BOOK II

I

IN WHICH WE PAY A FIRST VISIT TO SOUTHOVER

The house—Southover House, Farlingbridge, Berks—stands terraced above

formal gardens in the Italian taste; ribbony borders, edged with white

stone, form a maze of pattern. Urns on pedestals, statues of nymphs and

fauns, stone seats, stone cisterns, gleam among the carpeted flowers.

Beyond these is the great park, with a wall (they tell me) six miles

round. The herd of fallow deer is praised by Cotton in his famous book.

Mr. Germain used to show you the passage.

The mansion, built by Wyatt, is classical; an exact rectangle of pink

brick faced with Bath stone. It has a pediment and a balustrade, with

white statues at intervals along the garden front. Within, it is

extremely proper, having narthex and atrium, or, if you please,

vestibule and hall. The reception rooms open out of this last, and above

it a gallery gives on to the chambers, about whose doors the valets are

to be seen collected at seven-thirty or so of an evening. They wait for

their masters, while they observe and comment in monosyllabic undertones

upon the doings of their betters below. Surprising how much a

man-servant can get into how little. From April to June, from September

to November, the hall is used for tea and after-dinner lounging. It is

the core and heart of the house. During the summer months tea should be

on the terrace unless Nature is willing to see Mr. Germain vexed; in

wintertime it is always in the little library where the Murillo hangs.

I choose the time of tulips for our visit, when Southover has had a new

mistress for two years come the fall of the leaf. The family, as they

say down here, has been abroad this year; has not long returned. It went

to the Riviera directly after Christmas, to Mentone; was in Rome in

February, and studying churches in the Rhone valley in March. It

Eastered in Seville, going thither by Barcelona and Granada, and came

home by Madrid and Paris. Now it is mid-May, and the Italian gardens

glitter with tulips. Tea is served, according to custom, in the hall at

a quarter before five. The footman on duty—his service passed by the

butler—has retired, but the statelier functionary stands at his post,

tapping his teeth with a corkscrew. The hour is now five—gone five.

Silver chimes have proclaimed it to an empty hall. There he stands, a

solemn, florid personage, full of cares, regarding in an abstracted

manner the glittering array of covered dishes, cups, and covered jugs.

Now and again he adjusts a teaspoon, now and again humours a

spirit-flame. At a quarter past five Mr. Germain enters the hall from

the library, his secretary, young Mr. Wilbraham, at his heels.

The butler, with a careful hand, placed a rack containing three

triangles of toast upon a little table. He poured a cup of chocolate

from a porcelain jug, and added that to the feast. The afternoon’s post,

upon a salver, was held for Mr. Wilbraham. These things done, he waited

until Mr. Germain was in his deep-seated chair. “The ladies are not

returned, Sir,” he said, and went his noiseless way.

Mr. Germain, who looked white and had faded eyes, munched his toast in

silence. Young Mr. Wilbraham, quick, gentlemanly, pleasantly alert,

demolished envelopes and their contents while he ate muffin. Three or

four letters he handed to his patron.

“Those look to me personal,” he said. Mr. Germain, having adjusted his

_pince-nez_, inspected the envelopes and put them unopened into his

pocket. Toast-munching was resumed, and silence. Once or twice Mr.

Germain looked at his watch, once compared it with the hall-clock, but

made no other sign.

Wilbraham poured more tea, spread himself honeycomb on bread and butter,

and went on with his letters. He broke the silence. “The Association has

written again to know whether you have decided. They hope you will come

forward. Sir Gregory has gone to Madeira. They say, he’s quite made up

his mind.”

Mr. Germain blinked solemnly at space, without reply.

“And I’ve a note here from Mr. Jess—rather, from his secretary. There

was a meeting at the Reform on Monday. Your name was mentioned. Mr. Jess

hopes that he hasn’t been indiscreet. He referred to the possibility.”

Mr. Germain, without turning his head or ceasing to munch, asked here,

Who was Mr. Jess’s private secretary.

“Duplessis,” said brisk Mr. Wilbraham, adding, as if to himself,

“Clever beggar.” After a pause Mr. Germain got up.

“I shall rest for a little, Wilbraham. We will consider these things

before dinner. Meantime I will ask you to remember that they are between

you and me. Strictly so.”

“Oh, of course! Quite understood,” the friendly young man nodded.

The master of the house had his hand on the library door when a step on

the flags of the vestibule caused him to look quickly round. There was a

moment during which he could have been observed to hold his breath in

suspense. A tall and sumptuously fair lady, free-moving, deep-bosomed,

robed in white—all her dresses robed her—came into the hall. She wore

a broad-brimmed Tuscan hat, which set about her like a halo, and carried

flowers. This was the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, the last of the

Cantacutes.

Mr. Germain turned away from his refuge and stood attentive; Wilbraham

jumped to the upright.

“Shall I have in some more tea?” he asked at large. “This has been here

since five.”

“Not for me,” said Miss de Speyne. “I hate it. But the others are

coming. I saw them in the bottom. They’ve been on the lake, I think.”

“And you?” This was from Mr. Germain, with a courtly inclination.

“Oh, I’ve been painting, of course.”

“Happily, I hope.”

“Miserably. Deplorably. I’ve scraped out everything, and come away at

least with a clean canvas. Few painters can say as much of a day’s

work.”

“Few would confess it.”

“Ah, I’ve been taught the blessing of an uncharged heart. Mr. Senhouse

taught me that last year. What I was trying to do was perfectly

impossible. One knows too much; one has botany, flower-shows, catalogues

behind one. Fields of asphodel! But suppose you had been shown how

asphodel grows?”

“Have I fields of asphodel here?” Mr. Germain looked his polite

misgivings.

“You have a glade of Poets’ narcissus—like a Swiss valley. Mr. Senhouse

could have done it—an Impressionist. It’s not for me. I see them stiff

in vases; I know that they have stalks.”

“So, surely, does Mr. Senhouse.”

“Indeed he does. He knows that they have souls. But he’s ruthless with

his brushes; he forgets their souls, and his own science.”

“And you——?”

“I’m so proud of mine that I could never forget it.” She looked out into

the vestibule, to the sunlight beyond. “Here comes Mary. Do get some tea

for them,” she urged Wilbraham—who flew to the bell.

Mr. Germain remained where he was—long enough to see his wife’s eyes

dilate at the sight of him there, long enough to hear the laugh falter

upon her lips; and then he turned and slowly gained the library. He shut

the door behind him. Mrs. Germain, with a high colour and gleam of light

in her fine eyes, came quickly to the tea-table. She was followed by two

young men in flannels—self-possessed, assured, curt-spoken young men

with very smooth heads.

“Oh, we’re dreadfully late!” she cried. “Hertha, have you been in long?

Have you had everything?” In a much lower key she asked, “Has—was—he

here when you——?”

Miss de Speyne looked kindly at her friend. “He was just going when I

came in; but he stayed and entertained me. It was awfully kind of him. I

know he’s very tired.”

Mary stood by the tea-table, fidgeting a cup by the handle. She looked

uncomfortable. “I’m frightfully sorry. Hertha, I meant to be in by a

quarter to five.”

“It’s all right, you know,” said one of the young men—the youngest of

them—lengthily at ease in a chair. “You’re only an hour slow. I call

that good.”

She made no answer, but went on fidgeting the teacup. The entry of

butler and footman with supplies did not move her.

Young Lord Gunner stood to his muffin, and confidently explained:

“It’s my fault, you must know. I was diving after half-crowns—and

getting ’em, too.”

“He was though,” said Mr. Chaveney from his chair. “I ought to know.

They were my half-crowns.”

“Well then, of course, I had to change. I’m not a mermaid, as it

happens.”

“Not yet, my boy,” said the loser of half-crowns.

“So I sent a chap up for my chap with some things, and changed in the

châlet. That’s why we’re late, if you must know.”

Miss de Speyne was pouring out tea. “I see. And the others reckoned up

their losses——”

“Words to that effect,” said Mr. Chaveney.

Lord Gunner put down his cup. “Don’t know what they did. But I’ve

brought them safe to port. Wilbraham, I’ll play you squash rackets

before dinner. It’ll do you good. You’re overdoing it, you know, and

you’re not used to it. You’ll get a hemorrhage or a nervous breakdown,

and we shall have to give you a rest-cure. Chaveney shall score.”

“Can’t,” said Mr. Chaveney. “Ordered my trap. My people are going to

take me out to dinner. They won’t be denied.”

“England hath need of him,” said Wilbraham. “Come along, Gunner. My

things are in the court. I’m due at the desk at seven.”

Mr. Chaveney—very young, very fair, and very flushed, with long and

light eyelashes—was now at the piano. He swayed as he played.

“Do you like that?” he said, looking at Mrs. Germain, who was still

pensive. “It’s ‘Carmen.’”

“Beg pardon,” said Lord Gunner. “It sounded like Chaveney.” The youth

ran up a scale.

“Go and play rackets, Gunner, and leave me to my art. I’m going.”

“He’ll stay to dine—you see if he don’t,” was Lord Gunner’s passing

shot. He was answered by a crashing chord.

Miss de Speyne, regarding the pianist’s back, said in a gentle voice,

“He’s in the library. You’d better go to him for a minute.”

Mrs. Germain had the knack of making her eyes wide and round so that you

got the full-orbed splendour of their brown light. “I expect he’s

asleep. I’ll see him before dinner.” Her friend shook her head.

“He’s walking up and down. He’ll rest after you have been.”

“Do you think so—really?”

“I’m sure. You had better go.” Mrs. Germain stayed no longer, but went

quickly, holding her head stiff.

She stood in the doorway of the library, inside the closed door, a

charming figure for all her anxious eyes. She was in blue linen, with a

wide straw hat; was sunburnt and fresh, looked ridiculously young. Mr.

Germain paused in his pacing of the long carpet and waited for her to

speak—which presently she did, rather breathlessly.

“Oh,” she said, “I was afraid you might be resting, or I should have

come——”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “No. It is not possible just now,—nor

desirable. I have much to think of.”

She went quickly to him and held out her hand a little way. “Aren’t you

well? May I stay with you? I meant to have been in early, but——”

“But it was not convenient, you would say?”

“No, not that. I couldn’t get them to leave the water. They were

absurd—like children. One was throwing money in for the other to dive

after. I did try—but they went on just the same. Did you expect—did

you want me? I promise you that I tried to come. I tried hard.”

Something of the sort had been what his self-esteem exacted of her;

something of the sort must have been tendered him or he had been really

ill. He was now softened, he smiled, took up her offered hand. “My

little love,” he said, drew her near and kissed her forehead. For a

moment she urged towards him, but then, having glanced timidly up and

seen his averted eyes, she sighed and looked to the floor, her hand

still held.

He led her to his escritoire, put a chair for her beside it, and sat in

his own. “Constantia writes to me, Mary, that she and James would like

us to pay them a visit—in July, as usual. What do you say?”

She considered this for some moments. Her head was bent towards her

hands in her lap; she looked at her weaving fingers—a habit of hers.

“That would be to the Rectory, I suppose?”

“Obviously,” said Mr. Germain. “You will remember that it was a yearly

custom of mine.” She had every reason to remember it; but he must hear

her say so. “You will not have forgotten that, Mary?”

“No! Oh, no! Of course I haven’t.” She looked at him for a

moment—trouble in her eyes and flame in her cheeks.

“Last year,” he resumed, “I had Southover to show you—and there were

reasons why I should not take you back so soon. This year there could be

no such reason. I think that you might be pleased to see Misperton

again; more particularly since you and Hertha de Speyne have struck up

such a happy friendship. She is a noble young creature in every way;

nothing could have pleased me more. Constantia will, of course, write to

you; but, being my sister-in-law and happening to have other matters of

which to speak, she mentioned it to me in the first event. I can assure

you that there has been no want of respect——”

She flashed him another reproachful look—reproachful, not that he

should think her offended, but that he should pretend to think her so.

“Oh, of course not! How could you imagine such a thing? It is

absurd—really absurd.”

He made no reply, was evidently waiting for her decision. She gave it

reluctantly. “We will go, if you wish it,” she said.

He was immediately piqued. “That is hardly cordial, is it? I am not sure

that I should, or could, wish it, on those terms.”

She had reasons of her own for disliking it extremely; but she kept her

counsels in these days. “I will tell you exactly how I feel, if you will

be patient with me,” she said. “I am sure that the Rector would be glad

to have me there with you; and of course Hertha would like it. If there

was nobody else I should love to go. I shall remember Misperton as long

as I live. Wonderful things happened to me there; don’t think that I can

forget them for an hour. But Mrs. James—Constantia, I mean—doesn’t

like me at all. Why should we disguise it? She disapproves of me,

doesn’t trust me, thinks me a nobody—which I am, of course——”

“I beg your pardon, my love—” he would have stopped her; but she saw

what in particular had offended him, and ran on.

“I am your wife, I know. But I am a person, too; and I own that I would

rather be with people who—who respect me for what I am in myself, as

well as for what you have made me. Forgive me for saying so; it is

rather natural, I think. And it happens that I should like to see my

parents again, and my sisters. It is six months since I was at

Blackheath. So that would be an opportunity, and a reason—while you

were at the Rectory.”

“You wish me to go there alone?” She could guess at the scalding spot

beneath his armour-plate.

“I should love to go with you,” she said, “if—if it could be managed.”

“I may mention to you,” he said coldly, “that you will not find an old

acquaintance there. Since his mother’s death my young relative, Tristram

Duplessis, has bestirred himself. He has sold the cottage.”

She had not been prepared for an attack in flank, and blenched before

it. Then she told her fib. “My reason against going with you had nothing

to do with Mr. Duplessis,” she said; and, watching her, he did not

believe her.

He turned to his papers. “It shall be as you wish, my love,” he said. “I

will write to Constantia. It may well be that I shall not care to resume

a broken habit. Are you going up to dress? If so, and if you should

happen to see Wilbraham, would you tell him that I am ready?”

She hovered about his studious back, as if on the brink of speech; but

thought better of it and went slowly out of the room. Intensely

conscious of her going, he cowered at his desk, looking sideways—until

he heard the door close. Then he began to read, with lips pressed close

together.

In the hall Mrs. Germain almost ran into the arms of Wilbraham, who,

scarlet in the face and wet as with rain, was racing to his room.

“By jove, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain!”

“You only made me jump,” she laughed. “Have you been playing all this

time?”

“I know, I know! It was Gunner’s fault, upon my honour.”

“It always is Lord Gunner’s fault. Mr. Germain asked me to tell you that

he was ready.”

“Good Lord!” cried the unhappy youth. “And I’m sw—as hot as anything.”

“Go and change,” she said kindly. “I’ll go back to him.”

He was fervent. “You are an angel! But I’ve told you that before.” Their

eyes met; they laughed together. He pelted upstairs.

“Mr. Wilbraham will be with you in a second,” she said, entering the

library again. Had she seen him spring round as she came in? No doubt of

it. “I left my book down by the lake—and I know you don’t like that. Do

you?”

“No, dearest, no. I confess the foible.” His eyes invited her nearer.

She advanced to his table and stood by him, her hand touched his

shoulder. He was inordinately happy, though he made no immediate sign.

But presently his arm went about her waist, and then she bent down and

leaned her cheek for his kiss. They remained together, saying nothing,

until she heard Wilbraham coming down, three stairs at a time. Then she

slipped away and just caught him outside the door.

“I had to tell a fib,” she told him. “I said that I had left my book by

the lake.”

“Well!” He looked at her. “I’ll bet that’s not a fib.”

“No,” she laughed. “But it was meant to be. Now I’m going to get it

myself.”

“You are an angel!” he said. “Don’t. I’ll go presently. I should love

to.”

“No. I shall go myself. I deserve it.”

“You deserve—!” He stopped himself. “Look here,” he said, “send Gunner.

No, he’s changing. Send young Chaveney.”

She opened her eyes—fatal use! “Is Mr. Chaveney here? I thought he

said——”

Wilbraham chuckled. “Did you suppose he’d go when it came to the point?

Not he! Why, before we’d played half a set he came to borrow some

clothes off me.”

He glided smoothly into the library. Mrs. Germain fetched her book.

II

REFLECTIONS ON HONEYMOONS AND SUCHLIKE

The years fly, we know, and come not again, and there’s balm in that for

the wounds they leave. For we forget a good deal, and Hope is a faithful

lover, and never quits us for long together; and then there’s honest

Use-and-Wont, surely our friend. Because you were a fool yesterday,

you’re wise to-day; and if you’re a fool to-morrow—why, the alternation

is established. There’s a progression; it is like the rotation of crops.

There’s a mort of healing in a brace of longish years. The county, which

had found little Mrs. Germain stiff when she came home from her

honeymoon, now looked to her for stiffness when it felt relaxed. Her

idiosyncrasy was accepted, you see; once admitted to be a person, she

became a personage. And, discovered by the county, she discovered

herself. She found out that she had a character; she had never known

that before, nor had any others who had had to do with her: Mrs. James,

to wit, Miss de Speyne, her husband. The process of these discoveries

ought to entertain us for a chapter, and its resolution shall be

attempted. But the county learned it first, when it came to rely upon

her stiffness. The Chaveneys, the Gerald Swetebredes, the Trevor-Waynes,

the Perceforest people, before the two years were over, forgot that they

had ever eyed each other, with brows inquiring “Colonial?” or spelling

“Hopeless, my dear!” Such looks had passed, but now, on the contrary,

they leaned—some heavily. Lady Chaveney was one. “She is charming with

Guy,” she said more than once, “quite charming. An influence—in the

nicest way.” She added, once, as if the news was sacred, “I believe he’s

told her everything.” Guy was the Chaveney heir, the florid, assured

youth whom we met just now on our visit; he had been pronounced “wild”

by Mr. Germain; and he _had_ told her everything. She took herself quite

seriously with Guy, in the elder-sister fashion, Mr. Germain, at first

approving, as, at first, he had approved every sign of her making way.

He came, before the end of two years, to feel differently, lost touch

with the sense of his benevolence, felt to be losing grip of many

things. But in the early days he had approved, there’s no doubt—in

those days of stress and taut nerves when, returning from a honeymoon by

much too long, she had found Mrs. James pervading the great, orderly

house, and had, without knowing it, braced herself for a tussle, and

unawares found herself in it, and amazingly the winner. Her husband had

backed her up there, in his quiet way. Short, quick, breathless work it

had been—a fight in spasms. She had been crossing the hall when the

great lady came out of the Little Library.

“Ah, Mary—A Mrs. Burgess has called, I see—wife of some one in

Farlingbridge. She called while you were out. A politeness very natural

under the circumstances—but not the custom here, I think. Lady Diana, I

happen to know, never—I suppose you will send cards by the carriage.

That would answer the purpose very well. We have never known the

townspeople, you know—in that sort of way. There is a tenants’ party in

the summer. They come to that.”

Mary had listened. She was pale, but her eyes smouldered.

“I can’t do that, Mrs. Germain. I mean, I must return the call.”

“Ah? It will be against my recommendation.”

“I am very sorry. I asked Mrs. Burgess to call when I met her the other

day at Waysford.”

“Really? Waysford? One would meet her there, I suppose. A Sale of Work?”

“Yes. But I asked her to call upon me. It was kind of her to come so

soon.”

Mrs. James pressed her lips together. So soon! Why, the woman would fly!

“Does my brother know of this, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, out of breath. She was scared, but meant to

go on.

“It will be better that he should be told.”

“If you think it will interest him—yes,” Mary said, and went

upstairs—to stare out of window, clench and unclench her hands. Mrs.

James reported the case to her brother-in-law, and Mary drove, the next

day, to Farlingbridge—her husband with her—and returned the call.

Nothing more was said; nor, when the visit of a Colonel Dermott, V.C.,

and his lady, townspeople, too, had to be witnessed, was a word of

warning uttered. But Mrs. James left within a fortnight of her rout,

staying only for the first dinner-party at Southover. That was how she

learned that Mary Middleham had character. It shocked her; and it was

annoying, too, that she could expect no sympathy from James.

The house-parties for the winter shooting, and those dinner-parties for

the county had to be gone through with somehow. She set herself squarely

to the task, and was glad enough to believe towards the end of her two

years that she was learning the business. There was little to do,

indeed, but be agreeable, but she found that more than enough. Agreeable

she could be when she felt happy; her nature was as sweet as an apple.

But if she felt hurt she must show it, and she discovered that that was

a cardinal sin. Then there was the language to master, the queer,

impertinent, leisurely laconics of these people—expensive, perfectly

complacent, incredibly idle young men, old men without reticence, airy,

free-spoken women, and girls who unaffectedly ignored her. To cope with

such as these she must be even as they were, or seem so. The quickness

of their give-and-take in conversation, the ripple and flow, the ease of

the thing, asked an alertness of her which excited while it tried her to

death. Perpetually flagging at the game, she spurred herself

perpetually; for she discovered that there is no more deadly sin in the

code than an awkward pause, that being all of a piece with the end and

aim of living—which is smooth running. A woman should die sooner than

drop a conversation, or murder it.

She was at her best with the men, as perhaps she might expect. She could

run, she could walk all day, chatter, laugh outright, seem to be

herself; they paid her the compliment of approving looks. But among the

women she knew that she _must_ be herself, a very different thing. She

felt infinitely small, ill-dressed, ill-mannered, clumsy, and a dunce.

It was from them, however, that she gained her reputation of being

stiff; she had them to thank for that. It had come to her in a flash of

spirit one day in the summer of her first year, that if ignoring was in

the wind, she could ignore with the best. She chose to ignore Mrs.

Chilmarke, Mrs. Ralph Chilmarke, a beauty, a dainty _blonde_ and a wit.

She did it steadily for three days, at what a cost she could never have

guessed when she began it, and her reward was great. Mrs. Chilmarke

respected her for it, and the Duchess—a duchess was in the house—was

frankly delighted, and said so. She had watched out the match, and had

backed the _brune_.

Under such exertions as these character will out, while it may slumber

through years of pedagogy. But she worked hard at her lessons directly

she had found out what she wanted, and was tolerably equipped for her

tour in France and Italy when the time came. She made no way with

Latin—Mr. Germain had to give that up; and English literature made her

yawn. She insisted on botany, for reasons unknown to the good gentleman,

and became great friends with the head gardener, a Scotchman, who made

the initial mistake of supposing her a little fool, and was ever

afterwards her obedient servant. Shall we do wrong in putting this study

down to Senhouse’s credit? I think not. Quietly and methodically, after

a method all her own, Mary Germain began to find herself, as they say.

But before she did that her husband had to find her; and _he_, poor

gentleman, who had had to begin upon their wedding day, was at the end

of his discoveries before he was at the end of his honeymoon. So far he

struggled, but after that he suffered—dumbly and in secret, within his

plate armour. The fact is, there had been too much honeymoon. His

evident discomfort had made her self-conscious, killed her ease,

threatened her gratitude—upon which he had proposed to subsist—and

turned him from an improbable mate into a rather unsuccessful father of

his wife.

October is a bad time for honeymoons; the evenings are so long.

Nevertheless, at Torquay, her mind had been fairly easy about him. He

had liked the hotel. At Saltcombe he had been pretty miserable, much on

her conscience. He had taught her chess, it seems, and if she had known

what she was about, chess might have done pretty well. But unfortunately

she took to chess, and began to beat him at it by audacious combinations

and desperate sallies quite unwarranted by science. That vexed him

sadly. He abandoned the game, telling her frankly that he could not help

being irritated to see skill out-vailed by temerity. “One plays, you

see, my love, for the pleasure of playing, not to win. That is the first

condition of a pastime.” She told him she was very sorry, and he kissed

her. But after that Villiers used to lay newspapers and reviews on the

sitting-room table while they were dining. She consoled herself with the

remembrance of that kiss on the lips; it was nearly the last of them. He

selected her forehead, from Saltcombe onwards, or her cheek. From

Saltcombe they went down into Cornwall—Truro, Penzance, Sennen, St.

Ives. There it was that she learned to be happy in her own company. She

spent hours alone, scrambling among the rocks, watching the sea.

Her life was filling, her vistas opening. This was great gain, to feel

the triumph of discovery. She had never been so far afield before, and

the wild splendours of rocks and seas made her at times like a thing

inspired. She was amazed at herself—at the stinging blood in her which

made her heart beat. She used to get up early at Sennen, steal, hatless,

out of the sleeping inn, and fleet over turf to the edge of the cliffs.

There she stood motionless, with unwinking eyes and parted lips, while

the wind enfolded her. All was pure ecstasy; she was like a

nymph—bare-bosomed, ungirdled, unfilletted, in the close arms of the

Country God. From such hasty blisses she returned drowsy-eyed, glossed

with rose-colour, with a sleek bloom upon her, and ministered to her

husband’s needs, dressed with care, with the neatness which he loved.

She sat quietly by him, hearing but not heeding his measured tones,

dreaming of she knew not what, save that the dreams were lyric, and sang

of freedom in her ears.

They took more tangible shape as they waxed bolder in outline and scope.

There was a tumble-down white cottage on the cliff beyond the coastguard

station; two rooms and a wash-house below green eaves. It faced the open

sea, but lay otherwise snugly below a jutting boulder, and was so much

of a piece with rock and turf that the sea-pinks had seeded in the roof

and encrusted it with emerald tufts. Her fancy adorned this tenement;

she saw herself there in a cotton gown, alone with wind and sea. What a

life! The freedom of it, the space, the promise! Not a speck could she

descry upon the fair blue field of such a life. Childlike she built upon

the airy fabric, added to it, assured herself of it. Some day, some day

she would be there—free! The thought made her perfectly happy; she felt

her blood glow.

Mr. Germain complained of the damp Cornish air and took her to St. Ives

and Newquay on the way to Southover. Once on the homeward path, he had

no eyes for her in Cornwall; all his hopes were now set upon the feast

he should have of her, queening it there in his hall—queen by his

coronation. She, for her part, was all for lingering good-byes to her

glimpses of the wild. She went obediently, but carried with her the

assurance that she should see her cottage again; and by some juggling of

the mind, in the picture of it which floated up before her at call, she

came to see always near it the tilt-cart and its occupant, her friend of

the open Common. A community down there! The tilt-cart stood in a hollow

of the rocks within sound and sight of the sea; the Ghost cropped the

thyme above it; Bingo ran barking out of the tent, and, seeing her,

lowered his head and came wriggling for a caress. Above them all,

dominant, stood her friend, bareheaded to the buffeting gale, so clearly

at times that she could see the wind bellying his white trousers or

flacking the points of his rolling collar. His face unfortunately was

not always to be seen; a mist over it baffled her, but egged her on. For

a flash, for a passing second, his bright, quizzing eyes might be upon

her; she could hear the greeting of the dawn laugh from them, and feel

her bosom swell as she answered it, and knew the long day before

them—and every long day to come. What a comradeship that might be—what

a comradeship! She came to thank God daily that she had such a friend,

and to declare stoutly to herself that she had no need to see him.

Friendship was independent of such needs; the necessities of touching,

eyeing, speaking—what were these but fetters? Lovers might hug such

chains and call them leading-strings. Poor lovers could not walk without

them. But friends had their pride in each other and themselves. Each

stood foursquare in the faith of his friend; the independence of each

was the pride of the other. So far was she from loving Mr. Senhouse that

she learned without a pang of his visit to the Cantacutes in the

following summer, of his painting days with Hertha de Speyne, and was

surprised at herself. It drew the two girls closer together; it gave

zest to letter-writing, and brought Miss Hertha more than once to

Southover. Senhouse was the presiding genius of their fireside talks;

between Hertha and Senhouse Mary began to find herself—a person, with a

reasonable soul in human flesh.

Her wedding-day, and the days that followed it, had dismayed the flesh;

she could not be one to whom marriage was a sacred mystery, to be

unveiled to piercing music. She had cried herself to sleep—once; but

she cried no more. If she had been in love with her husband, even if she

had ever been in love with anybody, she might have been won over by pity

or by passion; but poor Mr. Germain was incapable of the second, and

somewhat to her surprise she found herself unpersuaded, though she was

touched, by the first. She did pity him, she pitied him deeply, but she

could not help him. Esteem she gave him, gratitude, obedience, meekness,

respect. But herself—after that once—never, never! For that

discharging of her conscience of its poor little trivial, human load had

been forced upon her by pure generosity on her part (she knew it), and

had cost her an agony of shame. And it had chilled him to the bone—she

had seen his passion fade before her eyes, such passion as he had. Her

generosity had stultified her, played the traitor. She never taxed him

with want of magnanimity, didn’t know the word—but she found herself

resolute, and was as much surprised as he was. What dismay she had, as

the honeymoon wore on, was brought her by her own position, not by her

husband’s; that a girl such as she, with undeniable proofs to hand of

her attractiveness of face and person, with experience of men and their

ways, should find herself daughter to her husband! An indulged, courted,

only daughter, if you please—but certainly a daughter. Here was an

anti-climax, to say the least of it; and her dismay endured through the

honeymoon—until Cornish cliffs gave her happier things to dream of. It

disappeared as the great red flank of Southover House filled up the

scene. Tussles with Mrs. James, the sweets and perils of victory,

ordeals of shooting-parties, dinner-parties, household cares, and, above

all, routine—such drugs as these sent her heart to sleep. By the time

she had been eighteen months a wife she had forgotten that she had never

been other than a maiden.

Now, what of Cratylus, poor Cratylus the mature, who, clasping his

simple Mero (or Marina) to his heart, found that he had to reckon with

her character first? Good, honest man, he had never supposed her to have

one; and the bitter thing was that the finding of her character woke up

his own. He saw himself again in full plate-armour, cowering behind it,

hiding from himself as well as from the world a terrible deformity—an

open sore in his self-esteem which could never be healed again, which,

at every chance of her daily life, must bleed and ache. Oh, the pity of

it, on how light a spring all this had depended—a hair, a gossamer!

Exeter—fatal day of Exeter! He had believed himself young again. As she

clung to him, half-sobbing, after dinner, he had pressed her to his

bosom, called her his bride, his wife. She had not dared to look at him,

had bowed her head, hidden her face in his shoulder, let him feel the

trembling, the wild beating of her heart. Then her broken confessions;

pitiful, pitiful! What did they amount to, when all was told? But they,

and what followed upon them—his own conduct, his own curse; and her

conduct, and her curse—were his nightmare. He had found out that he

could not live if he must remember them. He fought, literally, for life;

and after a six months’ toil had succeeded in living. He spent himself

in benevolence and care, gave her everything she could want, before she

asked, taught her, prayed for her, watched over her. She was never out

of his thoughts—and, poor girl, without knowing it, she stabbed him

deeply every day.

He had his benevolence to fall back upon. He could be King of Southover,

of the Cophetua dynasty; he could dazzle her, take her breath away, and

have the delight, which he had promised himself, of seeing her misty

eyes and cheeks flushed with wonder. Yes, yes; but the æsthetic nerve,

you see, dulls with use, and the worst of a king’s homage to a beggar

maid is that the more obsequious the homage the less beggar is the maid.

If you set a coronet in her hair she will blush deliciously for a week;

but in two years’ time it will be there as a matter of course, put there

nightly by her woman—and bang goes your joy of that. So with all the

other enrichments of society, travel, book-learning. The more she had of

them, the more she was able to take for herself. He who put her in the

way of knowledge could not grumble if she acted upon what he had taught

her. Such gifts as his destroy themselves. It had filled his eyes with

tears to see his wilding in the great terraced house, to watch the

little airs of dignity of matronhood, wifehood (alas, poor gentleman!)

flutter about her, and, like birds, take assurance, and alight. Her

cares were charming, too. It was pretty to see her knit her brows over

some tough nugget of Dante’s, exquisite when she came faltering to him,

coaxing for help. But then, naturally, the more help she had the less

she came. It grew to be her pride to get through alone—her pride and

his disaster. No. Tristram Duplessis had been wiser in his generation

than he. If you love to fill a thing you must take care to keep it

pretty empty. Thus it was that King Cophetua kneeled in vain. He had

kneeled too low.

But there’s a balm in the passing years for Cratylus as well as for

Marina. The musical clockwork of Southover, which he had promised

himself, became his. He went about his duties as landlord, county

magnate, patron of reasonable things, tolerably sure of a welcome home

from a pair of kind brown eyes. Kisses might be his if he chose to call

for them, clinging arms, a warm and grateful heart. Such things had to

be his solace; and sometimes they were. And he still fought for his

treasure, against all the odds, with his teeth set hard. If he had lost

grip it was because her muscles were more practised. He must try

another, and another, if he would whirl her in the air. He must impress

her anew, prove to her that he was a man, honour-worthy and loveworthy.

His ambitions were rekindled: that was the result of his musings. In the

spring of the year, when the tulips blazed in the Italian gardens, and

Mary Middleham had been Mary Germain for a good eighteen months, we

heard him speak with young Mr. Wilbraham of Sir Gregory and the

Farlingbridge division of the county. There was a chance of lighting up

the wonder again in a pair of brown eyes. He hoarded the thought for the

month, and by June had made up his mind. Then he broke it to his Mary.

“I will gladly put my experience at the service of the country,” he told

her, “and convince you, if I can, that I am not too old for a public

career.” She had told him that he wasn’t old at all, and had kissed his

forehead. They happened to be alone for a few days just then; so that he

could draw her down to his knee and talk to her about himself, and the

part she would have to play for him in London. The house in Hill-street

must be reopened.

III

MATTERS OF ELECTION

The country showed the periodic symptoms the moment Parliament was

dissolved; the market-place of Farlingbridge hummed with rumour. Farmers

in gigs pulled up to discuss the affairs of the nation with farmers on

horseback, with hedgers, ditchers, tinkers, anybody. Class flowed over

class, and The Reverend Stephen Burgess, Vicar of the town, exchanged

evening papers with Reverend Samuel Rock, Congregational minister. Blue

and red were in the air; Mr. Germain had long sittings with young Mr.

Wilbraham. Presently a deputation attended, by leave, at Southover and

was received in the library. The seat was to be contested, it seemed;

the Honourable Leopold Levitt intended to fight. Now would Mr. Germain

fight him? In a weighed speech of twenty minutes Mr. Germain declared

his loins to be girded. “Pompous old boy,” said Mr. Tom Blyth, the

Liberal harness-maker, to Mr. Peake, the Liberal agent; “but he’s good

enough for the Honourable Levitt.” Mr. Peake thought he was just good

enough. It was to be a narrow thing, a close-run thing. The addresses of

the candidates showed as much. “Those great institutions to which this

country of ours—” cried the Honourable Mr. Levitt in ink. “Those

institutions to which this great country of ours—” was the peroration

of Mr. Germain. There was to be very little in it. Mr. Peake, the agent,

said that the ladies would do the trick. The Honourable Mrs. Levitt was

stout, and twenty years older than her Leopold.

The writs were out in August, the election was to be in October. Mary,

who had begun to lose colour during the summer heats, grew animated

again at the prospect of the bustle. She had been getting introspective,

too, had been sometimes fretful, sometimes glum. She thought more than

was good for her about things which could not be helped. But for a

flying Sunday visit, she had not seen her own people since her wedding

day; for Mr. Germain had given up Misperton once more, and seemed to

dislike the notion of her leaving him at such a time as this. Here,

then, was a chance for her to be useful. She told her husband that she

felt sure of Farlingbridge, and when he shook his head despondent she

told him why. “They like me there, you know,” she said, blushing and

laughing. “I know they do; besides Mrs. Blyth told me so. Oh, and

Colonel Dermott stopped me yesterday and said that you might be easy.

He’ll speak for you wherever you want him.” Colonel Dermott was an

introduction of hers to the penetralia of Southover; a fiery Irishman

with a turn for sarcasm. What he had really said to her was that he’d go

to the stake for her, but that it wouldn’t be necessary. He admired her

unaffectedly.

As the campaign progressed on its roaring way Mr. Germain became

conscious that greater efforts than his own were necessary. The

Honourable Mr. Levitt was untiring. He drove his own drag, and seemed to

have a speech on the tip of his tongue for every village green. To Mr.

Germain speeches were matters of enormous preparation, literary and

economic. He balanced his periods as carefully as his convictions; he

polished them, gave them form; but he could not fire them, because he

had no fire. “We must give it ’em hot, Mr. Germain, we must indeed,”

said Peake, the agent. Mr. Germain knew very well that he gave it them

cold. The charming spectacle of his young wife, in red cloth, driving

her ponies in red harness, a red bow on her whip and red roses in her

bosom, far from kindling him, whitened the ashes of his hearth. She was

pretty, she was gay, she went again and again to the attack, and coaxed

for votes as a child for sweets. One great sensation was when Guy

Chaveney ratted, and wore red; another when Levitt publicly alluded to

her as his “fair enemy,” and was drowned in the cheers of his own party.

Colonel Dermott swept her into debate with his hand. “Here’s the lady we

follow and serve, gentlemen,” and he turned to her where she sat glowing

on the platform. “By the powers, gentlemen, I’d run her up to

Westminster by myself,” he went on; “but we’ll share in the enterprise,

if you please.” A little more of that and we were in, said Mr. Peake.

Help from on high was promised, of an exciting kind. The Right

Honourable Constantine Jess, President once of the Board of Trade, now

Secretary of State apparent, offered to come down and help his old

friend. He offered, I assume, in such a way that he could not be

refused; for his approach was announced to Mary one morning over the

breakfast table, and received by her with the calmness proper to county

ladies. But there had been more. “He brings Tristram, his private

secretary. You remember Tristram Duplessis, Mary?”

She managed it. “Yes,” she said. “I remember him very well.”

Mrs. Hartley—Mrs. Leonard Hartley, I mean—said that she had heard him

speak. He reminded her of Mirabeau. Sir James Plash had asked, “Which

Mirabeau?” and driven Mrs. Leonard into a corner.

“Oh, Carlyle’s, of course!” she answered—and the talk flowed over

Tristram Duplessis.

But behind her fortification of silver urns and coffee-cups, she did

remember him. Her eyes wide, sombre, and brooding, made no sign. It is

the prerogative of county eyes to be still, and of married eyes to be

indifferent. She did not smile at her thoughts, nor betray that they

were not of a smiling kind. But she felt her heart quicken its beat,

knew that she was to be put to the proof, and that her husband had

chosen it to be so. To the racing rhythm in her head ran the refrain, “I

knew he must come. He never forgets.”

Notes must be written and answers received. His was very short:—

“Dear Mrs. Germain,—I am very glad to come and help you. Certainly, we

must bring him in. Yrs. sincerely, Tr. Duplessis.” It required sharp

scrutiny to read between the lines of such a letter, and sharp scrutiny

was applied—more than once. She pinched her lip over it as she sat

alone, and carried it with her as she walked the park—but when she

found herself doing that she tore it up. “I am very glad to come and

help you”; that “you” was an after-thought. “Certainly, we must bring

him in”; that “we” proved it. She knew, better than most, how Tristram

could imply himself in a note. He had forgotten nothing, never would

forget anything. No! No more had she forgotten.

Of all her former lovers this was the one man who could cause her any

disquiet, or have evoked any sensation. She could never have recalled

herself as she had been, two years ago, by any other aid than his. John

Rudd? Ambrose Perivale? It is doubtful if she would have known them

again. Sharper memories, a sharper fragrance clung about Tristram. Of

all of them, it was with him that her relations had been the least

explicit; but it had been he, also, who had thereby implied the most. He

was master of implication—that delicate art which leaves it to the

imagination of the object to read what precisely is implied. Had

Tristram implied love? She never knew: that made Tristram’s dealing so

exciting. Of course he had admired her; his savage looks, as if she

stung and vexed him, had assured her of that. Her presence—her near

presence—seemed always to make him angry; her absence angrier still,

since he always came after her, and never forgot to let her see how

angry he had been. Yes, he admired her; but admired other things more,

much more: his books, his scholarship, the power he had, and, vastly

more, himself. He was endlessly interested in himself, only “liked” her

as showing him himself in new aspects; but she accepted that as a part

of him, like the cut of his clothes; and there was no doubt as to her

own feeling; she had admired Tristram on this side adultary, just on

this side. Tristram intended to be Somebody: he used to tell her so, in

a way which made her understand that he knew her to be a little Nobody.

All the same, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, or his steps from

turning to where she was, or was like to be. In a sense, then, she had

drawn Tristram Duplessis; and that’s an exciting thing for a little

nobody to do.

If he had been her lover as well, it had been in a way of his own. He

had told her often and often that he disapproved of her—of her too

speaking eyes, for instance (which could and did speak in those days),

of her little affairs with Dick or Tom, as to which he had given himself

the trouble to be exactly informed; of her lack of ambition; and because

she was a dunce. And she had laughed or blushed, or been offended—she

had never been hurt; and had allowed herself to be put under the rod of

his tongue, or the gibe of his eyes again and again. She thought

now—with hot cheeks—that she ought to have felt herself insulted, and,

with hotter cheeks, that it was doubtful even now whether she would feel

herself so. To have a book thrown into her lap, with the inference that

she couldn’t read it; to be kissed without leave asked, or to kiss again

without notice taken—these should have insulted Mary Middleham: but

would they insult Mary Germain? Tingling cheeks were no answer.

Tristram had indeed been very exciting; he had been unaccountable,

arbitrary, splendid; to have attracted his scowling looks had been one

of her triumphs. It had been a triumph, even, that Misperton Brand knew

all about it, and that part of it had been scandalized. Yet—and for all

that—thinking over it now, with his coming again so close at hand, she

knew perfectly well that she had not been in love with him, and was not

in love with him now. He had treated her in too lordly a fashion

altogether. Dimly she could guess that love was another affair. It might

be possible for a girl to worship a man as a god—but that was never

love. She knew better than that now. But certainly she must confess,

even now, to a tenderness for her reminiscences of Tristram, who had

singled her out of a herd, watched, followed, engrossed her, and in his

own morose and grudging way had seemed to be in love with her. He had

known how to kiss, anyhow. As she inhaled the sharp fragrance of those

days she was again excited. There had been glamour. She recalled, with a

thrill, the Sunday afternoon when Mrs. James had caught him reading

Shelley to her under the apple tree, and blushed anew as she had blushed

then. And the continuous alarm of the affair! The moments snatched in

pauses of the chase! Yes, there had been glamour, and it had been

sweet—perilous and sweet. It was a thing to remember, but not to fear.

She didn’t think she need fear anything, especially as she had told Mr.

Germain all about it—or as good as told him.

But it’s always ticklish work, meeting an old heart’s acquaintance on

new terms. Neither party to the business can face it quite unmoved. For

him, there’s the painful, curious inquiry:—“This, this is she with whom

I had fondly hoped—! Now, look, there is knowledge stored within those

limpid eyes—and I might have put it there! She and I share experiences,

which He—that interloper—can never share. With this I must dress my

wounded side.” All that his handshake, or his bow, may convey to her.

Upon her side—the sedately conscious of two men’s regard—veiled within

her eyes there’s this for the ousted lover: “You may spare me the rod. I

am another’s, who might have been yours. You loved me once, you told me;

be charitable now!” And all that she will express in the flutter of her

greeting.

Tristram Duplessis, loose-limbed, flushed, frowning as of old, may have

implied it, or she, who played him hostess of Southover, may have

appealed in that fashion. “How d’you do?” was what he said in words,

when he took her hand, which she held out, in a nerveless clasp. He had

arrived late in the afternoon, when the hall was fully occupied;

stockinged young men, in from shooting, short-kirtled ladies, in from

getting in their way; a dowager or two reading evening papers, and a

whiskered professor in slippers. One must imply skilfully in such a

company.

And then, to be sure, there was Mr. Constantine Jess, ponderous,

benevolent, all for domesticity, to be reckoned with. All women liked

Mr. Jess because, although he was prodigiously learned, he owned to a

weakness for small talk and soft voices. It was he, then, who had the

triumph of the entry. “Ah, Mrs. Germain, this is a welcome indeed. And

doth not a meeting like this make amends?” His quick, full-cushioned

eyes swept the corners of the room—“My dear Lady Barbara—! Lady

Wentrode, your servant—How d’ye do? How d’ye do?” These things

accomplished, he turned to his hostess, cup in hand, and sank into the

cushions by her side. “We have not met, I think, since that auspicious

day—two years ago? Is it that? Dear me, how Time makes sport with us!

One should hear the Titans laugh. I had promised myself an earlier

contemplation of your felicity, but—business! business!” He sighed,

drained his teacup, and asked for more. “It must have been within a week

of your marriage that my young friend and I took a fancy for each other.

A marriage of minds! Tristram, my dear fellow, when was it?” He had

taught his secretary the duty of playing chorus. That was very necessary

to Mr. Jess.

Tristram, leisurely, as of old, sipped his tea before answering, got up

and waited for another cup while he collected his reply. “It’s a long

time—I know that. Thanks, no sugar.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry—I forgot.” She looked up at him hazardously. “You

always took it, I thought?”

“I know. But I’ve dropped all that. Better without it.” He spoke

lightly.

The campaign was broached by Mr. Jess. “Well, and how does my friend in

the field? Gallantly, I am sure; happily, I hope.”

Mrs. Germain thought that he would win. “He works very hard. He’s

speaking now, somewhere—out of the carriage, at a harvest home. I ought

to have been with him, but——”

“You stayed to be hospitable to us. We are grateful. At least, I speak

for myself. Tristram there takes kindness for granted.”

“Not Mrs. Germain’s,” said Tristram, and startled her.

However, she laughed. “I don’t think it was very kind of me; I was glad

to be let off. I’m sure everything will go right now. Did you know that

you must begin to-night, Mr. Jess? Do you mind? There’s a meeting at the

Corn Exchange at eight. We are dining early.”

Mr. Jess laid his comfortable hand upon his heart. “I follow my leader.

Where she calls me I am ever to be found.”

And then she raised her eyes to Tristram. “Will you speak for us, Mr.

Duplessis?” He started, as out of a stare.

“Who? I? Oh, I’ll do as I’m bid, of course.”

“Enlist him, my dear lady, enrol him,” cried Mr. Jess, twinkling, “but

if you love me, let him follow me. He has a note like a trumpet.”

“Really?” She opened her eyes upon Tristram.

“I can make a row,” he admitted. “But perhaps Germain won’t like that.”

“I am sure he will like whatever you do,” said she. Duplessis made no

answer, but did not shirk the reflection that, if he did, it would

indicate a striking change in the gentleman’s views.

At this moment a fair-haired young lady in a riding-habit—Miss Nina

Swetebrede of Copestake—came in, craving tea. She distributed her nods

and smiles on either hand as she advanced to the table. “Dear Mary, I’m

_so_ tired,” she pleaded. “Do feed me, and make a fuss of me, and I

shall love you.” The newly arrived gentlemen were made known to her, and

Mr. Jess courtly and tenderly jocular, ministered to her needs. She

annexed him without scruple. This left Duplessis in possession of the

tea-table. But the attack was Mary’s.

“So you have taken to politics in earnest?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that I’m in earnest. That’s putting politics

rather high. The game is as good as another.”

She might have known that he would never admit earnestness—to her. But

she felt snubbed.

“The fact is,” he went on, “that either every side in politics is partly

right, in which case it’s only common honesty to say so—or that all

sides are entirely wrong, which means that only rascals can succeed at

it. So that, in any event, one must be more or less of a rogue.”

She ventured a little laugh. “I know what you mean—or think I do. I

know more about politics than I did—once.”

He parried that. “One gets to know something, of course. You talk of

nothing else here, I suppose?”

There seemed to be a sting in this. Loyalty must meet it. “But indeed we

do—” she began, and he saved the position for her by saying that he

wished he could say the same for himself. “But there’ll be no chance of

rational conversation,” he told her, “until that fellow’s safely in the

Home Office.”

Mr. Jess was placidly contemplating Miss Nina Swetebrede’s candid blue

eyes, and knew nothing of what may have tickled his hostess. Tristram,

in a few minutes, asked to be shown his room. “I’ve got a heap of

letters to write, and some to read. May I ring?”

In the pauses of the party strife, when the champions were out in the

lists, Mrs. Germain played lightly upon her heart-strings, plucking

chiefly that chord of glamour as she remembered it to have been.

Duplessis, who noticed everything about her down to the smallest

detail—her clothes, her neatly cut shoes, her manner with servants,

with Germain, with the roaring public of the hustings—thought that she

carried off the thing very well. Better, no doubt, in his absence; but

still, very well. She was shy of him, and that was charming, because it

gave her colour and sparkle; she was quickly on her dignity—and that

was touching. She seemed to court his good opinion, to dress her little

window wistfully. She made him think of a pullet with its first egg;

still more touching, by Jove! because there was no egg, and little

likelihood of one. And how careful she was! And how she appealed! “Here

I am,” she seemed to be saying, with every look, “trusted and

responsible, but oh, so safe! Be generous!” He began to judge her again.

A girl of her sort, she could no more help using her eyes than avoid

breathing through her nose. With every darted look, with every droop of

the lids she put herself at his discretion. Well, she needn’t be afraid,

poor little soul. He could afford to be generous to one who amused and

touched him at once.

Pity is a heady wine. In a man of this sort—your

conqueror-by-instinct—it inspires magnanimity; and the worst of that

virtue is—you can’t be truly magnanimous until you have reduced the

object of your charity to destitution and misery. Before you can lift

her out of the mire you must see her in it. He may have been tempted,

but her appealing look tempered his rage. Even his grudge against

Germain was less sharp than it had been. Germain! Germain, and this

love-lorn little creature with her peering eyes! Good Heavens, let her

take her joy where she could.

They were rarely alone together, and when they were she was

extraordinarily circumspect. But he was master of inuendo, and knew her

a good scholar. There was no need for him to say Heigho! to hear it echo

from her breast. And the less he said the more she would have him say,

he fancied. But he was wrong there.

He said to her once before he left Southover—“I must ask you this. You

are happy?”

She stiffened instantly, and looked steadily in front of her—at the

south front of Southover, it so happened. “I am very happy.”

“That’s good. I had to ask, you know.”

“Had you?” she said naïvely—and then, “I wonder why?”

“You would say I have no business to care?”

She faced him. “No, I shouldn’t. You are free to do as you like.”

“And you—?” He frowned. “Aren’t you free, too?”

She touched the flowers in her breast, looking at them. “Yes, of course,

I am. It was nice of you to ask me. I am very happy.”

A _cul de sac_, that way. Damn it.

Once, at dinner, the person of Jack Senhouse came up for debate. Several

persons present had some hand in the game. Mr. Jess and Tristram tossed

the name about, across and across. Lady Barbara Rewish flicked it as it

passed; Mr. Germain gave it a sedate lift into the air. When it came to

Mary, she let it drop. Mr. Senhouse belonged to her innermost self;

nobody present knew that she had had anything to do with him. But two

things nearly lost her her self-possession. One was to hear her friend

in public discussion—and here she exulted in her secret. The other was

Duplessis’s scorn of him. That made her hot.

“I was at school with that idiot,” he had said, “and at Cambridge. He

was always a waster—but he used to comb his hair in those days.” He

looked down the table at Mary; the shuttlecock was with her, and she let

it drop. He saw her do it.

Mr. Germain was now under way, and gave it a lift. “I remember that Mr.

Senhouse proposed on one occasion to sleep near my coverts—too near to

suit the views of Cradock, however. I regretted what followed.”

“What did follow?” somebody asked.

“Well—I regretted it,” said Mr. Germain, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Mr. Senhouse accepted my explanation in the kindest way. I must confess

that I took no particular notice of his hair, save to observe that he

wore it uncovered.”

“He wears it long,” said Tristram, and glanced at Mary Germain.

“If he wears it uncovered,” said Mr. Jess, “he’ll wear it longer than

you, my young friend.”

“He may wear it to his heels,” Tristram replied; “but not in my

company.” Here Mrs. Germain gave the signal, and the gentlemen were left

to politics.

“That idiot” robbed Tristram of some chance of magnanimity. In the

drawing-room he found it out.

“You know Senhouse?” he asked her. She had no fear of him now.

“Quite well. He is a friend of mine.”

“Has he been here?”

“I think not. He doesn’t like big houses.”

“Oh, he’d come, you know. He’s mighty affable.”

“I should be very pleased to see him. I like him extremely.”

He laughed. “He’s a great talker. Always was.”

“He talks very well,” said she, “and listens very well.”

“Personally, he leaves me speechless.” Here Duplessis rose, and added

with fatigue, “But I see we are not going to agree about Senhouse.”

She looked blankly before her. “No—obviously.” Mr. Germain asked her to

sing, and she obeyed with alacrity. She sang prettily, but not well.

Ordinarily she failed in attack; but under Duplessis’s watching brows it

seemed that some new spirit had entered into her. She had never sung

better.

The election came and was made, and John Germain, Esquire, of Southover

House, triumphed over Mr. Leopold Levitt. The very next day the new

Secretary of State (for all had gone well with the party) made his

farewells, and took his private secretary with him. Tristram, wanting

scope for magnanimity, had been morose since the Senhouse discussion.

She thanked him lightly “for helping us.” “Us!” to Duplessis.

But he gulped it. “I am glad to have been of any use. You’ll be in town

for the session, of course.”

“I suppose so. We shall hope to see you.”

“Many thanks. You are not supposed to see through Secretaries of

State—but Jess should be a good medium. So it’s _arrivederci_.”

She gave him her hand. “Good-bye—.” But he held it for a minute.

“We are friends again—after this?”

She withdrew. “Yes, indeed. Good-bye.”

Friends! It was the result of some very careful balancing, and an odd

result, that if Senhouse lost nothing in her regard, Duplessis lost

nothing either. His arrogance, you see, was so entirely in character;

and it is satisfactory to a woman to find a man come out true to type;

it’s assurance of strength in him. He had been very odious, and his

judgment of a better man was laughable; but he had been superb, all the

same. So that it seemed she could be friendly with the pair of them.

There was still a third friend to reckon with. On the day of the

departure of the election guests Mr. Germain was very talkative at

dinner, and drank more wine than usual; two glasses of port, for

instance. He was full of his projects, high in hope; you could detect

the cheer under his voice. “Does my Mary see—?” or “I hope my dear one

can follow that line of thought,” or “I think my child may be satisfied

with such a position of trust”—it might be. He thanked her for the

“loyal help” she had given him; made her sit with him after dinner,

instead of sending her to the drawing-room; held her hand, patted or

stroked it, and presently fell asleep, holding it still. Finally, when

it was bedtime, he took her in his arms.

She submitted to his embrace, and gave him the kisses he sought; but no

more. Presently she looked kindly at him, with a certain power unknown

to him before. It spelled gentle negation—pronounced with extreme

gentleness, but not to be mistaken. Then she kissed him of her own

accord, disengaged herself, and went away. He sat, with shaded eyes, for

a long time motionless, but not asleep. His eyebrows were arched to

their highest; once or twice his lips moved; he seemed to be crying out

upon himself. When they met in the morning it was as usual, or seemed to

be so. But his dream was over for good and all; and he had muffled

himself against the cold.

IV

LONDON NIGHTS AND DAYS

We are to see her now spread her wings for London, and butterfly flights

about the flowers and sweets there. Hill-street affords a standard by

which to measure her growth. That decorous house in Hill-street which

had cowed her when she went to it on trousseau-business, and had driven

her once, fairly crying, upon the mercies of Mrs. James, she could now

find small and dark. She thought it a stuffy little house, and wondered

how many the table would dine, how many must be shut out of the

drawing-rooms. There’s a famous anecdote of Mrs. James’s, often and

impressively told by her, which comes to mind here.

It concerns Gerald Gunner, “Laura Gunner’s second boy,” a famous

gentleman-jockey, and, though his years were few, remarkably a rip.

“Charming manners, like all that family, but most high-spirited, wild,

they say. Bad influences were at work, no doubt. His friends were

loyalty itself; everything was hushed up, and more than once. But—” and

Mrs. James used to lower her voice—“there was a _fracas_ at Sandown.

Lord Windlesham's horse—they say, my dear, that he ‘pulled’ it. You

will know what that means, I dare say. I believe there was no room for

doubt. Lord Gunner—” that was, of course, the old lord, father of our

recent acquaintance—“allowed him fifty pounds a year, so long as he

remained in Canada, cutting logs or building railways—or whatever they

do in the wilds; and the poor boy went out—_in the steerage_. The

Heskeths, during their tour, went to see him some years ago, and, my

dear, it was deplorable! Miles and miles into desert-swamps. No

neighbours, and, of course, no church privileges. A hovel, literally a

hovel, built by his own hands; barely weather-proof—not quite that, I

am told, in one corner. They arrived in the evening, rather late, and

found him shelling peas into an old biscuit-tin. His Eton birch and a

portrait of the Queen were absolutely the only ornaments; but this, to

my mind, is deeply pathetic. Would you believe it? That poor young man

_dressed for dinner every night_, directly he had cooked it. It got

cold, and his jacket was _in holes_—but he never omitted it. Mrs.

Hesketh assured me that she wept. And fifty pounds a year! Think of it.

Of course, he made nothing. What could he make, with _his_ training?”

It is a sad story. Mrs. John Germain’s polite education had begun later

than Gerald Gunner’s; but to find a house in Hill-street stuffy is

symptomatic of broadening views.

On the other hand, she showed the _bourgeoise_ undismayed when she

permitted herself to be excited. She was all agog for town delights.

Lady Carhawk, a Berkshire dame, was to present her, and photographs of

her little person, stiff, feathered and bejewelled, making her look, as

some wit said, like a Spanish Madonna strayed into a fair, went down to

Blackheath with promises of a speedy visit in full dress. Cards

fluttered daily upon the hall-table. Mr. Germain engaged a second

secretary: Mrs. Germain began to think of one, too.

She attacked her pleasures, as once her task-work, with zest and spirit;

she made scores of acquaintances. Lady Carhawk must have liked

her—herself a likable, florid lady; the Duchess of Lanark showed that

she did; Lady Barbara Rewish and others of the sort found their old

hearts touched by the grateful, graceful girl, who never took a favour

without showing that she was much obliged, never refused one (and that’s

a rare abnegation), and if she asked you to do anything for her, coaxed

for it with bright eyes and wooing lips. The Duchess called her a nice

little thing, a pretty soul, a good girl; and the Duchess’s third son,

Lord Vernon, did his best to prove how good she was—and succeeded. She

got nothing but good out of that, for his weaknesses were well known.

Much of this little success she owed to her Southover drilling, which

had taught her how little she had to fear, how little was expected of

her in a world where chatter is the staple, and high spirits a matter of

good taste. Practically, she only had to listen and to smile. Now she

looked her best when she smiled—her teeth were really perfect. As for

listening, excitement gave her colour and glitter, her gowns were as

good as they could be—and what more do you want but the wish to please?

That she had. She courted your good opinion, was anxious to be approved.

Besides, she could be patronized, and liked it.

There had never been any question of her success with the men, so

little, indeed, that it was curious to see how well she stood with the

women. Her early years, it has been hinted, did not want of experience:

she proved her femininity before she was sixteen. And betwixt the cubs

of the village and the young lions of politics is no difference in kind.

You vary the allure; but brown eyes are still brown, and ginger is

always hot in the mouth. Of these splendid youths Palmer Lovell must

perhaps be reckoned with first, he who, for her sake (or so it is said),

forsook a young and handsome Viscountess. After a stormy sowing in one

field he was now complacently reaping in another. Mr. Germain’s party

owned him an acquisition, and the same feeling was to be expected of Mr.

Germain’s wife. Lovell constituted himself her Mentor, waited about

great stairways for her, attached himself to her side, and sat out all

and sundry. He explained himself unaffectedly as a Hope of the Party,

and she was very willing to believe him. But somehow the information did

not thrill her as it had when she received it from Tristram Duplessis;

with the rising of whose light above the firmament sank the orb of Mr.

Lovell.

Horace Wing—romantic to the waist, thence downwards dancing master,

approved himself in her eyes. He was handsome, affable, an artist in his

way. She had an instinct for style; and he had that. He knew where to

depart from the tailor’s ideal, which is tightness; he knew where to be

loose. He could unbutton a coat to better purpose than any man

living—or a phrase, when he saw his way. He always coloured his

phrases. You were thought to hear birds in the brake, to see cowslips

adrift in a pasture—happy country things—when he discoursed. Some

considered his flowers forced, things of the hot-bed. But he was

discreet, because really he was timid. The Byron of the Boudoir, Lovell

called him, scorning Mr. Wing. But Mrs. Germain, who knew little to

Byron’s discredit, and understood boudoirs to be made for two, was much

taken with this fine gentleman. On his part, he found her attractive

because his world did. He was acutely sensitive to opinion, with the

feelers of a woman for it. I don’t mean that he knew what was in

fashion—of course he did; but that he could detect what was going to

be. There he was almost infallible.

There were others about her—it was quite a little triumph in its

way,—whom to name would be tedious. But one was a very great man

indeed. Robert John Bernard, Marquis and Earl of Kesteven, a Knight of

the Garter, and an Ambassador. Lord Kesteven was no less than sixty-odd

years old, had a Marchioness somewhere and three mature children, and a

reputation for incisive gallantry second to no man’s. He managed his

affairs of the kind deliberately; he had method. When he died it was

said that not one single note in a woman’s hand was to be found among

his papers. That was not for want of hunting for them: and yet—well, if

old Kesteven looked at you twice you were worth looking at. That was

said. Now, he looked at Mrs. Germain more than twice.

With these tributes at her feet, with such heady incense in her

nostrils, it isn’t wonderful if she attended the coming of Duplessis

with assurance of amusement, wondering what offerings he would bring.

Real goddesses, we may suppose, take their worship as of right, but a

make-believe goddess discovers an appetite for it the more she gets. She

felt perfectly ready for Tristram, and more than ready by the time she

had him. It seems that he had thought her out—she might have inferred

it had she not been piqued by delay—and decided that he must give

himself value. At any rate, he did not present himself at Hill-street

until the card for her first evening party made it a matter of duty.

Then he came, and was received with airy smiles—as if he had been an

old crony! He found her to be extremely at ease in his company, was

disconcerted, and showed it. He had come as one prepared to be fatigued;

he departed with frowns as one who fears that he has been fatiguing.

“Good God!” he said to himself, “she’ll be calling me Tristram in a day

or two.” He reflected that, if she did that, he was done for; that would

show that he had ceased to strike her imagination, had become so much

furniture, a sort of house-dog. Deeply mortified, brooding over it, he

began to need her. His self-esteem sickened; she only could restore its

tone. He became really alarmed about himself, couldn’t work, failed of

audacity, missed his spring. He saw her again—he was in a black mood.

She rallied him upon it, and sent him away to entertain Lady Barbara,

whose rights no man dared dispute.

Lady Barbara accepted him as a target for some of her archery. “I saw

that young lady married to our friend”—and she nodded towards their

hostess. “You, I fancy, did not. A most hopeless business I thought. I

remember a sister with fluffy hair. Hopeless it would have been if she

had been clever—but, thank goodness, she’s not. She has just sense

enough to be herself; no airs, no smirks nothing to hide. She told old

Kesteven all about herself, I hear, at a dinner-party; father, mother,

sister Jinny. Kesteven was charmed. That’s a sensible girl, you know,

not a clever one, who’d spend herself in scheming how to let bygones be

bygones. On the contrary, this girl hoards them, for a relish.”

Tristram looked very glum. Was she hoarding _him_? For a relish? The old

archer went on with her practice.

“Look at her now with Horace Wing. Horace is weaving his gossamers; he

thinks she’s enmeshed. She’s not, you know; she’s only pleased. I tell

you, she’s exactly what she always was. Once upon a time Tom Styles

‘took notice’ of her, as she would say, hung about the church-door,

Sundays. That was a triumph in its way. Now it’s Lovell, or Jocelyn

Gunner, or old Kesteven. I don’t suppose she has ever been in love in

her life—but I fancy that you can correct me if I am wrong.”

Duplessis faced about. “I? I’m afraid I can’t help you. She knew my

people in the country. We were rather friendly; we liked her. I’m glad

to think that you do, too.”

“She amuses me,” said Lady Barbara, “and I certainly admire her honesty.

Horace Wing won’t, I think. She’ll puzzle him with her gratitude. Horace

wants dearer tributes. All you young men do.”

Mr. Germain came up to bow over his friend’s hand. “I’m talking of your

speech, Germain,” she told him.

“Kindly, I know,” said he.

“You were rather magisterial, I thought; but at least you knew what you

were talking about. Tristram here says that’s not necessary.”

Mr. Germain blinked. He never looked at Tristram, and did not know.

“Fortunate, if true,” he said coldly; “but I cannot myself afford to

believe it.”

“Ah, Germain, you’re too rich, you see,” Tristram said, as lightly as he

could, and withdrew to a doorway, whence he could see Mary. Lady Barbara

inquired, with eyes and eyebrows, to no purpose. Mr. Germain was blandly

obtuse.

“She’s charming,” said the old gentlewoman, and caught him unawares. He

started, coloured.

“Yes, yes, I find her so—hourly.”

“Who dresses her?” Mr. Germain raised his head.

“Really—. I believe there are consultations—. She looks well to-night.

A happy nature, my friend.”

“Charming, charming,” Lady Barbara murmured; and then—with a look from

the door to her friend. “What is he doing now?” Mr. Germain grew alert.

“Tristram? He goes his way, I believe. He was bickering with poor Jess

the other day. Jess is the soul of good-nature; but there are limits.”

“Plenty!” cried the lady. “There should be more. He’ll be in the House

by-and-by—a thorn in all your flesh.”

Mr. Germain repressed himself. “If he could get a seat. Want of means

would restrict his chances. I fear he is arrogant.”

“He’s able.”

“He believes it. That is his only capital sum, I fancy. But I am not in

his confidence.”

“He has the run of your house?”

Mr. Germain again lifted his head. “He is Constantia’s first cousin. My

wife is interested in him. She has known him for some years; but she

shares my anxieties.”

Lady Barbara was touched by his gallantry, but not put off. “An old

friend?” she persisted.

“She is willing to believe him so.”

Lady Barbara nodded her head. She was a stoic herself.

V

LORD GUNNER ASCERTAINS WHERE WE ARE

George Lord Bramleigh, roundest and youngest of men of six-and-twenty,

overtaking Jocelyn Lord Gunner in St. James’s-street, tipped him on the

shoulder with his stick-handle. Gunner turned, red in the face.

“Damn you, Bramleigh, shut up,” he said.

“Couldn’t shut up to save my life, old chap,” his friend replied. “I’m

so fit I don’t know what to do with myself. Come back into the Fencing

Club and make passes at me.”

Gunner growled, “See you shot first,” and walked on. Bramleigh joined

him, humming an air.

“Look here,” said Gunner, after a time. “D’you know a man called

Duplessis?”

“Rather,” says Lord Bramleigh. “Go on.”

“That’s what _he’s_ doing,” Lord Gunner mused. “His goings-on are awful.

He’ll make the lady talked about—and she don’t deserve it.”

The lady must be named, and Lord Bramleigh whistled at her name.

Reminiscences of a morning at San Sebastian came upon him, but were

withheld. Lord Gunner poured out his grievances.

“I don’t mind a chap hanging round—not one bit. If I wasn’t hanging

round myself a good lot I shouldn’t see it, and shouldn’t much care if I

did. There’s nothing in that. Besides, there are plenty of us. But he

messes about; that’s what I can’t stand. He messes about. And he seems

to think she belongs to him.”

“That’s the way to make her,” said the sapient youth. “That’s his little

plan.”

“No, it’s not, my boy,” he was corrected. “You’re off the line. That’s

what he really thinks—and, by God, he shows it. He’s like a dog with a

bone. He snarls and turns up his lip the moment you come into the place.

Or if he comes late and finds any one there—as he mostly does—he

sulks. ’Pon my soul, I hate the brute.” The young man tilted back his

hat, and looked up at the sky—a pale blue sky, irradiated by the sun

and by the burnished copper wires of our affairs. “Where are we now—end

of April?—beginning of May? She came to town in February—and here we

are in May. I believe he’s only been away from the house for three days

on end—and that’s just now when he’s in Paris.”

“You ought to know,” said Bramleigh: the other snorted.

“I do know. He’s up to no good, that chap, I’ll bet you he’s not. He’s

not a good sort with women, I happen to know. Now—”

“May a man ask,” Lord Bramleigh interjected, “what _you_ are up to?”

Lord Gunner looked down at him in surprise.

“Oh, _you_ may, Bramleigh. I can stand it from you. I’m all right, you

know; I wouldn’t hurt her. She’d have a pretty stiff time of it with old

Fowls-of-the-air Germain[A] if it wasn’t for some of us, who go and

amuse her. She’s a jolly girl, you know, and she deserves something.”

“Dash it all,” cried Bramleigh, “she got something when she married old

Germain. She had nothing at all. I’m told he picked her up in a

nursery.” Lord Gunner jerked an angry head.

“Yes, I know, I know. That wasn’t the game, I’ll be shot. Why, any one

could have done it! He played the God in the Machine; came bouncing out

of the sky, and sent the servant in for her. ‘Beg pardon, miss, but

here’s the Archangel Michael come for you. Best clothes, please, shut

your eyes, and you’ll be married to-morrow.’ That was the way it was

sprung upon her. What was a girl to do but bless her stars, and say

she’d be with him directly? Well, and what I say is, If old

Fowls-of-the-air finds he ain’t up to the part, he can’t drop it and

leave her in the lurch. If he can’t make himself entertaining, he must

be helped.”

“That’s what Duplessis says,” Lord Bramleigh supposed. But Gunner could

not allow it.

“I beg your pardon. He says, ‘My bread, I believe.’ He’s a grabber. The

mischief of it is that I can’t say anything.”

“I think not,” said Bramleigh tersely. “But I know a man who could. Just

left him.”

“Who’s your friend, Bramleigh?”

Lord Bramleigh would not be drawn. “Oh—man you wouldn’t know. Not your

sort. But the lady knows him.”

“Couldn’t you give him a hint?”

“I could,” said Bramleigh with deliberation. “I could, but”—he looked

up at his tall friend—“but if I did, I shouldn’t leave _you_ out, old

chap.”

Lord Gunner halted and faced him. “You may say what you please about me.

I don’t care what you say.” He looked over to Bond-street. “That’s my

road,” he said.

“The way to Hill-street?” asked Bramleigh.

“The way to Hill-street,” he was told.

Lord Bramleigh remained upon the Piccadilly pavement for some minutes,

lost in what must be described as thought. His lips were framed for

whistling, but no sound came. His eyes stared at nothing in particular.

Then he was heard to say, “I’ll do it, by Gad,” and seen to turn on his

heel. He walked down the hill again, the way he had come up.

* * * * *

Her life was such a whirl, it may well be that she had no time to wonder

whither she was flying. At any rate, she marked neither time nor

direction, nor was aware that her friends were remarking on both. If you

had checked her suddenly with the question, Was she happy? she would

have stared before she answered you, Of course!

From day to day she hardly saw her husband alone. He breakfasted, as of

old, in his room; his secretary came at ten, and stayed to luncheon. He

had a nap after that, and went down to the House at four. He might

return to dinner, he might join her at a party in time to take her home;

but by then he would be so tired that he would drop asleep in the

carriage. She may have known, or she may not, that his eyes were often

upon her, intensely observant of her gaiety and appreciative of her good

manners; she can hardly have known that she was seldom out of his

thoughts. It must be confessed that he was not more than a perfunctory

guest in hers: she wore his name in her prayers as she wore it

abroad—in that world of his to which he had enlarged her, where she now

fluttered her happy wings. She paid him, in fact, the service of lip and

eye which we pay to God in church. He was, no doubt, the Author of her

being. “My husband says”—“My husband thinks—”: she never used such a

phrase without the little reverential hush in her voice, or without a

momentary curtsey of the eyelids. When he showed himself in a room she

went instantly to his side; when he was present at a dinner-table her

tones were lower, her laughter less infectious. He was Disposer Supreme:

he was secure of that dignified but remote office. It was one which he

was well qualified to fill; and it was, unfortunately for him, the only

one about her person which was then at his service. Nobody knew this

better than the poor Stoic himself, nobody knew it less than the

engrossed little lady.

It was not until the end of April, or, as Lord Gunner had ascertained

it, the beginning of May that she became aware of the fact that she had

been seeing Duplessis every day since the short Easter recess. It was

forced upon her notice by this other, that for those days he was absent,

and that she missed the homage of his knit brows. They were more to her,

she found, than Horace Wing’s postures or Palmer Lovell’s placid

contemplation of her charms. Yet each of these rising statesmen was much

more her servant than Tristram could care to be. Lovell used to advise

her about her gowns: it had got to that. His aunt, Lady Paynswick, had a

shop—so that it was reasonable. Mr. Wing took each new apparition of

her as an occasion for poetry—surface poetry, so to speak, which a more

experienced subject might have found pert; but it sounded very well at

the time. Duplessis did none of these things, neither saw, nor admired:

he simply frowned. But she liked to be frowned at in that sort of

way—she had always liked it. It meant, “You sting me. I have no rest.

You could cure my scowls, but you won’t. I detest you, because I love

you.” It was a tribute, implied power—and how could she help liking

that? One of the great joys of power is that you can sit back at your

ease, twiddle your thumbs and say to yourself, “An I would, I could—!”

You must needs feel charitable to him who puts you in the way of that.

After his three days’ truantry, when he returned to her side, she showed

him that she was glad to see him. Generous, but mistaken: it made him

crosser than ever. He could be abominably rude when he chose—and he

chose to be so now. She was at the Opera, alone in her box. He came in

after the first act, nodded and sat down. This she forgave, even to the

extent of offering her hand. “You’ve been away—it is nice of you to

come. I’m all alone, you see.”

He said, one must go somewhere. She laughed that off. What had been the

favoured country? He named Paris, as if it hurt him horribly. Paris! She

had been there once—on her way home from Madrid. Some day she must be

taken there again. It had been extraordinary—had seemed like walking on

light. Duplessis said that it hadn’t been like that at all, but like

walking in smells among a leering populace. All this was far from gay;

but she was very good-tempered.

It would seem that he had come there to quarrel with her; for that is

what he did. After an act and an interval of monosyllabic answers,

spells of brooding, moustache-gnawing, and other symptoms of the devil,

she roundly asked him what ailed him. He affected blank astonishment.

Ailed him? Ailed? What on earth should ail him?

“Then,” said she, with colour, “I think you might be civil.” He stared,

and met a pair of stormy eyes.

“Am I to understand—?” he began.

“You are to understand,” she told him, “that you are making me very

uncomfortable. I have done you no harm.”

Her ancestry, you see, must peep out. She was preparing a scene—and

what can one do then?

“Is that a hint?” he asked her. She turned to the stage.

“You drive me to it,” she said. “You have been very rude.” He rose.

“I can spare you that, at any rate,” he said, opened his hat with a

clatter, bowed and left her. Her bosom rose and fell fast, and faster,

as the clouds gathered and swept across her eyes. Hateful man—but what

had she done? A tyrant: he bullied women. She felt very lonely; the

great house seemed to grow dark, the great music to howl and bray.

Palmer Lovell came in presently, after him came Gunner; but she could

get no joy out of them, and waited on miserably for her husband. She

found herself praying for him, who at least would be gentle with her. He

was late, however, and she could bear no more. She left after the third

act.

In her brougham she had a vision—it could have been nothing else. At

the corner of Endell-street, under a gas-lamp and in the full light of

it, she saw a tall man standing. He was reading a newspaper, and had no

hat on his head. Her heart jumped—oh, that could be but one person in

the world! Her friend! Senhouse in London!

The detestable Tristram was forgotten; Palmer Lovell, the mellifluous

Wing went down, soused in Cornish seas. Cornish seas, sluiced rocks,

green downs, birds adrift in the wind, opened out across the yellow

flare of a London night. She went wide-awake to bed, and lay sleeplessly

there. The very next afternoon, as she was coming out of a great shop in

Regent-street, crossing the pavement to get into her carriage, she

almost ran into his arms.

* * * * *

[A] The poor gentleman must have been more than usually on stilts when

he made the speech (on poultry farming) which earned him this

_sobriquet_.

VI

SENHOUSE ON THE MORAL LAW

She could have jumped into them. “You!” she cried. “Then it wasn’t a

dream at all. I saw you last night—near the Opera.”

He teased her with his wry smile. “And I saw you last night at the

Opera.”

“You were there! Oh——”

“I was in the gallery. I left because, much as I love Wagner, I love air

more. I suffocated.”

“Oh, but you might have come to see me,” she said, with a pout not at

all provocative—a pout of sincere regret. “It was quite cool down

there. In fact”—she laughed at a memory—“it was very cool indeed. Too

cool.”

“I don’t follow you,” said Senhouse.

“You needn’t. Perhaps I’ll tell you”—she looked doubtfully at him,

pondering. “I should like to tell you lots of things. Oh, heaps!

Everything—from the beginning. I’m married, you know.” He nodded

gravely.

“I can see that you are. All well?”

This made her think. “Rather well. But we must talk—it’s obvious. Will

you—?” She looked at the carriage and the footman at the door of it.

“If that’s your carriage—no, I won’t, thanks. Have you walked five

yards to-day? No? Then we’ll walk somewhere and have it out. You might

send that sepulchre away. I’ll see you home.” Her eyes shone.

“I should love it. It shall go.” She told the footman her intentions,

and sailed happily away in convoy with that tall, loosely clad young man

who, to the footman’s concern, carried his hat in his hand. “Blooming

Italian feller—airing his ’ead of ’air,” he told the preoccupied

Musters, who said, “Tlk! Tlk!” to his horses.

She, too, remarked it. “Why, you have got a hat!” He held it up.

“Yes, indeed—and I’ll wear it if you insist upon it.”

“But I don’t,” she told him. “I shouldn’t know you if you did.”

He led her at a brisk pace—to meet his long strides she had to break

into a run now and again. But she was prouder of his company than of any

she had had yet, and caught herself humming airs by the way. There was

indeed heaps to say. She plunged into her stored reminiscences as a boy

into a pool—went in deep and rose shaking her head, breasting the

flood.

“I must tell you—I believe I saw you on my wedding day! From the

train—just a glimpse. I saw the Ghost plodding along—Bingo running in

the grass—you were sitting on the tilt, smoking, of course. You were in

white. Were you there? It must have been you. We had passed Swindon, I

know—it was before we got to Bath. You were going West, and so was

I—so were we, I mean. I wondered if we should meet out there—Exeter?

Were you there? Oh—and I mustn’t forget. It is the most important of

all. He—my husband—took me to the Land’s End.”

He looked down quickly at her. “When were you there?”

“In October. It was about the middle of October. Do you mean to

say——?”

“I was there in November,” said Senhouse, “and stayed till

February—there or thereabouts. I am always there for the winter. I have

business there.”

She had put her hand to her side. Her eyes spelled ecstatic conviction.

“I _knew_ it—I _felt_ it. How wonderful!”

“What’s your wonder, my friend?”

“Why, that I should have seen you there!”

“But you didn’t.”

“Ah, but I did. That’s just it. I was certain you were there—I expected

to find you in every hollow of the rocks. The place told me of you—it

seemed to bear your mark. If I were an animal I should say that I could

smell you there.”

He was amused. “You’re not far wrong. I was thereabouts. You might have

smelt some of my deeds—Flowers—I grow ’em on those cliffs. You might

have seen ’em.”

Her eyes were roundly open now—wonderfully—but she shook her head.

“No, no. I saw nothing of the sort. Do you mean—gardens?”

“Sort of gardens. I work those rocks. I plant things—they are natural

rock gardens, those boulders. I started it some six or seven years

ago—naturalizing alpines. I’ve got some good saxifrages to do

there—androsaces of sorts—drabas, campanulas, columbines. Then I began

on hybridizing—that last infirmity. There’s a scarlet thrift I’m

trying—fine colour. It don’t always come true yet, but it’s a pretty

thing—_Armeria Senhusiana_, if you please.”

Now she was inclined to be serious, with a confession to make. Hertha de

Speyne had told her something of all this, and given her an interest in

it. Mischief prevailed; she sparkled as she probed him.

“I don’t quite understand. You have a rock garden—_you!_ I have

remembered your scorn of property—of owning anything—and—! Really, I

am rather shocked. A garden of yours!”

He looked blandly interested. “Mine? Bless you, no. I haven’t got a

garden for these things. I grow ’em out there on the rocks. They’re

anybody’s—yours, Tom’s, Harry’s. I’m only the gardener. And you prove

to me that I know my business, because you must have been through my

nursery half a dozen times—and saw nothing of it.”

“Nothing at all, I promise you.” Her share in his little triumph was

manifest, she was intensely pleased. “That’s lovely,” she said—and

then, “You know, if I had caught you out—I should have been awfully

disappointed.”

“I hope I shall never disappoint you, ma’am,” he told her. “No. If I

owned all that I don’t think I should care for it. I esteem those things

down there for taking their chance. Tourists hardly ever hurt them. It’s

the wet that does most harm; the winter wet—sluicing mists, rotting

rains—” She touched his arm—nearly stopped the walk.

“I can’t keep it up,” she said. “I have tried, but it’s not to be done.

I knew, afterwards, that you did these things. Hertha de Speyne told me.

Are you angry?”

He looked closely at her—not at all angrily.

“You talked me over with her, did you?” She blushed.

“Among other people. I know that you were with the Cantacutes the summer

before last.” Then, with a sudden memory, she stopped again, almost took

his arm.

“Did you see—do you know a white cottage—right up on the cliff? A

green roof?”

His eyes twinkled. “Rats’ Castle! Rather. It has sheltered me more

nights than one.”

Her lips pressed together as she nodded her head. “I might have known

that. I beg your pardon.” Thinking of what she was to speak, presently

she told him in a grave voice that she intended to live in that

cottage—“before I die.”

He took that calmly. “You might do worse.”

He had come to London, he said, to supply his needs—to sell some

pictures in Cranbourne-street, and to see some books. His library was in

Bloomsbury; she gathered, the British Museum. He wanted “Aristophanes,”

the “Arabian Nights.” He had nearly everything else. Narrow inquiry

revealed his tastes. He owned two books. “Don Quixote” was one,

“Mangnall’s Questions” the other. No—Bible? No. “Don Quixote” was

better than the Bible, because it was our own. We were not Orientals—at

least not now. Everything that a man could need for his moral and

spiritual supplies was in “Don Quixote”—religion, poetry, gorgeous

laughter, good store of courage, wisdom, fortitude. Mangnall was enough

for the rest. Old-fashioned, perhaps: but then he, Senhouse, was

old-fashioned. “I always read “Don Quixote” before I say my prayers.”

They were by now in Hyde Park, beyond the carriage road, nearly alone

with the trees and grass and certain sooty sheep which cropped there. He

found her a chair, but himself sat on the ground and clasped his knees.

She must hear his views upon the Bible; but she had to press for them.

No, no, he told her at first—it wasn’t his business to preach.

Presently, however, he broke out. “You’re just a counter in a game at

this hour—put up between the dressmaker and the policeman. You are

property—and that’s the Bible’s doing. Why—why—look at the Ten

Commandments—‘His wife, servant, maid, ox, ass—everything that is

his!’ You come after his house, if you remember; you come with the

flocks and herds—there you are, even now—and there you must be until

the system breaks down. Your jealous God, your jealous husband—don’t

you see that they’re one and the same? The policeman and the dressmaker;

the dueña and the eunuch of the door. Oh, good Lord! That’s Oriental,

you know, Turk’s delight. You won’t find that in ‘Don Quixote’—a sane,

Latin book; but it’s in half of the New Testament. Saint Paul! Women

must cover their heads in church. Why? I’ll tell you: the _yashmak_! The

harem is not to be seen—shameful. . . .

“The Catholics are right. They keep the Bible for the learned. They

_know_ it won’t do. If the Italians, for instance, the most practical,

clear-headed people in Europe, were to get familiar with the Bible, the

Pope might have his throat cut. There’d be a revolution. . . .

“That’s only one point out of a thousand, but it’s a good one. It

concerns the welfare of more than half mankind, and its relation with

the other fraction. If men are to buy and hoard women, it’s quite clear

that women mayn’t have souls of their own. . . . The whole social system

depends upon their having none. You are property my friend—marketed by

the dressmaker, safeguarded by the policeman. It is really too

degrading. It degrades the man more than the woman; makes him a kind of

stock-keeper, the most atrocious form of capitalist there can be. The

Bible, of course, did not establish that—the system’s as old as Hell;

no, but it sanctioned it once and for all. Ever since that Levantine

sophist saw ‘big business’ in Christianity, and ran it in Europe, the

only hope of religion has been in what lurked of paganism—lurked in the

uplands of Tuscany, in the German forests and Irish swamps. . . .

“Religion is a habit of mind—not a taught thing. We are all religious

in a thunderstorm. But we don’t get it out of the Decalogue. We are all

religious when we are in love; laws of property are forgotten—men and

women are themselves. The accursed part of the system is this, that they

can’t be themselves from the beginning. You must learn the rules before

you can break them. Now if there were no rules at all there would be no

rebels. I hope that’s clear.”

She listened with head gently inclined and pondering eyes, partly

amused, partly disturbed by his vehemence, but not scandalized, because

it was so like him, and because he was he. Womanlike, however, she must

reduce his theories to practice, apply his rules, bring them home, or

near home. Women, he had said, were property—well, was she her

husband’s property? Bought? Marketed by the dressmaker? What did that

mean, exactly? When, with a grunt, he stopped his harangue, she tried to

formulate her speculations.

“I believe that I see what you mean about rules—keeping and breaking.

It’s all very puzzling. Women are put wrong with men from the very

beginning—I see that now. What did you mean about ‘being themselves?’

Have I ever been myself?”

He laughed, staring at the ground. “Never.”

“Well, but—how am I to begin?”

“Go your own way. Defy the dressmaker.”

She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Do tell me what you mean

about the dressmaker.”

He stared at the ground again. “I don’t know that I can get much nearer.

She teaches you to—to set snares—to lead the eyes—I don’t think we

can talk about it.”

“What am I to do?” She asked him that in a tone so serious that he knew

she must be answered.