BOOK I

HALFWAY HOUSE

A COMEDY OF DEGREES

I

MR. GERMAIN TAKES NOTICE

It was when Mr. John Germain, a gentleman of fifty, and of fine landed

estate in Berks—head of his family, Deputy-Lieutenant, Chairman of

Quarter Sessions, and I don’t know what not—was paying one of his

yearly visits to his brother James, who was Rector of Misperton Brand,

in Somerset, that an adventure of a sentimental kind presented itself to

him, engaged him, carried him into mid-air upon a winged horse, and set

him treading clouds and suchlike filmy footing. Chance-caught

combinations, associations tenderly touched—what do I know? He had a

vision and located it; he dreamed a dream, and began to live it out; out

of a simple maid he read a young goddess, into a lover’s ardent form he

pressed his leanness and grey hairs. Bluntly, he, a widower of ten

years’ standing, fell in love with a young person half his age, and of

no estate at all—but quite the contrary; and, after an interval of time

which he chose to ignore, applied himself earnestly to the practice of

poetry. There ensued certain curious relationships between quite

ordinary people which justify me in calling my book a Comedy of Degrees.

This sudden seizure of the heart overtook him one afternoon in July, on

the occasion of a Sunday-school feast, an annual affair. He had lent

himself to that because, while he claimed his mornings, his afternoons

were always at the disposition of his hostess and sister-in-law, the

Hon. Mrs. James Germain, who naturally made the most of them. She, of

course, must be present at the affair, must have a tea-party for the

notables. The Cantacutes always came, and the Binghams; there might be

others: John must really consent to be bored. There would be no occasion

to pass the railing which separated the revellers in the paddock from

the Rectory lawn; all he had to do was to show himself and allow Mrs.

Bingham to talk round about him. True, the afternoon was very hot; but

the Rectory garden was at its best, velvet-lawned, shady and trim. Mr.

Germain confessed that it was the very day for out-of-door

merrymaking—by other people—and smilingly added that the exertion of

the school-feasters would lend a savour to the leisure he was promised.

He appeared—somewhat late—in a suit of summer coolness, and white

spats, and was charming with Lady Cantacute, an old friend; perfect with

Mrs. Bingham, whose fault was that she was too anxious to please. In the

absence of the Rector and Lord Cantacute, who were conferring on parish

business, these ladies made much of their cavalier. He had a comfortable

chair, which allowed him to stretch his long legs before him at the

right and only angle. Leisurely and measured in all that he did, talking

but little, he was allowed to feel that his presence was the utmost that

would be asked of him, and that leisure and measure were at his

disposal. When, therefore, he had said all that seemed proper, he

adjusted his glasses, gave one glance to the white spat upon the foot of

his crossed leg, put his elbows on the arms of his chair, clasped his

hands, and set himself to observe the sports. All was well with the

world so far, and he—the handsome, fine-featured, thin gentleman—as

good a thing as this fraction of a world contained. He was in the mood

to receive impressions and be charitable to them. This was the moment

chosen by the Blind God.

The flags drooped lazily about their poles, the great elms beyond the

paddock seemed muffled in their July wrappage, and a swoon; but over the

sward the figures of the children and their friends flashed and darted,

and crossed each other as on a scene. A stentorian curate in black and

white cap directed the cricket. Mr. Germain marked his flying coat-tails

and approved them. “Ha! my excellent friend Soames!” he reflected aloud,

and added that years left no marks upon Soames. The swiping boys were

young England at play—our future was safe in their hands, Soames to

urge them. He had his own ideas about our future, and called himself a

Liberal in politics; but confessed that Young England was all the better

for a Soames or two to guide it. He was a sound Churchman.

His benevolent eye, seeking other objects of interest, was now turned to

the girls.

Oranges and Lemons was the cry with them: a pretty game, as elaborate

and rhythmical as an old-world dance, with a romp interposed. Two of the

tallest hold the gate—their raised arms make it. About the skirts of

each you see the clustered bevy of her capture; the doomed ones creep in

a file beneath their hands; the sing-song swells, rises, grows,

holds—and presently falls with the blow.

The gate-keepers stoop, they clasp, they catch close some struggling

prisoner; hot cheek lies fast to pillowing breast, laughing child to

laughing maid. It is the strife of love in a dream; like all

figure-dances, it figures that; for what cuddling girl but mimics there

the transports she is to know one day? Sometimes the captive breaks away

and runs; then must the taker give chase: and as the race is swift, and

may be long, so is the end the sweeter both for huntress and for quarry.

Kisses mark the end; you die of a surfeit of kisses. The strife of love

in a dream—a gentle, innocent parody of it!

Whether these amiable musings were cause or consequence of what happened

to catch Mr. Germain’s eye more than once or twice, there’s no telling.

I content myself with recording that the most active of those young

people beyond the railings was a graceful, quick-limbed girl in white

muslin—whose long black sash-ribbons and wide-brimmed hat of straw

marked her vividly out for his contemplation. He was near-sighted and

could get no details, but was agreeably aware of her, as the swiftest in

pursuit, the hardiest to catch and hold, to be chased by whom and to be

caught was the aim of every flying child. She was the beloved, it was

plain; her close arms the haven of choice. Sitting in the pleasant

shade, at peace with himself and all mankind, Mr. Germain found in her a

stimulating vein for thought to explore, and pursued it with zest, while

Lady Cantacute murmured “Dear things!” at intervals, or sighed for tea,

and Mrs. Bingham felt it her duty as a guest to envy the lot of

Misperton Rectory.

She had envied the garden, the weather, the curate, the cricket field,

and might have gone on to covet her friend her rector had not the “I

say, Aggie,” from her youngest daughter, Cecily, given her a new object

to admire.

“Aggie, I say,” said Cecily to her sister, “you know—that girl can

run.” Mr. John Germain, as the pivot of his thoughts was touched, turned

with animation to the speaker.

“Indeed, yes. She runs like Atalanta, Miss Cecily, if you know who

Atalanta was.”

Miss Cecily wriggled. She was fifteen. “Yes, I know. She raced with

Milanion, and picked up the apple. I don’t think Mary’s a bit like her.”

“She is as swift, I am sure,” said Mr. Germain. “But it’s true she has

not yet picked up the apple. Perhaps that will lie in front of her some

day, and then she’ll be caught.”

“He didn’t catch her,” said Cecily. “She stopped, and he won.”

“True,” Mr. Germain replied smiling. “You and I mean the same thing, I

believe.”

To this Miss Cecily had no reply but a sudden jerk of the leg. Mrs.

Bingham beamed upon her hostess.

“The _Earthly Paradise_! My Cecily adores it. But who is their Atalanta,

dear Mrs. Germain?”

Mrs. James Germain said that she had no notion, which was quite untrue.

Aggie replied to her mother by pointing out the nymph of the chase. Mrs.

Bingham clasped her hands.

“There again! Your extraordinary fortune! Mary, of course—that nice

teacher you have. Quite a charming person!”

Mrs. Germain primmed her lips. “Very charming, I believe. But she’s in

private service.”

“Do you mean she’s somebody’s maid, Constantia?” This came briskly from

Lady Cantacute, who knew very well what had been meant, but had a kind

heart. Mr. John Germain, while watching the players, listened.

“I think you must know her,” Mrs. James explained. “She is governess—I

suppose you would call it—to Nunn’s family. Nursery-governess, I fancy,

is the phrase. She teaches in our Sunday-school, it is true; but that is

a privilege rather than a duty. At least, we consider it so.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said Mrs. Bingham. “You mean that one doesn’t

pay——”

“Of course one doesn’t,” replied the Rector’s wife, and would have

closed the discussion.

But her brother-in-law reopened it by saying that she appeared to him an

attractive young lady, and caused Mrs. James to sniff.

“I should not have said that; indeed, we think her plain.” Surely enough

of the young person: but the conversation hung about her yet.

“She has pretty manners,” Lady Cantacute considered; and her eyes were

good. Mrs. James allowed her eyes. “They speak, I believe, upon

occasion,” she added. “But I am rather deaf to that kind of language.”

“Perhaps, my dear Constantia, they don’t address themselves to you,”

said Lady Cantacute, and Mr. Germain, stretching his arms forward to the

fulness of comfort, resumed his observation of Oranges and Lemons.

Cecily Bingham heard the click of his clasped fingers.

“Very possibly I should be the last to receive them,” Mrs. James was

heard to say, “though I believe they address themselves otherwise

impartially.”

“I am sure she is a good girl,” said Mrs. Bingham, and to that the lady

of Misperton said “We all hope so.”

A merry, a warm-hearted girl. Mr. Germain was confident of that. When a

child of her party tripped in running, and fell, how she picked her up,

and sitting, cradled her upon her lap and soothed her with voice and

soft cheek and quick, kissing lips. A pretty sight, a gracious act

sweetly done. Absorbed, he lost the thread of the talk about him, but

awoke to hear his sister-in-law’s tones of authority telling Mrs.

Bingham things which he wished to know.

“Yes, Middleham—Mary Middleham.—No, she’s three or four and twenty, I

believe. She has been here a year or two—teaching the little Nunns. No,

no French; and the merest rudiments of piano. But for children of that

position piano I consider absurd. Nunn is a most sensible man—no airs

at all. . . . Yes, she has nice ways with children; they mind her and

like her, too. Really, she and Soames manage everything—but—that is

most tiresome!” Mrs. James sat upright. “I must speak to her. I see that

they are doing precisely what I did not intend with the tea. It’s very

stupid of Mrs. Blain. I’ll send somebody for her if I—.” She looked

about her, vaguely offended that a footman did not emerge from the clump

of pampas; and—“Cecily, darling,” said Mrs. Bingham.

Cecily jumped up. “I’ll go, Mrs. Germain.”

“That is very nice of you, my dear. Do. Tell Mary that I want to speak

to her here.”

Miss Cecily vaulted her black legs over the railing and ran up the field

whistling. Conversation, unaided now by Mrs. Germain, ran a languid

course.

But Oranges and Lemons stopped short, and crimped tresses could be swept

from shoulders and eyes, the better to regard Miss Cecily from the

Rectory party. Presently, after an eager colloquy, expressive on one

side of dismay and disarray, Miss Cecily was seen returning with her

convoy, talking gaily. The captive nymph, though still busy with hat and

hairpins, or fanning herself with her pocket handkerchief, walked

confidently, carried her head well, and joined happily in the laugh.

This until within hail. But then she changed. Her tongue was still, her

head was bent the least in the world, and her eyes became guarded and

watchful. At the railing, which Miss Cecily again neatly vaulted, Miss

Middleham paused, and blushed before she climbed. But she had nothing to

be afraid of, for Mr. Germain was looking at his white spats. When she

stood before her betters, however, he, following her example, stood

before her. And now he observed her sedately.

He was struck first by a caution in her fine eyes which caused them to

loom as with reproach, to peer as if she doubted. Her colour, heightened

by exertion and, perhaps, by shyness, was very becoming to her. She

glowed like a peach burnt by the sun. She looked wholesome and healthy,

and her voice did not belie her appearance—a fresh, confident, young

voice. She kept her hands behind her—as if she were a catechumen—and

with her shoulders back, looked watchfully at you as she listened and

replied. The attitude showed her figure to be charming—softly, tenderly

curved; a budding figure. Undoubtedly she was pleasant to behold, but

she would have been no more to any one but a confirmed amorist had it

not been for her eyes.

Mr. Germain was little of an amorist by temperament, though time and the

hour had led him to muse over maids at play. And that being so, he was

shocked rather than struck by the discrepancy between the playing nymph

of his fancies and this healthy sunburnt girl with peering eyes. It

almost shocked him to see her so wary. It gave her a guilty look as if

she feared detection momently. He thought of a squirrel in leafage, of a

dormouse by a tree-bole; he thought, above all, of flinching, of harsh

treatment, of the whip. “Great God,” he cried to himself, “what a state

of things is this when, upon a summons suddenly, flashing limbs grow

stiff and sparkling eyes burn large with apprehension!” And then he said

in his heart, “To woo the confidence back to such eyes, to still the

doubts in such a breast, were work for a true man.”

From the height of his argument to the flat of the facts is a longish

drop. The Catechism had taken this simple form. “Mary,” Mrs. Germain had

said with something, but very little after all, of the air of a

proprietor, “I see that they are bringing out the tea.”

“Yes, Mrs. Germain.” A young, fresh, confident voice.

“Surely, it is not time?”

“Tea was to be at four, Mrs. Germain.”

“Oh. Well, the Rector is busy with his lordship and cannot be disturbed.

Tea must not begin until he can say Grace.”

“Very well, Mrs. Germain. But Mr. Soames——”

“No doubt. But I don’t wish Mr. Soames to say Grace.” This was explained

to Mrs. Bingham. “Mr. Soames is a most worthy young man—we are

fortunate in him. But he knows only two forms of Grace—_Benedictus

benedicat_, which is of course, absurd, and _For these and all Thy

mercies_.”

“Oh,” said Lady Cantacute, “and won’t that do?”

Mrs. James looked to the tree-tops. “We think that village children

should be taught to expect other things besides mercies. James always

says _For what we are about to receive_, which of course might be

anything.”

“I suppose it might, poor things,” said Lady Cantacute, comfortably; and

Mrs. Bingham whispered, “So sensible!” to her eldest daughter.

“Besides, the Rector is the proper person on such a day. See to it, if

you please, Mary.”

“Very well, Mrs. Germain.” She lowered her eyes again directly she had

spoken, as she was apt to do before her notables.

“My dear,” said Lady Cantacute suddenly, “you look very hot.” She now

looked hotter, but she laughed as she admitted the fact. Laughing became

her. Mr. Germain admired her teeth—small, white, and, so far as he

could see, perfect. He formed a higher opinion of Lady Cantacute’s

character—an old friend. To make a young girl smile and show her teeth

is to use both tact and benevolence—natural benevolence.

“It is a very hot afternoon,” he said, as if delivering a considered

judgment, and as he blinked upon her she flashed him one of her hasty

looks.

“Yes, it is, Mr. Germain.”

“And I think you must be a most unselfish young lady.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Germain, indeed.” She was quite pleased, and looked very

pretty when pleased.

“But I must maintain that you are. You put us luxurious people to shame.

Now, Miss Cecily and I will undertake to help you after tea. Is that a

bargain, Miss Cecily?” Cecily looked dogged, and said, “If he liked.”

“All well at home, dear child?” Mrs. Bingham asked here, and made Cecily

snort. I am afraid, too, that she nudged her sister Agatha.

“Quite well, thank you, Mrs. ——.” She stopped, her voice tailing off

into breath, as if she guessed that she had been using too many names

just now, and yet knew that, from her sort, the full title was expected.

Conversation not being resumed, Mrs. James said shortly, “That will do,

Mary, I think. See about the tea, will you?”

Miss Middleham promised, and retired with veiled eyes and an inclination

of the head; but Cecily asked, “May I go with her, mother?” and went

without the answer.

Their backs turned, the rail safely over, there was a different Miss

Middleham to be found, the sparkling, audacious, merry Miss Middleham of

Oranges and Lemons who, to Cecily Bingham’s “I say, I can run,” replied,

“And so can I, you know,” and egged Cecily on to propose “Let’s race to

that clump of grass.” Miss Middleham flew, and Cecily tumbled on to her

at the winning post. They resumed their way close together.

Her arm within Mary Middleham’s, Cecily talked in jerks, between

breaths. “I say—old Germain talked a lot about you.” The colour flew

over Mary’s face, was reflected in her eyes.

“No! Did he really?”

“I swear he did. He called you Atalanta. He said—I say—wasn’t it rot

of Mother, asking after your people? She hadn’t the faintest idea

whether you had any, and didn’t—I suppose you have, though?”

“I have indeed—lots. I’ve got four sisters.”

“Oh, sisters! No brothers?” She shook her head.

“I’ve got one,” said Cecily, “and he’s at Eton all the summer. Jolly for

him.”

“Very jolly, I should think. Now I am to tell Mr. Soames about the tea.

Don’t run away.”

“Rather not. I’ll wait here for you. I hate curates. Father’s got

two—one tame one and one wild one. We call them Romulus and Remus,

after some puppies we had once.” They separated with eye-signals.

Mr. Soames—the Rev. Seymour Soames, B.A.—was explicitly a curate,

flaming-haired, crimson, spectacled, and boyish. He was very

enthusiastic, and when enthusiastic could not always rely upon his

voice. Being now told his affair, he said “I see” very often, and

concluded, “Very well, Miss Mary, I’ll do as I’m told—as you tell me,

you know. You’re the queen of this beanfeast. I’m not above taking

orders from the head of affairs, you see.” It was indeed to be seen that

he was not. “Thank you, Mr. Soames,” said the Mary of laughing eyes, and

as she went he sighed, collected himself and plunged into hectoring the

urn-bearers. Miss Middleham and her young friend strolled off

arm-in-arm, and the last thing to be heard spoken between them was,

“What did Mr. Germain really say?” The rest was whispers.

II

MR. GERMAIN REVELS SEDATELY

Conversation within the Rectory garden did not, could not, revive until

the young footman, released from his urn-bondage, could bring out the

tea-tray. Punctually with that glittering apparatus came the Rector and

Lord Cantacute, prosperous, clean, leisurely gentlemen both: the peer

with a huntsman’s face and white whiskers, a square-topped felt hat and

neatly folded white tie with a foxhead pin, Mr. James Germain, thin,

smiling, and fastidious, amused at his own benevolence. A little

desultory talk flickered up on their approach; the Rector was packed off

to say Grace for what the revellers might be about to receive. Lord

Cantacute took his tea and asked, “Where’s Hertha?” Miss Hertha de

Speyne was only child of his noble house.

“Hertha’s gone to play tennis at the cottage—in this grilling heat,”

said her ladyship. “But she’s to be here to tea. Mrs. Duplessis is very

sadly, I’m told. Ah!” and she put up her lorgnette. “Here they come,

dear things.”

A tall young man in white flannels accompanied a tall young lady, also

in white, round the house.

“What a pair!” murmured Mrs. Bingham to her eldest daughter, and caused

Lady Cantacute to say rather sharply, “Not at all. They’ve known each

other from the cradle.”

Mr. Tristram Duplessis was this young man—a cousin of Mrs. James

Germain’s. He was good-looking, every foot of him, and there were six,

high-coloured, light in the eye. He had a profusion of fair and straight

hair, which he was accustomed to jerk away from his forehead, and a

trick of knitting his brows, as if he scowled, and of biting his cheek,

as if he was annoyed. Very frequently he was. Apart from these

peculiarities, his manners were easy—Mr. John Germain thought, much too

easy. One of his least pleasing habits was his way of looking at you in

conversation as if you were either ridiculous or his property. Mr.

Germain, very sure of being neither, did not pretend to like this youth.

He was greeted with “How’s your mother, Tristram?” from Lady Cantacute,

and replied, “I believe she’s ill—at least, she says so;” whereat the

second Miss Bingham choked in her tea-cup, and Mr. Duplessis looked at

her for a minute with narrowed eyes.

Mrs. Bingham said, “Oh, I _hope_ not,” with solicitude.

“Naturally,” said Duplessis, “and so do I. I can only tell you what she

says.” He helped himself to bread, butter, and jam, took the chair which

had of late been Mr. John Germain’s, and ate in silence and complete

comfort. Miss de Speyne helped herself, too. Her tennis dress had the

air of a riding habit, and her person that of a young Amazon. She was

not only sumptuous, but severe, a golden beauty, as nearly indifferent

to the fact as a girl may be. “Helen of Troy, fancy-free, before Paris

beguiled her,” she had been called—but the _Diana_ of the Louvre comes

readiest to mind.

Mr. John Germain, seeing his chair in possession—and in that of

Duplessis—crossed the railing and walked over the field towards the

trestle-tables where the scholars feasted. Miss Bingham—the eldest—and

Duplessis were now side by side. “Your young lady has made another

conquest,” she told him, and nodded towards the severe, retreating form.

Duplessis observed her calmly. “It’s no good, Mildred,” he said. “You

can’t get a rise out of me, you know.” She laughed. “I think I’ve been

saved the trouble, I was only calling your attention to it. He is

greatly interested.” The young man’s answer was to look at Mr. Germain,

retreating still in a stately manner, and then at Mildred Bingham.

Graphic commentary enough.

When Mr. Germain approached the tables, Miss Middleham, who had been

very aware of his coming, became instantly circumspect. He advanced

deliberately and stood by her side for a while without speaking: he then

offered himself to hand tea-cups, and when she assured him that the work

was done, held to his post without any more words or seeming

embarrassment. He was affable to Mr. Soames, if somewhat lofty; spoke of

cricket and cricketers, the performances of Somerset, and of its

champion, whom he was careful to call Mr. Palairet. For Berks, his own

county, he apologized. He had a theory, not fully worked out yet, that

the Scandinavian blood in us produced the best athletes. Consider

Yorkshire and Lancashire. Kent, too: there was an undoubted strain of

the Norseman in Kent. Surrey was against him—apparently; but he could

not admit it. Of course, London gave the pick of everything; Surrey, a

metropolitan shire, could hardly be reckoned, nor, by a parity of

reasoning, Middlesex. Mr. Soames, who had not hitherto considered the

ethnological side of his game, shook his head and said, “No, by jingo!”

then plunged to another table and appeared to be busy. Mr. Germain

turned to Miss Middleham and begged to know how he could be of service.

“I must make good my boast: I rely upon the loyalty of Miss Cecily

Bingham. Do you play after tea?” She said that there would be games.

“For instance?” he inquired, and Mr. Soames, who was now hovering near

again, said, “We shall finish the match. Perhaps you would care to

umpire?” But Mr. Germain had picked up a small wooden implement and was

turning it about like a fan. Bat, trap, and ball, he supposed? She

laughed him yes. “Very well, then,” said he, “you shall allow me to help

you in bat, trap, and ball.” Cecily Bingham’s eyes had now to be avoided

at all costs.

The tall, stiff-shouldered gentleman made good his word—if that can be

called playing the game where a player never hits the ball, frequently

himself, and once (with a resounding smack) the boy fielding behind him.

Grouped girls admired with open mouths; but the temptation to giggle

when he caught himself for the second time upon the elbow and betrayed

something of the torment he suffered was not to be resisted. Miss

Middleham bit her lip, but turned to rend one of her pupils. “Gracie,”

she said in a fierce whisper, “if you dare to laugh I’ll never speak to

you again.”

“Here comes Tristram,” said Cecily, but Miss Middleham had no need to be

told that. She was very busy teaching a small boy how to wield the bat

which Mr. Germain now hastened to discard. “Thank you, Mr. Germain,” she

said sincerely. “It’s very kind of you.”

“I am delighted to have been of the least service to you,” he replied

with a bow. “You set us all an example which I, for one, am proud to

follow.”

The games languished, flickered out under the calm eyes of Mr.

Duplessis, but he took no part in reviving them. Nor did Miss Middleham

do more than pretend to instruct. He stood, hands in pockets, for a

while, looking at nothing, whistling softly to himself, then strolled

towards Mary Middleham and, without looking at her, said two or three

words. She listened to them intently without turning her head, said,

“Yes,” and went on with her business of the moment. Still whistling,

Duplessis strolled away, and, in passing, tweaked Cecily Bingham’s

straight hair.

Mr. Germain, after salutations of a courtly kind, had returned leisurely

to the Rectory Garden—to help his sister-in-law feel the early peaches

on the wall.

III

MR. DUPLESSIS PREVARICATES

That evening there was a vacant place at the Rectory dinner-table.

Tristram Duplessis was to have filled it, but did not appear until

dessert. He entered then with smiles and light-hearted apologies.

“It isn’t often that I work, you’ll say, but when I do, I believe I’m

not to be restrained. Thanks, Molesworth, anything will do for me.” This

was how he put it, first to his hostess, next to the anxious butler,

each of whom knew better. He chose to add, for the general benefit, “As

a matter of fact, I got interested, and entirely forgot that a man must

eat.”

“Or behave himself,” said the Rector, with lifted brows.

Duplessis paused, soup-spoon in air. “He should, no doubt. That’s why

I’m so late. I had to dress, you see. Anon Soames must needs come in and

talk his cricket. They play Cromberton to-morrow, and are two short.

Will I be one, and bring another man? says Soames.” The spoon was

emptied and put down. “I half promised to bring you, you know, Germain.”

This was suavely addressed to Mr. John Germain, who unblinkingly

received it.

“Where is your match?” Mr. Germain was peeling a peach, and did not look

up. He was told, a home match, and then, without faltering before the

“You play?” of as rude a young man as these islands can contain, replied

deliberately, “I am very ready to oblige Mr. Soames.” The hush upon the

dinner-table which followed this declaration was its most eloquent

commentary. Mrs. James Germain surveyed the walls, as if calling them to

witness her secret thoughts. The Rector drained his glass of sherry, and

took another.

“My dear fellow, you make me feel an old fogey,” he said. “Do you know

that I’ve not had a bat in my hand since I left Cambridge? And you’ll

forgive me for remarking that you haven’t either, to the best of my

belief.”

Mr. Germain, whose serenity was proof, reflected before he replied that

that seemed an excellent reason for having one to-morrow. “Assuredly,”

he said, “I shall rally to Mr. Soames, with whom I had a little chat

this afternoon. He seemed an amiable and intelligent young man.”

“I like Soames,” the Rector agreed. “He’s a worker.”

Mrs. James said sharply, “He needs to be,” and received a bow. “My dear,

it is now you who put me to shame.”

“Not in the least, James,” cried the lady. “You are as incapable of the

feeling as I am of the action.”

The Rector twinkled. “Shameless? Really, my dear——”

“While Soames plays cricket, Cousin James writes sound theology,” said

Duplessis, and got the lady off the rocks.

Mr. John Germain was now sedately sipping his port.

“That was a pleasant girl you had here,” he said, and got his

sister-in-law’s attention. Duplessis did not look up from his plate, but

he listened.

“You mean, I suppose——?”

“I mean Mrs. Bingham’s girl—the youngest of the three. I had a little

chat with her, too—over our games. I was pleased with her friendly

ways. They sit charmingly upon young ladies who are so apt to think that

because their frocks are short their manners may be.”

Mrs. James spoke to her plate. “I think I understand, but am not

altogether prepared to agree with you. Of course, at such gatherings one

welcomes help; but I doubt whether it is wise to put ideas into heads

which——”

“Which are not capable of holding ’em?” asked the Rector, using his

eyebrows.

“Which can have little or no use for them, perhaps.”

Mr. Germain, having given this oracle due attention, pronounced upon it

as if he were admonishing a poacher. “I am constrained to say that I did

not observe a preponderance of ideas in Miss Cecily’s conversation.”

“Took the rails very neatly, I thought,” Duplessis put in, but Mrs.

James was not to be balked.

“I don’t object to her taking rails or anything else of the sort. But I

certainly think it a pity that she should take Mary Middleham’s arm, and

walk among the children as if they were bosom friends.”

Mr. Germain squared his shoulders and lifted his head to reply. “Miss

Middleham—” he said; but he was a slow beginner; Mrs. James had risen.

It was her husband who fired the parting shot, that he would as soon

take Mary Middleham’s arm as that of any one in the parish; and it was

Duplessis, with his hand on the door, who received her answering shake

of the head, and peered after her with quizzical eyes.

Conversation at her exit was between those two. John Germain never spoke

to the young man if he could help it, and if he had occasion to look at

him always blinked as he did so. Just now he had no occasion, being

occupied with his thoughts, smiling quietly at them, drumming time to

them with his thin fingers on the table.

We must inquire into Mr. Tristram’s avowed labours, and may not,

perhaps, be surprised to find out of what nature they were. They had

taken him, not to the study and the lamp, but into Lord Cantacute’s fine

park by a wicket in the wall, to a largely spreading oak-tree and a seat

upon the roots, to elbows on knees, a cigar, and some moments of

frowning meditation, from which a light step upon the acorns caused him

to look up, but not to rise. Miss Middleham, very flushed and

bright-eyed, approached. She wore a cloak over her white dress. Watching

her, his eyes narrowed, and as she came near hers lost much of their

light.

“Good evening, Mr. Duplessis,” she said with careful formality.

He disregarded the greeting. “You’re late, my young friend.”

Then her grievance broke from her, and her eyes were eloquent with

reproach. “My heart is in my mouth. I ought not to have come. You ought

not to expect it.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I ask, but I never expect—and mostly I don’t want.

What’s the matter?”

“Oh,” she sighed, “anything—everything. You never know who you may

happen upon. And—if you’re going to be cross with me——”

“I’m not, my dear. I’m only cross with things that—well, with other

sorts of things. Come and sit down. It’s all right now.”

She obeyed, but at some distance. She arranged her skirts over her

ankles, and waited, not without the colour of expectancy, looking down

at the toe of her shoe. Duplessis surveyed her at leisure.

“Well,” he said, and flicked the ash from his cigar, “I observed your

junketings at the Rectory. My dear, you pleased.”

She looked prim. “Did I really?”

“You know that you did. How did you find old Germain?”

“He was very kind.”

“So I gathered. But how was he kind?”

“He was very kind.”

“My dear girl, I didn’t ask you how kind he was, but, How was he kind?”

“I beg your pardon. He praised me.”

“And you liked that?”

She made some show of spirit. “Of course I did. We all do—if we deserve

it.”

“We’ll pass the quibble. Well—and did you deserve it?”

He got a reproachful look—and was rewarded.

“I did my best. I got very hot and was overtired. I’m awfully tired

now.” If she expected pity from so naive an appeal, she got none.

“Well? Why come out, if you are tired?”

She flamed. “Because you asked me—because you said—I wish I had not

come with all my heart.” She was on the edge of tears.

“I asked you because I thought that you would like to come. I have had

some reason to think so. But we won’t talk about it if it distresses

you. Have you read my book?”

She admitted that.

“Well?”

Her defences broken, she looked at him for the first time. “It was very

kind of you to let me read it.”

But he couldn’t have her praises. “Oh, kind! Everybody’s kind—to you.

What did you think about it?” That sent her eyelids down.

“I don’t suppose I understood half of it. I’m not clever, you know.”

He chuckled. “I’m not sure about that. Did you like ‘The Saint’s Walk’?”

“It was beautiful.”

“It was all about you, let me tell you. You in that red frock you had.”

She shook her head. “Oh, no, no.”

“But I am telling you that it was. It was an exercise perhaps—an

exercise in the scenic. It may well be that there are no Saints—but

either you can look the part, or I can see you in it.”

She may have had a sense that this kind of talk was intolerable, and her

silence may have expressed it. Or she may have been ashamed to find out

that it was not intolerable. At any rate, she made no attempt to break

down the arm’s length at which he chose to hold her, while he continued

to survey her, and to entertain himself.

“You cling to your saintship? Is that it?”

She raised her eyebrows, not her head. “You have just told me that I am

not a saint. I think that you know very well.”

“If you were—I suppose you mean—you would not be talking to me under

the Royal Oak?”

She laughed ruefully. “No, indeed. I ought not to be here!”

If she expected pity—was she to get it thus? Duplessis had no pity to

bestow.

“It’s not the first time we have met here, is it?” Extraordinary, that

to his screwing her nerves responded so faithfully.

“There should never have been a time,” she said, and meant it. It was

part of his luxury to be sure that she felt in the wrong.

“Why not?” he probed her airily. “If two people want to talk to each

other, what else are they to do? And there’s no doubt about our needs, I

suppose?”

She had nothing to say to that—she was discretion itself; but the

effect of her frugality was to bring him closer to where she sat.

“Do you care to keep my book?”—and before she could answer—“Well,

then, keep it,” he said. “I’ll come up to-morrow and write your name in

it, and mine too. Would you like that? Tell me, child.”

But as she hung her head and had no words, he had to tell himself. His

arm went about her; he could feel her heart. He drew her to him, and her

head lay on his breast. “That’s well,” he said, “that’s as it should

always be. You are made to be captured.”

He had what he wanted of her after that, that sense of fluttering under

the hand, of throbbing response to stroking phrases of which an epicure

of the sort is never weary. With power grew the lust of power; if he

could have made her see white black it would have gratified him. He told

her that he must soon go to London, and made her lie the closer; he told

her that he loved her, and made her sigh and cling. He told her that she

was that which indeed she was not—a lover, his “little lover”—and felt

the sweet flattery steal over her when she thrilled to it as the earth

to a beam of the sun. Ravished by the thought of what he had to his

hand, he pressed her, and bent over her where she crouched. “Mary,” he

whispered as he stooped. “No, no,” she said, and put up her lips. That

was the way of it, the saying and doing not without a pathetic

simplicity, relished by him to the full.

Exquisite little triumph! which he was too wise to repeat. He spent

another twenty minutes discoursing of himself, his works, and plans.

Believing her to be interested—as he was himself—he became extremely

kind, forgot to be jealous of John Germain’s notice, forgot to require

or exact anything from her, forgot even to be rude. Really, he parted

from her with more politeness than he would have shown to one of his own

class—say, to Miss de Speyne. He sought no more favours. “I shall see

you in the distance to-morrow, perhaps. I play cricket for Soames—I

think he wants me. I don’t forget the book, you may be sure. Good

night.”

It was nine o’clock before he reached his mother’s house, and by that

time Miss Middleham’s person and his pleasure in it were absorbed into

the vague physical comfort which a healthy young man feels in changing

his clothes. They gave a zest to his bath and clean linen, quickened his

brains, and strung him to activity of a sort. He sketched out an article

for the weekly review which helped to support him, chaffed Soames, and

comfortably dressed himself for the Rectory. There, as we know, he

prevaricated, but there also he received some impressions which caused

the image of Mary Middleham to visit him in the watches of the night.

He played with the thought of her, as she now appeared to him. A hint

was enough; she was no saint, he had told her; and he knew that, for his

purposes, she was all the better for that. Old Germain was clearly a

victim—old Germain, of all men possible! How she attracted men—with

her pallor, and heavy lids, and those peering, looming, speaking eyes

beneath them. What did she want of them? Love, love, and more

love—insatiable, was she—and unappeasable? A small, secret, pale, and

careworn little huntress; hunting to be hunted, never caught and never

catching. Strange! But there were women like that, nympholepts—and

wherein lay their charm for men? Oh, well, he knew. He ought to know.

And Germain—old Germain—great Heaven! A little Venus—_Venus toute

entière_ . . . and raised in a suburb, earning her bread as a

nursery-governess! Stuff for a sonnet here! He laughed, and sketched it

by the open window.

The thought was good. It pleased, excited him, kept him wakeful. A cigar

into the still dark seemed reasonable.

She was charming. Her transparency was charming, which made it so easy

to see her little shifts and designs; the casting of her home-made nets,

and setting of her primitive snares. She betrayed her need so simply.

When once you had her confidence there were no more drawbacks, no

reticences. By George, she was as simply pagan as a South Sea Islander;

not a stitch on her—and a scarlet flower between her teeth. One might

drown one’s self in love—for a season—if one were a fool. But one was

not, you see. This simple creature, this little Suburban Venus, showed

such extraordinary aptitude for the rarer thing, was so susceptible to

the finer shades of the business, that one would need be a tearing fool

if he—No, and it would be a shame. He would never do that. Better on

all accounts to be free—better not commit one’s self. She would always

be there, could be counted upon. He knew women, he told himself.

They will wait for you—wait for ever, helped on by a little kindness.

It’s not love they want from you—they have more than enough of that

themselves; it’s tenderness, once the imagination is really struck. She!

Oh, there was no doubt about her. She was his for all time, sensitive,

flushing, and paling creature, alternately too bold and too coy. Bold

when she ought not—coy when she need not; these were flaws, but he

protested that they charmed him. Flaws there must be; it was not

reasonable to suppose himself pioneer in that little thicket; and, while

the knowledge must cheapen, yet it endeared her to him. Some subtle

excitation of sense was stirred by that. What now?

He probed, but gave over the analysis. “Damn it, I’m too curious,” he

said. “Sonnets don’t come this way. I must compose her, not dissect.”

But there was to be no more composition of sonnets. He had warped his

mood, so threw away his cigar, and went to bed.

IV

A MISS AND A CATCH

As for Mr. Germain, whatever his nightly meditations or dreams may have

been, he was as good as his word, and stoutly took the field on the

morrow when Misperton Brand, having lost the toss, spread itself over

the greensward under Mr. Soames’s eye and imperative hand. Mr. Soames

was a bowler and desperately in earnest; to see him marshal his field

was a study in statesmanship. Knowledge of men went to it. “Can you

throw?” he had asked the stately gentleman who had somehow to be

accounted for; and when Mr. Germain replied that he would do his best to

oblige him—“_Verbum sap_,” he said afterwards to Duplessis, “I knew

what that meant all right, and put him cover. He only missed two

catches, you know, and one of ’em was old Blacklock who simply _has_ to

make a run. I don’t call that so bad!”

The game was played in the Rectory field, where the tent and

trestle-tables, and in truth some of the baked meats of a recent

festival did duty for to-day. Behind the railings, as before, sat Mrs.

James and her Cantacutes. Miss de Speyne was not there, but Mrs.

Duplessis was—a carefully preserved lady, handsome and fatigued. On the

further side of the field were benches, and here also spectators

clustered—farmers’ ladies, the doctor and his wife, Mr. Nunn, the

retired solicitor, who lived at The Sanctuary and employed Miss

Middleham to look after his children; young Perivale, the auctioneer’s

son, from Townham, the Misses Finch, of Stockfield Peverel, the Misses

Wake; and Mary Middleham was undoubtedly there, with white sunshade, her

young charges about her, or running from her to papa and back as needs

might be. And to Miss Middleham it undoubtedly was that Mr. Germain, on

an occasion of attempting to retrieve a slashing cut by the butcher’s

man—and fruitlessly, seeing he was outpaced by the second gardener from

the Rectory—paid the distinction of a salute before he returned

leisurely to the fray.

She had been standing with a group of acquaintances, of whom Miss Kitty

Wake, Miss Sally Wake, and Miss Letty Wake—all of Whiteacre

Farm—formed three, and young Perivale a fourth. Upon these young people

the courtesy smote like a puff of wind. Perivale blinked, and “Gracious!

Who’s that?” escaped Miss Sally, and was caught and expounded by her

sister Kitty. “Stupid. It’s Mr. Germain, the Rector’s brother.”

“Then he bowed to you, Mary,” said Miss Sally, and, as Mary blushed,

young Perivale ground his heel into a dandelion.

“I don’t wonder,” said this youth, whose complaint was not hard to

diagnose; but the compliment was ignored by the Misses Wake.

“Whatever makes him play village cricket? Why, his lordship never does,

nor the Rector—and Mr. Germain could buy up the pair of them, I hear.

Don’t you call it singular, Mr. Perivale? I do.”

“Doesn’t make much of it, does he?” says Perivale, drily.

“No, certainly not. Why should he? An old gentleman like that!”

Friendship required a protest, and so Miss Kitty cried, “Oh, Sally, he’s

not a bit old!” Mary’s corroboration being called for, she said that she

should not call him old.

“Well, whatever he is, he’s very polite. That bow of his! My dear, you

might have been Miss de Speyne! However did he know it was you, at this

distance?”

“Perhaps he took his hat off to you, Sally,” Mary said, but Miss Sally

would have none of that.

“He looks straight at you, as if he knew you by heart, and then stiffens

himself, and off with his hat. Cricket! He’s no cricketer—but he’s a

gentleman.”

So much all must admit. Mary, mildly elated, had no objection to further

inquiries. The former encounter, Mr. Germain’s deliberate advance into

the school-treat: these wonders were revealed, rolled on the tongue,

absorbed. Young Mr. Perivale took a stroll and fiercely, in the course

of it, asked a small boy what he was looking at, hey? But more wonders

were to come. Mr. Germain refreshed himself with the players, during the

tea interval, introduced himself to Mr. Nunn, of The Sanctuary, patted

the heads of his brood, and meeting Miss Middleham by the trestle-table,

shook hands with her and held her in talk. He deprecated his cricket

with simplicity. “I reflect that it is five-and-twenty years since I

chased a cricket ball; but you may see the force of your example, Miss

Middleham. Had you not inspired me to effort the other day I should

hardly have embarked upon to-day’s adventure.”

She was prettily confused—her friends’ eyes upon her; but he ambled on

in his kindly way.

“I put myself in the hands of my friend Mr. Soames. I was sure of his

charitable discretion. Therefore, when he asked me whether I could do

this or that, I did not tell him the facts, because I did not know them

and was so confident that he did. I said that I should be happy to serve

him, which was perfectly true. I based myself upon a famous French

exemplar. You know the anecdote? A gentleman of that nation was asked

whether he could take the violin part in a quartette. He said that he

did not know, but that he would try. One may admire his courage.”

Miss Middleham was in this difficulty, that she did not know whether the

anecdote was amusing or not. “I suppose that he was not sure of the

part,” she said.

“No,” Mr. Germain corrected her; “he meant that he did not know how to

play the violin.” Then she laughed, more to cover her confusion than

because she was tickled.

“I like his attitude of mind, I must say,” Mr. Germain continued,

talking in the air. “The sonata doubtless mattered as little as this

cricket match, but neighbourliness is the great thing. We have too

little of that in England. We segregate too willingly I fear. I have no

notion of—I beg your pardon. While I have no notions, you have no tea.

Pray allow me to get you some.”

He was a long time on this errand—for short sight and a complete

absence of assertion do not help one to tea in a crowd; but nobody dare

engage Miss Middleham while she stood there, so to speak, ear-marked for

the great man’s. Mr. Nunn, her employer, kept his flock carefully about

him; Duplessis was over the railings in the Rectory garden; Mr. Soames

was exercising the hospitalities due from a captain to his rival. The

Perivales, Wakes, Finches, could but look on respectfully. That they

did.

Her cup of tea, her plate of bread and butter were handed to her with

another fine bow; but even then her cavalier did not consider himself

discharged. He stood to his post, tall, unperturbed, using his

_pince-nez_ to observe with gentle interest the audience which stood

about, not for a single moment realizing that it was an audience indeed.

But as he talked his amiable commonplaces, he was very conscious of the

young woman, object of his attentions; little escaped him there. It was

evident to him that she was pleased, softly, quietly thrilled by them;

and it gratified him extremely to feel that he could confer pleasure

upon her while he took his own. Pleasure, you see, costs nothing,

therefore it is priceless. It cannot be bought, and yet can only be got

by giving. The distinction seemed to him material, but he could not

remember to have remarked it until the other day, when Lady Cantacute—a

kind woman—by a trivial remark had made this child forget her wariness

and smile enchantingly.

Since that moment he had pursued the thought, and verified it. He was

verifying it now; there was no possible doubt that he was giving and

taking pleasure. Had there been any—of this you may be sure—he would

have known it; he was sensitive in such matters. He would have retired

with a fine bow, and resumed his isolation and his dreams, the nursing

of his secret fire. I shall have described Mr. Germain ill if I do not

make it plain that he was perfectly honest, simple, very solemn, rather

dull, a gentleman from the bone outwards. Miss Sally was quite right

there. It was, I am sure, rather his education than his breeding which

made him look upon his world, his village, native land, the continent he

happened to be visiting as either in his employment (like his valet) or

a negligible quantity. The same straightness of categories, with an

offensive twist, has been observed in Mr. Duplessis and is common to

gentlemen by inheritance. Mr. Germain had that sickness mildly, but

unmistakably. Take the weather. If the day was fine, he was not

insensible to that: he wore white spats and took abroad a silver-headed

cane; he snuffed the genial gale, said Ha! and perhaps gave sixpence to

a little boy. All was as it should be; he was excellently served. But if

the morn broke stormily, with a wailing, wet, west wind, with scudding

rain or whirling snow, all that escaped his lips was “Provoking!” He

ordered the brougham. And you may think that, in effect, these things

are what any gentleman may do, and yet not be exactly right. Other

gentlemen may damn the rain; but Mr. Germain, more in sorrow than in

anger, gave nature a month’s warning. If there is offence to Miss Mary

Middleham in likening her to the weather, I am sorry for it. There’s no

doubt that that is how she stood in Mr. Germain’s regard, though he

would have gone to the stake denying it.

No misgiving, therefore, disturbed his serenity while he talked to her

of the art of teaching, which he understood she practised. It was truly,

he thought, one of the great arts, to give it no prouder title. What

more wonderful material could be put under the hands of any artist than

humanity? More plastic than paint, more durable than the potter’s clay

or the builder’s stone, more subtly responsive than the vibrations with

which the musician must cope. He had been reading the other day a very

excellent Life of Vittorino da Feltre, a great Italian educationist. He

should be happy to send it to Miss Middleham. The man was as proud as a

prince; and to the credit of the princes of Italy it must be said that

he was treated as their peer. A remarkable career, full of suggestion.

A certain scare, faintly discernible in Miss Middleham’s open eyes,

recalled him from so wide a cast. He told her that he had been renewing

acquaintance with Mr. Nunn—“a worthy friend of some years’

standing”—and had received that gentleman’s testimony to her value, to

the affection which all his children had for her. He had a great respect

for Mr. Nunn—a widower with six young children. “I,” said he, “am a

widower—but yet I can envy Mr. Nunn. I am childless and much alone. You

are fond of children, Miss Middleham?”

She owned to that gladly. “I was sure of it,” he said. “You betrayed

yourself at the school-treat. Not so much by what you did—though you

worked nobly—as by what was done to you. I watched the children; they

could not let you alone. They must touch you—children express

themselves by their _antennæ_. Again I envy you, Miss Middleham.”

At this point Mr. Soames most happily, if abruptly, intervened. We were

to go in. Mr. Germain started, ha’d for his mental balance, poised so

for an uncertain moment, and then broke away as desired. “My stout

commander! Ha, yes. I am ready. Lead, leader, and I follow.” He bowed to

his late captive, left her rosily confused, and bent himself to his duty

in the field.

He faced the bowling of the lower end, with carefully adjusted glasses

and a resolute chin. He out-lived four balls, and actually hit two of

them, but forgot to run the first—to the discomfiture of Wilcox, the

saddler, who did run for it, and lost his wicket. The second he ran when

he should not, though Soames’s hand and “No! No!” pealed coming

disaster; and then he walked back to the tent, and thence to the Rectory

garden, while Duplessis, joining Soames, made vigourous practice of the

Cromberton bowling. His enthusiasm held out to the end; he marked every

ball, cheered every notch. He was impartial—the fall of Soames’s wicket

received his plaudits, the hundred on the telegraph got no more. For so

sedate a personage he was in great spirits; he rallied the Rector on his

timidity, urged Lord Cantacute to put James to the blush. He went so

far, even, as to congratulate Duplessis upon his 76 not out; and when

all was over reverted more than once during a leisurely stroll among the

box-edged walks to the pleasures of village life. He deplored his

“great, shut-up Southover.” We were too fond of our fenced enclosures.

According to Tacitus the trick must be inveterate, but just now there

were signs of its losing hold. Our American kindred would have none of

it—a park-pale, even a garden hedge was an offence against public

conscience over there. The convenience of _appartements_ was gaining

upon London, and in the country allotments were recalling the old days

of the common fields. Well, he was good Liberal enough to welcome the

breaking down of our grudging defences. Why should an Englishman’s house

be his castle, while England, surrounded by its briny moat, was

sufficient castle for us all? Merry England! England might be merry

enough if Englishmen could forget themselves, and remember each other.

Mrs. James did not agree with him, and shortly said so, but Lord

Cantacute, who may have seen further than she cared to look, said it

would never do. “It’s been tried over and over again, you know. You

can’t mix people up, because they won’t meet you. If you go and make a

fuss with a fellow, you’ll gratify him, you know; but what will he do?

Will he make a fuss with his next-door neighbour? Not he! He’ll kick

him. You’ve made him feel that he’s somebody, d’you see? So he can

afford himself the luxury. No, no, Germain. I wish you were right—you

ought to be—but you’re not.”

“There’s a queer kind of fellow,” his lordship went on, while Mr.

Germain seemed to be holding his opinion firmly in his clasped hands

behind his back, “who lives in a tilt-cart and mends kettles when the

fancy takes him. Paints a good picture, too, and has plenty to say for

himself. Hertha found him at that the other day, out riding—but the

kettles were not far off, and the sawder bubbling in a pot on a fire.

From what she says, he’s come as near to your standard as any one. No

hedges there. And he’s a gentleman, mind you. Hertha says that’s clear.

But look at the difference. He steps down you see. You are for pulling

’em up. That don’t do, as I say.”

Mr. Germain explained himself. “I deny the imputation; I cannot admit

the possibility. Pulling up, my dear Cantacute! How can you pull up,

when there is no eminence? I spoke of enclosures, of artificial

barriers—a very different matter.”

“Same thing,” said my lord. “We didn’t plant ’em. They grew.”

“I met to-day again,” said Mr. Germain, pointedly to his sister-in-law,

“your Miss Middleham—a charming girl—with whom I gave myself the

pleasure of some little talk during the interval allowed me by my

stalwart friend Soames. I became a hedge-breaker, my dear Constantia,

deliberately”—Lord Cantacute’s shrewd eye being upon him, he turned to

the attack—“and I can assure you that I found her in every respect

worthy of my homage, in every respect. We discussed her art——”

“What’s that?” asked the lord.

“The art of teaching, my dear friend. I maintained that it was the

finest art—and Miss Middleham quite agreed with me.”

Mrs. James asked him tartly what else Mary Middleham could have done, or

been supposed to do. Lord Cantacute contented himself by saying that he

believed she was a nice young woman.

“There are, at any rate, no hedges about her,” said Mrs. James.

V

HOW TO BREAK A HEDGE

Mr. John Germain, of Southover House, in Berkshire—since it is time to

be particular about him—was five years older than his brother—a man of

fifty, of habits as settled as his income, and like his income, too,

mostly in land. Yet he had literary tastes, a fine library, for

instance, of which the nucleus only had been inherited, and the rest

selected, bound, and mostly read by himself. He was said to have

corresponded with the late Mr. Herbert Spencer, and when he was in town

invariably to lunch at the Athenæum, sometimes in the company of that

philosopher. In person he was tall, distinguished, very erect, very

lean, near-sighted, impassive, and leisurely in his movements. One could

not well imagine him running for a train—and indeed the appointments of

his household service must have precluded the possibility. His coachman

had been with him five-and-twenty years, his butler thirty, and the rest

to correspond. I believe there was not an upper servant in his employ

who had not either seen him grow up or been so seen by himself. He lived

mostly in the country, upon his estate, and there fulfilled its duties

as he conceived them to be—was Chairman of Quarter Sessions,

Deputy-Lieutenant, had been Sheriff, was Chairman of the Board of

Guardians. At these things he worked, to lesser incumbencies he stooped,

to meet them halfway and no more—as if he deprecated the fashion which

insisted on them. Thus he was patron of sport rather than sportsman,

subscribed liberally to the hounds, but never hunted, offered excellent

shooting to his county, but never handled a gun. A very dignified

man—with his high, fastidious face—you had to look hard to discern the

character he was. He masked his features as he subdued his movements to

express deliberately measured advance; and yet, in his own way and

within his own limits, he had never failed of having what he wanted, as

he wanted it. And if he had to pay, as we mostly do, he paid without

turning a visible hair. I say that with the remembrance of his marriage

to Lady Di Wymondesley in my mind.

That had, at first, seemed a stroke of Fortune with which he was not to

cope. He had married her—when she was the fashion of the day, the day’s

last expression—early in life, so soon as he had gone down from

Cambridge and entered upon his inheritance. She had brought him little

money—but he wanted none of her money; he wanted her, as every

enthusiast for the ideal then did. A beautiful, haggard, swift, violent

creature, tearing life to tatters that she might find some excitement in

the lining, there came a year when Clytemnestra threatened to be her

proper name—that year when her husband returned from a solitary tour in

Palestine, Syria, and the Trojan plain, and when Ægisthus, they say, had

not been wanting, to make the trio of them. But he, this immovable,

triple-armoured man of thirty—he was no more—had shown what his fibre

was when he had lived Ægisthus down, lived him out of Berks, out of his

clubs, out of London, out of England, and then had set himself to work

to live the devil out of his Clytemnestra. What he suffered will never

be known, for he took good care of that; and what she may have suffered

can hardly be guessed, for she talked too much and too bitterly to be

believed. There’s no doubt that these were terrible years; there were

fifteen of them, and of every one you would have sworn it must be the

last. Providence finally justified that wonderful grit in the man—that

panoply of esteem which no sword could bite on—by breaking Lady Di’s

back in the hunting-field.

He had been forty when that crowning mercy came to him, and had spent

the ten following years in getting his affairs into order. Changing

outwardly none of his habits, such as his yearly visit to London, his

yearly visit to Misperton Rectory, he was none the less conscious of a

departed zest; his panoply was frayed if not rent; and wherever he was

during those ten orderly years carried his hope about with him—a

treasured, if dim, a real, if undefined, presence. He called it Hestia,

and wrote verses about it in secret; he had a positive taste for certain

forms of poetry—the Court pastoral, the shepherd-in-satin, beribboned

lamb sort of poetry—but not a soul knew that, not even his butler.

Hestia was not a woman—at least, she had no members; she appeared in

his verses unwooing and unwooed. She was, rather, the vision of an

Influence; she was an Aura, a rhythm, a tone. She involved, implied, a

domestic calm which had never been his, though Southover’s walls were

fair and many; she was a melodious beat added to his ordered goings; at

her touch the clockwork of Southover chimed silvern instead of steely.

The hope of this Hestia, if I may say so, he carried always about with

him at the half-cock. It was the secret of his life. You would never

have suspected him of a musical ear; yet there it was. You would have

said that any spring of poetry in him would have been sealed at the

fount by that panoply which could turn a sword-edge—but no! The eye of

such a man may never betray its content and his heart be incapable of

voicing its desire. But what heart covets eye will hold, and ear strain

after. The man will burn within and make no sign—to fellow man.

And now, the stateliest hedge-breaker that ever, surely, wrought in

Somerset, Mr. Germain proceeded on his declared purpose with an absence

of parade which, while it robbed it of all sting, must also have

threatened its value. Unless you shout Liberty as you trample barriers

down, the prisoners may well remain within their pinfolds. There was no

shouting in Misperton Brand. It was Mr. Germain’s habit to take

breakfast in his own room and keep a solitary morning. He was not

visible to the Rectory party until luncheon time; after tea he was

accustomed also to withdraw himself until dinner. During these times of

seclusion, as I collect, he devoted himself to the emancipation of Miss

Middleham.

Sobered as such a young lady could not fail to be by the unimpeachable

testimony of Thursday’s school treat and Saturday’s cricket, it was on

the Monday following that a series of encounters began, which struck,

excited, and ended by enthralling her. Walking to her work in the

mornings, she must needs overtake him, returning late in the evenings,

behold him strolling a few yards in front of her. This may be done once

and be a transient glory, twice and be for remembrance—a comfort when

things go awry; let it happen three times, and you will be frightened.

After that it may colour each day beforehand as it comes. Miss Middleham

had reached the stage where her heart began to beat as she approached

the corner of Love-lane, at the end of which stood The Sanctuary behind

its defences of laurela, white gates and laurustinus—when another shock

was given her, one of those shocks which you get when you put two and

two together, as the saying is. It did not take her a second to do the

sum—but it had to be done.

On this occasion lessons had been rolling for an hour—long enough to

discover how hot it was and how interesting a bee in a window could make

himself; more than long enough for Tommy to yawn and squeak his

slate-pencil, for Elsie to sigh and look appealingly at Miss

Middleham—when the door opened and papa appeared, and behind papa, tall

and benevolent, Mr. Germain, the great gentleman from the Rectory.

At this sudden invasion of her sanctuary, Miss Middleham rose startled

in her place, and her hand unconsciously sought her side. As Dian

surprised with her nymphs might have covered her unveiled breast, so she

her heart. At least, so the visitor interpreted the act. If the children

stared clear-eyed, Miss Middleham’s fine eyes were misty. Altogether a

pretty commotion without and within.

Mr. Nunn—Mr. T. Albert Nunn, as he was pleased to sign himself—was a

hale, elderly, and plump gentleman, in colouring rather like a

greenhouse plant, so vividly white and feathery was he in the whiskers,

so fleshily pink in the cheeks. He now showed considerable elation,

though modesty rode it, as it were, on the curb.

“Miss Middleham—pray let me not disturb you. Mr. Germain, Sir, our

preceptress, Miss Middleham—who is so kind as to take charge of my

nestlings—ha, Sir! my motherless babes—” As he waved them into

acquaintance with each other Miss Middleham became deeply suffused, but

Mr. Germain was ready to help her.

“Miss Middleham and I are old acquaintances,” he said. “Indeed, I

presume upon that at the moment.” He turned to her, excusing himself.

“Mr. Nunn assured me that we should not disturb you, and I hope you will

support him. You know my interest in educational matters——”

“Yes, Mr. Germain,” she said, faintly. “You have spoken of it.”

“I thought it due to you, when I learned what an honourable charge you

profess, that you should know me an admirer of it from

afar—unfortunately from afar. Your little pupils, too, I have met—”

Mr. Nunn, who had a good ear for sentiment, had his cue.

“My motherless—! Ha, Miss Middleham, what can we show Mr. Germain—what

have we of interest? My Gertrude, now, writes a good essay—I have heard

you say so. Hey?”

“Very good, indeed, Mr. Nunn,” said Miss Middleham, while Miss Gertrude

swallowed hard.

“I should enjoy a sight of it of all things,” said Mr. Germain; so the

essay was produced—in all its round and becapitalled script, with Miss

Middleham’s corrections in red ink. “The Character of John Lackland,

King of England.”

Mr. Germain read between the lines, studied the corrections, and mused

as he read. At the end, it happened there was a model essay in the

teacher’s hand, not hard to discover as the teacher’s composition. He

read this, too, and interpreted it in the light of his vision of the

girl. He read into it her confident, natural voice, saw behind it her

trim figure, her expressive eyes and softly rich colour. The entire

absence of anything remarkable in itself gave him no dismay. He was not

looking for that, but for confirmation of his emotions, for a reasoned

basis to them. It was clear to him in a moment that the Kings of England

were counters in a game—a game, to the teacher, only a shade less

dreary, because much more familiar, than to her pupils. This was what he

wanted to find. It corroborated his first vision: the vision held. Had

she shown talent, to say nothing of genius, for her profession, he would

have been greatly disconcerted. Handing the book back, he patted Miss

Gertrude on the head for a quick little pupil, and her beaming parent on

the back, in a manner of speaking, for possessing her. “You are happy,

Mr. Nunn,” he said, “in your children’s promise, and I am sure that

their instructress may be satisfied with their performance.”

“You are very good, Sir,” replied Mr. Nunn. “It is naturally gratifying

to me—highly gratifying—when a gentleman in your position takes notice

of my little brood. Ha! my little seed-plots, as I may truly say. Miss

Middleham reports favourably of progress—steady progress. I hear that

little Margaret’s sewing is somewhat remarkable——”

But Mr. Germain did not pursue his researches, having no need.

Heaven and Earth! he thought, as he had intended all along to think,

were ever labours more jejune compelled upon a fresh and budding young

life? Was ever yoke more galling laid upon yearling shoulders? To set a

being so delicate at liberty, there can be no hammer and pick laid to

the barrier; nay, it must be rather by enlarging from within. The

butterfly lies so in a prison house, his iris wings close-folded to his

sides. Break into the shell, you either crash the filmy thing, or usher

it untimely into a chill world. No, no. Breathe tenderness, shed warmth

about the lovely prisoner; it grows in grace and strength to free

itself. Then be at hand to see the dawning of life, share in the

contemplative ecstasy of a God, rejoice with Him in a fair work—behold

it very good!

“What is exquisite here,” he told himself as he thought of Mary standing

at her work, “is the bending to the yoke, and the resiliency, the strain

for release which is irrepressible in so ardent and strong a nature. I

remember the proud youths in the Panathenaic frieze, the noble maidens

bearing baskets on their heads. Obedience, willingness, patience on the

curb—can anything be more beautiful? You ride a perfect horse; he

throbs under your hand. A touch will guide him, but brutality will make

a mad thing of him. The gentle hand, the gentle hand! He who is

privileged enough to have that in his gift, within his faculty, is

surely blessed above his fellows!

“And does not that quality of beauty, indeed, depend upon the curb? Can

it exist, as such, without it? No: the head cannot bow so meekly without

the burden laid, the neck cannot spring until it has been bent. Ah, but

the curb is wielded by the hand, and must never be in unwise or brutal

employ. Here there is not brutality, but a stupidity beyond belief,

something horrible to me, and deeply touching, that one so young, so

highly graced, so little advantaged, should be drudging to prepare for

others a lot no better than her own—drudging without aptitude, without

reason, without hope to realize or ambition to gratify—desiring merely

to live and grow and be happy! Horrible, most horrible. Surely so fair a

spirit should be more thriftily expended! Transplant that sweet humour,

that really beautiful submissiveness into a room more gracious, an

atmosphere more appreciative, and how could it fail to thrive, to bear

flower and fruit?”

Flower and fruit—ah, me! There leapt up in his heart an answering fire,

and he cried to himself, “Hestia! The Hearth!”

VI

MISS MIDDLEHAM IS INVITED TO CONFIRM A VISION

The object of these sentimental and persistent excursions—circular

tours, in fact, since, however far they wandered, whether to the

Parthenon or to the shrouded Hestia of the Hearth, they always returned

to their starting place—by no means filled the scene at Misperton

Brand, which, when she crossed it at all, approved or disapproved

according to taste and opportunity. Lady Cantacute had no doubt but she

was a good little soul, and young Perivale would confidently wager her a

girl with whom you could have fun. Her pupils adored her, Miss de Speyne

had not yet realized her existence. Tristram Duplessis believed her

waiting for him. The Rector had once called her a sun child, it appears;

and that sounds like a compliment, but her good looks were denied. Yet

“sun child” is apt, from a friendly tongue. Her colour was quick to come

and go; no doubt she was burnt becomingly by the weather. She had—he

might have said—a dewy freshness upon her, rather the appearance of

having been newly kissed. No doubt, she had a figure, no doubt, the hot,

full eyes of the South. Here her soul, if she had one, spoke to those

who could hear. Excitement made her eyes to shine like large stars,

apprehension opened them like a hare’s. Reproach made them loom upon you

all black. If you interested her, they peered. They filled readily with

tears, and could laugh like wavelets in the sun. But you can’t build a

beauty upon eyes alone, and a beauty she had no claim to be. And yet she

was well finished off—with small hands and feet, pointed fingers, small

ears, quick nostrils, a smooth throat, running from dusk to ivory as the

sun held or fainted in his chase. Then she had “pretty

ways”—admitted—and there’s enough title for your sun child.

But the Rector, you see, liked her, while his wife disapproved of her

fundamentally. Pretty ways, forsooth! “She’s a flirt, James, and I have

no patience with Mr. Soames. The Eastward position is perfectly

harmless, of course. Many clergymen adopt it—Lord Victor for one. But

it was never done here, as you know very well, until Mr. Soames

discovered that he could see the Sunday-school benches that way.”

The Rector shrugged with his eyebrows. “_Scandalum magnatum_, my dear,

and dire nonsense at that. Soames is a good fellow with a conscience,

and may say his creed in my church to whatever wall he finds helpful.”

Mrs. James retorted that a magnet was quite out of place in a church,

and set him gently chuckling. That, as she knew, was final for the day;

but she kept her eye steadily upon Miss Middleham, and had her small

rewards. What was not discoverable could be guessed at by what was. She

lighted by chance upon one crowning episode when, on a Sunday afternoon,

she found her cousin Tristram declaiming Shelley’s _Prometheus_ under

the apple tree in the garden of Mary’s lodging—not to the apples and

birds of the bough, but to the young person herself, snug in an easy

chair, her Sunday pleats neatly disposed, no ankle showing, to speak of,

but—and this did stamp a fatal air of domesticity upon the whole

exhibition—but _without a hat_. This, if you come to think of it, means

the worst kind of behaviour, a perverted mind. Shelley was an atheist,

and his _Prometheus_ was probably subversive of every kind of

decency—but that is nothing beside the point of the hat, which might be

missed by any man, but by no woman. For consider. If a little nursery

governess were to be read to by the cousin of a person of good family—a

young man who might be engaged to a peer’s daughter by a nod of the

head—one might think little of it, _had there been evidence of its

being an event_. But there had been none—far from that. Mrs. James knew

her Misperton Brand very well; events there were hailed by young persons

_in their best hats_. Here, nothing of the kind. On the contrary, there

was an every-day air about it which showed that the girl was at home

with Tristram, Tristram much at home with the girl. That Tristram should

be at ease was nothing; it would have been ridiculous had he not been—a

nursery governess! But was it not disastrous flippancy—to say no

harsher thing—in Mary that she, too, could be at ease; hatless, in a

rocking chair; not rocking herself—no, not that! but able to rock at

any moment! The enormity was reported, and the Rector said that so long

as young women wore their hats in his church he cared nothing what they

did with them elsewhere. He threatened to chuckle, so no more could be

said; but to Mrs. James, what had been dark surmise before was now

garishly plain. The girl was——

But all this takes us far from the schoolroom where Miss Middleham was

blamelessly expounding the Plantagenet Kings of England, or from the

shady lime-tree walk where Mr. Germain was rhapsodizing upon yokes,

submissiveness, and young necks resilient.

He met her, as had now become his habit, on the next morning, and the

next. The same bewildering, gentle monologues were delivered—or he

paced by her side without speaking, without constraint or any sign that

betrayed he was not doing an every-day thing. He was doing a thing which

held her spellbound; but shortly afterwards he did another which made

her brain spin. He proposed “a little walk” in the course of that

afternoon—“Let us say, at six o’clock, if that would be perfectly

agreeable to you.” An appointment! It must needs be agreeable; perhaps

it was. He called for her at her woodbine-covered lodging, asked for her

by name, and stood uncovered in the porch until she appeared; and then

they walked by field-ways some couple of miles in the direction of

Stockfield Peverel.

Upon this occasion she was invited, if not directed, to talk. It was a

little catechism. Mr. Germain asked her of her family and prospects, and

she replied readily enough. There was neither disguise, nor pretence

about what she had to tell him. She was what Mrs. James would have

thought—and did think—frankly _canaille_. Her father was cashier in

the London and Suburban Bank at Blackheath, and her mother was alive.

This Mary was the second child of a family of six—all girls. Jane—“We

call her Jinny”—was the eldest, and a typewriter in a City office: “We

shall never be anything more than we are now, because we aren’t clever,

and are quite poor.” Jinny was seven-and-twenty; then came herself, Mary

Susan, twenty-four years ago. A hiatus represented two boys who had died

in infancy—“they mean more than all of us to Mother”—and then in

succession four more girls, the eldest sixteen and “finishing.” “Ready

to go out in the world, just as I did.” She knew nothing of her father’s

father; but had heard that he had come from the West Country,

Gloucestershire, she thought. Her mother’s maiden name had been Unthank.

Really, that was all—except that she had been much what she was now—a

nursery governess—since she was seventeen. “Seven years—yes, a long

time; but one gets accustomed to it.” He tried, but could get no more

out of her concerning herself; and he remarked upon it that, so surely

as she began to talk of her own affairs, she compared them with Jinny’s

and allowed them to fade out in Jinny’s favour. He judged that, as a

child, she had been overshadowed. Jinny’s beauty, accomplishments,

audacity were much upon Mary’s tongue. Jinny knew French, and could sing

French songs. She was tall—“a head taller than me”—not engaged to be

married, but able to be so whenever she chose. Not easy to please,

however. “Father thinks a great deal of Jinny. We are all proud of her.

Perhaps you might not admire her style. Everybody looks at her in

Blackheath.” Mr. Germain thought to himself that in that case, he should

not admire her style.

It is not to be denied that these details had to be digested under

protest. They were perfectly innocent, but they did not help the ideal.

She was much more attractive when she was fluttered and whirled off her

feet, rather breathless, with a good deal of colour, rather scared—as

she had been at first. Now, however, she was at ease, tripping by his

side, full of the charms of a dashing Jinny at Blackheath—and it came

into his mind with a pang that, at this rate, she—the ideal, first-seen

She—might disappear altogether behind that young lady’s whisking

skirts. This he could not afford: his inquiries became more personal,

and she immediately more coy. There came almost naturally into his

attitude towards her an air of patronage—tender, diffident, very

respectful patronage, under which she soon showed him that his interest

in her was moving her pleasantly. A man of more experience than he—who

had none—would have seen in a moment that the attention of the other

sex was indeed her supreme interest, the mainspring of her being; would

have noticed that every filament in her young frame was sensitive to

that. A man of gallantry and _expertise_ could have played upon her as

on a harp. Mr. Germain could not do this, but his feelings were strongly

attracted. So young, so simple, so ardent a creature! he said to

himself, and—“God be good to all of us!—living, breathing delicately,

exquisitely, daintily indeed before my eyes upon sixty-five pounds a

year!”

This fact had truly taken his breath away. Sixty-five pounds a

year—mere wages—for the hire of a girl like a flower. “It was a great

rise for me,” she had said. “I had never expected to earn more than

£45—Jinny herself only gets a pound a week, and French is required in

her office. But Mr. Nunn said that he would pay me £15 more than his

usual allowance for governesses because it would not be convenient to

have me in the house, and I must therefore pay for a lodging in the

village. So I must think myself a very fortunate girl, to have my

evenings to myself, and £15 a year into the bargain.”

Mr. Germain, reflecting upon the wages of his butler, valet, cook,

head-housemaid, head-gardener, head-keeper, head-coachman, felt

himself—though he did not know it—knocked off his feet. This comes of

mingling interests under glamour. The beglamoured would wiselier

postpone practical inquiries.

But as it was, his interest in the young girl was quickened by

admiration and pity to a dangerous height. He more than admired, he

respected her. To make so gallant, so enchanting a figure on sixty-five

pounds a year! And oh, the scheming and shifts that the effort must

involve. His fine lips twitched, his fine, benevolent eyes grew dim; he

blinked and raised his brows. Summer lightning seemed to play

incessantly over his pale face. “My poor child, my poor, brave child!”

he murmured to himself: but aloud he said,

“You interest me extremely—I am greatly touched, somewhat moved.

Believe me, I value the confidence you have shown me. I do believe I

shall not be unworthy of it. I must think—I must take time to

consider—a little time, to see whether I cannot—whether I might

presume—Sixty-five pounds a year—God bless me, it is astounding!”

Then, to complete the enchantment, she looked quickly up at him, gave

him a full quiver from those deep homes of wonder, her unsearchable

eyes. “It’s wonderful to me,” she said, simply, without any pretence,

“that you should interest yourself in me. I cannot understand it.”

He schooled himself to smile, to be the patron again. “What do you find

so wonderful in that, my dear?”

“That you should find time—that you should care—take notice—oh, I

don’t know how to say it. I’m only a poor girl, you know, a nursery

governess and a dunce. I was so terrified when you came into lessons

that morning—I couldn’t tell you, really. My knees knocked.”

He felt more at his ease. “That was very foolish of your knees, my dear.

I was greatly interested. And pray do not think me inquisitive: that is

not one of my vices. It is far from my wish to—to patronize one for

whom I have so high a respect. Your poverty is as it may be—at any

rate, you earn your bread; and in that you are a head and shoulders

above myself. And if you are a dunce, which I cannot admit—well, that

can be mended, you know. Are we not all dunces? I remember a very wise

man saying once that we know nothing until we know that we know nothing.

Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I think so. But even then—Oh, no! It is very wonderful, I think.”

And then, as he looked down at her smiling, he received again her

full-orbed attack, and she said in a low voice, “Thank you for being so

kind to me.” He had to turn away his head lest he should betray himself,

and wreck what was to him a moment of ridiculous happiness. He could not

trust himself to speak.

At the turnstile between the smithy and the Rising Sun beershop their

ways should have diverged; but, although he had fallen entirely silent,

he accompanied her to Orient Cottage, where she lodged. At the gate he

held her hand for a minute while he somewhat breathlessly committed

himself. “Let us, if you will be so good, repeat our little walk the day

after to-morrow—that is, on Saturday. I leave this place on Monday, and

should value another conversation with you. On Saturday you will be

free, I think? Shall we then say the morning, at eleven?”

She would not allow him to see her eyes now. She murmured her

“Yes—thank you,” and he went on.

“It is very kind of you. I may have something to say—but, be that as it

may, to an old fogy of my sort the companionship of a young lady is

flattering. I hope I may believe that I have not wearied you, since you

are willing to indulge me again.”

“No, indeed, Mr. Germain. I shall be proud to come.” And then he let her

hand go, and she slipped through the gate. As she entered her door she

looked over her shoulder a shy good-night; he saluted her and paced

slowly back to the Rectory. Combustible matter had been handled; had she

been less simple or he more sure, there’s no saying what might not have

been ablaze. As it was he betrayed by no outward sign at all how stirred

he was, though he was not very talkative at the dinner-table. The

Rectory people dined at the Park. Tristram, it was told, was off again.

He had gone to Pau, at a moment’s notice, with young Lord Branleigh.

VII

MISS MIDDLEHAM HAS VISIONS OF HER OWN

As for Mary Middleham, it behoved her to cool her hot cheeks and quench

the fires in her eyes as soon as she might, for within a few minutes of

Mr. Germain’s departure she must set out again. She had been bidden to

the Wakes for supper, and the Wakes lived five miles away. Without

changing her dress, she mounted her bicycle and was off. She rode fast,

but her thoughts outstripped her. She tried to look cool, but the fire

throbbed and gleamed. It was not possible but she must recall every

stage in the journey of the week that was passing—a week in which there

had not been a day without some signal mark of Mr. Germain’s attention.

He had “noticed” her; he had “noticed” her and her peddling affairs

every day since the school-treat. His interest had increased, and was

increasing; she could not credit it, but still less could doubt it. What

in the world did the good gentleman mean? What did he see in her, what

want of such as she was? Things of the sort had happened before; Mr.

Duplessis was a gentleman, but he was different, quite different. He

was, to say the least of it, a younger gentleman, and age was a

leveller. “Fun” was to be expected from such as he; but no more. Her

conscience had to be put to sleep where Mr. Duplessis was concerned. But

Mr. Germain was good and great, wise and—well, middle-aged—a landlord,

almost a nobleman. There was no question of “fun” there, or of

conscience either—it was all wild surmise. Could he mean anything? One

answer to that only: he must. Then, what under Heaven could he mean but

one thing? And that was flat absurdity—impossible of belief. And yet—!

So her little careful mind, scared out of its bearings, beat and boxed

the compass as her heart drove it.

She had a shrewd eye for that form of flattery which girls call

“attentions”; for the education of her world cultivates the fibres of

sense, and she had been upon it from her seventeenth to this her

four-and-twentieth year. Never a year of the seven but her wits had been

strung by some affair or another, scarcely one but she had supposed

herself within hail of that hour of moment, had seen before her a point

beyond which there was no seeing. “If he asks me, I must answer him. And

how?” Mostly he had not; and, after a drowning interval, she had

presently discovered herself heart-whole, conscience-clean, with no

wounds visible, no weals or bruises to ache their reminders. Then it had

all begun again—_da capo_.

She was very woman to the extremities. Nothing more feminine than she

had ever been taken from the side of man, or been more strongly inclined

to go back again. Nothing else in life really interested her but the

attitude of men—of this man or that man—towards her. That was why work

was task-work, and daily intercourse (without an implication) like meat

without salt. Instinct had swallowed her up; her mind was a slave, her

heart not yet born. She knew nothing whatever of passion; nobody had

ever evoked that. She had been touched, interested, flattered, excited,

but never in love in her whole life. Love, indeed, in its real sense,

was a sealed book; but curiosity absorbed her, and she was as responsive

to the flatteries of attention as a looking-glass to breath. Though she

was what we call a coquette by nature, she had no vanities, no vulgar

delight in flaunting her conquests before the envious. On the contrary,

she was secretive, hoarded her love-affairs, preferred to be wooed in

the dark. Her philosophy was really very simple and, I say, perfectly

innocent. She loved to be loved, sought out, desired. If she was pretty,

it was good to be claimed; if she was not, it was better. So all was for

the best.

Sitting erect in her saddle, with squared shoulders, open-breasted to

the fanning airs, it was clear that she was pleased, and that throbbing

heart and coursing blood became her. She had never looked so well or so

modest. Her lips were parted, but her eyes were veiled by those heavy

lids and deep lashes which to Duplessis spoke strongly of desire, and to

Mr. Germain of virgin bashfulness. A smile lay lurking at the corners of

her mouth, ready to flash and dart as her thought was stirred. She was

not thinking—perhaps she was incapable of it—she was playing with

thought. What had he been doing with her to-day? What was he going to do

with her the day after to-morrow? It was all very extraordinary. He

liked her, he tried to please her—and so far well; but he was not like

Mr. Duplessis, never looked at you as he did, as if he was angry that

you were not a morsel. It wasn’t that at all: well then, what was it?

The milestones flew by between Misperton and Whiteacre; she was received

by the buxom Miss Wakes with kisses and smiles; but her questions were

not solved, and her excitement must vent itself in sallies.

So it did. Young Mr. Perivale, the auctioneer’s son, was dumb before

her, went down like a stricken steer. She teased him, dazzled him,

inflamed his face and tied his tongue. She chattered, sang snatches of

songs, scribbled on the piano, flashed and loomed, dared greatly to a

point, and then turned to fly. She sat on Sally’s lap and ate apples,

allowed Letty to whisper secrets in a corner and quarrel with Kitty who

should have her next; sedately conscious of her good looks, she sat

downcast all of a sudden and let herself be adored—and then of the

suddenest she fled them all and went with Mr. Wake to visit a sick mare,

to pity and to serve, to hold the twitch for him while he administered a

ball. The end of such flights may be imagined; a pursuit, a capture in

the shrubbery, her waist a prisoner, and a panting declaration from

young Perivale of the state of his feelings.

She seemed heartless to him. She escaped his arm, and, “Oh, no, Mr.

Perivale, I really couldn’t,” she told him, when he asked, “Could she

care for him?” and looked to snatch a kiss. Which did she mean—that she

couldn’t? Both, it seemed. She handled him lightly; but she thoroughly

understood the game, and her ease was that of a skilled practitioner.

Mr. Perivale was hurt, and, it may be, forgot himself. He told her

fairly that her head had been turned. “That’s what it is,” he said, with

hot eyes and a sore tongue, “we’re not good enough for you now. The

great folks have taken you up. You think they mean something—and

perhaps they do. But it’s not what you think it is.”

“I think nothing about it, I assure you,” she cried, with her head high.

“You think nothing of Mr. Germain in the cricket-field—like a codfish

on a bank? Nothing of Mr. Duplessis glaring at you fit to break you? You

think these very fine attentions? You’ll excuse me, Miss Middleham, but

I know the world.”

“Oh, you may believe what you please of me,” said she, flushing up; “but

I hope you’ll believe what I’ve told you just now.”

“I’ll accept it, whether or no—,” said Mr. Perivale, and bade her

good-night. Left to herself, in the shrubbery, she shed some tears:

_spretæ injuria formæ_. The result of the scene was a supper eaten in

subdued silence and the prospect of five miles home, unescorted. She

disliked being about in the dark; imagination pictured beauty

defenceless and man ranging hungrily. There was a moon, which made it

worse. You can only see how dark it is on a moonlight night. No

question, however, but she must go.

She made her farewells and set out, her spirits quelled, her little joys

all dashed by the quarter-hour’s strife, and a victory which seemed not

worth the having. The wind had died down; it was a perfectly still

night, close and hot. The very moon seemed hot—heavy, full and burnt

yellow—midway up its path. Soon she too was hot, and walking up Faraway

Hill got hotter. Her hair loosened and sagged on her neck; her thin

muslin gown clung about her knees; she felt tumbled and blowsed, was as

near cross as she could ever be, and had spirits like lead—no elation

to be got out of the wonderful week, no high-heart hopes for the day

after to-morrow, no wild surmises. Atop of the great hill she stopped

for breath, fanned herself with her handkerchief, and put up her hair

again. Then she mounted and began the short descent to Cubbingdean.

She had not gone a hundred yards before she felt the dull shock and

gritty strain which betokens a punctured wheel. This seemed too much,

but, dismounting, she found it too true. Disaster on the heels of

discomfort; here she was with four fine miles to walk, alone, in the

dark, the scorn and reproof of a young Perivale! And part of her way led

over Mere Common, where gipsies often encamped, and lay abroad at this

season of the year, sleeping, lurking with dogs, doing wickedness in

couples. Her heart began to beat at the thought of all this—and what

wickedness they might do, and how the dogs would scuffle and tear; but

there was no help for it. She had passed this way but three hours

ago—and how gay it had looked in the golden sunlight of the late

afternoon! Ah, but then her thoughts had been golden, and music in her

heart. A snatch came back of the song which had been on her lips; stale

jingle it seemed to her now. There had been no gipsies, though, on the

Common; comfort in that.

After Cubbingdean, where a little river runs over the road, you climb

again between hedgerows and orchards; then comes a piece of woodland on

either side, and beyond that you are on Mere Common, which is more than

a mile across and half as much again in length. Mary tiptoed through the

wood with a knocking heart and, taking breath, addressed herself to the

proof before her. She had not, so far, met a living soul, unless

pheasants have souls, and hares. These light-foot beasts had made her

jump more than enough, and set the pulses at her temples beating like

kettle-drums. Her mind was beset by terrors; she had to bite her lip

sharply to keep herself to her task.