I suppose that we all know summers and summers and—The Summer—the one
summer into which, for whatever reason, all the forgotten others pour
their glories, so that for ever it glows in our minds, an Eden of sun
and strawberries and roses and a frock—that was a pretty frock!—and
remembered sentences that still speak themselves in our ears in a
remembered voice—a summer of immortal little things—a joke, a glance, a
daisy-chain, a head turning quickly, an afternoon in the hay. The other
summers are well enough, but their flowers, every primrose and poppy of
them, open in their seasons and not all at once: and they are soon over.
It rains for days in other summers. But in The Summer——
“Oh, no, it never rained,” Laura would tell you. “I know, because I
remember. I was out of doors with Justin all day long.”
“What about meals?” You may ask her that if you like. She will only look
at you pityingly.
“What did you do all day long?”
“We walked—and talked——”
“What about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It was a lovely summer——”
Justin would agree, I think. It was The Summer for him also, the summer
which justified him in calling his eggs “The Collection,” the summer
when he had not minded asking Bellew down to have a look at it, the
summer of lucky finds and Laura’s idea—Bellew had been very struck with
Laura and her method of labelling—of collecting by counties.... The Kent
section had been practically completed that summer ... the same summer,
by the way, that he and Laura got engaged....
The chill New Year found him still regretting The Summer, and suffering
from his usual intellectual bilious attack; for the year began with him
on St. Valentine’s Day, and he could only get through the long winter
evenings by over-reading himself like a literary Jack Horner home for
the holidays. He grew at last so tired of himself and Brackenhurst that
he began to talk, to the amazed delight of his mother, of a house-party
(“and Justin, you know, has never cared for young people!”) But Mrs.
Cloud’s joyous—
“Now, whom could we have? Your cousins in York? Rhoda and Lucy, of
course. The Browns? the Jones’? the Robinsons?” made no impression.
Justin, it appeared, had been thinking of—Bellew, perhaps? Laura might
come across for a night or two. And Oliver. He hadn’t heard from Oliver
for months. He ought to get Oliver down.
“Oh! Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Cloud.
But Oliver (and somehow it shocked Laura) Oliver had married a wife. He
wrote from Chelsea to Justin, wisely, humorously, as from age to heady
youth, and could not possibly come. Justin must come up to them instead.
Laura, confronted with the letter and a “What do you think of that?”
wondered aloud that he did not sign it _Paterfamilias_. But wasn’t it
typical of Oliver? Justin, distinctly disillusioned, said—
“Was it? How?”
“Oh, well, you know, I always _did_ think——”
And so she got her innings at last: was permitted to toy with Oliver, to
display Oliver, to turn him round and round, to blow him as if he had
been an egg, and at last, crunching him delicately between her fingers,
hand the pieces to a converted Justin to toss into the waste-paper
basket. It was a great relief to her.
Justin, grunting agreement through a film of smoke, and utterly unaware
that he had not always agreed, opined that all the same he must look up
Oliver. Would Laura come?
Laura didn’t think she would.
So Justin went by himself. And as the day was foggy and his boredom,
thicker than fog, upon him, he found Married Life, as he stumbled in
upon it at five o’clock, sitting on the studio floor, with tea-things
and firelight and a frieze of Oliver’s Italian canvases for background,
a novel and attractive picture.
Married Life was kind to him and gave him a welcome, and many muffins,
besides letting him smoke; yet because Married Life had definitely,
though quite unobtrusively, another set of delightful manners for a
pampered Oliver; because too, excellent wife as she seemed to be making
Oliver, there was something in her accent and her voice, a certain
obviousness in her red hair (Oliver had been more faithful to Laura than
Laura guessed) and because, contradictorily, he rather enjoyed the black
challenge of her glances, he found himself reflecting with a new
satisfaction upon his own excellent domestic arrangements, on the
browner hair and softer eyes of his own Married Life waiting for him in
the quiet Brackenhurst future. He came home, less bored, but thoughtful,
and, next day, spoke to his mother seriously. He said that surely a year
was long enough for Laura to fuss about with a trousseau. He said he
hated dilly-dallying in this way. Laura didn’t seem to understand how a
man felt. How much longer did she propose to spin out the engagement?
Mrs. Cloud thought he had better talk to Laura.
He did. He said to her firmly—
“Whitsuntide.”
“Why, yes, if you like, Justin,” said Laura. And he thought that she
need not have taken it quite so calmly. One didn’t get married every
day.... It was a big thing.... But Laura didn’t even look at him as she
said, “Why, yes, if you like.”
He found suddenly that he had no more to say to her. He took up a book,
while she sat beside him, staring into the fire and warming her hands.
That was a silent afternoon.
But when Bellew’s letter arrived, with no apologies, but a counter
invitation to Justin, she did not fail him.
The long projected expedition with its cameras and its ropes and its
collecting boxes was to set forth that spring with or without Justin—but
couldn’t Justin go?
Could Justin go? Laura saw the look on his face. Foolishly, knowing he
would go, she could not bear to hear him say so. She interposed swiftly,
smiling at him in the way he liked—
“Oh, Justin, how jolly. You’re going, aren’t you? Of course you must go.
It’ll be the making of the collection.”
He looked at her, brightening, but dubious.
“But Whitsuntide? We’d nearly fixed!”
She would not let him finish.
“What does it matter? There’s heaps of time. I’ll look after your
mother. You’ll never get such a chance again.”
“No—no. That’s true.” He tried to speak doubtfully, but he could not
help smiling at Laura. He liked Laura. He wished, but it did not occur
to him to tell her that he wished, that she could come too.
“As you say,” he permitted himself to be persuaded, “we can get married
any time. But a chance like this——”
“Why, of _course_!” said Laura.
“And Whitsun would have been a rush anyway. You know, we might have got
the whole thing done by now if we’d only thought,” he reproached himself
and her. “Oh, well—next autumn—or say Christmas? Christmas is always a
slack time. And now about kit——”
Together they looted Gamage’s.
For the history of the next four months I refer you to Mr. and Mrs.
Albert Edward Kimpton, who lived in the brick cottage, darkened with
honeysuckle and wild fuchsia, where earwigs dropped friendily on to your
shoulder as you stooped your way down a step into the dark little post
office to buy peppermints or ask for letters. Albert delivered the
letters in the morning, but in the afternoon you bought them from Mrs.
Kimpton at the price of a gossip. Albert Edward can bear witness that
there was generally a picture postcard for Miss Laura, who had got into
the way of meeting him at the gate, on the same day that he had to go up
to the Priory with a letter—which was not every week: and Mrs. Kimpton
can tell you just how often Mrs. Cloud drove up in the pony cart at
three o’clock to fetch groceries, and met Miss Laura in the doorway
buying her grandfather his stamps.
The months worked out, I think, though I have forgotten Mrs. Kimpton’s
figures, at a letter a fortnight to Mrs. Cloud and a postcard in ten
days to Laura, besides the stray windfalls in the way of enclosures,
generally oological, that supplemented, though Mrs. Kimpton could not
know it, Laura’s parish church interiors.
They wished, Mrs. Cloud and Laura, that he could have written more
regularly, but of course it was his holiday. Once there was a gap of
three weeks and five days. But when the letter came it was “so chatty”
as Aunt Adela said (there was never anything in Justin’s letters that
you could not read aloud) that it would have been churlish to
remonstrate, and indeed they did not expect long letters: they merely
wished sometimes to themselves, never to each other, that—that—oh, his
letters were most interesting but—but——They wanted a woman’s letter, you
see, and he was a masculine man. He gave them neatly written facts about
scenery and the heights of cliffs, and they wanted him, himself, his
thoughts—talking letters. And though they rejoiced to each other that he
should be enjoying himself so much, they wanted to be missed. They
wanted an inquiry or two.
Justin, opening his eyes at them, would have pointed out with perfect
justice, that they told him all about themselves when they wrote in
their turn. What was the use of saying “How are you?” when he knew how
they were? Besides he did not pretend to be a letter-writer. He wrote
whenever there was anything to tell them. That day when he and Bellew
had got the photograph of the gannet’s nest, and the rope had slipped,
and he had nearly gone whacking into the sea three hundred feet
below—why, he had written at once. That had been a near shave if they
liked! Yes, he was having the time of his life. He wished it were not so
nearly over. Only another fortnight. Bellew had to be in town again in
June.
After that epistle, and the extremely vivid nightmare that followed it,
in which Justin dangled like a spider at the end of a rope that Laura
could not hold because she had got eggs in one hand and Bellew, looking
exactly like Oliver Seton, was cutting off the other with a palette
knife, it was not surprising that she should have a pang when, coming up
to lunch at the Priory, a perturbed maid met her with—
“A telegram, Miss Laura, and the boy wanting an answer. The mistress is
down the village.”
“It’s from Mr. Justin, I expect. I’d better open it,” said Laura.
She read and re-read it with a puzzled face, and the maid watched her.
Telegrams were rare in Brackenhurst.
“Where has Mrs. Cloud gone, did you say?” she asked hurriedly. “No,
there’s no answer. I wonder if I’d better try and find her?” She was
speaking half to herself and half to the maid. “What’s the time? It’s
nearly lunch-time, isn’t it? No—no, it can wait.” And then, as the maid,
an old and trusted one, was leaving the room, “Mary, don’t—don’t tell
Mrs. Cloud. I mean, I’ll give her this. I’ll tell her I opened it.”
Left to herself she stood nervously fingering the paper form, her eyes
on the clock. She wished Justin were at home. She wished it were in
Justin’s safe hands. How did one break things to people?... It would be
such an awful shock.... Poor Mrs. Cloud!... She looked out of the
window. No sign as yet, on the long drive, of the pony cart and poor
Mrs. Cloud!
She turned back into the room and, struck by a sudden idea, knelt down
and pulled at the pile of volumes whose place, since time was, had been
under the what-not in the corner by the door. Out they came dustily,
Bible, Nursery Rhyme-book, Hymns Ancient and Modern and, delight of her
childhood, the photograph album with the plush corners and the clasps.
She opened it and turned the pages till she found the picture that she
sought.
Such a bright face!... But for the chin, the weak chin, it might have
been Justin.... The lips too, were fuller, but how like Justin!... Poor
boy—poor man—and, oh, poor Mrs. Cloud!...
She put away the book again and as she did so heard the sound of wheels
and Mrs. Cloud’s voice at the threshold.
“In the morning-room? Thanks, Mary.” And then, in apology, “My dear, I’m
afraid I’ve kept you waiting.”
Laura spoke breathlessly, in a sudden panic—
“Mrs. Cloud—the boy wanted an answer. I had to open it. There’s been a
telegram.”
“Justin?” cried Mrs. Cloud instantly.
“No. No.”
Then Mrs. Cloud turned white.
“Not John?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Cloud sat down as if she had suddenly no strength. But her voice
was steady as she said—“Give me the telegram,” and her hand was steady
as she took it. She even said—“Thank you, my dear.” She was awful to
Laura in that moment. Eager young sympathy shrank back rebuked before
gentle Mrs. Cloud, sitting quietly in her chair. She dared not speak.
She could only stand and wait till the silence that had come into the
room like a spirit should have passed. Once indeed—it was a most piteous
sound—she heard a little faint inarticulate moan, and turned quickly;
but Mrs. Cloud’s face was like a stone face, and she did not stir under
Laura’s anxious eyes. Yet when the maid knocked at last and entered with
her, “Lunch is served, ma’am,” Laura marvelled to see her rouse herself
and speak—
“Mary, tell Robert I want the carriage. At once. And pack me a bag,
please. I have to go up to town for two or three nights.” And then she
turned to Laura with even a little smile for her obvious distress. “It’s
all right, my dear. Run and have your lunch.”
Laura did not want any lunch. Laura knew that Mrs. Cloud ought not to go
up to town unaccompanied, and managed, timidly, to say so.
But Mrs. Cloud, scribbling an address in her notebook, paid no heed to
her or to the maid who ruled her in her daily life, and drove away from
their bewilderment at last, looking bowed and unfamiliar and very old—a
little old woman carved in ivory.
“She’s got her black on. She hasn’t worn that cloak these ten years,”
said the maid. And then, with a gasp—“Miss Laura, what is it? I—I been
with her twenty years.”
Laura judged it wisest to tell her.
“It’s bad news, Mary. Mr. Justin’s brother——”
“Mr. John?”
“He died yesterday.”
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