The blinds of 27, Berkeley Square were always down, and when Sir
Owen's friends called the answer was invariably the same: "No news of
Sir Owen yet; his letters aren't forwarded; business matters are
attended to by Mr. Watts, the secretary." And Sir Owen's friends went
away wondering when the wandering spirit would die in him.
It was these last travels, extending over two years, in the Far East,
that killed it; Owen felt sure of that when he entered his house,
glad of its comfort, glad to be home again; and sinking into his
armchair he began to read his letters, wondering how he should answer
the different invitations, for every one was now more than six months
old, some going back as far as eighteen months. It seemed absurd to
write to Lady So-and-so, thanking her for an invitation so long gone
by. All the same, he would like to see her, and all his friends, the
most tedious would be welcome now. He tore open the envelopes,
reading the letters greedily, unsuspicious of one amongst them which
would make him forget the others--a letter from Evelyn. It came at
last under his hand, and having glanced through it he sank back in
his chair, overcome, not so much by surprise that she had left her
convent as at finding that the news had put no great gladness into
his heart, rather, a feeling of disappointment.
"How little one knows about oneself!" But he wasn't sorry she had
left the convent. A terrible result of time and travel it would be if
his first feeling on opening her letter were one of disappointment.
He was sorry she had been disappointed, and thought for a long time
of that long waste of life, five years spent with nuns. "We are
strange beings, indeed," he said. And getting up, he looked out the
place she wrote from, discovering it to be a Surrey village, probably
about thirty miles from London, with a bad train service; and having
sent a telegram asking if it would suit her for him to go down to see
her next day, he fell back in his chair to think more easily how his
own life had been affected by Evelyn's retreat from the convent; and
again he experienced a feeling of disappointment. "A long waste of
life, not only of her life, but of mine," for he had travelled
thousands of miles... to forget her? Good heavens, no! What would his
life be without remembrance of Evelyn? He had come home believing
himself reconciled to the loss of Evelyn, and willing to live in
memories of her--the management of his estate a sufficient interest
for his life, and his thoughts were already engaged in the building
of a new gatehouse; after all, Riversdale was his business, and he
had come home to work for his successor while cherishing a dream--
wasn't it strange? But this letter had torn down his dream and his
life was again in pieces. Would he ever be at rest while she was
abroad? Would it not have been better for them both if she had
remained in her convent? The thought seemed odiously selfish. If she
were to read his disappointment on hearing that she was no longer in
the convent? ... Telepathy! There were instances! And his thoughts
drifted away, and he seemed to lose consciousness of everything,
until he was awakened by the butler bringing back her reply.
Now he would see her in twenty-four hours, and hear from her lips a
story of adventure, for it is an adventure to renounce the world, the
greatest, unless a return to the world be a greater. She had known
both; and it would be interesting to hear her tell both stories--if
she could tell her stories; she might only be half aware of their
interest and importance.
"God only knows what she is like now! A wreck, a poor derelict woman,
with no life to call her own. The life of an actress which I gave
her, and which was so beautiful, wrecked; and the life of a nun,
which she insisted on striving after, wrecked." A cold, blighting
sorrow like a mist came up, it seemed to penetrate to his very bones,
and he asked why she had left the convent--of what use could she be
out of it?... only to torment him again. Twenty times during the
course of the evening and the next morning he resolved not to go to
see her, and as many times a sudden desire to see her ripped up his
resolution; and he ordered the brougham. "Five years' indulgence in
vigils and abstinences, superstitions must have made a great change
in her; utterly unlike the Evelyn Innes whom I discovered years ago
in Dulwich, the beautiful pagan girl whom I took away to Paris." He
was convinced. But anxious to impugn his conviction, he took her
letter from his pocket, and in it discovered traces, which cheered
him, of the old Evelyn.
"She must have suffered terribly on finding herself obliged after
five years to retreat, and something of the original spirit was
required for her to fight her way out, for, of course, she was
opposed at every moment."
The little stations went by one by one: the train stopped nine or ten
times before it reached the penultimate.
"In the next few minutes I shall see her. She is sure to come to the
station to meet me. If she doesn't I'll go back--what an end that
would be! A strange neighbourhood to choose. Why did she come here?
With whom is she living? In a few minutes I shall know."
The train began to slacken speed. "Why, there she is on the
platform." The train rushed by her, the first-class carriages
stopping at the other end; and, calling to the porter to take his bag
out of the carriage, he sprang out, tall and thin. "Like one who had
never had the gout," she said, as she hurried to meet him, smiling,
so intimately did his appearance bring back old times. "He is so like
himself, and better dressed than I am; the embroidered waistcoat
still goes in at the waist; and he still wears shirts with mauve
stripes. But he is a good deal greyer... and more wrinkled than I
am."
"So it is you, Evelyn. Let me look at you." And, holding both her
hands, he stood looking into the face which he had expected to find
so much changed that he hardly found it changed at all, his eyes
passing over, almost without notice, the white hairs among the red,
and the wrinkles about the eyes and forehead, which, however, became
more apparent when she smiled. His touch was more conclusive of
disappointment than his eyes; her hands seemed harder than they used
to be, the knuckles had thickened, and, not altogether liking his
scrutiny, she laughed, withdrawing her hands.
"Where is your valet, Owen?"
It was then that he saw that her teeth had aged a little, yellowed a
little; a dark spot menaced the loss of one of the eye-teeth if not
attended to at once. But her figure seemed the same, and to get a
back view he dropped his stick. No, the convent had not bent her; a
tall, erect figure was set off to advantage by a dark blue linen
dress, and the small, well-reared head and its roll of thick hair by
the blue straw hat trimmed with cornflowers.
"Her appearance is all right; the vent must be in her mind," he said,
preparing himself for a great disillusionment as soon as their talk
passed out of the ordinary ruts.
"My valet? I didn't bring him. You might not be able to put him up."
"I shouldn't."
"But is there any one to carry my bag? I'll carry it myself if you
don't live too far from here."
"About a mile. We can call at the inn and tell them to send a fly for
your bag--if you don't mind the walk."
"Mind the walk--and you for companionship? Evelyn, dear, it is
delightful to find myself walking with you, and in the country," he
added, looking round.
"The country is prettier farther on."
Owen looked round without, however, being able to give his attention
to the landscape.
"Prettier farther on? But how long have you been here?"
"Nearly two years now. And you--when did you return?"
"How did you know I was away?"
"You didn't write."
"I returned yesterday."
"Yesterday? You only read yesterday my letter written six months
ago."
"We have so much to talk about, Evelyn, so much to learn from each
other."
"The facts will appear one by one quite naturally. Tell me, weren't
you surprised to hear I had left the convent? And tell me, weren't
you a little disappointed?"
"Disappointed, my dear Evelyn? Should I have wired to you, and come
down here if--. It seemed as if the time would never pass."
"I don't mean that you aren't glad to see me. I can see you are. But
admit that you were disappointed that I hadn't succeeded--"
"I see what you mean. Well, I was disappointed that you were
disappointed; I admit so much." And, walking up the sunny road, he
wondered how it was that she had been able to guess what his thoughts
were on reading her letter. After all, he was not such a brute as he
had fancied himself, and her divination relieved his mind of the fear
that he lacked natural feeling, since she had guessed that a certain
feeling of disappointment was inevitable on hearing that she had not
been able to follow the chosen path. But how clever of her! What
insight!
"I hope you don't misunderstand. I cannot put into words the
pleasure--."
"I quite understand. Even if we turn out of our path sometimes, we
don't like others to vacillate... conversions, divagations, are not
sympathetic."
"Quite true. The man who knows, or thinks he knows, whither he is
going commands our respect, and we are willing to follow--"
"Even though he is the stupider?"
"Which is nearly always." And they ceased talking, each agreeably
surprised by the other's sympathy.
It was on his lips to say, "We are both elderly people now, and must
cling to each other." But no one cares to admit he is elderly, and he
did not speak the words for his sake and for hers, and he refrained
from asking her further questions about the convent; for he had come
to see a woman, loved for so many years, and who would always be
loved by him, and not to gratify his curiosity; he asked why she had
chosen this distant country to live in.
"Distant country? You call this country distant? You, who have only
just come back--"
"Returned yesterday from the Amur."
"From the Amur? I thought I was _the_ amour."
"So you are. I am speaking now of a river in Manchuria."
'Manchuria? But why did you go there?"
"Oh, my dear Evelyn, we have so much to tell each other that it seems
hopeless. Can you tell me why you--no, don't answer, don't try to
tell why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in
this neighbourhood?"
"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of
ground."
"Oh, so you've settled here?"
"Yes; I've built a cottage... But I haven't been able to lay the
garden out yet."
"Built a cottage?"
"What is there surprising in that?"
"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at
Riversdale--a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he
had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't
come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you
spend your time?"
"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-classes."
"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at
last. Your mother--"
"Yes, everything comes round again," she said, sighing; "and the
neighbourhood isn't inconvenient. There is a good train in the
morning and a good train in the evening; the one you came by is a
wretched one, but if you had come by the later train you would have
seen less of me. You're not sorry?"
"My dear Evelyn, don't be affected. I'm trying to take it all in. You
have retreated from the convent, and are now a singing-mistress. Have
you lost your voice?"
"I'm afraid a good deal of it." And, pointing with her parasol, she
said, "There is the inn; I will tell them to fetch your bag."
As she went towards the "Stag and Hounds" he congratulated himself
that the earlier woman still subsisted in the later, there could be
no doubt of that, and in sufficient proportion for her to create a
new life, and out of nothing but her own wits, for if she had escaped
from the convent with her intelligence, or part of it, she hadn't
escaped with her money; the nuns had got her money safe enough. She
would be loth to admit it, but it could not be otherwise. So out of
her own wits she had negotiated the purchase of a large piece of
ground (she had said a large piece), and built a cottage, and a very
pretty cottage too, he was sure of that; and his face assumed a blank
expression, for he was away with her in some past time, in the midst
of an architectural discussion. But returning gradually from this
happy past, her intelligence seemed to him like some strong twine or
wire! "How clever of her to have discovered this country where land
was cheap!" And he looked round, seeing its beauty because she lived
in it. Above all, to have found work to do, no easy matter when one
has torn oneself and one's past to shreds, as she had done. No doubt
she was making quite a nice little income by teaching; and, in
increasing admiration, he walked round the dusty inn and the
triangular piece of grass in front of it. A game of bat-and-trap was
in progress, and he conceived a love for that old English game,
though till now he thought it stupid and vulgar. The horse-pond
appealed to him as a picturesque piece of water, and, standing back
from it, he admired the rows of trees on the further bank--pollards
of some kind--and, still more, the reflections of these trees in the
dark green water; and his eyes followed the swallows, dipping and
gliding through the moveless air. A spire showed between the trees, a
girl and some children were gathering wild flowers in the hedgerows.
How like England! But here was Evelyn!
"Did you ever see a more beautiful evening? And aren't you glad that
the evening in which I see you again is--one would like to call it
beatific, only I don't like the word; it reminds me of the convent
you have left."
"One goes away in order that one may return home, Owen."
"Quite true; and all my travels were necessary for me to admire your
long, red road winding gracefully up the hillside between tall
hedges, full of roses, convolvulus, and ivy, under trees throwing a
pleasant shade." And coming suddenly upon an extraordinary fragrance,
he threw up his head, and, with dilated nostrils, cried out,
"Honeysuckle!"
"Yes, isn't it sweet?" she said. And, standing under a cottage porch,
he thought of the days gone by; and their memory was as overpowering
as the vine.
"I have brought you no present."
"Owen, you only returned yesterday."
"All the same, I should have brought you something. A bunch of wild
flowers I can give you, and I will begin my nosegay with a branch of
this honeysuckle. There are dog-roses in the hedges. I used to send
you expensive flowers, but times have changed." And he insisted on
returning to the brook, having seen, so he said, some forget-me-nots
among the sedges. And with these and some sprays of a little pink
flower, which he told her was the cuckoo-flower, they walked, telling
and asking each other the names of different wayside weeds till they
arrived at the cottage.
"There is my cottage."
And Owen saw, some twenty or thirty yards from the roadside, the
white gables of a cottage thrusting over against a space of blue sky.
Flights of swallows flew shrieking past, and the large elms on the
right threw out branches so invitingly that Owen thought of long
hours passed in the shade with books and music; but, despite these
shady elms, the cottage wore a severe air--a severe cottage it was,
if a cottage can be severe. Owen was glad Evelyn hadn't forgotten a
verandah.
"A verandah always suggests a Creole. But there is no Creole in you."
"You wouldn't have thought my cottage severe if you hadn't known that
I had come from a convent, Owen. You like it, all the same."
Owen fell to praising the cottage which he didn't like.
"On one thing I did insist--that the hall was to be the principal
room. What do you think of it? And tell me if you like the
chimney-piece. There are going to be seats in the windows. Of course,
I
haven't half finished furnishing." And she took him round the room,
telling how lucky she had been picking up that old oak dresser with
handles, everything complete for five pounds ten, and the oak settle
standing in the window for seven.
"I can't consider the furniture till I have put these flowers in
water." So he fetched a vase and filled it, and when his nosegay had
been sufficiently admired, he said "But, Evelyn, I must give you some
flower-vases.... And you have no writing-table."
"Not a very good one. You see, I have had to buy so many things."
"You must let me give you one. The first time you come up to London
we will go round the shops."
"You'll want to buy me an expensive piece, unsuitable to my cottage,
won't you, Owen?" She led him through the dining-room past the
kitchen, into which they peeped.
"Eliza's cooking an excellent dinner!" he said. And they went through
the kitchen into the garden.
"You see what a piece of ground I have. We are enclosing it." And
Owen saw two little boys painting a paling. "Now, do you like the
green? It was too green, but this morning I put a little yellow into
it; it is better now." They walked round the acre of rough ground
overlooking the valley, Owen saying that Evelyn was quite a landed
proprietor.
"But who are these boys? You have quite a number," he said, coming
upon three more digging, or trying to dig.
"They are digging the celery-bed."
"But one is a hunchback, he can't do much work; and that one has a
short leg; the third boy seems all right, but he isn't more than
seven or eight. I am afraid you won't have very much celery this
year." They passed through the wicket into the farther end of
Evelyn's domain, which part projected on the valley, and there they
came upon two more children, one of whom was blind.
"This poor child--what work can he do?"
"You'd be surprised; and his ear is excellent. We're thinking of
putting him to piano-tuning."
"We are thinking?"
"Yes, Owen; these little boys live here with me in the new wing. I'm
afraid they are not very comfortable there, but they don't complain."
"Seven little crippled boys, whom you look after!"
"Six--the seventh is my servant's son; he is delicate, but he isn't a
cripple. We don't call him her son here, she is nominally his aunt."
"You look after these boys, and go up to London to earn their
living?"
"I earn sufficient to run my little establishment."
As they returned to the cottage, one of the boys thrust his spade
into the ground.
"Please, miss, may we stay up a little longer this evening? It won't
be dark till nine or half-past, miss."
"Yes, you can stay up." And Owen and Evelyn went into the house. "I
do hope, Owen, that Eliza's cooking will not seem to you too utterly
undistinguished."
"You have forgotten, Evelyn, that I have been living on hunter's fare
for the last two years."
At that moment Eliza put the soup-tureen on the table.
"Why, the soup is excellent! An excellent soup, Eliza!"
"There is a chicken coming, Sir Owen, and Miss Innes told me to be
sure to put plenty of butter on it before putting it into the oven,
that that was the way you liked it cooked."
"I am glad you did, Eliza; the buttering of the chicken is what we
always overlook in England. We never seem to understand the part that
good butter plays in cooking; only in England does any one talk of
such a thing as cooking-butter." And he detained Eliza, who fidgeted
before him, thinking of the vegetables waiting in the kitchen, of
what a strange man he was, while he told her that his cook, a
Frenchman, always insisted on having his butter from France, costing
him, Owen, nearly three shillings a pound.
"Law, Sir Owen!" And Eliza went back to the kitchen to fetch her
vegetables, and Evelyn laughed, saying:
"You have succeeded in impressing her."
"You have cooked the chicken excellently well, Eliza, and the butter
you used must have been particularly good," he said, when the servant
returned with the potatoes and brussels sprouts. But he was anxious
for her to leave the room so that he might ask Evelyn if she
remembered the chickens they used to eat in France.
"Evelyn, dear, shall we ever be in France again?"
"My poor little boys, what would happen to them while I was away? For
you, who care about sweets, Owen, I'm afraid Eliza will seem a little
behind the times; afraid of a failure, we decided on a rice pudding."
"Excellent; I should like nothing better."
Owen was in good humour, and she asked him if he had brought
something to smoke--a cigar.
"Some cigarettes. I have given up smoking cigars, stinking things!"
"But you used to be so fond of cigars, Owen?"
"Oh, a long time ago. Didn't you notice that man in the trap in front
of us as we came from the station? That vile cigar, the whole evening
smelt of it."
"My dear Owen!"
Then he got up from the table and went to the piano and waited there
for Evelyn, who was talking to Eliza about the purchase of another
bed and where it should be placed in the dormitory, a matter so
trivial that a dozen words should suffice to settle it, so he
thought; but they kept on talking, and when Eliza left the room she
took up some coarse sewing. To bring her to the piano he struck a few
notes, saying:
"The Muses are awake, Evelyn."
"No, Owen, no; I am in no mood for singing."
When he asked her if she never sang, the answer was, "Sometimes I go
to the piano when I am restless; I sing a little, yes, a little into
my muff; you know what I mean. But this evening I would sooner talk.
You said we had so much to talk about." He admitted she knew what his
feelings were better than he knew them himself. It would be a pity to
waste this evening in music (this evening was consecrate to
themselves), and from talking of Elizabeth and Isolde they drifted
into remembrances of the old days so dear to him. But he had always
reproached Evelyn with a fault, a certain restlessness; it was rare
for her to settle herself down to a nice quiet chat, and this was a
serious fault in a woman, a fault in everybody, for a nice quiet chat
is one of the best things in life. He was prone to admit, however,
that when the mood for a chat was upon her nobody could talk or
listen as she could by a fireside. Yielding to her humour, like a
bird she would talk on and on with an enthusiasm and an interest in
what she was saying which made her a wonder and a delight; and seeing
that by some good fortune he had come upon her in one of these rare
humours, he did not regret her refusal to sing, and watched her at
his feet listening to him with an avidity which was enchanting,
making him feel that there was nothing in the world but he and she.
She had once said, enchanting him with the admission, for it was so
true, that if she were alone with a man for an evening he must hate
her very much if he was not to fall in love with her. On reminding
her of her saying she admitted that she had forgotten it. It seemed
to him that his dead mistress had come to life again. Her eyes shone
with something of their old light, and he said to himself, "The
convent has faded out of her mind and out of her face."
Interpenetrated with her sweet atmosphere, which had for ever haunted
him, he breathed like one who hears music going by. Every moment was
a surprise. The next great surprise being the discovery that the
convent had not quelled the daring of her thought--it came and went
swallow-like, as before.
"Because there were no men in the convent. Though I am virtuous,
Owen, and must remain so, I can't live without men. If I am deprived
of men's society for a few days I wilt."
The picture of herself painted in these few words, Evelyn wilting
amid the treble of the nuns like a plant in an uncongenial soil,
delighted Owen, enabling him to forget the sad fact that she was
virtuous and would have to remain so. For she was still his Evelyn, a
hero worshipper, with man for her hero always, even though it were a
priest. A moment of the thought caused him a sigh, but he was in the
seventh heaven when she told him the first letter she had written
when she left the convent was for him. He had maligned her in
thinking the past had no meaning for her. For who was so faithful to
her friends? Again he forgot everything but himself sitting by her,
seeing her bright eyes, listening to her voice, absorbed by her
atmosphere; and talking and listening by turns he was carried away in
a delicious oblivion of everything except the sensation of the
moment. It seemed to him like floating down the current of some
enchanted river; but even in enchanted rivers there are eddies,
otherwise the enchantment of the current and the flowery banks under
which it flows would become monotonous, and presently Owen was caught
in an eddy. The stream flowed gaily while he told her of his
experience in the desert; she was interested in the gazelles and in
the eagles, though qualifying the sport as cruel, and in his
synthesis of the desert--a desire for a drink of clean water. Nor did
she resent his allusion to his meeting with Ulick at Dowlands,
interrupting him, however, to tell him that Ulick had married Louise.
"Married Louise!"
Louise! What an evocation of past times was in this name! And their
talk passed into a number of little sallies.
"Well, he'll spend a great deal of her money for her."
"No, he is doing pretty well for himself."
It seemed like listening to a fairy tale to hear that Ulick was doing
very well for himself; and travelling back to the convent, by those
mysterious roads which conversation follows, Owen learned that it was
at the end of the first year of her postulancy that Evelyn had heard
of her father's illness. Up to that moment he had not noticed a
change in her humour, not until he began to question her as to her
reason for suddenly returning from Rome to the convent. It was then
that a strange look came into her face; she got up from her chair and
walked about the room, gloomy and agitated, sitting down in a corner
like one overcome, whelmed in some extraordinary trouble. When he
went to her she crossed the room, settling herself in another corner,
tucking herself away into it. His question had awakened some terrific
memory; and perforce he did not dare to ask her what her trouble was,
none that she could confide to him, that was clear, and he began to
think that it would be better to leave her for a while. He could go
out and speak with the little boys, for a memory like the one which
had laid hold of her must pass away suddenly, and his absence would
help to pass it. If she were not better when he returned it would be
well for him to seek some excuse to sleep at the inn, for her
appearance in the corner frightened him; and standing by the window,
looking into the quiet evening, he railed against his folly. Any one
but himself would have guessed that there was some grave reason for
her life in the convent. Such an end as this to the evening that had
begun so well! "My God, what am I to do!" And, turning impulsively,
he was about to fling himself at her feet, beseeching of her to
confide her trouble, but something in her appearance prevented him,
and in dismay he wondered what he had said to provoke such a change.
What had been said could not be unsaid, the essential was that the
ugly thought upon her like some nightmare should be forgotten. Now
what could he say to win her out of this dreadful gloom? If he were
to play something!
A very few bars convinced him that music would prove no healer to her
trouble. To lead her thoughts out of this trouble--was there no way?
What had they been talking about? The bullfinches which she had
taught to whistle the motives of "The Ring"; but such a laborious
occupation could only have been undertaken for some definite purpose,
to preserve her sanity, perhaps, and it would be natural for a woman
to resent any mention of mental trouble such as she had suffered from
on her return from Rome. Something had happened to her in Rome--what?
And he sat for a long time, or what seemed to him a long time,
perplexed, fearing to speak lest he might say something to irritate
her, prolonging her present humour.
"If I had only known, Evelyn, if I had only known!" he said, unable
to resist the temptation of speech any longer. As she did not answer,
he added, after a moment's pause, "I think I shall go out and talk to
those boys." But on his way to the door he stopped. "I wish that brig
had gone down."
"That brig? What do you mean?"
"The boat which took me round the world and brought me back, and
which I am going to sell, my travelling days being over." Seeing she
was interested, he continued to tell her how the _Medusa_ had been
declared no longer seaworthy, and of his purchase of another yacht.
"But you said you wished the brig had gone down."
And, seizing the pretext, he began to tell her of the first thing
that came into his head; how he had sailed some thousands of miles
from the Cape to the Mauritius, explaining the mysteries of great
circle sailing, and why they had sailed due south, though the
Mauritius was in the north-west, in order that they might catch the
trade winds. Before reaching these there were days when the sailors
did little else but shift the sails, trying to catch every breeze
that fluttered about them, tacking all the while, with nothing to
distract them but the monotonous albatross. The birds would come up
the seas, venturing within a few yards of the vessel, and float away
again, becoming mere specks on the horizon. Again the specks would
begin to grow larger, and the birds would return easily on moveless
wings.
"When one hears the albatross flies for thousands of miles one
wonders how it could do this without fatigue; but one wonders no
longer when one has seen them fly, for they do not weary themselves
by moving their wings, their wings never move, they float month after
month until the mating instinct begins to stir in them, and then in
couples they float down the seas to the pole. There is nothing so
wonderful as the flight of a bird; and it seemed to me that I never
could weary of watching it. But I did weary of the albatross, and one
night, after praying that I might never see one again, I was awakened
by the pitching of the vessel, by the rattling of ropes, and the
clashing of the blocks against swaying spars. I had been awakened
before by storms at sea. You remember, Evelyn, when I returned to
Dulwich--I had been nearly wrecked off the coast of Marseilles?"
Evelyn nodded. "But the sensation was not like anything I had ever
experienced at sea before, and interested and alarmed I climbed,
catching a rope, steadying myself, reaching the poop somehow."
"'We're in the trades, Sir Owen!' the man at the helm shouted to me.
'We're making twelve or fourteen knots an hour; a splendid wind!'
"The sails were set and the vessel leaned to starboard, and then the
rattle of ropes began again and the crashing of the blocks as she
leaned over to port. Such surges, you have no idea, Evelyn,
threatening the brig, but slipping under the keel, lifting her to the
crest of the wave. Caught by the wind for a moment she seemed to be
driven into the depths, her starboard grazing the sea or very nearly.
The spectacle was terrific; the lone stars and the great cloud of
canvas, the whole seeming such a little thing beneath it, and no one
on deck but the helmsman bound to the helm, and well for him--a slip
would have cost him his life, he would have been carried into the
sea. An excellent sailor, yet even he was alarmed at the canvas we
carried, so he confided to me; but my skipper knew his business, a
first-rate man that skipper, the best sailor I have ever met. There
are few like him left, for the art of sailing is nearly a lost art,
and the difficulty of getting men who can handle square sails is
extraordinary. But this one, the last of an old line, came up, crying
out quite cheerfully, "Sir Owen, we're in luck indeed to have caught
the trades so soon."
"Day after day, night after night, we flew like a seagull. 'Record
sailing,' my skipper often cried to me, telling me the number of
knots we had made in the last four-and-twenty hours."
"And the albatrosses, I hope you didn't catch one?"
"One day the skipper suggested that we should, the breast feathers
being very beautiful; and, the wind having slackened a little, a hook
was baited with a piece of salt pork, which the hungry bird seized.
As soon as he was drawn on board he flapped about more helpless than
anything I have ever seen, falling into everything he could fall
into, biting several of the crew. You know the sonnet in which
Baudelaire compares the bird on the wing to the poet with the Muse
beside him, and the albatross on deck to the poet in the
drawing-room. You remember the sonnet, how the sailors teased the bird
with their short black pipes."
"But the breast feathers?"
"We didn't kill the bird; I wouldn't allow him to be killed. We threw
him overboard, and down into the sea he went like a log."
Evelyn asked if he were drowned.
"Albatrosses don't drown. He swam for a time and fluttered, and at
last succeeded in getting on the wing. I was very glad to see him
float away, and was still more glad a few minutes afterwards, for
before the bird was out of sight a sign appeared in the heavens, and
I began to think of the story of 'The Ancient Mariner.' You know--"
"Yes, I know the story, how all his misfortunes arose from the
killing of an albatross. But what was the sign?"
"A dull yellow like a rainbow, only more pointed, and my skipper said
to me, 'Sir Owen, that is one of them hurricanes; if I knew which way
she was going I'd try to get out of the way as fast as I could, for
we shall be torn to pieces in a very few minutes.' I assure you it
was an anxious moment watching that red, yellow light in the sky; it
grew fainter, and eventually disappeared, and the skipper said, 'We
have just missed it.' A few days afterwards we came into the
Mauritius, and the first thing we saw was a great vessel in the
ports, her iron masts twisted and torn just like hairpins, Evelyn.
She had been caught in the tornado, a great three-masted vessel....
We should have gone down like an open boat."
"And after you left the Mauritius your destination was--"
"Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago."
"But what were you seeking in the Malay Archipelago?"
"What does one ever seek? One seeks, no matter what; and, not being
able to see you, Evelyn, I thought I would try to see everything in
the world."
"But there is nothing to see in Borneo?"
"Well, you will laugh when I tell you, but it seemed to me that I'd
like to see the orang-outang in his native forests. I had been to
Greece, and I knew the Italian Renaissance--"
"And after so much art to see an orang-outang in a tree would be a
new experience, Owen."
"Soon there will be no more higher apes, if medical science continues
to progress; no more gorillas or chimpanzees."
"In a world without gorillas life will not be worth living. I quite
understand."
Owen laughed.
"I should be sorry for anything to disappear. The poor mother is
speared, for she will fight for her little one; ugly as he may be in
our eyes he is beautiful in hers."
"But you didn't do this, Owen?"
"No; after two or three days in a forest one wearies of it; and after
all it wasn't very likely that I should have got a snapshot. The
camera is my weapon."
"And after the orang-outang which you failed to meet?"
"I spent some time in Japan."
"And then?"
"Well, then, I went to Manchuria, to the Amur, a country almost
forgotten." And he told her how the eagles drove the wild sheep over
the precipices, and of a wolf hunt with eagles."
"You have seen now everything the world has to show?"
"Very nearly, and after seeing it all I come back to the one thing
that interests me."
Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes; such an avowal of love a woman hardly
ever hears.
The voices of the children playing in the garden reached their ears,
and Evelyn said:
"They should have been in bed long ago, but, Owen, your being here
makes everything so exceptional."
"Really? I'm glad of that," he answered shyly, fearing to say
anything which would carry her thoughts back among unpleasant
memories. But it was quite safe to speak of her love of the poor, and
of poor children. "What inspired you to start this home, Evelyn?"
"Well, you see, I had to have something to work for, some interest;
and not having any children of my own... They really must go to bed."
"But, Evelyn, why will you interrupt our talk? Let us go on talking;
tell me about the convent. Your adventures are so much more wonderful
than mine. You haven't half told me what there is to tell--the
Prioress and the sub-Prioress, you never liked her?"
A smile gathered about her lips, and he asked her what she was
smiling at; and it was with some difficulty he persuaded her to tell
him about Sister Winifred and Father Daly."
"Counterparts! counterparts!" he said. "And Cecilia giving the whole
show away because her counterpart was a dwarf! How could you live
among such babies?"
"After all, Owen, are they any more babies than we are? Our interests
are just as unreal."
"Your interest here is not as unreal; their hope is to build a wall
of prayer between a sinful world and the wrath of God. Such silliness
passes out of perception."
"Your perception? We come into the world with different perceptions;
but do not let us drift into argument, not this evening, Owen."
"Quite so, let us not drift into argument.... I am sorry you charged
me with being disappointed that you didn't remain in the convent; you
see I didn't know of the wonderful work you were doing here. Your
kindness is more than a nun's kindness." But he feared his casual
words might provoke her, and hastened to ask her about Sister
Winifred, at length persuading her into the admission that Sister
Winifred used to whip the children.
"I'm sure she liked whipping them. Women who shut themselves out from
life develop cruelty. I can quite understand how she would like to
hear them cry."
"Tell me more about the nuns."
"No, Owen, I wouldn't speak ill of the nuns. Don't press me to speak
ill of them. You don't know, Owen, what might have become of me had
it not been for the convent. I don't know what might have become of
me. I might have drifted away and nothing have ever been heard of me
again." A dark look gathered in her face, "vanishing like the shadow
of a black wing over a sunny surface," Owen said to himself, "Now
what has frightened her? Not her love of me, for that love she always
looked on as legitimate." He remembered how she used to cling to that
view, while admitting it to be contrary to the teaching of the
Church. Did she still cling to this belief? "Probably, for we do hot
change our instinctive beliefs," he said, and longed to question her;
but not daring, and, thinking a lighter topic of conversation
desirable, he told her he would like to teach Eliza how to make
coffee.
"There is only one way of making coffee" he said, and he had learned
the secret from a friend, who had always the best coffee. He had
known him as a bachelor, he had known him as a married man, and
afterwards as a divorced man, but in these different circumstances
the coffee remained the same. So he said, "My good friend how is it
that your cooks make equally good coffee?" And the friend answered
that it was himself who had taught every cook how to make coffee; it
was only a question of boiling water. And, still talking of the
making of coffee, they wandered into the garden and stood watching
the little boys all arow, their heads tucked in for Eliza's son to
jump over them, and they were laughing, enjoying their play,
inspired, no doubt, by the dusk and the mystery of yon great moon
rising out of the end of the grey valley.
"I'm afraid Jack will hurt the others, or tire them; they really must
go to bed. You'll excuse me, Owen, I shall be back with you in about
half an hour?"
He strolled through the wicket about the piece of waste ground,
thinking of the change that had come over her when he spoke of her
return from Rome. Possibly she had met Ulick in Rome and had fled
from him, or some other man. But he was not in the least curious to
inquire out her secret, sufficient it was for him to know that her
mood had passed. How suddenly it had passed! And how fortunate his
mention of the yacht! Her attention had suddenly been distracted, now
she was as charming as before... gone to look after those little
boys, to see that their beds were comfortable, and that their
night-shirts had buttons on them. Every day in London their living was
earned in tiresome lessons to pupils who had no gift for singing, but
had to be encouraged for the sake of their money, which was spent on
this hillside.
"Such is the mysterious way of life. Our rewards are never those we
anticipate, but we are rewarded."
The money he had spent on her had brought her to this hillside to
attend on six cripples, destitute little boys. After all what better
reward could he have hoped for? But a great part of his love of her
had been lost. Never again would he take her hand or kiss her again.
So his heart filled with a natural sadness and a great tenderness,
and he stood watching the smoke rising from the cottagers' chimneys
straight into the evening air. She had told him that one of her
little boys had come from that village, and to hear how the child had
been adopted he must scramble down this rough path. The moment was
propitious for a chat with the cottagers, whom he would find sitting
at their doors, the men smoking their pipes, the women knitting or
gossiping, "the characteristic end of every day since the beginning
of the world," he said, "and it will be pleasant to read her portrait
in these humble minds."
"A fine evening, my man?"
"Fine enough, sir; the wheat rick will be up before the Goodwood
races, the first time for the last thirty years." And the talk turned
on the price of corn and on the coming harvest, and then on Miss
Innes, who sometimes came down to see them and sang songs for the
children.
"So she sings for the children? She used to do that in Italy."
"Has she been in Italy, sir?"
To interest them he told how Evelyn had sung in all the opera houses
of Europe; and then, fearing his confessions were indiscreet, he
asked the woman nearest him if she was the mother of the little boy
Evelyn had taken to live with her.
"No, sir, 'e is Mrs. Watney's son in the next cottage." And Owen
moved away to interrogate Mrs. Watney, who told him that her son was
not a cripple.
"'Is limbs be sound enough, only the poor little chap 'ad the
small-pox badly when he was four, and 'as been blind ever since. A
extraordinary 'appy child; and Miss Innes has promised to 'ave him
taught the pianna."
"A piano-tuner must have a good ear, and Miss Innes says his ear is
perfect. He'll whistle anything he hears."
Owen bade the cottagers good-night and climbed up the hillside again.
The lights were burning in the boy's dormitory, so Evelyn must still
be there, and finding a large stone among the rough ground where he
could sit he waited for her, interested in the round moon, looking
like the engraved dial of some great clock, and in the grey valley
and the sullen sky passing overhead into a dim blueness, in which he
could detect a star here and there. The evening hummed a little
still, and the sounds of voices, the last sounds to die out of a
landscape, became rare and faint. One by one the gossiping folk under
the hill crept within doors, and Owen was so absorbed by the silence
that he did not hear Evelyn approaching; and when she spoke he hardly
answered her, and she, as if participating already in his emotion,
stood by him, not asking for words from him, looking with him into
the solitude of the valley, seeking to see beyond the veils of blue
mist gathering and blotting out all detail, creeping up intimately
tender. What could he say to her worth saying at such a moment? he
began to ask himself; and just then a song came from a hawthorn
growing by the edge of the hill, a solitary song, mysterious and
strange, a passionate strain which freed their souls, till, walking
about this dusky hillside, the lovers seemed to lose their bodies and
to become all spirit; and they walked on in silence, speech seeming a
sacrilege.
"So now you are going to settle down at Riversdale; your travels are
over?"
"Yes, they are over. I shall travel no more. I didn't find what I
sought."
"And what was that?"
And her words as she spoke them sounded to Owen passionate, tender,
and melancholy as the nightingale; and his words, too, seemed to
partake of the same passionate melancholy.
"Forgetfulness of you."
"So you wished to forget me? I am sorry."
"Sorry that I haven't forgotten you? That, Evelyn, is impossible for
me to believe; it isn't human to wish ourselves forgotten."
"No, Owen, I don't wish you to forget me, I am glad you have not; but
I am sorry there was any need for you to seek forgetfulness."
"And is there any need?"
"Yes, for the Evelyn you loved died years ago."
"Oh, Evelyn, don't say that; she is not dead?"
"Perhaps not altogether, a trace here and there, a slight flavour,
but not a woman who could bring you happiness as you understand
happiness, Owen."
"All the happiness I ever had I owe to you. How can I thank you for
those ten years?"
"But you paid for them with a great deal of sorrow."
"Had it not been for you, Evelyn, I shouldn't have lived at all. How
often have I told you that? I have seen all the world, and yet I have
only seen one thing in the world--you."
"Owen, you mustn't speak to me like that."
"While that bird is singing you are afraid to listen to me! How
passionately it sings, but how little it feels compared with what I
am feeling. Why did you say that the Evelyn of old is dead?"
"Well, Owen, don't you know that we are always dying, always
changing. You are in love, not with me, but with your memory of me."
"A great deal of my love is memory, of course, still--"
Words again seemed vain, foolish, even sacrilegious, so little could
he convey to her of what he believed to be the truth, and they walked
in silence through the fragrance of the soft night, thinking of the
colour of the sky, in which the sunset was not yet quite dead. His
memory of his love of this woman long ago in Dulwich, in Paris, and
in all the cities and scenes they had visited together, raised him
above himself; and he felt that her soul mingled with his in an
ecstatic sadness beyond words, but which the nightingale sang
clearly; the stars, too, sang it clearly; and they stood mute in the
midst of the immortal symphony about them. "Evelyn, I love you. How
wonderful our lives have been!" But what use to break the music,
audible and inaudible, with such weak words? The villagers under the
hill could speak as well; the bird in the bush and the stars above it
were speaking for him; and he was content to listen.
The silence of the night grew more intense, there were millions of
stars, small and great, and the moon now shone amidst them alone, "of
different birth," divided from them for ever as he was divided from
this woman, whose arm touched his as they walked through the
darkness, divided for ever, unable to communicate his soul to hers.
Did she understand what he was feeling--the mystery of their lives
written in the stars, sung by the nightingale and breathed by the
flowers? Did she understand? Had the convent rule left her sufficient
sensibility to understand such simple human truths?
"How sweetly the tobacco plant smells!" she said.
"Yes, doesn't it? But what is the meaning of our story? My finding
you at Dulwich--Evelyn, have you ever thought enough about it? How
extraordinary that event was, extraordinary as the stars above us; my
going down that evening and hearing you sing? Do you remember the
look with which you greeted me--do you remember that cup of tea?"
"It was coffee."
"And then all our meetings in the garden under the cedar-tree?"
"You used to say we looked like a picture by Marcus Stone when we sat
under it."
"Never mind what we looked like. Think of it! Of our journey to
Paris, and my visit to Brussels to hear you sing."
"And Madame Savelli, who wouldn't let me speak to you; she said I
might tire my voice."
"Yes, how I hated her and Olive that day! You sang 'Elizabeth,' and
when you walked up, to the sound of flutes and clarionettes,'
seemingly to the stars, there was something in the way you did it
that put a fear into my heart. It was all predestined from the
beginning."
"So you believe, Owen, that the end is fated, and that I was created
to come back after many wanderings to help these poor little crippled
boys?"
"Is that the meaning of it all, Evelyn?"
"Maybe--who knows?--that meaning as well as another." And through the
dusk he could see her eyes shining with something of their old light.
"Was it fated from the beginning that I should only, meet you here to
part with you again? Is that the meaning you read in the song of the
nightingale, in the stare of the moon and the perfume of the garden?
There is a meaning, Evelyn, in our lives for certain, but are you
reading it aright?"
For a moment the meaning of their lives seemed clear to them. Life
had a meaning! for a moment, they were both sure of it; they had met
for something, there was a design in life, and though they were
separated on earth they seemed to move in celestial circles, just as
the stars moved in that great design above them, each sphere rolling
on, filled with love for its sister sphere, guided and controlled
each by the other, yet always apart. Owen walked thinking how,
billions of years hence, all those lights might wax into one light,
all souls to one soul, all ends to one end. For one moment he Height
possess Evelyn's soul as he had never been able to possess it on
earth... perhaps.
"I love you now just as much as I loved you before, perhaps more, for
there is memory to aid me."
"You are in love with memory, not with me."
Her words went to his heart, as the thorn of the rose is said to go
to the nightingale's heart, and, unable to answer her, he listened.
"How wonderfully the bird sings, the interpreter of the primal
melancholy from which we never escape... since the beginning of time,
its interpreter."
"Is he telling his own story, or is he telling ours?"
"Both, for all love songs are as ours, made of the same intense
passionate melancholy. Why is love the most melancholy of all joys?
With what passionate melancholy he enchants her who is sitting in the
nest close by! The origin of art is sex; woman is a reed, and our
desire--"
"Hush! Listen to the nightingale! His discourse is better than
yours."
"How absorbed he is in his song, stave after stave; he seems to say,
'You want more tunes? If that is all, you shall have more.' Hush!" And
they listened to the rich warble, sounding so strange in the midst of
the lonely country. "A love-call of three notes, which he repeats
before passing into cadenzas. Hush!" The bird started again, and this
time as if encouraged by the success of his last efforts.
"What flutings! What trills! What runs! Pearls and jewels scattered.
Little tunes of three or four notes, casting a spell about the
hillside, followed by passionate cadenzas."
Another bird answered far away out of the stillness, the same sweet
strain it was; and listening, they seemed to hear the same strain
within their hearts--a silent, mysterious song. All the world seemed
singing the same sweet strain of melancholy, now when the moon passed
out of the dusk--shining high up in the heavens, with stars above and
beneath--Owen thought of some mysterious music-maker. Flocks of
various coloured stars, flaming Jupiter high up in the sky, red Mars
low down in the horizon, the Great Bear beautifully distinct, the
polar star at an angle--the star whereby Owen used to steer. All the
world seemed to be going to the same sweet strain, the soul,
seemingly freed, rose to the lips, and, in her pride, sought words
wherewith to tell the passionate melancholy of the night and of life.
But the soul could not tell it; only the nightingale, who, without
knowing it, was singing what the soul may only feel.
"The bird is telling me what your voice used to tell me long ago."
The lovers wandered through the garden, suffused with delicate
scents, and Owen told her of the legend of the nightingale and the
swallow, a legend coming down from some barbaric age, from a king
called Pandion, who, despite his wife's beauty, fell in love with her
sister, and ravished her in some town in Thessaly, the name of which
Owen could not remember. Fearing, however, that his lust would reach
his wife's ears, Pandion cut out the girl's tongue. This barbarous
act, committed before Greece was, had been redeemed by the Grecian
spirit, which had added that the girl; though without tongue to tell
the cruel deed, had, nevertheless, hands wherewith to weave it. The
weft of her misfortune only inspired another barbarous deed: Pandion
killed both sisters and his son Italus. Again the Grecian spirit
touched the legend, changing the tongueless girl into a swallow, a
bird with a little cry, and fleet wings to carry its cry all over the
world, and the unhappy wife into the bird "which sleeps all day and
sings all night." "Sophocles," Owen said, "speaks of the nightingale
as moaning all the night in ivy clusters, moaning or humming. A
strange expression his seems to us, our musical sense being different
from that of the antique world, if the antique world really possessed
any musical sense." The lovers wandered round the house, listening to
the bird's sweet singing, stopping at the hill's steep side so that
they might listen better.
"Now the bird is telling of sorrows other than ours--isn't that so,
Evelyn? I don't seem to recognise anything of ourselves in its song;
it is singing a new song."
"Perhaps," Evelyn answered, "now it is singing the sadness of the
mother under the hill for her son."
"I went to see her, she is not unhappy; she is happy that her son is
With you."
"But another child died last year; and for her, if she is listening,
the bird is certainly singing the death of that child."
When they had completed once more the round of the garden, the bird
seemed to have again changed his intervals; a gaiety seemed to have
come into his singing, and Owen said:
"Now his music is lighter; he is singing an inveigling little story,
the story of first love. Look, Evelyn, do you see that boy and girl
walking under the hedge with their arms entwined? They, too, have
stopped to listen to the nightingale, but the song they really hear
comes out of their own hearts."
Then the song changed, suddenly acquiring a strange, voluptuous
accent, which carried Owen's thoughts back to a night when he had
been awakened out of his sleep by a woman's voice singing, and,
starting up in bed, he had listened, rousing himself sufficiently
from sleep to distinguish that the voice he was listening to was
Evelyn's. The song was a love-call, and, believing it to be such, he
had thrown aside the curtain, and had found her leaning out of her
window, singing the Star Song, not to the evening star, as in the
opera, but to the morning star shining white like a diamond out of
the dawning of the sky. The valley under the castle walls was
submerged in mist, and the distant hillside was indistinguishable.
The castle seemed to stand by the side of some frozen sea, so intense
was the silence. He had always looked back upon this morning as one
of the great moments of his life, and going to her room like going to
some great religious rite. Each man must worship where he finds the
Godhead.
"Who knows," he said to Evelyn, "that the bird in the nest close by
does not listen with the same rapture--"
"As you, in the box, used to listen to me on the stage? For the
comparison to hold good, I should have sung Italian music, roulades.
Listen to those cadenzas!"
"How melancholy are their gaieties!"
"Yes, aren't they?" she answered. "How poignant the two notes!--with
which _il commence son grand air_."
"But our love-call ended years ago," she said, with an accent of
regret in her voice. And they walked towards the house, Owen dreading
that some sudden impulse might throw her into his arms and her mind
might be unhinged again, and he would lose her utterly. So he spoke
to her of the first; thing that came into her mind, and what came
first was a memory of Moschus's lament for Bion and the brevity of
human life as contrasted with the long life of the world.
"'The mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley--' how does
it go?" And he tried to remember as they went upstairs. "'The mallows
wither in the garden--' no, that is not how it begins. 'Ah me! when
the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the
curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day these live again and
spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and mighty, or
wise, when once we have died in the hollow earth we sleep, gone down
into silence, a fight long and endless and unawakening sleep."
"Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the Dirge!"
And Evelyn listened, saying, "How very beautiful! how very
wonderful!"
"But you believe, Evelyn, that we do live again?"
"It is too late to argue that question; it is nearly midnight. I hope
you will like your room. Eliza has unstrapped your portmanteau, I
see. Your bed is comfortable, I think."
It surprised him that she should follow him into his room, and stand
there talking to him, talking even about the bed he was to sleep in.
It would have been easy to lay his hands upon her shoulder, saying,
"Evelyn, are we to be parted?" but something held him back. And he
listened to her story of the buying of the bed, hearing that it had
been forgotten in the interest excited by the rumour of certain
portfolios filled with engravings supposed to be of great value. The
wardrobe, too, had been bought at the same auction, and he looked
into its panels, praising them.
"But you want more light." She went over and lighted the candles on
the dressing-table, accomplishing the duties of hostess quite
unconcerned, ignoring the past. "One would think she had forgotten
it," he said to himself. "Are we to part like this? But it is for her
to decide. So quiet, so self-contained; it doesn't seem even to occur
to her." He waited, incapable of speech or action, paralysed, till
she bade him good-night. As soon as the door closed, or a moment
after, he began to realise his mistake. What he should have done was
to lay his hand upon her shoulder and lead her to the window-seat,
and sit with her there till a greyness came into the sky and a cold
air rustled in the trees. "Of course, of course," he muttered, for he
could see himself and her in the dawn together, united again and
tasting again in a kiss infinity. In her kiss he had tasted that
unity, that binding together of the mortal to the immortal, of the
finite to the infinite, which Paracelsus--He tried to recall the
words, "He who tastes a crust of bread has tasted of the universe,
even to the furthest star." She had always been his universe, and he
had always believed that she had come out of the star-shine like a
goddess when it pleases Divinity to lie with a mortal. Of this he was
sure, that he had never kissed her except in this belief.... This had
sanctified their love, whereas other men knew love as an animal
satisfaction. It had always seemed to him that there was something
essential in her, something which had always been in human nature and
which always would be. This light, this joy, and this aspiration he
had seen in certain moments: when she walked on the stage as
Elizabeth or Elza, she had always seemed to reflect a little of that
light which floats down through the generations ... illuminating "the
liquid surface of man's life." But a change had come, darkening that
light, causing it to pass, at least into eclipse. He drew his hand
across his eyes--a phase of her life was hidden from him; yet it,
too, may have had a meaning.... We understand so little of life. No,
no, it had no meaning in his mind, and we are only concerned with our
own minds. All the same, the fact remained--she had had to seek rest
in a convent; and the idea that had driven her there, though now
lying at the bottom of her mind, might be brought to the surface--any
chance word; he had had proof. Perhaps it was as well that he had not
laid his hand upon her shoulder and asked her to stay with him, for
by what spectacle of remorse, of terror, might he not have been
confronted to-morrow or the next day? Cured! Nobody is ever cured.
Never again would she be the same woman as had left Dulwich to go to
Paris with him, he knew that well enough; and he, too, was very far
indeed from being the same Owen Asher who had gone to Dulwich to hear
a concert of Elizabethan music.
A period for every one, for every one a season. The gates of love
open, and we pass into the garden and out of it by another gate,
which never opens for us again. To linger by a closed or a closing
gate is not wise: the tarrying lover is a subject for contempt and
jeers; better to pass out quickly and to fare on, though it requires
courage to fare on through the autumn, knowing that after autumn
comes winter. True, the winds would grow harder. The autumn of their
lives was not over, the skies were still bright above them, and the
winds soft and low. The winds would grow harder, but they must still
fare on through the snow. But there is a joy by the hearth when the
yule-log is burning. So thanking God that he had not attempted to
detain her, he wandered to the window to watch the stars, which
seemed to him like a golden net; and he asked who had cast that net,
and if he and she were parcel of some great draught which, at some
indefinite date, would be drawn out of the depths, and if, when that
time came, they would remember the joy and sorrow they had endured
upon earth, or if all would be swept into forgetfulness. At some
indefinite date they might meet among the stars, but what stellar
infinities might be drawn together mattered little to him; his sole
interest was in this lag end of their journey--if their lives should
be united henceforth or lived separately.
Nothing repeats itself, so it was well he had not asked her to stay
with him. Of mistress and lover a fitting end had been written long
ago, just as the end of those stars was written long before the stars
came into being; but it might well be that they might take the road,
this lag end of it, together as husband and wife. If he didn't marry
--he could marry nobody but her--what would he do with his life? what
sort of end? He had no heart for further travels, and feared to wear
away the years amid books and pictures, collecting rare porcelain and
French furniture; there is very little else for an old man. With her
the lag end of the journey would be delectable. In the same house
together, leading her in the evenings to the piano! Even if she had
lost part of her voice, sufficient remained to recall the old days
when he used to journey thousands of miles to hear her; and he lay
quite still, listening to the sweet thought of marriage, singing like
a bird in the acacia-tree, trill after trill, and then a run--
delicious crescendos reaching to the stars, diminuendos sinking into
the valley.
The bird suddenly ceased, and with its song in his brain Owen dozed,
awakening at dawn, remembering her, how she had built herself a
cottage, and settled her life here among four or five little crippled
boys. Could she undo her life to follow him? Uprooted, transplanted,
her brain might give way again, and this time without hope of
recovery. Or was he cheating himself, trying to find reasons for not
asking her to marry him--perhaps his manifest duty towards her. Owen
looked into his soul, asking himself if he were acting from a selfish
or an unselfish motive.
Sleep seemed as far away as ever, and, getting out of bed, he drew
the curtains, seeking the landscape, still hidden in the mist, only a
few tree-tops showing over the grey vapour--the valley filled with
it--and over the hidden hill one streak of crimson. A rook cawed and
flew away into the mist, leaving Owen to wonder what the bird's
errand might be; and this rook was followed by others, and seeing
nothing distinctly, and knowing nothing of himself or of this woman
whom he had loved so long, he returned to his bed frightened,
counting his years, asking himself how many more he had to live.
A knock! Only Eliza bringing his bath water. Good heavens! he had
been asleep. "Eliza, what time is it?"
"Half-past eight, Sir Owen. Miss Innes will be soon home from Mass to
give the little boys their breakfast."
"Home from Mass!" he muttered. And he learned from Eliza that Miss
Innes got up every morning at seven, for a Catholic gentleman lived
in the neighbourhood who had a private chaplain. "And she goes to
Mass," Owen muttered, "every morning, and comes back to give the
little boys their breakfast!"
There was no Catholic gentleman within a mile of Riversdale, he was
thankful to say, and his thankfulness on the point was proof to him
of how years and circumstances had estranged him from Evelyn; for,
though he would not obstruct or forbid, it would be impossible for
him to keep a sneer out of his face when she told him she had been to
the sacraments or refrained from meat on Friday. "What a strange
notion it is to think that a priest can help one," he said, thinking
then that his presence would be a sneer, however he might control his
tongue or his face; she would feel that he held her little
observances in contempt, and her, too, just a little. How could it be
otherwise? How could he admire one who slipped her neck into a
spiritual halter and allowed herself to be led? Yet he loved her--or
was it the memory of their love that he loved? Which? He loved her
when he saw her among the crippled children distributing porridge and
milk, or maybe it was not love, but admiration.
"My dear, I didn't know you would be down so soon. If you will only
go into the garden and wait for me, I shan't be long."
"Now then, children, you must hurry with your porridge; Sir Owen is
waiting for his breakfast."
"My dear Evelyn, I am not in a hurry. Let the children take their
time."
And he went into the garden to think if life at Riversdale would suit
her as well as this life. It would be impossible for him to accompany
her to chapel, and if he did not do so there would be an
estrangement.... Nor could he allow Riversdale to be turned into an
orphanage. Perhaps he would allow her to do anything; that pleased
her; all the same, she would feel that the permission did not come
out of his instinct, only out of a desire to please her.
"Well, Owen," she said as soon as he had finished breakfast, "I don't
want to hurry you, but if you are to catch that train we must start
at once."
It was one of her off days, and she was going to spend it at the
cottage. There were a great many things for her to do. She never had
much time, but she would go to the station with him.
"But you have already walked two miles."
"Ah! Eliza has told you?"
"Yes, that you go to Mass every morning."
Owen seemed to regret the fact, and when he broke silence again it
was to inquire into the expenses of the orphanage and to deplore the
necessity which governed her life of going to London every day,
returning home late, and he offered her a subscription which would
cover the entire cost. But his offer of money seemed to embarrass
her, and he understood that her pleasure was to go to London to work
for these children, for only in that way could the home be entirely
her own. If she were to accept help from the outside it would drift
away from her and from its original intention, just as the convent
had done. Nor was it very likely that she would care to give up her
work and come to live at Riversdale, as his wife, of course as his
wife, and it would pain her to refuse him.... Better leave things as
they were.
"You are right," he said, "not to live in London; one avoids a great
deal of loneliness. One is more lonely in London than anywhere I
know. The country is the natural home of man. Man is an arborial
animal," he added, laughing, "and is only happy among trees."
"And woman, what is she? A material animal?"
"I suppose so. You have your children; I have my trees."
The words seemed to have a meaning which eluded them, and they
pondered while they descended the hillside until the piece of
low-lying land came into view and the bridge crossing the sluggish
stream, amid whose rushes he had gathered the wild forget-me-not. As
he was about to speak of them he remembered her singing classes, and
that yester evening had worn away without hearing her sing. "You have
lost all interest in music, I fear. You think of it now as a means of
making money... for your children," he added, so that his words might
not wound her.
"And you, Owen, does music still interest you,"--she nearly said,
"now that I am out of it?" but stopped, the words on her lips.
"Yes," he said, "I think it does," and there was an eagerness in his
voice when he said, "I have been trying my hand at composition again,
and I have written a good many songs and some piano pieces, one for
piano and violin."
"A sonata?"
"Well, something in that way... not very strict in form perhaps."
"That doesn't matter."
"When you come to see me I should like to show you some of my things.
You will come to see me when you are in London... when you have a
moment?"
"Evelyn always keeps her promises," he said to himself, and he did
not give up hope that she would come to see him, although nearly two
weeks went by without his hearing from her. Then a note came, saying
that she had been kept busy and had not been able to find spare time,
but yesterday a pupil had written saying she would not come to her
lesson, "so now I can come to you."
"Miss Innes, Sir Owen."
His face lighted up, and laying his book aside he sprang out of his
chair, and all consciousness of time ceased in his mind till she
began to put on her glove.
"You have only just arrived, and already you are going."
"My dear Owen, I have been here an hour, and the time has passed
quickly for you because you have been playing your music over for me
and I have been singing... humming, for it is hardly singing now."
"I am sorry, Evelyn, the time has seemed so long to you. I didn't
intend to bore you. You said you would like to see some of my music."
"So I did, Owen, and some of the best things you have composed are
among those you have shown me. Your writing has improved a great
deal."
"I am so glad you think so. When will you come again?"
"The first spare hour."
"Really? You promise."
They saw each other at intervals. Sometimes the intervals were very
long, and Owen would write to her complaining, and he would get a
note telling that her time was not her own, and that a great deal of
money was necessary for her boys. But she would try to come and see
him next week, and he would write begging her not to disappoint him,
as he was giving a concert and wanted her help to compose the
programme.
A great deal of time was spent in Berkeley Square, more than she
could afford, trying pieces over; and she would often say, "My dear
Owen, I really must go now or I shall miss my train at Victoria." He
always looked disappointed when she said she was going, and he never
could understand why she would not sing at his concerts. It was very
difficult even to persuade her to come to one.
"You see, I cannot sleep here, Owen. I have to go to a hotel."
One day she got a letter from him which she feared to open. "It is to
ask me to help him to compose another programme, and I haven't got a
minute."
She was mistaken. The letter was to tell her that he had been elected
president of the new choral society... "a group of young musicians."
The envelope enclosed a programme, and she read: "President, Sir Owen
Asher, Bart." "I'm glad, I'm glad," she said as she walked up the
room. "He has some natural talent for music, and if he hadn't been
born a rich man and spent his life doing other things he might have
done something in music. If he had begun younger... if he hadn't met
me... a good many ifs; but there it is, and that is how it has
ended."