UNDER-CURRENTS
June was drawing to an end, and the days, though still free from rain,
grew less and less bright. A thin veil of greyish vapour, which never
became thick enough or sank low enough to resolve itself into definite
clouds, offered a perpetual hindrance to the shining of the sun. The
sun was present. Its influence was felt in the warmth of the air; but
when it became visible, it was only in the form of a large misty disc,
at which the weakest eyes might gaze without distress or discomfort.
On a certain evening when this vaporous obscurity made it impossible to
ascertain the exact moment of the sun’s descent and when it might be
said that afternoon became twilight before men or cattle realized that
the day was over, Mr. Wone was assisting his son Philip in planting
geraniums in his back garden.
The Wone house was neither a cottage nor a villa. It was one of those
nondescript and modest residences, which, erected in the mid-epoch
of Victoria’s reign, when money was circulating freely among the
middle-classes, win a kind of gentle secondary mellowness in the
twentieth century by reason of something solid and liberal in their
original construction. It stood at the corner of the upper end of
Nevilton, where, beyond the fountain-square, the road from Yeoborough
takes a certain angular turn to the north. The garden at the back of
it, as with many of the cottages of the place, was larger than might
have been expected, and over the low hedge which separated it from the
meadows behind, the long ridge of wooded upland, with its emphatic
lines of tall Scotch firs that made the southern boundary of the
valley, was pleasantly and reassuringly visible.
Philip Wone worked in Yeoborough. He was a kind of junior partner in
a small local firm of tombstone makers--the very firm, in fact, which
under the direction of the famous Gideon, had constructed the most
remarkable monument in Nevilton churchyard. It was doubtful whether he
would ever attain the position of full partner in this concern, for his
manner of life was eccentric, and neither his ways nor his appearance
were those of a youth who succeeds in business. He was a tall pallid
creature. His dark coarse hair fell in a heavy wave over his white
forehead, and his hands were thin and delicate as the hands of an
invalid.
He was an omnivorous reader and made incessant use of every
subscription library that Yeoborough offered. His reading was of
two kinds. He read romantic novels of every sort--good, bad, and
indifferent--and he read the history of revolutions. There can hardly
have been, in any portion of the earth’s surface, a revolution with
whose characters and incidents Philip was unacquainted. His chief
passion was for the great French Revolution, the personalities of which
were more real to him than the majority of his own friends.
Philip was by temperament and conviction an ardent anarchist; not an
anarchist of Mr. Quincunx’s mild and speculative type, but of a much
more formidable brand. He had also long ago consigned the idea of any
Providential interference with the sequence of events upon earth, into
the limbo of outworn superstitions.
It was Philip’s notion, this, of planting geraniums in the back-garden.
Dressed nearly always in black, and wearing a crimson tie, it was his
one luxurious sensuality to place in his button-hole, as long as they
were possibly available, some specimen or other of the geranium tribe,
with a preference for the most flaming varieties.
The Christian Candidate regarded his son with a mixture of contempt
and apprehension. He despised his lack of business ability, and he
viewed his intellectual opinions as the wilful caprices of a sulky and
disagreeable temper.
It was as a sort of pitying concession to the whim of a lunatic that
Mr. Wone was now assisting Philip in planting these absurd geraniums.
His own idea was that flower-gardens ought to be abolished altogether.
He associated them with gentility and toryism and private property in
land. Under the régime he would have liked to have established, all
decent householders would have had liberal small holdings, where they
would grow nothing but vegetables. Mr. Wone liked vegetables and ate of
them very freely in their season. Flowers he regarded as the invention
of the upper classes, so that their privately owned world might be
decorated with exclusive festoons.
“I shall go round presently,” he said to his son, “and visit all these
people. I see no reason why Taxater and Clavering, as well as the two
Andersens, should not make themselves of considerable use to me. I am
tired of talking to these Leo’s Hill labourers. One day they _will_
strike, and the next they _won’t_. All they think of is their own
quarrel with Lickwit. They have no thought of the general interest of
the country.”
“No thought of your interests, you mean,” put in the son.
“With these others it is different,” went on Mr. Wone, oblivious of
the interruption. “It would be a real help to me if the more educated
people of the place came out definitely on my side. They ought to do
it. They know what this Romer is. They are thinking men. They must see
that what the country wants is a real representative of the people.”
“What the country wants is a little more honesty and a little less
hypocrisy,” remarked the son.
“It is abominable, this suppression of our Social Meeting. You have
heard about that, I suppose?” pursued the candidate.
“Putting an end to your appeals to Providence, eh?” said Philip,
pressing the earth down round the roots of a brilliant flower.
“I forbid you to talk like that,” cried his father. “I might at least
expect that _you_ would do something for me. You have done nothing,
since my campaign opened, but make these silly remarks.”
“Why don’t you pray about it?” jeered the irrepressible young man.
“Mr Romer has not suppressed prayer, has he, as well as Political
Prayer-Meetings?”
“They were not political!” protested the aggrieved parent. “They were
profoundly religious. What you young people do not seem to realize
nowadays is that the soul of this country is still God-fearing and
religious-minded. I should myself have no hope at all for the success
of this election, if I were not sure that God was intending to make His
hand felt.”
“Why don’t you canvass God, then?” muttered the profane boy.
“I cannot allow you to talk to me in this way, Philip!” cried Mr. Wone,
flinging down his trowel. “You know perfectly well that you believe as
firmly as I do, in your heart. It is only that you think it impressive
and original to make these silly jokes.”
“Thank you, father,” replied Philip. “You certainly remove my doubts
with an invincible argument! But I assure you I am quite serious.
Nobody with any brain believes in God in these days. God died about the
same time as Mr. Gladstone.”
The Christian Candidate lost his temper. “I must beg you,” he said, “to
keep your infidel nonsense to yourself. Your mother and I are sick of
it! You had better stay in Yeoborough, and not come home at all, if you
can’t behave like an ordinary person and keep a civil tongue.”
Philip made no answer to this ultimatum, but smiled sardonically and
went on planting geraniums.
But his father was loath to let the matter drop.
“What would the state of the country be like, I wonder,” he continued,
“if people lost their faith in the love of a merciful Father? It is
only because we feel, in spite of all appearances, the love of God
must triumph in the end, that we can go on with our great movement.
The love of God, young man, whatever you foolish infidels may say, is
at the bottom of all attempts to raise the people to better things.
Do you think I would labour as I do in this excellent cause if I did
not feel that I had the loving power of a great Heavenly Father behind
me? Why do I trouble myself with politics? Because His love constrains
me. Why have I brought you up so carefully--though to little profit it
seems!--and have been so considerate to your mother--who, as you know,
isn’t always very cheerful? Because His love constrains me. Without the
knowledge that His love is at the bottom of everything that happens, do
you think I could endure to live at all?”
Philip Wone lifted up his head from the flower-border.
“Let me just tell you this, father, it is not the love of God, or
of anyone else, that’s at the bottom of our grotesque world. There
is nothing at the bottom! The world goes back--without limit or
boundary--upwards and downwards, and everywhere. It has no bottom, and
no top either! It is all quite mad and we are all quite mad. Love? Who
knows anything of love, except lovers and madmen? If these Romers and
Lickwits are to be crushed, they must be crushed by force. By force,
I tell you! This love of an imaginary Heavenly Father has never done
anything for the revolution and never will!”
Mr. Wone, catching at a verbal triumph, regained his placable
equanimity.
“Because, dear boy,” he remarked, “it is not revolution that we want,
but reconstruction. Force may destroy. It is only love that can
rebuild.”
No words can describe the self-satisfied unction with which the
Christian Candidate pronounced this oracular saying.
“Well, boy,” he added, “I must be off. I want to see Taxater and
Clavering and both the Andersens tonight. I might see Quincunx too. Not
that I think _he_ can do very much.”
“There’s only one way you’ll get James Andersen to help you,” remarked
Philip, “and I doubt whether you’ll bring yourself to use that.”
“I suppose you mean,” returned his father, “that Traffio girl, up
at the House. I have heard that they have been seen together. But I
thought she was going to marry John Goring.”
“No, I don’t mean her,” said the son. “She’s all right. She’s a fine
girl, and I am sorry for her, whether she marries Goring or not. The
person I mean is little Ninsy Lintot, up at Wild Pine. She’s the only
one in this place who can get a civil word out of Jim Andersen.”
“Ninsy?” echoed his father, “but I thought Ninsy was dead and buried.
There was some one died up at Wild Pine last spring, and I made sure
’twas her.”
“That was her sister Glory,” affirmed Philip. “But Ninsy is delicate,
too. A bad heart, they say--too bad for any thoughts of marrying. But
she and Jim Andersen have been what you might call sweethearts ever
since she was in short frocks.”
“I have never heard of this,” said Mr. Wone.
“Nor have many other people here,” returned Philip, “but ’tis true,
none the less. And anyone who wants to get at friend James must go to
him through Ninsy Lintot.”
“I am extremely surprised at what you tell me,” said Mr. Wone. “Do you
really mean that if I got this sick child to promise me Andersen’s
help, he really would give it?”
“Certainly I do,” replied Philip. “And what is more, he would bring his
brother with him.”
“But his brother is thick with Miss Romer. All the village is talking
about them.”
“Never mind the village--father! You think too much of the village and
its talk. I tell you--Miss Romer or no Miss Romer--if you get James to
help you, you get Luke. I know something of the ways of those two.”
A look of foxy cunning crossed the countenance of the Christian
Candidate.
“Do _you_ happen to have any influence with this poor Ninsy?” he asked
abruptly, peering into his son’s face.
Philip’s pale cheeks betrayed no embarrassment.
“I know her,” he said. “I like her. I lend her books. She will die
before Christmas.”
“I wish you would go up and see her for me then,” said Mr. Wone
eagerly. “It would be an excellent thing if we _could_ secure the
Andersens. They must have a lot of influence with the men they work
with.”
Philip glanced across the rich sloping meadows which led up to the base
of the wooded ridge. From where they stood he could see the gloomy
clump of firs and beeches which surrounded the little group of cottages
known as Wild Pine.
“Very well,” he said. “I don’t mind. But no more of this nonsense about
my not coming home! I prefer for the present”--and he gave vent to
rather an ominous laugh--“to live with my dear parents. But, mind--I
can’t promise anything. These Andersens are queer fellows. One never
knows how things will strike them. However, we shall see. If anyone
could persuade our friend James, it would be Ninsy.”
The affair being thus settled, the geraniums were abandoned; and while
the father proceeded down the village towards the Gables, the son
mounted the slope of the hill in the direction of Wild Pine.
The path Philip followed soon became a narrow lane running between two
high sandy banks, overtopped by enormous beeches. At all hours, and on
every kind of day, this miniature gorge between the wooded fields was a
dark and forlorn spot. On an evening of a day like the present one, it
was nothing less than sinister. The sky being doubly dark above, dark
with the coming on of night, and dark with the persistent cloud-veil,
the accumulated shadows of this sombre road intensified the gloom to a
pitch of darkness capable of exciting, in agitated nerves, an emotion
bordering upon terror. Though the sun had barely sunk over Leo’s Hill,
between these ivy-hung banks it was as obscure as if night had already
fallen.
But the obscurity of Root-Thatch Lane was nothing to the sombreness
that awaited him when, arrived at the hill-top, he entered Nevil’s
Gully. This was a hollow basin of close-growing beech-trees,
surrounded on both sides by impenetrable thickets of bramble and
elder, and crossed by the path that led to Wild Pine cottages. Every
geographical district has its typical and representative centre,--some
characteristic spot which sums up, as it were, and focuses, in
limited bounds, qualities and attributes that are diffused in diverse
proportions through the larger area. Such a centre of the Nevilton
district was the place through which Philip Wone now hurried.
Nevil’s Gully, however dry the weather, was never free from an
overpowering sense of dampness. The soil under foot was now no longer
sand but clay, and clay of a particularly adhesive kind. The beech
roots, according to their habit, had created an empty space about
them--a sort of blackened floor, spotted with green moss and pallid
fungi. Out of this, their cold, smooth trunks emerged, like silent
pillars in the crypt of a mausoleum.
The most characteristic thing, as we have noted, in the scenery of
Nevilton, is its prevalent weight of heavy oppressive moisture.
For some climatic or geographical reason the foliage of the place
seems chillier, damper, and more filled with oozy sap, than in other
localities of the West of England. Though there may have been no rain
for weeks--as there had been none this particular June--the woods in
this district always give one the impression of retaining an inordinate
reserve of atmospheric moisture. It is this moisture, this ubiquitous
dampness, that to a certain type of sun-loving nature makes the region
so antipathetic, so disintegrating. Such persons have constantly the
feeling of being dragged earthward by some steady centripedal pull,
against which they struggle in vain. Earthward they are pulled, and the
earth, that seems waiting to receive them, breathes heavy damp breaths
of in-drawing voracity, like the mouth of some monster of the slime.
And if this is true of the general conditions of Nevilton geography,
it is especially and accumulatively true of Nevil’s Gully, which, for
some reason or other, is a very epitome of such sinister gravitation.
If one’s latent mortality feels the drag of its clayish affinity in
all quarters of this district, in Nevil’s Gully it becomes conscious
of such oppression as a definite demonic presence. For above the Gully
and above the cottages to which the Gully leads, the umbrageous mass of
entangled leafiness hangs, fold upon fold, as if it had not known the
woodman’s axe since the foot of man first penetrated these recesses.
The beeches, to which reference has been made, are overtopped on the
higher ground by ashes and sycamores, and these, in their turn, are
surmounted, on the highest level of all, by colossal Scotch firs, whose
forlorn grandeur gives the cottages their name.
Philip hurried, in the growing darkness, across the sepulchral gully,
and pushed open the gate of the secluded cattle-yard which was the
original cause of this human hamlet. The houses of men in rural
districts follow the habitations of beasts. Where cattle and the stacks
that supply their food can conveniently be located, there must the
dwelling be of those whose business it is to tend them. The convenience
of Wild Pine as a site for a spacious and protected farm-yard was
sufficient reason for the erection of a human shelter for the hands by
whose labour such places are maintained.
He crossed the yard with quick steps. A light burned in one of the
sheds, throwing a fitful flicker upon the heaps of straw and the pools
of dung-coloured water. Some animal, there--a horse or a cow or a
pig--was probably giving birth to young.
From the farm-yard he emerged into the cottage-garden, and stumbling
across this, he knocked at the first door he reached. There was not the
least sound in answer. Dead unbroken stillness reigned, except for an
intermittent shuffling and stamping from the watcher or the watched in
the farm-yard behind.
He knocked again, and even the sounds in the yard ceased. Only, high up
among the trees above him, some large nocturnal bird fluttered heavily
from bough to bough.
For the third time he knocked and then the door of the next house
opened suddenly, emitting a long stream of light into which several
startled moths instantly flew. Following the light came a woman’s
figure.
“If thee wants Lintot,” said the voice of this figure, “thee can’t see
’im till along of most an hour. He be tending a terrible sick beast.”
“I want to see Ninsy,” shouted Philip, knocking again on the closed
door.
“Then thee must walk in and have done with it,” returned the woman.
“The maid be laid up with heart-spasms again and can open no doors this
night, not if the Lord his own self were hammering.”
Philip boldly followed her advice and entered the cottage, closing the
door behind him. A faint voice from a room at the back asked him what
he wanted and who he was.
“It is Philip,” he answered, “may I come in and see you, Ninsy? It is
Philip--Philip Wone.”
He gathered from the girl’s low-voiced murmur that he was welcome, and
crossing the kitchen he opened the door of the further room.
He found Ninsy dressed and smiling, but lying in complete prostration
upon a low horse-hair sofa. He closed the door, and moving a chair to
her side, sat down in silence, gazing upon her wistfully with his great
melancholy eyes.
“Don’t look so peaked and pining, Philip-boy,” she said, laying her
white hand upon his and smiling into his face. “’Tis only the old
trouble. ’Tis nothing more than what I expect. I shall be about again
tomorrow or the day after. But I be real glad to see ’ee here! Father’s
biding down in the yard, and ’tis a lonesome place to be laid-up in,
this poor old house.”
Ninsy looked exquisitely fragile and slender, lying back in this tender
helplessness, her chestnut-coloured hair all loose over her pillow.
Philip was filled with a flood of romantic emotion. The girl had always
attracted him but never so much as now. It was one of his ingrained
peculiarities to find hurt and unhappy people more engaging than
healthy and contented ones. He almost wished Ninsy would stop smiling
and chattering so pleasantly. It only needed that she should shed
tears, to turn the young man’s commiseration into passion.
But Ninsy did not shed tears. She continued chatting to him in the most
cheerful vein. It was only by the faintest shadow that crossed her face
at intervals, that one could have known that anything serious was the
matter with her. She spoke of the books he had lent her. She spoke of
the probable break-up of the weather. She talked of Lacrima Traffio.
“I think,” she said, speaking with extreme earnestness, “the young
foreign lady is lovely to look at. I hope she’ll be happy in this
marriage. They do say, poor dear, she is being driven to it. But with
the gentry you never know. They aren’t like us. Father says they have
all their marriages thought out for them, same as royalty. I wonder
who Miss Gladys will marry after all! Father has met her several times
lately, walking with that American gentleman.”
“Has Jim Andersen been up to see you, Ninsy,” put in Mr. Wone’s
emissary, “since this last attack of yours?”
The fact that this question left his lips simultaneously with a rising
current of emotion in his heart towards her is a proof of the fantastic
complication of feeling in the young anarchist.
He fretted and chafed under the stream of her gentle impersonal talk.
He longed to rouse in her some definite agitation, even though it meant
the introduction of his rival’s image. The fact that such agitation
was likely to be a shock to her did not weigh with him. Objective
consideration for people’s bodily health was not one of Philip’s
weaknesses. His experiment met with complete success. At the mention of
James Andersen’s name a scarlet flush came into the girl’s cheeks.
“No--yes--no!” she answered stammering. “That is--I mean--not since I
have been ill. But before--several times--lately. Why do you look at me
like that, Philip? You’re not angry with me, are you?”
Philip’s mind was a confused arena of contradictory emotions. Among
the rest, two stood out and asserted themselves--this unpardonable and
remorseless desire to trouble her, to embarrass her, to make her blush
yet more deeply--and a strange wild longing to be himself as ill as she
was, and of the same disease, so that they might die together!
“My father wanted me to ask you,” he blurted out, “whether you would
use your influence over Jim to get him to help in this election
business. I told my father Jim would do anything you asked him.”
The girl’s poor cheeks burned more deeply than ever at this.
“I wish you hadn’t told him that, Philip,” she said. “I wish you
hadn’t! You know very well I have no more influence over James than
anyone else has. It was unkind of you to tell him that! Now I am afraid
he’ll be disappointed. For I shall never dare to worry Jim about a
thing like that. _You_ don’t take any interest in this election,
Philip, do you?”
From the tone of this last remark the young anarchist gathered the
intimation that Andersen had been talking about the affair to his
little friend and had been expressing opinions derogatory to Mr. Wone’s
campaign. She would hardly have spoken of so lively a local event in
such a tone of weary disparagement, if some masculine philosopher had
not been “putting ideas into her head.”
“You ought to make him join in,” continued Philip. “He has such
influence down at the works. It would be a great help to father. We
labouring people ought to stand by one another, you know.”
“But I thought--I thought--,” stammered poor Ninsy, pushing back her
hair from her forehead, “that you had quite different opinions from Mr.
Wone.”
“Damn my opinions!” cried the excited youth. “What do my opinions
matter? We are talking of Jim Andersen. Why doesn’t he join in with the
other men and help father in getting up the strike?”
“He--he doesn’t believe in strikes,” murmured the girl feebly.
“Why doesn’t he!” cried the youth. “Does he think himself different,
then, from the rest of us, because old Gideon married the daughter of
a vicar? He ought to be told that he is a traitor to his class. Yes--a
traitor--a turn-coat--a black-leg! That’s what he is--if he won’t come
in. A black-leg!”
They were interrupted by a sharp knock at the outer door. The girl
raised herself on her elbow and became distressingly agitated.
“Oh, I believe that _is_ Jim,” she cried. “What shall I do? He won’t
like to find you here alone with me like this. What a dreadful
accident!”
Philip without a moment’s delay went to the door and opened it. Yes,
the visitor was James Andersen. The two men looked at one another in
silence. James was the first to speak.
“So _you_ are looking after our invalid?” he said. “I only heard this
afternoon that she was bad again.”
He did not wait for the other’s response, but pushing past him went
straight into Ninsy’s room.
“Poor child!” he said, “Poor dear little girl! Why didn’t you send a
message to me? I saw your father in the yard and he told me to come on
in. How are you? Why aren’t you in bed? I’m sure you ought to be in
bed, and not talking to such an exciting person as our friend Philip.”
“She won’t be talking to me much longer,” threw in that youth,
following his rival to the side of the girl’s sofa. “I only came to ask
her to do something for us in this election. She will tell you what I
mean. Ask her to tell you. Don’t forget! Good-bye Ninsy,” and he held
out his hand with a searching look into the girl’s face, a look at once
wistfully entreating and fiercely reproachful.
She took his hand. “Good night, Philip,” she said. “Think kindly of me,
and think--” this was said in a voice so low that only the young man
could hear--“think kindly of Jim. Good night!”
He nodded to Andersen and went off, a sombre dangerous expression
clouding the glance he threw upon the clock in the corner.
“You pay late visits, James Andersen,” he called back, as he let
himself out of the cottage-door.
Left alone with Ninsy, the stone-carver possessed himself of the seat
vacated by the angry youth. The girl remained quiet and motionless, her
hands crossed on her lap and her eyes closed.
“Poor child!” he murmured, in a voice of tender and affectionate pity.
“I cannot bear to see you like this. It almost gives me a sense of
shame--my being so strong and well--and you so delicate. But you will
be better soon, won’t you? And we will go for some of our old walks
together.”
Ninsy’s mouth twitched a little, and big tears forced their way through
her tightly shut eyelids.
“When your father comes in,” he went on, “you must let me help him
carry you upstairs. And I am sure you had better have the doctor
tomorrow if you are not better. Won’t you let me go to Yeoborough for
him tonight?”
Ninsy suddenly struck the side of her sofa with her clenched hand. “I
don’t want the doctor!” she burst out, “and I don’t want to get better.
I want to end it all--that’s what I want! I want to end it all.”
Andersen made a movement as if to caress her, but she turned her head
away.
“I am sick and tired of it all,” she moaned. “I wish I were dead. Oh, I
wish I were dead!”
The stone-carver knelt down by her side. “Ninsy,” he murmured, “Ninsy,
my child, my friend, what is it? Tell me what it is.”
But the girl only went on, in a low soft wail, “I knew it would come to
this. I knew it. I knew it. Oh, why was I ever born! Why wasn’t it me,
and not Glory, who died! I _shall_ die. I _want_ to die!”
Andersen rose to his feet. “Ninsy!” he said in a stern altered voice.
“Stop this at once--or I shall go straight away and call your father!”
He assumed an air and tone as if quieting a petulant infant. It had its
effect upon her. She swallowed down her rising fit of sobs and looked
up at him with great frightened tearful eyes.
“Now, child,” he said, once more seating himself, and this time
successfully taking possession of a submissive little hand, “tell me
what all this is about. Tell me everything.” He bent down and imprinted
a kiss upon her cold wet cheek.
“It is--” she stammered, “it is that I think you are fond of that
Italian girl.” She hid her face in a fold of her rich auburn hair and
went on. “They do tell me you walk with her when your brother goes with
Miss Gladys. Don’t be angry with me, Jim. I know I have no right to say
these things. I know I have no claim, no power over you. But we did
keep company once, Jim, didn’t us? And it do stab my heart,--to hear
them tell of you and she!”
James Andersen looked frowningly at the window.
The curtains were not drawn; and a dark ash-branch stretched itself
across the casement like an extended threatening arm. Its form was
made visible by a gap in the surrounding trees, through which a little
cluster of stars faintly twinkled. The cloud veil had melted.
“What a world this is!” the stone-carver thought to himself. His tone
when he spoke was irritable and aggrieved.
“How silly you are, Ninsy--with your fancies! A man can’t be civil to a
poor lonesome foreign wench, without your girding at him as if he had
done something wrong! Of course I speak to Miss Traffio and walk with
her too. What else do you expect when the poor thing is left lonesome
on my hands, with Luke and Miss Gladys amusing themselves? But you
needn’t worry,” he added, with a certain unrestrained bitterness. “It’s
only when Luke and his young lady are together that she and I ever
meet, and I don’t think they’ll often be together now.”
Ninsy looked at him with questioning eyes.
“He and she have quarrelled,” he said curtly.
“Over the American?” asked the girl.
“Over the American.”
“And you won’t be walking with that foreigner any more?”
“I shan’t be walking with her any more.”
Ninsy sank back on her pillow with a sigh of ineffable relief. Had she
been a Catholic she would have crossed herself devoutly. As it was she
turned her head smilingly towards him and extended her arms. “Kiss me,”
she pleaded. He bent down, and she embraced him with passionate warmth.
“Then we belong to each other again, just the same as before,” she said.
“Just the same as before.”
“Oh, I wish that cruel doctor hadn’t told me I mustn’t marry. He told
father it would kill me, and the other one who came said the same
thing. But wouldn’t it be lovely if you and I, Jim--”
She stopped suddenly, catching a glimpse of his face. Her happiness was
gone in a moment.
“You don’t love me. Oh, you don’t love me! I know it. I have known it
for many weeks! That girl has poisoned you against me--the wicked,
wicked thing! It’s no use denying it. I know it. I feel it,--oh, how
can I bear it! How can I bear it!”
She shut her eyes once more and lay miserable and silent. The
wood-carver looked gloomily out of the window. The cluster of stars now
assumed a shape well-known to him. It was Orion’s Belt. His thoughts
swept sadly over the field of destiny.
“What a world it is!” he said to himself. “There is that boy Philip
gone with a tragic heart because his girl loves me. And I--I have
to wait and wait in helplessness, and see the other--the one I care
for--driven into madness. And she cares not a straw for me, who could
help her, and only cares for that poor fool who cannot lift a finger.
And meanwhile, Orion’s Belt looks contemptuously down upon us all!
Ninsy is pretty well right. The lucky people are the people who are
safe out of it--the people that Orion’s Belt cannot vex any more!”
He rose to his feet. “Well, child,” he said, “I think I’ll be going.
It’s no use our plaguing one another any further tonight. Things will
right themselves, little one. Things will right themselves! It’s a
crazy world--but the story isn’t finished yet.
“Don’t you worry about it,” he added gently, bending over her and
pushing the hair back from her forehead. “Your old James hasn’t
deserted you yet. He loves you better than you think--better than he
knows himself perhaps!”
The girl seized the hand that caressed her and pressed it against her
lips. Her breast rose and fell in quick troubled breathing.
“Come again soon,” she said, and then, with a wan smile, “if you care
to.”
Their eyes met in a long perplexed clinging farewell. He was the first
to break the tension.
“Good-night, child,” he said, and turning away, left the room without
looking back.
While these events were occurring at Wild Pine, in the diplomatist’s
study at the Gables Mr. Wone was expounding to Mr. Taxater the objects
and purposes of his political campaign.
Mrs. Wotnot, leaner and more taciturn than ever, had just produced for
the refreshment of the visitor a bottle of moderately good burgundy.
Mr. Taxater had demanded “a little wine,” in the large general manner
which his housekeeper always interpreted as a request for something
short of the very best. It was clear that for the treasures of
innermost wine-cellars Mr. Wone was not among the privileged.
The defender of the papacy had placed his visitor so that the light of
the lamp fell upon his perspiring brow, upon his watery blue eyes, and
upon his drooping, sandy-coloured moustache. Mr. Taxater himself was
protected by a carefully arranged screen, out of the shadow of which
the Mephistophelian sanctity of his patient profile loomed forth, vague
and indistinct.
Mr. Wone’s mission was in his own mind tending rapidly to a
satisfactory conclusion. The theologian had heard him with so much
attention, had asked such searching and practical questions, had shown
such sympathetic interest in all the convolutions and entanglements of
the political situation, that Mr. Wone began to reproach himself for
not having made use of such a capable ally earlier in the day.
“It is,” he was saying, “on the general grounds of common Christian
duty that I ask your help. We who recognize the importance of religion
would be false to our belief if we did not join together to defeat so
ungodly and worldly a candidate as this Romer turns out to be.”
It must be confessed that in his heart of hearts Mr. Wone regarded
Roman Catholics as far more dangerous to the community than anarchists
or infidels, but he prided himself upon a discretion worthy of
apostolic inspiration in thus seeking to divide and set asunder the
enemies of evangelical truth. He found the papist so intelligent a
listener,--that hardly one secret of his political designs remained
unshared between them.
“The socialism,” he finally remarked, “which you and I are interested
in, is Christian Socialism. You may be sure that in nothing I do or
say there will be found the least tincture of this deplorable modern
materialism. My own feeling is that the closer our efforts for the
uplifting of the people are founded upon biblical doctrines the more
triumphant their success will be. It is the ethical aspect of this
great struggle for popular rights which I hold most near my heart.
I wish to take my place in Parliament as representing not merely
the intelligence of this constituency but its moral and spiritual
needs--its soul, in fact, Mr. Taxater. There is no animosity in my
campaign. I am scrupulous about that. I am ready, always ready, to
do our opponents justice. But when they appeal to the material needs
of the country, I appeal to its higher requirements--to its soul, in
other words. It is for this reason that I am so glad to welcome really
intelligent and highly educated men, like yourself. We who take this
loftier view must of course make use of many less admirable methods.
I do so myself. But it is for us to keep the higher, the more ethical
considerations, always in sight.
“As I was saying to my son, this very evening, the grand thing for us
all to remember is that it is only on the assumption of Divine Love
being at the bottom of every confusion that we can go to work at all.
The Tory party refuse to make this assumption. They refuse to recognize
the ethical substratum of the world. They treat politics as if they
were a matter of merely imperial or patriotic importance. In my view
politics and religion should go hand in hand. In the true democracy
which I aim at establishing, all these secular theories--evidently
due to the direct action of the Devil--such as Free Love and the
destruction of the family--will not be tolerated for a moment.
“Let no one think,”--and Mr. Wone swallowed a mouthful of wine with a
gurgling sound,--“that because we attack capitalism and large estates,
we have any wish to interfere with the sacredness of the home. There
are, I regret to say, among some of our artizans, wild and dangerous
theories of this kind, but I have always firmly discountenanced them
and I always will. That is why, if I may say so, I am so well adapted
to represent this district. I have the support of the large number
of Liberal-minded tradesmen who would deeply regret the introduction
of such immoral theories into our movement. They hold, as I hold,
that this unhappy tendency to atheistic speculation among our
working-classes is one of the gravest dangers to the country. They
hold, as I hold, that the cynical free thought of the Tory party is
best encountered, not by the equally deplorable cynicism of certain
labor-leaders, but by the high Christian standards of men like--like
ourselves, Mr. Taxater.”
He paused for a moment and drew his hand, which certainly resembled the
hand of an ethical-minded dispenser of sugar rather than that of an
immoral manual labourer, across his damp forehead. Then he began again.
“Another reason which seems to point to me, in quite a providential
manner, as the candidate for this district, is the fact that I was born
in Nevilton and that my father was born here before me.
“‘Wone’ is one of the oldest names in the church Register. There were
Wones in Nevilton in the days of the Norman Conquest. I love the
place--Mr. Taxater--and I believe I may say that the place loves me. I
am in harmony with it, you know. I understand its people. I understand
their little weaknesses. Some of these, though you may not believe it,
I even may say I share.
“I love this beautiful scenery, these luscious fields, these admirable
woods. I love to think of them as belonging to us--to the people who
live among them--I love the voice of the doves in our dear trees, Mr.
Taxater. I love the cattle in the meadows. I love the vegetables in the
gardens. And I love to think”--here Mr. Wone finished his glass, and
drew the back of his hand across his mouth--“I love to think of these
good gifts of the Heavenly Father as being the expression of His divine
bounty. Yes, if anywhere in our revered country atheism and immorality
are condemned by nature herself, it is in Nevilton. The fields of
Nevilton are like the fields of Canaan, they are full of the goodness
of the Lord!”
“Your emotions,” said the Papal Apologist at last, as his companion
paused breathless, “do you credit, my dear Sir. I certainly hold with
you that it is important to counteract the influence of Free-Thinkers.”
“But the love of God, Mr. Taxater!” cried the other, leaning forward
and crossing his hands over his knees. “We must not only refute, we
must construct.” Mr. Wone had never felt in higher feather. Here was a
man capable of really doing him justice. He wished his recalcitrant son
were present!
“Construct--that is what I always say,” he repeated. “We must be
creative and constructive in our movement, and fix it firmly upon the
Only Foundation.”
He surveyed through the window the expansive heavens; and his glance
encountered the same prominent constellation, which, at that very
moment, but with different emotions, the agitated stone-carver was
contemplating from the cottage at Wild Pine.
“You are undoubtedly correct, Mr. Wone,” said his host gravely, using a
tone he might have used if his interlocutor had been recommending him
to buy cheese. “You are undoubtedly correct in finding the basis of
the system of things in love. It is no more than what the Saints have
always taught. I am also profoundly at one with you in your objection
to Free Love. Love and Free Love are contradictory categories. They
might even be called antinomies. There is no synthesis which reconciles
them.”
Mr. Wone had not the remotest idea what any of these words meant, but
he felt flattered to the depths of his being. It was clear that he
had been led to utter some profound philosophical maxim. He once more
wished from his heart that his son could hear this conversation!
“Well, Mr. Taxater,” he said, “I must now leave you. I have other
distinguished gentlemen to call upon before I retire. But I thank you
for your promised support.
“It would be better, perhaps”--here he lowered his voice and looked
jocose and crafty--“not to refer to our little conversation.
It might be misunderstood. There is a certain prejudice, you
know--unjustifiable, of course, but unfortunately, very prevalent,
which makes it wiser--but I need say no more. Good-bye, Mr.
Taxater--good night, sir, good night!”
And he bowed himself off and proceeded up the street to find the next
victim of his evangelical discretion.
As soon as he had gone, Mr. Taxater summoned his housekeeper.
“The next time that person comes,” he said, “will you explain to
him, very politely, that I have been called to London? If this seems
improbable, or if he has caught a glimpse of me through the window,
will you please explain to him that I am engaged upon a very absorbing
literary work.”
Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “I kept my eyes open yesterday,” the old woman
remarked, in the manner of some veteran conspirator in the service of a
Privy Counsellor.
“As you happened to be looking for laurel-leaves, I suppose?” said
Mr. Taxater, drawing the red curtains across the window, with his
expressive episcopal hand. “For laurel-leaves, Mrs. Wotnot, to flavour
that excellent custard?”
The old woman nodded. “And you saw?” pursued her master.
“I saw Mr. Luke Andersen and Miss Gladys Romer.”
“Were they as happy as usual--these young people,” asked the theologian
mildly, “or were they--otherwise?”
“They were very much what you are pleased to call otherwise,” answered
the old lady.
“Quarrelling in fact?” suggested the diplomat, seating himself
deliberately in his arm-chair.
“Miss Gladys was crying and Mr. Luke was laughing.”
The Papal Apologist waved his hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Wotnot, thank
you. These things will happen, won’t they--even in Nevilton? Mr. Luke
laughing, and Miss Gladys crying? Your laurel-leaves were very well
chosen, my friend. Let me have the rest of that custard tonight! I hope
you have not brought back your rheumatism, Mrs. Wotnot, by going so
far?”
The housekeeper shook her head and retired to prepare supper.
Mr. Taxater took up the book by his side and opened it thoughtfully. It
was the final volume of the collected works of Joseph de Maistre.
Mr. Wone had not advanced far in the direction of the church, when he
overtook Vennie Seldom walking slowly, with down-cast head, in the same
direction.
Vennie had just passed an uncomfortable hour with her mother, who
had been growing, during the recent days, more and more fretful and
suspicious. It was partly to allay these suspicions and partly to
escape from the maternal atmosphere that she had decided to be present
that evening at the weekly choir-practice, a function that she had
found herself lately beginning to neglect. Mr. Wone had forgotten the
choir-practice. It would interfere, he was afraid, with his desired
interview with Mr. Clavering. Vennie assured him that the clergyman’s
presence was not essential at these times.
“He is not musical, you know. He only walks up and down the aisle and
confuses things. Everybody will be glad if you take him away.”
She was a little surprised at herself, even as she spoke. To depreciate
her best friend in this flippant way, and to such a person, showed that
her nerves were abnormally strained.
Mr. Wone did not miss the unusual tone. He had never been on anything
but very distant terms with Miss Seldom, and his vanity was hugely
delighted by this new manner.
“I am coming into my own,” he thought to himself. “My abilities are
being recognized at last, by all these exclusive people.”
“I hope,” he said, tentatively, “that you and your dear mother are on
our side in this great national struggle. I have just been to see Mr.
Taxater, and he has promised me his energetic support.”
“Has he?” said Vennie in rather a startled voice. “That surprises me--a
little. I know he does not admire Mr. Romer; but I thought----”
“O he is with us--heart and soul with us!” repeated the triumphant
Nonconformist. “I am glad I went to him. Many of us would have been too
narrow-minded to enter his house, seeing he is a papist. But I am free
from such bigotry.”
“And you hope to convert Mr. Clavering, too?”
“Certainly; that is what I intend. But I believe our excellent vicar
needs no conversion. I have often heard him speak--at the Social
Meeting, you know--and I assure you he is a true friend of the
working-classes. I only wish more of his kind were like him.”
“Mr. Clavering is too changeable,” remarked Vennie, hardly knowing what
she said. “His moods alter from day to day.”
“But you yourself, dear Miss Seldom,” the candidate went on. “You
yourself are, I think, entirely with us?”
“I really don’t know,” she answered. “My interests do not lie in these
directions. I sometimes doubt whether it greatly matters, one way or
the other.”
“Whether it matters?” cried Mr. Wone, inhaling the night-air with a
sigh of protestation. “Surely, you do not take that indifferent and
thoughtless attitude? A young lady of your education--of your religious
feeling! Surely, you must feel that it matters profoundly! As we walk
here together, through this embalmed air, full of so many agreeable
scents, surely you must feel that a good and great God is making his
power known at last, known and respected, through the poor means of
our consecrated efforts? Forgive my speaking so freely to one of your
position; but it seems to me that you must--you at least--be on our
side, simply because what we are aiming at is in such complete harmony
with this wonderful Love of God, diffused through all things.”
It is impossible to describe the shrinking aversion which these
words produced upon the agitated nerves of Vennie. Something about
the Christian candidate seemed to affect her with an actual sense of
physical nausea. She could have screamed, to feel the man so near
her--the dragging sound of his feet on the road, the way he breathed
and cleared his throat, the manner in which his hat was tilted, all
combined to irritate her unendurably. She found herself fantastically
thinking how much sooner she would have married even the egregious John
Goring--as Lacrima was going to do--than such a one as this. What a
pass Nevilton had brought itself to--when the choice lay between a Mr.
Romer and a Mr. Wone!
An overpowering wave of disgust with the whole human race swept over
her--what wretched creatures they all were--every one of them! She
mentally resolved that nothing--nothing on earth--should stop her
entering a convent. The man talked of agreeable odours on the air. The
air was poisoned, tainted, infected! It choked her to breathe it.
“I am so glad--so deeply glad,” Mr. Wone continued, “to have enjoyed
the privilege of this little quiet conversation. I shall never forget
it. I feel as though it had brought us wonderfully, beautifully,
near each other. It is on such occasions as this, that one feels how
closely, how entirely, in harmony, all earnest-minded people are! Here
are you, my dear young lady, the descendant of such a noble and ancient
house, expressing in mute and tender silence, your sympathy with one
who represents the aspirations of the poorest of the people! This is a
symbolic moment. I cannot help saying so. A symbolic and consecrated
moment!”
“We had better walk a little faster,” remarked Miss Seldom.
“We will. We will walk faster,” agreed Mr. Wone. “But you must let me
put on record what this conversation has meant to me! It has made me
more certain, more absolutely certain than ever, that without a deep
ethical basis our great movement is doomed to hopeless failure.”
The tone in which he used the word “ethical” was so irritating to
Vennie, that she felt an insane longing to utter some frightful
blasphemy, or even indecency, in his ears, and to rush away with a peal
of hysterical laughter.
They were now at the entrance to a narrow little alley or lane which,
passing a solitary cottage and an unfrequented spring, led by a short
approach directly into the village-square. Half way down this lane a
curious block of Leonian stone stood in the middle of the path. What
the original purpose of this stone had been it were not easy to tell.
The upper portion of it had apparently supported a chain, but this
had long ago disappeared. At the moment when Mr. Wone and Miss Seldom
reached the lane’s entrance, a soft little scream came from the spot
where the stone stood; and dimly, in the shadowy darkness, two forms
became visible, engaged in some obscure struggle. The scream was
repeated, followed by a series of little gasps and whisperings.
Mr. Wone glanced apprehensively in the direction of these sounds and
increased his pace. He was confounded with amazement when he found that
Vennie had stopped as if to investigate further. The truth is, he had
reduced the girl to such a pitch of unnatural revolt that, for one
moment in her life, she felt glad that there were flagrant and lawless
pleasures in the world.
Led by an unaccountable impulse she made several steps up the lane.
The figures separated as she approached, one of them boldly advancing
to meet her, while the other retreated into the shadows. The one who
advanced, finding himself alone, turned and called to his companion,
“Annie! Where are you? Come on, you silly girl! It’s all right.”
Vennie recognized the voice of Luke Andersen. She greeted him with
hysterical gratitude. “I thought it was you, Mr. Andersen; but you did
frighten me! I took you for a ghost. Who is that with you?”
The young stone-carver raised his hat politely. “Only our little friend
Annie,” he said. “I am escorting her home from Yeoborough. We have been
on an errand for her mother. She’s such a baby, you know, Miss Seldom,
our little Annie. I love teasing her.”
“I am afraid you love teasing a great many people, Mr. Andersen,” said
Vennie, recovering her equanimity and beginning to feel ashamed. “Here
is Mr. Wone. No doubt, he will be anxious to talk politics to you. Mr.
Wone!” She raised her voice as the astonished Methodist came towards
them. “It is only Mr. Andersen. You had better talk to _him_ of your
plans. I am afraid I shall be late if I don’t go on.” She slipped aside
as she spoke, leaving the two men together, and hurried off towards the
church.
Luke Andersen shook hands with the Christian Candidate. “How goes the
campaign, the great campaign?” he said. “I wonder you haven’t talked
to James about it. James is a hopeless idealist. James is an admirable
listener. You really ought to talk to James. I wish you _would_ talk to
him; and put a little of your shrewd common-sense into him! He takes
the populace seriously--a thing you and I would never be such fools as
to do, eh, Mr. Wone?”
“I am afraid we disturbed you,” remarked the Nonconformist, “Miss
Seldom and I--I think you had someone with you. Miss Seldom was quite
interested. We heard sounds, and she stopped.”
“Oh, only Annie”--returned the young man lightly, “only little Annie.
We are old friends you know. Don’t worry about Annie!”
“It is a beautiful night, is it not?” remarked the Methodist, peering
down the lane. Luke Andersen laughed.
“Are you by any chance, Mr. Wone, interested in astronomy? If so,
perhaps you can tell me the name of that star, over there, between
Perseus and Andromeda? No, no; that one--that greenish-coloured one! Do
you know what that is?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” confessed the representative of the People.
“But I am a great admirer of Nature. My admiration for Nature is one of
the chief motives of my life.”
“I believe you,” said Luke. “It is one of my own, too. I admire
everything in it, without any exception.”
“I hope,” said Mr. Wone, reverting to the purpose that, with Nature,
shared just now his dominant interest, “I hope you are also with us
in our struggle against oppression? Mr. Taxater and Miss Seldom are
certainly on our side. I sometimes feel as though Nature herself, were
on our side, especially on a lovely night like this, full of such balmy
odours.”
“I am delighted to see the struggle going on,” returned the young man,
emphatically. “And I am thoroughly glad to see a person like yourself
at the head of it.”
“Then you, too, will take a part,” cried the candidate, joyfully.
“This, indeed, has been a successful evening! I feel sure now that in
Nevilton, at any rate, the tide will flow strongly in my favour. Next
week, I have to begin a tour of the whole district. I may not be able
to return for quite a long time. How happy I shall be to know that I
leave the cause in such good hands! The strike is the important thing,
Andersen. You and your brother must work hard to bring about the
strike. It is coming. I know it is coming. But I want it soon. I want
it immediately.”
The stone-carver nodded and hummed a tune. He seemed to intimate with
the whole air of his elegant quiescence that the moment had arrived for
Mr. Wone’s departure.
The Nonconformist felt the telepathic pressure of this polite
dismissal. He waved his arm. “Good night, then; good night! I am afraid
I must postpone my talk with Mr. Clavering till another occasion.
Remember the strike, Andersen! That is what I leave in your hands.
Remember the strike!”
The noise of Mr. Wone’s retreating steps was still audible when Luke
returned to the stone in the middle of Splash Lane. The sky was clear
now and a faint whitish glimmer, shining on the worn surface of the
stone, revealed the two deep holes in it, where the fastenings of the
chain had hung. The young man tapped the stone with his stick and gave
a low whistle. An amorphous heap of clothes, huddled in the hedge,
stirred, and emitted a reproachful sound.
“Oh, you’re there, are you?” he said. “What silly nonsense is this? Get
up! Let’s see your face!” He stooped and pulled at the object. After a
moment’s struggle the flexible form of a young girl emerged into the
light. She held down her head and appeared sulky and angry.
“What’s the matter, Annie?” whispered the youth encircling her with his
arms.
The girl shook him away. “How could you tell Miss Seldom who I was!”
she murmured. “How could you do it, Luke? If it had been anybody
else--but for her to know----”
The stone-carver laughed. “Really, child, you are too ridiculous! Why,
on earth, shouldn’t she know, more than anyone else?”
The girl looked fiercely at him. “Because she is good,” she said.
“Because she is the only good person in this blasted place!”
The young man showed no astonishment at this outburst. “Come on,
darling,” he rejoined. “We must be getting you home. I daresay,
Miss Seldom is all you think. It seemed to me, though, that she was
different from usual tonight. But I expect that fool had upset her.”
He let the young girl lean for a moment against the shadowy stone while
he fumbled for his cigarettes and matches. He observed her make a
quick movement with her hands.
“What are you up to now?” he asked.
She gave a fierce little laugh. “There!” she cried. “I have done it!”
“What have you done?” he enquired, emitting a puff of smoke, and
throwing the lighted match into the hedge.
She pressed her hands against the stone and looked up at him
mischievously and triumphantly. “Look!” she said, holding out her
fingers in the darkness. He surveyed her closely. “What is it? Have you
scratched yourself?”
“Light a match and see!” she cried. He lit a match and examined the
hand she held towards him.
“You have thrown away that ring!”
“Not _thrown_ it away, Luke; not thrown it away! I have pressed it down
into this hole. You can’t get it out now! Nobody never can!”
He held the flickering match closely against the stone’s surface. In
the narrow darkness of the aperture she indicated, something bright
glittered.
“But this is really annoying of you, Annie,” said the stone-carver. “I
told you that ring was only lent to me. She’ll be asking for it back
tomorrow.”
“Well, you can tell her to come here and get it!”
“But this is really serious,” protested Luke, trying in vain to reach
the object with his outstretched fingers.
“And I have twisted my hair round it!” the girl went on, in exulting
excitement, “I have twisted it tight around. It will be hard to get it
off!”
Luke continued making ineffectual dives into the hole, while she
watched him gleefully. He went to the hedge and breaking off a dusty
sprig of woundwort prodded the ring with its stalk.
“You can’t do it” she cried, “you can’t do it! You’ll only push it
further in!”
“Damn you, Annie!” he muttered. “This is a horrible kind of joke. I
tell you, Gladys will want this confounded thing back tomorrow. She’s
already asked me twice for it. She only gave it to me for fun.”
The girl leaned across the stone towards him, propping herself on the
palms of her hands, and laughing mischievously. “No one in this village
can get that ring out of there!” she cried; “no one! And when they
does, they’ll find it all twisted up with my hair!” She tossed back her
black locks defiantly.
Luke Andersen’s thoughts ran upon scissors, pincers, willow-wands,
bramble-thorns, and children’s arms.
“Leave it then!” he said. “After all, I can swear I lost it. Come on,
you little demon!”
They moved away; and St. Catharine’s church was only striking the hour
of nine, when they separated at her mother’s door.