She felt that he was slipping from her, and that nothing would be as she
had pictured it, but she had not the self-control to spare him her
complaints and appeals. He was always kind, but he was firm too, with a
man's firmness towards a weak and foolish woman. He had grown
immeasurably in mental stature, and his determination impressed itself
upon her increasingly. That mention of authority over him with which
she had begun now seemed foolish even to her. As they went into the
house she said: "Of course I don't want to treat you like a boy any
more. I only want to be sure that you don't love anybody better than
me. You do love me best, don't you, Harry?"
He bent down and kissed her. "You know I love you, mother," he said.
"Now I'll go and talk to Granny. Come and see me when I go to bed--say
in half an hour--as you used to."
That comforted her a little, and she went upstairs, while he went into
the drawing-room where Lady Brent was still sitting where they had left
her.
"Well, Granny dear," he said. "I thought we'd have a little talk. I've
got things to tell you."
She laid down her work, and looked at him fondly, sitting in a low chair
opposite to her, so young in appearance, as he sat there with his long
legs stretched out, but, as she felt, so old in experience, and so
different from the boy he had been.
"Please don't think, dear Harry," she said, "that you owe me any
explanation of anything. I've had a long time to think it all out, you
know. I think I understand most things. Don't you want it treated as
if it was all over now, and begin again, much as it was before? If so,
I want that too. We've got you at home now, and we want to be all happy
together."
His face cleared as he spoke. "It's very good of you to put it like
that," he said. "Yes, of course I want it to be as much as possible
what it used to be as long as I can be here with you. There's a good
deal I want to forget."
"I'm afraid you've been through a very hard time, Harry."
"Not harder than others, Granny. It's not a bad thing to learn what you
have to learn in a hard school. Perhaps you learn it all the quicker."
There was a pause before she said: "It has troubled me a good deal--the
thought of your going straight from the life you lived here into the
ranks. It wasn't that that we'd tried to prepare you for."
"Oh, the ranks!" he said. "You needn't let that worry you, Granny. I'm
glad I went into the ranks. I'd rather do it that way than any."
She showed some surprise at this. "I've thought it over and over," she
said. "But I've never thought of it in that way. It was the roughness
and coarseness I hated for you. Isn't that what you want to forget?"
He was silent for a time, looking down. Then he burst out: "It's
learning what the beastliness of life is that I want to forget. That's
what I'd never known. I never minded hard work--doing what others do.
And I doubt whether I should have been let down so easily with people
like myself--on the outside, I mean. No, I was nearer to the men who
had lived simpler lives. I understood them better than I should have
done the others. And they were good to me too. I don't think I should
have wanted to get a commission if I hadn't felt I ought to. I should
have been content to go on till the end of it. But now it's all got to
begin again. Oh, don't let's talk of it. I've got a month here, where
it's quiet and clean and beautiful. Let's forget what's past and what's
coming. I never meant to talk of it. I only wanted to tell you what I
was going to do, and to thank you for letting me go my own way."
Poor Lady Brent went to bed that night with something new to think
about. She could not sleep, and wrote a long letter to Wilbraham in
London. "We might have thought of that," she wrote in the course of it.
"It wouldn't have been the little hardships that would trouble him. He
had prepared himself for all that, with the life out of doors that he
had led here. And he would understand the men he was with, because he
was friends with everybody about here. I'm sure they must have loved
him too, and all the more because he wasn't like them. The others would
have expected him to be like them. I am full of trouble about him. It
looks to me now as if we had prepared him for nothing, so as to save him
pain. Life has come as a shock to him, and he has not got over it yet.
But one thing I'm sure of--he must work it out for himself. I shall
meddle with him no more. I am not sure that I have not made a great
mistake."
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*CONFIDENCES*
Whatever it was that Lady Brent and Lady Avalon had plotted between
them, it needed no adjustment of Lady Brent's statement to
Wilbraham--that henceforth she should meddle no more in Harry's life--to
help or hinder it. They had only to stand aside and perhaps to
congratulate one another upon the way their desires were being
fulfilled. Only Mrs. Brent went about with a downcast face and air, and
but for the kindness Harry showed her might as well have been back in
London. She also wrote to Wilbraham, and told him that Harry and Sidney
seemed to be falling more and more in love with one another every day.
"Of course it's hard on me," she wrote. "But it's what mothers are made
for, I suppose. You do everything for your children and sink yourself
entirely, and then some girl steps in and takes it all from you.
However, I'm not going to show her that I feel it. She's got the better
of me once more. The girl doesn't take the slightest trouble about
me--doesn't think I'm worth it, I suppose--and for myself I don't care
about her. But she is the right sort of girl for Harry to marry, or at
any rate to fall in love with. Whatever I am, I'm fair, and I can see
that. I should hate anybody who would take him away from me, so it
might just as well be her as anybody. They're happy together, and Harry
is more like his old self. I'm sure they've not said anything to one
another yet. They take Jane Grant with them whenever they can get hold
of her, and they wouldn't want to do that if it had gone very far with
them. The moment they want to go off by themselves I shall know what to
expect, and I'll let you know, but I hope you'll be down here before
then. We are very glad you are coming. Harry often talks about you.
How I wish it was all like it used to be! But it never will be again."
Harry and Sidney rode together, and Harry found a horse for Jane and
taught her to ride. Lady Avalon had a car at Royd and sometimes they
motored over to Poldaven, where everything was now ready for the
reception of a family of distinction. But Lady Avalon had gone back to
London, and Sidney stayed on at Royd. There was no talk of her going
away.
Jane could not be always with them. She had been let off afternoon
lessons, by special request, but had to occupy herself with them in the
mornings.
One hot morning Harry and Sidney motored over to Poldaven Castle. It
was an old stone house, not very big, which stood on a boldly jutting
cliff with the sea on three sides of it. There was generally some wind
hereabouts, and there was a strong fresh wind this morning, though among
the woods of Royd it was close and still.
They went down to a little sheltered garden below the house. It had
been partly hollowed out of the rock, and was partly rock-strewn grass
and gorse and fern tamed into some semblance of ordered ground, but not
too much to take from the charm of its wildness. Steps cut in the rock
led down to it from above, and steps had been made from it to the sea,
which lay fifty or sixty feet below. They sat on a stone bench
overlooking the heaving emerald mass of the sea, and the waves breaking
in a high tide against the cliffs and the huge scattered rocks that
littered the shore.
They were very good friends now, these two. It was Jane who had brought
them together, for she greatly admired both of them, and would not be
content until they admired one another. So they laughed at her and
affected a wondering awe at each other's perfections when they were in
her presence; and when they were alone together they sometimes kept up
the game, to prevent themselves falling into sadness over their private
troubles.
They were both a little sad now, as they sat on the sun-warmed rock and
looked out on the surge of the waves. Nature was so bright and fresh
and happy, and seemed to be inviting a mood to respond to her own. She
could put on this air of perpetual laughing youthfulness, though age-old
and subject to moods very different. It seemed ungracious not to laugh
and be happy with her.
"It's lovely here," Sidney said. "If only things would go right!
You're the most perfect person in the world, Harry. I ought to be quite
happy being here with you, but I want somebody else. I'm wanting him
rather badly just at present."
"Well, you're everything you ought to be, but I want somebody else too,"
he said.
He rose impulsively and leant against the wall of the little terrace
with one arm resting on it, and looked down at her. "I've thought I'd
tell you for some time," he said. "I want to tell somebody. I can't
tell Jane; she's too young. But you're in the same boat as I am; you'll
understand. And we're friends too, aren't we?--always have been."
She had appeared startled at his announcement, but her face was soft as
he finished. "Oh, yes, we're friends," she said. "I'm so glad you've
told me, Harry. Do you know I've wondered sometimes whether there was
somebody. You so often look--well, you look like I feel. You're
enjoying yourself, but there's somebody you're thinking of all the time
who isn't there. Do tell me about it."
He told her about his meeting with Viola on the moor, and how they had
seen one another constantly afterwards and loved one another. Sidney's
eyes were kind as she listened, but there was a little frown of
puzzlement on her face. It was to be supposed that she wanted to
"place" this lovely girl who had come to Harry as a revelation when he
had been only a boy, and whom he adored still. He had told her nothing
about her so far, except that her father was an artist and they had been
holiday-making at Royd. There were many questions she wanted to ask.
"Have you got a photograph of her, Harry?" was the first that she asked.
She wanted to satisfy herself that he was not idealizing somebody not
worthy of him.
Half unwillingly he took his case out of his pocket, and Viola's
photograph out of it. "It isn't as beautiful as she is," he said, "but
it's like her in some ways."
Sidney took the card and looked at it for a long time. It was of Viola
as Harry had first known her, young and sweet and untroubled.
"She's very lovely," she said, slowly. Then she looked up at him with a
smile. "I'm so glad, Harry. I shouldn't like to think of you in love
with somebody who wasn't like that. But I think she'd have to be, for
you to fall in love with her. Have you seen her since?"
Yes, he had seen her two or three times before he had been sent abroad,
and he had been with her since he had come back, before he had come to
Royd. She was in London, working in a government office. He was going
to London for a few days before his leave was up, and would see her
again after that before he went to France.
He spoke as if he was troubled about it, and she knew why. But there
was a lot to learn about it yet. And there was something about the
beginnings of this love affair that she could not quite reconcile with
her knowledge of Harry.
"Of course you're both frightfully young," she said. "Noel and I are of
an age to get married if they'd let us, but I suppose you could hardly
expect them to think that you were. But mightn't they accept your
engagement, and let her be here with you?"
He came and sat on the seat beside her again. "Of course we shall be
married some day," he said. "But we never thought about that, or about
what you call an engagement--I mean we didn't think of it in the way
that older people would. We were just happy loving each other."
"Oh, I know," she said. "It's a lovely time that--perhaps the best of
all. But afterwards you come down to the earth a little. I suppose it
has been like that with you, hasn't it? There are one's people to be
considered, and what they are likely to think about it. I suppose
nobody knows--at Royd."
"Wilbraham does--my tutor, you know. Nobody else does."
She showed surprise at this. "Did he find out you were seeing her?" she
asked.
He stirred uneasily. He did not answer her question directly. "I don't
suppose you'd realize quite how it was with me here, before I went
away," he said. "They'd kept me shut up. I was happy enough, but I knew
absolutely nothing about the world. From what I've learnt since, I know
it must look as if we had met surreptitiously. Perhaps we did, and yet
it wasn't like that either. It was the most natural thing in the world
for us to be together as we were. At first I even thought of telling my
mother about it. I don't know now when it first dawned upon me that
they wouldn't have approved--or why. I shouldn't have cared much if
they had known. But it was such a beautiful secret between Viola and
me; I didn't want it to be spoiled by other--older people--coming in."
"Mr. Wilbraham knew," she said.
"He'd seen her. He knew what she was like. He's a dear old thing--full
of understanding and sympathy. I don't know why he didn't tell Granny.
I didn't ask him not to. I wouldn't have done that; that would have
looked as if I had done something I was ashamed of. I've had an idea
since that he had some sort of feeling that we were two men together,
and it wasn't for us to be directed in our affairs by a woman.
Something like that. Granny has always been very much at the head of
things here."
"Yes, I see," she said. "But now you're older, Harry; and it has
lasted? That sort of love, when you're _very_ young, doesn't _always_
last, you know. Wouldn't Lady Brent accept it now? It would be so
lovely if she could come here, and you could be happy with her as long
as you're in England. You wouldn't have to go away to London to see her
then."
There was silence for a time, except for the noise of the waves on the
rocks, and the plaintive cry of the gulls wheeling above them. Harry
sat looking on the rocky floor, Sidney out to sea.
"I've had to decide such a lot of things for myself lately," he said.
"I'd decided not to do that."
She thought his tone sounded as if he were wavering about his decision.
She did not look at him, but said: "With Noel and me it's a very
ordinary sort of difficulty. He's not what they'd call a good match.
But I suppose they won't hold out if we show that we mean to have our
own way. If they do, well, I shall wait till I'm twenty-one and marry
him--just like that. But, of course, it would make a lot of difference
if they smiled on us now, instead of keeping us apart. The real reason
why we've come down here is because if he comes home on leave I should
see him, and they don't want me to; and partly, I suppose, because they
think you and I might get to like each other, now we're both grown up.
Why can't they let us be happy in our own way--the older people?
They've done what they wanted, or if they haven't they're probably
rather sorry for it now. I should be very glad if Noel were in the sort
of position that my sisters' husbands are. But I shouldn't love him any
better for it. It's love that counts."
"Yes, of course," said Harry. "Well, both you and I are going to get
what we want by and by. I suppose we shall have to wait about the same
time for it. But you never know what's going to happen to you in these
days. If I were to get killed, I should have missed something I ought
to have had. You'd say it wouldn't make much difference to me, but I
don't look at it like that; and anyhow it would make a difference to
Viola, all her life."
Her eyes had filled with tears. "It just doesn't do to think about
that," she said, "or to talk about it."
He looked at her quickly, and put his hand on hers as it lay on the
stone between them. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be a
brute. We take it like that, you know; it doesn't make any difference
to us. Nobody worries about it. But, of course it's different for you."
She dried her eyes. "It won't happen to Noel or you," she said. "We
shall all four of us be happy by and by. But why shouldn't you be happy
now, Harry? Is it necessary that you should keep it a secret still?"
The troubled look returned to his face. "I'm different from other men,"
he said. "Everything was spared me when I was young. I've had to learn
everything since I grew up, and it isn't a pleasant world to learn in
now. But whatever I have to do I must do now on my own responsibility.
I should have to ask for Viola to come here. I couldn't do that. When
she comes here, she'll come of her own right--the right that I shall
give her."
"But if you were to tell them about her, Harry----"
"Yes, that's what I've thought of doing. But I can't do that either.
They might accept her, but if they didn't--it's like it is with you.
They want something else."
She sighed. "I'm glad you've told me, at any rate," she said. "It puts
_everything_ right now. You know about me and I know about you. I
suppose Jane doesn't know?"
"No. And we mustn't tell her. I wish I could, but it wouldn't be fair
on her. She'll be the first person I shall tell on that happy day when
I can tell everybody."
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*HOLIDAY*
Wilbraham came down to Royd for a week-end visit. It was all he could
spare from his arduous duties. He was thinner than he had been, but
seemed to have flourished under the severe course of work to which he
had submitted himself. He seemed harder and more self-reliant. Lady
Brent saw at the first glance that his old temptation had not troubled
him, or if it had troubled him that he had got the better of it.
Harry drove a dogcart to the station to meet him. The greeting was warm
between them. Wilbraham looked him up and down. "I can't say they've
smartened you up," he said, "because you didn't want it. But they've
turned you into a soldier. I hope you haven't forgotten all your
classics."
Harry laughed, but made no reply. When they had driven out of the
little town and were on the long lonely country road, he said: "I wanted
to see you first. Of course you'll be talking me over with Granny.
There are some things I don't want said."
"If you mean about Viola," said Wilbraham after a pause. "I've kept my
own counsel--and yours--for nearly two years. I've never been quite
sure that I was right to do it. I believe it might have been better for
you if Lady Brent had known. But at any rate, I have kept silence, and
it isn't my affair now. It's yours. I quite recognize that."
"Have you seen her?"
"Viola? Since you came home, you mean. You know that I saw her
occasionally before. Yes, I've seen her. Of course she wants you.
You're going up next week, aren't you? Have you arranged that here?"
"Not yet. I told mother that I should be going to London, but I haven't
said when yet."
"They won't like it, I suppose. You won't give them any reason for
going. They'll think you just want to get away from here to amuse
yourself as other young men do who are home on leave."
"I'm afraid they must think what they like. I hate all this
secrecy--and deception. I won't deceive them more than I can help.
They must let me go my own way, and not ask questions. But it's
deception all the same. Why did you let me in for it?"
"Let you in for it? _I_ let you in for it! What on earth do you mean,
Harry?"
"Not you chiefly. But you were in it. You kept me knowing nothing.
Supposing it hadn't been Viola I fell in love with! Oh, I've learnt a
lot since you and I met last. I know what men are, and I'm not
different from others at bottom, though there's miles between me and
them in some ways. It's Viola I owe everything to--not Granny or mother
or you. I don't know how I should have lived through it if it hadn't
been for her. I should have lost everything that I was." He spoke more
slowly. "Viola is everything in the world to me," he said, "everything
in this world or the next. I want you to understand that. I loved her
before, but I love her a thousand times more, now that I know. All
this--Royd, and Granny and mother--everything that it all meant to me,
is nothing to me now, apart from her. Whatever there is that's real in
it--I can't explain it, but it's as if she'd have to give it back to me
before I can make it anything again. If you can see that, then you may
be able to help a little. Viola is to come first in everything, but
until it's all straightened out I want Granny--and mother--to be as
little troubled about me as possible. Make it look natural to them, my
going to London; don't let them think that I'm tired of them, or of
Royd. I'm not, only it's all very little to me beside Viola."
"I think you're unjust to us," said Wilbraham. "Say we hadn't prepared
you for what you've been through--what nobody could have foreseen."
"Oh, it would have been just the same if I'd gone straight to
Sandhurst--perhaps worse--if I hadn't known Viola."
"Well, that's where you're unjust. It was only Viola--or somebody like
her--that you could have fallen in love with, as you did. We'd done
that for you."
Harry thought this over. Wilbraham breathed more freely the longer his
silence lasted. He recognized with gratitude that old sense of fairness
and reasonableness which had never been absent in his dealings with
Harry. "It's what you have to think of when you feel inclined to blame
your grandmother," he said.
"I don't think I'm inclined to blame her," Harry answered to this. "I'm
very sorry for her. That's why I want to let her down as easily as I
can. Afterwards everything will be right for her, and she'll see--she's
quite wise enough--that it was right that I should take my life into my
own hands. That's what I'm going to do. I had to do it once before."
"She accepted that, you know."
"Yes, in a wonderful way, I think. And she'll accept Viola. But not
now. I should have to ask her for Viola, and I'm not going to do that.
Besides, she's got other ideas in her head for me."
"Lady Sidney, I suppose you mean. From what your mother has written,
you seem to want her to think that her wishes are being carried out."
"Sidney and I understand one another. She knows about Viola. I'm very
glad she's here. I couldn't have stayed here without her and little
Jane. I suppose the beastly world would say that I'm just amusing
myself with a pretty girl, as I can't be with the girl I love. They
might even think there's some danger in it. But the world doesn't know
love as I know it." He turned to Wilbraham with a smile. "What you
did, my friend, you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the
society of men. After being with nobody but men for all this time, I'm
glad enough to have two girls as my friends before I go back to it. As
for Granny, she's arranged all that for me, as she's used to arrange
everything, and if she's disappointed with the outcome of it, I'm afraid
it can't be helped. It's just that arranging that I have to make my
stand against, with as little bother about it as possible."
"I've said already, and I'll say it again, that you're hard on Lady
Brent. I fully believe that if you were to tell her about
Viola--now--she'd accept it. Then all the secrecy you say you hate
would be over."
"I think it's quite possible that she might. I don't think my mother
would. In any case, there'd be questions and difficulties. Viola would
be discussed and reckoned up in a way I can't bear to think of. When
the time comes I shall bring Viola here and say: 'This is the girl I
love, and she loves me, though I'm not worth anything beside her.' Then
there'll be no questions and no difficulties, and Viola will take her
place here, and we shall be happy for the rest of our lives."
"You mean that she'll take Lady Brent's place here, I suppose. It's no
good blinking matters."
Harry laughed at him. "You always were a persistent old thing," he
said, "but I'm very glad to see you again. Tell me about Viola, and
what she said to you."
Wilbraham found himself, somewhat to his surprise in spite of the
preparation he had had, in an atmosphere of serenity, and almost of
gaiety. There had been nothing like it in all the years he had lived at
Royd Castle. He told himself that unless he had known how it was with
Harry he would certainly have thought that the pleasure he obviously
took in Sidney's society was leading to something else. The Grants were
there when he arrived. It was a little intimate friendly happy party of
which no single member seemed to have a care upon his or her shoulders.
Only Mrs. Brent seemed rather out of the stream. Wilbraham saw that he
would be invited on the first opportunity to listen to the tale of Mrs.
Brent's dissatisfaction.