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diff --git a/40947-8.txt b/40947-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f8f079f..0000000 --- a/40947-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7148 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romance of His Life, 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: The Romance of His Life - And Other Romances - - -Author: Mary Cholmondeley - - - -Release Date: October 5, 2012 [eBook #40947] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE*** - - -E-text prepared by Fred Salzer, Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries -(http://archive.org/details/toronto) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See - http://archive.org/details/romanceofhislife00choluoft - - - +--------------------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | Transcriber's note: | - | | - | Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). | - | | - | Small capitals in the original work are represented here | - | as all capitals. | - | | - | Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to directly below | - | the paragraph to which they belong. | - | | - | More Transcriber's Notes will be found at the end of this | - | text. | - +--------------------------------------------------------------+ - - - - - -THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE - -And Other Romances - - * * * * * - - _By MARY CHOLMONDELEY_ - - NOTWITHSTANDING: A Novel. - MOTH AND RUST: together with GEOFFREY'S WIFE and THE PITFALL. - THE LOWEST RUNG: together with THE HAND ON THE LATCH, ST. LUKE'S - SUMMER AND THE UNDERSTUDY. - UNDER ONE ROOF: A Family Record. - - LONDON: JOHN MURRAY. - - * * * * * - - -THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE - -And Other Romances - -by - -MARY CHOLMONDELEY - -Author of "Red Pottage." - - - - - - - -London -John Murray, Albemarle Street W. -1921 - - - - - TO - PERCY LUBBOCK - - - - -Contents - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION 11 - - THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE 25 - - THE DARK COTTAGE 55 - - THE GHOST OF A CHANCE 83 - - THE GOLDFISH 109 - - THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 146 - - HER MURDERER 173 - - VOTES FOR MEN 200 - - THE END OF THE DREAM 216 - - - - -Introduction - -IN PRAISE OF A SUFFOLK COTTAGE - - -Most of these stories were written in a cottage in Suffolk. - -For aught I know to the contrary there may be other habitable dwellings -in that beloved country of grey skies and tidal rivers, and cool sea -breezes. There certainly are other houses in our own village, some -larger, some smaller than mine, where pleasant neighbours manage to eat -and sleep, and to eke out their existence. But, of course, though they -try to hide it, they must all be consumed with envy of me, for a cottage -to equal mine I have never yet come across, nor do I believe in its -existence. - -Everyone has a so-called cottage nowadays. But fourteen years ago when I -fell desperately in love with mine they were not yet the rage. The -fashion was only beginning. - -Now we all know that it is a parlous affair to fall in love in middle -age. Christina Rossetti goes out of her way to warn us against these -dangerous grey haired attachments. - -She says: - - "Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring." - -I had often read those beautiful lines and thought how true they were, -but I paid no more attention to their prudent advice the moment my -emotions were stirred than a tourist does to the word "Private" on a -gate. - -It amazes me to recall that the bewitching object of my affections had -actually stood, forlorn, dishevelled, and untenanted, for more than a -year before I set my heart upon it, and the owner good naturedly gave me -a long lease of it. - -Millionaires would tumble over each other to secure it now. This paper -is written partly in order to make millionaires uneasy, for I have a -theory, no, more than a theory, a conviction that they seldom obtain the -pick of the things that make life delightful. - -Do you remember how the ex-Kaiser, even in his palmy days, never could -get hot buttered toast unless his daughter's English governess made it -for him, and later on chronicled the fact for the British public. - -There are indications that a few millionaires and crowned heads have -dimly felt for some time past the need of cottages, but Royalty has not -yet got any nearer to one than that distressful eyesore at Kew with tall -windows, which I believe Queen Caroline built, and which Queen Victoria -bequeathed to the nation as "a thing of beauty." - - * * * * * - -One of the many advantages of a cottage is that the front door always -stands open unless it is wet, and as the Home Ruler and I sit at -breakfast in the tiny raftered hall we see the children running to -school, and the cows coming up the lane, and Mrs. _A's_ washing wending -its way towards her in a wheelbarrow, and Mrs. _M's_ pony and cart _en -route_ for Woodbridge. That admirable pony brings us up from the -station, and returns there for our heavy luggage, it fetches groceries, -it snatches "prime joints" from haughty butchers. It is, as someone has -truly said, "our only link with the outer world." - -The village life flows like a little stream in front of us as we sip our -coffee at our small round mahogany table with a mug of flaming Siberian -wallflower on it, the exact shade of the orange curtains. Of course if -you have orange curtains you are bound to grow flowers of the same -colour. - -The passers by also see us, but that is a sight to which they are as -well accustomed as to the village pump, the stocks at the Church gate, -or any other samples of "still life." They take no more heed of us than -the five young robins, who fly down from the nest in the honeysuckle -over the porch, and bicker on the foot scraper. - - * * * * * - -The black beam that stretches low over our heads across the little room -has a carved angel at each end, brought by the Home Ruler in pre-war -days from Belgium; and, in the middle of the beam, is a hook from which -at night a lantern is suspended, found in a curiosity shop in Kent. My -nephew, aged seven, watched me as I cautiously bought it, and whispered -to his mother: - -"Why does Aunt Mary buy the lantern when, for thirty shillings, she -could get a model engine?" - -"Well, you see she does not want a model engine, and she does want a -lantern, and it is not wrong of her to buy it as she has earned the -money." - -Shrill amazement of nephew. - -"_What!_ Aunt Mary earned thirty shillings! How she must have _sweated_ -to make as much as that!" - - * * * * * - -I must tell you that our cottage was once two cottages. That is why it -looks so long and pretty from the lane, pushing back the roses from its -eyes as it peers at you over its wooden fence. Consequently we have two -green front doors exactly alike, and each approached by a short brick -path edged with clipped box. Each path has its own little green wooden -gate. One of these doors has had a panel taken out by the Home Ruler, -and a wire grating stretched over the opening, as she has converted the -passage within into a larder. - -Now, would you believe it? Chauffeurs, after drawing up magnificent -motors in front of the house, actually go and beat upon the _larder_ -door, when, if they would only look through the iron grating, they -would see a leg of mutton hanging up within an inch of their noses--that -is in pre-war days: of course now only sixpenny worth of bones, and a -morsel of liver. - -And all the time we are waiting to admit our guests at the _other_ door, -the _open_ door, the _hall_ door, the _front_ door, with an old brass -knocker on it, and an electric bell, and a glimpse within of a table -laid for luncheon, with an orange table cloth--to match the curtains! - -I have no patience with chauffeurs. They observe nothing. - -That reminds me that a friend of ours, with that same chauffeur, was -driving swiftly in her car the other day, and ran into a butcher's boy -on his bicycle. As I have already remarked, chauffeurs never recognize -meat when they see it unless it is on a plate. The boy was knocked over. -My friend saw the overturned bicycle in the ditch; and a string of -sausages festooned on the hedge, together with a piece of ribs of beef, -and a pound of liver caught on a sweet-briar, and imagined that they -were the scattered internal fittings of the butcher's boy, until he -crawled out from under the car uninjured. She did not recover from the -shock for several days. - - * * * * * - -To return to the cottage. I am not going to pretend that it had no -drawbacks. There were painful surprises, especially in the honeymoon -period of my affections. Most young couples, if they were honest, which -they never are, would admit that they emerged stunned, if not partially -paralysed, from the strain of the first weeks of wedded life. I was -stunned, but I remembered it was the common lot and took courage. Yes, -there were painful surprises. Ants marched up in their cohorts between -the bricks in the pantry floor. When we enquired into this phenomenon, -behold! there _was_ no floor. For a moment I was as "dumbfounded" as the -bridegroom who discovers a plait of hair on his bride's dressing table. -The bricks were laid in noble simplicity on Mother Earth, no doubt as in -the huts of our forefathers, in the days when they painted themselves -with wode, and skirmished with bows and arrows. I had to steel my heart -against further discoveries. Rats raced in battalions in the walls at -night. Plaster and enormous spiders dropped (not, of course in -collusion) from the ceilings in the dark. Upper floors gave signs of -collapse. Two rooms which had real floors, when thrown into one, broke -our hearts by unexpectedly revealing different levels. That really was -not playing fair. - -Frogs, large, active, shiny Suffolk frogs had a passion for leaping in -at the drawing room windows in wet weather. The frogs are my department, -for the Home Ruler, who fears neither God nor man, hides her face in her -hands and groans when the frogs bound in across the matting; and I, _moi -qui vous parle_, I pursue them with the duster, which, in every well -organised cottage, is in the left hand drawer of the writing table. - -The great great grandchildren of the original jumpers, jump in to this -day, in spite of the severity with which they and their ancestors from -one generation to another have been gathered up in dusters, and cast -forth straddling and gasping on to the lawn. Frogs seem as unteachable -as chauffeurs! - - * * * * * - -Very early in the day we realised that in the principal bedroom a rich -penetrating aroma of roast hare made its presence felt the moment the -window was shut. Why this was so I do not know. The room was not over -the kitchen. We have never had a hare roasted on the premises during all -the years we have lived in that delectable place. We have never even -partaken of jugged hare within its walls. But the fact remains: when the -window is shut the hare steals back into the room. Perhaps it is a -ghost!!! - -I never thought of that till this moment. I feel as if I had read -somewhere about a ghost which always heralds its approach by a smell of -musk. And then I remember also hearing about an old woman who after her -death wanted dreadfully to tell her descendants that she had hidden the -lost family jewels in the chimney. But though she tried with all her -might to warn them she never got any nearer to it than by appearing as -a bloodhound at intervals. Everyone who saw her was terrified, and the -jewels remained in the chimney. - -Is it possible that I have not taken this aroma of roast hare -sufficiently seriously! Perhaps it is a portent. Perhaps it is an -imperfect manifestation--like the bloodhound--of someone on the other -side who is trying to confide in me. - - * * * * * - -Yes, we sustained shocks not a few, but there was in store for us at any -rate one beautiful surprise which made up for them all. - -One bedroom (the one with the hare in it, worse luck) possessed an oak -floor, fastened with the original oak pins. It had likewise a Tudor -door, but the rest of the chamber was commonplace with oddly bulging -walls, covered with a garish flowery wallpaper. - -We stripped it off. There was another underneath it. There always is. We -stripped that off, then another, and another, and yet another. (The -reader will begin to think the roast hare is not so mysterious after -all.) - -We got down at last to that incredibly ugly paper which in my childhood -adorned every cottage bedroom I visited in my native Shropshire. Do you -know it, reader, a realistic imitation of brickwork? It seems to have -spread itself over Suffolk as well as the Midlands. - -After stripping off seven papers the beautiful upright beams revealed -themselves, and the central arch, all in black oak like the floor. - -We whitewashed the plaster between the beams, scratched the beams -themselves till they were restored to their natural colour, and rejoiced -exceedingly. We rejoice to this day. - - But the hare is still there. - - * * * * * - -Our cottage is on the edge of a little wood. Great forest trees stand -like sentinels within a stone's throw of the house. In front of the -drawing room windows is a tiny oasis of mown lawn, bounded by a low wall -clambered over by humps of jasmine and montana, and that loveliest of -single roses scinica anemone. The low wall divides the mown grass from -the rough broken ground which slopes upwards behind it till it loses -itself among the tree trunks. Here tall families of pink and white -foxgloves and great yellow lupins jostle each other, and it is all the -Home Ruler can do to keep the peace between them, and to persuade them -to abide in their respective places between stretches of shining ground -ivy and blue periwinkle; all dappled and checkered by the shadows of the -over-arching trees. - -If you walk down that narrow path between the leaning twisted hollies -you come suddenly upon an opening in the thicket, and a paved path leads -you into another little garden. - -This also has its bodyguard of oaks and poplars on the one side, and on -the other the high hedge dividing it from the lane, over which tilt the -red roofs of the cottages. - -Within the enclosure a family of giant docks spread themselves in the -long grass, and ancient fruit trees sprawl on their hands and knees, -each with a rose tree climbing over its ungainliness, making a low inner -barrier between the tall trees, and the little low-lying burnished -garden in the midst. Here ranged and grouped colonies of rejoicing -plants follow each other into flower in an ordered sequence, all -understood and cherished by the earth-ingrained hands of the Home Ruler. - -Some few disappointments there are, but many successes. Wire worm may -get in. Cuttings may "damp off." Brompton stocks may not always "go -through the winter." But the flowers respond in that blessed little -place. They do their best, for the best has been done for them. If it is -essential to their well being that their feet should be shaded from the -sun, their feet _are_ shaded, by some well-bred low growing plant in -front of them, which does not interfere with them. If they need the -morning sun they are placed where its rays can pour upon them. - -It is a garden of vivid noonday sunshine, when we sit and bask among the -rock pinks on the central bit of brickwork; and of long velvet afternoon -shadows: a garden of quiet conversation, and peaceful intercourse, and -of endless, endless loving labour in sun and rain. - -I contribute the quiet conversation, and the Home Ruler contributes the -loving labour; and, while we thus each do our share, the manifold -voices of the village reach us through the tall hedge: the cries of the -children playing by the bridge, the thin complaint of the goats, the -jingle of harness, and the thud of ponderous slow stepping hoofs, the -whistle of the lad sitting sideways on the leading horse; all the -_paisible rumeur_ of the pleasant communal life of which we are a part. - - * * * * * - -Our village is not really called Riff. It has a beautiful and ancient -name, which I shall not disclose, but I don't mind telling you that it -is close to Mouse Hold,[1] a hamlet in the boggy meadows beyond the -Deben; and not so very far from Gobblecock Hall. Of course if you are -not Suffolk born and bred you will think I am trying to be humourous and -that I have invented this interesting old English name. I can only say. -Look in any good map of Suffolk. You will find Gobblecock Hall on it -near the coast. Riff is only a few miles from Kesgrave Church, where you -can still see the tombstone of the gipsy queen in the churchyard. The -father of one of the oldest inhabitants of Riff witnessed the immense -concourse of gipsies who attended the funeral. - - [1] Probably originally Morass Hold. - -Riff is within an easy walk of Boulge, where Fitzgerald lies under his -little Persian rose tree, covered in summer with tiny yellow roses. You -see how central Riff is. And, if you cross the Deben, and walk steadily -up the low hill to that broomy, gorsy, breezy upland, Bromswell Heath, -then you stand on the very spot where, a little over a hundred years -ago, British troops were encamped to await Napoleon. And a few years ago -our soldiers assembled there once more to resist the invasion which -Kitchener at any rate expected, and which it now seems evident Germany -intended. - - * * * * * - -We in Riff learned the meaning of war early in the day. Which of us will -forget the first Zeppelin raid, and later on the sight of torn, -desolated Woodbridge the day after it was bombed: the terrified blanched -faces peeping out from the burst doorways, the broken smoking buildings, -the high piles of shredded matchwood that had been houses yesterday, the -blank incredulous faces of friends and neighbours. No doubt our faces -were as incredulous as those we saw around us. It seemed as if it could -not, could not be! We had seen photographs of similar havoc in Belgium -and France, but Woodbridge! our own Woodbridge, that pleasant shopping -town on its tidal river with the wild swans on it. _It could not be!_ -But so it was. - -Yes, the war reached us early, and it left us late. Riff suffered as -every other village in Great Britain suffered. Our ruddy cheerful lads -went out one after another. Twenty-two came back no more. - -As the years passed we became inured to raids. Nevertheless, just as we -remember the first, so all of us at Riff remember the last in the small -hours of Sunday morning, June 17th, 1917. - -I was awakened as often before, by what seemed at first a distant -thunderstorm, at about 3 o'clock in the morning. - -I got up and went downstairs in the dark. By this time the bombs were -falling nearer and nearer. As I felt my way down the narrow staircase it -seemed as if the trembling walls were no stronger than paper. The -cottage shook and shook as in a palsy, and C. and E. and I took refuge -in the garden. M. kept watch in the lane. It was, as far as I could see, -pitch dark, but their younger eyes descried, though mine did not, the -wounded Zeppelin lumber heavily over us inland, throwing out its bombs. -Our ears were deafened by the sharp rat-tat-tat of the machine guns, and -by our own frantic anti-aircraft fire. In that pandemonium we stood, how -long I know not, unaware that a neighbour's garden was being liberally -plastered by our own shrapnel. Then, for the second time, the stricken -airship blundered over us, this time in the direction of the sea. - -When it had passed overhead we groped our way through the cottage, and -came out on its eastern side. A mild light met our eyes. The dawn was at -hand. It trembled, flushed and stainless as the heart of a wild rose, -behind the black clustered roofs of the village, and the low church -tower. - -And above the roofs, some miles away, outlined against the sky, hung the -crippled Zeppelin, motionless, tilted. We watched it fascinated. Slowly -we saw it right itself, and begin to move. It headed towards the coast, -but it could only flee into its worst enemy--the dawn. It travelled, it -dwindled. The sea haze began to enfold it. The clamour of our gun fire -suddenly ceased. It toiled like a wounded sea bird towards its only -hope--the sea. - -As we watched it fierce wings whirred unseen overhead. Our aeroplanes -had taken up the chase. - -The Zeppelin travelled, travelled. - -_What was that?_ - -A spark of light appeared upon it. It stretched, it leaped into a great -flame. The long body of the Zeppelin was seen to be alight from end to -end. - -Then rose simultaneously from every throat in Riff a shout of triumph, -the shrill cries of the children joining with the voices of the elders. - -And, after that one cry, silence fell upon us, as we watched that -towering furnace of flame, freighted with agony, sink slowly to the -earth. At last it sank out of sight, leaving a pillar of smoke to mark -its passing. - -So windless was the air that the smoke remained like some solemn -upraised finger pointing from earth to heaven. - -No one stirred. No one spoke. The light grew. And, in the silence of our -awed hearts, a cuckoo near at hand began calling gently to the new day, -coming up in peace out of the shining east. - - - - -The Romance of His Life - - -I have always believed that the exact moment when the devil entered into -Barrett was four forty-five p.m. on a certain June afternoon, when he -and I were standing at Parker's door in the court at ----s. He says -himself that he was as pure as snow till that instant, and that if the -_entente cordiale_ between himself and that very interesting and -stimulating personality had not been established he is convinced he -would either have died young of excessive virtue, or have become a -missionary. I don't know about that. I only know the consequences of the -_entente_ aged me. But then Barrett says I was born middle-aged like -Maitland himself, the hero of this romance, if so it can be called. -Barrett calls it a romance. I call it--I don't know what to call it, but -it covers me with shame whenever I think of it. - -Barrett says that shame is a very wholesome discipline, a great -eye-opener and brain stretcher, and one he has unfortunately never had -the benefit of, so he feels it a duty to act so as to make the -experience probable in the near future. - -On this particular afternoon we had both just bicycled back together -from lunching with Parker's aunt at Ely, and she had given me a great -bunch of yellow roses for Parker and a melon, and we were to drop them -at Parker's. And here we were at Parker's, and apparently he was out or -asleep, and not to be waked by Barrett's best cat-call. And as we stood -at his door, Barrett clutching the melon, I found the roses were not in -my hand. Where on earth had I put them down? At Maitland's door, -perhaps, where we had run up expecting to find him, or at Bradley's, -where we had stopped a moment. Neither of us could remember. - -I was just going back for them when whom should we see coming sailing -across the court in cap and gown but old Maitland in his best attitude, -chin up, book in hand, signet ring showing. - -Parker's aunt used to chaff us for calling him old, and said we thought -everyone of forty-five was tottering on the brink of the tomb. And so -they mostly are, I think, if they are Dons. I have heard other men who -have gone down say that you leave them tottering, and you come back ten -years later and there they are, still tottering. - -Barrett said Maitland did everything as if his portrait was being taken -doing it, and that his effect on others was never absent from his mind. -I don't know about that, but certainly in his talk he was always trying -to impress on us his own aspect of himself. - -If it was a fine morning and he wished to be thought to be enjoying it, -he would rub his hands and say there was not a happier creature on God's -earth than himself. He pined to be thought unconventional, and after -drawing our attention to some microscopic delinquency, he would regret -that there had been no fairy godmother at hand at his christening to -endow him with a proper deference for social conventions. If he gave a -small donation to any college scheme the success of which was not -absolutely assured, he would shake his head and say: "I know very well -that all you youngsters laugh in your sleeve at the way I lead forlorn -hopes, but it is a matter of temperament. I can't help it." - -The personal reminiscences with which his conversation was liberally -strewed were ingeniously calculated to place him in a picturesque light. -Parker's aunt says that stout men are more in need of a picturesque -light than thin ones. Maitland certainly was stout and short, with a -thick face and no neck, and a perfectly round head, set on his shoulders -like an ill-balanced orange, or William Tell's apple. We should never -have noticed what he looked like if it had not been for his illusion -that he was irresistible to the opposite sex; at least, he was always -adroitly letting drop things which showed, if you put two and two -together, and he never made the sum very difficult--what ravages he -inadvertently made in feminine bosoms, how careful he was, how careful -he had _learnt_ to be not to raise expectations. He was always -pathetically anxious to impress on us that he had given a good deal of -pain. But whether it was really an hallucination on his part that he was -hopelessly adored by women, or whether the hallucination consisted in -the belief that he had succeeded in convincing his little college world -of his powers of fascination, I cannot tell you. I don't pretend to know -everything like Barrett. - -Parker's aunt told Parker in confidence, who told Barrett and me in -confidence, that she had once, on his own suggestion, asked Maitland to -tea, but had never repeated the invitation, though he told her -repeatedly that he frequently passed her door on the way to the -cathedral, because he had hinted to mutual friends that a devoted -friendship was, alas! all he felt able to give in that quarter, but was -not what was desired by that charming lady. - -And now here was Maitland advancing towards us with one of Parker's -aunt's yellow roses in his buttonhole. - -We both instantly realised what had happened. I had left the roses at -his door by mistake. How gratified she would be when she heard of it! - -I giggled. - -"Don't say a word about them," hissed Barrett, her fervent admirer, as -Maitland came up to us. - -"Won't you both come in to tea," he said genially. "Parker's out." - -We left Parker's melon on his doorstep to chaperon itself, and turned -back with him. And sure enough, on his table was the bunch of roses. - -"Glorious, aren't they?" said Maitland, waving his signet ring toward -them. - -I do believe he had asked us in because of them. He loved cheap effects. - -We both looked at them in silence. - -"The odd thing is that they were left here without a line or a card or -anything while I was out." - -"Then you don't know who sent them," said Barrett, casting a warning -glance at me. - -"Well, yes and no. I don't actually know for certain, but I think I can -guess. I fancy I know my own faults as well as most men, and I flatter -myself I am not a coxcomb, but still--" - -I giggled again. I should be disappointed in Parker, who was on very -easy terms with his aunt if he did not score off her before she was much -older. - -"You are not, I hope, expecting me or even poor Jones (Jones is me) to -be so credulous as to believe a man sent them," said Barrett severely. -When Maitland was in what Barrett called his "conquering hero mood" he -did not resent these impertinences, at least not from Barrett. "If you -are, I must remind you that there are limits as to what even little -things like us can swallow." - -"Barrett, you are incorrigible. _Cherchez la femme_," said Maitland with -evident gratification, counting spoonfuls of tea into the teapot. He -often said he liked keeping in touch with the young life of the -University. "One, two, three, and one for the pot. Just so! I don't set -up to be a lady-killer, but--" - -"Oh! oh!" from Barrett. - -"I'm a confirmed old bachelor, a grumpy, surly recluse wedded to my -pipe, but for all that I have eyes in my head. I know a pretty woman -from a plain one, I hope, even though I don't personally want to -"domesticate the recording angel."[2] - - [2] I thought the recording angel funny at the time until Barrett - told me afterwards that it was cribbed from Rhoda Broughton. - -"She'll land you yet unless you look out," said Barrett with decision. -"I foresee that I shall be supporting your faltering footsteps to the -altar in a month's time. She'll want a month to get her clothes. Is the -day fixed yet?" - -"What nonsense you talk. I never met such a sentimentalist as you, -Barrett. I assure you I don't even know her name. But it has not been -possible for me to help observing that a lady, a very exquisite young -lady, has done me the honour to attend all my lectures, and to listen -with the most rapt attention to my poor words. And last time, only -yesterday, I noted the fact, ahem! that she wore a rose, a yellow rose, -presumably plucked from the same tree as these." - -There were, I suppose, in our near vicinity, about a hundred and fifty -yellow rose trees in bloom at that moment. Barrett must have known that. -Nevertheless, he nodded his head and said gravely: - -"That proves it." - -On looking over these pages he affirms that this and not earlier was the -precise moment when the devil entered into him, supplying, as he says, a -long felt though unrealised want. - -"I seldom look at my audience when I am lecturing," continued Maitland. -"I am too much engrossed with my subject. But I could not help noticing -her absorbed attention, so different from that of most women. Why they -come to lectures I don't know." - -"I think I have seen the person you mean," said Barrett, in a perfectly -level voice. "I don't know who she is, but I saw her waiting under an -archway after chapel last Sunday evening. I noticed her because of her -extreme good looks. She was evidently watching for someone. When the -congregation had all passed out she turned away." - -"I should have liked to thank her," said Maitland regretfully. "It -seems so churlish, so boorish, not to say a word. You have no idea who -she was?" - -"None," said Barrett. - -Shortly afterwards we took our leave, but not until Maitland had been -reminded by the lady's appearance of a certain charming woman of whom he -had seen a good deal at one time in years gone by, who, womanlike, had -been unable to understand the claims which the intellectual life make on -a man, and who had, in consequence, believed him cold and quarrelled -with him to his great regret, because it was impossible for him to dance -attendance on her as she expected, and as he would gladly have done had -he been a man of leisure. Having warned us young tyros against the -danger of frankness in all dealings with women, and how often it had got -him into hot water with the sex, he bade us good evening. - -As we came out we saw across the court that the melon had been taken in, -so judged that Parker had returned. He had. We were so tickled by the -way Maitland had accounted for the roses that we quite forgot to score -off Parker about them, and actually told him what Maitland supposed. - -Barrett then suggested that we should at once form a committee to -deliberate on the situation. Parker and I did not quite see why a -committee was necessary to laugh at old Maitland, but we agreed. - -"Did you really see the woman he means, or were you only pulling -Maitland's leg?" I asked. - -"I saw her all right," retorted Barrett. "Don't you remember, Parker, -how I nudged you when she passed." - -Parker nodded. - -"She was such a picture that I asked who she was, and found she was a -high school mistress, the niece of old Cooper, the vet. She is going to -be married to a schoolmaster, and go out to Canada with him. I don't -mind owning I was rather smitten myself, or I should not have taken the -trouble." - -"She has left Cambridge," said Parker slowly. "When I got out of the -train half-an-hour ago she was getting in. Cooper was seeing her off." - -"Oh, don't--don't tell poor old Maitland," I broke in. "Let him go on -holding out his chest and thinking she sent him the roses. It won't -matter to her, if she is off to Canada, and never coming back any more. -And it will do him such a lot of good." - -"I don't mean to tell him--immediately," said Barrett ominously. "I -think with you he ought to have his romance. Now I know she is safely -gone forever, though I don't mind owning it gives me a twinge to think -she is throwing herself away on a schoolmaster: but as she really can't -come back and raise a dust, gentlemen, I lay a proposal before the -committee, that the lady who sent the roses should follow them up with -a little note." - -The committee agreed unanimously, and we decided, at least Barrett -decided, that he should compose the letter, and Parker, who was rather -good at a feigned handwriting, should copy it out. - -Parker and I wanted Barrett to make the letter rather warm, and saying -something complimentary about Maitland's appearance, but Barrett would -not hear of it. I did not see where the fun came in if it was just an -ordinary note, but Barrett was adamant. He said he had an eye on the -future. - -He put his head in his hands, and thought a lot and then scribbled no -end, and then tore it up, and finally produced the stupidest little -commonplace letter you ever saw with simply nothing in it, saying how -much she had profited by his lectures and rot of that kind. I was -dreadfully disappointed, for I had always thought Barrett as clever as -he could stick. He said it was an awful grind for him to be commonplace -even for a moment, and that by rights I ought to have composed the -letter, but that it was no more use expecting anything subtle from me -than a Limerick from an archbishop. - -He proceeded to read it aloud. - -"But how is he to know it is the person who sent him the roses?" said -Parker, "and how is he to answer if she does not give him an address? -Hang it all. He ought to be able to answer. Give the poor devil a -chance." - -"He shall be given every chance," said Barrett. "But don't you two prize -idiots see that we can't give a real name and address because he would -certainly go there?" - -"Not a bit of it. He's as lazy as a pig. He never goes anywhere. He says -he hasn't time. He's been seccotined into his armchair for the last ten -years." - -"I tell you he would go on all fours from here to Ely if he thought -there was the chance of a woman looking at him when he got there." - -"Then how is he to answer?" said Parker, who always had to have -everything explained to him. - -"I am just coming to that. I don't say anything in the note about the -roses, you observe. I am far too maidenly. But I just add one tiny -postscript: - - 'If you do not regard this little note as an unwarrantable - intrusion, please wear one of my roses on Sunday morning at chapel, - even if it is faded, as a sign that you have forgiven my presumption - in writing these few lines.'" - -"That's not bad," said Parker suddenly. - -"Now," said Barrett, tossing the sheet over to him, "you copy that out -in a fist that you can stick to, because it will be the first of a long -correspondence." - -"We've not settled her name yet," I suggested. - -"Maud," said Barrett with decision. "What else could it be?" - -The letter was written on an unstamped sheet of paper, was carefully -directed--not quite correctly. Barrett insisted on that, and posted it -himself. - -The following Sunday we were all in our places early, and sure enough, -Maitland, who came in more like a conquering hero than ever, was wearing -a faded yellow rose in his buttonhole. He touched it in an absent manner -once or twice during the service, and sat with his profile sedulously -turned toward the congregation. He was not quite so bad profile because -it did not show the bulging of his cheeks. As he came out he looked -about him furtively, almost shyly. He evidently feared she was not -there. Barrett and I joined him, and engaged him in conversation (though -we had some difficulty in dragging him from the chapel), in the course -of which he mentioned that he had intended to go to his sister at -Newmarket for Sunday, but a press of work had obliged him to give up his -visit at the last moment. - -Poor Maitland! When he left us that morning, and Barrett and I looked at -each other, I felt a qualm of pity for him. I knew how ruthless Barrett -was, and that he was doomed. - -But if I realised Barrett's ruthlessness, I had not realised his -cunning. His next move was masterly, though I did not think so at the -time. He was as cautious and calculating as if his life depended on it. -He got some note-paper with a little silver M. on a blue lozenge on it -and wrote another note. He was going to Farnham for a few days to stay -with his eldest brother, who was quartered there. And in this note -Maud--Maitland's Maud as we now called her--diffidently ventured to ask -for elucidation on one or two points of the lectures which had proved -too abstruse for her feminine intellect. She showed considerable -intelligence for a woman, and real knowledge of the lectures--I did that -part--and suggested that as her letters, if addressed to her, were apt -to go to her maiden aunt of the same name with whom she was staying, and -who was a very old-fashioned person, totally opposed to the higher -education of women--that if he was so good as to find time to answer her -questions it would be best to direct to her at the Post Office, Farnham, -under her initials M.M., where she could easily send for them. - -I betted a pound to a penny that Maitland would not rise to this bait, -and Barrett took it. I told him you could see the hook through the worm. -Parker was uneasy, even when Barrett had explained to him that it was -impossible for us to get into trouble in the matter. - -"You always say that," said Parker, with harrowing experiences in the -back-ground of his mind. - -"Well, I say it again. I know your powers of obtruding yourself on the -notice of the authorities, but how do even you propose to wedge yourself -into a scrape on this occasion? With all your gifts in that line you -simply can't do it." - -Parker ruminated. - -"Ought we to--" - -"Ought we to what?" - -"To pull his leg to such an extent? Isn't it taking rather a--rather -a--er responsibility?" - -"Responsibility sits as lightly on me as dew upon the rose," said -Barrett. "You copy out that." - -Parker copied it out and Barrett went off to Farnham. A few days later -he re-appeared. I was smoking in Parker's room when he came in. - -He sat down under the lamp, drew a fat letter from his waistcoat pocket, -and read it aloud to us. It was Maitland's answer. - -It really was a ghastly letter, the kind of literary preachy rot which -you read in a book, which I never thought people really wrote, not even -people like Maitland, who seem to live in a world of shams. It was -improving and patronising and treacly, and full of information, partly -about the lectures, but mostly about himself. He came out in a very -majestic light you may be sure of that. And at the end he begged her not -to hesitate to write to him again if he could be of the least use to -her, that busy as he undoubtedly was, his college work never seemed in -his eyes as important as real human needs. - -"He's cribbed that out of a book," interrupted Parker. "Newby the tutor -in 'Belchamber,' who is a most awful prig, says those very words." - -"Prigs all say the same things," said Barrett airily. "If Maitland read -'Belchamber,' he would think Newby was a caricature of him. He'd _never_ -believe that he was plagiarising Newby. The cream of the letter is still -to come," and he went on reading. - -Maitland patted the higher education of women on the head, and half -hinted at a meeting, and then withdrew it again, saying that some of the -difficulties in her mind, which he recognised to be one of a high order, -might be more easily eliminated verbally, and that he should be at -Farnham during the vacation, but that he feared his stay would be brief, -and his time was hopelessly bespoken beforehand, etc., etc. - -"He might be an Adonis," said Parker. "He'll be coy and virginal next." - -"He'll be a lot of things before long," said Barrett grimly. "Get out -your inkpot, Parker. I'm going to have another shy at him." - -"You're _not_ going to suggest a meeting! For goodness sake, Barrett, be -careful. You will be saying Jones must dress up as a woman next." - -"Well, if he does, I won't," I said. "I simply won't." - -I had taken a good many parts in University plays. - -"The sight of Jones as a female would make any man's gorge rise," said -Barrett contemptuously. "I know I had to shut my eyes when I made love -to him at 'The Footlights' last year. I never knew two such victims of -hysteria as you and Jones. Suggest a meeting! Maud suggest a meeting! -What do you know of women! I tell you two moral lepers, unfit to tie the -shoestring of a pure woman like Maud, that it takes a Galahad like me to -deal with a situation of this kind. What you've got to remember is that -I'm not trying to entangle him." - -Cries of "Oh! Oh!" from the Committee. - -"I mean Maud isn't. I am, but that's another thing. You two wretched, -whited sepulchres haven't got hold of the true inwardness of Maud's -character. Your gross, assignating minds don't apprehend her. Maud is -just one of those golden-haired, white-handed angels who go through life -girthing up a man's ideals; who exist only in the imagination of elderly -men like Maitland, who has never seen a woman in his life, and who does -not know that unless they are imbeciles they draw the line at drivel -like that letter. Bless her! _She's_ not going to suggest a meeting. -He'll do that and enjoy doing it. Can't you see Maitland in his new role -of ruthless pursuer--the relentless male? No more easy conquests for -him, sitting in his college chair, mowing them all down like a Maxim as -far as--Ely. He's got to _work_ this time. I tell you two miserable -poltroons that this is going to make a man of Maitland. He's been an old -woman long enough." - -"All I can say is," said Parker, ignoring the allusion to Ely, "that if -the Almighty hasn't a sense of humour you will find yourself in a tight -place some day, Barrett." - -My pen fails me to record the diabolical manner in which Barrett played -with his victim. It would have been like a cat and mouse if you can -imagine the mouse throwing his chest out and fancying himself all the -time. Barrett inveigled Maitland into going to Farnham, and accounted -somehow for Maud's non-appearance at the interview coyly deprecated by -Maud, and consequently hotly demanded by Maitland. He actually made him -shave off his moustache. Parker and I lost heavily on that. We each bet -a fiver that Barrett would never get it off. It was a beastly moustache -which would have made any decent woman ill to look at. It did not turn -up at the ends like Barrett's elder brother's, but grew over his mouth -like hart's tongue hanging over a well. You could see his teeth through -it. Horrible it was. But you can't help how your hair grows, so I'm not -blaming Maitland, and it was better gone. But we never thought Barrett -would have done it. I must own my opinion of him rose. - -And he kept it up all through the long vacation with a pertinacity I -should never have given him credit for. He took an artistic pride in it, -and the letters were first rate. I did not think so at first; I thought -them rather washy until I saw how they took. Barrett said what Maitland -needed was a milk and water diet. He seemed to know exactly the kind of -letter that would fetch a timid old bachelor. But it was not all "beer -and skittles" for Barrett. He sorely wanted to make Maud stand up to him -once or twice, and put her foot through his mild platitudes. He wrote -one or two capital letters in a kind of rage, but he always groaned and -tore them up afterward. - -"If Maud has any character whatever," he sometimes said, "if she shows -the least sign of seeing him except as he shows himself to her, if she -has any interest in life beyond his lectures, he will feel she is not -suited to him, and he will give his bridle-reins--I mean his waterproof -spats--a shake, and adieu for evermore." - -Barrett eventually lured Maitland into deep water, long past the bathing -machine of adieu forevermore, as he called it. When he was too -cock-o-hoop, we reminded him that, after all, he was only one of a -committee, and that he had been immensely helped by the young woman -herself. She really looked such a saint, and as innocent as a pigeon's -egg. - -But Barrett stuck to it that her appearance ought, on the contrary, to -have warned Maitland off, and that he was an infernal ass to think such -an exquisite creature as that would give a second thought to a stout old -bachelor of forty-five, looking exactly like a cod that had lain too -long on the slab. I could not see that Maitland was so very like a cod, -but there was a vindictiveness about Barrett's description of him that I -really think must have been caused by his romantic admiration of -Parker's aunt, and his disgust at the slight that he felt had been put -upon her. She married again the following year Barrett's elder brother's -Colonel. - -Barrett hustled Maitland about till he got almost thin. He snap-shotted -him waiting for his Maud at Charing Cross station. And he did not make -her write half as often as you would think. But he somehow egged -Maitland on until, by the middle of the vacation, he had worked him up -into such a state that Barrett had to send Maud into a rest cure for her -health, so as to get a little rest himself. - -When we met at Cambridge in October he had collected such a lot of -material, such priceless letters, and several good photographs of -Maitland's back, that he said he thought we were almost in a position -to discover to him exactly how he stood. - -He threw down his last letter, and as Parker and I read them, any -lurking pity we felt for him as having fallen into Barrett's clutches, -evaporated. - -They showed Maitland at his worst. It was obvious that he was tepidly in -love with Maud, or rather that he was anxious she should be in love with -him. He said voluntarily all the things that torture ought not to have -been able to wring out of him. He told her the story of the woman who -had quarrelled with him because he did not dance attendance on her, and -several other incidents which meant, if they meant anything, that there -was something in his personality, hidden from his own searching -self-examination, which was deadly to the peace of mind of the opposite -sex. He was very humble about it. He did not understand it, but there it -was. He said that he had from boyhood lived an austere, intellectual -life, which he humbly hoped had not been without effect on the tone of -the college, that he had never met so far any one whom he could love. - -"That's colossal," said Parker, suddenly, striking the letter. "Never -met any one he could love. He'll never better that." - -But Maitland went one better. He said he still hoped that some day, -etc., etc., that he now saw with great self-condemnation that if his -life had been altruistic in some ways, it had been egotistic in others, -as in preferring his own independence to the mutual services of -affection; that he must confess to his shame that he had received more -than his share of love, and that he had not given out enough. - -"He's determined she shall know how irresistible he is," said Barrett. -"I had no idea these early Victorian methods of self-advertisement were -still in vogue even among the most elderly Dons." - -"Hang it all!" blurted out Parker, reddening. "The matter has gone -beyond a joke. We haven't any right to see his mind without its clothes -on. You always say the nude is beautiful. But really--Maitland -undraped--viewed through a key-hole, sets my teeth on edge." - -"Undraped? you prude," said Barrett. "What are you talking about? -Maitland is clothed up to his eyes in his own illusions. He's padded out -all round with them back and front to such an extent that you can't see -the least vestige of the human form divine. Personally, I don't think he -has one. I don't believe he is a man at all, but just a globular mass of -conceit and unpublished matter, swathed in a college gown. The thing -that revolts me is the way he postures before her. Malvolio and his -garters isn't in it with Maitland. Good Lord! Supposing she were a real -live woman! What a mercy for him that it's only us, that it's all -strictly _en famille_. I always have said that it's better to keep women -out of love affairs." - -"How did you answer this?" said Parker, pushing the last letter from him -in disgust. - -"I let him see at last--a little." - -"That it was all a joke?" - -"No. That I--that Maud, I mean--cared. She did not say much. She never -does. She mostly sticks to flowers and sunsets, but she gave a little -hint of it, and threw in at the same time that she was very much out of -health and going abroad." - -"That'll put him off. He'll back out. He would hate to have a delicate -wife. He might have to look after her, instead of her waiting hand and -foot on him." - -"We shall see," said Barrett. "Her last letter was posted at Dover." - -"Well, mind! It's got to be the last," said Parker decisively. "I had -not realised you had been playing the devil to such an extent as this. I -had a sort of idea that you were only one of a committee. And what a -frightful lot of trouble you must have taken. I suppose Maud was always -moving about so that he could never nail her." - -"Always, just where I was going, too, by a curious coincidence. And her -old aunt is a regular tartar; I don't suppose there ever was such a -typical female guardian outside a penny novelette. But she is turning -out a trump now about taking Maud abroad, I will say that for her. They -remain at Dover a week. I've arranged for it. I knew you two would wish -me to feel myself quite untrammelled, and, indeed, I wish it myself. -Then we'll hand him the whole series, and see how he takes it; and tell -him we've shown it to a few of his most intimate friends first, and your -aunt, Parker--she'll nearly die of it--and that they are all of opinion -that it's the best thing he has done since his paper on Bacchylides." - -Neither of us answered. In spite of myself I was sorry for Maitland. - -A few days later Barrett came to my rooms. We knocked on the floor for -Parker, and he came up. - -Then he put down a letter on the table and we read it in silence. - -It was just what we expected, an enigmatic, self-protecting effusion. -Maitland was hedging. He had evidently been put off by Maud's illness, -and talked a great deal about friendship being the crown of life, and -how she must think of nothing but the care of her health, etc., etc.; -and he on his side must not be selfish and trouble her with too many -letters, etc. - -"Brute," said Parker. - -"There's another," said Barrett. - -"You don't mean to say you wrote again. There's not been time." - -"No. _He_ wrote again. He doesn't seem to have been perfectly satisfied -with the chivalry of the letter you've just read. He's always great on -chivalry, you know. And it certainly would be hard to make that last -letter dovetail in with his previous utterances on a man's instinct to -guard and protect the opposite sex." - -Barrett threw down a bulky letter and--may God forgive us--Parker and I -read it together under the lamp. - -"I can't go on," said Parker after a few minutes. - -"You must," said Barrett savagely. - -We read it through from the first word to the last, and as we read -Parker's face became as grave as Barrett's. - -It is an awful thing when a poseur ceases to pose, when an egoist -becomes a human being. But this is what had befallen Maitland. The thing -had happened which one would have thought could not possibly happen. He -had fallen in love. - -I can't put in the whole of his letter here. Indeed, I don't remember it -very clearly. But I shall not forget the gist of it while I live. - -After he had despatched his other letter he told her the scales of -egotism had suddenly dropped from his eyes, and he had realised that he -loved for the first time, and that he could not face life without her, -and that the thought that he might lose her, had possibly already lost -her by his own fault, was unendurable to him. For in the new light in -which now all was bathed he realised the meanness of his previous -letter, of his whole intercourse with her: that he had never for a -moment been truthful with her: that he had attitudinised before her in -order to impress her: that he had always taken the ground that he was -difficult to please, and that many women had paid court to him, but that -it was all chimerical. No woman had ever cared for him except his -mother, and a little nursery governess when he was a lad. During the -last twenty years he had made faint, half-hearted attempts to ingratiate -himself with attractive women: and when the attempts failed, as they -always had failed, he had had the meanness to revenge himself by -implying that his withdrawal had been caused by their wish to give him -more than the friendship he craved. He had said over and over again that -he valued his independence too much to marry, but it was not true. He -did not value it a bit. He had been pining to get married for years and -years. He saw now that to say that kind of thing was only to say in -other words that he had never lived. He had not. He had only talked -about living. He abased himself before her with a kind of passion. He -told her that he did not see how any woman, and she least of all, could -bring herself to care for a man of his age and appearance, even if he -had been simple and humble and sincere, much less one who had taken -trouble to show himself so ignoble, so petty, so self-engrossed, so -arrogant. But the fact remained that he loved her; she had unconsciously -taught him to abhor himself, and he only loved her the more, he -worshipped her, well or ill, kind or unkind, whether she could return it -or not. - -We stared at each other in a ghastly silence. I expected some ribald -remark from Barrett, but he made none. - -"What's to be done?" said Parker at last. - -"There's one thing that can't be done," said Barrett, and I was -astonished to see him so changed, "and that is to show the thing up. -It's not to be thought of." - -We both nodded. - -"I said it would make a man of him, but I never in my wildest moments -thought it really would," continued Barrett. "It's my fault. You two -fellows said I should go too far." - -We assured him that we were all three equally guilty. - -"The point is, what's to be done?" repeated Parker. - -"I've thought it over," said Barrett, putting the letter carefully in -his pocket, "and I've come to the conclusion it _must_ go on. I have not -the heart to undeceive him. And I don't suppose you two will want to be -more down on him than I am." - -"If it goes on he'll find out," I groaned. - -"He mustn't be allowed to find out," said Barrett. "He simply mustn't. -I've got to insure that. I dragged the poor devil in, and I've got to -get him out." - -"How will you do it?" - -"Kill her. There's nothing for it but that. Fortunately she was ill in -the vacation. He's uneasy about her health now. I put her in a rest -cure, if you remember, when he became too pertinacious, and I was -yachting." - -"He'll feel her death," said Parker. "It's hard luck on him." - -"Suggest something better then," snapped Barrett. - -But though we thought over the matter until late into the night we could -think of nothing better. Barrett, who seemed to have mislaid all his -impudent self-confidence, departed at last saying he would see to it. - -"Who would have thought it," said Parker to me as I followed him to lock -him out. "And so Maitland is a live man, after all." We stood and looked -across the court to Maitland's windows, who was still burning the -midnight oil. - -"You don't think he'll ever get wind of this," I said. - -"You may trust Barrett," Parker replied. "Good-night." - -Barrett proved trustworthy. He and Parker laid their heads together, and -it was finally decided that Maud's aunt should write Maitland a letter -from Paris describing her sudden death, and how she had enjoined on her -aunt to break it to Maitland, and to send him the little ring she always -wore. After much cogitation they decided that Maud should send him a -death-bed message, in which she was to own that she loved him. Barrett -thought it would comfort him immensely if she had loved him at first -sight, so he put it in. And though he was frightfully short of money he -went up to London and got a very nice little ring with a forget-me-not -in turquoises on it, for the same amount he had won off us about -Maitland's moustache. I think he was glad as it was blood money in a way -(if you can call a moustache blood) that it should go back to Maitland. - -The old aunt's letter was a masterpiece. At any other time Barrett's -artistic sense would have revelled in it, but he was out of spirits, and -only carried the matter through by a kind of doggedness. The letter was -prim and stilted, but humane, and the writer was obviously a little hurt -by the late discovery that her dear niece had concealed anything from -her. She returned all the letters which she said her niece had -evidently treasured, and said that she was returning heartbroken to her -house in Pimlico the same day, and would, of course, see him if he -wished it, but she supposed that one so busy as Maitland would hardly be -able to spare the time. The letter was obviously written under the -supposition that the address in Pimlico was familiar to him. It was -signed in full. _Yours faithfully, Maud Markham._ - -Barrett got a friend whom he could rely on to post the packet on his way -through Paris. - -I don't know how Maitland took the news. I don't know what he can have -thought of his grisly letters when he saw them again. But I do know that -he knocked up and had to go away. - -There is one thing I admire about Barrett. He did not pretend he did not -feel Maitland's illness, though I believe it was only gout. He did not -pretend he was not ashamed of himself. He never would allow that we were -equally guilty. And when Maitland came back rather thinner and graver, -we all noticed that he treated him with respect. And he never jeered at -him again. Maitland regained his old self-complacency in time and was -dreadfully mysterious and Maitlandish about the whole affair. I have -seen Barrett wince when he made vague allusions to the responsibility of -being the object of a great passion, and the discipline of suffering. -But he _had_ suffered in a way. He really had. And when the Bursar's -wife died Maitland was genuinely kind. He shot off lots of platitudes of -course; but on previous occasions when he had said he had been stirred -to the depths he only meant to the depth of a comfortable arm-chair. Now -it was platitudes and actions mixed. He actually heaved himself out of -his armchair, and exerted himself on behalf of the poor, dreary little -bounder, took him walks, and sat with him in an evening--his sacred -evenings. To think of Maitland putting himself out for anyone! It seemed -a miracle. - -After a time it was obvious that the incident had added a new dignity -and happiness to his life. He settled down so to speak, into being an -old bachelor, and grew a beard, and did not worry about women any more. -He felt he had had his romance. - -I don't know how it was, but we all three felt a kind of lurking respect -for him after what had happened. You would have thought that what we -knew must have killed such a feeling, especially as it wasn't there -before. But it didn't. On the contrary. And Maitland felt the change, -and simply froze on to us three. He liked us all, but Barrett best. - - - - -The Dark Cottage - - The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed - Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. - - _Edmund Waller._ - - -PART I - -1915 - -John Damer was troubled for his country and his wife and his child. - -At first he had been all patriotism and good cheer. "It will be a short -war and a bloody one. The Russians will be in Berlin by Christmas. We -shall sweep the German flag from the seas. We are bound to win." - -He had stood up in his place in the House and had said something of that -kind, and had been cheered. - -But that was a year ago. - -Now the iron had entered into England's soul, and into his soul. He had -long since volunteered, and he was going to France to-morrow after an -arduous training. He had come home to say good-bye. - -He might never come back. He might never see his Catherine, his -beautiful young wife, again, or his son Michael, that minute, bald, -amazing new comer with the waving clenched fists, and the pink soles as -soft as Catherine's cheek. - -And as John Damer, that extremely able successful wealthy man of thirty, -sat on the wooden bench in the clearing he suddenly realised that, for -the first time in his life, he was profoundly unhappy. - -How often he had come up here by the steep path through the wood, as a -child, as a lad, as a man, and had cast himself down on the heather, and -had looked out across that wonderful panorama of upland and lowland, -with its scattered villages and old churches, and the wide band of the -river taking its slow curving course among the level pastures and broad -water meadows. - -That river had given him the power to instal electric light in his home, -the dignified Elizabethan house, standing in its level gardens, below -the hill. He could look down on its twisted chimneys and ivied walls as -he sat. How determined his father had been against such an innovation as -electric light, but he had put it in after the old man's death. There -was enough water power to have lit forty houses as large as his. - -Far away in the haze lay the city where his factories were. Their great -chimneys were visible even at this distance belching forth smoke, -which, etherealised by distance, hung like a blue cloud over the city. -He liked to look at it. That low lying cloud reminded him of his great -prosperity. And all the coal he used for the furnaces came from his own -coal fields. - -But who would take care of all the business he had built up if he fell -in this accursed war? Who would comfort Catherine, and who would bring -up his son when he grew beyond his mother's control? - -Yet this was England, spread out before his eyes, England in peril -calling to him her son who dumbly loved her, to come to her aid. - -His eyes filled with tears, and he did not see his wife till she was -close beside him, standing in a thin white gown, holding her hat by a -long black ribbon, the sunshine on her amber hair. - -She was pale, and her very beauty seemed veiled by grief. - -She sat down by him, and smiled valiantly at him. Presently she said -gently: - -"Perhaps in years to come, John, you and I shall sit together on this -bench as old people, and Michael will be very kind, but rather critical -of us, as quite behind the times." - -And then had come the parting, the crossing, the first sound as of -distant thunder; and then interminable days of monotony; and mud, and -lack of sleep, and noise unceasing; and a certain gun which blew out the -candle in his dug-out every time it fired--and _then_! a rending of the -whole world, and himself standing in the midst of entire chaos and -overthrow, with blood running down his face. - -"I'm done for," he said, as he fell forward into an abyss of darkness -and silence, beyond the roar of the guns. - - -PART II - -1965 - -It was fifty years later. - -Michael's wife, Serena, was waiting for her husband. The gallery in -which she sat was full of memorials of the past. The walls were covered -with portraits of Damers. Michael's grandfather in a blue frock coat and -light grey trousers. Michael's father, John Damer, ruddy and determined -in tweeds, with a favourite dog. Michael himself, not so ruddy, nor so -determined, in white smock and blue stockings. Michael's mother, -beautiful and austere in her robe of office. - -Presently an aeroplane droned overhead, which she knew meant the -departure of the great Indian doctor, and a moment later Michael came -slowly down the landing steps in the garden, and entered the gallery. - -"The operation has been entirely successful," he said. - -They looked gravely at each other. - -"It seems incredible," she said. - -"He said it was a simple case, that all through those years while Father -was unconscious the skull had been slowly drawing together and mending -itself, that he only released a slight lesion in the brain. He has gone -back to Lucknow for an urgent case, but he says he will look in again in -a couple of days time if I let him know there is an adverse symptom. He -said he felt sure all would go well, but that we must guard him from -sudden shocks, and break to him very gradually that it is fifty years -since he was hit at Ypres." - -"He'll wake up in his own room where he has lain so long," said Serena. - -"Has the nurse changed yet?" - -"Yes. We made up the uniform from the old illustrated papers. Blue gown, -white cap and a red cross on the arm." - -"We had better get into our things, too," said Michael nervously. - -"The blue serge suit is on your bed, and a collar and a tie. I found -them in the oak chest. They must have been forgotten." - -"And you?" - -"I will wear your Mother's gown which she wore at your christening. She -kept it all her life." - -A few minutes later Michael, uneasy in a serge suit which was too tight -for him, and his wife in a short grey gown entered the sick room and sat -down one on each side of the bed. The nurse, excited and self-conscious -in her unfamiliar attire, withdrew to the window. - -The old, old man on the bed stirred uneasily, and his white beard -quivered. His wide eyes looked vacantly at his son, as they had looked -at him all Michael's life. Serena, with a hand that trembled a little, -poured a few drops into a spoon, and put them into the half-open lips. - -Then they held their breath and watched. - -John Damer frowned. A bewildered look came into his vacant eyes, and he -closed them. And he, who had spoken no word for fifty years, said in a -thin quavering voice: - -"The guns have ceased." - -He opened his eyes suddenly. They wandered to the light, and fell upon -the nurse near the window. - -"I am in hospital," he said. - -"No. You are in your own home," said Michael, laying his hand on the -ancient wrinkled hand. - -The dim sunken eyes turned slowly in the direction of the voice. - -"Father," said the old man looking full at Michael. "Father! well, you -do look blooming." - -The colour rushed to Michael's face. He had expected complications, and -had prepared numberless phrases in his mind to meet imaginary dilemmas. -But he had never thought of this. - -"Not Father," said Serena intervening. "You are forgetting. Father died -before you married, and you put up that beautiful monument to him in the -Church." - -"So I did," said the old man, testily. "So I did, but he is exactly like -him all the same, only Father never wore his clothes too tight for him -and a made up tie--never." - -Michael, the best dressed man of his day, was bereft of speech. - -"You're a little confused still," said Serena. "You were wounded in the -head at Ypres. You have been ill a long time." - -There was a silence. - -"I remember," said John Damer at last. "Have they taken the Ridge?" - -"Yes, long ago." - -"Long ago? Oh! can it be--is it possible? Have we?"--the old man reared -himself suddenly in bed, and raised two thin gnarled arms. "Have we--won -the war?" - -"Yes," said Michael, as Serena put her arms round his father, and laid -him back on his pillow. "We have won the war." - -John Damer lay back panting, trembling from head to foot. - -"Thank God," he said, and in his sunken lashless eyes two tears -gathered, and ran down the grey furrows of his cheeks, and lost -themselves in his long white beard. - -They gave him the sedative which the doctor had left ready for him, and -when he had sunk back into unconsciousness, they stole out of the room. - -They went back to the picture gallery looking on the gardens, and -Michael gazed long at the portrait of his grandfather in the blue frock -coat. - -"Am I so like him?" he said with a sort of sob. - -"Very like." - -He sat down and hid his face in his hands. - -"Poor soul," he said. "Poor soul. He's up against it. Do you know I had -almost forgotten we had 'won the war' as he called it. There have been -so many worse conflicts since that act of supreme German folly and -wickedness." - -"Not what he would call wars," said Serena. "He only means battles with -soldiers in uniforms, and trenches and guns." - -"How on earth are we to break to him that his wife is dead, and that I -am his son, and that he is eighty years of age, and that Jack is his -grandson." - -"It must come to him gradually." - -"In the meanwhile I shall take off these vile clothes and get back into -my own. Serena, what can a made-up tie be, and why is it wrong?" - -Michael tore off his tie and looked resentfully at it at arm's length. -"It is just like the pictures, it seems correct, and it fastens all -right with a hook and eye." - -"It is the first time your taste in dress has been questioned, and -naturally it pricks," said Serena smiling at her husband. "It is lucky -Jack did not hear it." - -"I don't know who Jack inherits his slovenliness and his clumsiness -from," said Michael. "Why on earth can't he sit on his smock without -crumpling it. I can. He may be a great intellect, I think he is; he -takes after my mother, there is no doubt, but he can't fold his cloak on -his shoulder, he can't help a woman into her aeroplane, and he is so -careless that he can't alight in London on a roof without coming down -either on the sky doorway, or the sky-light. He has broken so many -sky-lights and jammed so many roof doors that nowadays he actually goes -to ground and sneaks up in the lift." - -Serena was accustomed to these outbursts of irritation. They meant that -her nervous, highly strung Michael was perturbed about something else. -In this case the something else was not far to seek. He recurred to it -at once. - -"Will Father ever understand about Jack and Catherine? Will he ever in -his extreme old age understand about anything?" - -"His mind is still thirty," said Serena. "The Iceland brain specialist -said that as well as Ali Khan, and all the other doctors. That is where -they say the danger lies, and where the tragedy lies." - -"But how are we to meet it," said Michael walking up and down. Presently -he stopped in front of his wife and said as one who has solved a -problem! - -"I think on the whole I had better leave the matter of breaking things -to Father entirely in your hands. It will come better from you than from -me." - -And the pictures of the various wives of the various ancestors heard -once more the familiar phrase, to which their wifely ears had been so -well accustomed in their day from the lips of their lords, when anything -uncomfortable had to be done. - - * * * * * - -So Michael left it to Serena, and in the weeks which followed she guided -her father-in-law, with the endless tenderness of a mother teaching a -child to walk, round some very sharp corners, which nearly cost him his -life, which, so deeply was her heart wrung for him, she almost hoped -would cost him his life. - -With a courage that never failed him, and which awed her, he learned -slowly that he was eighty years of age, that his wife had died ten years -ago, at sixty, that Michael was his son, and that he had a very clever -grandson called John after him, one of the ablest delegates of the -National Congress, and a grand-daughter called Catherine. She tried to -tell him how they had lost a few months earlier their eldest son, -Jasper, one of the pioneers of a new movement which was costing as many -lives as flight had cost England fifty years earlier. - -"He failed to materialise at the appointed spot," said Serena, "I -sometimes wonder whether his Indian instructor kept back something -essential. The Indians have known for generations how to disintegrate -and materialise again in another place, but it does not come easy to our -Western blood. Jasper went away, but he never came back." - -John Damer looked incredulously at Serena, and she saw that he had not -understood. She never spoke of it again. - - * * * * * - -As the days passed John, fearful always of some new pang, nevertheless -asked many questions of Serena when he was alone with her. - -"Tell me about my wife. She was just twenty when I left her." - -"She grieved for you with her whole heart." - -"Did she--marry again? I would rather know if she did. She would have -been right to do so in order to have someone to help her to bring up -Michael." - -"She never married again. How could she when you were alive, and in the -house." - -"I forgot." - -"She hoped to the last you would be completely restored. All the -greatest doctors in the world were called in, and they assured her it -was only a question of time. Wonderful discoveries had been made in the -Great War as to wounds in the head. But they only gradually learnt to -apply them. And the years passed and passed." - -"It would have been kinder to let me die." - -"Did doctors let people die when you were young?" - -John shook his head. - -"They are the same now," she said. - -"And I suppose Catherine spent her life here, caring for her child, and -me, and the poor. She loved the poor." - -"She cared for you and Michael, and she worked ceaselessly for the cause -of the oppressed. She battled for it. She went into Parliament as it was -called in those days, as soon as the age for women members was lowered -from thirty to twenty-one. She strove for the restriction of the White -Slave Traffic, and for safeguarding children from the great disease. -Some terrible evils were abated by her determined advocacy. But she -always said she did not meet the same opposition the first women doctors -did a hundred years ago, or as Florence Nightingale had to conquer when -she set out to improve the condition of the soldier in hospital and in -barracks, and to reduce the barbarities of the workhouses." - -"I should have thought she would have been better employed in her own -home, that she would have been wiser to leave these difficult subjects, -especially the White Slave Traffic--to men." - -"They had been left to men for a long time," said Serena. - - * * * * * - -The day came when he was wheeled out into the garden in the old mahogany -wheel chair which his father had used in the last years of his life. - -Serena was sitting beside him. When was she not beside him! Michael, at -a little distance, was talking to two of the gardeners. - -"Why do Michael and the gardeners wear smock frocks and blue stockings?" - -"It is so comfortable for one thing, and for another it is the old -national peasant dress. We naturally all wish to be dressed alike -nowadays, at any rate when we are in the country, just as the Scotch -have always done." - -"I remember," said John, "when I was a small child a splendid old man -of ninety, Richard Hallmark, who used to come to church in a smock frock -and blue worsted stockings and a tall black hat. His grown-up grandsons -in bowler hats and ill-made coats and trousers looked contemptible -beside him, but I believe they were ashamed of him." - -His dim eyes scanned the familiar lawns and terraces of the gardens that -had once been his, and the wide pasture lands beyond. - -It was all as it had been in his day. Nevertheless he seemed to miss -something. - -"The rooks," he said at last. "I don't hear them. What has become of the -rookery in the elms?" - -"They've gone," she said. "Ten years ago. Michael felt it dreadfully. -Even now he can hardly speak of it. I hope, Father, you will never -reproach him about it." - -"Did he shoot them?" asked the old man in a hollow voice. - -"No, no. He loved them, just as you did, but when he installed the Power -Station he put it behind the elm wood to screen it from the house, and -he did not remember, no one remembered, the rookery. You see rooks build -higher than any other birds, and that was not taken into account in the -radiation. At first everything seemed all right. The old birds did not -appear to notice it. Even the smallest birds could pass through the -current it was so slight. But when the spring came it proved too much -for the fledgelings. They died as they were hatched out in the nest. -Then the old birds made the most fearful outcry, and left the place." - -"There has always been a rookery at Marcham," said John, his voice -shaking with anger. "I suppose I shall hear of Michael shooting the -foxes next." - -Serena did not answer. She looked blankly at him. - - * * * * * - -Presently John asked that his chair might be wheeled up the steep path -through the wood to the little clearing at the top. Michael eagerly -offered to draw the chair himself, but John refused. He had been distant -towards his son since he had heard about the rookery. - -Serena, with the help of a gardener, conveyed him gently to the heathery -knoll, just breaking into purple. - -John looked out once more with deep emotion at the familiar spot in the -golden stillness of the September afternoon. - -"I sat here with my wife the last afternoon before I went to the front," -he said in his reedy old man's voice. "The heather was out as it is -now." - -His eyes turned to the peaceful landscape, the wooded uplands, the -river, the clustered villages, and far away the city and the tall -chimneys of his factories. As he looked he gave a gasp, and his jaw -fell. - -"The factories aren't working," he said. - -"Yes, dear, indeed they are." - -"They're _not_. Not a sign of smoke. It used to hang like a curtain over -the city." - -"Or like a shroud," said Serena looking fixedly at him. "It hung over -the grimy overworked mothers, and the poor grimy fledglings of children -in the little huddled houses. The factories consume their own smoke -now." - -"There was a law to that effect in my time," said John, "but nobody -obeyed it." - -"No one," she agreed. "No one." - -As he looked it seemed as if a cloud of dust rose from the factories, -and eddied in the air. As it drew near it resembled a swarm of bees. - -"What on earth is that?" he asked. - -"It is the work people going home to the garden city behind the hill. It -would not do for them to live near the factories, would it? The ground -is marshy. There are five or six streams there. And the gas from the -factories has killed all the trees. What was not good for trees could -not be good for children." - -"They all lived there in my time. It was handy for work. There was -always a great demand for houses. I know I had to build more." - -Serena's eyes fell. - -The flight of aeroplanes passed almost overhead followed by two enormous -airships waddling along like monstrous sausages. - -"Are those Zeppelins?" - -"They are aero busses built on the German models. They superseded the -ground electrics a few years ago. Those two are to carry back the -workers who are more or less deficient, and can't be trusted to fly an -aeroplane; the kind of people who used to be shut up in asylums. -They can do sufficient work under supervision to pay for their own -maintenance. We group with them the hysterical and the melancholy, and -people who can't take the initiative, and those who suffer from inertia -and tend to become blood suckers and to live on the energies of others. -Their numbers grow fewer every year." - - * * * * * - -Serena and Michael talked long about his father that night. - -"But surely he must have seen it was a crime to house his factory hands -like that." - -"He didn't seem to. You see he compared well with many employers. He -doesn't know--how could he, that his generation let us in. We paid their -bill. All the wickedness and the suffering of the great black winter had -their root in the blindness and self-seeking of his generation and the -one before him." - -"He's never been the same to me since he found I killed the rookery. -What's a rookery to a thousand children reared in a smoky swamp. What -will he think of me when he hears that I stalked and shot the last fox -in the county?" - -"He must not hear it. We must guard him," said Serena, "and I pray that -his life may not be long. It can't be, I think, and we have been warned -that any sudden shock will kill him. I wish he could have a joyful shock -and die of it, but there aren't any joyful shocks left for him in this -world I am afraid." - -"Have you explained to him that his grandchildren are coming home -to-morrow from the Rocky Mountains?" - -"I have told him that they are coming, but not that they have been in -the Rockies. He might think it rather far to go for a fortnight's -fishing." - -"Serena, what on earth will Father make of Jack. Jack is so dreadfully -well-informed. I hardly dare open my mouth in his presence. Jack says he -is looking forward to meeting his grandfather, and realising what he -calls his feudal point of view." - -"Jack only means by that expounding to his grandfather his own point of -view. I don't think your Father will take to him, but he will love -Catherine; she is so like your Mother, and _she_ never wants to realise -any point of view." - - * * * * * - -Jack arrived first with his servant and a large hamper of fish. The air -lorry followed with the tents and the fishing tackle and the mastiffs. - -"But where is Catherine," asked Michael, as Jack came in pulling off his -leather helmet and goggles. - -Jack grinned and said with a spice of malice: - -"Catherine fell into the sea." - -"She didn't!" said Serena. "That's the second time. How tiresome. She -always has a cold on her chest if she gets wet." - -"Where did you leave her?" asked Michael. - -"In mid-Atlantic. We kept to the highway. It was her own fault. I warned -her not to loop the loop with that old barge of hers, but she would try -and do it. She was fastened in all right. I saw to that, but her stuff -was loose, and you should have seen all her fish and kettles and the -electric cooker shooting out one after another into the deep. It was in -trying to grab something that she lost control, and fell, barge and all -after her crockery into the sea. I circled round--that is why I am a -quarter-of-an-hour late--till I sighted one of the patrol toddling up, -old Granny Queen Elizabeth it was. Catherine wirelessed to me that she -was all right, and would start again as soon as she was dry and had had -a cigarette, so I came on." - -Catherine arrived an hour later, full of apologies about the lost -crockery, and the electric cooker, and was at once put into a hot bath -by her mother and sent to bed. - - * * * * * - -After the arrival of his grandchildren John spent more and more of his -time in the clearing in the wood. He shrank instinctively from the -sense of movement and life in the house, and his sole prop, Serena, -seemed unable to be so constantly with him as before. - -He was never tired of gazing at the gracious lines of the landscape. -Perhaps he loved that particular place because he had sat there with his -wife on their last afternoon together, perhaps also because, in a world -where all seemed changed, that alone, save for the cloud on the horizon, -was unchanged. He was at home there. - -Jack took a deep and inquisitive interest in his grandfather which made -him often stroll up the hill to smoke a pipe on the bench near him. -Sometimes John pretended to be asleep when he heard his grandson's -whistle on the path below him. He was bewildered by this handsome, -quick-witted, cocksure, bearded young man who it seemed was already at -twenty-three a promising Fatigue Eliminator, and might presently become -a Simplyfier. His grand-daughter, Catherine, he had not yet seen, as she -was in quarantine owing to a cold, and the Catarrh Inspector had only -to-day pronounced her free from infection. - -"You sleep a great deal, Grandfather," said Jack, coming so suddenly -into view that John had not time to close his eyes. "Don't you find so -much sleep tends to retard cerebral activity?" - -"I don't happen to possess cerebral, or any other form of activity," -said John, coldly. - -"Do you mean you wish er--to resume the reins? Father and I were talking -of it last night. Everything he has is yours, you know, by law." - -John shook his head, and looked at his powerless hands. - -"Reins are not for me," he said. - -"Well, in my opinion, grandfather," said Jack, with approval, not wholly -devoid of patronage, "you're right. A great deal of water has passed -under the bridge since your day." - -"This clearing in the wood is the same," John said. "That is why I like -it, and my old home looks just the same--from here." - -There was a moment's silence while Jack lit his pipe. - -John suddenly said, "I put in the electric light. My father never would -hear of it, but I did it." - -He thought it was just as well that his magnificent grandson should know -that he had done something when he held the reins. - -"That is one of the many things I have been wishing to discuss with you, -grandfather. You installed electric light in the house and stables and -garage, but there was power enough to light a town. While you were doing -it, why didn't you light the church and the village as well?" - -"I never thought of it." - -"But it must have made you very uncomfortable to feel you had not shared -the benefit of it with the community. The village lies at your very -gates. You must have hated the feeling that you had lit yourself up, and -left them in the dark. It was essential, absolutely essential for your -workers' well-being that they should have light. Even in your day the -more intelligent among the agricultural labourers were beginning to -migrate to the towns. We only got them back by better conditions in -lighting and housing, and facilities for movement and amusement." - -"Electric light in cottages was unheard of in my time," said John. "It -never entered my head." - -"Just so," said Jack. "That seems so odd, so incomprehensible to us -unless we can seize the feudal point of view. You confirm the classics -on the subject. I have questioned numbers of very old men who were in -their prime before the war like you, grandfather, but I have not found -their opinions as definite as yours, because they have insensibly got -all their edges worn off so to speak by lifelong contact with the two -younger generations. Your unique experience is most interesting. Never -entered your head. There you have the feudal system in a nutshell. No -sense of communal life at all. I'll make a note of it--I'm compiling a -treatise on the subject. You were against female suffrage, too, I -remember. I've been reading up your record. You voted several times -against it." - -"I did. I consider woman's sphere is in the home." - -"Just so. That was the point of view, and there is a lot to say for it -considering the hash women made of power when first they got it, though -not so enormous a hash as the Labour Party. You know, I suppose, we've -had three Labour Governments since the great war?" - -"I always prophesied a Labour Government would come, and I feared it. I -knew they had not sufficient education to rule. No conception of foreign -policy." - -"Not an atom. I agree with you. Not a scrap. Thirty years ago most of -our rulers hadn't an idea where India was, or why we must complete the -trans-African railway in case we lost control of the Suez Canal. They -actually opposed it. They nearly piloted the Ship of State on to the -rocks." - -John frowned. - -"Now what I want to know is," said Jack, extending two long blue -stockinged legs, and enjoying himself immensely, "why instead of -opposing female suffrage you did not combine to place the franchise on -an educational basis, irrespective of sex; the grant of the vote to be -dependant on passing certain examinations, mainly in history and -geography. Or, if you were resolved to delay as much as possible the -entrance of women into politics, why didn't you give better national -education. You did neither. You let loose a horde of entirely ignorant -and irresponsible men and women out of your national schools. You say -you foresaw that a Labour Government was inevitable, but you don't seem -to have made any preparation, or taken any precaution to insure its -efficiency when it did come." - -John was silent. - -"They were also hostile men and women," continued the young man. "That -was the worst of it. Were you at Lille when you were fighting in -France?" - -"No." - -"Well, the East Lancashires were. They were all miners, and the thing -that interested them most was the devastated mines, ruined by the -Germans in their retreat. And they saw the remains of the bath houses at -the pit heads. Those baths had been there before the war. Every miner -could go back clean to his own home, instead of having to wash in his -own kitchen. Grandfather, you owned coal-mines. Why didn't you and the -other coal-owners put up baths at the pit heads? You would have liked it -if _you_ had been a miner. And just think what it would have saved your -wife. The English miners got them by threats after they had seen the -wrecks of them in France. But why didn't the English coal-owners copy -French methods, if they hadn't the imagination to think them out for -themselves? Why did they only concede when they could not help it? -Reforms were wrung out of the governing class in your day by threats and -strikes. That is what, for nearly thirty years, ruined our class with -Labour when it came into power. Why didn't your generation foresee -that?" - -"We didn't see the danger," said John, "as you see it. Everyone can be -wise after the event." - -"Just so. But if you couldn't foresee the danger, why didn't you see at -the time the _justice_ of their claims, men like you, grandfather, who -fought for justice for the smaller nations? It seems to me, the national -characteristic of the upper classes fifty years ago must have been -opposition to all change, a tendency to ignore symptoms which really -were danger signals, and an undeveloped sense of justice ..., which only -acted in certain grooves. The result was the uneducated came into power, -embittered, without a shred of confidence in the disinterestedness of -the educated. The Commonwealth--" - -"The what?" - -"The Commonwealth--you used to call it the Empire--nearly went upon the -rocks." - -Jack's young face became awed and stern and aged, as John had seen -men's faces become when they charged through the mud in the dawn. - -"I was in Liverpool," Jack said, "all through the Black Winter. It -needn't have been. It never, never need have been if there had been -justice and sympathy in England for Labour forty years before. But there -was not. So they paid us back in our own coin. We had no justice from -them. My God! I can't blame them." - -Serena, coming quietly up the path, saw the two men looking fixedly at -each other, both pallid in the soft sunshine. The same shadow of -suffering seemed to have fallen on the beautiful young face, and on the -old one. - -"You must not talk any more," she said to John, casting a reproachful -glance at her son. "You are over-tired." - -Jack took the hint, kissed his mother's hand, and walked slowly away. He -was deeply moved. - -John shivered. A deathlike coldness was creeping over him, was laying an -icy hand upon his heart. He turned to his sole comforter, Serena, -watching him with limpid grieved eyes. - -"Your grand-daughter, Catherine, is coming up to see you in a few -minutes," she said, trying as always to guard him against surprise. "How -cold your hands are, Father. I could not let her see you till she had -been disinfected after her chill for fear she might give it to you." - -He was not listening. - -"Serena," he said feebly. "The world is not my world any longer. I am a -stranger and a sojourner in it. All my landmarks are swept away. I wish -I could be swept away, too." - -Serena took his cold hands in hers, and held them to her breast. - -"Father," she said, "unless you and countless others, all the best men -of your time had given your lives for your country, we should have no -country to-day. You bled for us, you kept it for us, for your son, and -your son's son: and we all honour and thank you for what you have done -for us." - -John Damer's eyes looked full at her in a great humility. - -"I see now," he said, in his thin quavering voice, "that I only died for -my country. I did not live for her. I took things more or less as I -found them. I was blind, blind, blind." - -She would fain have lied to him, but her voice failed her. - -He looked piercingly at her. - -"Did the others--all those who never fought--there were so many who did -not fight--and those who fought and came back--did they live for her, -did they try to make a different England, to make her free and -happy--after the war?" - -"Some did," said Serena, "but only a minority." - -She saw his eyes fix suddenly. His face became transfigured. - -"She's coming up the path," he said, in an awed whisper. "Catherine is -coming." - -Serena followed his rapt gaze and saw her daughter coming towards them -in a white gown, her hat hanging by a ribbon in her hand, the sunshine -upon her amber hair. - -"Catherine," said the old man, "Catherine, you have come to me at last. -You said we should sit here together when I was old. You've come at -last." - -And he, who for fifty years had not walked a step, without help, raised -himself to his full height, and went to meet her with outstretched arms. - -They caught him before he fell, and one on each side of him supported -him back to the bench. - -He sank down upon it, blue to the lips. Serena laid the trembling white -head upon her daughter's breast. The bewildered young girl put her arms -gently round him in silence. - -John Damer sighed once in supreme content, and then--breathed no more. - - - - -The Ghost of a Chance - - "Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, - Ever they pass me--I watch, I wait-- - Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; - She cometh never, or comes too late." - - _Sir Alfred Lyall._ - - -"The thing I don't understand about you," I said, "is why you have never -married. Your love affairs seem to consist in ruining other people's. I -was on the verge of getting married myself years ago when you lounged in -and spoilt my chance. But when you had done for me you did not come -forward yourself, you backed out. I believe, if the truth were known, -you have backed out over and over again." - -Sinclair did not answer. He frowned and looked sulkily at me with -lustreless eyes. He was out of health, and out of spirits, and ill at -ease. - -The large, luxurious room, with its dim oriental carpets and its shaded -lights, and its wonderful array of Indian pictures and its two exquisite -rose-red lacquer cabinets, had a great charm for me who lived in small -lodgings in the city near my work. But it seemed to hold little pleasure -for him. I sometimes doubted whether anything held much pleasure for -him. He had just returned from China. The great packing cases piled one -above another in the hall were no doubt full of marvellous acquisitions, -china, embroideries, rugs. But he did not seem to care to unpack them. - -"Did I really spoil your marriage?" he said listlessly. He looked old -and haggard and leaden-coloured, and it was difficult to believe he was -the magnificent personage who had diverted Mildred's eyes from me ten -years before. - -"Don't pretend you didn't know it at the time," I retorted. - -His behaviour had been outrageous, and I, with my snub nose and -crab-like gait, had been cast aside. I could not blame her. He was like -a prince in a fairy tale. I never blamed her. She knows that now; in -short, she knows everything. - -"No, my pepper pot, I won't pretend I didn't know it. But I thought--I -had a strong impression--I was mistaken, of course, but I thought -that--" - -"That what?" - -His face altered. - -"That it was _she_," he said below his breath. - -I stared at him uncomprehending. - -"She looked like it," he went on more to himself than to me. "She had a -sweet face. I thought it _might_ be she. But it was not." - -Silence fell on us. - -At last I said: - -"Perhaps you will be interested to hear that she and I have made it up." - -"I am," he said, and his dull eyes lightened, "if you are sure she is -the right woman; really sure, I mean." - -"I've known that for eleven years," I said, "but the difficulty has been -to get the same idea firmly into her head. At any rate, it's in now. -I've tattooed it on every square inch of her mind, so to speak. If I had -been let alone she would have been my downtrodden, ill-used wife, and I -should have been squandering her money for the last ten years. I shall -have to hammer her twice a day and get heavily into debt to make up for -lost time. Why don't you marry yourself, Sinclair? That is what you -want, though you don't know it; what I want, what we all want, someone -to bully, something weaker than ourselves to trample on." - -"Don't I know it!" he said. "I know it well enough. But how am I to find -her?" - -"Marry Lady Valenes. I'm sure you've made trouble and scandal enough in -that quarter. Now old Valenes is dead you ought to marry her; and she's -more beautiful than ever. I saw her at the opera last night." - -Sinclair stared straight in front of him with his long hands on his -knees. His face, thickened and coarsened, fell easily into lines of -fatigue and ill temper. - -"What is the use of Lady Valenes to me?" he said savagely. "What is the -use of any woman in the world, except the right one?" - -"Well, you acted as if she was the right one when her poor jealous old -husband was alive. It's just like you to think she won't do now he is -dead and she is free." - -He was silent again. - -I was somewhat mollified by the remembrance that I had got Mildred, the -most elusive and difficult of women, firmly under my thumb at last, and -I said: - -"The truth is, you don't know what love is, you haven't got it in you to -care a pin about anyone except yourself, or you would have married years -ago. Who do you think you're in love with now?" - -"The same woman," he said wearily, "always the same." - -"Then marry her and have done with it, and turn this wretched museum -into a home." - -"I can't find her." - -"What is her name?" - -"I don't know." - -"Just seen her once, I suppose," I retorted. "A perfect profile sailing -past in a carriage under a lace parasol. And you think that's love. -Little you know." - -I expanded my chest. Since I had come to terms with Mildred, some thirty -hours before--and I had had a very uphill fight of it before she gave -in--I felt that I was an expert in these matters. - -"Chipps," said Sinclair. (Chipps is not my name, but it has stuck to me -ever since I was at school.) "Chipps, the truth is, we are in the same -boat." - -My old wound gave a sudden twinge. - -"No," I said. "No. We aren't. I'm not taking any water exercise with -you, so you needn't think it. Mildred and I are walking on the -towing-path arm in arm, and I don't approve of boating for her because I -don't like it myself. So she remains on dry land with me. In the same -boat, indeed!" - -"I meant, we were both in love," he said with the ghost of a smile, "if -your corkscrew advances towards matrimony can be called love. I did not -mean that we were in love with the same woman." - -"I don't care if you are _now_. I did care damnably once, but I don't -mind a bit now. Do your worst." - -"The conquering hero, and no mistake," Sinclair said, looking at me with -something almost like affection, and he put out his hand. "Good luck to -you, old turkey cock." - -I shook his hand harder than I intended, quite warmly, in fact. - -"Why don't you marry too?" I said. "It would make all the difference to -you, as it has to me." - -We seemed suddenly very near to each other, as we had been in the old -days; nearer than we had ever been since he had made trouble between -Mildred and me. - -He looked at me with a kind of forlorn envy. - -"I cannot find her," he said again. - -The words fell into the silence of the large, dimly lighted room. - -And perhaps because we had been at school together, perhaps because I -had no longer a grudge against him, perhaps because I was not quite so -repellent to confidences as heretofore, and he was conscious of some -undefinable change in me, Sinclair said his say. - -"I fell in and out of love fairly often when I was young," he said. -"You've seen me do it. But at the back of my mind there was always a -deep-rooted conviction that I was only playing at it, and the real thing -was to come, that there was the one woman waiting somewhere for me. I -wasn't in any hurry for her. I supposed she would turn up at the right -moment. But the years passed. I reached thirty. As I got older I began -to have sudden horrible fits of depression that she wasn't coming after -all. They did not last, but they became more severe as I gradually -realised that I could not really live without her, that I was only -marking time till she came. - -"And one summer night, or rather morning, ten years ago, something -happened. You need not believe it unless you like, Chipps. It's all one -to me whether you do or you don't. I came home from a ball, and I found -among my letters one dictated by my young sister saying she was very ill -and wishing to see me. She was always ill, poor little thing, and always -wanting to see me. She was consumptive, and she lived in the summer -months with her nurse in a shooting-box high up on the Yorkshire moors, -the most inaccessible place, but she liked it, and the doctor approved -of it. I used to go and see her there when I had time. But that was not -often. I had made provision for her comfort, but I seldom saw her. - -"I laid the letter down, and wondered whether I ought to go. I did not -want to leave London at that moment. I had been dancing all night with -Mildred, and was very much _épris_ with her. Then I saw there was a -postscript in the same handwriting, no doubt that of the nurse. "Miss -Sinclair is more ill than she is aware." - -"That settled it. I must go. Once before I had been warned her condition -was serious, and had hurried up to Yorkshire to find her almost as -usual. But, nevertheless, I supposed I ought to go. I felt irritated -with the poor little thing. But as my other sister Anna was married and -out in India, I was the only relation she had left in England. I decided -to go. - -"In that case it was not worth while to go to bed. I sat down by the -open window, and watched the dawn come up behind Westminster. And as I -sat with the letter in my hand a disgust of my life took hold of me. It -looked suddenly empty and vain and self-seeking, and cumbered with -worldly squalid interests and joyless amusements. And where was the one -woman of whom I had had obscure hints from time to time? Other women -came and went. But she who was essential to me, who became more -essential to my well-being with every year--she never came. I felt an -intense need of her, a passionate desire to find her, to seek her out. -But where? - -"And as I sat there I felt in my inmost soul a faint thrill, a vibration -that gradually flooded my whole being, and then slowly ebbed away. And -something within me, something passionate surrendered myself to it, and -was borne away upon it as by an outgoing tide. It ebbed farther and -farther. And I floated farther and farther away with it in a golden -mist. And in a wonderful place of peace I saw a young girl sitting alone -in the dawn. I could not see her face, but I recognised her. She was the -one woman in the world for me, my mate found at last. And I was consumed -in an agony of longing. And I ran to her, and fell on my knees at her -feet, and hid my face in her gown. And she bent over me, and raised me -in her arms and held my head against her breast. And she said, 'Do not -be distressed, I love you, and all is well.' - -"And we spoke together in whispers, and my agitation died away. I did -not see her face, but I did not need to. I knew her as I had never known -anyone before. I had found her at last. - -"I had never guessed, I had never dreamed, I had never read in any book -that anything could be so beautiful. It was beyond all words. It was -more wonderful than dawn at sea. I leaned my head against her and cried -for joy. And she soothed me as a mother soothes her child. But she was -crying too, crying for sheer joy. I felt her tears on my face. She -needed me as I needed her. That was the most wonderful of all, her need -of me. We had been drawn to each other from the ends of the earth, and -we were safe in each other's arms at last. - -"And then gradually, imperceptibly, a change came. The same tide which -had brought me to her feet began to draw me away again, and sudden -terror seized me that I was going to lose her. I clung convulsively to -her, but my arms were no longer round her. We were apart, stretching out -our hands to each other. Her figure was growing dimmer and dimmer in a -golden mist. In an agony I cried to her. 'Where shall I find you? Tell -me how to reach you?' And she laughed, and her voice came serene and -reassuring. 'We shall meet. You are on your way to me. You will find me -on the high road.' - -"And we were parted from each other, and I came slowly back over immense -distances and moving waveless tides of space; back to this room, and the -dawn coming up behind the tower of Westminster." - -"You awoke in fact," I said. - -"No. I had not been asleep. I returned. And an immense peace enveloped -me. But gradually that too, ebbed away as I began to realise that I had -not seen her face. She was in the world, she was waiting for me. Thank -God that was no delusion. But which of all the thousands of women in the -crowd was she? How was I to know her? 'You are on your way to me, you -will find me on the high road.' That was what she had said, and it -flashed through my mind that she might be Mildred. 'You are on your way -to me.' I was to motor Mildred to Burnham Beeches that very afternoon. I -had arranged to take her there before I had received the letter about my -sister. Chipps, I dare say you will think me heartless, perhaps you -often have, but I simply dared not start off to Yorkshire that morning, -even if my sister was dangerously ill. I had a feeling that my whole -future was at stake, that I must see Mildred again, that nothing must -come between her and me. I went with her to Burnham Beeches. We spent -the afternoon together." - -"I have not forgotten that fact," I said. - -"And I found I was mistaken," he said. "She knew nothing. The same -evening I went to Yorkshire, but I did not find my sister. She had died -suddenly that afternoon." - -"You would have been in time to see her if you had let Mildred alone," I -said brutally. - -He did not answer for a long time. - -"For ten years I looked for her, now in one person now in another, but I -could not find her. I tried to go to her again in that waking dream, but -I could not find the way. I could not discover any clue to her. For ten -years she made no sign. At last I supposed she was dead, and I gave her -up. - -"That was last autumn. Gout had been increasing on me, and I had been up -to Strathpeffer to take the waters there. And my other sister Anna, now -a widow, pressed me to stay a few days with her at the little house on -the moors where my younger sister had lived, and which I allowed Anna to -use as her home as she was extremely poor. The air was bracing and I -needed bracing, so I went, dropping down from Strathpeffer by easy -stages in my motor. I was glad I went. The heat was great, but on those -uplands there was always a fresh air stirring. Anna, who had hardly seen -me for years, made much of me, and though she had no doubt become -rather eccentric since her husband's death, that did not matter much on -a Yorkshire moor. I spent some happy days with her, and it turned out to -be fortunate that I had come, for on the third afternoon of my visit, -she had found out--she found out everything--that an old servant of -mine, the son of my foster mother, had got into difficulties, and was -being sold up next day at a distant farm. She urged me to motor over -very early in the morning and stop the sale and put him on his legs -again. I rather liked the idea of a thirty mile drive across the moors -before the sun was up, and I agreed to go. I had no objection to acting -Providence and pleasing Anna at the same time. - -"I shall never forget that afternoon. We had tea together in the -verandah, overlooking the great expanse of the heathered, purple moors. -And the thunder which had hung round us all day rolled nearer and -nearer. The moors looked bruised and dark under the heavy sky. The long -white road grew whiter and whiter. My sister left me to shut all the -windows, and I lay in my long deck chair and looked at the road. - -"And as I looked the words came back to my mind. 'You will find me on -the high road.' Lies! Lies! Ten years I had been seeking her. I should -never find her. And far, far away on the empty highway I saw a woman -coming. My heart beat suddenly, but I remembered that I had been -deceived a hundred times, and this was no doubt but one more deception. -I watched her draw nearer and nearer. She came lightly along towards the -house under the livid sky with the heather on each side of her. She had -a little knapsack on her shoulder. And as she drew near the breathless -stillness before the storm was broken by a sheet of lightning and a clap -of thunder. My sister rushed up and dragged the chairs farther back. -Then her eye caught sight of the tall grey figure now close below us on -the road. A few great drops fell. - -"Anna ran down to the gate and called to the woman to take shelter. She -walked swiftly towards us, and then ran with my sister up the steps, -just as the storm broke. - -"'Magnificent,' she said, easing her shoulder of the strap of her -knapsack while her eyes followed the driving rain cloud. 'How kind of -you to call me in. There is not another house within miles.' - -"She was a very beautiful woman of about thirty, with a small head and a -clear-cut grave face. Her dark, parted hair had a little grey in it on -the temples. She smoothed it with slender, capable, tanned hands. She -had tea with us, my sister welcoming her as if she were her dearest -friend. That was Anna all over. - -"The thunderstorm passed, but not the rain. It descended in sheets. - -"The stranger looked at it now and then, and at last rose and put out -her hand for her knapsack. - -"'I must be going,' she said. - -"But Anna would not hear of it. There was not another house within -miles. She insisted on her stopping the night. A room was got ready, and -presently we all three sat down to a nondescript meal which poor Anna -believed to be dinner. - -"I was attracted by our guest, but not more than I had often been before -by other women. She had great beauty, but I had seen many beautiful -women during the last twenty years. She was gay, and I like gaiety. And -she had the look of alertness and perfect health which often accompanies -a happy temperament. She and Anna talked incessantly, at least, Anna -did. I did not join in much. My cure had left me languid. When we had -finished our meal we found the rain had ceased, and the moon shone high -in heaven over a world of mist. The moors were gone. The billows of mist -drifted slowly past us like noiseless waves upon a great sea. The house -and terraced garden rose above it like a solitary island. The night was -hot and airless, and we sat out on the verandah, and talked of many -things. - -"Of course, Anna is eccentric. There is no doubt about it. But the -worst of her is that her form of eccentricity is infectious. She is -extremely impulsive and confidential, and others follow suit if they are -with her. I have known her once (at a luncheon party of eight people -whom she had never met before) say, as a matter of course, that she -remembered a previous existence, and sleeping seven in a bed in an -underground cellar. I was horrified, but no one else was. And a grave -man beside her, a minister, told her that when first he went to Madeira -he remembered living there in a little Portuguese cottage with a row of -sugar canes in front of it. He said he recognised the cottage the moment -he saw it, and said to himself, 'At any rate, I am happier now than I -was then.' A sort of barrier seemed always to go down in Anna's -presence. People momentarily lost their fear of each other, and said -things which I have no doubt they regretted afterwards. - -"I need hardly say that as Anna looked at the moonlight and the mist she -became recklessly indiscreet. I could not stop her. I did not try. I -shut my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. And she actually told this -entire stranger all about her first meeting with her late husband, which -it seemed had taken place on an expedition to Nepal. Anna was always -wandering over the globe with Lamas, or sailing on inflated pigskins -with wild Indians, or things of that kind. I had only known the bare -fact of her marriage with a distinguished but impecunious soldier who -had died some years later, and I was amazed what a dramatic story she -made of her first encounter with him on the mountains of Nepal, and how -his coolies had all run away, and she let him join on to her party. And -how they walked together for three days through a land of rose-coloured -rhododendrons; without even knowing each other's name, and how she -cooked their meals at the doors of the little mud rest-houses. There was -something very lovable after all in the way Anna told it. I realised for -the first time that she, too, had lived, that she had been touched by -the sacred flame, and that it was natural to her to speak of her great -happiness, the memory of which dwelt continually with her. - -"I saw through my half-closed eyes the strange woman's hand laid for a -moment on Anna's hand. - -"'You were very fortunate,' she said gently. - -"'Was I?' said Anna. 'I suppose everyone else is the same. We all see -that light once in our lives, don't we? I am sure you have too.' - -"'I am unmarried,' said the stranger, 'and thirty years of age, and -nothing of that kind has ever happened to me. I was once engaged to be -married for a short time. But I had to break it off. It was no good. I -suppose,' she said, with a low laugh, 'that the reason we are both -talking so frankly is because we are entire strangers to each other.' - -"'I do believe the world would go all right, and that we should all be -happy if only we did not know each other,' said Anna earnestly. - -"I felt sure the stranger would think her mad, but she answered -tranquilly: - -"'There are two ways of living absolutely happily with our fellow -creatures, I think. When you know nothing about them and have no tie to -them, and when you know them through and through. But on the long road -between where all the half-way houses are, there seems to be a lot of -trouble and misunderstanding and disappointment.' - -"'We can never know anyone through and through until we love them,' said -Anna. - -"'No,' said the stranger, 'Love alone can teach that. Even I know that, -I who have never seen love except once--in a dream.' - -"'Tell me about it,' said Anna. - -"'I have never spoken of it,' she said with the same tranquillity; her -face as I took one glance at it serene and happy in the moonlight, -'except to my sister. And it is curious that I should speak of it here; -for it was in this house it happened to me.' - -"'You have been here before?' said Anna. - -"'Yes. Ten years ago. That was why I went out of my way on my walking -tour to-day just to look at the little place again. I stayed a month -here, and I helped a friend of mine who is now dead, a trained nurse, to -nurse a Miss Sinclair who was dying here.' - -"'We are her brother and sister,' said Anna. - -"'I thought it possible when I saw you on the verandah. You are both -like her in a way. My friend, who was in charge, was over-taxed, and I -came down to help her. Two nurses were necessary, but she did not like -to complain, and the family seemed rather inaccessible. Miss Sinclair -liked me, and I did the night work till she died. I left directly she -was gone.' - -"'My brother was too late,' said Anna. - -"'Yes,' she said. 'I was grieved for him. I added a postscript unknown -to her, to her last letter to him which I wrote at her dictation. My -postscript would have alarmed him and brought him at once. But the -letter must have been delayed in the post. The last night before the end -I was sitting here on the verandah. I had just been relieved, and I -ought to have gone to bed, but I came and sat here instead and watched -the dawn come up, 'like thunder,' behind the moors. And as I sat I -became very still, as if I were waiting in a great peace. And gradually -I became conscious as at an immense distance of someone in trouble. I -was not asleep, and I was not fully awake. And from a long, long way off -a man came swiftly to me, and threw himself on his knees at my feet, -and hid his face in my gown. He was greatly agitated, but I was not. And -I wasn't surprised either. I raised him in my arms, and held him to my -breast, and said, "Do not be distressed, for I love you, and all is -well." It was quite true. I did love him absolutely, boundlessly, as I -love him still. And gradually his agitation died away, and he rested in -my arms, and ecstasy such as I had never thought possible enfolded us -both. We both cried for sheer joy, and for having found each other. It -was beyond anything I had ever dreamed. It was as beautiful as the -dawn.' - -"'It _was_ the dawn,' said Anna. - -"'If it was the dawn, the day it spoke of never came,' said the stranger -quietly, 'and presently we were parted from each other, and he began to -be frightened again. And he called to me, 'Tell me how to find you,' and -I laughed, for I saw he could not miss me. I saw the way open between -him and me. Such a short little way, and so clear. I said, 'You are on -your way to me now. You will find me on the high road.' It was such a -plain road, that even a blind man could not miss it. And we were parted -from each other and I came back to the other dawn, the outer dawn. For -days and weeks I walked like one in a dream. I felt so sure of him, I -would have staked my life upon his coming--that is ten years ago--but he -never came.' - -"Chipps, I thought the two women must have heard the mad hammering of my -heart. She was there before me in the moonlight, found at last--my -beautiful, inaccessible mate. And she was free, and we loved each other -as no one had loved since the world began. I could neither speak nor -move. Though it was joy, it was the sharpest pain I had ever known. I -did not know how to bear it. - -"'My dear, he will come still,' said Anna. - -"'Will he?' said the stranger, and she shook her head. She rose and -stood in the moonlight, a tall, noble figure. And for the first time -there was a shade of sadness on her serene, happy face. - -"'I saw the road so clear,' she said, 'but I am afraid he has somehow -missed it. I have an intuition that he will not come now, that he is -lost.' - -"Sitting far back in the shadow, I looked long at her, at my wonderful -dream came true; and I swore that I would never lose sight of her again -once found. I would take no risks; I would bind her to me with hooks of -steel. - -"And then, in a few minutes, it was bedtime, and Anna aroused me, and -she and her guest went off together hand in hand. I dragged myself to my -room, too. I was shaking from head to foot, and Brown, my valet, said -'You aren't fit, sir, to start at six in the morning.' - -"I had clean forgotten that I had arranged to drive early across the -moors to stop the sale of my foster brother's farm. It was impossible to -go now. I might come back in the afternoon and find my lady flown. There -was no telegraph office within miles; I must think of some other plan. -It was too late to countermand the motor, which put up several miles -away. So I told Brown to send it back when it arrived at six, and to -tell the chauffeur to bring it round again at eleven. Then, perhaps, my -lady would deign to drive with me, and I might have speech with her. - -"'On the high road'--that was where she had said we should meet. Yes, -when we were on the high road alone together, I would prove to her that -I was her lover. I would boldly claim her. She would never repulse me, -for she needed me as I needed her. - -"I did not sleep that night. It seemed so impossible, so amazing, that -we had met at last. I felt transformed, younger than I had ever been. -Waves of joy passed over me, and yet I was frightened, too. There was a -sort of warning voice at the back of my mind telling me that I should -lose her yet. But that was nonsense. My nerves were shaken. I could not -lose her again. I would see to that. - -"Very early, long before six, I heard Anna stirring. I remembered with -compunction that she had only one servant, and that she had said she -would get up and cook my breakfast for me herself before I started. Anna -was an excellent cook. I heard her rattling the kitchen grate and -singing as she laid the breakfast and presently there were two voices, -Anna's and another. I knew it was the voice of my lady. I felt unable to -lie still any longer, and when the motor came round at six I was already -half dressed. There was a momentary turmoil, and an opening and shutting -of doors, and then the motor went away again. I finished dressing and -went into the garden into the soft September sunshine. There was no one -about. I went back to the house and found the servant clearing away a -meal and relaying the table for me. I asked her where her mistress was, -and she said she had gone in the motor with the other lady and had left -a note for me. Sure enough, there was a scrawl stuck up on the -mantelpiece. - - "'So sorry you are not well enough to start, but don't worry your - kind heart about it. I have gone in your place and will arrange - everything. Take care of yourself, and don't wait luncheon.' - -"I got through the morning as best I could. I was abominably tired after -my sleepless night and getting up so early, and a horrible anxiety grew -and grew in me as the hours passed and Anna did not return. I had -luncheon alone, and still no Anna. Could there have been an accident? I -thought of my careful chauffeur and my new Daimler. Nothing ever -happened to Anna, but I could not tolerate the idea of any risk to my -lady. At last I heard the motor, and Anna came rushing in. - -"'It's all right,' she cried joyfully. 'Brian's farm is saved, and he -and his old mother can't thank you enough. I told them both it was all -your doing, and you had sent me as you were not well enough to go -yourself. Brown told me how poorly you were. And it was only a hundred -and fifty pounds, after all. I gave my cheque for it, as I didn't like -to wake you for a blank one. They were almost paralysed with surprise. -They could hardly thank me--I mean you--at first. Old Nancy cried, poor -old darling, and called down blessings on you.' - -"'Did your guest enjoy the drive?' I said at last. - -"'She did,' said Anna. 'And, oh! how I wished you had been well enough -to be driving with her instead of me. The world was all sky. Such a -pageant I had never seen--such vistas and fastnesses and citadels of -light. She said she should remember it always.' - -"'She is not tired, I hope?' I said. - -"'Tired! She said she was never tired. She said she would have walked -the whole way if there had been time; but of course she was delayed by -last night's storm. So she was glad of the lift, and I dropped her at -the cross roads above Riffle station. That was a splendid woman, -Gerald.' - -"I turned cold. - -"'Do you mean to say she's gone?' - -"'Yes. She sails for South America on Tuesday. I forget why she said she -was going.' - -"'And what was her name?' - -"'I haven't an idea.' - -"'Anna, you don't mean to say you let her go without finding out her -name and address?' - -"'I never thought of such a thing. She never asked any questions about -me, and I didn't ask any about her. Why should I? What does her name -matter?'" - -Sinclair groaned. - -"I lost her absolutely just when I thought I was sure of her," he said. -"She walked into my life and she walked out of it again, leaving no -trace. I haven't had the ghost of a chance." - -"Perhaps you will meet her again," I said at last, somewhat lamely. "She -may turn up suddenly, just when you least expect her." - -He shook his head. - -"I shall never find her," he said. "She's gone for ever, I know it. She -knew it. Lost! Lost! Lost!" - -And the shadowed room echoed the word "Lost!" - -I told the whole story to Mildred next day. I dare say I ought not to -have done, but I did. - -"Poor Mr. Sinclair," she said softly when I had finished. - -"Do you think he's off his head?" I said. "It sounds perfectly -ridiculous, a sort of cracked hallucination." - -"Oh, no. It's all true," said Mildred, in the same matter-of-fact tone -as if she had said the fire was out. Women are curious creatures. The -story evidently did not strike her as at all peculiar. - -"What a pity he did not stick to the high road," she said. - -"What high road, in Heaven's name?" I asked. - -"Why, his duty, of course. Don't you see, it was there she was sitting -waiting for him. It led him straight to her. She saw that, and that he -couldn't miss her. He had only got to take the train to his sister when -she was dying and he would have found his lady there. That was what she -meant when she said the road was open between them. But he went down a -side track to flirt with me and lost his chance. And the second time, if -he had only stuck to going to the rescue of his foster brother, he could -have given her a lift in his motor as Anna did, and have made himself -known to her." - -"What a preposterously goody-goody idea! I don't believe it for a -moment. Here have I been doing my duty for the last ten years, toiling -and moiling and snarling at everybody, and it never led me to you that I -can see." - -"It might have done," said Mildred, "if you hadn't been entirely -compacted of pride and uncharitableness. I made a mistake ten years ago, -and was horribly sorry for it, but you never gave me a chance of setting -it right till last Tuesday." - -"I never thought I had the ghost of a chance till last Tuesday," I said. -"Upon my honour I didn't. The first moment I saw it I simply pounced on -it." - -"Pounced on it, did you?" said Mildred scornfully "And poor me, with -hardly a rag of self-respect left from laying it in your way over and -over again for you to pounce on. Men are all alike; all as blind as -bats. I'm sure I don't know why we trouble our heads about them with -their silly ghosts and chances and pouncings." - - - - -The Goldfish - -A Favourite has no Friends. - - -It was my first professional visit to the Robinsons. I had been called -in to prescribe for Arthur Robinson, a nervous, emaciated young man, -whom I found extended on a black satin sofa, in a purple silk dressing -gown embroidered with life-sized hydrangeas. The sofa and the dressing -gown shrieked aloud his artistic temperament. - -He had a bronchial cold, and my visit was, as he said, purely -precautionary. He kept me a long time recounting his symptoms, and -assuring me that he was absolutely fearless, and then dragged himself to -his feet and led me into the magnificent studio his mother had built for -him, where his sketches were arranged on easels, and where we found his -wife, a pale, dark-eyed young creature cleaning his brushes. - -He appeared--like most egotistic people--to be greatly in need of a -listener, and he poured forth his views on art, and the form his own -message to the world would probably take. I am unfortunately quite -inartistic, but I gave him my attention. I was in no hurry, for at that -time the one perpetual anxiety that dogged my waking hours was that I -had not enough patients. - -At last I remembered that I ought not to appear to have time to spare, -and his wife took me downstairs to the drawing-room, where his mother -was awaiting us, a large, fair woman, with a kindly foolish face. - -I saw at once that I was in for another interview as long as the first. - -Mrs. Robinson did not wait for me to give an opinion on her son's -condition. She pressed me to be perfectly frank, and, before I could -open my mouth to reply, poured forth a stream of information on what was -evidently her only theme--Arthur's health. - -"I said the day before yesterday--didn't I, Blanche. 'Arthur, you have -got a cold.' And _he_ said, so like him--'No Mother, I haven't.' That is -Arthur all over. Isn't it, Blanche?" - -Blanche made no response. She sat motionless, gazing at her -mother-in-law with half absent eyes, as if she were trying--and -failing--to give her whole attention to the matter in hand. - -"Then I said in my joking way, 'Arthur, I can't have you starting a -cold, and giving it to me and Blanche.' We don't want any presents of -that kind. Do we, Blanche?" - -Blanche made no reply. Perhaps experience had taught her that it was a -waste of energy. - -"So I said, 'with your tendency to bronchitis I shall send for Doctor -Giles, and it will be a good opportunity to make his acquaintance now -that our dear Doctor Whittington has retired.'" - -It went on a long time, Mrs. Robinson beaming indiscriminately on me and -her daughter-in-law. - -At last, when she was deeply involved in Arthur's teething, I murmured a -few words and stood up to go. - -"You will promise faithfully, won't you, to look in again to-morrow." - -I said that a telephone message would summon me at any moment. As I held -out my hand I heard a loud splash. - -"Now, Dr. Giles, you are wondering what _that_ is," said Mrs. Robinson -gleefully. - -I looked round and saw at the further end of the immense be-mirrored -double drawing-room a grove of begonias, and heard a faint trickle of -water. - -"It's an aquarium," said Mrs. Robinson triumphantly, and she looked -archly at me. "Shall we tell Dr. Giles about it, Blanche?" - -"It has a goldfish in it," said Blanche, opening her lips for the first -time. - -"That was the splash you heard," continued Mrs. Robinson, as if she were -imparting a secret. "That splash was made by the goldfish." - -I gave up any thought I may have had of paying other professional calls -that morning, and allowed Mrs. Robinson to lead me to the aquarium. - -As aquariums in back drawing-rooms go it was a very superior aquarium, -designed especially for the house, so Mrs. Robinson informed me, by a -very superior young man at Maple's----quite a gentleman. - -The aquarium had gravel upon its shallow bottom, and large pointed -shells strewed upon the gravel. The water trickled in through a narrow -grating on one side, and trickled out through another on the other side. -An array of flowering begonias arranged round the irregularly shaped -basin, gave the whole what Maple's young man had pronounced to be "a -natural aspect," and effectually hid the two gratings while affording an -unimpeded view of the shells, and the inmate. - -In the shallow water, motionless, save for his opening and shutting -gills, and a faint movement of his tail, was poised a large obese -goldfish. - -I looked at him through the gilt wire-netting stretched across the basin -a few inches above the surface of the water, and it seemed as if he -looked at me. - -I wondered with vague repugnance how anyone could regard him as a pet. -To me he was wholly repulsive, swollen, unhealthy looking. - -"He knows me," said Mrs. Robinson, with a vain attempt at modesty. "He -has taken a fancy to me. Cupboard love I'm afraid, Dr. Giles. You see I -feed him every day. He just swims about or stays still if I am near, -like I am now, and he can see me. But if I am some way off and he can't -see me he tries to jump out to get to me. He never tries to jump when I -am near him. I call him Goldy, Dr. Giles, and I'm just as fond of him as -he is of me. Isn't it touching that a dumb creature should have such -affection? If it were a dog or a cat of course I could understand it, -and I once heard of a wolf that was loving, but I have always supposed -till now that fishes were cold by nature. I daresay, dear Dr. -Whittington told you about him? No! Well I am surprised, for he took -such an interest in Goldy. It was Dr. Whittington who made me put the -wire-netting over the aquarium. He said 'Some day that poor fellow will -jump out in your absence to try and get to you, and you will find him -dead on the carpet.' So we put the wire-netting across." - -"He jumps," said the young girl gazing intently at the goldfish. "When -we sit playing cards in the evening he jumps again and again. But the -wire always throws him back." - -I looked for the first time at Mrs. Robinson's daughter-in-law; her -colourless young face bent over the aquarium with an expression of -horror. And as I looked the luncheon bell rang, and with it arose a -clamour of invitation from Mrs. Robinson that I should stay for the -meal. Pot luck! Quite informal! etc., etc., but I wrenched myself away. - -A few days later I called on my predecessor, Dr. Whittington, and -found him sitting in his garden at East Sheen. He was, as always, -communicative and genial, but it was evident that his interest in his -late patients had migrated to his roses. - -"Mrs. Robinson is an egregious goose, my dear Giles, as you must have -already perceived, but she is a goose that lays golden eggs. You simply -can't go too often to please them. I went nearly every day, and they -constantly asked me to dinner. They have an excellent cook." - -"They adored you," I said. - -"They did; and some great writer has said somewhere that we must pay the -penalty for our deepest affections. I--ahem! exacted the penalty; you -see part of the results in my Malmaisons, and I advise you to follow in -my footsteps. They are made of money." - -"They look it." - -"And they are, if I may say so, a private preserve. They know nobody. I -always thought that everybody knew somebody, at any rate every one who -is wealthy, but they don't seem to know a soul. If you dine there you'll -meet a High Church parson whom they sit under, or the family solicitor, -or a servile female imbecile who was Arthur's governess, and laughs at -everything he says--no one else." - -"Didn't he go to school?" - -"Never. His mother said it would break his spirit. I've attended him -from his birth. A very costly affair _that_ was to Mrs. Robinson, for I -had to live in the house for weeks, in order to help to usher in young -Robinson, and at the same time usher out old Robinson, noisily dying of -locomotor ataxia, and drink on the ground floor. I've since come to the -conclusion that she never was legally his wife, and that is why they -know no one, and don't seem to make any effort socially. She had all the -money, there's no doubt of that, and she wasn't by any means in her -first youth. I rather think he must have been a bigamist or something -large hearted of that kind. Perhaps like Henry the Eighth he suffered -from a want of concentration of the domestic affections." - -"And what is the son like, a malade imaginaire? I've never seen anything -like his dressing gowns except in futurist pictures." - -"A malade imaginaire! Good Lord! no. Where are your professional eyes? -Arthur is his father's son, that is what is the matter with him. -Abnormal irritability and inertia, and a tendency to dessimated -sclerosis. He may have talent, I'm no judge of that; but he'll never do -anything. No sticking power. He's doomed. If ever any one was born under -an unlucky star that poor lad was. He began to cause a good deal of -anxiety when he was about twenty, made a determined attempt to go to -the devil: women, drink, drugs. In short, it looked at one moment as if -he would be his father over again without his father's vitality. His -mother was in despair. I said to her, 'My good woman, find him a wife; a -pretty young wife who will exert a good influence over him and keep him -straight.'" - -"Apparently she followed your advice." - -"She did. It was the only chance for him, and not a chance worth betting -on even then. I've often wondered how she found the girl. She makes no -end of a pet of her. She's a warmhearted old thing. She ought to have -had a dozen children, and a score of grandchildren. Introduce your wife -and family to her, Giles. She'll take to them at once. She's fond of all -young people. She's wrapped up in her son and daughter-in-law and--" - -"Her goldfish?" I suggested. - -"Her goldfish," assented Dr. Whittington, with a grin. "What an ass she -is. She actually believes the brute tries to jump out of the aquarium to -get to her." - -"You encouraged her in that belief." - -"My dear Giles," said my predecessor drily, "I have indicated to you the -path your feet should assiduously tread as regards the Robinsons. Now -come and look at my Blush Ramblers." - -Dr. Whittington was right. The Robinson family was a gold mine. It is -not for me to say whether I resorted to a pick and shovel as he had -done, or whether, resisting temptation, I held the balance even between -my duty, and the natural cupidity of a man with an imperceptible income, -and three small children. At any rate I saw a great deal of the -Robinsons. - -Arthur was a most interesting case, to which I brought a deep -professional interest. Perhaps also I was touched by his youth and good -looks, and felt compassion for the heavy handicap which life had laid -upon him. I strained every nerve to help him. Dr. Whittington had been -an old-fashioned somewhat narrow-minded practitioner close on seventy. I -was a young man, fresh from walking the hospitals. I used modern -methods, and they were at first attended with marked success. Mrs. -Robinson was at my feet. She regarded me, as did Arthur, as a -heaven-born genius. She openly blessed the day that had seen the -retirement of Dr. Whittington. She transferred her adoration from him to -me as easily as a book is transferred from one table to another. She -called on my wife; and instantly enfolded her and the children in her -capacious affections, and showered on us cream-cheeses, perambulators, -rocking-chairs, special brands of marmalade, "The Souls' Awakening" in a -plush and gilt frame, chocolate horses and dogs, eiderdown quilts and -her favourite selection from the works of Marie Corelli and Ella -Wheeler-Wilcox. - -I began to think that Dr. Whittington had not put such an exorbitant -price on the practise as I had at first surmised. - -I fought with all my strength for Arthur, and it was many months before -I allowed myself to realise that I was waging a losing battle. I had -unlimited funds at my disposal, the Robinson purse had apparently no -bottom to it. My word was law. What I ordered Mrs. Robinson obsequiously -carried out. Nevertheless, at last I had to own to myself that I was -vanquished. Arthur was doomed, as Dr. Whittington had said, and certain -sinister symptoms were making themselves more and more apparent. His -temper always moody and irritable, was becoming morose, vindictive, with -sudden outbursts of foolish mirth. The outposts were being driven in one -after another. I saw with profound discouragement that in time--perhaps -not for a long time if I could fend it off--his malady would reach the -brain. - -I encouraged him to be much in the open air. I planned expeditions by -motor to Epping Forest, to Virginia Water, on which his young wife -accompanied him. She was constantly with him, walked with him, drove -with him, played patience with him, painted with him, or rather watched -him paint until the trembling of his hand obliged him to lay down his -brush. I hardly exchanged a word with her from one week's end to -another. She seemed a dutiful, docile, lifeless sort of person, without -any of the spontaneity and gaiety of youth. Mrs. Robinson owned to me -that fond as she was of her daughter-in-law, her companionship had not -done all she hoped for her son. - -"So absent-minded, Dr. Giles, so silent, never keeps the ball rolling at -meals; the very reverse of chatty, I do assure you. I don't know what's -coming to young people now-a-days. In my youth," etc., etc. - -Gradually I conceived a slight dislike to Blanche. She seemed -colourless, lethargic, one of those people who without vitality -themselves, sap that of others, and expect to be dragged through life by -the energy of those with whom they live. It was perfectly obvious that -fat and foolish Mrs. Robinson was the only person in the house with any -energy whatever. - -Presently the whole family had influenza. Then for the first time I saw -Blanche alone. She was laid up with the malady at the same time as her -husband and mother-in-law. I went to her room, to see how she did, and -found her in bed. - -She looked very small and young and wan, in an immense gilt four poster -with a magnificent satin quilt. - -I reassured her as to her husband's condition, and then asked her a few -questions about herself, and told her that she would soon be well -again. - -She gave polite answers, but again I had that first impression of her -that she was making an effort to keep her attention from wandering, that -she felt no interest in what I was saying. - -"Have you an amusing book to pass the time?" I asked. - -She looked at a pile on the table near her. - -"Perhaps your eyes are too tired to read?" - -"No," she said, "I had forgotten they were there. I don't care for -reading." - -Her eyes left the books and travelled back to the other end of the large -ornate room, overfilled with richly gilt Empire furniture. - -I turned and followed her rapt gaze. - -There were half-a-dozen yellow chrysanthemums in a dull green jar on a -Buhl chiffonier. The slanting November sunshine fell on them, and threw -against the white wall a shadow of them. It was a shadow transfigured, -intricate yet vague, mysterious, beautiful exceedingly. - -I should never have noticed it if she had not looked at it with such -intentness. For a moment I saw it with her eyes. I was touched; I hardly -knew why. All the apathy was gone from her face. There was passion in -it. She looked entirely exhausted, and yet it was the first time I had -seen her really alive. - -The sunshine went out suddenly, and she sighed. - -"You may get up to-morrow, and go downstairs," I said. "It is dull for -you alone up here." - -"I like being here," she said. - -Was she, like so many women, "contrary?" Always opposing the suggestions -of others, never willing to fall in with family arrangements. - -"Don't you want to see the goldfish?" I hazarded, speaking as if to a -child. "He must be lonely now Mrs. Robinson is laid up. And who will -give him his crumbs?" - -"No, I don't want to see him," she said passionately. "I never look at -him if I can help it. Oh Dr. Giles, everyone seems to shut their eyes -who comes into this house--everyone--but don't you see how dreadful it -is to be a prisoner?" - -She looked at me with timid despairing eyes, which yet had a flicker of -hope in them. I patted her hand gently, and found she still had a little -fever. - -"But he gets plenty of crumbs," I said soothingly, "and it is a nice -aquarium with fresh water running through all the time. I think he is a -very lucky goldfish." - -She looked fixedly at me, and the faint colour in her cheeks faded, the -imploring look vanished from her eyes. - -She leaned back among her lace pillows. - -"That is what Mrs. Robinson says," she said with a quivering lip, and I -perceived that I was relegated to the same category in her mind as her -mother-in-law. - -She withdrew her thin hand and retreated once more behind the frail -bastion of silence from which she had looked out at me for all these -months; from which she had for one moment emerged, only to creep back to -its forlorn shelter. - -A few days later Mrs. Robinson was convalescent, sitting up in bed in a -garish cap festooned with cherry-coloured ribbons, and a silk wadded -jacket to match. I questioned her about her daughter-in-law, in whom for -the first time I felt interested. It needed no acumen on my part to draw -forth the whole of Blanche's short history. One slight question was all -that was necessary to turn on the cock of Mrs. Robinson's confidences. -The stream gushed forth at once, it overflowed, it could hardly be -turned off again. I was drenched. - -"How long has Blanche been married? Two years, Dr. Giles. She's just -nineteen. That's her age--nineteen. Seventeen and three days when she -married. Such a romance. _She_ was seventeen and Arthur was twenty-two. -Five years difference. Just right, and you never saw two young people so -much in love with each other. And such a beautiful couple. It was a love -match. Made in heaven. Just like his father and me over again. That is -what I said to them. I said on their wedding day: 'Well, I hope you -will be as happy as your father and I were.'" - -There was not much information to be retrieved from Mrs. Robinson's -gushings, but in the course of the next few days I hooked up out of a -flood of extraneous matter a few facts which had apparently escaped her -notice. - -Blanche it seemed was the niece of a former Senior Curate of St. -Botolph's. "A splendid preacher, Dr. Giles, and a real churchman, high -mass and confession, and incense, just the priest for St. Botolph's, a -dedicated celibate and vegetarian--such a saintly example to us all." - -It appeared obvious to me, though not to Mrs. Robinson, that the -vegetarian celebate had been embarrassed as to what to do with his -niece, when at the age of seventeen she had been suddenly left on his -hands owing to the inconvenient death of her widowed mother. Evidently -Blanche had not had a farthing. - -"But he was such a wide-minded man. Of course he wanted dear Blanche to -lead the highest life, and to dedicate herself as he had done, and to go -into a sisterhood. But she cried all the time when he explained it to -her, and said she could not paint in a sisterhood. And she didn't seem -to fancy illuminating missals, or church embroidery, just what he had -thought she would like. He was always thinking what would make her -happy. And then it turned out there was some question of expense as well -which he had not foreseen, so he gave up the idea. And just at that time -I had a lot of trouble with Arthur--with drink--between you and me. It -was such a hot summer. I am convinced it was the heat that started it; -too much whiskey in the soda water--and other things as well. Arthur was -got hold of and led away. And Dr. Whittington advised me to find a nice -young wife for him. And I told Mr. Copton--that was the priest's name, -all about it--I always told him everything, and he was _most_ kind, and -interested, and so understanding, and he agreed a good wife was just -what Arthur wanted, and marriage was an honourable estate, those were -his very words. And Arthur was fond of painting, and Blanche was fond of -painting too, simply devoted to it, and they had lessons together in a -private studio and--" - -It went on and on for ever. - -"And her uncle gave her away. He was quite distressed that he could not -afford a trousseau, for he was Rector Designate of Saint Oressa's at -Liverpool, but I told him not to trouble about that. I gave her -everything just as if she had been my own child. I spent hundreds on her -trousseau, and she was married in my Brussels lace veil that I wore at -my own wedding. I just took to her as my own child from the first. And -would you believe it before he went away on his honeymoon, Arthur -brought me the goldfish to keep me company. In a bowl it was. Such a -quaint idea, wasn't it, so like Arthur. They are my two pets, Blanche -and Goldy." - -I am not an artistic person, but even I was beginning to have doubts -about Arthur's talent. It seemed somehow unnatural that he was always -having his work enlarged by a third or a fifth, or both. Every picture -he had painted, before his hands trembled too much to hold a brush, was -faithfully copied and enlarged by his wife. She reproduced his dreary -compositions with amazing exactitude, working for hours together in a -corner of his studio, while he lay pallid, with half-closed eyes on the -black satin sofa, watching her. - -I had always taken for granted they were a devoted couple. Mrs. Robinson -was always saying so, and it was obvious that Arthur never willingly -allowed his wife out of his sight. - -However, one morning I came into the studio when there was trouble -between them. I saw at once it was one of his worst days. - -He was standing before an enlargement of one of his pictures livid with -anger. - -"How often am I to to tell you that a copy must be exact," he stammered -in his disjointed staccato speech. "If you quote a line of poetry do -you alter one of the words? If I trust you to reproduce a picture surely -you know you are not at liberty to change it." - -She was as pale as he was. She looked dully at him, and then at her own -canvas on the easel. - -"I forgot," she said, in a suffocated voice. - -I looked at the original and the copy, and even my stolid heart beat a -little quicker. - -The original represented a young girl--his wife had evidently sat for -him--playing on a harp, while a man listened, leaning against a table, -with a bowl of chrysanthemums upon it. - -The copy was much larger than the original, and its wooden smugness was -faithfully reproduced. The faulty drawing of the two figures seemed to -have been accentuated by doubling its size. It was an amazingly exact -reproduction, except in one particular. In Blanche's copy she had made -the shadow of the chrysanthemums fall upon the wall. It was a wonderful, -a mysterious shadow, _I had seen it before_. - -"I hadn't indicated the slightest shadow," Arthur continued. "There is -no sunshine in the room. You have deliberately falsified my -composition." - -"I did it without thinking," said Blanche shivering. "It is a mistake." - -"A mistake," he said sullenly. "Your heart isn't in your work, that is -the truth. You don't really care to help me to find my true -expression." - -And he took the canvas from the easel and tore it in two. - -Did he half know, did some voice in the back of his twisted brain cry -out to him that his part of the picture was hopelessly mediocre and out -of drawing, that the only value it possessed was the shadow of the -chrysanthemums? Was there jealousy in his rage? Who shall say! - -I butted in at this point, and made a pretext for sending Blanche out of -the room. - -"Now, my dear fellow," I said confidentially, "don't in future try to -associate your wife with your art. It is quite beyond her. Women, sir, -have no artistic feeling. The home, dress, amusement that is their -department. 'Occupy till I come,' might well have been said of feminine -talent. It does occupy--till--ahem! _we_ arrive. When a woman is happily -married like your wife she doesn't care a fig for anything else. Let her -share your lighter moments, your walks and drives, allow her to solace -your leisure. The bow, sir, must not be always at full stretch. But -promise me you won't allow her to copy any more of your pictures." - -"Never again," said Arthur sepulchrally, stretched face downwards on the -satin sofa. - -I picked up the two pieces of torn canvas. A sudden idea seized me. - -"And now," I said, "I shall say a few words of reprimand to Mrs. -Robinson. You need not fear that I shall be too severe with her." - -Arthur made no movement, and I left him, and after taking the torn -picture to my car I climbed to the top of the house where I suspected I -should find Blanche. - -Her mother-in-law had reluctantly given her leave to use an attic lumber -room, and, amid a litter of old trunks and derelict furniture and -cardboard boxes, she had made a little clearing near the window, where -she worked feverishly at her painting in her rare leisure. - -I had seen the room once when I had helped the nurse to carry down a -screen put away there, and suddenly needed in one of Arthur's many -illnesses. I had been touched by the evident attempt to make some sort -of refuge in that large house, where there were several empty rooms on -the lower floors, but--perhaps--no privacy. - -I quickly found that Mrs. Robinson tacitly disapproved of Blanche -working in the attic. Her kind face became almost hard when she spoke of -the hours her daughter-in-law spent there, when her sick husband wanted -her downstairs. - -I tapped at the door, but there was no answer, and I went in. Blanche -was sitting near the window on a leather trunk. - -I expected to find her distressed, but her eyes, as they were raised to -meet mine, were untroubled. An uncomprehending calm dwelt in them. I -saw that she had already forgotten her husband's anger in her complete -absorption in something else. - -For the first time it struck me that her mental condition was not quite -normal. Had she then no memory; or did she continually revert, as soon -as she was left to herself to some world of her own imagination, where -her harassed, bewildered soul was refreshed? I remembered the look I had -often seen in her face, the piteous expression of one anxiously -endeavouring and failing to fix her attention. - -She was giving the whole of it now to a picture on a low easel before -her. I drew near and looked at it also. - -It was a portrait of the goldfish. It was really exactly like him with -his eye turned up on the look out for crumbs. He was outlined against a -charming assortment of foreign shells, strewn artistically on a zinc -floor. The aquarium was encircled by a pretty little grove of cowslips -and primroses, which gave the picture a cheerful and pleasing aspect. - -"It is lovely," I said. - -"He is a lucky goldfish, isn't he?" she said apathetically. - -I pondered long that night over Blanche. I reproached myself that I had -not perceived earlier that she was overwrought. When I came to think of -it her life was deeply overshadowed by her husband's illness. Was it -possible that she was the more talented of the two, and that it was not -congenial to her to spend so much of her time docilely copying Arthur's -pictures? I had never thought of that before. I knew nothing about art -myself, but I could find out. I was becoming much more occupied by this -time, and one of my patients was the celebrated artist, M., whose slow -death I was trying to make as painless as possible. - -A day or two later I laid before him the picture Arthur had torn in two. - -I can still see M. sitting in his arm-chair in the ragged dressing gown -which he wore day and night, unshaved, wrinkled, sixty. - -He threw the larger half of the canvas on the floor, and held the piece -containing the chrysanthemums and their shadow in his thin shaking talon -of a hand, moving it now nearer now further away from his half blind -blood-shot eyes. - -I began to explain that only the chrysanthemums were by the wife of the -painter of the picture, but he brushed me aside. - -"She can see," he said at last. "And she's honest. I was honest once. -She can't always say all she sees--who can--but she sees _everything_. -Bring me something more of hers." - -Reader, after immense cogitation I decided to take him two of Arthur's -compositions, the couple which after hours of agitated vacillation he -considered to be his best. They were all spread out in his studio, and I -had to assist in his decision. He had on several occasions--knowing I -attended the great man--hinted to me that he should like M. to see his -work and advise him upon it, but I had never taken the hint. Mrs. -Robinson was only surprised that he had not pressed to see her son's -pictures earlier. She and Arthur evidently thought I had kept them from -the famous painter's notice until now, as, indeed, I had. - -"And I must take something of yours too," I said kindly to Blanche as -she put the two selected works of art into a magnificent portfolio. - -"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Robinson. "Blanche paints sweetly too, but -mostly copies. She's a wonderful hand at copying." - -"I have nothing," said Blanche, "except the goldfish." - -"Then I must take him," I said. This was regarded as a great joke by -Arthur and his mother, and they could hardly believe I was in earnest -until I sent Blanche for it. - -"It's Goldy to the very life," said Mrs. Robinson fondly, "and the -shells and everything exact. Such a beautiful home for him." - -Arthur looked gloomily at the little picture, and for a moment I thought -he would forbid my taking it, but I wrapped it up with decision, put it -in the portfolio with the others, and departed. - -I found M. as usual in his armchair in his studio, leaning back livid -and breathless, endeavouring so he whispered "to get forward with his -dying." - -I assured him he was getting forward at a great pace. - -"Not quick enough for me, Giles," he said, "and you won't help me out, -d---- you." - -I put the goldfish on a chair in front of him. He looked at it for some -moments without seeing it, and then reared himself slowly in his chair. - -He began to speak in his broken husky voice, and for an instant I -thought he had gone mad. - -"Ha!" he said, leaning forward towards the picture. "You're portrayed, -sir. Your unsympathetic personality, your unhealthy spots, your dorsal -redness, and your abdominal pallor, your sullen eye turned upwards to -your captors and their crumbs, all these are rendered with lynx-eyed -fidelity. Privacy is not for you. Like Marie Antoinette, you are always -in the full view of your gaolers." - -He paused to take breath. - -"This is England, a free country where we lock into tiny prisons for our -amusement the swiftest of God's creatures, birds, squirrels, rabbits, -mice, fishes. You are silhouetted against a background of incongruous -foreign shells strewn on a zinc floor: the nightmare of a mad -conchologist. What tenderness, what beauty in the cowslips and -primroses which encircle your prison and almost hide the iron -grating--but not quite. The rapture of Spring is in them. They bloom, -they bloom, every bud is opening. The contrast between their joyous -immobility and your enforced immobility is complete. Nothing remains to -you, to you once swift, once beautiful, once free, nothing remains to -you in your corpulent despair except--the pleasures of the table." - -M. leaned back exhausted, trembling a little. - -"It is certainly a work of the imagination," I hazarded, "if you can -read all that into it." - -"Giles, my good fellow, confine yourself to your own sphere, how to keep -in life against my will and all laws of humanity my miserable worn out -carcase. That is not a work of the imagination. It is the work of close -and passionate observation, observation so close, and of such integrity -that it fears nothing, evades nothing. It is tremendous." - -There was a moment's silence. I was a little hurt. I knew I was ignorant -about art, but after all I had brought the picture to M.'s notice. - -"How old is she?" - -"Nineteen." - -"I've never had a pupil, but if I could live a few months longer I would -take her. I suppose she's starving. I nearly starved at her age. I'll -give her a hundred for it, and I'll see to its future. Send her round -here to-morrow morning." He scrawled and flung me a cheque for a hundred -guineas. - -"Now, understand," I said, "I will bring the girl to see you to-morrow -on one condition only, that you buy her husband's 'Last Farewell,' -and 'The dawn of love' for fifty pounds each. They are in this -portfolio--and 'The Goldfish' by his wife for five. Is that a bargain?" - -"If you say so it is. You always get your own way. I suppose he's -jealous of her." - -"He's just beginning to be, and he doesn't do things by halves." - -Perhaps the happiest moment of poor Arthur's tawdry inflamed existence -was when I told him that the great M. had bought his pictures. The -latent suspicion and smouldering animosity died out of his eyes. He -became radiant, boyish, for the moment sane. Perhaps he had looked like -that before the shadow fell. Blanche, too, was suffused with delight. -Mrs. Robinson, hurrying in with an armful of lilac orchids, was -overjoyed. She burst forth in loud jubilation, not unlike the screeches -of the London "syrens" when they herald the coming in of the New Year. -She it seemed had _always_ known, _always_ seen her boy's genius. He -would get into the Academy now, from which jealousy had so long kept him -out. He would be hung on the line. He would be recognised. He would be -as great as M. himself, greater, for she and others among her friends -had never fancied his pictures. They had not the lofty moral tone of -Arthur's. - -I produced the cheque. - -"One hundred pounds for Arthur," I said, "and five pounds for the -goldfish." - -Blanche started violently and looked incredulously at me. - -Arthur's jaw dropped. Then he said patronizingly, "Well done, Blanche," -and leaned back pallid and exhausted on the satin couch. - -"I must see him," he said over and over again as his mother laid a warm -rug over his knees, and his wife put a cushion behind his head. "He -could tell me things, tricks of the trade. Art is all a trick." - -"He found no fault with your work," I said, "but--don't be discouraged, -Blanche--he did criticise yours. He said you could not put down all you -saw." - -"What have I always told you, Blanche?" said Arthur solemnly. "You put -down what you _don't_ see. Look at that shadow where I had not put one." - -"He is really too ill to see anyone, but he will speak to Blanche for a -few minutes." I turned to her. "You must not mind if he is severe. He -is a drastic critic. Would you like to put on your hat and come with me? -I am going on to him now." - -I had some difficulty in getting her out of the house. Mrs. Robinson -wanted to come too. Arthur was determined that she should wait till he -was better, and they could go together. But I had long since established -my authority in that household. I had my way. - -Blanche asked no questions as we drove along. She did not seem the least -surprised that the greatest painter of his day had bought her husband's -pictures. Was she lacking in intelligence? Was there some tiny screw -loose in her mind? - -M. had not made a toilet as I half expected he would. When we came in he -was standing with his back to us, leaning against the mantelpiece, his -unshaved chin on his hands. His horrible old dressing gown, stained with -paint, and showing numerous large patches of hostile colours, clung to -him more tightly than ever. His decrepitness struck me afresh. He -looked what, indeed, he was, an old and depraved man, repulsive, -formidable--unwashed--a complex wreck, dying indomitably on his feet. - -"And so you can do things like that," he said, turning towards Blanche a -face contracted with pain, and pointing a lean finger at the goldfish, -and the chrysanthemum shadow, propped side by side on the mantel piece. - -"Yes." - -"Where were you taught?" - -She mentioned the school where she had studied. - -"Why did you leave it?" - -"Because Mother died, and I had not any money to go on with my -education." - -"And so you married for a home I suppose," he snarled, showing his black -teeth, "for silken gowns and delicate fare and costly furs such as you -are wearing now." - -She did not answer. - -"You had better have gone on the streets and stuck to your painting." - -Blanche's dark eyes met the painter's horrible leer without flinching. - -"I wish I had," she said. - -They had both forgotten me. They were intent upon each other. - -And she who never spoke about herself said to this stranger: - -"I married because I did not want to go into a sisterhood, and because -Arthur said he understood what I felt about painting, and that he felt -the same, and that when we were married we would both study under S., -and I was grateful to him, and I thought I loved him. But S. would not -take him and wanted to take me. And Arthur was dreadfully angry, and -would not let me go without him. And the years passed, hundreds and -hundreds of years, and Arthur changed to me. And he has to be humoured. -And now--I copy his pictures. I enlarge them. Sometimes I decrease them, -but not often. He likes to watch me doing them. He does not care for me -to be doing anything else." - -There was a long silence. - -They stood looking at each other, and it seemed as if the sword that had -pierced her soul pierced his also. - -"Leave all and follow me," said the painter at last. "That is the voice -of art, as well as of Jesus of Nazareth. That is the law. There is no -middle course. You have not left all, you have not followed. You have -dallied and faltered and betrayed your gift. You have denied your Lord. -And your sin has found you out. You are miserable; you deserve to be -miserable." - -She made no answer. - -"But you are at the end of your tether. I know what I know. You can't go -on. You are nineteen and your life is unendurable to you. You are -touching the fringe of despair. Break away from your life before it -breaks you. Shake its dust from off your feet. Forsake all and find -peace in following your art." - -"You might as well say to the goldfish, jump out," said Blanche, white -to the lips, pointing to the picture. - -"I do say to him, 'Jump out.' Leap in the dark, and risk dying on a -vulgar Axminster carpet, and being trodden into it, rather than pine in -prison on sponge cake." - -"Yes," said Blanche fiercely, "but there is the wire netting. It's not -in the picture, but _you know it's there_. He jumps and jumps. Haven't I -said so in the picture! And it throws him back. You know that. I was -like him once. I used to jump, but I always fell back. I don't jump any -more now." - -And then, without any warning, she burst into a paroxysm of tears. - -For a moment I stared at her stupified, and then slipped out of the room -to fetch a glass of water. - -When I came back M. was sunk down in his armchair, and she was crouching -on the ground before him almost beside herself, holding him by the feet. - -"Let me live with you," she gasped half distraught. "Arthur hates me, -and I'm frightened of him. He's mad, mad, mad, only Dr. Giles pretends -he isn't, and Mrs. Robinson pretends; everything in that dreadful house -is pretence, nothing real anywhere. Let me live with you. Then he'll -divorce me, and you needn't marry me. I don't want to be married. I -won't be any trouble to you. No pretty clothes, no amusements, no -expense. I don't want anything except a little time to myself, to -paint." - -"You poor soul," said the painter faintly, and in his harsh voice was an -infinite compassion. - -"Help me to jump out," she shrieked, clinging to him. - -"My child," he said. "I cannot help you. I am dying. I could not live -long enough even to blacken your name. I have failed others in the past -whom I might have succoured. Now I fail you as I failed them. There is -no help in me." - -He closed his eyes, but nevertheless two very small tears crept from -beneath the wrinkled lids, and stood in the furrows of his cheeks. - -She trembled and then rose slowly to her feet, and obediently took the -glass of water which I proffered to her. She drank a little, and then -placed the glass carefully on the table and drew on her gloves. I saw -that she had withdrawn once more after a terrible bid for freedom into -her fortress of reserve. She was once more the impassive, colourless -creature whom I had seen almost daily for a year without knowing in the -least until to-day what she really was. - -"I ought to be going back now," she said to me. - -"I will take you home," I said. - -She went slowly up to M. and stood before him. I had never seen her look -so beautiful. - -The old man looked at her fixedly. - -"I made up my mind," she said, "after I spoke to Dr. Giles that I would -never try to jump out any more, but you see I did." - -"Forgive me," he said brokenly, holding out a shaking hand. - -"It's not your fault," she said, clasping his hand in both of hers. "You -are good, and you understand. You are the only person I have ever met -who would help me if you could. But no one can help me. No one." - -And very reverently, very tenderly, she kissed his leaden hand and laid -it down upon his knee. - -As I took Blanche home I said to her: - -"And when did you appeal to me, and when did I repulse you?" - -"When I spoke to you about Goldy and you weren't sorry, you did not mind -a bit. You only said he was a lucky goldfish." - -"And what in Heaven's name had that to do with you?" - -She looked scornfully at me as if she were not going to be entrapped -into speaking again. - -I saw that she had--so to speak--ruled me out of her life. Perhaps when -I first came to that unhappy house nearly a year ago she had looked to -me as a possible helper, had weighed me in the balance, and had found me -wanting. - -I was cut to the heart, for deep down, at the bottom of my mind I saw at -last, that I _had_ failed her. - -She might be, she probably was, slightly deranged, but, nevertheless, -she had timidly, obscurely sought my aid, and had found no help in me. - -M. died the following evening, after trying to die throughout the whole -day. I never left him until, at last, late at night, he laid down his -courage, having no further need of it, and reached the end of his -ordeal. - -Next morning after breakfast I went as usual to the Robinson's house, -and, according to custom, was shown into the drawing-room. Now that M. -was out of his agony my mind reverted to Blanche. My wife and children -were going to the seaside, and my wife had eagerly agreed to take -Blanche with her, if she could be spared. - -"But they won't let her go," said the little woman. - -"They must if I say it's necessary," I said with professional dignity. I -wondered as I waited in the immense Robinson drawing-room how best I -could introduce the subject. Half involuntarily I approached the -aquarium. As I drew near my foot caught on something slippery and stiff. -I looked down, and saw it was the dead body of the goldfish on the -carpet. I picked it up, and was staring at it when Mrs. Robinson came -in. She gave a cry when she saw it, and wrung her hands. - -"Put him back in the water," she shrieked. "He may be still alive." - -I put him back into his cell, but it had no longer any power over that -poor captive. "Goldy" floated grotesque and upside down on the surface -of the water. His release had come. - -"He must have jumped out to get to me when I was not there," sobbed Mrs. -Robinson, the easy tears coursing down her fat cheeks. "My poor faithful -loving little pet. But someone has taken the wire off the aquarium. Who -could have been so wicked? Downright cruel I call it." - -The wire, true enough, had been unhooked, and was laid among the -hyacinths on the water's edge. - -"Where is Blanche?" I asked. "I want to talk to you about her. I do not -think she is well, and I should advise--" - -"That was just what I was going to tell you when I came in and saw that -poor little darling dead in your hand. I am dreadfully worried about -Blanche. She has been out all night. She hasn't come in yet." - -"Out all night?" A vague trouble seized me. - -"Yes," said Mrs. Robinson, "all night. Would you have thought it -possible? But between you and me it's not the first time. Once long ago, -just before you came to us, she did just the same. She--actually--ran -away: ran away from her husband and me, and her beautiful home, though -we had done everything in the world to make her happy. She went to her -uncle at Liverpool, who never liked her. He telegraphed to us at once, -and he brought her back next day. He spoke to her most beautifully, and -left her with us. She seemed quite dazed at first, but she got round it -and became as usual, always very silent and dull. Not the companion for -Arthur. No brightness or gaiety. Blanche has been a great disappointment -to me, tho' I've never shown it, and I'm not one to bear malice, I've -always made a pet of her. But between you and me, Dr. Giles, Arthur is -convinced that she is not quite right in her head, and that she ought to -be shut up." - -"But she is shut up now," I said involuntarily. - -She stared at me amazed. - -A servant brought in a telegram. - -"I telegraphed to her uncle first thing this morning," said Mrs. -Robinson, "to ask if she was with him. Now we shall hear what he says." - -She opened the envelope and spread out the contents. - -"She's _not_ with him," she said. "Then Dr. Giles, where _is_ she? Where -can she be?" - -Later in the day we knew that Blanche had taken refuge in the -Serpentine. - -The two pets had fled together. She had made the way of escape easy for -her weaker brother. - - * * * * * - -It was early in May. There was the usual crush at the Academy. I elbowed -my way through the crowd to look at Serjeant's majestic portrait of M. -Near it on the line hung the picture of the goldfish. - -A long-haired student and a little boy were staring at it. - -"Mummy," said the child, running to a beautifully dressed slender woman -looking at the Serjeant, "I want a goldfish, too." - -"Well, darling, you shall have one," she said, and, turning to the young -man who accompanied her, she added, "You never saw a child so fond of -animals as Cedric." - - - - -The Stars in their Courses - - -I was always somewhat amazed when I came to think of it, but I hardly -ever did think of it, that my cousin, Jimmy Cross, should have married -Gertrude Bingham. There seemed no reason for such a desperate step on -his part. But if one is going to be taken aback by the alliances of -one's friends and relations one would journey through life in a -continual state of astonishment, and the marriage service especially -exhorts the married "not to be afraid with any amazement," which shows -that that is the natural emotion evoked by contemplation of the holy -estate, and that it is our duty not to give way to it. - -I said there seemed no reason for the lethargic Jimmy to take this step, -especially as he had been married before, and had enjoyed a serene -widowhood for some years. But what I forgot was that he never did take -any step at all in either marriage. He just sat still. - -The first time his Mother arranged everything, and the result, if dull, -was not actually unpleasant. - -The second time Gertrude Bingham took all the necessary steps with -precision and determination. Now and then it certainly seemed as if he -would take alarm and run away, but he did not. He remained seated. - -It is as impossible for a man rooted in inertia to achieve a marriage -which implies an effort, as it is for him to evade a marriage, the -avoidance of which requires an effort. He remains recumbent both when he -ought to pursue and when he ought to fly. He is the prey of energetic -kidnappers. - -Gertrude was a great astrologer and conversed in astrological terms, -which I repeat, but which I don't pretend to understand. She told me -(after the wedding) that when she discovered that Jimmy's moon in the -house of marriage was semi-sextile to her Venus she had known from the -first that their union was inevitable. I think Jimmy felt it so too, and -that it was no use struggling. To put it mildly, she placed no obstacles -in the way of this inevitable union, and it took place amid a general -chorus of rather sarcastic approval from both families. - -What a mother Gertrude would make to Joan, Jimmy's rather spoilt girl of -twelve, what a wife to Jimmy himself, what an excellent influence in the -parish, what an energetic addition to our sleepy neighbourhood. We were -told we were going to be stirred up. I never met the second Mrs. Cross -till Jimmy brought her down as a bride to call on me in my cottage near -his park gates. She at once inspired me with all the terror which very -well-dressed people with exactly the right hair and earrings always -arouse in me. She was good-looking, upright, had perfect health and -teeth and circulation, did breathing exercises, had always just finished -the book of the moment, and was ready with an opinion on it, not a -considered opinion--but an opinion. During her first call I discovered -that she had, for many years, held strong views about the necessity of -school life for only children, and was already on the look-out for a -seminary for Joan. - -"It is in her horoscope," she said to me, as we walked in my orchard -garden, too much engrossed with Joan's future to notice my wonderful -yellow lupins. "Her Mercury and ruling planet are in Aquarius, and that -means the companionship of her own age. I shall not delay a day in -finding the best school that England can produce." - -I need hardly say that such an establishment protruded itself on to Mrs. -Cross's notice, with the greatest celerity, and thither the long-legged -nail-biting, pimply, round-shouldered Joan repaired, and became a -reformed character, with a clear complexion and a back almost as flat as -her step-mother's. - -"Wonderful woman," Jimmy used to say somewhat ruefully to me, sitting -on the low stone wall which divides my little velvet lawn from my bit of -woodland. "Gertrude has been the making of Joan." - -"And of you, too, my dear Jimmy," I remarked. - -He sighed. - -It was perfectly true. She had been the making of him, just as she had -been the making of the Manor garden, of the boot and shoe club, the -boys' carving class, the Confirmation candidates' reading class, the -mothers' working parties, the coal club, the Church members' lending -library. The only misgiving that remained in one's mind after she had -been the making of all these things was that it seemed a pity that they -were all so obviously machine-made, turned out to pattern. - -Personally, I should have preferred that they should have been treated -less conventionally, or let alone. My own course and Jimmy's would, of -course, have been to have left them alone. We left everything alone. But -Gertrude always had a ready-made scheme for everything and everybody. -She even had a scheme of salvation into which the Deity was believed to -be compressed. I did not mind much the industrious efforts she expended -on Jimmy, who was now an inattentive Magistrate and member of the County -Council, and wobbly chairman of his own Parish Council, writing an -entirely illegible hand, which perhaps did not matter much as he never -answered letters. But I felt acutely distressed when she reconstructed -the rambling old Manor garden entirely. All its former pleasant -characteristics were wrenched out of it. It was drawn and quartered, and -then put together anew in compartments. It contained everything; a -Japanese garden, a rock garden, a herb garden, a sunk garden, a -wilderness, a rose garden, a pergola, three pergolas, just as the -village now contained, a boot club, a coal club, a--but I think I have -said that before. - -In the course of time she presented Jimmy with two most remarkable -children, at least she said they were remarkable: and from their -horoscopes I gathered the boy would probably become a prime minister, -and the girl a musical genius. We don't actually know yet what form -their greatness will take, for as I write this they are still greedy, -healthy children, who come out in plum-pudding rash regularly at -Christmas. - -I knew her well by the time the garden had been given its _coup de -grâce_, and I told her after I had been dragged all over it that she had -a constructive mind. (I have never been a particularly truthful person, -but my career as a liar dates from Jimmy's marriage with Gertrude.) - -My remark pleased her. She smiled graciously and said, "Ah, I had not -got Mars rising in Capricorn for nothing when I was born." - -As we became more intimate she insisted on drawing out my horoscope, and -after a week of intense mental activity produced a sort of cart wheel on -paper at which I looked with respectful misgiving. - -"I hope it does not say anything about my living anywhere except here," -I said anxiously. - -I had long had a fear at the back of my mind that she might need my -cottage for some benevolent scheme. Jimmy, who had always been fond of -me, had let it to me at a nominal rent in his easygoing widower days, -because the mild climate suited my rheumatism, and my society suited -him. Round the cottage had gradually sprung up what many, though not -Gertrude, considered a beautiful garden. - -"No travelling at all," she said, "no movement of any kind. And I am -afraid, Anne, I can't hold out the slightest hope of a marriage for -you." - -"Since I turned forty I had begun to fear I might remain unwedded," I -remarked. - -"No sign of marriage," she said, exploring the cart wheel, "and there -must have been considerable lethargy in the past when openings of this -kind did occur. Your Venus seems for many years to have been in square -to Neptune, and that would tend to make these chances slip away from -you." - -"I endeavoured to pounce on them," I said humbly. "My dear mother's -advice to me as to matrimony was 'clutch while you can'--I assure you I -left no stone unturned." - -"In that case you probably turned the wrong ones," she said judicially. -"And I am sorry to tell you that I don't see any good fortune coming to -you either, and rather bad health. In short, you will have a severe -illness next spring. March especially will be a bad month for you. Your -Moon will be going through Virgo, the sign of sickness." - -It generally was. I don't mean my moon, but March. I rarely got through -the winter without an attack of rheumatism at the end of it. - -All in a moment, as it seemed to me, after a few springs and autumns and -attacks of rheumatism, Gertrude's two children were leaving the nursery, -and Joan was returning home from school to be introduced into society. -Gertrude began to look round for a governess who would also be a -companion for Joan. I helped her to find one. It was a case of nepotism. -I recommended my own niece, Dulcibella, who had just returned from the -completion of her education at Dresden. Dulcibella's impecunious parents -had, of course, both died and left her to battle with life--and me, -alone, her only heritage being a wild rose prettiness and dark eyes like -an Alderney calf's. - -She was well educated. I had been able to achieve that owing to the -cheap rate at which I lived, thanks to Jimmy. But I had thoroughly made -up my mind that I was not going to have her twirling her thumbs under my -roof. She was close on eighteen, and must now earn her own living. - -She was staying with me on a visit when Gertrude told me of her -requirements. Gertrude's two stout children were at that moment sitting -on the lawn blowing soap bubbles with Dulcibella. Jimmy had been engaged -in the same pursuit as his offspring five minutes earlier, but had -departed. Gertrude looked at the group critically. - -"Your niece does not look strong," she said dubiously. - -"She isn't." - -"Or energetic." - -"She's not." - -"Is she really firm with children?" - -"I should not think so, but you are a better judge of character than I -am." - -Conscience pricked as I said the words, but I had become inured to its -prickings. - -"I have, of course, studied human nature," she said slowly, still -looking at the pretty group on the lawn. - -I have not yet met a fellow creature who does not think he has studied -human nature. Yet how few turn the pages of that open book. And out of -that few the greatest number scan it upside down. - -"I could make a truer estimate," she continued, "if I drew out her -horoscope. I go by that more than by my own fallible judgment. I may -err, but I have never known astrology to fail." - - * * * * * - -Dulcie was duly engaged as governess on approval for three months, on -the strength of her horoscope. Before she went to the Manor House I made -a few remarks to her to which she listened decorously, her eyes -reverently fixed on my face. - -"You will leave with me that remarkably pretty lilac muslin you appeared -in yesterday--and the sun-bonnet. You will make yourself look as like a -district visitor as possible, thick where you ought to be thin, and thin -where you ought to be thick. Don't cry, Dulcie. I am endeavouring to -help you. Be thankful you have an aunt like me. Who educated you?" - -"You did." Sob. Sob. - -"Well, now I am finishing your education. You want to earn your living, -I suppose. You know that I only have a small annuity, that I have not a -farthing to leave you." - -"Yes, yes, Aunt Anne." - -"Well, then, don't look prettier than that square Joan, and don't let -the wave in your hair show." - -The Alderney calf eyes brimmed anew with tears. Dulcie drooped her pin -of a head. Like that defunct noodle, her mother, she lived solely for -clothes and poetry and the admiration of the uncorseted sex. She had -come into the world a little late. She conformed to the best Victorian -ideals, but there are men still lurking in secluded rural districts if -one could but find them, to whom her cheap appeal might be irresistible. -I had hopes she might secure a husband if she took a country engagement. -I proceeded with my discourse. It spread over Jimmy as well. I did not -bid her pure eyes look into depths of depravity but I did make her -understand that Mrs. Cross was becoming rather stout and middle-aged, -and that if Mr. Cross blew soap bubbles in the schoolroom too -frequently, she, Dulcie, might find that her French accent was not good -enough for her young charges. - -Dulcie has not the faintest gleam of humour, but she is docility itself. - -She appeared next day staid, flat-figured, almost unpretty, her -wonderful hair smoothed closely over her small ears. - -I blessed her, and said as a parting word: - -"Take an interest in astrology." - -And then the gardener wheeled her luggage on the barrow to the Manor, -and Dulcie crept timidly behind it to her first situation. - -In order that this tragic story, for it is a tragedy, should not expand -into a novel, I will say at once that she was a complete success. That -was because she did exactly as I told her. As a rule, very silly people -never will do what they are told. But in that one point Dulcie was no -fool. - -She was lamentably weak with the children. She had no art of teaching. -She did not encourage Joan to preserve a burnished mind, but she took to -astrology like a duck to water. From the first she was deeply interested -in it, and believed in it with flawless credulity. - -"Dulcie," said Gertrude with approval, "has a very alert mind for one so -young. Joan has never taken the faintest interest in astrology, but -Dulcie shows an intelligent grasp of the subject. She studies it while -the children are preparing their syntax. You, yourself, Anne, have never -in all these years mastered even the elements of the science. I don't -believe you know what _an aspect_ means." - -"I don't pretend to a powerful mind." - -"Your difficulty is the inertia that belongs to a low vitality," said -Gertrude, "and I rather think that is what is the matter with Joan. She -hardly opens a book. She has not an idea beyond her chickens. She spends -hours among her coops." - -"Dulcie's horoscope," continued Gertrude after a pause, "shows a marked -expansion in her immediate future. The wider life which she has entered -upon under our roof is no doubt the beginning of it. I feel it my duty -to help her in every way I can." - -"Dear Gertrude," I said. "_Thank you._ My poor motherless child, for -whom I can do but little has found a powerful friend in you." - -Conscience jabbed me as with a knitting needle, but I paid no more -attention to it than the Spartan boy to his fox. - -"There is certainly a love affair in her near future," continued -Gertrude affably. "_She_ says that astrologically she can't see any such -thing for several years to come, but I know better. I found him under -Uranus, transiting her Venus. She is an extremely intelligent pupil, but -she is certainly obstinate. She _won't_ see it. But she can see Joan's -engagement and marriage quite clearly. We both see that. But I am -convinced Dulcie has an opportunity of marrying as well as Joan. Her -moon will shortly be going through the fifth house, the house of lovers -which speaks for itself. I wondered whether it might possibly be Mr. -Wilson. Most respectable--you know--Mr. Benson's pupil. He's always -coming over on one pretext or another, to play tennis or see Joan's -chickens. I saw him walking back through the park with Dulcie and the -children the other day." - -I pretended to be horrified. - -"I will speak to her," I mumbled, "most reprehensible." - -"I beg you will do nothing of the kind," said Gertrude with asperity. -"The world moves on, my dear Anne, while you sit dreaming in your -cottage; and if you can't raise a finger to help your own niece then -don't try to nullify the benevolent activities of those who can." - -"Of course, Gertrude, if you look at it in that way. But a governess!" - -"I do look at it in that way; and allow me to tell you, Anne, that you -dress her abominably, and I have advised her to revolt. And her hair! I -spoke to her about it yesterday, and she said you liked her to plaster -it down like that. The child has beautiful hair, very like mine at her -age. It needs releasing. It is not necessary that she should imitate -your severe coiffure." - -"Oh! Gertrude, I always brush my own hair back, and surely it is not too -much to ask of my brother's only child who owes everything to me to--" I -became tearful. - -"It _is_ too much to ask. You are an egoist, Anne. The poor child looked -quite frightened when I spoke to her yesterday. You mean well, but you -have repressed her. I intend, on the contrary, to draw her out, to widen -her narrowed, pinched existence." Gertrude had said the same of Jimmy -when she married him. Everyone had a pinched existence till she dawned -on them, though it would have been difficult to say who had dared to -pinch Jimmy. - -Next day Dulcie came down half frightened, wholly delighted, to confer -with me. - -"My dear," I said. "Do exactly what kind Mrs. Cross wishes about your -hair and dress and general deportment. I can't explain, it would take -too long, and when I had explained you would not understand. You may now -take back with you the lilac gown and the sun-bonnet. And, by the way, -what is this Mr. Wilson like who is always coming over?" - -"Very, _very_ nice"--with fervour. - -"And handsome?" - -"Very, _very_ handsome." - -"H'm! Now, Dulcie, no nonsense such as you ladled out to me about Herr -Müller, the music master at Dresden. You needn't cry. That is all past -and forgotten. But I want a plain answer. Does this very handsome man -care about chickens?" - -"Yes, yes, Aunt Anne. He has taken several prizes." - -"Does he come to see you, or Joan?" - -Dulcie cogitated. - -"At first it was Joan," she said. - -Light broke in on me. _That serpent Gertrude!_ She did not think the -poultry fancier good enough for the stolid Joan, but quite good enough -for my exquisite Dulcibella. - -"I must go back now," said Dulcie. "I'm dining down because Mr. Cross -likes a game of patience in the evening. It keeps him from falling -asleep. Mr. Wilson is staying to dinner. I'm going to wear my amber -muslin, and Mr. Vavasour is coming to stay. We've seen a good deal of -him lately. Mrs. Cross says he has had a very overshadowed life with his -old mother, and she wants to help him to a wider sphere." - -I pricked up my ears. - -"Is he Vavasour, of Harlington?" - -"Yes, that's his home, near Lee on the Solent." - -"But surely he is quite an infant." - -"I don't know what you mean by an infant, Aunt Anne. He is two years -older than me, and he simply _loves_ poetry." - -"And is he as nice as Mr. Wilson?" - -"Very, _very_ nice." - -Further lights were bursting in. The illumination momentarily staggered -me. - -"H'm. Dulcie, you will now attend to what I tell you." - -"Yes, yes, Aunt Anne. I always do." - -"Now, mind you don't make eyes at Mr. Wilson, who is Joan's friend. That -is what horrid little cats of girls do, not what I expect of _you_. -Chickens draw people together in a way, ahem! you don't understand, -but--you will later on." - -"Like poetry does?" Dulcie hazarded. - -"Just like poetry. And one thing more. Don't speak to Mr. Vavasour -unless he speaks to you." - -"No, no, Aunt Anne. I never do." - -Once again I must compress. As the summer advanced, Gertrude, nose down -in full cry on the track, unfolded to me a project which only needed my -co-operation. - -I reminded her that I never co-operated, but she paid no attention, and -said she wished to send the children with Joan and Dulcie to the seaside -for a month, while she watched over Jimmy during his annual visit to -Harrogate. The children required a change. - -I agreed. - -She had thought of Lee on the Solent. (You will remember, reader, that -Mr. Vavasour's place was near Lee.) - -"Why Lee?" I said, pretending surprise. "Expensive and only ten miles -away. No real change of climate. Send them to Felixstowe or -Scarborough." - -But Gertrude's mind was made up. She poured forth batches of adequate -reasons. It must be Lee. Would I accompany the party as their guest? -Joan and Dulcie were rather too young to go into lodgings alone. - -I saw at once that, under the circumstances, Lee was no place for me. I -might get into hot water. I, so free now, might become entangled in the -affairs of others, and might be blamed later on. I might find myself -acting with duplicity or, to be more exact, I might be found out to be -doing so. - -I declined with regretful gratitude. If it had been Felixstowe or -Scarborough I would have taken charge with pleasure, but I always had -rheumatism at Lee. Rheumatism was a very capricious ailment. - -"It is, indeed," said Gertrude coldly. - -"Send your old governess," I suggested, "the ancient Miss Jones who -lives at Banff. You have her here every summer for a month. Kill two -birds with one stone. Let her have her annual outing at Lee instead of -here." - -Gertrude was undeniably struck by my suggestion, though she found fault -with it. As she began to come round to it I then raised objections to -it. I reminded her that Miss Jones was as blind as a bat: that when she -accompanied them to Scotland the year before she had mistaken the -footman bathing for a salmon leaping. But Gertrude was of the opinion -that Miss Jones's shortsightedness was no real drawback. - -The expedition started, and I actually produced five pounds for Dulcie -to spend on seaside attire. I considered it a good investment. - -Before Gertrude departed with Jimmy for Harrogate she volunteered with a -meaning smile that she understood Mr. Wilson bicycled over frequently to -Lee. - -"Ten miles is nothing," I said, "to a high principled poultry fancier." - -"Now you know," she said archly, "why I did not wish to remove Dulcie to -a great distance at this critical moment in her young life. I hear from -Miss Jones, who writes daily, that there are shrimping expeditions and -picnics with the children, strolls by moonlight without them." - -Reader, I did not oblige that serpent to disgorge the fact that -moonlight strolls are not taken by two women and one man. I knew as well -as possible that Miss Jones had received a hint to give these two young -men every opportunity. I thanked Providence that I had not got into that -_galère_. I had been saved by the fixed principle of a life time to -avoid action of any kind. - -I had hardly begun to enjoy the month of solitude when it was over, and -Gertrude and Jimmy returned from Harrogate, he very limp and depressed, -as always after his cure, and sure that it had done him more harm than -good. - -The two girls came back from the Solent looking the picture of health; -even Joan was almost pretty, beaming under her tan. Dulcibella, who did -not tan, was ravishing. The children were a rich brown pink apparently -all over, and the ancient Miss Jones was a jet-beaded mass of bridling -gratitude and self-importance. - -Then, of course, the storm burst. - -You and I, reader, know exactly what had happened. Dulcie had got -engaged to Mr. Vavasour, and Joan to Mr. Wilson. - -Dulcie came skimming down in the dusk the first evening to announce the -event to me, her soft cheek pressed to mine. She said she wanted me to -be the first to know. - -_And Gertrude had said I could do nothing for her!_ - -She told me that at that very moment the blissful Joan was announcing -her own betrothal to her parents. - -Next morning Jimmy came down to see me. He generally gravitated to me if -anything went wrong. - -"We are in a hat up at the house," he said. "Joan has actually engaged -herself to that oaf, Wilson. Infernal cheek on his part, I call it." - -"You have had him hanging about for months," I said, "I expect he and -Joan thought you approved." - -"They did. They do. But that doesn't make it any better. Of course I -said I would not allow it, and Joan was amazed and cried all night, and -Gertrude is in a state of such nervous tension you can't go near her, -and poor old Jones, who came back preening herself, is bathed in -tears--and Gertrude says I have got to speak to Wilson at once. She -always says things have got to be done at once." - -He groaned, and sat down heavily on my low wall, crushing a branch of -verbena. - -"It's not as if I hadn't warned Gertrude," he went on. "I said to her -several times 'I'm always catching my foot against Wilson,' and yet she -would have him about the place. She as good as told me she thought he -and Dulcie might make a match of it. But it's my opinion Dulcie never so -much as looked at him. I told Gertrude so, but she only smiled, and said -I was to leave it to her, and that it was in those confounded stars that -Dulcie would marry almost at once. This is what her beastly stars have -brought us to." - -"She did tell me there was an early marriage for Joan, too, in her -horoscope," I hazarded. - -"Well, we had had thoughts, I mean Gertrude had, that young Vavasour -came over oftener than he need. He's rather a bent lily, but of course -he's an uncommonly good match. I should not have thought there was -anything in it, myself, but Gertrude kept rubbing it in. That is why -they went to Lee." - -"You don't say so!" - -"Yes, I do say so. But look how it has turned out." - -"I think I ought to tell you--I'm so astonished that even now I don't -know how to believe it--I only heard of it last night,--that Dulcie has -accepted Mr. Vavasour." - -For a moment Jimmy stared at me, and then he burst into shouts of -laughter. - -"Well done, Anne!" he said, rolling on my poor verbena. "Well done, -Dulcie. That little slyboots. Thirty thousand a year. What a score. Who -would have thought it, Anne! You look so remote and unworldly in your -grey hair, stitching away at your woolwork picture. But you've outwitted -Gertrude. Well, I don't care what she says. I'm glad of any luck -happening to Dulcie. She is not fit to struggle for herself in this hard -world. But Gertrude will never forgive _you_, Anne. You may make up your -mind to that." - -"But what have I done?" I bleated. "Nothing. I'm as innocent as an -unlaid egg." - -"You may be, but she will never forgive you all the same," said Jimmy -slowly rising, and brushing traces of verbena from his person. "Stupid -people never forgive, and they always avenge themselves by brute force." - -Old Miss Jones, bewildered and tearful, toddled down to see me, boring -me to death with plans for leaving Banff and settling in Bournemouth -with a married niece. Joan rushed down, boisterously happy, and -confident that her father would give in; Jimmy, weakening daily, came -down. Mr. Wilson called, modest and hopeful; Dulcie, and the children -came down, Mr. Vavasour, a stooping youth, with starling eyes, and an -intense manner, motored over. - -_But Gertrude never came._ - -I consoled myself with Mr. Vavasour. There was no doubt he was in love -with Dulcie, and I surmised that in the future, if she could not -dominate him, his aunt by marriage might be able to do so. I can't say -whether Dulcie cared much about him, but I told her firmly that she was -very much in love, and she said, "Yes, yes, Aunt Anne." - -That was what was so endearing about Dulcie. - -She was so obliging; always ready to run upstairs for my spectacles, or -to marry anybody. - -One evening, when she was dining with me, she proceeded to draw out her -Ronald's horoscope. - -She was evidently extraordinarily well up in the subject. - -"I will ask, Mrs. Cross," she said at last, after much knitting of white -brows, "but I should say Ronald was certainly not going to marry at all -at this moment with Mercury and Jupiter in opposition. But then I said -the same about myself, and about your going on a long journey. I should -have thought some great change was inevitable with your sun now -sesquiquadrate to Uranus in Cancer. But Mrs. Cross said I was absolutely -mistaken about both. She was very emphatic." - -"You don't mean to say you believe a single word of it," I said, amazed. - -"Oh, yes, Aunt Anne, of course I do. Why, don't you remember you -yourself advised me to study it. I'm _sure_ it's all true, only it's -difficult to disentangle." - -Jimmy came down next day, and a more crestfallen man I have never seen. -I was dividing my white pinks, and he collapsed on a bench, and looked -at me. - -"You've given in about Mr. Wilson," I said drily. - -"I have. Gertrude came round to it quite suddenly last night." - -"Bear up," I said "They will probably be very happy." - -"I don't find I mind much now it's decided on. And between ourselves -Gertrude and Joan did not hit it off too well. I used to get a bit -rattled between the two of them. It will be more peaceful when Joan is -married." - -"Then I don't see why you look so woe-begone." - -Jimmy shifted on his bench. - -"Anne," he said solemnly, "you made the great mistake of your life when -you refused me." - -"You could not expect me to leave a brand new kitchen boiler for you. I -told you that at the time." - -"We should have suited each other," went on Jimmy, drearily, ignoring -manlike, my reasons for celibacy. "We are both," he paused and then -added with dignity, "contemplatives by nature. We should have sat down -in two armchairs for life. I should never have been a magistrate, and a -chairman of a cursed Parish Council. I should just have been happy." - -"I _have_ been happy," I said, "I _am_ happy." - -"You have had a beautiful life: one long siesta. That is so like you. -_You_ have fetched it off and I've missed it. Just as Gertrude has -missed this match for Joan, and you have fetched it off for Dulcie. If I -had married you you would never have wanted me to exert myself. That was -why my higher nature turned to you like a sunflower to the sun. You -ought to have taken me. After all, you are the only woman I have ever -proposed to," said the twice married man. - -"I thought as much," I said, pulling my white pinks apart. - -"You might have known," he said darkly, and a glint of malice -momentarily shone in his kindly eyes, "that trouble would some day -overtake you for your wicked selfishness in refusing me." - -I did not notice what he was saying so much as that alien expression in -my old friend's face. I stared at him. - -"I'm putty in Gertrude's hands," he continued solemnly, "as I should -have been in yours. It's no kind of use saying I ought not to be putty. -I know I ought not, but putty I am. You don't know what marriage is -like. No peace unless you give in entirely--no terms--no half-way house, -no nothing except unconditional surrender." - -I had never heard Jimmy speak like this before. I put in a layer of -pinks, and then looked at him again. - -There were tears in his eyes. - -"My dear old soul," he burst out, "I can't help it, I _cannot_ help it. -She insisted on my coming down and telling you myself. She said it must -come from me, as my own idea, and I'm not to mention her at all. The -truth is--she has decided--and nothing will move her--that it will be -best if Joan and Bobby Wilson lived quite near us for a time as they are -both so young--in fact--" his voice became hoarse--"in this cottage." - -"_My_ cottage!" I said. "_Here!_" - -He nodded. - -For a moment I could neither see nor hear. My brain reeled. I clutched -at something which turned out to be Jimmy's hand. - -"My own little house," I gasped. "My garden, made with my own hands. The -only place my rheumatism--" I choked. - -"Don't take on so, Anne," but it was Jimmy who was crying, not I, "I'll -find something else for you. Miss Jones is leaving Banff. You shall have -her house rent free. I hate it all just as much as you. It makes me -sick to think of chicken hutches on your lawn; but, but--you _shouldn't_ -have outwitted Gertrude." - -"She told me there was no movement, no journey of any kind in my -horoscope," I groaned. - -"She says she made a mistake, and that she sees now there is a long -journey. Dulcie told her so some time ago, but she would not hear of it. -But now she has worked it out again, and she says Dulcie was right after -all. You are plum in the thick of Uranian upheavals." - -"And is Dulcie's marriage a mistake, too?" - -"She said nothing about that. But, between ourselves, Anne, though I'm -not an astrologer, I should not count on it too much, for I've been -making a few enquiries about Vavasour, and I find he has been engaged -four times already. It's a sort of habit with him to get engaged, and -his mother never opposes him, but she has a sort of habit of gently -getting him out of it--every time." - - * * * * * - -All this took place several years ago. I live in the suburbs of Banff -now in Miss Jones's old house. As there is no garden that kind Jimmy has -built me a little conservatory sticking like a blister to the unattached -wall of my semi-detached villa. He sends me a hamper of vegetables every -week, and Joan presents me with a couple of chickens now and then, -_reared on my lawn_. - -They come in handy when Dulcie and her Wilhelm are staying with me. Herr -Müller has an appointment in Aberdeen now. They are dreadfully poor, and -a little Müller arrives every year, but Dulcie is as happy as she is -incompetent and impecunious. She adds to their small muddled away income -by giving lessons in astrology. I have learned the rudiments of the -science, in order when I stay with her to help her with her pupils. But -I never stay long as I have rheumatism as severely in Aberdeen as in -Banff. - - - - -Her Murderer - - -"The truth is, I shall have to murder her!" said Mark gloomily. "I see -no way out of it." - -"I could not be really happy with a husband whose hands were red with -gore," I remarked. "I'm super-sensitive, I know. I can't help it. I was -made so. If you murder her, I warn you I shall throw you over. And where -would you be then?" - -"Exactly where I am now, as far as marrying you is concerned. You may -throw me over as much as you like. I shan't turn a hair." - -He had not many hairs left to turn, and perhaps he remembered that fact, -and that I held nothing sacred, for he hurried on in an aggrieved tone: - -"You never give me credit for any imagination. I'm not going to spill -her blood. I'm much too tidy. I've thought it all out. I shall take you -and her on a picnic to the New Forest, and trot you both about till -you're nearly famished. And then for luncheon I shall produce a tin of -potted lobster. I shall choose it very carefully with a bulging tin. -Potted lobster is deadly when the tin bulges. And as the luncheon will -be at my expense, she will eat more than usual. She will 'partake -heartily,' as the newspapers will say afterwards; at least, as I hope -they will have occasion to say. And then directly the meal is over the -lobster will begin to do its duty, and swell inside her, and she'll -begin struggling among the picnic things. I shan't be there. I shall -have gone for a little stroll. You will support her in her last moments. -I don't mind helping with the funeral. I'd do that willingly." - -I laughed, but I was near to tears. - -"How long have we been engaged?" asked Mark. - -"Twelve years. You know that as well as I do." - -"Well, as far as I can see, we shall be still affianced in twenty years' -time. Aunt Pussy will see us all out." - -"We may toddle to the altar yet," I said hysterically, "when you are -about eighty and I am seventy. And I shall give you a bath-chair, and -you will present the bridesmaids, who must not be a day younger than -myself, with rubber hot-water bottles. Rubber will be cheap again by -then." - -He came back, and sat down by me. - -"It's damnable!" he said. - -"It is," I replied. - -"And it isn't as if the little ass couldn't afford it!" he broke out, -after a moment. "She can't have less than thirty thousand a year, and -she lives on one. And it will all come to you when she dies. And it's -rolling up, and rolling up, and the years pass and pass. Our case is -desperate. Janet, can't you say something to her? Can't you make a great -appeal to her? Can't you get hold of someone who has an influence over -her, and appeal to them?" - -I did not think it necessary to answer. He knew I had tried everything -years ago. - -It had been thought a wonderful thing for me when Aunt Pussy, my -godmother, adopted me when I was fourteen. We were a large family, and I -was the only delicate one, not fitted, so my parents thought, to "fend -for myself" in this rough world. And I had always liked Aunt Pussy, and -she me. And she promised my father, on his impecunious death-bed, that -she would take charge of me and educate me. She further gratuitously and -solemnly promised that she would leave me all her money. Her all was not -much, a few hundreds a year. But that was a great deal to people like -ourselves. She was our one rich relation, and it was felt that I was -provided for, which eventually caused an estrangement between me and my -brothers and sisters, who had to work for their living; while I always -had pretty clothes and a little--a very little--pocket-money, and did -nothing in the way of work except arrange flowers, and write a few -notes, and comb out Aunt Pussy's Flossy, being careful to keep the -parting even down the middle of his back. - -My sisters became workers, and they also became ardent Suffragists, -which would have shocked my father dreadfully if he had been alive, for -he was of opinion that woman's proper sphere is the home, though, of -course, if you have not got a home or any money it seems rather -difficult for women to remain in their sphere. - -I, being provided for, remained perfectly womanly, of the type that the -Anti-Suffrage League, and the sterner sex especially, admire. I took -care of my appearance, I dressed charmingly on the very small allowance -which Aunt Pussy doled out to me, I was an adept at all the little -details which make a home pleasant, I never wanted to do anything except -to marry Mark. - -For across the even tenor of our lives, in a little villa in Kensington, -as even as the parting down Flossie's back, presently came two great -events. Aunt Pussy inherited an enormous fortune, and the following -year, I being then twenty, fell in love with Mark and accepted him. I -can't tell you whether he, poor dear, was quite disinterested at first. -It was, of course, known that I should inherit all my aunt's money. He -was rather above me in the social scale. I have sometimes thought that -his old painted, gambling Jezebel of a mother prodded him in my -direction. - -But if he was not disinterested at first, he became so. We were two -perfectly ordinary young people. But we were meant for each other, and -we both knew it. - -We never for a moment thought there would be any real difficulty in the -way of our marriage. Aunt Pussy was, of course, exasperatingly -niggardly, but she was now very wealthy, and she approved of Mark, -partly because he was not without means. He was an only child with a -little of his own, and with expectations from his mother. He had had a -sunstroke in Uganda, which had forced him to give up his profession, but -he was independent of it. Aunt Pussy, however, though she was most kind -and sentimental about us, could not at first be induced to say anything -definite about money. - -When, after a few months, I began to grow pale and thin, she went so far -as to say that she would give me an allowance equal to his income. I -fancy even that concession cost her nights of agony. If he could make up -five hundred a year she would make up the same. - -Was this the moment, I ask you, for his wicked old mother to gamble -herself into disgrace and bankruptcy? My poor Mark came, swearing -horribly, to her assistance. But when he had done so, and had given her -a pittance to live on, there was nothing left for himself. - -Even then neither of us thought it mattered much. Aunt Pussy would -surely come round. But we had not reckoned on the effect that a large -fortune can make on a miserly temperament. She clutched at the fact that -Mark was penniless as a reason to withdraw her previous promise. She -would not part with a penny. She did not want to part with me. She put -us off with one pretext after another. After several years of irritation -and anger and exasperation, we discovered what we ought to have known -from the first, that nothing would induce her to give up anything in her -life-time, though she was much too religious to break her promise to my -father. She intended to leave me everything. But she was not going to -part with sixpence as long as she could hold on to it. - -We tried to move her, but she was not to be moved. On looking back I see -now that she was more eccentric than we realised at the time. In the -course of twelve years Mark and I went through all the vicissitudes that -two commonplace people deeply in love do go through if they can't marry. - -We became desperate. We decided to part. We urged each other to marry -someone else. We conjured each other to feel perfectly free. We doubted -each other. He swore. I wept. He tried to leave me and he couldn't. I -did not try. I knew it was no use. We each had opportunities of marrying -advantageously if we could only have disentangled ourselves from each -other. I learned what jealousy can be of a woman, younger and better -looking, and sweeter-tempered and with thicker hair than myself. - -He asseverated with fury that he was never jealous of me. If that was -so, his outrageous behaviour to his own cousin, a rich and blameless -widower in search of a wife, was inexplicable. And now, after twelve -years, we had reached a point where we could only laugh. There was -nothing else to be done. He was growing stout, and I was growing lean. -If only middle-aged men could grow thin, and poor middle-aged women a -little plump, life would be easier for them. But we reversed it. Aunt -Pussy alone seemed untouched by time. Even Mark's optimistic eye could -never detect any sign of "breaking up" about her. - -And throughout those dreary years we had one supreme consolation, and a -very painful consolation it was. We loved each other. - -"It's damnable!" said Mark again. "Well, if I'm not to murder her, if -you're going to thwart me in every little wish just as if we were -married already, I don't see what there is to be done. I've inquired -about a post obit." - -"Oh, Mark!" - -"It's no use saying 'Oh, Mark'! I tell you I've inquired about a post -obit, and if you had a grain of affection for me you would have done the -same yourself years ago. But it seems you can't raise money on a promise -which may be broken. As I said before, there is no way out of it except -by bloodshed. I shall have to murder her, and then you can marry me or -not as you like. You will like, safe enough, if I am handy with the -remains." - -The door opened, and Aunt Pussy hurried in. She was always in a hurry. -We did not start away from each other, but remained stolidly seated side -by side on the horsehair dining-room sofa with anger in our hearts -against her. She had never given me a sitting-room. I always had to -interview Mark in the dining-room with a plate of oranges on the -sideboard, like a heroine in "The Quiver." - -Aunt Pussy was a small, dried-up woman of between fifty and sixty, with -a furtive eye and a perpetually moving mouth, who looked as if she had -been pinched out of shape by someone with a false sense of humour and no -reverence. She was dressed in every shade of old black--rusty black, -green black, brown black, spotted black, figured black, plain black. -Mark got up slowly, and held out his hand. - -"How do you do, Mark?" she said nervously. "I will own I'm somewhat -surprised to see you here," ignoring his hand, and taking some figs out -of a string bag, and placing them on an empty plate (the one that ought -to have had oranges in it) on the sideboard. "I have brought you some -figs, Janet; you said you liked them. I thought it was agreed that until -Mark had some reasonable prospect of being able to support a wife his -visits here had better cease." - -"I never agreed," said Mark, "I was always for their continuing. I've -been against a long engagement from the first." - -"Well, in any case, you must have a cup of tea now you are here," -continued Aunt Pussy, taking off her worn gloves, which I had mended for -her till the fingers were mere stumps. "Ring the bell, Janet. We will -have tea in here as there isn't a fire in the drawing-room." - -She put down more parcels on the table, and then her face changed. - -"My bag!" she gasped, and collapsed into a chair like one felled by -emotion. "My bag!" - -We looked everywhere. Mark explored the hall and the umbrella-stand. No -handbag was to be seen. - -"I knew something would happen if the month began with a Friday!" moaned -Aunt Pussy. - -"Had it a great deal in it?" I asked. - -"Twenty pounds!" said Aunt Pussy, as if it were the savings of a -lifetime. "I had drawn twenty pounds to pay the monthly books." And she -became the colour of lead. - -I flew for her salts, and made tea quickly, and presently she recovered -sufficiently to drink it. But her hand shook. - -"Twenty pounds!" she repeated, below her breath. - -We questioned her as to where she last remembered using the bag, and at -length elicited the information that she had no recollection of its -society after visiting Brown and Prodgers, the great shop in Baskaville -Road, where she recalled eating a meat lozenge, drawn from its recesses. -Mark offered to go round there at once, and see if it had been found. - -"I've never lost anything before," she said when he had gone, "but I -felt this morning that some misfortune was going to happen. There was a -black cat on the leads when I looked out. As sure as fate, if I see a -black cat something goes wrong. Last time I saw one, two of my -handkerchiefs were missing from the wash." - -As Aunt Pussy bought her handkerchiefs in the sales for less than -sixpence each, I felt that the black cat made himself rather cheap. - -Mark returned with the cheering news that a bag had been found at Brown -and Prodgers, and one of the principal shopwalkers had taken charge of -it. And if Aunt Pussy would call in person to-morrow, and accurately -describe its contents, it would be returned to her. - -Aunt Pussy was so much relieved that she actually smiled on him, and -offered him a second cup of tea. But next morning at breakfast I saw at -once that something was gravely amiss. - -Had she slept? - -Yes. - -Had she seen the black cat? - -No. - -"The truth is, Janet," she said, "I have had a most terrible dream. I -feel sure it was a warning, and I really don't know whether I ought to -call for it or not." - -"Call for what?" - -"The bag." - -"Was the dream about the bag?" - -"What else could it be about? I took one of my little bromides last -night, for I knew I had not a chance of sleep after the agitation of the -day. And I fell asleep at once. And I dreamed that it was morning, and I -was in my outdoor things going to Brown and Prodgers for the bag. And -the black cat walked all the way before me with its tail up. But it did -not come in. And when I got there I told a shopwalker who was standing -near the door what I had come about. He was a tall, dark man with a sort -of down look. He bowed and said, 'Follow me, madam.' And I followed him. -And we went through the--ahem! the gentlemen's underclothing, which I -make a point of never going through, I always go round by the artificial -flowers, until we came to a glass door near the lift. And he unlocked -the door and I went in, and there on the table lay my bag. I was so -delighted I ran to take it. But he stopped me, and I saw then what an -evil-looking man he was. And he said, 'Look well at this bag, madam. Do -you recognise it as yours?' And I looked and I said I did. There was the -place where you had mended the handle. - -"Then he took it up, and put it in my hand, and said, 'Look well at the -contents, madam, and verify that they are all there.' - -"So I looked at them, and they were all there, the tradesmen's books and -everything. And I counted the money and it came right. The only thing I -could not be sure about was the number of the meat lozenges. I thought -one might have been stolen. - -"Then when I had finished he said, 'Look well at me, madam, for I am -your murderer.' And I was so terrified that I dropped the bag and woke -with a scream. Now, Janet, don't you think it would be flying in the -face of Providence to go there this morning? Dreams like that are not -sent for nothing." - -"Well, perhaps it would be better not," I said maliciously, for I knew -very well that Aunt Pussy would risk any form of death rather than lose -twenty pounds. - -"I thought perhaps you would not mind getting it for me. The danger -would not be the same for you." - -"I should not mind in the least, but they will only give it up to you." - -Aunt Pussy's superstition struggled with her miserliness throughout her -frugal breakfast. Need I say her miserliness won. Had it ever sustained -one defeat in all her life! But she remained agitated and nervous to an -extreme degree. I offered to go with her, but she felt that was not -protection enough. So I telephoned to Mark, and presently he arrived and -Aunt Pussy solemnly recapitulated her dream, and we all three set out -together, she walking a little ahead, evidently on the look-out for the -black cat. - -Mark whispered to me that the portent about the black cat was being -verified for us, not her, and that the shopwalker was evidently a very -decent fellow, and that if he did his duty by us he should certainly ask -him to be best man at our wedding. He had not made up his mind how deep -his mourning ought to be for a murdered aunt-in-law, and was, to use his -own expression, still poised like a humming-bird between a grey silk tie -and a black one with a white spot, when we reached the shop. - -It was early, and there were very few customers about. A tall dark man -was walking up and down. Aunt Pussy instantly clutched my arm, and -whispered, "It's him!" - -He saw us looking at him, and came up to us, a melancholy downcast, -unprepossessing-looking man. As Aunt Pussy could only stare at him, -Mark, who had spoken to him the day before, told him the lady had come -to identify the bag lost on the previous afternoon. The man bowed to -Aunt Pussy, and said, "Follow me, madam," and we followed him through -several departments. - -"Gentlemen's outfitting!" hissed Aunt Pussy suddenly in my ear, pointing -with a trembling finger at a line of striped and tasselled pyjamas which -she had avoided for many years. - -Presently we came to a glass door, and the man took a key from his -pocket, opened the door, and ushered us in. And there on a small table -lay a bag--_the_ bag--Aunt Pussy's bag, with the mended handle. She -groaned. - -The man fixed his eyes on her and said: - -"Look well at this bag, madam. Do you recognise it as yours?" - -"I do," said Aunt Pussy, as inaudibly as a bride at the altar. - -He then asked her what the contents were, and she described them -categorically. He then took up the bag, put it into her hand, and said, -"Look well at the contents, madam, and verify that they are all there." - -They were all there. As Aunt Pussy was too paralysed to utter another -word I said so for her. - -There was a long pause. The man looked searchingly from one to the other -of us, and sighed. If he expected a tip he was disappointed. After a -moment he moved towards Aunt Pussy to open the door behind her. As he -did so she gave a faint scream, and subsided on the floor in a swoon. - -When we had resuscitated and conveyed her home, and Mark had gone, she -said in a hollow voice: - -"Wasn't it enough to make anybody faint?" - -I said cheerfully that I did not see any cause for alarm; that the man -no doubt always used exactly the same formula whenever lost property had -to be identified. - -"But why should he have said just at the last moment, 'Look well at me, -madam, I am your murderer?'" - -"Dear Aunt Pussy, of course he never said any such thing!" - -"He did! I heard him! That was why I fainted." - -It was in vain I assured her that she was mistaken. She only became -hysterical and said I was deceiving her; that she saw I had heard it, -too. She had been eccentric before, but from this time onwards she -became even more so. She would not deal at Brown and Prodgers any more. -She would not even pass the shop. She became more penurious than ever. - -We could hardly persuade servants to stay with us so rigid was she about -the dripping. It was all I could do to obtain the necessary money for -our economical housekeeping. As the lease of our house was drawing to a -close, she decided to move into a flat, thinking it might be cheaper. -But when it was all arranged and the lease signed, she refused to go in, -because the man who met us there with a selection of wallpapers was, she -averred, the same man whom she always spoke of as her murderer. - -And I believe she was right. I thought I recognised him myself. I asked -him if he had not formerly been at Brown and Prodgers, and he replied -that he had; but was now employed by Whisk and Blake. After this -encounter nothing would induce Aunt Pussy to enter her new home. She had -to pay heavily for her changeableness, but she only wrung her hands and -paid up. The poor little woman had a hunted look. She evidently thought -she had had a great escape. - -Mark, who did not grow more rational with increasing years, said that -this was obviously the psychological moment for us to marry, and drew a -vivid picture of the group at the altar--the blushing bridegroom and -determined bride, and how when Aunt Pussy saw her murderer step forward -as the best man, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, she would die of -shock on the spot. And after handsomely remunerating our benefactor, he -and I should whisk away in a superb motor, with a gross of shilling -cigars on an expensive honeymoon. - -Six months passed, and there was no talk of any honeymoons. And then the -lease of our house came to an end, and Aunt Pussy, having refused to -allow any other house or flat to be taken, she was forced to warehouse -her furniture, and we had recourse to the miseries of hotel life. -Needless to say, we did not go to a quiet residential hotel, but to one -of those monster buildings glued on to a railway station, where the -inmates come and go every day. - -Strangely enough, the galvanised activity of hotel existence pleased -Aunt Pussy. She called it "seeing life." She even made timid advances to -other old ladies, knitting and dozing in the airless seclusion of the -ladies' drawing-room, for, of course, we had no sitting-room. I saw -plainly enough that we should live in those two small adjoining bedrooms -under the roof, looking into a tiled air-shaft, for the remainder of -Aunt Pussy's life. - -Three months we lived there, and then at the cheapest time in the year, -when the hotel was half empty and the heat of our rooms appalling, she -consented to move for a short time into the two rooms exactly below -ours, which looked on the comparatively balmy open of the August -thoroughfare, and had a balcony. - -I had realised by this time that Aunt Pussy was no longer responsible -for her long cruelty to Mark and me, and my old affection for her -revived somewhat with her pathetic dependence on me. She could hardly -bear me out of her sight. - -A certain Mrs. Curtis, a benevolent old Australian widow, living in -rooms next ours on this lower floor, showed us great kindness. She -grasped at once what Aunt Pussy was, and she would sit with her by the -hour, enabling me to go out in the air. She took me for drives. She soon -discovered there was a Mark in the background, and often asked us to -dine at her table, and invited him too. - -She was said to be enormously wealthy, and she certainly wore a few -wonderful jewels, but she was always shabbily dressed. Aunt Pussy became -very fond of her, and must have been a great trial to her, running in -and out of her rooms at all hours. She gave us tea in her sitting-room -next door to us, and this gave Aunt Pussy special satisfaction, as we, -having no sitting-room, could not possibly, as she constantly averred, -return the civility. - -Towards the end of September the hotel began to fill again, and the -prices of the lower rooms were raised. So we moved back to our old -quarters, and Mrs. Curtis, who had a noisy bedroom, took for herself and -her son the two we had vacated. Her son was expected, and I have never -forgotten her face of joy when she received a telegram from him during -dinner saying he had reached Calais, and should arrive next morning. - -We were dining early, for the kind old woman was taking Mark and me to -the play. The play was delightful, and he and I, sitting together -laughing at it, forgot our troubles, forgot that our youth was -irretrievably gone, and that we were no nearer happiness than we had -been thirteen years before. Our little friend in her weird black gown, -with her thin fingers covered with large diamonds clutching an opera -glass, looked at us with pained benevolence. - -Mark saw us back to the door of our hotel, and after he was gone Mrs. -Curtis took my arm as we mounted the steps and said gently: - -"You and that nice absurd man must keep your courage up. I waited -seventeen years for my husband, and when it was over it was only like a -day." - -The night porter appeared at the lift door, and we got in. He stood with -his back to me, and I did not look at him till he said: "What floor?" -The servants knew us so well that I was surprised at the question, -and glanced at him. It was Aunt Pussy's murderer. I recognised -him instantly, and I will own my first thought was one of -self-congratulation. - -"Now we shall leave this horrible place," I thought. "She will never -stay another day if he is here." - -But my second thought was for her. She might go clean out of her mind if -she were suddenly confronted with him. What would it be best to do? - -When he had put down Mrs. Curtis at Floor 7, and we were rumbling -towards Floor 8, he volunteered, as we bumped with violence against the -roof that he was new to the work. I asked him what hours he came on and -went off at. He said, "Heleven p.hem. to hate hay-hem." He did not -recognise me--as, indeed, why should he?--but he looked more downcast -and villainous than ever. It was evident that life had not gone well -with him since he had been foreman at Brown and Prodgers. - -"Lady's son from Horsetralia just arrived," he remarked -conversationally, jerking his thumb towards the lower landing. "Took 'im -up 'arf an hour ago." - -I was surprised that Mr. Curtis should have already arrived, but in -another moment I forgot all about it, for the first object that met my -eyes as I opened my door was Aunt Pussy in a state of great agitation, -sitting fully dressed on my bed. It seemed that after we had started for -the play she had stood a moment in the hall looking after us, and she -had seen her murderer pass, and not only had he passed, but he had -exchanged a few words with the hall porter airing himself on the hotel -steps. - -"We must leave. We must leave to-morrow, Janet," she repeated, in an -agony of terror. "I know he'll get in and kill me. That's why he spoke -to the porter. Let's go and live at Margate. No, not Margate; it's too -public. But I saw a little house at Southwold once; tumbling down it -was, with no road up to it. Such a horrid place! We might go and live -_there_. No one would ever think I should go there. Promise me you will -take me away from London to-morrow, Janet." - -I promised, I realised that we must go at once, and I calculated that if -Aunt Pussy, who always breakfasted in her room, only left it at ten -o'clock to enter a cab to take her to the station it was impossible she -should run across the new night porter, who went off duty several hours -earlier. She must never know that he was actually in the house. - -I tried to calm her, but dawn was already in the sky, or rather -reflected on the tiles of our air-shaft, before she fell asleep, and I -could go to my room and try to do the same. - -I did it so effectually that it was nearly ten o'clock before I went -down to breakfast, leaving Aunt Pussy still slumbering. - -While I drank my coffee I looked out the trains for Southwold, and noted -down the name of a quiet hotel there, and then went to the manager's -office to give up our rooms. When I got there a tired, angry young man, -with a little bag, was interviewing the manager, who was eyeing him -doubtfully, while a few paces away the hall porter, all gold braid and -hair-oil and turned-out feet, was watching the scene. - -"Surely Mrs. Curtis told you she was expecting me, her son," he was -saying as I came up. - -"Yes, sir," said the manager, civil but suspicious. "No doubt, sir. Mrs. -Curtis said as you were expected this morning, but, begging your pardon, -you arrived last night, sir. Mr. Gregory Curtis arrived last night just -after I retired for the evening." - -"Impossible," said the young man, impatiently. "There is some mistake. -Take me to Mrs. Curtis's room at once." - -The manager hesitated. - -"This certainly is Mr. Gregory Curtis," I said, coming forward. "He is -exactly like the photograph of her son which stands on Mrs. Curtis's -table, and which I have seen scores of times." - -The young man looked gratefully at me. And then, in a flash, as it were, -we all took alarm. - -"Then who _did_ you take up to my mother's rooms last night?" said her -son. "And who took him up?" - -"Not me, sir," said the hall porter promptly. "I was off duty. Clarke, -the new night porter, must have took him up." - -"Where _is_ Clarke?" asked the manager, seizing down a key from a peg on -the wall. - -"Gone to bed, sir. Not been gone five minutes." - -"Bring him to me at once. And take this gentleman and me up in the lift -first." - -"This lady also," said Gregory, indicating me. - -A horrible sense of guilt was stealing over me. Why hadn't I waited to -see the fragile little old woman safely into her rooms? - -The manager and Gregory did not speak. I dared not look at them. The -lift came to a standstill, and in a moment the manager was out of it, -and fitting his master key into the lock of No. 10, almost knocking over -a can of hot water on the mat. The door opened, and we all went in. - -The room was dark, and as the manager went hastily forward to draw the -curtain his foot struck against something and he drew back with an -exclamation. I, who was nearest the door, turned on the electric light. - -Mrs. Curtis was lying with outstretched arms on her face on the floor. -Her widow's cap had fallen off, revealing on the crown of the head a -dark stain. Her small hands, waxen white, were spread out as if in mild -deprecation. There were no rings on them. The despatch box on the -dressing table had been broken open, and the jewel cases lay scattered -on the floor. - -After a moment of stupor, Gregory and I raised the little figure and -laid it on the bed. It was obvious that there was nothing to be done. -As we did so the door opened and the day porter dragged in the new lift -man, holding him strongly by the arm. - -They both looked at the dead woman on the bed. And then the lift man -began to shake as with an ague, and his face became as ashen as hers. - -"You saw her last alive," said the manager, "and you took up the party -to her room last night." - -The lift man was speechless. The drops stood on his forehead. He looked -the image of guilt. - -And as we stood staring at him Aunt Pussy ambled in in her -dressing-gown, with her comb in her hand, having probably left something -in the room she had only yesterday vacated. - -Her eyes fell first on the dead body, and then on the lift man. - -I expected her to scream or faint, but she did neither. She seemed -frozen. Then she raised a steady comb and pointed it at the lift man. - -"He is her murderer," she said solemnly. "He meant to murder me. He told -me so a year ago. He has followed me here to do it. But he did not know -I had changed my rooms, and he has killed her instead." - -I don't know what happened after that, for I was entirely taken up with -Aunt Pussy. I put my hand over her mouth, and hustled her back to her -rooms. - -"He will be hanged now," she said over and over again throughout that -awful day. "He is _certain_ to be hanged, and when he is really dead I -shall feel safe. Then I shall take a house, and you shall have a motor, -and anything you like, Janet. He's in prison now, isn't he?" - -"Yes, poor creature. He is under arrest. A policeman has taken him -away." - -"Safe in prison now, and hanged very soon. I shan't be easy otherwise. -And then I shall sleep peacefully in my bed." - -She was better than she had been for the last year. She ate and slept, -and seemed to have taken a new lease of life. She was absolutely callous -about Mrs. Curtis's death, and suggested that half-a-guinea was quite -enough to give for a wreath. - -"If you're thinking of the number of times she gave us tea," she said, -"it could not possibly, with tea as cheap as it is now--Harrod's own -only one and seven--come to more than eight and six." And she opened her -"Daily Mail" and pored over it. She had of late ceased to take in any -paper, but now she took in the "Daily Mail" and the "Evening Standard," -and read the police news with avidity, looking for the trial of "her -murderer." - -Mark and I went to the funeral, and he was very low all the way home. He -was really distressed about Mrs. Curtis and Gregory, but of course he -would not allow it, and accounted for his depression by saying that he -had been attending the _wrong_ funeral. He said he did not actually -blame Clarke (the lift man), for he had shown good intentions, but the -man was evidently a procrastinator and a bungler, who had deceived the -confidence he (Mark) had reposed in him, and on whom no one could place -reliance. Such men, he averred, were better hanged and out of the way. - -When I got back to our rooms I found Aunt Pussy leaning back in her -armchair near the window, with the "Evening Standard" spread out on her -knee. A large heading caught my eye: - - "SENSATIONAL ARREST OF THE - MURDERER OF MRS. CURTIS." - - "RELEASE OF CLARKE." - -It had caught Aunt Pussy's eye too. And her sheer terror had been too -much for her. She would never be frightened any more. She had had her -last shock. She was dead. - - * * * * * - -A month later Mark came to see me in the evening. We did not seem to -have much to say to each other, perhaps because we were to be married -next day. But I presently discovered that he was suffering from a -suppressed communication. - -"Out with it," I said. "You've got a wife and five small children at -Peckham. There is still time to counter-order the motor and the wedding -and the shilling cigars and--me." - -He took no notice. - -"I've seen Clarke," he said. "Poor devil! They won't have him back at -the hotel, think he's unlucky, a sort of Jonah. His face certainly isn't -his fortune, is it? And I hope you won't mind, Janet, I--" - -"You've asked him to be best man instead of Gregory?" - -"Well, no, I haven't. But I was sorry for him, and I gave him fifty -pounds. Your money of course. I felt we owed him something for bringing -us together. For you know, in a way, he really _has_, though he has been -some time about it." - - - - -Votes for Men[3] - -_Two hundred years hence, possibly less._ - - [3] First Published in 1909. - - - EUGENIA, _Prime Minister, is sitting at her writing table in her - library. She is a tall, fine looking woman of thirty, rather - untidy and worn in appearance._ - - EUGENIA [_to herself, taking up a paper_]. There is no doubt that we - must carry through this bill or the future of the country will be - jeopardized. - - HENRY [_outside_]. May I come in? - - EUGENIA. Do come in, dearest. - - HENRY [_a tall, athletic man of thirty, faultlessly dressed, a - contrast to her dusty untidiness_]. I thought I could see the - procession best from here. [_Goes to windows and opens them._] It is - in sight now. They are coming down the wind at a great pace. - - EUGENIA [_slightly bored_]. What procession? - - HENRY. Why the Men's Reinfranchisement League, of course. You know, - Eugenia, you promised to interview a deputation of them at 5 - o'clock, and they determined to have a mass meeting first. - - EUGENIA. So they did. I had forgotten. I wish they would not pester me - so. Really, the government has other things to attend to than Male - Suffrage at times like this. - - [_The procession sails past the windows in planes decked with the - orange and white colours of the league. The occupants preserve a - dead silence, saluting_ EUGENIA _gravely as they pass. From the - streets far below rises a confused hubbub of men's voices shouting - "Votes for men!"_ - - HENRY. How stately the clergy look, Eugenia! Why, there are the two - Archbishops in their robes heading the whole procession, and look at - the bevy of Bishops in their lawn sleeves in the great Pullman air - car behind. What splendid men. And here come the clergy in their - academic gowns by the hundred, in open trucks. - - EUGENIA. I must say it is admirably organised, and no brawling. - - HENRY. Why should they brawl? I believe you are disappointed that they - don't. They are all saluting you, Eugenia, as they pass. They won't - take any notice of me, of course, because it is known I am the - President of the Anti-Suffrage League. The doctors are passing now. - How magnificent they look in their robes! What numbers of them! It - makes me proud I am a man. And now come the lawyers in crowds in - their wigs and gowns. - - EUGENIA. Every profession seems to be represented, but of course I am - well aware that it is not the real wish of the men of England to - obtain the vote. The suffragists must do something to convince me - that the bulk of England's thoughtful and intelligent men are not - opposed to it before I move in the matter. - - HENRY. I often wonder what would convince you, Eugenia, or what they - could do that they have not done. These must be the authors and - artists and journalists, and quite a number of women with them. Do - you notice that? Look, that is Hobson the poet, and Bagg the - millionaire novelist, each in their own Swallow planes. How they - dart along. I should like to have a Swallow, Eugenia. And are all - those great lumbering tumbrils of men journalists? - - EUGENIA. No doubt. - - HENRY. It is very impressive. I wish they did not pass so fast, but - the wind is high. Here come all the trades with the Lord Mayor of - London in front! What hordes and hordes of them! The procession is - at least a mile long. And I suppose those are miners and - agricultural labourers, last of all, trying to keep up in those old - Wilbur Wrights and Zeppelins. I did not know there were any left - except in museums. - - [_The procession passes out of sight._ EUGENIA _sighs_. - - HENRY. Demonstrations like this make a man think, Eugenia. I really - can't see, though you often tell me I do, why men should not have - votes. They used to have them. You yourself say that there is no - real inequality between the sexes. The more I think of it the more I - feel I ought to retire from being President of the Anti-Suffrage - League. And all the men on it are old enough to be my father. The - young men are nearly all in the opposite camp. I sometimes wish I - was there too. - - EUGENIA. Henry! - - HENRY. Now don't, Eugenia, make any mistake. I abhor the "brawling - brotherhood" as much as you do. I was quite ashamed for my sex when - I saw that bellowing brute riveted to the balcony of your plane the - other day, shouting "Votes for men." - - EUGENIA [_coldly_]. That sort of conduct puts back the cause of men's - reinfranchisement by fifty years. It shows how unsuited the sex is - to be trusted with the vote. Imagine that sort of hysterical - screaming in the House itself. - - HENRY. But ought the cause to be judged by the folly of a few howling - dervishes? Sometimes it really seems, Eugenia, as if women were - determined to regard the brawling brotherhood as if it represented - the men who seek for the vote. And yet the sad part is that these - brawlers have done more in two years to advance the cause than their - more orderly brothers have achieved in twenty. For years past I - have heard quiet suffragists say that all their efforts have been - like knocking in a padded room. They can't make themselves heard. - Women smiled and said the moment was not opportune. The press gave - garbled accounts of their sayings and doings. - - EUGENIA. Your simile is unfortunate. No one wants to emancipate the - only persons who are confined in padded rooms. - - HENRY. Not if they are unjustly confined? - - EUGENIA [_with immense patience_]. Dear Henry, must we really go over - this old ground again? Men used to have votes as we all know. In the - earliest days of all, of course, both men and women had them. The - ancient records prove that beyond question, and that women presented - themselves with men at the hustings. Then women were practically - disfranchised, and for hundreds of years men ruled alone, though it - was not until near the reign of Victoria the First that by the - interpolation of the word "male" before "persons" in the Reform Act - of 1832 women were legally disfranchised. Men were disfranchised - almost as suddenly in the reign of Man-hating Mary the Second of - blessed memory. - - HENRY. I know, I know, but.... - - EUGENIA [_whose oratorical instincts are not exhausted by her public - life_]. You must remember I would have you all--I mean I would have - you, Henry, remember that men were only disfranchised after the - general election of 2009. It was the wish of the country. We must - bow to that. - - HENRY. You mean it was the wish of the women of the country, who were - a million stronger numerically than men. - - EUGENIA. It was the wish of the majority, including many thousands of - enlightened men, my grandfather among them, who saw the danger to - their country involved in continued male suffrage. After all, Henry, - it was men who were guilty of the disaster of adult suffrage. Women - never asked for it--they were deeply opposed to it. They only - demanded the suffrage on the same terms that men had it in Edward - the Seventh's time. Adult suffrage was the last important enactment - of men, and one which ought to prove to you, considering the - incalculable harm it did, that men, in spite of their admirable - qualities, are not sufficiently far-sighted to be trusted with a - vote. Adult suffrage lost us India. It all but lost us our Colonies, - for the corner-men and wastrels and unemployed who momentarily - became our rulers saw no use for them. The only good result of adult - suffrage was that women, by the happy chance of their numerical - majority, and with the help of Mary the Man-hater, were able to - combine, to outvote the men and so to seize the reins and abolish - it. - - HENRY. And abolish us too. - - EUGENIA. It was an extraordinary _coup d'état_, the one good result of - the disaster of adult suffrage. It was a bloodless revolution, but - the most amazing in the annals of history. And it saved the country. - - HENRY. I do not deny it. But you can't get away from the fact that men - did give women the vote originally. And now men have lost it - themselves. Why should not women give it back to men--I mean, of - course, only to those who have the same qualifications as to - property as women voters have? After all it was by reason of our - physical force that we were entitled to rule, at least men always - said so. Over and over again they said so in the House, and that - women can't be soldiers and sailors and special constables as we - can. And our physical force remains the greater to this day. - - EUGENIA. We do everything to encourage it. - - HENRY. Without us, Eugenia, you would have no army, no navy, no - miners. We do the work of the world. We guard and police the nation, - and yet we are not entitled to a hearing. - - EUGENIA. Your ignorance of the force that rules the world is assumed - for rhetorical purposes. - - HENRY. I suppose you will say brain ought to rule. Well, some of us - are just as able as some of you. Look at our great electricians, our - shipbuilders, our inventors, our astronomers, our poets, nearly all - are men. Shakespeare was a man. - - EUGENIA [_sententiously_]. There was a day, and a very short day it - was, when it was said that brain ought to rule. Brain did make the - attempt, but it could no more rule this planet than brute force - could continue to do so. You know, and I know, and every schoolgirl - knows, that what rules the birth-rate rules the world. - - HENRY [_for whom this sentiment has evidently the horrid familiarity - of the senna of his childhood_]. It used not to be so. - - EUGENIA. It is so now. It is no use arguing; it is merely hysteria to - combat the basic fact that the sex which controls the birth-rate - must by nature rule the nation which it creates. This is not a - question with which law can deal, for nature has decided it. - - [HENRY _preserves a paralysed silence_. - - EUGENIA [_with benignant dignity_]. I am all for the equality of the - sexes within certain limits, the limits imposed by nature. But the - long and the short of it is, to put it bluntly, no man, my dear - Henry, can give birth to a child, and until he can he will be - ineligible by the laws of nature, not by any woman-made edict, to - govern, and the less he talks about it the better. Sensible men and - older men know that and hold their tongues, and women respect their - silence. Man has his sphere, and a very important and useful sphere - in life it is. The defence of the nation is entrusted to him. Where - should we be without our trusty soldiers and sailors, and, as you - have just reminded me, our admirable police force? Where physical - strength comes in men are paramount. When I think of all the work - men are doing in the world I assure you, Henry, my respect and - admiration for them knows no bounds. But if they step outside their - own sphere of labour, then-- - - HENRY. But if only you would look into the old records, as I have been - doing, you would see that Lord Curzon and Lord James and Lord - Cromer, and many others employed these same arguments in order to - withhold the suffrage from women. - - EUGENIA. I dare say. - - HENRY. And there is another thing which does not seem to me to be - fair. Men are so ridiculed if they are suffragists. _Punchinella_ - always draws them as obese disappointed old bachelors, and there are - many earnest young married men among the ranks of the suffragists. - Look at the procession which has just passed. Our best men were in - it. And to look at _Punchinella_ or to listen to the speeches in the - House you would think that the men who want the vote are mostly - repulsive old bachelors stung by the neglect of women. Why only last - week the member for Maidenhead, Mrs. Colthorpe it was got up and - said that if only this "brawling brotherhood" of single gentlemen, - who had missed domestic bliss, could find wives they would not - trouble their heads about reinfranchisement. - - EUGENIA. There is no doubt there is an element of sex resentment in - the movement, dear Henry. That is why I have always congratulated - myself on the fact that, you, as my husband, were opposed to it. - - HENRY. Personally I can't imagine now that women have the upper hand - why they don't keep up their number numerically. It is their only - safeguard against our one day regaining the vote. It was their - numerical majority plus adult suffrage which suddenly put them in - the position to disfranchise men. And yet women are allowing their - number to decline and decline until really for all practical - purposes there seems to be about two men to every woman. - - EUGENIA. The laws of nature render our position infinitely stronger - than that of men ever was. We mounted by the ladder of adult - suffrage, but we kicked it down immediately afterwards. It will - never be revived. Men had no tremors about the large surplusage of - women as long as they were without votes. Why should we have any now - about the surplusage of men? - - HENRY. Then there is another point. You talk so much about the - importance of the physique of the race, and I agree with all my - heart. But there are so few women to marry nowadays, and women show - such a marked disinclination towards marriage till their youth is - quite over, that half the men I know can't get wives at all. And - those who do, have almost no power of selection left to them, and - are forced to put up with ill-developed, sickly, peevish, or ugly - women past their first bloom rather than remain unmarried and - childless. - - EUGENIA. The subject is under consideration at this moment, but when - the position was reversed in Edward the Seventh's time, and there - were not enough men to go round, women were in the same plight, and - men said nothing _then_ about the deterioration of the race. They - did not even make drunkards' marriages a penal offence. Drunkards - and drug-takers, and men dried up by nicotine constantly married and - had children in those days. - - HENRY. I can't think the situation was as difficult for women as it is - now for men. I was at Oxford last week, and do you know that during - the last forty years only five per cent. of the male Dons and - Professors have been able to find mates. Women won't look at them. - - EUGENIA. In the nineteenth century, when first women went to - Universities and became highly educated, only four per cent. of them - afterwards married, and then to schoolmasters. - - HENRY. And I assure you the amount of hysteria and quarrelling among - the older Dons is lamentable. - - EUGENIA. I appointed a committee which reported to me on the subject - last year, and I gathered that the present Dons are not more - hysterical than they were in Victorian days, when they forfeited - their fellowships on marriage. You must remember, Henry, that from - the earliest times men and women have always hated anything "blue" - in the opposite sex. Female blue stockings were seldom attractive to - men in bygone days. And nowadays women are naturally inclined to - marry young men, and healthy and athletic men, rather than sedentary - old male blue stockings. It is most fortunate for the race that is - is so. - - HENRY [_with a sigh_]. Well, all the "blue" women can marry nowadays. - - EUGENIA. Yes, thank heaven, _all_ women can marry nowadays. What women - must have endured in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth - century makes me shudder. For if they did not marry they were never - spared the ridicule or the contemptuous compassion of men. It seems - incredible, looking back, to realise that large families of - daughters were kept idle and unhappy at home, after their youth was - over, not allowed to take up any profession, only to be turned - callously adrift in their middle age at their father's death, with a - pittance on which they could barely live. And yet these things were - done by educated and kindly men who professed to care for the - interests of women, and were personally fond of their daughters. - Over and over again in the biographies of notable women of the - Victorian and Edward the Seventh's time one comes across instances - of the way in which men of the country-squire type kept their - daughters at home uneducated till they were beyond the age when they - could take up a profession, and then left them to poverty. They did - not even insure their lives for each child as we do now. Surely, - Henry, it is obvious that women have done one thing admirably. The - large reduction which they have effected in their own numbers has - almost eliminated the superfluous, incompetent, unhappy women who - found it so difficult to obtain a livelihood a hundred years ago, - and has replaced them by an extra million competent, educated, - fairly contented men who are all necessary to the State, who are - encouraged, almost forced into various professions. - - HENRY. Not contented, Eugenia. - - EUGENIA. More contented, because actively employed, than if they were - wandering aimlessly in the country lanes of their fathers' estates - as thousands of intelligent uneducated women were doing a hundred - years ago, kept ferociously at home by the will of the parent who - held the purse-strings. - - HENRY. I rather wish I had lived in those good old times, when the - lanes were full of pretty women. - - EUGENIA. But you, at any rate, Henry, had a large choice. I was much - afraid at one time that you would never ask me. - - HENRY. Ah! But then I was a great heir, and all heirs have a wide - choice. Not that I had any choice at all. I had the good luck to be - accepted by the only woman I ever cared a pin about, and the only - one I was sure was disinterested. - - EUGENIA. Dearest! - - HENRY [_tentatively_]. And yet our marriage falls short of an ideal - one, my Eugenia. - - EUGENIA [_apologetically_]. Dear Henry, I know it does, but as soon as - I cease to be Prime Minister I will do my duty to the country, and, - what I think much more of, by you. What is a home without children? - Besides, I must set an example. When you came in I was framing a - bill to meet the alarming decline of the birth-rate. Unless - something is done the nation will become extinct. The results of - this tendency among women to marry later and later are disastrous. - - HENRY. And what is your bill, Eugenia? - - EUGENIA. That every healthy married woman or female celibate over - twenty-five and under forty, members of the government excepted, - must do her duty to the State by bringing into the world-- - - HENRY. Celibate! Bringing into the world! Eugenia! and I thought the - sanctity of marriage and home life were among your deepest - convictions. Just think how you have upheld them to--_men_. - - EUGENIA. Patriotism must come first. By bringing into the world three - children, a girl and two boys. If her income is insufficient to rear - them, the State will take charge of them. One extra boy is needed to - supply the wastage of accidents in practical work, and in case of - war. I shall stand or fall by this bill, for unless the women of - England can be aroused to do their duty--unless there is general - conscription to motherhood, as in Germany, England will certainly - become a second-class power. - - HENRY. Perhaps when there are two men to every woman we shall be - strong enough to force women to do justice to us. - - EUGENIA. Men never did justice to us when they had the upper hand. - - HENRY. They did not. And I think the truth lies there. Those who have - the upper hand cannot be just to those who are in their power. They - don't intend to be unfair, but they seem unable to give their - attention to the rights of those who cannot enforce them. Men were - unintentionally unjust to women for hundreds of years. They kept - them down. Now women are unjust to us. Yes, Eugenia, you are. You - keep us down. It seems to be an inevitable part of the _rôle_ of - "top dog," and perhaps it is no use discussing it. If you don't want - your plane, would you mind if I borrow it? I promised to meet - Carlyon at four above the Florence Nightingale column in Anne Hyde's - park, and it is nearly four now. - - EUGENIA. Good-bye, Henry. Do take my plane. And I trust there will be - no more doubt in your dear head as to your Presidency of the - Anti-Suffrage League. - - HENRY. None. I realise these wrigglings of the under dog are unseemly, - and only disturb the equanimity and good-will of the "top dog." - Good-bye, Eugenia. - - - - -The End of the Dream - - -The first time I saw Essie was a few weeks before her marriage with my -brother Ted. I knew beforehand that she would certainly be very pretty -for the simple reason that Ted would never have been attracted by a -plain woman. For him plain women did not exist, except as cooks, -governesses, caretakers and charwomen. - -Ted is the best fellow in the world, and when he brought her to see me I -instantly realised why he had chosen her; but I found myself wondering -why she had chosen him--she was charming, lovely, shy, very young and -diffident, and with the serenest temperament I have ever seen. She was -evidently fond of him, and grateful to him. Later on I learned--from -her, never from him--the distress and anxiety from which he had released -her and her mother. There was a disreputable brother, and other -entanglements, and complicated money difficulties. - -Ted simply swooped down, and rescued her, and ordered her to marry him, -which she did. - -"She is a cut above me, Essie is," he used to say rubbing his hands, and -looking at her with joyful pride. It was true. Essie looked among us -like a race horse among cart horses. She belonged, not by birth, but by -breeding to a higher social plane than that on which we Hopkinses had -our boisterous being. I was resentfully on the alert to detect the least -sign of arrogance on her part. I expected it. But gradually the -sleepless suspicion of the great middle class to which Ted and I -belonged was lulled to rest. I had to own to myself that Essie was a -simple, humble, and rather timid creature. - -I went to stay with them a few months after their marriage in their new -home in Kensington. Ted was outrageously happy, and she seemed well -content, amused by him, rather in the same way that a child is amused by -a large dog. - -He had actually suggested before he met Essie that I should keep house -for him, but I told him I preferred to call my soul my own. Essie -apparently did not want to call anything her own. She let him have his -way in everything, and it was a benevolent and sensible way, but it had -evidently never struck him that she might have tastes and wishes even if -she did not put them forward. He was absolutely autocratic, and without -imagination. - -Before they had been married a month he had prevailed on her to wear -woollen stockings instead of silk ones, because he always wore woollen -socks himself. - -He chose the wallpapers of the house without any reference to her, -though of course she accompanied him everywhere. He chose the chintzes -for the drawing-room, and the curtains, and very good useful materials -they were, not ugly, but of a garish cheerfulness. Indeed, he furnished -the whole house without a qualm, and made it absolutely conventional. It -is strange how very conventional people press towards the mark, how they -struggle to be conventional, when it is only necessary to drift to -become so. - -Ted exerted himself, and Essie laughed, and said she liked what he -liked. If she had not been so very pretty her self-effacement would have -seemed rather insipid, but somehow she was not insipid. She liked to see -him happy in his own prosaic efficient inartistic way, and I don't think -she had it in her power to oppose him if she had wanted to, or indeed -anyone. She was by nature yielding, a quality which men like Ted always -find adorable. - -I remember an American once watching Ted disporting himself on the -balcony, pushing aside all Essie's tubs of flowering tulips to make room -for a dreadful striped hammock. - -"The thing I can't understand about you English women," said the visitor -to Essie, "is why you treat your men as if they were household pets." - -"What an excellent description of an English husband," said Essie. -"That is just what he is." - -"What's that? What's that?" said Ted, rushing in from the balcony, but -as he never waited for an answer Essie seldom troubled to give him one. - -Perhaps I should never have known Essie if I had not fallen ill in her -house. Ted and she were kindness itself, but as I slowly climbed the -hill of convalescence I saw less of him and more of her. He was -constantly away, transacting business in various places, and I must own -a blessed calm fell upon the house when the front door slammed, and he -was creating a lucrative turmoil elsewhere. The weather was hot, and we -sat out evening after evening in the square garden. Gradually, very -gradually, a suspicion had arisen in my mind that there was another -Essie whose existence Ted and I had so far never guessed. I saw that she -did--perhaps by instinct--what wise women sometimes do of set purpose. -She gave to others what they wanted from her, not necessarily the best -she had to give. Ted had received from her exactly what he hoped and -desired, and--he was happy. - -The evening came when I made a sudden demand on her sympathy. In the -quiet darkness of the square garden I told her of a certain agonising -experience of my own which in one year had pushed me from youth into -middle age, and had turned me not to stone, but into a rolling stone. - -"I imagined it was something of that kind that was the matter with you," -she said in her gentle rather toneless voice. - -"You guessed it," I said amazed. I had thought I was a closed book to -the whole world. "You never spoke of your idea to Ted?" - -"Never. Why should I?" - -There was a long silence. - -The noise of Kensington High Street reached us like the growl of some -tired animal. An owl came across from Holland Park and alighted in a -tree near us. - -"You should have married him," said Essie at last. - -"Married him!" I exclaimed, "but you don't understand." And I went over -the whole dreadful story again--at full length. Love affairs are never -condensed. If they are told at all they are recounted in full. - -"I don't see that any of those things matter," she said when I had -finished, or rather when I paused. - -"Where is he now?" - -"In Turkistan, I believe." - -"Why not go to Turkistan?" She spoke as if it were just round the -corner. - -"Turkistan!" - -"Well, it's somewhere on the map, I suppose. What does it matter where -it is." - -"And perhaps when I got there I might find he had set up a harem of -Turkistan women." - -"You might." - -"Or that he had long since left for America." - -"Just so." - -"Or that he did not want me." - -"All these things are possible." - -The owl began to call through the dusk, and, not far away, somewhere in -the square a gentle lady owl's voice answered him. - -"There are things," said Essie, "which one can measure, and it is easy -to know how to act about them, and whether it is worth while to act at -all. Most things one can measure, but there are in life just a few -things, a very few, which one cannot measure, or put a value on, or pay -a certain price for, and no more, because they are on a plane where -foot-rules and weighing machines and money do not exist. Love is one of -these things. When we begin to weigh how much we will give to love, what -we are willing to sacrifice for it, we are trying to drag it down to a -mercantile basis and to lay it on the table of the money changers on -which things are bought and sold, and bartered and equivalent value -given." - -"You think I don't love him," I said, cut to the quick. - -"I am sure," said Essie, "that you don't love him yet, but I think you -are on the road. Who was it who said - - 'The ways of love are harder - Than thoroughfares of stones.' - -Whoever it was, he knew what he was talking about. You have found the -thoroughfare stony, and you rebel and are angry, very angry, and desert -your fellow traveller. He, poor man, did not make the road. I expect he -is just as angry and foot-sore as you are." - -"He was a year ago. I don't know what he is now. It is a year since he -wrote." - -Essie knitted in silence. - -At last I said desperately: - -"I have told you everything. Do you think it's possible he still cares -for me?" - -Essie waited a long minute before answering. - -"I don't know," she said, and then added, "but I think you will -presently go to Turkistan and find out." - -Reader, I went to Turkistan, and was married there, and lived there and -in Anatolia for many happy years. But that is another story. I did not -start on that voyage of discovery till several months after that -conversation. I had battered myself to pieces against the prison bars of -my misery, and health ruthlessly driven away was slow to return. - -As I lived with Ted and Essie I became aware that he was becoming -enormously successful in money matters. There were mysterious -expeditions, buyings and sellings of properties, which necessitated -sudden journeys. Immense transactions passed through his competent -hands, and presently the possibility of a country house was spoken of. -He talked mysteriously of a wonderful old manor house in Essex, which he -had come upon entirely by chance, which would presently come into the -market, and which might be acquired much below its value, so anxious was -the owner--a foreign bigwig--to part with it at once. - -Ted prosed away about this house from teatime till bedtime. Essie -listened dutifully, but it was I who asked all the questions. - -Ted hurried away next morning, not to return for several days, one of -which he hoped to spend in Essex. - -"You don't seem much interested about the country house," I said at tea -time. I was slightly irritated by the indifference which seemed to -enwrap Essie's whole existence. - -"Don't you care about it? It must be beautiful from Ted's account." - -"If he likes it I shall like it." - -"What a model wife you are. Have you no wishes of your own, no tastes of -your own, Essie?" - -She looked at me with tranquil eyes. - -"I think Ted is happy," she said, "and I am so glad the children are -both exactly like him." - -"Yes, but--" - -"There is no _but_ in my case. Ted rescued me from an evil entanglement -and eased my mother's life. And he set his kind heart on marrying me. I -told him I could not give him much, but he did not mind. I don't think -men like Ted understand that there is anything more that--that might be -given; which makes a very wonderful happiness when it _is_ given. Our -marriage was on the buying and selling plane. We each put out our wares. -I saw very well that he would be impossible--for me at least--to live -with unless I gave way to him entirely. Dear Ted is a benevolent tyrant. -He would become a bully if he were opposed, and bullies are generally -miserable. I don't oppose him. I think he is content with his bargain, -and as fond of me as a man can be of a lay figure. My impression is that -he regards me as a model wife." - -"He does, he does. He is absolutely, blissfully happy." - -"He would be just as happy with another woman," said Essie, "if she were -almost inanimate. It was a comfort to me to remember that when I nearly -died three years ago." - -"Yes, Ted is all right," I said, "but how about you? I used to think you -were absolutely characterless, and humdrum, but I know better now. Don't -you--miss anything?" - -"No," said Essie, "nothing. You see," she added tranquilly with the -faintest spice of malice, "I lead a double life." - -I gasped, staring at her open-mouthed, horror-stricken. She ignored my -crass imbecility, and went on quietly: - -"I don't know when it began, but I suppose when I was about five years -old. I found my way to the enchanted forest, and I went there in my -dreams every night." - -"In your dreams!" I stuttered, enormously reassured, and idiotically -hoping that she had not noticed my hideous lapse. - -"In my dreams. I had an unhappy childhood, but I never was unhappy any -more after I learned the way through the forest. Directly I fell asleep -I saw the track among the tree trunks, and then after a few minutes I -reached the wonderful glade and the lake, and the little islands. One of -the islands had a temple on it. I fed the swans upon the lake. I twined -garlands of flowers. I climbed the trees, and looked into the nests. I -swung from tree to tree, and I swam from island to island. I made a -little pipe out of a reed from the lake, and blew music out of it. And -the rabbits peeped out of their holes to listen, and the squirrels came -hand by hand along the boughs, and the great kites with their golden -eyes came whirling down. Even the little moles came up out of the ground -to listen." - -I gazed at her, astonished. - -"I did not wear any clothes," said Essie, "and I used to lie on the -moss in the sun. It is delicious to lie on moss, warm moss in the sun. -Once when I was a small child I asked my governess when those happy days -would come back when we should wear no clothes, and she told me I was -very naughty. I never spoke to her of the dream forest again. She did -not understand any more than you did the first moment. I think the -natural instinct of the British mind if it does not understand is to -look about for a lurking impropriety. I saw other children sometimes, -but never close at hand. They went to the temple singing, garlanded and -gay, but when I tried to join them I passed through them. They never -took any notice of me." - -"Were you a ghost?" - -"I think not. I imagine I am an old old soul who has often been in this -world before, and by some strange accident I have torn a corner of the -veil that hides our past lives from us, and in my dreams I became once -more a child as I had really been once, hundreds and hundreds of years -ago, perhaps in Greece or Italy." - -"And do you still have that dream every night?" - -"Not for many years past. I lost my way to the forest for several years, -until I was again in great trouble. That was when--then one night when I -had cried myself to sleep I saw the same track through the thicket, and -I found the forest again. Oh! how I rejoiced! And in the middle of the -forest was a garden and a wonderful old house, standing on a terrace. -And there was no lake any more. It was a different place altogether, in -England no doubt. And the house door was open. It was a low arched door -with a coat of arms carved in stone over it. And I went in. And as I -entered all care left me, and I was happy again, as I was among the -islands in the lake. I can't tell you why I was so happy. I have -sometimes asked myself, but it is a question I can't answer. It seemed -my real home. I have gone back there every night since I was seventeen, -and I know the house by heart. There is only one room I shrink from, -though it is one of the most beautiful in the house. It is a small -octagonal panelled room leading out of the banqueting hall where the -minstrels gallery is. It looks on to the bowling green, and one large -picture hangs in it, over the carved mantelpiece. A Vandyck I think it -must be. It is a portrait of a cavalier with long curls holding his -plumed hat in his hand." - -"Did you meet people in the house?" - -"No, not at first, not for several years, but I did not miss them. I did -not want companionship; I felt that I was with friends, and that was -enough. I wanted the repose, and the beauty and the peace which I always -found there. I steeped myself in peace, and brought it back with me to -help me through the day. The night was never long enough for me. And I -always came back, rested, and refreshed, and content, oh! so deeply -content. I am a very lucky person, Beatrice." - -"It explains you at last," I said. "You have always been to me an -enigma, during the five years I have known you." - -"The explanation was too simple for you." - -"Do you call it simple? I don't. I should hardly be able to believe it -if it were not you who had told me. And the house was always empty? You -never saw anyone there?" - -"It was never empty, but I could not see the people who lived in it. I -could see nothing clearly, and I had no desire to pry or search. I was -often conscious of someone near me, who loved me and whom I loved. And I -could hear music sometimes, and sweet voices singing, but I could never -find the room where the music was. But then I did not try to find it. -Sometimes when I looked out of the windows I could see a dim figure -walking up and down the terrace, but not often." - -"Was it a man or a woman?" - -"A man." - -"And you never went out to the bowling green and spoke to him?" - -"I never thought of such a thing. I never even saw his face till--till -that Christmas I was so ill with pneumonia. Then I fled to the house, -and for the first time I could find no rest in it. And I went into the -octagonal room, and sat down near the window and leaned my forehead -against the glass. My head was burning hot, and the glass was hot too. -Everything was hot. And there was a great dreadful noise of music. And -suddenly it seemed as if I went deeper into the life of the house, where -the light was clearer. It was as if a thin veil were withdrawn from -everything. And the heat and the pain were withdrawn with the veil. And -I was light and cool, and at ease once more. And the music was like a -rippling brook. And _he_ came into the room. I saw him quite clearly at -last. And oh! Beatrice, he was the cavalier of the picture, dressed in -blue satin with a sword. And he stood before me with his plumed hat in -his hand. - -"And as I looked at him a gentle current infinitely strong seemed to -take me. I floated like a leaf upon it. I think, Beatrice, it was the -current of death. I felt it was bearing me nearer and nearer to him and -to my real life, and leaving further and further behind my absurd little -huddled life here in Kensington, which always _has_ seemed rather like a -station waitingroom. - -"We neither of us spoke, but we understood each other, and we loved each -other. We had long loved each other. I saw that. And presently he knelt -down at my feet and kissed my hands. Doesn't that sound commonplace, -like a cheap novelette? but it wasn't. It wasn't ... and then as we -looked at each other the gentle sustaining current seemed to fail -beneath me. I struggled, but it was no use. It ebbed slowly away from -me, leaving me stranded on an aching shore alone, in the dark, where I -could not breathe or move. And I heard our doctor say, "she is going." -But I wasn't going. I had nearly, nearly gone, and I was coming back. -And then there was a great turmoil round me, and I came back in agony -into my own room and my own bed, and found the doctor and nurse beside -me giving me oxygen, and poor Ted as white as a sheet standing at the -foot of the bed.... They forced me to--to stay. I had to take up life -again." - -And for the first time in all the years I had known her Essie was shaken -with sudden weeping. - -"That was three years ago," she said brokenly. - -For a time we sat in silence hand in hand. - -"And do you still go back there?" - -"Every night." - -"And you meet him?" - -"Yes and no. I am sometimes aware of his presence, but I never see him -clearly as I did that once. I think at that moment I was able to see him -because I was so near death that I was very close to those on the other -side of death. My spirit had almost freed itself from the body, so I -became visible to him and he to me. I have studied the pictures of -Charles the First's time, and his dress was exactly of that date, almost -the same as that well-known picture--I think it is Charles the First--of -a man with his hand on his hip, standing beside a white horse. Do you -think it is wrong of me to have a ghostly lover, who must have lived -nearly three hundred years ago?" - -"Not wrong, but strange. It is a little like "The Brushwood Boy," and -"Peter Ibbetson," and Stella Benson's "This is the end." I suppose we -have all been on this earth before, but the cup of Lethe is well mixed -for most of us, and we have no memory of previous lives. But you have -not drunk the cup to the dregs, and somehow you have made a hole in the -curtain of oblivion in two places. Through one of those holes you saw -one of your many childhoods, probably in Greece, a couple of thousand -years ago. Through the other hole you saw, in comparatively modern times -your early womanhood. Perhaps you married your beautiful cavalier with -the curls." - -"No," said Essie with decision, "I have never been married to him, or -lived in his house. It is my home, but I have never lived there. I know -nothing about him except that we love each other, and that some day we -shall really meet, not in a dream." - -"In the Elysian fields?" - -"Yes, in the Elysian fields." - -At this moment the front door slammed, and Ted banged up the stairs, and -rushed in. If I had not known him I should have said he was drunk. - -He was wildly excited, he was crimson. He careered round the room -waving his arms, and then plumped on to the sofa, and stretched out his -short legs in front of him. - -"I've bought it. I've got it," he shouted. "Do you hear? I've bought it -dirt cheap. The young ass is in such a hurry, and he's apparently so -wealthy he doesn't care. And two hundred acres of timber with it. Such -timber. Such walnut, and chestnut and oak. The timber alone is worth the -money, I've got it. It's mine." - -"The house in Essex?" - -"Kenstone Manor, in Essex. It's a nailer. It's a--a--an old world -residence. It has no central heating, no bathrooms, no electric light, -obsolete drainage and the floors are giving way. I shall have to put in -everything, but I shall do it without spending a penny. I shall do it by -the timber, and it's nine miles from a station, that's partly why no one -wanted it. But the railroad is coming. No one knows that yet except a -few of us, but it will be there in five years, with a station on the -property. Then I shall sell all the land within easy reach of the -station in small building lots for villas. I shall make a pile." - -Ted's round eyes became solemn. He was gazing into the future, leaning -forward, a stout hand on each stout knee. - -"Teddy shall go to Eton," he said, "and I shall put him in the Guards." - -A week later Ted took us down by motor to see Kenstone. It was too far -for us to return the same day, so he engaged rooms for us in the village -inn. His "buyer" was to meet him, and advise him as to what part of the -contents of the house he should offer to take over by private treaty -before the sale. - -On a gleaming day in late September we sped along the lovely Essex -lanes, between the pale harvested fields. - -"There's the forest," shouted Ted, leaning back from his seat in front, -and pointing to a long ridge of trees which seemed to stretch to the low -horizon beyond the open fields. - -"When we're over the bridge we're on the--the property," yelled Ted. - -We lurched over the bridge, and presently the forest came along the -water's edge to meet us, and we turned sharply through an open gateway -into a private road. - -Such trees I had never seen. They stood in stately groups of birch and -oak and pine with broad glades of grass and yellowing bracken between -them. - -"Ancient deer park once," shouted Ted. "Shall be again." - -Essie paid little attention to him. We had made a very early start, and -she was tired. She leaned back in the car with half closed eyes. - -The trees retreated on each side of the road, and the wonderful old -house came suddenly into sight, standing above its long terrace with its -stone balustrade. - -Ted gave a sort of yelp. - -"Oh Essie!" I cried. "Look--look! It's perfect." - -She gazed languidly for a moment, and then she sat up suddenly, and her -face changed. She stared wildly at the house, and put out her hands as -if to ward it off. - -The car sped up to the arched doorway, with its coat of arms cut in grey -stone, and Ted leaped out and rushed up the low steps to the bell. - -"Not here! Not here!" gasped Essie, clinging to the car. "I can't live -here." She was trembling violently. - -"Dear Essie," I said amazed, "we can't remain in the car. Pull yourself -together, and even if you don't like the place don't hurt Ted's feelings -by showing it." - -She looked at me like one dazed, and inured to obedience got out, and we -followed Ted into the house. We found ourselves in a large square hall. -She groaned and leaned against the wall. - -"I can't bear it," she whispered to me. "It's no use, I can't bear it." - -"A glass of water, quick," I said to Ted, who turned beaming to us -expecting a chorus of admiration. "Essie is overtired." - -"What is the matter?" I said to her as he hurried away. "What's wrong -with this exquisite place?" - -"It's the house I come to at night," she said brokenly. "The dream -house. I knew it directly I saw it. Look! There's the minstrels' -gallery." - -I could only stare at her amazed. - -Kind Ted hurried back, splashing an overfull tumbler of water as he -came, on the polished oak floor. - -She sipped a little, but her hands shook so much that I had to hold the -glass for her. - -"Cheero, old girl," said Ted, patting her cheek, but Essie did not -cheero. - -"The lady ought to lie down," said the old woman who had opened the door -to us. "There's a sofy in the morning-room." - -I supported Essie into an octagonal room leading out of the great hall, -and laid her on a spacious divan of dim red damask. - -"Leave her alone with me for a bit," I said to Ted. "She is overwrought. -We made a very early start." - -"I seem to have gone blind," she whispered when Ted had departed. -"Everything is black." - -"You turned faint. You will be all right in a few minutes." - -"Shall I? Would you mind telling me, Beatrice, is there--is there a -picture over the fireplace?" - -"Yes." - -"What kind of picture?" - -"It is a life-size portrait of a young cavalier with curls, in blue -satin, holding his hat in his hand." - -"I knew it," she groaned. - -There was a long silence. - -"I can't bear it," she said. "You may say that is silly, Beatrice, but -all the same I can't. My life will break in two. If Ted lives here--I -shall have nowhere to go." - -"I don't think it silly, dear, but I don't understand. This is your old -home where you lived nearly three hundred years ago, and to which you -have so often come back in your dreams. Now you are coming back to it as -your home once more. It seems to me a beautiful and romantic thing to -have happened, and after the first surprise surely it must seem the same -to you. You have always been so happy here." - -"I can see a little now," she said. "Where is the glass of water?" - -She sat up and drank a little, and then dabbed some of the water on her -forehead. - -"I'm all right now," she said, pushing back her wet hair. - -"Don't move. Rest a little; you have had a shock." - -She did not seem to hear me. She rose slowly to her feet, and stood in -front of the picture. - -"Yes," she said to the cavalier. "It's you, only not quite you either. -You are not really as handsome as that you know, and you have a firmer -mouth and darker brows." - -The cavalier smiled at her from the wall: a somewhat insipid -supercilious face I thought, but a wonderful portrait. - -The old caretaker came back. - -"The gentleman said you'd be the better for something to eat," she said, -"and that you would take it in the hall." - -Through the open door I saw the chauffeur unstrapping the baskets from -Fortnum and Mason. - -"Whose portrait is that?" said Essie. - -"Henry Vavasour Kenstone," said the old woman in a parrot voice. -"Equerry to our martyred King, by Vandyck. You will observe the jewelled -sword and the gloves sewed with pearls. The sword and the gloves are -preserved in the banqueting 'all in a glass case." - -Essie turned away from the picture, and sat down feebly by the window. - -The clinking of plates, and Ted's cheerful voice reached us, and the -drawing of a cork. - -"Our Mr. Rupert, the present owner, favours the picture," said the woman -proudly in her natural voice, "and when he come of age three years ago -last Christmas there was a grand fancy ball and 'e was dressed exackerly -to match the picture, with a curled wig and all. And 'e wore the actual -sword, and the very gloves, at least 'e 'eld 'em in 'is 'and. They was -too stiff to put on. 'E did look a picture. And 'is mother being Spanish -'ad a lace shawl on 'er 'ead, a duchess she was in 'er own right, and -she might a been a queen to look at her. I watched the dancing from the -gallery, me having been nurse in the family, and a beautiful sight it -was." - -Essie's dark eyes were fixed intently on the garrulous old servant. - -"Three years ago last Christmas," she said sharply. "Are you sure of -that?" - -"And wouldn't I be sure that took 'im from the month ma'am, but 'e don't -look so like the picture when 'e ain't dressed to match, and without the -yaller wig," and she wandered out of the room, evidently more interested -in the luncheon preparations than in us. - -Ted hurried in. When was he not in a hurry? - -"Luncheon, luncheon," he said. "Don't wait for me, Essie. Rather too -long a drive for my little woman. Give her a glass of port, Beatrice. I -have to see Rodwell about the roof. Shan't be half a mo. He's got to -catch his train. Mr. Kenstone, the Duke, I mean, will be here in ten -minutes. If he turns up before I'm back give him a snack. They've sent -enough for ten." - -We did not go in to luncheon. - -Essie sank down on the divan. I sat down by her, and put my arms round -her. She leaned her head against my shoulder. - -"You heard what that woman said," she whispered. "You see he did not -live hundreds of years ago as I thought. The dress deceived me. He's -alive now. He's twenty-four." - -My heart ached for her, but I could find no word to comfort her in her -mysterious trouble. - -As we looked out together through the narrow latticed windows the lines -came into my mind: - - " casements opening on the foam - Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." - -It seemed to me that poor Essie was indeed a captive in some "faery land -forlorn," and that invisible perilous seas were foaming round her -casement windows. - -She gave a slight shudder, and started up. - -A man was walking slowly up and down the bowling green. - -"It is he," she said. "I've seen him walk there a hundred times." - -She watched the tall dignified figure pace up and down, and then turned -her eyes from him to me. They were wide, and the pupils dilated. - -"Beatrice," she said solemnly, "I must not meet that man. He must not -see me, for his sake, and for mine. All his life long he must go on -thinking as he does now, that I am ... a dream." - -"The old woman says he starts for Spain to-day." - -Ted's roundabout figure was suddenly seen trundling out across the grass -towards the distant pacing figure. - -"Who is that?" said Essie frowning. - -"Who is that? Why, it's Ted of course." - -"And who is Ted?" - -"Who is Ted?" I echoed staring at her. "What on earth do you mean?" - -She seemed to make a great mental effort. - -"Yes," she said. "Yes. It is Ted. _My husband._ I forgot. You see I've -never seen him _here_ before." - -"You will soon grow accustomed to seeing him here," I said cheerfully. - -She shook her head. - -The two men met, and moved together towards the house. - -Essie looked round her in sudden panic. - -"I can't stay here," she said. "It's a trap. Where can I go?" - -Her eyes searched the room. There was no other door in it. She looked at -the narrow latticed windows. Her eyes came back to me with sheer terror -in them, such as I have seen in a snared wild animal. - -"You _must_ stay here," I said, "if you don't want to meet him. They -will reach the open door into the garden long before you could cross -the hall. Stay quietly where you are, and I will tell Ted you are -unwell, and are resting." - -The two men were already in the hall. I went out to them, closing the -door resolutely behind me. - -Rupert Maria Wenceslao di Soto, Duke of Urrutia, was a tall grave young -man of few words, with close cropped hair and a lean clean shaven face. - -Ted introduced him to me, and then pressed him to have some luncheon. -The long table down the banqueting hall shewed an array of which Fortnum -and Mason might justly have been proud. - -The Duke was all courtesy and thanks, but had already lunched. His car -would be here in ten minutes to take him to London. If agreeable to Mr. -Hopkins he would say one word on business. He had called to modify his -agent's letter about the mantelpieces. He was willing to sell them all -as agreed at a valuation, except one. - -"Which one?" asked Ted, instantly changing from the exuberant host into -the cautious business man. - -"The one in the south parlour," said the Duke, waving his hand towards -the door of the room in which was Essie. "I desire to make it clear, as -my agent has not done so, that everything in that room I intend to take -with me, so that in my future home in the Pyrenees there may be one -chamber exactly the same as my late mother's room in my old home here." - -The explanation quite bowled over Ted. The business man gave way to the -man of sentiment. - -"Most creditable, I'm sure. Filial piety, most creditable. I don't -recall the mantlepiece in question, but of course as your Grace wishes -to keep it, I agree at once. Between gentlemen, no difficulties, -everything open to arrangement, amicable settlement." - -The old woman, dissolved in tears, interrupted Ted's eloquence to tell -"Mr. Rupert" that his car was at the door. - -The Duke led her gently out of the hall, his hand on her shoulder, and -then came back. - -"I will detain you no longer from your luncheon," he said. "With your -permission I will spend a few moments in my mother's chamber. It has -many beautiful associations for me. I should like to see it once more -before I leave for Spain." - -Ted hastened towards the door, but I barred the way. - -"Dear Ted," I said, "Essie is very ill. No one must go in." - -"No one go in!" said Ted flushing darkly. "I am astonished at you, -Beatrice. The Duke wishes to see his mother's room once more, on bidding -farewell to his ancestral home, and you take upon yourself to forbid -it." - -"My sister-in-law is ill," I said, addressing the Duke, "it would -distress her if a stranger were to go in suddenly." - -"I understand perfectly, Madam," he said coldly, and made as if to take -his leave. - -"Stop," said Ted, purple in the face. "My wife _is_ unwell. She is -overtired, but she is the kindest, most tender-hearted woman in the -world. It would cut her to the heart if she found out afterwards she had -prevented your Grace's seeing this room for the last time. Wait one -moment, while I go in and explain it to her, and help her to walk a few -steps to the settle here." - -And Ted, with a furious glance at me, pushed past me, and went into the -room. - -"It would be a great kindness to my sister, who is very nervous," I said -to the Duke, "if you would wait a moment in the garden." - -He instantly went towards the open door into the garden. Then I darted -after Ted. Between us we would hurry Essie into one of the many other -rooms that opened into the hall. - -She was standing by the window frantically endeavouring to break the -lattice of the central casement, which was a little larger than the -others. - -There was blood on her hand. - -Ted was speaking, but she cut him short. - -"Not in here," she said passionately. "I won't have it. He mustn't come -in here." - -"He must come in if I say so," said Ted. The colour had left his face. I -had seen him angry before now, but never so angry as this. - -"No," said Essie, "he must not." - -She came and stood before her husband. - -"Haven't I been a good wife to you these five years past," she said. -"Haven't I done my best to make you happy? Haven't I obeyed you in -everything, everything, everything--till now?" - -He stared at her open-mouthed. She had never opposed him before. - -She fell on her knees before him, and clasped his feet with her bleeding -hands. - -"If you love me," she said, "send him away. I refuse to see him." - -"You are hysterical," said Ted, "or else you're stark staring mad. I've -spoilt you and given way to you till you think you can make any kind of -fool of me. Get up at once, and cease this play acting, and come into -the hall." - -"He's in the garden," I broke in. "You can pass through the hall, -Essie." - -She rose to her feet, and her vehemence dropped from her. Her eyes were -rivetted on Ted. She paid no heed to what I said. She had no attention -to give to anything but her husband. - -"I will not come out," she said, and she sat down again on the divan. - -"Then by--he shall come in," said Ted, and before I could stop him he -strode to the door, calling loudly to the Duke to enter. - -There was a moment's pause, in which we heard a step cross the hall. -Then the Duke came in, and Ted introduced him to Essie. She bowed -slightly, but he did not. He stared at her, transfixed, overwhelmed. - -At that moment the discreet voice of Mr. Rodwell was heard in the -doorway. - -"Can I have one last word, Mr. Hopkins? A matter of some importance." - -"Yes, yes," said Ted darting to the door, thankful to escape. As he left -the room he said to me, "Take Essie at once into the hall. At once, do -you hear?" - -He might as well have said, "Take her to the moon." - -The Duke and Essie gazed at each other with awed intentness. There was -sheer amazement on his face, blank despair on hers. They were entirely -absorbed in each other. As I stood in the background I felt as if I were -a ghost, that no word of mine could reach their world. - -At last he spoke, stammering a little. - -"Madam, on the night of my coming of age I left the dancers, and came in -here, and behold! you were sitting on that divan, all in white." - -"Yes," said Essie. - -"We saw each other for the first time," he said, trembling exceedingly. - -"Yes." - -"And I knelt at your feet." - -"Yes." - -A suffocating compassion overcame me. It was unendurable to pry upon -them, oblivious as they were of my presence. I left the room. - -"He will go out of her life in five minutes," I said to myself, "never -to return. Poor souls. Poor souls. Let them have their say." - -I had never seen Romance before, much less such a fantastic romance as -this, in a faery land as forlorn as this. My heart ached for them. - -Presently I heard Ted's voice in the distance shouting a last message to -the departing Rodwell, and I went back to the octagonal room. - -He was kneeling at her feet, her pale hands held in his, and his face -bowed down upon them. - -"You must go," she said faintly. - -He shuddered. - -"You must go," she repeated. "To me you can only be a picture. To you I -am only a dream." - -"Yes, it is time to go," I said suddenly in a hoarse voice. I obliged -them to look at me, to listen to me. - -Slowly he released her hands, and got upon his feet. He was like a man -in a trance. - -"Go! Go!" I said sharply. Something urgent in my voice seemed to reach -his shrouded faculties. - -He looked in bewildered despair at Essie. - -"Go!" she repeated with agonised entreaty, paler than I had ever seen a -living creature. - -Still like a man in a trance he walked slowly from the room, passing Ted -in the doorway without seeing him. In the silence that followed we heard -his motor start and whirl away. - -"He's gone," said Essie, and she fainted. - -We had considerable difficulty in bringing her round, and, angry as I -was with Ted, I could not help being sorry for him when for some long -moments it seemed as if Essie had closed her eyes on this world for -good. - -But Ted, who always knew what to do in an emergency, tore her back by -sheer force from the refuge to which she had fled, and presently her -mournful eyes opened and recognised us once more. We took her back in -the motor to the village inn, and I put her to bed. - -Rest, warmth, silence, nourishment, these were all I could give her. -Instinctively I felt that the presence of the remorseful distressed Ted -was unendurable to her, and I would not allow him to come into her room, -or to sit up with her as he was anxious to do. - -I took his place in an armchair at her bedside, having administered to -her a sedative which I fortunately had with me, and was profoundly -thankful when her even breathing shewed me that she was asleep. - -I have known--who has not?--interminable nights, and nights when I -dreaded the morning, but I think the worst of them was easier to bear -than the night I kept watch beside Essie. - -She was stricken. I could see no happiness for her in her future life, -and I loved her. And I loved poor blundering Ted also. I grieved for -them both. And I was sorry for the Duke too. - -When the dawn was creeping ghostlike into the room and the night-light -was tottering in its saucer, Essie stirred and woke. She lay a long time -looking at me, an unfathomable trouble in her eyes. - -"Beatrice," she said at last, "I could not find the way back." - -"Where, dearest?" - -"To the house. I tried and tried, but it was no use. It is lost, lost, -lost. Everything is lost." - -I did not answer. I tried to put my trust in Time, and in the thought -that she would presently see her children in its rooms and playing in -its gardens, and would realise that Kenstone was in a new sense her -home, though not in the old one. - -I brought her breakfast to her in her room, and then, in spite of my -entreaties, she got up and dressed and came downstairs. But when a -chastened and humble Ted timidly approached her to ask whether she would -like to see the house once more before returning to London in a few -hours time, she shook her head and averted her eyes. It was evident to -me that she was determined never to set foot in it again. - -He did not insist, and she was obviously relieved when he left the room. -He signed to me to follow him and then told me that he had just received -a letter from the Duke asking him to accept the Vandyck in the octagonal -room as a present, as on second thoughts he felt it belonged to the -house and ought to remain there. The Duke had not started after all, as -his ship had been delayed one day. He wrote from the house close at hand -where he had been staying till his departure. - -"It's worth thousands," said Ted. "Thousands. These bigwigs are queer -customers. What an awful fool he is to part with it just out of -sentiment. But of course I shall never sell it. It shall be an heirloom. -I've told him so," and Ted thrust the letter into his pocket and hurried -away. - -Our rooms were airless, and Essie allowed me to establish her in a -wicker armchair under a chestnut tree in the old-fashioned inn garden -still brave with Michaelmas daisies and purple asters. The gleaming -autumn morning had a touch of frost in it. I wrapped her fur motor cloak -round her, and put her little hat on her head. She remained passive in -my hands in a kind of stupor. Perhaps that might be the effect of the -sedative I told myself. But I knew it was not so. - -Essie was drinking her cup of anguish to the dregs. She did not rebel -against it. She accepted her fate with dumb docility. She was not -bearing it. She was not capable of an effort of any kind. She underwent -it in silence. - -I told her to try to sleep again, and she smiled wanly at me and -obediently closed her eyes. As I went into the house to snatch an hour's -rest and pack I turned and looked back at her motionless figure sunk -down in her chair, her little grey face, pinched and thin like a -squirrel's against the garish hotel cushion, her nerveless hands lying -half open, palm upwards on her knee. - -A faint breeze stirred, and from the yellow tree a few large fronded -leaves of amber and crimson eddied slowly down, and settled, one on her -breast and the others in the grass at her feet. She saw them not. She -heeded them not. She heeded nothing. Her two worlds had clashed -together, and the impact had broken both. They lay in ruins round her. - -And so I looked for the last time on Essie. - - * * * * * - -Reader, I thought I could write this story to the end, but the pen -shakes in my hand. The horror of it rushes back upon me. Ted's surprise -at hearing that the Duke had gone to Essie in the garden, and that he -had persuaded her to drive with him to London. Then his growing anxiety -and continually reiterated conviction that we should find her in London, -his uncomprehending fury when we reached London and--she was not there. -And then at last his tardy realisation and desolation. - -I did what little I could to blunt the edge of his suffering when the -first fever fit of rage was past. - -"Dear Ted, she did not like the house. She told me she could not live in -it." - -"But she would have liked it when I had gutted it. I should have -transformed it entirely. Electric light, bathrooms, central heating, -radiators, dinner lift, luggage lift," Ted's voice broke down, and -struggled on in a strangled whisper. "Inglenooks, cosy corners, speaking -tubes, telephone, large French windows to the floor. She would not have -known it again." - -He hid his face in his hands. - -I almost wished the paroxysms of anger back again. - -"Oh! Beatrice, to leave me for another man when we were so happy -together, because of a house; and an entire stranger, whom she did not -want even to speak to, whom she was positively rude to. It could not -have been our little tiff, could it? She must have been mad." - -"You have hit on the truth," I said. "She was mad, quite mad. And mad -people always turn against those whom they--love best." - - * * * * * - -It is all a long time ago. I married a year later, and a year later -still Ted married again, a sensible good-humoured woman, and was just -as happy as he had been with Essie, happier even. In time he forgot her, -but I did not. She had sailed away across "perilous seas." She had -passed beyond my ken. I could only hold her memory dear. And at last she -became to me, what for so many years she had been to her lover--a dream. - - -W. HEFFER & SONS LTD., CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. - - - - - +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES | - | | - | * This text has been preserved as in the original, including | - | archaic and inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, | - | except as noted below. | - | | - | * Page numbers referenced herein are those in the original work | - | and are for information. Actual location of changes may be | - | found by searching for the relevant text. | - | | - | * Spelling changes are shown below within single quotes. Changes | - | regarding punctuation are shown below in curly brackets, { }, | - | for clarity. | - | | - | * Changes made to the original text: | - | | - | * Page 16: 'batallions' changed to 'battalions'. | - | | - | * Page 21: 'steping' changed to 'stepping'. | - | | - | * Page 29: 'call' changed to 'called'. | - | | - | * Page 29: {'conquering hero} changed to {"conquering hero}. | - | | - | * Page 35: {"If you do not} changed to {'If you do not}. | - | | - | * Page 35: {these few lines."} changed to {these few lines.'"}. | - | | - | * Page 37: {when Barrett, had} changed to {when Barrett had}. | - | | - | * Page 44: 'obviously' changed to 'obvious'. | - | | - | * Page 44: 'seaching' changed to 'searching'. | - | | - | * Page 45: {his own illusions. "He's} changed to {his own | - | illusions. He's}. | - | | - | * Page 57: {said gently.} changed to {said gently:}. | - | | - | * Page 64: {solved a problem!} should perhaps read {solved a | - | problem:}. | - | | - | * Page 65: {She grieved} changed to {"She grieved}. | - | | - | * Page 91: {"Do not be} changed to {'Do not be}. | - | | - | * Page 91: {all is well."} changed to {all is well.'}. | - | | - | * Page 92: {high road.'"} changed to {high road.'}. | - | | - | * Page 92: {And we were} changed to {"And we were}. | - | | - | * Page 92: {tower of Westminster.} changed to {tower of | - | Westminster."}. | - | | - | * Page 95: {"How kind of you to call me in. There is not | - | another house within miles.} changed to {'How kind of you | - | to call me in. There is not another house within miles.'}. | - | | - | * Page 96: {The thunderstorm passed} changed to {"The | - | thunderstorm passed}. | - | | - | * Page 99: {and disappointment."} changed to {and | - | disappointment.'}. | - | | - | * Page 104: {Could there have been an accident} changed to | - | {Could there have been an accident?}. | - | | - | * Page 106: {she was going.} changed to {she was going.'}. | - | | - | * Page 106: {"And what was} changed to {"'And what was}. | - | | - | * Page 110: {didn't I Blanche} changed to {didn't I, Blanche}. | - | | - | * Page 110: {Do we Blanche} changed to {Do we, Blanche}. | - | | - | * Page 114: {Mrs. Robinson is an egregious} changed to {"Mrs. | - | Robinson is an egregious}. | - | | - | * Page 116: {good woman find} changed to {good woman, find} | - | | - | * Page 121: 'contrairy' changed to 'contrary'. | - | | - | * Page 121: {see the goldfish?} changed to {see the goldfish?"}. | - | | - | * Page 121: {give him his crumbs.} changed to {give him his | - | crumbs?}. | - | | - | * Page 121: {Dr. Giles, every one seems to} changed to {Dr. | - | Giles, everyone seems to}. | - | | - | * Page 121: {dreadful it is to be a prisoner.} changed to | - | {dreadful it is to be a prisoner?}. | - | | - | * Page 136: 'decrepidness' changed to 'decrepitness'. | - | | - | * Page 145: 'portait' changed to 'portrait'. | - | | - | * Page 152: {the sign of sickness.} changed to {the sign of | - | sickness."}. | - | | - | * Page 156: {Joan has, never} changed to {Joan has never}. | - | | - | * Page 159: {He has taken several prizes?} changed to {He has | - | taken several prizes.}. | - | | - | * Page 179: 'ha' changed to 'had'. | - | | - | * Page 203: {make any mistake I abhor} changed to {make any | - | mistake. I abhor}. | - | | - | * Page 209: 'out' changed to 'our'. | - | | - | * Page 212: {father's estates} changed to {fathers' estates}. | - | | - | * Page 221: {"The ways of love} changed to {'The ways of love}. | - | | - | * Page 221: {thoroughfares of stones."} changed to | - | {thoroughfares of stones.'}. | - | | - | * Page 223: {marrying me I told him} changed to {marrying me. | - | I told him}. | - | | - | * Page 225: {ground to listen.} changed to {ground to listen."}. | - | | - | * Page 229: {And as I looked} changed to {"And as I looked}. | - | | - | * Page 229: {We neither of us spoke} changed to {"We neither of | - | us spoke}. | - | | - | * Page 240: {Who is Ted?" I echoed staring at her. 'What on} | - | changed to {"Who is Ted?" I echoed staring at her. "What on}. | - | | - +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE*** - - -******* This file should be named 40947-8.txt or 40947-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/0/9/4/40947 - - - -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. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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