IF ever a girl’s coming-out was a triumphal progress, Gwen’s was. There
was just the same suggestion of stifled groans, and hidden wounds, and
silent blood streams in it, as there is in the processions of all
conquerors, and just the same cool indifference to this part of the show
distinguished the girl’s face and added curiously to its charm.
As she swept calmly on her way her victims fell to right and to left of
her without a groan or a murmur, noisy appeal seemed quite out of the
question in the presence of this magnificent inscrutable creature.
In her grand scornful way she revelled in the glory of her march, and
wore her laurels as if she had been used to them since her long-clothes’
days—this sort of thing just suited her, it was so thoroughly just, so
fair, her mere due, and no more, and she felt neither elation nor any
special gratitude in accepting it all.
For a whole year—first in the country, then in London—this went on, and
Gwen never felt so unconsciously Christian-like in her life; she had no
cause to rail against anything; she had no time to feel empty about the
heart. Besides, her heart was filled in a way with the steam from the
victims sacrificed in her honour, and the intangibility of the stuffing
didn’t trouble her, it was warm and smelt like spikenard.
As for the feelings of the victims, these did not enter into her
calculations, the whole show was so absolutely impersonal to her. For
any pangs she might feel for the aloofness of the two she called father
and mother, she had decided some time ago to smother these and to cast
them out, harbouring and encouraging them never having altered or
influenced the state of affairs by one finger’s breadth.
She saw little of Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes in these days. The Scripture
lessons had come to an end and she had turned the whole subject into her
mind’s rubbish hole; what she had learned was sufficiently interesting
at the time, but it had never come any farther than to the outer edge of
her life, even when it was warmed and lighted by Mr. Fellowes’ love for
his subject and when the hours spent at the Rectory were the only bright
flecks in the week’s dinginess.
Now all these surroundings were withdrawn, the slight mist of glamour
that used to hang round the subject had floated off, and Gwen was quite
ready to shoot her stored-up accumulation of facts and deductions
anywhere, to make room for more serviceable stuff. Only, what we have
learned, good or bad, we must keep somewhere, God help us!
She was a clever girl, however, and well-bred, and had read a good deal
one way and the other, so she had the sense to hold her tongue and to
keep her embryo opinions to herself. This made her equally magnanimous
as regarded the opinions of her neighbours.
“Gwen’s attitude of mind makes me quite sick,” said Mrs. Fellowes one
day, “that is, when she shows a glimpse of it, which isn’t often
nowadays. She hasn’t had a volcanic outbreak for a century, they are
ruinous to one’s clothes, but I’d bear the spoiling of my new front for
one this minute.”
Mr. Fellowes laughed.
“There is a twist in her somehow and we have come to a nasty
obstruction. When she is properly straightened she’ll be a fine
creature, but the untwisting will be too gradual for you, my poor Ruth,
you’ll be worn out before it’s finished.”
“One would think she was a boa constrictor, I believe she has a touch of
its nature too; she crushes hearts enough anyway, and with just as
little compunction. I am sorry for young Patrick Hamilton, I love that
boy.”
“Which is no reason at all why Gwen should. The girl doesn’t flirt, and
he sought his crushing with open eyes. I believe it’s the girl’s brains
as much as her beauty that dominates and reduces men’s hearts.”
“Very likely—the bigger fool a man is, the more he is vanquished by
brain, especially if it keeps itself in the background and doesn’t
frighten him. He likes the agreeable sensation of importance the
possible possession of such a power gives him, and in his state of
nervous tension, the creature is apt to get mixed and to imagine that
the power he worships radiates somehow from him to his idol instead of
contrariwise.”
“A very comprehensive summary of our modes of thought, my dear, racy but
untrustworthy. I don’t, however, imagine that in Gwen’s case any man is
quite ass enough to imagine himself the source of her intellectual
strength.”
“Oh, perhaps not, Gwen’s getting beyond me. If she goes on like this,
between brains and beauty, she’ll be no better than a charnel house for
crushed hearts. Pah!”
“For the shadow of the things, not the substance—do you imagine the
victims haven’t as firm a hold on their organs as ever they had? It’s
only an idea they lose half the times.”
“Well, they make as much moan over it as if it were a very tangible
flesh-and-blood article all bristling with nerves. I hate to look at
Patrick’s face, I wish he would go and shoot buffaloes, or take a tonic,
or do anything but drink tea in that chair and draw sympathy out of me
with those soft cowey eyes of his! He had only just left when you came.”
“I should be glad for your digestion’s sake if he would recover himself,
you’ve swallowed three cups of tea in ten minutes.”
“Yes, to wash out the memory of that boy!”
“Rather a roundabout way to go to work; if you don’t look out Pat’s
heart will be sound long before your digestive organs are.”
“Never mind, they haven’t a tinge of Americanism about them, they
haven’t so much as caught the accent. But how can you keep on being so
hopeful of Gwen? I am downright miserable about her.”
“I have the greatest trust in the girl, my feeling about her is like
faith, it is inexplicable, but it’s so natural, so instinctive and
ingrained one feels its truth.”
“I suppose in the end she will marry,” said Mrs. Fellowes, “it’s the
natural end or beginning of her.”
“Then—well, it’s not a very original observation to make, but it’s the
only one that comes to my mind—God help her!”
“_God help him more!_ Poor wretch, he’ll want it all!”