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.
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.
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.
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The poor gentleman must have been more than usually on stilts when he made the speech (on poultry farming) which earned him this sobriquet. |
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.
“Ah,” he said, “I can’t help you, you know. You must fudge it out as best you can. I’m dreadfully sorry—but that’s the truth. You might come to a pass where I could be of use—I hope you won’t—there’s no reason to suppose it. Meantime——”
“He’s kindness itself,” she said, looking beyond him. “He was kind from the very beginning—but—I know that I ought not to have married him.”
“Perhaps,” said Senhouse, “he ought not to have asked you.”
Her eyes fell. “No,” she said, “perhaps not.”
After a pause of some intensity on her part, she broke out. “What you tell me of yourself fills me—makes me excited. It’s glorious. You stand on your feet—you are free as the air—owe nothing—while I—what am I? Not even myself. The dressmaker made me—the policeman guards me. My husband—but if I had no husband, what could I do? Belong to somebody else? If I broke a rule——”
He stopped her with a gesture—a quick jerk of the head. She met his eyes.
“The pity will be if you break a rule without getting full value for the escapade. Don’t do that.”
“I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t mean you to think—” He had frightened her; she was quite breathless.
“You must understand,” he said, “that, in my view, you are no wiser to put your body in a cage than your mind. Both must be free. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a woman who breaks our law of property in one way is worse than the shop thief who breaks it in another. To wound the feelings of a good and generous man is a serious thing—but not to take bread when you are starving. At least, that is how I look at it. But—you must be very sure you are starving. Sincerity is the supreme virtue, and insincerity the only deadly sin.”
She nursed her cheek, while dreams showed themselves in her grave eyes. Whether she was pondering what he said or no, there’s no doubt she was giving it personal application again. Tristram was in her mind—her morose, exclusive lover. Was her friend giving a benediction to Tristram’s plain desires? What was she to do then? Was she to be possessed by Tristram—at last? Sincerity, he said, was all. Was she sincere? Could she ask—dared she? She knew that what he told her she should believe—Yes; and she juggled. She did not want to know what he would say—because she knew it already. Blame her as you will—that’s the fact.
Very woman that she was, she went about and about the thing she dared not—peering for the assurance of her fears. She looked softly at him as he sat there, plucking the grass by handfuls or making mounts of torn plantains—she looked wistfully. “You are my friend then—whatever happens to me?”
He met her melting eyes candidly. “Depend upon me.”
“Ah,” she said, “but I do! Well, then, I must do what seems to me best—I must be brave.” He smiled.
“Have your adventures, of course. Don’t be afraid of them. Be true to yourself, though—at every cost.”
“Yes, yes, I promise you that. . . . When shall I see you again?”
He gazed blankly at the sky. “I don’t know, really. I’m a wanderer, you know. But the Land’s End finds me from November to February mostly. I begin to work West about October. I am due in the North now—in the Lakes. Wastwater will find me—somewhere thereabouts. I shall be there till September. I leave London to-night—no, to-morrow—” Their eyes met again, without embarrassment. He was the only man she could have commerce with in this way. “I shall see you at Land’s End some day or other,” she told him. “When I’m wounded——”
“Caught in a wire by the foot,” he laughed. “All right—I’ll set you free.”
“But suppose you were in Berkshire when I was there—How should I know that you were there? Would you call at Southover?”
He laughed. “No, indeed I shouldn’t. I’m a hedgerow chap. I move by night mostly.”
“Well, but—you might be within a mile of me, and I should never know it.”
“Yes, you would, of course,” he said, simply. “You’d know by the trail.”
“What trail?”
“Don’t you know that? I’ll show you. Old Borrow calls it the patteran, and swears he got it from a gipsy girl called Ursula. You needn’t believe him; I don’t. But the trail is certain. A woman who lived in a cave at Granada showed it to me. Look here.” He plucked up a handful of grass. “Here’s a four-went way”—he marked it with his finger in the dust. “Now watch”—he scattered the grass, which took, roughly, the form of a curved pointer. “You see that on a road—it means the way I am gone. But I do mine with leaves, when leaves there are—with leaves from the sunny side of a hedgerow. You can always tell them.” Her brows inquired—she was intensely interested. “Dunce, they are bigger of course, and darker. I use them because the gipsies, who are everywhere, use leaves, too, but never take the trouble to select them. Now you’ll always know my trail by that. Do you see?”