Desolate splendour

WITH October the first fine rains of autumn came slanting from the west, staining the gold-brown tapestry of woodland with their inexorable fingers. Mist curled about the shrubs of Morvane; on the lawns and between plant and sodden plant the torn webs of the proud September spiders sagged dejectedly. It had been a generous summer of sunshine and soft azure skies; retribution was due; but now that it had come, it found only resentment at the hands of spoilt humanity.

Fire in the library of Mr. Plethern; fire in her sitting-room for fair Miss Viola; fire in the lofty parlour of her tower for the old lady and her playing cards; windows fast closed against the chilly rain; minds free to roam among the hopes and happenings of yesterday and of hereafter. Each to the meadow of his choice, each along paths of memory or ambition, each in his firelit solitude pondering the shall-be and the might-have-been....

First, Mr. Plethern in his library. To him September with its thirty crowded days had brought this of triumph, that of hope, the other of unquiet perplexity. Back to the stage of Gloucestershire had come Morvane, and gloriously. Its saloons had echoed with voices, thrilled to music, trembled with the polite shuffle of fashionable feet. Balls had thudded on its tennis lawns; bowls had clicked smoothly on its green; from end to end of the polo ground had scurried eager hoofs, sounded the crack and whistle of the sticks. There had been singing and a string quartet; shooting and a cricket match and cards and dancing night by night. In the faces of his guests Charles Plethern had watched the slow evolution of respect from incredulity, of pleasure from respect, of cordial gaiety from pleasure. He could imagine the verdicts of his neighbours’ homes. “There’s something behind it. A mysterious fellow, Plethern. Mark my words, there’s more than meets the eye.” And then: “They do you well at Morvane. Some one knew real wine when he laid it down! A fine house that also; I’d no idea it was so well turned out; you’d never guess from the outside, would you?” And then: “Hot stuff on the field, Charles Plethern. Don’t ever recall a faster game, but he was away with it all the time. Ripping little chestnut that! Do you suppose he’d part?” And then again (more youthful commentary): “Tophole day we had! Courts like billiard tables and a floor like elastic glass. By Jove too, that girl’s a looker! Where did he get her from?” “Don’t ask me, old man; more important to know who he’ll give her to!” “I should say she’d have a mind of her own, all the same.” “Pooh! Girls never know their own minds. It’s up to a fellow to make the pace.” Then further (this time feminine): “We must really ask Mr. Plethern and Miss Marvell to dine, Sydney. It’s so nice to think that Morvane is neighbourly again. I always say that big houses have their duties as well as their rights. Mr. Plethern has taken his time, certainly, but no one can accuse him of half measures, now that he has begun!” Then yet again and still more feminine: “I should be the last to deny that she was pretty. She is pretty; very. Of course that colour—well, it’s a matter of opinion. Also dress allowances help, don’t they, dear? We know that—only too well! Good taste? Yes, I suppose so. But did you see the frock she wore at the cricket match? Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but it was—well—just a teeny——” Probably again: “Oh, I like Mr. Plethern! Why shouldn’t he look at one, silly? Perhaps you had a smut on your nose? Daniel Grieve handsome? Well, he’s all right, I suppose, but I don’t care for those sallow, droopy men. Christopher Plethern, though he’s only a boy, is nearer the mark. At least he’s solid! Yes, that’s his sister, the little dark girl. She’s only a kid. I confess I was surprised at her staying up for the ball. Mother would never let me go to proper dances when I was that age.”

Charles Plethern laughed inwardly. He liked to think of now and of then; of the days when matrons hustled their daughters from his contaminating presence; of the days when adjacent squires hung in mid-platitude aghast at the smiling irony of his inscrutability; of the so different present, when he came with gifts and a pretty ward, when he was urbane and welcoming and a man of means, with means and beauty to bestow; of how they flocked and flattered and filled their stomachs with his food and wines, their mouths with soft phrases and conventional compliments. His laughter soured; almost he despised himself for bending to them, for playing their wretched social game. Had he blundered? Were things better as they had been? Was his September only a costly waste of time? He remembered his map and all his plans for Viola, falling grave and thoughtful, pondering Belinda’s warning and his ward’s wilfulness, pondering most thoroughly his own unhappy diplomatic stroke, the introduction of the Grays to Morvane.

Of the fortunes of the Grays, which were the fortunes of his first escapade in match-making, no partisanship could make anything but failure. From start to finish their visit had been contrary. Only Belinda—and, he hoped, himself also—had come creditably from their reception. Of the Grays themselves, Walter had played the sulky oaf, one of his sisters the provincial shrew. The other sister, Madeleine, had borne herself with simple courtesy. Charles had liked Madeleine, liked her instantly. But all his pleasure in her presence had been spoilt by Viola. Looking back to that ill-fated afternoon, he felt once more the anger against Viola that had, on the occasion of her rudeness, shaken him to the limits of his courtesy. The party from Clonsall had come late. Tennis was in full swing and he, having expected to play polo but at the last moment having failed to organize a game, was watching a close set on the court that lay below the drawing-room windows. Viola was near him; she declined tennis; the desire to shine, nascent at Lavenham, had grown to the strength of obstinate obsession; it was too late to learn a game at which, for prominence, one must have certain skill; better to shrink gracefully from an ordeal than, having faced it, to emerge dishonoured. Viola, therefore, with a group of young men around her, was of the audience. At the sound of footsteps on the terrace, Charles turned his head. He saw two women and a man. They were pausing uncertainly, peering toward the crowded garden. He was half-way to greet them before he recognized Walter Gray. Poor Walter! His lamentable flannels flapped foolishly about his canvas boots. And canvas boots! Poor Walter! He stepped awkwardly to meet his host. “Sorry we are so late,” he mumbled. “Market at Rushworth ... pigs ... sorry.” Charles smiled away his mumblings. “You must introduce me,” he said. “My sister Madeleine ... my sister Mrs. Morrell....” Charles led the way toward the garden chairs. “Viola!” he called. “Mr. Gray and his sisters.” He saw the girl glance at the newcomers, saw her turn back to the young idiots about her feet, saw her grimace and stifle exaggerated laughter. Then, with an easy swing, she crossed the grass to where he stood. Madeleine stepped forward.

“We have already met,” she smiled. “I hope you had a pleasant ride home the other day?”

“Quite, thank you,” airily.

To Walter and to the other sister the girl gave a short nod. Her eyes, which had contemptuously observed the homely dresses of flowered muslin, the brown shoes with their rubber soles, the rackets dark with age and use, flashed for a horrid moment over Walter’s flannels, Walter’s boots, Walter’s coat, and (worst of all) his buttoned waistcoat; then, like birds released from brief captivity, flew up and away to rest on things more worthy. An awkward pause.

“Will you take Miss Gray and Mrs. Morrell to see the garden? When this set is over, perhaps they will like a game.”

Sullen, those petulant eyes; shadowed with temper the eyes of cornflower blue. Talking to Gray, Charles watched her insolent lead toward the formal gardens.

From this unpromising beginning the hours of afternoon and evening had most miserably progressed. Time and again, while moving about his duties, Charles met the Grays, all three, or this pair, or now that, walking or sitting solitary amid the crowd. It seemed they knew no one; certainly they were offered no company but their own. Walter met here and there a man he knew; but such acquaintanceships were based on farming interests, and the others were there as gentlemen of leisure, to whom farming, whatever its claims in a world of work-a day, was no theme to emphasize amid the brilliance of society. Again poor Walter! He had no subjects other than his life-work. He saw each hopeful greeting wither to silence and to uncomfortable farewell. At last, his few social talents browbeaten and shrivelled by the unkindness of events he knew not how to master, he sought out his lonely sisters, and with them paraded empty paths or slunk through the deserted park, longing for escape but ignorant of the means to compass it.

Only when Belinda Grieve, at Charles’ special request, sought out the solitaries, did Madeleine and her sister have any pleasure of their party going. Under the good lady’s sympathetic wing, the Grays recovered enough peace of mind to achieve a comfortable leave-taking, but that alone could not convert a fiasco into a successful visit. The experiment had failed, and guests and host knew that it had failed.

Each time that Charles, over the shoulder of some polite preoccupation, had seen afar off the forlorn struggle of these unhappy guests, his anger had risen against his ward, and that same anger now returned to flush his thoughtful solitude, to harass, with the questionings it provoked, the prospect of the future. One thing was certain. Walter, unless he changed more utterly than is the lot of common mortals, would never attain even to tolerance with Viola, still less to friendship. Charles had dealt crisply with the girl for her bad manners; too crisply, maybe, for his sermon had been taken in pouting sulkiness. This recalcitrance was his second and deeper care. What if she jibbed at serving Morvane with her beauty? He could cast her out; he was her very bread and butter. But in his heart he knew himself an insufficient brute for daughter-driving; also, if all his marriage schemes were vain, what further interest had life at Morvane still to offer him? Reluctantly he faced things as they were; patiently sought to mould them as they ought to be. He had been naïve over Walter Gray; paternity took some learning; he must learn it. In the meantime was the girl fancy-free? Was she indeed capable of fancy? He would count the omens. Daniel Grieve was hit; almost at times had he the pallor of lovesickness. But only luckless lovers wilt along their mistress’ ways, and Viola was cool and merry with him, as with twenty more. Beyond Daniel, Charles could detect no obvious sufferers. Christopher, with his puppyhood half-shed, was still too much the schoolboy to know love from lumpishness; the squirelings, who had flocked to Morvane, disputed dances with Viola, sought to lure her to secluded glades, competed for her cushions, her dropped handkerchiefs, the flowers that faded at her breast. But they were ordinary young men and she a very pretty girl, and in the city of flirtation the streets are broad and thronged and too well lit for danger.

Wherefore, to count the omens was impossible; there were no omens. And yet were there not, though, of another kind? Belinda Grieve had seen them; he, fore-warned, had dimly felt their presence. To any girl the heady wine of sudden adulation would bring flushed cheeks and lightly whirling brain; but that a virgin thus exhilarated should have no moments of subdued humility, should seek no friendly counsel, snatch no hours of simple happiness, was explicable only if her excitement were as much policy as hotheadedness. Of policy in her exploitation of these golden hours, Viola was judged guilty by her guardian. For a moment the verdict kept him grave, but not longer than his own scheming kept at bay his impish fancy for a teasing girl. Men who can relish coquetry for its own treacherous charm are but hazardous guardians, and Charles Plethern, slipping from frowns and anxious gravity to the quick chuckle of the hedonist, failed in his guardian’s duty (as Belinda Grieve feared he would fail) because, more strong than a man’s strongest resolutions is the deep impulse of his secret nature.

§ 2

... And next, the fair Miss Viola in her sitting-room. What thoughts went spinning through that shining head? Different, one may be sure, from those that kept Charles Plethern silent behind his library double-doors, different in texture, quality and kind. Especially in kind; for incidents that loomed to Charles, to her were negligible, while others that, if he minded them at all, he would dismiss as trivial, she dwelt upon and treasured or deplored.

So tenuous are the filaments of a girl’s waking consciousness, so swayed and guided by the joys or passions of an hour, that it were easier to orchestrate the whisper of the raindrops on her window-pane than to charge Viola with this deliberate selfishness or to credit her with that nobility. Lady Grieve, like all maternal darlings who “had been girls once themselves,” appraised the manners of the young women about them according to certain standards. They thought these standards to have been their own instinctive code and that of their contemporaries in youth. But in this they deceived themselves, mistaking for first principles what in reality was codification by experience of impulses half-felt and half-instinctive, of restraints or wantonness due more to long-forgotten circumstance than to strong-character or reckless levity. If, therefore, in judging Viola, the good lady were perceptive while arguing from the unusual origins of the girl’s sudden fortune, when she generalized and labelled her young friend with a tag of her own phrasing, she did neither justice nor injustice, but rather violence to a soul unarmed.

As clumsy in his way had been the guardian. Charles had upbraided Viola for rudeness to the Grays. She had been rude; knew and regretted it. But at the moment of their gawkish coming she was happy among her empty-headed courtiers, conscious of a pretty dress and a good background of male stylishness. To be snatched from this happiness and, in full gaze of those she ruled, to be sent trotting like a little girl with two untidy strangers in flowered muslin frocks, was mortification. Charles should have known his cruelty. At least he should have paused before blaming her, long afterwards, for a fit of temper that was upon her almost before she recognized it. It had weighed on her, that fit of temper. She had hated herself, and even planned to ride to Clonsall and beg pardon of Madeleine for her behaviour. The plan held good until her guardian reproved her. Youthful repentance comes quickly, with a pathetic rush; but it has all the weakness of a fast, emotional growth and, roughly handled, will fade more quickly than it bloomed. As had Viola’s; for after Charles had lashed her with his tongue, she forgot her own fault, burned with the pain of an injustice and, because she loved her guardian and respected him, centred her new resentment on the only innocents of the whole affair—the Grays.

Viola was no coquette (if the phenomenon thus exotically named be understood as a young female who takes what men will give but withholds the thing they dare not take), nor was she an heartless frivoller in a lovely shell. Either of these she might become; but as yet, a gay newcomer to the palace of luxurious freedom, she was rather an excited, breathless child, grasping with unaccustomed hands at beauty and at tribute, greedy as all youth is greedy for what is sweet until the stomach turns. A little sentiment, a little melancholy, a little laughter, lots of lovely clothes, fresh air and cheerful company—these in their measure she welcomed and enjoyed. But sentiment, turned passionate, frightened as it bored. Melancholy, in guise of dowdy gravity, was tiresomely absurd. She had her sense of values and, if they were small values and depreciated, she knew no better and was content with them.

Yet was she wholly content? If not, she knew no cause for her displeasure. Skimming like a mayfly over the mysteries of sex, she cared nothing for the dark weeds that flourished in the shadows, knew nothing of the quiets or terrors of those sombre waters. Enough for her that in their smooth perfection they mirrored her own prankish grace.

None the less the shadows lurked for her (the mayfly’s May was drawing out and, with it, skimming time), shadows that Lady Grieve might perhaps have guessed at had she dared to do so; shadows that Charles Plethern knew, but took for friendly darkness rather than for menace.

Seldom, during the glittering summer playdays, had thoughts of her vanished mother haunted Viola, but now, reflective and alone within her sheltering walls, she found herself wondering what, in reality, had urged her mother to the last, irremediable calamity. She found herself, not as formerly, intent on pitying her mother, but eager to understand the impulse of that final plunge. Was love, this thing the story books were full of, only the fairy-fingered wraith that she in company with careless youths had laughingly pursued among the flowers at dusk? Was it love that drove her mother to disgrace, that set her father cursing in his loneliness? Cruel love! Was it love that had turned Daniel’s eyes to flame——? She shuddered. Sweet, terrible, terrifying love!

This affair of Daniel....

Sport of uncomprehended instincts was her persisting fondness for him. Its origins were clear enough. At Lord’s he had been balm to the irritation of a passing tedium; at Lavenham he had amused and entertained and cosseted his pretty guest, easing her mind by flippant comments on the world about them, squandering lightly the small change of summer gallantry. But with September he had changed. Why had he changed? In place of gaiety, a note of exigence; in place of casual friendliness an insistent fastening of his company on hers...

Disturbed, annoyed, and yet excited, she had told herself to notice nothing, had told herself the phase would pass, had told herself to treat him coolly so that, starved of her friendliness, he would soon beg again for the same food of normal sociability that sufficed the others and had once sufficed him also. She had encountered, before she was aware of it, the climax of his importunities on an evening when, under the bland eye of an harvest moon, he had made sudden love to her, and his eyes had gleamed hotly in the fitful light and in his fingers laid, with urgent appeal upon her arm, she had felt pulses beating.

“Don’t, Daniel! Please!”

“Viola—little lady golden Viola!—listen a moment—only listen!...”

“Daniel! Let me go!”

Abruptly he released her, for she was struggling more feverishly than she knew. They looked one another in the eyes. She remembered the dark pools of his eyes, cavernous pools in the heart of which flickered a dying light; she remembered his pale face, the beads of sweat across his forehead. Then she had played another of her hateful tricks, angered by her own fright, revolted at the hunger of a face she had only known careless or sweetly languishing:

“Never touch me again! Keep your mauling for your childhood friends. They are old enough to be used to it!”

Her last glimpse had been of him stricken to ashen silence; as she flicked trembling to hasten back along the path, she saw him stretch out his hand, stretch it toward her and let it fall limply to his side again.

Revulsion had inevitably come. In bed she had cried a little at the mournful sight of him, at the thought of the dull anguish in his face. The next day, his last day at Morvane, she had been gaily intimate, but heard no answering laughter. At parting she had given him her hand; only after hesitation had he touched it, bowed and left her. The bad words spoken under the yellow moon rose from the past and spelt themselves mockingly across her memory. “Never touch me again!” Why must one say such things? But (the next instant) why are men such fools?

No happiness yet, as yet no glad serenity for fair Miss Viola, curled in her deep chair before the leaping flames. Let the next memory take its turn, so it may cheer her if it can, so it may widen joyously her cornflower eyes, relax the petulance of those lovely lips.

Success! Triumphant memory! She even smiles, secretly gleeful at its subtle call. Let the victorious memory present itself.

Among Charles Plethern’s polo fixtures had been a game between four local gentlemen and the Royal Numidians. The visitors had stayed at Morvane, and among them was a Captain Clavering. Lady Grieve, who had not left Gloucestershire with her son, encountered this Clavering as she walked with Viola across the hall. The two, after ejaculations of surprise, shook hands. Viola was introduced.

“You have not brought your wife?” asked Lady Grieve. He shook his head.

“No. I can only stay for the game, you see. It was not worth the distance. Besides, she is not going about at present.”

“Who is he?” inquired Viola of her friend, when the newcomer had left them.

“Archie Clavering. He’s a relation of mine. A charming fellow with a charming little wife—recently acquired.”

Viola made friends with Clavering during the evening following the game and found his genial simplicity, based as it was on experience of men in his own and in foreign lands, pleasantly normal after Daniel’s mannered romanticism and the vacuous heartiness of Chris Plethern and of the various youngsters who had haunted Morvane during the preceding weeks. By chance they were the first to come to the next morning’s breakfast, and talked over their food for long enough before interruption came.

“You are early, Captain Clavering.”

“I always get up, Miss Marvell. It’s habit. And you?”

“Not quite always, I fear. But it seemed so lovely that I thought I’d have a ride.”

“If you are not going anywhere particular, I wonder if you would ride with me? Plethern will mount me, I’m sure.”

“I should like it immensely. Where do you wish to go?”

“Over to Rockarvon,” he replied. “Have you been down there?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve often wanted to. The woods look so lovely.”

So it was settled and, breakfast over, Clavering sought out his host (Charles had been rather shaken by a fall the preceding afternoon and was breakfasting in bed) and made application for a horse. Successfully; so that, with the girl at his side, he was soon mounting the avenue.

“Fine, those gates look, standing up there!”

“They’re not much use as gates,” said Viola prosaically.

“Well, there is a symbolism about them. They always seem to me a snap of the fingers in my uncle’s face.”

She looked at him puzzled.

“Your uncle? What do you mean?”

He threw back his head and laughed a jolly laugh.

“What a madman you must think me! I was conceited enough to fancy that my genealogy was common property at Morvane. Rockarvon is my uncle.”

Still perplexed, she frowned and smiled.

“I’m afraid——” she said. “I thought it was a place, not a man.”

“Both,” he replied. “The old ruffian takes his title from the estate. I don’t know why. I suppose long ago it was the chief place in this part of the world and his ancestors lived in the old house and on the surrounding land. Now, of course, what money my impossible uncle Stephen has comes from other sources, but he is still Rockarvon, and the place we are bound for is still his ancestral home.”

She had a flash of understanding.

“Are you the heir?”

He nodded.

“Yes. And Belinda Grieve is a cousin of mine. But I’ve not been to Morvane before—I ran across your guardian in South Africa, you know—so thought this a good opportunity to look at a bit of my inheritance, particularly so romantic a bit as the original cause of all the mischief.”

“Why do you say ‘my impossible uncle Stephen’?”

He glanced quickly at her.

“Did I? Well, he is impossible.”

His lips shut down upon the words, and Viola guessed that no further explanation would be given. Accordingly she fell silent and, turning the conversation over in her mind, employed her surface consciousness in appreciation of the autumn woods.

Very gracious were they in their soft September raiment, a raiment of green flecked with reds and yellows, green paling to other yellows, green on the flush to richer reds. At the Morvane grille the riders paused; partly to pick their way over the rubble and grass-hidden stones of the ruined wall; partly to look back down the broad space of avenue with its beechy sides and its carpet of dew-laden, tousled grass; partly to survey, as it lay below them, the tree-filled valley of Rockarvon.

“It is like a boiling cauldron,” said Viola. “See how the tree-tops jostle and bulge!”

“Certainly the growth looks very thick. We must find a gate of some sort. Is there one?”

“I think I’ve seen an entrance along this way.”

The lichenous gate wheezed unhappily as Clavering pushed and lifted it.

“Not much traffic!” he remarked.

Under dense arching boughs a broad ride sloped steeply into the matted depths of the woods. The ride was thickly carpeted with fallen leaves; dog mercury, impertinent and prolific, spread from either bank toward the centre. The trees were so thick that only here and there could the pale, autumn sunshine pierce the leaves, and flicker, now on the green-stained silver of a beech trunk, now on an oak tree, creased and mossy. Elder and hazel, briers and contorted thorns, piled themselves between the stems of forest trees, forming ugly thickets in which shadows lurked. Downward the old ride sloped then took an elbow turn and sloped again. Viola had a sensation of dropping, dropping from the world of air and sun and human things into some twilit sea of greenery.

“We might be stones,” she said, with a short nervous laugh, “thrown into a pool. Don’t you feel under water?”

Clavering acknowledged her fancy with a nod and smile. He was comparing this tangle of English woodland with jungles he had seen in India, with the deep, black, unholy forests of the Caucasus. This one was infantile, as forests went, but all the more strangely for its known smallness and the slight stature of the trees was he oppressed by the deep silence of neglect that wrapped Rockarvon in its stifling folds.

Downward they rode; now between high banks of sandy earth; now on what seemed a ledge ribboned across a tree-grown precipice; now through the vaulted shadows of a woodland hall.

“Are there no birds in this queer place?” demanded Clavering.

And Viola realized she had indeed heard neither twitter nor whirr of wings.

Suddenly the sunlight blazed in their unaccustomed eyes. Blinking they stood on the edge of a grassy space, dotted with ancient thorns, hummocked with mole-hills, feathered in part with bracken. The warmth and brightness, after the silent gloom of their descent, had all the unreality of a stage effect. Gradually they found themselves, and words.

“Is this the bottom?” asked the girl.

He was a pace or two ahead of her, and in reply pointed between the thorn trees with his crop.

“Look!” he said.

She saw the ground fall once again beyond the little plateau upon which they stood, fall steeply but openly to a shallow stream. She saw the stream, intricately curling between grassy banks. She saw, at the far end of the stream-fed meadowland, on the stream’s edge and backed by a wall of rising woods, a house.

“Rockarvon!” she breathed.

He nodded.

“Eerie place, I call it,” was his only comment.

They found a lane that bordered the marshy meadow and led in the direction of the house. It was a damp lane, with the exaggerated foliage of foxgloves and docks and the stiff, powdered grey of comfrey plants veiling a ground that squelched and oozed beneath the horses’ feet. Side by side they rode.

“Are you pleased with your home so far, Captain Clavering?”

He grimaced, then laughed a little.

“Yes and no. It makes me a bit sentimental, you know. Centuries and all that. But it’s a ghost trap. Catch me living here!”

“I think it’s wonderful!” she said, and the rhapsody in her voice caught his attention. He glanced at her in curiosity.

“Wonderful? Why?”

“I don’t know why,”—frankly—“but it’s just wonderful.” Then, after a pause, “Partly, perhaps, because I come from Canada. I felt Morvane wonderful when I first came, for its age and ‘orderliness.’ I love it still, of course, but not in the same way. The new world worships age, you know, and peace. This place is so immensely old and undisturbed.”

“It is that,” he agreed, “but economically the fact has drawbacks.”

“I wasn’t taking the owner’s view,” she laughed—“merely that of the romantic tripper.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, Miss Marvell, but you mustn’t betray me.”

Her face lighted with interest.

“Of course I won’t!”

“Your guardian covets this place. I believe he wants it more than anything in the world. But Uncle Stephen isn’t taking any. Probably Plethern doesn’t know I know a thing about it, but I stumbled on the truth, talking to the family lawyers not so long ago. It’s a passion with him.”

“Poor Charles!” said Viola. “How sad! Because he’ll never get it, will he?”

“Well, really, I’m afraid he won’t. You see, one can’t sell one’s name-place, can one? I mean, not unless everything goes up the spout? My uncle probably has genial little reasons of spite that make him hold fast, but when it’s mine, and even if I never wanted to live here, I don’t think I could part with it. Could I?”

“Of course not!” she said earnestly. “It would be dreadful! But why not live here? Yes, do! Come and live here and then we’ll see lots of you, and Charles can run in and out and forget he ever wished it were his!”

He shook his head.

“It’s not my prejudice only. (Besides which mine is far from the deciding voice! We Benedicts! My wife may love the place as you do.) It’s cash, Miss Marvell. Stop and think what it would cost to put the woods in order—let alone the house——”

They had now come within a stone’s throw of the irregular grey mass. It stood like a blind cripple at the water’s edge; so close indeed that the quiet rippling water of the stream washed the very stones of the façade. The mullioned windows were some broken, some roughly shuttered. Ivy surged in tousled masses over the lower roofs, which here and there gaped black, where tiles had fallen or joists rotted through. Apart from the over-grown rectangle, embanked above the water, and lying between the two wings of the ancient building, no trace was visible of garden. Forest swooped down upon the house from the steep hillside at its back. Already to right and left vegetation was creeping round toward the stream. Another twenty years and the grey stones of Rockarvon would faintly gleam across the valley bottom from the grim shadowy embrace of the relentless woods....

Here, in fond retrospect, ended the romantic visit to Rockarvon. Viola cherished the memory of that visit for reasons she was content to leave unspoken, even to herself. Maybe, in moments of merriment or selfish pleasure-seeking, she was still a little ashamed of the fascination practised upon her by the dead grey house in the heart of its silent woods, but, from the moment when first its wistfulness had set her mind in thrall, she had outgrown some portion of her raw conceit, had stolen within earshot of the sweet voluptuous cry of lovers’ agonies.

Clavering’s ‘secret’ she had treasured. She told no one of her expedition, was careful to adjure her companion, when speaking of his ride to Charles, to make no mention of her having shared it. The word ‘Rockarvon’ she never uttered in her guardian’s hearing. Once or twice, alone, she had mounted the avenue and stood a while at the iron gates, dreamily watching the sway and thrust of the tree-tops beyond the lane, letting imagination dive beneath them to follow the darkling ride, to meet once more the burst of sunlight in the thorn-strewn clearing, to see again the stream and the brave, old wall, to picture, as on that morning she had pictured them, the dust and bats and cobwebs of the ancient rooms that once had known life and joy and loveliness and tears....

A memory worth cherishing, a memory to smile at and to turn with slow affection in the mind. Lucky Miss Viola with such a memory! Leave her to nestle warmly in her sitting-room, while over park and garden the October rains make dusk of afternoon....

§ 3

Last, Mrs. Plethern, with her playing-cards in the high parlour of the Morvane campanile.

“Get me my board, Bathsheba. And the cameo cards. That’s right. Now make the fire up. Don’t smother it, fool! That’s better. Tea when I ring.”

She laid the Queen of Hearts face upwards on the green baize of her board; flanked her with the Club King and the Diamond Knave. Above the cards thus ranked she laid the Queen of Spades. Then, frowning, wove her spells.

The portents were contrary, so contrary, indeed, that the old lady in a freak of fury threw board and cards across the room. They scattered foolishly about the carpet. By chance one card, skimming edge on more quickly than the rest, struck a table leg, turned on its traces and fell back, face upwards, a yard from Mrs. Plethern’s chair. The card was the Queen of Hearts. Mrs. Plethern glowered at the royal simper. Portents were worse than contrary.

And yet she and James had parted in hope rather than in discouragement.

James and his family had spent a week at Morvane, arriving sumptuously with suit, gun and dressing-cases, with rugs and lady’s maid and illustrated papers, with clothes for every crisis and inside information on every topic of the day. Charles Plethern’s local guests had been impressed with James, who would stand before the flower-filled fireplace of the great saloon, dignified, inscrutable and suave. His wife, never without a cigarette in an amber mouthpiece a foot long, would move smartly from place to place, in gowns so admirable that the observer wondered rather who made them than who wore them. Christopher and Corinne joined the crowd less noticeably, the former in noisy enjoyment of the various dissipations of his uncle’s house, the latter wriggling and chattering in the perpetual excited movement proper to heedless maidenhood.

To the fond eyes of aged Mrs. Plethern, James was the most distinguished person in the house. Proudly she had witnessed his crossing of the threshold, had heard his first comment on the alterations and embellishments to Morvane. To the saloon at tea time Rosalind and he had penetrated, their children at their heels. With her accustomed manner of aloof disdain, Mrs. James Plethern had greeted frigidly her brother-in-law, pecked smartly on an unwholesome cheek her husband’s mother, drawn off her long gloves with the air of a Cleopatra peeling inferior bananas, and sunk, chic but graceful, into an armchair, to which instantly tea was obsequiously carried, and sandwiches and cake. James, during this smart manœuvring, made portentous progress to the marble curb that edged the fireplace.

“Here we are, Charles, here we are! Tea has a refreshing sound. Thank you, thank you” (thanks to a flannelled youth, playing the nervous cup-bearer to this tremendous stranger). “Very welcome after a journey. Rosalind, my love,”—his straight fair eyebrows rose as he craned across the room—“you have tea already? Good!”

Taking a sip, he sucked in his long, expressive lips and surveyed the room. Charles, crouched unobtrusively against the mantelpiece, winked from behind his brother’s back at Corinne, who in a corner sat whispering eagerly with Viola. James raised his cup once more, drank deeply, twitched his nostrils and addressed the room, though in his brother’s name.

“Upon my word, Charles, this room looks very well, very well indeed. A happy thought to bring it into use again. I am glad I made the suggestion. Do you not agree, mother, that the room looks well?”

Mrs. Plethern, with the blinking deliberation of one unaccustomed to the daylight of public tea-parties, mumbled affectionate assent. James to her thinking looked a man, almost a statesman. Often had she regretted his abandonment of politics; as often had fond pleasure in her son’s obstinate majesty staunched her regrets. Now, contrasting Charles’ nonchalant untidiness with the bland finish of her younger son, she glowed and smarted with disappointed pride.

Involuntarily, alone in her tower while the wet mist drifted endlessly beyond the windows, she now glanced at the large photograph of James, framed, glassed and impregnable, that stood upon her mantelpiece. She remembered that he had stood beside it, there on her hearthrug, during the conference held in this lofty parlour to discuss plans and prospects for the future. How her heart had swelled to see him standing there, to watch his strong hands, to hear his ringing voice, to know that he was her son, as much at one with her in mind to-day as long ago he had been one with her in body!

She had made her report optimistically:

“Charles is certainly fond of the girl,” she said, “but purely as a daughter. Indeed, he has changed a good deal, even in this short time. He seems older in many ways, more—” here she chuckled, and James, as befitted a fond son, heard only genial humour in the chuckle—“more fatherly! There is no need for anxiety on the head of marriage.”

“Is he attracted to her—er—at all—er—under any other head?”

Mrs. Plethern, taking his meaning, shook her head.

“So far as I can judge, not in the least. If so, he has himself well in hand.”

“Evidently he has changed!” commented James nastily.

“Of course,” proceeded Mrs. Plethern, “we are the more exposed to risks of inheritance—ultimate risks—but we have plenty of time and—well, there are ways....”

James, with hands clasped behind his back, studied his polished shoes. Slowly he rocked on toes and heels.

“There are ways ...,” he repeated softly. “For example?”

“Of the prospects of the most obvious and satisfactory you can speak better than I,” she said. “Viola and the boy were together a good deal, I suppose?”

He frowned and his lips worked in and out, as he pondered a reply.

“They had every opportunity,” he observed, “but I have nothing to report, nothing whatever.” After a pause: “Chris is very young,” he added, almost apologetically, “and these are early days.”

Mrs. Plethern tossed her head impatiently.

“If a full-blooded boy of twenty-one doesn’t show that he wants a pretty girl by the time he’s been three weeks in her company, it’s fairly evident that he isn’t going to want her? My dear James, you talk as though Chris were a child!”

“You confuse the issues, mother. It is not a question of desire; it is a question of marriage. And it takes two to make a marriage. Also time.”

“Doesn’t she like him, then? Does she take it on herself to look higher? She is hoity-toity enough here nowadays, I know, but I imagined that dear Rosalind’s influence would curb that, while she was under your roof?”

“I haven’t the least idea what she thinks of Chris,” James retorted crisply (the memory of his wife’s base denigration of her son stirred his annoyance), “nor he of her. But in any case it’s rubbish to dismiss the whole possibility, because the boy isn’t enslaved in the first few weeks of their acquaintance. I should think worse of the lad than I do, if he flared up so easily. Caution is the essence of marriage, mother, as reckless heat is the essence of desire. You ought to know that as well as most!”

The old lady bowed her head and sat silent. She liked to provoke James; his incisive periods, his indignant pride, delighted her maternal heart. More than ever she loved him when he bullied her, though usually he convinced her as little as he did now. At last she spoke with a smooth regretfulness that was at once flattery to her son and menace to Viola.

“Well, well, we shall see. Leave it to time, if you wish, James, but it’s dangerous. The longer she has to work upon Charles, the worse for us. For my part, I prefer to reckon without Chris in future. It is a pity. We must think of something else—something that will be a little harder to achieve and a great deal less pleasant for our young friend. That also is a pity. I am sorry, but accidents will happen.”

“Your plan?”

“Oh, I have no plan. It is unwise to make plans. They are sometimes discovered. But I shall watch and watch—and the moment I see a chance of putting Miss Viola wrong with Charles—really, badly wrong—I shall take it. And you, James, you and Rosalind will help me. It is all for you that I shall act; for you and your son. So you will help me, will you not?”

James shifted from one foot to the other. His mother’s tone caused him a slight uneasiness.

“You’ll be careful, mother?”

She smiled secretively.

“I am always careful, James. I am an old woman, and age is not rash. It knows that everything takes time. But it knows also that opportunities must be seized—when they offer themselves. Therefore I must be able to rely on you. My quiet life here is an asset to our cause. I must not noticeably become other than I have been. Therefore an ally in the world is necessary. You are that ally. You will not fail me?”

He gave a quick, almost an hunted look about the room.

“No,” he promised, “I will not fail you.”

At this point in her reverie the old lady’s eye caught again on the carpet at her feet the inextinguishable simper of the Queen of Hearts. She gulped once or twice and her wrinkled eyelids fluttered cruelly. “You may lie there grinning, you slut!”—the words were almost spoken, so intensely did Mrs. Plethern throw her hatred into their imagining—“but before I’ve finished with you, you’ll grin on the other side of your pretty face!”

She picked up the card, tore it in four, and threw it on the fire. She watched the fragments split and blacken; watched their edges curl to brittle tinder. Then she rang the bell for tea.