THE WAY OF YOUTH
The debate is years old; not indeed quite so old as the world, since
Adam and Eve cannot, for want of opportunity, have fallen out over it,
yet descending to us from unknown antiquity. But it has never been set
at rest by general consent: the quarrel over Passive Obedience is
nothing to it. It seems such a small matter though; for the debate I
mean turns on no greater question than this: may a man who owns
allegiance to one lady justify by any train of reasoning his conduct in
snatching a kiss from another, this other being (for it is important to
have the terms right) not (so far as can be judged) unwilling? I
maintained that he might; to be sure, my position admitted of no other
argument, and, for the most part, it is a man's state which determines
his arguments and not his reasons that induce his state. Barbara
declared that he could not; though, to be sure, it was, as she added
most promptly, no concern of hers; for she cared not whether I were in
love or not, nor how deeply, nor with whom, nor, in a word, anything at
all about the matter. It was an abstract opinion she gave, so far as
love, or what men chose to call such, might be involved; as to
seemliness, she must confess that she had her view, with which, may be,
Mr Dale was not in agreement. The girl at the gardener's cottage must,
she did not doubt, agree wholly with Mr Dale; how otherwise would she
have suffered the kiss in an open space in the park, where anybody might
pass--and where, in fact (by the most perverse chance in the world),
pretty Mistress Barbara herself passed at the moment when the thing
occurred? However, if the matter could ever have had the smallest
interest for her--save in so far as it touched the reputation of the
village and might afford an evil example to the village maidens--it
could have none at all now, seeing that she set out the next day to
London, to take her place as Maid of Honour to Her Royal Highness the
Duchess, and would have as little leisure as inclination to think of Mr
Simon Dale or of how he chose to amuse himself when he believed that
none was watching. Not that she had watched: her presence was the purest
and most unwelcome chance. Yet she could not but be glad to hear that
the girl was soon to go back whence she came, to the great relief (she
was sure) of Madame Dale and of her dear friends Lucy and Mary; to her
love for whom nothing--no, nothing--should make any difference. For the
girl herself she wished no harm, but she conceived that her mother must
be ill at ease concerning her.
It will be allowed that Mistress Barbara had the most of the argument if
not the best. Indeed, I found little to say, except that the village
would be the worse by so much as the Duchess of York was the better for
Mistress Barbara's departure; the civility won me nothing but the
haughtiest curtsey and a taunt.
"Must you rehearse your pretty speeches on me before you venture them on
your friends, sir?" she asked.
"I am at your mercy, Mistress Barbara," I pleaded. "Are we to part
enemies?"
She made me no answer, but I seemed to see a softening in her face as
she turned away towards the window, whence were to be seen the stretch
of the lawn and the park-meadows beyond. I believe that with a little
more coaxing she would have pardoned me, but at the instant, by another
stroke of perversity, a small figure sauntered across the sunny fields.
The fairest sights may sometimes come amiss.
"Cydaria! A fine name!" said Barbara, with curling lip. "I'll wager she
has reasons for giving no other."
"Her mother gives another to the gardener," I reminded her meekly.
"Names are as easy given as--as kisses!" she retorted. "As for Cydaria,
my lord says it is a name out of a play."
All this while we had stood at the window, watching Cydaria's light feet
trip across the meadow, and her bonnet swing wantonly in her hand. But
now Cydaria disappeared among the trunks of the beech trees.
"See, she has gone," said I in a whisper. "She is gone, Mistress
Barbara."
Barbara understood what I would say, but she was resolved to show me no
gentleness. The soft tones of my voice had been for her, but she would
not accept their homage.
"You need not sigh for that before my face," said she. "And yet, sigh if
you will. What is it to me? But she is not gone far, and, doubtless,
will not run too fast when you pursue."
"When you are in London," said I, "you will think with remorse how ill
you used me."
"I shall never think of you at all. Do you forget that there are
gentlemen of wit and breeding at the Court?"
"The devil fly away with every one of them!" cried I suddenly, not
knowing then how well the better part of them would match their escort.
Barbara turned to me; there was a gleam of triumph in the depths of her
dark eyes.
"Perhaps when you hear of me at Court," she cried, "you'll be sorry to
think how----"
But she broke off suddenly, and looked out of the window.
"You'll find a husband there," I suggested bitterly.
"Like enough," said she carelessly.
To be plain, I was in no happy mood. Her going grieved me to the heart,
and that she should go thus incensed stung me yet more. I was jealous of
every man in London town. Had not my argument, then, some reason in it
after all?
"Fare-you-well, madame," said I, with a heavy frown and a sweeping bow.
No player from the Lane could have been more tragic.
"Fare-you-well, sir. I will not detain you, for you have, I know, other
farewells to make."
"Not for a week yet!" I cried, goaded to a show of exultation that
Cydaria stayed so long.
"I don't doubt that you'll make good use of the time," she said, as with
a fine dignity she waved me to the door. Girl as she was, she had caught
or inherited the grand air that great ladies use.
Gloomily I passed out, to fall into the hands of my lord, who was
walking on the terrace. He caught me by the arm, laughing in
good-humoured mockery.
"You've had a touch of sentiment, eh, you rogue?" said he. "Well,
there's little harm in that, since the girl leaves us to-morrow."
"Indeed, my lord, there was little harm," said I, long-faced and rueful.
"As little as my lady herself could wish." (At this he smiled and
nodded.) "Mistress Barbara will hardly so much as look at me."
He grew graver, though the smile still hung about his lips.
"They gossip about you in the village, Simon," said he. "Take a friend's
counsel, and don't be so much with the lady at the cottage. Come, I
don't speak without reason." He nodded at me as a man nods who means
more than he will say. Indeed, not a word more would he say, so that
when I left him I was even more angry than when I parted from his
daughter. And, the nature of man being such as Heaven has made it, what
need to say that I bent my steps to the cottage with all convenient
speed? The only weapon of an ill-used lover (nay, I will not argue the
merits of the case again) was ready to my hand.
Yet my impatience availed little; for there, on the seat that stood by
the door, sat my good friend the Vicar, discoursing in pleasant leisure
with the lady who named herself Cydaria.
"It is true," he was saying. "I fear it is true, though you're over
young to have learnt it."
"There are schools, sir," she returned, with a smile that had (or so it
seemed to me) a touch--no more--of bitterness in it, "where such lessons
are early learnt."
"They are best let alone, those schools," said he.
"And what's the lesson?" I asked, drawing nearer.
Neither answered. The Vicar rested his hands on the ball of his cane,
and suddenly began to relate old Betty Nasroth's prophecy to his
companion. I cannot tell what led his thoughts to it, but it was never
far from his mind when I was by. She listened with attention, smiling
brightly in whimsical amusement when the fateful words, pronounced with
due solemnity, left the Vicar's lips.
"It is a strange saying," he ended, "of which time alone can show the
truth."
She glanced at me with merry eyes, yet with a new air of interest. It is
strange the hold these superstitions have on all of us; though surely
future ages will outgrow such childishness.
"I don't know what the prophecy means," said she; "yet one thing at
least would seem needful for its fulfilment--that Mr Dale should become
acquainted with the King."
"True!" cried the Vicar eagerly. "Everything stands on that, and on that
we stick. For Simon cannot love where the King loves, nor know what the
King hides, nor drink of the King's cup, if he abide all his days here
in Hatchstead. Come, Simon, the plague is gone!"
"Should I then be gone too?" I asked. "But to what end? I have no
friends in London who would bring me to the notice of the King."
The Vicar shook his head sadly. I had no such friends, and the King had
proved before now that he could forget many a better friend to the
throne than my dear father's open mind had made of him.
"We must wait, we must wait still," said the Vicar. "Time will find a
friend."
Cydaria had become pensive for a moment, but she looked up now, smiling
again, and said to me:
"You'll soon have a friend in London."
Thinking of Barbara, I answered gloomily, "She's no friend of mine."
"I did not mean whom you mean," said Cydaria, with twinkling eyes and
not a whit put out. "But I also am going to London."
I smiled, for it did not seem as though she would be a powerful friend,
or able to open any way for me. But she met my smile with another so
full of confidence and challenge that my attention was wholly caught,
and I did not heed the Vicar's farewell as he rose and left us.
"And would you serve me," I asked, "if you had the power?"
"Nay, put the question as you think it," said she. "Would you have the
power to serve me if you had the will? Is not that the doubt in your
mind?"
"And if it were?"
"Then, indeed, I do not know how to answer; but strange things happen
there in London, and it may be that some day even I should have some
power."
"And you would use it for me?"
"Could I do less on behalf of a gentleman who has risked his mistress's
favour for my poor cheek's sake?" And she fell to laughing again, her
mirth growing greater as I turned red in the face. "You mustn't blush
when you come to town," she cried, "or they'll make a ballad on you, and
cry you in the streets for a monster."
"The oftener comes the cause, the rarer shall the effect be," said I.
"The excuse is well put," she conceded. "We should make a wit of you in
town."
"What do you in town?" I asked squarely, looking her full in the eyes.
"Perhaps, sometimes," she laughed, "what I have done once--and to your
good knowledge--since I came to the country."
Thus she would baffle me with jesting answers as often as I sought to
find out who and what she was. Nor had I better fortune with her mother,
for whom I had small liking, and who had, as it seemed, no more for me.
For she was short in her talk, and frowned to see me with her daughter.
Yet she saw me, I must confess, often with Cydaria in the next days, and
I was often with Cydaria when she did not see me. For Barbara was gone,
leaving me both sore and lonely, all in the mood to find comfort where I
could, and to see manliness in desertion; and there was a charm about
the girl that grew on me insensibly and without my will until I came to
love, not her (as I believed, forgetting that Love loves not to mark his
boundaries too strictly) but her merry temper, her wit and cheerfulness.
Moreover, these things were mingled and spiced with others, more
attractive than all to unfledged youth, an air of the world and a
knowledge of life which piqued my curiosity and sat (it seems so even to
my later mind as I look back) with bewitching incongruity on the
laughing child's face and the unripe grace of girlhood. Her moods were
endless, vying with one another in an ever undetermined struggle for the
prize of greatest charm. For the most part she was merry, frank mirth
passing into sly raillery; now and then she would turn sad, sighing,
"Heigho, that I could stay in the sweet innocent country!" Or again she
would show or ape an uneasy conscience, whispering, "Ah, that I were
like your Mistress Barbara!" The next moment she would be laughing and
jesting and mocking, as though life were nought but a great
many-coloured bubble, and she the brightest-tinted gleam on it.
Are women so constant and men so forgetful, that all sympathy must go
from me and all esteem be forfeited because, being of the age of
eighteen years, I vowed to live for one lady only on a Monday and was
ready to die for another on the Saturday? Look back; bow your heads, and
give me your hands, to kiss or to clasp!
Let not you and I inquire
What has been our past desire,
On what shepherds you have smiled,
Or what nymphs I have beguiled;
Leave it to the planets too
What we shall hereafter do;
For the joys we now may prove,
Take advice of present love.
Nay, I will not set my name to that in its fulness; Mr Waller is a
little too free for one who has been nicknamed a Puritan to follow him
to the end. Yet there is a truth in it. Deny it, if you will. You are
smiling, madame, while you deny.
It was a golden summer's evening when I, to whom the golden world was
all a hell, came by tryst to the park of Quinton Manor, there to bid
Cydaria farewell. Mother and sisters had looked askance at me, the
village gossiped, even the Vicar shook a kindly head. What cared I? By
Heaven, why was one man a nobleman and rich, while another had no money
in his purse and but one change to his back? Was not love all in all,
and why did Cydaria laugh at a truth so manifest? There she was under
the beech tree, with her sweet face screwed up to a burlesque of grief,
her little hand lying on her hard heart as though it beat for me, and
her eyes the playground of a thousand quick expressions. I strode up to
her, and caught her by the hand, saying no more than just her name,
"Cydaria." It seemed that there was no more to say; yet she cried,
laughing and reproachful, "Have you no vows for me? Must I go without my
tribute?"
I loosed her hand and stood away from her. On my soul, I could not
speak. I was tongue-tied, dumb as a dog.
"When you come courting in London," she said, "you must not come so
empty of lover's baggage. There ladies ask vows, and protestations, and
despair, ay, and poetry, and rhapsodies, and I know not what."
"Of all these I have nothing but despair," said I.
"Then you make a sad lover," she pouted. "And I am glad to be going
where lovers are less woebegone."
"You look for lovers in London?" I cried, I that had cried to
Barbara--well, I have said my say on that.
"If Heaven send them," answered Cydaria.
"And you will forget me?"
"In truth, yes, unless you come yourself to remind me. I have no head
for absent lovers."
"But if I come----" I began in a sudden flush of hope.
She did not (though it was her custom) answer in raillery; she plucked a
leaf from the tree, and tore it with her fingers as she answered with a
curious glance.
"Why, if you come, I think you'll wish that you had not come, unless,
indeed, you've forgotten me before you come."
"Forget you! Never while I live! May I come, Cydaria?"
"Most certainly, sir, so soon as your wardrobe and your purse allow.
Nay, don't be huffed. Come, Simon, sweet Simon, are we not friends, and
may not friends rally one another? No, and if I choose, I will put my
hand through your arm. Indeed, sir, you're the first gentleman that ever
thrust it away. See, it is there now! Doesn't it look well there,
Simon--and feel well there, Simon?" She looked up into my face in
coaxing apology for the hurt she had given me, and yet still with
mockery of my tragic airs. "Yes, you must by all means come to London,"
she went on, patting my arm. "Is not Mistress Barbara in London? And I
think--am I wrong, Simon?--that there is something for which you will
want to ask her pardon."
"If I come to London, it is for you and you only that I shall come," I
cried.
"No, no. You will come to love where the King loves, to know what he
hides, and to drink of his cup. I, sir, cannot interfere with your great
destiny"; she drew away from me, curtseyed low, and stood opposite to
me, smiling.
"For you and for you only," I repeated.
"Then will the King love me?" she asked.
"God forbid," said I fervently.
"Oh, and why, pray, your 'God forbid'? You're very ready with your 'God
forbids.' Am I then to take your love sooner than the King's, Master
Simon?"
"Mine is an honest love," said I soberly.
"Oh, I should doat on the country, if everybody didn't talk of his
honesty there! I have seen the King in London and he is a fine
gentleman."
"And you have seen the Queen also, may be?"
"In truth, yes. Ah, I have shocked you, Simon? Well, I was wrong. Come,
we're in the country; we'll be good. But when we've made a townsman of
you, we'll--we will be what they are in town. Moreover, in ten minutes I
am going home, and it would be hard if I also left you in anger. You
shall have a pleasanter memory of my going than Mistress Barbara's gave
you."
"How shall I find you when I come to town?"
"Why, if you will ask any gentleman you meet whether he chances to
remember Cydaria, you will find me as soon as it is well you should."
I prayed her to tell me more; but she was resolved to tell no more.
"See, it is late. I go," said she. Then suddenly she came near to me.
"Poor Simon," she said softly. "Yet it is good for you, Simon. Some day
you will be amused at this, Simon"; she spoke as though she were fifty
years older than I. My answer lay not in words or arguments. I caught
her in my arms and kissed her. She struggled, yet she laughed. It shot
through my mind then that Barbara would neither have struggled nor
laughed. But Cydaria laughed.
Presently I let her go, and kneeling on my knee kissed her hand very
humbly, as though she had been what Barbara was. If she were not--and I
knew not what she was--yet should my love exalt her and make a throne
whereon she might sit a Queen. My new posture brought a sudden gravity
to her face, and she bent over me with a smile that seemed now tender
and almost sorrowful.
"Poor Simon, poor Simon," she whispered. "Kiss my hand now; kiss it as
though I were fit for worship. It will do you no harm, and--and
perhaps--perhaps I shall like to remember it." She bent down and kissed
my forehead as I knelt before her. "Poor Simon," she whispered, as her
hair brushed mine. Then her hand was gradually and gently withdrawn. I
looked up to see her face; her lips were smiling but there seemed a dew
on her lashes. She laughed, and the laugh ended in a little gasp, as
though a sob had fought with it. And she cried out loud, her voice
ringing clear among the trees in the still evening air.
"That ever I should be so sore a fool!"
Then she turned and left me, running swiftly over the grass, with never
a look behind her. I watched till she was out of sight, and then sat
down on the ground; with twitching lips and wide-open dreary eyes.
Ah, for youth's happiness! Alas for its dismal woe! Thus she came into
my life.