A brick dower-house of the Fitz-Harolds, just outside the little seaside
town of Nettlefold, sheltered the tranquil days of Lord Dennis. In that
south-coast air, sanest and most healing in all England, he raged very
slowly, taking little thought of death, and much quiet pleasure in his
life. Like the tall old house with its high windows and squat chimneys,
he was marvellously self-contained. His books, for he somewhat
passionately examined old civilizations, and described their habits
from time to time with a dry and not too poignant pen in a certain
old-fashioned magazine; his microscope, for he studied infusoria; and
the fishing boat of his friend John Bogle, who had long perceived
that Lord Dennis was the biggest fish he ever caught; all these, with
occasional visitors, and little runs to London, to Monkland, and other
country houses, made up the sum of a life which, if not desperately
beneficial, was uniformly kind and harmless, and, by its notorious
simplicity, had a certain negative influence not only on his own class
but on the relations of that class with the country at large. It was
commonly said in Nettlefold, that he was a gentleman; if they were all
like him there wasn't much in all this talk against the Lords. The shop
people and lodging-house keepers felt that the interests of the country
were safer in his hands: than in the hands of people who wanted to
meddle with everything for the good of those who were only anxious to be
let alone. A man too who could so completely forget he was the son of a
Duke, that other people never forgot it, was the man for their money.
It was true that he had never had a say in public affairs; but this was
overlooked, because he could have had it if he liked, and the fact that
he did not like, only showed once more that he was a gentleman.
Just as he was the one personality of the little town against whom
practically nothing was ever, said, so was his house the one house which
defied criticism. Time had made it utterly suitable. The ivied
walls, and purplish roof lichened yellow in places, the quiet meadows
harbouring ponies and kine, reaching from it to the sea—all was mellow.
In truth it made all the other houses of the town seem shoddy—standing
alone beyond them, like its master, if anything a little too
esthetically remote from common wants.
He had practically no near neighbours of whom he saw anything, except
once in a way young Harbinger three miles distant at Whitewater. But
since he had the faculty of not being bored with his own society, this
did not worry him. Of local charity, especially to the fishers of the
town, whose winter months were nowadays very bare of profit, he was
prodigal to the verge of extravagance, for his income was not great.
But in politics, beyond acting as the figure-head of certain municipal
efforts, he took little or no part. His Toryism indeed was of the mild
order, that had little belief in the regeneration of the country by any
means but those of kindly feeling between the classes. When asked how
that was to be brought about, he would answer with his dry, slightly
malicious, suavity, that if you stirred hornets' nests with sticks
the hornets would come forth. Having no land, he was shy of expressing
himself on that vexed question; but if resolutely attacked would give
utterance to some such sentiment as this: “The land's best in our hands
on the whole, but we want fewer dogs-in-the-manger among us.”
He had, as became one of his race, a feeling for land, tender and
protective, and could not bear to think of its being put out to farm
with that cold Mother, the State. He was ironical over the views of
Radicals or Socialists, but disliked to hear such people personally
abused behind their backs. It must be confessed, however, that if
contradicted he increased considerably the ironical decision of his
sentiments. Withdrawn from all chance in public life of enforcing his
views on others, the natural aristocrat within him was forced to find
some expression.
Each year, towards the end of July, he placed his house at the service
of Lord Valleys, who found it a convenient centre for attending
Goodwood.
It was on the morning after the Duchess of Gloucester's Ball, that he
received this note:
“VALLEYS HOUSE. “DEAREST UNCLE DENNIS,
“May I come down to you a little before time and rest? London is so
terribly hot. Mother has three functions still to stay for, and I shall
have to come back again for our last evening, the political one—so I
don't want to go all the way to Monkland; and anywhere else, except with
you, would be rackety. Eustace looks so seedy. I'll try and bring him,
if I may. Granny is terribly well.
“Best love, dear, from your
“BABS.”
The same afternoon she came, but without Miltoun, driving up from the
station in a fly. Lord Dennis met her at the gate; and, having kissed
her, looked at her somewhat anxiously, caressing his white peaked beard.
He had never yet known Babs sick of anything, except when he took her
out in John Bogle's boat. She was certainly looking pale, and her hair
was done differently—a fact disturbing to one who did not discover it.
Slipping his arm through hers he led her out into a meadow still full
of buttercups, where an old white pony, who had carried her in the Row
twelve years ago, came up to them and rubbed his muzzle against
her waist. And suddenly there rose in Lord Dennis the thoroughly
discomforting and strange suspicion that, though the child was not going
to cry, she wanted time to get over the feeling that she was. Without
appearing to separate himself from her, he walked to the wall at the end
of the field, and stood looking at the sea.
The tide was nearly up; the South wind driving over it brought him the
scent of the sea-flowers, and the crisp rustle of little waves swimming
almost to his feet. Far out, where the sunlight fell, the smiling waters
lay white and mysterious in July haze, giving him a queer feeling. But
Lord Dennis, though he had his moments of poetic sentiment, was on the
whole quite able to keep the sea in its proper place—for after all it
was the English Channel; and like a good Englishman he recognized that
if you once let things get away from their names, they ceased to be
facts, and if they ceased to be facts, they became—the devil! In truth
he was not thinking much of the sea, but of Barbara. It was plain that
she was in trouble of some kind. And the notion that Babs could find
trouble in life was extraordinarily queer; for he felt, subconsciously,
what a great driving force of disturbance was necessary to penetrate
the hundred folds of the luxurious cloak enwrapping one so young and
fortunate. It was not Death; therefore it must be Love; and he thought
at once of that fellow with the red moustaches. Ideas were all very
well—no one would object to as many as you liked, in their proper
place—the dinner-table, for example. But to fall in love, if indeed it
were so, with a man who not only had ideas, but an inclination to live
up to them, and on them, and on nothing else, seemed to Lord Dennis
'outre'.
She had followed him to the wall, and he looked—at her dubiously.
“To rest in the waters of Lethe, Babs? By the way, seen anything of our
friend Mr. Courtier? Very picturesque—that Quixotic theory of life!”
And in saying that, his voice (like so many refined voices which have
turned their backs on speculation) was triple-toned-mocking at ideas,
mocking at itself for mocking at ideas, yet showing plainly that at
bottom it only mocked at itself for mocking at ideas, because it would
be, as it were, crude not to do so.
But Barbara did not answer his question, and began to speak of other
things. And all that afternoon and evening she talked away so lightly
that Lord Dennis, but for his instinct, would have been deceived.
That wonderful smiling mask—the inscrutability of Youth—was laid aside
by her at night. Sitting at her window, under the moon, 'a gold-bright
moth slow-spinning up the sky,' she watched the darkness hungrily, as
though it were a great thought into whose heart she was trying to see.
Now and then she stroked herself, getting strange comfort out of the
presence of her body. She had that old unhappy feeling of having two
selves within her. And this soft night full of the quiet stir of the
sea, and of dark immensity, woke in her a terrible longing to be at one
with something, somebody, outside herself. At the Ball last night the
'flying feeling' had seized on her again; and was still there—a queer
manifestation of her streak of recklessness. And this result of her
contacts with Courtier, this 'cacoethes volandi', and feeling of clipped
wings, hurt her—as being forbidden hurts a child.
She remembered how in the housekeeper's room at Monkland there lived a
magpie who had once sought shelter in an orchid-house from some pursuer.
As soon as they thought him wedded to civilization, they had let him
go, to see whether he would come back. For hours he had sat up in a high
tree, and at last come down again to his cage; whereupon, fearing lest
the rooks should attack him when he next took this voyage of discovery,
they clipped one of his wings. After that the twilight bird, though
he lived happily enough, hopping about his cage and the terrace
which served him for exercise yard, would seem at times restive and
frightened, moving his wings as if flying in spirit, and sad that he
must stay on earth.
So, too, at her window Barbara fluttered her wings; then, getting into
bed, lay sighing and tossing. A clock struck three; and seized by an
intolerable impatience at her own discomfort, she slipped a motor coat
over her night-gown, put on slippers, and stole out into the passage.
The house was very still. She crept downstairs, smothering her
footsteps. Groping her way through the hall, inhabited by the thin
ghosts of would-be light, she slid back the chain of the door, and fled
towards the sea. She made no more noise running in the dew, than a bird
following the paths of air; and the two ponies, who felt her figure pass
in the darkness, snuffled, sending out soft sighs of alarm amongst the
closed buttercups. She climbed the wall over to the beach. While she was
running, she had fully meant to dash into the sea and cool herself, but
it was so black, with just a thin edging scarf of white, and the sky was
black, bereft of lights, waiting for the day!
She stood, and looked. And all the leapings and pulsings of flesh and
spirit slowly died in that wide dark loneliness, where the only sound
was the wistful breaking of small waves. She was well used to these dead
hours—only last night, at this very time, Harbinger's arm had been round
her in a last waltz! But here the dead hours had such different faces,
wide-eyed, solemn, and there came to Barbara, staring out at them, a
sense that the darkness saw her very soul, so that it felt little and
timid within her. She shivered in her fur-lined coat, as if almost
frightened at finding herself so marvellously nothing before that black
sky and dark sea, which seemed all one, relentlessly great.... And
crouching down, she waited for the dawn to break.
It came from over the Downs, sweeping a rush of cold air on its wings,
flighting towards the sea. With it the daring soon crept back into her
blood. She stripped, and ran down into the dark water, fast growing
pale. It covered her jealously, and she set to work to swim. The water
was warmer than the air. She lay on her back and splashed, watching the
sky flush. To bathe like this in the half-dark, with her hair floating
out, and no wet clothes clinging to her limbs, gave her the joy of a
child doing a naughty thing. She swam out of her depth, then scared at
her own adventure, swam in again as the sun rose.
She dashed into her two garments, climbed the wall, and scurried back
to the house. All her dejection, and feverish uncertainty were gone;
she felt keen, fresh, terribly hungry, and stealing into the dark
dining-room, began rummaging for food. She found biscuits, and was still
munching, when in the open doorway she saw Lord Dennis, a pistol in one
hand and a lighted candle in the other. With his carved features and
white beard above an old blue dressing-gown, he looked impressive,
having at the moment a distinct resemblance to Lady Casterley, as though
danger had armoured him in steel.
“You call this resting!” he said, dryly; then, looking at her drowned
hair, added: “I see you have already entrusted your trouble to the
waters of Lethe.”
But without answer Barbara vanished into the dim hall and up the stairs.