"I am of an age with each; what
Matter if my hair turns grey?"
--SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE.
That radiant day of summer, all too short for Mark, taxed to the
utmost his mother's impatient spirit that could bear any ill better
than the ache of suspense, sharpened by premonition of the worst.
Mark's offhand manner of announcing the day's programme to the
breakfast-table in general confirmed her own secret fear. And if he
were really crazy enough to speak, the result was a foregone
conclusion. She would be asked to love, as a daughter, this alien
girl, of whom she knew nothing except that she was not the real mate
of the real Mark.
At the thought, a horrid sense of helplessness overwhelmed her. Open
opposition would be worse than futile: yet smiling acquiescence was
beyond her. Truth of intercourse--finest of all fine arts--was, for
both mother and son, a necessity of their natures. To it they owed
that deeper intimacy not often attained between one generation and
another; but, in the present dilemma, it would make things so much
harder for them both that dread almost outweighed her longing for his
return.
Breakfast ended, Ralph announced his intention of carrying both girls
off for a long walk. Keith retired to the study with the _Scotsman_
and a formidable pile of correspondence, leaving Helen to her own
devices. Nothing she liked better, in normal circumstances; for her
devices were many and absorbing. But to-day the silence and
emptiness seemed to affect her like a ghostly presence, impalpable,
yet vaguely threatening. A chill sense of impending disaster swept
through her. She felt suddenly tired; oppressed by the dead weight
of the years that she carried with such valiant elasticity of body
and spirit and heart.
Half a century of life had dulled but scarcely silvered her red-brown
hair; had pencilled fine lines between her brows and at the corners
of her too sensitive mouth. But youth still triumphed in the eyes,
in the slender alertness of her figure, in the swift impulsion of
thought and speech. Yet she lived and felt life--the whole world's
life--too intensely not to suffer moments of sharp reaction; and this
was one. Hitherto, she had seen Mark's marriage as the chance of
regaining a daughter. Now she saw it, rather, as a risk of losing
her son, and her heart cried out that this was more than she could
bear. In the past twelve years, she had suffered loss on loss, with
a sort of fierce stoicism, the nearest approach to resignation that
one of her nature could achieve. Now, being a mere mother, she must
stand aside and watch him drifting on to the rocks----
It simply did not bear thinking of; and, gathering up her letters,
she went in search of work, the unfailing anodyne for every ill.
At that time, under Keith's critical supervision, she was translating
Emile Faguet. She was also studying Russian, with other translations
in view; and she had correspondents in all parts of Europe, many of
whom she had never seen. But these activities were fringes merely on
the main work of her life--the revival of arts and crafts and home
industries among Mark's people and the linking up of all similar
efforts throughout the United Kingdom.
Yet, for all her activities and far-reaching aims, her true life had
always been centred in her home. And she was content that it should
be so; content to let outsiders dub her "Victorian," for refusing to
be swept into the maelstrom of modern restlessness; to let the
"progressives" swirl past her--social reformers, seekers after new
religions, new panaceas for every ill; content to find time for
cultivating the art of friendship, not merely in her own class, but
among Mark's tenants on both estates.
Leisure to possess her own soul and the hearts of others was, for
her, a simple necessity of life; and that very necessity, by limiting
her sphere of action, was half the secret of her influence and charm.
Ideals are uncomfortable things socially, but they have the merit of
keeping their owners fresh; and the world's more strenuous workers
found in her home atmosphere, a refreshment and inspiration worth
some sacrifice of activity to preserve in an age of wholesale
experiment in life and art and religion. They might rate her for
living in a backwater; but, as intimacy grew, they realised that she
was more vitally in touch than themselves with the world's greater
issues; that her uneventful days were rich in experience, informed by
a central purpose and an unshaken faith in certain abiding
truths--periodically obscured and neglected, yet as certain to return
with power as sunshine after rain.
"When religion decays and irreligion prevails, then I manifest
Myself. For the protection of good, for the destruction of evil, and
for the firm establishment of national righteousness, I am born again
and again."
Krishna's ancient prophecy, printed in gold on an illuminated scroll,
confronted her as she entered her sanctuary. The scroll had been a
birthday "surprise" from Mark; an achievement of schoolboy days when
he was altogether her own; and the thought upset her equanimity
afresh.
Look where she would, the room was full of him: a friendly, intimate
room, set in the bastioned tower that dated from feudal times. But
arrow-slits had long given place to unlimited light and air; and,
like all rooms that are loved and genuinely lived in, it was quick
with the personality of one who imparted something of herself to the
very chair she used and the books and pictures on her walls. These
last were few and individual; but of the books there was no end. A
catholic assembly, they climbed the only bit of wall-space not
occupied by the grate. They stood about invitingly in revolving
cases; and a privileged company was piled upon the floor near her
chair. Keith often accused her of having an untidy mind: and the
state of her room betrayed her. The one tidy spot was the
writing-table, which she never used.
Over the mantelpiece hung an early portrait of her husband, that
might almost have been a portrait of Mark. But Sir Richard's face
was heavier than his son's; the brow more massive, the lower lip more
prominent. It was a shrewd, virile Anglo-Saxon face, unillumined by
the Gaelic strain that Mark had from his mother.
Yet, throughout, Sir Richard had respected his wife's ideals and
enthusiasms, had smiled indulgently over her panacea for the
democratic peril, and had allowed her a fairly free hand in the
education of his sons. So long as the heir of Wynchcombe Friars
remained a staunch Imperialist, he might be as constructive as he
pleased: and if there was the remotest truth in Helen's convictions,
let Mark stand for Winchester and air his views in Parliament. That
had been Sir Richard's practical contribution to the subject.
But the Baronet had now been dead ten years; and, so far, Mark had
made no bid for Parliamentary fame. Helen Forsyth had spent the
first years of her widowhood travelling in Europe with Keith and
Mark, who gave promise of developing into a sculptor of originality
and power. For his benefit as an artist they had lived mainly in
Florence, Rome, and Greece, with a bias in favour of the first. For
in the great Florentine, young Mark had found his acknowledged master
of his own thoughtful yet fiery spirit. But, for his education as a
man, Lady Forsyth had insisted on more than a nodding acquaintance
with the rest of Europe; and finally Mark had spent two years leading
voraciously at Oxford, largely with the art and labour problem in
view.
Since his coming of age, he had devoted himself heart and soul to
sculpture and the management of his estates. But the notion of
Parliament still remained in abeyance. The rise of the
lawyer-politician and the commercial magnate had intensified his
native distrust of democracy, while the increasing narrowness and
bitterness of party spirit had effectually quenched his natural
ambition to stand for the county of his birth. One Forsyth uncle
already represented the family. In Mark's opinion that sufficed; and
neither Keith nor his mother had quarrelled with his decision.
It was as artist and responsible landowner that she longed to see him
pre-eminent; and every year he had given clearer promise of
fulfilling her hope. At seven-and-twenty there remained only the
last and most critical achievement--his marriage. On this score
alone he had caused her more than one flutter of anxiety; and now----!
She clenched her teeth to keep back the futile curse; and, for the
next hour or so, kept her attention chained to the intricate task of
transposing idiomatic phrases and fine shades of meaning from one
language into another.
It was nearly twelve when the door opened and Sheila appeared,
bringing the _Times_ and the midday post: Sheila, with a bright spot
of colour in each cheek and a smile that radiated sweetness and
light. How on earth could Mark----? But that bitter, useless
question was taboo.
Her own smile was more natural than it had been at breakfast; but
Sheila did not fail to detect the lurking shadow in her eyes, or the
significant fact that she did not eagerly tear open the paper and
plunge into the latest letter from Belfast.
"Mums, haven't you spent enough of this glorious morning grinding at
Emile Faguet?" she said, kneeling down and laying a hand over the
open page. "You look tired--worried."
"I _am_ worried," Lady Forsyth admitted with a direct look, and
Sheila's colour ebbed a little.
"Unhappy, are you--about Mark?" she asked very low.
"Yes. Haven't I reason to be?"
"But, Mums--she seems a very sweet person. And if he cares----"
"My dear, you're as bad as the rest of them about that girl."
Lady Forsyth was so rarely impatient with her that Sheila set her
lips a moment before venturing further. "Well, you know, she _is_
extraordinarily attractive."
"Is she? I don't see it."
"Isn't that, perhaps, because--you won't see it?"
"Sheila!"
"Dearest--I'm sorry. But surely he must know her better than we do,
because--he cares. And you don't give her a chance if you shut your
heart against her. It's so unlike you. And it will be very hard on
Mark ... if she----"
"Oh, child, be quiet!" Championship from this quarter was
intolerable; and setting her hands on the girl's shoulders she gave
them a gentle shake. "There's no call to waste any of your sweet
pity on Mark. If he speaks to-day--and I have a horrid feeling he
will--_she's_ not likely to refuse him. And that's all he cares
about at the moment. I'm not being unjust to him, dear. I'm facing
the truth; which is sometimes quite as difficult as facing cannon.
But--well, I can't talk about it. You talk, instead. You haven't
told me half enough about India. I've an idea--something happened
out there. Am I right?"
The girl nodded, looking out seaward. "I've been wanting to tell you
and yet rather shirking it. This one--hurt me a good deal."
"_Another_ 'poor thing'?"
"Yes; badly poor. What Mark would call a worm. The third in two and
a half years! I begin to be ashamed of myself! And--a little afraid
too." She paused. "Mums, because I'm not a wobbler myself, will it
always be the wobbling men who insist on clinging to me? Shall I
perhaps be driven by this troublesome law of opposites to choose
between marrying some pitifully lovable 'poor thing' or--never
marrying at all? Not lively alternatives--are they?"
Lady Forsyth's hand slipped from the girl's shoulder to her waist.
"Darling, I hope it won't come to that."
"So do I. Naturally I'd ... prefer to marry. I--" she hesitated and
coloured a little--"I would feel desolate ... without children. Am I
very ... premature?"
Lady Forsyth drew her close and kissed her warm cheek.
"You're very woman," she said. "And Fate may have better things in
store for you than the most importunate wobbler of them all. I hope
you discouraged this last one more decisively than his predecessor."
Sheila shook her head. "I simply couldn't. They do tug badly at my
heart-strings. No denying it."
"I suppose that means he's still hanging on? And hurting you every
time he gives a fresh tug? A fine exhibition of masculine
selfishness!"
"Mums, he doesn't realise it hurts. And--he has so much against him:
if you only knew----"
"Well, I _want_ to know." Pushing aside her manuscript she drew a
low stool close to her chair, and Sheila settled down on it, with a
small sigh of content. "Now tell me. What has he against him?"
"Loneliness and poor health; and an ugly little desert station at the
end of nowhere; and hating the country--and--and drink!"
"Darling! You've outdone yourself this time!"
Sheila turned quickly. "_Please_ stop bothering about me, and be
sorry for him. You would be, if you'd seen him. So worn and sallow;
though he's barely thirty. Clever--very. Too many brains and too
few convictions I used to tell him. And then, there had been a
girl--when he was home on his first leave. She made violent friends
with him: she drew him on till he lost his heart to her; only to find
that she had deliberately used him as a stalking-horse for another
man, who afterwards turned out to be married already. He heard that
she went off with him in spite of it, but _that_ he can't believe. A
dismal tale, isn't it? The trouble was he couldn't stop loving her,
even though he knew she was worthless----"
"Until he found in my beautiful Sheila the privileged bit of
sticking-plaster to mend his heart!" Lady Forsyth interrupted her
with a touch of heat. "I wonder he had the face to tell you----"
"He didn't tell me till I'd refused him--twice. Then we had a long
talk and he poured out all his bottled-up miseries. And I wasn't
_only_ a bit of sticking-plaster. He'd stopped loving her long ago.
Do be fair to him, dearest. You're in a wicked mood to-day!"
"I've never been in a worse. And the tale of your latest 'poor
thing' isn't exactly a specific for the blues! How about the
drinking? And what was the final understanding, after refusals
followed by confidences?"
The hand that rested on her knee moved in a slow, soothing caress.
"I'm afraid you won't approve. Ralph didn't. But I overruled him.
He--Mr. Seldon--begged me so hard not to throw him over altogether
that I said he might write once a month. And the thing that arrives
is more like an intimate diary than a letter. He can write, Mums.
And he isn't drinking--like he was. That was part of the compact.
It began in a bad cholera season: no one to notice; no one to care.
He says the average man never realises, till he has to spend months
alone, that what he calls the voice of his conscience is much more
often the voice of other people's! So now--I'm his 'other people'!
He gave me his word and he writes quite honestly about it. If ever
he really slips back again he says he'll stop writing and chuck
everything.--There! That's my poor little tale; I'm happier now it's
out. You may scold me; but you'd have done just the same yourself!"
For answer, Lady Forsyth put both arms round her and kissed her
fervently. "Be as angelic as you please to your poor things,
darling," she said. "But for heaven's sake don't marry them."
"I couldn't," Sheila answered softly. "I'd sooner--go without."
In the silence that followed Lady Forsyth felt as if the girl must
hear her vehement thoughts. But very soon Sheila spoke again.
"I told Mr. Seldon about our little colony of arts and crafts, and he
is ever so interested. He says machinery's gaining ground fearfully
fast in India; cheapening and speeding up everything and killing the
craftsman's joy in his work, just as it's done over here. I had a
letter yesterday. He enclosed some Indian designs for carving. I
_must_ show you."
She ran off to fetch them; and thenceforward "shop" banished every
subject from the field. They were still at it when the gong sounded
for lunch, and half the interminable day was gone.
Lunch would be rather an effort. Helen's eager interest in the
panorama of life made it a matter of course that she should lead the
talk at table, and she was in no mood for it to-day.
To her relief, she found herself spared the trouble. Keith, who had
an uncanny knack of divining her needs, came in armed with a book
that had arrived by the second post and made havoc of his morning's
work. His feigned inability to part with it was obviously an excuse
to make it the main topic of the meal.
"Calls itself an Essay on the _Confusion of the Arts_," he said,
placing a spare knife between the leaves. "I ordered it for Mark on
Stoddard's recommendation. But I'm inclined to think it really
belongs to you. The writer upholds so many of your pet
convictions.--Listen here." The knife was removed. "'Of course the
present movement may continue indefinitely; we may have ideas of
education still more undisciplinary; a still more pathological
outpouring of fiction;... In short, the dehumanizing of life and
literature may go on for ever. But we should not count upon it.
Reactions have been known to occur, and they have occasionally been
sudden. The world may even now be threatened with a subliminal
uprush of common sense, however disconcerting the prospect may be to
Mr. Bernard Shaw and his followers. But prophecy is vain.
Everything depends on leadership; and one can never tell whether the
right persons will take the trouble to be born!'"
"One only knows they are notoriously lazy in that respect!" Lady
Forsyth struck in with a chuckle of appreciation. "I like your new
friend. Any more gems of that quality?"
"Several. Ah--here we are. Don't you seem to recognise your own
voice? 'Any one who makes a stand for vital and humane concentration
is set down as a mere laggard or reactionary, whereas he may find
himself, rather, a pioneer and leader of a forlorn hope--not all
forlorn.... The revival of broad, vigorous, masculine distinctions
between art and art alone can save us from the confusions that have
crept into modern life and literature, and which I trace to two main
sources--emotional unrestraint and pseudo-science.... To set colour
above design, illusion above informing purpose, suggestion above
symmetry, is to set the feminine virtues above the masculine--and
that has been the chief cause of the corruption of art and literature
in the past century.'"
An indictment so sweeping roused Mona, fresh from her Oxford
triumphs. "But, Mr. Macnair, I call that heresy!" she protested; and
Keith smiled indulgently at her unusual warmth.
"Heresy, my dear young lady, is, after all, only the truth as seen by
the fellow in the opposite camp. And there still remain certain
unregenerates in the other camp who are praying for the rediscovery
of Man."
"Or a German invasion!" murmured Lady Forsyth. "With apologies to
Mona, I'm afraid nothing milder will save us from the petticoat
peril!"
At that Ralph looked up from his mayonnaise. In a wilderness of
abstractions, here was something he could understand.
"I say, Lady Forsyth! Rather a costly form of salvation, don't you
think?"
"Salvation is always costly, Ralph," she answered him gravely. "And
it is always worth the price paid."
Here Mona struck in again; and the argument, as Keith had intended,
carried them well through lunch.
The meal over they adjourned to the shade of three ancient pines on
the terrace; but very soon Ralph, who was frankly bored, persuaded
Mona to come out on the loch, and Keith's contentment was complete.
The new book lasted them till tea-time. Then as none of the
wanderers reappeared, he was persuaded to fetch his translations and
read them to the audience of two for whom they had probably been
written, if the truth were known. It was sometimes said of Macnair
that men delighted in his lectures almost as much for the quality of
his voice as for the lucidity of his thought: and to-day, when
instrument and music were in perfect accord, the effect on Helen's
troubled, sensitive spirit was all that he could have desired. She
possessed in full measure the artist's gift of surrender to a mood.
Sheer beauty of thought and language, serene and splendid harmonies,
drawn from the discords of life, stirred her like organ music; and
for Keith her abstracted silence was the quintessence of praise.
Suddenly, round a bend of the loch, a white sail dipped into
view:--and the spell was broken. Keith who had seen it also, still
read on; but he no longer had the ear of her spirit. She was simply
listening for the sound of Mark's footstep--and another.
To her relief, the scrunch of gravel, when it came, plainly bespoke
masculine boots. Then the two men appeared round the corner of the
house, and Mark waved his stick. Bobs, who had been left at home,
flung himself headlong on his recovered master with little sobbing
squeals of joy, and, for one wild moment, hope revived in Helen's
heart.
"Well, you three look jolly comfortable there," Mark greeted them, as
he came up; and it was Keith who answered him. His mother seemed to
be looking for her scissors. One glance at his face had sufficed.