Desolate splendour

CHRISTOPHER PLETHERN, newly elected to White’s and vastly conscious of his increased importance, dined his friend Daniel during the week preceding Christmas.

“Smart work getting in so quickly,” he explained gleefully. “Uncle Charles did the trick for me. Put me up, chose my seconder and collected men to sign their names. I’m fearfully bucked with life!”

Daniel drank his sherry and bitters and drew thoughtfully at a cigarette.

“You’ll be good at clubs, Chris,” he said. “Just the fellow for them.”

Unsuspicious, the new member threw out his chest and accepted this tribute with a cheery shake of the head.

“A fellow wants somewhere,” he observed. “Can’t hang about home all the time. Drink finished? Let’s go and feed.”

Wine was an essential feature of the evening’s menu, and the host was flushed and genial as in the smoking-room they settled to old brandy and cigars. Daniel, of a complexion less susceptible and of a habit more abstemious, watched his friend with quiet amusement.

“You’ll be at Lavenham for Christmas?” queried the host.

Daniel nodded.

“Yes. Mother has one or two folks coming. No one exciting. Do you want to come?”

“I’d love to, old man! Jolly kind of you. The trouble is——” He broke off and added in a low, embarrassed whisper: “Viola won’t be there, will she?”

“My good lad, she’s in Rome. With your Uncle. But why shouldn’t you come to Lavenham even if she is there, or should I say even if she isn’t?”

Chris blushed uncomfortably, emptied his glass at one toss, smacked his lips and assumed the air of half-baked connoisseurship that is the undergraduate’s normal reaction to liquor.

“Good that!” he remarked inconsequently. “A specialty of ours here, the brandy. Think I’ll have another. You’ll join me?”

“No, thanks. I’ve not finished this yet. But you go ahead.”

With some delay further supplies were obtained. Then Daniel repeated his question—a little disingenuously:

“You were telling me how Viola would affect your coming to stay with us. You’ll get a room to yourself, you know, in any case!”

“Shut up, Dan! I’d like to come fearfully. Get fed up, bouncing about under the paternal roof all the time. But they go on at me so, you know.”

“Go on at you! What about?”

“Why, about Viola, dear old ass! Aren’t I telling you?”

“Who are ‘they’?” asked Daniel.

“Oh, the governor and my mother. Always nagging to know when I saw her last and when I’m going to see her again and when I’m to be at home so that she can come and stay with us. She’s a jolly nice girl and all that, but I’m damned if I want to keep her in spirits of wine on my mantelpiece!”

Daniel was by now thoroughly interested. He simulated lack of understanding.

“But what’s all the fuss about, Chris? Give me a hint.”

Christopher gestured the weariness of a society darling.

“What’s it about? They’re doing their best for both of us, as the saying goes.”

“Oh, I see. Well, she’s a beautiful creature. I commend their taste.”

“No, no, my dear chap, it’s not that! It’s Morvane.”

Daniel, hard put to it to preserve his gravity, shook a puzzled head.

“For pity’s sake, Chris! You talk like an acrostic editor. My first cannot be kept on the mantelpiece; my second——”

“Dan, your stupidity is amazing!” Chris turned impressively to his friend and spoke with the deliberation of much alcohol. “Don’t you realize, my boy, that to all intents and purposes that girl is Uncle Charles’ daughter?”

“Really, Chris!” said Daniel with affected concern. “You fill me with apprehension!”

“No, you old ass, I don’t mean that! Good Lord, no, not that!” He chuckled foolishly. “No—I mean that she stands to him in the what’s-his-name of child to parent.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows.

“Does she though? You don’t mean it!”

“I do mean it, old man. Every word of it. Child to parent. And what do children do? Inherit, old man. And what’s to prevent Uncle Charles making that girl his heir? Tell me that!”

“Dear old thing, ask me another.”

“Well, there you are? That’s what papa and mamma have got into their heads, and that’s why they push Miss Viola down my throat morning, noon and night. I don’t like it, Dan. It’s a nuisance, for one thing, and it’s rotten bad luck on the girl for another—let alone me.”

“It must be very tiresome,” agreed Daniel. “Anyway, she won’t be at Lavenham at Christmas, so you’ll be safe. I’ll promise that not a soul shall set snares for your young feet. You shan’t even be introduced to a female poodle. How’s that?”

“Thanks awfully!” said Chris heartily. “You’re a brick, Dan. I’ll come like a shot. Christmas Eve?”

“Christmas Eve or the twenty-third. Whenever you like. I’m going down to-morrow.”

The afternoon of his arrival, Daniel joined his mother in her little sitting-room. He shut the door carefully and took a seat by the fire. Lady Grieve glanced over her shoulder as he came in, nodded and smiled and went on writing letters. After a short pause:

“May I smoke, mumsie?”

“Of course, dear,” without turning round. There was a further silence.

“Mumsie, I’m a bit worried about Viola.”

Lady Grieve put down her pen and moved in her chair.

“Worried about her, Dan? Why?”

He looked at her, patted the chair next his invitingly and said:

“Come and sit here, like a darling, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She obeyed, wondering at his unaccustomed seriousness. “I dined with Chris last night,” began Daniel, “and he got a little talkative after dinner. It was a very good dinner, and that had something to do with it! Incidentally he told me that his parents were rather obviously throwing Viola at his head. Now, in the first place I don’t see that it is quite their business to throw Viola anywhere; secondly, I’m sure Charles Plethern wouldn’t like it; thirdly, I can imagine that Viola herself would not be enthusiastic.”

“And fourthly it is conceivable that some one else is frankly furious,” said his mother, smiling.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders plaintively.

“I’m afraid your fourthly is academic, mumsie. I’m not on in this act.”

She patted his hand.

“I was only teasing you, my dear. Go on with what you were saying.”

“Well—it’s nothing to do with me, I know, but it may be more to do with you; anyway, you are the person to deal with the matter if it can be dealt with—what I don’t like is the thought of that girl alone at Morvane with only old Mrs. Plethern for company, and Mr. James on the hop as he seems to be, and Charles, lord knows where....”

“But, Dan, she’s with him! And he’s been at home all autumn!”

“Not quite all, mums. I met him in town a month ago, and he confessed that he hadn’t been able to stick Morvane any longer and had taken a week’s leave. You’ll see, when they get back from Rome, that he’ll be off again.”

Lady Grieve turned her son’s words carefully in her mind.

“I’m afraid you may be right about that, my dear,” she said. “Charles has the globe-trotting habit, and he can’t take a young girl everywhere with him. I wish he’d let her come here. Failing that, I wish he’d find some companion for her at Morvane. I tried to persuade him to the first, and then dared to hint the second, but it was no good. He was too full of his new resolution. That type of man always thinks a fresh enthusiasm will last for ever. In September he talked as though he would stay at home for years. But aren’t you a little exaggerating the other side of the picture? Mrs. Plethern is not a lively companion, but she can’t harm the child, and, after all, whatever we may think of James Plethern’s schemes, they depend on Viola’s agreement and on Charles’ consent to become practical politics, don’t they?”

“Listen to me, mums. Old Mrs. Plethern adores James—you know that, of course; I believe it was you told me in a moment of indiscretion! She will do all she can to please him. If he wants to catch Viola for Chris, she’ll do her almighty best to help him. There’s a lot can be done by persistent influence—on a girl’s mind—isn’t there, mumsie, dear?”

Lady Grieve looked compassionately at her son. She had a very shrewd idea of his feeling for Viola; felt moderately certain that he had expressed that feeling, in one way or another, and had been badly received. It was melancholy to hear him thus impersonally discuss the situation of a girl he loved, but had not won. Her own mind in the matter was divided. More than most things in the world she wished Daniel to be happy; but she was very fond of Viola for herself, and it was not in her nature to sacrifice one loyal affection to another. So far as her son’s love affair was concerned, things must take their course; her problem in the question of Viola’s solitary life at Morvane was to disentangle from Daniel’s inevitable prejudice the real truth of the girl’s position and its possible unpleasantness.

She replied instantly to her son’s pathetic questioning.

“I suppose that the mind of anyone can be influenced, sooner or later, by continual suggestion,” she said, “but Viola has plenty of will of her own. She won’t be easily driven where she doesn’t want to go.”

“All the same,” he said obstinately, “it’s not right that she should be there, quite by herself, with that beastly old woman!”

“Dan, darling!” cried his mother. “You mustn’t say things like that.”

“She is a beastly old woman, mums! You know she is. Only we’re always too polite to say so.”

Lady Grieve thought well to leave Mrs. Plethern’s character undebated.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Would it satisfy you to feel that there were nice people a few miles away, whom Viola could go and see often, with whom she could get friendly?”

He shook his head sceptically.

“Are you going to move to Gloucestershire, mums? Or are you going to colonize the neighbourhood?”

“No, silly. I mean the Grays, and particularly Madeleine Gray. How forlorn the poor girl was at that ridiculous party! I could have smacked Charles for being such a fool as to drag her into it! Did you meet Madeleine Gray?”

“No. Who is she?”

“They live at Clonsall. Five miles from Morvane. She’s a really nice, wholesome girl: at least, so she seemed to me, and I had a good talk with her. If Viola could be persuaded to make friends with her, go there and get Miss Gray to Morvane—how would that be?”

“It would be better than nothing,” he said ungraciously, “but not what’s really needed.”

She kissed him and laughed softly.

“No, my dear. But, unluckily your idea of what is really needed is not every one’s idea. Not at present, at any rate. There! Cheer up! I’ll write to Miss Gray at once. Then your young woman will have pleasant friends and not be forlorn any longer.”

He rose unhappily.

“Thanks, mums,” he said listlessly. “You’re a darling. I suppose that’s the only thing one can do for the moment.”

Lady Grieve, left alone to continue her letters, spent none the less a good half-hour in pondering her son’s adventure in romance. They are severe tests for young womanhood, these half-hour mental scrutinies by maybe mothers-in-law. That Viola emerged as creditably as she did was, in some sort, a tribute to her old school, for it was at Lavenham she had learnt the first lesson of her power, at Lavenham that first her power had shown itself.

§ 2

If Lavenham was school and Morvane ‘coming out,’ then Rome was college. What Lavenham had begun and Morvane nearly spoilt, Rome put in final shape, moulding or mellowing. To all concerned, credit for their share! To Viola, for her aptness and her industry; to the men and women of the English colony for their hospitable homes that were a stage for the new star’s rehearsals, for their polish and experience that prompted the halting speaking of her lines; to Rome, for her seven hills, her yellow, rolling river, her mighty past, her strenuous, squalid present; lastly, to Charles the guardian, not for fulfilment of a guardian’s duty, but for a moment of preoccupation that let him turn one door handle when he had thought to turn another. Credit to all; for each and all brought something to the shaping of the third Viola, a Viola as different from the pert tyrant of September Morvane as had been that tricksey miss from the girl who, at the graveside of an embittered father, turned from the new world to face the unknown adventure of the old.

For Daniel Grieve, perhaps deservedly, was kept the privilege of witnessing almost the first appearance of the newest Viola on English soil.

Seated at a typewriter he was painfully rendering an official memorandum on some aspect of the sardine industry for ultimate transmission to the British Minister to Norway. An office-keeper bent respectfully to his engrossment.

“A lady to see you, sir.”

“Tell her to go away,” said Daniel, struggling with the spelling of a Norwegian fishing village.

“She particularly wished to speak to you, sir. Only for a moment, she said.”

Daniel straightened his back and spoke with the abruptness of irritation.

“What’s her name?”

“She preferred to give no name; said you would know her when you saw her, sir.”

A fellow bureaucrat, sharer of Daniel’s room, tendered his mite.

“They never give their names,” he observed gravely. “Poor, trusting souls that give their all—except their names!”

Daniel shied a box of paper-clips at his colleague, and for the first time faced the office-keeper with some show of interest.

“What’s she like? Old?”

“Not at all old, sir.”

“Oh, no my son. Not at all old!” echoed the brother official. His voice was muffled; he was on the floor, gathering paper-clips.

“Well, I suppose I must go and see what’s up,” said Daniel peevishly. “Damn nuisance. I’ve got this muck to finish before lunch. Gresley, you blighter, you’ve nothing in this world to do; suppose you take part of it for me.” Silence. “Gresley! What in hell are you doing?”

“Looking for mushrooms, old man! Ver’ busy!” The voice came distantly. Faint scufflings indicated the cautious movements of its owner. Daniel shrugged his shoulders and walked pettishly down the corridor to the waiting-room. For a moment, the light being in his eyes and his intelligence clogged by irritation, he did not realize his visitor’s identity. Then:

“Viola!” he cried. “By all that’s wonderful!”

She had held out her hands to him. Hardly knowing it, before his senses fully returned to him, he was holding them. Gently he let them fall, murmuring an apology.

“Don’t Dan!” she said pleadingly. “Forget all that. Take them, Dan! Here they are. That’s better. I’ve come to see you because—because—well, because we’ve just got back.” She hurried on; “I know you’re awfully busy and I won’t interrupt you now, but perhaps——”

“Busy!” he shouted. “My dear girl, I’ve oceans of time! You’ll lunch? Do! It’s a quarter to one now.”

“I hoped you might suggest lunch,” she confessed. “I’ll wait for you while you finish what you are doing.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Daniel airily. “I’ll be with you in two twos.”

He raced to his room. Gresley regarded him sadly from his table by the window.

“I’ve got to go out,” said Daniel hurriedly. “Fearfully important. Finish those damned sardines, there’s a good fellow. I’ll do the same for you next time.”

“I hate sardines,” the other remarked bitterly.

“Prefer mushrooms, I suppose!” grinned Daniel. He was pulling on his overcoat, brushing his hat, hunting his gloves and stick.

Gresley sighed deeply and walked slowly across the room to the typewriter. For a moment he examined the text of which a typed draft was required.

“Did you write this?” he asked gloomily.

Daniel, his hand on the door-knob, nodded cheerfully.

“What language is it supposed to be? I can’t type a dialect. I don’t know any. This word, for instance—Here!”—(as the door swung to behind the departing author)—“Half a second!”

Daniel’s footsteps clicked over the tiling of the corridor. With a smile Gresley settled to his work.

“Got it bad!” he said to himself.

It was early March and a raw, blustering morning. At the corner of Downing Street, Daniel and Viola found a hansom.

“I say, it’s jolly to see you!” he said foolishly, as they settled in the cab.

She smiled at him and her skin was never more lovely, her eyes never more liquid, more intensely blue.

“Have you had a good time?”

“Splendid! Charles knew lots of people in Rome, and we went everywhere. He was so sweet, all the time.”

“Sorry to come back, I suppose?”

“Not a bit. I’m very glad. There are various debts I owe.”

“Debts?” he looked at her puzzled, until a hint of embarrassment in her steady gaze warned him that she had spoken seriously and that the act had needed courage. He passed quickly to other topics.

“Where are you staying?”

“With the Jameses. I’ll be there a few days. Then home to Morvane.”

“And the guardian? Where’s he?”

She laughed.

“Oh, he’s at his club for two nights; then he goes to Morvane. He was angelic about it, trying to find out if I’d mind his not coming to Montagu Square.” She paused for a moment and added: “It’s an awful shame, you know, him being saddled with me! I’m fearfully in the way.”

Arrival at the restaurant saved Daniel from the indiscretion of an obvious reply. They were early comers and found a table discreet and comfortable. With small talk and merriment the meal went gaily. When, however, they were left alone to their coffee, Viola, with a slight blush, asked:

“Are you angry with me for not answering your letter?”

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“I—I—— Really I didn’t know how to answer,” she went on softly. “You see—I felt such a beast!”

“A beast!” he said, a little breathlessly. “Darling child, you could never be that.”

She nodded vigorously.

“Oh, yes, I could. And was. Indeed, when I think myself over, I seem to have been one persistently last summer. Just a beast.”

“Viola!” he pleaded. “Don’t talk like that! I hate to hear you. It was my fault entirely, my impertinent clumsy fault. My only excuse is”—with a short, shy laugh—“that I meant it so awfully——” He paused, and she waited with bent head for his next words. “I still mean it, Viola, mean it more awfully than ever——”

She was working a ring nervously to and fro; her eyes were downcast; he could see her breast rising and falling rapidly; she was in the agitation of a necessary but difficult reply, a reply so difficult that, although she had gone that morning to the Foreign Office solely in order to make it, she could find neither the right words for it nor the self-possession with which to speak them. At last, with a great effort and in a voice so low and husky that he could hardly hear it, she began:

“Daniel—I want to tell you something—several things. I’ve been thinking and thinking about them, how to tell them and—at last I determined I’d come and see you as soon as I got back. I’ve done that—and seen you—but they are no easier to say....” She stopped and thought, desperately, uselessly. He recognized her urgent confusion, and neither spoke nor moved. “To begin with,” she went on hurriedly—and for a second her lids flashed upward and her great eyes, cloudy with embarrassment, met his: “To begin with—that time in the garden....” He held his breath; slowly she was blushing, royally blushing over face and neck. “That time ... and what you said ... it was dear of you, Dan, and only a conceited little fiend of a girl would have done what I did. I’m pretty well conscious of my beastliness now. You’ll believe that, won’t you? Forget it all; it wasn’t me, it was only a stuck-up, piggish imitation of me. Only....” Impulsively she raised her eyes and stretching her hand across the table touched his arm. “Only, Dan, I can’t! Not yet certainly; perhaps never. No! Don’t interrupt. Let me try and finish. I can’t, because of Charles. It sounds fearfully priggish and you’ll think me a prude and an old maid, but I do so want you to try and understand. Of course you know that Charles ... that he ... I mean, you know how he used to rush about and know lots of women ... and travel about with them. You know that, don’t you? Every one does, don’t they? Well, I didn’t. Not properly. I heard people say things and your mother gave me a hint, like the darling she is, and his mother kept suggesting ... but I was terribly innocent and terribly conceited and just didn’t take it in. Somehow I understood the words but not their meaning—if that is at all sense...?”

She stopped and looked at him with a wistful smile. He could see the tears shining in the corners of her eyes. An immense pity for her shook him from head to foot. He nodded encouragement and tried to smile.

“Go on, child,” he said gently.

Perhaps something of his sympathy crossed the table and strengthened her. Certainly, when again she spoke, it was with greater control of voice and words:

“In Rome I began to understand.... One thing and another, you know. I heard two men talking: one evening at a party; Charles and I were near by. One said: ‘Comic idea, the Man of Pleasure tooting a flapper round the place!’ and the other agreed, saying something I—well, I understood as much as I wanted to. Then we came across a woman there. She is rather a great lady now in Roman society, an Italian, and she greeted Charles in a curious way that made me wonder. He seemed so uncomfortable and so anxious to leave her, that I wondered more and more. Then we went to a comic opera; then——” she stopped abruptly, blushed amazingly once again, gathered her wits and smiled shyly: “I think I’ll leave that, if you’ll be a dear and let me. Let it stand that gradually—I can’t exactly explain to you how I came to realize what every one had tried to tell me; that kind of thing comes so variously and from so many, many directions—that slowly and gradually I did realize what sort of life Charles had led and—this was more important—what a tremendous difference I was making to his whole existence.”

“I don’t see anything very priggish in all this,” he said.

“It’s coming,” she replied, “just coming. I was not shocked with Charles. Not one bit. Perhaps I ought to have been, but I had got too fond of him. Besides I began to understand that men are like that, and often the nicest men most like it. After all, it doesn’t matter much, I suppose. I hated that woman, though; she was like a snake. What worried me was that a splendid man like Charles should waste his time over women of that kind. I assumed that, in one way or another, all his ... friends ... were more or less of the same type. That was, perhaps, stupid, but I thought it. And I saw that there was one thing that prevented him going back to them—one thing only—me. How can I make it sound less righteous and horrid? I don’t mean that I am a soul-influence or anything like that, but....”

This time her pause was one of distress. He felt her grope for words.

“You think that as Charles Plethern has taken you on, he won’t lightly shirk his job. Isn’t that your idea?”

She nodded, first doubtfully, then more positively.

“Ye ... es. Yes, I think that will do. But I mustn’t hustle it. He must be got to prefer being with me to being with.... No, that’s not quite right, but I want to let him down gently, not force my claims on him. He’s so angelic to me always that I couldn’t ask too much, even if it were wise. But I must stick by him and I think in the end he’ll get tired of knocking about all over the world. Now do you see why I say I can’t let you ... let you tell me.... Oh, Dan, I do like you, really I do, and I hate having to hurt you like this!”

“No, Viola. You haven’t hurt me; you’ve done me good. Your plans and all you’ve told me—well, they make me surer than ever. That’s all. But——” He paused uncertainly. She looked quickly across the table.

“Go on!” she commanded. “But what?”

“What makes you think that Charles can be won round, can be ‘converted’ as it were? Habits are not easy to change. Won’t he be restless and bored? What I’m trying to say is, do you think the ‘duty’ argument is strong enough to alter him? Will it merely be a brake, to be taken off at the bottom of the hill? Will he, before long, be in a hurry to get free again and——”

“And dispose of me?” she interrupted. “No, Dan, I don’t think so. I’ll tell you something else that happened. When we were in Paris going out, we met at an afternoon party Lord Rockarvon——”

Daniel gave a sudden exclamation. She smiled slightly.

“Yes, but I didn’t know what sort of a man he was, Dan,” she went on ruefully. “How should I? He flattered me and admired me and you must remember that I was still the vain little fool of last autumn. We went to lunch there, and after lunch Charles suddenly took me away and got angry when I bothered to know what had happened. Then in Rome, after a bit, I went to him and asked him seriously to tell me about Lord Rockarvon and why we’d gone in the first place and why there was a quarrel. He wouldn’t for a long while, but at last he did. I can’t repeat quite everything, for Charles told me not to, but what happened was that Lord Rockarvon wanted to marry me and offered Charles something he wanted most frightfully in return for his consent.”

Daniel frowned his disgust.

“Ugh! If that isn’t the limit!”

“So Charles told him,” said Viola. “I don’t know what was said, but they were very angry with each other. Then we came away. Well, you see, Dan, if Charles wanted to get rid of me, that was one chance, wasn’t it? Also, if he felt I was merely a duty, he would surely have taken an opportunity of my making so glorious a match—think of me a Countess, Dan! Isn’t it absurd?—particularly if the glorious match at the same time gave him what he so awfully wanted.”

Daniel shook his head.

“No, my dear. I’m afraid you don’t convince me. No one short of a monster would let you marry Rockarvon, and our revered friend and guardian certainly isn’t a monster. But he may be a tough one to wean from his evil ways, all the same.”

She looked disappointed and a little abashed.

“Then you think I’m just a silly girl, talking romantic rubbish?”

“Indeed no. You are the loveliest crusader that ever took the road. But it may be a long road, an uncommonly long road....”

Immediately she cheered.

“I’m game,” she said, “provided I get there in the end.”

Thereafter they sat for several minutes in silence, each thinking his thoughts, each pondering the other’s words. Daniel looked at his watch.

“I must get back, Viola. It’s been heavenly seeing you and I’m more honoured than I can say by your telling me all this. Shall I see you again?”

“You might,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you ever call at Montagu Square?”

“I am intending to do so to-morrow,” he replied gravely.

As they walked to the door he inquired her future plans.

“I expect I shall stay at Morvane for a while. You see”—a perceptible hesitation—“so far as I know, Charles isn’t going away again—at present.”

As on an earlier occasion, he heard the note of embarrassment and effort in her voice. Perhaps she feared his mockery, his scepticism. If so, she was quickly reassured, for all his feeling toward her was love, and to love pity is sister.

“That’s excellent,” he said quietly.

After putting her into a cab, he walked thoughtfully away. The glow of her physical presence removed, he felt tired and a little miserable. She had been gentle and sweet to him, but there was no encouragement in her sweetness for all his protestations of a new cheerfulness. The quixotism of her attitude to Charles Plethern touched but troubled him. Her self-abasement made him love her the more, but he dreaded yet another awakening for that ardent, questing spirit. “I’m game,” she had said, “provided I get there in the end.” With a wry smile he appraised her valour. “Darling child,” he thought, “she’ll get there all right, but I doubt if she’ll recognize the place as that for which she set out.”

She had said, “There is one thing that prevents him going back—one thing only—me.” What if Charles came to agree with her? She had blushing said: “I think I’ll leave that, if you’ll be a dear and let me.” Leave what? Almost he shrank from speculation. Obscurely he recognized for the key of the Roman puzzle, that unavowed, blush-raising incident, the incident Viola had ‘left,’ the incident he had been dear enough to let her leave. Damn the incident! He braced his shoulders and cursed himself for a maudlin fool. “Jealous of a man old enough to be her father,” he told himself indignantly. “A man who to all intents and purposes is her father!” But the clouds of dissatisfaction gathered and rolled up again. He was poor company for Gresley during the long afternoon.

§ 3

The feelings of Charles Plethern toward guardianship and its duties had at least surface correspondence to Viola’s reading of them. His sojourn in Rome and the revisiting of scenes well known during an earlier existence had demonstrated with concrete vigour the change implicit in his new position. At first he had rather savoured the novelty than rebelled against it. Although in the sleeping-car from Paris he had lain wakeful, turning in his mind the strange events of Rockarvon’s luncheon party, torturing himself with thoughts of an ambition so nearly realized, his righteous detestation of the creature who had tempted him persisted glowingly. In the dim light he had stared wide-eyed at the faint, swinging bulk of his clothes upon their hook, until their outline against the glimmer of the polished panelling assumed the outline of Rockarvon valley on his map. Then he had climbed from his lower berth, lighted his travelling lamp and taken from its pocket in his dressing-case the map itself, the map of Morvane and its lands. The wry, white strip shone challenging in the uncertain light. “So nearly!” he thought bitterly. So nearly won and now so wholly lost! Blowing out his lamp and still clutching the stiff linen of the map, he had fallen back upon his pillow once again, to marshal in the swaying darkness of the sleeping-car the happenings of the afternoon. It might have been his by now, that wry, white strip! At this moment, had he but said the word, the writ of Morvane’s master might, in fair anticipation, have run from Sawley to the uplands above Clanworth. He cursed the fate that had offered, so cruelly conditioned, what most in life he craved. The chance had come, had been perforce neglected, had gone for ever. It would not, could not come again. Between him and Rockarvon the gulf might never more be bridged; further, once this Rockarvon died, the new one, being a decent fellow, would treasure what was in effect his birthright. Indeed, he had almost said as much, when he had spoken of his morning ride from Morvane to Rockarvon (telling, of course, no word of his companion) and had impressed his host with the fond loyalty that, for all its desolate eeriness, he felt toward the cradle of his name.

But suppose it were never even his to cherish? Suppose that sinister horror in the Rue des Montagnards found another, more complacent pander to his lustfulness, gave to Rockarvon valley a master neither Clavering nor Plethern? The possibility set Charles writhing on his bed. It was the moment of his bitterest anguish, the moment when almost he regretted his rejection of the earl’s proposal. He had been too hasty; a little parley might have discovered ways and means; the creature could not live for long; the girl would soon have been free again. Free again? Yes, but at what a price to her? Imagination hinted at the man’s way with a helpless maid. Instantly all that in Charles was upright, all that was in him of indignant decency, rose and overwhelmed his selfishness. His anger blazed afresh. Once more he steeled himself to honour the trust that now was his—Marvell’s trust, the trust of the beautiful child that looked to him for livelihood and happiness and safety.

In the warm embrace of his renewed resolve for good he fell asleep, waking to the journey of the following day with a protective fondness for Viola that endured against her frivolity and her petulance, that held him during the early days of their stay in Rome. At first, supported by this fondness for his ward, he enjoyed the new rôle of watchful parent. He chose her amusements and her company, bought her the books that explained the monuments and ruins of the city’s past, went with her everywhere, tenderly and with the delicacy of paternal love softened her crudities, pointed the way to that quiet dignity of habit which, as the heritage of well-born English beauty, must now be hers.

She was responsive and a ready learner. Probably the genuine affection of her guardian during these days of mutual discovery first pierced the thin crust of her conceit; then, when the proud ruins of a mighty history became gradually familiar, when she had read something of the centuries of grandeur that lay behind the swarming noisy streets she traversed daily, the insignificance of modern days, the insignificance of her British race, the insignificance of her individual, lovely self, possessed her mind, broke her conceit to fragments, and left her to justify in her own eyes her own so negligible existence. With all humility she turned to the man who, in effect, had revealed her to herself. They became intimate with something beyond the intimacy of social friendship.

At last, touched by her sweetness, he acceded to her request for details of the quarrel with Rockarvon. He told her frankly of his plans for Morvane, showed her the map, laid his lean finger on the wry, white patch of the Rockarvon valley. Finally he explained the earl’s proposal.

“He offered me that,” he said, “in exchange for you.”

“But, Charles,” she asked, “I would have done more than that for you! Why did you say nothing? How ever am I to pay back what I owe you? Here was a chance. Oh, Charles, didn’t you trust me enough to do that for you?”

He shook his head.

“It was not a question of trusting you, child. I shall have to give you some idea of the kind of man he is.”

He did so, speaking slowly and carefully, wishful to convince yet fearful of brushing the freshness from her innocence. Her colour deepened a little as she listened. At last he said:

“You see, my dear, it was really not an offer; it was an insult, and I told him so. Hence the row.”

She got up and kissed him.

“Dear Charles.... How good you are to me! He sounds——” she shuddered. After a pause: “But I’d do it for you, Charles—at least, I hope I’d have the pluck....”

He interrupted her, a little harshly.

“Don’t talk like that! If I can prevent it, you shall never hear his name again. I deserve flogging for taking you inside his vile house.” Then, in a lighter tone, “Now promise me this. Never tell a soul what I have told you about my land-greed. I suppose I am a little ashamed of it; also no one knows, and it’s fun caring awfully for something and no one knowing that you care. The rest of the story is more your secret than mine, but the first part—including this map—keep to yourself. Promise me, like a good girl.”

She promised.

Oddly enough, the very telling to Viola of the events in the Rue des Montagnards robbed them, for Charles Plethern, of some of their power to give savour to a guardian’s duties. Now that she knew what had happened, it was as though the incident had become part of the distant past. Charles felt that Rockarvon and his insolence had vanished with all chance of the accretion to Morvane of the wooded valley. Instinctively he looked elsewhere for some interest that should take the place of this now vain ambition. Such an interest the chaperonage of Viola in Rome failed to supply. By hazard he encountered a lady whom ten years ago he had known well and fervently. She greeted him with meaning enthusiasm. Viola was with him, and, wishful to evade a difficult equating of past and present, he took hurried leave. But a day or two later, when his ward with friends was lunching at a villa some miles outside the city, he responded to the lady’s written suggestion of another meeting. They spoke of old times and, although neither was at all inclined to more than reminiscent dalliance, the memory of the period when sweet, transitory loves alternated with sport and journeys of adventure to take him to the fair and to the rugged places of the world, lodged firmly in his mind again. The days dragged by and life began to weary him. Parties and dinners, drives and sight-seeing, the splendour of ecclesiastical pomps, the polite elegance of the cosmopolitan world of Rome, could not for long taste freshly to a palate reared on food more appetizing, more astringent. Or so he told himself. In truth he had begun to feel restless out of the company of Viola, even to resent those of her occupations that were not his as well. A life with Viola and yet without her; friendship in which the girl was but a friend more frequent than the rest, left him each day conscious of discontent. But he mistook his restlessness for longing for the past. Blindly he clung to self-deception, blaming the very chains that bound him for the discomfort of their absence. He looked forward drearily to the return to England, to the Riviera, to a London season, to a summer voyage to Norway, to whatever distractions the coming year might offer. They must all be mere repetition of this Roman flatness, unadventurous, trivial, a monotony of smartness and publicity.

One night he took a party to a theatre of burlesque. Viola, mentioning the performance to Daniel over lunch, spoke of a comic opera; but she may be forgiven her faulty phrasing, seeing how greatly the performance was for her overshadowed by the queer mischance that followed it. Charles was a little conscious of bravado, in choosing for his ward so crude an entertainment. He thought to find in its unsuitability a small refreshment of his weariness. But when the evening had crashed and blazed some thirty minutes on its shameless way, he read discomfort in her indifferent eyes and wished himself and her elsewhere. Their companions, accustomed to such body-shows and more at home with quick, Italian slang, laughed pleasurably to hear the well-known Neapolitan comedian at his quips, applauded the tableaux of undress. Such insensitive gaiety was infectious and Charles found himself, as time went by, able to forget the puzzled silence of his Viola, to share the other’s easy joy in lascivious Latinity. When they were back at their hotel, he felt wakeful and ready for supper and night-dissipation.

“Shall we go and dance somewhere?”

She shook her head sleepily.

“Not for me. I’ve got a headache with all that noise. You go. I’m for bed.”

He wandered down the street to cool his fevered brain. Across the glare of footlights the past had called to him. A year ago he would not have stood thus aimless in a Roman street. It chafed him that now, though free for baccarat or dancing or champagne and laughter in careless, painted company, he was in spiritual thrall. She had bidden him go and seek amusement; he was as much his own master as a year ago; he knew the clubs, the cabarets, the restaurants. And yet he could not go. The thought of her obtruded every instant of his listless stroll. Stubborn in self-delusion, he forced his mind to the gay freedom of his independent days. He lost himself in memory, living again the thrill of old excitements, living again the old rapture of illicit solitudes. Almost unconscious of his movements he walked and turned and came back to the hotel. For ten minutes he lingered in a chair among the palms, then, still dreaming, mounted the stairs slowly to the upper floor.

Viola, when a while earlier she left her guardian near the porter’s box, dragged wearily to bed. The first-floor corridor stretched emptily before her, long rows of doors on either side. The Plethern suite was at the far end on the left. She passed the closed door of her guardian’s room; she passed the bathroom door. Her room was next and beyond that—a corner room with double view;—the sitting-room. She undressed carelessly, strewing her clothes about the floor. Five minutes later, full length in a hot bath, she felt the uneasy fatigue of the loud, brutal theatre sinking to quiet sleepiness. She wondered what Charles was doing; idly pictured him one of a group of men in a club smoking-room. Or was he dancing somewhere? Perhaps he was dancing with some such woman as those who, not an hour ago, she had seen stripped for public exhibition. How could men be at once such darlings and such beasts? Huddling a towel about her, she padded to her bedroom. She had the whim to see herself as, in the theatre, girls were seen by thousand after thousand strangers. Perhaps the sight would help her to understand. The towel slipped to the floor; at the tall glass she stood appraisingly. With a slight click the handle turned and the door leading to the corridor was opened. Startled, she wheeled toward the noise and saw Charles Plethern watching her. His face, for a fraction of time, narrowed hungrily; his eyes, for a fraction of time, devoured her nakedness. Then, as with a gasp she snatched at covering, he was himself again and, his cheeks aflush with a confused dismay, murmured a quick apology. The door closed once more.

Bundled in dressing-gown and bed clothes she crouched and trembled in a chair. The shock had left her limp and, save for her burning head, as cold as ice. That hungry face! Those hot, devouring eyes! She hid her flaming cheeks in friendly folds of eiderdown. “Not that!” she whispered piteously. “Oh Charles, not that!”

Over breakfast he made his poor amends.

“I can only beg your pardon, Viola. I was dreaming and confused the doors.”

Prepared for reference to an incident that, in the perspective of overnight, was merely an unpleasant hazard, she met the apology with control and barely flushed as she said hurriedly:

“It’s all right. I should lock my door.”

Inevitably the blunder of his reverie set Charles once more on the straight road of guardianship. Interpretation of his secret mind was as remote as ever. He blamed the longings that had so disastrously obsessed him for the shame his ward had suffered. Next, he blamed Rome for inciting the obsession.

“Let us go home,” he said.

At the beginning of March they were back in London. Not once had the man thought to wonder why the consequence of an ordinary mischance should so afflict him; why to have put shame on Viola should in extreme degree also have shamed himself.