BACK AT BRYNGELLY
Geoffrey and Mr. Granger reached Bolton Street about six o’clock. The
drawing-room was still full of callers. Lady Honoria’s young men
mustered in great force in those days. They were very inoffensive young
men and Geoffrey had no particular objection to them. Only he found it
difficult to remember all their names. When Geoffrey entered the
drawing-room there were no fewer than five of them, to say nothing of
two stray ladies, all superbly dressed and sitting metaphorically at
Honoria’s very pretty feet. Otherwise their contributions to the
general store of amusement did not amount to much, for her ladyship did
most of the talking.
Geoffrey introduced Mr. Granger, whom Honoria could not at first
remember. Nor did she receive the announcement that he was going to
dine and stay the night with any particular enthusiasm. The young men
melted away at Geoffrey’s advent like mists before a rising sun. He
greeted them civilly enough, but with him they had nothing in common.
To tell the truth they were a little afraid of him. This man with his
dark handsome face sealed with the stamp of intellect, his
powerful-looking form (ill dressed, according to their standard) and
his great and growing reputation, was a person with whom they had no
sympathy, and who, they felt, had no sympathy with them. We talk as
though there is one heaven and one hell for all of us, but here must be
some mistake. An impassable gulf yawns between the different classes of
mankind. What has such a man as Geoffrey to do with the feeble male and
female butterflies of a London drawing-room? There is only one link
between them: they live on the same planet.
When the fine young men and the two stray ladies had melted away,
Geoffrey took Mr. Granger up to his room. Coming downstairs again he
found Lady Honoria waiting for him in the study.
“Is that individual really going to dine and sleep here?” she asked.
“Certainly, Honoria, and he has brought no dress clothes,” he answered.
“Really, Geoffrey, it is too bad of you,” said the lady with some
pardonable irritation. “Why do you bring people to dinner in this
promiscuous way? It will quite upset the table. Just fancy asking an
old Welsh clergyman to dine, who has not the slightest pretensions to
being a gentleman, when one has the Prime Minister and a Bishop
coming—and a clergyman without dress clothes too. What has he come
for?”
“He came to see me on business, and as to the people coming to dinner,
if they don’t like it they can grumble when they go home. By the way,
Honoria, I am going down to Wales for a day or two to-morrow. I want a
change.”
“Indeed! Going to see the lovely Beatrice, I suppose. You had better be
careful, Geoffrey. That girl will get you into a mess, and if she does
there are plenty of people who are ready to make an example of you. You
have enemies enough, I can tell you. I am not jealous, it is not in my
line, but you are too intimate with that girl, and you will be sorry
for it one day.”
“Nonsense,” said Geoffrey angrily, but nevertheless he felt that Lady
Honoria’s words were words of truth. It struck him, moreover, that she
must feel this strongly, or she would not have spoken in that tone.
Honoria did not pose as a household philosopher. Still he would not
draw back now. His heart was set on seeing Beatrice.
“Am I to understand,” went on his wife, “that you still object to my
staying with the Garsingtons? I think it is a little hard if I do not
make a fuss about your going to see your village paragon, that you
should refuse to allow me to visit my own brother.”
Geoffrey felt that he was being bargained with. It was degrading, but
in the extremity of his folly he yielded.
“Go if you like,” he said shortly, “but if you take Effie, mind she is
properly looked after, that is all,” and he abruptly left the room.
Lady Honoria looked after him, slowly nodding her handsome head. “Ah,”
she said to herself, “I have found out how to manage you now. You have
your weak point like other people, Master Geoffrey—and it spells
Beatrice. Only you must not go too far. I am not jealous, but I am not
going to have a scandal for fifty Beatrices. I will not allow you to
lose your reputation and position. Just imagine a man like that pining
for a village girl—she is nothing more! And they talk about his being
so clever. Well, he always liked ladies’ society; that is his failing,
and now he has burnt his fingers. They all do sooner or later,
especially these clever men. The women flatter them, that’s it. Of
course the girl is trying to get hold of him, and she might do worse,
but so surely as my name is Honoria Bingham I will put a spoke in her
wheel before she has done. Bah! and they laugh at the power of women
when a man like Geoffrey, with all the world to lose, grows love-sick
for a pretty face; it is a _very_ pretty face by the way. I do believe
that if I were out of the way he would marry her. But I am in the way,
and mean to stay there. Well, it is time to dress for dinner. I only
hope that old clown of a clergyman won’t do something ridiculous. I
shall have to apologise for him.”
Dinner-time had come; it was a quarter past eight, and the room was
filled with highly bred people all more or less distinguished. Mr.
Granger had duly appeared, arrayed in his threadbare black coat,
relieved, however, by a pair of Geoffrey’s dress shoes. As might have
been expected, the great folk did not seem surprised at his presence,
or to take any particular notice of his attire, the fact being that
such people never are surprised. A Zulu chief in full war dress would
only excite a friendly interest in their breasts. On the contrary they
recognised vaguely that the old gentleman was something out of the
common run, and as such worth cultivating. Indeed the Prime Minister,
hearing casually that he was a clergyman from Wales, asked to be
introduced to him, and at once fell into conversation about tithes, a
subject of which Mr. Granger was thoroughly master.
Presently they went down to dinner, Mr. Granger escorting the wife of
the Bishop, a fat and somewhat apoplectic lady, blessed with an
excellent appetite. On his other side was the Prime Minister, and
between the two he got on very well, especially after a few glasses of
wine. Indeed, both the apoplectic wife of the Bishop and the head of
Her Majesty’s Government were subsequently heard to declare that Mr.
Granger was a very entertaining person. To the former he related with
much detail how his daughter had saved their host’s life, and to the
latter he discoursed upon the subject of tithes, favouring him with his
ideas of what legislation was necessary to meet the question. Somewhat
to his own surprise, he found that his views were received with
attention and even with respect. In the main, too, they received the
support of the Bishop, who likewise felt keenly on the subject of
tithes. Never before had Mr. Granger had such a good dinner nor mingled
with company so distinguished. He remembered both till his dying day.
Next morning Geoffrey and Mr. Granger started before Lady Honoria was
up. Into the details of their long journey to Wales (in a crowded
third-class carriage) we need not enter. Geoffrey had plenty to think
of, but his fears had vanished, as fears sometimes do when we draw near
to the object of them, and had been replaced by a curious expectancy.
He saw now, or thought he saw, that he had been making a mountain out
of a molehill. Probably it meant nothing at all. There was no real
danger. Beatrice liked him, no doubt; possibly she had even experienced
a fit of tenderness towards him. Such things come and such things go.
Time is a wonderful healer of moral distempers, and few young ladies
endure the chains of an undesirable attachment for a period of seven
whole months. It made him almost blush to think that this might be so,
and that the gratuitous extension of his misfortune to Beatrice might
be nothing more than the working of his own unconscious vanity—a vanity
which, did she know of it, would move her to angry laughter.
He remembered how once, when he was quite a young fellow, he had been
somewhat smitten with a certain lady, who certainly, if he might judge
from her words and acts, reciprocated the sentiment. And he remembered
also, how when he met that lady some months afterwards she treated him
with a cold indifference, indeed almost with an insolence, that quite
bewildered him, making him wonder how the same person could show in
such different lights, till at length, mortified and ashamed by his
mistake, he had gone away in a rage and seen her face no more. Of
course he had set it down to female infidelity; he had served her turn,
she had made a fool of him, and that was all she wanted. Now he might
enjoy his humiliation. It did not occur to him that it might be simple
“cussedness,” to borrow an energetic American term, or that she had not
really changed, but was angry with him for some reason which she did
not choose to show. It is difficult to weigh the motives of women in
the scales of male experience, and many other men besides Geoffrey have
been forced to give up the attempt and to console themselves with the
reflection that the inexplicable is generally not worth understanding.
Yes, probably it would be the same case over again. And yet, and
yet—was Beatrice of that class? Had she not too much of a man’s
straightforwardness of aim to permit her to play such tricks? In the
bottom of his soul he thought that she had, but he would not admit it
to himself. The fact of the matter was that, half unknowingly, he was
trying to drug his conscience. He knew that in his longing to see her
dear face once more he had undertaken a dangerous thing. He was about
to walk with her over an abyss on a bridge which might bear them,
or—might break. So long as he walked there alone it would be well, but
would it bear them _both?_ Alas for the frailty of human nature, this
was the truth; but he would not and did not acknowledge it. He was not
going to make love to Beatrice, he was going to enjoy the pleasure of
her society. In friendship there could be no harm.
It is not difficult thus to still the qualms of an uneasy mind, more
especially when the thing in question at its worst is rather an offence
against local custom than against natural law. In many countries of the
world—in nearly all countries, indeed, at different epochs of their
history—it would have been no wrong that Geoffrey and Beatrice should
love each other, and human nature in strong temptation is very apt to
override artificial barriers erected to suit the convenience or promote
the prosperity of particular sections of mankind. But, as we have
heard, even though all things may be lawful, yet all things are not
expedient. To commit or even to condone an act because the principle
that stamps it as wrong will admit of argument on its merits is mere
sophistry, by the aid of which we might prove ourselves entitled to
defy the majority of laws of all calibres. Laws vary to suit the
generations, but each generation must obey its own, or confusion will
ensue. A deed should be judged by its fruits; it may even be innocent
in itself, yet if its fruits are evil the doer in a sense is guilty.
Thus in some countries to mention the name of your mother-in-law
entails the most unpleasant consequences on that intimate relation.
Nobody can say that to name the lady is a thing wicked in itself; yet
the man who, knowing the penalties which will ensue, allows himself,
even in a fit of passion against that relative, to violate the custom
and mention her by name is doubtless an offender. Thus, too, the result
of an entanglement between a woman and a man already married generally
means unhappiness and hurt to all concerned, more especially to the
woman, whose prospects are perhaps irretrievably injured thereby. It is
useless to point to the example of the patriarchs, some foreign royal
families, and many respectable Turks; it is useless to plead that the
love is deep and holy love, for which a man or woman might well live
and die, or to show extenuating circumstances in the fact of
loneliness, need of sympathy, and that the existing marriage is a
hollow sham. The rule is clear. A man may do most things except cheat
at cards or run away in action; a woman may break half-a-dozen hearts,
or try to break them, and finally put herself up at auction and take no
harm at all—but neither of them may in any event do _this_.
Not that Geoffrey, to do him justice, had any such intentions. Most men
are incapable of plots of that nature. If they fall, it is when the
voice of conscience is lost in the whirlwind of passion, and counsel is
darkened by the tumultuous pleadings of the heart. Their sin is that
they will, most of them, allow themselves to be put in positions
favourable to the development of these disagreeable influences. It is
not safe to light cigarettes in a powder factory. If Geoffrey had done
what he ought to have done, he would never have gone to Bryngelly, and
there would have been no story to tell, or no more than there usually
is.
At length Mr. Granger and his guest reached Bryngelly; there was nobody
to meet them, for nobody knew that they were coming, so they walked up
to the Vicarage. It was strange to Geoffrey once more to pass by the
little church through those well-remembered, wind-torn pines and see
that low long house. It seemed wonderful that all should still be just
as it was, that there should be no change at all, when he himself had
seen so much. There was Beatrice’s home; where was Beatrice?
He passed into the house like a man in a dream. In another moment he
was in the long parlour where he had spent so many happy hours, and
Elizabeth was greeting him. He shook hands with her, and as he did so,
noticed vaguely that she too was utterly unchanged. Her straw-coloured
hair was pushed back from the temples in the same way, the mouth wore
the same hard smile, her light eyes shone with the same cold look; she
even wore the same brown dress. But she appeared to be very pleased to
see him, as indeed she was, for the game looked well for Elizabeth. Her
father kissed her hurriedly, and bustled from the room to lock up his
borrowed cash, leaving them together.
Somehow Geoffrey’s conversational powers failed him. Where was
Beatrice? she ought to be back from school. It was holiday time indeed.
Could she be away?
He made an effort, and remarked absently that things seemed very
unchanged at Bryngelly.
“You are looking for Beatrice,” said Elizabeth, answering his thought
and not his words. “She has gone out walking, but I think she will be
back soon. Excuse me, but I must go and see about your room.”
Geoffrey hung about a little, then he lit his pipe and strolled down to
the beach, with a vague unexpressed idea of meeting Beatrice. He did
not meet Beatrice, but he met old Edward, who knew him at once.
“Lord, sir,” he said, “it’s queer to see you here again, specially when
I thinks as how I saw you first, and you a dead ‘un to all purposes,
with your mouth open, and Miss Beatrice a-hanging on to your hair fit
to pull your scalp off. You never was nearer old Davy than you was that
night, sir, nor won’t be. And now you’ve been spared to become a
Parliament man, I hears, and much good may you do there—it will take
all your time, sir—and I think, sir, that I should like to drink your
health.”
Geoffrey put his hand in his pocket and gave the old man a sovereign.
He could afford to do so now.
“Does Miss Beatrice go out canoeing now?” he asked while Edward mumbled
his astonished thanks.
“At times, sir—thanking you kindly; it ain’t many suvrings as comes my
way—though I hate the sight on it, I do. I’d like to stave a hole in
the bottom of that there cranky concern; it ain’t safe, and that’s the
fact. There’ll be another accent out of it one of these fine days and
no coming to next time. But, Lord bless you, it’s her way of pleasuring
herself. She’s a queer un is Miss Beatrice, and she gets queerer and
queerer, what with their being so tight screwed up at the Vicarage, no
tithes and that, and one thing and another. Not but what I’m thinking,
sir,” he added in a portentous whisper, “as the squire has got summut
to do with it. He’s a courting of her, he is; he’s as hard after her as
a dog fish after a stray herring, and why she can’t just say yes and
marry him I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t like him,” said Geoffrey coldly.
“May be, sir, may be; maids all have their fancies, in whatsoever walk
o’ life it has pleased God to stick ‘em, but it’s a wonderful pity, it
is. He ain’t no great shakes, he ain’t, but he’s a sound man—no girl
can’t want a sounder—lived quiet all his days you see, sir, and what’s
more he’s got the money, and money’s tight up at the Vicarage, sir.
Gals must give up their fancies sometimes, sir. Lord! a brace of brats
and she’d forget all about ‘em. I’m seventy years old and I’ve seen
their ways, sir, though in a humble calling. You should say a word to
her, sir; she’d thank you kindly five years after. You’d do her a good
turn, sir, you would, and not a bad un as the saying goes, and give it
the lie—no, beg your pardon, that is the other way round—she’s bound to
do you the bad turn having saved your life, though I don’t see how she
could do that unless, begging your pardon, she made you fall in love
with her, being married, which though strange wouldn’t be wunnerful
seeing what she is and seeing how I has been in love with her myself
since she was seven, old missus and all, who died eight years gone and
well rid of the rheumatics.”
Beatrice was one of the few subjects that could unlock old Edward’s
breast, and Geoffrey retired before his confusing but suggestive
eloquence. Hurriedly bidding the old man good-night he returned to the
house, and leaning on the gate watched the twilight dying on the bosom
of the west.
Suddenly, a bunch of wild roses in her girdle, Beatrice emerged from
the gathering gloom and stood before him face to face.