Howard spent the rest of the morning in very bitter cogitation; after
luncheon, during which he could hardly force himself to speak, he
excused himself on the plea of wanting exercise.
It was in a real agony of mind and spirit that he left the house. He
was certain now; and he was not only haunted by his loss, but he was
horrified at his entire lack of self-control and restraint. His
thoughts came in, like great waves striking on a rocky reef, and
rending themselves in sheets of scattered foam. He seemed to himself to
have been slowly inveigled into his fate by a worse than malicious
power; something had planned his doom. He remembered his old
tranquillities; his little touch of boredom; and then how easy the
descent had been! He had been drawn by a slender thread of circumstance
into paying his visit to Windlow; his friendship with Jack had just
toppled over the balance; he had gone; then there had come his talk
with his aunt, which had wrought him up into a mood of vague
excitement. Just at that moment Maud had come in his way; then
friendship had followed; and then he had been seized with this
devouring passion which had devastated his heart. He had known all the
time that he was too late; and even so he had gone to work the wrong
way: it was his infernal diplomacy, his trick of playing with other
lives, of yielding to emotional intimacies--that fatal desire to have a
definite relation, to mean something to everyone in his circle. Then
this wretched, attractive, pleasant youth, with his superficial charm,
had intervened. If he had been wise he would never have suggested that
visit to Cambridge. Maud had hitherto been just like Miranda on the
island; she had never been brought into close contact with a young
cavalier; and the subtle instinct of youth had done the rest, the
instinct for the equal mate, so far stronger and more subtle than any
reasonable or intellectual friendship. And then he, devoured as he had
been by his love, had been unable to use his faculties; he could do
nothing but glare and wink, while his treasure was stolen from him; he
had made mistakes at every turn. What would he not give now to be
restored to his old, balanced, easy life, with its little friendships
and duties. How fantastic and unreal his aunt's theories seemed to him,
reveries contrived just to gild the gaps of a broken life, a
dramatisation of emptiness and self-importance. At every moment the
face and figure of Maud came before him in a hundred sweet, spontaneous
movements--the look of her eyes, the slow thrill of her voice. He
needed her with all his soul--every fibre of his being cried out for
her. And then the thought of being thus pitifully overcome, humiliated
and degraded him. If she had not been beautiful, he would perhaps never
have thought of her except with a mild and courteous interest. This was
the draught of life which he had put so curiously to his lips, sweet
and heady to taste, but with what infinite bitterness and disgust in
the cup. It had robbed him of everything--of his work, of his temperate
ecstasies in sight and sound, of his intellectual enthusiasm. His life
was all broken to pieces about him; he had lost at once all interest
and all sense of dignity. He was simply a man betrayed by a passion,
which had fevered him just because his life had been so orderly and
pure. He was not strong enough even to cut himself adrift from it all.
He must just welter on, a figure visibly touched by depression and
ill-fortune, and hammering out the old grammar-grind. Had any writer,
any poet, ever agonised thus? The people who discoursed glibly about
love, and wove their sorrows into elegies, what sort of prurient curs
were they? It was all too bad to think of, to speak of--a mere
staggering among the mudflats of life.
In this raging self-contempt and misery, he drew near to the still pool
in the valley; he would sit there and bleed awhile, like the old
warrior, but with no hope of revisiting the fight: he would just
abandon himself to listless despair for an hour or two, while the
pleasant drama of life went on behind him. Why had he not at least
spoken to Maud, while he had time, and secured her loyalty? It was his
idiotic deliberation, his love of dallying gently with his emotions,
getting the best he could out of them.
Suddenly he saw that there was some one on the stone seat by the
spring, and in a moment he saw that it was Maud--and that she had
observed him. She looked troubled and melancholy. Had she stolen away
here, had she even appointed a place of meeting with the wretched boy?
was she vexed at his intrusion? Well, it would have to be faced now. He
would go on, he would say a few words, he would at least not betray
himself. After all, she had done no wrong, poor child--she had only
found her mate; and she at least should not be troubled.
She rose up at his approach; and Howard, affecting a feeble heartiness,
said, "Well, so you have stolen away like me! This is a sweet place,
isn't it; like an old fairy-tale, and haunted by a Neckan? I won't
disturb you--I am going on to the hill--I want a breath of air."
Maud looked at him rather pitifully, and said nothing for a moment.
Then she said, "Won't you stay a little and talk to me?--I don't seem
to have seen you--there has been so much going on. I want to tell you
about my book, you know--I am going on with that--I shall soon have
some more chapters to show you."
She sate down at one end of the bench, and Howard seated himself
wearily at the other. Maud glanced at him for a moment, but he said
nothing. The sight of her was a sort of torture to him. He longed with
an insupportable longing to fling himself down beside her and claim
her, despairingly and helplessly. He simply could not frame a sentence.
"You look tired," said Maud. "I don't know what it is, but it seems as
if everything had gone wrong since we came to Cambridge. Do tell me
what it all is--you can trust me. I have been afraid I have vexed you
somehow, and I had hoped we were going to be friends." She leaned her
head on her hand, and looked at him. She looked so troubled and so
frail, that Howard's heart smote him--he must make an effort; he must
not cloud the child's mind; he must just take what she could give him,
and not hamper her in any way. The one thing left him was a miserable
courtesy, on which he must somehow depend. He forced a sort of smile,
and began to talk--his own voice audible to him, strained and ugly,
like the voice of some querulous ghost.
"Ah," he said, "as one gets older, one can't always command one's
moods. Vexed? Of course, I am not vexed--what put that into your head?
It's this--I can tell you so much! It seems to me that I have been
drawn aside out of my old, easy, serene life, into a new sort of life
here--and I am not equal to it. I had got so used, I suppose, to
picking up other lives, that I thought I could do the same here--and I
seem to have taken on more than I could manage. I forgot, I think, that
I was getting older, that I had left youth behind. I made the mistake
of thinking I could play a new role--and I cannot. I am tired--yes, I
am deadly tired; and I feel now as if I wanted to get out of it all,
and just leave things to work themselves out. I have meddled, and I am
being punished for meddling. I have been playing with fire, and I have
been burnt. I had thought of a new sort of life. Don't you remember,"
he added with a smile, "the monkey in Buckland's book, who got into the
kettle on the hob, and whenever he tried to leave it, found it so cold
outside, that he dared not venture out--and he was nearly boiled alive!"
"No, I DON'T understand," said Maud, with so sudden an air of sorrow
and unhappiness that Howard could hardly refrain from taking her into
his arms like a tired child and comforting her. "I don't understand at
all. You came here, and you fitted in at once, seemed to understand
everyone and everything, and gave us all a lift. It is miserable--that
you should have brought so much happiness to us, and then have tired of
it all. I don't understand it in the least. Something must have
happened to distress you--it can't all go to pieces like this!"
"Oh," said Howard, "I interfered. It is my accursed trick of playing
with people, wanting to be liked, wanting to make a difference. How can
I explain? . . . Well, I must tell you. You must forgive me somehow! I
tried--don't look at me while I say it--I have tried to interfere with
YOU. I tried to make a friend of you; and then when you came to
Cambridge, I saw I had claimed too much; that your place was not with
such as myself--the old, stupid, battered generation, fit for nothing
but worrying along. I saw you were young, and needed youth about you.
God forgive me for my selfish plans. I wanted to keep your friendship
for myself, and when I saw you were attracted elsewhere, I was
jealous--horribly, vilely jealous. But I have the grace to despise
myself for it, and I won't hamper you in any way. You must just give me
what you can, and I will be thankful."
As he spoke he saw a curious light pass into the girl's face--a light
of understanding and resolution. He thought that she would tell him
that he was right; and he was unutterably thankful to think that he had
had the courage to speak--he could bear anything now.
Suddenly she made a swift gesture, bending down to him. She caught his
hand in her own, and pressed her lips to it. "Don't you SEE?" she said.
"Attracted by someone . . . by whom? . . . by that wretched little boy?
. . . why he amuses me, of course, . . . and you would stand aside for
that! You have spoken and I must speak. Why you are everything,
everything, all the world to me. It was last Sunday in church . . . do
you remember . . . when they said, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and
there is none upon earth' . . . I looked up and caught your eye, and
wondered if you DID understand. But it is enough--I won't hamper you
either. If you want to go back to the old life and live it, I won't say
a word. I will be just your most faithful friend--you will allow that?"
The heaven seemed to open over Howard, and the solid earth reeled round
him where he sate. It was so, then! He sate for a moment like a man
stunned, and then opened his eyes on bliss unutterable. She was close
to him, her breath on his cheek, her eyes full of tears. He took her
into his arms, and put his lips to hers. "My dearest darling child," he
said, "are you sure? . . . I can't believe it. . . . Oh my sweetest, it
can't be true. Why, I have loved you with all my soul since that first
moment I saw you--indeed it was before; and I have thought of nothing
else day and night. . . . What does it all mean . . . the well of life?"
They sate holding each other close. The whole soul of the girl rose to
clasp and to greet his, in that blest fusion of life which seems to
have nothing hidden or held back. She made him tell her over and over
again the sweet story of his love.
"What COULD I do?" she said. "Why, when I was at Cambridge that week, I
didn't dare to claim your time and thought. Why CAN'T one make oneself
understood? Why, my one hope, all that time, was just for the minutes I
got with you; and yet I thought it wasn't fair not to try to seem
amused; then I saw you were vexed at something--vexed that I should
want to talk to you--what a WRETCHED business!"
"Never mind all that now, child," said Howard, "it's a perfect
nightmare. Why can't one be simple? Why, indeed? and even now, I simply
can't believe it--oh, the wretched hours when I thought you were
drifting away from me; do men and women indeed miss their chances so?
If I had but known! Yet, I must tell you this--when I first came to
this spring here, I thought it held a beautiful secret for
me--something which had been in my life from everlasting. It was so,
and this was what it held for me."
The afternoon sped swiftly away, and the shadow of the western downs
fell across the pool. An immense and overpowering joy filled Howard's
heart, and the silent world took part in his ecstasy.
"You remember that first day?" said Maud. "I had felt that day as if
some one was coming to me from a long way off drawing nearer. . . . I
saw you drive up in the carriage, and I wondered if we should be
friends."
"Yes," said Howard, "it was you on the lawn--that was when I saw you
first!"
"And now we must go back and face the music," said Howard. "What do you
think? How shall we make it all known? I shall tell Aunt Anne to-night.
I shall be glad to do that, because there has fallen a veil between us.
Don't forget, dear child, how unutterably wretched and intolerable I
have been. She tried to help me out, but I was running with my head
down on the wrong track. Oh, what a miserable fool I was! That comes of
being so high-minded and superior. If you only knew how solemn I have
been! Why couldn't I just speak?"
"You might have spoken any time," said Maud. "Why, I would have walked
barefoot to Dorchester and back to please you! It does seem horrible to
think of our being apart all that time, out of such beautiful
consideration--and you were my own, my very own all the time, every
moment."
"I will come and tell your father to-morrow," said Howard presently.
"How will Master Jack take it? Will he call you Miss?"
"He may call me what he likes," said Maud. "I shan't get off easily."
"Well, we have an evening and a night and a morning for our secret,"
said Howard. "I wish it could be longer. I should like to go on for
ever like this, no one knowing but you and me."
"Do just as you like, my lord and master," said Maud.
"I won't have you talk like that," said Howard; "you don't know what
you give me. Was ever anyone in the world so happy before?"
"There's one person who is as happy," said Maud; "you can't guess what
I feel. Does it sound absurd to say that if you told me to stand still
while you cut me into little bits, I should enjoy it?"
"I won't forget that," said Howard; "anything to please you--you need
not mind mentioning any little wishes you may have of that kind."
They laughed like children, and when they came to the village, they
became very ceremonious. At the Vicarage gate they shook hands, and
Howard raised his hat. "You will have to make up for this dignified
parting some time," said Howard. "Sleep well, my darling child! If you
ever wake, you will know that I am thinking of you; not far apart!
Good-night, my sweet one, my only darling."
Maud put one hand on his shoulder, but did not speak--and then slipped
in light-footed through the gate. Howard walked back to the Manor,
through the charmed dusk and the fragrance of hidden flowers, full of
an almost intolerable happiness, that was akin to pain. The evening
star hung in liquid, trembling light above the dark down, the sky
fading to a delicious green, the breeze rustled in the heavy-leaved
sycamores, and the lights were lit in the cottage windows. Did every
home, every hearth, he wondered, mean THAT? Was THAT present in dim and
dumb lives, the spirit of love, the inner force of the world? Yes, it
was so! That was the secret hidden in the Heart of God.