A DAY IN THE COUNTRY
When Ashley Mead called for her at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning Miss
Pinsent was not dressed. When she made her appearance at a quarter to
twelve she was rather peevish; her repertory embraced some moods quite
unamiable in a light way. She did not want to go, she said, and she
would not go; she wondered how she had come to say she would go; was he
sure she had said so?
"Oh, you must go now," said Ashley cheerfully and decisively.
"Why must I, if I don't want to?"
"Honour, justice, kindness, pity; take your choice of motives.
Besides--" he paused, smiling at her.
"Well, what besides?"
"You mean to go." The stroke was bold, bold as that of Lady Kilnorton's
about Ashley being one of a dozen.
"Are you a thought-reader, Mr. Mead?"
"A gown-reader on this occasion. If that frock means anything it means
the country."
Ora smiled reluctantly, with a glance down the front of her gown.
"It's quite true I didn't mean to go," she said. "Besides I didn't think
you'd come."
"A very doubtful truth, and a quite unnecessary fiction," said he. "Come
along."
She came, obedient but still not gay; he did not force the talk. They
went to Waterloo and took tickets for a quiet village. He gave her all
the Sunday papers and for a time she read them, while he leant back,
steadily and curiously regarding the white smooth brow which shewed
itself over the top of the sheet. He was wondering how she kept the
traces of her various emotions (she was credited with so many) off her
face. For lines she might have been a child; for eyes too, it seemed to
him sometimes, while at other moments all possibilities of feeling, if
not of knowledge, spoke in her glance. After this, it seemed a poor
conclusion to repeat that she was interesting.
Presently she threw away her paper and looked out of the window with a
grave, almost bored, expression. Still Ashley bided his time; he took up
the discarded journal and read; its pleasant, discursive, unimportant
talk was content with half his mind.
"I suppose," she said absently, "that Irene and Lord Bowdon are spending
the day together somewhere."
"I suppose so; they ought to be, anyhow."
A long pause followed, Ashley still reading his column of gossip with an
appearance of sufficient attention. Ora glanced at him, her brows raised
a little in protest. At last she seemed to understand the position.
"I'm ready to be agreeable as soon as you are," she announced.
"Why, then, it's most delightful of you to come," was his answer, as he
leant forward to her; the paper fell on the floor and he pushed it away
with his foot. "Will they enjoy themselves, that couple?"
"She wrote to me about it yesterday, quite a long letter."
"Giving reasons?"
"Yes; reasons of a sort, you know."
"I thought so," he nodded. "Somehow both of them seemed anxious to have
reasons, good sound reasons."
"Oh, well, but she's in love with him," said Ora. "I suppose that's a
reason."
"And he with her?"
"Of course."
It had been Ora's firm intention not to refer in the most distant manner
to what had passed between Bowdon and herself. But our lips and eyes are
traitors to our careful tongues; and there are people who draw out a
joke from any hiding-place.
"He's done a very wise thing," said Ashley, looking straight into her
eyes. She blushed and laughed. "I admire wise things," he added,
laughing in his turn.
"But don't do them?"
"Oh, sometimes. To-day for example! What can be wiser than to refresh
myself with a day in the country, to spend a few hours in fresh air
and--and pleasant surroundings?"
She looked at him for a moment, then settled herself more luxuriously on
the seat as she murmured, "I like being wise too."
The one porter at the little station eyed Ora with grave appreciation;
the landlady of the little inn where they procured a plain lunch seemed
divided between distrust of the lady and admiration of her garments.
Ashley ordered an early dinner and then invited his friend to come out
of doors.
He had brought her to no show view, no famous prospect. There was only a
low slow stream dawdling along through the meadows, a belt of trees a
quarter of a mile away behind them, in front a stretch of flat land
beyond the river, and on the water's edge, here and there, a few
willows. She found a convenient slope in the bank and sat down, he lying
beside her, smoking a cigar. The sun shone, but the breeze was fresh.
Ora had been merry at lunch but now she became silent again. When Ashley
Mead threw the stump of his cigar into the stream, she seemed to rouse
herself from a reverie and watched it bob lazily away.
"Sleepy after lunch?" he asked.
"No, I'm not sleepy," she answered. "I was letting things pass through
my head." She turned to him rather abruptly. "Why did you bring me here
to-day?" she asked, with a touch of protest in her voice.
"Purely a desire for pleasure; I wanted to enjoy myself."
"Are you like that too? Because I am." She seemed to search his face.
"But there's something else in you."
"Yes, at other times," he admitted. "But just then there wasn't, so I
brought you. And just now there isn't."
She laughed, rather nervously as it seemed to him.
"And what do the other things, when they're there, say to it?" she
asked.
"Oh, they're sure of their innings in the end!" His tone was careless,
but his eyes did not leave her face. He had meant not to make love to
her; he would not have admitted that he was making love to her. But to
have her face there and not look at it had become impossible; it chained
him with its power of exciting that curiosity mingled with attraction
which is roughly dubbed fascination. He felt that he must not only see
more of her but know more of her; there was a demand of the brain as
well as a craving of the emotions. She seemed moved to tell him nothing;
she made no disclosures of her past life, where she had been born or
bred, how she had fared, how come where she was, how become Mrs. Jack
Fenning, or how now again turned to Ora Pinsent. She left him to find
out anything he wanted to know. Her assumption that there was nothing to
tell, or no reason to tell anything, spurred him to further study of
her. That he studied at his peril he knew well and had known from the
first; it was but another prick of the spur to him.
She had been gazing across the stream, at the meadows and the cattle.
Now her eyes returned to him and, meeting his glance, she laughed again
in that half-amused, half-embarrassed way.
"Shall I make up a life for you?" he asked. "Listen now. You weren't
pretty as a young girl; you were considered very naughty, rather
good-for-nothing; I think they were a bit down on you, tried to drill
you into being like other people, to--what's the word?--eradicate your
faults, to give you the virtues. All that made you rather unhappy; you'd
a good deal rather have been petted. But you weren't drilled, your
faults weren't eradicated, you never got the virtues."
She was listening with a smile and amused eyes.
"The training broke down because you began to grow beautiful and
coaxing; they couldn't drill you any more; it wasn't in their hearts.
They began to see that they'd got something uncommon; or perhaps they
just despaired. They said it was Ora's way.--"
"Lizzie's way," she corrected with a merry nod.
"Oh, no. Hang Lizzie! They said it was Ora's way, and that it was no use
bullying the girl. Your father said it first and had some trouble in
convincing your mother. But he did at last. Then you grew up, and
everybody made love to you. And I expect somebody died and home wasn't
so comfortable. So some time or other you took a flight away, and the
stage became a reality. I suppose it had been a dream. And at some time
or other you took a certain step. Then I don't know anything more except
what's written in the Chronicles of Queen Ora Pinsent." He ended the
story, which had been punctuated by pauses in which he gathered fresh
information from her face.
"You've done well to find out so much. It wasn't very unlike that. Now
tell me the future. What's going to happen to me?"
"You're going to be young and beautiful for ever and ever."
She laughed joyfully.
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Let me see. I shall be young--young enough--for
ten years more, and with the proper appliances beautiful for twenty."
His laugh was reluctant; the mention of the proper appliances jarred on
him a little. She saw it in an instant and answered with a defiance: "I
rouge now when I want it."
"Are you rouged to-day?"
"You can look and see."
"I can look, but perhaps I can't see."
She rubbed her cheek hard with her hand and then showed him the palm.
"I hope that's proof," he said, "but these contrivances are so cunning
now-a-days."
"Men think them even more cunning than they are," laughed Ora. "And what
have you done?" she went on. "What's your life been?"
"The deplorably usual--preparatory school, public school, Oxford, Bar.
I'm a full-blown specimen of the ordinary Englishman of the professional
classes."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Oh, I'm sure I don't know. As little work as I must and as little harm
as I can, I suppose."
She laughed as she said: "At any rate you aren't doing much work to-day,
are you? And no harm at all! But you've left out what you put in for
me--a certain step."
"Well, you've taken it, and I haven't."
"You will. Oh, Irene Kilnorton has told me all about it. It seems you
can't help it, Mr. Mead. I liked her; I asked her to come and see me,
but she's never been."
He made a little grimace, wrinkling brow and nose. Ora laughed again.
"You won't be able to help it," she declared, nodding her head. "And
then no more Sundays out with actresses!"
"Even as matters stand, it's not a habit of mine," he protested.
She smoked a cigarette of his, investing the act of luxury with a grace
which made it meritorious; as she blew out the last of the smoke, she
sighed, saying,
"I wish to-day would last for ever."
"Do you?" he asked in a low voice. The tone startled her to a sudden
quick glance at his face. Her words had given expression to his longing
that this simple perfection of existence should never pass.
"Just the meadows, and the river, and the sunshine."
"You leave me out?"
"No," she said, "you may be somewhere in it, if you like. Because if
nothing was going to change, I shouldn't change either; and I like you
being here now, so I should like you being here always."
"Do you always expect to change to people?"
"It's not altogether me. They change to me, I think."
"If I don't change to you, will you promise not to change to me?" He
laughed as he spoke, but he looked at her intently. She turned away,
saying,
"I should be rather afraid never to change to a person. It would make
him mean so terribly much to one, wouldn't it?"
"But you married?" he whispered, whether in seriousness or in mockery he
himself could hardly tell.
"Yes," she said. She seemed to agree that there was a puzzle, but to be
unable to give any explanation of it. The fact was there, not to be
mended by theorising about it.
In long intimate talk the hours were wearing away. His impulse was
delicately to press her to reveal herself, to shew her mind, her way of
thought, her disposition towards him. But side by side with his interest
came the growing charm of her; he hardly knew whether to talk to her or
to be silent with her, to elicit and trace the changes animation made,
or to admire the dainty beauty of her features in repose. Movement and
rest alike became her so well that to drive out either for the other
seemed a gain burdened with an equal loss; her quick transitions from
expression to expression were ruthless as well as bountiful. She
appeared very happy, forgetful now of the puzzle that he had called to
her mind, of the distrust that had afflicted her, entirely given over to
the pleasure of living and of being there. Then she liked him; he was no
jar, no unwelcome element. But there was still a distance between them,
marked by her occasional nervousness, her ignoring of a remark that
pressed her too closely, her skirting round topics which threatened to
prove too serious. She seemed to ask him not to compel her to any
issue, not to make her face any questions or attempt any determination,
to let her go on being happy as long as might be possible without
driving her to ask why she was happy or how long she would be. Happy she
was; as they rose reluctantly to go back to the inn she turned to him,
saying:
"I shall never forget the day you've given me."
But, arrived at the inn, she forgot her love of the meadows. Now she was
glad to be in the snug parlour, glad dinner was near, glad to sit in a
chair again. She went upstairs under the escort of the questioning
admiring landlady, and came down fresh and radiant. In passing she gave
him her hand, still cool and moist from water. "Isn't that nice?" she
asked, and laughed merrily when he answered, "Oh, well, nice enough."
The window opened on a little garden; she flung it wide. "There's nobody
to spy on how much we eat," she said, "and the evening smells sweet. Oh,
do let's begin!" And she clapped her hands when the meal came. Ashley
found a sort of pity mingling with his other feelings for her,
compassion for the simplicity and readiness of emotion which expose
their possessor to so many chances of sorrow as well as to a certainty
of recurrent joys. But he fell in with her mood and they joined in a
childish pretence that they were at a great banquet, dignifying the
simple chicken with titles they recollected from _menu_ or constructed
from imagination, while the claret, which could make no great claims on
intrinsic merit, became a succession of costly vintages, and the
fictitious bill, by which she declared she would measure his devotion to
her, grew by leaps and bounds. It was strange to realise that in
twenty-four hours she would be back in her theatre, a great, at least a
notorious, personage, talked of, stared at, canvassed, blamed, admired,
the life she herself made so simple a thing given over to a thousand
others for their pleasure and curiosity. A touch of jealousy made itself
felt in his reflexions.
"I'm beginning rather to hate your audiences," he said.
A shrug and a smile sent the audiences to a limbo of inexpressible
unimportance.
"You'll think differently about that to-morrow," he warned her.
"Be content with what I feel to-night; I am."
They had finished dinner; both again had smoked cigarettes.
"How long before the train?" she asked.
"An hour and a half," he answered with a hint of triumph in his voice;
the end was not yet; even after the time for the train there was the
journey.
Evening fell slowly, as it seemed with a sympathetic unwillingness to
end their day. She moved to an arm-chair by the side of the window and
he sat near her. Talk died away unmissed and silence came unnoticed. She
looked a little tired and leant back in her seat; her face shewed pale
in the frame of dark hair that clustered round it; her eyes were larger
and more eloquent. The fate that he had braved, or in truth invited, was
come; he loved her, he so loved her that he must needs touch her. Yet
there was that about her which made his touch timid and light; a
delicacy, an innocence which he was inclined to call paradoxical, the
appeal of helplessness, a sort of unsubstantiality that made her seem
the love for a man's soul only. One of her hands lay on the arm of her
chair; he laid his lightly on it and when she turned smiled at her. She
smiled back at him with deprecation but with perfect understanding. She
knew why he did that; she did not resent it. She turned her hand over
and very lightly grasped his fingers in a friendly tender pressure; she
gazed again into the little garden while their hands were thus distantly
clasped. She seemed to yield what she must and to beg him to ask no
more. He longed to be able to do her will as it was and not to seek to
change it, to offer her no violence of entreaty and to bring her into no
distress. But the sweetness of love's gradual venturing allured him; it
might be still that she only tolerated, that she gave a return for her
day's happiness, and allowed this much lest she should wound a man she
liked. With that he was not content, he was hotly and keenly discontent.
She had become everything to him; he must be everything to her; if it
must be, everything in sorrow and renunciation, but everything; if not
for always, at least for now, for the end of this golden day,
everything. He could not go home without the memory of her lips. He
leant forward towards her; she turned to him. For a moment she smiled,
then grew grave again; she let him draw her nearer to him, and with
averted face and averted eyes suffered his kiss on her cheek. In the
very midst of his emotion he smiled; she preserved so wonderfully the
air of not being responsible for the thing, of neither accepting nor
rejecting, of being quite passive, of just having it happen to her. He
kissed her again; after much entreaty, once she kissed him lightly,
shyly, under protest as it were, yet with a sincerity and gladness which
called out a new tenderness in him; they seemed to say that she had
wanted to do it very much long before she did it, and would want to do
it again, and yet would not do it again. The kiss, which from many women
would have levelled all barriers, seemed to raise new ones round her.
He was ashamed of himself when his love drove him to besiege her more.
Even now she was not resentful, she did not upbraid or repel him; she
broke into that little nervous laugh of hers, as she lay back passive in
the chair, and murmured so low that he hardly caught the words, "Don't.
Don't make love to me any more now."
Her prohibition or request had availed with Bowdon's hesitating
conscience-ridden impulse; perhaps there was small cause to wonder at
that. It availed now no less with Ashley Mead's impetuous passion. Her
low whisper protected her absolutely; the confession it hinted disarmed
him; he caught both her hands and held them in a long clasp, looking the
while into her appealing eyes. But he entreated her no more and he
kissed her no more. A moment later he rose, went and sat on the
window-sill, and lit a cigarette; the glow seemed a tiny beacon of fire
to shew the harbour, that danger was past, that her orders were
understood and accepted. She lay very quiet, looking at him with steady,
grateful, loving eyes, acknowledging a kindness that she had not doubted
and yet found fine in him. His transgression--perhaps she hardly counted
it one--was forgiven because he stayed his steps at her bidding. He knew
that she trusted him; and in spite of her prohibition he believed that
she loved him.
Now one of the riddles about her seemed to find an explanation. He
understood how she had passed through the dangers and the ordeal, and
had come out still with her freshness and her innocence; how her taste
had saved her from those who would have been deaf to the appeal that had
arrested him, how powerful and sufficing a shield that appeal was to any
man whom her taste would allow to come close to her in comradeship. You
could not be false to a confidence like that; if you were a man who
could, you would never have the chance. Thus Ashley summed up a case
which a little while ago had seemed to him very strange. It seemed
strange and unusual still, with a peculiar charm of its own. It was
weakness breeding strength, surrender made security. It put a man on his
honour; it took away the resistance which might make honour forget
itself in the passion of victory. It was like being made guardian of
another's treasure; you were careful of it, however heedless you were of
your own.
As they journeyed home, she was mirthful and joyous. This day was done,
but she did not despair of the world; there should be other days, and
the work of this day should endure. She made plans by which they were to
meet, to be much together, to unite their lives by many ties. She let
him see how much he had entered into her schemes; she told him plainly
again and again that he had become to her quite different from all other
men. She revealed to him her little habits, her tempers, her ways, her
manoeuvres, her tricks; she had plenty of all of them. She shewed an
open delight in the love which she had won from him and made no pretence
of concealing anything of what he was to her. Of Jack Fenning she said
not a word; of caution in the externals of her own behaviour, of what
people might think or say, of any possible difficulties in their
relation to one another, not a word. She was happy and she was grateful.
He took her to the door of her own house; she was not hurt but seemed a
little surprised that he would not go in. He did not offer to kiss her
again, but could not avoid thinking that she would have been neither
angry nor grieved if he had. His last memory was of her looking round
her door, smiling delightedly and nodding to him, her eyes full of a
thousand confidences. "Come soon," she called at last before she hid
herself from his sight.
When he reached his own rooms, he found awaiting him a note from Sir
James Muddock, begging him to come to the office at Buckingham Palace
Road at eleven the next morning. "I have had an interview with my
doctor," the old man wrote, "which makes it necessary for me to consider
very seriously certain immediate steps. I hope that I shall be able to
rely on your assistance." The note was sent by hand and marked
"Immediate." Its meaning was plain enough. The long-expected verdict had
come; Sir James must be relieved; another head was wanted in the firm of
Muddock and Mead. With his brain still full of Ora Pinsent the matter of
the message seemed remote to Ashley, but he forced himself to descend to
it. He was to have the offer of a partnership, the offer of great
wealth, the opportunity of a career limited only by his own talents and
no longer clogged by poverty. Would the offer be free, or hampered by a
tacit unacknowledged understanding? He knew well enough Sir James' mind
about his future. How strange that future looked in the after-glow of
this day! Yet what future had this day? Here was a question that he
could not bring himself to discuss patiently. Future or no future, this
day had altered his life, seemed at this moment to have altered it so
completely that on it and on what had happened in it would turn his
answer to the offer of great wealth and the prospect of a career. Even
in his own thoughts he observed that reticence about Alice Muddock which
would have governed his tongue in speaking of her to another; but,
affect as he would, or thought himself obliged to, he knew that she
formed a factor in the situation, that she was in her father's mind when
he wrote, no less than that other object of the old man's love, the
great firm in Buckingham Palace Road.
"It's strange," he thought, "that the thing, after dragging on so long,
should come to a head now, to-night, just when--." He broke off his
reflexions and, going to the window, looked out on the lights of the
bridge and listened to the lessening noise of the town. He was dimly
conscious that in this day of long idleness, by the slow low river and
in the little inn, he had done more to draw the lines and map the course
of his life than in any hour of labour, however successful and however
strenuous. Fate had surprised him with a point-blank question, the
Stand-and-deliver of a direct choice. Saying he would think it all over,
he sat late that night. But thoughts will not always be compelled and
disciplined; his vigil was but a pictured repetition of the day that he
had lived. The day had been Ora's day. Hers also was the night.