Cadover was not a large house. But it is the largest house with which

this story has dealings, and must always be thought of with respect.

It was built about the year 1800, and favoured the architecture of

ancient Rome—chiefly by means of five lank pilasters, which stretched

from the top of it to the bottom. Between the pilasters was the glass

front door, to the right of them the drawing room windows, to the left

of them the windows of the dining-room, above them a triangular area,

which the better-class servants knew as a “pendiment,” and which had in

its middle a small round hole, according to the usage of Palladio. The

classical note was also sustained by eight grey steps which led from

the building down into the drive, and by an attempt at a formal garden

on the adjoining lawn. The lawn ended in a Ha-ha (“Ha! ha! who shall

regard it?”), and thence the bare land sloped down into the village.

The main garden (walled) was to the left as one faced the house, while

to the right was that laurel avenue, leading up to Mrs. Failing’s

arbour.

It was a comfortable but not very attractive place, and, to a certain

type of mind, its situation was not attractive either. From the

distance it showed as a grey box, huddled against evergreens. There

was no mystery about it. You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of

the beetling romance of Devonshire, none of the subtle contours that

prelude a cottage in Kent, but profferred its burden crudely, on a huge

bare palm. “There’s Cadover,” visitors would say. “How small it still

looks. We shall be late for lunch.” And the view from the windows,

though extensive, would not have been accepted by the Royal Academy.

A valley, containing a stream, a road, a railway; over the valley

fields of barley and wurzel, divided by no pretty hedges, and passing

into a great and formless down—this was the outlook, desolate at all

times, and almost terrifying beneath a cloudy sky. The down was called

“Cadbury Range” (“Cocoa Squares” if you were young and funny), because

high upon it—one cannot say “on the top,” there being scarcely any

tops in Wiltshire—because high upon it there stood a double circle

of entrenchments. A bank of grass enclosed a ring of turnips, which

enclosed a second bank of grass, which enclosed more turnips, and in

the middle of the pattern grew one small tree. British? Roman? Saxon?

Danish? The competent reader will decide. The Thompson family knew it

to be far older than the Franco-German war. It was the property of

Government. It was full of gold and dead soldiers who had fought with

the soldiers on Castle Rings and been beaten. The road to Londinium,

having forded the stream and crossed the valley road and the railway,

passed up by these entrenchments. The road to London lay half a mile to

the right of them.

To complete this survey one must mention the church and the farm,

both of which lay over the stream in Cadford. Between them they ruled

the village, one claiming the souls of the labourers, the other their

bodies. If a man desired other religion or other employment he must

leave. The church lay up by the railway, the farm was down by the

water meadows. The vicar, a gentle charitable man, scarcely realized

his power, and never tried to abuse it. Mr. Wilbraham, the agent, was

of another mould. He knew his place, and kept others to theirs: all

society seemed spread before him like a map. The line between the

county and the local, the line between the labourer and the artisan—he

knew them all, and strengthened them with no uncertain touch.

Everything with him was graduated—carefully graduated civility towards

his superior, towards his inferiors carefully graduated incivility.

So—for he was a thoughtful person—so alone, declared he, could things

be kept together.

Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is now attributed, had caused

his estate to be left to Mr. Failing. Mr. Failing was the author of

some brilliant books on socialism,—that was why his wife married

him—and for twenty-five years he reigned up at Cadover and tried to

put his theories into practice. He believed that things could be kept

together by accenting the similarities, not the differences of men.

“We are all much more alike than we confess,” was one of his favourite

speeches. As a speech it sounded very well, and his wife had applauded;

but when it resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-rooms,

mixed-parties, and long unobtrusive talks with dull people, she got

bored. In her piquant way she declared that she was not going to love

her husband, and succeeded. He took it quietly, but his brilliancy

decreased. His health grew worse, and he knew that when he died there

was no one to carry on his work. He felt, besides, that he had done

very little. Toil as he would, he had not a practical mind, and could

never dispense with Mr. Wilbraham. For all his tact, he would often

stretch out the hand of brotherhood too soon, or withhold it when

it would have been accepted. Most people misunderstood him, or only

understood him when he was dead. In after years his reign became a

golden age; but he counted a few disciples in his life-time, a few

young labourers and tenant farmers, who swore tempestuously that he was

not really a fool. This, he told himself, was as much as he deserved.

Cadover was inherited by his widow. She tried to sell it; she tried to

let it; but she asked too much, and as it was neither a pretty place

nor fertile, it was left on her hands. With many a groan she settled

down to banishment. Wiltshire people, she declared, were the stupidest

in England. She told them so to their faces, which made them no

brighter. And their county was worthy of them: no distinction in it—no

style—simply land.

But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. She

made the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. Wilbraham.

With a good deal of care she selected a small circle of acquaintances,

and had them to stop in the summer months. In the winter she would

go to town and frequent the salons of the literary. As her lameness

increased she moved about less, and at the time of her nephew’s visit

seldom left the place that had been forced upon her as a home. Just

now she was busy. A prominent politician had quoted her husband. The

young generation asked, “Who is this Mr. Failing?” and the publishers

wrote, “Now is the time.” She was collecting some essays and penning an

introductory memoir.

Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded

him too much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same

heartlessness, the same habit of taking life with a laugh—as if life

is a pill! He also felt that she had neglected him. He would not have

asked much: as for “prospects,” they never entered his head, but she

was his only near relative, and a little kindness and hospitality

during the lonely years would have made incalculable difference. Now

that he was happier and could bring her Agnes, she had asked him to

stop at once. The sun as it rose next morning spoke to him of a new

life. He too had a purpose and a value in the world at last. Leaning

out of the window, he gazed at the earth washed clean and heard through

the pure air the distant noises of the farm.

But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His aunt,

for reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a ride with

the Wonham boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed thence to

Salisbury, lunch there, see the sights, call on a certain canon for

tea, and return to Cadover in the evening. The arrangement suited no

one. He did not want to ride, but to be with Agnes; nor did Agnes want

to be parted from him, nor Stephen to go with him. But the clearer the

wishes of her guests became, the more determined was Mrs. Failing to

disregard them. She smoothed away every difficulty, she converted every

objection into a reason, and she ordered the horses for half-past nine.

“It is a bore,” he grumbled as he sat in their little private

sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman’s gaiters. “I

can’t ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so happy here. It’s

just like Aunt Emily. Can’t you imagine her saying afterwards, ‘Lovers

are absurd. I made a point of keeping them apart,’ and then everybody

laughing.”

With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and did

the gaiters up. “Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?”

“I don’t know. Some connection of Mr. Failing’s, I think.”

“Does he live here?”

“He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown into a

tiresome person.”

“I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him.”

“I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope she’ll

be kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her.”

“Why, you say she likes me.”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t prevent—you see she doesn’t mind what she says

or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny,

for instance, to break off our engagement, she’d try.”

“Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for us to

see her trying. Whatever could she do?”

He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. “Nothing.

I can’t see one thing. We simply lie open to each other, you and I.

There isn’t one new corner in either of us that she could reveal.

It’s only that I always have in this house the most awful feeling of

insecurity.”

“Why?”

“If any one says or does a foolish thing it’s always here. All the

family breezes have started here. It’s a kind of focus for aimed and

aimless scandal. You know, when my father and mother had their special

quarrel, my aunt was mixed up in it,—I never knew how or how much—but

you may be sure she didn’t calm things down, unless she found things

more entertaining calm.”

“Rickie! Rickie!” cried the lady from the garden, “Your riding-master’s

impatient.”

“We really oughtn’t to talk of her like this here,” whispered Agnes.

“It’s a horrible habit.”

“The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!” Suddenly he flung

his arms over her. “Dear—dear—let’s beware of I don’t know what—of

nothing at all perhaps.”

“Oh, buck up!” yelled the irritable Stephen. “Which am I to

shorten—left stirrup or right?”

“Left!” shouted Agnes.

“How many holes?”

They hurried down. On the way she said: “I’m glad of the warning. Now

I’m prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me.”

Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his

invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they

started, the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was left

alone with her hostess.

“Dido is quiet as a lamb,” said Mrs. Failing, “and Stephen is a good

fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. What shall

you and I do this heavenly morning?”

“I’m game for anything.”

“Have you quite unpacked?”

“Yes.”

“Any letters to write?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go to my arbour. No, we won’t. It gets the morning sun, and

it’ll be too hot today.” Already she regretted clearing out the men. On

such a morning she would have liked to drive, but her third animal had

gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going to bore her.

However, they did go to the arbour. In languid tones she pointed out

the various objects of interest.

“There’s the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into the

Avon. Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you can’t

see it. You were there last night. It is famous for the drunken parson

and the railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford, that side of

the stream, connected with Cadover, this. Observe the fertility of the

Wiltshire mind.”

“A terrible lot of Cads,” said Agnes brightly.

Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and those

who did not. The latter class was very small.

“The vicar of Cadford—not the nice drunkard—declares the name is

really ‘Chadford,’ and he worried on till I put up a window to St. Chad

in our church. His Cambridge wife pronounces it ‘Hyadford.’ I could

smack them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! you jump; I meant you to.

How do you like Podge Wonham?”

“Very nice,” said Agnes, laughing.

“Nice! He is a hero.”

There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without

much interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing’s attitude towards Nature

was severely aesthetic—an attitude more sterile than the severely

practical. She applied the test of beauty to shadow and odour and

sound; they never filled her with reverence or excitement; she never

knew them as a resistless trinity that may intoxicate the worshipper

with joy. If she liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of

colour—not also as a hint of the endless strength of the earth. And

today she could approve of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for

Miss Pembroke, she was not approving or objecting at all. “A hero?” she

queried, when the interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if

she had been thinking of other things.

“A hero? Yes. Didn’t you notice how heroic he was?”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. It is

their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts.

Do you mean to say that you never noticed how he set down Rickie?”

“Oh, that about poetry!” said Agnes, laughing. “Rickie would not mind

it for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?”

“To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them

feel small! Surely that’s the lifework of a hero?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham was

wrong over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards.”

“But of course. A hero always is wrong.”

“To me,” she persisted, rather gently, “a hero has always been a strong

wonderful being, who champions—”

“Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of my

life, I think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful cave.

Then in comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being, and gains a

princess by piercing my hide. No, seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief

characteristics of a hero are infinite disregard for the feelings of

others, plus general inability to understand them.”

“But surely Mr. Wonham—”

“Yes; aren’t we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on

talking?”

Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking that

anything she said might perhaps be repeated.

“Though even if he was here he wouldn’t understand what we are saying.”

“Wouldn’t understand?”

Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her companion.

“Did you take him for clever?”

“I don’t think I took him for anything.” She smiled. “I have been

thinking of other things, and another boy.”

“But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he spent

yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The song was

called, ‘Father’s boots will soon fit Willie.’ He stopped once to say

to the footman, ‘She’ll never finish her book. She idles: ‘She’ being

I. At eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the

luck to see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four

he had knocked the bottom out of Christianity.”

Agnes looked bewildered.

“Aren’t you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account

to unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny

books tells Podge that he’s made of hard little black things, another

that he’s made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a

discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be

made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever

cost to the probable.” Then for a moment she spoke more gravely. “Here

he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don’t know what’s to be

done. I suppose it’s my fault. But I’ve never had any bother over the

Church of England; have you?”

“Of course I go with my Church,” said Miss Pembroke, who hated this

style of conversation. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I think you should

consult a man.”

“Would Rickie help me?”

“Rickie would do anything he can.” And Mrs. Failing noted the half

official way in which she vouched for her lover. “But of course Rickie

is a little—complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand

him. He wants—doesn’t he?—some one who’s a little more assertive and

more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother.”

“Agnes!” she seized her by the arm. “Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke

would undertake my Podge?”

She shook her head. “His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house

next term. Besides—after all I don’t know what Herbert would do.”

“Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles may

come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief.

Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused

the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen’s expelled

from a public school? He stole.”

The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request

for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent spasm

of dishonesty—such as often heralds the approach of manhood—had

overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to

steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was

betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career.

His benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped

being a pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him

through. But she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and

so delighted with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave

him a prize.

“No,” said Agnes, “I didn’t know. I should be happy to speak to

Herbert, but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has

friends who make a speciality of weakly or—or unusual boys.”

“My dear, I’ve tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed

apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again.”

Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on

her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes liked to

know where she was and where other people were as well. She said: “My

brother thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he’d think that Mr.

Wonham is best where he is—with you. You have been so kind to him.

You”—she paused—“have been to him both father and mother.”

“I’m too hot,” was Mrs. Failing’s reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke

had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the

electric bell,—it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to

Mr. Wonham’s room,—and then murmuring something about work, proceeded

herself to the house.

“Mrs. Failing—” said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end to

their chat.

“Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?”

“Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?”

“It is bad,” said Mrs. Failing. “But. But. But.” Then she escaped,

having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind

her.

XII

The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business—in fact, Rickie

never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. Wonham began

doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly he could turn

round in his saddle and sit with his face to Æneas’s tail. “I see,”

said Rickie coldly, and became almost cross when they arrived in this

condition at the gate behind the house, for he had to open it, and was

afraid of falling. As usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings,

and then had to turn Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his

relief a man came forward, and murmuring, “Worst gate in the parish,”

pushed it wide and held it respectfully. “Thank you,” cried Rickie;

“many thanks.” But Stephen, who was riding into the world back first,

said majestically, “No, no; it doesn’t count. You needn’t think it

does. You make it worse by touching your hat. Four hours and seven

minutes! You’ll see me again.” The man answered nothing.

“Eh, but I’ll hurt him,” he chanted, as he swung into position. “That

was Flea. Eh, but he’s forgotten my fists; eh, but I’ll hurt him.”

“Why?” ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been bored

to death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded him of

Gerald—the Gerald of history, not the Gerald of romance. He was more

genial, but there was the same brutality, the same peevish insistence

on the pound of flesh.

“Hurt him till he learns.”

“Learns what?”

“Learns, of course,” retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very civil.

They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to be somewhere

else—exactly the situation that Mrs. Failing had expected.

“He behaved badly,” said Rickie, “because he is poorer than we are, and

more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him to behave.”

“Well, I’ll teach him for nothing.”

“Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!”

“They aren’t. I looked.”

After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, and

thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he was

attracted by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they had been

to him symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was interesting.

But now he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew.

Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to his

employer’s nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on the map.

“Good morning,” said Rickie. “What a lovely morning!”

“I say,” called the other, “another child dead!” Mr. Wilbraham, who had

seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left them.

“There goes an out and outer,” said Stephen; and then, as if

introducing an entirely new subject—“Don’t you think Flea Thompson

treated me disgracefully?”

“I suppose he did. But I’m scarcely the person to sympathize.” The

allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. “I should have done the

same myself,—promised to be away two hours, and stopped four.”

“Stopped—oh—oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?”

He smiled and nodded.

“Oh, I’ve no objection to Flea loving. He says he can’t help it. But as

long as my fists are stronger, he’s got to keep it in line.”

“In line?”

“A man like that, when he’s got a girl, thinks the rest can go to the

devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham ought

to sack him. I promise you when I’ve a girl I’ll keep her in line, and

if she turns nasty, I’ll get another.”

Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was sorry that any one should

start life with such a creed—all the more sorry because the creed

caricatured his own. He too believed that life should be in a line—a

line of enormous length, full of countless interests and countless

figures, all well beloved. But woman was not to be “kept” to this line.

Rather did she advance it continually, like some triumphant general,

making each unit still more interesting, still more lovable, than it

had been before. He loved Agnes, not only for herself, but because she

was lighting up the human world. But he could scarcely explain this to

an inexperienced animal, nor did he make the attempt.

For a long time they proceeded in silence. The hill behind Cadover

was in harvest, and the horses moved regretfully between the sheaves.

Stephen had picked a grass leaf, and was blowing catcalls upon it. He

blew very well, and this morning all his soul went into the wail. For

he was ill. He was tortured with the feeling that he could not get away

and do—do something, instead of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four

hours in the rain was better than this: he had not wanted to fidget in

the rain. But now the air was like wine, and the stubble was smelling

of wet, and over his head white clouds trundled more slowly and more

seldom through broadening tracts of blue. There never had been such

a morning, and he shut up his eyes and called to it. And whenever he

called, Rickie shut up his eyes and winced.

At last the blade broke. “We don’t go quick, do we?” he remarked, and

looked on the weedy track for another.

“I wish you wouldn’t let me keep you. If you were alone you would be

galloping or something of that sort.”

“I was told I must go your pace,” he said mournfully. “And you promised

Miss Pembroke not to hurry.”

“Well, I’ll disobey.” But he could not rise above a gentle trot, and

even that nearly jerked him out of the saddle.

“Sit like _this_,” said Stephen. “Can’t you—see like _this_?” Rickie

lurched forward, and broke his thumb nail on the horse’s neck. It bled

a little, and had to be bound up.

“Thank you—awfully kind—no tighter, please—I’m simply spoiling your

day.”

“I can’t think how a man can help riding. You’ve only to leave it to

the horse so!—so!—just as you leave it to water in swimming.”

Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immediately.

“I said _leave_ it.” His voice rose irritably. “I didn’t say ‘die.’

Of course she stops if you die. First you sit her as if you’re Sandow

exercising, and then you sit like a corpse. Can’t you tell her you’re

alive? That’s all she wants.”

In trying to convey the information, Rickie dropped his whip. Stephen

picked it up and rammed it into the belt of his own Norfolk jacket.

He was scarcely a fashionable horseman. He was not even graceful. But

he rode as a living man, though Rickie was too much bored to notice

it. Not a muscle in him was idle, not a muscle working hard. When he

returned from the gallop his limbs were still unsatisfied and his

manners still irritable. He did not know that he was ill: he knew

nothing about himself at all.

“Like a howdah in the Zoo,” he grumbled. “Mother Failing will buy

elephants.” And he proceeded to criticize his benefactress. Rickie,

keenly alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and gained instead a

criticism of religion. Stephen overthrew the Mosaic cosmogony. He

pointed out the discrepancies in the Gospels. He levelled his wit

against the most beautiful spire in the world, now rising against

the southern sky. Between whiles he went for a gallop. After a time

Rickie stopped listening, and simply went his way. For Dido was a

perfect mount, and as indifferent to the motions of Æneas as if she

was strolling in the Elysian fields. He had had a bad night, and the

strong air made him sleepy. The wind blew from the Plain. Cadover and

its valley had disappeared, and though they had not climbed much and

could not see far, there was a sense of infinite space. The fields

were enormous, like fields on the Continent, and the brilliant sun

showed up their colours well. The green of the turnips, the gold of the

harvest, and the brown of the newly turned clods, were each contrasted

with morsels of grey down. But the general effect was pale, or rather

silvery, for Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. Beneath these

colours lurked the unconquerable chalk, and wherever the soil was poor

it emerged. The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bedstraw, was

snow-white at the bottom of its ruts. A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed

in the flank of a distant hill, cut for some Olympian audience. And

here and there, whatever the surface crop, the earth broke into little

embankments, little ditches, little mounds: there had been no lack of

drama to solace the gods.

In Cadover, the perilous house, Agnes had already parted from Mrs.

Failing. His thoughts returned to her. Was she, the soul of truth,

in safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and selfishness? Would

she elude the caprice which had, he vaguely knew, caused suffering

before? Ah, the frailty of joy! Ah, the myriads of longings that pass

without fruition, and the turf grows over them! Better men, women as

noble—they had died up here and their dust had been mingled, but only

their dust. These are morbid thoughts, but who dare contradict them?

There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us

safe. We are children, playing or quarreling on the line, and some of

us have Rickie’s temperament, or his experiences, and admit it.

So he mused, that anxious little speck, and all the land seemed to

comment on his fears and on his love.

Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull, half grass, half

stubble. It seemed each moment there would be a splendid view. The

view never came, for none of the inclines were sharp enough, and they

moved over the skull for many minutes, scarcely shifting a landmark

or altering the blue fringe of the distance. The spire of Salisbury

did alter, but very slightly, rising and falling like the mercury in

a thermometer. At the most it would be half hidden; at the least the

tip would show behind the swelling barrier of earth. They passed two

elder-trees—a great event. The bare patch, said Stephen, was owing

to the gallows. Rickie nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In

this great solitude—more solitary than any Alpine range—he and Agnes

were floating alone and for ever, between the shapeless earth and the

shapeless clouds. An immense silence seemed to move towards them. A

lark stopped singing, and they were glad of it. They were approaching

the Throne of God. The silence touched them; the earth and all danger

dissolved, but ere they quite vanished Rickie heard himself saying, “Is

it exactly what we intended?”

“Yes,” said a man’s voice; “it’s the old plan.” They were in another

valley. Its sides were thick with trees. Down it ran another stream

and another road: it, too, sheltered a string of villages. But all

was richer, larger, and more beautiful—the valley of the Avon below

Amesbury.

“I’ve been asleep!” said Rickie, in awestruck tones.

“Never!” said the other facetiously. “Pleasant dreams?”

“Perhaps—I’m really tired of apologizing to you. How long have you

been holding me on?”

“All in the day’s work.” He gave him back the reins.

“Where’s that round hill?”

“Gone where the good niggers go. I want a drink.”

This is Nature’s joke in Wiltshire—her one joke. You toil on windy

slopes, and feel very primeval. You are miles from your fellows, and

lo! a little valley full of elms and cottages. Before Rickie had waked

up to it, they had stopped by a thatched public-house, and Stephen was

yelling like a maniac for beer.

There was no occasion to yell. He was not very thirsty, and they were

quite ready to serve him. Nor need he have drunk in the saddle, with

the air of a warrior who carries important dispatches and has not the

time to dismount. A real soldier, bound on a similar errand, rode up

to the inn, and Stephen feared that he would yell louder, and was

hostile. But they made friends and treated each other, and slanged the

proprietor and ragged the pretty girls; while Rickie, as each wave of

vulgarity burst over him, sunk his head lower and lower, and wished

that the earth would swallow him up. He was only used to Cambridge,

and to a very small corner of that. He and his friends there believed

in free speech. But they spoke freely about generalities. They were

scientific and philosophic. They would have shrunk from the empirical

freedom that results from a little beer.

That was what annoyed him as he rode down the new valley with two

chattering companions. He was more skilled than they were in the

principles of human existence, but he was not so indecently familiar

with the examples. A sordid village scandal—such as Stephen described

as a huge joke—sprang from certain defects in human nature, with which

he was theoretically acquainted. But the example! He blushed at it like

a maiden lady, in spite of its having a parallel in a beautiful idyll

of Theocritus. Was experience going to be such a splendid thing after

all? Were the outside of houses so very beautiful?

“That’s spicy!” the soldier was saying. “Got any more like that?”

“I’se got a pome,” said Stephen, and drew a piece of paper from his

pocket. The valley had broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, ugly and

majestic.

“Write this yourself?” he asked, chuckling.

“Rather,” said Stephen, lowering his head and kissing Æneas between

the ears.

“But who’s old Em’ly?” Rickie winced and frowned.

“Now you’re asking.

“‘Old Em’ly she limps,

And as——’”

“I am so tired,” said Rickie. Why should he stand it any longer?

He would go home to the woman he loved. “Do you mind if I give up

Salisbury?”

“But we’ve seen nothing!” cried Stephen.

“I shouldn’t enjoy anything, I am so absurdly tired.”

“Left turn, then—all in the day’s work.” He bit at his moustache

angrily.

“Good gracious me, man!—of course I’m going back alone. I’m not going

to spoil your day. How could you think it of me?”

Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. “If you do want to go home, here’s

your whip. Don’t fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there might be

ructions.”

“Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of me.”

“‘Old Em’ly she limps,

And as——’”

Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were lost to view. Soon they

were out of his thoughts. He forgot the coarseness and the drinking

and the ingratitude. A few months ago he would not have forgotten so

quickly, and he might also have detected something else. But a lover is

dogmatic. To him the world shall be beautiful and pure. When it is not,

he ignores it.

“He’s not tired,” said Stephen to the soldier; “he wants his girl.” And

they winked at each other, and cracked jokes over the eternal comedy

of love. They asked each other if they’d let a girl spoil a morning’s

ride. They both exhibited a profound cynicism. Stephen, who was quite

without ballast, described the household at Cadover: he should say that

Rickie would find Miss Pembroke kissing the footman.

“I say the footman’s kissing old Em’ly.”

“Jolly day,” said Stephen. His voice was suddenly constrained. He was

not sure whether he liked the soldier after all, nor whether he had

been wise in showing him his compositions.

“‘Old Em’ly she limps,

And as I——’”

“All right, Thomas. That’ll do.”

“‘Old Em’ly——’”

“I wish you’d dry up, like a good fellow. This is the lady’s horse, you

know, hang it, after all.”

“In-deed!”

“Don’t you see—when a fellow’s on a horse, he can’t let another

fellow—kind of—don’t you know?”

The man did know. “There’s sense in that.” he said approvingly. Peace

was restored, and they would have reached Salisbury if they had not had

some more beer. It unloosed the soldier’s fancies, and again he spoke

of old Em’ly, and recited the poem, with Aristophanic variations.

“Jolly day,” repeated Stephen, with a straightening of the eyebrows

and a quick glance at the other’s body. He then warned him against the

variations. In consequence he was accused of being a member of the

Y.M.C.A. His blood boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and became

great friends with the soldier, for the third time.

“Any objection to ‘Sorcy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton’?”

“Rather not.”

The soldier sang “Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton.” It is really a work

for two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when taken as a

solo. Nor is Mrs. Tackleton’s name Em’ly.

“I call it a jolly rotten song,” said Stephen crossly. “I won’t stand

being got at.”

“P’r’aps y’like therold song. Lishen.

“‘Of all the gulls that arsshmart,

There’s none line pretty—Em’ly;

For she’s the darling of merart——’”

“Now, that’s wrong.” He rode up close to the singer.

“Shright.”

“’Tisn’t.”

“It’s as my mother taught me.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’ll not alter from mother’s way.”

Stephen was baffled. Then he said, “How does your mother make it rhyme?”

“Wot?”

“Squat. You’re an ass, and I’m not. Poems want rhymes. ‘Alley’ comes

next line.”

He said “alley” was—welcome to come if it liked.

“It can’t. You want Sally. Sally—alley. Em’ly—alley doesn’t do.”

“Emily—femily!” cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was not his

when sober. “My mother taught me femily.

“‘For she’s the darling of merart,

And she lives in my femily.’”

“Well, you’d best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too.”

“_Your_ mother’s no better than she should be,” said Thomas vaguely.

“Do you think I haven’t heard that before?” retorted the boy. The other

concluded he might now say anything. So he might—the name of old Emily

excepted. Stephen cared little about his benefactress’s honour, but a

great deal about his own. He had made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the

moment he would die for her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is

not to be distinguished from a hero.

Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in the

world. “Lord! another of these large churches!” said the soldier.

Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, and declared

that old Em’ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. His horse trotted

back towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him out of the saddle.

“I’ve done him!” he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He rose

up in his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms round

Æneas’s neck. The elderly horse understood, capered, and bolted. It

was a centaur that dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people. In

the stable he would not dismount. “I’ve done him!” he yelled to the

ostlers—apathetic men. Stretching upwards, he clung to a beam. Æneas

moved on and he was left hanging. Greatly did he incommode them by his

exercises. He pulled up, he circled, he kicked the other customers. At

last he fell to the earth, deliciously fatigued. His body worried him

no longer.

He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white linen hat. There were

soldiers about, and he thought it would disguise him. Then he had a

little lunch to steady the beer. This day had turned out admirably.

All the money that should have fed Rickie he could spend on himself.

Instead of toiling over the Cathedral and seeing the stuffed penguins,

he could stop the whole thing in the cattle market. There he met and

made some friends. He watched the cheap-jacks, and saw how necessary

it was to have a confident manner. He spoke confidently himself about

lambs, and people listened. He spoke confidently about pigs, and they

roared with laughter. He must learn more about pigs. He witnessed a

performance—not too namby-pamby—of Punch and Judy. “Hullo, Podge!”

cried a naughty little girl. He tried to catch her, and failed. She was

one of the Cadford children. For Salisbury on market day, though it is

not picturesque, is certainly representative, and you read the names

of half the Wiltshire villages upon the carriers’ carts. He found, in

Penny Farthing Street, the cart from Wintersbridge. It would not start

for several hours, but the passengers always used it as a club, and sat

in it every now and then during the day. No less than three ladies were

these now, staring at the shafts. One of them was Flea Thompson’s girl.

He asked her, quite politely, why her lover had broken faith with him

in the rain. She was silent. He warned her of approaching vengeance.

She was still silent, but another woman hoped that a gentleman would

not be hard on a poor person. Something in this annoyed him; it wasn’t

a question of gentility and poverty—it was a question of two men. He

determined to go back by Cadbury Rings where the shepherd would now be.

He did. But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the

culprit with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words from

the saddle, tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his coat. “Are

you ready?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Flea, and flung him on his back.

“That’s not fair,” he protested.

The other did not reply, but flung him on his head.

“How on earth did you learn that?”

“By trying often,” said Flea.

Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out of his forehead. “I meant it

to be fists,” he said gloomily.

“I know, sir.”

“It’s jolly smart though, and—and I beg your pardon all round.” It

cost him a great deal to say this, but he was sure that it was the

right thing to say. He must acknowledge the better man. Whereas most

people, if they provoke a fight and are flung, say, “You cannot rob me

of my moral victory.”

There was nothing further to be done. He mounted again, not exactly

depressed, but feeling that this delightful world is extraordinarily

unreliable. He had never expected to fling the soldier, or to be

flung by Flea. “One nips or is nipped,” he thought, “and never knows

beforehand. I should not be surprised if many people had more in them

than I suppose, while others were just the other way round. I haven’t

seen that sort of thing in Ingersoll, but it’s quite important.” Then

his thoughts turned to a curious incident of long ago, when he had

been “nipped”—as a little boy. He was trespassing in those woods,

when he met in a narrow glade a flock of sheep. They had neither dog

nor shepherd, and advanced towards him silently. He was accustomed

to sheep, but had never happened to meet them in a wood before, and

disliked it. He retired, slowly at first, then fast; and the flock,

in a dense mass, pressed after him. His terror increased. He turned

and screamed at their long white faces; and still they came on, all

stuck together, like some horrible jell—. If once he got into them!

Bellowing and screeching, he rushed into the undergrowth, tore himself

all over, and reached home in convulsions. Mr. Failing, his only

grown-up friend, was sympathetic, but quite stupid. “Pan ovium custos,”

he sympathetic, as he pulled out the thorns. “Why not?” “Pan ovium

custos.” Stephen learnt the meaning of the phrase at school, “A pan of

eggs for custard.” He still remembered how the other boys looked as he

peeped at them between his legs, awaiting the descending cane.

So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected thoughts. He had had a

rare good time. He liked every one—even that poor little Elliot—and

yet no one mattered. They were all out. On the landing he saw the

housemaid. He felt skittish and irresistible. Should he slip his arm

round her waist? Perhaps better not; she might box his ears. And he

wanted to smoke on the roof before dinner. So he only said, “Please

will you stop the boy blacking my brown boots,” and she with downcast

eyes, answered, “Yes, sir; I will indeed.”

His room was in the pediment. Classical architecture, like all things

in this world that attempt serenity, is bound to have its lapses

into the undignified, and Cadover lapsed hopelessly when it came to

Stephen’s room. It gave him one round window, to see through which

he must lie upon his stomach, one trapdoor opening upon the leads,

three iron girders, three beams, six buttresses, no circling, unless

you count the walls, no walls unless you count the ceiling and in its

embarrassment presented him with the gurgly cistern that supplied the

bath water. Here he lived, absolutely happy, and unaware that Mrs.

Failing had poked him up here on purpose, to prevent him from growing

too bumptious. Here he worked and sang and practised on the ocharoon.

Here, in the crannies, he had constructed shelves and cupboards and

useless little drawers. He had only one picture—the Demeter of

Cnidos—and she hung straight from the roof like a joint of meat. Once

she was in the drawing-room; but Mrs. Failing had got tired of her, and

decreed her removal and this degradation. Now she faced the sunrise;

and when the moon rose its light also fell on her, and trembled,

like light upon the sea. For she was never still, and if the draught

increased she would twist on her string, and would sway and tap upon

the rafters until Stephen woke up and said what he thought of her.

“Want your nose?” he would murmur. “Don’t you wish you may get it” Then

he drew the clothes over his ears, while above him, in the wind and the

darkness, the goddess continued her motions.

Today, as he entered, he trod on the pile of sixpenny reprints.

Leighton had brought them up. He looked at the portraits in their

covers, and began to think that these people were not everything. What

a fate, to look like Colonel Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs. Julia P.

Chunk! The Demeter turned towards him as he bathed, and in the cold

water he sang—

“They aren’t beautiful, they aren’t modest;

I’d just as soon follow an old stone goddess,”—

and sprang upward through the skylight on to the roof. Years ago, when

a nurse was washing him, he had slipped from her soapy hands and got

up here. She implored him to remember that he was a little gentleman;

but he forgot the fact—if it was a fact—and not even the butler could

get him down. Mr. Failing, who was sitting alone in the garden too ill

to read, heard a shout, “Am I an acroterium?” He looked up and saw a

naked child poised on the summit of Cadover. “Yes,” he replied; “but

they are unfashionable. Go in,” and the vision had remained with him

as something peculiarly gracious. He felt that nonsense and beauty

have close connections,—closer connections than Art will allow,—and

that both would remain when his own heaviness and his own ugliness had

perished. Mrs. Failing found in his remains a sentence that puzzled

her. “I see the respectable mansion. I see the smug fortress of

culture. The doors are shut. The windows are shut. But on the roof the

children go dancing for ever.”

Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood on the pediment now,

except for a bet. He never, or scarcely ever, poured water down the

chimneys. When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her into the

housekeeper’s bedroom. But still, when the weather was fair, he liked

to come up after bathing, and get dry in the sun. Today he brought

with him a towel, a pipe of tobacco, and Rickie’s story. He must get

it done some time, and he was tired of the six-penny reprints. The

sloping gable was warm, and he lay back on it with closed eyes, gasping

for pleasure. Starlings criticized him, snots fell on his clean body,

and over him a little cloud was tinged with the colours of evening.

“Good! good!” he whispered. “Good, oh good!” and opened the manuscript

reluctantly.

What a production! Who was this girl? Where did she go to? Why so

much talk about trees? “I take it he wrote it when feeling bad,” he

murmured, and let it fall into the gutter. It fell face downwards,

and on the back he saw a neat little _résumé_ in Miss Pembroke’s

handwriting, intended for such as him. “Allegory. Man = modern

civilization (in bad sense). Girl = getting into touch with Nature.”

In touch with Nature! The girl was a tree! He lit his pipe and gazed at

the radiant earth. The foreground was hidden, but there was the village

with its elms, and the Roman Road, and Cadbury Rings. There, too, were

those woods, and little beech copses, crowning a waste of down. Not to

mention the air, or the sun, or water. Good, oh good!

In touch with Nature! What cant would the books think of next? His eyes

closed. He was sleepy. Good, oh good! Sighing into his pipe, he fell

asleep.

XIII

Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at the

same time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would not like

her plans altered. And her dismay was justified. Their hostess was a

little stiff, and asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious.

“Indeed he hasn’t. He spent the whole time looking after me.”

“From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual.” Rickie

praised him diligently. But his candid nature showed everything

through. His aunt soon saw that they had not got on. She had expected

this—almost planned it. Nevertheless she resented it, and her

resentment was to fall on him.

The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell it.

Weakly people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and when the

weakness is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots had never

got on among themselves. They talked of “The Family,” but they always

turned outwards to the health and beauty that lie so promiscuously

about the world. Rickie’s father had turned, for a time at all events,

to his mother. Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing

now was irritable, and unfair to the nephew who was lame like her

horrible brother and like herself. She thought him invertebrate and

conventional. She was envious of his happiness. She did not trouble to

understand his art. She longed to shatter him, but knowing as she did

that the human thunderbolt often rebounds and strikes the wielder, she

held her hand.

Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now she

began to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be pleasant

to his aunt, and so convert it into a success.

He replied, “Why need it be a success?”—a reply in the manner of

Ansell.

She laughed. “Oh, that’s so like you men—all theory! What about your

great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in useful you drop

it.”

“I don’t hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don’t want to be

near her or think about her. Don’t you think there are two great things

in life that we ought to aim at—truth and kindness? Let’s have both if

we can, but let’s be sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives up

both for the sake of being funny.”

“And Stephen Wonham,” pursued Agnes. “There’s another person you

hate—or don’t think about, if you prefer it put like that.”

“The truth is, I’m changing. I’m beginning to see that the world has

many people in it who don’t matter. I had time for them once. Not now.”

There was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now.

Agnes surprised him by saying, “But the Wonham boy is evidently a part

of your aunt’s life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him.”

“What’s that to do with it?”

“You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it.”

“Why on earth?”

She flushed a little. “I’m old-fashioned. One ought to consider one’s

hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it’s another thing.

But while we take her hospitality I think it’s our duty.”

Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with Aunt

Emily’s life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms

sometimes do, on Sunday.

Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. The

pompous landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs.

Failing said, “Why am I being hurried?” and after an interval descended

the steps in her ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a sort of

sitting-room, and refused even to wear a bonnet there. The village was

shocked, but at the same time a little proud; it would point out the

carriage to strangers and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in

it, always alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive

shawl.

This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss Pembroke,

_en grande toilette_, sat by her side. Rickie, looking plain and

devout, perched opposite. And Stephen actually came too, murmuring that

it would be the Benedicite, which he had never minded. There was also

the Litany, which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing’s

delight. She enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her

_protégé_ left the pew, looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and

groping most obviously for his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred

pagan to shock people. “He’s gone to worship Nature,” she whispered.

Rickie did not look up. “Don’t you think he’s charming?” He made no

reply.

“Charming,” whispered Agnes over his head.

During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss

Pembroke—undistinguished, unimaginative, tolerable.

Rickie—intolerable. “And how pedantic!” she mused. “He smells of the

University library. If he was stupid in the right way he would be a

don.” She looked round the tiny church; at the whitewashed pillars,

the humble pavement, the window full of magenta saints. There was

the vicar’s wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham’s bonnet. Ugh! The rest of the

congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces—she saw them

Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names—diversified with a

few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile little school children row upon

row. “Ugh! what a hole,” thought Mrs. Failing, whose Christianity was

the type best described as “cathedral.” “What a hole for a cultured

woman! I don’t think it has blunted my sensations, though; I still

see its squalor as clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is

worshipping. Pah! the hypocrite.” Above her the vicar spoke of the

danger of hurrying from one dissipation to another. She treasured his

words, and continued: “I cannot stand smugness. It is the one, the

unpardonable sin. Fresh air! The fresh air that has made Stephen Wonham

fresh and companionable and strong. Even if it kills, I will let in the

fresh air.”

Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism. She

imagined herself to be a cold-eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really she

was an English old lady, who did not mind giving other people a chill

provided it was not infectious.

Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess was a little snappish.

But one is so hungry after morning service, and either so hot or so

cold, that he would be a saint indeed who becomes a saint at once. Mrs.

Failing, after asserting vindictively that it was impossible to make

a living out of literature, was courteously left alone. Roast-beef

and moselle might yet work miracles, and Agnes still hoped for the

introductions—the introductions to certain editors and publishers—on

which her whole diplomacy was bent. Rickie would not push himself. It

was his besetting sin. Well for him that he would have a wife, and a

loving wife, who knew the value of enterprise.

Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour late, and during that

quarter of an hour the aunt and the nephew quarrelled. She had been

inveighing against the morning service, and he quietly and deliberately

replied, “If organized religion is anything—and it is something to

me—it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon.”

Mrs. Failing frowned. “I envy you. It is a great thing to have no sense

of beauty.”

“I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads me astray if I am not

careful.”

“But this is a great relief to me. I thought the present day young man

was an agnostic! Isn’t agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?”

“Nothing is the ‘thing’ at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there,

it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the

way the parson says his vowels.”

Agnes intervened. “Well, I side with Aunt Emily. I believe in ritual.”

“Don’t, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of

religion either.”

“Excuse me,” said Rickie,—perhaps he too was a little hungry,—“I never

suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot

you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won’t.”

“I try to understand your position night and day dear—what you mean,

what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my

presence is so obviously unpleasing to you.”

“Luncheon is served,” said Leighton, but he said it too late. They

discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and

ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times,

choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand

clever people.

Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a

solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an

apology.

“Don’t worry too much. It doesn’t really matter.”

“I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near

the end of our visit.”

“Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I’ve shown both, and already I’m

sorry, and I hope she’ll let me apologize. But from the selfish point

of view it doesn’t matter a straw. She’s no more to us than the Wonham

boy or the boot boy.”

“Which way will you walk?”

“I think to that entrenchment. Look at it.” They were sitting on the

steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it

rest for a moment on her shoulder. “You’re changing me,” he said

gently. “God bless you for it.”

He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time

he hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it

seemed not water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the

happy minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the

Roman crossing, and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line

curved suddenly: certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes

to the down. The entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and

over its narrow line peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked

interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind behind him.

The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was

over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite

green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges

anything) had arranged that from them, at all events, there should be

a view. The whole system of the country lay spread before Rickie, and

he gained an idea of it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He

saw how all the water converges at Salisbury; how Salisbury lies in a

shallow basin, just at the change of the soil. He saw to the north the

Plain, and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it, with a tributary

that broke out suddenly, as the chalk streams do: one village had

clustered round the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw Old

Sarum, and hints of the Avon valley, and the land above Stone Henge.

And behind him he saw the great wood beginning unobtrusively, as if

the down too needed shaving; and into it the road to London slipped,

covering the bushes with white dust. Chalk made the dust white, chalk

made the water clear, chalk made the clean rolling outlines of the

land, and favoured the grass and the distant coronals of trees. Here

is the heart of our island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South

Downs radiate hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did

we condescend to worship her, here we should erect our national shrine.

People at that time were trying to think imperially, Rickie wondered

how they did it, for he could not imagine a place larger than England.

And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual fatherland of us all.

Perhaps Italy would prove marvellous. But at present he conceived it

as something exotic, to be admired and reverenced, but not to be loved

like these unostentatious fields. He drew out a book, it was natural

for him to read when he was happy, and to read out loud,—and for a

little time his voice disturbed the silence of that glorious afternoon.

The book was Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he had cherished

greatly two years before, and marked as “very good.”

“I never was attached to that great sect

Whose doctrine is that each one should select

Out of the world a mistress or a friend

And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend

To cold oblivion,—though it is the code

Of modern morals, and the beaten road

Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread

Who travel to their home among the dead

By the broad highway of the world,—and so

With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe,

The dreariest and the longest journey go.”

It was “very good”—fine poetry, and, in a sense, true. Yet he was

surprised that he had ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon

it seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two lovers were keeping

company where all the villagers could see them. They cared for no one

else; they felt only the pressure of each other, and so progressed,

silent and oblivious, across the land. He felt them to be nearer the

truth than Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they would

have been nearer the truth. He wondered whether they were Henry Adams

and Jessica Thompson, both of this parish, whose banns had been asked

for the second time in the church this morning. Why could he not marry

on fifteen shillings a-week? And be looked at them with respect, and

wished that he was not a cumbersome gentleman.

Presently he saw something less pleasant—his aunt’s pony carriage.

It had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along

by the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to

him. It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, “Wait for

us.” Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen

Wonham was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back

into his pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some

hurdles he went down from the embankment and helped them to dismount.

He felt rather nervous.

His aunt gave him one of her disquieting smiles, but said pleasantly

enough, “Aren’t the Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here

because we wanted an antidote to the morning service.”

“Pang!” said the church bell suddenly; “pang! pang!” It sounded petty

and ludicrous. They all laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a

glance that said “apologize,” darted away to the entrenchment, as

though unable to restrain her curiosity.

“The pony won’t move,” said Mrs. Failing. “Leave him for Stephen to tie

up. Will you walk me to the tree in the middle? Booh! I’m tired. Give

me your arm—unless you’re tired as well.”

“No. I came out partly in the hope of helping you.”

“How sweet of you.” She contrasted his blatant unselfishness with the

hardness of Stephen. Stephen never came out to help you. But if you got

hold of him he was some good. He didn’t wobble and bend at the critical

moment. Her fancy compared Rickie to the cracked church bell sending

forth its message of “Pang! pang!” to the countryside, and Stephen to

the young pagans who were said to lie under this field guarding their

pagan gold.

“This place is full of ghosties,” she remarked; “have you seen any yet?”

“I’ve kept on the outer rim so far.”

“Let’s go to the tree in the centre.”

“Here’s the path.” The bank of grass where he had sat was broken by a

gap, through which chariots had entered, and farm carts entered now.

The track, following the ancient track, led straight through turnips to

a similar gap in the second circle, and thence continued, through more

turnips, to the central tree.

“Pang!” said the bell, as they paused at the entrance.

“You needn’t unharness,” shouted Mrs. Failing, for Stephen was

approaching the carriage.

“Yes, I will,” he retorted.

“You will, will you?” she murmured with a smile. “I wish your brother

wasn’t quite so uppish. Let’s get on. Doesn’t that church distract you?”

“It’s so faint here,” said Rickie. And it sounded fainter inside,

though the earthwork was neither thick nor tall; and the view, though

not hidden, was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a minute of

that chalk pit near Madingley, whose ramparts excluded the familiar

world. Agnes was here, as she had once been there. She stood on the

farther barrier, waiting to receive them when they had traversed the

heart of the camp.

“Admire my mangel-wurzels,” said Mrs. Failing. “They are said to

grow so splendidly on account of the dead soldiers. Isn’t it a sweet

thought? Need I say it is your brother’s?”

“Wonham’s—?” he suggested. It was the second time that she had made the

little slip. She nodded, and he asked her what kind of ghosties haunted

this curious field.

“The D.,” was her prompt reply. “He leans against the tree in the

middle, especially on Sunday afternoons and all the worshippers rise

through the turnips and dance round him.”

“Oh, these were decent people,” he replied, looking

downwards—“soldiers and shepherds. They have no ghosts. They

worshipped Mars or Pan—Erda perhaps; not the devil.”

“Pang!” went the church, and was silent, for the afternoon service

had begun. They entered the second entrenchment, which was in height,

breadth, and composition, similar to the first, and excluded still more

of the view. His aunt continued friendly. Agnes stood watching them.

“Soldiers may seem decent in the past,” she continued, “but wait till

they turn into Tommies from Bulford Camp, who rob the chickens.”

“I don’t mind Bulford Camp,” said Rickie, looking, though in vain, for

signs of its snowy tents. “The men there are the sons of the men here,

and have come back to the old country. War’s horrible, yet one loves

all continuity. And no one could mind a shepherd.”

“Indeed! What about your brother—a shepherd if ever there was? Look

how he bores you! Don’t be so sentimental.”

“But—oh, you mean—”

“Your brother Stephen.”

He glanced at her nervously. He had never known her so queer before.

Perhaps it was some literary allusion that he had not caught; but her

face did not at that moment suggest literature. In the differential

tones that one uses to an old and infirm person he said, “Stephen

Wonham isn’t my brother, Aunt Emily.”

“My dear, you’re that precise. One can’t say ‘half-brother’ every time.”

They approached the central tree.

“How you do puzzle me,” he said, dropping her arm and beginning to

laugh. “How could I have a half-brother?”

She made no answer.

Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he beat it back and said, “I

will not be frightened.” The tree in the centre revolved, the tree

disappeared, and he saw a room—the room where his father had lived in

town. “Gently,” he told himself, “gently.” Still laughing, he said, “I,

with a brother—younger—it’s not possible.” The horror leapt again, and

he exclaimed, “It’s a foul lie!”

“My dear, my dear!”

“It’s a foul lie! He wasn’t—I won’t stand—”

“My dear, before you say several noble things, remember that it’s worse

for him than for you—worse for your brother, for your half-brother,

for your younger brother.”

But he heard her no longer. He was gazing at the past, which he had

praised so recently, which gaped ever wider, like an unhallowed grave.

Turn where he would, it encircled him. It took visible form: it was

this double entrenchment of the Rings. His mouth went cold, and he knew

that he was going to faint among the dead. He started running, missed

the exit, stumbled on the inner barrier, fell into darkness—

“Get his head down,” said a voice. “Get the blood back into him.

That’s all he wants. Leave him to me. Elliot!”—the blood was

returning—“Elliot, wake up!”

He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay close to his eyes, and seemed

beautiful. He saw the structure of the clods. A tiny beetle swung on

the grass blade. On his own neck a human hand pressed, guiding the

blood back to his brain.

There broke from him a cry, not of horror but of acceptance. For one

short moment he understood. “Stephen—” he began, and then he heard his

own name called: “Rickie! Rickie!” Agnes hurried from her post on the

margin, and, as if understanding also, caught him to her breast.

Stephen offered to help them further, but finding that he made things

worse, he stepped aside to let them pass and then sauntered inwards.

The whole field, with concentric circles, was visible, and the broad

leaves of the turnips rustled in the gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and

Elliot were moving towards the Cadover entrance. Mrs. Failing stood

watching in her turn on the opposite bank. He was not an inquisitive

boy; but as he leant against the tree he wondered what it was all

about, and whether he would ever know.

XIV

On the way back—at that very level-crossing where he had paused on

his upward route—Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl why he had

fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in vain. His tone had gone from

him, and he told her harshly and brutally, so that she started away

with a horrified cry. Then his manner altered, and he exclaimed: “Will

you mind? Are you going to mind?”

“Of course I mind,” she whispered. She turned from him, and saw up on

the sky-line two figures that seemed to be of enormous size.

“They’re watching us. They stand on the edge watching us. This

country’s so open—you—you can’t—they watch us wherever we go. Of

course you mind.”

They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself together.

“Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We’re saying things that

have no sense.” But on the way back he repeated: “They can still see

us. They can see every inch of this road. They watch us for ever.” And

when they arrived at the steps there, sure enough, were still the two

figures gazing from the outer circle of the Rings.

She made him go to his room at once: he was almost hysterical. Leighton

brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little

terrace. Of course she minded.

Again she was menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so fair and so

simple, so in accordance with her ideas; and then, like a corpse,

this horror rose up to the surface. She saw the two figures descend

and pause while one of them harnessed the pony; she saw them drive

downward, and knew that before long she must face them and the world.

She glanced at her engagement ring.

When the carriage drove up Mrs. Failing dismounted, but did not speak.

It was Stephen who inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely knowing the

sound of her own voice, replied that he was a little tired.

“Go and put up the pony,” said Mrs. Failing rather sharply.

“Agnes, give me some tea.”

“It is rather strong,” said Agnes as the carriage drove off and left

them alone. Then she noticed that Mrs. Failing herself was agitated.

Her lips were trembling, and she saw the boy depart with manifest

relief.

“Do you know,” she said hurriedly, as if talking against time—“Do you

know what upset Rickie?”

“I do indeed know.”

“Has he told any one else?”

“I believe not.”

“Agnes—have I been a fool?”

“You have been very unkind,” said the girl, and her eyes filled with

tears.

For a moment Mrs. Failing was annoyed. “Unkind? I do not see that at

all. I believe in looking facts in the face. Rickie must know his

ghosts some time. Why not this afternoon?”

She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came faster. “That is not

so. You told him to hurt him. I cannot think what you did it for. I

suppose because he was rude to you after church. It is a mean, cowardly

revenge.

“What—what if it’s a lie?”

“Then, Mrs. Failing, it is sickening of you. There is no other word.

Sickening. I am sorry—a nobody like myself—to speak like this. How

_could_ you, oh, how could you demean yourself? Why, not even a poor

person—” Her indignation was fine and genuine. But her tears fell no

longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not really brothers.

“It is not a lie, my dear; sit down. I will swear so much solemnly. It

is not a lie, but—”

Agnes waited.

“—we can call it a lie if we choose.”

“I am not so childish. You have said it, and we must all suffer.

You have had your fun: I conclude you did it for fun. You cannot go

back. He—” She pointed towards the stables, and could not finish her

sentence.

“I have not been a fool twice.”

Agnes did not understand.

“My dense lady, can’t you follow? I have not told Stephen one single

word, neither before nor now.”

There was a long silence.

Indeed, Mrs. Failing was in an awkward position.

Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire to shock him, she had

imperilled her own peace. She had felt so unconventional upon the

hillside, when she loosed the horror against him; but now it was

darting at her as well. Suppose the scandal came out. Stephen, who

was absolutely without delicacy, would tell it to the people as soon

as tell them the time. His paganism would be too assertive; it might

even be in bad taste. After all, she had a prominent position in the

neighbourhood; she was talked about, respected, looked up to. After

all, she was growing old. And therefore, though she had no true regard

for Rickie, nor for Agnes, nor for Stephen, nor for Stephen’s parents,

in whose tragedy she had assisted, yet she did feel that if the scandal

revived it would disturb the harmony of Cadover, and therefore tried

to retrace her steps. It is easy to say shocking things: it is so

different to be connected with anything shocking. Life and death were

not involved, but comfort and discomfort were.

The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the gravel. Agnes said

hastily, “Is that really true—that he knows nothing?”

“You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive that know. He realizes

what he is—with a precision that is sometimes alarming. Who he is, he

doesn’t know and doesn’t care. I suppose he would know when I’m dead.

There are papers.”

“Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to you I’m sorry I was so rude?”

Mrs. Failing had not disliked her courage. “My dear, you may. We’re all

off our hinges this Sunday. Sit down by me again.”

Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were

clever enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up.

The matron must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl

must hide the stain in her future husband’s family. Why not? Who was

injured? What does a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie

upstairs, how grateful he would be to them for saving him.

“Stephen!”

“Yes.”

“I’m tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea.”

“All right.”

And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did he. He

sat down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he would be ready.

Mrs. Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the step above him. Agnes

tried to make conversation, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea

was a long way off.

“The sea’s downhill. That’s all I know about it.” He swept up the money

with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such things. Then

he started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk till the morning.

“He will be gone days,” said Mrs. Failing. “The comedy is finished. Let

us come in.”

She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered

her. Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her old

emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a comedy.

As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. People

like “Stephen Wonham” were social thunderbolts, to be shunned at all

costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now unfeigned, and she

hurried upstairs to impart it to Rickie.

“I don’t think we are rewarded if we do right, but we are punished if

we lie. It’s the fashion to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe

in half of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days

it really will come back to you.” These were the words of Mr. Failing.

They were also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical

person. Rickie was trying to write to him when she entered with the

good news.

“Dear, we’re saved! He doesn’t know, and he never is to know. I can’t

tell you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing together up

there, she wasn’t telling him at all. She was keeping him out of the

way, in case you let it out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but she

is nice, really. She said, ‘I’ve been a fool but I haven’t been a fool

twice.’ You must forgive her, Rickie. I’ve forgiven her, and she me;

for at first I was so angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!”

He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, “Why

hasn’t she told him?”

“Because she has come to her senses.”

“But she can’t behave to people like that. She must tell him.”

“Why?”

“Because he must be told such a real thing.”

“Such a real thing?” the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead.

“But—but you don’t mean you’re glad about it?”

His head bowed over the letter. “My God—no! But it’s a real thing. She

must tell him. I nearly told him myself—up there—when he made me look

at the ground, but you happened to prevent me.”

How Providence had watched over them!

“She won’t tell him. I know that much.”

“Then, Agnes, darling”—he drew her to the table “we must talk together

a little. If she won’t, then we ought to.”

“_We_ tell him?” cried the girl, white with horror. “Tell him now, when

everything has been comfortably arranged?”

“You see, darling”—he took hold of her hand—“what one must do is to

think the thing out and settle what’s right. I’m still all trembling

and stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me.

It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or

incident that is symbolical. It’s nothing in itself, yet for the moment

it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs,

and we have accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the

moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this

nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me—I shall not tell you

how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and

repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this

time. I think, from such a man—the son of such a man. But I want to do

what is right.”

“Because doing right is its own reward,” said Agnes anxiously.

“I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is

simply doing right.”

“I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me,

it _is_ nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely.”

“Thank you,” he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. “But all my

disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for—” He broke off; he

could not bear to mention the name of his mother. “I was trying to say,

I oughtn’t to follow these impulses too much. There are others things.

Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he

is. And apart from ideals” (here she had won the battle), “and leaving

ideals aside, I couldn’t meet him and keep silent. It isn’t in me. I

should blurt it out.”

“But you won’t meet him!” she cried. “It’s all been arranged. We’ve

sent him to the sea. Isn’t it splendid? He’s gone. My own boy won’t be

fantastic, will he?” Then she fought the fantasy on its own ground.

“And, bye the bye, what you call the ‘symbolic moment’ is over. You had

it up by the Rings. You tried to tell him, I interrupted you. It’s not

your fault. You did all you could.”

She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he looked so

gloomy. “So he’s gone to the sea. For the present that does settle it.

Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?”

“No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It would be

so dreadful if you did not part friends, and—”

“What’s that?”

It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes threw

out her hand in despair.

“Elliot!” the voice called.

They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie

advanced to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He thought he

had never seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his advance quite

frankly, with widespread arms.

“Elliot!”

He moved forward—into what? He pretended to himself he would rather

see his brother before he answered; that it was easier to acknowledge

him thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that the woman had

conquered, and that he was moving forward to acknowledge her. “If he

calls me again—” he thought.

“Elliot!”

“Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he is.”

He did not call again.

Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed under

the windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been “nipped”

(nothing serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to shout good-bye

to him. And once or twice, as he followed the river into the darkness,

he wondered what it was like to be so weak,—not to ride, not to swim,

not to care for anything but books and a girl.

They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near to

each other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing tumultuous

world. And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay between them and

that home! Still holding her fast, he said, “I was writing to Ansell

when you came in.”

“Do you owe him a letter?”

“No.” He paused. “I was writing to tell him about this. He would help

us. He always picks out the important point.”

“Darling, I don’t like to say anything, and I know that Mr. Ansell

would keep a secret, but haven’t we picked out the important point for

ourselves?”

He released her and tore the letter up.

XV

The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It

seems so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a

dangerous guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious,

but also from what is good. Agnes, in this tangle, had followed it

blindly, partly because she was a woman, and it meant more to her than

it can ever mean to a man; partly because, though dangerous, it is also

obvious, and makes no demand upon the intellect. She could not feel

that Stephen had full human rights. He was illicit, abnormal, worse

than a man diseased. And Rickie remembering whose son he was, gradually

adopted her opinion. He, too, came to be glad that his brother had

passed from him untried, that the symbolic moment had been rejected.

Stephen was the fruit of sin; therefore he was sinful. He, too, became

a sexual snob.

And now he must hear the unsavoury details. That evening they sat in

the walled garden. Agnes, according to arrangement, left him alone with

his aunt. He asked her, and was not answered.

“You are shocked,” she said in a hard, mocking voice. “It is very nice

of you to be shocked, and I do not wish to grieve you further. We will

not allude to it again. Let us all go on just as we are. The comedy is

finished.”

He could not tolerate this. His nerves were shattered, and all that

was good in him revolted as well. To the horror of Agnes, who was

within earshot, he replied, “You used to puzzle me, Aunt Emily, but I

understand you at last. You have forgotten what other people are like.

Continual selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it. I see now how you

look at the world. ‘Nice of me to be shocked!’ I want to go tomorrow,

if I may.”

“Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best.” And so the

disastrous visit ended.

As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose child

Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had decided, after

some delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman in person. “He has

got some brute courage,” thought Rickie, “and it was decent of him not

to boast about it.” But he had labelled the boy as “Bad,” and it was

convenient to revert to his good qualities as seldom as possible. He

preferred to brood over his coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his

irreligion. Out of these he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting

how slovenly his own perceptions had been during the past week, how

dogmatic and intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love.

During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find the

Dryad manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came too, and

for about half an hour they hunted in the flickering light of a candle.

It was a strange, ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled when a

picture swung towards him, and he saw the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering

and grey. Leighton suggested the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left

things on the roof. So they climbed out of the skylight—the night was

perfectly still—and continued the search among the gables. Enormous

stars hung overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable

and black. “It doesn’t matter,” said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the

futility of all that he did. “Oh, let us look properly,” said Leighton,

a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was

genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were rewarded: the

manuscript lay in a gutter, charred and smudged.

The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,—he had a

curious breakdown,—partly in the attempt to get his little stories

published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up

a book, and that the book might be called “Pan Pipes.” He was very

energetic over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had

passed from the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in

people. Mrs. Failing’s old publishers, to whom the book was submitted,

replied that, greatly as they found themselves interested, they did not

see their way to making an offer at present. They were very polite, and

singled out for special praise “Andante Pastorale,” which Rickie had

thought too sentimental, but which Agnes had persuaded him to include.

The stories were sent to another publisher, who considered them for

six weeks, and then returned them. A fragment of red cotton, placed by

Agnes between the leaves, had not shifted its position.

“Can’t you try something longer, Rickie?” she said; “I believe we’re on

the wrong track. Try an out-and-out love-story.”

“My notion just now,” he replied, “is to leave the passions on the

fringe.” She nodded, and tapped for the waiter: they had met in a

London restaurant. “I can’t soar; I can only indicate. That’s where

the musicians have the pull, for music has wings, and when she says

‘Tristan’ and he says ‘Isolde,’ you are on the heights at once. What do

people mean when they call love music artificial?”

“I know what they mean, though I can’t exactly explain. Or couldn’t you

make your stories more obvious? I don’t see any harm in that. Uncle

Willie floundered hopelessly. He doesn’t read much, and he got muddled.

I had to explain, and then he was delighted. Of course, to write down

to the public would be quite another thing and horrible. You have

certain ideas, and you must express them. But couldn’t you express them

more clearly?”

“You see—” He got no further than “you see.”

“The soul and the body. The soul’s what matters,” said Agnes, and

tapped for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt

that she was not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too perfect to be a

critic. Actual life might seem to her so real that she could not detect

the union of shadow and adamant that men call poetry. He would even

go further and acknowledge that she was not as clever as himself—and

he was stupid enough! She did not like discussing anything or reading

solid books, and she was a little angry with such women as did. It

pleased him to make these concessions, for they touched nothing in her

that he valued. He looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho and

decided that she was incomparable.

“At half-past two I call on the editor of the ‘Holborn.’ He’s got a

stray story to look at, and he’s written about it.”

“Oh, Rickie! Rickie! Why didn’t you put on a boiled shirt!”

He laughed, and teased her. “‘The soul’s what matters. We literary

people don’t care about dress.”

“Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can’t you change?”

“Too far.” He had rooms in South Kensington. “And I’ve forgot my

card-case. There’s for you!”

She shook her head. “Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?”

“Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! that’s

Tilliard!”

Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the _faux pas_ he had made last

June, partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how he came to

be pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient and so frightfully

cheap.

“Just why Rickie brings me,” said Miss Pembroke.

“And I suppose you’re here to study life?” said Tilliard, sitting down.

“I don’t know,” said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the guests.

“Doesn’t one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There’s life

of a sort in Soho,—_Un peu de faisan, s’il vous plait_.”

Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the paying,

Rickie muddled with his purse.

“I’m cramming,” pursued Tilliard, “and so naturally I come into contact

with very little at present. But later on I hope to see things.” He

blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie’s edification. “It is

most frightfully important not to get a narrow or academic outlook,

don’t you think? A person like Ansell, who goes from Cambridge,

home—home, Cambridge—it must tell on him in time.”

“But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher.”

“A very kinky one,” said Tilliard abruptly. “Not my idea of a

philosopher. How goes his dissertation?”

“He never answers my letters,” replied Rickie. “He never would. I’ve

heard nothing since June.”

“It’s a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people in.

He’d have a far better chance if he waited.”

“So I said, but he wouldn’t wait. He’s so keen about this particular

subject.”

“What is it?” asked Agnes.

“About things being real, wasn’t it, Tilliard?”

“That’s near enough.”

“Well, good luck to him!” said the girl. “And good luck to you, Mr.

Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we’ll meet again.”

They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she was

quite in his _couche sociale_. His sister, for instance, would never

have been lured into a Soho restaurant—except for the experience of the

thing. Tilliard’s _couche sociale_ permitted experiences. Provided his

heart did not go out to the poor and the unorthodox, he might stare at

them as much as he liked. It was seeing life.

Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at Cambridge Circus. She

shouted after him that his tie was rising over his collar, but he did

not hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and pictured quite

accurately the effect that his appearance would have on the editor. The

editor was a tall neat man of forty, slow of speech, slow of soul, and

extraordinarily kind. He and Rickie sat over a fire, with an enormous

table behind them whereon stood many books waiting to be reviewed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and paused.

Rickie smiled feebly.

“Your story does not convince.” He tapped it. “I have read it—with very

great pleasure. It convinces in parts, but it does not convince as a

whole; and stories, don’t you think, ought to convince as a whole?”

“They ought indeed,” said Rickie, and plunged into self-depreciation.

But the editor checked him.

“No—no. Please don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear any

one talk against imagination. There are countless openings for

imagination,—for the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all the

things you are trying to do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in

doing. I’m not _objecting_ to imagination; on the contrary, I’d advise

you to cultivate it, to accent it. Write a really good ghost story

and we’d take it at once. Or”—he suggested it as an alternative to

imagination—“or you might get inside life. It’s worth doing.”

“Life?” echoed Rickie anxiously.

He looked round the pleasant room, as if life might be fluttering there

like an imprisoned bird. Then he looked at the editor: perhaps he was

sitting inside life at this very moment. “See life, Mr. Elliot, and

then send us another story.” He held out his hand. “I am sorry I have

to say ‘No, thank you’; it’s so much nicer to say, ‘Yes, please.’”

He laid his hand on the young man’s sleeve, and added, “Well, the

interview’s not been so alarming after all, has it?”

“I don’t think that either of us is a very alarming person,” was not

Rickie’s reply. It was what he thought out afterwards in the omnibus.

His reply was “Ow,” delivered with a slight giggle.

As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved quickly

to the right and left, as if he would discover something in the squalid

fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some radiant archway,

the face of some god beneath a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved,

he had seen death and other things; but the heart of all things was

hidden. There was a password and he could not learn it, nor could the

kind editor of the “Holborn” teach him. He sighed, and then sighed

more piteously. For had he not known the password once—known it and

forgotten it already? But at this point his fortunes become intimately

connected with those of Mr. Pembroke.