BROKEN THREADS
They came forward, and suddenly the girl raised her face. She made a
little hesitating movement of non-recognition, and then suddenly her
face was transformed by a very pleasant smile. There was something
peculiar in Hilda Carew's smile, which came from the fact that her
eyelashes were golden, while her eyes were dark blue. The effect
suggested a fascinating kitten. In repose her face was almost severe in
its refined beauty, and the set of her lips indicated a certain
self-reliance which with years might become more prominent if trouble
should arrive.
“Christian!” she exclaimed, “I am sorry I did not know you.” They shook
hands, and Molly hastened to introduce her sister's companion.
“Mr. Farrar,” she said; “Mr. Vellacott.”
The two men shook hands, and Christian was disappointed. The grip of
Farrar's fingers was limp and almost nerveless, in striking
contradiction to the promise of his honest face and well-set person.
“Tea is ready,” said Molly somewhat hastily; “let us go in.”
Hilda and her companion passed on in front while Molly and Christian
followed them. The latter purposely lagged behind, and his companion
found herself compelled to wait for him.
“Look at the effect of the sunlight through the trees upon that water,”
said he in a conversational way; “it is quite green, and almost
transparent.”
“Yes,” replied Molly, moving away tentatively, “we see most peculiar
effects over the moat. The water is so very still and deep.”
He raised his quiet eyes to her face, upon which the ready smile still
lingered. As she met his gaze she raised her hand and pushed back a few
truant wisps of hair which, curling forward like tendrils, tickled her
cheek. It was a movement he soon learned to know.
“Yes,” he said absently. He was wondering in an analytical way whether
the action was habitual with her, or significant of embarrassment. At
length he turned to follow her, but Molly had failed in her object; the
others had passed out of earshot.
“Tell me,” said Christian in a lowered voice, “who is he?”
“He is the squire of St. Mary Eastern, six miles from here,” she
replied; “very well off; very good to his mother, and in every way
nice.”
Christian tore off a small branch which would have touched his forehead
had he walked on without stooping. He broke it into small pieces, and
continued throwing up at intervals into the air a tiny stick, hitting it
with his hand as they walked on.
“And,” he said suggestively, “and--”
“Yes, Christian,” she replied decisively, “they are engaged. Come, let
us hurry; I always pour out the tea. I told you before, if you remember,
that I was the only person in the house who did any work.”
When Christian opened his eyes the following morning, the soft hum of
insects fell on his ear instead of the roar of London traffic. Through
the open window the southern air blew upon his face. Above the sound of
busy wings the distant sea sang its low dirge. It was a living
perspective of sound. The least rustle near at hand overpowered it, and
yet it was always there--an unceasing throb to be felt as much as heard.
Some acoustic formation of the land carried the noise, for the sea was
eight miles away. It was very peaceful; for utter stillness is not
peace. A room wherein an old clock ticks is infinitely more soothing
than a noiseless chamber.
Nevertheless the feeling that forced itself into Christian Vellacott's
waking thoughts was not peaceful. It was a sense of discomfort.
Town-people expect too much from the country--that is the truth of it.
They quite overlook the fact that where human beings are there can be no
peace.
This sudden sense of restlessness annoyed him. He knew it so well. It
had hovered over his waking head almost daily during the last two years,
and here, in the depths of the country, he had expected to be without
it. Moreover, he was conscious that he had not brought the cause with
him. He had found it, waiting.
There were many things--indeed there was almost everything--to make his
life happy and pleasant at St. Mary Western. But in his mind, as he woke
up on this first morning, none of these things found place. He came to
his senses thinking of the one little item which could be described as
untoward--thinking of Hilda, and Hilda engaged to be married to Fred
Farrar. It was not that he was in love with Hilda Carew himself. He had
scarcely remembered her existence during the last two years. But this
engagement jarred, and Farrar jarred. It was something more than the
very natural shock which comes with the news that a companion of our
youth is about to be married--shock which seems to shake the memory of
that youth; to confuse the background of our life. It is by means of
such shocks as these that Fate endeavours vainly to make us realise that
the past is irrevocable--that we are passing on, and that that which has
been can never be again. And at the same time we learn something else:
namely, that the past is not by any means unchangeable. So potential is
To-day that it not only holds To-morrow in the hollow of its hand, but
it can alter Yesterday.
Christian Vellacott lay upon his bed in unwonted idleness, gazing
vaguely at the flying clouds. The window was open, and the song of the
distant sea rose and fell with a rhythm full of peace. But in this man's
mind there was no peace. In all probability there never would be
complete peace there, because Ambition had set its hold upon him. He
wanted to do more than there was time for. Like many of us, he began by
thinking that Life is longer than it is. Its whole length is in those
“long, long thoughts” of Youth. When those are left behind, we settle
down to work, and the rest of the story is nothing but labour. Vellacott
resented this engagement because he felt that Hilda Carew had stepped
out of that picture which formed what was probably destined to be the
happiest time of his life--his Youth. For the unhappiness of Youth is
preferable to the resignation of Age. He felt that she had willingly
resigned something which he would on no account have given up. Above
all, he felt that it was a mistake. This was, of course, at the bottom
of it. He probably felt that it was a pity. We usually feel so on
hearing that a pretty and charming girl is engaged to be married. We
think that she might have done so much better for herself, and we grow
pensive or possibly sentimental over her lost opportunity when
contemplating him in the mirror as he shaves. Like all so-called happy
events, an engagement is not usually a matter of universal rejoicing.
Some one is, in all probability, left to think twice about it. But
Christian Vellacott was not prepared to admit that he was in that
position.
He was naturally of an observant habit--his father had been
one of the keenest-sighted men of his day--and he had graduated at the
subtlest school in the world. He unwittingly fell to studying his
fellow-men whenever the opportunity presented itself, and the result of
this habit was a certain classification of detail. He picked up little
scraps of evidence here and there, and these were methodically
pigeon-holed away, as a lawyer stores up the correspondence of his
clients.
With regard to Frederick Farrar, Vellacott had only made one note. The
squire of St. Mary Eastern was apparently very similar to his fellows.
He was an ordinary young British squire with a knowledge of horses and a
highly-developed fancy for smart riding-breeches and long boots. He had
probably received a fair education, but this had ceased when he closed
his last school-book. The seeds of knowledge had been sown, but they
lacked moisture and had failed to grow. He was good-natured, plucky in a
hard-headed British way, and gentlemanly. In all this there was nothing
exceptional--nothing to take note of--and Vellacott only remembered the
limpness of Frederick Farrar's grasp. He thought of this too
persistently and magnified it. And this being the only mental note made,
was rather hard on the young squire of St. Mary Eastern.
Vellacott thought of these things while he dressed, he thought of them
intermittently during the unsettled, noisy, country breakfast, and when
he found himself walking beside the moat with Hilda later on he was
still thinking of them.
They had not yet gathered into their hands the threads which had been
broken years before. At times they hit upon a topic of some slight
common interest, but something hovered in the air between them. Hilda
was gay, as she had always been, in a gentle, almost purring way; but a
certain constrained silence made itself felt at times, and they were
both intensely conscious of it.
Vellacott was fully aware that there was something to be got over, and
so instead of skipping round it, as a woman might have done, he went
blundering on to the top of it.
“Hilda,” he said suddenly, “I have never congratulated you.”
She bent her head in a grave little bow which was not quite English; but
she said nothing.
“I can only wish you all happiness,” he continued rather vaguely.
Again she made that mystic little motion of the head, but did not look
towards him, and never offered the assistance of smile or word.
“A long life, a happy one, and your own will,” he added more lightly,
looking down into the green water of the moat.
“Thank you,” she said, standing quite still beside him.
And then there followed an awkward pause. It was Vellacott who finally
broke the silence in the only way left to him.
“I like Farrar,” he said. “I am sure he will make you happy. He--is a
lucky fellow.”
At the end of the walk that ran the whole length of that part of the
moat which had been allowed to remain intact, she made a little movement
as if to turn aside beneath the hazel trees and towards the house. But
he would not let her go. He turned deliberately upon his heel and waited
for her. There was nothing else to do but acquiesce. They retraced their
steps with that slow reflectiveness which comes when one walks backwards
and forwards over the same ground.
There is something eminently conversational in the practice of walking
to and fro. For that purpose it is better than an arm-chair and a pipe,
or a piece of knitting.
Occasionally Vellacott dropped a pace behind, apparently with a purpose;
for when he did so he raised his eyes instantly. He seemed to be slowly
detailing the maiden, and he frowned a little. She was exactly what she
had promised to be. The singularly golden hair which he had last seen
flowing freely over her slight young shoulders had acquired a
decorousness of curve, although the hue was unchanged. The shoulders
were exactly the same in contour, on a slightly larger scale; and the
manner of carrying her head--a manner peculiarly her own, and suggestive
of a certain gentle wilfulness--was unaltered.
And yet there was a change: that subtle change which seems to come to
girls suddenly, in the space of a week--of one night. And this man was
watching her with his analytical eyes, wondering what the change might
be.
He was more or less a bookworm, and he possibly thought that this
subject--this pleasant young subject walking beside him in a blue cotton
dress--was one which might easily be grasped and understood if only one
gave one's mind to it. Hence the little frown. It denoted the gift of
his mind. It was the frown that settled over his eyes when he cut the
pages of a deep book and glanced at the point of his pencil.
He had read many books, and he knew a number of things. But there is one
subject of which very little can be learnt in books--precisely the
subject that walked in a blue cotton dress by Christian Vellacott's side
at the edge of the moat. If any one thinks that book-learning can aid
this study, let him read the ignorance of Gibbon, comparing it with the
learning of that cheery old ignoramus Montaigne. And Vellacott was
nearer to Gibbon in his learning than to Montaigne in his careless
ignorance of those things that are written in books.
He glanced at her; he frowned and brought his whole attention to bear
upon her, and he could not even find out whether she was pleased to
listen to his congratulations, or angry, or merely indifferent. It was
rather a humiliating position for a clever man--for a critic who knew
himself to be capable of understanding most things, of catching the
drift of most thoughts, however imperfectly expressed. He was vaguely
conscious of defeat. He felt that he was nonplussed by a pair of soft
round eyes like the eyes of a kitten, and the dignified repose of a pair
of demure red lips. Both eyes and lips, as well as shoulders and golden
hair, were strangely familiar and strangely strange by turns.
With one finger he twisted the left side of his moustache into his
mouth, and, dragging at it with his teeth, distorted his face in an
unbecoming if reflective manner, which was habitually indicative of the
deepest attention.
While reflecting, he forgot to be conversational, and Hilda seemed to be
content with silence. So they walked the length of the moat twice
without speaking, and might have accomplished it a third time, had
little Stanley Carew not appeared upon the scene with the impulsive
energy of his thirteen years, begging Christian to bowl him some really
swift overhands.