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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37781-8.txt b/37781-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7765d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/37781-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10626 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notwithstanding, by Mary Cholmondeley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Notwithstanding + +Author: Mary Cholmondeley + +Release Date: October 17, 2011 [EBook #37781] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +NOTWITHSTANDING + +By MARY CHOLMONDELEY + +AUTHOR OF "RED POTTAGE" + + Und was + Ist Zufall anders, als der rohe Stein, + Der Leben annimmt unter Bildners Hand? + +LONDON: + +JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. + +1913 + + +_First Edition October 1913_ + +_Reprinted October 1913_ + +_All rights reserved_ + + +TO + +MAY AND JEANNIE + + + + +NOTWITHSTANDING + + + + +CHAPTER I + + "Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne + M'a rendu fou!" + VICTOR HUGO. + + +Annette leaned against the low parapet and looked steadfastly at the +water, so steadfastly that all the brilliant, newly-washed, +tree-besprinkled city of Paris, lying spread before her, cleft by the +wide river with its many bridges, was invisible to her. She saw nothing +but the Seine, so tranquil yesterday, and to-day chafing beneath its +bridges and licking ominously round their great stone supports--because +there had been rain the day before. + +The Seine was the only angry, sinister element in the suave September +sunshine, and perhaps that was why Annette's eyes had been first drawn +to it. She also was angry, with the deep, still anger which invades once +or twice in a lifetime placid, gentle-tempered people. + +Her dark eyes under their long curled lashes looked down over the stone +bastion of the Pont Neuf at a yellow eddy just below her. They were +beautiful eyes, limpid, deep, with a certain tranquil mystery in them. +But there was no mystery in them at this moment. They were fixed, +dilated, desperate. + +Annette was twenty-one, but she looked much younger, owing to a certain +slowness of development, an immaturity of mind and body. She reminded +one not of an opening flower, but of a big, loose-limbed colt, ungainly +still, but every line promising symmetry and grace to come. She was not +quite beautiful yet, but that clearly was also still to come, when life +should have had time to erase a certain ruminative stolidity from her +fine, still countenance. One felt that in her schoolroom days she must +have been often tartly desired not to "moon." She gave the impression of +not having wholly emerged from the chrysalis, and her bewildered face, +the face of a dreamer, wore a strained expression, as if some cruel hand +had mockingly rent asunder the veils behind which her life had been +moving and growing so far, and had thrust her, cold and shuddering, with +unready wings, into a world for which she was not fully equipped. + +And Annette, pale gentle Annette, standing on the threshold of life, +unconsciously clutching an umbrella and a little handbag, was actually +thinking of throwing herself into the water! + +Not here, of course, but lower down, perhaps near St. Germains. No, not +St. Germains,--there were too many people there,--but Melun, where the +Seine was fringed thick with reeds and rushes, where in the dusk a +determined woman might wade out from the bank till the current took her. + +The remembrance of a certain expedition to Melun rose suddenly before +her. In a kind of anguish she saw again its little red and white houses, +sprinkled on the slope of its low hill, and the river below winding +between its willows and poplars, amid meadows of buttercups, scattered +with great posies of maythorn. She and he had sat together under one of +the may trees, and Mariette, poor Mariette, with Antoine at her feet, +had sat under another close at hand. And Mariette had sung in her thin, +reedy voice the song with its ever-recurring refrain-- + + + "Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne + Me rendra fou, oui, me rendra fou." + + +Annette shuddered and then was still. + +It must have been a very deep wound, inflicted with a jagged instrument, +which had brought her to this pass, which had lit this stony defiance in +her soft eyes. For though it was evident that she had rebelled against +life, it was equally evident that she was not of the egotistic +temperament of those who rebel or cavil, or are discontented. She looked +equable, feminine, the kind of woman who would take life easily, bend to +it naturally, + + + "As the grass grows on the weirs"; + + +who might, indeed, become a tigress in defence of her young, but then +what woman would not? + +But it is not only in defence of its babes of flesh and blood that the +protective fierceness of woman can be aroused. There are spiritual +children, ideals, illusions, romantic beliefs in others, the +cold-blooded murder of which arouses the tigress in some women. Perhaps +it had been so with Annette. For the instinct to rend and tear was upon +her, and it had turned savagely against herself. + +Strange how in youth our first crushing defeat in the experiment of +living brings with it the temptation of suicide! Did we then imagine, in +spite of all we saw going on round us, that life was to be easy for +_us_, painless for _us_, joyful for _us_, so that the moment the iron +enters our soul we are so affronted that we say, "If this is life, we +will have none of it"? + +Several passers-by had cast a backward glance at Annette. Presently some +one stopped, with a little joyous exclamation. She was obliged to raise +her eyes and return his greeting. + +She knew him, the eccentric, rich young Englishman who rode his own +horses under a French name which no one believed was his own. He often +came to her father's cabaret in the Rue du Bac. + +"Good morning, mademoiselle." + +"Good morning, M. Le Geyt." + +He came and leaned on the parapet beside her. + +"Are you not riding to-day?" + +"Riding to-day! Ride on the Flat! Is it likely? Besides, I had a fall +yesterday schooling. My neck is stiff." + +He did not add that he had all but broken it. Indeed, it was probable +that he had already forgotten the fact. + +He looked hard at her with his dancing, irresponsible blue eyes. He had +the good looks which he shared with some of his horses, of extreme high +breeding. He was even handsome in a way, with a thin, reckless, trivial +face, and a slender, wiry figure. He looked as light as a leaf, and as +if he were being blown through life by any chance wind, the wind of his +own vagaries. + +His manner had just the shade of admiring familiarity which to some men +seems admissible to the pretty daughter of a disreputable old innkeeper. + +He peered down at the river, and then at the houses crowding along its +yellow quays, mysterious behind their paint as a Frenchwoman behind her +pomade and powder. + +Then he looked back at her with mock solemnity. + +"I see nothing," he said. + +"What did you expect to see?" + +"Something that had the honour of engaging your attention completely." + +"I was looking at the water." + +"Just so. But why?" + +She paused a moment, and then said, without any change of voice-- + +"I was thinking of throwing myself in." + +Their eyes met--his, foolhardy, inquisitive, not unkindly; hers, sombre, +sinister, darkened. + +The recklessness in both of them rushed out and joined hands. + +He laughed lightly. + +"No, no," he said, "sweet Annette--lovely Annette. The Seine is not for +you. So you have quarrelled with Falconhurst already. He has managed +very badly. Or did you find out that he was going to be married? I knew +it, but I did not say. Never mind. If he is, it doesn't matter. And if +he isn't, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters." + +"You are right. Nothing matters," said Annette. Her face, always pale, +had become livid. + +His became suddenly alert, flushed, as hers paled. He sighted a possible +adventure. Excitement blazed up in his light eyes. + +"One tear," he said, "yes,--you may shed one tear. But the Seine! No. +The Seine is made up of all the tears which women have shed for men--men +of no account, worthless wretches like Falconhurst and me. You must not +add to that great flood. Leave off looking at the water, Annette. It is +not safe for you to look at it. Look at me instead. And listen to what I +am saying. You are not listening." + +"Yes, I am." + +"I'm going down to Fontainebleau for a bit. The doctor says I must get +out of Paris and keep quiet, or I shan't be able to ride at Auteuil. I +don't believe a word he says, croaking old woman! But--hang it all, I'm +bound to ride Sam Slick at Auteuil. Kirby can look after the string +while I'm at Fontainebleau. I'm going there this afternoon. Come with +me. I am not much, but I am better than the Seine. My kisses will not +choke the life out of you, as the Seine's will. We will spend a week +together, and talk matters over, and sit in the sun, and at the end of +it we shall both laugh--_how_ we shall laugh--when you remember this." +And he pointed to the swirling water. + +A thought slid through Annette's mind like a snake through grass. + +"_He_ will hear of it. He is sure to hear of it. That will hurt him +worse than if I were drowned." + +"I don't care what I do," she said, meeting his eyes without flinching. +It was he who for a moment winced when he saw the smouldering flame in +them. + +He laughed again, the old light, inconsequent laugh which came to him so +easily, with which he met good and bad fortune alike. + +"When you are as old as I am," he said not unkindly, "you will do as I +am doing now, take the good the gods provide you, and trouble your mind +about nothing else. For there's nothing in the world or out of it that +is worth troubling about. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing." + +"Nothing," echoed Annette hoarsely. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + "Et partout le spectre de l'amour, + Et nullepart l'amour." + + +The train was crawling down to Fontainebleau. Annette sat opposite her +companion, looking not at him but at the strange country through which +they were going. How well she knew it! How often she had gone down to +Fontainebleau. But to-day all the familiar lines were altered. The +townlets, up to their eyes in trees, seemed alien, dead. Presently the +forest, no longer fretted by the suburbs, came close up on both sides of +the rail. What had happened to the oaks that they seemed drawn up in +serried lines to watch her pass, like soldiers at a funeral! A cold +horror brooded over everything. She looked at her companion and withdrew +her eyes. He had said he was better than the Seine. But now she came to +meet his eyes fixed on her, was he better? She was not sure. She was not +sure of anything, except that life was unendurable and that she did not +care what happened to her. + +There had been sordid details, and there would be more. He had said it +would be better if she had a wedding ring, and he had bought her one. +The shopman had smiled offensively as he had found one to fit her. She +set her teeth at the remembrance. But she would go through with it. She +did not care. There was nothing left in the world to care about. It was +Dick Le Geyt who, thoughtless as he was, had shown some little thought +for her, had taken her to a restaurant and obliged her to eat, had put +her into the train, and then had waylaid and dismissed his valet, who +brought his luggage to the station, and who seemed at first determined +not to let his master go without him, indeed was hardly to be shaken +off, until Dick whispered something to him, when the man shrugged his +shoulders and turned away. + +Annette looked again at her companion. He had fallen suddenly asleep, +his mouth ajar. How old and shrunk and battered he looked, and how +strangely pinched! There was something unnatural about his appearance. A +horrible suspicion passed through her mind that he had been drinking. +She suddenly remembered that she had once heard a rumour of that kind +about him, and that he had lost a race by it. She had to waken him when +they reached Fontainebleau, and then, after a moment's bewilderment, he +resumed all his alertness and feather-headed promptitude. + +Presently she was in a bedroom in an old-fashioned inn, and was looking +out of the window at a little garden, with tiny pebbled walks, and a +fountain, and four stunted, clipped acacia trees. + +The hotel was quite full. She had been asked some question as to whether +the room would do, and she had said it would. She had hardly glanced at +it. It was the only room to be had. And Dick's luggage was carried up to +it. The hotel-people took for granted his baggage was hers as well as +his. She remembered that she had none, and smoothed her hair +mechanically with her hands, while an admiring little chamber-maid +whisked in with hot water. + +And presently, in the hot, tawdry salle à manger, there was a meal, and +she was sitting at a little table with Dick, and all the food was +pretence, like the tiny wooden joints and puddings in her doll's house +which she used to try to eat as a child. These were larger, and she +tried to eat them, but she could not swallow anything. She wondered how +the others could. And the electric light flickered, and once it went +out, and Dick laughed. And he ordered champagne for her and made her +drink some. And then, though he said he must not touch it, he drank some +himself, and became excited, and she was conscious that a spectacled +youth with projecting teeth turned to look at them. There was a +grey-haired Englishwoman sitting alone at the nearest table. Annette saw +her eyes rest on her for a moment with veiled compassion. + +All her life afterwards, she remembered that evening as a nightmare. But +it was not a nightmare at the time. She was only an on-looker: a dazed, +callous spectator of something grotesque which did not affect her--a +mirthless, sordid farce which for some obscure forgotten reason it was +necessary for her to watch. That she was herself the principal actor in +the farce, and that the farce had the makings of a tragedy, did not +occur to her. She was incapable of action and of thought. + +Later in the evening she was in her bedroom again, sitting with her +hands in her lap, vacantly staring at the wall with its mustard-coloured +roses on a buff ground, when two grinning waiters half carried, half +hustled in Dick, gesticulating and talking incoherently. They helped him +into bed: the elder one waited a moment, arms a-kimbo, till Dick fell +suddenly asleep, and then said cheerfully and reassuringly-- + +"C'est ça, madame," and withdrew. + +Annette got up instinctively to go too, but she remembered that she had +nowhere to go, that it was close on midnight, that she was in her own +room with which she had expressed herself satisfied, that she and her +companion were passing at the hotel as husband and wife. She felt no +horror, no sense of the irremediable folly she had committed. She stood +a moment, and then drew the curtain and sat down by the window, looking +out, as she had sat all the previous night in her little bedroom in her +father's cabaret, out of which she had slunk like a thief as soon as it +was light. Her spellbound faculties were absorbed in one mental +picture, which was to her the only reality, as the cobra is the only +reality to the dove. She forgot where she was. She forgot the heavy +breathing of her companion, stirring uneasily in his sleep. She saw +only, as she had seen all day, the smoking, hideous ruin of that +wonderful castle of dreams which she had built stone by stone during the +last year, into the secret chamber of which she had walled up that shy, +romantic recluse her heart: that castle of dreams in which she paced on +a rainbow mosaic, which she had tapestried with ideals and prayers and +aspirations, in the midst of which there was a shrine. + +There was nothing left of it now, worse than nothing, only a smoking, +evil-smelling hump of débris, with here and there a flapping rag of what +had once been stately arras or cloth of gold. It had reeled and crashed +down into the slime in a moment's space. The thunder of its fall had +deafened her to all other noises; its smoke had blinded her to all other +sights. Oh! why had she let herself be dissuaded from her only refuge +against this unendurable vision seared in upon her brain? It had been +agony. It would be agony again. If Dick had let her alone, she would be +at rest now, quite away from it all, her body floating down to the sea +in the keeping of the kind, cool river, and her outraged soul +escaped--escaped. + +But she would do it still. She would creep away a second time at dawn, +as soon as the house was stirring. There must be a river somewhere--if +not a big river, a little one with deep pools. She would find it. And +this time she would not let herself be dissuaded. This time she would +drown herself, if the water were only knee-deep. And her mind being made +up, she gave a little sigh, and leaned her aching forehead against the +glass. + +The man in the bed stirred, and feebly stammered out the word "Annette" +once and again. But Annette did not hear him, and after a time he +muttered and moved no more. + +And when the dawn came up at last, it found Annette, who had watched for +it wide-eyed all night, sunk down asleep, with her head upon the sill. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + "Vous êtes bien pâle, ma belle, + Comment vous appelez-vous? + Je suis l'amante, dit-elle. + Cueillez la branche de houx." + + +Annette stirred at last when a shaft of sunlight fell upon her head. She +sat up stiffly, and stared round the unfamiliar chamber, with the low +sun slanting across the floor and creeping up the bottom of the door. +Nothing stirred. A chill silence made itself felt. The room seemed to be +aware of something, to be beforehand with her. Some nameless instinct +made her get up suddenly and go to the bed. + +Dick Le Geyt was lying on his back, with his eyes wide open. There was a +mute appeal in his sharp-featured face, sharper featured than ever +before, and in his thin outstretched hands, with the delicate nervous +fingers crooked. He had needed help, and he had not found it. He had +perhaps called to her, and she had not listened. She had been deaf to +everything except herself. A sword seemed to pierce Annette's brain. It +was as if some tight bandage were cleft and violently riven from it. She +came shuddering to herself from out of the waking swoon of the last two +days. Hardly knowing what she did, she ran out of the room and into the +passage. But it must be very early yet. No one was afoot. What to do +next? She must rouse some one, and at once. But whom? She was about to +knock at the nearest door, when she heard a hurried movement within, and +the door opened. + +A grey-haired woman in a dressing-gown looked out, the same whom she had +seen the night before at dinner. + +"I thought I heard some one call," she said. "Is anything wrong?" Then, +as Annette leaned trembling against the wall, "Can I be of any use?" + +Annette pointed to her own open door, and the woman went in with her at +once. + +She hastened instantly to the bed and bent over it. She touched the +forehead, the wrist, with rapid, business-like movements. She put her +hand upon Dick's heart. + +"Is he dead?" asked Annette. + +"No," she said, "but he is unconscious, and he is very ill. It is some +kind of seizure. When did your husband become like this?" + +"I--don't know," said Annette. + +The woman turned indignantly upon her. + +"You don't know! Yet surely you sat up with him? You look as if you had +been up all night." + +"I sat up, but I did not look at him," said Annette. "I never thought he +was ill." + +The elder woman's cheek reddened at the callousness of Annette's words, +as at a blow. She was silent for a moment, and then said coldly-- + +"We have only one thing to think of now, and that is how to save his +life, if it can be saved." + +And in a moment, as it seemed to Annette, the house was awakened, and a +doctor and a Sister of Mercy appeared and were installed at Dick's +bedside. After a few hours, consciousness came back intermittently; but +Dick, so excitable the day before, took but little heed of what went on +around him. When, at the doctor's wish, Annette spoke to him, he looked +at her without recognition. + +The doctor was puzzled, and asked her many questions as to his condition +on the previous day. She remembered that he had had a fall from his +horse a day or two before, and had hurt his neck; and the doctor +established some mysterious link between the accident and the illness, +which he said had been terribly aggravated by drink. Had Monsieur taken +much stimulant the night before? Yes, Monsieur had appeared to be +intoxicated. + +Mrs. Stoddart's steel eyes softened somewhat as she looked at Annette. +She and the doctor noticed the extreme exhaustion from which she was +suffering, and exchanged glances. Presently Mrs. Stoddart took the girl +to her own room, and helped her to undress, and made her lie down on her +bed. + +"I will bring you your dressing-gown, if you will tell me where it is." + +"I don't know," said Annette; and then she recollected, and said, "I +haven't any things with me." + +"Not even a handkerchief?" + +"I think not a handkerchief." + +"How long is it since you have slept?" + +"I don't know." These words seemed her whole stock-in-trade. + +Mrs. Stoddart frowned. + +"I can't have you ill on my hands too," she said briskly; "one is +enough." And she left the room, and presently came back with a glass +with a few drops in it. She made Annette swallow them, and put a warm +rug over her, and darkened the room. + +And presently Annette's eyes closed, and the anguish of the last two +days was lifted from her, as a deft hand lifts a burden. She sighed and +leaned her cheek against a pillow which was made of rest; and presently +she was wandering in a great peace in a wide meadow beside a little +stream whispering among its forget-me-nots. And across the white clover, +and the daisies, and the little purple orchids, came the feet of one who +loved her. And they walked together beside the stream, the kind, +understanding stream, he and she--he and she together. And all was well, +all was well. + + +Many hours later, Mrs. Stoddart and the doctor came and looked at her, +and he thrust out his under lip. + +"I can't bear to wake her," she said. + +"One little half-hour, then," he said, and went back to the next room. + +Mrs. Stoddart sat down by the bed, and presently Annette, as if +conscious of her presence, opened her eyes. + +"I see now," she said slowly, looking at Mrs. Stoddart with the fixed +gravity of a child, "I was wrong." + +"How wrong, my dear?" + +"Rivers are not meant for that, nor the little streams either. They are +not meant to drown oneself in. They are meant to run and run, and for us +to walk beside, and pick forget-me-nots." + +Mrs. Stoddart's scrutinizing eyes filled with sudden tears. What tragedy +was this into which she had thrust herself? She drew back the curtain, +and let the afternoon light fall on Annette's face. Her eyelids +trembled, and into her peaceful, rapt face distress crept slowly back. +Mrs. Stoddart felt as if she had committed a crime. But there was +another to think of besides Annette. + +"You have slept?" + +"Yes. I ought not to have gone to sleep while Dick was ill." + +"You needed sleep." + +"Is--is he better?" + +"He is somewhat better." + +"I will go to him." + +"He does not need you just now." + +"Has the doctor found out what is the matter with him?" + +"He thinks he has." Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly. "As far as I +understand, there is a cerebral lesion, and it is possible that it may +not be as serious as he thought at first. It may have been aggravated +for the moment by drink, the effects of which are passing off. But there +is always the risk--in this case a great risk--that the injury to the +brain may increase. In any case, his condition is very grave. His family +ought to be communicated with at once." + +Annette stared at her in silence. + +"They _must_ be summoned," said Mrs. Stoddart. + +"But I don't know who they are," said Annette. "I don't even know his +real name. He is called Mr. Le Geyt. It is the name he rides under." + +Mrs. Stoddart reddened. She had had her doubts. + +"A wife should know her husband's name," she said. + +"But, you see, I'm not his wife." + +There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Stoddart's eyes fell on Annette's +wedding ring. + +"That is nothing," said Annette. "Dick said I had better have one, and +he bought it in a shop before we started. I think I'll take it off. I +hate wearing it." + +"No, no. Keep it on." + +There was another silence. + +"But you must know his address." + +"No. I know he is often in Paris. But I have only met him at--at a +cabaret." + +"Could you trust me?" said Mrs. Stoddart humbly. + +Annette trembled, and her face became convulsed. + +"You are very kind," she said, "very kind,--getting the nurse, and +helping, and this nice warm rug, and everything,--but I'm afraid I can't +trust anyone any more. I've left off trusting people." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + "Et je m'en vais + Au vent mauvais + Qui m'emporte + Deçà, delà, + Pareille à la + Feuille morte." + VERLAINE. + + +It was the second day of Dick's illness. Annette's life had revived +somewhat, though the long sleep had not taken the strained look from her +eyes. But Mrs. Stoddart's fears for her were momentarily allayed. Tears +were what she needed, and tears were evidently a long way off. + +And Annette fought for the life of poor Dick as if he were indeed her +bridegroom, and Mrs. Stoddart abetted her as if he were her only son. +The illness was incalculable, abnormal. There were intervals of lucidity +followed by long lapses into unconsciousness. There were hours in which +he seemed to know them, but could neither speak nor move. There were +times when it appeared as if the faint flame of life had flickered quite +out, only to waver feebly up again. + +Together the two women had searched every article of Dick's effects, but +they could find no clue to his address or identity. Annette remembered +that he had had a pocket-book, and seeing him take a note out of it to +pay for the tickets. But the pocket-book could not be found, or any +money. It was evident that he had been robbed that first evening when he +was drinking. Some of his handkerchiefs were marked with four initials, +R. L. G. M. + +"Richard Le Geyt M. Then he had another name as well," said Mrs. +Stoddart. "You can't recall having ever heard it?" + +Annette shook her head. + +"He is supposed to be an English lord," she said, "and very rich. And he +rides his own horses, and makes and loses a great deal of money on the +turf. And he is peculiar--very depressed one year, and very wild the +next. That is all that people like us who are not his social equals know +of him." + +"I do not even know what _your_ name is," said Mrs. Stoddart +tentatively, as she rearranged Dick's clothes in the drawers, and took +up a bottle of lotion which had evidently been intended for his strained +neck. + +"My name is Annette." + +"Well, Annette, I think the best thing you can do is to write to your +home and say that you are coming back to it immediately." + +"I have no home." + +Mrs. Stoddart was silent. Any information which Annette vouchsafed about +herself always seemed to entail silence. + +"I have made up my mind," Annette went on, "to stay with Dick till he +is better. He is the only person I care a little bit about." + +"No, Annette, you do not care for him. It is remorse for your neglect of +him that makes you nurse him with such devotion." + +"I do not love him," said Annette. "But then, how could I? I hardly know +him. But he meant to be kind to me. He was the only person who was kind. +He tried to save me, though not in the right way. Poor Dick, he does not +know much. But I must stay and nurse him till he is better. I can't +desert him." + +"My dear," said Mrs. Stoddart impatiently, "that is all very well, but +you cannot remain here without a scandal. It is different for an old +woman like myself. And though we have not yet got into touch with his +family, we shall directly. If I can't get a clue otherwise, I shall +apply to the police. You must think of your own character." + +"I do not care about my character," said Annette in the same tone in +which she might have said she did not care for black coffee. + +"But I do," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself. + +"And I have a little money," Annette continued,--"at least, not much +money, only a few louis,--but I have these." And she drew out from her +neck a row of pearls. They were not large pearls, but they were even and +beautifully matched. + +"They were mother's," she said. "They will be enough for the doctor and +the nurse and the hotel bill, won't they?" + +Mrs. Stoddart put down the bottle of lotion and took the pearls in her +hand, and bent over them, trying to hide her amazement. + +"They are very good," she said slowly,--"beautiful colour and shape." +Then she raised her eyes, and they fell once more on the bottle. + +"But what am I thinking of?" she said sharply. "There is the clue I need +staring me in the face. How incredibly stupid I am! There is the Paris +chemist's name on it, and the number of the prescription. I can wire to +him for the address to which he sent the bottle." + +"Dick has a valet at his address," said Annette, "and of course he would +know all about his people." + +"How do you know he has a valet?" + +"He met Dick at the station with the luggage. He was to have come to +Fontainebleau with him, but Dick sent him back at the last moment, I +suppose because of--me." + +"Would you know him again if you saw him?" + +"Yes. I watched Dick talking to him for several minutes. He would not go +away at first. Perhaps he knew Dick was ill and needed care." + +"Most likely. Did he see you?" + +"No." + +"Are you certain?" + +"Quite certain." + +"There is then one microscopic mercy to be thankful for. Then no one +knows that you are here with Mr. Le Geyt?" + +"No one, but I dare say it will be known presently," said Annette +apathetically. + +"Not if I can prevent it," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself as she put on +her pince-nez and went out to telegraph to the chemist. + +Annette went back to the bedside, and the Sister withdrew to the window +and got out her breviary. + +Annette sat down and leaned her tired head against the pillow with +something like envy of Dick's unconsciousness. Would a certain hideous +picture ever be blotted out from her aching brain? Her only respite from +it was when she could minister to Dick. He was her sole link with life, +the one fixed point in a shifting quicksand. She came very near to +loving him in these days. + +Presently he stirred and sighed, and opened his eyes. They wandered to +the ceiling, and then fell idly on her without knowing her, as they had +done a hundred times. Then recognition slowly dawned in them, clear and +grave. + +She raised her head, and they looked long at each other. + +"Annette," he said in a whisper, "I am sorry." + +She tried to speak, but no words came. + +"Often, often, when I have been lying here," he said feebly, "I have +been sorry, but I could never say so. Just when I saw your face clear I +always went away again, a long way off. Would you mind holding my hand, +so that I may not be blown away again?" + +She took it in both of hers and held it. + +There was a long silence. A faint colour fluttered in his leaden cheek. + +"I never knew such a wind," he said. "It's stronger than anything in the +world, and it blows and blows, and I go hopping before it like a leaf. I +have to go. I really can't stay." + +"You are much better. You will soon be able to get up." + +"I don't know where I'm going, but I don't care. I don't want to get up. +I'm tired--tired." + +"You must not talk any more." + +"Yes, I must. I have things to say. You are holding my hand tight, +Annette?" + +"Yes. Look, I have it safe in mine." + +"I ought not to have brought you here. You were in despair, and I took +advantage of it. Can you forgive me, Annette?" + +"Dear Dick, there is nothing to forgive. I was more to blame than you." + +"It was instead of the Seine. That was the excuse I made to myself. But +the wind blows it away. It blows everything away--everything, +everything.... Don't be angry again like that, Annette. Promise me you +won't. You were too angry, and I took a mean advantage of it.... I once +took advantage of a man's anger with a horse, but it brought me no +luck. I thought I wouldn't do it again, but I did. And I haven't got +much out of it this time either. I'm dying, or something like it. I'm +going away for good and all. I'm so tired I don't know how I shall ever +get there." + +"Rest a little, Dick. Don't talk any more now." + +"I want to give you a tip before I go. An old trainer put me up to it, +and he made me promise not to tell anyone, and I haven't till now. But I +want to do you a good turn to make up for the bad one. He said he'd +never known it fail, and I haven't either. I've tried it scores of +times. When you're angry, Annette, look at a cloud." Dick's blue eyes +were fixed with a great earnestness on hers. "Not just for a minute. +Choose a good big one, like a lot of cotton wool, and go on looking at +it while it moves. And the anger goes away. Sounds rot, doesn't it? But +you simply can't stay angry. Seems as if everything were too small and +footling to matter. Try it, Annette. Don't look at water any more. +That's no use. But a cloud--the bigger the better.... You won't drown +yourself now, will you?" + +"No." + +"Annette rolling down to the sea over and over, knocking against the +bridges. I can't bear to think of it. Promise me." + +"I promise." + +He sighed, and his hand fell out of hers. She laid it down. The great +wind of which he spoke had taken him once more, whither he knew not. +She leaned her face against the pillow and longed that she too might be +swept away whither she knew not. + +The doctor came in and looked at them. + +"Are his family coming soon?" he asked Mrs. Stoddart afterwards. "And +Madame Le Geyt! Can Madame's mother be summoned? There has been some +great shock. Her eyes show it. It is not only Monsieur who is on the +verge of the precipice." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + "And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave + Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave + To waste in foam." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Towards evening Dick regained consciousness. + +"Annette." That was always the first word. + +"Here." That was always the second. + +"I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never +find it, but I had to come." + +He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it. + +"You must help me. I have no one but you." + +His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to +his. They were like two shipwrecked people--were they not indeed +shipwrecked?--cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of +the sea. + +"What can I do?" she said. "Tell me, and I will do it." + +"I have made no provision for Mary or--the little one. I promised her I +would when it was born. But I haven't done it. I thought of it when I +fell on my head. But when I was better next day I put it off. I always +put things off.... And it's not only Mary. There's Hulver, and the +Scotch property, and all the rest. If I die without making a will it +will all go to poor Harry." He was speaking rapidly, more to himself +than to her. "And when father was dying he said, 'Roger ought to have +it.' Father was a just man. And I like Roger, and he's done his duty by +the place, which I haven't. He _ought_ to have it. Annette, help me to +make my will. I was on my way to the lawyer's to make it when I met you +on the bridge." + + +Half an hour later, in the waning day, the notary arrived, and Dick made +his will in the doctor's presence. His mind was amazingly clear. + +"Is he better?" asked Mrs. Stoddart of the doctor, as she and the nurse +left the room. + +"Better! It is the last flare up of the lamp," said the doctor. "He is +right when he says he shan't get back here again. He is riding his last +race, but he is riding to win." + +Dick rode for all he was worth, and urged the doctor to help him, to +keep his mind from drifting away into the unknown. + +The old doctor thrust out his under lip and did what he could. + +By Dick's wish, Annette remained in the room, but he did not need her. +His French was good enough. He knew exactly what he wanted. The notary +was intelligent, and brought with him a draft for Dick's signature. Dick +dictated and whispered earnestly to him. + +"Oui, oui," said the notary at intervals. "Parfaitement. Monsieur peut +se fier à moi." + +At last it was done, and Dick, panting, had made a kind of signature, +his writing dwindling down to a faint scrawl after the words "Richard Le +Geyt," which were fairly legible. + +The doctor attested it. + +"She must witness it too," said Dick insistently, pointing to Annette. + +The notary glanced at the will, realized that she was not a legatee, and +put the pen in her hand, showing her where to sign. + +"Madame will write here." + +He indicated the place under his own crabbed signature. + +She wrote mechanically her full name: _Annette Georges_. + +"But, madame," said the notary, bewildered, "is not then Madame's name +the same as Monsieur's?" + +"Madame is so lately married that she sometimes signs her old name by +mistake," said the doctor, smiling sadly. He took a pained interest in +the young couple, especially in Annette. + +"I am not Monsieur's wife," said Annette. + +The notary stared, bowed, and gathered up his papers. The doctor busied +himself with the sick man, spent and livid on his pillow. + +"Approach then, madame," he said, with a great respect. "It is you +Monsieur needs." And he withdrew with the notary. + +Annette groped her way to the bed. The room had become very dark. The +floor rose in long waves beneath her feet, but she managed to reach the +bed and sink down beside it. + +What matter now if she were tired. She had done what he asked of her. +She had not failed him. What matter if she sank deeper still, down and +down, as she was sinking now. + +"Annette." Dick's voice was almost extinct. + +"Here." + +"The wind is coming again. Across the sea, across the mountains, over +the plains. It is the wind of the desert. Can't you hear it?" + +She shook her head. She could hear nothing but his thin thread of voice. + +"I am going with it, and this time I shan't come back. Good-bye, +Annette." + +"Good-bye, Dick." + +His eyes dwelt on hers, with a mute appeal in them. The forebreath of +the abyss was upon him, the shadow of "the outer dark." + +She understood, and kissed him on the forehead with a great tenderness, +and leaned her cold cheek against his. + +And as she stooped she heard the mighty wind of which he spoke. Its +rushing filled her ears, it filled the little chamber where those two +poor things had suffered together, and had in a way ministered to each +other. + +And the sick-room with its gilt mirror and its tawdry wall-paper, and +the evil picture never absent from Annette's brain, stooped and blended +into one, and wavered together as a flame wavers in a draught, and then +together vanished away. + +"The wind is taking us both," Annette thought, as her eyes closed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + "I was as children be + Who have no care; + I did not think or sigh, + I did not sicken; + But lo, Love beckoned me, + And I was bare, + And poor and starved and dry, + And fever-stricken." + THOMAS HARDY. + + +It was five months later, the middle of February. Annette was lying in a +deck-chair by the tank in the shade of the orange trees. All was still, +with the afternoon stillness of Teneriffe, which will not wake up till +sunset. Even the black goats had ceased to bleat and ring their bells. +The hoopoe which had been saying Cuk--Cuk--Cuk all the morning in the +pepper tree was silent. The light air from the sea, bringing with it a +whiff as from a bride's bouquet, hardly stirred the leaves. The sunlight +trembled on the yellow stone steps, and on the trailing, climbing +bougainvillea which had flung its mantle of purple over the balustrade. +Through an opening in a network of almond blossom Annette could look +down across the white water-courses and green terraces to the little +town of Santa Cruz, lying glittering in the sunshine, with its yellow +and white and mauve walls and flat roofs and quaint cupolas, outlined as +if cut out in white paper, sharp white against the vivid blue of the +sea. + +A grey lizard came slowly out of a clump of pink verbena near the tank, +and spread itself in a patch of sunlight on a little round stone. +Annette, as she lay motionless with thin folded hands, could see the +pulse in its throat rise and fall as it turned its jewelled eyes now to +this side, now to that, considering her as gravely as she was +considering it. + +A footfall came upon the stone steps. The lizard did not move. It was +gone. + +Mrs. Stoddart, an erect lilac figure under a white umbrella, came down +the steps, with a cup of milk in her hand. Her forcible, incongruous +countenance, with its peaked, indomitable nose and small, steady, tawny +eyes under tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of having been knocked to +pieces at some remote period and carelessly put together again. No +feature seemed to fit with any other. If her face had not been held +together by a certain shrewd benevolence which was spread all over it, +she would have been a singularly forbidding-looking woman. + +Annette took the cup and began dutifully to sip it, while Mrs. Stoddart +sat down near her. + +"Do you see the big gold-fish?" Annette said. + +Her companion put up her pince-nez and watched him for a moment, +swimming lazily near the surface. + +"He seems much as usual," she said. + +"It is not my fault if he is. I threw a tiny bit of stick at him a few +minutes ago, and he bolted it at once; and then, just when I was +beginning to feel anxious, he spat it out again to quite a considerable +distance. He must have a very strong pop-gun in his inside." + +Mrs. Stoddart took the empty cup from her and put it down on the edge of +the tank. + +"You have one great quality, Annette," she said: "you are never bored." + +"How could I be, with so much going on round me? I have just had my +first interview with a lizard. And before that a mantis called upon me. +Look, there he is again, on that twig. Doesn't he look exactly like a +child's drawing of a dragon?" + +A hideous grey mantis, about three inches long, walked slowly down an +almond-blossomed branch. + +"He really walks with considerable dignity, considering his legs bend +the wrong way," said Mrs. Stoddart. "But I don't wish for his society." + +"Oh, don't you? Look! Now he is going to pray." + +And the mantis suddenly sat up and appeared to engage in prayer. + +Annette watched him, fascinated, until his orisons were over, and he +slowly went down again on all fours and withdrew himself into the +bougainvillea. + +Mrs. Stoddart looked searchingly at her, not without a certain pride. +She had still the bruised, sunken eyes of severe illness, and she rolled +them slowly at Mrs. Stoddart, at the mantis, at the sky, at everything +in turn, in a manner which exasperated the other occupants of the +pension--two ladies from Hampstead who considered her a mass of +affectation. The only thing about Annette which was beautiful was her +hands, which were transparent, blue-veined, ethereal. But her movements +with them also were so languid, so "studied," that it was impossible for +spectators as impartial as the Hampstead ladies not to deplore her +extreme vanity about them. To Mrs. Stoddart, who knew the signs of +illness, it was evident that she was still weak, but it was equally +evident that the current of health was surely flowing back. + +"I remember," said Mrs. Stoddart, "being once nearly bored to +extinction, not by an illness, but by my convalescence after it." + +"I have no time to be bored," said Annette, "even if there is no mantis +and no lizard. Since I have been better so many things come crowding +into my mind, that though I lie still all day I hardly have time to +think of them all. The day is never long enough for me." + +There was a short silence. + +"I often wonder," said Annette slowly, "about _you_." + +"About me?" + +"Yes. Why you do everything for me as if I were your own child, and most +of all why you never ask me any questions--why you never even hint to me +that it is my duty to tell you about myself." + +Mrs. Stoddart's eyes dropped. Her heart began to beat violently. + +"When you took charge of me you knew nothing of me except evil." + +"I knew the one thing needful." + +"What do you mean?" + +"That you were in trouble." + +"For a long time," said Annette, "I have been wanting to tell you about +myself, but I couldn't." + +"Don't tell me, if it distresses you." + +"Nothing distresses me now. The reason I could not was because for a +long time I did not rightly know how things were, or who I was. And I +saw everything distorted--horrible. It was as if I were too near, like +being in a cage of hot iron, and beating against the bars first on one +side and then on the other, till it seemed as if one went mad. You once +read me, long ago, that poem of Verlaine's ending 'Et l'oubli +d'ici-bas.' And I thought that was better than any of the promises in +the Bible which you read sometimes. I used to say it over to myself like +a kind of prayer: 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' That would be heaven--at +least, it would have been to me. But since I have got better everything +has gone a long way off--like that island." And she pointed to the Grand +Canary, lying like a cloud on the horizon. "I can bear to think about it +and to look at it." + +"I understand that feeling. I have known it." + +"It does not burn me now. I thought it would always burn while I lived." + +"That is the worst of pain--that one thinks it will never lessen. But it +does." + +"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little." + +And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at +twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we +can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem +to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we +realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our +hand, our part is to listen? + +Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long +time. + +And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge +of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the +only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some +disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a +French courier. + +"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that +home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if I could. I did once +as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green." + +"Then your mother died when you were quite small?" + +"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left +father--for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her +first--at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember +how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my +next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be +kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were +Nevills. It seems it is a very noble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill. +Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like +father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They +felt that." + +"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to +put on my clothes." + +"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!" + +"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't +mean only the aunts but--_others_, don't regard me as their equal, +or--or treat me so." + +She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on +quietly-- + +"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a +year, and I left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my +birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked +them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind +was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional +singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve." + +"Did they mind much?" + +"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished +that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so +amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt +Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not +been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I +should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of +all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did +not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt +Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie. +She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated +music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never +had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did +not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had +time--for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have +lived with Aunt Cathie. But existing in that house was like just not +suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me +the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that +little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I +had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He +had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a +cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, +till--last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so +unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry +primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I +never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money. +He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out +at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea +that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had +a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty +was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known +musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me +sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about +it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man +somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a +little bit I found he expected me to pay him another way, and I had to +give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, +and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, +and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites. +I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, +when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman +began to be very kind to me." + +Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed +a little. + +Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow butterfly came +floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, +hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two +ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine. + +Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close +and expand, and then rise and float away again. + +"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he +didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman--not like +father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed +honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was +young--not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was +unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him +after a little bit. At first I hung back, because I thought it was too +good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love +before. I fell in--very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, +for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a title--I +forget exactly what--when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind +of him not to mind the difference of rank.... I am sure you know what is +coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought +of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I +said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room +again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never +take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, +when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now I _shall_ have it +always." + +Annette passed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would +have outraged the other residents, and then went on:-- + +"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he +talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening +to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything +before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed. +Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long +field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he +said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to +show me his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did +not understand. And then--a few hours later--I had to understand +suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I +who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the +house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That +was why I told you I had no home to go to.... And I walked and walked in +the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At +last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood +stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat +still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had +fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a +stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of +me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that +jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I +might just as well go back and be his mistress--anybody's mistress: that +there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world. +Everything was a seething mass of immorality and putrefaction, and he +was only the same as all the rest.... And all the time I could hear the +river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite +say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, +and I had to go. And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to +the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont +Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself +there.... And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little--a very +little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was +going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and +advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And +I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I +thought--_he_--would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him." + +"You did not know what you were doing." + +"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again--I was not so silly as +_that_. It was only the accident of Dick's illness which prevented my +going wrong with him." + +Mrs. Stoddart started. + +"Then you never----" she said diffidently, but with controlled +agitation. + +"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all +these months believing the worst had happened--not because she was +concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I +could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so." + +"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you +mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it +the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions. +You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not." + +"I am." + +"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on +the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you." + +"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what +you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill." + +"You were absolutely desperate." + +"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. Dick said +that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came +out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent +to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands +moving some faggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, +a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from +under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I +had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened +her, and she thought they were coming for her young ones. And first she +spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of +dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, +the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the +little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay +in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound. +Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was +ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I +was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I +laughed at her at the time--just as Dick laughed at me. But I understand +her now--poor thing." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + "The larger the nature the less susceptible to personal injury." + + +It was a few days later. Annette, leaning on Mrs. Stoddart's arm, had +made a pilgrimage as far as the low garden wall to look at the little +golden-brown calf on the other side tethered to a twisted shrub of +plumbago, the blue flowers of which spread themselves into a miniature +canopy over him. Now she was lying back, exhausted but triumphant, in +her long chair, with Mrs. Stoddart knitting beside her. + +"I shall be walking up there to-morrow," she said audaciously, pointing +to the fantastic cactus-sprinkled volcanic hills rising steeply behind +the house on the northern side. + +Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would +allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have +been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and +light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact +that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, +so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike of the tallest +tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a +rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain. + +"You must own now that I am well," said Annette. + +"Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see +the Spanish women working in their white trousers." + +"My head never aches now." + +"That is a good thing." + +"Has the time come when I may ask a few questions?" + +Mrs. Stoddart hardly looked up from her knitting as she said +tranquilly-- + +"Yes, my child, if there is anything on your mind." + +"I suppose Dick Le Geyt is--dead. I felt sure he was dying that last day +at Fontainebleau. It won't be any shock to me to know that he is dead." + +"He is not dead." + +A swift glance showed Mrs. Stoddart that Annette was greatly surprised. + +"How is he?" she asked after a moment. "Did he really get well again? I +thought it was not possible." + +"It was not." + +"Then he is not riding again yet?" + +"No. I am afraid he will never ride again." + +"Then his back was really injured, after all?" + +"Yes. It was spinal paralysis." + +"He did enjoy life so," said Annette. "Poor Dick!" + +"I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. +He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was +affected, and it is only a question of time--a few months, a few years. +He does not suffer." + +"For a long time I thought he and I had died together." + +"You both all but died, Annette." + +"Where is he now?" + +"In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left." + +"I hope she seemed a kind woman." + +"She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's +valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and +me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as +dismissed me." + +"Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in +collusion with _me_. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle +of it, reached her at once." + +"No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone +down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle." + +"And where was I all the time?" + +"You were in the country, a few miles out of Fontainebleau, at a house +the doctor knew of. He helped me to move you there directly you became +unconscious. Until you fell ill you would not leave Mr. Le Geyt. It was +fortunate you were not there when his aunt arrived." + +"I should not have cared." + +"No. You were past caring about anything. You were not in your right +mind. But surely, Annette,"--Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly,--"you care +_now_?" + +Annette evidently turned the question over in her mind, and then looked +doubtfully at her friend. + +"I am grateful to you that I escaped the outside shame," she said. "But +that seems such a little thing beside the inside shame, that I could +have done as I did. I had been carefully brought up. I was what was +called _good_. And it was easy to me. I had never felt any temptation to +be otherwise, even in the irresponsible _milieu_ at father's, where +there was no morality to speak of. And yet--all in a minute--I could do +as--as I did, throw everything away which only just before I had guarded +with such passion. _He_ was bad, and father was bad. I see now that he +had sold me. But since I have been lying here I have come to see that I +was bad too. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. There was +nothing to choose between the three of us. Poor Dick with his +unpremeditated escapade was snow-white compared to us, the one kindly +person in the sordid drama of lust and revenge." + +"Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Stoddart. + +"As an unwise angel, I think, who snatched a brand from the burning." + +"You are the first person who has had the advantage of my acquaintance +who has called me unwise," said Mrs. Stoddart, with the grim, benevolent +smile which Annette had learnt to love. "And now you have talked enough. +The whole island is taking its siesta. It is time you took yours." + + +Mrs. Stoddart thought long over Annette and her future that night. She +had made every effort, left no stone unturned at Fontainebleau, to save +the good name which the girl had so recklessly flung away. When Annette +succumbed, Mrs. Stoddart, quick to see whom she could trust, confided to +the doctor that Annette was not Mr. Le Geyt's wife and appealed to him +for help. He gravely replied that he already knew that fact, but did not +mention how during the making of the will it had come to his knowledge. +He helped her to remove Annette instantly to a private lodging kept by +an old servant of his. There was no luggage to remove. When Mr. Le +Geyt's aunt and her own doctor arrived late that night, together with +Mr. Le Geyt's valet, Annette had vanished into thin air. Only Mrs. +Stoddart was there, and the nurse to hand over the patient, and to +receive the cautious, suspicious thanks of Lady Jane Cranbrook, who +continually repeated that she could not understand the delay in sending +for her. It was, of course, instantly known in the hotel that the pretty +lady who had nursed Monsieur so devotedly was not his wife, and that she +had fled at the approach of his family. Mrs. Stoddart herself left very +early next morning, before Lady Jane was up, after paying Annette's +hotel-bill as well as her own. She had heard since through the nurse +that Mr. Le Geyt, after asking plaintively for Annette once or twice, +had relapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which he lay day +after day, week after week. It seemed as if his mind had made one last +effort, and then had finally given up a losing battle. The stars in +their courses had fought for Annette, and Mrs. Stoddart had given them +all the aid she could, with systematic perseverance and forethought. + +She had obliged Annette to write to a friend in Paris as soon as she was +well enough, rather before she was well enough to hold a pen, telling +her she had been taken ill suddenly at Fontainebleau but was with a +friend, and asking her to pack her clothes for her and send them to her +at Melun. Later on, before embarking at Marseilles, she had made her +write a line to her father saying she was travelling with her friend +Mrs. Stoddart, and should not be returning to Paris for the present. +After a time, she made her resume communications with her aunts, and +inform them who she was travelling with and where she was. The aunts +wrote rather frigidly in return at first, but after a time became more +cordial, expressed themselves pleased that she was enjoying herself, and +opined that they had had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Stoddart's sister, +Lady Brandon. They were evidently delighted that she had left her +father, and even graciously vouchsafed fragments of information about +themselves. Aunt Maria had just brought out another book, _Crooks and +Coronets_, a copy of which found its way to Teneriffe. Aunt Harriet, the +invalid, had become a Christian Scientist. Aunt Catherine, the only +practical one of the family, had developed a weak heart. And they had +all decided to leave London, and were settling in a country farm in +Lowshire, where they had once spent a summer years before. + +Mrs. Stoddart with infinite care had re-established all the links +between Annette's past life and her present one. The hiatus, which after +all had only occupied six days, was invisible. Her success had +apparently been complete. + +"Only apparently," she said to herself. "Something may happen which I +cannot foresee. Mr. Le Geyt may get better, though they say he never +will; or at any rate he may get well enough to give her away, which he +would never do if he were in full possession of his faculties. Or that +French chamber-maid who was so endlessly kind may take service in +England, and run up against Annette; or the valet who, she says, did +not see her at the station, may have seen her after all, and may prove a +source of danger. Or, most likely of all, Annette may tell against +herself. She is quite capable of it." + +Next day she said to Annette-- + +"Remember your reputation is my property. You threw it away, and I +picked it up off the dunghill. It belongs to me absolutely. Now promise +me on your oath that you will never say anything about this episode in +your past to anyone, to any living creature except one--the man you +marry." + +"I would rather not promise that," said Annette. "I feel as if some time +or other I might have to say something. One never can tell." + +Mrs. Stoddart cast at her a lightning glance in which love and +perplexity were about evenly mixed. This strange creature amused and +angered her, and constantly aroused in her opposite feelings at the same +moment. The careful Scotchwoman felt a certain kindly scorn for +Annette's want of self-protective prudence and her very slight +realization of the dangers Mrs. Stoddart had worked so hard to avert. +But mixed in with the scorn was a pinch of respect for something +unworldly in Annette, uncalculating of her own advantage. She was +apparently one of that tiny band who are not engrossed by the duty of +"looking after Number One." + +Mrs. Stoddart, who was not easily nonplussed, decided to be wounded. + +"You are hard to help, Annette," she said. "I do what I can for you, and +you often say how much it is, and yet you can tranquilly talk of all my +work being thrown away by some chance word of yours which you won't even +promise not to say." + +Annette was startled. + +"I had not meant that," she said humbly. "I will promise anything you +wish!" + +"No, my dear, no," said Mrs. Stoddart, ashamed of her subterfuge and its +instant success. "I was unreasonable. Promise me instead that, except to +the man you are engaged to, you will never mention this subject to +anyone without my permission." + +"I promise," said Annette. + +And Mrs. Stoddart, who never kissed anyone if she could help it, kissed +her on the forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + "Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can + turn my steps."--KOLTSOV. + + +It was the middle of April. The ginger tree had at last unsheathed the +immense buds which it had been guarding among its long swordlike leaves, +and had hung out its great pink and white blossoms at all their length. +The coffee trees had mingled with their red berries the dearest little +white wax flowers. The paradise tree which Annette had been watching day +by day had come out in the night. And this morning, among its +innumerable hanging golden balls, were cascades of five-leaved white +stars with violet centres. + +Annette was well again, if so dull and tame a word can be used to +describe the radiance which health had shed upon her, and upon the +unfolding, petal by petal, of her beauty. The long rest, the slow +recovery, the immense peace which had enfolded her life for the first +time, the grim, tender "mothering" of Mrs. Stoddart, had all together +fostered and sustained her. Her life, cut back to its very root by a +sharp frost, had put out a superb new shoot. Her coltishness and a +certain heavy, naïve immaturity had fallen from her. Her beauty had +shaken them off and stood clear of them, and Mrs. Stoddart recognized, +not without anxiety, that the beauty which was now revealed was great. +But in the process of her unduly delayed and then unduly forced +development it was plain that she had lost one thing which would have +made her mother's heart ache if she had been alive. Annette had lost her +youth. She was barely twenty-two, but she had the dignity and the +bearing of a woman of thirty. Mrs. Stoddart watched her standing, a +gracious slender figure in her white gown under the paradise tree, with +a wild baby-canary in the hollow of her hands, coaxing it to fly back to +its parents, calling shrilly to it from a neighbouring thicket of +lemon-coloured honeysuckle. She realized the pitfalls that lie in wait +for persons as simple and as inapprehensive as Annette, especially when +they are beautiful as well, and she sighed. + +Presently the baby-canary fluttered into the honeysuckle, and Annette +walked down the steep garden path to meet Victor the butler, who could +be seen in the distance coming slowly on the donkey up the white high +road from Santa Cruz, with the letters. + +Mrs. Stoddart sighed again. She had safeguarded Annette's past, but how +about her future? She had pondered long over it, which Annette did not +seem to do at all. Teneriffe was becoming too hot. The two ladies from +Hampstead had already gone, much mollified towards Annette, and even +anxious to meet her again, and attributing her more alert movements and +now quite unrolling eyes to the fact that they had made it clear they +would not stand any nonsense, or take "airs" from anyone. Mrs. Stoddart +was anxious to get home to London to her son, her one son Mark. But what +would happen to Annette when they left Teneriffe? She would gladly have +kept her as her companion till she married,--for, of course, she would +marry some day,--but there was Mark to be considered. She could not +introduce Annette into her household without a vehement protest from +Mark to start with, who would probably end by falling in love with her. +It was hopeless to expect that Annette would take an interest in any man +for some time to come. Would she be glad or sorry if Annette eventually +married Mark? She came to the conclusion that in spite of all the +drawbacks of Annette's parentage and the Le Geyt episode, she would +rather have her as her daughter-in-law than anyone. But there was Mark +to be reckoned with, a very uncertain quantity. She did not know how he +would regard that miserable episode, and she decided that she would not +take the responsibility of throwing him and Annette together. + +Then what was to be done? Mrs. Stoddart had got through her own troubles +with such assiduous determination earlier in life that she was now +quite at liberty to attend to those of others, and she gave a close +attention to Annette's. + +She need not have troubled her mind, for Annette was coming towards her +up the steep path between the high hedges of flowering geraniums with a +sheaf of letters in her hand, and her future neatly mapped out in one of +them. + +She sat down at Mrs. Stoddart's feet in the dappled shade under the +scarlet-flowering pomegranate tree, and they both opened their letters. +Annette had time to read her two several times while Mrs. Stoddart +selected one after another from her bundle. Presently she gave an +exclamation of surprise. + +"Mark is on his way here. He will be here directly. Let me see, the +_Fürstin_ is due to-morrow or next day. He sends this by the English +mail to warn me. He has not been well, overworked, and he is coming out +for the sake of the sea-journey and to take me home." + +Mrs. Stoddart's shrewd eyes shone. A faint colour came to her thin +cheeks. + +"Then I shall see him," said Annette. "When he did not come out for +Christmas I was afraid I should miss him altogether." + +"Does that mean you are thinking of leaving me, Annette?" + +"Yes," said Annette, and she took her friend's hand and kissed it. "I +have been considering it some time. I am thinking of staying here and +setting up as a dressmaker." + +"As a dressmaker!" almost gasped Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Yes. Why not? My aunt is a very good dressmaker in Paris, and she would +help me--at least, she would if it was worth her while. And there is no +one here to do anything, and all that exquisite work the peasant women +make is wasted on coarse or inferior material. I should get them to do +it for me on soft fine nainsook, and make a speciality of summer morning +gowns and children's frocks. Every one who comes here would buy a gown +of Teneriffe-work from me, and I can fit people quite well. I have a +natural turn for it. Look how I can fit myself. You said yesterday that +this white gown I have on was perfect." + +Mrs. Stoddart could only gaze at her in amazement. + +"My dear Annette," she said at last, "you cannot seriously think I would +allow you to leave me to become a dressmaker! What have I done that you +should treat me like that?" + +"You have done everything," said Annette,--"more than anyone in the +world since I was born,--and I have accepted everything--haven't I?--as +it was given--freely. But I felt the time was coming when I must find a +little hole of my own to creep into, and I thought this dressmaking +might do. I would rather not try to live by my voice. It would throw me +into the kind of society I knew _before_. I would rather make a fresh +start on different lines. At least, I thought all these things as I came +up the path ten minutes ago. But these two letters have shown me that I +have a place of my own in the world after all." + +She put two black-edged letters into Mrs. Stoddart's hand. + +"Aunt Catherine is dead," she said. "You know she has been failing. That +was why they went to live in the country." + +Mrs. Stoddart took up the letters and gave them her whole attention. +Each of the bereaved aunts had written. + + + "MY DEAR ANNETTE (wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),--I grieve to tell + you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly + yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the + country undertaken entirely on her account would have been + beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part + who need the inspiration of a congenial literary _milieu_ so much. + She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which + belief her doctor encouraged her--very unwisely, as the event has + proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an + event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on + organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through + fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been + mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said + that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while the move was + done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and + though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to + over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather + than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did + more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more + frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on + Saturday last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is + entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned + all my fortitude I should be in the same condition myself, for of + course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very + special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate + sisters. + + "I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and + I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with + your father quite as congenial as you anticipated. Should you be in + need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall + be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the + manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since + realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt + Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, + you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is + your wish, to fill her place.--Your affectionate aunt, MARIA + NEVILL." + + +Mrs. Stoddart took up the second letter. + + + "MY DEAR ANNETTE,--How can I _tell_ you--how can I _begin_ to tell + you--of _the shattering blow_ that has fallen upon us? Life can + _never_ be the same again. _Death_ has entered our dwelling. + Dearest Cathie--your Aunt Catherine--has been taken from us. She + was _quite_ well yesterday--at least well for _her_--at + quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and by + _seven-thirty_ she was in a precarious condition. Maria _insisted_ + on sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, + realizing as I do full well _that the ability to save life is not + with them_, and that _all drugs have only the power in them which + we by wrong thought have given to them_. However, Maria had her way + as _always_, but our dear sister succumbed before he arrived, so I + do not _in any way_ attribute her death to _him_. We were both with + her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite + peaceful. I could have wished for _one last word of love_, but I do + not rebel. Maria feels it _terribly_, though she always has _great_ + self-control. But of course the loss cannot be to _her_, immersed + in her writing, what it is to _me_, my darling Cathie's constant + companion and adviser. We were _all in all_ to each other. What I + shall do without her I cannot even _imagine_. Maria will naturally + expect--she always _has_ expected--to find all household matters + arranged _without any participation on her part_. And I am, alas! + so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to + that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am + thankful to think, been a _centre_ from which sympathy and love + have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalids + _live in the lives of others_. Their _joys_ are _our_ joys. _Their_ + sorrows are _our_ sorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful + experiences at Teneriffe--the islands of the blest! When it has + snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the + sunshine.' And now, dear Annette, I am wondering whether, _when + you leave Teneriffe_, you could make your home with us again for a + time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you, + _ever_ ready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles + and perplexities. _I_ never blamed you for leaving us. I know _too_ + well that spirit of adventure, though my lot bids _me_ sternly + silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seem _pointed + out for you_ to relinquish this strange idea of being a + professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is so + _plain_? I know from experience what a great blessing attends + _those who give up their own will to live for others_. The + surrender of the will! _That_ is where _true_ peace and happiness + lie, if the young _could only believe it_. + + I will say no more.--With fondest love, your affectionate AUNT + HARRIET." + + +"H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you +could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between +them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of +this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?" + +"I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It +will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a +great success of living for myself so far." + +Mrs. Stoddart did not answer. + +Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor +when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetest eyes +were ever seen," she often said to herself. + +Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable. +When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took +it as my right. I was to have everything--love, honour, happiness, rank, +wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung +out of the house in a rage. If Dick had not stopped me at the door I +should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better +than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him--try +and find the place intended for me, where I _shan't_ be cast out." + +"Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance." + +"Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage." + +"You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act +of penance?" + +"No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now +I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could +make a success of it." + +"I have no doubt you could, but----" + +"I should like to make a success of _something_, after being such a +failure. And--and----" + +"And what, my child?" + +"I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the +Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looks as if He +hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like--if I could--to +creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where +there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + "Oh, is the water sweet and cool, + Gentle and brown, above the pool? + And laughs the immortal river still + Under the mill, under the mill?" + RUPERT BROOKE. + + +I do not think you have ever heard of the little village of Riff in +Lowshire, Reader, unless you were born and bred in it as I was. If you +were, you believe of course that it is the centre of the world. But if +you were not, it is possible you may have overlooked it in your scheme +of life, or hurried past it in the train reading a novel, not even +looking out as I have done a hundred times to catch a glimpse of it +lying among its water meadows behind the willows. + +But unless you know exactly where to look you can only catch a momentary +glimpse, because the Rieben with its fringe of willows makes a +half-circle round Riff and guards it from inquisitive eyes. + +Parallel with the Rieben, but half a mile away from it on higher ground, +runs the great white high road from London to Yarmouth. And between the +road and the river lies the village of Riff. But you cannot see it or +even the top of its church tower from the road, because the park of +Hulver Manor comes in between, stretching in long leafy glades of oak +and elm and open sward, and hiding the house in its midst, the old Tudor +house which has stood closed and shuttered so long, ever since Mr. +Manvers died. + +When at last the park comes to an end, a deep lane breaks off from the +main road, and pretending that it is going nowhere in particular and +that time would be lost in following it, edges along like a homing cat +beside the park wall in the direction of Riff, skirting a gate and a +cluster of buildings, _laiterie_, barn and dovecot, which are all you +can see of Red Riff Farm from the lane. I point it out to you as we +pass, for we shall come back there later on. Riff is much nearer than +you think, for the ground is always falling a little towards the Rieben, +which is close at hand though invisible also. + +And between the park and the river lies the hidden village of Riff. + +You come upon it quite suddenly at the turn of the lane, with its +shallow ford, and its pink-plastered cottages sprinkled among its high +trees, and its thatched Vicarage, and "The Hermitage" with the +honeysuckle over the porch, and the almshouses near the great Italian +gates of Hulver Manor, and somewhat apart in its walled garden among its +twisted pines the Dower House where Lady Louisa Manvers was living, +poor soul, at the time this story was written. + +I have only to close my eyes and I can see it all--can imagine myself +sitting with the Miss Blinketts in their little parlour at The +Hermitage, with a daguerreotype of the defunct Père Blinkett over the +mantelpiece, and Miss Amy's soft voice saying, "They do say Lady +Louisa's cook is leaving to be married. But they will say anything at +Riff. I never believe more than half I hear." + +The Hermitage stood on a little slice of ground which fell away from the +lane. So close was The Hermitage to the lane, and the parlour windows +were so low, and the lane beyond the palings so high, that the inmates +could only guess at the identity of the passers-by by their legs. And +rare guests and rarer callers, arriving in the wagonnette from the +Manvers Arms, could actually look into the bedroom windows, while the +Miss Blinketts' eyes, peering over the parlour muslins, were fixed upon +their lower limbs. + +And if I keep my eyes tightly shut and the eyes of memory open, I can +see as I sit stroking Miss Blinkett's cat the legs of the new Vicar pass +up the lane outlined against a lilac skirt. And Miss Amy, who is not a +close observer of life, opines that the skirt belongs to Miss Janey +Manvers, but Miss Blinkett senior instantly identifies it as Annette's +new spotted muslin, which she had seen Mrs. Nicholls "getting up" last +week. + + +But that was twenty years ago. I can only tell you what Riff was like +then, for it is twenty years since I was there, and I am not going there +any more, for I don't want to see any of the changes which time must +have wrought there, and if I walked down the village street now I should +feel like a ghost, for only a few of the old people would remember me. +And the bright-eyed, tow-headed little lads whom I taught in Sunday +school are scattered to the four winds of heaven. The Boer War took some +of them, and London has engulfed more, only a few remaining at Riff as +sad-looking middle-aged men, farm hands, and hedgers and ditchers, and +cowmen. + +And I hear that now the motors go banging along the Yarmouth high road +day and night, and that Riff actually has a telegraph office of its own +and that the wires go in front of The Hermitage, only the Miss Blinketts +are not there to see it. A literary lady lives there now, and I hear she +has changed the name to "Quill Cottage," and has made a garden in the +orchard where old Nan's cottage was by the twisted pear tree: old Nan +the witch, who grew mistletoe in all the trees in her domain, and cured +St. Vitus' dance with it. No, I will not go to Riff any more, for I do +not want to see any of these things, and least of all the literary lady +who is writing her novels in the quiet rooms where my two old friends +knitted and read Thomas à Kempis. + +Twenty years ago, in the days when my father was doctor at Riff and when +Annette came to live there, we could not help noticing--indeed, Mrs. +Nicholls often mentioned it--what a go-ahead place Riff was, far more up +to date than Sweet Apple Tree, and even than Meverly Mill. We measured +everything in those days by Sweet Apple Tree, and the measurement was +always in our favour. We did not talk much about Riebenbridge, where the +"'Sizes" were held, and the new "'Sylum" had just been built. We were +somewhat awed by Riebenbridge, but poor lag-behind Sweet Apple Tree, +lost amid its reeds together with the Rieben, was the subject of sincere +pity to the Riff folk. The Sweet Applers, according to Mrs. Nicholls, +were "that clunch they might have been brought up in a wood." At Riff +everything was cast in a superior and more modern mould. Riff had a +postman on a bicycle with an enormous front wheel, and if he brought a +letter in the morning you could if necessary post an answer to it the +same day in the red slit in the churchyard wall. Now at Sweet Apple Tree +the old man in a donkey-cart blowing on a little horn who brought the +Sweet Apple letters, took away directly the donkey was rested those +which the inhabitants had just composed. And even he did not call if +"the water was out." + +Before I was born, when the Miss Blinketts were young and crinolined +and their father was Vicar of Riff, Sweet Apple Tree, as they have often +told me, had no choir, and the old Rector held a service once or twice a +year in his Bath chair. After he took to his bed there was no service at +all for twenty years. No wonder the Sweet Apple folk were "clunch"! How +different from Riff, with its trombone and fiddle inviting the attention +of its Creator every Sunday, and Mr. Blinkett, whose watchword was "No +popery," preaching in his black gown two sermons a week to the favoured +people of Riff. + +It was Mr. Jones, Mr. Blinkett's successor, that lamentable person, +meaning well, but according to the Miss Blinketts quite unable to +perceive when a parish was worked on the right lines, it was young Mr. +Jones from Oxford, who did not marry either of the Miss Blinketts, but +who did put a stop to the trombone and fiddle, and actually brought the +choir out of the gallery, and took away the hour-glass from the south +window below the pulpit, and preached in his surplice, and made himself +very unpopular by forbidding the congregation to rise to its feet when +the Manvers family came into church, almost as unpopular as by stopping +the fiddle. You can see the old fiddle still in the cottage of Hesketh +the carrier, next the village stocks. His father had played on it, and +turned "chapel" when his services were no longer required. And it was +young Mr. Jones who actually had the bad taste openly to deplore the +saintly Blinkett's action in demolishing all the upper part of the +ancient carved and gilded screen because at eighty he could no longer +make his voice heard through it. + +It was, of course, Mr. Jones who started the mixed choir sitting in the +chancel behind the remains of the screen. + +In the last days of the mixed choir, when first Mr. Black came to Riff +(after Mr. Jones was made a bishop), Annette sang in it, with a voice +that seemed to me, and not to me only, like the voice of an angel. + +With the exception of Annette and the under-housemaid from the Dower +House, it was mainly composed of admirable domestic characters of portly +age--the élite of Riff--supplemented by a small gleaning of deeply +virtuous, non-fruit-stealing little boys. We are told nowadays that +heredity is nothing. But when I remember how those starched and +white-collared juvenile singers were nearly all the offspring of the +tenors and basses, and of Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks who were trebles, +I feel the last word still remains to be said about heredity. + +Annette did not sing in it long--not more than a year, I think. It was +soon after she left it that Mr. Black--so I am told--started a surpliced +choir. And here am I talking about her leaving the choir when I have not +yet told you of her arrival in Lowshire, or anything about Red Riff +Farm where her two aunts lived, and where Aunt Maria wrote her famous +novel, _The Silver Cross_, of which you have of course often heard, and +which if you are of a serious turn of mind you have doubtless read and +laid to heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + "Nothing is so incapacitating as self-love." + + +Red Riff Farm stands near the lane, between the village and the high +road, presenting its back to all comers with British sang-froid. To +approach it you must go up the wide path between the barn and the +dovecote on one side, and on the other the long, low _laiterie_ standing +above its wall, just able to look at itself in the pool, where the ducks +are breaking up its reflection. When you pass through the narrow iron +gateway in the high wall which protects the garden on the north side, +the old Jacobean house rises up above you, all built of dim rose-red and +dim blue brick, looking benignly out across the meadows over its small +enclosed garden which had once been the orchard, in which some of the +ancient bent apple trees are still like old pensioners permitted to +remain. + +When Annette first passed through that gateway, the beautiful dim old +building with its latticed windows peered at her through a network of +apple blossom. But now the apple trees have long since dropped their +petals, and you can see the house clearly, with its wavering tiled +string courses, and its three rounded gables, and the vine flung half +across it. + +The low, square oak door studded with nails stands wide open, showing a +glimpse of a small panelled hall with a carved black staircase coming +down into it. + +We need not peer in through the window at the Shakespeare Calendar on +Aunt Maria's study table to see what time of year it is, for everything +tells us: the masses of white pinks crowding up to the threshold and +laying their sweet heads against the stone edging of their domain, the +yellow lichen in flower on the roof, the serried ranks of Sweet William +full out. It is certainly early June. And the black-faced sheep moving +sedately in the long meadows in front of the house confirm us in our +opinion, for they have shed their becoming woollen overalls and are +straddling about, hideous to behold, in their summer tights. Only the +lambs, now large and sedate, keep their pretty February coats, though by +some unaccountable fatality they have all, poor dears, lost their tails. + +Lowshire is a sedate place. I have never seen those solemn Lowshire +lambs jump about as they do in Hampshire. A Hampshire lamb among his +contemporaries with the juice of the young grass in him! Hi! Friskings +and caperings! That is a sight to make an old ram young. But the +Lowshire lambs seem ever to see the shadow of the blue-coated butcher in +the sunshine. They move in decorous bands as if they were going to +church, hastening suddenly all together as if they were late. + +Lowshire is a sedate place. The farm lads still in their teens move as +slowly as the creeping rivers, much slower than the barges. The boys +early leave off scurrying in shouting bands down the lanes in the dusk. +The little girls peep demurely over the garden gates, and walk slowly +indoors, if spoken to. + +We have ascertained that it is early June, and we need no watch to tell +us what o'clock it is. It is milking-time, the hour when good little +boys "whom mother can trust" are to be seen hurrying in an important +manner with milk-cans. Half-past four it must be, for the red cows, +sweet-breathed and soft-paced, have passed up the lane half an hour ago, +looking gently to right and left with lustrous, nunlike eyes, now and +then putting out a large red tongue to lick at the hedgerow. Sometimes, +as to-day, the bull precedes them, hustling along, surly, _affairé_, +making a low, continuous grunting which is not anger, for he is kind as +bulls go, so much as "orkardness," the desire of the egotist to make his +discontentment public, and his disillusionment with his pasture and all +his gentle-tempered wives. + + +Annette came down the carved staircase, and stood a moment in the +doorway in a pale lilac gown (the same that you will remember the Miss +Blinketts saw half an hour later). + +Her ear caught the sound of a manly voice mingled with Aunt Maria's +dignified tones, and the somewhat agitated accompaniment of the clink of +tea-things. Aunt Harriet was evidently more acutely undecided than usual +which cup to fill first, and was rattling them in the way that always +irritated Aunt Maria, though she made heroic efforts to dissimulate it. + +Annette came to the conclusion that she should probably be late for +choir practice if she went into the drawing-room. So she walked +noiselessly across the hall and slipped through the garden. A dogcart +was standing horseless in the courtyard, and the delighted female +laughter which proceeded from the servants' hall showed that a male +element in the shape of a groom had been added to the little band of +women-servants. + +What a fortunate occurrence that there should be a caller!--for on this +particular afternoon Aunt Maria had reached a difficult place in her new +book, the hero having thrown over his lady-love because she, foolish +modernist that she was, toying with her life's happiness, would not +promise to leave off smoking. The depressed authoress needed a change of +thought. And it would be pleasant for the whole household if Aunt +Harriet's mind could be diverted from the fact that her new air-cushion +leaked; not the old black one, that would not have mattered so much, but +the new round red society one which she used when there were visitors +in the house. Aunt Harriet's mind had brooded all day over the +air-cushion as mournfully as a hart's tongue over a well. + +Annette hoped it was a cheerful caller. Perhaps it was Canon Wetherby +from Riebenbridge, an amiable widower, and almost as great an admirer of +Aunt Maria's works as of his own stock of anecdotes. + +In the meanwhile if she, Annette, missed her own lawful tea at home, to +which of the little colony of neighbours in the village should she go +for a cup, on her way to the church, where choir practice was held? + +To the Dower House? Old Lady Louisa Manvers had ceased to come +downstairs at all, and her daughter Janey, a few years older than +herself, poor downtrodden Janey, would be only too glad to see her. But +then her imbecile brother Harry, with his endless copy-book remarks, +would be certain to be having tea with her, and Lady Louisa's trained +nurse, whom Annette particularly disliked. No, she would not go to the +Dower House this afternoon. She might go to tea with the Miss Blinketts, +who were always kind to her, and whose cottage lay between her and the +church. + +The two Miss Blinketts were about the same age as the Miss Nevills, and +regarded them with deep admiration, not unmixed with awe, coupled with +an evident hope that a pleasant intercourse might presently be +established between The Hermitage and Red Riff Farm. They were indeed +quite excited at the advent among them of one so gifted as the author of +_Crooks and Coronets_, who they perceived from her books took a very +high view of the responsibility created by genius. + +Annette liked the Miss Blinketts, and her knowledge of Aunt Maria's +character had led her to hope that this enthusiastic deference might +prove acceptable to a wearied authoress in her hours of relaxation. But +she soon found that the Miss Nevills with all the prestige of London and +a literary _milieu_ resting upon them were indignant at the idea that +they could care to associate with "a couple of provincial old maids." + +Their almost ferocious attitude towards the amiable Miss Blinketts had +been a great shock to Annette, who neither at that nor at any later time +learned to make the social distinctions which occupied so much of her +two aunts' time. The Miss Nevills' acceptance of a certain offering of +ferns peeping through the meshes of a string bag brought by the Miss +Blinketts, had been so frigid, so patrician, that it had made Annette +more friendly than she would naturally have been. She had welcomed the +ferns with enthusiasm, and before she had realized it, had become the +object of a sentimental love and argus-eyed interest on the part of the +inmates of The Hermitage which threatened to have its embarrassing +moments. + +No, now she came to think of it, she would not go to tea with the Miss +Blinketts this afternoon. + +Of course, she might go to the Vicarage. Miss Black, the Vicar's sister +who kept house for him, had often asked her to do so before choir +practice. But Annette had vaguely felt of late that Miss Black, who had +been very cordial to her on her arrival and was still extremely polite, +did not regard her with as much favour as at first: in fact, that as Mr. +Black formed a high and ever higher opinion of her, that of his sister +was steadily lowered to keep the balance even. + +Annette knew what was the matter with Mr. Black, though that gentleman +had not yet discovered what it was that was affecting his usually placid +temper and causing him on his parochial rounds so frequently to take the +short cut past Red Riff Farm. + +She had just decided, without emotion but with distinct regret, that she +must do without tea this afternoon, when a firm step came along the lane +behind her, and Mr. Black overtook her. For once he had taken that short +cut to some purpose, though his face, fixed in a dignified +preoccupation, gave no hint that he felt Fortune had favoured him at +last. + +The Miss Blinketts had heard it affirmed "by one who knew a wide sweep +of clergy and was therefore competent to form an opinion," that Mr. +Black was the handsomest vicar in the diocese. But possibly that was not +high praise, for the clergy had evidently deteriorated in appearance +since the ancient Blinkett, that type of aristocratic beauty, had been +laid to rest under the twisted yew in the Riff churchyard. + +But, anyhow, Mr. Black was sufficiently good-looking to be called +handsome in a countryside where young unmarried men were rare as water +ousels. He was tall and erect, and being rather clumsily built, showed +to great advantage in a surplice. In a procession of clergy you would +probably have picked out Mr. Black at once as its most impressive +figure. He was what the Miss Blinketts called "stately." When you looked +closely at him you saw that his nose was a size too large, that his head +and ears and hands and feet were all a size too large for him. But the +general impression was pleasant, partly because he always looked as if +he had that moment emerged as speckless as his surplices from Mrs. +Nicholls' washtub. + +It was an open secret that Mrs. Nicholls thought but little of Miss +Black, "who wasn't so to call a lady, and washed her flannels at home." +But she had a profound admiration for the Vicar, though I fear if the +truth were known it was partly because he "set off a surplice so as +never was." + +Mr. Black allowed his thoughtful expression to lighten to a grave smile +as he walked on beside Annette, determined that on this occasion he +would not be commonplace or didactic, as he feared he had been after the +boot and shoe club. He was under the illusion, because he had so often +said so, that he seldom took the trouble to do himself justice socially. +It might be as well to begin now. + +"Are you on your way to choir practice?" + +"What a question! Of course I am." + +"Have you had tea?" + +"No." + +"Neither have I. Do come to the Vicarage first, and Angela will give us +some." "Angela" was Miss Black. + +Annette could not find any reason for refusing. + +"Thank you. I will come with pleasure." + +"I would rather go without any meal than tea." + +Mr. Black felt as he said it that this sentiment was _for him_ +inadequate, but he was relieved that Annette did not appear to find it +so. She smiled and said-- + +"It certainly is the pleasantest meal in the day." + +At this moment, the Miss Blinketts and I saw, as I have already told +you, the legs of the Vicar pass up the lane outlined against a lilac +skirt. We watched them pass in silence, and then Miss Blinkett said +solemnly-- + +"If anything should come of that, if he should eventually make up his +mind to marry, I consider Annette would be in every way a worthy +choice." + +"Papa was always against a celibate clergy," said Miss Amy, as if that +settled the question. + +Annette and her possible future had nearly reached the Vicarage when a +dogcart passed them which she recognized as the one she had seen at Red +Riff. The man in it waved his hand to Mr. Black. + +"That was Mr. Reginald Stirling, the novelist," Mr. Black volunteered. + +"The man who wrote _The Magnet_?" + +"Yes. He has rented Noyes Court from Lady Louisa. I hear he never +attends divine service at Noyes, but I am glad to say he has been to +Riff several times lately. I am afraid Bartlett's sermons are not +calculated to attract an educated man." + +Mr. Black was human, and he was aware that he was a good preacher. + +"I have often heard of him from Mrs. Stoddart," said Annette, with +evident interest. "I supposed he lived in Lowshire because some of the +scenes in _The Magnet_ are laid in this country." + +"Are they? I had not noticed it," said Mr. Black frigidly. + +He had often wished he could interest Annette in conversation, often +wondered why he seemed unable to do so. Was it really because he did not +take enough trouble, as he sometimes accused himself? But now that she +was momentarily interested he stopped short at once, as at the entrance +of a blind alley. What he really wanted was to talk, not about Mr. +Stirling but about himself, to tell her how he found good in every one, +how attracted he was to the ignorant and the simple. No. He did not +exactly desire to tell her these things, but to coerce the conversation +into channels which would show indubitably that he was the kind of man +who could discover the good latent in every one, the kind of man who +fostered the feeble aspirations of the young and the ignorant, who +entered with wide-minded sympathy into the difficulties of stupid +people, who was better read and more humorous than any of his clerical +brethren in Lowshire, to whom little children and dogs turned +intuitively as to a friend. + +Now, it is not an easy thing to enter lightly into conversation if you +bring with you into it so many impedimenta. There was obviously no place +for all this heavy baggage in the discussion of Mr. Stirling's novels. +So that eminent writer was dismissed at once, and the subject was +hitched, not without a jolt, on to the effect of the Lowshire scenery on +Mr. Black. It transpired that Mr. Black was the kind of man who went for +inspiration to the heathery moor, and who found that the problems of +life are apt to unravel themselves under a wide expanse of sky. + +Annette listened dutifully and politely till the Vicarage door was +reached. + +It seemed doubtful afterwards, when he reviewed what he had said, +whether he had attained to any really prominent conversational peaks +during that circumscribed parley. + +He felt with sudden exasperation that he needed time, scope, +opportunity, lots of opportunity, so that if he missed one there would +be plenty more, and above all absence of interruption. He never got a +chance of _really_ talking to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + "It ain't the pews and free seats as knows what music is, nor it + ain't the organist. It is the _choir_. There's more in music than + just ketching a tune and singing it fort here and pianner there. + But Lor! Miss, what do the pews and the free seats know of the + dangers? When the Vicar gives them a verse to sing by themselves it + do make me swaller with embarrassment to hear 'em beller. They + knows nothing, and they fears nothing."--MRS. NICHOLLS. + + +On this particular evening Annette was the first to take her seat in the +chancel beyond the screen, where the choir practices always took place. +Mrs. Nicholls presently joined her there with her battered part-book, +and she and Annette went over the opening bars of the new anthem, which +like the Riff bull was "orkard" in places. + +Mr. Black was lighting the candles on long iron sticks, while Miss Black +adjusted herself to the harmonium, which did the organ's drudgery for +it, and then settled herself, notebook in hand, to watch which of the +choir made an attendance. + +Miss Black was constantly urging her brother to do away with the mixed +choir and have a surpliced one. She became even more urgent on that head +after Annette had joined it. Mr. Black was nothing loth, but his +bishop, who had but recently instituted him, had implored him not to +make a clean sweep of _every_ arrangement of his predecessor, Mr. Jones, +that ardent reformer, whose principal reforms now needed reforming. So, +with laudable obedience and zeal, Mr. Black possessed his soul in +patience and sought to instil new life into the mixed choir. Annette was +part of that new life, and her presence helped to reconcile him to its +continued existence, and to increase Miss Black's desire for its +extinction. + +Miss Black was older than her brother, and had already acquired that +acerb precision which lies in wait with such frequent success for +middle-aged spinsters and bachelors. + +She somehow gave the comfortless impression of being "ready-made" and +"greatly reduced," as if there were quantities more exactly like her put +away somewhere, the supply having hopelessly exceeded the demand. She +looked as if she herself, as well as her fatigued elaborate clothes, had +been picked up half-price but somewhat crumpled in the sales. + +She glanced with disapproval at Annette whispering amicably with Mrs. +Nicholls, and Annette desisted instantly. + +The five little boys shuffled in in a bunch, as if roped together, and +slipped into their seats under Mr. Black's eye. Mr. Chipps the grocer +and principal bass followed, bringing with him an aroma of cheese. The +two altoes, Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, from the Infants' School, +were already in position. A few latecomers seemed to have dropped +noiselessly into their seats from the roof, and to become visible by +clearings of throats. + +Mr. Black, who was chagrined by the very frigid reception and the stale +tea which his sister had accorded to Annette, said with his customary +benignity, "Are we all here? I think we may as well begin." + +Miss Black remarked that the choirmaster, Mr. Spillcock, was "late +again," just as that gentleman was seen advancing like a ramrod up the +aisle. + +A certain mystery enveloped Mr. Spillcock. He was not a Riff man, nor +did he hail from Noyes, or Heyke, or Swale, or even Riebenbridge. What +had brought him to live at Riebenbridge no one rightly knew, not even +Mrs. Nicholls. It was whispered that he had "bugled" before Royalty in +outlandish parts, and when Foreign Missions were being practised he had +been understood to aver that the lines, + + + "Where Afric's sunny fountains + Roll down their golden sand," + + +put him forcibly in mind of the scenes of his earlier life. Whether he +had really served in the army or not never transpired, but his grey +moustache was twirled with military ferocity, and he affected the +bearing and manner of a retired army man. It was also whispered that +Mrs. Spillcock, a somewhat colourless, depressed mate for so vivid a +personality, "was preyed upon in her mind" because another lady had a +prior or church claim to the title of Mrs. Spillcock. As a child I +always expected the real Mrs. Spillcock to appear, but she never did. + +"Good evening all," said Mr. Spillcock urbanely, and without waiting for +any remarks on the lateness of the hour, he seized out of his waistcoat +pocket a tuning-fork. "We begin, I presume, with the anthem 'Now hunto +'Im.' Trebles, take your do. Do, me, sol, do. Do." Mr. Spillcock turned +towards the trebles with open mouth, uttering a prolonged falsetto do, +and showing all his molars on the left side, where apparently he held do +in reserve. + +Annette guided Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks and the timid +under-housemaid from the Dower House from circling round the note to the +note itself. + +"Do," sang out all the trebles with sweetness and decision. + +"Now, then, boys, why don't you fall in?" said Mr. Spillcock, looking +with unconcealed animosity at the line of little boys whom he ought not +to have disliked, as they never made any sound in the church, reserving +their voices for shouting on their homeward way in the dark. + +"Now, then, boys, look alive. Take up your do from the ladies." + +A faint buzzing echo like the sound in an unmusical shell could be +detected by the optimists nearest to the boys. It would have been +possible to know they were in tune only by holding their bodies to your +ear. + +"They have got it," said Mr. Black valiantly. + +Mr. Spillcock looked at them with cold contempt. + +"Altoes, me," he said more gently. He was gallant to the fair sex, and +especially to Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, one dark and one fair, and +both in the dew of their cultured youth. + +"Altoes, take your me." + +The two altoes, their lips ready licked, burst into a plaintive bleat, +which if it was not me was certainly nothing else. + +The miller, the principal tenor, took his sol, supported at once by "the +young chap" from the Manvers Arms, who echoed it manfully directly it +had been unearthed, and by his nephew from Lowestoft, who did not belong +to the choir and could not sing, but who was on a holiday and who always +came to choir practices with his uncle, because he was courting either +Miss Pontifex or Miss Spriggs, possibly both. I have a hazy recollection +of hearing years later that he had married them both, not at the same +time, but one shortly after the other, and that Miss Spriggs made a +wonderful mother to Miss Pontifex's baby, or _vice versa_. Anyhow, they +were both in love with him, and I know it ended happily for every one, +and was considered in Riff to be a great example to Mr. Chipps of +portly years, who had been engaged for about twenty years "as you might +say off and on" to Mrs. Cocks' sister (who was cook at the Dower House), +but who, whenever the question of marriage was introduced, opined that +"he felt no call to change his state." + +Mr. Black made several ineffectual attempts to induce the basses to take +their lower do. But Mr. Chipps, though he generally succumbed into +singing an octave below the trebles, had conscientious scruples about +starting on the downward path even if his part demanded it, and could +not be persuaded to make any sound except a dignified neutral rumbling. +The other basses naturally were not to be drawn on to dangerous ground +while their leader held aloof. + +"We shall drop into it later on," said Mr. Black hopefully, who sat with +them. "We had better start." + +"Pom, pom, pom, pom," said Mr. Spillcock, going slowly down the chord, +and waving a little stick at trebles, altoes, tenors, and basses in turn +at each pom. + +Every one made a note of sorts, with such pleasing results, something so +far superior to anything that Sweet Apple Tree could produce, that it +was felt to be unchivalrous on the part of Mr. Spillcock to beat his +stick on the form and say sternly-- + +"Altoes, it's Hay. Not Hay flat." + +"Pommmm!" in piercing falsetto. + +The altoes took up their note again, caught it as it were with a +pincers from Mr. Spillcock's back molars. + +"Righto," said Mr. Spillcock. "Altoes, if you find yourselves going +down, keep yourselves _hup_. Now hunto 'Im." + +And the serious business of the practice began. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + "Not even in a dream hast thou known compassion ... thou knowest + not even the phantom of pity; but the silver hair will remind thee + of all this by and by."--CALLIMACHUS. + + +The Dower House stands so near to the church that Janey Manvers sitting +by her bedroom window in the dusk could hear fragments of the choir +practice over the low ivied wall which separates the churchyard from the +garden. She could detect Annette's voice taking the same passage over +and over again, trying to lead the trebles stumbling after her. +Presently there was a silence, and then her voice rose sweet and clear +by itself-- + +"_They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the +sun light on them, nor any heat._" + +The other voices surged up, and Janey heard no more. + +Was it possible there really was a place somewhere where there was no +more hunger and thirst, and beating, blinding heat? Or were they only +pretty words to comfort where no comfort was? Janey looked out where one +soft star hung low in the dusk over the winding river and its poplars. +It seemed to her that night as if she had reached the end of her +strength. + +For years, since her father died, she had nursed and sustained her +mother, the invalid in the next room, through what endless terrible days +and nights, through what scenes of anger and bitterness and despair. +Janey had been loyal to one who had never been loyal to her, considerate +to one who had ridden rough-shod over her, tender to one who was harsh +to her, who had always been harsh. And now her mother, not content with +eating up the best years of her daughter's life, had laid her cold hand +upon the future, and had urged Janey to promise that after her death she +would always keep Harry, her half-witted younger brother, in the same +house with her, and protect him from the world on one side and a lunatic +asylum on the other. Something desperate had surged up in Janey's heart, +and she had refused to give the promise. She could see still her +mother's look of impotent anger as she turned her face to the wall, +could hear still her hysterical sobbing. She had not dared to remain +with her, and Anne the old housemaid was sitting with her till the +trained nurse returned from Ipswich, a clever, resourceful woman, who +had made herself indispensable to Lady Louisa, and had taken Harry to +the dentist--always heretofore a matter difficult of accomplishment. + +Janey realized with sickening shame this evening that she had +unconsciously looked forward to her mother's death as a time when +release would come from this intolerable burden which she had endured +for the last seven years. Her poor mother would die some day, and a home +would be found for Harry, who never missed anyone if he was a day away +from them. And she would marry Roger, dear kind Roger, whom she had +loved since she was a small child and he was a big boy. That had been +her life, in a prison whose one window looked on a green tree: and poor +manacled Janey had strained towards it as a plant strains to the light. +Something fierce had stirred within her when she saw her mother's hand +trying to block the window. That at any rate must not be touched. She +could not endure it. She knew that if she married Roger he would never +consent that Harry and his attendants should live in the house with +them. What man would? She felt sure that her mother had realized that +contingency and the certainty of Roger's refusal, and hence her +determination to wrest a promise from Janey. + +She was waiting for her cousin Roger now. He had not said whether he +would dine or come in after dinner,--it depended on whether he caught +the five o'clock express from Liverpool Street,--but in any case he +would come in some time this evening to tell her the result of his +mission to Paris. Roger lived within a hundred yards, in the pink +cottage with the twirly barge boarding almost facing the church, close +by the village stocks. + +Janey had put on what she believed to be a pretty gown on his account, +it was at any rate a much-trimmed one, and had re-coiled her soft brown +hair. The solitude and the darkness had relieved somewhat the strain +upon her nerves. Perhaps Roger might after all have accomplished his +mission, and her mother might be pacified. Sometimes there had been +quiet intervals after these violent outbreaks, which nearly always +followed opposition of any kind. Perhaps to-morrow life might seem more +possible, not such a nightmare. To-morrow she would walk up to Red Riff +and see Annette--lovely, kind Annette--the wonderful new friend who had +come into her life. Roger ought to be here, if he were coming to dinner. +The choir was leaving the church. Choir practice was never over till +after eight. The steps and voices subsided. She lit a match and held it +to the clock on the dressing-table. Quarter-past eight. Then Roger was +certainly not coming. She went downstairs and ordered dinner to be +served. + +It was a relief that for once Harry was not present, that she could eat +her dinner without answering the futile questions which were his staple +of conversation, without hearing the vacant laugh which heralded every +remark. She heard the carriage rumble out of the courtyard to meet him. +His teeth must have taken longer than usual. Perhaps even Nurse, who +had him so entirely under her thumb as a rule, had found him +recalcitrant. + +As she was peeling her peach the door opened, and Roger came in. If +there had been anyone to notice it--but no one ever noticed anything +about Janey--they might have seen that as she perceived him she became a +pretty woman. A soft red mounted to her cheek, her tired eyes shone, her +small, erect figure became alert. He had not dined, after all. She sent +for the earlier dishes, and while he ate, refrained from asking him any +questions. + +"You do not look as tired as I expected," she said. + +Roger replied that he was not the least tired There was in his bearing +some of the alertness of hers, and she noticed it with a sudden secret +uprush of joy in her heart. Surely it was the same for both of them? To +be together was all they needed. But oh! how she needed that! How far +greater her need was than his! + +They might have been taken for brother and sister as they sat together +in the dining-room in the light of the four wax candles. + +They were what the village people called "real Manverses," both of them, +sturdy, well knit, erect, with short, straight noses, and grey, direct, +wide-open eyes, and brown complexions, and crisp brown hair. Each was +good-looking in a way. Janey had the advantage of youth, but her life +had been more burdened than Roger's, and at five-and-thirty he did not +look much older than she did at five-and-twenty, except that he showed a +tendency to be square-set, and his hair was thinning a little at the top +of his honest, well-shaped head. He was, as Mrs. Nicholls often +remarked, "the very statue of the old squire," his uncle and Janey's +father. + +"Pray don't hurry, Roger. There is plenty of time." + +"I'm not hurrying, old girl," with another gulp. + +It was a secret infinitesimal grief to Janey that Roger called her "old +girl." A hundred little traits showed that she had seen almost nothing +of the world, but he, in spite of public school and college, gave the +impression of having seen even less. There were a few small +tiresomenesses about Roger to which even Janey's faithful adoration +could not quite shut its eyes. But they were, after all, only external +foibles, such as calling her "old girl," tricks of manner, small +gaucheries and gruntings and lapses into inattention, the result of +living too much alone, which wise Janey knew were of no real account. +The things that really mattered about Roger were his kind heart and his +good business-head and his uprightness. + +"Never seen Paris before, and don't care if I never see it again," he +vouchsafed between enormous mouthfuls. He never listened--at least not +to Janey--and his conversation consisted largely of disjointed remarks, +thrown out at intervals, very much as unprofitable or waste material is +chucked over a wall, without reference to the person whom it may strike +on the other side. + +"I should like to see Paris myself." + +Roger informed her of the reprehensible and entirely un-British manner +in which luggage was arranged for at that metropolis, and of the price +of the cabs and the system of _pourboires_, and how the housemaid at the +hotel had been a man. Some of these details of intimate Parisian life +had already reached even Janey, but she listened to them with unflagging +interest. Do not antiquaries tell us that the extra rib out of which Eve +was fashioned was in shape not unlike an ear trumpet? Janey was a +daughter of Eve. She listened. + +Presently the servants withdrew, and he leaned back in his chair and +looked at her. + +"It was no go," he said. + +"You mean Dick was worse?" + +"Yes. No. I don't know how he was. He looked to me just the same, +staring straight in front of him with goggling eyes. Lady Jane said he +knew me, but I didn't see that he did. I said, 'Holloa, Dick,' and he +just gaped. She said he knew quite well all about the business, and that +she had explained it to him. And the doctor was there, willing to +witness anything: awful dapper little chap, called me _Chair Mussieur_ +and held me by the arm, and tried to persuade me, but----" Roger shook +his head and thrust out his under lip. + +"You were right, Roger," said Janey sadly; "but poor mother will be +dreadfully angry. And how are you to go on without the power of +attorney, if he's not in a fit state to grant it?" + +But Roger was not listening. + +"I often used to wonder how Aunt Louisa got Dick to sign before about +the sale of the salt marshes--that time when she went to Paris +herself--on purpose. But,"--he became darkly red,--"hang it all, Janey, +I see now how it was done." + +"She shouldn't have sent me," he said, getting up abruptly. "Not the +kind for the job. I suppose I had better go up and see her. Expect I +shall catch it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + "This man smells not of books."--J. S. BLACKIE. + + +Lady Louisa Manvers was waiting for her nephew, propped up in bed, +clutching the bed-clothes with leaden, corpse-pale hands. She was +evidently at the last stage of some long and terrific illness, and her +hold on life seemed as powerless and as convulsive as that of her hands +upon the quilt. She felt that she was slipping into the grave, she the +one energetic and far-seeing member of the family, and that on her +exhausted shoulders lay the burden of arranging everything for the good +of her children, for they were totally incapable of doing anything for +themselves. In the long nights of unrest and weariness unspeakable, her +mind, accustomed to undisputed dominion, revolved perpetually round the +future of her children, and the means by which in her handicapped +condition she could still bring about what would be best for them, what +was essential for their well-being, especially Harry's. And all the +while her authority was slipping from her, in spite of her desperate +grasp upon it. The whole world and her stubborn children themselves were +in league against her, and the least opposition on their part aroused +in her a paroxysm of anger and despair. Why did every one make her heavy +task heavier? Why was she tacitly disobeyed when a swift and absolute +obedience was imperative? Why did they try to soothe her, and speak +smooth things to her, when they were virtually opposing her all the +time? She, a paralysed old woman, only longing for rest, was forced to +fight them all single-handed for their sakes. + +To-night, as she lay waiting for her nephew, she touched a lower level +of despair than even she had yet reached. She suspected that Roger would +fail her. Janey had for the first time turned against her. Even Janey, +who had always yielded to her, always, always, even she had opposed +her--had actually refused to make the promise which was essential to the +welfare of poor Harry after she herself was gone. And she felt that she +was going, that she was being pushed daily and hourly nearer to the +negation of all things, the silence, the impotence of the grave. She +determined to act with strength while power to act still remained. + +Roger's reluctant step came up the oak staircase, and his tap on the +door. + +"May I come in?" + +"Come in." + +He came in, and stood as if he were stuffed in the middle of the room, +his eyes fixed on the cornice. + +"I hope you are feeling better, Aunt Louisa?" + +"I am still alive, as you see." + +Deep-rooted jealousy of Roger dwelt in her, had dwelt in her ever since +the early days when her husband had adopted him against her wish when he +had been left an orphan. She had not wanted him in her nursery. Her +husband had always been fond of him, and later in life had leaned upon +him. In the depths of her bitter heart Lady Louisa believed he had +preferred his nephew to the two sons she had given him, Dick the +ne'er-do-well, and Harry the latecomer--the fool. + +Roger moved his eyes slowly round the room, looking always away from the +bed, till they fell upon the cat curled up in the arm-chair. + +"Holloa, puss!" he said. "Caught a mouse lately?" + +"Did you get the power of attorney?" came the voice from the bed. + +"No, Aunt Louisa." + +The bed-clothes trembled. + +"I told you not to come back without it." + +Roger was silent. + +"Had not Jane arranged everything?" + +"Everything." + +"And the doctor! Wasn't he there ready to witness it?" + +"Oh Lord! Yes. He was there." + +"Then I fail to understand why you came back without it." + +"Dick wasn't fit to sign," said Roger doggedly. + +"Didn't I warn you before you went that he had repeatedly told Jane +that he could not attend to business, and that was why it was so +important you should be empowered to act for him?--and the power of +attorney was his particular wish." + +"Yes, you did. But I didn't know he'd be like that. He didn't know a +thing. It didn't seem as if he _could_ have had a particular wish one +way or the other. Aunt Louisa, he wasn't _fit_." + +"And so you set up your judgment against mine, and his own doctor's? I +told you before you went, what you knew already, that he was not capable +of transacting business, and that you must have the power; and you said +you understood. And then you come back here and inform me that he was +not fit, which you knew before you started." + +"No, no. You're wrong there." + +How like he was to her dead husband as he said that, and how she hated +him for the likeness! + +"Don't contradict me. You were asked to act in Dick's own interest and +in the interests of the property, and you promised to do it. And you +haven't done it." + +"But, Aunt Louisa, he wasn't in a state to sign anything. He's not +alive. He's just breathing, that's all. Doesn't know anybody, or take +any notice. If you'd seen him you'd have known you _couldn't_ get his +signature." + +"I did get it about the marsh-lands. I went to Paris on purpose last +November, when I was too ill to travel. I only sent you this time +because I could not leave my bed." + +Roger paused, and then his honest face became plum colour, and he +blurted out-- + +"They were actually going to guide his hand." + +Lady Louisa's cold eyes met his. + +"Well! And if they were?" + +Roger lost his embarrassment. His face became as pale as it had been +red. He came up to the bed and looked the sick woman straight in the +eyes. + +"I was not the right man for the job," he said. "You should have sent +somebody else. I--stopped it." + +"I hope when you are dying, Roger, that your son will carry out your +last wishes more effectively than my nephew has carried out mine." + +"But, Aunt Louisa, upon my honour he wasn't----" + +"Good-night. Ask Janey to send up Nurse to me as soon as she returns." + +Roger left the room clumsily, but yet with a certain dignity. His +upright soul was shocked to the very core. He marched heavily downstairs +to the library, where Janey was keeping his coffee hot for him over a +little spirit-lamp. There was indignation in his clear grey eyes. And +over his coffee and his cigarette he recounted to her exactly how +everything had been, and how Dick wasn't fit, he really wasn't. And +Janey thought that when he had quite finished she would tell him of the +pressure her mother was bringing to bear on her to promise to make a +home for Harry after her death. But when at last Roger got off the +subject, and his cigarette had soothed him, he went on to tell Janey +about a man he had met on the boat, who oddly enough turned out to be a +cousin of a land agent he knew in Kent. This surprising incident took so +long, the approaches having been both gradual and circuitous, and +primarily connected with the proffer of a paper, that when it also had +been adequately dealt with and disposed of, it was getting late. + +"I must be off," he said, rising. "Good-night, Janey. Keep a brave +heart, old girl." He nodded slightly to the room above, which was his +aunt's. "Rough on you sometimes, I'm afraid." + +"You always cheer me up," she said, with perfect truthfulness. He _had_ +cheered her. It would be a sad world for most of us if it were by our +conversational talents that we could comfort those we loved. But Roger +believed it was so in his case, and complacently felt that he had +broached a number of interesting Parisian subjects, and had refreshed +Janey, whom Lady Louisa led a dog's life and no mistake. He was fond of +her, and sorry for her beyond measure, and his voice and eyes were very +kindly as he bade her good-night. She went to the door with him, and +they stood a moment together in the moonlight under the clustering +stars of the clematis. He took his hat and stick and repeated his words: +"Keep a brave heart." + +She said in a voice which she tried, and failed, to make as tranquil as +usual-- + +"I had been so afraid you weren't coming, that you had missed your +train." + +"Oh no! I didn't miss it. But just as I got to the gate at eight o'clock +I met Miss Georges coming out of the churchyard, and it was pretty +dark--moon wasn't up--and I thought I ought to see her home first. That +was why I was late." + +Janey bade him good-night again, and slipped indoors. The moonlight and +the clematis which a moment before had been so full of mysterious +meaning were suddenly emptied of all significance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + "O Life, how naked and how hard when known! + Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Janey lit her bedroom candle with a hand that trembled a little, and in +her turn went slowly upstairs. + +She could hear the clatter of knives and forks in the dining-room, and +Harry's vacant laugh, and Nurse's sharp voice. They had come back, then. +She went with an effort into her mother's room, and sat down in her +accustomed chair by the bed. + +"It is ten o'clock. Shall I read, mother?" + +"Certainly." + +It was the first time they had spoken since she had been ordered out of +the room earlier in the day. + +Janey opened the Prayer Book on the table by the bedside, and read a +psalm and a chapter from the Gospel:-- + +"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give +you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and +lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is +easy, and My burden is light." + +Janey closed the book, and said timidly, "May I stay until Nurse comes +up?" + +"Pray do exactly what you like." + +She did not move. + +"I am heavy laden," said her mother. "I don't suppose you have ever +given it one moment's thought what it must be like to lie like a log as +I do." + +Her daughter dared not answer. + +"How many months have I lain in this room?" + +"Eight months." + +"Ever since I went to Paris last October. I was too ill to go, but I +went." + +Silence. + +"I am heavy laden, but it seems I must not look to you for help, Janey." + +Janey's heart sickened within her. When had her mother ever relinquished +anything if once her indomitable will were set upon it? She felt within +herself no force to withstand a second attack. + +The nurse came in at that moment, a tall, shrewd, capable woman of +five-and-thirty, with a certain remnant of haggard good looks. + +"May Mr. Harry come in to say good-night, milady?" + +"Yes." + +She went to the door and admitted a young man. Harry came and stood +beside the bed, looking sheepishly at his mother. If his face had not +been slightly vacant, the mouth ajar, he would have been beautiful. As +it was, people turned in the street to see him pass. He was tall, fair, +well grown, with a delightful smile. He smiled now at his mother, and +she tried hard to smile back at him, her rigid face twitching a little. + +"Well, my son! Had you a nice day in Ipswich?" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"And I hope you were brave at the dentist's, and that he did not hurt +you much?" + +"Oh no, mamma. He did not hurt me at all." + +"Not at all?" said his mother, surprised. + +The nurse stepped forward at once. + +"Mr. Harry did not have his tooth out, milady." + +"No," said Harry slowly, looking at the nurse as if he were repeating a +lesson, "the tooth was _not_ taken out. It was _not_." + +"Mr. Milson had been called away," continued the nurse glibly. + +"Called away," echoed Harry. + +"Then the expedition was all for nothing?" said Lady Louisa wearily. + +"Oh _no_, mamma." + +The nurse intervened once more, and recounted how she had taken Harry to +have his hair cut, and to buy some gloves, and to an entertainment of +performing dogs, and to tea at Frobisher's. They could have been home +earlier, but she knew the carriage was ordered to meet the later train. + +Harry began to imitate the tricks which the dogs had done, but the nurse +peremptorily interrupted him. + +"Her ladyship's tired, and it's past ten o'clock. You must tell her +about the dogs to-morrow." + +"Yes, to-morrow," echoed Harry, and he kissed his mother, and shuffled +towards the door. Janey slipped out with him. + +Lady Louisa did not speak again while the nurse made the arrangements +for the night. She was incensed with her. She had been too peremptory +with Harry. It was not for her to order him about in that way. Lady +Louisa was beginning to distrust this capable, indefatigable woman, on +whom she had become absolutely dependent; and when the nurse had left +her for the night, and was asleep in the next room with the door open +between, she began to turn over in her mind, not for the first time, the +idea of parting with her, and letting Janey nurse her entirely once +more, as she had done at first. Janey with Anne the housemaid to help +her could manage perfectly well, whatever the doctor might say. It was +not as if she wanted anything doing for her, lying still as she did day +after day. She should never have had a trained nurse if her own wishes +had been consulted. But when were they ever consulted? The doctor, who +understood nothing about her illness, had insisted, and Janey had not +resisted the idea as she ought to have done. But the whole household +could not be run to suit Janey's convenience. She had told her so +already more than once. She should tell her so again. Even worms will +turn. There were others to be considered besides Janey, who only +considered herself. + +Lady Louisa's mind left her daughter and went back, as if it had +received some subtle warning, to the subject of the nurse. She was +convinced by the woman's manner of intervening when she had been +questioning Harry, that something had been concealed from her about the +expedition to Ipswich. She constantly suspected that there was a cabal +against her. She was determined to find out what it was, which she could +easily do from Harry. And if Nurse had really disobeyed her, and had +taken him on the water, which always excited him, or to a theatre, which +was strictly forbidden, then she would make use of that act of +disobedience as a pretext for dismissing her, and she would certainly +not consent to have anyone else in her place. Having settled this point, +she closed her eyes and tried to settle herself to sleep. + +But sleep would not come. The diligent little clock, with its face +turned to the strip of light shed by the shaded nightlight, recorded in +a soft chime half-hour after half-hour. With forlorn anger, she +reflected that every creature in the house was sleeping--she could hear +Nurse's even breathing close at hand--every one except herself, who +needed sleep more than anyone to enable her to get through the coming +day. It did not strike her that possibly Janey also might be lying +open-eyed through the long hours. + +Lady Louisa's mind wandered like a sullen, miserable tramp over her past +life. She told herself that all had gone wrong with her, all had cheated +her from first to last. It seems to be the doom of the egoist to crave +for things for which he has no real value, on which when acquired he can +only trample. Lady Louisa had acquired a good deal and had trampled +heavily on her acquisitions, especially on her kindly, easy-tempered +husband who had loved her. And how throughout her whole life she had +longed to be loved! + +To thirst voraciously to be loved, to have sufficient acumen to perceive +love to be the only real bulwark, as it is, against the blows of fate; +the only real refuge, as it is, from grief; the one sure consolation, as +it is, in the recurring anguished ache of existence,--to perceive that +life is not life without it, and _then_ to find that love when +appropriated and torn out of its shrine is no talisman, but only a +wearisome, prosaic clog quickly defaced by being dragged in the dust up +the thorny path of our egotism! Is there any disappointment so bitter, +so devastating as that? Lady Louisa, poor soul, had endured it. She +glanced for a moment at the photograph of her husband on the +mantelpiece, with his hair brushed forward over his ears. Even death had +not assuaged her long-standing grievance against him. Why had he always +secretly preferred his nephew Roger to his own sons? Why did he die just +after their eldest son Dick came of age? And why had not he left her +Hulver for her life, instead of taking for granted that she would prefer +to go back to her own house, Noyes Court, a few miles off? She had told +him so, but he might have known she had never meant it. She had not +wanted to go back to it. She had not gone back, though all her friends +and Janey had especially wished it. She had hastily let it to Mr. +Stirling the novelist, to show that she should do exactly as she liked, +and had made one of those temporary arrangements that with the old are +always for life. She had moved into the Dower House for a year, and had +been in it seven years. + +Her heart swelled with anger as she thought of the conduct of her eldest +son after his father's death: and yet could anyone have been a brighter, +more delightful child than Dicky? But Dicky had been a source of +constant anxiety to her, from the day when he was nearly drowned in the +mill-race at Riff to the present hour, when he was lying dying by inches +of spinal paralysis at his aunt's house in Paris as the result of a +racing accident. What a heartbreaking record his life had been, of one +folly, one insane extravagance after another! And shame had not been +wanting. He had not even made a foolish marriage, and left a son whom +she and Janey could have taken from its mother and educated; but there +was an illegitimate child--a girl--whom Roger had told her about, by a +village schoolmistress, an honest woman whom Dick had seduced under +promise of marriage. + +Perhaps, after all, Lady Louisa had some grounds for feeling that +everything had gone against her. Dick was dying, and her second son +Harry--what of him? She was doggedly convinced that Harry was not +"wanting": that "he could help it if he liked." In that case, all that +could be said was that he did not like. She stuck to it that his was a +case of arrested development, in strenuous opposition to her husband, +who had held that Harry's brain was not normal from the awful day when +as a baby they first noticed that he always stared at the ceiling. Lady +Louisa had fiercely convinced herself, but no one else, that it was the +glitter of the old cut-glass chandelier which attracted him. But after a +time even she had to own to herself, though never to others, that he had +a trick of staring upwards where no chandelier was. Even now, at +two-and-twenty, Harry furtively gazed upon the sky, and perhaps vaguely +wondered why he could only do so by stealth--why that was one of the +innumerable forbidden things among which he had to pick his way, and +for which he was sharply reprimanded by that dread personage his mother. + +Mr. Manvers on his death-bed had said to Dick in Lady Louisa's presence, +"Remember, if you don't have a son, Roger ought to have Hulver. Harry is +not fit." + +She had never forgiven her husband for trying to denude Harry of his +birthright. And to-night she felt a faint gleam of consolation in the +surrounding dreariness in the thought that he had not been successful. +When Dick died, Harry would certainly come in. On her last visit to +Paris she had ransacked Dick's rooms at his training-stable. She had +gone through all his papers. She had visited his lawyers. She had +satisfied herself that he had not made a will. It was all the more +important, as Harry would be very rich, that Janey should take entire +and personal charge of him, lest he should fall into the hands of some +designing woman. That pretty French adventuress, Miss Georges, who had +come to live at Riff and whom Janey had made such friends with, was just +the kind of person who might entangle him into marrying her. And then if +Roger and Janey should eventually marry, Harry could perfectly well live +with them. He must be guarded at all costs. Lady Louisa sighed. That +seemed on the whole the best plan. She had looked at it all round. But +Janey was frustrating it by refusing to do her part. She must fall into +line. To-morrow she would send for her lawyer and alter her will once +more, leaving Noyes to Harry, instead of Janey, as she had done by a +promise to her husband. Janey had no one but herself to thank for such a +decision. She had forced it on her mother by her obstinacy and her +colossal selfishness. What had she done that she of all women should +have such selfish children? Then Janey would have nothing of her own at +all, and then she would be so dependent on Harry that she would have no +alternative but to do her duty by him. + +Lady Louisa sighed again. Her mind was made up. Janey must give way, and +the nurse must be got rid of. Those were the two next things to be +achieved. Then perhaps she would be suffered to rest in peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + "And Death stopped knitting at the muffling band. + 'The shroud is done,' he muttered, 'toe to chin.' + He snapped the ends, and tucked his needles in." + JOHN MASEFIELD. + + +After a sleepless night, and after the protracted toilet of the old and +feeble, Lady Louisa tackled her task with unabated determination. She +dictated a telegram to her lawyer, sent out the nurse for a walk, and +desired Janey to bring Harry to her. + +Harry, who was toiling over his arithmetic under the cedar, with the +help of a tutor from Riebenbridge and a box of counters, obeyed with +alacrity. He looked a very beaming creature, with "fresh morning face," +as he came into his mother's room. + +"Good morning, mamma." + +"Good morning, my son." + +The terrible ruler looked benign. She nodded and smiled at him. He did +not feel as cowed as usual. + +"You can go away, Janey, and you needn't come back till I ring." + +"And now tell me all about the performing dogs," said the terrible +ruler in the bed, when Janey had left the room. + +Harry saw that she was really interested, and he gave her an exact +account, interrupted by the bubbling up of his own laughter, of a dog +which had been dressed up as a man in a red coat, with a cocked hat and +a gun. He could hardly tell her for laughing. The dread personage +laughed too, and said, "Capital! Capital!" And he showed her one of the +tricks, which consisted of sitting up on your hind legs with a pipe in +your mouth. He imitated exactly how the dog had sat, which in a man was +perhaps not quite so mirth-provoking as in a dog. Nevertheless, the +dread personage laughed again. + +It promised to be an agreeable morning. He hoped it would be a long time +before she remembered his arithmetic and sent him back to it, that +hopeless guess-work which he sometimes bribed Tommy the gardener's boy +to do for him in the tool-shed. + +"And then you got your gloves!" said the dread personage suddenly. "How +many pairs was it?" Harry was bewildered, and stared blankly at her. + +"You must remember how many pairs it was." Harry knit his poor brow, +rallied his faculties, and said it was two pairs. + +"And now," said Lady Louisa, "you may have a chocolate out of my silver +box, and let me hear all about--you know what," and she nodded +confidentially at him. + +But he only gaped at her, half frightened. She smiled reassuringly at +him. + +"Nurse told me all about it," she said encouragingly. "That was why you +weren't to tell me. She wanted it to be a great surprise to me." + +"I wasn't to say a word," said Harry doubtfully,--"not a word--about +_that_." + +"No. That was just what Nurse said to me. You weren't to say a single +word last night, until she had told me. But now I know all about it, so +we can talk. Was it great fun?" + +"I don't know." + +"It was great fun when I did it. How I laughed!" + +"I didn't laugh. She told me not to." + +"Well, no. Not at first. She was quite right. And what did her brother +say? Nurse said he went with you." + +"Yes. We called for him, and he went with us, with a flower in his +button-hole--a rose it was. He gave me one too." + +Harry looked at his button-hole, as if expecting to see the rose still +in it. But that sign of merry-making was absent. + +Lady Louisa had on a previous occasion severely reprimanded Nurse for +taking Harry to tea at her brother's house, a solicitor's clerk in +Ipswich. Her spirits rose. She had detected her in an act of flagrant +disobedience. And as likely as not they had all gone to a play together. + +"Capital!" she said suavely. "He was just the right person to go with. +That was what I said to Nurse. And what did _he_ talk about?" + +"He said, 'Mum's the word. Keep it all quiet till the old cat dies,' and +he slapped me on the back and said, 'Mind that, brother-in-law.' He was +very nice indeed." + +A purple mark like a bruise came to Lady Louisa's clay-coloured cheeks. +There was a long pause before she spoke again. + +"And did you write your name nicely, like Janey taught you?" She spoke +with long-drawn gasps, each word articulated with difficulty. + +"Yes," said Harry anxiously, awed by the fixity of her eyes upon him. "I +did indeed, mamma. I was very particular." + +"Your full name?" + +"Yes, the man said my full name--Henry de la Pole Manvers." + +"That was the man at the registry office?" + +"Yes." + +"And"--the voice laboured heavily and was barely audible--"did Nurse +write her name nicely too?" + +"Yes, and her brother and the man. We all wrote them, and then we all +had tea at Frobisher's,--only it wasn't tea,--and Nurse's brother +ordered a bottle of champagne. Nurse didn't want him to, but he said +people didn't get married every day. And he drank our health, and I +drank a little tiny sip, and it made me sneeze." + +Lady Louisa lay quite motionless, the sweat upon her forehead, looking +at her son, who smiled seraphically back at her. + +And so Nurse had actually thought she could outwit _her_--had pitted +herself against _her_? She would shortly learn a thing or two on that +head. + +A great cold was invading her. And as she looked at Harry, it was as if +some key, some master key, were suddenly and noiselessly turned in the +lock. Without moving her eyes, she saw beyond him the door, expecting to +see the handle turn, and Nurse or Janey to come in. But the door +remained motionless. Nevertheless, a key somewhere had turned. +Everything was locked tight--the room, the walls, the bed, herself in +it--as in a vice. + +"Go back to your lessons," she said to Harry, "and send Janey to me." +She felt a sudden imperative need of Janey. + +But Harry, so docile, so schooled to obedience, made no motion to obey +her. He only looked vacantly, expectantly at her. + +She spoke again, but he paid no heed. She spoke yet again with anger, +but this time he was fidgeting with the watch on her table and did not +even look up. She saw him as if through a glass screen. + +A wave of anger shook her. + +"Leave the room this moment, and do as I tell you," she said, with her +whole strength. Had he suddenly became deaf? Or had she----? Was +she----? A great fear took her. He put back the watch on its stand, and +touched the silver box in which the chocolates were kept. + +"May I have another--just one other?" he said, opening it, his voice +barely audible through the glass screen. + +And then, glancing at her for permission, he was seized with helpless +laughter. + +"Oh, mamma! You do look so funny, with your mouth all on one +side--funnier than the dog in the hat." + +His words and his laughter reached her, faint yet distinct, and she +understood what had befallen her. Two large tears gathered in her +anguished eyes and then slowly ran down her distorted face. Everything +else remained fixed, as in a vice, save Harry, rocking himself to and +fro, and snapping his fingers with delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + "After all, I think there are only two kinds of people in the + world, lovers and egotists. I fear that lovers must smile when they + see me making myself comfortable, collecting refined luxuries and a + pleasant society round myself, protecting myself from an uneasy + conscience by measured ornamental acts of kindness and duty; + mounting guard over my health and my seclusion and my liberty. Yes! + I have seen them smile."--M. N. + + +The violet dusk was deepening and the dew was falling as Annette crossed +the garden under the apple trees on her return from the choir practice. +There was a light in Aunt Maria's window, which showed that she was +evidently grappling with the smoking embroglio which was racking two +young hearts. Even a footfall in the passage was apt to scare that shy +bird Aunt Maria's genius, so Annette stole on tiptoe to the parlour. + +Aunt Harriet, extended on a sofa near a shaded lamp, looked up from her +cushions with a bright smile of welcome, and held out both her hands. + +Aunt Harriet was the youngest of three sisters, but she had not realized +that that fact may in time cease to mean much. It was obvious that she +had not yet kissed the rod of middle age. She had been moderately +good-looking twenty years ago, and still possessed a willowy figure and +a slender hand, and a fair amount of ash-coloured hair which she wore in +imitation of the then Princess of Wales tilted forward in a dome of +innumerable little curls over a longish pinkish face, leaving the thin +flat back of her head unmitigated by a coil. Aunt Harriet gave the +impression of being a bas-relief, especially on the few occasions on +which she stood up, when it seemed as if part of her had become +momentarily unglued from the sofa, leaving her spinal column and the +back of her head behind. + +She had had an unhappy and misunderstood--I mean too accurately +understood--existence, during the early years when her elder sister +Maria ruthlessly exhorted her to exert herself, and continually +frustrated her mild inveterate determination to have everything done for +her. But a temporary ailment long since cured and a sympathetic doctor +had enabled her to circumvent Maria, and to establish herself for good +on her sofa, with the soft-hearted Catherine in attendance. Her unlined +face showed that she had found her niche in this uneasy world, and was +no longer as in all her earlier years a drifter through life, terrified +by the possibility of fatiguing herself. Greatly to her credit, and +possibly owing to Catherine's mediation, Aunt Maria accepted the +situation, and never sought to undermine the castle, not in Spain but on +a sofa, which her sister had erected, and in which she had found the +somewhat colourless happiness of her life. + +"Come in, my love, come in," said Aunt Harriet, with playful gaiety. +"Come in and sit by me." + +Her love came in and sat down obediently on the low stool by her aunt's +couch, that stool to which she was so frequently beckoned, on which it +was her lot to hear so much advice on the subject of the housekeeping +and the management of the servants. + +"I think, Annette, you ought to speak to Hodgkins about the Albert +biscuits. I know I left six in the tin yesterday, and there were only +four to-day. I went directly I was down to count them. It is not good +for _her_ to take the dining-room Alberts and then to deny it, as she +did the other day. So I think it will be best if I don't move in the +matter, and if you mention it as if you had noticed it yourself." Or, +"There was a cobweb on my glass yesterday. I think, dearest, you must +not overlook that. Servants become very slack unless they are kept up to +their work." Aunt Harriet was an enemy of all slackness, idleness, want +of energy, shirking in all its branches. She had taken to reading +Emerson of late, and often quoted his words that "the only way of escape +in all the worlds of God was performance." + +Annette would never have kept a servant if she had listened to her +aunt's endless promptings. But she did not listen to them. Her placid, +rather happy-go-lucky temperament made her forget them at once. + +"Have you had supper, dear child?" + +"Not yet. I will go now." + +"And did you remember to take a lozenge as you left the church?" + +"I am afraid I forgot." + +"Ah! my dear, it's a good thing you have some one to look after you and +mother you. It's not too late to take one now." + +"I should like to go and have supper now. I am very hungry." + +"I rejoice to hear it. It is wonderful to me how you can do without a +regular meal on choir nights. If it had been me, I should have fainted. +But sit down again for one moment. I have something to tell you. You +will never guess whom we have had here." + +"I am sure I never shall." + +"You know how much Maria thinks of literary people?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't care for them quite so much as she does. I am more drawn to +those who have suffered, whose lives have been shattered like glass as +my own life has been, and who gather up the fragments that remain and +weave a beautiful embroidery out of them." + +Annette knew that her aunt wanted her to say, "As you do yourself." + +She considered a moment and then said, "You are thinking of Aunt +Catherine." + +Aunt Harriet was entirely nonplussed. She felt unable to own that she +had no such thought. She sighed deeply, and said after a pause, "I don't +want it repeated, Annette,--I learned long ago that it is my first duty +to keep my troubles to myself, to consume my own smoke,--but my +circulation has never been normal since the day Aunt Cathie died." + +Then after a moment she added, with sudden brightness, as one who +relumes the torch on which a whole household depends-- + +"But you have not guessed who our visitor was, and what a droll +adventure it all turned out. How I did laugh when it was all over and he +was safely out of hearing! Maria said there was nothing to laugh at, but +then she never sees the comic side of things as I do." + +"I begin to think it must have been Canon Wetherby, the clergyman who +told you that story about the parrot who said 'Damn' at prayers, and +made Aunt Maria promise not to put it in one of her books." + +"She will, all the same. It is too good to be lost. No, it was not Canon +Wetherby. But you will never guess. I've never known you guess anything, +Annette. You are totally devoid of imagination, and ah! how much happier +your life will be in consequence. I shall have to tell you. It was Mr. +Reginald Stirling." + +"The novelist?" + +"Yes, and you know Maria was beginning to feel a little hurt because he +hadn't called, as they are both writers. There is a sort of freemasonry +in these things, and, of course, in a neighbourhood like this we +naturally miss very much the extremely interesting literary society to +which we were accustomed in London, and in which Maria especially shone. +But anyhow he came at last, and he was quite delightful. Not much to +look at. Not Mr. Harvey's presence, but most agreeable. And he seemed to +know all about us. He said he went to Riff Church sometimes, and had +seen our youngest sister in the choir. How I laughed after he was gone! +I often wish the comic side did not appeal to me quite so forcibly. To +think of poor me, who have not been to church for years, boldly holding +forth in the choir, or Maria, dear Maria, who only knows 'God save the +Queen' because every one gets up: as Canon Wetherby said in his funny +way, 'Does not know "Pop goes the Queen" from "God save the weasel."' +Maria said afterwards that probably he thought you were our younger +sister, and that sent me off into fits again." + +"I certainly sit in the choir." + +"He was much interested in the house too, and said it was full of +old-world memories." + +"Did he really say that?" Annette's face fell. + +"No. Now I come to think of it, _I_ said that, and he agreed. And his +visit, and his conversation about Mrs. Humphry Ward, comparing _David +Grieve_ and _Robert Elsmere_, quite cured dear Maria's headache, and we +agreed that neither of us would tell you about it in the absence of the +other, so that we might make you guess. So remember, Annette, when Maria +comes in, you don't know a word, a single word, of what I've told you." + +Aunt Maria came in at that moment, and sat down on the other side of the +fire. + +Aunt Maria was a short, sacklike woman between fifty and sixty, who had +long since given up any pretensions to middle age, and who wore her grey +hair parted under a little cap. Many antagonistic qualities struggled +for precedence in Aunt Maria's stout, uneasy face: benevolence and +irritability, self-consciousness and absent-mindedness, a suspicious +pride and the self-depreciation which so often dogs it; and the fatigue +of one who daily and hourly is trying to be "an influence for good," +with little or no help from temperament. Annette had developed a +compassionate affection for both her aunts, now that they were under her +protection, but the greater degree of compassion was for Aunt Maria. + +"Aunt Harriet will have told you who has been to see us," she said as a +matter of course. + +Aunt Harriet fixed an imploring glance on Annette, who explained that +she had seen a dogcart in the courtyard, and how later she had seen Mr. +Stirling driving in it. + +"I wished, Harriet," said Aunt Maria, without looking at her sister, +"that you had not asked him if he had read my books." + +"But he had, Maria. He was only doubtful the first minute, till I told +him some of the names, and then----" + +"Then the poor man perjured himself." + +"And I thought that was so true how he said to you, 'You and I, Miss +Nevill, have no time in our hard-worked lives to read even the best +modern fiction.'" + +"I found time to read _The Magnet_," said Aunt Maria in a hollow voice. + +At this moment the door opened and Hodgkins the parlour-maid advanced +into the room bearing a tray, which she put down in an aggressive manner +on a small table beside Annette. + +"I am certain Hodgkins is vexed about something," said Aunt Harriet +solemnly, when that functionary had withdrawn. "I am as sensitive as a +mental thermometer to what others are feeling, and I saw by the way she +set the tray down that she was angry. She must have guessed that I've +found out about the Alberts." + +"Perhaps she guessed that Annette was starving," said Aunt Maria. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + "Life is like a nest in the winter, + The heart of man is always cold therein." + _Roumanian Folk Song._ + + +The lawyer who was to have altered Lady Louisa's will was sent away as +soon as he arrived. No one knew why she had telegraphed for him. She had +had a second stroke, and with it the last vestige of power dropped from +her numb hands. She was unable to speak, unable to move, unable even to +die. + +Janey sat by her for days together in a great compassion, not unmixed +with shame. Every one, Roger included, thought she was overwhelmed by +the catastrophe which had befallen her mother, and he made shy, clumsy +attempts at consolation, little pattings on the back, invitations to +"come out and have a look at the hay harvest." But Janey was stunned by +the thought that she was in danger of losing not her mother but her +Roger, had perhaps already lost him; and that her one friend Annette was +unconsciously taking him from her. Her mother's bedside had become a +refuge for the first time. As she sat hour after hour with Lady Louisa's +cold hand in hers, it was in vain that she told herself that it was +foolish, ridiculous, to attach importance to such a trivial incident as +the fact that when Roger was actually at her door he should have made +himself late by walking home with Annette. But she realized now that she +had been vaguely anxious before that happened, that it had been a +formless dread at the back of her mind which had nothing to do with her +mother, which had made her feel that night of the choir practice as if +she had reached the end of her strength. Is there any exhaustion like +that which guards the steep, endless steps up to the shrine of love? +Which of us has struggled as far as the altar and laid our offering upon +it? Which of us faint-hearted pilgrims has not given up the attempt +half-way? But Janey was not of these, not even to be daunted by a fear +that had taken shape at last. + +We all know that jealousy fabricates its own "confirmations strong as +proofs of Holy Writ." But with Janey it was not so much suspicion as +observation, that close observation born of love, which if it is once +dislinked from love not even Sir Galahad could endure scathless. With +steady eyes she dumbly watched her happiness grow dim and dimmer. Roger +was her all, and he was leaving her. His very kindness might have warned +her as to his real feeling for her, and it seemed to Janey as if for +months she had been shutting her eyes forcibly against the truth. + +There is a great deal of talk nowadays about losing the one we love, +and that attractive personality generally turns out to be some sagacious +stranger who has the agility to elude us in the crowd. But Roger was as +much an integral part of Janey's life as Hulver was part of his. Janey's +life had grown round Roger. Roger's had grown round Hulver. + + +Small incidents spread over the last two months, since Annette had come +to Riff, rose to her memory; things too small to count by themselves +hooked themselves like links one after another into a chain. For +instance, the Ipswich Agricultural Show. + +Janey had always gone to that annual event with Roger and Harry. And +since the Blacks had come to Riff, they had accompanied them. It seemed +pleasant to Janey to go in a little bunch together, and Mr. Black was +good-natured to Harry and took him to the side shows, and Janey always +had a new gown for the occasion. She had a new one this year, a pink +one, and a white straw hat covered with pink roses. And Roger had said +approvingly, "My word, Janey, you _have_ done it this time!" They had +taken Annette with them, in a flowing pale amber muslin which made her +hair and eyes seem darker than ever, and which Miss Black, in her +navy-blue silk, pronounced at once in a loud aside to be theatrical. +When they all arrived they divided, Annette owning she did not like the +pigs and sheep. Janey at once said she preferred them, because she knew +Roger did. If there was one thing more than another that Roger loved, it +was to stand among the cattle pens, with his hat a little at the back of +his head, exchanging oracular remarks with other agents and +stock-breeders, who gathered with gratifying respect the pearls of +wisdom which he let drop. For there was no sounder opinion in Lowshire +on a brood mare or a two-year-old "vanner" than Roger. + +It was always stiflingly hot among the cattle pens, and the pigs in +their domestic life had no bouquet more penetrating than that which they +brought with them to these public functions. Janey did not love that +animal, of which it might with truth be said that its "best is yet to +be," but she always accompanied Roger on these occasions, standing +beside him, a neat, dainty little figure, by the hour together, giving +her full attention to the various points of the animals as he indicated +them to her. They did the same again this year. Roger said, "Come on, +Janey," as usual, and hurried in the direction of the cattle pens, while +Annette and Harry and Mr. Black wandered towards the flower tents. But +when they had reached the pandemonium of the "live stock," Roger +appeared dissatisfied. The animals, it seemed, were a poor lot this +year. The flower of the Lowshire land agentry was absent. He didn't see +Smith anywhere. And Blower was not about. He expressed the opinion +frequently that they must be "getting on," and they were soon getting +on to such an extent that they had got past the reaping-machines, and +even the dogcarts, and were back near the band-stand, Roger continually +wondering what had become of the others. Janey, suddenly hot and tired, +suggested that they should look for them. And they set out immediately, +and elbowed their way through the crowded flower tents, and past side +shows innumerable, till they finally came upon Mr. Black and Annette and +Harry at an "Aunt Sally"; Harry in a seventh heaven of enjoyment, Mr. +Black blissfully content, and Annette under her lace parasol as cool as +a water-lily. Janey never forgot the throb of envy and despair to which +the sudden sight of Annette gave rise, as she smiled at her and made +room for her on the bench beside her, while Roger, suddenly peaceful and +inclined to giggle, tried his luck at the "Aunt Sally." They all stayed +together in a tight bunch for the remainder of the day, the endless +weary day which every one seemed to enjoy except herself. And at +tea-time they were joined by Miss Black and her friend, an entirely deaf +Miss Conder, secretary of the Lowshire Plain Needlework Guild, who had +adhered to Miss Black since morning greetings had been exchanged at the +station, and who at this, the first opportunity, deserted her for Janey. +And when they all came back late in the evening, Roger had driven +Annette home in his dogcart, while she and the Blacks and Harry, who +could hardly be kept awake, squeezed into the wagonnette. And when Janey +got home she tore off the pink gown and the gay hat, and wondered why +she was tired out. She knew now, but she had not realized it at the +time. She had somehow got it into her head, and if Janey once got an +idea into her little head it was apt to remain there some time, that +Annette and Mr. Black were attracted to each other. In these days, as +she sat by her mother, Janey saw that that idea had led her astray. Mr. +Black's hapless condition was sufficiently obvious. But perhaps Annette +did not care for Mr. Black? Perhaps she preferred Roger? And if she +did---- + +The reed on which Janey's maimed life had leaned showed for the first +time that heartbreaking tendency inherent in every reed, to pierce the +hand of the leaner. Strange, how slow we are to learn that everything in +this pretty world is fragile as spun glass, and nothing in it is strong +enough to bear our weight, least of all that reed shaken in the +wind--human love. We may draw near, we may hearken to its ghostly music, +we may worship, but we must not lean. + +Janey was not a leaner by nature. She was one on whom others leaned. +Nevertheless, she had counted on Roger. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + "So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is + the effect of one personality on another."--GEORGE ELIOT. + + +Janey's set face distressed Roger. + +Presently he had a brilliant idea. Miss Georges was the person to cheer +her, to tempt her out of her mother's sick-room. So the next time he was +going to Red Riff to inspect some repairs in the roof--the next time was +the same afternoon--he expounded this view at considerable length to +Annette, whom he found thinning the annuals in a lilac pinafore and +sunbonnet in the walled garden. + +She sat down on the circular bench round the apple tree while he talked, +and as he sat by her it seemed to him, not for the first time, that in +some mysterious way it was a very particular occasion. There was a +delightful tremor in the air. It suggested the remark which he at once +made that it was a remarkably fine afternoon. Annette agreed, rather too +fine for thinning annuals, though just the weather for her aunts to +drive over to Noyes to call on Mr. Stirling Now that Roger came to look +at Annette he perceived that she herself was part of the delicious +trouble in the air. It lurked in her hair, and the pure oval of her +cheek, and her eyes--most of all in her eyes. He was so taken aback by +this discovery that he could only stare at the sky. And yet if the silly +man had been able to put two and two together, if he had known as much +about human nature as he did about reaping-machines, he would not have +been in the dark as to why he was sitting under the apple tree at this +moment, why he had ordered those new riding-breeches, why he had them on +at this instant, why he had begun to dislike Mr. Black, and why he had +been so expeditious in retiling the _laiterie_ after the tree fell on +it. If he had had a grain of self-knowledge, he would have realized that +there must indeed be a grave reason for these prompt repairs which the +Miss Nevills had taken as a matter of course. + +For in the ordinary course of things tiles could hardly be wrested out +of Roger, and drainpipes and sections of lead guttering were as his +life-blood, never to be parted with except as a last resort after a +desperate struggle. The estate was understaffed, underfinanced, and the +repairs were always in arrear. Even the estate bricklayer, ruthlessly +torn from a neighbouring farm to spread himself on the Miss Nevills' +roof, opined to his nephew with the hod, that "Mr. Roger must be +uncommon sweet on Miss Georges to be in such a mortial hurry with them +tiles." + +Annette's voice recalled Roger from the contemplation of the heavens. + +"I will go down to-day, after tea," she was saying, "and I will persuade +Janey to come and sit in the hay-field. It is such a pretty thing a +hay-field. I've never seen hay in--in what do you call it?" + +"In cock." + +"Yes. Such a funny word! I've never seen hay in cock before." + +Roger smiled indulgently. Annette's gross ignorance of country-life did +not pain him. It seemed as much part of her as a certain little curl on +the white nape of her neck. + +Down the lane a child's voice came singing-- + + + "If I could 'ave the one I love, + 'Ow 'appy I should be!" + + +"That's Charlie Nokes," said Roger, feeling he ought to go, and +singularly disinclined to move, and casting about for a little +small-talk to keep him under this comfortable apple tree. "His father +used to sing that song at Harvest Homes before he took to the drink. +Jesse Nokes. He's dead now. He and my cousin Dick, the present squire, +used to get into all kinds of scrapes together when they were boys. I've +seen them climb up that vine and hide behind the chimney-stack when +Uncle John was looking for them with his whip. They might have broken +their necks, but they never thought of that. Poor Jesse! He's dead. And +Dick's dying." + +It was the first time Roger had ever spoken to her of the present owner +of Hulver, the black sheep of the family, of whose recklessness and +folly she had heard many stories from his foster-mother, Mrs. Nicholls. +Janey, in spite of their intimacy, never mentioned him. + +And partly because he wanted to remain under the apple tree, partly +because he was fond of Janey, and partly because a change of listeners +is grateful to the masculine mind, Roger talked long about his two +cousins, Janey and Dick Manvers: of her courage and unselfishness, and +what a pity it was that she had not been the eldest son of the house. +And then he told her a little of the havoc Dick was making of his +inheritance and of the grief he had caused his mother, and what, +according to Roger, mattered still more, to Janey. + +"Janey loved Dick," he said, "and I was fond of him myself. Everybody +was fond of him. You couldn't help liking Dick. There was something very +taking about him. Can't say what it was, but one felt it. But it seems +as if those taking people sometimes wear out all their takingness before +they die, spend it all like money, so that at last there is nothing left +for the silly people that have been so fond of them and stuck so long to +them. Dick is like that. He's worn us all out, every one, even Janey. +And now he's dying. I'm afraid there's no one left to care much--except, +of course----" + +He stopped short. + +"I've just been to see him in Paris," he went on. "Didn't you live in +Paris at one time? I wonder if you ever came across him?" + +Annette shook her head. + +"I never met a Mr. Manvers that I know of." + +"But he dropped the Manvers when he started his racing-stables. He had +the decency to do that. He always went by his second name, Le Geyt." + +"_Le Geyt?_" + +"Yes; Dick Le Geyt. Lady Louisa's mother was a Le Geyt of Noyes, you +know, the last of the line. She married Lord Stour, as his second wife, +and had no son. So her daughter, Lady Louisa, inherited Noyes." + +"Dick Le Geyt?" + +"Yes. Did you ever meet him? But I don't suppose you did. Dick never +went among the kind of people you would be likely to associate with." + +Annette was silent for a moment, and then said-- + +"Yes, I have met him. I used to see him sometimes at my father's +cabaret." She saw he did not know what a cabaret was, and she added, "My +father keeps a public-house in the Rue du Bac." Roger was so astonished +that he did not perceive that Annette had experienced a shock. + +"Your father!" he said. "A publican!" + +"He was a courier first," she said, speaking with difficulty, like one +stunned but forcing herself to attend to some trivial matter. "That was +how my mother met him. And after her death he set up a little +drinking-shop, and married again--a woman in his own class of life. I +lived with them for a year, till--last September." + +"Good Lord!" said Roger, and he said no more. He could only look at +Annette in sheer astonishment. The daughter of a publican! He was deeply +perturbed. The apple tree had quite ceased to be comfortable. He got +slowly to his feet, and said he must be going. She bade him "good-bye" +absently, and he walked away, thinking that no other woman in Lowshire +would have let him go after four o'clock without offering him a cup of +tea. + +Just when she thought he was really gone she found he had come back and +was standing before her. + +"Miss Georges," he began, awkwardly enough, "I dare say I have no +business to offer advice, but you don't seem to know country-life very +well. Never seen hay in cock before, I think you mentioned. So perhaps +you would not think it cheek of me if I said anything." + +"About the hay?" + +"No, no. About what you've just told me." + +"About my father keeping a public-house?" + +"Yes. None of my business,"--he had become plum colour,--"but----" + +She looked blankly at him. She felt unable to give him sufficient +attention to help him out. He had to flounder on without assistance. + +"If you mentioned that fact to anyone like Miss Black, it would go the +round of the parish in no time." + +"Would that matter?" + +Roger was nonplussed for a moment. Her ignorance was colossal. + +"Some things are better not talked about," he said. "I have been telling +you of poor Dick, but there were things in _his_ life that were better +not talked about, so I did not mention them." + +His words transfixed her. Was it possible that he was warning her that +he was aware of her adventure with Dick? At any rate, she gave him her +full attention now. + +She raised her eyes to his and looked searchingly at him. And she saw +with a certainty that nothing could shake, that he knew nothing, that he +was only trying to save her from a petty annoyance. + +"The Miss Nevills have always been very close about your father," he +added. "You can ask them, but I think you would find they wouldn't be +much pleased if his--profession was known down here. It might vex them. +So many vexatious things in this world that can't be helped, aren't +there? And if there are any that _can_, so much the better. That was all +I came back to say. I should not volunteer it, if I were you. It seemed +to drop out so naturally that I thought you might have said the same to +Miss Black." + +"Certainly I might. I do hate concealments of any kind." Annette spoke +with conviction. + +"So do I," said Roger whole-heartedly. "I've hushed up too many scrawls +not to hate them. But this isn't a concealment. It's--it's--you see, +Miss Black _does_ run round with her tongue out and no mistake, and +Uncle John's advice when I settled down here as his agent was, 'Never +say more than you must.' So I just pass it on to you, now that you've +settled down at Riff too." + +And Roger departed for the second time. She watched him go, and a minute +later heard him ride out of the courtyard. + +She sat quite still where he had left her, gazing in front of her, so +motionless that the birds, disturbed by Roger's exodus, resumed +possession of the grass-plot at once. + +The plebeian sparrows came hopping clumsily as if they were made of +wood, propped up by their stiff tails. A bulging thrush with wide +speckled waistcoat hastened up and down, throwing out his wing each time +he darted forward. A thin water-wagtail came walking with quick steps, +and exquisite tiny movements of head and neck and long balancing tail. A +baby-wagtail, brown and plump and voracious, bustled after it, shouting, +"More! More!" the instant after its overworked, partially bald parent +had stuffed a billful down its yellow throat. + +Annette looked with wide eyes at the old dim house with its latticed +windows and the vine across it--the vine which Dick had climbed as a +lad. + +Dick was Mr. Manvers of Hulver. + +The baby-wagtail bolted several meals, fluttering its greedy little +wings, while Annette said to herself over and over again, half +stupefied-- + +"Dick is Mr. Manvers. Dick is Janey's brother." + +She was not apprehensive by nature, but gradually a vague alarm invaded +her. She must tell Mrs. Stoddart at once. What would Mrs. Stoddart say? +What would she do? With a slow sinking of the heart, Annette realized +that that practical and cautious woman would probably insist on her +leaving Riff. Tears came into her eyes at the thought. Was it then +unalloyed bliss to live with the Miss Nevills, or was there some other +subtle influence at work which made the thought of leaving Riff +intolerable? Annette did not ask herself that question. She remembered +with a pang her two friends Janey and Roger, and the Miss Blinketts, and +Mrs. Nicholls, and her Sunday-school class, and the choir. And she +looked at the mignonette she had sown, and the unfinished annuals, and +the sweet peas which she had raised in the frame, and which would be out +in another fortnight. + +She turned and put her arms round the little old apple tree, and +pressed her face against the bark. + +"I'm happy here," she said. "I've never been so happy before. I don't +want to go." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + "In the winter, when all the flowers are dead, the experienced Bee + Keeper places before His hive a saucer of beer and treacle to + sustain the inmates during the frost. And some of the less active + bees, who have not used their wings, but have heard about honey, + taste the compound, and finding it wonderfully sustaining and + exactly suited to their aspirations, they religiously store it, + dark and sticky, in waxen cells, as if it were what they genuinely + believe it to be--the purest honey. + + "But the other surly, unsympathetic bees with worn-out wings + contend that honey is not come by as easily as that: that you must + fly far, and work hard, and penetrate many flower-cups to acquire + it. This naturally arouses the indignation of the beer and treacle + gatherers. + + "And the Bee Keeper as He passes His hive hears His little people + buzzing within, and--smiles."--M. N. + + +"And now," said Aunt Harriet, the same evening,--"now that we have made +Mr. Stirling's acquaintance and been to tea with him, and may expect to +see him frequently, I think we ought to take a little course of his +books. What do you say, Maria? Eh! Annette? You seem strangely apathetic +and inert this evening, my dear. So different from me at your age. I was +gaiety and energy itself until my health failed. You might read aloud +some extracts from _The Magnet_, instead of the _Times_. It is a book +which none of us can afford to disregard. How I cried over it when it +came out! I wrote to him after I had finished it, even though I did not +know him. Authors like it, don't they, Maria? I felt very audacious, but +I am a child of impulse. I have never been able to bind myself down with +conventional ideas as I see others do. I felt I simply must tell him +what that book had been to me, what it had done for me, coming like a +ray of light into a darkened room." + +Mrs. Stoddart had read aloud _The Magnet_ to Annette at Teneriffe, and +it was intimately associated with her slow reawakening to life. It had +had a part, and not a small part, in sending her back humbled and +contrite to her aunts. But she felt a deep repugnance to the thought of +hearing their comments upon it. + + +She took the offered book reluctantly, but Aunt Harriet's long thin +finger was already pointing to a paragraph. + +"Begin at 'How we follow Self at first,' the top of the page," she said. +And she leaned back among her cushions. Aunt Maria took up her knitting, +and Annette began to read:-- + +"How we follow Self at first! How long we follow her! How pallid, how +ephemeral is all else beside that one bewitching form! We call her by +many beautiful names--our career, our religion, our work for others. The +face of Self is veiled, but we follow that mysterious rainbow-tinted +figure as some men follow art, as some men follow Christ, leaving all +else behind. We follow her across the rivers. If the stepping-stones +are alive and groan beneath our feet, what of that? We follow her across +the hills. Love weeps and falls behind, but what of that? The love which +will not climb the hills with us is not the love we need. Our friends +appeal to us and one by one fall behind. False friends! Let them go. Our +ideals are broken and left behind. Miserable impediments and hindrances! +Let them go too. + +"For some of us Self flits veiled to the last, and we trudge to our +graves, looking ever and only at her across the brink. But sometimes she +takes pity on us. Sometimes she turns and confronts us in a narrow +place, and lifts her veil. We are alone at last with her we love. The +leprous face, the chasms where the eyes should be, the awful discoloured +hand are revealed to us, the crawling horror of every fold of that +alluring drapery. + +"Here is the bride. Take her! + +"And we turn, sick unto death, and flee for our lives. + +"After that day, certain easy self-depreciations we say never again +while we have speech. After that day our cheap admission of our egotism +freezes on our lips. For we have seen. We know." + +"We have seen. We know," repeated Aunt Harriet solemnly. "That last bit +simply changed my life. If I had a talent for writing like you, Maria, +which of course I have not, that is just the kind of thing I should have +said myself to help other sufferers. Unselfishness, that must be the +key-note of our lives. If the stepping-stones are alive and groan +beneath our feet, what of that? How often I have said those words to +myself when the feet of the world have gone over me, poor +stepping-stone, trying hard, trying so hard not to groan. And if I am to +be perfectly honest just for once, you know, dear Maria, you and Annette +_do_ trample somewhat heavily at times. Of course you are absorbed in +your work, and Annette is young, and you don't either of you mean it. I +know that, and I make allowances for you both. I am making allowances +all the time. But I sometimes wish you could remember that the poor +stepping-stone is alive." + +There was a moment's silence. Annette got up and gently replaced the +_couvre-pied_ which had slipped from the stepping-stone's smart +high-heeled shoes. Aunt Harriet wiped away a delicious tear. + +"Our ideals are broken and left behind," she went on. "Only the invalid +knows how true _that_ is. Dear me! When I think of all the high ideals I +had when I was your age, Annette, who don't seem to have any! But +perhaps it is happier for you that you haven't. Though Mr. Stirling +looks so strong I feel sure that he must at one time have known a +sofa-life. Or perhaps he loved some one like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, +who was as great a prisoner to her couch as I am. He simply couldn't +have written those lines otherwise. I often think as I lie here in +solitude, hour after hour, how different my life might have been if +anyone like Browning had sought me out--had---- But it's no use +repining: all these things are ordered for the best. Go on, my dear, go +on." + +When the reading was over and Aunt Harriet, still emotional, had gone to +bed, after embracing them both with unusual fervour, Annette opened the +window as her custom was, and let in the soft night air. Aunt Harriet +was a lifelong foe to fresh air. Aunt Maria gave a sigh of relief. She +was stout and felt the heat. + +The earth was resting. The white pinks below the window gave forth their +scent. The low moon had laid a slanting black shadow of the dear old +house and its tall chimney-stacks upon the silvered grass. + +Annette's heart throbbed. Must she leave it all? She longed to go to her +own room and think over what had happened, but she had an intuitive +feeling that Aunt Maria had been in some mysterious way depressed by the +reading aloud, and was in need of consolation. + +"I think," said Aunt Maria after a time, "that Mr. Stirling rather +exaggerates, don't you?--that he has yielded to the temptation of +picturesque overstatement in that bit about following Self." + +"It seems to me--just right." + +"You don't feel he is writing for the sake of effect?" + +"No. Oh no." + +"I am afraid I do a little. But then the picture is so very highly +coloured, and personally I don't care much for garish colouring." + +Annette did not answer. + +"I should like to know what you think about it, Annette." + +Whenever Aunt Maria used that phrase, she wanted confirmation of her own +opinion. Annette considered a moment. + +"I think he has really seen it exactly as he says. I think perhaps he +was selfish once, and--and had a shock." + +"He is quite right to write from his experience," continued Aunt Maria. +"I have drawn largely from mine in my books, and I am thankful I have +had such a deep and rich experience to draw from. Experience, of course, +must vary with each one of us. But I can't say I have ever felt what he +describes. Have you?" + +"Yes." + +"The veiled figure meeting you in a narrow place and raising its veil?" + +"Yes." + +Aunt Maria was momentarily taken aback. When our opinions do not receive +confirmation from others we generally feel impelled to restate them at +length. + +"I have never looked at selfishness like that," she said, "as something +which we idealize. I have always held that egotism is the thing of all +others which we ought to guard against. And egotism seems to me +ugly--not beautiful or rainbow-tinted at all. I tried to show in _Crooks +and Coronets_ what an obstacle it is to our spiritual development, and +how happiness is to be found in little deeds of kindness, small +sacrifices for the sake of others, rather than in always considering +ourselves." + +Annette did not answer. She knew her aunt's faith in spiritual +homoeopathy. + +"I have had hundreds of letters," continued the homoeopath uneasily, +"from my readers, many of them perfect strangers, thanking me for +pointing out the danger of egotism so fearlessly, and telling me how +much happier they have been since they followed the example of Angela +Towers in _Crooks and Coronets_ in doing a little act of kindness every +day." + +If Aunt Maria were alive now she would have been thrilled by the +knowledge that twenty years after she had preached it the Boy Scouts +made that precept their own. + +"Perhaps the man who was following the veiled figure did little +kindnesses too, in order to feel comfortable," said Annette half to +herself. Fortunately her aunt did not hear her. + +"I yield to no one in my admiration of Mr. Stirling," continued Miss +Nevill, "but he suggests no remedy for the selfishness he describes. He +just says people flee for their lives. Now, my experience is that they +don't flee, that they don't see how selfish they are, and need helpful +suggestions to overcome it. That is just what I have tried to do in my +books, which I gather he has never opened." + +There was a subdued bitterness in her aunt's voice which made Annette +leave her seat by the window and sit down beside her. + +"You have plenty of readers without Mr. Stirling," she said soothingly. + +It was true. Miss Nevill had a large public. She had never lived, she +had never come in close contact with the lives of others, she had no +perception of character, and she was devoid of humour. She had a meagre, +inflexible vocabulary, no real education, no delicacy of description, no +sense of language, no love of nature. But she possessed the art of +sentimental facile narration, coupled with a great desire to preach, and +a genuine and quenchless passion for the obvious. And the long +succession of her popular novels, each exactly like the last, met what a +large circle of readers believed to be its spiritual needs: she appealed +to the vast society of those who have never thought, and who crave to be +edified without mental effort on their part. Her books had demanded no +mental effort from their author, and were models of unconscious tact in +demanding none from their readers, and herein, together with their +evident sincerity, had lain part of the secret of their success. Also, +partly because her gentle-people--and her books dealt mainly with +them--were not quite so unlike gentle-people as in the majority of +novels. If she did not call a spade a spade, neither did she call an +earl an earl. Old ladies adored her novels. The Miss Blinketts preferred +them to Shakespeare. Canon Wetherby dipped into them in his rare moments +of leisure. Cottage hospitals laid them on the beds of their +convalescents. Clergymen presented them as prizes. If the great Miss +Nevill had had a different temperament, she might have been a happy as +she was a successful woman; for she represented culture to the +semi-cultivated, and to succeed in doing that results in a large income +and streams of flattering letters. But it does not result in recognition +as a thinker, and that was precisely what she hankered after. She craved +to be regarded as a thinker, without having thought. It chagrined her +that her books were not read by what she called "the right +people,"--that, as she frequently lamented, her work was not recognized. +In reality it was recognized--at first sight. The opening chapter, as +Mr. Stirling had found that morning, was enough. The graver reviews +never noticed her. No word of praise ever reached her from the masters +of the craft. She had to the full the adulation of her readers, but she +wanted adulation, alas! from the educated, from men like Mr. Stirling +rather than Canon Wetherby. Mr. Stirling had not said a word about her +work this afternoon, though he had had time to refresh his memory of it, +and she had alluded to it herself more than once. For the hundredth time +Aunt Maria felt vaguely disturbed and depressed. The reading aloud of +_The Magnet_ had only accentuated that depression. + +Annette's hand felt very soft and comforting in hers. The troubled +authoress turned instinctively towards possible consolation nearer at +hand. + +"I will own," she said tentatively, "that when I see you, my dear +Annette, so different from what you were when you left us two years ago, +so helpful, and so patient with poor Harriet, who is trying beyond +words, so considerate and so thoughtful for others, I will own that I +have sometimes hoped that the change might have been partly, I don't say +entirely, but partly brought about by _Crooks and Coronets_, which I +sent to you at Teneriffe, and into which I had poured all that was best +in me. When you rejoined us here it seemed as if you had laid its +precepts to heart." Aunt Maria looked at her niece almost imploringly. + +Annette was not of those who adhere to a rigid truthfulness on all +occasions. + +She stroked her aunt's hand. + +"It was borne in on me at Teneriffe, after I was ill there, how selfish +I had been," she said, and her voice trembled. "I ought never to have +left you all. If only I had not left you all! Then I should not be--I +shouldn't have--but I was selfish to the core. And my eyes were only +opened too late." + +"No, my dear, not too late. Just in the nick of time, at the very moment +we needed you most, after dear Cathie's death. You don't know what a +comfort you have been to us." + +"Too late for Aunt Cathie," said Annette hoarsely. "Poor, kind, tired +Aunt Cathie, who came to me in my room the last night and asked me not +to leave her, told me she needed my help. But my mind was absolutely set +on going. I cried, and told her that later on I would come back and take +care of her, but that I must go. Self in her rainbow veil beckoned +and--and I followed. If Aunt Cathie was the stepping-stone which groaned +beneath my feet, what of that? What did I care? I passed over it, I +trampled on it without a thought." + +The subdued passion in Annette's voice stirred anew the vague trouble in +Aunt Maria's mind. + +For a moment her own view of life, even her heroine's puny and +universally admired repentance, tottered, dwindled. For a brief moment +she saw that the writer of _The Magnet_ made a great demand on his +reader, and that Annette had passionately responded to it. For a moment +Mr. Stirling's gentle, ruthless voice seemed to overthrow her whole +position, to show her to herself as petty and trivial. For a moment she +even doubted whether _Crooks and Coronets_ had really effected the great +change she perceived in Annette, and the doubt disheartened her still +more. She withdrew resolutely into the stronghold of her success, and +rose slowly to her feet. + +"Well," she said, "it's time to go to bed. Close the shutters, Annette. +It's very natural you should be impressed by _The Magnet_. I should have +been at your age. Young people are always attracted by eloquence. But as +one gets older I find one instinctively prefers plainer language, as one +prefers plainer clothes, less word-painting, and more spiritual +teaching." + + +It was already late, but Annette sat up still later writing a long +letter to Mrs. Stoddart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + "Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress + In that unleaguerable fortress; + It knows you not for portress." + FRANCIS THOMPSON. + + +I have often envied Lesage's stratagem in which he makes Le diable +boiteux transport his patron to a high point in the city, and then +obligingly remove roof after roof from the houses spread out beneath his +eyes, revealing with a sublime disregard for edification what is going +on in each of them in turn. That is just what I should like to do with +you, Reader, transport you to the top of, shall we say, the low church +tower of Riff, and take off one red roof after another of the clustering +houses beneath us. But I should not choose midnight, as Lesage did, but +tea-time for my visitation, and then if you appeared bored, I would +quickly whisk off another roof. + +We might look in at Roger's cottage near the church first of all, and +see what he is doing. + +On this particular afternoon, some three weeks after his conversation +with Annette under the apple tree, I am sorry to record that he was +doing nothing. That was a pity, for there was a great deal waiting to be +done. July and a new quarter were at hand. Several new leases had to be +looked over, the death of one of his farmers had brought up the old +hateful business of right of heriot, the accounts of the Aldeburgh house +property were in at last and must be checked. There was plenty to do, +but nevertheless Roger was sitting in his office-room, with his elbow on +his last labour-sheet, and his chin in his hand. He, usually so careful, +had actually blotted the names of half a dozen labourers. His +housekeeper, the stoutest woman in Riff, sister to the late Mr. +Nicholls, had put his tea near him half an hour before. Mr. Nicholls' +spinster sister was always called "Mrs. Nicholls." But it was the wedded +Mrs. Nicholls who had obtained the situation of Roger's housekeeper by +sheer determination for the unwedded lady of the same name, and when +Roger had faintly demurred at the size of his housekeeper designate, had +informed him sternly that "she was stout only in appearance." + +It was a pity he had let his tea grow cold, and had left his plate of +thick, rectangular bread-and-butter untouched. + +Roger was a person who hated thought, and he was thinking, and the +process was fatiguing to him. He had for years "hustled" along like a +sturdy pony on the rounds of his monotonous life, and had been fairly +well satisfied with it till now. But lately the thoughts which would +have been invading a more imaginative man for a long time past had at +last reached him, had filtered down through the stiff clay of the upper +crust of his mind. + +Was he going on _for ever_ keeping another man's property assiduously +together, doing two men's work for one man's pay? When his uncle made +him his agent he lived in the house at Hulver, and his horses were kept +for him, and the two hundred a year was a generous allowance. But Dick +had not increased it when he succeeded. He had given him the cottage, +which was in use as an estate office, rent free, but nothing else. Roger +had not liked to say anything at first, even when his work increased, +and later on Dick had not been "to be got at." And the years were +passing, and Roger was thirty-five. He ought to be marrying if he was +ever going to marry at all. Of course, if Dick were in a state of health +to be appealed to at close quarters--he never answered letters--he would +probably act generously. He had always been open-handed. But Dick, poor +beggar, was dead already as far as any use he could be to himself or +others. + +Roger shuddered at the recollection of the shapeless, prostrate figure, +with the stout, vacant face, and the fat hand, that had once been so +delicate and supple, which they had wanted to guide to do it knew not +what. + +Roger could not see that he had any future. But then he had not had any +for years past, so why was he thinking about that now? Annette was the +reason. Till Annette came to Riff he had always vaguely supposed that +he and Janey would "make a match of it" some day. Janey was the only +person he really knew. I do not mean to imply for a moment that Roger in +his pink coat at the Lowshire Hunt Ball was not a popular partner. He +was. And in times past he had been shyly and faintly attracted by more +than one of his pretty neighbours. But he was fond of Janey. And now +that his uncle was dead, Janey was, perhaps, the only person left for +whom he had a rooted attachment. But it seemed there were disturbing +women who could inspire feelings quite different from the affection and +compassion he felt for his cousin. Annette was one of them. Roger +resented the difference, and then dwelt upon it. He distrusted Annette's +parentage. "Take a bird out of a good nest." That was his idea of a +suitable marriage. Never in his wildest moments would he have thought of +marrying a woman whose father was a Frenchman, much less a Frenchman who +kept a public-house. He wasn't thinking of such a thing now--at least, +he told himself he wasn't. But he had been deeply chagrined at Annette's +mention of her father all the same, so deeply that he had not repeated +the odious fact even to Janey, the recipient of all the loose matter in +his mind. + +How kind Annette had been to poor Janey during these last weeks! Janey +had unaccountably and dumbly hung back at first, but Annette was not to +be denied. Roger, with his elbow on his labour-sheet, saw that whatever +her father might be, the least he could do would be to ride up to Riff +at an early date and thank her. + +It is only a step from Roger's cottage to the Dower House. + +All was silent there. Janey and Harry had gone up to Hulver to sail his +boat after tea, and the house was deserted. Tommy, the gardener's boy, +the only person to whom Harry had confided his marriage, was clipping +the edges of the newly-mown grass beneath Lady Louisa's window. + +And Lady Louisa herself? + +She lay motionless with fixed eyes, while the nurse, her +daughter-in-law, read a novel near the open window. + +She knew what had happened. She remembered everything. Her hearing and +sight were as clear as ever. But she could make no sign of understanding +or recognition. A low, guttural sound she could sometimes make, but not +always, and the effort was so enormous that she could hardly induce +herself to make it. At first she had talked unceasingly, unable to +remember that the words which were so clear to herself had no sound for +those bending over her, trying to understand what she wished. Janey and +the doctor had encouraged her, had comforted her, had made countless +experiments in order to establish means of communication with her, but +without avail. + +"Would you like me to read, mother? See, I am holding your hand. Press +it ever so little, and I shall know you would like a little reading." + +No faintest pressure. + +"Don't trouble to answer, mother, but if you would like to see Roger for +a few minutes, shut your eyes." + +The eyes remained open, fixed. Lady Louisa tried to shut them, but she +could not. + +"Now I am going to hold up these large letters one after another. If +there is something you wish me to do, spell it to me. Make a sound when +I reach the right letter. I begin with A. Now we come to B. Here is C." + +But after many fruitless attempts Janey gave up the letters. Her mother +groaned at intervals, but when the letters were written down they did +not make sense. No bridge could span the gulf. At last the doctor +advised Janey to give up trying to span it. + +"Leave her in peace," he said in Lady Louisa's hearing, that acute +hearing which was as intact as her eyesight. + +So Lady Louisa was left in peace. + +She saw the reins and whip which she had held so tightly slip out of her +hands. She who had imposed her will on others all her life could impose +it no longer. She was tended by a traitor whom she hated, yet she was +unable to denounce her, to rid herself of her daily, hourly presence. + +A wood pigeon cooed tranquilly in the cedar, and Lady Louisa groaned. + +The nurse put down her book, and came and stood beside the bed. The two +enemies looked at each other, the younger woman boldly meeting the +impotent hatred of her patient's eyes. + +"It's no use, milady," she said, replacing a little cushion under her +elbow. "You're down, and I'm up, and you've got to make up your mind to +it. Harry told me you'd got it out of him. Are you any the happier for +knowing I'm your daughter-in-law? I'd meant to spare you that. It was +that as brought on the stroke. Very clever you were to wheedle it out of +Harry, but it didn't do you much good. You'd turn me out without a +character if you could, wouldn't you? But you can't. And listen to me. +You won't ever be any better, or I shouldn't talk like this. I dare say +I'm pretty bad, but I'd never say there wasn't a chance while there was +the least little scrap of one left. But there isn't, not one scrap. It's +all over with your high and mighty ways, and riding rough-shod over +everybody, and poor Miss Manvers. It's no use crying. You've made others +cry often enough. Now it's your turn. And don't go and think I'm going +to be cruel to you because you've been cruel to others. I'm not. I'm +sorry enough for you, lying there like a log, eating your heart out. I'm +going to make you as comfortable as ever I can, and to do my duty by +you. And when you're gone I'm going to make Harry happier than he's +ever been under your thumb. So now you understand." + +Lady Louisa understood. Her eyes, terrible, fierce as a wounded +panther's, filled with tears. She made no other sign. + +The nurse wiped them away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + "The less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants + it."--GEORGE ELIOT. + + +The Vicarage is within a stone's throw of the Dower House. On this +particular afternoon Mr. and Miss Black were solemnly seated opposite +each other at tea, and Mr. Black was ruefully reflecting, as he often +did at meal-times, on his sister's incapacity as a housekeeper. + +We sometimes read in the biographies of eminent men how trains and boats +always eluded those distinguished personages, in spite of their pathetic +eagerness to overtake them; how their luggage and purses and important +papers fled from them; how their empty chairs too frequently represented +them on state occasions. + +Miss Black was not eluded by such bagatelles as trains and omnibuses, +but by things of greater importance, by new-laid eggs, and fresh butter, +and cottage loaves. No egg until it was of advanced middle age would +come within a mile of Miss Black. The whole village was aware that old +Purvis sold her "potted eggs" at "new-laid" prices, and that she never +detected the lime on them. Scones and tea-cakes and loaves with +"kissing crust" remained obdurately huddled in the baker's cart at the +Vicarage back door. All that ever found their way into the house were +those unappropriated blessings, those emotionless rectangular travesties +of bread called "tin loaves." + +Coffee and Miss Black were not on speaking terms. After years of deadly +enmity she had relinquished the fruitless struggle, and gave her brother +coffee essence instead for breakfast--two spoonfuls to a cup of tepid +milk. + +Fire and water would not serve Miss Black. The bath water was always +cold at the Vicarage, and the drinking water was invariably warm. +Butter, that sensitive ally of the housekeeper, bore her a grudge. Miss +Black said all the Riff butter was bad. In London she had said the same. +Biscuits became demoralized directly they set tin in the house. The +first that emerged from the box were crisp, delicious, but in a day or +two they were all weary, tough, and tasteless. They were kept on plates +on sideboards in the sun, or thrust into mousy cupboards. She left off +ordering gingerbread nuts at last, which her brother liked, because they +all stuck together like putty. She attributed this peculiarity to the +proximity of the Rieben. + +Miss Black was no more perturbed by the ostracism in which she lived as +regards the vegetable and mineral kingdom than Napoleon was by the +alliance of Europe against him. She combined a high opinion of herself +with a rooted conviction that everything vexatious or disagreeable was +inherent in the nature of things--a sort of original sin. It was in the +fallen nature of butter to be rancid, and eggs to be laid stale, and +milk to be sour, and villagers to cheat, and old people to be fretful, +and pretty women (like Annette) to be vain and unscrupulous, and men +(like her brother) to care inordinately about food and to be enslaved by +external attractions. She expected these things, and many more, as she +stumped through life, and she was not disappointed. + +"I think you are wrong, Walter," she said, masticating a plasmon +biscuit, "in making Miss Georges take that bit in the anthem as a solo. +I went to see Mrs. Cocks this afternoon, and we got talking of the +choir, and I am sure she did not like it." + +"I cannot steer my course entirely by Mrs. Cocks." + +"Of course not. But she told me that in Mr. Jones's time----" + +"I am rather tired of hearing of Mr. Jones and his times." + +"In his time all the trebles took the solo together, to prevent any +jealousy or ill-feeling." + +"I can't prevent jealousy of Miss Georges," said Mr. Black, looking +coldly at his sister, and then still more coldly at the cup of tea she +handed him, made quarter of an hour before by the young servant who, as +the Miss Blinketts who had trained her had faithfully warned Miss +Black, "mistook bubbling for boiling." + +The tea was the consistency of treacle, and the cream his sister poured +into it instantly took the contorted worm-like shapes which sour cream +does take. Miss Black drank hers slowly, not finding it good, but +thinking it was like all other tea. + +"You won't make the jealousy less by putting her forward in everything." + +"It irritates me to hear Miss Georges' voice muffled up with Mrs. Cocks +and Jane Smith. I don't suppose Riff Church has ever had such a voice in +it since it was built." + +"I'm sure I can't tell about that. But Miss Georges has been partly +trained for a public singer." + +"Has she? I did not know that." + +"The truth is we know very little about her. I am not sure we ought not +to have made more inquiries before we admitted her to the choir and the +Sunday school." + +"My dear, pure good-nature on her part is responsible for her being in +either. And could anything be more ultra respectable than her aunts?" + +"We don't know who her father was. I should not wonder if he were an +actor, her manner of singing is so theatrical. Not quite a good example +for the other trebles. She draws attention to herself." + +"She can't help that, Angela. That is partly due to her appearance, for +which she is not responsible." + +Mr. Black, patient and kindly by nature, showed to greater advantage +with his sister than with Annette, because he never attempted to show +Miss Black the sort of man he was. You could not be two minutes in her +society without realizing that she saw no more difference between one +person and another than she did between fresh eggs and stale. Men were +men to her, as eggs were eggs. And that was all about it. + +"She is responsible for a good deal of the attention she courts," said +Miss Black scornfully, and with a modicum of truth on her side. "She +need not let her hair stand out over her ears, or make those two little +curls in the nape of her neck. And did you notice her absurd hat?" + +"I noticed nothing absurd about it." + +"When every one is wearing trimmed hats she must needs make herself +conspicuous in a perfectly plain straw with no trimming at all, except +that black ribbon tied under her chin. Everybody was staring at her last +Sunday." + +"That I can well believe." + +"I asked her where she had got that nice garden hat." + +"Is it possible? How angry you would have been if she had asked you +where you got yours!" + +Mr. Black glanced for the first time at a battered but elaborate +arrangement sprinkled with cornflowers, sitting a little crooked, like +a badly balanced plate, on the top of his sister's narrow head. + +"She wasn't the least angry. There was nothing to be offended at. And +she said her aunt in Paris sent it her, who was a milliner." + +"How like her to say that--to volunteer it!" said Mr. Black, aware that +his sister was watching how he took the news of Annette's connection +with trade. "But we must be careful how we repeat it. In this amazing +little world of Riff it might be against her to have a milliner for an +aunt." + +"I don't see that Riff is more amazing than other places," said Miss +Black, who had already circulated the story of the dressmaking aunt with +the same diligence which she showed in the distribution of the parish +magazine. "I hope we can all be civil to Miss Georges, even if her aunt +is a dressmaker, and her father lower still in the social scale. She has +no _De_ before her name. And Georges is a very common surname." + +"Indeed!" + +"Perhaps you are thinking of asking her to change it," said his sister, +whose temper was liable to boil up with all the suddenness of milk. + +"I had not got so far as that," he said, rising. "You must remember, +Angela, that you see a possible wife for me in every woman I exchange a +word with. It is very flattering that you should think so many might be +prevailed on to share my little Vicarage, but the Church only allows me +one wife, and the selection I believe rests with me." + +"I know that. It's so silly to talk as if I expected anything +different." + +"All I can say is that if I could delude myself into believing that Miss +Georges put on that hat or any other hat with a view to attracting me, I +should feel some alacrity in finishing my Sunday sermon, which I must +now do without any alacrity at all." + +Miss Black swallowed the remains of her plasmon biscuit, and said in the +voice of one accustomed to the last word-- + +"Miss Georges is very good-looking, of course. No one admires that sort +of pale, clear complexion and calm manner more than I do. But you must +remember that they are merely the result of a constitution free from an +excess of uric acid. Non-gouty subjects always look like that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + "Give me the sweet cup wrought of the earth from which I was born, + and under which I shall lie dead."--ZONAS. + + +From the church tower, Reader, you can see beyond the mill and the long +water meadows the little hamlet of Swale. + +That old house in the midst, with its wonderful twisted chimneys and +broken wall, was once the home of the extinct Welyshams of Swale. But +the name of Welysham, embedded in the history of Lowshire and still +renowned in India, is forgotten in Riff. Their old house, fast falling +into ruins, is now used as a farm, until Roger can get leave to restore +it, or pull it down. The sky looks in at the upper rooms. No one dare go +up the wide oak staircase, and Mrs. Nicholls' chickens roost on the +carved balustrade of the minstrels' gallery. + +We will go there next. + +Mrs. Nicholls, the devoted nurse of all the Manvers family and the +principal treble in the choir, had married at a portly age the +tenant-farmer at Swale, and Annette was having tea with her on this +particular afternoon, and hearing a full description, which scorned all +omissions, of the last illness of Mr. Nicholls, who had not been able +"to take a bite in his head" of anything solid for many weeks before his +death. + +"And so, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls philosophically, "when he went I felt +it was all for the best. It's a poor thing for a man to live by +suction." + +Annette agreed. + +"Swale seems quite empty this afternoon," she said, possibly not +unwilling to change the subject. "There is hardly a soul to be seen." + +"I expect they've all gone to Sir Harry's 'lection tea," said Mrs. +Nicholls. "I used to go while Nicholls was alive, and very convenient it +was; but Sir Harry don't want no widders nor single spinsters--only +wives of them as has votes." + +Politics were not so complicated twenty years ago as they are now. Those +were the simple days when Sir Harry Ogden, the Member, urbanely opined +that he was for Church and State, and gave tea shortly before the +election to the wives of his constituents. And the ladies of Swale and +Riff, and even the great Mrs. Nicholls, thought none the worse of their +Member because there was always a sovereign at the bottom of the cup. + +"Mr. Black wants to start a Mothers' Meeting in Swale," continued +Annette. "He asked me to talk it over with you. I know he is hoping for +your nice parlour for it, so beautiful as you always keep it." + +Mrs. Nicholls was softened by the compliment to her parlour, the +condition of which was as well known as that Queen Victoria was on the +throne, but she opined that there had been a deal too much "argybargy" +already among the Swale matrons about the Mothers' Meeting, and that she +did not see her way to joining it. + +Annette, who had been deputed by Mr. Black to find out the mysterious +cause of Mrs. Nicholls' reluctance, remarked meditatively, "I don't know +how the Vicar will get on without you, Mrs. Nicholls." + +"No, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls, "of course not. He was here only +yesterday, and he says to me, 'Mrs. Nicholls, the Swale folk oughter all +heng together, and we look to you.' And I says, 'Sir, it's not for me to +chunter with you; but it's no manner of use setting me up as a queen in +Swale when there's Mrs. Tomkins as bounceful as can be, as has been +expecting homage ever since she and her spring-cart came in last Lammas, +which none of us don't feel obligated to bow down to her.'" + +"Of course not. But there are others besides Mrs. Tomkins. There are the +Tamsies, your next-door neighbours. They are quiet, hard-working people, +with a lot of little ones. She would be very thankful, I know, to join +the Mothers' Meeting, if the Vicar can start it." + +"Mrs. Tamsy," said Mrs. Nicholls judicially. "I dare say Mrs. Tamsy +_would_ like anything she can get, whether it's out of my pig-tub or her +own. That don't make no differ to Mrs. Tamsy, nor what's put on the +hedge to dry--if so be as anything's blowed to her side. She's that near +she'd take the pence off the eyes of her mother's corp. No, miss! I'd do +a deal for the Vicar, but I won't have Mrs. Tamsy in my place, nor I +won't set foot in hers. Not that I ain't sorry for her, with Tamsy +coming home roaring on a Saturday night, and hectoring and bullocking +about till the children has to sleep in the hen-roost." + +And in the course of conversation Mrs. Nicholls at last divulged to +Annette, what she had kept bottled up from Mr. Black, and indeed from +every one, that the real reason that a Mothers' Meeting could not be +instituted in the small circle of the Swale matrons, even if the +gathering did not include Mrs. Tamsy, was because of old Mr. Thornton's +death. Mr. Thornton, it seemed, had been "an octogeranium and the last +sediment of his family, and not one of his own kin to put him in his +coffin." The Swale ladies had taken the last duties on themselves, and +there had been "unpleasantness at the laying out," so that friendly +relations had been suspended between them ever since the funeral. + +Annette sighed as she left Mrs. Nicholls and set out across the meadows +towards Riff. She was to meet Janey in the Hulver gardens, and help her +to pick the snap-dragons, now blooming riotously there. + +But one small sigh for the doomed Mothers' Meeting was the only tribute +Annette paid to it. Her thoughts reverted quickly to other subjects. + +Her placid, easy-going mind was troubled. + +The long letter written at night to Mrs. Stoddart three weeks ago had +never been posted. The following morning had brought a hurried line from +her friend saying that she was that moment starting on a yachting trip +with her son. She mentioned that she was coming down to Annette's +neighbourhood in a month's time, on a visit to Mr. Stirling at Noyes, +when she hoped for opportunities of seeing her. + +Annette had dropped her own letter into the fire, not without a sense of +relief. She had hated the idea of immediate action, and she had been +spared it. She would go on quietly until she could confer with Mrs. +Stoddart. But in spite of the momentary respite the fear remained at the +back of her mind that when Mrs. Stoddart did know about the Manvers +family she would almost certainly insist on Annette's leaving Riff. +Annette could see for herself that her position there was untenable. But +the longing to remain grew, nevertheless. She vaguely, foolishly hoped +that some way of remaining might yet be found. For she was drawn towards +Riff, as she had never been drawn to any other place, partly no doubt +because, owing to her aunt's death, all her energies had been called +out there for the first time in her life. It had been no sinecure to +take Aunt Cathie's place. She had taken it, and she had filled it. She +was no longer a pale, useless, discontented girl, cooped up in an +airless London house with two self-centred, elder women whom she +secretly despised for immolating their sister. Now that her aunts were +under her protection and absolutely dependent on her, and, if they had +but known it, at her mercy, she had become at first tolerant of them, +and then compassionate and amused, and finally affectionate. If she had +kept her own life entirely apart from them, they were not aware of it. +For neither of the Miss Nevills had yet discovered that though they +themselves were not alive others might be, and Annette had done nothing +since her return to them to break that illusion so rudely shaken by her +departure. In their opinion, Annette had now "settled down," and each +aunt was secretly of opinion that her niece's existence was supported by +copious draughts from the deep wells of her own wisdom and experience. +But perhaps Annette had other incentives for clinging to Riff. + +Sometimes as we go through life we become conscious of a mysterious +instinctive attraction towards certain homely people, and certain kindly +places, for which we cannot account, to which we can only yield. They +seem to belong to us, to have a special significance for us. When +Annette first saw Janey and Roger she felt that she had known them all +her life, that they had long been part of her existence. When first she +walked with them beside the Rieben she seemed to recognize every turn of +the stream. The deep primrosed lanes welcomed her back to them. Had she +wandered down them in some previous existence? When she gathered her +first posy of lady's-smock in the long water meadow near the mill, the +little milk-white flowers said, "Why have you been away from us so +long?" And when, a few days later, she first stood with Janey in the +April sunshine on the wide terrace of Hulver, the stately shuttered +house had seemed to envelop her with its ancient peace, and to whisper +to her, "I am home." + +Annette reached the bridge by the mill, and looked across the tranquil +water to the village clustering round the church, and the old red-gabled +Manor house standing among its hollies. + +Her heart throbbed suddenly. + +Surely the angel with the sword would not drive her away again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + "Thou vacant house, moated about by peace." + STEPHEN PHILLIPS. + + +Mr. Stirling and his nephew were standing in the long picture gallery of +Hulver, looking at the portrait of Roger Manvers of Dunwich, who +inherited Hulver in Charles the Second's time. + +"His grandmother, Anne de la Pole, that pinched-looking old woman in the +ruff, would never have left it to her daughter's son if she had had +anyone else to leave it to," said Mr. Stirling. "She built Hulver in the +shape of an E in honour of her kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. That prim +little picture below her portrait shows the house when it was new. It +must have looked very much the same then as it does now, except that the +hollies were all trimmed to fantastic shapes. Look at the birds and +domes and crowns." + +"I like them better as they are now," said his nephew, a weak-looking +youth with projecting teeth, his spectacled eyes turning from the +picture to the renowned avenue of hollies, now stooping and splitting in +extreme old age. + +"I have often wondered what homely Roger Manvers, the burgess of +Dunwich, must have felt when old Anne actually left him this place after +her only son was drowned. I can so well imagine him riding over here, a +careful, sturdy man, not unlike the present Roger Manvers, and having a +look at his inheritance, and debating with himself whether he would +leave Dunwich and settle here." + +"And did he?" + +"Yes. The sea decided that for him. A year later it swept away the town +of Dunwich as far as Maison Dieu. And it swept away Roger Manvers' +pleasant house, Montjoy. And he moved across the borders of Suffolk to +Lowshire with all he had been able to save from his old home, and +established himself here. I like the way he has hung those +wooden-looking pictures of his burgess forbears in their furred cloaks +and chains among the brocaded D'Urbans and De la Poles. Roger Manvers +tells me that it was old Roger who first took the property in hand, and +heightened the Kirby dam, and drained Mendlesham Marsh, and built the +Riff almshouses. The De la Poles had never troubled themselves about +such matters. And to think of that wretched creature the present owner +tearing the old place limb from limb, throwing it from him with both +hands! It makes me miserable. I vow I will never come here again." + +The caretaker had unshuttered a few among the long line of windows, and +the airlessness, the ghostly outlines of the muffled furniture, the +dust which lay grey on everything, the faint smell of dry rot, all +struck at Mr. Stirling's sensitive spirit and oppressed him. He turned +impatiently to the windows. + +If it is a misfortune to be stout, even if one is tall, and to be short, +even if one is slim, and to be fifty, even if one is of a cheerful +temperament, and to be bald, even if one has a well-shaped head, then +Mr. Stirling, who was short and stout, and bald as well, and fifty into +the bargain, was somewhat heavily handicapped as to his outer man. But +one immense compensation was his for an unattractive personality. He +never gave it a moment's thought, and consequently no one else did +either. His body was no more than a travelling-suit to him. It was +hardy, durable, he was comfortable in it, grateful to it, on good terms +with it, worked it hard, and used it to the uttermost. That it was not +more ornamental than a Gladstone bag did not trouble him. + +"Put it all in a book," said his nephew absently, whose eyes were glued +to the pictures. "Put it in a book, Uncle Reggie." + +Mr. Stirling had long since ceased to be annoyed by a remark which is +about as pleasant to a writer as a suggestion of embezzlement is to a +bank manager. + +"Have you seen enough, Geoff? Shall we go?" he said. + +"Wait a bit. Where's the Raeburn?" + +"'Highland Mary'? Sold. A pork butcher in America bought her for a +fabulous sum. I believe Dick Manvers lost the whole of it on one race. +If there is coin in the next world, he will play ducks and drakes with +it upon the glassy sea." + +"Sold! Good God!" said his nephew, staring horrorstruck at his uncle. +"How awful! Pictures ought not to belong to individuals. The nation +ought to have them." He seemed staggered. "Awful!" he said again. "What +a tragedy!" + +"To my mind, _that_ is more tragic," said Mr. Stirling bluntly, pointing +to the window. + +In the deserted garden, near the sundial, Janey was standing, a small +nondescript figure in a mushroom hat, picking snap-dragons. The gardens +had been allowed to run wild for lack of funds to keep them in order, +and had become beautiful exceedingly in consequence. The rose-coloured +snap-dragons and amber lupins were struggling to hold their own in their +stone-edged beds against an invasion of willow weed. A convolvulus had +climbed to the sundial, wrapping it round and round, and had laid its +bold white trumpet flowers on the leaded disk itself. Janey had not +disturbed it. Perhaps she thought that no one but herself sought to see +the time there. The snap-dragons rose in a great blot of straggling rose +and white and wine-red round her feet. She was picking them slowly, as +one whose mind was not following her hand. At a little distance Harry +was lying at his full length on the flags beside the round stone-edged +fountain, blowing assiduously at a little boat which was refusing to +cross. In the midst of the water Cellini's world-famed water nymph +reined in her dolphins. + +A yellow stone-crop had found a foothold on the pedestal of the group, +and flaunted its raw gold in the vivid sunshine amid the weather-bitten +grey stone, making a fantastic broken reflection where Harry's boat +rippled the water. And behind Janey's figure, and behind the reflection +of the fountain in the water, was the cool, sinister background of the +circular yew hedge, with the heather pink of the willow weed crowding up +against it. + +The young man gasped. + +"But it's--it's a picture," he said. And then, after a moment, he added, +"Everything except the woman. Of course she won't do." + +Geoff's curiously innocent prominent eyes were fixed. His vacant face +was rapt. His uncle looked sympathetically at him. He knew what it was +to receive an idea "like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought." + +The caretaker, whose tea-time was already delayed, coughed discreetly in +the hall. + +"Come, Geoff," said Mr. Stirling, remorsefully but determinedly, taking +his nephew's arm. "We can't remain here for ever." + +"It's all right except the woman," said Geoff, not stirring. "Every +scrap. It hits you in the eye. Look how the lichen has got at the +dolphins. All splendour and desolation, and the yew hedge like a funeral +procession behind. Not a bit of sky above them: the only sky reflected +in the water." His voice had sunk to a whisper. + +"When you are my age," said Mr. Stirling, "it is just the woman, not +some fanciful angel with a Grecian profile and abnormally long legs, but +that particular little brown-haired creature with her short face whom +you brush aside, who makes the tragedy of the picture. When I think of +what that small courageous personage endures day by day, what her daily +life must be--but what's the use of talking? Twenty can't hear a word +fifty is saying--isn't meant to. Wake up, Geoff. There is another lady +in the case. It is past the caretaker's tea-time. You _must_ learn to +consider the fair sex, my dear boy. We are keeping her from her tea. +Look, Miss Manvers has seen us. We'll join her in the gardens." + +One of Mr. Stirling's pleasantest qualities was that he never remembered +he was a man of letters. Consequently it was not necessary for him to +show that he was still a boy at heart and that he could elaborately +forget that he was a distinguished novelist by joining in sailing +Harry's boat. Harry scrambled to his feet and shook hands with both men +at Janey's bidding, and then he looked wistfully at Geoff as a possible +playfellow and smiled at him, an ingratiating smile. But Geoff at +twenty, two years younger than Harry, Geoff the artist, the cultured +inquirer after famous Raeburns, the appraiser of broken reflections and +relative values, only gaped vacantly at him, hands in pockets, without +seeing him. + +Harry puffed out an enormous sigh and looked back at his boat, and then +he clapped his hands suddenly and ran to meet Annette, who was coming +slowly towards them across the grass. + +Mr. Stirling's eyes and Janey's followed him, and Mr. Stirling felt +rather than saw that Janey winced as she looked gravely at the +approaching figure. + +Geoff's hat was at the back of his sugar-cone of a head. His mild face +was transfixed. + +"Mrs. Le Geyt," he said, below his breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + "Our life is like a narrow raft, + Afloat upon the hungry sea. + Thereon is but a little space, + And all men, eager for a place, + Do thrust each other in the sea-- + And each man, raving for a place, + Doth cast his brother in the sea." + + +Half an hour later, when Annette had left them, Mr. Stirling and his +nephew turned with Janey towards the tall Italian gates, which Harry was +dutifully holding open for them. As Geoff shambled beside him, glancing +backwards in the direction of the path across the park which Annette had +taken, Mr. Stirling half wished that his favourite sister's only child +stared less at pretty women, that he had less tie and hair, and rather +more backbone and deportment. + +"Uncle Reggie," blurted out Geoff, "that Miss Georges!" + +"Well?" + +"Has she divorced him? Is that why she's called Miss Georges?" + +"I suppose she's called Miss Georges for the same reason that you are +called Geoffrey Lestrange," said his uncle. "Because it happens to be +her name." + +"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open, +innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I +knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at +Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to +draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in +his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away. +But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I +heard him call her Annette, and----" + +Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson, +startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he +saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if +one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape +over a dead body. + +"You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold +of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you +are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother." + +"I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor +brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have +liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in +thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married." + +"They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff. +"They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on +now. I looked, and--and----" + +But Mr. Stirling swept him down. + +"That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his +vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is +evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for +opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to +Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye." + +And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly +down the lane. + +"Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow +after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village, +and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed, +with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose +there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is +there?--she looks so very kind,--in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm. +But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed +colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it----" + +"Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling. + +"It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey +stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would +be--stupendous. I see it." + +Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short +in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him. + +"I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified, +transfigured. + +Mr. Stirling's heart smote him. + +"Geoff," he said gently, taking his arm again, and making him walk +quietly on beside him, "listen to me. There are other things in the +world to be attended to besides pictures." + +"No, there aren't." + +"Yes, there are. I put it to you. You have made a statement about Miss +Georges which will certainly do her a great deal of harm if it is +repeated. You blurt out things about her which are tantamount to making +a very serious accusation against her character, and then in the same +breath you actually suggest that you should make use of her in your +picture--when you have done your level best to injure her reputation. +Now, as one man of the world to another, is that honourable, is it even +'cricket'?" + +Geoff's face became weak and undecided again. The vision had been +shattered. + +Mr. Stirling saw his advantage, and pressed it with all the more +determination because he perceived that Geoff at any rate was firmly +convinced of the truth of what he had said, incredible as it seemed. + +"You will take no rooms in this village," he said with decision, "and +you will start for Japan to-morrow as arranged. I shall see you off, +and before you go you will promise me on your oath never to say another +word to anyone, be they who they may, about having seen Miss Georges at +Fontainebleau, or any other 'bleau,' in that disreputable Dick Le Geyt's +company." + + +Janey's heart beat violently as she walked slowly home. + +During the last few weeks she had sternly faced the fact that Roger was +attracted by Annette, and not without many pangs had schooled herself to +remain friends with her. There had been bitter moments when a choking +jealousy had welled up in her heart against Annette. She might have let +Roger alone. Beautiful women always hypocritically pretended that they +could not help alluring men. But they could. Annette need not have +gratified her vanity by trying to enslave him. + +But after the bitter moment Janey's sturdy rectitude and sense of +justice always came to her rescue. + +"Annette has not tried," she would say stolidly to herself. "And why +shouldn't she try, if she likes him? I am not going to lose her if she +does try. She doesn't know I want him. She is my friend, and I mean to +keep her, whatever happens." + +_Whatever happens._ But Janey had never dreamed of anything like this +happening. As she walked slowly home with her bunch of snap-dragons, she +realized that if Roger knew what she and Mr. Stirling knew about +Annette, he would leave her. It was not too late yet. His mind was not +actually made up--that slow mind, as tenacious as her own. He was +gravitating towards Annette. But if she let it reach his ears that +Annette had been Dick's mistress he would turn from her, and never think +of her as a possible wife again. After an interval he would gradually +revert to her, Janey, without having ever realized that he had left her. +Oh! if only Roger had been present when that foolish young man had made +those horrible allegations!--if only he had heard them for himself! +Janey reddened at her own cruelty, her own disloyalty. + +But was it, could it be true that Annette with her clear, unfathomable +eyes had an ugly past behind her? It was unthinkable. And yet--Janey had +long since realized that Annette had a far wider experience of men and +women than she had. How had she gained it, that experience, that air of +mystery which, though Janey did not know it, was a more potent charm +than her beauty? + +Was it possible that she might be Dick's wife after all, as that young +man had evidently taken for granted? _No._ No wife, much less Annette, +would have left her husband at death's door, and have fled at the advent +of his relations. His mistress might have acted like that, had actually +acted like that; for Janey knew that when her aunt arrived at +Fontainebleau a woman who till then had passed as Dick's wife and had +nursed him devotedly _had_ decamped, and never been heard of again. + +Was it possible that Annette had been that woman? Mr. Lestrange had been +absolutely certain of what he had seen. His veracity was obvious. And +Annette's was not a face that one could easily forget, easily mistake +for anyone else. In her heart Janey was convinced that he had indeed +seen Annette with her brother, passing as his wife. And she saw that Mr. +Stirling was convinced also. + +She had reached the garden of the Dower House, and she sank down on the +wooden seat round the cedar. The sun had set behind the long line of the +Hulver woods, and there was a flight of homing rooks across the amber +sky. + +Then Annette must be guilty, in spite of her beautiful face and her +charming ways! Janey clasped her hands tightly together. Her outlook on +life was too narrow, too rigid, to differentiate or condone. Annette had +been immoral. + +And was she, Janey, to stand by, and see Roger, her Roger, the +straightest man that ever walked, and the most unsuspicious, marry her +brother's mistress? Could she connive at such a wicked thing? Would +Roger forgive her, would she ever forgive herself, if she coldly held +aloof and let him ruin his life, drench it in dishonour, because she was +too proud to say a word? It was her duty to speak, her bounden duty. +Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within +her. Was it grief? Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish. + +Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of +life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips +towards it that the rim is stained with blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + "We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder + circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had + not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love we _have_ + given is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have + come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if + they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which + it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous + flowers will not open to perfection."--M. N. + + +Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver +gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since +he had become her mother's tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her +acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional +civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an +acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to +Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely +afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and +he was quickly aware of Janey's surprise at seeing him. + +He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the +servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gate +unlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for +some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which +followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of +the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the +night, and the rough grass, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and +the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were +autumn already. + +Mr. Stirling looked with compassion at Janey's strained face and +sleepless eyes. + +"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of +Miss Georges." + +He saw her wince. + +"I am not sure I am," she said hoarsely, involuntarily. + +"I am quite sure," he said. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for Japan, and that he +has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he +gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally +manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff's stupidity was that it was +the truth which he blurted out." + +"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it." + +"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can't tell why one believes +certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff's voice had that +mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knew at once you recognized +that. That is why I am here." + +Janey looked straight in front of her. + +"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff +might have been mistaken. But he was not. He was so determined to prove +to me that he was not that he unpacked one of his boxes already packed +to start for Japan, and got out his last year's notebooks. I kept one of +them. He did not like it, but I thought it was safer with me than with +him." + +Mr. Stirling produced out of a much-battered pocket a small sketch-book +with an elastic band round it, and turned the leaves. Each page was +crowded with pencil studies of architecture, figures, dogs, children, +nursemaids; small elaborate drawings of door-knockers and leaden +pipe-heads; vague scratches of officials and soldiers, the individuality +of each caught in a few strokes. He turned the pages with a certain +respectful admiration. + +"He has the root of the matter in him," he said. "He will arrive." + +Janey was not impressed. She thought the sketches very unfinished. + +Then he stopped at a certain page. Neither of them could help smiling. +The head waiter, as seen from behind, napkin on arm, dish on spread +hand, superb, debonair, stout but fleet. + +_Alphonse_ was scribbled under it, _Fontainebleau, Sept. the tenth_, and +the year. + +Mr. Stirling turned the leaf, turned three or four leaves, all with +_Mariette_ scrawled on them. Mariette had evidently been the French +chamber-maid, and equally evidently had detained Geoff's vagrant eye. + +Another page. A man leaning back in his chair laughing. _Dick Le Geyt_ +was written under it. + +"Is it like him?" asked Mr. Stirling. + +"It's _him_," said Janey. + +Yet another page. They both looked in silence at the half-dozen masterly +strokes with _Mrs. Le Geyt_ written under them. + +"It is unmistakable," Mr. Stirling said. "It is not only she, but it is +no one else." + +His eyes met Janey's. She nodded. + +He closed the little book, put its elastic band round it, and squeezed +it into his pocket. + +"Why did you bring that to show me?" she said harshly. It seemed as if +he had come to tempt her. + +"I knew," he said, "that for the last two days you must have been on the +rack, torn with doubt as to the truth of what my miserable nephew had +affirmed. You look as if you had not slept since. Anything is better +than suspense. Well, now you know it is true." + +"Yes, it _is_ true," said Janey slowly, and she became very pale. Then +she added, with difficulty, "I knew--we all knew--that Dick had had some +one--a woman--with him at Fontainebleau when he was taken ill. His +valet told my aunt he had not gone--alone. And the hotel-keeper told her +the same. She ran away when Aunt Jane arrived. Aunt Jane never saw her. +We never knew who she was." + +"Till now," said Mr. Stirling softly. + +Two long-winged baby-swallows were sitting on their breasts on the sunny +flagged path, resting, turning their sleek heads to right and left. Mr. +Stirling watched them intently. + +"Why should anyone but you and I ever know?" he said, with a sigh, after +they had flown. He had waited, hoping Janey would say those words, but +he had had to say them himself instead. + +She did not answer. She could not. A pulse in her throat was choking +her. This, then, was what he had come for, to persuade her to be silent, +to hush it up. All men were the same about a pretty woman. A great +tumult clamoured within her, but she made no movement. + +"I may as well mention that I am interested in Miss Georges," he went on +quietly. "Don't you find that rather ridiculous, Miss Manvers? An +elderly man of fifty, old enough to be her father. It is quite absurd, +and very undignified, isn't it? You are much too courteous to agree with +me. But I can see you think it is so, whether you agree or not. Wise +women often justly accuse us silly susceptible men of being caught by a +pretty face. I have been caught by a sweet face. I never exchanged a +word with Miss Georges till yesterday, so I have not had the chance of +being attracted by her mind. And it is not her mind that draws me, it is +her face. I have known her by sight for some time. I go to church in +order to see her. I called on her two aunts solely in order to make her +acquaintance. The elder one, the portentous authoress, is the kind of +person whom I should creep down a sewer to avoid; even the saintly +invalid does not call out my higher nature." + +Mr. Stirling became aware that Janey was lost in amazement. Irony is +singularly unsuited to a narrow outlook. + +He waited a moment, and then went on, choosing his words carefully, as +if he were speaking to some one very young-- + +"It is quite a different thing to be attracted, and to have any hope of +marriage, isn't it? I have, and had, no thought of marrying Miss +Georges. I am aware that I could not achieve it. Men of my age do not +exist for women of her age. But that does not prevent my having a deep +desire to serve her. And service is the greater part of love, isn't it? +I am sure _you_ know that, whose life is made up of service of others." + +"I am not sure I do," she said stiffly. She was steeling herself against +him. + +If he found her difficult, he gave no sign of it. He went on +tranquilly-- + +"As one grows old one sees, oh! how clearly one sees that the only +people whom one can be any real use to are those whom one loves--with +one's whole heart. Liking is no real use. Pity and duty are not much +either. They are better than nothing, but that is all. Love is the one +weapon, the one tool, the one talisman. Now we can't make ourselves love +people. Love is the great gift. I don't, of course, mean the gift of a +woman's love to a man, or of a man's to a woman. I mean the power to +love anyone devotedly, be they who they may, is God's greatest gift to +_us_ His children. And He does not give it us very often. To some He +never gives it. Many people go through life loved and cherished who seem +to be denied His supreme blessing--that of being able to love, of seeing +that wonderful light rest upon a fellow-creature. And as we poor elders +look back, we see that there were one or two people who crossed our path +earlier in life whom we loved, or could have loved, and whom we have +somehow lost: perhaps by their indifference, perhaps by our own +temperament, but whom nevertheless we have lost. When the first spark is +lit in our hearts of that mysterious flame which it sometimes takes us +years to quench, one does not realize it at the time. I did not. +Twenty-five years ago, Miss Manvers, before you were born, I fell in +love. I was at that time a complete egoist, a very perfect specimen, +with the superficial hardness of all crustaceans who live on the +defensive, and wear their bones outside like a kind of armour. She was a +year or two younger than I was, just about Miss Georges' age. Miss +Georges reminds me of her. She is taller and more beautiful, but she +reminds me of her all the same. I was not sure whether she cared for me. +And I had a great friend. And he fell in love with her too. And I +renounced her, and withdrew in his favour. I went away without speaking. +I thought I was acting nobly. He said there was no one like me. Thoreau +had done the same, and I worshipped Thoreau in my youth, and had been to +see him in his log hut. I was sustained in my heartache by feeling I was +doing a heroic action. It never struck me I was doing it at her expense. +I went abroad, and after a time she married my friend. Some years later, +I heard he was dying of a terrible disease in the throat, and I went to +see him. She nursed him with absolute devotion, but she would not allow +me to be much with him. I put it down to a kind of jealousy. And after +his death I tried to see her, but again she put difficulties in the way. +At last I asked her to marry me, and she refused me." + +"Because you had deserted her to start with," said Janey. + +"No; she was not like that. Because she was dying of the same disease as +her husband. She had contracted it from him. That was why she had never +let me be much with him, or afterwards with her. When I knew, I was +willing to risk it, but she was not. She had her rules, and from them +she never departed. She let me sit with her in the garden, and to the +last she was carried out to her long chair so that I might be with her. +She told me it was the happiest time of her life. I found that from the +first she had loved me, and she loved me to the last. She never +reproached me for leaving her. She was a simple person. I told her I had +done it on account of my friend, and she thought it very noble of me, +and said it was just what she should have expected of me. There was no +irony in her. And she slipped quietly out of life, keeping her ideal of +me to the last." + +"I think it was noble too," said Janey stolidly. + +"Was it? I never considered her for a moment. I had had the desire to +serve her, but I never served her. Instead, I caused her long, long +unhappiness--for my friend had a difficult temperament--and suffering +and early death. I never realized that she was alive, vulnerable, +sensitive. I should have done better to have married her and devoted +myself to her. I have never wanted to devote myself to any woman since. +We should have been happy together. And she might have been with me +still, and we might have had a son who would just have been the right +age to marry Miss Georges." + +"You would not have wanted him to marry her now," said Janey hoarsely. +"You would not want her to marry anyone you were fond of." + +Among a confusion of tangled threads Mr. Stirling saw a clue--at last. + +A dragon-fly alighted on the stone at his feet, its long orange body and +its gauze wings gleaming in the vivid sunshine. It stood motionless save +for its golden eyes. Even at that moment, his mind, intent on another +object, unconsciously noted and registered the transparent shadow on the +stone of its transparent wings. + +"I think," he said, "if I had had a son who was trying to marry her, I +should have come to you just as I have come now, and I should have said, +'Why should anyone but you and I ever know?'" + +"No. No, you wouldn't," said Janey, as if desperately defending some +position which he was attacking. "You would want to save him at all +costs." + +"From what? From the woman he loves? I have not found it such great +happiness to be saved from the woman I loved." + +Janey hesitated, and then said-- + +"From some one unworthy of him." + +Mr. Stirling watched an amber leaf sail to the ground. Then he said +slowly-- + +"How do I know that Annette is unworthy of him? She may have done wrong +and still be worthy of him. Do you not see that if I decided she was +unworthy and hurried my son away, I should be acting on the same +principle as I did in my own youth, the old weary principle which has +pressed so hard on women, that you can treat a fellow-creature like a +picture or a lily, or a sum of money? I handed over my love just as if +she had been a lily. How often I had likened her to one! But she was +alive, poor soul, all the time, and I only found it out when she was +dying, years and years afterwards. Only then did my colossal selfishness +confront me. She was a fellow-creature like you and me. What was it +Shylock said? 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' Now, for aught we know +to the contrary, Annette _may be_ alive." + +His grave eyes met hers, with a light in them, gentle, inexorable. + +"Unless we are careful we may make her bleed. We have the knife ready to +our hands. If you were in her place, and had a grievous incident in your +past, would anything wound you more deeply than if she, she your friend, +living in the same village, raked up that ugly past, and made it public +for no reason?" + +"But there is a reason," said Janey passionately,--"not a reason that +everyone should know, God forbid, but that one person should be told, +who may marry her in ignorance, and who would never marry her if he knew +what you and I know--never, never, never!" + +"And what would you do in her place, in such a predicament?" + +"I should not be in it, because when he asked me to marry him I should +tell him everything." + +"Perhaps that is just what she will do. Knowing her intimately as you +do, can you think that she would act meanly and deceitfully? I can't." + +Janey avoided his searching glance, and made no answer. + +"You can't either," he said tranquilly. "And do you think she would lie +about it?" + +"No," said Janey slowly, against her will. + +"Then let us, at any rate, give her her chance of telling him herself." + +He got up slowly, and Janey did the same. He saw that her stubbornness +though shaken was not vanquished, and that he should obtain no assurance +from her that she would be silent. + +"And let us give this man, whoever he may be, his chance too," he said, +taking her hand and holding it. He felt it tremble, and his heart ached +for her. He had guessed. "The chance of being loyal, the chance of being +tender, generous, understanding. Do not let us wreck it by interference. +This is a matter which lies between her and him, and between her and him +only. It may be the making of him. It would have been the making of me +if I could but have taken it--my great chance--if I had not preferred to +sacrifice her, in order to be a sham hero." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + "Look long, look long in the water Mélisande, + Is there never a face but your own? + There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande, + Your soul must stand alone. + All alone in the world Mélisande, + Alone, alone." + ETHEL CLIFFORD. + + +The long evening was before Janey. Since her stroke, her mother "retired +for the night," as the nurse called it, at nine instead of ten. And at +nine, Janey came down to the drawing-room and established herself with +her work beside the lamp. Harry, whom nothing could keep awake after his +game of dominoes, went to bed at nine also. + +But to-night, as she took up her work, her spirit quailed at the long +array of threadbare thoughts that were lying in wait for her. She dared +not think any more. She laid down her work, and took up the paper. But +she had no interest in politics. There seemed to be nothing in it. She +got up, and taking the lamp in her hand crossed the room and looked at +the books in the Chippendale bookcase, the few books which her mother +had brought with her from Hulver. They were well chosen, no doubt, but +somehow Janey did not want them. Shakespeare? No. Longfellow? No. She +was tired of him, tired even of her favourite lines, "Life is real, life +is earnest." Tennyson? No. Pepys' Diary? She had heard people speak of +it. No. Bulwer's novels, Jane Austen's, Maria Edgeworth's, Sir Walter +Scott's? No. _Crooks and Coronets_? She had only read it once. She might +look at it again. She liked Miss Nevill's books. She had read most of +them, not intentionally, but because while she was binding them in brown +paper for the village library, she had found herself turning the leaves. +She especially liked the last but one, about simple fisher-folk. She +often wondered how Miss Nevill knew so much about them. If she had +herself been acquainted with fishermen, she would have realized how +little the dignified authoress did know. Somehow, she did not care to +read even one of Miss Nevill's books to-night. + +_The Magnet_, by Reginald Stirling. She hesitated, put out her hand, and +took the first of the three volumes from the shelf. She had skimmed it +when it came out five years ago, because the Bishop, when he stayed with +them for a confirmation, had praised it. Janey had been surprised that +he had recommended it when she came to read it, for parts of it were +decidedly unpleasant. She might look at it again. She had no +recollection of it, except that she had not liked it. Her conversation +with Mr. Stirling had agitated her, but it had also stirred her. Though +she did not know it, it was the first time she had come into real +contact with an educated and sensitive mind, and one bent for the moment +on understanding hers. No one as a rule tried to understand Janey. It +was not necessary. No one was interested in her. You might easily love +Janey, but you could not easily be interested in her. + +The book was dusty. It was obvious that _The Magnet_ had not proved a +magnet to anyone in the Dower House. + +She got out an old silk handkerchief from a drawer and dusted it +carefully. Then she sat down by the lamp once more and opened it. +Ninetieth thousand. Was that many or few to have sold? It seemed to her +a good many, but perhaps all books sold as many as that. She glanced at +the first page. + + + "TO A BLESSED MEMORY." + + +That, no doubt, was the memory of the woman of whom he had spoken. She +realized suddenly that it had cost him something to speak of that. Why +had he done it? To help Annette? Every one wanted to help and protect +Annette, and ward off trouble from her. No one wanted to help or guard +her--Janey. + +"No one?" asked Conscience. + +Janey saw suddenly the yellow leaves on the flags. She had not noticed +them at the time. She saw the two baby-swallows sitting on their +breasts on the sun-warmed stone. She had not noticed them at the time. +She saw suddenly, as in a glass, the nobility, the humility, and the +benevolence of the man sitting beside her, and his intense desire to +save her from what he believed to be a cruel action. She had noticed +nothing at the time. She had been full of herself and her own +devastating problem. She saw that he had pleaded with her in a great +compassion as much on her own account as on Annette's. He had stretched +out a hand to help her, had tried to guard her, to ward off trouble from +her. This required thought. Janey and Roger could both think, though +they did not do so if they could help it, and he did his aloud to Janey +by preference whenever it really had to be done. Janey's mind got slowly +and reluctantly to its feet. It had been accustomed from early days to +walk alone. + + +A step crunched the gravel, came along the terrace, a well-known step. +Roger's face, very red and round-eyed behind a glowing cigarette end, +appeared at the open window. + +"I saw by the lamp you had not gone to bed yet. May I come in?" Coming +in. "My! It is like an oven in here." + +"I will come out," said Janey. + +They sat down on the terrace on two wicker chairs. It was the first time +she had been alone with him since she had met Geoff Lestrange. And as +Roger puffed at his cigarette in silence she became aware that he had +something on his mind, and had come to unburden himself to her. The moon +was not yet risen, and the church tower and the twisted pines stood as +if cut out of black velvet against the dim pearl of the eastern sky. + +"I came round this afternoon," said Roger in an aggrieved tone, "but you +were out." + +It seems to be a fixed idea, tap-rooted into the very depths of the +masculine mind, that it is the bounden duty of women to be in when they +call, even if they have not thought fit to mention their flattering +intentions. But some of us are ruefully aware that we might remain +indoors twenty years without having our leisure interrupted. Janey had +on many occasions waited indoors for Roger, but not since he had seen +Annette home after the choir practice. + +"You never seem to be about nowadays," he said. + +"I was in the Hulver gardens." + +"Yes, so I thought I would come round now." + +Roger could extract more creaking out of one wicker garden chair than +any other man in Lowshire, and more crackling out of a newspaper, +especially if music was going on: that is, unless Annette was singing. +He was as still as a stone on those occasions. + +"How is Aunt Louisa?" + +"Just the same." + +"Doctor been?" + +"No." + +"I was over at Noyes this morning about the bridge. Stirling gave me +luncheon. I don't know where I'm going to get the money for it, with +Aunt Louisa in this state. It's her business to repair the bridge. It's +going to cost hundreds." + +Janey had heard all this before many times. She was aware that Roger was +only marking time. + +"When I was over there," continued Roger, "I saw Bartlet, and he told me +Mary Deane--you know who I mean?" + +"Perfectly." + +"I heard the child, the little girl, had died suddenly last week. Croup +or something. They ought to have let me know. The funeral was +yesterday." + +"Poor woman!" + +"She and the old servant between them carried the little coffin +themselves along the dyke and across the ford. Wouldn't let anyone else +touch it. I heard about it from Bartlet. He ought to have let me know. I +told him so. He said he thought I _did_ know. That's Bartlet all over. +And he said he went up to see her next day, and--and she was gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Yes, gone. Cleared out; and the servant too. Cowell said a man from +Welysham had called for their boxes. They never went back to the house +after the funeral. I ought to have been told. And to-day I get this," +Roger pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it out to her. He lit a +match, and by its wavering light she read the few lines, in an educated +hand:-- + + + "_I only took the allowance from you when Dick became too ill to + send it, on account of Molly. Now Molly is dead, I do not need it, + or the house, or anything of Dick's any more. The key is with + Cornell.--M._" + + +"Poor woman!" said Janey again. + +"It's a bad business," said Roger. "She was--there was something nice +about her. She wasn't exactly a lady, but there really _was_ something +nice about her. And the little girl was Dick over again. You couldn't +help liking Molly." + +"I suppose she has gone back to her own people?" + +Roger shook his head. + +"She hasn't any people--never knew who her parents were. She was--the +same as her child. She loved Dick, but I don't think she ever forgave +him for letting Molly be born out of wedlock. She knew what it meant. It +embittered her. It was not only her own pride which had been wounded, +and she was a proud woman. But Molly! She resented Molly being +illegitimate." + +"Oh, Roger, what will become of her?" + +"Goodness knows." + +"Dick oughtn't to have done it," said Roger slowly, as if he were +enunciating some new and startling hypothesis. "But to do him justice I +do believe he might have married her if he'd lived. I think if he cared +for anybody it was for her. Dick meant well, but he was touched in his +head. She ought not to have trusted him. Not quite like other people; no +memory: and never in the same mind two days running." + +There was a short silence. But Roger had got under way at last. Very +soothing at times is a monologue to the weary masculine mind. + +"I used to think," he went on, "that Dick was the greatest liar and +swindler under the sun. He went back on his word, his written word, and +he wasn't straight. I'm certain he ran a ramp at Leopardstown. That was +the last time he rode in Ireland. You couldn't trust him. But I begin to +think that from the first he had a bee in his bonnet, poor chap. I +remember Uncle John leathering him within an inch of his life when he +was a boy because he said he had not set the big barn alight. And he +_had_. He'd been seen to do it by others as well as by me. I saw him, +but I never said. But I believe now he wasn't himself, sort of +sleep-walking, and he really had clean forgotten he'd done it. And do +you remember about the Eaton Square house?" + +Of course Janey remembered, but she said, "What about that?" + +"Why, he wrote to me to tell me he had decided to sell it only last +August, a month before his accident, as he wanted cash. He had clean +forgotten he had sold it two years ago and had had the money. Twenty +thousand it was." + +Puff! Puff! + +"Jones, his valet, you know!" + +"Yes." + +"Jones told me privately when I was in Paris a month ago that Dick +couldn't last much longer. Gangrene in both feet. The wonder is he has +lived so long. Aunt Louisa will get her wish after all. You'll see he +will die intestate, and everything will go to Harry. Pity you weren't a +boy, Janey. Dick can't make a will now, that's certain, though I don't +believe if he could and wanted to, Lady Jane would let him. But whatever +happens, the family ought to remember Jones when Dick's gone, and settle +something handsome on him for life. Jones has played the game by Dick." + +Janey thought it was just like Roger to be anxious about the valet, when +his own rightful inheritance was slipping away from him. For Roger came +next in the male line after Dick, if you did not count Harry. + +There was a long silence. + +"When Dick does go," said Roger meditatively,--"moon looks jolly, +doesn't it, peeping out behind the tower?--I wonder whether we shall +have trouble with the other woman, the one who was with him when he was +taken ill." + +"At Fontainebleau?" + +"Yes. I hear she was not at all a common person either, and as handsome +as paint." + +At the back of his mind Roger had a rueful, half-envious feeling that +really the luck had been with Dick: one pretty woman after another, +while he, Roger, plodded along as good as gold and as dull as ditch +water, and only had to provide for the babes of these illicit unions. It +did not seem fair. + +"Perhaps there is another child there," he said. + +"Oh no, no!" said Janey, wincing. + +"It's no use saying, 'Oh no, no!' my good girl. It may be, 'Oh yes, +yes!' The possibility has to be faced." Roger spoke as a man of the +world. "There may be a whole brood of them for aught we know." + +"Do you think he may possibly have married this--second one?" said Janey +tentatively. + +"No, I don't. If he had, she wouldn't have bolted. Besides, if Dick had +married anyone, I do believe it would have been Mary Deane. Well, she's +off our hands, poor thing. She won't trouble us again, but I don't +expect we shall get off as easy with number two." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + "Erfahrungen haben ist nichts, aber aus allen + Erfahrungen ein reines Herz gerettet zu haben, + Alles." L. HABICHT. + + +It was the second week in August. Mrs. Stoddart had arrived at Noyes, +and had driven over to see Annette, and to make the acquaintance of the +Miss Nevills. + +She was an immediate success with them, possibly because she intended to +be one, and knew how to set about it. + +The Miss Nevills had two worlds, the social and the literary, and each +one had "right people" in it. In the social world the right people were +of course those who belonged to the same social order as themselves, who +were connected with, or related to, or friends of Nevills, or were +connected with, or related to, or friends of the connections and +relatives and friends of Nevills. Mrs. Stoddart allowed her visiting +list to be probed, and quickly established herself as one of the right +people. She knew people they knew. Her sister Lady Brandon was a +frequent visitor at the Deanery of St. Botolph's, where they had lunched +during the Church Congress. And it was her niece who became the second +Mrs. Templeton when the first Mrs. Templeton, known of the Miss +Nevills, died. + +If, Reader, you have ever engaged in the back-breaking, hand-blistering +task of eradicating a scattered and well-established colony of nettles, +you have no doubt discovered that a nettle--except a few parvenus, +growth of the last rains--does not live to itself alone. It possesses +endless underground ramifications and knotted connections with other +groups and neighbouring groves of nettles. Get hold of the root of one, +and you pull up a long string rosetted at intervals with bunches of the +same stimulating family. So it was with the social world of the Miss +Nevills. There was always what they called "a link," and one of Aunt +Harriet's chief interests in life was the establishment of these links +in the case of each newcomer, though nothing much happened when it was +established. + +Just as you and I, Reader, in our vulgar, homely way, strike up an eager +acquaintanceship, even form a friendship with equally communicative +strangers on steamers, in omnibuses, in trains, because we have both +stayed in the same hotel at Lauter-brunnen, or go to the same dentist, +or derive benefit from the same pre-digested food, so the Miss Nevills +continually established links by more aristocratic avenues with the +assiduity of Egyptologists. + +But much of the pleasure of Mrs. Stoddart's visit was damped by the fact +which she discreetly concealed till almost the last moment, that she +was the bearer of an invitation from Mr. Stirling to Annette to spend a +few days at Noyes during her own visit there. Aunt Maria was wounded to +the quick. She had made up her mind to cultivate Mr. Stirling, to steep +herself in long literary conversations with him, to read aloud certain +important chapters of _The Silver Cross_ to him, on which his judgment +would be invaluable. And here was Annette, who had not an idea in her +mind beyond housekeeping and gardening and singing in the choir, here +was Annette preferred before her. Aunt Maria yearned to be admitted to +the society of the "right people" in the literary world as well as the +social one. She had been made much of by the camp followers of +literature, who were always prodigal of their invitations. And a few +uneasy vanities, such as the equally ignored Mr. Harvey, found a healing +comfort as she did herself in their respectful adulation. But all the +time she knew that she was an outsider in the best literary circles. +There was no one more democratic than the author of _Crooks and +Coronets_ when she approached the literary class. She was, to use her +own phraseology, "quite ready" to meet with urbanity anyone +distinguished in the world of letters, quite regardless of family. But +they apparently were not equally ready to meet her--at least, not to +meet her a second time. Mr. Stirling was a writer of considerable +importance, and Aunt Maria was magnanimously prepared to overlook the +fact that his father had been a small shopkeeper in Hammersmith. + +But he preferred Annette's society to hers. + +Mrs. Stoddart hastened to lay a soothing unguent on the sensitive spirit +of the celebrated authoress. It quickly transpired that the invitation +to Annette had been mainly the result of Mrs. Stoddart's own suggestion. + +"I begged him to let me have Annette with me for a few days," she said, +"and he was most kind about it. He is one of my oldest friends." + +Aunt Maria, somewhat mollified, yielded a dignified consent, and an +incident which had had its painful moment was closed. The next day the +news reached the Miss Blinketts with the afternoon delivery of milk that +the carriage from Noyes Court had come to Red Riff, and that Annette had +departed in it with a small dress-box at her feet, and a hat-box on the +vacant seat beside her. + + +Noyes Court is not an old house as old houses go in Lowshire, not like +Loudham close by, which has looked into its lake since Edward the +Third's time. Noyes was built by Hakoun Le Geyt, to whom Henry the +Eighth gave Noyes Priory and the estates belonging thereto. And Hakoun +erected a long black and white timbered house, with elaborately carved +beams and doorways, on the high ground above the deserted Priory. And +possibly he took most of the lead from the Priory roof, and certainly +he took some of the carved hammerbeams, for they have the word "Maria" +running along them, as you may see to this day. For when Cardinal Wolsey +came to visit him, the Priory was already a ruin. Perhaps Hakoun was a +man of foresight, and may have realized that the great Cardinal, who was +coming to Noyes on the quest of suppressing some of the Lowshire +monasteries in order to swell the revenues of his new college at +Ipswich, might lay his clutching hand on anything that still remained in +the condemned Priory, and so thought it politic to appropriate what he +could while opportunity offered. + +However that may have been, Noyes is rich in ancient lattice and stained +glass, and curious lead-work and gargoyle. And in the minstrels' gallery +you may see how cunningly the carved angels and griffons have been +inserted at intervals in the black oak balustrade. + +Hakoun must have been a man of taste, though he was a parvenu in spite +of his fine coat-of-arms: some said he was nothing better than one of +Catherine of Aragon's pages, who became a favourite with England's stout +young King when poor Catherine was herself in favour. But he had the wit +to consolidate his position in Lowshire by marrying into one of its +greatest families, the beautiful Jane de Ludham. Her father it was, +Ralph de Ludham, who had made the passage through Sweet Apple Tree marsh +because the hated Priors of Noyes hindered people passing through their +lands. And his son-in-law, eager to conciliate his Lutheran +father-in-law and his country neighbours, gave the stones of the Priory +to build the new bridge over the Rieben which stands to this day. From +the earliest times, almost from the Conquest, there had been trouble +about the bridge. The Priors of Noyes were bound to keep it in good +repair by reason of the lands they held on both sides of it. But the +Priors had never troubled themselves to carry out their duty, and there +was a grim justice in the fact that the very fabric of their Priory +fulfilled the obligation which they themselves had ignored when the last +of them was in his tomb, and a young Frenchman had taken possession of +their lands. + +The young Frenchman made good his hold on Noyes, and his successors +prospered, marrying steadily into the Lowshire families, excepting a +certain unlucky Richard who must needs wed a French maid-of-honour of +Charles the Second's Court, and, as some averred, the daughter of that +witty monarch. There is a charming portrait of Henriette of many curls +in the gallery which certainly has a look of the Stuarts, hanging +opposite her ill-fated Richard, who soon after the marriage got himself +blown up with Lord Sandwich in the _Royal James_. + + +Mrs. Stoddart and Annette were sitting in the walled herb garden which +Henriette in her widowhood had made, who had put with pardonable vanity +her initials twined in gilded iron in the centre of the iron gate which +led down to it from the terrace above. The little enclosed garden lay +bathed in a misty sunshine. Beyond it, the wide lawns were still all +silvered with dew in the shadows of the forest trees, which seemed to be +advanced posts of the great forest gathered like an army on the other +side of the river. The ground fell away before their eyes, in pleasaunce +and water meadows, to where in the distance you could just discern the +remains of the Priory near the bridge which had cost it so dear. + +Even that "new" bridge was now old, and was showing ominous signs of +collapse, and Annette's eyes followed the movements of tiny workmen +crawling over it. The distant chink of trowel and hammer reached them +through the haze of the windless summer morning. + +It was evident that the two women had had a long conversation, and that +Mrs. Stoddart was slowly turning over something point by point in her +mind. + +"You realize, Annette," she said at last, "that you can't go on living +at Riff now you know who the Manvers are?" + +"I was afraid you would say that." + +"But surely you see it for yourself, whether I say it or not?" + +Annette did not answer. + +"There are no two ways about it. You must break with the Manvers root +and branch." + +Annette coloured painfully. + +"Must I?" + +"Doesn't your own common sense, if you would only use it, tell you the +same?" + +"I am very fond of Janey Manvers." + +"That can't be helped." + +"You see," said Annette slowly, "Janey and Roger are the two people I +like best anywhere, except you. You don't know," turning her grave eyes +to her companion, "how good they are." + +"I never like people myself because they are good." + +"No, I know. And it's very lucky for me you don't. And then, I dare say, +you have always known numbers of good people. But it's different for me. +I haven't. I've never been with good people except Aunt Cathie and you." + +"If the sacred Miss Nevills could hear you now!" + +"I used to think I hated goodness. But I see now that it was the theory +of it, the talking about it, that sickened me. Janey and Roger never +talk about it. And then, when I had broken away from the aunts and went +to Paris, the life there was really evil under a thin veil which soon +got torn. And then I came here, and met Janey and Roger, and got to know +them well." + +"He is Mr. Le Geyt's younger brother, I suppose?" + +"No, first cousin." + +"That short-nosed, sunburnt, silent man we met at the bridge yesterday?" + +"Yes." + +"I liked his looks." + +"He is straight," said Annette, "and so is Janey. I always think of them +together, because they are so alike. They might be brother and sister, +and I'm sure they are as fond of each other as if they were. They aren't +clever, of course, like you and Mr. Stirling, but then I'm not clever +myself. They are just the kind of people I like." + +"My poor child, I am afraid you must give them up." + +"I'd rather give up anybody than them, except you." + +"It isn't a question of what you'd rather do or not do. Now you know who +they are, you cannot continue on terms of friendship with them. I don't +want to force my will upon you. I only want to advise you for the best. +Don't you see for yourself, without my insisting on it, that you will +involve yourself in an impossible situation if you continue your +friendship with them? If I were not here to point that out, surely, +_surely_ you could see it for yourself? Annette, if I were not here, if +you had no one to advise you, what _would_ you do?" + +"I would tell them," said Annette. "I won't, because I've promised you +not to tell anyone, but if I were----" + +"Free?" suggested Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Yes, if I were free, I should tell them both." + +Mrs. Stoddart let her knitting fall into her lap, and stared at her +companion. + +"And what good, in the name of fortune, would come of that?" + +"I don't know that any particular good would come of it, but I should +feel happier in my mind. I never had any wish to tell the aunts. I don't +know exactly why, but you don't somehow want to tell them things. But +ever since I've known that Dick was Janey's brother I've wanted to tell +her--her and Roger. It seems to come between me and them like a cloud. +You see, they like me, and I like them. There is nothing kept back in +_their_ lives, and they think I'm the same as them. I feel as if I ought +to tell them." + +"But, my dear, if I know anything of people like the Manvers, especially +when embedded in the country, it is that they would be terribly shocked, +and the disclosure would make an estrangement at once." + +"It might," Annette agreed. "I think you're right. I'm afraid it +_would_. But I should like to tell them, all the same." + +"They would not be wide-minded enough to understand." + +"They're not wide-minded, I know that, and of course they may feel I've +been here under false pretences." + +"They certainly would. Wouldn't it be better to do as I advise--to +leave Riff? You must lose them either way, Annette. Then why not lose +them by going away, instead of telling them first and then having to go +away?--for, of course, you could not remain. It would give less pain all +round." + +Annette locked her hands together. + +"I would rather they knew the truth about me." + +"The truth!" said Mrs. Stoddart, who, like most shrewd women, did not +relish opposition. "The truth! And who will get at the truth if you tell +that story of your act of supreme folly? Who will believe that you were +not Dick Le Geyt's mistress? The truth! Do you think it is the truth +about you that I have taken such trouble to conceal?" + +"Yes, partly," said Annette. "And I have often wondered lately if it had +not been a mistake." + +"Why particularly lately?" + +"Because of Roger Manvers." + +"The young man at the bridge? I wondered whether he was in love with you +when we were talking to him. But I did not think it mattered if he was." + +"It matters to me." + +"You mean you are actually thinking of him? Of course, he is most +estimable, and a gentleman, one can see that at a glance, but isn't he a +trifle dull, _borné_?" + +"I think I could get on better with a dull person, if he was kind and +honourable, than a clever one. I've had one clever one--who wasn't +honourable. You see, I'm only good-looking. I'm nothing else. That's why +I like being with the Miss Blinketts and Mrs. Nicholls. I forgot perhaps +you don't know Mrs. Nicholls is the washerwoman. A clever man would get +tired of me, or bored with me, and he would expect so much, +understandings and discriminations and things which I could not give, or +only by a dreadful effort. If I married Roger, he would be pleased with +me as I am." + +"I have no doubt he would." + +"And I should be pleased with him too." + +"I am not so sure of that." + +"I am, but for some time past I have wished he knew anything there was +to know against me." + +"Well, but, Annette, you know we agreed--you had my full approval--that +you should tell everything to the man you were engaged to." + +"I thought that all right at the time--at least, I mean I never thought +about it again. But, of course, I did not know Roger then, and I had not +realized how cruel it would be to him to go farther and farther, and +think more and more of me, and get it firmly rooted in his mind that he +would like to marry me,--it takes a long time for him to get his mind +fixed,--and then, when I had accepted him and he was feeling very +comfortable, to have this--this ugly thing--sprung upon him." + +"I don't see how that can be helped." + +"Yes, if he had been told very early in the day, he might have +withdrawn,--of course he would have withdrawn if he had believed the +worst,--but it would not have cost him much. He would have felt he had +had a lucky escape. But as it is," Annette's voice wavered, "I am afraid +Roger will be put to expense." + +"Has he said anything?" + +"Yes. No. I mean he said something the other day, but it was by the +weir, and I know he thought I did not hear. I was listening to the +water, and it made a noise. I heard every word, but I did not like to +say so, because I saw he was rather surprised at himself, taken aback." + +Mrs. Stoddart cogitated. + +At last she said, "My dear, I know what is wise, and that is what I have +advised you. But I also know that I am a managing woman, and that one +must not coerce the lives of others. You are not what is called wise. +And you never will be. But I perceive that you have some kind of course +to steer your ship by, and I must even let you steer it. We can't both +stand at the helm, Annette. I think you do not see the rocks ahead, +which I have taken such trouble to avoid, but at any rate I have pointed +them out. I take my hands off the wheel. I give you back your promise." + +Mr. Stirling and Roger were coming through the slender iron gates with +their scrolled initials, from which the white hanging clusters of the +"Seven Sisters" had to be pushed back to allow them to pass. + +"There are worse things than rocks," said Annette, looking at Roger. But +she had become very white. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + "Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, + only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this + our pilgrimage to no country and to no end."--RABINDRA NATH TAGORE. + + +Mr. Stirling had no curiosity--that quality which in ourselves we +designate as interest in our fellow-creatures, even while we are +kneeling at a keyhole. + +But his interest in others amounted to a passion. He drew slowly through +his hand a little chain, looking at each link with kindly compassion. +The first link had been the expression in Janey's eyes when his nephew +had unconsciously maligned Annette. The sudden relief as from pain, the +exultation in those gentle, patient eyes, had brought him instantly to +her side as her ally against herself. And in his interview with her, the +commonplace pitiful reason had spread itself out before him. She loved +some one, probably Mr. Black, or her cousin Roger--at any rate some one +who was drifting into love with Annette. He felt confident when he left +Janey that she would not use her weapon against Annette as a means to +regain her lover--that Annette was safe as far as she was concerned. +Janey was not of those who blindfold their own eyes for long. He had, +he knew, removed the bandage from them. That was all that was necessary. + +And now here was Roger, kindly, sociable Roger, whom he had always got +on with so well,--in spite of the secret contempt of the country-bred +man for a man who neither shoots not hunts,--here was Roger suddenly +metamorphosed into a laconic poker, hardly willing to exchange a word +with himself or Annette at luncheon. Mr. Stirling perceived, not without +amusement, that Roger was acutely jealous of him, and drew the last link +of the chain through his hand. Then it was Roger to whom Janey Manvers +was attached, Roger who was in love with Annette? That good-looking Mr. +Black apparently did not come into the piece at all. The situation had, +after all, a classic simplicity. Two women and one man. He had seen +something not unlike it before. And he smiled as he remembered how Miss +Blinkett once supplied him unasked with sundry details of the +affiancement of her cousin the Archdeacon with the Bishop's sister, and +her anxious injunction when all was divulged that he must not on any +account put it into a book. That promise he had kept without difficulty, +but not in Miss Blinkett's eyes, who, when his next novel appeared, +immediately traced a marked resemblance between the ardent love-making +of the half-Italian hero and the gratified comments of the Archdeacon +while allowing himself to be towed into harbour by the blameless +blandishments of the Bishop's sister. + +Would Roger in turn think he had been "put in"? Mr. Stirling realized +that it was only too likely. For he knew to his cost how deeply embedded +in the mind of the provincial male is the conviction that there is +nothing like him under the sun. In the novel which Mr. Stirling had +recently finished, he had drawn, without a hairbreadth's alteration, the +exact portrait of a married brother-novelist, as an inordinately pompous +old maid of literary fame. When the book appeared this character called +forth much admiration from the public in general, and the +brother-novelist in particular; but it caused a wound so deep and so +rankling in the bosom of Aunt Maria that all intercourse was broken off +between her and Mr. Stirling for ever, in spite of the fact that he was +able to assure her--only she never believed it--that his novel was in +the press before he made her acquaintance. But this is a digression. + +Mr. Stirling showed some absence of mind during luncheon, and then owned +that he was in a small difficulty about the afternoon. He had promised +to drive Mrs. Stoddart and Annette to the old cross at Haliwell. But the +victoria only held two comfortably, and the horse which was to have +taken him in the dogcart had fallen lame. + +"I think I shall commandeer you and your dogcart," he said to Roger. +"Take a few hours' holiday for once, Manvers, and do us all a good turn +at the same time. We can put some cushions in your cart, so that Miss +Georges will be sufficiently comfortable." + +Roger was electrified, but he made no sign. He mumbled something about a +foreman, he hung back, he was able to reassure himself afterwards by the +conviction that he had appeared most unwilling, as indeed he did; but +very deep down within him he felt a thrill of pleasure. He was tired to +death, though he did not know it, of the routine of his life, though he +clung to it as a bird will sometimes cling to its cage. He had had +enough of farm buildings and wire fencing, and the everlasting drainage +of land, the weary water-logged Lowshire land. His eyes became perfectly +round, and he looked at his plate with his most bottled-up expression. +But he was pleased. Fortunately for Annette, she knew that. It did not +strike him that she might be disconcerted by his apparent unwillingness +to escort her. His savage irritation against Mr. Stirling as "a clever +chap who could talk a bird out of a tree" was somewhat mollified. +Perhaps, after all, he was interested in Mrs. Stoddart, a widow of about +his own age. Roger shot a furtive glance from under his tawny eyelashes +at Mrs. Stoddart, suddenly bolted a large piece of peach, and said he +thought he could manage it. + + +It was a still August afternoon, and Roger drove Annette through the +sunny countryside. The cool breath of the sea blew softly in their +faces, travelling towards them across the low-lying woods and +cornfields. For there are few hills in Lowshire. It is a land of long +lines: long lines of tidal river and gleaming flats, and immense +stretches of clover--clover which is a soft green for half the summer, +and then a sea of dim blue pink. The heather and the gorse-land creep +almost down among the fields, with here and there a clump of pines +taking care of tiny cottages so muffled in the gorse that you can only +see the upper windows, or keeping guard round quaint little churches +with flint towers. And everywhere in the part of Lowshire where the +Rieben winds, there are old bridges of red blue brick shouldering up +among the buttercups, and red cows, with here and there a blue one, +standing without legs in the long grass. And scattered far apart, down +deep blackberried lanes, lie the villages of pink-plastered cottages +clustering together, red roof by red roof, with a flinty grey church in +the midst. + +The original artist who designed and painted Lowshire must have always +taken a dab of blue in his brush just when he had filled it with red, to +do the bridges and the old farms and barns and the cows. For in Lowshire +the blues and the reds are always melting into each other like the +clover. + +Roger and Annette were heading towards the sea, and so you would have +thought would be their companion the Rieben. But the Rieben was in no +hurry. It left them continually to take the longest way, laying itself +out in leisurely curves round low uplands, but always meeting them again +a few miles farther on, growing more stately with every detour. Other +streams swelled it, and presently wharves and townships stretched +alongside of it, and ships came sailing by. It hardly seemed possible to +Annette that it could be the same little river which one low arch could +span at Riff. + +At last they turned away from it altogether, and struck across the wide +common of Gallowscore amid its stretches of yellowing bracken; and Roger +showed her where, in past times, a gibbet used to hang, and told her +that old Cowell the shepherd, the only man who still came to church in +smock-frock and blue stockings, had walked all the way from Riff to +Gallowscore, as a lad, to see three highwaymen hanging in chains on it. +The great oak had been blown down later, gibbet and all, and the gibbet +had never been set up again. + +A walking funeral was toiling across the bracken in the direction of the +church on the edge of the common, and Roger drew up and waited +bareheaded till it had passed. And he told Annette of the old iniquitous +Lowshire "right of heriot" which came into force when a tenant died, and +how his uncle Mr. Manvers, the last lord of the manor, had let it lapse, +and how Dick, the present owner, had never enforced it either. + +"I couldn't have worked the estate if he had," said Roger simply. "Lady +Louisa told Dick he ought to stick to it, and make me enforce it, but I +said I should have to go if he did. The best horse out of his stable +when a man died, and the best cow out of his field. When Dick understood +what heriot meant he would not do it. He was always open-handed." + +Annette looked at the little church tolling its bell, and at the three +firs gathered round it. + +"There is a place like this in _The Magnet_," she said. "That is why I +seem to know it, though I've never seen it before. There ought to be a +Vicarage just behind the firs, with a little garden enclosed from the +bracken." + +"There is," said Roger, and then added, with gross ingratitude to its +author, "I never thought much of _The Magnet_. I like the bits about the +places, and he says things about dogs that are just right, and--robins. +He's good on birds. But when it comes to people----!" + +Annette did not answer. It was not necessary. Roger was under way. + +"And yet," he added, with a tardy sense of justice, "Stirling's in some +ways an understanding man. I never thought he'd have made allowance for +old Betty Hesketh having the wood mania and breaking up his new fence, +but he did. Such a fuss as Bartlet kicked up when he caught her at his +wood-stack! Of course he caught her at it. Old folks can't help it. +They get wood mania when they're childish, if they've known the pinch of +cold for too many years. And even if their sheds are full of wood--Betty +has enough to last her lifetime--they'll go on picking and stealing. If +they see it, they've got to have it. Only it isn't stealing. Mr. +Stirling understood that. He said he'd known old ladies the same about +china. But the people in his books!" Roger shook his head. + +"Didn't you like Jack and Hester in _The Magnet_! I got so fond of +them." + +"I don't remember much about them. I dare say I should have liked them +if I had felt they were real, but I never did. It's always the same in +novels. When I start reading them I know beforehand everybody will talk +so uncommonly well--not like----" + +"You and me," suggested Annette. + +"Well, not like me, anyhow. And not like Janey and the kind of people I +know--except perhaps Black. He can say a lot." + +"I have felt that too," said Annette, "especially when the hero and +heroine are talking. I think how splendidly they both do it, but I +secretly feel all the time that if I had been in the heroine's place I +never could have expressed myself so well, and behaved so exactly right, +and understood everything so quickly. I know I should have been silent +and stupid, and only seen what was the right thing to say several hours +later, when I had gone home." + +Roger looked obliquely at her with an approving eye. Here indeed was a +kindred soul! + +"In _The Magnet_," he said, with a sudden confiding impulse, "the men do +propose so well. Now in real life they don't. Poor beggars, they'd like +to, but they can't. Most difficult thing, but you'd never guess it from +_The Magnet_. Just look at Jack!--wasn't that his name?--how he reels it +all out! Shows how much he cares. Says a lot of really good things--not +copy-book, I will say that for him. Puts it uncommonly well about not +being good enough for her, just as Mr. Stirling would himself if he were +proposing. That's what I felt when I read it. Jack never would have had +the nerve to say all that, but of course a clever chap like Mr. +Stirling, sitting comfortably in his study, with lots of time and no +woman to flurry him, could make it up." + +Annette did not answer. Perhaps she did not want to flurry him. + +"I could never _say_ anything like that," said Roger, flicking a fly off +Merrylegs' back, "but I might feel it. I _do_ feel it, and more." + +"That is the only thing that matters," said Annette, with a tremor in +her voice. + +"This is not the moment!" whispered Roger's bachelor instinct, in sudden +panic at its imminent extinction. "I'd better wait till later in the +afternoon," he assented cautiously to himself. "A dogcart's not the +place." + +They crossed the common, and drove through an ancient forest of oak and +holly in which kings had hunted, and where the last wolf in England had +been killed. + +And Roger told her of the great flood in the year of Waterloo, when the +sea burst over the breakwater between Haliwater and Kirby, and carried +away the old Hundred bridge, and forced the fishes into the forest, +where his grandfather had seen them weeks afterwards sticking in the +bushes. + +When they emerged once more into the open the homely landscape had +changed. The blackberried hedges were gone, replaced by long lines of +thin firs, marking the boundaries between the fields. Sea mews were +wheeling and calling among the uncouth hummocked gorse, which crowded up +on either side of the white poppy-edged road. There was salt in the air. + +Roger pointed with his whip. + +"The Rieben again," he said. + +But could this mighty river with its mile-wide water be indeed the +Rieben? Just beyond it, close beside it, divided only by a narrow thong +of shingle, lay the sea. + +And Roger told Annette how at Mendlesham Mill the Rieben had all but +reached the sea, and then had turned aside and edged along, stubbornly, +mile after mile, parallel with it, almost within a stone's throw of it. + +"But it never seems all to fall in and have done with it," he said, +pointing to where it melted away into the haze, still hugging the sea, +but always with the thong of shingle stretched between. + +The Rieben skirting the sea, within sound of it, frustrated by its +tides, brackish with its salt, but still apart, always reminded Roger of +Lady Louisa. She too had drawn very near, but could not reach the +merciful sea of death. A narrow ridge of aching life, arid as the high +shingle barrier, constrained her, brackish month by month, from her only +refuge. But Roger could no more have expressed such an idea in words +than he could have knitted the cable-topped shooting-stockings which +Janey made him, and which he had on at this moment. + +The carriage in front had stopped at a lonely homestead among the gorse. +On a low knoll at a little distance fronting the marsh stood an old +stone cross. + +Mrs. Stoddart and Mr. Stirling had already taken to their feet, and were +climbing slowly through the gorse up the sandy path which led to the +Holy Well. Roger and Annette left the dogcart and followed them. + +Presently Mr. Stirling gave Mrs. Stoddart his hand. + +Roger timidly offered his to Annette. She did not need it, but she took +it. His shyness stood him in good stead. She had known bolder advances. + +Hand in hand, with beating hearts, they went, and as they walked the +thin veil which hides the enchanted land from lonely seekers was +withdrawn. With awed eyes they saw "that new world which is the old" +unfold itself before them, and smiled gravely at each other. The little +pink convolvulus creeping in the thin grass made way for them. The wild +St. John's wort held towards them its tiny golden stars. The sea mews, +flapping slowly past with their feet hanging, cried them good luck; and +the thyme clinging close as moss to the ground, sent them delicate +greeting, "like dawn in Paradise." + +Annette forgot that a year ago she had for a few hours seen a mirage of +this ecstasy before, and it had been but a mirage. She forgot that the +day might not be far distant when this kindly man, this transfigured +fellow-traveller, might leave her, when he who treated her now with +reverence, delicate as the scent of the thyme, might not be willing to +make her his wife, as that other man had not been willing. + +But how could she do otherwise than forget? For when our eyes are +opened, and the promised land lies at our feet, the most faithless of us +fear no desertion, the most treacherous no treachery, the coldest no +inconstancy, the most callous no wound; much less guileless souls like +poor unwise Annette. + +She had told Mrs. Stoddart that she would never trust anyone again, and +then had trusted her implicitly. She had told herself that she would +never love again, and she loved Roger. + +A certain wisdom, not all of this world, could never be hers, as Mrs. +Stoddart had said, but neither could caution, or distrust, or +half-heartedness, or self-regard. Those thorny barricades against the +tender feet of love would never be hers either. Ah, fortunate Annette! +It seems, after all, as if some very simple, unsuspicious folk can do +without wisdom, can well afford to leave it to us, who are neither +simple nor trustful. + +Still hand in hand, they reached the shoulder of the low headland, and +sat down on the sun-warmed, gossamer-threaded grass. + +The ground fell below their eyes to the long staked marsh-lands of the +Rieben, steeped in a shimmer of haze. + +Somewhere, as in some other world, sheep-bells tinkled, mingled with the +faint clamour of sea-birds on the misty flats. The pale river gleamed +ethereal as the gleaming gossamer on the grass, and beyond it a sea of +pearl was merged in a sky of pearl. Was anything real and tangible? +Might not the whole vanish at a touch? + +They could not speak to each other. + +At last she whispered-- + +"The sea is still there." + +She had thought as there was a new heaven and a new earth that there +would be no more sea. But there it was. God had evidently changed His +mind. + +A minute speck appeared upon it. + +Roger pulled himself together. + +"That's the Harwich boat," he said, "or it may be one of Moy's +coaling-ships. I rather think it is." + +He gazed with evident relish at the small puff of smoke. He experienced +a certain relief in its advent, as one who descries a familiar face in a +foreign crowd. He said he wished he had brought his glasses, as then he +could have identified it. And he pointed out to her, far away in the +mist, the crumbling headlands of the Suffolk coast, and the church tower +of Dunwich, half lost in the sea haze, waiting for the next storm to +engulf it. + +Recalled to a remembrance of their destination by the coal-boat, they +rose and walked slowly on towards the old stone cross standing bluntly +up against a great world of sky. Mr. Stirling and Mrs. Stoddart were +sitting under it; and close at hand a spring bubbled up, which slipped +amid tumbled stone and ling to a little pond, the margin fretted by the +tiny feet of sheep, and then wavered towards the Rieben as circuitously +as the Rieben wavered to the sea. + +There was nothing left of the anchorite's cell save scattered stones, +and the shred of wall on which Mrs. Stoddart was sitting. But a disciple +of Julian of Norwich had dwelt there once, Mr. Stirling told them, +visited, so the legend went, by the deer of the forest when the moss on +their horns fretted them, and by sick wolves with thorns in their feet, +and by bishops and princes and knights and coifed dames, with thorns in +their souls. And she healed and comforted them all. And later on Queen +Mary had raised the cross to mark the spot where the saint of the +Catholic Church had lived, as some said close on a hundred years. + +"It is a pity there are no saints left nowadays," said Mr. Stirling, "to +heal us poor sick wolves." + +"But there are," said Annette, as if involuntarily, "only we don't see +them until we become sick wolves. Then we find them, and they take the +thorn away." + +A baby-kite, all fluff, and innocent golden eyes, and callow hooked +beak, flew down with long, unsteady wings to perch on the cross and +preen itself. Presently a chiding mother's note summoned it away. Mr. +Stirling watched it, and wondered whether the link between Mrs. Stoddart +and Annette, which he saw was a very close one, had anything to do with +some dark page of Annette's past. Had Mrs. Stoddart taken from her some +rankling thorn?--healed some deep wound in her young life? He saw the +elder woman's eyes looking with earnest scrutiny at Roger. + +"The girl believes in him, and the older woman doubts him," he said to +himself. + +Annette's eyes followed a narrow track through the gorse towards a +distant knoll with a clump of firs on it. + +"I should like to walk to the firs," she said. + +Roger thought that an excellent idea, but he made no remark. Mr. +Stirling at once said that it could easily be done if she were not +afraid of a mile's walk. The knoll was farther than it looked. + +Mrs. Stoddart said that she felt unequal to it, and she and Mr. Stirling +agreed to make their way back to the carriage, and to rejoin Roger and +Annette at Mendlesham Mill. + +The little stream was company to them on their way, playing +hide-and-seek with them, but presently Roger sternly said that they must +part from it, as it showed a treacherous tendency to boggy ground, and +they struck along an old broken causeway on the verge of the marsh, +disturbing myriads of birds congregated on it. + +"Shall I do it now?" Roger said to himself. He made up his mind that he +would speak when they reached the group of firs, now close at hand, with +a low grey house huddled against them. He had never proposed before, but +he stolidly supposed that if others could he could. + +The sun had gone in, and a faint chill breath stirred the air. + +"But where is the river gone to?" said Annette. + +Roger, who had been walking as in a dream, with his eyes glued to the +firs, started. The river had disappeared. The sun came out again and +shone instead on drifting billows of mist, like the clouds the angels +sit on in the picture-books. + +"It is the sea roke," he said; "we must hurry." + +"It won't reach Mrs. Stoddart, will it?" said Annette breathlessly, +trying to keep up with his large stride. "Damp is so bad for her +rheumatism." + +"_She_ is all right," he said almost angrily. "They have wraps, and they +are half-way home by now. It's my fault. I might have known, if I had +had my wits about me, when Dunwich looked like that, the roke would come +up with the tide." + +He took off his coat and put it on her. Then he drew her arm through +his. + +"Now," he said peremptorily, "we've got to walk--hard." + +All in a moment the mist blotted out everything, and he stopped short +instantly. + +"It will shift," he said doggedly. "We must wait till it shifts." + +He knew well the evil record of that quaggy ground, and of the gleaming, +sheening flats--the ruthless oozy flats which tell no tales. The birds +which had filled the air with their clamour were silent. There was no +sound except the whisper everywhere of lapping water, water stealing in +round them on all sides, almost beneath their feet. The sound meant +nothing to Annette, but Roger frowned. + +The tide was coming in. + +"The roke will shift," he said again doggedly. + +And it did. The tawny clouds, yellow where the sun caught them, drifted +past them and parted. They saw the homely earth beneath their feet, the +tiny pink convolvulus peering up at them. + +"Do you see that bunch of firs?" he said. + +"Yes." + +"Well, we've got to get there. We must run for it." + +They ran together towards it over the slippery sedge, and up the still +more slippery turf. The sun came out brilliantly, and she laughed and +would have slackened to look at the fantastic world sailing past her; +but he urged her on, his hand gripping her elbow. And he was right. By +the time they reached the trees they were in a dense white darkness, and +the nearest fir whipped them across the face. + +Annette was frightened, and it was Roger's turn to laugh--a short, grim +laugh, with considerable relief in it. + +"Ha! That's right," still holding her elbow tightly, and reaching out +with the other hand. "We've fired into the brown and no mistake. Here's +the middle tree. Two more this side. Then down. Mind your footing, and +hold on to me." + +They slid down into a dry ditch--at least, Roger said it was dry. "And +good luck, too," he said. "Made that ditch myself to carry off the +snow-water. Awful lot of water off the bank in winter." He pulled her up +the other side, and then stopped and felt about him. + +"The garden wall should be here," he said. "Empty house. Take shelter in +it. Yes." He groped, and met with resistance. "Here it is." + +They stumbled slowly along beside a wall. "Lot of nettles, I'm afraid. +Sorry, but can't be helped," as they plunged into a grove of them. "Here +we are." + +His hand was on an iron gate which gave and opened inwards. She felt a +house rising close above them. Roger relinquished her, with many +injunctions to stand still, and she heard his steps going away along a +flagged path. + +Annette was not country-bred, and she had not that vague confidence in +her mother earth which those who have played on her surface from +childhood never lose in later life. She was alarmed to find herself +alone, and she shivered a little in the dripping winding-sheet of the +mist. She looked round her and then up. High in heaven a pale disk +showed for a moment and was blotted out. The sun!--it was shining +somewhere. And far away, in some other world, she heard a lark singing, +singing, as it soared in the blue. + +A key in a lock turned, and a door close at hand grated on its hinges. + +"Wait till I light a match," said Roger's welcome voice. + +The match made a tawny blur the shape of a doorway, and she had time to +reach it before it flickered out. + +Roger drew her into the house, and closed the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + "There's no smoke in the chimney, + And the rain beats on the floor; + There's no glass in the window, + There's no wood in the door; + The heather grows behind the house, + And the sand lies before. + + No hand hath trained the ivy, + The walls are gray and bare; + The boats upon the sea sail by, + Nor ever tarry there; + No beast of the field comes nigh, + Nor any bird of the air." + MARY COLERIDGE. + + +It was black dark inside the house, instead of the white darkness +outside. + +Knocking Annette carefully against pieces of furniture, Roger guided her +down a narrow passage into what felt like a room. Near the ceiling were +two bars of white where the fog looked in over the tops of the shutters. + +He struck another match, and a little chamber revealed itself, with +faded carpet and a long mirror. But no sooner was it seen than it was +gone. + +"Did you see that chair near you?" said Roger. "I haven't many matches +left." + +"There is a candle on the mantelpiece," she said. + +Roger was amazed at Annette's cleverness. He had not seen it himself, +but she had. He exulted in the thought. + +He lit it, and the poor little tall drawing-room came reluctantly into +view, with its tarnished mirror from which the quicksilver had ebbed, +and its flowered wall-paper over which the damp had scrawled its own +irregular patterns. The furniture was of the kind that expresses only +one idea and that a bad one. The foolish sofa, with a walnut backbone +showing through a slit in its chintz cover, had a humped excrescence at +one end like an uneasy chair, and the other four chairs had servilely +imitated this hump, and sunk their individuality, if they ever had any, +to be "a walnut suite." A glass-fronted chiffonier had done its horrid +best to "be in keeping" with the suite. On the walls were a few prints +of race-horses stretched out towards a winning-post; and steel +engravings of the Emperor of the French in an order and the Empress +Eugénie all smiles and ringlets served as pendants to two engravings of +stags by Landseer. + +Annette took off Roger's coat and laid it on a chair. + +"Some one has been very unhappy here," she said, below her breath. + +Roger did not hear her. He was drawing together the litter of +waste-paper in the grate. And then--careful man!--having ascertained +with the poker that the register was open, he set a light to it. + +The dancing, garish firelight made the sense of desolation acute. + +"Who lived here?" said Annette. + +Roger hesitated a moment, and then said-- + +"A Mrs. Deane." + +"Was she very old?" + +"Not very--not more than twenty-seven." + +"And is she dead?" + +Roger put some more paper on the fire, and held it down with the poker. + +"No. She has left. Her child died here a month ago." + +"Poor soul! Her only child?" + +"Yes." + +"And her husband? Is he dead too?" + +Roger thought a moment, and then said slowly, "As good as dead." + +He looked round the room and added, "Dick Manvers lent her the house. It +used to be the agent's, but no one has lived in it since I can remember. +It has always been to let furnished, but no one ever took it. People +seem to think it is rather out of the way." + +The rollicking, busy flame died down and left them in the candle-light +once more. But after a few moments the ghostly pallor above the shutters +deepened. Roger went to them and opened them. They fell back creaking, +revealing a tall French window. The fog was eddying past, showing the +tops of the clump of firs, and then hiding them anew. He gazed intently +at the drifting waves of mist. + +"The wind is shifting," he said. "It will blow from the land directly, +and then the roke will go. I shall run down to the farm and bring the +dogcart up here." + +After all, he should have to propose in the dogcart. Men must have +proposed and have been accepted in dogcarts before now. Anyhow, he could +not say anything in this house when he remembered who had lived here, +and the recent tragedy that had been enacted within its walls. + +"You must put on your coat again," she said, bringing it to him. "And +mayn't I come with you? Wouldn't that be better than bringing the cart +up here?" + +"Oh, Merrylegs can see anywhere. Besides, there's the ford: I doubt you +could get over it dry-shod, and I shall have to go a couple of miles +round. And you've had walking enough. I shan't be gone more than half an +hour. I dare say by then the sun will be full out." + +"I would rather come with you." + +"You're not afraid to stay here, are you? There is nothing to hurt you, +and that candle will last an hour. I don't believe there's even a live +mouse in the place." + +"I am sure there isn't. Everything here is dead and broken-hearted. I +would rather go with you." + +Roger's face became the face of a husband, obstinacy personified. She +did not realize that they had been in danger, that he had felt anxiety +for her, and that he had no intention of being so acutely uncomfortable +again if he could help it. + +"You will stay quietly here," he said doggedly. "This is the most +comfortable chair." + +She sat down meekly in it at once, and smiled at him--not displeased at +being dragooned. + +He smiled back, and was gone. She heard him go cautiously along the +passage, and open and shut the front door. + +The light was increasing steadily, and a few minutes after he had left +the house the sun came pallidly out, and a faint breeze stirred the tops +of the fir trees. Perhaps this was the land breeze of which he had +spoken. A sense of irksomeness and restlessness laid hold on her. She +turned from the window, and wandered into the little entrance hall, and +unbarred a shutter to see if Roger were coming back. But no one was in +sight on the long, straight, moss-rutted road that led to the house. She +peered into the empty kitchen, and then, seeing a band of sunlight on +the staircase, went up it. Perhaps she should see Roger from one of the +upper windows. There were no shutters on them. She glanced into one +after another of the little cluster of dishevelled bedrooms, with +crumpled newspapers left over from a hurried packing still strewing the +floors. The furniture was massive, early Victorian, not uncomfortable, +but direfully ugly. + +There was one fair-sized south bedroom, and on the window-sill was a +young starling with outspread, grimy wings. Annette ran to open the +window, but as she did so she saw it was dead, had died beating against +the glass trying to get out into the sunshine, after making black +smirches on the walls and ceiling. + +Everything in this one room was gay and pretty. The curtains and +bed-hangings were of rosebud chintz. Perhaps the same hand that had made +them had collected from the other rooms the old swinging mirror with +brass rosettes, and the chest of drawers with drop handles, and the +quaint painted chairs. Annette saw the crib in the corner. This room had +been the nursery. It was here, no doubt, that Mrs. Deane had watched her +child die. Some of the anguish of the mother seemed to linger in the +sunny room with its rose-coloured curtains, and something, alas! more +terrible than grief had left its traces there. + +A devastating hand, a fierce destructive anger had been at work. Little +pictures had evidently been torn down from the wall and flung into the +fire. The fireplace was choked high with half-burned débris--small +shoes, pinafores, and toys. A bit of a child's linen picture-book had +declined to burn, and hung forlornly through the bars, showing a comic +picture of Mrs. Pig driving home from market. A green wheel had become +unfastened, and had rolled into the middle of the room when the wooden +horse and cart were thrust into the fire. + +"She must have cried all the time," said Annette to herself, and she +shivered. She remembered her own mad impulse of destruction. + +"It's no use being angry," she whispered to the empty walls. "No use. No +use." + +The photograph frames had evidently been swept into the fire too, all +but one, for there was broken glass in the fender and on the floor. But +one framed photograph stood on the mantelpiece, the man in it, smiling +and debonair, looking gaily out at Annette and the world in general. +Under it was written in a large clear hand, "Daddy." + +It was Dick Le Geyt, but younger and handsomer than Annette had ever +known him. She looked long at it, slowly realizing that this, then, had +been the home of Dick's mistress, the Mary of whom he had spoken and her +child, to whom he had done a tardy justice in his will, the will she had +helped him to make. The child, Dick's child, was dead. Its empty crib +was in the corner. Its memorials had perished with it. + +All that was left now of that little home was Dick's faded photograph +smiling in its frame, purposely, vindictively left when all the others +had been destroyed. Mary Deane had not cared to take it with her when +she cut herself adrift from her past. She had not had the clemency to +destroy it with the rest. She had left it to smile mockingly across the +ruins of the deserted nursery. While Annette stood motionless the fierce +despair of the mother became almost visible to her: the last wild look +round the room and at the empty crib, the eyes averted from the smiling +face on the mantelpiece, and then--the closed door and the lagging, +hurrying footfall on the stairs. + +"It's no use being angry," she whispered again. "Even Dick knew that. No +use. No use." + +And with pitying hands she took Dick's photograph out of the frame and +tore it up small, and thrust the pieces among the charred remains of his +child's toys. It was all she could do for him. + +Oh! if she had but known Mary Deane, if she could but have come to her, +and put her arms round her and told her that Dick had not been as +heartless as she thought, that he had remembered her at the last, and as +far as he could had made a late amends for all the evil he had done her. + +But the child was dead, and Mary Deane herself was gone. Gone whither? +She had flung away in anger and despair, as she, Annette, had once flung +away. Perhaps there had been no Mrs. Stoddart to care for Mary in her +hour of need. + +Annette's heart sank as if a cold hand had been laid upon it. + +The peaceful, radiant faith and joy of a few hours ago--where were they +now? In their place, into this close, desolate room with the dead bird +on the sill, came an overwhelming fear. + +Men were cruel, ruthless creatures, who did dreadful things to women +under the name of love. + +As at a great distance, far far away in the depths of childhood, she +heard her mother sobbing in the dark. Almost her only recollection of +her mother was being waked in the night by that passionate sobbing. The +remembrance of her father came next, sordid, good-humoured, mercenary, +and she shuddered. No wonder her mother had cried so bitterly! Close +behind it followed the sensitive, sensual face of the musician who had +offered to train her. And then, sudden and overwhelming, blotting out +everything else, came the beautiful young lover whom she had cast forth +from her heart with passion a year ago. All the agony and despair which +she had undergone then surged back upon her, seemed to rush past her to +join forces with the cold desolation lingering in the empty room. +Annette hid her face in her hands. She had put it all behind her. She +had outlived it. But the sudden remembrance of it shook her like a leaf. + +In that grim procession Dick came last--poor, poor Dick! He had not been +wicked, but he had done wicked things. He had betrayed and broken faith. +He had made as much desolation and anguish as if he had been +hard-hearted. Oh! why did women love men? Why did they trust them? + +Annette stood a long time with her face in her hands. Then she went out +and closed the door behind her. The sun was shining bravely, and she +longed to get out of this death-shadowed house into the warm, living +sunshine. She went back to the drawing-room, her quiet step echoing +loudly down the passage, and looked out of the long window. But the +outlook was not calculated to lessen her oppression. + +Close at hand, as she knew, were gracious expanses of sea and sky and +gleaming river. But a stone wall surrounded the house, and on the top of +it a tall wooden fence had been erected, so high that from the ground +floor you could not look over it. This wooden fence came up close to the +house on every side, so close that there was only just room for the thin +firs and a walnut tree to grow within the narrow enclosure, their +branches touching the windows. + +Annette did not know that the wall and the fence and the trees were +there to protect the house from the east wind, which in winter swept +with arctic ferocity from the sea. + +In the narrow strip between the fenced wall and the house Mary Deane had +tried to make a little garden. Vain effort! The walnut tree and the firs +took all sun from the strip of flower-bed against the wall of the house, +where a few Michaelmas daisies and snap-dragons hung their heads. She +had trained a rose against the wall, but it clung more dead than alive, +its weak shoots slipping down from its careful supports. She had made a +gravel path beside it, and had paced up and down it. How worn and sunk +that path was! There was not room for two to go abreast in it. One +footfall had worn that narrow groove, narrow almost as a sheep track in +the marsh. And now the path was barely visible for the dead leaves of +the walnut, falling untimely, which had drifted across it, and had made +an eddy over the solitary clump of yellow snap-dragon. + +Annette drew back the bolt of the window, and stepped out. The air, +chill with the mist which had silvered everything, was warm compared to +the atmosphere of the house. + +She drew a long breath, and her mind, never accustomed to dwell long +upon herself, was instantly absorbed in freeing the snap-dragon from the +dead leaves which had invaded it. Two birds were bathing themselves +sedulously in the only sunny corner at the end of the garden. Annette +saw that their bath also was choked with leaves, and when she had +released the snap-dragon, she applied her energies to the birds' bath. + +But she had hardly removed a few leaves from it when she stopped short. +It was a day of revelations. The birds' bath was really a lake: a +miniature lake with rocks in it, and three tin fishes, rather too large +it must be owned to be quite probable, and a tin frog spread out in a +swimming attitude, and four ducks all jostling each other on its small +expanse. It was a well-stocked lake. Tears rose in Annette's eyes as she +explored still farther, lifting the drifted leaves gently one by one. + +They covered a doll's garden about a yard square. Some one, not a child, +had loved that garden, and had made it for a beloved child. The +enclosure with its two-inch fence had no grass in it, but it had winding +walks, marked with sand and tiny white stones. And it had a little +avenue of French lavender which was actually growing, and which led to +the stone steps on the top of which the house stood, flanked by shells. +It was a wooden house, perhaps originally a box; of rather debased +architecture, it must be conceded. But it had windows and a green door +painted on it, and a chimney. On the terrace were two garden-seats, +evidently made out of match-boxes; and outside the fence was a realistic +pigsty with two china pigs in it, and a water-butt, and a real +hay-stack. Close at hand lay a speckled china cow, and near it were two +seated crinkly white lambs. + +Annette kneeling by the lake, crying silently, was so absorbed in +tenderly clearing the dead leaves from the work of art, and in setting +the cow on its legs again, that she did not hear a step on the path +behind her. Roger had come back and was watching her. + +When she discovered the two lambs sitting facing each other, she seized +them up, and kissed them, sobbing violently. + +Something in Annette's action vaguely repelled him as he watched her. It +was what he would have defined as "French." And though he had swallowed +down the French father, he hated all symptoms of him in Annette. It was +alien to him to kiss little china lambs. Janey would never have done +that. And Janey was the test, the touchstone of all that was becoming in +woman. + +And then all in a moment the tiny wave of repulsion was submerged in the +strong current of his whole being towards her. It was as if some dormant +generous emotion had been roused and angered by his petty pin-prick +opposition to put out its whole strength and brush it away. + +"Don't cry," said Roger gruffly. But there were tears in his small round +eyes as well as in hers. + +"Oh, Roger," said Annette, speaking to him for the first time by his +Christian name, "have you seen it, the fishes and the ducks, and the +pigsty, and the little lambs and everything?" + +Roger nodded. He had watched that property in course of construction. He +might have added that he had provided most of the animals for it. But if +he had added that, he would not have been Roger. + +"And she's burnt everything in the nursery," continued Annette, rising +and going to him, the tears running down her face. "The toys and +everything. And she's torn down the little pictures from the wall and +broken them and thrown them on the fire. And I think she only left the +garden because--poor thing--because she forgot it." + +Roger did not answer. He took her in his arms, and said with gruff +tenderness, as if to a child, "Don't cry." + +She leaned against him, and let his arms fold her to him. And as they +stood together in silence their hearts went out to each other, and awe +fell upon them. All about them seemed to shake, the silvered firs, the +pale sunshine, the melancholy house, the solid earth beneath their feet. + +"You will marry me, won't you, Annette?" he said hoarsely. + +Remembrance rushed back upon her. She drew away from him, and looked +earnestly at him with tear-dimmed, wistful eyes. + +The poor woman who had lived here, who had worn the little path on which +they were standing, had loved Dick, but he had not married her. She +herself, for one brief hour, had loved some one, but he had had no +thought of marrying her. Was Roger, after all, like other men? Would he +also cast her aside when he knew all, weigh her in the balance, and find +her not good enough to be his wife? + +There was a loud knocking at the door, and the bell pealed. It echoed +through the empty house. + +Roger started violently. Annette did not move. So absorbed was she that +she heard nothing, and continued gazing at him with unfathomable eyes. +After one bewildered glance at her, he hurried into the house, and she +followed him half dazed. + +In the hall she found him reading a telegram while a dismounted groom +held a smoking horse at the door. At the gate the dogcart was waiting, +tied to the gate-post. + +Roger crushed the telegram in his hand, and stared out of the window for +a long moment. Then he said to Annette-- + +"Janey has sent me on this telegram to say her brother Dick is dead. It +has been following me about for hours. I must go at once." + +He turned to the groom. "I will take your horse. And you will drive Miss +Georges back to Noyes in the dogcart." + +The man held the stirrup, and Roger mounted, raised his cap gravely to +Annette, turned his horse carefully in the narrow path, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + "Even the longest lane has a turning, though the path trodden by + some people is so long and so straight that it seems less like a + lane than 'a permanent way.'"--ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER. + + +Time moves imperceptibly at Riff, as imperceptibly as the Rieben among +its reeds. + +To Janey it seemed as if life stood stock-still. Nevertheless, the slow +wheel of the year was turning. The hay was long since in, standing in +high ricks in the farmyards, or built up into stacks in lonely fields +with a hurdle round them to keep off the cattle. The wheat and the +clover had been reaped and carried. The fields were bare, waiting for +the plough. It was the time of the Harvest Thanksgiving. + +Janey had been at work ever since breakfast helping to decorate the +church, together with Harry and Miss Black, and her deaf friend Miss +Conder, the secretary of the Plain Needlework Guild. Miss Conder's +secretarial duties apparently left her wide margins of leisure which +were always at the disposal of Miss Black. + +Except for the somewhat uninspiring presence of Miss Black and Miss +Conder and her ear trumpet, it had all been exactly as it had been ever +since Janey could remember. + +As she stood by the Ringers' Arch it seemed to her as if she had seen it +all a hundred times before: the children coming crowding round her, +flaxen and ruddy, with their hot little posies tied with grass,--the +boys made as pretty posies as the girls,--and Hesketh, "crome from the +cradle," limping up the aisle with his little thatched stack under his +arm; and Sayler with his loaf; and the farmers' wives bringing in their +heavy baskets of apples and vegetables. + +Sometimes there is great joy in coming home after long absence and +finding all exactly as we left it and as we have pictured it in memory. +We resent the displacement of a chair, or the lopping of one of the +cedar's boughs, and we note the new tool-shed with an alien eye. + +But it is not always joyful, nay, it can have an element of despair in +it, to stay at home, and never go away, and see the wheel of life slowly +turn and turn, and re-turn, and yet again re-turn, always the same, yet +taking every year part of our youth from us. The years must come which +will strip from us what we have. Yes, we know that. But life should +surely give us something first, before it begins to take away. + +Janey was only five-and-twenty, and it seemed to her that already the +plundering years had come. What little she had was being wrested from +her. And an immense distaste and fatigue of life invaded her as she made +her lily and maiden-hair cross for the font. How often she had made it, +as she was making it now! Should she go on for ever, till she was sixty, +making crosses for the font at Harvest Homes, and putting holly in the +windows at Christmas, and "doing the reading-desk" with primroses at +Easter? + +Harry working beside her, concocting little sheaves out of the great +bundle of barley which Roger had sent in the night before, was +blissfully happy. He held up each sheaf in turn, and she nodded surprise +and approbation. It seemed to her that after all Harry had the best of +the bargain, the hard bargain which life drives with some of us. + +It was all as it had always been. + +Soon after eleven, Miss Amy Blinkett, a little fluttered and +self-conscious, appeared as usual, followed up the aisle by a +wheelbarrow, in which reposed an enormous vegetable marrow with "Trust +in the Lord" blazoned on it in red flannel letters. These "marrer +texes," as the villagers called them, were in great request, not only in +Riff, but in the adjoining parishes; and it was not an uncommon thing +for "Miss Amy's marrer" to be bespoken, after it had served at Riff, for +succeeding Harvest Homes in the neighbourhood. It had been evolved out +of her inner consciousness in her romantic youth, and in the course of +thirty years it had grown from a dazzling novelty to an important asset, +and was now an institution. Even the lamentable Mr. Jones, who had "set +himself against" so many Riff customs, had never set himself against +"Miss Amy's marrer." And an admiring crowd always gathered round it +after service to view it reclining on a bed of moss beneath the pulpit. + +By common consent, Miss Amy had always been presented with the largest +vegetable marrow that Riff could produce. But this year none adequate +for the purpose could be found, and considerable anxiety had been felt +on the subject. Mrs. Nicholls, who sent in the finest, had to own that +even hers was only about fourteen inches long. "No bigger nor your +foot," as she expressed it to Janey. Fortunately, at the last moment +Roger obtained one from Sweet Apple Tree, about the size of a baby, +larger than any which had been produced in Riff for many years past. +That Sweet Apple Tree could have had one of such majestic proportions +when the Riff marrows had failed, was not a source of unmixed +congratulation to Riff. It was feared that the Sweet Applers "might get +cocked up." + +The suspense had in the meanwhile given Miss Amy a sharp attack of +neuralgia, and the fact that the marrow really came up to time in the +wheelbarrow was the result of dauntless and heroic efforts on her part. + +This splendid contribution was wheeled up the aisle, having paused near +the font to receive Janey's tribute of admiration, and then a few +minutes later, to her amazement, she saw it being wheeled down again, +Miss Amy walking very erect in dignified distress beside it. With cold +asperity, and without according it a second glance, Miss Black had +relegated it--actually relegated "Miss Amy's marrer"--to the Ringers' +Arch. The other helpers stopped in their work and gazed at Miss Black, +who, unconscious of the doubts of her sanity which had arisen in their +minds, continued rearing white flowers against the east window, +regardless of the fact that nothing but their black silhouettes were +visible to the congregation. + +At this moment Mr. Black came into the church, so urbane, and so +determined to show that he was the kind of man who appreciated the +spirit in which the humblest offerings were made, that it was some time +before Janey could make him aware of the indignity to which Miss Amy's +unique work of art had been subjected. + +"But its grotesqueness will not be so obvious at the Ringers' Arch," he +said. "It's impossible, of course, but it has been a labour of love, I +can see that, and I should be the last man in the world to laugh at it." + +He had to work through so many sentiments which did him credit that +Janey despaired of making him understand, of ever getting him to listen +to her. + +"Miss Blinkett's marrow is always under the pulpit," she repeated +anxiously. "No, the Ringers' Arch is _not_ considered such an important +place as the pulpit. The people simply love it, and will be disappointed +if they don't see it there as usual. And Miss Blinkett will be deeply +hurt. She is hurt now, though she does not show it." + +At last her words took effect, and Mr. Black was guided into becoming +the last man to wound the feelings of one of his parishioners. Greatly +to Janey's relief, the marrow was presently seen once more to ascend the +aisle, was assisted out of its wheelbarrow by Mr. Black himself and +installed on a bed of moss at the pulpit foot; Miss Black standing +coldly aloof during the transaction, while Miss Conder, short-sighted +and heavy-footed, walked backwards into an arrangement of tomatoes and +dahlias in course of construction round the reading-desk. + +Mr. Black and his sister had had an amicable discussion the evening +before as to the decoration of the church, and especially of the pulpit, +for this their first Harvest Thanksgiving at Riff. They had both agreed, +with a cordiality which had too often been lacking in their +conversations of late, that they would make an effort to raise the +decoration to a higher artistic level than in the other churches in the +neighbourhood, some of which had already celebrated their Harvest +Thanksgivings. Miss Black had held up to scorn the naïve attempts of +Heyke and Drum, at which her brother had preached the sermon, and he had +smiled indulgently and had agreed with her. + +But Riff was his first country post, and he had not been aware until he +stepped into it, of the network of custom which surrounded Harvest +decoration, typified by Miss Blinkett's vegetable marrow. With admirable +good sense, he adjusted himself to the occasion, and shutting his ears +to the hissing whispers of his sister, who for the hundredth time begged +him not to be weak, gave himself up to helping his parishioners in their +own way. This way, he soon found, closely resembled the way of Heyke and +Drum, and presently he was assisting Mrs. Nicholls to do "Thy Will be +Done" in her own potatoes, backed by white paper roses round the base of +the majestic monument of the Welyshams of Swale, with its two ebony +elephants at which Harry always looked with awe and admiration. + +As he and Janey were tying their bunches of barley to its high iron +railings, a telegram was brought to her. Telegrams were not so common +twenty years ago as they are now, and Janey's heart beat. Her mind flew +to Roger. Had he had some accident? She knew he had gone to Noyes about +the bridge. + +She opened it and read it, and then looked fixedly at Harry, stretching +his hand through the railing to stroke the elephants and whisper gently +to them. She almost hated him at that moment. + +She folded up the telegram and sought out Mr. Black, who, hot and tired, +and with an earwig exploring down his neck, was now making a cardboard +dais for Sayer's loaf of bread. + +"My brother Dick is dead," she said. "I must go home at once. Harry can +stay and finish the railings. He knows exactly how to do them, and he +has been looking forward to helping for days." + +Harry looked towards her for approval, and her heart smote her. It was +not his fault if his shadowy existence was the occasion of a great +injustice. She went up to him and patted his cheek, and said, "Capital, +capital! What should we do without you, Harry?" + +"I'm taking my place, aren't I?" he said, delighted. "That's what Nurse +is always saying. I must assert myself and take my place." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + "Remember, Lord, Thou didst not make me good. + Or if Thou didst, it was so long ago + I have forgotten--and never understood, + I humbly think." + GEORGE MACDONALD. + + +On a sunny September day Dick the absentee was gathered to his fathers +at Riff. + +Is there any church in the world as beautiful as the old church of Riff +where he was buried?--with its wonderful flint-panelled porch; with the +chalice, host, and crown carved in stone on each side of the arched +doorway as you go in; beautiful still in spite of the heavy hand of +Cromwell's men who tore all the dear little saints out of their niches +in the great wooden font cover, which mounts richly carved and dimly +painted like a spire, made of a hundred tiny fretted spires, to the very +roof of the nave, almost touching the figures of the angels leaning with +outstretched wings from their carved and painted hammerbeams. In spite +of all the sacrilege of which it has been the victim, the old font cover +with the coloured sunshine falling aslant upon it through the narrow +pictured windows remains a tangle of worn, mysterious splendour. And +the same haggard, forlorn beauty rests on the remains of the carved +screen, with its company of female saints painted one in each panel. + +Poor saints! savagely obliterated by the same Protestant zeal, so that +now you can barely spell out their names in semicircle round their +heads: Saint Cecilia, Saint Agatha, Saint Osyth. + +But no desecrating hand was laid on the old oaken benches with their +carved finials. Quaint intricate carvings of kings and queens, and +coifed ladies kneeling on tasselled cushions, and dogs licking their own +backs,--outlandish dogs with curly manes and shaved bodies and rosetted +tails,--and harts crowned and belted with branching antlers larger than +their bodies, and knights in armour, and trees with acorns on them so +big that each tree had only room for two or three, and the ragged staff +of the Earls of Warwick with the bear. All these were spared, seeing +they dealt with man and beast, and not with God and saint. And by +mistake Saint Catherine and her wheel and Saint Margaret and her dragon +were overlooked and left intact. Perhaps because the wheel and the +dragon were so small that the destroyers did not recognize that the +quaint little ladies with their parted hair were saints at all. And +there they all are to this day, broken some of them, alas!--one of them +surreptitiously mutilated by Dick as a small boy,--but many intact +still, worn to a deep black polish by the hands of generation after +generation of the sturdy people of Riff taking hold of them as they go +into their places. + +The Manvers monuments and hatchments jostle each other all along the +yellow-plastered walls: from the bas-relief kneeling figure of the first +Roger Manvers, Burgess of Dunwich, to the last owner, John Manvers, the +husband of Lady Louisa Manvers. + +But their predecessors, the D'Urbans and de Uffords, had fared ill at +the hands of Dowsing and his men, who tore up their brasses with "orate +pro anima" on them, and hacked their "popish" monuments to pieces, +barely leaving the figures of Apphia de Ufford, noseless and fingerless, +beside her lord, Nicholas D'Urban of Valenes. One Elizabethan brass +memorial of John de la Pole, drowned at Walberswick, was spared, +representing a skeleton, unkindly telling others that as he is we soon +shall be, which acid inscription no doubt preserved him. But you must +look up to the hammerbeams if you care to see all that is left of the +memorials of the D'Urbans and De la Poles and the de Uffords, where +their shields still hang among the carved angels. + +Dick had not been worthy of his forbears, and it is doubtful whether if +he had had any voice in the matter he would have wished to be buried +with them. But Roger brought his coffin back to Riff as a matter of +course. + +His death had caused genuine regret among the village people, if to no +one else. They had all known him from a boy. There had been a reckless +bonhomie about him which had endeared him to his people, in a way that +Roger, who had to do all the disagreeable things, could not expect. In +time past, Dick had fought and ferreted and shared the same hunk of cake +and drunk out of the same mug with half the village lads of Riff. They +had all liked him, and later on in life, if he would not or could not +attend to their grievances or spend money on repairs, he always "put his +hand in his pocket" very freely whenever he came across them. Even the +local policeman and the bearers decorously waiting at the lychgate had +sown their few boyish wild oats in Dick's delightful company. He was +indissolubly associated with that short heyday of delirious joy; he had +given them their one gulp from the cup of adventure and escapade. They +remembered the taste of it as the hearse with its four plumed black +horses came in sight between the poplars along the winding road from +Riebenbridge. Dick had died tragically at thirty-three, and the kindly +people of Riff were sorry. + +Janey and Roger were the only chief mourners, for at the last moment +Harry had been alarmed by the black horses, and had been left behind +under the nurse's charge. They followed the coffin up the aisle, and sat +together in the Squire's seats below the step. Close behind them, pale +and impassive, sitting alone, was Jones the valet, perhaps the only +person who really mourned for Dick. And behind him again was a crowd of +neighbours and family friends, and the serried ranks of the farmers and +tenants. + +In the chancel was the choir, every member present except Mrs. Nicholls, +Dicks foster-mother, who was among the tenantry. So the seat next to +Annette was empty, and to Mr. Stirling down by the font it seemed as if +Annette were sitting alone near the coffin. + +Janey sat and stood and knelt, very pale behind her long veil, her +black-gloved hands pinching tightly at a little Prayer Book. She was not +thinking of Dick. She had been momentarily sorry. It is sad to die at +thirty-three. It was Roger she thought of, for already she knew that no +will could be found. Roger had told her so on his return from Paris two +days ago. A sinister suspicion was gradually taking form in her mind +that her mother on her last visit to Dick in Paris had perhaps obtained +possession of his will and had destroyed it, in the determination that +Harry should succeed. Janey reproached herself for her assumption of her +mother's treachery, but the suspicion lurked nevertheless like a shadow +at the back of her mind. Was poor Roger to be done out of his +inheritance? for by every moral right Hulver ought to be his. Was +treachery at work on _every_ side of him? Janey looked fixedly at +Annette. Was she not deceiving him too? How calm she looked, how pure, +and how beautiful! Yet she had been the mistress of the man lying in his +coffin between them. Janey's brain seemed to shake. It could not be. But +so it was. She shut her eyes and prayed for Roger, and Dick, and +Annette. It was all she could do. + +Roger, beside her, kept his eyes fixed on a carved knob in front of him. +He knew he must not look round, though he was anxious to know whether +Cocks and Sayler had seated the people properly. His mind was as full of +detail as a hive is full of bees. He was tired out, and he had earache, +but he hardly noticed it. He had laboured unremittingly at the funeral. +It was the last thing he could do for Dick, whom he had once been fond +of, whom he had known better than anyone, for whom he had worked so +ruefully and faithfully; who had caused him so many hours of +exasperation, and who had failed and frustrated him at every turn in his +work for the estate. + +He had arranged everything himself, the distant tenants' meals, the +putting up of their horses. He had chosen the bearers, and had seen the +gloves and hat-bands distributed, and the church hung with black. His +mind travelled over all the arrangements, and he did not think anything +had been forgotten. And all the time at the back of his mind also was +the thought that no will was forthcoming, even while he followed the +service. + +"Dick might have left Hulver to me. '_We brought nothing into the world +and it is certain we can carry nothing out._' Poor old Dick! I dare say +he meant to. But he was too casual, and had a bee in his bonnet. But if +he had done nothing else, he ought to have made some provision for Mary +Deane and his child. He could not tell Molly would die before him. '_For +a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday._' Seeing Harry is +what he is and Janey is to have Noyes, Dick might have remembered me. I +shall have to work the estate for Harry now, I suppose. Doesn't seem +quite fair, does it? '_O teach us to number our days: that we may apply +our hearts unto wisdom._' Never heard Black read the service better. +He'll be a bishop some day. And now that Dick has forgotten me, how on +earth am I ever to marry? '_Man that is born of woman hath but a short +time to live and is full of misery._' That's the truest text of the +whole lot." + +Roger looked once at Annette, and then fixed his eyes once more on the +carved finial of the old oaken bench on which he was sitting, where his +uncle had sat before him, and where he could just remember seeing his +grandfather sit in a blue frock-coat thirty years ago. He looked for the +hundredth time at the ragged staff of the Warwicks carved above the +bear, the poor bear which had lost its ears if it ever had any. His hand +in its split glove closed convulsively on the bear's head. _How was he +going to marry Annette!_ + + +Annette's eyes rested on the flower-covered coffin in front of her, but +she did not see it. She was back in the past. She was kneeling by Dick's +bed with her cheek against the pillow, while his broken voice whispered, +"The wind is coming again, and I am going with it." + +The kind wind had taken the poor leaf at last, the drifting shredded +leaf. + +And then she felt Roger look at her, and other thoughts suddenly surged +up. Was it possible--was it possible--that Dick might part her and +Roger? Their eyes met for an instant across the coffin. + +Already Roger looked remote, as if like Dick he were sinking into the +past. She felt a light touch on her hand. The choir had risen for the +anthem. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là, + Simple et tranquille. + Cette paisible rumeur-là + Vient de la ville. + + Qu'as-tu fait, O toi que voilà + Pleurant sans cesse, + Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilà + De ta jeunesse?" + PAUL VERLAINE. + + +The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into +the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the +cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully +contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the +hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of +the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its +own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy +had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not +appreciate its house. That prickly recluse had shown such unwillingness +to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed, +although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered such +determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large +crack had appeared in the wall. + +Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles +remain when hedgehogs pass away. + +Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came +swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under +the cedar. + +"Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her. + +"No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make +a noise." + +He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she +had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the +soft September sunshine. + +It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace, +when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the +Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the +windless spaces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The +unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All +was still--so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder, +came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the +sun-warmed grass. + +The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry. +Why should not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently, +very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more, +neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any +heat." + +The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in +its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears +welled up into her eyes. + +She was tired, oh! so tired of hungering and thirsting, and the sun and +the dust, so tired of the trampling struggle and turmoil of life, of +being pushed from pillar to post, from patient to patient. For seventeen +grinding years she had earned her bread in the house of strangers, and +she was sick to death of it. And she had been handsome once, gay and +self-confident once, innocent once. She had been determined that her +mother should never know want. And she had never known it--never known +either the straits to which her daughter had been reduced to keep that +tiny home together. That was all over now. Her mother was dead, and her +lover, if so he could be called, had passed out of her life. And as she +sat on the bench she told herself for the hundredth time that there was +no one to fight for her but herself. She felt old and worn-out and +ashamed, and the tears fell. She had not been like this, cunning and +self-seeking, to start with. Life had made her so. She shut her eyes, so +that she might not see that graceful, pathetic creature, with its +beautiful eyes fixed on the marbles, of whom she had dared to make a +cat's paw. + +But presently she felt a soft cheek pressed to hers, and an arm round +her neck. + +"Don't cry, Nursie," Harry said gently. "Brother Dick has gone to +heaven," and he kissed her, as a child might kiss its mother. She winced +at his touch, and then pushed back her hair, still thick and wavy, with +the grey just beginning to show in it, and returned his kiss. + +And as he stood before her she took his hands and held them tightly, her +miserable eyes fixed on him. + +A silent sob shook her, and then she said-- + +"You know where God lives, Harry?" + +Harry disengaged one hand and pointed to the sky above him. He was not +often sure of giving the right answer, but he had a happy confidence +that this was correct. + +"Yes," she went on, "God lives in the sky and looks down on us. He is +looking at us now." + +Harry glanced politely up at the heavens and then back at his companion. + +"He is looking at us now. He hears what I say. I'm not one that believes +much in promises. Nobody's ever kept any to me. But I call Him to +witness that what I have taken upon myself I will perform, that I will +do my duty by you, and I will be good to you always and be your best +friend, whatever may happen--so help me God." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + "But I wait in a horror of strangeness-- + A tool on His workshop floor, + Worn to the butt, and banished + His hand for evermore." + W. E. HENLEY. + + +In the sick-room all was still. + +Lady Louisa lay with her eyes open, fixed. Blended with the cawing of +the rooks came the tolling of the bell for her son's funeral. Janey had +told her of Dick's death, had repeated it gently several times, had +recounted every detail of the funeral arrangements and how her sister +Lady Jane was not well enough to come to England for it. How the service +was taking place this afternoon and she must go to it, but she should +not be away long: Nurse would sit with her while she was away. How Harry +was not to be present, as he had been frightened at the sight of the +plumed horses. It was more than doubtful whether her mother understood +anything at all of what she told her, whether she even heard a voice +speaking. But Janey mercifully told her everything on the chance, big +things and small: Dick's death, and the loss of Harry's bantam cock, the +Harvest Thanksgiving vegetable marrow, and the engagement of the Miss +Blinketts' niece to a rising surgeon, and their disappointment that +instead of giving her a ring his only present to her had been a snapshot +of himself performing an operation. Scores of little things she gleaned +together and told her. So that if by any hundredth part of a chance she +could indeed still hear and understand she might not feel entirely cut +off from the land of the living. + +Her mother heard and understood everything. But to her it was as if her +prison was at such an immense distance that communication was +impossible. Janey's voice, tender and patient, reached down to her as in +some deep grave. She could hear and understand and remember. But she +could make no sign. + +Ah! How much she remembered, as the bell tolled for Dick's last +home-coming! Her thoughts went back to that grey morning +three-and-thirty years ago when she had seen his face for the first +time, the little pink puckered face which had had no hint in it of all +the misery he was to cause her. And she recalled it as she had seen it +last, nearly a year ago, hardly human, already dead save for a +fluctuating animal life. And she remembered her strenuous search for a +will, and how Dick's valet had told her that his master had been +impressed by the narrowness of his escape when he injured his head, and +had actually gone out on purpose to make his will the day he went to +Fontainebleau, but had been waylaid by some woman. She had found the +name and address of his man of business, and had been to see him, but +could extract nothing from him except that Mr. Le Geyt had not called on +him on the day in question, had not made any will as far as his +knowledge went, and that he had ceased to employ him owing to a quarrel. +Dick's business relations with every one except Roger always ended in a +quarrel sooner or later--generally sooner. She had made up her mind that +Dick must die without leaving a will. It was necessary for the sake of +others. But she had not told herself what she should do with a will of +his if she could get hold of it. But she had not been able to discover +one. The whole situation rose before her, and she, the only person who +had an inkling of it, the only person who could deal with it, was +powerless. + +She had accumulated proofs, doctor's evidence, that Harry's was only a +case of arrested development, that he was quite capable of taking his +part in life. She had read all these papers to the nurse when first she +came to Riff, and had shown herself sympathetic about Harry, which Janey +had never been. Janey had always, like her father, thought that if Dick +died childless Hulver ought to go to Roger, had not been dislodged from +that position even by her mother's thrust that she said that because she +was in love with him. Nurse in those first days of her ministry had +warmly and without _arrière pensée_ encouraged Lady Louisa in her +contention that Harry was only backward, and had proved that she was +partly right by the great progress he made under her authority. She had +been indefatigable in training him, drawing out his atrophied faculties. + +The papers which Lady Louisa had so laboriously collected were in the +drawer of the secretaire, near the fire. The key was on her watch-chain, +and her watch and chain were on the dressing-table. Nurse had got them +out and put them back at her request several times. She knew where they +were. + +And now that Dick was dead, Nurse would certainly use them on Harry's +behalf, exactly as she herself had intended to use them. + +Unscrupulous, wanton woman! + +A paroxysm of rage momentarily blinded her. But after a time the +familiar room came creeping stealthily back out of the darkness, to +close in on her once more. + +She had schemed and plotted, she had made use of the shrewd, capable +woman at her bedside. But the shrewd, capable woman had schemed and +plotted too, and had made use of her son, her poor half-witted Harry. +For now, at last, now that power had been wrested out of her own safe +hands into the clutch of this designing woman, Lady Louisa owned to +herself that Harry was half-witted. She had intended him, her favourite +child, to have everything, and Janey and Roger to be his protective +satellites. She had perfect confidence in Roger. + +But now this accursed, self-seeking woman, who had made a cat's paw of +Harry, had ruined everything. She, not Roger, would now have control of +the property. She would be supreme. Harry would be wax in her hands. Her +word would be law. She could turn her out of the Dower House if she +wished it. Everything--even the Manvers diamonds in the safe downstairs +which she had worn all her life--belonged to _her_ now. Everything +except in name was hers already--if Dick had died intestate. And no +doubt he had so died. How she had hoped and prayed he would do as he had +done! How could she have guessed that his doing so would prove the +worst, immeasurably the worst calamity of all? Lady Louisa was appalled. +She felt sick unto death. + +She had laboured for her children's welfare to the last, and now she had +been struck down as on a battlefield, and the feet of the enemy were +trampling her in the dust. + +The door opened, and the adversary came in. She and her patient eyed +each other steadily. Then the nurse went to the dressing-table and took +the watch with its chain and pendant key, and opened the drawer in the +secretaire. Lady Louisa watched her take out a bundle of papers and put +them in her pocket. Then she locked the drawer and replaced the watch, +and returned to the bedside. She wiped away the beads of sweat which +stood on Lady Louisa's forehead, touched her brow and nostrils with +eau-de-Cologne, and sat down in her accustomed place. Lady Louisa saw +that her eyes were red. + +"If looks could kill, yours would kill me, milady," she said. "It's been +hard on you to have me to tend you. But that's all over now. Don't you +fret about it any more. I shall go away to-morrow, and I don't suppose +you'll ever be troubled by the sight of me in this world again." + +Presently Janey came in, and the nurse at once withdrew. She took off +her gloves, and put back her heavy veil. + +"It is all over," she said, with the familiar gesture of stroking her +mother's hand. "Such a sunny, quiet day for Dick's home-coming. We ought +all to be thankful that his long imprisonment is over, that his release +has come." + +The other prisoner heard from the depths of her forlorn cell. + +"And I ought to tell you, mother, that there is no will. Aunt Jane and +Roger have looked everywhere, and made inquiries. I am afraid there is +no longer any doubt that Dick has died without making one. So you will +have your wish." The gentle voice had a tinge of bitterness. "Everything +will go to Harry." + + +When Janey came downstairs again she found Roger sitting in the library +with a hand on each knee. He looked worn out. + +She made fresh tea for him, and he drank it in silence, while she +mended his split glove. + +"Well, it's over," he said at last. + +"All the arrangements were so carefully made," she said softly, putting +her little thumb into the big thumb of his glove, and finding where the +mischief had started. He watched her without seeing her. + +"I think everything went right," he said. "I hope it did, and Black did +his part. I never heard him read so well." + +"I thought the same." + +Roger was so accustomed to hear this expression from Janey whenever he +made a statement that he had long since ceased to listen to it. + +"I'm thankful there was no hitch. I could not sleep last night, earache +or something, and I had an uneasy feeling--very silly of me, but I could +not get it out of my head--that one of those women would turn up and +make a scene." + +"From what you've told me, Mary Deane would never have done a thing like +that." + +"No. She was too proud, but there was the other one, the Fontainebleau +one. I had a sort of idea _she_ might have been in the church. Queer +things happen now and then. I didn't like to look round. Mustn't be +looking about at a funeral. I suppose you didn't see anyone that might +have been her?" + +Janey laid down the glove. + +"I didn't look round either," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + "Others besides Moses have struggled up the mountain only to be + shown the promised land, and to hear the words: Thou shalt see it + with thine eyes, but shalt not pass over." + + +The following morning saw Janey and Roger sitting opposite each other +once more, but this time in his office-room, staring blankly at each +other. In spite of her invariably quiet demeanour, she was trembling a +little. + +"I am afraid you _must_ believe it, Roger." + +"Good Lord!" was all Roger could say, evidently not for the first time. + +There was a long silence. + +"When did she tell you?" + +"This morning, after breakfast. She and Harry came in together when I +was writing letters, hand in hand, as if they were in a novel, and she +said they had been married three months." + +"Three months!" + +"Yes." + +"Why, they must have been married in June." + +"Yes." + +"Good Lord!" + +Janey told him how they had been married at Ipswich at a Registry +Office. "Her brother, who is a solicitor, was one of the witnesses. She +showed me a copy of the certificate. She seems to have been +very--methodical." + +"It won't hold. Poor Harry is a loony." + +"I hinted that, but she only smiled. I think she must have gone +thoroughly into that before she took any step. And then she looked at +him, and he said like a parrot that it was time he took his proper place +in the world and managed his own affairs." + +"I never in my life heard such cheek." + +"After a bit I sent away Harry. He looked at her first before he obeyed, +and she signed to him to go. She has got absolute control over him. And +I tried to talk to her. She was very hard and bitter at first, and +twitted me with having to put up with her as a sister-in-law. But I +could not help being sorry for her. She was ashamed, I'm sure, of what +she'd done, though she tried to carry it off with a high hand. She's not +altogether a bad woman." + +"Isn't she? Well, she's near enough to satisfy me. I don't know what you +call bad if kidnapping that poor softy isn't. But the marriage can't +hold. It's ridiculous." + +"She says it will, and I think she'll prove to be right. She is a shrewd +woman, and after all Harry is twenty-three. Besides, mother's always +stuck to it that he was only backward, and she got together medical +evidence to attest her view. Mother has always wanted to guard against +Harry being passed over." + +"Dick could leave the property to anyone he liked. It wasn't entailed. +He was perfectly free to leave it to Jones, if he wanted to. Poor Jones! +He's down with gout at the Lion. He won't get a shilling." + +"Yes. But mother foresaw that Dick might never get a will made. He never +could get anything done. And I am afraid, Roger, that if he _had_ made a +will, mother would have got hold of it if she could." + +"Janey!" said Roger, deeply shocked. "You don't know what you're +saying." + +"Oh yes, I do. I feel sure, if poor Dick had made a will, Aunt Jane and +mother between them would have----" + +"Would have what?" + +"Would have destroyed it." + +"You simply don't know what you're saying. No one destroys a will. It's +a very serious crime, punishable by law. And you are accusing your own +mother of it." + +"Mother has done some strange things in her time," said Janey firmly. +"It's no good talking about it or thinking about it, but Jones told me +that when she went to Paris last autumn she looked through all Dick's +papers, and went to see his lawyer." + +"I went to see him too, and he told me she had been, and had been very +insistent that Dick had made a will and left it in his charge, and said +that he wanted to make some alteration in it." + +"Last autumn! But Dick was not capable then of wishing anything." + +"Last autumn, I tell you, since his illness." + +They both looked at each other. + +"Well, it's no use thinking of that at this moment," said Janey. "The +question is, what is to be done about Nurse?" + +"Pay her up, and pack her off at once." + +"She's gone already. She said it was best that she should go. I've +telegraphed for another. But she'll come back as Harry's legal wife, +Roger, I do believe." + +"This medical evidence in Harry's favour--where does Aunt Louisa keep +it?" + +"In her secretaire. She made me get it out, and read it to her since her +last visit to Paris. I could not bear to look at it. It was all so +false. And I know she showed it Nurse. It was after that Nurse worked so +hard to make Harry more amenable, more like other people. She slaved +with him. I believe she was quite disinterested at first." + +"She has certainly done him a lot of good." + +"And he's fond of her. He's frightened of her, but he likes her better +than anyone, much better than me. Before she left she told every servant +in the house, and the men in the garden. At least, she took Harry round +with her and made him say to each one of them, 'This is my wife.' The +whole village knows by now. And she has taken the medical evidence +about him. She made no secret of it. She said she sent it yesterday to +her brother." + +"She stole it, in fact." + +"She said that as his wife she thought she ought to put it in safe +keeping. I told her she need not have been afraid that we should destroy +it. She said she knew that, but that those who deceived others never +could trust anyone else. Roger, she has done a very wicked and shameless +thing, for the sake of a livelihood, but I think she is suffering for +it. And I believe, in spite of herself, she had a kind of devotion for +mother. She had done so much for her. She never spared herself. She felt +leaving her." + +"Did she ask about the will?" + +"No. I think there was a general feeling of surprise that the will was +not read after the funeral." + +"Well, my good girl, how could we, when we couldn't find one?" + +"I know, I know. But what I mean is, it must soon be known that no will +is forthcoming." + +"Of course it is bound to come out before long." + +"Have you asked Pike and Ditton, Dick's London men?" + +"Yes. I wrote to them days ago. They know of nothing. There is no will, +Janey. We have got to make up our minds to it. Pritchard is coming over +this morning about the probate, and I shall have to tell him." + +Something fierce crept into Janey's gentle face. + +"Oh, Roger, it is such a shame!" she stammered. "If ever any man +deserved Hulver it is you." + +"Dick once said so," said Roger. "Last time he was here, two years ago, +that time he never came to the Dower House though I begged him to, and I +went round the park with him, and showed him where I had cut down the +oak avenue in the old drive. It went to my heart to do it, but he had +left me no choice, insisted on it. And when he saw the old trees all +down he was quite taken aback, and he said, 'Roger, it is you who ought +to have had Hulver. You'd have kept it together, while I'm just pulling +it to pieces stick by stick. I must reform, and come and settle down +here, and marry Mary. By God I must.' That was the last time he was +here, just before he sold the Liverpool property." + +"Everything seems to be taken from you, Roger," said Janey passionately. +"And to think that this unscrupulous woman will have absolute power over +everything!" + +"She will be able to turn me off," said Roger. "She will get in another +agent--put in her brother, I should think. I always disliked her, and +she knew it. Now she will be able to pay off old scores." + +Roger looked out of the window, and his patient, stubborn face quivered +ever so slightly. + +It would have been a comfort to Janey to think that she should one day +inherit Noyes, if there had been any question of his sharing it with +her. But the long-cherished hope that they might some day share a home +together had died. It had died hard, it had taken a grievous time to +die, but it was dead at last. And Janey had buried it, delved a deep +grave for it in the live rock of her heart. + +"I don't see how I am ever to marry now," he said hoarsely. "I can't +count on the two hundred a year from the agency and this cottage. Even +that may go to-morrow. It wasn't much. It wasn't enough to set up house +on, but even _that_ is as good as gone." + +"I have thought lately that you had it in your mind to marry." + +A small tear suddenly jumped out of Roger's eye, and got held up in his +rough cheek. + +"I want to marry Annette," he said. + +"Yes, my dear, I guessed it." + +"Dreadfully. You don't know, Janey. Dreadfully." + +"I know, my poor boy," she said,--"I know all about it." And she came +and stood by him and patted his hand. + +For a moment Roger sobbed violently and silently against her shoulder. + +Then he drew himself away, and rummaged for his pocket-handkerchief. + +"You are a brick, Janey," he said gruffly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + "The thing on the blind side of the heart, + On the wrong side of the door; + The green plant groweth, menacing + Almighty lovers in the spring; + There is always a forgotten thing, + And love is not secure." + G. K. CHESTERTON. + + +The news of Harry's marriage, which was convulsing Riff, had actually +failed to reach Red Riff Farm by tea-time. The Miss Blinketts, on the +contrary, less aristocratically remote than the Miss Nevills, had heard +it at midday, when the Dower House gardener went past The Hermitage to +his dinner. And they were aware by two o'clock that Janey had had a +consultation with Roger in his office, and that the bride had left Riff +by the midday express from Riebenbridge. + +It was the general opinion in Riff that "she'd repent every hair of her +head for enticing Mr. Harry." + +In total ignorance of this stupendous event, Aunt Harriet was discussing +the probable condition of the soul after death over her afternoon tea, +in spite of several attempts on the part of Annette to change the +subject. + +"Personally, I feel sure I shall not even lose consciousness," she +said, with dignity. "With some of us the partition between this world +and the next is hardly more than a veil, but we must not shut our eyes +to the fact that a person like Mr. Le Geyt is almost certainly suffering +for his culpability in impoverishing the estate; and if what I +reluctantly hear is true as to other matters still more +reprehensible----" + +"We know very little about purgatory, after all," interrupted Aunt Maria +wearily. + +"Some of us who suffer have our purgatory here," said her sister, +helping herself to an apricot. "I hardly think, when we cross the river, +that----" + +The door opened, and Roger was announced. He had screwed himself up to +walk over and ask for Annette, and it was a shock to him to find her +exactly as he might have guessed she would be found, sitting at tea with +her aunts. He had counted on seeing her alone. + +He looked haggard and aged, and his black clothes became him ill. He +accepted tea from Annette without looking at her. He was daunted by the +little family party, and made short replies to the polite inquiries of +the Miss Nevills as to the health of Janey and Lady Louisa. He was +wondering how he could obtain an interview with Annette, and half angry +with her beforehand for fear she should not come to his assistance. He +was very sore. Life was going ill with him, and he was learning what +sleeplessness means, he who had never lain awake in his life. + +The door opened again, and contrary to all precedent the Miss Blinketts +were announced. + +The Miss Blinketts never came to tea except when invited, and it is sad +to have to record the fact that the Miss Nevills hardly ever invited +them. They felt, however, on this occasion that they were the bearers of +such important tidings that their advent could not fail to be welcome, +if not to the celebrated authoress, at any rate to Miss Harriet, who was +not absorbed in ethical problems like her gifted sister, and whose mind +was, so she often said, "at leisure from itself, to soothe and +sympathize." + +But the Miss Blinketts were quite taken aback by the sight of Roger, in +whose presence the burning topic could not be mentioned, and who had no +doubt come to recount the disaster himself--a course which they could +not have foreseen, as he was much too busy to pay calls as a rule. They +were momentarily nonplussed, and they received no assistance in +regaining their equanimity from the lofty remoteness of the Miss +Nevills' reception. A paralysing ten minutes followed, which Annette, +who usually came to the rescue, made no attempt to alleviate. She busied +herself with the tea almost in silence. + +Roger got up stiffly to go. + +"I wonder, Mr. Manvers, as you are here," said Aunt Maria, rising as he +did, "whether you would kindly look at the dairy roof. The rain comes in +still, in spite of the new tiling. Annette will show it you." And +without further demur she left the room, followed by Annette and Roger. + +"I am afraid," said the authoress archly, with her hand on the door of +her study, "that I had recourse to a subterfuge in order to escape. +Those amiable ladies who find time hang so heavily on their hands have +no idea how much I value mine, nor how short I find the day for all I +have to do in it. My sister will enjoy entertaining them. Annette, I +must get back to my proofs. I will let you, my dear, show Mr. Manvers +the dairy." + +Roger followed Annette down the long bricked passage to the _laiterie_. +They entered it, and his professional eye turned to the whitewashed +ceiling and marked almost unconsciously the stain of damp upon it. + +"A cracked tile," he said mechanically. "Two. I'll see to it." + +And then, across the bowls of milk and a leg of mutton sitting in a +little wire house, his eyes looked in a dumb agony at Annette. + +"What is it? What is it?" she gasped, and as she said the words the cook +entered slowly, bearing a yellow mould and some stewed fruit upon a +tray. + +Roger repeated the words "cracked tiles," and presently they were in the +hall again. + +"I must speak to you alone," he said desperately; "I came on purpose." + +She considered a moment. She had no refuge of her own except her +bedroom, that agreeable attic with the extended view which had been +apportioned to Aunt Catherine, and which she had inhabited for so short +a time. The little hall where they were standing was the passage-room of +the house. She took up a garden hat, and they went into the garden to +the round seat under the apple tree, now ruddy with little contorted red +apples. The gardener was scything the grass between the trees, whistling +softly to himself. + +Roger looked at him vindictively. + +"I will walk part of the way home with you," said Annette, her voice +shaking a little in spite of herself, "if you are going through the +park." + +"Yes, I have the keys." + +"He has found out about Dick and me," she said to herself, "and is going +to ask me if it is true." + +They walked in silence across the empty cornfield, and Roger unlocked +the little door in the high park wall. + +Once there had been a broad drive to the house where that door stood, +and you could still see where it had lain between an avenue of old oaks. +But the oaks had all been swept away. The ranks of gigantic boles showed +the glory that had been. + +"Uncle John was so fond of the oak avenue," said Roger. "He used to +walk in it every day. There wasn't its equal in Lowshire. Anne de la +Pole planted it. I never thought Dick would have touched it." + +And in the devastated avenue, the scene of Dick's recklessness, Roger +told Annette of the catastrophe of Harry's marriage with the nurse, and +how he had already seen a lawyer about it, and the lawyer was of opinion +that it would almost certainly be legal. + +"That means," said Roger, standing still in the mossy track, "that now +Dick's gone, Harry, or rather his wife, for he is entirely under her +thumb, will have possession of everything, Welmesley and Swale and +Bulchamp, not that Bulchamp is worth much now that Dick has put a second +mortgage on it, and Scorby--and _Hulver_." + +He pointed with his stick at the old house with its twisted chimneys, +partly visible through the trees, the only home that he had ever known, +and his set mouth trembled a little. + +"And that woman can turn me out to-morrow," he said. "And she will. +She's always disliked me. I shan't even have the agency. It was a bare +living, but I shan't even have that. I shall only have Noyes. I've +always done Noyes for eighty pounds a year, because Aunt Louisa wouldn't +give more, and she can't now even if she was willing. And I'm not one of +your new-fangled agents, been through Cirencester, or anything like +that, educated up to it, scientific and all that sort of thing. Uncle +John was his own agent, and I picked it up from him. When I lose this I +don't suppose I shall get another job." + +With a sinking heart, and yet with a sense of relief, Annette realized +that Roger had heard nothing against her, and that she was reprieved for +the moment. It was about all she did realize. + +He saw the bewilderment in her face, and stuck his stick into the +ground. He must speak more plainly. + +"This all means," he said, becoming first darkly red and then ashen +colour, "that I am not in a position to marry, Annette. I ought not to +have said anything about it. I can't think how I could have forgotten as +I did. But--but----" + +He could say no more. + +"I am glad you love me," said Annette faintly. "I am glad you +said--something about it." + +"But we can't marry," said Roger harshly. "What's the good if we can't +be married?" + +He made several attempts to speak, and then went on: "I suppose the +truth is I counted on Dick doing something for me. He always said he +would, and he was very generous. He's often said I'd done a lot for him. +Perhaps I have, and perhaps I haven't. Perhaps I did it for the sake of +the people and the place. Hulver's more to me than most things. But he +told me over and over again he wouldn't forget me. Poor old Dick! After +all, he couldn't tell he was going to fall on his head! There is no +will, Annette. That's the long and the short of it. And so, of course, +nearly everything goes to Harry." + +"No will!" said Annette, drawing in a deep breath. + +"Dick hasn't left a will," said Roger, and there was a subdued +bitterness in his voice. "He has forgotten everybody who had a claim on +him: a woman whom he ought to have provided for before every one else in +the world, and Jones, Jones who stuck to him through thick and thin and +nursed him so faithfully, and--and me. It doesn't do to depend on people +like Dick, who won't take any trouble about anything." + +The words seemed to sink into the silence of the September evening. A +dim river mist, faintly flushed by the low sun, was creeping among the +farther trees. + +"But he did take trouble. There is a will," she said. + +Her voice was so low that he did not hear what she said. + +"Dick made a will," she said again. This time he heard. + +He had been looking steadfastly at the old house among the trees, and +there were tears in his eyes as he slowly turned to blink through them +at her. + +"How can you tell?" he said apathetically. And as he looked dully at +her the colour ebbed away from her face, leaving it whiter than he had +ever seen a living face. + +"Because I was in the room when he made it--at Fontainebleau." + +Roger's face became overcast, perplexed. + +"When he was ill there?" + +"Yes." + +Dead silence. + +"How did you come to be with Dick?" + +It was plain that though he was perplexed the sinister presumption +implied by her presence there had not yet struck him. + +"Roger, I was staying with Dick at Fontainebleau. I nursed him--Mrs. +Stoddart and I together. She made me promise never to speak of it to +anyone." + +"Mrs. Stoddart made you promise! What was the sense of that? You were +travelling with her, I suppose?" + +"No. I had never seen her till the morning I called her in, when Dick +fell ill." + +"Then that Mrs. Stoddart I met at Noyes was the older woman whom Lady +Jane found looking after him when she and Jones came down?" + +"Yes." + +Silence again. He frowned, and looked apprehensively at her, as if he +were warding something off. + +"And I was the younger woman," said Annette, "who left before Lady Jane +arrived." + +The colour rushed to his face. + +"No," he said, with sudden violence, "not you. I always knew there was +another woman, a young one, but--but--it wasn't you, Annette." + +She was silent. + +"It _couldn't_ be you!"--with a groan. + +"It was me." + +His brown hands trembled as he leaned heavily upon his stick. + +"I was not Dick's mistress, Roger." + +"Were you his wife, then?" + +"No." + +"Then how did you come to----? But I don't want to hear. I have no right +to ask. I have heard enough." + +He made as if to go. + +Annette turned upon him in the dusk with a fierce white face, and +gripped his shoulder with a hand of steel. + +"You have not heard enough till you have heard everything," she said. + +And holding him forcibly, she told him of her life in Paris with her +father, and of her disastrous love affair, and her determination to +drown herself, and her meeting with Dick, and her reckless, apathetic +despair. Did he understand? He made no sign. + +After a time, her hand fell from his shoulder. He made no attempt to +move. The merciful mist enclosed them, and dimmed them from each other. +Low in the east, entangled in a clump of hawthorn, a thin moon hung +blurred as if seen through tears. + +"I did not care what I did," she said brokenly. "I did not care for +Dick, and I did not care for myself. I cared for nothing. I was +desperate. Dick did not try to trap me, or be wicked to me. He asked me +to go with him, and I went of my own accord. But he was sorry +afterwards, Roger. He said so when he was ill. He wanted to keep me from +the river. He could not bear the thought of my drowning myself. Often, +often when he was delirious, he spoke of it, and tried to hold me back. +And you said he wouldn't take any trouble. But he did. He did, Roger. He +made his will at the last, when it was all he could do, and he +remembered about Hulver--I know he said you ought to have it--and that +he must provide for Mary and the child. His last strength went in making +his will, Roger. His last thought was for you, and that poor Mary and +the child." + +Already she had forgotten herself, and was pleading earnestly for the +man who had brought her to this pass. + +Roger stood silent, save for his hard breathing. Did he understand? We +all know that "To endure and to pardon is the wisdom of life." But if we +are called on to pardon just at the moment we are called on to endure! +What then? Have we _ever_ the strength to do both at the same moment? He +did not speak. The twilight deepened. The moon drew clear of the +hawthorn. + +"You must go to Fontainebleau," she went on, "and find the doctor. I +don't know his name, but it will be easy to find him. And he will +remember. He was so interested in poor Dick. And he brought the notary. +He will tell you who has the will. I remember now I was one of the +witnesses." + +"You witnessed it!" said Roger, astounded. His stick fell from his +hands. He looked at it on the ground, but made no motion to pick it up. + +"Yes, I witnessed it. Dick asked me to. Everything will come right now. +He wanted dreadfully to make it right. But you must forget about me, +Roger. I've been here under false pretences. I shall go away. I ought +never to have come, but I didn't know you and Janey were Dick's people. +He was always called Dick Le Geyt. And when I came to be friends with +you both, I often wished to tell you, even before I knew you were his +relations. But I had promised Mrs. Stoddart not to speak of it to anyone +except----" + +"Except who?" said Roger. + +"Except the man I was to marry. That was the mistake. I ought never to +have promised to keep silence. But I did, because she made a point of +it, and she had been so kind to me when I was ill. But I ought not to +have agreed to it. One ought never to try to cover up anything one has +done wrong. And I had a chance of telling you, and I didn't take it, +that afternoon we drove to Halywater. Mrs. Stoddart had given me back my +promise, and oh! Roger, I meant to tell you. But you were so nice I +forgot everything else. And then, later on, when we were in the deserted +garden and I saw the little lambs and the fishes, I was so dreadfully +sorry that everything else went out of my head. I feel I have deceived +you and Janey, and it has often weighed upon me. But I never meant to +deceive you. And I'm glad you know now. And I should like her to know +too." + +Her tremulous voice ceased. + +She stood looking at him with a great wistfulness, but he made no sign. +She waited, but he did not speak. Then she went swiftly from him in the +dusk, and the mist wrapped her in its grey folds. + +Roger stood motionless and rigid where she had left him. After a moment, +he made a mechanical movement as if to walk on. Then he flung himself +down upon his face on the whitening grass. + +And the merciful mist wrapped him also in its grey folds. + +Low in the east the thin moon climbed blurred and dim, as if seen +through tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + "The paths of love are rougher + Than thoroughfares of stones." + THOMAS HARDY. + + +Roger lay on his face, with his mouth on the back of his hand. + +Years and years ago, twenty long years ago, he had once lain on his face +as he was doing now. He and Dick had been out shooting with the old +keeper, and Dick had shot Roger's dog by mistake. He had taken the +catastrophe with a stolid stoicism and a bitten lip. But later in the +day he had crept away, and had sobbed for hours, lying on his face under +a tree. The remembrance came back to him now. Never since then, never in +all those twenty years, had he felt again that same paroxysm of despair. +And now again Dick had inadvertently wounded him; Dick, who never meant +any harm, had pierced his heart. The wound bled, and Roger bit his hand. +Time passed. + +He did not want to get up any more. If he could have died at that moment +he would have died. He did not want to have anything more to do with +this monstrous cheat called life. He did not want ever to see anyone +again. He felt broken. The thought that he should presently get to his +feet and stump home through the dusk to his empty rooms, as he had done +a hundred times, filled him with a nausea and rage unspeakable. The mere +notion of the passage and the clothes-peg and the umbrella-stand +annihilated him. He had reached a place in life where he felt he could +not go on. + +Far in the distance, carried to his ear by the ground, came the muffled +thud and beat of a train passing beyond the village, on the other side +of the Rieben. He wished dully that he could have put his head on the +rails. + + +And the voice to which from a little lad he had never shut his ears, the +humdrum, prosaic voice which had bidden him take thought for Mary Deane +and her child, and Janey, and Betty Hesketh, and all who were "desolate +and oppressed," that same small voice, never ignored, never silenced, +spoke in Roger's aching, unimaginative heart. The train passed, and as +the sound throbbed away into silence Roger longed again with passion +that it had taken his life with it. And the still small voice said, +"That is how Annette felt a year ago." + + +He got up and pushed back the damp hair from his forehead. That was how +Annette had felt a year ago. Poor, unwise, cruelly treated Annette! Even +now, though he had heard her story from her own lips, he could not +believe it, could not believe that her life had ever had in it any +incident beyond tending her old aunts, and watering her flowers, and +singing in the choir. That was how he had always imagined her, with +perhaps a tame canary thrown in, which ate sugar from her lips. If he +had watched her with such a small pet he would have felt it singularly +appropriate, a sort of top-knot to his ideal of her. If he had seen her +alarmed by a squirrel, he would have felt indulgent; if fond of +children, tender; if jealous of other women, he should not have been +surprised. He had made up a little insipid picture of Annette picking +flowers by day, and wrapped in maiden slumber in a white room at night. +The picture was exactly as he wished her to be, and as her beautiful +exterior had assured him she was. For Annette's sweet face told half the +men she met that she was their ideal. In nearly every case so far that +ideal had been a masterpiece of commonplace; though if prizes had been +offered for them Roger would have won easily. Her mind, her character, +her individuality had no place in that ideal. That she should have been +pushed close up against vice; that _she_, Annette, who sang "Sun of my +soul" so beautifully, should have wandered alone in the wicked streets +of Paris in the dawn, after escaping out of a home wickeder still; that +she should have known treachery, despair; that she should have been +stared at as the chance mistress of a disreputable man! _Annette!_ It +was incredible. + +And he had been so careful, at the expense of his love of truth, when +they took refuge in Mary Deane's house, that Annette should believe Mary +Deane was a married woman and her child born in wedlock. And she, whose +ears must not even hear that Mary had been Dick's mistress, she, +Annette, had been Dick's mistress too, if not in reality, at any rate in +appearance. + +Roger's brain reeled. He had forgotten the will. His mind could grasp +nothing except the ghastly discrepancy between the smug picture of +Annette which he had gradually evolved, and this tragic figure, sinned +against, passionate, desperate, dragging its betrayal from one man to +another. Had she been Dick's mistress? Was it really possible that she +had not? Who could touch pitch and not be defiled? Women always denied +their shame. How hotly Mary Deane had denied hers only a few months +before the birth of her child! + +Roger reddened at the thought that he was classing Annette, his +beautiful lady, with Mary. Oh! where was the real truth? Who could tell +it him? Whom could he trust? + +"_Janey._" + +He said the word aloud with a cry. And Janey's small brown face rose +before him as he had known it all his life, since they had been children +together, she the little adoring girl, and he the big condescending +schoolboy. Janey's crystal truthfulness, her faithfulness, her lifelong +devotion to him, became evident to him. He had always taken them for +granted, known where to put his hand on them, used them without seeing +them, like his old waterproof which he could lay hold of on its peg in +the dark. She had always been in the background of his life, like the +Rieben and the low hill behind it against the grey sky, which he did not +notice when they were there, but from which he could not long absent +himself without a sense of loss. And Janey had no past. He knew +everything about _her_. He must go to her now, at once. He did not know +exactly what he wanted to say to her. But he groped for his stick, found +it, noticed that the dew was heavy and that there would be no rain after +all, and set off down the invisible track in the direction of the +village, winking its low lights among the trees. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + "Happiness is inextricably interwoven with loyalty, love, + unselfishness, the charity that never fails. In early life we + believe that it is just these qualities in those we love that make + our happiness, just the lack of them that entail our misery. But + later on we find that it is not so. Later on we find that it is our + own loyalty, our own love and charity in which our happiness + abides, as the soul abides in the body. So we discover at last that + happiness is within the reach of all of us, the inalienable + birthright of all of us, and that if by misadventure we have + mislaid it in our youth we know where to seek it in after years. + For happiness is mislaid, but never lost."--M. N. + + +Janey had the doubtful advantage over other women that men (by men I +mean Roger) always knew where to find her. She was as immovable as the +church or the Rieben. It was absolutely certain that unless Lady Louisa +was worse, Janey would come down to the library at nine o'clock, and +work there beside the lamp for an hour before going to bed. The element +of surprise or uncertainty did not exist as far as Janey was concerned. +And perhaps those who are always accessible, tranquil, disengaged, ready +to lend a patient and sympathetic ear, know instinctively that they will +be sought out in sorrow and anxiety rather than in joy. We do not engage +a trained nurse for picnic parties, or ask her to grace the box seat +when we are driving our four-in-hands. Annette is singled out at once +as appropriate to these festive occasions. If anyone thought of Janey in +connection with them, it was only to remark that she would not care +about them. How many innocent pleasures she had silently wished for in +her time which she had been informed by her mother, by Dick, even by +Roger, were not in her line. + +To-night, Janey deviated by a hairbreadth from her usual routine. She +came down, seated herself, and instead of her work took up a book with +the marker half-way through it, and was at once absorbed in it. She was +reading _The Magnet_ for the second time. + +Since her conversation with Mr. Stirling in the Hulver garden, Janey had +read _The Magnet_, and her indifference had been replaced by a riveted +attention. She saw now what other people saw in his work, and it seemed +to her, as indeed it seemed to all Mr. Stirling's readers, that his +books were addressed to her and her alone. It did not occur to her that +he had lived for several years in her neighbourhood without her +detecting or even attempting to discern what he was. It did not occur to +her that he might have been a great asset in her narrow life. She was +quite content with being slightly acquainted with every one except +Roger, and her new friend Annette. She tacitly distrusted intimacy, as +did Roger, and though circumstances had brought about a certain intimacy +with Annette, the only girl within five miles, she had always mental +reservations even with her, boundaries which were not to be passed. +Janey had been inclined to take shelter behind these mental +reservations, to raise still higher the boundary walls between them, +since she had known what she called "the truth about Annette." She had +shrunk from further intercourse with her, but Annette had sought her +out, deliberately, persistently, with an unshaken confidence in Janey's +affection which the latter had not the heart to repel. And in the end +Janey had reached a kind of forlorn gratitude towards Annette. Her life +had become absolutely empty: the future stretched in front of her like +some flat dusty high road, along which she must toil with aching feet +till she dropped. She instinctively turned to Annette, and then shrank +from her. She would have shrunk from her altogether if she had known +that it was by Roger's suggestion that Annette made so many little +opportunities of meeting. Annette had been to see her the day before she +went to Noyes, and had found her reading _The Magnet_, and they had had +a long conversation about it. + +And now in Janey's second reading, not skipping one word, and going over +the more difficult passages twice, she came again upon the sentence +which they had discussed. She read it slowly. + +"_The publican and the harlot will go into the Kingdom before us, +because it is easier for them to flee with loathing from the sins of +the flesh, and to press through the strait gate of humility, than it is +for us to loathe and flee the sins of the spirit, egotism, pride, +resentment, cruelty, insincerity._" + +Janey laid down the book. When Annette had read that sentence aloud to +her, Janey had said, "I don't understand that. I think he's wrong. Pride +and the other things and insincerity aren't nearly as bad as--as +immorality." + +"He doesn't say one is worse than the others," Annette had replied, and +her quiet eyes had met Janey's bent searchingly upon her. "He only says +egotism and the other things make it harder to squeeze through the +little gate. You see, they make it impossible for us even to _see_ +it--the strait gate." + +"He writes as if egotism were worse than immorality, as if immorality +doesn't matter," said Janey stubbornly. How could Annette speak so +coolly, so impersonally, as if she had never deviated from the rigid +code of morals in which Janey had been brought up! She felt impelled to +show her that she at any rate held sterner views. + +Annette cogitated. + +"Perhaps, Janey; he has learnt that nothing makes getting near the gate +so difficult as egotism. He says somewhere else that egotism makes +false, mean, dreadful things ready to pounce on us. He's right in the +order he puts them in, isn't he? Selfishness first, and then pride. Our +pride gets wounded, and then resentment follows. And resentment always +wants to inflict pain. That is why he puts cruelty next." + +"How do you know all this?" said Janey incredulously. + +"I know about pride and resentment," said Annette, "because I gave way +to them once. I think I never shall again." + +"I don't see why he puts insincerity last." + +"Perhaps he thinks that is the worst thing that can happen to us." + +"To be insincere?" said Janey, amazed. + +"Yes. I certainly never _have_ met a selfish person who was sincere, +have you? They have to be giving noble reasons for their selfish +actions, so as to keep their self-respect and make us think well of +them. I knew a man once--he was a great musician--who was like that. He +wanted admiration dreadfully, he craved for it, and yet he didn't want +to take any trouble to be the things that make one admire people. It +ended in----" + +"What did it end in?" + +"Where insincere people always do end, I think, in a kind of treachery. +Perhaps that is why Mr. Stirling puts insincerity last, because +insincere people do such dreadful things without knowing they are +dreadful. Now, the harlots and the publicans do know. They have the pull +of us there." + +Janey's clear, retentive mind recalled every word of that conversation, +the last she had had with Annette, which had left an impression on her +mind that Annette had belittled the frailties of the flesh. Why had she +done that? _Because she had not been guiltless of them herself._ + +In such manner do some of us reason, and find confirmation of that which +we suspect. Not that Janey suspected her of stepping aside. She was +convinced that she had done so. The evidence had been conclusive. At +least, she did not doubt it when Annette was absent. When she was +present with her she knew not how to believe it. It was incredible. Yet +it was so. She always came back to that. + +But why did she and Mr. Stirling both put insincerity as the worst of +the spiritual sins? Janey was an inexorable reader, now that she had +begun. She ruminated with her small hands folded on the open page. + +And her honest mind showed her that once--not long ago--she had nearly +been insincere herself: when she had told herself with vehemence that it +was her bounden duty to Roger to warn him against Annette. What an ugly +act of treachery she had almost committed, would have committed if Mr. +Stirling had not come to her aid. She shuddered. Yes, he was right. +Insincerity was the place where all meannesses and disloyalties and +treacheries lurked and had their dens like evil beasts, ready to pounce +out and destroy the wayfaring spirit wandering on forbidden ground. + +And she thought of Nurse's treachery for the sake of a livelihood with +a new compassion. It was less culpable than what she had nearly been +guilty of herself. And she thought yet again of Annette. She might have +done wrong, but you could not look at her and think she could be mean, +take refuge in subterfuge or deceit. "She would never lie about it, to +herself or others," Janey said to herself. And she who _had_ lied to +herself, though only for a moment, was humbled. + + +She was half expecting Roger, in spite of their conference of this +morning, for she knew that he was to see the lawyer about probate that +afternoon, and the lawyer might have given an opinion as to the legality +of Harry's marriage. + +Presently she heard his step in the hall, and he came in. She had known +Roger all her life, but his whole aspect was unfamiliar to her. As she +looked at him bewildered, she realized that she had never seen him +strongly moved before, never in all these years until now. There is +something almost terrifying in the emotion of unemotional people. The +momentary confidence of the morning, the one tear wrung out of him by +perceiving his hope of marriage suddenly wiped out, was as nothing to +this. + +He sat down opposite to her with chalk-white face and reddened, unseeing +eyes, and without any preamble recounted to her the story that Annette +had told him a few hours before. "She wished you to know it," he said. + +An immense thankfulness flooded Janey's heart as she listened. It was +as if some tense nerve in her brain relaxed. He did know at last, and +she, Janey, had not told him. He had heard no word from her. Annette had +confessed to him herself, as Mr. Stirling had said she would. She had +done what was right--right but how difficult. A secret grudge against +Annette, which had long lurked at the back of Janey's mind, was +exorcised, and she gave a sigh of relief. + +At last he was silent. + +"I have known for a long time that Annette was the woman who was with +Dick at Fontainebleau," she said, her hands still folded on the open +book. + +"You might have told me, Janey." + +"I thought it ought to come from her." + +"You might have told me when you saw--Janey, you must have seen for some +time past--how it was with me." + +"I did see, but I hoped against hope that she would tell you herself, as +she has done." + +"And if she hadn't, would you have let me marry her, not knowing?" + +Janey reflected. + +"I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you +see, it did not happen so. She _has_ told you. I am thankful she has, +Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've +ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that you +know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I +had begun to think she would never say." + +"She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have +thought possible----" + +He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at +each other. + +"Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding +how anyone like Annette could have done it." + +Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which +had led to the disaster. + +"She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of +Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight +from his house in the dawn. + +"She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was +in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, +Roger. Annette has been sinned against." + +"I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's +who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering. + +There was a long silence. + +"But I don't feel that I can marry her," he said, with a groan. "Dick +and her!--it sticks in my throat,--the very thought seems to choke me. I +don't feel that I could marry her, even if she would still have me. She +said I must forget her, and put her out of my life. She feels everything +is over between us. It's all very well," savagely, "to talk of +forgetting anyone--like Annette," and he beat his foot against the +floor. + +Janey looked at him in a great compassion. "He will come back to me," +she said to herself, "not for a long time, but he will come back. Broken +and disillusioned and aged, and with only a bit of a heart to give me. +He will never care much about me, but I shall be all he has left in the +world. And I will take him, whatever he is." + +She put out her hand for her work and busied herself with it, knowing +instinctively that the occupation of her hands and eyes upon it would +fret him less than if she sat idle and looked at him. She had nothing to +learn about how to deal with Roger. + +She worked for some time in silence, and hope dead and buried rose out +of his deep grave in her heart, and came towards her once more. Was it +indeed hope that stirred in its grave, this pallid figure with the +shroud still enfolding it, or was it but its ghost? She knew not. + +At last Roger raised a tortured face out of his hands. + +"Of course, she _says_ she is innocent," he said, looking hopelessly at +Janey. + +Janey started violently. Her work fell from her hands. + +"Annette--says--she--is--innocent," she repeated after him, a flame of +colour rushing to her face. + +"Yes. Mary Deane said the same. They always say it." + +Janey shook as in an ague. + +She saw suddenly in front of her a gulf of infamy unspeakable, ready to +swallow her if she agreed with him--she who always agreed with him. He +would implicitly believe her. The little gleam of hope which had fallen +on her aching, mutilated life went out. She was alone in the dark. For a +moment she could neither see nor hear. + +"If Annette says she is innocent, it's true," she said hoarsely, putting +her hand to her throat. + +The room and the lamp became visible again, and Roger's eyes fixed on +her, like the eyes of a drowning man, wide, dilated, seen through deep +water. + +"If Annette says so, it's true," she repeated. "She may have done wrong. +She says she has. But she does not tell lies. You know that." + +"She says Dick did not try to entrap her, that she went with him of her +own accord." + +"But don't you see that Dick _did_ take advantage of her, all the same, +a mean advantage, when she was stunned by despair? I don't suppose you +have ever known what it is to feel despair, Roger. But I know what it +is. I know what Annette felt when her lover failed her." + +"She told me she meant to drown herself. She said she did not care what +became of her." + +"You don't know what it means to feel like that." + +Roger heard again the thud and beat of the distant train in the sod +against his ear. + +"Yes, I do," he said, looking at her under his heavy brows. + +"I don't believe you. If you had, you would understand Annette's +momentary madness. She need not have told you that. She need not have +blackened herself in your eyes, but she did. Can't you see, Roger, will +you never, never understand that you have had the whole truth from +Annette?--the most difficult truth in the world to tell. And why do you +need me to hammer it into you that she was speaking the truth to you? +Can't you see for yourself that Annette is upright, as upright as +yourself? What is the good of you, if you can't even see that? What is +the good of loving her--if you do love her--if you can't see that she +doesn't tell lies? _I'm_ not in love with her,--there have been times +when I've come very near to hating her, and I had reason to believe she +had done a wicked action,--but I knew one thing, and that was that she +would never lie about it. She is not that kind. And if she told you that +in a moment of despair she had agreed to do it, but that she had not +done it, then she spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the +truth." + +Roger could only stare at Janey, dumfounded. She who in his long +experience of her had always listened, had spoken so little beyond +comment or agreement, now thrust at him with a sword of determined, +sharp-edged speech. The only two women he thought he knew were becoming +absolute strangers to him. + +"If I had been in Annette's place, I would have died sooner than own +that I agreed to do wrong. I should have put the blame on Dick. But +Annette is humbler than I am, more loyal than I am, more compassionate. +She took the blame herself which belongs to Dick. She would not speak +ill of him. If I had been in her place, I should have hesitated a long +time before I told you about the will. It will ruin her good name. I +should have thought of that. But she didn't. She thought only of you, +only of getting your inheritance for you. Just as when Dick was ill, she +only thought of helping him. Go and get your inheritance, Roger. It's +yours, and I'm glad it is. You deserve it. But there's one thing you +don't deserve, and that is to marry Annette. You're not good enough for +her." + +Janey had risen to her feet. She stood before him, a small terrible +creature with blazing eyes. Then she passed him and left the room, the +astounded Roger gaping after her. + +He waited a long time for her to return, but she did not come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + "Les seuls défauts vraiment terribles sont ceux qu'on prend pour + des qualités."--H. RABUSSON. + + +"Wherever we go," said Aunt Harriet complacently from her sofa that +evening, "weddings are sure to follow. I've noticed it again and again. +Do you remember, Maria, how when we spent the summer at Nairn our +landlady's son at those nice lodgings married the innkeeper's daughter? +And it was very soon after our visit to River View that Mary Grey was +engaged to the curate. Which reminds me that I am afraid they are very +badly off, for I heard from him not long ago that he had resigned his +curacy, and that as his entire trust was in the Almighty the smallest +contribution would be most acceptable; but I did not send anything, +because I always thought Mary ought not to have married him. And now we +have been here barely fifteen months and here is Harry Manvers marrying +the nurse. The Miss Blinketts tell me that she is at least fifteen years +older than him. Not that that matters at all if there is spiritual +affinity, but in this case---- Really, Annette, I think your wits must +be woolgathering. You have put sugar in my coffee, and you know as well +as possible that I only have a tiny lump not in the cup, but in the +spoon." + +Annette expressed her contrition, and poured out another cup. + +"Did Roger Manvers say anything to you about Harry's marriage, Annette?" +said Aunt Maria. "I thought possibly he had come to consult us about it, +but of course he could say nothing before the Miss Blinketts. They drove +him away. I shall tell Hodgkins we are not at home to them in future." + +"He just mentioned the marriage, and that he had been seeing a lawyer +about it." + +"If every one was as laconic as you are, my love," said Aunt Harriet, +with some asperity, "conversation would cease to exist; and as to saying +'Not at home' to the Miss Blinketts in future, Maria, you will of course +do exactly as you please, but I must own that I think it is a mistake to +cut ourselves entirely adrift from the life of the neighbourhood at a--a +crisis like this. Will the marriage be recognized? Ought we to send a +present? Shall we be expected to call on her? We shall have to arrive at +_some_ decision on these subjects, I presume, and how we are to do so if +we close our ears to all sources of information I'm sure I don't know." + +"Mayn't we have another chapter of _The Silver Cross_?" said Annette in +the somewhat strained silence that followed. Aunt Maria was correcting +her proof sheets, and was in the habit of reading them aloud in the +evenings. + +"Yes, do read, Maria," said Aunt Harriet, who, however trying her other +characteristics might be, possessed a perennial fund of enthusiastic +admiration for her sister's novels. "I could hardly sleep last night for +thinking of Blanche's estrangement from Frederic, and of her folly in +allowing herself to be drawn into Lord Sprofligate's supper party by +that foolish Lady Bonner. Frederic would be sure to hear of it." + +"I am afraid," said Aunt Maria, with conscious pride, "that the next +chapter is hardly one for Annette. It deals, not without a touch of +realism, with subjects which as a delineator of life I cannot ignore, +but which, thank God, have no place in a young girl's existence." + +"Oh, Maria, how I disagree with you!" interposed Aunt Harriet before +Annette could speak. "If only I had been warned when I was a young, +innocent, high-spirited creature, if only I had been aware of the +pitfalls, the snares, spread like nets round the feet of the young and +the attractive, I should have been spared some terrible +disillusionments. I am afraid I am far too modern to wish to keep girls +in the total ignorance in which our dear mother brought us up. We must +march with the times. There is nothing that you, being what you are, +Maria, nothing that you with your high ideals could write which, however +painful, it could harm Annette to hear." (This was perhaps even truer +than the enunciator was aware.) "She must some time learn that evil +exists, that sin and suffering are all part of life." + +Annette looked from the excited figure on the sofa to the dignified +personage in the arm-chair, and her heart was wrung for them both. Oh! +Poor dears! poor dears! Living in this shadowy world of their own in +which reality never set foot, this tiny world of which Aunt Harriet +spoke so glibly, which Aunt Maria described with such touching +confidence. Was she going to shatter it for them?--she whom they were +doing their best to guide into it, to make like themselves. + +"I am rather tired," she said, folding up her work. "I think I will go +to bed, and then you can read the chapter together, and decide whether I +can hear it later on." + +"It is very carefully treated, very lightly, I may say skilfully +touched," said Aunt Maria urbanely, whose previous remark had been +entirely conventional, and who had no intention of losing half her +audience. "I think, on the whole, I will risk it. Sit down again, +Annette. Let me see, how old are you?" + +"Twenty-three." + +"Many women at that age are wives and mothers. I agree with you, +Harriet. The danger we elders fall into is the want of realization that +the younger generation are grown up. We must not make this mistake with +you, Annette, or treat you as a child any longer, but as--ahem!--one of +ourselves. It is better that you should be made aware of the existence +of the seamy side of life, so that later on, if you come in contact with +it, your mind may be prepared. Chapter one hundred and twenty-five. _The +False Position._" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + "All other joy of life he strove to warm, + And magnify, and catch them to his lip: + But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, + And gazed upon him sallow from the storm." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Roger went to Fontainebleau. He looked at the oaks as they came close up +on both sides of the line, and thought that they needed thinning, and +made a mental note of the inefficiency of French forestry. And he put up +at an old-fashioned inn, with a prim garden in front, with tiny pebbled +walks, and a fountain, and four stunted clipped acacia trees. And he +found the doctor in the course of the next morning; and the doctor, who +had not realized Dick's death under another name, gave him the notary's +address; and the notary explained by means of an interpreter that +Monsieur Le Geyt had warned him emphatically not to give up the will to +his mother, if she came for it, or sent for it after his death. Only to +Monsieur Roger Manvers his cousin, or Mademoiselle Manvers his sister. + +And when Roger had presented his card, and the credentials with which +his English lawyer had supplied him, the will was produced. The notary +opened it, and showed him Dick's signature, almost illegible but still +Dick's, and below it the doctor's and his own; and at the bottom of the +sheet the two words, _Annette Georges_, in Annette's large childish +handwriting. Roger's heart contracted, and for a moment he could see +nothing but those two words. And the notary explained that the lady's +signature had not been necessary, but she had witnessed it to pacify the +dying man. Then Roger sat down, with a loudly hammering heart, and read +the will slowly--translated to him sentence by sentence. It gave him +everything: Hulver and Welmesley, and Swale and Scorby, and the +Yorkshire and Scotch properties, and the street in the heart of +Liverpool, and the New River Share. There was an annuity of five hundred +a year out of the estate and the house at Aldeburgh to Harry, and the +same sum to Mary Deane for life and then in trust to her daughter, +together with a farm in Devonshire. But except for these bequests, +everything was left to Roger. Dick had forgotten Jones his faithful +servant, and he had forgotten also that he had parted with his New River +Share the year before to meet his colossal losses on the day, still +talked of in racing circles, when Flamingo ran out of the course. And +the street in Liverpool, that gold mine, was mortgaged up to the hilt. +But still in spite of all it was a fine inheritance. Roger's heart beat. +He had been a penniless man all his life; and all his life he had +served another's will, another's caprice, another's heedlessness. Now at +last he was his own master. And Hulver, his old home, Hulver which he +loved with passion as his uncle and his grandfather had loved it before +him, _Hulver was his_. + +Mechanically he turned the page and looked at the last words of the will +upon it, and poor Dick's scrawl, and the signature of the witnesses. And +all the joy ebbed out of his heart as quickly as it had rushed in as he +saw again the two words, _Annette Georges_. + + +He did not sleep that night. He lay in a bed which held no rest for him, +and a nameless oppression fell upon him. He was over-tired, and he had +suffered severely mentally during the past week. And it seemed as if the +room itself exercised some sinister influence over him. Surely the +mustard-coloured roses of the wall-paper knew too much. Surely the tall +gilt mirror had reflected and then wiped from its surface scenes of +anguish and despair. Roger sat up in bed, and saw himself a dim figure +with a shock head reflected in it. The moonlight lay in a narrow band +upon the floor. The blind tapped against the window ledge. Was that a +woman's white figure crouching near the window, with bent head against +the pane! It was only the moonlight upon the curtain, together with the +shadow of the tree outside. Roger got up and fastened the blind so that +the tapping ceased, and then went back to bed again. But sleep would not +come. + +He had read over the translation of the will several times. It, and the +will itself, were locked into the little bag under his pillow. His hand +touched it from time to time. + +And as the moonlight travelled across the floor, Roger's thoughts +travelled also. His slow, honest mind never could be hurried, as those +who did business with him were well aware. It never rushed, even to an +obvious conclusion. It walked. If urged forward, it at once stood +stock-still. But if it moved slowly of its own accord, it also evaded +nothing. + + +Then Dick must have distrusted his mother just as Janey had done. Roger +had been shocked by Janey's lack of filial piety, but he at once +concluded that Dick must have "had grounds" for his distrust. It did not +strike him that Janey and Dick might have had the same grounds--that +some sinister incident locked away in their childish memories had +perhaps warned them of the possibility of a great treachery. + +No doubt Janey was not mentioned in Dick's will because it had always +been understood that Noyes would go to her. Lady Louisa had given out +that she had so left it years before. + +"That was what was in the old woman's mind, no doubt," Roger said to +himself, "to let Janey have Noyes, and get Hulver and the rest for Harry +if possible, even if she had to destroy Dick's will in my favour. She +never took into her calculation, poor thing, that by the time Dick died +she might be as incapable of making another will as he was himself. +Seems as if paralysis was in the family. If she knew I had got Hulver +after all, she'd cut Janey out of Noyes like a shot if she could, and +leave it to Harry. But she can't. And Harry'll do very nicely in that +little house at Aldeburgh with five hundred a year. Play on the beach. +Make a collection of shells, and an aquarium. Sea anemones, and shrimps. +And his wife can take charge of him. Relieve poor Janey. I shall put in +a new bathroom at Sea View, and I shall furnish it for him. Some of the +things Mary Deane had would do. He would like those great gilt mirrors +and the sporting prints, and she'd like the walnut suite. That marriage +may not be such a bad thing after all. Hope poor Aunt Louisa won't +understand anything about it, or my coming in for Hulver. It would make +her perfectly mad. Might kill her. But perhaps that wouldn't be such a +very bad thing either. Silver lining to cloud, perhaps, and give Janey a +chance of a little peace." + +Roger's mind travelled slowly over his inheritance, and verified piece +by piece that it was a very good one. In spite of Dick's recklessness, +much still remained. The New River Share was gone. Dick had got over a +hundred thousand for it, but it had been worth more. And the house in +Eaton Square was gone, and Princess Street was as good as gone. He +should probably be wise to let the mortgagors foreclose on it. But +Hulver remained intact, save for the loss of the Raeburn and the oak +avenue. How cracked of Dick to have sold the Raeburn and cut down the +oak avenue when, if he had only consulted him, Roger could have raised +the money by a mortgage on Welmesley. But he ought not to be blaming +Dick after what he had done for him. On the contrary, he ought to put up +a good monument to him in Riff Church; and he certainly would do so. +Hulver was his--Hulver was his. Now, at last, he had a free hand. Now, +at last, he could do his duty by the property, unhampered by constant +refusals to be allowed to spend money where it ought to be spent. He +should be able to meet all his farmers on a better footing now. No need +to put off their demands from year to year, and lose the best among them +because he could not meet even their most reasonable claims. He could +put an entire new roof on Scorby Farm now, instead of tinkering at it, +and he would pull down those wretched Ferry Cottages and rebuild them on +higher ground. He knew exactly where he should put them. It was a crying +shame that it had not been done years ago. And he would drain Menham +marsh, and then the Menham people would not have agues and goitres. And +he should make a high paved way across the water meadows to Welysham, so +that the children could get to school dry-shod. + +He could hardly believe that at last he was his own master. No more +inditing of those painfully constructed letters which his sense of duty +had made incumbent on him, letters which it had taken him so long to +write, and which were probably never read. Dick had never attended to +business. If people could not attend to business, Roger wondered what +they could attend to. And he would make it right about Jones. Jones need +never know his master had forgotten him. Roger would give him an annuity +of a hundred a year, and tell him it was by Dick's wish. Dick certainly +would have wished it if he had thought of it. Roger gave a sigh of +relief at the thought of Jones. And he should pension off old Toby and +Hesketh and Nokes. They had worked on the estate for over forty years. +Roger settled quantities of detail in numberless little mental +pigeonholes as the moonlight travelled across the floor. + + +All through the day and the long evening, whenever he had thought of +Annette, his mind had stood stock-still and refused to move. And now at +last, as if it had waited till this silent hour, the thought of Annette +came to him again, and this time would not be denied. Once more his +resisting mind winced and stood still. And Roger, who had connived at +its resistance, forced it slowly, reluctantly, to do his bidding. + +He could marry Annette now. Strange how little joy that thought evoked! +He would have given everything he possessed two days ago--not that he +possessed anything--to have been able to make her his wife. If two days +ago he had been told that he would inherit Hulver and be able to marry +her, his cup would have been full. Well, now he could have her, if she +would take him. He was ashamed, but not as much as he ought to have +been, of his momentary doubt of her. Fortunately, only Janey knew of +that doubt. Annette would never know that he had hesitated. Now that he +came to think of it, she had gone away from him so quickly that he had +not had time to say a word. + +Roger sighed heavily. + +He knew in his heart that he had not quite trusted Annette when he ought +to have done. But he did absolutely trust Janey. And Janey had said +Annette was innocent. He need not cudgel his brains as to whether he +would still have wanted to marry her if she had been Dick's mistress, +because she never had been. That was settled. Annette was as pure as +Janey herself, and he ought to have known it without Janey having to +tell him. + +Roger turned uneasily on his bed, and then took the goad which only +honest men possess, and applied it to his mind. It winced and shrank +back, and then, seeing no help for it, made a step forward. + +Annette had given him his inheritance. He faced that at last. She had +got the will made. But for her, Dick would have died intestate. And but +for her it was doubtful whether the will would ever have come to light. +Neither the notary nor the doctor had at first connected the death of +Mr. Manvers with that of Dick Le Geyt, even when Roger showed them the +notice in the papers which he had brought with him. Annette had done +everything for him. Well, he would do everything for her. He would marry +her, and be good to her all his life. + +Yes, but would she care to marry a man who could only arrive at his +inheritance by smirching her good name? The will could not be proved +without doing that. What wicked folly of Dick to have asked her, poor +child, to witness it! And how exasperatingly like him! He never +considered the result of any action. The slur on Annette's reputation +would be publicly known. The doctor and the notary who had told him of +Annette's relation to Dick could but confirm it. No denial from them was +possible. And sooner or later the ugly scandal would be known by every +creature at Riff. + +Roger choked. Now he realized that, was he still willing to marry her? +_He was willing._ He was more than willing, he was absolutely +determined. He wanted her as he had never wanted anything in his life. +He would marry her, and together they would face the scandal and live it +down. Janey would stick to them. He loathed the thought of the +whispering tongues destroying his wife's good name. He sickened at it, +but it was inevitable. + +But would Annette on her side be willing to marry _him_, and bear the +obloquy that must fall upon her? Would she not prefer to leave Riff and +him for ever? That was what he must ask her. In his heart he believed +she would still take him. "She would bear it for my sake," he said to +himself. "Annette is very brave, and she thinks nothing of herself." + +A faint glimmer of her character was beginning to dawn in her lover's +shaken mind. The "Sun-of-my-soul," tame-canary, fancy portrait of his +own composition, on which he had often fondly dwelt, did not prove much +of a mainstay at this crisis, perhaps because it lacked life. Who can +lean upon a wooden heart! It is sad that some of us never perceive the +nobility of those we love until we need it. Roger had urgent need of +Annette's generosity and unselfishness, urgent need of her humility. He +unconsciously wanted all the greatest qualities of heart and mind from +her, he who had been drawn towards her, as Janey well knew, only by +little things--by her sweet face, and her violet eyes, and the curl on +her white neck. + +After all, would it be best for _her_ that they should part? + +Something in Roger cried out in such mortal terror of its life that that +thought was dismissed as unendurable. + +"We can't part," said Roger to himself. "The truth is, I can't live +without her, and I won't. We'll face it together." + +But there was anguish in the thought. His beautiful lady who loved him! +That he who held her so dear, who only asked to protect her from pain +and ill, that he should be the one to cast a slur upon her! But there +was no way out of it. + +He sobbed against his pillow. + +And in the silence came the stammered, half-choked words, "Annette, +Annette!" + +But only the room heard them, which had heard the same appeal on a +September night just a year ago. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + "Twice I have stood a beggar + Before the door of God." + EMILY DICKENSON. + + +"I don't find either of you very helpful," said Aunt Harriet +plaintively. + +Her couch had been wheeled out under the apple tree, and her sister and +niece were sitting with her under its shade after luncheon. During the +meal Aunt Harriet had at considerable length expounded one of the many +problems that agitated her, the solution of which would have robbed her +of her principal happiness in life. + +Her mind, what little there was of it, was spasmodically and +intermittently employed in what she called "threshing out things." The +real problems of life never got within shouting distance of Aunt +Harriet, but she would argue for days together whether it was right--not +for others but for her--to repeat as if she assented to them the +somewhat unsympathetic utterances of the Athanasian Creed as to the fate +in store for those who did not hold all its tenets. + +"And I don't believe they will all go to hell fire," she said +mournfully. "I'm too wide-minded, and I've lived too much in a highly +cultivated society. The Miss Blinketts may, but I don't. And I know as a +fact that Mr. Harvey does not believe it either.... Though, of course, I +_do_ accept the Athanasian Creed. I was able to assure Canon Wetherby so +only yesterday, when I discussed the subject with him. He said it was +the corner-stone of the Church, and that in these agnostic days we +Church people must all hold firmly together, shoulder to shoulder. I see +that, and I don't want to undermine the Church, but----" + +"Suppose you were to leave out that one response about hell fire," said +Annette, "and say all the rest." + +"I am afraid my silence might be noticed. It was different in London, +but in a place like Riff where we, Maria of course more than I, but +still where we both stand as I may say in the forefront, take the lead +in the religious life of the place, good example, influential attitude, +every eye upon us. It _is_ perplexing. For is it quite, quite truthful +to keep silence? 'Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie.' How do you +meet _that_, Annette? or, 'To thine own self be true, and it will follow +as the night to day'--I mean as the day to night--'thou canst not then +be false to anybody.' What do you say to _that_, Annette?" + +Annette appeared to have nothing to say, and did not answer. Aunt Maria, +slowly turning the leaves of a presentation volume from Mr. Harvey, said +nothing either. + +"I don't find either of you particularly helpful," said Aunt Harriet +again. "You are both very fortunate, I'm sure, not to have any spiritual +difficulties. I often wish I had not such an active mind. I think I had +better ask Mr. Black to come and see me about it. He is always kind. He +tells me people constantly unburden themselves to him." + +"That is an excellent idea," said Aunt Maria promptly, with a total lack +of consideration for Mr. Black, who perhaps, however, deserved his fate +for putting his lips to his own trumpet. "He has studied these subjects +more than Annette and I have done. Ask him to luncheon to-morrow." + +Aunt Harriet, somewhat mollified, settled herself among her cushions, +and withdrew her teeth as a preliminary to her daily siesta. Aunt Maria, +who had been bolt upright at her desk since half-past nine, took off her +spectacles and closed her eyes. + +A carriage was heard to rumble into the courtyard. + +"Fly, my dear, fly," said Aunt Harriet, "catch Hodgkins and tell her we +are not at home. I'm not equal to seeing anyone till four o'clock. I +should have thought all the neighbourhood must have realized that by +now. Save me, Annette." + +Annette hurried into the house, and then through a side window suddenly +caught sight of Mrs. Stoddart's long grim face under a parasol, and ran +out to her and dragged her out of the carriage. + +"I thought you had gone," she said, holding her tightly by her mantilla, +as if Mrs. Stoddart might elude her even now. The elder woman looked at +Annette's drawn face and thrust out her under lip. She had feared there +would be trouble when Annette told Roger of her past, and had asked Mr. +Stirling to let her stay on at Noyes a few days longer. As she sat by +Annette in the parlour at Red Riff she saw that trouble had indeed come. + +"You have told your Roger," she said laconically, looking at the girl +with anger and respect. "I don't need to ask how he has taken it." + +Annette recounted what had happened, and once again Mrs. Stoddart +experienced a shock. She had come prepared to hear that Roger had +withdrawn the light of his countenance from Annette, and to offer stern +consolation. But the complication caused by Annette having informed +Roger of the existence of the will, and the fact that she had witnessed +it, overwhelmed her. + +A swift spasm passed over her face. + +"This is the first I've heard of you witnessing it," she said, sitting +very bolt upright on the sofa. + +Annette owned she had entirely forgotten that she had done so until +Roger had told her no will was forthcoming. + +"Then it all came back to me," she said. + +"It's not to be wondered at that you did not remember, considering you +became unconscious with brain fever a few hours later," said Mrs. +Stoddart in a perfectly level voice. And then, without any warning, she +began to cry. + +Annette gazed at her thunderstruck. She had never seen her cry before. +What that able woman did, she did thoroughly. + +"I thought I had seen to everything," she said presently, her voice +shaking with anger, "taken every precaution, stopped up every hole where +discovery could leak out, and fortune favoured you. My only fear was +that Dick's valet, who was at the funeral, might recognize you. But he +didn't." + +"I told you he did not see me at the station that day I went with Dick." + +"I know you did, but I thought he might have seen you, all the same. But +he evidently didn't, or he would have mentioned it to the family at +once. And now--now all my trouble and cleverness and planning for you +are thrown away, are made absolutely useless by yourself, Annette: +because of your suicidal simpleness in witnessing that accursed will. +It's enough to make a saint swear." + +Mrs. Stoddart wiped her eyes, and shook her fist in the air. + +"Providence never does play fair," she said. "I've been outwitted, +beaten, but it wasn't cricket. I keep my self-respect. The question +remains, What is to be done?" + +"I shall wait till Roger comes back before I do anything." + +"I take for granted that Roger Manvers and his cousin Janey will never +say a word against you?--that they will never 'tell,' as the children +say." + +"I am sure they never will." + +"And much good that will do you when your signature is fixed to Dick's +will! That fact must become known, and your position at Fontainebleau is +bound to leak out. Roger can't prove the will without giving you away. +Do you understand that?" + +"I had not thought of it." + +"Then every man, woman, and child at Riff, including your aunts, will +know about you." + +"Yes,"--a very faint "Yes," through white lips. + +"And they will all, with one consent, especially your aunts, believe the +worst." + +"I am afraid they will." + +There was a long silence. + +"You _can't_ remain here, Annette." + +"You said before at Fontainebleau that I could not remain, but I did." + +Mrs. Stoddart recognized, not for the first time, behind Annette's +mildness an obstinacy before which she was powerless. + +As usual, she tried another tack. + +"For the sake of your aunts you ought to leave at once, and you ought to +persuade them to go with you, before the first breath of scandal reaches +Riff." + +"Yes, we must all go. Of course we can't go on living here, but I would +rather see Roger first. Roger is good, and he is so kind. He will +understand about the aunts, and give me a few days to make it as easy to +them as it can be made, poor dears." + +"You ought to prepare their minds for leaving Riff. I should not think +that would be difficult, for they lamented to me that they were buried +here, and only remained on your account." + +"Yes, they always say that. I will tell them I don't like it, and as +they don't like it either, it would be best if we went away." + +"You are wishing that nothing had been kept from them in the first +instance?" said Mrs. Stoddart, deeply wounded, though she kept an +inflexible face. + +"Yes," said Annette; "and yet I have always been thankful in a way they +did not know. I have felt the last few days as if the only thing I +really could not bear was telling the aunts. But this will be even +worse--I mean that you say everybody will know. It will wound them in +their pride, and upset them dreadfully. And they are fond of me now, +which will make it worse for them if it is publicly known. They might +have got over it if only Roger and Janey knew. But they will never +forgive me putting them to public shame." + +"Come and live with me," said Mrs. Stoddart fiercely. "I love you, +Annette." And in her heart she thought that if her precious only son, +her adored Mark, did fall in love with Annette he could not do better. +"Come and live with me." + +"I will gladly come and live with you for a time later on." + +"Come now." + +"Not yet." + +"It's no use stopping," she said, taking the girl by the shoulders. +"What's the good? Your Roger won't marry you, my poor child." + +"No," said Annette firmly, though her lips had blanched. "I know he will +not. But--I ran away before when some one would not marry me, and it did +not make things any better--only much, much worse. My mind is made up. I +will stay this time." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + "Il ne suffit pas d'être logique en ce monde; il faut savoir vivre + avec ceux qui ne le sont pas."--VALTOUR. + + +In later years Annette remembered little of the days that passed while +Roger was in France. They ought to have been terrible days, days of +suspense and foreboding, but they were not. Her mind was at rest. It had +long oppressed her that her two best friends, Roger and Janey, were in +ignorance of certain facts about her which their friendship for her and +their trust in her gave them a right to know. With a sinking of the +heart, she said to herself, "They know now." But that was easier to bear +than "They ought to know." + +If she had hoped for a letter from Roger none came, but I hardly think +she was so foolish as to hope it. + +Janey had been to see her, had climbed up to her little attic, and had +stretched out her arms to her. And Annette and she had held each other +closely, and looked into each other's eyes, and kissed each other in +silence. No word passed between them, and then Janey had gone away +again. The remembrance of that wordless embrace lay heavy on Janey's +sore heart. Annette, pallid and worn, had blamed no one, had made no +excuse for herself. How she had misjudged Annette!--she, her friend. + +But if Annette felt relief about Roger and Janey, the thought of the +aunts brought a pang with it, especially since Mrs. Stoddart's visit. +They had reached the state of nerves when the sweeps are an event, a +broken window-cord an occasion for fortitude, a patch of damp on the +ceiling a disaster. They would be wounded to the quick in their pride +and in their affection if any scandal attached to her name; for they had +become fond of her since she had devoted herself to them. While she had +been as a young girl a claim on their time and attention they had not +cared much about her, but now she was indispensable to them, and she who +formerly could do nothing right could now hardly do anything wrong. Oh! +why had she concealed anything from them in the first instance? Why had +she allowed kind, clever Mrs. Stoddart to judge for her what was right +when she ought to have followed her own instinct of telling them, before +they had come to lean upon her? "Mrs. Stoddart only thought of me," +Annette said to herself. "She never considered the aunts at all," which +was about the truth. + +Their whole happiness would be destroyed, the even tenor of their lives +broken up. Aunt Maria often talked as if she had plumbed the greatest +depths to which human nature can sink. Aunt Harriet had more than +hinted that many dark and even improper problems had been unravelled in +tears beside her couch. But Annette knew very well that these utterances +were purely academic and had no connection with anything real, +indicating only the anxious desire of middle age, half conscious that it +is in a backwater, to impress on itself and others that--to use its own +pathetic phrase--it is "keeping in touch with life." + +The aunts must leave Riff, and quickly. Mrs. Stoddart was right. Annette +realized that their lives could be reconstructed like other mechanisms: +taken down like an iron building and put up elsewhere. They had struck +no root in Riff as she herself had done. Aunt Harriet had always had a +leaning towards Bournemouth. No doubt they could easily form there +another little circle where they would be admired and appreciated. There +must be the equivalent of Canon Wetherby wherever one went. Yes, they +must leave Riff. Fortunately, both aunts had only consented, much +against the grain, to live in the country on account of their sister's +health; both lamented that they were cut off from congenial literary +society; both frequently regretted the move. She would have no +difficulty in persuading them to leave Riff, for already she had had to +exercise a certain amount of persuasion to induce them to remain. She +must prepare their minds without delay. + +For once, Fortune favoured her. + +Aunt Harriet did not come down to breakfast, and the meal was, in +consequence, one of the pleasantest of the day, in spite of the fact +that Aunt Maria was generally oppressed with the thought of the +morning's work which was hanging over her. She was unhappy and irritable +if she did not work, and pessimistic as to the quality of what she had +written if she did work. But Aunt Harriet had a knack of occasionally +trailing in untoileted in her dressing-gown, without her _toupée_, +during breakfast, ostensibly in order to impart interesting items of +news culled from her morning letters, but in reality to glean up any +small scraps of information in the voluminous correspondence of her +sister. She did so the morning after Mrs. Stoddart's visit, carrying in +one hand her air-cushion, and with the other holding out a card to Aunt +Maria, sitting bolt upright, neatly groomed, self-respecting, behind her +silver teapot. + +"Oh, Maria! See what we miss by living in the country." + +Aunt Maria adjusted her pince-nez and inspected the card. + +"Mission to the women of the Zambesi! H'm! H'm!" + +"The Bishop will speak himself," almost wailed Aunt Harriet. "Don't you +see it, Maria? 'Will address the meeting.' Our own dear Bishop!" + +"If you are alluding to the Bishop of Booleywoggah, you never went to +the previous meetings of the Society when we were in London." + +"Could I help that?" said Aunt Harriet, much wounded. "Really, you +sometimes speak, Maria, as if I had not a weak spine, and could move +about as I liked. No one was more active than I was before I was struck +down, and I suppost it is only natural that I should miss the _va et +vient_, the movement, the clash of wits of London. I never have +complained,--I never do complain,--but I'm completely buried here, and +that's the truth." + +"We came here on Catherine's account," said Aunt Maria. "No one +regretted the move more than I did. Except Mr. Stirling, there is no one +I really care to associate with down here." "Why remain, then," said +Annette, "if none of us like it?" + +Both the aunts stared at her aghast. + +"Leave Red Riff!" said Aunt Maria, as if it had been suggested that she +should leave this planet altogether. + +"Why, Annette," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "of course we should +not think of doing such a selfish thing, now we have you to think of--at +least, I speak for myself. You love the country. It suits you. You are +not intellectual, not like us passionately absorbed in the problems of +the day. You have your little _milieu_, and your little innocent local +interests--the choir, the Sunday school, your friends the Miss +Blinketts, the Manvers, the Blacks. It would be too cruel to uproot you +now, and I for one should never consent to it." + +"Aren't you happy here, Annette, that you wish to move?" said Aunt Maria +dryly. + +It slid through Annette's mind that she understood why Aunt Maria +complained that few of her friends had remained loyal to her. She looked +straight in front of her. There was a perceptible pause before she spoke +again. + +"I have been happy here, but I should not like Red Riff as a +permanency." + +"Oh! my dear love," said Aunt Harriet, suddenly lurching from her chair +and kneeling down beside Annette, while the little air-cushion ran with +unusual vigour into the middle of the room, and then subsided with equal +suddenness on the floor. "I feared this. I have seen it coming. Men are +like that, even the clergy--I may say more especially the clergy. They +know not what they do, or what a fragile thing a young girl's heart is. +But are you not giving way to despair too early in the day? Don't you +agree with me, Maria? This may be only the night of sorrow. Joy may come +in the morning." + +Annette could not help smiling. She raised her aunt, retrieved the +air-cushion, replaced her upon it, and said-- + +"You are making a mistake. I am not--interested in Mr. Black." + +"I never thought for a moment you were," said Aunt Maria bluntly. "Mr. +Black is all very well--a most estimable person, I have no doubt. But I +don't see why you are in such a hurry to leave Riff." + +"You both want to go, and so do I. As we all three wish to go, why +stay?" + +"Personally, I am in no hurry to go till I have finished _The Silver +Cross_," said Aunt Maria. + +"No one misses the stimulus of cultivated society more than I do, but I +always feel London life, with its large demands upon one, somewhat of a +strain when I am composing. And the seclusion of the country is +certainly conducive to work." + +"And as for myself," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "I would not +willingly place a great distance between myself and dear Cathie's +grave." Aunt Maria and Annette winced. "And I'm sure I don't know who is +wanting to leave Riff if it isn't you, Maria. Haven't I just said that I +never do complain? Have I ever complained? And there is no doubt, +delicate as I am, I _am_ the better for the country air." Aunt Harriet +was subsiding into tears and a handkerchief. "Sea only nine miles +off--crow flies--fresh cream, new-laid eggs, more colour--Canon Wetherby +noticed it. He said, 'Some one's looking well.' And nearly a pound +gained since last weighed. And now all this talk about leaving, and +putting it on me as if it was my suggestion." + +"It was mine," said Annette cheerfully, with the dreadful knowledge +which is mercifully only the outcome of affection. "I retract it. After +all, why should you both leave Riff if you like living here? Let us +each go on our way, and do what suits us best. You must both stay, and I +will go." + +There was a dead silence. The two aunts looked aghast at Annette, and +she saw, almost with shame, how entirely she had the whip hand. Their +dependence on her was too complete. + +"I don't understand this sudden change on your part," said Aunt Maria at +last. "Is it only a preamble to the fact that you intend to leave us a +second time?" + +"Not if you live in London," said Annette firmly, "or--Bournemouth; but +I don't care for the country all the year round, and I would prefer to +move before the winter. I'm rather afraid of the effect the snow might +have on me." Aunt Harriet looked terrified. "I believe it lies very +deep, feet deep, all over Lowshire. Mrs. Stoddart has asked me to winter +with her in London, so perhaps I had better write and tell her I will do +so. And now I must go and order dinner." + +She got up and left the room, leaving her two aunts staring as blankly +at each other as after their sister's funeral. + +"Maria," said Aunt Harriet in a hollow voice, "we have no knowledge of +the effect of wide areas of snow upon my constitution." + +"And so that was what Mrs. Stoddart came over about yesterday?" said +Aunt Maria. "She wants to get Annette away from us, and make her act as +unpaid companion to her. I must say it is fairly barefaced. Annette's +place is with us until she marries, and if it is necessary I shall +inform Mrs. Stoddart of that fact. At the same time, I have had it in my +mind for some time past that it might be advisable to shut up this house +for the winter months and take one in London." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + "There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to + conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when + men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such + times can never give."--SYDNEY SMITH. + + +Annette had been waked early by two young swallows which had flown into +her room, and had circled swiftly round it with sharp, ecstatic cries, +and then had sped out again into the dawn. + +She dressed, and went noiselessly into the garden, and then wandered +into the long meadows that stretched in front of the house. The low +slanting sunshine was piercing the mist which moved slowly along the +ground, and curled up into the windless air like smoke. The dew was on +everything. She wondered the blades of grass could each bear such a +burden of it. Every spider's web in the hedgerow, and what numbers there +seemed, all of a sudden had become a glistening silver-beaded pocket. +Surely no fly, however heedless, would fly therein. And everywhere the +yellow tips of the groundsel had expanded into tiny white fluffy balls +of down, strewing the empty fields, floating with the floating mist. + +But though it was early, the little world of Riff was astir. In the +distance she could hear the throb of the mill, and close at hand across +the lane two great yellow horses were solemnly pacing an empty +clover-field, accompanied by much jingling of machinery and a boyish +whistle. Men with long rakes were drawing the weeds into heaps, and +wreaths of smoke mingled with the mist. The thin fires leaped and +crackled, the pale flames hardly wavering in the still, sunny air. + +Instinctively Annette's steps turned towards the sound of the mill. She +crossed the ford by the white stepping-stones, dislodging a colony of +ducks preening themselves upon the biggest stone, and followed the +willow-edged stream to the mill. + +There had been rain in the night, and the little Rieben chafed and +girded against the mill-race. + +She watched it, as a year ago she had watched the Seine chafe against +its great stone bastions. The past rose before her at the sight and +sound of the water, and the crinkling and circling of the eddies of +yellow foam. + +How unendurable her life had seemed to her on that day! And now to-day +life was valueless. Once again it had been shattered like glass. She had +been cast forth then. Now she was cast forth once more. She had made +herself a little niche, crept into a crevice where she had thought no +angel with a flaming sword would find her and drive her out. But she +was being driven out once more into the wilderness. She had no abiding +city anywhere. + +From where she stood she looked past the mill to the released and +pacified water circling round the village, and then stretching away, +silver band beyond silver band, in the direction of Riebenbridge. The +sun had vanquished the mist, and lay warmly on the clustered cottages +and the grey church tower, and on the old red and blue façade of Hulver +among its hollies. And very high up above it all stretched a sky of tiny +shredded clouds like a flock of a thousand thousand sheep. + +How tranquil it all was, and how closely akin to her, how fraught with +mysterious meaning!--as the kind meadows and trees ever do seem fraught +where we have met Love, even the Love that is unequal, and presently +passes away. + +She must leave it all, and she must part with Roger. She had thought of +him as her husband. She had thought of the children she should bear him. +She looked at the water with eyes as tearless as a year ago, and saw her +happiness pass like a bubble on its surface, break like the iridescent +bubble that it is on life's rough river. But the water held no +temptation for her to-day. She had passed the place where we are +intolerant of burdens. She saw that they are the common lot. Roger and +Janey had borne theirs in patience and in silence and without self-pity +for years. They were her ideal, and she must try to be like them. She +did not need her solemn promise to Dick to keep her from the water's +edge, though her sense of desolation was greater to-day than it had been +a year ago. For there had been pride and resentment in her heart then, +and it is not a wounded devotion but a wounded self-love which arouses +resentment in our hearts. + +She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation, but her heart +ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no +romance now as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new +moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper, where all love must go, if it +is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an +abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a +word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not +written to her since. + +"I am not good enough for him," said Annette to herself. "That is the +truth. He and Janey are too far above me." + +She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that +it might have been she who was too good for Roger--only it was +unthinkable. But if _he_ had been under some cloud, then she knew that +they would not have had to part. + +She had reached the stile where the water meadows begin, and +instinctively she stood still and looked at her little world once more, +and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his +inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not +what he thought, but if she had been, if she had never had her mad +moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain +Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for +Roger. Out of evil good had come--if not to her, to him. She crossed the +stile, where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to +it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry +of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day--when she was very +old--would she also forget? + +Across the empty field thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they +had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes +of forget-me-not peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower +now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow branch, +and reached it and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it +seemed to Annette that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a +great peace by a stream such as this, a kind understanding stream, and +she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it +in her bosom, and she had met beside the stream one that loved her: and +all had been well, exceeding well. + +A great peace enfolded her, as a mother enfolds her new-born babe. She +was wrapt away from pain. + + +Along the narrow path by the water's edge Roger was coming: now dimly +seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. Annette +felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she +knew now that she had been waiting for him. + +He came up to her and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they +looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having +missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had +come out to Riebenbridge by the first train this morning. + +"I have the will," he said, and touched his breast. And his eyes passed +beyond her to the familiar picture he knew so well, of Riff beyond the +river, and the low church tower, and the old house among the trees. He +looked long at it all, and Annette saw that his inheritance was his +first thought. It seemed to her natural. There were many, many women in +the world, but only one Hulver. + +His honest, tired face quivered. + +"I owe it to you," he said. + +She did not answer. She turned with him, and they went a few steps in +silence; and if she had not been wrapt away from all pain, I think she +must have been wounded by his choosing that moment to tell her that the +notary had pronounced Hulver "Heevair," and that those French lawyers +were a very ignorant lot. But he was in reality only getting ready to +say something, and it was his habit to say something else while doing +so. He had no fear of being _banal_. It was a word he had never heard. +He informed her which hotel he had put up at in Ipswich, and how he had +had a couple of poached eggs on arrival. Then he stopped. + +"Annette," he said, "of course you understood about my not writing to +you, because I ought to have written." + +Annette said faintly, as all women must say, that she had understood. No +doubt she had, but not in the sense which he imagined. + +"I owe it all to you," he said again, "but I shouldn't have any +happiness in it unless I had you too. Annette, will you marry me?" + +She shook her head. But there would be no marriages at all if men took +any notice of such bagatelles as that. Roger pressed stolidly forward. + +"I had not time to say anything the other day," he said, hurrying over +what even he realized was thin ice. "You were gone all in a flash. +But--but, Annette, nothing you said then makes any change in my feeling +for you. I wanted to marry you before, and I want to marry you now." + +"Didn't they--the doctor and the notary--didn't they tell you when you +saw my signature that I was--guilty?" + +"Yes," said Roger firmly, "they did. The doctor spoke of you with great +respect, but he did think so. But you have told me you were not. That is +enough for me. Will you marry me, Annette?" + +"You are good, Roger," she said, looking at him with a great +tenderness,--"good all through. That is why you think I am good too. But +the will remains. My signature to it remains. That _must_ be known when +the will is proved. Mrs. Stoddart says so. She said my good name must +suffer. I am afraid if I married you that you and Janey would be the +only two people in Riff who would believe that I was innocent." + +"And is not my belief enough?" + +She looked at him with love unspeakable. + +"It is enough for me," she said, "but not for you. You would not be +happy, or only for a little bit, not for long, with a wife whom every +one, every one from the Bishop to the cowman, believed to be Dick's +cast-off mistress." + +Roger set his teeth, and became his usual plum colour. + +"We would live it down." + +"No," she said. "That is the kind of thing that is never lived down--at +least, not in places like this. I know enough to know that." + +He knew it too. He knew it better than she did. + +He got the will slowly out of his pocket and opened it. They looked +together at her signature. Roger saw it through tears of rage, and +crushed the paper together again into his pocket. + +"Oh! Annette," he said, with a groan. "Why did you sign it?" + +"I did it to please Dick," she said. + +Across the water the church bell called to an early service. Roger +looked once more at his little world, grown shadowy and indistinct in a +veil of smoke. It seemed as if his happiness were fading and eddying +away into thin air with the eddies of blue smoke. + +"We must part," said Annette. "I am sure you see that." + +The forget-me-not fell from her bosom, and she let it lie. He looked +back at her. He had become very pale. + +"I see one thing," he said fiercely, "and that is that I can't live +without you, and what is more, I don't mean to. If you will marry me, +I'll stand the racket about the scandal. Hulver is no good to me without +you. My life is no good to me without you. If you won't marry me, I'll +marry no one, so help me God. If you won't take me, I shall never have +any happiness at all. So now you know!--with your talk of parting." + +She did not answer. She stooped and picked up the forget-me-not again, +and put it back in her bosom. Perhaps she thought that was an answer. + +"Annette," he said slowly, "do you care for me enough to marry me and +live here with me? You as my wife and Hulver as my home are the two +things I want. But that is all very well for me. The scandal will fall +worst on you. If I can stand it, can you?" + +"Yes." + +"It will come very hard on you, Annette." + +"I don't mind." + +"I shan't be able to shield you from evil tongues. There is not a soul +in the village that won't end by knowing, sooner or later. And they +think all the world of you now. Can you bear all this--for my sake?" + +"Yes." + +"And yet you're crying, Annette." + +"I was thinking about the aunts. They will feel it so dreadfully, and so +will Mrs. Nicholls. I'm very fond of Mrs. Nicholls." + +He caught her to him and kissed her passionately. + +"Do you never think of yourself?" he stammered. "You chucked your name +away to please poor Dick. And you're ready to marry me and brave it +out--to please me." + +"You are enough for me, Roger." She clung to him. + +He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her. + +"Am I? Am I enough? A man who would put you through such a thing, even +if you're willing, Annette. You stick at nothing. You're willing. +But--by God--I'm not." + +She looked dumbly at him, with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought +he was going to discard her after all. + +"I thought I wanted Hulver more than anything in the world," he said +wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket, "but the price is too high. +My wife's good name. I won't pay it. Annette, I will not pay it." + +And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it. + +The smoke eddied, and blew suddenly towards them. The fire hesitated a +moment, and then, as Annette gazed stupefied, a little flame curled +busily along the open sheet. + +Before he knew she had moved, she had rushed past him, and had thrust +her hands into the fire and torn out the burning paper. The flame ran +nimbly up her arm, devouring her thin sleeve, and he had only just time +to beat it out with his hands before it reached her hair. + +He drew her out of the smoke and held her forcibly. She panted hard, +sobbing a little. The will gripped tight in her hand was pressed against +her breast and his. + +"Annette!" he said hoarsely, over and over again. Still holding the will +fast, she drew away from him, and opened it with trembling, bleeding +fingers, staining the sheet. + +"It is safe," she said. "It's safe. It's only scorched. You can see the +writing quite clear through the brown. Look, Roger, but you mustn't +touch it. I can't trust you to touch it. _It is safe._ Only the bottom +of the sheet is burnt where there wasn't anything written. Look! Dick's +name is there, and the doctor's, and the notary's. Only mine is gone.... +Oh, Roger! Now my name is gone, the will is--just about right, isn't +it?" + +Roger drew in his breath, and looked at the blood-smeared, smoke-stained +page. + +"It is all right now," he said in a strangled voice. And then he +suddenly fell on his knees and hid his convulsed face in her gown. + +"You mustn't cry, Roger. And you mustn't kiss the hem of my gown. +Indeed, you mustn't. It makes me ashamed. Nor my hands: they're quite +black. Oh! how my poor Roger cries!" + + +THE END + + +_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_ + + * * * * * + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + +MOTH AND RUST + +Together with + +Geoffrey's Wife and the Pitfall + +2s. 6d. net + +" ... A fine story, admirably told."--_World._ + +"The best short stories written in English that we have read."--_Times._ + +" ... Admirable alike as a story and as a presentation of human +character.... We must not give away too many of the details of a story +which, besides being well put together, is exceptionally well +written."--_Globe._ + +"Miss Cholmondeley's new book will distinctly add to an already high +reputation.... We have rarely met in recent fiction two more thoroughly +real and convincing characters than Lady Anne Varney and Wilson the +millionaire.... It is rare indeed that any one displays so great an +aptitude for the long and the short story, and Miss Cholmondeley can be +heartily congratulated on her success in this volume."--_Pall Mall +Gazette._ + +"A delectable story. Here we have a high-born lady who really +understands the meaning of love, and a millionaire who positively +attracts--a rare thing in a novel. Life is portrayed as it is, not as +the conventional fictionist imagines it, and portrayed with a genuine +artistic touch."--_Outlook._ + + +THE LOWEST RUNG + +2s. 6d. net + +A Reviewer, writing in the _Westminster Gazette_ in defence of the Short +Story, says: "Above all, let him take 'The Lowest Rung' and 'The Hand on +the Latch' from Miss Mary Cholmondeley's latest volume, and fling them +down as his last and most convincing proof. + +"Of these last two stories it is difficult to speak too highly, for, of +their kind, they are so nearly perfect." + +"For the three stories contained in the volume we have nothing but +praise; they are full of what might be called picturesqueness, and the +author has the rare art of making everything in a story lead up to the +effect--the final pull, as it were, that unties the whole knot--which +she is keeping up for the end." _Glasgow Herald._ + + +MURRAY'S SHILLING LIBRARY + +_In Red Cloth, crown 8vo, 1/- net each_ + + +_NEW VOLUMES_ + + + GOLDEN STRING. A Day Book for Busy Men and Women. Arranged by + SUSAN, COUNTESS OF MALMESBURY, and Miss VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT. + +" ... an admirable selection of noble and inspiring +thoughts."--_Westminster Gazette._ + +" ... delightful little volume ... one can find nothing but praise for a +happy idea so admirably carried out"--_Ladies' Field._ + + + RUNNING THE BLOCKADE. A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, + and Escapes during the American Civil War. By THOMAS E. TAYLOR. + Frontispiece and Map. + +Mr. Taylor's work is at once an absorbing record of personal adventure, +and a real contribution to history, for it presents to us, from the pen +of a principal actor, the most complete account we have of a great +blockade in the early days of steam. As a picture of exciting escapes, +of coolness and resource at moments of acute danger, of well-calculated +risks, boldly accepted and obstinately carried through, it has few +rivals in sea story. + + + HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY: The Land of Augustine, The + Murder of Becket, Edward the Black Prince, Becket's Shrine. By the + late DEAN STANLEY. With Illustrations. + +"No pilgrim to Canterbury need now content himself with the meagre +historical information of the guide-books when he can get Dean Stanley's +fascinating work for one shilling."--_The Church Times._ + + + LIVINGSTONE'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA. A popular account of + Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. By DAVID + LIVINGSTONE, M.D. With Map and numerous Illustrations. + +This is the great missionary-explorer's own narrative of his first +travel experiences in Africa, and consists chiefly of a full account of +his wonderful journeys in the years 1849-1856, in the course of which he +discovered the Victoria Falls, and crossed the continent from west to +east. Many books have been written on the subject of Livingstone and his +travels, but all who are interested in the greatest of African +travellers should read this record. + + + THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS. By MICHAEL FAIRLESS. + +Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, +the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and +Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart. + +The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death +and a monk with an artist's eye; but for the author it is a romance of +the Image of God. + + + JAMES NASMYTH, Engineer and Inventor of the Steam Hammer. An + Autobiography. By SAMUEL SMILES. Portrait and Illustrations. + +"We should not know where to stop if we were to attempt to notice all +that is instructive and interesting in this volume. It will be found +equally interesting to students of human nature, to engineers, to +astronomers, and even to archæologists. Among other merits, there are +few books which could be put with more advantage into a young man's +hands, as affording an example of the qualities which conduce to +legitimate success in work."--_The Quarterly Review._ + + + AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S LOVE LETTERS. By LAURENCE HOUSMAN. + +Mr. T. P. O'Connor in the _Daily Mail says_:--"I turned over the leaves +rapidly, almost greedily, and had read almost all its story before I +could allow myself to sleep.... It is a loud cry, not merely of one +intoxicated and torn heart, but of the claim of inner and true emotion +to be still the greatest force of life; the one thing worth +having--worth living for, longing for, dying for." + + + ÆSOP'S FABLES. A New Version, chiefly from the original sources. By + the Rev. THOMAS JAMES, M.A. With more than 100 Woodcuts designed by + TENNIEL and WOLFE. + +Sir John Tenniel's beautiful illustrations are a notable feature of this +edition of "the most popular moral and political class-book of more than +two thousand years." The Fables have been re-translated chiefly from +original sources, and are printed in a clear and attractive type. They +are accompanied by a scholarly and interesting introductory sketch of +the life of Æsop and the history of the Fables. + + + THE LION HUNTER IN SOUTH AFRICA. Five Years' Adventures in the Far + Interior of South Africa, with Notices of the Native Tribes and + Savage Animals. By ROUALEYN GORDON CUMMING, of Altyre. With + Woodcuts. + +This sporting classic is a fascinating first-hand narrative of hunting +expeditions in pursuit of big game and adventures with native tribes. A +special interest now attaches to it by reason of the great changes which +have come over the "scene of the lion hunter's" exploits in a +comparatively short space of time--in districts where his was the first +white man's foot to tread, our armies marched and fought in the late +South African War, and prosperous towns are now established. + + + UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. An Account of Travels in the Interior, + including visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikkô. + By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD). With Illustrations. + +Written in the form of letters to her sister, this book gives +practically the author's day to day experiences during journeys of over +one hundred and four thousand miles in Japan. Mrs. Bird was the first +European lady to visit many of the places described, and her journeys +took place at what is perhaps the most interesting period of the +country's history, when she was just beginning to awake to the glow of +Western civilisation. As a faithful and realistic description of Old +Japan by one of the most remarkable Englishwomen of her day, this book +has an abiding interest. + + + NOTES FROM A DIARY. First Series. By SIR MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF. + +Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, besides being a distinguished +public-servant, was a popular member of society with a genius for +gathering and recording good stories. In his series of "Notes from a +Diary" he jotted down the best things he heard, and thereby made some +very enjoyable volumes, which in cheaper guise will repeat and increase +the success they gained in their more expensive form. + + + LAVENGRO: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest. By GEORGE BORROW. + With 6 Pen and Ink Sketches by PERCY WADHAM. + +This edition contains the unaltered text of the original issue: with the +addition of some Suppressed Episodes printed only in the Editions issued +by Mr. Murray; MS. Variorum, Vocabulary, and Notes by the late Professor +W. I. KNAPP. + + + OUR ENGLISH BIBLE. The Story of its Origin and Growth. By H. W. + HAMILTON HOARE, late of Balliol College, Oxford, now an Assistant + Secretary to the Board of Education, Whitehall. With Specimen Pages + of Old Bibles. + +An historical sketch of the lineage of our Authorised Version, which was +published in 1901 under the title of "The Evolution of the English +Bible." + +The aim of the sketch is to give, in a continuous and narrative form, a +history of our English translations, and to exhibit them in close +connection with the story of the national life. + + + THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA. A Selection from her Majesty's + correspondence between the years 1837 and 1861. Edited by A. C. + BENSON, M.A., C.V.O., and VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.V.O., K.C.B. With 16 + Portraits. 3 vols. 1s. net each volume. + +Published by authority of his Majesty King Edward VII. This edition is +not abridged, but is the complete and revised text of the original. + + + ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION. By CHARLES + DARWIN. Popular impression of the Corrected Copyright Edition. + Issued with the approval of the author's executors. + +The first edition of Darwin's "Origin of Species" has now passed out of +copyright. + +It should, however, be clearly understood that the edition which thus +loses its legal protection is the imperfect edition which the author +subsequently revised and which was accordingly superseded. This, the +complete and authorised edition of the work, will not lose copyright for +some years. + +The only complete editions authorised by Mr. Darwin and his +representatives are those published by Mr. Murray. + + + ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST. An Account of a Voyage from San + Francisco round Cape Horn to Liverpool in a Fourmasted + "Windjammer," with experiences of the life of an Ordinary Seaman. + By BASIL LUBBOCK. With Illustrations. + +_The Sheffield Independent_ says:--"If you care to read what life at sea +in a sailing vessel really is like, this is the book that tells the +story.... Mr. Lubbock has a fine power of telling a tale realistically. +To read him is as good as being on the spot, and having the sights for +yourself, without the hardships. I have never read any work about the +sea that is as vivid and actual as this." + + + ENGLISH BATTLES AND SIEGES IN THE PENINSULA. By LIEUT.-GEN. SIR + WILLIAM NAPIER, K.C.B. With Portrait. + +In spite of the countless books which have appeared on the Peninsular +War, this great work has preserved its popularity as a standard book on +the subject for over half a century and still holds its own when most +rivals, which have appeared since, have faded into oblivion. + + + STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING. By H. C. BARKLEY. + +"Should the reader know of a schoolboy fond of ratting, the proud +possessor possibly of a sharp terrier, and, maybe, a few ferrets, and +wish to bestow a present upon him, the memory of which would last +throughout his life, we could not do better than advise him to purchase +this most pleasantly-written book and bestow it upon him."--_Field._ + + + THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. By the Right Rev. CHARLES GORE, D.D., + LL.D., Bishop of Oxford. + +The success of this book must constitute a record in modern sermonic +literature. There can be no question, however, that its success is due +to its own intrinsic value. Cultured and scholarly, and yet simple and +luminous, eloquent in tone and graceful in diction, practical and +stimulating, it is far and away the best exposition of the Sermon on the +Mount that has yet appeared. + + + THE HOUSE OF QUIET. An Autobiography. By A. C. BENSON. + +"The House of Quiet" is an autobiography, and something more--a series +of very charming essays on people and life--particularly rural life. The +writer has placed himself in the chair of an invalid, an individual +possessed of full mental vigour and free from bodily pain, but compelled +by physical weakness to shirk the rough and tumble of a careless, +unheeding, work-a-day world. Cheerfully accepting the inevitable, he +betakes himself to a little temple of solitude, where he indulges +himself in mild criticism and calm philosophy, exercising a gift of keen +observation to the full, but setting down all that comes within his ken, +with quaint and tolerant humour and tender whimsicalness. He writes with +a pen dipped in the milk of human kindness, and the result is a book to +read time and again. + + + THE THREAD OF GOLD. By A. C. BENSON. + +_The Guardian_ says:--"The style of the writing is equally simple and +yet dignified; from beginning to end an ease of movement charms the +reader. The book is abundantly suggestive.... The work is that of a +scholar and a thinker, quick to catch a vagrant emotion, and should be +read, as it was evidently written, in leisure and solitude. It covers a +wide range--art, nature, country life, human character, poetry and the +drama, morals and religion." + + + THE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE. From the 13th to the 16th Centuries. By + JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs. ADY). With Illustrations. + +Mrs. Ady is a competent and gifted writer on Italian painting, and +presents in these 350 pages an excellent history of the splendid art and +artists of Florence during the golden period from Cimabue and Giotto to +Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo. Those who are taking up the study of +the subject could not wish for a more interesting and serviceable +handbook. + + + A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. + BIRD). With Illustrations. + +_The Irish Times_ says:--"'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains' needs +no introduction to a public who have known and admired Mrs. Bishop +(Isabella L. Bird) as a fearless traveller in the days when it was +something of an achievement for a woman to undertake long and remote +journeys. Mrs. Bishop is a charming and spirited writer, and this cheap +edition of her work will be heartily welcomed." + + + THE LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. By WILLIAM GARDEN BLAIKIE. With + Portrait. + +This is the standard biography of the great missionary who will for ever +stand pre-eminent among African travellers. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Notwithstanding, by Mary Cholmondeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + +***** This file should be named 37781-8.txt or 37781-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/7/8/37781/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Notwithstanding + +Author: Mary Cholmondeley + +Release Date: October 17, 2011 [EBook #37781] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class = "mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br /> +A Table of Contents has been added.<br /></p></div> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2">NOTWITHSTANDING</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="center"><a name="coverpage.jpg" id="coverpage.jpg"></a><img src="images/coverpage.jpg" width='456' height='700' alt="coverpage" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<h1><span>NOTWITHSTANDING</span><br /><br /><span id="id1"><span class="smcap">By</span></span> <span>MARY CHOLMONDELEY</span></h1> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "RED POTTAGE"</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i13">Und was</div> +<div>Ist Zufall anders, als der rohe Stein,</div> +<div>Der Leben annimmt unter Bildners Hand?</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">LONDON:<br />JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.<br />1913</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><i>First Edition October 1913</i><br /> +<i>Reprinted October 1913</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center">TO<br />MAY AND JEANNIE</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS</span></h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER I</td> + <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER II</td> + <td><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER III</td> + <td><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER IV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER V</td> + <td><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER IX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER X</td> + <td><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXIX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XL</td> + <td><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XLI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_360">360</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XLII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_369">369</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">ADVERTISEMENTS </td> + <td><a href="#Page_381">381</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold2">NOTWITHSTANDING</p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne</div> +<div>M'a rendu fou!"</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Annette leaned against the low parapet and looked steadfastly at the +water, so steadfastly that all the brilliant, newly-washed, +tree-besprinkled city of Paris, lying spread before her, cleft by the +wide river with its many bridges, was invisible to her. She saw nothing +but the Seine, so tranquil yesterday, and to-day chafing beneath its +bridges and licking ominously round their great stone supports—because +there had been rain the day before.</p> + +<p>The Seine was the only angry, sinister element in the suave September +sunshine, and perhaps that was why Annette's eyes had been first drawn +to it. She also was angry, with the deep, still anger which invades once +or twice in a lifetime placid, gentle-tempered people.</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes under their long curled lashes looked down over the stone +bastion of the Pont Neuf at a yellow eddy just below her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> They were +beautiful eyes, limpid, deep, with a certain tranquil mystery in them. +But there was no mystery in them at this moment. They were fixed, dilated, desperate.</p> + +<p>Annette was twenty-one, but she looked much younger, owing to a certain +slowness of development, an immaturity of mind and body. She reminded +one not of an opening flower, but of a big, loose-limbed colt, ungainly +still, but every line promising symmetry and grace to come. She was not +quite beautiful yet, but that clearly was also still to come, when life +should have had time to erase a certain ruminative stolidity from her +fine, still countenance. One felt that in her schoolroom days she must +have been often tartly desired not to "moon." She gave the impression of +not having wholly emerged from the chrysalis, and her bewildered face, +the face of a dreamer, wore a strained expression, as if some cruel hand +had mockingly rent asunder the veils behind which her life had been +moving and growing so far, and had thrust her, cold and shuddering, with +unready wings, into a world for which she was not fully equipped.</p> + +<p>And Annette, pale gentle Annette, standing on the threshold of life, +unconsciously clutching an umbrella and a little handbag, was actually +thinking of throwing herself into the water!</p> + +<p>Not here, of course, but lower down, perhaps near St. Germains. No, not +St. Germains,—there were too many people there,—but Melun,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> where the +Seine was fringed thick with reeds and rushes, where in the dusk a +determined woman might wade out from the bank till the current took her.</p> + +<p>The remembrance of a certain expedition to Melun rose suddenly before +her. In a kind of anguish she saw again its little red and white houses, +sprinkled on the slope of its low hill, and the river below winding +between its willows and poplars, amid meadows of buttercups, scattered +with great posies of maythorn. She and he had sat together under one of +the may trees, and Mariette, poor Mariette, with Antoine at her feet, +had sat under another close at hand. And Mariette had sung in her thin, +reedy voice the song with its ever-recurring refrain—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne</div> +<div>Me rendra fou, oui, me rendra fou."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Annette shuddered and then was still.</p> + +<p>It must have been a very deep wound, inflicted with a jagged instrument, +which had brought her to this pass, which had lit this stony defiance in +her soft eyes. For though it was evident that she had rebelled against +life, it was equally evident that she was not of the egotistic +temperament of those who rebel or cavil, or are discontented. She looked +equable, feminine, the kind of woman who would take life easily, bend to it naturally,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"As the grass grows on the weirs";</div> +</div></div> + +<p>who might, indeed, become a tigress in defence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> of her young, but then +what woman would not?</p> + +<p>But it is not only in defence of its babes of flesh and blood that the +protective fierceness of woman can be aroused. There are spiritual +children, ideals, illusions, romantic beliefs in others, the +cold-blooded murder of which arouses the tigress in some women. Perhaps +it had been so with Annette. For the instinct to rend and tear was upon +her, and it had turned savagely against herself.</p> + +<p>Strange how in youth our first crushing defeat in the experiment of +living brings with it the temptation of suicide! Did we then imagine, in +spite of all we saw going on round us, that life was to be easy for +<i>us</i>, painless for <i>us</i>, joyful for <i>us</i>, so that the moment the iron +enters our soul we are so affronted that we say, "If this is life, we +will have none of it"?</p> + +<p>Several passers-by had cast a backward glance at Annette. Presently some +one stopped, with a little joyous exclamation. She was obliged to raise +her eyes and return his greeting.</p> + +<p>She knew him, the eccentric, rich young Englishman who rode his own +horses under a French name which no one believed was his own. He often +came to her father's cabaret in the Rue du Bac.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, M. Le Geyt."</p> + +<p>He came and leaned on the parapet beside her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p><p>"Are you not riding to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Riding to-day! Ride on the Flat! Is it likely? Besides, I had a fall +yesterday schooling. My neck is stiff."</p> + +<p>He did not add that he had all but broken it. Indeed, it was probable +that he had already forgotten the fact.</p> + +<p>He looked hard at her with his dancing, irresponsible blue eyes. He had +the good looks which he shared with some of his horses, of extreme high +breeding. He was even handsome in a way, with a thin, reckless, trivial +face, and a slender, wiry figure. He looked as light as a leaf, and as +if he were being blown through life by any chance wind, the wind of his own vagaries.</p> + +<p>His manner had just the shade of admiring familiarity which to some men +seems admissible to the pretty daughter of a disreputable old innkeeper.</p> + +<p>He peered down at the river, and then at the houses crowding along its +yellow quays, mysterious behind their paint as a Frenchwoman behind her pomade and powder.</p> + +<p>Then he looked back at her with mock solemnity.</p> + +<p>"I see nothing," he said.</p> + +<p>"What did you expect to see?"</p> + +<p>"Something that had the honour of engaging your attention completely."</p> + +<p>"I was looking at the water."</p> + +<p>"Just so. But why?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p><p>She paused a moment, and then said, without any change of voice—</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of throwing myself in."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met—his, foolhardy, inquisitive, not unkindly; hers, sombre, +sinister, darkened.</p> + +<p>The recklessness in both of them rushed out and joined hands.</p> + +<p>He laughed lightly.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said, "sweet Annette—lovely Annette. The Seine is not for +you. So you have quarrelled with Falconhurst already. He has managed +very badly. Or did you find out that he was going to be married? I knew +it, but I did not say. Never mind. If he is, it doesn't matter. And if +he isn't, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters."</p> + +<p>"You are right. Nothing matters," said Annette. Her face, always pale, +had become livid.</p> + +<p>His became suddenly alert, flushed, as hers paled. He sighted a possible +adventure. Excitement blazed up in his light eyes.</p> + +<p>"One tear," he said, "yes,—you may shed one tear. But the Seine! No. +The Seine is made up of all the tears which women have shed for men—men +of no account, worthless wretches like Falconhurst and me. You must not +add to that great flood. Leave off looking at the water, Annette. It is +not safe for you to look at it. Look at me instead. And listen to what I +am saying. You are not listening."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, I am."</p> + +<p>"I'm going down to Fontainebleau for a bit. The doctor says I must get +out of Paris and keep quiet, or I shan't be able to ride at Auteuil. I +don't believe a word he says, croaking old woman! But—hang it all, I'm +bound to ride Sam Slick at Auteuil. Kirby can look after the string +while I'm at Fontainebleau. I'm going there this afternoon. Come with +me. I am not much, but I am better than the Seine. My kisses will not +choke the life out of you, as the Seine's will. We will spend a week +together, and talk matters over, and sit in the sun, and at the end of +it we shall both laugh—<i>how</i> we shall laugh—when you remember this." +And he pointed to the swirling water.</p> + +<p>A thought slid through Annette's mind like a snake through grass.</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> will hear of it. He is sure to hear of it. That will hurt him +worse than if I were drowned."</p> + +<p>"I don't care what I do," she said, meeting his eyes without flinching. +It was he who for a moment winced when he saw the smouldering flame in them.</p> + +<p>He laughed again, the old light, inconsequent laugh which came to him so +easily, with which he met good and bad fortune alike.</p> + +<p>"When you are as old as I am," he said not unkindly, "you will do as I +am doing now, take the good the gods provide you, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> trouble your mind +about nothing else. For there's nothing in the world or out of it that +is worth troubling about. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Nothing," echoed Annette hoarsely.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Et partout le spectre de l'amour,</div> +<div>Et nullepart l'amour."</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The train was crawling down to Fontainebleau. Annette sat opposite her +companion, looking not at him but at the strange country through which +they were going. How well she knew it! How often she had gone down to +Fontainebleau. But to-day all the familiar lines were altered. The +townlets, up to their eyes in trees, seemed alien, dead. Presently the +forest, no longer fretted by the suburbs, came close up on both sides of +the rail. What had happened to the oaks that they seemed drawn up in +serried lines to watch her pass, like soldiers at a funeral! A cold +horror brooded over everything. She looked at her companion and withdrew +her eyes. He had said he was better than the Seine. But now she came to +meet his eyes fixed on her, was he better? She was not sure. She was not +sure of anything, except that life was unendurable and that she did not +care what happened to her.</p> + +<p>There had been sordid details, and there would be more. He had said it +would be better if she had a wedding ring, and he had bought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> her one. +The shopman had smiled offensively as he had found one to fit her. She +set her teeth at the remembrance. But she would go through with it. She +did not care. There was nothing left in the world to care about. It was +Dick Le Geyt who, thoughtless as he was, had shown some little thought +for her, had taken her to a restaurant and obliged her to eat, had put +her into the train, and then had waylaid and dismissed his valet, who +brought his luggage to the station, and who seemed at first determined +not to let his master go without him, indeed was hardly to be shaken +off, until Dick whispered something to him, when the man shrugged his +shoulders and turned away.</p> + +<p>Annette looked again at her companion. He had fallen suddenly asleep, +his mouth ajar. How old and shrunk and battered he looked, and how +strangely pinched! There was something unnatural about his appearance. A +horrible suspicion passed through her mind that he had been drinking. +She suddenly remembered that she had once heard a rumour of that kind +about him, and that he had lost a race by it. She had to waken him when +they reached Fontainebleau, and then, after a moment's bewilderment, he +resumed all his alertness and feather-headed promptitude.</p> + +<p>Presently she was in a bedroom in an old-fashioned inn, and was looking +out of the window at a little garden, with tiny pebbled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> walks, and a +fountain, and four stunted, clipped acacia trees.</p> + +<p>The hotel was quite full. She had been asked some question as to whether +the room would do, and she had said it would. She had hardly glanced at +it. It was the only room to be had. And Dick's luggage was carried up to +it. The hotel-people took for granted his baggage was hers as well as +his. She remembered that she had none, and smoothed her hair +mechanically with her hands, while an admiring little chamber-maid +whisked in with hot water.</p> + +<p>And presently, in the hot, tawdry salle à manger, there was a meal, and +she was sitting at a little table with Dick, and all the food was +pretence, like the tiny wooden joints and puddings in her doll's house +which she used to try to eat as a child. These were larger, and she +tried to eat them, but she could not swallow anything. She wondered how +the others could. And the electric light flickered, and once it went +out, and Dick laughed. And he ordered champagne for her and made her +drink some. And then, though he said he must not touch it, he drank some +himself, and became excited, and she was conscious that a spectacled +youth with projecting teeth turned to look at them. There was a +grey-haired Englishwoman sitting alone at the nearest table. Annette saw +her eyes rest on her for a moment with veiled compassion.</p> + +<p>All her life afterwards, she remembered that evening as a nightmare. But +it was not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> nightmare at the time. She was only an on-looker: a dazed, +callous spectator of something grotesque which did not affect her—a +mirthless, sordid farce which for some obscure forgotten reason it was +necessary for her to watch. That she was herself the principal actor in +the farce, and that the farce had the makings of a tragedy, did not +occur to her. She was incapable of action and of thought.</p> + +<p>Later in the evening she was in her bedroom again, sitting with her +hands in her lap, vacantly staring at the wall with its mustard-coloured +roses on a buff ground, when two grinning waiters half carried, half +hustled in Dick, gesticulating and talking incoherently. They helped him +into bed: the elder one waited a moment, arms a-kimbo, till Dick fell +suddenly asleep, and then said cheerfully and reassuringly—</p> + +<p>"C'est ça, madame," and withdrew.</p> + +<p>Annette got up instinctively to go too, but she remembered that she had +nowhere to go, that it was close on midnight, that she was in her own +room with which she had expressed herself satisfied, that she and her +companion were passing at the hotel as husband and wife. She felt no +horror, no sense of the irremediable folly she had committed. She stood +a moment, and then drew the curtain and sat down by the window, looking +out, as she had sat all the previous night in her little bedroom in her +father's cabaret, out of which she had slunk like a thief as soon as it +was light. Her spellbound faculties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> were absorbed in one mental +picture, which was to her the only reality, as the cobra is the only +reality to the dove. She forgot where she was. She forgot the heavy +breathing of her companion, stirring uneasily in his sleep. She saw +only, as she had seen all day, the smoking, hideous ruin of that +wonderful castle of dreams which she had built stone by stone during the +last year, into the secret chamber of which she had walled up that shy, +romantic recluse her heart: that castle of dreams in which she paced on +a rainbow mosaic, which she had tapestried with ideals and prayers and +aspirations, in the midst of which there was a shrine.</p> + +<p>There was nothing left of it now, worse than nothing, only a smoking, +evil-smelling hump of débris, with here and there a flapping rag of what +had once been stately arras or cloth of gold. It had reeled and crashed +down into the slime in a moment's space. The thunder of its fall had +deafened her to all other noises; its smoke had blinded her to all other +sights. Oh! why had she let herself be dissuaded from her only refuge +against this unendurable vision seared in upon her brain? It had been +agony. It would be agony again. If Dick had let her alone, she would be +at rest now, quite away from it all, her body floating down to the sea +in the keeping of the kind, cool river, and her outraged soul escaped—escaped.</p> + +<p>But she would do it still. She would creep away a second time at dawn, +as soon as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> house was stirring. There must be a river somewhere—if +not a big river, a little one with deep pools. She would find it. And +this time she would not let herself be dissuaded. This time she would +drown herself, if the water were only knee-deep. And her mind being made +up, she gave a little sigh, and leaned her aching forehead against the glass.</p> + +<p>The man in the bed stirred, and feebly stammered out the word "Annette" +once and again. But Annette did not hear him, and after a time he +muttered and moved no more.</p> + +<p>And when the dawn came up at last, it found Annette, who had watched for +it wide-eyed all night, sunk down asleep, with her head upon the sill.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Vous êtes bien pâle, ma belle,</div> +<div>Comment vous appelez-vous?</div> +<div>Je suis l'amante, dit-elle.</div> +<div>Cueillez la branche de houx."</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Annette stirred at last when a shaft of sunlight fell upon her head. She +sat up stiffly, and stared round the unfamiliar chamber, with the low +sun slanting across the floor and creeping up the bottom of the door. +Nothing stirred. A chill silence made itself felt. The room seemed to be +aware of something, to be beforehand with her. Some nameless instinct +made her get up suddenly and go to the bed.</p> + +<p>Dick Le Geyt was lying on his back, with his eyes wide open. There was a +mute appeal in his sharp-featured face, sharper featured than ever +before, and in his thin outstretched hands, with the delicate nervous +fingers crooked. He had needed help, and he had not found it. He had +perhaps called to her, and she had not listened. She had been deaf to +everything except herself. A sword seemed to pierce Annette's brain. It +was as if some tight bandage were cleft and violently riven from it. She +came shuddering to herself from out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> waking swoon of the last two +days. Hardly knowing what she did, she ran out of the room and into the +passage. But it must be very early yet. No one was afoot. What to do +next? She must rouse some one, and at once. But whom? She was about to +knock at the nearest door, when she heard a hurried movement within, and +the door opened.</p> + +<p>A grey-haired woman in a dressing-gown looked out, the same whom she had +seen the night before at dinner.</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard some one call," she said. "Is anything wrong?" Then, +as Annette leaned trembling against the wall, "Can I be of any use?"</p> + +<p>Annette pointed to her own open door, and the woman went in with her at once.</p> + +<p>She hastened instantly to the bed and bent over it. She touched the +forehead, the wrist, with rapid, business-like movements. She put her +hand upon Dick's heart.</p> + +<p>"Is he dead?" asked Annette.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "but he is unconscious, and he is very ill. It is some +kind of seizure. When did your husband become like this?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know," said Annette.</p> + +<p>The woman turned indignantly upon her.</p> + +<p>"You don't know! Yet surely you sat up with him? You look as if you had +been up all night."</p> + +<p>"I sat up, but I did not look at him," said Annette. "I never thought he was ill."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p><p>The elder woman's cheek reddened at the callousness of Annette's words, +as at a blow. She was silent for a moment, and then said coldly—</p> + +<p>"We have only one thing to think of now, and that is how to save his +life, if it can be saved."</p> + +<p>And in a moment, as it seemed to Annette, the house was awakened, and a +doctor and a Sister of Mercy appeared and were installed at Dick's +bedside. After a few hours, consciousness came back intermittently; but +Dick, so excitable the day before, took but little heed of what went on +around him. When, at the doctor's wish, Annette spoke to him, he looked +at her without recognition.</p> + +<p>The doctor was puzzled, and asked her many questions as to his condition +on the previous day. She remembered that he had had a fall from his +horse a day or two before, and had hurt his neck; and the doctor +established some mysterious link between the accident and the illness, +which he said had been terribly aggravated by drink. Had Monsieur taken +much stimulant the night before? Yes, Monsieur had appeared to be intoxicated.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart's steel eyes softened somewhat as she looked at Annette. +She and the doctor noticed the extreme exhaustion from which she was +suffering, and exchanged glances. Presently Mrs. Stoddart took the girl +to her own room, and helped her to undress, and made her lie down on her bed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p><p>"I will bring you your dressing-gown, if you will tell me where it is."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Annette; and then she recollected, and said, "I +haven't any things with me."</p> + +<p>"Not even a handkerchief?"</p> + +<p>"I think not a handkerchief."</p> + +<p>"How long is it since you have slept?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." These words seemed her whole stock-in-trade.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart frowned.</p> + +<p>"I can't have you ill on my hands too," she said briskly; "one is +enough." And she left the room, and presently came back with a glass +with a few drops in it. She made Annette swallow them, and put a warm +rug over her, and darkened the room.</p> + +<p>And presently Annette's eyes closed, and the anguish of the last two +days was lifted from her, as a deft hand lifts a burden. She sighed and +leaned her cheek against a pillow which was made of rest; and presently +she was wandering in a great peace in a wide meadow beside a little +stream whispering among its forget-me-nots. And across the white clover, +and the daisies, and the little purple orchids, came the feet of one who +loved her. And they walked together beside the stream, the kind, +understanding stream, he and she—he and she together. And all was well, +all was well.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Many hours later, Mrs. Stoddart and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> doctor came and looked at her, +and he thrust out his under lip.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear to wake her," she said.</p> + +<p>"One little half-hour, then," he said, and went back to the next room.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart sat down by the bed, and presently Annette, as if +conscious of her presence, opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I see now," she said slowly, looking at Mrs. Stoddart with the fixed +gravity of a child, "I was wrong."</p> + +<p>"How wrong, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Rivers are not meant for that, nor the little streams either. They are +not meant to drown oneself in. They are meant to run and run, and for us +to walk beside, and pick forget-me-nots."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart's scrutinizing eyes filled with sudden tears. What tragedy +was this into which she had thrust herself? She drew back the curtain, +and let the afternoon light fall on Annette's face. Her eyelids +trembled, and into her peaceful, rapt face distress crept slowly back. +Mrs. Stoddart felt as if she had committed a crime. But there was +another to think of besides Annette.</p> + +<p>"You have slept?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I ought not to have gone to sleep while Dick was ill."</p> + +<p>"You needed sleep."</p> + +<p>"Is—is he better?"</p> + +<p>"He is somewhat better."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p><p>"I will go to him."</p> + +<p>"He does not need you just now."</p> + +<p>"Has the doctor found out what is the matter with him?"</p> + +<p>"He thinks he has." Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly. "As far as I +understand, there is a cerebral lesion, and it is possible that it may +not be as serious as he thought at first. It may have been aggravated +for the moment by drink, the effects of which are passing off. But there +is always the risk—in this case a great risk—that the injury to the +brain may increase. In any case, his condition is very grave. His family +ought to be communicated with at once."</p> + +<p>Annette stared at her in silence.</p> + +<p>"They <i>must</i> be summoned," said Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<p>"But I don't know who they are," said Annette. "I don't even know his +real name. He is called Mr. Le Geyt. It is the name he rides under."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart reddened. She had had her doubts.</p> + +<p>"A wife should know her husband's name," she said.</p> + +<p>"But, you see, I'm not his wife."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Stoddart's eyes fell on Annette's wedding ring.</p> + +<p>"That is nothing," said Annette. "Dick said I had better have one, and +he bought it in a shop before we started. I think I'll take it off. I hate wearing it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p><p>"No, no. Keep it on."</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>"But you must know his address."</p> + +<p>"No. I know he is often in Paris. But I have only met him at—at a cabaret."</p> + +<p>"Could you trust me?" said Mrs. Stoddart humbly.</p> + +<p>Annette trembled, and her face became convulsed.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," she said, "very kind,—getting the nurse, and +helping, and this nice warm rug, and everything,—but I'm afraid I can't +trust anyone any more. I've left off trusting people."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Et je m'en vais</div> +<div>Au vent mauvais</div> +<div class="i1">Qui m'emporte</div> +<div>Deçà, delà,</div> +<div>Pareille à la</div> +<div class="i1">Feuille morte."</div> +<div class="i6"><span class="smcap">Verlaine.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It was the second day of Dick's illness. Annette's life had revived +somewhat, though the long sleep had not taken the strained look from her +eyes. But Mrs. Stoddart's fears for her were momentarily allayed. Tears +were what she needed, and tears were evidently a long way off.</p> + +<p>And Annette fought for the life of poor Dick as if he were indeed her +bridegroom, and Mrs. Stoddart abetted her as if he were her only son. +The illness was incalculable, abnormal. There were intervals of lucidity +followed by long lapses into unconsciousness. There were hours in which +he seemed to know them, but could neither speak nor move. There were +times when it appeared as if the faint flame of life had flickered quite +out, only to waver feebly up again.</p> + +<p>Together the two women had searched every article of Dick's effects, but +they could find no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> clue to his address or identity. Annette remembered +that he had had a pocket-book, and seeing him take a note out of it to +pay for the tickets. But the pocket-book could not be found, or any +money. It was evident that he had been robbed that first evening when he +was drinking. Some of his handkerchiefs were marked with four initials, R. L. G. M.</p> + +<p>"Richard Le Geyt M. Then he had another name as well," said Mrs. +Stoddart. "You can't recall having ever heard it?"</p> + +<p>Annette shook her head.</p> + +<p>"He is supposed to be an English lord," she said, "and very rich. And he +rides his own horses, and makes and loses a great deal of money on the +turf. And he is peculiar—very depressed one year, and very wild the +next. That is all that people like us who are not his social equals know of him."</p> + +<p>"I do not even know what <i>your</i> name is," said Mrs. Stoddart +tentatively, as she rearranged Dick's clothes in the drawers, and took +up a bottle of lotion which had evidently been intended for his strained neck.</p> + +<p>"My name is Annette."</p> + +<p>"Well, Annette, I think the best thing you can do is to write to your +home and say that you are coming back to it immediately."</p> + +<p>"I have no home."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart was silent. Any information which Annette vouchsafed about +herself always seemed to entail silence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p><p>"I have made up my mind," Annette went on, "to stay with Dick till he +is better. He is the only person I care a little bit about."</p> + +<p>"No, Annette, you do not care for him. It is remorse for your neglect of +him that makes you nurse him with such devotion."</p> + +<p>"I do not love him," said Annette. "But then, how could I? I hardly know +him. But he meant to be kind to me. He was the only person who was kind. +He tried to save me, though not in the right way. Poor Dick, he does not +know much. But I must stay and nurse him till he is better. I can't desert him."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Stoddart impatiently, "that is all very well, but +you cannot remain here without a scandal. It is different for an old +woman like myself. And though we have not yet got into touch with his +family, we shall directly. If I can't get a clue otherwise, I shall +apply to the police. You must think of your own character."</p> + +<p>"I do not care about my character," said Annette in the same tone in +which she might have said she did not care for black coffee.</p> + +<p>"But I do," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself.</p> + +<p>"And I have a little money," Annette continued,—"at least, not much +money, only a few louis,—but I have these." And she drew out from her +neck a row of pearls. They were not large pearls, but they were even and beautifully matched.</p> + +<p>"They were mother's," she said. "They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> will be enough for the doctor and +the nurse and the hotel bill, won't they?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart put down the bottle of lotion and took the pearls in her +hand, and bent over them, trying to hide her amazement.</p> + +<p>"They are very good," she said slowly,—"beautiful colour and shape." +Then she raised her eyes, and they fell once more on the bottle.</p> + +<p>"But what am I thinking of?" she said sharply. "There is the clue I need +staring me in the face. How incredibly stupid I am! There is the Paris +chemist's name on it, and the number of the prescription. I can wire to +him for the address to which he sent the bottle."</p> + +<p>"Dick has a valet at his address," said Annette, "and of course he would +know all about his people."</p> + +<p>"How do you know he has a valet?"</p> + +<p>"He met Dick at the station with the luggage. He was to have come to +Fontainebleau with him, but Dick sent him back at the last moment, I +suppose because of—me."</p> + +<p>"Would you know him again if you saw him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I watched Dick talking to him for several minutes. He would not go +away at first. Perhaps he knew Dick was ill and needed care."</p> + +<p>"Most likely. Did he see you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Are you certain?"</p> + +<p>"Quite certain."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>"There is then one microscopic mercy to be thankful for. Then no one +knows that you are here with Mr. Le Geyt?"</p> + +<p>"No one, but I dare say it will be known presently," said Annette apathetically.</p> + +<p>"Not if I can prevent it," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself as she put on +her pince-nez and went out to telegraph to the chemist.</p> + +<p>Annette went back to the bedside, and the Sister withdrew to the window +and got out her breviary.</p> + +<p>Annette sat down and leaned her tired head against the pillow with +something like envy of Dick's unconsciousness. Would a certain hideous +picture ever be blotted out from her aching brain? Her only respite from +it was when she could minister to Dick. He was her sole link with life, +the one fixed point in a shifting quicksand. She came very near to +loving him in these days.</p> + +<p>Presently he stirred and sighed, and opened his eyes. They wandered to +the ceiling, and then fell idly on her without knowing her, as they had +done a hundred times. Then recognition slowly dawned in them, clear and grave.</p> + +<p>She raised her head, and they looked long at each other.</p> + +<p>"Annette," he said in a whisper, "I am sorry."</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, but no words came.</p> + +<p>"Often, often, when I have been lying here," he said feebly, "I have +been sorry, but I could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> never say so. Just when I saw your face clear I +always went away again, a long way off. Would you mind holding my hand, +so that I may not be blown away again?"</p> + +<p>She took it in both of hers and held it.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. A faint colour fluttered in his leaden cheek.</p> + +<p>"I never knew such a wind," he said. "It's stronger than anything in the +world, and it blows and blows, and I go hopping before it like a leaf. I +have to go. I really can't stay."</p> + +<p>"You are much better. You will soon be able to get up."</p> + +<p>"I don't know where I'm going, but I don't care. I don't want to get up. +I'm tired—tired."</p> + +<p>"You must not talk any more."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I must. I have things to say. You are holding my hand tight, Annette?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Look, I have it safe in mine."</p> + +<p>"I ought not to have brought you here. You were in despair, and I took +advantage of it. Can you forgive me, Annette?"</p> + +<p>"Dear Dick, there is nothing to forgive. I was more to blame than you."</p> + +<p>"It was instead of the Seine. That was the excuse I made to myself. But +the wind blows it away. It blows everything away—everything, +everything.... Don't be angry again like that, Annette. Promise me you +won't. You were too angry, and I took a mean advantage of it.... I once +took advantage of a man's anger with a horse, but it brought me no +luck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> I thought I wouldn't do it again, but I did. And I haven't got +much out of it this time either. I'm dying, or something like it. I'm +going away for good and all. I'm so tired I don't know how I shall ever get there."</p> + +<p>"Rest a little, Dick. Don't talk any more now."</p> + +<p>"I want to give you a tip before I go. An old trainer put me up to it, +and he made me promise not to tell anyone, and I haven't till now. But I +want to do you a good turn to make up for the bad one. He said he'd +never known it fail, and I haven't either. I've tried it scores of +times. When you're angry, Annette, look at a cloud." Dick's blue eyes +were fixed with a great earnestness on hers. "Not just for a minute. +Choose a good big one, like a lot of cotton wool, and go on looking at +it while it moves. And the anger goes away. Sounds rot, doesn't it? But +you simply can't stay angry. Seems as if everything were too small and +footling to matter. Try it, Annette. Don't look at water any more. +That's no use. But a cloud—the bigger the better.... You won't drown +yourself now, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Annette rolling down to the sea over and over, knocking against the +bridges. I can't bear to think of it. Promise me."</p> + +<p>"I promise."</p> + +<p>He sighed, and his hand fell out of hers. She laid it down. The great +wind of which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> spoke had taken him once more, whither he knew not. +She leaned her face against the pillow and longed that she too might be +swept away whither she knew not.</p> + +<p>The doctor came in and looked at them.</p> + +<p>"Are his family coming soon?" he asked Mrs. Stoddart afterwards. "And +Madame Le Geyt! Can Madame's mother be summoned? There has been some +great shock. Her eyes show it. It is not only Monsieur who is on the verge of the precipice."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave</div> +<div>Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave</div> +<div>To waste in foam."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">George Meredith.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Towards evening Dick regained consciousness.</p> + +<p>"Annette." That was always the first word.</p> + +<p>"Here." That was always the second.</p> + +<p>"I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never +find it, but I had to come."</p> + +<p>He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it.</p> + +<p>"You must help me. I have no one but you."</p> + +<p>His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to +his. They were like two shipwrecked people—were they not indeed +shipwrecked?—cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of the sea.</p> + +<p>"What can I do?" she said. "Tell me, and I will do it."</p> + +<p>"I have made no provision for Mary or—the little one. I promised her I +would when it was born. But I haven't done it. I thought of it when I +fell on my head. But when I was better next day I put it off. I always +put things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> off.... And it's not only Mary. There's Hulver, and the +Scotch property, and all the rest. If I die without making a will it +will all go to poor Harry." He was speaking rapidly, more to himself +than to her. "And when father was dying he said, 'Roger ought to have +it.' Father was a just man. And I like Roger, and he's done his duty by +the place, which I haven't. He <i>ought</i> to have it. Annette, help me to +make my will. I was on my way to the lawyer's to make it when I met you on the bridge."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Half an hour later, in the waning day, the notary arrived, and Dick made +his will in the doctor's presence. His mind was amazingly clear.</p> + +<p>"Is he better?" asked Mrs. Stoddart of the doctor, as she and the nurse +left the room.</p> + +<p>"Better! It is the last flare up of the lamp," said the doctor. "He is +right when he says he shan't get back here again. He is riding his last +race, but he is riding to win."</p> + +<p>Dick rode for all he was worth, and urged the doctor to help him, to +keep his mind from drifting away into the unknown.</p> + +<p>The old doctor thrust out his under lip and did what he could.</p> + +<p>By Dick's wish, Annette remained in the room, but he did not need her. +His French was good enough. He knew exactly what he wanted. The notary +was intelligent, and brought with him a draft for Dick's signature. Dick +dictated and whispered earnestly to him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>"Oui, oui," said the notary at intervals. "Parfaitement. Monsieur peut +se fier à moi."</p> + +<p>At last it was done, and Dick, panting, had made a kind of signature, +his writing dwindling down to a faint scrawl after the words "Richard Le +Geyt," which were fairly legible.</p> + +<p>The doctor attested it.</p> + +<p>"She must witness it too," said Dick insistently, pointing to Annette.</p> + +<p>The notary glanced at the will, realized that she was not a legatee, and +put the pen in her hand, showing her where to sign.</p> + +<p>"Madame will write here."</p> + +<p>He indicated the place under his own crabbed signature.</p> + +<p>She wrote mechanically her full name: <i>Annette Georges</i>.</p> + +<p>"But, madame," said the notary, bewildered, "is not then Madame's name +the same as Monsieur's?"</p> + +<p>"Madame is so lately married that she sometimes signs her old name by +mistake," said the doctor, smiling sadly. He took a pained interest in +the young couple, especially in Annette.</p> + +<p>"I am not Monsieur's wife," said Annette.</p> + +<p>The notary stared, bowed, and gathered up his papers. The doctor busied +himself with the sick man, spent and livid on his pillow.</p> + +<p>"Approach then, madame," he said, with a great respect. "It is you +Monsieur needs." And he withdrew with the notary.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>Annette groped her way to the bed. The room had become very dark. The +floor rose in long waves beneath her feet, but she managed to reach the +bed and sink down beside it.</p> + +<p>What matter now if she were tired. She had done what he asked of her. +She had not failed him. What matter if she sank deeper still, down and +down, as she was sinking now.</p> + +<p>"Annette." Dick's voice was almost extinct.</p> + +<p>"Here."</p> + +<p>"The wind is coming again. Across the sea, across the mountains, over +the plains. It is the wind of the desert. Can't you hear it?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. She could hear nothing but his thin thread of voice.</p> + +<p>"I am going with it, and this time I shan't come back. Good-bye, Annette."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Dick."</p> + +<p>His eyes dwelt on hers, with a mute appeal in them. The forebreath of +the abyss was upon him, the shadow of "the outer dark."</p> + +<p>She understood, and kissed him on the forehead with a great tenderness, +and leaned her cold cheek against his.</p> + +<p>And as she stooped she heard the mighty wind of which he spoke. Its +rushing filled her ears, it filled the little chamber where those two +poor things had suffered together, and had in a way ministered to each other.</p> + +<p>And the sick-room with its gilt mirror and its tawdry wall-paper, and +the evil picture never absent from Annette's brain, stooped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and blended +into one, and wavered together as a flame wavers in a draught, and then +together vanished away.</p> + +<p>"The wind is taking us both," Annette thought, as her eyes closed.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"I was as children be</div> +<div class="i1">Who have no care;</div> +<div>I did not think or sigh,</div> +<div class="i1">I did not sicken;</div> +<div>But lo, Love beckoned me,</div> +<div class="i1">And I was bare,</div> +<div>And poor and starved and dry,</div> +<div class="i1">And fever-stricken."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hardy.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It was five months later, the middle of February. Annette was lying in a +deck-chair by the tank in the shade of the orange trees. All was still, +with the afternoon stillness of Teneriffe, which will not wake up till +sunset. Even the black goats had ceased to bleat and ring their bells. +The hoopoe which had been saying Cuk—Cuk—Cuk all the morning in the +pepper tree was silent. The light air from the sea, bringing with it a +whiff as from a bride's bouquet, hardly stirred the leaves. The sunlight +trembled on the yellow stone steps, and on the trailing, climbing +bougainvillea which had flung its mantle of purple over the balustrade. +Through an opening in a network of almond blossom Annette could look +down across the white water-courses and green terraces to the little +town of Santa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Cruz, lying glittering in the sunshine, with its yellow +and white and mauve walls and flat roofs and quaint cupolas, outlined as +if cut out in white paper, sharp white against the vivid blue of the sea.</p> + +<p>A grey lizard came slowly out of a clump of pink verbena near the tank, +and spread itself in a patch of sunlight on a little round stone. +Annette, as she lay motionless with thin folded hands, could see the +pulse in its throat rise and fall as it turned its jewelled eyes now to +this side, now to that, considering her as gravely as she was considering it.</p> + +<p>A footfall came upon the stone steps. The lizard did not move. It was gone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart, an erect lilac figure under a white umbrella, came down +the steps, with a cup of milk in her hand. Her forcible, incongruous +countenance, with its peaked, indomitable nose and small, steady, tawny +eyes under tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of having been knocked to +pieces at some remote period and carelessly put together again. No +feature seemed to fit with any other. If her face had not been held +together by a certain shrewd benevolence which was spread all over it, +she would have been a singularly forbidding-looking woman.</p> + +<p>Annette took the cup and began dutifully to sip it, while Mrs. Stoddart +sat down near her.</p> + +<p>"Do you see the big gold-fish?" Annette said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p><p>Her companion put up her pince-nez and watched him for a moment, +swimming lazily near the surface.</p> + +<p>"He seems much as usual," she said.</p> + +<p>"It is not my fault if he is. I threw a tiny bit of stick at him a few +minutes ago, and he bolted it at once; and then, just when I was +beginning to feel anxious, he spat it out again to quite a considerable +distance. He must have a very strong pop-gun in his inside."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart took the empty cup from her and put it down on the edge of the tank.</p> + +<p>"You have one great quality, Annette," she said: "you are never bored."</p> + +<p>"How could I be, with so much going on round me? I have just had my +first interview with a lizard. And before that a mantis called upon me. +Look, there he is again, on that twig. Doesn't he look exactly like a +child's drawing of a dragon?"</p> + +<p>A hideous grey mantis, about three inches long, walked slowly down an +almond-blossomed branch.</p> + +<p>"He really walks with considerable dignity, considering his legs bend +the wrong way," said Mrs. Stoddart. "But I don't wish for his society."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you? Look! Now he is going to pray."</p> + +<p>And the mantis suddenly sat up and appeared to engage in prayer.</p> + +<p>Annette watched him, fascinated, until his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> orisons were over, and he +slowly went down again on all fours and withdrew himself into the bougainvillea.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart looked searchingly at her, not without a certain pride. +She had still the bruised, sunken eyes of severe illness, and she rolled +them slowly at Mrs. Stoddart, at the mantis, at the sky, at everything +in turn, in a manner which exasperated the other occupants of the +pension—two ladies from Hampstead who considered her a mass of +affectation. The only thing about Annette which was beautiful was her +hands, which were transparent, blue-veined, ethereal. But her movements +with them also were so languid, so "studied," that it was impossible for +spectators as impartial as the Hampstead ladies not to deplore her +extreme vanity about them. To Mrs. Stoddart, who knew the signs of +illness, it was evident that she was still weak, but it was equally +evident that the current of health was surely flowing back.</p> + +<p>"I remember," said Mrs. Stoddart, "being once nearly bored to +extinction, not by an illness, but by my convalescence after it."</p> + +<p>"I have no time to be bored," said Annette, "even if there is no mantis +and no lizard. Since I have been better so many things come crowding +into my mind, that though I lie still all day I hardly have time to +think of them all. The day is never long enough for me."</p> + +<p>There was a short silence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>"I often wonder," said Annette slowly, "about <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"About me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why you do everything for me as if I were your own child, and most +of all why you never ask me any questions—why you never even hint to me +that it is my duty to tell you about myself."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart's eyes dropped. Her heart began to beat violently.</p> + +<p>"When you took charge of me you knew nothing of me except evil."</p> + +<p>"I knew the one thing needful."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"That you were in trouble."</p> + +<p>"For a long time," said Annette, "I have been wanting to tell you about +myself, but I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me, if it distresses you."</p> + +<p>"Nothing distresses me now. The reason I could not was because for a +long time I did not rightly know how things were, or who I was. And I +saw everything distorted—horrible. It was as if I were too near, like +being in a cage of hot iron, and beating against the bars first on one +side and then on the other, till it seemed as if one went mad. You once +read me, long ago, that poem of Verlaine's ending 'Et l'oubli +d'ici-bas.' And I thought that was better than any of the promises in +the Bible which you read sometimes. I used to say it over to myself like +a kind of prayer: 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' That would be heaven—at +least, it would have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> to me. But since I have got better everything +has gone a long way off—like that island." And she pointed to the Grand +Canary, lying like a cloud on the horizon. "I can bear to think about it +and to look at it."</p> + +<p>"I understand that feeling. I have known it."</p> + +<p>"It does not burn me now. I thought it would always burn while I lived."</p> + +<p>"That is the worst of pain—that one thinks it will never lessen. But it does."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little."</p> + +<p>And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at +twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we +can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem +to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we +realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our +hand, our part is to listen?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long time.</p> + +<p>And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge +of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the +only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some +disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a French courier.</p> + +<p>"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that +home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> could. I did once +as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green."</p> + +<p>"Then your mother died when you were quite small?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left +father—for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her +first—at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember +how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my +next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be +kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were +Nevills. It seems it is a very noble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill. +Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like +father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They felt that."</p> + +<p>"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<p>"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to +put on my clothes."</p> + +<p>"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!"</p> + +<p>"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't +mean only the aunts but—<i>others</i>, don't regard me as their equal, +or—or treat me so."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on quietly—</p> + +<p>"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a +year, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> I left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my +birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked +them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind +was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional +singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve."</p> + +<p>"Did they mind much?"</p> + +<p>"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished +that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so +amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt +Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not +been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I +should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of +all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did +not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt +Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie. +She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated +music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never +had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did +not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had +time—for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have +lived with Aunt Cathie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> But existing in that house was like just not +suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me +the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that +little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I +had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He +had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a +cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, +till—last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so +unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry +primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I +never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money. +He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out +at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea +that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had +a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty +was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known +musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me +sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about +it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man +somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a +little bit I found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> he expected me to pay him another way, and I had to +give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, +and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, +and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites. +I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, +when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman +began to be very kind to me."</p> + +<p>Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed a little.</p> + +<p>Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow butterfly came +floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, +hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two +ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine.</p> + +<p>Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close +and expand, and then rise and float away again.</p> + +<p>"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he +didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman—not like +father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed +honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was +young—not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was +unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him +after a little bit. At first I hung back, because I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> thought it was too +good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love +before. I fell in—very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, +for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a title—I +forget exactly what—when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind +of him not to mind the difference of rank.... I am sure you know what is +coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought +of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I +said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room +again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never +take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, +when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now I <i>shall</i> have it always."</p> + +<p>Annette passed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would +have outraged the other residents, and then went on:—</p> + +<p>"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he +talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening +to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything +before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed. +Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long +field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he +said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to +show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> me his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did +not understand. And then—a few hours later—I had to understand +suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I +who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the +house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That +was why I told you I had no home to go to.... And I walked and walked in +the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At +last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood +stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat +still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had +fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a +stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of +me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that +jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I +might just as well go back and be his mistress—anybody's mistress: that +there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world. +Everything was a seething mass of immorality and putrefaction, and he +was only the same as all the rest.... And all the time I could hear the +river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite +say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, +and I had to go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to +the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont +Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself +there.... And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little—a very +little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was +going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and +advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And +I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I +thought—<i>he</i>—would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him."</p> + +<p>"You did not know what you were doing."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again—I was not so silly as +<i>that</i>. It was only the accident of Dick's illness which prevented my +going wrong with him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart started.</p> + +<p>"Then you never——" she said diffidently, but with controlled +agitation.</p> + +<p>"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all +these months believing the worst had happened—not because she was +concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I +could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you +mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it +the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions. +You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not."</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on +the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you."</p> + +<p>"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what +you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill."</p> + +<p>"You were absolutely desperate."</p> + +<p>"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. Dick said +that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came +out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent +to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands +moving some faggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, +a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from +under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I +had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened +her, and she thought they were coming for her young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> ones. And first she +spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of +dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, +the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the +little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay +in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound. +Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was +ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I +was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I +laughed at her at the time—just as Dick laughed at me. But I understand +her now—poor thing."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"The larger the nature the less susceptible to personal injury."</p> + +<p>It was a few days later. Annette, leaning on Mrs. Stoddart's arm, had +made a pilgrimage as far as the low garden wall to look at the little +golden-brown calf on the other side tethered to a twisted shrub of +plumbago, the blue flowers of which spread themselves into a miniature +canopy over him. Now she was lying back, exhausted but triumphant, in +her long chair, with Mrs. Stoddart knitting beside her.</p> + +<p>"I shall be walking up there to-morrow," she said audaciously, pointing +to the fantastic cactus-sprinkled volcanic hills rising steeply behind +the house on the northern side.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would +allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have +been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and +light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact +that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, +so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the tallest +tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a +rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain.</p> + +<p>"You must own now that I am well," said Annette.</p> + +<p>"Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see +the Spanish women working in their white trousers."</p> + +<p>"My head never aches now."</p> + +<p>"That is a good thing."</p> + +<p>"Has the time come when I may ask a few questions?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart hardly looked up from her knitting as she said tranquilly—</p> + +<p>"Yes, my child, if there is anything on your mind."</p> + +<p>"I suppose Dick Le Geyt is—dead. I felt sure he was dying that last day +at Fontainebleau. It won't be any shock to me to know that he is dead."</p> + +<p>"He is not dead."</p> + +<p>A swift glance showed Mrs. Stoddart that Annette was greatly surprised.</p> + +<p>"How is he?" she asked after a moment. "Did he really get well again? I +thought it was not possible."</p> + +<p>"It was not."</p> + +<p>"Then he is not riding again yet?"</p> + +<p>"No. I am afraid he will never ride again."</p> + +<p>"Then his back was really injured, after all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It was spinal paralysis."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p><p>"He did enjoy life so," said Annette. "Poor Dick!"</p> + +<p>"I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. +He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was +affected, and it is only a question of time—a few months, a few years. +He does not suffer."</p> + +<p>"For a long time I thought he and I had died together."</p> + +<p>"You both all but died, Annette."</p> + +<p>"Where is he now?"</p> + +<p>"In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left."</p> + +<p>"I hope she seemed a kind woman."</p> + +<p>"She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's +valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and +me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as dismissed me."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in +collusion with <i>me</i>. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle +of it, reached her at once."</p> + +<p>"No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone +down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle."</p> + +<p>"And where was I all the time?"</p> + +<p>"You were in the country, a few miles out of Fontainebleau, at a house +the doctor knew of. He helped me to move you there directly you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> became +unconscious. Until you fell ill you would not leave Mr. Le Geyt. It was +fortunate you were not there when his aunt arrived."</p> + +<p>"I should not have cared."</p> + +<p>"No. You were past caring about anything. You were not in your right +mind. But surely, Annette,"—Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly,—"you care +<i>now</i>?"</p> + +<p>Annette evidently turned the question over in her mind, and then looked +doubtfully at her friend.</p> + +<p>"I am grateful to you that I escaped the outside shame," she said. "But +that seems such a little thing beside the inside shame, that I could +have done as I did. I had been carefully brought up. I was what was +called <i>good</i>. And it was easy to me. I had never felt any temptation to +be otherwise, even in the irresponsible <i>milieu</i> at father's, where +there was no morality to speak of. And yet—all in a minute—I could do +as—as I did, throw everything away which only just before I had guarded +with such passion. <i>He</i> was bad, and father was bad. I see now that he +had sold me. But since I have been lying here I have come to see that I +was bad too. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. There was +nothing to choose between the three of us. Poor Dick with his +unpremeditated escapade was snow-white compared to us, the one kindly +person in the sordid drama of lust and revenge."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>"Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<p>"As an unwise angel, I think, who snatched a brand from the burning."</p> + +<p>"You are the first person who has had the advantage of my acquaintance +who has called me unwise," said Mrs. Stoddart, with the grim, benevolent +smile which Annette had learnt to love. "And now you have talked enough. +The whole island is taking its siesta. It is time you took yours."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart thought long over Annette and her future that night. She +had made every effort, left no stone unturned at Fontainebleau, to save +the good name which the girl had so recklessly flung away. When Annette +succumbed, Mrs. Stoddart, quick to see whom she could trust, confided to +the doctor that Annette was not Mr. Le Geyt's wife and appealed to him +for help. He gravely replied that he already knew that fact, but did not +mention how during the making of the will it had come to his knowledge. +He helped her to remove Annette instantly to a private lodging kept by +an old servant of his. There was no luggage to remove. When Mr. Le +Geyt's aunt and her own doctor arrived late that night, together with +Mr. Le Geyt's valet, Annette had vanished into thin air. Only Mrs. +Stoddart was there, and the nurse to hand over the patient, and to +receive the cautious, suspicious thanks of Lady Jane Cranbrook, who +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>continually repeated that she could not understand the delay in sending +for her. It was, of course, instantly known in the hotel that the pretty +lady who had nursed Monsieur so devotedly was not his wife, and that she +had fled at the approach of his family. Mrs. Stoddart herself left very +early next morning, before Lady Jane was up, after paying Annette's +hotel-bill as well as her own. She had heard since through the nurse +that Mr. Le Geyt, after asking plaintively for Annette once or twice, +had relapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which he lay day +after day, week after week. It seemed as if his mind had made one last +effort, and then had finally given up a losing battle. The stars in +their courses had fought for Annette, and Mrs. Stoddart had given them +all the aid she could, with systematic perseverance and forethought.</p> + +<p>She had obliged Annette to write to a friend in Paris as soon as she was +well enough, rather before she was well enough to hold a pen, telling +her she had been taken ill suddenly at Fontainebleau but was with a +friend, and asking her to pack her clothes for her and send them to her +at Melun. Later on, before embarking at Marseilles, she had made her +write a line to her father saying she was travelling with her friend +Mrs. Stoddart, and should not be returning to Paris for the present. +After a time, she made her resume communications with her aunts, and +inform them who she was travelling with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> and where she was. The aunts +wrote rather frigidly in return at first, but after a time became more +cordial, expressed themselves pleased that she was enjoying herself, and +opined that they had had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Stoddart's sister, +Lady Brandon. They were evidently delighted that she had left her +father, and even graciously vouchsafed fragments of information about +themselves. Aunt Maria had just brought out another book, <i>Crooks and +Coronets</i>, a copy of which found its way to Teneriffe. Aunt Harriet, the +invalid, had become a Christian Scientist. Aunt Catherine, the only +practical one of the family, had developed a weak heart. And they had +all decided to leave London, and were settling in a country farm in +Lowshire, where they had once spent a summer years before.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart with infinite care had re-established all the links +between Annette's past life and her present one. The hiatus, which after +all had only occupied six days, was invisible. Her success had +apparently been complete.</p> + +<p>"Only apparently," she said to herself. "Something may happen which I +cannot foresee. Mr. Le Geyt may get better, though they say he never +will; or at any rate he may get well enough to give her away, which he +would never do if he were in full possession of his faculties. Or that +French chamber-maid who was so endlessly kind may take service in +England, and run up against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> Annette; or the valet who, she says, did +not see her at the station, may have seen her after all, and may prove a +source of danger. Or, most likely of all, Annette may tell against +herself. She is quite capable of it."</p> + +<p>Next day she said to Annette—</p> + +<p>"Remember your reputation is my property. You threw it away, and I +picked it up off the dunghill. It belongs to me absolutely. Now promise +me on your oath that you will never say anything about this episode in +your past to anyone, to any living creature except one—the man you marry."</p> + +<p>"I would rather not promise that," said Annette. "I feel as if some time +or other I might have to say something. One never can tell."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart cast at her a lightning glance in which love and +perplexity were about evenly mixed. This strange creature amused and +angered her, and constantly aroused in her opposite feelings at the same +moment. The careful Scotchwoman felt a certain kindly scorn for +Annette's want of self-protective prudence and her very slight +realization of the dangers Mrs. Stoddart had worked so hard to avert. +But mixed in with the scorn was a pinch of respect for something +unworldly in Annette, uncalculating of her own advantage. She was +apparently one of that tiny band who are not engrossed by the duty of +"looking after Number One."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Stoddart, who was not easily nonplussed, decided to be wounded.</p> + +<p>"You are hard to help, Annette," she said. "I do what I can for you, and +you often say how much it is, and yet you can tranquilly talk of all my +work being thrown away by some chance word of yours which you won't even +promise not to say."</p> + +<p>Annette was startled.</p> + +<p>"I had not meant that," she said humbly. "I will promise anything you wish!"</p> + +<p>"No, my dear, no," said Mrs. Stoddart, ashamed of her subterfuge and its +instant success. "I was unreasonable. Promise me instead that, except to +the man you are engaged to, you will never mention this subject to +anyone without my permission."</p> + +<p>"I promise," said Annette.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Stoddart, who never kissed anyone if she could help it, kissed +her on the forehead.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can +turn my steps."—<span class="smcap">Koltsov.</span></p> + +<p>It was the middle of April. The ginger tree had at last unsheathed the +immense buds which it had been guarding among its long swordlike leaves, +and had hung out its great pink and white blossoms at all their length. +The coffee trees had mingled with their red berries the dearest little +white wax flowers. The paradise tree which Annette had been watching day +by day had come out in the night. And this morning, among its +innumerable hanging golden balls, were cascades of five-leaved white +stars with violet centres.</p> + +<p>Annette was well again, if so dull and tame a word can be used to +describe the radiance which health had shed upon her, and upon the +unfolding, petal by petal, of her beauty. The long rest, the slow +recovery, the immense peace which had enfolded her life for the first +time, the grim, tender "mothering" of Mrs. Stoddart, had all together +fostered and sustained her. Her life, cut back to its very root by a +sharp frost, had put out a superb new shoot. Her coltishness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> and a +certain heavy, naïve immaturity had fallen from her. Her beauty had +shaken them off and stood clear of them, and Mrs. Stoddart recognized, +not without anxiety, that the beauty which was now revealed was great. +But in the process of her unduly delayed and then unduly forced +development it was plain that she had lost one thing which would have +made her mother's heart ache if she had been alive. Annette had lost her +youth. She was barely twenty-two, but she had the dignity and the +bearing of a woman of thirty. Mrs. Stoddart watched her standing, a +gracious slender figure in her white gown under the paradise tree, with +a wild baby-canary in the hollow of her hands, coaxing it to fly back to +its parents, calling shrilly to it from a neighbouring thicket of +lemon-coloured honeysuckle. She realized the pitfalls that lie in wait +for persons as simple and as inapprehensive as Annette, especially when +they are beautiful as well, and she sighed.</p> + +<p>Presently the baby-canary fluttered into the honeysuckle, and Annette +walked down the steep garden path to meet Victor the butler, who could +be seen in the distance coming slowly on the donkey up the white high +road from Santa Cruz, with the letters.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart sighed again. She had safeguarded Annette's past, but how +about her future? She had pondered long over it, which Annette did not +seem to do at all. Teneriffe was becoming too hot. The two ladies from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +Hampstead had already gone, much mollified towards Annette, and even +anxious to meet her again, and attributing her more alert movements and +now quite unrolling eyes to the fact that they had made it clear they +would not stand any nonsense, or take "airs" from anyone. Mrs. Stoddart +was anxious to get home to London to her son, her one son Mark. But what +would happen to Annette when they left Teneriffe? She would gladly have +kept her as her companion till she married,—for, of course, she would +marry some day,—but there was Mark to be considered. She could not +introduce Annette into her household without a vehement protest from +Mark to start with, who would probably end by falling in love with her. +It was hopeless to expect that Annette would take an interest in any man +for some time to come. Would she be glad or sorry if Annette eventually +married Mark? She came to the conclusion that in spite of all the +drawbacks of Annette's parentage and the Le Geyt episode, she would +rather have her as her daughter-in-law than anyone. But there was Mark +to be reckoned with, a very uncertain quantity. She did not know how he +would regard that miserable episode, and she decided that she would not +take the responsibility of throwing him and Annette together.</p> + +<p>Then what was to be done? Mrs. Stoddart had got through her own troubles +with such assiduous determination earlier in life that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> was now +quite at liberty to attend to those of others, and she gave a close +attention to Annette's.</p> + +<p>She need not have troubled her mind, for Annette was coming towards her +up the steep path between the high hedges of flowering geraniums with a +sheaf of letters in her hand, and her future neatly mapped out in one of them.</p> + +<p>She sat down at Mrs. Stoddart's feet in the dappled shade under the +scarlet-flowering pomegranate tree, and they both opened their letters. +Annette had time to read her two several times while Mrs. Stoddart +selected one after another from her bundle. Presently she gave an +exclamation of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Mark is on his way here. He will be here directly. Let me see, the +<i>Fürstin</i> is due to-morrow or next day. He sends this by the English +mail to warn me. He has not been well, overworked, and he is coming out +for the sake of the sea-journey and to take me home."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart's shrewd eyes shone. A faint colour came to her thin cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Then I shall see him," said Annette. "When he did not come out for +Christmas I was afraid I should miss him altogether."</p> + +<p>"Does that mean you are thinking of leaving me, Annette?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Annette, and she took her friend's hand and kissed it. "I +have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> considering it some time. I am thinking of staying here and +setting up as a dressmaker."</p> + +<p>"As a dressmaker!" almost gasped Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why not? My aunt is a very good dressmaker in Paris, and she would +help me—at least, she would if it was worth her while. And there is no +one here to do anything, and all that exquisite work the peasant women +make is wasted on coarse or inferior material. I should get them to do +it for me on soft fine nainsook, and make a speciality of summer morning +gowns and children's frocks. Every one who comes here would buy a gown +of Teneriffe-work from me, and I can fit people quite well. I have a +natural turn for it. Look how I can fit myself. You said yesterday that +this white gown I have on was perfect."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart could only gaze at her in amazement.</p> + +<p>"My dear Annette," she said at last, "you cannot seriously think I would +allow you to leave me to become a dressmaker! What have I done that you +should treat me like that?"</p> + +<p>"You have done everything," said Annette,—"more than anyone in the +world since I was born,—and I have accepted everything—haven't I?—as +it was given—freely. But I felt the time was coming when I must find a +little hole of my own to creep into, and I thought this dressmaking +might do. I would rather not try to live by my voice. It would throw me +into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> kind of society I knew <i>before</i>. I would rather make a fresh +start on different lines. At least, I thought all these things as I came +up the path ten minutes ago. But these two letters have shown me that I +have a place of my own in the world after all."</p> + +<p>She put two black-edged letters into Mrs. Stoddart's hand.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Catherine is dead," she said. "You know she has been failing. That +was why they went to live in the country."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart took up the letters and gave them her whole attention. +Each of the bereaved aunts had written.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Annette</span> (wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),—I grieve to tell +you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly +yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the +country undertaken entirely on her account would have been +beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part +who need the inspiration of a congenial literary <i>milieu</i> so much. +She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which +belief her doctor encouraged her—very unwisely, as the event has +proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an +event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on +organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through +fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been +mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said +that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> move was +done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and +though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to +over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather +than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did +more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more +frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on +Saturday last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is +entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned +all my fortitude I should be in the same condition myself, for of +course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very +special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate sisters.</p> + +<p>"I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and +I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with +your father quite as congenial as you anticipated. Should you be in +need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall +be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the +manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since +realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt +Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, +you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is +your wish, to fill her place.—Your affectionate aunt,<span class="s6"> </span><span class="smcap">Maria +Nevill</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart took up the second letter.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Annette</span>,—How can I <i>tell</i> you—how can I <i>begin</i> to tell +you—of <i>the shattering blow</i> that has fallen upon us? Life can +<i>never</i> be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> same again. <i>Death</i> has entered our dwelling. +Dearest Cathie—your Aunt Catherine—has been taken from us. She +was <i>quite</i> well yesterday—at least well for <i>her</i>—at +quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and by +<i>seven-thirty</i> she was in a precarious condition. Maria <i>insisted</i> +on sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, +realizing as I do full well <i>that the ability to save life is not +with them</i>, and that <i>all drugs have only the power in them which +we by wrong thought have given to them</i>. However, Maria had her way +as <i>always</i>, but our dear sister succumbed before he arrived, so I +do not <i>in any way</i> attribute her death to <i>him</i>. We were both with +her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite +peaceful. I could have wished for <i>one last word of love</i>, but I do +not rebel. Maria feels it <i>terribly</i>, though she always has <i>great</i> +self-control. But of course the loss cannot be to <i>her</i>, immersed +in her writing, what it is to <i>me</i>, my darling Cathie's constant +companion and adviser. We were <i>all in all</i> to each other. What I +shall do without her I cannot even <i>imagine</i>. Maria will naturally +expect—she always <i>has</i> expected—to find all household matters +arranged <i>without any participation on her part</i>. And I am, alas! +so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to +that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am +thankful to think, been a <i>centre</i> from which sympathy and love +have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalids +<i>live in the lives of others</i>. Their <i>joys</i> are <i>our</i> joys. <i>Their</i> +sorrows are <i>our</i> sorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful +experiences at Teneriffe—the islands of the blest! When it has +snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the +sunshine.' And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> now, dear Annette, I am wondering whether, <i>when +you leave Teneriffe</i>, you could make your home with us again for a +time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you, +<i>ever</i> ready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles +and perplexities. <i>I</i> never blamed you for leaving us. I know <i>too</i> +well that spirit of adventure, though my lot bids <i>me</i> sternly +silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seem <i>pointed +out for you</i> to relinquish this strange idea of being a +professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is so +<i>plain</i>? I know from experience what a great blessing attends +<i>those who give up their own will to live for others</i>. The +surrender of the will! <i>That</i> is where <i>true</i> peace and happiness +lie, if the young <i>could only believe it</i>.</p> + +<p>I will say no more.—With fondest love, your affectionate <span class="s6"> </span><span class="smcap">Aunt +Harriet</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you +could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between +them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of +this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?"</p> + +<p>"I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It +will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a +great success of living for myself so far."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart did not answer.</p> + +<p>Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor +when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> eyes +were ever seen," she often said to herself.</p> + +<p>Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable. +When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took +it as my right. I was to have everything—love, honour, happiness, rank, +wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung +out of the house in a rage. If Dick had not stopped me at the door I +should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better +than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him—try +and find the place intended for me, where I <i>shan't</i> be cast out."</p> + +<p>"Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage."</p> + +<p>"You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act of penance?"</p> + +<p>"No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now +I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could +make a success of it."</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt you could, but——"</p> + +<p>"I should like to make a success of <i>something</i>, after being such a +failure. And—and——"</p> + +<p>"And what, my child?"</p> + +<p>"I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the +Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> as if He +hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like—if I could—to +creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where +there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Oh, is the water sweet and cool,</div> +<div>Gentle and brown, above the pool?</div> +<div>And laughs the immortal river still</div> +<div>Under the mill, under the mill?"</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Rupert Brooke.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>I do not think you have ever heard of the little village of Riff in +Lowshire, Reader, unless you were born and bred in it as I was. If you +were, you believe of course that it is the centre of the world. But if +you were not, it is possible you may have overlooked it in your scheme +of life, or hurried past it in the train reading a novel, not even +looking out as I have done a hundred times to catch a glimpse of it +lying among its water meadows behind the willows.</p> + +<p>But unless you know exactly where to look you can only catch a momentary +glimpse, because the Rieben with its fringe of willows makes a +half-circle round Riff and guards it from inquisitive eyes.</p> + +<p>Parallel with the Rieben, but half a mile away from it on higher ground, +runs the great white high road from London to Yarmouth. And between the +road and the river lies the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> village of Riff. But you cannot see it or +even the top of its church tower from the road, because the park of +Hulver Manor comes in between, stretching in long leafy glades of oak +and elm and open sward, and hiding the house in its midst, the old Tudor +house which has stood closed and shuttered so long, ever since Mr. Manvers died.</p> + +<p>When at last the park comes to an end, a deep lane breaks off from the +main road, and pretending that it is going nowhere in particular and +that time would be lost in following it, edges along like a homing cat +beside the park wall in the direction of Riff, skirting a gate and a +cluster of buildings, <i>laiterie</i>, barn and dovecot, which are all you +can see of Red Riff Farm from the lane. I point it out to you as we +pass, for we shall come back there later on. Riff is much nearer than +you think, for the ground is always falling a little towards the Rieben, +which is close at hand though invisible also.</p> + +<p>And between the park and the river lies the hidden village of Riff.</p> + +<p>You come upon it quite suddenly at the turn of the lane, with its +shallow ford, and its pink-plastered cottages sprinkled among its high +trees, and its thatched Vicarage, and "The Hermitage" with the +honeysuckle over the porch, and the almshouses near the great Italian +gates of Hulver Manor, and somewhat apart in its walled garden among its +twisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> pines the Dower House where Lady Louisa Manvers was living, +poor soul, at the time this story was written.</p> + +<p>I have only to close my eyes and I can see it all—can imagine myself +sitting with the Miss Blinketts in their little parlour at The +Hermitage, with a daguerreotype of the defunct Père Blinkett over the +mantelpiece, and Miss Amy's soft voice saying, "They do say Lady +Louisa's cook is leaving to be married. But they will say anything at +Riff. I never believe more than half I hear."</p> + +<p>The Hermitage stood on a little slice of ground which fell away from the +lane. So close was The Hermitage to the lane, and the parlour windows +were so low, and the lane beyond the palings so high, that the inmates +could only guess at the identity of the passers-by by their legs. And +rare guests and rarer callers, arriving in the wagonnette from the +Manvers Arms, could actually look into the bedroom windows, while the +Miss Blinketts' eyes, peering over the parlour muslins, were fixed upon +their lower limbs.</p> + +<p>And if I keep my eyes tightly shut and the eyes of memory open, I can +see as I sit stroking Miss Blinkett's cat the legs of the new Vicar pass +up the lane outlined against a lilac skirt. And Miss Amy, who is not a +close observer of life, opines that the skirt belongs to Miss Janey +Manvers, but Miss Blinkett senior instantly identifies it as Annette's +new spotted muslin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> which she had seen Mrs. Nicholls "getting up" last +week.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But that was twenty years ago. I can only tell you what Riff was like +then, for it is twenty years since I was there, and I am not going there +any more, for I don't want to see any of the changes which time must +have wrought there, and if I walked down the village street now I should +feel like a ghost, for only a few of the old people would remember me. +And the bright-eyed, tow-headed little lads whom I taught in Sunday +school are scattered to the four winds of heaven. The Boer War took some +of them, and London has engulfed more, only a few remaining at Riff as +sad-looking middle-aged men, farm hands, and hedgers and ditchers, and cowmen.</p> + +<p>And I hear that now the motors go banging along the Yarmouth high road +day and night, and that Riff actually has a telegraph office of its own +and that the wires go in front of The Hermitage, only the Miss Blinketts +are not there to see it. A literary lady lives there now, and I hear she +has changed the name to "Quill Cottage," and has made a garden in the +orchard where old Nan's cottage was by the twisted pear tree: old Nan +the witch, who grew mistletoe in all the trees in her domain, and cured +St. Vitus' dance with it. No, I will not go to Riff any more, for I do +not want to see any of these things, and least of all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> literary lady +who is writing her novels in the quiet rooms where my two old friends +knitted and read Thomas à Kempis.</p> + +<p>Twenty years ago, in the days when my father was doctor at Riff and when +Annette came to live there, we could not help noticing—indeed, Mrs. +Nicholls often mentioned it—what a go-ahead place Riff was, far more up +to date than Sweet Apple Tree, and even than Meverly Mill. We measured +everything in those days by Sweet Apple Tree, and the measurement was +always in our favour. We did not talk much about Riebenbridge, where the +"'Sizes" were held, and the new "'Sylum" had just been built. We were +somewhat awed by Riebenbridge, but poor lag-behind Sweet Apple Tree, +lost amid its reeds together with the Rieben, was the subject of sincere +pity to the Riff folk. The Sweet Applers, according to Mrs. Nicholls, +were "that clunch they might have been brought up in a wood." At Riff +everything was cast in a superior and more modern mould. Riff had a +postman on a bicycle with an enormous front wheel, and if he brought a +letter in the morning you could if necessary post an answer to it the +same day in the red slit in the churchyard wall. Now at Sweet Apple Tree +the old man in a donkey-cart blowing on a little horn who brought the +Sweet Apple letters, took away directly the donkey was rested those +which the inhabitants had just composed. And even he did not call if +"the water was out."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p><p>Before I was born, when the Miss Blinketts were young and crinolined +and their father was Vicar of Riff, Sweet Apple Tree, as they have often +told me, had no choir, and the old Rector held a service once or twice a +year in his Bath chair. After he took to his bed there was no service at +all for twenty years. No wonder the Sweet Apple folk were "clunch"! How +different from Riff, with its trombone and fiddle inviting the attention +of its Creator every Sunday, and Mr. Blinkett, whose watchword was "No +popery," preaching in his black gown two sermons a week to the favoured people of Riff.</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Jones, Mr. Blinkett's successor, that lamentable person, +meaning well, but according to the Miss Blinketts quite unable to +perceive when a parish was worked on the right lines, it was young Mr. +Jones from Oxford, who did not marry either of the Miss Blinketts, but +who did put a stop to the trombone and fiddle, and actually brought the +choir out of the gallery, and took away the hour-glass from the south +window below the pulpit, and preached in his surplice, and made himself +very unpopular by forbidding the congregation to rise to its feet when +the Manvers family came into church, almost as unpopular as by stopping +the fiddle. You can see the old fiddle still in the cottage of Hesketh +the carrier, next the village stocks. His father had played on it, and +turned "chapel" when his services were no longer required. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> it was +young Mr. Jones who actually had the bad taste openly to deplore the +saintly Blinkett's action in demolishing all the upper part of the +ancient carved and gilded screen because at eighty he could no longer +make his voice heard through it.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, Mr. Jones who started the mixed choir sitting in the +chancel behind the remains of the screen.</p> + +<p>In the last days of the mixed choir, when first Mr. Black came to Riff +(after Mr. Jones was made a bishop), Annette sang in it, with a voice +that seemed to me, and not to me only, like the voice of an angel.</p> + +<p>With the exception of Annette and the under-housemaid from the Dower +House, it was mainly composed of admirable domestic characters of portly +age—the élite of Riff—supplemented by a small gleaning of deeply +virtuous, non-fruit-stealing little boys. We are told nowadays that +heredity is nothing. But when I remember how those starched and +white-collared juvenile singers were nearly all the offspring of the +tenors and basses, and of Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks who were trebles, +I feel the last word still remains to be said about heredity.</p> + +<p>Annette did not sing in it long—not more than a year, I think. It was +soon after she left it that Mr. Black—so I am told—started a surpliced +choir. And here am I talking about her leaving the choir when I have not +yet told you of her arrival in Lowshire, or anything about Red Riff<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +Farm where her two aunts lived, and where Aunt Maria wrote her famous +novel, <i>The Silver Cross</i>, of which you have of course often heard, and +which if you are of a serious turn of mind you have doubtless read and laid to heart.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"Nothing is so incapacitating as self-love."</p> + +<p>Red Riff Farm stands near the lane, between the village and the high +road, presenting its back to all comers with British sang-froid. To +approach it you must go up the wide path between the barn and the +dovecote on one side, and on the other the long, low <i>laiterie</i> standing +above its wall, just able to look at itself in the pool, where the ducks +are breaking up its reflection. When you pass through the narrow iron +gateway in the high wall which protects the garden on the north side, +the old Jacobean house rises up above you, all built of dim rose-red and +dim blue brick, looking benignly out across the meadows over its small +enclosed garden which had once been the orchard, in which some of the +ancient bent apple trees are still like old pensioners permitted to remain.</p> + +<p>When Annette first passed through that gateway, the beautiful dim old +building with its latticed windows peered at her through a network of +apple blossom. But now the apple trees have long since dropped their +petals, and you can see the house clearly, with its wavering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> tiled +string courses, and its three rounded gables, and the vine flung half across it.</p> + +<p>The low, square oak door studded with nails stands wide open, showing a +glimpse of a small panelled hall with a carved black staircase coming down into it.</p> + +<p>We need not peer in through the window at the Shakespeare Calendar on +Aunt Maria's study table to see what time of year it is, for everything +tells us: the masses of white pinks crowding up to the threshold and +laying their sweet heads against the stone edging of their domain, the +yellow lichen in flower on the roof, the serried ranks of Sweet William +full out. It is certainly early June. And the black-faced sheep moving +sedately in the long meadows in front of the house confirm us in our +opinion, for they have shed their becoming woollen overalls and are +straddling about, hideous to behold, in their summer tights. Only the +lambs, now large and sedate, keep their pretty February coats, though by +some unaccountable fatality they have all, poor dears, lost their tails.</p> + +<p>Lowshire is a sedate place. I have never seen those solemn Lowshire +lambs jump about as they do in Hampshire. A Hampshire lamb among his +contemporaries with the juice of the young grass in him! Hi! Friskings +and caperings! That is a sight to make an old ram young. But the +Lowshire lambs seem ever to see the shadow of the blue-coated butcher in +the sunshine. They move in decorous bands as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> they were going to +church, hastening suddenly all together as if they were late.</p> + +<p>Lowshire is a sedate place. The farm lads still in their teens move as +slowly as the creeping rivers, much slower than the barges. The boys +early leave off scurrying in shouting bands down the lanes in the dusk. +The little girls peep demurely over the garden gates, and walk slowly +indoors, if spoken to.</p> + +<p>We have ascertained that it is early June, and we need no watch to tell +us what o'clock it is. It is milking-time, the hour when good little +boys "whom mother can trust" are to be seen hurrying in an important +manner with milk-cans. Half-past four it must be, for the red cows, +sweet-breathed and soft-paced, have passed up the lane half an hour ago, +looking gently to right and left with lustrous, nunlike eyes, now and +then putting out a large red tongue to lick at the hedgerow. Sometimes, +as to-day, the bull precedes them, hustling along, surly, <i>affairé</i>, +making a low, continuous grunting which is not anger, for he is kind as +bulls go, so much as "orkardness," the desire of the egotist to make his +discontentment public, and his disillusionment with his pasture and all +his gentle-tempered wives.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Annette came down the carved staircase, and stood a moment in the +doorway in a pale lilac gown (the same that you will remember the Miss +Blinketts saw half an hour later).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>Her ear caught the sound of a manly voice mingled with Aunt Maria's +dignified tones, and the somewhat agitated accompaniment of the clink of +tea-things. Aunt Harriet was evidently more acutely undecided than usual +which cup to fill first, and was rattling them in the way that always +irritated Aunt Maria, though she made heroic efforts to dissimulate it.</p> + +<p>Annette came to the conclusion that she should probably be late for +choir practice if she went into the drawing-room. So she walked +noiselessly across the hall and slipped through the garden. A dogcart +was standing horseless in the courtyard, and the delighted female +laughter which proceeded from the servants' hall showed that a male +element in the shape of a groom had been added to the little band of women-servants.</p> + +<p>What a fortunate occurrence that there should be a caller!—for on this +particular afternoon Aunt Maria had reached a difficult place in her new +book, the hero having thrown over his lady-love because she, foolish +modernist that she was, toying with her life's happiness, would not +promise to leave off smoking. The depressed authoress needed a change of +thought. And it would be pleasant for the whole household if Aunt +Harriet's mind could be diverted from the fact that her new air-cushion +leaked; not the old black one, that would not have mattered so much, but +the new round red society one which she used when there were visitors +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> the house. Aunt Harriet's mind had brooded all day over the +air-cushion as mournfully as a hart's tongue over a well.</p> + +<p>Annette hoped it was a cheerful caller. Perhaps it was Canon Wetherby +from Riebenbridge, an amiable widower, and almost as great an admirer of +Aunt Maria's works as of his own stock of anecdotes.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile if she, Annette, missed her own lawful tea at home, to +which of the little colony of neighbours in the village should she go +for a cup, on her way to the church, where choir practice was held?</p> + +<p>To the Dower House? Old Lady Louisa Manvers had ceased to come +downstairs at all, and her daughter Janey, a few years older than +herself, poor downtrodden Janey, would be only too glad to see her. But +then her imbecile brother Harry, with his endless copy-book remarks, +would be certain to be having tea with her, and Lady Louisa's trained +nurse, whom Annette particularly disliked. No, she would not go to the +Dower House this afternoon. She might go to tea with the Miss Blinketts, +who were always kind to her, and whose cottage lay between her and the church.</p> + +<p>The two Miss Blinketts were about the same age as the Miss Nevills, and +regarded them with deep admiration, not unmixed with awe, coupled with +an evident hope that a pleasant intercourse might presently be +established between The Hermitage and Red Riff Farm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> They were indeed +quite excited at the advent among them of one so gifted as the author of +<i>Crooks and Coronets</i>, who they perceived from her books took a very +high view of the responsibility created by genius.</p> + +<p>Annette liked the Miss Blinketts, and her knowledge of Aunt Maria's +character had led her to hope that this enthusiastic deference might +prove acceptable to a wearied authoress in her hours of relaxation. But +she soon found that the Miss Nevills with all the prestige of London and +a literary <i>milieu</i> resting upon them were indignant at the idea that +they could care to associate with "a couple of provincial old maids."</p> + +<p>Their almost ferocious attitude towards the amiable Miss Blinketts had +been a great shock to Annette, who neither at that nor at any later time +learned to make the social distinctions which occupied so much of her +two aunts' time. The Miss Nevills' acceptance of a certain offering of +ferns peeping through the meshes of a string bag brought by the Miss +Blinketts, had been so frigid, so patrician, that it had made Annette +more friendly than she would naturally have been. She had welcomed the +ferns with enthusiasm, and before she had realized it, had become the +object of a sentimental love and argus-eyed interest on the part of the +inmates of The Hermitage which threatened to have its embarrassing moments.</p> + +<p>No, now she came to think of it, she would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> not go to tea with the Miss +Blinketts this afternoon.</p> + +<p>Of course, she might go to the Vicarage. Miss Black, the Vicar's sister +who kept house for him, had often asked her to do so before choir +practice. But Annette had vaguely felt of late that Miss Black, who had +been very cordial to her on her arrival and was still extremely polite, +did not regard her with as much favour as at first: in fact, that as Mr. +Black formed a high and ever higher opinion of her, that of his sister +was steadily lowered to keep the balance even.</p> + +<p>Annette knew what was the matter with Mr. Black, though that gentleman +had not yet discovered what it was that was affecting his usually placid +temper and causing him on his parochial rounds so frequently to take the +short cut past Red Riff Farm.</p> + +<p>She had just decided, without emotion but with distinct regret, that she +must do without tea this afternoon, when a firm step came along the lane +behind her, and Mr. Black overtook her. For once he had taken that short +cut to some purpose, though his face, fixed in a dignified +preoccupation, gave no hint that he felt Fortune had favoured him at last.</p> + +<p>The Miss Blinketts had heard it affirmed "by one who knew a wide sweep +of clergy and was therefore competent to form an opinion," that Mr. +Black was the handsomest vicar in the diocese. But possibly that was not +high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> praise, for the clergy had evidently deteriorated in appearance +since the ancient Blinkett, that type of aristocratic beauty, had been +laid to rest under the twisted yew in the Riff churchyard.</p> + +<p>But, anyhow, Mr. Black was sufficiently good-looking to be called +handsome in a countryside where young unmarried men were rare as water +ousels. He was tall and erect, and being rather clumsily built, showed +to great advantage in a surplice. In a procession of clergy you would +probably have picked out Mr. Black at once as its most impressive +figure. He was what the Miss Blinketts called "stately." When you looked +closely at him you saw that his nose was a size too large, that his head +and ears and hands and feet were all a size too large for him. But the +general impression was pleasant, partly because he always looked as if +he had that moment emerged as speckless as his surplices from Mrs. Nicholls' washtub.</p> + +<p>It was an open secret that Mrs. Nicholls thought but little of Miss +Black, "who wasn't so to call a lady, and washed her flannels at home." +But she had a profound admiration for the Vicar, though I fear if the +truth were known it was partly because he "set off a surplice so as never was."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black allowed his thoughtful expression to lighten to a grave smile +as he walked on beside Annette, determined that on this occasion he +would not be commonplace or didactic, as he feared he had been after the +boot and shoe club.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> He was under the illusion, because he had so often +said so, that he seldom took the trouble to do himself justice socially. +It might be as well to begin now.</p> + +<p>"Are you on your way to choir practice?"</p> + +<p>"What a question! Of course I am."</p> + +<p>"Have you had tea?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Neither have I. Do come to the Vicarage first, and Angela will give us +some." "Angela" was Miss Black.</p> + +<p>Annette could not find any reason for refusing.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I will come with pleasure."</p> + +<p>"I would rather go without any meal than tea."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black felt as he said it that this sentiment was <i>for him</i> +inadequate, but he was relieved that Annette did not appear to find it +so. She smiled and said—</p> + +<p>"It certainly is the pleasantest meal in the day."</p> + +<p>At this moment, the Miss Blinketts and I saw, as I have already told +you, the legs of the Vicar pass up the lane outlined against a lilac +skirt. We watched them pass in silence, and then Miss Blinkett said solemnly—</p> + +<p>"If anything should come of that, if he should eventually make up his +mind to marry, I consider Annette would be in every way a worthy choice."</p> + +<p>"Papa was always against a celibate clergy," said Miss Amy, as if that +settled the question.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p><p>Annette and her possible future had nearly reached the Vicarage when a +dogcart passed them which she recognized as the one she had seen at Red +Riff. The man in it waved his hand to Mr. Black.</p> + +<p>"That was Mr. Reginald Stirling, the novelist," Mr. Black volunteered.</p> + +<p>"The man who wrote <i>The Magnet</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He has rented Noyes Court from Lady Louisa. I hear he never +attends divine service at Noyes, but I am glad to say he has been to +Riff several times lately. I am afraid Bartlett's sermons are not +calculated to attract an educated man."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black was human, and he was aware that he was a good preacher.</p> + +<p>"I have often heard of him from Mrs. Stoddart," said Annette, with +evident interest. "I supposed he lived in Lowshire because some of the +scenes in <i>The Magnet</i> are laid in this country."</p> + +<p>"Are they? I had not noticed it," said Mr. Black frigidly.</p> + +<p>He had often wished he could interest Annette in conversation, often +wondered why he seemed unable to do so. Was it really because he did not +take enough trouble, as he sometimes accused himself? But now that she +was momentarily interested he stopped short at once, as at the entrance +of a blind alley. What he really wanted was to talk, not about Mr. +Stirling but about himself, to tell her how he found good in every one, +how attracted he was to the ignorant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> and the simple. No. He did not +exactly desire to tell her these things, but to coerce the conversation +into channels which would show indubitably that he was the kind of man +who could discover the good latent in every one, the kind of man who +fostered the feeble aspirations of the young and the ignorant, who +entered with wide-minded sympathy into the difficulties of stupid +people, who was better read and more humorous than any of his clerical +brethren in Lowshire, to whom little children and dogs turned +intuitively as to a friend.</p> + +<p>Now, it is not an easy thing to enter lightly into conversation if you +bring with you into it so many impedimenta. There was obviously no place +for all this heavy baggage in the discussion of Mr. Stirling's novels. +So that eminent writer was dismissed at once, and the subject was +hitched, not without a jolt, on to the effect of the Lowshire scenery on +Mr. Black. It transpired that Mr. Black was the kind of man who went for +inspiration to the heathery moor, and who found that the problems of +life are apt to unravel themselves under a wide expanse of sky.</p> + +<p>Annette listened dutifully and politely till the Vicarage door was reached.</p> + +<p>It seemed doubtful afterwards, when he reviewed what he had said, +whether he had attained to any really prominent conversational peaks +during that circumscribed parley.</p> + +<p>He felt with sudden exasperation that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> needed time, scope, +opportunity, lots of opportunity, so that if he missed one there would +be plenty more, and above all absence of interruption. He never got a +chance of <i>really</i> talking to her.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"It ain't the pews and free seats as knows what music is, nor it +ain't the organist. It is the <i>choir</i>. There's more in music than +just ketching a tune and singing it fort here and pianner there. +But Lor! Miss, what do the pews and the free seats know of the +dangers? When the Vicar gives them a verse to sing by themselves it +do make me swaller with embarrassment to hear 'em beller. They +knows nothing, and they fears nothing."—<span class="smcap">Mrs. Nicholls.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>On this particular evening Annette was the first to take her seat in the +chancel beyond the screen, where the choir practices always took place. +Mrs. Nicholls presently joined her there with her battered part-book, +and she and Annette went over the opening bars of the new anthem, which +like the Riff bull was "orkard" in places.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black was lighting the candles on long iron sticks, while Miss Black +adjusted herself to the harmonium, which did the organ's drudgery for +it, and then settled herself, notebook in hand, to watch which of the +choir made an attendance.</p> + +<p>Miss Black was constantly urging her brother to do away with the mixed +choir and have a surpliced one. She became even more urgent on that head +after Annette had joined it. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> Black was nothing loth, but his +bishop, who had but recently instituted him, had implored him not to +make a clean sweep of <i>every</i> arrangement of his predecessor, Mr. Jones, +that ardent reformer, whose principal reforms now needed reforming. So, +with laudable obedience and zeal, Mr. Black possessed his soul in +patience and sought to instil new life into the mixed choir. Annette was +part of that new life, and her presence helped to reconcile him to its +continued existence, and to increase Miss Black's desire for its extinction.</p> + +<p>Miss Black was older than her brother, and had already acquired that +acerb precision which lies in wait with such frequent success for +middle-aged spinsters and bachelors.</p> + +<p>She somehow gave the comfortless impression of being "ready-made" and +"greatly reduced," as if there were quantities more exactly like her put +away somewhere, the supply having hopelessly exceeded the demand. She +looked as if she herself, as well as her fatigued elaborate clothes, had +been picked up half-price but somewhat crumpled in the sales.</p> + +<p>She glanced with disapproval at Annette whispering amicably with Mrs. +Nicholls, and Annette desisted instantly.</p> + +<p>The five little boys shuffled in in a bunch, as if roped together, and +slipped into their seats under Mr. Black's eye. Mr. Chipps the grocer +and principal bass followed, bringing with him an aroma of cheese. The +two altoes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, from the Infants' School, +were already in position. A few latecomers seemed to have dropped +noiselessly into their seats from the roof, and to become visible by +clearings of throats.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black, who was chagrined by the very frigid reception and the stale +tea which his sister had accorded to Annette, said with his customary +benignity, "Are we all here? I think we may as well begin."</p> + +<p>Miss Black remarked that the choirmaster, Mr. Spillcock, was "late +again," just as that gentleman was seen advancing like a ramrod up the aisle.</p> + +<p>A certain mystery enveloped Mr. Spillcock. He was not a Riff man, nor +did he hail from Noyes, or Heyke, or Swale, or even Riebenbridge. What +had brought him to live at Riebenbridge no one rightly knew, not even +Mrs. Nicholls. It was whispered that he had "bugled" before Royalty in +outlandish parts, and when Foreign Missions were being practised he had +been understood to aver that the lines,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Where Afric's sunny fountains</div> +<div>Roll down their golden sand,"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>put him forcibly in mind of the scenes of his earlier life. Whether he +had really served in the army or not never transpired, but his grey +moustache was twirled with military ferocity, and he affected the +bearing and manner of a retired army man. It was also whispered that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +Mrs. Spillcock, a somewhat colourless, depressed mate for so vivid a +personality, "was preyed upon in her mind" because another lady had a +prior or church claim to the title of Mrs. Spillcock. As a child I +always expected the real Mrs. Spillcock to appear, but she never did.</p> + +<p>"Good evening all," said Mr. Spillcock urbanely, and without waiting for +any remarks on the lateness of the hour, he seized out of his waistcoat +pocket a tuning-fork. "We begin, I presume, with the anthem 'Now hunto +'Im.' Trebles, take your do. Do, me, sol, do. Do." Mr. Spillcock turned +towards the trebles with open mouth, uttering a prolonged falsetto do, +and showing all his molars on the left side, where apparently he held do in reserve.</p> + +<p>Annette guided Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks and the timid +under-housemaid from the Dower House from circling round the note to the note itself.</p> + +<p>"Do," sang out all the trebles with sweetness and decision.</p> + +<p>"Now, then, boys, why don't you fall in?" said Mr. Spillcock, looking +with unconcealed animosity at the line of little boys whom he ought not +to have disliked, as they never made any sound in the church, reserving +their voices for shouting on their homeward way in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Now, then, boys, look alive. Take up your do from the ladies."</p> + +<p>A faint buzzing echo like the sound in an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> unmusical shell could be +detected by the optimists nearest to the boys. It would have been +possible to know they were in tune only by holding their bodies to your ear.</p> + +<p>"They have got it," said Mr. Black valiantly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spillcock looked at them with cold contempt.</p> + +<p>"Altoes, me," he said more gently. He was gallant to the fair sex, and +especially to Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, one dark and one fair, and +both in the dew of their cultured youth.</p> + +<p>"Altoes, take your me."</p> + +<p>The two altoes, their lips ready licked, burst into a plaintive bleat, +which if it was not me was certainly nothing else.</p> + +<p>The miller, the principal tenor, took his sol, supported at once by "the +young chap" from the Manvers Arms, who echoed it manfully directly it +had been unearthed, and by his nephew from Lowestoft, who did not belong +to the choir and could not sing, but who was on a holiday and who always +came to choir practices with his uncle, because he was courting either +Miss Pontifex or Miss Spriggs, possibly both. I have a hazy recollection +of hearing years later that he had married them both, not at the same +time, but one shortly after the other, and that Miss Spriggs made a +wonderful mother to Miss Pontifex's baby, or <i>vice versa</i>. Anyhow, they +were both in love with him, and I know it ended happily for every one, +and was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>considered in Riff to be a great example to Mr. Chipps of +portly years, who had been engaged for about twenty years "as you might +say off and on" to Mrs. Cocks' sister (who was cook at the Dower House), +but who, whenever the question of marriage was introduced, opined that +"he felt no call to change his state."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black made several ineffectual attempts to induce the basses to take +their lower do. But Mr. Chipps, though he generally succumbed into +singing an octave below the trebles, had conscientious scruples about +starting on the downward path even if his part demanded it, and could +not be persuaded to make any sound except a dignified neutral rumbling. +The other basses naturally were not to be drawn on to dangerous ground +while their leader held aloof.</p> + +<p>"We shall drop into it later on," said Mr. Black hopefully, who sat with +them. "We had better start."</p> + +<p>"Pom, pom, pom, pom," said Mr. Spillcock, going slowly down the chord, +and waving a little stick at trebles, altoes, tenors, and basses in turn at each pom.</p> + +<p>Every one made a note of sorts, with such pleasing results, something so +far superior to anything that Sweet Apple Tree could produce, that it +was felt to be unchivalrous on the part of Mr. Spillcock to beat his +stick on the form and say sternly—</p> + +<p>"Altoes, it's Hay. Not Hay flat."</p> + +<p>"Pommmm!" in piercing falsetto.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p><p>The altoes took up their note again, caught it as it were with a +pincers from Mr. Spillcock's back molars.</p> + +<p>"Righto," said Mr. Spillcock. "Altoes, if you find yourselves going +down, keep yourselves <i>hup</i>. Now hunto 'Im."</p> + +<p>And the serious business of the practice began.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Not even in a dream hast thou known compassion ... thou knowest +not even the phantom of pity; but the silver hair will remind thee +of all this by and by."—<span class="smcap">Callimachus.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>The Dower House stands so near to the church that Janey Manvers sitting +by her bedroom window in the dusk could hear fragments of the choir +practice over the low ivied wall which separates the churchyard from the +garden. She could detect Annette's voice taking the same passage over +and over again, trying to lead the trebles stumbling after her. +Presently there was a silence, and then her voice rose sweet and clear by itself—</p> + +<p>"<i>They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the +sun light on them, nor any heat.</i>"</p> + +<p>The other voices surged up, and Janey heard no more.</p> + +<p>Was it possible there really was a place somewhere where there was no +more hunger and thirst, and beating, blinding heat? Or were they only +pretty words to comfort where no comfort was? Janey looked out where one +soft star hung low in the dusk over the winding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> river and its poplars. +It seemed to her that night as if she had reached the end of her strength.</p> + +<p>For years, since her father died, she had nursed and sustained her +mother, the invalid in the next room, through what endless terrible days +and nights, through what scenes of anger and bitterness and despair. +Janey had been loyal to one who had never been loyal to her, considerate +to one who had ridden rough-shod over her, tender to one who was harsh +to her, who had always been harsh. And now her mother, not content with +eating up the best years of her daughter's life, had laid her cold hand +upon the future, and had urged Janey to promise that after her death she +would always keep Harry, her half-witted younger brother, in the same +house with her, and protect him from the world on one side and a lunatic +asylum on the other. Something desperate had surged up in Janey's heart, +and she had refused to give the promise. She could see still her +mother's look of impotent anger as she turned her face to the wall, +could hear still her hysterical sobbing. She had not dared to remain +with her, and Anne the old housemaid was sitting with her till the +trained nurse returned from Ipswich, a clever, resourceful woman, who +had made herself indispensable to Lady Louisa, and had taken Harry to +the dentist—always heretofore a matter difficult of accomplishment.</p> + +<p>Janey realized with sickening shame this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> evening that she had +unconsciously looked forward to her mother's death as a time when +release would come from this intolerable burden which she had endured +for the last seven years. Her poor mother would die some day, and a home +would be found for Harry, who never missed anyone if he was a day away +from them. And she would marry Roger, dear kind Roger, whom she had +loved since she was a small child and he was a big boy. That had been +her life, in a prison whose one window looked on a green tree: and poor +manacled Janey had strained towards it as a plant strains to the light. +Something fierce had stirred within her when she saw her mother's hand +trying to block the window. That at any rate must not be touched. She +could not endure it. She knew that if she married Roger he would never +consent that Harry and his attendants should live in the house with +them. What man would? She felt sure that her mother had realized that +contingency and the certainty of Roger's refusal, and hence her +determination to wrest a promise from Janey.</p> + +<p>She was waiting for her cousin Roger now. He had not said whether he +would dine or come in after dinner,—it depended on whether he caught +the five o'clock express from Liverpool Street,—but in any case he +would come in some time this evening to tell her the result of his +mission to Paris. Roger lived within a hundred yards, in the pink +cottage with the twirly barge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> boarding almost facing the church, close +by the village stocks.</p> + +<p>Janey had put on what she believed to be a pretty gown on his account, +it was at any rate a much-trimmed one, and had re-coiled her soft brown +hair. The solitude and the darkness had relieved somewhat the strain +upon her nerves. Perhaps Roger might after all have accomplished his +mission, and her mother might be pacified. Sometimes there had been +quiet intervals after these violent outbreaks, which nearly always +followed opposition of any kind. Perhaps to-morrow life might seem more +possible, not such a nightmare. To-morrow she would walk up to Red Riff +and see Annette—lovely, kind Annette—the wonderful new friend who had +come into her life. Roger ought to be here, if he were coming to dinner. +The choir was leaving the church. Choir practice was never over till +after eight. The steps and voices subsided. She lit a match and held it +to the clock on the dressing-table. Quarter-past eight. Then Roger was +certainly not coming. She went downstairs and ordered dinner to be served.</p> + +<p>It was a relief that for once Harry was not present, that she could eat +her dinner without answering the futile questions which were his staple +of conversation, without hearing the vacant laugh which heralded every +remark. She heard the carriage rumble out of the courtyard to meet him. +His teeth must have taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> longer than usual. Perhaps even Nurse, who +had him so entirely under her thumb as a rule, had found him recalcitrant.</p> + +<p>As she was peeling her peach the door opened, and Roger came in. If +there had been anyone to notice it—but no one ever noticed anything +about Janey—they might have seen that as she perceived him she became a +pretty woman. A soft red mounted to her cheek, her tired eyes shone, her +small, erect figure became alert. He had not dined, after all. She sent +for the earlier dishes, and while he ate, refrained from asking him any questions.</p> + +<p>"You do not look as tired as I expected," she said.</p> + +<p>Roger replied that he was not the least tired There was in his bearing +some of the alertness of hers, and she noticed it with a sudden secret +uprush of joy in her heart. Surely it was the same for both of them? To +be together was all they needed. But oh! how she needed that! How far +greater her need was than his!</p> + +<p>They might have been taken for brother and sister as they sat together +in the dining-room in the light of the four wax candles.</p> + +<p>They were what the village people called "real Manverses," both of them, +sturdy, well knit, erect, with short, straight noses, and grey, direct, +wide-open eyes, and brown complexions, and crisp brown hair. Each was +good-looking in a way. Janey had the advantage of youth, but her life +had been more burdened than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Roger's, and at five-and-thirty he did not +look much older than she did at five-and-twenty, except that he showed a +tendency to be square-set, and his hair was thinning a little at the top +of his honest, well-shaped head. He was, as Mrs. Nicholls often +remarked, "the very statue of the old squire," his uncle and Janey's father.</p> + +<p>"Pray don't hurry, Roger. There is plenty of time."</p> + +<p>"I'm not hurrying, old girl," with another gulp.</p> + +<p>It was a secret infinitesimal grief to Janey that Roger called her "old +girl." A hundred little traits showed that she had seen almost nothing +of the world, but he, in spite of public school and college, gave the +impression of having seen even less. There were a few small +tiresomenesses about Roger to which even Janey's faithful adoration +could not quite shut its eyes. But they were, after all, only external +foibles, such as calling her "old girl," tricks of manner, small +gaucheries and gruntings and lapses into inattention, the result of +living too much alone, which wise Janey knew were of no real account. +The things that really mattered about Roger were his kind heart and his +good business-head and his uprightness.</p> + +<p>"Never seen Paris before, and don't care if I never see it again," he +vouchsafed between enormous mouthfuls. He never listened—at least not +to Janey—and his conversation consisted largely of disjointed remarks, +thrown out at intervals, very much as unprofitable or waste<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> material is +chucked over a wall, without reference to the person whom it may strike +on the other side.</p> + +<p>"I should like to see Paris myself."</p> + +<p>Roger informed her of the reprehensible and entirely un-British manner +in which luggage was arranged for at that metropolis, and of the price +of the cabs and the system of <i>pourboires</i>, and how the housemaid at the +hotel had been a man. Some of these details of intimate Parisian life +had already reached even Janey, but she listened to them with unflagging +interest. Do not antiquaries tell us that the extra rib out of which Eve +was fashioned was in shape not unlike an ear trumpet? Janey was a +daughter of Eve. She listened.</p> + +<p>Presently the servants withdrew, and he leaned back in his chair and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"It was no go," he said.</p> + +<p>"You mean Dick was worse?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. No. I don't know how he was. He looked to me just the same, +staring straight in front of him with goggling eyes. Lady Jane said he +knew me, but I didn't see that he did. I said, 'Holloa, Dick,' and he +just gaped. She said he knew quite well all about the business, and that +she had explained it to him. And the doctor was there, willing to +witness anything: awful dapper little chap, called me <i>Chair Mussieur</i> +and held me by the arm, and tried to persuade me, but——" Roger shook +his head and thrust out his under lip.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p><p>"You were right, Roger," said Janey sadly; "but poor mother will be +dreadfully angry. And how are you to go on without the power of +attorney, if he's not in a fit state to grant it?"</p> + +<p>But Roger was not listening.</p> + +<p>"I often used to wonder how Aunt Louisa got Dick to sign before about +the sale of the salt marshes—that time when she went to Paris +herself—on purpose. But,"—he became darkly red,—"hang it all, Janey, +I see now how it was done."</p> + +<p>"She shouldn't have sent me," he said, getting up abruptly. "Not the +kind for the job. I suppose I had better go up and see her. Expect I shall catch it."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"This man smells not of books."—<span class="smcap">J. S. Blackie.</span></p> + +<p>Lady Louisa Manvers was waiting for her nephew, propped up in bed, +clutching the bed-clothes with leaden, corpse-pale hands. She was +evidently at the last stage of some long and terrific illness, and her +hold on life seemed as powerless and as convulsive as that of her hands +upon the quilt. She felt that she was slipping into the grave, she the +one energetic and far-seeing member of the family, and that on her +exhausted shoulders lay the burden of arranging everything for the good +of her children, for they were totally incapable of doing anything for +themselves. In the long nights of unrest and weariness unspeakable, her +mind, accustomed to undisputed dominion, revolved perpetually round the +future of her children, and the means by which in her handicapped +condition she could still bring about what would be best for them, what +was essential for their well-being, especially Harry's. And all the +while her authority was slipping from her, in spite of her desperate +grasp upon it. The whole world and her stubborn children themselves were +in league against her, and the least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> opposition on their part aroused +in her a paroxysm of anger and despair. Why did every one make her heavy +task heavier? Why was she tacitly disobeyed when a swift and absolute +obedience was imperative? Why did they try to soothe her, and speak +smooth things to her, when they were virtually opposing her all the +time? She, a paralysed old woman, only longing for rest, was forced to +fight them all single-handed for their sakes.</p> + +<p>To-night, as she lay waiting for her nephew, she touched a lower level +of despair than even she had yet reached. She suspected that Roger would +fail her. Janey had for the first time turned against her. Even Janey, +who had always yielded to her, always, always, even she had opposed +her—had actually refused to make the promise which was essential to the +welfare of poor Harry after she herself was gone. And she felt that she +was going, that she was being pushed daily and hourly nearer to the +negation of all things, the silence, the impotence of the grave. She +determined to act with strength while power to act still remained.</p> + +<p>Roger's reluctant step came up the oak staircase, and his tap on the door.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?"</p> + +<p>"Come in."</p> + +<p>He came in, and stood as if he were stuffed in the middle of the room, +his eyes fixed on the cornice.</p> + +<p>"I hope you are feeling better, Aunt Louisa?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>"I am still alive, as you see."</p> + +<p>Deep-rooted jealousy of Roger dwelt in her, had dwelt in her ever since +the early days when her husband had adopted him against her wish when he +had been left an orphan. She had not wanted him in her nursery. Her +husband had always been fond of him, and later in life had leaned upon +him. In the depths of her bitter heart Lady Louisa believed he had +preferred his nephew to the two sons she had given him, Dick the +ne'er-do-well, and Harry the latecomer—the fool.</p> + +<p>Roger moved his eyes slowly round the room, looking always away from the +bed, till they fell upon the cat curled up in the arm-chair.</p> + +<p>"Holloa, puss!" he said. "Caught a mouse lately?"</p> + +<p>"Did you get the power of attorney?" came the voice from the bed.</p> + +<p>"No, Aunt Louisa."</p> + +<p>The bed-clothes trembled.</p> + +<p>"I told you not to come back without it."</p> + +<p>Roger was silent.</p> + +<p>"Had not Jane arranged everything?"</p> + +<p>"Everything."</p> + +<p>"And the doctor! Wasn't he there ready to witness it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh Lord! Yes. He was there."</p> + +<p>"Then I fail to understand why you came back without it."</p> + +<p>"Dick wasn't fit to sign," said Roger doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I warn you before you went that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> had repeatedly told Jane +that he could not attend to business, and that was why it was so +important you should be empowered to act for him?—and the power of +attorney was his particular wish."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did. But I didn't know he'd be like that. He didn't know a +thing. It didn't seem as if he <i>could</i> have had a particular wish one +way or the other. Aunt Louisa, he wasn't <i>fit</i>."</p> + +<p>"And so you set up your judgment against mine, and his own doctor's? I +told you before you went, what you knew already, that he was not capable +of transacting business, and that you must have the power; and you said +you understood. And then you come back here and inform me that he was +not fit, which you knew before you started."</p> + +<p>"No, no. You're wrong there."</p> + +<p>How like he was to her dead husband as he said that, and how she hated +him for the likeness!</p> + +<p>"Don't contradict me. You were asked to act in Dick's own interest and +in the interests of the property, and you promised to do it. And you +haven't done it."</p> + +<p>"But, Aunt Louisa, he wasn't in a state to sign anything. He's not +alive. He's just breathing, that's all. Doesn't know anybody, or take +any notice. If you'd seen him you'd have known you <i>couldn't</i> get his signature."</p> + +<p>"I did get it about the marsh-lands. I went to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> Paris on purpose last +November, when I was too ill to travel. I only sent you this time +because I could not leave my bed."</p> + +<p>Roger paused, and then his honest face became plum colour, and he blurted out—</p> + +<p>"They were actually going to guide his hand."</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa's cold eyes met his.</p> + +<p>"Well! And if they were?"</p> + +<p>Roger lost his embarrassment. His face became as pale as it had been +red. He came up to the bed and looked the sick woman straight in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was not the right man for the job," he said. "You should have sent +somebody else. I—stopped it."</p> + +<p>"I hope when you are dying, Roger, that your son will carry out your +last wishes more effectively than my nephew has carried out mine."</p> + +<p>"But, Aunt Louisa, upon my honour he wasn't——"</p> + +<p>"Good-night. Ask Janey to send up Nurse to me as soon as she returns."</p> + +<p>Roger left the room clumsily, but yet with a certain dignity. His +upright soul was shocked to the very core. He marched heavily downstairs +to the library, where Janey was keeping his coffee hot for him over a +little spirit-lamp. There was indignation in his clear grey eyes. And +over his coffee and his cigarette he recounted to her exactly how +everything had been, and how Dick wasn't fit, he really wasn't. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +Janey thought that when he had quite finished she would tell him of the +pressure her mother was bringing to bear on her to promise to make a +home for Harry after her death. But when at last Roger got off the +subject, and his cigarette had soothed him, he went on to tell Janey +about a man he had met on the boat, who oddly enough turned out to be a +cousin of a land agent he knew in Kent. This surprising incident took so +long, the approaches having been both gradual and circuitous, and +primarily connected with the proffer of a paper, that when it also had +been adequately dealt with and disposed of, it was getting late.</p> + +<p>"I must be off," he said, rising. "Good-night, Janey. Keep a brave +heart, old girl." He nodded slightly to the room above, which was his +aunt's. "Rough on you sometimes, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"You always cheer me up," she said, with perfect truthfulness. He <i>had</i> +cheered her. It would be a sad world for most of us if it were by our +conversational talents that we could comfort those we loved. But Roger +believed it was so in his case, and complacently felt that he had +broached a number of interesting Parisian subjects, and had refreshed +Janey, whom Lady Louisa led a dog's life and no mistake. He was fond of +her, and sorry for her beyond measure, and his voice and eyes were very +kindly as he bade her good-night. She went to the door with him, and +they stood a moment together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> in the moonlight under the clustering +stars of the clematis. He took his hat and stick and repeated his words: +"Keep a brave heart."</p> + +<p>She said in a voice which she tried, and failed, to make as tranquil as usual—</p> + +<p>"I had been so afraid you weren't coming, that you had missed your train."</p> + +<p>"Oh no! I didn't miss it. But just as I got to the gate at eight o'clock +I met Miss Georges coming out of the churchyard, and it was pretty +dark—moon wasn't up—and I thought I ought to see her home first. That +was why I was late."</p> + +<p>Janey bade him good-night again, and slipped indoors. The moonlight and +the clematis which a moment before had been so full of mysterious +meaning were suddenly emptied of all significance.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"O Life, how naked and how hard when known!</div> +<div>Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">George Meredith.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Janey lit her bedroom candle with a hand that trembled a little, and in +her turn went slowly upstairs.</p> + +<p>She could hear the clatter of knives and forks in the dining-room, and +Harry's vacant laugh, and Nurse's sharp voice. They had come back, then. +She went with an effort into her mother's room, and sat down in her +accustomed chair by the bed.</p> + +<p>"It is ten o'clock. Shall I read, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>It was the first time they had spoken since she had been ordered out of +the room earlier in the day.</p> + +<p>Janey opened the Prayer Book on the table by the bedside, and read a +psalm and a chapter from the Gospel:—</p> + +<p>"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give +you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and +lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> your souls. For My yoke is +easy, and My burden is light."</p> + +<p>Janey closed the book, and said timidly, "May I stay until Nurse comes up?"</p> + +<p>"Pray do exactly what you like."</p> + +<p>She did not move.</p> + +<p>"I am heavy laden," said her mother. "I don't suppose you have ever +given it one moment's thought what it must be like to lie like a log as I do."</p> + +<p>Her daughter dared not answer.</p> + +<p>"How many months have I lain in this room?"</p> + +<p>"Eight months."</p> + +<p>"Ever since I went to Paris last October. I was too ill to go, but I went."</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"I am heavy laden, but it seems I must not look to you for help, Janey."</p> + +<p>Janey's heart sickened within her. When had her mother ever relinquished +anything if once her indomitable will were set upon it? She felt within +herself no force to withstand a second attack.</p> + +<p>The nurse came in at that moment, a tall, shrewd, capable woman of +five-and-thirty, with a certain remnant of haggard good looks.</p> + +<p>"May Mr. Harry come in to say good-night, milady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She went to the door and admitted a young man. Harry came and stood +beside the bed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> looking sheepishly at his mother. If his face had not +been slightly vacant, the mouth ajar, he would have been beautiful. As +it was, people turned in the street to see him pass. He was tall, fair, +well grown, with a delightful smile. He smiled now at his mother, and +she tried hard to smile back at him, her rigid face twitching a little.</p> + +<p>"Well, my son! Had you a nice day in Ipswich?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma."</p> + +<p>"And I hope you were brave at the dentist's, and that he did not hurt you much?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, mamma. He did not hurt me at all."</p> + +<p>"Not at all?" said his mother, surprised.</p> + +<p>The nurse stepped forward at once.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Harry did not have his tooth out, milady."</p> + +<p>"No," said Harry slowly, looking at the nurse as if he were repeating a +lesson, "the tooth was <i>not</i> taken out. It was <i>not</i>."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Milson had been called away," continued the nurse glibly.</p> + +<p>"Called away," echoed Harry.</p> + +<p>"Then the expedition was all for nothing?" said Lady Louisa wearily.</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>no</i>, mamma."</p> + +<p>The nurse intervened once more, and recounted how she had taken Harry to +have his hair cut, and to buy some gloves, and to an entertainment of +performing dogs, and to tea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> at Frobisher's. They could have been home +earlier, but she knew the carriage was ordered to meet the later train.</p> + +<p>Harry began to imitate the tricks which the dogs had done, but the nurse +peremptorily interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship's tired, and it's past ten o'clock. You must tell her +about the dogs to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to-morrow," echoed Harry, and he kissed his mother, and shuffled +towards the door. Janey slipped out with him.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa did not speak again while the nurse made the arrangements +for the night. She was incensed with her. She had been too peremptory +with Harry. It was not for her to order him about in that way. Lady +Louisa was beginning to distrust this capable, indefatigable woman, on +whom she had become absolutely dependent; and when the nurse had left +her for the night, and was asleep in the next room with the door open +between, she began to turn over in her mind, not for the first time, the +idea of parting with her, and letting Janey nurse her entirely once +more, as she had done at first. Janey with Anne the housemaid to help +her could manage perfectly well, whatever the doctor might say. It was +not as if she wanted anything doing for her, lying still as she did day +after day. She should never have had a trained nurse if her own wishes +had been consulted. But when were they ever consulted? The doctor, who +understood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> nothing about her illness, had insisted, and Janey had not +resisted the idea as she ought to have done. But the whole household +could not be run to suit Janey's convenience. She had told her so +already more than once. She should tell her so again. Even worms will +turn. There were others to be considered besides Janey, who only considered herself.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa's mind left her daughter and went back, as if it had +received some subtle warning, to the subject of the nurse. She was +convinced by the woman's manner of intervening when she had been +questioning Harry, that something had been concealed from her about the +expedition to Ipswich. She constantly suspected that there was a cabal +against her. She was determined to find out what it was, which she could +easily do from Harry. And if Nurse had really disobeyed her, and had +taken him on the water, which always excited him, or to a theatre, which +was strictly forbidden, then she would make use of that act of +disobedience as a pretext for dismissing her, and she would certainly +not consent to have anyone else in her place. Having settled this point, +she closed her eyes and tried to settle herself to sleep.</p> + +<p>But sleep would not come. The diligent little clock, with its face +turned to the strip of light shed by the shaded nightlight, recorded in +a soft chime half-hour after half-hour. With forlorn anger, she +reflected that every creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> in the house was sleeping—she could hear +Nurse's even breathing close at hand—every one except herself, who +needed sleep more than anyone to enable her to get through the coming +day. It did not strike her that possibly Janey also might be lying +open-eyed through the long hours.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa's mind wandered like a sullen, miserable tramp over her past +life. She told herself that all had gone wrong with her, all had cheated +her from first to last. It seems to be the doom of the egoist to crave +for things for which he has no real value, on which when acquired he can +only trample. Lady Louisa had acquired a good deal and had trampled +heavily on her acquisitions, especially on her kindly, easy-tempered +husband who had loved her. And how throughout her whole life she had +longed to be loved!</p> + +<p>To thirst voraciously to be loved, to have sufficient acumen to perceive +love to be the only real bulwark, as it is, against the blows of fate; +the only real refuge, as it is, from grief; the one sure consolation, as +it is, in the recurring anguished ache of existence,—to perceive that +life is not life without it, and <i>then</i> to find that love when +appropriated and torn out of its shrine is no talisman, but only a +wearisome, prosaic clog quickly defaced by being dragged in the dust up +the thorny path of our egotism! Is there any disappointment so bitter, +so devastating as that? Lady Louisa, poor soul, had endured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> it. She +glanced for a moment at the photograph of her husband on the +mantelpiece, with his hair brushed forward over his ears. Even death had +not assuaged her long-standing grievance against him. Why had he always +secretly preferred his nephew Roger to his own sons? Why did he die just +after their eldest son Dick came of age? And why had not he left her +Hulver for her life, instead of taking for granted that she would prefer +to go back to her own house, Noyes Court, a few miles off? She had told +him so, but he might have known she had never meant it. She had not +wanted to go back to it. She had not gone back, though all her friends +and Janey had especially wished it. She had hastily let it to Mr. +Stirling the novelist, to show that she should do exactly as she liked, +and had made one of those temporary arrangements that with the old are +always for life. She had moved into the Dower House for a year, and had +been in it seven years.</p> + +<p>Her heart swelled with anger as she thought of the conduct of her eldest +son after his father's death: and yet could anyone have been a brighter, +more delightful child than Dicky? But Dicky had been a source of +constant anxiety to her, from the day when he was nearly drowned in the +mill-race at Riff to the present hour, when he was lying dying by inches +of spinal paralysis at his aunt's house in Paris as the result of a +racing accident. What a heartbreaking record his life had been, of one +folly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> one insane extravagance after another! And shame had not been +wanting. He had not even made a foolish marriage, and left a son whom +she and Janey could have taken from its mother and educated; but there +was an illegitimate child—a girl—whom Roger had told her about, by a +village schoolmistress, an honest woman whom Dick had seduced under +promise of marriage.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, Lady Louisa had some grounds for feeling that +everything had gone against her. Dick was dying, and her second son +Harry—what of him? She was doggedly convinced that Harry was not +"wanting": that "he could help it if he liked." In that case, all that +could be said was that he did not like. She stuck to it that his was a +case of arrested development, in strenuous opposition to her husband, +who had held that Harry's brain was not normal from the awful day when +as a baby they first noticed that he always stared at the ceiling. Lady +Louisa had fiercely convinced herself, but no one else, that it was the +glitter of the old cut-glass chandelier which attracted him. But after a +time even she had to own to herself, though never to others, that he had +a trick of staring upwards where no chandelier was. Even now, at +two-and-twenty, Harry furtively gazed upon the sky, and perhaps vaguely +wondered why he could only do so by stealth—why that was one of the +innumerable forbidden things among which he had to pick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> his way, and +for which he was sharply reprimanded by that dread personage his mother.</p> + +<p>Mr. Manvers on his death-bed had said to Dick in Lady Louisa's presence, +"Remember, if you don't have a son, Roger ought to have Hulver. Harry is not fit."</p> + +<p>She had never forgiven her husband for trying to denude Harry of his +birthright. And to-night she felt a faint gleam of consolation in the +surrounding dreariness in the thought that he had not been successful. +When Dick died, Harry would certainly come in. On her last visit to +Paris she had ransacked Dick's rooms at his training-stable. She had +gone through all his papers. She had visited his lawyers. She had +satisfied herself that he had not made a will. It was all the more +important, as Harry would be very rich, that Janey should take entire +and personal charge of him, lest he should fall into the hands of some +designing woman. That pretty French adventuress, Miss Georges, who had +come to live at Riff and whom Janey had made such friends with, was just +the kind of person who might entangle him into marrying her. And then if +Roger and Janey should eventually marry, Harry could perfectly well live +with them. He must be guarded at all costs. Lady Louisa sighed. That +seemed on the whole the best plan. She had looked at it all round. But +Janey was frustrating it by refusing to do her part. She must fall into +line. To-morrow she would send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> for her lawyer and alter her will once +more, leaving Noyes to Harry, instead of Janey, as she had done by a +promise to her husband. Janey had no one but herself to thank for such a +decision. She had forced it on her mother by her obstinacy and her +colossal selfishness. What had she done that she of all women should +have such selfish children? Then Janey would have nothing of her own at +all, and then she would be so dependent on Harry that she would have no +alternative but to do her duty by him.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa sighed again. Her mind was made up. Janey must give way, and +the nurse must be got rid of. Those were the two next things to be +achieved. Then perhaps she would be suffered to rest in peace.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XV</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"And Death stopped knitting at the muffling band.</div> +<div>'The shroud is done,' he muttered, 'toe to chin.'</div> +<div>He snapped the ends, and tucked his needles in."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">John Masefield.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>After a sleepless night, and after the protracted toilet of the old and +feeble, Lady Louisa tackled her task with unabated determination. She +dictated a telegram to her lawyer, sent out the nurse for a walk, and +desired Janey to bring Harry to her.</p> + +<p>Harry, who was toiling over his arithmetic under the cedar, with the +help of a tutor from Riebenbridge and a box of counters, obeyed with +alacrity. He looked a very beaming creature, with "fresh morning face," +as he came into his mother's room.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my son."</p> + +<p>The terrible ruler looked benign. She nodded and smiled at him. He did +not feel as cowed as usual.</p> + +<p>"You can go away, Janey, and you needn't come back till I ring."</p> + +<p>"And now tell me all about the performing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> dogs," said the terrible +ruler in the bed, when Janey had left the room.</p> + +<p>Harry saw that she was really interested, and he gave her an exact +account, interrupted by the bubbling up of his own laughter, of a dog +which had been dressed up as a man in a red coat, with a cocked hat and +a gun. He could hardly tell her for laughing. The dread personage +laughed too, and said, "Capital! Capital!" And he showed her one of the +tricks, which consisted of sitting up on your hind legs with a pipe in +your mouth. He imitated exactly how the dog had sat, which in a man was +perhaps not quite so mirth-provoking as in a dog. Nevertheless, the +dread personage laughed again.</p> + +<p>It promised to be an agreeable morning. He hoped it would be a long time +before she remembered his arithmetic and sent him back to it, that +hopeless guess-work which he sometimes bribed Tommy the gardener's boy +to do for him in the tool-shed.</p> + +<p>"And then you got your gloves!" said the dread personage suddenly. "How +many pairs was it?" Harry was bewildered, and stared blankly at her.</p> + +<p>"You must remember how many pairs it was." Harry knit his poor brow, +rallied his faculties, and said it was two pairs.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Lady Louisa, "you may have a chocolate out of my silver +box, and let me hear all about—you know what," and she nodded +confidentially at him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p><p>But he only gaped at her, half frightened. She smiled reassuringly at +him.</p> + +<p>"Nurse told me all about it," she said encouragingly. "That was why you +weren't to tell me. She wanted it to be a great surprise to me."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't to say a word," said Harry doubtfully,—"not a word—about +<i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"No. That was just what Nurse said to me. You weren't to say a single +word last night, until she had told me. But now I know all about it, so +we can talk. Was it great fun?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"It was great fun when I did it. How I laughed!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't laugh. She told me not to."</p> + +<p>"Well, no. Not at first. She was quite right. And what did her brother +say? Nurse said he went with you."</p> + +<p>"Yes. We called for him, and he went with us, with a flower in his +button-hole—a rose it was. He gave me one too."</p> + +<p>Harry looked at his button-hole, as if expecting to see the rose still +in it. But that sign of merry-making was absent.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa had on a previous occasion severely reprimanded Nurse for +taking Harry to tea at her brother's house, a solicitor's clerk in +Ipswich. Her spirits rose. She had detected her in an act of flagrant +disobedience. And as likely as not they had all gone to a play together.</p> + +<p>"Capital!" she said suavely. "He was just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> the right person to go with. +That was what I said to Nurse. And what did <i>he</i> talk about?"</p> + +<p>"He said, 'Mum's the word. Keep it all quiet till the old cat dies,' and +he slapped me on the back and said, 'Mind that, brother-in-law.' He was +very nice indeed."</p> + +<p>A purple mark like a bruise came to Lady Louisa's clay-coloured cheeks. +There was a long pause before she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"And did you write your name nicely, like Janey taught you?" She spoke +with long-drawn gasps, each word articulated with difficulty.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Harry anxiously, awed by the fixity of her eyes upon him. "I +did indeed, mamma. I was very particular."</p> + +<p>"Your full name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the man said my full name—Henry de la Pole Manvers."</p> + +<p>"That was the man at the registry office?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And"—the voice laboured heavily and was barely audible—"did Nurse +write her name nicely too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and her brother and the man. We all wrote them, and then we all +had tea at Frobisher's,—only it wasn't tea,—and Nurse's brother +ordered a bottle of champagne. Nurse didn't want him to, but he said +people didn't get married every day. And he drank our health, and I +drank a little tiny sip, and it made me sneeze."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>Lady Louisa lay quite motionless, the sweat upon her forehead, looking +at her son, who smiled seraphically back at her.</p> + +<p>And so Nurse had actually thought she could outwit <i>her</i>—had pitted +herself against <i>her</i>? She would shortly learn a thing or two on that head.</p> + +<p>A great cold was invading her. And as she looked at Harry, it was as if +some key, some master key, were suddenly and noiselessly turned in the +lock. Without moving her eyes, she saw beyond him the door, expecting to +see the handle turn, and Nurse or Janey to come in. But the door +remained motionless. Nevertheless, a key somewhere had turned. +Everything was locked tight—the room, the walls, the bed, herself in +it—as in a vice.</p> + +<p>"Go back to your lessons," she said to Harry, "and send Janey to me." +She felt a sudden imperative need of Janey.</p> + +<p>But Harry, so docile, so schooled to obedience, made no motion to obey +her. He only looked vacantly, expectantly at her.</p> + +<p>She spoke again, but he paid no heed. She spoke yet again with anger, +but this time he was fidgeting with the watch on her table and did not +even look up. She saw him as if through a glass screen.</p> + +<p>A wave of anger shook her.</p> + +<p>"Leave the room this moment, and do as I tell you," she said, with her +whole strength. Had he suddenly became deaf? Or had she——? Was +she——? A great fear took her. He put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> back the watch on its stand, and +touched the silver box in which the chocolates were kept.</p> + +<p>"May I have another—just one other?" he said, opening it, his voice +barely audible through the glass screen.</p> + +<p>And then, glancing at her for permission, he was seized with helpless laughter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mamma! You do look so funny, with your mouth all on one +side—funnier than the dog in the hat."</p> + +<p>His words and his laughter reached her, faint yet distinct, and she +understood what had befallen her. Two large tears gathered in her +anguished eyes and then slowly ran down her distorted face. Everything +else remained fixed, as in a vice, save Harry, rocking himself to and +fro, and snapping his fingers with delight.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVI</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"After all, I think there are only two kinds of people in the +world, lovers and egotists. I fear that lovers must smile when they +see me making myself comfortable, collecting refined luxuries and a +pleasant society round myself, protecting myself from an uneasy +conscience by measured ornamental acts of kindness and duty; +mounting guard over my health and my seclusion and my liberty. Yes! +I have seen them smile."—M. N.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The violet dusk was deepening and the dew was falling as Annette crossed +the garden under the apple trees on her return from the choir practice. +There was a light in Aunt Maria's window, which showed that she was +evidently grappling with the smoking embroglio which was racking two +young hearts. Even a footfall in the passage was apt to scare that shy +bird Aunt Maria's genius, so Annette stole on tiptoe to the parlour.</p> + +<p>Aunt Harriet, extended on a sofa near a shaded lamp, looked up from her +cushions with a bright smile of welcome, and held out both her hands.</p> + +<p>Aunt Harriet was the youngest of three sisters, but she had not realized +that that fact may in time cease to mean much. It was obvious that she +had not yet kissed the rod of middle age. She had been moderately +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>good-looking twenty years ago, and still possessed a willowy figure and +a slender hand, and a fair amount of ash-coloured hair which she wore in +imitation of the then Princess of Wales tilted forward in a dome of +innumerable little curls over a longish pinkish face, leaving the thin +flat back of her head unmitigated by a coil. Aunt Harriet gave the +impression of being a bas-relief, especially on the few occasions on +which she stood up, when it seemed as if part of her had become +momentarily unglued from the sofa, leaving her spinal column and the +back of her head behind.</p> + +<p>She had had an unhappy and misunderstood—I mean too accurately +understood—existence, during the early years when her elder sister +Maria ruthlessly exhorted her to exert herself, and continually +frustrated her mild inveterate determination to have everything done for +her. But a temporary ailment long since cured and a sympathetic doctor +had enabled her to circumvent Maria, and to establish herself for good +on her sofa, with the soft-hearted Catherine in attendance. Her unlined +face showed that she had found her niche in this uneasy world, and was +no longer as in all her earlier years a drifter through life, terrified +by the possibility of fatiguing herself. Greatly to her credit, and +possibly owing to Catherine's mediation, Aunt Maria accepted the +situation, and never sought to undermine the castle, not in Spain but on +a sofa, which her sister had erected, and in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> she had found the +somewhat colourless happiness of her life.</p> + +<p>"Come in, my love, come in," said Aunt Harriet, with playful gaiety. +"Come in and sit by me."</p> + +<p>Her love came in and sat down obediently on the low stool by her aunt's +couch, that stool to which she was so frequently beckoned, on which it +was her lot to hear so much advice on the subject of the housekeeping +and the management of the servants.</p> + +<p>"I think, Annette, you ought to speak to Hodgkins about the Albert +biscuits. I know I left six in the tin yesterday, and there were only +four to-day. I went directly I was down to count them. It is not good +for <i>her</i> to take the dining-room Alberts and then to deny it, as she +did the other day. So I think it will be best if I don't move in the +matter, and if you mention it as if you had noticed it yourself." Or, +"There was a cobweb on my glass yesterday. I think, dearest, you must +not overlook that. Servants become very slack unless they are kept up to +their work." Aunt Harriet was an enemy of all slackness, idleness, want +of energy, shirking in all its branches. She had taken to reading +Emerson of late, and often quoted his words that "the only way of escape +in all the worlds of God was performance."</p> + +<p>Annette would never have kept a servant if she had listened to her +aunt's endless promptings. But she did not listen to them. Her placid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +rather happy-go-lucky temperament made her forget them at once.</p> + +<p>"Have you had supper, dear child?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. I will go now."</p> + +<p>"And did you remember to take a lozenge as you left the church?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I forgot."</p> + +<p>"Ah! my dear, it's a good thing you have some one to look after you and +mother you. It's not too late to take one now."</p> + +<p>"I should like to go and have supper now. I am very hungry."</p> + +<p>"I rejoice to hear it. It is wonderful to me how you can do without a +regular meal on choir nights. If it had been me, I should have fainted. +But sit down again for one moment. I have something to tell you. You +will never guess whom we have had here."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I never shall."</p> + +<p>"You know how much Maria thinks of literary people?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I don't care for them quite so much as she does. I am more drawn to +those who have suffered, whose lives have been shattered like glass as +my own life has been, and who gather up the fragments that remain and +weave a beautiful embroidery out of them."</p> + +<p>Annette knew that her aunt wanted her to say, "As you do yourself."</p> + +<p>She considered a moment and then said, "You are thinking of Aunt Catherine."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>Aunt Harriet was entirely nonplussed. She felt unable to own that she +had no such thought. She sighed deeply, and said after a pause, "I don't +want it repeated, Annette,—I learned long ago that it is my first duty +to keep my troubles to myself, to consume my own smoke,—but my +circulation has never been normal since the day Aunt Cathie died."</p> + +<p>Then after a moment she added, with sudden brightness, as one who +relumes the torch on which a whole household depends—</p> + +<p>"But you have not guessed who our visitor was, and what a droll +adventure it all turned out. How I did laugh when it was all over and he +was safely out of hearing! Maria said there was nothing to laugh at, but +then she never sees the comic side of things as I do."</p> + +<p>"I begin to think it must have been Canon Wetherby, the clergyman who +told you that story about the parrot who said 'Damn' at prayers, and +made Aunt Maria promise not to put it in one of her books."</p> + +<p>"She will, all the same. It is too good to be lost. No, it was not Canon +Wetherby. But you will never guess. I've never known you guess anything, +Annette. You are totally devoid of imagination, and ah! how much happier +your life will be in consequence. I shall have to tell you. It was Mr. Reginald Stirling."</p> + +<p>"The novelist?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you know Maria was beginning to feel a little hurt because he +hadn't called, as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> are both writers. There is a sort of freemasonry +in these things, and, of course, in a neighbourhood like this we +naturally miss very much the extremely interesting literary society to +which we were accustomed in London, and in which Maria especially shone. +But anyhow he came at last, and he was quite delightful. Not much to +look at. Not Mr. Harvey's presence, but most agreeable. And he seemed to +know all about us. He said he went to Riff Church sometimes, and had +seen our youngest sister in the choir. How I laughed after he was gone! +I often wish the comic side did not appeal to me quite so forcibly. To +think of poor me, who have not been to church for years, boldly holding +forth in the choir, or Maria, dear Maria, who only knows 'God save the +Queen' because every one gets up: as Canon Wetherby said in his funny +way, 'Does not know "Pop goes the Queen" from "God save the weasel."' +Maria said afterwards that probably he thought you were our younger +sister, and that sent me off into fits again."</p> + +<p>"I certainly sit in the choir."</p> + +<p>"He was much interested in the house too, and said it was full of +old-world memories."</p> + +<p>"Did he really say that?" Annette's face fell.</p> + +<p>"No. Now I come to think of it, <i>I</i> said that, and he agreed. And his +visit, and his conversation about Mrs. Humphry Ward, comparing <i>David +Grieve</i> and <i>Robert Elsmere</i>, quite cured dear Maria's headache, and we +agreed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> neither of us would tell you about it in the absence of the +other, so that we might make you guess. So remember, Annette, when Maria +comes in, you don't know a word, a single word, of what I've told you."</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria came in at that moment, and sat down on the other side of the fire.</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria was a short, sacklike woman between fifty and sixty, who had +long since given up any pretensions to middle age, and who wore her grey +hair parted under a little cap. Many antagonistic qualities struggled +for precedence in Aunt Maria's stout, uneasy face: benevolence and +irritability, self-consciousness and absent-mindedness, a suspicious +pride and the self-depreciation which so often dogs it; and the fatigue +of one who daily and hourly is trying to be "an influence for good," +with little or no help from temperament. Annette had developed a +compassionate affection for both her aunts, now that they were under her +protection, but the greater degree of compassion was for Aunt Maria.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Harriet will have told you who has been to see us," she said as a +matter of course.</p> + +<p>Aunt Harriet fixed an imploring glance on Annette, who explained that +she had seen a dogcart in the courtyard, and how later she had seen Mr. +Stirling driving in it.</p> + +<p>"I wished, Harriet," said Aunt Maria, without looking at her sister, +"that you had not asked him if he had read my books."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p><p>"But he had, Maria. He was only doubtful the first minute, till I told +him some of the names, and then——"</p> + +<p>"Then the poor man perjured himself."</p> + +<p>"And I thought that was so true how he said to you, 'You and I, Miss +Nevill, have no time in our hard-worked lives to read even the best +modern fiction.'"</p> + +<p>"I found time to read <i>The Magnet</i>," said Aunt Maria in a hollow voice.</p> + +<p>At this moment the door opened and Hodgkins the parlour-maid advanced +into the room bearing a tray, which she put down in an aggressive manner +on a small table beside Annette.</p> + +<p>"I am certain Hodgkins is vexed about something," said Aunt Harriet +solemnly, when that functionary had withdrawn. "I am as sensitive as a +mental thermometer to what others are feeling, and I saw by the way she +set the tray down that she was angry. She must have guessed that I've +found out about the Alberts."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she guessed that Annette was starving," said Aunt Maria.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVII</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Life is like a nest in the winter,</div> +<div>The heart of man is always cold therein."</div> +<div class="right"><i>Roumanian Folk Song.</i></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The lawyer who was to have altered Lady Louisa's will was sent away as +soon as he arrived. No one knew why she had telegraphed for him. She had +had a second stroke, and with it the last vestige of power dropped from +her numb hands. She was unable to speak, unable to move, unable even to die.</p> + +<p>Janey sat by her for days together in a great compassion, not unmixed +with shame. Every one, Roger included, thought she was overwhelmed by +the catastrophe which had befallen her mother, and he made shy, clumsy +attempts at consolation, little pattings on the back, invitations to +"come out and have a look at the hay harvest." But Janey was stunned by +the thought that she was in danger of losing not her mother but her +Roger, had perhaps already lost him; and that her one friend Annette was +unconsciously taking him from her. Her mother's bedside had become a +refuge for the first time. As she sat hour after hour with Lady Louisa's +cold hand in hers, it was in vain that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> she told herself that it was +foolish, ridiculous, to attach importance to such a trivial incident as +the fact that when Roger was actually at her door he should have made +himself late by walking home with Annette. But she realized now that she +had been vaguely anxious before that happened, that it had been a +formless dread at the back of her mind which had nothing to do with her +mother, which had made her feel that night of the choir practice as if +she had reached the end of her strength. Is there any exhaustion like +that which guards the steep, endless steps up to the shrine of love? +Which of us has struggled as far as the altar and laid our offering upon +it? Which of us faint-hearted pilgrims has not given up the attempt +half-way? But Janey was not of these, not even to be daunted by a fear +that had taken shape at last.</p> + +<p>We all know that jealousy fabricates its own "confirmations strong as +proofs of Holy Writ." But with Janey it was not so much suspicion as +observation, that close observation born of love, which if it is once +dislinked from love not even Sir Galahad could endure scathless. With +steady eyes she dumbly watched her happiness grow dim and dimmer. Roger +was her all, and he was leaving her. His very kindness might have warned +her as to his real feeling for her, and it seemed to Janey as if for +months she had been shutting her eyes forcibly against the truth.</p> + +<p>There is a great deal of talk nowadays about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> losing the one we love, +and that attractive personality generally turns out to be some sagacious +stranger who has the agility to elude us in the crowd. But Roger was as +much an integral part of Janey's life as Hulver was part of his. Janey's +life had grown round Roger. Roger's had grown round Hulver.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Small incidents spread over the last two months, since Annette had come +to Riff, rose to her memory; things too small to count by themselves +hooked themselves like links one after another into a chain. For +instance, the Ipswich Agricultural Show.</p> + +<p>Janey had always gone to that annual event with Roger and Harry. And +since the Blacks had come to Riff, they had accompanied them. It seemed +pleasant to Janey to go in a little bunch together, and Mr. Black was +good-natured to Harry and took him to the side shows, and Janey always +had a new gown for the occasion. She had a new one this year, a pink +one, and a white straw hat covered with pink roses. And Roger had said +approvingly, "My word, Janey, you <i>have</i> done it this time!" They had +taken Annette with them, in a flowing pale amber muslin which made her +hair and eyes seem darker than ever, and which Miss Black, in her +navy-blue silk, pronounced at once in a loud aside to be theatrical. +When they all arrived they divided, Annette owning she did not like the +pigs and sheep. Janey at once said she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> preferred them, because she knew +Roger did. If there was one thing more than another that Roger loved, it +was to stand among the cattle pens, with his hat a little at the back of +his head, exchanging oracular remarks with other agents and +stock-breeders, who gathered with gratifying respect the pearls of +wisdom which he let drop. For there was no sounder opinion in Lowshire +on a brood mare or a two-year-old "vanner" than Roger.</p> + +<p>It was always stiflingly hot among the cattle pens, and the pigs in +their domestic life had no bouquet more penetrating than that which they +brought with them to these public functions. Janey did not love that +animal, of which it might with truth be said that its "best is yet to +be," but she always accompanied Roger on these occasions, standing +beside him, a neat, dainty little figure, by the hour together, giving +her full attention to the various points of the animals as he indicated +them to her. They did the same again this year. Roger said, "Come on, +Janey," as usual, and hurried in the direction of the cattle pens, while +Annette and Harry and Mr. Black wandered towards the flower tents. But +when they had reached the pandemonium of the "live stock," Roger +appeared dissatisfied. The animals, it seemed, were a poor lot this +year. The flower of the Lowshire land agentry was absent. He didn't see +Smith anywhere. And Blower was not about. He expressed the opinion +frequently that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> must be "getting on," and they were soon getting +on to such an extent that they had got past the reaping-machines, and +even the dogcarts, and were back near the band-stand, Roger continually +wondering what had become of the others. Janey, suddenly hot and tired, +suggested that they should look for them. And they set out immediately, +and elbowed their way through the crowded flower tents, and past side +shows innumerable, till they finally came upon Mr. Black and Annette and +Harry at an "Aunt Sally"; Harry in a seventh heaven of enjoyment, Mr. +Black blissfully content, and Annette under her lace parasol as cool as +a water-lily. Janey never forgot the throb of envy and despair to which +the sudden sight of Annette gave rise, as she smiled at her and made +room for her on the bench beside her, while Roger, suddenly peaceful and +inclined to giggle, tried his luck at the "Aunt Sally." They all stayed +together in a tight bunch for the remainder of the day, the endless +weary day which every one seemed to enjoy except herself. And at +tea-time they were joined by Miss Black and her friend, an entirely deaf +Miss Conder, secretary of the Lowshire Plain Needlework Guild, who had +adhered to Miss Black since morning greetings had been exchanged at the +station, and who at this, the first opportunity, deserted her for Janey. +And when they all came back late in the evening, Roger had driven +Annette home in his dogcart, while she and the Blacks and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Harry, who +could hardly be kept awake, squeezed into the wagonnette. And when Janey +got home she tore off the pink gown and the gay hat, and wondered why +she was tired out. She knew now, but she had not realized it at the +time. She had somehow got it into her head, and if Janey once got an +idea into her little head it was apt to remain there some time, that +Annette and Mr. Black were attracted to each other. In these days, as +she sat by her mother, Janey saw that that idea had led her astray. Mr. +Black's hapless condition was sufficiently obvious. But perhaps Annette +did not care for Mr. Black? Perhaps she preferred Roger? And if she did——</p> + +<p>The reed on which Janey's maimed life had leaned showed for the first +time that heartbreaking tendency inherent in every reed, to pierce the +hand of the leaner. Strange, how slow we are to learn that everything in +this pretty world is fragile as spun glass, and nothing in it is strong +enough to bear our weight, least of all that reed shaken in the +wind—human love. We may draw near, we may hearken to its ghostly music, +we may worship, but we must not lean.</p> + +<p>Janey was not a leaner by nature. She was one on whom others leaned. +Nevertheless, she had counted on Roger.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVIII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"So fast does a little leaven spread within us—so incalculable is +the effect of one personality on another."—<span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Janey's set face distressed Roger.</p> + +<p>Presently he had a brilliant idea. Miss Georges was the person to cheer +her, to tempt her out of her mother's sick-room. So the next time he was +going to Red Riff to inspect some repairs in the roof—the next time was +the same afternoon—he expounded this view at considerable length to +Annette, whom he found thinning the annuals in a lilac pinafore and +sunbonnet in the walled garden.</p> + +<p>She sat down on the circular bench round the apple tree while he talked, +and as he sat by her it seemed to him, not for the first time, that in +some mysterious way it was a very particular occasion. There was a +delightful tremor in the air. It suggested the remark which he at once +made that it was a remarkably fine afternoon. Annette agreed, rather too +fine for thinning annuals, though just the weather for her aunts to +drive over to Noyes to call on Mr. Stirling Now that Roger came to look +at Annette he perceived that she herself was part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> delicious +trouble in the air. It lurked in her hair, and the pure oval of her +cheek, and her eyes—most of all in her eyes. He was so taken aback by +this discovery that he could only stare at the sky. And yet if the silly +man had been able to put two and two together, if he had known as much +about human nature as he did about reaping-machines, he would not have +been in the dark as to why he was sitting under the apple tree at this +moment, why he had ordered those new riding-breeches, why he had them on +at this instant, why he had begun to dislike Mr. Black, and why he had +been so expeditious in retiling the <i>laiterie</i> after the tree fell on +it. If he had had a grain of self-knowledge, he would have realized that +there must indeed be a grave reason for these prompt repairs which the +Miss Nevills had taken as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>For in the ordinary course of things tiles could hardly be wrested out +of Roger, and drainpipes and sections of lead guttering were as his +life-blood, never to be parted with except as a last resort after a +desperate struggle. The estate was understaffed, underfinanced, and the +repairs were always in arrear. Even the estate bricklayer, ruthlessly +torn from a neighbouring farm to spread himself on the Miss Nevills' +roof, opined to his nephew with the hod, that "Mr. Roger must be +uncommon sweet on Miss Georges to be in such a mortial hurry with them tiles."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p><p>Annette's voice recalled Roger from the contemplation of the heavens.</p> + +<p>"I will go down to-day, after tea," she was saying, "and I will persuade +Janey to come and sit in the hay-field. It is such a pretty thing a +hay-field. I've never seen hay in—in what do you call it?"</p> + +<p>"In cock."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Such a funny word! I've never seen hay in cock before."</p> + +<p>Roger smiled indulgently. Annette's gross ignorance of country-life did +not pain him. It seemed as much part of her as a certain little curl on +the white nape of her neck.</p> + +<p>Down the lane a child's voice came singing—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"If I could 'ave the one I love,</div> +<div>'Ow 'appy I should be!"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>"That's Charlie Nokes," said Roger, feeling he ought to go, and +singularly disinclined to move, and casting about for a little +small-talk to keep him under this comfortable apple tree. "His father +used to sing that song at Harvest Homes before he took to the drink. +Jesse Nokes. He's dead now. He and my cousin Dick, the present squire, +used to get into all kinds of scrapes together when they were boys. I've +seen them climb up that vine and hide behind the chimney-stack when +Uncle John was looking for them with his whip. They might have broken +their necks, but they never thought of that. Poor Jesse! He's dead. And Dick's dying."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p><p>It was the first time Roger had ever spoken to her of the present owner +of Hulver, the black sheep of the family, of whose recklessness and +folly she had heard many stories from his foster-mother, Mrs. Nicholls. +Janey, in spite of their intimacy, never mentioned him.</p> + +<p>And partly because he wanted to remain under the apple tree, partly +because he was fond of Janey, and partly because a change of listeners +is grateful to the masculine mind, Roger talked long about his two +cousins, Janey and Dick Manvers: of her courage and unselfishness, and +what a pity it was that she had not been the eldest son of the house. +And then he told her a little of the havoc Dick was making of his +inheritance and of the grief he had caused his mother, and what, +according to Roger, mattered still more, to Janey.</p> + +<p>"Janey loved Dick," he said, "and I was fond of him myself. Everybody +was fond of him. You couldn't help liking Dick. There was something very +taking about him. Can't say what it was, but one felt it. But it seems +as if those taking people sometimes wear out all their takingness before +they die, spend it all like money, so that at last there is nothing left +for the silly people that have been so fond of them and stuck so long to +them. Dick is like that. He's worn us all out, every one, even Janey. +And now he's dying. I'm afraid there's no one left to care much—except, +of course——"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>He stopped short.</p> + +<p>"I've just been to see him in Paris," he went on. "Didn't you live in +Paris at one time? I wonder if you ever came across him?"</p> + +<p>Annette shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I never met a Mr. Manvers that I know of."</p> + +<p>"But he dropped the Manvers when he started his racing-stables. He had +the decency to do that. He always went by his second name, Le Geyt."</p> + +<p>"<i>Le Geyt?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes; Dick Le Geyt. Lady Louisa's mother was a Le Geyt of Noyes, you +know, the last of the line. She married Lord Stour, as his second wife, +and had no son. So her daughter, Lady Louisa, inherited Noyes."</p> + +<p>"Dick Le Geyt?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Did you ever meet him? But I don't suppose you did. Dick never +went among the kind of people you would be likely to associate with."</p> + +<p>Annette was silent for a moment, and then said—</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have met him. I used to see him sometimes at my father's +cabaret." She saw he did not know what a cabaret was, and she added, "My +father keeps a public-house in the Rue du Bac." Roger was so astonished +that he did not perceive that Annette had experienced a shock.</p> + +<p>"Your father!" he said. "A publican!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p><p>"He was a courier first," she said, speaking with difficulty, like one +stunned but forcing herself to attend to some trivial matter. "That was +how my mother met him. And after her death he set up a little +drinking-shop, and married again—a woman in his own class of life. I +lived with them for a year, till—last September."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" said Roger, and he said no more. He could only look at +Annette in sheer astonishment. The daughter of a publican! He was deeply +perturbed. The apple tree had quite ceased to be comfortable. He got +slowly to his feet, and said he must be going. She bade him "good-bye" +absently, and he walked away, thinking that no other woman in Lowshire +would have let him go after four o'clock without offering him a cup of tea.</p> + +<p>Just when she thought he was really gone she found he had come back and +was standing before her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Georges," he began, awkwardly enough, "I dare say I have no +business to offer advice, but you don't seem to know country-life very +well. Never seen hay in cock before, I think you mentioned. So perhaps +you would not think it cheek of me if I said anything."</p> + +<p>"About the hay?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. About what you've just told me."</p> + +<p>"About my father keeping a public-house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. None of my business,"—he had become plum colour,—"but——"</p> + +<p>She looked blankly at him. She felt unable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> to give him sufficient +attention to help him out. He had to flounder on without assistance.</p> + +<p>"If you mentioned that fact to anyone like Miss Black, it would go the +round of the parish in no time."</p> + +<p>"Would that matter?"</p> + +<p>Roger was nonplussed for a moment. Her ignorance was colossal.</p> + +<p>"Some things are better not talked about," he said. "I have been telling +you of poor Dick, but there were things in <i>his</i> life that were better +not talked about, so I did not mention them."</p> + +<p>His words transfixed her. Was it possible that he was warning her that +he was aware of her adventure with Dick? At any rate, she gave him her +full attention now.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes to his and looked searchingly at him. And she saw +with a certainty that nothing could shake, that he knew nothing, that he +was only trying to save her from a petty annoyance.</p> + +<p>"The Miss Nevills have always been very close about your father," he +added. "You can ask them, but I think you would find they wouldn't be +much pleased if his—profession was known down here. It might vex them. +So many vexatious things in this world that can't be helped, aren't +there? And if there are any that <i>can</i>, so much the better. That was all +I came back to say. I should not volunteer it, if I were you. It seemed +to drop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> out so naturally that I thought you might have said the same to +Miss Black."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I might. I do hate concealments of any kind." Annette spoke with conviction.</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Roger whole-heartedly. "I've hushed up too many scrawls +not to hate them. But this isn't a concealment. It's—it's—you see, +Miss Black <i>does</i> run round with her tongue out and no mistake, and +Uncle John's advice when I settled down here as his agent was, 'Never +say more than you must.' So I just pass it on to you, now that you've +settled down at Riff too."</p> + +<p>And Roger departed for the second time. She watched him go, and a minute +later heard him ride out of the courtyard.</p> + +<p>She sat quite still where he had left her, gazing in front of her, so +motionless that the birds, disturbed by Roger's exodus, resumed +possession of the grass-plot at once.</p> + +<p>The plebeian sparrows came hopping clumsily as if they were made of +wood, propped up by their stiff tails. A bulging thrush with wide +speckled waistcoat hastened up and down, throwing out his wing each time +he darted forward. A thin water-wagtail came walking with quick steps, +and exquisite tiny movements of head and neck and long balancing tail. A +baby-wagtail, brown and plump and voracious, bustled after it, shouting, +"More! More!" the instant after its overworked, partially bald<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> parent +had stuffed a billful down its yellow throat.</p> + +<p>Annette looked with wide eyes at the old dim house with its latticed +windows and the vine across it—the vine which Dick had climbed as a lad.</p> + +<p>Dick was Mr. Manvers of Hulver.</p> + +<p>The baby-wagtail bolted several meals, fluttering its greedy little +wings, while Annette said to herself over and over again, half stupefied—</p> + +<p>"Dick is Mr. Manvers. Dick is Janey's brother."</p> + +<p>She was not apprehensive by nature, but gradually a vague alarm invaded +her. She must tell Mrs. Stoddart at once. What would Mrs. Stoddart say? +What would she do? With a slow sinking of the heart, Annette realized +that that practical and cautious woman would probably insist on her +leaving Riff. Tears came into her eyes at the thought. Was it then +unalloyed bliss to live with the Miss Nevills, or was there some other +subtle influence at work which made the thought of leaving Riff +intolerable? Annette did not ask herself that question. She remembered +with a pang her two friends Janey and Roger, and the Miss Blinketts, and +Mrs. Nicholls, and her Sunday-school class, and the choir. And she +looked at the mignonette she had sown, and the unfinished annuals, and +the sweet peas which she had raised in the frame, and which would be out +in another fortnight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p><p>She turned and put her arms round the little old apple tree, and +pressed her face against the bark.</p> + +<p>"I'm happy here," she said. "I've never been so happy before. I don't want to go."</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIX</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"In the winter, when all the flowers are dead, the experienced Bee +Keeper places before His hive a saucer of beer and treacle to +sustain the inmates during the frost. And some of the less active +bees, who have not used their wings, but have heard about honey, +taste the compound, and finding it wonderfully sustaining and +exactly suited to their aspirations, they religiously store it, +dark and sticky, in waxen cells, as if it were what they genuinely +believe it to be—the purest honey.</p> + +<p>"But the other surly, unsympathetic bees with worn-out wings +contend that honey is not come by as easily as that: that you must +fly far, and work hard, and penetrate many flower-cups to acquire +it. This naturally arouses the indignation of the beer and treacle gatherers.</p> + +<p>"And the Bee Keeper as He passes His hive hears His little people +buzzing within, and—smiles."—M. N.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"And now," said Aunt Harriet, the same evening,—"now that we have made +Mr. Stirling's acquaintance and been to tea with him, and may expect to +see him frequently, I think we ought to take a little course of his +books. What do you say, Maria? Eh! Annette? You seem strangely apathetic +and inert this evening, my dear. So different from me at your age. I was +gaiety and energy itself until my health failed. You might read aloud +some extracts from <i>The Magnet</i>, instead of the <i>Times</i>. It is a book +which none of us can afford to disregard. How I cried over it when it +came out! I wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> to him after I had finished it, even though I did not +know him. Authors like it, don't they, Maria? I felt very audacious, but +I am a child of impulse. I have never been able to bind myself down with +conventional ideas as I see others do. I felt I simply must tell him +what that book had been to me, what it had done for me, coming like a +ray of light into a darkened room."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart had read aloud <i>The Magnet</i> to Annette at Teneriffe, and +it was intimately associated with her slow reawakening to life. It had +had a part, and not a small part, in sending her back humbled and +contrite to her aunts. But she felt a deep repugnance to the thought of +hearing their comments upon it.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>She took the offered book reluctantly, but Aunt Harriet's long thin +finger was already pointing to a paragraph.</p> + +<p>"Begin at 'How we follow Self at first,' the top of the page," she said. +And she leaned back among her cushions. Aunt Maria took up her knitting, +and Annette began to read:—</p> + +<p>"How we follow Self at first! How long we follow her! How pallid, how +ephemeral is all else beside that one bewitching form! We call her by +many beautiful names—our career, our religion, our work for others. The +face of Self is veiled, but we follow that mysterious rainbow-tinted +figure as some men follow art, as some men follow Christ, leaving all +else behind. We follow her across the rivers. If the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>stepping-stones +are alive and groan beneath our feet, what of that? We follow her across +the hills. Love weeps and falls behind, but what of that? The love which +will not climb the hills with us is not the love we need. Our friends +appeal to us and one by one fall behind. False friends! Let them go. Our +ideals are broken and left behind. Miserable impediments and hindrances! +Let them go too.</p> + +<p>"For some of us Self flits veiled to the last, and we trudge to our +graves, looking ever and only at her across the brink. But sometimes she +takes pity on us. Sometimes she turns and confronts us in a narrow +place, and lifts her veil. We are alone at last with her we love. The +leprous face, the chasms where the eyes should be, the awful discoloured +hand are revealed to us, the crawling horror of every fold of that alluring drapery.</p> + +<p>"Here is the bride. Take her!</p> + +<p>"And we turn, sick unto death, and flee for our lives.</p> + +<p>"After that day, certain easy self-depreciations we say never again +while we have speech. After that day our cheap admission of our egotism +freezes on our lips. For we have seen. We know."</p> + +<p>"We have seen. We know," repeated Aunt Harriet solemnly. "That last bit +simply changed my life. If I had a talent for writing like you, Maria, +which of course I have not, that is just the kind of thing I should have +said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> myself to help other sufferers. Unselfishness, that must be the +key-note of our lives. If the stepping-stones are alive and groan +beneath our feet, what of that? How often I have said those words to +myself when the feet of the world have gone over me, poor +stepping-stone, trying hard, trying so hard not to groan. And if I am to +be perfectly honest just for once, you know, dear Maria, you and Annette +<i>do</i> trample somewhat heavily at times. Of course you are absorbed in +your work, and Annette is young, and you don't either of you mean it. I +know that, and I make allowances for you both. I am making allowances +all the time. But I sometimes wish you could remember that the poor +stepping-stone is alive."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence. Annette got up and gently replaced the +<i>couvre-pied</i> which had slipped from the stepping-stone's smart +high-heeled shoes. Aunt Harriet wiped away a delicious tear.</p> + +<p>"Our ideals are broken and left behind," she went on. "Only the invalid +knows how true <i>that</i> is. Dear me! When I think of all the high ideals I +had when I was your age, Annette, who don't seem to have any! But +perhaps it is happier for you that you haven't. Though Mr. Stirling +looks so strong I feel sure that he must at one time have known a +sofa-life. Or perhaps he loved some one like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, +who was as great a prisoner to her couch as I am. He simply couldn't +have written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> those lines otherwise. I often think as I lie here in +solitude, hour after hour, how different my life might have been if +anyone like Browning had sought me out—had—— But it's no use +repining: all these things are ordered for the best. Go on, my dear, go on."</p> + +<p>When the reading was over and Aunt Harriet, still emotional, had gone to +bed, after embracing them both with unusual fervour, Annette opened the +window as her custom was, and let in the soft night air. Aunt Harriet +was a lifelong foe to fresh air. Aunt Maria gave a sigh of relief. She +was stout and felt the heat.</p> + +<p>The earth was resting. The white pinks below the window gave forth their +scent. The low moon had laid a slanting black shadow of the dear old +house and its tall chimney-stacks upon the silvered grass.</p> + +<p>Annette's heart throbbed. Must she leave it all? She longed to go to her +own room and think over what had happened, but she had an intuitive +feeling that Aunt Maria had been in some mysterious way depressed by the +reading aloud, and was in need of consolation.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Aunt Maria after a time, "that Mr. Stirling rather +exaggerates, don't you?—that he has yielded to the temptation of +picturesque overstatement in that bit about following Self."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me—just right."</p> + +<p>"You don't feel he is writing for the sake of effect?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>"No. Oh no."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I do a little. But then the picture is so very highly +coloured, and personally I don't care much for garish colouring."</p> + +<p>Annette did not answer.</p> + +<p>"I should like to know what you think about it, Annette."</p> + +<p>Whenever Aunt Maria used that phrase, she wanted confirmation of her own +opinion. Annette considered a moment.</p> + +<p>"I think he has really seen it exactly as he says. I think perhaps he +was selfish once, and—and had a shock."</p> + +<p>"He is quite right to write from his experience," continued Aunt Maria. +"I have drawn largely from mine in my books, and I am thankful I have +had such a deep and rich experience to draw from. Experience, of course, +must vary with each one of us. But I can't say I have ever felt what he describes. Have you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"The veiled figure meeting you in a narrow place and raising its veil?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria was momentarily taken aback. When our opinions do not receive +confirmation from others we generally feel impelled to restate them at length.</p> + +<p>"I have never looked at selfishness like that," she said, "as something +which we idealize. I have always held that egotism is the thing of all +others which we ought to guard against. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> egotism seems to me +ugly—not beautiful or rainbow-tinted at all. I tried to show in <i>Crooks +and Coronets</i> what an obstacle it is to our spiritual development, and +how happiness is to be found in little deeds of kindness, small +sacrifices for the sake of others, rather than in always considering ourselves."</p> + +<p>Annette did not answer. She knew her aunt's faith in spiritual homœopathy.</p> + +<p>"I have had hundreds of letters," continued the homœopath uneasily, +"from my readers, many of them perfect strangers, thanking me for +pointing out the danger of egotism so fearlessly, and telling me how +much happier they have been since they followed the example of Angela +Towers in <i>Crooks and Coronets</i> in doing a little act of kindness every day."</p> + +<p>If Aunt Maria were alive now she would have been thrilled by the +knowledge that twenty years after she had preached it the Boy Scouts +made that precept their own.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the man who was following the veiled figure did little +kindnesses too, in order to feel comfortable," said Annette half to +herself. Fortunately her aunt did not hear her.</p> + +<p>"I yield to no one in my admiration of Mr. Stirling," continued Miss +Nevill, "but he suggests no remedy for the selfishness he describes. He +just says people flee for their lives. Now, my experience is that they +don't flee, that they don't see how selfish they are, and need helpful +suggestions to overcome it. That is just what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> I have tried to do in my +books, which I gather he has never opened."</p> + +<p>There was a subdued bitterness in her aunt's voice which made Annette +leave her seat by the window and sit down beside her.</p> + +<p>"You have plenty of readers without Mr. Stirling," she said soothingly.</p> + +<p>It was true. Miss Nevill had a large public. She had never lived, she +had never come in close contact with the lives of others, she had no +perception of character, and she was devoid of humour. She had a meagre, +inflexible vocabulary, no real education, no delicacy of description, no +sense of language, no love of nature. But she possessed the art of +sentimental facile narration, coupled with a great desire to preach, and +a genuine and quenchless passion for the obvious. And the long +succession of her popular novels, each exactly like the last, met what a +large circle of readers believed to be its spiritual needs: she appealed +to the vast society of those who have never thought, and who crave to be +edified without mental effort on their part. Her books had demanded no +mental effort from their author, and were models of unconscious tact in +demanding none from their readers, and herein, together with their +evident sincerity, had lain part of the secret of their success. Also, +partly because her gentle-people—and her books dealt mainly with +them—were not quite so unlike gentle-people as in the majority of +novels. If she did not call a spade a spade,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> neither did she call an +earl an earl. Old ladies adored her novels. The Miss Blinketts preferred +them to Shakespeare. Canon Wetherby dipped into them in his rare moments +of leisure. Cottage hospitals laid them on the beds of their +convalescents. Clergymen presented them as prizes. If the great Miss +Nevill had had a different temperament, she might have been a happy as +she was a successful woman; for she represented culture to the +semi-cultivated, and to succeed in doing that results in a large income +and streams of flattering letters. But it does not result in recognition +as a thinker, and that was precisely what she hankered after. She craved +to be regarded as a thinker, without having thought. It chagrined her +that her books were not read by what she called "the right +people,"—that, as she frequently lamented, her work was not recognized. +In reality it was recognized—at first sight. The opening chapter, as +Mr. Stirling had found that morning, was enough. The graver reviews +never noticed her. No word of praise ever reached her from the masters +of the craft. She had to the full the adulation of her readers, but she +wanted adulation, alas! from the educated, from men like Mr. Stirling +rather than Canon Wetherby. Mr. Stirling had not said a word about her +work this afternoon, though he had had time to refresh his memory of it, +and she had alluded to it herself more than once. For the hundredth time +Aunt Maria felt vaguely disturbed and depressed. The reading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> aloud of +<i>The Magnet</i> had only accentuated that depression.</p> + +<p>Annette's hand felt very soft and comforting in hers. The troubled +authoress turned instinctively towards possible consolation nearer at hand.</p> + +<p>"I will own," she said tentatively, "that when I see you, my dear +Annette, so different from what you were when you left us two years ago, +so helpful, and so patient with poor Harriet, who is trying beyond +words, so considerate and so thoughtful for others, I will own that I +have sometimes hoped that the change might have been partly, I don't say +entirely, but partly brought about by <i>Crooks and Coronets</i>, which I +sent to you at Teneriffe, and into which I had poured all that was best +in me. When you rejoined us here it seemed as if you had laid its +precepts to heart." Aunt Maria looked at her niece almost imploringly.</p> + +<p>Annette was not of those who adhere to a rigid truthfulness on all occasions.</p> + +<p>She stroked her aunt's hand.</p> + +<p>"It was borne in on me at Teneriffe, after I was ill there, how selfish +I had been," she said, and her voice trembled. "I ought never to have +left you all. If only I had not left you all! Then I should not be—I +shouldn't have—but I was selfish to the core. And my eyes were only +opened too late."</p> + +<p>"No, my dear, not too late. Just in the nick of time, at the very moment +we needed you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> most, after dear Cathie's death. You don't know what a +comfort you have been to us."</p> + +<p>"Too late for Aunt Cathie," said Annette hoarsely. "Poor, kind, tired +Aunt Cathie, who came to me in my room the last night and asked me not +to leave her, told me she needed my help. But my mind was absolutely set +on going. I cried, and told her that later on I would come back and take +care of her, but that I must go. Self in her rainbow veil beckoned +and—and I followed. If Aunt Cathie was the stepping-stone which groaned +beneath my feet, what of that? What did I care? I passed over it, I +trampled on it without a thought."</p> + +<p>The subdued passion in Annette's voice stirred anew the vague trouble in +Aunt Maria's mind.</p> + +<p>For a moment her own view of life, even her heroine's puny and +universally admired repentance, tottered, dwindled. For a brief moment +she saw that the writer of <i>The Magnet</i> made a great demand on his +reader, and that Annette had passionately responded to it. For a moment +Mr. Stirling's gentle, ruthless voice seemed to overthrow her whole +position, to show her to herself as petty and trivial. For a moment she +even doubted whether <i>Crooks and Coronets</i> had really effected the great +change she perceived in Annette, and the doubt disheartened her still +more. She withdrew resolutely into the stronghold of her success, and +rose slowly to her feet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p><p>"Well," she said, "it's time to go to bed. Close the shutters, Annette. +It's very natural you should be impressed by <i>The Magnet</i>. I should have +been at your age. Young people are always attracted by eloquence. But as +one gets older I find one instinctively prefers plainer language, as one +prefers plainer clothes, less word-painting, and more spiritual teaching."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It was already late, but Annette sat up still later writing a long +letter to Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XX</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress</div> +<div>In that unleaguerable fortress;</div> +<div>It knows you not for portress."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Francis Thompson.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>I have often envied Lesage's stratagem in which he makes Le diable +boiteux transport his patron to a high point in the city, and then +obligingly remove roof after roof from the houses spread out beneath his +eyes, revealing with a sublime disregard for edification what is going +on in each of them in turn. That is just what I should like to do with +you, Reader, transport you to the top of, shall we say, the low church +tower of Riff, and take off one red roof after another of the clustering +houses beneath us. But I should not choose midnight, as Lesage did, but +tea-time for my visitation, and then if you appeared bored, I would +quickly whisk off another roof.</p> + +<p>We might look in at Roger's cottage near the church first of all, and +see what he is doing.</p> + +<p>On this particular afternoon, some three weeks after his conversation +with Annette under the apple tree, I am sorry to record that he was +doing nothing. That was a pity, for there was a great deal waiting to be +done. July and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> a new quarter were at hand. Several new leases had to be +looked over, the death of one of his farmers had brought up the old +hateful business of right of heriot, the accounts of the Aldeburgh house +property were in at last and must be checked. There was plenty to do, +but nevertheless Roger was sitting in his office-room, with his elbow on +his last labour-sheet, and his chin in his hand. He, usually so careful, +had actually blotted the names of half a dozen labourers. His +housekeeper, the stoutest woman in Riff, sister to the late Mr. +Nicholls, had put his tea near him half an hour before. Mr. Nicholls' +spinster sister was always called "Mrs. Nicholls." But it was the wedded +Mrs. Nicholls who had obtained the situation of Roger's housekeeper by +sheer determination for the unwedded lady of the same name, and when +Roger had faintly demurred at the size of his housekeeper designate, had +informed him sternly that "she was stout only in appearance."</p> + +<p>It was a pity he had let his tea grow cold, and had left his plate of +thick, rectangular bread-and-butter untouched.</p> + +<p>Roger was a person who hated thought, and he was thinking, and the +process was fatiguing to him. He had for years "hustled" along like a +sturdy pony on the rounds of his monotonous life, and had been fairly +well satisfied with it till now. But lately the thoughts which would +have been invading a more imaginative man for a long time past had at +last reached him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> had filtered down through the stiff clay of the upper +crust of his mind.</p> + +<p>Was he going on <i>for ever</i> keeping another man's property assiduously +together, doing two men's work for one man's pay? When his uncle made +him his agent he lived in the house at Hulver, and his horses were kept +for him, and the two hundred a year was a generous allowance. But Dick +had not increased it when he succeeded. He had given him the cottage, +which was in use as an estate office, rent free, but nothing else. Roger +had not liked to say anything at first, even when his work increased, +and later on Dick had not been "to be got at." And the years were +passing, and Roger was thirty-five. He ought to be marrying if he was +ever going to marry at all. Of course, if Dick were in a state of health +to be appealed to at close quarters—he never answered letters—he would +probably act generously. He had always been open-handed. But Dick, poor +beggar, was dead already as far as any use he could be to himself or others.</p> + +<p>Roger shuddered at the recollection of the shapeless, prostrate figure, +with the stout, vacant face, and the fat hand, that had once been so +delicate and supple, which they had wanted to guide to do it knew not what.</p> + +<p>Roger could not see that he had any future. But then he had not had any +for years past, so why was he thinking about that now? Annette was the +reason. Till Annette came to Riff he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> had always vaguely supposed that +he and Janey would "make a match of it" some day. Janey was the only +person he really knew. I do not mean to imply for a moment that Roger in +his pink coat at the Lowshire Hunt Ball was not a popular partner. He +was. And in times past he had been shyly and faintly attracted by more +than one of his pretty neighbours. But he was fond of Janey. And now +that his uncle was dead, Janey was, perhaps, the only person left for +whom he had a rooted attachment. But it seemed there were disturbing +women who could inspire feelings quite different from the affection and +compassion he felt for his cousin. Annette was one of them. Roger +resented the difference, and then dwelt upon it. He distrusted Annette's +parentage. "Take a bird out of a good nest." That was his idea of a +suitable marriage. Never in his wildest moments would he have thought of +marrying a woman whose father was a Frenchman, much less a Frenchman who +kept a public-house. He wasn't thinking of such a thing now—at least, +he told himself he wasn't. But he had been deeply chagrined at Annette's +mention of her father all the same, so deeply that he had not repeated +the odious fact even to Janey, the recipient of all the loose matter in his mind.</p> + +<p>How kind Annette had been to poor Janey during these last weeks! Janey +had unaccountably and dumbly hung back at first, but Annette was not to +be denied. Roger, with his elbow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> on his labour-sheet, saw that whatever +her father might be, the least he could do would be to ride up to Riff +at an early date and thank her.</p> + +<p>It is only a step from Roger's cottage to the Dower House.</p> + +<p>All was silent there. Janey and Harry had gone up to Hulver to sail his +boat after tea, and the house was deserted. Tommy, the gardener's boy, +the only person to whom Harry had confided his marriage, was clipping +the edges of the newly-mown grass beneath Lady Louisa's window.</p> + +<p>And Lady Louisa herself?</p> + +<p>She lay motionless with fixed eyes, while the nurse, her +daughter-in-law, read a novel near the open window.</p> + +<p>She knew what had happened. She remembered everything. Her hearing and +sight were as clear as ever. But she could make no sign of understanding +or recognition. A low, guttural sound she could sometimes make, but not +always, and the effort was so enormous that she could hardly induce +herself to make it. At first she had talked unceasingly, unable to +remember that the words which were so clear to herself had no sound for +those bending over her, trying to understand what she wished. Janey and +the doctor had encouraged her, had comforted her, had made countless +experiments in order to establish means of communication with her, but without avail.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>"Would you like me to read, mother? See, I am holding your hand. Press +it ever so little, and I shall know you would like a little reading."</p> + +<p>No faintest pressure.</p> + +<p>"Don't trouble to answer, mother, but if you would like to see Roger for +a few minutes, shut your eyes."</p> + +<p>The eyes remained open, fixed. Lady Louisa tried to shut them, but she could not.</p> + +<p>"Now I am going to hold up these large letters one after another. If +there is something you wish me to do, spell it to me. Make a sound when +I reach the right letter. I begin with A. Now we come to B. Here is C."</p> + +<p>But after many fruitless attempts Janey gave up the letters. Her mother +groaned at intervals, but when the letters were written down they did +not make sense. No bridge could span the gulf. At last the doctor +advised Janey to give up trying to span it.</p> + +<p>"Leave her in peace," he said in Lady Louisa's hearing, that acute +hearing which was as intact as her eyesight.</p> + +<p>So Lady Louisa was left in peace.</p> + +<p>She saw the reins and whip which she had held so tightly slip out of her +hands. She who had imposed her will on others all her life could impose +it no longer. She was tended by a traitor whom she hated, yet she was +unable to denounce her, to rid herself of her daily, hourly presence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>A wood pigeon cooed tranquilly in the cedar, and Lady Louisa groaned.</p> + +<p>The nurse put down her book, and came and stood beside the bed. The two +enemies looked at each other, the younger woman boldly meeting the +impotent hatred of her patient's eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, milady," she said, replacing a little cushion under her +elbow. "You're down, and I'm up, and you've got to make up your mind to +it. Harry told me you'd got it out of him. Are you any the happier for +knowing I'm your daughter-in-law? I'd meant to spare you that. It was +that as brought on the stroke. Very clever you were to wheedle it out of +Harry, but it didn't do you much good. You'd turn me out without a +character if you could, wouldn't you? But you can't. And listen to me. +You won't ever be any better, or I shouldn't talk like this. I dare say +I'm pretty bad, but I'd never say there wasn't a chance while there was +the least little scrap of one left. But there isn't, not one scrap. It's +all over with your high and mighty ways, and riding rough-shod over +everybody, and poor Miss Manvers. It's no use crying. You've made others +cry often enough. Now it's your turn. And don't go and think I'm going +to be cruel to you because you've been cruel to others. I'm not. I'm +sorry enough for you, lying there like a log, eating your heart out. I'm +going to make you as comfortable as ever I can, and to do my duty by +you. And when you're gone I'm going to make Harry happier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> than he's +ever been under your thumb. So now you understand."</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa understood. Her eyes, terrible, fierce as a wounded +panther's, filled with tears. She made no other sign.</p> + +<p>The nurse wiped them away.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXI</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"The less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants +it."—<span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span></p> + +<p>The Vicarage is within a stone's throw of the Dower House. On this +particular afternoon Mr. and Miss Black were solemnly seated opposite +each other at tea, and Mr. Black was ruefully reflecting, as he often +did at meal-times, on his sister's incapacity as a housekeeper.</p> + +<p>We sometimes read in the biographies of eminent men how trains and boats +always eluded those distinguished personages, in spite of their pathetic +eagerness to overtake them; how their luggage and purses and important +papers fled from them; how their empty chairs too frequently represented +them on state occasions.</p> + +<p>Miss Black was not eluded by such bagatelles as trains and omnibuses, +but by things of greater importance, by new-laid eggs, and fresh butter, +and cottage loaves. No egg until it was of advanced middle age would +come within a mile of Miss Black. The whole village was aware that old +Purvis sold her "potted eggs" at "new-laid" prices, and that she never +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>detected the lime on them. Scones and tea-cakes and loaves with +"kissing crust" remained obdurately huddled in the baker's cart at the +Vicarage back door. All that ever found their way into the house were +those unappropriated blessings, those emotionless rectangular travesties +of bread called "tin loaves."</p> + +<p>Coffee and Miss Black were not on speaking terms. After years of deadly +enmity she had relinquished the fruitless struggle, and gave her brother +coffee essence instead for breakfast—two spoonfuls to a cup of tepid milk.</p> + +<p>Fire and water would not serve Miss Black. The bath water was always +cold at the Vicarage, and the drinking water was invariably warm. +Butter, that sensitive ally of the housekeeper, bore her a grudge. Miss +Black said all the Riff butter was bad. In London she had said the same. +Biscuits became demoralized directly they set tin in the house. The +first that emerged from the box were crisp, delicious, but in a day or +two they were all weary, tough, and tasteless. They were kept on plates +on sideboards in the sun, or thrust into mousy cupboards. She left off +ordering gingerbread nuts at last, which her brother liked, because they +all stuck together like putty. She attributed this peculiarity to the +proximity of the Rieben.</p> + +<p>Miss Black was no more perturbed by the ostracism in which she lived as +regards the vegetable and mineral kingdom than Napoleon was by the +alliance of Europe against him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> combined a high opinion of herself +with a rooted conviction that everything vexatious or disagreeable was +inherent in the nature of things—a sort of original sin. It was in the +fallen nature of butter to be rancid, and eggs to be laid stale, and +milk to be sour, and villagers to cheat, and old people to be fretful, +and pretty women (like Annette) to be vain and unscrupulous, and men +(like her brother) to care inordinately about food and to be enslaved by +external attractions. She expected these things, and many more, as she +stumped through life, and she was not disappointed.</p> + +<p>"I think you are wrong, Walter," she said, masticating a plasmon +biscuit, "in making Miss Georges take that bit in the anthem as a solo. +I went to see Mrs. Cocks this afternoon, and we got talking of the +choir, and I am sure she did not like it."</p> + +<p>"I cannot steer my course entirely by Mrs. Cocks."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. But she told me that in Mr. Jones's time——"</p> + +<p>"I am rather tired of hearing of Mr. Jones and his times."</p> + +<p>"In his time all the trebles took the solo together, to prevent any +jealousy or ill-feeling."</p> + +<p>"I can't prevent jealousy of Miss Georges," said Mr. Black, looking +coldly at his sister, and then still more coldly at the cup of tea she +handed him, made quarter of an hour before by the young servant who, as +the Miss Blinketts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> who had trained her had faithfully warned Miss +Black, "mistook bubbling for boiling."</p> + +<p>The tea was the consistency of treacle, and the cream his sister poured +into it instantly took the contorted worm-like shapes which sour cream +does take. Miss Black drank hers slowly, not finding it good, but +thinking it was like all other tea.</p> + +<p>"You won't make the jealousy less by putting her forward in everything."</p> + +<p>"It irritates me to hear Miss Georges' voice muffled up with Mrs. Cocks +and Jane Smith. I don't suppose Riff Church has ever had such a voice in +it since it was built."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I can't tell about that. But Miss Georges has been partly +trained for a public singer."</p> + +<p>"Has she? I did not know that."</p> + +<p>"The truth is we know very little about her. I am not sure we ought not +to have made more inquiries before we admitted her to the choir and the Sunday school."</p> + +<p>"My dear, pure good-nature on her part is responsible for her being in +either. And could anything be more ultra respectable than her aunts?"</p> + +<p>"We don't know who her father was. I should not wonder if he were an +actor, her manner of singing is so theatrical. Not quite a good example +for the other trebles. She draws attention to herself."</p> + +<p>"She can't help that, Angela. That is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> partly due to her appearance, for +which she is not responsible."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black, patient and kindly by nature, showed to greater advantage +with his sister than with Annette, because he never attempted to show +Miss Black the sort of man he was. You could not be two minutes in her +society without realizing that she saw no more difference between one +person and another than she did between fresh eggs and stale. Men were +men to her, as eggs were eggs. And that was all about it.</p> + +<p>"She is responsible for a good deal of the attention she courts," said +Miss Black scornfully, and with a modicum of truth on her side. "She +need not let her hair stand out over her ears, or make those two little +curls in the nape of her neck. And did you notice her absurd hat?"</p> + +<p>"I noticed nothing absurd about it."</p> + +<p>"When every one is wearing trimmed hats she must needs make herself +conspicuous in a perfectly plain straw with no trimming at all, except +that black ribbon tied under her chin. Everybody was staring at her last Sunday."</p> + +<p>"That I can well believe."</p> + +<p>"I asked her where she had got that nice garden hat."</p> + +<p>"Is it possible? How angry you would have been if she had asked you +where you got yours!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Black glanced for the first time at a battered but elaborate +arrangement sprinkled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> with cornflowers, sitting a little crooked, like +a badly balanced plate, on the top of his sister's narrow head.</p> + +<p>"She wasn't the least angry. There was nothing to be offended at. And +she said her aunt in Paris sent it her, who was a milliner."</p> + +<p>"How like her to say that—to volunteer it!" said Mr. Black, aware that +his sister was watching how he took the news of Annette's connection +with trade. "But we must be careful how we repeat it. In this amazing +little world of Riff it might be against her to have a milliner for an aunt."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that Riff is more amazing than other places," said Miss +Black, who had already circulated the story of the dressmaking aunt with +the same diligence which she showed in the distribution of the parish +magazine. "I hope we can all be civil to Miss Georges, even if her aunt +is a dressmaker, and her father lower still in the social scale. She has +no <i>De</i> before her name. And Georges is a very common surname."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you are thinking of asking her to change it," said his sister, +whose temper was liable to boil up with all the suddenness of milk.</p> + +<p>"I had not got so far as that," he said, rising. "You must remember, +Angela, that you see a possible wife for me in every woman I exchange a +word with. It is very flattering that you should think so many might be +prevailed on to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> share my little Vicarage, but the Church only allows me +one wife, and the selection I believe rests with me."</p> + +<p>"I know that. It's so silly to talk as if I expected anything different."</p> + +<p>"All I can say is that if I could delude myself into believing that Miss +Georges put on that hat or any other hat with a view to attracting me, I +should feel some alacrity in finishing my Sunday sermon, which I must +now do without any alacrity at all."</p> + +<p>Miss Black swallowed the remains of her plasmon biscuit, and said in the +voice of one accustomed to the last word—</p> + +<p>"Miss Georges is very good-looking, of course. No one admires that sort +of pale, clear complexion and calm manner more than I do. But you must +remember that they are merely the result of a constitution free from an +excess of uric acid. Non-gouty subjects always look like that."</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXII</span></h2> + +<p class="center">"Give me the sweet cup wrought of the earth from which I was born, +and under which I shall lie dead."—<span class="smcap">Zonas.</span></p> + +<p>From the church tower, Reader, you can see beyond the mill and the long +water meadows the little hamlet of Swale.</p> + +<p>That old house in the midst, with its wonderful twisted chimneys and +broken wall, was once the home of the extinct Welyshams of Swale. But +the name of Welysham, embedded in the history of Lowshire and still +renowned in India, is forgotten in Riff. Their old house, fast falling +into ruins, is now used as a farm, until Roger can get leave to restore +it, or pull it down. The sky looks in at the upper rooms. No one dare go +up the wide oak staircase, and Mrs. Nicholls' chickens roost on the +carved balustrade of the minstrels' gallery.</p> + +<p>We will go there next.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nicholls, the devoted nurse of all the Manvers family and the +principal treble in the choir, had married at a portly age the +tenant-farmer at Swale, and Annette was having tea with her on this +particular afternoon, and hearing a full description, which scorned all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +omissions, of the last illness of Mr. Nicholls, who had not been able +"to take a bite in his head" of anything solid for many weeks before his death.</p> + +<p>"And so, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls philosophically, "when he went I felt +it was all for the best. It's a poor thing for a man to live by suction."</p> + +<p>Annette agreed.</p> + +<p>"Swale seems quite empty this afternoon," she said, possibly not +unwilling to change the subject. "There is hardly a soul to be seen."</p> + +<p>"I expect they've all gone to Sir Harry's 'lection tea," said Mrs. +Nicholls. "I used to go while Nicholls was alive, and very convenient it +was; but Sir Harry don't want no widders nor single spinsters—only +wives of them as has votes."</p> + +<p>Politics were not so complicated twenty years ago as they are now. Those +were the simple days when Sir Harry Ogden, the Member, urbanely opined +that he was for Church and State, and gave tea shortly before the +election to the wives of his constituents. And the ladies of Swale and +Riff, and even the great Mrs. Nicholls, thought none the worse of their +Member because there was always a sovereign at the bottom of the cup.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Black wants to start a Mothers' Meeting in Swale," continued +Annette. "He asked me to talk it over with you. I know he is hoping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> for +your nice parlour for it, so beautiful as you always keep it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nicholls was softened by the compliment to her parlour, the +condition of which was as well known as that Queen Victoria was on the +throne, but she opined that there had been a deal too much "argybargy" +already among the Swale matrons about the Mothers' Meeting, and that she +did not see her way to joining it.</p> + +<p>Annette, who had been deputed by Mr. Black to find out the mysterious +cause of Mrs. Nicholls' reluctance, remarked meditatively, "I don't know +how the Vicar will get on without you, Mrs. Nicholls."</p> + +<p>"No, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls, "of course not. He was here only +yesterday, and he says to me, 'Mrs. Nicholls, the Swale folk oughter all +heng together, and we look to you.' And I says, 'Sir, it's not for me to +chunter with you; but it's no manner of use setting me up as a queen in +Swale when there's Mrs. Tomkins as bounceful as can be, as has been +expecting homage ever since she and her spring-cart came in last Lammas, +which none of us don't feel obligated to bow down to her.'"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. But there are others besides Mrs. Tomkins. There are the +Tamsies, your next-door neighbours. They are quiet, hard-working people, +with a lot of little ones. She would be very thankful, I know, to join +the Mothers' Meeting, if the Vicar can start it."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tamsy," said Mrs. Nicholls judicially.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> "I dare say Mrs. Tamsy +<i>would</i> like anything she can get, whether it's out of my pig-tub or her +own. That don't make no differ to Mrs. Tamsy, nor what's put on the +hedge to dry—if so be as anything's blowed to her side. She's that near +she'd take the pence off the eyes of her mother's corp. No, miss! I'd do +a deal for the Vicar, but I won't have Mrs. Tamsy in my place, nor I +won't set foot in hers. Not that I ain't sorry for her, with Tamsy +coming home roaring on a Saturday night, and hectoring and bullocking +about till the children has to sleep in the hen-roost."</p> + +<p>And in the course of conversation Mrs. Nicholls at last divulged to +Annette, what she had kept bottled up from Mr. Black, and indeed from +every one, that the real reason that a Mothers' Meeting could not be +instituted in the small circle of the Swale matrons, even if the +gathering did not include Mrs. Tamsy, was because of old Mr. Thornton's +death. Mr. Thornton, it seemed, had been "an octogeranium and the last +sediment of his family, and not one of his own kin to put him in his +coffin." The Swale ladies had taken the last duties on themselves, and +there had been "unpleasantness at the laying out," so that friendly +relations had been suspended between them ever since the funeral.</p> + +<p>Annette sighed as she left Mrs. Nicholls and set out across the meadows +towards Riff. She was to meet Janey in the Hulver gardens, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> help her +to pick the snap-dragons, now blooming riotously there.</p> + +<p>But one small sigh for the doomed Mothers' Meeting was the only tribute +Annette paid to it. Her thoughts reverted quickly to other subjects.</p> + +<p>Her placid, easy-going mind was troubled.</p> + +<p>The long letter written at night to Mrs. Stoddart three weeks ago had +never been posted. The following morning had brought a hurried line from +her friend saying that she was that moment starting on a yachting trip +with her son. She mentioned that she was coming down to Annette's +neighbourhood in a month's time, on a visit to Mr. Stirling at Noyes, +when she hoped for opportunities of seeing her.</p> + +<p>Annette had dropped her own letter into the fire, not without a sense of +relief. She had hated the idea of immediate action, and she had been +spared it. She would go on quietly until she could confer with Mrs. +Stoddart. But in spite of the momentary respite the fear remained at the +back of her mind that when Mrs. Stoddart did know about the Manvers +family she would almost certainly insist on Annette's leaving Riff. +Annette could see for herself that her position there was untenable. But +the longing to remain grew, nevertheless. She vaguely, foolishly hoped +that some way of remaining might yet be found. For she was drawn towards +Riff, as she had never been drawn to any other place, partly no doubt +because, owing to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> aunt's death, all her energies had been called +out there for the first time in her life. It had been no sinecure to +take Aunt Cathie's place. She had taken it, and she had filled it. She +was no longer a pale, useless, discontented girl, cooped up in an +airless London house with two self-centred, elder women whom she +secretly despised for immolating their sister. Now that her aunts were +under her protection and absolutely dependent on her, and, if they had +but known it, at her mercy, she had become at first tolerant of them, +and then compassionate and amused, and finally affectionate. If she had +kept her own life entirely apart from them, they were not aware of it. +For neither of the Miss Nevills had yet discovered that though they +themselves were not alive others might be, and Annette had done nothing +since her return to them to break that illusion so rudely shaken by her +departure. In their opinion, Annette had now "settled down," and each +aunt was secretly of opinion that her niece's existence was supported by +copious draughts from the deep wells of her own wisdom and experience. +But perhaps Annette had other incentives for clinging to Riff.</p> + +<p>Sometimes as we go through life we become conscious of a mysterious +instinctive attraction towards certain homely people, and certain kindly +places, for which we cannot account, to which we can only yield. They +seem to belong to us, to have a special significance for us. When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +Annette first saw Janey and Roger she felt that she had known them all +her life, that they had long been part of her existence. When first she +walked with them beside the Rieben she seemed to recognize every turn of +the stream. The deep primrosed lanes welcomed her back to them. Had she +wandered down them in some previous existence? When she gathered her +first posy of lady's-smock in the long water meadow near the mill, the +little milk-white flowers said, "Why have you been away from us so +long?" And when, a few days later, she first stood with Janey in the +April sunshine on the wide terrace of Hulver, the stately shuttered +house had seemed to envelop her with its ancient peace, and to whisper +to her, "I am home."</p> + +<p>Annette reached the bridge by the mill, and looked across the tranquil +water to the village clustering round the church, and the old red-gabled +Manor house standing among its hollies.</p> + +<p>Her heart throbbed suddenly.</p> + +<p>Surely the angel with the sword would not drive her away again!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIII</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Thou vacant house, moated about by peace."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Stephen Phillips.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Mr. Stirling and his nephew were standing in the long picture gallery of +Hulver, looking at the portrait of Roger Manvers of Dunwich, who +inherited Hulver in Charles the Second's time.</p> + +<p>"His grandmother, Anne de la Pole, that pinched-looking old woman in the +ruff, would never have left it to her daughter's son if she had had +anyone else to leave it to," said Mr. Stirling. "She built Hulver in the +shape of an E in honour of her kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. That prim +little picture below her portrait shows the house when it was new. It +must have looked very much the same then as it does now, except that the +hollies were all trimmed to fantastic shapes. Look at the birds and +domes and crowns."</p> + +<p>"I like them better as they are now," said his nephew, a weak-looking +youth with projecting teeth, his spectacled eyes turning from the +picture to the renowned avenue of hollies, now stooping and splitting in +extreme old age.</p> + +<p>"I have often wondered what homely Roger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> Manvers, the burgess of +Dunwich, must have felt when old Anne actually left him this place after +her only son was drowned. I can so well imagine him riding over here, a +careful, sturdy man, not unlike the present Roger Manvers, and having a +look at his inheritance, and debating with himself whether he would +leave Dunwich and settle here."</p> + +<p>"And did he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. The sea decided that for him. A year later it swept away the town +of Dunwich as far as Maison Dieu. And it swept away Roger Manvers' +pleasant house, Montjoy. And he moved across the borders of Suffolk to +Lowshire with all he had been able to save from his old home, and +established himself here. I like the way he has hung those +wooden-looking pictures of his burgess forbears in their furred cloaks +and chains among the brocaded D'Urbans and De la Poles. Roger Manvers +tells me that it was old Roger who first took the property in hand, and +heightened the Kirby dam, and drained Mendlesham Marsh, and built the +Riff almshouses. The De la Poles had never troubled themselves about +such matters. And to think of that wretched creature the present owner +tearing the old place limb from limb, throwing it from him with both +hands! It makes me miserable. I vow I will never come here again."</p> + +<p>The caretaker had unshuttered a few among the long line of windows, and +the airlessness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the ghostly outlines of the muffled furniture, the +dust which lay grey on everything, the faint smell of dry rot, all +struck at Mr. Stirling's sensitive spirit and oppressed him. He turned +impatiently to the windows.</p> + +<p>If it is a misfortune to be stout, even if one is tall, and to be short, +even if one is slim, and to be fifty, even if one is of a cheerful +temperament, and to be bald, even if one has a well-shaped head, then +Mr. Stirling, who was short and stout, and bald as well, and fifty into +the bargain, was somewhat heavily handicapped as to his outer man. But +one immense compensation was his for an unattractive personality. He +never gave it a moment's thought, and consequently no one else did +either. His body was no more than a travelling-suit to him. It was +hardy, durable, he was comfortable in it, grateful to it, on good terms +with it, worked it hard, and used it to the uttermost. That it was not +more ornamental than a Gladstone bag did not trouble him.</p> + +<p>"Put it all in a book," said his nephew absently, whose eyes were glued +to the pictures. "Put it in a book, Uncle Reggie."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling had long since ceased to be annoyed by a remark which is +about as pleasant to a writer as a suggestion of embezzlement is to a bank manager.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen enough, Geoff? Shall we go?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit. Where's the Raeburn?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>"'Highland Mary'? Sold. A pork butcher in America bought her for a +fabulous sum. I believe Dick Manvers lost the whole of it on one race. +If there is coin in the next world, he will play ducks and drakes with +it upon the glassy sea."</p> + +<p>"Sold! Good God!" said his nephew, staring horrorstruck at his uncle. +"How awful! Pictures ought not to belong to individuals. The nation +ought to have them." He seemed staggered. "Awful!" he said again. "What a tragedy!"</p> + +<p>"To my mind, <i>that</i> is more tragic," said Mr. Stirling bluntly, pointing +to the window.</p> + +<p>In the deserted garden, near the sundial, Janey was standing, a small +nondescript figure in a mushroom hat, picking snap-dragons. The gardens +had been allowed to run wild for lack of funds to keep them in order, +and had become beautiful exceedingly in consequence. The rose-coloured +snap-dragons and amber lupins were struggling to hold their own in their +stone-edged beds against an invasion of willow weed. A convolvulus had +climbed to the sundial, wrapping it round and round, and had laid its +bold white trumpet flowers on the leaded disk itself. Janey had not +disturbed it. Perhaps she thought that no one but herself sought to see +the time there. The snap-dragons rose in a great blot of straggling rose +and white and wine-red round her feet. She was picking them slowly, as +one whose mind was not following her hand. At a little distance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Harry +was lying at his full length on the flags beside the round stone-edged +fountain, blowing assiduously at a little boat which was refusing to +cross. In the midst of the water Cellini's world-famed water nymph +reined in her dolphins.</p> + +<p>A yellow stone-crop had found a foothold on the pedestal of the group, +and flaunted its raw gold in the vivid sunshine amid the weather-bitten +grey stone, making a fantastic broken reflection where Harry's boat +rippled the water. And behind Janey's figure, and behind the reflection +of the fountain in the water, was the cool, sinister background of the +circular yew hedge, with the heather pink of the willow weed crowding up against it.</p> + +<p>The young man gasped.</p> + +<p>"But it's—it's a picture," he said. And then, after a moment, he added, +"Everything except the woman. Of course she won't do."</p> + +<p>Geoff's curiously innocent prominent eyes were fixed. His vacant face +was rapt. His uncle looked sympathetically at him. He knew what it was +to receive an idea "like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought."</p> + +<p>The caretaker, whose tea-time was already delayed, coughed discreetly in the hall.</p> + +<p>"Come, Geoff," said Mr. Stirling, remorsefully but determinedly, taking +his nephew's arm. "We can't remain here for ever."</p> + +<p>"It's all right except the woman," said Geoff, not stirring. "Every +scrap. It hits you in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> the eye. Look how the lichen has got at the +dolphins. All splendour and desolation, and the yew hedge like a funeral +procession behind. Not a bit of sky above them: the only sky reflected +in the water." His voice had sunk to a whisper.</p> + +<p>"When you are my age," said Mr. Stirling, "it is just the woman, not +some fanciful angel with a Grecian profile and abnormally long legs, but +that particular little brown-haired creature with her short face whom +you brush aside, who makes the tragedy of the picture. When I think of +what that small courageous personage endures day by day, what her daily +life must be—but what's the use of talking? Twenty can't hear a word +fifty is saying—isn't meant to. Wake up, Geoff. There is another lady +in the case. It is past the caretaker's tea-time. You <i>must</i> learn to +consider the fair sex, my dear boy. We are keeping her from her tea. +Look, Miss Manvers has seen us. We'll join her in the gardens."</p> + +<p>One of Mr. Stirling's pleasantest qualities was that he never remembered +he was a man of letters. Consequently it was not necessary for him to +show that he was still a boy at heart and that he could elaborately +forget that he was a distinguished novelist by joining in sailing +Harry's boat. Harry scrambled to his feet and shook hands with both men +at Janey's bidding, and then he looked wistfully at Geoff as a possible +playfellow and smiled at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> him, an ingratiating smile. But Geoff at +twenty, two years younger than Harry, Geoff the artist, the cultured +inquirer after famous Raeburns, the appraiser of broken reflections and +relative values, only gaped vacantly at him, hands in pockets, without seeing him.</p> + +<p>Harry puffed out an enormous sigh and looked back at his boat, and then +he clapped his hands suddenly and ran to meet Annette, who was coming +slowly towards them across the grass.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling's eyes and Janey's followed him, and Mr. Stirling felt +rather than saw that Janey winced as she looked gravely at the approaching figure.</p> + +<p>Geoff's hat was at the back of his sugar-cone of a head. His mild face was transfixed.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Le Geyt," he said, below his breath.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIV</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Our life is like a narrow raft,</div> +<div>Afloat upon the hungry sea.</div> +<div>Thereon is but a little space,</div> +<div>And all men, eager for a place,</div> +<div>Do thrust each other in the sea—</div> +<div>And each man, raving for a place,</div> +<div>Doth cast his brother in the sea."</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Half an hour later, when Annette had left them, Mr. Stirling and his +nephew turned with Janey towards the tall Italian gates, which Harry was +dutifully holding open for them. As Geoff shambled beside him, glancing +backwards in the direction of the path across the park which Annette had +taken, Mr. Stirling half wished that his favourite sister's only child +stared less at pretty women, that he had less tie and hair, and rather +more backbone and deportment.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Reggie," blurted out Geoff, "that Miss Georges!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Has she divorced him? Is that why she's called Miss Georges?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose she's called Miss Georges for the same reason that you are +called Geoffrey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> Lestrange," said his uncle. "Because it happens to be +her name."</p> + +<p>"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open, +innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I +knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at +Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to +draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in +his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away. +But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I +heard him call her Annette, and——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson, +startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he +saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if +one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape +over a dead body.</p> + +<p>"You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold +of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you +are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother."</p> + +<p>"I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor +brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have +liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in +thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><p>"They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff. +"They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on +now. I looked, and—and——"</p> + +<p>But Mr. Stirling swept him down.</p> + +<p>"That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his +vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is +evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for +opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to +Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly down the lane.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow +after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village, +and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed, +with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose +there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is +there?—she looks so very kind,—in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm. +But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed +colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it——"</p> + +<p>"Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling.</p> + +<p>"It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey +stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would +be—stupendous. I see it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p><p>Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short +in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him.</p> + +<p>"I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified, transfigured.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling's heart smote him.</p> + +<p>"Geoff," he said gently, taking his arm again, and making him walk +quietly on beside him, "listen to me. There are other things in the +world to be attended to besides pictures."</p> + +<p>"No, there aren't."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are. I put it to you. You have made a statement about Miss +Georges which will certainly do her a great deal of harm if it is +repeated. You blurt out things about her which are tantamount to making +a very serious accusation against her character, and then in the same +breath you actually suggest that you should make use of her in your +picture—when you have done your level best to injure her reputation. +Now, as one man of the world to another, is that honourable, is it even 'cricket'?"</p> + +<p>Geoff's face became weak and undecided again. The vision had been shattered.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling saw his advantage, and pressed it with all the more +determination because he perceived that Geoff at any rate was firmly +convinced of the truth of what he had said, incredible as it seemed.</p> + +<p>"You will take no rooms in this village," he said with decision, "and +you will start for Japan to-morrow as arranged. I shall see you off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +and before you go you will promise me on your oath never to say another +word to anyone, be they who they may, about having seen Miss Georges at +Fontainebleau, or any other 'bleau,' in that disreputable Dick Le Geyt's company."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Janey's heart beat violently as she walked slowly home.</p> + +<p>During the last few weeks she had sternly faced the fact that Roger was +attracted by Annette, and not without many pangs had schooled herself to +remain friends with her. There had been bitter moments when a choking +jealousy had welled up in her heart against Annette. She might have let +Roger alone. Beautiful women always hypocritically pretended that they +could not help alluring men. But they could. Annette need not have +gratified her vanity by trying to enslave him.</p> + +<p>But after the bitter moment Janey's sturdy rectitude and sense of +justice always came to her rescue.</p> + +<p>"Annette has not tried," she would say stolidly to herself. "And why +shouldn't she try, if she likes him? I am not going to lose her if she +does try. She doesn't know I want him. She is my friend, and I mean to +keep her, whatever happens."</p> + +<p><i>Whatever happens.</i> But Janey had never dreamed of anything like this +happening. As she walked slowly home with her bunch of snap-dragons, she +realized that if Roger knew what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> she and Mr. Stirling knew about +Annette, he would leave her. It was not too late yet. His mind was not +actually made up—that slow mind, as tenacious as her own. He was +gravitating towards Annette. But if she let it reach his ears that +Annette had been Dick's mistress he would turn from her, and never think +of her as a possible wife again. After an interval he would gradually +revert to her, Janey, without having ever realized that he had left her. +Oh! if only Roger had been present when that foolish young man had made +those horrible allegations!—if only he had heard them for himself! +Janey reddened at her own cruelty, her own disloyalty.</p> + +<p>But was it, could it be true that Annette with her clear, unfathomable +eyes had an ugly past behind her? It was unthinkable. And yet—Janey had +long since realized that Annette had a far wider experience of men and +women than she had. How had she gained it, that experience, that air of +mystery which, though Janey did not know it, was a more potent charm than her beauty?</p> + +<p>Was it possible that she might be Dick's wife after all, as that young +man had evidently taken for granted? <i>No.</i> No wife, much less Annette, +would have left her husband at death's door, and have fled at the advent +of his relations. His mistress might have acted like that, had actually +acted like that; for Janey knew that when her aunt arrived at +Fontainebleau a woman who till then had passed as Dick's wife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> and had +nursed him devotedly <i>had</i> decamped, and never been heard of again.</p> + +<p>Was it possible that Annette had been that woman? Mr. Lestrange had been +absolutely certain of what he had seen. His veracity was obvious. And +Annette's was not a face that one could easily forget, easily mistake +for anyone else. In her heart Janey was convinced that he had indeed +seen Annette with her brother, passing as his wife. And she saw that Mr. +Stirling was convinced also.</p> + +<p>She had reached the garden of the Dower House, and she sank down on the +wooden seat round the cedar. The sun had set behind the long line of the +Hulver woods, and there was a flight of homing rooks across the amber sky.</p> + +<p>Then Annette must be guilty, in spite of her beautiful face and her +charming ways! Janey clasped her hands tightly together. Her outlook on +life was too narrow, too rigid, to differentiate or condone. Annette had been immoral.</p> + +<p>And was she, Janey, to stand by, and see Roger, her Roger, the +straightest man that ever walked, and the most unsuspicious, marry her +brother's mistress? Could she connive at such a wicked thing? Would +Roger forgive her, would she ever forgive herself, if she coldly held +aloof and let him ruin his life, drench it in dishonour, because she was +too proud to say a word? It was her duty to speak, her bounden duty. +Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within +her. Was it grief?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of +life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips +towards it that the rim is stained with blood.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXV</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder +circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had +not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love we <i>have</i> +given is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have +come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if +they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which +it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous +flowers will not open to perfection."—M. N.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver +gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since +he had become her mother's tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her +acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional +civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an +acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to +Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely +afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and +he was quickly aware of Janey's surprise at seeing him.</p> + +<p>He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the +servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +unlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for +some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which +followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of +the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the +night, and the rough grass, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and +the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were autumn already.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling looked with compassion at Janey's strained face and sleepless eyes.</p> + +<p>"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of Miss Georges."</p> + +<p>He saw her wince.</p> + +<p>"I am not sure I am," she said hoarsely, involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"I am quite sure," he said.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for Japan, and that he +has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he +gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally +manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff's stupidity was that it was +the truth which he blurted out."</p> + +<p>"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it."</p> + +<p>"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can't tell why one believes +certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff's voice had that +mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> at once you recognized +that. That is why I am here."</p> + +<p>Janey looked straight in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff +might have been mistaken. But he was not. He was so determined to prove +to me that he was not that he unpacked one of his boxes already packed +to start for Japan, and got out his last year's notebooks. I kept one of +them. He did not like it, but I thought it was safer with me than with him."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling produced out of a much-battered pocket a small sketch-book +with an elastic band round it, and turned the leaves. Each page was +crowded with pencil studies of architecture, figures, dogs, children, +nursemaids; small elaborate drawings of door-knockers and leaden +pipe-heads; vague scratches of officials and soldiers, the individuality +of each caught in a few strokes. He turned the pages with a certain +respectful admiration.</p> + +<p>"He has the root of the matter in him," he said. "He will arrive."</p> + +<p>Janey was not impressed. She thought the sketches very unfinished.</p> + +<p>Then he stopped at a certain page. Neither of them could help smiling. +The head waiter, as seen from behind, napkin on arm, dish on spread +hand, superb, debonair, stout but fleet.</p> + +<p><i>Alphonse</i> was scribbled under it, <i>Fontainebleau, Sept. the tenth</i>, and +the year.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Stirling turned the leaf, turned three or four leaves, all with +<i>Mariette</i> scrawled on them. Mariette had evidently been the French +chamber-maid, and equally evidently had detained Geoff's vagrant eye.</p> + +<p>Another page. A man leaning back in his chair laughing. <i>Dick Le Geyt</i> +was written under it.</p> + +<p>"Is it like him?" asked Mr. Stirling.</p> + +<p>"It's <i>him</i>," said Janey.</p> + +<p>Yet another page. They both looked in silence at the half-dozen masterly +strokes with <i>Mrs. Le Geyt</i> written under them.</p> + +<p>"It is unmistakable," Mr. Stirling said. "It is not only she, but it is no one else."</p> + +<p>His eyes met Janey's. She nodded.</p> + +<p>He closed the little book, put its elastic band round it, and squeezed +it into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Why did you bring that to show me?" she said harshly. It seemed as if +he had come to tempt her.</p> + +<p>"I knew," he said, "that for the last two days you must have been on the +rack, torn with doubt as to the truth of what my miserable nephew had +affirmed. You look as if you had not slept since. Anything is better +than suspense. Well, now you know it is true."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it <i>is</i> true," said Janey slowly, and she became very pale. Then +she added, with difficulty, "I knew—we all knew—that Dick had had some +one—a woman—with him at Fontainebleau when he was taken ill. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +valet told my aunt he had not gone—alone. And the hotel-keeper told her +the same. She ran away when Aunt Jane arrived. Aunt Jane never saw her. +We never knew who she was."</p> + +<p>"Till now," said Mr. Stirling softly.</p> + +<p>Two long-winged baby-swallows were sitting on their breasts on the sunny +flagged path, resting, turning their sleek heads to right and left. Mr. +Stirling watched them intently.</p> + +<p>"Why should anyone but you and I ever know?" he said, with a sigh, after +they had flown. He had waited, hoping Janey would say those words, but +he had had to say them himself instead.</p> + +<p>She did not answer. She could not. A pulse in her throat was choking +her. This, then, was what he had come for, to persuade her to be silent, +to hush it up. All men were the same about a pretty woman. A great +tumult clamoured within her, but she made no movement.</p> + +<p>"I may as well mention that I am interested in Miss Georges," he went on +quietly. "Don't you find that rather ridiculous, Miss Manvers? An +elderly man of fifty, old enough to be her father. It is quite absurd, +and very undignified, isn't it? You are much too courteous to agree with +me. But I can see you think it is so, whether you agree or not. Wise +women often justly accuse us silly susceptible men of being caught by a +pretty face. I have been caught by a sweet face. I never exchanged a +word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> with Miss Georges till yesterday, so I have not had the chance of +being attracted by her mind. And it is not her mind that draws me, it is +her face. I have known her by sight for some time. I go to church in +order to see her. I called on her two aunts solely in order to make her +acquaintance. The elder one, the portentous authoress, is the kind of +person whom I should creep down a sewer to avoid; even the saintly +invalid does not call out my higher nature."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling became aware that Janey was lost in amazement. Irony is +singularly unsuited to a narrow outlook.</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, and then went on, choosing his words carefully, as +if he were speaking to some one very young—</p> + +<p>"It is quite a different thing to be attracted, and to have any hope of +marriage, isn't it? I have, and had, no thought of marrying Miss +Georges. I am aware that I could not achieve it. Men of my age do not +exist for women of her age. But that does not prevent my having a deep +desire to serve her. And service is the greater part of love, isn't it? +I am sure <i>you</i> know that, whose life is made up of service of others."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure I do," she said stiffly. She was steeling herself against him.</p> + +<p>If he found her difficult, he gave no sign of it. He went on tranquilly—</p> + +<p>"As one grows old one sees, oh! how clearly one sees that the only +people whom one can be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> any real use to are those whom one loves—with +one's whole heart. Liking is no real use. Pity and duty are not much +either. They are better than nothing, but that is all. Love is the one +weapon, the one tool, the one talisman. Now we can't make ourselves love +people. Love is the great gift. I don't, of course, mean the gift of a +woman's love to a man, or of a man's to a woman. I mean the power to +love anyone devotedly, be they who they may, is God's greatest gift to +<i>us</i> His children. And He does not give it us very often. To some He +never gives it. Many people go through life loved and cherished who seem +to be denied His supreme blessing—that of being able to love, of seeing +that wonderful light rest upon a fellow-creature. And as we poor elders +look back, we see that there were one or two people who crossed our path +earlier in life whom we loved, or could have loved, and whom we have +somehow lost: perhaps by their indifference, perhaps by our own +temperament, but whom nevertheless we have lost. When the first spark is +lit in our hearts of that mysterious flame which it sometimes takes us +years to quench, one does not realize it at the time. I did not. +Twenty-five years ago, Miss Manvers, before you were born, I fell in +love. I was at that time a complete egoist, a very perfect specimen, +with the superficial hardness of all crustaceans who live on the +defensive, and wear their bones outside like a kind of armour. She was a +year or two younger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> than I was, just about Miss Georges' age. Miss +Georges reminds me of her. She is taller and more beautiful, but she +reminds me of her all the same. I was not sure whether she cared for me. +And I had a great friend. And he fell in love with her too. And I +renounced her, and withdrew in his favour. I went away without speaking. +I thought I was acting nobly. He said there was no one like me. Thoreau +had done the same, and I worshipped Thoreau in my youth, and had been to +see him in his log hut. I was sustained in my heartache by feeling I was +doing a heroic action. It never struck me I was doing it at her expense. +I went abroad, and after a time she married my friend. Some years later, +I heard he was dying of a terrible disease in the throat, and I went to +see him. She nursed him with absolute devotion, but she would not allow +me to be much with him. I put it down to a kind of jealousy. And after +his death I tried to see her, but again she put difficulties in the way. +At last I asked her to marry me, and she refused me."</p> + +<p>"Because you had deserted her to start with," said Janey.</p> + +<p>"No; she was not like that. Because she was dying of the same disease as +her husband. She had contracted it from him. That was why she had never +let me be much with him, or afterwards with her. When I knew, I was +willing to risk it, but she was not. She had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> her rules, and from them +she never departed. She let me sit with her in the garden, and to the +last she was carried out to her long chair so that I might be with her. +She told me it was the happiest time of her life. I found that from the +first she had loved me, and she loved me to the last. She never +reproached me for leaving her. She was a simple person. I told her I had +done it on account of my friend, and she thought it very noble of me, +and said it was just what she should have expected of me. There was no +irony in her. And she slipped quietly out of life, keeping her ideal of +me to the last."</p> + +<p>"I think it was noble too," said Janey stolidly.</p> + +<p>"Was it? I never considered her for a moment. I had had the desire to +serve her, but I never served her. Instead, I caused her long, long +unhappiness—for my friend had a difficult temperament—and suffering +and early death. I never realized that she was alive, vulnerable, +sensitive. I should have done better to have married her and devoted +myself to her. I have never wanted to devote myself to any woman since. +We should have been happy together. And she might have been with me +still, and we might have had a son who would just have been the right +age to marry Miss Georges."</p> + +<p>"You would not have wanted him to marry her now," said Janey hoarsely. +"You would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> not want her to marry anyone you were fond of."</p> + +<p>Among a confusion of tangled threads Mr. Stirling saw a clue—at last.</p> + +<p>A dragon-fly alighted on the stone at his feet, its long orange body and +its gauze wings gleaming in the vivid sunshine. It stood motionless save +for its golden eyes. Even at that moment, his mind, intent on another +object, unconsciously noted and registered the transparent shadow on the +stone of its transparent wings.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "if I had had a son who was trying to marry her, I +should have come to you just as I have come now, and I should have said, +'Why should anyone but you and I ever know?'"</p> + +<p>"No. No, you wouldn't," said Janey, as if desperately defending some +position which he was attacking. "You would want to save him at all costs."</p> + +<p>"From what? From the woman he loves? I have not found it such great +happiness to be saved from the woman I loved."</p> + +<p>Janey hesitated, and then said—</p> + +<p>"From some one unworthy of him."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling watched an amber leaf sail to the ground. Then he said slowly—</p> + +<p>"How do I know that Annette is unworthy of him? She may have done wrong +and still be worthy of him. Do you not see that if I decided she was +unworthy and hurried my son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> away, I should be acting on the same +principle as I did in my own youth, the old weary principle which has +pressed so hard on women, that you can treat a fellow-creature like a +picture or a lily, or a sum of money? I handed over my love just as if +she had been a lily. How often I had likened her to one! But she was +alive, poor soul, all the time, and I only found it out when she was +dying, years and years afterwards. Only then did my colossal selfishness +confront me. She was a fellow-creature like you and me. What was it +Shylock said? 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' Now, for aught we know +to the contrary, Annette <i>may be</i> alive."</p> + +<p>His grave eyes met hers, with a light in them, gentle, inexorable.</p> + +<p>"Unless we are careful we may make her bleed. We have the knife ready to +our hands. If you were in her place, and had a grievous incident in your +past, would anything wound you more deeply than if she, she your friend, +living in the same village, raked up that ugly past, and made it public +for no reason?"</p> + +<p>"But there is a reason," said Janey passionately,—"not a reason that +everyone should know, God forbid, but that one person should be told, +who may marry her in ignorance, and who would never marry her if he knew +what you and I know—never, never, never!"</p> + +<p>"And what would you do in her place, in such a predicament?"</p> + +<p>"I should not be in it, because when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> asked me to marry him I should +tell him everything."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that is just what she will do. Knowing her intimately as you +do, can you think that she would act meanly and deceitfully? I can't."</p> + +<p>Janey avoided his searching glance, and made no answer.</p> + +<p>"You can't either," he said tranquilly. "And do you think she would lie about it?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Janey slowly, against her will.</p> + +<p>"Then let us, at any rate, give her her chance of telling him herself."</p> + +<p>He got up slowly, and Janey did the same. He saw that her stubbornness +though shaken was not vanquished, and that he should obtain no assurance +from her that she would be silent.</p> + +<p>"And let us give this man, whoever he may be, his chance too," he said, +taking her hand and holding it. He felt it tremble, and his heart ached +for her. He had guessed. "The chance of being loyal, the chance of being +tender, generous, understanding. Do not let us wreck it by interference. +This is a matter which lies between her and him, and between her and him +only. It may be the making of him. It would have been the making of me +if I could but have taken it—my great chance—if I had not preferred to +sacrifice her, in order to be a sham hero."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVI</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Look long, look long in the water Mélisande,</div> +<div class="i1">Is there never a face but your own?</div> +<div>There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande,</div> +<div class="i1">Your soul must stand alone.</div> +<div>All alone in the world Mélisande,</div> +<div class="i5">Alone, alone."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Ethel Clifford.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The long evening was before Janey. Since her stroke, her mother "retired +for the night," as the nurse called it, at nine instead of ten. And at +nine, Janey came down to the drawing-room and established herself with +her work beside the lamp. Harry, whom nothing could keep awake after his +game of dominoes, went to bed at nine also.</p> + +<p>But to-night, as she took up her work, her spirit quailed at the long +array of threadbare thoughts that were lying in wait for her. She dared +not think any more. She laid down her work, and took up the paper. But +she had no interest in politics. There seemed to be nothing in it. She +got up, and taking the lamp in her hand crossed the room and looked at +the books in the Chippendale bookcase, the few books which her mother +had brought with her from Hulver. They were well chosen, no doubt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> but +somehow Janey did not want them. Shakespeare? No. Longfellow? No. She +was tired of him, tired even of her favourite lines, "Life is real, life +is earnest." Tennyson? No. Pepys' Diary? She had heard people speak of +it. No. Bulwer's novels, Jane Austen's, Maria Edgeworth's, Sir Walter +Scott's? No. <i>Crooks and Coronets</i>? She had only read it once. She might +look at it again. She liked Miss Nevill's books. She had read most of +them, not intentionally, but because while she was binding them in brown +paper for the village library, she had found herself turning the leaves. +She especially liked the last but one, about simple fisher-folk. She +often wondered how Miss Nevill knew so much about them. If she had +herself been acquainted with fishermen, she would have realized how +little the dignified authoress did know. Somehow, she did not care to +read even one of Miss Nevill's books to-night.</p> + +<p><i>The Magnet</i>, by Reginald Stirling. She hesitated, put out her hand, and +took the first of the three volumes from the shelf. She had skimmed it +when it came out five years ago, because the Bishop, when he stayed with +them for a confirmation, had praised it. Janey had been surprised that +he had recommended it when she came to read it, for parts of it were +decidedly unpleasant. She might look at it again. She had no +recollection of it, except that she had not liked it. Her conversation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +with Mr. Stirling had agitated her, but it had also stirred her. Though +she did not know it, it was the first time she had come into real +contact with an educated and sensitive mind, and one bent for the moment +on understanding hers. No one as a rule tried to understand Janey. It +was not necessary. No one was interested in her. You might easily love +Janey, but you could not easily be interested in her.</p> + +<p>The book was dusty. It was obvious that <i>The Magnet</i> had not proved a +magnet to anyone in the Dower House.</p> + +<p>She got out an old silk handkerchief from a drawer and dusted it +carefully. Then she sat down by the lamp once more and opened it. +Ninetieth thousand. Was that many or few to have sold? It seemed to her +a good many, but perhaps all books sold as many as that. She glanced at the first page.</p> + +<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">To a Blessed Memory.</span>"</p> + +<p>That, no doubt, was the memory of the woman of whom he had spoken. She +realized suddenly that it had cost him something to speak of that. Why +had he done it? To help Annette? Every one wanted to help and protect +Annette, and ward off trouble from her. No one wanted to help or guard her—Janey.</p> + +<p>"No one?" asked Conscience.</p> + +<p>Janey saw suddenly the yellow leaves on the flags. She had not noticed +them at the time. She saw the two baby-swallows sitting on their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +breasts on the sun-warmed stone. She had not noticed them at the time. +She saw suddenly, as in a glass, the nobility, the humility, and the +benevolence of the man sitting beside her, and his intense desire to +save her from what he believed to be a cruel action. She had noticed +nothing at the time. She had been full of herself and her own +devastating problem. She saw that he had pleaded with her in a great +compassion as much on her own account as on Annette's. He had stretched +out a hand to help her, had tried to guard her, to ward off trouble from +her. This required thought. Janey and Roger could both think, though +they did not do so if they could help it, and he did his aloud to Janey +by preference whenever it really had to be done. Janey's mind got slowly +and reluctantly to its feet. It had been accustomed from early days to walk alone.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>A step crunched the gravel, came along the terrace, a well-known step. +Roger's face, very red and round-eyed behind a glowing cigarette end, +appeared at the open window.</p> + +<p>"I saw by the lamp you had not gone to bed yet. May I come in?" Coming +in. "My! It is like an oven in here."</p> + +<p>"I will come out," said Janey.</p> + +<p>They sat down on the terrace on two wicker chairs. It was the first time +she had been alone with him since she had met Geoff Lestrange. And as +Roger puffed at his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>cigarette in silence she became aware that he had +something on his mind, and had come to unburden himself to her. The moon +was not yet risen, and the church tower and the twisted pines stood as +if cut out of black velvet against the dim pearl of the eastern sky.</p> + +<p>"I came round this afternoon," said Roger in an aggrieved tone, "but you were out."</p> + +<p>It seems to be a fixed idea, tap-rooted into the very depths of the +masculine mind, that it is the bounden duty of women to be in when they +call, even if they have not thought fit to mention their flattering +intentions. But some of us are ruefully aware that we might remain +indoors twenty years without having our leisure interrupted. Janey had +on many occasions waited indoors for Roger, but not since he had seen +Annette home after the choir practice.</p> + +<p>"You never seem to be about nowadays," he said.</p> + +<p>"I was in the Hulver gardens."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so I thought I would come round now."</p> + +<p>Roger could extract more creaking out of one wicker garden chair than +any other man in Lowshire, and more crackling out of a newspaper, +especially if music was going on: that is, unless Annette was singing. +He was as still as a stone on those occasions.</p> + +<p>"How is Aunt Louisa?"</p> + +<p>"Just the same."</p> + +<p>"Doctor been?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p><p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I was over at Noyes this morning about the bridge. Stirling gave me +luncheon. I don't know where I'm going to get the money for it, with +Aunt Louisa in this state. It's her business to repair the bridge. It's +going to cost hundreds."</p> + +<p>Janey had heard all this before many times. She was aware that Roger was +only marking time.</p> + +<p>"When I was over there," continued Roger, "I saw Bartlet, and he told me +Mary Deane—you know who I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"I heard the child, the little girl, had died suddenly last week. Croup +or something. They ought to have let me know. The funeral was yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Poor woman!"</p> + +<p>"She and the old servant between them carried the little coffin +themselves along the dyke and across the ford. Wouldn't let anyone else +touch it. I heard about it from Bartlet. He ought to have let me know. I +told him so. He said he thought I <i>did</i> know. That's Bartlet all over. +And he said he went up to see her next day, and—and she was gone."</p> + +<p>"Gone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, gone. Cleared out; and the servant too. Cowell said a man from +Welysham had called for their boxes. They never went back to the house +after the funeral. I ought to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> been told. And to-day I get this," +Roger pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it out to her. He lit a +match, and by its wavering light she read the few lines, in an educated hand:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<i>I only took the allowance from you when Dick became too ill to +send it, on account of Molly. Now Molly is dead, I do not need it, +or the house, or anything of Dick's any more. The key is with Cornell.—M.</i>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Poor woman!" said Janey again.</p> + +<p>"It's a bad business," said Roger. "She was—there was something nice +about her. She wasn't exactly a lady, but there really <i>was</i> something +nice about her. And the little girl was Dick over again. You couldn't +help liking Molly."</p> + +<p>"I suppose she has gone back to her own people?"</p> + +<p>Roger shook his head.</p> + +<p>"She hasn't any people—never knew who her parents were. She was—the +same as her child. She loved Dick, but I don't think she ever forgave +him for letting Molly be born out of wedlock. She knew what it meant. It +embittered her. It was not only her own pride which had been wounded, +and she was a proud woman. But Molly! She resented Molly being illegitimate."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Roger, what will become of her?"</p> + +<p>"Goodness knows."</p> + +<p>"Dick oughtn't to have done it," said Roger slowly, as if he were +enunciating some new and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> startling hypothesis. "But to do him justice I +do believe he might have married her if he'd lived. I think if he cared +for anybody it was for her. Dick meant well, but he was touched in his +head. She ought not to have trusted him. Not quite like other people; no +memory: and never in the same mind two days running."</p> + +<p>There was a short silence. But Roger had got under way at last. Very +soothing at times is a monologue to the weary masculine mind.</p> + +<p>"I used to think," he went on, "that Dick was the greatest liar and +swindler under the sun. He went back on his word, his written word, and +he wasn't straight. I'm certain he ran a ramp at Leopardstown. That was +the last time he rode in Ireland. You couldn't trust him. But I begin to +think that from the first he had a bee in his bonnet, poor chap. I +remember Uncle John leathering him within an inch of his life when he +was a boy because he said he had not set the big barn alight. And he +<i>had</i>. He'd been seen to do it by others as well as by me. I saw him, +but I never said. But I believe now he wasn't himself, sort of +sleep-walking, and he really had clean forgotten he'd done it. And do +you remember about the Eaton Square house?"</p> + +<p>Of course Janey remembered, but she said, "What about that?"</p> + +<p>"Why, he wrote to me to tell me he had decided to sell it only last +August, a month before his accident, as he wanted cash. He had clean +forgotten he had sold it two years ago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> and had had the money. Twenty +thousand it was."</p> + +<p>Puff! Puff!</p> + +<p>"Jones, his valet, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Jones told me privately when I was in Paris a month ago that Dick +couldn't last much longer. Gangrene in both feet. The wonder is he has +lived so long. Aunt Louisa will get her wish after all. You'll see he +will die intestate, and everything will go to Harry. Pity you weren't a +boy, Janey. Dick can't make a will now, that's certain, though I don't +believe if he could and wanted to, Lady Jane would let him. But whatever +happens, the family ought to remember Jones when Dick's gone, and settle +something handsome on him for life. Jones has played the game by Dick."</p> + +<p>Janey thought it was just like Roger to be anxious about the valet, when +his own rightful inheritance was slipping away from him. For Roger came +next in the male line after Dick, if you did not count Harry.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"When Dick does go," said Roger meditatively,—"moon looks jolly, +doesn't it, peeping out behind the tower?—I wonder whether we shall +have trouble with the other woman, the one who was with him when he was taken ill."</p> + +<p>"At Fontainebleau?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I hear she was not at all a common person either, and as handsome as paint."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p><p>At the back of his mind Roger had a rueful, half-envious feeling that +really the luck had been with Dick: one pretty woman after another, +while he, Roger, plodded along as good as gold and as dull as ditch +water, and only had to provide for the babes of these illicit unions. It +did not seem fair.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps there is another child there," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no!" said Janey, wincing.</p> + +<p>"It's no use saying, 'Oh no, no!' my good girl. It may be, 'Oh yes, +yes!' The possibility has to be faced." Roger spoke as a man of the +world. "There may be a whole brood of them for aught we know."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he may possibly have married this—second one?" said Janey +tentatively.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. If he had, she wouldn't have bolted. Besides, if Dick had +married anyone, I do believe it would have been Mary Deane. Well, she's +off our hands, poor thing. She won't trouble us again, but I don't +expect we shall get off as easy with number two."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVII</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Erfahrungen haben ist nichts, aber aus allen</div> +<div>Erfahrungen ein reines Herz gerettet zu haben,</div> +<div>Alles."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">L. Habicht.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It was the second week in August. Mrs. Stoddart had arrived at Noyes, +and had driven over to see Annette, and to make the acquaintance of the Miss Nevills.</p> + +<p>She was an immediate success with them, possibly because she intended to +be one, and knew how to set about it.</p> + +<p>The Miss Nevills had two worlds, the social and the literary, and each +one had "right people" in it. In the social world the right people were +of course those who belonged to the same social order as themselves, who +were connected with, or related to, or friends of Nevills, or were +connected with, or related to, or friends of the connections and +relatives and friends of Nevills. Mrs. Stoddart allowed her visiting +list to be probed, and quickly established herself as one of the right +people. She knew people they knew. Her sister Lady Brandon was a +frequent visitor at the Deanery of St. Botolph's, where they had lunched +during the Church Congress. And it was her niece who became the second +Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> Templeton when the first Mrs. Templeton, known of the Miss +Nevills, died.</p> + +<p>If, Reader, you have ever engaged in the back-breaking, hand-blistering +task of eradicating a scattered and well-established colony of nettles, +you have no doubt discovered that a nettle—except a few parvenus, +growth of the last rains—does not live to itself alone. It possesses +endless underground ramifications and knotted connections with other +groups and neighbouring groves of nettles. Get hold of the root of one, +and you pull up a long string rosetted at intervals with bunches of the +same stimulating family. So it was with the social world of the Miss +Nevills. There was always what they called "a link," and one of Aunt +Harriet's chief interests in life was the establishment of these links +in the case of each newcomer, though nothing much happened when it was established.</p> + +<p>Just as you and I, Reader, in our vulgar, homely way, strike up an eager +acquaintanceship, even form a friendship with equally communicative +strangers on steamers, in omnibuses, in trains, because we have both +stayed in the same hotel at Lauter-brunnen, or go to the same dentist, +or derive benefit from the same pre-digested food, so the Miss Nevills +continually established links by more aristocratic avenues with the +assiduity of Egyptologists.</p> + +<p>But much of the pleasure of Mrs. Stoddart's visit was damped by the fact +which she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>discreetly concealed till almost the last moment, that she +was the bearer of an invitation from Mr. Stirling to Annette to spend a +few days at Noyes during her own visit there. Aunt Maria was wounded to +the quick. She had made up her mind to cultivate Mr. Stirling, to steep +herself in long literary conversations with him, to read aloud certain +important chapters of <i>The Silver Cross</i> to him, on which his judgment +would be invaluable. And here was Annette, who had not an idea in her +mind beyond housekeeping and gardening and singing in the choir, here +was Annette preferred before her. Aunt Maria yearned to be admitted to +the society of the "right people" in the literary world as well as the +social one. She had been made much of by the camp followers of +literature, who were always prodigal of their invitations. And a few +uneasy vanities, such as the equally ignored Mr. Harvey, found a healing +comfort as she did herself in their respectful adulation. But all the +time she knew that she was an outsider in the best literary circles. +There was no one more democratic than the author of <i>Crooks and +Coronets</i> when she approached the literary class. She was, to use her +own phraseology, "quite ready" to meet with urbanity anyone +distinguished in the world of letters, quite regardless of family. But +they apparently were not equally ready to meet her—at least, not to +meet her a second time. Mr. Stirling was a writer of considerable +importance, and Aunt Maria<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> was magnanimously prepared to overlook the +fact that his father had been a small shopkeeper in Hammersmith.</p> + +<p>But he preferred Annette's society to hers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart hastened to lay a soothing unguent on the sensitive spirit +of the celebrated authoress. It quickly transpired that the invitation +to Annette had been mainly the result of Mrs. Stoddart's own suggestion.</p> + +<p>"I begged him to let me have Annette with me for a few days," she said, +"and he was most kind about it. He is one of my oldest friends."</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria, somewhat mollified, yielded a dignified consent, and an +incident which had had its painful moment was closed. The next day the +news reached the Miss Blinketts with the afternoon delivery of milk that +the carriage from Noyes Court had come to Red Riff, and that Annette had +departed in it with a small dress-box at her feet, and a hat-box on the +vacant seat beside her.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Noyes Court is not an old house as old houses go in Lowshire, not like +Loudham close by, which has looked into its lake since Edward the +Third's time. Noyes was built by Hakoun Le Geyt, to whom Henry the +Eighth gave Noyes Priory and the estates belonging thereto. And Hakoun +erected a long black and white timbered house, with elaborately carved +beams and doorways, on the high ground above the deserted Priory. And +possibly he took most of the lead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> from the Priory roof, and certainly +he took some of the carved hammerbeams, for they have the word "Maria" +running along them, as you may see to this day. For when Cardinal Wolsey +came to visit him, the Priory was already a ruin. Perhaps Hakoun was a +man of foresight, and may have realized that the great Cardinal, who was +coming to Noyes on the quest of suppressing some of the Lowshire +monasteries in order to swell the revenues of his new college at +Ipswich, might lay his clutching hand on anything that still remained in +the condemned Priory, and so thought it politic to appropriate what he +could while opportunity offered.</p> + +<p>However that may have been, Noyes is rich in ancient lattice and stained +glass, and curious lead-work and gargoyle. And in the minstrels' gallery +you may see how cunningly the carved angels and griffons have been +inserted at intervals in the black oak balustrade.</p> + +<p>Hakoun must have been a man of taste, though he was a parvenu in spite +of his fine coat-of-arms: some said he was nothing better than one of +Catherine of Aragon's pages, who became a favourite with England's stout +young King when poor Catherine was herself in favour. But he had the wit +to consolidate his position in Lowshire by marrying into one of its +greatest families, the beautiful Jane de Ludham. Her father it was, +Ralph de Ludham, who had made the passage through Sweet Apple Tree marsh +because the hated Priors of Noyes hindered people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> passing through their +lands. And his son-in-law, eager to conciliate his Lutheran +father-in-law and his country neighbours, gave the stones of the Priory +to build the new bridge over the Rieben which stands to this day. From +the earliest times, almost from the Conquest, there had been trouble +about the bridge. The Priors of Noyes were bound to keep it in good +repair by reason of the lands they held on both sides of it. But the +Priors had never troubled themselves to carry out their duty, and there +was a grim justice in the fact that the very fabric of their Priory +fulfilled the obligation which they themselves had ignored when the last +of them was in his tomb, and a young Frenchman had taken possession of their lands.</p> + +<p>The young Frenchman made good his hold on Noyes, and his successors +prospered, marrying steadily into the Lowshire families, excepting a +certain unlucky Richard who must needs wed a French maid-of-honour of +Charles the Second's Court, and, as some averred, the daughter of that +witty monarch. There is a charming portrait of Henriette of many curls +in the gallery which certainly has a look of the Stuarts, hanging +opposite her ill-fated Richard, who soon after the marriage got himself +blown up with Lord Sandwich in the <i>Royal James</i>.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart and Annette were sitting in the walled herb garden which +Henriette in her widowhood had made, who had put with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>pardonable vanity +her initials twined in gilded iron in the centre of the iron gate which +led down to it from the terrace above. The little enclosed garden lay +bathed in a misty sunshine. Beyond it, the wide lawns were still all +silvered with dew in the shadows of the forest trees, which seemed to be +advanced posts of the great forest gathered like an army on the other +side of the river. The ground fell away before their eyes, in pleasaunce +and water meadows, to where in the distance you could just discern the +remains of the Priory near the bridge which had cost it so dear.</p> + +<p>Even that "new" bridge was now old, and was showing ominous signs of +collapse, and Annette's eyes followed the movements of tiny workmen +crawling over it. The distant chink of trowel and hammer reached them +through the haze of the windless summer morning.</p> + +<p>It was evident that the two women had had a long conversation, and that +Mrs. Stoddart was slowly turning over something point by point in her mind.</p> + +<p>"You realize, Annette," she said at last, "that you can't go on living +at Riff now you know who the Manvers are?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid you would say that."</p> + +<p>"But surely you see it for yourself, whether I say it or not?"</p> + +<p>Annette did not answer.</p> + +<p>"There are no two ways about it. You must break with the Manvers root and branch."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><p>Annette coloured painfully.</p> + +<p>"Must I?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't your own common sense, if you would only use it, tell you the same?"</p> + +<p>"I am very fond of Janey Manvers."</p> + +<p>"That can't be helped."</p> + +<p>"You see," said Annette slowly, "Janey and Roger are the two people I +like best anywhere, except you. You don't know," turning her grave eyes +to her companion, "how good they are."</p> + +<p>"I never like people myself because they are good."</p> + +<p>"No, I know. And it's very lucky for me you don't. And then, I dare say, +you have always known numbers of good people. But it's different for me. +I haven't. I've never been with good people except Aunt Cathie and you."</p> + +<p>"If the sacred Miss Nevills could hear you now!"</p> + +<p>"I used to think I hated goodness. But I see now that it was the theory +of it, the talking about it, that sickened me. Janey and Roger never +talk about it. And then, when I had broken away from the aunts and went +to Paris, the life there was really evil under a thin veil which soon +got torn. And then I came here, and met Janey and Roger, and got to know them well."</p> + +<p>"He is Mr. Le Geyt's younger brother, I suppose?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p><p>"No, first cousin."</p> + +<p>"That short-nosed, sunburnt, silent man we met at the bridge yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I liked his looks."</p> + +<p>"He is straight," said Annette, "and so is Janey. I always think of them +together, because they are so alike. They might be brother and sister, +and I'm sure they are as fond of each other as if they were. They aren't +clever, of course, like you and Mr. Stirling, but then I'm not clever +myself. They are just the kind of people I like."</p> + +<p>"My poor child, I am afraid you must give them up."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather give up anybody than them, except you."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of what you'd rather do or not do. Now you know who +they are, you cannot continue on terms of friendship with them. I don't +want to force my will upon you. I only want to advise you for the best. +Don't you see for yourself, without my insisting on it, that you will +involve yourself in an impossible situation if you continue your +friendship with them? If I were not here to point that out, surely, +<i>surely</i> you could see it for yourself? Annette, if I were not here, if +you had no one to advise you, what <i>would</i> you do?"</p> + +<p>"I would tell them," said Annette. "I won't, because I've promised you +not to tell anyone, but if I were——"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p><p>"Free?" suggested Mrs. Stoddart.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if I were free, I should tell them both."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart let her knitting fall into her lap, and stared at her companion.</p> + +<p>"And what good, in the name of fortune, would come of that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that any particular good would come of it, but I should +feel happier in my mind. I never had any wish to tell the aunts. I don't +know exactly why, but you don't somehow want to tell them things. But +ever since I've known that Dick was Janey's brother I've wanted to tell +her—her and Roger. It seems to come between me and them like a cloud. +You see, they like me, and I like them. There is nothing kept back in +<i>their</i> lives, and they think I'm the same as them. I feel as if I ought to tell them."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, if I know anything of people like the Manvers, especially +when embedded in the country, it is that they would be terribly shocked, +and the disclosure would make an estrangement at once."</p> + +<p>"It might," Annette agreed. "I think you're right. I'm afraid it +<i>would</i>. But I should like to tell them, all the same."</p> + +<p>"They would not be wide-minded enough to understand."</p> + +<p>"They're not wide-minded, I know that, and of course they may feel I've +been here under false pretences."</p> + +<p>"They certainly would. Wouldn't it be better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> to do as I advise—to +leave Riff? You must lose them either way, Annette. Then why not lose +them by going away, instead of telling them first and then having to go +away?—for, of course, you could not remain. It would give less pain all round."</p> + +<p>Annette locked her hands together.</p> + +<p>"I would rather they knew the truth about me."</p> + +<p>"The truth!" said Mrs. Stoddart, who, like most shrewd women, did not +relish opposition. "The truth! And who will get at the truth if you tell +that story of your act of supreme folly? Who will believe that you were +not Dick Le Geyt's mistress? The truth! Do you think it is the truth +about you that I have taken such trouble to conceal?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, partly," said Annette. "And I have often wondered lately if it had +not been a mistake."</p> + +<p>"Why particularly lately?"</p> + +<p>"Because of Roger Manvers."</p> + +<p>"The young man at the bridge? I wondered whether he was in love with you +when we were talking to him. But I did not think it mattered if he was."</p> + +<p>"It matters to me."</p> + +<p>"You mean you are actually thinking of him? Of course, he is most +estimable, and a gentleman, one can see that at a glance, but isn't he a +trifle dull, <i>borné</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I think I could get on better with a dull<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> person, if he was kind and +honourable, than a clever one. I've had one clever one—who wasn't +honourable. You see, I'm only good-looking. I'm nothing else. That's why +I like being with the Miss Blinketts and Mrs. Nicholls. I forgot perhaps +you don't know Mrs. Nicholls is the washerwoman. A clever man would get +tired of me, or bored with me, and he would expect so much, +understandings and discriminations and things which I could not give, or +only by a dreadful effort. If I married Roger, he would be pleased with me as I am."</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt he would."</p> + +<p>"And I should be pleased with him too."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure of that."</p> + +<p>"I am, but for some time past I have wished he knew anything there was +to know against me."</p> + +<p>"Well, but, Annette, you know we agreed—you had my full approval—that +you should tell everything to the man you were engaged to."</p> + +<p>"I thought that all right at the time—at least, I mean I never thought +about it again. But, of course, I did not know Roger then, and I had not +realized how cruel it would be to him to go farther and farther, and +think more and more of me, and get it firmly rooted in his mind that he +would like to marry me,—it takes a long time for him to get his mind +fixed,—and then, when I had accepted him and he was feeling very +comfortable, to have this—this ugly thing—sprung upon him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p><p>"I don't see how that can be helped."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if he had been told very early in the day, he might have +withdrawn,—of course he would have withdrawn if he had believed the +worst,—but it would not have cost him much. He would have felt he had +had a lucky escape. But as it is," Annette's voice wavered, "I am afraid +Roger will be put to expense."</p> + +<p>"Has he said anything?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. No. I mean he said something the other day, but it was by the +weir, and I know he thought I did not hear. I was listening to the +water, and it made a noise. I heard every word, but I did not like to +say so, because I saw he was rather surprised at himself, taken aback."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart cogitated.</p> + +<p>At last she said, "My dear, I know what is wise, and that is what I have +advised you. But I also know that I am a managing woman, and that one +must not coerce the lives of others. You are not what is called wise. +And you never will be. But I perceive that you have some kind of course +to steer your ship by, and I must even let you steer it. We can't both +stand at the helm, Annette. I think you do not see the rocks ahead, +which I have taken such trouble to avoid, but at any rate I have pointed +them out. I take my hands off the wheel. I give you back your promise."</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling and Roger were coming through the slender iron gates with +their scrolled initials,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> from which the white hanging clusters of the +"Seven Sisters" had to be pushed back to allow them to pass.</p> + +<p>"There are worse things than rocks," said Annette, looking at Roger. But +she had become very white.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVIII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, +only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this +our pilgrimage to no country and to no end."—<span class="smcap">Rabindra Nath Tagore.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Stirling had no curiosity—that quality which in ourselves we +designate as interest in our fellow-creatures, even while we are +kneeling at a keyhole.</p> + +<p>But his interest in others amounted to a passion. He drew slowly through +his hand a little chain, looking at each link with kindly compassion. +The first link had been the expression in Janey's eyes when his nephew +had unconsciously maligned Annette. The sudden relief as from pain, the +exultation in those gentle, patient eyes, had brought him instantly to +her side as her ally against herself. And in his interview with her, the +commonplace pitiful reason had spread itself out before him. She loved +some one, probably Mr. Black, or her cousin Roger—at any rate some one +who was drifting into love with Annette. He felt confident when he left +Janey that she would not use her weapon against Annette as a means to +regain her lover—that Annette was safe as far as she was concerned. +Janey was not of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> who blindfold their own eyes for long. He had, +he knew, removed the bandage from them. That was all that was necessary.</p> + +<p>And now here was Roger, kindly, sociable Roger, whom he had always got +on with so well,—in spite of the secret contempt of the country-bred +man for a man who neither shoots not hunts,—here was Roger suddenly +metamorphosed into a laconic poker, hardly willing to exchange a word +with himself or Annette at luncheon. Mr. Stirling perceived, not without +amusement, that Roger was acutely jealous of him, and drew the last link +of the chain through his hand. Then it was Roger to whom Janey Manvers +was attached, Roger who was in love with Annette? That good-looking Mr. +Black apparently did not come into the piece at all. The situation had, +after all, a classic simplicity. Two women and one man. He had seen +something not unlike it before. And he smiled as he remembered how Miss +Blinkett once supplied him unasked with sundry details of the +affiancement of her cousin the Archdeacon with the Bishop's sister, and +her anxious injunction when all was divulged that he must not on any +account put it into a book. That promise he had kept without difficulty, +but not in Miss Blinkett's eyes, who, when his next novel appeared, +immediately traced a marked resemblance between the ardent love-making +of the half-Italian hero and the gratified comments of the Archdeacon +while allowing himself to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> towed into harbour by the blameless +blandishments of the Bishop's sister.</p> + +<p>Would Roger in turn think he had been "put in"? Mr. Stirling realized +that it was only too likely. For he knew to his cost how deeply embedded +in the mind of the provincial male is the conviction that there is +nothing like him under the sun. In the novel which Mr. Stirling had +recently finished, he had drawn, without a hairbreadth's alteration, the +exact portrait of a married brother-novelist, as an inordinately pompous +old maid of literary fame. When the book appeared this character called +forth much admiration from the public in general, and the +brother-novelist in particular; but it caused a wound so deep and so +rankling in the bosom of Aunt Maria that all intercourse was broken off +between her and Mr. Stirling for ever, in spite of the fact that he was +able to assure her—only she never believed it—that his novel was in +the press before he made her acquaintance. But this is a digression.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stirling showed some absence of mind during luncheon, and then owned +that he was in a small difficulty about the afternoon. He had promised +to drive Mrs. Stoddart and Annette to the old cross at Haliwell. But the +victoria only held two comfortably, and the horse which was to have +taken him in the dogcart had fallen lame.</p> + +<p>"I think I shall commandeer you and your dogcart," he said to Roger. +"Take a few hours' holiday for once, Manvers, and do us all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> a good turn +at the same time. We can put some cushions in your cart, so that Miss +Georges will be sufficiently comfortable."</p> + +<p>Roger was electrified, but he made no sign. He mumbled something about a +foreman, he hung back, he was able to reassure himself afterwards by the +conviction that he had appeared most unwilling, as indeed he did; but +very deep down within him he felt a thrill of pleasure. He was tired to +death, though he did not know it, of the routine of his life, though he +clung to it as a bird will sometimes cling to its cage. He had had +enough of farm buildings and wire fencing, and the everlasting drainage +of land, the weary water-logged Lowshire land. His eyes became perfectly +round, and he looked at his plate with his most bottled-up expression. +But he was pleased. Fortunately for Annette, she knew that. It did not +strike him that she might be disconcerted by his apparent unwillingness +to escort her. His savage irritation against Mr. Stirling as "a clever +chap who could talk a bird out of a tree" was somewhat mollified. +Perhaps, after all, he was interested in Mrs. Stoddart, a widow of about +his own age. Roger shot a furtive glance from under his tawny eyelashes +at Mrs. Stoddart, suddenly bolted a large piece of peach, and said he +thought he could manage it.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It was a still August afternoon, and Roger drove Annette through the +sunny countryside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> The cool breath of the sea blew softly in their +faces, travelling towards them across the low-lying woods and +cornfields. For there are few hills in Lowshire. It is a land of long +lines: long lines of tidal river and gleaming flats, and immense +stretches of clover—clover which is a soft green for half the summer, +and then a sea of dim blue pink. The heather and the gorse-land creep +almost down among the fields, with here and there a clump of pines +taking care of tiny cottages so muffled in the gorse that you can only +see the upper windows, or keeping guard round quaint little churches +with flint towers. And everywhere in the part of Lowshire where the +Rieben winds, there are old bridges of red blue brick shouldering up +among the buttercups, and red cows, with here and there a blue one, +standing without legs in the long grass. And scattered far apart, down +deep blackberried lanes, lie the villages of pink-plastered cottages +clustering together, red roof by red roof, with a flinty grey church in the midst.</p> + +<p>The original artist who designed and painted Lowshire must have always +taken a dab of blue in his brush just when he had filled it with red, to +do the bridges and the old farms and barns and the cows. For in Lowshire +the blues and the reds are always melting into each other like the clover.</p> + +<p>Roger and Annette were heading towards the sea, and so you would have +thought would be their companion the Rieben. But the Rieben<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> was in no +hurry. It left them continually to take the longest way, laying itself +out in leisurely curves round low uplands, but always meeting them again +a few miles farther on, growing more stately with every detour. Other +streams swelled it, and presently wharves and townships stretched +alongside of it, and ships came sailing by. It hardly seemed possible to +Annette that it could be the same little river which one low arch could span at Riff.</p> + +<p>At last they turned away from it altogether, and struck across the wide +common of Gallowscore amid its stretches of yellowing bracken; and Roger +showed her where, in past times, a gibbet used to hang, and told her +that old Cowell the shepherd, the only man who still came to church in +smock-frock and blue stockings, had walked all the way from Riff to +Gallowscore, as a lad, to see three highwaymen hanging in chains on it. +The great oak had been blown down later, gibbet and all, and the gibbet +had never been set up again.</p> + +<p>A walking funeral was toiling across the bracken in the direction of the +church on the edge of the common, and Roger drew up and waited +bareheaded till it had passed. And he told Annette of the old iniquitous +Lowshire "right of heriot" which came into force when a tenant died, and +how his uncle Mr. Manvers, the last lord of the manor, had let it lapse, +and how Dick, the present owner, had never enforced it either.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>"I couldn't have worked the estate if he had," said Roger simply. "Lady +Louisa told Dick he ought to stick to it, and make me enforce it, but I +said I should have to go if he did. The best horse out of his stable +when a man died, and the best cow out of his field. When Dick understood +what heriot meant he would not do it. He was always open-handed."</p> + +<p>Annette looked at the little church tolling its bell, and at the three +firs gathered round it.</p> + +<p>"There is a place like this in <i>The Magnet</i>," she said. "That is why I +seem to know it, though I've never seen it before. There ought to be a +Vicarage just behind the firs, with a little garden enclosed from the bracken."</p> + +<p>"There is," said Roger, and then added, with gross ingratitude to its +author, "I never thought much of <i>The Magnet</i>. I like the bits about the +places, and he says things about dogs that are just right, and—robins. +He's good on birds. But when it comes to people——!"</p> + +<p>Annette did not answer. It was not necessary. Roger was under way.</p> + +<p>"And yet," he added, with a tardy sense of justice, "Stirling's in some +ways an understanding man. I never thought he'd have made allowance for +old Betty Hesketh having the wood mania and breaking up his new fence, +but he did. Such a fuss as Bartlet kicked up when he caught her at his +wood-stack! Of course he caught her at it. Old folks can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> help it. +They get wood mania when they're childish, if they've known the pinch of +cold for too many years. And even if their sheds are full of wood—Betty +has enough to last her lifetime—they'll go on picking and stealing. If +they see it, they've got to have it. Only it isn't stealing. Mr. +Stirling understood that. He said he'd known old ladies the same about +china. But the people in his books!" Roger shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you like Jack and Hester in <i>The Magnet</i>! I got so fond of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't remember much about them. I dare say I should have liked them +if I had felt they were real, but I never did. It's always the same in +novels. When I start reading them I know beforehand everybody will talk +so uncommonly well—not like——"</p> + +<p>"You and me," suggested Annette.</p> + +<p>"Well, not like me, anyhow. And not like Janey and the kind of people I +know—except perhaps Black. He can say a lot."</p> + +<p>"I have felt that too," said Annette, "especially when the hero and +heroine are talking. I think how splendidly they both do it, but I +secretly feel all the time that if I had been in the heroine's place I +never could have expressed myself so well, and behaved so exactly right, +and understood everything so quickly. I know I should have been silent +and stupid, and only seen what was the right thing to say several hours +later, when I had gone home."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p><p>Roger looked obliquely at her with an approving eye. Here indeed was a +kindred soul!</p> + +<p>"In <i>The Magnet</i>," he said, with a sudden confiding impulse, "the men do +propose so well. Now in real life they don't. Poor beggars, they'd like +to, but they can't. Most difficult thing, but you'd never guess it from +<i>The Magnet</i>. Just look at Jack!—wasn't that his name?—how he reels it +all out! Shows how much he cares. Says a lot of really good things—not +copy-book, I will say that for him. Puts it uncommonly well about not +being good enough for her, just as Mr. Stirling would himself if he were +proposing. That's what I felt when I read it. Jack never would have had +the nerve to say all that, but of course a clever chap like Mr. +Stirling, sitting comfortably in his study, with lots of time and no +woman to flurry him, could make it up."</p> + +<p>Annette did not answer. Perhaps she did not want to flurry him.</p> + +<p>"I could never <i>say</i> anything like that," said Roger, flicking a fly off +Merrylegs' back, "but I might feel it. I <i>do</i> feel it, and more."</p> + +<p>"That is the only thing that matters," said Annette, with a tremor in her voice.</p> + +<p>"This is not the moment!" whispered Roger's bachelor instinct, in sudden +panic at its imminent extinction. "I'd better wait till later in the +afternoon," he assented cautiously to himself. "A dogcart's not the place."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p><p>They crossed the common, and drove through an ancient forest of oak and +holly in which kings had hunted, and where the last wolf in England had been killed.</p> + +<p>And Roger told her of the great flood in the year of Waterloo, when the +sea burst over the breakwater between Haliwater and Kirby, and carried +away the old Hundred bridge, and forced the fishes into the forest, +where his grandfather had seen them weeks afterwards sticking in the bushes.</p> + +<p>When they emerged once more into the open the homely landscape had +changed. The blackberried hedges were gone, replaced by long lines of +thin firs, marking the boundaries between the fields. Sea mews were +wheeling and calling among the uncouth hummocked gorse, which crowded up +on either side of the white poppy-edged road. There was salt in the air.</p> + +<p>Roger pointed with his whip.</p> + +<p>"The Rieben again," he said.</p> + +<p>But could this mighty river with its mile-wide water be indeed the +Rieben? Just beyond it, close beside it, divided only by a narrow thong +of shingle, lay the sea.</p> + +<p>And Roger told Annette how at Mendlesham Mill the Rieben had all but +reached the sea, and then had turned aside and edged along, stubbornly, +mile after mile, parallel with it, almost within a stone's throw of it.</p> + +<p>"But it never seems all to fall in and have done with it," he said, +pointing to where it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> melted away into the haze, still hugging the sea, +but always with the thong of shingle stretched between.</p> + +<p>The Rieben skirting the sea, within sound of it, frustrated by its +tides, brackish with its salt, but still apart, always reminded Roger of +Lady Louisa. She too had drawn very near, but could not reach the +merciful sea of death. A narrow ridge of aching life, arid as the high +shingle barrier, constrained her, brackish month by month, from her only +refuge. But Roger could no more have expressed such an idea in words +than he could have knitted the cable-topped shooting-stockings which +Janey made him, and which he had on at this moment.</p> + +<p>The carriage in front had stopped at a lonely homestead among the gorse. +On a low knoll at a little distance fronting the marsh stood an old stone cross.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart and Mr. Stirling had already taken to their feet, and were +climbing slowly through the gorse up the sandy path which led to the +Holy Well. Roger and Annette left the dogcart and followed them.</p> + +<p>Presently Mr. Stirling gave Mrs. Stoddart his hand.</p> + +<p>Roger timidly offered his to Annette. She did not need it, but she took +it. His shyness stood him in good stead. She had known bolder advances.</p> + +<p>Hand in hand, with beating hearts, they went, and as they walked the +thin veil which hides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> the enchanted land from lonely seekers was +withdrawn. With awed eyes they saw "that new world which is the old" +unfold itself before them, and smiled gravely at each other. The little +pink convolvulus creeping in the thin grass made way for them. The wild +St. John's wort held towards them its tiny golden stars. The sea mews, +flapping slowly past with their feet hanging, cried them good luck; and +the thyme clinging close as moss to the ground, sent them delicate +greeting, "like dawn in Paradise."</p> + +<p>Annette forgot that a year ago she had for a few hours seen a mirage of +this ecstasy before, and it had been but a mirage. She forgot that the +day might not be far distant when this kindly man, this transfigured +fellow-traveller, might leave her, when he who treated her now with +reverence, delicate as the scent of the thyme, might not be willing to +make her his wife, as that other man had not been willing.</p> + +<p>But how could she do otherwise than forget? For when our eyes are +opened, and the promised land lies at our feet, the most faithless of us +fear no desertion, the most treacherous no treachery, the coldest no +inconstancy, the most callous no wound; much less guileless souls like +poor unwise Annette.</p> + +<p>She had told Mrs. Stoddart that she would never trust anyone again, and +then had trusted her implicitly. She had told herself that she would +never love again, and she loved Roger.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p><p>A certain wisdom, not all of this world, could never be hers, as Mrs. +Stoddart had said, but neither could caution, or distrust, or +half-heartedness, or self-regard. Those thorny barricades against the +tender feet of love would never be hers either. Ah, fortunate Annette! +It seems, after all, as if some very simple, unsuspicious folk can do +without wisdom, can well afford to leave it to us, who are neither +simple nor trustful.</p> + +<p>Still hand in hand, they reached the shoulder of the low headland, and +sat down on the sun-warmed, gossamer-threaded grass.</p> + +<p>The ground fell below their eyes to the long staked marsh-lands of the +Rieben, steeped in a shimmer of haze.</p> + +<p>Somewhere, as in some other world, sheep-bells tinkled, mingled with the +faint clamour of sea-birds on the misty flats. The pale river gleamed +ethereal as the gleaming gossamer on the grass, and beyond it a sea of +pearl was merged in a sky of pearl. Was anything real and tangible? +Might not the whole vanish at a touch?</p> + +<p>They could not speak to each other.</p> + +<p>At last she whispered—</p> + +<p>"The sea is still there."</p> + +<p>She had thought as there was a new heaven and a new earth that there +would be no more sea. But there it was. God had evidently changed His mind.</p> + +<p>A minute speck appeared upon it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p><p>Roger pulled himself together.</p> + +<p>"That's the Harwich boat," he said, "or it may be one of Moy's +coaling-ships. I rather think it is."</p> + +<p>He gazed with evident relish at the small puff of smoke. He experienced +a certain relief in its advent, as one who descries a familiar face in a +foreign crowd. He said he wished he had brought his glasses, as then he +could have identified it. And he pointed out to her, far away in the +mist, the crumbling headlands of the Suffolk coast, and the church tower +of Dunwich, half lost in the sea haze, waiting for the next storm to engulf it.</p> + +<p>Recalled to a remembrance of their destination by the coal-boat, they +rose and walked slowly on towards the old stone cross standing bluntly +up against a great world of sky. Mr. Stirling and Mrs. Stoddart were +sitting under it; and close at hand a spring bubbled up, which slipped +amid tumbled stone and ling to a little pond, the margin fretted by the +tiny feet of sheep, and then wavered towards the Rieben as circuitously +as the Rieben wavered to the sea.</p> + +<p>There was nothing left of the anchorite's cell save scattered stones, +and the shred of wall on which Mrs. Stoddart was sitting. But a disciple +of Julian of Norwich had dwelt there once, Mr. Stirling told them, +visited, so the legend went, by the deer of the forest when the moss on +their horns fretted them, and by sick wolves with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> thorns in their feet, +and by bishops and princes and knights and coifed dames, with thorns in +their souls. And she healed and comforted them all. And later on Queen +Mary had raised the cross to mark the spot where the saint of the +Catholic Church had lived, as some said close on a hundred years.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity there are no saints left nowadays," said Mr. Stirling, "to +heal us poor sick wolves."</p> + +<p>"But there are," said Annette, as if involuntarily, "only we don't see +them until we become sick wolves. Then we find them, and they take the thorn away."</p> + +<p>A baby-kite, all fluff, and innocent golden eyes, and callow hooked +beak, flew down with long, unsteady wings to perch on the cross and +preen itself. Presently a chiding mother's note summoned it away. Mr. +Stirling watched it, and wondered whether the link between Mrs. Stoddart +and Annette, which he saw was a very close one, had anything to do with +some dark page of Annette's past. Had Mrs. Stoddart taken from her some +rankling thorn?—healed some deep wound in her young life? He saw the +elder woman's eyes looking with earnest scrutiny at Roger.</p> + +<p>"The girl believes in him, and the older woman doubts him," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>Annette's eyes followed a narrow track through the gorse towards a +distant knoll with a clump of firs on it.</p> + +<p>"I should like to walk to the firs," she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p><p>Roger thought that an excellent idea, but he made no remark. Mr. +Stirling at once said that it could easily be done if she were not +afraid of a mile's walk. The knoll was farther than it looked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart said that she felt unequal to it, and she and Mr. Stirling +agreed to make their way back to the carriage, and to rejoin Roger and +Annette at Mendlesham Mill.</p> + +<p>The little stream was company to them on their way, playing +hide-and-seek with them, but presently Roger sternly said that they must +part from it, as it showed a treacherous tendency to boggy ground, and +they struck along an old broken causeway on the verge of the marsh, +disturbing myriads of birds congregated on it.</p> + +<p>"Shall I do it now?" Roger said to himself. He made up his mind that he +would speak when they reached the group of firs, now close at hand, with +a low grey house huddled against them. He had never proposed before, but +he stolidly supposed that if others could he could.</p> + +<p>The sun had gone in, and a faint chill breath stirred the air.</p> + +<p>"But where is the river gone to?" said Annette.</p> + +<p>Roger, who had been walking as in a dream, with his eyes glued to the +firs, started. The river had disappeared. The sun came out again and +shone instead on drifting billows of mist, like the clouds the angels +sit on in the picture-books.</p> + +<p>"It is the sea roke," he said; "we must hurry."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p><p>"It won't reach Mrs. Stoddart, will it?" said Annette breathlessly, +trying to keep up with his large stride. "Damp is so bad for her rheumatism."</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> is all right," he said almost angrily. "They have wraps, and they +are half-way home by now. It's my fault. I might have known, if I had +had my wits about me, when Dunwich looked like that, the roke would come +up with the tide."</p> + +<p>He took off his coat and put it on her. Then he drew her arm through his.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said peremptorily, "we've got to walk—hard."</p> + +<p>All in a moment the mist blotted out everything, and he stopped short instantly.</p> + +<p>"It will shift," he said doggedly. "We must wait till it shifts."</p> + +<p>He knew well the evil record of that quaggy ground, and of the gleaming, +sheening flats—the ruthless oozy flats which tell no tales. The birds +which had filled the air with their clamour were silent. There was no +sound except the whisper everywhere of lapping water, water stealing in +round them on all sides, almost beneath their feet. The sound meant +nothing to Annette, but Roger frowned.</p> + +<p>The tide was coming in.</p> + +<p>"The roke will shift," he said again doggedly.</p> + +<p>And it did. The tawny clouds, yellow where the sun caught them, drifted +past them and parted. They saw the homely earth beneath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> their feet, the +tiny pink convolvulus peering up at them.</p> + +<p>"Do you see that bunch of firs?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, we've got to get there. We must run for it."</p> + +<p>They ran together towards it over the slippery sedge, and up the still +more slippery turf. The sun came out brilliantly, and she laughed and +would have slackened to look at the fantastic world sailing past her; +but he urged her on, his hand gripping her elbow. And he was right. By +the time they reached the trees they were in a dense white darkness, and +the nearest fir whipped them across the face.</p> + +<p>Annette was frightened, and it was Roger's turn to laugh—a short, grim +laugh, with considerable relief in it.</p> + +<p>"Ha! That's right," still holding her elbow tightly, and reaching out +with the other hand. "We've fired into the brown and no mistake. Here's +the middle tree. Two more this side. Then down. Mind your footing, and hold on to me."</p> + +<p>They slid down into a dry ditch—at least, Roger said it was dry. "And +good luck, too," he said. "Made that ditch myself to carry off the +snow-water. Awful lot of water off the bank in winter." He pulled her up +the other side, and then stopped and felt about him.</p> + +<p>"The garden wall should be here," he said. "Empty house. Take shelter in +it. Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> He groped, and met with resistance. "Here it is."</p> + +<p>They stumbled slowly along beside a wall. "Lot of nettles, I'm afraid. +Sorry, but can't be helped," as they plunged into a grove of them. "Here we are."</p> + +<p>His hand was on an iron gate which gave and opened inwards. She felt a +house rising close above them. Roger relinquished her, with many +injunctions to stand still, and she heard his steps going away along a flagged path.</p> + +<p>Annette was not country-bred, and she had not that vague confidence in +her mother earth which those who have played on her surface from +childhood never lose in later life. She was alarmed to find herself +alone, and she shivered a little in the dripping winding-sheet of the +mist. She looked round her and then up. High in heaven a pale disk +showed for a moment and was blotted out. The sun!—it was shining +somewhere. And far away, in some other world, she heard a lark singing, +singing, as it soared in the blue.</p> + +<p>A key in a lock turned, and a door close at hand grated on its hinges.</p> + +<p>"Wait till I light a match," said Roger's welcome voice.</p> + +<p>The match made a tawny blur the shape of a doorway, and she had time to +reach it before it flickered out.</p> + +<p>Roger drew her into the house, and closed the door.</p> + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIX</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"There's no smoke in the chimney,</div> +<div class="i1">And the rain beats on the floor;</div> +<div>There's no glass in the window,</div> +<div class="i1">There's no wood in the door;</div> +<div>The heather grows behind the house,</div> +<div class="i1">And the sand lies before.</div> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<div>No hand hath trained the ivy,</div> +<div class="i1">The walls are gray and bare;</div> +<div>The boats upon the sea sail by,</div> +<div class="i1">Nor ever tarry there;</div> +<div>No beast of the field comes nigh,</div> +<div class="i1">Nor any bird of the air."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Mary Coleridge.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It was black dark inside the house, instead of the white darkness outside.</p> + +<p>Knocking Annette carefully against pieces of furniture, Roger guided her +down a narrow passage into what felt like a room. Near the ceiling were +two bars of white where the fog looked in over the tops of the shutters.</p> + +<p>He struck another match, and a little chamber revealed itself, with +faded carpet and a long mirror. But no sooner was it seen than it was gone.</p> + +<p>"Did you see that chair near you?" said Roger. "I haven't many matches left."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>"There is a candle on the mantelpiece," she said.</p> + +<p>Roger was amazed at Annette's cleverness. He had not seen it himself, +but she had. He exulted in the thought.</p> + +<p>He lit it, and the poor little tall drawing-room came reluctantly into +view, with its tarnished mirror from which the quicksilver had ebbed, +and its flowered wall-paper over which the damp had scrawled its own +irregular patterns. The furniture was of the kind that expresses only +one idea and that a bad one. The foolish sofa, with a walnut backbone +showing through a slit in its chintz cover, had a humped excrescence at +one end like an uneasy chair, and the other four chairs had servilely +imitated this hump, and sunk their individuality, if they ever had any, +to be "a walnut suite." A glass-fronted chiffonier had done its horrid +best to "be in keeping" with the suite. On the walls were a few prints +of race-horses stretched out towards a winning-post; and steel +engravings of the Emperor of the French in an order and the Empress +Eugénie all smiles and ringlets served as pendants to two engravings of +stags by Landseer.</p> + +<p>Annette took off Roger's coat and laid it on a chair.</p> + +<p>"Some one has been very unhappy here," she said, below her breath.</p> + +<p>Roger did not hear her. He was drawing together the litter of +waste-paper in the grate. And then—careful man!—having ascertained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +with the poker that the register was open, he set a light to it.</p> + +<p>The dancing, garish firelight made the sense of desolation acute.</p> + +<p>"Who lived here?" said Annette.</p> + +<p>Roger hesitated a moment, and then said—</p> + +<p>"A Mrs. Deane."</p> + +<p>"Was she very old?"</p> + +<p>"Not very—not more than twenty-seven."</p> + +<p>"And is she dead?"</p> + +<p>Roger put some more paper on the fire, and held it down with the poker.</p> + +<p>"No. She has left. Her child died here a month ago."</p> + +<p>"Poor soul! Her only child?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And her husband? Is he dead too?"</p> + +<p>Roger thought a moment, and then said slowly, "As good as dead."</p> + +<p>He looked round the room and added, "Dick Manvers lent her the house. It +used to be the agent's, but no one has lived in it since I can remember. +It has always been to let furnished, but no one ever took it. People +seem to think it is rather out of the way."</p> + +<p>The rollicking, busy flame died down and left them in the candle-light +once more. But after a few moments the ghostly pallor above the shutters +deepened. Roger went to them and opened them. They fell back creaking, +revealing a tall French window. The fog was eddying past, showing the +tops of the clump<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> of firs, and then hiding them anew. He gazed intently +at the drifting waves of mist.</p> + +<p>"The wind is shifting," he said. "It will blow from the land directly, +and then the roke will go. I shall run down to the farm and bring the +dogcart up here."</p> + +<p>After all, he should have to propose in the dogcart. Men must have +proposed and have been accepted in dogcarts before now. Anyhow, he could +not say anything in this house when he remembered who had lived here, +and the recent tragedy that had been enacted within its walls.</p> + +<p>"You must put on your coat again," she said, bringing it to him. "And +mayn't I come with you? Wouldn't that be better than bringing the cart up here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Merrylegs can see anywhere. Besides, there's the ford: I doubt you +could get over it dry-shod, and I shall have to go a couple of miles +round. And you've had walking enough. I shan't be gone more than half an +hour. I dare say by then the sun will be full out."</p> + +<p>"I would rather come with you."</p> + +<p>"You're not afraid to stay here, are you? There is nothing to hurt you, +and that candle will last an hour. I don't believe there's even a live +mouse in the place."</p> + +<p>"I am sure there isn't. Everything here is dead and broken-hearted. I +would rather go with you."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p><p>Roger's face became the face of a husband, obstinacy personified. She +did not realize that they had been in danger, that he had felt anxiety +for her, and that he had no intention of being so acutely uncomfortable +again if he could help it.</p> + +<p>"You will stay quietly here," he said doggedly. "This is the most +comfortable chair."</p> + +<p>She sat down meekly in it at once, and smiled at him—not displeased at +being dragooned.</p> + +<p>He smiled back, and was gone. She heard him go cautiously along the +passage, and open and shut the front door.</p> + +<p>The light was increasing steadily, and a few minutes after he had left +the house the sun came pallidly out, and a faint breeze stirred the tops +of the fir trees. Perhaps this was the land breeze of which he had +spoken. A sense of irksomeness and restlessness laid hold on her. She +turned from the window, and wandered into the little entrance hall, and +unbarred a shutter to see if Roger were coming back. But no one was in +sight on the long, straight, moss-rutted road that led to the house. She +peered into the empty kitchen, and then, seeing a band of sunlight on +the staircase, went up it. Perhaps she should see Roger from one of the +upper windows. There were no shutters on them. She glanced into one +after another of the little cluster of dishevelled bedrooms, with +crumpled newspapers left over from a hurried packing still strewing the +floors. The furniture was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> massive, early Victorian, not uncomfortable, +but direfully ugly.</p> + +<p>There was one fair-sized south bedroom, and on the window-sill was a +young starling with outspread, grimy wings. Annette ran to open the +window, but as she did so she saw it was dead, had died beating against +the glass trying to get out into the sunshine, after making black +smirches on the walls and ceiling.</p> + +<p>Everything in this one room was gay and pretty. The curtains and +bed-hangings were of rosebud chintz. Perhaps the same hand that had made +them had collected from the other rooms the old swinging mirror with +brass rosettes, and the chest of drawers with drop handles, and the +quaint painted chairs. Annette saw the crib in the corner. This room had +been the nursery. It was here, no doubt, that Mrs. Deane had watched her +child die. Some of the anguish of the mother seemed to linger in the +sunny room with its rose-coloured curtains, and something, alas! more +terrible than grief had left its traces there.</p> + +<p>A devastating hand, a fierce destructive anger had been at work. Little +pictures had evidently been torn down from the wall and flung into the +fire. The fireplace was choked high with half-burned débris—small +shoes, pinafores, and toys. A bit of a child's linen picture-book had +declined to burn, and hung forlornly through the bars, showing a comic +picture of Mrs. Pig driving home from market. A green wheel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> had become +unfastened, and had rolled into the middle of the room when the wooden +horse and cart were thrust into the fire.</p> + +<p>"She must have cried all the time," said Annette to herself, and she +shivered. She remembered her own mad impulse of destruction.</p> + +<p>"It's no use being angry," she whispered to the empty walls. "No use. No use."</p> + +<p>The photograph frames had evidently been swept into the fire too, all +but one, for there was broken glass in the fender and on the floor. But +one framed photograph stood on the mantelpiece, the man in it, smiling +and debonair, looking gaily out at Annette and the world in general. +Under it was written in a large clear hand, "Daddy."</p> + +<p>It was Dick Le Geyt, but younger and handsomer than Annette had ever +known him. She looked long at it, slowly realizing that this, then, had +been the home of Dick's mistress, the Mary of whom he had spoken and her +child, to whom he had done a tardy justice in his will, the will she had +helped him to make. The child, Dick's child, was dead. Its empty crib +was in the corner. Its memorials had perished with it.</p> + +<p>All that was left now of that little home was Dick's faded photograph +smiling in its frame, purposely, vindictively left when all the others +had been destroyed. Mary Deane had not cared to take it with her when +she cut herself adrift from her past. She had not had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> clemency to +destroy it with the rest. She had left it to smile mockingly across the +ruins of the deserted nursery. While Annette stood motionless the fierce +despair of the mother became almost visible to her: the last wild look +round the room and at the empty crib, the eyes averted from the smiling +face on the mantelpiece, and then—the closed door and the lagging, +hurrying footfall on the stairs.</p> + +<p>"It's no use being angry," she whispered again. "Even Dick knew that. No use. No use."</p> + +<p>And with pitying hands she took Dick's photograph out of the frame and +tore it up small, and thrust the pieces among the charred remains of his +child's toys. It was all she could do for him.</p> + +<p>Oh! if she had but known Mary Deane, if she could but have come to her, +and put her arms round her and told her that Dick had not been as +heartless as she thought, that he had remembered her at the last, and as +far as he could had made a late amends for all the evil he had done her.</p> + +<p>But the child was dead, and Mary Deane herself was gone. Gone whither? +She had flung away in anger and despair, as she, Annette, had once flung +away. Perhaps there had been no Mrs. Stoddart to care for Mary in her hour of need.</p> + +<p>Annette's heart sank as if a cold hand had been laid upon it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>The peaceful, radiant faith and joy of a few hours ago—where were they +now? In their place, into this close, desolate room with the dead bird +on the sill, came an overwhelming fear.</p> + +<p>Men were cruel, ruthless creatures, who did dreadful things to women +under the name of love.</p> + +<p>As at a great distance, far far away in the depths of childhood, she +heard her mother sobbing in the dark. Almost her only recollection of +her mother was being waked in the night by that passionate sobbing. The +remembrance of her father came next, sordid, good-humoured, mercenary, +and she shuddered. No wonder her mother had cried so bitterly! Close +behind it followed the sensitive, sensual face of the musician who had +offered to train her. And then, sudden and overwhelming, blotting out +everything else, came the beautiful young lover whom she had cast forth +from her heart with passion a year ago. All the agony and despair which +she had undergone then surged back upon her, seemed to rush past her to +join forces with the cold desolation lingering in the empty room. +Annette hid her face in her hands. She had put it all behind her. She +had outlived it. But the sudden remembrance of it shook her like a leaf.</p> + +<p>In that grim procession Dick came last—poor, poor Dick! He had not been +wicked, but he had done wicked things. He had betrayed and broken faith. +He had made as much desolation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> and anguish as if he had been +hard-hearted. Oh! why did women love men? Why did they trust them?</p> + +<p>Annette stood a long time with her face in her hands. Then she went out +and closed the door behind her. The sun was shining bravely, and she +longed to get out of this death-shadowed house into the warm, living +sunshine. She went back to the drawing-room, her quiet step echoing +loudly down the passage, and looked out of the long window. But the +outlook was not calculated to lessen her oppression.</p> + +<p>Close at hand, as she knew, were gracious expanses of sea and sky and +gleaming river. But a stone wall surrounded the house, and on the top of +it a tall wooden fence had been erected, so high that from the ground +floor you could not look over it. This wooden fence came up close to the +house on every side, so close that there was only just room for the thin +firs and a walnut tree to grow within the narrow enclosure, their +branches touching the windows.</p> + +<p>Annette did not know that the wall and the fence and the trees were +there to protect the house from the east wind, which in winter swept +with arctic ferocity from the sea.</p> + +<p>In the narrow strip between the fenced wall and the house Mary Deane had +tried to make a little garden. Vain effort! The walnut tree and the firs +took all sun from the strip of flower-bed against the wall of the house, +where a few Michaelmas daisies and snap-dragons hung their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> heads. She +had trained a rose against the wall, but it clung more dead than alive, +its weak shoots slipping down from its careful supports. She had made a +gravel path beside it, and had paced up and down it. How worn and sunk +that path was! There was not room for two to go abreast in it. One +footfall had worn that narrow groove, narrow almost as a sheep track in +the marsh. And now the path was barely visible for the dead leaves of +the walnut, falling untimely, which had drifted across it, and had made +an eddy over the solitary clump of yellow snap-dragon.</p> + +<p>Annette drew back the bolt of the window, and stepped out. The air, +chill with the mist which had silvered everything, was warm compared to +the atmosphere of the house.</p> + +<p>She drew a long breath, and her mind, never accustomed to dwell long +upon herself, was instantly absorbed in freeing the snap-dragon from the +dead leaves which had invaded it. Two birds were bathing themselves +sedulously in the only sunny corner at the end of the garden. Annette +saw that their bath also was choked with leaves, and when she had +released the snap-dragon, she applied her energies to the birds' bath.</p> + +<p>But she had hardly removed a few leaves from it when she stopped short. +It was a day of revelations. The birds' bath was really a lake: a +miniature lake with rocks in it, and three tin fishes, rather too large +it must be owned to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> be quite probable, and a tin frog spread out in a +swimming attitude, and four ducks all jostling each other on its small +expanse. It was a well-stocked lake. Tears rose in Annette's eyes as she +explored still farther, lifting the drifted leaves gently one by one.</p> + +<p>They covered a doll's garden about a yard square. Some one, not a child, +had loved that garden, and had made it for a beloved child. The +enclosure with its two-inch fence had no grass in it, but it had winding +walks, marked with sand and tiny white stones. And it had a little +avenue of French lavender which was actually growing, and which led to +the stone steps on the top of which the house stood, flanked by shells. +It was a wooden house, perhaps originally a box; of rather debased +architecture, it must be conceded. But it had windows and a green door +painted on it, and a chimney. On the terrace were two garden-seats, +evidently made out of match-boxes; and outside the fence was a realistic +pigsty with two china pigs in it, and a water-butt, and a real +hay-stack. Close at hand lay a speckled china cow, and near it were two +seated crinkly white lambs.</p> + +<p>Annette kneeling by the lake, crying silently, was so absorbed in +tenderly clearing the dead leaves from the work of art, and in setting +the cow on its legs again, that she did not hear a step on the path +behind her. Roger had come back and was watching her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>When she discovered the two lambs sitting facing each other, she seized +them up, and kissed them, sobbing violently.</p> + +<p>Something in Annette's action vaguely repelled him as he watched her. It +was what he would have defined as "French." And though he had swallowed +down the French father, he hated all symptoms of him in Annette. It was +alien to him to kiss little china lambs. Janey would never have done +that. And Janey was the test, the touchstone of all that was becoming in +woman.</p> + +<p>And then all in a moment the tiny wave of repulsion was submerged in the +strong current of his whole being towards her. It was as if some dormant +generous emotion had been roused and angered by his petty pin-prick +opposition to put out its whole strength and brush it away.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry," said Roger gruffly. But there were tears in his small round +eyes as well as in hers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Roger," said Annette, speaking to him for the first time by his +Christian name, "have you seen it, the fishes and the ducks, and the +pigsty, and the little lambs and everything?"</p> + +<p>Roger nodded. He had watched that property in course of construction. He +might have added that he had provided most of the animals for it. But if +he had added that, he would not have been Roger.</p> + +<p>"And she's burnt everything in the nursery,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> continued Annette, rising +and going to him, the tears running down her face. "The toys and +everything. And she's torn down the little pictures from the wall and +broken them and thrown them on the fire. And I think she only left the +garden because—poor thing—because she forgot it."</p> + +<p>Roger did not answer. He took her in his arms, and said with gruff +tenderness, as if to a child, "Don't cry."</p> + +<p>She leaned against him, and let his arms fold her to him. And as they +stood together in silence their hearts went out to each other, and awe +fell upon them. All about them seemed to shake, the silvered firs, the +pale sunshine, the melancholy house, the solid earth beneath their feet.</p> + +<p>"You will marry me, won't you, Annette?" he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Remembrance rushed back upon her. She drew away from him, and looked +earnestly at him with tear-dimmed, wistful eyes.</p> + +<p>The poor woman who had lived here, who had worn the little path on which +they were standing, had loved Dick, but he had not married her. She +herself, for one brief hour, had loved some one, but he had had no +thought of marrying her. Was Roger, after all, like other men? Would he +also cast her aside when he knew all, weigh her in the balance, and find +her not good enough to be his wife?</p> + +<p>There was a loud knocking at the door, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> the bell pealed. It echoed +through the empty house.</p> + +<p>Roger started violently. Annette did not move. So absorbed was she that +she heard nothing, and continued gazing at him with unfathomable eyes. +After one bewildered glance at her, he hurried into the house, and she +followed him half dazed.</p> + +<p>In the hall she found him reading a telegram while a dismounted groom +held a smoking horse at the door. At the gate the dogcart was waiting, +tied to the gate-post.</p> + +<p>Roger crushed the telegram in his hand, and stared out of the window for +a long moment. Then he said to Annette—</p> + +<p>"Janey has sent me on this telegram to say her brother Dick is dead. It +has been following me about for hours. I must go at once."</p> + +<p>He turned to the groom. "I will take your horse. And you will drive Miss +Georges back to Noyes in the dogcart."</p> + +<p>The man held the stirrup, and Roger mounted, raised his cap gravely to +Annette, turned his horse carefully in the narrow path, and was gone.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXX</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Even the longest lane has a turning, though the path trodden by +some people is so long and so straight that it seems less like a +lane than 'a permanent way.'"—<span class="smcap">Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Time moves imperceptibly at Riff, as imperceptibly as the Rieben among its reeds.</p> + +<p>To Janey it seemed as if life stood stock-still. Nevertheless, the slow +wheel of the year was turning. The hay was long since in, standing in +high ricks in the farmyards, or built up into stacks in lonely fields +with a hurdle round them to keep off the cattle. The wheat and the +clover had been reaped and carried. The fields were bare, waiting for +the plough. It was the time of the Harvest Thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>Janey had been at work ever since breakfast helping to decorate the +church, together with Harry and Miss Black, and her deaf friend Miss +Conder, the secretary of the Plain Needlework Guild. Miss Conder's +secretarial duties apparently left her wide margins of leisure which +were always at the disposal of Miss Black.</p> + +<p>Except for the somewhat uninspiring presence of Miss Black and Miss +Conder and her ear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> trumpet, it had all been exactly as it had been ever +since Janey could remember.</p> + +<p>As she stood by the Ringers' Arch it seemed to her as if she had seen it +all a hundred times before: the children coming crowding round her, +flaxen and ruddy, with their hot little posies tied with grass,—the +boys made as pretty posies as the girls,—and Hesketh, "crome from the +cradle," limping up the aisle with his little thatched stack under his +arm; and Sayler with his loaf; and the farmers' wives bringing in their +heavy baskets of apples and vegetables.</p> + +<p>Sometimes there is great joy in coming home after long absence and +finding all exactly as we left it and as we have pictured it in memory. +We resent the displacement of a chair, or the lopping of one of the +cedar's boughs, and we note the new tool-shed with an alien eye.</p> + +<p>But it is not always joyful, nay, it can have an element of despair in +it, to stay at home, and never go away, and see the wheel of life slowly +turn and turn, and re-turn, and yet again re-turn, always the same, yet +taking every year part of our youth from us. The years must come which +will strip from us what we have. Yes, we know that. But life should +surely give us something first, before it begins to take away.</p> + +<p>Janey was only five-and-twenty, and it seemed to her that already the +plundering years had come. What little she had was being wrested from +her. And an immense distaste and fatigue of life invaded her as she made +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> lily and maiden-hair cross for the font. How often she had made it, +as she was making it now! Should she go on for ever, till she was sixty, +making crosses for the font at Harvest Homes, and putting holly in the +windows at Christmas, and "doing the reading-desk" with primroses at Easter?</p> + +<p>Harry working beside her, concocting little sheaves out of the great +bundle of barley which Roger had sent in the night before, was +blissfully happy. He held up each sheaf in turn, and she nodded surprise +and approbation. It seemed to her that after all Harry had the best of +the bargain, the hard bargain which life drives with some of us.</p> + +<p>It was all as it had always been.</p> + +<p>Soon after eleven, Miss Amy Blinkett, a little fluttered and +self-conscious, appeared as usual, followed up the aisle by a +wheelbarrow, in which reposed an enormous vegetable marrow with "Trust +in the Lord" blazoned on it in red flannel letters. These "marrer +texes," as the villagers called them, were in great request, not only in +Riff, but in the adjoining parishes; and it was not an uncommon thing +for "Miss Amy's marrer" to be bespoken, after it had served at Riff, for +succeeding Harvest Homes in the neighbourhood. It had been evolved out +of her inner consciousness in her romantic youth, and in the course of +thirty years it had grown from a dazzling novelty to an important asset, +and was now an institution. Even the lamentable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Mr. Jones, who had "set +himself against" so many Riff customs, had never set himself against +"Miss Amy's marrer." And an admiring crowd always gathered round it +after service to view it reclining on a bed of moss beneath the pulpit.</p> + +<p>By common consent, Miss Amy had always been presented with the largest +vegetable marrow that Riff could produce. But this year none adequate +for the purpose could be found, and considerable anxiety had been felt +on the subject. Mrs. Nicholls, who sent in the finest, had to own that +even hers was only about fourteen inches long. "No bigger nor your +foot," as she expressed it to Janey. Fortunately, at the last moment +Roger obtained one from Sweet Apple Tree, about the size of a baby, +larger than any which had been produced in Riff for many years past. +That Sweet Apple Tree could have had one of such majestic proportions +when the Riff marrows had failed, was not a source of unmixed +congratulation to Riff. It was feared that the Sweet Applers "might get cocked up."</p> + +<p>The suspense had in the meanwhile given Miss Amy a sharp attack of +neuralgia, and the fact that the marrow really came up to time in the +wheelbarrow was the result of dauntless and heroic efforts on her part.</p> + +<p>This splendid contribution was wheeled up the aisle, having paused near +the font to receive Janey's tribute of admiration, and then a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +minutes later, to her amazement, she saw it being wheeled down again, +Miss Amy walking very erect in dignified distress beside it. With cold +asperity, and without according it a second glance, Miss Black had +relegated it—actually relegated "Miss Amy's marrer"—to the Ringers' +Arch. The other helpers stopped in their work and gazed at Miss Black, +who, unconscious of the doubts of her sanity which had arisen in their +minds, continued rearing white flowers against the east window, +regardless of the fact that nothing but their black silhouettes were +visible to the congregation.</p> + +<p>At this moment Mr. Black came into the church, so urbane, and so +determined to show that he was the kind of man who appreciated the +spirit in which the humblest offerings were made, that it was some time +before Janey could make him aware of the indignity to which Miss Amy's +unique work of art had been subjected.</p> + +<p>"But its grotesqueness will not be so obvious at the Ringers' Arch," he +said. "It's impossible, of course, but it has been a labour of love, I +can see that, and I should be the last man in the world to laugh at it."</p> + +<p>He had to work through so many sentiments which did him credit that +Janey despaired of making him understand, of ever getting him to listen to her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Blinkett's marrow is always under the pulpit," she repeated +anxiously. "No, the Ringers' Arch is <i>not</i> considered such an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>important +place as the pulpit. The people simply love it, and will be disappointed +if they don't see it there as usual. And Miss Blinkett will be deeply +hurt. She is hurt now, though she does not show it."</p> + +<p>At last her words took effect, and Mr. Black was guided into becoming +the last man to wound the feelings of one of his parishioners. Greatly +to Janey's relief, the marrow was presently seen once more to ascend the +aisle, was assisted out of its wheelbarrow by Mr. Black himself and +installed on a bed of moss at the pulpit foot; Miss Black standing +coldly aloof during the transaction, while Miss Conder, short-sighted +and heavy-footed, walked backwards into an arrangement of tomatoes and +dahlias in course of construction round the reading-desk.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black and his sister had had an amicable discussion the evening +before as to the decoration of the church, and especially of the pulpit, +for this their first Harvest Thanksgiving at Riff. They had both agreed, +with a cordiality which had too often been lacking in their +conversations of late, that they would make an effort to raise the +decoration to a higher artistic level than in the other churches in the +neighbourhood, some of which had already celebrated their Harvest +Thanksgivings. Miss Black had held up to scorn the naïve attempts of +Heyke and Drum, at which her brother had preached the sermon, and he had +smiled indulgently and had agreed with her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p><p>But Riff was his first country post, and he had not been aware until he +stepped into it, of the network of custom which surrounded Harvest +decoration, typified by Miss Blinkett's vegetable marrow. With admirable +good sense, he adjusted himself to the occasion, and shutting his ears +to the hissing whispers of his sister, who for the hundredth time begged +him not to be weak, gave himself up to helping his parishioners in their +own way. This way, he soon found, closely resembled the way of Heyke and +Drum, and presently he was assisting Mrs. Nicholls to do "Thy Will be +Done" in her own potatoes, backed by white paper roses round the base of +the majestic monument of the Welyshams of Swale, with its two ebony +elephants at which Harry always looked with awe and admiration.</p> + +<p>As he and Janey were tying their bunches of barley to its high iron +railings, a telegram was brought to her. Telegrams were not so common +twenty years ago as they are now, and Janey's heart beat. Her mind flew +to Roger. Had he had some accident? She knew he had gone to Noyes about the bridge.</p> + +<p>She opened it and read it, and then looked fixedly at Harry, stretching +his hand through the railing to stroke the elephants and whisper gently +to them. She almost hated him at that moment.</p> + +<p>She folded up the telegram and sought out Mr. Black, who, hot and tired, +and with an earwig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> exploring down his neck, was now making a cardboard +dais for Sayer's loaf of bread.</p> + +<p>"My brother Dick is dead," she said. "I must go home at once. Harry can +stay and finish the railings. He knows exactly how to do them, and he +has been looking forward to helping for days."</p> + +<p>Harry looked towards her for approval, and her heart smote her. It was +not his fault if his shadowy existence was the occasion of a great +injustice. She went up to him and patted his cheek, and said, "Capital, +capital! What should we do without you, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"I'm taking my place, aren't I?" he said, delighted. "That's what Nurse +is always saying. I must assert myself and take my place."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXI</span></h2> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Remember, Lord, Thou didst not make me good.</div> +<div>Or if Thou didst, it was so long ago</div> +<div>I have forgotten—and never understood,</div> +<div>I humbly think."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">George MacDonald.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>On a sunny September day Dick the absentee was gathered to his fathers at Riff.</p> + +<p>Is there any church in the world as beautiful as the old church of Riff +where he was buried?—with its wonderful flint-panelled porch; with the +chalice, host, and crown carved in stone on each side of the arched +doorway as you go in; beautiful still in spite of the heavy hand of +Cromwell's men who tore all the dear little saints out of their niches +in the great wooden font cover, which mounts richly carved and dimly +painted like a spire, made of a hundred tiny fretted spires, to the very +roof of the nave, almost touching the figures of the angels leaning with +outstretched wings from their carved and painted hammerbeams. In spite +of all the sacrilege of which it has been the victim, the old font cover +with the coloured sunshine falling aslant upon it through the narrow +pictured windows remains a tangle of worn, mysterious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> splendour. And +the same haggard, forlorn beauty rests on the remains of the carved +screen, with its company of female saints painted one in each panel.</p> + +<p>Poor saints! savagely obliterated by the same Protestant zeal, so that +now you can barely spell out their names in semicircle round their +heads: Saint Cecilia, Saint Agatha, Saint Osyth.</p> + +<p>But no desecrating hand was laid on the old oaken benches with their +carved finials. Quaint intricate carvings of kings and queens, and +coifed ladies kneeling on tasselled cushions, and dogs licking their own +backs,—outlandish dogs with curly manes and shaved bodies and rosetted +tails,—and harts crowned and belted with branching antlers larger than +their bodies, and knights in armour, and trees with acorns on them so +big that each tree had only room for two or three, and the ragged staff +of the Earls of Warwick with the bear. All these were spared, seeing +they dealt with man and beast, and not with God and saint. And by +mistake Saint Catherine and her wheel and Saint Margaret and her dragon +were overlooked and left intact. Perhaps because the wheel and the +dragon were so small that the destroyers did not recognize that the +quaint little ladies with their parted hair were saints at all. And +there they all are to this day, broken some of them, alas!—one of them +surreptitiously mutilated by Dick as a small boy,—but many intact +still, worn to a deep black polish by the hands of generation after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +generation of the sturdy people of Riff taking hold of them as they go +into their places.</p> + +<p>The Manvers monuments and hatchments jostle each other all along the +yellow-plastered walls: from the bas-relief kneeling figure of the first +Roger Manvers, Burgess of Dunwich, to the last owner, John Manvers, the +husband of Lady Louisa Manvers.</p> + +<p>But their predecessors, the D'Urbans and de Uffords, had fared ill at +the hands of Dowsing and his men, who tore up their brasses with "orate +pro anima" on them, and hacked their "popish" monuments to pieces, +barely leaving the figures of Apphia de Ufford, noseless and fingerless, +beside her lord, Nicholas D'Urban of Valenes. One Elizabethan brass +memorial of John de la Pole, drowned at Walberswick, was spared, +representing a skeleton, unkindly telling others that as he is we soon +shall be, which acid inscription no doubt preserved him. But you must +look up to the hammerbeams if you care to see all that is left of the +memorials of the D'Urbans and De la Poles and the de Uffords, where +their shields still hang among the carved angels.</p> + +<p>Dick had not been worthy of his forbears, and it is doubtful whether if +he had had any voice in the matter he would have wished to be buried +with them. But Roger brought his coffin back to Riff as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>His death had caused genuine regret among the village people, if to no +one else. They had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> all known him from a boy. There had been a reckless +bonhomie about him which had endeared him to his people, in a way that +Roger, who had to do all the disagreeable things, could not expect. In +time past, Dick had fought and ferreted and shared the same hunk of cake +and drunk out of the same mug with half the village lads of Riff. They +had all liked him, and later on in life, if he would not or could not +attend to their grievances or spend money on repairs, he always "put his +hand in his pocket" very freely whenever he came across them. Even the +local policeman and the bearers decorously waiting at the lychgate had +sown their few boyish wild oats in Dick's delightful company. He was +indissolubly associated with that short heyday of delirious joy; he had +given them their one gulp from the cup of adventure and escapade. They +remembered the taste of it as the hearse with its four plumed black +horses came in sight between the poplars along the winding road from +Riebenbridge. Dick had died tragically at thirty-three, and the kindly +people of Riff were sorry.</p> + +<p>Janey and Roger were the only chief mourners, for at the last moment +Harry had been alarmed by the black horses, and had been left behind +under the nurse's charge. They followed the coffin up the aisle, and sat +together in the Squire's seats below the step. Close behind them, pale +and impassive, sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> alone, was Jones the valet, perhaps the only +person who really mourned for Dick. And behind him again was a crowd of +neighbours and family friends, and the serried ranks of the farmers and tenants.</p> + +<p>In the chancel was the choir, every member present except Mrs. Nicholls, +Dicks foster-mother, who was among the tenantry. So the seat next to +Annette was empty, and to Mr. Stirling down by the font it seemed as if +Annette were sitting alone near the coffin.</p> + +<p>Janey sat and stood and knelt, very pale behind her long veil, her +black-gloved hands pinching tightly at a little Prayer Book. She was not +thinking of Dick. She had been momentarily sorry. It is sad to die at +thirty-three. It was Roger she thought of, for already she knew that no +will could be found. Roger had told her so on his return from Paris two +days ago. A sinister suspicion was gradually taking form in her mind +that her mother on her last visit to Dick in Paris had perhaps obtained +possession of his will and had destroyed it, in the determination that +Harry should succeed. Janey reproached herself for her assumption of her +mother's treachery, but the suspicion lurked nevertheless like a shadow +at the back of her mind. Was poor Roger to be done out of his +inheritance? for by every moral right Hulver ought to be his. Was +treachery at work on <i>every</i> side of him? Janey looked fixedly at +Annette. Was she not deceiving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> him too? How calm she looked, how pure, +and how beautiful! Yet she had been the mistress of the man lying in his +coffin between them. Janey's brain seemed to shake. It could not be. But +so it was. She shut her eyes and prayed for Roger, and Dick, and +Annette. It was all she could do.</p> + +<p>Roger, beside her, kept his eyes fixed on a carved knob in front of him. +He knew he must not look round, though he was anxious to know whether +Cocks and Sayler had seated the people properly. His mind was as full of +detail as a hive is full of bees. He was tired out, and he had earache, +but he hardly noticed it. He had laboured unremittingly at the funeral. +It was the last thing he could do for Dick, whom he had once been fond +of, whom he had known better than anyone, for whom he had worked so +ruefully and faithfully; who had caused him so many hours of +exasperation, and who had failed and frustrated him at every turn in his +work for the estate.</p> + +<p>He had arranged everything himself, the distant tenants' meals, the +putting up of their horses. He had chosen the bearers, and had seen the +gloves and hat-bands distributed, and the church hung with black. His +mind travelled over all the arrangements, and he did not think anything +had been forgotten. And all the time at the back of his mind also was +the thought that no will was forthcoming, even while he followed the service.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p><p>"Dick might have left Hulver to me. '<i>We brought nothing into the world +and it is certain we can carry nothing out.</i>' Poor old Dick! I dare say +he meant to. But he was too casual, and had a bee in his bonnet. But if +he had done nothing else, he ought to have made some provision for Mary +Deane and his child. He could not tell Molly would die before him. '<i>For +a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday.</i>' Seeing Harry is +what he is and Janey is to have Noyes, Dick might have remembered me. I +shall have to work the estate for Harry now, I suppose. Doesn't seem +quite fair, does it? '<i>O teach us to number our days: that we may apply +our hearts unto wisdom.</i>' Never heard Black read the service better. +He'll be a bishop some day. And now that Dick has forgotten me, how on +earth am I ever to marry? '<i>Man that is born of woman hath but a short +time to live and is full of misery.</i>' That's the truest text of the whole lot."</p> + +<p>Roger looked once at Annette, and then fixed his eyes once more on the +carved finial of the old oaken bench on which he was sitting, where his +uncle had sat before him, and where he could just remember seeing his +grandfather sit in a blue frock-coat thirty years ago. He looked for the +hundredth time at the ragged staff of the Warwicks carved above the +bear, the poor bear which had lost its ears if it ever had any. His hand +in its split glove closed convulsively on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> bear's head. <i>How was he +going to marry Annette!</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Annette's eyes rested on the flower-covered coffin in front of her, but +she did not see it. She was back in the past. She was kneeling by Dick's +bed with her cheek against the pillow, while his broken voice whispered, +"The wind is coming again, and I am going with it."</p> + +<p>The kind wind had taken the poor leaf at last, the drifting shredded leaf.</p> + +<p>And then she felt Roger look at her, and other thoughts suddenly surged +up. Was it possible—was it possible—that Dick might part her and +Roger? Their eyes met for an instant across the coffin.</p> + +<p>Already Roger looked remote, as if like Dick he were sinking into the +past. She felt a light touch on her hand. The choir had risen for the anthem.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXII</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,</div> +<div class="i1">Simple et tranquille.</div> +<div>Cette paisible rumeur-là</div> +<div class="i1">Vient de la ville.</div> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<div>Qu'as-tu fait, O toi que voilà</div> +<div class="i1">Pleurant sans cesse,</div> +<div>Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilà</div> +<div class="i1">De ta jeunesse?"</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Paul Verlaine.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into +the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the +cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully +contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the +hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of +the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its +own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy +had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not +appreciate its house. That prickly recluse had shown such unwillingness +to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed, +although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> such +determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large +crack had appeared in the wall.</p> + +<p>Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles +remain when hedgehogs pass away.</p> + +<p>Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came +swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under the cedar.</p> + +<p>"Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make a noise."</p> + +<p>He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she +had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the +soft September sunshine.</p> + +<p>It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace, +when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the +Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the +windless spaces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The +unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All +was still—so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder, +came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the +sun-warmed grass.</p> + +<p>The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry. +Why should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently, +very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more, +neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat."</p> + +<p>The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in +its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears +welled up into her eyes.</p> + +<p>She was tired, oh! so tired of hungering and thirsting, and the sun and +the dust, so tired of the trampling struggle and turmoil of life, of +being pushed from pillar to post, from patient to patient. For seventeen +grinding years she had earned her bread in the house of strangers, and +she was sick to death of it. And she had been handsome once, gay and +self-confident once, innocent once. She had been determined that her +mother should never know want. And she had never known it—never known +either the straits to which her daughter had been reduced to keep that +tiny home together. That was all over now. Her mother was dead, and her +lover, if so he could be called, had passed out of her life. And as she +sat on the bench she told herself for the hundredth time that there was +no one to fight for her but herself. She felt old and worn-out and +ashamed, and the tears fell. She had not been like this, cunning and +self-seeking, to start with. Life had made her so. She shut her eyes, so +that she might not see that graceful, pathetic creature, with its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +beautiful eyes fixed on the marbles, of whom she had dared to make a cat's paw.</p> + +<p>But presently she felt a soft cheek pressed to hers, and an arm round her neck.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, Nursie," Harry said gently. "Brother Dick has gone to +heaven," and he kissed her, as a child might kiss its mother. She winced +at his touch, and then pushed back her hair, still thick and wavy, with +the grey just beginning to show in it, and returned his kiss.</p> + +<p>And as he stood before her she took his hands and held them tightly, her +miserable eyes fixed on him.</p> + +<p>A silent sob shook her, and then she said—</p> + +<p>"You know where God lives, Harry?"</p> + +<p>Harry disengaged one hand and pointed to the sky above him. He was not +often sure of giving the right answer, but he had a happy confidence +that this was correct.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she went on, "God lives in the sky and looks down on us. He is +looking at us now."</p> + +<p>Harry glanced politely up at the heavens and then back at his companion.</p> + +<p>"He is looking at us now. He hears what I say. I'm not one that believes +much in promises. Nobody's ever kept any to me. But I call Him to +witness that what I have taken upon myself I will perform, that I will +do my duty by you, and I will be good to you always and be your best +friend, whatever may happen—so help me God."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIII</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"But I wait in a horror of strangeness—</div> +<div class="i1">A tool on His workshop floor,</div> +<div>Worn to the butt, and banished</div> +<div class="i1">His hand for evermore."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">W. E. Henley.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>In the sick-room all was still.</p> + +<p>Lady Louisa lay with her eyes open, fixed. Blended with the cawing of +the rooks came the tolling of the bell for her son's funeral. Janey had +told her of Dick's death, had repeated it gently several times, had +recounted every detail of the funeral arrangements and how her sister +Lady Jane was not well enough to come to England for it. How the service +was taking place this afternoon and she must go to it, but she should +not be away long: Nurse would sit with her while she was away. How Harry +was not to be present, as he had been frightened at the sight of the +plumed horses. It was more than doubtful whether her mother understood +anything at all of what she told her, whether she even heard a voice +speaking. But Janey mercifully told her everything on the chance, big +things and small: Dick's death, and the loss of Harry's bantam cock, the +Harvest Thanksgiving vegetable marrow, and the engagement of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Miss +Blinketts' niece to a rising surgeon, and their disappointment that +instead of giving her a ring his only present to her had been a snapshot +of himself performing an operation. Scores of little things she gleaned +together and told her. So that if by any hundredth part of a chance she +could indeed still hear and understand she might not feel entirely cut +off from the land of the living.</p> + +<p>Her mother heard and understood everything. But to her it was as if her +prison was at such an immense distance that communication was +impossible. Janey's voice, tender and patient, reached down to her as in +some deep grave. She could hear and understand and remember. But she +could make no sign.</p> + +<p>Ah! How much she remembered, as the bell tolled for Dick's last +home-coming! Her thoughts went back to that grey morning +three-and-thirty years ago when she had seen his face for the first +time, the little pink puckered face which had had no hint in it of all +the misery he was to cause her. And she recalled it as she had seen it +last, nearly a year ago, hardly human, already dead save for a +fluctuating animal life. And she remembered her strenuous search for a +will, and how Dick's valet had told her that his master had been +impressed by the narrowness of his escape when he injured his head, and +had actually gone out on purpose to make his will the day he went to +Fontainebleau, but had been waylaid by some woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> She had found the +name and address of his man of business, and had been to see him, but +could extract nothing from him except that Mr. Le Geyt had not called on +him on the day in question, had not made any will as far as his +knowledge went, and that he had ceased to employ him owing to a quarrel. +Dick's business relations with every one except Roger always ended in a +quarrel sooner or later—generally sooner. She had made up her mind that +Dick must die without leaving a will. It was necessary for the sake of +others. But she had not told herself what she should do with a will of +his if she could get hold of it. But she had not been able to discover +one. The whole situation rose before her, and she, the only person who +had an inkling of it, the only person who could deal with it, was powerless.</p> + +<p>She had accumulated proofs, doctor's evidence, that Harry's was only a +case of arrested development, that he was quite capable of taking his +part in life. She had read all these papers to the nurse when first she +came to Riff, and had shown herself sympathetic about Harry, which Janey +had never been. Janey had always, like her father, thought that if Dick +died childless Hulver ought to go to Roger, had not been dislodged from +that position even by her mother's thrust that she said that because she +was in love with him. Nurse in those first days of her ministry had +warmly and without <i>arrière pensée</i> encouraged Lady Louisa in her +contention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> that Harry was only backward, and had proved that she was +partly right by the great progress he made under her authority. She had +been indefatigable in training him, drawing out his atrophied faculties.</p> + +<p>The papers which Lady Louisa had so laboriously collected were in the +drawer of the secretaire, near the fire. The key was on her watch-chain, +and her watch and chain were on the dressing-table. Nurse had got them +out and put them back at her request several times. She knew where they were.</p> + +<p>And now that Dick was dead, Nurse would certainly use them on Harry's +behalf, exactly as she herself had intended to use them.</p> + +<p>Unscrupulous, wanton woman!</p> + +<p>A paroxysm of rage momentarily blinded her. But after a time the +familiar room came creeping stealthily back out of the darkness, to +close in on her once more.</p> + +<p>She had schemed and plotted, she had made use of the shrewd, capable +woman at her bedside. But the shrewd, capable woman had schemed and +plotted too, and had made use of her son, her poor half-witted Harry. +For now, at last, now that power had been wrested out of her own safe +hands into the clutch of this designing woman, Lady Louisa owned to +herself that Harry was half-witted. She had intended him, her favourite +child, to have everything, and Janey and Roger to be his protective +satellites. She had perfect confidence in Roger.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p><p>But now this accursed, self-seeking woman, who had made a cat's paw of +Harry, had ruined everything. She, not Roger, would now have control of +the property. She would be supreme. Harry would be wax in her hands. Her +word would be law. She could turn her out of the Dower House if she +wished it. Everything—even the Manvers diamonds in the safe downstairs +which she had worn all her life—belonged to <i>her</i> now. Everything +except in name was hers already—if Dick had died intestate. And no +doubt he had so died. How she had hoped and prayed he would do as he had +done! How could she have guessed that his doing so would prove the +worst, immeasurably the worst calamity of all? Lady Louisa was appalled. +She felt sick unto death.</p> + +<p>She had laboured for her children's welfare to the last, and now she had +been struck down as on a battlefield, and the feet of the enemy were +trampling her in the dust.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and the adversary came in. She and her patient eyed +each other steadily. Then the nurse went to the dressing-table and took +the watch with its chain and pendant key, and opened the drawer in the +secretaire. Lady Louisa watched her take out a bundle of papers and put +them in her pocket. Then she locked the drawer and replaced the watch, +and returned to the bedside. She wiped away the beads of sweat which +stood on Lady Louisa's forehead, touched her brow and nostrils with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +eau-de-Cologne, and sat down in her accustomed place. Lady Louisa saw +that her eyes were red.</p> + +<p>"If looks could kill, yours would kill me, milady," she said. "It's been +hard on you to have me to tend you. But that's all over now. Don't you +fret about it any more. I shall go away to-morrow, and I don't suppose +you'll ever be troubled by the sight of me in this world again."</p> + +<p>Presently Janey came in, and the nurse at once withdrew. She took off +her gloves, and put back her heavy veil.</p> + +<p>"It is all over," she said, with the familiar gesture of stroking her +mother's hand. "Such a sunny, quiet day for Dick's home-coming. We ought +all to be thankful that his long imprisonment is over, that his release has come."</p> + +<p>The other prisoner heard from the depths of her forlorn cell.</p> + +<p>"And I ought to tell you, mother, that there is no will. Aunt Jane and +Roger have looked everywhere, and made inquiries. I am afraid there is +no longer any doubt that Dick has died without making one. So you will +have your wish." The gentle voice had a tinge of bitterness. "Everything +will go to Harry."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>When Janey came downstairs again she found Roger sitting in the library +with a hand on each knee. He looked worn out.</p> + +<p>She made fresh tea for him, and he drank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> it in silence, while she +mended his split glove.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's over," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"All the arrangements were so carefully made," she said softly, putting +her little thumb into the big thumb of his glove, and finding where the +mischief had started. He watched her without seeing her.</p> + +<p>"I think everything went right," he said. "I hope it did, and Black did +his part. I never heard him read so well."</p> + +<p>"I thought the same."</p> + +<p>Roger was so accustomed to hear this expression from Janey whenever he +made a statement that he had long since ceased to listen to it.</p> + +<p>"I'm thankful there was no hitch. I could not sleep last night, earache +or something, and I had an uneasy feeling—very silly of me, but I could +not get it out of my head—that one of those women would turn up and +make a scene."</p> + +<p>"From what you've told me, Mary Deane would never have done a thing like that."</p> + +<p>"No. She was too proud, but there was the other one, the Fontainebleau +one. I had a sort of idea <i>she</i> might have been in the church. Queer +things happen now and then. I didn't like to look round. Mustn't be +looking about at a funeral. I suppose you didn't see anyone that might have been her?"</p> + +<p>Janey laid down the glove.</p> + +<p>"I didn't look round either," she said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIV</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Others besides Moses have struggled up the mountain only to be +shown the promised land, and to hear the words: Thou shalt see it +with thine eyes, but shalt not pass over."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The following morning saw Janey and Roger sitting opposite each other +once more, but this time in his office-room, staring blankly at each +other. In spite of her invariably quiet demeanour, she was trembling a little.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you <i>must</i> believe it, Roger."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" was all Roger could say, evidently not for the first time.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"When did she tell you?"</p> + +<p>"This morning, after breakfast. She and Harry came in together when I +was writing letters, hand in hand, as if they were in a novel, and she +said they had been married three months."</p> + +<p>"Three months!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why, they must have been married in June."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!"</p> + +<p>Janey told him how they had been married at Ipswich at a Registry +Office. "Her brother,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> who is a solicitor, was one of the witnesses. She +showed me a copy of the certificate. She seems to have been very—methodical."</p> + +<p>"It won't hold. Poor Harry is a loony."</p> + +<p>"I hinted that, but she only smiled. I think she must have gone +thoroughly into that before she took any step. And then she looked at +him, and he said like a parrot that it was time he took his proper place +in the world and managed his own affairs."</p> + +<p>"I never in my life heard such cheek."</p> + +<p>"After a bit I sent away Harry. He looked at her first before he obeyed, +and she signed to him to go. She has got absolute control over him. And +I tried to talk to her. She was very hard and bitter at first, and +twitted me with having to put up with her as a sister-in-law. But I +could not help being sorry for her. She was ashamed, I'm sure, of what +she'd done, though she tried to carry it off with a high hand. She's not +altogether a bad woman."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she? Well, she's near enough to satisfy me. I don't know what you +call bad if kidnapping that poor softy isn't. But the marriage can't +hold. It's ridiculous."</p> + +<p>"She says it will, and I think she'll prove to be right. She is a shrewd +woman, and after all Harry is twenty-three. Besides, mother's always +stuck to it that he was only backward, and she got together medical +evidence to attest her view. Mother has always wanted to guard against +Harry being passed over."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p><p>"Dick could leave the property to anyone he liked. It wasn't entailed. +He was perfectly free to leave it to Jones, if he wanted to. Poor Jones! +He's down with gout at the Lion. He won't get a shilling."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But mother foresaw that Dick might never get a will made. He never +could get anything done. And I am afraid, Roger, that if he <i>had</i> made a +will, mother would have got hold of it if she could."</p> + +<p>"Janey!" said Roger, deeply shocked. "You don't know what you're saying."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I do. I feel sure, if poor Dick had made a will, Aunt Jane and +mother between them would have——"</p> + +<p>"Would have what?"</p> + +<p>"Would have destroyed it."</p> + +<p>"You simply don't know what you're saying. No one destroys a will. It's +a very serious crime, punishable by law. And you are accusing your own mother of it."</p> + +<p>"Mother has done some strange things in her time," said Janey firmly. +"It's no good talking about it or thinking about it, but Jones told me +that when she went to Paris last autumn she looked through all Dick's +papers, and went to see his lawyer."</p> + +<p>"I went to see him too, and he told me she had been, and had been very +insistent that Dick had made a will and left it in his charge, and said +that he wanted to make some alteration in it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p><p>"Last autumn! But Dick was not capable then of wishing anything."</p> + +<p>"Last autumn, I tell you, since his illness."</p> + +<p>They both looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's no use thinking of that at this moment," said Janey. "The +question is, what is to be done about Nurse?"</p> + +<p>"Pay her up, and pack her off at once."</p> + +<p>"She's gone already. She said it was best that she should go. I've +telegraphed for another. But she'll come back as Harry's legal wife, +Roger, I do believe."</p> + +<p>"This medical evidence in Harry's favour—where does Aunt Louisa keep it?"</p> + +<p>"In her secretaire. She made me get it out, and read it to her since her +last visit to Paris. I could not bear to look at it. It was all so +false. And I know she showed it Nurse. It was after that Nurse worked so +hard to make Harry more amenable, more like other people. She slaved +with him. I believe she was quite disinterested at first."</p> + +<p>"She has certainly done him a lot of good."</p> + +<p>"And he's fond of her. He's frightened of her, but he likes her better +than anyone, much better than me. Before she left she told every servant +in the house, and the men in the garden. At least, she took Harry round +with her and made him say to each one of them, 'This is my wife.' The +whole village knows by now. And she has taken the medical evidence +about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> him. She made no secret of it. She said she sent it yesterday to +her brother."</p> + +<p>"She stole it, in fact."</p> + +<p>"She said that as his wife she thought she ought to put it in safe +keeping. I told her she need not have been afraid that we should destroy +it. She said she knew that, but that those who deceived others never +could trust anyone else. Roger, she has done a very wicked and shameless +thing, for the sake of a livelihood, but I think she is suffering for +it. And I believe, in spite of herself, she had a kind of devotion for +mother. She had done so much for her. She never spared herself. She felt leaving her."</p> + +<p>"Did she ask about the will?"</p> + +<p>"No. I think there was a general feeling of surprise that the will was +not read after the funeral."</p> + +<p>"Well, my good girl, how could we, when we couldn't find one?"</p> + +<p>"I know, I know. But what I mean is, it must soon be known that no will is forthcoming."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is bound to come out before long."</p> + +<p>"Have you asked Pike and Ditton, Dick's London men?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I wrote to them days ago. They know of nothing. There is no will, +Janey. We have got to make up our minds to it. Pritchard is coming over +this morning about the probate, and I shall have to tell him."</p> + +<p>Something fierce crept into Janey's gentle face.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, Roger, it is such a shame!" she stammered. "If ever any man +deserved Hulver it is you."</p> + +<p>"Dick once said so," said Roger. "Last time he was here, two years ago, +that time he never came to the Dower House though I begged him to, and I +went round the park with him, and showed him where I had cut down the +oak avenue in the old drive. It went to my heart to do it, but he had +left me no choice, insisted on it. And when he saw the old trees all +down he was quite taken aback, and he said, 'Roger, it is you who ought +to have had Hulver. You'd have kept it together, while I'm just pulling +it to pieces stick by stick. I must reform, and come and settle down +here, and marry Mary. By God I must.' That was the last time he was +here, just before he sold the Liverpool property."</p> + +<p>"Everything seems to be taken from you, Roger," said Janey passionately. +"And to think that this unscrupulous woman will have absolute power over everything!"</p> + +<p>"She will be able to turn me off," said Roger. "She will get in another +agent—put in her brother, I should think. I always disliked her, and +she knew it. Now she will be able to pay off old scores."</p> + +<p>Roger looked out of the window, and his patient, stubborn face quivered +ever so slightly.</p> + +<p>It would have been a comfort to Janey to think that she should one day +inherit Noyes, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> there had been any question of his sharing it with +her. But the long-cherished hope that they might some day share a home +together had died. It had died hard, it had taken a grievous time to +die, but it was dead at last. And Janey had buried it, delved a deep +grave for it in the live rock of her heart.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how I am ever to marry now," he said hoarsely. "I can't +count on the two hundred a year from the agency and this cottage. Even +that may go to-morrow. It wasn't much. It wasn't enough to set up house +on, but even <i>that</i> is as good as gone."</p> + +<p>"I have thought lately that you had it in your mind to marry."</p> + +<p>A small tear suddenly jumped out of Roger's eye, and got held up in his rough cheek.</p> + +<p>"I want to marry Annette," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, I guessed it."</p> + +<p>"Dreadfully. You don't know, Janey. Dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"I know, my poor boy," she said,—"I know all about it." And she came +and stood by him and patted his hand.</p> + +<p>For a moment Roger sobbed violently and silently against her shoulder.</p> + +<p>Then he drew himself away, and rummaged for his pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"You are a brick, Janey," he said gruffly.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXV</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"The thing on the blind side of the heart,</div> +<div class="i1">On the wrong side of the door;</div> +<div>The green plant groweth, menacing</div> +<div>Almighty lovers in the spring;</div> +<div>There is always a forgotten thing,</div> +<div class="i1">And love is not secure."</div> +<div class="right">G. K. <span class="smcap">Chesterton.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The news of Harry's marriage, which was convulsing Riff, had actually +failed to reach Red Riff Farm by tea-time. The Miss Blinketts, on the +contrary, less aristocratically remote than the Miss Nevills, had heard +it at midday, when the Dower House gardener went past The Hermitage to +his dinner. And they were aware by two o'clock that Janey had had a +consultation with Roger in his office, and that the bride had left Riff +by the midday express from Riebenbridge.</p> + +<p>It was the general opinion in Riff that "she'd repent every hair of her +head for enticing Mr. Harry."</p> + +<p>In total ignorance of this stupendous event, Aunt Harriet was discussing +the probable condition of the soul after death over her afternoon tea, +in spite of several attempts on the part of Annette to change the subject.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p><p>"Personally, I feel sure I shall not even lose consciousness," she +said, with dignity. "With some of us the partition between this world +and the next is hardly more than a veil, but we must not shut our eyes +to the fact that a person like Mr. Le Geyt is almost certainly suffering +for his culpability in impoverishing the estate; and if what I +reluctantly hear is true as to other matters still more reprehensible——"</p> + +<p>"We know very little about purgatory, after all," interrupted Aunt Maria wearily.</p> + +<p>"Some of us who suffer have our purgatory here," said her sister, +helping herself to an apricot. "I hardly think, when we cross the river, that——"</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Roger was announced. He had screwed himself up to +walk over and ask for Annette, and it was a shock to him to find her +exactly as he might have guessed she would be found, sitting at tea with +her aunts. He had counted on seeing her alone.</p> + +<p>He looked haggard and aged, and his black clothes became him ill. He +accepted tea from Annette without looking at her. He was daunted by the +little family party, and made short replies to the polite inquiries of +the Miss Nevills as to the health of Janey and Lady Louisa. He was +wondering how he could obtain an interview with Annette, and half angry +with her beforehand for fear she should not come to his assistance. He +was very sore. Life was going ill with him, and he was learning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> what +sleeplessness means, he who had never lain awake in his life.</p> + +<p>The door opened again, and contrary to all precedent the Miss Blinketts were announced.</p> + +<p>The Miss Blinketts never came to tea except when invited, and it is sad +to have to record the fact that the Miss Nevills hardly ever invited +them. They felt, however, on this occasion that they were the bearers of +such important tidings that their advent could not fail to be welcome, +if not to the celebrated authoress, at any rate to Miss Harriet, who was +not absorbed in ethical problems like her gifted sister, and whose mind +was, so she often said, "at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize."</p> + +<p>But the Miss Blinketts were quite taken aback by the sight of Roger, in +whose presence the burning topic could not be mentioned, and who had no +doubt come to recount the disaster himself—a course which they could +not have foreseen, as he was much too busy to pay calls as a rule. They +were momentarily nonplussed, and they received no assistance in +regaining their equanimity from the lofty remoteness of the Miss +Nevills' reception. A paralysing ten minutes followed, which Annette, +who usually came to the rescue, made no attempt to alleviate. She busied +herself with the tea almost in silence.</p> + +<p>Roger got up stiffly to go.</p> + +<p>"I wonder, Mr. Manvers, as you are here,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> said Aunt Maria, rising as he +did, "whether you would kindly look at the dairy roof. The rain comes in +still, in spite of the new tiling. Annette will show it you." And +without further demur she left the room, followed by Annette and Roger.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," said the authoress archly, with her hand on the door of +her study, "that I had recourse to a subterfuge in order to escape. +Those amiable ladies who find time hang so heavily on their hands have +no idea how much I value mine, nor how short I find the day for all I +have to do in it. My sister will enjoy entertaining them. Annette, I +must get back to my proofs. I will let you, my dear, show Mr. Manvers the dairy."</p> + +<p>Roger followed Annette down the long bricked passage to the <i>laiterie</i>. +They entered it, and his professional eye turned to the whitewashed +ceiling and marked almost unconsciously the stain of damp upon it.</p> + +<p>"A cracked tile," he said mechanically. "Two. I'll see to it."</p> + +<p>And then, across the bowls of milk and a leg of mutton sitting in a +little wire house, his eyes looked in a dumb agony at Annette.</p> + +<p>"What is it? What is it?" she gasped, and as she said the words the cook +entered slowly, bearing a yellow mould and some stewed fruit upon a tray.</p> + +<p>Roger repeated the words "cracked tiles," and presently they were in the hall again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><p>"I must speak to you alone," he said desperately; "I came on purpose."</p> + +<p>She considered a moment. She had no refuge of her own except her +bedroom, that agreeable attic with the extended view which had been +apportioned to Aunt Catherine, and which she had inhabited for so short +a time. The little hall where they were standing was the passage-room of +the house. She took up a garden hat, and they went into the garden to +the round seat under the apple tree, now ruddy with little contorted red +apples. The gardener was scything the grass between the trees, whistling softly to himself.</p> + +<p>Roger looked at him vindictively.</p> + +<p>"I will walk part of the way home with you," said Annette, her voice +shaking a little in spite of herself, "if you are going through the park."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have the keys."</p> + +<p>"He has found out about Dick and me," she said to herself, "and is going +to ask me if it is true."</p> + +<p>They walked in silence across the empty cornfield, and Roger unlocked +the little door in the high park wall.</p> + +<p>Once there had been a broad drive to the house where that door stood, +and you could still see where it had lain between an avenue of old oaks. +But the oaks had all been swept away. The ranks of gigantic boles showed +the glory that had been.</p> + +<p>"Uncle John was so fond of the oak avenue,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> said Roger. "He used to +walk in it every day. There wasn't its equal in Lowshire. Anne de la +Pole planted it. I never thought Dick would have touched it."</p> + +<p>And in the devastated avenue, the scene of Dick's recklessness, Roger +told Annette of the catastrophe of Harry's marriage with the nurse, and +how he had already seen a lawyer about it, and the lawyer was of opinion +that it would almost certainly be legal.</p> + +<p>"That means," said Roger, standing still in the mossy track, "that now +Dick's gone, Harry, or rather his wife, for he is entirely under her +thumb, will have possession of everything, Welmesley and Swale and +Bulchamp, not that Bulchamp is worth much now that Dick has put a second +mortgage on it, and Scorby—and <i>Hulver</i>."</p> + +<p>He pointed with his stick at the old house with its twisted chimneys, +partly visible through the trees, the only home that he had ever known, +and his set mouth trembled a little.</p> + +<p>"And that woman can turn me out to-morrow," he said. "And she will. +She's always disliked me. I shan't even have the agency. It was a bare +living, but I shan't even have that. I shall only have Noyes. I've +always done Noyes for eighty pounds a year, because Aunt Louisa wouldn't +give more, and she can't now even if she was willing. And I'm not one of +your new-fangled agents, been through Cirencester, or anything like +that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> educated up to it, scientific and all that sort of thing. Uncle +John was his own agent, and I picked it up from him. When I lose this I +don't suppose I shall get another job."</p> + +<p>With a sinking heart, and yet with a sense of relief, Annette realized +that Roger had heard nothing against her, and that she was reprieved for +the moment. It was about all she did realize.</p> + +<p>He saw the bewilderment in her face, and stuck his stick into the +ground. He must speak more plainly.</p> + +<p>"This all means," he said, becoming first darkly red and then ashen +colour, "that I am not in a position to marry, Annette. I ought not to +have said anything about it. I can't think how I could have forgotten as +I did. But—but——"</p> + +<p>He could say no more.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you love me," said Annette faintly. "I am glad you +said—something about it."</p> + +<p>"But we can't marry," said Roger harshly. "What's the good if we can't be married?"</p> + +<p>He made several attempts to speak, and then went on: "I suppose the +truth is I counted on Dick doing something for me. He always said he +would, and he was very generous. He's often said I'd done a lot for him. +Perhaps I have, and perhaps I haven't. Perhaps I did it for the sake of +the people and the place. Hulver's more to me than most things. But he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +told me over and over again he wouldn't forget me. Poor old Dick! After +all, he couldn't tell he was going to fall on his head! There is no +will, Annette. That's the long and the short of it. And so, of course, +nearly everything goes to Harry."</p> + +<p>"No will!" said Annette, drawing in a deep breath.</p> + +<p>"Dick hasn't left a will," said Roger, and there was a subdued +bitterness in his voice. "He has forgotten everybody who had a claim on +him: a woman whom he ought to have provided for before every one else in +the world, and Jones, Jones who stuck to him through thick and thin and +nursed him so faithfully, and—and me. It doesn't do to depend on people +like Dick, who won't take any trouble about anything."</p> + +<p>The words seemed to sink into the silence of the September evening. A +dim river mist, faintly flushed by the low sun, was creeping among the farther trees.</p> + +<p>"But he did take trouble. There is a will," she said.</p> + +<p>Her voice was so low that he did not hear what she said.</p> + +<p>"Dick made a will," she said again. This time he heard.</p> + +<p>He had been looking steadfastly at the old house among the trees, and +there were tears in his eyes as he slowly turned to blink through them at her.</p> + +<p>"How can you tell?" he said apathetically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> And as he looked dully at +her the colour ebbed away from her face, leaving it whiter than he had +ever seen a living face.</p> + +<p>"Because I was in the room when he made it—at Fontainebleau."</p> + +<p>Roger's face became overcast, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"When he was ill there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Dead silence.</p> + +<p>"How did you come to be with Dick?"</p> + +<p>It was plain that though he was perplexed the sinister presumption +implied by her presence there had not yet struck him.</p> + +<p>"Roger, I was staying with Dick at Fontainebleau. I nursed him—Mrs. +Stoddart and I together. She made me promise never to speak of it to anyone."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Stoddart made you promise! What was the sense of that? You were +travelling with her, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No. I had never seen her till the morning I called her in, when Dick fell ill."</p> + +<p>"Then that Mrs. Stoddart I met at Noyes was the older woman whom Lady +Jane found looking after him when she and Jones came down?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Silence again. He frowned, and looked apprehensively at her, as if he +were warding something off.</p> + +<p>"And I was the younger woman," said Annette, "who left before Lady Jane arrived."</p> + +<p>The colour rushed to his face.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p><p>"No," he said, with sudden violence, "not you. I always knew there was +another woman, a young one, but—but—it wasn't you, Annette."</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"It <i>couldn't</i> be you!"—with a groan.</p> + +<p>"It was me."</p> + +<p>His brown hands trembled as he leaned heavily upon his stick.</p> + +<p>"I was not Dick's mistress, Roger."</p> + +<p>"Were you his wife, then?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then how did you come to——? But I don't want to hear. I have no right +to ask. I have heard enough."</p> + +<p>He made as if to go.</p> + +<p>Annette turned upon him in the dusk with a fierce white face, and +gripped his shoulder with a hand of steel.</p> + +<p>"You have not heard enough till you have heard everything," she said.</p> + +<p>And holding him forcibly, she told him of her life in Paris with her +father, and of her disastrous love affair, and her determination to +drown herself, and her meeting with Dick, and her reckless, apathetic +despair. Did he understand? He made no sign.</p> + +<p>After a time, her hand fell from his shoulder. He made no attempt to +move. The merciful mist enclosed them, and dimmed them from each other. +Low in the east, entangled in a clump of hawthorn, a thin moon hung +blurred as if seen through tears.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p><p>"I did not care what I did," she said brokenly. "I did not care for +Dick, and I did not care for myself. I cared for nothing. I was +desperate. Dick did not try to trap me, or be wicked to me. He asked me +to go with him, and I went of my own accord. But he was sorry +afterwards, Roger. He said so when he was ill. He wanted to keep me from +the river. He could not bear the thought of my drowning myself. Often, +often when he was delirious, he spoke of it, and tried to hold me back. +And you said he wouldn't take any trouble. But he did. He did, Roger. He +made his will at the last, when it was all he could do, and he +remembered about Hulver—I know he said you ought to have it—and that +he must provide for Mary and the child. His last strength went in making +his will, Roger. His last thought was for you, and that poor Mary and the child."</p> + +<p>Already she had forgotten herself, and was pleading earnestly for the +man who had brought her to this pass.</p> + +<p>Roger stood silent, save for his hard breathing. Did he understand? We +all know that "To endure and to pardon is the wisdom of life." But if we +are called on to pardon just at the moment we are called on to endure! +What then? Have we <i>ever</i> the strength to do both at the same moment? He +did not speak. The twilight deepened. The moon drew clear of the hawthorn.</p> + +<p>"You must go to Fontainebleau," she went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> on, "and find the doctor. I +don't know his name, but it will be easy to find him. And he will +remember. He was so interested in poor Dick. And he brought the notary. +He will tell you who has the will. I remember now I was one of the witnesses."</p> + +<p>"You witnessed it!" said Roger, astounded. His stick fell from his +hands. He looked at it on the ground, but made no motion to pick it up.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I witnessed it. Dick asked me to. Everything will come right now. +He wanted dreadfully to make it right. But you must forget about me, +Roger. I've been here under false pretences. I shall go away. I ought +never to have come, but I didn't know you and Janey were Dick's people. +He was always called Dick Le Geyt. And when I came to be friends with +you both, I often wished to tell you, even before I knew you were his +relations. But I had promised Mrs. Stoddart not to speak of it to anyone except——"</p> + +<p>"Except who?" said Roger.</p> + +<p>"Except the man I was to marry. That was the mistake. I ought never to +have promised to keep silence. But I did, because she made a point of +it, and she had been so kind to me when I was ill. But I ought not to +have agreed to it. One ought never to try to cover up anything one has +done wrong. And I had a chance of telling you, and I didn't take it, +that afternoon we drove to Halywater. Mrs. Stoddart had given me back my +promise, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> oh! Roger, I meant to tell you. But you were so nice I +forgot everything else. And then, later on, when we were in the deserted +garden and I saw the little lambs and the fishes, I was so dreadfully +sorry that everything else went out of my head. I feel I have deceived +you and Janey, and it has often weighed upon me. But I never meant to +deceive you. And I'm glad you know now. And I should like her to know too."</p> + +<p>Her tremulous voice ceased.</p> + +<p>She stood looking at him with a great wistfulness, but he made no sign. +She waited, but he did not speak. Then she went swiftly from him in the +dusk, and the mist wrapped her in its grey folds.</p> + +<p>Roger stood motionless and rigid where she had left him. After a moment, +he made a mechanical movement as if to walk on. Then he flung himself +down upon his face on the whitening grass.</p> + +<p>And the merciful mist wrapped him also in its grey folds.</p> + +<p>Low in the east the thin moon climbed blurred and dim, as if seen through tears.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVI</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"The paths of love are rougher</div> +<div class="i1">Than thoroughfares of stones."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Thomas Hardy.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Roger lay on his face, with his mouth on the back of his hand.</p> + +<p>Years and years ago, twenty long years ago, he had once lain on his face +as he was doing now. He and Dick had been out shooting with the old +keeper, and Dick had shot Roger's dog by mistake. He had taken the +catastrophe with a stolid stoicism and a bitten lip. But later in the +day he had crept away, and had sobbed for hours, lying on his face under +a tree. The remembrance came back to him now. Never since then, never in +all those twenty years, had he felt again that same paroxysm of despair. +And now again Dick had inadvertently wounded him; Dick, who never meant +any harm, had pierced his heart. The wound bled, and Roger bit his hand. Time passed.</p> + +<p>He did not want to get up any more. If he could have died at that moment +he would have died. He did not want to have anything more to do with +this monstrous cheat called life. He did not want ever to see anyone +again. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> felt broken. The thought that he should presently get to his +feet and stump home through the dusk to his empty rooms, as he had done +a hundred times, filled him with a nausea and rage unspeakable. The mere +notion of the passage and the clothes-peg and the umbrella-stand +annihilated him. He had reached a place in life where he felt he could not go on.</p> + +<p>Far in the distance, carried to his ear by the ground, came the muffled +thud and beat of a train passing beyond the village, on the other side +of the Rieben. He wished dully that he could have put his head on the rails.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>And the voice to which from a little lad he had never shut his ears, the +humdrum, prosaic voice which had bidden him take thought for Mary Deane +and her child, and Janey, and Betty Hesketh, and all who were "desolate +and oppressed," that same small voice, never ignored, never silenced, +spoke in Roger's aching, unimaginative heart. The train passed, and as +the sound throbbed away into silence Roger longed again with passion +that it had taken his life with it. And the still small voice said, +"That is how Annette felt a year ago."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>He got up and pushed back the damp hair from his forehead. That was how +Annette had felt a year ago. Poor, unwise, cruelly treated Annette! Even +now, though he had heard her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> story from her own lips, he could not +believe it, could not believe that her life had ever had in it any +incident beyond tending her old aunts, and watering her flowers, and +singing in the choir. That was how he had always imagined her, with +perhaps a tame canary thrown in, which ate sugar from her lips. If he +had watched her with such a small pet he would have felt it singularly +appropriate, a sort of top-knot to his ideal of her. If he had seen her +alarmed by a squirrel, he would have felt indulgent; if fond of +children, tender; if jealous of other women, he should not have been +surprised. He had made up a little insipid picture of Annette picking +flowers by day, and wrapped in maiden slumber in a white room at night. +The picture was exactly as he wished her to be, and as her beautiful +exterior had assured him she was. For Annette's sweet face told half the +men she met that she was their ideal. In nearly every case so far that +ideal had been a masterpiece of commonplace; though if prizes had been +offered for them Roger would have won easily. Her mind, her character, +her individuality had no place in that ideal. That she should have been +pushed close up against vice; that <i>she</i>, Annette, who sang "Sun of my +soul" so beautifully, should have wandered alone in the wicked streets +of Paris in the dawn, after escaping out of a home wickeder still; that +she should have known treachery, despair; that she should have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +stared at as the chance mistress of a disreputable man! <i>Annette!</i> It was incredible.</p> + +<p>And he had been so careful, at the expense of his love of truth, when +they took refuge in Mary Deane's house, that Annette should believe Mary +Deane was a married woman and her child born in wedlock. And she, whose +ears must not even hear that Mary had been Dick's mistress, she, +Annette, had been Dick's mistress too, if not in reality, at any rate in appearance.</p> + +<p>Roger's brain reeled. He had forgotten the will. His mind could grasp +nothing except the ghastly discrepancy between the smug picture of +Annette which he had gradually evolved, and this tragic figure, sinned +against, passionate, desperate, dragging its betrayal from one man to +another. Had she been Dick's mistress? Was it really possible that she +had not? Who could touch pitch and not be defiled? Women always denied +their shame. How hotly Mary Deane had denied hers only a few months +before the birth of her child!</p> + +<p>Roger reddened at the thought that he was classing Annette, his +beautiful lady, with Mary. Oh! where was the real truth? Who could tell +it him? Whom could he trust?</p> + +<p>"<i>Janey.</i>"</p> + +<p>He said the word aloud with a cry. And Janey's small brown face rose +before him as he had known it all his life, since they had been children +together, she the little adoring girl, and he the big condescending +schoolboy. Janey's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> crystal truthfulness, her faithfulness, her lifelong +devotion to him, became evident to him. He had always taken them for +granted, known where to put his hand on them, used them without seeing +them, like his old waterproof which he could lay hold of on its peg in +the dark. She had always been in the background of his life, like the +Rieben and the low hill behind it against the grey sky, which he did not +notice when they were there, but from which he could not long absent +himself without a sense of loss. And Janey had no past. He knew +everything about <i>her</i>. He must go to her now, at once. He did not know +exactly what he wanted to say to her. But he groped for his stick, found +it, noticed that the dew was heavy and that there would be no rain after +all, and set off down the invisible track in the direction of the +village, winking its low lights among the trees.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Happiness is inextricably interwoven with loyalty, love, +unselfishness, the charity that never fails. In early life we +believe that it is just these qualities in those we love that make +our happiness, just the lack of them that entail our misery. But +later on we find that it is not so. Later on we find that it is our +own loyalty, our own love and charity in which our happiness +abides, as the soul abides in the body. So we discover at last that +happiness is within the reach of all of us, the inalienable +birthright of all of us, and that if by misadventure we have +mislaid it in our youth we know where to seek it in after years. +For happiness is mislaid, but never lost."—M. N.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Janey had the doubtful advantage over other women that men (by men I +mean Roger) always knew where to find her. She was as immovable as the +church or the Rieben. It was absolutely certain that unless Lady Louisa +was worse, Janey would come down to the library at nine o'clock, and +work there beside the lamp for an hour before going to bed. The element +of surprise or uncertainty did not exist as far as Janey was concerned. +And perhaps those who are always accessible, tranquil, disengaged, ready +to lend a patient and sympathetic ear, know instinctively that they will +be sought out in sorrow and anxiety rather than in joy. We do not engage +a trained nurse for picnic parties, or ask her to grace the box seat +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> we are driving our four-in-hands. Annette is singled out at once +as appropriate to these festive occasions. If anyone thought of Janey in +connection with them, it was only to remark that she would not care +about them. How many innocent pleasures she had silently wished for in +her time which she had been informed by her mother, by Dick, even by +Roger, were not in her line.</p> + +<p>To-night, Janey deviated by a hairbreadth from her usual routine. She +came down, seated herself, and instead of her work took up a book with +the marker half-way through it, and was at once absorbed in it. She was +reading <i>The Magnet</i> for the second time.</p> + +<p>Since her conversation with Mr. Stirling in the Hulver garden, Janey had +read <i>The Magnet</i>, and her indifference had been replaced by a riveted +attention. She saw now what other people saw in his work, and it seemed +to her, as indeed it seemed to all Mr. Stirling's readers, that his +books were addressed to her and her alone. It did not occur to her that +he had lived for several years in her neighbourhood without her +detecting or even attempting to discern what he was. It did not occur to +her that he might have been a great asset in her narrow life. She was +quite content with being slightly acquainted with every one except +Roger, and her new friend Annette. She tacitly distrusted intimacy, as +did Roger, and though circumstances had brought about a certain intimacy +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> Annette, the only girl within five miles, she had always mental +reservations even with her, boundaries which were not to be passed. +Janey had been inclined to take shelter behind these mental +reservations, to raise still higher the boundary walls between them, +since she had known what she called "the truth about Annette." She had +shrunk from further intercourse with her, but Annette had sought her +out, deliberately, persistently, with an unshaken confidence in Janey's +affection which the latter had not the heart to repel. And in the end +Janey had reached a kind of forlorn gratitude towards Annette. Her life +had become absolutely empty: the future stretched in front of her like +some flat dusty high road, along which she must toil with aching feet +till she dropped. She instinctively turned to Annette, and then shrank +from her. She would have shrunk from her altogether if she had known +that it was by Roger's suggestion that Annette made so many little +opportunities of meeting. Annette had been to see her the day before she +went to Noyes, and had found her reading <i>The Magnet</i>, and they had had +a long conversation about it.</p> + +<p>And now in Janey's second reading, not skipping one word, and going over +the more difficult passages twice, she came again upon the sentence +which they had discussed. She read it slowly.</p> + +<p>"<i>The publican and the harlot will go into the Kingdom before us, +because it is easier for them</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> <i>to flee with loathing from the sins of +the flesh, and to press through the strait gate of humility, than it is +for us to loathe and flee the sins of the spirit, egotism, pride, +resentment, cruelty, insincerity.</i>"</p> + +<p>Janey laid down the book. When Annette had read that sentence aloud to +her, Janey had said, "I don't understand that. I think he's wrong. Pride +and the other things and insincerity aren't nearly as bad as—as immorality."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't say one is worse than the others," Annette had replied, and +her quiet eyes had met Janey's bent searchingly upon her. "He only says +egotism and the other things make it harder to squeeze through the +little gate. You see, they make it impossible for us even to <i>see</i> +it—the strait gate."</p> + +<p>"He writes as if egotism were worse than immorality, as if immorality +doesn't matter," said Janey stubbornly. How could Annette speak so +coolly, so impersonally, as if she had never deviated from the rigid +code of morals in which Janey had been brought up! She felt impelled to +show her that she at any rate held sterner views.</p> + +<p>Annette cogitated.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, Janey; he has learnt that nothing makes getting near the gate +so difficult as egotism. He says somewhere else that egotism makes +false, mean, dreadful things ready to pounce on us. He's right in the +order he puts them in, isn't he? Selfishness first, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> pride. Our +pride gets wounded, and then resentment follows. And resentment always +wants to inflict pain. That is why he puts cruelty next."</p> + +<p>"How do you know all this?" said Janey incredulously.</p> + +<p>"I know about pride and resentment," said Annette, "because I gave way +to them once. I think I never shall again."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why he puts insincerity last."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he thinks that is the worst thing that can happen to us."</p> + +<p>"To be insincere?" said Janey, amazed.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I certainly never <i>have</i> met a selfish person who was sincere, +have you? They have to be giving noble reasons for their selfish +actions, so as to keep their self-respect and make us think well of +them. I knew a man once—he was a great musician—who was like that. He +wanted admiration dreadfully, he craved for it, and yet he didn't want +to take any trouble to be the things that make one admire people. It ended in——"</p> + +<p>"What did it end in?"</p> + +<p>"Where insincere people always do end, I think, in a kind of treachery. +Perhaps that is why Mr. Stirling puts insincerity last, because +insincere people do such dreadful things without knowing they are +dreadful. Now, the harlots and the publicans do know. They have the pull of us there."</p> + +<p>Janey's clear, retentive mind recalled every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> word of that conversation, +the last she had had with Annette, which had left an impression on her +mind that Annette had belittled the frailties of the flesh. Why had she +done that? <i>Because she had not been guiltless of them herself.</i></p> + +<p>In such manner do some of us reason, and find confirmation of that which +we suspect. Not that Janey suspected her of stepping aside. She was +convinced that she had done so. The evidence had been conclusive. At +least, she did not doubt it when Annette was absent. When she was +present with her she knew not how to believe it. It was incredible. Yet +it was so. She always came back to that.</p> + +<p>But why did she and Mr. Stirling both put insincerity as the worst of +the spiritual sins? Janey was an inexorable reader, now that she had +begun. She ruminated with her small hands folded on the open page.</p> + +<p>And her honest mind showed her that once—not long ago—she had nearly +been insincere herself: when she had told herself with vehemence that it +was her bounden duty to Roger to warn him against Annette. What an ugly +act of treachery she had almost committed, would have committed if Mr. +Stirling had not come to her aid. She shuddered. Yes, he was right. +Insincerity was the place where all meannesses and disloyalties and +treacheries lurked and had their dens like evil beasts, ready to pounce +out and destroy the wayfaring spirit wandering on forbidden ground.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p><p>And she thought of Nurse's treachery for the sake of a livelihood with +a new compassion. It was less culpable than what she had nearly been +guilty of herself. And she thought yet again of Annette. She might have +done wrong, but you could not look at her and think she could be mean, +take refuge in subterfuge or deceit. "She would never lie about it, to +herself or others," Janey said to herself. And she who <i>had</i> lied to +herself, though only for a moment, was humbled.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>She was half expecting Roger, in spite of their conference of this +morning, for she knew that he was to see the lawyer about probate that +afternoon, and the lawyer might have given an opinion as to the legality +of Harry's marriage.</p> + +<p>Presently she heard his step in the hall, and he came in. She had known +Roger all her life, but his whole aspect was unfamiliar to her. As she +looked at him bewildered, she realized that she had never seen him +strongly moved before, never in all these years until now. There is +something almost terrifying in the emotion of unemotional people. The +momentary confidence of the morning, the one tear wrung out of him by +perceiving his hope of marriage suddenly wiped out, was as nothing to this.</p> + +<p>He sat down opposite to her with chalk-white face and reddened, unseeing +eyes, and without any preamble recounted to her the story that Annette +had told him a few hours before. "She wished you to know it," he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p><p>An immense thankfulness flooded Janey's heart as she listened. It was +as if some tense nerve in her brain relaxed. He did know at last, and +she, Janey, had not told him. He had heard no word from her. Annette had +confessed to him herself, as Mr. Stirling had said she would. She had +done what was right—right but how difficult. A secret grudge against +Annette, which had long lurked at the back of Janey's mind, was +exorcised, and she gave a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>At last he was silent.</p> + +<p>"I have known for a long time that Annette was the woman who was with +Dick at Fontainebleau," she said, her hands still folded on the open book.</p> + +<p>"You might have told me, Janey."</p> + +<p>"I thought it ought to come from her."</p> + +<p>"You might have told me when you saw—Janey, you must have seen for some +time past—how it was with me."</p> + +<p>"I did see, but I hoped against hope that she would tell you herself, as she has done."</p> + +<p>"And if she hadn't, would you have let me marry her, not knowing?"</p> + +<p>Janey reflected.</p> + +<p>"I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you +see, it did not happen so. She <i>has</i> told you. I am thankful she has, +Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've +ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> you +know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I +had begun to think she would never say."</p> + +<p>"She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have +thought possible——"</p> + +<p>He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at each other.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding +how anyone like Annette could have done it."</p> + +<p>Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which +had led to the disaster.</p> + +<p>"She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of +Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight +from his house in the dawn.</p> + +<p>"She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was +in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, +Roger. Annette has been sinned against."</p> + +<p>"I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's +who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"But I don't feel that I can marry her," he said, with a groan. "Dick +and her!—it sticks in my throat,—the very thought seems to choke me. I +don't feel that I could marry her, even if she would still have me. She +said I must forget her, and put her out of my life. She feels everything +is over between us. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> all very well," savagely, "to talk of +forgetting anyone—like Annette," and he beat his foot against the floor.</p> + +<p>Janey looked at him in a great compassion. "He will come back to me," +she said to herself, "not for a long time, but he will come back. Broken +and disillusioned and aged, and with only a bit of a heart to give me. +He will never care much about me, but I shall be all he has left in the +world. And I will take him, whatever he is."</p> + +<p>She put out her hand for her work and busied herself with it, knowing +instinctively that the occupation of her hands and eyes upon it would +fret him less than if she sat idle and looked at him. She had nothing to +learn about how to deal with Roger.</p> + +<p>She worked for some time in silence, and hope dead and buried rose out +of his deep grave in her heart, and came towards her once more. Was it +indeed hope that stirred in its grave, this pallid figure with the +shroud still enfolding it, or was it but its ghost? She knew not.</p> + +<p>At last Roger raised a tortured face out of his hands.</p> + +<p>"Of course, she <i>says</i> she is innocent," he said, looking hopelessly at +Janey.</p> + +<p>Janey started violently. Her work fell from her hands.</p> + +<p>"Annette—says—she—is—innocent," she repeated after him, a flame of +colour rushing to her face.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p><p>"Yes. Mary Deane said the same. They always say it."</p> + +<p>Janey shook as in an ague.</p> + +<p>She saw suddenly in front of her a gulf of infamy unspeakable, ready to +swallow her if she agreed with him—she who always agreed with him. He +would implicitly believe her. The little gleam of hope which had fallen +on her aching, mutilated life went out. She was alone in the dark. For a +moment she could neither see nor hear.</p> + +<p>"If Annette says she is innocent, it's true," she said hoarsely, putting +her hand to her throat.</p> + +<p>The room and the lamp became visible again, and Roger's eyes fixed on +her, like the eyes of a drowning man, wide, dilated, seen through deep water.</p> + +<p>"If Annette says so, it's true," she repeated. "She may have done wrong. +She says she has. But she does not tell lies. You know that."</p> + +<p>"She says Dick did not try to entrap her, that she went with him of her own accord."</p> + +<p>"But don't you see that Dick <i>did</i> take advantage of her, all the same, +a mean advantage, when she was stunned by despair? I don't suppose you +have ever known what it is to feel despair, Roger. But I know what it +is. I know what Annette felt when her lover failed her."</p> + +<p>"She told me she meant to drown herself. She said she did not care what became of her."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what it means to feel like that."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p><p>Roger heard again the thud and beat of the distant train in the sod +against his ear.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," he said, looking at her under his heavy brows.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you. If you had, you would understand Annette's +momentary madness. She need not have told you that. She need not have +blackened herself in your eyes, but she did. Can't you see, Roger, will +you never, never understand that you have had the whole truth from +Annette?—the most difficult truth in the world to tell. And why do you +need me to hammer it into you that she was speaking the truth to you? +Can't you see for yourself that Annette is upright, as upright as +yourself? What is the good of you, if you can't even see that? What is +the good of loving her—if you do love her—if you can't see that she +doesn't tell lies? <i>I'm</i> not in love with her,—there have been times +when I've come very near to hating her, and I had reason to believe she +had done a wicked action,—but I knew one thing, and that was that she +would never lie about it. She is not that kind. And if she told you that +in a moment of despair she had agreed to do it, but that she had not +done it, then she spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."</p> + +<p>Roger could only stare at Janey, dumfounded. She who in his long +experience of her had always listened, had spoken so little beyond +comment or agreement, now thrust at him with a sword of determined, +sharp-edged speech. The only two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> women he thought he knew were becoming +absolute strangers to him.</p> + +<p>"If I had been in Annette's place, I would have died sooner than own +that I agreed to do wrong. I should have put the blame on Dick. But +Annette is humbler than I am, more loyal than I am, more compassionate. +She took the blame herself which belongs to Dick. She would not speak +ill of him. If I had been in her place, I should have hesitated a long +time before I told you about the will. It will ruin her good name. I +should have thought of that. But she didn't. She thought only of you, +only of getting your inheritance for you. Just as when Dick was ill, she +only thought of helping him. Go and get your inheritance, Roger. It's +yours, and I'm glad it is. You deserve it. But there's one thing you +don't deserve, and that is to marry Annette. You're not good enough for her."</p> + +<p>Janey had risen to her feet. She stood before him, a small terrible +creature with blazing eyes. Then she passed him and left the room, the +astounded Roger gaping after her.</p> + +<p>He waited a long time for her to return, but she did not come back.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVIII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Les seuls défauts vraiment terribles sont ceux qu'on prend pour +des qualités."—<span class="smcap">H. Rabusson.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>"Wherever we go," said Aunt Harriet complacently from her sofa that +evening, "weddings are sure to follow. I've noticed it again and again. +Do you remember, Maria, how when we spent the summer at Nairn our +landlady's son at those nice lodgings married the innkeeper's daughter? +And it was very soon after our visit to River View that Mary Grey was +engaged to the curate. Which reminds me that I am afraid they are very +badly off, for I heard from him not long ago that he had resigned his +curacy, and that as his entire trust was in the Almighty the smallest +contribution would be most acceptable; but I did not send anything, +because I always thought Mary ought not to have married him. And now we +have been here barely fifteen months and here is Harry Manvers marrying +the nurse. The Miss Blinketts tell me that she is at least fifteen years +older than him. Not that that matters at all if there is spiritual +affinity, but in this case—— Really, Annette, I think your wits must +be woolgathering. You have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> put sugar in my coffee, and you know as well +as possible that I only have a tiny lump not in the cup, but in the spoon."</p> + +<p>Annette expressed her contrition, and poured out another cup.</p> + +<p>"Did Roger Manvers say anything to you about Harry's marriage, Annette?" +said Aunt Maria. "I thought possibly he had come to consult us about it, +but of course he could say nothing before the Miss Blinketts. They drove +him away. I shall tell Hodgkins we are not at home to them in future."</p> + +<p>"He just mentioned the marriage, and that he had been seeing a lawyer about it."</p> + +<p>"If every one was as laconic as you are, my love," said Aunt Harriet, +with some asperity, "conversation would cease to exist; and as to saying +'Not at home' to the Miss Blinketts in future, Maria, you will of course +do exactly as you please, but I must own that I think it is a mistake to +cut ourselves entirely adrift from the life of the neighbourhood at a—a +crisis like this. Will the marriage be recognized? Ought we to send a +present? Shall we be expected to call on her? We shall have to arrive at +<i>some</i> decision on these subjects, I presume, and how we are to do so if +we close our ears to all sources of information I'm sure I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Mayn't we have another chapter of <i>The Silver Cross</i>?" said Annette in +the somewhat strained silence that followed. Aunt Maria was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>correcting +her proof sheets, and was in the habit of reading them aloud in the evenings.</p> + +<p>"Yes, do read, Maria," said Aunt Harriet, who, however trying her other +characteristics might be, possessed a perennial fund of enthusiastic +admiration for her sister's novels. "I could hardly sleep last night for +thinking of Blanche's estrangement from Frederic, and of her folly in +allowing herself to be drawn into Lord Sprofligate's supper party by +that foolish Lady Bonner. Frederic would be sure to hear of it."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," said Aunt Maria, with conscious pride, "that the next +chapter is hardly one for Annette. It deals, not without a touch of +realism, with subjects which as a delineator of life I cannot ignore, +but which, thank God, have no place in a young girl's existence."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maria, how I disagree with you!" interposed Aunt Harriet before +Annette could speak. "If only I had been warned when I was a young, +innocent, high-spirited creature, if only I had been aware of the +pitfalls, the snares, spread like nets round the feet of the young and +the attractive, I should have been spared some terrible +disillusionments. I am afraid I am far too modern to wish to keep girls +in the total ignorance in which our dear mother brought us up. We must +march with the times. There is nothing that you, being what you are, +Maria, nothing that you with your high ideals could write which, however +painful, it could harm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> Annette to hear." (This was perhaps even truer +than the enunciator was aware.) "She must some time learn that evil +exists, that sin and suffering are all part of life."</p> + +<p>Annette looked from the excited figure on the sofa to the dignified +personage in the arm-chair, and her heart was wrung for them both. Oh! +Poor dears! poor dears! Living in this shadowy world of their own in +which reality never set foot, this tiny world of which Aunt Harriet +spoke so glibly, which Aunt Maria described with such touching +confidence. Was she going to shatter it for them?—she whom they were +doing their best to guide into it, to make like themselves.</p> + +<p>"I am rather tired," she said, folding up her work. "I think I will go +to bed, and then you can read the chapter together, and decide whether I +can hear it later on."</p> + +<p>"It is very carefully treated, very lightly, I may say skilfully +touched," said Aunt Maria urbanely, whose previous remark had been +entirely conventional, and who had no intention of losing half her +audience. "I think, on the whole, I will risk it. Sit down again, +Annette. Let me see, how old are you?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-three."</p> + +<p>"Many women at that age are wives and mothers. I agree with you, +Harriet. The danger we elders fall into is the want of realization that +the younger generation are grown up. We must not make this mistake with +you, Annette, or treat you as a child any longer, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> as—ahem!—one of +ourselves. It is better that you should be made aware of the existence +of the seamy side of life, so that later on, if you come in contact with +it, your mind may be prepared. Chapter one hundred and twenty-five. <i>The False Position.</i>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIX</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"All other joy of life he strove to warm,</div> +<div>And magnify, and catch them to his lip:</div> +<div>But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship,</div> +<div>And gazed upon him sallow from the storm."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">George Meredith.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Roger went to Fontainebleau. He looked at the oaks as they came close up +on both sides of the line, and thought that they needed thinning, and +made a mental note of the inefficiency of French forestry. And he put up +at an old-fashioned inn, with a prim garden in front, with tiny pebbled +walks, and a fountain, and four stunted clipped acacia trees. And he +found the doctor in the course of the next morning; and the doctor, who +had not realized Dick's death under another name, gave him the notary's +address; and the notary explained by means of an interpreter that +Monsieur Le Geyt had warned him emphatically not to give up the will to +his mother, if she came for it, or sent for it after his death. Only to +Monsieur Roger Manvers his cousin, or Mademoiselle Manvers his sister.</p> + +<p>And when Roger had presented his card, and the credentials with which +his English lawyer had supplied him, the will was produced. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> notary +opened it, and showed him Dick's signature, almost illegible but still +Dick's, and below it the doctor's and his own; and at the bottom of the +sheet the two words, <i>Annette Georges</i>, in Annette's large childish +handwriting. Roger's heart contracted, and for a moment he could see +nothing but those two words. And the notary explained that the lady's +signature had not been necessary, but she had witnessed it to pacify the +dying man. Then Roger sat down, with a loudly hammering heart, and read +the will slowly—translated to him sentence by sentence. It gave him +everything: Hulver and Welmesley, and Swale and Scorby, and the +Yorkshire and Scotch properties, and the street in the heart of +Liverpool, and the New River Share. There was an annuity of five hundred +a year out of the estate and the house at Aldeburgh to Harry, and the +same sum to Mary Deane for life and then in trust to her daughter, +together with a farm in Devonshire. But except for these bequests, +everything was left to Roger. Dick had forgotten Jones his faithful +servant, and he had forgotten also that he had parted with his New River +Share the year before to meet his colossal losses on the day, still +talked of in racing circles, when Flamingo ran out of the course. And +the street in Liverpool, that gold mine, was mortgaged up to the hilt. +But still in spite of all it was a fine inheritance. Roger's heart beat. +He had been a penniless man all his life; and all his life he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> had +served another's will, another's caprice, another's heedlessness. Now at +last he was his own master. And Hulver, his old home, Hulver which he +loved with passion as his uncle and his grandfather had loved it before +him, <i>Hulver was his</i>.</p> + +<p>Mechanically he turned the page and looked at the last words of the will +upon it, and poor Dick's scrawl, and the signature of the witnesses. And +all the joy ebbed out of his heart as quickly as it had rushed in as he +saw again the two words, <i>Annette Georges</i>.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>He did not sleep that night. He lay in a bed which held no rest for him, +and a nameless oppression fell upon him. He was over-tired, and he had +suffered severely mentally during the past week. And it seemed as if the +room itself exercised some sinister influence over him. Surely the +mustard-coloured roses of the wall-paper knew too much. Surely the tall +gilt mirror had reflected and then wiped from its surface scenes of +anguish and despair. Roger sat up in bed, and saw himself a dim figure +with a shock head reflected in it. The moonlight lay in a narrow band +upon the floor. The blind tapped against the window ledge. Was that a +woman's white figure crouching near the window, with bent head against +the pane! It was only the moonlight upon the curtain, together with the +shadow of the tree outside. Roger got up and fastened the blind so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +the tapping ceased, and then went back to bed again. But sleep would not come.</p> + +<p>He had read over the translation of the will several times. It, and the +will itself, were locked into the little bag under his pillow. His hand +touched it from time to time.</p> + +<p>And as the moonlight travelled across the floor, Roger's thoughts +travelled also. His slow, honest mind never could be hurried, as those +who did business with him were well aware. It never rushed, even to an +obvious conclusion. It walked. If urged forward, it at once stood +stock-still. But if it moved slowly of its own accord, it also evaded nothing.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Then Dick must have distrusted his mother just as Janey had done. Roger +had been shocked by Janey's lack of filial piety, but he at once +concluded that Dick must have "had grounds" for his distrust. It did not +strike him that Janey and Dick might have had the same grounds—that +some sinister incident locked away in their childish memories had +perhaps warned them of the possibility of a great treachery.</p> + +<p>No doubt Janey was not mentioned in Dick's will because it had always +been understood that Noyes would go to her. Lady Louisa had given out +that she had so left it years before.</p> + +<p>"That was what was in the old woman's mind, no doubt," Roger said to +himself, "to let Janey have Noyes, and get Hulver and the rest for Harry +if possible, even if she had to destroy Dick's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> will in my favour. She +never took into her calculation, poor thing, that by the time Dick died +she might be as incapable of making another will as he was himself. +Seems as if paralysis was in the family. If she knew I had got Hulver +after all, she'd cut Janey out of Noyes like a shot if she could, and +leave it to Harry. But she can't. And Harry'll do very nicely in that +little house at Aldeburgh with five hundred a year. Play on the beach. +Make a collection of shells, and an aquarium. Sea anemones, and shrimps. +And his wife can take charge of him. Relieve poor Janey. I shall put in +a new bathroom at Sea View, and I shall furnish it for him. Some of the +things Mary Deane had would do. He would like those great gilt mirrors +and the sporting prints, and she'd like the walnut suite. That marriage +may not be such a bad thing after all. Hope poor Aunt Louisa won't +understand anything about it, or my coming in for Hulver. It would make +her perfectly mad. Might kill her. But perhaps that wouldn't be such a +very bad thing either. Silver lining to cloud, perhaps, and give Janey a +chance of a little peace."</p> + +<p>Roger's mind travelled slowly over his inheritance, and verified piece +by piece that it was a very good one. In spite of Dick's recklessness, +much still remained. The New River Share was gone. Dick had got over a +hundred thousand for it, but it had been worth more. And the house in +Eaton Square was gone, and Princess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> Street was as good as gone. He +should probably be wise to let the mortgagors foreclose on it. But +Hulver remained intact, save for the loss of the Raeburn and the oak +avenue. How cracked of Dick to have sold the Raeburn and cut down the +oak avenue when, if he had only consulted him, Roger could have raised +the money by a mortgage on Welmesley. But he ought not to be blaming +Dick after what he had done for him. On the contrary, he ought to put up +a good monument to him in Riff Church; and he certainly would do so. +Hulver was his—Hulver was his. Now, at last, he had a free hand. Now, +at last, he could do his duty by the property, unhampered by constant +refusals to be allowed to spend money where it ought to be spent. He +should be able to meet all his farmers on a better footing now. No need +to put off their demands from year to year, and lose the best among them +because he could not meet even their most reasonable claims. He could +put an entire new roof on Scorby Farm now, instead of tinkering at it, +and he would pull down those wretched Ferry Cottages and rebuild them on +higher ground. He knew exactly where he should put them. It was a crying +shame that it had not been done years ago. And he would drain Menham +marsh, and then the Menham people would not have agues and goitres. And +he should make a high paved way across the water meadows to Welysham, so +that the children could get to school dry-shod.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p><p>He could hardly believe that at last he was his own master. No more +inditing of those painfully constructed letters which his sense of duty +had made incumbent on him, letters which it had taken him so long to +write, and which were probably never read. Dick had never attended to +business. If people could not attend to business, Roger wondered what +they could attend to. And he would make it right about Jones. Jones need +never know his master had forgotten him. Roger would give him an annuity +of a hundred a year, and tell him it was by Dick's wish. Dick certainly +would have wished it if he had thought of it. Roger gave a sigh of +relief at the thought of Jones. And he should pension off old Toby and +Hesketh and Nokes. They had worked on the estate for over forty years. +Roger settled quantities of detail in numberless little mental +pigeonholes as the moonlight travelled across the floor.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>All through the day and the long evening, whenever he had thought of +Annette, his mind had stood stock-still and refused to move. And now at +last, as if it had waited till this silent hour, the thought of Annette +came to him again, and this time would not be denied. Once more his +resisting mind winced and stood still. And Roger, who had connived at +its resistance, forced it slowly, reluctantly, to do his bidding.</p> + +<p>He could marry Annette now. Strange how little joy that thought evoked! +He would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> given everything he possessed two days ago—not that he +possessed anything—to have been able to make her his wife. If two days +ago he had been told that he would inherit Hulver and be able to marry +her, his cup would have been full. Well, now he could have her, if she +would take him. He was ashamed, but not as much as he ought to have +been, of his momentary doubt of her. Fortunately, only Janey knew of +that doubt. Annette would never know that he had hesitated. Now that he +came to think of it, she had gone away from him so quickly that he had +not had time to say a word.</p> + +<p>Roger sighed heavily.</p> + +<p>He knew in his heart that he had not quite trusted Annette when he ought +to have done. But he did absolutely trust Janey. And Janey had said +Annette was innocent. He need not cudgel his brains as to whether he +would still have wanted to marry her if she had been Dick's mistress, +because she never had been. That was settled. Annette was as pure as +Janey herself, and he ought to have known it without Janey having to tell him.</p> + +<p>Roger turned uneasily on his bed, and then took the goad which only +honest men possess, and applied it to his mind. It winced and shrank +back, and then, seeing no help for it, made a step forward.</p> + +<p>Annette had given him his inheritance. He faced that at last. She had +got the will made. But for her, Dick would have died intestate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> And but +for her it was doubtful whether the will would ever have come to light. +Neither the notary nor the doctor had at first connected the death of +Mr. Manvers with that of Dick Le Geyt, even when Roger showed them the +notice in the papers which he had brought with him. Annette had done +everything for him. Well, he would do everything for her. He would marry +her, and be good to her all his life.</p> + +<p>Yes, but would she care to marry a man who could only arrive at his +inheritance by smirching her good name? The will could not be proved +without doing that. What wicked folly of Dick to have asked her, poor +child, to witness it! And how exasperatingly like him! He never +considered the result of any action. The slur on Annette's reputation +would be publicly known. The doctor and the notary who had told him of +Annette's relation to Dick could but confirm it. No denial from them was +possible. And sooner or later the ugly scandal would be known by every +creature at Riff.</p> + +<p>Roger choked. Now he realized that, was he still willing to marry her? +<i>He was willing.</i> He was more than willing, he was absolutely +determined. He wanted her as he had never wanted anything in his life. +He would marry her, and together they would face the scandal and live it +down. Janey would stick to them. He loathed the thought of the +whispering tongues destroying his wife's good name. He sickened at it, +but it was inevitable.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p><p>But would Annette on her side be willing to marry <i>him</i>, and bear the +obloquy that must fall upon her? Would she not prefer to leave Riff and +him for ever? That was what he must ask her. In his heart he believed +she would still take him. "She would bear it for my sake," he said to +himself. "Annette is very brave, and she thinks nothing of herself."</p> + +<p>A faint glimmer of her character was beginning to dawn in her lover's +shaken mind. The "Sun-of-my-soul," tame-canary, fancy portrait of his +own composition, on which he had often fondly dwelt, did not prove much +of a mainstay at this crisis, perhaps because it lacked life. Who can +lean upon a wooden heart! It is sad that some of us never perceive the +nobility of those we love until we need it. Roger had urgent need of +Annette's generosity and unselfishness, urgent need of her humility. He +unconsciously wanted all the greatest qualities of heart and mind from +her, he who had been drawn towards her, as Janey well knew, only by +little things—by her sweet face, and her violet eyes, and the curl on +her white neck.</p> + +<p>After all, would it be best for <i>her</i> that they should part?</p> + +<p>Something in Roger cried out in such mortal terror of its life that that +thought was dismissed as unendurable.</p> + +<p>"We can't part," said Roger to himself. "The truth is, I can't live +without her, and I won't. We'll face it together."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p><p>But there was anguish in the thought. His beautiful lady who loved him! +That he who held her so dear, who only asked to protect her from pain +and ill, that he should be the one to cast a slur upon her! But there +was no way out of it.</p> + +<p>He sobbed against his pillow.</p> + +<p>And in the silence came the stammered, half-choked words, "Annette, +Annette!"</p> + +<p>But only the room heard them, which had heard the same appeal on a +September night just a year ago.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XL</span></h2> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Twice I have stood a beggar</div> +<div>Before the door of God."</div> +<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Emily Dickenson.</span></div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>"I don't find either of you very helpful," said Aunt Harriet plaintively.</p> + +<p>Her couch had been wheeled out under the apple tree, and her sister and +niece were sitting with her under its shade after luncheon. During the +meal Aunt Harriet had at considerable length expounded one of the many +problems that agitated her, the solution of which would have robbed her +of her principal happiness in life.</p> + +<p>Her mind, what little there was of it, was spasmodically and +intermittently employed in what she called "threshing out things." The +real problems of life never got within shouting distance of Aunt +Harriet, but she would argue for days together whether it was right—not +for others but for her—to repeat as if she assented to them the +somewhat unsympathetic utterances of the Athanasian Creed as to the fate +in store for those who did not hold all its tenets.</p> + +<p>"And I don't believe they will all go to hell fire," she said +mournfully. "I'm too wide-minded, and I've lived too much in a highly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +cultivated society. The Miss Blinketts may, but I don't. And I know as a +fact that Mr. Harvey does not believe it either.... Though, of course, I +<i>do</i> accept the Athanasian Creed. I was able to assure Canon Wetherby so +only yesterday, when I discussed the subject with him. He said it was +the corner-stone of the Church, and that in these agnostic days we +Church people must all hold firmly together, shoulder to shoulder. I see +that, and I don't want to undermine the Church, but——"</p> + +<p>"Suppose you were to leave out that one response about hell fire," said +Annette, "and say all the rest."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid my silence might be noticed. It was different in London, +but in a place like Riff where we, Maria of course more than I, but +still where we both stand as I may say in the forefront, take the lead +in the religious life of the place, good example, influential attitude, +every eye upon us. It <i>is</i> perplexing. For is it quite, quite truthful +to keep silence? 'Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie.' How do you +meet <i>that</i>, Annette? or, 'To thine own self be true, and it will follow +as the night to day'—I mean as the day to night—'thou canst not then +be false to anybody.' What do you say to <i>that</i>, Annette?"</p> + +<p>Annette appeared to have nothing to say, and did not answer. Aunt Maria, +slowly turning the leaves of a presentation volume from Mr. Harvey, said nothing either.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p><p>"I don't find either of you particularly helpful," said Aunt Harriet +again. "You are both very fortunate, I'm sure, not to have any spiritual +difficulties. I often wish I had not such an active mind. I think I had +better ask Mr. Black to come and see me about it. He is always kind. He +tells me people constantly unburden themselves to him."</p> + +<p>"That is an excellent idea," said Aunt Maria promptly, with a total lack +of consideration for Mr. Black, who perhaps, however, deserved his fate +for putting his lips to his own trumpet. "He has studied these subjects +more than Annette and I have done. Ask him to luncheon to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Aunt Harriet, somewhat mollified, settled herself among her cushions, +and withdrew her teeth as a preliminary to her daily siesta. Aunt Maria, +who had been bolt upright at her desk since half-past nine, took off her +spectacles and closed her eyes.</p> + +<p>A carriage was heard to rumble into the courtyard.</p> + +<p>"Fly, my dear, fly," said Aunt Harriet, "catch Hodgkins and tell her we +are not at home. I'm not equal to seeing anyone till four o'clock. I +should have thought all the neighbourhood must have realized that by +now. Save me, Annette."</p> + +<p>Annette hurried into the house, and then through a side window suddenly +caught sight of Mrs. Stoddart's long grim face under a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> parasol, and ran +out to her and dragged her out of the carriage.</p> + +<p>"I thought you had gone," she said, holding her tightly by her mantilla, +as if Mrs. Stoddart might elude her even now. The elder woman looked at +Annette's drawn face and thrust out her under lip. She had feared there +would be trouble when Annette told Roger of her past, and had asked Mr. +Stirling to let her stay on at Noyes a few days longer. As she sat by +Annette in the parlour at Red Riff she saw that trouble had indeed come.</p> + +<p>"You have told your Roger," she said laconically, looking at the girl +with anger and respect. "I don't need to ask how he has taken it."</p> + +<p>Annette recounted what had happened, and once again Mrs. Stoddart +experienced a shock. She had come prepared to hear that Roger had +withdrawn the light of his countenance from Annette, and to offer stern +consolation. But the complication caused by Annette having informed +Roger of the existence of the will, and the fact that she had witnessed +it, overwhelmed her.</p> + +<p>A swift spasm passed over her face.</p> + +<p>"This is the first I've heard of you witnessing it," she said, sitting +very bolt upright on the sofa.</p> + +<p>Annette owned she had entirely forgotten that she had done so until +Roger had told her no will was forthcoming.</p> + +<p>"Then it all came back to me," she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p><p>"It's not to be wondered at that you did not remember, considering you +became unconscious with brain fever a few hours later," said Mrs. +Stoddart in a perfectly level voice. And then, without any warning, she began to cry.</p> + +<p>Annette gazed at her thunderstruck. She had never seen her cry before. +What that able woman did, she did thoroughly.</p> + +<p>"I thought I had seen to everything," she said presently, her voice +shaking with anger, "taken every precaution, stopped up every hole where +discovery could leak out, and fortune favoured you. My only fear was +that Dick's valet, who was at the funeral, might recognize you. But he didn't."</p> + +<p>"I told you he did not see me at the station that day I went with Dick."</p> + +<p>"I know you did, but I thought he might have seen you, all the same. But +he evidently didn't, or he would have mentioned it to the family at +once. And now—now all my trouble and cleverness and planning for you +are thrown away, are made absolutely useless by yourself, Annette: +because of your suicidal simpleness in witnessing that accursed will. +It's enough to make a saint swear."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart wiped her eyes, and shook her fist in the air.</p> + +<p>"Providence never does play fair," she said. "I've been outwitted, +beaten, but it wasn't cricket. I keep my self-respect. The question +remains, What is to be done?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p><p>"I shall wait till Roger comes back before I do anything."</p> + +<p>"I take for granted that Roger Manvers and his cousin Janey will never +say a word against you?—that they will never 'tell,' as the children say."</p> + +<p>"I am sure they never will."</p> + +<p>"And much good that will do you when your signature is fixed to Dick's +will! That fact must become known, and your position at Fontainebleau is +bound to leak out. Roger can't prove the will without giving you away. +Do you understand that?"</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of it."</p> + +<p>"Then every man, woman, and child at Riff, including your aunts, will +know about you."</p> + +<p>"Yes,"—a very faint "Yes," through white lips.</p> + +<p>"And they will all, with one consent, especially your aunts, believe the worst."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid they will."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"You <i>can't</i> remain here, Annette."</p> + +<p>"You said before at Fontainebleau that I could not remain, but I did."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stoddart recognized, not for the first time, behind Annette's +mildness an obstinacy before which she was powerless.</p> + +<p>As usual, she tried another tack.</p> + +<p>"For the sake of your aunts you ought to leave at once, and you ought to +persuade them to go with you, before the first breath of scandal reaches Riff."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, we must all go. Of course we can't go on living here, but I would +rather see Roger first. Roger is good, and he is so kind. He will +understand about the aunts, and give me a few days to make it as easy to +them as it can be made, poor dears."</p> + +<p>"You ought to prepare their minds for leaving Riff. I should not think +that would be difficult, for they lamented to me that they were buried +here, and only remained on your account."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they always say that. I will tell them I don't like it, and as +they don't like it either, it would be best if we went away."</p> + +<p>"You are wishing that nothing had been kept from them in the first +instance?" said Mrs. Stoddart, deeply wounded, though she kept an inflexible face.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Annette; "and yet I have always been thankful in a way they +did not know. I have felt the last few days as if the only thing I +really could not bear was telling the aunts. But this will be even +worse—I mean that you say everybody will know. It will wound them in +their pride, and upset them dreadfully. And they are fond of me now, +which will make it worse for them if it is publicly known. They might +have got over it if only Roger and Janey knew. But they will never +forgive me putting them to public shame."</p> + +<p>"Come and live with me," said Mrs. Stoddart fiercely. "I love you, +Annette." And in her heart she thought that if her precious only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> son, +her adored Mark, did fall in love with Annette he could not do better. +"Come and live with me."</p> + +<p>"I will gladly come and live with you for a time later on."</p> + +<p>"Come now."</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"It's no use stopping," she said, taking the girl by the shoulders. +"What's the good? Your Roger won't marry you, my poor child."</p> + +<p>"No," said Annette firmly, though her lips had blanched. "I know he will +not. But—I ran away before when some one would not marry me, and it did +not make things any better—only much, much worse. My mind is made up. I +will stay this time."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLI</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Il ne suffit pas d'être logique en ce monde; il faut savoir vivre +avec ceux qui ne le sont pas."—<span class="smcap">Valtour.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>In later years Annette remembered little of the days that passed while +Roger was in France. They ought to have been terrible days, days of +suspense and foreboding, but they were not. Her mind was at rest. It had +long oppressed her that her two best friends, Roger and Janey, were in +ignorance of certain facts about her which their friendship for her and +their trust in her gave them a right to know. With a sinking of the +heart, she said to herself, "They know now." But that was easier to bear +than "They ought to know."</p> + +<p>If she had hoped for a letter from Roger none came, but I hardly think +she was so foolish as to hope it.</p> + +<p>Janey had been to see her, had climbed up to her little attic, and had +stretched out her arms to her. And Annette and she had held each other +closely, and looked into each other's eyes, and kissed each other in +silence. No word passed between them, and then Janey had gone away +again. The remembrance of that wordless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> embrace lay heavy on Janey's +sore heart. Annette, pallid and worn, had blamed no one, had made no +excuse for herself. How she had misjudged Annette!—she, her friend.</p> + +<p>But if Annette felt relief about Roger and Janey, the thought of the +aunts brought a pang with it, especially since Mrs. Stoddart's visit. +They had reached the state of nerves when the sweeps are an event, a +broken window-cord an occasion for fortitude, a patch of damp on the +ceiling a disaster. They would be wounded to the quick in their pride +and in their affection if any scandal attached to her name; for they had +become fond of her since she had devoted herself to them. While she had +been as a young girl a claim on their time and attention they had not +cared much about her, but now she was indispensable to them, and she who +formerly could do nothing right could now hardly do anything wrong. Oh! +why had she concealed anything from them in the first instance? Why had +she allowed kind, clever Mrs. Stoddart to judge for her what was right +when she ought to have followed her own instinct of telling them, before +they had come to lean upon her? "Mrs. Stoddart only thought of me," +Annette said to herself. "She never considered the aunts at all," which +was about the truth.</p> + +<p>Their whole happiness would be destroyed, the even tenor of their lives +broken up. Aunt Maria often talked as if she had plumbed the greatest +depths to which human nature can sink. Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> Harriet had more than +hinted that many dark and even improper problems had been unravelled in +tears beside her couch. But Annette knew very well that these utterances +were purely academic and had no connection with anything real, +indicating only the anxious desire of middle age, half conscious that it +is in a backwater, to impress on itself and others that—to use its own +pathetic phrase—it is "keeping in touch with life."</p> + +<p>The aunts must leave Riff, and quickly. Mrs. Stoddart was right. Annette +realized that their lives could be reconstructed like other mechanisms: +taken down like an iron building and put up elsewhere. They had struck +no root in Riff as she herself had done. Aunt Harriet had always had a +leaning towards Bournemouth. No doubt they could easily form there +another little circle where they would be admired and appreciated. There +must be the equivalent of Canon Wetherby wherever one went. Yes, they +must leave Riff. Fortunately, both aunts had only consented, much +against the grain, to live in the country on account of their sister's +health; both lamented that they were cut off from congenial literary +society; both frequently regretted the move. She would have no +difficulty in persuading them to leave Riff, for already she had had to +exercise a certain amount of persuasion to induce them to remain. She +must prepare their minds without delay.</p> + +<p>For once, Fortune favoured her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p><p>Aunt Harriet did not come down to breakfast, and the meal was, in +consequence, one of the pleasantest of the day, in spite of the fact +that Aunt Maria was generally oppressed with the thought of the +morning's work which was hanging over her. She was unhappy and irritable +if she did not work, and pessimistic as to the quality of what she had +written if she did work. But Aunt Harriet had a knack of occasionally +trailing in untoileted in her dressing-gown, without her <i>toupée</i>, +during breakfast, ostensibly in order to impart interesting items of +news culled from her morning letters, but in reality to glean up any +small scraps of information in the voluminous correspondence of her +sister. She did so the morning after Mrs. Stoddart's visit, carrying in +one hand her air-cushion, and with the other holding out a card to Aunt +Maria, sitting bolt upright, neatly groomed, self-respecting, behind her silver teapot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maria! See what we miss by living in the country."</p> + +<p>Aunt Maria adjusted her pince-nez and inspected the card.</p> + +<p>"Mission to the women of the Zambesi! H'm! H'm!"</p> + +<p>"The Bishop will speak himself," almost wailed Aunt Harriet. "Don't you +see it, Maria? 'Will address the meeting.' Our own dear Bishop!"</p> + +<p>"If you are alluding to the Bishop of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>Booleywoggah, you never went to +the previous meetings of the Society when we were in London."</p> + +<p>"Could I help that?" said Aunt Harriet, much wounded. "Really, you +sometimes speak, Maria, as if I had not a weak spine, and could move +about as I liked. No one was more active than I was before I was struck +down, and I suppost it is only natural that I should miss the <i>va et +vient</i>, the movement, the clash of wits of London. I never have +complained,—I never do complain,—but I'm completely buried here, and +that's the truth."</p> + +<p>"We came here on Catherine's account," said Aunt Maria. "No one +regretted the move more than I did. Except Mr. Stirling, there is no one +I really care to associate with down here." "Why remain, then," said +Annette, "if none of us like it?"</p> + +<p>Both the aunts stared at her aghast.</p> + +<p>"Leave Red Riff!" said Aunt Maria, as if it had been suggested that she +should leave this planet altogether.</p> + +<p>"Why, Annette," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "of course we should +not think of doing such a selfish thing, now we have you to think of—at +least, I speak for myself. You love the country. It suits you. You are +not intellectual, not like us passionately absorbed in the problems of +the day. You have your little <i>milieu</i>, and your little innocent local +interests—the choir, the Sunday school, your friends the Miss +Blinketts, the Manvers, the Blacks. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> would be too cruel to uproot you +now, and I for one should never consent to it."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you happy here, Annette, that you wish to move?" said Aunt Maria dryly.</p> + +<p>It slid through Annette's mind that she understood why Aunt Maria +complained that few of her friends had remained loyal to her. She looked +straight in front of her. There was a perceptible pause before she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I have been happy here, but I should not like Red Riff as a permanency."</p> + +<p>"Oh! my dear love," said Aunt Harriet, suddenly lurching from her chair +and kneeling down beside Annette, while the little air-cushion ran with +unusual vigour into the middle of the room, and then subsided with equal +suddenness on the floor. "I feared this. I have seen it coming. Men are +like that, even the clergy—I may say more especially the clergy. They +know not what they do, or what a fragile thing a young girl's heart is. +But are you not giving way to despair too early in the day? Don't you +agree with me, Maria? This may be only the night of sorrow. Joy may come +in the morning."</p> + +<p>Annette could not help smiling. She raised her aunt, retrieved the +air-cushion, replaced her upon it, and said—</p> + +<p>"You are making a mistake. I am not—interested in Mr. Black."</p> + +<p>"I never thought for a moment you were," said Aunt Maria bluntly. "Mr. +Black is all very well—a most estimable person, I have no doubt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> But I +don't see why you are in such a hurry to leave Riff."</p> + +<p>"You both want to go, and so do I. As we all three wish to go, why stay?"</p> + +<p>"Personally, I am in no hurry to go till I have finished <i>The Silver +Cross</i>," said Aunt Maria.</p> + +<p>"No one misses the stimulus of cultivated society more than I do, but I +always feel London life, with its large demands upon one, somewhat of a +strain when I am composing. And the seclusion of the country is +certainly conducive to work."</p> + +<p>"And as for myself," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "I would not +willingly place a great distance between myself and dear Cathie's +grave." Aunt Maria and Annette winced. "And I'm sure I don't know who is +wanting to leave Riff if it isn't you, Maria. Haven't I just said that I +never do complain? Have I ever complained? And there is no doubt, +delicate as I am, I <i>am</i> the better for the country air." Aunt Harriet +was subsiding into tears and a handkerchief. "Sea only nine miles +off—crow flies—fresh cream, new-laid eggs, more colour—Canon Wetherby +noticed it. He said, 'Some one's looking well.' And nearly a pound +gained since last weighed. And now all this talk about leaving, and +putting it on me as if it was my suggestion."</p> + +<p>"It was mine," said Annette cheerfully, with the dreadful knowledge +which is mercifully only the outcome of affection. "I retract it. After +all, why should you both leave Riff if you like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> living here? Let us +each go on our way, and do what suits us best. You must both stay, and I will go."</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence. The two aunts looked aghast at Annette, and +she saw, almost with shame, how entirely she had the whip hand. Their +dependence on her was too complete.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand this sudden change on your part," said Aunt Maria at +last. "Is it only a preamble to the fact that you intend to leave us a second time?"</p> + +<p>"Not if you live in London," said Annette firmly, "or—Bournemouth; but +I don't care for the country all the year round, and I would prefer to +move before the winter. I'm rather afraid of the effect the snow might +have on me." Aunt Harriet looked terrified. "I believe it lies very +deep, feet deep, all over Lowshire. Mrs. Stoddart has asked me to winter +with her in London, so perhaps I had better write and tell her I will do +so. And now I must go and order dinner."</p> + +<p>She got up and left the room, leaving her two aunts staring as blankly +at each other as after their sister's funeral.</p> + +<p>"Maria," said Aunt Harriet in a hollow voice, "we have no knowledge of +the effect of wide areas of snow upon my constitution."</p> + +<p>"And so that was what Mrs. Stoddart came over about yesterday?" said +Aunt Maria. "She wants to get Annette away from us, and make her act as +unpaid companion to her. I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> say it is fairly barefaced. Annette's +place is with us until she marries, and if it is necessary I shall +inform Mrs. Stoddart of that fact. At the same time, I have had it in my +mind for some time past that it might be advisable to shut up this house +for the winter months and take one in London."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLII</span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to +conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when +men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such +times can never give."—<span class="smcap">Sydney Smith.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Annette had been waked early by two young swallows which had flown into +her room, and had circled swiftly round it with sharp, ecstatic cries, +and then had sped out again into the dawn.</p> + +<p>She dressed, and went noiselessly into the garden, and then wandered +into the long meadows that stretched in front of the house. The low +slanting sunshine was piercing the mist which moved slowly along the +ground, and curled up into the windless air like smoke. The dew was on +everything. She wondered the blades of grass could each bear such a +burden of it. Every spider's web in the hedgerow, and what numbers there +seemed, all of a sudden had become a glistening silver-beaded pocket. +Surely no fly, however heedless, would fly therein. And everywhere the +yellow tips of the groundsel had expanded into tiny white fluffy balls +of down, strewing the empty fields, floating with the floating mist.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p><p>But though it was early, the little world of Riff was astir. In the +distance she could hear the throb of the mill, and close at hand across +the lane two great yellow horses were solemnly pacing an empty +clover-field, accompanied by much jingling of machinery and a boyish +whistle. Men with long rakes were drawing the weeds into heaps, and +wreaths of smoke mingled with the mist. The thin fires leaped and +crackled, the pale flames hardly wavering in the still, sunny air.</p> + +<p>Instinctively Annette's steps turned towards the sound of the mill. She +crossed the ford by the white stepping-stones, dislodging a colony of +ducks preening themselves upon the biggest stone, and followed the +willow-edged stream to the mill.</p> + +<p>There had been rain in the night, and the little Rieben chafed and +girded against the mill-race.</p> + +<p>She watched it, as a year ago she had watched the Seine chafe against +its great stone bastions. The past rose before her at the sight and +sound of the water, and the crinkling and circling of the eddies of yellow foam.</p> + +<p>How unendurable her life had seemed to her on that day! And now to-day +life was valueless. Once again it had been shattered like glass. She had +been cast forth then. Now she was cast forth once more. She had made +herself a little niche, crept into a crevice where she had thought no +angel with a flaming sword would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> find her and drive her out. But she +was being driven out once more into the wilderness. She had no abiding city anywhere.</p> + +<p>From where she stood she looked past the mill to the released and +pacified water circling round the village, and then stretching away, +silver band beyond silver band, in the direction of Riebenbridge. The +sun had vanquished the mist, and lay warmly on the clustered cottages +and the grey church tower, and on the old red and blue façade of Hulver +among its hollies. And very high up above it all stretched a sky of tiny +shredded clouds like a flock of a thousand thousand sheep.</p> + +<p>How tranquil it all was, and how closely akin to her, how fraught with +mysterious meaning!—as the kind meadows and trees ever do seem fraught +where we have met Love, even the Love that is unequal, and presently passes away.</p> + +<p>She must leave it all, and she must part with Roger. She had thought of +him as her husband. She had thought of the children she should bear him. +She looked at the water with eyes as tearless as a year ago, and saw her +happiness pass like a bubble on its surface, break like the iridescent +bubble that it is on life's rough river. But the water held no +temptation for her to-day. She had passed the place where we are +intolerant of burdens. She saw that they are the common lot. Roger and +Janey had borne theirs in patience and in silence and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> without self-pity +for years. They were her ideal, and she must try to be like them. She +did not need her solemn promise to Dick to keep her from the water's +edge, though her sense of desolation was greater to-day than it had been +a year ago. For there had been pride and resentment in her heart then, +and it is not a wounded devotion but a wounded self-love which arouses +resentment in our hearts.</p> + +<p>She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation, but her heart +ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no +romance now as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new +moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper, where all love must go, if it +is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an +abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a +word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not +written to her since.</p> + +<p>"I am not good enough for him," said Annette to herself. "That is the +truth. He and Janey are too far above me."</p> + +<p>She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that +it might have been she who was too good for Roger—only it was +unthinkable. But if <i>he</i> had been under some cloud, then she knew that +they would not have had to part.</p> + +<p>She had reached the stile where the water meadows begin, and +instinctively she stood still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> and looked at her little world once more, +and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his +inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not +what he thought, but if she had been, if she had never had her mad +moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain +Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for +Roger. Out of evil good had come—if not to her, to him. She crossed the +stile, where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to +it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry +of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day—when she was very +old—would she also forget?</p> + +<p>Across the empty field thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they +had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes +of forget-me-not peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower +now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow branch, +and reached it and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it +seemed to Annette that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a +great peace by a stream such as this, a kind understanding stream, and +she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it +in her bosom, and she had met beside the stream one that loved her: and +all had been well, exceeding well.</p> + +<p>A great peace enfolded her, as a mother enfolds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> her new-born babe. She +was wrapt away from pain.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Along the narrow path by the water's edge Roger was coming: now dimly +seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. Annette +felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she +knew now that she had been waiting for him.</p> + +<p>He came up to her and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they +looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having +missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had +come out to Riebenbridge by the first train this morning.</p> + +<p>"I have the will," he said, and touched his breast. And his eyes passed +beyond her to the familiar picture he knew so well, of Riff beyond the +river, and the low church tower, and the old house among the trees. He +looked long at it all, and Annette saw that his inheritance was his +first thought. It seemed to her natural. There were many, many women in +the world, but only one Hulver.</p> + +<p>His honest, tired face quivered.</p> + +<p>"I owe it to you," he said.</p> + +<p>She did not answer. She turned with him, and they went a few steps in +silence; and if she had not been wrapt away from all pain, I think she +must have been wounded by his choosing that moment to tell her that the +notary had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> pronounced Hulver "Heevair," and that those French lawyers +were a very ignorant lot. But he was in reality only getting ready to +say something, and it was his habit to say something else while doing +so. He had no fear of being <i>banal</i>. It was a word he had never heard. +He informed her which hotel he had put up at in Ipswich, and how he had +had a couple of poached eggs on arrival. Then he stopped.</p> + +<p>"Annette," he said, "of course you understood about my not writing to +you, because I ought to have written."</p> + +<p>Annette said faintly, as all women must say, that she had understood. No +doubt she had, but not in the sense which he imagined.</p> + +<p>"I owe it all to you," he said again, "but I shouldn't have any +happiness in it unless I had you too. Annette, will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. But there would be no marriages at all if men took +any notice of such bagatelles as that. Roger pressed stolidly forward.</p> + +<p>"I had not time to say anything the other day," he said, hurrying over +what even he realized was thin ice. "You were gone all in a flash. +But—but, Annette, nothing you said then makes any change in my feeling +for you. I wanted to marry you before, and I want to marry you now."</p> + +<p>"Didn't they—the doctor and the notary—didn't they tell you when you +saw my signature that I was—guilty?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p><p>"Yes," said Roger firmly, "they did. The doctor spoke of you with great +respect, but he did think so. But you have told me you were not. That is +enough for me. Will you marry me, Annette?"</p> + +<p>"You are good, Roger," she said, looking at him with a great +tenderness,—"good all through. That is why you think I am good too. But +the will remains. My signature to it remains. That <i>must</i> be known when +the will is proved. Mrs. Stoddart says so. She said my good name must +suffer. I am afraid if I married you that you and Janey would be the +only two people in Riff who would believe that I was innocent."</p> + +<p>"And is not my belief enough?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him with love unspeakable.</p> + +<p>"It is enough for me," she said, "but not for you. You would not be +happy, or only for a little bit, not for long, with a wife whom every +one, every one from the Bishop to the cowman, believed to be Dick's cast-off mistress."</p> + +<p>Roger set his teeth, and became his usual plum colour.</p> + +<p>"We would live it down."</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "That is the kind of thing that is never lived down—at +least, not in places like this. I know enough to know that."</p> + +<p>He knew it too. He knew it better than she did.</p> + +<p>He got the will slowly out of his pocket and opened it. They looked +together at her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>signature. Roger saw it through tears of rage, and +crushed the paper together again into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Annette," he said, with a groan. "Why did you sign it?"</p> + +<p>"I did it to please Dick," she said.</p> + +<p>Across the water the church bell called to an early service. Roger +looked once more at his little world, grown shadowy and indistinct in a +veil of smoke. It seemed as if his happiness were fading and eddying +away into thin air with the eddies of blue smoke.</p> + +<p>"We must part," said Annette. "I am sure you see that."</p> + +<p>The forget-me-not fell from her bosom, and she let it lie. He looked +back at her. He had become very pale.</p> + +<p>"I see one thing," he said fiercely, "and that is that I can't live +without you, and what is more, I don't mean to. If you will marry me, +I'll stand the racket about the scandal. Hulver is no good to me without +you. My life is no good to me without you. If you won't marry me, I'll +marry no one, so help me God. If you won't take me, I shall never have +any happiness at all. So now you know!—with your talk of parting."</p> + +<p>She did not answer. She stooped and picked up the forget-me-not again, +and put it back in her bosom. Perhaps she thought that was an answer.</p> + +<p>"Annette," he said slowly, "do you care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> for me enough to marry me and +live here with me? You as my wife and Hulver as my home are the two +things I want. But that is all very well for me. The scandal will fall +worst on you. If I can stand it, can you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"It will come very hard on you, Annette."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind."</p> + +<p>"I shan't be able to shield you from evil tongues. There is not a soul +in the village that won't end by knowing, sooner or later. And they +think all the world of you now. Can you bear all this—for my sake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And yet you're crying, Annette."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking about the aunts. They will feel it so dreadfully, and so +will Mrs. Nicholls. I'm very fond of Mrs. Nicholls."</p> + +<p>He caught her to him and kissed her passionately.</p> + +<p>"Do you never think of yourself?" he stammered. "You chucked your name +away to please poor Dick. And you're ready to marry me and brave it +out—to please me."</p> + +<p>"You are enough for me, Roger." She clung to him.</p> + +<p>He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her.</p> + +<p>"Am I? Am I enough? A man who would put you through such a thing, even +if you're willing, Annette. You stick at nothing. You're willing. +But—by God—I'm not."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p><p>She looked dumbly at him, with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought +he was going to discard her after all.</p> + +<p>"I thought I wanted Hulver more than anything in the world," he said +wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket, "but the price is too high. +My wife's good name. I won't pay it. Annette, I will not pay it."</p> + +<p>And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it.</p> + +<p>The smoke eddied, and blew suddenly towards them. The fire hesitated a +moment, and then, as Annette gazed stupefied, a little flame curled +busily along the open sheet.</p> + +<p>Before he knew she had moved, she had rushed past him, and had thrust +her hands into the fire and torn out the burning paper. The flame ran +nimbly up her arm, devouring her thin sleeve, and he had only just time +to beat it out with his hands before it reached her hair.</p> + +<p>He drew her out of the smoke and held her forcibly. She panted hard, +sobbing a little. The will gripped tight in her hand was pressed against +her breast and his.</p> + +<p>"Annette!" he said hoarsely, over and over again. Still holding the will +fast, she drew away from him, and opened it with trembling, bleeding +fingers, staining the sheet.</p> + +<p>"It is safe," she said. "It's safe. It's only scorched. You can see the +writing quite clear through the brown. Look, Roger, but you mustn't +touch it. I can't trust you to touch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> it. <i>It is safe.</i> Only the bottom +of the sheet is burnt where there wasn't anything written. Look! Dick's +name is there, and the doctor's, and the notary's. Only mine is gone.... +Oh, Roger! Now my name is gone, the will is—just about right, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Roger drew in his breath, and looked at the blood-smeared, smoke-stained page.</p> + +<p>"It is all right now," he said in a strangled voice. And then he +suddenly fell on his knees and hid his convulsed face in her gown.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't cry, Roger. And you mustn't kiss the hem of my gown. +Indeed, you mustn't. It makes me ashamed. Nor my hands: they're quite +black. Oh! how my poor Roger cries!"</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">Morrison & Gibb Limited</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i></p> + +<hr /> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold uline"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></p> + +<p class="bold2">MOTH AND RUST</p> + +<p class="center">Together with</p> + +<p class="bold">Geoffrey's Wife and the Pitfall</p> + +<p class="bold">2s. 6d. net</p> + +<p>" ... A fine story, admirably told."—<i>World.</i></p> + +<p>"The best short stories written in English that we have read."—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>" ... Admirable alike as a story and as a presentation of human +character.... We must not give away too many of the details of a story +which, besides being well put together, is exceptionally well +written."—<i>Globe.</i></p> + +<p>"Miss Cholmondeley's new book will distinctly add to an already high +reputation.... We have rarely met in recent fiction two more thoroughly +real and convincing characters than Lady Anne Varney and Wilson the +millionaire.... It is rare indeed that any one displays so great an +aptitude for the long and the short story, and Miss Cholmondeley can be +heartily congratulated on her success in this volume."—<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"A delectable story. Here we have a high-born lady who really +understands the meaning of love, and a millionaire who positively +attracts—a rare thing in a novel. Life is portrayed as it is, not as +the conventional fictionist imagines it, and portrayed with a genuine +artistic touch."—<i>Outlook.</i></p> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p class="bold2">THE LOWEST RUNG</p> + +<p class="bold">2s. 6d. net</p> + +<p>A Reviewer, writing in the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> in defence of the Short +Story, says: "Above all, let him take 'The Lowest Rung' and 'The Hand on +the Latch' from Miss Mary Cholmondeley's latest volume, and fling them +down as his last and most convincing proof.</p> + +<p>"Of these last two stories it is difficult to speak too highly, for, of +their kind, they are so nearly perfect."</p> + +<p>"For the three stories contained in the volume we have nothing but +praise; they are full of what might be called picturesqueness, and the +author has the rare art of making everything in a story lead up to the +effect—the final pull, as it were, that unties the whole knot—which +she is keeping up for the end."</p> + +<p class="right"><i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold2">MURRAY'S<br />SHILLING LIBRARY</p> + +<p class="bold"><i>In Red Cloth, crown 8vo, 1/- net each</i></p> + +<p class="bold"><i>NEW VOLUMES</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>GOLDEN STRING.</b> A Day Book for Busy Men and Women. Arranged by +<span class="smcap">Susan, Countess of Malmesbury</span>, and Miss <span class="smcap">Violet Brooke-Hunt</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>" ... an admirable selection of noble and inspiring +thoughts."—<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>" ... delightful little volume ... one can find nothing but praise for a +happy idea so admirably carried out"—<i>Ladies' Field.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.</b> A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, +and Escapes during the American Civil War. By <span class="smcap">Thomas E. Taylor</span>. +Frontispiece and Map.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Taylor's work is at once an absorbing record of personal adventure, +and a real contribution to history, for it presents to us, from the pen +of a principal actor, the most complete account we have of a great +blockade in the early days of steam. As a picture of exciting escapes, +of coolness and resource at moments of acute danger, of well-calculated +risks, boldly accepted and obstinately carried through, it has few +rivals in sea story.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY:</b> <b>The Land of Augustine</b>, <b>The +Murder of Becket</b>, <b>Edward the Black Prince</b>, <b>Becket's Shrine</b>. By the +late <span class="smcap">Dean Stanley</span>. With Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"No pilgrim to Canterbury need now content himself with the meagre +historical information of the guide-books when he can get Dean Stanley's +fascinating work for one shilling."—<i>The Church Times.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>LIVINGSTONE'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA.</b> A popular account of +Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. By <span class="smcap">David +Livingstone</span>, M.D. With Map and numerous Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is the great missionary-explorer's own narrative of his first +travel experiences in Africa, and consists chiefly of a full account of +his wonderful journeys in the years 1849-1856, in the course of which he +discovered the Victoria Falls, and crossed the continent from west to +east. Many books have been written on the subject of Livingstone and his +travels, but all who are interested in the greatest of African +travellers should read this record.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS.</b> By <span class="smcap">Michael Fairless</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, +the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and +Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart.</p> + +<p>The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death +and a monk with an artist's eye; but for the author it is a romance of +the Image of God.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>JAMES NASMYTH, Engineer and Inventor of the Steam Hammer.</b> An +Autobiography. By <span class="smcap">Samuel Smiles</span>. Portrait and Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"We should not know where to stop if we were to attempt to notice all +that is instructive and interesting in this volume. It will be found +equally interesting to students of human nature, to engineers, to +astronomers, and even to archæologists. Among other merits, there are +few books which could be put with more advantage into a young man's +hands, as affording an example of the qualities which conduce to +legitimate success in work."—<i>The Quarterly Review.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S LOVE LETTERS.</b> By <span class="smcap">Laurence Housman</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. T. P. O'Connor in the <i>Daily Mail says</i>:—"I turned over the leaves +rapidly, almost greedily, and had read almost all its story before I +could allow myself to sleep.... It is a loud cry, not merely of one +intoxicated and torn heart, but of the claim of inner and true emotion +to be still the greatest force of life; the one thing worth +having—worth living for, longing for, dying for."</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>ÆSOP'S FABLES.</b> A New Version, chiefly from the original sources. By +the Rev. <span class="smcap">Thomas James</span>, M.A. With more than 100 Woodcuts designed by +<span class="smcap">Tenniel</span> and <span class="smcap">Wolfe</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sir John Tenniel's beautiful illustrations are a notable feature of this +edition of "the most popular moral and political class-book of more than +two thousand years." The Fables have been re-translated chiefly from +original sources, and are printed in a clear and attractive type. They +are accompanied by a scholarly and interesting introductory sketch of +the life of Æsop and the history of the Fables.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE LION HUNTER IN SOUTH AFRICA.</b> Five Years' Adventures in the Far +Interior of South Africa, with Notices of the Native Tribes and +Savage Animals. By <span class="smcap">Roualeyn Gordon Cumming</span>, of Altyre. With +Woodcuts.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This sporting classic is a fascinating first-hand narrative of hunting +expeditions in pursuit of big game and adventures with native tribes. A +special interest now attaches to it by reason of the great changes which +have come over the "scene of the lion hunter's" exploits in a +comparatively short space of time—in districts where his was the first +white man's foot to tread, our armies marched and fought in the late +South African War, and prosperous towns are now established.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN.</b> An Account of Travels in the Interior, +including visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikkô. +By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Bishop</span> (<span class="smcap">Isabella L. Bird</span>). With Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Written in the form of letters to her sister, this book gives +practically the author's day to day experiences during journeys of over +one hundred and four thousand miles in Japan. Mrs. Bird was the first +European lady to visit many of the places described, and her journeys +took place at what is perhaps the most interesting period of the +country's history, when she was just beginning to awake to the glow of +Western civilisation. As a faithful and realistic description of Old +Japan by one of the most remarkable Englishwomen of her day, this book +has an abiding interest.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>NOTES FROM A DIARY.</b> First Series. By <span class="smcap">Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, besides being a distinguished +public-servant, was a popular member of society with a genius for +gathering and recording good stories. In his series of "Notes from a +Diary" he jotted down the best things he heard, and thereby made some +very enjoyable volumes, which in cheaper guise will repeat and increase +the success they gained in their more expensive form.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>LAVENGRO: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest.</b> By <span class="smcap">George Borrow</span>. +With 6 Pen and Ink Sketches by <span class="smcap">Percy Wadham</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This edition contains the unaltered text of the original issue: with the +addition of some Suppressed Episodes printed only in the Editions issued +by Mr. Murray; MS. Variorum, Vocabulary, and Notes by the late Professor +<span class="smcap">W. I. Knapp</span>.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>OUR ENGLISH BIBLE.</b> The Story of its Origin and Growth. By <span class="smcap">H. W. +Hamilton Hoare</span>, late of Balliol College, Oxford, now an Assistant +Secretary to the Board of Education, Whitehall. With Specimen Pages +of Old Bibles.</p></blockquote> + +<p>An historical sketch of the lineage of our Authorised Version, which was +published in 1901 under the title of "The Evolution of the English Bible."</p> + +<p>The aim of the sketch is to give, in a continuous and narrative form, a +history of our English translations, and to exhibit them in close +connection with the story of the national life.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA.</b> A Selection from her Majesty's +correspondence between the years 1837 and 1861. Edited by <span class="smcap">A. C. +Benson</span>, M.A., C.V.O., and <span class="smcap">Viscount Esher</span>, G.C.V.O., K.C.B. With 16 +Portraits. 3 vols. 1s. net each volume.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Published by authority of his Majesty King Edward VII. This edition is +not abridged, but is the complete and revised text of the original.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION.</b> By <span class="smcap">Charles +Darwin</span>. Popular impression of the Corrected Copyright Edition. +Issued with the approval of the author's executors.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first edition of Darwin's "Origin of Species" has now passed out of copyright.</p> + +<p>It should, however, be clearly understood that the edition which thus +loses its legal protection is the imperfect edition which the author +subsequently revised and which was accordingly superseded. This, the +complete and authorised edition of the work, will not lose copyright for some years.</p> + +<p>The only complete editions authorised by Mr. Darwin and his +representatives are those published by Mr. Murray.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST.</b> An Account of a Voyage from San +Francisco round Cape Horn to Liverpool in a Fourmasted +"Windjammer," with experiences of the life of an Ordinary Seaman. +By <span class="smcap">Basil Lubbock</span>. With Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Sheffield Independent</i> says:—"If you care to read what life at sea +in a sailing vessel really is like, this is the book that tells the +story.... Mr. Lubbock has a fine power of telling a tale realistically. +To read him is as good as being on the spot, and having the sights for +yourself, without the hardships. I have never read any work about the +sea that is as vivid and actual as this."</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>ENGLISH BATTLES AND SIEGES IN THE PENINSULA.</b> By <span class="smcap">Lieut.-Gen. Sir +William Napier</span>, K.C.B. With Portrait.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In spite of the countless books which have appeared on the Peninsular +War, this great work has preserved its popularity as a standard book on +the subject for over half a century and still holds its own when most +rivals, which have appeared since, have faded into oblivion.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING.</b> By <span class="smcap">H. C. Barkley.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>"Should the reader know of a schoolboy fond of ratting, the proud +possessor possibly of a sharp terrier, and, maybe, a few ferrets, and +wish to bestow a present upon him, the memory of which would last +throughout his life, we could not do better than advise him to purchase +this most pleasantly-written book and bestow it upon him."—<i>Field.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.</b> By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">Charles Gore</span>, D.D., +LL.D., Bishop of Oxford.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The success of this book must constitute a record in modern sermonic +literature. There can be no question, however, that its success is due +to its own intrinsic value. Cultured and scholarly, and yet simple and +luminous, eloquent in tone and graceful in diction, practical and +stimulating, it is far and away the best exposition of the Sermon on the +Mount that has yet appeared.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE HOUSE OF QUIET.</b> An Autobiography. By <span class="smcap">A. C. Benson</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"The House of Quiet" is an autobiography, and something more—a series +of very charming essays on people and life—particularly rural life. The +writer has placed himself in the chair of an invalid, an individual +possessed of full mental vigour and free from bodily pain, but compelled +by physical weakness to shirk the rough and tumble of a careless, +unheeding, work-a-day world. Cheerfully accepting the inevitable, he +betakes himself to a little temple of solitude, where he indulges +himself in mild criticism and calm philosophy, exercising a gift of keen +observation to the full, but setting down all that comes within his ken, +with quaint and tolerant humour and tender whimsicalness. He writes with +a pen dipped in the milk of human kindness, and the result is a book to +read time and again.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE THREAD OF GOLD.</b> By <span class="smcap">A. C. Benson</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Guardian</i> says:—"The style of the writing is equally simple and +yet dignified; from beginning to end an ease of movement charms the +reader. The book is abundantly suggestive.... The work is that of a +scholar and a thinker, quick to catch a vagrant emotion, and should be +read, as it was evidently written, in leisure and solitude. It covers a +wide range—art, nature, country life, human character, poetry and the +drama, morals and religion."</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE.</b> From the 13th to the 16th Centuries. By +<span class="smcap">Julia Cartwright</span> (Mrs. <span class="smcap">Ady</span>). With Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Ady is a competent and gifted writer on Italian painting, and +presents in these 350 pages an excellent history of the splendid art and +artists of Florence during the golden period from Cimabue and Giotto to +Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo. Those who are taking up the study of +the subject could not wish for a more interesting and serviceable handbook.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.</b> By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Bishop</span> (<span class="smcap">Isabella L. +Bird</span>). With Illustrations.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Irish Times</i> says:—"'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains' needs +no introduction to a public who have known and admired Mrs. Bishop +(Isabella L. Bird) as a fearless traveller in the days when it was +something of an achievement for a woman to undertake long and remote +journeys. Mrs. Bishop is a charming and spirited writer, and this cheap +edition of her work will be heartily welcomed."</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE.</b> By <span class="smcap">William Garden Blaikie</span>. With +Portrait.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is the standard biography of the great missionary who will for ever +stand pre-eminent among African travellers.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Notwithstanding, by Mary Cholmondeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + +***** This file should be named 37781-h.htm or 37781-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/7/8/37781/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Notwithstanding + +Author: Mary Cholmondeley + +Release Date: October 17, 2011 [EBook #37781] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +NOTWITHSTANDING + +By MARY CHOLMONDELEY + +AUTHOR OF "RED POTTAGE" + + Und was + Ist Zufall anders, als der rohe Stein, + Der Leben annimmt unter Bildners Hand? + +LONDON: + +JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. + +1913 + + +_First Edition October 1913_ + +_Reprinted October 1913_ + +_All rights reserved_ + + +TO + +MAY AND JEANNIE + + + + +NOTWITHSTANDING + + + + +CHAPTER I + + "Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne + M'a rendu fou!" + VICTOR HUGO. + + +Annette leaned against the low parapet and looked steadfastly at the +water, so steadfastly that all the brilliant, newly-washed, +tree-besprinkled city of Paris, lying spread before her, cleft by the +wide river with its many bridges, was invisible to her. She saw nothing +but the Seine, so tranquil yesterday, and to-day chafing beneath its +bridges and licking ominously round their great stone supports--because +there had been rain the day before. + +The Seine was the only angry, sinister element in the suave September +sunshine, and perhaps that was why Annette's eyes had been first drawn +to it. She also was angry, with the deep, still anger which invades once +or twice in a lifetime placid, gentle-tempered people. + +Her dark eyes under their long curled lashes looked down over the stone +bastion of the Pont Neuf at a yellow eddy just below her. They were +beautiful eyes, limpid, deep, with a certain tranquil mystery in them. +But there was no mystery in them at this moment. They were fixed, +dilated, desperate. + +Annette was twenty-one, but she looked much younger, owing to a certain +slowness of development, an immaturity of mind and body. She reminded +one not of an opening flower, but of a big, loose-limbed colt, ungainly +still, but every line promising symmetry and grace to come. She was not +quite beautiful yet, but that clearly was also still to come, when life +should have had time to erase a certain ruminative stolidity from her +fine, still countenance. One felt that in her schoolroom days she must +have been often tartly desired not to "moon." She gave the impression of +not having wholly emerged from the chrysalis, and her bewildered face, +the face of a dreamer, wore a strained expression, as if some cruel hand +had mockingly rent asunder the veils behind which her life had been +moving and growing so far, and had thrust her, cold and shuddering, with +unready wings, into a world for which she was not fully equipped. + +And Annette, pale gentle Annette, standing on the threshold of life, +unconsciously clutching an umbrella and a little handbag, was actually +thinking of throwing herself into the water! + +Not here, of course, but lower down, perhaps near St. Germains. No, not +St. Germains,--there were too many people there,--but Melun, where the +Seine was fringed thick with reeds and rushes, where in the dusk a +determined woman might wade out from the bank till the current took her. + +The remembrance of a certain expedition to Melun rose suddenly before +her. In a kind of anguish she saw again its little red and white houses, +sprinkled on the slope of its low hill, and the river below winding +between its willows and poplars, amid meadows of buttercups, scattered +with great posies of maythorn. She and he had sat together under one of +the may trees, and Mariette, poor Mariette, with Antoine at her feet, +had sat under another close at hand. And Mariette had sung in her thin, +reedy voice the song with its ever-recurring refrain-- + + + "Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne + Me rendra fou, oui, me rendra fou." + + +Annette shuddered and then was still. + +It must have been a very deep wound, inflicted with a jagged instrument, +which had brought her to this pass, which had lit this stony defiance in +her soft eyes. For though it was evident that she had rebelled against +life, it was equally evident that she was not of the egotistic +temperament of those who rebel or cavil, or are discontented. She looked +equable, feminine, the kind of woman who would take life easily, bend to +it naturally, + + + "As the grass grows on the weirs"; + + +who might, indeed, become a tigress in defence of her young, but then +what woman would not? + +But it is not only in defence of its babes of flesh and blood that the +protective fierceness of woman can be aroused. There are spiritual +children, ideals, illusions, romantic beliefs in others, the +cold-blooded murder of which arouses the tigress in some women. Perhaps +it had been so with Annette. For the instinct to rend and tear was upon +her, and it had turned savagely against herself. + +Strange how in youth our first crushing defeat in the experiment of +living brings with it the temptation of suicide! Did we then imagine, in +spite of all we saw going on round us, that life was to be easy for +_us_, painless for _us_, joyful for _us_, so that the moment the iron +enters our soul we are so affronted that we say, "If this is life, we +will have none of it"? + +Several passers-by had cast a backward glance at Annette. Presently some +one stopped, with a little joyous exclamation. She was obliged to raise +her eyes and return his greeting. + +She knew him, the eccentric, rich young Englishman who rode his own +horses under a French name which no one believed was his own. He often +came to her father's cabaret in the Rue du Bac. + +"Good morning, mademoiselle." + +"Good morning, M. Le Geyt." + +He came and leaned on the parapet beside her. + +"Are you not riding to-day?" + +"Riding to-day! Ride on the Flat! Is it likely? Besides, I had a fall +yesterday schooling. My neck is stiff." + +He did not add that he had all but broken it. Indeed, it was probable +that he had already forgotten the fact. + +He looked hard at her with his dancing, irresponsible blue eyes. He had +the good looks which he shared with some of his horses, of extreme high +breeding. He was even handsome in a way, with a thin, reckless, trivial +face, and a slender, wiry figure. He looked as light as a leaf, and as +if he were being blown through life by any chance wind, the wind of his +own vagaries. + +His manner had just the shade of admiring familiarity which to some men +seems admissible to the pretty daughter of a disreputable old innkeeper. + +He peered down at the river, and then at the houses crowding along its +yellow quays, mysterious behind their paint as a Frenchwoman behind her +pomade and powder. + +Then he looked back at her with mock solemnity. + +"I see nothing," he said. + +"What did you expect to see?" + +"Something that had the honour of engaging your attention completely." + +"I was looking at the water." + +"Just so. But why?" + +She paused a moment, and then said, without any change of voice-- + +"I was thinking of throwing myself in." + +Their eyes met--his, foolhardy, inquisitive, not unkindly; hers, sombre, +sinister, darkened. + +The recklessness in both of them rushed out and joined hands. + +He laughed lightly. + +"No, no," he said, "sweet Annette--lovely Annette. The Seine is not for +you. So you have quarrelled with Falconhurst already. He has managed +very badly. Or did you find out that he was going to be married? I knew +it, but I did not say. Never mind. If he is, it doesn't matter. And if +he isn't, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters." + +"You are right. Nothing matters," said Annette. Her face, always pale, +had become livid. + +His became suddenly alert, flushed, as hers paled. He sighted a possible +adventure. Excitement blazed up in his light eyes. + +"One tear," he said, "yes,--you may shed one tear. But the Seine! No. +The Seine is made up of all the tears which women have shed for men--men +of no account, worthless wretches like Falconhurst and me. You must not +add to that great flood. Leave off looking at the water, Annette. It is +not safe for you to look at it. Look at me instead. And listen to what I +am saying. You are not listening." + +"Yes, I am." + +"I'm going down to Fontainebleau for a bit. The doctor says I must get +out of Paris and keep quiet, or I shan't be able to ride at Auteuil. I +don't believe a word he says, croaking old woman! But--hang it all, I'm +bound to ride Sam Slick at Auteuil. Kirby can look after the string +while I'm at Fontainebleau. I'm going there this afternoon. Come with +me. I am not much, but I am better than the Seine. My kisses will not +choke the life out of you, as the Seine's will. We will spend a week +together, and talk matters over, and sit in the sun, and at the end of +it we shall both laugh--_how_ we shall laugh--when you remember this." +And he pointed to the swirling water. + +A thought slid through Annette's mind like a snake through grass. + +"_He_ will hear of it. He is sure to hear of it. That will hurt him +worse than if I were drowned." + +"I don't care what I do," she said, meeting his eyes without flinching. +It was he who for a moment winced when he saw the smouldering flame in +them. + +He laughed again, the old light, inconsequent laugh which came to him so +easily, with which he met good and bad fortune alike. + +"When you are as old as I am," he said not unkindly, "you will do as I +am doing now, take the good the gods provide you, and trouble your mind +about nothing else. For there's nothing in the world or out of it that +is worth troubling about. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing." + +"Nothing," echoed Annette hoarsely. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + "Et partout le spectre de l'amour, + Et nullepart l'amour." + + +The train was crawling down to Fontainebleau. Annette sat opposite her +companion, looking not at him but at the strange country through which +they were going. How well she knew it! How often she had gone down to +Fontainebleau. But to-day all the familiar lines were altered. The +townlets, up to their eyes in trees, seemed alien, dead. Presently the +forest, no longer fretted by the suburbs, came close up on both sides of +the rail. What had happened to the oaks that they seemed drawn up in +serried lines to watch her pass, like soldiers at a funeral! A cold +horror brooded over everything. She looked at her companion and withdrew +her eyes. He had said he was better than the Seine. But now she came to +meet his eyes fixed on her, was he better? She was not sure. She was not +sure of anything, except that life was unendurable and that she did not +care what happened to her. + +There had been sordid details, and there would be more. He had said it +would be better if she had a wedding ring, and he had bought her one. +The shopman had smiled offensively as he had found one to fit her. She +set her teeth at the remembrance. But she would go through with it. She +did not care. There was nothing left in the world to care about. It was +Dick Le Geyt who, thoughtless as he was, had shown some little thought +for her, had taken her to a restaurant and obliged her to eat, had put +her into the train, and then had waylaid and dismissed his valet, who +brought his luggage to the station, and who seemed at first determined +not to let his master go without him, indeed was hardly to be shaken +off, until Dick whispered something to him, when the man shrugged his +shoulders and turned away. + +Annette looked again at her companion. He had fallen suddenly asleep, +his mouth ajar. How old and shrunk and battered he looked, and how +strangely pinched! There was something unnatural about his appearance. A +horrible suspicion passed through her mind that he had been drinking. +She suddenly remembered that she had once heard a rumour of that kind +about him, and that he had lost a race by it. She had to waken him when +they reached Fontainebleau, and then, after a moment's bewilderment, he +resumed all his alertness and feather-headed promptitude. + +Presently she was in a bedroom in an old-fashioned inn, and was looking +out of the window at a little garden, with tiny pebbled walks, and a +fountain, and four stunted, clipped acacia trees. + +The hotel was quite full. She had been asked some question as to whether +the room would do, and she had said it would. She had hardly glanced at +it. It was the only room to be had. And Dick's luggage was carried up to +it. The hotel-people took for granted his baggage was hers as well as +his. She remembered that she had none, and smoothed her hair +mechanically with her hands, while an admiring little chamber-maid +whisked in with hot water. + +And presently, in the hot, tawdry salle a manger, there was a meal, and +she was sitting at a little table with Dick, and all the food was +pretence, like the tiny wooden joints and puddings in her doll's house +which she used to try to eat as a child. These were larger, and she +tried to eat them, but she could not swallow anything. She wondered how +the others could. And the electric light flickered, and once it went +out, and Dick laughed. And he ordered champagne for her and made her +drink some. And then, though he said he must not touch it, he drank some +himself, and became excited, and she was conscious that a spectacled +youth with projecting teeth turned to look at them. There was a +grey-haired Englishwoman sitting alone at the nearest table. Annette saw +her eyes rest on her for a moment with veiled compassion. + +All her life afterwards, she remembered that evening as a nightmare. But +it was not a nightmare at the time. She was only an on-looker: a dazed, +callous spectator of something grotesque which did not affect her--a +mirthless, sordid farce which for some obscure forgotten reason it was +necessary for her to watch. That she was herself the principal actor in +the farce, and that the farce had the makings of a tragedy, did not +occur to her. She was incapable of action and of thought. + +Later in the evening she was in her bedroom again, sitting with her +hands in her lap, vacantly staring at the wall with its mustard-coloured +roses on a buff ground, when two grinning waiters half carried, half +hustled in Dick, gesticulating and talking incoherently. They helped him +into bed: the elder one waited a moment, arms a-kimbo, till Dick fell +suddenly asleep, and then said cheerfully and reassuringly-- + +"C'est ca, madame," and withdrew. + +Annette got up instinctively to go too, but she remembered that she had +nowhere to go, that it was close on midnight, that she was in her own +room with which she had expressed herself satisfied, that she and her +companion were passing at the hotel as husband and wife. She felt no +horror, no sense of the irremediable folly she had committed. She stood +a moment, and then drew the curtain and sat down by the window, looking +out, as she had sat all the previous night in her little bedroom in her +father's cabaret, out of which she had slunk like a thief as soon as it +was light. Her spellbound faculties were absorbed in one mental +picture, which was to her the only reality, as the cobra is the only +reality to the dove. She forgot where she was. She forgot the heavy +breathing of her companion, stirring uneasily in his sleep. She saw +only, as she had seen all day, the smoking, hideous ruin of that +wonderful castle of dreams which she had built stone by stone during the +last year, into the secret chamber of which she had walled up that shy, +romantic recluse her heart: that castle of dreams in which she paced on +a rainbow mosaic, which she had tapestried with ideals and prayers and +aspirations, in the midst of which there was a shrine. + +There was nothing left of it now, worse than nothing, only a smoking, +evil-smelling hump of debris, with here and there a flapping rag of what +had once been stately arras or cloth of gold. It had reeled and crashed +down into the slime in a moment's space. The thunder of its fall had +deafened her to all other noises; its smoke had blinded her to all other +sights. Oh! why had she let herself be dissuaded from her only refuge +against this unendurable vision seared in upon her brain? It had been +agony. It would be agony again. If Dick had let her alone, she would be +at rest now, quite away from it all, her body floating down to the sea +in the keeping of the kind, cool river, and her outraged soul +escaped--escaped. + +But she would do it still. She would creep away a second time at dawn, +as soon as the house was stirring. There must be a river somewhere--if +not a big river, a little one with deep pools. She would find it. And +this time she would not let herself be dissuaded. This time she would +drown herself, if the water were only knee-deep. And her mind being made +up, she gave a little sigh, and leaned her aching forehead against the +glass. + +The man in the bed stirred, and feebly stammered out the word "Annette" +once and again. But Annette did not hear him, and after a time he +muttered and moved no more. + +And when the dawn came up at last, it found Annette, who had watched for +it wide-eyed all night, sunk down asleep, with her head upon the sill. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + "Vous etes bien pale, ma belle, + Comment vous appelez-vous? + Je suis l'amante, dit-elle. + Cueillez la branche de houx." + + +Annette stirred at last when a shaft of sunlight fell upon her head. She +sat up stiffly, and stared round the unfamiliar chamber, with the low +sun slanting across the floor and creeping up the bottom of the door. +Nothing stirred. A chill silence made itself felt. The room seemed to be +aware of something, to be beforehand with her. Some nameless instinct +made her get up suddenly and go to the bed. + +Dick Le Geyt was lying on his back, with his eyes wide open. There was a +mute appeal in his sharp-featured face, sharper featured than ever +before, and in his thin outstretched hands, with the delicate nervous +fingers crooked. He had needed help, and he had not found it. He had +perhaps called to her, and she had not listened. She had been deaf to +everything except herself. A sword seemed to pierce Annette's brain. It +was as if some tight bandage were cleft and violently riven from it. She +came shuddering to herself from out of the waking swoon of the last two +days. Hardly knowing what she did, she ran out of the room and into the +passage. But it must be very early yet. No one was afoot. What to do +next? She must rouse some one, and at once. But whom? She was about to +knock at the nearest door, when she heard a hurried movement within, and +the door opened. + +A grey-haired woman in a dressing-gown looked out, the same whom she had +seen the night before at dinner. + +"I thought I heard some one call," she said. "Is anything wrong?" Then, +as Annette leaned trembling against the wall, "Can I be of any use?" + +Annette pointed to her own open door, and the woman went in with her at +once. + +She hastened instantly to the bed and bent over it. She touched the +forehead, the wrist, with rapid, business-like movements. She put her +hand upon Dick's heart. + +"Is he dead?" asked Annette. + +"No," she said, "but he is unconscious, and he is very ill. It is some +kind of seizure. When did your husband become like this?" + +"I--don't know," said Annette. + +The woman turned indignantly upon her. + +"You don't know! Yet surely you sat up with him? You look as if you had +been up all night." + +"I sat up, but I did not look at him," said Annette. "I never thought he +was ill." + +The elder woman's cheek reddened at the callousness of Annette's words, +as at a blow. She was silent for a moment, and then said coldly-- + +"We have only one thing to think of now, and that is how to save his +life, if it can be saved." + +And in a moment, as it seemed to Annette, the house was awakened, and a +doctor and a Sister of Mercy appeared and were installed at Dick's +bedside. After a few hours, consciousness came back intermittently; but +Dick, so excitable the day before, took but little heed of what went on +around him. When, at the doctor's wish, Annette spoke to him, he looked +at her without recognition. + +The doctor was puzzled, and asked her many questions as to his condition +on the previous day. She remembered that he had had a fall from his +horse a day or two before, and had hurt his neck; and the doctor +established some mysterious link between the accident and the illness, +which he said had been terribly aggravated by drink. Had Monsieur taken +much stimulant the night before? Yes, Monsieur had appeared to be +intoxicated. + +Mrs. Stoddart's steel eyes softened somewhat as she looked at Annette. +She and the doctor noticed the extreme exhaustion from which she was +suffering, and exchanged glances. Presently Mrs. Stoddart took the girl +to her own room, and helped her to undress, and made her lie down on her +bed. + +"I will bring you your dressing-gown, if you will tell me where it is." + +"I don't know," said Annette; and then she recollected, and said, "I +haven't any things with me." + +"Not even a handkerchief?" + +"I think not a handkerchief." + +"How long is it since you have slept?" + +"I don't know." These words seemed her whole stock-in-trade. + +Mrs. Stoddart frowned. + +"I can't have you ill on my hands too," she said briskly; "one is +enough." And she left the room, and presently came back with a glass +with a few drops in it. She made Annette swallow them, and put a warm +rug over her, and darkened the room. + +And presently Annette's eyes closed, and the anguish of the last two +days was lifted from her, as a deft hand lifts a burden. She sighed and +leaned her cheek against a pillow which was made of rest; and presently +she was wandering in a great peace in a wide meadow beside a little +stream whispering among its forget-me-nots. And across the white clover, +and the daisies, and the little purple orchids, came the feet of one who +loved her. And they walked together beside the stream, the kind, +understanding stream, he and she--he and she together. And all was well, +all was well. + + +Many hours later, Mrs. Stoddart and the doctor came and looked at her, +and he thrust out his under lip. + +"I can't bear to wake her," she said. + +"One little half-hour, then," he said, and went back to the next room. + +Mrs. Stoddart sat down by the bed, and presently Annette, as if +conscious of her presence, opened her eyes. + +"I see now," she said slowly, looking at Mrs. Stoddart with the fixed +gravity of a child, "I was wrong." + +"How wrong, my dear?" + +"Rivers are not meant for that, nor the little streams either. They are +not meant to drown oneself in. They are meant to run and run, and for us +to walk beside, and pick forget-me-nots." + +Mrs. Stoddart's scrutinizing eyes filled with sudden tears. What tragedy +was this into which she had thrust herself? She drew back the curtain, +and let the afternoon light fall on Annette's face. Her eyelids +trembled, and into her peaceful, rapt face distress crept slowly back. +Mrs. Stoddart felt as if she had committed a crime. But there was +another to think of besides Annette. + +"You have slept?" + +"Yes. I ought not to have gone to sleep while Dick was ill." + +"You needed sleep." + +"Is--is he better?" + +"He is somewhat better." + +"I will go to him." + +"He does not need you just now." + +"Has the doctor found out what is the matter with him?" + +"He thinks he has." Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly. "As far as I +understand, there is a cerebral lesion, and it is possible that it may +not be as serious as he thought at first. It may have been aggravated +for the moment by drink, the effects of which are passing off. But there +is always the risk--in this case a great risk--that the injury to the +brain may increase. In any case, his condition is very grave. His family +ought to be communicated with at once." + +Annette stared at her in silence. + +"They _must_ be summoned," said Mrs. Stoddart. + +"But I don't know who they are," said Annette. "I don't even know his +real name. He is called Mr. Le Geyt. It is the name he rides under." + +Mrs. Stoddart reddened. She had had her doubts. + +"A wife should know her husband's name," she said. + +"But, you see, I'm not his wife." + +There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Stoddart's eyes fell on Annette's +wedding ring. + +"That is nothing," said Annette. "Dick said I had better have one, and +he bought it in a shop before we started. I think I'll take it off. I +hate wearing it." + +"No, no. Keep it on." + +There was another silence. + +"But you must know his address." + +"No. I know he is often in Paris. But I have only met him at--at a +cabaret." + +"Could you trust me?" said Mrs. Stoddart humbly. + +Annette trembled, and her face became convulsed. + +"You are very kind," she said, "very kind,--getting the nurse, and +helping, and this nice warm rug, and everything,--but I'm afraid I can't +trust anyone any more. I've left off trusting people." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + "Et je m'en vais + Au vent mauvais + Qui m'emporte + Deca, dela, + Pareille a la + Feuille morte." + VERLAINE. + + +It was the second day of Dick's illness. Annette's life had revived +somewhat, though the long sleep had not taken the strained look from her +eyes. But Mrs. Stoddart's fears for her were momentarily allayed. Tears +were what she needed, and tears were evidently a long way off. + +And Annette fought for the life of poor Dick as if he were indeed her +bridegroom, and Mrs. Stoddart abetted her as if he were her only son. +The illness was incalculable, abnormal. There were intervals of lucidity +followed by long lapses into unconsciousness. There were hours in which +he seemed to know them, but could neither speak nor move. There were +times when it appeared as if the faint flame of life had flickered quite +out, only to waver feebly up again. + +Together the two women had searched every article of Dick's effects, but +they could find no clue to his address or identity. Annette remembered +that he had had a pocket-book, and seeing him take a note out of it to +pay for the tickets. But the pocket-book could not be found, or any +money. It was evident that he had been robbed that first evening when he +was drinking. Some of his handkerchiefs were marked with four initials, +R. L. G. M. + +"Richard Le Geyt M. Then he had another name as well," said Mrs. +Stoddart. "You can't recall having ever heard it?" + +Annette shook her head. + +"He is supposed to be an English lord," she said, "and very rich. And he +rides his own horses, and makes and loses a great deal of money on the +turf. And he is peculiar--very depressed one year, and very wild the +next. That is all that people like us who are not his social equals know +of him." + +"I do not even know what _your_ name is," said Mrs. Stoddart +tentatively, as she rearranged Dick's clothes in the drawers, and took +up a bottle of lotion which had evidently been intended for his strained +neck. + +"My name is Annette." + +"Well, Annette, I think the best thing you can do is to write to your +home and say that you are coming back to it immediately." + +"I have no home." + +Mrs. Stoddart was silent. Any information which Annette vouchsafed about +herself always seemed to entail silence. + +"I have made up my mind," Annette went on, "to stay with Dick till he +is better. He is the only person I care a little bit about." + +"No, Annette, you do not care for him. It is remorse for your neglect of +him that makes you nurse him with such devotion." + +"I do not love him," said Annette. "But then, how could I? I hardly know +him. But he meant to be kind to me. He was the only person who was kind. +He tried to save me, though not in the right way. Poor Dick, he does not +know much. But I must stay and nurse him till he is better. I can't +desert him." + +"My dear," said Mrs. Stoddart impatiently, "that is all very well, but +you cannot remain here without a scandal. It is different for an old +woman like myself. And though we have not yet got into touch with his +family, we shall directly. If I can't get a clue otherwise, I shall +apply to the police. You must think of your own character." + +"I do not care about my character," said Annette in the same tone in +which she might have said she did not care for black coffee. + +"But I do," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself. + +"And I have a little money," Annette continued,--"at least, not much +money, only a few louis,--but I have these." And she drew out from her +neck a row of pearls. They were not large pearls, but they were even and +beautifully matched. + +"They were mother's," she said. "They will be enough for the doctor and +the nurse and the hotel bill, won't they?" + +Mrs. Stoddart put down the bottle of lotion and took the pearls in her +hand, and bent over them, trying to hide her amazement. + +"They are very good," she said slowly,--"beautiful colour and shape." +Then she raised her eyes, and they fell once more on the bottle. + +"But what am I thinking of?" she said sharply. "There is the clue I need +staring me in the face. How incredibly stupid I am! There is the Paris +chemist's name on it, and the number of the prescription. I can wire to +him for the address to which he sent the bottle." + +"Dick has a valet at his address," said Annette, "and of course he would +know all about his people." + +"How do you know he has a valet?" + +"He met Dick at the station with the luggage. He was to have come to +Fontainebleau with him, but Dick sent him back at the last moment, I +suppose because of--me." + +"Would you know him again if you saw him?" + +"Yes. I watched Dick talking to him for several minutes. He would not go +away at first. Perhaps he knew Dick was ill and needed care." + +"Most likely. Did he see you?" + +"No." + +"Are you certain?" + +"Quite certain." + +"There is then one microscopic mercy to be thankful for. Then no one +knows that you are here with Mr. Le Geyt?" + +"No one, but I dare say it will be known presently," said Annette +apathetically. + +"Not if I can prevent it," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself as she put on +her pince-nez and went out to telegraph to the chemist. + +Annette went back to the bedside, and the Sister withdrew to the window +and got out her breviary. + +Annette sat down and leaned her tired head against the pillow with +something like envy of Dick's unconsciousness. Would a certain hideous +picture ever be blotted out from her aching brain? Her only respite from +it was when she could minister to Dick. He was her sole link with life, +the one fixed point in a shifting quicksand. She came very near to +loving him in these days. + +Presently he stirred and sighed, and opened his eyes. They wandered to +the ceiling, and then fell idly on her without knowing her, as they had +done a hundred times. Then recognition slowly dawned in them, clear and +grave. + +She raised her head, and they looked long at each other. + +"Annette," he said in a whisper, "I am sorry." + +She tried to speak, but no words came. + +"Often, often, when I have been lying here," he said feebly, "I have +been sorry, but I could never say so. Just when I saw your face clear I +always went away again, a long way off. Would you mind holding my hand, +so that I may not be blown away again?" + +She took it in both of hers and held it. + +There was a long silence. A faint colour fluttered in his leaden cheek. + +"I never knew such a wind," he said. "It's stronger than anything in the +world, and it blows and blows, and I go hopping before it like a leaf. I +have to go. I really can't stay." + +"You are much better. You will soon be able to get up." + +"I don't know where I'm going, but I don't care. I don't want to get up. +I'm tired--tired." + +"You must not talk any more." + +"Yes, I must. I have things to say. You are holding my hand tight, +Annette?" + +"Yes. Look, I have it safe in mine." + +"I ought not to have brought you here. You were in despair, and I took +advantage of it. Can you forgive me, Annette?" + +"Dear Dick, there is nothing to forgive. I was more to blame than you." + +"It was instead of the Seine. That was the excuse I made to myself. But +the wind blows it away. It blows everything away--everything, +everything.... Don't be angry again like that, Annette. Promise me you +won't. You were too angry, and I took a mean advantage of it.... I once +took advantage of a man's anger with a horse, but it brought me no +luck. I thought I wouldn't do it again, but I did. And I haven't got +much out of it this time either. I'm dying, or something like it. I'm +going away for good and all. I'm so tired I don't know how I shall ever +get there." + +"Rest a little, Dick. Don't talk any more now." + +"I want to give you a tip before I go. An old trainer put me up to it, +and he made me promise not to tell anyone, and I haven't till now. But I +want to do you a good turn to make up for the bad one. He said he'd +never known it fail, and I haven't either. I've tried it scores of +times. When you're angry, Annette, look at a cloud." Dick's blue eyes +were fixed with a great earnestness on hers. "Not just for a minute. +Choose a good big one, like a lot of cotton wool, and go on looking at +it while it moves. And the anger goes away. Sounds rot, doesn't it? But +you simply can't stay angry. Seems as if everything were too small and +footling to matter. Try it, Annette. Don't look at water any more. +That's no use. But a cloud--the bigger the better.... You won't drown +yourself now, will you?" + +"No." + +"Annette rolling down to the sea over and over, knocking against the +bridges. I can't bear to think of it. Promise me." + +"I promise." + +He sighed, and his hand fell out of hers. She laid it down. The great +wind of which he spoke had taken him once more, whither he knew not. +She leaned her face against the pillow and longed that she too might be +swept away whither she knew not. + +The doctor came in and looked at them. + +"Are his family coming soon?" he asked Mrs. Stoddart afterwards. "And +Madame Le Geyt! Can Madame's mother be summoned? There has been some +great shock. Her eyes show it. It is not only Monsieur who is on the +verge of the precipice." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + "And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave + Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave + To waste in foam." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Towards evening Dick regained consciousness. + +"Annette." That was always the first word. + +"Here." That was always the second. + +"I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never +find it, but I had to come." + +He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it. + +"You must help me. I have no one but you." + +His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to +his. They were like two shipwrecked people--were they not indeed +shipwrecked?--cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of +the sea. + +"What can I do?" she said. "Tell me, and I will do it." + +"I have made no provision for Mary or--the little one. I promised her I +would when it was born. But I haven't done it. I thought of it when I +fell on my head. But when I was better next day I put it off. I always +put things off.... And it's not only Mary. There's Hulver, and the +Scotch property, and all the rest. If I die without making a will it +will all go to poor Harry." He was speaking rapidly, more to himself +than to her. "And when father was dying he said, 'Roger ought to have +it.' Father was a just man. And I like Roger, and he's done his duty by +the place, which I haven't. He _ought_ to have it. Annette, help me to +make my will. I was on my way to the lawyer's to make it when I met you +on the bridge." + + +Half an hour later, in the waning day, the notary arrived, and Dick made +his will in the doctor's presence. His mind was amazingly clear. + +"Is he better?" asked Mrs. Stoddart of the doctor, as she and the nurse +left the room. + +"Better! It is the last flare up of the lamp," said the doctor. "He is +right when he says he shan't get back here again. He is riding his last +race, but he is riding to win." + +Dick rode for all he was worth, and urged the doctor to help him, to +keep his mind from drifting away into the unknown. + +The old doctor thrust out his under lip and did what he could. + +By Dick's wish, Annette remained in the room, but he did not need her. +His French was good enough. He knew exactly what he wanted. The notary +was intelligent, and brought with him a draft for Dick's signature. Dick +dictated and whispered earnestly to him. + +"Oui, oui," said the notary at intervals. "Parfaitement. Monsieur peut +se fier a moi." + +At last it was done, and Dick, panting, had made a kind of signature, +his writing dwindling down to a faint scrawl after the words "Richard Le +Geyt," which were fairly legible. + +The doctor attested it. + +"She must witness it too," said Dick insistently, pointing to Annette. + +The notary glanced at the will, realized that she was not a legatee, and +put the pen in her hand, showing her where to sign. + +"Madame will write here." + +He indicated the place under his own crabbed signature. + +She wrote mechanically her full name: _Annette Georges_. + +"But, madame," said the notary, bewildered, "is not then Madame's name +the same as Monsieur's?" + +"Madame is so lately married that she sometimes signs her old name by +mistake," said the doctor, smiling sadly. He took a pained interest in +the young couple, especially in Annette. + +"I am not Monsieur's wife," said Annette. + +The notary stared, bowed, and gathered up his papers. The doctor busied +himself with the sick man, spent and livid on his pillow. + +"Approach then, madame," he said, with a great respect. "It is you +Monsieur needs." And he withdrew with the notary. + +Annette groped her way to the bed. The room had become very dark. The +floor rose in long waves beneath her feet, but she managed to reach the +bed and sink down beside it. + +What matter now if she were tired. She had done what he asked of her. +She had not failed him. What matter if she sank deeper still, down and +down, as she was sinking now. + +"Annette." Dick's voice was almost extinct. + +"Here." + +"The wind is coming again. Across the sea, across the mountains, over +the plains. It is the wind of the desert. Can't you hear it?" + +She shook her head. She could hear nothing but his thin thread of voice. + +"I am going with it, and this time I shan't come back. Good-bye, +Annette." + +"Good-bye, Dick." + +His eyes dwelt on hers, with a mute appeal in them. The forebreath of +the abyss was upon him, the shadow of "the outer dark." + +She understood, and kissed him on the forehead with a great tenderness, +and leaned her cold cheek against his. + +And as she stooped she heard the mighty wind of which he spoke. Its +rushing filled her ears, it filled the little chamber where those two +poor things had suffered together, and had in a way ministered to each +other. + +And the sick-room with its gilt mirror and its tawdry wall-paper, and +the evil picture never absent from Annette's brain, stooped and blended +into one, and wavered together as a flame wavers in a draught, and then +together vanished away. + +"The wind is taking us both," Annette thought, as her eyes closed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + "I was as children be + Who have no care; + I did not think or sigh, + I did not sicken; + But lo, Love beckoned me, + And I was bare, + And poor and starved and dry, + And fever-stricken." + THOMAS HARDY. + + +It was five months later, the middle of February. Annette was lying in a +deck-chair by the tank in the shade of the orange trees. All was still, +with the afternoon stillness of Teneriffe, which will not wake up till +sunset. Even the black goats had ceased to bleat and ring their bells. +The hoopoe which had been saying Cuk--Cuk--Cuk all the morning in the +pepper tree was silent. The light air from the sea, bringing with it a +whiff as from a bride's bouquet, hardly stirred the leaves. The sunlight +trembled on the yellow stone steps, and on the trailing, climbing +bougainvillea which had flung its mantle of purple over the balustrade. +Through an opening in a network of almond blossom Annette could look +down across the white water-courses and green terraces to the little +town of Santa Cruz, lying glittering in the sunshine, with its yellow +and white and mauve walls and flat roofs and quaint cupolas, outlined as +if cut out in white paper, sharp white against the vivid blue of the +sea. + +A grey lizard came slowly out of a clump of pink verbena near the tank, +and spread itself in a patch of sunlight on a little round stone. +Annette, as she lay motionless with thin folded hands, could see the +pulse in its throat rise and fall as it turned its jewelled eyes now to +this side, now to that, considering her as gravely as she was +considering it. + +A footfall came upon the stone steps. The lizard did not move. It was +gone. + +Mrs. Stoddart, an erect lilac figure under a white umbrella, came down +the steps, with a cup of milk in her hand. Her forcible, incongruous +countenance, with its peaked, indomitable nose and small, steady, tawny +eyes under tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of having been knocked to +pieces at some remote period and carelessly put together again. No +feature seemed to fit with any other. If her face had not been held +together by a certain shrewd benevolence which was spread all over it, +she would have been a singularly forbidding-looking woman. + +Annette took the cup and began dutifully to sip it, while Mrs. Stoddart +sat down near her. + +"Do you see the big gold-fish?" Annette said. + +Her companion put up her pince-nez and watched him for a moment, +swimming lazily near the surface. + +"He seems much as usual," she said. + +"It is not my fault if he is. I threw a tiny bit of stick at him a few +minutes ago, and he bolted it at once; and then, just when I was +beginning to feel anxious, he spat it out again to quite a considerable +distance. He must have a very strong pop-gun in his inside." + +Mrs. Stoddart took the empty cup from her and put it down on the edge of +the tank. + +"You have one great quality, Annette," she said: "you are never bored." + +"How could I be, with so much going on round me? I have just had my +first interview with a lizard. And before that a mantis called upon me. +Look, there he is again, on that twig. Doesn't he look exactly like a +child's drawing of a dragon?" + +A hideous grey mantis, about three inches long, walked slowly down an +almond-blossomed branch. + +"He really walks with considerable dignity, considering his legs bend +the wrong way," said Mrs. Stoddart. "But I don't wish for his society." + +"Oh, don't you? Look! Now he is going to pray." + +And the mantis suddenly sat up and appeared to engage in prayer. + +Annette watched him, fascinated, until his orisons were over, and he +slowly went down again on all fours and withdrew himself into the +bougainvillea. + +Mrs. Stoddart looked searchingly at her, not without a certain pride. +She had still the bruised, sunken eyes of severe illness, and she rolled +them slowly at Mrs. Stoddart, at the mantis, at the sky, at everything +in turn, in a manner which exasperated the other occupants of the +pension--two ladies from Hampstead who considered her a mass of +affectation. The only thing about Annette which was beautiful was her +hands, which were transparent, blue-veined, ethereal. But her movements +with them also were so languid, so "studied," that it was impossible for +spectators as impartial as the Hampstead ladies not to deplore her +extreme vanity about them. To Mrs. Stoddart, who knew the signs of +illness, it was evident that she was still weak, but it was equally +evident that the current of health was surely flowing back. + +"I remember," said Mrs. Stoddart, "being once nearly bored to +extinction, not by an illness, but by my convalescence after it." + +"I have no time to be bored," said Annette, "even if there is no mantis +and no lizard. Since I have been better so many things come crowding +into my mind, that though I lie still all day I hardly have time to +think of them all. The day is never long enough for me." + +There was a short silence. + +"I often wonder," said Annette slowly, "about _you_." + +"About me?" + +"Yes. Why you do everything for me as if I were your own child, and most +of all why you never ask me any questions--why you never even hint to me +that it is my duty to tell you about myself." + +Mrs. Stoddart's eyes dropped. Her heart began to beat violently. + +"When you took charge of me you knew nothing of me except evil." + +"I knew the one thing needful." + +"What do you mean?" + +"That you were in trouble." + +"For a long time," said Annette, "I have been wanting to tell you about +myself, but I couldn't." + +"Don't tell me, if it distresses you." + +"Nothing distresses me now. The reason I could not was because for a +long time I did not rightly know how things were, or who I was. And I +saw everything distorted--horrible. It was as if I were too near, like +being in a cage of hot iron, and beating against the bars first on one +side and then on the other, till it seemed as if one went mad. You once +read me, long ago, that poem of Verlaine's ending 'Et l'oubli +d'ici-bas.' And I thought that was better than any of the promises in +the Bible which you read sometimes. I used to say it over to myself like +a kind of prayer: 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' That would be heaven--at +least, it would have been to me. But since I have got better everything +has gone a long way off--like that island." And she pointed to the Grand +Canary, lying like a cloud on the horizon. "I can bear to think about it +and to look at it." + +"I understand that feeling. I have known it." + +"It does not burn me now. I thought it would always burn while I lived." + +"That is the worst of pain--that one thinks it will never lessen. But it +does." + +"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little." + +And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at +twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we +can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem +to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we +realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our +hand, our part is to listen? + +Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long +time. + +And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge +of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the +only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some +disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a +French courier. + +"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that +home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if I could. I did once +as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green." + +"Then your mother died when you were quite small?" + +"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left +father--for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her +first--at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember +how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my +next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be +kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were +Nevills. It seems it is a very noble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill. +Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like +father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They +felt that." + +"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to +put on my clothes." + +"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!" + +"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't +mean only the aunts but--_others_, don't regard me as their equal, +or--or treat me so." + +She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on +quietly-- + +"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a +year, and I left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my +birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked +them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind +was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional +singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve." + +"Did they mind much?" + +"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished +that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so +amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt +Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not +been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I +should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of +all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did +not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt +Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie. +She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated +music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never +had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did +not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had +time--for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have +lived with Aunt Cathie. But existing in that house was like just not +suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me +the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that +little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I +had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He +had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a +cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, +till--last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so +unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry +primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I +never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money. +He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out +at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea +that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had +a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty +was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known +musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me +sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about +it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man +somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a +little bit I found he expected me to pay him another way, and I had to +give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, +and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, +and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites. +I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, +when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman +began to be very kind to me." + +Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed +a little. + +Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow butterfly came +floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, +hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two +ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine. + +Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close +and expand, and then rise and float away again. + +"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he +didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman--not like +father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed +honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was +young--not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was +unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him +after a little bit. At first I hung back, because I thought it was too +good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love +before. I fell in--very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, +for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a title--I +forget exactly what--when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind +of him not to mind the difference of rank.... I am sure you know what is +coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought +of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I +said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room +again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never +take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, +when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now I _shall_ have it +always." + +Annette passed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would +have outraged the other residents, and then went on:-- + +"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he +talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening +to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything +before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed. +Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long +field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he +said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to +show me his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did +not understand. And then--a few hours later--I had to understand +suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I +who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the +house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That +was why I told you I had no home to go to.... And I walked and walked in +the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At +last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood +stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat +still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had +fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a +stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of +me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that +jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I +might just as well go back and be his mistress--anybody's mistress: that +there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world. +Everything was a seething mass of immorality and putrefaction, and he +was only the same as all the rest.... And all the time I could hear the +river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite +say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, +and I had to go. And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to +the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont +Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself +there.... And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little--a very +little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was +going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and +advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And +I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I +thought--_he_--would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him." + +"You did not know what you were doing." + +"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again--I was not so silly as +_that_. It was only the accident of Dick's illness which prevented my +going wrong with him." + +Mrs. Stoddart started. + +"Then you never----" she said diffidently, but with controlled +agitation. + +"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all +these months believing the worst had happened--not because she was +concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I +could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so." + +"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you +mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it +the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions. +You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not." + +"I am." + +"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on +the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you." + +"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what +you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill." + +"You were absolutely desperate." + +"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. Dick said +that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came +out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent +to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands +moving some faggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, +a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from +under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I +had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened +her, and she thought they were coming for her young ones. And first she +spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of +dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, +the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the +little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay +in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound. +Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was +ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I +was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I +laughed at her at the time--just as Dick laughed at me. But I understand +her now--poor thing." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + "The larger the nature the less susceptible to personal injury." + + +It was a few days later. Annette, leaning on Mrs. Stoddart's arm, had +made a pilgrimage as far as the low garden wall to look at the little +golden-brown calf on the other side tethered to a twisted shrub of +plumbago, the blue flowers of which spread themselves into a miniature +canopy over him. Now she was lying back, exhausted but triumphant, in +her long chair, with Mrs. Stoddart knitting beside her. + +"I shall be walking up there to-morrow," she said audaciously, pointing +to the fantastic cactus-sprinkled volcanic hills rising steeply behind +the house on the northern side. + +Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would +allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have +been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and +light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact +that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, +so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike of the tallest +tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a +rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain. + +"You must own now that I am well," said Annette. + +"Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see +the Spanish women working in their white trousers." + +"My head never aches now." + +"That is a good thing." + +"Has the time come when I may ask a few questions?" + +Mrs. Stoddart hardly looked up from her knitting as she said +tranquilly-- + +"Yes, my child, if there is anything on your mind." + +"I suppose Dick Le Geyt is--dead. I felt sure he was dying that last day +at Fontainebleau. It won't be any shock to me to know that he is dead." + +"He is not dead." + +A swift glance showed Mrs. Stoddart that Annette was greatly surprised. + +"How is he?" she asked after a moment. "Did he really get well again? I +thought it was not possible." + +"It was not." + +"Then he is not riding again yet?" + +"No. I am afraid he will never ride again." + +"Then his back was really injured, after all?" + +"Yes. It was spinal paralysis." + +"He did enjoy life so," said Annette. "Poor Dick!" + +"I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. +He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was +affected, and it is only a question of time--a few months, a few years. +He does not suffer." + +"For a long time I thought he and I had died together." + +"You both all but died, Annette." + +"Where is he now?" + +"In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left." + +"I hope she seemed a kind woman." + +"She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's +valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and +me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as +dismissed me." + +"Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in +collusion with _me_. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle +of it, reached her at once." + +"No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone +down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle." + +"And where was I all the time?" + +"You were in the country, a few miles out of Fontainebleau, at a house +the doctor knew of. He helped me to move you there directly you became +unconscious. Until you fell ill you would not leave Mr. Le Geyt. It was +fortunate you were not there when his aunt arrived." + +"I should not have cared." + +"No. You were past caring about anything. You were not in your right +mind. But surely, Annette,"--Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly,--"you care +_now_?" + +Annette evidently turned the question over in her mind, and then looked +doubtfully at her friend. + +"I am grateful to you that I escaped the outside shame," she said. "But +that seems such a little thing beside the inside shame, that I could +have done as I did. I had been carefully brought up. I was what was +called _good_. And it was easy to me. I had never felt any temptation to +be otherwise, even in the irresponsible _milieu_ at father's, where +there was no morality to speak of. And yet--all in a minute--I could do +as--as I did, throw everything away which only just before I had guarded +with such passion. _He_ was bad, and father was bad. I see now that he +had sold me. But since I have been lying here I have come to see that I +was bad too. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. There was +nothing to choose between the three of us. Poor Dick with his +unpremeditated escapade was snow-white compared to us, the one kindly +person in the sordid drama of lust and revenge." + +"Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Stoddart. + +"As an unwise angel, I think, who snatched a brand from the burning." + +"You are the first person who has had the advantage of my acquaintance +who has called me unwise," said Mrs. Stoddart, with the grim, benevolent +smile which Annette had learnt to love. "And now you have talked enough. +The whole island is taking its siesta. It is time you took yours." + + +Mrs. Stoddart thought long over Annette and her future that night. She +had made every effort, left no stone unturned at Fontainebleau, to save +the good name which the girl had so recklessly flung away. When Annette +succumbed, Mrs. Stoddart, quick to see whom she could trust, confided to +the doctor that Annette was not Mr. Le Geyt's wife and appealed to him +for help. He gravely replied that he already knew that fact, but did not +mention how during the making of the will it had come to his knowledge. +He helped her to remove Annette instantly to a private lodging kept by +an old servant of his. There was no luggage to remove. When Mr. Le +Geyt's aunt and her own doctor arrived late that night, together with +Mr. Le Geyt's valet, Annette had vanished into thin air. Only Mrs. +Stoddart was there, and the nurse to hand over the patient, and to +receive the cautious, suspicious thanks of Lady Jane Cranbrook, who +continually repeated that she could not understand the delay in sending +for her. It was, of course, instantly known in the hotel that the pretty +lady who had nursed Monsieur so devotedly was not his wife, and that she +had fled at the approach of his family. Mrs. Stoddart herself left very +early next morning, before Lady Jane was up, after paying Annette's +hotel-bill as well as her own. She had heard since through the nurse +that Mr. Le Geyt, after asking plaintively for Annette once or twice, +had relapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which he lay day +after day, week after week. It seemed as if his mind had made one last +effort, and then had finally given up a losing battle. The stars in +their courses had fought for Annette, and Mrs. Stoddart had given them +all the aid she could, with systematic perseverance and forethought. + +She had obliged Annette to write to a friend in Paris as soon as she was +well enough, rather before she was well enough to hold a pen, telling +her she had been taken ill suddenly at Fontainebleau but was with a +friend, and asking her to pack her clothes for her and send them to her +at Melun. Later on, before embarking at Marseilles, she had made her +write a line to her father saying she was travelling with her friend +Mrs. Stoddart, and should not be returning to Paris for the present. +After a time, she made her resume communications with her aunts, and +inform them who she was travelling with and where she was. The aunts +wrote rather frigidly in return at first, but after a time became more +cordial, expressed themselves pleased that she was enjoying herself, and +opined that they had had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Stoddart's sister, +Lady Brandon. They were evidently delighted that she had left her +father, and even graciously vouchsafed fragments of information about +themselves. Aunt Maria had just brought out another book, _Crooks and +Coronets_, a copy of which found its way to Teneriffe. Aunt Harriet, the +invalid, had become a Christian Scientist. Aunt Catherine, the only +practical one of the family, had developed a weak heart. And they had +all decided to leave London, and were settling in a country farm in +Lowshire, where they had once spent a summer years before. + +Mrs. Stoddart with infinite care had re-established all the links +between Annette's past life and her present one. The hiatus, which after +all had only occupied six days, was invisible. Her success had +apparently been complete. + +"Only apparently," she said to herself. "Something may happen which I +cannot foresee. Mr. Le Geyt may get better, though they say he never +will; or at any rate he may get well enough to give her away, which he +would never do if he were in full possession of his faculties. Or that +French chamber-maid who was so endlessly kind may take service in +England, and run up against Annette; or the valet who, she says, did +not see her at the station, may have seen her after all, and may prove a +source of danger. Or, most likely of all, Annette may tell against +herself. She is quite capable of it." + +Next day she said to Annette-- + +"Remember your reputation is my property. You threw it away, and I +picked it up off the dunghill. It belongs to me absolutely. Now promise +me on your oath that you will never say anything about this episode in +your past to anyone, to any living creature except one--the man you +marry." + +"I would rather not promise that," said Annette. "I feel as if some time +or other I might have to say something. One never can tell." + +Mrs. Stoddart cast at her a lightning glance in which love and +perplexity were about evenly mixed. This strange creature amused and +angered her, and constantly aroused in her opposite feelings at the same +moment. The careful Scotchwoman felt a certain kindly scorn for +Annette's want of self-protective prudence and her very slight +realization of the dangers Mrs. Stoddart had worked so hard to avert. +But mixed in with the scorn was a pinch of respect for something +unworldly in Annette, uncalculating of her own advantage. She was +apparently one of that tiny band who are not engrossed by the duty of +"looking after Number One." + +Mrs. Stoddart, who was not easily nonplussed, decided to be wounded. + +"You are hard to help, Annette," she said. "I do what I can for you, and +you often say how much it is, and yet you can tranquilly talk of all my +work being thrown away by some chance word of yours which you won't even +promise not to say." + +Annette was startled. + +"I had not meant that," she said humbly. "I will promise anything you +wish!" + +"No, my dear, no," said Mrs. Stoddart, ashamed of her subterfuge and its +instant success. "I was unreasonable. Promise me instead that, except to +the man you are engaged to, you will never mention this subject to +anyone without my permission." + +"I promise," said Annette. + +And Mrs. Stoddart, who never kissed anyone if she could help it, kissed +her on the forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + "Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can + turn my steps."--KOLTSOV. + + +It was the middle of April. The ginger tree had at last unsheathed the +immense buds which it had been guarding among its long swordlike leaves, +and had hung out its great pink and white blossoms at all their length. +The coffee trees had mingled with their red berries the dearest little +white wax flowers. The paradise tree which Annette had been watching day +by day had come out in the night. And this morning, among its +innumerable hanging golden balls, were cascades of five-leaved white +stars with violet centres. + +Annette was well again, if so dull and tame a word can be used to +describe the radiance which health had shed upon her, and upon the +unfolding, petal by petal, of her beauty. The long rest, the slow +recovery, the immense peace which had enfolded her life for the first +time, the grim, tender "mothering" of Mrs. Stoddart, had all together +fostered and sustained her. Her life, cut back to its very root by a +sharp frost, had put out a superb new shoot. Her coltishness and a +certain heavy, naive immaturity had fallen from her. Her beauty had +shaken them off and stood clear of them, and Mrs. Stoddart recognized, +not without anxiety, that the beauty which was now revealed was great. +But in the process of her unduly delayed and then unduly forced +development it was plain that she had lost one thing which would have +made her mother's heart ache if she had been alive. Annette had lost her +youth. She was barely twenty-two, but she had the dignity and the +bearing of a woman of thirty. Mrs. Stoddart watched her standing, a +gracious slender figure in her white gown under the paradise tree, with +a wild baby-canary in the hollow of her hands, coaxing it to fly back to +its parents, calling shrilly to it from a neighbouring thicket of +lemon-coloured honeysuckle. She realized the pitfalls that lie in wait +for persons as simple and as inapprehensive as Annette, especially when +they are beautiful as well, and she sighed. + +Presently the baby-canary fluttered into the honeysuckle, and Annette +walked down the steep garden path to meet Victor the butler, who could +be seen in the distance coming slowly on the donkey up the white high +road from Santa Cruz, with the letters. + +Mrs. Stoddart sighed again. She had safeguarded Annette's past, but how +about her future? She had pondered long over it, which Annette did not +seem to do at all. Teneriffe was becoming too hot. The two ladies from +Hampstead had already gone, much mollified towards Annette, and even +anxious to meet her again, and attributing her more alert movements and +now quite unrolling eyes to the fact that they had made it clear they +would not stand any nonsense, or take "airs" from anyone. Mrs. Stoddart +was anxious to get home to London to her son, her one son Mark. But what +would happen to Annette when they left Teneriffe? She would gladly have +kept her as her companion till she married,--for, of course, she would +marry some day,--but there was Mark to be considered. She could not +introduce Annette into her household without a vehement protest from +Mark to start with, who would probably end by falling in love with her. +It was hopeless to expect that Annette would take an interest in any man +for some time to come. Would she be glad or sorry if Annette eventually +married Mark? She came to the conclusion that in spite of all the +drawbacks of Annette's parentage and the Le Geyt episode, she would +rather have her as her daughter-in-law than anyone. But there was Mark +to be reckoned with, a very uncertain quantity. She did not know how he +would regard that miserable episode, and she decided that she would not +take the responsibility of throwing him and Annette together. + +Then what was to be done? Mrs. Stoddart had got through her own troubles +with such assiduous determination earlier in life that she was now +quite at liberty to attend to those of others, and she gave a close +attention to Annette's. + +She need not have troubled her mind, for Annette was coming towards her +up the steep path between the high hedges of flowering geraniums with a +sheaf of letters in her hand, and her future neatly mapped out in one of +them. + +She sat down at Mrs. Stoddart's feet in the dappled shade under the +scarlet-flowering pomegranate tree, and they both opened their letters. +Annette had time to read her two several times while Mrs. Stoddart +selected one after another from her bundle. Presently she gave an +exclamation of surprise. + +"Mark is on his way here. He will be here directly. Let me see, the +_Fuerstin_ is due to-morrow or next day. He sends this by the English +mail to warn me. He has not been well, overworked, and he is coming out +for the sake of the sea-journey and to take me home." + +Mrs. Stoddart's shrewd eyes shone. A faint colour came to her thin +cheeks. + +"Then I shall see him," said Annette. "When he did not come out for +Christmas I was afraid I should miss him altogether." + +"Does that mean you are thinking of leaving me, Annette?" + +"Yes," said Annette, and she took her friend's hand and kissed it. "I +have been considering it some time. I am thinking of staying here and +setting up as a dressmaker." + +"As a dressmaker!" almost gasped Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Yes. Why not? My aunt is a very good dressmaker in Paris, and she would +help me--at least, she would if it was worth her while. And there is no +one here to do anything, and all that exquisite work the peasant women +make is wasted on coarse or inferior material. I should get them to do +it for me on soft fine nainsook, and make a speciality of summer morning +gowns and children's frocks. Every one who comes here would buy a gown +of Teneriffe-work from me, and I can fit people quite well. I have a +natural turn for it. Look how I can fit myself. You said yesterday that +this white gown I have on was perfect." + +Mrs. Stoddart could only gaze at her in amazement. + +"My dear Annette," she said at last, "you cannot seriously think I would +allow you to leave me to become a dressmaker! What have I done that you +should treat me like that?" + +"You have done everything," said Annette,--"more than anyone in the +world since I was born,--and I have accepted everything--haven't I?--as +it was given--freely. But I felt the time was coming when I must find a +little hole of my own to creep into, and I thought this dressmaking +might do. I would rather not try to live by my voice. It would throw me +into the kind of society I knew _before_. I would rather make a fresh +start on different lines. At least, I thought all these things as I came +up the path ten minutes ago. But these two letters have shown me that I +have a place of my own in the world after all." + +She put two black-edged letters into Mrs. Stoddart's hand. + +"Aunt Catherine is dead," she said. "You know she has been failing. That +was why they went to live in the country." + +Mrs. Stoddart took up the letters and gave them her whole attention. +Each of the bereaved aunts had written. + + + "MY DEAR ANNETTE (wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),--I grieve to tell + you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly + yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the + country undertaken entirely on her account would have been + beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part + who need the inspiration of a congenial literary _milieu_ so much. + She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which + belief her doctor encouraged her--very unwisely, as the event has + proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an + event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on + organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through + fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been + mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said + that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while the move was + done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and + though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to + over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather + than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did + more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more + frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on + Saturday last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is + entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned + all my fortitude I should be in the same condition myself, for of + course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very + special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate + sisters. + + "I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and + I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with + your father quite as congenial as you anticipated. Should you be in + need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall + be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the + manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since + realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt + Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, + you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is + your wish, to fill her place.--Your affectionate aunt, MARIA + NEVILL." + + +Mrs. Stoddart took up the second letter. + + + "MY DEAR ANNETTE,--How can I _tell_ you--how can I _begin_ to tell + you--of _the shattering blow_ that has fallen upon us? Life can + _never_ be the same again. _Death_ has entered our dwelling. + Dearest Cathie--your Aunt Catherine--has been taken from us. She + was _quite_ well yesterday--at least well for _her_--at + quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and by + _seven-thirty_ she was in a precarious condition. Maria _insisted_ + on sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, + realizing as I do full well _that the ability to save life is not + with them_, and that _all drugs have only the power in them which + we by wrong thought have given to them_. However, Maria had her way + as _always_, but our dear sister succumbed before he arrived, so I + do not _in any way_ attribute her death to _him_. We were both with + her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite + peaceful. I could have wished for _one last word of love_, but I do + not rebel. Maria feels it _terribly_, though she always has _great_ + self-control. But of course the loss cannot be to _her_, immersed + in her writing, what it is to _me_, my darling Cathie's constant + companion and adviser. We were _all in all_ to each other. What I + shall do without her I cannot even _imagine_. Maria will naturally + expect--she always _has_ expected--to find all household matters + arranged _without any participation on her part_. And I am, alas! + so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to + that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am + thankful to think, been a _centre_ from which sympathy and love + have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalids + _live in the lives of others_. Their _joys_ are _our_ joys. _Their_ + sorrows are _our_ sorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful + experiences at Teneriffe--the islands of the blest! When it has + snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the + sunshine.' And now, dear Annette, I am wondering whether, _when + you leave Teneriffe_, you could make your home with us again for a + time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you, + _ever_ ready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles + and perplexities. _I_ never blamed you for leaving us. I know _too_ + well that spirit of adventure, though my lot bids _me_ sternly + silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seem _pointed + out for you_ to relinquish this strange idea of being a + professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is so + _plain_? I know from experience what a great blessing attends + _those who give up their own will to live for others_. The + surrender of the will! _That_ is where _true_ peace and happiness + lie, if the young _could only believe it_. + + I will say no more.--With fondest love, your affectionate AUNT + HARRIET." + + +"H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you +could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between +them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of +this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?" + +"I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It +will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a +great success of living for myself so far." + +Mrs. Stoddart did not answer. + +Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor +when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetest eyes +were ever seen," she often said to herself. + +Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable. +When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took +it as my right. I was to have everything--love, honour, happiness, rank, +wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung +out of the house in a rage. If Dick had not stopped me at the door I +should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better +than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him--try +and find the place intended for me, where I _shan't_ be cast out." + +"Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance." + +"Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage." + +"You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act +of penance?" + +"No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now +I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could +make a success of it." + +"I have no doubt you could, but----" + +"I should like to make a success of _something_, after being such a +failure. And--and----" + +"And what, my child?" + +"I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the +Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looks as if He +hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like--if I could--to +creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where +there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + "Oh, is the water sweet and cool, + Gentle and brown, above the pool? + And laughs the immortal river still + Under the mill, under the mill?" + RUPERT BROOKE. + + +I do not think you have ever heard of the little village of Riff in +Lowshire, Reader, unless you were born and bred in it as I was. If you +were, you believe of course that it is the centre of the world. But if +you were not, it is possible you may have overlooked it in your scheme +of life, or hurried past it in the train reading a novel, not even +looking out as I have done a hundred times to catch a glimpse of it +lying among its water meadows behind the willows. + +But unless you know exactly where to look you can only catch a momentary +glimpse, because the Rieben with its fringe of willows makes a +half-circle round Riff and guards it from inquisitive eyes. + +Parallel with the Rieben, but half a mile away from it on higher ground, +runs the great white high road from London to Yarmouth. And between the +road and the river lies the village of Riff. But you cannot see it or +even the top of its church tower from the road, because the park of +Hulver Manor comes in between, stretching in long leafy glades of oak +and elm and open sward, and hiding the house in its midst, the old Tudor +house which has stood closed and shuttered so long, ever since Mr. +Manvers died. + +When at last the park comes to an end, a deep lane breaks off from the +main road, and pretending that it is going nowhere in particular and +that time would be lost in following it, edges along like a homing cat +beside the park wall in the direction of Riff, skirting a gate and a +cluster of buildings, _laiterie_, barn and dovecot, which are all you +can see of Red Riff Farm from the lane. I point it out to you as we +pass, for we shall come back there later on. Riff is much nearer than +you think, for the ground is always falling a little towards the Rieben, +which is close at hand though invisible also. + +And between the park and the river lies the hidden village of Riff. + +You come upon it quite suddenly at the turn of the lane, with its +shallow ford, and its pink-plastered cottages sprinkled among its high +trees, and its thatched Vicarage, and "The Hermitage" with the +honeysuckle over the porch, and the almshouses near the great Italian +gates of Hulver Manor, and somewhat apart in its walled garden among its +twisted pines the Dower House where Lady Louisa Manvers was living, +poor soul, at the time this story was written. + +I have only to close my eyes and I can see it all--can imagine myself +sitting with the Miss Blinketts in their little parlour at The +Hermitage, with a daguerreotype of the defunct Pere Blinkett over the +mantelpiece, and Miss Amy's soft voice saying, "They do say Lady +Louisa's cook is leaving to be married. But they will say anything at +Riff. I never believe more than half I hear." + +The Hermitage stood on a little slice of ground which fell away from the +lane. So close was The Hermitage to the lane, and the parlour windows +were so low, and the lane beyond the palings so high, that the inmates +could only guess at the identity of the passers-by by their legs. And +rare guests and rarer callers, arriving in the wagonnette from the +Manvers Arms, could actually look into the bedroom windows, while the +Miss Blinketts' eyes, peering over the parlour muslins, were fixed upon +their lower limbs. + +And if I keep my eyes tightly shut and the eyes of memory open, I can +see as I sit stroking Miss Blinkett's cat the legs of the new Vicar pass +up the lane outlined against a lilac skirt. And Miss Amy, who is not a +close observer of life, opines that the skirt belongs to Miss Janey +Manvers, but Miss Blinkett senior instantly identifies it as Annette's +new spotted muslin, which she had seen Mrs. Nicholls "getting up" last +week. + + +But that was twenty years ago. I can only tell you what Riff was like +then, for it is twenty years since I was there, and I am not going there +any more, for I don't want to see any of the changes which time must +have wrought there, and if I walked down the village street now I should +feel like a ghost, for only a few of the old people would remember me. +And the bright-eyed, tow-headed little lads whom I taught in Sunday +school are scattered to the four winds of heaven. The Boer War took some +of them, and London has engulfed more, only a few remaining at Riff as +sad-looking middle-aged men, farm hands, and hedgers and ditchers, and +cowmen. + +And I hear that now the motors go banging along the Yarmouth high road +day and night, and that Riff actually has a telegraph office of its own +and that the wires go in front of The Hermitage, only the Miss Blinketts +are not there to see it. A literary lady lives there now, and I hear she +has changed the name to "Quill Cottage," and has made a garden in the +orchard where old Nan's cottage was by the twisted pear tree: old Nan +the witch, who grew mistletoe in all the trees in her domain, and cured +St. Vitus' dance with it. No, I will not go to Riff any more, for I do +not want to see any of these things, and least of all the literary lady +who is writing her novels in the quiet rooms where my two old friends +knitted and read Thomas a Kempis. + +Twenty years ago, in the days when my father was doctor at Riff and when +Annette came to live there, we could not help noticing--indeed, Mrs. +Nicholls often mentioned it--what a go-ahead place Riff was, far more up +to date than Sweet Apple Tree, and even than Meverly Mill. We measured +everything in those days by Sweet Apple Tree, and the measurement was +always in our favour. We did not talk much about Riebenbridge, where the +"'Sizes" were held, and the new "'Sylum" had just been built. We were +somewhat awed by Riebenbridge, but poor lag-behind Sweet Apple Tree, +lost amid its reeds together with the Rieben, was the subject of sincere +pity to the Riff folk. The Sweet Applers, according to Mrs. Nicholls, +were "that clunch they might have been brought up in a wood." At Riff +everything was cast in a superior and more modern mould. Riff had a +postman on a bicycle with an enormous front wheel, and if he brought a +letter in the morning you could if necessary post an answer to it the +same day in the red slit in the churchyard wall. Now at Sweet Apple Tree +the old man in a donkey-cart blowing on a little horn who brought the +Sweet Apple letters, took away directly the donkey was rested those +which the inhabitants had just composed. And even he did not call if +"the water was out." + +Before I was born, when the Miss Blinketts were young and crinolined +and their father was Vicar of Riff, Sweet Apple Tree, as they have often +told me, had no choir, and the old Rector held a service once or twice a +year in his Bath chair. After he took to his bed there was no service at +all for twenty years. No wonder the Sweet Apple folk were "clunch"! How +different from Riff, with its trombone and fiddle inviting the attention +of its Creator every Sunday, and Mr. Blinkett, whose watchword was "No +popery," preaching in his black gown two sermons a week to the favoured +people of Riff. + +It was Mr. Jones, Mr. Blinkett's successor, that lamentable person, +meaning well, but according to the Miss Blinketts quite unable to +perceive when a parish was worked on the right lines, it was young Mr. +Jones from Oxford, who did not marry either of the Miss Blinketts, but +who did put a stop to the trombone and fiddle, and actually brought the +choir out of the gallery, and took away the hour-glass from the south +window below the pulpit, and preached in his surplice, and made himself +very unpopular by forbidding the congregation to rise to its feet when +the Manvers family came into church, almost as unpopular as by stopping +the fiddle. You can see the old fiddle still in the cottage of Hesketh +the carrier, next the village stocks. His father had played on it, and +turned "chapel" when his services were no longer required. And it was +young Mr. Jones who actually had the bad taste openly to deplore the +saintly Blinkett's action in demolishing all the upper part of the +ancient carved and gilded screen because at eighty he could no longer +make his voice heard through it. + +It was, of course, Mr. Jones who started the mixed choir sitting in the +chancel behind the remains of the screen. + +In the last days of the mixed choir, when first Mr. Black came to Riff +(after Mr. Jones was made a bishop), Annette sang in it, with a voice +that seemed to me, and not to me only, like the voice of an angel. + +With the exception of Annette and the under-housemaid from the Dower +House, it was mainly composed of admirable domestic characters of portly +age--the elite of Riff--supplemented by a small gleaning of deeply +virtuous, non-fruit-stealing little boys. We are told nowadays that +heredity is nothing. But when I remember how those starched and +white-collared juvenile singers were nearly all the offspring of the +tenors and basses, and of Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks who were trebles, +I feel the last word still remains to be said about heredity. + +Annette did not sing in it long--not more than a year, I think. It was +soon after she left it that Mr. Black--so I am told--started a surpliced +choir. And here am I talking about her leaving the choir when I have not +yet told you of her arrival in Lowshire, or anything about Red Riff +Farm where her two aunts lived, and where Aunt Maria wrote her famous +novel, _The Silver Cross_, of which you have of course often heard, and +which if you are of a serious turn of mind you have doubtless read and +laid to heart. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + "Nothing is so incapacitating as self-love." + + +Red Riff Farm stands near the lane, between the village and the high +road, presenting its back to all comers with British sang-froid. To +approach it you must go up the wide path between the barn and the +dovecote on one side, and on the other the long, low _laiterie_ standing +above its wall, just able to look at itself in the pool, where the ducks +are breaking up its reflection. When you pass through the narrow iron +gateway in the high wall which protects the garden on the north side, +the old Jacobean house rises up above you, all built of dim rose-red and +dim blue brick, looking benignly out across the meadows over its small +enclosed garden which had once been the orchard, in which some of the +ancient bent apple trees are still like old pensioners permitted to +remain. + +When Annette first passed through that gateway, the beautiful dim old +building with its latticed windows peered at her through a network of +apple blossom. But now the apple trees have long since dropped their +petals, and you can see the house clearly, with its wavering tiled +string courses, and its three rounded gables, and the vine flung half +across it. + +The low, square oak door studded with nails stands wide open, showing a +glimpse of a small panelled hall with a carved black staircase coming +down into it. + +We need not peer in through the window at the Shakespeare Calendar on +Aunt Maria's study table to see what time of year it is, for everything +tells us: the masses of white pinks crowding up to the threshold and +laying their sweet heads against the stone edging of their domain, the +yellow lichen in flower on the roof, the serried ranks of Sweet William +full out. It is certainly early June. And the black-faced sheep moving +sedately in the long meadows in front of the house confirm us in our +opinion, for they have shed their becoming woollen overalls and are +straddling about, hideous to behold, in their summer tights. Only the +lambs, now large and sedate, keep their pretty February coats, though by +some unaccountable fatality they have all, poor dears, lost their tails. + +Lowshire is a sedate place. I have never seen those solemn Lowshire +lambs jump about as they do in Hampshire. A Hampshire lamb among his +contemporaries with the juice of the young grass in him! Hi! Friskings +and caperings! That is a sight to make an old ram young. But the +Lowshire lambs seem ever to see the shadow of the blue-coated butcher in +the sunshine. They move in decorous bands as if they were going to +church, hastening suddenly all together as if they were late. + +Lowshire is a sedate place. The farm lads still in their teens move as +slowly as the creeping rivers, much slower than the barges. The boys +early leave off scurrying in shouting bands down the lanes in the dusk. +The little girls peep demurely over the garden gates, and walk slowly +indoors, if spoken to. + +We have ascertained that it is early June, and we need no watch to tell +us what o'clock it is. It is milking-time, the hour when good little +boys "whom mother can trust" are to be seen hurrying in an important +manner with milk-cans. Half-past four it must be, for the red cows, +sweet-breathed and soft-paced, have passed up the lane half an hour ago, +looking gently to right and left with lustrous, nunlike eyes, now and +then putting out a large red tongue to lick at the hedgerow. Sometimes, +as to-day, the bull precedes them, hustling along, surly, _affaire_, +making a low, continuous grunting which is not anger, for he is kind as +bulls go, so much as "orkardness," the desire of the egotist to make his +discontentment public, and his disillusionment with his pasture and all +his gentle-tempered wives. + + +Annette came down the carved staircase, and stood a moment in the +doorway in a pale lilac gown (the same that you will remember the Miss +Blinketts saw half an hour later). + +Her ear caught the sound of a manly voice mingled with Aunt Maria's +dignified tones, and the somewhat agitated accompaniment of the clink of +tea-things. Aunt Harriet was evidently more acutely undecided than usual +which cup to fill first, and was rattling them in the way that always +irritated Aunt Maria, though she made heroic efforts to dissimulate it. + +Annette came to the conclusion that she should probably be late for +choir practice if she went into the drawing-room. So she walked +noiselessly across the hall and slipped through the garden. A dogcart +was standing horseless in the courtyard, and the delighted female +laughter which proceeded from the servants' hall showed that a male +element in the shape of a groom had been added to the little band of +women-servants. + +What a fortunate occurrence that there should be a caller!--for on this +particular afternoon Aunt Maria had reached a difficult place in her new +book, the hero having thrown over his lady-love because she, foolish +modernist that she was, toying with her life's happiness, would not +promise to leave off smoking. The depressed authoress needed a change of +thought. And it would be pleasant for the whole household if Aunt +Harriet's mind could be diverted from the fact that her new air-cushion +leaked; not the old black one, that would not have mattered so much, but +the new round red society one which she used when there were visitors +in the house. Aunt Harriet's mind had brooded all day over the +air-cushion as mournfully as a hart's tongue over a well. + +Annette hoped it was a cheerful caller. Perhaps it was Canon Wetherby +from Riebenbridge, an amiable widower, and almost as great an admirer of +Aunt Maria's works as of his own stock of anecdotes. + +In the meanwhile if she, Annette, missed her own lawful tea at home, to +which of the little colony of neighbours in the village should she go +for a cup, on her way to the church, where choir practice was held? + +To the Dower House? Old Lady Louisa Manvers had ceased to come +downstairs at all, and her daughter Janey, a few years older than +herself, poor downtrodden Janey, would be only too glad to see her. But +then her imbecile brother Harry, with his endless copy-book remarks, +would be certain to be having tea with her, and Lady Louisa's trained +nurse, whom Annette particularly disliked. No, she would not go to the +Dower House this afternoon. She might go to tea with the Miss Blinketts, +who were always kind to her, and whose cottage lay between her and the +church. + +The two Miss Blinketts were about the same age as the Miss Nevills, and +regarded them with deep admiration, not unmixed with awe, coupled with +an evident hope that a pleasant intercourse might presently be +established between The Hermitage and Red Riff Farm. They were indeed +quite excited at the advent among them of one so gifted as the author of +_Crooks and Coronets_, who they perceived from her books took a very +high view of the responsibility created by genius. + +Annette liked the Miss Blinketts, and her knowledge of Aunt Maria's +character had led her to hope that this enthusiastic deference might +prove acceptable to a wearied authoress in her hours of relaxation. But +she soon found that the Miss Nevills with all the prestige of London and +a literary _milieu_ resting upon them were indignant at the idea that +they could care to associate with "a couple of provincial old maids." + +Their almost ferocious attitude towards the amiable Miss Blinketts had +been a great shock to Annette, who neither at that nor at any later time +learned to make the social distinctions which occupied so much of her +two aunts' time. The Miss Nevills' acceptance of a certain offering of +ferns peeping through the meshes of a string bag brought by the Miss +Blinketts, had been so frigid, so patrician, that it had made Annette +more friendly than she would naturally have been. She had welcomed the +ferns with enthusiasm, and before she had realized it, had become the +object of a sentimental love and argus-eyed interest on the part of the +inmates of The Hermitage which threatened to have its embarrassing +moments. + +No, now she came to think of it, she would not go to tea with the Miss +Blinketts this afternoon. + +Of course, she might go to the Vicarage. Miss Black, the Vicar's sister +who kept house for him, had often asked her to do so before choir +practice. But Annette had vaguely felt of late that Miss Black, who had +been very cordial to her on her arrival and was still extremely polite, +did not regard her with as much favour as at first: in fact, that as Mr. +Black formed a high and ever higher opinion of her, that of his sister +was steadily lowered to keep the balance even. + +Annette knew what was the matter with Mr. Black, though that gentleman +had not yet discovered what it was that was affecting his usually placid +temper and causing him on his parochial rounds so frequently to take the +short cut past Red Riff Farm. + +She had just decided, without emotion but with distinct regret, that she +must do without tea this afternoon, when a firm step came along the lane +behind her, and Mr. Black overtook her. For once he had taken that short +cut to some purpose, though his face, fixed in a dignified +preoccupation, gave no hint that he felt Fortune had favoured him at +last. + +The Miss Blinketts had heard it affirmed "by one who knew a wide sweep +of clergy and was therefore competent to form an opinion," that Mr. +Black was the handsomest vicar in the diocese. But possibly that was not +high praise, for the clergy had evidently deteriorated in appearance +since the ancient Blinkett, that type of aristocratic beauty, had been +laid to rest under the twisted yew in the Riff churchyard. + +But, anyhow, Mr. Black was sufficiently good-looking to be called +handsome in a countryside where young unmarried men were rare as water +ousels. He was tall and erect, and being rather clumsily built, showed +to great advantage in a surplice. In a procession of clergy you would +probably have picked out Mr. Black at once as its most impressive +figure. He was what the Miss Blinketts called "stately." When you looked +closely at him you saw that his nose was a size too large, that his head +and ears and hands and feet were all a size too large for him. But the +general impression was pleasant, partly because he always looked as if +he had that moment emerged as speckless as his surplices from Mrs. +Nicholls' washtub. + +It was an open secret that Mrs. Nicholls thought but little of Miss +Black, "who wasn't so to call a lady, and washed her flannels at home." +But she had a profound admiration for the Vicar, though I fear if the +truth were known it was partly because he "set off a surplice so as +never was." + +Mr. Black allowed his thoughtful expression to lighten to a grave smile +as he walked on beside Annette, determined that on this occasion he +would not be commonplace or didactic, as he feared he had been after the +boot and shoe club. He was under the illusion, because he had so often +said so, that he seldom took the trouble to do himself justice socially. +It might be as well to begin now. + +"Are you on your way to choir practice?" + +"What a question! Of course I am." + +"Have you had tea?" + +"No." + +"Neither have I. Do come to the Vicarage first, and Angela will give us +some." "Angela" was Miss Black. + +Annette could not find any reason for refusing. + +"Thank you. I will come with pleasure." + +"I would rather go without any meal than tea." + +Mr. Black felt as he said it that this sentiment was _for him_ +inadequate, but he was relieved that Annette did not appear to find it +so. She smiled and said-- + +"It certainly is the pleasantest meal in the day." + +At this moment, the Miss Blinketts and I saw, as I have already told +you, the legs of the Vicar pass up the lane outlined against a lilac +skirt. We watched them pass in silence, and then Miss Blinkett said +solemnly-- + +"If anything should come of that, if he should eventually make up his +mind to marry, I consider Annette would be in every way a worthy +choice." + +"Papa was always against a celibate clergy," said Miss Amy, as if that +settled the question. + +Annette and her possible future had nearly reached the Vicarage when a +dogcart passed them which she recognized as the one she had seen at Red +Riff. The man in it waved his hand to Mr. Black. + +"That was Mr. Reginald Stirling, the novelist," Mr. Black volunteered. + +"The man who wrote _The Magnet_?" + +"Yes. He has rented Noyes Court from Lady Louisa. I hear he never +attends divine service at Noyes, but I am glad to say he has been to +Riff several times lately. I am afraid Bartlett's sermons are not +calculated to attract an educated man." + +Mr. Black was human, and he was aware that he was a good preacher. + +"I have often heard of him from Mrs. Stoddart," said Annette, with +evident interest. "I supposed he lived in Lowshire because some of the +scenes in _The Magnet_ are laid in this country." + +"Are they? I had not noticed it," said Mr. Black frigidly. + +He had often wished he could interest Annette in conversation, often +wondered why he seemed unable to do so. Was it really because he did not +take enough trouble, as he sometimes accused himself? But now that she +was momentarily interested he stopped short at once, as at the entrance +of a blind alley. What he really wanted was to talk, not about Mr. +Stirling but about himself, to tell her how he found good in every one, +how attracted he was to the ignorant and the simple. No. He did not +exactly desire to tell her these things, but to coerce the conversation +into channels which would show indubitably that he was the kind of man +who could discover the good latent in every one, the kind of man who +fostered the feeble aspirations of the young and the ignorant, who +entered with wide-minded sympathy into the difficulties of stupid +people, who was better read and more humorous than any of his clerical +brethren in Lowshire, to whom little children and dogs turned +intuitively as to a friend. + +Now, it is not an easy thing to enter lightly into conversation if you +bring with you into it so many impedimenta. There was obviously no place +for all this heavy baggage in the discussion of Mr. Stirling's novels. +So that eminent writer was dismissed at once, and the subject was +hitched, not without a jolt, on to the effect of the Lowshire scenery on +Mr. Black. It transpired that Mr. Black was the kind of man who went for +inspiration to the heathery moor, and who found that the problems of +life are apt to unravel themselves under a wide expanse of sky. + +Annette listened dutifully and politely till the Vicarage door was +reached. + +It seemed doubtful afterwards, when he reviewed what he had said, +whether he had attained to any really prominent conversational peaks +during that circumscribed parley. + +He felt with sudden exasperation that he needed time, scope, +opportunity, lots of opportunity, so that if he missed one there would +be plenty more, and above all absence of interruption. He never got a +chance of _really_ talking to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + "It ain't the pews and free seats as knows what music is, nor it + ain't the organist. It is the _choir_. There's more in music than + just ketching a tune and singing it fort here and pianner there. + But Lor! Miss, what do the pews and the free seats know of the + dangers? When the Vicar gives them a verse to sing by themselves it + do make me swaller with embarrassment to hear 'em beller. They + knows nothing, and they fears nothing."--MRS. NICHOLLS. + + +On this particular evening Annette was the first to take her seat in the +chancel beyond the screen, where the choir practices always took place. +Mrs. Nicholls presently joined her there with her battered part-book, +and she and Annette went over the opening bars of the new anthem, which +like the Riff bull was "orkard" in places. + +Mr. Black was lighting the candles on long iron sticks, while Miss Black +adjusted herself to the harmonium, which did the organ's drudgery for +it, and then settled herself, notebook in hand, to watch which of the +choir made an attendance. + +Miss Black was constantly urging her brother to do away with the mixed +choir and have a surpliced one. She became even more urgent on that head +after Annette had joined it. Mr. Black was nothing loth, but his +bishop, who had but recently instituted him, had implored him not to +make a clean sweep of _every_ arrangement of his predecessor, Mr. Jones, +that ardent reformer, whose principal reforms now needed reforming. So, +with laudable obedience and zeal, Mr. Black possessed his soul in +patience and sought to instil new life into the mixed choir. Annette was +part of that new life, and her presence helped to reconcile him to its +continued existence, and to increase Miss Black's desire for its +extinction. + +Miss Black was older than her brother, and had already acquired that +acerb precision which lies in wait with such frequent success for +middle-aged spinsters and bachelors. + +She somehow gave the comfortless impression of being "ready-made" and +"greatly reduced," as if there were quantities more exactly like her put +away somewhere, the supply having hopelessly exceeded the demand. She +looked as if she herself, as well as her fatigued elaborate clothes, had +been picked up half-price but somewhat crumpled in the sales. + +She glanced with disapproval at Annette whispering amicably with Mrs. +Nicholls, and Annette desisted instantly. + +The five little boys shuffled in in a bunch, as if roped together, and +slipped into their seats under Mr. Black's eye. Mr. Chipps the grocer +and principal bass followed, bringing with him an aroma of cheese. The +two altoes, Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, from the Infants' School, +were already in position. A few latecomers seemed to have dropped +noiselessly into their seats from the roof, and to become visible by +clearings of throats. + +Mr. Black, who was chagrined by the very frigid reception and the stale +tea which his sister had accorded to Annette, said with his customary +benignity, "Are we all here? I think we may as well begin." + +Miss Black remarked that the choirmaster, Mr. Spillcock, was "late +again," just as that gentleman was seen advancing like a ramrod up the +aisle. + +A certain mystery enveloped Mr. Spillcock. He was not a Riff man, nor +did he hail from Noyes, or Heyke, or Swale, or even Riebenbridge. What +had brought him to live at Riebenbridge no one rightly knew, not even +Mrs. Nicholls. It was whispered that he had "bugled" before Royalty in +outlandish parts, and when Foreign Missions were being practised he had +been understood to aver that the lines, + + + "Where Afric's sunny fountains + Roll down their golden sand," + + +put him forcibly in mind of the scenes of his earlier life. Whether he +had really served in the army or not never transpired, but his grey +moustache was twirled with military ferocity, and he affected the +bearing and manner of a retired army man. It was also whispered that +Mrs. Spillcock, a somewhat colourless, depressed mate for so vivid a +personality, "was preyed upon in her mind" because another lady had a +prior or church claim to the title of Mrs. Spillcock. As a child I +always expected the real Mrs. Spillcock to appear, but she never did. + +"Good evening all," said Mr. Spillcock urbanely, and without waiting for +any remarks on the lateness of the hour, he seized out of his waistcoat +pocket a tuning-fork. "We begin, I presume, with the anthem 'Now hunto +'Im.' Trebles, take your do. Do, me, sol, do. Do." Mr. Spillcock turned +towards the trebles with open mouth, uttering a prolonged falsetto do, +and showing all his molars on the left side, where apparently he held do +in reserve. + +Annette guided Mrs. Nicholls and Mrs. Cocks and the timid +under-housemaid from the Dower House from circling round the note to the +note itself. + +"Do," sang out all the trebles with sweetness and decision. + +"Now, then, boys, why don't you fall in?" said Mr. Spillcock, looking +with unconcealed animosity at the line of little boys whom he ought not +to have disliked, as they never made any sound in the church, reserving +their voices for shouting on their homeward way in the dark. + +"Now, then, boys, look alive. Take up your do from the ladies." + +A faint buzzing echo like the sound in an unmusical shell could be +detected by the optimists nearest to the boys. It would have been +possible to know they were in tune only by holding their bodies to your +ear. + +"They have got it," said Mr. Black valiantly. + +Mr. Spillcock looked at them with cold contempt. + +"Altoes, me," he said more gently. He was gallant to the fair sex, and +especially to Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, one dark and one fair, and +both in the dew of their cultured youth. + +"Altoes, take your me." + +The two altoes, their lips ready licked, burst into a plaintive bleat, +which if it was not me was certainly nothing else. + +The miller, the principal tenor, took his sol, supported at once by "the +young chap" from the Manvers Arms, who echoed it manfully directly it +had been unearthed, and by his nephew from Lowestoft, who did not belong +to the choir and could not sing, but who was on a holiday and who always +came to choir practices with his uncle, because he was courting either +Miss Pontifex or Miss Spriggs, possibly both. I have a hazy recollection +of hearing years later that he had married them both, not at the same +time, but one shortly after the other, and that Miss Spriggs made a +wonderful mother to Miss Pontifex's baby, or _vice versa_. Anyhow, they +were both in love with him, and I know it ended happily for every one, +and was considered in Riff to be a great example to Mr. Chipps of +portly years, who had been engaged for about twenty years "as you might +say off and on" to Mrs. Cocks' sister (who was cook at the Dower House), +but who, whenever the question of marriage was introduced, opined that +"he felt no call to change his state." + +Mr. Black made several ineffectual attempts to induce the basses to take +their lower do. But Mr. Chipps, though he generally succumbed into +singing an octave below the trebles, had conscientious scruples about +starting on the downward path even if his part demanded it, and could +not be persuaded to make any sound except a dignified neutral rumbling. +The other basses naturally were not to be drawn on to dangerous ground +while their leader held aloof. + +"We shall drop into it later on," said Mr. Black hopefully, who sat with +them. "We had better start." + +"Pom, pom, pom, pom," said Mr. Spillcock, going slowly down the chord, +and waving a little stick at trebles, altoes, tenors, and basses in turn +at each pom. + +Every one made a note of sorts, with such pleasing results, something so +far superior to anything that Sweet Apple Tree could produce, that it +was felt to be unchivalrous on the part of Mr. Spillcock to beat his +stick on the form and say sternly-- + +"Altoes, it's Hay. Not Hay flat." + +"Pommmm!" in piercing falsetto. + +The altoes took up their note again, caught it as it were with a +pincers from Mr. Spillcock's back molars. + +"Righto," said Mr. Spillcock. "Altoes, if you find yourselves going +down, keep yourselves _hup_. Now hunto 'Im." + +And the serious business of the practice began. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + "Not even in a dream hast thou known compassion ... thou knowest + not even the phantom of pity; but the silver hair will remind thee + of all this by and by."--CALLIMACHUS. + + +The Dower House stands so near to the church that Janey Manvers sitting +by her bedroom window in the dusk could hear fragments of the choir +practice over the low ivied wall which separates the churchyard from the +garden. She could detect Annette's voice taking the same passage over +and over again, trying to lead the trebles stumbling after her. +Presently there was a silence, and then her voice rose sweet and clear +by itself-- + +"_They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the +sun light on them, nor any heat._" + +The other voices surged up, and Janey heard no more. + +Was it possible there really was a place somewhere where there was no +more hunger and thirst, and beating, blinding heat? Or were they only +pretty words to comfort where no comfort was? Janey looked out where one +soft star hung low in the dusk over the winding river and its poplars. +It seemed to her that night as if she had reached the end of her +strength. + +For years, since her father died, she had nursed and sustained her +mother, the invalid in the next room, through what endless terrible days +and nights, through what scenes of anger and bitterness and despair. +Janey had been loyal to one who had never been loyal to her, considerate +to one who had ridden rough-shod over her, tender to one who was harsh +to her, who had always been harsh. And now her mother, not content with +eating up the best years of her daughter's life, had laid her cold hand +upon the future, and had urged Janey to promise that after her death she +would always keep Harry, her half-witted younger brother, in the same +house with her, and protect him from the world on one side and a lunatic +asylum on the other. Something desperate had surged up in Janey's heart, +and she had refused to give the promise. She could see still her +mother's look of impotent anger as she turned her face to the wall, +could hear still her hysterical sobbing. She had not dared to remain +with her, and Anne the old housemaid was sitting with her till the +trained nurse returned from Ipswich, a clever, resourceful woman, who +had made herself indispensable to Lady Louisa, and had taken Harry to +the dentist--always heretofore a matter difficult of accomplishment. + +Janey realized with sickening shame this evening that she had +unconsciously looked forward to her mother's death as a time when +release would come from this intolerable burden which she had endured +for the last seven years. Her poor mother would die some day, and a home +would be found for Harry, who never missed anyone if he was a day away +from them. And she would marry Roger, dear kind Roger, whom she had +loved since she was a small child and he was a big boy. That had been +her life, in a prison whose one window looked on a green tree: and poor +manacled Janey had strained towards it as a plant strains to the light. +Something fierce had stirred within her when she saw her mother's hand +trying to block the window. That at any rate must not be touched. She +could not endure it. She knew that if she married Roger he would never +consent that Harry and his attendants should live in the house with +them. What man would? She felt sure that her mother had realized that +contingency and the certainty of Roger's refusal, and hence her +determination to wrest a promise from Janey. + +She was waiting for her cousin Roger now. He had not said whether he +would dine or come in after dinner,--it depended on whether he caught +the five o'clock express from Liverpool Street,--but in any case he +would come in some time this evening to tell her the result of his +mission to Paris. Roger lived within a hundred yards, in the pink +cottage with the twirly barge boarding almost facing the church, close +by the village stocks. + +Janey had put on what she believed to be a pretty gown on his account, +it was at any rate a much-trimmed one, and had re-coiled her soft brown +hair. The solitude and the darkness had relieved somewhat the strain +upon her nerves. Perhaps Roger might after all have accomplished his +mission, and her mother might be pacified. Sometimes there had been +quiet intervals after these violent outbreaks, which nearly always +followed opposition of any kind. Perhaps to-morrow life might seem more +possible, not such a nightmare. To-morrow she would walk up to Red Riff +and see Annette--lovely, kind Annette--the wonderful new friend who had +come into her life. Roger ought to be here, if he were coming to dinner. +The choir was leaving the church. Choir practice was never over till +after eight. The steps and voices subsided. She lit a match and held it +to the clock on the dressing-table. Quarter-past eight. Then Roger was +certainly not coming. She went downstairs and ordered dinner to be +served. + +It was a relief that for once Harry was not present, that she could eat +her dinner without answering the futile questions which were his staple +of conversation, without hearing the vacant laugh which heralded every +remark. She heard the carriage rumble out of the courtyard to meet him. +His teeth must have taken longer than usual. Perhaps even Nurse, who +had him so entirely under her thumb as a rule, had found him +recalcitrant. + +As she was peeling her peach the door opened, and Roger came in. If +there had been anyone to notice it--but no one ever noticed anything +about Janey--they might have seen that as she perceived him she became a +pretty woman. A soft red mounted to her cheek, her tired eyes shone, her +small, erect figure became alert. He had not dined, after all. She sent +for the earlier dishes, and while he ate, refrained from asking him any +questions. + +"You do not look as tired as I expected," she said. + +Roger replied that he was not the least tired There was in his bearing +some of the alertness of hers, and she noticed it with a sudden secret +uprush of joy in her heart. Surely it was the same for both of them? To +be together was all they needed. But oh! how she needed that! How far +greater her need was than his! + +They might have been taken for brother and sister as they sat together +in the dining-room in the light of the four wax candles. + +They were what the village people called "real Manverses," both of them, +sturdy, well knit, erect, with short, straight noses, and grey, direct, +wide-open eyes, and brown complexions, and crisp brown hair. Each was +good-looking in a way. Janey had the advantage of youth, but her life +had been more burdened than Roger's, and at five-and-thirty he did not +look much older than she did at five-and-twenty, except that he showed a +tendency to be square-set, and his hair was thinning a little at the top +of his honest, well-shaped head. He was, as Mrs. Nicholls often +remarked, "the very statue of the old squire," his uncle and Janey's +father. + +"Pray don't hurry, Roger. There is plenty of time." + +"I'm not hurrying, old girl," with another gulp. + +It was a secret infinitesimal grief to Janey that Roger called her "old +girl." A hundred little traits showed that she had seen almost nothing +of the world, but he, in spite of public school and college, gave the +impression of having seen even less. There were a few small +tiresomenesses about Roger to which even Janey's faithful adoration +could not quite shut its eyes. But they were, after all, only external +foibles, such as calling her "old girl," tricks of manner, small +gaucheries and gruntings and lapses into inattention, the result of +living too much alone, which wise Janey knew were of no real account. +The things that really mattered about Roger were his kind heart and his +good business-head and his uprightness. + +"Never seen Paris before, and don't care if I never see it again," he +vouchsafed between enormous mouthfuls. He never listened--at least not +to Janey--and his conversation consisted largely of disjointed remarks, +thrown out at intervals, very much as unprofitable or waste material is +chucked over a wall, without reference to the person whom it may strike +on the other side. + +"I should like to see Paris myself." + +Roger informed her of the reprehensible and entirely un-British manner +in which luggage was arranged for at that metropolis, and of the price +of the cabs and the system of _pourboires_, and how the housemaid at the +hotel had been a man. Some of these details of intimate Parisian life +had already reached even Janey, but she listened to them with unflagging +interest. Do not antiquaries tell us that the extra rib out of which Eve +was fashioned was in shape not unlike an ear trumpet? Janey was a +daughter of Eve. She listened. + +Presently the servants withdrew, and he leaned back in his chair and +looked at her. + +"It was no go," he said. + +"You mean Dick was worse?" + +"Yes. No. I don't know how he was. He looked to me just the same, +staring straight in front of him with goggling eyes. Lady Jane said he +knew me, but I didn't see that he did. I said, 'Holloa, Dick,' and he +just gaped. She said he knew quite well all about the business, and that +she had explained it to him. And the doctor was there, willing to +witness anything: awful dapper little chap, called me _Chair Mussieur_ +and held me by the arm, and tried to persuade me, but----" Roger shook +his head and thrust out his under lip. + +"You were right, Roger," said Janey sadly; "but poor mother will be +dreadfully angry. And how are you to go on without the power of +attorney, if he's not in a fit state to grant it?" + +But Roger was not listening. + +"I often used to wonder how Aunt Louisa got Dick to sign before about +the sale of the salt marshes--that time when she went to Paris +herself--on purpose. But,"--he became darkly red,--"hang it all, Janey, +I see now how it was done." + +"She shouldn't have sent me," he said, getting up abruptly. "Not the +kind for the job. I suppose I had better go up and see her. Expect I +shall catch it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + "This man smells not of books."--J. S. BLACKIE. + + +Lady Louisa Manvers was waiting for her nephew, propped up in bed, +clutching the bed-clothes with leaden, corpse-pale hands. She was +evidently at the last stage of some long and terrific illness, and her +hold on life seemed as powerless and as convulsive as that of her hands +upon the quilt. She felt that she was slipping into the grave, she the +one energetic and far-seeing member of the family, and that on her +exhausted shoulders lay the burden of arranging everything for the good +of her children, for they were totally incapable of doing anything for +themselves. In the long nights of unrest and weariness unspeakable, her +mind, accustomed to undisputed dominion, revolved perpetually round the +future of her children, and the means by which in her handicapped +condition she could still bring about what would be best for them, what +was essential for their well-being, especially Harry's. And all the +while her authority was slipping from her, in spite of her desperate +grasp upon it. The whole world and her stubborn children themselves were +in league against her, and the least opposition on their part aroused +in her a paroxysm of anger and despair. Why did every one make her heavy +task heavier? Why was she tacitly disobeyed when a swift and absolute +obedience was imperative? Why did they try to soothe her, and speak +smooth things to her, when they were virtually opposing her all the +time? She, a paralysed old woman, only longing for rest, was forced to +fight them all single-handed for their sakes. + +To-night, as she lay waiting for her nephew, she touched a lower level +of despair than even she had yet reached. She suspected that Roger would +fail her. Janey had for the first time turned against her. Even Janey, +who had always yielded to her, always, always, even she had opposed +her--had actually refused to make the promise which was essential to the +welfare of poor Harry after she herself was gone. And she felt that she +was going, that she was being pushed daily and hourly nearer to the +negation of all things, the silence, the impotence of the grave. She +determined to act with strength while power to act still remained. + +Roger's reluctant step came up the oak staircase, and his tap on the +door. + +"May I come in?" + +"Come in." + +He came in, and stood as if he were stuffed in the middle of the room, +his eyes fixed on the cornice. + +"I hope you are feeling better, Aunt Louisa?" + +"I am still alive, as you see." + +Deep-rooted jealousy of Roger dwelt in her, had dwelt in her ever since +the early days when her husband had adopted him against her wish when he +had been left an orphan. She had not wanted him in her nursery. Her +husband had always been fond of him, and later in life had leaned upon +him. In the depths of her bitter heart Lady Louisa believed he had +preferred his nephew to the two sons she had given him, Dick the +ne'er-do-well, and Harry the latecomer--the fool. + +Roger moved his eyes slowly round the room, looking always away from the +bed, till they fell upon the cat curled up in the arm-chair. + +"Holloa, puss!" he said. "Caught a mouse lately?" + +"Did you get the power of attorney?" came the voice from the bed. + +"No, Aunt Louisa." + +The bed-clothes trembled. + +"I told you not to come back without it." + +Roger was silent. + +"Had not Jane arranged everything?" + +"Everything." + +"And the doctor! Wasn't he there ready to witness it?" + +"Oh Lord! Yes. He was there." + +"Then I fail to understand why you came back without it." + +"Dick wasn't fit to sign," said Roger doggedly. + +"Didn't I warn you before you went that he had repeatedly told Jane +that he could not attend to business, and that was why it was so +important you should be empowered to act for him?--and the power of +attorney was his particular wish." + +"Yes, you did. But I didn't know he'd be like that. He didn't know a +thing. It didn't seem as if he _could_ have had a particular wish one +way or the other. Aunt Louisa, he wasn't _fit_." + +"And so you set up your judgment against mine, and his own doctor's? I +told you before you went, what you knew already, that he was not capable +of transacting business, and that you must have the power; and you said +you understood. And then you come back here and inform me that he was +not fit, which you knew before you started." + +"No, no. You're wrong there." + +How like he was to her dead husband as he said that, and how she hated +him for the likeness! + +"Don't contradict me. You were asked to act in Dick's own interest and +in the interests of the property, and you promised to do it. And you +haven't done it." + +"But, Aunt Louisa, he wasn't in a state to sign anything. He's not +alive. He's just breathing, that's all. Doesn't know anybody, or take +any notice. If you'd seen him you'd have known you _couldn't_ get his +signature." + +"I did get it about the marsh-lands. I went to Paris on purpose last +November, when I was too ill to travel. I only sent you this time +because I could not leave my bed." + +Roger paused, and then his honest face became plum colour, and he +blurted out-- + +"They were actually going to guide his hand." + +Lady Louisa's cold eyes met his. + +"Well! And if they were?" + +Roger lost his embarrassment. His face became as pale as it had been +red. He came up to the bed and looked the sick woman straight in the +eyes. + +"I was not the right man for the job," he said. "You should have sent +somebody else. I--stopped it." + +"I hope when you are dying, Roger, that your son will carry out your +last wishes more effectively than my nephew has carried out mine." + +"But, Aunt Louisa, upon my honour he wasn't----" + +"Good-night. Ask Janey to send up Nurse to me as soon as she returns." + +Roger left the room clumsily, but yet with a certain dignity. His +upright soul was shocked to the very core. He marched heavily downstairs +to the library, where Janey was keeping his coffee hot for him over a +little spirit-lamp. There was indignation in his clear grey eyes. And +over his coffee and his cigarette he recounted to her exactly how +everything had been, and how Dick wasn't fit, he really wasn't. And +Janey thought that when he had quite finished she would tell him of the +pressure her mother was bringing to bear on her to promise to make a +home for Harry after her death. But when at last Roger got off the +subject, and his cigarette had soothed him, he went on to tell Janey +about a man he had met on the boat, who oddly enough turned out to be a +cousin of a land agent he knew in Kent. This surprising incident took so +long, the approaches having been both gradual and circuitous, and +primarily connected with the proffer of a paper, that when it also had +been adequately dealt with and disposed of, it was getting late. + +"I must be off," he said, rising. "Good-night, Janey. Keep a brave +heart, old girl." He nodded slightly to the room above, which was his +aunt's. "Rough on you sometimes, I'm afraid." + +"You always cheer me up," she said, with perfect truthfulness. He _had_ +cheered her. It would be a sad world for most of us if it were by our +conversational talents that we could comfort those we loved. But Roger +believed it was so in his case, and complacently felt that he had +broached a number of interesting Parisian subjects, and had refreshed +Janey, whom Lady Louisa led a dog's life and no mistake. He was fond of +her, and sorry for her beyond measure, and his voice and eyes were very +kindly as he bade her good-night. She went to the door with him, and +they stood a moment together in the moonlight under the clustering +stars of the clematis. He took his hat and stick and repeated his words: +"Keep a brave heart." + +She said in a voice which she tried, and failed, to make as tranquil as +usual-- + +"I had been so afraid you weren't coming, that you had missed your +train." + +"Oh no! I didn't miss it. But just as I got to the gate at eight o'clock +I met Miss Georges coming out of the churchyard, and it was pretty +dark--moon wasn't up--and I thought I ought to see her home first. That +was why I was late." + +Janey bade him good-night again, and slipped indoors. The moonlight and +the clematis which a moment before had been so full of mysterious +meaning were suddenly emptied of all significance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + "O Life, how naked and how hard when known! + Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Janey lit her bedroom candle with a hand that trembled a little, and in +her turn went slowly upstairs. + +She could hear the clatter of knives and forks in the dining-room, and +Harry's vacant laugh, and Nurse's sharp voice. They had come back, then. +She went with an effort into her mother's room, and sat down in her +accustomed chair by the bed. + +"It is ten o'clock. Shall I read, mother?" + +"Certainly." + +It was the first time they had spoken since she had been ordered out of +the room earlier in the day. + +Janey opened the Prayer Book on the table by the bedside, and read a +psalm and a chapter from the Gospel:-- + +"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give +you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and +lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is +easy, and My burden is light." + +Janey closed the book, and said timidly, "May I stay until Nurse comes +up?" + +"Pray do exactly what you like." + +She did not move. + +"I am heavy laden," said her mother. "I don't suppose you have ever +given it one moment's thought what it must be like to lie like a log as +I do." + +Her daughter dared not answer. + +"How many months have I lain in this room?" + +"Eight months." + +"Ever since I went to Paris last October. I was too ill to go, but I +went." + +Silence. + +"I am heavy laden, but it seems I must not look to you for help, Janey." + +Janey's heart sickened within her. When had her mother ever relinquished +anything if once her indomitable will were set upon it? She felt within +herself no force to withstand a second attack. + +The nurse came in at that moment, a tall, shrewd, capable woman of +five-and-thirty, with a certain remnant of haggard good looks. + +"May Mr. Harry come in to say good-night, milady?" + +"Yes." + +She went to the door and admitted a young man. Harry came and stood +beside the bed, looking sheepishly at his mother. If his face had not +been slightly vacant, the mouth ajar, he would have been beautiful. As +it was, people turned in the street to see him pass. He was tall, fair, +well grown, with a delightful smile. He smiled now at his mother, and +she tried hard to smile back at him, her rigid face twitching a little. + +"Well, my son! Had you a nice day in Ipswich?" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"And I hope you were brave at the dentist's, and that he did not hurt +you much?" + +"Oh no, mamma. He did not hurt me at all." + +"Not at all?" said his mother, surprised. + +The nurse stepped forward at once. + +"Mr. Harry did not have his tooth out, milady." + +"No," said Harry slowly, looking at the nurse as if he were repeating a +lesson, "the tooth was _not_ taken out. It was _not_." + +"Mr. Milson had been called away," continued the nurse glibly. + +"Called away," echoed Harry. + +"Then the expedition was all for nothing?" said Lady Louisa wearily. + +"Oh _no_, mamma." + +The nurse intervened once more, and recounted how she had taken Harry to +have his hair cut, and to buy some gloves, and to an entertainment of +performing dogs, and to tea at Frobisher's. They could have been home +earlier, but she knew the carriage was ordered to meet the later train. + +Harry began to imitate the tricks which the dogs had done, but the nurse +peremptorily interrupted him. + +"Her ladyship's tired, and it's past ten o'clock. You must tell her +about the dogs to-morrow." + +"Yes, to-morrow," echoed Harry, and he kissed his mother, and shuffled +towards the door. Janey slipped out with him. + +Lady Louisa did not speak again while the nurse made the arrangements +for the night. She was incensed with her. She had been too peremptory +with Harry. It was not for her to order him about in that way. Lady +Louisa was beginning to distrust this capable, indefatigable woman, on +whom she had become absolutely dependent; and when the nurse had left +her for the night, and was asleep in the next room with the door open +between, she began to turn over in her mind, not for the first time, the +idea of parting with her, and letting Janey nurse her entirely once +more, as she had done at first. Janey with Anne the housemaid to help +her could manage perfectly well, whatever the doctor might say. It was +not as if she wanted anything doing for her, lying still as she did day +after day. She should never have had a trained nurse if her own wishes +had been consulted. But when were they ever consulted? The doctor, who +understood nothing about her illness, had insisted, and Janey had not +resisted the idea as she ought to have done. But the whole household +could not be run to suit Janey's convenience. She had told her so +already more than once. She should tell her so again. Even worms will +turn. There were others to be considered besides Janey, who only +considered herself. + +Lady Louisa's mind left her daughter and went back, as if it had +received some subtle warning, to the subject of the nurse. She was +convinced by the woman's manner of intervening when she had been +questioning Harry, that something had been concealed from her about the +expedition to Ipswich. She constantly suspected that there was a cabal +against her. She was determined to find out what it was, which she could +easily do from Harry. And if Nurse had really disobeyed her, and had +taken him on the water, which always excited him, or to a theatre, which +was strictly forbidden, then she would make use of that act of +disobedience as a pretext for dismissing her, and she would certainly +not consent to have anyone else in her place. Having settled this point, +she closed her eyes and tried to settle herself to sleep. + +But sleep would not come. The diligent little clock, with its face +turned to the strip of light shed by the shaded nightlight, recorded in +a soft chime half-hour after half-hour. With forlorn anger, she +reflected that every creature in the house was sleeping--she could hear +Nurse's even breathing close at hand--every one except herself, who +needed sleep more than anyone to enable her to get through the coming +day. It did not strike her that possibly Janey also might be lying +open-eyed through the long hours. + +Lady Louisa's mind wandered like a sullen, miserable tramp over her past +life. She told herself that all had gone wrong with her, all had cheated +her from first to last. It seems to be the doom of the egoist to crave +for things for which he has no real value, on which when acquired he can +only trample. Lady Louisa had acquired a good deal and had trampled +heavily on her acquisitions, especially on her kindly, easy-tempered +husband who had loved her. And how throughout her whole life she had +longed to be loved! + +To thirst voraciously to be loved, to have sufficient acumen to perceive +love to be the only real bulwark, as it is, against the blows of fate; +the only real refuge, as it is, from grief; the one sure consolation, as +it is, in the recurring anguished ache of existence,--to perceive that +life is not life without it, and _then_ to find that love when +appropriated and torn out of its shrine is no talisman, but only a +wearisome, prosaic clog quickly defaced by being dragged in the dust up +the thorny path of our egotism! Is there any disappointment so bitter, +so devastating as that? Lady Louisa, poor soul, had endured it. She +glanced for a moment at the photograph of her husband on the +mantelpiece, with his hair brushed forward over his ears. Even death had +not assuaged her long-standing grievance against him. Why had he always +secretly preferred his nephew Roger to his own sons? Why did he die just +after their eldest son Dick came of age? And why had not he left her +Hulver for her life, instead of taking for granted that she would prefer +to go back to her own house, Noyes Court, a few miles off? She had told +him so, but he might have known she had never meant it. She had not +wanted to go back to it. She had not gone back, though all her friends +and Janey had especially wished it. She had hastily let it to Mr. +Stirling the novelist, to show that she should do exactly as she liked, +and had made one of those temporary arrangements that with the old are +always for life. She had moved into the Dower House for a year, and had +been in it seven years. + +Her heart swelled with anger as she thought of the conduct of her eldest +son after his father's death: and yet could anyone have been a brighter, +more delightful child than Dicky? But Dicky had been a source of +constant anxiety to her, from the day when he was nearly drowned in the +mill-race at Riff to the present hour, when he was lying dying by inches +of spinal paralysis at his aunt's house in Paris as the result of a +racing accident. What a heartbreaking record his life had been, of one +folly, one insane extravagance after another! And shame had not been +wanting. He had not even made a foolish marriage, and left a son whom +she and Janey could have taken from its mother and educated; but there +was an illegitimate child--a girl--whom Roger had told her about, by a +village schoolmistress, an honest woman whom Dick had seduced under +promise of marriage. + +Perhaps, after all, Lady Louisa had some grounds for feeling that +everything had gone against her. Dick was dying, and her second son +Harry--what of him? She was doggedly convinced that Harry was not +"wanting": that "he could help it if he liked." In that case, all that +could be said was that he did not like. She stuck to it that his was a +case of arrested development, in strenuous opposition to her husband, +who had held that Harry's brain was not normal from the awful day when +as a baby they first noticed that he always stared at the ceiling. Lady +Louisa had fiercely convinced herself, but no one else, that it was the +glitter of the old cut-glass chandelier which attracted him. But after a +time even she had to own to herself, though never to others, that he had +a trick of staring upwards where no chandelier was. Even now, at +two-and-twenty, Harry furtively gazed upon the sky, and perhaps vaguely +wondered why he could only do so by stealth--why that was one of the +innumerable forbidden things among which he had to pick his way, and +for which he was sharply reprimanded by that dread personage his mother. + +Mr. Manvers on his death-bed had said to Dick in Lady Louisa's presence, +"Remember, if you don't have a son, Roger ought to have Hulver. Harry is +not fit." + +She had never forgiven her husband for trying to denude Harry of his +birthright. And to-night she felt a faint gleam of consolation in the +surrounding dreariness in the thought that he had not been successful. +When Dick died, Harry would certainly come in. On her last visit to +Paris she had ransacked Dick's rooms at his training-stable. She had +gone through all his papers. She had visited his lawyers. She had +satisfied herself that he had not made a will. It was all the more +important, as Harry would be very rich, that Janey should take entire +and personal charge of him, lest he should fall into the hands of some +designing woman. That pretty French adventuress, Miss Georges, who had +come to live at Riff and whom Janey had made such friends with, was just +the kind of person who might entangle him into marrying her. And then if +Roger and Janey should eventually marry, Harry could perfectly well live +with them. He must be guarded at all costs. Lady Louisa sighed. That +seemed on the whole the best plan. She had looked at it all round. But +Janey was frustrating it by refusing to do her part. She must fall into +line. To-morrow she would send for her lawyer and alter her will once +more, leaving Noyes to Harry, instead of Janey, as she had done by a +promise to her husband. Janey had no one but herself to thank for such a +decision. She had forced it on her mother by her obstinacy and her +colossal selfishness. What had she done that she of all women should +have such selfish children? Then Janey would have nothing of her own at +all, and then she would be so dependent on Harry that she would have no +alternative but to do her duty by him. + +Lady Louisa sighed again. Her mind was made up. Janey must give way, and +the nurse must be got rid of. Those were the two next things to be +achieved. Then perhaps she would be suffered to rest in peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + "And Death stopped knitting at the muffling band. + 'The shroud is done,' he muttered, 'toe to chin.' + He snapped the ends, and tucked his needles in." + JOHN MASEFIELD. + + +After a sleepless night, and after the protracted toilet of the old and +feeble, Lady Louisa tackled her task with unabated determination. She +dictated a telegram to her lawyer, sent out the nurse for a walk, and +desired Janey to bring Harry to her. + +Harry, who was toiling over his arithmetic under the cedar, with the +help of a tutor from Riebenbridge and a box of counters, obeyed with +alacrity. He looked a very beaming creature, with "fresh morning face," +as he came into his mother's room. + +"Good morning, mamma." + +"Good morning, my son." + +The terrible ruler looked benign. She nodded and smiled at him. He did +not feel as cowed as usual. + +"You can go away, Janey, and you needn't come back till I ring." + +"And now tell me all about the performing dogs," said the terrible +ruler in the bed, when Janey had left the room. + +Harry saw that she was really interested, and he gave her an exact +account, interrupted by the bubbling up of his own laughter, of a dog +which had been dressed up as a man in a red coat, with a cocked hat and +a gun. He could hardly tell her for laughing. The dread personage +laughed too, and said, "Capital! Capital!" And he showed her one of the +tricks, which consisted of sitting up on your hind legs with a pipe in +your mouth. He imitated exactly how the dog had sat, which in a man was +perhaps not quite so mirth-provoking as in a dog. Nevertheless, the +dread personage laughed again. + +It promised to be an agreeable morning. He hoped it would be a long time +before she remembered his arithmetic and sent him back to it, that +hopeless guess-work which he sometimes bribed Tommy the gardener's boy +to do for him in the tool-shed. + +"And then you got your gloves!" said the dread personage suddenly. "How +many pairs was it?" Harry was bewildered, and stared blankly at her. + +"You must remember how many pairs it was." Harry knit his poor brow, +rallied his faculties, and said it was two pairs. + +"And now," said Lady Louisa, "you may have a chocolate out of my silver +box, and let me hear all about--you know what," and she nodded +confidentially at him. + +But he only gaped at her, half frightened. She smiled reassuringly at +him. + +"Nurse told me all about it," she said encouragingly. "That was why you +weren't to tell me. She wanted it to be a great surprise to me." + +"I wasn't to say a word," said Harry doubtfully,--"not a word--about +_that_." + +"No. That was just what Nurse said to me. You weren't to say a single +word last night, until she had told me. But now I know all about it, so +we can talk. Was it great fun?" + +"I don't know." + +"It was great fun when I did it. How I laughed!" + +"I didn't laugh. She told me not to." + +"Well, no. Not at first. She was quite right. And what did her brother +say? Nurse said he went with you." + +"Yes. We called for him, and he went with us, with a flower in his +button-hole--a rose it was. He gave me one too." + +Harry looked at his button-hole, as if expecting to see the rose still +in it. But that sign of merry-making was absent. + +Lady Louisa had on a previous occasion severely reprimanded Nurse for +taking Harry to tea at her brother's house, a solicitor's clerk in +Ipswich. Her spirits rose. She had detected her in an act of flagrant +disobedience. And as likely as not they had all gone to a play together. + +"Capital!" she said suavely. "He was just the right person to go with. +That was what I said to Nurse. And what did _he_ talk about?" + +"He said, 'Mum's the word. Keep it all quiet till the old cat dies,' and +he slapped me on the back and said, 'Mind that, brother-in-law.' He was +very nice indeed." + +A purple mark like a bruise came to Lady Louisa's clay-coloured cheeks. +There was a long pause before she spoke again. + +"And did you write your name nicely, like Janey taught you?" She spoke +with long-drawn gasps, each word articulated with difficulty. + +"Yes," said Harry anxiously, awed by the fixity of her eyes upon him. "I +did indeed, mamma. I was very particular." + +"Your full name?" + +"Yes, the man said my full name--Henry de la Pole Manvers." + +"That was the man at the registry office?" + +"Yes." + +"And"--the voice laboured heavily and was barely audible--"did Nurse +write her name nicely too?" + +"Yes, and her brother and the man. We all wrote them, and then we all +had tea at Frobisher's,--only it wasn't tea,--and Nurse's brother +ordered a bottle of champagne. Nurse didn't want him to, but he said +people didn't get married every day. And he drank our health, and I +drank a little tiny sip, and it made me sneeze." + +Lady Louisa lay quite motionless, the sweat upon her forehead, looking +at her son, who smiled seraphically back at her. + +And so Nurse had actually thought she could outwit _her_--had pitted +herself against _her_? She would shortly learn a thing or two on that +head. + +A great cold was invading her. And as she looked at Harry, it was as if +some key, some master key, were suddenly and noiselessly turned in the +lock. Without moving her eyes, she saw beyond him the door, expecting to +see the handle turn, and Nurse or Janey to come in. But the door +remained motionless. Nevertheless, a key somewhere had turned. +Everything was locked tight--the room, the walls, the bed, herself in +it--as in a vice. + +"Go back to your lessons," she said to Harry, "and send Janey to me." +She felt a sudden imperative need of Janey. + +But Harry, so docile, so schooled to obedience, made no motion to obey +her. He only looked vacantly, expectantly at her. + +She spoke again, but he paid no heed. She spoke yet again with anger, +but this time he was fidgeting with the watch on her table and did not +even look up. She saw him as if through a glass screen. + +A wave of anger shook her. + +"Leave the room this moment, and do as I tell you," she said, with her +whole strength. Had he suddenly became deaf? Or had she----? Was +she----? A great fear took her. He put back the watch on its stand, and +touched the silver box in which the chocolates were kept. + +"May I have another--just one other?" he said, opening it, his voice +barely audible through the glass screen. + +And then, glancing at her for permission, he was seized with helpless +laughter. + +"Oh, mamma! You do look so funny, with your mouth all on one +side--funnier than the dog in the hat." + +His words and his laughter reached her, faint yet distinct, and she +understood what had befallen her. Two large tears gathered in her +anguished eyes and then slowly ran down her distorted face. Everything +else remained fixed, as in a vice, save Harry, rocking himself to and +fro, and snapping his fingers with delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + "After all, I think there are only two kinds of people in the + world, lovers and egotists. I fear that lovers must smile when they + see me making myself comfortable, collecting refined luxuries and a + pleasant society round myself, protecting myself from an uneasy + conscience by measured ornamental acts of kindness and duty; + mounting guard over my health and my seclusion and my liberty. Yes! + I have seen them smile."--M. N. + + +The violet dusk was deepening and the dew was falling as Annette crossed +the garden under the apple trees on her return from the choir practice. +There was a light in Aunt Maria's window, which showed that she was +evidently grappling with the smoking embroglio which was racking two +young hearts. Even a footfall in the passage was apt to scare that shy +bird Aunt Maria's genius, so Annette stole on tiptoe to the parlour. + +Aunt Harriet, extended on a sofa near a shaded lamp, looked up from her +cushions with a bright smile of welcome, and held out both her hands. + +Aunt Harriet was the youngest of three sisters, but she had not realized +that that fact may in time cease to mean much. It was obvious that she +had not yet kissed the rod of middle age. She had been moderately +good-looking twenty years ago, and still possessed a willowy figure and +a slender hand, and a fair amount of ash-coloured hair which she wore in +imitation of the then Princess of Wales tilted forward in a dome of +innumerable little curls over a longish pinkish face, leaving the thin +flat back of her head unmitigated by a coil. Aunt Harriet gave the +impression of being a bas-relief, especially on the few occasions on +which she stood up, when it seemed as if part of her had become +momentarily unglued from the sofa, leaving her spinal column and the +back of her head behind. + +She had had an unhappy and misunderstood--I mean too accurately +understood--existence, during the early years when her elder sister +Maria ruthlessly exhorted her to exert herself, and continually +frustrated her mild inveterate determination to have everything done for +her. But a temporary ailment long since cured and a sympathetic doctor +had enabled her to circumvent Maria, and to establish herself for good +on her sofa, with the soft-hearted Catherine in attendance. Her unlined +face showed that she had found her niche in this uneasy world, and was +no longer as in all her earlier years a drifter through life, terrified +by the possibility of fatiguing herself. Greatly to her credit, and +possibly owing to Catherine's mediation, Aunt Maria accepted the +situation, and never sought to undermine the castle, not in Spain but on +a sofa, which her sister had erected, and in which she had found the +somewhat colourless happiness of her life. + +"Come in, my love, come in," said Aunt Harriet, with playful gaiety. +"Come in and sit by me." + +Her love came in and sat down obediently on the low stool by her aunt's +couch, that stool to which she was so frequently beckoned, on which it +was her lot to hear so much advice on the subject of the housekeeping +and the management of the servants. + +"I think, Annette, you ought to speak to Hodgkins about the Albert +biscuits. I know I left six in the tin yesterday, and there were only +four to-day. I went directly I was down to count them. It is not good +for _her_ to take the dining-room Alberts and then to deny it, as she +did the other day. So I think it will be best if I don't move in the +matter, and if you mention it as if you had noticed it yourself." Or, +"There was a cobweb on my glass yesterday. I think, dearest, you must +not overlook that. Servants become very slack unless they are kept up to +their work." Aunt Harriet was an enemy of all slackness, idleness, want +of energy, shirking in all its branches. She had taken to reading +Emerson of late, and often quoted his words that "the only way of escape +in all the worlds of God was performance." + +Annette would never have kept a servant if she had listened to her +aunt's endless promptings. But she did not listen to them. Her placid, +rather happy-go-lucky temperament made her forget them at once. + +"Have you had supper, dear child?" + +"Not yet. I will go now." + +"And did you remember to take a lozenge as you left the church?" + +"I am afraid I forgot." + +"Ah! my dear, it's a good thing you have some one to look after you and +mother you. It's not too late to take one now." + +"I should like to go and have supper now. I am very hungry." + +"I rejoice to hear it. It is wonderful to me how you can do without a +regular meal on choir nights. If it had been me, I should have fainted. +But sit down again for one moment. I have something to tell you. You +will never guess whom we have had here." + +"I am sure I never shall." + +"You know how much Maria thinks of literary people?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't care for them quite so much as she does. I am more drawn to +those who have suffered, whose lives have been shattered like glass as +my own life has been, and who gather up the fragments that remain and +weave a beautiful embroidery out of them." + +Annette knew that her aunt wanted her to say, "As you do yourself." + +She considered a moment and then said, "You are thinking of Aunt +Catherine." + +Aunt Harriet was entirely nonplussed. She felt unable to own that she +had no such thought. She sighed deeply, and said after a pause, "I don't +want it repeated, Annette,--I learned long ago that it is my first duty +to keep my troubles to myself, to consume my own smoke,--but my +circulation has never been normal since the day Aunt Cathie died." + +Then after a moment she added, with sudden brightness, as one who +relumes the torch on which a whole household depends-- + +"But you have not guessed who our visitor was, and what a droll +adventure it all turned out. How I did laugh when it was all over and he +was safely out of hearing! Maria said there was nothing to laugh at, but +then she never sees the comic side of things as I do." + +"I begin to think it must have been Canon Wetherby, the clergyman who +told you that story about the parrot who said 'Damn' at prayers, and +made Aunt Maria promise not to put it in one of her books." + +"She will, all the same. It is too good to be lost. No, it was not Canon +Wetherby. But you will never guess. I've never known you guess anything, +Annette. You are totally devoid of imagination, and ah! how much happier +your life will be in consequence. I shall have to tell you. It was Mr. +Reginald Stirling." + +"The novelist?" + +"Yes, and you know Maria was beginning to feel a little hurt because he +hadn't called, as they are both writers. There is a sort of freemasonry +in these things, and, of course, in a neighbourhood like this we +naturally miss very much the extremely interesting literary society to +which we were accustomed in London, and in which Maria especially shone. +But anyhow he came at last, and he was quite delightful. Not much to +look at. Not Mr. Harvey's presence, but most agreeable. And he seemed to +know all about us. He said he went to Riff Church sometimes, and had +seen our youngest sister in the choir. How I laughed after he was gone! +I often wish the comic side did not appeal to me quite so forcibly. To +think of poor me, who have not been to church for years, boldly holding +forth in the choir, or Maria, dear Maria, who only knows 'God save the +Queen' because every one gets up: as Canon Wetherby said in his funny +way, 'Does not know "Pop goes the Queen" from "God save the weasel."' +Maria said afterwards that probably he thought you were our younger +sister, and that sent me off into fits again." + +"I certainly sit in the choir." + +"He was much interested in the house too, and said it was full of +old-world memories." + +"Did he really say that?" Annette's face fell. + +"No. Now I come to think of it, _I_ said that, and he agreed. And his +visit, and his conversation about Mrs. Humphry Ward, comparing _David +Grieve_ and _Robert Elsmere_, quite cured dear Maria's headache, and we +agreed that neither of us would tell you about it in the absence of the +other, so that we might make you guess. So remember, Annette, when Maria +comes in, you don't know a word, a single word, of what I've told you." + +Aunt Maria came in at that moment, and sat down on the other side of the +fire. + +Aunt Maria was a short, sacklike woman between fifty and sixty, who had +long since given up any pretensions to middle age, and who wore her grey +hair parted under a little cap. Many antagonistic qualities struggled +for precedence in Aunt Maria's stout, uneasy face: benevolence and +irritability, self-consciousness and absent-mindedness, a suspicious +pride and the self-depreciation which so often dogs it; and the fatigue +of one who daily and hourly is trying to be "an influence for good," +with little or no help from temperament. Annette had developed a +compassionate affection for both her aunts, now that they were under her +protection, but the greater degree of compassion was for Aunt Maria. + +"Aunt Harriet will have told you who has been to see us," she said as a +matter of course. + +Aunt Harriet fixed an imploring glance on Annette, who explained that +she had seen a dogcart in the courtyard, and how later she had seen Mr. +Stirling driving in it. + +"I wished, Harriet," said Aunt Maria, without looking at her sister, +"that you had not asked him if he had read my books." + +"But he had, Maria. He was only doubtful the first minute, till I told +him some of the names, and then----" + +"Then the poor man perjured himself." + +"And I thought that was so true how he said to you, 'You and I, Miss +Nevill, have no time in our hard-worked lives to read even the best +modern fiction.'" + +"I found time to read _The Magnet_," said Aunt Maria in a hollow voice. + +At this moment the door opened and Hodgkins the parlour-maid advanced +into the room bearing a tray, which she put down in an aggressive manner +on a small table beside Annette. + +"I am certain Hodgkins is vexed about something," said Aunt Harriet +solemnly, when that functionary had withdrawn. "I am as sensitive as a +mental thermometer to what others are feeling, and I saw by the way she +set the tray down that she was angry. She must have guessed that I've +found out about the Alberts." + +"Perhaps she guessed that Annette was starving," said Aunt Maria. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + "Life is like a nest in the winter, + The heart of man is always cold therein." + _Roumanian Folk Song._ + + +The lawyer who was to have altered Lady Louisa's will was sent away as +soon as he arrived. No one knew why she had telegraphed for him. She had +had a second stroke, and with it the last vestige of power dropped from +her numb hands. She was unable to speak, unable to move, unable even to +die. + +Janey sat by her for days together in a great compassion, not unmixed +with shame. Every one, Roger included, thought she was overwhelmed by +the catastrophe which had befallen her mother, and he made shy, clumsy +attempts at consolation, little pattings on the back, invitations to +"come out and have a look at the hay harvest." But Janey was stunned by +the thought that she was in danger of losing not her mother but her +Roger, had perhaps already lost him; and that her one friend Annette was +unconsciously taking him from her. Her mother's bedside had become a +refuge for the first time. As she sat hour after hour with Lady Louisa's +cold hand in hers, it was in vain that she told herself that it was +foolish, ridiculous, to attach importance to such a trivial incident as +the fact that when Roger was actually at her door he should have made +himself late by walking home with Annette. But she realized now that she +had been vaguely anxious before that happened, that it had been a +formless dread at the back of her mind which had nothing to do with her +mother, which had made her feel that night of the choir practice as if +she had reached the end of her strength. Is there any exhaustion like +that which guards the steep, endless steps up to the shrine of love? +Which of us has struggled as far as the altar and laid our offering upon +it? Which of us faint-hearted pilgrims has not given up the attempt +half-way? But Janey was not of these, not even to be daunted by a fear +that had taken shape at last. + +We all know that jealousy fabricates its own "confirmations strong as +proofs of Holy Writ." But with Janey it was not so much suspicion as +observation, that close observation born of love, which if it is once +dislinked from love not even Sir Galahad could endure scathless. With +steady eyes she dumbly watched her happiness grow dim and dimmer. Roger +was her all, and he was leaving her. His very kindness might have warned +her as to his real feeling for her, and it seemed to Janey as if for +months she had been shutting her eyes forcibly against the truth. + +There is a great deal of talk nowadays about losing the one we love, +and that attractive personality generally turns out to be some sagacious +stranger who has the agility to elude us in the crowd. But Roger was as +much an integral part of Janey's life as Hulver was part of his. Janey's +life had grown round Roger. Roger's had grown round Hulver. + + +Small incidents spread over the last two months, since Annette had come +to Riff, rose to her memory; things too small to count by themselves +hooked themselves like links one after another into a chain. For +instance, the Ipswich Agricultural Show. + +Janey had always gone to that annual event with Roger and Harry. And +since the Blacks had come to Riff, they had accompanied them. It seemed +pleasant to Janey to go in a little bunch together, and Mr. Black was +good-natured to Harry and took him to the side shows, and Janey always +had a new gown for the occasion. She had a new one this year, a pink +one, and a white straw hat covered with pink roses. And Roger had said +approvingly, "My word, Janey, you _have_ done it this time!" They had +taken Annette with them, in a flowing pale amber muslin which made her +hair and eyes seem darker than ever, and which Miss Black, in her +navy-blue silk, pronounced at once in a loud aside to be theatrical. +When they all arrived they divided, Annette owning she did not like the +pigs and sheep. Janey at once said she preferred them, because she knew +Roger did. If there was one thing more than another that Roger loved, it +was to stand among the cattle pens, with his hat a little at the back of +his head, exchanging oracular remarks with other agents and +stock-breeders, who gathered with gratifying respect the pearls of +wisdom which he let drop. For there was no sounder opinion in Lowshire +on a brood mare or a two-year-old "vanner" than Roger. + +It was always stiflingly hot among the cattle pens, and the pigs in +their domestic life had no bouquet more penetrating than that which they +brought with them to these public functions. Janey did not love that +animal, of which it might with truth be said that its "best is yet to +be," but she always accompanied Roger on these occasions, standing +beside him, a neat, dainty little figure, by the hour together, giving +her full attention to the various points of the animals as he indicated +them to her. They did the same again this year. Roger said, "Come on, +Janey," as usual, and hurried in the direction of the cattle pens, while +Annette and Harry and Mr. Black wandered towards the flower tents. But +when they had reached the pandemonium of the "live stock," Roger +appeared dissatisfied. The animals, it seemed, were a poor lot this +year. The flower of the Lowshire land agentry was absent. He didn't see +Smith anywhere. And Blower was not about. He expressed the opinion +frequently that they must be "getting on," and they were soon getting +on to such an extent that they had got past the reaping-machines, and +even the dogcarts, and were back near the band-stand, Roger continually +wondering what had become of the others. Janey, suddenly hot and tired, +suggested that they should look for them. And they set out immediately, +and elbowed their way through the crowded flower tents, and past side +shows innumerable, till they finally came upon Mr. Black and Annette and +Harry at an "Aunt Sally"; Harry in a seventh heaven of enjoyment, Mr. +Black blissfully content, and Annette under her lace parasol as cool as +a water-lily. Janey never forgot the throb of envy and despair to which +the sudden sight of Annette gave rise, as she smiled at her and made +room for her on the bench beside her, while Roger, suddenly peaceful and +inclined to giggle, tried his luck at the "Aunt Sally." They all stayed +together in a tight bunch for the remainder of the day, the endless +weary day which every one seemed to enjoy except herself. And at +tea-time they were joined by Miss Black and her friend, an entirely deaf +Miss Conder, secretary of the Lowshire Plain Needlework Guild, who had +adhered to Miss Black since morning greetings had been exchanged at the +station, and who at this, the first opportunity, deserted her for Janey. +And when they all came back late in the evening, Roger had driven +Annette home in his dogcart, while she and the Blacks and Harry, who +could hardly be kept awake, squeezed into the wagonnette. And when Janey +got home she tore off the pink gown and the gay hat, and wondered why +she was tired out. She knew now, but she had not realized it at the +time. She had somehow got it into her head, and if Janey once got an +idea into her little head it was apt to remain there some time, that +Annette and Mr. Black were attracted to each other. In these days, as +she sat by her mother, Janey saw that that idea had led her astray. Mr. +Black's hapless condition was sufficiently obvious. But perhaps Annette +did not care for Mr. Black? Perhaps she preferred Roger? And if she +did---- + +The reed on which Janey's maimed life had leaned showed for the first +time that heartbreaking tendency inherent in every reed, to pierce the +hand of the leaner. Strange, how slow we are to learn that everything in +this pretty world is fragile as spun glass, and nothing in it is strong +enough to bear our weight, least of all that reed shaken in the +wind--human love. We may draw near, we may hearken to its ghostly music, +we may worship, but we must not lean. + +Janey was not a leaner by nature. She was one on whom others leaned. +Nevertheless, she had counted on Roger. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + "So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is + the effect of one personality on another."--GEORGE ELIOT. + + +Janey's set face distressed Roger. + +Presently he had a brilliant idea. Miss Georges was the person to cheer +her, to tempt her out of her mother's sick-room. So the next time he was +going to Red Riff to inspect some repairs in the roof--the next time was +the same afternoon--he expounded this view at considerable length to +Annette, whom he found thinning the annuals in a lilac pinafore and +sunbonnet in the walled garden. + +She sat down on the circular bench round the apple tree while he talked, +and as he sat by her it seemed to him, not for the first time, that in +some mysterious way it was a very particular occasion. There was a +delightful tremor in the air. It suggested the remark which he at once +made that it was a remarkably fine afternoon. Annette agreed, rather too +fine for thinning annuals, though just the weather for her aunts to +drive over to Noyes to call on Mr. Stirling Now that Roger came to look +at Annette he perceived that she herself was part of the delicious +trouble in the air. It lurked in her hair, and the pure oval of her +cheek, and her eyes--most of all in her eyes. He was so taken aback by +this discovery that he could only stare at the sky. And yet if the silly +man had been able to put two and two together, if he had known as much +about human nature as he did about reaping-machines, he would not have +been in the dark as to why he was sitting under the apple tree at this +moment, why he had ordered those new riding-breeches, why he had them on +at this instant, why he had begun to dislike Mr. Black, and why he had +been so expeditious in retiling the _laiterie_ after the tree fell on +it. If he had had a grain of self-knowledge, he would have realized that +there must indeed be a grave reason for these prompt repairs which the +Miss Nevills had taken as a matter of course. + +For in the ordinary course of things tiles could hardly be wrested out +of Roger, and drainpipes and sections of lead guttering were as his +life-blood, never to be parted with except as a last resort after a +desperate struggle. The estate was understaffed, underfinanced, and the +repairs were always in arrear. Even the estate bricklayer, ruthlessly +torn from a neighbouring farm to spread himself on the Miss Nevills' +roof, opined to his nephew with the hod, that "Mr. Roger must be +uncommon sweet on Miss Georges to be in such a mortial hurry with them +tiles." + +Annette's voice recalled Roger from the contemplation of the heavens. + +"I will go down to-day, after tea," she was saying, "and I will persuade +Janey to come and sit in the hay-field. It is such a pretty thing a +hay-field. I've never seen hay in--in what do you call it?" + +"In cock." + +"Yes. Such a funny word! I've never seen hay in cock before." + +Roger smiled indulgently. Annette's gross ignorance of country-life did +not pain him. It seemed as much part of her as a certain little curl on +the white nape of her neck. + +Down the lane a child's voice came singing-- + + + "If I could 'ave the one I love, + 'Ow 'appy I should be!" + + +"That's Charlie Nokes," said Roger, feeling he ought to go, and +singularly disinclined to move, and casting about for a little +small-talk to keep him under this comfortable apple tree. "His father +used to sing that song at Harvest Homes before he took to the drink. +Jesse Nokes. He's dead now. He and my cousin Dick, the present squire, +used to get into all kinds of scrapes together when they were boys. I've +seen them climb up that vine and hide behind the chimney-stack when +Uncle John was looking for them with his whip. They might have broken +their necks, but they never thought of that. Poor Jesse! He's dead. And +Dick's dying." + +It was the first time Roger had ever spoken to her of the present owner +of Hulver, the black sheep of the family, of whose recklessness and +folly she had heard many stories from his foster-mother, Mrs. Nicholls. +Janey, in spite of their intimacy, never mentioned him. + +And partly because he wanted to remain under the apple tree, partly +because he was fond of Janey, and partly because a change of listeners +is grateful to the masculine mind, Roger talked long about his two +cousins, Janey and Dick Manvers: of her courage and unselfishness, and +what a pity it was that she had not been the eldest son of the house. +And then he told her a little of the havoc Dick was making of his +inheritance and of the grief he had caused his mother, and what, +according to Roger, mattered still more, to Janey. + +"Janey loved Dick," he said, "and I was fond of him myself. Everybody +was fond of him. You couldn't help liking Dick. There was something very +taking about him. Can't say what it was, but one felt it. But it seems +as if those taking people sometimes wear out all their takingness before +they die, spend it all like money, so that at last there is nothing left +for the silly people that have been so fond of them and stuck so long to +them. Dick is like that. He's worn us all out, every one, even Janey. +And now he's dying. I'm afraid there's no one left to care much--except, +of course----" + +He stopped short. + +"I've just been to see him in Paris," he went on. "Didn't you live in +Paris at one time? I wonder if you ever came across him?" + +Annette shook her head. + +"I never met a Mr. Manvers that I know of." + +"But he dropped the Manvers when he started his racing-stables. He had +the decency to do that. He always went by his second name, Le Geyt." + +"_Le Geyt?_" + +"Yes; Dick Le Geyt. Lady Louisa's mother was a Le Geyt of Noyes, you +know, the last of the line. She married Lord Stour, as his second wife, +and had no son. So her daughter, Lady Louisa, inherited Noyes." + +"Dick Le Geyt?" + +"Yes. Did you ever meet him? But I don't suppose you did. Dick never +went among the kind of people you would be likely to associate with." + +Annette was silent for a moment, and then said-- + +"Yes, I have met him. I used to see him sometimes at my father's +cabaret." She saw he did not know what a cabaret was, and she added, "My +father keeps a public-house in the Rue du Bac." Roger was so astonished +that he did not perceive that Annette had experienced a shock. + +"Your father!" he said. "A publican!" + +"He was a courier first," she said, speaking with difficulty, like one +stunned but forcing herself to attend to some trivial matter. "That was +how my mother met him. And after her death he set up a little +drinking-shop, and married again--a woman in his own class of life. I +lived with them for a year, till--last September." + +"Good Lord!" said Roger, and he said no more. He could only look at +Annette in sheer astonishment. The daughter of a publican! He was deeply +perturbed. The apple tree had quite ceased to be comfortable. He got +slowly to his feet, and said he must be going. She bade him "good-bye" +absently, and he walked away, thinking that no other woman in Lowshire +would have let him go after four o'clock without offering him a cup of +tea. + +Just when she thought he was really gone she found he had come back and +was standing before her. + +"Miss Georges," he began, awkwardly enough, "I dare say I have no +business to offer advice, but you don't seem to know country-life very +well. Never seen hay in cock before, I think you mentioned. So perhaps +you would not think it cheek of me if I said anything." + +"About the hay?" + +"No, no. About what you've just told me." + +"About my father keeping a public-house?" + +"Yes. None of my business,"--he had become plum colour,--"but----" + +She looked blankly at him. She felt unable to give him sufficient +attention to help him out. He had to flounder on without assistance. + +"If you mentioned that fact to anyone like Miss Black, it would go the +round of the parish in no time." + +"Would that matter?" + +Roger was nonplussed for a moment. Her ignorance was colossal. + +"Some things are better not talked about," he said. "I have been telling +you of poor Dick, but there were things in _his_ life that were better +not talked about, so I did not mention them." + +His words transfixed her. Was it possible that he was warning her that +he was aware of her adventure with Dick? At any rate, she gave him her +full attention now. + +She raised her eyes to his and looked searchingly at him. And she saw +with a certainty that nothing could shake, that he knew nothing, that he +was only trying to save her from a petty annoyance. + +"The Miss Nevills have always been very close about your father," he +added. "You can ask them, but I think you would find they wouldn't be +much pleased if his--profession was known down here. It might vex them. +So many vexatious things in this world that can't be helped, aren't +there? And if there are any that _can_, so much the better. That was all +I came back to say. I should not volunteer it, if I were you. It seemed +to drop out so naturally that I thought you might have said the same to +Miss Black." + +"Certainly I might. I do hate concealments of any kind." Annette spoke +with conviction. + +"So do I," said Roger whole-heartedly. "I've hushed up too many scrawls +not to hate them. But this isn't a concealment. It's--it's--you see, +Miss Black _does_ run round with her tongue out and no mistake, and +Uncle John's advice when I settled down here as his agent was, 'Never +say more than you must.' So I just pass it on to you, now that you've +settled down at Riff too." + +And Roger departed for the second time. She watched him go, and a minute +later heard him ride out of the courtyard. + +She sat quite still where he had left her, gazing in front of her, so +motionless that the birds, disturbed by Roger's exodus, resumed +possession of the grass-plot at once. + +The plebeian sparrows came hopping clumsily as if they were made of +wood, propped up by their stiff tails. A bulging thrush with wide +speckled waistcoat hastened up and down, throwing out his wing each time +he darted forward. A thin water-wagtail came walking with quick steps, +and exquisite tiny movements of head and neck and long balancing tail. A +baby-wagtail, brown and plump and voracious, bustled after it, shouting, +"More! More!" the instant after its overworked, partially bald parent +had stuffed a billful down its yellow throat. + +Annette looked with wide eyes at the old dim house with its latticed +windows and the vine across it--the vine which Dick had climbed as a +lad. + +Dick was Mr. Manvers of Hulver. + +The baby-wagtail bolted several meals, fluttering its greedy little +wings, while Annette said to herself over and over again, half +stupefied-- + +"Dick is Mr. Manvers. Dick is Janey's brother." + +She was not apprehensive by nature, but gradually a vague alarm invaded +her. She must tell Mrs. Stoddart at once. What would Mrs. Stoddart say? +What would she do? With a slow sinking of the heart, Annette realized +that that practical and cautious woman would probably insist on her +leaving Riff. Tears came into her eyes at the thought. Was it then +unalloyed bliss to live with the Miss Nevills, or was there some other +subtle influence at work which made the thought of leaving Riff +intolerable? Annette did not ask herself that question. She remembered +with a pang her two friends Janey and Roger, and the Miss Blinketts, and +Mrs. Nicholls, and her Sunday-school class, and the choir. And she +looked at the mignonette she had sown, and the unfinished annuals, and +the sweet peas which she had raised in the frame, and which would be out +in another fortnight. + +She turned and put her arms round the little old apple tree, and +pressed her face against the bark. + +"I'm happy here," she said. "I've never been so happy before. I don't +want to go." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + "In the winter, when all the flowers are dead, the experienced Bee + Keeper places before His hive a saucer of beer and treacle to + sustain the inmates during the frost. And some of the less active + bees, who have not used their wings, but have heard about honey, + taste the compound, and finding it wonderfully sustaining and + exactly suited to their aspirations, they religiously store it, + dark and sticky, in waxen cells, as if it were what they genuinely + believe it to be--the purest honey. + + "But the other surly, unsympathetic bees with worn-out wings + contend that honey is not come by as easily as that: that you must + fly far, and work hard, and penetrate many flower-cups to acquire + it. This naturally arouses the indignation of the beer and treacle + gatherers. + + "And the Bee Keeper as He passes His hive hears His little people + buzzing within, and--smiles."--M. N. + + +"And now," said Aunt Harriet, the same evening,--"now that we have made +Mr. Stirling's acquaintance and been to tea with him, and may expect to +see him frequently, I think we ought to take a little course of his +books. What do you say, Maria? Eh! Annette? You seem strangely apathetic +and inert this evening, my dear. So different from me at your age. I was +gaiety and energy itself until my health failed. You might read aloud +some extracts from _The Magnet_, instead of the _Times_. It is a book +which none of us can afford to disregard. How I cried over it when it +came out! I wrote to him after I had finished it, even though I did not +know him. Authors like it, don't they, Maria? I felt very audacious, but +I am a child of impulse. I have never been able to bind myself down with +conventional ideas as I see others do. I felt I simply must tell him +what that book had been to me, what it had done for me, coming like a +ray of light into a darkened room." + +Mrs. Stoddart had read aloud _The Magnet_ to Annette at Teneriffe, and +it was intimately associated with her slow reawakening to life. It had +had a part, and not a small part, in sending her back humbled and +contrite to her aunts. But she felt a deep repugnance to the thought of +hearing their comments upon it. + + +She took the offered book reluctantly, but Aunt Harriet's long thin +finger was already pointing to a paragraph. + +"Begin at 'How we follow Self at first,' the top of the page," she said. +And she leaned back among her cushions. Aunt Maria took up her knitting, +and Annette began to read:-- + +"How we follow Self at first! How long we follow her! How pallid, how +ephemeral is all else beside that one bewitching form! We call her by +many beautiful names--our career, our religion, our work for others. The +face of Self is veiled, but we follow that mysterious rainbow-tinted +figure as some men follow art, as some men follow Christ, leaving all +else behind. We follow her across the rivers. If the stepping-stones +are alive and groan beneath our feet, what of that? We follow her across +the hills. Love weeps and falls behind, but what of that? The love which +will not climb the hills with us is not the love we need. Our friends +appeal to us and one by one fall behind. False friends! Let them go. Our +ideals are broken and left behind. Miserable impediments and hindrances! +Let them go too. + +"For some of us Self flits veiled to the last, and we trudge to our +graves, looking ever and only at her across the brink. But sometimes she +takes pity on us. Sometimes she turns and confronts us in a narrow +place, and lifts her veil. We are alone at last with her we love. The +leprous face, the chasms where the eyes should be, the awful discoloured +hand are revealed to us, the crawling horror of every fold of that +alluring drapery. + +"Here is the bride. Take her! + +"And we turn, sick unto death, and flee for our lives. + +"After that day, certain easy self-depreciations we say never again +while we have speech. After that day our cheap admission of our egotism +freezes on our lips. For we have seen. We know." + +"We have seen. We know," repeated Aunt Harriet solemnly. "That last bit +simply changed my life. If I had a talent for writing like you, Maria, +which of course I have not, that is just the kind of thing I should have +said myself to help other sufferers. Unselfishness, that must be the +key-note of our lives. If the stepping-stones are alive and groan +beneath our feet, what of that? How often I have said those words to +myself when the feet of the world have gone over me, poor +stepping-stone, trying hard, trying so hard not to groan. And if I am to +be perfectly honest just for once, you know, dear Maria, you and Annette +_do_ trample somewhat heavily at times. Of course you are absorbed in +your work, and Annette is young, and you don't either of you mean it. I +know that, and I make allowances for you both. I am making allowances +all the time. But I sometimes wish you could remember that the poor +stepping-stone is alive." + +There was a moment's silence. Annette got up and gently replaced the +_couvre-pied_ which had slipped from the stepping-stone's smart +high-heeled shoes. Aunt Harriet wiped away a delicious tear. + +"Our ideals are broken and left behind," she went on. "Only the invalid +knows how true _that_ is. Dear me! When I think of all the high ideals I +had when I was your age, Annette, who don't seem to have any! But +perhaps it is happier for you that you haven't. Though Mr. Stirling +looks so strong I feel sure that he must at one time have known a +sofa-life. Or perhaps he loved some one like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, +who was as great a prisoner to her couch as I am. He simply couldn't +have written those lines otherwise. I often think as I lie here in +solitude, hour after hour, how different my life might have been if +anyone like Browning had sought me out--had---- But it's no use +repining: all these things are ordered for the best. Go on, my dear, go +on." + +When the reading was over and Aunt Harriet, still emotional, had gone to +bed, after embracing them both with unusual fervour, Annette opened the +window as her custom was, and let in the soft night air. Aunt Harriet +was a lifelong foe to fresh air. Aunt Maria gave a sigh of relief. She +was stout and felt the heat. + +The earth was resting. The white pinks below the window gave forth their +scent. The low moon had laid a slanting black shadow of the dear old +house and its tall chimney-stacks upon the silvered grass. + +Annette's heart throbbed. Must she leave it all? She longed to go to her +own room and think over what had happened, but she had an intuitive +feeling that Aunt Maria had been in some mysterious way depressed by the +reading aloud, and was in need of consolation. + +"I think," said Aunt Maria after a time, "that Mr. Stirling rather +exaggerates, don't you?--that he has yielded to the temptation of +picturesque overstatement in that bit about following Self." + +"It seems to me--just right." + +"You don't feel he is writing for the sake of effect?" + +"No. Oh no." + +"I am afraid I do a little. But then the picture is so very highly +coloured, and personally I don't care much for garish colouring." + +Annette did not answer. + +"I should like to know what you think about it, Annette." + +Whenever Aunt Maria used that phrase, she wanted confirmation of her own +opinion. Annette considered a moment. + +"I think he has really seen it exactly as he says. I think perhaps he +was selfish once, and--and had a shock." + +"He is quite right to write from his experience," continued Aunt Maria. +"I have drawn largely from mine in my books, and I am thankful I have +had such a deep and rich experience to draw from. Experience, of course, +must vary with each one of us. But I can't say I have ever felt what he +describes. Have you?" + +"Yes." + +"The veiled figure meeting you in a narrow place and raising its veil?" + +"Yes." + +Aunt Maria was momentarily taken aback. When our opinions do not receive +confirmation from others we generally feel impelled to restate them at +length. + +"I have never looked at selfishness like that," she said, "as something +which we idealize. I have always held that egotism is the thing of all +others which we ought to guard against. And egotism seems to me +ugly--not beautiful or rainbow-tinted at all. I tried to show in _Crooks +and Coronets_ what an obstacle it is to our spiritual development, and +how happiness is to be found in little deeds of kindness, small +sacrifices for the sake of others, rather than in always considering +ourselves." + +Annette did not answer. She knew her aunt's faith in spiritual +homoeopathy. + +"I have had hundreds of letters," continued the homoeopath uneasily, +"from my readers, many of them perfect strangers, thanking me for +pointing out the danger of egotism so fearlessly, and telling me how +much happier they have been since they followed the example of Angela +Towers in _Crooks and Coronets_ in doing a little act of kindness every +day." + +If Aunt Maria were alive now she would have been thrilled by the +knowledge that twenty years after she had preached it the Boy Scouts +made that precept their own. + +"Perhaps the man who was following the veiled figure did little +kindnesses too, in order to feel comfortable," said Annette half to +herself. Fortunately her aunt did not hear her. + +"I yield to no one in my admiration of Mr. Stirling," continued Miss +Nevill, "but he suggests no remedy for the selfishness he describes. He +just says people flee for their lives. Now, my experience is that they +don't flee, that they don't see how selfish they are, and need helpful +suggestions to overcome it. That is just what I have tried to do in my +books, which I gather he has never opened." + +There was a subdued bitterness in her aunt's voice which made Annette +leave her seat by the window and sit down beside her. + +"You have plenty of readers without Mr. Stirling," she said soothingly. + +It was true. Miss Nevill had a large public. She had never lived, she +had never come in close contact with the lives of others, she had no +perception of character, and she was devoid of humour. She had a meagre, +inflexible vocabulary, no real education, no delicacy of description, no +sense of language, no love of nature. But she possessed the art of +sentimental facile narration, coupled with a great desire to preach, and +a genuine and quenchless passion for the obvious. And the long +succession of her popular novels, each exactly like the last, met what a +large circle of readers believed to be its spiritual needs: she appealed +to the vast society of those who have never thought, and who crave to be +edified without mental effort on their part. Her books had demanded no +mental effort from their author, and were models of unconscious tact in +demanding none from their readers, and herein, together with their +evident sincerity, had lain part of the secret of their success. Also, +partly because her gentle-people--and her books dealt mainly with +them--were not quite so unlike gentle-people as in the majority of +novels. If she did not call a spade a spade, neither did she call an +earl an earl. Old ladies adored her novels. The Miss Blinketts preferred +them to Shakespeare. Canon Wetherby dipped into them in his rare moments +of leisure. Cottage hospitals laid them on the beds of their +convalescents. Clergymen presented them as prizes. If the great Miss +Nevill had had a different temperament, she might have been a happy as +she was a successful woman; for she represented culture to the +semi-cultivated, and to succeed in doing that results in a large income +and streams of flattering letters. But it does not result in recognition +as a thinker, and that was precisely what she hankered after. She craved +to be regarded as a thinker, without having thought. It chagrined her +that her books were not read by what she called "the right +people,"--that, as she frequently lamented, her work was not recognized. +In reality it was recognized--at first sight. The opening chapter, as +Mr. Stirling had found that morning, was enough. The graver reviews +never noticed her. No word of praise ever reached her from the masters +of the craft. She had to the full the adulation of her readers, but she +wanted adulation, alas! from the educated, from men like Mr. Stirling +rather than Canon Wetherby. Mr. Stirling had not said a word about her +work this afternoon, though he had had time to refresh his memory of it, +and she had alluded to it herself more than once. For the hundredth time +Aunt Maria felt vaguely disturbed and depressed. The reading aloud of +_The Magnet_ had only accentuated that depression. + +Annette's hand felt very soft and comforting in hers. The troubled +authoress turned instinctively towards possible consolation nearer at +hand. + +"I will own," she said tentatively, "that when I see you, my dear +Annette, so different from what you were when you left us two years ago, +so helpful, and so patient with poor Harriet, who is trying beyond +words, so considerate and so thoughtful for others, I will own that I +have sometimes hoped that the change might have been partly, I don't say +entirely, but partly brought about by _Crooks and Coronets_, which I +sent to you at Teneriffe, and into which I had poured all that was best +in me. When you rejoined us here it seemed as if you had laid its +precepts to heart." Aunt Maria looked at her niece almost imploringly. + +Annette was not of those who adhere to a rigid truthfulness on all +occasions. + +She stroked her aunt's hand. + +"It was borne in on me at Teneriffe, after I was ill there, how selfish +I had been," she said, and her voice trembled. "I ought never to have +left you all. If only I had not left you all! Then I should not be--I +shouldn't have--but I was selfish to the core. And my eyes were only +opened too late." + +"No, my dear, not too late. Just in the nick of time, at the very moment +we needed you most, after dear Cathie's death. You don't know what a +comfort you have been to us." + +"Too late for Aunt Cathie," said Annette hoarsely. "Poor, kind, tired +Aunt Cathie, who came to me in my room the last night and asked me not +to leave her, told me she needed my help. But my mind was absolutely set +on going. I cried, and told her that later on I would come back and take +care of her, but that I must go. Self in her rainbow veil beckoned +and--and I followed. If Aunt Cathie was the stepping-stone which groaned +beneath my feet, what of that? What did I care? I passed over it, I +trampled on it without a thought." + +The subdued passion in Annette's voice stirred anew the vague trouble in +Aunt Maria's mind. + +For a moment her own view of life, even her heroine's puny and +universally admired repentance, tottered, dwindled. For a brief moment +she saw that the writer of _The Magnet_ made a great demand on his +reader, and that Annette had passionately responded to it. For a moment +Mr. Stirling's gentle, ruthless voice seemed to overthrow her whole +position, to show her to herself as petty and trivial. For a moment she +even doubted whether _Crooks and Coronets_ had really effected the great +change she perceived in Annette, and the doubt disheartened her still +more. She withdrew resolutely into the stronghold of her success, and +rose slowly to her feet. + +"Well," she said, "it's time to go to bed. Close the shutters, Annette. +It's very natural you should be impressed by _The Magnet_. I should have +been at your age. Young people are always attracted by eloquence. But as +one gets older I find one instinctively prefers plainer language, as one +prefers plainer clothes, less word-painting, and more spiritual +teaching." + + +It was already late, but Annette sat up still later writing a long +letter to Mrs. Stoddart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + "Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress + In that unleaguerable fortress; + It knows you not for portress." + FRANCIS THOMPSON. + + +I have often envied Lesage's stratagem in which he makes Le diable +boiteux transport his patron to a high point in the city, and then +obligingly remove roof after roof from the houses spread out beneath his +eyes, revealing with a sublime disregard for edification what is going +on in each of them in turn. That is just what I should like to do with +you, Reader, transport you to the top of, shall we say, the low church +tower of Riff, and take off one red roof after another of the clustering +houses beneath us. But I should not choose midnight, as Lesage did, but +tea-time for my visitation, and then if you appeared bored, I would +quickly whisk off another roof. + +We might look in at Roger's cottage near the church first of all, and +see what he is doing. + +On this particular afternoon, some three weeks after his conversation +with Annette under the apple tree, I am sorry to record that he was +doing nothing. That was a pity, for there was a great deal waiting to be +done. July and a new quarter were at hand. Several new leases had to be +looked over, the death of one of his farmers had brought up the old +hateful business of right of heriot, the accounts of the Aldeburgh house +property were in at last and must be checked. There was plenty to do, +but nevertheless Roger was sitting in his office-room, with his elbow on +his last labour-sheet, and his chin in his hand. He, usually so careful, +had actually blotted the names of half a dozen labourers. His +housekeeper, the stoutest woman in Riff, sister to the late Mr. +Nicholls, had put his tea near him half an hour before. Mr. Nicholls' +spinster sister was always called "Mrs. Nicholls." But it was the wedded +Mrs. Nicholls who had obtained the situation of Roger's housekeeper by +sheer determination for the unwedded lady of the same name, and when +Roger had faintly demurred at the size of his housekeeper designate, had +informed him sternly that "she was stout only in appearance." + +It was a pity he had let his tea grow cold, and had left his plate of +thick, rectangular bread-and-butter untouched. + +Roger was a person who hated thought, and he was thinking, and the +process was fatiguing to him. He had for years "hustled" along like a +sturdy pony on the rounds of his monotonous life, and had been fairly +well satisfied with it till now. But lately the thoughts which would +have been invading a more imaginative man for a long time past had at +last reached him, had filtered down through the stiff clay of the upper +crust of his mind. + +Was he going on _for ever_ keeping another man's property assiduously +together, doing two men's work for one man's pay? When his uncle made +him his agent he lived in the house at Hulver, and his horses were kept +for him, and the two hundred a year was a generous allowance. But Dick +had not increased it when he succeeded. He had given him the cottage, +which was in use as an estate office, rent free, but nothing else. Roger +had not liked to say anything at first, even when his work increased, +and later on Dick had not been "to be got at." And the years were +passing, and Roger was thirty-five. He ought to be marrying if he was +ever going to marry at all. Of course, if Dick were in a state of health +to be appealed to at close quarters--he never answered letters--he would +probably act generously. He had always been open-handed. But Dick, poor +beggar, was dead already as far as any use he could be to himself or +others. + +Roger shuddered at the recollection of the shapeless, prostrate figure, +with the stout, vacant face, and the fat hand, that had once been so +delicate and supple, which they had wanted to guide to do it knew not +what. + +Roger could not see that he had any future. But then he had not had any +for years past, so why was he thinking about that now? Annette was the +reason. Till Annette came to Riff he had always vaguely supposed that +he and Janey would "make a match of it" some day. Janey was the only +person he really knew. I do not mean to imply for a moment that Roger in +his pink coat at the Lowshire Hunt Ball was not a popular partner. He +was. And in times past he had been shyly and faintly attracted by more +than one of his pretty neighbours. But he was fond of Janey. And now +that his uncle was dead, Janey was, perhaps, the only person left for +whom he had a rooted attachment. But it seemed there were disturbing +women who could inspire feelings quite different from the affection and +compassion he felt for his cousin. Annette was one of them. Roger +resented the difference, and then dwelt upon it. He distrusted Annette's +parentage. "Take a bird out of a good nest." That was his idea of a +suitable marriage. Never in his wildest moments would he have thought of +marrying a woman whose father was a Frenchman, much less a Frenchman who +kept a public-house. He wasn't thinking of such a thing now--at least, +he told himself he wasn't. But he had been deeply chagrined at Annette's +mention of her father all the same, so deeply that he had not repeated +the odious fact even to Janey, the recipient of all the loose matter in +his mind. + +How kind Annette had been to poor Janey during these last weeks! Janey +had unaccountably and dumbly hung back at first, but Annette was not to +be denied. Roger, with his elbow on his labour-sheet, saw that whatever +her father might be, the least he could do would be to ride up to Riff +at an early date and thank her. + +It is only a step from Roger's cottage to the Dower House. + +All was silent there. Janey and Harry had gone up to Hulver to sail his +boat after tea, and the house was deserted. Tommy, the gardener's boy, +the only person to whom Harry had confided his marriage, was clipping +the edges of the newly-mown grass beneath Lady Louisa's window. + +And Lady Louisa herself? + +She lay motionless with fixed eyes, while the nurse, her +daughter-in-law, read a novel near the open window. + +She knew what had happened. She remembered everything. Her hearing and +sight were as clear as ever. But she could make no sign of understanding +or recognition. A low, guttural sound she could sometimes make, but not +always, and the effort was so enormous that she could hardly induce +herself to make it. At first she had talked unceasingly, unable to +remember that the words which were so clear to herself had no sound for +those bending over her, trying to understand what she wished. Janey and +the doctor had encouraged her, had comforted her, had made countless +experiments in order to establish means of communication with her, but +without avail. + +"Would you like me to read, mother? See, I am holding your hand. Press +it ever so little, and I shall know you would like a little reading." + +No faintest pressure. + +"Don't trouble to answer, mother, but if you would like to see Roger for +a few minutes, shut your eyes." + +The eyes remained open, fixed. Lady Louisa tried to shut them, but she +could not. + +"Now I am going to hold up these large letters one after another. If +there is something you wish me to do, spell it to me. Make a sound when +I reach the right letter. I begin with A. Now we come to B. Here is C." + +But after many fruitless attempts Janey gave up the letters. Her mother +groaned at intervals, but when the letters were written down they did +not make sense. No bridge could span the gulf. At last the doctor +advised Janey to give up trying to span it. + +"Leave her in peace," he said in Lady Louisa's hearing, that acute +hearing which was as intact as her eyesight. + +So Lady Louisa was left in peace. + +She saw the reins and whip which she had held so tightly slip out of her +hands. She who had imposed her will on others all her life could impose +it no longer. She was tended by a traitor whom she hated, yet she was +unable to denounce her, to rid herself of her daily, hourly presence. + +A wood pigeon cooed tranquilly in the cedar, and Lady Louisa groaned. + +The nurse put down her book, and came and stood beside the bed. The two +enemies looked at each other, the younger woman boldly meeting the +impotent hatred of her patient's eyes. + +"It's no use, milady," she said, replacing a little cushion under her +elbow. "You're down, and I'm up, and you've got to make up your mind to +it. Harry told me you'd got it out of him. Are you any the happier for +knowing I'm your daughter-in-law? I'd meant to spare you that. It was +that as brought on the stroke. Very clever you were to wheedle it out of +Harry, but it didn't do you much good. You'd turn me out without a +character if you could, wouldn't you? But you can't. And listen to me. +You won't ever be any better, or I shouldn't talk like this. I dare say +I'm pretty bad, but I'd never say there wasn't a chance while there was +the least little scrap of one left. But there isn't, not one scrap. It's +all over with your high and mighty ways, and riding rough-shod over +everybody, and poor Miss Manvers. It's no use crying. You've made others +cry often enough. Now it's your turn. And don't go and think I'm going +to be cruel to you because you've been cruel to others. I'm not. I'm +sorry enough for you, lying there like a log, eating your heart out. I'm +going to make you as comfortable as ever I can, and to do my duty by +you. And when you're gone I'm going to make Harry happier than he's +ever been under your thumb. So now you understand." + +Lady Louisa understood. Her eyes, terrible, fierce as a wounded +panther's, filled with tears. She made no other sign. + +The nurse wiped them away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + "The less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants + it."--GEORGE ELIOT. + + +The Vicarage is within a stone's throw of the Dower House. On this +particular afternoon Mr. and Miss Black were solemnly seated opposite +each other at tea, and Mr. Black was ruefully reflecting, as he often +did at meal-times, on his sister's incapacity as a housekeeper. + +We sometimes read in the biographies of eminent men how trains and boats +always eluded those distinguished personages, in spite of their pathetic +eagerness to overtake them; how their luggage and purses and important +papers fled from them; how their empty chairs too frequently represented +them on state occasions. + +Miss Black was not eluded by such bagatelles as trains and omnibuses, +but by things of greater importance, by new-laid eggs, and fresh butter, +and cottage loaves. No egg until it was of advanced middle age would +come within a mile of Miss Black. The whole village was aware that old +Purvis sold her "potted eggs" at "new-laid" prices, and that she never +detected the lime on them. Scones and tea-cakes and loaves with +"kissing crust" remained obdurately huddled in the baker's cart at the +Vicarage back door. All that ever found their way into the house were +those unappropriated blessings, those emotionless rectangular travesties +of bread called "tin loaves." + +Coffee and Miss Black were not on speaking terms. After years of deadly +enmity she had relinquished the fruitless struggle, and gave her brother +coffee essence instead for breakfast--two spoonfuls to a cup of tepid +milk. + +Fire and water would not serve Miss Black. The bath water was always +cold at the Vicarage, and the drinking water was invariably warm. +Butter, that sensitive ally of the housekeeper, bore her a grudge. Miss +Black said all the Riff butter was bad. In London she had said the same. +Biscuits became demoralized directly they set tin in the house. The +first that emerged from the box were crisp, delicious, but in a day or +two they were all weary, tough, and tasteless. They were kept on plates +on sideboards in the sun, or thrust into mousy cupboards. She left off +ordering gingerbread nuts at last, which her brother liked, because they +all stuck together like putty. She attributed this peculiarity to the +proximity of the Rieben. + +Miss Black was no more perturbed by the ostracism in which she lived as +regards the vegetable and mineral kingdom than Napoleon was by the +alliance of Europe against him. She combined a high opinion of herself +with a rooted conviction that everything vexatious or disagreeable was +inherent in the nature of things--a sort of original sin. It was in the +fallen nature of butter to be rancid, and eggs to be laid stale, and +milk to be sour, and villagers to cheat, and old people to be fretful, +and pretty women (like Annette) to be vain and unscrupulous, and men +(like her brother) to care inordinately about food and to be enslaved by +external attractions. She expected these things, and many more, as she +stumped through life, and she was not disappointed. + +"I think you are wrong, Walter," she said, masticating a plasmon +biscuit, "in making Miss Georges take that bit in the anthem as a solo. +I went to see Mrs. Cocks this afternoon, and we got talking of the +choir, and I am sure she did not like it." + +"I cannot steer my course entirely by Mrs. Cocks." + +"Of course not. But she told me that in Mr. Jones's time----" + +"I am rather tired of hearing of Mr. Jones and his times." + +"In his time all the trebles took the solo together, to prevent any +jealousy or ill-feeling." + +"I can't prevent jealousy of Miss Georges," said Mr. Black, looking +coldly at his sister, and then still more coldly at the cup of tea she +handed him, made quarter of an hour before by the young servant who, as +the Miss Blinketts who had trained her had faithfully warned Miss +Black, "mistook bubbling for boiling." + +The tea was the consistency of treacle, and the cream his sister poured +into it instantly took the contorted worm-like shapes which sour cream +does take. Miss Black drank hers slowly, not finding it good, but +thinking it was like all other tea. + +"You won't make the jealousy less by putting her forward in everything." + +"It irritates me to hear Miss Georges' voice muffled up with Mrs. Cocks +and Jane Smith. I don't suppose Riff Church has ever had such a voice in +it since it was built." + +"I'm sure I can't tell about that. But Miss Georges has been partly +trained for a public singer." + +"Has she? I did not know that." + +"The truth is we know very little about her. I am not sure we ought not +to have made more inquiries before we admitted her to the choir and the +Sunday school." + +"My dear, pure good-nature on her part is responsible for her being in +either. And could anything be more ultra respectable than her aunts?" + +"We don't know who her father was. I should not wonder if he were an +actor, her manner of singing is so theatrical. Not quite a good example +for the other trebles. She draws attention to herself." + +"She can't help that, Angela. That is partly due to her appearance, for +which she is not responsible." + +Mr. Black, patient and kindly by nature, showed to greater advantage +with his sister than with Annette, because he never attempted to show +Miss Black the sort of man he was. You could not be two minutes in her +society without realizing that she saw no more difference between one +person and another than she did between fresh eggs and stale. Men were +men to her, as eggs were eggs. And that was all about it. + +"She is responsible for a good deal of the attention she courts," said +Miss Black scornfully, and with a modicum of truth on her side. "She +need not let her hair stand out over her ears, or make those two little +curls in the nape of her neck. And did you notice her absurd hat?" + +"I noticed nothing absurd about it." + +"When every one is wearing trimmed hats she must needs make herself +conspicuous in a perfectly plain straw with no trimming at all, except +that black ribbon tied under her chin. Everybody was staring at her last +Sunday." + +"That I can well believe." + +"I asked her where she had got that nice garden hat." + +"Is it possible? How angry you would have been if she had asked you +where you got yours!" + +Mr. Black glanced for the first time at a battered but elaborate +arrangement sprinkled with cornflowers, sitting a little crooked, like +a badly balanced plate, on the top of his sister's narrow head. + +"She wasn't the least angry. There was nothing to be offended at. And +she said her aunt in Paris sent it her, who was a milliner." + +"How like her to say that--to volunteer it!" said Mr. Black, aware that +his sister was watching how he took the news of Annette's connection +with trade. "But we must be careful how we repeat it. In this amazing +little world of Riff it might be against her to have a milliner for an +aunt." + +"I don't see that Riff is more amazing than other places," said Miss +Black, who had already circulated the story of the dressmaking aunt with +the same diligence which she showed in the distribution of the parish +magazine. "I hope we can all be civil to Miss Georges, even if her aunt +is a dressmaker, and her father lower still in the social scale. She has +no _De_ before her name. And Georges is a very common surname." + +"Indeed!" + +"Perhaps you are thinking of asking her to change it," said his sister, +whose temper was liable to boil up with all the suddenness of milk. + +"I had not got so far as that," he said, rising. "You must remember, +Angela, that you see a possible wife for me in every woman I exchange a +word with. It is very flattering that you should think so many might be +prevailed on to share my little Vicarage, but the Church only allows me +one wife, and the selection I believe rests with me." + +"I know that. It's so silly to talk as if I expected anything +different." + +"All I can say is that if I could delude myself into believing that Miss +Georges put on that hat or any other hat with a view to attracting me, I +should feel some alacrity in finishing my Sunday sermon, which I must +now do without any alacrity at all." + +Miss Black swallowed the remains of her plasmon biscuit, and said in the +voice of one accustomed to the last word-- + +"Miss Georges is very good-looking, of course. No one admires that sort +of pale, clear complexion and calm manner more than I do. But you must +remember that they are merely the result of a constitution free from an +excess of uric acid. Non-gouty subjects always look like that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + "Give me the sweet cup wrought of the earth from which I was born, + and under which I shall lie dead."--ZONAS. + + +From the church tower, Reader, you can see beyond the mill and the long +water meadows the little hamlet of Swale. + +That old house in the midst, with its wonderful twisted chimneys and +broken wall, was once the home of the extinct Welyshams of Swale. But +the name of Welysham, embedded in the history of Lowshire and still +renowned in India, is forgotten in Riff. Their old house, fast falling +into ruins, is now used as a farm, until Roger can get leave to restore +it, or pull it down. The sky looks in at the upper rooms. No one dare go +up the wide oak staircase, and Mrs. Nicholls' chickens roost on the +carved balustrade of the minstrels' gallery. + +We will go there next. + +Mrs. Nicholls, the devoted nurse of all the Manvers family and the +principal treble in the choir, had married at a portly age the +tenant-farmer at Swale, and Annette was having tea with her on this +particular afternoon, and hearing a full description, which scorned all +omissions, of the last illness of Mr. Nicholls, who had not been able +"to take a bite in his head" of anything solid for many weeks before his +death. + +"And so, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls philosophically, "when he went I felt +it was all for the best. It's a poor thing for a man to live by +suction." + +Annette agreed. + +"Swale seems quite empty this afternoon," she said, possibly not +unwilling to change the subject. "There is hardly a soul to be seen." + +"I expect they've all gone to Sir Harry's 'lection tea," said Mrs. +Nicholls. "I used to go while Nicholls was alive, and very convenient it +was; but Sir Harry don't want no widders nor single spinsters--only +wives of them as has votes." + +Politics were not so complicated twenty years ago as they are now. Those +were the simple days when Sir Harry Ogden, the Member, urbanely opined +that he was for Church and State, and gave tea shortly before the +election to the wives of his constituents. And the ladies of Swale and +Riff, and even the great Mrs. Nicholls, thought none the worse of their +Member because there was always a sovereign at the bottom of the cup. + +"Mr. Black wants to start a Mothers' Meeting in Swale," continued +Annette. "He asked me to talk it over with you. I know he is hoping for +your nice parlour for it, so beautiful as you always keep it." + +Mrs. Nicholls was softened by the compliment to her parlour, the +condition of which was as well known as that Queen Victoria was on the +throne, but she opined that there had been a deal too much "argybargy" +already among the Swale matrons about the Mothers' Meeting, and that she +did not see her way to joining it. + +Annette, who had been deputed by Mr. Black to find out the mysterious +cause of Mrs. Nicholls' reluctance, remarked meditatively, "I don't know +how the Vicar will get on without you, Mrs. Nicholls." + +"No, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls, "of course not. He was here only +yesterday, and he says to me, 'Mrs. Nicholls, the Swale folk oughter all +heng together, and we look to you.' And I says, 'Sir, it's not for me to +chunter with you; but it's no manner of use setting me up as a queen in +Swale when there's Mrs. Tomkins as bounceful as can be, as has been +expecting homage ever since she and her spring-cart came in last Lammas, +which none of us don't feel obligated to bow down to her.'" + +"Of course not. But there are others besides Mrs. Tomkins. There are the +Tamsies, your next-door neighbours. They are quiet, hard-working people, +with a lot of little ones. She would be very thankful, I know, to join +the Mothers' Meeting, if the Vicar can start it." + +"Mrs. Tamsy," said Mrs. Nicholls judicially. "I dare say Mrs. Tamsy +_would_ like anything she can get, whether it's out of my pig-tub or her +own. That don't make no differ to Mrs. Tamsy, nor what's put on the +hedge to dry--if so be as anything's blowed to her side. She's that near +she'd take the pence off the eyes of her mother's corp. No, miss! I'd do +a deal for the Vicar, but I won't have Mrs. Tamsy in my place, nor I +won't set foot in hers. Not that I ain't sorry for her, with Tamsy +coming home roaring on a Saturday night, and hectoring and bullocking +about till the children has to sleep in the hen-roost." + +And in the course of conversation Mrs. Nicholls at last divulged to +Annette, what she had kept bottled up from Mr. Black, and indeed from +every one, that the real reason that a Mothers' Meeting could not be +instituted in the small circle of the Swale matrons, even if the +gathering did not include Mrs. Tamsy, was because of old Mr. Thornton's +death. Mr. Thornton, it seemed, had been "an octogeranium and the last +sediment of his family, and not one of his own kin to put him in his +coffin." The Swale ladies had taken the last duties on themselves, and +there had been "unpleasantness at the laying out," so that friendly +relations had been suspended between them ever since the funeral. + +Annette sighed as she left Mrs. Nicholls and set out across the meadows +towards Riff. She was to meet Janey in the Hulver gardens, and help her +to pick the snap-dragons, now blooming riotously there. + +But one small sigh for the doomed Mothers' Meeting was the only tribute +Annette paid to it. Her thoughts reverted quickly to other subjects. + +Her placid, easy-going mind was troubled. + +The long letter written at night to Mrs. Stoddart three weeks ago had +never been posted. The following morning had brought a hurried line from +her friend saying that she was that moment starting on a yachting trip +with her son. She mentioned that she was coming down to Annette's +neighbourhood in a month's time, on a visit to Mr. Stirling at Noyes, +when she hoped for opportunities of seeing her. + +Annette had dropped her own letter into the fire, not without a sense of +relief. She had hated the idea of immediate action, and she had been +spared it. She would go on quietly until she could confer with Mrs. +Stoddart. But in spite of the momentary respite the fear remained at the +back of her mind that when Mrs. Stoddart did know about the Manvers +family she would almost certainly insist on Annette's leaving Riff. +Annette could see for herself that her position there was untenable. But +the longing to remain grew, nevertheless. She vaguely, foolishly hoped +that some way of remaining might yet be found. For she was drawn towards +Riff, as she had never been drawn to any other place, partly no doubt +because, owing to her aunt's death, all her energies had been called +out there for the first time in her life. It had been no sinecure to +take Aunt Cathie's place. She had taken it, and she had filled it. She +was no longer a pale, useless, discontented girl, cooped up in an +airless London house with two self-centred, elder women whom she +secretly despised for immolating their sister. Now that her aunts were +under her protection and absolutely dependent on her, and, if they had +but known it, at her mercy, she had become at first tolerant of them, +and then compassionate and amused, and finally affectionate. If she had +kept her own life entirely apart from them, they were not aware of it. +For neither of the Miss Nevills had yet discovered that though they +themselves were not alive others might be, and Annette had done nothing +since her return to them to break that illusion so rudely shaken by her +departure. In their opinion, Annette had now "settled down," and each +aunt was secretly of opinion that her niece's existence was supported by +copious draughts from the deep wells of her own wisdom and experience. +But perhaps Annette had other incentives for clinging to Riff. + +Sometimes as we go through life we become conscious of a mysterious +instinctive attraction towards certain homely people, and certain kindly +places, for which we cannot account, to which we can only yield. They +seem to belong to us, to have a special significance for us. When +Annette first saw Janey and Roger she felt that she had known them all +her life, that they had long been part of her existence. When first she +walked with them beside the Rieben she seemed to recognize every turn of +the stream. The deep primrosed lanes welcomed her back to them. Had she +wandered down them in some previous existence? When she gathered her +first posy of lady's-smock in the long water meadow near the mill, the +little milk-white flowers said, "Why have you been away from us so +long?" And when, a few days later, she first stood with Janey in the +April sunshine on the wide terrace of Hulver, the stately shuttered +house had seemed to envelop her with its ancient peace, and to whisper +to her, "I am home." + +Annette reached the bridge by the mill, and looked across the tranquil +water to the village clustering round the church, and the old red-gabled +Manor house standing among its hollies. + +Her heart throbbed suddenly. + +Surely the angel with the sword would not drive her away again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + "Thou vacant house, moated about by peace." + STEPHEN PHILLIPS. + + +Mr. Stirling and his nephew were standing in the long picture gallery of +Hulver, looking at the portrait of Roger Manvers of Dunwich, who +inherited Hulver in Charles the Second's time. + +"His grandmother, Anne de la Pole, that pinched-looking old woman in the +ruff, would never have left it to her daughter's son if she had had +anyone else to leave it to," said Mr. Stirling. "She built Hulver in the +shape of an E in honour of her kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. That prim +little picture below her portrait shows the house when it was new. It +must have looked very much the same then as it does now, except that the +hollies were all trimmed to fantastic shapes. Look at the birds and +domes and crowns." + +"I like them better as they are now," said his nephew, a weak-looking +youth with projecting teeth, his spectacled eyes turning from the +picture to the renowned avenue of hollies, now stooping and splitting in +extreme old age. + +"I have often wondered what homely Roger Manvers, the burgess of +Dunwich, must have felt when old Anne actually left him this place after +her only son was drowned. I can so well imagine him riding over here, a +careful, sturdy man, not unlike the present Roger Manvers, and having a +look at his inheritance, and debating with himself whether he would +leave Dunwich and settle here." + +"And did he?" + +"Yes. The sea decided that for him. A year later it swept away the town +of Dunwich as far as Maison Dieu. And it swept away Roger Manvers' +pleasant house, Montjoy. And he moved across the borders of Suffolk to +Lowshire with all he had been able to save from his old home, and +established himself here. I like the way he has hung those +wooden-looking pictures of his burgess forbears in their furred cloaks +and chains among the brocaded D'Urbans and De la Poles. Roger Manvers +tells me that it was old Roger who first took the property in hand, and +heightened the Kirby dam, and drained Mendlesham Marsh, and built the +Riff almshouses. The De la Poles had never troubled themselves about +such matters. And to think of that wretched creature the present owner +tearing the old place limb from limb, throwing it from him with both +hands! It makes me miserable. I vow I will never come here again." + +The caretaker had unshuttered a few among the long line of windows, and +the airlessness, the ghostly outlines of the muffled furniture, the +dust which lay grey on everything, the faint smell of dry rot, all +struck at Mr. Stirling's sensitive spirit and oppressed him. He turned +impatiently to the windows. + +If it is a misfortune to be stout, even if one is tall, and to be short, +even if one is slim, and to be fifty, even if one is of a cheerful +temperament, and to be bald, even if one has a well-shaped head, then +Mr. Stirling, who was short and stout, and bald as well, and fifty into +the bargain, was somewhat heavily handicapped as to his outer man. But +one immense compensation was his for an unattractive personality. He +never gave it a moment's thought, and consequently no one else did +either. His body was no more than a travelling-suit to him. It was +hardy, durable, he was comfortable in it, grateful to it, on good terms +with it, worked it hard, and used it to the uttermost. That it was not +more ornamental than a Gladstone bag did not trouble him. + +"Put it all in a book," said his nephew absently, whose eyes were glued +to the pictures. "Put it in a book, Uncle Reggie." + +Mr. Stirling had long since ceased to be annoyed by a remark which is +about as pleasant to a writer as a suggestion of embezzlement is to a +bank manager. + +"Have you seen enough, Geoff? Shall we go?" he said. + +"Wait a bit. Where's the Raeburn?" + +"'Highland Mary'? Sold. A pork butcher in America bought her for a +fabulous sum. I believe Dick Manvers lost the whole of it on one race. +If there is coin in the next world, he will play ducks and drakes with +it upon the glassy sea." + +"Sold! Good God!" said his nephew, staring horrorstruck at his uncle. +"How awful! Pictures ought not to belong to individuals. The nation +ought to have them." He seemed staggered. "Awful!" he said again. "What +a tragedy!" + +"To my mind, _that_ is more tragic," said Mr. Stirling bluntly, pointing +to the window. + +In the deserted garden, near the sundial, Janey was standing, a small +nondescript figure in a mushroom hat, picking snap-dragons. The gardens +had been allowed to run wild for lack of funds to keep them in order, +and had become beautiful exceedingly in consequence. The rose-coloured +snap-dragons and amber lupins were struggling to hold their own in their +stone-edged beds against an invasion of willow weed. A convolvulus had +climbed to the sundial, wrapping it round and round, and had laid its +bold white trumpet flowers on the leaded disk itself. Janey had not +disturbed it. Perhaps she thought that no one but herself sought to see +the time there. The snap-dragons rose in a great blot of straggling rose +and white and wine-red round her feet. She was picking them slowly, as +one whose mind was not following her hand. At a little distance Harry +was lying at his full length on the flags beside the round stone-edged +fountain, blowing assiduously at a little boat which was refusing to +cross. In the midst of the water Cellini's world-famed water nymph +reined in her dolphins. + +A yellow stone-crop had found a foothold on the pedestal of the group, +and flaunted its raw gold in the vivid sunshine amid the weather-bitten +grey stone, making a fantastic broken reflection where Harry's boat +rippled the water. And behind Janey's figure, and behind the reflection +of the fountain in the water, was the cool, sinister background of the +circular yew hedge, with the heather pink of the willow weed crowding up +against it. + +The young man gasped. + +"But it's--it's a picture," he said. And then, after a moment, he added, +"Everything except the woman. Of course she won't do." + +Geoff's curiously innocent prominent eyes were fixed. His vacant face +was rapt. His uncle looked sympathetically at him. He knew what it was +to receive an idea "like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought." + +The caretaker, whose tea-time was already delayed, coughed discreetly in +the hall. + +"Come, Geoff," said Mr. Stirling, remorsefully but determinedly, taking +his nephew's arm. "We can't remain here for ever." + +"It's all right except the woman," said Geoff, not stirring. "Every +scrap. It hits you in the eye. Look how the lichen has got at the +dolphins. All splendour and desolation, and the yew hedge like a funeral +procession behind. Not a bit of sky above them: the only sky reflected +in the water." His voice had sunk to a whisper. + +"When you are my age," said Mr. Stirling, "it is just the woman, not +some fanciful angel with a Grecian profile and abnormally long legs, but +that particular little brown-haired creature with her short face whom +you brush aside, who makes the tragedy of the picture. When I think of +what that small courageous personage endures day by day, what her daily +life must be--but what's the use of talking? Twenty can't hear a word +fifty is saying--isn't meant to. Wake up, Geoff. There is another lady +in the case. It is past the caretaker's tea-time. You _must_ learn to +consider the fair sex, my dear boy. We are keeping her from her tea. +Look, Miss Manvers has seen us. We'll join her in the gardens." + +One of Mr. Stirling's pleasantest qualities was that he never remembered +he was a man of letters. Consequently it was not necessary for him to +show that he was still a boy at heart and that he could elaborately +forget that he was a distinguished novelist by joining in sailing +Harry's boat. Harry scrambled to his feet and shook hands with both men +at Janey's bidding, and then he looked wistfully at Geoff as a possible +playfellow and smiled at him, an ingratiating smile. But Geoff at +twenty, two years younger than Harry, Geoff the artist, the cultured +inquirer after famous Raeburns, the appraiser of broken reflections and +relative values, only gaped vacantly at him, hands in pockets, without +seeing him. + +Harry puffed out an enormous sigh and looked back at his boat, and then +he clapped his hands suddenly and ran to meet Annette, who was coming +slowly towards them across the grass. + +Mr. Stirling's eyes and Janey's followed him, and Mr. Stirling felt +rather than saw that Janey winced as she looked gravely at the +approaching figure. + +Geoff's hat was at the back of his sugar-cone of a head. His mild face +was transfixed. + +"Mrs. Le Geyt," he said, below his breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + "Our life is like a narrow raft, + Afloat upon the hungry sea. + Thereon is but a little space, + And all men, eager for a place, + Do thrust each other in the sea-- + And each man, raving for a place, + Doth cast his brother in the sea." + + +Half an hour later, when Annette had left them, Mr. Stirling and his +nephew turned with Janey towards the tall Italian gates, which Harry was +dutifully holding open for them. As Geoff shambled beside him, glancing +backwards in the direction of the path across the park which Annette had +taken, Mr. Stirling half wished that his favourite sister's only child +stared less at pretty women, that he had less tie and hair, and rather +more backbone and deportment. + +"Uncle Reggie," blurted out Geoff, "that Miss Georges!" + +"Well?" + +"Has she divorced him? Is that why she's called Miss Georges?" + +"I suppose she's called Miss Georges for the same reason that you are +called Geoffrey Lestrange," said his uncle. "Because it happens to be +her name." + +"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open, +innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I +knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at +Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to +draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in +his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away. +But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I +heard him call her Annette, and----" + +Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson, +startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he +saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if +one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape +over a dead body. + +"You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold +of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you +are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother." + +"I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor +brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have +liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in +thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married." + +"They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff. +"They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on +now. I looked, and--and----" + +But Mr. Stirling swept him down. + +"That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his +vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is +evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for +opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to +Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye." + +And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly +down the lane. + +"Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow +after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village, +and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed, +with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose +there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is +there?--she looks so very kind,--in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm. +But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed +colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it----" + +"Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling. + +"It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey +stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would +be--stupendous. I see it." + +Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short +in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him. + +"I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified, +transfigured. + +Mr. Stirling's heart smote him. + +"Geoff," he said gently, taking his arm again, and making him walk +quietly on beside him, "listen to me. There are other things in the +world to be attended to besides pictures." + +"No, there aren't." + +"Yes, there are. I put it to you. You have made a statement about Miss +Georges which will certainly do her a great deal of harm if it is +repeated. You blurt out things about her which are tantamount to making +a very serious accusation against her character, and then in the same +breath you actually suggest that you should make use of her in your +picture--when you have done your level best to injure her reputation. +Now, as one man of the world to another, is that honourable, is it even +'cricket'?" + +Geoff's face became weak and undecided again. The vision had been +shattered. + +Mr. Stirling saw his advantage, and pressed it with all the more +determination because he perceived that Geoff at any rate was firmly +convinced of the truth of what he had said, incredible as it seemed. + +"You will take no rooms in this village," he said with decision, "and +you will start for Japan to-morrow as arranged. I shall see you off, +and before you go you will promise me on your oath never to say another +word to anyone, be they who they may, about having seen Miss Georges at +Fontainebleau, or any other 'bleau,' in that disreputable Dick Le Geyt's +company." + + +Janey's heart beat violently as she walked slowly home. + +During the last few weeks she had sternly faced the fact that Roger was +attracted by Annette, and not without many pangs had schooled herself to +remain friends with her. There had been bitter moments when a choking +jealousy had welled up in her heart against Annette. She might have let +Roger alone. Beautiful women always hypocritically pretended that they +could not help alluring men. But they could. Annette need not have +gratified her vanity by trying to enslave him. + +But after the bitter moment Janey's sturdy rectitude and sense of +justice always came to her rescue. + +"Annette has not tried," she would say stolidly to herself. "And why +shouldn't she try, if she likes him? I am not going to lose her if she +does try. She doesn't know I want him. She is my friend, and I mean to +keep her, whatever happens." + +_Whatever happens._ But Janey had never dreamed of anything like this +happening. As she walked slowly home with her bunch of snap-dragons, she +realized that if Roger knew what she and Mr. Stirling knew about +Annette, he would leave her. It was not too late yet. His mind was not +actually made up--that slow mind, as tenacious as her own. He was +gravitating towards Annette. But if she let it reach his ears that +Annette had been Dick's mistress he would turn from her, and never think +of her as a possible wife again. After an interval he would gradually +revert to her, Janey, without having ever realized that he had left her. +Oh! if only Roger had been present when that foolish young man had made +those horrible allegations!--if only he had heard them for himself! +Janey reddened at her own cruelty, her own disloyalty. + +But was it, could it be true that Annette with her clear, unfathomable +eyes had an ugly past behind her? It was unthinkable. And yet--Janey had +long since realized that Annette had a far wider experience of men and +women than she had. How had she gained it, that experience, that air of +mystery which, though Janey did not know it, was a more potent charm +than her beauty? + +Was it possible that she might be Dick's wife after all, as that young +man had evidently taken for granted? _No._ No wife, much less Annette, +would have left her husband at death's door, and have fled at the advent +of his relations. His mistress might have acted like that, had actually +acted like that; for Janey knew that when her aunt arrived at +Fontainebleau a woman who till then had passed as Dick's wife and had +nursed him devotedly _had_ decamped, and never been heard of again. + +Was it possible that Annette had been that woman? Mr. Lestrange had been +absolutely certain of what he had seen. His veracity was obvious. And +Annette's was not a face that one could easily forget, easily mistake +for anyone else. In her heart Janey was convinced that he had indeed +seen Annette with her brother, passing as his wife. And she saw that Mr. +Stirling was convinced also. + +She had reached the garden of the Dower House, and she sank down on the +wooden seat round the cedar. The sun had set behind the long line of the +Hulver woods, and there was a flight of homing rooks across the amber +sky. + +Then Annette must be guilty, in spite of her beautiful face and her +charming ways! Janey clasped her hands tightly together. Her outlook on +life was too narrow, too rigid, to differentiate or condone. Annette had +been immoral. + +And was she, Janey, to stand by, and see Roger, her Roger, the +straightest man that ever walked, and the most unsuspicious, marry her +brother's mistress? Could she connive at such a wicked thing? Would +Roger forgive her, would she ever forgive herself, if she coldly held +aloof and let him ruin his life, drench it in dishonour, because she was +too proud to say a word? It was her duty to speak, her bounden duty. +Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within +her. Was it grief? Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish. + +Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of +life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips +towards it that the rim is stained with blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + "We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder + circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had + not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love we _have_ + given is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have + come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if + they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which + it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous + flowers will not open to perfection."--M. N. + + +Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver +gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since +he had become her mother's tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her +acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional +civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an +acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to +Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely +afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and +he was quickly aware of Janey's surprise at seeing him. + +He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the +servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gate +unlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for +some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which +followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of +the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the +night, and the rough grass, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and +the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were +autumn already. + +Mr. Stirling looked with compassion at Janey's strained face and +sleepless eyes. + +"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of +Miss Georges." + +He saw her wince. + +"I am not sure I am," she said hoarsely, involuntarily. + +"I am quite sure," he said. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for Japan, and that he +has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he +gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally +manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff's stupidity was that it was +the truth which he blurted out." + +"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it." + +"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can't tell why one believes +certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff's voice had that +mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knew at once you recognized +that. That is why I am here." + +Janey looked straight in front of her. + +"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff +might have been mistaken. But he was not. He was so determined to prove +to me that he was not that he unpacked one of his boxes already packed +to start for Japan, and got out his last year's notebooks. I kept one of +them. He did not like it, but I thought it was safer with me than with +him." + +Mr. Stirling produced out of a much-battered pocket a small sketch-book +with an elastic band round it, and turned the leaves. Each page was +crowded with pencil studies of architecture, figures, dogs, children, +nursemaids; small elaborate drawings of door-knockers and leaden +pipe-heads; vague scratches of officials and soldiers, the individuality +of each caught in a few strokes. He turned the pages with a certain +respectful admiration. + +"He has the root of the matter in him," he said. "He will arrive." + +Janey was not impressed. She thought the sketches very unfinished. + +Then he stopped at a certain page. Neither of them could help smiling. +The head waiter, as seen from behind, napkin on arm, dish on spread +hand, superb, debonair, stout but fleet. + +_Alphonse_ was scribbled under it, _Fontainebleau, Sept. the tenth_, and +the year. + +Mr. Stirling turned the leaf, turned three or four leaves, all with +_Mariette_ scrawled on them. Mariette had evidently been the French +chamber-maid, and equally evidently had detained Geoff's vagrant eye. + +Another page. A man leaning back in his chair laughing. _Dick Le Geyt_ +was written under it. + +"Is it like him?" asked Mr. Stirling. + +"It's _him_," said Janey. + +Yet another page. They both looked in silence at the half-dozen masterly +strokes with _Mrs. Le Geyt_ written under them. + +"It is unmistakable," Mr. Stirling said. "It is not only she, but it is +no one else." + +His eyes met Janey's. She nodded. + +He closed the little book, put its elastic band round it, and squeezed +it into his pocket. + +"Why did you bring that to show me?" she said harshly. It seemed as if +he had come to tempt her. + +"I knew," he said, "that for the last two days you must have been on the +rack, torn with doubt as to the truth of what my miserable nephew had +affirmed. You look as if you had not slept since. Anything is better +than suspense. Well, now you know it is true." + +"Yes, it _is_ true," said Janey slowly, and she became very pale. Then +she added, with difficulty, "I knew--we all knew--that Dick had had some +one--a woman--with him at Fontainebleau when he was taken ill. His +valet told my aunt he had not gone--alone. And the hotel-keeper told her +the same. She ran away when Aunt Jane arrived. Aunt Jane never saw her. +We never knew who she was." + +"Till now," said Mr. Stirling softly. + +Two long-winged baby-swallows were sitting on their breasts on the sunny +flagged path, resting, turning their sleek heads to right and left. Mr. +Stirling watched them intently. + +"Why should anyone but you and I ever know?" he said, with a sigh, after +they had flown. He had waited, hoping Janey would say those words, but +he had had to say them himself instead. + +She did not answer. She could not. A pulse in her throat was choking +her. This, then, was what he had come for, to persuade her to be silent, +to hush it up. All men were the same about a pretty woman. A great +tumult clamoured within her, but she made no movement. + +"I may as well mention that I am interested in Miss Georges," he went on +quietly. "Don't you find that rather ridiculous, Miss Manvers? An +elderly man of fifty, old enough to be her father. It is quite absurd, +and very undignified, isn't it? You are much too courteous to agree with +me. But I can see you think it is so, whether you agree or not. Wise +women often justly accuse us silly susceptible men of being caught by a +pretty face. I have been caught by a sweet face. I never exchanged a +word with Miss Georges till yesterday, so I have not had the chance of +being attracted by her mind. And it is not her mind that draws me, it is +her face. I have known her by sight for some time. I go to church in +order to see her. I called on her two aunts solely in order to make her +acquaintance. The elder one, the portentous authoress, is the kind of +person whom I should creep down a sewer to avoid; even the saintly +invalid does not call out my higher nature." + +Mr. Stirling became aware that Janey was lost in amazement. Irony is +singularly unsuited to a narrow outlook. + +He waited a moment, and then went on, choosing his words carefully, as +if he were speaking to some one very young-- + +"It is quite a different thing to be attracted, and to have any hope of +marriage, isn't it? I have, and had, no thought of marrying Miss +Georges. I am aware that I could not achieve it. Men of my age do not +exist for women of her age. But that does not prevent my having a deep +desire to serve her. And service is the greater part of love, isn't it? +I am sure _you_ know that, whose life is made up of service of others." + +"I am not sure I do," she said stiffly. She was steeling herself against +him. + +If he found her difficult, he gave no sign of it. He went on +tranquilly-- + +"As one grows old one sees, oh! how clearly one sees that the only +people whom one can be any real use to are those whom one loves--with +one's whole heart. Liking is no real use. Pity and duty are not much +either. They are better than nothing, but that is all. Love is the one +weapon, the one tool, the one talisman. Now we can't make ourselves love +people. Love is the great gift. I don't, of course, mean the gift of a +woman's love to a man, or of a man's to a woman. I mean the power to +love anyone devotedly, be they who they may, is God's greatest gift to +_us_ His children. And He does not give it us very often. To some He +never gives it. Many people go through life loved and cherished who seem +to be denied His supreme blessing--that of being able to love, of seeing +that wonderful light rest upon a fellow-creature. And as we poor elders +look back, we see that there were one or two people who crossed our path +earlier in life whom we loved, or could have loved, and whom we have +somehow lost: perhaps by their indifference, perhaps by our own +temperament, but whom nevertheless we have lost. When the first spark is +lit in our hearts of that mysterious flame which it sometimes takes us +years to quench, one does not realize it at the time. I did not. +Twenty-five years ago, Miss Manvers, before you were born, I fell in +love. I was at that time a complete egoist, a very perfect specimen, +with the superficial hardness of all crustaceans who live on the +defensive, and wear their bones outside like a kind of armour. She was a +year or two younger than I was, just about Miss Georges' age. Miss +Georges reminds me of her. She is taller and more beautiful, but she +reminds me of her all the same. I was not sure whether she cared for me. +And I had a great friend. And he fell in love with her too. And I +renounced her, and withdrew in his favour. I went away without speaking. +I thought I was acting nobly. He said there was no one like me. Thoreau +had done the same, and I worshipped Thoreau in my youth, and had been to +see him in his log hut. I was sustained in my heartache by feeling I was +doing a heroic action. It never struck me I was doing it at her expense. +I went abroad, and after a time she married my friend. Some years later, +I heard he was dying of a terrible disease in the throat, and I went to +see him. She nursed him with absolute devotion, but she would not allow +me to be much with him. I put it down to a kind of jealousy. And after +his death I tried to see her, but again she put difficulties in the way. +At last I asked her to marry me, and she refused me." + +"Because you had deserted her to start with," said Janey. + +"No; she was not like that. Because she was dying of the same disease as +her husband. She had contracted it from him. That was why she had never +let me be much with him, or afterwards with her. When I knew, I was +willing to risk it, but she was not. She had her rules, and from them +she never departed. She let me sit with her in the garden, and to the +last she was carried out to her long chair so that I might be with her. +She told me it was the happiest time of her life. I found that from the +first she had loved me, and she loved me to the last. She never +reproached me for leaving her. She was a simple person. I told her I had +done it on account of my friend, and she thought it very noble of me, +and said it was just what she should have expected of me. There was no +irony in her. And she slipped quietly out of life, keeping her ideal of +me to the last." + +"I think it was noble too," said Janey stolidly. + +"Was it? I never considered her for a moment. I had had the desire to +serve her, but I never served her. Instead, I caused her long, long +unhappiness--for my friend had a difficult temperament--and suffering +and early death. I never realized that she was alive, vulnerable, +sensitive. I should have done better to have married her and devoted +myself to her. I have never wanted to devote myself to any woman since. +We should have been happy together. And she might have been with me +still, and we might have had a son who would just have been the right +age to marry Miss Georges." + +"You would not have wanted him to marry her now," said Janey hoarsely. +"You would not want her to marry anyone you were fond of." + +Among a confusion of tangled threads Mr. Stirling saw a clue--at last. + +A dragon-fly alighted on the stone at his feet, its long orange body and +its gauze wings gleaming in the vivid sunshine. It stood motionless save +for its golden eyes. Even at that moment, his mind, intent on another +object, unconsciously noted and registered the transparent shadow on the +stone of its transparent wings. + +"I think," he said, "if I had had a son who was trying to marry her, I +should have come to you just as I have come now, and I should have said, +'Why should anyone but you and I ever know?'" + +"No. No, you wouldn't," said Janey, as if desperately defending some +position which he was attacking. "You would want to save him at all +costs." + +"From what? From the woman he loves? I have not found it such great +happiness to be saved from the woman I loved." + +Janey hesitated, and then said-- + +"From some one unworthy of him." + +Mr. Stirling watched an amber leaf sail to the ground. Then he said +slowly-- + +"How do I know that Annette is unworthy of him? She may have done wrong +and still be worthy of him. Do you not see that if I decided she was +unworthy and hurried my son away, I should be acting on the same +principle as I did in my own youth, the old weary principle which has +pressed so hard on women, that you can treat a fellow-creature like a +picture or a lily, or a sum of money? I handed over my love just as if +she had been a lily. How often I had likened her to one! But she was +alive, poor soul, all the time, and I only found it out when she was +dying, years and years afterwards. Only then did my colossal selfishness +confront me. She was a fellow-creature like you and me. What was it +Shylock said? 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' Now, for aught we know +to the contrary, Annette _may be_ alive." + +His grave eyes met hers, with a light in them, gentle, inexorable. + +"Unless we are careful we may make her bleed. We have the knife ready to +our hands. If you were in her place, and had a grievous incident in your +past, would anything wound you more deeply than if she, she your friend, +living in the same village, raked up that ugly past, and made it public +for no reason?" + +"But there is a reason," said Janey passionately,--"not a reason that +everyone should know, God forbid, but that one person should be told, +who may marry her in ignorance, and who would never marry her if he knew +what you and I know--never, never, never!" + +"And what would you do in her place, in such a predicament?" + +"I should not be in it, because when he asked me to marry him I should +tell him everything." + +"Perhaps that is just what she will do. Knowing her intimately as you +do, can you think that she would act meanly and deceitfully? I can't." + +Janey avoided his searching glance, and made no answer. + +"You can't either," he said tranquilly. "And do you think she would lie +about it?" + +"No," said Janey slowly, against her will. + +"Then let us, at any rate, give her her chance of telling him herself." + +He got up slowly, and Janey did the same. He saw that her stubbornness +though shaken was not vanquished, and that he should obtain no assurance +from her that she would be silent. + +"And let us give this man, whoever he may be, his chance too," he said, +taking her hand and holding it. He felt it tremble, and his heart ached +for her. He had guessed. "The chance of being loyal, the chance of being +tender, generous, understanding. Do not let us wreck it by interference. +This is a matter which lies between her and him, and between her and him +only. It may be the making of him. It would have been the making of me +if I could but have taken it--my great chance--if I had not preferred to +sacrifice her, in order to be a sham hero." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + "Look long, look long in the water Melisande, + Is there never a face but your own? + There is never a soul you shall know Melisande, + Your soul must stand alone. + All alone in the world Melisande, + Alone, alone." + ETHEL CLIFFORD. + + +The long evening was before Janey. Since her stroke, her mother "retired +for the night," as the nurse called it, at nine instead of ten. And at +nine, Janey came down to the drawing-room and established herself with +her work beside the lamp. Harry, whom nothing could keep awake after his +game of dominoes, went to bed at nine also. + +But to-night, as she took up her work, her spirit quailed at the long +array of threadbare thoughts that were lying in wait for her. She dared +not think any more. She laid down her work, and took up the paper. But +she had no interest in politics. There seemed to be nothing in it. She +got up, and taking the lamp in her hand crossed the room and looked at +the books in the Chippendale bookcase, the few books which her mother +had brought with her from Hulver. They were well chosen, no doubt, but +somehow Janey did not want them. Shakespeare? No. Longfellow? No. She +was tired of him, tired even of her favourite lines, "Life is real, life +is earnest." Tennyson? No. Pepys' Diary? She had heard people speak of +it. No. Bulwer's novels, Jane Austen's, Maria Edgeworth's, Sir Walter +Scott's? No. _Crooks and Coronets_? She had only read it once. She might +look at it again. She liked Miss Nevill's books. She had read most of +them, not intentionally, but because while she was binding them in brown +paper for the village library, she had found herself turning the leaves. +She especially liked the last but one, about simple fisher-folk. She +often wondered how Miss Nevill knew so much about them. If she had +herself been acquainted with fishermen, she would have realized how +little the dignified authoress did know. Somehow, she did not care to +read even one of Miss Nevill's books to-night. + +_The Magnet_, by Reginald Stirling. She hesitated, put out her hand, and +took the first of the three volumes from the shelf. She had skimmed it +when it came out five years ago, because the Bishop, when he stayed with +them for a confirmation, had praised it. Janey had been surprised that +he had recommended it when she came to read it, for parts of it were +decidedly unpleasant. She might look at it again. She had no +recollection of it, except that she had not liked it. Her conversation +with Mr. Stirling had agitated her, but it had also stirred her. Though +she did not know it, it was the first time she had come into real +contact with an educated and sensitive mind, and one bent for the moment +on understanding hers. No one as a rule tried to understand Janey. It +was not necessary. No one was interested in her. You might easily love +Janey, but you could not easily be interested in her. + +The book was dusty. It was obvious that _The Magnet_ had not proved a +magnet to anyone in the Dower House. + +She got out an old silk handkerchief from a drawer and dusted it +carefully. Then she sat down by the lamp once more and opened it. +Ninetieth thousand. Was that many or few to have sold? It seemed to her +a good many, but perhaps all books sold as many as that. She glanced at +the first page. + + + "TO A BLESSED MEMORY." + + +That, no doubt, was the memory of the woman of whom he had spoken. She +realized suddenly that it had cost him something to speak of that. Why +had he done it? To help Annette? Every one wanted to help and protect +Annette, and ward off trouble from her. No one wanted to help or guard +her--Janey. + +"No one?" asked Conscience. + +Janey saw suddenly the yellow leaves on the flags. She had not noticed +them at the time. She saw the two baby-swallows sitting on their +breasts on the sun-warmed stone. She had not noticed them at the time. +She saw suddenly, as in a glass, the nobility, the humility, and the +benevolence of the man sitting beside her, and his intense desire to +save her from what he believed to be a cruel action. She had noticed +nothing at the time. She had been full of herself and her own +devastating problem. She saw that he had pleaded with her in a great +compassion as much on her own account as on Annette's. He had stretched +out a hand to help her, had tried to guard her, to ward off trouble from +her. This required thought. Janey and Roger could both think, though +they did not do so if they could help it, and he did his aloud to Janey +by preference whenever it really had to be done. Janey's mind got slowly +and reluctantly to its feet. It had been accustomed from early days to +walk alone. + + +A step crunched the gravel, came along the terrace, a well-known step. +Roger's face, very red and round-eyed behind a glowing cigarette end, +appeared at the open window. + +"I saw by the lamp you had not gone to bed yet. May I come in?" Coming +in. "My! It is like an oven in here." + +"I will come out," said Janey. + +They sat down on the terrace on two wicker chairs. It was the first time +she had been alone with him since she had met Geoff Lestrange. And as +Roger puffed at his cigarette in silence she became aware that he had +something on his mind, and had come to unburden himself to her. The moon +was not yet risen, and the church tower and the twisted pines stood as +if cut out of black velvet against the dim pearl of the eastern sky. + +"I came round this afternoon," said Roger in an aggrieved tone, "but you +were out." + +It seems to be a fixed idea, tap-rooted into the very depths of the +masculine mind, that it is the bounden duty of women to be in when they +call, even if they have not thought fit to mention their flattering +intentions. But some of us are ruefully aware that we might remain +indoors twenty years without having our leisure interrupted. Janey had +on many occasions waited indoors for Roger, but not since he had seen +Annette home after the choir practice. + +"You never seem to be about nowadays," he said. + +"I was in the Hulver gardens." + +"Yes, so I thought I would come round now." + +Roger could extract more creaking out of one wicker garden chair than +any other man in Lowshire, and more crackling out of a newspaper, +especially if music was going on: that is, unless Annette was singing. +He was as still as a stone on those occasions. + +"How is Aunt Louisa?" + +"Just the same." + +"Doctor been?" + +"No." + +"I was over at Noyes this morning about the bridge. Stirling gave me +luncheon. I don't know where I'm going to get the money for it, with +Aunt Louisa in this state. It's her business to repair the bridge. It's +going to cost hundreds." + +Janey had heard all this before many times. She was aware that Roger was +only marking time. + +"When I was over there," continued Roger, "I saw Bartlet, and he told me +Mary Deane--you know who I mean?" + +"Perfectly." + +"I heard the child, the little girl, had died suddenly last week. Croup +or something. They ought to have let me know. The funeral was +yesterday." + +"Poor woman!" + +"She and the old servant between them carried the little coffin +themselves along the dyke and across the ford. Wouldn't let anyone else +touch it. I heard about it from Bartlet. He ought to have let me know. I +told him so. He said he thought I _did_ know. That's Bartlet all over. +And he said he went up to see her next day, and--and she was gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Yes, gone. Cleared out; and the servant too. Cowell said a man from +Welysham had called for their boxes. They never went back to the house +after the funeral. I ought to have been told. And to-day I get this," +Roger pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it out to her. He lit a +match, and by its wavering light she read the few lines, in an educated +hand:-- + + + "_I only took the allowance from you when Dick became too ill to + send it, on account of Molly. Now Molly is dead, I do not need it, + or the house, or anything of Dick's any more. The key is with + Cornell.--M._" + + +"Poor woman!" said Janey again. + +"It's a bad business," said Roger. "She was--there was something nice +about her. She wasn't exactly a lady, but there really _was_ something +nice about her. And the little girl was Dick over again. You couldn't +help liking Molly." + +"I suppose she has gone back to her own people?" + +Roger shook his head. + +"She hasn't any people--never knew who her parents were. She was--the +same as her child. She loved Dick, but I don't think she ever forgave +him for letting Molly be born out of wedlock. She knew what it meant. It +embittered her. It was not only her own pride which had been wounded, +and she was a proud woman. But Molly! She resented Molly being +illegitimate." + +"Oh, Roger, what will become of her?" + +"Goodness knows." + +"Dick oughtn't to have done it," said Roger slowly, as if he were +enunciating some new and startling hypothesis. "But to do him justice I +do believe he might have married her if he'd lived. I think if he cared +for anybody it was for her. Dick meant well, but he was touched in his +head. She ought not to have trusted him. Not quite like other people; no +memory: and never in the same mind two days running." + +There was a short silence. But Roger had got under way at last. Very +soothing at times is a monologue to the weary masculine mind. + +"I used to think," he went on, "that Dick was the greatest liar and +swindler under the sun. He went back on his word, his written word, and +he wasn't straight. I'm certain he ran a ramp at Leopardstown. That was +the last time he rode in Ireland. You couldn't trust him. But I begin to +think that from the first he had a bee in his bonnet, poor chap. I +remember Uncle John leathering him within an inch of his life when he +was a boy because he said he had not set the big barn alight. And he +_had_. He'd been seen to do it by others as well as by me. I saw him, +but I never said. But I believe now he wasn't himself, sort of +sleep-walking, and he really had clean forgotten he'd done it. And do +you remember about the Eaton Square house?" + +Of course Janey remembered, but she said, "What about that?" + +"Why, he wrote to me to tell me he had decided to sell it only last +August, a month before his accident, as he wanted cash. He had clean +forgotten he had sold it two years ago and had had the money. Twenty +thousand it was." + +Puff! Puff! + +"Jones, his valet, you know!" + +"Yes." + +"Jones told me privately when I was in Paris a month ago that Dick +couldn't last much longer. Gangrene in both feet. The wonder is he has +lived so long. Aunt Louisa will get her wish after all. You'll see he +will die intestate, and everything will go to Harry. Pity you weren't a +boy, Janey. Dick can't make a will now, that's certain, though I don't +believe if he could and wanted to, Lady Jane would let him. But whatever +happens, the family ought to remember Jones when Dick's gone, and settle +something handsome on him for life. Jones has played the game by Dick." + +Janey thought it was just like Roger to be anxious about the valet, when +his own rightful inheritance was slipping away from him. For Roger came +next in the male line after Dick, if you did not count Harry. + +There was a long silence. + +"When Dick does go," said Roger meditatively,--"moon looks jolly, +doesn't it, peeping out behind the tower?--I wonder whether we shall +have trouble with the other woman, the one who was with him when he was +taken ill." + +"At Fontainebleau?" + +"Yes. I hear she was not at all a common person either, and as handsome +as paint." + +At the back of his mind Roger had a rueful, half-envious feeling that +really the luck had been with Dick: one pretty woman after another, +while he, Roger, plodded along as good as gold and as dull as ditch +water, and only had to provide for the babes of these illicit unions. It +did not seem fair. + +"Perhaps there is another child there," he said. + +"Oh no, no!" said Janey, wincing. + +"It's no use saying, 'Oh no, no!' my good girl. It may be, 'Oh yes, +yes!' The possibility has to be faced." Roger spoke as a man of the +world. "There may be a whole brood of them for aught we know." + +"Do you think he may possibly have married this--second one?" said Janey +tentatively. + +"No, I don't. If he had, she wouldn't have bolted. Besides, if Dick had +married anyone, I do believe it would have been Mary Deane. Well, she's +off our hands, poor thing. She won't trouble us again, but I don't +expect we shall get off as easy with number two." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + "Erfahrungen haben ist nichts, aber aus allen + Erfahrungen ein reines Herz gerettet zu haben, + Alles." L. HABICHT. + + +It was the second week in August. Mrs. Stoddart had arrived at Noyes, +and had driven over to see Annette, and to make the acquaintance of the +Miss Nevills. + +She was an immediate success with them, possibly because she intended to +be one, and knew how to set about it. + +The Miss Nevills had two worlds, the social and the literary, and each +one had "right people" in it. In the social world the right people were +of course those who belonged to the same social order as themselves, who +were connected with, or related to, or friends of Nevills, or were +connected with, or related to, or friends of the connections and +relatives and friends of Nevills. Mrs. Stoddart allowed her visiting +list to be probed, and quickly established herself as one of the right +people. She knew people they knew. Her sister Lady Brandon was a +frequent visitor at the Deanery of St. Botolph's, where they had lunched +during the Church Congress. And it was her niece who became the second +Mrs. Templeton when the first Mrs. Templeton, known of the Miss +Nevills, died. + +If, Reader, you have ever engaged in the back-breaking, hand-blistering +task of eradicating a scattered and well-established colony of nettles, +you have no doubt discovered that a nettle--except a few parvenus, +growth of the last rains--does not live to itself alone. It possesses +endless underground ramifications and knotted connections with other +groups and neighbouring groves of nettles. Get hold of the root of one, +and you pull up a long string rosetted at intervals with bunches of the +same stimulating family. So it was with the social world of the Miss +Nevills. There was always what they called "a link," and one of Aunt +Harriet's chief interests in life was the establishment of these links +in the case of each newcomer, though nothing much happened when it was +established. + +Just as you and I, Reader, in our vulgar, homely way, strike up an eager +acquaintanceship, even form a friendship with equally communicative +strangers on steamers, in omnibuses, in trains, because we have both +stayed in the same hotel at Lauter-brunnen, or go to the same dentist, +or derive benefit from the same pre-digested food, so the Miss Nevills +continually established links by more aristocratic avenues with the +assiduity of Egyptologists. + +But much of the pleasure of Mrs. Stoddart's visit was damped by the fact +which she discreetly concealed till almost the last moment, that she +was the bearer of an invitation from Mr. Stirling to Annette to spend a +few days at Noyes during her own visit there. Aunt Maria was wounded to +the quick. She had made up her mind to cultivate Mr. Stirling, to steep +herself in long literary conversations with him, to read aloud certain +important chapters of _The Silver Cross_ to him, on which his judgment +would be invaluable. And here was Annette, who had not an idea in her +mind beyond housekeeping and gardening and singing in the choir, here +was Annette preferred before her. Aunt Maria yearned to be admitted to +the society of the "right people" in the literary world as well as the +social one. She had been made much of by the camp followers of +literature, who were always prodigal of their invitations. And a few +uneasy vanities, such as the equally ignored Mr. Harvey, found a healing +comfort as she did herself in their respectful adulation. But all the +time she knew that she was an outsider in the best literary circles. +There was no one more democratic than the author of _Crooks and +Coronets_ when she approached the literary class. She was, to use her +own phraseology, "quite ready" to meet with urbanity anyone +distinguished in the world of letters, quite regardless of family. But +they apparently were not equally ready to meet her--at least, not to +meet her a second time. Mr. Stirling was a writer of considerable +importance, and Aunt Maria was magnanimously prepared to overlook the +fact that his father had been a small shopkeeper in Hammersmith. + +But he preferred Annette's society to hers. + +Mrs. Stoddart hastened to lay a soothing unguent on the sensitive spirit +of the celebrated authoress. It quickly transpired that the invitation +to Annette had been mainly the result of Mrs. Stoddart's own suggestion. + +"I begged him to let me have Annette with me for a few days," she said, +"and he was most kind about it. He is one of my oldest friends." + +Aunt Maria, somewhat mollified, yielded a dignified consent, and an +incident which had had its painful moment was closed. The next day the +news reached the Miss Blinketts with the afternoon delivery of milk that +the carriage from Noyes Court had come to Red Riff, and that Annette had +departed in it with a small dress-box at her feet, and a hat-box on the +vacant seat beside her. + + +Noyes Court is not an old house as old houses go in Lowshire, not like +Loudham close by, which has looked into its lake since Edward the +Third's time. Noyes was built by Hakoun Le Geyt, to whom Henry the +Eighth gave Noyes Priory and the estates belonging thereto. And Hakoun +erected a long black and white timbered house, with elaborately carved +beams and doorways, on the high ground above the deserted Priory. And +possibly he took most of the lead from the Priory roof, and certainly +he took some of the carved hammerbeams, for they have the word "Maria" +running along them, as you may see to this day. For when Cardinal Wolsey +came to visit him, the Priory was already a ruin. Perhaps Hakoun was a +man of foresight, and may have realized that the great Cardinal, who was +coming to Noyes on the quest of suppressing some of the Lowshire +monasteries in order to swell the revenues of his new college at +Ipswich, might lay his clutching hand on anything that still remained in +the condemned Priory, and so thought it politic to appropriate what he +could while opportunity offered. + +However that may have been, Noyes is rich in ancient lattice and stained +glass, and curious lead-work and gargoyle. And in the minstrels' gallery +you may see how cunningly the carved angels and griffons have been +inserted at intervals in the black oak balustrade. + +Hakoun must have been a man of taste, though he was a parvenu in spite +of his fine coat-of-arms: some said he was nothing better than one of +Catherine of Aragon's pages, who became a favourite with England's stout +young King when poor Catherine was herself in favour. But he had the wit +to consolidate his position in Lowshire by marrying into one of its +greatest families, the beautiful Jane de Ludham. Her father it was, +Ralph de Ludham, who had made the passage through Sweet Apple Tree marsh +because the hated Priors of Noyes hindered people passing through their +lands. And his son-in-law, eager to conciliate his Lutheran +father-in-law and his country neighbours, gave the stones of the Priory +to build the new bridge over the Rieben which stands to this day. From +the earliest times, almost from the Conquest, there had been trouble +about the bridge. The Priors of Noyes were bound to keep it in good +repair by reason of the lands they held on both sides of it. But the +Priors had never troubled themselves to carry out their duty, and there +was a grim justice in the fact that the very fabric of their Priory +fulfilled the obligation which they themselves had ignored when the last +of them was in his tomb, and a young Frenchman had taken possession of +their lands. + +The young Frenchman made good his hold on Noyes, and his successors +prospered, marrying steadily into the Lowshire families, excepting a +certain unlucky Richard who must needs wed a French maid-of-honour of +Charles the Second's Court, and, as some averred, the daughter of that +witty monarch. There is a charming portrait of Henriette of many curls +in the gallery which certainly has a look of the Stuarts, hanging +opposite her ill-fated Richard, who soon after the marriage got himself +blown up with Lord Sandwich in the _Royal James_. + + +Mrs. Stoddart and Annette were sitting in the walled herb garden which +Henriette in her widowhood had made, who had put with pardonable vanity +her initials twined in gilded iron in the centre of the iron gate which +led down to it from the terrace above. The little enclosed garden lay +bathed in a misty sunshine. Beyond it, the wide lawns were still all +silvered with dew in the shadows of the forest trees, which seemed to be +advanced posts of the great forest gathered like an army on the other +side of the river. The ground fell away before their eyes, in pleasaunce +and water meadows, to where in the distance you could just discern the +remains of the Priory near the bridge which had cost it so dear. + +Even that "new" bridge was now old, and was showing ominous signs of +collapse, and Annette's eyes followed the movements of tiny workmen +crawling over it. The distant chink of trowel and hammer reached them +through the haze of the windless summer morning. + +It was evident that the two women had had a long conversation, and that +Mrs. Stoddart was slowly turning over something point by point in her +mind. + +"You realize, Annette," she said at last, "that you can't go on living +at Riff now you know who the Manvers are?" + +"I was afraid you would say that." + +"But surely you see it for yourself, whether I say it or not?" + +Annette did not answer. + +"There are no two ways about it. You must break with the Manvers root +and branch." + +Annette coloured painfully. + +"Must I?" + +"Doesn't your own common sense, if you would only use it, tell you the +same?" + +"I am very fond of Janey Manvers." + +"That can't be helped." + +"You see," said Annette slowly, "Janey and Roger are the two people I +like best anywhere, except you. You don't know," turning her grave eyes +to her companion, "how good they are." + +"I never like people myself because they are good." + +"No, I know. And it's very lucky for me you don't. And then, I dare say, +you have always known numbers of good people. But it's different for me. +I haven't. I've never been with good people except Aunt Cathie and you." + +"If the sacred Miss Nevills could hear you now!" + +"I used to think I hated goodness. But I see now that it was the theory +of it, the talking about it, that sickened me. Janey and Roger never +talk about it. And then, when I had broken away from the aunts and went +to Paris, the life there was really evil under a thin veil which soon +got torn. And then I came here, and met Janey and Roger, and got to know +them well." + +"He is Mr. Le Geyt's younger brother, I suppose?" + +"No, first cousin." + +"That short-nosed, sunburnt, silent man we met at the bridge yesterday?" + +"Yes." + +"I liked his looks." + +"He is straight," said Annette, "and so is Janey. I always think of them +together, because they are so alike. They might be brother and sister, +and I'm sure they are as fond of each other as if they were. They aren't +clever, of course, like you and Mr. Stirling, but then I'm not clever +myself. They are just the kind of people I like." + +"My poor child, I am afraid you must give them up." + +"I'd rather give up anybody than them, except you." + +"It isn't a question of what you'd rather do or not do. Now you know who +they are, you cannot continue on terms of friendship with them. I don't +want to force my will upon you. I only want to advise you for the best. +Don't you see for yourself, without my insisting on it, that you will +involve yourself in an impossible situation if you continue your +friendship with them? If I were not here to point that out, surely, +_surely_ you could see it for yourself? Annette, if I were not here, if +you had no one to advise you, what _would_ you do?" + +"I would tell them," said Annette. "I won't, because I've promised you +not to tell anyone, but if I were----" + +"Free?" suggested Mrs. Stoddart. + +"Yes, if I were free, I should tell them both." + +Mrs. Stoddart let her knitting fall into her lap, and stared at her +companion. + +"And what good, in the name of fortune, would come of that?" + +"I don't know that any particular good would come of it, but I should +feel happier in my mind. I never had any wish to tell the aunts. I don't +know exactly why, but you don't somehow want to tell them things. But +ever since I've known that Dick was Janey's brother I've wanted to tell +her--her and Roger. It seems to come between me and them like a cloud. +You see, they like me, and I like them. There is nothing kept back in +_their_ lives, and they think I'm the same as them. I feel as if I ought +to tell them." + +"But, my dear, if I know anything of people like the Manvers, especially +when embedded in the country, it is that they would be terribly shocked, +and the disclosure would make an estrangement at once." + +"It might," Annette agreed. "I think you're right. I'm afraid it +_would_. But I should like to tell them, all the same." + +"They would not be wide-minded enough to understand." + +"They're not wide-minded, I know that, and of course they may feel I've +been here under false pretences." + +"They certainly would. Wouldn't it be better to do as I advise--to +leave Riff? You must lose them either way, Annette. Then why not lose +them by going away, instead of telling them first and then having to go +away?--for, of course, you could not remain. It would give less pain all +round." + +Annette locked her hands together. + +"I would rather they knew the truth about me." + +"The truth!" said Mrs. Stoddart, who, like most shrewd women, did not +relish opposition. "The truth! And who will get at the truth if you tell +that story of your act of supreme folly? Who will believe that you were +not Dick Le Geyt's mistress? The truth! Do you think it is the truth +about you that I have taken such trouble to conceal?" + +"Yes, partly," said Annette. "And I have often wondered lately if it had +not been a mistake." + +"Why particularly lately?" + +"Because of Roger Manvers." + +"The young man at the bridge? I wondered whether he was in love with you +when we were talking to him. But I did not think it mattered if he was." + +"It matters to me." + +"You mean you are actually thinking of him? Of course, he is most +estimable, and a gentleman, one can see that at a glance, but isn't he a +trifle dull, _borne_?" + +"I think I could get on better with a dull person, if he was kind and +honourable, than a clever one. I've had one clever one--who wasn't +honourable. You see, I'm only good-looking. I'm nothing else. That's why +I like being with the Miss Blinketts and Mrs. Nicholls. I forgot perhaps +you don't know Mrs. Nicholls is the washerwoman. A clever man would get +tired of me, or bored with me, and he would expect so much, +understandings and discriminations and things which I could not give, or +only by a dreadful effort. If I married Roger, he would be pleased with +me as I am." + +"I have no doubt he would." + +"And I should be pleased with him too." + +"I am not so sure of that." + +"I am, but for some time past I have wished he knew anything there was +to know against me." + +"Well, but, Annette, you know we agreed--you had my full approval--that +you should tell everything to the man you were engaged to." + +"I thought that all right at the time--at least, I mean I never thought +about it again. But, of course, I did not know Roger then, and I had not +realized how cruel it would be to him to go farther and farther, and +think more and more of me, and get it firmly rooted in his mind that he +would like to marry me,--it takes a long time for him to get his mind +fixed,--and then, when I had accepted him and he was feeling very +comfortable, to have this--this ugly thing--sprung upon him." + +"I don't see how that can be helped." + +"Yes, if he had been told very early in the day, he might have +withdrawn,--of course he would have withdrawn if he had believed the +worst,--but it would not have cost him much. He would have felt he had +had a lucky escape. But as it is," Annette's voice wavered, "I am afraid +Roger will be put to expense." + +"Has he said anything?" + +"Yes. No. I mean he said something the other day, but it was by the +weir, and I know he thought I did not hear. I was listening to the +water, and it made a noise. I heard every word, but I did not like to +say so, because I saw he was rather surprised at himself, taken aback." + +Mrs. Stoddart cogitated. + +At last she said, "My dear, I know what is wise, and that is what I have +advised you. But I also know that I am a managing woman, and that one +must not coerce the lives of others. You are not what is called wise. +And you never will be. But I perceive that you have some kind of course +to steer your ship by, and I must even let you steer it. We can't both +stand at the helm, Annette. I think you do not see the rocks ahead, +which I have taken such trouble to avoid, but at any rate I have pointed +them out. I take my hands off the wheel. I give you back your promise." + +Mr. Stirling and Roger were coming through the slender iron gates with +their scrolled initials, from which the white hanging clusters of the +"Seven Sisters" had to be pushed back to allow them to pass. + +"There are worse things than rocks," said Annette, looking at Roger. But +she had become very white. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + "Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, + only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this + our pilgrimage to no country and to no end."--RABINDRA NATH TAGORE. + + +Mr. Stirling had no curiosity--that quality which in ourselves we +designate as interest in our fellow-creatures, even while we are +kneeling at a keyhole. + +But his interest in others amounted to a passion. He drew slowly through +his hand a little chain, looking at each link with kindly compassion. +The first link had been the expression in Janey's eyes when his nephew +had unconsciously maligned Annette. The sudden relief as from pain, the +exultation in those gentle, patient eyes, had brought him instantly to +her side as her ally against herself. And in his interview with her, the +commonplace pitiful reason had spread itself out before him. She loved +some one, probably Mr. Black, or her cousin Roger--at any rate some one +who was drifting into love with Annette. He felt confident when he left +Janey that she would not use her weapon against Annette as a means to +regain her lover--that Annette was safe as far as she was concerned. +Janey was not of those who blindfold their own eyes for long. He had, +he knew, removed the bandage from them. That was all that was necessary. + +And now here was Roger, kindly, sociable Roger, whom he had always got +on with so well,--in spite of the secret contempt of the country-bred +man for a man who neither shoots not hunts,--here was Roger suddenly +metamorphosed into a laconic poker, hardly willing to exchange a word +with himself or Annette at luncheon. Mr. Stirling perceived, not without +amusement, that Roger was acutely jealous of him, and drew the last link +of the chain through his hand. Then it was Roger to whom Janey Manvers +was attached, Roger who was in love with Annette? That good-looking Mr. +Black apparently did not come into the piece at all. The situation had, +after all, a classic simplicity. Two women and one man. He had seen +something not unlike it before. And he smiled as he remembered how Miss +Blinkett once supplied him unasked with sundry details of the +affiancement of her cousin the Archdeacon with the Bishop's sister, and +her anxious injunction when all was divulged that he must not on any +account put it into a book. That promise he had kept without difficulty, +but not in Miss Blinkett's eyes, who, when his next novel appeared, +immediately traced a marked resemblance between the ardent love-making +of the half-Italian hero and the gratified comments of the Archdeacon +while allowing himself to be towed into harbour by the blameless +blandishments of the Bishop's sister. + +Would Roger in turn think he had been "put in"? Mr. Stirling realized +that it was only too likely. For he knew to his cost how deeply embedded +in the mind of the provincial male is the conviction that there is +nothing like him under the sun. In the novel which Mr. Stirling had +recently finished, he had drawn, without a hairbreadth's alteration, the +exact portrait of a married brother-novelist, as an inordinately pompous +old maid of literary fame. When the book appeared this character called +forth much admiration from the public in general, and the +brother-novelist in particular; but it caused a wound so deep and so +rankling in the bosom of Aunt Maria that all intercourse was broken off +between her and Mr. Stirling for ever, in spite of the fact that he was +able to assure her--only she never believed it--that his novel was in +the press before he made her acquaintance. But this is a digression. + +Mr. Stirling showed some absence of mind during luncheon, and then owned +that he was in a small difficulty about the afternoon. He had promised +to drive Mrs. Stoddart and Annette to the old cross at Haliwell. But the +victoria only held two comfortably, and the horse which was to have +taken him in the dogcart had fallen lame. + +"I think I shall commandeer you and your dogcart," he said to Roger. +"Take a few hours' holiday for once, Manvers, and do us all a good turn +at the same time. We can put some cushions in your cart, so that Miss +Georges will be sufficiently comfortable." + +Roger was electrified, but he made no sign. He mumbled something about a +foreman, he hung back, he was able to reassure himself afterwards by the +conviction that he had appeared most unwilling, as indeed he did; but +very deep down within him he felt a thrill of pleasure. He was tired to +death, though he did not know it, of the routine of his life, though he +clung to it as a bird will sometimes cling to its cage. He had had +enough of farm buildings and wire fencing, and the everlasting drainage +of land, the weary water-logged Lowshire land. His eyes became perfectly +round, and he looked at his plate with his most bottled-up expression. +But he was pleased. Fortunately for Annette, she knew that. It did not +strike him that she might be disconcerted by his apparent unwillingness +to escort her. His savage irritation against Mr. Stirling as "a clever +chap who could talk a bird out of a tree" was somewhat mollified. +Perhaps, after all, he was interested in Mrs. Stoddart, a widow of about +his own age. Roger shot a furtive glance from under his tawny eyelashes +at Mrs. Stoddart, suddenly bolted a large piece of peach, and said he +thought he could manage it. + + +It was a still August afternoon, and Roger drove Annette through the +sunny countryside. The cool breath of the sea blew softly in their +faces, travelling towards them across the low-lying woods and +cornfields. For there are few hills in Lowshire. It is a land of long +lines: long lines of tidal river and gleaming flats, and immense +stretches of clover--clover which is a soft green for half the summer, +and then a sea of dim blue pink. The heather and the gorse-land creep +almost down among the fields, with here and there a clump of pines +taking care of tiny cottages so muffled in the gorse that you can only +see the upper windows, or keeping guard round quaint little churches +with flint towers. And everywhere in the part of Lowshire where the +Rieben winds, there are old bridges of red blue brick shouldering up +among the buttercups, and red cows, with here and there a blue one, +standing without legs in the long grass. And scattered far apart, down +deep blackberried lanes, lie the villages of pink-plastered cottages +clustering together, red roof by red roof, with a flinty grey church in +the midst. + +The original artist who designed and painted Lowshire must have always +taken a dab of blue in his brush just when he had filled it with red, to +do the bridges and the old farms and barns and the cows. For in Lowshire +the blues and the reds are always melting into each other like the +clover. + +Roger and Annette were heading towards the sea, and so you would have +thought would be their companion the Rieben. But the Rieben was in no +hurry. It left them continually to take the longest way, laying itself +out in leisurely curves round low uplands, but always meeting them again +a few miles farther on, growing more stately with every detour. Other +streams swelled it, and presently wharves and townships stretched +alongside of it, and ships came sailing by. It hardly seemed possible to +Annette that it could be the same little river which one low arch could +span at Riff. + +At last they turned away from it altogether, and struck across the wide +common of Gallowscore amid its stretches of yellowing bracken; and Roger +showed her where, in past times, a gibbet used to hang, and told her +that old Cowell the shepherd, the only man who still came to church in +smock-frock and blue stockings, had walked all the way from Riff to +Gallowscore, as a lad, to see three highwaymen hanging in chains on it. +The great oak had been blown down later, gibbet and all, and the gibbet +had never been set up again. + +A walking funeral was toiling across the bracken in the direction of the +church on the edge of the common, and Roger drew up and waited +bareheaded till it had passed. And he told Annette of the old iniquitous +Lowshire "right of heriot" which came into force when a tenant died, and +how his uncle Mr. Manvers, the last lord of the manor, had let it lapse, +and how Dick, the present owner, had never enforced it either. + +"I couldn't have worked the estate if he had," said Roger simply. "Lady +Louisa told Dick he ought to stick to it, and make me enforce it, but I +said I should have to go if he did. The best horse out of his stable +when a man died, and the best cow out of his field. When Dick understood +what heriot meant he would not do it. He was always open-handed." + +Annette looked at the little church tolling its bell, and at the three +firs gathered round it. + +"There is a place like this in _The Magnet_," she said. "That is why I +seem to know it, though I've never seen it before. There ought to be a +Vicarage just behind the firs, with a little garden enclosed from the +bracken." + +"There is," said Roger, and then added, with gross ingratitude to its +author, "I never thought much of _The Magnet_. I like the bits about the +places, and he says things about dogs that are just right, and--robins. +He's good on birds. But when it comes to people----!" + +Annette did not answer. It was not necessary. Roger was under way. + +"And yet," he added, with a tardy sense of justice, "Stirling's in some +ways an understanding man. I never thought he'd have made allowance for +old Betty Hesketh having the wood mania and breaking up his new fence, +but he did. Such a fuss as Bartlet kicked up when he caught her at his +wood-stack! Of course he caught her at it. Old folks can't help it. +They get wood mania when they're childish, if they've known the pinch of +cold for too many years. And even if their sheds are full of wood--Betty +has enough to last her lifetime--they'll go on picking and stealing. If +they see it, they've got to have it. Only it isn't stealing. Mr. +Stirling understood that. He said he'd known old ladies the same about +china. But the people in his books!" Roger shook his head. + +"Didn't you like Jack and Hester in _The Magnet_! I got so fond of +them." + +"I don't remember much about them. I dare say I should have liked them +if I had felt they were real, but I never did. It's always the same in +novels. When I start reading them I know beforehand everybody will talk +so uncommonly well--not like----" + +"You and me," suggested Annette. + +"Well, not like me, anyhow. And not like Janey and the kind of people I +know--except perhaps Black. He can say a lot." + +"I have felt that too," said Annette, "especially when the hero and +heroine are talking. I think how splendidly they both do it, but I +secretly feel all the time that if I had been in the heroine's place I +never could have expressed myself so well, and behaved so exactly right, +and understood everything so quickly. I know I should have been silent +and stupid, and only seen what was the right thing to say several hours +later, when I had gone home." + +Roger looked obliquely at her with an approving eye. Here indeed was a +kindred soul! + +"In _The Magnet_," he said, with a sudden confiding impulse, "the men do +propose so well. Now in real life they don't. Poor beggars, they'd like +to, but they can't. Most difficult thing, but you'd never guess it from +_The Magnet_. Just look at Jack!--wasn't that his name?--how he reels it +all out! Shows how much he cares. Says a lot of really good things--not +copy-book, I will say that for him. Puts it uncommonly well about not +being good enough for her, just as Mr. Stirling would himself if he were +proposing. That's what I felt when I read it. Jack never would have had +the nerve to say all that, but of course a clever chap like Mr. +Stirling, sitting comfortably in his study, with lots of time and no +woman to flurry him, could make it up." + +Annette did not answer. Perhaps she did not want to flurry him. + +"I could never _say_ anything like that," said Roger, flicking a fly off +Merrylegs' back, "but I might feel it. I _do_ feel it, and more." + +"That is the only thing that matters," said Annette, with a tremor in +her voice. + +"This is not the moment!" whispered Roger's bachelor instinct, in sudden +panic at its imminent extinction. "I'd better wait till later in the +afternoon," he assented cautiously to himself. "A dogcart's not the +place." + +They crossed the common, and drove through an ancient forest of oak and +holly in which kings had hunted, and where the last wolf in England had +been killed. + +And Roger told her of the great flood in the year of Waterloo, when the +sea burst over the breakwater between Haliwater and Kirby, and carried +away the old Hundred bridge, and forced the fishes into the forest, +where his grandfather had seen them weeks afterwards sticking in the +bushes. + +When they emerged once more into the open the homely landscape had +changed. The blackberried hedges were gone, replaced by long lines of +thin firs, marking the boundaries between the fields. Sea mews were +wheeling and calling among the uncouth hummocked gorse, which crowded up +on either side of the white poppy-edged road. There was salt in the air. + +Roger pointed with his whip. + +"The Rieben again," he said. + +But could this mighty river with its mile-wide water be indeed the +Rieben? Just beyond it, close beside it, divided only by a narrow thong +of shingle, lay the sea. + +And Roger told Annette how at Mendlesham Mill the Rieben had all but +reached the sea, and then had turned aside and edged along, stubbornly, +mile after mile, parallel with it, almost within a stone's throw of it. + +"But it never seems all to fall in and have done with it," he said, +pointing to where it melted away into the haze, still hugging the sea, +but always with the thong of shingle stretched between. + +The Rieben skirting the sea, within sound of it, frustrated by its +tides, brackish with its salt, but still apart, always reminded Roger of +Lady Louisa. She too had drawn very near, but could not reach the +merciful sea of death. A narrow ridge of aching life, arid as the high +shingle barrier, constrained her, brackish month by month, from her only +refuge. But Roger could no more have expressed such an idea in words +than he could have knitted the cable-topped shooting-stockings which +Janey made him, and which he had on at this moment. + +The carriage in front had stopped at a lonely homestead among the gorse. +On a low knoll at a little distance fronting the marsh stood an old +stone cross. + +Mrs. Stoddart and Mr. Stirling had already taken to their feet, and were +climbing slowly through the gorse up the sandy path which led to the +Holy Well. Roger and Annette left the dogcart and followed them. + +Presently Mr. Stirling gave Mrs. Stoddart his hand. + +Roger timidly offered his to Annette. She did not need it, but she took +it. His shyness stood him in good stead. She had known bolder advances. + +Hand in hand, with beating hearts, they went, and as they walked the +thin veil which hides the enchanted land from lonely seekers was +withdrawn. With awed eyes they saw "that new world which is the old" +unfold itself before them, and smiled gravely at each other. The little +pink convolvulus creeping in the thin grass made way for them. The wild +St. John's wort held towards them its tiny golden stars. The sea mews, +flapping slowly past with their feet hanging, cried them good luck; and +the thyme clinging close as moss to the ground, sent them delicate +greeting, "like dawn in Paradise." + +Annette forgot that a year ago she had for a few hours seen a mirage of +this ecstasy before, and it had been but a mirage. She forgot that the +day might not be far distant when this kindly man, this transfigured +fellow-traveller, might leave her, when he who treated her now with +reverence, delicate as the scent of the thyme, might not be willing to +make her his wife, as that other man had not been willing. + +But how could she do otherwise than forget? For when our eyes are +opened, and the promised land lies at our feet, the most faithless of us +fear no desertion, the most treacherous no treachery, the coldest no +inconstancy, the most callous no wound; much less guileless souls like +poor unwise Annette. + +She had told Mrs. Stoddart that she would never trust anyone again, and +then had trusted her implicitly. She had told herself that she would +never love again, and she loved Roger. + +A certain wisdom, not all of this world, could never be hers, as Mrs. +Stoddart had said, but neither could caution, or distrust, or +half-heartedness, or self-regard. Those thorny barricades against the +tender feet of love would never be hers either. Ah, fortunate Annette! +It seems, after all, as if some very simple, unsuspicious folk can do +without wisdom, can well afford to leave it to us, who are neither +simple nor trustful. + +Still hand in hand, they reached the shoulder of the low headland, and +sat down on the sun-warmed, gossamer-threaded grass. + +The ground fell below their eyes to the long staked marsh-lands of the +Rieben, steeped in a shimmer of haze. + +Somewhere, as in some other world, sheep-bells tinkled, mingled with the +faint clamour of sea-birds on the misty flats. The pale river gleamed +ethereal as the gleaming gossamer on the grass, and beyond it a sea of +pearl was merged in a sky of pearl. Was anything real and tangible? +Might not the whole vanish at a touch? + +They could not speak to each other. + +At last she whispered-- + +"The sea is still there." + +She had thought as there was a new heaven and a new earth that there +would be no more sea. But there it was. God had evidently changed His +mind. + +A minute speck appeared upon it. + +Roger pulled himself together. + +"That's the Harwich boat," he said, "or it may be one of Moy's +coaling-ships. I rather think it is." + +He gazed with evident relish at the small puff of smoke. He experienced +a certain relief in its advent, as one who descries a familiar face in a +foreign crowd. He said he wished he had brought his glasses, as then he +could have identified it. And he pointed out to her, far away in the +mist, the crumbling headlands of the Suffolk coast, and the church tower +of Dunwich, half lost in the sea haze, waiting for the next storm to +engulf it. + +Recalled to a remembrance of their destination by the coal-boat, they +rose and walked slowly on towards the old stone cross standing bluntly +up against a great world of sky. Mr. Stirling and Mrs. Stoddart were +sitting under it; and close at hand a spring bubbled up, which slipped +amid tumbled stone and ling to a little pond, the margin fretted by the +tiny feet of sheep, and then wavered towards the Rieben as circuitously +as the Rieben wavered to the sea. + +There was nothing left of the anchorite's cell save scattered stones, +and the shred of wall on which Mrs. Stoddart was sitting. But a disciple +of Julian of Norwich had dwelt there once, Mr. Stirling told them, +visited, so the legend went, by the deer of the forest when the moss on +their horns fretted them, and by sick wolves with thorns in their feet, +and by bishops and princes and knights and coifed dames, with thorns in +their souls. And she healed and comforted them all. And later on Queen +Mary had raised the cross to mark the spot where the saint of the +Catholic Church had lived, as some said close on a hundred years. + +"It is a pity there are no saints left nowadays," said Mr. Stirling, "to +heal us poor sick wolves." + +"But there are," said Annette, as if involuntarily, "only we don't see +them until we become sick wolves. Then we find them, and they take the +thorn away." + +A baby-kite, all fluff, and innocent golden eyes, and callow hooked +beak, flew down with long, unsteady wings to perch on the cross and +preen itself. Presently a chiding mother's note summoned it away. Mr. +Stirling watched it, and wondered whether the link between Mrs. Stoddart +and Annette, which he saw was a very close one, had anything to do with +some dark page of Annette's past. Had Mrs. Stoddart taken from her some +rankling thorn?--healed some deep wound in her young life? He saw the +elder woman's eyes looking with earnest scrutiny at Roger. + +"The girl believes in him, and the older woman doubts him," he said to +himself. + +Annette's eyes followed a narrow track through the gorse towards a +distant knoll with a clump of firs on it. + +"I should like to walk to the firs," she said. + +Roger thought that an excellent idea, but he made no remark. Mr. +Stirling at once said that it could easily be done if she were not +afraid of a mile's walk. The knoll was farther than it looked. + +Mrs. Stoddart said that she felt unequal to it, and she and Mr. Stirling +agreed to make their way back to the carriage, and to rejoin Roger and +Annette at Mendlesham Mill. + +The little stream was company to them on their way, playing +hide-and-seek with them, but presently Roger sternly said that they must +part from it, as it showed a treacherous tendency to boggy ground, and +they struck along an old broken causeway on the verge of the marsh, +disturbing myriads of birds congregated on it. + +"Shall I do it now?" Roger said to himself. He made up his mind that he +would speak when they reached the group of firs, now close at hand, with +a low grey house huddled against them. He had never proposed before, but +he stolidly supposed that if others could he could. + +The sun had gone in, and a faint chill breath stirred the air. + +"But where is the river gone to?" said Annette. + +Roger, who had been walking as in a dream, with his eyes glued to the +firs, started. The river had disappeared. The sun came out again and +shone instead on drifting billows of mist, like the clouds the angels +sit on in the picture-books. + +"It is the sea roke," he said; "we must hurry." + +"It won't reach Mrs. Stoddart, will it?" said Annette breathlessly, +trying to keep up with his large stride. "Damp is so bad for her +rheumatism." + +"_She_ is all right," he said almost angrily. "They have wraps, and they +are half-way home by now. It's my fault. I might have known, if I had +had my wits about me, when Dunwich looked like that, the roke would come +up with the tide." + +He took off his coat and put it on her. Then he drew her arm through +his. + +"Now," he said peremptorily, "we've got to walk--hard." + +All in a moment the mist blotted out everything, and he stopped short +instantly. + +"It will shift," he said doggedly. "We must wait till it shifts." + +He knew well the evil record of that quaggy ground, and of the gleaming, +sheening flats--the ruthless oozy flats which tell no tales. The birds +which had filled the air with their clamour were silent. There was no +sound except the whisper everywhere of lapping water, water stealing in +round them on all sides, almost beneath their feet. The sound meant +nothing to Annette, but Roger frowned. + +The tide was coming in. + +"The roke will shift," he said again doggedly. + +And it did. The tawny clouds, yellow where the sun caught them, drifted +past them and parted. They saw the homely earth beneath their feet, the +tiny pink convolvulus peering up at them. + +"Do you see that bunch of firs?" he said. + +"Yes." + +"Well, we've got to get there. We must run for it." + +They ran together towards it over the slippery sedge, and up the still +more slippery turf. The sun came out brilliantly, and she laughed and +would have slackened to look at the fantastic world sailing past her; +but he urged her on, his hand gripping her elbow. And he was right. By +the time they reached the trees they were in a dense white darkness, and +the nearest fir whipped them across the face. + +Annette was frightened, and it was Roger's turn to laugh--a short, grim +laugh, with considerable relief in it. + +"Ha! That's right," still holding her elbow tightly, and reaching out +with the other hand. "We've fired into the brown and no mistake. Here's +the middle tree. Two more this side. Then down. Mind your footing, and +hold on to me." + +They slid down into a dry ditch--at least, Roger said it was dry. "And +good luck, too," he said. "Made that ditch myself to carry off the +snow-water. Awful lot of water off the bank in winter." He pulled her up +the other side, and then stopped and felt about him. + +"The garden wall should be here," he said. "Empty house. Take shelter in +it. Yes." He groped, and met with resistance. "Here it is." + +They stumbled slowly along beside a wall. "Lot of nettles, I'm afraid. +Sorry, but can't be helped," as they plunged into a grove of them. "Here +we are." + +His hand was on an iron gate which gave and opened inwards. She felt a +house rising close above them. Roger relinquished her, with many +injunctions to stand still, and she heard his steps going away along a +flagged path. + +Annette was not country-bred, and she had not that vague confidence in +her mother earth which those who have played on her surface from +childhood never lose in later life. She was alarmed to find herself +alone, and she shivered a little in the dripping winding-sheet of the +mist. She looked round her and then up. High in heaven a pale disk +showed for a moment and was blotted out. The sun!--it was shining +somewhere. And far away, in some other world, she heard a lark singing, +singing, as it soared in the blue. + +A key in a lock turned, and a door close at hand grated on its hinges. + +"Wait till I light a match," said Roger's welcome voice. + +The match made a tawny blur the shape of a doorway, and she had time to +reach it before it flickered out. + +Roger drew her into the house, and closed the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + "There's no smoke in the chimney, + And the rain beats on the floor; + There's no glass in the window, + There's no wood in the door; + The heather grows behind the house, + And the sand lies before. + + No hand hath trained the ivy, + The walls are gray and bare; + The boats upon the sea sail by, + Nor ever tarry there; + No beast of the field comes nigh, + Nor any bird of the air." + MARY COLERIDGE. + + +It was black dark inside the house, instead of the white darkness +outside. + +Knocking Annette carefully against pieces of furniture, Roger guided her +down a narrow passage into what felt like a room. Near the ceiling were +two bars of white where the fog looked in over the tops of the shutters. + +He struck another match, and a little chamber revealed itself, with +faded carpet and a long mirror. But no sooner was it seen than it was +gone. + +"Did you see that chair near you?" said Roger. "I haven't many matches +left." + +"There is a candle on the mantelpiece," she said. + +Roger was amazed at Annette's cleverness. He had not seen it himself, +but she had. He exulted in the thought. + +He lit it, and the poor little tall drawing-room came reluctantly into +view, with its tarnished mirror from which the quicksilver had ebbed, +and its flowered wall-paper over which the damp had scrawled its own +irregular patterns. The furniture was of the kind that expresses only +one idea and that a bad one. The foolish sofa, with a walnut backbone +showing through a slit in its chintz cover, had a humped excrescence at +one end like an uneasy chair, and the other four chairs had servilely +imitated this hump, and sunk their individuality, if they ever had any, +to be "a walnut suite." A glass-fronted chiffonier had done its horrid +best to "be in keeping" with the suite. On the walls were a few prints +of race-horses stretched out towards a winning-post; and steel +engravings of the Emperor of the French in an order and the Empress +Eugenie all smiles and ringlets served as pendants to two engravings of +stags by Landseer. + +Annette took off Roger's coat and laid it on a chair. + +"Some one has been very unhappy here," she said, below her breath. + +Roger did not hear her. He was drawing together the litter of +waste-paper in the grate. And then--careful man!--having ascertained +with the poker that the register was open, he set a light to it. + +The dancing, garish firelight made the sense of desolation acute. + +"Who lived here?" said Annette. + +Roger hesitated a moment, and then said-- + +"A Mrs. Deane." + +"Was she very old?" + +"Not very--not more than twenty-seven." + +"And is she dead?" + +Roger put some more paper on the fire, and held it down with the poker. + +"No. She has left. Her child died here a month ago." + +"Poor soul! Her only child?" + +"Yes." + +"And her husband? Is he dead too?" + +Roger thought a moment, and then said slowly, "As good as dead." + +He looked round the room and added, "Dick Manvers lent her the house. It +used to be the agent's, but no one has lived in it since I can remember. +It has always been to let furnished, but no one ever took it. People +seem to think it is rather out of the way." + +The rollicking, busy flame died down and left them in the candle-light +once more. But after a few moments the ghostly pallor above the shutters +deepened. Roger went to them and opened them. They fell back creaking, +revealing a tall French window. The fog was eddying past, showing the +tops of the clump of firs, and then hiding them anew. He gazed intently +at the drifting waves of mist. + +"The wind is shifting," he said. "It will blow from the land directly, +and then the roke will go. I shall run down to the farm and bring the +dogcart up here." + +After all, he should have to propose in the dogcart. Men must have +proposed and have been accepted in dogcarts before now. Anyhow, he could +not say anything in this house when he remembered who had lived here, +and the recent tragedy that had been enacted within its walls. + +"You must put on your coat again," she said, bringing it to him. "And +mayn't I come with you? Wouldn't that be better than bringing the cart +up here?" + +"Oh, Merrylegs can see anywhere. Besides, there's the ford: I doubt you +could get over it dry-shod, and I shall have to go a couple of miles +round. And you've had walking enough. I shan't be gone more than half an +hour. I dare say by then the sun will be full out." + +"I would rather come with you." + +"You're not afraid to stay here, are you? There is nothing to hurt you, +and that candle will last an hour. I don't believe there's even a live +mouse in the place." + +"I am sure there isn't. Everything here is dead and broken-hearted. I +would rather go with you." + +Roger's face became the face of a husband, obstinacy personified. She +did not realize that they had been in danger, that he had felt anxiety +for her, and that he had no intention of being so acutely uncomfortable +again if he could help it. + +"You will stay quietly here," he said doggedly. "This is the most +comfortable chair." + +She sat down meekly in it at once, and smiled at him--not displeased at +being dragooned. + +He smiled back, and was gone. She heard him go cautiously along the +passage, and open and shut the front door. + +The light was increasing steadily, and a few minutes after he had left +the house the sun came pallidly out, and a faint breeze stirred the tops +of the fir trees. Perhaps this was the land breeze of which he had +spoken. A sense of irksomeness and restlessness laid hold on her. She +turned from the window, and wandered into the little entrance hall, and +unbarred a shutter to see if Roger were coming back. But no one was in +sight on the long, straight, moss-rutted road that led to the house. She +peered into the empty kitchen, and then, seeing a band of sunlight on +the staircase, went up it. Perhaps she should see Roger from one of the +upper windows. There were no shutters on them. She glanced into one +after another of the little cluster of dishevelled bedrooms, with +crumpled newspapers left over from a hurried packing still strewing the +floors. The furniture was massive, early Victorian, not uncomfortable, +but direfully ugly. + +There was one fair-sized south bedroom, and on the window-sill was a +young starling with outspread, grimy wings. Annette ran to open the +window, but as she did so she saw it was dead, had died beating against +the glass trying to get out into the sunshine, after making black +smirches on the walls and ceiling. + +Everything in this one room was gay and pretty. The curtains and +bed-hangings were of rosebud chintz. Perhaps the same hand that had made +them had collected from the other rooms the old swinging mirror with +brass rosettes, and the chest of drawers with drop handles, and the +quaint painted chairs. Annette saw the crib in the corner. This room had +been the nursery. It was here, no doubt, that Mrs. Deane had watched her +child die. Some of the anguish of the mother seemed to linger in the +sunny room with its rose-coloured curtains, and something, alas! more +terrible than grief had left its traces there. + +A devastating hand, a fierce destructive anger had been at work. Little +pictures had evidently been torn down from the wall and flung into the +fire. The fireplace was choked high with half-burned debris--small +shoes, pinafores, and toys. A bit of a child's linen picture-book had +declined to burn, and hung forlornly through the bars, showing a comic +picture of Mrs. Pig driving home from market. A green wheel had become +unfastened, and had rolled into the middle of the room when the wooden +horse and cart were thrust into the fire. + +"She must have cried all the time," said Annette to herself, and she +shivered. She remembered her own mad impulse of destruction. + +"It's no use being angry," she whispered to the empty walls. "No use. No +use." + +The photograph frames had evidently been swept into the fire too, all +but one, for there was broken glass in the fender and on the floor. But +one framed photograph stood on the mantelpiece, the man in it, smiling +and debonair, looking gaily out at Annette and the world in general. +Under it was written in a large clear hand, "Daddy." + +It was Dick Le Geyt, but younger and handsomer than Annette had ever +known him. She looked long at it, slowly realizing that this, then, had +been the home of Dick's mistress, the Mary of whom he had spoken and her +child, to whom he had done a tardy justice in his will, the will she had +helped him to make. The child, Dick's child, was dead. Its empty crib +was in the corner. Its memorials had perished with it. + +All that was left now of that little home was Dick's faded photograph +smiling in its frame, purposely, vindictively left when all the others +had been destroyed. Mary Deane had not cared to take it with her when +she cut herself adrift from her past. She had not had the clemency to +destroy it with the rest. She had left it to smile mockingly across the +ruins of the deserted nursery. While Annette stood motionless the fierce +despair of the mother became almost visible to her: the last wild look +round the room and at the empty crib, the eyes averted from the smiling +face on the mantelpiece, and then--the closed door and the lagging, +hurrying footfall on the stairs. + +"It's no use being angry," she whispered again. "Even Dick knew that. No +use. No use." + +And with pitying hands she took Dick's photograph out of the frame and +tore it up small, and thrust the pieces among the charred remains of his +child's toys. It was all she could do for him. + +Oh! if she had but known Mary Deane, if she could but have come to her, +and put her arms round her and told her that Dick had not been as +heartless as she thought, that he had remembered her at the last, and as +far as he could had made a late amends for all the evil he had done her. + +But the child was dead, and Mary Deane herself was gone. Gone whither? +She had flung away in anger and despair, as she, Annette, had once flung +away. Perhaps there had been no Mrs. Stoddart to care for Mary in her +hour of need. + +Annette's heart sank as if a cold hand had been laid upon it. + +The peaceful, radiant faith and joy of a few hours ago--where were they +now? In their place, into this close, desolate room with the dead bird +on the sill, came an overwhelming fear. + +Men were cruel, ruthless creatures, who did dreadful things to women +under the name of love. + +As at a great distance, far far away in the depths of childhood, she +heard her mother sobbing in the dark. Almost her only recollection of +her mother was being waked in the night by that passionate sobbing. The +remembrance of her father came next, sordid, good-humoured, mercenary, +and she shuddered. No wonder her mother had cried so bitterly! Close +behind it followed the sensitive, sensual face of the musician who had +offered to train her. And then, sudden and overwhelming, blotting out +everything else, came the beautiful young lover whom she had cast forth +from her heart with passion a year ago. All the agony and despair which +she had undergone then surged back upon her, seemed to rush past her to +join forces with the cold desolation lingering in the empty room. +Annette hid her face in her hands. She had put it all behind her. She +had outlived it. But the sudden remembrance of it shook her like a leaf. + +In that grim procession Dick came last--poor, poor Dick! He had not been +wicked, but he had done wicked things. He had betrayed and broken faith. +He had made as much desolation and anguish as if he had been +hard-hearted. Oh! why did women love men? Why did they trust them? + +Annette stood a long time with her face in her hands. Then she went out +and closed the door behind her. The sun was shining bravely, and she +longed to get out of this death-shadowed house into the warm, living +sunshine. She went back to the drawing-room, her quiet step echoing +loudly down the passage, and looked out of the long window. But the +outlook was not calculated to lessen her oppression. + +Close at hand, as she knew, were gracious expanses of sea and sky and +gleaming river. But a stone wall surrounded the house, and on the top of +it a tall wooden fence had been erected, so high that from the ground +floor you could not look over it. This wooden fence came up close to the +house on every side, so close that there was only just room for the thin +firs and a walnut tree to grow within the narrow enclosure, their +branches touching the windows. + +Annette did not know that the wall and the fence and the trees were +there to protect the house from the east wind, which in winter swept +with arctic ferocity from the sea. + +In the narrow strip between the fenced wall and the house Mary Deane had +tried to make a little garden. Vain effort! The walnut tree and the firs +took all sun from the strip of flower-bed against the wall of the house, +where a few Michaelmas daisies and snap-dragons hung their heads. She +had trained a rose against the wall, but it clung more dead than alive, +its weak shoots slipping down from its careful supports. She had made a +gravel path beside it, and had paced up and down it. How worn and sunk +that path was! There was not room for two to go abreast in it. One +footfall had worn that narrow groove, narrow almost as a sheep track in +the marsh. And now the path was barely visible for the dead leaves of +the walnut, falling untimely, which had drifted across it, and had made +an eddy over the solitary clump of yellow snap-dragon. + +Annette drew back the bolt of the window, and stepped out. The air, +chill with the mist which had silvered everything, was warm compared to +the atmosphere of the house. + +She drew a long breath, and her mind, never accustomed to dwell long +upon herself, was instantly absorbed in freeing the snap-dragon from the +dead leaves which had invaded it. Two birds were bathing themselves +sedulously in the only sunny corner at the end of the garden. Annette +saw that their bath also was choked with leaves, and when she had +released the snap-dragon, she applied her energies to the birds' bath. + +But she had hardly removed a few leaves from it when she stopped short. +It was a day of revelations. The birds' bath was really a lake: a +miniature lake with rocks in it, and three tin fishes, rather too large +it must be owned to be quite probable, and a tin frog spread out in a +swimming attitude, and four ducks all jostling each other on its small +expanse. It was a well-stocked lake. Tears rose in Annette's eyes as she +explored still farther, lifting the drifted leaves gently one by one. + +They covered a doll's garden about a yard square. Some one, not a child, +had loved that garden, and had made it for a beloved child. The +enclosure with its two-inch fence had no grass in it, but it had winding +walks, marked with sand and tiny white stones. And it had a little +avenue of French lavender which was actually growing, and which led to +the stone steps on the top of which the house stood, flanked by shells. +It was a wooden house, perhaps originally a box; of rather debased +architecture, it must be conceded. But it had windows and a green door +painted on it, and a chimney. On the terrace were two garden-seats, +evidently made out of match-boxes; and outside the fence was a realistic +pigsty with two china pigs in it, and a water-butt, and a real +hay-stack. Close at hand lay a speckled china cow, and near it were two +seated crinkly white lambs. + +Annette kneeling by the lake, crying silently, was so absorbed in +tenderly clearing the dead leaves from the work of art, and in setting +the cow on its legs again, that she did not hear a step on the path +behind her. Roger had come back and was watching her. + +When she discovered the two lambs sitting facing each other, she seized +them up, and kissed them, sobbing violently. + +Something in Annette's action vaguely repelled him as he watched her. It +was what he would have defined as "French." And though he had swallowed +down the French father, he hated all symptoms of him in Annette. It was +alien to him to kiss little china lambs. Janey would never have done +that. And Janey was the test, the touchstone of all that was becoming in +woman. + +And then all in a moment the tiny wave of repulsion was submerged in the +strong current of his whole being towards her. It was as if some dormant +generous emotion had been roused and angered by his petty pin-prick +opposition to put out its whole strength and brush it away. + +"Don't cry," said Roger gruffly. But there were tears in his small round +eyes as well as in hers. + +"Oh, Roger," said Annette, speaking to him for the first time by his +Christian name, "have you seen it, the fishes and the ducks, and the +pigsty, and the little lambs and everything?" + +Roger nodded. He had watched that property in course of construction. He +might have added that he had provided most of the animals for it. But if +he had added that, he would not have been Roger. + +"And she's burnt everything in the nursery," continued Annette, rising +and going to him, the tears running down her face. "The toys and +everything. And she's torn down the little pictures from the wall and +broken them and thrown them on the fire. And I think she only left the +garden because--poor thing--because she forgot it." + +Roger did not answer. He took her in his arms, and said with gruff +tenderness, as if to a child, "Don't cry." + +She leaned against him, and let his arms fold her to him. And as they +stood together in silence their hearts went out to each other, and awe +fell upon them. All about them seemed to shake, the silvered firs, the +pale sunshine, the melancholy house, the solid earth beneath their feet. + +"You will marry me, won't you, Annette?" he said hoarsely. + +Remembrance rushed back upon her. She drew away from him, and looked +earnestly at him with tear-dimmed, wistful eyes. + +The poor woman who had lived here, who had worn the little path on which +they were standing, had loved Dick, but he had not married her. She +herself, for one brief hour, had loved some one, but he had had no +thought of marrying her. Was Roger, after all, like other men? Would he +also cast her aside when he knew all, weigh her in the balance, and find +her not good enough to be his wife? + +There was a loud knocking at the door, and the bell pealed. It echoed +through the empty house. + +Roger started violently. Annette did not move. So absorbed was she that +she heard nothing, and continued gazing at him with unfathomable eyes. +After one bewildered glance at her, he hurried into the house, and she +followed him half dazed. + +In the hall she found him reading a telegram while a dismounted groom +held a smoking horse at the door. At the gate the dogcart was waiting, +tied to the gate-post. + +Roger crushed the telegram in his hand, and stared out of the window for +a long moment. Then he said to Annette-- + +"Janey has sent me on this telegram to say her brother Dick is dead. It +has been following me about for hours. I must go at once." + +He turned to the groom. "I will take your horse. And you will drive Miss +Georges back to Noyes in the dogcart." + +The man held the stirrup, and Roger mounted, raised his cap gravely to +Annette, turned his horse carefully in the narrow path, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + "Even the longest lane has a turning, though the path trodden by + some people is so long and so straight that it seems less like a + lane than 'a permanent way.'"--ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER. + + +Time moves imperceptibly at Riff, as imperceptibly as the Rieben among +its reeds. + +To Janey it seemed as if life stood stock-still. Nevertheless, the slow +wheel of the year was turning. The hay was long since in, standing in +high ricks in the farmyards, or built up into stacks in lonely fields +with a hurdle round them to keep off the cattle. The wheat and the +clover had been reaped and carried. The fields were bare, waiting for +the plough. It was the time of the Harvest Thanksgiving. + +Janey had been at work ever since breakfast helping to decorate the +church, together with Harry and Miss Black, and her deaf friend Miss +Conder, the secretary of the Plain Needlework Guild. Miss Conder's +secretarial duties apparently left her wide margins of leisure which +were always at the disposal of Miss Black. + +Except for the somewhat uninspiring presence of Miss Black and Miss +Conder and her ear trumpet, it had all been exactly as it had been ever +since Janey could remember. + +As she stood by the Ringers' Arch it seemed to her as if she had seen it +all a hundred times before: the children coming crowding round her, +flaxen and ruddy, with their hot little posies tied with grass,--the +boys made as pretty posies as the girls,--and Hesketh, "crome from the +cradle," limping up the aisle with his little thatched stack under his +arm; and Sayler with his loaf; and the farmers' wives bringing in their +heavy baskets of apples and vegetables. + +Sometimes there is great joy in coming home after long absence and +finding all exactly as we left it and as we have pictured it in memory. +We resent the displacement of a chair, or the lopping of one of the +cedar's boughs, and we note the new tool-shed with an alien eye. + +But it is not always joyful, nay, it can have an element of despair in +it, to stay at home, and never go away, and see the wheel of life slowly +turn and turn, and re-turn, and yet again re-turn, always the same, yet +taking every year part of our youth from us. The years must come which +will strip from us what we have. Yes, we know that. But life should +surely give us something first, before it begins to take away. + +Janey was only five-and-twenty, and it seemed to her that already the +plundering years had come. What little she had was being wrested from +her. And an immense distaste and fatigue of life invaded her as she made +her lily and maiden-hair cross for the font. How often she had made it, +as she was making it now! Should she go on for ever, till she was sixty, +making crosses for the font at Harvest Homes, and putting holly in the +windows at Christmas, and "doing the reading-desk" with primroses at +Easter? + +Harry working beside her, concocting little sheaves out of the great +bundle of barley which Roger had sent in the night before, was +blissfully happy. He held up each sheaf in turn, and she nodded surprise +and approbation. It seemed to her that after all Harry had the best of +the bargain, the hard bargain which life drives with some of us. + +It was all as it had always been. + +Soon after eleven, Miss Amy Blinkett, a little fluttered and +self-conscious, appeared as usual, followed up the aisle by a +wheelbarrow, in which reposed an enormous vegetable marrow with "Trust +in the Lord" blazoned on it in red flannel letters. These "marrer +texes," as the villagers called them, were in great request, not only in +Riff, but in the adjoining parishes; and it was not an uncommon thing +for "Miss Amy's marrer" to be bespoken, after it had served at Riff, for +succeeding Harvest Homes in the neighbourhood. It had been evolved out +of her inner consciousness in her romantic youth, and in the course of +thirty years it had grown from a dazzling novelty to an important asset, +and was now an institution. Even the lamentable Mr. Jones, who had "set +himself against" so many Riff customs, had never set himself against +"Miss Amy's marrer." And an admiring crowd always gathered round it +after service to view it reclining on a bed of moss beneath the pulpit. + +By common consent, Miss Amy had always been presented with the largest +vegetable marrow that Riff could produce. But this year none adequate +for the purpose could be found, and considerable anxiety had been felt +on the subject. Mrs. Nicholls, who sent in the finest, had to own that +even hers was only about fourteen inches long. "No bigger nor your +foot," as she expressed it to Janey. Fortunately, at the last moment +Roger obtained one from Sweet Apple Tree, about the size of a baby, +larger than any which had been produced in Riff for many years past. +That Sweet Apple Tree could have had one of such majestic proportions +when the Riff marrows had failed, was not a source of unmixed +congratulation to Riff. It was feared that the Sweet Applers "might get +cocked up." + +The suspense had in the meanwhile given Miss Amy a sharp attack of +neuralgia, and the fact that the marrow really came up to time in the +wheelbarrow was the result of dauntless and heroic efforts on her part. + +This splendid contribution was wheeled up the aisle, having paused near +the font to receive Janey's tribute of admiration, and then a few +minutes later, to her amazement, she saw it being wheeled down again, +Miss Amy walking very erect in dignified distress beside it. With cold +asperity, and without according it a second glance, Miss Black had +relegated it--actually relegated "Miss Amy's marrer"--to the Ringers' +Arch. The other helpers stopped in their work and gazed at Miss Black, +who, unconscious of the doubts of her sanity which had arisen in their +minds, continued rearing white flowers against the east window, +regardless of the fact that nothing but their black silhouettes were +visible to the congregation. + +At this moment Mr. Black came into the church, so urbane, and so +determined to show that he was the kind of man who appreciated the +spirit in which the humblest offerings were made, that it was some time +before Janey could make him aware of the indignity to which Miss Amy's +unique work of art had been subjected. + +"But its grotesqueness will not be so obvious at the Ringers' Arch," he +said. "It's impossible, of course, but it has been a labour of love, I +can see that, and I should be the last man in the world to laugh at it." + +He had to work through so many sentiments which did him credit that +Janey despaired of making him understand, of ever getting him to listen +to her. + +"Miss Blinkett's marrow is always under the pulpit," she repeated +anxiously. "No, the Ringers' Arch is _not_ considered such an important +place as the pulpit. The people simply love it, and will be disappointed +if they don't see it there as usual. And Miss Blinkett will be deeply +hurt. She is hurt now, though she does not show it." + +At last her words took effect, and Mr. Black was guided into becoming +the last man to wound the feelings of one of his parishioners. Greatly +to Janey's relief, the marrow was presently seen once more to ascend the +aisle, was assisted out of its wheelbarrow by Mr. Black himself and +installed on a bed of moss at the pulpit foot; Miss Black standing +coldly aloof during the transaction, while Miss Conder, short-sighted +and heavy-footed, walked backwards into an arrangement of tomatoes and +dahlias in course of construction round the reading-desk. + +Mr. Black and his sister had had an amicable discussion the evening +before as to the decoration of the church, and especially of the pulpit, +for this their first Harvest Thanksgiving at Riff. They had both agreed, +with a cordiality which had too often been lacking in their +conversations of late, that they would make an effort to raise the +decoration to a higher artistic level than in the other churches in the +neighbourhood, some of which had already celebrated their Harvest +Thanksgivings. Miss Black had held up to scorn the naive attempts of +Heyke and Drum, at which her brother had preached the sermon, and he had +smiled indulgently and had agreed with her. + +But Riff was his first country post, and he had not been aware until he +stepped into it, of the network of custom which surrounded Harvest +decoration, typified by Miss Blinkett's vegetable marrow. With admirable +good sense, he adjusted himself to the occasion, and shutting his ears +to the hissing whispers of his sister, who for the hundredth time begged +him not to be weak, gave himself up to helping his parishioners in their +own way. This way, he soon found, closely resembled the way of Heyke and +Drum, and presently he was assisting Mrs. Nicholls to do "Thy Will be +Done" in her own potatoes, backed by white paper roses round the base of +the majestic monument of the Welyshams of Swale, with its two ebony +elephants at which Harry always looked with awe and admiration. + +As he and Janey were tying their bunches of barley to its high iron +railings, a telegram was brought to her. Telegrams were not so common +twenty years ago as they are now, and Janey's heart beat. Her mind flew +to Roger. Had he had some accident? She knew he had gone to Noyes about +the bridge. + +She opened it and read it, and then looked fixedly at Harry, stretching +his hand through the railing to stroke the elephants and whisper gently +to them. She almost hated him at that moment. + +She folded up the telegram and sought out Mr. Black, who, hot and tired, +and with an earwig exploring down his neck, was now making a cardboard +dais for Sayer's loaf of bread. + +"My brother Dick is dead," she said. "I must go home at once. Harry can +stay and finish the railings. He knows exactly how to do them, and he +has been looking forward to helping for days." + +Harry looked towards her for approval, and her heart smote her. It was +not his fault if his shadowy existence was the occasion of a great +injustice. She went up to him and patted his cheek, and said, "Capital, +capital! What should we do without you, Harry?" + +"I'm taking my place, aren't I?" he said, delighted. "That's what Nurse +is always saying. I must assert myself and take my place." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + "Remember, Lord, Thou didst not make me good. + Or if Thou didst, it was so long ago + I have forgotten--and never understood, + I humbly think." + GEORGE MACDONALD. + + +On a sunny September day Dick the absentee was gathered to his fathers +at Riff. + +Is there any church in the world as beautiful as the old church of Riff +where he was buried?--with its wonderful flint-panelled porch; with the +chalice, host, and crown carved in stone on each side of the arched +doorway as you go in; beautiful still in spite of the heavy hand of +Cromwell's men who tore all the dear little saints out of their niches +in the great wooden font cover, which mounts richly carved and dimly +painted like a spire, made of a hundred tiny fretted spires, to the very +roof of the nave, almost touching the figures of the angels leaning with +outstretched wings from their carved and painted hammerbeams. In spite +of all the sacrilege of which it has been the victim, the old font cover +with the coloured sunshine falling aslant upon it through the narrow +pictured windows remains a tangle of worn, mysterious splendour. And +the same haggard, forlorn beauty rests on the remains of the carved +screen, with its company of female saints painted one in each panel. + +Poor saints! savagely obliterated by the same Protestant zeal, so that +now you can barely spell out their names in semicircle round their +heads: Saint Cecilia, Saint Agatha, Saint Osyth. + +But no desecrating hand was laid on the old oaken benches with their +carved finials. Quaint intricate carvings of kings and queens, and +coifed ladies kneeling on tasselled cushions, and dogs licking their own +backs,--outlandish dogs with curly manes and shaved bodies and rosetted +tails,--and harts crowned and belted with branching antlers larger than +their bodies, and knights in armour, and trees with acorns on them so +big that each tree had only room for two or three, and the ragged staff +of the Earls of Warwick with the bear. All these were spared, seeing +they dealt with man and beast, and not with God and saint. And by +mistake Saint Catherine and her wheel and Saint Margaret and her dragon +were overlooked and left intact. Perhaps because the wheel and the +dragon were so small that the destroyers did not recognize that the +quaint little ladies with their parted hair were saints at all. And +there they all are to this day, broken some of them, alas!--one of them +surreptitiously mutilated by Dick as a small boy,--but many intact +still, worn to a deep black polish by the hands of generation after +generation of the sturdy people of Riff taking hold of them as they go +into their places. + +The Manvers monuments and hatchments jostle each other all along the +yellow-plastered walls: from the bas-relief kneeling figure of the first +Roger Manvers, Burgess of Dunwich, to the last owner, John Manvers, the +husband of Lady Louisa Manvers. + +But their predecessors, the D'Urbans and de Uffords, had fared ill at +the hands of Dowsing and his men, who tore up their brasses with "orate +pro anima" on them, and hacked their "popish" monuments to pieces, +barely leaving the figures of Apphia de Ufford, noseless and fingerless, +beside her lord, Nicholas D'Urban of Valenes. One Elizabethan brass +memorial of John de la Pole, drowned at Walberswick, was spared, +representing a skeleton, unkindly telling others that as he is we soon +shall be, which acid inscription no doubt preserved him. But you must +look up to the hammerbeams if you care to see all that is left of the +memorials of the D'Urbans and De la Poles and the de Uffords, where +their shields still hang among the carved angels. + +Dick had not been worthy of his forbears, and it is doubtful whether if +he had had any voice in the matter he would have wished to be buried +with them. But Roger brought his coffin back to Riff as a matter of +course. + +His death had caused genuine regret among the village people, if to no +one else. They had all known him from a boy. There had been a reckless +bonhomie about him which had endeared him to his people, in a way that +Roger, who had to do all the disagreeable things, could not expect. In +time past, Dick had fought and ferreted and shared the same hunk of cake +and drunk out of the same mug with half the village lads of Riff. They +had all liked him, and later on in life, if he would not or could not +attend to their grievances or spend money on repairs, he always "put his +hand in his pocket" very freely whenever he came across them. Even the +local policeman and the bearers decorously waiting at the lychgate had +sown their few boyish wild oats in Dick's delightful company. He was +indissolubly associated with that short heyday of delirious joy; he had +given them their one gulp from the cup of adventure and escapade. They +remembered the taste of it as the hearse with its four plumed black +horses came in sight between the poplars along the winding road from +Riebenbridge. Dick had died tragically at thirty-three, and the kindly +people of Riff were sorry. + +Janey and Roger were the only chief mourners, for at the last moment +Harry had been alarmed by the black horses, and had been left behind +under the nurse's charge. They followed the coffin up the aisle, and sat +together in the Squire's seats below the step. Close behind them, pale +and impassive, sitting alone, was Jones the valet, perhaps the only +person who really mourned for Dick. And behind him again was a crowd of +neighbours and family friends, and the serried ranks of the farmers and +tenants. + +In the chancel was the choir, every member present except Mrs. Nicholls, +Dicks foster-mother, who was among the tenantry. So the seat next to +Annette was empty, and to Mr. Stirling down by the font it seemed as if +Annette were sitting alone near the coffin. + +Janey sat and stood and knelt, very pale behind her long veil, her +black-gloved hands pinching tightly at a little Prayer Book. She was not +thinking of Dick. She had been momentarily sorry. It is sad to die at +thirty-three. It was Roger she thought of, for already she knew that no +will could be found. Roger had told her so on his return from Paris two +days ago. A sinister suspicion was gradually taking form in her mind +that her mother on her last visit to Dick in Paris had perhaps obtained +possession of his will and had destroyed it, in the determination that +Harry should succeed. Janey reproached herself for her assumption of her +mother's treachery, but the suspicion lurked nevertheless like a shadow +at the back of her mind. Was poor Roger to be done out of his +inheritance? for by every moral right Hulver ought to be his. Was +treachery at work on _every_ side of him? Janey looked fixedly at +Annette. Was she not deceiving him too? How calm she looked, how pure, +and how beautiful! Yet she had been the mistress of the man lying in his +coffin between them. Janey's brain seemed to shake. It could not be. But +so it was. She shut her eyes and prayed for Roger, and Dick, and +Annette. It was all she could do. + +Roger, beside her, kept his eyes fixed on a carved knob in front of him. +He knew he must not look round, though he was anxious to know whether +Cocks and Sayler had seated the people properly. His mind was as full of +detail as a hive is full of bees. He was tired out, and he had earache, +but he hardly noticed it. He had laboured unremittingly at the funeral. +It was the last thing he could do for Dick, whom he had once been fond +of, whom he had known better than anyone, for whom he had worked so +ruefully and faithfully; who had caused him so many hours of +exasperation, and who had failed and frustrated him at every turn in his +work for the estate. + +He had arranged everything himself, the distant tenants' meals, the +putting up of their horses. He had chosen the bearers, and had seen the +gloves and hat-bands distributed, and the church hung with black. His +mind travelled over all the arrangements, and he did not think anything +had been forgotten. And all the time at the back of his mind also was +the thought that no will was forthcoming, even while he followed the +service. + +"Dick might have left Hulver to me. '_We brought nothing into the world +and it is certain we can carry nothing out._' Poor old Dick! I dare say +he meant to. But he was too casual, and had a bee in his bonnet. But if +he had done nothing else, he ought to have made some provision for Mary +Deane and his child. He could not tell Molly would die before him. '_For +a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday._' Seeing Harry is +what he is and Janey is to have Noyes, Dick might have remembered me. I +shall have to work the estate for Harry now, I suppose. Doesn't seem +quite fair, does it? '_O teach us to number our days: that we may apply +our hearts unto wisdom._' Never heard Black read the service better. +He'll be a bishop some day. And now that Dick has forgotten me, how on +earth am I ever to marry? '_Man that is born of woman hath but a short +time to live and is full of misery._' That's the truest text of the +whole lot." + +Roger looked once at Annette, and then fixed his eyes once more on the +carved finial of the old oaken bench on which he was sitting, where his +uncle had sat before him, and where he could just remember seeing his +grandfather sit in a blue frock-coat thirty years ago. He looked for the +hundredth time at the ragged staff of the Warwicks carved above the +bear, the poor bear which had lost its ears if it ever had any. His hand +in its split glove closed convulsively on the bear's head. _How was he +going to marry Annette!_ + + +Annette's eyes rested on the flower-covered coffin in front of her, but +she did not see it. She was back in the past. She was kneeling by Dick's +bed with her cheek against the pillow, while his broken voice whispered, +"The wind is coming again, and I am going with it." + +The kind wind had taken the poor leaf at last, the drifting shredded +leaf. + +And then she felt Roger look at her, and other thoughts suddenly surged +up. Was it possible--was it possible--that Dick might part her and +Roger? Their eyes met for an instant across the coffin. + +Already Roger looked remote, as if like Dick he were sinking into the +past. She felt a light touch on her hand. The choir had risen for the +anthem. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est la, + Simple et tranquille. + Cette paisible rumeur-la + Vient de la ville. + + Qu'as-tu fait, O toi que voila + Pleurant sans cesse, + Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voila + De ta jeunesse?" + PAUL VERLAINE. + + +The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into +the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the +cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully +contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the +hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of +the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its +own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy +had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not +appreciate its house. That prickly recluse had shown such unwillingness +to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed, +although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered such +determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large +crack had appeared in the wall. + +Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles +remain when hedgehogs pass away. + +Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came +swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under +the cedar. + +"Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her. + +"No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make +a noise." + +He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she +had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the +soft September sunshine. + +It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace, +when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the +Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the +windless spaces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The +unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All +was still--so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder, +came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the +sun-warmed grass. + +The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry. +Why should not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently, +very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more, +neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any +heat." + +The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in +its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears +welled up into her eyes. + +She was tired, oh! so tired of hungering and thirsting, and the sun and +the dust, so tired of the trampling struggle and turmoil of life, of +being pushed from pillar to post, from patient to patient. For seventeen +grinding years she had earned her bread in the house of strangers, and +she was sick to death of it. And she had been handsome once, gay and +self-confident once, innocent once. She had been determined that her +mother should never know want. And she had never known it--never known +either the straits to which her daughter had been reduced to keep that +tiny home together. That was all over now. Her mother was dead, and her +lover, if so he could be called, had passed out of her life. And as she +sat on the bench she told herself for the hundredth time that there was +no one to fight for her but herself. She felt old and worn-out and +ashamed, and the tears fell. She had not been like this, cunning and +self-seeking, to start with. Life had made her so. She shut her eyes, so +that she might not see that graceful, pathetic creature, with its +beautiful eyes fixed on the marbles, of whom she had dared to make a +cat's paw. + +But presently she felt a soft cheek pressed to hers, and an arm round +her neck. + +"Don't cry, Nursie," Harry said gently. "Brother Dick has gone to +heaven," and he kissed her, as a child might kiss its mother. She winced +at his touch, and then pushed back her hair, still thick and wavy, with +the grey just beginning to show in it, and returned his kiss. + +And as he stood before her she took his hands and held them tightly, her +miserable eyes fixed on him. + +A silent sob shook her, and then she said-- + +"You know where God lives, Harry?" + +Harry disengaged one hand and pointed to the sky above him. He was not +often sure of giving the right answer, but he had a happy confidence +that this was correct. + +"Yes," she went on, "God lives in the sky and looks down on us. He is +looking at us now." + +Harry glanced politely up at the heavens and then back at his companion. + +"He is looking at us now. He hears what I say. I'm not one that believes +much in promises. Nobody's ever kept any to me. But I call Him to +witness that what I have taken upon myself I will perform, that I will +do my duty by you, and I will be good to you always and be your best +friend, whatever may happen--so help me God." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + "But I wait in a horror of strangeness-- + A tool on His workshop floor, + Worn to the butt, and banished + His hand for evermore." + W. E. HENLEY. + + +In the sick-room all was still. + +Lady Louisa lay with her eyes open, fixed. Blended with the cawing of +the rooks came the tolling of the bell for her son's funeral. Janey had +told her of Dick's death, had repeated it gently several times, had +recounted every detail of the funeral arrangements and how her sister +Lady Jane was not well enough to come to England for it. How the service +was taking place this afternoon and she must go to it, but she should +not be away long: Nurse would sit with her while she was away. How Harry +was not to be present, as he had been frightened at the sight of the +plumed horses. It was more than doubtful whether her mother understood +anything at all of what she told her, whether she even heard a voice +speaking. But Janey mercifully told her everything on the chance, big +things and small: Dick's death, and the loss of Harry's bantam cock, the +Harvest Thanksgiving vegetable marrow, and the engagement of the Miss +Blinketts' niece to a rising surgeon, and their disappointment that +instead of giving her a ring his only present to her had been a snapshot +of himself performing an operation. Scores of little things she gleaned +together and told her. So that if by any hundredth part of a chance she +could indeed still hear and understand she might not feel entirely cut +off from the land of the living. + +Her mother heard and understood everything. But to her it was as if her +prison was at such an immense distance that communication was +impossible. Janey's voice, tender and patient, reached down to her as in +some deep grave. She could hear and understand and remember. But she +could make no sign. + +Ah! How much she remembered, as the bell tolled for Dick's last +home-coming! Her thoughts went back to that grey morning +three-and-thirty years ago when she had seen his face for the first +time, the little pink puckered face which had had no hint in it of all +the misery he was to cause her. And she recalled it as she had seen it +last, nearly a year ago, hardly human, already dead save for a +fluctuating animal life. And she remembered her strenuous search for a +will, and how Dick's valet had told her that his master had been +impressed by the narrowness of his escape when he injured his head, and +had actually gone out on purpose to make his will the day he went to +Fontainebleau, but had been waylaid by some woman. She had found the +name and address of his man of business, and had been to see him, but +could extract nothing from him except that Mr. Le Geyt had not called on +him on the day in question, had not made any will as far as his +knowledge went, and that he had ceased to employ him owing to a quarrel. +Dick's business relations with every one except Roger always ended in a +quarrel sooner or later--generally sooner. She had made up her mind that +Dick must die without leaving a will. It was necessary for the sake of +others. But she had not told herself what she should do with a will of +his if she could get hold of it. But she had not been able to discover +one. The whole situation rose before her, and she, the only person who +had an inkling of it, the only person who could deal with it, was +powerless. + +She had accumulated proofs, doctor's evidence, that Harry's was only a +case of arrested development, that he was quite capable of taking his +part in life. She had read all these papers to the nurse when first she +came to Riff, and had shown herself sympathetic about Harry, which Janey +had never been. Janey had always, like her father, thought that if Dick +died childless Hulver ought to go to Roger, had not been dislodged from +that position even by her mother's thrust that she said that because she +was in love with him. Nurse in those first days of her ministry had +warmly and without _arriere pensee_ encouraged Lady Louisa in her +contention that Harry was only backward, and had proved that she was +partly right by the great progress he made under her authority. She had +been indefatigable in training him, drawing out his atrophied faculties. + +The papers which Lady Louisa had so laboriously collected were in the +drawer of the secretaire, near the fire. The key was on her watch-chain, +and her watch and chain were on the dressing-table. Nurse had got them +out and put them back at her request several times. She knew where they +were. + +And now that Dick was dead, Nurse would certainly use them on Harry's +behalf, exactly as she herself had intended to use them. + +Unscrupulous, wanton woman! + +A paroxysm of rage momentarily blinded her. But after a time the +familiar room came creeping stealthily back out of the darkness, to +close in on her once more. + +She had schemed and plotted, she had made use of the shrewd, capable +woman at her bedside. But the shrewd, capable woman had schemed and +plotted too, and had made use of her son, her poor half-witted Harry. +For now, at last, now that power had been wrested out of her own safe +hands into the clutch of this designing woman, Lady Louisa owned to +herself that Harry was half-witted. She had intended him, her favourite +child, to have everything, and Janey and Roger to be his protective +satellites. She had perfect confidence in Roger. + +But now this accursed, self-seeking woman, who had made a cat's paw of +Harry, had ruined everything. She, not Roger, would now have control of +the property. She would be supreme. Harry would be wax in her hands. Her +word would be law. She could turn her out of the Dower House if she +wished it. Everything--even the Manvers diamonds in the safe downstairs +which she had worn all her life--belonged to _her_ now. Everything +except in name was hers already--if Dick had died intestate. And no +doubt he had so died. How she had hoped and prayed he would do as he had +done! How could she have guessed that his doing so would prove the +worst, immeasurably the worst calamity of all? Lady Louisa was appalled. +She felt sick unto death. + +She had laboured for her children's welfare to the last, and now she had +been struck down as on a battlefield, and the feet of the enemy were +trampling her in the dust. + +The door opened, and the adversary came in. She and her patient eyed +each other steadily. Then the nurse went to the dressing-table and took +the watch with its chain and pendant key, and opened the drawer in the +secretaire. Lady Louisa watched her take out a bundle of papers and put +them in her pocket. Then she locked the drawer and replaced the watch, +and returned to the bedside. She wiped away the beads of sweat which +stood on Lady Louisa's forehead, touched her brow and nostrils with +eau-de-Cologne, and sat down in her accustomed place. Lady Louisa saw +that her eyes were red. + +"If looks could kill, yours would kill me, milady," she said. "It's been +hard on you to have me to tend you. But that's all over now. Don't you +fret about it any more. I shall go away to-morrow, and I don't suppose +you'll ever be troubled by the sight of me in this world again." + +Presently Janey came in, and the nurse at once withdrew. She took off +her gloves, and put back her heavy veil. + +"It is all over," she said, with the familiar gesture of stroking her +mother's hand. "Such a sunny, quiet day for Dick's home-coming. We ought +all to be thankful that his long imprisonment is over, that his release +has come." + +The other prisoner heard from the depths of her forlorn cell. + +"And I ought to tell you, mother, that there is no will. Aunt Jane and +Roger have looked everywhere, and made inquiries. I am afraid there is +no longer any doubt that Dick has died without making one. So you will +have your wish." The gentle voice had a tinge of bitterness. "Everything +will go to Harry." + + +When Janey came downstairs again she found Roger sitting in the library +with a hand on each knee. He looked worn out. + +She made fresh tea for him, and he drank it in silence, while she +mended his split glove. + +"Well, it's over," he said at last. + +"All the arrangements were so carefully made," she said softly, putting +her little thumb into the big thumb of his glove, and finding where the +mischief had started. He watched her without seeing her. + +"I think everything went right," he said. "I hope it did, and Black did +his part. I never heard him read so well." + +"I thought the same." + +Roger was so accustomed to hear this expression from Janey whenever he +made a statement that he had long since ceased to listen to it. + +"I'm thankful there was no hitch. I could not sleep last night, earache +or something, and I had an uneasy feeling--very silly of me, but I could +not get it out of my head--that one of those women would turn up and +make a scene." + +"From what you've told me, Mary Deane would never have done a thing like +that." + +"No. She was too proud, but there was the other one, the Fontainebleau +one. I had a sort of idea _she_ might have been in the church. Queer +things happen now and then. I didn't like to look round. Mustn't be +looking about at a funeral. I suppose you didn't see anyone that might +have been her?" + +Janey laid down the glove. + +"I didn't look round either," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + "Others besides Moses have struggled up the mountain only to be + shown the promised land, and to hear the words: Thou shalt see it + with thine eyes, but shalt not pass over." + + +The following morning saw Janey and Roger sitting opposite each other +once more, but this time in his office-room, staring blankly at each +other. In spite of her invariably quiet demeanour, she was trembling a +little. + +"I am afraid you _must_ believe it, Roger." + +"Good Lord!" was all Roger could say, evidently not for the first time. + +There was a long silence. + +"When did she tell you?" + +"This morning, after breakfast. She and Harry came in together when I +was writing letters, hand in hand, as if they were in a novel, and she +said they had been married three months." + +"Three months!" + +"Yes." + +"Why, they must have been married in June." + +"Yes." + +"Good Lord!" + +Janey told him how they had been married at Ipswich at a Registry +Office. "Her brother, who is a solicitor, was one of the witnesses. She +showed me a copy of the certificate. She seems to have been +very--methodical." + +"It won't hold. Poor Harry is a loony." + +"I hinted that, but she only smiled. I think she must have gone +thoroughly into that before she took any step. And then she looked at +him, and he said like a parrot that it was time he took his proper place +in the world and managed his own affairs." + +"I never in my life heard such cheek." + +"After a bit I sent away Harry. He looked at her first before he obeyed, +and she signed to him to go. She has got absolute control over him. And +I tried to talk to her. She was very hard and bitter at first, and +twitted me with having to put up with her as a sister-in-law. But I +could not help being sorry for her. She was ashamed, I'm sure, of what +she'd done, though she tried to carry it off with a high hand. She's not +altogether a bad woman." + +"Isn't she? Well, she's near enough to satisfy me. I don't know what you +call bad if kidnapping that poor softy isn't. But the marriage can't +hold. It's ridiculous." + +"She says it will, and I think she'll prove to be right. She is a shrewd +woman, and after all Harry is twenty-three. Besides, mother's always +stuck to it that he was only backward, and she got together medical +evidence to attest her view. Mother has always wanted to guard against +Harry being passed over." + +"Dick could leave the property to anyone he liked. It wasn't entailed. +He was perfectly free to leave it to Jones, if he wanted to. Poor Jones! +He's down with gout at the Lion. He won't get a shilling." + +"Yes. But mother foresaw that Dick might never get a will made. He never +could get anything done. And I am afraid, Roger, that if he _had_ made a +will, mother would have got hold of it if she could." + +"Janey!" said Roger, deeply shocked. "You don't know what you're +saying." + +"Oh yes, I do. I feel sure, if poor Dick had made a will, Aunt Jane and +mother between them would have----" + +"Would have what?" + +"Would have destroyed it." + +"You simply don't know what you're saying. No one destroys a will. It's +a very serious crime, punishable by law. And you are accusing your own +mother of it." + +"Mother has done some strange things in her time," said Janey firmly. +"It's no good talking about it or thinking about it, but Jones told me +that when she went to Paris last autumn she looked through all Dick's +papers, and went to see his lawyer." + +"I went to see him too, and he told me she had been, and had been very +insistent that Dick had made a will and left it in his charge, and said +that he wanted to make some alteration in it." + +"Last autumn! But Dick was not capable then of wishing anything." + +"Last autumn, I tell you, since his illness." + +They both looked at each other. + +"Well, it's no use thinking of that at this moment," said Janey. "The +question is, what is to be done about Nurse?" + +"Pay her up, and pack her off at once." + +"She's gone already. She said it was best that she should go. I've +telegraphed for another. But she'll come back as Harry's legal wife, +Roger, I do believe." + +"This medical evidence in Harry's favour--where does Aunt Louisa keep +it?" + +"In her secretaire. She made me get it out, and read it to her since her +last visit to Paris. I could not bear to look at it. It was all so +false. And I know she showed it Nurse. It was after that Nurse worked so +hard to make Harry more amenable, more like other people. She slaved +with him. I believe she was quite disinterested at first." + +"She has certainly done him a lot of good." + +"And he's fond of her. He's frightened of her, but he likes her better +than anyone, much better than me. Before she left she told every servant +in the house, and the men in the garden. At least, she took Harry round +with her and made him say to each one of them, 'This is my wife.' The +whole village knows by now. And she has taken the medical evidence +about him. She made no secret of it. She said she sent it yesterday to +her brother." + +"She stole it, in fact." + +"She said that as his wife she thought she ought to put it in safe +keeping. I told her she need not have been afraid that we should destroy +it. She said she knew that, but that those who deceived others never +could trust anyone else. Roger, she has done a very wicked and shameless +thing, for the sake of a livelihood, but I think she is suffering for +it. And I believe, in spite of herself, she had a kind of devotion for +mother. She had done so much for her. She never spared herself. She felt +leaving her." + +"Did she ask about the will?" + +"No. I think there was a general feeling of surprise that the will was +not read after the funeral." + +"Well, my good girl, how could we, when we couldn't find one?" + +"I know, I know. But what I mean is, it must soon be known that no will +is forthcoming." + +"Of course it is bound to come out before long." + +"Have you asked Pike and Ditton, Dick's London men?" + +"Yes. I wrote to them days ago. They know of nothing. There is no will, +Janey. We have got to make up our minds to it. Pritchard is coming over +this morning about the probate, and I shall have to tell him." + +Something fierce crept into Janey's gentle face. + +"Oh, Roger, it is such a shame!" she stammered. "If ever any man +deserved Hulver it is you." + +"Dick once said so," said Roger. "Last time he was here, two years ago, +that time he never came to the Dower House though I begged him to, and I +went round the park with him, and showed him where I had cut down the +oak avenue in the old drive. It went to my heart to do it, but he had +left me no choice, insisted on it. And when he saw the old trees all +down he was quite taken aback, and he said, 'Roger, it is you who ought +to have had Hulver. You'd have kept it together, while I'm just pulling +it to pieces stick by stick. I must reform, and come and settle down +here, and marry Mary. By God I must.' That was the last time he was +here, just before he sold the Liverpool property." + +"Everything seems to be taken from you, Roger," said Janey passionately. +"And to think that this unscrupulous woman will have absolute power over +everything!" + +"She will be able to turn me off," said Roger. "She will get in another +agent--put in her brother, I should think. I always disliked her, and +she knew it. Now she will be able to pay off old scores." + +Roger looked out of the window, and his patient, stubborn face quivered +ever so slightly. + +It would have been a comfort to Janey to think that she should one day +inherit Noyes, if there had been any question of his sharing it with +her. But the long-cherished hope that they might some day share a home +together had died. It had died hard, it had taken a grievous time to +die, but it was dead at last. And Janey had buried it, delved a deep +grave for it in the live rock of her heart. + +"I don't see how I am ever to marry now," he said hoarsely. "I can't +count on the two hundred a year from the agency and this cottage. Even +that may go to-morrow. It wasn't much. It wasn't enough to set up house +on, but even _that_ is as good as gone." + +"I have thought lately that you had it in your mind to marry." + +A small tear suddenly jumped out of Roger's eye, and got held up in his +rough cheek. + +"I want to marry Annette," he said. + +"Yes, my dear, I guessed it." + +"Dreadfully. You don't know, Janey. Dreadfully." + +"I know, my poor boy," she said,--"I know all about it." And she came +and stood by him and patted his hand. + +For a moment Roger sobbed violently and silently against her shoulder. + +Then he drew himself away, and rummaged for his pocket-handkerchief. + +"You are a brick, Janey," he said gruffly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + "The thing on the blind side of the heart, + On the wrong side of the door; + The green plant groweth, menacing + Almighty lovers in the spring; + There is always a forgotten thing, + And love is not secure." + G. K. CHESTERTON. + + +The news of Harry's marriage, which was convulsing Riff, had actually +failed to reach Red Riff Farm by tea-time. The Miss Blinketts, on the +contrary, less aristocratically remote than the Miss Nevills, had heard +it at midday, when the Dower House gardener went past The Hermitage to +his dinner. And they were aware by two o'clock that Janey had had a +consultation with Roger in his office, and that the bride had left Riff +by the midday express from Riebenbridge. + +It was the general opinion in Riff that "she'd repent every hair of her +head for enticing Mr. Harry." + +In total ignorance of this stupendous event, Aunt Harriet was discussing +the probable condition of the soul after death over her afternoon tea, +in spite of several attempts on the part of Annette to change the +subject. + +"Personally, I feel sure I shall not even lose consciousness," she +said, with dignity. "With some of us the partition between this world +and the next is hardly more than a veil, but we must not shut our eyes +to the fact that a person like Mr. Le Geyt is almost certainly suffering +for his culpability in impoverishing the estate; and if what I +reluctantly hear is true as to other matters still more +reprehensible----" + +"We know very little about purgatory, after all," interrupted Aunt Maria +wearily. + +"Some of us who suffer have our purgatory here," said her sister, +helping herself to an apricot. "I hardly think, when we cross the river, +that----" + +The door opened, and Roger was announced. He had screwed himself up to +walk over and ask for Annette, and it was a shock to him to find her +exactly as he might have guessed she would be found, sitting at tea with +her aunts. He had counted on seeing her alone. + +He looked haggard and aged, and his black clothes became him ill. He +accepted tea from Annette without looking at her. He was daunted by the +little family party, and made short replies to the polite inquiries of +the Miss Nevills as to the health of Janey and Lady Louisa. He was +wondering how he could obtain an interview with Annette, and half angry +with her beforehand for fear she should not come to his assistance. He +was very sore. Life was going ill with him, and he was learning what +sleeplessness means, he who had never lain awake in his life. + +The door opened again, and contrary to all precedent the Miss Blinketts +were announced. + +The Miss Blinketts never came to tea except when invited, and it is sad +to have to record the fact that the Miss Nevills hardly ever invited +them. They felt, however, on this occasion that they were the bearers of +such important tidings that their advent could not fail to be welcome, +if not to the celebrated authoress, at any rate to Miss Harriet, who was +not absorbed in ethical problems like her gifted sister, and whose mind +was, so she often said, "at leisure from itself, to soothe and +sympathize." + +But the Miss Blinketts were quite taken aback by the sight of Roger, in +whose presence the burning topic could not be mentioned, and who had no +doubt come to recount the disaster himself--a course which they could +not have foreseen, as he was much too busy to pay calls as a rule. They +were momentarily nonplussed, and they received no assistance in +regaining their equanimity from the lofty remoteness of the Miss +Nevills' reception. A paralysing ten minutes followed, which Annette, +who usually came to the rescue, made no attempt to alleviate. She busied +herself with the tea almost in silence. + +Roger got up stiffly to go. + +"I wonder, Mr. Manvers, as you are here," said Aunt Maria, rising as he +did, "whether you would kindly look at the dairy roof. The rain comes in +still, in spite of the new tiling. Annette will show it you." And +without further demur she left the room, followed by Annette and Roger. + +"I am afraid," said the authoress archly, with her hand on the door of +her study, "that I had recourse to a subterfuge in order to escape. +Those amiable ladies who find time hang so heavily on their hands have +no idea how much I value mine, nor how short I find the day for all I +have to do in it. My sister will enjoy entertaining them. Annette, I +must get back to my proofs. I will let you, my dear, show Mr. Manvers +the dairy." + +Roger followed Annette down the long bricked passage to the _laiterie_. +They entered it, and his professional eye turned to the whitewashed +ceiling and marked almost unconsciously the stain of damp upon it. + +"A cracked tile," he said mechanically. "Two. I'll see to it." + +And then, across the bowls of milk and a leg of mutton sitting in a +little wire house, his eyes looked in a dumb agony at Annette. + +"What is it? What is it?" she gasped, and as she said the words the cook +entered slowly, bearing a yellow mould and some stewed fruit upon a +tray. + +Roger repeated the words "cracked tiles," and presently they were in the +hall again. + +"I must speak to you alone," he said desperately; "I came on purpose." + +She considered a moment. She had no refuge of her own except her +bedroom, that agreeable attic with the extended view which had been +apportioned to Aunt Catherine, and which she had inhabited for so short +a time. The little hall where they were standing was the passage-room of +the house. She took up a garden hat, and they went into the garden to +the round seat under the apple tree, now ruddy with little contorted red +apples. The gardener was scything the grass between the trees, whistling +softly to himself. + +Roger looked at him vindictively. + +"I will walk part of the way home with you," said Annette, her voice +shaking a little in spite of herself, "if you are going through the +park." + +"Yes, I have the keys." + +"He has found out about Dick and me," she said to herself, "and is going +to ask me if it is true." + +They walked in silence across the empty cornfield, and Roger unlocked +the little door in the high park wall. + +Once there had been a broad drive to the house where that door stood, +and you could still see where it had lain between an avenue of old oaks. +But the oaks had all been swept away. The ranks of gigantic boles showed +the glory that had been. + +"Uncle John was so fond of the oak avenue," said Roger. "He used to +walk in it every day. There wasn't its equal in Lowshire. Anne de la +Pole planted it. I never thought Dick would have touched it." + +And in the devastated avenue, the scene of Dick's recklessness, Roger +told Annette of the catastrophe of Harry's marriage with the nurse, and +how he had already seen a lawyer about it, and the lawyer was of opinion +that it would almost certainly be legal. + +"That means," said Roger, standing still in the mossy track, "that now +Dick's gone, Harry, or rather his wife, for he is entirely under her +thumb, will have possession of everything, Welmesley and Swale and +Bulchamp, not that Bulchamp is worth much now that Dick has put a second +mortgage on it, and Scorby--and _Hulver_." + +He pointed with his stick at the old house with its twisted chimneys, +partly visible through the trees, the only home that he had ever known, +and his set mouth trembled a little. + +"And that woman can turn me out to-morrow," he said. "And she will. +She's always disliked me. I shan't even have the agency. It was a bare +living, but I shan't even have that. I shall only have Noyes. I've +always done Noyes for eighty pounds a year, because Aunt Louisa wouldn't +give more, and she can't now even if she was willing. And I'm not one of +your new-fangled agents, been through Cirencester, or anything like +that, educated up to it, scientific and all that sort of thing. Uncle +John was his own agent, and I picked it up from him. When I lose this I +don't suppose I shall get another job." + +With a sinking heart, and yet with a sense of relief, Annette realized +that Roger had heard nothing against her, and that she was reprieved for +the moment. It was about all she did realize. + +He saw the bewilderment in her face, and stuck his stick into the +ground. He must speak more plainly. + +"This all means," he said, becoming first darkly red and then ashen +colour, "that I am not in a position to marry, Annette. I ought not to +have said anything about it. I can't think how I could have forgotten as +I did. But--but----" + +He could say no more. + +"I am glad you love me," said Annette faintly. "I am glad you +said--something about it." + +"But we can't marry," said Roger harshly. "What's the good if we can't +be married?" + +He made several attempts to speak, and then went on: "I suppose the +truth is I counted on Dick doing something for me. He always said he +would, and he was very generous. He's often said I'd done a lot for him. +Perhaps I have, and perhaps I haven't. Perhaps I did it for the sake of +the people and the place. Hulver's more to me than most things. But he +told me over and over again he wouldn't forget me. Poor old Dick! After +all, he couldn't tell he was going to fall on his head! There is no +will, Annette. That's the long and the short of it. And so, of course, +nearly everything goes to Harry." + +"No will!" said Annette, drawing in a deep breath. + +"Dick hasn't left a will," said Roger, and there was a subdued +bitterness in his voice. "He has forgotten everybody who had a claim on +him: a woman whom he ought to have provided for before every one else in +the world, and Jones, Jones who stuck to him through thick and thin and +nursed him so faithfully, and--and me. It doesn't do to depend on people +like Dick, who won't take any trouble about anything." + +The words seemed to sink into the silence of the September evening. A +dim river mist, faintly flushed by the low sun, was creeping among the +farther trees. + +"But he did take trouble. There is a will," she said. + +Her voice was so low that he did not hear what she said. + +"Dick made a will," she said again. This time he heard. + +He had been looking steadfastly at the old house among the trees, and +there were tears in his eyes as he slowly turned to blink through them +at her. + +"How can you tell?" he said apathetically. And as he looked dully at +her the colour ebbed away from her face, leaving it whiter than he had +ever seen a living face. + +"Because I was in the room when he made it--at Fontainebleau." + +Roger's face became overcast, perplexed. + +"When he was ill there?" + +"Yes." + +Dead silence. + +"How did you come to be with Dick?" + +It was plain that though he was perplexed the sinister presumption +implied by her presence there had not yet struck him. + +"Roger, I was staying with Dick at Fontainebleau. I nursed him--Mrs. +Stoddart and I together. She made me promise never to speak of it to +anyone." + +"Mrs. Stoddart made you promise! What was the sense of that? You were +travelling with her, I suppose?" + +"No. I had never seen her till the morning I called her in, when Dick +fell ill." + +"Then that Mrs. Stoddart I met at Noyes was the older woman whom Lady +Jane found looking after him when she and Jones came down?" + +"Yes." + +Silence again. He frowned, and looked apprehensively at her, as if he +were warding something off. + +"And I was the younger woman," said Annette, "who left before Lady Jane +arrived." + +The colour rushed to his face. + +"No," he said, with sudden violence, "not you. I always knew there was +another woman, a young one, but--but--it wasn't you, Annette." + +She was silent. + +"It _couldn't_ be you!"--with a groan. + +"It was me." + +His brown hands trembled as he leaned heavily upon his stick. + +"I was not Dick's mistress, Roger." + +"Were you his wife, then?" + +"No." + +"Then how did you come to----? But I don't want to hear. I have no right +to ask. I have heard enough." + +He made as if to go. + +Annette turned upon him in the dusk with a fierce white face, and +gripped his shoulder with a hand of steel. + +"You have not heard enough till you have heard everything," she said. + +And holding him forcibly, she told him of her life in Paris with her +father, and of her disastrous love affair, and her determination to +drown herself, and her meeting with Dick, and her reckless, apathetic +despair. Did he understand? He made no sign. + +After a time, her hand fell from his shoulder. He made no attempt to +move. The merciful mist enclosed them, and dimmed them from each other. +Low in the east, entangled in a clump of hawthorn, a thin moon hung +blurred as if seen through tears. + +"I did not care what I did," she said brokenly. "I did not care for +Dick, and I did not care for myself. I cared for nothing. I was +desperate. Dick did not try to trap me, or be wicked to me. He asked me +to go with him, and I went of my own accord. But he was sorry +afterwards, Roger. He said so when he was ill. He wanted to keep me from +the river. He could not bear the thought of my drowning myself. Often, +often when he was delirious, he spoke of it, and tried to hold me back. +And you said he wouldn't take any trouble. But he did. He did, Roger. He +made his will at the last, when it was all he could do, and he +remembered about Hulver--I know he said you ought to have it--and that +he must provide for Mary and the child. His last strength went in making +his will, Roger. His last thought was for you, and that poor Mary and +the child." + +Already she had forgotten herself, and was pleading earnestly for the +man who had brought her to this pass. + +Roger stood silent, save for his hard breathing. Did he understand? We +all know that "To endure and to pardon is the wisdom of life." But if we +are called on to pardon just at the moment we are called on to endure! +What then? Have we _ever_ the strength to do both at the same moment? He +did not speak. The twilight deepened. The moon drew clear of the +hawthorn. + +"You must go to Fontainebleau," she went on, "and find the doctor. I +don't know his name, but it will be easy to find him. And he will +remember. He was so interested in poor Dick. And he brought the notary. +He will tell you who has the will. I remember now I was one of the +witnesses." + +"You witnessed it!" said Roger, astounded. His stick fell from his +hands. He looked at it on the ground, but made no motion to pick it up. + +"Yes, I witnessed it. Dick asked me to. Everything will come right now. +He wanted dreadfully to make it right. But you must forget about me, +Roger. I've been here under false pretences. I shall go away. I ought +never to have come, but I didn't know you and Janey were Dick's people. +He was always called Dick Le Geyt. And when I came to be friends with +you both, I often wished to tell you, even before I knew you were his +relations. But I had promised Mrs. Stoddart not to speak of it to anyone +except----" + +"Except who?" said Roger. + +"Except the man I was to marry. That was the mistake. I ought never to +have promised to keep silence. But I did, because she made a point of +it, and she had been so kind to me when I was ill. But I ought not to +have agreed to it. One ought never to try to cover up anything one has +done wrong. And I had a chance of telling you, and I didn't take it, +that afternoon we drove to Halywater. Mrs. Stoddart had given me back my +promise, and oh! Roger, I meant to tell you. But you were so nice I +forgot everything else. And then, later on, when we were in the deserted +garden and I saw the little lambs and the fishes, I was so dreadfully +sorry that everything else went out of my head. I feel I have deceived +you and Janey, and it has often weighed upon me. But I never meant to +deceive you. And I'm glad you know now. And I should like her to know +too." + +Her tremulous voice ceased. + +She stood looking at him with a great wistfulness, but he made no sign. +She waited, but he did not speak. Then she went swiftly from him in the +dusk, and the mist wrapped her in its grey folds. + +Roger stood motionless and rigid where she had left him. After a moment, +he made a mechanical movement as if to walk on. Then he flung himself +down upon his face on the whitening grass. + +And the merciful mist wrapped him also in its grey folds. + +Low in the east the thin moon climbed blurred and dim, as if seen +through tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + "The paths of love are rougher + Than thoroughfares of stones." + THOMAS HARDY. + + +Roger lay on his face, with his mouth on the back of his hand. + +Years and years ago, twenty long years ago, he had once lain on his face +as he was doing now. He and Dick had been out shooting with the old +keeper, and Dick had shot Roger's dog by mistake. He had taken the +catastrophe with a stolid stoicism and a bitten lip. But later in the +day he had crept away, and had sobbed for hours, lying on his face under +a tree. The remembrance came back to him now. Never since then, never in +all those twenty years, had he felt again that same paroxysm of despair. +And now again Dick had inadvertently wounded him; Dick, who never meant +any harm, had pierced his heart. The wound bled, and Roger bit his hand. +Time passed. + +He did not want to get up any more. If he could have died at that moment +he would have died. He did not want to have anything more to do with +this monstrous cheat called life. He did not want ever to see anyone +again. He felt broken. The thought that he should presently get to his +feet and stump home through the dusk to his empty rooms, as he had done +a hundred times, filled him with a nausea and rage unspeakable. The mere +notion of the passage and the clothes-peg and the umbrella-stand +annihilated him. He had reached a place in life where he felt he could +not go on. + +Far in the distance, carried to his ear by the ground, came the muffled +thud and beat of a train passing beyond the village, on the other side +of the Rieben. He wished dully that he could have put his head on the +rails. + + +And the voice to which from a little lad he had never shut his ears, the +humdrum, prosaic voice which had bidden him take thought for Mary Deane +and her child, and Janey, and Betty Hesketh, and all who were "desolate +and oppressed," that same small voice, never ignored, never silenced, +spoke in Roger's aching, unimaginative heart. The train passed, and as +the sound throbbed away into silence Roger longed again with passion +that it had taken his life with it. And the still small voice said, +"That is how Annette felt a year ago." + + +He got up and pushed back the damp hair from his forehead. That was how +Annette had felt a year ago. Poor, unwise, cruelly treated Annette! Even +now, though he had heard her story from her own lips, he could not +believe it, could not believe that her life had ever had in it any +incident beyond tending her old aunts, and watering her flowers, and +singing in the choir. That was how he had always imagined her, with +perhaps a tame canary thrown in, which ate sugar from her lips. If he +had watched her with such a small pet he would have felt it singularly +appropriate, a sort of top-knot to his ideal of her. If he had seen her +alarmed by a squirrel, he would have felt indulgent; if fond of +children, tender; if jealous of other women, he should not have been +surprised. He had made up a little insipid picture of Annette picking +flowers by day, and wrapped in maiden slumber in a white room at night. +The picture was exactly as he wished her to be, and as her beautiful +exterior had assured him she was. For Annette's sweet face told half the +men she met that she was their ideal. In nearly every case so far that +ideal had been a masterpiece of commonplace; though if prizes had been +offered for them Roger would have won easily. Her mind, her character, +her individuality had no place in that ideal. That she should have been +pushed close up against vice; that _she_, Annette, who sang "Sun of my +soul" so beautifully, should have wandered alone in the wicked streets +of Paris in the dawn, after escaping out of a home wickeder still; that +she should have known treachery, despair; that she should have been +stared at as the chance mistress of a disreputable man! _Annette!_ It +was incredible. + +And he had been so careful, at the expense of his love of truth, when +they took refuge in Mary Deane's house, that Annette should believe Mary +Deane was a married woman and her child born in wedlock. And she, whose +ears must not even hear that Mary had been Dick's mistress, she, +Annette, had been Dick's mistress too, if not in reality, at any rate in +appearance. + +Roger's brain reeled. He had forgotten the will. His mind could grasp +nothing except the ghastly discrepancy between the smug picture of +Annette which he had gradually evolved, and this tragic figure, sinned +against, passionate, desperate, dragging its betrayal from one man to +another. Had she been Dick's mistress? Was it really possible that she +had not? Who could touch pitch and not be defiled? Women always denied +their shame. How hotly Mary Deane had denied hers only a few months +before the birth of her child! + +Roger reddened at the thought that he was classing Annette, his +beautiful lady, with Mary. Oh! where was the real truth? Who could tell +it him? Whom could he trust? + +"_Janey._" + +He said the word aloud with a cry. And Janey's small brown face rose +before him as he had known it all his life, since they had been children +together, she the little adoring girl, and he the big condescending +schoolboy. Janey's crystal truthfulness, her faithfulness, her lifelong +devotion to him, became evident to him. He had always taken them for +granted, known where to put his hand on them, used them without seeing +them, like his old waterproof which he could lay hold of on its peg in +the dark. She had always been in the background of his life, like the +Rieben and the low hill behind it against the grey sky, which he did not +notice when they were there, but from which he could not long absent +himself without a sense of loss. And Janey had no past. He knew +everything about _her_. He must go to her now, at once. He did not know +exactly what he wanted to say to her. But he groped for his stick, found +it, noticed that the dew was heavy and that there would be no rain after +all, and set off down the invisible track in the direction of the +village, winking its low lights among the trees. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + "Happiness is inextricably interwoven with loyalty, love, + unselfishness, the charity that never fails. In early life we + believe that it is just these qualities in those we love that make + our happiness, just the lack of them that entail our misery. But + later on we find that it is not so. Later on we find that it is our + own loyalty, our own love and charity in which our happiness + abides, as the soul abides in the body. So we discover at last that + happiness is within the reach of all of us, the inalienable + birthright of all of us, and that if by misadventure we have + mislaid it in our youth we know where to seek it in after years. + For happiness is mislaid, but never lost."--M. N. + + +Janey had the doubtful advantage over other women that men (by men I +mean Roger) always knew where to find her. She was as immovable as the +church or the Rieben. It was absolutely certain that unless Lady Louisa +was worse, Janey would come down to the library at nine o'clock, and +work there beside the lamp for an hour before going to bed. The element +of surprise or uncertainty did not exist as far as Janey was concerned. +And perhaps those who are always accessible, tranquil, disengaged, ready +to lend a patient and sympathetic ear, know instinctively that they will +be sought out in sorrow and anxiety rather than in joy. We do not engage +a trained nurse for picnic parties, or ask her to grace the box seat +when we are driving our four-in-hands. Annette is singled out at once +as appropriate to these festive occasions. If anyone thought of Janey in +connection with them, it was only to remark that she would not care +about them. How many innocent pleasures she had silently wished for in +her time which she had been informed by her mother, by Dick, even by +Roger, were not in her line. + +To-night, Janey deviated by a hairbreadth from her usual routine. She +came down, seated herself, and instead of her work took up a book with +the marker half-way through it, and was at once absorbed in it. She was +reading _The Magnet_ for the second time. + +Since her conversation with Mr. Stirling in the Hulver garden, Janey had +read _The Magnet_, and her indifference had been replaced by a riveted +attention. She saw now what other people saw in his work, and it seemed +to her, as indeed it seemed to all Mr. Stirling's readers, that his +books were addressed to her and her alone. It did not occur to her that +he had lived for several years in her neighbourhood without her +detecting or even attempting to discern what he was. It did not occur to +her that he might have been a great asset in her narrow life. She was +quite content with being slightly acquainted with every one except +Roger, and her new friend Annette. She tacitly distrusted intimacy, as +did Roger, and though circumstances had brought about a certain intimacy +with Annette, the only girl within five miles, she had always mental +reservations even with her, boundaries which were not to be passed. +Janey had been inclined to take shelter behind these mental +reservations, to raise still higher the boundary walls between them, +since she had known what she called "the truth about Annette." She had +shrunk from further intercourse with her, but Annette had sought her +out, deliberately, persistently, with an unshaken confidence in Janey's +affection which the latter had not the heart to repel. And in the end +Janey had reached a kind of forlorn gratitude towards Annette. Her life +had become absolutely empty: the future stretched in front of her like +some flat dusty high road, along which she must toil with aching feet +till she dropped. She instinctively turned to Annette, and then shrank +from her. She would have shrunk from her altogether if she had known +that it was by Roger's suggestion that Annette made so many little +opportunities of meeting. Annette had been to see her the day before she +went to Noyes, and had found her reading _The Magnet_, and they had had +a long conversation about it. + +And now in Janey's second reading, not skipping one word, and going over +the more difficult passages twice, she came again upon the sentence +which they had discussed. She read it slowly. + +"_The publican and the harlot will go into the Kingdom before us, +because it is easier for them to flee with loathing from the sins of +the flesh, and to press through the strait gate of humility, than it is +for us to loathe and flee the sins of the spirit, egotism, pride, +resentment, cruelty, insincerity._" + +Janey laid down the book. When Annette had read that sentence aloud to +her, Janey had said, "I don't understand that. I think he's wrong. Pride +and the other things and insincerity aren't nearly as bad as--as +immorality." + +"He doesn't say one is worse than the others," Annette had replied, and +her quiet eyes had met Janey's bent searchingly upon her. "He only says +egotism and the other things make it harder to squeeze through the +little gate. You see, they make it impossible for us even to _see_ +it--the strait gate." + +"He writes as if egotism were worse than immorality, as if immorality +doesn't matter," said Janey stubbornly. How could Annette speak so +coolly, so impersonally, as if she had never deviated from the rigid +code of morals in which Janey had been brought up! She felt impelled to +show her that she at any rate held sterner views. + +Annette cogitated. + +"Perhaps, Janey; he has learnt that nothing makes getting near the gate +so difficult as egotism. He says somewhere else that egotism makes +false, mean, dreadful things ready to pounce on us. He's right in the +order he puts them in, isn't he? Selfishness first, and then pride. Our +pride gets wounded, and then resentment follows. And resentment always +wants to inflict pain. That is why he puts cruelty next." + +"How do you know all this?" said Janey incredulously. + +"I know about pride and resentment," said Annette, "because I gave way +to them once. I think I never shall again." + +"I don't see why he puts insincerity last." + +"Perhaps he thinks that is the worst thing that can happen to us." + +"To be insincere?" said Janey, amazed. + +"Yes. I certainly never _have_ met a selfish person who was sincere, +have you? They have to be giving noble reasons for their selfish +actions, so as to keep their self-respect and make us think well of +them. I knew a man once--he was a great musician--who was like that. He +wanted admiration dreadfully, he craved for it, and yet he didn't want +to take any trouble to be the things that make one admire people. It +ended in----" + +"What did it end in?" + +"Where insincere people always do end, I think, in a kind of treachery. +Perhaps that is why Mr. Stirling puts insincerity last, because +insincere people do such dreadful things without knowing they are +dreadful. Now, the harlots and the publicans do know. They have the pull +of us there." + +Janey's clear, retentive mind recalled every word of that conversation, +the last she had had with Annette, which had left an impression on her +mind that Annette had belittled the frailties of the flesh. Why had she +done that? _Because she had not been guiltless of them herself._ + +In such manner do some of us reason, and find confirmation of that which +we suspect. Not that Janey suspected her of stepping aside. She was +convinced that she had done so. The evidence had been conclusive. At +least, she did not doubt it when Annette was absent. When she was +present with her she knew not how to believe it. It was incredible. Yet +it was so. She always came back to that. + +But why did she and Mr. Stirling both put insincerity as the worst of +the spiritual sins? Janey was an inexorable reader, now that she had +begun. She ruminated with her small hands folded on the open page. + +And her honest mind showed her that once--not long ago--she had nearly +been insincere herself: when she had told herself with vehemence that it +was her bounden duty to Roger to warn him against Annette. What an ugly +act of treachery she had almost committed, would have committed if Mr. +Stirling had not come to her aid. She shuddered. Yes, he was right. +Insincerity was the place where all meannesses and disloyalties and +treacheries lurked and had their dens like evil beasts, ready to pounce +out and destroy the wayfaring spirit wandering on forbidden ground. + +And she thought of Nurse's treachery for the sake of a livelihood with +a new compassion. It was less culpable than what she had nearly been +guilty of herself. And she thought yet again of Annette. She might have +done wrong, but you could not look at her and think she could be mean, +take refuge in subterfuge or deceit. "She would never lie about it, to +herself or others," Janey said to herself. And she who _had_ lied to +herself, though only for a moment, was humbled. + + +She was half expecting Roger, in spite of their conference of this +morning, for she knew that he was to see the lawyer about probate that +afternoon, and the lawyer might have given an opinion as to the legality +of Harry's marriage. + +Presently she heard his step in the hall, and he came in. She had known +Roger all her life, but his whole aspect was unfamiliar to her. As she +looked at him bewildered, she realized that she had never seen him +strongly moved before, never in all these years until now. There is +something almost terrifying in the emotion of unemotional people. The +momentary confidence of the morning, the one tear wrung out of him by +perceiving his hope of marriage suddenly wiped out, was as nothing to +this. + +He sat down opposite to her with chalk-white face and reddened, unseeing +eyes, and without any preamble recounted to her the story that Annette +had told him a few hours before. "She wished you to know it," he said. + +An immense thankfulness flooded Janey's heart as she listened. It was +as if some tense nerve in her brain relaxed. He did know at last, and +she, Janey, had not told him. He had heard no word from her. Annette had +confessed to him herself, as Mr. Stirling had said she would. She had +done what was right--right but how difficult. A secret grudge against +Annette, which had long lurked at the back of Janey's mind, was +exorcised, and she gave a sigh of relief. + +At last he was silent. + +"I have known for a long time that Annette was the woman who was with +Dick at Fontainebleau," she said, her hands still folded on the open +book. + +"You might have told me, Janey." + +"I thought it ought to come from her." + +"You might have told me when you saw--Janey, you must have seen for some +time past--how it was with me." + +"I did see, but I hoped against hope that she would tell you herself, as +she has done." + +"And if she hadn't, would you have let me marry her, not knowing?" + +Janey reflected. + +"I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you +see, it did not happen so. She _has_ told you. I am thankful she has, +Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've +ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that you +know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I +had begun to think she would never say." + +"She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have +thought possible----" + +He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at +each other. + +"Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding +how anyone like Annette could have done it." + +Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which +had led to the disaster. + +"She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of +Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight +from his house in the dawn. + +"She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was +in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, +Roger. Annette has been sinned against." + +"I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's +who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering. + +There was a long silence. + +"But I don't feel that I can marry her," he said, with a groan. "Dick +and her!--it sticks in my throat,--the very thought seems to choke me. I +don't feel that I could marry her, even if she would still have me. She +said I must forget her, and put her out of my life. She feels everything +is over between us. It's all very well," savagely, "to talk of +forgetting anyone--like Annette," and he beat his foot against the +floor. + +Janey looked at him in a great compassion. "He will come back to me," +she said to herself, "not for a long time, but he will come back. Broken +and disillusioned and aged, and with only a bit of a heart to give me. +He will never care much about me, but I shall be all he has left in the +world. And I will take him, whatever he is." + +She put out her hand for her work and busied herself with it, knowing +instinctively that the occupation of her hands and eyes upon it would +fret him less than if she sat idle and looked at him. She had nothing to +learn about how to deal with Roger. + +She worked for some time in silence, and hope dead and buried rose out +of his deep grave in her heart, and came towards her once more. Was it +indeed hope that stirred in its grave, this pallid figure with the +shroud still enfolding it, or was it but its ghost? She knew not. + +At last Roger raised a tortured face out of his hands. + +"Of course, she _says_ she is innocent," he said, looking hopelessly at +Janey. + +Janey started violently. Her work fell from her hands. + +"Annette--says--she--is--innocent," she repeated after him, a flame of +colour rushing to her face. + +"Yes. Mary Deane said the same. They always say it." + +Janey shook as in an ague. + +She saw suddenly in front of her a gulf of infamy unspeakable, ready to +swallow her if she agreed with him--she who always agreed with him. He +would implicitly believe her. The little gleam of hope which had fallen +on her aching, mutilated life went out. She was alone in the dark. For a +moment she could neither see nor hear. + +"If Annette says she is innocent, it's true," she said hoarsely, putting +her hand to her throat. + +The room and the lamp became visible again, and Roger's eyes fixed on +her, like the eyes of a drowning man, wide, dilated, seen through deep +water. + +"If Annette says so, it's true," she repeated. "She may have done wrong. +She says she has. But she does not tell lies. You know that." + +"She says Dick did not try to entrap her, that she went with him of her +own accord." + +"But don't you see that Dick _did_ take advantage of her, all the same, +a mean advantage, when she was stunned by despair? I don't suppose you +have ever known what it is to feel despair, Roger. But I know what it +is. I know what Annette felt when her lover failed her." + +"She told me she meant to drown herself. She said she did not care what +became of her." + +"You don't know what it means to feel like that." + +Roger heard again the thud and beat of the distant train in the sod +against his ear. + +"Yes, I do," he said, looking at her under his heavy brows. + +"I don't believe you. If you had, you would understand Annette's +momentary madness. She need not have told you that. She need not have +blackened herself in your eyes, but she did. Can't you see, Roger, will +you never, never understand that you have had the whole truth from +Annette?--the most difficult truth in the world to tell. And why do you +need me to hammer it into you that she was speaking the truth to you? +Can't you see for yourself that Annette is upright, as upright as +yourself? What is the good of you, if you can't even see that? What is +the good of loving her--if you do love her--if you can't see that she +doesn't tell lies? _I'm_ not in love with her,--there have been times +when I've come very near to hating her, and I had reason to believe she +had done a wicked action,--but I knew one thing, and that was that she +would never lie about it. She is not that kind. And if she told you that +in a moment of despair she had agreed to do it, but that she had not +done it, then she spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the +truth." + +Roger could only stare at Janey, dumfounded. She who in his long +experience of her had always listened, had spoken so little beyond +comment or agreement, now thrust at him with a sword of determined, +sharp-edged speech. The only two women he thought he knew were becoming +absolute strangers to him. + +"If I had been in Annette's place, I would have died sooner than own +that I agreed to do wrong. I should have put the blame on Dick. But +Annette is humbler than I am, more loyal than I am, more compassionate. +She took the blame herself which belongs to Dick. She would not speak +ill of him. If I had been in her place, I should have hesitated a long +time before I told you about the will. It will ruin her good name. I +should have thought of that. But she didn't. She thought only of you, +only of getting your inheritance for you. Just as when Dick was ill, she +only thought of helping him. Go and get your inheritance, Roger. It's +yours, and I'm glad it is. You deserve it. But there's one thing you +don't deserve, and that is to marry Annette. You're not good enough for +her." + +Janey had risen to her feet. She stood before him, a small terrible +creature with blazing eyes. Then she passed him and left the room, the +astounded Roger gaping after her. + +He waited a long time for her to return, but she did not come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + "Les seuls defauts vraiment terribles sont ceux qu'on prend pour + des qualites."--H. RABUSSON. + + +"Wherever we go," said Aunt Harriet complacently from her sofa that +evening, "weddings are sure to follow. I've noticed it again and again. +Do you remember, Maria, how when we spent the summer at Nairn our +landlady's son at those nice lodgings married the innkeeper's daughter? +And it was very soon after our visit to River View that Mary Grey was +engaged to the curate. Which reminds me that I am afraid they are very +badly off, for I heard from him not long ago that he had resigned his +curacy, and that as his entire trust was in the Almighty the smallest +contribution would be most acceptable; but I did not send anything, +because I always thought Mary ought not to have married him. And now we +have been here barely fifteen months and here is Harry Manvers marrying +the nurse. The Miss Blinketts tell me that she is at least fifteen years +older than him. Not that that matters at all if there is spiritual +affinity, but in this case---- Really, Annette, I think your wits must +be woolgathering. You have put sugar in my coffee, and you know as well +as possible that I only have a tiny lump not in the cup, but in the +spoon." + +Annette expressed her contrition, and poured out another cup. + +"Did Roger Manvers say anything to you about Harry's marriage, Annette?" +said Aunt Maria. "I thought possibly he had come to consult us about it, +but of course he could say nothing before the Miss Blinketts. They drove +him away. I shall tell Hodgkins we are not at home to them in future." + +"He just mentioned the marriage, and that he had been seeing a lawyer +about it." + +"If every one was as laconic as you are, my love," said Aunt Harriet, +with some asperity, "conversation would cease to exist; and as to saying +'Not at home' to the Miss Blinketts in future, Maria, you will of course +do exactly as you please, but I must own that I think it is a mistake to +cut ourselves entirely adrift from the life of the neighbourhood at a--a +crisis like this. Will the marriage be recognized? Ought we to send a +present? Shall we be expected to call on her? We shall have to arrive at +_some_ decision on these subjects, I presume, and how we are to do so if +we close our ears to all sources of information I'm sure I don't know." + +"Mayn't we have another chapter of _The Silver Cross_?" said Annette in +the somewhat strained silence that followed. Aunt Maria was correcting +her proof sheets, and was in the habit of reading them aloud in the +evenings. + +"Yes, do read, Maria," said Aunt Harriet, who, however trying her other +characteristics might be, possessed a perennial fund of enthusiastic +admiration for her sister's novels. "I could hardly sleep last night for +thinking of Blanche's estrangement from Frederic, and of her folly in +allowing herself to be drawn into Lord Sprofligate's supper party by +that foolish Lady Bonner. Frederic would be sure to hear of it." + +"I am afraid," said Aunt Maria, with conscious pride, "that the next +chapter is hardly one for Annette. It deals, not without a touch of +realism, with subjects which as a delineator of life I cannot ignore, +but which, thank God, have no place in a young girl's existence." + +"Oh, Maria, how I disagree with you!" interposed Aunt Harriet before +Annette could speak. "If only I had been warned when I was a young, +innocent, high-spirited creature, if only I had been aware of the +pitfalls, the snares, spread like nets round the feet of the young and +the attractive, I should have been spared some terrible +disillusionments. I am afraid I am far too modern to wish to keep girls +in the total ignorance in which our dear mother brought us up. We must +march with the times. There is nothing that you, being what you are, +Maria, nothing that you with your high ideals could write which, however +painful, it could harm Annette to hear." (This was perhaps even truer +than the enunciator was aware.) "She must some time learn that evil +exists, that sin and suffering are all part of life." + +Annette looked from the excited figure on the sofa to the dignified +personage in the arm-chair, and her heart was wrung for them both. Oh! +Poor dears! poor dears! Living in this shadowy world of their own in +which reality never set foot, this tiny world of which Aunt Harriet +spoke so glibly, which Aunt Maria described with such touching +confidence. Was she going to shatter it for them?--she whom they were +doing their best to guide into it, to make like themselves. + +"I am rather tired," she said, folding up her work. "I think I will go +to bed, and then you can read the chapter together, and decide whether I +can hear it later on." + +"It is very carefully treated, very lightly, I may say skilfully +touched," said Aunt Maria urbanely, whose previous remark had been +entirely conventional, and who had no intention of losing half her +audience. "I think, on the whole, I will risk it. Sit down again, +Annette. Let me see, how old are you?" + +"Twenty-three." + +"Many women at that age are wives and mothers. I agree with you, +Harriet. The danger we elders fall into is the want of realization that +the younger generation are grown up. We must not make this mistake with +you, Annette, or treat you as a child any longer, but as--ahem!--one of +ourselves. It is better that you should be made aware of the existence +of the seamy side of life, so that later on, if you come in contact with +it, your mind may be prepared. Chapter one hundred and twenty-five. _The +False Position._" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + "All other joy of life he strove to warm, + And magnify, and catch them to his lip: + But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, + And gazed upon him sallow from the storm." + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +Roger went to Fontainebleau. He looked at the oaks as they came close up +on both sides of the line, and thought that they needed thinning, and +made a mental note of the inefficiency of French forestry. And he put up +at an old-fashioned inn, with a prim garden in front, with tiny pebbled +walks, and a fountain, and four stunted clipped acacia trees. And he +found the doctor in the course of the next morning; and the doctor, who +had not realized Dick's death under another name, gave him the notary's +address; and the notary explained by means of an interpreter that +Monsieur Le Geyt had warned him emphatically not to give up the will to +his mother, if she came for it, or sent for it after his death. Only to +Monsieur Roger Manvers his cousin, or Mademoiselle Manvers his sister. + +And when Roger had presented his card, and the credentials with which +his English lawyer had supplied him, the will was produced. The notary +opened it, and showed him Dick's signature, almost illegible but still +Dick's, and below it the doctor's and his own; and at the bottom of the +sheet the two words, _Annette Georges_, in Annette's large childish +handwriting. Roger's heart contracted, and for a moment he could see +nothing but those two words. And the notary explained that the lady's +signature had not been necessary, but she had witnessed it to pacify the +dying man. Then Roger sat down, with a loudly hammering heart, and read +the will slowly--translated to him sentence by sentence. It gave him +everything: Hulver and Welmesley, and Swale and Scorby, and the +Yorkshire and Scotch properties, and the street in the heart of +Liverpool, and the New River Share. There was an annuity of five hundred +a year out of the estate and the house at Aldeburgh to Harry, and the +same sum to Mary Deane for life and then in trust to her daughter, +together with a farm in Devonshire. But except for these bequests, +everything was left to Roger. Dick had forgotten Jones his faithful +servant, and he had forgotten also that he had parted with his New River +Share the year before to meet his colossal losses on the day, still +talked of in racing circles, when Flamingo ran out of the course. And +the street in Liverpool, that gold mine, was mortgaged up to the hilt. +But still in spite of all it was a fine inheritance. Roger's heart beat. +He had been a penniless man all his life; and all his life he had +served another's will, another's caprice, another's heedlessness. Now at +last he was his own master. And Hulver, his old home, Hulver which he +loved with passion as his uncle and his grandfather had loved it before +him, _Hulver was his_. + +Mechanically he turned the page and looked at the last words of the will +upon it, and poor Dick's scrawl, and the signature of the witnesses. And +all the joy ebbed out of his heart as quickly as it had rushed in as he +saw again the two words, _Annette Georges_. + + +He did not sleep that night. He lay in a bed which held no rest for him, +and a nameless oppression fell upon him. He was over-tired, and he had +suffered severely mentally during the past week. And it seemed as if the +room itself exercised some sinister influence over him. Surely the +mustard-coloured roses of the wall-paper knew too much. Surely the tall +gilt mirror had reflected and then wiped from its surface scenes of +anguish and despair. Roger sat up in bed, and saw himself a dim figure +with a shock head reflected in it. The moonlight lay in a narrow band +upon the floor. The blind tapped against the window ledge. Was that a +woman's white figure crouching near the window, with bent head against +the pane! It was only the moonlight upon the curtain, together with the +shadow of the tree outside. Roger got up and fastened the blind so that +the tapping ceased, and then went back to bed again. But sleep would not +come. + +He had read over the translation of the will several times. It, and the +will itself, were locked into the little bag under his pillow. His hand +touched it from time to time. + +And as the moonlight travelled across the floor, Roger's thoughts +travelled also. His slow, honest mind never could be hurried, as those +who did business with him were well aware. It never rushed, even to an +obvious conclusion. It walked. If urged forward, it at once stood +stock-still. But if it moved slowly of its own accord, it also evaded +nothing. + + +Then Dick must have distrusted his mother just as Janey had done. Roger +had been shocked by Janey's lack of filial piety, but he at once +concluded that Dick must have "had grounds" for his distrust. It did not +strike him that Janey and Dick might have had the same grounds--that +some sinister incident locked away in their childish memories had +perhaps warned them of the possibility of a great treachery. + +No doubt Janey was not mentioned in Dick's will because it had always +been understood that Noyes would go to her. Lady Louisa had given out +that she had so left it years before. + +"That was what was in the old woman's mind, no doubt," Roger said to +himself, "to let Janey have Noyes, and get Hulver and the rest for Harry +if possible, even if she had to destroy Dick's will in my favour. She +never took into her calculation, poor thing, that by the time Dick died +she might be as incapable of making another will as he was himself. +Seems as if paralysis was in the family. If she knew I had got Hulver +after all, she'd cut Janey out of Noyes like a shot if she could, and +leave it to Harry. But she can't. And Harry'll do very nicely in that +little house at Aldeburgh with five hundred a year. Play on the beach. +Make a collection of shells, and an aquarium. Sea anemones, and shrimps. +And his wife can take charge of him. Relieve poor Janey. I shall put in +a new bathroom at Sea View, and I shall furnish it for him. Some of the +things Mary Deane had would do. He would like those great gilt mirrors +and the sporting prints, and she'd like the walnut suite. That marriage +may not be such a bad thing after all. Hope poor Aunt Louisa won't +understand anything about it, or my coming in for Hulver. It would make +her perfectly mad. Might kill her. But perhaps that wouldn't be such a +very bad thing either. Silver lining to cloud, perhaps, and give Janey a +chance of a little peace." + +Roger's mind travelled slowly over his inheritance, and verified piece +by piece that it was a very good one. In spite of Dick's recklessness, +much still remained. The New River Share was gone. Dick had got over a +hundred thousand for it, but it had been worth more. And the house in +Eaton Square was gone, and Princess Street was as good as gone. He +should probably be wise to let the mortgagors foreclose on it. But +Hulver remained intact, save for the loss of the Raeburn and the oak +avenue. How cracked of Dick to have sold the Raeburn and cut down the +oak avenue when, if he had only consulted him, Roger could have raised +the money by a mortgage on Welmesley. But he ought not to be blaming +Dick after what he had done for him. On the contrary, he ought to put up +a good monument to him in Riff Church; and he certainly would do so. +Hulver was his--Hulver was his. Now, at last, he had a free hand. Now, +at last, he could do his duty by the property, unhampered by constant +refusals to be allowed to spend money where it ought to be spent. He +should be able to meet all his farmers on a better footing now. No need +to put off their demands from year to year, and lose the best among them +because he could not meet even their most reasonable claims. He could +put an entire new roof on Scorby Farm now, instead of tinkering at it, +and he would pull down those wretched Ferry Cottages and rebuild them on +higher ground. He knew exactly where he should put them. It was a crying +shame that it had not been done years ago. And he would drain Menham +marsh, and then the Menham people would not have agues and goitres. And +he should make a high paved way across the water meadows to Welysham, so +that the children could get to school dry-shod. + +He could hardly believe that at last he was his own master. No more +inditing of those painfully constructed letters which his sense of duty +had made incumbent on him, letters which it had taken him so long to +write, and which were probably never read. Dick had never attended to +business. If people could not attend to business, Roger wondered what +they could attend to. And he would make it right about Jones. Jones need +never know his master had forgotten him. Roger would give him an annuity +of a hundred a year, and tell him it was by Dick's wish. Dick certainly +would have wished it if he had thought of it. Roger gave a sigh of +relief at the thought of Jones. And he should pension off old Toby and +Hesketh and Nokes. They had worked on the estate for over forty years. +Roger settled quantities of detail in numberless little mental +pigeonholes as the moonlight travelled across the floor. + + +All through the day and the long evening, whenever he had thought of +Annette, his mind had stood stock-still and refused to move. And now at +last, as if it had waited till this silent hour, the thought of Annette +came to him again, and this time would not be denied. Once more his +resisting mind winced and stood still. And Roger, who had connived at +its resistance, forced it slowly, reluctantly, to do his bidding. + +He could marry Annette now. Strange how little joy that thought evoked! +He would have given everything he possessed two days ago--not that he +possessed anything--to have been able to make her his wife. If two days +ago he had been told that he would inherit Hulver and be able to marry +her, his cup would have been full. Well, now he could have her, if she +would take him. He was ashamed, but not as much as he ought to have +been, of his momentary doubt of her. Fortunately, only Janey knew of +that doubt. Annette would never know that he had hesitated. Now that he +came to think of it, she had gone away from him so quickly that he had +not had time to say a word. + +Roger sighed heavily. + +He knew in his heart that he had not quite trusted Annette when he ought +to have done. But he did absolutely trust Janey. And Janey had said +Annette was innocent. He need not cudgel his brains as to whether he +would still have wanted to marry her if she had been Dick's mistress, +because she never had been. That was settled. Annette was as pure as +Janey herself, and he ought to have known it without Janey having to +tell him. + +Roger turned uneasily on his bed, and then took the goad which only +honest men possess, and applied it to his mind. It winced and shrank +back, and then, seeing no help for it, made a step forward. + +Annette had given him his inheritance. He faced that at last. She had +got the will made. But for her, Dick would have died intestate. And but +for her it was doubtful whether the will would ever have come to light. +Neither the notary nor the doctor had at first connected the death of +Mr. Manvers with that of Dick Le Geyt, even when Roger showed them the +notice in the papers which he had brought with him. Annette had done +everything for him. Well, he would do everything for her. He would marry +her, and be good to her all his life. + +Yes, but would she care to marry a man who could only arrive at his +inheritance by smirching her good name? The will could not be proved +without doing that. What wicked folly of Dick to have asked her, poor +child, to witness it! And how exasperatingly like him! He never +considered the result of any action. The slur on Annette's reputation +would be publicly known. The doctor and the notary who had told him of +Annette's relation to Dick could but confirm it. No denial from them was +possible. And sooner or later the ugly scandal would be known by every +creature at Riff. + +Roger choked. Now he realized that, was he still willing to marry her? +_He was willing._ He was more than willing, he was absolutely +determined. He wanted her as he had never wanted anything in his life. +He would marry her, and together they would face the scandal and live it +down. Janey would stick to them. He loathed the thought of the +whispering tongues destroying his wife's good name. He sickened at it, +but it was inevitable. + +But would Annette on her side be willing to marry _him_, and bear the +obloquy that must fall upon her? Would she not prefer to leave Riff and +him for ever? That was what he must ask her. In his heart he believed +she would still take him. "She would bear it for my sake," he said to +himself. "Annette is very brave, and she thinks nothing of herself." + +A faint glimmer of her character was beginning to dawn in her lover's +shaken mind. The "Sun-of-my-soul," tame-canary, fancy portrait of his +own composition, on which he had often fondly dwelt, did not prove much +of a mainstay at this crisis, perhaps because it lacked life. Who can +lean upon a wooden heart! It is sad that some of us never perceive the +nobility of those we love until we need it. Roger had urgent need of +Annette's generosity and unselfishness, urgent need of her humility. He +unconsciously wanted all the greatest qualities of heart and mind from +her, he who had been drawn towards her, as Janey well knew, only by +little things--by her sweet face, and her violet eyes, and the curl on +her white neck. + +After all, would it be best for _her_ that they should part? + +Something in Roger cried out in such mortal terror of its life that that +thought was dismissed as unendurable. + +"We can't part," said Roger to himself. "The truth is, I can't live +without her, and I won't. We'll face it together." + +But there was anguish in the thought. His beautiful lady who loved him! +That he who held her so dear, who only asked to protect her from pain +and ill, that he should be the one to cast a slur upon her! But there +was no way out of it. + +He sobbed against his pillow. + +And in the silence came the stammered, half-choked words, "Annette, +Annette!" + +But only the room heard them, which had heard the same appeal on a +September night just a year ago. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + "Twice I have stood a beggar + Before the door of God." + EMILY DICKENSON. + + +"I don't find either of you very helpful," said Aunt Harriet +plaintively. + +Her couch had been wheeled out under the apple tree, and her sister and +niece were sitting with her under its shade after luncheon. During the +meal Aunt Harriet had at considerable length expounded one of the many +problems that agitated her, the solution of which would have robbed her +of her principal happiness in life. + +Her mind, what little there was of it, was spasmodically and +intermittently employed in what she called "threshing out things." The +real problems of life never got within shouting distance of Aunt +Harriet, but she would argue for days together whether it was right--not +for others but for her--to repeat as if she assented to them the +somewhat unsympathetic utterances of the Athanasian Creed as to the fate +in store for those who did not hold all its tenets. + +"And I don't believe they will all go to hell fire," she said +mournfully. "I'm too wide-minded, and I've lived too much in a highly +cultivated society. The Miss Blinketts may, but I don't. And I know as a +fact that Mr. Harvey does not believe it either.... Though, of course, I +_do_ accept the Athanasian Creed. I was able to assure Canon Wetherby so +only yesterday, when I discussed the subject with him. He said it was +the corner-stone of the Church, and that in these agnostic days we +Church people must all hold firmly together, shoulder to shoulder. I see +that, and I don't want to undermine the Church, but----" + +"Suppose you were to leave out that one response about hell fire," said +Annette, "and say all the rest." + +"I am afraid my silence might be noticed. It was different in London, +but in a place like Riff where we, Maria of course more than I, but +still where we both stand as I may say in the forefront, take the lead +in the religious life of the place, good example, influential attitude, +every eye upon us. It _is_ perplexing. For is it quite, quite truthful +to keep silence? 'Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie.' How do you +meet _that_, Annette? or, 'To thine own self be true, and it will follow +as the night to day'--I mean as the day to night--'thou canst not then +be false to anybody.' What do you say to _that_, Annette?" + +Annette appeared to have nothing to say, and did not answer. Aunt Maria, +slowly turning the leaves of a presentation volume from Mr. Harvey, said +nothing either. + +"I don't find either of you particularly helpful," said Aunt Harriet +again. "You are both very fortunate, I'm sure, not to have any spiritual +difficulties. I often wish I had not such an active mind. I think I had +better ask Mr. Black to come and see me about it. He is always kind. He +tells me people constantly unburden themselves to him." + +"That is an excellent idea," said Aunt Maria promptly, with a total lack +of consideration for Mr. Black, who perhaps, however, deserved his fate +for putting his lips to his own trumpet. "He has studied these subjects +more than Annette and I have done. Ask him to luncheon to-morrow." + +Aunt Harriet, somewhat mollified, settled herself among her cushions, +and withdrew her teeth as a preliminary to her daily siesta. Aunt Maria, +who had been bolt upright at her desk since half-past nine, took off her +spectacles and closed her eyes. + +A carriage was heard to rumble into the courtyard. + +"Fly, my dear, fly," said Aunt Harriet, "catch Hodgkins and tell her we +are not at home. I'm not equal to seeing anyone till four o'clock. I +should have thought all the neighbourhood must have realized that by +now. Save me, Annette." + +Annette hurried into the house, and then through a side window suddenly +caught sight of Mrs. Stoddart's long grim face under a parasol, and ran +out to her and dragged her out of the carriage. + +"I thought you had gone," she said, holding her tightly by her mantilla, +as if Mrs. Stoddart might elude her even now. The elder woman looked at +Annette's drawn face and thrust out her under lip. She had feared there +would be trouble when Annette told Roger of her past, and had asked Mr. +Stirling to let her stay on at Noyes a few days longer. As she sat by +Annette in the parlour at Red Riff she saw that trouble had indeed come. + +"You have told your Roger," she said laconically, looking at the girl +with anger and respect. "I don't need to ask how he has taken it." + +Annette recounted what had happened, and once again Mrs. Stoddart +experienced a shock. She had come prepared to hear that Roger had +withdrawn the light of his countenance from Annette, and to offer stern +consolation. But the complication caused by Annette having informed +Roger of the existence of the will, and the fact that she had witnessed +it, overwhelmed her. + +A swift spasm passed over her face. + +"This is the first I've heard of you witnessing it," she said, sitting +very bolt upright on the sofa. + +Annette owned she had entirely forgotten that she had done so until +Roger had told her no will was forthcoming. + +"Then it all came back to me," she said. + +"It's not to be wondered at that you did not remember, considering you +became unconscious with brain fever a few hours later," said Mrs. +Stoddart in a perfectly level voice. And then, without any warning, she +began to cry. + +Annette gazed at her thunderstruck. She had never seen her cry before. +What that able woman did, she did thoroughly. + +"I thought I had seen to everything," she said presently, her voice +shaking with anger, "taken every precaution, stopped up every hole where +discovery could leak out, and fortune favoured you. My only fear was +that Dick's valet, who was at the funeral, might recognize you. But he +didn't." + +"I told you he did not see me at the station that day I went with Dick." + +"I know you did, but I thought he might have seen you, all the same. But +he evidently didn't, or he would have mentioned it to the family at +once. And now--now all my trouble and cleverness and planning for you +are thrown away, are made absolutely useless by yourself, Annette: +because of your suicidal simpleness in witnessing that accursed will. +It's enough to make a saint swear." + +Mrs. Stoddart wiped her eyes, and shook her fist in the air. + +"Providence never does play fair," she said. "I've been outwitted, +beaten, but it wasn't cricket. I keep my self-respect. The question +remains, What is to be done?" + +"I shall wait till Roger comes back before I do anything." + +"I take for granted that Roger Manvers and his cousin Janey will never +say a word against you?--that they will never 'tell,' as the children +say." + +"I am sure they never will." + +"And much good that will do you when your signature is fixed to Dick's +will! That fact must become known, and your position at Fontainebleau is +bound to leak out. Roger can't prove the will without giving you away. +Do you understand that?" + +"I had not thought of it." + +"Then every man, woman, and child at Riff, including your aunts, will +know about you." + +"Yes,"--a very faint "Yes," through white lips. + +"And they will all, with one consent, especially your aunts, believe the +worst." + +"I am afraid they will." + +There was a long silence. + +"You _can't_ remain here, Annette." + +"You said before at Fontainebleau that I could not remain, but I did." + +Mrs. Stoddart recognized, not for the first time, behind Annette's +mildness an obstinacy before which she was powerless. + +As usual, she tried another tack. + +"For the sake of your aunts you ought to leave at once, and you ought to +persuade them to go with you, before the first breath of scandal reaches +Riff." + +"Yes, we must all go. Of course we can't go on living here, but I would +rather see Roger first. Roger is good, and he is so kind. He will +understand about the aunts, and give me a few days to make it as easy to +them as it can be made, poor dears." + +"You ought to prepare their minds for leaving Riff. I should not think +that would be difficult, for they lamented to me that they were buried +here, and only remained on your account." + +"Yes, they always say that. I will tell them I don't like it, and as +they don't like it either, it would be best if we went away." + +"You are wishing that nothing had been kept from them in the first +instance?" said Mrs. Stoddart, deeply wounded, though she kept an +inflexible face. + +"Yes," said Annette; "and yet I have always been thankful in a way they +did not know. I have felt the last few days as if the only thing I +really could not bear was telling the aunts. But this will be even +worse--I mean that you say everybody will know. It will wound them in +their pride, and upset them dreadfully. And they are fond of me now, +which will make it worse for them if it is publicly known. They might +have got over it if only Roger and Janey knew. But they will never +forgive me putting them to public shame." + +"Come and live with me," said Mrs. Stoddart fiercely. "I love you, +Annette." And in her heart she thought that if her precious only son, +her adored Mark, did fall in love with Annette he could not do better. +"Come and live with me." + +"I will gladly come and live with you for a time later on." + +"Come now." + +"Not yet." + +"It's no use stopping," she said, taking the girl by the shoulders. +"What's the good? Your Roger won't marry you, my poor child." + +"No," said Annette firmly, though her lips had blanched. "I know he will +not. But--I ran away before when some one would not marry me, and it did +not make things any better--only much, much worse. My mind is made up. I +will stay this time." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + "Il ne suffit pas d'etre logique en ce monde; il faut savoir vivre + avec ceux qui ne le sont pas."--VALTOUR. + + +In later years Annette remembered little of the days that passed while +Roger was in France. They ought to have been terrible days, days of +suspense and foreboding, but they were not. Her mind was at rest. It had +long oppressed her that her two best friends, Roger and Janey, were in +ignorance of certain facts about her which their friendship for her and +their trust in her gave them a right to know. With a sinking of the +heart, she said to herself, "They know now." But that was easier to bear +than "They ought to know." + +If she had hoped for a letter from Roger none came, but I hardly think +she was so foolish as to hope it. + +Janey had been to see her, had climbed up to her little attic, and had +stretched out her arms to her. And Annette and she had held each other +closely, and looked into each other's eyes, and kissed each other in +silence. No word passed between them, and then Janey had gone away +again. The remembrance of that wordless embrace lay heavy on Janey's +sore heart. Annette, pallid and worn, had blamed no one, had made no +excuse for herself. How she had misjudged Annette!--she, her friend. + +But if Annette felt relief about Roger and Janey, the thought of the +aunts brought a pang with it, especially since Mrs. Stoddart's visit. +They had reached the state of nerves when the sweeps are an event, a +broken window-cord an occasion for fortitude, a patch of damp on the +ceiling a disaster. They would be wounded to the quick in their pride +and in their affection if any scandal attached to her name; for they had +become fond of her since she had devoted herself to them. While she had +been as a young girl a claim on their time and attention they had not +cared much about her, but now she was indispensable to them, and she who +formerly could do nothing right could now hardly do anything wrong. Oh! +why had she concealed anything from them in the first instance? Why had +she allowed kind, clever Mrs. Stoddart to judge for her what was right +when she ought to have followed her own instinct of telling them, before +they had come to lean upon her? "Mrs. Stoddart only thought of me," +Annette said to herself. "She never considered the aunts at all," which +was about the truth. + +Their whole happiness would be destroyed, the even tenor of their lives +broken up. Aunt Maria often talked as if she had plumbed the greatest +depths to which human nature can sink. Aunt Harriet had more than +hinted that many dark and even improper problems had been unravelled in +tears beside her couch. But Annette knew very well that these utterances +were purely academic and had no connection with anything real, +indicating only the anxious desire of middle age, half conscious that it +is in a backwater, to impress on itself and others that--to use its own +pathetic phrase--it is "keeping in touch with life." + +The aunts must leave Riff, and quickly. Mrs. Stoddart was right. Annette +realized that their lives could be reconstructed like other mechanisms: +taken down like an iron building and put up elsewhere. They had struck +no root in Riff as she herself had done. Aunt Harriet had always had a +leaning towards Bournemouth. No doubt they could easily form there +another little circle where they would be admired and appreciated. There +must be the equivalent of Canon Wetherby wherever one went. Yes, they +must leave Riff. Fortunately, both aunts had only consented, much +against the grain, to live in the country on account of their sister's +health; both lamented that they were cut off from congenial literary +society; both frequently regretted the move. She would have no +difficulty in persuading them to leave Riff, for already she had had to +exercise a certain amount of persuasion to induce them to remain. She +must prepare their minds without delay. + +For once, Fortune favoured her. + +Aunt Harriet did not come down to breakfast, and the meal was, in +consequence, one of the pleasantest of the day, in spite of the fact +that Aunt Maria was generally oppressed with the thought of the +morning's work which was hanging over her. She was unhappy and irritable +if she did not work, and pessimistic as to the quality of what she had +written if she did work. But Aunt Harriet had a knack of occasionally +trailing in untoileted in her dressing-gown, without her _toupee_, +during breakfast, ostensibly in order to impart interesting items of +news culled from her morning letters, but in reality to glean up any +small scraps of information in the voluminous correspondence of her +sister. She did so the morning after Mrs. Stoddart's visit, carrying in +one hand her air-cushion, and with the other holding out a card to Aunt +Maria, sitting bolt upright, neatly groomed, self-respecting, behind her +silver teapot. + +"Oh, Maria! See what we miss by living in the country." + +Aunt Maria adjusted her pince-nez and inspected the card. + +"Mission to the women of the Zambesi! H'm! H'm!" + +"The Bishop will speak himself," almost wailed Aunt Harriet. "Don't you +see it, Maria? 'Will address the meeting.' Our own dear Bishop!" + +"If you are alluding to the Bishop of Booleywoggah, you never went to +the previous meetings of the Society when we were in London." + +"Could I help that?" said Aunt Harriet, much wounded. "Really, you +sometimes speak, Maria, as if I had not a weak spine, and could move +about as I liked. No one was more active than I was before I was struck +down, and I suppost it is only natural that I should miss the _va et +vient_, the movement, the clash of wits of London. I never have +complained,--I never do complain,--but I'm completely buried here, and +that's the truth." + +"We came here on Catherine's account," said Aunt Maria. "No one +regretted the move more than I did. Except Mr. Stirling, there is no one +I really care to associate with down here." "Why remain, then," said +Annette, "if none of us like it?" + +Both the aunts stared at her aghast. + +"Leave Red Riff!" said Aunt Maria, as if it had been suggested that she +should leave this planet altogether. + +"Why, Annette," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "of course we should +not think of doing such a selfish thing, now we have you to think of--at +least, I speak for myself. You love the country. It suits you. You are +not intellectual, not like us passionately absorbed in the problems of +the day. You have your little _milieu_, and your little innocent local +interests--the choir, the Sunday school, your friends the Miss +Blinketts, the Manvers, the Blacks. It would be too cruel to uproot you +now, and I for one should never consent to it." + +"Aren't you happy here, Annette, that you wish to move?" said Aunt Maria +dryly. + +It slid through Annette's mind that she understood why Aunt Maria +complained that few of her friends had remained loyal to her. She looked +straight in front of her. There was a perceptible pause before she spoke +again. + +"I have been happy here, but I should not like Red Riff as a +permanency." + +"Oh! my dear love," said Aunt Harriet, suddenly lurching from her chair +and kneeling down beside Annette, while the little air-cushion ran with +unusual vigour into the middle of the room, and then subsided with equal +suddenness on the floor. "I feared this. I have seen it coming. Men are +like that, even the clergy--I may say more especially the clergy. They +know not what they do, or what a fragile thing a young girl's heart is. +But are you not giving way to despair too early in the day? Don't you +agree with me, Maria? This may be only the night of sorrow. Joy may come +in the morning." + +Annette could not help smiling. She raised her aunt, retrieved the +air-cushion, replaced her upon it, and said-- + +"You are making a mistake. I am not--interested in Mr. Black." + +"I never thought for a moment you were," said Aunt Maria bluntly. "Mr. +Black is all very well--a most estimable person, I have no doubt. But I +don't see why you are in such a hurry to leave Riff." + +"You both want to go, and so do I. As we all three wish to go, why +stay?" + +"Personally, I am in no hurry to go till I have finished _The Silver +Cross_," said Aunt Maria. + +"No one misses the stimulus of cultivated society more than I do, but I +always feel London life, with its large demands upon one, somewhat of a +strain when I am composing. And the seclusion of the country is +certainly conducive to work." + +"And as for myself," said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, "I would not +willingly place a great distance between myself and dear Cathie's +grave." Aunt Maria and Annette winced. "And I'm sure I don't know who is +wanting to leave Riff if it isn't you, Maria. Haven't I just said that I +never do complain? Have I ever complained? And there is no doubt, +delicate as I am, I _am_ the better for the country air." Aunt Harriet +was subsiding into tears and a handkerchief. "Sea only nine miles +off--crow flies--fresh cream, new-laid eggs, more colour--Canon Wetherby +noticed it. He said, 'Some one's looking well.' And nearly a pound +gained since last weighed. And now all this talk about leaving, and +putting it on me as if it was my suggestion." + +"It was mine," said Annette cheerfully, with the dreadful knowledge +which is mercifully only the outcome of affection. "I retract it. After +all, why should you both leave Riff if you like living here? Let us +each go on our way, and do what suits us best. You must both stay, and I +will go." + +There was a dead silence. The two aunts looked aghast at Annette, and +she saw, almost with shame, how entirely she had the whip hand. Their +dependence on her was too complete. + +"I don't understand this sudden change on your part," said Aunt Maria at +last. "Is it only a preamble to the fact that you intend to leave us a +second time?" + +"Not if you live in London," said Annette firmly, "or--Bournemouth; but +I don't care for the country all the year round, and I would prefer to +move before the winter. I'm rather afraid of the effect the snow might +have on me." Aunt Harriet looked terrified. "I believe it lies very +deep, feet deep, all over Lowshire. Mrs. Stoddart has asked me to winter +with her in London, so perhaps I had better write and tell her I will do +so. And now I must go and order dinner." + +She got up and left the room, leaving her two aunts staring as blankly +at each other as after their sister's funeral. + +"Maria," said Aunt Harriet in a hollow voice, "we have no knowledge of +the effect of wide areas of snow upon my constitution." + +"And so that was what Mrs. Stoddart came over about yesterday?" said +Aunt Maria. "She wants to get Annette away from us, and make her act as +unpaid companion to her. I must say it is fairly barefaced. Annette's +place is with us until she marries, and if it is necessary I shall +inform Mrs. Stoddart of that fact. At the same time, I have had it in my +mind for some time past that it might be advisable to shut up this house +for the winter months and take one in London." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + "There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to + conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when + men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such + times can never give."--SYDNEY SMITH. + + +Annette had been waked early by two young swallows which had flown into +her room, and had circled swiftly round it with sharp, ecstatic cries, +and then had sped out again into the dawn. + +She dressed, and went noiselessly into the garden, and then wandered +into the long meadows that stretched in front of the house. The low +slanting sunshine was piercing the mist which moved slowly along the +ground, and curled up into the windless air like smoke. The dew was on +everything. She wondered the blades of grass could each bear such a +burden of it. Every spider's web in the hedgerow, and what numbers there +seemed, all of a sudden had become a glistening silver-beaded pocket. +Surely no fly, however heedless, would fly therein. And everywhere the +yellow tips of the groundsel had expanded into tiny white fluffy balls +of down, strewing the empty fields, floating with the floating mist. + +But though it was early, the little world of Riff was astir. In the +distance she could hear the throb of the mill, and close at hand across +the lane two great yellow horses were solemnly pacing an empty +clover-field, accompanied by much jingling of machinery and a boyish +whistle. Men with long rakes were drawing the weeds into heaps, and +wreaths of smoke mingled with the mist. The thin fires leaped and +crackled, the pale flames hardly wavering in the still, sunny air. + +Instinctively Annette's steps turned towards the sound of the mill. She +crossed the ford by the white stepping-stones, dislodging a colony of +ducks preening themselves upon the biggest stone, and followed the +willow-edged stream to the mill. + +There had been rain in the night, and the little Rieben chafed and +girded against the mill-race. + +She watched it, as a year ago she had watched the Seine chafe against +its great stone bastions. The past rose before her at the sight and +sound of the water, and the crinkling and circling of the eddies of +yellow foam. + +How unendurable her life had seemed to her on that day! And now to-day +life was valueless. Once again it had been shattered like glass. She had +been cast forth then. Now she was cast forth once more. She had made +herself a little niche, crept into a crevice where she had thought no +angel with a flaming sword would find her and drive her out. But she +was being driven out once more into the wilderness. She had no abiding +city anywhere. + +From where she stood she looked past the mill to the released and +pacified water circling round the village, and then stretching away, +silver band beyond silver band, in the direction of Riebenbridge. The +sun had vanquished the mist, and lay warmly on the clustered cottages +and the grey church tower, and on the old red and blue facade of Hulver +among its hollies. And very high up above it all stretched a sky of tiny +shredded clouds like a flock of a thousand thousand sheep. + +How tranquil it all was, and how closely akin to her, how fraught with +mysterious meaning!--as the kind meadows and trees ever do seem fraught +where we have met Love, even the Love that is unequal, and presently +passes away. + +She must leave it all, and she must part with Roger. She had thought of +him as her husband. She had thought of the children she should bear him. +She looked at the water with eyes as tearless as a year ago, and saw her +happiness pass like a bubble on its surface, break like the iridescent +bubble that it is on life's rough river. But the water held no +temptation for her to-day. She had passed the place where we are +intolerant of burdens. She saw that they are the common lot. Roger and +Janey had borne theirs in patience and in silence and without self-pity +for years. They were her ideal, and she must try to be like them. She +did not need her solemn promise to Dick to keep her from the water's +edge, though her sense of desolation was greater to-day than it had been +a year ago. For there had been pride and resentment in her heart then, +and it is not a wounded devotion but a wounded self-love which arouses +resentment in our hearts. + +She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation, but her heart +ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no +romance now as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new +moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper, where all love must go, if it +is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an +abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a +word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not +written to her since. + +"I am not good enough for him," said Annette to herself. "That is the +truth. He and Janey are too far above me." + +She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that +it might have been she who was too good for Roger--only it was +unthinkable. But if _he_ had been under some cloud, then she knew that +they would not have had to part. + +She had reached the stile where the water meadows begin, and +instinctively she stood still and looked at her little world once more, +and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his +inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not +what he thought, but if she had been, if she had never had her mad +moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain +Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for +Roger. Out of evil good had come--if not to her, to him. She crossed the +stile, where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to +it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry +of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day--when she was very +old--would she also forget? + +Across the empty field thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they +had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes +of forget-me-not peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower +now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow branch, +and reached it and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it +seemed to Annette that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a +great peace by a stream such as this, a kind understanding stream, and +she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it +in her bosom, and she had met beside the stream one that loved her: and +all had been well, exceeding well. + +A great peace enfolded her, as a mother enfolds her new-born babe. She +was wrapt away from pain. + + +Along the narrow path by the water's edge Roger was coming: now dimly +seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. Annette +felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she +knew now that she had been waiting for him. + +He came up to her and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they +looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having +missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had +come out to Riebenbridge by the first train this morning. + +"I have the will," he said, and touched his breast. And his eyes passed +beyond her to the familiar picture he knew so well, of Riff beyond the +river, and the low church tower, and the old house among the trees. He +looked long at it all, and Annette saw that his inheritance was his +first thought. It seemed to her natural. There were many, many women in +the world, but only one Hulver. + +His honest, tired face quivered. + +"I owe it to you," he said. + +She did not answer. She turned with him, and they went a few steps in +silence; and if she had not been wrapt away from all pain, I think she +must have been wounded by his choosing that moment to tell her that the +notary had pronounced Hulver "Heevair," and that those French lawyers +were a very ignorant lot. But he was in reality only getting ready to +say something, and it was his habit to say something else while doing +so. He had no fear of being _banal_. It was a word he had never heard. +He informed her which hotel he had put up at in Ipswich, and how he had +had a couple of poached eggs on arrival. Then he stopped. + +"Annette," he said, "of course you understood about my not writing to +you, because I ought to have written." + +Annette said faintly, as all women must say, that she had understood. No +doubt she had, but not in the sense which he imagined. + +"I owe it all to you," he said again, "but I shouldn't have any +happiness in it unless I had you too. Annette, will you marry me?" + +She shook her head. But there would be no marriages at all if men took +any notice of such bagatelles as that. Roger pressed stolidly forward. + +"I had not time to say anything the other day," he said, hurrying over +what even he realized was thin ice. "You were gone all in a flash. +But--but, Annette, nothing you said then makes any change in my feeling +for you. I wanted to marry you before, and I want to marry you now." + +"Didn't they--the doctor and the notary--didn't they tell you when you +saw my signature that I was--guilty?" + +"Yes," said Roger firmly, "they did. The doctor spoke of you with great +respect, but he did think so. But you have told me you were not. That is +enough for me. Will you marry me, Annette?" + +"You are good, Roger," she said, looking at him with a great +tenderness,--"good all through. That is why you think I am good too. But +the will remains. My signature to it remains. That _must_ be known when +the will is proved. Mrs. Stoddart says so. She said my good name must +suffer. I am afraid if I married you that you and Janey would be the +only two people in Riff who would believe that I was innocent." + +"And is not my belief enough?" + +She looked at him with love unspeakable. + +"It is enough for me," she said, "but not for you. You would not be +happy, or only for a little bit, not for long, with a wife whom every +one, every one from the Bishop to the cowman, believed to be Dick's +cast-off mistress." + +Roger set his teeth, and became his usual plum colour. + +"We would live it down." + +"No," she said. "That is the kind of thing that is never lived down--at +least, not in places like this. I know enough to know that." + +He knew it too. He knew it better than she did. + +He got the will slowly out of his pocket and opened it. They looked +together at her signature. Roger saw it through tears of rage, and +crushed the paper together again into his pocket. + +"Oh! Annette," he said, with a groan. "Why did you sign it?" + +"I did it to please Dick," she said. + +Across the water the church bell called to an early service. Roger +looked once more at his little world, grown shadowy and indistinct in a +veil of smoke. It seemed as if his happiness were fading and eddying +away into thin air with the eddies of blue smoke. + +"We must part," said Annette. "I am sure you see that." + +The forget-me-not fell from her bosom, and she let it lie. He looked +back at her. He had become very pale. + +"I see one thing," he said fiercely, "and that is that I can't live +without you, and what is more, I don't mean to. If you will marry me, +I'll stand the racket about the scandal. Hulver is no good to me without +you. My life is no good to me without you. If you won't marry me, I'll +marry no one, so help me God. If you won't take me, I shall never have +any happiness at all. So now you know!--with your talk of parting." + +She did not answer. She stooped and picked up the forget-me-not again, +and put it back in her bosom. Perhaps she thought that was an answer. + +"Annette," he said slowly, "do you care for me enough to marry me and +live here with me? You as my wife and Hulver as my home are the two +things I want. But that is all very well for me. The scandal will fall +worst on you. If I can stand it, can you?" + +"Yes." + +"It will come very hard on you, Annette." + +"I don't mind." + +"I shan't be able to shield you from evil tongues. There is not a soul +in the village that won't end by knowing, sooner or later. And they +think all the world of you now. Can you bear all this--for my sake?" + +"Yes." + +"And yet you're crying, Annette." + +"I was thinking about the aunts. They will feel it so dreadfully, and so +will Mrs. Nicholls. I'm very fond of Mrs. Nicholls." + +He caught her to him and kissed her passionately. + +"Do you never think of yourself?" he stammered. "You chucked your name +away to please poor Dick. And you're ready to marry me and brave it +out--to please me." + +"You are enough for me, Roger." She clung to him. + +He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her. + +"Am I? Am I enough? A man who would put you through such a thing, even +if you're willing, Annette. You stick at nothing. You're willing. +But--by God--I'm not." + +She looked dumbly at him, with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought +he was going to discard her after all. + +"I thought I wanted Hulver more than anything in the world," he said +wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket, "but the price is too high. +My wife's good name. I won't pay it. Annette, I will not pay it." + +And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it. + +The smoke eddied, and blew suddenly towards them. The fire hesitated a +moment, and then, as Annette gazed stupefied, a little flame curled +busily along the open sheet. + +Before he knew she had moved, she had rushed past him, and had thrust +her hands into the fire and torn out the burning paper. The flame ran +nimbly up her arm, devouring her thin sleeve, and he had only just time +to beat it out with his hands before it reached her hair. + +He drew her out of the smoke and held her forcibly. She panted hard, +sobbing a little. The will gripped tight in her hand was pressed against +her breast and his. + +"Annette!" he said hoarsely, over and over again. Still holding the will +fast, she drew away from him, and opened it with trembling, bleeding +fingers, staining the sheet. + +"It is safe," she said. "It's safe. It's only scorched. You can see the +writing quite clear through the brown. Look, Roger, but you mustn't +touch it. I can't trust you to touch it. _It is safe._ Only the bottom +of the sheet is burnt where there wasn't anything written. Look! Dick's +name is there, and the doctor's, and the notary's. Only mine is gone.... +Oh, Roger! Now my name is gone, the will is--just about right, isn't +it?" + +Roger drew in his breath, and looked at the blood-smeared, smoke-stained +page. + +"It is all right now," he said in a strangled voice. And then he +suddenly fell on his knees and hid his convulsed face in her gown. + +"You mustn't cry, Roger. And you mustn't kiss the hem of my gown. +Indeed, you mustn't. It makes me ashamed. Nor my hands: they're quite +black. Oh! how my poor Roger cries!" + + +THE END + + +_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_ + + * * * * * + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + +MOTH AND RUST + +Together with + +Geoffrey's Wife and the Pitfall + +2s. 6d. net + +" ... A fine story, admirably told."--_World._ + +"The best short stories written in English that we have read."--_Times._ + +" ... Admirable alike as a story and as a presentation of human +character.... We must not give away too many of the details of a story +which, besides being well put together, is exceptionally well +written."--_Globe._ + +"Miss Cholmondeley's new book will distinctly add to an already high +reputation.... We have rarely met in recent fiction two more thoroughly +real and convincing characters than Lady Anne Varney and Wilson the +millionaire.... It is rare indeed that any one displays so great an +aptitude for the long and the short story, and Miss Cholmondeley can be +heartily congratulated on her success in this volume."--_Pall Mall +Gazette._ + +"A delectable story. Here we have a high-born lady who really +understands the meaning of love, and a millionaire who positively +attracts--a rare thing in a novel. Life is portrayed as it is, not as +the conventional fictionist imagines it, and portrayed with a genuine +artistic touch."--_Outlook._ + + +THE LOWEST RUNG + +2s. 6d. net + +A Reviewer, writing in the _Westminster Gazette_ in defence of the Short +Story, says: "Above all, let him take 'The Lowest Rung' and 'The Hand on +the Latch' from Miss Mary Cholmondeley's latest volume, and fling them +down as his last and most convincing proof. + +"Of these last two stories it is difficult to speak too highly, for, of +their kind, they are so nearly perfect." + +"For the three stories contained in the volume we have nothing but +praise; they are full of what might be called picturesqueness, and the +author has the rare art of making everything in a story lead up to the +effect--the final pull, as it were, that unties the whole knot--which +she is keeping up for the end." _Glasgow Herald._ + + +MURRAY'S SHILLING LIBRARY + +_In Red Cloth, crown 8vo, 1/- net each_ + + +_NEW VOLUMES_ + + + GOLDEN STRING. A Day Book for Busy Men and Women. Arranged by + SUSAN, COUNTESS OF MALMESBURY, and Miss VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT. + +" ... an admirable selection of noble and inspiring +thoughts."--_Westminster Gazette._ + +" ... delightful little volume ... one can find nothing but praise for a +happy idea so admirably carried out"--_Ladies' Field._ + + + RUNNING THE BLOCKADE. A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, + and Escapes during the American Civil War. By THOMAS E. TAYLOR. + Frontispiece and Map. + +Mr. Taylor's work is at once an absorbing record of personal adventure, +and a real contribution to history, for it presents to us, from the pen +of a principal actor, the most complete account we have of a great +blockade in the early days of steam. As a picture of exciting escapes, +of coolness and resource at moments of acute danger, of well-calculated +risks, boldly accepted and obstinately carried through, it has few +rivals in sea story. + + + HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY: The Land of Augustine, The + Murder of Becket, Edward the Black Prince, Becket's Shrine. By the + late DEAN STANLEY. With Illustrations. + +"No pilgrim to Canterbury need now content himself with the meagre +historical information of the guide-books when he can get Dean Stanley's +fascinating work for one shilling."--_The Church Times._ + + + LIVINGSTONE'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA. A popular account of + Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. By DAVID + LIVINGSTONE, M.D. With Map and numerous Illustrations. + +This is the great missionary-explorer's own narrative of his first +travel experiences in Africa, and consists chiefly of a full account of +his wonderful journeys in the years 1849-1856, in the course of which he +discovered the Victoria Falls, and crossed the continent from west to +east. Many books have been written on the subject of Livingstone and his +travels, but all who are interested in the greatest of African +travellers should read this record. + + + THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS. By MICHAEL FAIRLESS. + +Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, +the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and +Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart. + +The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death +and a monk with an artist's eye; but for the author it is a romance of +the Image of God. + + + JAMES NASMYTH, Engineer and Inventor of the Steam Hammer. An + Autobiography. By SAMUEL SMILES. Portrait and Illustrations. + +"We should not know where to stop if we were to attempt to notice all +that is instructive and interesting in this volume. It will be found +equally interesting to students of human nature, to engineers, to +astronomers, and even to archaeologists. Among other merits, there are +few books which could be put with more advantage into a young man's +hands, as affording an example of the qualities which conduce to +legitimate success in work."--_The Quarterly Review._ + + + AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S LOVE LETTERS. By LAURENCE HOUSMAN. + +Mr. T. P. O'Connor in the _Daily Mail says_:--"I turned over the leaves +rapidly, almost greedily, and had read almost all its story before I +could allow myself to sleep.... It is a loud cry, not merely of one +intoxicated and torn heart, but of the claim of inner and true emotion +to be still the greatest force of life; the one thing worth +having--worth living for, longing for, dying for." + + + AESOP'S FABLES. A New Version, chiefly from the original sources. By + the Rev. THOMAS JAMES, M.A. With more than 100 Woodcuts designed by + TENNIEL and WOLFE. + +Sir John Tenniel's beautiful illustrations are a notable feature of this +edition of "the most popular moral and political class-book of more than +two thousand years." The Fables have been re-translated chiefly from +original sources, and are printed in a clear and attractive type. They +are accompanied by a scholarly and interesting introductory sketch of +the life of AEsop and the history of the Fables. + + + THE LION HUNTER IN SOUTH AFRICA. Five Years' Adventures in the Far + Interior of South Africa, with Notices of the Native Tribes and + Savage Animals. By ROUALEYN GORDON CUMMING, of Altyre. With + Woodcuts. + +This sporting classic is a fascinating first-hand narrative of hunting +expeditions in pursuit of big game and adventures with native tribes. A +special interest now attaches to it by reason of the great changes which +have come over the "scene of the lion hunter's" exploits in a +comparatively short space of time--in districts where his was the first +white man's foot to tread, our armies marched and fought in the late +South African War, and prosperous towns are now established. + + + UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. An Account of Travels in the Interior, + including visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikko. + By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD). With Illustrations. + +Written in the form of letters to her sister, this book gives +practically the author's day to day experiences during journeys of over +one hundred and four thousand miles in Japan. Mrs. Bird was the first +European lady to visit many of the places described, and her journeys +took place at what is perhaps the most interesting period of the +country's history, when she was just beginning to awake to the glow of +Western civilisation. As a faithful and realistic description of Old +Japan by one of the most remarkable Englishwomen of her day, this book +has an abiding interest. + + + NOTES FROM A DIARY. First Series. By SIR MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF. + +Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, besides being a distinguished +public-servant, was a popular member of society with a genius for +gathering and recording good stories. In his series of "Notes from a +Diary" he jotted down the best things he heard, and thereby made some +very enjoyable volumes, which in cheaper guise will repeat and increase +the success they gained in their more expensive form. + + + LAVENGRO: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest. By GEORGE BORROW. + With 6 Pen and Ink Sketches by PERCY WADHAM. + +This edition contains the unaltered text of the original issue: with the +addition of some Suppressed Episodes printed only in the Editions issued +by Mr. Murray; MS. Variorum, Vocabulary, and Notes by the late Professor +W. I. KNAPP. + + + OUR ENGLISH BIBLE. The Story of its Origin and Growth. By H. W. + HAMILTON HOARE, late of Balliol College, Oxford, now an Assistant + Secretary to the Board of Education, Whitehall. With Specimen Pages + of Old Bibles. + +An historical sketch of the lineage of our Authorised Version, which was +published in 1901 under the title of "The Evolution of the English +Bible." + +The aim of the sketch is to give, in a continuous and narrative form, a +history of our English translations, and to exhibit them in close +connection with the story of the national life. + + + THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA. A Selection from her Majesty's + correspondence between the years 1837 and 1861. Edited by A. C. + BENSON, M.A., C.V.O., and VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.V.O., K.C.B. With 16 + Portraits. 3 vols. 1s. net each volume. + +Published by authority of his Majesty King Edward VII. This edition is +not abridged, but is the complete and revised text of the original. + + + ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION. By CHARLES + DARWIN. Popular impression of the Corrected Copyright Edition. + Issued with the approval of the author's executors. + +The first edition of Darwin's "Origin of Species" has now passed out of +copyright. + +It should, however, be clearly understood that the edition which thus +loses its legal protection is the imperfect edition which the author +subsequently revised and which was accordingly superseded. This, the +complete and authorised edition of the work, will not lose copyright for +some years. + +The only complete editions authorised by Mr. Darwin and his +representatives are those published by Mr. Murray. + + + ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST. An Account of a Voyage from San + Francisco round Cape Horn to Liverpool in a Fourmasted + "Windjammer," with experiences of the life of an Ordinary Seaman. + By BASIL LUBBOCK. With Illustrations. + +_The Sheffield Independent_ says:--"If you care to read what life at sea +in a sailing vessel really is like, this is the book that tells the +story.... Mr. Lubbock has a fine power of telling a tale realistically. +To read him is as good as being on the spot, and having the sights for +yourself, without the hardships. I have never read any work about the +sea that is as vivid and actual as this." + + + ENGLISH BATTLES AND SIEGES IN THE PENINSULA. By LIEUT.-GEN. SIR + WILLIAM NAPIER, K.C.B. With Portrait. + +In spite of the countless books which have appeared on the Peninsular +War, this great work has preserved its popularity as a standard book on +the subject for over half a century and still holds its own when most +rivals, which have appeared since, have faded into oblivion. + + + STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING. By H. C. BARKLEY. + +"Should the reader know of a schoolboy fond of ratting, the proud +possessor possibly of a sharp terrier, and, maybe, a few ferrets, and +wish to bestow a present upon him, the memory of which would last +throughout his life, we could not do better than advise him to purchase +this most pleasantly-written book and bestow it upon him."--_Field._ + + + THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. By the Right Rev. CHARLES GORE, D.D., + LL.D., Bishop of Oxford. + +The success of this book must constitute a record in modern sermonic +literature. There can be no question, however, that its success is due +to its own intrinsic value. Cultured and scholarly, and yet simple and +luminous, eloquent in tone and graceful in diction, practical and +stimulating, it is far and away the best exposition of the Sermon on the +Mount that has yet appeared. + + + THE HOUSE OF QUIET. An Autobiography. By A. C. BENSON. + +"The House of Quiet" is an autobiography, and something more--a series +of very charming essays on people and life--particularly rural life. The +writer has placed himself in the chair of an invalid, an individual +possessed of full mental vigour and free from bodily pain, but compelled +by physical weakness to shirk the rough and tumble of a careless, +unheeding, work-a-day world. Cheerfully accepting the inevitable, he +betakes himself to a little temple of solitude, where he indulges +himself in mild criticism and calm philosophy, exercising a gift of keen +observation to the full, but setting down all that comes within his ken, +with quaint and tolerant humour and tender whimsicalness. He writes with +a pen dipped in the milk of human kindness, and the result is a book to +read time and again. + + + THE THREAD OF GOLD. By A. C. BENSON. + +_The Guardian_ says:--"The style of the writing is equally simple and +yet dignified; from beginning to end an ease of movement charms the +reader. The book is abundantly suggestive.... The work is that of a +scholar and a thinker, quick to catch a vagrant emotion, and should be +read, as it was evidently written, in leisure and solitude. It covers a +wide range--art, nature, country life, human character, poetry and the +drama, morals and religion." + + + THE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE. From the 13th to the 16th Centuries. By + JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs. ADY). With Illustrations. + +Mrs. Ady is a competent and gifted writer on Italian painting, and +presents in these 350 pages an excellent history of the splendid art and +artists of Florence during the golden period from Cimabue and Giotto to +Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo. Those who are taking up the study of +the subject could not wish for a more interesting and serviceable +handbook. + + + A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. + BIRD). With Illustrations. + +_The Irish Times_ says:--"'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains' needs +no introduction to a public who have known and admired Mrs. Bishop +(Isabella L. Bird) as a fearless traveller in the days when it was +something of an achievement for a woman to undertake long and remote +journeys. Mrs. Bishop is a charming and spirited writer, and this cheap +edition of her work will be heartily welcomed." + + + THE LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. By WILLIAM GARDEN BLAIKIE. With + Portrait. + +This is the standard biography of the great missionary who will for ever +stand pre-eminent among African travellers. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Notwithstanding, by Mary Cholmondeley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTWITHSTANDING *** + +***** This file should be named 37781.txt or 37781.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/7/8/37781/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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