THE PARIAHS
Mr. Quincunx was digging in his garden. The wind, a little stronger
than on the previous days and still blowing from the east, buffeted his
attenuated figure and ruffled his pointed beard, tinged with premature
grey. He dug up all manner of weeds, some large, some small, and
shaking them carefully free of the adhesive earth, flung them into a
wheel-barrow by his side.
It was approaching noon, and in spite of the chilly gusts of wind,
the sun beat down hotly upon the exposed front of Dead Man’s Cottage.
Every now and then Mr. Quincunx would leave his work; and retiring
into his kitchen, proceed with elaborate nicety to stir a small pot of
broth which simmered over the fire. He was a queer mixture of epicurean
preciseness and ascetic indifference in these matters, but, on the
whole, the epicurean tendency predominated, owing to a subtle poetic
passion in the eccentric man, for the symbolic charm of all these
little necessities of life. The lighting of his fire in the morning,
the crackling of the burning sticks, and their fragrant smell, gave Mr.
Quincunx probably as much pleasure as anything else in the world.
Every bowl of that fresh milk and brown bread, which, prepared with
meticulous care, formed his staple diet, was enjoyed by him with more
ceremonious concentration than most gourmands devote to their daintiest
meat and wine.
The broiling of his chicken on Sunday was a function of solemn ritual.
Mr. Quincunx bent over the bird, basting it with butter, in the
absorbed manner of a priest preparing the sacrament.
The digging up of onions or lettuces in his garden, and the stripping
them of their outer leaves, was a ceremony to be performed in no light
or casual haste, but with a prepared and concentrated spirit.
No profane hand ever touched the little canister of tea from which Mr.
Quincunx, at the same precise hour every day, replenished his tea-pot.
In all these material things his scrupulous and punctilious nicety
never suffered the smallest diminution. His mind might be agitated to a
point bordering upon despair, but he still, with mechanical foresight,
sawed the fagots in his wood-shed and drew the water from his well.
As he pulled up weed after weed, on this particular morning, his mind
was in a state of extreme nervous agitation. Mr. Romer had called him
up the night before to the House, and had announced that his present
income--the sum regarded by the recluse as absolutely secure--was now
entirely to cease, and in the place of it he was destined to receive,
in return for horrible clerical work performed in Yeoborough, a
considerably smaller sum, as Mr. Romer’s paid dependent.
The idea of working in an office was more distasteful to Mr. Quincunx
than it is possible to indicate to any person not actually acquainted
with him. His exquisitely characteristic hand, admirably adapted to
the meticulous diary he had kept for years, was entirely unsuited to
competing with type-writing machines and machine-like type-writers. The
walk to Yeoborough too,--a matter of some four or five miles--loomed
upon him as a hideous purgatory. Walking tired him much more than
working in his garden; and he had a nervous dread of those casual
encounters and salutations on the way, which the habitual use of the
same road to one’s work necessarily must imply.
His mind anticipated with hideous minuteness every detail of his
future dreary life. He decided that even at the cost of the sacrifice
of the last of his little luxuries he would make a point of going one
way at least by train. That walk, twice a day, through the depressing
suburbs of Yeoborough was more than he could bear to contemplate. It
was characteristic of him that he never for a moment considered the
possibility of an appeal to law. Law and lawyers were for Mr. Quincunx,
with his instincts of an amiable anarchist, simply the engines through
which the rich and powerful worked their will upon the weak and
helpless.
It was equally characteristic of him that it never entered his head to
throw up his cottage, pack his scanty possessions and seek his fortune
in another place. It was not only Lacrima that held him from such a
resolution. It was as impossible for him to think of striking out in a
new soil as it would have been for an aged frog to leave the pond of
its nativity and sally forth across the fields in search of new waters.
It was this inability to “strike out” and grapple with the world on
equal terms, that had led, in the beginning, to his curious relation to
the Romers. He clung to Susan Romer for no other reason than that she
supplied a link between his past and his present.
His lips trembled with anger and his hand shook, as he recalled the
interview of the preceding night. The wife had annoyed him almost
more than the husband. His brutality had been gross and frank. The
lascivious joy of a strong nature, in deliberately outraging a weaker
one, had gleamed forth from his jeering eyes.
But there had been an unction, an hypocritical sentimentality, about
Mrs. Romer’s tone, that had made him hate her the more bitterly of
the two. The fact that she also--stupid lump of fawning obesity as
she was!--was a victim of this imperial tyrant, did not in the least
assuage him. The helot who is under the lash hates the helot who
crouches by the master’s chair, more deeply than he hates the master.
It is because of this unhappy law of nature that there are so few
successful revolts among our social Pariahs. The well-constituted ruler
of men divides his serfs into those who hold the whip and those who are
whipped. Yes, he hated her the most. But how he hated them both!
The heart of your true Pariah is a strange and dark place, concealing
depths of rancorous animosity, which those who over-ride and discount
such feelings rarely calculate upon. It is a mistake to assume that
this curious rôle--the rôle of being a Pariah upon our planet--is one
confined to the submerged, the outcast, the criminal.
There are Pariahs in every village. It might be said that there are
Pariahs in every family. The Pariah is one who is born with an innate
inability to deal vigorously and effectively with his fellow animals.
One sees these unfortunates every day--on the street, in the office, at
the domestic hearth. One knows them by the queer look in their eyes;
the look of animals who have been crushed rather than tamed.
It is not only that they are weaker than the rest and less effectual.
They are _different_. It is in their difference that the tragedy of
their fate lies. Commonplace weaklings, who are not born Pariahs,
have in their hearts the same standards, the same ambitions, the same
prejudices, as those who rule the world. Such weaklings venerate,
admire, and even _love_ the strong unscrupulous hands, the crafty
unscrupulous brains, who push them to and fro like pawns.
But the Pariah does not venerate the Power that oppresses him. He
despises it and hates it. Long-accumulated loathing rankles in his
heart. He is crushed but not won. He is penned, like a shorn sheep; but
his thoughts “wander through Eternity.”
And it is this difference, separating him from the rest, that excites
such fury in those who oppress him. The healthy-minded prosperous man
is irritated beyond endurance by this stranger within the gate--this
incorrigible, ineffectual critic, cumbering his road. The mob, too,
always ready, like spiteful, cawing rooks, to fall upon a wounded
comrade, howl remorselessly for his destruction. The Pariah is seldom
able to retain the sweetness of his natural affections.
Buffeted by the unconscious brutality of those about him, he retorts
with conscious and unfathomable hatred. His soul festers and gangrenes
within him, and the loneliness of his place among his fellows leads him
to turn upon them all--like a rat in a gin. The pure-minded capable
man, perceiving the rancorous misanthropy of this sick spirit, longs to
trample him into the mud, to obliterate him, to forget him. But the man
whose strength and cunning is associated with lascivious perversity,
wishes to have him by his side, to humiliate, to degrade, to outrage.
A taste to be surrounded by Pariahs is an interesting peculiarity of a
certain successful class. Such companionship is to them a perpetual and
pleasing reminder of their own power.
Mr. Quincunx was a true Pariah in his miserable combination of
inability to strike back at the people who injured him, and inability
to forget their injuries. He propitiated their tastes, bent to their
will, conciliated their pride, agreed with their opinions, and hated
them with demoniacal hatred.
As he pulled up his weeds in the hot sun, this particular morning,
Maurice Quincunx fantastically consoled himself by imagining all
manner of disasters to his enemies. Every time he touched with his
hands the soft-crumbling earth, he uttered a kind of half-conscious
prayer that, in precisely such a way, the foundations of Nevilton House
should crumble and yield. Under his hat--for he was hypochondriacally
apprehensive about sunstrokes--flapped and waved in the wind a large
cabbage leaf, placed carefully at the back of his head to protect his
neck as he bent down. The shadow of this cabbage leaf, as it was
thrown across the dusty path, assumed singular and sinister shapes,
giving the impression sometimes that the head of Mr. Quincunx was
gnome-like or goblin-like in its proportions.
Perhaps the most unfortunate characteristic of Pariahs is that though
they cling instinctively to one another they are irritated and provoked
by each other’s peculiarities.
This unhappy tendency was now to receive sad confirmation in our
weed-puller’s case, for he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance
at his gate of Lacrima Traffio.
He rose to meet her, and without inviting her to pass the entrance, for
he was extremely nervous of village gossip, and one never knew what a
casual passer-by might think, he leant over the low wall and talked
with her from that security.
She seemed in a very depressed and pitiable mood and the large dark
eyes that fixed themselves upon her friend’s face were full of an
inarticulate appeal.
“I cannot endure it much longer,” she said. “It gets worse and worse
every day.”
Maurice Quincunx knew perfectly well what she meant, but the curious
irritation to which I have just referred drove him to rejoin:
“What gets worse?”
“Their unkindness,” answered the girl with a quick reproachful look,
“their perpetual unkindness.”
“But they feed you well, don’t they?” said the hermit, removing his hat
and rearranging the cabbage-leaf so as to adapt it to the new angle of
the sun. “And they don’t beat you. You haven’t to scrub floors or mend
clothes. People, like you and I, must be thankful for being allowed to
eat and sleep at all on this badly-arranged earth.”
“I keep thinking of Italy,” murmured Lacrima. “I think it is your
English ways that trouble me. I don’t believe--I can’t believe--they
always mean to be unkind. But English people are so heartless!”
“You seemed to like that Andersen fellow well enough,” grumbled Mr.
Quincunx.
“How can you be so silly, Maurice?” cried the girl, slipping through
the gate in spite of its owner’s furtive glances down the road. “How
can you be so silly?”
She moved past him, up the path, and seated herself upon the edge of
the wheel-barrow.
“You can go on with your weeding,” she said, “I can talk to you while
you work.”
“Of course,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, making no effort to resume his
labour, “you naturally find a handsome fellow like that, a more
pleasant companion than me. I don’t blame you. I understand it very
well.”
Lacrima impatiently took up a handful of groundsel and spurge from the
dusty heap by her side and flung them into the path.
“You make me quite angry with you, Maurice,” she cried. “How can you
say such things after all that has happened between us?”
“That’s the way,” jeered the man bitterly, plucking at his beard.
“That’s the way! Go on abusing me because you are not living at your
full pleasure, like a stall-fed upper-class lady!”
“I shan’t stay with you another moment,” cried Lacrima, with tears in
her eyes, “if you are so unkind.”
As soon as he had reduced her to this point, Mr. Quincunx
instantaneously became gentle and tender. This is one of the
profoundest laws of a Pariah’s being. He resents it when his companion
in helplessness shows a spirit beyond his own, but directly such a one
has been driven into reciprocal wretchedness, his own equanimity is
automatically regained.
After only the briefest glance at the gate, he put his arms round the
girl and kissed her affectionately. She returned his embrace with
interest, disarranging as she did so the cabbage-leaf in his hat, and
causing it to flutter down upon the path. They leant together for a
while in silence, against the edge of the wheel-barrow, their hands
joined.
Thus associated they would have appeared, to the dreaded passer-by,
in the light of a pair of extremely sentimental lovers, whose passion
had passed into the stage of delicious melancholia. The wind whirled
the dust in little eddies around them and the sun beat down upon their
heads.
“You must be kind to me when I come to tell you how unhappy I am,” said
the Italian. “You are the only real friend I have in the world.”
It is sad to have to relate that these tender words brought a certain
thrill of alarm into the heart of Mr. Quincunx. He felt a sudden
apprehension lest she might indicate that it was his duty to run away
with her, and face the world in remote regions.
No one but a born Pariah could have endured the confiding clasp of that
little hand and the memory of so ardent a kiss without being roused to
an impetuosity of passion ready to dare anything to make her its own.
Instead of pursuing any further the question of his friend’s troubles,
Mr. Quincunx brought the conversation round to his own.
“The worst that could happen to me has happened,” he said, and he told
her of his interview with the Romers the day before. The girl flushed
with anger.
“But this is abominable!” she cried, “simply abominable! You’d better
go at once and talk it over with Mrs. Seldom. Surely, surely, something
can be done! It is clear they have robbed you of your money. It is a
disgraceful thing! Santa Maria--what a country this is!”
“It is no use,” sighed the man helplessly. “Mrs. Seldom can’t help me.
She is poor enough herself. And she will know as well as I do that in
the matter of law I am entirely in their hands. My aunt had absolute
confidence in Mr. Romer and no confidence in me. No doubt she arranged
it with them that they were to dole me out the money like a charity.
Mr. Romer did once talk about my _lending_ it to him, and his paying
interest on it, and so forth; but he managed all my aunt’s affairs, and
I don’t know what arrangement he made with her. My aunt never liked
me really. I think if she were alive now she would probably support
them in what they are doing. She would certainly say,--she always
used to say--that it would do me good to do a little honest work.” He
pronounced the words “honest work” with concentrated bitterness.
“Probably,” he went on, “Mrs. Seldom would say the same. I know I
should be extremely unwilling to try and make her see how horrible to
me the idea of work of this kind is. She would never understand. She
would think it was only that I wanted to remain a “gentleman” and not
to lose caste. She would probably tell me that a great many gentlemen
have worked in offices before now. I daresay they have, and I hope
they enjoyed it! I know what these gentlemen-workers are, and how easy
things are made for them. They won’t be made easy for me. I can tell
you that, Lacrima!”
The girl drew a deep sigh, and walked slowly a few paces down the path,
meditating, with her hands behind her. Presently she turned.
“Perhaps after all,” she said, “it won’t be as bad as you fancy. I know
the head-clerk in Mr. Romer’s Yeoborough office and he is quite a nice
man--altogether different from that Lickwit.”
Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard with a trembling hand. “Of course I knew
you’d say that, Lacrima. You are just like the rest. You women all
think, at the bottom of your hearts, that men are no good if they can’t
make money. I believe you have an idea that I ought to do what people
call ‘get on a bit in the world.’ If you think that, it only shows
how little you understand me. I have no intention of ‘getting on.’ I
_won’t_ ‘get on’! I would sooner walk into Auber Lake and end the whole
business!”
The suddenness and injustice of this attack really did rouse the
Italian to anger. “Good-bye,” she said with a dark flash in her eyes.
“I see it’s no use talking to you when you are in this mood. You have
never, _never_ spoken to me in that tone before. Good-bye! I can open
the gate for myself, thank you.”
She walked away from him and passed out into the lane. He stood
watching her with a queer haggard look on his face, his sorrowful grey
eyes staring in front of him, as if in the presence of an apparition.
Then, very slowly, he resumed his work, leaving however the fallen
cabbage-leaf unnoticed on the ground.
The weeds in the wheel-barrow, the straight banked-up lines of potatoes
and lettuces, wore, as he returned to them, that curious air of forlorn
desertion which is one of nature’s bitterest commentaries upon the
folly of such scenes.
A sickening sense of emptiness took possession of him, and in a moment
or two became unendurable. He flung a handful of weeds to the ground
and ran impetuously to the gate and out into the lane. It was too late.
A group of farm-labourers laughing and shouting, and driving before
them a herd of black pigs, blocked up the road. He could not bring
himself to pass them, thus hatless and in his shirt-sleeves. Besides,
they must have seen the girl, and they would know he was pursuing her.
He returned slowly up the path to his house, and--to avoid being seen
by the men--entered his kitchen, and sat gloomily down upon a chair.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked with contemptuous unconcern. The
room had that smell of mortuary dust which rooms in small houses often
acquire in the summer. He sat down once more on a chair, his hands
upon his knees, and stared vacantly in front of him. A thrush outside
the window was cracking a snail upon a stone. When the shouts of the
men died away, this was the only sound that came to him, except the
continual “tick--tick--tick--tick” of the clock, which seemed to be
occupied in driving nails into the heavy coffin-lid of every mortal joy
that time had ever brought forth.
That same night in Nevilton House was a night of wretched hours for
Lacrima, but of hours of a wretchedness more active than that which
made the hermit of Dead Man’s Cottage pull the clothes over his head
and turn his face to the wall, long ere the twilight had vanished from
his garden.
On leaving her friend thus abruptly, her heart full of angry revolt,
Lacrima had seen the crowd of men and animals approaching, and to
escape them had scrambled into a field on the border of the road.
Following a little path which led across it, and crossing two more
meadows, she flung herself down under the shadow of some great elms, in
a sort of grassy hollow beneath an overgrown hedge, and gave full vent
to her grief. The hollow in which she hid herself was a secluded and
lonely spot, and no sound reached her but the monotonous summer-murmur
of the flies and the rustle of the wind-troubled branches. Lying thus,
prone on her face, her broad-brimmed hat with its poppy-trimmings
thrown down at her side, and her limbs trembling with the violence of
her sobs, Lacrima seemed to insert into that alien landscape an element
of passionate feeling quite foreign to its sluggish fertility. Not
alien to the spot, however, was another human form, that at the same
hour had been led to wander among those lush meadows.
The field behind the high bank and thick-set hedge which overshadowed
the unhappy girl, was a large and spacious one, “put up,” as country
people say, “for hay,” but as yet untouched by the mowers’ machines.
Here, in the heat of the noon, walked the acquisitive Mr. John Goring,
calculating the value of this crop of grass, and deciding upon the
appropriate date of its cutting.
What curious irony is it, in the blind march of events, which so
frequently draws to the place of our exclusive sorrow the one
particular spectator that we would most avoid? One talks lightly
of coincidence and of chance; but who that has walked through life
observingly has not been driven to pause with sad questioning before
accidents and occurrences that seem as though some conscious malignity
in things had _arranged_ them? Are there, perhaps, actual telepathic
vibrations at work about us, drawing the hunter to his prey--the prey
to the hunter? Is the innocent object of persecution, hiding from its
persecutors, compelled by a fatal psychic law--the law of its own
terror--to call subconsciously upon the very power it is fleeing from;
to betray, against its will, the path of its own retreat? Lacrima in
any case, as she lay thus prostrate, her poppy-trimmed hat beside her,
and her brown curls flecked with spots of sun and shadow, brought into
that English landscape a strangely remote touch,--a touch of tragic
and passionate colour. A sweet bruised exile, she seemed, from another
region, flung down, among all this umbrageous rankness, to droop like
a transplanted flower. Certainly the sinister magic, whatever it
was, that had drawn Mr. Goring in that fatal direction, was a magic
compounded of the attraction of contrary elements.
If Mr. Romer represented the occult power of the sandstone hill, his
brother-in-law was the very epitome and culmination of the valley’s
inert clay. The man breathed clay, looked clay, smelt clay, understood
clay, exploited clay, and in a literal sense _was_ clay.
If there is any truth in the scientific formula about the “survival”
of those most “adapted” to their “environment,” Mr. Goring was sure
of a prolonged and triumphant sojourn on this mortal globe. For his
“environment” was certainly one of clay--and to clay he certainly was
most prosperously “adapted.”
It was not long before the tragic sobs of the unhappy Lacrima, borne
across the field on the east-wind, arrested the farmer’s attention. He
stood still, and listened, snuffing the air, like a great jungle-boar.
Then with rapid but furtive steps he crossed over to where the sound
proceeded, and slipping down cautiously through a gap in the hedge,
made his way towards the secluded hollow, breathing heavily like an
animal on a trail.
Her fit of crying having subsided, Lacrima turned round on her back,
and remained motionless, gazing up at the blue sky. Extended thus on
the ruffled grass, her little fingers nervously plucking at its roots
and her breast still heaving, the young girl offered a pitiful enough
picture to any casual intruder. Slight and fragile though she was, the
softness and charm of her figure witnessed to her Latin origin. With
her dusky curls and olive complexion, she might, but for her English
dress, have been taken for a strayed gipsy, recovering from some
passionate quarrel with her Romany lover.
“What’s the matter, Miss Lacrima?” was the farmer’s greeting as his
gross form obtruded itself against the sky-line.
The girl started violently, and scrambled rapidly to her feet. Mr.
Goring stepped awkwardly down the grassy slope and held out his hand.
“Good morning,” he said without removing his hat. “I should have
thought ’twas time for you to be up at the House. ’Tis past a quarter
of one.”
“I was just resting,” stammered the girl. “I hope I have not hurt your
grass.” She looked apprehensively down at the pathetic imprint on the
ground.
“No, no! Missie,” said the man. “That’s nothing. ’Tis hard to cut, in a
place like this. May-be they’ll let it alone. Besides, this field ain’t
for hay. The cows will be in here tomorrow.”
Lacrima looked at the watch on her wrist.
“Yes, you are right,” she said. “I am late. I must be running back.
Your brother does not like our being out when he comes in to lunch.”
She picked up her hat and made as if she would pass him. But he barred
her way.
“Not so quick, lassie, not so quick,” he said. “Those that come into
farmers’ fields must not be too proud to pass the time of day with the
farmer.”
As he spoke he permitted his little voracious pig’s eyes to devour her
with an amorous leer. All manner of curious thoughts passed through his
head. It was only yesterday that his brother-in-law had been talking
to him of this girl. Certainly it would be extremely satisfactory to
be the complete master of that supple, shrinking figure, and of that
frightened little bosom, that rose and fell now, like the heart of a
panting hare.
After all, she was only a sort of superior servant, and with servants
of every kind the manner of the rapacious Mr. Goring was alternately
brutal and endearing. Encouraged by the isolation of the spot and the
shrinking alarm of the girl, he advanced still nearer and laid a heavy
hand upon her shoulder.
“Come, little wench,” he said, “I will answer for it if you’re late, up
at the House. Sit down a bit with me, and let’s make ourselves nice and
comfortable.”
Lacrima trembled with terror. She was afraid to push him away, and try
to scramble out of the hollow, lest in doing so she should put herself
still further at his mercy. She wondered if anyone in the road would
hear if she screamed aloud. Her quick Latin brain resorted mechanically
to a diplomatic subterfuge. “What kind of field have you got over that
hedge?” she asked, with a quiver in her voice.
“A very nice field for hay, my dear,” replied the farmer, removing his
hand from her shoulder and thinking in his heart that these foreign
girls were wonderfully easy to manage.
“I’ll show it to you if you like. There’s a pretty little place for
people like you and me to have a chat in, up along over there.” He
pointed through the hedge to a small copse of larches that grew green
and thick at the corner of the hay-field.
She let him give her his hand and pull her out of the hollow. Quite
passively, too, she followed him, as he sought the easiest spot through
which he might help her to surmount the difficulties of the intervening
hedge.
When he had at last decided upon the place, “Go first, please, Mr.
Goring,” she murmured, “and then you can pull me up.”
He turned his back upon her and began laboriously ascending the bank,
dragging himself forward by the aid of roots and ferns. It had been
easy enough to slide down this declivity. It was much less easy to
climb up. At length, however, stung by nettles and pricked by thorns,
and with earth in his mouth, he swung himself round at the top, ready
to help her to follow him.
A vigorous oath escaped his lips. She was already a third of the way
across the field, running madly and desperately, towards the gate into
the lane.
Mr. Goring shook his fist after her retreating figure. “All right,
Missie,” he muttered aloud, “all right! If you had been kind to the
poor farmer, he might have let you off. But now”--and he dug his stick
viciously into the earth--“There’ll be no dilly-dallying or nonsense
about this business. I’ll tell Romer I’m ready for this marriage-affair
as soon as he likes. I’ll teach you--my pretty darling!”
That night the massive Leonian masonry of Nevilton House seemed
especially heavy and antipathetic to the child of the Apennines, as it
rose, somnolent and oppressive about her, in the hot midsummer air.
In their spacious rooms, looking out upon the east court with its
dove-cotes and herbacious borders, the two girls were awake and
together.
The wind had fallen, and the silence about the place was as oppressive
to Lacrima’s mind as the shadow of some colossal raven’s wing.
The door which separated their chambers was ajar, and Gladys, her
yellow hair loose upon her shoulders, had flung herself negligently
down in a deep wicker-chair at the side of her companion’s bed.
The luckless Pariah, her brown curls tied back from her pale forehead
by a dark ribbon, was lying supine upon her pillows with a look of
troubled terror in her wide-open eyes. One long thin arm lay upon the
coverlet, the fingers tightened upon an open book.
At the beginning of her “visit” to Nevilton House she had clung
desperately to these precious night-hours, when the great establishment
was asleep; and she had even been so audacious as to draw the bolt of
the door which separated her from her cousin. But that wilful young
tyrant had pretended to her mother that she often “got frightened” in
the night, so orders had gone out that the offending bolt should be
removed.
After this, Gladys had her associate quite at her mercy, and the
occasions were rare when the pleasure of being allowed to read herself
to sleep was permitted to the younger girl.
It was curiously irritating to the yellow-haired despot to observe the
pleasure which Lacrima derived from these solitary readings. Gladys got
into the habit of chattering on, far into the night, so as to make sure
that, when she did retire, her cousin would be too weary to do anything
but fall asleep.
As the two girls lay thus side by side, the one in her chair, and the
other in her bed, under the weight of the night’s sombre expectancy,
the contrast between them was emphasized to a fine dramatic point. The
large-winged bat that fluttered every now and then across the window
might have caught, if for a brief moment it could have been endowed
with human vision, a strange sense of the tragic power of one human
being over another, when the restriction of a common roof compels their
propinquity.
One sometimes seeks to delude oneself in the fond belief that our
European domestic hearths are places of peace and freedom, compared
with the dark haunts of savagery in remoter lands. It is not true! The
long-evolved system that, with us, groups together, under one common
authority, beings as widely sundered as the poles, is a system that,
for all its external charm, conceals, more often than anyone could
suppose, subtle and gloomy secrets, as dark and heathen as any in those
less favoured spots.
The nervous organization of many frail human animals is such that the
mere fact of being compelled, out of custom and usage and economic
helplessness, to live in close relation with others, is itself a tragic
purgatory.
It is often airily assumed that the obstinate and terrible struggles
of life are encountered abroad--far from home--in desolate contention
with the elements or with enemies. It is not so! The most obstinate
and desperate struggles of all--struggles for the preservation of
one’s most sacred identity, of one’s inmost liberty of action and
feeling--take place, and have their advances and retreats, their
treacheries and their betrayals, under the hypocritical calm of the
domestic roof. Those who passionately resent any agitation, any
free thought, any legislative interference, which might cause these
fortresses of seclusion to enlarge their boundaries, forget, in their
poetic idealization of the Gods of the Hearth, that tragedies are often
enacted under that fair consecration which would dim the sinister
repute of Argos or of Thebes. The Platonic speculations which, all
through human history, have erected their fanciful protests against
these perils, may often be unscientific and ill-considered. But there
is a smouldering passion of heroic revolt behind such dreams, which it
is not always wise to overlook.
As these two girls, the fair-haired and the dark-haired, let the
solemn burden of the night thus press unheeded upon them, they would
have needed no fantastic imagination, in an invisible observer, to be
aware of the tense vibration between them of some formidable spiritual
encounter.
High up above the mass of Leonian stone which we have named Nevilton
House, the Milky Way trailed its mystery of far-off brightness across
the incredible gulfs. What to it was the fact that one human heart
should tremble like a captured bird in the remorseless power of another?
It was not to this indifferent sky, stretched equally over all, that
hands could be lifted. And yet the scene between the girls must have
appeared, to such an invisible watcher, as linked to a dramatic contest
above and beyond their immediate human personalities.
In this quiet room the “Two Mythologies” were grappling; each drawing
its strength from forces of an origin as baffling to reason as the very
immensity of those spaces above, so indifferent to both!
The hatred that Gladys bore to Lacrima’s enjoyment of her midnight
readings was a characteristic indication of the relations between the
girls. It is always infuriating to a well-constituted nature to observe
these little pathetic devices of pleasure in a person who has no firm
grip upon life. It excites the same healthy annoyance as when one sees
some absurd animal that ought, properly speaking, not to be alive at
all, deriving ridiculous satisfaction from some fantastic movement
incredible to sound senses.
The Pariah had, as a matter of fact, defeated her healthy-minded cousin
by using one of those sly tricks which Pariahs alone indulge in; and
had craftily acquired the habit of slipping away earlier to her room,
and snatching little oases of solitary happiness before the imperious
young woman came upstairs. It was in revenge for these evasions that
Gladys was even now announcing to her companion a new and calculated
outrage upon her slave’s peace of mind.
Every Pariah has some especial and peculiar dread,--some nervous
mania. Lacrima had several innate terrors. The strongest of all was
a shuddering dread of the supernatural. Next to this, what she most
feared was the idea of deep cold water. Lakes, rivers, and chilly
inland streams, always rather alarmed than inspired her. The thought
of mill-ponds, as they eddied and gurgled in the darkness, often came
to her as a supreme fear, and the image of indrawn dark waters, sucked
down beneath weirs and dams, was a thing she could not contemplate
without trembling. It was no doubt the Genoese blood in her, crying
aloud for the warm blue waves of the Mediterranean and shrinking from
the chill of our English ditches, that accounted for this peculiarity.
The poor child had done her best to conceal her feeling, but Gladys,
alert as all healthy minded people are, to seize upon the silly terrors
of the ill-constituted, had not let it pass unobserved, and was now
serenely prepared to make good use of it, as a heaven-sent opportunity
for revenge.
It must be noted, that in the centre of the north garden of Nevilton
House, surrounded by cypress-bordered lawns and encircled by a low
hedge of carefully clipped rosemary, was a deep round pond.
This pond, built entirely of Leonian stone, lent itself to the playing
of a splendid fountain--a fountain which projected from an ornamental
island, covered with overhanging ferns.
The fountain only played on state occasions, and the coolness and depth
of the water, combined with the fact that the pond had a stone bottom,
gave the place admirable possibilities for bathing. Gladys herself,
full of animal courage and buoyant energy, had made a custom during the
recent hot weather of rising from her bed early in the morning, before
the servants were up, and enjoying a matutinal plunge.
She was a practised swimmer and had been lately learning to dive;
and the sensation of slipping out of the silent house, garbed in a
bathing-dress, with sandals on her feet, and an opera-cloak over her
shoulders, was thrilling to every nerve of her healthy young body.
Impervious animal as she was, she would hardly have been human if
those dew-drenched lawns and exquisite morning odours had not at
least crossed the margin of her consciousness. She had hitherto been
satisfied with a proud sense of superiority over her timid companion,
and Lacrima so far, had been undisturbed by these excursions, except
in the welcoming of her cousin on her return, dripping and laughing,
and full of whimsical stories of how she had peeped down over the
terrace-wall, and seen the milk-men, in the field below, driving in
their cattle.
Looking about, however, in her deliberate feline way, for some method
of pleasant revenge, she had suddenly hit upon this bathing adventure
as a heaven-inspired opportunity. The thought of it when it first came
to her as she languidly sunned herself, like a great cat, on the hot
parapet of the pond, had made her positively laugh for joy. She would
compel her cousin to accompany her on these occasions!
Lacrima was not only terrified of water, but was abnormally reluctant
and shy with regard to any risk of being observed in strange or unusual
garments.
Gladys had stretched herself out on the Leonian margin of the pond with
a thrilling sense of delight at the prospect thus offered. She would be
able to gratify, at one and the same time, her profound need to excel
in the presence of an inferior, and her insatiable craving to outrage
that inferior’s reserve.
The sun-warmed slabs of Leonian stone, upon which she had so often
basked in voluptuous contentment seemed dumbly to encourage and
stimulate her in this heathen design. How entirely they were the
accomplices of all that was dominant in her destiny--these yellow
blocks of stone that had so enriched her house! They answered to her
own blond beauty, to her own sluggish remorselessness. She loved their
tawny colour, their sandy texture, their enduring strength. She loved
to see them around and about her, built into walls, courts, terraces
and roofs. They gave support and weight to all her pretensions.
Thus it had been with an almost mystical thrill of exultation that she
had felt the warmth of the Leonian slabs caress her limbs, as this new
and exciting scheme passed through her mind.
And now, luxuriously seated in her low chair by her friend’s side she
was beginning to taste the reward of her inspiration.
“Yes,” she said, crossing her hands negligently over her knees, “it is
so dull bathing alone. I really think you’ll have to do it with me,
dear! You’ll like it all right when once you begin. It is only the
effort of starting. The water isn’t so very cold, and where the sun
warms the parapet it is lovely.”
“I can’t, Gladys,” pleaded the other, from her bed, “I can’t--I can’t!”
“Nonsense, child. Don’t be so silly! I tell you, you’ll enjoy it.
Besides, there’s nothing like bathing to keep one healthy. Mother was
only saying last night to father how much she wished you would begin
it.”
Lacrima’s fingers let her book slip through them. It slid down
unnoticed upon the floor and lay open there.
She sat up and faced her cousin.
“Gladys,” she said, with grave intensity, “if you make your mother
insist on my doing this, you are more wicked than I ever dreamed you
would be.”
Gladys regarded her with indolent interest.
“It’s only at first the water feels cold,” she said. “You get used to
it, after the first dip. I always race round the lawn afterwards, to
get warm. What’s the matter now, baby?”
These final words were due to the fact that the Pariah had suddenly put
up her hands to her face and was shaking with sobs. Gladys rose and
bent over her. “Silly child,” she said, “must I kiss its tears away?
Must I pet it and cosset it?”
She pulled impatiently at the resisting fingers, and loosening them,
after a struggle, did actually go so far as to touch the girl’s cheek
with her lips. Then sinking back into her chair she resumed her
interrupted discourse.
The taste of salt tears had not, it seemed, softened her into any
weak compliance. Really strong and healthy natures learn the art,
by degrees, of proving adamant, to the insidious cunning of these
persuasions.
“Girls of our class,” she announced sententiously, “must set the lower
orders in England an example of hardiness. Father says it is dreadful
how effeminate the labouring people are becoming. They are afraid of
work, afraid of fresh air, afraid of cold water, afraid of discipline.
They only think of getting more to eat and drink.”
The Pariah turned her face to the wall and lay motionless,
contemplating the cracks and crevices in the oak panelling.
Under the same indifferent stars the other Pariah of Nevilton was also
staring hopelessly at the wall. What secrets these impassive surfaces,
near the pillows of sleepers, could reveal, if they could only speak!
“Father says that what we all want is more physical training,” Gladys
went on. “This next winter you and I must do some practising in the
Yeoborough Gymnasium. It is our superior physical training, father
says, which enables us to hold the mob in check. Just look at these
workmen and peasants, how clumsily they slouch about!”
Lacrima turned round at this. “Your father and his friends are
shamefully hard on their workmen. I wish they would strike again!”
Gladys smiled complacently. The scene was really beginning to surpass
even what she had hoped.
“Why are you such a baby, Lacrima?” she said. “Stop a moment. I will
show you the things you shall wear.”
She glided off into her own room, and presently returned with a child’s
bathing dress.
“Look, dear! Isn’t it lucky? I’ve had these in my wardrobe ever since
we were at Eastbourne, years and years ago. They will not be a bit too
small for you. Or if they are--it doesn’t matter. No one will see us.
And I’ll lend you my mackintosh to go out in.”
Lacrima’s head sank back upon her pillows and she stared at her cousin
with a look of helpless terror.
“You needn’t look so horrified, you silly little thing. There’s
nothing to be afraid of. Besides, people oughtn’t to give way to their
feelings. They ought to be brave and show spirit. It’s lucky for you
you did come to us. There’s no knowing what a cowardly little thing
you’d have grown into, if you hadn’t. Mother is quite right. It will do
you ever so much good to bathe with me. You can’t be drowned, you know.
The water isn’t out of your depth anywhere. Father says every girl in
England ought to learn to swim, so as to be able to rescue people. He
says that this is the great new idea of the Empire--that we should all
join in making the race braver and stronger. You are English now, you
know--not Italian any more. I am going to take fencing lessons soon.
Father says you never can tell what may happen, and we ought all to be
prepared.”
Lacrima did not speak. A vision of a fierce aggressive crowd of hard,
hostile, healthy young persons, drilling, riding, shooting, fencing,
and dragging such renegades as herself remorselessly along with them,
blocked every vista of her mind.
“I hate the Empire!” she cried at last. Gladys had subsided once
more into her chair--the little bathing-suit, symbol of our natural
supremacy, clasped fondly in her lap.
“I know,” she said, “where you get your socialistic nonsense from. Yes,
I do! You needn’t shake your head. You get it from Maurice Quincunx.”
“I don’t get it from anybody,” protested the Pariah; and then, in a
weak murmur, “it grows up naturally, in my heart.”
“What is that you’re saying?” cried Gladys. “Sometimes I think you are
really not right in your mind. You mutter so. You mutter, and talk to
yourself. It irritates me more than I can say. It would irritate a
saint.”
“I am sorry if I annoy you, cousin.”
“Annoy me? It would take more than a little coward like you to annoy
me! But I am not going to argue about it. Father says arguing is only
fit for feeble people. He says we Romers never argue. We think, and
then we _do_. I’m going to bed. So there’s your book! I hope you’ll
enjoy it Miss Socialism!”
She picked up the volume from the floor and flung it into her cousin’s
lap. The gesture of contempt with which she did this would admirably
have suited some Roman Drusilla tossing aside the culture of slaves.
An hour later the door between the two rooms was hesitatingly opened,
and a white figure stole to the head of Gladys’ couch. “You’re not
asleep, dear, are you? Oh Gladys, darling! Please, please, please,
don’t make me bathe with you! You don’t know how I dread it.”
But the daughter of the Romers vouchsafed no reply to this appeal,
beyond a drowsy “Nonsense--nonsense--let’s only pray tomorrow will be
fine.”
The night-owls, that swept, on heavy, flapping wings, over the village,
from the tower of St. Catharine’s Church to the pinnacles of the manor,
brought no miraculous intervention from the resting-place of the
Holy-Rood. What was St. Catharine doing that she had thus deserted the
sanctuary of her name? Perhaps the Alexandrian saint found the magic
of the heathen hill too strong for her; or perhaps because of its rank
heresy, she had blotted her former shrine altogether from her tender
memory.