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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Freelands, by John Galsworthy
+
+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 Freelands
+
+Author: John Galsworthy
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #2309]
+Last Updated: February 18, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FREELANDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+THE FREELANDS
+
+
+By John Galsworthy
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+
+
+“Liberty's a glorious feast.”—Burns.
+
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+One early April afternoon, in a Worcestershire field, the only field in
+that immediate landscape which was not down in grass, a man moved slowly
+athwart the furrows, sowing—a big man of heavy build, swinging his
+hairy brown arm with the grace of strength. He wore no coat or hat; a
+waistcoat, open over a blue-checked cotton shirt, flapped against belted
+corduroys that were somewhat the color of his square, pale-brown face
+and dusty hair. His eyes were sad, with the swimming yet fixed stare of
+epileptics; his mouth heavy-lipped, so that, but for the yearning eyes,
+the face would have been almost brutal. He looked as if he suffered from
+silence. The elm-trees bordering the field, though only just in leaf,
+showed dark against a white sky. A light wind blew, carrying already a
+scent from the earth and growth pushing up, for the year was early.
+The green Malvern hills rose in the west; and not far away, shrouded by
+trees, a long country house of weathered brick faced to the south. Save
+for the man sowing, and some rooks crossing from elm to elm, no life
+was visible in all the green land. And it was quiet—with a strange, a
+brooding tranquillity. The fields and hills seemed to mock the scars of
+road and ditch and furrow scraped on them, to mock at barriers of
+hedge and wall—between the green land and white sky was a conspiracy
+to disregard those small activities. So lonely was it, so plunged in a
+ground-bass of silence; so much too big and permanent for any figure of
+man.
+
+Across and across the brown loam the laborer doggedly finished out
+his task; scattered the few last seeds into a corner, and stood still.
+Thrushes and blackbirds were just beginning that even-song whose
+blitheness, as nothing else on earth, seems to promise youth forever to
+the land. He picked up his coat, slung it on, and, heaving a straw bag
+over his shoulder, walked out on to the grass-bordered road between the
+elms.
+
+“Tryst! Bob Tryst!”
+
+At the gate of a creepered cottage amongst fruit-trees, high above the
+road, a youth with black hair and pale-brown face stood beside a girl
+with frizzy brown hair and cheeks like poppies.
+
+“Have you had that notice?”
+
+The laborer answered slowly:
+
+“Yes, Mr. Derek. If she don't go, I've got to.”
+
+“What a d—d shame!”
+
+The laborer moved his head, as though he would have spoken, but no words
+came.
+
+“Don't do anything, Bob. We'll see about that.”
+
+“Evenin', Mr. Derek. Evenin', Miss Sheila,” and the laborer moved on.
+
+The two at the wicket gate also turned away. A black-haired woman
+dressed in blue came to the wicket gate in their place. There seemed no
+purpose in her standing there; it was perhaps an evening custom, some
+ceremony such as Moslems observe at the muezzin-call. And any one who
+saw her would have wondered what on earth she might be seeing, gazing
+out with her dark glowing eyes above the white, grass-bordered roads
+stretching empty this way and that between the elm-trees and green
+fields; while the blackbirds and thrushes shouted out their hearts,
+calling all to witness how hopeful and young was life in this English
+countryside....
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Mayday afternoon in Oxford Street, and Felix Freeland, a little late,
+on his way from Hampstead to his brother John's house in Porchester
+Gardens. Felix Freeland, author, wearing the very first gray top hat of
+the season. A compromise, that—like many other things in his life
+and works—between individuality and the accepted view of things,
+aestheticism and fashion, the critical sense and authority. After the
+meeting at John's, to discuss the doings of the family of his brother
+Morton Freeland—better known as Tod—he would perhaps look in on the
+caricatures at the English Gallery, and visit one duchess in Mayfair,
+concerning the George Richard Memorial. And so, not the soft felt hat
+which really suited authorship, nor the black top hat which obliterated
+personality to the point of pain, but this gray thing with narrowish
+black band, very suitable, in truth, to a face of a pale buff color, to
+a moustache of a deep buff color streaked with a few gray hairs, to a
+black braided coat cut away from a buff-colored waistcoat, to his neat
+boots—not patent leather—faintly buffed with May-day dust. Even his
+eyes, Freeland gray, were a little buffed over by sedentary habit, and
+the number of things that he was conscious of. For instance, that the
+people passing him were distressingly plain, both men and women; plain
+with the particular plainness of those quite unaware of it. It struck
+him forcibly, while he went along, how very queer it was that with so
+many plain people in the country, the population managed to keep up even
+as well as it did. To his wonderfully keen sense of defect, it seemed
+little short of marvellous. A shambling, shoddy crew, this crowd
+of shoppers and labor demonstrators! A conglomeration of hopelessly
+mediocre visages! What was to be done about it? Ah! what indeed!—since
+they were evidently not aware of their own dismal mediocrity. Hardly
+a beautiful or a vivid face, hardly a wicked one, never anything
+transfigured, passionate, terrible, or grand. Nothing Greek, early
+Italian, Elizabethan, not even beefy, beery, broad old Georgian.
+Something clutched-in, and squashed-out about it all—on that collective
+face something of the look of a man almost comfortably and warmly
+wrapped round by a snake at the very beginning of its squeeze. It gave
+Felix Freeland a sort of faint excitement and pleasure to notice this.
+For it was his business to notice things, and embalm them afterward
+in ink. And he believed that not many people noticed it, so that it
+contributed in his mind to his own distinction, which was precious to
+him. Precious, and encouraged to be so by the press, which—as he well
+knew—must print his name several thousand times a year. And yet, as a
+man of culture and of principle, how he despised that kind of fame, and
+theoretically believed that a man's real distinction lay in his oblivion
+of the world's opinion, particularly as expressed by that flighty
+creature, the Fourth Estate. But here again, as in the matter of the
+gray top hat, he had instinctively compromised, taking in press cuttings
+which described himself and his works, while he never failed to describe
+those descriptions—good, bad, and indifferent—as 'that stuff,' and their
+writers as 'those fellows.'
+
+Not that it was new to him to feel that the country was in a bad way.
+On the contrary, it was his established belief, and one for which he was
+prepared to furnish due and proper reasons. In the first place he traced
+it to the horrible hold Industrialism had in the last hundred years laid
+on the nation, draining the peasantry from 'the Land'; and in the second
+place to the influence of a narrow and insidious Officialism, sapping
+the independence of the People.
+
+This was why, in going to a conclave with his brother John, high in
+Government employ, and his brother Stanley, a captain of industry,
+possessor of the Morton Plough Works, he was conscious of a certain
+superiority in that he, at all events, had no hand in this paralysis
+which was creeping on the country.
+
+And getting more buff-colored every minute, he threaded his way on,
+till, past the Marble Arch, he secured the elbow-room of Hyde Park.
+Here groups of young men, with chivalrous idealism, were jeering at
+and chivying the broken remnants of a suffrage meeting. Felix debated
+whether he should oppose his body to their bodies, his tongue to theirs,
+or whether he should avert his consciousness and hurry on; but, that
+instinct which moved him to wear the gray top hat prevailing, he did
+neither, and stood instead, looking at them in silent anger, which
+quickly provoked endearments—such as: “Take it off,” or “Keep it on,” or
+“What cheer, Toppy!” but nothing more acute. And he meditated: Culture!
+Could culture ever make headway among the blind partisanships, the
+hand-to-mouth mentality, the cheap excitements of this town life? The
+faces of these youths, the tone of their voices, the very look of their
+bowler hats, said: No! You could not culturalize the impermeable texture
+of their vulgarity. And they were the coming manhood of the nation—this
+inexpressibly distasteful lot of youths! The country had indeed got too
+far away from 'the Land.' And this essential towny commonness was not
+confined to the classes from which these youths were drawn. He had even
+remarked it among his own son's school and college friends—an impatience
+of discipline, an insensibility to everything but excitement and having
+a good time, a permanent mental indigestion due to a permanent diet of
+tit-bits. What aspiration they possessed seemed devoted to securing for
+themselves the plums of official or industrial life. His boy Alan, even,
+was infected, in spite of home influences and the atmosphere of art in
+which he had been so sedulously soaked. He wished to enter his Uncle
+Stanley's plough works, seeing in it a 'soft thing.'
+
+But the last of the woman-baiters had passed by now, and, conscious that
+he was really behind time, Felix hurried on....
+
+In his study—a pleasant room, if rather tidy—John Freeland was standing
+before the fire smoking a pipe and looking thoughtfully at nothing. He
+was, in fact, thinking, with that continuity characteristic of a man who
+at fifty has won for himself a place of permanent importance in the
+Home Office. Starting life in the Royal Engineers, he still preserved
+something of a military look about his figure, and grave visage with
+steady eyes and drooping moustache (both a shade grayer than those of
+Felix), and a forehead bald from justness and knowing where to lay
+his hand on papers. His face was thinner, his head narrower, than his
+brother's, and he had acquired a way of making those he looked at doubt
+themselves and feel the sudden instability of all their facts. He
+was—as has been said—thinking. His brother Stanley had wired to him that
+morning: “Am motoring up to-day on business; can you get Felix to come
+at six o'clock and talk over the position at Tod's?” What position at
+Tod's? He had indeed heard something vague—of those youngsters of Tod's,
+and some fuss they were making about the laborers down there. He had
+not liked it. Too much of a piece with the general unrest, and these new
+democratic ideas that were playing old Harry with the country! For in
+his opinion the country was in a bad way, partly owing to Industrialism,
+with its rotting effect upon physique; partly to this modern analytic
+Intellectualism, with its destructive and anarchic influence on morals.
+It was difficult to overestimate the mischief of those two factors; and
+in the approaching conference with his brothers, one of whom was the
+head of an industrial undertaking, and the other a writer, whose books,
+extremely modern, he never read, he was perhaps vaguely conscious of his
+own cleaner hands. Hearing a car come to a halt outside, he went to the
+window and looked out. Yes, it was Stanley!...
+
+Stanley Freeland, who had motored up from Becket—his country place,
+close to his plough works in Worcestershire—stood a moment on the
+pavement, stretching his long legs and giving directions to his
+chauffeur. He had been stopped twice on the road for not-exceeding the
+limit as he believed, and was still a little ruffled. Was it not his
+invariable principle to be moderate in speed as in all other things? And
+his feeling at the moment was stronger even than usual, that the country
+was in a bad way, eaten up by officialism, with its absurd limitations
+of speed and the liberty of the subject, and the advanced ideas of
+these new writers and intellectuals, always talking about the rights
+and sufferings of the poor. There was no progress along either of those
+roads. He had it in his heart, as he stood there on the pavement, to say
+something pretty definite to John about interference with the liberty
+of the subject, and he wouldn't mind giving old Felix a rap about his
+precious destructive doctrines, and continual girding at the upper
+classes, vested interests, and all the rest of it. If he had something
+to put in their place that would be another matter. Capital and those
+who controlled it were the backbone of the country—what there was left
+of the country, apart from these d—d officials and aesthetic fellows!
+And with a contraction of his straight eyebrows above his straight gray
+eyes, straight blunt nose, blunter moustaches, and blunt chin, he kept a
+tight rein on his blunt tongue, not choosing to give way even to his own
+anger.
+
+Then, perceiving Felix coming—'in a white topper, by Jove!'—he crossed
+the pavement to the door; and, tall, square, personable, rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+“Well, what's the matter at Tod's?”
+
+And Felix moved a little forward in his chair, his eyes fixed with
+interest on Stanley, who was about to speak.
+
+“It's that wife of his, of course. It was all very well so long as
+she confined herself to writing, and talk, and that Land Society, or
+whatever it was she founded, the one that snuffed out the other day; but
+now she's getting herself and those two youngsters mixed up in our local
+broils, and really I think Tod's got to be spoken to.”
+
+“It's impossible for a husband to interfere with his wife's principles.”
+So Felix.
+
+“Principles!” The word came from John.
+
+“Certainly! Kirsteen's a woman of great character; revolutionary
+by temperament. Why should you expect her to act as you would act
+yourselves?”
+
+When Felix had said that, there was a silence.
+
+Then Stanley muttered: “Poor old Tod!”
+
+Felix sighed, lost for a moment in his last vision of his youngest
+brother. It was four years ago now, a summer evening—Tod standing
+between his youngsters Derek and Sheila, in a doorway of his white,
+black-timbered, creepered cottage, his sunburnt face and blue eyes the
+serenest things one could see in a day's march!
+
+“Why 'poor'?” he said. “Tod's much happier than we are. You've only to
+look at him.”
+
+“Ah!” said Stanley suddenly. “D'you remember him at Father's
+funeral?—without his hat, and his head in the clouds. Fine-lookin' chap,
+old Tod—pity he's such a child of Nature.”
+
+Felix said quietly:
+
+“If you'd offered him a partnership, Stanley—it would have been the
+making of him.”
+
+“Tod in the plough works? My hat!”
+
+Felix smiled. At sight of that smile, Stanley grew red, and John
+refilled his pipe. It is always the devil to have a brother more
+sarcastic than oneself!
+
+“How old are those two?” John said abruptly.
+
+“Sheila's twenty, Derek nineteen.”
+
+“I thought the boy was at an agricultural college?”
+
+“Finished.”
+
+“What's he like?”
+
+“A black-haired, fiery fellow, not a bit like Tod.”
+
+John muttered: “That's her Celtic blood. Her father, old Colonel Moray,
+was just that sort; by George, he was a regular black Highlander. What's
+the trouble exactly?”
+
+It was Stanley who answered: “That sort of agitation business is all
+very well until it begins to affect your neighbors; then it's time it
+stopped. You know the Mallorings who own all the land round Tod's. Well,
+they've fallen foul of the Mallorings over what they call injustice
+to some laborers. Questions of morality involved. I don't know all the
+details. A man's got notice to quit over his deceased wife's sister;
+and some girl or other in another cottage has kicked over—just ordinary
+country incidents. What I want is that Tod should be made to see that
+his family mustn't quarrel with his nearest neighbors in this way. We
+know the Mallorings well, they're only seven miles from us at Becket. It
+doesn't do; sooner or later it plays the devil all round. And the air's
+full of agitation about the laborers and 'the Land,' and all the rest of
+it—only wants a spark to make real trouble.”
+
+And having finished this oration, Stanley thrust his hands deep into his
+pockets, and jingled the money that was there.
+
+John said abruptly:
+
+“Felix, you'd better go down.”
+
+Felix was sitting back, his eyes for once withdrawn from his brothers'
+faces.
+
+“Odd,” he said, “really odd, that with a perfectly unique person like
+Tod for a brother, we only see him once in a blue moon.”
+
+“It's because he IS so d—d unique.”
+
+Felix got up and gravely extended his hand to Stanley.
+
+“By Jove,” he said, “you've spoken truth.” And to John he added: “Well,
+I WILL go, and let you know the upshot.”
+
+When he had departed, the two elder brothers remained for some moments
+silent, then Stanley said:
+
+“Old Felix is a bit tryin'! With the fuss they make of him in the
+papers, his head's swelled!”
+
+John did not answer. One could not in so many words resent one's own
+brother being made a fuss of, and if it had been for something
+real, such as discovering the source of the Black River, conquering
+Bechuanaland, curing Blue-mange, or being made a Bishop, he would have
+been the first and most loyal in his appreciation; but for the sort of
+thing Felix made up—Fiction, and critical, acid, destructive sort of
+stuff, pretending to show John Freeland things that he hadn't seen
+before—as if Felix could!—not at all the jolly old romance which one
+could read well enough and enjoy till it sent you to sleep after a good
+day's work. No! that Felix should be made a fuss of for such work as
+that really almost hurt him. It was not quite decent, violating deep
+down one's sense of form, one's sense of health, one's traditions.
+Though he would not have admitted it, he secretly felt, too, that this
+fuss was dangerous to his own point of view, which was, of course, to
+him the only real one. And he merely said:
+
+“Will you stay to dinner, Stan?”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+If John had those sensations about Felix, so—when he was away from
+John—had Felix about himself. He had never quite grown out of the
+feeling that to make himself conspicuous in any way was bad form.
+In common with his three brothers he had been through the mills of
+gentility—those unique grinding machines of education only found in his
+native land. Tod, to be sure, had been publicly sacked at the end of his
+third term, for climbing on to the headmaster's roof and filling up two
+of his chimneys with football pants, from which he had omitted to remove
+his name. Felix still remembered the august scene—the horrid thrill of
+it, the ominous sound of that: “Freeland minimus!” the ominous sight of
+poor little Tod emerging from his obscurity near the roof of the Speech
+Room, and descending all those steps. How very small and rosy he had
+looked, his bright hair standing on end, and his little blue eyes
+staring up very hard from under a troubled frown. And the august hand
+holding up those sooty pants, and the august voice: “These appear to
+be yours, Freeland minimus. Were you so good as to put them down my
+chimneys?” And the little piping, “Yes, sir.”
+
+“May I ask why, Freeland minimus?”
+
+“I don't know, sir.”
+
+“You must have had some reason, Freeland minimus?”
+
+“It was the end of term, sir.”
+
+“Ah! You must not come back here, Freeland minimus. You are too
+dangerous, to yourself, and others. Go to your place.”
+
+And poor little Tod ascending again all those steps, cheeks more
+terribly rosy than ever, eyes bluer, from under a still more troubled
+frown; little mouth hard set; and breathing so that you could hear him
+six forms off. True, the new Head had been goaded by other outrages, the
+authors of which had not omitted to remove their names; but the want
+of humor, the amazing want of humor! As if it had not been a sign of
+first-rate stuff in Tod! And to this day Felix remembered with delight
+the little bubbling hiss that he himself had started, squelched at once,
+but rippling out again along the rows like tiny scattered lines of fire
+when a conflagration is suppressed. Expulsion had been the salvation of
+Tod! Or—his damnation? Which? God would know, but Felix was not certain.
+Having himself been fifteen years acquiring 'Mill' philosophy, and
+another fifteen years getting rid of it, he had now begun to think
+that after all there might be something in it. A philosophy that took
+everything, including itself, at face value, and questioned nothing, was
+sedative to nerves too highly strung by the continual examination of the
+insides of oneself and others, with a view to their alteration. Tod,
+of course, having been sent to Germany after his expulsion, as one
+naturally would be, and then put to farming, had never properly acquired
+'Mill' manner, and never sloughed it off; and yet he was as sedative a
+man as you could meet.
+
+Emerging from the Tube station at Hampstead, he moved toward home under
+a sky stranger than one might see in a whole year of evenings. Between
+the pine-trees on the ridge it was opaque and colored like pinkish
+stone, and all around violent purple with flames of the young green,
+and white spring blossom lit against it. Spring had been dull and
+unimaginative so far, but this evening it was all fire and gathered
+torrents; Felix wondered at the waiting passion of that sky.
+
+He reached home just as those torrents began to fall.
+
+The old house, beyond the Spaniard's Road, save for mice and a faint
+underlying savor of wood-rot in two rooms, well satisfied the aesthetic
+sense. Felix often stood in his hall, study, bedroom, and other
+apartments, admiring the rich and simple glow of them—admiring the
+rarity and look of studied negligence about the stuffs, the flowers,
+the books, the furniture, the china; and then quite suddenly the feeling
+would sweep over him: “By George, do I really own all this, when my
+ideal is 'bread and water, and on feast days a little bit of cheese'?”
+True, he was not to blame for the niceness of his things—Flora did it;
+but still—there they were, a little hard to swallow for an epicurean.
+It might, of course, have been worse, for if Flora had a passion for
+collecting, it was a very chaste one, and though what she collected cost
+no little money, it always looked as if it had been inherited, and—as
+everybody knows—what has been inherited must be put up with, whether it
+be a coronet or a cruet-stand.
+
+To collect old things, and write poetry! It was a career; one would
+not have one's wife otherwise. She might, for instance, have been like
+Stanley's wife, Clara, whose career was wealth and station; or John's
+wife, Anne, whose career had been cut short; or even Tod's wife,
+Kirsteen, whose career was revolution. No—a wife who had two, and only
+two children, and treated them with affectionate surprise, who was never
+out of temper, never in a hurry, knew the points of a book or play,
+could cut your hair at a pinch; whose hand was dry, figure still good,
+verse tolerable, and—above all—who wished for no better fate than Fate
+had given her—was a wife not to be sneezed at. And Felix never had. He
+had depicted so many sneezing wives and husbands in his books, and knew
+the value of a happy marriage better perhaps than any one in England. He
+had laid marriage low a dozen times, wrecked it on all sorts of rocks,
+and had the greater veneration for his own, which had begun early,
+manifested every symptom of ending late, and in the meantime walked down
+the years holding hands fast, and by no means forgetting to touch lips.
+
+Hanging up the gray top hat, he went in search of her. He found her in
+his dressing-room, surrounded by a number of little bottles, which
+she was examining vaguely, and putting one by one into an 'inherited'
+waste-paper basket. Having watched her for a little while with a certain
+pleasure, he said:
+
+“Yes, my dear?”
+
+Noticing his presence, and continuing to put bottles into the basket,
+she answered:
+
+“I thought I must—they're what dear Mother's given us.”
+
+There they lay—little bottles filled with white and brown fluids, white
+and blue and brown powders; green and brown and yellow ointments; black
+lozenges; buff plasters; blue and pink and purple pills. All beautifully
+labelled and corked.
+
+And he said in a rather faltering voice:
+
+“Bless her! How she does give her things away! Haven't we used ANY?”
+
+“Not one. And they have to be cleared away before they're stale, for
+fear we might take one by mistake.”
+
+“Poor Mother!”
+
+“My dear, she's found something newer than them all by now.”
+
+Felix sighed.
+
+“The nomadic spirit. I have it, too!”
+
+And a sudden vision came to him of his mother's carved ivory face, kept
+free of wrinkles by sheer will-power, its firm chin, slightly aquiline
+nose, and measured brows; its eyes that saw everything so quickly, so
+fastidiously, its compressed mouth that smiled sweetly, with a resolute
+but pathetic acceptation. Of the piece of fine lace, sometimes black,
+sometimes white, over her gray hair. Of her hands, so thin now, always
+moving a little, as if all the composure and care not to offend any eye
+by allowing Time to ravage her face, were avenging themselves in that
+constant movement. Of her figure, that was short but did not seem so,
+still quick-moving, still alert, and always dressed in black or gray.
+A vision of that exact, fastidious, wandering spirit called Frances
+Fleeming Freeland—that spirit strangely compounded of domination and
+humility, of acceptation and cynicism; precise and actual to the
+point of desert dryness; generous to a point that caused her family to
+despair; and always, beyond all things, brave.
+
+Flora dropped the last little bottle, and sitting on the edge of the
+bath let her eyebrows rise. How pleasant was that impersonal humor which
+made her superior to other wives!
+
+“You—nomadic? How?”
+
+“Mother travels unceasingly from place to place, person to person, thing
+to thing. I travel unceasingly from motive to motive, mind to mind; my
+native air is also desert air—hence the sterility of my work.”
+
+Flora rose, but her eyebrows descended.
+
+“Your work,” she said, “is not sterile.”
+
+“That, my dear,” said Felix, “is prejudice.” And perceiving that she
+was going to kiss him, he waited without annoyance. For a woman of
+forty-two, with two children and three books of poems—and not knowing
+which had taken least out of her—with hazel-gray eyes, wavy eyebrows
+darker than they should have been, a glint of red in her hair; wavy
+figure and lips; quaint, half-humorous indolence, quaint, half-humorous
+warmth—was she not as satisfactory a woman as a man could possibly have
+married!
+
+“I have got to go down and see Tod,” he said. “I like that wife of his;
+but she has no sense of humor. How much better principles are in theory
+than in practice!”
+
+Flora repeated softly, as if to herself:
+
+“I'm glad I have none.” She was at the window leaning out, and Felix
+took his place beside her. The air was full of scent from wet leaves,
+alive with the song of birds thanking the sky. Suddenly he felt her
+arm round his ribs; either it or they—which, he could not at the moment
+tell—seemed extraordinarily soft....
+
+Between Felix and his young daughter, Nedda, there existed the only
+kind of love, except a mother's, which has much permanence—love based on
+mutual admiration. Though why Nedda, with her starry innocence, should
+admire him, Felix could never understand, not realizing that she read
+his books, and even analyzed them for herself in the diary which she
+kept religiously, writing it when she ought to have been asleep. He had
+therefore no knowledge of the way his written thoughts stimulated the
+ceaseless questioning that was always going on within her; the thirst to
+know why this was and that was not. Why, for instance, her heart ached
+so some days and felt light and eager other days? Why, when people wrote
+and talked of God, they seemed to know what He was, and she never did?
+Why people had to suffer; and the world be black to so many millions?
+Why one could not love more than one man at a time? Why—a thousand
+things? Felix's books supplied no answers to these questions, but they
+were comforting; for her real need as yet was not for answers, but
+ever for more questions, as a young bird's need is for opening its beak
+without quite knowing what is coming out or going in. When she and her
+father walked, or sat, or went to concerts together, their talk was
+neither particularly intimate nor particularly voluble; they made to
+each other no great confidences. Yet each was certain that the other was
+not bored—a great thing; and they squeezed each other's little fingers
+a good deal—very warming. Now with his son Alan, Felix had a continual
+sensation of having to keep up to a mark and never succeeding—a feeling,
+as in his favorite nightmare, of trying to pass an examination for which
+he had neglected to prepare; of having to preserve, in fact, form
+proper to the father of Alan Freeland. With Nedda he had a sense of
+refreshment; the delight one has on a spring day, watching a clear
+stream, a bank of flowers, birds flying. And Nedda with her father—what
+feeling had she? To be with him was like a long stroking with a touch
+of tickle in it; to read his books, a long tickle with a nice touch of
+stroking now and then when one was not expecting it.
+
+That night after dinner, when Alan had gone out and Flora into a dream,
+she snuggled up alongside her father, got hold of his little finger, and
+whispered:
+
+“Come into the garden, Dad; I'll put on goloshes. It's an awfully nice
+moon.”
+
+The moon indeed was palest gold behind the pines, so that its radiance
+was a mere shower of pollen, just a brushing of white moth-down over
+the reeds of their little dark pond, and the black blur of the flowering
+currant bushes. And the young lime-trees, not yet in full leaf, quivered
+ecstatically in that moon-witchery, still letting fall raindrops of
+the past spring torrent, with soft hissing sounds. A real sense in
+the garden, of God holding his breath in the presence of his own youth
+swelling, growing, trembling toward perfection! Somewhere a bird—a
+thrush, they thought—mixed in its little mind as to night and day, was
+queerly chirruping. And Felix and his daughter went along the dark wet
+paths, holding each other's arms, not talking much. For, in him, very
+responsive to the moods of Nature, there was a flattered feeling, with
+that young arm in his, of Spring having chosen to confide in him this
+whispering, rustling hour. And in Nedda was so much of that night's
+unutterable youth—no wonder she was silent! Then, somehow—neither
+responsible—they stood motionless. How quiet it was, but for a distant
+dog or two, and the stilly shivering-down of the water drops, and the
+far vibration of the million-voiced city! How quiet and soft and fresh!
+Then Nedda spoke:
+
+“Dad, I do so want to know everything.”
+
+Not rousing even a smile, with its sublime immodesty, that aspiration
+seemed to Felix infinitely touching. What less could youth want in the
+very heart of Spring? And, watching her face put up to the night, her
+parted lips, and the moon-gleam fingering her white throat, he answered:
+
+“It'll all come soon enough, my pretty!”
+
+To think that she must come to an end like the rest, having found out
+almost nothing, having discovered just herself, and the particle of God
+that was within her! But he could not, of course, say this.
+
+“I want to FEEL. Can't I begin?”
+
+How many millions of young creatures all the world over were sending up
+that white prayer to climb and twine toward the stars, and—fall to earth
+again! And nothing to be answered, but:
+
+“Time enough, Nedda!”
+
+“But, Dad, there are such heaps of things, such heaps of people, and
+reasons, and—and life; and I know nothing. Dreams are the only times, it
+seems to me, that one finds out anything.”
+
+“As for that, my child, I am exactly in your case. What's to be done for
+us?”
+
+She slid her hand through his arm again.
+
+“Don't laugh at me!”
+
+“Heaven forbid! I meant it. You're finding out much quicker than I. It's
+all folk-music to you still; to me Strauss and the rest of the tired
+stuff. The variations my mind spins—wouldn't I just swap them for the
+tunes your mind is making?”
+
+“I don't seem making tunes at all. I don't seem to have anything to make
+them of. Take me down to see 'the Tods,' Dad!”
+
+Why not? And yet—! Just as in this spring night Felix felt so much,
+so very much, lying out there behind the still and moony dark, such
+marvellous holding of breath and waiting sentiency, so behind
+this innocent petition, he could not help the feeling of a lurking
+fatefulness. That was absurd. And he said: “If you wish it, by all
+means. You'll like your Uncle Tod; as to the others, I can't say,
+but your aunt is an experience, and experiences are what you want, it
+seems.”
+
+Fervently, without speech, Nedda squeezed his arm.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Stanley Freeland's country house, Becket, was almost a show place.
+It stood in its park and pastures two miles from the little town of
+Transham and the Morton Plough Works; close to the ancestral home of the
+Moretons, his mother's family—that home burned down by Roundheads in
+the Civil War. The site—certain vagaries in the ground—Mrs. Stanley
+had caused to be walled round, and consecrated so to speak with a
+stone medallion on which were engraved the aged Moreton arms—arrows
+and crescent moons in proper juxtaposition. Peacocks, too—that bird
+'parlant,' from the old Moreton crest—were encouraged to dwell there
+and utter their cries, as of passionate souls lost in too comfortable
+surroundings.
+
+By one of those freaks of which Nature is so prodigal, Stanley—owner of
+this native Moreton soil—least of all four Freeland brothers, had the
+Moreton cast of mind and body. That was why he made so much more money
+than the other three put together, and had been able, with the aid of
+Clara's undoubted genius for rank and station, to restore a strain of
+Moreton blood to its rightful position among the county families of
+Worcestershire. Bluff and without sentiment, he himself set little store
+by that, smiling up his sleeve—for he was both kindly and prudent—at
+his wife who had been a Tomson. It was not in Stanley to appreciate the
+peculiar flavor of the Moretons, that something which in spite of
+their naivete and narrowness, had really been rather fine. To him, such
+Moretons as were left were 'dry enough sticks, clean out of it.' They
+were of a breed that was already gone, the simplest of all country
+gentlemen, dating back to the Conquest, without one solitary conspicuous
+ancestor, save the one who had been physician to a king and perished
+without issue—marrying from generation to generation exactly their own
+equals; living simple, pious, parochial lives; never in trade, never
+making money, having a tradition and a practice of gentility more
+punctilious than the so-called aristocracy; constitutionally paternal
+and maternal to their dependents, constitutionally so convinced that
+those dependents and all indeed who were not 'gentry,' were of different
+clay, that they were entirely simple and entirely without arrogance,
+carrying with them even now a sort of Early atmosphere of archery and
+home-made cordials, lavender and love of clergy, together with frequent
+use of the word 'nice,' a peculiar regularity of feature, and a
+complexion that was rather parchmenty. High Church people and Tories,
+naturally, to a man and woman, by sheer inbred absence of ideas, and
+sheer inbred conviction that nothing else was nice; but withal very
+considerate of others, really plucky in bearing their own ills; not
+greedy, and not wasteful.
+
+Of Becket, as it now was, they would not have approved at all. By what
+chance Edmund Moreton (Stanley's mother's grandfather), in the middle
+of the eighteenth century, had suddenly diverged from family feeling and
+ideals, and taken that 'not quite nice' resolution to make ploughs and
+money, would never now be known. The fact remained, together with
+the plough works. A man apparently of curious energy and character,
+considering his origin, he had dropped the E from his name, and—though
+he continued the family tradition so far as to marry a Fleeming of
+Worcestershire, to be paternal to his workmen, to be known as Squire,
+and to bring his children up in the older Moreton 'niceness'—he had yet
+managed to make his ploughs quite celebrated, to found a little town,
+and die still handsome and clean-shaved at the age of sixty-six. Of his
+four sons, only two could be found sufficiently without the E to go on
+making ploughs. Stanley's grandfather, Stuart Morton, indeed, had tried
+hard, but in the end had reverted to the congenital instinct for being
+just a Moreton. An extremely amiable man, he took to wandering with
+his family, and died in France, leaving one daughter—Frances, Stanley's
+mother—and three sons, one of whom, absorbed in horses, wandered to
+Australia and was killed by falling from them; one of whom, a soldier,
+wandered to India, and the embraces of a snake; and one of whom wandered
+into the embraces of the Holy Roman Church.
+
+The Morton Plough Works were dry and dwindling when Stanley's father,
+seeking an opening for his son, put him and money into them. From that
+moment they had never looked back, and now brought Stanley, the sole
+proprietor, an income of full fifteen thousand pounds a year. He wanted
+it. For Clara, his wife, had that energy of aspiration which before now
+has raised women to positions of importance in the counties which
+are not their own, and caused, incidentally, many acres to go out of
+cultivation. Not one plough was used on the whole of Becket, not even a
+Morton plough—these indeed were unsuitable to English soil and were all
+sent abroad. It was the corner-stone of his success that Stanley had
+completely seen through the talked-of revival of English agriculture,
+and sedulously cultivated the foreign market. This was why the Becket
+dining-room could contain without straining itself large quantities of
+local magnates and celebrities from London, all deploring the condition
+of 'the Land,' and discussing without end the regrettable position of
+the agricultural laborer. Except for literary men and painters, present
+in small quantities to leaven the lump, Becket was, in fact, a rallying
+point for the advanced spirits of Land Reform—one of those places where
+they were sure of being well done at week-ends, and of congenial and
+even stimulating talk about the undoubted need for doing something,
+and the designs which were being entertained upon 'the Land' by either
+party. This very heart of English country that the old Moretons in their
+paternal way had so religiously farmed, making out of its lush grass and
+waving corn a simple and by no means selfish or ungenerous subsistence,
+was now entirely lawns, park, coverts, and private golf course, together
+with enough grass to support the kine which yielded that continual
+stream of milk necessary to Clara's entertainments and children, all
+female, save little Francis, and still of tender years. Of gardeners,
+keepers, cow-men, chauffeurs, footmen, stablemen—full twenty were
+supported on those fifteen hundred acres that formed the little Becket
+demesne. Of agricultural laborers proper—that vexed individual so much
+in the air, so reluctant to stay on 'the Land,' and so difficult to
+house when he was there, there were fortunately none, so that it was
+possible for Stanley, whose wife meant him to 'put up' for the Division,
+and his guests, who were frequently in Parliament, to hold entirely
+unbiassed and impersonal views upon the whole question so long as they
+were at Becket.
+
+It was beautiful there, too, with the bright open fields hedged with
+great elms, and that ever-rich serenity of its grass and trees. The
+white house, timbered with dark beams in true Worcestershire fashion,
+and added-to from time to time, had preserved, thanks to a fine
+architect, an old-fashioned air of spacious presidency above its gardens
+and lawns. On the long artificial lake, with innumerable rushy nooks
+and water-lilies and coverture of leaves floating flat and bright in
+the sun, the half-tame wild duck and shy water-hens had remote little
+worlds, and flew and splashed when all Becket was abed, quite as if the
+human spirit, with its monkey-tricks and its little divine flame, had
+not yet been born.
+
+Under the shade of a copper-beech, just where the drive cut through into
+its circle before the house, an old lady was sitting that afternoon on
+a campstool. She was dressed in gray alpaca, light and cool, and had on
+her iron-gray hair a piece of black lace. A number of Hearth and Home
+and a little pair of scissors, suspended by an inexpensive chain from
+her waist, rested on her knee, for she had been meaning to cut out for
+dear Felix a certain recipe for keeping the head cool; but, as a fact,
+she sat without doing so, very still, save that, now and then, she
+compressed her pale fine lips, and continually moved her pale fine
+hands. She was evidently waiting for something that promised excitement,
+even pleasure, for a little rose-leaf flush had quavered up into a face
+that was colored like parchment; and her gray eyes under regular and
+still-dark brows, very far apart, between which there was no semblance
+of a wrinkle, seemed noting little definite things about her, almost
+unwillingly, as an Arab's or a Red Indian's eyes will continue to note
+things in the present, however their minds may be set on the future. So
+sat Frances Fleeming Freeland (nee Morton) waiting for the arrival of
+her son Felix and her grandchildren Alan and Nedda.
+
+She marked presently an old man limping slowly on a stick toward where
+the drive debouched, and thought at once: “He oughtn't to be coming this
+way. I expect he doesn't know the way round to the back. Poor man, he's
+very lame. He looks respectable, too.” She got up and went toward
+him, remarking that his face with nice gray moustaches was wonderfully
+regular, almost like a gentleman's, and that he touched his dusty hat
+with quite old-fashioned courtesy. And smiling—her smile was sweet
+but critical—she said: “You'll find the best way is to go back to that
+little path, and past the greenhouses. Have you hurt your leg?”
+
+“My leg's been like that, m'm, fifteen year come Michaelmas.”
+
+“How did it happen?”
+
+“Ploughin'. The bone was injured; an' now they say the muscle's dried up
+in a manner of speakin'.”
+
+“What do you do for it? The very best thing is this.”
+
+From the recesses of a deep pocket, placed where no one else wore such a
+thing, she brought out a little pot.
+
+“You must let me give it you. Put it on when you go to bed, and rub it
+well in; you'll find it act splendidly.”
+
+The old man took the little pot with dubious reverence.
+
+“Yes, m'm,” he said; “thank you, m'm.”
+
+“What is your name?”
+
+“Gaunt.”
+
+“And where do you live?”
+
+“Over to Joyfields, m'm.”
+
+“Joyfields—another of my sons lives there—Mr. Morton Freeland. But it's
+seven miles.”
+
+“I got a lift half-way.”
+
+“And have you business at the house?” The old man was silent; the
+downcast, rather cynical look of his lined face deepened. And Frances
+Freeland thought: 'He's overtired. They must give him some tea and
+an egg. What can he want, coming all this way? He's evidently not a
+beggar.'
+
+The old man who was not a beggar spoke suddenly:
+
+“I know the Mr. Freeland at Joyfields. He's a good gentleman, too.”
+
+“Yes, he is. I wonder I don't know you.”
+
+“I'm not much about, owin' to my leg. It's my grand-daughter in service
+here, I come to see.”
+
+“Oh, yes! What is her name?”
+
+“Gaunt her name is.”
+
+“I shouldn't know her by her surname.”
+
+“Alice.”
+
+“Ah! in the kitchen; a nice, pretty girl. I hope you're not in trouble.”
+
+Again the old man was silent, and again spoke suddenly:
+
+“That's as you look at it, m'm,” he said. “I've got a matter of a few
+words to have with her about the family. Her father he couldn't come, so
+I come instead.”
+
+“And how are you going to get back?”
+
+“I'll have to walk, I expect, without I can pick up with a cart.”
+
+Frances Freeland compressed her lips. “With that leg you should have
+come by train.”
+
+The old man smiled.
+
+“I hadn't the fare like,” he said. “I only gets five shillin's a week,
+from the council, and two o' that I pays over to my son.”
+
+Frances Freeland thrust her hand once more into that deep pocket, and as
+she did so she noticed that the old man's left boot was flapping open,
+and that there were two buttons off his coat. Her mind was swiftly
+calculating: “It is more than seven weeks to quarter day. Of course I
+can't afford it, but I must just give him a sovereign.”
+
+She withdrew her hand from the recesses of her pocket and looked at
+the old man's nose. It was finely chiselled, and the same yellow as his
+face. “It looks nice, and quite sober,” she thought. In her hand was her
+purse and a boot-lace. She took out a sovereign.
+
+“Now, if I give you this,” she said, “you must promise me not to spend
+any of it in the public-house. And this is for your boot. And you must
+go back by train. And get those buttons sewn on your coat. And tell
+cook, from me, please, to give you some tea and an egg.” And noticing
+that he took the sovereign and the boot-lace very respectfully,
+and seemed altogether very respectable, and not at all coarse or
+beery-looking, she said:
+
+“Good-by; don't forget to rub what I gave you into your leg every night
+and every morning,” and went back to her camp-stool. Sitting down on it
+with the scissors in her hand, she still did not cut out that recipe,
+but remained as before, taking in small, definite things, and feeling
+with an inner trembling that dear Felix and Alan and Nedda would soon be
+here; and the little flush rose again in her cheeks, and again her lips
+and hands moved, expressing and compressing what was in her heart. And
+close behind her, a peacock, straying from the foundations of the old
+Moreton house, uttered a cry, and moved slowly, spreading its tail under
+the low-hanging boughs of the copper-beeches, as though it knew
+those dark burnished leaves were the proper setting for its 'parlant'
+magnificence.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The day after the little conference at John's, Felix had indeed received
+the following note:
+
+“DEAR FELIX:
+
+“When you go down to see old Tod, why not put up with us at Becket?
+Any time will suit, and the car can take you over to Joyfields when you
+like. Give the pen a rest. Clara joins in hoping you'll come, and Mother
+is still here. No use, I suppose, to ask Flora.
+
+“Yours ever,
+
+“STANLEY.”
+
+During the twenty years of his brother's sojourn there Felix had been
+down to Becket perhaps once a year, and latterly alone; for Flora,
+having accompanied him the first few times, had taken a firm stand.
+
+“My dear,” she said, “I feel all body there.”
+
+Felix had rejoined:
+
+“No bad thing, once in a way.”
+
+But Flora had remained firm. Life was too short! She did not get on
+well with Clara. Neither did Felix feel too happy in his sister-in-law's
+presence; but the gray top-hat instinct had kept him going there, for
+one ought to keep in touch with one's brothers.
+
+He replied to Stanley:
+
+“DEAR STANLEY:
+
+“Delighted; if I may bring my two youngsters. We'll arrive to-morrow at
+four-fifty.
+
+“Yours affectionately,
+
+“FELIX.”
+
+Travelling with Nedda was always jolly; one could watch her eyes noting,
+inquiring, and when occasion served, have one's little finger hooked in
+and squeezed. Travelling with Alan was convenient, the young man having
+a way with railways which Felix himself had long despaired of acquiring.
+Neither of the children had ever been at Becket, and though Alan was
+seldom curious, and Nedda too curious about everything to be specially
+so about this, yet Felix experienced in their company the sensations of
+a new adventure.
+
+Arrived at Transham, that little town upon a hill which the Morton
+Plough Works had created, they were soon in Stanley's car, whirling into
+the sleepy peace of a Worcestershire afternoon. Would this young bird
+nestling up against him echo Flora's verdict: 'I feel all body there!'
+or would she take to its fatted luxury as a duck to water? And he said:
+“By the way, your aunt's 'Bigwigs' set in on a Saturday. Are you for
+staying and seeing the lions feed, or do we cut back?”
+
+From Alan he got the answer he expected:
+
+“If there's golf or something, I suppose we can make out all right.”
+From Nedda: “What sort of Bigwigs are they, Dad?”
+
+“A sort you've never seen, my dear.”
+
+“Then I should like to stay. Only, about dresses?”
+
+“What war paint have you?”
+
+“Only two white evenings. And Mums gave me her Mechlin.”
+
+“'Twill serve.”
+
+To Felix, Nedda in white 'evenings' was starry and all that man could
+desire.
+
+“Only, Dad, do tell me about them, beforehand.”
+
+“My dear, I will. And God be with you. This is where Becket begins.”
+
+The car had swerved into a long drive between trees not yet full-grown,
+but decorously trying to look more than their twenty years. To the
+right, about a group of older elms, rooks were in commotion, for
+Stanley's three keepers' wives had just baked their annual rook pies,
+and the birds were not yet happy again. Those elms had stood there when
+the old Moretons walked past them through corn-fields to church of a
+Sunday. Away on the left above the lake, the little walled mound had
+come in view. Something in Felix always stirred at sight of it, and,
+squeezing Nedda's arm, he said:
+
+“See that silly wall? Behind there Granny's ancients lived. Gone now—new
+house—new lake—new trees—new everything.”
+
+But he saw from his little daughter's calm eyes that the sentiment in
+him was not in her.
+
+“I like the lake,” she said. “There's Granny—oh, and a peacock!”
+
+His mother's embrace, with its frail energy, and the pressure of her
+soft, dry lips, filled Felix always with remorse. Why could he not give
+the simple and direct expression to his feeling that she gave to hers?
+He watched those lips transferred to Nedda, heard her say: “Oh, my
+darling, how lovely to see you! Do you know this for midge-bites?” A
+hand, diving deep into a pocket, returned with a little silver-coated
+stick having a bluish end. Felix saw it rise and hover about Nedda's
+forehead, and descend with two little swift dabs. “It takes them away at
+once.”
+
+“Oh, but Granny, they're not midge-bites; they're only from my hat!”
+
+“It doesn't matter, darling; it takes away anything like that.”
+
+And he thought: 'Mother is really wonderful!'
+
+At the house the car had already disgorged their luggage. Only one man,
+but he absolutely the butler, awaited them, and they entered, at once
+conscious of Clara's special pot-pourri. Its fragrance steamed from blue
+china, in every nook and crevice, a sort of baptism into luxury. Clara
+herself, in the outer morning-room, smelled a little of it. Quick and
+dark of eye, capable, comely, perfectly buttoned, one of those women who
+know exactly how not to be superior to the general taste of the period.
+In addition to that great quality she was endowed with a fine nose, an
+instinct for co-ordination not to be excelled, and a genuine love of
+making people comfortable; so that it was no wonder that she had risen
+in the ranks of hostesses, till her house was celebrated for its ease,
+even among those who at their week-ends liked to feel 'all body.' In
+regard to that characteristic of Becket, not even Felix in his ironies
+had ever stood up to Clara; the matter was too delicate. Frances
+Freeland, indeed—not because she had any philosophic preconceptions on
+the matter, but because it was 'not nice, dear, to be wasteful' even if
+it were only of rose-leaves, or to 'have too much decoration,' such
+as Japanese prints in places where they hum—sometimes told her
+daughter-in-law frankly what was wrong, without, however, making the
+faintest impression upon Clara, for she was not sensitive, and, as she
+said to Stanley, it was 'only Mother.'
+
+When they had drunk that special Chinese tea, all the rage, but which
+no one really liked, in the inner morning, or afternoon room—for the
+drawing-rooms were too large to be comfortable except at week-ends—they
+went to see the children, a special blend of Stanley and Clara, save the
+little Francis, who did not seem to be entirely body. Then Clara took
+them to their rooms. She lingered kindly in Nedda's, feeling that the
+girl could not yet feel quite at home, and looking in the soap-dish lest
+she might not have the right verbena, and about the dressing-table
+to see that she had pins and scent, and plenty of 'pot-pourri,' and
+thinking: 'The child is pretty—a nice girl, not like her mother.'
+Explaining carefully how, because of the approaching week-end, she
+had been obliged to put her in 'a very simple room' where she would be
+compelled to cross the corridor to her bath, she asked her if she had a
+quilted dressing-gown, and finding that she had not, left her saying she
+would send one—and could she do her frocks up, or should Sirrett come?
+
+Abandoned, the girl stood in the middle of the room, so far more
+'simple' than she had ever slept in, with its warm fragrance of
+rose-leaves and verbena, its Aubusson carpet, white silk-quilted bed,
+sofa, cushioned window-seat, dainty curtains, and little nickel box of
+biscuits on little spindly table. There she stood and sniffed, stretched
+herself, and thought: 'It's jolly—only, it smells too much!' and she
+went up to the pictures, one by one. They seemed to go splendidly with
+the room, and suddenly she felt homesick. Ridiculous, of course! Yet, if
+she had known where her father's room was, she would have run out to it;
+but her memory was too tangled up with stairs and corridors—to find her
+way down to the hall again was all she could have done.
+
+A maid came in now with a blue silk gown very thick and soft. Could she
+do anything for Miss Freeland? No, thanks, she could not; only, did she
+know where Mr. Freeland's room was?
+
+“Which Mr. Freeland, miss, the young or the old?”
+
+“Oh, the old!” Having said which, Nedda felt unhappy; her Dad was not
+old! “No, miss; but I'll find out. It'll be in the walnut wing!” But
+with a little flutter at the thought of thus setting people to run about
+wings, Nedda murmured: “Oh! thanks, no; it doesn't matter.”
+
+She settled down now on the cushion of the window-seat, to look out and
+take it all in, right away to that line of hills gone blue in the haze
+of the warm evening. That would be Malvern; and there, farther to the
+south, the 'Tods' lived. 'Joyfields!' A pretty name! And it was lovely
+country all round; green and peaceful, with its white, timbered houses
+and cottages. People must be very happy, living here—happy and quiet
+like the stars and the birds; not like the crowds in London thronging
+streets and shops and Hampstead Heath; not like the people in all those
+disgruntled suburbs that led out for miles where London ought to have
+stopped but had not; not like the thousands and thousands of those poor
+creatures in Bethnal Green, where her slum work lay. The natives here
+must surely be happy. Only, were there any natives? She had not seen
+any. Away to the right below her window were the first trees of the
+fruit garden; for many of them Spring was over, but the apple-trees had
+just come into blossom, and the low sun shining through a gap in some
+far elms was slanting on their creamy pink, christening them—Nedda
+thought—with drops of light; and lovely the blackbirds' singing sounded
+in the perfect hush! How wonderful to be a bird, going where you would,
+and from high up in the air seeing everything; flying down a sunbeam,
+drinking a raindrop, sitting on the very top of a tall tree, running
+in grass so high that you were hidden, laying little perfect blue-green
+eggs, or pure-gray speckly ones; never changing your dress, yet always
+beautiful. Surely the spirit of the world was in the birds and the
+clouds, roaming, floating, and in the flowers and trees that never
+smelled anything but sweet, never looked anything but lovely, and
+were never restless. Why was one restless, wanting things that did not
+come—wanting to feel and know, wanting to love, and be loved? And at
+that thought which had come to her so unexpectedly—a thought never
+before shaped so definitely—Nedda planted her arms on the window-sill,
+with sleeves fallen down, and let her hands meet cup-shaped beneath her
+chin. Love! To have somebody with whom she could share everything—some
+one to whom and for whom she could give up—some one she could protect
+and comfort—some one who would bring her peace. Peace, rest—from what?
+Ah! that she could not make clear, even to herself. Love! What would
+love be like? Her father loved her, and she loved him. She loved her
+mother; and Alan on the whole was jolly to her—it was not that. What was
+it—where was it—when would it come and wake her, and kiss her to
+sleep, all in one? Come and fill her as with the warmth and color, the
+freshness, light, and shadow of this beautiful May evening, flood her
+as with the singing of those birds, and the warm light sunning the apple
+blossoms. And she sighed. Then—as with all young things whose attention
+after all is but as the hovering of a butterfly—her speculation was
+attracted to a thin, high-shouldered figure limping on a stick, away
+from the house, down one of the paths among the apple-trees. He wavered,
+not knowing, it seemed, his way. And Nedda thought: 'Poor old man, how
+lame he is!' She saw him stoop, screened, as he evidently thought, from
+sight, and take something very small from his pocket. He gazed, rubbed
+it, put it back; what it was she could not see. Then pressing his hand
+down, he smoothed and stretched his leg. His eyes seemed closed. So a
+stone man might have stood! Till very slowly he limped on, passing out
+of sight. And turning from the window, Nedda began hurrying into her
+evening things.
+
+When she was ready she took a long time to decide whether to wear her
+mother's lace or keep it for the Bigwigs. But it was so nice and creamy
+that she simply could not take it off, and stood turning and turning
+before the glass. To stand before a glass was silly and old-fashioned;
+but Nedda could never help it, wanting so badly to be nicer to look at
+than she was, because of that something that some day was coming!
+
+She was, in fact, pretty, but not merely pretty—there was in her face
+something alive and sweet, something clear and swift. She had still that
+way of a child raising its eyes very quickly and looking straight at you
+with an eager innocence that hides everything by its very wonder; and
+when those eyes looked down they seemed closed—their dark lashes were
+so long. Her eyebrows were wide apart, arching with a slight angle,
+and slanting a little down toward her nose. Her forehead under its
+burnt-brown hair was candid; her firm little chin just dimpled.
+Altogether, a face difficult to take one's eyes off. But Nedda was far
+from vain, and her face seemed to her too short and broad, her eyes too
+dark and indeterminate, neither gray nor brown. The straightness of her
+nose was certainly comforting, but it, too, was short. Being creamy in
+the throat and browning easily, she would have liked to be marble-white,
+with blue dreamy eyes and fair hair, or else like a Madonna. And was she
+tall enough? Only five foot five. And her arms were too thin. The only
+things that gave her perfect satisfaction were her legs, which, of
+course, she could not at the moment see; they really WERE rather jolly!
+Then, in a panic, fearing to be late, she turned and ran out, fluttering
+into the maze of stairs and corridors.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Clara, Mrs. Stanley Freeland, was not a narrow woman either in mind
+or body; and years ago, soon indeed after she married Stanley, she had
+declared her intention of taking up her sister-in-law, Kirsteen, in
+spite of what she had heard were the woman's extraordinary notions.
+Those were the days of carriages, pairs, coachmen, grooms, and, with her
+usual promptitude, ordering out the lot, she had set forth. It is safe
+to say she had never forgotten that experience.
+
+Imagine an old, white, timbered cottage with a thatched roof, and no
+single line about it quite straight. A cottage crazy with age, buried
+up to the thatch in sweetbrier, creepers, honeysuckle, and perched high
+above crossroads. A cottage almost unapproachable for beehives and their
+bees—an insect for which Clara had an aversion. Imagine on the rough,
+pebbled approach to the door of this cottage (and Clara had on thin
+shoes) a peculiar cradle with a dark-eyed baby that was staring placidly
+at two bees sleeping on a coverlet made of a rough linen such as Clara
+had never before seen. Imagine an absolutely naked little girl of three,
+sitting in a tub of sunlight in the very doorway. Clara had turned
+swiftly and closed the wicket gate between the pebbled pathway and the
+mossed steps that led down to where her coachman and her footman were
+sitting very still, as was the habit of those people. She had perceived
+at once that she was making no common call. Then, with real courage she
+had advanced, and, looking down at the little girl with a fearful smile,
+had tickled the door with the handle of her green parasol. A woman
+younger than herself, a girl, indeed, appeared in a low doorway. She
+had often told Stanley since that she would never forget her first sight
+(she had not yet had another) of Tod's wife. A brown face and black
+hair, fiery gray eyes, eyes all light, under black lashes, and “such
+a strange smile;” bare, brown, shapely arms and neck in a shirt of the
+same rough, creamy linen, and, from under a bright blue skirt, bare,
+brown, shapely ankles and feet! A voice so soft and deadly that, as
+Clara said: “What with her eyes, it really gave me the shivers. And, my
+dear,” she had pursued, “white-washed walls, bare brick floors, not a
+picture, not a curtain, not even a fire-iron. Clean—oh, horribly! They
+must be the most awful cranks. The only thing I must say that was nice
+was the smell. Sweetbrier, and honey, coffee, and baked apples—really
+delicious. I must try what I can do with it. But that woman—girl, I
+suppose she is—stumped me. I'm sure she'd have cut my head off if I'd
+attempted to open my mouth on ordinary topics. The children were rather
+ducks; but imagine leaving them about like that amongst the bees.
+'Kirsteen!' She looked it. Never again! And Tod I didn't see at all; I
+suppose he was mooning about amongst his creatures.”
+
+It was the memory of this visit, now seventeen years ago, that had made
+her smile so indulgently when Stanley came back from the conference. She
+had said at once that they must have Felix to stay, and for her part she
+would be only too glad to do anything she could for those poor children
+of Tod's, even to asking them to Becket, and trying to civilize them a
+little.... “But as for that woman, there'll be nothing to be done with
+her, I can assure you. And I expect Tod is completely under her thumb.”
+
+To Felix, who took her in to dinner, she spoke feelingly and in a low
+voice. She liked Felix, in spite of his wife, and respected him—he had
+a name. Lady Malloring—she told him—the Mallorings owned, of course,
+everything round Joyfields—had been telling her that of late Tod's wife
+had really become quite rabid over the land question. 'The Tods' were
+hand in glove with all the cottagers. She, Clara, had nothing to say
+against any one who sympathized with the condition of the agricultural
+laborer; quite the contrary. Becket was almost, as Felix knew—though
+perhaps it wasn't for her to say so—the centre of that movement; but
+there were ways of doing things, and one did so deprecate women like
+this Kirsteen—what an impossibly Celtic name!—putting her finger into
+any pie that really was of national importance. Nothing could come of
+anything done that sort of way. If Felix had any influence with Tod it
+would be a mercy to use it in getting those poor young creatures away
+from home, to mix a little with people who took a sane view of things.
+She would like very much to get them over to Becket, but with their
+notions it was doubtful whether they had evening clothes! She had, of
+course, never forgotten that naked mite in the tub of sunlight, nor
+the poor baby with its bees and its rough linen. Felix replied
+deferentially—he was invariably polite, and only just ironic enough, in
+the houses of others—that he had the very greatest respect for Tod, and
+that there could be nothing very wrong with the woman to whom Tod was so
+devoted. As for the children, his own young people would get at them and
+learn all about what was going on in a way that no fogey like himself
+could. In regard to the land question, there were, of course, many
+sides to that, and he, for one, would not be at all sorry to observe yet
+another. After all, the Tods were in real contact with the laborers, and
+that was the great thing. It would be very interesting.
+
+Yes, Clara quite saw all that, but—and here she sank her voice so that
+there was hardly any left—as Felix was going over there, she really must
+put him au courant with the heart of this matter. Lady Malloring had
+told her the whole story. It appeared there were two cases: A family
+called Gaunt, an old man, and his son, who had two daughters—one of
+them, Alice, quite a nice girl, was kitchen-maid here at Becket, but the
+other sister—Wilmet—well! she was one of those girls that, as Felix
+must know, were always to be found in every village. She was leading the
+young men astray, and Lady Malloring had put her foot down, telling her
+bailiff to tell the farmer for whom Gaunt worked that he and his family
+must go, unless they sent the girl away somewhere. That was one case.
+And the other was of a laborer called Tryst, who wanted to marry his
+deceased wife's sister. Of course, whether Mildred Malloring was not
+rather too churchy and puritanical—now that a deceased wife's sister
+was legal—Clara did not want to say; but she was undoubtedly within her
+rights if she thought it for the good of the village. This man, Tryst,
+was a good workman, and his farmer had objected to losing him, but Lady
+Malloring had, of course, not given way, and if he persisted he would
+get put out. All the cottages about there were Sir Gerald Malloring's,
+so that in both cases it would mean leaving the neighborhood. In regard
+to village morality, as Felix knew, the line must be drawn somewhere.
+
+Felix interrupted quietly:
+
+“I draw it at Lady Malloring.”
+
+“Well, I won't argue that with you. But it really is a scandal that
+Tod's wife should incite her young people to stir up the villagers.
+Goodness knows where that mayn't lead! Tod's cottage and land, you see,
+are freehold, the only freehold thereabouts; and his being a brother of
+Stanley's makes it particularly awkward for the Mallorings.”
+
+“Quite so!” murmured Felix.
+
+“Yes, but my dear Felix, when it comes to infecting those simple people
+with inflated ideas of their rights, it's serious, especially in the
+country. I'm told there's really quite a violent feeling. I hear from
+Alice Gaunt that the young Tods have been going about saying that dogs
+are better off than people treated in this fashion, which, of course, is
+all nonsense, and making far too much of a small matter. Don't you think
+so?”
+
+But Felix only smiled his peculiar, sweetish smile, and answered:
+
+“I'm glad to have come down just now.”
+
+Clara, who did not know that when Felix smiled like that he was angry,
+agreed.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “you're an observer. You will see the thing in right
+perspective.”
+
+“I shall endeavor to. What does Tod say?”
+
+“Oh! Tod never seems to say anything. At least, I never hear of it.”
+
+Felix murmured:
+
+“Tod is a well in the desert.”
+
+To which deep saying Clara made no reply, not indeed understanding in
+the least what it might signify.
+
+That evening, when Alan, having had his fill of billiards, had left the
+smoking-room and gone to bed, Felix remarked to Stanley:
+
+“I say, what sort of people are these Mallorings?”
+
+Stanley, who was settling himself for the twenty minutes of whiskey,
+potash, and a Review, with which he commonly composed his mind before
+retiring, answered negligently:
+
+“The Mallorings? Oh! about the best type of landowner we've got.”
+
+“What exactly do you mean by that?”
+
+Stanley took his time to answer, for below his bluff good-nature he
+had the tenacious, if somewhat slow, precision of an English man of
+business, mingled with a certain mistrust of 'old Felix.'
+
+“Well,” he said at last, “they build good cottages, yellow brick, d—d
+ugly, I must say; look after the character of their tenants; give 'em
+rebate of rent if there's a bad harvest; encourage stock-breedin', and
+machinery—they've got some of my ploughs, but the people don't like 'em,
+and, as a matter of fact, they're right—they're not made for these small
+fields; set an example goin' to church; patronize the Rifle Range; buy
+up the pubs when they can, and run 'em themselves; send out jelly, and
+let people over their place on bank holidays. Dash it all, I don't know
+what they don't do. Why?”
+
+“Are they liked?”
+
+“Liked? No, I should hardly think they were liked; respected, and all
+that. Malloring's a steady fellow, keen man on housing, and a gentleman;
+she's a bit too much perhaps on the pious side. They've got one of the
+finest Georgian houses in the country. Altogether they're what you call
+'model.'”
+
+“But not human.”
+
+Stanley slightly lowered the Review and looked across it at his brother.
+It was evident to him that 'old Felix' was in one of his free-thinking
+moods.
+
+“They're domestic,” he said, “and fond of their children, and pleasant
+neighbors. I don't deny that they've got a tremendous sense of duty, but
+we want that in these days.”
+
+“Duty to what?”
+
+Stanley raised his level eyebrows. It was a stumper. Without great care
+he felt that he would be getting over the border into the uncharted land
+of speculation and philosophy, wandering on paths that led him nowhere.
+
+“If you lived in the country, old man,” he said, “you wouldn't ask that
+sort of question.”
+
+“You don't imagine,” said Felix, “that you or the Mallorings live in
+the country? Why, you landlords are every bit as much town dwellers as
+I am—thought, habit, dress, faith, souls, all town stuff. There IS no
+'country' in England now for us of the 'upper classes.' It's gone. I
+repeat: Duty to what?”
+
+And, rising, he went over to the window, looking out at the moonlit
+lawn, overcome by a sudden aversion from more talk. Of what use were
+words from a mind tuned in one key to a mind tuned in another? And yet,
+so ingrained was his habit of discussion, that he promptly went on:
+
+“The Mallorings, I've not the slightest doubt, believe it their duty
+to look after the morals of those who live on their property. There are
+three things to be said about that: One—you can't make people moral
+by adopting the attitude of the schoolmaster. Two—it implies that they
+consider themselves more moral than their neighbors. Three—it's a theory
+so convenient to their security that they would be exceptionally good
+people if they did not adopt it; but, from your account, they are not
+so much exceptionally as just typically good people. What you call
+their sense of duty, Stanley, is really their sense of self-preservation
+coupled with their sense of superiority.”
+
+“H'm!” said Stanley; “I don't know that I quite follow you.”
+
+“I always hate an odor of sanctity. I'd prefer them to say frankly:
+'This is my property, and you'll jolly well do what I tell you, on it.'”
+
+“But, my dear chap, after all, they really ARE superior.”
+
+“That,” said Felix, “I emphatically question. Put your Mallorings to
+earn their living on fifteen to eighteen shillings a week, and where
+would they be? The Mallorings have certain virtues, no doubt, natural to
+their fortunate environment, but of the primitive virtues of
+patience, hardihood, perpetual, almost unconscious self-sacrifice, and
+cheerfulness in the face of a hard fate, they are no more the equals of
+the people they pretend to be superior to than I am your equal as a man
+of business.”
+
+“Hang it!” was Stanley's answer, “what a d—d old heretic you are!”
+
+Felix frowned. “Am I? Be honest! Take the life of a Malloring and take
+it at its best; see how it stands comparison in the ordinary virtues
+with those of an averagely good specimen of a farm-laborer. Your
+Malloring is called with a cup of tea, at, say, seven o'clock, out of a
+nice, clean, warm bed; he gets into a bath that has been got ready for
+him; into clothes and boots that have been brushed for him; and goes
+down to a room where there's a fire burning already if it's a cold day,
+writes a few letters, perhaps, before eating a breakfast of exactly what
+he likes, nicely prepared for him, and reading the newspaper that best
+comforts his soul; when he has eaten and read, he lights his cigar
+or his pipe and attends to his digestion in the most sanitary and
+comfortable fashion; then in his study he sits down to steady direction
+of other people, either by interview or by writing letters, or what
+not. In this way, between directing people and eating what he likes,
+he passes the whole day, except that for two or three hours, sometimes
+indeed seven or eight hours, he attends to his physique by riding,
+motoring, playing a game, or indulging in a sport that he has chosen for
+himself. And, at the end of all that, he probably has another bath that
+has been made ready for him, puts on clean clothes that have been put
+out for him, goes down to a good dinner that has been cooked for him,
+smokes, reads, learns, and inwardly digests, or else plays cards,
+billiards, and acts host till he is sleepy, and so to bed, in a clean,
+warm bed, in a clean, fresh room. Is that exaggerated?”
+
+“No; but when you talk of his directing other people, you forget that he
+is doing what they couldn't.”
+
+“He may be doing what they couldn't; but ordinary directive ability is
+not born in a man; it's acquired by habit and training. Suppose fortune
+had reversed them at birth, the Gaunt or Tryst would by now have it and
+the Malloring would not. The accident that they were not reversed at
+birth has given the Malloring a thousandfold advantage.”
+
+“It's no joke directing things,” muttered Stanley.
+
+“No work is any joke; but I just put it to you: Simply as work, without
+taking in the question of reward, would you dream for a minute of
+swapping your work with the work of one of your workmen? No. Well,
+neither would a Malloring with one of his Gaunts. So that, my boy,
+for work which is intrinsically more interesting and pleasurable, the
+Malloring gets a hundred to a thousand times more money.”
+
+“All this is rank socialism, my dear fellow.”
+
+“No; rank truth. Now, to take the life of a Gaunt. He gets up summer and
+winter much earlier out of a bed that he cannot afford time or money to
+keep too clean or warm, in a small room that probably has not a large
+enough window; into clothes stiff with work and boots stiff with clay;
+makes something hot for himself, very likely brings some of it to his
+wife and children; goes out, attending to his digestion crudely and
+without comfort; works with his hands and feet from half past six or
+seven in the morning till past five at night, except that twice he stops
+for an hour or so and eats simple things that he would not altogether
+have chosen to eat if he could have had his will. He goes home to a tea
+that has been got ready for him, and has a clean-up without assistance,
+smokes a pipe of shag, reads a newspaper perhaps two days old, and goes
+out again to work for his own good, in his vegetable patch, or to sit on
+a wooden bench in an atmosphere of beer and 'baccy.' And so, dead tired,
+but not from directing other people, he drowses himself to early lying
+again in his doubtful bed. Is that exaggerated?”
+
+“I suppose not, but he—”
+
+“Has his compensations: Clean conscience—freedom from worry—fresh air,
+all the rest of it! I know. Clean conscience granted, but so has your
+Malloring, it would seem. Freedom from worry—yes, except when a pair of
+boots is wanted, or one of the children is ill; then he has to make up
+for lost time with a vengeance. Fresh air—and wet clothes, with a good
+chance of premature rheumatism. Candidly, which of those two lives
+demands more of the virtues on which human life is founded—courage and
+patience, hardihood and self-sacrifice? And which of two men who have
+lived those two lives well has most right to the word 'superior'?”
+
+Stanley dropped the Review and for fully a minute paced the room without
+reply. Then he said:
+
+“Felix, you're talking flat revolution.”
+
+Felix, who, faintly smiling, had watched him up and down, up and down
+the Turkey carpet, answered:
+
+“Not so. I am by no means a revolutionary person, because with all the
+good-will in the world I have been unable to see how upheavals from the
+bottom, or violence of any sort, is going to equalize these lives or
+do any good. But I detest humbug, and I believe that so long as you and
+your Mallorings go on blindly dosing yourselves with humbug about duty
+and superiority, so long will you see things as they are not. And until
+you see things as they are, purged of all that sickening cant, you will
+none of you really move to make the conditions of life more and ever
+more just. For, mark you, Stanley, I, who do not believe in revolution
+from the bottom, the more believe that it is up to us in honour to
+revolutionize things from the top!”
+
+“H'm!” said Stanley; “that's all very well; but the more you give the
+more they want, till there's no end to it.”
+
+Felix stared round that room, where indeed one was all body.
+
+“By George,” he said, “I've yet to see a beginning. But, anyway, if you
+give in a grudging spirit, or the spirit of a schoolmaster, what can
+you expect? If you offer out of real good-will, so it is taken.” And
+suddenly conscious that he had uttered a constructive phrase, Felix cast
+down his eyes, and added:
+
+“I am going to my clean, warm bed. Good night, old man!”
+
+When his brother had taken up his candlestick and gone, Stanley,
+uttering a dubious sound, sat down on the lounge, drank deep out of his
+tumbler, and once more took up his Review.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The next day Stanley's car, fraught with Felix and a note from Clara,
+moved swiftly along the grass-bordered roads toward Joyfields. Lying
+back on the cushioned seat, the warm air flying at his face, Felix
+contemplated with delight his favorite countryside. Certainly this
+garden of England was very lovely, its greenness, trees, and large,
+pied, lazy cattle; its very emptiness of human beings even was pleasing.
+
+Nearing Joyfields he noted the Mallorings' park and their long Georgian
+house, carefully fronting south. There, too, was the pond of what
+village there was, with the usual ducks on it; and three well-remembered
+cottages in a row, neat and trim, of the old, thatched sort, but
+evidently restored. Out of the door of one of them two young people had
+just emerged, going in the same direction as the car. Felix passed them
+and turned to look. Yes, it was they! He stopped the car. They were
+walking, with eyes straight before them, frowning. And Felix thought:
+'Nothing of Tod in either of them; regular Celts!'
+
+The girl's vivid, open face, crisp, brown, untidy hair, cheeks brimful
+of color, thick lips, eyes that looked up and out as a Skye terrier's
+eyes look out of its shagginess—indeed, her whole figure struck Felix as
+almost frighteningly vital; and she walked as if she despised the ground
+she covered. The boy was even more arresting. What a strange, pale-dark
+face, with its black, uncovered hair, its straight black brows; what a
+proud, swan's-eyed, thin-lipped, straight-nosed young devil, marching
+like a very Highlander; though still rather run-up, from sheer
+youthfulness! They had come abreast of the car by now, and, leaning out,
+he said:
+
+“You don't remember me, I'm afraid!” The boy shook his head. Wonderful
+eyes he had! But the girl put out her hand.
+
+“Of course, Derek; it's Uncle Felix.”
+
+They both smiled now, the girl friendly, the boy rather drawn back into
+himself. And feeling strangely small and ill at ease, Felix murmured:
+
+“I'm going to see your father. Can I give you a lift home?”
+
+The answer came as he expected:
+
+“No, thanks.” Then, as if to tone it down, the girl added:
+
+“We've got something to do first. You'll find him in the orchard.”
+
+She had a ringing voice, full of warmth. Lifting his hat, Felix passed
+on. They WERE a couple! Strange, attractive, almost frightening.
+Kirsteen had brought his brother a formidable little brood.
+
+Arriving at the cottage, he went up its mossy stones and through the
+wicket gate. There was little change, indeed, since the days of Clara's
+visit, save that the beehives had been moved farther out. Nor did any
+one answer his knock; and mindful of the girl's words, “You'll find him
+in the orchard,” he made his way out among the trees. The grass was long
+and starred with petals. Felix wandered over it among bees busy with the
+apple-blossom. At the very end he came on his brother, cutting down a
+pear-tree. Tod was in shirt-sleeves, his brown arms bare almost to the
+shoulders. How tremendous the fellow was! What resounding and terrific
+blows he was dealing! Down came the tree, and Tod drew his arm across
+his brow. This great, burnt, curly-headed fellow was more splendid to
+look upon than even Felix had remembered, and so well built that not
+a movement of his limbs was heavy. His cheek-bones were very broad and
+high; his brows thick and rather darker than his bright hair, so that
+his deep-set, very blue eyes seemed to look out of a thicket; his level
+white teeth gleamed from under his tawny moustache, and his brown,
+unshaven cheeks and jaw seemed covered with gold powder. Catching sight
+of Felix, he came forward.
+
+“Fancy,” he said, “old Gladstone spending his leisure cutting down
+trees—of all melancholy jobs!”
+
+Felix did not quite know what to answer, so he put his arm within his
+brother's. Tod drew him toward the tree.
+
+“Sit down!” he said. Then, looking sorrowfully at the pear-tree, he
+murmured:
+
+“Seventy years—and down in seven minutes. Now we shall burn it. Well, it
+had to go. This is the third year it's had no blossom.”
+
+His speech was slow, like that of a man accustomed to think aloud. Felix
+admired him askance. “I might live next door,” he thought, “for all the
+notice he's taken of my turning up!”
+
+“I came over in Stanley's car,” he said. “Met your two coming along—fine
+couple they are!”
+
+“Ah!” said Tod. And there was something in the way he said it that was
+more than a mere declaration of pride or of affection. Then he looked at
+Felix.
+
+“What have you come for, old man?”
+
+Felix smiled. Quaint way to put it!
+
+“For a talk.”
+
+“Ah!” said Tod, and he whistled.
+
+A largish, well-made dog with a sleek black coat, white underneath, and
+a black tail white-tipped, came running up, and stood before Tod, with
+its head rather to one side and its yellow-brown eyes saying: 'I simply
+must get at what you're thinking, you know.'
+
+“Go and tell your mistress to come—Mistress!”
+
+The dog moved his tail, lowered it, and went off.
+
+“A gypsy gave him to me,” said Tod; “best dog that ever lived.”
+
+“Every one thinks that of his own dog, old man.”
+
+“Yes,” said Tod; “but this IS.”
+
+“He looks intelligent.”
+
+“He's got a soul,” said Tod. “The gypsy said he didn't steal him, but he
+did.”
+
+“Do you always know when people aren't speaking the truth, then?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+At such a monstrous remark from any other man, Felix would have smiled;
+but seeing it was Tod, he only asked: “How?”
+
+“People who aren't speaking the truth look you in the face and never
+move their eyes.”
+
+“Some people do that when they are speaking the truth.”
+
+“Yes; but when they aren't, you can see them struggling to keep their
+eyes straight. A dog avoids your eye when he's something to conceal; a
+man stares at you. Listen!”
+
+Felix listened and heard nothing.
+
+“A wren;” and, screwing up his lips, Tod emitted a sound: “Look!”
+
+Felix saw on the branch of an apple-tree a tiny brown bird with a little
+beak sticking out and a little tail sticking up. And he thought: 'Tod's
+hopeless!'
+
+“That fellow,” said Tod softly, “has got his nest there just behind us.”
+Again he emitted the sound. Felix saw the little bird move its head with
+a sort of infinite curiosity, and hop twice on the branch.
+
+“I can't get the hen to do that,” Tod murmured.
+
+Felix put his hand on his brother's arm—what an arm!
+
+“Yes,” he said; “but look here, old man—I really want to talk to you.”
+
+Tod shook his head. “Wait for her,” he said.
+
+Felix waited. Tod was getting awfully eccentric, living this queer,
+out-of-the-way life with a cranky woman year after year; never reading
+anything, never seeing any one but tramps and animals and villagers. And
+yet, sitting there beside his eccentric brother on that fallen tree, he
+had an extraordinary sense of rest. It was, perhaps, but the beauty
+and sweetness of the day with its dappling sunlight brightening the
+apple-blossoms, the wind-flowers, the wood-sorrel, and in the blue sky
+above the fields those clouds so unimaginably white. All the tiny
+noises of the orchard, too, struck on his ear with a peculiar meaning,
+a strange fulness, as if he had never heard such sounds before. Tod, who
+was looking at the sky, said suddenly:
+
+“Are you hungry?”
+
+And Felix remembered that they never had any proper meals, but, when
+hungry, went to the kitchen, where a wood-fire was always burning, and
+either heated up coffee, and porridge that was already made, with boiled
+eggs and baked potatoes and apples, or devoured bread, cheese, jam,
+honey, cream, tomatoes, butter, nuts, and fruit, that were always set
+out there on a wooden table, under a muslin awning; he remembered, too,
+that they washed up their own bowls and spoons and plates, and, having
+finished, went outside and drew themselves a draught of water. Queer
+life, and deuced uncomfortable—almost Chinese in its reversal of
+everything that every one else was doing.
+
+“No,” he said, “I'm not.”
+
+“I am. Here she is.”
+
+Felix felt his heart beating—Clara was not alone in being frightened
+of this woman. She was coming through the orchard with the dog; a
+remarkable-looking woman—oh, certainly remarkable! She greeted him
+without surprise and, sitting down close to Tod, said: “I'm glad to see
+you.”
+
+Why did this family somehow make him feel inferior? The way she sat
+there and looked at him so calmly! Still more the way she narrowed her
+eyes and wrinkled her lips, as if rather malicious thoughts were
+rising in her soul! Her hair, as is the way of fine, soft, almost
+indigo-colored hair, was already showing threads of silver; her whole
+face and figure thinner than he had remembered. But a striking woman
+still—with wonderful eyes! Her dress—Felix had scanned many a crank
+in his day—was not so alarming as it had once seemed to Clara; its
+coarse-woven, deep-blue linen and needle-worked yoke were pleasing to
+him, and he could hardly take his gaze from the kingfisher-blue band or
+fillet that she wore round that silver-threaded black hair.
+
+He began by giving her Clara's note, the wording of which he had himself
+dictated:
+
+“DEAR KIRSTEEN:
+
+“Though we have not seen each other for so long, I am sure you will
+forgive my writing. It would give us so much pleasure if you and the two
+children would come over for a night or two while Felix and his young
+folk are staying with us. It is no use, I fear, to ask Tod; but
+of course if he would come, too, both Stanley and myself would be
+delighted.
+
+“Yours cordially,
+
+“CLARA FREELAND.”
+
+She read it, handed it to Tod, who also read it and handed it to Felix.
+Nobody said anything. It was so altogether simple and friendly a note
+that Felix felt pleased with it, thinking: 'I expressed that well!'
+
+Then Tod said: “Go ahead, old man! You've got something to say about the
+youngsters, haven't you?”
+
+How on earth did he know that? But then Tod HAD a sort of queer
+prescience.
+
+“Well,” he brought out with an effort, “don't you think it's a pity to
+embroil your young people in village troubles? We've been hearing from
+Stanley—”
+
+Kirsteen interrupted in her calm, staccato voice with just the faintest
+lisp:
+
+“Stanley would not understand.”
+
+She had put her arm through Tod's, but never removed her eyes from her
+brother-in-law's face.
+
+“Possibly,” said Felix, “but you must remember that Stanley, John, and
+myself represent ordinary—what shall we say—level-headed opinion.”
+
+“With which we have nothing in common, I'm afraid.”
+
+Felix glanced from her to Tod. The fellow had his head on one side and
+seemed listening to something in the distance. And Felix felt a certain
+irritation.
+
+“It's all very well,” he said, “but I think you really have got to look
+at your children's future from a larger point of view. You don't surely
+want them to fly out against things before they've had a chance to see
+life for themselves.”
+
+She answered:
+
+“The children know more of life than most young people. They've seen it
+close to, they've seen its realities. They know what the tyranny of the
+countryside means.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Felix, “but youth is youth.”
+
+“They are not too young to know and feel the truth.”
+
+Felix was impressed. How those narrowing eyes shone! What conviction in
+that faintly lisping voice!
+
+'I am a fool for my pains,' he thought, and only said:
+
+“Well, what about this invitation, anyway?”
+
+“Yes; it will be just the thing for them at the moment.”
+
+The words had to Felix a somewhat sinister import. He knew well enough
+that she did not mean by them what others would have meant. But he said:
+“When shall we expect them? Tuesday, I suppose, would be best for Clara,
+after her weekend. Is there no chance of you and Tod?”
+
+She quaintly wrinkled her lips into not quite a smile, and answered:
+
+“Tod shall say. Do you hear, Tod?”
+
+“In the meadow. It was there yesterday—first time this year.”
+
+Felix slipped his arm through his brother's.
+
+“Quite so, old man.”
+
+“What?” said Tod. “Ah! let's go in. I'm awfully hungry....”
+
+Sometimes out of a calm sky a few drops fall, the twigs rustle, and far
+away is heard the muttering of thunder; the traveller thinks: 'A storm
+somewhere about.' Then all once more is so quiet and peaceful that he
+forgets he ever had that thought, and goes on his way careless.
+
+So with Felix returning to Becket in Stanley's car. That woman's face,
+those two young heathens—the unconscious Tod!
+
+There was mischief in the air above that little household. But once more
+the smooth gliding of the cushioned car, the soft peace of the meadows
+so permanently at grass, the churches, mansions, cottages embowered
+among their elms, the slow-flapping flight of the rooks and crows lulled
+Felix to quietude, and the faint far muttering of that thunder died
+away.
+
+Nedda was in the drive when he returned, gazing at a nymph set up there
+by Clara. It was a good thing, procured from Berlin, well known for
+sculpture, and beginning to green over already, as though it had been
+there a long time—a pretty creature with shoulders drooping, eyes
+modestly cast down, and a sparrow perching on her head.
+
+“Well, Dad?”
+
+“They're coming.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“On Tuesday—the youngsters, only.”
+
+“You might tell me a little about them.”
+
+But Felix only smiled. His powers of description faltered before that
+task; and, proud of those powers, he did not choose to subject them to
+failure.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Not till three o'clock that Saturday did the Bigwigs begin to come.
+Lord and Lady Britto first from Erne by car; then Sir Gerald and Lady
+Malloring, also by car from Joyfields; an early afternoon train brought
+three members of the Lower House, who liked a round of golf—Colonel
+Martlett, Mr. Sleesor, and Sir John Fanfar—with their wives; also
+Miss Bawtrey, an American who went everywhere; and Moorsome, the
+landscape-painter, a short, very heavy man who went nowhere, and that
+in almost perfect silence, which he afterward avenged. By a train almost
+sure to bring no one else came Literature in Public Affairs, alone,
+Henry Wiltram, whom some believed to have been the very first to have
+ideas about the land. He was followed in the last possible train by
+Cuthcott, the advanced editor, in his habitual hurry, and Lady Maude
+Ughtred in her beauty. Clara was pleased, and said to Stanley, while
+dressing, that almost every shade of opinion about the land was
+represented this week-end. She was not, she said, afraid of anything,
+if she could keep Henry Wiltram and Cuthcott apart. The House of Commons
+men would, of course, be all right. Stanley assented: “They'll be 'fed
+up' with talk. But how about Britto—he can sometimes be very nasty, and
+Cuthcott's been pretty rough on him, in his rag.”
+
+Clara had remembered that, and she was putting Lady Maude on one side of
+Cuthcott, and Moorsome on the other, so that he would be quite safe at
+dinner, and afterward—Stanley must look out!
+
+“What have you done with Nedda?” Stanley asked.
+
+“Given her to Colonel Martlett, with Sir John Fanfar on the other
+side; they both like something fresh.” She hoped, however, to foster
+a discussion, so that they might really get further this week-end; the
+opportunity was too good to throw away.
+
+“H'm!” Stanley murmured. “Felix said some very queer things the other
+night. He, too, might make ructions.”
+
+Oh, no!—Clara persisted—Felix had too much good taste. She thought that
+something might be coming out of this occasion, something as it were
+national, that would bear fruit. And watching Stanley buttoning his
+braces, she grew enthusiastic. For, think how splendidly everything was
+represented! Britto, with his view that the thing had gone too far, and
+all the little efforts we might make now were no good, with Canada and
+those great spaces to outbid anything we could do; though she could not
+admit that he was right, there was a lot in what he said; he had
+great gifts—and some day might—who knew? Then there was Sir John—Clara
+pursued—who was almost the father of the new Tory policy: Assist the
+farmers to buy their own land. And Colonel Martlett, representing the
+older Tory policy of: What the devil would happen to the landowners if
+they did? Secretly (Clara felt sure) he would never go into a lobby to
+support that. He had said to her: 'Look at my brother James's property;
+if we bring this policy in, and the farmers take advantage, his house
+might stand there any day without an acre round it.' Quite true—it
+might. The same might even happen to Becket.
+
+Stanley grunted.
+
+Exactly!—Clara went on: And that was the beauty of having got the
+Mallorings; theirs was such a steady point of view, and she was not sure
+that they weren't right, and the whole thing really a question of model
+proprietorship.
+
+“H'm!” Stanley muttered. “Felix will have his knife into that.”
+
+Clara did not think that mattered. The thing was to get everybody's
+opinion. Even Mr. Moorsome's would be valuable—if he weren't so
+terrifically silent, for he must think a lot, sitting all day, as he
+did, painting the land.
+
+“He's a heavy ass,” said Stanley.
+
+Yes; but Clara did not wish to be narrow. That was why it was so
+splendid to have got Mr. Sleesor. If anybody knew the Radical mind he
+did, and he could give full force to what one always felt was at the
+bottom of it—that the Radicals' real supporters were the urban classes;
+so that their policy must not go too far with 'the Land,' for fear of
+seeming to neglect the towns. For, after all, in the end it was out of
+the pockets of the towns that 'the Land' would have to be financed, and
+nobody really could expect the towns to get anything out of it. Stanley
+paused in the adjustment of his tie; his wife was a shrewd woman.
+
+“You've hit it there,” he said. “Wiltram will give it him hot on that,
+though.”
+
+Of course, Clara assented. And it was magnificent that they had got
+Henry Wiltram, with his idealism and his really heavy corn tax; not
+caring what happened to the stunted products of the towns—and they
+truly were stunted, for all that the Radicals and the half-penny press
+said—till at all costs we could grow our own food. There was a lot in
+that.
+
+“Yes,” Stanley muttered, “and if he gets on to it, shan't I have a jolly
+time of it in the smoking-room? I know what Cuthcott's like with his
+shirt out.”
+
+Clara's eyes brightened; she was very curious herself to see Mr.
+Cuthcott with his—that is, to hear him expound the doctrine he was
+always writing up, namely, that 'the Land' was gone and, short of
+revolution, there was nothing for it but garden cities. She had heard he
+was so cutting and ferocious that he really did seem as if he hated his
+opponents. She hoped he would get a chance—perhaps Felix could encourage
+him.
+
+“What about the women?” Stanley asked suddenly. “Will they stand a
+political powwow? One must think of them a bit.”
+
+Clara had. She was taking a farewell look at herself in the far-away
+mirror through the door into her bedroom. It was a mistake—she added—to
+suppose that women were not interested in 'the Land.' Lady Britto
+was most intelligent, and Mildred Malloring knew every cottage on her
+estate.
+
+“Pokes her nose into 'em often enough,” Stanley muttered.
+
+Lady Fanfar again, and Mrs. Sleesor, and even Hilda Martlett, were
+interested in their husbands, and Miss Bawtrey, of course, interested in
+everything. As for Maude Ughtred, all talk would be the same to her; she
+was always week-ending. Stanley need not worry—it would be all right;
+some real work would get done, some real advance be made. So saying, she
+turned her fine shoulders twice, once this way and once that, and went
+out. She had never told even Stanley her ambition that at Becket, under
+her aegis, should be laid the foundation-stone of the real scheme,
+whatever it might be, that should regenerate 'the Land.' Stanley would
+only have laughed; even though it would be bound to make him Lord
+Freeland when it came to be known some day....
+
+To the eyes and ears of Nedda that evening at dinner, all was new
+indeed, and all wonderful. It was not that she was unaccustomed to
+society or to conversation, for to their house at Hampstead many people
+came, uttering many words, but both the people and the words were so
+very different. After the first blush, the first reconnaissance of the
+two Bigwigs between whom she sat, her eyes WOULD stray and her ears
+would only half listen to them. Indeed, half her ears, she soon found
+out, were quite enough to deal with Colonel Martlett and Sir John
+Fanfar. Across the azaleas she let her glance come now and again to
+anchor on her father's face, and exchanged with him a most enjoyable
+blink. She tried once or twice to get through to Alan, but he was always
+eating; he looked very like a young Uncle Stanley this evening.
+
+What was she feeling? Short, quick stabs of self-consciousness as to how
+she was looking; a sort of stunned excitement due to sheer noise and the
+number of things offered to her to eat and drink; keen pleasure in the
+consciousness that Colonel Martlett and Sir John Fanfar and other men,
+especially that nice one with the straggly moustache who looked as if he
+were going to bite, glanced at her when they saw she wasn't looking. If
+only she had been quite certain that it was not because they thought her
+too young to be there! She felt a sort of continual exhilaration, that
+this was the great world—the world where important things were said and
+done, together with an intense listening expectancy, and a sense most
+unexpected and almost frightening, that nothing important was being said
+or would be done. But this she knew to be impudent. On Sunday evenings
+at home people talked about a future existence, about Nietzsche,
+Tolstoy, Chinese pictures, post-impressionism, and would suddenly grow
+hot and furious about peace, and Strauss, justice, marriage, and
+De Maupassant, and whether people were losing their souls through
+materialism, and sometimes one of them would get up and walk about the
+room. But to-night the only words she could catch were the names of two
+politicians whom nobody seemed to approve of, except that nice one who
+was going to bite. Once very timidly she asked Colonel Martlett whether
+he liked Strauss, and was puzzled by his answer: “Rather; those 'Tales
+of Hoffmann' are rippin', don't you think? You go to the opera much?”
+She could not, of course, know that the thought which instantly rose
+within her was doing the governing classes a grave injustice—almost all
+of whom save Colonel Martlett knew that the 'Tales of Hoffmann' were
+by one Offenbach. But beyond all things she felt she would never, never
+learn to talk as they were all talking—so quickly, so continuously, so
+without caring whether everybody or only the person they were talking
+to heard what they said. She had always felt that what you said was only
+meant for the person you said it to, but here in the great world she
+must evidently not say anything that was not meant for everybody, and
+she felt terribly that she could not think of anything of that sort
+to say. And suddenly she began to want to be alone. That, however,
+was surely wicked and wasteful, when she ought to be learning such a
+tremendous lot; and yet, what was there to learn? And listening just
+sufficiently to Colonel Martlett, who was telling her how great a man he
+thought a certain general, she looked almost despairingly at the one
+who was going to bite. He was quite silent at that moment, gazing at
+his plate, which was strangely empty. And Nedda thought: 'He has jolly
+wrinkles about his eyes, only they might be heart disease; and I like
+the color of his face, so nice and yellow, only that might be liver. But
+I DO like him—I wish I'd been sitting next to him; he looks real.' From
+that thought, of the reality of a man whose name she did not know, she
+passed suddenly into the feeling that nothing else of this about her was
+real at all, neither the talk nor the faces, not even the things she
+was eating. It was all a queer, buzzing dream. Nor did that sensation
+of unreality cease when her aunt began collecting her gloves, and they
+trooped forth to the drawing-room. There, seated between Mrs. Sleesor
+and Lady Britto, with Lady Malloring opposite, and Miss Bawtrey leaning
+over the piano toward them, she pinched herself to get rid of the
+feeling that, when all these were out of sight of each other, they would
+become silent and have on their lips a little, bitter smile. Would it be
+like that up in their bedrooms, or would it only be on her (Nedda's) own
+lips that this little smile would come? It was a question she could
+not answer; nor could she very well ask it of any of these ladies. She
+looked them over as they sat there talking and felt very lonely. And
+suddenly her eyes fell on her grandmother. Frances Freeland was seated
+halfway down the long room in a sandalwood chair, somewhat insulated by
+a surrounding sea of polished floor. She sat with a smile on her lips,
+quite still, save for the continual movement of her white hands on her
+black lap. To her gray hair some lace of Chantilly was pinned with a
+little diamond brooch, and hung behind her delicate but rather long
+ears. And from her shoulders was depended a silvery garment, of stuff
+that looked like the mail shirt of a fairy, reaching the ground on
+either side. A tacit agreement had evidently been come to, that she was
+incapable of discussing 'the Land' or those other subjects such as the
+French murder, the Russian opera, the Chinese pictures, and the doings
+of one, L—— , whose fate was just then in the air, so that she sat
+alone.
+
+And Nedda thought: 'How much more of a lady she looks than anybody here!
+There's something deep in her to rest on that isn't in the Bigwigs;
+perhaps it's because she's of a different generation.' And, getting up,
+she went over and sat down beside her on a little chair.
+
+Frances Freeland rose at once and said:
+
+“Now, my darling, you can't be comfortable in that tiny chair. You must
+take mine.”
+
+“Oh, no, Granny; please!”
+
+“Oh, yes; but you must! It's so comfortable, and I've simply been
+longing to sit in the chair you're in. Now, darling, to please me!”
+
+Seeing that a prolonged struggle would follow if she did not get up,
+Nedda rose and changed chairs.
+
+“Do you like these week-ends, Granny?”
+
+Frances Freeland seemed to draw her smile more resolutely across her
+face. With her perfect articulation, in which there was, however, no
+trace of bigwiggery, she answered:
+
+“I think they're most interesting, darling. It's so nice to see new
+people. Of course you don't get to know them, but it's very amusing to
+watch, especially the head-dresses!” And sinking her voice: “Just look
+at that one with the feather going straight up; did you ever see such a
+guy?” and she cackled with a very gentle archness. Gazing at that
+almost priceless feather, trying to reach God, Nedda felt suddenly how
+completely she was in her grandmother's little camp; how entirely she
+disliked bigwiggery.
+
+Frances Freeland's voice brought her round.
+
+“Do you know, darling, I've found the most splendid thing for eyebrows?
+You just put a little on every night and it keeps them in perfect order.
+I must give you my little pot.”
+
+“I don't like grease, Granny.”
+
+“Oh! but this isn't grease, darling. It's a special thing; and you only
+put on just the tiniest touch.”
+
+Diving suddenly into the recesses of something, she produced an exiguous
+round silver box. Prizing it open, she looked over her shoulder at the
+Bigwigs, then placed her little finger on the contents of the little
+box, and said very softly:
+
+“You just take the merest touch, and you put it on like that, and it
+keeps them together beautifully. Let me! Nobody'll see!”
+
+Quite well understanding that this was all part of her grandmother's
+passion for putting the best face upon things, and having no belief in
+her eyebrows, Nedda bent forward; but in a sudden flutter of fear lest
+the Bigwigs might observe the operation, she drew back, murmuring: “Oh,
+Granny, darling! Not just now!”
+
+At that moment the men came in, and, under cover of the necessary
+confusion, she slipped away into the window.
+
+It was pitch-black outside, with the moon not yet up. The bloomy,
+peaceful dark out there! Wistaria and early roses, clustering in, had
+but the ghost of color on their blossoms. Nedda took a rose in her
+fingers, feeling with delight its soft fragility, its coolness against
+her hot palm. Here in her hand was a living thing, here was a little
+soul! And out there in the darkness were millions upon millions of other
+little souls, of little flame-like or coiled-up shapes alive and true.
+
+A voice behind her said:
+
+“Nothing nicer than darkness, is there?”
+
+She knew at once it was the one who was going to bite; the voice
+was proper for him, having a nice, smothery sound. And looking round
+gratefully, she said:
+
+“Do you like dinner-parties?”
+
+It was jolly to watch his eyes twinkle and his thin cheeks puff out. He
+shook his head and muttered through that straggly moustache:
+
+“You're a niece, aren't you? I know your father. He's a big man.”
+
+Hearing those words spoken of her father, Nedda flushed.
+
+“Yes, he is,” she said fervently.
+
+Her new acquaintance went on:
+
+“He's got the gift of truth—can laugh at himself as well as others;
+that's what makes him precious. These humming-birds here to-night
+couldn't raise a smile at their own tomfoolery to save their silly
+souls.”
+
+He spoke still in that voice of smothery wrath, and Nedda thought: 'He
+IS nice!'
+
+“They've been talking about 'the Land'”—he raised his hands and ran them
+through his palish hair—“'the Land!' Heavenly Father! 'The Land!' Why!
+Look at that fellow!”
+
+Nedda looked and saw a man, like Richard Coeur de Lion in the history
+books, with a straw-colored moustache just going gray.
+
+“Sir Gerald Malloring—hope he's not a friend of yours! Divine right of
+landowners to lead 'the Land' by the nose! And our friend Britto!”
+
+Nedda, following his eyes, saw a robust, quick-eyed man with a suave
+insolence in his dark, clean-shaved face.
+
+“Because at heart he's just a supercilious ruffian, too cold-blooded
+to feel, he'll demonstrate that it's no use to feel—waste of valuable
+time—ha! valuable!—to act in any direction. And that's a man they
+believe things of. And poor Henry Wiltram, with his pathetic: 'Grow our
+own food—maximum use of the land as food-producer, and let the rest
+take care of itself!' As if we weren't all long past that feeble
+individualism; as if in these days of world markets the land didn't
+stand or fall in this country as a breeding-ground of health and stamina
+and nothing else. Well, well!”
+
+“Aren't they really in earnest, then?” asked Nedda timidly.
+
+“Miss Freeland, this land question is a perfect tragedy. Bar one or two,
+they all want to make the omelette without breaking eggs; well, by the
+time they begin to think of breaking them, mark me—there'll be no eggs
+to break. We shall be all park and suburb. The real men on the land,
+what few are left, are dumb and helpless; and these fellows here for
+one reason or another don't mean business—they'll talk and tinker and
+top-dress—that's all. Does your father take any interest in this? He
+could write something very nice.”
+
+“He takes interest in everything,” said Nedda. “Please go on, Mr.—Mr.—”
+She was terribly afraid he would suddenly remember that she was too
+young and stop his nice, angry talk.
+
+“Cuthcott. I'm an editor, but I was brought up on a farm, and know
+something about it. You see, we English are grumblers, snobs to the
+backbone, want to be something better than we are; and education
+nowadays is all in the direction of despising what is quiet and humdrum.
+We never were a stay-at-home lot, like the French. That's at the back of
+this business—they may treat it as they like, Radicals or Tories, but if
+they can't get a fundamental change of opinion into the national mind as
+to what is a sane and profitable life; if they can't work a revolution
+in the spirit of our education, they'll do no good. There'll be lots
+of talk and tinkering, tariffs and tommy-rot, and, underneath, the
+land-bred men dying, dying all the time. No, madam, industrialism and
+vested interests have got us! Bar the most strenuous national heroism,
+there's nothing for it now but the garden city!”
+
+“Then if we WERE all heroic, 'the Land' could still be saved?”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott smiled.
+
+“Of course we might have a European war or something that would shake
+everything up. But, short of that, when was a country ever consciously
+and homogeneously heroic—except China with its opium? When did it ever
+deliberately change the spirit of its education, the trend of its ideas;
+when did it ever, of its own free will, lay its vested interests on the
+altar; when did it ever say with a convinced and resolute heart: 'I will
+be healthy and simple before anything. I will not let the love of sanity
+and natural conditions die out of me!' When, Miss Freeland, when?”
+
+And, looking so hard at Nedda that he almost winked, he added:
+
+“You have the advantage of me by thirty years. You'll see what I shall
+not—the last of the English peasant. Did you ever read 'Erewhon,' where
+the people broke up their machines? It will take almost that sort of
+national heroism to save what's left of him, even.”
+
+For answer, Nedda wrinkled her brows horribly. Before her there had come
+a vision of the old, lame man, whose name she had found out was Gaunt,
+standing on the path under the apple-trees, looking at that little
+something he had taken from his pocket. Why she thought of him thus
+suddenly she had no idea, and she said quickly:
+
+“It's awfully interesting. I do so want to hear about 'the Land.' I only
+know a little about sweated workers, because I see something of them.”
+
+“It's all of a piece,” said Mr. Cuthcott; “not politics at all, but
+religion—touches the point of national self-knowledge and faith, the
+point of knowing what we want to become and of resolving to become it.
+Your father will tell you that we have no more idea of that at present
+than a cat of its own chemical composition. As for these good people
+here to-night—I don't want to be disrespectful, but if they think
+they're within a hundred miles of the land question, I'm a—I'm a
+Jingo—more I can't say.”
+
+And, as if to cool his head, he leaned out of the window.
+
+“Nothing is nicer than darkness, as I said just now, because you can
+only see the way you MUST go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you
+MIGHT. In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight,
+lamplight, moonlight, never.”
+
+Nedda's spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk
+about the things she wanted, above all, to find out. Her cheeks went
+hot, she clenched her hands and said resolutely:
+
+“Mr. Cuthcott, do you believe in God?”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott made a queer, deep little noise; it was not a laugh,
+however, and it seemed as if he knew she could not bear him to look at
+her just then.
+
+“H'm!” he said. “Every one does that—according to their natures. Some
+call God IT, some HIM, some HER, nowadays—that's all. You might as well
+ask—do I believe that I'm alive?”
+
+“Yes,” said Nedda, “but which do YOU call God?”
+
+As she asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He
+must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at
+her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she added
+hastily:
+
+“It isn't a fair question, is it? Only you talked about darkness, and
+the only way—so I thought—”
+
+“Quite a fair question. My answer is, of course: 'All three'; but the
+point is rather: Does one wish to make even an attempt to define God to
+oneself? Frankly, I don't! I'm content to feel that there is in one some
+kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope,
+when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to
+let go and give up. That's all I've got; I really don't know that I want
+more.”
+
+Nedda clasped her hands.
+
+“I like that,” she said; “only—what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?”
+
+Again he emitted that deep little sound.
+
+“Ah!” he repeated, “what is perfection? Awkward, that—isn't it?”
+
+“Is it”—Nedda rushed the words out—“is it always to be sacrificing
+yourself, or is it—is it always to be—to be expressing yourself?”
+
+“To some—one; to some—the other; to some—half one, half the other.”
+
+“But which is it to me?”
+
+“Ah! that you've got to find out for yourself. There's a sort of
+metronome inside us—wonderful, sell-adjusting little machine; most
+delicate bit of mechanism in the world—people call it conscience—that
+records the proper beat of our tempos. I guess that's all we have to go
+by.”
+
+Nedda said breathlessly:
+
+“Yes; and it's frightfully hard, isn't it?”
+
+“Exactly,” Mr. Cuthcott answered. “That's why people devised religions
+and other ways of having the thing done second-hand. We all object to
+trouble and responsibility if we can possibly avoid it. Where do you
+live?”
+
+“In Hampstead.”
+
+“Your father must be a stand-by, isn't he?”
+
+“Oh, yes; Dad's splendid; only, you see, I AM a good deal younger than
+he. There was just one thing I was going to ask you. Are these very
+Bigwigs?”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott turned to the room and let his screwed-up glance wander. He
+looked just then particularly as if he were going to bite.
+
+“If you take 'em at their own valuation: Yes. If at the country's:
+So-so. If at mine: Ha! I know what you'd like to ask: Should I be a
+Bigwig in THEIR estimation? Not I! As you knock about, Miss Freeland,
+you'll find out one thing—all bigwiggery is founded on: Scratch my back,
+and I'll scratch yours. Seriously, these are only tenpenny ones; but the
+mischief is, that in the matter of 'the Land,' the men who really are in
+earnest are precious scarce. Nothing short of a rising such as there was
+in 1832 would make the land question real, even for the moment. Not
+that I want to see one—God forbid! Those poor doomed devils were treated
+worse than dogs, and would be again.”
+
+Before Nedda could pour out questions about the rising in 1832,
+Stanley's voice said:
+
+“Cuthcott, I want to introduce you!”
+
+Her new friend screwed his eyes up tighter and, muttering something, put
+out his hand to her.
+
+“Thank you for our talk. I hope we shall meet again. Any time you want
+to know anything—I'll be only too glad. Good night!”
+
+She felt the squeeze of his hand, warm and dry, but rather soft, as of
+a man who uses a pen too much; saw him following her uncle across the
+room, with his shoulders a little hunched, as if preparing to inflict,
+and ward off, blows. And with the thought: 'He must be jolly when he
+gives them one!' she turned once more to the darkness, than which he had
+said there was nothing nicer. It smelled of new-mown grass, was full of
+little shiverings of leaves, and all colored like the bloom of a black
+grape. And her heart felt soothed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+“...When I first saw Derek I thought I should never feel anything but
+shy and hopeless. In four days, only in four days, the whole world
+is different.... And yet, if it hadn't been for that thunder-storm,
+I shouldn't have got over being shy in time. He has never loved
+anybody—nor have I. It can't often be like that—it makes it solemn.
+There's a picture somewhere—not a good one, I know—of a young Highlander
+being taken away by soldiers from his sweetheart. Derek is fiery and
+wild and shy and proud and dark—like the man in that picture. That last
+day along the hills—along and along—with the wind in our faces, I could
+have walked forever; and then Joyfields at the end! Their mother's
+wonderful; I'm afraid of her. But Uncle Tod is a perfect dear. I never
+saw any one before who noticed so many things that I didn't, and nothing
+that I did. I am sure he has in him what Mr. Cuthcott said we were all
+losing—the love of simple, natural conditions. And then, THE moment,
+when I stood with Derek at the end of the orchard, to say good-by. The
+field below covered with those moony-white flowers, and the cows all
+dark and sleepy; the holy feeling down there was wonderful, and in
+the branches over our heads, too, and the velvety, starry sky, and the
+dewiness against one's face, and the great, broad silence—it was all
+worshipping something, and I was worshipping—worshipping happiness. I
+WAS happy, and I think HE was. Perhaps I shall never be so happy again.
+When he kissed me I didn't think the whole world had so much happiness
+in it. I know now that I'm not cold a bit; I used to think I was. I
+believe I could go with him anywhere, and do anything he wanted. What
+would Dad think? Only the other day I was saying I wanted to know
+everything. One only knows through love. It's love that makes the world
+all beautiful—makes it like those pictures that seem to be wrapped in
+gold, makes it like a dream—no, not like a dream—like a wonderful tune.
+I suppose that's glamour—a goldeny, misty, lovely feeling, as if my soul
+were wandering about with his—not in my body at all. I want it to go
+on and on wandering—oh! I don't want it back in my body, all hard and
+inquisitive and aching! I shall never know anything so lovely as loving
+him and being loved. I don't want anything more—nothing! Stay with
+me, please—Happiness! Don't go away and leave me!... They frighten me,
+though; he frightens me—their idealism; wanting to do great things,
+and fight for justice. If only I'd been brought up more like that—but
+everything's been so different. It's their mother, I think, even more
+than themselves. I seem to have grown up just looking on at life as at a
+show; watching it, thinking about it, trying to understand—not living
+it at all. I must get over that; I will. I believe I can tell the very
+moment I began to love him. It was in the schoolroom the second evening.
+Sheila and I were sitting there just before dinner, and he came, in a
+rage, looking splendid. 'That footman put out everything just as if
+I were a baby—asked me for suspenders to fasten on my socks; hung the
+things on a chair in order, as if I couldn't find out for myself what
+to put on first; turned the tongues of my shoes out!—curled them over!'
+Then Derek looked at me and said: 'Do they do that for you?—And poor old
+Gaunt, who's sixty-six and lame, has three shillings a week to buy him
+everything. Just think of that! If we had the pluck of flies—' And he
+clenched his fists. But Sheila got up, looked hard at me, and said:
+'That'll do, Derek.' Then he put his hand on my arm and said: 'It's
+only Cousin Nedda!' I began to love him then; and I believe he saw it,
+because I couldn't take my eyes away. But it was when Sheila sang
+'The Red Sarafan,' after dinner, that I knew for certain. 'The Red
+Sarafan'—it's a wonderful song, all space and yearning, and yet such
+calm—it's the song of the soul; and he was looking at me while she sang.
+How can he love me? I am nothing—no good for anything! Alan calls him
+a 'run-up kid, all legs and wings.' Sometimes I hate Alan; he's
+conventional and stodgy—the funny thing is that he admires Sheila.
+She'll wake him up; she'll stick pins into him. No, I don't want Alan
+hurt—I want every one in the world to be happy, happy—as I am.... The
+next day was the thunder-storm. I never saw lightning so near—and didn't
+care a bit. If he were struck I knew I should be; that made it all
+right. When you love, you don't care, if only the something must happen
+to you both. When it was over, and we came out from behind the stack
+and walked home through the fields, all the beasts looked at us as if we
+were new and had never been seen before; and the air was ever so
+sweet, and that long, red line of cloud low down in the purple, and the
+elm-trees so heavy and almost black. He put his arm round me, and I
+let him.... It seems an age to wait till they come to stay with us next
+week. If only Mother likes them, and I can go and stay at Joyfields.
+Will she like them? It's all so different to what it would be if they
+were ordinary. But if he were ordinary I shouldn't love him; it's
+because there's nobody like him. That isn't a loverish fancy—you
+only have to look at him against Alan or Uncle Stanley or even Dad.
+Everything he does is so different; the way he walks, and the way he
+stands drawn back into himself, like a stag, and looks out as if he were
+burning and smouldering inside; even the way he smiles. Dad asked me
+what I thought of him! That was only the second day. I thought he was
+too proud, then. And Dad said: 'He ought to be in a Highland regiment;
+pity—great pity!' He is a fighter, of course. I don't like fighting, but
+if I'm not ready to, he'll stop loving me, perhaps. I've got to learn.
+O Darkness out there, help me! And Stars, help me! O God, make me brave,
+and I will believe in you forever! If you are the spirit that grows
+in things in spite of everything, until they're like the flowers, so
+perfect that we laugh and sing at their beauty, grow in me, too; make
+me beautiful and brave; then I shall be fit for him, alive or dead; and
+that's all I want. Every evening I shall stand in spirit with him at
+the end of that orchard in the darkness, under the trees above the
+white flowers and the sleepy cows, and perhaps I shall feel him kiss
+me again.... I'm glad I saw that old man Gaunt; it makes what they feel
+more real to me. He showed me that poor laborer Tryst, too, the one
+who mustn't marry his wife's sister, or have her staying in the house
+without marrying her. Why should people interfere with others like that?
+It does make your blood boil! Derek and Sheila have been brought up to
+be in sympathy with the poor and oppressed. If they had lived in London
+they would have been even more furious, I expect. And it's no use my
+saying to myself 'I don't know the laborer, I don't know his hardships,'
+because he is really just the country half of what I do know and see,
+here in London, when I don't hide my eyes. One talk showed me how
+desperately they feel; at night, in Sheila's room, when we had gone up,
+just we four. Alan began it; they didn't want to, I could see; but he
+was criticising what some of those Bigwigs had said—the 'Varsity makes
+boys awfully conceited. It was such a lovely night; we were all in
+the big, long window. A little bat kept flying past; and behind
+the copper-beech the moon was shining on the lake. Derek sat in the
+windowsill, and when he moved he touched me. To be touched by him gives
+me a warm shiver all through. I could hear him gritting his teeth at
+what Alan said—frightfully sententious, just like a newspaper: 'We can't
+go into land reform from feeling, we must go into it from reason.' Then
+Derek broke out: 'Walk through this country as we've walked; see the
+pigsties the people live in; see the water they drink; see the tiny
+patches of ground they have; see the way their roofs let in the rain;
+see their peeky children; see their patience and their hopelessness; see
+them working day in and day out, and coming on the parish at the end!
+See all that, and then talk about reason! Reason! It's the coward's
+excuse, and the rich man's excuse, for doing nothing. It's the excuse of
+the man who takes jolly good care not to see for fear that he may come
+to feel! Reason never does anything, it's too reasonable. The thing is
+to act; then perhaps reason will be jolted into doing something.' But
+Sheila touched his arm, and he stopped very suddenly. She doesn't trust
+us. I shall always be being pushed away from him by her. He's just
+twenty, and I shall be eighteen in a week; couldn't we marry now at
+once? Then, whatever happened, I couldn't be cut off from him. If I
+could tell Dad, and ask him to help me! But I can't—it seems desecration
+to talk about it, even to Dad. All the way up in the train to-day,
+coming back home, I was struggling not to show anything; though it's
+hateful to keep things from Dad. Love alters everything; it melts up
+the whole world and makes it afresh. Love is the sun of our spirits, and
+it's the wind. Ah, and the rain, too! But I won't think of that!... I
+wonder if he's told Aunt Kirsteen!...”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+While Nedda sat, long past midnight, writing her heart out in her
+little, white, lilac-curtained room of the old house above the
+Spaniard's Road, Derek, of whom she wrote, was walking along the Malvern
+hills, hurrying upward in the darkness. The stars were his companions;
+though he was no poet, having rather the fervid temper of the born
+swordsman, that expresses itself in physical ecstasies. He had come
+straight out from a stormy midnight talk with Sheila. What was he
+doing—had been the burden of her cry—falling in love just at this moment
+when they wanted all their wits and all their time and strength for this
+struggle with the Mallorings? It was foolish, it was weak; and with a
+sweet, soft sort of girl who could be no use. Hotly he had answered:
+What business was it of hers? As if one fell in love when one wished!
+She didn't know—her blood didn't run fast enough! Sheila had retorted,
+“I've more blood in my big toe than Nedda in all her body! A lot of use
+you'll be, with your heart mooning up in London!” And crouched together
+on the end of her bed, gazing fixedly up at him through her hair, she
+had chanted mockingly: “Here we go gathering wool and stars—wool and
+stars—wool and stars!”
+
+He had not deigned to answer, but had gone out, furious with her,
+striding over the dark fields, scrambling his way through the hedges
+toward the high loom of the hills. Up on the short grass in the cooler
+air, with nothing between him and those swarming stars, he lost his
+rage. It never lasted long—hers was more enduring. With the innate
+lordliness of a brother he already put it down to jealousy. Sheila was
+hurt that he should want any one but her; as if his love for Nedda would
+make any difference to their resolution to get justice for Tryst and the
+Gaunts, and show those landed tyrants once for all that they could not
+ride roughshod.
+
+Nedda! with her dark eyes, so quick and clear, so loving when they
+looked at him! Nedda, soft and innocent, the touch of whose lips had
+turned his heart to something strange within him, and wakened such
+feelings of chivalry! Nedda! To see whom for half a minute he felt he
+would walk a hundred miles.
+
+This boy's education had been administered solely by his mother till
+he was fourteen, and she had brought him up on mathematics, French,
+and heroism. His extensive reading of history had been focussed on the
+personality of heroes, chiefly knights errant, and revolutionaries. He
+had carried the worship of them to the Agricultural College, where he
+had spent four years; and a rather rough time there had not succeeded in
+knocking romance out of him. He had found that you could not have such
+beliefs comfortably without fighting for them, and though he ended his
+career with the reputation of a rebel and a champion of the weak, he
+had had to earn it. To this day he still fed himself on stories of
+rebellions and fine deeds. The figures of Spartacus, Montrose, Hofer,
+Garibaldi, Hampden, and John Nicholson, were more real to him than
+the people among whom he lived, though he had learned never to
+mention—especially not to the matter-of-fact Sheila—his encompassing
+cloud of heroes; but, when he was alone, he pranced a bit with them, and
+promised himself that he too would reach the stars. So you may sometimes
+see a little, grave boy walking through a field, unwatched as he
+believes, suddenly fling his feet and his head every which way. An
+active nature, romantic, without being dreamy and book-loving, is
+not too prone to the attacks of love; such a one is likely to survive
+unscathed to a maturer age. But Nedda had seduced him, partly by the
+appeal of her touchingly manifest love and admiration, and chiefly by
+her eyes, through which he seemed to see such a loyal, and loving little
+soul looking. She had that indefinable something which lovers know that
+they can never throw away. And he had at once made of her, secretly, the
+crown of his active romanticism—the lady waiting for the spoils of his
+lance. Queer is the heart of a boy—strange its blending of reality and
+idealism!
+
+Climbing at a great pace, he reached Malvern Beacon just as it came
+dawn, and stood there on the top, watching. He had not much aesthetic
+sense; but he had enough to be impressed by the slow paling of the stars
+over space that seemed infinite, so little were its dreamy confines
+visible in the May morning haze, where the quivering crimson flags and
+spears of sunrise were forging up in a march upon the sky. That vision
+of the English land at dawn, wide and mysterious, hardly tallied with
+Mr. Cuthcott's view of a future dedicate to Park and Garden City.
+While Derek stood there gazing, the first lark soared up and began its
+ecstatic praise. Save for that song, silence possessed all the driven
+dark, right out to the Severn and the sea, and the fastnesses of the
+Welsh hills, and the Wrekin, away in the north, a black point in the
+gray. For a moment dark and light hovered and clung together. Would
+victory wing back into night or on into day? Then, as a town is taken,
+all was over in one overmastering rush, and light proclaimed. Derek
+tightened his belt and took a bee-line down over the slippery grass. He
+meant to reach the cottage of the laborer Tryst before that early bird
+was away to the fields. He meditated as he went. Bob Tryst was all
+right! If they only had a dozen or two like him! A dozen or two whom
+they could trust, and who would trust each other and stand firm to form
+the nucleus of a strike, which could be timed for hay harvest. What
+slaves these laborers still were! If only they could be relied on, if
+only they would stand together! Slavery! It WAS slavery; so long as
+they could be turned out of their homes at will in this fashion. His
+rebellion against the conditions of their lives, above all against the
+manifold petty tyrannies that he knew they underwent, came from use of
+his eyes and ears in daily contact with a class among whom he had been
+more or less brought up. In sympathy with, and yet not of them, he had
+the queer privilege of feeling their slights as if they were his own,
+together with feelings of protection, and even of contempt that they
+should let themselves be slighted. He was near enough to understand how
+they must feel; not near enough to understand why, feeling as they
+did, they did not act as he would have acted. In truth, he knew them no
+better than he should.
+
+He found Tryst washing at his pump. In the early morning light the big
+laborer's square, stubborn face, with its strange, dog-like eyes, had a
+sodden, hungry, lost look. Cutting short ablutions that certainly were
+never protracted, he welcomed Derek, and motioned him to pass into the
+kitchen. The young man went in, and perched himself on the window-sill
+beside a pot of Bridal Wreath. The cottage was one of the Mallorings',
+and recently repaired. A little fire was burning, and a teapot of stewed
+tea sat there beside it. Four cups and spoons and some sugar were put
+out on a deal table, for Tryst was, in fact, brewing the morning draught
+of himself and children, who still lay abed up-stairs. The sight made
+Derek shiver and his eyes darken. He knew the full significance of what
+he saw.
+
+“Did you ask him again, Bob?”
+
+“Yes, I asked 'im.”
+
+“What did he say?”
+
+“Said as orders was plain. 'So long as you lives there,' he says, 'along
+of yourself alone, you can't have her come back.'”
+
+“Did you say the children wanted looking after badly? Did you make it
+clear? Did you say Mrs. Tryst wished it, before she—”
+
+“I said that.”
+
+“What did he say then?”
+
+“'Sorry for you, m'lad, but them's m'lady's orders, an' I can't go
+contrary. I don't wish to go into things,' he says; 'you know better'n
+I how far 'tis gone when she was 'ere before; but seein' as m'lady don't
+never give in to deceased wife's sister marryin', if she come back 'tis
+certain to be the other thing. So, as that won't do neither, you go
+elsewhere,' he says.”
+
+Having spoken thus at length, Tryst lifted the teapot and poured out the
+dark tea into the three cups.
+
+“Will 'ee have some, sir?”
+
+Derek shook his head.
+
+Taking the cups, Tryst departed up the narrow stairway. And Derek
+remained motionless, staring at the Bridal Wreath, till the big man came
+down again and, retiring into a far corner, sat sipping at his own cup.
+
+“Bob,” said the boy suddenly, “do you LIKE being a dog; put to what
+company your master wishes?”
+
+Tryst set his cup down, stood up, and crossed his thick arms—the swift
+movement from that stolid creature had in it something sinister; but he
+did not speak.
+
+“Do you like it, Bob?”
+
+“I'll not say what I feels, Mr. Derek; that's for me. What I does'll be
+for others, p'raps.”
+
+And he lifted his strange, lowering eyes to Derek's. For a full minute
+the two stared, then Derek said:
+
+“Look out, then; be ready!” and, getting off the sill, he went out.
+
+On the bright, slimy surface of the pond three ducks were quietly
+revelling in that hour before man and his damned soul, the dog, rose
+to put the fear of God into them. In the sunlight, against the green
+duckweed, their whiteness was truly marvellous; difficult to believe
+that they were not white all through. Passing the three cottages, in the
+last of which the Gaunts lived, he came next to his own home, but did
+not turn in, and made on toward the church. It was a very little one,
+very old, and had for him a curious fascination, never confessed to man
+or beast. To his mother, and Sheila, more intolerant, as became women,
+that little, lichened, gray stone building was the very emblem of
+hypocrisy, of a creed preached, not practised; to his father it was
+nothing, for it was not alive, and any tramp, dog, bird, or fruit-tree
+meant far more. But in Derek it roused a peculiar feeling, such as a man
+might have gazing at the shores of a native country, out of which he
+had been thrown for no fault of his own—a yearning deeply muffled up in
+pride and resentment. Not infrequently he would come and sit brooding
+on the grassy hillock just above the churchyard. Church-going, with its
+pageantry, its tradition, dogma, and demand for blind devotion, would
+have suited him very well, if only blind devotion to his mother had not
+stood across that threshold; he could not bring himself to bow to that
+which viewed his rebellious mother as lost. And yet the deep fibres
+of heredity from her papistic Highland ancestors, and from old pious
+Moretons, drew him constantly to this spot at times when no one would
+be about. It was his enemy, this little church, the fold of all the
+instincts and all the qualities against which he had been brought up
+to rebel; the very home of patronage and property and superiority; the
+school where his friends the laborers were taught their place! And yet
+it had that queer, ironical attraction for him. In some such sort had
+his pet hero Montrose rebelled, and then been drawn despite himself once
+more to the side of that against which he had taken arms.
+
+While he leaned against the rail, gazing at that ancient edifice, he
+saw a girl walk into the churchyard at the far end, sit down on a
+gravestone, and begin digging a little hole in the grass with the toe
+of her boot. She did not seem to see him, and at his ease he studied
+her face, one of those broad, bright English country faces with deep-set
+rogue eyes and red, thick, soft lips, smiling on little provocation. In
+spite of her disgrace, in spite of the fact that she was sitting on her
+mother's grave, she did not look depressed. And Derek thought: 'Wilmet
+Gaunt is the jolliest of them all! She isn't a bit a bad girl, as they
+say; it's only that she must have fun. If they drive her out of here,
+she'll still want fun wherever she is; she'll go to a town and end up
+like those girls I saw in Bristol.' And the memory of those night girls,
+with their rouged faces and cringing boldness, came back to him with
+horror.
+
+He went across the grass toward her.
+
+She looked round as he came, and her face livened.
+
+“Well, Wilmet?”
+
+“You're an early bird, Mr. Derek.”
+
+“Haven't been to bed.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Been up Malvern Beacon to see the sun rise.”
+
+“You're tired, I expect!”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Must be fine up there. You'd see a long ways from there; near to London
+I should think. Do you know London, Mr. Derek?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“They say 'tis a funny place, too.” Her rogue eyes gleamed from under
+a heavy frown. “It'd not be all 'Do this' an' 'Do that'; an' 'You bad
+girl' an' 'You little hussy!' in London. They say there's room for
+more'n one sort of girl there.”
+
+“All towns are beastly places, Wilmet.”
+
+Again her rogue's eyes gleamed. “I don' know so much about that, Mr.
+Derek. I'm going where I won't be chivied about and pointed at, like
+what I am here.”
+
+“Your dad's stuck to you; you ought to stick to him.”
+
+“Ah, Dad! He's losin' his place for me, but that don't stop his tongue
+at home. 'Tis no use to nag me—nag me. Suppose one of m'lady's daughters
+had a bit of fun—they say there's lots as do—I've heard tales—there'd be
+none comin' to chase her out of her home. 'No, my girl, you can't live
+here no more, endangerin' the young men. You go away. Best for you's
+where they'll teach you to be'ave. Go on! Out with you! I don't care
+where you go; but you just go!' 'Tis as if girls were all pats o'
+butter—same square, same pattern on it, same weight, an' all.”
+
+Derek had come closer; he put his hand down and gripped her arm. Her
+eloquence dried up before the intentness of his face, and she just
+stared up at him.
+
+“Now, look here, Wilmet; you promise me not to scoot without letting us
+know. We'll get you a place to go to. Promise.”
+
+A little sheepishly the rogue-girl answered:
+
+“I promise; only, I'm goin'.”
+
+Suddenly she dimpled and broke into her broad smile.
+
+“Mr. Derek, d'you know what they say—they say you're in love. You was
+seen in th' orchard. Ah! 'tis all right for you and her! But if any one
+kiss and hug ME, I got to go!”
+
+Derek drew back among the graves, as if he had been struck with a whip.
+
+She looked up at him with coaxing sweetness.
+
+“Don't you mind me, Mr. Derek, and don't you stay here neither. If they
+saw you here with me, they'd say: 'Aw—look! Endangerin' another young
+man—poor young man!' Good mornin', Mr. Derek!”
+
+The rogue eyes followed him gravely, then once more began examining the
+grass, and the toe of her boot again began kicking a little hole. But
+Derek did not look back.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+It is in the nature of men and angels to pursue with death such birds as
+are uncommon, such animals as are rare; and Society had no use for one
+like Tod, so uncut to its pattern as to be practically unconscious of
+its existence. Not that he had deliberately turned his back on anything;
+he had merely begun as a very young man to keep bees. The better to do
+that he had gone on to the cultivation of flowers and fruit, together
+with just enough farming as kept his household in vegetables, milk,
+butter, and eggs. Living thus amongst insects, birds, cows, and the
+peace of trees, he had become queer. His was not a very reflective mind,
+it distilled but slowly certain large conclusions, and followed intently
+the minute happenings of his little world. To him a bee, a bird, a
+flower, a tree was well-nigh as interesting as a man; yet men, women,
+and especially children took to him, as one takes to a Newfoundland dog,
+because, though capable of anger, he seemed incapable of contempt, and
+to be endowed with a sort of permanent wonder at things. Then, too, he
+was good to look at, which counts for more than a little in the scales
+of our affections; indeed, the slight air of absence in his blue eyes
+was not chilling, as is that which portends a wandering of its owner on
+his own business. People recognized that it meant some bee or other
+in that bonnet, or elsewhere, some sound or scent or sight of life,
+suddenly perceived—always of life! He had often been observed gazing
+with peculiar gravity at a dead flower, bee, bird, or beetle, and, if
+spoken to at such a moment, would say, “Gone!” touching a wing or
+petal with his finger. To conceive of what happened after death did
+not apparently come within the few large conclusions of his reflective
+powers. That quaint grief of his in the presence of the death of things
+that were not human had, more than anything, fostered a habit among the
+gentry and clergy of the neighborhood of drawing up the mouth when they
+spoke of him, and slightly raising the shoulders. For the cottagers, to
+be sure, his eccentricity consisted rather in his being a 'gentleman,'
+yet neither eating flesh, drinking wine, nor telling them how they
+ought to behave themselves, together with the way he would sit down on
+anything and listen to what they had to tell him, without giving them
+the impression that he was proud of himself for doing so. In fact, it
+was the extraordinary impression he made of listening and answering
+without wanting anything either for himself or for them, that they could
+not understand. How on earth it came about that he did not give them
+advice about their politics, religion, morals, or monetary states, was
+to them a never-ending mystery; and though they were too well bred to
+shrug their shoulders, there did lurk in their dim minds the suspicion
+that 'the good gentleman,' as they called him, was 'a tiddy-bit off.'
+He had, of course, done many practical little things toward helping them
+and their beasts, but always, as it seemed, by accident, so that they
+could never make up their minds afterward whether he remembered having
+done them, which, in fact, he probably did not; and this seemed to them
+perhaps the most damning fact of all about his being—well, about his
+being—not quite all there. Another worrying habit he had, too, that of
+apparently not distinguishing between them and any tramps or strangers
+who might happen along and come across him. This was, in their eyes,
+undoubtedly a fault; for the village was, after all, their village, and
+he, as it were, their property. To crown all, there was a story,
+full ten years old now, which had lost nothing in the telling, of his
+treatment of a cattle-drover. To the village it had an eerie look, that
+windmill-like rage let loose upon a man who, after all, had only been
+twisting a bullock's tail and running a spiked stick into its softer
+parts, as any drover might. People said—the postman and a wagoner had
+seen the business, raconteurs born, so that the tale had perhaps lost
+nothing—that he had positively roared as he came leaping down into the
+lane upon the man, a stout and thick-set fellow, taken him up like a
+baby, popped him into a furzebush, and held him there. People said that
+his own bare arms had been pricked to the very shoulder from pressing
+the drover down into that uncompromising shrub, and the man's howls had
+pierced the very heavens. The postman, to this day, would tell how the
+mere recollection of seeing it still made him sore all over. Of the
+words assigned to Tod on this occasion, the mildest and probably most
+true were: “By the Lord God, if you treat a beast like that again, I'll
+cut your liver out, you hell-hearted sweep!”
+
+The incident, which had produced a somewhat marked effect in regard to
+the treatment of animals all round that neighborhood, had never
+been forgotten, nor in a sense forgiven. In conjunction with the
+extraordinary peace and mildness of his general behavior, it had endowed
+Tod with mystery; and people, especially simple folk, cannot bring
+themselves to feel quite at home with mystery. Children only—to whom
+everything is so mysterious that nothing can be—treated him as he
+treated them, giving him their hands with confidence. But children, even
+his own, as they grew up, began to have a little of the village feeling
+toward Tod; his world was not theirs, and what exactly his world was
+they could not grasp. Possibly it was the sense that they partook of his
+interest and affection too much on a level with any other kind of
+living thing that might happen to be about, which discomfited their
+understanding. They held him, however, in a certain reverence.
+
+That early morning he had already done a good two hours' work in
+connection with broad beans, of which he grew, perhaps, the best in the
+whole county, and had knocked off for a moment, to examine a spider's
+web. This marvellous creation, which the dew had visited and clustered
+over, as stars over the firmament, was hung on the gate of the vegetable
+garden, and the spider, a large and active one, was regarding Tod
+with the misgiving natural to its species. Intensely still Tod stood,
+absorbed in contemplation of that bright and dusty miracle. Then, taking
+up his hoe again, he went back to the weeds that threatened his broad
+beans. Now and again he stopped to listen, or to look at the sky, as is
+the way of husbandmen, thinking of nothing, enjoying the peace of his
+muscles.
+
+“Please, sir, father's got into a fit again.”
+
+Two little girls were standing in the lane below. The elder, who had
+spoken in that small, anxious voice, had a pale little face with pointed
+chin; her hair, the color of over-ripe corn, hung fluffy on her thin
+shoulders, her flower-like eyes, with something motherly in them
+already, were the same hue as her pale-blue, almost clean, overall. She
+had her smaller, chubbier sister by the hand, and, having delivered her
+message, stood still, gazing up at Tod, as one might at God. Tod dropped
+his hoe.
+
+“Biddy come with me; Susie go and tell Mrs. Freeland, or Miss Sheila.”
+
+He took the frail little hand of the elder Tryst and ran. They ran at
+the child's pace, the one so very massive, the other such a whiff of
+flesh and blood.
+
+“Did you come at once, Biddy?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Where was he taken?”
+
+“In the kitchen—just as I was cookin' breakfast.”
+
+“Ah! Is it a bad one?”
+
+“Yes, sir, awful bad—he's all foamy.”
+
+“What did you do for it?”
+
+“Susie and me turned him over, and Billy's seein' he don't get his
+tongue down his throat—like what you told us, and we ran to you. Susie
+was frightened, he hollered so.”
+
+Past the three cottages, whence a woman at a window stared in amaze to
+see that queer couple running, past the pond where the ducks, whiter
+than ever in the brightening sunlight, dived and circled carelessly,
+into the Tryst kitchen. There on the brick floor lay the distressful
+man, already struggling back out of epilepsy, while his little
+frightened son sat manfully beside him.
+
+“Towels, and hot water, Biddy!”
+
+With extraordinary calm rapidity the small creature brought what might
+have been two towels, a basin, and the kettle; and in silence she and
+Tod steeped his forehead.
+
+“Eyes look better, Biddy?”
+
+“He don't look so funny now, sir.”
+
+Picking up that form, almost as big as his own, Tod carried it up
+impossibly narrow stairs and laid it on a dishevelled bed.
+
+“Phew! Open the window, Biddy.”
+
+The small creature opened what there was of window.
+
+“Now, go down and heat two bricks and wrap them in something, and bring
+them up.”
+
+Tryst's boots and socks removed, Tod rubbed the large, warped feet.
+While doing this he whistled, and the little boy crept up-stairs and
+squatted in the doorway, to watch and listen. The morning air overcame
+with its sweetness the natural odor of that small room, and a bird or
+two went flirting past. The small creature came back with the bricks,
+wrapped in petticoats of her own, and, placing them against the soles
+of her father's feet, she stood gazing at Tod, for all the world like a
+little mother dog with puppies.
+
+“You can't go to school to-day, Biddy.”
+
+“Is Susie and Billy to go?”
+
+“Yes; there's nothing to be frightened of now. He'll be nearly all right
+by evening. But some one shall stay with you.”
+
+At this moment Tryst lifted his hand, and the small creature went and
+stood beside him, listening to the whispering that emerged from his
+thick lips.
+
+“Father says I'm to thank you, please.”
+
+“Yes. Have you had your breakfasts?”
+
+The small creature and her smaller brother shook their heads.
+
+“Go down and get them.”
+
+Whispering and twisting back, they went, and by the side of the bed Tod
+sat down. In Tryst's eyes was that same look of dog-like devotion he
+had bent on Derek earlier that morning. Tod stared out of the window
+and gave the man's big hand a squeeze. Of what did he think, watching a
+lime-tree outside, and the sunlight through its foliage painting bright
+the room's newly whitewashed wall, already gray-spotted with damp again;
+watching the shadows of the leaves playing in that sunlight? Almost
+cruel, that lovely shadow game of outside life so full and joyful, so
+careless of man and suffering; too gay almost, too alive! Of what did
+he think, watching the chase and dart of shadow on shadow, as of gray
+butterflies fluttering swift to the sack of flowers, while beside him on
+the bed the big laborer lay?...
+
+When Kirsteen and Sheila came to relieve him of that vigil he went
+down-stairs. There in the kitchen Biddy was washing up, and Susie and
+Billy putting on their boots for school. They stopped to gaze at Tod
+feeling in his pockets, for they knew that things sometimes happened
+after that. To-day there came out two carrots, some lumps of sugar,
+some cord, a bill, a pruning knife, a bit of wax, a bit of chalk, three
+flints, a pouch of tobacco, two pipes, a match-box with a single
+match in it, a six-pence, a necktie, a stick of chocolate, a tomato,
+a handkerchief, a dead bee, an old razor, a bit of gauze, some tow,
+a stick of caustic, a reel of cotton, a needle, no thimble, two dock
+leaves, and some sheets of yellowish paper. He separated from the
+rest the sixpence, the dead bee, and what was edible. And in delighted
+silence the three little Trysts gazed, till Biddy with the tip of one
+wet finger touched the bee.
+
+“Not good to eat, Biddy.”
+
+At those words, one after the other, cautiously, the three little Trysts
+smiled. Finding that Tod smiled too, they broadened, and Billy burst
+into chuckles. Then, clustering in the doorway, grasping the edibles and
+the sixpence, and consulting with each other, they looked long after his
+big figure passing down the road.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Still later, that same morning, Derek and Sheila moved slowly up the
+Mallorings' well-swept drive. Their lips were set, as though they had
+spoken the last word before battle, and an old cock pheasant, running
+into the bushes close by, rose with a whir and skimmed out toward his
+covert, scared, perhaps, by something uncompromising in the footsteps of
+those two.
+
+Only when actually under the shelter of the porch, which some folk
+thought enhanced the old Greek-temple effect of the Mallorings' house,
+Derek broke through that taciturnity:
+
+“What if they won't?”
+
+“Wait and see; and don't lose your head, Derek.” The man who stood
+there when the door opened was tall, grave, wore his hair in powder, and
+waited without speech.
+
+“Will you ask Sir Gerald and Lady Malloring if Miss Freeland and Mr.
+Derek Freeland could see them, please; and will you say the matter is
+urgent?”
+
+The man bowed, left them, and soon came back.
+
+“My lady will see you, miss; Sir Gerald is not in. This way.”
+
+Past the statuary, flowers, and antlers of the hall, they traversed a
+long, cool corridor, and through a white door entered a white room, not
+very large, and very pretty. Two children got up as they came in and
+flapped out past them like young partridges, and Lady Malloring rose
+from her writing-table and came forward, holding out her hand. The two
+young Freelands took it gravely. For all their hostility they could not
+withstand the feeling that she would think them terrible young prigs if
+they simply bowed. And they looked steadily at one with whom they had
+never before been at quite such close quarters. Lady Malloring, who had
+originally been the Honorable Mildred Killory, a daughter of Viscount
+Silport, was tall, slender, and not very striking, with very fair hair
+going rather gray; her expression in repose was pleasant, a little
+anxious; only by her eyes was the suspicion awakened that she was a
+woman of some character. They had that peculiar look of belonging to two
+worlds, so often to be met with in English eyes, a look of self-denying
+aspiration, tinctured with the suggestion that denial might not be
+confined to self.
+
+In a quite friendly voice she said:
+
+“Can I do anything for you?” And while she waited for an answer her
+glance travelled from face to face of the two young people, with a
+certain curiosity. After a silence of several seconds, Sheila answered:
+
+“Not for us, thank you; for others, you can.”
+
+Lady Malloring's eyebrows rose a little, as if there seemed to her
+something rather unjust in those words—'for others.'
+
+“Yes?” she said.
+
+Sheila, whose hands were clenched, and whose face had been fiery red,
+grew suddenly almost white.
+
+“Lady Malloring, will you please let the Gaunts stay in their cottage
+and Tryst's wife's sister come to live with the children and him?”
+
+Lady Malloring raised one hand; the motion, quite involuntary, ended at
+the tiny cross on her breast. She said quietly:
+
+“I'm afraid you don't understand.”
+
+“Yes,” said Sheila, still very pale, “we understand quite well. We
+understand that you are acting in what you believe to be the interests
+of morality. All the same, won't you? Do!”
+
+“I'm very sorry, but I can't.”
+
+“May we ask why?”
+
+Lady Malloring started, and transferred her glance to Derek.
+
+“I don't know,” she said with a smile, “that I am obliged to account for
+my actions to you two young people. Besides, you must know why, quite
+well.”
+
+Sheila put out her hand.
+
+“Wilmet Gaunt will go to the bad if you turn them out.”
+
+“I am afraid I think she has gone to the bad already, and I do not mean
+her to take others there with her. I am sorry for poor Tryst, and I
+wish he could find some nice woman to marry; but what he proposes is
+impossible.”
+
+The blood had flared up again in Sheila's cheeks; she was as red as the
+comb of a turkey-cock.
+
+“Why shouldn't he marry his wife's sister? It's legal, now, and you've
+no right to stop it.”
+
+Lady Malloring bit her lips; she looked straight and hard at Sheila.
+
+“I do not stop it; I have no means of stopping it. Only, he cannot do
+it and live in one of our cottages. I don't think we need discuss this
+further.”
+
+“I beg your pardon—”
+
+The words had come from Derek. Lady Malloring paused in her walk toward
+the bell. With his peculiar thin-lipped smile the boy went on:
+
+“We imagined you would say no; we really came because we thought it fair
+to warn you that there may be trouble.”
+
+Lady Malloring smiled.
+
+“This is a private matter between us and our tenants, and we should be
+so glad if you could manage not to interfere.”
+
+Derek bowed, and put his hand within his sister's arm. But Sheila did
+not move; she was trembling with anger.
+
+“Who are you,” she suddenly burst out, “to dispose of the poor, body
+and soul? Who are you, to dictate their private lives? If they pay their
+rent, that should be enough for you.”
+
+Lady Malloring moved swiftly again toward the bell. She paused with her
+hand on it, and said:
+
+“I am sorry for you two; you have been miserably brought up!”
+
+There was a silence; then Derek said quietly:
+
+“Thank you; we shall remember that insult to our people. Don't ring,
+please; we're going.”
+
+In a silence if anything more profound than that of their approach, the
+two young people retired down the drive. They had not yet learned—most
+difficult of lessons—how to believe that people could in their bones
+differ from them. It had always seemed to them that if only they had
+a chance of putting directly what they thought, the other side must
+at heart agree, and only go on saying they didn't out of mere
+self-interest. They came away, therefore, from this encounter with the
+enemy a little dazed by the discovery that Lady Malloring in her bones
+believed that she was right. It confused them, and heated the fires of
+their anger.
+
+They had shaken off all private dust before Sheila spoke.
+
+“They're all like that—can't see or feel—simply certain they're
+superior! It makes—it makes me hate them! It's terrible, ghastly.” And
+while she stammered out those little stabs of speech, tears of rage
+rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Derek put his arm round her waist.
+
+“All right! No good groaning; let's think seriously what to do.”
+
+There was comfort to the girl in that curiously sudden reversal of their
+usual attitudes.
+
+“Whatever's done,” he went on, “has got to be startling. It's no good
+pottering and protesting, any more.” And between his teeth he muttered:
+“'Men of England, wherefore plough?'...”
+
+In the room where the encounter had taken place Mildred Malloring was
+taking her time to recover. From very childhood she had felt that the
+essence of her own goodness, the essence of her duty in life, was the
+doing of 'good' to others; from very childhood she had never doubted
+that she was in a position to do this, and that those to whom she did
+good, although they might kick against it as inconvenient, must admit
+that it WAS their 'good.' The thought: 'They don't admit that I am
+superior!' had never even occurred to her, so completely was she
+unselfconscious, in her convinced superiority. It was hard, indeed, to
+be flung against such outspoken rudeness. It shook her more than she
+gave sign of, for she was not by any means an insensitive woman—shook
+her almost to the point of feeling that there was something in the
+remonstrance of those dreadful young people. Yet, how could there be,
+when no one knew better than she that the laborers on the Malloring
+estate were better off than those on nine out of ten estates; better
+paid and better housed, and—better looked after in their morals. Was she
+to give up that?—when she knew that she WAS better able to tell what was
+good for them than they were themselves. After all, without stripping
+herself naked of every thought, experience, and action since her birth,
+how could she admit that she was not better able? And slowly, in the
+white room with the moss-green carpet, she recovered, till there was
+only just a touch of soreness left, at the injustice implicit in their
+words. Those two had been 'miserably brought up,' had never had a chance
+of finding their proper place, of understanding that they were just two
+callow young things, for whom Life had some fearful knocks in store. She
+could even feel now that she had meant that saying: 'I am sorry for you
+two!' She WAS sorry for them, sorry for their want of manners and their
+point of view, neither of which they could help, of course, with a
+mother like that. For all her gentleness and sensibility, there was much
+practical directness about Mildred Malloring; for her, a page turned
+was a page turned, an idea absorbed was never disgorged; she was of
+religious temperament, ever trimming her course down the exact channel
+marked out with buoys by the Port Authorities, and really incapable of
+imagining spiritual wants in others that could not be satisfied by what
+satisfied herself. And this pathetic strength she had in common with
+many of her fellow creatures in every class. Sitting down at the
+writing-table from which she had been disturbed, she leaned her thin,
+rather long, gentle, but stubborn face on her hand, thinking. These
+Gaunts were a source of irritation in the parish, a kind of open sore.
+It would be better if they could be got rid of before quarter day, up to
+which she had weakly said they might remain. Far better for them to go
+at once, if it could be arranged. As for the poor fellow Tryst,
+thinking that by plunging into sin he could improve his lot and his poor
+children's, it was really criminal of those Freelands to encourage him.
+She had refrained hitherto from seriously worrying Gerald on such points
+of village policy—his hands were so full; but he must now take his part.
+And she rang the bell.
+
+“Tell Sir Gerald I'd like to see him, please, as soon as he gets back.”
+
+“Sir Gerald has just come in, my lady.”
+
+“Now, then!”
+
+Gerald Malloring—an excellent fellow, as could be seen from his face
+of strictly Norman architecture, with blue stained-glass windows rather
+deep set in—had only one defect: he was not a poet. Not that this would
+have seemed to him anything but an advantage, had he been aware of it.
+His was one of those high-principled natures who hold that breadth is
+synonymous with weakness. It may be said without exaggeration that the
+few meetings of his life with those who had a touch of the poet in them
+had been exquisitely uncomfortable. Silent, almost taciturn by nature,
+he was a great reader of poetry, and seldom went to sleep without having
+digested a page or two of Wordsworth, Milton, Tennyson, or Scott. Byron,
+save such poems as 'Don Juan' or 'The Waltz,' he could but did not read,
+for fear of setting a bad example. Burns, Shelley, and Keats he did
+not care for. Browning pained him, except by such things as: 'How They
+Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' and the 'Cavalier Tunes'; while
+of 'Omar Khayyam' and 'The Hound of Heaven' he definitely disapproved.
+For Shakespeare he had no real liking, though he concealed this, from
+humility in the face of accepted opinion. His was a firm mind, sure of
+itself, but not self-assertive. His points were so good, and he had so
+many of them, that it was only when he met any one touched with poetry
+that his limitations became apparent; it was rare, however, and getting
+more so every year, for him to have this unpleasant experience.
+
+When summoned by his wife, he came in with a wrinkle between his
+straight brows; he had just finished a morning's work on a drainage
+scheme, like the really good fellow that he was. She greeted him with
+a little special smile. Nothing could be friendlier than the relations
+between these two. Affection and trust, undeviating undemonstrativeness,
+identity of feeling as to religion, children, property; and, in regard
+to views on the question of sex, a really strange unanimity, considering
+that they were man and woman.
+
+“It's about these Gaunts, Gerald. I feel they must go at once. They're
+only creating bad feeling by staying till quarter day. I have had the
+young Freelands here.”
+
+“Those young pups!”
+
+“Can't it be managed?”
+
+Malloring did not answer hastily. He had that best point of the good
+Englishman, a dislike to being moved out of a course of conduct by
+anything save the appeal of his own conscience.
+
+“I don't know,” he said, “why we should alter what we thought was just.
+Must give him time to look round and get a job elsewhere.”
+
+“I think the general state of feeling demands it. It's not fair to the
+villagers to let the Freelands have such a handle for agitating. Labor's
+badly wanted everywhere; he can't have any difficulty in getting a
+place, if he likes.”
+
+“No. Only, I rather admire the fellow for sticking by his girl, though
+he is such a 'land-lawyer.' I think it's a bit harsh to move him
+suddenly.”
+
+“So did I, till I saw from those young furies what harm it's doing. They
+really do infect the cottagers. You know how discontent spreads. And
+Tryst—they're egging him on, too.”
+
+Malloring very thoughtfully filled a pipe. He was not an alarmist; if
+anything, he erred on the side of not being alarmed until it was all
+over and there was no longer anything to be alarmed at! His imagination
+would then sometimes take fire, and he would say that such and such, or
+so and so, was dangerous.
+
+“I'd rather go and have a talk with Freeland,” he said. “He's queer, but
+he's not at all a bad chap.”
+
+Lady Malloring rose, and took one of his real-leather buttons in her
+hand.
+
+“My dear Gerald, Mr. Freeland doesn't exist.”
+
+“Don't know about that; a man can always come to life, if he likes, in
+his own family.”
+
+Lady Malloring was silent. It was true. For all their unanimity of
+thought and feeling, for all the latitude she had in domestic and
+village affairs, Gerald had a habit of filling his pipe with her
+decisions. Quite honestly, she had no objection to their becoming smoke
+through HIS lips, though she might wriggle just a little. To her
+credit, she did entirely carry out in her life her professed belief that
+husbands should be the forefronts of their wives. For all that, there
+burst from her lips the words:
+
+“That Freeland woman! When I think of the mischief she's always done
+here, by her example and her irreligion—I can't forgive her. I don't
+believe you'll make any impression on Mr. Freeland; he's entirely under
+her thumb.”
+
+Smoking slowly, and looking just over the top of his wife's head,
+Malioring answered:
+
+“I'll have a try; and don't you worry!”
+
+Lady Malloring turned away. Her soreness still wanted salve.
+
+“Those two young people,” she murmured, “said some very unpleasant
+things to me. The boy, I believe, might have some good in him, but the
+girl is simply terrible.”
+
+“H'm! I think just the reverse, you know.”
+
+“They'll come to awful grief if they're not brought up sharp. They ought
+to be sent to the colonies to learn reality.”
+
+Malloring nodded.
+
+“Come out, Mildred, and see how they're getting on with the new vinery.”
+And they went out together through the French window.
+
+The vinery was of their own designing, and of extraordinary interest. In
+contemplation of its lofty glass and aluminium-cased pipes the feeling
+of soreness left her. It was very pleasant, standing with Gerald,
+looking at what they had planned together; there was a soothing sense
+of reality about that visit, after the morning's happening, with its
+disappointment, its reminder of immorality and discontent, and of
+folk ungrateful for what was done for their good. And, squeezing her
+husband's arm, she murmured:
+
+“It's really exactly what we thought it would be, Gerald!”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+About five o'clock of that same afternoon, Gerald Malloring went to see
+Tod. An open-air man himself, who often deplored the long hours he was
+compelled to spend in the special atmosphere of the House of Commons,
+he rather envied Tod his existence in this cottage, crazed from age,
+and clothed with wistaria, rambler roses, sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and
+Virginia creeper. Freeland had, in his opinion, quite a jolly life of
+it—the poor fellow not being able, of course, to help having a cranky
+wife and children like that. He pondered, as he went along, over a talk
+at Becket, when Stanley, still under the influence of Felix's outburst,
+had uttered some rather queer sayings. For instance, he had supposed
+that they (meaning, apparently, himself and Malloring) WERE rather
+unable to put themselves in the position of these Trysts and Gaunts. He
+seemed to speak of them as one might speak generically of Hodge, which
+had struck Malloring as singular, it not being his habit to see anything
+in common between an individual case, especially on his own estate, and
+the ethics of a general proposition. The place for general propositions
+was undoubtedly the House of Commons, where they could be supported
+one way or the other, out of blue books. He had little use for them in
+private life, where innumerable things such as human nature and all that
+came into play. He had stared rather hard at his host when Stanley had
+followed up that first remark with: “I'm bound to say, I shouldn't care
+to have to get up at half past five, and go out without a bath!” What
+that had to do with the land problem or the regulation of village
+morality Malloring had been unable to perceive. It all depended on what
+one was accustomed to; and in any case threw no light on the question,
+as to whether or not he was to tolerate on his estate conduct of which
+his wife and himself distinctly disapproved. At the back of national
+life there was always this problem of individual conduct, especially
+sexual conduct—without regularity in which, the family, as the unit of
+national life, was gravely threatened, to put it on the lowest ground.
+And he did not see how to bring it home to the villagers that they had
+got to be regular, without making examples now and then.
+
+He had hoped very much to get through his call without coming across
+Freeland's wife and children, and was greatly relieved to find Tod,
+seated on a window-sill in front of his cottage, smoking, and gazing
+apparently at nothing. In taking the other corner of the window-sill,
+the thought passed through his mind that Freeland was really a very
+fine-looking fellow. Tod was, indeed, about Malloring's own height of
+six feet one, with the same fairness and straight build of figure and
+feature. But Tod's head was round and massive, his hair crisp and uncut;
+Malloring's head long and narrow, his hair smooth and close-cropped.
+Tod's eyes, blue and deep-set, seemed fixed on the horizon, Malloring's,
+blue and deep-set, on the nearest thing they could light on. Tod smiled,
+as it were, without knowing; Malloring seemed to know what he was
+smiling at almost too well. It was comforting, however, that Freeland
+was as shy and silent as himself, for this produced a feeling that
+there could not be any real difference between their points of view.
+Perceiving at last that if he did not speak they would continue sitting
+there dumb till it was time for him to go, Malloring said:
+
+“Look here, Freeland; about my wife and yours and Tryst and the Gaunts,
+and all the rest of it! It's a pity, isn't it? This is a small place,
+you know. What's your own feeling?”
+
+Tod answered:
+
+“A man has only one life.”
+
+Malloring was a little puzzled.
+
+“In this world. I don't follow.”
+
+“Live and let live.”
+
+A part of Malloring undoubtedly responded to that curt saying, a part of
+him as strongly rebelled against it; and which impulse he was going to
+follow was not at first patent.
+
+“You see, YOU keep apart,” he said at last. “You couldn't say that so
+easily if you had, like us, to take up the position in which we find
+ourselves.”
+
+“Why take it up?”
+
+Malloring frowned. “How would things go on?”
+
+“All right,” said Tod.
+
+Malloring got up from the sill. This was 'laisser-faire' with a
+vengeance! Such philosophy had always seemed to him to savor dangerously
+of anarchism. And yet twenty years' experience as a neighbor had
+shown him that Tod was in himself perhaps the most harmless person
+in Worcestershire, and held in a curious esteem by most of the people
+about. He was puzzled, and sat down again.
+
+“I've never had a chance to talk things over with you,” he said. “There
+are a good few people, Freeland, who can't behave themselves; we're not
+bees, you know!”
+
+He stopped, having an uncomfortable suspicion that his hearer was not
+listening.
+
+“First I've heard this year,” said Tod.
+
+For all the rudeness of that interruption, Malloring felt a stir of
+interest. He himself liked birds. Unfortunately, he could hear nothing
+but the general chorus of their songs.
+
+“Thought they'd gone,” murmured Tod.
+
+Malloring again got up. “Look here, Freeland,” he said, “I wish you'd
+give your mind to this. You really ought not to let your wife and
+children make trouble in the village.”
+
+Confound the fellow! He was smiling; there was a sort of twinkle in his
+smile, too, that Malloring found infectious!
+
+“No, seriously,” he said, “you don't know what harm you mayn't do.”
+
+“Have you ever watched a dog looking at a fire?” asked Tod.
+
+“Yes, often; why?”
+
+“He knows better than to touch it.”
+
+“You mean you're helpless? But you oughtn't to be.”
+
+The fellow was smiling again!
+
+“Then you don't mean to do anything?”
+
+Tod shook his head.
+
+Malloring flushed. “Now, look here, Freeland,” he said, “forgive my
+saying so, but this strikes me as a bit cynical. D'you think I enjoy
+trying to keep things straight?”
+
+Tod looked up.
+
+“Birds,” he said, “animals, insects, vegetable life—they all eat each
+other more or less, but they don't fuss about it.”
+
+Malloring turned abruptly and went down the path. Fuss! He never fussed.
+Fuss! The word was an insult, addressed to him! If there was one thing
+he detested more than another, whether in public or private life, it
+was 'fussing.' Did he not belong to the League for Suppression of
+Interference with the Liberty of the Subject? Was he not a member of the
+party notoriously opposed to fussy legislation? Had any one ever used
+the word in connection with conduct of his, before? If so, he had never
+heard them. Was it fussy to try and help the Church to improve the
+standard of morals in the village? Was it fussy to make a simple
+decision and stick to it? The injustice of the word really hurt him. And
+the more it hurt him, the slower and more dignified and upright became
+his march toward his drive gate.
+
+'Wild geese' in the morning sky had been forerunners; very heavy clouds
+were sweeping up from the west, and rain beginning to fall. He passed
+an old man leaning on the gate of a cottage garden and said: “Good
+evening!”
+
+The old man touched his hat but did not speak.
+
+“How's your leg, Gaunt?”
+
+“'Tis much the same, Sir Gerald.”
+
+“Rain coming makes it shoot, I expect.”
+
+“It do.”
+
+Malloring stood still. The impulse was on him to see if, after all, the
+Gaunts' affair could not be disposed of without turning the old fellow
+and his son out.
+
+“Look here!” he said; “about this unfortunate business. Why don't
+you and your son make up your minds without more ado to let your
+granddaughter go out to service? You've been here all your lives; I
+don't want to see you go.”
+
+The least touch of color invaded the old man's carved and grayish face.
+
+“Askin' your pardon,” he said, “my son sticks by his girl, and I sticks
+by my son!”
+
+“Oh! very well; you know your own business, Gaunt. I spoke for your
+good.”
+
+A faint smile curled the corners of old Gaunt's mouth downward beneath
+his gray moustaches.
+
+“Thank you kindly,” he said.
+
+Malloring raised a finger to his cap and passed on. Though he felt
+a longing to stride his feelings off, he did not increase his pace,
+knowing that the old man's eyes were following him. But how pig-headed
+they were, seeing nothing but their own point of view! Well, he could
+not alter his decision. They would go at the June quarter—not a day
+before, nor after.
+
+Passing Tryst's cottage, he noticed a 'fly' drawn up outside, and its
+driver talking to a woman in hat and coat at the cottage doorway. She
+avoided his eye.
+
+'The wife's sister again!' he thought. 'So that fellow's going to be an
+ass, too? Hopeless, stubborn lot!' And his mind passed on to his scheme
+for draining the bottom fields at Cantley Bromage. This village trouble
+was too small to occupy for long the mind of one who had so many
+duties....
+
+Old Gaunt remained at the gate watching till the tall figure passed
+out of sight, then limped slowly down the path and entered his
+son's cottage. Tom Gaunt, not long in from work, was sitting in his
+shirtsleeves, reading the paper—a short, thick-set man with small eyes,
+round, ruddy cheeks, and humorous lips indifferently concealed by a
+ragged moustache. Even in repose there was about him something talkative
+and disputatious. He was clearly the kind of man whose eyes and wit
+would sparkle above a pewter pot. A good workman, he averaged out an
+income of perhaps eighteen shillings a week, counting the two shillings'
+worth of vegetables that he grew. His erring daughter washed for two old
+ladies in a bungalow, so that with old Gaunt's five shillings from the
+parish, the total resources of this family of five, including two small
+boys at school, was seven and twenty shillings a week. Quite a sum! His
+comparative wealth no doubt contributed to the reputation of Tom Gaunt,
+well known as local wag and disturber of political meetings. His method
+with these gatherings, whether Liberal or Tory, had a certain masterly
+simplicity. By interjecting questions that could not be understood, and
+commenting on the answers received, he insured perpetual laughter, with
+the most salutary effects on the over-consideration of any political
+question, together with a tendency to make his neighbors say: “Ah! Tom
+Gaunt, he's a proper caution, he is!” An encomium dear to his ears. What
+he seriously thought about anything in this world, no one knew; but some
+suspected him of voting Liberal, because he disturbed their meetings
+most. His loyalty to his daughter was not credited to affection. It was
+like Tom Gaunt to stick his toes in and kick—the Quality, for choice. To
+look at him and old Gaunt, one would not have thought they could be son
+and father, a relationship indeed ever dubious. As for his wife, she had
+been dead twelve years. Some said he had joked her out of life, others
+that she had gone into consumption. He was a reader—perhaps the only one
+in all the village, and could whistle like a blackbird. To work hard,
+but without too great method, to drink hard, but with perfect method,
+and to talk nineteen to the dozen anywhere except at home—was his mode
+of life. In a word, he was a 'character.'
+
+Old Gaunt sat down in a wooden rocking-chair, and spoke.
+
+“Sir Gerald 'e've a-just passed.”
+
+“Sir Gerald 'e can goo to hell. They'll know un there, by 'is little
+ears.”
+
+“'E've a-spoke about us stoppin'; so as Mettie goes out to sarvice.”
+
+“'E've a-spoke about what 'e don't know 'bout, then. Let un do what they
+like, they can't put Tom Gaunt about; he can get work anywhere—Tom Gaunt
+can, an' don't you forget that, old man.”
+
+The old man, placing his thin brown hands on his knees, was silent. And
+thoughts passed through and through him. 'If so be as Tom goes, there'll
+be no one as'll take me in for less than three bob a week. Two bob a
+week, that's what I'll 'ave to feed me—Two bob a week—two bob a week!
+But if so be's I go with Tom, I'll 'ave to reg'lar sit down under he for
+me bread and butter.' And he contemplated his son.
+
+“Where are you goin', then?” he said.
+
+Tom Gaunt rustled the greenish paper he was reading, and his little,
+hard gray eyes fixed his father.
+
+“Who said I was going?”
+
+Old Gaunt, smoothing and smoothing the lined, thin cheeks of the
+parchmenty, thin-nosed face that Frances Freeland had thought to be
+almost like a gentleman's, answered: “I thart you said you was goin'.”
+
+“You think too much, then—that's what 'tis. You think too much, old
+man.”
+
+With a slight deepening of the sardonic patience in his face, old Gaunt
+rose, took a bowl and spoon down from a shelf, and very slowly proceeded
+to make himself his evening meal. It consisted of crusts of bread soaked
+in hot water and tempered with salt, pepper, onion, and a touch of
+butter. And while he waited, crouched over the kettle, his son smoked
+his grayish clay and read his greenish journal; an old clock ticked and
+a little cat purred without provocation on the ledge of the tight-closed
+window. Then the door opened and the rogue-girl appeared. She shook her
+shoulders as though to dismiss the wetting she had got, took off her
+turn-down, speckly, straw hat, put on an apron, and rolled up her
+sleeves. Her arms were full and firm and red; the whole of her was full
+and firm. From her rosy cheeks to her stout ankles she was superabundant
+with vitality, the strangest contrast to her shadowy, thin old
+grandfather. About the preparation of her father's tea she moved with a
+sort of brooding stolidity, out of which would suddenly gleam a twinkle
+of rogue-sweetness, as when she stopped to stroke the little cat or to
+tickle the back of her grandfather's lean neck in passing. Having set
+the tea, she stood by the table and said slowly: “Tea's ready, father.
+I'm goin' to London.”
+
+Tom Gaunt put down his pipe and journal, took his seat at the table,
+filled his mouth with sausage, and said: “You're goin' where I tell
+you.”
+
+“I'm goin' to London.”
+
+Tom Gaunt stayed the morsel in one cheek and fixed her with his little,
+wild boar's eye.
+
+“Ye're goin' to catch the stick,” he said. “Look here, my girl, Tom
+Gaunt's been put about enough along of you already. Don't you make no
+mistake.”
+
+“I'm goin' to London,” repeated the rogue-girl stolidly. “You can get
+Alice to come over.”
+
+“Oh! Can I? Ye're not goin' till I tell you. Don't you think it!”
+
+“I'm goin'. I saw Mr. Derek this mornin'. They'll get me a place there.”
+
+Tom Gaunt remained with his fork as it were transfixed. The effort of
+devising contradiction to the chief supporters of his own rebellion was
+for the moment too much for him. He resumed mastication.
+
+“You'll go where I want you to go; and don't you think you can tell me
+where that is.”
+
+In the silence that ensued the only sound was that of old Gaunt supping
+at his crusty-broth. Then the rogue-girl went to the window and, taking
+the little cat on her breast, sat looking out into the rain. Having
+finished his broth, old Gaunt got up, and, behind his son's back, he
+looked at his granddaughter and thought:
+
+'Goin' to London! 'Twud be best for us all. WE shudn' need to be movin',
+then. Goin' to London!' But he felt desolate.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+When Spring and first love meet in a girl's heart, then the birds sing.
+
+The songs that blackbirds and dusty-coated thrushes flung through
+Nedda's window when she awoke in Hampstead those May mornings seemed to
+have been sung by herself all night. Whether the sun were flashing on
+the leaves, or rain-drops sieving through on a sou'west wind, the same
+warmth glowed up in her the moment her eyes opened. Whether the lawn
+below were a field of bright dew, or dry and darkish in a shiver of east
+wind, her eyes never grew dim all day; and her blood felt as light as
+ostrich feathers.
+
+Stormed by an attack of his cacoethes scribendi, after those few blank
+days at Becket, Felix saw nothing amiss with his young daughter. The
+great observer was not observant of things that other people observed.
+Neither he nor Flora, occupied with matters of more spiritual
+importance, could tell, offhand, for example, on which hand a
+wedding-ring was worn. They had talked enough of Becket and the Tods to
+produce the impression on Flora's mind that one day or another two young
+people would arrive in her house on a visit; but she had begun a poem
+called 'Dionysus at the Well,' and Felix himself had plunged into a
+satiric allegory entitled 'The Last of the Laborers.' Nedda, therefore,
+walked alone; but at her side went always an invisible companion. In
+that long, imaginary walking-out she gave her thoughts and the whole of
+her heart, and to be doing this never surprised her, who, before, had
+not given them whole to anything. A bee knows the first summer day and
+clings intoxicated to its flowers; so did Nedda know and cling. She
+wrote him two letters and he wrote her one. It was not poetry; indeed,
+it was almost all concerned with Wilmet Gaunt, asking Nedda to find a
+place in London where the girl could go; but it ended with the words:
+
+“Your lover,
+
+“DEREK.”
+
+This letter troubled Nedda. She would have taken it at once to Felix or
+to Flora if it had not been for the first words, “Dearest Nedda,” and
+those last three. Except her mother, she instinctively distrusted women
+in such a matter as that of Wilmet Gaunt, feeling they would want to
+know more than she could tell them, and not be too tolerant of what they
+heard. Casting about, at a loss, she thought suddenly of Mr. Cuthcott.
+
+At dinner that day she fished round carefully. Felix spoke of him almost
+warmly. What Cuthcott could have been doing at Becket, of all places, he
+could not imagine—the last sort of man one expected to see there; a good
+fellow, rather desperate, perhaps, as men of his age were apt to get if
+they had too many women, or no woman, about them.
+
+Which, said Nedda, had Mr. Cuthcott?
+
+Oh! None. How had he struck Nedda? And Felix looked at his little
+daughter with a certain humble curiosity. He always felt that the young
+instinctively knew so much more than he did.
+
+“I liked him awfully. He was like a dog.”
+
+“Ah!” said Felix, “he IS like a dog—very honest; he grins and runs about
+the city, and might be inclined to bay the moon.”
+
+'I don't mind that,' Nedda thought, 'so long as he's not “superior.”'
+
+“He's very human,” Felix added.
+
+And having found out that he lived in Gray's Inn, Nedda thought: 'I
+will; I'll ask him.'
+
+To put her project into execution, she wrote this note:
+
+“DEAR MR. CUTHCOTT:
+
+“You were so kind as to tell me you wouldn't mind if I bothered you
+about things. I've got a very bothery thing to know what to do about,
+and I would be so glad of your advice. It so happens that I can't ask my
+father and mother. I hope you won't think me very horrible, wasting your
+time. And please say no, if you'd rather.
+
+“Yours sincerely,
+
+“NEDDA FREELAND.”
+
+The answer came:
+
+“DEAR MISS FREELAND:
+
+“Delighted. But if very bothery, better save time and ink, and have a
+snack of lunch with me to-morrow at the Elgin restaurant, close to
+the British Museum. Quiet and respectable. No flowers by request. One
+o'clock.
+
+“Very truly yours,
+
+“GILES CUTHCOTT.”
+
+Putting on 'no flowers' and with a fast-beating heart, Nedda, went on
+her first lonely adventure. To say truth she did not know in the least
+how ever she was going to ask this almost strange man about a girl of
+doubtful character. But she kept saying to herself: 'I don't care—he has
+nice eyes.' And her spirit would rise as she got nearer, because, after
+all, she was going to find things out, and to find things out was jolly.
+The new warmth and singing in her heart had not destroyed, but rather
+heightened, her sense of the extraordinary interest of all things that
+be. And very mysterious to her that morning was the kaleidoscope of
+Oxford Street and its innumerable girls, and women, each going about her
+business, with a life of her own that was not Nedda's. For men she had
+little use just now, they had acquired a certain insignificance, not
+having gray-black eyes that smoked and flared, nor Harris tweed suits
+that smelled delicious. Only once on her journey from Oxford Circus she
+felt the sense of curiosity rise in her, in relation to a man, and this
+was when she asked a policeman at Tottenham Court Road, and he put his
+head down fully a foot to listen to her. So huge, so broad, so red in
+the face, so stolid, it seemed wonderful to her that he paid her any
+attention! If he were a human being, could she really be one, too? But
+that, after all, was no more odd than everything. Why, for instance, the
+spring flowers in that woman's basket had been born; why that high white
+cloud floated over; why and what was Nedda Freeland?
+
+At the entrance of the little restaurant she saw Mr. Cuthcott waiting.
+In a brown suit, with his pale but freckled face, and his gnawed-at,
+sandy moustache, and his eyes that looked out and beyond, he was
+certainly no beauty. But Nedda thought: 'He's even nicer than I
+remembered, and I'm sure he knows a lot.'
+
+At first, to be sitting opposite to him, in front of little plates
+containing red substances and small fishes, was so exciting that she
+simply listened to his rapid, rather stammering voice mentioning that
+the English had no idea of life or cookery, that God had so made
+this country by mistake that everything, even the sun, knew it. What,
+however, would she drink? Chardonnet? It wasn't bad here.
+
+She assented, not liking to confess that she did not know what
+Chardonnet might be, and hoping it was some kind of sherbet. She had
+never yet drunk wine, and after a glass felt suddenly extremely strong.
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Cuthcott, and his eyes twinkled, “what's your
+botheration? I suppose you want to strike out for yourself. MY daughters
+did that without consulting me.”
+
+“Oh! Have you got daughters?”
+
+“Yes—funny ones; older than you.”
+
+“That's why you understand, then.”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott smiled. “They WERE a liberal education!”
+
+And Nedda thought: 'Poor Dad, I wonder if I am!'
+
+“Yes,” Mr. Cuthcott murmured, “who would think a gosling would ever
+become a goose?”
+
+“Ah!” said Nedda eagerly, “isn't it wonderful how things grow?”
+
+She felt his eyes suddenly catch hold of hers.
+
+“You're in love!” he said.
+
+It seemed to her a great piece of luck that he had found that out. It
+made everything easy at once, and her words came out pell-mell.
+
+“Yes, and I haven't told my people yet. I don't seem able. He's given me
+something to do, and I haven't much experience.”
+
+A funny little wriggle passed over Mr. Cuthcott's face. “Yes, yes; go
+on! Tell us about it.”
+
+She took a sip from her glass, and the feeling that he had been going to
+laugh passed away.
+
+“It's about the daughter of a laborer, down there in Worcestershire,
+where he lives, not very far from Becket. He's my cousin, Derek, the
+son of my other uncle at Joyfields. He and his sister feel most awfully
+strongly about the laborers.”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Cuthcott, “the laborers! Queer how they're in the air,
+all of a sudden.”
+
+“This girl hasn't been very good, and she has to go from the village, or
+else her family have. He wants me to find a place for her in London.”
+
+“I see; and she hasn't been very good?”
+
+“Not very.” She knew that her cheeks were flushing, but her eyes felt
+steady, and seeing that his eyes never moved, she did not mind. She went
+on:
+
+“It's Sir Gerald Malloring's estate. Lady Malloring—won't—”
+
+She heard a snap. Mr. Cuthcott's mouth had closed.
+
+“Oh!” he said, “say no more!”
+
+'He CAN bite nicely!' she thought.
+
+Mr. Cuthcott, who had begun lightly thumping the little table with his
+open hand, broke out suddenly:
+
+“That petty bullying in the country! I know it! My God! Those prudes,
+those prisms! They're the ruination of half the girls on the—” He looked
+at Nedda and stopped short. “If she can do any kind of work, I'll find
+her a place. In fact, she'd better come, for a start, under my old
+housekeeper. Let your cousin know; she can turn up any day. Name? Wilmet
+Gaunt? Right you are!” He wrote it on his cuff.
+
+Nedda rose to her feet, having an inclination to seize his hand, or
+stroke his head, or something. She subsided again with a fervid sigh,
+and sat exchanging with him a happy smile. At last she said:
+
+“Mr. Cuthcott, is there any chance of things like that changing?”
+
+“Changing?” He certainly had grown paler, and was again lightly
+thumping the table. “Changing? By gum! It's got to change! This d—d
+pluto-aristocratic ideal! The weed's so grown up that it's choking us.
+Yes, Miss Freeland, whether from inside or out I don't know yet, but
+there's a blazing row coming. Things are going to be made new before
+long.”
+
+Under his thumps the little plates had begun to rattle and leap. And
+Nedda thought: 'I DO like him.'
+
+But she said anxiously:
+
+“You believe there's something to be done, then? Derek is simply full of
+it; I want to feel like that, too, and I mean to.”
+
+His face grew twinkly; he put out his hand. And wondering a little
+whether he meant her to, Nedda timidly stretched forth her own and
+grasped it.
+
+“I like you,” he said. “Love your cousin and don't worry.”
+
+Nedda's eyes slipped into the distance.
+
+“But I'm afraid for him. If you saw him, you'd know.”
+
+“One's always afraid for the fellows that are worth anything. There was
+another young Freeland at your uncle's the other night—”
+
+“My brother Alan!”
+
+“Oh! your brother? Well, I wasn't afraid for him, and it seemed a pity.
+Have some of this; it's about the only thing they do well here.”
+
+“Oh, thank you, no. I've had a lovely lunch. Mother and I generally have
+about nothing.” And clasping her hands she added:
+
+“This is a secret, isn't it, Mr. Cuthcott?”
+
+“Dead.”
+
+He laughed and his face melted into a mass of wrinkles. Nedda laughed
+also and drank up the rest of her wine. She felt blissful.
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Cuthcott, “there's nothing like loving. How long have
+you been at it?”
+
+“Only five days, but it's everything.”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott sighed. “That's right. When you can't love, the only thing
+is to hate.”
+
+“Oh!” said Nedda.
+
+Mr. Cuthcott again began banging on the little table. “Look at them,
+look at them!” His eyes wandered angrily about the room, wherein sat
+some few who had passed though the mills of gentility. “What do they
+know of life? Where are their souls and sympathies? They haven't any.
+I'd like to see their blood flow, the silly brutes.”
+
+Nedda looked at them with alarm and curiosity. They seemed to her
+somewhat like everybody she knew. She said timidly: “Do you think OUR
+blood ought to flow, too?”
+
+Mr. Cuthcott relapsed into twinkles. “Rather! Mine first!”
+
+'He IS human!' thought Nedda. And she got up: “I'm afraid I ought to go
+now. It's been awfully nice. Thank you so very much. Good-by!”
+
+He shook her firm little hand with his frail thin one, and stood smiling
+till the restaurant door cut him off from her view.
+
+The streets seemed so gorgeously full of life now that Nedda's head
+swam. She looked at it all with such absorption that she could not tell
+one thing from another. It seemed rather long to the Tottenham Court
+Road, though she noted carefully the names of all the streets she
+passed, and was sure she had not missed it. She came at last to one
+called POULTRY. 'Poultry!' she thought; 'I should have remembered
+that—Poultry?' And she laughed. It was so sweet and feathery a laugh
+that the driver of an old four-wheeler stopped his horse. He was old and
+anxious-looking, with a gray beard and deep folds in his red cheeks.
+
+“Poultry!” she said. “Please, am I right for the Tottenham Court Road?”
+
+The old man answered: “Glory, no, miss; you're goin' East!”
+
+'East!' thought Nedda; 'I'd better take him.' And she got in. She sat
+in the four-wheeler, smiling. And how far this was due to Chardonnet she
+did not consider. She was to love and not worry. It was wonderful! In
+this mood she was put down, still smiling, at the Tottenham Court Road
+Tube, and getting out her purse she prepared to pay the cabman. The
+fare would be a shilling, but she felt like giving him two. He looked so
+anxious and worn, in spite of his red face. He took them, looked at her,
+and said: “Thank you, miss; I wanted that.”
+
+“Oh!” murmured Nedda, “then please take this, too. It's all I happen to
+have, except my Tube fare.”
+
+The old man took it, and water actually ran along his nose.
+
+“God bless yer!” he said. And taking up his whip, he drove off quickly.
+
+Rather choky, but still glowing, Nedda descended to her train. It was
+not till she was walking to the Spaniard's Road that a cloud seemed to
+come over her sky, and she reached home dejected.
+
+In the garden of the Freelands' old house was a nook shut away by
+berberis and rhododendrons, where some bees were supposed to make honey,
+but, knowing its destination, and belonging to a union, made no more
+than they were obliged. In this retreat, which contained a rustic bench,
+Nedda was accustomed to sit and read; she went there now. And her eyes
+began filling with tears. Why must the poor old fellow who had driven
+her look so anxious and call on God to bless her for giving him that
+little present? Why must people grow old and helpless, like that
+Grandfather Gaunt she had seen at Becket? Why was there all the tyranny
+that made Derek and Sheila so wild? And all the grinding poverty that
+she herself could see when she went with her mother to their Girls'
+Club, in Bethnal Green? What was the use of being young and strong if
+nothing happened, nothing was really changed, so that one got old and
+died seeing still the same things as before? What was the use even of
+loving, if love itself had to yield to death? The trees! How they grew
+from tiny seeds to great and beautiful things, and then slowly, slowly
+dried and decayed away to dust. What was the good of it all? What
+comfort was there in a God so great and universal that he did not care
+to keep her and Derek alive and loving forever, and was not interested
+enough to see that the poor old cab-driver should not be haunted day and
+night with fear of the workhouse for himself and an old wife, perhaps?
+Nedda's tears fell fast, and how far THIS was Chardonnet no one could
+tell.
+
+Felix, seeking inspiration from the sky in regard to 'The Last of the
+Laborers,' heard a noise like sobbing, and, searching, found his little
+daughter sitting there and crying as if her heart would break. The sight
+was so unusual and so utterly disturbing that he stood rooted, quite
+unable to bring her help. Should he sneak away? Should he go for Flora?
+What should he do? Like many men whose work keeps them centred within
+themselves, he instinctively avoided everything likely to pain or
+trouble him; for this reason, when anything did penetrate those
+mechanical defences he became almost strangely tender. Loath, for
+example, to believe that any one was ill, if once convinced of it,
+he made so good a nurse that Flora, at any rate, was in the habit of
+getting well with suspicious alacrity. Thoroughly moved now, he sat down
+on the bench beside Nedda, and said:
+
+“My darling!”
+
+She leaned her forehead against his arm and sobbed the more.
+
+Felix waited, patting her far shoulder gently.
+
+He had often dealt with such situations in his books, and now that
+one had come true was completely at a loss. He could not even begin to
+remember what was usually said or done, and he only made little soothing
+noises.
+
+To Nedda this tenderness brought a sudden sharp sense of guilt and
+yearning. She began:
+
+“It's not because of that I'm crying, Dad, but I want you to know that
+Derek and I are in love.”
+
+The words: 'You! What! In those few days!' rose, and got as far as
+Felix's teeth; he swallowed them and went on patting her shoulder. Nedda
+in love! He felt blank and ashy. That special feeling of owning her
+more than any one else, which was so warming and delightful, so really
+precious—it would be gone! What right had she to take it from him, thus,
+without warning! Then he remembered how odious he had always said the
+elderly were, to spoke the wheels of youth, and managed to murmur:
+
+“Good luck to you, my pretty!”
+
+He said it, conscious that a father ought to be saying:
+
+'You're much too young, and he's your cousin!' But what a father ought
+to say appeared to him just then both sensible and ridiculous. Nedda
+rubbed her cheek against his hand.
+
+“It won't make any difference, Dad, I promise you!”
+
+And Felix thought: 'Not to you, only to me!' But he said:
+
+“Not a scrap, my love! What WERE you crying about?”
+
+“About the world; it seems so heartless.”
+
+And she told him about the water that had run along the nose of the old
+four-wheeler man.
+
+But while he seemed to listen, Felix thought: 'I wish to God I were made
+of leather; then I shouldn't feel as if I'd lost the warmth inside me.
+I mustn't let her see. Fathers ARE queer—I always suspected that. There
+goes my work for a good week!' Then he answered:
+
+“No, my dear, the world is not heartless; it's only arranged according
+to certain necessary contraries: No pain, no pleasure; no dark, no
+light, and the rest of it. If you think, it couldn't be arranged
+differently.”
+
+As he spoke a blackbird came running with a chuckle from underneath
+the berberis, looked at them with alarm, and ran back. Nedda raised her
+face.
+
+“Dad, I mean to do something with my life!”
+
+Felix answered:
+
+“Yes. That's right.”
+
+But long after Nedda had fallen into dreams that night, he lay awake,
+with his left foot enclosed between Floras', trying to regain that sense
+of warmth which he knew he must never confess to having lost.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Flora took the news rather with the air of a mother-dog that says to her
+puppy: “Oh, very well, young thing! Go and stick your teeth in it
+and find out for yourself!” Sooner or later this always happened, and
+generally sooner nowadays. Besides, she could not help feeling that she
+would get more of Felix, to her a matter of greater importance than
+she gave sign of. But inwardly the news had given her a shock almost as
+sharp as that felt by him. Was she really the mother of one old enough
+to love? Was the child that used to cuddle up to her in the window-seat
+to be read to, gone from her; that used to rush in every morning at all
+inconvenient moments of her toilet; that used to be found sitting in the
+dark on the stairs, like a little sleepy owl, because, for-sooth, it was
+so 'cosey'?
+
+Not having seen Derek, she did not as yet share her husband's anxiety on
+that score, though his description was dubious:
+
+“Upstanding young cockerel, swinging his sporran and marching to pipes—a
+fine spurn about him! Born to trouble, if I know anything, trying to
+sweep the sky with his little broom!”
+
+“Is he a prig?”
+
+“No-o. There's simplicity about his scorn, and he seems to have been
+brought up on facts, not on literature, like most of these young
+monkeys. The cousinship I don't think matters; Kirsteen brings in too
+strong an out-strain. He's HER son, not Tod's. But perhaps,” he added,
+sighing, “it won't last.”
+
+Flora shook her head. “It will last!” she said; “Nedda's deep.”
+
+And if Nedda held, so would Fate; no one would throw Nedda over! They
+naturally both felt that. 'Dionysus at the Well,' no less than 'The Last
+of the Laborers,' had a light week of it.
+
+Though in a sense relieved at having parted with her secret, Nedda yet
+felt that she had committed desecration. Suppose Derek should mind her
+people knowing!
+
+On the day that he and Sheila were to come, feeling she could not trust
+herself to seem even reasonably calm, she started out, meaning to go
+to the South Kensington Museum and wander the time away there; but once
+out-of-doors the sky seemed what she wanted, and, turning down the hill
+on the north side, she sat down under a gorse bush. Here tramps, coming
+in to London, passed the night under the stars; here was a vision,
+however dim, of nature. And nature alone could a little soothe her
+ecstatic nerves.
+
+How would he greet her? Would he be exactly as he was when they stood at
+the edge of Tod's orchard, above the dreamy, darkening fields, joining
+hands and lips, moved as they had never been moved before?
+
+May blossom was beginning to come out along the hedge of the private
+grounds that bordered that bit of Cockney Common, and from it, warmed by
+the sun, the scent stole up to her. Familiar, like so many children
+of the cultured classes, with the pagan and fairy-tales of nature, she
+forgot them all the moment she was really by herself with earth and
+sky. In their breadth, their soft and stirring continuity, they rejected
+bookish fancy, and woke in her rapture and yearning, a sort of long
+delight, a never-appeased hunger. Crouching, hands round knees, she
+turned her face to get the warmth of the sun, and see the white clouds
+go slowly by, and catch all the songs that the birds sang. And every now
+and then she drew a deep breath. It was true what Dad had said: There
+was no real heartlessness in nature. It was warm, beating, breathing.
+And if things ate each other, what did it matter? They had lived and
+died quickly, helping to make others live. The sacred swing and circle
+of it went on forever, full and harmonious under the lighted sky, under
+the friendly stars. It was wonderful to be alive! And all done by love.
+Love! More, more, more love! And then death, if it must come! For, after
+all, to Nedda death was so far away, so unimaginably dim and distant,
+that it did not really count.
+
+While she sat, letting her fingers, that were growing slowly black,
+scrabble the grass and fern, a feeling came on her of a Presence, a
+creature with wings above and around, that seemed to have on its face a
+long, mysterious smile of which she, Nedda, was herself a tiny twinkle.
+She would bring Derek here. They two would sit together and let the
+clouds go over them, and she would learn all that he really thought, and
+tell him all her longings and fears; they would be silent, too, loving
+each other too much to talk. She made elaborate plans of what they were
+to do and see, beginning with the East End and the National Gallery,
+and ending with sunrise from Parliament Hill; but she somehow knew that
+nothing would happen as she had designed. If only the first moment were
+not different from what she hoped!
+
+She sat there so long that she rose quite stiff, and so hungry that she
+could not help going home and stealing into the kitchen. It was three
+o'clock, and the old cook, as usual, asleep in an armchair, with her
+apron thrown up between her face and the fire. What would Cookie say
+if she knew? In that oven she had been allowed to bake in fancy perfect
+little doll loaves, while Cookie baked them in reality. Here she had
+watched the mysterious making of pink cream, had burned countless 'goes'
+of toffy, and cocoanut ice; and tasted all kinds of loveliness. Dear
+old Cookie! Stealing about on tiptoe, seeking what she might devour, she
+found four small jam tarts and ate them, while the cook snored softly.
+Then, by the table, that looked so like a great loaf-platter, she stood
+contemplating cook. Old darling, with her fat, pale, crumply face! Hung
+to the dresser, opposite, was a little mahogany looking-glass tilted
+forward. Nedda could see herself almost down to her toes. 'I mean to
+be prettier than I am!' she thought, putting her hands on her waist.
+'I wonder if I can pull them in a bit!' Sliding her fingers under her
+blouse, she began to pull at certain strings. They would not budge. They
+were loose, yes, really too comfortable. She would have to get the next
+size smaller! And dropping her chin, she rubbed it on the lace edging of
+her chest, where it felt warm and smelled piny. Had Cookie ever been in
+love? Her gray hairs were coming, poor old duck! The windows, where a
+protection of wire gauze kept out the flies, were opened wide, and
+the sun shone in and dimmed the fire. The kitchen clock ticked like a
+conscience; a faint perfume of frying-pan and mint scented the air. And,
+for the first time since this new sensation of love had come to her,
+Nedda felt as if a favorite book, read through and done with, were
+dropping from her hands. The lovely times in that kitchen, in every nook
+of that old house and garden, would never come again! Gone! She felt
+suddenly cast down to sadness. They HAD been lovely times! To be
+deserting in spirit all that had been so good to her—it seemed like a
+crime! She slid down off the table and, passing behind the cook, put
+her arms round those substantial sides. Without meaning to, out of
+sheer emotion, she pressed them somewhat hard, and, as from a concertina
+emerges a jerked and drawn-out chord, so from the cook came a long,
+quaking sound; her apron fell, her body heaved, and her drowsy, flat,
+soft voice, greasy from pondering over dishes, murmured:
+
+“Ah, Miss Nedda! it's you, my dear! Bless your pretty 'eart.”
+
+But down Nedda's cheeks, behind her, rolled two tears.
+
+“Cookie, oh, Cookie!” And she ran out....
+
+And the first moment? It was like nothing she had dreamed of. Strange,
+stiff! One darting look, and then eyes down; one convulsive squeeze,
+then such a formal shake of hot, dry hands, and off he had gone with
+Felix to his room, and she with Sheila to hers, bewildered, biting down
+consternation, trying desperately to behave 'like a little lady,' as her
+old nurse would have put it—before Sheila, especially, whose hostility
+she knew by instinct she had earned. All that evening, furtive watching,
+formal talk, and underneath a ferment of doubt and fear and longing. All
+a mistake! An awful mistake! Did he love her? Heaven! If he did not,
+she could never face any one again. He could not love her! His eyes
+were like those of a swan when its neck is drawn up and back in anger.
+Terrible—having to show nothing, having to smile at Sheila, at Dad, and
+Mother! And when at last she got to her room, she stood at the window
+and at first simply leaned her forehead against the glass and shivered.
+What had she done? Had she dreamed it all—dreamed that they had stood
+together under those boughs in the darkness, and through their lips
+exchanged their hearts? She must have dreamed it! Dreamed that most
+wonderful, false dream! And the walk home in the thunder-storm, and his
+arm round her, and her letters, and his letter—dreamed it all! And
+now she was awake! From her lips came a little moan, and she sank down
+huddled, and stayed there ever so long, numb and chilly. Undress—go
+to bed? Not for the world. By the time the morning came she had got to
+forget that she had dreamed. For very shame she had got to forget that;
+no one should see. Her cheeks and ears and lips were burning, but her
+body felt icy cold. Then—what time she did not know at all—she felt she
+must go out and sit on the stairs. They had always been her comforters,
+those wide, shallow, cosey stairs. Out and down the passage, past all
+their rooms—his the last—to the dark stairs, eerie at night, where the
+scent of age oozed out of the old house. All doors below, above, were
+closed; it was like looking down into a well, to sit with her head
+leaning against the banisters. And silent, so silent—just those faint
+creakings that come from nowhere, as it might be the breathing of the
+house. She put her arms round a cold banister and hugged it hard. It
+hurt her, and she embraced it the harder. The first tears of self-pity
+came welling up, and without warning a great sob burst out of her.
+Alarmed at the sound, she smothered her mouth with her arm. No good;
+they came breaking out! A door opened; all the blood rushed to her heart
+and away from it, and with a little dreadful gurgle she was silent. Some
+one was listening. How long that terrible listening lasted she had no
+idea; then footsteps, and she was conscious that it was standing in
+the dark behind her. A foot touched her back. She gave a little gasp.
+Derek's voice whispered hoarsely:
+
+“What? Who are you?”
+
+And, below her breath, she answered: “Nedda.”
+
+His arms wrenched her away from the banister, his voice in her ear said:
+
+“Nedda, darling, Nedda!”
+
+But despair had sunk too deep; she could only quiver and shake and try
+to drive sobbing out of her breath. Then, most queer, not his words, nor
+the feel of his arms, comforted her—any one could pity!—but the smell
+and the roughness of his Norfolk jacket. So he, too, had not been in
+bed; he, too, had been unhappy! And, burying her face in his sleeve, she
+murmured:
+
+“Oh, Derek! Why?”
+
+“I didn't want them all to see. I can't bear to give it away. Nedda,
+come down lower and let's love each other!”
+
+Softly, stumbling, clinging together, they went down to the last turn of
+the wide stairs. How many times had she not sat there, in white frocks,
+her hair hanging down as now, twisting the tassels of little programmes
+covered with hieroglyphics only intelligible to herself, talking
+spasmodically to spasmodic boys with budding 'tails,' while Chinese
+lanterns let fall their rose and orange light on them and all the other
+little couples as exquisitely devoid of ease. Ah! it was worth those
+hours of torture to sit there together now, comforting each other with
+hands and lips and whisperings. It was more, as much more than that
+moment in the orchard, as sun shining after a Spring storm is more than
+sun in placid mid-July. To hear him say: “Nedda, I love you!” to feel
+it in his hand clasped on her heart was much more, now that she knew how
+difficult it was for him to say or show it, except in the dark with her
+alone. Many a long day they might have gone through together that would
+not have shown her so much of his real heart as that hour of whispering
+and kisses.
+
+He had known she was unhappy, and yet he couldn't! It had only made him
+more dumb! It was awful to be like that! But now that she knew, she was
+glad to think that it was buried so deep in him and kept for her alone.
+And if he did it again she would just know that it was only shyness and
+pride. And he was not a brute and a beast, as he insisted. But suppose
+she had chanced not to come out! Would she ever have lived through the
+night? And she shivered.
+
+“Are you cold, darling? Put on my coat.”
+
+It was put on her in spite of all effort to prevent him. Never was
+anything so warm, so delicious, wrapping her in something more than
+Harris tweed. And the hall clock struck—Two!
+
+She could just see his face in the glimmer that filtered from the
+skylight at the top. And she felt that he was learning her, learning all
+that she had to give him, learning the trust that was shining through
+her eyes. There was just enough light for them to realize the old house
+watching from below and from above—a glint on the dark floor there,
+on the dark wall here; a blackness that seemed to be inhabited by some
+spirit, so that their hands clutched and twitched, when the tiny, tiny
+noises of Time, playing in wood and stone, clicked out.
+
+That stare of the old house, with all its knowledge of lives past, of
+youth and kisses spent and gone, of hopes spun and faiths abashed, the
+old house cynical, stirred in them desire to clutch each other close and
+feel the thrill of peering out together into mystery that must hold
+for them so much of love and joy and trouble! And suddenly she put her
+fingers to his face, passed them softly, clingingly, over his hair,
+forehead, eyes, traced the sharp cheek-bones down to his jaw, round
+by the hard chin up to his lips, over the straight bone of his nose,
+lingering, back, to his eyes again.
+
+“Now, if I go blind, I shall know you. Give me one kiss, Derek. You MUST
+be tired.”
+
+Buried in the old dark house that kiss lasted long; then, tiptoeing—she
+in front—pausing at every creak, holding breath, they stole up to their
+rooms. And the clock struck—Three!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Felix (nothing if not modern) had succumbed already to the feeling that
+youth ruled the roost. Whatever his misgivings, his and Flora's sense of
+loss, Nedda must be given a free hand! Derek gave no outward show of his
+condition, and but for his little daughter's happy serenity Felix would
+have thought as she had thought that first night. He had a feeling that
+his nephew rather despised one so soaked in mildness and reputation as
+Felix Freeland; and he got on better with Sheila, not because she was
+milder, but because she was devoid of that scornful tang which clung
+about her brother. No! Sheila was not mild. Rich-colored, downright
+of speech, with her mane of short hair, she was a no less startling
+companion. The smile of Felix had never been more whimsically employed
+than during that ten-day visit. The evening John Freeland came to dinner
+was the highwater mark of his alarmed amusement. Mr. Cuthcott, also
+bidden, at Nedda's instigation, seemed to take a mischievous delight in
+drawing out those two young people in face of their official uncle. The
+pleasure of the dinner to Felix—and it was not too great—was in watching
+Nedda's face. She hardly spoke, but how she listened! Nor did Derek say
+much, but what he did say had a queer, sarcastic twinge about it.
+
+“An unpleasant young man,” was John's comment afterward. “How the deuce
+did he ever come to be Tod's son? Sheila, of course, is one of these
+hot-headed young women that make themselves a nuisance nowadays, but
+she's intelligible. By the way, that fellow Cuthcott's a queer chap!”
+
+One subject of conversation at dinner had been the morality of
+revolutionary violence. And the saying that had really upset John had
+been Derek's: “Conflagration first—morality afterward!” He had looked
+at his nephew from under brows which a constant need for rejecting
+petitions to the Home Office had drawn permanently down and in toward
+the nose, and made no answer.
+
+To Felix these words had a more sinister significance. With his juster
+appreciation both of the fiery and the official points of view, his far
+greater insight into his nephew than ever John would have, he saw that
+they were more than a mere arrow of controversy. And he made up his mind
+that night that he would tackle his nephew and try to find out exactly
+what was smouldering within that crisp, black pate.
+
+Following him into the garden next morning, he said to himself: 'No
+irony—that's fatal. Man to man—or boy to boy—whichever it is!' But,
+on the garden path, alongside that young spread-eagle, whose dark,
+glowering, self-contained face he secretly admired, he merely began:
+
+“How do you like your Uncle John?”
+
+“He doesn't like me, Uncle Felix.”
+
+Somewhat baffled, Felix proceeded:
+
+“I say, Derek, fortunately or unfortunately, I've some claim now to a
+little knowledge of you. You've got to open out a bit to me. What
+are you going to do with yourself in life? You can't support Nedda on
+revolution.”
+
+Having drawn this bow at a venture, he paused, doubtful of his wisdom.
+A glance at Derek's face confirmed his doubt. It was closer than ever,
+more defiant.
+
+“There's a lot of money in revolution, Uncle Felix—other people's.”
+
+Dash the young brute! There was something in him! He swerved off to a
+fresh line.
+
+“How do you like London?”
+
+“I don't like it. But, Uncle Felix, don't you wish YOU were seeing it
+for the first time? What books you'd write!”
+
+Felix felt that unconscious thrust go 'home.' Revolt against staleness
+and clipped wings, against the terrible security of his too solid
+reputation, smote him.
+
+“What strikes you most about it, then?” he asked.
+
+“That it ought to be jolly well blown up. Everybody seems to know that,
+too—they look it, anyway, and yet they go on as if it oughtn't.”
+
+“Why ought it to be blown up?”
+
+“Well, what's the good of anything while London and all these other big
+towns are sitting on the country's chest? England must have been a fine
+place once, though!”
+
+“Some of us think it a fine place still.”
+
+“Of course it is, in a way. But anything new and keen gets sat on.
+England's like an old tom-cat by the fire: too jolly comfortable for
+anything!”
+
+At this support to his own theory that the country was going to the
+dogs, owing to such as John and Stanley, Felix thought: 'Out of the
+mouths of babes!' But he merely said: “You're a cheerful young man!”
+
+“It's got cramp,” Derek muttered; “can't even give women votes. Fancy my
+mother without a vote! And going to wait till every laborer is off the
+land before it attends to them. It's like the port you gave us last
+night, Uncle Felix, wonderful crust!”
+
+“And what is to be your contribution to its renovation?”
+
+Derek's face instantly resumed its peculiar defiant smile, and Felix
+thought: 'Young beggar! He's as close as wax.' After their little
+talk, however, he had more understanding of his nephew. His defiant
+self-sufficiency seemed more genuine....
+
+In spite of his sensations when dining with Felix, John Freeland (little
+if not punctilious) decided that it was incumbent on him to have the
+'young Tods' to dinner, especially since Frances Freeland had come to
+stay with him the day after the arrival of those two young people at
+Hampstead. She had reached Porchester Gardens faintly flushed from
+the prospect of seeing darling John, with one large cane trunk, and a
+hand-bag of a pattern which the man in the shop had told her was the
+best thing out. It had a clasp which had worked beautifully in the shop,
+but which, for some reason, on the journey had caused her both pain and
+anxiety. Convinced, however, that she could cure it and open the bag the
+moment she could get to that splendid new pair of pincers in her trunk,
+which a man had only yesterday told her were the latest, she still felt
+that she had a soft thing, and dear John must have one like it if she
+could get him one at the Stores to-morrow.
+
+John, who had come away early from the Home Office, met her in that
+dark hall, to which he had paid no attention since his young wife died,
+fifteen years ago. Embracing him, with a smile of love almost timorous
+from intensity, Frances Freeland looked him up and down, and, catching
+what light there was gleaming on his temples, determined that she had
+in her bag, as soon as she could get it open, the very thing for dear
+John's hair. He had such a nice moustache, and it was a pity he was
+getting bald. Brought to her room, she sat down rather suddenly,
+feeling, as a fact, very much like fainting—a condition of affairs to
+which she had never in the past and intended never in the future to
+come, making such a fuss! Owing to that nice new patent clasp, she had
+not been able to get at her smelling-salts, nor the little flask of
+brandy and the one hard-boiled egg without which she never travelled;
+and for want of a cup of tea her soul was nearly dying within her. Dear
+John would never think she had not had anything since breakfast (she
+travelled always by a slow train, disliking motion), and she would not
+for the world let him know—so near dinner-time, giving a lot of trouble!
+She therefore stayed quite quiet, smiling a little, for fear he might
+suspect her. Seeing John, however, put her bag down in the wrong place,
+she felt stronger.
+
+“No, darling—not there—in the window.”
+
+And while he was changing the position of the bag, her heart swelled
+with joy because his back was so straight, and with the thought: 'What
+a pity the dear boy has never married again! It does so keep a man from
+getting moony!' With all that writing and thinking he had to do, such
+important work, too, it would have been so good for him, especially at
+night. She would not have expressed it thus in words—that would not have
+been quite nice—but in thought Frances Freeland was a realist.
+
+When he was gone, and she could do as she liked, she sat stiller than
+ever, knowing by long experience that to indulge oneself in private only
+made it more difficult not to indulge oneself in public. It really was
+provoking that this nice new clasp should go wrong just this once, and
+that the first time it was used! And she took from her pocket a tiny
+prayer-book, and, holding it to the light, read the eighteenth psalm—it
+was a particularly good one, that never failed her when she felt low—she
+used no glasses, and up to the present had avoided any line between the
+brows, knowing it was her duty to remain as nice as she could to look
+at, so as not to spoil the pleasure of people round about her. Then
+saying to herself firmly, “I do not, I WILL not want any tea—but I shall
+be glad of dinner!” she rose and opened her cane trunk. Though she knew
+exactly where they were, she was some time finding the pincers, because
+there were so many interesting things above them, each raising a
+different train of thought. A pair of field-glasses, the very latest—the
+man had said—for darling Derek; they would be so useful to keep his mind
+from thinking about things that it was no good thinking about. And for
+dear Flora (how wonderful that she could write poetry—poetry!) a really
+splendid, and perfectly new, little pill. She herself had already taken
+two, and they had suited her to perfection. For darling Felix a new kind
+of eau de cologne, made in Worcester, because that was the only scent
+he would use. For her pet Nedda, a piece of 'point de Venise' that she
+really could not be selfish enough to keep any longer, especially as she
+was particularly fond of it. For Alan, a new kind of tin-opener that
+the dear boy would like enormously; he was so nice and practical. For
+Sheila, such a nice new novel by Mr. and Mrs. Whirlingham—a bright,
+wholesome tale, with such a good description of quite a new country in
+it—the dear child was so clever, it would be a change for her. Then,
+actually resting on the pincers, she came on her pass-book, recently
+made up, containing little or no balance, just enough to get darling
+John that bag like hers with the new clasp, which would be so handy for
+his papers when he went travelling. And having reached the pincers, she
+took them in her hand, and sat down again to be quite quiet a moment,
+with her still-dark eyelashes resting on her ivory cheeks and her lips
+pressed to a colorless line; for her head swam from stooping over. In
+repose, with three flies circling above her fine gray hair, she might
+have served a sculptor for a study of the stoic spirit. Then, going to
+the bag, her compressed lips twitching, her gray eyes piercing into its
+clasp with a kind of distrustful optimism, she lifted the pincers and
+tweaked it hard.
+
+If the atmosphere of that dinner, to which all six from Hampstead came,
+was less disturbed than John anticipated, it was due to his sense of
+hospitality, and to every one's feeling that controversy would puzzle
+and distress Granny. That there were things about which people differed,
+Frances Freeland well knew, but that they should so differ as to make
+them forget to smile and have good manners would not have seemed right
+to her at all. And of this, in her presence, they were all conscious; so
+that when they had reached the asparagus there was hardly anything left
+that could by any possibility be talked about. And this—for fear of
+seeming awkward—they at once proceeded to discuss, Flora remarking that
+London was very full. John agreed.
+
+Frances Freeland, smiling, said:
+
+“It's so nice for Derek and Sheila to be seeing it like this for the
+first time.”
+
+Sheila said:
+
+“Why? Isn't it always as full as this?”
+
+John answered:
+
+“In August practically empty. They say a hundred thousand people, at
+least, go away.”
+
+“Double!” remarked Felix.
+
+“The figures are variously given. My estimate—”
+
+“One in sixty. That shows you!”
+
+At this interruption of Derek's John frowned slightly. “What does it
+show you?” he said.
+
+Derek glanced at his grandmother.
+
+“Oh, nothing!”
+
+“Of course it shows you,” exclaimed Sheila, “what a heartless great
+place it is. All 'the world' goes out of town, and 'London's empty!' But
+if you weren't told so you'd never know the difference.”
+
+Derek muttered: “I think it shows more than that.”
+
+Under the table Flora was touching John's foot warningly; Nedda
+attempting to touch Derek's; Felix endeavoring to catch John's eye; Alan
+trying to catch Sheila's; John biting his lip and looking carefully at
+nothing. Only Frances Freeland was smiling and gazing lovingly at dear
+Derek, thinking he would be so handsome when he had grown a nice black
+moustache. And she said:
+
+“Yes, dear. What were you going to say?”
+
+Derek looked up.
+
+“Do you really want it, Granny?”
+
+Nedda murmured across the table: “No, Derek.”
+
+Frances Freeland raised her brows quizzically. She almost looked arch.
+
+“But of course I do, darling. I want to hear immensely. It's so
+interesting.”
+
+“Derek was going to say, Mother”—every one at once looked at Felix, who
+had thus broken in—“that all we West-End people—John and I and Flora and
+Stanley, and even you—all we people born in purple and fine linen, are
+so accustomed to think we're all that matters, that when we're out of
+London there's nobody in it. He meant to say that this is appalling
+enough, but that what is still more appalling is the fact that we really
+ARE all that matters, and that if people try to disturb us, we can, and
+jolly well will, take care they don't disturb us long. Is that what you
+meant, Derek?”
+
+Derek turned a rather startled look on Felix.
+
+“What he meant to say,” went on Felix, “was, that age and habit, vested
+interests, culture and security sit so heavy on this country's chest,
+that aspiration may wriggle and squirm but will never get from under.
+That, for all we pretend to admire enthusiasm and youth, and the rest of
+it, we push it out of us just a little faster than it grows up. Is that
+what you meant, Derek?”
+
+“You'll try to, but you won't succeed!”
+
+“I'm afraid we shall, and with a smile, too, so that you won't see us
+doing it.”
+
+“I call that devilish.”
+
+“I call it natural. Look at a man who's growing old; notice how very
+gracefully and gradually he does it. Take my hair—your aunt says she
+can't tell the difference from month to month. And there it is, or
+rather isn't—little by little.”
+
+Frances Freeland, who during Felix's long speech had almost closed her
+eyes, opened them, and looked piercingly at the top of his head.
+
+“Darling,” she said, “I've got the very thing for it. You must take some
+with you when you go tonight. John is going to try it.”
+
+Checked in the flow of his philosophy, Felix blinked like an owl
+surprised.
+
+“Mother,” he said, “YOU only have the gift of keeping young.”
+
+“Oh! my dear, I'm getting dreadfully old. I have the greatest difficulty
+in keeping awake sometimes when people are talking. But I mean to fight
+against it. It's so dreadfully rude, and ugly, too; I catch myself
+sometimes with my mouth open.”
+
+Flora said quietly: “Granny, I have the very best thing for that—quite
+new!”
+
+A sweet but rather rueful smile passed over Frances Freeland's face.
+“Now,” she said, “you're chaffing me,” and her eyes looked loving.
+
+It is doubtful if John understood the drift of Felix's exordium, it is
+doubtful if he had quite listened—he having so much to not listen to at
+the Home Office that the practice was growing on him. A vested interest
+to John was a vested interest, culture was culture, and security was
+certainly security—none of them were symbols of age. Further, the social
+question—at least so far as it had to do with outbreaks of youth and
+enthusiasm—was too familiar to him to have any general significance
+whatever. What with women, labor people, and the rest of it, he had no
+time for philosophy—a dubious process at the best. A man who had to get
+through so many daily hours of real work did not dissipate his energy
+in speculation. But, though he had not listened to Felix's remarks, they
+had ruffled him. There is no philosophy quite so irritating as that of
+a brother! True, no doubt, that the country was in a bad way, but as to
+vested interests and security, that was all nonsense! The guilty causes
+were free thought and industrialism.
+
+Having seen them all off to Hampstead, he gave his mother her good-night
+kiss. He was proud of her, a wonderful woman, who always put a good face
+on everything! Even her funny way of always having some new thing or
+other to do you good—even that was all part of her wanting to make the
+best of things. She never lost her 'form'!
+
+John worshipped that kind of stoicism which would die with its head up
+rather than live with its tail down. Perhaps the moment of which he was
+most proud in all his life was that, when, at the finish of his school
+mile, he overheard a vulgar bandsman say: “I like that young ——'s
+running; he breathes through his —— nose.” At that moment, if he had
+stooped to breathe through his mouth, he must have won; as it was he had
+lost in great distress and perfect form.
+
+When, then, he had kissed Frances Freeland, and watched her ascend the
+stairs, breathless because she WOULD breathe through her nose to the
+very last step, he turned into his study, lighted his pipe, and sat
+down to a couple of hours of a report upon the forces of constabulary
+available in the various counties, in the event of any further
+agricultural rioting, such as had recently taken place on a mild scale
+in one or two districts where there was still Danish blood. He worked
+at the numbers steadily, with just that engineer's touch of mechanical
+invention which had caused him to be so greatly valued in a department
+where the evolution of twelve policemen out of ten was constantly
+desired. His mastery of figures was highly prized, for, while it had
+not any of that flamboyance which has come from America and the game of
+poker, it possessed a kind of English optimism, only dangerous when, as
+rarely happened, it was put to the test. He worked two full pipes long,
+and looked at the clock. Twelve! No good knocking off just yet! He had
+no liking for bed this many a long year, having, from loyalty to memory
+and a drier sense of what became one in the Home Department, preserved
+his form against temptations of the flesh. Yet, somehow, to-night he
+felt no spring, no inspiration, in his handling of county constabulary.
+A kind of English stolidity about them baffled him—ten of them remained
+ten. And leaning that forehead, whose height so troubled Frances
+Freeland, on his neat hand, he fell to brooding. Those young people with
+everything before them! Did he envy them? Or was he glad of his own age?
+Fifty! Fifty already; a fogey! An official fogey! For all the world like
+an umbrella, that every day some one put into a stand and left there
+till it was time to take it out again. Neatly rolled, too, with an
+elastic and button! And this fancy, which had never come to him before,
+surprised him. One day he, too, would wear out, slit all up his seams,
+and they would leave him at home, or give him away to the butler.
+
+He went to the window. A scent of—of May, or something! And nothing in
+sight save houses just like his own! He looked up at the strip of sky
+privileged to hang just there. He had got a bit rusty with his stars.
+There, however, certainly was Venus. And he thought of how he had stood
+by the ship's rail on that honeymoon trip of his twenty years ago,
+giving his young wife her first lesson in counting the stars. And
+something very deep down, very mossed and crusted over in John's heart,
+beat and stirred, and hurt him. Nedda—he had caught her looking at that
+young fellow just as Anne had once looked at him, John Freeland, now
+an official fogey, an umbrella in a stand. There was a policeman!
+How ridiculous the fellow looked, putting one foot before the other,
+flirting his lantern and trying the area gates! This confounded scent
+of hawthorn—could it be hawthorn?—got here into the heart of London! The
+look in that girl's eyes! What was he about, to let them make him feel
+as though he could give his soul for a face looking up into his own,
+for a breast touching his, and the scent of a woman's hair. Hang it! He
+would smoke a cigarette and go to bed! He turned out the light and began
+to mount the stairs; they creaked abominably—the felt must be wearing
+out. A woman about the place would have kept them quiet. Reaching the
+landing of the second floor, he paused a moment from habit, to look down
+into the dark hall. A voice, thin, sweet, almost young, said:
+
+“Is that you, darling?” John's heart stood still. What—was that? Then he
+perceived that the door of the room that had been his wife's was open,
+and remembered that his mother was in there.
+
+“What! Aren't you asleep, Mother?”
+
+Frances Freeland's voice answered cheerfully: “Oh, no, dear; I'm never
+asleep before two. Come in.”
+
+John entered. Propped very high on her pillows, in perfect regularity,
+his mother lay. Her carved face was surmounted by a piece of fine lace,
+her thin, white fingers on the turnover of the sheet moved in continual
+interlocking, her lips smiled.
+
+“There's something you must have,” she said. “I left my door open on
+purpose. Give me that little bottle, darling.”
+
+John took from a small table by the bed a still smaller bottle. Frances
+Freeland opened it, and out came three tiny white globules.
+
+“Now,” she said, “pop them in! You've no idea how they'll send you to
+sleep! They're the most splendid things; perfectly harmless. Just let
+them rest on the tongue and swallow!”
+
+John let them rest—they were sweetish—and swallowed.
+
+“How is it, then,” he said, “that you never go to sleep before two?”
+
+Frances Freeland corked the little bottle, as if enclosing within it
+that awkward question.
+
+“They don't happen to act with me, darling; but that's nothing. It's the
+very thing for any one who has to sit up so late,” and her eyes searched
+his face. Yes—they seemed to say—I know you pretend to have work; but if
+you only had a dear little wife!
+
+“I shall leave you this bottle when I go. Kiss me.”
+
+John bent down, and received one of those kisses of hers that had such
+sudden vitality in the middle of them, as if her lips were trying to
+get inside his cheek. From the door he looked back. She was smiling,
+composed again to her stoic wakefulness.
+
+“Shall I shut the door, Mother?”
+
+“Please, darling.”
+
+With a little lump in his throat John closed the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The London which Derek had said should be blown up was at its maximum
+of life those May days. Even on this outer rampart of Hampstead, people,
+engines, horses, all had a touch of the spring fever; indeed, especially
+on this rampart of Hampstead was there increase of the effort to believe
+that nature was not dead and embalmed in books. The poets, painters,
+talkers who lived up there were at each other all the time in their
+great game of make-believe. How could it be otherwise, when there was
+veritably blossom on the trees and the chimneys were ceasing to smoke?
+How otherwise, when the sun actually shone on the ponds? But the four
+young people (for Alan joined in—hypnotized by Sheila) did not stay in
+Hampstead. Chiefly on top of tram and 'bus they roamed the wilderness.
+Bethnal Green and Leytonstone, Kensington and Lambeth, St. James's and
+Soho, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, West Ham, and Piccadilly, they traversed
+the whole ant-heap at its most ebullient moment. They knew their Whitman
+and their Dostoievsky sufficiently to be aware that they ought to love
+and delight in everything—in the gentleman walking down Piccadilly with
+a flower in his buttonhole, and in the lady sewing that buttonhole in
+Bethnal Green; in the orator bawling himself hoarse close to the Marble
+Arch, the coster loading his barrow in Covent Garden; and in Uncle John
+Freeland rejecting petitions in Whitehall. All these things, of course,
+together with the long lines of little gray houses in Camden Town, long
+lines of carts with bobtail horses rattling over Blackfriars' Bridge,
+long smells drifting behind taxicabs—all these things were as delightful
+and as stimulating to the soul as the clouds that trailed the heavens,
+the fronds of the lilac, and Leonardo's Cartoon in the Diploma Gallery.
+All were equal manifestations of that energy in flower known as 'Life.'
+They knew that everything they saw and felt and smelled OUGHT equally to
+make them long to catch creatures to their hearts and cry: Hosanna! And
+Nedda and Alan, bred in Hampstead, even knew that to admit that these
+things did not all move them in the same way would be regarded as a sign
+of anaemia. Nevertheless—most queerly—these four young people confessed
+to each other all sorts of sensations besides that 'Hosanna' one. They
+even confessed to rage and pity and disgust one moment, and to joy and
+dreams the next, and they differed greatly as to what excited which. It
+was truly odd! The only thing on which they did seem to agree was that
+they were having 'a thundering good time.' A sort of sense of “Blow
+everything!” was in their wings, and this was due not to the fact that
+they were thinking of and loving and admiring the little gray streets
+and the gentleman in Piccadilly—as, no doubt, in accordance with modern
+culture, they should have been—but to the fact that they were loving and
+admiring themselves, and that entirely without the trouble of thinking
+about it at all. The practice, too, of dividing into couples was
+distinctly precious to them, for, though they never failed to start out
+together, they never failed to come home two by two. In this way
+did they put to confusion Whitman and Dostoievsky, and all the other
+thinkers in Hampstead. In the daytime they all, save Alan, felt
+that London ought to be blown up; but at night it undermined their
+philosophies so that they sat silent on the tops of their respective
+'buses, with arms twined in each other's. For then a something seemed to
+have floated up from that mass of houses and machines, of men and trees,
+and to be hovering above them, violet-colored, caught between the stars
+and the lights, a spirit of such overpowering beauty that it drenched
+even Alan in a kind of awe. After all, the huge creature that sat with
+such a giant's weight on the country's chest, the monster that had
+spoiled so many fields and robbed so many lives of peace and health,
+could fly at night upon blue and gold and purple wings, murmur a
+passionate lullaby, and fall into deep sleep!
+
+One such night they went to the gallery at the opera, to supper at an
+oyster-shop, under Alan's pilotage, and then set out to walk back to
+Hampstead, timing themselves to catch the dawn. They had not gone twenty
+steps up Southampton Row before Alan and Sheila were forty steps in
+front. A fellow-feeling had made Derek and Nedda stand to watch an old
+man who walked, tortuous, extremely happy, bidding them all come. And
+when they moved on, it was very slowly, just keeping sight of the others
+across the lumbered dimness of Covent Garden, where tarpaulin-covered
+carts and barrows seemed to slumber under the blink of lamps and
+watchmen's lanterns. Across Long Acre they came into a street where
+there was not a soul save the two others, a long way ahead. Walking with
+his arm tightly laced with hers, touching her all down one side, Derek
+felt that it would be glorious to be attacked by night-birds in this
+dark, lonely street, to have a splendid fight and drive them off,
+showing himself to Nedda for a man, and her protector. But nothing save
+one black cat came near, and that ran for its life. He bent round and
+looked under the blue veil-thing that wrapped Nedda's head. Her
+face seemed mysteriously lovely, and her eyes, lifted so quickly,
+mysteriously true. She said:
+
+“Derek, I feel like a hill with the sun on it!”
+
+“I feel like that yellow cloud with the wind in it.”
+
+“I feel like an apple-tree coming into blossom.”
+
+“I feel like a giant.”
+
+“I feel like a song.”
+
+“I feel I could sing you.”
+
+“On a river, floating along.”
+
+“A wide one, with great plains on each side, and beasts coming down
+to drink, and either the sun or a yellow moon shining, and some one
+singing, too, far off.”
+
+“The Red Sarafan.”
+
+“Let's run!”
+
+From that yellow cloud sailing in moonlight a spurt of rain had driven
+into their faces, and they ran as fast as their blood was flowing, and
+the raindrops coming down, jumping half the width of the little dark
+streets, clutching each other's arms. And peering round into her face,
+so sweet and breathless, into her eyes, so dark and dancing, he felt he
+could run all night if he had her there to run beside him through the
+dark. Into another street they dashed, and again another, till she
+stopped, panting.
+
+“Where are we now?”
+
+Neither knew. A policeman put them right for Portland Place. Half past
+one! And it would be dawn soon after three! They walked soberly again
+now into the outer circle of Regent's Park; talked soberly, too,
+discussing sublunary matters, and every now and then, their arms, round
+each other, gave little convulsive squeezes. The rain had stopped and
+the moon shone clear; by its light the trees and flowers were clothed
+in colors whose blood had spilled away; the town's murmur was dying, the
+house lights dead already. They came out of the park into a road where
+the latest taxis were rattling past; a face, a bare neck, silk hat, or
+shirt-front gleamed in the window-squares, and now and then a laugh came
+floating through. They stopped to watch them from under the low-hanging
+branches of an acacia-tree, and Derek, gazing at her face, still wet
+with rain, so young and round and soft, thought: 'And she loves me!'
+Suddenly she clutched him round the neck, and their lips met.
+
+They talked not at all for a long time after that kiss, walking slowly
+up the long, empty road, while the whitish clouds sailed across the dark
+river of the sky and the moon slowly sank. This was the most delicious
+part of all that long walk home, for the kiss had made them feel as
+though they had no bodies, but were just two spirits walking side by
+side. This is its curious effect sometimes in first love between the
+very young....
+
+Having sent Flora to bed, Felix was sitting up among his books. There
+was no need to do this, for the young folk had latch-keys, but, having
+begun the vigil, he went on with it, a volume about Eastern philosophies
+on his knee, a bowl of narcissus blooms, giving forth unexpected whiffs
+of odor, beside him. And he sank into a long reverie.
+
+Could it be said—as was said in this Eastern book—that man's life was
+really but a dream; could that be said with any more truth than it had
+once been said, that he rose again in his body, to perpetual life? Could
+anything be said with truth, save that we knew nothing? And was that not
+really what had always been said by man—that we knew nothing, but were
+just blown over and about the world like soughs of wind, in obedience to
+some immortal, unknowable coherence! But had that want of knowledge ever
+retarded what was known as the upward growth of man? Had it ever stopped
+man from working, fighting, loving, dying like a hero if need were? Had
+faith ever been anything but embroidery to an instinctive heroism, so
+strong that it needed no such trappings? Had faith ever been anything
+but anodyne, or gratification of the aesthetic sense? Or had it really
+body and substance of its own? Was it something absolute and solid, that
+he—Felix Freeland—had missed? Or again, was it, perhaps, but the natural
+concomitant of youth, a naive effervescence with which thought and
+brooding had to part? And, turning the page of his book, he noticed that
+he could no longer see to read, the lamp had grown too dim, and showed
+but a decorative glow in the bright moonlight flooding through the study
+window. He got up and put another log on the fire, for these last nights
+of May were chilly.
+
+Nearly three! Where were these young people? Had he been asleep, and
+they come in? Sure enough, in the hall Alan's hat and Sheila's cloak—the
+dark-red one he had admired when she went forth—were lying on a chair.
+But of the other two—nothing! He crept up-stairs. Their doors were open.
+They certainly took their time—these young lovers. And the same sore
+feeling which had attacked Felix when Nedda first told him of her love
+came on him badly in that small of the night when his vitality was
+lowest. All the hours she had spent clambering about him, or quietly
+resting on his knee with her head tucked in just where his arm and
+shoulder met, listening while he read or told her stories, and now and
+again turning those clear eyes of hers wide open to his face, to see
+if he meant it; the wilful little tugs of her hand when they two went
+exploring the customs of birds, or bees, or flowers; all her 'Daddy, I
+love yous!' and her rushes to the front door, and long hugs when he came
+back from a travel; all those later crookings of her little finger in
+his, and the times he had sat when she did not know it, watching her,
+and thinking: 'That little creature, with all that's before her, is my
+very own daughter to take care of, and share joy and sorrow with....'
+Each one of all these seemed to come now and tweak at him, as the songs
+of blackbirds tweak the heart of one who lies, unable to get out into
+the Spring. His lamp had burned itself quite out; the moon was fallen
+below the clump of pines, and away to the north-east something stirred
+in the stain and texture of the sky. Felix opened the window. What
+peace out there! The chill, scentless peace of night, waiting for dawn's
+renewal of warmth and youth. Through that bay window facing north he
+could see on one side the town, still wan with the light of its lamps,
+on the other the country, whose dark bloom was graying fast. Suddenly
+a tiny bird twittered, and Felix saw his two truants coming slowly from
+the gate across the grass, his arm round her shoulders, hers round his
+waist. With their backs turned to him, they passed the corner of the
+house, across where the garden sloped away. There they stood above the
+wide country, their bodies outlined against a sky fast growing light,
+evidently waiting for the sun to rise. Silent they stood, while the
+birds, one by one, twittered out their first calls. And suddenly Felix
+saw the boy fling his hand up into the air. The Sun! Far away on the
+gray horizon was a flare of red!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The anxieties of the Lady Mallorings of this life concerning the moral
+welfare of their humbler neighbors are inclined to march in front of
+events. The behavior in Tryst's cottage was more correct than it would
+have been in nine out of ten middle or upper class demesnes under
+similar conditions. Between the big laborer and 'that woman,' who,
+since the epileptic fit, had again come into residence, there had passed
+nothing whatever that might not have been witnessed by Biddy and her two
+nurslings. For love is an emotion singularly dumb and undemonstrative
+in those who live the life of the fields; passion a feeling severely
+beneath the thumb of a propriety born of the age-long absence of
+excitants, opportunities, and the aesthetic sense; and those two waited,
+almost as a matter of course, for the marriage which was forbidden them
+in this parish. The most they did was to sit and look at one another.
+
+On the day of which Felix had seen the dawn at Hampstead, Sir Gerald's
+agent tapped on the door of Tryst's cottage, and was answered by Biddy,
+just in from school for the midday meal.
+
+“Your father home, my dear?”
+
+“No, sir; Auntie's in.”
+
+“Ask your auntie to come and speak to me.”
+
+The mother-child vanished up the narrow stairs, and the agent sighed. A
+strong-built, leathery-skinned man in a brown suit and leggings, with a
+bristly little moustache and yellow whites to his eyes, he did not, as
+he had said to his wife that morning, 'like the job a little bit.' And
+while he stood there waiting, Susie and Billy emerged from the kitchen
+and came to stare at him. The agent returned that stare till a voice
+behind him said: “Yes, sir?”
+
+'That woman' was certainly no great shakes to look at: a fresh, decent,
+faithful sort of body! And he said gruffly: “Mornin', miss. Sorry to say
+my orders are to make a clearance here. I suppose Tryst didn't think
+we should act on it, but I'm afraid I've got to put his things out, you
+know. Now, where are you all going; that's the point?”
+
+“I shall go home, I suppose; but Tryst and the children—we don't know.”
+
+The agent tapped his leggings with a riding-cane. “So you've been
+expecting it!” he said with relief. “That's right.” And, staring down
+at the mother-child, he added: “Well, what d'you say, my dear; you look
+full of sense, you do!”
+
+Biddy answered: “I'll go and tell Mr. Freeland, sir.”
+
+“Ah! You're a bright maid. He'll know where to put you for the time
+bein'. Have you had your dinner?”
+
+“No, sir; it's just ready.”
+
+“Better have it—better have it first. No hurry. What've you got in the
+pot that smells so good?”
+
+“Bubble and squeak, sir.”
+
+“Bubble and squeak! Ah!” And with those words the agent withdrew to
+where, in a farm wagon drawn up by the side of the road, three men were
+solemnly pulling at their pipes. He moved away from them a little, for,
+as he expressed it to his wife afterward: “Look bad, you know, look
+bad—anybody seeing me! Those three little children—that's where it is!
+If our friends at the Hall had to do these jobs for themselves, there
+wouldn't be any to do!”
+
+Presently, from his discreet distance, he saw the mother-child going
+down the road toward Tod's, in her blue 'pinny' and corn-colored hair.
+Nice little thing! Pretty little thing, too! Pity, great pity! And he
+went back to the cottage. On his way a thought struck him so that he
+well-nigh shivered. Suppose the little thing brought back that Mrs.
+Freeland, the lady who always went about in blue, without a hat! Phew!
+Mr. Freeland—he was another sort; a bit off, certainly—harmless, quite
+harmless! But that lady! And he entered the cottage. The woman was
+washing up; seemed a sensible body. When the two kids cleared off to
+school he could go to work and get it over; the sooner the better,
+before people came hanging round. A job of this kind sometimes made
+nasty blood! His yellowish eyes took in the nature of the task before
+him. Funny jam-up they did get about them, to be sure! Every blessed
+little thing they'd ever bought, and more, too! Have to take precious
+good care nothing got smashed, or the law would be on the other leg! And
+he said to the woman:
+
+“Now, miss, can I begin?”
+
+“I can't stop you, sir.”
+
+'No,' he thought, 'you can't stop me, and I blamed well wish you could!'
+But he said: “Got an old wagon out here. Thought I'd save him damage by
+weather or anything; we'll put everything in that, and run it up into
+the empty barn at Marrow and leave it. And there they'll be for him when
+he wants 'em.”
+
+The woman answered: “You're very kind, I'm sure.”
+
+Perceiving that she meant no irony, the agent produced a sound from
+somewhere deep and went out to summon his men.
+
+With the best intentions, however, it is not possible, even in villages
+so scattered that they cannot be said to exist, to do anything without
+every one's knowing; and the work of 'putting out' the household goods
+of the Tryst family, and placing them within the wagon, was not an hour
+in progress before the road in front of the cottage contained its knot
+of watchers. Old Gaunt first, alone—for the rogue-girl had gone to Mr.
+Cuthcott's and Tom Gaunt was at work. The old man had seen evictions
+in his time, and looked on silently, with a faint, sardonic grin. Four
+children, so small that not even school had any use for them as yet,
+soon gathered round his legs, followed by mothers coming to retrieve
+them, and there was no longer silence. Then came two laborers, on their
+way to a job, a stone-breaker, and two more women. It was through
+this little throng that the mother-child and Kirsteen passed into the
+fast-being-gutted cottage.
+
+The agent was standing by Tryst's bed, keeping up a stream of comment
+to two of his men, who were taking that aged bed to pieces. It was his
+habit to feel less when he talked more; but no one could have fallen
+into a more perfect taciturnity than he when he saw Kirsteen coming up
+those narrow stairs. In so small a space as this room, where his head
+nearly touched the ceiling, was it fair to be confronted by that lady—he
+put it to his wife that same evening—“Was it fair?” He had seen a mother
+wild duck look like that when you took away its young—snaky fierce about
+the neck, and its dark eye! He had seen a mare, going to bite, look not
+half so vicious! “There she stood, and—let me have it?—not a bit! Too
+much the lady for that, you know!—Just looked at me, and said very
+quiet: 'Ah! Mr. Simmons, and are you really doing this?' and put her
+hand on that little girl of his. 'Orders are orders, ma'am!' What could
+I say? 'Ah!' she said, 'yes, orders are orders, but they needn't be
+obeyed.' 'As to that, ma'am,' I said—mind you, she's a lady; you can't
+help feeling that 'I'm a working man, the same as Tryst here; got
+to earn my living.' 'So have slave-drivers, Mr. Simmons.' 'Every
+profession,' I said, 'has got its dirty jobs, ma'am. And that's a fact.'
+'And will have,' she said, 'so long as professional men consent to do
+the dirty work of their employers.' 'And where should I be, I should
+like to know,' I said, 'if I went on that lay? I've got to take the
+rough with the smooth.' 'Well,' she said, 'Mr. Freeland and I will take
+Tryst and the little ones in at present.' Good-hearted people, do a lot
+for the laborers, in their way. All the same, she's a bit of a vixen.
+Picture of a woman, too, standin' there; shows blood, mind you! Once
+said, all over—no nagging. She took the little girl off with her. And
+pretty small I felt, knowing I'd got to finish that job, and the folk
+outside gettin' nastier all the time—not sayin' much, of course, but
+lookin' a lot!” The agent paused in his recital and gazed fixedly at
+a bluebottle crawling up the windowpane. Stretching out his thumb and
+finger, he nipped it suddenly and threw it in the grate. “Blest if that
+fellow himself didn't turn up just as I was finishing. I was sorry for
+the man, you know. There was his home turned out-o'-doors. Big man, too!
+'You blanky-blank!' he says; 'if I'd been here you shouldn't ha' done
+this!' Thought he was goin' to hit me. 'Come, Tryst!' I said, 'it's not
+my doing, you know!' 'Ah!' he said, 'I know that; and it'll be blanky
+well the worse for THEM!' Rough tongue; no class of man at all, he is!
+'Yes,' he said, 'let 'em look out; I'll be even with 'em yet!' 'None o'
+that!' I told him; 'you know which side the law's buttered. I'm making
+it easy for you, too, keeping your things in the wagon, ready to shift
+any time!' He gave me a look—he's got very queer eyes, swimmin', sad
+sort of eyes, like a man in liquor—and he said: 'I've been here twenty
+years,' he said. 'My wife died here.' And all of a sudden he went as
+dumb as a fish. Never let his eyes off us, though, while we finished up
+the last of it; made me feel funny, seein' him glowering like that all
+the time. He'll savage something over this, you mark my words!” Again
+the agent paused, and remained as though transfixed, holding that face
+of his, whose yellow had run into the whites of the eyes, as still
+as wood. “He's got some feeling for the place, I suppose,” he said
+suddenly; “or maybe they've put it into him about his rights; there's
+plenty of 'em like that. Well, anyhow, nobody likes his private affairs
+turned inside out for every one to gape at. I wouldn't myself.” And with
+that deeply felt remark the agent put out his leathery-yellow thumb and
+finger and nipped a second bluebottle....
+
+While the agent was thus recounting to his wife the day's doings, the
+evicted Tryst sat on the end of his bed in a ground-floor room of Tod's
+cottage. He had taken off his heavy boots, and his feet, in their thick,
+soiled socks, were thrust into a pair of Tod's carpet slippers. He sat
+without moving, precisely as if some one had struck him a blow in the
+centre of the forehead, and over and over again he turned the heavy
+thought: 'They've turned me out o' there—I done nothing, and they turned
+me out o' there! Blast them—they turned me out o' there!'...
+
+In the orchard Tod sat with a grave and puzzled face, surrounded by
+the three little Trysts. And at the wicket gate Kirsteen, awaiting
+the arrival of Derek and Sheila—summoned home by telegram—stood in the
+evening glow, her blue-clad figure still as that of any worshipper at
+the muezzin-call.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+“A fire, causing the destruction of several ricks and an empty cowshed,
+occurred in the early morning of Thursday on the home farm of Sir Gerald
+Malloring's estate in Worcestershire. Grave suspicions of arson
+are entertained, but up to the present no arrest has been made. The
+authorities are in doubt whether the occurrence has any relation with
+recent similar outbreaks in the eastern counties.”
+
+So Stanley read at breakfast, in his favorite paper; and the little
+leader thereon:
+
+“The outbreak of fire on Sir Gerald Malloring's Worcestershire property
+may or may not have any significance as a symptom of agrarian unrest. We
+shall watch the upshot with some anxiety. Certain it is that unless the
+authorities are prepared to deal sharply with arson, or other cases of
+deliberate damage to the property of landlords, we may bid good-by to
+any hope of ameliorating the lot of the laborer”
+
+—and so on.
+
+If Stanley had risen and paced the room there would have been a good
+deal to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of
+the nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any
+but an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said
+to Clara, “Half a cup!” was proof positive of that mysterious quality
+called phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the peace of a
+weedy duck-pond.
+
+Stanley, a man of some intelligence—witness his grasp of the secret
+of successful plough-making (none for the home market!)—had often
+considered this important proposition of phlegm. People said England
+was becoming degenerate and hysterical, growing soft, and nervous, and
+towny, and all the rest of it. In his view there was a good deal of bosh
+about that! “Look,” he would say, “at the weight that chauffeurs put
+on! Look at the House of Commons, and the size of the upper classes!” If
+there were growing up little shrill types of working men and Socialists,
+and new women, and half-penny papers, and a rather larger crop of
+professors and long-haired chaps—all the better for the rest of the
+country! The flesh all these skimpy ones had lost, solid people had
+put on. The country might be suffering a bit from officialism, and the
+tendency of modern thought, but the breed was not changing. John Bull
+was there all right under his moustache. Take it off and clap on little
+side-whiskers, and you had as many Bulls as you liked, any day. There
+would be no social upheaval so long as the climate was what it was! And
+with this simple formula, and a kind of very deep-down throaty chuckle,
+he would pass to a subject of more immediate importance. There was
+something, indeed, rather masterly in his grasp of the fact that rain
+might be trusted to put out any fire—give it time. And he kept a special
+vessel in a special corner which recorded for him faithfully the number
+of inches that fell; and now and again he wrote to his paper to say that
+there were more inches in his vessel than there had been “for thirty
+years.” His conviction that the country was in a bad way was nothing but
+a skin affection, causing him local irritation rather than affecting the
+deeper organs of his substantial body.
+
+He did not readily confide in Clara concerning his own family, having
+in a marked degree the truly domestic quality of thinking it superior
+to his wife's. She had been a Tomson, not one of THE Tomsons, and it was
+quite a question whether he or she were trying to forget that fact the
+faster. But he did say to her as he was getting into the car:
+
+“It's just possible I might go round by Tod's on my way home. I want a
+run.”
+
+She answered: “Be careful what you say to that woman. I don't want her
+here by any chance. The young ones were quite bad enough.”
+
+And when he had put in his day at the works he did turn the nose of his
+car toward Tod's. Travelling along grass-bordered roads, the beauty of
+this England struck his not too sensitive spirit and made him almost
+gasp. It was that moment of the year when the countryside seems to faint
+from its own loveliness, from the intoxication of its scents and sounds.
+Creamy-white may, splashed here and there with crimson, flooded the
+hedges in breaking waves of flower-foam; the fields were all buttercup
+glory; every tree had its cuckoo, calling; every bush its blackbird or
+thrush in full even-song. Swallows were flying rather low, and the sky,
+whose moods they watch, had the slumberous, surcharged beauty of a
+long, fine day, with showers not far away. Some orchards were still in
+blossom, and the great wild bees, hunting over flowers and grasses warm
+to their touch, kept the air deeply murmurous. Movement, light, color,
+song, scent, the warm air, and the fluttering leaves were confused, till
+one had almost become the other.
+
+And Stanley thought, for he was not rhapsodic 'Wonderful pretty country!
+The way everything's looked after—you never see it abroad!'
+
+But the car, a creature with little patience for natural beauty, had
+brought him to the crossroads and stood, panting slightly, under
+the cliff-bank whereon grew Tod's cottage, so loaded now with lilac,
+wistaria, and roses that from the road nothing but a peak or two of the
+thatched roof could be seen.
+
+Stanley was distinctly nervous. It was not a weakness his face and
+figure were very capable of showing, but he felt that dryness of mouth
+and quivering of chest which precede adventures of the soul. Advancing
+up the steps and pebbled path, which Clara had trodden once, just
+nineteen years ago, and he himself but three times as yet in all, he
+cleared his throat and said to himself: 'Easy, old man! What is it,
+after all? She won't bite!' And in the very doorway he came upon her.
+
+What there was about this woman to produce in a man of common sense
+such peculiar sensations, he no more knew after seeing her than before.
+Felix, on returning from his visit, had said, “She's like a Song of
+the Hebrides sung in the middle of a programme of English ballads.” The
+remark, as any literary man's might, had conveyed nothing to Stanley,
+and that in a far-fetched way. Still, when she said: “Will you come in?”
+he felt heavier and thicker than he had ever remembered feeling; as
+a glass of stout might feel coming across a glass of claret. It was,
+perhaps, the gaze of her eyes, whose color he could not determine, under
+eyebrows that waved in the middle and twitched faintly, or a dress that
+was blue, with the queerest effect of another color at the back of it,
+or perhaps the feeling of a torrent flowing there under a coat of ice,
+that might give way in little holes, so that your leg went in but
+not the whole of you. Something, anyway, made him feel both small and
+heavy—that awkward combination for a man accustomed to associate himself
+with cheerful but solid dignity. In seating himself by request at a
+table, in what seemed to be a sort of kitchen, he experienced a singular
+sensation in the legs, and heard her say, as it might be to the air:
+
+“Biddy, dear, take Susie and Billy out.”
+
+And thereupon a little girl with a sad and motherly face came crawling
+out from underneath the table, and dropped him a little courtesy. Then
+another still smaller girl came out, and a very small boy, staring with
+all his eyes.
+
+All these things were against Stanley, and he felt that if he did not
+make it quite clear that he was there he would soon not know where he
+was.
+
+“I came,” he said, “to talk about this business up at Malloring's.” And,
+encouraged by having begun, he added: “Whose kids were those?”
+
+A level voice with a faint lisp answered him:
+
+“They belong to a man called Tryst; he was turned out of his cottage on
+Wednesday because his dead wife's sister was staying with him, so we've
+taken them in. Did you notice the look on the face of the eldest?”
+
+Stanley nodded. In truth, he had noticed something, though what he could
+not have said.
+
+“At nine years old she has to do the housework and be a mother to the
+other two, besides going to school. This is all because Lady Malloring
+has conscientious scruples about marriage with a deceased wife's
+sister.”
+
+'Certainly'—thought Stanley—'that does sound a bit thick!' And he asked:
+
+“Is the woman here, too?”
+
+“No, she's gone home for the present.”
+
+He felt relief.
+
+“I suppose Malloring's point is,” he said, “whether or not you're to do
+what you like with your own property. For instance, if you had let this
+cottage to some one you thought was harming the neighborhood, wouldn't
+you terminate his tenancy?”
+
+She answered, still in that level voice:
+
+“Her action is cowardly, narrow, and tyrannical, and no amount of
+sophistry will make me think differently.”
+
+Stanley felt precisely as if one of his feet had gone through the ice
+into water so cold that it seemed burning hot! Sophistry! In a plain man
+like himself! He had always connected the word with Felix. He looked
+at her, realizing suddenly that the association of his brother's family
+with the outrage on Malloring's estate was probably even nearer than he
+had feared.
+
+“Look here, Kirsteen!” he said, uttering the unlikely name with
+resolution, for, after all, she was his sister-in-law: “Did this fellow
+set fire to Malloring's ricks?”
+
+He was aware of a queer flash, a quiver, a something all over her face,
+which passed at once back to its intent gravity.
+
+“We have no reason to suppose so. But tyranny produces revenge, as you
+know.”
+
+Stanley shrugged his shoulders. “It's not my business to go into the
+rights and wrongs of what's been done. But, as a man of the world and a
+relative, I do ask you to look after your youngsters and see they don't
+get into a mess. They're an inflammable young couple—young blood, you
+know!”
+
+Having made this speech, Stanley looked down, with a feeling that it
+would give her more chance.
+
+“You are very kind,” he heard her saying in that quiet, faintly lisping
+voice; “but there are certain principles involved.”
+
+And, suddenly, his curious fear of this woman took shape. Principles! He
+had unconsciously been waiting for that word, than which none was more
+like a red rag to him.
+
+“What principles can possibly be involved in going against the law?”
+
+“And where the law is unjust?”
+
+Stanley was startled, but he said: “Remember that your principles, as
+you call them, may hurt other people besides yourself; Tod and your
+children most of all. How is the law unjust, may I ask?”
+
+She had been sitting at the table opposite, but she got up now and went
+to the hearth. For a woman of forty-two—as he supposed she would be—she
+was extraordinarily lithe, and her eyes, fixed on him from under those
+twitching, wavy brows, had a curious glow in their darkness. The few
+silver threads in the mass of her over-fine black hair seemed to give it
+extra vitality. The whole of her had a sort of intensity that made him
+profoundly uncomfortable. And he thought suddenly: 'Poor old Tod! Fancy
+having to go to bed with that woman!'
+
+Without raising her voice, she began answering his question.
+
+“These poor people have no means of setting law in motion, no means of
+choosing where and how they will live, no means of doing anything except
+just what they are told; the Mallorings have the means to set the law in
+motion, to choose where and how to live, and to dictate to others. That
+is why the law is unjust. With every independent pound a year, this
+equal law of yours—varies!”
+
+“Phew!” said Stanley. “That's a proposition!”
+
+“I give you a simple case. If I had chosen not to marry Tod but to live
+with him in free love, we could have done it without inconvenience. We
+have some independent income; we could have afforded to disregard what
+people thought or did. We could have bought (as we did buy) our piece of
+land and our cottage, out of which we could not have been turned. Since
+we don't care for society, it would have made absolutely no difference
+to our present position. But Tryst, who does not even want to defy the
+law—what happens to him? What happens to hundreds of laborers all over
+the country who venture to differ in politics, religion, or morals from
+those who own them?”
+
+'By George!' thought Stanley, 'it's true, in a way; I never looked at it
+quite like that.' But the feeling that he had come to persuade her to
+be reasonable, and the deeply rooted Englishry of him, conspired to make
+him say:
+
+“That's all very well; but, you see, it's only a necessary incident of
+property-holding. You can't interfere with plain rights.”
+
+“You mean—an evil inherent in property-holding?”
+
+“If you like; I don't split words. The lesser of two evils. What's
+your remedy? You don't want to abolish property; you've confessed that
+property gives YOU your independence!”
+
+Again that curious quiver and flash!
+
+“Yes; but if people haven't decency enough to see for themselves how the
+law favors their independence, they must be shown that it doesn't pay to
+do to others as they would hate to be done by.”
+
+“And you wouldn't try reasoning?”
+
+“They are not amenable to reason.”
+
+Stanley took up his hat.
+
+“Well, I think some of us are. I see your point; but, you know, violence
+never did any good; it isn't—isn't English.”
+
+She did not answer. And, nonplussed thereby, he added lamely: “I should
+have liked to have seen Tod and your youngsters. Remember me to them.
+Clara sent her regards;” and, looking round the room in a rather lost
+way, he held out his hand.
+
+He had an impression of something warm and dry put into it, with even a
+little pressure.
+
+Back in the car, he said to his chauffeur, “Go home the other way,
+Batter, past the church.”
+
+The vision of that kitchen, with its brick floor, its black oak beams,
+bright copper pans, the flowers on the window-sill, the great, open
+hearth, and the figure of that woman in her blue dress standing before
+it, with her foot poised on a log, clung to his mind's eye with curious
+fidelity. And those three kids, popping out like that—proof that the
+whole thing was not a rather bad dream! 'Queer business!' he thought;
+'bad business! That woman's uncommonly all there, though. Lot in what
+she said, too. Where the deuce should we all be if there were many like
+her!' And suddenly he noticed, in a field to the right, a number of men
+coming along the hedge toward the road—evidently laborers. What were
+they doing? He stopped the car. There were fifteen or twenty of them,
+and back in the field he could see a girl's red blouse, where a little
+group of four still lingered. 'By George!' he thought, 'those must
+be the young Tods going it!' And, curious to see what it might mean,
+Stanley fixed his attention on the gate through which the men were bound
+to come. First emerged a fellow in corduroys tied below the knee, with
+long brown moustaches decorating a face that, for all its haggardness,
+had a jovial look. Next came a sturdy little red-faced, bow-legged man
+in shirt-sleeves rolled up, walking alongside a big, dark fellow with a
+cap pushed up on his head, who had evidently just made a joke. Then came
+two old men, one of whom was limping, and three striplings. Another big
+man came along next, in a little clearance, as it were, between main
+groups. He walked heavily, and looked up lowering at the car. The
+fellow's eyes were queer, and threatening, and sad—giving Stanley a
+feeling of discomfort. Then came a short, square man with an impudent,
+loquacious face and a bit of swagger in his walk. He, too, looked up at
+Stanley and made some remark which caused two thin-faced fellows with
+him to grin sheepishly. A spare old man, limping heavily, with a yellow
+face and drooping gray moustaches, walked next, alongside a warped, bent
+fellow, with yellowish hair all over his face, whose expression struck
+Stanley as half-idiotic. Then two more striplings of seventeen or so,
+whittling at bits of sticks; an active, clean-shorn chap with drawn-in
+cheeks; and, last of all, a small man by himself, without a cap on
+a round head covered with thin, light hair, moving at a 'dot-here,
+dot-there' walk, as though he had beasts to drive.
+
+Stanley noted that all—save the big man with the threatening, sad eyes,
+the old, yellow-faced man with a limp, and the little man who came out
+last, lost in his imaginary beasts—looked at the car furtively as they
+went their ways. And Stanley thought: 'English peasant! Poor devil! Who
+is he? What is he? Who'd miss him if he did die out? What's the use of
+all this fuss about him? He's done for! Glad I've nothing to do with
+him at Becket, anyway! “Back to the land!” “Independent peasantry!”
+Not much! Shan't say that to Clara, though; knock the bottom out of her
+week-ends!' And to his chauffeur he muttered:
+
+“Get on, Batter!”
+
+So, through the peace of that country, all laid down in grass, through
+the dignity and loveliness of trees and meadows, this May evening, with
+the birds singing under a sky surcharged with warmth and color, he sped
+home to dinner.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+But next morning, turning on his back as it came dawn, Stanley thought,
+with the curious intensity which in those small hours so soon becomes
+fear: 'By Jove! I don't trust that woman a yard! I shall wire for
+Felix!' And the longer he lay on his back, the more the conviction bored
+a hole in him. There was a kind of fever in the air nowadays, that women
+seemed to catch, as children caught the measles. What did it all mean?
+England used to be a place to live in. One would have thought an
+old country like this would have got through its infantile diseases!
+Hysteria! No one gave in to that. Still, one must look out! Arson was
+about the limit! And Stanley had a vision, suddenly, of his plough-works
+in flames. Why not? The ploughs were not for the English market. Who
+knew whether these laboring fellows mightn't take that as a grievance,
+if trouble began to spread? This somewhat far-fetched notion, having
+started to burrow, threw up a really horrid mole-hill on Stanley. And
+it was only the habit, in the human mind, of saying suddenly to fears:
+Stop! I'm tired of you! that sent him to sleep about half past four.
+
+He did not, however, neglect to wire to Felix:
+
+“If at all possible, come down again at once; awkward business at
+Joyfields.”
+
+Nor, on the charitable pretext of employing two old fellows past
+ordinary work, did he omit to treble his night-watchman....
+
+On Wednesday, the day of which he had seen the dawn rise, Felix had
+already been startled, on returning from his constitutional, to discover
+his niece and nephew in the act of departure. All the explanation
+vouchsafed had been: “Awfully sorry, Uncle Felix; Mother's wired for
+us.” Save for the general uneasiness which attended on all actions of
+that woman, Felix would have felt relieved at their going. They had
+disturbed his life, slipped between him and Nedda! So much so that he
+did not even expect her to come and tell him why they had gone, nor
+feel inclined to ask her. So little breaks the fine coherence of really
+tender ties! The deeper the quality of affection, the more it 'starts
+and puffs,' and from sheer sensitive feeling, each for the other, spares
+attempt to get back into touch!
+
+His paper—though he did not apply to it the word 'favorite,' having that
+proper literary feeling toward all newspapers, that they took him in
+rather than he them—gave him on Friday morning precisely the same news,
+of the rick-burning, as it gave to Stanley at breakfast and to John on
+his way to the Home Office. To John, less in the know, it merely brought
+a knitting of the brow and a vague attempt to recollect the numbers
+of the Worcestershire constabulary. To Felix it brought a feeling of
+sickness. Men whose work in life demands that they shall daily whip
+their nerves, run, as a rule, a little in advance of everything. And
+goodness knows what he did not see at that moment. He said no word to
+Nedda, but debated with himself and Flora what, if anything, was to be
+done. Flora, whose sense of humor seldom deserted her, held the more
+comfortable theory that there was nothing to be done as yet. Soon enough
+to cry when milk was spilled! He did not agree, but, unable to suggest
+a better course, followed her advice. On Saturday, however, receiving
+Stanley's wire, he had much difficulty in not saying to her, “I told you
+so!” The question that agitated him now was whether or not to take
+Nedda with him. Flora said: “Yes. The child will be the best restraining
+influence, if there is really trouble brewing!” Some feeling fought
+against this in Felix, but, suspecting it to be mere jealousy, he
+decided to take her. And, to the girl's rather puzzled delight, they
+arrived at Becket that day in time for dinner. It was not too reassuring
+to find John there, too. Stanley had also wired to him. The matter must
+indeed be serious!
+
+The usual week-end was in progress. Clara had made one of her greatest
+efforts. A Bulgarian had providentially written a book in which he
+showed, beyond doubt, that persons fed on brown bread, potatoes, and
+margarine, gave the most satisfactory results of all. It was a discovery
+of the first value as a topic for her dinner-table—seeming to solve the
+whole vexed problem of the laborers almost at one stroke. If they could
+only be got to feed themselves on this perfect programme, what a saving
+of the situation! On those three edibles, the Bulgarian said—and he
+had been well translated—a family of five could be maintained at full
+efficiency for a shilling per day. Why! that would leave nearly eight
+shillings a week, in many cases more, for rent, firing, insurance, the
+man's tobacco, and the children's boots. There would be no more of
+that terrible pinching by the mothers, to feed the husband and children
+properly, of which one heard so much; no more lamentable deterioration
+in our stock! Brown bread, potatoes, margarine—quite a great deal could
+be provided for seven shillings! And what was more delicious than a
+well-baked potato with margarine of good quality? The carbohydrates—or
+was it hybocardrates—ah, yes! the kybohardrates—would be present in
+really sufficient quantity! Little else was talked of all through dinner
+at her end of the table. Above the flowers which Frances Freeland always
+insisted on arranging—and very charmingly—when she was there—over bare
+shoulders and white shirt-fronts, those words bombed and rebombed. Brown
+bread, potatoes, margarine, carbohydrates, calorific! They mingled with
+the creaming sizzle of champagne, with the soft murmur of well-bred
+deglutition. White bosoms heaved and eyebrows rose at them. And now
+and again some Bigwig versed in science murmured the word 'Fats.'
+An agricultural population fed to the point of efficiency without
+disturbance of the existing state of things! Eureka! If only into the
+bargain they could be induced to bake their own brown bread and cook
+their potatoes well! Faces flushed, eyes brightened, and teeth shone. It
+was the best, the most stimulating, dinner ever swallowed in that room.
+Nor was it until each male guest had eaten, drunk, and talked himself
+into torpor suitable to the company of his wife, that the three brothers
+could sit in the smoking-room together, undisturbed.
+
+When Stanley had described his interview with 'that woman,' his glimpse
+of the red blouse, and the laborers' meeting, there was a silence before
+John said:
+
+“It might be as well if Tod would send his two youngsters abroad for a
+bit.”
+
+Felix shook his head.
+
+“I don't think he would, and I don't think they'd go. But we might try
+to get those two to see that anything the poor devils of laborers do
+is bound to recoil on themselves, fourfold. I suppose,” he added, with
+sudden malice, “a laborers' rising would have no chance?”
+
+Neither John nor Stanley winced.
+
+“Rising? Why should they rise?”
+
+“They did in '32.”
+
+“In '32!” repeated John. “Agriculture had its importance then. Now it
+has none. Besides, they've no cohesion, no power, like the miners or
+railway men. Rising? No chance, no earthly! Weight of metal's dead
+against it.”
+
+Felix smiled.
+
+“Money and guns! Guns and money! Confess with me, brethren, that we're
+glad of metal.”
+
+John stared and Stanley drank off his whiskey and potash. Felix really
+was a bit 'too thick' sometimes. Then Stanley said:
+
+“Wonder what Tod thinks of it all. Will you go over, Felix, and advise
+that our young friends be more considerate to these poor beggars?”
+
+Felix nodded. And with 'Good night, old man' all round, and no shaking
+of the hands, the three brothers dispersed.
+
+But behind Felix, as he opened his bedroom door, a voice whispered:
+
+“Dad!” And there, in the doorway of the adjoining room, was Nedda in her
+dressing-gown.
+
+“Do come in for a minute. I've been waiting up. You ARE late.”
+
+Felix followed her into her room. The pleasure he would once have had
+in this midnight conspiracy was superseded now, and he stood blinking at
+her gravely. In that blue gown, with her dark hair falling on its lace
+collar and her face so round and childish, she seemed more than ever to
+have defrauded him. Hooking her arm in his, she drew him to the window;
+and Felix thought: 'She just wants to talk to me about Derek. Dog in the
+manger that I am! Here goes to be decent!' So he said:
+
+“Well, my dear?”
+
+Nedda pressed his hand with a little coaxing squeeze.
+
+“Daddy, darling, I do love you!”
+
+And, though Felix knew that she had grasped what he was feeling, a sort
+of warmth spread in him. She had begun counting his fingers with one of
+her own, sitting close beside him. The warmth in Felix deepened, but he
+thought: 'She must want a good deal out of me!' Then she began:
+
+“Why did we come down again? I know there's something wrong! It's hard
+not to know, when you're anxious.” And she sighed. That little sigh
+affected Felix.
+
+“I'd always rather know the truth, Dad. Aunt Clara said something about
+a fire at the Mallorings'.”
+
+Felix stole a look at her. Yes! There was a lot in this child of his!
+Depth, warmth, and strength to hold to things. No use to treat her as a
+child! And he answered:
+
+“My dear, there's really nothing beyond what you know—our young man and
+Sheila are hotheads, and things over there are working up a bit. We must
+try and smooth them down.”
+
+“Dad, ought I to back him whatever he does?”
+
+What a question! The more so that one cannot answer superficially the
+questions of those whom one loves.
+
+“Ah!” he said at last. “I don't know yet. Some things it's not your duty
+to do; that's certain. It can't be right to do things simply because he
+does them—THAT'S not real—however fond one is.”
+
+“No; I feel that. Only, it's so hard to know what I do really
+think—there's always such a lot trying to make one feel that only what's
+nice and cosey is right!”
+
+And Felix thought: 'I've been brought up to believe that only Russian
+girls care for truth. It seems I was wrong. The saints forbid I
+should be a stumbling-block to my own daughter searching for it! And
+yet—where's it all leading? Is this the same child that told me only the
+other night she wanted to know everything? She's a woman now! So much
+for love!' And he said:
+
+“Let's go forward quietly, without expecting too much of ourselves.”
+
+“Yes, Dad; only I distrust myself so.”
+
+“No one ever got near the truth who didn't.”
+
+“Can we go over to Joyfields to-morrow? I don't think I could bear a
+whole day of Bigwigs and eating, with this hanging—”
+
+“Poor Bigwigs! All right! We'll go. And now, bed; and think of nothing!”
+
+Her whisper tickled his ear:
+
+“You are a darling to me, Dad!”
+
+He went out comforted.
+
+And for some time after she had forgotten everything he leaned out of
+his window, smoking cigarettes, and trying to see the body and soul of
+night. How quiet she was—night, with her mystery, bereft of moon, in
+whose darkness seemed to vibrate still the song of the cuckoos that had
+been calling so all day! And whisperings of leaves communed with Felix.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+What Tod thought of all this was, perhaps, as much of an enigma to Tod
+as to his three brothers, and never more so than on that Sunday morning
+when two police constables appeared at his door with a warrant for the
+arrest of Tryst. After regarding them fixedly for full thirty seconds,
+he said, “Wait!” and left them in the doorway.
+
+Kirsteen was washing breakfast things which had a leadless glaze, and
+Tryst's three children, extremely tidy, stood motionless at the edge of
+the little scullery, watching.
+
+When she had joined him in the kitchen Tod shut the door.
+
+“Two policemen,” he said, “want Tryst. Are they to have him?”
+
+In the life together of these two there had, from the very start, been
+a queer understanding as to who should decide what. It had become by now
+so much a matter of instinct that combative consultations, which bulk so
+large in married lives, had no place in theirs. A frowning tremor passed
+over her face.
+
+“I suppose they must. Derek is out. Leave it to me, Tod, and take the
+tinies into the orchard.”
+
+Tod took the three little Trysts to the very spot where Derek and Nedda
+had gazed over the darkening fields in exchanging that first kiss, and,
+sitting on the stump of the apple-tree he had cut down, he presented
+each of them with an apple. While they ate, he stared. And his dog
+stared at him. How far there worked in Tod the feelings of an ordinary
+man watching three small children whose only parent the law was just
+taking into its charge it would be rash to say, but his eyes were
+extremely blue and there was a frown between them.
+
+“Well, Biddy?” he said at last.
+
+Biddy did not reply; the habit of being a mother had imposed on her,
+together with the gravity of her little, pale, oval face, a peculiar
+talent for silence. But the round-cheeked Susie said:
+
+“Billy can eat cores.”
+
+After this statement, silence was broken only by munching, till Tod
+remarked:
+
+“What makes things?”
+
+The children, having the instinct that he had not asked them, but
+himself, came closer. He had in his hand a little beetle.
+
+“This beetle lives in rotten wood; nice chap, isn't he?”
+
+“We kill beetles; we're afraid of them.” So Susie.
+
+They were now round Tod so close that Billy was standing on one of his
+large feet, Susie leaning her elbows on one of his broad knees, and
+Biddy's slender little body pressed against his huge arm.
+
+“No,” said Tod; “beetles are nice chaps.”
+
+“The birds eats them,” remarked Billy.
+
+“This beetle,” said Tod, “eats wood. It eats through trees and the trees
+get rotten.”
+
+Biddy spoke:
+
+“Then they don't give no more apples.” Tod put the beetle down and Billy
+got off his foot to tread on it. When he had done his best the beetle
+emerged and vanished in the grass. Tod, who had offered no remonstrance,
+stretched out his hand and replaced Billy on his foot.
+
+“What about my treading on you, Billy?” he said.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I'm big and you're little.”
+
+On Billy's square face came a puzzled defiance. If he had not been early
+taught his station he would evidently have found some poignant retort.
+An intoxicated humblebee broke the silence by buzzing into Biddy's
+fluffed-out, corn-gold hair. Tod took it off with his hand.
+
+“Lovely chap, isn't he?”
+
+The children, who had recoiled, drew close again, while the drunken bee
+crawled feebly in the cage of Tod's large hand.
+
+“Bees sting,” said Biddy; “I fell on a bee and it stang me!”
+
+“You stang it first,” said Tod. “This chap wouldn't sting—not for
+worlds. Stroke it!”
+
+Biddy put out her little, pale finger but stayed it a couple of inches
+from the bee.
+
+“Go on,” said Tod.
+
+Opening her mouth a little, Biddy went on and touched the bee.
+
+“It's soft,” she said. “Why don't it buzz?”
+
+“I want to stroke it, too,” said Susie. And Billy stamped a little on
+Tod's foot.
+
+“No,” said Tod; “only Biddy.”
+
+There was perfect silence till the dog, rising, approached its nose,
+black with a splash of pinky whiteness on the end of the bridge, as if
+to love the bee.
+
+“No,” said Tod. The dog looked at him, and his yellow-brown eyes were
+dark with anxiety.
+
+“It'll sting the dog's nose,” said Biddy, and Susie and Billy came yet
+closer.
+
+It was at this moment, when the heads of the dog, the bee, Tod, Biddy,
+Susie, and Billy might have been contained within a noose three feet in
+diameter, that Felix dismounted from Stanley's car and, coming from the
+cottage, caught sight of that little idyll under the dappled sunlight,
+green, and blossom. It was something from the core of life, out of the
+heartbeat of things—like a rare picture or song, the revelation of the
+childlike wonder and delight, to which all other things are but the
+supernumerary casings—a little pool of simplicity into which fever and
+yearning sank and were for a moment drowned. And quite possibly he would
+have gone away without disturbing them if the dog had not growled and
+wagged his tail.
+
+But when the children had been sent down into the field he experienced
+the usual difficulty in commencing a talk with Tod. How far was his big
+brother within reach of mere unphilosophic statements; how far was he
+going to attend to facts?
+
+“We came back yesterday,” he began; “Nedda and I. You know all about
+Derek and Nedda, I suppose?”
+
+Tod nodded.
+
+“What do you think of it?”
+
+“He's a good chap.”
+
+“Yes,” murmured Felix, “but a firebrand. This business at
+Malloring's—what's it going to lead to, Tod? We must look out, old man.
+Couldn't you send Derek and Sheila abroad for a bit?”
+
+“Wouldn't go.”
+
+“But, after all, they're dependent on you.”
+
+“Don't say that to them; I should never see them again.”
+
+Felix, who felt the instinctive wisdom of that remark, answered
+helplessly:
+
+“What's to be done, then?”
+
+“Sit tight.” And Tod's hand came down on Felix's shoulder.
+
+“But suppose they get into real trouble? Stanley and John don't like
+it; and there's Mother.” And Felix added, with sudden heat, “Besides, I
+can't stand Nedda being made anxious like this.”
+
+Tod removed his hand. Felix would have given a good deal to have been
+able to see into the brain behind the frowning stare of those blue eyes.
+
+“Can't help by worrying. What must be, will. Look at the birds!”
+
+The remark from any other man would have irritated Felix profoundly;
+coming from Tod, it seemed the unconscious expression of a really felt
+philosophy. And, after all, was he not right? What was this life they
+all lived but a ceaseless worrying over what was to come? Was not all
+man's unhappiness caused by nervous anticipations of the future? Was
+not that the disease, and the misfortune, of the age; perhaps of all the
+countless ages man had lived through?
+
+With an effort he recalled his thoughts from that far flight. What if
+Tod had rediscovered the secret of the happiness that belonged to birds
+and lilies of the field—such overpowering interest in the moment that
+the future did not exist? Why not? Were not the only minutes when he
+himself was really happy those when he lost himself in work, or love?
+And why were they so few? For want of pressure to the square moment.
+Yes! All unhappiness was fear and lack of vitality to live the present
+fully. That was why love and fighting were such poignant ecstasies—they
+lived their present to the full. And so it would be almost comic to say
+to those young people: Go away; do nothing in this matter in which your
+interest and your feelings are concerned! Don't have a present, because
+you've got to have a future! And he said:
+
+“I'd give a good deal for your power of losing yourself in the moment,
+old boy!”
+
+“That's all right,” said Tod. He was examining the bark of a tree, which
+had nothing the matter with it, so far as Felix could see; while his
+dog, who had followed them, carefully examined Tod. Both were obviously
+lost in the moment. And with a feeling of defeat Felix led the way back
+to the cottage.
+
+In the brick-floored kitchen Derek was striding up and down; while
+around him, in an equilateral triangle, stood the three women, Sheila
+at the window, Kirsteen by the open hearth, Nedda against the wall
+opposite. Derek exclaimed at once:
+
+“Why did you let them, Father? Why didn't you refuse to give him up?”
+
+Felix looked at his brother. In the doorway, where his curly head nearly
+touched the wood, Tod's face was puzzled, rueful. He did not answer.
+
+“Any one could have said he wasn't here. We could have smuggled him
+away. Now the brutes have got him! I don't know that, though—” And he
+made suddenly for the door.
+
+Tod did not budge. “No,” he said.
+
+Derek turned; his mother was at the other door; at the window, the two
+girls.
+
+The comedy of this scene, if there be comedy in the face of grief, was
+for the moment lost on Felix.
+
+'It's come,' he thought. 'What now?'
+
+Derek had flung himself down at the table and was burying his head in
+his hands. Sheila went up to him.
+
+“Don't be a fool, Derek.”
+
+However right and natural that remark, it seemed inadequate.
+
+And Felix looked at Nedda. The blue motor scarf she had worn had slipped
+off her dark head; her face was white; her eyes, fixed immovably on
+Derek, seemed waiting for him to recognize that she was there. The boy
+broke out again:
+
+“It was treachery! We took him in; and now we've given him up. They
+wouldn't have touched US if we'd got him away. Not they!”
+
+Felix literally heard the breathing of Tod on one side of him and of
+Kirsteen on the other. He crossed over and stood opposite his nephew.
+
+“Look here, Derek,” he said; “your mother was quite right. You might
+have put this off for a day or two; but it was bound to come. You don't
+know the reach of the law. Come, my dear fellow! It's no good making
+a fuss, that's childish—the thing is to see that the man gets every
+chance.”
+
+Derek looked up. Probably he had not yet realized that his uncle was in
+the room; and Felix was astonished at his really haggard face; as if the
+incident had bitten and twisted some vital in his body.
+
+“He trusted us.”
+
+Felix saw Kirsteen quiver and flinch, and understood why they had none
+of them felt quite able to turn their backs on that display of passion.
+Something deep and unreasoning was on the boy's side; something that
+would not fit with common sense and the habits of civilized society;
+something from an Arab's tent or a Highland glen. Then Tod came up
+behind and put his hands on his son's shoulders.
+
+“Come!” he said; “milk's spilt.”
+
+“All right!” said Derek gruffly, and he went to the door.
+
+Felix made Nedda a sign and she slipped out after him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Nedda, her blue head-gear trailing, followed along at the boy's side
+while he passed through the orchard and two fields; and when he threw
+himself down under an ash-tree she, too, subsided, waiting for him to
+notice her.
+
+“I am here,” she said at last.
+
+At that ironic little speech Derek sat up.
+
+“It'll kill him,” he said.
+
+“But—to burn things, Derek! To light horrible cruel flames, and burn
+things, even if they aren't alive!”
+
+Derek said through his teeth:
+
+“It's I who did it! If I'd never talked to him he'd have been like the
+others. They were taking him in a cart, like a calf.”
+
+Nedda got possession of his hand and held it tight.
+
+That was a bitter and frightening hour under the faintly rustling
+ash-tree, while the wind sprinkled over her flakes of the may blossom,
+just past its prime. Love seemed now so little a thing, seemed to have
+lost warmth and power, seemed like a suppliant outside a door. Why did
+trouble come like this the moment one felt deeply?
+
+The church bell was tolling; they could see the little congregation pass
+across the churchyard into that weekly dream they knew too well. And
+presently the drone emerged, mingling with the voices outside, of
+sighing trees and trickling water, of the rub of wings, birds' songs,
+and the callings of beasts everywhere beneath the sky.
+
+In spite of suffering because love was not the first emotion in his
+heart, the girl could only feel he was right not to be loving her; that
+she ought to be glad of what was eating up all else within him. It was
+ungenerous, unworthy, to want to be loved at such a moment. Yet she
+could not help it! This was her first experience of the eternal tug
+between self and the loved one pulled in the hearts of lovers. Would
+she ever come to feel happy when he was just doing what he thought
+was right? And she drew a little away from him; then perceived that
+unwittingly she had done the right thing, for he at once tried to take
+her hand again. And this was her first lesson, too, in the nature of
+man. If she did not give her hand, he wanted it! But she was not one of
+those who calculate in love; so she gave him her hand at once. That
+went to his heart; and he put his arm round her, till he could feel the
+emotion under those stays that would not be drawn any closer. In this
+nest beneath the ash-tree they sat till they heard the organ wheeze and
+the furious sound of the last hymn, and saw the brisk coming-forth with
+its air of, 'Thank God! And now, to eat!' till at last there was no
+stir again about the little church—no stir at all save that of nature's
+ceaseless thanksgiving....
+
+Tod, his brown face still rueful, had followed those two out into the
+air, and Sheila had gone quickly after him. Thus left alone with his
+sister-in-law, Felix said gravely:
+
+“If you don't want the boy to get into real trouble, do all you can to
+show him that the last way in the world to help these poor fellows is
+to let them fall foul of the law. It's madness to light flames you can't
+put out. What happened this morning? Did the man resist?”
+
+Her face still showed how bitter had been her mortification, and he was
+astonished that she kept her voice so level and emotionless.
+
+“No. He went with them quite quietly. The back door was open; he could
+have walked out. I did not advise him to. I'm glad no one saw his face
+except myself. You see,” she added, “he's devoted to Derek, and Derek
+knows it; that's why he feels it so, and will feel it more and more. The
+boy has a great sense of honour, Felix.”
+
+Under that tranquillity Felix caught the pain and yearning in her voice.
+Yes! This woman really felt and saw. She was not one of those who make
+disturbance with their brains and powers of criticism; rebellion leaped
+out from the heat in her heart. But he said:
+
+“Is it right to fan this flame? Do you think any good end is being
+served?” Waiting for her answer, he found himself gazing at the ghost
+of dark down on her upper lip, wondering that he had never noticed it
+before.
+
+Very low, as if to herself, she said:
+
+“I would kill myself to-day if I didn't believe that tyranny and
+injustice must end.”
+
+“In our time?”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“Are you content to go on working for an Utopia that you will never
+see?”
+
+“While our laborers are treated and housed more like dogs than human
+beings, while the best life under the sun—because life on the soil might
+be the best life—is despised and starved, and made the plaything of
+people's tongues, neither I nor mine are going to rest.”
+
+The admiration she inspired in Felix at that moment was mingled with a
+kind of pity. He said impressively:
+
+“Do you know the forces you are up against? Have you looked into the
+unfathomable heart of this trouble? Understood the tug of the towns, the
+call of money to money; grasped the destructive restlessness of
+modern life; the abysmal selfishness of people when you threaten their
+interests; the age-long apathy of those you want to help? Have you
+grasped all these?”
+
+“And more!”
+
+Felix held out his hand. “Then,” he said, “you are truly brave!”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“It got bitten into me very young. I was brought up in the Highlands
+among the crofters in their worst days. In some ways the people here are
+not so badly off, but they're still slaves.”
+
+“Except that they can go to Canada if they want, and save old England.”
+
+She flushed. “I hate irony.”
+
+Felix looked at her with ever-increasing interest; she certainly was of
+the kind that could be relied on to make trouble.
+
+“Ah!” he murmured. “Don't forget that when we can no longer smile we can
+only swell and burst. It IS some consolation to reflect that by the time
+we've determined to do something really effectual for the ploughmen of
+England there'll be no ploughmen left!”
+
+“I cannot smile at that.”
+
+And, studying her face, Felix thought, 'You're right there! You'll get
+no help from humor.'...
+
+Early that afternoon, with Nedda between them, Felix and his nephew were
+speeding toward Transham.
+
+The little town—a hamlet when Edmund Moreton dropped the E from his name
+and put up the works which Stanley had so much enlarged—had monopolized
+by now the hill on which it stood. Living entirely on its ploughs, it
+yet had but little of the true look of a British factory town, having
+been for the most part built since ideas came into fashion. With its red
+roofs and chimneys, it was only moderately ugly, and here and there an
+old white, timbered house still testified to the fact that it had once
+been country. On this fine Sunday afternoon the population were in the
+streets, and presented all that long narrow-headedness, that twist and
+distortion of feature, that perfect absence of beauty in face, figure,
+and dress, which is the glory of the Briton who has been for three
+generations in a town. 'And my great-grandfather'—thought Felix—'did all
+this! God rest his soul!'
+
+At a rather new church on the very top they halted, and went in to
+inspect the Morton memorials. There they were, in dedicated corners.
+'Edmund and his wife Catherine'—'Charles Edmund and his wife
+Florence'—'Maurice Edmund and his wife Dorothy.' Clara had set her foot
+down against 'Stanley and his wife Clara' being in the fourth; her soul
+was above ploughs, and she, of course, intended to be buried at Becket,
+as Clara, dowager Lady Freeland, for her efforts in regard to the land.
+Felix, who had a tendency to note how things affected other people,
+watched Derek's inspection of these memorials and marked that they
+excited in him no tendency to ribaldry. The boy, indeed, could hardly be
+expected to see in them what Felix saw—an epitome of the great, perhaps
+fatal, change that had befallen his native country; a record of the
+beginning of that far-back fever, whose course ran ever faster, which
+had emptied country into town and slowly, surely, changed the whole
+spirit of life. When Edmund Moreton, about 1780, took the infection
+disseminated by the development of machinery, and left the farming of
+his acres to make money, that thing was done which they were all now
+talking about trying to undo, with their cries of: “Back to the land!
+Back to peace and sanity in the shade of the elms! Back to the simple
+and patriarchal state of feeling which old documents disclose. Back to
+a time before these little squashed heads and bodies and features jutted
+every which way; before there were long squashed streets of gray houses;
+long squashed chimneys emitting smoke-blight; long squashed rows of
+graves; and long squashed columns of the daily papers. Back to well-fed
+countrymen who could not read, with Common rights, and a kindly feeling
+for old 'Moretons,' who had a kindly feeling for them!” Back to
+all that? A dream! Sirs! A dream! There was nothing for it now,
+but—progress! Progress! On with the dance! Let engines rip, and the
+little, squash-headed fellows with them! Commerce, literature, religion,
+science, politics, all taking a hand; what a glorious chance had money,
+ugliness, and ill will! Such were the reflections of Felix before the
+brass tablet:
+
+                 “IN LOVING MEMORY OF
+                     EDMUND MORTON
+                         AND
+                   HIS DEVOTED WIFE
+                      CATHERINE.
+
+           AT REST IN THE LORD.  A.D., 1816.”
+
+
+From the church they went about their proper business, to interview a
+Mr. Pogram, of the firm of Pogram & Collet, solicitors, in whose hands
+the interests of many citizens of Transham and the country round were
+almost securely deposited. He occupied, curiously enough, the house
+where Edmund Morton himself had lived, conducting his works on the one
+hand and the squirearchy of the parish on the other. Incorporated now
+into the line of a long, loose street, it still stood rather apart
+from its neighbors, behind some large shrubs and trees of the holmoak
+variety.
+
+Mr. Pogram, who was finishing his Sunday after-lunch cigar, was a short,
+clean-shaved man with strong cheeks and those rather lustful gray-blue
+eyes which accompany a sturdy figure. He rose when they were introduced,
+and, uncrossing his fat little thighs, asked what he could do for them.
+
+Felix propounded the story of the arrest, so far as might be, in words
+of one syllable, avoiding the sentimental aspect of the question, and
+finding it hard to be on the side of disorder, as any modern writer
+might. There was something, however, about Mr. Pogram that reassured
+him. The small fellow looked a fighter—looked as if he would sympathize
+with Tryst's want of a woman about him. The tusky but soft-hearted
+little brute kept nodding his round, sparsely covered head while he
+listened, exuding a smell of lavender-water, cigars, and gutta-percha.
+When Felix ceased he said, rather dryly:
+
+“Sir Gerald Malloring? Yes. Sir Gerald's country agents, I rather think,
+are Messrs. Porter of Worcester. Quite so.”
+
+And a conviction that Mr. Pogram thought they should have been Messrs.
+Pogram & Collet of Transham confirmed in Felix the feeling that they had
+come to the right man.
+
+“I gather,” Mr. Pogram said, and he looked at Nedda with a glance from
+which he obviously tried to remove all earthly desires, “that you,
+sir, and your nephew wish to go and see the man. Mrs. Pogram will be
+delighted to show Miss Freeland our garden. Your great-grandfather, sir,
+on the mother's side, lived in this house. Delighted to meet you;
+often heard of your books; Mrs. Pogram has read one—let me see—'The
+Bannister,' was it?”
+
+“'The Balustrade,'” Felix answered gently.
+
+Mr. Pogram rang the bell. “Quite so,” he said. “Assizes are just over
+so that he can't come up for trial till August or September; pity—great
+pity! Bail in cases of arson—for a laborer, very doubtful! Ask your
+mistress to come, please.”
+
+There entered a faded rose of a woman on whom Mr. Pogram in his time
+had evidently made a great impression. A vista of two or three little
+Pograms behind her was hastily removed by the maid. And they all went
+into the garden.
+
+“Through here,” said Mr. Pogram, coming to a side door in the garden
+wall, “we can make a short cut to the police station. As we go along I
+shall ask you one or two blunt questions.” And he thrust out his under
+lip:
+
+“For instance, what's your interest in this matter?”
+
+Before Felix could answer, Derek had broken in:
+
+“My uncle has come out of kindness. It's my affair, sir. The man has
+been tyrannously treated.”
+
+Mr. Pogram cocked his eye. “Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt! He's not
+confessed, I understand?”
+
+“No; but—”
+
+Mr. Pogram laid a finger on his lips.
+
+“Never say die; that's what we're here for. So,” he went on, “you're
+a rebel; Socialist, perhaps. Dear me! Well, we're all of us something,
+nowadays—I'm a humanitarian myself. Often say to Mrs. Pogram—humanity's
+the thing in this age—and so it is! Well, now, what line shall we take?”
+And he rubbed his hands. “Shall we have a try at once to upset what
+evidence they've got? We should want a strong alibi. Our friends here
+will commit if they can—nobody likes arson. I understand he was sleeping
+in your cottage. His room, now? Was it on the ground floor?”
+
+“Yes; but—”
+
+Mr. Pogram frowned, as who should say: Ah! Be careful! “He had better
+reserve his defence and give us time to turn round,” he said rather
+shortly.
+
+They had arrived at the police station and after a little parley were
+ushered into the presence of Tryst.
+
+The big laborer was sitting on the stool in his cell, leaning back
+against the wall, his hands loose and open at his sides. His gaze passed
+at once from Felix and Mr. Pogram, who were in advance, to Derek; and
+the dumb soul seemed suddenly to look through, as one may see all there
+is of spirit in a dog reach out to its master. This was the first time
+Felix had seen him who had caused already so much anxiety, and that
+broad, almost brutal face, with the yearning fidelity in its tragic
+eyes, made a powerful impression on him. It was the sort of face one did
+not forget and might be glad of not remembering in dreams. What had
+put this yearning spirit into so gross a frame, destroying its
+solid coherence? Why could not Tryst have been left by nature just a
+beer-loving serf, devoid of grief for his dead wife, devoid of longing
+for the nearest he could get to her again, devoid of susceptibility to
+this young man's influence? And the thought of all that was before the
+mute creature, sitting there in heavy, hopeless patience, stung Felix's
+heart so that he could hardly bear to look him in the face.
+
+Derek had taken the man's thick, brown hand; Felix could see with what
+effort the boy was biting back his feelings.
+
+“This is Mr. Pogram, Bob. A solicitor who'll do all he can for you.”
+
+Felix looked at Mr. Pogram. The little man was standing with arms
+akimbo; his face the queerest mixture of shrewdness and compassion, and
+he was giving off an almost needlessly strong scent of gutta-percha.
+
+“Yes, my man,” he said, “you and I are going to have a talk when these
+gentlemen have done with you,” and, turning on his heel, he began to
+touch up the points of his little pink nails with a penknife, in front
+of the constable who stood outside the cell door, with his professional
+air of giving a man a chance.
+
+Invaded by a feeling, apt to come to him in Zoos, that he was watching
+a creature who had no chance to escape being watched, Felix also turned;
+but, though his eyes saw not, his ears could not help hearing.
+
+“Forgive me, Bob! It's I who got you into this!”
+
+“No, sir; naught to forgive. I'll soon be back, and then they'll see!”
+
+By the reddening of Mr. Pogram's ears Felix formed the opinion that the
+little man, also, could hear.
+
+“Tell her not to fret, Mr. Derek. I'd like a shirt, in case I've got to
+stop. The children needn' know where I be; though I an't ashamed.”
+
+“It may be a longer job than you think, Bob.”
+
+In the silence that followed Felix could not help turning. The laborer's
+eyes were moving quickly round his cell, as if for the first time he
+realized that he was shut up; suddenly he brought those big hands of
+his together and clasped them between his knees, and again his gaze ran
+round the cell. Felix heard the clearing of a throat close by, and, more
+than ever conscious of the scent of gutta-percha, grasped its connection
+with compassion in the heart of Mr. Pogram. He caught Derek's muttered,
+“Don't ever think we're forgetting you, Bob,” and something that sounded
+like, “And don't ever say you did it.” Then, passing Felix and the
+little lawyer, the boy went out. His head was held high, but tears were
+running down his cheeks. Felix followed.
+
+A bank of clouds, gray-white, was rising just above the red-tiled roofs,
+but the sun still shone brightly. And the thought of the big laborer
+sitting there knocked and knocked at Felix's heart mournfully,
+miserably. He had a warmer feeling for his young nephew than he had ever
+had. Mr. Pogram rejoined them soon, and they walked on together,
+
+“Well?” said Felix.
+
+Mr. Pogram answered in a somewhat grumpy voice:
+
+“Not guilty, and reserve defence. You have influence, young man! Dumb
+as a waiter. Poor devil!” And not another word did he say till they had
+re-entered his garden.
+
+Here the ladies, surrounded by many little Pograms, were having tea. And
+seated next the little lawyer, whose eyes were fixed on Nedda, Felix was
+able to appreciate that in happier mood he exhaled almost exclusively
+the scent of lavender-water and cigars.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+On their way back to Becket, after the visit to Tryst, Felix and Nedda
+dropped Derek half-way on the road to Joyfields. They found that the
+Becket household already knew of the arrest. Woven into a dirge on the
+subject of 'the Land,' the last town doings, and adventures on golf
+courses, it formed the genial topic of the dinner-table; for the
+Bulgarian with his carbohydrates was already a wonder of the past. The
+Bigwigs of this week-end were quite a different lot from those of three
+weeks ago, and comparatively homogeneous, having only three different
+plans for settling the land question, none of which, fortunately,
+involved any more real disturbance of the existing state of things than
+the potato, brown-bread plan, for all were based on the belief held by
+the respectable press, and constructive portions of the community, that
+omelette can be made without breaking eggs. On one thing alone, the
+whole house party was agreed—the importance of the question. Indeed, a
+sincere conviction on this point was like the card one produces before
+one is admitted to certain functions. No one came to Becket without it;
+or, if he did, he begged, borrowed, or stole it the moment he smelled
+Clara's special pot-pourri in the hall; and, though he sometimes threw
+it out of the railway-carriage window in returning to town, there was
+nothing remarkable about that. The conversational debauch of the first
+night's dinner—and, alas! there were only two even at Becket during a
+week-end—had undoubtedly revealed the feeling, which had set in of
+late, that there was nothing really wrong with the condition of the
+agricultural laborer, the only trouble being that the unreasonable
+fellow did not stay on the land. It was believed that Henry Wiltram,
+in conjunction with Colonel Martlett, was on the point of promoting a
+policy for imposing penalties on those who attempted to leave it without
+good reason, such reason to be left to the discretion of impartial
+district boards, composed each of one laborer, one farmer, and one
+landowner, decision going by favor of majority. And though opinion was
+rather freely expressed that, since the voting would always be two
+to one against, this might trench on the liberty of the subject, many
+thought that the interests of the country were so much above this
+consideration that something of the sort would be found, after all, to
+be the best arrangement. The cruder early notions of resettling the land
+by fostering peasant proprietorship, with habitable houses and security
+of tenure, were already under a cloud, since it was more than suspected
+that they would interfere unduly with the game laws and other soundly
+vested interests. Mere penalization of those who (or whose fathers
+before them) had at great pains planted so much covert, enclosed so much
+common, and laid so much country down in grass was hardly a policy for
+statesmen. A section of the guests, and that perhaps strongest because
+most silent, distinctly favored this new departure of Henry Wiltram's.
+Coupled with his swinging corn tax, it was indubitably a stout platform.
+
+A second section of the guests spoke openly in favor of Lord Settleham's
+policy of good-will. The whole thing, they thought, must be voluntary,
+and they did not see any reason why, if it were left to the kindness and
+good intentions of the landowner, there should be any land question
+at all. Boards would be formed in every county on which such model
+landowners as Sir Gerald Malloring, or Lord Settleham himself, would
+sit, to apply the principles of goodwill. Against this policy the only
+criticism was levelled by Felix. He could have agreed, he said, if he
+had not noticed that Lord Settleham, and nearly all landowners, were
+thoroughly satisfied with their existing good-will and averse to any
+changes in their education that might foster an increase of it. If—he
+asked—landowners were so full of good-will, and so satisfied that they
+could not be improved in that matter, why had they not already done what
+was now proposed, and settled the land question? He himself believed
+that the land question, like any other, was only capable of settlement
+through improvement in the spirit of all concerned, but he found it a
+little difficult to credit Lord Settleham and the rest of the landowners
+with sincerity in the matter so long as they were unconscious of any
+need for their own improvement. According to him, they wanted it both
+ways, and, so far as he could see, they meant to have it!
+
+His use of the word sincere, in connection with Lord Settleham, was
+at once pounced on. He could not know Lord Settleham—one of the most
+sincere of men. Felix freely admitted that he did not, and hastened to
+explain that he did not question the—er—parliamentary sincerity of Lord
+Settleham and his followers. He only ventured to doubt whether they
+realized the hold that human nature had on them. His experience, he
+said, of the houses where they had been bred, and the seminaries
+where they had been trained, had convinced him that there was still a
+conspiracy on foot to blind Lord Settleham and those others concerning
+all this; and, since they were themselves part of the conspiracy, there
+was very little danger of their unmasking it. At this juncture Felix
+was felt to have exceeded the limit of fair criticism, and only that
+toleration toward literary men of a certain reputation, in country
+houses, as persons brought there to say clever and irresponsible things,
+prevented people from taking him seriously.
+
+The third section of the guests, unquestionably more static than the
+others, confined themselves to pointing out that, though the land
+question was undoubtedly serious, nothing whatever would result from
+placing any further impositions upon landowners. For, after all, what
+was land? Simply capital invested in a certain way, and very poorly at
+that. And what was capital? Simply a means of causing wages to be paid.
+And whether they were paid to men who looked after birds and dogs,
+loaded your guns, beat your coverts, or drove you to the shoot, or paid
+to men who ploughed and fertilized the land, what did it matter? To
+dictate to a man to whom he was to pay wages was, in the last degree,
+un-English. Everybody knew the fate which had come, or was coming,
+upon capital. It was being driven out of the country by leaps and
+bounds—though, to be sure, it still perversely persisted in yielding
+every year a larger revenue by way of income tax. And it would be
+dastardly to take advantage of land just because it was the only sort
+of capital which could not fly the country in times of need. Stanley
+himself, though—as became a host—he spoke little and argued not at all,
+was distinctly of this faction; and Clara sometimes felt uneasy lest her
+efforts to focus at Becket all interest in the land question should not
+quite succeed in outweighing the passivity of her husband's attitude.
+But, knowing that it is bad policy to raise the whip too soon, she
+trusted to her genius to bring him 'with one run at the finish,' as they
+say, and was content to wait.
+
+There was universal sympathy with the Mallorings. If a model landlord
+like Malloring had trouble with his people, who—who should be immune?
+Arson! It was the last word! Felix, who secretly shared Nedda's horror
+of the insensate cruelty of flames, listened, nevertheless, to the
+jubilation that they had caught the fellow, with profound disturbance.
+For the memory of the big laborer seated against the wall, his eyes
+haunting round his cell, quarrelled fiercely with his natural abhorrence
+of any kind of violence, and his equally natural dislike of what brought
+anxiety into his own life—and the life, almost as precious, of his
+little daughter. Scarcely a word of the evening's conversation but
+gave him in high degree the feeling: How glib all this is, how far from
+reality! How fatted up with shell after shell of comfort and security!
+What do these people know, what do they realize, of the pressure and
+beat of raw life that lies behind—what do even I, who have seen this
+prisoner, know? For us it's as simple as killing a rat that eats our
+corn, or a flea that sucks our blood. Arson! Destructive brute—lock him
+up! And something in Felix said: For order, for security, this may be
+necessary. But something also said: Our smug attitude is odious!
+
+He watched his little daughter closely, and several times marked the
+color rush up in her face, and once could have sworn he saw tears in
+her eyes. If the temper of this talk were trying to him, hardened at a
+hundred dinner-tables, what must it be to a young and ardent creature!
+And he was relieved to find, on getting to the drawing-room, that she
+had slipped behind the piano and was chatting quietly with her Uncle
+John....
+
+As to whether this or that man liked her, Nedda perhaps was not more
+ignorant than other women; and she had noted a certain warmth and
+twinkle in Uncle John's eyes the other evening, a certain rather jolly
+tendency to look at her when he should have been looking at the
+person to whom he was talking; so that she felt toward him a trustful
+kindliness not altogether unmingled with a sense that he was in that
+Office which controls the destinies of those who 'get into trouble.' The
+motives even of statesmen, they say, are mixed; how much more so, then,
+of girls in love! Tucked away behind a Steinway, which instinct told
+her was not for use, she looked up under her lashes at her uncle's still
+military figure and said softly:
+
+“It was awfully good of you to come, too, Uncle John.”
+
+And John, gazing down at that round, dark head, and those slim, pretty,
+white shoulders, answered:
+
+“Not at all—very glad to get a breath of fresh air.”
+
+And he stealthily tightened his white waistcoat—a rite neglected of
+late; the garment seemed to him at the moment unnecessarily loose.
+
+“You have so much experience, Uncle. Do you think violent rebellion is
+ever justifiable?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+Nedda sighed. “I'm glad you think that,” she murmured, “because I
+don't think it is, either. I do so want you to like Derek, Uncle John,
+because—it's a secret from nearly every one—he and I are engaged.”
+
+John jerked his head up a little, as though he had received a slight
+blow. The news was not palatable. He kept his form, however, and
+answered:
+
+“Oh! Really! Ah!”
+
+Nedda said still more softly: “Please don't judge him by the other
+night; he wasn't very nice then, I know.”
+
+John cleared his throat.
+
+Instinct warned her that he agreed, and she said rather sadly:
+
+“You see, we're both awfully young. It must be splendid to have
+experience.”
+
+Over John's face, with its double line between the brows, its double
+line in the thin cheeks, its single firm line of mouth beneath a gray
+moustache, there passed a little grimace.
+
+“As to being young,” he said, “that'll change for the—er—better only too
+fast.”
+
+What was it in this girl that reminded him of that one with whom he had
+lived but two years, and mourned fifteen? Was it her youth? Was it
+that quick way of lifting her eyes, and looking at him with such clear
+directness? Or the way her hair grew? Or what?
+
+“Do you like the people here, Uncle John?”
+
+The question caught John, as it were, between wind and water. Indeed,
+all her queries seemed to be trying to incite him to those wide efforts
+of mind which bring into use the philosophic nerve; and it was long
+since he had generalized afresh about either things or people, having
+fallen for many years past into the habit of reaching his opinions down
+out of some pigeonhole or other. To generalize was a youthful practice
+that one took off as one takes certain garments off babies when they
+come to years of discretion. But since he seemed to be in for it, he
+answered rather shortly: “Not at all.”
+
+Nedda sighed again.
+
+“Nor do I. They make me ashamed of myself.”
+
+John, whose dislike of the Bigwigs was that of the dogged worker of this
+life for the dogged talkers, wrinkled his brows:
+
+“How's that?”
+
+“They make me feel as if I were part of something heavy sitting on
+something else, and all the time talking about how to make things
+lighter for the thing it's sitting on.”
+
+A vague recollection of somebody—some writer, a dangerous one—having
+said something of this sort flitted through John.
+
+“Do YOU think England is done for, Uncle—I mean about 'the Land'?”
+
+In spite of his conviction that 'the country was in a bad way,' John
+was deeply, intimately shocked by that simple little question. Done
+for! Never! Whatever might be happening underneath, there must be no
+confession of that. No! the country would keep its form. The country
+would breathe through its nose, even if it did lose the race. It must
+never know, or let others know, even if it were beaten. And he said:
+
+“What on earth put that into your head?”
+
+“Only that it seems funny, if we're getting richer and richer, and
+yet all the time farther and farther away from the life that every one
+agrees is the best for health and happiness. Father put it into my head,
+making me look at the little, towny people in Transham this afternoon. I
+know I mean to begin at once to learn about farm work.”
+
+“You?” This pretty young thing with the dark head and the pale, slim
+shoulders! Farm work! Women were certainly getting queer. In his
+department he had almost daily evidence of that!
+
+“I should have thought art was more in your line!”
+
+Nedda looked up at him; and he was touched by that look, so straight and
+young.
+
+“It's this. I don't believe Derek will be able to stay in England. When
+you feel very strongly about things it must be awfully difficult to.”
+
+In bewilderment John answered:
+
+“Why! I should have said this was the country of all others for
+movements, and social work, and—and—cranks—” he paused.
+
+“Yes; but those are all for curing the skin, and I suppose we're really
+dying of heart disease, aren't we? Derek feels that, anyway, and, you
+see, he's not a bit wise, not even patient—so I expect he'll have to go.
+I mean to be ready, anyway.”
+
+And Nedda got up. “Only, if he does something rash, don't let them hurt
+him, Uncle John, if you can help it.”
+
+John felt her soft fingers squeezing his almost desperately, as if her
+emotions had for the moment got out of hand. And he was moved, though he
+knew that the squeeze expressed feeling for his nephew, not for himself.
+When she slid away out of the big room all friendliness seemed to go
+out with her, and very soon after he himself slipped away to the
+smoking-room. There he was alone, and, lighting a cigar, because he
+still had on his long-tailed coat which did not go with that pipe he
+would so much have preferred, he stepped out of the French window into
+the warm, dark night. He walked slowly in his evening pumps up a thin
+path between columbines and peonies, late tulips, forget-me-nots, and
+pansies peering up in the dark with queer, monkey faces. He had a love
+for flowers, rather starved for a long time past, and, strangely, liked
+to see them, not in the set and orderly masses that should seemingly
+have gone with his character, but in wilder beds, where one never knew
+what flower was coming next. Once or twice he stopped and bent down,
+ascertaining which kind it was, living its little life down there, then
+passed on in that mood of stammering thought which besets men of middle
+age who walk at night—a mood caught between memory of aspirations spun
+and over, and vision of aspirations that refuse to take shape. Why
+should they, any more—what was the use? And turning down another path
+he came on something rather taller than himself, that glowed in the
+darkness as though a great moon, or some white round body, had floated
+to within a few feet of the earth. Approaching, he saw it for what it
+was—a little magnolia-tree in the full of its white blossoms. Those
+clustering flower-stars, printed before him on the dark coat of the
+night, produced in John more feeling than should have been caused by a
+mere magnolia-tree; and he smoked somewhat furiously. Beauty, seeking
+whom it should upset, seemed, like a girl, to stretch out arms and say:
+“I am here!” And with a pang at heart, and a long ash on his cigar,
+between lips that quivered oddly, John turned on his heel and retraced
+his footsteps to the smoking-room. It was still deserted. Taking up a
+Review, he opened it at an article on 'the Land,' and, fixing his eyes
+on the first page, did not read it, but thought: 'That child! What
+folly! Engaged! H'm! To that young—! Why, they're babes! And what is it
+about her that reminds me—reminds me—What is it? Lucky devil, Felix—to
+have her for daughter! Engaged! The little thing's got her troubles
+before her. Wish I had! By George, yes—wish I had!' And with careful
+fingers he brushed off the ash that had fallen on his lapel....
+
+The little thing who had her troubles before her, sitting in her bedroom
+window, had watched his white front and the glowing point of his cigar
+passing down there in the dark, and, though she did not know that they
+belonged to him, had thought: 'There's some one nice, anyway, who likes
+being out instead of in that stuffy drawing-room, playing bridge, and
+talking, talking.' Then she felt ashamed of her uncharitableness. After
+all, it was wrong to think of them like that. They did it for rest
+after all their hard work; and she—she did not work at all! If only Aunt
+Kirsteen would let her stay at Joyfields, and teach her all that Sheila
+knew! And lighting her candles, she opened her diary to write.
+
+“Life,” she wrote, “is like looking at the night. One never knows what's
+coming, only suspects, as in the darkness you suspect which trees are
+what, and try to see whether you are coming to the edge of anything....
+A moth has just flown into my candle before I could stop it! Has it gone
+quite out of the world? If so, why should it be different for us? The
+same great Something makes all life and death, all light and dark, all
+love and hate—then why one fate for one living thing, and the opposite
+for another? But suppose there IS nothing after death—would it make me
+say: 'I'd rather not live'? It would only make me delight more in life
+of every kind. Only human beings brood and are discontented, and trouble
+about future life. While Derek and I were sitting in that field this
+morning, a bumblebee flew to the bank and tucked its head into the
+grass and went to sleep, just tired out with flying and working at its
+flowers; it simply snoozed its head down and went off. We ought to live
+every minute to the utmost, and when we're tired out, tuck in our heads
+and sleep.... If only Derek is not brooding over that poor man! Poor
+man—all alone in the dark, with months of misery before him! Poor soul!
+Oh! I am sorry for all the unhappiness of people! I can't bear to think
+of it. I simply can't.” And dropping her pen, Nedda went again to her
+window and leaned out. So sweet the air smelled that it made her ache
+with delight to breathe it in. Each leaf that lived out there, each
+flower, each blade of grass, were sworn to conspiracy of perfume. And
+she thought: 'They MUST all love each other; it all goes together so
+beautifully!' Then, mingled with the incense of the night, she caught
+the savor of woodsmoke. It seemed to make the whole scent even more
+delicious, but she thought, bewildered: 'Smoke! Cruel fire—burning the
+wood that once grew leaves like those. Oh! it IS so mixed!' It was a
+thought others have had before her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+To see for himself how it fared with the big laborer at the hands of
+Preliminary Justice, Felix went into Transham with Stanley the following
+morning. John having departed early for town, the brothers had not
+further exchanged sentiments on the subject of what Stanley called 'the
+kick-up at Joyfields.' And just as night will sometimes disperse the
+brooding moods of nature, so it had brought to all three the feeling:
+'Haven't we made too much of this? Haven't we been a little extravagant,
+and aren't we rather bored with the whole subject?' Arson was arson; a
+man in prison more or less was a man in prison more or less! This was
+especially Stanley's view, and he took the opportunity to say to Felix:
+“Look here, old man, the thing is, of course, to see it in proportion.”
+
+It was with this intention, therefore, that Felix entered the building
+where the justice of that neighborhood was customarily dispensed. It was
+a species of small hall, somewhat resembling a chapel, with distempered
+walls, a platform, and benches for the public, rather well filled
+that morning—testimony to the stir the little affair had made. Felix,
+familiar with the appearance of London police courts, noted the
+efforts that had been made to create resemblance to those models of
+administration. The justices of the peace, hastily convoked and four in
+number, sat on the platform, with a semicircular backing of high gray
+screens and a green baize barrier in front of them, so that their legs
+and feet were quite invisible. In this way had been preserved the really
+essential feature of all human justice—at whose feet it is well known
+one must not look! Their faces, on the contrary, were entirely exposed
+to view, and presented that pleasing variety of type and unanimity of
+expression peculiar to men keeping an open mind. Below them, with his
+face toward the public, was placed a gray-bearded man at a table also
+covered with green baize, that emblem of authority. And to the side, at
+right angles, raised into the air, sat a little terrier of a man,
+with gingery, wired hair, obviously the more articulate soul of these
+proceedings. As Felix sat down to worship, he noticed Mr. Pogram at
+the green baize table, and received from the little man a nod and the
+faintest whiff of lavender and gutta-percha. The next moment he
+caught sight of Derek and Sheila, screwed sideways against one of the
+distempered walls, looking, with their frowning faces, for all the world
+like two young devils just turned out of hell. They did not greet him,
+and Felix set to work to study the visages of Justice. They impressed
+him, on the whole, more favorably than he had expected. The one to his
+extreme left, with a gray-whiskered face, was like a large and sleepy
+cat of mature age, who moved not, except to write a word now and then on
+the paper before him, or to hand back a document. Next to him, a man
+of middle age with bald forehead and dark, intelligent eyes seemed
+conscious now and again of the body of the court, and Felix thought:
+'You have not been a magistrate long.' The chairman, who sat next, with
+the moustache of a heavy dragoon and gray hair parted in the middle,
+seemed, on the other hand, oblivious of the public, never once looking
+at them, and speaking so that they could not hear him, and Felix
+thought: 'You have been a magistrate too long.' Between him and the
+terrier man, the last of the four wrote diligently, below a clean, red
+face with clipped white moustache and little peaked beard. And Felix
+thought: 'Retired naval!' Then he saw that they were bringing in Tryst.
+The big laborer advanced between two constables, his broad, unshaven
+face held high, and his lowering eyes, through which his strange and
+tragical soul seemed looking, turned this way and that. Felix, who, no
+more than any one else, could keep his gaze off the trapped creature,
+felt again all the sensations of the previous afternoon.
+
+“Guilty? or, Not guilty?” As if repeating something learned by heart,
+Tryst answered: “Not guilty, sir.” And his big hands, at his sides, kept
+clenching and unclenching. The witnesses, four in number, began now to
+give their testimony. A sergeant of police recounted how he had been
+first summoned to the scene of burning, and afterward arrested Tryst;
+Sir Gerald's agent described the eviction and threats uttered by the
+evicted man; two persons, a stone-breaker and a tramp, narrated that
+they had seen him going in the direction of the rick and barn at five
+o'clock, and coming away therefrom at five-fifteen. Punctuated by the
+barking of the terrier clerk, all this took time, during which there
+passed through Felix many thoughts. Here was a man who had done a
+wicked, because an antisocial, act; the sort of act no sane person could
+defend; an act so barbarous, stupid, and unnatural that the very beasts
+of the field would turn noses away from it! How was it, then, that he
+himself could not feel incensed? Was it that in habitually delving into
+the motives of men's actions he had lost the power of dissociating what
+a man did from what he was; had come to see him, with his thoughts,
+deeds, and omissions, as a coherent growth? And he looked at Tryst. The
+big laborer was staring with all his soul at Derek. And, suddenly, he
+saw his nephew stand up—tilt his dark head back against the wall—and
+open his mouth to speak. In sheer alarm Felix touched Mr. Pogram on the
+arm. The little square man had already turned; he looked at that moment
+extremely like a frog.
+
+“Gentlemen, I wish to say—”
+
+“Who are you? Sit down!” It was the chairman, speaking for the first
+time in a voice that could be heard.
+
+“I wish to say that he is not responsible. I—”
+
+“Silence! Silence, sir! Sit down!”
+
+Felix saw his nephew waver, and Sheila pulling at his sleeve; then, to
+his infinite relief, the boy sat down. His sallow face was red; his thin
+lips compressed to a white line. And slowly under the eyes of the whole
+court he grew deadly pale.
+
+Distracted by fear that the boy might make another scene, Felix followed
+the proceedings vaguely. They were over soon enough: Tryst committed,
+defence reserved, bail refused—all as Mr. Pogram had predicted.
+
+Derek and Sheila had vanished, and in the street outside, idle at this
+hour of a working-day, were only the cars of the four magistrates; two
+or three little knots of those who had been in court, talking of the
+case; and in the very centre of the street, an old, dark-whiskered man,
+lame, and leaning on a stick.
+
+“Very nearly being awkward,” said the voice of Mr. Pogram in his ear. “I
+say, do you think—no hand himself, surely no real hand himself?”
+
+Felix shook his head violently. If the thought had once or twice
+occurred to him, he repudiated it with all his force when shaped by
+another's mouth—and such a mouth, so wide and rubbery!
+
+“No, no! Strange boy! Extravagant sense of honour—too sensitive, that's
+all!”
+
+“Quite so,” murmured Mr. Pogram soothingly. “These young people! We live
+in a queer age, Mr. Freeland. All sorts of ideas about, nowadays. Young
+men like that—better in the army—safe in the army. No ideas there!”
+
+“What happens now?” said Felix.
+
+“Wait!” said Mr. Pogram. “Nothing else for it—wait. Three months—twiddle
+his thumbs. Bad system! Rotten!”
+
+“And suppose in the end he's proved innocent?”
+
+Mr. Pogram shook his little round head, whose ears were very red.
+
+“Ah!” he said: “Often say to my wife: 'Wish I weren't a humanitarian!'
+Heart of india-rubber—excellent thing—the greatest blessing. Well,
+good-morning! Anything you want to say at any time, let me know!” And
+exhaling an overpowering whiff of gutta-percha, he grasped Felix's
+hand and passed into a house on the door of which was printed in brazen
+letters: “Edward Pogram, James Collet. Solicitors. Agents.”
+
+On leaving the little humanitarian, Felix drifted back toward the court.
+The cars were gone, the groups dispersed; alone, leaning on his stick,
+the old, dark-whiskered man stood like a jackdaw with a broken wing.
+Yearning, at that moment, for human intercourse, Felix went up to him.
+
+“Fine day,” he said.
+
+“Yes, sir, 'tis fine enough.” And they stood silent, side by side. The
+gulf fixed by class and habit between soul and human soul yawned before
+Felix as it had never before. Stirred and troubled, he longed to open
+his heart to this old, ragged, dark-eyed, whiskered creature with the
+game leg, who looked as if he had passed through all the thorns and
+thickets of hard and primitive existence; he longed that the old fellow
+should lay bare to him his heart. And for the life of him he could not
+think of any mortal words which might bridge the unreal gulf between
+them. At last he said:
+
+“You a native here?”
+
+“No, sir. From over Malvern way. Livin' here with my darter, owin' to my
+leg. Her 'usband works in this here factory.”
+
+“And I'm from London,” Felix said.
+
+“Thart you were. Fine place, London, they say!”
+
+Felix shook his head. “Not so fine as this Worcestershire of yours.”
+
+The old man turned his quick, dark gaze. “Aye!” he said, “people'll be
+a bit nervy-like in towns, nowadays. The country be a good place for a
+healthy man, too; I don't want no better place than the country—never
+could abide bein' shut in.”
+
+“There aren't so very many like you, judging by the towns.”
+
+The old man smiled—that smile was the reverse of a bitter tonic coated
+with sweet stuff to make it palatable.
+
+“'Tes the want of a life takes 'em,” he said. “There's not a many like
+me. There's not so many as can't do without the smell of the earth. With
+these 'ere newspapers—'tesn't taught nowadays. The boys and gells they
+goes to school, and 'tes all in favor of the towns there. I can't work
+no more; I'm 's good as gone meself; but I feel sometimes I'll 'ave to
+go back. I don't like the streets, an' I guess 'tes worse in London.”
+
+“Ah! Perhaps,” Felix said, “there are more of us like you than you
+think.”
+
+Again the old man turned his dark, quick glance.
+
+“Well, an' I widden say no to that, neither. I've seen 'em terrible
+homesick. 'Tes certain sure there's lots would never go, ef 'twasn't so
+mortial hard on the land. 'Tisn't a bare livin', after that. An' they're
+put upon, right and left they're put upon. 'Tes only a man here and
+there that 'as something in 'im too strong. I widden never 'ave stayed
+in the country ef 'twasn't that I couldn't stand the town life. 'Tes
+like some breeds o' cattle—you take an' put 'em out o' their own
+country, an' you 'ave to take an' put 'em back again. Only some breeds,
+though. Others they don' mind where they go. Well, I've seen the country
+pass in my time, as you might say; where you used to see three men you
+only see one now.”
+
+“Are they ever going back onto the land?”
+
+“They tark about it. I read my newspaper reg'lar. In some places I see
+they're makin' unions. That an't no good.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+The old man smiled again.
+
+“Why! Think of it! The land's different to anythin' else—that's why!
+Different work, different hours, four men's work to-day and one's
+to-morrow. Work land wi' unions, same as they've got in this 'ere
+factory, wi' their eight hours an' their do this an' don' do that? No!
+You've got no weather in factories, an' such-like. On the land 'tes a
+matter o' weather. On the land a man must be ready for anythin' at any
+time; you can't work it no other way. 'Tes along o' God's comin' into
+it; an' no use pullin' this way an' that. Union says to me: You mustn't
+work after hours. Hoh! I've 'ad to set up all night wi' ship an' cattle
+hundreds o' times, an' no extra for it. 'Tes not that way they'll do any
+good to keep people on the land. Oh, no!”
+
+“How, then?”
+
+“Well, you'll want new laws, o' course, to prevent farmers an'
+landowners takin' their advantage; you want laws to build new cottages;
+but mainly 'tes a case of hands together; can't be no other—the land's
+so ticklish. If 'tesn't hands together, 'tes nothing. I 'ad a master
+once that was never content so long's we wasn't content. That farm was
+better worked than any in the parish.”
+
+“Yes, but the difficulty is to get masters that can see the other side;
+a man doesn't care much to look at home.”
+
+The old man's dark eyes twinkled.
+
+“No; an' when 'e does, 'tes generally to say: 'Lord, an't I right, an'
+an't they wrong, just?' That's powerful customary!”
+
+“It is,” said Felix; “God bless us all!”
+
+“Ah! You may well say that, sir; an' we want it, too. A bit more wages
+wouldn't come amiss, neither. An' a bit more freedom; 'tes a man's
+liberty 'e prizes as well as money.”
+
+“Did you hear about this arson case?”
+
+The old man cast a glance this way and that before he answered in a
+lower voice:
+
+“They say 'e was put out of his cottage. I've seen men put out for
+votin' Liberal; I've seen 'em put out for free-thinkin'; all sorts o'
+things I seen em put out for. 'Tes that makes the bad blood. A man wants
+to call 'is soul 'is own, when all's said an' done. An' 'e can't, not in
+th' old country, unless 'e's got the dibs.”
+
+“And yet you never thought of emigrating?”
+
+“Thart of it—ah! thart of it hundreds o' times; but some'ow cudden never
+bring mysel' to the scratch o' not seein' th' Beacon any more. I can
+just see it from 'ere, you know. But there's not so many like me, an'
+gettin' fewer every day.”
+
+“Yes,” murmured Felix, “that I believe.”
+
+“'Tes a 'and-made piece o' goods—the land! You has to be fond of it,
+same as of your missis and yer chillen. These poor pitiful
+fellows that's workin' in this factory, makin' these here Colonial
+ploughs—union's all right for them—'tes all mechanical; but a man on the
+land, 'e's got to put the land first, whether 'tes his own or some one
+else's, or he'll never do no good; might as well go for a postman, any
+day. I'm keepin' of you, though, with my tattle!”
+
+In truth, Felix had looked at the old man, for the accursed question
+had begun to worry him: Ought he or not to give the lame old fellow
+something? Would it hurt his feelings? Why could he not say simply:
+'Friend, I'm better off than you; help me not to feel so unfairly
+favored'? Perhaps he might risk it. And, diving into his trousers
+pockets, he watched the old man's eyes. If they followed his hand, he
+would risk it. But they did not. Withdrawing his hand, he said:
+
+“Have a cigar?”
+
+The old fellow's dark face twinkled.
+
+“I don' know,” he said, “as I ever smoked one; but I can have a darned
+old try!”
+
+“Take the lot,” said Felix, and shuffled into the other's pocket the
+contents of his cigar-case. “If you get through one, you'll want the
+rest. They're pretty good.”
+
+“Ah!” said the old man. “Shuldn' wonder, neither.”
+
+“Good-by. I hope your leg will soon be better.”
+
+“Thank 'ee, sir. Good-by, thank 'ee!”
+
+Looking back from the turning, Felix saw him still standing there in the
+middle of the empty street.
+
+Having undertaken to meet his mother, who was returning this afternoon
+to Becket, he had still two hours to put away, and passing Mr. Pogram's
+house, he turned into a path across a clover-field and sat down on
+a stile. He had many thoughts, sitting at the foot of this little
+town—which his great-grandfather had brought about. And chiefly he
+thought of the old man he had been talking to, sent there, as it seemed
+to him, by Providence, to afford a prototype for his 'The Last of the
+Laborers.' Wonderful that the old fellow should talk of loving 'the
+Land,' whereon he must have toiled for sixty years or so, at a number
+of shillings per week, that would certainly not buy the cigars he had
+shovelled into that ragged pocket. Wonderful! And yet, a marvellous
+sweet thing, when all was said—this land! Changing its sheen and
+texture, the feel of its air, its very scent, from day to day. This
+land with myriad offspring of flowers and flying folk; the majestic and
+untiring march of seasons: Spring and its wistful ecstasy of saplings,
+and its yearning, wild, wind-loosened heart; gleam and song, blossom
+and cloud, and the swift white rain; each upturned leaf so little and so
+glad to flutter; each wood and field so full of peeping things! Summer!
+Ah! Summer, when on the solemn old trees the long days shone and
+lingered, and the glory of the meadows and the murmur of life and the
+scent of flowers bewildered tranquillity, till surcharge of warmth and
+beauty brooded into dark passion, and broke! And Autumn, in mellow haze
+down on the fields and woods; smears of gold already on the beeches,
+smears of crimson on the rowans, the apple-trees still burdened, and a
+flax-blue sky well-nigh merging with the misty air; the cattle browsing
+in the lingering golden stillness; not a breath to fan the blue smoke
+of the weed-fires—and in the fields no one moving—who would disturb such
+mellow peace? And Winter! The long spaces, the long dark; and yet—and
+yet, what delicate loveliness of twig tracery; what blur of rose and
+brown and purple caught in the bare boughs and in the early sunset sky!
+What sharp dark flights of birds in the gray-white firmament! Who cared
+what season held in its arms this land that had bred them all!
+
+Not wonderful that into the veins of those who nursed it, tending,
+watching its perpetual fertility, should be distilled a love so deep and
+subtle that they could not bear to leave it, to abandon its hills, and
+greenness, and bird-songs, and all the impress of their forefathers
+throughout the ages.
+
+Like so many of his fellows—cultured moderns, alien to the larger forms
+of patriotism, that rich liquor brewed of maps and figures, commercial
+profit, and high-cockalorum, which served so perfectly to swell smaller
+heads—Felix had a love of his native land resembling love for a woman,
+a kind of sensuous chivalry, a passion based on her charm, on her
+tranquillity, on the power she had to draw him into her embrace, to make
+him feel that he had come from her, from her alone, and into her alone
+was going back. And this green parcel of his native land, from which the
+half of his blood came, and that the dearest half, had a potency over
+his spirit that he might well be ashamed of in days when the true Briton
+was a town-bred creature with a foot of fancy in all four corners of the
+globe. There was ever to him a special flavor about the elm-girt fields,
+the flowery coppices, of this country of the old Moretons, a special
+fascination in its full, white-clouded skies, its grass-edged roads, its
+pied and creamy cattle, and the blue-green loom of the Malvern hills.
+If God walked anywhere for him, it was surely here. Sentiment! Without
+sentiment, without that love, each for his own corner, 'the Land' was
+lost indeed! Not if all Becket blew trumpets till kingdom came, would
+'the Land' be reformed, if they lost sight of that! To fortify men in
+love for their motherland, to see that insecurity, grinding poverty,
+interference, petty tyranny, could no longer undermine that love—this
+was to be, surely must be, done! Monotony? Was that cry true? What work
+now performed by humble men was less monotonous than work on the land?
+What work was even a tenth part so varied? Never quite the same from
+day to day: Now weeding, now hay, now roots, now hedging; now corn, with
+sowing, reaping, threshing, stacking, thatching; the care of beasts,
+and their companionship; sheep-dipping, shearing, wood-gathering,
+apple-picking, cider-making; fashioning and tarring gates; whitewashing
+walls; carting; trenching—never, never two days quite the same!
+Monotony! The poor devils in factories, in shops, in mines; poor devils
+driving 'busses, punching tickets, cleaning roads; baking; cooking;
+sewing; typing! Stokers; machine-tenders; brick-layers; dockers; clerks!
+Ah! that great company from towns might well cry out: Monotony! True,
+they got their holidays; true, they had more social life—a point that
+might well be raised at Becket: Holidays and social life for men on the
+soil! But—and suddenly Felix thought of the long, long holiday that
+was before the laborer Tryst. 'Twiddle his thumbs'—in the words of the
+little humanitarian—twiddle his thumbs in a space twelve feet by seven!
+No sky to see, no grass to smell, no beast to bear him company; no
+anything—for, what resources in himself had this poor creature? No
+anything, but to sit with tragic eyes fixed on the wall before him for
+eighty days and eighty nights, before they tried him. And then—not till
+then—would his punishment for that moment's blind revenge for grievous
+wrong begin! What on this earth of God's was more disproportioned, and
+wickedly extravagant, more crassly stupid, than the arrangements of his
+most perfect creature, man? What a devil was man, who could yet rise to
+such sublime heights of love and heroism! What a ferocious brute, the
+most ferocious and cold-blooded brute that lived! Of all creatures
+most to be stampeded by fear into a callous torturer! 'Fear'—thought
+Felix—'fear! Not momentary panic, such as makes our brother animals do
+foolish things; conscious, calculating fear, paralyzing the reason of
+our minds and the generosity of our hearts. A detestable thing Tryst has
+done, a hateful act; but his punishment will be twentyfold as hateful!'
+
+And, unable to sit and think of it, Felix rose and walked on through the
+fields....
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+He was duly at Transham station in time for the London train, and,
+after a minute consecrated to looking in the wrong direction, he saw
+his mother already on the platform with her bag, an air-cushion, and a
+beautifully neat roll.
+
+'Travelling third!' he thought. 'Why will she do these things?'
+
+Slightly flushed, she kissed Felix with an air of abstraction.
+
+“How good of you to meet me, darling!”
+
+Felix pointed in silence to the crowded carriage from which she had
+emerged. Frances Freeland looked a little rueful. “It would have been
+delightful,” she said. “There was a dear baby there and, of course, I
+couldn't have the window down, so it WAS rather hot.”
+
+Felix, who could just see the dear baby, said dryly:
+
+“So that's how you go about, is it? Have you had any lunch?”
+
+Frances Freeland put her hand under his arm. “Now, don't fuss, darling!
+Here's sixpence for the porter. There's only one trunk—it's got a violet
+label. Do you know them? They're so useful. You see them at once. I must
+get you some.”
+
+“Let me take those things. You won't want this cushion. I'll let the air
+out.”
+
+“I'm afraid you won't be able, dear. It's quite the best screw I've ever
+come across—a splendid thing; I can't get it undone.”
+
+“Ah!” said Felix. “And now we may as well go out to the car!”
+
+He was conscious of a slight stoppage in his mother's footsteps and
+rather a convulsive squeeze of her hand on his arm. Looking at her
+face, he discovered it occupied with a process whose secret he could
+not penetrate, a kind of disarray of her features, rapidly and severely
+checked, and capped with a resolute smile. They had already reached the
+station exit, where Stanley's car was snorting. Frances Freeland looked
+at it, then, mounting rather hastily, sat, compressing her lips.
+
+When they were off, Felix said:
+
+“Would you like to stop at the church and have a look at the brasses to
+your grandfather and the rest of them?”
+
+His mother, who had slipped her hand under his arm again, answered:
+
+“No, dear; I've seen them. The church is not at all beautiful. I
+like the old church at Becket so much better; it is such a pity your
+great-grandfather was not buried there.”
+
+She had never quite got over the lack of 'niceness' about those ploughs.
+
+Going, as was the habit of Stanley's car, at considerable speed, Felix
+was not at first certain whether the peculiar little squeezes his arm
+was getting were due to the bounds of the creature under them or to some
+cause more closely connected with his mother, and it was not till they
+shaved a cart at the turning of the Becket drive that it suddenly dawned
+on him that she was in terror. He discovered it in looking round just as
+she drew her smile over a spasm of her face and throat. And, leaning out
+of the car, he said:
+
+“Drive very slowly, Batter; I want to look at the trees.”
+
+A little sigh rewarded him. Since SHE had said nothing, He said nothing,
+and Clara's words in the hall seemed to him singularly tactless:
+
+“Oh! I meant to have reminded you, Felix, to send the car back and take
+a fly. I thought you knew that Mother's terrified of motors.” And at his
+mother's answer:
+
+“Oh! no; I quite enjoyed it, dear,” he thought: 'Bless her heart! She IS
+a stoic!'
+
+Whether or no to tell her of the 'kick-up at Joyfields' exercised his
+mind. The question was intricate, for she had not yet been informed
+that Nedda and Derek were engaged, and Felix did not feel at liberty to
+forestall the young people. That was their business. On the other hand,
+she would certainly glean from Clara a garbled understanding of the
+recent events at Joyfields, if she were not first told of them by
+himself. And he decided to tell her, with the natural trepidation of one
+who, living among principles and theories, never quite knew what those,
+for whom each fact is unrelated to anything else under the moon, were
+going to think. Frances Freeland, he knew well, kept facts and theories
+especially unrelated, or, rather, modified her facts to suit her
+theories, instead of, like Felix, her theories to suit her facts.
+For example, her instinctive admiration for Church and State, her
+instinctive theory that they rested on gentility and people who were
+nice, was never for a moment shaken when she saw a half-starved baby of
+the slums. Her heart would impel her to pity and feed the poor little
+baby if she could, but to correlate the creature with millions of other
+such babies, and those millions with the Church and State, would not
+occur to her. And if Felix made an attempt to correlate them for her
+she would look at him and think: 'Dear boy! How good he is! I do wish he
+wouldn't let that line come in his forehead; it does so spoil it!'
+And she would say: “Yes, darling, I know, it's very sad; only I'm NOT
+clever.” And, if a Liberal government chanced to be in power, would add:
+“Of course, I do think this Government is dreadful. I MUST show you
+a sermon of the dear Bishop of Walham. I cut it out of the 'Daily
+Mystery.' He puts things so well—he always has such nice ideas.”
+
+And Felix, getting up, would walk a little and sit down again
+too suddenly. Then, as if entreating him to look over her want of
+'cleverness,' she would put out a hand that, for all its whiteness, had
+never been idle and smooth his forehead. It had sometimes touched him
+horribly to see with what despair she made attempts to follow him in his
+correlating efforts, and with what relief she heard him cease enough
+to let her say: “Yes, dear; only, I must show you this new kind of
+expanding cork. It's simply splendid. It bottles up everything!” And
+after staring at her just a moment he would acquit her of irony. Very
+often after these occasions he had thought, and sometimes said: “Mother,
+you're the best Conservative I ever met.” She would glance at him then,
+with a special loving doubtfulness, at a loss as to whether or no he had
+designed to compliment her.
+
+When he had given her half an hour to rest he made his way to the
+blue corridor, where a certain room was always kept for her, who never
+occupied it long enough at a time to get tired of it. She was lying on a
+sofa in a loose gray cashmere gown. The windows were open, and the
+light breeze just moved in the folds of the chintz curtains and stirred
+perfume from a bowl of pinks—her favorite flowers. There was no bed in
+this bedroom, which in all respects differed from any other in Clara's
+house, as though the spirit of another age and temper had marched in and
+dispossessed the owner. Felix had a sensation that one was by no means
+all body here. On the contrary. There was not a trace of the body
+anywhere; as if some one had decided that the body was not quite nice.
+No bed, no wash-stand, no chest of drawers, no wardrobe, no mirror, not
+even a jar of Clara's special pot-pourri. And Felix said:
+
+“This can't be your bedroom, Mother?”
+
+Frances Freeland answered, with a touch of deprecating quizzicality:
+
+“Oh yes, darling. I must show you my arrangements.” And she rose.
+“This,” she said, “you see, goes under there, and that under here; and
+that again goes under this. Then they all go under that, and then I pull
+this. It's lovely.”
+
+“But why?” said Felix.
+
+“Oh! but don't you see? It's so nice; nobody can tell. And it doesn't
+give any trouble.”
+
+“And when you go to bed?”
+
+“Oh! I just pop my clothes into this and open that. And there I am. It's
+simply splendid.”
+
+“I see,” said Felix. “Do you think I might sit down, or shall I go
+through?”
+
+Frances Freeland loved him with her eyes, and said:
+
+“Naughty boy!”
+
+And Felix sat down on what appeared to be a window-seat.
+
+“Well,” he said, with slight uneasiness, for she was hovering, “I think
+you're wonderful.”
+
+Frances Freeland put away an impeachment that she evidently felt to be
+too soft.
+
+“Oh! but it's all so simple, darling.” And Felix saw that she had
+something in her hand, and mind.
+
+“This is my little electric brush. It'll do wonders with your hair.
+While you sit there, I'll just try it.”
+
+A clicking and a whirring had begun to occur close to his ear, and
+something darted like a gadfly at his scalp.
+
+“I came to tell you something serious, Mother.”
+
+“Yes, darling; it'll be simply lovely to hear it; and you mustn't mind
+this, because it really is a first-rate thing—quite new.”
+
+Now, how is it, thought Felix, that any one who loves the new as she
+does, when it's made of matter, will not even look at it when it's
+made of mind? And, while the little machine buzzed about his head, he
+proceeded to detail to her the facts of the state of things that existed
+at Joyfields.
+
+When he had finished, she said:
+
+“Now, darling, bend down a little.”
+
+Felix bent down. And the little machine began severely tweaking the
+hairs on the nape of his neck. He sat up again rather suddenly.
+
+Frances Freeland was contemplating the little machine.
+
+“How very provoking! It's never done that before!”
+
+“Quite so!” Felix murmured. “But about Joyfields?”
+
+“Oh, my dear, it IS such a pity they don't get on with those Mallorings!
+I do think it sad they weren't brought up to go to church.”
+
+Felix stared, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry that his recital
+had not roused within her the faintest suspicion of disaster. How he
+envied her that single-minded power of not seeing further than was
+absolutely needful! And suddenly he thought: 'She really is wonderful!
+With her love of church, how it must hurt her that we none of us go, not
+even John! And yet she never says a word. There really is width
+about her; a power of accepting the inevitable. Never was woman more
+determined to make the best of a bad job. It's a great quality!' And he
+heard her say:
+
+“Now, darling, if I give you this, you must promise me to use it every
+morning. You'll find you'll soon have a splendid crop of little young
+hairs.”
+
+“I know,” he said gloomily; “but they won't come to anything. Age has
+got my head, Mother, just as it's got 'the Land's.'”
+
+“Oh, nonsense! You must go on with it, that's all!”
+
+Felix turned so that he could look at her. She was moving round the room
+now, meticulously adjusting the framed photographs of her family that
+were the only decoration of the walls. How formal, chiselled, and
+delicate her face, yet how almost fanatically decisive! How frail and
+light her figure, yet how indomitably active! And the memory assailed
+him of how, four years ago, she had defeated double pneumonia without
+having a doctor, simply by lying on her back. 'She leaves trouble,' he
+thought, 'until it's under her nose, then simply tells it that it isn't
+there. There's something very English about that.'
+
+She was chasing a bluebottle now with a little fan made of wire, and,
+coming close to Felix, said:
+
+“Have you seen these, darling? You've only to hit the fly and it kills
+him at once.”
+
+“But do you ever hit the fly?”
+
+“Oh, yes!” And she waved the fan at the bluebottle, which avoided it
+without seeming difficulty.
+
+“I can't bear hurting them, but I DON'T like flies. There!”
+
+The bluebottle flew out of the window behind Felix and in at the one
+that was not behind him. He rose.
+
+“You ought to rest before tea, Mother.”
+
+He felt her searching him with her eyes, as if trying desperately to
+find something she might bestow upon or do for him.
+
+“Would you like this wire—”
+
+With a feeling that he was defrauding love, he turned and fled. She
+would never rest while he was there! And yet there was that in her face
+which made him feel a brute to go.
+
+Passing out of the house, sunk in its Monday hush, no vestige of a
+Bigwig left, Felix came to that new-walled mound where the old house
+of the Moretons had been burned 'by soldiers from Tewkesbury and
+Gloucester,' as said the old chronicles dear to the heart of Clara. And
+on the wall he sat him down. Above, in the uncut grass, he could see
+the burning blue of a peacock's breast, where the heraldic bird stood
+digesting grain in the repose of perfect breeding, and below him
+gardeners were busy with the gooseberries. 'Gardeners and the
+gooseberries of the great!' he thought. 'Such is the future of our
+Land.' And he watched them. How methodically they went to work! How
+patient and well-done-for they looked! After all, was it not the ideal
+future? Gardeners, gooseberries, and the great! Each of the three
+content in that station of life into which—! What more could a country
+want? Gardeners, gooseberries, and the great! The phrase had a certain
+hypnotic value. Why trouble? Why fuss? Gardeners, gooseberries, and
+the great! A perfect land! A land dedicate to the week-end! Gardeners,
+goose—! And suddenly he saw that he was not alone. Half hidden by the
+angle of the wall, on a stone of the foundations, carefully preserved
+and nearly embedded in the nettles which Clara had allowed to grow
+because they added age to the appearance, was sitting a Bigwig. One of
+the Settleham faction, he had impressed Felix alike by his reticence,
+the steady sincerity of his gray eyes, a countenance that, beneath a
+simple and delicate urbanity, had still in it something of the best type
+of schoolboy. 'How comes he to have stayed?' he mused. 'I thought
+they always fed and scattered!' And having received an answer to his
+salutation, he moved across and said:
+
+“I imagined you'd gone.”
+
+“I've been having a look round. It's very jolly here. My affections are
+in the North, but I suppose this is pretty well the heart of England.”
+
+“Near 'the big song,'” Felix answered. “There'll never be anything
+more English than Shakespeare, when all's said and done.” And he took a
+steady, sidelong squint at his companion. 'This is another of the
+types I've been looking for,' he reflected. The peculiar
+'don't-quite-touch-me' accent of the aristocrat—and of those who would
+be—had almost left this particular one, as though he secretly aspired
+to rise superior and only employed it in the nervousness of his first
+greetings. 'Yes,' thought Felix, 'he's just about the very best we can
+do among those who sit upon 'the Land.' I would wager there's not a
+better landlord nor a better fellow in all his class, than this
+one. He's chalks away superior to Malloring, if I know anything of
+faces—would never have turned poor Tryst out. If this exception were the
+rule! And yet—! Does he, can he, go quite far enough to meet the case?
+If not—what hope of regeneration from above? Would he give up his
+shooting? Could he give up feeling he's a leader? Would he give up
+his town house and collecting whatever it is he collects? Could he
+let himself sink down and merge till he was just unseen leaven of
+good-fellowship and good-will, working in the common bread?' And
+squinting at that sincere, clean, charming, almost fine face, he
+answered himself unwillingly: 'He could not!' And suddenly he knew that
+he was face to face with the tremendous question which soon or late
+confronts all thinkers. Sitting beside him—was the highest product of
+the present system! With its charm, humanity, courage, chivalry up to a
+point, its culture, and its cleanliness, this decidedly rare flower at
+the end of a tall stalk, with dark and tortuous roots and rank foliage,
+was in a sense the sole justification of power wielded from above.
+And was it good enough? Was it quite good enough? Like so many other
+thinkers, Felix hesitated to reply. If only merit and the goods of this
+world could be finally divorced! If the reward of virtue were just men's
+love and an unconscious self-respect! If only 'to have nothing' were the
+highest honour! And yet, to do away with this beside him and put in its
+place—What? No kiss-me-quick change had a chance of producing anything
+better. To scrap the long growth of man and start afresh was but to say:
+'Since in the past the best that man has done has not been good enough,
+I have a perfect faith in him for the future!' No! That was a creed for
+archangels and other extremists. Safer to work on what we had! And he
+began:
+
+“Next door to this estate I'm told there's ten thousand acres almost
+entirely grass and covert, owned by Lord Baltimore, who lives in
+Norfolk, London, Cannes, and anywhere else that the whim takes him. He
+comes down here twice a year to shoot. The case is extremely common.
+Surely it spells paralysis. If land is to be owned at all in such great
+lumps, owners ought at least to live on the lumps, and to pass very high
+examinations as practical farmers. They ought to be the life and soul,
+the radiating sun, of their little universes; or else they ought to be
+cleared out. How expect keen farming to start from such an example?
+It really looks to me as if the game laws would have to go.” And he
+redoubled his scrutiny of the Bigwig's face. A little furrow in its brow
+had deepened visibly, but nodding, he said:
+
+“The absentee landlord is a curse, of course. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a
+one myself. And I'm bound to say—though I'm keen on shooting—if the game
+laws were abolished, it might do a lot.”
+
+“YOU wouldn't move in that direction, I suppose?”
+
+The Bigwig smiled—charming, rather whimsical, that smile.
+
+“Honestly, I'm not up to it. The spirit, you know, but the flesh—! My
+line is housing and wages, of course.”
+
+'There it is,' thought Felix. 'Up to a point, they'll move—not up to THE
+point. It's all fiddling. One won't give up his shooting; another won't
+give up his power; a third won't give up her week-ends; a fourth won't
+give up his freedom. Our interest in the thing is all lackadaisical, a
+kind of bun-fight of pet notions. There's no real steam.' And abruptly
+changing the subject, he talked of pictures to the pleasant Bigwig
+in the sleepy afternoon. Of how this man could paint, and that man
+couldn't. And in the uncut grass the peacock slowly moved, displaying
+his breast of burning blue; and below, the gardeners worked among the
+gooseberries.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Nedda, borrowing the bicycle of Clara's maid, Sirrett, had been over to
+Joyfields, and only learned on her return of her grandmother's arrival.
+In her bath before dinner there came to her one of those strategic
+thoughts that even such as are no longer quite children will sometimes
+conceive. She hurried desperately into her clothes, and, ready full
+twenty minutes before the gong was due to sound, made her way to her
+grandmother's room. Frances Freeland had just pulled THIS, and, to
+her astonishment, THAT had not gone in properly. She was looking at
+it somewhat severely, when she heard Nedda's knock. Drawing a screen
+temporarily over the imperfection, she said: “Come in!”
+
+The dear child looked charming in her white evening dress with one red
+flower in her hair; and while she kissed her, she noted that the neck
+of her dress was just a little too open to be quite nice, and at once
+thought: 'I've got the very thing for that.'
+
+Going to a drawer that no one could have suspected of being there, she
+took from it a little diamond star. Getting delicate but firm hold of
+the Mechlin at the top of the frock, she popped it in, so that the neck
+was covered at least an inch higher, and said:
+
+“Now, ducky, you're to keep that as a little present. You've no idea
+how perfectly it suits you just like this.” And having satisfied for
+the moment her sense of niceness and that continual itch to part with
+everything she had, she surveyed her granddaughter, lighted up by that
+red flower, and said:
+
+“How sweet you look!”
+
+Nedda, looking down past cheeks colored by pleasure at the new little
+star on a neck rather browned by her day in the sun, murmured:
+
+“Oh, Granny! it's much too lovely! You mustn't give it to me!”
+
+These were moments that Frances Freeland loved best in life; and, with
+the untruthfulness in which she only indulged when she gave things away,
+or otherwise benefited her neighbors with or without their will, she
+added: “It's quite wasted; I never wear it myself.” And, seeing Nedda's
+smile, for the girl recollected perfectly having admired it during
+dinner at Uncle John's, and at Becket itself, she said decisively, “So
+that's that!” and settled her down on the sofa. But just as she was
+thinking, 'I have the very thing for the dear child's sunburn,' Nedda
+said: “Granny, dear, I've been meaning to tell you—Derek and I are
+engaged.”
+
+For the moment Frances Freeland could do nothing but tremulously
+interlace her fingers.
+
+“Oh, but, darling,” she said very gravely, “have you thought?”
+
+“I think of nothing else, Granny.”
+
+“But has he thought?”
+
+Nedda nodded.
+
+Frances Freeland sat staring straight before her. Nedda and Derek, Derek
+and Nedda! The news was almost unintelligible; those two were still for
+her barely more than little creatures to be tucked up at night. Engaged!
+Marriage! Between those who were both as near to her, almost, as her own
+children had been! The effort was for the moment quite too much for her,
+and a sort of pain disturbed her heart. Then the crowning principle of
+her existence came a little to her aid. No use in making a fuss; must
+put the best face on it, whether it were going to come to anything or
+not! And she said:
+
+“Well, darling, I don't know, I'm sure. I dare say it's very lovely for
+you. But do you think you've seen enough of him?”
+
+Nedda gave her a swift look, then dropped her lashes, so that her eyes
+seemed closed. Snuggling up, she said:
+
+“No, Granny, I do wish I could see more; if only I could go and stay
+with them a little!”
+
+And as she planted that dart of suggestion, the gong sounded.
+
+In Frances Freeland, lying awake till two, as was her habit, the
+suggestion grew. To this growth not only her custom of putting the best
+face on things, but her incurable desire to make others happy, and an
+instinctive sympathy with love-affairs, all contributed; moreover, Felix
+had said something about Derek's having been concerned in something
+rash. If darling Nedda were there it would occupy his mind and help to
+make him careful. Never dilatory in forming resolutions, she decided to
+take the girl over with her on the morrow. Kirsteen had a dear little
+spare room, and Nedda should take her bag. It would be a nice surprise
+for them all. Accordingly, next morning, not wanting to give any
+trouble, she sent Thomas down to the Red Lion, where they had a
+comfortable fly, with a very steady, respectable driver, and ordered it
+to come at half past two. Then, without saying anything to Clara, she
+told Nedda to be ready to pop in her bag, trusting to her powers
+of explaining everything to everybody without letting anybody know
+anything. Little difficulties of this sort never bunkered her; she was
+essentially a woman of action. And on the drive to Joyfields she stilled
+the girl's quavering with:
+
+“It's all right, darling; it'll be very nice for them.”
+
+She was perhaps the only person in the world who was not just a little
+bit afraid of Kirsteen. Indeed, she was constitutionally unable to be
+afraid of anything, except motor-cars, and, of course, earwigs, and even
+them one must put up with. Her critical sense told her that this woman
+in blue was just like anybody else, besides her father had been the
+colonel of a Highland regiment, which was quite nice, and one must put
+the best face on her.
+
+In this way, pointing out the beauty of each feature of the scenery, and
+not permitting herself or Nedda to think about the bag, they drove until
+they came to Joyfields.
+
+Kirsteen alone was in, and, having sent Nedda into the orchard to look
+for her uncle, Frances Freeland came at once to the point. It was so
+important, she thought, that darling Nedda should see more of dear
+Derek. They were very young, and if she could stay for a few weeks, they
+would both know their minds so much better. She had made her bring her
+bag, because she knew dear Kirsteen would agree with her; and it would
+be so nice for them all. Felix had told her about that poor man who had
+done this dreadful thing, and she thought that if Nedda were here it
+would be a distraction. She was a very good child, and quite useful in
+the house. And while she was speaking she watched Kirsteen, and thought:
+'She is very handsome, and altogether ladylike; only it is such a pity
+she wears that blue thing in her hair—it makes her so conspicuous.' And
+rather unexpectedly she said:
+
+“Do you know, dear, I believe I know the very thing to keep your hair
+from getting loose. It's such lovely hair. And this is quite a new
+thing, and doesn't show at all; invented by a very nice hairdresser in
+Worcester. It's simplicity itself. Do let me show you!” Quickly going
+over, she removed the kingfisher-blue fillet, and making certain passes
+with her fingers through the hair, murmured:
+
+“It's so beautifully fine; it seems such a pity not to show it all,
+dear. Now look at yourself!” And from the recesses of her pocket she
+produced a little mirror. “I'm sure Tod will simply love it like that.
+It'll be such a nice change for him.”
+
+Kirsteen, with just a faint wrinkling of her lips and eyebrows, waited
+till she had finished. Then she said:
+
+“Yes, Mother, dear, I'm sure he will,” and replaced the fillet. A
+patient, half-sad, half-quizzical smile visited Frances Freeland's lips,
+as who should say: 'Yes, I know you think that I'm a fuss-box, but it
+really is a pity that you wear it so, darling!'
+
+At sight of that smile, Kirsteen got up and kissed her gravely on the
+forehead.
+
+When Nedda came back from a fruitless search for Tod, her bag was
+already in the little spare bedroom and Frances Freeland gone. The
+girl had never yet been alone with her aunt, for whom she had a fervent
+admiration not unmixed with awe. She idealized her, of course, thinking
+of her as one might think of a picture or statue, a symbolic figure,
+standing for liberty and justice and the redress of wrong. Her
+never-varying garb of blue assisted the girl's fancy, for blue was
+always the color of ideals and aspiration—was not blue sky the nearest
+one could get to heaven—were not blue violets the flowers of spring?
+Then, too, Kirsteen was a woman with whom it would be quite impossible
+to gossip or small-talk; with her one could but simply and directly say
+what one felt, and only that over things which really mattered. And this
+seemed to Nedda so splendid that it sufficed in itself to prevent the
+girl from saying anything whatever. She longed to, all the same, feeling
+that to be closer to her aunt meant to be closer to Derek. Yet, with
+all, she knew that her own nature was very different; this, perhaps,
+egged her on, and made her aunt seem all the more exciting. She waited
+breathless till Kirsteen said:
+
+“Yes, you and Derek must know each other better. The worst kind of
+prison in the world is a mistaken marriage.”
+
+Nedda nodded fervently. “It must be. But I think one knows, Aunt
+Kirsteen!”
+
+She felt as if she were being searched right down to the soul before the
+answer came:
+
+“Perhaps. I knew myself. I have seen others who did—a few. I think you
+might.”
+
+Nedda flushed from sheer joy. “I could never go on if I didn't love. I
+feel I couldn't, even if I'd started.”
+
+With another long look through narrowing eyes, Kirsteen answered:
+
+“Yes. You would want truth. But after marriage truth is an unhappy
+thing, Nedda, if you have made a mistake.”
+
+“It must be dreadful. Awful.”
+
+“So don't make a mistake, my dear—and don't let him.”
+
+Nedda answered solemnly:
+
+“I won't—oh, I won't!”
+
+Kirsteen had turned away to the window, and Nedda heard her say quietly
+to herself:
+
+“'Liberty's a glorious feast!'”
+
+Trembling all over with the desire to express what was in her, Nedda
+stammered:
+
+“I would never keep anything that wanted to be free—never, never! I
+would never try to make any one do what they didn't want to!”
+
+She saw her aunt smile, and wondered whether she had said anything
+exceptionally foolish. But it was not foolish—surely not—to say what one
+really felt.
+
+“Some day, Nedda, all the world will say that with you. Until then we'll
+fight those who won't say it. Have you got everything in your room you
+want? Let's come and see.”
+
+To pass from Becket to Joyfields was really a singular experience. At
+Becket you were certainly supposed to do exactly what you liked, but
+the tyranny of meals, baths, scents, and other accompaniments of the
+'all-body' regime soon annihilated every impulse to do anything but
+just obey it. At Joyfields, bodily existence was a kind of perpetual
+skirmish, a sort of grudged accompaniment to a state of soul. You might
+be alone in the house at any meal-time. You might or might not have
+water in your jug. And as to baths, you had to go out to a little
+white-washed shed at the back, with a brick floor, where you pumped on
+yourself, prepared to shout out, “Halloo! I'm here!” in case any one
+else came wanting to do the same. The conditions were in fact almost
+perfect for seeing more of one another. Nobody asked where you were
+going, with whom going, or how going. You might be away by day or night
+without exciting curiosity or comment. And yet you were conscious of
+a certain something always there, holding the house together; some
+principle of life, or perhaps—just a woman in blue. There, too, was
+that strangest of all phenomena in an English home—no game ever played,
+outdoors or in.
+
+The next fortnight, while the grass was ripening, was a wonderful time
+for Nedda, given up to her single passion—of seeing more of him who so
+completely occupied her heart. She was at peace now with Sheila, whose
+virility forbade that she should dispute pride of place with this soft
+and truthful guest, so evidently immersed in rapture. Besides, Nedda had
+that quality of getting on well with her own sex, found in those women
+who, though tenacious, are not possessive; who, though humble, are
+secretly very self-respecting; who, though they do not say much about
+it, put all their eggs in one basket; above all, who disengage, no
+matter what their age, a candid but subtle charm.
+
+But that fortnight was even more wonderful for Derek, caught between two
+passions—both so fervid. For though the passion of his revolt against
+the Mallorings did not pull against his passion for Nedda, they both
+tugged at him. And this had one curious psychological effect. It made
+his love for Nedda more actual, less of an idealization. Now that she
+was close to him, under the same roof, he felt the full allurement of
+her innocent warmth; he would have been cold-blooded indeed if he had
+not taken fire, and, his pride always checking the expression of his
+feelings, they glowed ever hotter underneath.
+
+Yet, over those sunshiny days there hung a shadow, as of something kept
+back, not shared between them; a kind of waiting menace. Nedda learned
+of Kirsteen and Sheila all the useful things she could; the evenings she
+passed with Derek, those long evenings of late May and early June, this
+year so warm and golden. They walked generally in the direction of the
+hills. A favorite spot was a wood of larches whose green shoots had not
+yet quite ceased to smell of lemons. Tall, slender things those trees,
+whose stems and dried lower branch-growth were gray, almost sooty, up
+to the feathery green of the tops, that swayed and creaked faintly in a
+wind, with a soughing of their branches like the sound of the sea.
+From the shelter of those Highland trees, rather strange in such
+a countryside, they two could peer forth at the last sunlight
+gold-powdering the fringed branches, at the sunset flush dyeing the
+sky above the Beacon; watch light slowly folding gray wings above
+the hay-fields and the elms; mark the squirrels scurry along, and the
+pigeons' evening flight. A stream ran there at the edge, and beech-trees
+grew beside it. In the tawny-dappled sand bed of that clear water,
+and the gray-green dappled trunks of those beeches with their great,
+sinuous, long-muscled roots, was that something which man can never tame
+or garden out of the land: the strength of unconquerable fertility—the
+remote deep life in Nature's heart. Men and women had their spans of
+existence; those trees seemed as if there forever! From generation to
+generation lovers might come and, looking on this strength and beauty,
+feel in their veins the sap of the world. Here the laborer and his
+master, hearing the wind in the branches and the water murmuring down,
+might for a brief minute grasp the land's unchangeable wild majesty.
+And on the far side of that little stream was a field of moon-colored
+flowers that had for Nedda a strange fascination. Once the boy jumped
+across and brought her back a handkerchief full. They were of two kinds:
+close to the water's edge the marsh orchis, and farther back, a small
+marguerite. Out of this they made a crown of the alternate flowers, and
+a girdle for her waist. That was an evening of rare beauty, and warm
+enough already for an early chafer to go blooming in the dusk. An
+evening when they wandered with their arms round each other a long time,
+silent, stopping to listen to an owl; stopping to point out each star
+coming so shyly up in the gray-violet of the sky. And that was the
+evening when they had a strange little quarrel, sudden as a white squall
+on a blue sea, or the tiff of two birds shooting up in a swift spiral of
+attack and then—all over. Would he come to-morrow to see her milking?
+He could not. Why? He could not; he would be out. Ah! he never told her
+where he went; he never let her come with him among the laborers like
+Sheila.
+
+“I can't; I'm pledged not.”
+
+“Then you don't trust me!”
+
+“Of course I trust you; but a promise is a promise. You oughtn't to ask
+me, Nedda.”
+
+“No; but I would never have promised to keep anything from you.”
+
+“You don't understand.”
+
+“Oh! yes, I do. Love doesn't mean the same to you that it does to me.”
+
+“How do you know what it means to me?”
+
+“I couldn't have a secret from you.”
+
+“Then you don't count honour.”
+
+“Honour only binds oneself!”
+
+“What d'you mean by that?”
+
+“I include you—you don't include me in yourself, that's all.”
+
+“I think you're very unjust. I was obliged to promise; it doesn't only
+concern myself.”
+
+Then silent, motionless, a yard apart, they looked fiercely at each
+other, their hearts stiff and sore, and in their brains no glimmer of
+perception of anything but tragedy. What more tragic than to have
+come out of an elysium of warm arms round each other, to this sudden
+hostility! And the owl went on hooting, and the larches smelled sweet!
+And all around was the same soft dusk wherein the flowers in her hair
+and round her waist gleamed white! But for Nedda the world had suddenly
+collapsed. Tears rushed into her eyes; she shook her head and turned
+away, hiding them passionately.... A full minute passed, each straining
+to make no sound and catch the faintest sound from the other, till
+in her breathing there was a little clutch. His fingers came stealing
+round, touched her cheeks, and were wetted. His arms suddenly squeezed
+all breath out of her; his lips fastened on hers. She answered those
+lips with her own desperately, bending her head back, shutting her wet
+eyes. And the owl hooted, and the white flowers fell into the dusk off
+her hair and waist.
+
+After that, they walked once more enlaced, avoiding with what perfect
+care any allusion to the sudden tragedy, giving themselves up to the
+bewildering ecstasy that had started throbbing in their blood with that
+kiss, longing only not to spoil it. And through the sheltering larch
+wood their figures moved from edge to edge, like two little souls in
+paradise, unwilling to come forth.
+
+After that evening love had a poignancy it had not quite had before; at
+once deeper, sweeter, tinged for both of them with the rich darkness of
+passion, and with discovery that love does not mean a perfect merger
+of one within another. For both felt themselves in the right over that
+little quarrel. The boy that he could not, must not, resign what was
+not his to resign; feeling dimly, without being quite able to shape the
+thought even to himself, that a man has a life of action into which a
+woman cannot always enter, with which she cannot always be identified.
+The girl feeling that she did not want any life into which he did not
+enter, so that it was hard that he should want to exclude her from
+anything. For all that, she did not try again to move him to let her
+into the secret of his plans of revolt and revenge, and disdained
+completely to find them out from Sheila or her aunt.
+
+And the grass went on ripening. Many and various as the breeds of men,
+or the trees of a forest, were the stalks that made up that greenish
+jungle with the waving, fawn-colored surface; of rye-grass and
+brome-grass, of timothy, plantain, and yarrow; of bent-grass and
+quake-grass, foxtail, and the green-hearted trefoil; of dandelion, dock,
+musk-thistle, and sweet-scented vernal.
+
+On the 10th of June Tod began cutting his three fields; the whole
+family, with Nedda and the three Tryst children, working like slaves.
+Old Gaunt, who looked to the harvests to clothe him for the year, came
+to do his share of raking, and any other who could find some evening
+hours to spare. The whole was cut and carried in three days of glorious
+weather.
+
+The lovers were too tired the last evening of hay harvest to go
+rambling, and sat in the orchard watching the moon slide up through the
+coppice behind the church. They sat on Tod's log, deliciously weary, in
+the scent of the new-mown hay, while moths flitted gray among the blue
+darkness of the leaves, and the whitened trunks of the apple-trees
+gleamed ghostly. It was very warm; a night of whispering air, opening
+all hearts. And Derek said:
+
+“You'll know to-morrow, Nedda.”
+
+A flutter of fear overtook her. What would she know?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+On the 13th of June Sir Gerald Malloring, returning home to dinner from
+the House of Commons, found on his hall table, enclosed in a letter from
+his agent, the following paper:
+
+“We, the undersigned laborers on Sir Gerald Malloring's estate, beg
+respectfully to inform him that we consider it unjust that any laborer
+should be evicted from his cottage for any reason connected with private
+life, or social or political convictions. And we respectfully demand
+that, before a laborer receives notice to quit for any such reason, the
+case shall be submitted to all his fellow laborers on the estate; and
+that in the future he shall only receive such notice if a majority of
+his fellow laborers record their votes in favor of the notice being
+given. In the event of this demand being refused, we regretfully
+decline to take any hand in getting in the hay on Sir Gerald Malloring's
+estate.”
+
+Then followed ninety-three signatures, or signs of the cross with names
+printed after them.
+
+The agent's letter which enclosed this document mentioned that the hay
+was already ripe for cutting; that everything had been done to induce
+the men to withdraw the demand, without success, and that the farmers
+were very much upset. The thing had been sprung on them, the agent
+having no notion that anything of the sort was on foot. It had been very
+secretly, very cleverly, managed; and, in the agent's opinion, was due
+to Mr. Freeland's family. He awaited Sir Gerald's instructions. Working
+double tides, with luck and good weather, the farmers and their families
+might perhaps save half of the hay.
+
+Malloring read this letter twice, and the enclosure three times, and
+crammed them deep down into his pocket.
+
+It was pre-eminently one of those moments which bring out the qualities
+of Norman blood. And the first thing he did was to look at the
+barometer. It was going slowly down. After a month of first-class
+weather it would not do that without some sinister intention. An old
+glass, he believed in it implicitly. He tapped, and it sank further. He
+stood there frowning. Should he consult his wife? General friendliness
+said: Yes! A Norman instinct of chivalry, and perhaps the deeper Norman
+instinct, that, when it came to the point, women were too violent,
+said, No! He went up-stairs three at a time, and came down two. And all
+through dinner he sat thinking it over, and talking as if nothing had
+happened; so that he hardly spoke. Three-quarters of the hay at stake,
+if it rained soon! A big loss to the farmers, a further reduction in
+rents already far too low. Should he grin and bear it, and by doing
+nothing show these fellows that he could afford to despise their
+cowardly device? For it WAS cowardly to let his grass get ripe and play
+it this low trick! But if he left things unfought this time, they would
+try it on again with the corn—not that there was much of that on the
+estate of a man who only believed in corn as a policy.
+
+Should he make the farmers sack the lot and get in other labor? But
+where? Agricultural laborers were made, not born. And it took a deuce
+of a lot of making, at that! Should he suspend wages till they withdrew
+their demand? That might do—but he would still lose the hay. The hay!
+After all, anybody, pretty well, could make hay; it was the least
+skilled of all farm work, so long as the farmers were there to drive
+the machines and direct. Why not act vigorously? And his jaws set so
+suddenly on a piece of salmon that he bit his tongue. The action served
+to harden a growing purpose. So do small events influence great! Suspend
+those fellows' wages, get down strike-breakers, save the hay! And if
+there were a row—well, let there be a row! The constabulary would have
+to act. It was characteristic of his really Norman spirit that the
+notion of agreeing to the demand, or even considering whether it were
+just, never once came into his mind. He was one of those, comprising
+nowadays nearly all his class, together with their press, who
+habitually referred to his country as a democratic power, a champion of
+democracy—but did not at present suspect the meaning of the word; nor,
+to say truth, was it likely they ever would. Nothing, however, made him
+more miserable than indecision. And so, now that he was on the point
+of deciding, and the decision promised vigorous consequences, he felt
+almost elated. Closing his jaws once more too firmly, this time on lamb,
+he bit his tongue again. It was impossible to confess what he had done,
+for two of his children were there, expected to eat with that well-bred
+detachment which precludes such happenings; and he rose from dinner with
+his mind made up. Instead of going back to the House of Commons, he went
+straight to a strike-breaking agency. No grass should grow under the
+feet of his decision! Thence he sought the one post-office still open,
+despatched a long telegram to his agent, another to the chief constable
+of Worcestershire; and, feeling he had done all he could for the moment,
+returned to the 'House,' where they were debating the rural housing
+question. He sat there, paying only moderate attention to a subject on
+which he was acknowledged an authority. To-morrow, in all probability,
+the papers would have got hold of the affair! How he loathed people
+poking their noses into his concerns! And suddenly he was assailed, very
+deep down, by a feeling with which in his firmness he had not reckoned—a
+sort of remorse that he was going to let a lot of loafing blackguards
+down onto his land, to toss about his grass, and swill their beastly
+beer above it. And all the real love he had for his fields and coverts,
+all the fastidiousness of an English gentleman, and, to do him justice,
+the qualms of a conscience telling him that he owed better things than
+this to those born on his estate, assaulted him in force. He sat back
+in his seat, driving his long legs hard against the pew in front. His
+thick, wavy, still brown hair was beautifully parted above the square
+brow that frowned over deep-set eyes and a perfectly straight nose. Now
+and again he bit into a side of his straw-colored moustache, or raised a
+hand and twisted the other side. Without doubt one of the handsomest and
+perhaps the most Norman-looking man in the whole 'House.' There was a
+feeling among those round him that he was thinking deeply. And so he
+was. But he had decided, and he was not a man who went back on his
+decisions.
+
+Morning brought even worse sensations. Those ruffians that he had
+ordered down—the farmers would never consent to put them up! They would
+have to camp. Camp on his land! It was then that for two seconds the
+thought flashed through him: Ought I to have considered whether I could
+agree to that demand? Gone in another flash. If there was one thing
+a man could not tolerate, it was dictation! Out of the question! But
+perhaps he had been a little hasty about strike-breakers. Was there
+not still time to save the situation from that, if he caught the first
+train? The personal touch was everything. If he put it to the men on the
+spot, with these strike-breakers up his sleeve, surely they must listen!
+After all, they were his own people. And suddenly he was overcome with
+amazement that they should have taken such a step. What had got into
+them? Spiritless enough, as a rule, in all conscience; the sort of
+fellows who hadn't steam even to join the miniature rifle-range that he
+had given them! And visions of them, as he was accustomed to pass them
+in the lanes, slouching along with their straw bags, their hoes, and
+their shamefaced greetings, passed before him. Yes! It was all that
+fellow Freeland's family! The men had been put up to it—put up to it!
+The very wording of their demand showed that! Very bitterly he
+thought of the unneighborly conduct of that woman and her cubs. It was
+impossible to keep it from his wife! And so he told her. Rather to his
+surprise, she had no scruples about the strike-breakers. Of course,
+the hay must be saved! And the laborers be taught a lesson! All the
+unpleasantness he and she had gone through over Tryst and that Gaunt
+girl must not go for nothing! It must never be said or thought that the
+Freeland woman and her children had scored over them! If the lesson were
+once driven home, they would have no further trouble.
+
+He admired her firmness, though with a certain impatience. Women
+never quite looked ahead; never quite realized all the consequences of
+anything. And he thought: 'By George! I'd no idea she was so hard! But,
+then, she always felt more strongly about Tryst and that Gaunt girl than
+I did.'
+
+In the hall the glass was still going down. He caught the 9.15, wiring
+to his agent to meet him at the station, and to the impresario of the
+strike-breakers to hold up their departure until he telegraphed. The
+three-mile drive up from the station, fully half of which was through
+his own land, put him in possession of all the agent had to tell: Nasty
+spirit abroad—men dumb as fishes—the farmers, puzzled and angry, had
+begun cutting as best they could. Not a man had budged. He had seen
+young Mr. and Miss Freeland going about. The thing had been worked very
+cleverly. He had suspected nothing—utterly unlike the laborers as he
+knew them. They had no real grievance, either! Yes, they were going on
+with all their other work—milking, horses, and that; it was only the hay
+they wouldn't touch. Their demand was certainly a very funny one—very
+funny—had never heard of anything like it. Amounted almost to security
+of tenure. The Tryst affair no doubt had done it! Malloring cut him
+short:
+
+“Till they've withdrawn this demand, Simmons, I can't discuss that or
+anything.”
+
+The agent coughed behind his hand.
+
+Naturally! Only perhaps there might be a way of wording it that would
+satisfy them. Never do to really let them have such decisions in their
+hands, of course!
+
+They were just passing Tod's. The cottage wore its usual air of
+embowered peace. And for the life of him Malloring could not restrain a
+gesture of annoyance.
+
+On reaching home he sent gardeners and grooms in all directions with
+word that he would be glad to meet the men at four o'clock at the home
+farm. Much thought, and interviews with several of the farmers, who
+all but one—a shaky fellow at best—were for giving the laborers a sharp
+lesson, occupied the interval. Though he had refused to admit the notion
+that the men could be chicaned, as his agent had implied, he certainly
+did wonder a little whether a certain measure of security might not in
+some way be guaranteed, which would still leave him and the farmers a
+free hand. But the more he meditated on the whole episode, the more he
+perceived how intimately it interfered with the fundamental policy of
+all good landowners—of knowing what was good for their people better
+than those people knew themselves.
+
+As four o'clock approached, he walked down to the home farm. The sky was
+lightly overcast, and a rather chill, draughty, rustling wind had risen.
+Resolved to handle the men with the personal touch, he had discouraged
+his agent and the farmers from coming to the conference, and passed the
+gate with the braced-up feeling of one who goes to an encounter. In
+that very spick-and-span farmyard ducks were swimming leisurely on the
+greenish pond, white pigeons strutting and preening on the eaves of the
+barn, and his keen eye noted that some tiles were out of order up there.
+Four o'clock! Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped
+his hands that were buried in his pockets, and ran over to himself
+his opening words. Then, with a sensation of disgust, he saw that the
+advancing laborer was that incorrigible 'land lawyer' Gaunt. The
+short, square man with the ruffled head and the little bright-gray eyes
+saluted, uttered an “Afternoon, Sir Gerald!” in his teasing voice, and
+stood still. His face wore the jeering twinkle that had disconcerted
+so many political meetings. Two lean fellows, rather alike, with lined
+faces and bitten, drooped moustaches, were the next to come through the
+yard gate. They halted behind Gaunt, touching their forelocks, shuffling
+a little, and looking sidelong at each other. And Malloring waited. Five
+past four! Ten past! Then he said:
+
+“D'you mind telling the others that I'm here?”
+
+Gaunt answered:
+
+“If so be as you was waitin' for the meetin', I fancy as 'ow you've got
+it, Sir Gerald!”
+
+A wave of anger surged up in Malloring, dyeing his face brick-red. So!
+He had come all that way with the best intentions—to be treated like
+this; to meet this 'land lawyer,' who, he could see, was only here to
+sharpen his tongue, and those two scarecrow-looking chaps, who had come
+to testify, no doubt, to his discomfiture. And he said sharply:
+
+“So that's the best you can do to meet me, is it?”
+
+Gaunt answered imperturbably:
+
+“I think it is, Sir Gerald.”
+
+“Then you've mistaken your man.”
+
+“I don't think so, Sir Gerald.”
+
+Without another look Malloring passed the three by, and walked back to
+the house. In the hall was the agent, whose face clearly showed that he
+had foreseen this defeat. Malloring did not wait for him to speak.
+
+“Make arrangements. The strike-breakers will be down by noon to-morrow.
+I shall go through with it now, Simmons, if I have to clear the whole
+lot out. You'd better go in and see that they're ready to send police if
+there's any nonsense. I'll be down again in a day or two.” And, without
+waiting for reply, he passed into his study. There, while the car was
+being got ready, he stood in the window, very sore; thinking of what he
+had meant to do; thinking of his good intentions; thinking of what was
+coming to the country, when a man could not even get his laborers to
+come and hear what he had to say. And a sense of injustice, of anger, of
+bewilderment, harrowed his very soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+For the first two days of this new 'kick-up,' that 'fellow Freeland's'
+family undoubtedly tasted the sweets of successful mutiny. The fellow
+himself alone shook his head. He, like Nedda, had known nothing, and
+there was to him something unnatural and rather awful in this conduct
+toward dumb crops.
+
+From the moment he heard of it he hardly spoke, and a perpetual little
+frown creased a brow usually so serene. In the early morning of the day
+after Malloring went back to town, he crossed the road to a field where
+the farmer, aided by his family and one of Malloring's gardeners, was
+already carrying the hay; and, taking up a pitchfork, without a word to
+anybody, he joined in the work. The action was deeper revelation of his
+feeling than any expostulation, and the young people watched it rather
+aghast.
+
+“It's nothing,” Derek said at last; “Father never has understood, and
+never will, that you can't get things without fighting. He cares more
+for trees and bees and birds than he does for human beings.”
+
+“That doesn't explain why he goes over to the enemy, when it's only a
+lot of grass.”
+
+Kirsteen answered:
+
+“He hasn't gone over to the enemy, Sheila. You don't understand your
+father; to neglect the land is sacrilege to him. It feeds us—he would
+say—we live on it; we've no business to forget that but for the land we
+should all be dead.”
+
+“That's beautiful,” said Nedda quickly; “and true.”
+
+Sheila answered angrily:
+
+“It may be true in France with their bread and wine. People don't live
+off the land here; they hardly eat anything they grow themselves.
+How can we feel like that when we're all brought up on mongrel food?
+Besides, it's simply sentimental, when there are real wrongs to fight
+about.”
+
+“Your father is not sentimental, Sheila. It's too deep with him for
+that, and too unconscious. He simply feels so unhappy about the waste of
+that hay that he can't keep his hands off it.”
+
+Derek broke in: “Mother's right. And it doesn't matter, except that
+we've got to see that the men don't follow his example. They've a funny
+feeling about him.”
+
+Kirsteen shook her head.
+
+“You needn't be afraid. He's always been too strange to them!”
+
+“Well, I'm going to stiffen their backs. Coming Sheila?” And they went.
+
+Left, as she seemed always to be in these days of open mutiny, Nedda
+said sadly:
+
+“What is coming, Aunt Kirsteen?”
+
+Her aunt was standing in the porch, looking straight before her; a trail
+of clematis had drooped over her fine black hair down on to the blue of
+her linen dress. She answered, without turning:
+
+“Have you ever seen, on jubilee nights, bonfire to bonfire, from hill to
+hill, to the end of the land? This is the first lighted.”
+
+Nedda felt something clutch her heart. What was that figure in blue?
+Priestess? Prophetess? And for a moment the girl felt herself swept into
+the vision those dark glowing eyes were seeing; some violent, exalted,
+inexorable, flaming vision. Then something within her revolted, as
+though one had tried to hypnotize her into seeing what was not true;
+as though she had been forced for the moment to look, not at what was
+really there, but at what those eyes saw projected from the soul behind
+them. And she said quietly:
+
+“I don't believe, Aunt Kirsteen. I don't really believe. I think it must
+go out.”
+
+Kirsteen turned.
+
+“You are like your father,” she said—“a doubter.”
+
+Nedda shook her head.
+
+“I can't persuade myself to see what isn't there. I never can, Aunt
+Kirsteen.”
+
+Without reply, save a quiver of her brows, Kirsteen went back into the
+house. And Nedda stayed on the pebbled path before the cottage, unhappy,
+searching her own soul. Did she fail to see because she was afraid to
+see, because she was too dull to see; or because, as she had said, there
+was really nothing there—no flames to leap from hill to hill, no
+lift, no tearing in the sky that hung over the land? And she thought:
+'London—all those big towns, their smoke, the things they make, the
+things we want them to make, that we shall always want them to make.
+Aren't they there? For every laborer who's a slave Dad says there are
+five town workers who are just as much slaves! And all those Bigwigs
+with their great houses, and their talk, and their interest in keeping
+things where they are! Aren't they there? I don't—I can't believe
+anything much can happen, or be changed. Oh! I shall never see visions,
+and dream dreams!' And from her heart she sighed.
+
+In the meantime Derek and Sheila were going their round on bicycles, to
+stiffen the backs of the laborers. They had hunted lately, always in
+a couple, desiring no complications, having decided that it was less
+likely to provoke definite assault and opposition from the farmers. To
+their mother was assigned all correspondence; to themselves the verbal
+exhortations, the personal touch. It was past noon, and they were
+already returning, when they came on the char-a-bancs containing the
+head of the strike-breaking column. The two vehicles were drawn up
+opposite the gate leading to Marrow Farm, and the agent was detaching
+the four men destined to that locality, with their camping-gear. By
+the open gate the farmer stood eying his new material askance. Dejected
+enough creatures they looked—poor devils picked up at ten pound the
+dozen, who, by the mingled apathy and sheepish amusement on their faces,
+might never have seen a pitchfork, or smelled a field of clover, in
+their lives.
+
+The two young Freelands rode slowly past; the boy's face scornfully
+drawn back into itself; the girl's flaming scarlet.
+
+“Don't take notice,” Derek said; “we'll soon stop that.”
+
+And they had gone another mile before he added:
+
+“We've got to make our round again; that's all.”
+
+The words of Mr. Pogram, 'You have influence, young man,' were just.
+There was about Derek the sort of quality that belongs to the good
+regimental officer; men followed and asked themselves why the devil
+they had, afterward. And if it be said that no worse leader than a fiery
+young fool can be desired for any movement, it may also be said that
+without youth and fire and folly there is usually no movement at all.
+
+Late in the afternoon they returned home, dead beat. That evening
+the farmers and their wives milked the cows, tended the horses, did
+everything that must be done, not without curses. And next morning the
+men, with Gaunt and a big, dark fellow, called Tulley, for spokesmen,
+again proffered their demand. The agent took counsel with Malloring by
+wire. His answer, “Concede nothing,” was communicated to the men in the
+afternoon, and received by Gaunt with the remark: “I thart we should
+be hearin' that. Please to thank Sir Gerald. The men concedes their
+gratitood....”
+
+That night it began to rain. Nedda, waking, could hear the heavy drops
+pattering on the sweetbrier and clematis thatching her open window. The
+scent of rain-cooled leaves came in drifts, and it seemed a shame to
+sleep. She got up; put on her dressing-gown, and went to thrust her nose
+into that bath of dripping sweetness. Dark as the clouds had made the
+night, there was still the faint light of a moon somewhere behind. The
+leaves of the fruit-trees joined in the long, gentle hissing, and now
+and again rustled and sighed sharply; a cock somewhere, as by accident,
+let off a single crow. There were no stars. All was dark and soft as
+velvet. And Nedda thought: 'The world is dressed in living creatures!
+Trees, flowers, grass, insects, ourselves—woven together—the world is
+dressed in life! I understand Uncle Tod's feeling! If only it would rain
+till they have to send these strike-breakers back because there's no hay
+worth fighting about!' Suddenly her heart beat fast. The wicket gate had
+clicked. There was something darker than the darkness coming along the
+path! Scared, but with all protective instinct roused, she leaned out,
+straining to see. A faint grating sound from underneath came up to her.
+A window being opened! And she flew to her door. She neither barred it,
+however, nor cried out, for in that second it had flashed across her:
+'Suppose it's he! Gone out to do something desperate, as Tryst did!' If
+it were, he would come up-stairs and pass her door, going to his room.
+She opened it an inch, holding her breath. At first, nothing! Was it
+fancy? Or was some one noiselessly rifling the room down-stairs? But
+surely no one would steal of Uncle Tod, who, everybody knew, had nothing
+valuable. Then came a sound as of bootless feet pressing the stairs
+stealthily! And the thought darted through her, 'If it isn't he, what
+shall I do?' And then—'What shall I do—if it IS!'
+
+Desperately she opened the door, clasping her hands on the place whence
+her heart had slipped down to her bare feet. But she knew it was he
+before she heard him whisper: “Nedda!” and, clutching him by the sleeve,
+she drew him in and closed the door. He was wet through, dripping; so
+wet that the mere brushing against him made her skin feel moist through
+its thin coverings.
+
+“Where have you been? What have you been doing? Oh, Derek!”
+
+There was just light enough to see his face, his teeth, the whites of
+his eyes.
+
+“Cutting their tent-ropes in the rain. Hooroosh!”
+
+It was such a relief that she just let out a little gasping “Oh!” and
+leaned her forehead against his coat. Then she felt his wet arms round
+her, his wet body pressed to hers, and in a second he was dancing with
+her a sort of silent, ecstatic war dance. Suddenly he stopped, went down
+on his knees, pressing his face to her waist, and whispering: “What a
+brute, what a brute! Making her wet! Poor little Nedda!”
+
+Nedda bent over him; her hair covered his wet head, her hands trembled
+on his shoulders. Her heart felt as if it would melt right out of her;
+she longed so to warm and dry him with herself. And, in turn, his wet
+arms clutched her close, his wet hands could not keep still on her. Then
+he drew back, and whispering: “Oh, Nedda! Nedda!” fled out like a
+dark ghost. Oblivious that she was damp from head to foot, Nedda stood
+swaying, her eyes closed and her lips just open; then, putting out her
+arms, she drew them suddenly in and clasped herself....
+
+When she came down to breakfast the next morning, he had gone out
+already, and Uncle Tod, too; her aunt was writing at the bureau. Sheila
+greeted her gruffly, and almost at once went out. Nedda swallowed
+coffee, ate her egg, and bread and honey, with a heavy heart. A
+newspaper lay open on the table; she read it idly till these words
+caught her eye:
+
+“The revolt which has paralyzed the hay harvest on Sir Gerald
+Malloring's Worcestershire estate and led to the introduction of
+strike-breakers, shows no sign of abatement. A very wanton spirit of
+mischief seems to be abroad in this neighborhood. No reason can be
+ascertained for the arson committed a short time back, nor for this
+further outbreak of discontent. The economic condition of the laborers
+on this estate is admittedly rather above than below the average.”
+
+And at once she thought: '“Mischief!” What a shame!' Were people, then,
+to know nothing of the real cause of the revolt—nothing of the Tryst
+eviction, the threatened eviction of the Gaunts? Were they not to know
+that it was on principle, and to protest against that sort of petty
+tyranny to the laborers all over the country, that this rebellion had
+been started? For liberty! only simple liberty not to be treated as
+though they had no minds or souls of their own—weren't the public
+to know that? If they were allowed to think that it was all wanton
+mischief—that Derek was just a mischief-maker—it would be dreadful! Some
+one must write and make this known? Her father? But Dad might think
+it too personal—his own relations! Mr. Cuthcott! Into whose household
+Wilmet Gaunt had gone. Ah! Mr. Cuthcott who had told her that he was
+always at her service! Why not? And the thought that she might really
+do something at last to help made her tingle all over. If she borrowed
+Sheila's bicycle she could catch the nine-o'clock train to London, see
+him herself, make him do something, perhaps even bring him back with
+her! She examined her purse. Yes, she had money. She would say nothing,
+here, because, of course, he might refuse! At the back of her mind
+was the idea that, if a real newspaper took the part of the laborers,
+Derek's position would no longer be so dangerous; he would be, as it
+were, legally recognized, and that, in itself, would make him more
+careful and responsible. Whence she got this belief in the legalizing
+power of the press it is difficult to say, unless that, reading
+newspapers but seldom, she still took them at their own valuation, and
+thought that when they said: “We shall do this,” or “We must do that,”
+they really were speaking for the country, and that forty-five millions
+of people were deliberately going to do something, whereas, in truth,
+as was known to those older than Nedda, they were speaking, and not too
+conclusively at that, for single anonymous gentlemen in a hurry who
+were not going to do anything. She knew that the press had power, great
+power—for she was always hearing that—and it had not occurred to her
+as yet to examine the composition of that power so as to discover that,
+while the press certainly had a certain monopoly of expression, and
+that same 'spirit of body' which makes police constables swear by one
+another, it yet contained within its ring fence the sane and advisable
+futility of a perfectly balanced contradiction; so that its only
+functions, practically speaking, were the dissemination of news,
+seven-tenths of which would have been happier in obscurity;
+and—'irritation of the Dutch!' Not, of course, that the press realized
+this; nor was it probable that any one would tell it, for it had
+power—great power.
+
+She caught her train—glowing outwardly from the speed of her ride, and
+inwardly from the heat of adventure and the thought that at last she was
+being of some use.
+
+The only other occupants of her third-class compartment were a friendly
+looking man, who might have been a sailor or other wanderer on leave,
+and his thin, dried-up, black-clothed cottage woman of an old mother.
+They sat opposite each other. The son looked at his mother with beaming
+eyes, and she remarked: “An' I says to him, says I, I says, 'What?' I
+says; so 'e says to me, he says, 'Yes,' he says; 'that's what I say,' he
+says.” And Nedda thought: 'What an old dear! And the son looks nice too;
+I do like simple people.'
+
+They got out at the first stop and she journeyed on alone. Taking a
+taxicab from Paddington, she drove toward Gray's Inn. But now that she
+was getting close she felt very nervous. How expect a busy man like Mr.
+Cuthcott to spare time to come down all that way? It would be something,
+though, if she could get him even to understand what was really
+happening, and why; so that he could contradict that man in the other
+paper. It must be wonderful to be writing, daily, what thousands and
+thousands of people read! Yes! It must be a very sacred-feeling life! To
+be able to say things in that particularly authoritative way which must
+take such a lot of people in—that is, make such a lot of people think
+in the same way! It must give a man a terrible sense of responsibility,
+make him feel that he simply must be noble, even if he naturally wasn't.
+Yes! it must be a wonderful profession, and only fit for the highest! In
+addition to Mr. Cuthcott, she knew as yet but three young journalists,
+and those all weekly.
+
+At her timid ring the door was opened by a broad-cheeked girl,
+enticingly compact in apron and black frock, whose bright color, thick
+lips, and rogue eyes came of anything but London. It flashed across
+Nedda that this must be the girl for whose sake she had faced Mr.
+Cuthcott at the luncheon-table! And she said: “Are you Wilmet Gaunt?”
+
+The girl smiled till her eyes almost disappeared, and answered: “Yes,
+miss.”
+
+“I'm Nedda Freeland, Miss Sheila's cousin. I've just come from
+Joyfields. How are you getting on?”
+
+“Fine, thank you, miss. Plenty of life here.”
+
+Nedda thought: 'That's what Derek said of her. Bursting with life! And
+so she is.' And she gazed doubtfully at the girl, whose prim black dress
+and apron seemed scarcely able to contain her.
+
+“Is Mr. Cuthcott in?”
+
+“No, miss; he'll be down at the paper. Two hundred and five Floodgate
+Street.”
+
+'Oh!' thought Nedda with dismay; 'I shall never venture there!' And
+glancing once more at the girl, whose rogue slits of eyes, deep sunk
+between check-bones and brow, seemed to be quizzing her and saying: 'You
+and Mr. Derek—oh! I know!' she went sadly away. And first she thought
+she would go home to Hampstead, then that she would go back to the
+station, then: 'After all, why shouldn't I go and try? They can't eat
+me. I will!'
+
+She reached her destination at the luncheon-hour, so that the offices
+of the great evening journal were somewhat deserted. Producing her
+card, she was passed from hand to hand till she rested in a small bleak
+apartment where a young woman was typing fast. She longed to ask her
+how she liked it, but did not dare. The whole atmosphere seemed to her
+charged with a strenuous solemnity, as though everything said, 'We have
+power—great power.' And she waited, sitting by the window which faced
+the street. On the buildings opposite she could read the name of another
+great evening journal. Why, it was the one which had contained the
+paragraph she had read at breakfast! She had bought a copy of it at the
+station. Its temperament, she knew, was precisely opposed to that of
+Mr. Cuthcott's paper. Over in that building, no doubt there would be the
+same strenuously loaded atmosphere, so that if they opened the windows
+on both sides little puffs of power would meet in mid-air, above the
+heads of the passers-by, as might the broadsides of old three-deckers,
+above the green, green sea.
+
+And for the first time an inkling of the great comic equipoise in
+Floodgate Street and human affairs stole on Nedda's consciousness. They
+puffed and puffed, and only made smoke in the middle! That must be why
+Dad always called them: 'Those fellows!' She had scarcely, however,
+finished beginning to think these thoughts when a handbell sounded
+sharply in some adjoining room, and the young woman nearly fell into her
+typewriter. Readjusting her balance, she rose, and, going to the door,
+passed out in haste. Through the open doorway Nedda could see a large
+and pleasant room, whose walls seemed covered with prints of men
+standing in attitudes such that she was almost sure they were statesmen;
+and, at a table in the centre, the back of Mr. Cuthcott in a twiddly
+chair, surrounded by sheets of paper reposing on the floor, shining
+like autumn leaves on a pool of water. She heard his voice, smothery,
+hurried, but still pleasant, say: “Take these, Miss Mayne, take these!
+Begin on them, begin! Confound it! What's the time?” And the young
+woman's voice: “Half past one, Mr. Cuthcott!” And a noise from Mr.
+Cuthcott's throat that sounded like an adjuration to the Deity not to
+pass over something. Then the young woman dipped and began gathering
+those leaves of paper, and over her comely back Nedda had a clear view
+of Mr. Cuthcott hunching one brown shoulder as though warding something
+off, and of one of his thin hands ploughing up and throwing back his
+brown hair on one side, and heard the sound of his furiously scratching
+pen. And her heart pattered; it was so clear that he was 'giving them
+one' and had no time for her. And involuntarily she looked at the
+windows beyond him to see if there were any puffs of power issuing
+therefrom. But they were closed. She saw the young woman rise and come
+back toward her, putting the sheets of paper in order; and, as the door
+was closing, from the twiddly chair a noise that seemed to couple God
+with the condemnation of silly souls. When the young woman was once more
+at the typewriter she rose and said: “Have you given him my card yet?”
+
+The young woman looked at her surprised, as if she had broken some rule
+of etiquette, and answered: “No.”
+
+“Then don't, please. I can see that he's too busy. I won't wait.”
+
+The young woman abstractedly placed a sheet of paper in her typewriter.
+
+“Very well,” she said. “Good morning!”
+
+And before Nedda reached the door she heard the click-click of the
+machine, reducing Mr. Cuthcott to legibility.
+
+'I was stupid to come,' she thought. 'He must be terribly overworked.
+Poor man! He does say lovely things!' And, crestfallen, she went along
+the passages, and once more out into Floodgate Street. She walked along
+it frowning, till a man who was selling newspapers said as she passed:
+“Mind ye don't smile, lydy!”
+
+Seeing that he was selling Mr. Cuthcott's paper, she felt for a coin
+to buy one, and, while searching, scrutinized the newsvender's figure,
+almost entirely hidden by the words:
+
+      GREAT HOUSING SCHEME
+
+      HOPE FOR THE MILLION!
+
+on a buff-colored board; while above it, his face, that had not quite
+blood enough to be scorbutic, was wrapped in the expression of those
+philosophers to whom a hope would be fatal. He was, in fact, just what
+he looked—a street stoic. And a dim perception of the great social
+truth: “The smell of half a loaf is not better than no bread!” flickered
+in Nedda's brain as she passed on. Was that what Derek was doing with
+the laborers—giving them half the smell of a liberty that was not there?
+And a sudden craving for her father came over her. He—he only, was any
+good, because he, only, loved her enough to feel how distracted and
+unhappy she was feeling, how afraid of what was coming. So, making for a
+Tube station, she took train to Hampstead....
+
+It was past two, and Felix, on the point of his constitutional. He had
+left Becket the day after Nedda's rather startling removal to Joyfields,
+and since then had done his level best to put the whole Tryst affair,
+with all its somewhat sinister relevance to her life and his own, out of
+his mind as something beyond control. He had but imperfectly succeeded.
+
+Flora, herself not too present-minded, had in these days occasion to
+speak to him about the absent-minded way in which he fulfilled even the
+most domestic duties, and Alan was always saying to him, “Buck up, Dad!”
+With Nedda's absorption into the little Joyfields whirlpool, the sun
+shone but dimly for Felix. And a somewhat febrile attention to 'The Last
+of the Laborers' had not brought it up to his expectations. He fluttered
+under his buff waistcoat when he saw her coming in at the gate. She
+must want something of him! For to this pitch of resignation, as to his
+little daughter's love for him, had he come! And if she wanted something
+of him, things would be going wrong again down there! Nor did the warmth
+of her embrace, and her: “Oh! Dad, it IS nice to see you!” remove that
+instinctive conviction; though delicacy, born of love, forbade him to
+ask her what she wanted. Talking of the sky and other matters, thinking
+how pretty she was looking, he waited for the new, inevitable proof that
+youth was first, and a mere father only second fiddle now. A note
+from Stanley had already informed him of the strike. The news had been
+something of a relief. Strikes, at all events, were respectable and
+legitimate means of protest, and to hear that one was in progress had
+not forced him out of his laborious attempt to believe the whole affair
+only a mole-hill. He had not, however, heard of the strike-breakers, nor
+had he seen any newspaper mention of the matter; and when she had shown
+him the paragraph; recounted her visit to Mr. Cuthcott, and how she had
+wanted to take him back with her to see for himself—he waited a moment,
+then said almost timidly: “Should I be of any use, my dear?” She flushed
+and squeezed his hand in silence; and he knew he would.
+
+When he had packed a handbag and left a note for Flora, he rejoined her
+in the hall.
+
+It was past seven when they reached their destination, and, taking the
+station 'fly,' drove slowly up to Joyfields, under a showery sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+When Felix and Nedda reached Tod's cottage, the three little Trysts,
+whose activity could never be quite called play, were all the living
+creatures about the house.
+
+“Where is Mrs. Freeland, Biddy?”
+
+“We don't know; a man came, and she went.”
+
+“And Miss Sheila?”
+
+“She went out in the mornin'. And Mr. Freeland's gone.”
+
+Susie added: “The dog's gone, too.”
+
+“Then help me to get some tea.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+With the assistance of the mother-child, and the hindrance of Susie and
+Billy, Nedda made and laid tea, with an anxious heart. The absence of
+her aunt, who so seldom went outside the cottage, fields, and orchard,
+disturbed her; and, while Felix refreshed himself, she fluttered several
+times on varying pretexts to the wicket gate.
+
+At her third visit, from the direction of the church, she saw figures
+coming on the road—dark figures carrying something, followed by others
+walking alongside. What sun there had been had quite given in to heavy
+clouds; the light was dull, the elm-trees dark; and not till they were
+within two hundred yards could Nedda make out that these were figures
+of policemen. Then, alongside that which they were carrying, she saw her
+aunt's blue dress. WHAT were they carrying like that? She dashed down
+the steps, and stopped. No! If it were HE they would bring him in! She
+rushed back again, distracted. She could see now a form stretched on a
+hurdle. It WAS he!
+
+“Dad! Quick!”
+
+Felix came, startled at that cry, to find his little daughter on the
+path wringing her hands and flying back to the wicket gate. They were
+close now. She saw them begin to mount the steps, those behind raising
+their arms so that the hurdle should be level. Derek lay on his back,
+with head and forehead swathed in wet blue linen, torn from his mother's
+skirt; and the rest of his face very white. He lay quite still, his
+clothes covered with mud. Terrified, Nedda plucked at Kirsteen's sleeve.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Concussion!” The stillness of that blue-clothed figure, so calm beside
+her, gave her strength to say quietly:
+
+“Put him in my room, Aunt Kirsteen; there's more air there!” And she
+flew up-stairs, flinging wide her door, making the bed ready, snatching
+her night things from the pillow; pouring out cold water, sprinkling the
+air with eau de cologne. Then she stood still. Perhaps, they would not
+bring him there? Yes, they were coming up. They brought him in, and laid
+him on the bed. She heard one say: “Doctor'll be here directly, ma'am.
+Let him lie quiet.” Then she and his mother were alone beside him.
+
+“Undo his boots,” said Kirsteen.
+
+Nedda's fingers trembled, and she hated them for fumbling so, while she
+drew off those muddy boots. Then her aunt said softly: “Hold him up,
+dear, while I get his things off.”
+
+And, with a strange rapture that she was allowed to hold him thus, she
+supported him against her breast till he was freed and lying back inert.
+Then, and only then, she whispered:
+
+“How long before he—?”
+
+Kirsteen shook her head; and, slipping her arm round the girl, murmured:
+“Courage, Nedda!”
+
+The girl felt fear and love rush up desperately to overwhelm her. She
+choked them back, and said quite quietly: “I will. I promise. Only let
+me help nurse him!”
+
+Kirsteen nodded. And they sat down to wait.
+
+That quarter of an hour was the longest of her life. To see him thus,
+living, yet not living, with the spirit driven from him by a cruel blow,
+perhaps never to come back! Curious, how things still got themselves
+noticed when all her faculties were centred in gazing at his face. She
+knew that it was raining again; heard the swish and drip, and smelled
+the cool wet perfume through the scent of the eau de cologne that
+she had spilled. She noted her aunt's arm, as it hovered, wetting the
+bandage; the veins and rounded whiteness from under the loose blue
+sleeve slipped up to the elbow. One of his feet lay close to her at the
+bed's edge; she stole her hand beneath the sheet. That foot felt very
+cold, and she grasped it tight. If only she could pass life into
+him through her hot hand. She heard the ticking of her little
+travelling-clock, and was conscious of flies wheeling close up beneath
+the white ceiling, of how one by one they darted at each other, making
+swift zigzags in the air. And something in her she had not yet known
+came welling up, softening her eyes, her face, even the very pose of
+her young body—the hidden passion of a motherliness, that yearned so
+to 'kiss the place,' to make him well, to nurse and tend, restore and
+comfort him. And with all her might she watched the movements of those
+rounded arms under the blue sleeves—how firm and exact they were, how
+soft and quiet and swift, bathing the dark head! Then from beneath the
+bandage she caught sight suddenly of his eyes. And her heart turned
+sick. Oh, they were not quite closed! As if he hadn't life enough to
+close them! She bit into her lip to stop a cry. It was so terrible to
+see them without light. Why did not that doctor come? Over and over and
+over again within her the prayer turned: Let him live! Oh, let him live!
+
+The blackbirds out in the orchard were tuning up for evening. It seemed
+almost dreadful they should be able to sing like that. All the world was
+going on just the same! If he died, the world would have no more light
+for her than there was now in his poor eyes—and yet it would go on the
+same! How was that possible? It was not possible, because she would die
+too! She saw her aunt turn her head like a startled animal; some one was
+coming up the stairs! It was the doctor, wiping his wet face—a young man
+in gaiters. How young—dreadfully young! No; there was a little gray at
+the sides of his hair! What would he say? And Nedda sat with hands
+tight clenched in her lap, motionless as a young crouching sphinx. An
+interminable testing, and questioning, and answer! Never smoked—never
+drank—never been ill! The blow—ah, here! Just here! Concussion—yes! Then
+long staring into the eyes, the eyelids lifted between thumb and finger.
+And at last (how could he talk so loud! Yet it was a comfort too—he
+would not talk like that if Derek were going to die!)—Hair cut
+shorter—ice—watch him like a lynx! This and that, if he came to. Nothing
+else to be done. And then those blessed words:
+
+“But don't worry too much. I think it'll be all right.” She could not
+help a little sigh escaping her clenched teeth.
+
+The doctor was looking at her. His eyes were nice.
+
+“Sister?”
+
+“Cousin.”
+
+“Ah! Well, I'll get back now, and send you out some ice, at once.”
+
+More talk outside the door. Nedda, alone with her lover, crouched
+forward on her knees, and put her lips to his. They were not so cold
+as his foot, and the first real hope and comfort came to her. Watch him
+like a lynx—wouldn't she? But how had it all happened? And where was
+Sheila? and Uncle Tod?
+
+Her aunt had come back and was stroking her shoulder. There had been
+fighting in the barn at Marrow Farm. They had arrested Sheila. Derek had
+jumped down to rescue her and struck his head against a grindstone. Her
+uncle had gone with Sheila. They would watch, turn and turn about. Nedda
+must go now and eat something, and get ready to take the watch from
+eight to midnight.
+
+Following her resolve to make no fuss, the girl went out. The police had
+gone. The mother-child was putting her little folk to bed; and in the
+kitchen Felix was arranging the wherewithal to eat. He made her sit down
+and kept handing things; watching like a cat to see that she put them
+in her mouth, in the way from which only Flora had suffered hitherto; he
+seemed so anxious and unhappy, and so awfully sweet, that Nedda forced
+herself to swallow what she thought would never go down a dry and choky
+throat. He kept coming up and touching her shoulder or forehead. Once he
+said:
+
+“It's all right, you know, my pet; concussion often takes two days.”
+
+Two days with his eyes like that! The consolation was not so vivid as
+Felix might have wished; but she quite understood that he was doing his
+best to give it. She suddenly remembered that he had no room to sleep
+in. He must use Derek's. No! That, it appeared, was to be for her when
+she came off duty. Felix was going to have an all-night sitting in the
+kitchen. He had been looking forward to an all-night sitting for
+many years, and now he had got his chance. It was a magnificent
+opportunity—“without your mother, my dear, to insist on my sleeping.”
+And staring at his smile, Nedda thought: 'He's like Granny—he comes out
+under difficulties. If only I did!'
+
+The ice arrived by motor-cycle just before her watch began. It was some
+comfort to have that definite thing to see to. How timorous and humble
+are thoughts in a sick-room, above all when the sick are stretched
+behind the muffle of unconsciousness, withdrawn from the watcher by
+half-death! And yet, for him or her who loves, there is at least the
+sense of being alone with the loved one, of doing all that can be done;
+and in some strange way of twining hearts with the exiled spirit. To
+Nedda, sitting at his feet, and hardly ever turning eyes away from his
+still face, it sometimes seemed that the flown spirit was there beside
+her. And she saw into his soul in those hours of watching, as one
+looking into a stream sees the leopard-like dapple of its sand and
+dark-strewn floor, just reached by sunlight. She saw all his pride,
+courage, and impatience, his reserve, and strange unwilling tenderness,
+as she had never seen them. And a queer dreadful feeling moved her that
+in some previous existence she had looked at that face dead on a field
+of battle, frowning up at the stars. That was absurd—there were no
+previous existences! Or was it prevision of what would come some day?
+
+When, at half past nine, the light began to fail, she lighted two
+candles in tall, thin, iron candlesticks beside her. They burned without
+flicker, those spires of yellow flame, slowly conquering the dying
+twilight, till in their soft radiance the room was full of warm dusky
+shadows, the night outside ever a deeper black. Two or three times his
+mother came, looked at him, asked her if she should stay, and, receiving
+a little silent shake of the head, went away again. At eleven o'clock,
+when once more she changed the ice-cap, his eyes had still no lustre,
+and for a moment her courage failed her utterly. It seemed to her
+that he could never win back, that death possessed the room already,
+possessed those candle-flames, the ticking of the clock, the dark,
+dripping night, possessed her heart. Could he be gone before she had
+been his! Gone! Where? She sank down on her knees, covering her eyes.
+What good to watch, if he were never coming back! A long time—it seemed
+hours—passed thus, with the feeling growing deeper in her that no good
+would come while she was watching. And behind the barrier of her hands
+she tried desperately to rally courage. If things were—they were! One
+must look them in the face! She took her hands away. His eyes! Was it
+light in them? Was it? They were seeing—surely they saw. And his lips
+made the tiniest movement. In that turmoil of exultation she never knew
+how she managed to continue kneeling there, with her hands on his. But
+all her soul shone down to him out of her eyes, and drew and drew at
+his spirit struggling back from the depths of him. For many minutes that
+struggle lasted; then he smiled. It was the feeblest smile that ever was
+on lips, but it made the tears pour down Nedda's cheeks and trickle off
+on to his hands. Then, with a stoicism that she could not believe in,
+so hopelessly unreal it seemed, so utterly the negation of the tumult
+within her, she settled back again at his feet to watch and not excite
+him. And still his lips smiled that faint smile, and his opened eyes
+grew dark and darker with meaning.
+
+So at midnight Kirsteen found them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+In the early hours of his all-night sitting Felix had first only
+memories, and then Kirsteen for companion.
+
+“I worry most about Tod,” she said. “He had that look in his face when
+he went off from Marrow Farm. He might do something terrible if they
+ill-treat Sheila. If only she has sense enough to see and not provoke
+them.”
+
+“Surely she will,” Felix murmured.
+
+“Yes, if she realizes. But she won't, I'm afraid. Even I have only known
+him look like that three times. Tod is so gentle—passion stores itself
+in him; and when it comes, it's awful. If he sees cruelty, he goes
+almost mad. Once he would have killed a man if I hadn't got between
+them. He doesn't know what he's doing at such moments. I wish—I wish he
+were back. It's hard one can't pierce through, and see him.”
+
+Gazing at her eyes so dark and intent, Felix thought: 'If YOU can't
+pierce through—none can.'
+
+He learned the story of the disaster.
+
+Early that morning Derek had assembled twenty of the strongest laborers,
+and taken them a round of the farms to force the strike-breakers
+to desist. There had been several fights, in all of which the
+strike-breakers had been beaten. Derek himself had fought three times.
+In the afternoon the police had come, and the laborers had rushed with
+Derek and Sheila, who had joined them, into a barn at Marrow Farm,
+barred it, and thrown mangolds at the police, when they tried to force
+an entrance. One by one the laborers had slipped away by a rope out of a
+ventilation-hole high up at the back, and they had just got Sheila down
+when the police appeared on that side, too. Derek, who had stayed to the
+last, covering their escape with mangolds, had jumped down twenty feet
+when he saw them taking Sheila, and, pitching forward, hit his head
+against a grindstone. Then, just as they were marching Sheila and two
+of the laborers away, Tod had arrived and had fallen in alongside the
+policemen—he and the dog. It was then she had seen that look on his
+face.
+
+Felix, who had never beheld his big brother in Berserk mood, could offer
+no consolation; nor had he the heart to adorn the tale, and inflict on
+this poor woman his reflection: 'This, you see, is what comes of the
+ferment you have fostered. This is the reward of violence!' He longed,
+rather, to comfort her; she seemed so lonely and, in spite of all her
+stoicism, so distraught and sad. His heart went out, too, to Tod. How
+would he himself have felt, walking by the side of policemen whose arms
+were twisted in Nedda's! But so mixed are the minds of men that at this
+very moment there was born within him the germ of a real revolt against
+the entry of his little daughter into this family of hotheads. It
+was more now than mere soreness and jealousy; it was fear of a danger
+hitherto but sniffed at, but now only too sharply savored.
+
+When she left him to go up-stairs, Felix stayed consulting the dark
+night. As ever, in hours of ebbed vitality, the shapes of fear and doubt
+grew clearer and more positive; they loomed huge out there among
+the apple-trees, where the drip-drip of the rain made music. But his
+thoughts were still nebulous, not amounting to resolve. It was no moment
+for resolves—with the boy lying up there between the tides of chance;
+and goodness knew what happening to Tod and Sheila. The air grew
+sharper; he withdrew to the hearth, where a wood fire still burned,
+gray ash, red glow, scent oozing from it. And while he crouched there,
+blowing it with bellows, he heard soft footsteps, and saw Nedda standing
+behind him transformed.
+
+But in the midst of all his glad sympathy Felix could not help thinking:
+'Better for you, perhaps, if he had never returned from darkness!'
+
+She came and crouched down by him.
+
+“Let me sit with you, Dad. It smells so good.”
+
+“Very well; but you must sleep.”
+
+“I don't believe I'll ever want to sleep again.”
+
+And at the glow in her Felix glowed too. What is so infectious as
+delight? They sat a long time talking, as they had not talked since the
+first fatal visit to Becket. Of how love, and mountains, works of art,
+and doing things for others were the only sources of happiness; except
+scents, and lying on one's back looking through tree-tops at the sky;
+and tea, and sunlight, flowers, and hard exercise; oh, and the sea! Of
+how, when things went hard, one prayed—but what did one pray to? Was
+it not to something in oneself? It was of no use to pray to the great
+mysterious Force that made one thing a cabbage, and the other a king;
+for That could obviously not be weak-minded enough to attend. And
+gradually little pauses began to creep into their talk; then a big
+pause, and Nedda, who would never want to sleep again, was fast asleep.
+
+Felix watched those long, dark lashes resting on her cheeks; the slow,
+soft rise of her breast; the touching look of trust and goodness in that
+young face abandoned to oblivion after these hours of stress; watched
+the little tired shadows under the eyes, the tremors of the just-parted
+lips. And, getting up, stealthy as a cat, he found a light rug, and ever
+more stealthily laid it over her. She stirred at that, smiled up at him,
+and instantly went off again. And he thought: 'Poor little sweetheart,
+she WAS tired!' And a passionate desire to guard her from trials and
+troubles came on him.
+
+At four o'clock Kirsteen slipped in again, and whispered: “She made me
+promise to come for her. How pretty she looks, sleeping!”
+
+“Yes,” Felix answered; “pretty and good!”
+
+Nedda raised her head, stared up at her aunt, and a delighted smile
+spread over her face. “Is it time again? How lovely!” Then, before
+either could speak or stop her, she was gone.
+
+“She is more in love,” Kirsteen murmured, “than I ever saw a girl of her
+age.”
+
+“She is more in love,” Felix answered, “than is good to see.”
+
+“She is not truer than Derek is.”
+
+“That may be, but she will suffer from him.”
+
+“Women who love must always suffer.”
+
+Her cheeks were sunken, shadowy; she looked very tired. When she had
+gone to get some sleep, Felix restored the fire and put on a kettle,
+meaning to make himself some coffee. Morning had broken, clear and
+sparkling after the long rain, and full of scent and song. What glory
+equalled this early morning radiance, the dewy wonder of everything!
+What hour of the day was such a web of youth and beauty as this, when
+all the stars from all the skies had fallen into the grass! A cold nose
+was thrust into his hand, and he saw beside him Tod's dog. The animal
+was wet, and lightly moved his white-tipped tail; while his dark-yellow
+eyes inquired of Felix what he was going to give a dog to eat. Then
+Felix saw his brother coming in. Tod's face was wild and absent as a man
+with all his thoughts turned on something painful in the distance. His
+ruffled hair had lost its brightness; his eyes looked as if driven back
+into his head; he was splashed with mud, and wet from head to foot. He
+walked up to the hearth without a word.
+
+“Well, old man?” said Felix anxiously.
+
+Tod looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+“Come,” said Felix; “tell us!”
+
+“Locked up,” said Tod in a voice unlike his own. “I didn't knock them
+down.”
+
+“Heavens! I should hope not.”
+
+“I ought to have.”
+
+Felix put his hand within his brother's arm.
+
+“They twisted her arms; one of them pushed her from behind. I can't
+understand it. How was it I didn't? I can't understand.”
+
+“I can,” said Felix. “They were the Law. If they had been mere men you'd
+have done it, fast enough.”
+
+“I can't understand,” Tod repeated. “I've been walking ever since.”
+
+Felix stroked his shoulder.
+
+“Go up-stairs, old man. Kirsteen's anxious.”
+
+Tod sat down and took his boots off.
+
+“I can't understand,” he said once more. Then, without another word, or
+even a look at Felix, he went out and up the stairs.
+
+And Felix thought: 'Poor Kirsteen! Ah, well—they're all about as queer,
+one as the other! How to get Nedda out of it?'
+
+And, with that question gnawing at him, he went out into the orchard.
+The grass was drenching wet, so he descended to the road. Two
+wood-pigeons were crooning to each other, truest of all sounds of
+summer; there was no wind, and the flies had begun humming. In the air,
+cleared of dust, the scent of hay was everywhere. What about those poor
+devils of laborers, now? They would get the sack for this! and he was
+suddenly beset with a feeling of disgust. This world where men, and
+women too, held what they had, took what they could; this world of
+seeing only one thing at a time; this world of force, and cunning,
+of struggle, and primitive appetites; of such good things, too, such
+patience, endurance, heroism—and yet at heart so unutterably savage!
+
+He was very tired; but it was too wet to sit down, so he walked on. Now
+and again he passed a laborer going to work; but very few in all those
+miles, and they quite silent. 'Did they ever really whistle?' Felix
+thought. 'Were they ever jolly ploughmen? Or was that always a fiction?
+Surely, if they can't give tongue this morning, they never can!' He
+crossed a stile and took a slanting path through a little wood. The
+scent of leaves and sap, the dapple of sunlight—all the bright early
+glow and beauty struck him with such force that he could have cried out
+in the sharpness of sensation. At that hour when man was still abed
+and the land lived its own life, how full and sweet and wild that life
+seemed, how in love with itself! Truly all the trouble in the world came
+from the manifold disharmonies of the self-conscious animal called Man!
+
+Then, coming out on the road again, he saw that he must be within a mile
+or two of Becket; and finding himself suddenly very hungry, determined
+to go there and get some breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Duly shaved with one of Stanley's razors, bathed, and breakfasted, Felix
+was on the point of getting into the car to return to Joyfields when he
+received a message from his mother: Would he please go up and see her
+before he went?
+
+He found her looking anxious and endeavoring to conceal it.
+
+Having kissed him, she drew him to her sofa and said: “Now, darling,
+come and sit down here, and tell me all about this DREADFUL business.”
+And taking up an odorator she blew over him a little cloud of scent.
+“It's quite a new perfume; isn't it delicious?”
+
+Felix, who dreaded scent, concealed his feelings, sat down, and told
+her. And while he told her he was conscious of how pathetically her
+fastidiousness was quivering under those gruesome details—fighting with
+policemen, fighting with common men, prison—FOR A LADY; conscious too
+of her still more pathetic effort to put a good face on it. When he had
+finished she remained so perfectly still, with lips so hard compressed,
+that he said:
+
+“It's no good worrying, Mother.”
+
+Frances Freeland rose, pulled something hard, and a cupboard appeared.
+She opened it, and took out a travelling-bag.
+
+“I must go back with you at once,” she said.
+
+“I don't think it's in the least necessary, and you'll only knock
+yourself up.”
+
+“Oh, nonsense, darling! I must.”
+
+Knowing that further dissuasion would harden her determination, Felix
+said: “I'm going in the car.”
+
+“That doesn't matter. I shall be ready in ten minutes. Oh! and do you
+know this? It's splendid for taking lines out under the eyes!” She was
+holding out a little round box with the lid off. “Just wet your finger
+with it, and dab it gently on.”
+
+Touched by this evidence of her deep desire that he should put as good a
+face on it as herself, Felix dabbed himself under the eyes.
+
+“That's right. Now, wait for me, dear; I shan't be a minute. I've only
+to get my things. They'll all go splendidly in this little bag.”
+
+In a quarter of an hour they had started. During that journey Frances
+Freeland betrayed no sign of tremor. She was going into action, and,
+therefore, had no patience with her nerves.
+
+“Are you proposing to stay, Mother?” Felix hazarded; “because I don't
+think there's a room for you.”
+
+“Oh! that's nothing, darling. I sleep beautifully in a chair. It suits
+me better than lying down.” Felix cast up his eyes, and made no answer.
+
+On arriving, they found that the doctor had been there, expressed
+his satisfaction, and enjoined perfect quiet. Tod was on the point of
+starting back to Transham, where Sheila and the two laborers would
+be brought up before the magistrates. Felix and Kirsteen took hurried
+counsel. Now that Mother, whose nursing was beyond reproach, had come,
+it would be better if they went with Tod. All three started forthwith in
+the car.
+
+Left alone, Frances Freeland took her bag—a noticeably old one, without
+any patent clasp whatever, so that she could open it—went noiselessly
+upstairs, tapped on Derek's door, and went in. A faint but cheerful
+voice remarked: “Halloo, Granny!”
+
+Frances Freeland went up to the bed, smiled down on him ineffably, laid
+a finger on his lips, and said, in the stillest voice: “You mustn't
+talk, darling!” Then she sat down in the window with her bag beside
+her. Half a tear had run down her nose, and she had no intention that
+it should be seen. She therefore opened her bag, and, having taken out a
+little bottle, beckoned Nedda.
+
+“Now, darling,” she whispered, “you must just take one of these. It's
+nothing new; they're what my mother used to give me at your age. And for
+one hour you must go out and get some fresh air, and then you can come
+back.”
+
+“Must I, Granny?”
+
+“Yes; you must keep up your strength. Kiss me.”
+
+Nedda kissed a cheek that seemed extraordinarily smooth and soft,
+received a kiss in the middle of her own, and, having stayed a second by
+the bed, looking down with all her might, went out.
+
+Frances Freeland, in the window, wasted no thoughts, but began to run
+over in her mind the exact operations necessary to defeat this illness
+of darling Derek's. Her fingers continually locked and interlocked
+themselves with fresh determinations; her eyes, fixed on imaginary
+foods, methods of washing, and ways of keeping him quiet, had an almost
+fanatical intensity. Like a good general she marshalled her means of
+attack and fixed them in perfect order. Now and then she gazed into her
+bag, making quite sure that she had everything, and nothing that was
+new-fangled or liable to go wrong. For into action she never brought any
+of those patent novelties that delighted her soul in times of peace. For
+example, when she herself had pneumonia and no doctor, for two months,
+it was well known that she had lain on her back, free from every kind
+of remedy, employing only courage, nature, and beef tea, or some such
+simple sustenance.
+
+Having now made her mental dispositions, she got up without sound and
+slipped off a petticoat that she suspected of having rustled a little
+when she came in; folding and popping it where it could not be suspected
+any more, she removed her shoes and put on very old velvet slippers. She
+walked in these toward the bed, listening to find out whether she could
+hear herself, without success. Then, standing where she could see
+when his eyes opened, she began to take stock. That pillow wasn't very
+comfortable! A little table was wanted on both sides, instead of on one.
+There was no odorator, and she did not see one of those arrangements!
+All these things would have to be remedied.
+
+Absorbed in this reconnoitring, she failed to observe that darling Derek
+was looking at her through eyelashes that were always so nice and black.
+He said suddenly, in that faint and cheerful voice:
+
+“All right, Granny; I'm going to get up to-morrow.”
+
+Frances Freeland, whose principle it was that people should always be
+encouraged to believe themselves better than they were, answered. “Yes,
+darling, of course; you'll be up in no time. It'll be delightful to see
+you in a chair to-morrow. But you mustn't talk.”
+
+Derek sighed, closed his eyes, and went off into a faint.
+
+It was in moments such as these that Frances Freeland was herself. Her
+face flushed a little and grew terribly determined. Conscious that she
+was absolutely alone in the house, she ran to her bag, took out her sal
+volatile, applied it vigorously to his nose, and poured a little between
+his lips. She did other things to him, and not until she had brought him
+round, and the best of it was already made, did she even say to herself:
+'It's no use fussing; I must make the best of it.'
+
+Then, having discovered that he felt quite comfortable—as he said—she
+sat down in a chair to fan him and tremble vigorously. She would not
+have allowed that movement of her limbs if it had in any way interfered
+with the fanning. But since, on the contrary, it seemed to be of
+assistance, she certainly felt it a relief; for, whatever age her spirit
+might be, her body was seventy-three.
+
+And while she fanned she thought of Derek as a little, black-haired,
+blazing-gray-eyed slip of a sallow boy, all little thin legs and arms
+moving funnily like a foal's. He had been such a dear, gentlemanlike
+little chap. It was dreadful he should be forgetting himself so, and
+getting into such trouble. And her thoughts passed back beyond him to
+her own four little sons, among whom she had been so careful not to have
+a favorite, but to love them all equally. And she thought of how their
+holland suits wore out, especially in the elastic, and got green behind,
+almost before they were put on; and of how she used to cut their hairs,
+spending at least three-quarters of an hour on each, because she had
+never been quick at it, while they sat so good—except Stanley,
+and darling Tod, who WOULD move just as she had got into the comb
+particularly nice bits of his hair, always so crisp and difficult! And
+of how she had cut off Felix's long golden curls when he was four, and
+would have cried over it, if crying hadn't always been silly! And of
+how beautifully they had all had their measles together, so that she had
+been up with them day and night for about a fortnight. And of how it was
+a terrible risk with Derek and darling Nedda, not at all a wise match,
+she was afraid. And yet, if they really were attached, of course one
+must put the best face on it! And how lovely it would be to see another
+little baby some day; and what a charming little mother Nedda would
+make—if only the dear child would do her hair just a little differently!
+And she perceived that Derek was asleep—and one of her own legs, from
+the knee down. She would certainly have bad pins and needles if she did
+not get up; but, since she would not wake him for the world, she must do
+something else to cure it. And she hit upon this plan. She had only to
+say, 'Nonsense, you haven't anything of the sort!' and it was sure to go
+away. She said this to her leg, but, being a realist, she only made
+it feel like a pin-cushion. She knew, however, that she had only to
+persevere, because it would never do to give in. She persevered, and
+her leg felt as if red-hot needles were being stuck in it. Then, for
+the life of her, she could not help saying a little psalm. The sensation
+went away and left her leg quite dead. She would have no strength in it
+at all when she got up. But that would be easily cured, when she could
+get to her bag, with three globules of nux vomica—and darling Derek must
+not be waked up for anything! She waited thus till Nedda came back, and
+then said, “Sssh!”
+
+He woke at once, so that providentially she was able to get up, and,
+having stood with her weight on one leg for five minutes, so as to be
+quite sure she did not fall, she crossed back to the window, took
+her nux vomica, and sat down with her tablets to note down the little
+affairs she would require, while Nedda took her place beside the bed, to
+fan him. Having made her list, she went to Nedda and whispered that
+she was going down to see about one or two little things, and while she
+whispered she arranged the dear child's hair. If only she would keep
+it just like that, it would be so much more becoming! And she went
+down-stairs.
+
+Accustomed to the resources of Stanley's establishment, or at least to
+those of John's and Felix's, and of the hotels she stayed at, she felt
+for a moment just a little nonplussed at discovering at her disposal
+nothing but three dear little children playing with a dog, and one
+bicycle. For a few seconds she looked at the latter hard. If only it had
+been a tricycle! Then, feeling certain that she could not make it into
+one, she knew that she must make the best of it, especially as, in any
+case, she could not have used it, for it would never do to leave darling
+Nedda alone in the house. She decided therefore to look in every room
+to see if she could find the things she wanted. The dog, who had been
+attracted by her, left the children and came too, and the children,
+attracted by the dog, followed; so they all five went into a room on the
+ground floor. It was partitioned into two by a screen; in one portion
+was a rough camp bedstead, and in the other two dear little child's
+beds, that must once have been Derek's and Sheila's, and one still
+smaller, made out of a large packing-case. The eldest of the little
+children said:
+
+“That's where Billy sleeps, Susie sleeps here, and I sleeps there; and
+our father sleeped in here before he went to prison.” Frances Freeland
+experienced a shock. To prison! The idea of letting these little things
+know such a thing as that! The best face had so clearly not been put on
+it that she decided to put it herself.
+
+“Oh, not to prison, dear! Only into a house in the town for a little
+while.”
+
+It seemed to her quite dreadful that they should know the truth—it was
+simply necessary to put it out of their heads. That dear little girl
+looked so old already, such a little mother! And, as they stood about
+her, she gazed piercingly at their heads. They were quite clean.
+
+The second dear little thing said:
+
+“We like bein' here; we hope Father won't be comin' back from prison
+for a long time, so as we can go on stayin' here. Mr. Freeland gives us
+apples.”
+
+The failure of her attempt to put a nicer idea into their heads
+disconcerted Frances Freeland for a moment only. She said:
+
+“Who told you he was in prison?”
+
+Biddy answered slowly: “Nobody didn't tell us; we picked it up.”
+
+“Oh, but you should never pick things up! That's not at all nice. You
+don't know what harm they may do you.”
+
+Billy replied: “We picked up a dead cat yesterday. It didn't scratch a
+bit, it didn't.”
+
+And Biddy added: “Please, what is prison like?”
+
+Pity seized on Frances Freeland for these little derelicts, whose heads
+and pinafores and faces were so clean. She pursed her lips very tight
+and said:
+
+“Hold out your hands, all of you.”
+
+Three small hands were held out, and three small pairs of gray-blue eyes
+looked up at her. From the recesses of her pocket she drew forth her
+purse, took from it three shillings, and placed one in the very centre
+of each palm. The three small hands closed; two small grave bodies
+dipped in little courtesies; the third remained stock-still, but a grin
+spread gradually on its face from ear to ear.
+
+“What do you say?” said Frances Freeland.
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Thank you—what?”
+
+“Thank you, ma'am.”
+
+“That's right. Now run away and play a nice game in the orchard.”
+
+The three turned immediately and went. A sound of whispering rose
+busily outside. Frances Freeland, glancing through the window, saw them
+unlatching the wicket gate. Sudden alarm seized her. She put out her
+head and called. Biddy came back.
+
+“You mustn't spend them all at once.”
+
+Biddy shook her head.
+
+“No. Once we had a shillin', and we were sick. We're goin' to spend
+three pennies out of one shillin' every day, till they're gone.”
+
+“And aren't you going to put any by for a rainy day?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Frances Freeland did not know what to answer. Dear little things!
+
+The dear little things vanished.
+
+In Tod's and Kirsteen's room she found a little table and a pillow, and
+something that might do, and having devised a contrivance by which
+this went into that and that into this and nothing whatever showed,
+she conveyed the whole very quietly up near dear Derek's room, and told
+darling Nedda to go down-stairs and look for something that she knew
+she would not find, for she could not think at the moment of any better
+excuse. When the child had gone, she popped this here, and popped that
+there. And there she was! And she felt better. It was no use whatever to
+make a fuss about that aspect of nursing which was not quite nice. One
+just put the best face upon it, quietly did what was necessary, and
+pretended that it was not there. Kirsteen had not seen to things quite
+as she should have. But then dear Kirsteen was so clever.
+
+Her attitude, indeed, to that blue bird, who had alighted now twenty-one
+years ago in the Freeland nest, had always, after the first few shocks,
+been duly stoical. For, however her fastidiousness might jib at neglect
+of the forms of things, she was the last woman not to appreciate really
+sterling qualities. Though it was a pity dear Kirsteen did expose her
+neck and arms so that they had got quite brown, a pity that she never
+went to church and had brought up the dear children not to go, and to
+have ideas that were not quite right about 'the Land,' still she was
+emphatically a lady, and devoted to dear Tod, and very good. And her
+features were so regular, and she had such a good color, and was so slim
+and straight in the back, that she was always a pleasure to look at. And
+if she was not quite so practical as she might have been, that was not
+everything; and she would never get stout, as there was every danger of
+Clara doing. So that from the first she had always put a good face on
+her. Derek's voice interrupted her thoughts:
+
+“I'm awfully thirsty, Granny.”
+
+“Yes, darling. Don't move your head; and just let me pop in some of this
+delicious lemonade with a spoon.”
+
+Nedda, returning, found her supporting his head with one hand, while
+with the other she kept popping in the spoon, her soul smiling at him
+lovingly through her lips and eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Felix went back to London the afternoon of Frances Freeland's
+installation, taking Sheila with him. She had been 'bound over to
+keep the peace'—a task which she would obviously be the better able to
+accomplish at a distance. And, though to take charge of her would be
+rather like holding a burning match till there was no match left, he
+felt bound to volunteer.
+
+He left Nedda with many misgivings; but had not the heart to wrench her
+away.
+
+The recovery of a young man who means to get up to-morrow is not so
+rapid when his head, rather than his body, is the seat of trouble.
+Derek's temperament was against him. He got up several times in spirit,
+to find that his body had remained in bed. And this did not accelerate
+his progress. It had been impossible to dispossess Frances Freeland from
+command of the sick-room; and, since she was admittedly from experience
+and power of paying no attention to her own wants, the fittest person
+for the position, there she remained, taking turn and turn about with
+Nedda, and growing a little whiter, a little thinner, more resolute in
+face, and more loving in her eyes, from day to day. That tragedy of the
+old—the being laid aside from life before the spirit is ready to resign,
+the feeling that no one wants you, that all those you have borne and
+brought up have long passed out on to roads where you cannot follow,
+that even the thought-life of the world streams by so fast that you lie
+up in a backwater, feebly, blindly groping for the full of the water,
+and always pushed gently, hopelessly back; that sense that you are still
+young and warm, and yet so furbelowed with old thoughts and fashions
+that none can see how young and warm you are, none see how you long to
+rub hearts with the active, how you yearn for something real to do
+that can help life on, and how no one will give it you! All this—this
+tragedy—was for the time defeated. She was, in triumph, doing something
+real for those she loved and longed to do things for. She had Sheila's
+room.
+
+For a week at least Derek asked no questions, made no allusion to
+the mutiny, not even to the cause of his own disablement. It had
+been impossible to tell whether the concussion had driven coherent
+recollection from his mind, or whether he was refraining from an
+instinct of self-preservation, barring such thoughts as too exciting.
+Nedda dreaded every day lest he should begin. She knew that the
+questions would fall on her, since no answer could possibly be expected
+from Granny except: “It's all right, darling, everything's going on
+perfectly—only you mustn't talk!”
+
+It began the last day of June, the very first day that he got up.
+
+“They didn't save the hay, did they?”
+
+Was he fit to hear the truth? Would he forgive her if she did not
+tell it? If she lied about this, could she go on lying to his other
+questions? When he discovered, later, would not the effect undo the good
+of lies now? She decided to lie; but, when she opened her lips, simply
+could not, with his eyes on her; and said faintly: “Yes, they did.”
+
+His face contracted. She slipped down at once and knelt beside his
+chair. He said between his teeth:
+
+“Go on; tell me. Did it all collapse?”
+
+She could only stroke his hands and bow her head.
+
+“I see. What's happened to them?”
+
+Without looking up, she murmured:
+
+“Some have been dismissed; the others are working again all right.”
+
+“All right!”
+
+She looked up then so pitifully that he did not ask her anything more.
+But the news put him back a week. And she was in despair. The day he got
+up again he began afresh:
+
+“When are the assizes?”
+
+“The 7th of August.”
+
+“Has anybody been to see Bob Tryst?”
+
+“Yes; Aunt Kirsteen has been twice.”
+
+Having been thus answered, he was quiet for a long time. She had slipped
+again out of her chair to kneel beside him; it seemed the only place
+from which she could find courage for her answers. He put his hand, that
+had lost its brown, on her hair. At that she plucked up spirit to ask:
+
+“Would you like me to go and see him?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“Then, I will—to-morrow.”
+
+“Don't ever tell me what isn't true, Nedda! People do; that's why I
+didn't ask before.”
+
+She answered fervently:
+
+“I won't! Oh, I won't!”
+
+She dreaded this visit to the prison. Even to think of those places gave
+her nightmare. Sheila's description of her night in a cell had made her
+shiver with horror. But there was a spirit in Nedda that went through
+with things; and she started early the next day, refusing Kirsteen's
+proffered company.
+
+The look of that battlemented building, whose walls were pierced with
+emblems of the Christian faith, turned her heartsick, and she stood
+for several minutes outside the dark-green door before she could summon
+courage to ring the bell.
+
+A stout man in blue, with a fringe of gray hair under his peaked cap,
+and some keys dangling from a belt, opened, and said:
+
+“Yes, miss?”
+
+Being called 'miss' gave her a little spirit, and she produced the card
+she had been warming in her hand.
+
+“I have come to see a man called Robert Tryst, waiting for trial at the
+assizes.”
+
+The stout man looked at the card back and front, as is the way of those
+in doubt, closed the door behind her, and said:
+
+“Just a minute, miss.”
+
+The shutting of the door behind her sent a little shiver down Nedda's
+spine; but the temperature of her soul was rising, and she looked round.
+Beyond the heavy arch, beneath which she stood, was a courtyard where
+she could see two men, also in blue, with peaked caps. Then, to her
+left, she became conscious of a shaven-headed noiseless being in
+drab-gray clothes, on hands and knees, scrubbing the end of a corridor.
+Her tremor at the stealthy ugliness of this crouching figure yielded
+at once to a spasm of pity. The man gave her a look, furtive, yet so
+charged with intense penetrating curiosity that it seemed to let her
+suddenly into innumerable secrets. She felt as if the whole life of
+people shut away in silence and solitude were disclosed to her in the
+swift, unutterably alive look of this noiseless kneeling creature,
+riving out of her something to feed his soul and body on. That look
+seemed to lick its lips. It made her angry, made her miserable, with
+a feeling of pity she could hardly bear. Tears, too startled to flow,
+darkened her eyes. Poor man! How he must hate her, who was free, and all
+fresh from the open world and the sun, and people to love and talk to!
+The 'poor man' scrubbed on steadily, his ears standing out from his
+shaven head; then, dragging his knee-mat skew-ways, he took the chance
+to look at her again. Perhaps because his dress and cap and stubble of
+hair and even the color of his face were so drab-gray, those little dark
+eyes seemed to her the most terribly living things she had ever seen.
+She felt that they had taken her in from top to toe, clothed and
+unclothed, taken in the resentment she had felt and the pity she was
+feeling; they seemed at once to appeal, to attack, and to possess her
+ravenously, as though all the starved instincts in a whole prisoned
+world had rushed up and for a second stood outside their bars. Then came
+the clank of keys, the eyes left her as swiftly as they had seized her,
+and he became again just that stealthy, noiseless creature scrubbing a
+stone floor. And, shivering, Nedda thought:
+
+'I can't bear myself here—me with everything in the world I want—and
+these with nothing!'
+
+But the stout janitor was standing by her again, together with another
+man in blue, who said:
+
+“Now, miss; this way, please!”
+
+And down that corridor they went. Though she did not turn, she knew well
+that those eyes were following, still riving something from her; and she
+heaved a sigh of real relief when she was round a corner. Through barred
+windows that had no glass she could see another court, where men in the
+same drab-gray clothes printed with arrows were walking one behind the
+other, making a sort of moving human hieroglyphic in the centre of the
+concrete floor. Two warders with swords stood just outside its edge.
+Some of those walking had their heads up, their chests expanded, some
+slouched along with heads almost resting on their chests; but most had
+their eyes fixed on the back of the neck of the man in front; and there
+was no sound save the tramp of feet.
+
+Nedda put her hand to her throat. The warder beside her said in a chatty
+voice:
+
+“That's where the 'ards takes their exercise, miss. You want to see a
+man called Tryst, waitin' trial, I think. We've had a woman here to see
+him, and a lady in blue, once or twice.”
+
+“My aunt.”
+
+“Ah! just so. Laborer, I think—case of arson. Funny thing; never yet
+found a farm-laborer that took to prison well.”
+
+Nedda shivered. The words sounded ominous. Then a little flame lit
+itself within her.
+
+“Does anybody ever 'take to' prison?”
+
+The warder uttered a sound between a grunt and chuckle.
+
+“There's some has a better time here than they have out, any day. No
+doubt about it—they're well fed here.”
+
+Her aunt's words came suddenly into Nedda's mind: 'Liberty's a glorious
+feast!' But she did not speak them.
+
+“Yes,” the warder proceeded, “some o' them we get look as if they didn't
+have a square meal outside from one year's end to the other. If you'll
+just wait a minute, miss, I'll fetch the man down to you.”
+
+In a bare room with distempered walls, and bars to a window out of which
+she could see nothing but a high brick wall, Nedda waited. So rapid
+is the adjustment of the human mind, so quick the blunting of human
+sensation, that she had already not quite the passion of pitiful feeling
+which had stormed her standing under that archway. A kind of numbness
+gripped her nerves. There were wooden forms in this room, and a
+blackboard, on which two rows of figures had been set one beneath the
+other, but not yet added up.
+
+The silence at first was almost deathly. Then it was broken by a
+sound as of a heavy door banged, and the shuffling tramp of marching
+men—louder, louder, softer—a word of command—still softer, and it died
+away. Dead silence again! Nedda pressed her hands to her breast. Twice
+she added up those figures on the blackboard; each time the number was
+the same. Ah, there was a fly—two flies! How nice they looked, moving,
+moving, chasing each other in the air. Did flies get into the cells?
+Perhaps not even a fly came there—nothing more living than walls and
+wood! Nothing living except what was inside oneself! How dreadful! Not
+even a clock ticking, not even a bird's song! Silent, unliving, worse
+than in this room! Something pressed against her leg. She started
+violently and looked down. A little cat! Oh, what a blessed thing! A
+little sandy, ugly cat! It must have crept in through the door. She was
+not locked in, then, anyway! Thus far had nerves carried her already!
+Scrattling the little cat's furry pate, she pulled herself together. She
+would not tremble and be nervous. It was disloyal to Derek and to her
+purpose, which was to bring comfort to poor Tryst. Then the door was
+pushed open, and the warder said:
+
+“A quarter of an hour, miss. I'll be just outside.”
+
+She saw a big man with unshaven cheeks come in, and stretched out her
+hand.
+
+“I am Mr. Derek's cousin, going to be married to him. He's been ill,
+but he's getting well again now. We knew you'd like to hear.” And she
+thought: 'Oh! What a tragic face! I can't bear to look at his eyes!'
+
+He took her hand, said, “Thank you, miss,” and stood as still as ever.
+
+“Please come and sit down, and we can talk.”
+
+Tryst moved to a form and took his seat thereon, with his hands between
+his knees, as if playing with an imaginary cap. He was dressed in an
+ordinary suit of laborer's best clothes, and his stiff, dust-colored
+hair was not cut particularly short. The cheeks of his square-cut face
+had fallen in, the eyes had sunk back, and the prominence thus given to
+his cheek and jawbones and thick mouth gave his face a savage look—only
+his dog-like, terribly yearning eyes made Nedda feel so sorry that she
+simply could not feel afraid.
+
+“The children are such dears, Mr. Tryst. Billy seems to grow every
+day. They're no trouble at all, and quite happy. Biddy's wonderful with
+them.”
+
+“She's a good maid.” The thick lips shaped the words as though they had
+almost lost power of speech.
+
+“Do they let you see the newspapers we send? Have you got everything you
+want?”
+
+For a minute he did not seem to be going to answer; then, moving his
+head from side to side, he said:
+
+“Nothin' I want, but just get out of here.”
+
+Nedda murmured helplessly:
+
+“It's only a month now to the assizes. Does Mr. Pogram come to see you?”
+
+“Yes, he comes. He can't do nothin'!”
+
+“Oh, don't despair! Even if they don't acquit you, it'll soon be over.
+Don't despair!” And she stole her hand out and timidly touched his arm.
+She felt her heart turning over and over, he looked so sad.
+
+He said in that stumbling, thick voice:
+
+“Thank you kindly. I must get out. I won't stand long of it—not much
+longer. I'm not used to it—always been accustomed to the air, an' bein'
+about, that's where 'tis. But don't you tell him, miss. You say I'm
+goin' along all right. Don't you tell him what I said. 'Tis no use him
+frettin' over me. 'Twon' do me no good.”
+
+And Nedda murmured:
+
+“No, no; I won't tell him.”
+
+Then suddenly came the words she had dreaded:
+
+“D'you think they'll let me go, miss?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I think so—I hope so!” But she could not meet his eyes, and
+hearing him grit his boot on the floor knew he had not believed her.
+
+He said slowly:
+
+“I never meant to do it when I went out that mornin'. It came on me
+sudden, lookin' at the straw.”
+
+Nedda gave a little gasp. Could that man outside hear?
+
+Tryst went on: “If they don't let me go, I won' stand it. 'Tis too much
+for a man. I can't sleep, I can't eat, nor nothin'. I won' stand it. It
+don' take long to die, if you put your mind to it.”
+
+Feeling quite sick with pity, Nedda got up and stood beside him; and,
+moved by an uncontrollable impulse, she lifted one of his great hands
+and clasped it in both her own. “Oh, try and be brave and look forward!
+You're going to be ever so happy some day.”
+
+He gave her a strange long stare.
+
+“Yes, I'll be happy some day. Don' you never fret about me.”
+
+And Nedda saw that the warder was standing in the doorway.
+
+“Sorry, miss, time's up.”
+
+Without a word Tryst rose and went out.
+
+Nedda was alone again with the little sandy cat. Standing under the
+high-barred window she wiped her cheeks, that were all wet. Why, why
+must people suffer so? Suffer so slowly, so horribly? What were men made
+of that they could go on day after day, year after year, watching others
+suffer?
+
+When the warder came back to take her out, she did not trust herself to
+speak, or even to look at him. She walked with hands tight clenched, and
+eyes fixed on the ground. Outside the prison door she drew a long, long
+breath. And suddenly her eyes caught the inscription on the corner of a
+lane leading down alongside the prison wall—“Love's Walk”!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Peremptorily ordered by the doctor to the sea, but with instructions to
+avoid for the present all excitement, sunlight, and color, Derek and
+his grandmother repaired to a spot well known to be gray, and Nedda went
+home to Hampstead. This was the last week in July. A fortnight spent
+in the perfect vacuity of an English watering-place restored the boy
+wonderfully. No one could be better trusted than Frances Freeland to
+preserve him from looking on the dark side of anything, more specially
+when that thing was already not quite nice. Their conversation was
+therefore free from allusion to the laborers, the strike, or Bob Tryst.
+And Derek thought the more. The approaching trial was hardly ever out
+of his mind. Bathing, he would think of it; sitting on the gray jetty
+looking over the gray sea, he would think of it. Up the gray cobbled
+streets and away on the headlands, he would think of it. And, so as not
+to have to think of it, he would try to walk himself to a standstill.
+Unfortunately the head will continue working when the legs are at rest.
+And when he sat opposite to her at meal-times, Frances Freeland would
+gaze piercingly at his forehead and muse: 'The dear boy looks much
+better, but he's getting a little line between his brows—it IS such a
+pity!' It worried her, too, that the face he was putting on their little
+holiday together was not quite as full as she could have wished—though
+the last thing in the world she could tolerate were really fat cheeks,
+those signs of all that her stoicism abhorred, those truly unforgivable
+marks of the loss of 'form.' He struck her as dreadfully silent, too,
+and she would rack her brains for subjects that would interest him,
+often saying to herself: 'If only I were clever!' It was natural he
+should think of dear Nedda, but surely it was not that which gave him
+the little line. He must be brooding about those other things. He ought
+not to be melancholy like this and let anything prevent the sea from
+doing him good. The habit—hard-learned by the old, and especially the
+old of her particular sex—of not wishing for the moon, or at all events
+of not letting others know that you are wishing for it, had long enabled
+Frances Freeland to talk cheerfully on the most indifferent subjects
+whether or no her heart were aching. One's heart often did ache, of
+course, but it simply didn't do to let it interfere, making things
+uncomfortable for others. And once she said to him: “You know, darling,
+I think it would be so nice for you to take a little interest in
+politics. They're very absorbing when you once get into them. I find my
+paper most enthralling. And it really has very good principles.”
+
+“If politics did anything for those who most need things done,
+Granny—but I can't see that they do.”
+
+She thought a little, then, making firm her lips, said:
+
+“I don't think that's quite just, darling, there are a great many
+politicians who are very much looked up to—all the bishops, for
+instance, and others whom nobody could suspect of self-seeking.”
+
+“I didn't mean that politicians were self-seeking, Granny; I meant that
+they're comfortable people, and the things that interest them are those
+that interest comfortable people. What have they done for the laborers,
+for instance?”
+
+“Oh, but, darling! they're going to do a great deal. In my paper they're
+continually saying that.”
+
+“Do you believe it?”
+
+“I'm sure they wouldn't say so if they weren't. There's quite a new
+plan, and it sounds most sensible. And so I don't think, darling, that
+if I were you I should make myself unhappy about all that kind of thing.
+They must know best. They're all so much older than you. And you're
+getting quite a little line between your eyes.”
+
+Derek smiled.
+
+“All right, Granny; I shall have a big one soon.”
+
+ Frances Freeland smiled, too, but shook her head.
+
+“Yes; and that's why I really think you ought to take interest in
+politics.”
+
+“I'd rather take interest in you, Granny. You're very jolly to look at.”
+
+Frances Freeland raised her brows.
+
+“I? My dear, I'm a perfect fright nowadays.”
+
+Thus pushing away what her stoicism and perpetual aspiration to an
+impossibly good face would not suffer her to admit, she added:
+
+“Where would you like to drive this afternoon?”
+
+For they took drives in a small victoria, Frances Freeland holding her
+sunshade to protect him from the sun whenever it made the mistake of
+being out.
+
+On August the fourth he insisted that he was well and must go back home.
+And, though to bring her attendance on him to an end was a grief, she
+humbly admitted that he must be wanting younger company, and, after
+one wistful attempt, made no further bones. The following day they
+travelled.
+
+On getting home he found that the police had been to see little Biddy
+Tryst, who was to be called as a witness. Tod would take her over on the
+morning of the trial. Derek did not wait for this, but on the day before
+the assizes repacked his bag and went off to the Royal Charles Hostel at
+Worcester. He slept not at all that night, and next morning was early
+at the court, for Tryst's case would be the first. Anxiously he sat
+watching all the queer and formal happenings that mark the initiation of
+the higher justice—the assemblage of the gentlemen in wigs; the sifting,
+shifting, settling of clerks, and ushers, solicitors, and the public;
+the busy indifference, the cheerful professionalism of it all. He saw
+little Mr. Pogram come in, more square and rubbery than ever, and engage
+in conclave with one of the bewigged. The smiles, shrugs, even the sharp
+expressions on that barrister's face; the way he stood, twisting round,
+one hand wrapped in his gown, one foot on the bench behind; it was all
+as if he had done it hundreds of times before and cared not the snap of
+one of his thin, yellow fingers. Then there was a sudden hush; the
+judge came in, bowed, and took his seat. And that, too, seemed so
+professional. Haunted by the thought of him to whom this was almost life
+and death, the boy was incapable of seeing how natural it was that they
+should not all feel as he did.
+
+The case was called and Tryst brought in. Derek had once more to undergo
+the torture of those tragic eyes fixed on him. Round that heavy figure,
+that mournful, half-brutal, and half-yearning face, the pleadings,
+the questions, the answers buzzed, bringing out facts with damning
+clearness, yet leaving the real story of that early morning as hidden as
+if the court and all were but gibbering figures of air. The real story
+of Tryst, heavy and distraught, rising and turning out from habit into
+the early haze on the fields, where his daily work had lain, of Tryst
+brooding, with the slow, the wrathful incoherence that centuries
+of silence in those lonely fields had passed into the blood of his
+forebears and himself. Brooding, in the dangerous disproportion that
+enforced continence brings to certain natures, loading the brain with
+violence till the storm bursts and there leap out the lurid, dark
+insanities of crime. Brooding, while in the air flies chased each other,
+insects crawled together in the grass, and the first principle of nature
+worked everywhere its sane fulfilment. They might talk and take evidence
+as they would, be shrewd and sharp with all the petty sharpness of the
+Law; but the secret springs would still lie undisclosed, too natural
+and true to bear the light of day. The probings and eloquence of justice
+would never paint the picture of that moment of maniacal relief, when,
+with jaw hanging loose, eyes bulging in exultation of revenge, he had
+struck those matches with his hairy hands and let them flare in the
+straw, till the little red flames ran and licked, rustled and licked,
+and there was nothing to do but watch them lick and burn. Nor of that
+sudden wildness of dumb fear that rushed into the heart of the crouching
+creature, changing the madness of his face to palsy. Nor of the recoil
+from the burning stack; those moments empty with terror. Nor of how
+terror, through habit of inarticulate, emotionless existence, gave place
+again to brute stolidity. And so, heavily back across the dewy fields,
+under the larks' songs, the cooings of pigeons, the hum of wings,
+and all the unconscious rhythm of ageless Nature. No! The probings of
+Justice could never reach the whole truth. And even Justice quailed at
+its own probings when the mother-child was passed up from Tod's side
+into the witness-box and the big laborer was seen to look at her and
+she at him. She seemed to have grown taller; her pensive little face and
+beautifully fluffed-out corn-brown hair had an eerie beauty, perched up
+there in the arid witness-box, as of some small figure from the brush of
+Botticelli.
+
+“Your name, my dear?”
+
+“Biddy Tryst.”
+
+“How old?”
+
+“Ten next month, please.”
+
+“Do you remember going to live at Mr. Freeland's cottage?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And do you remember the first night?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Where did you sleep, Biddy?”
+
+“Please, sir, we slept in a big room with a screen. Billy and Susie and
+me; and father behind the screen.”
+
+“And where was the room?”
+
+“Down-stairs, sir.”
+
+“Now, Biddy, what time did you wake up the first morning?”
+
+“When Father got up.”
+
+“Was that early or late?”
+
+“Very early.”
+
+“Would you know the time?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But it was very early; how did you know that?”
+
+“It was a long time before we had any breakfast.”
+
+“And what time did you have breakfast?”
+
+“Half past six by the kitchen clock.”
+
+“Was it light when you woke up?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“When Father got up, did he dress or did he go to bed again?”
+
+“He hadn't never undressed, sir.”
+
+“Then did he stay with you or did he go out?”
+
+“Out, sir.”
+
+“And how long was it before he came back?”
+
+“When I was puttin' on Billy's boots.”
+
+“What had you done in between?”
+
+“Helped Susie and dressed Billy.”
+
+“And how long does that take you generally?”
+
+“Half an hour, sir.”
+
+“I see. What did Father look like when he came in, Biddy?”
+
+The mother-child paused. For the first time it seemed to dawn on her
+that there was something dangerous in these questions. She twisted her
+small hands before her and gazed at her father.
+
+The judge said gently:
+
+“Well, my child?”
+
+“Like he does now, sir.”
+
+“Thank you, Biddy.”
+
+That was all; the mother-child was suffered to step down and take her
+place again by Tod. And in the silence rose the short and rubbery report
+of little Mr. Pogram blowing his nose. No evidence given that morning
+was so conclusive, actual, terrible as that unconscious: “Like he
+does now, sir.” That was why even Justice quailed a little at its own
+probings.
+
+From this moment the boy knew that Tryst's fate was sealed. What did all
+those words matter, those professional patterings one way and the other;
+the professional jeers: 'My friend has told you this' and 'My friend
+will tell you that.' The professional steering of the impartial judge,
+seated there above them all; the cold, calculated rhapsodies about the
+heinousness of arson; the cold and calculated attack on the characters
+of the stone-breaker witness and the tramp witness; the cold and
+calculated patter of the appeal not to condemn a father on the evidence
+of his little child; the cold and calculated outburst on the right of
+every man to be assumed innocent except on overwhelming evidence such
+as did not here exist. The cold and calculated balancing of pro and con;
+and those minutes of cold calculation veiled from the eyes of the court.
+Even the verdict: 'Guilty'; even the judgment: 'Three years' penal
+servitude.' All nothing, all superfluity to the boy supporting the
+tragic gaze of Tryst's eyes and making up his mind to a desperate
+resort.
+
+“Three years' penal servitude!” The big laborer paid no more attention
+to those words than to any others spoken during that hour's settlement
+of his fate. True, he received them standing, as is the custom, fronting
+the image of Justice, from whose lips they came. But by no single
+gesture did he let any one see the dumb depths of his soul. If life had
+taught him nothing else, it had taught him never to express himself.
+Mute as any bullock led into the slaughtering-house, with something of a
+bullock's dulled and helpless fear in his eyes, he passed down and away
+between his jailers. And at once the professional noises rose, and the
+professional rhapsodists, hunching their gowns, swept that little lot
+of papers into their pink tape, and, turning to their neighbors, smiled,
+and talked, and jerked their eyebrows.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The nest on the Spaniard's Road had not been able to contain Sheila
+long. There are certain natures, such as that of Felix, to whom the
+claims and exercise of authority are abhorrent, who refuse to exercise
+it themselves and rage when they see it exercised over others, but
+who somehow never come into actual conflict with it. There are other
+natures, such as Sheila's, who do not mind in the least exercising
+authority themselves, but who oppose it vigorously when they feel
+it coming near themselves or some others. Of such is the kingdom of
+militancy. Her experience with the police had sunk deep into her soul.
+They had not, as a fact, treated her at all badly, which did not prevent
+her feeling as if they had outraged in her the dignity of woman. She
+arrived, therefore, in Hampstead seeing red even where red was not. And
+since, undoubtedly, much real red was to be seen, there was little other
+color in the world or in her cheeks those days. Long disagreements with
+Alan, to whom she was still a magnet but whose Stanley-like nature stood
+firm against the blandishments of her revolting tongue, drove her more
+and more toward a decision the seeds of which had, perhaps, been planted
+during her former stay among the breezy airs of Hampstead.
+
+Felix, coming one day into his wife's study—for the house knew not the
+word drawing-room—found Flora, with eyebrows lifted up and smiling lips,
+listening to Sheila proclaiming the doctrine that it was impossible not
+to live 'on one's own.' Nothing else—Felix learned—was compatible with
+dignity, or even with peace of mind. She had, therefore, taken a back
+room high up in a back street, in which she was going to live perfectly
+well on ten shillings a week; and, having thirty-two pounds saved up,
+she would be all right for a year, after which she would be able to earn
+her living. The principle she purposed to keep before her eyes was that
+of committing herself to nothing which would seriously interfere with
+her work in life. Somehow, it was impossible to look at this girl, with
+her glowing cheeks and her glowing eyes, and her hair frizzy from ardor,
+and to distrust her utterances. Yes! She would arrive, if not where she
+wanted, at all events somewhere; which, after all, was the great thing.
+And in fact she did arrive the very next day in the back room high up
+in the back street, and neither Tod's cottage nor the house on the
+Spaniard's Road saw more than flying gleams of her, thenceforth.
+
+Another by-product, this, of that little starting episode, the notice
+given to Tryst! Strange how in life one little incident, one little
+piece of living stress, can attract and gather round it the feelings,
+thoughts, actions of people whose lives run far and wide away therefrom.
+But episodes are thus potent only when charged with a significance that
+comes from the clash of the deepest instincts.
+
+During the six weeks which had elapsed between his return home from
+Joyfields and the assizes, Felix had much leisure to reflect that if
+Lady Malloring had not caused Tryst to be warned that he could not marry
+his deceased wife's sister and continue to stay on the estate—the lives
+of Felix himself, his daughter, mother, brother, brother's wife, their
+son and daughter, and in less degree of his other brothers, would have
+been free of a preoccupation little short of ludicrous in proportion to
+the face value of the cause. But he had leisure, too, to reflect that
+in reality the issue involved in that tiny episode concerned human
+existence to its depths—for, what was it but the simple, all-important
+question of human freedom? The simple, all-important issue of how far
+men and women should try to rule the lives of others instead of trying
+only to rule their own, and how far those others should allow their
+lives to be so ruled? This it was which gave that episode its power
+of attracting and affecting the thoughts, feelings, actions of so many
+people otherwise remote. And though Felix was paternal enough to say to
+himself nearly all the time, 'I can't let Nedda get further into this
+mess!' he was philosopher enough to tell himself, in the unfatherly
+balance of his hours, that the mess was caused by the fight best of all
+worth fighting—of democracy against autocracy, of a man's right to do as
+he likes with his life if he harms not others; of 'the Land' against the
+fetterers of 'the Land.' And he was artist enough to see how from that
+little starting episode the whole business had sprung—given, of course,
+the entrance of the wilful force called love. But a father, especially
+when he has been thoroughly alarmed, gives the artist and philosopher in
+him short shrift.
+
+Nedda came home soon after Sheila went, and to the eyes of Felix she
+came back too old and thoughtful altogether. How different a girl from
+the Nedda who had so wanted 'to know everything' that first night of
+May! What was she brooding over, what planning, in that dark, round,
+pretty head? At what resolve were those clear eyes so swiftly raised
+to look? What was going on within, when her breast heaved so, without
+seeming cause, and the color rushed up in her cheeks at a word, as
+though she had been so far away that the effort of recall was alone
+enough to set all her veins throbbing. And yet Felix could devise no
+means of attack on her infatuation. For a man cannot cultivate the habit
+of never interfering and then suddenly throw it over; least of all when
+the person to be interfered with is his pet and only daughter.
+
+Flora, not of course in the swim of those happenings at Joyflelds,
+could not be got to take the matter very seriously. In fact—beyond
+what concerned Felix himself and poetry—the matter that she did take
+seriously had yet to be discovered. Hers was one of those semi-detached
+natures particularly found in Hampstead. When exhorted to help tackle
+the question, she could only suggest that Felix should take them all
+abroad when he had finished 'The Last of the Laborers.' A tour, for
+instance, in Norway and Sweden, where none of them had ever been, and
+perhaps down through Finland into Russia.
+
+Feeling like one who squirts on a burning haystack with a garden
+syringe, Felix propounded this scheme to his little daughter. She
+received it with a start, a silence, a sort of quivering all over, as
+of an animal who scents danger. She wanted to know when, and being
+told—'not before the middle of August', relapsed into her preoccupation
+as if nothing had been said. Felix noted on the hall table one afternoon
+a letter in her handwriting, addressed to a Worcester newspaper, and
+remarked thereafter that she began to receive this journal daily,
+obviously with a view to reports of the coming assizes. Once he tried to
+break through into her confidence. It was August Bank Holiday, and they
+had gone out on to the heath together to see the people wonderfully
+assembled. Coming back across the burnt-up grass, strewn with paper
+bags, banana peel, and the cores of apples, he hooked his hand into her
+arm.
+
+“What is to be done with a child that goes about all day thinking and
+thinking and not telling anybody what she is thinking?”
+
+She smiled round at him and answered:
+
+“I know, Dad. She IS a pig, isn't she?”
+
+This comparison with an animal of proverbial stubbornness was not
+encouraging. Then his hand was squeezed to her side and he heard her
+murmur:
+
+“I wonder if all daughters are such beasts!”
+
+He understood well that she had meant: 'There is only one thing I
+want—one thing I mean to have—one thing in the world for me now!'
+
+And he said soberly:
+
+“We can't expect anything else.”
+
+“Oh, Daddy!” she answered, but nothing more.
+
+Only four days later she came to his study with a letter, and a face so
+flushed and troubled that he dropped his pen and got up in alarm.
+
+“Read this, Dad! It's impossible! It's not true! It's terrible! Oh! What
+am I to do?”
+
+The letter ran thus, in a straight, boyish handwriting:
+
+“ROYAL CHARLES HOSTEL,
+
+“WORCESTER, Aug. 7th.
+
+“MY NEDDA,
+
+“I have just seen Bob tried. They have given him three years' penal.
+It was awful to sit there and watch him. He can never stand it. It was
+awful to watch him looking at ME. It's no good. I'm going to give myself
+up. I must do it. I've got everything ready; they'll have to believe me
+and squash his sentence. You see, but for me it would never have been
+done. It's a matter of honour. I can't let him suffer any more. This
+isn't impulse. I've been meaning to do it for some time, if they found
+him guilty. So in a way, it's an immense relief. I'd like to have seen
+you first, but it would only distress you, and I might not have been
+able to go through with it after. Nedda, darling, if you still love me
+when I get out, we'll go to New Zealand, away from this country where
+they bully poor creatures like Bob. Be brave! I'll write to-morrow, if
+they let me.
+
+“Your
+
+“Derek.”
+
+The first sensation in Felix on reading this effusion was poignant
+recollection of the little lawyer's look after Derek had made the scene
+at Tryst's committal and of his words: 'Nothing in it, is there?' His
+second thought: 'Is this the cutting of the knot that I've been looking
+for?' His third, which swept all else away: 'My poor little darling!
+What business has that boy to hurt her again like this!'
+
+He heard her say:
+
+“Tryst told me himself he did it, Dad! He told me when I went to see him
+in the prison. Honour doesn't demand what isn't true! Oh, Dad, help me!”
+
+Felix was slow in getting free from the cross currents of reflection.
+“He wrote this last night,” he said dismally. “He may have done it
+already. We must go and see John.”
+
+Nedda clasped her hands. “Ah! Yes!”
+
+And Felix had not the heart to add what he was thinking: 'Not that I
+see what good he can do!' But, though sober reason told him this, it was
+astonishingly comforting to be going to some one who could be relied on
+to see the facts of the situation without any of that 'flimflam' with
+which imagination is accustomed to surround them. “And we'll send Derek
+a wire for what it's worth.”
+
+They went at once to the post-office, Felix composing this message on
+the way: 'Utterly mistaken chivalry you have no right await our arrival
+Felix Freeland.' He handed it to her to read, and passed it under the
+brass railing to the clerk, not without the feeling of shame due from
+one who uses the word chivalry in a post-office.
+
+On the way to the Tube station he held her arm tightly, but whether to
+impart courage or receive it he could not have said, so strung-up in
+spirit did he feel her. With few words exchanged they reached Whitehall.
+Marking their card 'Urgent,' they were received within ten minutes.
+
+John was standing in a high, white room, smelling a little of papers
+and tobacco, and garnished solely by five green chairs, a table, and a
+bureau with an immense number of pigeonholes, whereat he had obviously
+been seated. Quick to observe what concerned his little daughter, Felix
+noted how her greeting trembled up at her uncle and how a sort of warmth
+thawed for the moment the regularity of his brother's face. When they
+had taken two of the five green chairs and John was back at his bureau,
+Felix handed over the letter. John read it and looked at Nedda. Then
+taking a pipe out of his pocket, which he had evidently filled before
+they came in, he lighted it and re-read the letter. Then, looking very
+straight at Nedda, he said:
+
+“Nothing in it? Honour bright, my dear!”
+
+“No, Uncle John, nothing. Only that he fancies his talk about injustice
+put it into Tryst's head.”
+
+John nodded; the girl's face was evidence enough for him.
+
+“Any proof?”
+
+“Tryst himself told me in the prison that he did it. He said it came on
+him suddenly, when he saw the straw.”
+
+A pause followed before John said:
+
+“Good! You and I and your father will go down and see the police.”
+
+Nedda lifted her hands and said breathlessly:
+
+“But, Uncle! Dad! Have I the right? He says—honour. Won't it be
+betraying him?”
+
+Felix could not answer, but with relief he heard John say:
+
+“It's not honorable to cheat the law.”
+
+“No; but he trusted me or he wouldn't have written.”
+
+John answered slowly:
+
+“I think your duty's plain, my dear. The question for the police will be
+whether or not to take notice of this false confession. For us to keep
+the knowledge that it's false from them, under the circumstances, is
+clearly not right. Besides being, to my mind, foolish.”
+
+For Felix to watch this mortal conflict going on in the soul of his
+daughter—that soul which used to seem, perhaps even now seemed, part of
+himself; to know that she so desperately wanted help for her decision,
+and to be unable to give it, unable even to trust himself to be
+honest—this was hard for Felix. There she sat, staring before her;
+and only her tight-clasped hands, the little movements of her lips and
+throat, showed the struggle going on in her.
+
+“I couldn't, without seeing him; I MUST see him first, Uncle!”
+
+John got up and went over to the window; he, too, had been affected by
+her face.
+
+“You realize,” he said, “that you risk everything by that. If he's given
+himself up, and they've believed him, he's not the sort to let it fall
+through. You cut off your chance if he won't let you tell. Better for
+your father and me to see him first, anyway.” And Felix heard a mutter
+that sounded like: 'Confound him!'
+
+Nedda rose. “Can we go at once, then, Uncle?”
+
+With a solemnity that touched Felix, John put a hand on each side of her
+face, raised it, and kissed her on the forehead.
+
+“All right!” he said. “Let's be off!”
+
+A silent trio sought Paddington in a taxi-cab, digesting this desperate
+climax of an affair that sprang from origins so small.
+
+In Felix, contemplating his daughter's face, there was profound
+compassion, but also that family dismay, that perturbation of
+self-esteem, which public scandal forces on kinsmen, even the most
+philosophic. He felt exasperation against Derek, against Kirsteen,
+almost even against Tod, for having acquiesced passively in the
+revolutionary bringing-up which had brought on such a disaster. War
+against injustice; sympathy with suffering; chivalry! Yes! But not quite
+to the point whence they recoiled on his daughter, his family, himself!
+The situation was impossible! He was fast resolving that, whether or no
+they saved Derek from this quixotry, the boy should not have Nedda. And
+already his eyes found difficulty in meeting hers.
+
+They secured a compartment to themselves and, having settled down in
+corners, began mechanically unfolding evening journals. For after all,
+whatever happens, one must read the papers! Without that, life would
+indeed be insupportable! Felix had bought Mr. Cuthcott's, but, though
+he turned and turned the sheets, they seemed to have no sense till these
+words caught his eyes: “Convict's tragic death! Yesterday afternoon at
+Worcester, while being conveyed from the assize court back to prison,
+a man named Tryst, sentenced to three years' penal servitude for arson,
+suddenly attacked the warders in charge of him and escaped. He ran down
+the street, hotly pursued, and, darting out into the traffic, threw
+himself under a motor-car going at some speed. The car struck him on the
+head, and the unfortunate man was killed on the spot. No reason whatever
+can be assigned for this desperate act. He is known, however, to have
+suffered from epilepsy, and it is thought an attack may have been coming
+on him at the time.”
+
+When Felix had read these words he remained absolutely still, holding
+that buff-colored paper before his face, trying to decide what he must
+do now. What was the significance—exactly the significance of this? Now
+that Tryst was dead, Derek's quixotic action had no meaning. But had he
+already 'confessed'? It seemed from this account that the suicide was
+directly after the trial; even before the boy's letter to Nedda had
+been written. He must surely have heard of it since and given up his
+mad idea! He leaned over, touched John on the knee, and handed him the
+paper. John read the paragraph, handed it back; and the two brothers
+stared fixedly at each other. Then Felix made the faintest movement of
+his head toward his daughter, and John nodded. Crossing to Nedda, Felix
+hooked his arm in hers and said:
+
+“Just look at this, my child.”
+
+Nedda read, started to her feet, sank back, and cried out:
+
+“Poor, poor man! Oh, Dad! Poor man!”
+
+Felix felt ashamed. Though Tryst's death meant so much relief to her,
+she felt first this rush of compassion; he himself, to whom it meant so
+much less relief, had felt only that relief.
+
+“He said he couldn't stand it; he told me that. But I never thought—Oh!
+Poor man!” And, burying her face against his arm, she gave way.
+
+Petrified, and conscious that John at the far end of the carriage was
+breathing rather hard, Felix could only stroke her arm till at last she
+whispered:
+
+“There's nobody now for Derek to save. Oh, if you'd seen that poor man
+in prison, Dad!”
+
+And the only words of comfort Felix could find were:
+
+“My child, there are thousands and thousands of poor prisoners and
+captives!”
+
+In a truce to agitation they spent the rest of that three hours'
+journey, while the train rattled and rumbled through the quiet,
+happy-looking land.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+It was tea-time when they reached Worcester, and at once went up to the
+Royal Charles Hostel. A pretty young woman in the office there informed
+them that the young gentleman had paid his bill and gone out about ten
+o'clock; but had left his luggage. She had not seen him come in. His
+room was up that little staircase at the end of the passage. There was
+another entrance that he might have come in at. The 'Boots' would take
+them.
+
+Past the hall stuffed with furniture and decorated with the stags' heads
+and battle-prints common to English county-town hotels, they followed
+the 'Boots' up five red-carpeted steps, down a dingy green corridor,
+to a door at the very end. There was no answer to their knock. The dark
+little room, with striped walls, and more battle-prints, looked out on
+a side street and smelled dusty. On a shiny leather sofa an old valise,
+strapped-up ready for departure, was reposing with Felix's telegram,
+unopened, deposited thereon. Writing on his card, “Have come down with
+Nedda. F. F.,” and laying it on the telegram, in case Derek should come
+in by the side entrance, Felix and Nedda rejoined John in the hall.
+
+To wait in anxiety is perhaps the hardest thing in life; tea, tobacco,
+and hot baths perhaps the only anodynes. These, except the baths, they
+took. Without knowing what had happened, neither John nor Felix liked to
+make inquiry at the police station, nor did they care to try and glean
+knowledge from the hotel people by questions that might lead to gossip.
+They could but kick their heels till it became reasonably certain
+that Derek was not coming back. The enforced waiting increased Felix's
+exasperation. Everything Derek did seemed designed to cause Nedda pain.
+To watch her sitting there, trying resolutely to mask her anxiety,
+became intolerable. At last he got up and said to John:
+
+“I think we'd better go round there,” and, John nodding, he added: “Wait
+here, my child. One of us'll come back at once and tell you anything we
+hear.”
+
+She gave them a grateful look and the two brothers went out. They had
+not gone twenty yards when they met Derek striding along, pale, wild,
+unhappy-looking. When Felix touched him on the arm, he started and
+stared blankly at his uncle.
+
+“We've seen about Tryst,” Felix said: “You've not done anything?”
+
+Derek shook his head.
+
+“Good! John, tell Nedda that, and stay with her a bit. I want to talk to
+Derek. We'll go in the other way.” He put his hand under the boy's arm
+and turned him down into the side street. When they reached the gloomy
+little bedroom Felix pointed to the telegram.
+
+“From me. I suppose the news of his death stopped you?”
+
+“Yes.” Derek opened the telegram, dropped it, and sat down beside his
+valise on the shiny sofa. He looked positively haggard.
+
+Taking his stand against the chest of drawers, Felix said quietly:
+
+“I'm going to have it out with you, Derek. Do you understand what all
+this means to Nedda? Do you realize how utterly unhappy you're making
+her? I don't suppose you're happy yourself—”
+
+The boy's whole figure writhed.
+
+“Happy! When you've killed some one you don't think much of
+happiness—your own or any one's!”
+
+Startled in his turn, Felix said sharply:
+
+“Don't talk like that. It's monomania.”
+
+Derek laughed. “Bob Tryst's dead—through me! I can't get out of that.”
+
+Gazing at the boy's tortured face, Felix grasped the gruesome fact that
+this idea amounted to obsession.
+
+“Derek,” he said, “you've dwelt on this till you see it out of all
+proportion. If we took to ourselves the remote consequences of all our
+words we should none of us survive a week. You're overdone. You'll see
+it differently to-morrow.”
+
+Derek got up to pace the room.
+
+“I swear I would have saved him. I tried to do it when they committed
+him at Transham.” He looked wildly at Felix. “Didn't I? You were there;
+you heard!”
+
+“Yes, yes; I heard.”
+
+“They wouldn't let me then. I thought they mightn't find him guilty
+here—so I let it go on. And now he's dead. You don't know how I feel!”
+
+His throat was working, and Felix said with real compassion:
+
+“My dear boy! Your sense of honour is too extravagant altogether. A
+grown man like poor Tryst knew perfectly what he was doing.”
+
+“No. He was like a dog—he did what he thought was expected of him. I
+never meant him to burn those ricks.”
+
+“Exactly! No one can blame you for a few wild words. He might have been
+the boy and you the man by the way you take it! Come!”
+
+Derek sat down again on the shiny sofa and buried his head in his hands.
+
+“I can't get away from him. He's been with me all day. I see him all the
+time.”
+
+That the boy was really haunted was only too apparent. How to attack
+this mania? If one could make him feel something else! And Felix said:
+
+“Look here, Derek! Before you've any right to Nedda you've got to find
+ballast. That's a matter of honour, if you like.”
+
+Derek flung up his head as if to escape a blow. Seeing that he had
+riveted him, Felix pressed on, with some sternness:
+
+“A man can't serve two passions. You must give up this championing the
+weak and lighting flames you can't control. See what it leads to! You've
+got to grow and become a man. Until then I don't trust my daughter to
+you.”
+
+The boy's lips quivered; a flush darkened his face, ebbed, and left him
+paler than ever.
+
+Felix felt as if he had hit that face. Still, anything was better than
+to leave him under this gruesome obsession! Then, to his consternation,
+Derek stood up and said:
+
+“If I go and see his body at the prison, perhaps he'll leave me alone a
+little!”
+
+Catching at that, as he would have caught at anything, Felix said:
+
+“Good! Yes! Go and see the poor fellow; we'll come, too.”
+
+And he went out to find Nedda.
+
+By the time they reached the street Derek had already started, and they
+could see him going along in front. Felix racked his brains to decide
+whether he ought to prepare her for the state the boy was in. Twice he
+screwed himself up to take the plunge, but her face—puzzled, as though
+wondering at her lover's neglect of her—stopped him. Better say nothing!
+
+Just as they reached the prison she put her hand on his arm:
+
+“Look, Dad!”
+
+And Felix read on the corner of the prison lane those words: 'Love's
+Walk'!
+
+Derek was waiting at the door. After some difficulty they were admitted
+and taken down the corridor where the prisoner on his knees had stared
+up at Nedda, past the courtyard where those others had been pacing
+out their living hieroglyphic, up steps to the hospital. Here, in a
+white-washed room on a narrow bed, the body of the big laborer lay,
+wrapped in a sheet.
+
+“We bury him Friday, poor chap! Fine big man, too!” And at the warder's
+words a shudder passed through Felix. The frozen tranquillity of that
+body!
+
+As the carved beauty of great buildings, so is the graven beauty of
+death, the unimaginable wonder of the abandoned thing lying so quiet,
+marvelling at its resemblance to what once lived! How strange this
+thing, still stamped by all that it had felt, wanted, loved, and hated,
+by all its dumb, hard, commonplace existence! This thing with the calm,
+pathetic look of one who asks of his own fled spirit: Why have you
+abandoned me?
+
+Death! What more wonderful than a dead body—that still perfect work of
+life, for which life has no longer use! What more mysterious than this
+sight of what still is, yet is not!
+
+Below the linen swathing the injured temples, those eyes were closed
+through which such yearning had looked forth. From that face, where the
+hair had grown faster than if it had been alive, death's majesty had
+planed away the aspect of brutality, removed the yearning, covering all
+with wistful acquiescence. Was his departed soul coherent? Where was it?
+Did it hover in this room, visible still to the boy? Did it stand
+there beside what was left of Tryst the laborer, that humblest of all
+creatures who dared to make revolt—serf, descendant of serfs, who, since
+the beginning, had hewn wood, drawn water, and done the will of others?
+Or was it winged, and calling in space to the souls of the oppressed?
+
+This body would go back to the earth that it had tended, the wild grass
+would grow over it, the seasons spend wind and rain forever above it.
+But that which had held this together—the inarticulate, lowly spirit,
+hardly asking itself why things should be, faithful as a dog to those
+who were kind to it, obeying the dumb instinct of a violence that in his
+betters would be called 'high spirit,' where—Felix wondered—where was
+it?
+
+And what were they thinking—Nedda and that haunted boy—so motionless?
+Nothing showed on their faces, nothing but a sort of living
+concentration, as if they were trying desperately to pierce through
+and see whatever it was that held this thing before them in such awful
+stillness. Their first glimpse of death; their first perception of that
+terrible remoteness of the dead! No wonder they seemed to be conjured
+out of the power of thought and feeling!
+
+Nedda was first to turn away. Walking back by her side, Felix was
+surprised by her composure. The reality of death had not been to her
+half so harrowing as the news of it. She said softly:
+
+“I'm glad to have seen him like that; now I shall think of him—at peace;
+not as he was that other time.”
+
+Derek rejoined them, and they went in silence back to the hotel. But at
+the door she said:
+
+“Come with me to the cathedral, Derek; I can't go in yet!”
+
+To Felix's dismay the boy nodded, and they turned to go. Should he stop
+them? Should he go with them? What should a father do? And, with a heavy
+sigh, he did nothing but retire into the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+It was calm, with a dark-blue sky, and a golden moon, and the lighted
+street full of people out for airing. The great cathedral, cutting the
+heavens with its massive towers, was shut. No means of getting in; and
+while they stood there looking up the thought came into Nedda's mind:
+Where would they bury poor Tryst who had killed himself? Would they
+refuse to bury that unhappy one in a churchyard? Surely, the more
+unhappy and desperate he was, the kinder they ought to be to him!
+
+They turned away down into a little lane where an old, white, timbered
+cottage presided ghostly at the corner. Some church magnate had his
+garden back there; and it was quiet, along the waving line of a high
+wall, behind which grew sycamores spreading close-bunched branches,
+whose shadows, in the light of the corner lamps, lay thick along the
+ground this glamourous August night. A chafer buzzed by, a small black
+cat played with its tail on some steps in a recess. Nobody passed.
+
+The girl's heart was beating fast. Derek's face was so strange and
+strained. And he had not yet said one word to her. All sorts of fears
+and fancies beset her till she was trembling all over.
+
+“What is it?” she said at last. “You haven't—you haven't stopped loving
+me, Derek?”
+
+“No one could stop loving you.”
+
+“What is it, then? Are you thinking of poor Tryst?”
+
+With a catch in his throat and a sort of choked laugh he answered:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But it's all over. He's at peace.”
+
+“Peace!” Then, in a queer, dead voice, he added: “I'm sorry, Nedda. It's
+beastly for you. But I can't help it.”
+
+What couldn't he help? Why did he keep her suffering like this—not
+telling her? What was this something that seemed so terribly between
+them? She walked on silently at his side, conscious of the rustling of
+the sycamores, of the moonlit angle of the church magnate's house, of
+the silence in the lane, and the gliding of their own shadows along the
+wall. What was this in his face, his thoughts, that she could not reach!
+And she cried out:
+
+“Tell me! Oh, tell me, Derek! I can go through anything with you!”
+
+“I can't get rid of him, that's all. I thought he'd go when I'd seen him
+there. But it's no good!”
+
+Terror got hold of her then. She peered at his face—very white and
+haggard. There seemed no blood in it. They were going down-hill now,
+along the blank wall of a factory; there was the river in front, with
+the moonlight on it and boats drawn up along the bank. From a chimney a
+scroll of black smoke was flung out across the sky, and a lighted bridge
+glowed above the water. They turned away from that, passing below the
+dark pile of the cathedral. Here couples still lingered on benches along
+the river-bank, happy in the warm night, under the August moon! And on
+and on they walked in that strange, miserable silence, past all those
+benches and couples, out on the river-path by the fields, where the
+scent of hay-stacks, and the freshness from the early stubbles and the
+grasses webbed with dew, overpowered the faint reek of the river mud.
+And still on and on in the moonlight that haunted through the willows.
+At their footsteps the water-rats scuttled down into the water with tiny
+splashes; a dog barked somewhere a long way off; a train whistled; a
+frog croaked. From the stubbles and second crops of sun-baked clover
+puffs of warm air kept stealing up into the chillier air beneath the
+willows. Such moonlit nights never seem to sleep. And there was a kind
+of triumph in the night's smile, as though it knew that it ruled the
+river and the fields, ruled with its gleams the silent trees that had
+given up all rustling. Suddenly Derek said:
+
+“He's walking with us! Look! Over there!”
+
+And for a second there did seem to Nedda a dim, gray shape moving square
+and dogged, parallel with them at the stubble edges. Gasping out:
+
+“Oh, no; don't frighten me! I can't bear it tonight!” She hid her face
+against his shoulder like a child. He put his arm round her and she
+pressed her face deep into his coat. This ghost of Bob Tryst holding him
+away from her! This enemy! This uncanny presence! She pressed closer,
+closer, and put her face up to his. It was wonderfully lonely, silent,
+whispering, with the moongleams slipping through the willow boughs into
+the shadow where they stood. And from his arms warmth stole through her!
+Closer and closer she pressed, not quite knowing what she did, not quite
+knowing anything but that she wanted him never to let her go; wanted his
+lips on hers, so that she might feel his spirit pass, away from what was
+haunting it, into hers, never to escape. But his lips did not come to
+hers. They stayed drawn back, trembling, hungry-looking, just above her
+lips. And she whispered:
+
+“Kiss me!”
+
+She felt him shudder in her arms, saw his eyes darken, his lips quiver
+and quiver, as if he wanted them to, but they would not. What was it?
+Oh, what was it? Wasn't he going to kiss her—not to kiss her? And while
+in that unnatural pause they stood, their heads bent back among the
+moongleams and those willow shadows, there passed through Nedda such
+strange trouble as she had never known. Not kiss her! Not kiss her! Why
+didn't he? When in her blood and in the night all round, in the feel
+of his arms, the sight of his hungry lips, was something unknown,
+wonderful, terrifying, sweet! And she wailed out:
+
+“I want you—I don't care—I want you!” She felt him sway, reel, and
+clutch her as if he were going to fall, and all other feeling vanished
+in the instinct of the nurse she had already been to him. He was ill
+again! Yes, he was ill! And she said:
+
+“Derek—don't! It's all right. Let's walk on quietly!”
+
+She got his arm tightly in hers and drew him along toward home. By the
+jerking of that arm, the taut look on his face, she could feel that he
+did not know from step to step whether he could stay upright. But she
+herself was steady and calm enough, bent on keeping emotion away, and
+somehow getting him back along the river-path, abandoned now to the moon
+and the bright, still spaces of the night and the slow-moving, whitened
+water. Why had she not felt from the first that he was overwrought and
+only fit for bed?
+
+Thus, very slowly, they made their way up by the factory again into
+the lane by the church magnate's garden, under the branches of the
+sycamores, past the same white-faced old house at the corner, to the
+high street where some few people were still abroad.
+
+At the front door of the hotel stood Felix, looking at his watch,
+disconsolate as an old hen. To her great relief he went in quickly
+when he saw them coming. She could not bear the thought of talk and
+explanation. The one thing was to get Derek to bed. All the time he had
+gone along with that taut face; and now, when he sat down on the shiny
+sofa in the little bedroom, he shivered so violently that his teeth
+chattered. She rang for a hot bottle and brandy and hot water. When he
+had drunk he certainly shivered less, professed himself all right, and
+would not let her stay. She dared not ask, but it did seem as if the
+physical collapse had driven away, for the time at all events,
+that ghostly visitor, and, touching his forehead with her lips—very
+motherly—so that he looked up and smiled at her—she said in a
+matter-of-fact voice:
+
+“I'll come back after a bit and tuck you up,” and went out.
+
+Felix was waiting in the hall, at a little table on which stood a bowl
+of bread and milk. He took the cover off it for her without a word. And
+while she supped he kept glancing at her, trying to make up his mind to
+words. But her face was sealed. And all he said was:
+
+“Your uncle's gone to Becket for the night. I've got you a room next
+mine, and a tooth-brush, and some sort of comb. I hope you'll be able to
+manage, my child.”
+
+Nedda left him at the door of his room and went into her own. After
+waiting there ten minutes she stole out again. It was all quiet, and she
+went resolutely back down the stairs. She did not care who saw her or
+what they thought. Probably they took her for Derek's sister; but even
+if they didn't she would not have cared. It was past eleven, the light
+nearly out, and the hall in the condition of such places that await a
+morning's renovation. His corridor, too, was quite dark. She opened the
+door without sound and listened, till his voice said softly:
+
+“All right, little angel; I'm not asleep.”
+
+And by a glimmer of moonlight, through curtains designed to keep out
+nothing, she stole up to the bed. She could just see his face, and eyes
+looking up at her with a sort of adoration. She put her hand on his
+forehead and whispered: “Are you comfy?”
+
+He murmured back: “Yes, quite comfy.”
+
+Kneeling down, she laid her face beside his on the pillow. She could not
+help doing that; it made everything seem holy, cuddley, warm. His lips
+touched her nose. Her eyes, for just that instant, looked up into his,
+that were very dark and soft; then she got up.
+
+“Would you like me to stay till you're asleep?”
+
+“Yes; forever. But I shouldn't exactly sleep. Would you?”
+
+In the darkness Nedda vehemently shook her head. Sleep! No! She would
+not sleep!
+
+“Good night, then!”
+
+“Good night, little dark angel!”
+
+“Good night!” With that last whisper she slipped back to the door and
+noiselessly away.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+It was long before she closed her eyes, spending the hours in fancy
+where still less she would have slept. But when she did drop off she
+dreamed that he and she were alone upon a star, where all the trees were
+white, the water, grass, birds, everything, white, and they were walking
+arm in arm, among white flowers. And just as she had stooped to pick
+one—it was no flower, but—Tryst's white-banded face! She woke with a
+little cry.
+
+She was dressed by eight and went at once to Derek's room. There was no
+answer to her knock, and in a flutter of fear she opened the door. He
+had gone—packed, and gone. She ran back to the hall. There was a note
+for her in the office, and she took it out of sight to read. It said:
+
+“He came back this morning. I'm going home by the first train. He seems
+to want me to do something.
+
+“DEREK.”
+
+Came back! That thing—that gray thing that she, too, had seemed to see
+for a moment in the fields beside the river! And he was suffering again
+as he had suffered yesterday! It was awful. She waited miserably till
+her father came down. To find that he, too, knew of this trouble was
+some relief. He made no objection when she begged that they should
+follow on to Joyfields. Directly after breakfast they set out. Once on
+her way to Derek again, she did not feel so frightened. But in the train
+she sat very still, gazing at her lap, and only once glanced up from
+under those long lashes.
+
+“Can you understand it, Dad?”
+
+Felix, not much happier than she, answered:
+
+“The man had something queer about him. Besides Derek's been ill, don't
+forget that. But it's too bad for you, Nedda. I don't like it; I don't
+like it.”
+
+“I can't be parted from him, Dad. That's impossible.”
+
+Felix was silenced by the vigor of those words.
+
+“His mother can help, perhaps,” he said.
+
+Ah! If his mother would help—send him away from the laborers, and all
+this!
+
+Up from the station they took the field paths, which cut off quite a
+mile. The grass and woods were shining brightly, peacefully in the sun;
+it seemed incredible that there should be heartburnings about a land
+so smiling, that wrongs and miseries should haunt those who lived and
+worked in these bright fields. Surely in this earthly paradise the
+dwellers were enviable, well-nourished souls, sleek and happy as the
+pied cattle that lifted their inquisitive muzzles! Nedda tried to stroke
+the nose of one—grayish, blunt, moist. But the creature backed away from
+her hand, snuffling, and its cynical, soft eyes with chestnut lashes
+seemed warning the girl that she belonged to the breed that might be
+trusted to annoy.
+
+In the last fields before the Joyfields crossroads they came up with a
+little, square, tow-headed man, without coat or cap, who had just driven
+some cattle in and was returning with his dog, at a 'dot-here dot-there'
+walk, as though still driving them. He gave them a look rather like that
+of the bullock Nedda had tried to stroke. She knew he must be one of the
+Malloring men, and longed to ask him questions; but he, too, looked shy
+and distrustful, as if he suspected that they wanted something out of
+him. She summoned up courage, however, to say: “Did you see about poor
+Bob Tryst?”
+
+“I 'eard tell. 'E didn' like prison. They say prison takes the 'eart out
+of you. 'E didn' think o' that.” And the smile that twisted the little
+man's lips seemed to Nedda strange and cruel, as if he actually found
+pleasure in the fate of his fellow. All she could find to answer was:
+
+“Is that a good dog?”
+
+The little man looked down at the dog trotting alongside with drooped
+tail, and shook his head:
+
+“'E's no good wi' beasts—won't touch 'em!” Then, looking up sidelong, he
+added surprisingly:
+
+“Mast' Freeland 'e got a crack on the head, though!” Again there was
+that satisfied resentment in his voice and the little smile twisting his
+lips. Nedda felt more lost than ever.
+
+They parted at the crossroads and saw him looking back at them as
+they went up the steps to the wicket gate. Amongst a patch of early
+sunflowers, Tod, in shirt and trousers, was surrounded by his dog and
+the three small Trysts, all apparently engaged in studying the biggest
+of the sunflowers, where a peacock-butterfly and a bee were feeding, one
+on a gold petal, the other on the black heart. Nedda went quickly up to
+them and asked:
+
+“Has Derek come, Uncle Tod?”
+
+Tod raised his eyes. He did not seem in the least surprised to see her,
+as if his sky were in the habit of dropping his relatives at ten in the
+morning.
+
+“Gone out again,” he said.
+
+Nedda made a sign toward the children.
+
+“Have you heard, Uncle Tod?”
+
+Tod nodded and his blue eyes, staring above the children's heads,
+darkened.
+
+“Is Granny still here?”
+
+Again Tod nodded.
+
+Leaving Felix in the garden, Nedda stole upstairs and tapped on Frances
+Freeland's door.
+
+She, whose stoicism permitted her the one luxury of never coming down to
+breakfast, had just made it for herself over a little spirit-lamp. She
+greeted Nedda with lifted eyebrows.
+
+“Oh, my darling! Where HAVE you come from? You must have my nice cocoa!
+Isn't this the most perfect lamp you ever saw? Did you ever see such a
+flame? Watch!”
+
+She touched the spirit-lamp and what there was of flame died out.
+
+“Now, isn't that provoking? It's really a splendid thing, quite a new
+kind. I mean to get you one. Now, drink your cocoa; it's beautifully
+hot.”
+
+“I've had breakfast, Granny.”
+
+Frances Freeland gazed at her doubtfully, then, as a last resource,
+began to sip the cocoa, of which, in truth, she was badly in want.
+
+“Granny, will you help me?”
+
+“Of course, darling. What is it?”
+
+“I do so want Derek to forget all about this terrible business.”
+
+Frances Freeland, who had unscrewed the top of a little canister,
+answered:
+
+“Yes, dear, I quite agree. I'm sure it's best for him. Open your mouth
+and let me pop in one of these delicious little plasmon biscuits.
+They're perfect after travelling. Only,” she added wistfully, “I'm
+afraid he won't pay any attention to me.”
+
+“No, but you could speak to Aunt Kirsteen; it's for her to stop him.”
+
+One of her most pathetic smiles came over Frances Freeland's face.
+
+“Yes, I could speak to her. But, you see, I don't count for anything.
+One doesn't when one gets old.”
+
+“Oh, Granny, you do! You count for a lot; every one admires you so. You
+always seem to have something that—that other people haven't got. And
+you're not a bit old in spirit.”
+
+Frances Freeland was fingering her rings; she slipped one off.
+
+“Well,” she said, “it's no good thinking about that, is it? I've wanted
+to give you this for ages, darling; it IS so uncomfortable on my finger.
+Now, just let me see if I can pop it on!”
+
+Nedda recoiled.
+
+“Oh, Granny!” she said. “You ARE—!” and vanished.
+
+There was still no one in the kitchen, and she sat down to wait for her
+aunt to finish her up-stairs duties.
+
+Kirsteen came down at last, in her inevitable blue dress, betraying
+her surprise at this sudden appearance of her niece only by a little
+quivering of her brows. And, trembling with nervousness, Nedda took her
+plunge, pouring out the whole story—of Derek's letter; their journey
+down; her father's talk with him; the visit to Tryst's body; their
+walk by the river; and of how haunted and miserable he was. Showing the
+little note he had left that morning, she clasped her hands and said:
+
+“Oh, Aunt Kirsteen, make him happy again! Stop that awful haunting and
+keep him from all this!”
+
+Kirsteen had listened, with one foot on the hearth in her favorite
+attitude. When the girl had finished she said quietly:
+
+“I'm not a witch, Nedda!”
+
+“But if it wasn't for you he would never have started. And now that poor
+Tryst's dead he would leave it alone. I'm sure only you can make him
+lose that haunted feeling.”
+
+Kirsteen shook her head.
+
+“Listen, Nedda!” she said slowly, as though weighing each word. “I
+should like you to understand. There's a superstition in this country
+that people are free. Ever since I was a girl your age I've known that
+they are not; no one is free here who can't pay for freedom. It's one
+thing to see, another to feel this with your whole being. When, like me,
+you have an open wound, which something is always inflaming, you can't
+wonder, can you, that fever escapes into the air. Derek may have caught
+the infection of my fever—that's all! But I shall never lose that fever,
+Nedda—never!”
+
+“But, Aunt Kirsteen, this haunting is dreadful. I can't bear to see it.”
+
+“My dear, Derek is very highly strung, and he's been ill. It's in my
+family to see things. That'll go away.”
+
+Nedda said passionately:
+
+“I don't believe he'll ever lose it while he goes on here, tearing his
+heart out. And they're trying to get me away from him. I know they are!”
+
+Kirsteen turned; her eyes seemed to blaze.
+
+“They? Ah! Yes! You'll have to fight if you want to marry a rebel,
+Nedda!”
+
+Nedda put her hands to her forehead, bewildered. “You see, Nedda,
+rebellion never ceases. It's not only against this or that injustice,
+it's against all force and wealth that takes advantage of its force and
+wealth. That rebellion goes on forever. Think well before you join in.”
+
+Nedda turned away. Of what use to tell her to think when 'I won't—I
+can't be parted from him!' kept every other thought paralyzed. And she
+pressed her forehead against the cross-bar of the window, trying to find
+better words to make her appeal again. Out there above the orchard the
+sky was blue, and everything light and gay, as the very butterflies that
+wavered past. A motor-car seemed to have stopped in the road close by;
+its whirring and whizzing was clearly audible, mingled with the cooings
+of pigeons and a robin's song. And suddenly she heard her aunt say:
+
+“You have your chance, Nedda! Here they are!”
+
+Nedda turned. There in the doorway were her Uncles John and Stanley
+coming in, followed by her father and Uncle Tod.
+
+What did this mean? What had they come for? And, disturbed to the heart,
+she gazed from one to the other. They had that curious look of people
+not quite knowing what their reception will be like, yet with something
+resolute, almost portentous, in their mien. She saw John go up to her
+aunt and hold out his hand.
+
+“I dare say Felix and Nedda have told you about yesterday,” he said.
+“Stanley and I thought it best to come over.” Kirsteen answered:
+
+“Tod, will you tell Mother who's here?”
+
+Then none of them seemed to know quite what to say, or where to look,
+till Frances Freeland, her face all pleased and anxious, came in.
+When she had kissed them they all sat down. And Nedda, at the window,
+squeezed her hands tight together in her lap.
+
+“We've come about Derek,” John said.
+
+“Yes,” broke in Stanley. “For goodness' sake, Kirsteen, don't let's have
+any more of this! Just think what would have happened yesterday if that
+poor fellow hadn't providentially gone off the hooks!”
+
+“Providentially!”
+
+“Well, it was. You see to what lengths Derek was prepared to go. Hang it
+all! We shouldn't have been exactly proud of a felon in the family.”
+
+Frances Freeland, who had been lacing and unlacing her fingers, suddenly
+fixed her eyes on Kirsteen.
+
+“I don't understand very well, darling, but I am sure that whatever
+dear John says will be wise and right. You must remember that he is the
+eldest and has a great deal of experience.”
+
+Kirsteen bent her head. If there was irony in the gesture, it was not
+perceived by Frances Freeland.
+
+“It can't be right for dear Derek, or any gentleman, to go against the
+law of the land or be mixed up with wrong-doing in any way. I haven't
+said anything, but I HAVE felt it very much. Because—it's all been not
+quite nice, has it?”
+
+Nedda saw her father wince. Then Stanley broke in again:
+
+“Now that the whole thing's done with, do, for Heaven's sake, let's have
+a little peace!”
+
+At that moment her aunt's face seemed wonderful to Nedda; so quiet, yet
+so burningly alive.
+
+“Peace! There is no peace in this world. There is death, but no peace!”
+And, moving nearer to Tod, she rested her hand on his shoulder, looking,
+as it seemed to Nedda, at something far away, till John said:
+
+“That's hardly the point, is it? We should be awfully glad to know that
+there'll be no more trouble. All this has been very worrying. And now
+the cause seems to be—removed.”
+
+There was always a touch of finality in John's voice. Nedda saw that all
+had turned to Kirsteen for her answer.
+
+“If those up and down the land who profess belief in liberty will cease
+to filch from the helpless the very crust of it, the cause will be
+removed.”
+
+“Which is to say—never!”
+
+At those words from Felix, Frances Freeland, gazing first at him and
+then at Kirsteen, said in a pained voice:
+
+“I don't think you ought to talk like that, Kirsteen, dear. Nobody who's
+at all nice means to be unkind. We're all forgetful sometimes. I know I
+often forget to be sympathetic. It vexes me dreadfully!”
+
+“Mother, don't defend tyranny!”
+
+“I'm sure it's often from the best motives, dear.”
+
+“So is rebellion.”
+
+“Well, I don't understand about that, darling. But I do think, with dear
+John, it's a great pity. It will be a dreadful drawback to Derek if
+he has to look back on something that he regrets when he's older. It's
+always best to smile and try to look on the bright side of things and
+not be grumbly-grumbly!”
+
+After that little speech of Frances Freeland's there was a silence that
+Nedda thought would last forever, till her aunt, pressing close to Tod's
+shoulder, spoke.
+
+“You want me to stop Derek. I tell you all what I've just told Nedda. I
+don't attempt to control Derek; I never have. For myself, when I see a
+thing I hate I can't help fighting against it. I shall never be able to
+help that. I understand how you must dislike all this; I know it must
+be painful to you, Mother. But while there is tyranny in this land, to
+laborers, women, animals, anything weak and helpless, so long will there
+be rebellion against it, and things will happen that will disturb you.”
+
+Again Nedda saw her father wince. But Frances Freeland, bending forward,
+fixed her eyes piercingly on Kirsteen's neck, as if she were noticing
+something there more important than that about tyranny!
+
+Then John said very gravely:
+
+“You seem to think that we approve of such things being done to the
+helpless!”
+
+“I know that you disapprove.”
+
+“With the masterly inactivity,” Felix said suddenly, in a voice more
+bitter than Nedda had ever heard from him, “of authority, money,
+culture, and philosophy. With the disapproval that lifts
+no finger—winking at tyrannies lest worse befall us. Yes,
+WE—brethren—we—and so we shall go on doing. Quite right, Kirsteen!”
+
+“No. The world is changing, Felix, changing!”
+
+But Nedda had started up. There at the door was Derek.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+Derek, who had slept the sleep of the dead, having had none for two
+nights, woke thinking of Nedda hovering above him in the dark; of her
+face laid down beside him on the pillow. And then, suddenly, up started
+that thing, and stood there, haunting him! Why did it come? What did it
+want of him? After writing the little note to Nedda, he hurried to
+the station and found a train about to start. To see and talk with the
+laborers; to do something, anything to prove that this tragic companion
+had no real existence! He went first to the Gaunts' cottage. The door,
+there, was opened by the rogue-girl, comely and robust as ever, in a
+linen frock, with her sleeves rolled up, and smiling broadly at his
+astonishment.
+
+“Don't be afraid, Mr. Derek; I'm only here for the week-end, just to
+tiddy up a bit. 'Tis all right in London. I wouldn't come back here, I
+wouldn't—not if you was to give me—” and she pouted her red lips.
+
+“Where's your father, Wilmet?”
+
+“Over in Willey's Copse cuttin' stakes. I hear you've been ill, Mr.
+Derek. You do look pale. Were you very bad?” And her eyes opened as
+though the very thought of illness was difficult for her to grasp. “I
+saw your young lady up in London. She's very pretty. Wish you happiness,
+Mr. Derek. Grandfather, here's Mr. Derek!”
+
+The face of old Gaunt, carved, cynical, yellow, appeared above her
+shoulder. There he stood, silent, giving Derek no greeting. And with a
+sudden miserable feeling the boy said:
+
+“I'll go and find him. Good-by, Wilmet!”
+
+“Good-by, Mr. Derek. 'Tis quiet enough here now; there's changes.”
+
+Her rogue face twinkled again, and, turning her chin, she rubbed it on
+her plump shoulder, as might a heifer, while from behind her Grandfather
+Gaunt's face looked out with a faint, sardonic grin.
+
+Derek, hurrying on to Willey's Copse, caught sight, along a far hedge,
+of the big dark laborer, Tulley, who had been his chief lieutenant in
+the fighting; but, whether the man heard his hail or no, he continued
+along the hedgeside without response and vanished over a stile. The
+field dipped sharply to a stream, and at the crossing Derek came
+suddenly on the little 'dot-here dot-there' cowherd, who, at Derek's
+greeting, gave him an abrupt “Good day!” and went on with his occupation
+of mending a hurdle. Again that miserable feeling beset the boy, and
+he hastened on. A sound of chopping guided him. Near the edge of the
+coppice Tom Gaunt was lopping at some bushes. At sight of Derek he
+stopped and stood waiting, his loquacious face expressionless, his
+little, hard eye cocked.
+
+“Good morning, Tom. It's ages since I saw you.”
+
+“Ah, 'tis a proper long time! You 'ad a knock.”
+
+Derek winced; it was said as if he had been disabled in an affair in
+which Gaunt had neither part nor parcel. Then, with a great effort, the
+boy brought out his question:
+
+“You've heard about poor Bob?”
+
+“Yaas; 'tis the end of HIM.”
+
+Some meaning behind those words, the unsmiling twist of that hard-bitten
+face, the absence of the 'sir' that even Tom Gaunt generally gave him,
+all seemed part of an attack. And, feeling as if his heart were being
+squeezed, Derek looked straight into his face.
+
+“What's the matter, Tom?”
+
+“Matter! I don' know as there's anything the matter, ezactly!”
+
+“What have I done? Tell me!”
+
+Tom Gaunt smiled; his little, gray eyes met Derek's full.
+
+“'Tisn't for a gentleman to be held responsible.”
+
+“Come!” Derek cried passionately. “What is it? D'you think I deserted
+you, or what? Speak out, man!”
+
+Abating nothing of his stare and drawl, Gaunt answered:
+
+“Deserted? Oh, dear no! Us can't afford to do no more dyin' for
+you—that's all!”
+
+“For me! Dying! My God! D'you think I wouldn't have—? Oh! Confound you!”
+
+“Aye! Confounded us you 'ave! Hope you're satisfied!”
+
+Pale as death and quivering all over, Derek answered:
+
+“So you think I've just been frying fish of my own?”
+
+Tom Gaunt, emitted a little laugh.
+
+“I think you've fried no fish at all. That's what I think. And no one
+else does, neither, if you want to know—except poor Bob. You've fried
+his fish, sure enough!”
+
+Stung to the heart, the boy stood motionless. A pigeon was cooing; the
+sappy scent from the lopped bushes filled all the sun-warmed air.
+
+“I see!” he said. “Thanks, Tom; I'm glad to know.”
+
+Without moving a muscle, Tom Gaunt answered:
+
+“Don't mention it!” and resumed his lopping.
+
+Derek turned and walked out of the little wood. But when he had put a
+field between him and the sound of Gaunt's bill-hook, he lay down and
+buried his face in the grass, chewing at its green blades, scarce dry
+of dew, and with its juicy sweetness tasting the full of bitterness. And
+the gray shade stalked out again, and stood there in the warmth of the
+August day, with its scent and murmur of full summer, while the pigeons
+cooed and dandelion fluff drifted by....
+
+When, two hours later, he entered the kitchen at home, of the company
+assembled Frances Freeland alone retained equanimity enough to put up
+her face to be kissed.
+
+“I'm so thankful you've come back in time to see your uncles, darling.
+Your Uncle John thinks, and we all agree, that to encourage those poor
+laborers to do things which are not nice is—is—you know what I mean,
+darling!”
+
+Derek gave a bitter little laugh.
+
+“Criminal, Granny! Yes, and puppyish! I've learned all that.”
+
+The sound of his voice was utterly unlike his own, and Kirsteen,
+starting forward, put her arm round him.
+
+“It's all right, Mother. They've chucked me.”
+
+At that moment, when all, save his mother, wanted so to express their
+satisfaction, Frances Freeland alone succeeded.
+
+“I'm so glad, darling!”
+
+Then John rose and, holding out his hand to his nephew, said:
+
+“That's the end of the trouble, then, Derek?”
+
+“Yes. And I beg your pardon, Uncle John; and all—Uncle Stanley, Uncle
+Felix; you, Dad; Granny.”
+
+They had all risen now. The boy's face gave them—even John, even
+Stanley—a choke in the throat. Frances Freeland suddenly took their arms
+and went to the door; her other two sons followed. And quietly they all
+went out.
+
+Derek, who had stayed perfectly still, staring past Nedda into a corner
+of the room, said:
+
+“Ask him what he wants, Mother.”
+
+Nedda smothered down a cry. But Kirsteen, tightening her clasp of him
+and looking steadily into that corner, answered:
+
+“Nothing, my boy. He's quite friendly. He only wants to be with you for
+a little.”
+
+“But I can't do anything for him.”
+
+“He knows that.”
+
+“I wish he wouldn't, Mother. I can't be more sorry than I have been.”
+
+Kirsteen's face quivered.
+
+“My dear, it will go quite soon. Love Nedda! See! She wants you!”
+
+Derek answered in the same quiet voice:
+
+“Yes, Nedda is the comfort. Mother, I want to go away—away out of
+England—right away.”
+
+Nedda rushed and flung her arms round him.
+
+“I, too, Derek; I, too!”
+
+That evening Felix came out to the old 'fly,' waiting to take him from
+Joyfields to Becket. What a sky! All over its pale blue a far-up wind
+had drifted long, rosy clouds, and through one of them the half-moon
+peered, of a cheese-green hue; and, framed and barred by the elm-trees,
+like some roseate, stained-glass window, the sunset blazed. In a corner
+of the orchard a little bonfire had been lighted, and round it he could
+see the three small Trysts dropping armfuls of leaves and pointing
+at the flames leaping out of the smoulder. There, too, was Tod's big
+figure, motionless, and his dog sitting on its haunches, with head poked
+forward, staring at those red tongues of flame. Kirsteen had come with
+him to the wicket gate. He held her hand long in his own and pressed
+it hard. And while that blue figure, turned to the sunset, was still
+visible, he screwed himself back to look.
+
+They had been in painful conclave, as it seemed to Felix, all day,
+coming to the decision that those two young things should have their
+wish, marry, and go out to New Zealand. The ranch of Cousin Alick Morton
+(son of that brother of Frances Freeland, who, absorbed in horses, had
+wandered to Australia and died in falling from them) had extended
+a welcome to Derek. Those two would have a voyage of happiness—see
+together the red sunsets in the Mediterranean, Pompeii, and the dark
+ants of men swarming in endless band up and down with their coal-sacks
+at Port Said; smell the cinnamon gardens of Colombo; sit up on deck at
+night and watch the stars.... Who could grudge it them? Out there youth
+and energy would run unchecked. For here youth had been beaten!
+
+On and on the old 'fly' rumbled between the shadowy fields. 'The world
+is changing, Felix—changing!' Was that defeat of youth, then, nothing?
+Under the crust of authority and wealth, culture and philosophy—was the
+world really changing; was liberty truly astir, under that sky in the
+west all blood; and man rising at long last from his knees before the
+God of force? The silent, empty fields darkened, the air gathered dewy
+thickness, and the old 'fly' rumbled and rolled as slow as fate. Cottage
+lamps were already lighted for the evening meal. No laborer abroad at
+this hour! And Felix thought of Tryst, the tragic fellow—the moving,
+lonely figure; emanation of these solitary fields, shade of the
+departing land! One might well see him as that boy saw him, silent,
+dogged, in a gray light such as this now clinging above the hedgerows
+and the grass!
+
+The old 'fly' turned into the Becket drive. It had grown dark now, save
+for the half-moon; the last chafer was booming by, and a bat flitting,
+a little, blind, eager bat, through the quiet trees. He got out to walk
+the last few hundred yards. A lovely night, silent below her stars—cool
+and dark, spread above field after field, wood on wood, for hundreds of
+miles on every side. Night covering his native land. The same silence
+had reigned out there, the same perfume stolen up, the same star-shine
+fallen, for millions of years in the past, and would for millions of
+years to come. Close to where the half-moon floated, a slow, narrow,
+white cloud was passing—curiously shaped. At one end of it Felix could
+see distinctly the form of a gleaming skull, with dark sky showing
+through its eyeholes, cheeks, and mouth. A queer phenomenon;
+fascinating, rather ghastly! It grew sharper in outline, more distinct.
+One of those sudden shudders, that seize men from the crown of the head
+to the very heels, passed down his back. He shut his eyes. And, instead,
+there came up before him Kirsteen's blue-clothed figure turned to the
+sunset glow. Ah! Better to see that than this skull above the land!
+Better to believe her words: 'The world is changing, Felix—changing!'
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Freelands, by John Galsworthy
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