She clasped her hands together—her eyes danced. “How splendid! How glorious! Then we have a language. I can find you whenever I want you. For if I wanted you very badly, I could set a patteran for you, couldn’t I?” He nodded. She said in a low voice, “You don’t know how strong you have made me—you can never know. Thank you a thousand times.”
“Not a bit,” he said, lightly. “If we’re friends, you are entitled to know my little games.”
“And may I speak to you like that—when I go anywhere?”
“Do. We share.”
She sighed. “How can I ever thank you!”
The sun was low when she got up, saying that she must go home. It was discovered to be seven o’clock. “Why,” she cried, “they had forgotten to have any tea!”
“Poor girl! Will you have some now?”
“No, no. I don’t want it. But I must go. Will you come with me? Or are you engaged?”
“You know I’m never engaged. I shall come with you, of course. Will you drive?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s too quick. Let’s walk over the grass. It’s no distance.”
She talked to him of her friends—of all her friends but Duplessis. This he observed. Did he know Mr. Horace Wing? By repute only, it seemed. He could be seen in photograph shops—a very “pretty fellow”; too pretty, Palmer Lovell? Unlicked, he judged. Then he tried her. “I know young Bramleigh,” he said with one of his straight looks into the deep of you. “I met him yesterday.”
She received the shock unfaltering. “Lord Bramleigh? I hardly know him.” He had failed. Lord Kesteven—for she went on blandly with her list—he had never heard of. He asked “What he did?” and made her open her eyes. “Do!” she said, with a comical air of being shocked. “He’s a Marquis.” This made Senhouse perfectly happy, but he apologized for laughing. “I’ve nothing against him, you know. I believe it’s an honest calling. Does he do nothing else but be a kind marquis to you?”
She affected scorn. “He’s an Ambassador—in Paris. I hope that’s honest enough for you.”
“I hope so, too,” said Senhouse, “but I’d rather be a marquis. Is he your friend?”
“He says so. I think he means to be.” All of a sudden she leaned towards him; he felt her urgency. “You are my friend. I have no others. You have promised me your friendship.”
“You have it, my dear,” said Senhouse. They walked the rest of the way in silence; but he stopped once, and interested her again. It was in Mount-street—of all places. He stopped short, as if he was listening; his head high, eyes closed. He was sensing the air, listening to it, smelling it. Narrow Mount-street took the semblance of a forest path, brambled, dusty, hemmed with bracken fronds and silvered roots. “There’s rain—there’s rain,” he said—“I can hear it coming. May be a day off, but it’s on the way.” She watched him incredulous. “Are you a magician? What are you?” He laughed. “I’ve got feelers, that’s all.”
At the door in Hill-street he left her. She was inclined to be tremulous, tender—but he was completely cheerful. He would have gone with a wave of the hand had she not held out her own. As it was, she had prepared a little formal speech—“I cannot tell you how glad I am that we met—I——”
“Don’t try to tell me,” he said. “I know it. One takes that for granted—among friends, you know. That’s the privilege of the estate.”
“Yes, yes—of course. Well, I won’t thank you for doing what pleases you. I am sure that it has pleased you.” She fished for an answer.
“Take it for granted,” he repeated.
That braced her. “I will. I do. Good-bye.” This time he did wave his hand.
“Mr. Duplessis have called, Madame,” said Greatorex at the door. “He have left a parcel. Lord Kesteven have called—and Mr. Wing.”
The parcel—discreetly phrased—proved to be most palpably a truss of roses. She unfastened it herself, and found a slip of paper pinned to the stalk of one. “Forgive,” was written on it. Smiling wisely, she went upstairs to dress, her bouquet in her hand.
Had Duplessis, flowers in hand, sued his forgiveness at any time, she was not the woman to be stern. That was not in her; she was at once too sensitive to the flattery of the prayer, and too generous to refuse it. But at this particular time she felt very strong; fresh from communion with her friend, secure in him, she felt equal to judging a dozen Tristrams—and to judging them leniently. “They know not what they do.” That was why she had smiled so wisely to herself on her way upstairs; and it may have been why she wore some of his flowers in the waistband of her gown that night. It was one of her most charming gowns, too; mouse-coloured tulle. In the belt of this she set crimson roses, of Tristram’s offering.
She dined out, and went on to a party. Duplessis was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs; they went up together. He had never yet taken possession of her in that manner, and cannot be excused of brutality. But he was quick to presume; was not at all a good object for generosity. Her eyes had answered his inquiry—“Forgiven?” before he touched her hand; she had said “Of course,” and the rest followed as a matter of course. He assumed from it his right to be offensive, and her privilege to be unoffended. She went upstairs by his side, so far as he was concerned, possessed to all intents and purposes—under his protection. She did not know it then or even feel it; her lightness of heart buoyed her up. Had she not been encouraged in adventure?
By the time they were well past their hostess at the door Tristram had resumed this air of the vaguely irritated lion. He looked grandly about him over heads—his height gave him pretence.
“What are we to do here—? All these people—a wilderness of monkeys—” When a young man, sure of welcome, had come up on toe-tips to shake hands with Mrs. Germain—had bowed, prattled, bowed and gone, Duplessis showed more than fatigue. He had seen his crimson flowers at her belt, and they bretrayed him. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go and sit down somewhere. It can’t be here.” He spoke shortly, as if he meant it.
She took his arm without question, and he pushed a way through a couple of full rooms. Beyond these was a little boudoir, beyond that a library, empty. She sat, and he stood fidgeting with reviews on the table, taking up and throwing aside like a child sick of toys. And she sat softly there with cast-down eyes, waiting until he chose to remember her.
She was very conscious of his mood, and not unsatisfied with it. The whole thing was a game, an adventure, say, and this a recognized move in it. “Have your adventures—don’t shirk them. Sincerity is the great matter. Be yourself whatever happens.” He had been plucking up the grass at her feet as he told her that, and she had not been able to see his face, though she had tried. He spoke deliberately, as if he was screwing the words out one by one—as if they ought to be said, cost him what they might to say. Had they cost him anything? Ah, if she could have known that!
But—“Be yourself whatever happens!” Had she a self? What was it? Was it that of a young woman who—of one of those women who like to be coveted, are ready to be owned, who indeed always are owned by one or another? “His servant or his maid, his ox or his ass—” Must she be property, personal property? Ah, but let her never forget that, such as she was, Jack Senhouse was to be her friend—always—at the call of her need. Then she remembered the patteran, and smiled to herself.
Presently she looked up at Tristram, scowling over the Deux Mondes. “What are you going to do with me, now I am here?” she asked him lightly; whereupon he turned short, and sat down near her.
“What can I do with you? What’s possible? What am I allowed to say? I feel like a caged cat. Am I to pay you compliments, ask you if all’s well? Has it come to that? I know what you would say if I did. You are not happy. It’s evident.”
It was only in this man’s company that she failed of self-possession. With men far greater than he, such as Kesteven; with men defter than he, men of the Wing vein, she could, as it were, hold the reins, and feel the mouth. With Duplessis she was always liable to strike back upon former days. At any moment, had he but known it, he could have put her, so to speak, into a white muslin frock, turned her into the fluttered village coquette. Oddly enough, with all his wits, he had never known it until this moment; he had always read her new position into her old ways. But now it was too plain to mistake; he had but to lift his hand and—! The discovery ran through his veins like a strong wind—to make him shiver.
She was looking down at her hands in her lap, picking up her fan plumes one by one, and running them between her fingers. A latent trembling possessed her, which he felt rather than saw. The same fever caught him.
“Where’s Germain?” He spoke masterfully.
Her reply was studiously simple. “He’ll come for me by-and-by. He’s at the Speaker’s dinner.”
“He’s always somewhere else.” Mischief prompted her to ask if he complained of that; but he was not to be drawn.
“If you were my wife,” he told her, “I should never leave your side. If you were my wife, I should be your lover always.”
Here was a lie, obvious even to her; but the devout imagination in it was enough to thrill her. Watching her closely, he saw that she was thrilled.
“You’re not happy,” he said, “and I’m not happy. You made a frightful mistake—but mine was worse.”
It was hardly the moment to assure him that he was quite wrong. If a gentleman does you the honour to discern misery, even where none exists, it proves attention, at least, to your circumstances. It’s an oblique compliment.
She said gravely, “I don’t think we ought to talk about such things. I have never given you any reason to think me dissatisfied with——”
“Oh,” he broke in, “we’re not considering the creature comforts, I imagine. You came here in a carriage from your big house—and you’ll go back to a big house in your carriage. I can understand that these are pleasant arrangements; and after two years of them, for what they are worth, you may well confuse them with the real thing. But that—! A full cup, nodding at the brim! Life together! No world, nobody in the world but two souls—ours! And work: work together! Good God, it’s ghastly to think of.”
He looked haggard, and there was a hollow ring in his voice, the hoarseness of a consumptive. Her heart went out to him in pity, and her hand was laid for a moment on his sleeve. “You are not well—you work too hard. Please don’t.”
“Work!” he said, “I have none. I wish I had. I’ve quarrelled with Jess.”
“I know. I’m very sorry. I wish that we—that I——”
He suddenly and squarely faced her. “Look here, Molly,” he said, and made her heart beat and her eyes quail. He, and he only, had called her Molly. “You know what’s the matter. There has hardly been a day since you’ve been in town that I haven’t seen you—I’ve found out where you were to be—and I’ve been, too. You possess my mind; I think of nothing else, can’t sleep for thinking. I believed that I should get over it, and perhaps I should if I hadn’t seen you again last autumn. There was the mischief. I vow to you I didn’t want to come, shouldn’t have come if Jess hadn’t insisted. A confounded ass—! It all began again then—and now, I tell you fairly I shan’t get over it. I’m not going to try. It’s stronger than I. . . . And I believe that you care, too. I do believe that, I know you do. You wouldn’t sit there so still if you didn’t—you wouldn’t hide your eyes if you didn’t. You dare not show me how bright they are. Ah, but I know how bright they can be, and what makes them shine! No, no, you and I belong——”
“Oh, don’t, don’t—please don’t!” The cry was wrung from her, and the courage to look at him came. But then, as she turned her head away, she said faintly, “You mustn’t,” and made things ten times worse.
His next words beat her back. “I love you, do you hear? I adore you—I care for nobody, no rights or claims in the world; I can’t live without you. If you won’t listen to me, if you drive me too hard, I shall—No, no, that’s wicked. Molly, I’ll do you no harm, I swear to that. But you and I have got to be together, or I shall go mad. Now you know it all.”
She rose, and he with her. Both were shaking; but she spoke first.
“Let me go now, please—take me back. I mustn’t be found here.” He was ready.
“I’ll take you away, now. I’m glad I’ve had it out with you. Now you know the facts at least.”
She put her face in her hands. “It’s dreadful. I ought not to have listened to you. It was very wrong. What are we to do?”
“Love each other dearly,” said Tristram, and took her in his arms and kissed her. She shuddered and shut her eyes, but did not try to move. Her lips were parted; there came a long sigh. “My darling, my darling girl,” he said, and kissed her again. They heard steps, and sprang apart. Her terror was manifest. “Come,” he said, “we must get out of this.”
She took his arm—she looked as sleek as a stroked dove. They went into the rooms without another word. She was almost at once confronted with people whom she knew, and Duplessis left her with the first group she encountered. She saw him shoulder his way through, nodding to right and left in his grand, careless way; she saw him go out and knew that he would not come back. Engaged in the chatter usual to such times, she talked at random, laughed without knowing what amused her. When she was told that Mr. Germain had been seen—was here looking for her, she gathered her wits at once and went to find him.
He was talking in his calm, superior way to a great lady. His Court dress suited him—he looked like his ancestor, Sir William, pictured in the dining-room at Southover.
The great lady put up her glasses and smiled at Mary. “Here comes that pretty person you’ve given us. How d’ye do, my dear. What’s the secret of your bright eyes? Late hours agree with you, it’s plain; but this poor man of yours wants care.”
“Yes, indeed,” said she, thankful of the turn-off.
Mr. Germain made her a bow. “If you have come to take me away, my dear, I shall not deny you the pleasure. The whole duty of a wife in the season is to take her husband from parties. Am I not right, Duchess?”
“My dear man,” said she, “I don’t pretend to such privileges. My husband has been in bed these two hours. Good-night, you happy pair. Now, my dear, when will you come to me? The 20th, of course—my ball. I trust you for that. But do come in to luncheon—positively any day except to-morrow and Thursday—oh, and Saturday. Saturday is hopeless.” She tapped Mary’s cheek with her fan—“What a dawn colour!”—and smiled herself onwards, fat, satiny, and benevolent. The Germains gained their carriage, and he was asleep before they were in Carlos-place. She sat absorbed, gazing out of the window, still under the spell of Tristram’s love-making. She went to bed—lay wide-eyed in the dark for a while; then sighed deeply, and smiled, and slept. Her last waking thought was sophistical. “He told me to have adventures—and to be myself. And he’s my friend, whatever happens.” Entrenched behind her philosopher, she had no dreams.
Odd thing! The rain nosed out by the man of weather came to pass. But it delayed for a week or more, which was time enough for many other prophecies to be fulfilled. When, however, it did come it struck her imagination. She awoke late from a night of deep sleep to hear it thudding on roof and balcony and to see, when she looked out, the heavy trees of Berkeley-square streaming like waterweed under a sluice. Here and there a cruising hansom thrashed a way through, now and again a milk-cart. The butcher-boys wore their baskets on their heads. Her first conscious thought was of Senhouse, bare-crested to the wild weather. It would be wild in the open, and, of course, he was in the open. On some wide common, perhaps, facing the gale, with the rolling collar of his jersey flacking like ship’s cordage. Ah, to be there with him, sharing the joy of battle!
It was with a sense of suddenly leaving the wholesome, great air for that of a hot-house that she turned to her breakfast tray and pile of letters. She picked up the first of them; the hand was Tristram’s. A letter from him, and a visit, were now daily events. A letter to him, also, must be written daily, and somehow delivered.
This one was cavalier in tone. “Sweetheart,—I must see you, if only to arrange how best we may meet. What a storm last night! But what a clear blue promise before us! I shall be in the Burlington Arcade—Gardens end—at noon. Come.” “Tr.”
Even she, never yet free from her early subjection to him, felt that this was not how lovers write to their sovereign ladies. An assignation—and in such a place—proposed to Mrs. Germain! She coloured high and clear. He had done what she could never have believed possible; he had really offended her. Nothing in the whole world could have persuaded her to go.
But by-and-by that sophistry which is ever at hand to clinch a woman’s argument the way she wants it to travel, modified her view, suggested a duty. Insolent, arrogant, exorbitant lover that he was, he must be taught his place. He should see her inaccessible; he should see her cold profile as she drove by him without so much as a turn of the head. Perhaps then he would know that she was not a village girl at his disposal. Perhaps. Thus, at least, she reasoned—and thus she did. The brougham was ordered for a quarter to twelve—she kept it fifteen minutes, and then gave the order, “Bank.” Her bank was that of England, and stands in Burlington Gardens.
She had no real errand there, but she feigned one. A cheque was to be cashed. The footman was to take it—and even as she gave it him she saw Tristram at the mouth of the Arcade—in an overcoat to his ankles, his wet umbrella in his hand.
She sat rigid in her place, wide-eyed for events. While looking at Musters’s careful back it was perfectly possible to see her lover at his post. He was watching her intently, she knew; but he did not move. He did not intend to go a step out of his way to meet her. True, he had walked to the Arcade—he, who lived in the Albany! A most cavalier lover, this.
The game went on . . . the minutes passed. The footman came back with her money and waited for orders. She named a shop—a jeweller’s close by, in Vigo-street. Jinny Middleham was to be married, to a Mr. Podmore, a clergyman, and must have a present. How happily things turned out; the cheque would serve. The touch of Musters’s whip caused the hoofs to clatter on the asphalt; the brougham lunged forward and swept her by the shameful trysting-place. She peered sideways as she passed; Duplessis, looking full upon her, did not even lift his hat. Nor, during the hour she spent, fingering enamels, rivières, and rings, did he appear at the shop-door. When she went by the Arcade on her return he was not there. She felt strongly the sensation of escape, and was surprised to be so free from disappointment. Senhouse came back to his own place in her thoughts—he and the wind on the heath. Both good things.
But in the afternoon, at about six o’clock, her cavalier was ushered into her drawing-room, where she sat alone, and stood by the door looking at her until the man had gone out. Then he crossed the room quickly, came straight to her, knelt, took both her hands and kissed them.
He humbled himself. She hardly knew him for the same man. And he did the thing handsomely, too, named himself grievous things, exalted her, wouldn’t hear of any excuse. Her generosity, easily moved, was all on his side in a few minutes. She could not hear him accuse himself. Perhaps he had been thoughtless; but she had had no right, she said, to be so angry.
Finally, she wouldn’t listen. “If you go on talking so wildly,” she told him, “I shall begin to think you don’t mean it.” And then he did explain.
It appeared that there had been reason in what he had proposed. A certain delicacy taught him that he could not continue calling at the house after what had happened. That could hardly fail to appease her. His seeming insult, then, had really been intensely prompted by his fear of insulting her. She considered this with hanging head.
“Mind you, Molly,” he went on, being master of her hand, “I can’t withdraw one word of what was forced out of me that night; I can’t wish undone one single act. I adore you, and I must tell you so; I love you, and must show my love.” Here he kissed her. “The question is, how and when am I to see you. See you I must and will. I wanted to talk to you about that—and how was I to do it? Would you have had me ask you to my rooms?”
It did occur to her here that a better place could have been found, since they met most nights in the week in somebody’s house; but she put the cavil by as unworthy. Since he was in her husband’s house, however, not disturbed unduly by the delicacy which had troubled him overnight, it would be as well to hear what he suggested.
“I’m not going to be unreasonable,” he told her; “I shall settle down presently, and things will jog along, no doubt, for a bit. But at this moment, when I have just won you—after two years, Molly, after two years—I must have you more or less alone for a few days. Upon my soul, I think you owe me that.”
He made her feel that she really did; but he frightened her, too. She looked quickly into his face, where he knelt gazing at hers. “You must tell me what you mean,” she said. “I don’t understand. Alone? For a few days? That is surely impossible.”
He explained with eagerness. “Of course, of course! Don’t, for God’s sake, misunderstand. I would not ask you to do anything which would cause you discomfort. Heaven forbid. I said, ‘more or less alone.’ Isn’t that plain enough? If I can’t see you here, it can only be at some of these infernal crowds we all flock to—and how can we be sure of a moment there? Look here, my dearest, think of this plan. I should like you to go and stay with your people for a bit.”
That did sound feasible. Her quick mind jumped after his instantly. “My people?” she said, wondering. “Yes, I should love to see them all again. Jinny, my sister, is going to be married. I should have gone for that in any event. Yes, of course, I could go there if——”
He poured out his plans. She should go to Blackheath at once, and he would take her down, leave her at the door. He should take rooms in Greenwich: there was an hotel there, not bad at all. You looked over the river; the shipping was magnificent. Every day he would meet her somewhere—they would both be unknown. Every day they would spend together: Greenwich Park, the river; they could sail to the Nore, round the Mouse. It would be Heaven, he said. And then he pleaded—his love, his misery, his longing. “Without you I’m a lost soul, Mary; if I’m worth saving, come and save me. In the sight of Heaven you were mine on the day I kissed you first. Do you remember when that was? How long ago? Do you think I have forgotten it? Never, never. That kiss sealed you mine—mine for ever. And what am I asking of you now? A few days’ human companionship—a sop which you are to throw to a starving man. Haven’t you charity enough for that? Ah, but I see that you have—you can’t hide it from me.” She could not.
He went on from strength to strength. “I save the proprieties by this plan; I secure you absolutely from prying eyes and profane tongues. You will have your people, your mother, to fall back upon if I could be—if you could fear me scoundrel enough—My beloved! I wrong you to name such a thought. You may disapprove of me—you may be hurt—God forgive me! by things that I say, do, look. They are things wrung from me by this throttling passion—for three years I have been gripped by the throat. Ah, and it must end, or be the end of me! Well—Molly, look at me. What will you tell me?”
She did look at him then—for one dewy moment. Pity, kindness, infinite wistfulness, pride—mingled in the fire, melted, and lay gleaming in her eyes. Wonderingly she searched his face, ready to quail before the savagery she expected to read there; but he was wise—she could find nothing there but honesty, frank and manly desire; for he saw to it that she should not. Before she turned her head she had given him her hand. He stooped and kissed it softly; then went away.
Before dinner she went to her husband in the library where he sat, with his reading-lamp, blue-books, and spectacles. “Come in,” he had called in answer to her knock, but did not turn when she entered. As she approached his desk, approached his studious back, she felt like a school-girl, coming to ask if she might leave early—with a fibbing reason for the teacher, which disguised the secret, fearful joy of the real reason. The school-girl showed in every halting word, in every flicker of the covering eyelids. . . .
“I was going to ask you—Would you mind if I were to go to my people for a few days—soon? Would you be able to spare me, do you think?”
He turned quickly, hurt by her meekness. “My love! Of course! Can you ask me such things?”
She could not afford tenderness from him just now. She took a business-like tone.
“My sister is to be married shortly, as you know. There is a good deal to do. I could help mother, you know. Jinny is staying with Mr. Podmore’s family.”
He nodded approvingly. “Quite so, quite so. It would be only kind. You have engagements, no doubt—but nothing pressing, I suppose. Have we not people here, by the way?”
“Not until the 26th. This is the 11th.”
“Yes, yes, my dear. Make whatever arrangements suit you. When do you think of going?”
“I thought, the day after to-morrow. But——”
“Well, my love?”
“I should not care to go, if I thought—that you might want me.”
He turned to his desk. “Want you!” he said under his breath. “Want you!” So careful was he that she could never have guessed the bitterness of that soft cry.
But she lingered yet. “Of course—it is quite close to town. You could write—or telegraph—I could come in a moment.”
“Yes, my dear one, yes,” he said, his face averted. “It would be easy enough. But I am not likely to disturb you in your happiness.”
This would never do. “It would be my duty to come.”
He groaned. “Oh, my dearest, spare me!”
She must misconstrue that, or she must fail; she must gulp it down, and she did—but it turned her sick.
“Thank you,” she said staidly. “Then I will write to mother.” Her fingers were within an inch of his shoulder; they hovered over, almost touched it. Then she went. He covered his face with his hands. I think he prayed.
As she lay watchful in her bed the night before her escapade, she vowed that she had no love for Tristram, none whatever. At the same moment she protested with a cry that she had none for her husband either; indeed, it was rather the other way. Surely, surely, she was entitled to resentment against that poor gentleman. For what reason under Heaven had he broken in upon her laborious days if, now that he had her, she was to be no more to him than a figure at his table? Was this the whole duty of wives? She knew better than that. Nay, then, had wives no rights? Was she bought to be a nun? She declared to herself that she would be willing, should that enable her to help him in his work. But she knew that nothing would enable her; she had insight enough into character to read what manner of man he was. “He can tell me nothing—nothing. And the more he needs me the less he can say so. If I went to him on my knees and begged him to be open with me, he would shrivel before my face. No, no, he must be for ever bestowing favours—he loves to be the benefactor—and that’s all he loves. If he could pity me he would love me again—in his way. But—” and she clenched her little hands and stiffened her arms—“he shall never pity me—never.” And then she blushed all over to feel how she had crept to him to ask his leave of absence, and how she had cowered there, with drooping eyelids too heavy to be raised. Alas! and how she had fibbed.
A thought of Tristram here, of his kisses and strong arms about her, made her heart beat. The wild joy of being possessed by so fine a creature was not to be denied, once you blinked the truth that in the very act of taking possession he would despise you for suffering it. That had to be blinked, though. Whatever she might have become by right of marriage, by intercourse with Tristram’s own world, by familiarity with its ways—to Tristram she was still a little governess, sent into this world to be kissed and fondled—but no possible companion for a gentleman, or man of parts. Formerly, if she had felt this, she had accepted it; but now—well, it had to be blinked. Mary was no fool. She knew quite well that she had learned the ways of the great. She knew that she was a success. She had been clever enough from the beginning to see that safety lay only in being absolutely herself. While she had gone in and out of Misperton Brand, from school-house to church and back, she had turned her eyes and ears—all her senses—upon these lords of the earth who were lords without effort. Her Cantacutes, James Germains, and their friends—every gesture of theirs had been a study to her. By instinct she had bored into the very marrow of these people. They alone in the world could afford to be themselves. And directly she could afford it she put that into practice—with success, as she knew very well. Tristram Duplessis, however, would have none of that, ignored it. He was entirely himself, too, and never allowed her to forget that she was his inferior. Every look he gave her was, in its way, an insult, implied “You are mine, my dear, for the picking up.” She knew that she ought to be offended—but she was not offended. She knew that such a homage as his was not flattering—and yet she was flattered by it. Then why should she run away from what pleased her? As she asked herself this question, to which the answer had been so easy a little while before, she found herself now echoing more faintly her “Why, indeed?” Was not love a necessity to women? Was she to have none of it? Was she to be an unwedded wife for ever, and unloved? What had her friend told her, that wonderful day in the Park when, it had seemed, the scales fell from her eyes and she saw men and women where before she had seen herds, dressed by the milliner and marshalled by the police? Love, he had said, is a real thing—one of the few real things we have; and it has been turned by the lawyers into a means of securing real property. “It’s bad enough that women should lend themselves to that; but worse things are done in love’s name, I believe.” Well then, if Tristram loved her, in his way, was she not justified in giving him what she had left to give? At that moment she felt his arms about her, his breath upon her cheeks. Yes, yes, he loved her—he had always loved her. Let come what might of that.
She turned on the light and left her bed; she sat at her writing-table and scribbled a few words on a sheet—“I am going to Blackheath to-morrow—by train. I shall leave Charing-cross at 4.15.” She put that in an envelope, wrote his name and address, stamped it. Now, what was the time? Two o’clock? It could still be posted so that he would get it at eight. Dressing gown, slippers, a hasty twist to her hair, a cloak and hood—she opened her door noiselessly and crept downstairs.
She was some time unfastening the front door—time enough to cool; time enough to decide with a leaden heart that she had no love for Tristram. The keen pale air tempered her still further. “Be yourself,” she had been told; and “Sincerity is the whole matter.” Insincerity! There lay the sin. She had to go to the corner of the Square to the pillar-box; but not a soul was in sight: it could be done. Gathering her cloak about her, she ventured out, and walked tiptoe forward, with eyes all astare for a policeman or late cab. . . .
The houses seemed made of eyes; there was not a blind window but had a witness in it. Mocking, leering, incredulous, curious, heavily reproving she dragged before them her load of shame. Oh, that it should have come to this, that she was a spectacle for all London’s reproach! But she sped onwards on light feet, her letter in her hand.
Where Hill-street broadens into the Square stands a great lamp, the centre, as it were, of a pool of light. There had been a storm of wind and rain in the early part of that night, and the surface of the road was fretted with gleaming reflections where mud and water had been blown up into billows. As she stood for a second or two by the pillar-box, her letter not yet posted, her eyes, painfully acute, fell upon this wide, dimpled and cresseted bay, and, although her mind was disturbed, took some sort of interest in the effect. Following the light inwards, she found her looks arrested by something else—a torn spray of a tree, blown, no doubt, from one of the planes in the Square garden—which lay by the pillar-box, almost at her feet. It was about eighteen inches long, bent in the midst, and pointed to the north. Strictly, it pointed north-west.
Immediately she remembered the patteran which Senhouse had explained to her. Wonderful thing—if he had passed this way while she was contending with her sin, and had laid this sure sign in the road to show her where he was to be found! It pointed to the north—no! to the north-west. That seemed to make a certainty of it. Her heart beat high, and the flood of happiness rose within her until she seemed to be bathed in it to the chin. She stood alone in that great glaring emptiness, unconscious of everything but her triumphant release from bondage. To the north—safety was in the north, comradeship, health, freedom to breathe and move her limbs! Smiling to herself, she dropped her letter into the pillar-box, picked up the patteran and returned swiftly to the house, to bed and to happy sleep. Absolved! She was absolved.
In the morning she arose with the feeling of elation one has at the opening of an honest adventure; the day is before you, the world lies mapped out; you are not to fail—you cannot. She dressed, breakfasted and read her letters. There was one from Tristram, which she had not even the curiosity to open. She lit the corner of it at the spirit-lamp and held it daintily out while it curled and blackened under the flame and dropped in charred flakes into the slop basin. Ghosts of words in silver characters flickered as they perished—she saw “homage,” “heart’s queen,” “kiss,” and “my arms.” She wrote to her mother at Blackheath that she was unexpectedly delayed but hoped to come soon. She would write again, she said, or send a telegram. Meantime a trunk would arrive and might wait for her. At eleven she asked if Mr. Germain was up, and being told that he was, went in to see him.
If he had been in the mood to notice anything but his own troubles, he must have remarked upon her altered habit. She was radiantly well, self-possessed, and cool. She kissed his forehead lightly, asked how he had slept, and then told him that she was lunching out and should have her luggage sent down to Blackheath. She had given orders to her maid, and should not want the carriage.
Mr. Germain listened heavily, fingering a blue-book and a pencil. He made no inquiries, had no suggestions to offer. She anticipated what he might have had to say as to an approaching visit of the James Germains by telling him that all arrangements had been made—and then she said, “I won’t disturb you again. I know that you are very busy.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “My work presses upon me.” He sighed, and then asked with studied politeness, “You go to-day?”
She laughed. “I’ve just been telling you about it.” She stooped and kissed his forehead again. “Good-bye,” she said, “I’ll write, of course—if you’ll promise to read what I send you.”
He caught his breath, and shut his eyes tightly as if something hurt him; but he did not move from his chair. Nor did he once seek to meet her eyes. She could see that he was deeply depressed, but felt no pity for him just then. Her youth was too strong within her, her adventure too near, and her freedom too certain. Yet she hovered above him looking down at him drooped in his chair, quivering over him, as it were, like some gossamer insect new-dawning to the sun. A word, a sigh, a look would have netted her in; but nothing came. He sat stonily astare, his face hidden by his hand—the other keeping his page in the blue-book. Looking down, as from the battlements of heaven an archangel might survey the earth, she touched his shoulder with her finger-tips, and was gone.
In reasoning it all out, or rather in flashing her instinct upon events—for that was her way—she knew that Senhouse could not himself have laid the patteran for her guidance. None the less, she was sure it was intended for her, and that it pointed truly to where he was. It was June; he would be in Cumberland. Wastwater would find him, he had said. Her plan, as she worked it out, was to take train to Kendal and inquire.
This she did. While her trunk and dressing-case were being delivered at Heath View, and while Duplessis was biting his nails under the clock at Charing Cross Station, she was being carried smoothly to the north, snugly in a corner of a third-class carriage, her cheek to the window-pane, and her bright unwinking eyes watching the landscape as it rushed up to meet her. The villa gardens and hedgerows of Herts, the broad Leicestershire cornfields, Bletchley with its spire, Rugby, Crewe, then the dark over all; but scarcely for a moment did her eyes leave the nearing north. She arrived at Kendal at midnight, and had some tea. Then she found the ladies’ waiting-room, lay on the sofa, and slept.
The James Germains paid a visit to Hill-street in June. It was most unfortunate that it was so wet, but the time was otherwise convenient, since Mary was away on a visit to her people. This was how Mrs. James put it—she was never remarkable for tact. Nor did she care to be. Surely, she would say, openness is best. Mary once departed, then, Mrs. James was installed the very next day. The Rector followed her.
From the first he did not like his brother’s looks. John, he thought, was ailing—ailing and ageing. He showed an unwholesome white in the cheeks, a flabby quality in the flesh, poor appetite, low spirits. Vitality was low; he was feeble. He ate hardly anything, and betrayed a tendency to fall asleep in pauses of the conversation. Yet he talked, in flashes, during dinner of his projects, with something of the old hopefulness. He had lately been asking a series of questions, agricultural questions, “somewhat carefully framed”; he had pressed the Minister in charge of such matter. He was “not without hope” that some good might result. Then a deputation of tenant-farmers had been talked of; he “should not be unwilling” to introduce that. It was very characteristic of him to talk negatively; the Rector used to trace it to a Scots ancestress—a Forbes of Lochgour. But he owned to being weary—alas, that a legislator should admit that in June! and said that he looked forward to the recess “like any schoolboy.” Mrs. James, who loved “plans,” asked him his. He had none, it seemed. “Time has pressed upon us both of late; my work and her dissipations! But I must talk it over with Mary so soon as she returns. Her wishes must carry weight with me. I should delight in showing her Switzerland—or Norway——”
“You would not, perhaps, delight in the thousands of people doing the same thing?” Here was Mrs. James, with her challenging note. The Rector marked with concern that John let it go.
She inquired whether he would resume his visits to Misperton Brand. “The Cantacutes often speak of you,” she told him, and then remembered that of course he saw the Cantacutes here in town. He bowed his head.
“Then you know, of course, that Tristram’s affair—if it ever was an affair—with Hertha is quite at an end?”
No—Mr. Germain had not known that. “I see very little of Tristram,” he told her, and resumed the question of holiday-making.
Mary had great leanings to Cornwall. She had been attracted to it upon her first visit, had often talked of it, and lately had seemed to prefer it to Switzerland. She would like to be there later in the year; spoke of November as a good month. “I cannot say that it agrees with me,” he added. “A languid, relaxing air—and in November! To my mind a visit to the Land’s End in November would be the act of a suicide. But Mary is young and strong; and her wishes are naturally mine—and her pleasures also . . . her pleasures also.” If he sighed he was not aware of it. A silence fell upon the table, which became painful to two of the three, though not to be broken. The Rector plunged back into politics. “They tell me at the clubs that Lord Craye leaves India. . . .” But it would not do. Mrs. James had the good taste to rise. The carriage was ordered at 10 to take her to a party.
When she had gone the brothers sat without speaking for some minutes. The Rector drank his claret; John Germain was in a brooding stare. The younger broke the silence.
“Dear old boy, I wish that we could have stopped up a few more days—but the Diocesan Inspector can’t be put off. I tried him with my silkiest—he’s inexorable—adamant. And then there’s Constantia, with a bazaar on her conscience. A bazaar—in July!”
John Germain did not lift his head from the hand that propped it. “My dear fellow, I understand you perfectly. We all have our duties. We must all face them . . . whatever it cost . . . whatever it cost us.”
The Rector looked keenly at him. “You are not yourself, John—that’s as clear as day. I do wish that Mary had not left you. It was not like her. She should have known—” His goaded brother sat up sharply—like one who lifts his gory head from the press of battle, descrying fresh foes.
“Mary wished to go. I could not deny her. Indeed, I wished it also. Her parents are alone, and she is useful to them. I believe, nay, I am sure that she is happy there.”
“Your belief,” said the Rector, “is as pious as the fact, and as rare. The fashion of the day is for children to tolerate their parents. The cry is, ‘You brought us into the world, Monsieur et Dame; yes, and thank you for nothing!’ Thank God, Mary hasn’t caught that trick. But I do think that, if she is needed here, a hint from you——”
“But I will give her no such hints,” Germain said fiercely. “I am not so self-engrossed. I am inured to a solitary life, and she is not. I remember her youth, I remember her activity.”
“One would have thought that London in June—” the Rector began, and was checked at once. Germain said shortly that the activity excited by London in June was not wholesome. “She is better there than here,” he added, and snapped his lips together.
James Germain, having raised his eyebrows at this oracle, immediately lowered them again, and his eyes with them. After a pause he spoke more intimately, feeling his way along a dark, surmised passage.
“I believe you to mean that all this whirl is very new to her, and over-exciting. Must you not be patient, must you not lead? Accustom her to it by degrees? You know what I think of Mary, and that I have followed her steps with interest. You have told me how bravely she held her own in the country; and you aren’t likely to forget that she had two years in which to do it. You speak of our duties—meaning, I take it, your own among others? Well, where do these lie, these duties? Where we find ourselves, or where we may choose to put ourselves? You may tell me that public life is, in a sense, your sphere—and so it is, I grant you. But when you entered Mary’s little sphere—as you did, something of the suddenest—had you not then to inquire whether that could be made elastic enough to include your own? Surely you had. This Parliamentary career of yours, now. Nobody is more naturally at Westminster than yourself: that’s of course. I wish there were more like you, men of sober judgment, weighted with their private responsibilities. Upon my conscience, Parliament seems a place for buccaneering now-a-days—a high sea. I rejoiced, I say, when you stood up. But whether you could fairly ask a girl of Mary’s training to take over such work with you—by your side—” Here John Germain held up his hand.
“One moment. You are right, James. I could not. I acted for the best, so far as I could see my way. I listened to my hopes. It was important that I should do something to interest her in—in our life together. There were reasons, serious reasons, into which I cannot now enter. Her life at Southover. . . . She was not happy, she was not contented. She could not be.”
James had now nothing to say. He frowned, to conceal his pain. John spoke on slowly, as if labouring both words and breath.
“I have failed her—I have failed her. And since that—I have held out my hands, tried to speak. I am dumb before her youth and eager life. I love her dearly, I need her—but she cannot know it, will never know it. Experience is what she cries for, not of the mouth, but of the heart and blood. I have no blood to give her, and my heart is in a cage.” He spoke calmly, with the icy breath of despair upon his mouth; but it was to be seen that his thin frame trembled. . . . “A barrier grew up between us, not made with hands. Fate made her speak when I was at my lowest; it called me to listen when she was made strong by need. Since then she has respected me through fear; loved me by duty. I should have charmed her fears away, made love her food. Alas! You know that I have failed—from the very first.”
What could the other say? What could he do but bow his head?
“. . . I have endeavoured not to be selfish in this serious matter. It would have been easy for me to have kept her in the country; a plausible thing—it was implied when I took her. But I was not able to do that. The idea of the sacrifice of one so salient and strong, so well-disposed, with so much charm, was abhorrent to me. Deliberately, knowing full well what risks I ran, I chose for this Parliamentary work; and now I have, under my eyes, the result which I feared—the snares are all about her; she cannot walk without danger. And I must watch, and be dumb.”
He sat bitterly silent for a while. Then his eyes flamed, and he struck the table with his closed hand.
“Nobody shall take her from me. There is a point beyond which I cannot go. She is mine in all duty and conscience. I am vowed to protect her, and I will do it—both now and hereafter. Where she is now she is safe from the dastardly designs which beset her here. Her father will protect her, her father’s house. When she returns, I must take some steps—I must consider my plans—I have time enough. On this I am utterly resolved, that I will rescue her soul from destruction . . . my darling from the lions . . . from the power of the dog.”
His voice broke; he could say no more; but his face was white and stern. James Germain had no help for him.
She had followed out Senhouse’s precepts as nearly to the letter as might be; neither staff nor scrip had she—no luggage at all, and very little money. In her exalted mood of resolve it had seemed a flouting of Providence to palter with the ideal. To follow the patteran unerringly—a bird’s flight to the north—one could only fail by hesitation. Time, and the pressure of that alone, had insisted on the railway. The road, no doubt, had been the letter of the law.
Perhaps, too, a map was another compromise; but she found one in the station where, having made full use of its water, hair-brushes, and looking-glass, she dallied in the gay morning light—hovering tremulous on the brink of the unknown. It showed her Wastwater—where he had told her he was always to be found; and it showed her Kendal, too, dim leagues of mountain and moor apart. A loitering lampman entered into conversation with her. He was a Langdaler, he told her; used to walk over once a week to see the old folks; and there was another call he had thither, it seems. There was a lady—his “young lady,” who took it hard if he missed his day.
He spoke profoundly of Rossett Gill and Green Tongue, of Angle Tarn and Great End, and of the shelter under Esk Hause, which many a man had been thankful of before to-day. He advised the train to Windermere, the coach to Ambleside; thence, said he, you would get another coach to the Langdales, and there the road stops and you must take to Shanks’s mare. Here he looked her up and down, not disapprovingly. “Yon’s a rough road for you,” he considered, “and the track none so sure where the ground is soft. But you’ll do it yet,” said he; “and I’m thinking there’ll be looking for ye out of Wastwater.” She blushed, and denied. “Then he’s a fule,” said the lampman. His final warning was that she should inquire at the hotel before she started off to walk. She promised, and went into the town for a breakfast.
Fold within fold, height above height, wood and rock and water, the hill-country opened to her and took her in. When she changed coaches at Ambleside she was driven into the arms of the west wind, and could feel that every mile brought her nearer to her friend. Before the end of this sunlit day she would be face to face with the one being in all this world who might know, if he would, every secret of her heart. As she thought this, she pondered it. Every secret of her heart? Might he then know all? Yes—and she could tell herself so without a blush—even to that which she dared not confess to herself; even to that, he might know them all. She was in great spirits, and there were those in her company upon the coach who could have commerced with her, by way of exchange or barter. But though her eyes sparkled, and her parted lips were dewy, she had no looks for gallant youth. She faced the north-west, and never turned her face.
The horses drew up, and stretched their necks for water and the nose-bag; the passengers tumbled into the inn for luncheon. Mary, faltering no more, struck out along the valley, up Mickleden, for the sheep-fold and Rossett Gill. The coachman had told her that this road could not be mistook; her trouble would begin from the Gill. “Follow the beck,” he said, “to Angle Tarn—that on your left hand—and over the pass. Make you then for the gap betwixt Great End and Hanging Knott. Esk Hause we call it—a lonesome place. You shall not turn to right or left, if you mind me. Due nor’-west lies your road, down and up again to the Sprinkling Tarn. Maybe you’ll find a shepherd there. ’Tis a place to want company in, they tell me. You should strike the Styhead pass near by—if you’re in luck’s way.”
At starting, she felt that she was; springs in her heels, music in her heart. Up the broad valley, over rocks and tufted fern, beside clear-running water she sped her way, until under the frowning steep of the Pikes she began to climb. Here she had needed both patience and breath; but being alone with all this mountain glory, she must frolic and spend herself. She took off boots and stockings and cooled her feet in water and moss; she crossed the beck, and re-crossed it, picked a knot of harebells for her belt, stooped to drink out of clear fountains, rested supine in deep heather, fanned herself with fronded fern, watched the clouds, the birds, bared her arms to the shoulder and plunged them after trout. She played with her prospect, and had never been so happy in her life. At five o’clock, biscuits and chocolate; and instead of being by Sprinkling Tarn she was not yet at Esk Hause.
It was here that she misgave herself, and for a moment knew the wild horror of the solitude. Man is not made for the fells; Pan haunts them, and the fear of him gripes the heart suddenly and turns man to stone. The sun, sloping, had hidden himself beyond Great End. The world looked dun and sinister—estranged from her and her little joys and hopes. She stood on a trackless moorland encompassed by mighty hills. The black earth oozed black water where she trod; right over against her stood a mass of tumbled rock, spiked at the top as with knives. She was to go neither right nor left, she had been told; but which was right and which left by now, when she had roamed broadcast and at random a few times?
The knowledge that she was intensely alone braced her against her nerves. She beat back panic and considered what had best be done. Here stood the shelter, a rude circle of stones breast-high. Within was a seat half hidden in tall fern and foxgloves. Until she knew her road more certainly, she would not leave that refuge from the night wind; but at the thought of night coming down and finding her here, alone with bat and crying bird, made her shiver. With the shelter, then, always in her eye, she explored the tableland where now she was on all sides. The walking was rough and boggy; she was near being mired more than once. Fatigue settled down upon her as her spirits fell dead; despair rose up in their place and drove her to frantic efforts. She climbed heights which could give her no helping prospect—since all was alike to her, one intricate puzzle of darkening purple valleys and clouded peaks. And here the darkness came down like a fog and found her still. She huddled closely into her cloak and sat in the shelter, while fear, reproach, and doubts of which she would never have dreamed drove howling over the field—like the warring women of the Rheinfels scenting havoc from afar off, who, or whose likes, we suppose, people the uplands in the night-time while men and women in the valleys sleep with their children about them.
At nine o’clock it was dusk, but not dark; she heard quite suddenly and with distinctness a child crying. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”—a merry note. There was no doubt that it was silver music to her. A child crying, and not far away; she left the shelter immediately, her heart clamative for this blessed solace.
It led her further than she had expected, directly away from the shelter to the edge of the moorland and down hill among rocks and boulders. She knew that she could not find her way back, knew that she had risked everything. Stopping, with her heart beating fast, she listened for the sobbing wail; caught it again, more clearly than before, and went down after it. The descent became steep, and she very hot; but now the scent also was hot, and she in full cry. Presently it struck upon her close at hand. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”
“Don’t cry,” she called out clearly. “I’m coming—don’t cry.”
The wailing stopped, but not the snivelling, by whose sound she was led. She peeped round a great buttress of rock and saw a barefoot boy, his face in his arm, crying pitifully. She ran forward and knelt by him—“What is it? Tell me what the matter is.” He showed neither surprise nor alarm—he was beyond that stage—but as she continued to coax him, put her arm round his neck and tried to draw him to her, he turned up presently his bedabbled face and gave her to understand that he was lost and hungry. Mary laughed for joy. Here was one in worse case than she. “But so am I, my dear!” she told him; “we’re lost together. It’s not half so bad when there are two of us, you know. And I’ve still got some food left. Now dry your eyes and come and sit by me—and we’ll see what we shall see.”
He had a pinched, pale face, freckled, and a shock of sandy hair which tumbled about his eyes. So far as could be seen he had no shirt; but he was company, and more—he was poorer-hearted than herself. The mother in all women awoke in her; here was a child to be nursed.
He came to her without preface and sat by her side. She did not scruple to wipe his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief; she embraced him with her arms, snuggled him to her, and fed him with chocolate and biscuits. He seemed hungry, but more frightened than hungry, and more tired than either; for when he had finished what she first gave him he lay still within her arm for some time, with his head against her bosom. Presently she found that he was simply asleep. Happier than she had been for some hours, she let him lie as he was, until presently she also felt drowsy. Then she laid him gently down in the brake, took off her hat, and lay beside the lad. The cloak covered them both; in two minutes she was asleep.
He awoke her in the small grey hours by stretching in his sleep, and then, by a sudden movement, flinging his arm over her and drawing himself close. She took him in her arms and held him fast. He was still deeply asleep. She could hear his regular breath, and feel it too. “Poor dear,” she whispered, “sleep soundly while you can.” Then she kissed him, and herself slept again.
A sense of the full light, of the warmth of the sun upon her, added to the drowsy comfort of the hours between sleep and waking. The boy was still fast, and she hardly conscious, when some shadow between her and the comfort in which she lay basking caused her to open her eyes. Above her, looking down upon her, quietly amused, stood Senhouse, holding his horse by the bridle. The long white sweater, the loose flannel trousers, bare feet, bare head—but he might have been an angel robed in light.
She sat up, blushing and misty-eyed. “It is you! You have come in my sleep. I have been two days looking for you.” The extraordinary comfort she had always felt in the man’s presence was upon her immediately. Nothing to explain, nothing to extenuate, nothing to hide—what a priceless possession, such a friend!
“Two days!” he said. “You might easily have been two months—or two years for that matter. But you have made a mighty good shot. My camp is not six hundred yards away. I’ll show you. But who’s your sleeping friend?”
She looked down at the lad, whose face was buried deep in bracken. She put her hand on his hair.
“I don’t know—some poor boy. I heard him crying last night when I had completely lost myself, and followed the sound. We comforted each other. He gave me a good night, anyhow. We kept each other warm. But I know no more of him than that. We’ll find out where he belongs to when he wakes. He wants food mostly, I think.” And then she laughed in his face—“and so do I, I believe.”
“Of course you do,” said Senhouse. “Come along, and we’ll breakfast. I’ve just been out capturing the Ghost. He had wandered far, the old beggar.”
Mary jumped up. “What are we to do with the boy?”
“Oh, he’ll sleep for an hour yet. We’ll fetch him when his grub’s ready. You must help me, you know, now you’re here.”
“Of course,” she said, and walked by him, carrying her hat in her hand. “Are you surprised to see me?” she must needs ask him.
Senhouse raised his eyebrows. “No—I won’t say that. I should like to know why you came, though. No trouble, I hope?”
She looked at him, radiant. “No trouble now. I saw your trail—your patteran—in London.”
He started. “No, indeed, you did not. I haven’t been near London since I saw you there. I came straight here by train. But I’ll tell you a curious thing. Three nights ago I dreamed of you.”
Her eyes shone. “Tell me your dream.” But he would not, and she could not make him.
Past Sprinkling Tarn, and by the pass which hangs round about the Great Gable, he led her to a green plateau, high above the track, where she could see the tent. Bingo stood up and barked a welcome short and sharp. Then he came scrambling down the scree to meet her, knew her again immediately, and was profusely happy to see her. It was all like coming home for the holidays. She turned her glowing face to Senhouse, and her brimming eyes.
“Oh, why are you so good to me, you two?” she asked him, with Bingo’s head and fore-quarters in her lap.
“Why not?” said Senhouse.