had any!”
“What do you mean?”
Mrs. Shortman turned her eyes away.
“I'm sometimes tempted to think,” she said, “that there are such people.
I wonder whether we allow enough for that. When I was a girl in the
country I remember the daughter of our vicar, a very pretty creature.
There were dreadful stories about her, even before she was married, and
then we heard she was divorced. She came up to London and earned her own
living by playing the piano until she married again. I won't tell you
her name, but she is very well known, and nobody has ever seen her show
the slightest signs of being ashamed. If there is one woman like that
there may be dozens, and I sometimes think we waste----”
Gregory said dryly:
“I have heard you say that before.”
Mrs. Shortman bit her lips.
“I don't think,” she said, “that I grudge my efforts or my time.”
Gregory went quickly up, and took her hand.
“I know that--oh, I know that,” he said with feeling.
The sound of Miss Mallow furiously typing rose suddenly from the corner.
Gregory removed his hat from the peg on which it hung.
“I must go now,” he said. “Good-night.”
Without warning, as is the way with hearts, his heart had begun to
bleed, and he felt that he must be in the open air. He took no omnibus
or cab, but strode along with all his might, trying to think, trying to
understand. But he could only feel-confused and battered feelings, with
now and then odd throbs of pleasure of which he was ashamed. Whether
he knew it or not, he was making his way to Chelsea, for though a man's
eyes may be fixed on the stars, his feet cannot take him there, and
Chelsea seemed to them the best alternative. He was not alone upon this
journey, for many another man was going there, and many a man had been
and was coming now away, and the streets were the one long streaming
crowd of the summer afternoon. And the men he met looked at Gregory, and
Gregory looked at them, and neither saw the other, for so it is written
of men, lest they pay attention to cares that are not their own. The sun
that scorched his face fell on their backs, the breeze that cooled his
back blew on their cheeks. For the careless world, too, was on its way,
along the pavement of the universe, one of millions going to Chelsea,
meeting millions coming away....
“Mrs. Bellew at home?”
He went into a room fifteen feet square and perhaps ten high, with
a sulky canary in a small gilt cage, an upright piano with an open
operatic score, a sofa with piled-up cushions, and on it a woman with a
flushed and sullen face, whose elbows were resting on her knees, whose
chin was resting on her hand, whose gaze was fixed on nothing. It was a
room of that size, with all these things, but Gregory took into it with
him some thing that made it all seem different to Gregory. He sat down
by the window with his eyes carefully averted, and spoke in soft tones
broken by something that sounded like emotion. He began by telling her
of his woman with the morphia habit, and then he told her that he knew
everything. When he had said this he looked out of the window, where
builders had left by inadvertence a narrow strip of sky. And thus he
avoided seeing the look on her face, contemptuous, impatient, as though
she were thinking: 'You are a good fellow, Gregory, but for Heaven's
sake do see things for once as they are! I have had enough of it.' And
he avoided seeing her stretch her arms out and spread the fingers, as an
angry cat will stretch and spread its toes. He told her that he did not
want to worry her, but that when she wanted him for anything she must
send for him--he was always there; and he looked at her feet, so that he
did not see her lip curl. He told her that she would always be the same
to him, and he asked her to believe that. He did not see the smile which
never left her lips again while he was there--the smile he could not
read, because it was the smile of life, and of a woman that he did not
understand. But he did see on that sofa a beautiful creature for whom he
had longed for years, and so he went away, and left her standing at the
door with her teeth fastened on her lip: And since with him Gregory took
his eyes, he did not see her reseated on the sofa, just as she had been
before he came in, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hand, her
moody eyes like those of a gambler staring into the distance....
In the streets of tall houses leading away from Chelsea were many men,
some, like Gregory, hungry for love, and some hungry for bread--men in
twos and threes, in crowds, or by themselves, some with their eyes on
the ground, some with their eyes level, some with their eyes on the sky,
but all with courage and loyalty of one poor kind or another in their
hearts. For by courage and loyalty alone it is written that man shall
live, whether he goes to Chelsea or whether he comes away. Of all these
men, not one but would have smiled to hear Gregory saying to himself:
“She will always be the same to me! She will always be the same to me!”
And not one that would have grinned....
It was getting on for the Stoics' dinner hour when Gregory found himself
in Piccadilly, and, Stoic after Stoic, they were getting out of cabs and
passing the club doors. The poor fellows had been working hard all day
on the racecourse, the cricket-ground, at Hurlingham, or in the Park;
some had been to the Royal Academy, and on their faces was a pleasant
look: “Ah, God is good--we can rest at last!” And many of them had had
no lunch, hoping to keep their weights down, and many who had lunched
had not done themselves as well as might be hoped, and some had done
themselves too well; but in all their hearts the trust burned bright
that they might do themselves better at dinner, for their God was good,
and dwelt between the kitchen and the cellar of the Stoics' Club. And
all--for all had poetry in their souls--looked forward to those hours
in paradise when, with cigars between their lips, good wine below, they
might dream the daily dream that comes to all true Stoics for about
fifteen shillings or even less, all told.
From a little back slum, within two stones' throw of the god of the
Stoics' Club, there had come out two seamstresses to take the air; one
was in consumption, having neglected to earn enough to feed herself
properly for some years past, and the other looked as if she would be
in consumption shortly, for the same reason. They stood on the pavement,
watching the cabs drive up. Some of the Stoics saw them and thought:
'.oor girls! they look awfully bad.' Three or four said to themselves:
“It oughtn't to be allowed. I mean, it's so painful to see; and it's not
as if one could do anything. They're not beggars, don't you know, and so
what can one do?”
But most of the Stoics did not look at them at all, feeling that their
soft hearts could not stand these painful sights, and anxious not to
spoil their dinners. Gregory did not see them either, for it so happened
that he was looking at the sky, and just then the two girls crossed the
road and were lost among the passers-by, for they were not dogs, who
could smell out the kind of man he was.
“Mr. Pendyce is in the club; I will send your name up, sir.” And rolling
a little, as though Gregory's name were heavy, the porter gave it to the
boy, who went away with it.
Gregory stood by the empty hearth and waited, and while he waited,
nothing struck him at all, for the Stoics seemed very natural, just mere
men like himself, except that their clothes were better, which made him
think: 'I shouldn't care to belong here and have to dress for dinner
every night.'
“Mr. Pendyce is very sorry, sir, but he's engaged.”
Gregory bit his lip, said “Thank you,” and went away.
'.hat's all Margery wants,' he thought; 'the rest is nothing to me,'
and, getting on a bus, he fixed his eyes once more on the sky.
But George was not engaged. Like a wounded animal taking its hurt
for refuge to its lair, he sat in his favourite window overlooking
Piccadilly. He sat there as though youth had left him, unmoving, never
lifting his eyes. In his stubborn mind a wheel seemed turning, grinding
out his memories to the last grain. And Stoics, who could not bear to
see a man sit thus throughout that sacred hour, came up from time to
time.
“Aren't you going to dine, Pendyce?”
Dumb brutes tell no one of their pains; the law is silence. So with
George. And as each Stoic came up, he only set his teeth and said:
“Presently, old chap.”
CHAPTER VII
TOUR WITH THE SPANIEL JOHN
Now the spaniel John--whose habit was to smell of heather and baked
biscuits when he rose from a night's sleep--was in disgrace that
Thursday. Into his long and narrow head it took time for any new idea
to enter, and not till forty hours after Mrs. Pendyce had gone did he
recognise fully that something definite had happened to his master.
During the agitated minutes that this conviction took in forming, he
worked hard. Taking two and a half brace of his master's shoes and
slippers, and placing them in unaccustomed spots, he lay on them one by
one till they were warm, then left them for some bird or other to hatch
out, and returned to Mr. Pendyce's door. It was for all this that
the Squire said, “John!” several times, and threatened him with a
razorstrop. And partly because he could not bear to leave his master
for a single second--the scolding had made him love him so--and partly
because of that new idea, which let him have no peace, he lay in the
hall waiting.
Having once in his hot youth inadvertently followed the Squire's
horse, he could never be induced to follow it again. He both personally
disliked this needlessly large and swift form of animal, and suspected
it of designs upon his master; for when the creature had taken his
master up, there was not a smell of him left anywhere--not a whiff
of that pleasant scent that so endeared him to the heart. As soon,
therefore, as the horse appeared, the spaniel John would lie down on
his stomach with his forepaws close to his nose, and his nose close to
the ground; nor until the animal vanished could he be induced to abandon
an attitude in which he resembled a couching Sphinx.
But this afternoon, with his tail down, his lips pouting, his shoulders
making heavy work of it, his nose lifted in deprecation of that
ridiculous and unnecessary plane on which his master sat, he followed at
a measured distance. In such-wise, aforetime, the village had followed
the Squire and Mr. Barter when they introduced into it its one and only
drain.
Mr. Pendyce rode slowly; his feet, in their well-blacked boots, his
nervous legs in Bedford cord and mahogany-coloured leggings, moved in
rhyme to the horse's trot. A long-tailed coat fell clean and full over
his thighs; his back and shoulders were a wee bit bent to lessen
motion, and above his neat white stock under a grey bowler hat his
lean, grey-whiskered and moustachioed face, with harassed eyes, was
preoccupied and sad. His horse, a brown blood mare, ambled lazily, head
raking forward, and bang tail floating outward from her hocks. And so,
in the June sunshine, they went, all three, along the leafy lane to
Worsted Scotton....
On Tuesday, the day that Mrs. Pendyce had left, the Squire had come in
later than usual, for he felt that after their difference of the night
before, a little coolness would do her no harm. The first hour of
discovery had been as one confused and angry minute, ending in a burst
of nerves and the telegram to General Pendyce. He took the telegram
himself, returning from the village with his head down, a sudden prey to
a feeling of shame--an odd and terrible feeling that he never remembered
to have felt before, a sort of fear of his fellow-creatures. He would
have chosen a secret way, but there was none, only the highroad, or
the path across the village green, and through the churchyard to his
paddocks. An old cottager was standing at the turnstile, and the Squire
made for him with his head down, as a bull makes for a fence. He had
meant to pass in silence, but between him and this old broken husbandman
there was a bond forged by the ages. Had it meant death, Mr. Pendyce
could not have passed one whose fathers had toiled for his fathers,
eaten his fathers' bread, died with his fathers, without a word and a
movement of his hand.
“Evenin', Squire; nice evenin'. Faine weather fur th' hay!”
The voice was warped and wavery.
'.his is my Squire,' it seemed to say, 'whatever ther' be agin him!'
Mr. Pendyce's hand went up to his hat.
“Evenin', Hermon. Aye, fine weather for the hay! Mrs. Pendyce has gone
up to London. We young bachelors, ha!”
He passed on.
Not until he had gone some way did he perceive why he had made that
announcement. It was simply because he must tell everyone, everyone;
then no one could be astonished.
He hurried on to the house to dress in time for dinner, and show all
that nothing was amiss. Seven courses would have been served him had the
sky fallen; but he ate little, and drank more claret than was his wont.
After dinner he sat in his study with the windows open, and in the
mingled day and lamp light read his wife's letter over again. As it was
with the spaniel John, so with his master--a new idea penetrated but
slowly into his long and narrow head.
She was cracked about George; she did not know what she was doing; would
soon come to her senses. It was not for him to take any steps. What
steps, indeed, could he take without confessing that Horace Pendyce had
gone too far, that Horace Pendyce was in the wrong? That had never been
his habit, and he could not alter now. If she and George chose to be
stubborn, they must take the consequences, and fend for themselves.
In the silence and the lamplight, growing mellower each minute under the
green silk shade, he sat confusedly thinking of the past. And in that
dumb reverie, as though of fixed malice, there came to him no memories
that were not pleasant, no images that were not fair. He tried to think
of her unkindly, he tried to paint her black; but with the perversity
born into the world when he was born, to die when he was dead, she came
to him softly, like the ghost of gentleness, to haunt his fancy. She
came to him smelling of sweet scents, with a slight rustling of silk,
and the sound of her expectant voice, saying, “Yes, dear?” as though
she were not bored. He remembered when he brought her first to Worsted
Skeynes thirty-four years ago, “That timid, and like a rose, but a lady
every hinch, the love!” as his old nurse had said.
He remembered her when George was born, like wax for whiteness and
transparency, with eyes that were all pupils, and a hovering smile. So
many other times he remembered her throughout those years, but never as
a woman faded, old; never as a woman of the past. Now that he had not
got her, for the first time Mr. Pendyce realised that she had not grown
old, that she was still to him “timid, and like a rose, but a lady every
hinch, the love!” And he could not bear this thought; it made him feel
so miserable and lonely in the lamplight, with the grey moths hovering
round, and the spaniel John asleep upon his foot.
So, taking his candle, he went up to bed. The doors that barred away the
servants' wing were closed. In all that great remaining space of house
his was the only candle, the only sounding footstep. Slowly he mounted
as he had mounted many thousand times, but never once like this, and
behind him, like a shadow, mounted the spaniel John.
And She that knows the hearts of men and dogs, the Mother from whom all
things come, to whom they all go home, was watching, and presently, when
they were laid, the one in his deserted bed, the other on blue linen,
propped against the door, She gathered them to sleep.
But Wednesday came, and with it Wednesday duties. They who have passed
the windows of the Stoics' Club and seen the Stoics sitting there have
haunting visions of the idle landed classes. These visions will not let
them sleep, will not let their tongues to cease from bitterness, for
they so long to lead that “idle” life themselves. But though in a misty
land illusions be our cherished lot, that we may all think falsely of
our neighbours and enjoy ourselves, the word “idle” is not at all the
word.
Many and heavy tasks weighed on the Squire at Worsted Skeynes. There
was the visit to the stables to decide as to firing Beldame's hock, or
selling the new bay horse because he did not draw men fast enough, and
the vexed question of Bruggan's oats or Beal's, talked out with
Benson, in a leather belt and flannel shirt-sleeves, like a corpulent,
white-whiskered boy. Then the long sitting in the study with memorandums
and accounts, all needing care, lest So-and-so should give too little
for too little, or too little for too much; and the smart walk across
to Jarvis, the head keeper, to ask after the health of the new Hungarian
bird, or discuss a scheme whereby in the last drive so many of those
creatures he had nurtured from their youth up might be deterred from
flying over to his friend Lord Quarryman. And this took long, for
Jarvis's feelings forced him to say six times, “Well, Mr. Pendyce, sir,
what I say is we didn't oughter lose s'many birds in that last drive;”
and Mr. Pendyce to answer: “No, Jarvis, certainly not. Well, what do
you suggest?” And that other grievous question--how to get plenty
of pheasants and plenty of foxes to dwell together in perfect
harmony--discussed with endless sympathy, for, as the Squire would say,
“Jarvis is quite safe with foxes.” He could not bear his covers to be
drawn blank.
Then back to a sparing lunch, or perhaps no lunch at all, that he might
keep fit and hard; and out again at once on horseback or on foot to the
home farm or further, as need might take him, and a long afternoon, with
eyes fixed on the ribs of bullocks, the colour of swedes, the surfaces
of walls or gates or fences.
Then home again to tea and to the Times, which had as yet received
but fleeting glances, with close attention to all those Parliamentary
measures threatening, remotely, the existing state of things, except, of
course, that future tax on wheat so needful to the betterment of Worsted
Skeynes. There were occasions, too, when they brought him tramps to deal
with, to whom his one remark would be, “Hold out your hands, my man,”
which, being found unwarped by honest toil, were promptly sent to gaol.
When found so warped, Mr. Pendyce was at a loss, and would walk up and
down, earnestly trying to discover what his duty was to them. There were
days, too, almost entirely occupied by sessions, when many classes of
offenders came before him, to whom he meted justice according to the
heinousness of the offence, from poaching at the top down and down to
wife-beating at the bottom; for, though a humane man, tradition did
not suffer him to look on this form of sport as really criminal--at any
rate, not in the country.
It was true that all these matters could have been settled in a fraction
of the time by a young and trained intelligence, but this would have
wronged tradition, disturbed the Squire's settled conviction that he
was doing his duty, and given cause for slanderous tongues to hint at
idleness. And though, further, it was true that all this daily labour
was devoted directly or indirectly to interests of his own, what was
that but doing his duty to the country and asserting the prerogative of
every Englishman at all costs to be provincial?
But on this Wednesday the flavour of the dish was gone. To be alone
amongst his acres, quite alone--to have no one to care whether he did
anything at all, no one to whom he might confide that Beldame's hock
was to be fired, that Peacock was asking for more gates, was almost more
than he could bear. He would have wired to the girls to come home, but
he could not bring himself to face their questions. Gerald was at Gib!
George--George was no son of his!--and his pride forbade him to write to
her who had left him thus to solitude and shame. For deep down below his
stubborn anger it was shame that the Squire felt--shame that he should
have to shun his neighbours, lest they should ask him questions which,
for his own good name and his own pride, he must answer with a lie;
shame that he should not be master in his own house--still more, shame
that anyone should see that he was not. To be sure, he did not know that
he felt shame, being unused to introspection, having always kept it at
arm's length. For he always meditated concretely, as, for instance,
when he looked up and did not see his wife at breakfast, but saw Bester
making coffee, he thought, 'That fellow knows all about it, I shouldn't
wonder!' and he felt angry for thinking that. When he saw Mr. Barter
coming down the drive he thought, 'Confound it! I can't meet him,' and
slipped out, and felt angry that he had thus avoided him. When in the
Scotch garden he came on Jackman syringing the rose-trees, he said to
him, “Your mistress has gone to London,” and abruptly turned away, angry
that he had been obliged by a mysterious impulse to tell him that:
So it was, all through that long, sad day, and the only thing that gave
him comfort was to score through, in the draft of his will, bequests to
his eldest son, and busy himself over drafting a clause to take their
place:
“Forasmuch as my eldest son, George Hubert, has by conduct unbecoming to
a gentleman and a Pendyce, proved himself unworthy of my confidence, and
forasmuch as to my regret I am unable to cut the entail of my estate, I
hereby declare that he shall in no way participate in any division of my
other property or of my personal effects, conscientiously believing that
it is my duty so to do in the interests of my family and of the country,
and I make this declaration without anger.”
For, all the anger that he was balked of feeling against his wife,
because he missed her so, was added to that already felt against his
son.
By the last post came a letter from General Pendyce. He opened it with
fingers as shaky as his brother's writing.
“ARMY AND NAVY CLUB.
“DEAR HORACE,
“What the deuce and all made you send that telegram? It spoiled my
breakfast, and sent me off in a tearing hurry, to find Margery perfectly
well. If she'd been seedy or anything I should have been delighted, but
there she was, busy about her dresses and what not, and I dare say
she thought me a lunatic for coming at that time in the morning. You
shouldn't get into the habit of sending telegrams. A telegram is a thing
that means something--at least, I've always thought so. I met George
coming away from her in a deuce of a hurry. I can't write any more now.
I'm just going to have my lunch.
“Your affectionate brother,
“CHARLES PENDYCE.”
She was well. She had been seeing George. With a hardened heart the
Squire went up to bed.
And Wednesday came to an end....
And so on the Thursday afternoon the brown blood mare carried Mr.
Pendyce along the lane, followed by the spaniel John. They passed the
Firs, where Bellew lived, and, bending sharply to the right, began to
mount towards the Common; and with them mounted the image of that fellow
who was at the bottom of it all--an image that ever haunted the Squire's
mind nowadays; a ghost, high-shouldered, with little burning eyes,
clipped red moustaches, thin bowed legs. A plague spot on that system
which he loved, a whipping-post to heredity, a scourge like Attila
the Hun; a sort of damnable caricature of all that a country gentleman
should be--of his love of sport and open air, of his “hardness” and his
pluck; of his powers of knowing his own mind, and taking his liquor
like a man; of his creed, now out of date, of gallantry. Yes--a kind of
cursed bogey of a man, a spectral follower of the hounds, a desperate
character--a man that in old days someone would have shot; a drinking,
white-faced devil who despised Horace Pendyce, whom Horace Pendyce
hated, yet could not quite despise. “Always one like that in a hunting
country!” A black dog on the shoulders of his order. 'Post equitem
sedet' Jaspar Bellew!
The Squire came out on the top of the rise, and all Worsted Scotton was
in sight. It was a sandy stretch of broom and gorse and heather, with a
few Scotch firs; it had no value at all, and he longed for it, as a boy
might long for the bite someone else had snatched out of his apple. It
distressed him lying there, his and yet not his, like a wife who was no
wife--as though Fortune were enjoying her at his expense. Thus was he
deprived of the fulness of his mental image; for as with all men, so
with the Squire, that which he loved and owned took definite form--a
some thing that he saw. Whenever the words “Worsted Skeynes” were in his
mind--and that was almost always--there rose before him an image defined
and concrete, however indescribable; and what ever this image was, he
knew that Worsted Scotton spoiled it. It was true that he could not
think of any use to which to put the Common, but he felt deeply that it
was pure dog-in-the-mangerism of the cottagers, and this he could not
stand. Not one beast in two years had fattened on its barrenness. Three
old donkeys alone eked out the remnants of their days. A bundle of
firewood or old bracken, a few peat sods from one especial corner,
were all the selfish peasants gathered. But the cottagers were no great
matter--he could soon have settled them; it was that fellow Peacock whom
he could not settle, just because he happened to abut on the Common, and
his fathers had been nasty before him. Mr. Pendyce rode round looking
at the fence his father had put up, until he came to the portion that
Peacock's father had pulled down; and here, by a strange fatality--such
as will happen even in printed records--he came on Peacock himself
standing in the gap, as though he had foreseen this visit of the
Squire's. The mare stopped of her own accord, the spaniel John at a
measured distance lay down to think, and all those yards away he could
be heard doing it, and now and then swallowing his tongue.
Peacock stood with his hands in his breeches' pockets. An old straw hat
was on his head, his little eyes were turned towards the ground; and
his cob, which he had tied to what his father had left standing of the
fence, had his eyes, too, turned towards the ground, for he was eating
grass. Mr. Pendyce's fight with his burning stable had stuck in the
farmer's “gizzard” ever since. He felt that he was forgetting it day
by day--would soon forget it altogether. He felt the old sacred doubts
inherited from his fathers rising every hour within him. And so he
had come up to see what looking at the gap would do for his sense of
gratitude. At sight of the Squire his little eyes turned here and there,
as a pig's eyes turn when it receives a blow behind. That Mr. Pendyce
should have chosen this moment to come up was as though Providence, that
knoweth all things, knew the natural thing for Mr. Pendyce to do.
“Afternoon, Squire. Dry weather; rain's badly wanted. I'll get no feed
if this goes on.”
Mr. Pendyce answered:
“Afternoon, Peacock. Why, your fields are first-rate for grass.”
They hastily turned their eyes away, for at that moment they could not
bear to see each other.
There was a silence; then Peacock said:
“What about those gates of mine, Squire?” and his voice quavered, as
though gratitude might yet get the better of him.
The Squire's irritable glance swept over the unfenced space to right and
left, and the thought flashed through his mind:
'.uppose I were to give the beggar those gates, would he--would he let
me enclose the Scotton again?'
He looked at that square, bearded man, and the infallible instinct,
christened so wickedly by Mr. Paramor, guided him.
“What's wrong with your gates, man, I should like to know?”
Peacock looked at him full this time; there was no longer any quaver in
his voice, but a sort of rough good-humour.
“Wy, the 'arf o' them's as rotten as matchwood!” he said; and he took a
breath of relief, for he knew that gratitude was dead within his soul.
“Well, I wish mine at the home farm were half as good. Come, John!” and,
touching the mare with his heel, Mr. Pendyce turned; but before he had
gone a dozen paces he was back.
“Mrs. Peacock well, I hope? Mrs. Pendyce has gone up to London.”
And touching his hat, without waiting for Peacock's answer, he rode
away. He took the lane past Peacock's farm across the home paddocks,
emerging on the cricket-ground, a field of his own which he had caused
to be converted.
The return match with Coldingham was going on, and, motionless on his
horse, the Squire stopped to watch. A tall figure in the “long field”
came leisurely towards him. It was the Hon. Geoffrey Winlow. Mr. Pendyce
subdued an impulse to turn the mare and ride away.
“We're going to give you a licking, Squire! How's Mrs. Pendyce? My wife
sent her love.”
On the Squire's face in the full sun was more than the sun's flush.
“Thanks,” he said, “she's very well. She's gone up to London.”
“And aren't you going up yourself this season?”
The Squire crossed those leisurely eyes with his own.
“I don't think so,” he said slowly.
The Hon. Geoffrey returned to his duties.
“We got poor old Barter for a 'blob'.” he said over his shoulder.
The Squire became aware that Mr. Barter was approaching from behind.
“You see that left-hand fellow?” he said, pouting. “Just watch his foot.
D'you mean to say that wasn't a no-ball? He bowled me with a no-ball.
He's a rank no-batter. That fellow Locke's no more an umpire than----”
He stopped and looked earnestly at the bowler.
The Squire 'did not answer, sitting on his mare as though carved in
stone. Suddenly his throat clicked.
“How's your wife?” he said. “Margery would have come to see her,
but--but she's gone up to London.”
The Rector did not turn his head.
“My wife? Oh, going on first-rate. There's another! I say, Winlow, this
is too bad!”
The Hon. Geoffrey's pleasant voice was heard:
“Please not to speak to the man at the wheel!”
The Squire turned the mare and rode away; and the spaniel John, who
had been watching from a measured distance, followed after, his tongue
lolling from his mouth.
The Squire turned through a gate down the main aisle of the home covert,
and the nose and the tail of the spaniel John, who scented creatures to
the left and right, were in perpetual motion. It was cool in there. The
June foliage made one long colonnade, broken by a winding river of sky.
Among the oaks and hazels; the beeches and the elms, the ghostly body of
a birch-tree shone here and there, captured by those grosser trees which
seemed to cluster round her, proud of their prisoner, loth to let her
go, that subtle spirit of their wood. They knew that, were she gone,
their forest lady, wilder and yet gentler than themselves--they would
lose credit, lose the grace and essence of their corporate being.
The Squire dismounted, tethered his horse, and sat under one of those
birch-trees, on the fallen body of an elm. The spaniel John also sat and
loved him with his eyes. And sitting there they thought their thoughts,
but their thoughts were different.
For under this birch-tree Horace Pendyce had stood and kissed his wife
the very day he brought her home to Worsted Skeynes, and though he
did not see the parallel between her and the birch-tree that some poor
imaginative creature might have drawn, yet was he thinking of that
long past afternoon. But the spaniel John was not thinking of it; his
recollection was too dim, for he had been at that time twenty-eight
years short of being born.
Mr. Pendyce sat there long with his horse and with his dog, and from out
the blackness of the spaniel John, who was more than less asleep, there
shone at times an eye turned on his master like some devoted star.
The sun, shining too, gilded the stem of the birch-tree. The birds
and beasts began their evening stir all through the undergrowth, and
rabbits, popping out into the ride, looked with surprise at the spaniel
John, and popped in back again. They knew that men with horses had no
guns, but could not bring themselves to trust that black and hairy thing
whose nose so twitched whenever they appeared. The gnats came out to
dance, and at their dancing, every sound and scent and shape became the
sounds and scents and shapes of evening; and there was evening in the
Squire's heart.
Slowly and stiffly he got up from the log and mounted to ride home. It
would be just as lonely when he got there, but a house is better than a
wood, where the gnats dance, the birds and creatures stir and stir, and
shadows lengthen; where the sun steals upwards on the tree-stems, and
all is careless of its owner, Man.
It was past seven o'clock when he went to his study. There was a lady
standing at the window, and Mr. Pendyce said:
“I beg your pardon?”
The lady turned; it was his wife. The Squire stopped with a hoarse
sound, and stood silent, covering his eyes with his hand.
CHAPTER VIII
ACUTE ATTACK OF 'PENDYCITIS'
Mrs. Pendyce felt very faint when she hurried away from Chelsea. She had
passed through hours of great emotion, and eaten nothing.
Like sunset clouds or the colours in mother-o'-pearl, so, it is written,
shall be the moods of men--interwoven as the threads of an embroidery,
less certain than an April day, yet with a rhythm of their own that
never fails, and no one can quite scan.
A single cup of tea on her way home, and her spirit revived. It seemed
suddenly as if there had been a great ado about nothing! As if someone
had known how stupid men could be, and been playing a fantasia on that
stupidity. But this gaiety of spirit soon died away, confronted by the
problem of what she should do next.
She reached her hotel without making a decision. She sat down in the
reading-room to write to Gregory, and while she sat there with her pen
in her hand a dreadful temptation came over her to say bitter things to
him, because by not seeing people as they were he had brought all this
upon them. But she had so little practice in saying bitter things that
she could not think of any that were nice enough, and in the end she was
obliged to leave them out. After finishing and sending off the note she
felt better. And it came to her suddenly that, if she packed at once,
there was just time to catch the 5.55 to Worsted Skeynes.
As in leaving her home, so in returning, she followed her instinct, and
her instinct told her to avoid unnecessary fuss and suffering.
The decrepit station fly, mouldy and smelling of stables, bore her
almost lovingly towards the Hall. Its old driver, clean-faced, cheery,
somewhat like a bird, drove her almost furiously, for, though he knew
nothing, he felt that two whole days and half a day were quite long
enough for her to be away. At the lodge gate old Roy, the Skye, was
seated on his haunches, and the sight of him set Mrs. Pendyce trembling
as though till then she had not realised that she was coming home.
Home! The long narrow lane without a turning, the mists and stillness,
the driving rain and hot bright afternoons; the scents of wood smoke and
hay and the scent of her flowers; the Squire's voice, the dry rattle of
grass-cutters, the barking of dogs, and distant hum of threshing; and
Sunday sounds--church bells and rooks, and Mr. Barter's preaching; the
tastes, too, of the very dishes! And all these scents and sounds and
tastes, and the feel of the air to her cheeks, seemed to have been for
ever in the past, and to be going on for ever in the time to come.
She turned red and white by turns, and felt neither joy nor sadness, for
in a wave the old life came over her. She went at once to the study to
wait for her husband to come in. At the hoarse sound he made, her heart
beat fast, while old Roy and the spaniel John growled gently at each
other.
“John,” she murmured, “aren't you glad to see me, dear?”
The spaniel John, without moving, beat his tail against his master's
foot.
The Squire raised his head at last.
“Well, Margery?” was all he said.
It shot through her mind that he looked older, and very tired!
The dinner-gong began to sound, and as though attracted by its long
monotonous beating, a swallow flew in at one of the narrow windows and
fluttered round the room. Mrs. Pendyce's eyes followed its flight.
The Squire stepped forward suddenly and took her hand.
“Don't run away from me again, Margery!” he said; and stooping down, he
kissed it.
At this action, so unlike her husband, Mrs. Pendyce blushed like a girl.
Her eyes above his grey and close-cropped head seemed grateful that he
did not reproach her, glad of that caress.
“I have some news to tell you, Horace. Helen Bellew has given George
up!”
The Squire dropped her hand.
“And quite time too,” he said. “I dare say George has refused to take
his dismissal. He's as obstinate as a mule.”
“I found him in a dreadful state.”
Mr. Pendyce asked uneasily:
“What? What's that?”
“He looked so desperate.”
“Desperate?” said the Squire, with a sort of startled anger.
Mrs. Pendyce went on:
“It was dreadful to see his face. I was with him this afternoon--”
The Squire said suddenly:
“He's not ill, is he?”
“No, not ill. Oh, Horace, don't you understand? I was afraid he might do
something rash. He was so--miserable.”
The Squire began to walk up and down.
“Is he--is he safe now?” he burst out.
Mrs. Pendyce sat down rather suddenly in the nearest chair.
“Yes,” she said with difficulty, “I--I think so.”
“Think! What's the good of that? What---- Are you feeling faint,
Margery?”
Mrs. Pendyce, who had closed her eyes, said:
“No dear, it's all right.”
Mr. Pendyce came close, and since air and quiet were essential to her at
that moment, he bent over and tried by every means in his power to rouse
her; and she, who longed to be let alone, sympathised with him, for she
knew that it was natural that he should do this. In spite of his efforts
the feeling of faintness passed, and, taking his hand, she stroked it
gratefully.
“What is to be done now, Horace?”
“Done!” cried the Squire. “Good God! how should I know? Here you are in
this state, all because of that d---d fellow Bellew and his d---d wife!
What you want is some dinner.”
So saying, he put his arm around her, and half leading, half carrying,
took her to her room.
They did not talk much at dinner, and of indifferent things, of Mrs.
Barter, Peacock, the roses, and Beldame's hock. Only once they came
too near to that which instinct told them to avoid, for the Squire said
suddenly:
“I suppose you saw that woman?”
And Mrs. Pendyce murmured:
“Yes.”
She soon went to her room, and had barely got into bed when he appeared,
saying as though ashamed:
“I'm very early.”
She lay awake, and every now and then the Squire would ask her, “Are you
asleep, Margery?” hoping that she might have dropped off, for he himself
could not sleep. And she knew that he meant to be nice to her, and
she knew, too, that as he lay awake, turning from side to side, he was
thinking like herself: 'What's to be done next?' And that his fancy,
too, was haunted by a ghost, high-shouldered, with little burning eyes,
red hair, and white freckled face. For, save that George was miserable,
nothing was altered, and the cloud of vengeance still hung over Worsted
Skeynes. Like some weary lesson she rehearsed her thoughts: 'Now Horace
can answer that letter of Captain Bellow's, can tell him that George
will not--indeed, cannot--see her again. He must answer it. But will
he?'
She groped after the secret springs of her husband's character, turning
and turning and trying to understand, that she might know the best way
of approaching him. And she could not feel sure, for behind all the
little outside points of his nature, that she thought so “funny,” yet
could comprehend, there was something which seemed to her as unknown,
as impenetrable as the dark, a sort of thickness of soul, a sort
of hardness, a sort of barbaric-what? And as when in working at her
embroidery the point of her needle would often come to a stop against
stiff buckram, so now was the point of her soul brought to a stop
against the soul of her husband. 'Perhaps,' she thought, 'Horace feels
like that with me.' She need not so have thought, for the Squire never
worked embroideries, nor did the needle of his soul make voyages of
discovery.
By lunch-time the next day she had not dared to say a word. 'If I say
nothing,' she thought, 'he may write it of his own accord.'
Without attracting his attention, therefore, she watched every movement
of his morning. She saw him sitting at his bureau with a creased and
crumpled letter, and knew it was Bellew's; and she hovered about, coming
softly in and out, doing little things here and there and in the hall,
outside. But the Squire gave no sign, motionless as the spaniel John
couched along the ground with his nose between his paws.
After lunch she could bear it no longer.
“What do you think ought to be done now, Horace?”
The Squire looked at her fixedly.
“If you imagine,” he said at last, “that I'll have anything to do with
that fellow Bellew, you're very much mistaken.”
Mrs. Pendyce was arranging a vase of flowers, and her hand shook so
that some of the water was spilled over the cloth. She took out her
handkerchief and dabbed it up.
“You never answered his letter, dear,” she said.
The Squire put his back against the sideboard; his stiff figure, with
lean neck and angry eyes, whose pupils were mere pin-points, had a
certain dignity.
“Nothing shall induce me!” he said, and his voice was harsh and strong,
as though he spoke for something bigger than himself. “I've thought it
over all the morning, and I'm d---d if I do! The man is a ruffian. I
won't knuckle under to him!”
Mrs. Pendyce clasped her hands.
“Oh, Horace,” she said; “but for the sake of us all! Only just give him
that assurance.”
“And let him crow over me!” cried the Squire. “By Jove, no!”
“But, Horace, I thought that was what you wanted George to do. You wrote
to him and asked him to promise.”
The Squire answered:
“You know nothing about it, Margery; you know nothing about me. D'you
think I'm going to tell him that his wife has thrown my son over--let
him keep me gasping like a fish all this time, and then get the best of
it in the end? Not if I have to leave the county--not if I----”
But, as though he had imagined the most bitter fate of all, he stopped.
Mrs. Pendyce, putting her hands on the lapels of his coat, stood with
her head bent. The colour had gushed into her cheeks, her eyes were
bright with tears. And there came from her in her emotion a warmth and
fragrance, a charm, as though she were again young, like the portrait
under which they stood.
“Not if I ask you, Horace?”
The Squire's face was suffused with dusky colour; he clenched his hands
and seemed to sway and hesitate.
“No, Margery,” he said hoarsely; “it's--it's--I can't!”
And, breaking away from her, he left the room.
Mrs. Pendyce looked after him; her fingers, from which he had torn his
coat, began twining the one with the other.
CHAPTER IX
BELLEW BOWS TO A LADY
There was silence at the Firs, and in that silent house, where only five
rooms were used, an old manservant sat in his pantry on a wooden chair,
reading from an article out of Rural Life. There was no one to disturb
him, for the master was asleep, and the housekeeper had not yet come to
cook the dinner. He read slowly, through spectacles, engraving the words
for ever on the tablets of his mind. He read about the construction and
habits of the owl: “In the tawny, or brown, owl there is a manubrial
process; the furcula, far from being joined to the keel of the sternum,
consists of two stylets, which do not even meet; while the posterior
margin of the sternum presents two pairs of projections, with
corresponding fissures between.” The old manservant paused, resting
his blinking eyes on the pale sunlight through the bars of his narrow
window, so that a little bird on the window-sill looked at him and
instantly flew away.
The old manservant read on again: “The pterylological characters of
Photodilus seem not to have been investigated, but it has been found
to want the tarsal loop, as well as the manubrial process, while its
clavicles are not joined in a furcula, nor do they meet the keel, and
the posterior margin of the sternum has processes and fissures like the
tawny section.” Again he paused, and his gaze was satisfied and bland.
Up in the little smoking-room in a leather chair his master sat asleep.
In front of him were stretched his legs in dusty riding-boots. His lips
were closed, but through a little hole at one corner came a tiny puffing
sound. On the floor by his side was an empty glass, between his feet
a Spanish bulldog. On a shelf above his head reposed some frayed
and yellow novels with sporting titles, written by persons in their
inattentive moments. Over the chimneypiece presided the portrait of Mr.
Jorrocks persuading his horse to cross a stream.
And the face of Jaspar Bellew asleep was the face of a man who has
ridden far, to get away from himself, and to-morrow will have to ride
far again. His sandy eyebrows twitched with his dreams against the
dead-white, freckled skin above high cheekbones, and two hard ridges
were fixed between his brows; now and then over the sleeping face came
the look of one riding at a gate.
In the stables behind the house she who had carried him on his ride,
having rummaged out her last grains of corn, lifted her nose and poked
it through the bars of her loosebox to see what he was doing who had
not carried her master that sweltering afternoon, and seeing that he was
awake, she snorted lightly, to tell him there was thunder in the air.
All else in the stables was deadly quiet; the shrubberies around were
still; and in the hushed house the master slept.
But on the edge of his wooden chair in the silence of his pantry the
old manservant read, “This bird is a voracious feeder,” and he paused,
blinking his eyes and nervously puckering his lips, for he had partially
understood....
Mrs. Pendyce was crossing the fields. She had on her prettiest frock, of
smoky-grey crepe, and she looked a little anxiously at the sky. Gathered
in the west a coming storm was chasing the whitened sunlight. Against
its purple the trees stood blackish-green. Everything was very still,
not even the poplars stirred, yet the purple grew with sinister,
unmoving speed. Mrs. Pendyce hurried, grasping her skirts in both her
hands, and she noticed that the cattle were all grouped under the hedge.
'.hat dreadful-looking clouds!' she thought. 'I wonder if I shall get
to the Firs before it comes?' But though her frock made her hasten, her
heart made her stand still, it fluttered so, and was so full. Suppose
he were not sober! She remembered those little burning eyes, which had
frightened her so the night he dined at Worsted Skeynes and fell out of
his dogcart afterwards. A kind of legendary malevolence clung about his
image.
'.uppose he is horrid to me!' she thought.
She could not go back now; but she wished--how she wished!--that it were
over. A heat-drop splashed her glove. She crossed the lane and opened
the Firs gate. Throwing frightened glances at the sky, she hastened down
the drive. The purple was couched like a pall on the treetops, and these
had begun to sway and moan as though struggling and weeping at their
fate. Some splashes of warm rain were falling. A streak of lightning
tore the firmament. Mrs. Pendyce rushed into the porch covering her ears
with her hands.
'.ow long will it last?' she thought. 'I'm so frightened!'...
A very old manservant, whose face was all puckers, opened the door
suddenly to peer out at the storm, but seeing Mrs. Pendyce, he peered at
her instead.
“Is Captain Bellew at home?”
“Yes, ma'am. The Captain's in the study. We don't use the drawing-room
now. Nasty storm coming on, ma'am--nasty storm. Will you please to sit
down a minute, while I let the Captain know?”
The hall was low and dark; the whole house was low and dark, and smelled
a little of woodrot. Mrs. Pendyce did not sit down, but stood under an
arrangement of three foxes' heads, supporting two hunting-crops, with
their lashes hanging down. And the heads of those animals suggested to
her the thought: 'Poor man! He must be very lonely here.'
She started. Something was rubbing against her knees: it was only an
enormous bulldog. She stooped down to pat it, and having once begun,
found it impossible to leave off, for when she took her hand away the
creature pressed against her, and she was afraid for her frock.
“Poor old boy--poor old boy!” she kept on murmuring. “Did he want a
little attention?”
A voice behind her said:
“Get out, Sam! Sorry to have kept you waiting. Won't you come in here?”
Mrs. Pendyce, blushing and turning pale by turns, passed into a low,
small, panelled room, smelling of cigars and spirits. Through the
window, which was cut up into little panes, she could see the rain
driving past, the shrubs bent and dripping from the downpour.
“Won't you sit down?”
Mrs. Pendyce sat down. She had clasped her hands together; she now
raised her eyes and looked timidly at her host.
She saw a thin, high-shouldered figure, with bowed legs a little apart,
rumpled sandy hair, a pale, freckled face, and little dark blinking
eyes.
“Sorry the room's in such a mess. Don't often have the pleasure of
seeing a lady. I was asleep; generally am at this time of year!”
The bristly red moustache was contorted as though his lips were smiling.
Mrs. Pendyce murmured vaguely.
It seemed to her that nothing of this was real, but all some horrid
dream. A clap of thunder made her cover her ears.
Bellew walked to the window, glanced at the sky, and came back to the
hearth. His little burning eyes seemed to look her through and through.
'.f I don't speak at once,' she thought, 'I never shall speak at all.'
“I've come,” she began, and with those words she lost her fright;
her voice, that had been so uncertain hitherto, regained its trick of
speech; her eyes, all pupil, stared dark and gentle at this man who
had them all in his power--“I've come to tell you something, Captain
Bellew!”
The figure by the hearth bowed, and her fright, like some evil bird,
came guttering down on her again. It was dreadful, it was barbarous that
she, that anyone, should have to speak of such things; it was barbarous
that men and women should so misunderstand each other, and have so
little sympathy and consideration; it was barbarous that she, Margery
Pendyce, should have to talk on this subject that must give them both
such pain. It was all so mean and gross and common! She took out her
handkerchief and passed it over her lips.
“Please forgive me for speaking. Your wife has given my son up, Captain
Bellew!”
Bellew did not move.
“She does not love him; she told me so herself! He will never see her
again!”
How hateful, how horrible, how odious!
And still Bellew did not speak, but stood devouring her with his little
eyes; and how long this went on she could not tell.
He turned his back suddenly, and leaned against the mantelpiece.
Mrs. Pendyce passed her hand over her brow to get rid of a feeling of
unreality.
“That is all,” she said.
Her voice sounded to herself unlike her own.
'.f that is really all,' she thought, 'I suppose I must get up and go!'
And it flashed through her mind: 'My poor dress will be ruined!'
Bellew turned round.
“Will you have some tea?”
Mrs. Pendyce smiled a pale little smile.
“No, thank you; I don't think I could drink any tea.”
“I wrote a letter to your husband.”
“Yes.”
“He didn't answer it.”
“No.”
Mrs. Pendyce saw him staring at her, and a desperate struggle began
within her. Should she not ask him to keep his promise, now that
George----? Was not that what she had come for? Ought she not--ought she
not for all their sakes?
Bellew went up to the table, poured out some whisky, and drank it off.
“You don't ask me to stop the proceedings,” he said.
Mrs. Pendyce's lips were parted, but nothing came through those parted
lips. Her eyes, black as sloes in her white face, never moved from his;
she made no sound.
Bellew dashed his hand across his brow.
“Well, I will!” he said, “for your sake. There's my hand on it. You're
the only lady I know!”
He gripped her gloved fingers, brushed past her, and she saw that she
was alone.
She found her own way out, with the tears running down her face. Very
gently she shut the hall door.
'.y poor dress!' she thought. 'I wonder if I might stand here a little?
The rain looks nearly over!'
The purple cloud had passed, and sunk behind the house, and a bright
white sky was pouring down a sparkling rain; a patch of deep blue showed
behind the fir-trees in the drive. The thrushes were out already after
worms. A squirrel scampering along a branch stopped and looked at Mrs.
Pendyce, and Mrs. Pendyce looked absently at the squirrel from behind
the little handkerchief with which she was drying her eyes.
'.hat poor man!' she thought 'poor solitary creature! There's the sun!'
And it seemed to her that it was the first time the sun had shone all
this fine hot year. Gathering her dress in both hands, she stepped into
the drive, and soon was back again in the fields.
Every green thing glittered, and the air was so rain-sweet that all
the summer scents were gone, before the crystal scent of nothing. Mrs.
Pendyce's shoes were soon wet through.
'.ow happy I am!' she thought 'how glad and happy I am!'
And the feeling, which was not as definite as this, possessed her to the
exclusion of all other feelings in the rain-soaked fields.
The cloud that had hung over Worsted Skeynes so long had spent itself
and gone. Every sound seemed to be music, every moving thing danced. She
longed to get to her early roses, and see how the rain had treated them.
She had a stile to cross, and when she was safely over she paused a
minute to gather her skirts more firmly. It was a home-field she was in
now, and right before her lay the country house. Long and low and white
it stood in the glamourous evening haze, with two bright panes, where
the sunlight fell, watching, like eyes, the confines of its acres; and
behind it, to the left, broad, square, and grey among its elms, the
village church. Around, above, beyond, was peace--the sleepy, misty
peace of the English afternoon.
Mrs. Pendyce walked towards her garden. When she was near it, away
to the right, she saw the Squire and Mr. Barter. They were standing
together looking at a tree and--symbol of a subservient under-world--the
spaniel John was seated on his tail, and he, too, was looking at the
tree. The faces of the Rector and Mr. Pendyce were turned up at the same
angle, and different as those faces and figures were in their eternal
rivalry of type, a sort of essential likeness struck her with a feeling
of surprise. It was as though a single spirit seeking for a body had met
with these two shapes, and becoming confused, decided to inhabit both.
Mrs. Pendyce did not wave to them, but passed quickly, between the
yew-trees, through the wicket-gate....
In her garden bright drops were falling one by one from every rose-leaf,
and in the petals of each rose were jewels of water. A little down the
path a weed caught her eye; she looked closer, and saw that there were
several.
'.h,' she thought, 'how dreadfully they've let the weeds I must really
speak to Jackman!'
A rose-tree, that she herself had planted, rustled close by, letting
fall a shower of drops.
Mrs. Pendyce bent down, and took a white rose in her fingers. With her
smiling lips she kissed its face. 1907.