SOME PEOPLE ARE HAPPY--IN DIFFERENT WAYS
Tony Strife reached Shovelstrode in a state of reckless and sublime
uncertainty. She was quite uncertain as to whether she meant to confess
or not. Precedent urged her to do so. Whenever she did something of
which she was not sure her parents would approve, it was part of her
code to confess it. Quite possibly her people would not blame her, they
might even be grateful to Mr. Smith, as they had been on a former
occasion. On the other hand, they might shake their heads at the picnic
part of the business. Who was Mr. Smith, that he should go picnicing
with their daughter?--and she would not be so confident in answering as
she had been before.
During their short interview on East Grinstead platform it had not been
possible to take more than a superficial view of him, either with eyes
or mind; but the close contemplation at Brambletye had impressed her
with the conviction that he was "rather queer." He evidently did not
belong to their set; not because he was poor--they knew several people
who were poor--but because of a certain alien quality she could not
define. It was not, either, because he was not a "gentleman," though she
had her occasional doubts of that, alternating with savage contempt for
them. It was because his manner, his look, his behaviour, had all been
utterly different from what she was used to, or had met at
Shovelstrode. She felt that if her parents were to question her
searchingly, her answers would be unsatisfactory, and she would not be
allowed to meet him again, as he had suggested. And she wanted to meet
him again; he had interested her, he had attracted her by that very
"queerness" with which he had occasionally repelled her. She wanted to
tell him more about her school, to have more of his strange confidences,
hear more from him about Furlonger, see again that hunted look in his
eyes. Only one of her memories of him was tender--that was when his
infinite suffering had called to her out of his eyes, and she had
answered it in a sudden new and divine surge of pain. She caught her
breath sharply as she went into the house.
Yes--she had decided at last--she would keep her secret--her first of
any importance. She would not risk interference with what looked like a
glowing adventure kindled to brighten her exile. Besides, there was
another consideration. If Awdrey were to hear of it, she would at once
begin to weave one of her silly romances--make out Mr. Smith was in
love. Ugh! Tony's shoulders shrugged high in disdain.
It would be quite easy to give an account of her afternoon which did not
include her adventure. She would tell how her tyre had punctured, how
she had tried in vain to mend it, and had at last come home on foot. Her
concealment did not afflict her, as she had at first imagined. On the
contrary, it gave her a strange, new feeling of importance and
independence. For the first time a certain warmth and colour crept into
her thoughts, a certain pride invaded the shy dignity of her step.
That night she dreamed that she had gone to meet Mr. Smith at
Brambletye. She saw the two capped turrets against a background of
shimmering light. Mr. Smith took her hand and looked into her eyes in
that strange, troubled way which called up as before an answering pain.
He said something she could not remember when she woke. Then suddenly a
dark shape seemed to rush between them and whirl them apart. She cried
out, and Mr. Smith seemed to be answering her from a great distance:
"Don't be frightened--it's only Furlonger--it's only Furlonger." But the
fear grew upon her, the darkness wrapt her round, and, struggling in the
darkness, she awoke.
All that day she wondered if she would meet him. She prowled round
Shovelstrode with her dog, ignoring an invitation from Awdrey to "come
for a stroll, and hear the latest about Captain le Bourbourg." She was
used to being alone during her holidays. It was her habit to walk with
Prince in the little twisting lanes round her home. She never went far,
but she used to spend long hours in the fields, gathering wild flowers
and leaves for her collection, or making Prince go racing in the grass.
A rather forlorn little figure, she had gone through the days
unconscious of her forlornness. But to-day she felt it--because she was
expecting some one who did not come. She did not meet him in any of
those thick-rutted lanes, nor in Swites Wood, nor on the borders of
Holtye Common where she went for blackberries.
She began to wonder if he would ever come, or if her glimpse of a world
beyond the strait boundaries of her life had been but a flash--a sudden
haze of gold in the ruins of Brambletye. She felt her loneliness, the
blank of having no one to speak to about school, the strange tickling
interest of confidences outside her experience. That night as she knelt
by the bed and watched the moon behind the pines, she added to her
prayers a stiff petition that she might "meet Mr. Smith again."
Tony's belief in prayer was quite mechanical, and when the next day she
saw her shabby friend on a stile at the top of Wilderwick hill, she in
no wise connected the sight with those few uncomfortable moments on her
knees.
"Good morning," she said simply; "I'm so glad to see you."
Nigel smiled at her. At first she had wondered a little whether she
liked his smile--to-day she definitely decided that she did.
"I hoped we'd meet again," he said.
"So did I," answered the virginal candour of sixteen.
"You don't think me queer, then?"
"Ye-es. But I like it."
"Could we be friends?"
"Yes--rather!"
He held out his hand. He was smiling--but suddenly as her hand took his,
she saw the old wretched look creep into his eyes, together with
something else that puzzled her. Were those tears? Did men ever cry?
She found herself feeling frightened and vexed.
Nigel crimsoned with shame, and the fire of his anger licked up the
tears of his weakness. The next moment he was looking at her with dry
eyes--and, strange to say, from that day his childish fits of weeping
troubled him less.
He and Tony turned almost mechanically down the narrow grass lane
leading past Old Surrey Hall to the woods of Cowsanish. They did not
speak much at first--indeed, a kind of restraint seemed established
between them. Nigel wondered more than ever what had made him seek her
out--this naïve, shy, rather limited little girl. All yesterday he had
been struggling with a desperate need of her. He could not understand
why he wanted her so; she was not nearly as sympathetic as Len and
Janey, she was not so interesting, even, and yet he wanted her.
At first he had thought it was her ignorance of his past life which made
her presence such refreshment--the blessed fact that with her he had a
clean slate to write over. After all, though Len and Janey had forgiven,
they could not forget--for them his muddled sum was only crossed out,
not wiped clean. With Tony he could start afresh from the beginning, not
merely where his miserable blunder ended. And yet this was not all that
drew him to her. He felt deep down in his heart a subtler, more
compelling attraction. What brought him to Tony was a development of the
same feeling that had made him catch up the unlovely Ivy in his arms and
find her sweet. It was a fragment of that strange, new part of him,
which had been born in prison, and frightened Len and Janey--the child.
He could not remember that before his dark years he had felt
particularly young for his age, or cared for young society; but now his
heart seemed full of irrepressible torrents of youth. He wanted to be
with boys and girls, to hear their shouts, to share their laughter, to
join in their games--not as a "grown-up," but as one of themselves. Why
did every one expect him to have grown old in prison? Sorrow does not
always make old, it often makes young. It sends a man back pleading to
the forgotten days of his youth, struggling to recapture them once more,
and bring their carelessness into his awful care.
To-day he lost his troubles in finding grasses and leaves for Tony's
collection. After a time her constraint wore off. She chattered to him
about school friends, lessons and games, daring adventures and desperate
scrapes. That day he found such a mood more sweet to him than any
glimpse of pity or understanding she could have shown. He might want her
compassion--the woman in her--sometimes, but only transiently; what he
wanted most was the child in her, for it answered the sorrow-born child
crying in the darkness of his heart.
They scrambled in the hedges for bloody-twig and bryony, they gathered
the yellowing hazel, and bunches of strange pods. Nigel was able to tell
her the names of many plants and bushes she had not known before--he was
wonderfully enthusiastic, and loved to hear about the botany walks at
school, and the other collections she had made, which had sometimes won
prizes.
It was past noon when they turned home. The distances were dim, hazed
with mist and sunshine. A faint wind was stirring in the trees, and now
and then a shower of golden leaves swept into the lane, whirled round,
then fluttered slowly to the grass. Some rain had fallen early in the
morning, and the hedges were still wet, sending up sweet steams of
perfume to the cloud-latticed sky.
Nigel spoke suddenly.
"Do your parents know about me?"
"They know about East Grinstead, but not about Brambletye."
"Shall you tell them?"
"No--I don't think I shall. I--I'm not at all sure what they'd say if
they knew all the facts."
"Nor am I," said Nigel grimly.
"Besides, I hate telling people about things I really enjoy--it spoils
it all, somehow. You don't think it's wrong, do you?"
"No--why should it be?"
"I don't know--only whenever a thing's absolutely heavenly, one can't
help thinking there's something wrong about it."
"Well, I don't see why there should be anything wrong about this. I'm
lonely, and so are you--why shouldn't we be friends?"
"I've never done anything like it before. It's funny that father and
mother are so awfully particular, for they don't bother about me much
in other ways. I'm nearly always alone when I'm at Shovelstrode.
Father's busy, and mother's not strong, and Awdrey has so many people to
go about with."
"And when you come back from a long walk, no one asks you where you've
been, or whom you've met?"
"I'm not supposed to go for long walks by myself--only to potter round
the estate--and no one ever asks me any questions."
Her voice was rather pathetic--in contrast to her proud assurance when
she talked about school.
"We'll meet again," he said impulsively.
"I hope so--I hope so awfully. To-morrow I've got to go over to
Haxsmiths in the car with Awdrey, but I've nothing else all the rest of
this week. I wanted father to take me to Lingfield races on Saturday,
but he can't."
"Do you like race-meetings?"
"I've never been to one in my life. I wanted so much to go this
time--I'm generally at school, you know, and it seemed such a good
chance; but father has to be in Lewes, and Awdrey's spending the
week-end in Brighton--besides, I couldn't go with her alone, one wants a
man."
"I'll take you if you like."
"You! Oh!"
"Shouldn't you like it?"
"I should love it--but if any one saw us ... father would be furious."
"No one shall see us--we won't go into any of the enclosures and risk
meeting your friends. Do let me take you."
Tony flushed with pleasure and fright. This was adventure indeed.
"I'd love to go. Oh, how ripping!"
When Nigel reached home that morning he went straight to find Janey.
There was something vital between him and his sister--each brought the
other the first-fruits of emotion. Janet might find Leonard a tenderer
comforter, more thoughtful, more demonstrative, but there was not
between them that affinity of sorrow there was between her and Nigel.
Not that she ever told him, even hinted, why she suffered, but the mere
glance of his eyes, so childish yet so troubled, the mere touch of those
hands coarsened and spoiled by the toil of his humiliation, was more
comfort to her than Len's caresses or tender words. Nigel could repeat
the magic formula of sympathy--"I too have known...."
He felt, unconsciously, the same towards her. But it was more happiness
than grief that he brought her. He had acquired the habit of eating his
heart out alone, but happiness was so new and strange that he hardly
knew what to do with it. So he ran with it to Janey, like a child to his
mother with something he does not quite understand.
To-day he found her in the kitchen, sitting by the fire, and watching
some of her doubtful cookery. Her back was bent, and her arms rested
from the elbow on her lap, the long hands dropping over the knees. Her
face, thrust forward from the gloom of her hair, wore a strange white
look of defiance, while her lips quivered with surrender.
He sat down at her feet, and leaned his head against her lap. He vaguely
felt she was unhappy, but he did not try to comfort her, merely took one
of the long, hot hands in his. She did not speak, either--but her heart
kindled at his presence. She knew that he had been happier for the last
two days, though yesterday he had also seemed to have some anxiety,
fretting and questioning. His happiness meant much to her. All her
happiness now was vicarious--Quentin's, Leonard's or Nigel's. In her own
heart were only flashes and sparks of it, that scorched as well as
gladdened.
Life was a perplexity--life was pulling her two ways. She seemed to be
hanging, a tortured, wind-swung thing, between earth and heaven, and she
could hardly tell which hurt her most--her sudden falls down or her
sudden snatchings up. Earth and heaven, brute and god, were always
meeting now, clashing like two ill-tuned cymbals.
Her shame was that her love and Quentin's had not been strong enough to
wait. She had looked upon it as an exalted spiritual passion, and it had
suddenly shown itself impatient and bodily. It had fallen to the level
of a thousand other loves. Sometimes she almost wished that it had been
a more despised lover who had won her surrender--better fall from the
trees than from the stars.
Moreover, her sacrifice had not won her what she was seeking, but
something inferior and makeshift. What she had dreamed of as the crown
of love had been a life of kingly, fearless association, the
sanctification of every day, an undying Together. That was still far
away. Borne on an undercurrent she had till then hardly suspected, she
and Quentin had been washed into the backwaters of their dream. She had
only one comfort, and that was paradoxically at times the chief of her
regrets--Quentin was happy. Unlike her, he seemed to have found all he
had been seeking. She was still unsatisfied, her heart still yearned
after higher, sweeter things, but again and again he told her he had all
his desire.
"I am in Paradise--Janey, my own Janey. We climbed over the gates, and
we are there--together in the garden"--and his lips would burn against
hers, and even the tears brim from his fiery, sunken eyes.
She never let him think she was not happy. She meekly and bravely
accepted the vocation of her womanhood--if he was happy, all her wishes,
except certain secret personal ones, were gratified. For his sake she
put aside her dreams, and fixed her thoughts on what was, forgetting
what might have been. She broke her heart like a box of spikenard, that
she might anoint him king.
A shudder passed through Janey, and Nigel's head stirred on her knee. He
lifted it, and looked into her eyes--then he drew down her face to his
and kissed it.
"You're tired, my Janey."
His voice thrilled with a tenderness that carried her back to the days
before he went to prison.
"No, dear, not tired--but I've a bit of a headache."
"I'm so sorry. Oughtn't you to lie down?"
"No--it will go."
"Poor old sister!"
He put up his hand and laid it gently on her forehead. Then suddenly he
hid his face.
"Oh, Janey, I'm so happy!"